New 52 "Shazam" SAY WHAT???

[MPM1972]

"The wizard says that Billy has the power of the living lightning and the strength of a demigod, which mirrors the pre-New 52 character. But this new Shazam also apparently has the power to cast spells, which is a great way to distinguish him from Superman."

From article:

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/justice-league-zero-pandora-magic.html

WHAT? WHAT?!! Are you kidding me? Why?

[MPM1972]

And this just made me puke a little bit.

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/best-shots-extra-reviews-120919.html

So you are telling me that for a Super Hero to be interesting today, they have to struggle with being "good" or knowing the difference between right and wrong?

[The Toyroom]

This new "Shazam" is dead to me...Long Live the Original Captain Marvel!

[Brown Bear]

I think if I paid someone to "ruin DC comics beyond repair".....this is exactly what he'd do to earn his money.

[johnmiic]

I think if I paid someone to "ruin DC comics beyond repair".....this is exactly what he'd do to earn his money.

Johnmiic Likes this

[Cosmicman]

All DC titles have been removed from my buying lists. I know I'm not the only one that has said that across the nation. So is DC losing their *** or actually gaining new readers with this? Anyone know?

[Earth 2 Chris]

I'd be interested to know this too. Quality aside, now that the hype has worn down, did the experiment work?

Chris

[jimsmegos]

So you are telling me that for a Super Hero to be interesting today, they have to struggle with being "good" or knowing the difference between right and wrong?

That actually makes perfect sense. Not that I like it mind you. The anti hero is the best we can get this days since there's always two sides to every story. So to relate to this generation they have to break away from the simple black and white of days gone by. That's really nothing new. That's what made Marvel work, character flaws but always the right decision at the end. Seems like a really sad situation for DC to try and copycat like that 50 plus years later.

On a side note, I was thinking that despite their best efforts, with all of these new designs for costumes and logos and such DC is way too much time effort, energy and money on something that will NEVER become iconic. Sort of like the misconceived 'comics and toys as investments' boom in the 90's. While it may have snagged in some new buyers and mainstream press, in the end the bubble busted, few of those readers remained and the 'investors' moved on like locusts to some other get rich quick scheme. Plus you don't see any of the new and improved DC images on any of the current merchandise ties such as apparel, candy, etc.

[MegoSteve]

dcsales.jpg

Yes, it's been successful. I compared the sales from July 2011 to August 2012 for nine titles: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Justice League, Superboy, Supergirl, Batgirl, and Teen Titans. Average sales gain is over 75%. Greatest gain was with Justice League, who went from 43,545 to 120,796, a gain of 177%. Smallest gain was for Green Lantern, which was already a strong title; it went from 74,521 to 77,187, a gain of 3.6%.

Click the tiny attachment above to see the chart full size.

[The Toyroom]

^ Alas, those are on already existing titles...which could have been accomplished by putting good writer/artist teams together on the books as they existed in the old DCU. They could have freshened things up without re-writing the continuity. The new books that DC launched as part of the New 52 have been mostly miss, with very few hits. Two that come to mind that seem to get a lot of "buzz" are "Animal Man" and "Swamp Thing", which again could have existed under the old DCU banner. In fact, I think that's all the New 52 has really accomplished. It's just a cross-company cover banner that drew people in to sample the books. But it's not holding readers on any of the "new" titles, as is obvious by the cancellations and new replacement waves that are now scheduled like clock-work. And I have to wonder, at what point does "The New 52" stop being "New"?

[kingdom warrior]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Captain Marvel belongs in his own Universe away from the normal DC universe. The Golden age version is the definitive version and i will never support anything that moves opposite of that version. The movie serial was pretty hardcore do that version were Cap kills badguys....lol

[MegoSteve]

I don't really want to defend the New 52 because I don't like it either, but the proof is in the numbers. There's just a lot of what if style speculation in the "putting good writer/artist teams" idea that cannot be proven one way or the other. I guess if you want to be a little more scientific, we could compare writer/artists back then and now:

Batman:
#712 July 2011 team: Tony S. Daniel, Steve Scott, Andy Smith, Walden Wong
#12 August 2012 team: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Becky Cloonan, Andy Clarke, Sandu Florea

Superman:
#713 July 2011 team: J. Michael Straczynski, Chris Roberson, Jamal Igle, Jon Sibal, Oclair Albert
#12 August 2012 team: Dan Jurgens, Ray McCarthy

Wonder Woman:
#613 July 2011 team: J. Michael Straczynski, Phil Hester, Don Kramer, Wayne Faucher
#12 August 2012 team: J. Torres, Paco Diaz, Vicente Cifuentes

Justice League:
#59 July 2011 team: James Robinson, Daniel Sampere, Wayne Faucher
#12 August 2012 team: Geoff Johns, Jim Lee, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, David Finch, Scott Williams, Sandra Hope, Jonathan Glapion, Mark Irwin, Matt Banning, Rob Hunter, Joe Weems, Alex Garner, Trevor Scott

Green Lantern:
#67 July 2011 team: Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy, Keith Champagne, Tom Nguyen, Mark Irwin
#12 August 2012 team: Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert

Supergirl:
#66 July 2011 team: Kelly Sue Deconnick, ChrisCross, Marc Deering
#12 August 2012 team: Michael Green, Mike Johnson, Mahmud Asrar, Cam Smith, Marc Deering

Superboy:
#9 July 2011 team: Jeff Lemire, Pier Gallo
#12 August 2012 team: Tom DeFalco, Robson Rocha, Eduardo PansicaGreg Adams, Mariah Benes, Andy Owens

Batgirl:
#23 July 2011 team: Bryan Q. Miller, Pere Perez
#12 August 2012 team: Gail Simone, Ardian Syaf

Teen Titans:
#98 July 2011 team: J.T. Krul, Eduardo Pansica, Eber Ferreira
#12 August 2012 team: Scott Lobdell, Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund

Are any of the new creative teams better than the old? Yes on Justice League. Possibly on Batgirl and Teen Titans. For the most part, though, they just seem the same or worse to me. A lot of the new 52 teams on these issues seem cobbled together.

I don't like it any better than you, but the bottom line is the numbers, and the numbers don't lie... the New 52 is selling substantially better than the old DC was.

[The Toyroom]

J. Michael Straczynski on "Superman" and "Wonder Woman" were major misfires...They really had no where to go but up IMO.

Same thing with James Robinson on "Justice League". His team was a bunch of 3rd stringers and former Teen Titans. Again, DC had no choice but to put the star members (with the exception of Cyborg) back on the book to generate interest. Same thing happened when Grant Morrison had to relaunch "JLA" years ago and when Brad Meltzer had to relaunch the book again after several years. Eventually DC always decides to replace the iconic members with 3rd stringers or newly created heroes (Manitou Raven or Faith anyone?), only to see the book suffer in sales, at which point they bring out the big guns once again. It's cyclical.

[The Toyroom]

I suppose we could say that for the short term this seems to be a good move for DC as the numbers do show an increase in sales. But will it benefit them long-term, say five years down the line? Foil covers, die-cut covers, hologram covers etc. bumped sales for a while too...

[JMC]

For my own two cents and a reader of the 70's and 80's comics this to me is a case of sever shark-tankitis and change for marketing and not artistic purposes. To "modernize" iconic figures to " reach out" for more readers is just window dressing. I can understand how younger readers have no emotional connection to the classic characters but then again, neither did I when I started reading in the 70's. I suppose it's nastaglia on my part but my own children who are only 5 and 6 gravitate towards the classic looking characters over the newer ones. I miss that certain level of innocence for lack of better way of putting it that comics once had. Sure it was violent but not so dark. I guess comics reflect the mood of our times. sorry about the rant normally I keep these opinions to myself but I was always a huge Shazam/Captain Marvel fan.