On Twitter Hedi McDonald asked for essays to defend the
DC reboot in 400 words or less. Below is my attempt.
There’s an old joke about mules: before you can get them to do anything, you need to hit them with a 2 by 4, just to get their attention. That’s what the DC reboot is. In scale and audacity it’s the culmination of everything Dan Didio has been working on since he became Executive Editor. Having spent the past decade revamping and refurbishing its superhero line title by title, rebooting it completely is the logical end result of this ongoing process.
It is no surprise that fan reaction has been negative. After years of tinkering with continuity, soft and hard reboots anything that looks like more of the same is disliked. This is a mistake, as this reboot is not the start of more tinkering, but the end of it. By relaunching everything, DC has put a line under the endless succession of Crisises. Having everything restart with #1 means you can stop worrying about what came before.
What’s very clever is the way DC has tied the reboot in to its move to same day digital publishing. The need to get serious about digital publishing has been pressing for years, but it needed to be done without damaging the direct market. Comics retailers have been scared to death of seeing its sales cannibalized by the internet. The way DC has found of squaring this circle is through this reboot. New number ones always have a sales boost, providing at least a short term benefit to comics retailers. They also make it easier for new readers to jump aboard and the publicity the reboot is getting outside of the comics orientated media means more people now know about DC’s digital publishing efforts as well. DC needs to find new readers if it wants to remain viable and the only way to do this is to look outside the existing comics buying audience.
Piracy has made clear there is an online readership for comics, as long as they are easy to get. DC’s challenge is to do just that. If they succeed and can get their comics in front of potential readers than this reboot may just be the best thing that has happened to comics in years. It all depends on how well DC can sell its plans to retailers, fans and new readers alike. They got our attention, now they need to do something with it.
N.B. I don’t necessarily believe this.