With the news coming recently that Marvel was being purchased by Disney, the news that their primary competitor is facing a massive restructuring should come as no surprise. In the topsy turvy world of comics, we’re clearly facing a time of an “anything goes” attitude, but this is starting to get a little ridiculous.
Here’s the short version of the story – longtime President and Publisher of DC Comics Paul Levitz is effectively out (although he’s still “in” as a writer, contributing editor and overall consultant, but that’s effectively the equivalent of me getting demoted to the rank of janitor), marketing wunderkind Diane Nelson is in as the new President of the restructured DC Entertainment.
I’m fairly certain Jason Aaron said it best in a tweet he just posted: “A few weeks ago, I wrote for Marvel and DC Comics. Now I write for Disney and DC Entertainment. My head is spinning.”
Aren’t all of our heads Jason?
So what exactly does this mean for the fans of DC Comics? Well, this one is a bit more uncertain from what I can tell than the Disney/Marvel deal. With Disney and Marvel, it was a straight purchase with very little in terms of actually position changes. Joe Quesada stayed on as the primary architect of the Marvel Universe and nearly everyone has the same deal.
But with this deal, you’ve replaced an established creative force in Levitz (albeit a somewhat disliked one from what I understand) with Diane Nelson who is effectively a marketer. A very good one, assuredly, but a marketer all the same. Not only that, but she will be reporting directly to Jeff Robinov, President of Warner Bros. Pictures Group. This and the fact that they rebranded DC Comics to DC Entertainment seemingly imply that it’s Robinov’s attempt to create a stranglehold upon the DC brand and to expand on it for the explicit purpose to create a better pipeline of product for their films.
All of these things I’ve said appear to be true as of right now, but where they go from here is almost impossible to predict. As a marketer, if I were them I would use my new found control to cut the fat of DCU and keep only the titles that are easily converted to film. That means goodbye many Vertigo titles, goodbye Secret Six, goodbye Red Robin, and goodbye to many other favorites. As a comic fan, I find that concept to be disgusting. Given that DC Entertainment’s new focus will be on film more than likely, they will likely need to find a way to reconcile the marketing side and the comic fan side. If not, they could face a backlash from their most important audience: the comic fans.
This will be an interesting situation to watch for the next while. From what I understand it was not an altogether surprising move from the perspective of industry insiders, but I cannot say I’ve read anything concrete in terms of what anyone thinks will actually happen. All I know is I’m quite suspicious of this situation, and grow concerned for the DCU…at least in comic form.
For the full press release, please go here.
