DC Comics 2015 Wishlist: 10 Things That Must Happen

The last decade or so has been a roller coaster ride for DC Comics - and the venerated publisher€™s regular monthly output has certainly reflected this. There have been earth-shattering crossover events such as Blackest Night, Final Crisis and Future€™s End. There have been major revisions to almost every character in the company€™s stable. There has even been one full-scale company wide reboot, the likes of which DC hadn€™t seen for almost 30 years... To better put things into perspective, 10 years ago, Batman did not have any in-canon children, Hal Jordan had yet to properly return as Green Lantern, Wally West was still plying his trade as The Flash and Martian Manhunter was not only a founding member of The Justice League, but was also considered to be its €˜heart and soul€™ by almost everyone... Anything can change in comics, and as well it should, that€™s part of what makes reading them so exciting. However, it is fair to say that DC Comics as a company is not where it could potentially be right now, either creatively or in terms of sales. Instead of appearing energized and empowered by the New 52 reboot, they have borderlined on apologetic at times, limping along with storylines that we€™ve seen a thousand times before (and often quite recently). Paradoxically, instead of showcasing zeal and chutzpah, they have opened the door to ponderous, overlong storytelling and radical character revision that frequently €˜throws the baby out with the bathwater€™, as it were. Finally, instead of offering storylines that are impossible for the reader to resist, they have regularly dragged us down with tedious, editorially mandated crossover events, almost none of which have had any major impact on the DC Universe, or the characters that inhabit it. Creatively speaking, the decade started very strongly indeed for DC. However, at the time of writing, this creative energy boost appears to be petering out at an alarming rate. Put simply, 2015 is time for a change. Here are 10 suggestions on how things can be improved, from a lifelong reader and massive DC fanboy.