What Happened to DC comics?

As a long fan and follower of the (American) comic book industry, I tried my best to digest as many comics as possible. But for the past 2-3 years, my comic preferences has shifted heavily towards marvel comics. I stopped giving DC any chance after the disappointing Final Crisis series, written by the great Grant Morrison. Now, let's try to analyze this by pieces.



DC is the home of some of the iconic names in superhero business. I'm talking about the DC Trinity that consists of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Those are the household name of superheroes. They got support from many other great characters in comics such as Green Lantern, The Flash, and Aquaman which are also some of the most popular superheroes even for those who didn't read comics. Their stories has been told since the 30's and 40's.

The main history began in 1985. At this very year, DC tried to rid many inconsistencies in their story. For example: at the early comics Superman can only jump and leap over length and the over some time, he managed to fly. Then came the story of Superboy, who is claimed to be the adventure of young Clark Kent before he was Superman, and Superboy can fly while he was supposedly to fly when he's older. Almost all DC characters at this point have no back story. So DC came up with the idea that all of the characters in their comics, up to this point, are from different universe. They establish something called Multiverse. Superman, Batman for example, are from Earth One. The old Flash, Jay Garrick (the one with the plate over his head), and the entire Justice Society of America is from Earth-Two. Superboy is from another universe called Earth Prime.

After that been established, DC created a tie-in cross over for all of their title called Crisis on Infinite Earths. The aim for this is to erase all the Multiverse and created one single universe for their comics. In this comics we see Superman from Earth One team up with Superman of Earth-Two (older superman), and Superboy of Earth Prime to destroy the threat that exist because of the existence of the Multiverse. The conclusion, Earth-Two and other universes are destroyed, leaving only Earth One. With the series now finished, DC writers can now re-invent their characters from scratch. Almost all of the characters are given new back story and now a modern era of DC comics is created. That was in 1985.

In 2005, 20 years after the original Crisis, DC opened up again the idea of Multiverse through series called Infinite Crisis and 52. At the end of these two series, DC universe now has 52 universes. For me, this is where the confusion begins. Old characters are popping up, back stories are added to further complicate the story, those who are dead came back, and tons of other things that i couldn't mention one by one. The culmination of those are concluded in Final Crisis. This event actually has potential when Grant Morrison, who wrote great comics like All star Superman and New X-Men, was announced as the writer and JG Jones was the assigned artist. I thought this would be the turning point of DC. But apparently I was wrong. I tried so hard to keep with the pace of Final Crisis for a couple of issues until I decided to give up after issue #3. The plot is meandering, far too many characters, the action didn't kick in from the beginning, the art was inconsistent (mainly due to JG Jones withdrawal from the series), and delay on the production. By the end of the event, I can only say; what the fuck?

On the contrary, Marvel Comics garnered success with their major crossover event of this year, Secret Invasion. It got more compact and less complicated story, great art, brilliant conclusion, and most importantly, it delivers its premise.

The other thing I've noticed is almost all of the great writers in comic industry are in Marvel. Brian Bendis, Mark Millar, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Joss Whedon,Brian K. Vaughan, etc. The only writers in DC that hold the same standard as those writers are only Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, and Greg Rucka. Johns is great with his job at Green Lantern, which is the only DC title that worth picking up regularly. I have mixed feelings about Morrison after his disappointing Final Crisis, and Greg Rucka was great if he's writing detective story, just like he and Brubaker did on Gotham Central 5 years ago, other than that he was pretty mediocre.



In terms of characters, Marvel have always been more relatable than DC. People are finding that it's easier to relate themselves to Spiderman/Peter Parker, a nerd outcast with superpowers, rather than to Superman/Clark Kent, who's an alien with perfect personality and seemingly able to do anything. This has always been DC's problem for a long time. Stan Lee, Marvel creator, said himself that he meant to create superheroes that are more relatable to the public than DC's superheroes. This can be seen and reflected by the characters job, and issues that's brought up by each story. My point is that the relatability of the character to the reader is one of the most important reasons for people to buy comics. And in this case, Marvel has got the upper hand.

Of course, DC still could regain their glory days if they invented stories with less complications and less pointless crossover. I still remember how much fun it was reading JLA back when I was still in Junior High. They were a lot fun. I really. really wanted to read a good DC title. For all I care, I only pick up DC if it were written by Geoff Johns. They need more people like Johns because he understand the characters so well and he can wrote a perfectly fun comics. Look at what he did with Green Lantern and Action Comics. Those two are the only title that works. I'm still crossing my finger hoping that DC can regain its glory. Until that time comes, I'm gonna stick with the currently more superior Marvel comics.