The "New 52" Gears Up for an Intergalactic Panty Raid

I was totally excited to find out that DC Comic's "New52" Justice League America was launching yesterday at midnight.  Aaaaaand totally disappointed when I finally read it.  Well, not totally disappointed.  Penciller Jim Lee and Inker Scott Williams kicked ass.  But what was up with the scripting of this issue??  Come on Geoff Johns!! 

In the comic, Batman meets the Green Lantern for the first time, so there is understandably a bit of introduction and expository dialogue, but it's just...so....so sloppy.  After saving Batman's skin from falling helicopters, the Green Lantern states:  "Note to self, Batman: the Green Lantern can handle anything."  Weeeell, the Green Lantern may be handle anything, but Geoff Johns doesn't seem to be able to handle subtle character development.  Every panel seems to scream "Batman:  one massive dark and brooding scowl of intellect.  Green Lantern: mega-arrogant hotshot with funky ring projecting super stuff."  Now I know it's a comic, and ultimately, 99% of comic storylines are basically soap operas with kick-ass explosions, aliens, and super people, but even within this realm there is such a thing as subtlety in character development. 

Maybe I'm being too harsh. I just hope that the overall story that Johns tells is better than his scripting, because right now the Green Lantern sounds, at worst, like a very weak rip-off of the mouthy Peter Paker, and at best, like a cardboard cut-out of Ryan Reynolds.  But maybe that’s the point.  Maybe the “New 52” is simply an effort to keep the DC universe in-line with the merchandising and movie spinoffs, giving movie fans branding and character consistency when they go to pick up their first comics (and long-time fans a serious headache).

A little background on the "New 52."  Sometime earlier this year, DC announced that it would be clearing out its comic universe and starting every single comic over again at square-one in September.  This may now sound like a big deal, because there have been reboots and retcons in DC before (most notably the “Infinite Crisis” saga that saw the deaths and obliteration of many characters and universes through a cataclysmic event), but never everything and all at once. 

If this doesn't seem like a big deal, it's probably just because you have a normal sex life and are more than slightly attached to that silly thing called “reality.”  However, if you're a comic book fan, this is a very big deal.  Guys that have been following Batman and Superman since the '50's and '60's, '70's, '80's, '90's, 2000's are suddenly being told that all those storylines no longer exist.  To put that in perspective, that'd be like watching “Lost” up to season three and then having the director say, "you know what guys?  Forget it.  We're going to start over, re-write everything, maybe cut some characters, change location, story, time…In fact, forget all of the storyline you've seen to this point."  Ok, so maybe that’s a bad example, because that basically did happen, but you get the point.

So why would DC do this?  There has been a lot of speculation.  Some thought that the move was to shake up things and get newer, younger, and more exciting artists and writers working on projects that would appeal to a burgeoning comic book audience.  Others thought that the storylines had just grown old and stale and it was time for a reboot.  But I think that the real reason is that DC, like other comic and book publishers, is getting seriously slammed and looking toward their only hope of retaining their rapidly dwindling market share:  spinoffs into other media.

Right now the publication of comic books is actually listed as a “research and development” write-off by most of the companies who own them.  Why "research and development," you say?  Because most of these companies simply view comic books as a means of creating marketable characters and franchises that can be spun-off into other media, such as movies and video games.  The comic books themselves are simply a means of creating buzz and market-testing what concepts capture the public's interest in a way that can be monetized in other, more profitable, media.  Of course, if they can help it, these companies also want to make money off their "R&D."  So when these conglomerates create a movie that starts making money and people go looking for the comic book that spawned it, they don't want the movie fans to be disappointed.  And in order for the movie fans not to be disappointed, the comic characters should be as similar to their on-screen counter parts that generated this interest as possible.  In the douche-bag parlance of marketing, this is "synergy," baby!

So, how does this relate to DC and their “New 52”?  Well, number one, by relaunching all of their comics together they create “buzz.”  The old fogies that are pissed off about the change and the new fans that want to see what the reborn superheros will look like have been blogging about it for months.  For the short-term, at least, DC should see a surge in sales.  In addition to this sales boost, DC is making the comics accessible to new audiences.  Because comics are continuing stories, it can be intimidating starting off with a comic that has been going for 50 years ("Wait? Hal isn't the only Green Lantern on Earth?  And what is up with all of these other colored lanterns and this "Darkest Night" thingy?”).  Starting at the very beginning allows everyone to understand the action. 

However, the ultimate, and biggest reason for DC to relaunch all of its franchises is to bring all of its comics in-line with any current, or future movies.  DC wants all of their comic book characters to talk and act just like their counterparts in films (and to a lesser extent, video games).  As explained before, in their eyes, this ensures uniformity of branding, which equals customer satisfaction, which equals big bucks.  So, in a lame, corporate sorta way, this explains why the Green Lantern of the new Justice League comic speaks as if he should be in a “Van Wilder” film.  Thank you Ryan Reynolds, but most of all, thank you DC.

Now this is all speculation, and I hope that I am wrong about all of this.  But if it's true, and DC is molding its characters and storylines to conform to blockbusters that have come out, or are slated to come out soon, we can expect less complicated storylines (either one or two issue arcs to appeal to the casual reader), and characters that are exactly like their on screen counterparts.  Bad scripting aside, all of this can already be felt in Justice League #1 in which the Dark Knight seems like the contemplative, brooding character that Christian Bale so masterfully filled out in the recent Batman movies, while the Green Lantern seems like is gearing up to go on an intergalactic panty-raid. 

Fucking Reynolds...

Like I said, I hope that I'm wrong.  I just think that the after saving the world so many times the Man of Steel and all his buddies deserve to be more than "tax write off."