5 Ways To Revitalize DC Comics
4.Hire A Continuity Person
One thing youll notice when hearing from comics writers is that many of them seem to hate continuity with a passion. For every writer like a Mark Waid or Grant Morrison who love continuity and want to use it to their advantage in storytelling, there are five who cant stand it and just want to pick up the characters like everything that has occurred since they personally stopped reading the comics never happened.
Most current comic writers have huge egos and care less about the integrity of the character and more about having an impactful run. No writer in modern comics thinks, I am going to create a nice, stable run where nothing too crazy happens, but the writing is tight and fans of the genre will be pleased. They think, Im going to KILL a beloved character! Thatll piss the fanboys off!
There seems to be an almost antagonistic relationship between some creators and the fans, where angry fans translates to increased sales in a no such thing as bad press mentality. Many longtime fans felt alienated by DC when the New 52 happened because it clearly abandoned the desires of the die-hards in the hope of gaining the mythical new reader.
Sometimes when you want to land some fresh talented writers, you cant rely on them being up to date with all of the continuity. DCs current policy appears to be either wipe the slate clean to make it easier or ignore it altogether, which is why you can have a regular Superman in Justice League but a depowered Superman in Action Comics at the same time.
Its clear that the editors arent quite up to the task of making sure everything lines up with continuity, so why not hire a fan as an expert? DC could have a nationwide search for the biggest DC fan and have a serious vetting process where candidates prove themselves. Go onto any comic book forum and youll find a huge amount of knowledgeable readers who tear apart continuity mistakes when they happen. Cut one of them a check. Now, this person should be a creative consultant or anything like that.
Editors should not be taking him story pitches and asking will fans buy this? There should be no creative input. It should be more along the lines of actually, these two shouldnt be fighting over this because they resolved their issues with each other ten years ago in issue #273. Then, if its deemed that the story is too good to let this continuity error prevent it from happening, at least they can find a way to ADDRESS it in a satisfactory way instead of, oh, I dont know, labeling anyone who pays close attention to that sort of thing a basement-dwelling virgin.