10 Reasons Why The New 52 Was Doomed To Fail
Taking away Green Arrow's beard was a bad move...
It's hard to think that it's been six years since DC began their lofty attempt to reinvent their universe, and, while we all know it didn't pan out in the end, the New 52 remains the most ambitious reboot to have ever been attempted in the medium. Its impact, for better or for worse, is still being felt to this day.
The long-raging topic of how publishers and creators alike can make the comics medium more accessible has made for some... interesting, shall we say, decisions from the big two. In that regard, the New 52 can be seen as a fairly dramatic attempt to reignite a falling reader base, to further synergise cinematic success with comics themselves, and to break long-held stereotypes regarding just what, exactly, a comic can and cannot do.
It was a shift, however, that failed to pay off. Sure, sales boomed during the series' burgeoning months, but things later fell in line with wider, more worrying trends regarding the industry's ostensible decline. Older readers fled towards Marvel and, in a positive move, independent outlets too, and newer readers were left perplexed at the wishy-washy state of the universe's continuity.
In their attempts to please everyone, DC very much unsettled their established base. They founded a project typified by controversy - billing a relaunch that was heralded as being revolutionary when in actual fact nothing had really changed; certainly not the company's shaky and controversial editorial policy, which saw the collapse of at least one-star creative team, and a further reboot five years down the line.
Indeed, there's little to praise about the 2011 reboot - certainly so, considering it was doomed from the get-go.