MORE
Support Thinking Critical at Ko-fi. Monthly subscriptions receive bonus content and early access to some channel content.
Ko-fi.com/thinkingcritical
Thank you for supporting the channel!
Thinking Critical Discord: https://discord.gg/uHM3Z68
How DC Comics Scored Its Biggest Win in Years With ‘Rebirth’
https://www.vulture.com/2016/12/dc-comics-rebirth-turnaround.html
On May 18 of this year, DC Comics invited a handful of journalists to a mysterious conclave in midtown Manhattan. The purpose was to have breakfast with Geoff Johns, a veteran comics writer and the new co-head of DC’s movie operations, who was there to unveil his latest writing effort: DC Universe Rebirth, the year’s most hotly anticipated comic. Rumors had held that it was going to contain a cosmic “reboot” of the DC Comics universe, in which the status quo would be blown up in favor of a new approach. DC had done reboots and quasi-reboots many times before — in 1986, 1994, 2006, and 2011 — and the publisher was in dire financial and critical straits, so industry-watchers braced ourselves for yet another uninspired go-round with the tired trope.
The comic kicked off a line-wide course correction entitled Rebirth, and it’s been both innovative and profoundly successful. Just 13 months ago, DC only held 27 percent of the comics industry’s market share for units sold. It was a distant second place behind rival Marvel, which clocked in at 40 percent. Astoundingly, DC has flipped the script: In September, it clocked in at nearly 44 percent market share; Marvel could only snag around 31 percent. Rebirth has given the company its first fighting chance in half a decade — and though its future is uncertain, it’s already offered a subtly revolutionary vision of how to manage that trendiest and most unwieldy of entertainment phenomena, the shared universe.
In the New 52, all of DC’s superhero series were canceled and 52 new ones were relaunched in an alternate reality. There, all the classic characters were..
