superheroes in history but not
everything this comic book company
touches turns to gold
welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’ll
be counting down the top 10 mistakes DC
wants you to forget actually sort
quit before we begin we publish new
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for more great content for this list
we’ll be looking at business mistakes
bad branding decisions and mishandled
situations which given the Fallout DC
likely regrets and wishes they’d
approach differently
seriously the hell’s wrong with you
people we do number 10
Wonder Woman JSA secretary nowadays the
Justice League our DC’s premier
superhero team but in the Golden Age of
comics heroes rallied under the banner
of the Justice Society of America in All
Star Comics number 13 the recently
created Wonder Woman aided the Justice
Society
they made her an honorary member her
role secretary realistically the
depiction of women in comics was very
different in 1942 so this wasn’t
considered problematic rather than a
sexist move it’s actually been said that
Wonder Woman was sidelined in this
fashion at her creator’s insistence not
wanting other people to write her
storylines regardless in hindsight were
sure Wonder Woman and DC both leave this
bit of her employment experience off her
resume number 9 the Harley Quinn contest
soliciting art submissions to be
featured in the first issue of a new
comic starring one of DC’s most popular
characters is a great way to engage your
readership and the larger comic book
community asking people to draw a female
character seemingly attempting to commit
suicide in a variety of ways not so much
given the well-documented violent
objectification of female characters and
comics fans weren’t thrilled that to win
the contest they had to draw Harley
Quinn trying to take her own life in a
bathtub yes it was intended as a riff on
Suicide Squad but the concept still
missed the mark and offended many number
8 the DC explosion for every action
there is a reaction
and unfortunately for DC Comics they did
not get the one they were hoping for
with this ambitious marketing tactic in
the 1970s the DC explosion was a move
intended to help the company overtake
their rival Marvel by drastically
increasing the number of monthly titles
making each issue longer and jacking up
the prices unfortunately for them this
coincided with freakishly bad winters
that hurt distribution and an economic
downturn which affected the entire
industry the end result was the
so-called DC implosion which saw the
publisher layoff staff and on
ceremoniously cancels
20 comics or 40% of their titles lesson
learned quality over quantity number 7
the 2011 Wonder Woman TV series Wonder
Woman is back front and center in the
mainstream pop culture consciousness
thanks to her hit 2017 film starring gal
gadot and directed by patty Jenkins but
before DC landed this desperately needed
cinematic homerun they tried to give
Wonder Woman a live-action adaptation in
the medium and which she’d previously
flourished television starring Adrianne
Palicki in a very cheap and chesley
Wonder Woman costume a pilot episode was
produced but didn’t make it to series
when critics saw the episode they
weren’t impressed the generous among
them called it unremarkable while TV
critic Alan Sepinwall called it
embarrassing thankfully Wonder Woman had
greater opportunities on the horizon
let’s just get it over with while your
hero capital is running high number 6
the poor planning of the DC EU says it
what we some kind of Suicide Squad 27
teams Wonder Woman was a big hit but
unfortunately it’s the outlier in a
series of misses Green Lantern was
envisioned as DC’s Iron Man and we all
know how that turned out in truth we
were curious the process had never been
attempted on the species as young as
humans before next came Man of Steel in
2011 and though it wasn’t the big hit
they had hoped for DC persevered
continuing to expand this cinematic
universe despite an unstable foundation
unfortunately multiple movies later they
still haven’t found their footing where
dubrow’s has announced dozens of
projects only to backpedal and
frequently revise their state of
upcoming movies the universe seemingly
produces films without a master plan
with each new film the grudgingly having
to work with the mistakes of movies past
having duplicate characters on film and
TV certainly doesn’t help either
handle those speeds you’ll die number
five
turning down super riders weight and I
along with mom Ellen and told PI I had
this idea but maybe taking over the
Superman books in 2000 and kind of
refocusing them revitalized a little bit
if you want to publish great comics you
need great writers and unfortunately DC
has walked away from pitches by some
serious talent towards the end of the
90s DC recognized the need to shake
things up with their various Superman
comics and amongst the potential
creatives was a dream team consisting of
Grant Morrison Mark Waid Mark Miller and
Tom payer it sounds like a comic book
fantasy draft but it’s true
ultimately DC passed yes you heard right
not only did they lose out on a
potentially great take on Superman but
they basically gave Morrison a Miller to
Marvel where the two proceeded to do
incredible work on the new x-men and the
ultimate universe books respectively
fortunately for fans Morrison would
later use some of his earlier ideas to
create the groundbreaking all-star
Superman series in 2005 number four the
new 52 the new 52 was a real mixed bag
this 2011 reboot was intended as a
welcome point of entry to new readers
who might be intimidated by the
convoluted history of DC Comics
unfortunately that ambitious number 52
titles showed that they’d learned
nothing from the DC implosion of the 70s
niche titles like dial H and
resurrection man were cancelled before
they could really develop the following
just five years later rebirth allowed DC
to hit the reset button yet again
leading us to believe they’d be just as
happy to forget the new 52 ever happened
as we would number three
eating the competition in business it
can be tempting to want to snuff out
your competition but in the creative
industry like comics you have to be
careful about messing with competitors
that your clients might also appreciate
over the years DC has bought and
consumed more than one of its rivals
when they were struggling and some
instances feels like a black mark on the
publishers legacy in the 1950s they sued
Fawcett comics claiming that Shazam aka
Captain Marvel was infringing upon the
copyright of Superman and then over the
years proceeded to buy up more Fawcett
characters they also swooped in to grab
Charlton comics characters like Captain
Atom in the 80s and Wildstorm in the 90s
when each was struggling who knows what
the comics industry would look like
today had these publishers remained
independent number two ignoring bill
finger
the only thing I’ve always gotten from
the people that I’ve talked to in DC is
we know what your grandfather did we
wish we could put his name on it but we
can’t because of the contracts that we
have nowadays when you’re dealing with
Batman the character is credited to Bob
Kane with Bill Finger but for many years
the man who actually designed the
characters look in the 1930s was given
zero credit of course in recent years
giving creators their due has become a
much bigger conversation in 2015
decades after fingers death in 1974 and
only following a campaign by his family
friends and fans DC finally acquiesced
and started crediting the co-creation of
the character two-finger as well as Kane
though they’ve finally set things right
in this regard the fact that it took
them roughly 75 years to do so and that
bill had already passed away once they
did doesn’t look great
correcting that isn’t just a simple
matter of putting bill fingers name on
to Batman it also opens up the
floodgates to a massive conglomerate for
potential revenue tapping number one
denying Siegel and Shuster the
recognition they deserved well Superman
came about because of both Joe Shuster
and I we’re a great science-fiction fans
back in the 1930s DC and Superman might
be synonymous but Superman wasn’t
invented in house friends and classmates
bill Shuster and Jerry Siegel began
developing Superman when they were still
in high school
undergoing numerous changes before
becoming the character we know today
after years of rejection by various
publishers and desperate to see their
creation reach the public eye they sold
all the rights of Superman to the
company that would become DC in 1938 for
just one hundred and thirty dollars
though both continued to work in the
industry they never got the respect they
deserved in 1975 after a widely
publicized campaign that shamed DC they
finally got proper accreditation and a
pension to match and the proof is that
they are still here and there is big
today as they ever were at the very
beginning do you agree with our picks
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