Imagine
Marvel and DC decide to drop ALL existing books.
All of them.
Movies and TV shows would still happen as they currently are, but all comic books will definitively end.
Going forward, there will be just as many books printed, but they will all be about entirely new characters in entirely new settings with zero direct references to previous universes as currently constituted.
How would you react?
How do you think the world would react?
I think it would be fucking awesome, but that's just me.
Provided the new settings are good?
If the main continuity of DC was dropped in favor of the something Gods and Monsters of cheer. But entirely new characters and settings? That largely depends on the premise and writing
I'd feel bad about the good books being cancelled and not seeing more of the characters I love but otherwise no real way to react without knowing what they'd be replaced by.
I would laugh and wonder why Marvel and DC are committing financial suicide while taking out every comic book shop along with them.
I'm sure there would be some USA Today and blog articles about it but I doubt the rest of the world would care.
will these new books be a new Marvel/DC Universe? or will they exist independently of each other?
>taking out every comic book shop along with them.
are there any other industries so codependent?
I feel these new universes would just end up having similar character that already exist in these new universes
What would be the fucking point?
There are other books from other publishers if you don't want Marvel and DC. Valiant is a whole separate universe.
People read Marvel and DC for the Marvel and DC settings. What you're suggesting is retarded and makes no sense. I really cannot comprehend why anyone would ask for this when so many other comics already exist.
test
>entirely new characters in entirely new settings with zero direct references to previous universes as currently constituted
..unless the new books are all comedies, I probably wouldn't give them a chance at all.
The regular universes are good because they build on the past - the shared continuities are a big draw.
Elseworlds and alternate universes are good because it's fun to see existing characters in different settings or backgrounds.
If they completely ditched everything.. why would people care what they started up instead? Do you really think it's the DC and Marvel brands that make people read their books, rather than the continuing stories?
I stopped reading Marvel and DC around December last year so my life goes unaffected.
>taking out every comic book shop along with them.
I REALLY don't think that would actually be the case.
I'm pretty sure comic book shops haven't been actually dependant on comic book sales since the 90s. It's basically Pop! Vinyl figures and Magic cards all the way down, these days.
Cheer, no more will I have to deal with rehashed characters.
The entire comic book industry burns into flames.
Marvel and DC fast forward their spiral into full on diversity mode, which the fans react to like toddlers and spinach.
Meanwhile, without the same familiar husbandos to latch on to, the Tumblr audience quickly looses any interest they may have had in comics. The SJWs also drop comics, as without a reliable audience to take their bait (comic book readers) or familiar characters to distort, their magic has no power. Instead, effort shifts fully to film and television.
Assuming comics don't die right there and then, without any substantial revisions in organization or planning the same issues in regular comics appear. Convoluted storylines, creative pride, and other internal struggles eventually choke any promise the idea may have contained at the beginning, with only a few select titles (probably only those headed by teams that were good before the swap) actually succeeding.
Eventually, this goes on for 2-3 years until Marvel and DC, on the verge of death, change gears entirely and switch back to the canon universes, revealing that the whole thing was actually an elaborate plan to reinvigorate their respective universes because something something Hypercrisis. The fans eat it up, critics are either satisfied and praise the return of capeshit or hate it because something something diversity something something rehashing, and status quo returns.
Until, you know, the capeshit movie industry implodes on itself and all IPs associated with it suddenly become box office poison.
Not the entire industry but the floppy-dependent companies yeah. Publishers like Scholastic wouldn't see a hit unless bookstores rolled back their orders on everything due to decreased demand. And even then you'd still probably see reprints of old stuff so maybe nothing changes there at all.
>That largely depends on the premise and writing
That's kind of the fly in the ointment of this whole thing, isn't it?
Because really, only one of two things can happen;
>The new universe is good, and we all see that the emperor has no clothes, and mytholizing 50+ years of universe continuity at the expense of all else was a terrible idea from the outset, basically nullifying a half-decades worth of blood, sweat, tears and character deaths
OR
>The new stories are bad, and it turns out the only reason we held on to all those decades of shared continuity for this long was exclusively and expressly to hide that all current writers and editors are talentless hacks using continuity as a smokescreen to hide from the common consumer.
There's really no winning for these guys, from a creative standpoint.
I would cheer. On the one hand, this is precisely what both of the Big 2 need . . . to blow everything up (and more importantly, never look back). That's the largest problem with the Big 2, for me -- the fact that no matter how many derivatives they make, no matter how many character deaths they institute, and no matter how many transition/mantle-passings they claim are for the better, it doesn't matter. It always cycles back around. Rodgers always returns as Cap. Stark always returns as Iron Man. Bruce always returns as Bats. And so forth.
But in order for such an explosion to work, for me, they would need to dump the books entirely . . . not merely drop in new characters in a new setting or environment.
Tell me something else about Gotham City other than what's related to Batman. I counted 17 Bat-related books scheduled to retail in October 2016. That's bullshit.
Yeah, I don't think Image would be affected by something like this, because their "house" titles are few, relative to their annual catalogue. Their creator-driver stuff sure as hell ain't universally consistent, in terms of their publishing schedule, but the diversity of content move and shifts every year, and it's great.
>to hide that all current writers and editors are talentless hacks using continuity as a smokescreen to hide from the common consumer.
Well, I mean yeah.
That's not, like, a secret or anything.
We all know.
I suppose you didn't read Gotham Academy or Gotham by Midnight.
I don't understand why you don't just read something like Astro City which seems to be exactly what you're asking for. It makes no sense to ask this of Marvel and DC.
I do read Gotham Academy, and I love it.
>>It makes no sense to ask this of Marvel and DC.
Because one or two books of 17 doesn't come close to creative diversity. That's why.