Was OYL a big flop?

[Captain Jim]

I understand that, in part, OYL was a gimmick to grab readers' attention and sell some more books short term. And it probably fulfilled that part of the bargain. But on a larger level, it was my understanding that it was supposed to create new interest in all the books and establish a "jumping on" point for new readers. Surely this was the larger purpose. My question is, did it do so? Or did it fail miserably? I believe it was the latter. Consider...

Action/ Superman & Detective/ Batman both started off OYL with interesting arcs that reintroduced the characters and made some changes to the status quo. I'd say they were both a success. But afterwards, all four titles were given to high-profile creators, and none of the books have been able to keep a deadline. Some skipped months, others had inventory stories. And long arcs have had segments appear piece-meal. Many fans have lost interest.

The Superman/ Batman title has likewise seen a lengthy storyline with skipped months and (I think) fill-in stories. The reviews I've seen have been unimpressive.

Nightwing started out with Bruce Jones at the helm and two Nightwings, one being Jason Todd. It has had almost universal criticism. Robin began by inexplicably turning Batgirl evil and infuriating most of her fans. Catwoman showed Selena giving birth and being replaced by Holly. It sounded hokey but, by golly, it worked. The whole world has been ignoring the title, but it's been one of my favorites.

Supergirl began with Rucka at the helm, only to see him leave after one issue.
Aquaman went in a totally new direction with beautiful Guice art... that changed to layouts only after a few issues. Busik left and the book is now going in a totally different direction again. Flash started over with Bart as the title character, with the writers of the old TV show at the helm. Sales have been disappointing (though not terrible), many fans still haven't embraced Bart, and the writers have been replaced.

Wonder Woman had the same malady as the other two icons: big name creator who couldn't keep a deadline. The initial storyline has been put on "hold" while new creators take over. To a lesser degree, JLA has also suffered from the "big name creator can't keep deadlines" syndrome. Geoff Johns couldn't handle JSA at the time of OYL, so we got what essentially became a fill-in story by Paul Levitz, which kept the book treading water before it started over with a new #1 by Johns.

Hawkman became Hawkgirl, fans hated Chaykin's art and sales have tanked. Legion has had such a long-running storyline that it's challenging the loyalty of the most die-hard fans. And now both creators are leaving. Amazingly enough, while most writers had to play musical chairs OYL, Judd Winick was allowed to keep both Green Arrow and Outsiders. The former is about to be cancelled.

And most of the ongoing series that began after COIE have had poor sales (Blue Beetle, Atom, Checkmate, Shadowpact).

Teen Titans, BOP and Green Lantern...maybe haven't been doing too bad.

I have obviously oversimplified things and maybe you think I've been unfair. Maybe you started reading a long-standing title OYL and have loved it. I'm just curious what everybody else is thinking about this. I'm not saying there hasn't been some good stuff here every now and then. But as a whole, would you really say this has been a success?

[MAK15]

feh, OYL failed to pique my interest in any title.
the only ongoning DC title I can think of off the top of my head that IM reading is 'Shadowpact'.
yeah, DC needs to do better.
at least 52 made me buy something from DC every week.

[casual Bat Fan]

I'm only going to speak for myself but before OYL I would buy the occasional trade or one of the Archive editions (obviously a batman one from my nick :D ) Now I have always been interested in the superhero books but never had the money nor the true inclination to plop down money every week or so for an extended amount of time. I've been plowing through the batman subforum for a while now (i'm at page 53 i've got a LOOONG while to go) and i've always found time to read a comic book blog or look for anything on comic book history or the ongoing industry today so I feel I have a good general knowledge of everything.

I heard about OYL from someone at another messageboard and I thought this was the perfect time to jump into the fray. I can't say i've been disappointed. I'm absolutely loving 'TEC and while BATMAN has seen its ups and downs i've been enjoying what has come my way. SUPERMAN and ACTION have both also been worth my time tho I was irritated by the delays on ACTION for a while there. It wasn't enough to make me drop it but close.

I also jumped in on the ground floor for the new BRAVE AND THE BOLD and that book is right up my alley with a true Silver Age feel to it. Those are the books on my pull list right now and I don't see myself dropping any of them for the time being.

So for this one reader the OYL gimmick has been successful.

[Billy]

Yes, it did fail.

Man, I tried running through the titles that didn't work, but they are too many and its been brought up already.

I can't see how 52 worked, when most monthly titles have been ridiculous.

[drwho]

I dont think it failed. It got a lot of people to try them out like me. So they made the money off the issues that I did buy. The only titles that i hopped on with the oyl and have been buying them is Aquaman, Robin, and Catwoman. I was really surprised how much I liked Cat Woman. Dc really screwed up though cus I was looking forward to flash,wonder woman, super girl, night wing and they all went to the crapper.

[jwd]

I understand that, in part, OYL was a gimmick to grab readers' attention and sell some more books short term. And it probably fulfilled that part of the bargain. But on a larger level, it was my understanding that it was supposed to create new interest in all the books and establish a "jumping on" point for new readers. Surely this was the larger purpose. My question is, did it do so? Or did it fail miserably? I believe it was the latter. Consider...

Action/ Superman & Detective/ Batman both started off OYL with interesting arcs that reintroduced the characters and made some changes to the status quo. I'd say they were both a success. But afterwards, all four titles were given to high-profile creators, and none of the books have been able to keep a deadline. Some skipped months, others had inventory stories. And long arcs have had segments appear piece-meal. Many fans have lost interest.


Those are precisely the reasons I've dropped those books. I really wish they'd focus more on hiring creative teams who can get the job done over the "flavor of the month" .

[DonC]

I don't know what would be considered failure. Sales up only 5%? Only 10%? I think for most titles, sales are up, no?

What didn't work was the let's-throw-everything-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to publishing.

[casual Bat Fan]

Those are precisely the reasons I've dropped those books. I really wish they'd focus more on hiring creative teams who can get the job done over the "flavor of the month" .

Would you call Paul Dini a "flavor of the month"? I ask because i've found his run on DETECTIVE to be truly excellent stuff and he has breathed fresh new life into the portrayal of Batman/Bruce Wayne while also giving his rogues ample "screen time".

[stealthwise]

OYL a failure in...

- relauching Batman and Superman? No, they pretty much hit pretty strongly, and it's not the fault of the event that the titles are now hitting delays. I liked "Face the Face" and "Up, Up and Away," but lost interest soon after they ended.

- relaunching Wonder Woman and Flash? Yes, but that's due to the horrible creative teams and control that's been exhibited on each title.

- launching new titles? Yes, while the buzz on Blue Beetle, the Atom, and others was huge, the sales tanked not too much longer after those new books were launched, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them cancelled if Countdown and the next New Gods crossover doesn't boost them enough.

- helping out older, lesser-selling titles? Yes, and no. Some books received a huge boost at first, but have settled down since, and many are even losing more readers (like Hawkgirl, which I believe is axed).

Short-term, I'd say that OYL worked, but DC was unable to maintain the momentum.

[JimmyDee]

I don't know what would be considered failure. Sales up only 5%? Only 10%? I think for most titles, sales are up, no?

What didn't work was the let's-throw-everything-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to publishing.Actually, if I recall correctly, numbers on the OYL titles were overall down from before OYL. So, in that respect it was a failure. But, 52, love it or hate it, is a success -- it maintained sales levels no one expected.

Me, I found the OYL titles didn't sustain my interest. I didn't see the point of a company wide initiative like that. Just tell good stories, screw the gimmicks.

[Karl O'Neill]

I started collecting teen titans one year later, batman and superman also

[Will.S]

If anything they were set up to be perfectly good starting points.

Personally I think Superman, Action Comics, Checkmate, Aquaman, Shadowpact, Blue Beetle (picking up nicely), Teen Titans, Green Lantern, JLA, Detective Comics and JSA (from what I hear) have been the strongest. 52 has also been consistently an amazing read with maybe a few not so great weeks here and there but I'd say it was a success all in all if it got me to read more DC characters.

Flash had a mediocre team from the start which hurt the book and while I liked Allan Heinburg's Wonder Woman it fell ridiculously off schedule since Allan is wrapped up in his tv work. I actually find it hilarious how they had to save the rest of Allan's work as an Annual to finish off that arc, sad stuff. At least they're learning by putting someone else finally with Jodi but the book has somewhat of an uphill battle.

[Sean Walsh]

Whatever sales spikes OYL provided are pretty much all gone now. The new titles are not selling all that well, and most ongoings (especially secondary ones like CATWOMAN and HAWKGIRL) boosted by the jump ahead are now below where they were just before OYL.

[Schornforce]

Hawkman became Hawkgirl, fans hated Chaykin's art and sales have tanked. Legion has had such a long-running storyline that it's challenging the loyalty of the most die-hard fans. And now both creators are leaving. Amazingly enough, while most writers had to play musical chairs OYL, Judd Winick was allowed to keep both Green Arrow and Outsiders. The former is about to be cancelled.


So Katar finally got the operation, huh? It's about time.

I enjoyed Wonder Woman (whenever it FINALLY came out), Catwoman, Teen Titans, Legion/Supergirl, Action Comics, JLA, JSA, Birds of Prey, and Detective Comics. I'm pretty easy to please, I admit, so maybe I just don't notice as many flaws in OYL titles.

[phantom1592]

I don't think it worked.

The "time jump" was pretty chaotic. The whole concept behind 52 is that it would fill in the missing year. Doesn't seem to be matching up too well now that we're getting to the end of it. We also get Countdown? where does that fit in? Does it match up with OYL or is it still what happens Before? JSA #1 takes place a few months AFTER world war III.

It really took a difficult continuity and is making it worse. The books that really seemed to Excel with the OYL like Green Lantern and maybe Teen Titans (I didn't like it but most seemed to) didn't really NEED the jump. The Sinestro Corps could have just been a continuation of the current story. Same with Up up and Away.

It seemed for Jumping on points... You needed to know too much back history to make much sense out of it. Especially Titans. The team I liked was gone, and replaced with a bunch of B listers that I didn't know anything about. I lost interest quick.

[drwho]

What I thought was funny was some writers were doing stories that happened during the oyl time. I mean why jump forward a year to tell a bunch of story arcs that happened in the missing year. That did not make so much sense to me.

[Karl O'Neill]

i feel countdown will be better than one year later storyline

[Alex L]

i feel countdown will be better than one year later storyline

Yeah, but how many people are going to stick around for another yearlong weekly series? Personally, I'm already kind of groaning.

EDIT: They said Countdown is supposed to lead in to WW3, correct? So isn't DC doing what we've been decrying Marvel for doing in recent years -- rolling their Big Events one right into the next?

[drwho]

I have no complaints about 52. I felt that variety of characters and situations have kept it interesting.

[phantom1592]

Yeah, but how many people are going to stick around for another yearlong weekly series? Personally, I'm already kind of groaning.

EDIT: They said Countdown is supposed to lead in to WW3, correct? So isn't DC doing what we've been decrying Marvel for doing in recent years -- rolling their Big Events one right into the next?

I know I dropped 52 a month ago... but decided I put much time into and picked up the issues to finish it out. I'm not sure I'll be in for another Yearly, what with the mortgage and all :o I really wish they would cut the price a bit on a weekly.

So WW3 happens AFTER Countdown?!? So we have 3 years of comics to catch up to what is already going on in JSA?

[Drink]

I would say that if OYL was an attempt to raise and retain the sales of DC's books, then yes, it did fail for the most part. Some have definitely benefitted, such as Dini's Detective Comics to name one, but many others are either back where they started before the jump, or are now doing considerably worse than what they were.

If it was in fact a short term thing, that it was assumed that the sales would eventually fall again and that whatever boost the books got in those first 3 or 4 months would be better than their eventual placement, than it was probably a success. But that's a pretty pessimistic business move if I do say so myself.

It's not a bad idea in concept, but the execution was bad. There were plenty of books that I liked beforehand that I stopped reading OYL because the changes were too much for the sake of shock value (i.e. ZOMG Batgirl's EVIL!!!), and I just stopped caring.

[Alex L]

So WW3 happens AFTER Countdown?!? So we have 3 years of comics to catch up to what is already going on in JSA?

I thought it was, but looking a bit closer it seems like WWIII is little more than a series of one-shots, coming out soon? Still not sure on the specifics yet, myself.

But the name "Countdown" does imply (to me, at least) that they are counting down to yet another Big Event That Will Change DC Forever!™

Like Marvel's rolling one event into another...
though maybe I'm just being too pessimistic.

[JimmyDee]

Yeah, but how many people are going to stick around for another yearlong weekly series? Personally, I'm already kind of groaning.

EDIT: They said Countdown is supposed to lead in to WW3, correct? So isn't DC doing what we've been decrying Marvel for doing in recent years -- rolling their Big Events one right into the next?No, WW3 comes out of 52 and from there we move into Countdown. In a recent interview on CBR, Greg Rucka kinda took DC to task for doing WW3, saying it wasn't part of the original plan and was in some ways a reaction to Marvel's success with Civil War. I'm a little worried about it.

But, I am looking forward to Countdown. I like the weekly comic format and I'm glad they're continuing with that, but I just wish the Big Four were all working on it, too.

[AceOfSpades]

I think on a whole, OYL was a success.. there have been some bumps along the way, but overall it has been successful. Teen Titans has been the best it ever has been (in this series) and GL has been amazing. I think the jump was both much needed and refreshing, I've loved it.

[kello]

I think the OYL thing was good enough at creating interest in books and characters that may have been shelved long ago, but the cancellations, poor sales, and criticism of books since then have really painted it as a failure. I'm torn, because in a lot of ways things in the DCU were changed, but at the same time the changes may have been too much for fans. Overall, it was an interesting concept that flopped because the concepts couldn't make consistent sales happen.

[Mon-el]

I think OYL was a complete failure from my reader's perspective.

(Please note: I'm a month, almost a month and a half behind on getting new issues though.)

52 - While I wrote before the series started I wasn't even going to pick it up. I picked up Issue #6, and in turn it made me want to pick the series up. So I had a change of mind. I went back and picked up the first 5, and have continued on since then to issue 42. I don't share many's view on the series. I was somewhat interested in what happened in the DCU as a whole durning the year away. I loved completely every subplot the book had to offer, such as Rip Hunter's chalkboard, Who is Supernova?, mysterious 52's popping out everywhere, Dev-em story, Batwoman, etc, etc, etc. I did not want to read about Renee Montoya, Steel, and somewhat of Black Adam. The last few months of what I have read those three characters seem to be the primary concern for the title. I will finish out the series, but if I had to go back I wished I wouldn't have picked it up.

Superman - While I really enjoyed "Up, Up and Away". The current Camelot Falls storyline is kinda dragging for me. I was intrigued with Arion. I liked that Arion was written as a pompous ass, but with too little of that story coming forward. I'm really not intreseted about "If the World needs a Superman?" storyline.

Hawkgirl - Boy! nipples Hawkgirl fighting naked chick because a big vagina in space wanted it too happen, really got old fast. Frankly, I kinda stoppped reading, still getting it though. I didn't read the whole Blackfire issues, because I was extremely tired of the whole Thanagar/Rann war conflict. I recently started back reading with Hawkman back. The whole Hath Set plot intrigues me because I'm a sucker for the romance between the two, and I do love a good romance.

Batman - I really, really, really loved "Faced to Face". For me, it's probably the best Batman and Robin story I have read in the Tim Drake era. I really loved Son of the Demon in the distant past. So I kinda like the Batman durning those issues, but then Morrison took a break. The fill ins, I didnt care for.

Aquaman - I have already stated my dislike of Aquaman in the Aquaman #50 thread, so really no need say further.

Green Arrow - Okay I was liking the Dr. Light/Merlyn fight right before OYL. I was about to drop the title before then, but that brought me back. I thought Ollie having 2 arrows in him was great. Then OYL mayor Ollie was kinda just okay with the Deathstoke fight. What I really enjoyed about it was the retraining with Connor and Mia. Then Brick came back. I can't stand the character of Brick. I find him completely useless. Even though I like Jason Todd, the team up with Brick has completely killed me.

Flash - Eh? I know many have disliked it. I didn't think it was the worst story I have read, and it was far from anything that would be considered just an "okay" story. I know it's me, but I feel that Bart didn't quite spend enough time as Impulse/Kid Flash to be the Flash. While I understand that Wally has indeed earned his rest. I have accepted it, and it's probably the most logical way to take The Flash. I hear good things about the latest issue. I can't wait to read it.

Shadowpact - A story I liked in Days of Vengenance, a series that I couldn't no longer pick up after about 4 issues. It just wasn't a series for me. Though I read that many like it.

Blue Beetle - I gave 7 Issues a shot. Again it didn't capture a flame for me. I have read that it did indeed get better after I dropped it.

Checkmate - A series that didn't intrest me in the slightest. I really have no love for Sasha Bordeaux. And I tried the first volume back in the day. So instead of getting something I didn't want to buy. I didn't.

OMAC - I didn't even give this series a chance. I was really tired of OMAC's in the lead up to IC. So again I didn't want to buy this series.

Warlord - I finished it out. I know it was really bad. Again it was just something I had to read for myself to make my own opinions about it.

Outsiders - It was my dropping off point. It was a series that I was tiring on. I have picked up one issues since then. Because I read on these very boards about the confrontation between Nightwing and Superman. I had to see that for myself.

Atom - I gave it 9 issues, before jumping ship.

Omega Men - I gave it 3 issues to win me over. It was a mini that I didnt really feel any connections too. To my failure I gave up.

Wonder Woman - this is another eh? The delays killed this story. I loved the art. I thought it was beautiful. I haven't read the last 2 issues. So I dont really indifferent about it. The delays indeed really took its toll on the readers.

Mystery in Space - I gave it 6 issues. To my recall, I can't really tell you anything I have read about it.

Martian Manhunter - I gave it 5 issues. He's far from my favorite character ever. I tried to be objective as possible. Turns out wasn't a series for me.

Action Comics - The whole boy who is kyptonian thing was just an okay story, Frankly I lost intrest due to how much Movie Superman(I know im being superficial here) is in there. The delays also killed it for me.

Superman/Batman - I liked Public Enemies, Supergirl, Absolute Power. Then the book started getting delayed so much. I didn't really like Vengance. And the current story left me in left field without a baseball glove or ball for that matter. I'm probably cancelling this title after the Metal Men.

The Trials of Shazam - Okay I should be covered in oil while being dragged over razor wire for reading this series. It's as bad as everyone was projecting it to be and then some. I know I shouldn't read a series that I dont enjoy, and I am contridicting myself on this one. I blame it for my love of Freddy Freeman. I love me some Captian Marval Jr. more so than any other in the Shazam Family. So with that being said. I have to read for myself and make my own opinoins about it. I could have let it easily pass. So that is my huge flaw.

Nightwing - After the last 3 years and the OYL story. I haven't even read anything after that because I'm too scared too anymore. No, frankly I haven't really read the past few issues due to time constraints. I have them, but going to read them soon.

Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters - I tried! I mean I really tired to read that Battle of Bludhaven comic. I gave it 1 issue, and it was so bogged down with politics that made me instantly turn off'ed from reading that series let alone, this series.

Robin - I liked it after the first few issues after OYL then due to all the Batgirl fans hating the series so much. I lost intrest due to the Batgirl fans making such an outcry over her, more than anything. So due to my weird feelings. I kinda stopped reading. I have a read the last couple and it's about the same before OYL late if anything for me. I never really thought Robin is such a great comic if ever. It's just a series that I will always read from time to time.

Green Lantern Corps - I liked the Mini that preceded this, and Im kinda losing my intrest with the title. I dont know why, really.

Firestorm - I really liked the where is Professor Stein arc after OYL, then after awhile I became somewhat distracted and stopped reading. Thumbing through the issues right now, I haven't really seen anything that exciting I have missed.

BOP, JL of A, JS of A, Detective Comics, Brave and Bold, All-Star Superman, Justice, Supergirl, SLSH, Green Lantern, Justice, Catwoman, Teen Titans, Jonah Hex - have been the best of the books of the past year for me. Sorry I have to run and this has been really long winded of me.

I have no intrest in the New God's with the exception of but a few. So frankly, I seemed to be disjointed to everything in the Dc universe right now.

[jwd]

Would you call Paul Dini a "flavor of the month"? I ask because i've found his run on DETECTIVE to be truly excellent stuff and he has breathed fresh new life into the portrayal of Batman/Bruce Wayne while also giving his rogues ample "screen time".

To be honest - I love Paul Dini's work on the cartoon series but none of his comic work has really stood out for me. Its not bad by any means. Its actually really good but its just not worth $2.99 a month. Especially when on occassion his run is interrupted by fill-in work.

I kind of lost interest in the Batman line years ago and that interest has never returned.

Interest in comics in general has waned considerably.

[Kevinroc]

Interesting question. I remember a number of DC fans saying that they thought OYL would lead to DC finally overtaking Marvel in terms of comic book store sales.

Obviously that didn't happen.

I do think that a lot of the problems OYL has faced are due to fill-in issues, delays and stuff not catching on as DC had hoped.

52 has clearly been a success. There's no question about that. I stopped reading it around #7 but I can't deny its success.

The fill-ins by some very talented people are still fill-ins. So that has hurt the momentum of the Superman and Batman books.

Not to mention the WW relaunch has been mishandled.

Flash has also been mishandled but readers seem to be warming up to the new writer. Let's hope it's not too little, too late (as I quite enjoy Flash now).

Green Lantern has mostly stayed the course and the upcoming Sinestro Corps. story should help bring some talk back to the GL franchise.

Clearly, the fact that the upcoming Countdown series is the most major DC project that is getting people really talking should be of some concern to DC. It is far and away getting more talk than Sinestro Corps, the JLA/ JSA crossover, Amazons Attack and what have you should be a concern for DC.

I definitely agree that OYL was a short-term success story that didn't exactly pave the way for DC.

Although I certainly don't think Marvel helped matters with Civil War, Planet Hulk and what have you.

World War Hulk and Amazons Attack have similar story premises. But there's definitely more buzz for WWH. At this point in the game, I don't even understand what the purpose of AA is. Why are they attacking? They fled over a year ago, and while tensions were high then, I still don't understand why they are attacking. At least I get WWH (and not just because I am a Hulk fan). It's not exactly deep but Hulk's mad and he does what he always does when he gets mad, he smashes everything in his path.

So I'm definitely not feeling AA. And one of the reasons is that the WW relaunch was bungled.

[casual Bat Fan]

To be honest - I love Paul Dini's work on the cartoon series but none of his comic work has really stood out for me. Its not bad by any means. Its actually really good but its just not worth $2.99 a month. Especially when on occassion his run is interrupted by fill-in work.

I kind of lost interest in the Batman line years ago and that interest has never returned.

Interest in comics in general has waned considerably.

Fair enough,

I love what i've been getting from Dini. Maybe it's because his Batman isn't too dark and he has done a great job of featuring the different villains while maintaining a self enclosed storyline for each issue.

As for the fill ins, eh I can take it or leave it as well but I liked the first part of the Wayne Tower bombing story. The second part was pretty much pedestrian but it was ok.

I can sympathize with the waning interest in comics. That's why I never got into buying the books regularly til now but since it's kinda "new" to me by following the books I like I will keep at it. Before I started this I would buy a TPB and be entertained that way. I really think the average comic book length should be bumped up to 40 pages or something. Then again it could lead to even LONGER delays on some books so...

[David O Burcham]

OYL made it possible for me to enjoy reading a Batman comic in almost two decades instead of giving me a feeling of despair and loathing.

Batjerk is dead. It was a success.

[The Xenos]

To me, One Year Later was a mess. It had me dropping my once favorite book Nightwing. Didio made a royal mess of that character and earned a huge chunk of distrust from fans. Same with Batgirl fans with Robin OYL.

Then we get the late books. The worst, of coruse, is Wonder Woman. I don't know what was going on there. Story didn't make much sense considering what was going on before the jump, not that they ever finished it.

I get Atom, Checkmate, and Blue Beetle but they didn't need a year jump since they are just new series.

Honestly, I don't see how One Year Later improved anything. 52 is excellent, but it really didn't fill in the year like it was originally advertised. So we have a ton of questions and huge holes about that year.

Green Arrow filled it in flashbacks, so what was the point of the year jump there? Bah. The only reason I'm on that book is for the art. Can't stand Winick and his Red Hood mess.

Stuff like Dini on 'Tec and Morrison on Batman also are irrelevent to the one year jump.

Really, did the one year jump do anything good for any of the books? It was a cheap stunt that went nowhere and did nothing. They've been trying to clean up the mess they made with it for the past year and they still have huge holes all over the place. DC is trying to patch it up with annuals like the Nightwing annual.

One Year Later was a huge mess. DC is still trying to play catch up with it.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

The Good

Batman & Detective: It was a good story-arc by James Robinson and it set the tone for how the 2 books would soon flow. Grant Morrison came in and introduced us to Damion soon after and it too was pretty darn good. Detective gave us Paul Dini and thus far he's gave us a new Scarface and a Riddler with his own motivation.

In terms of quality these 2 have been OYL's successes.

Manhunter : If a book needed a cheap jolt it was this awesome series by Mark A. Its new story-arc with Kate defending Dr. Psycho was pretty solid and saw the book near canceled as DC gave us a final story-arc to get us to rally behind it.

Teen Titans : Johns changed several team mates as Kid Devil and Ravager joined . There were doubts but thus far Johns has proven to us that he knew exactly why he changed some of the heroes to the team.

The BAD

Nightwing: Horridly bad storyline that you can tell was tossed togethor at the last possible second. Dick was supposed to die in IC and its clear Jason Todd was gonna become Nightwing . So when DC changed it at the last possible second , Jones had to redo the storyline. And boy....was it BAD.

Todd had really no motivation to show up in NYC and start killing people dressed as Nightwing. The storyline dragged and mercifally was ended after 5 issues. If a series was hurt by OYL it was this. As Devin Grayson was let go and her run was pretty ignored to do Dick Grayson in New York.

Flash: The final 5 issues of the old Flash title wasn't perfect. I accept that . But what Johns had done with Wally West and how far his character had gone as he was a new father with twins , was tossed out the window to do Bart as a grownup.

Its a shame that DC really jumped the gun on Bart. He just needed time to be Kid Flash before he stepped into the majors. In fact the characters changes from Impulse to Kid Flash , to grown up Flash had happened so fast that its turned a lot of older fans off from the character. Johns barely scratched the surface of how Bart had became smart and more serious in Titans.

With rumors that Barry Allen is on his way back during Countdown , Bart's future could be murky. Perhaps the best possible idea is to de-age him back to 18 and make him be Kid Flash to his grandfather Barry.

Wonder Woman : In terms of bad ideas that rank up there...this one does. Greg Rucka had just came off an impressive 30 issue run in WW that was what many considered the best run in years. So DC's solution ? Dump Rucka , get Alan Heinberg who barely kept Young Avengers to 12 issues at Marvel.

So Heinberg comes in and dumps the good sub-characters Rucka had introduced and what we got was Diana Prince of SHIELD. While she used her secret ID so she could be Wonder Woman. It sadly pales now. After Heinberg could barely get 4 issues out of WW , he was replaced as DC chalked his storyline up to a loss. A new writer has came on and her 1st story has this smart secret agent un-able to figure out how to use a credit card according to a poster.

Its a loss here as well. Because now people are wondering....when will DC realize they f-cked up and should have kept Rucka on WW ?

The Atom : DC following Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis had tons of momentum on their side regarding where Ray Palmer had went. His crazy ex-wife was the new Eclipso and hell....they had tons of stories to do where he dissapeared.

Instead they sorta pissed it all away to do a new Atom. This is called massively dropping a ball .If Palmer's gonna quit why not do a series and have Palmer drop the mantle after a story-arc or 2 to build off where he dissapeared too ?

[hondobrode]

Superman titles - excellent. Along with All Star Superman the super titles are in great hands. OYL worked, but the titles could done the same thing without OYL.

Batman titles - see above. I'm liking all the Batman titles including All Star. Overall the best Batman has been in 20 years. OYL ? Same verdict as above.

Wonder Woman - like many I was interested in this, though frankly I was really loving Rucka's Wonder Woman and felt it was the best take on the character since Perez. The enormous delays have really hurt this book more than any title except All Star Batman. People really wanted to like this. I won't buy the monthly and will see how the reviews are when it gets collected, but I want to like it. Very disappointed in Weinberg but have hope for Jodi Pecault. OYL started to help it, but the creative delay ended up hurting it worse than the OYL campaign.

Aquaman - I was one of many who picked this up because of the new creative team, esp the beautiful artwork of Jackson Guice. I gave it 3 issues and dropped it. Aquaman as Conan by Busiek was promising but just didn't click. OYL ? Initial lift but ultimately failed and is going in a different direction. Again. Not interested.

Flash - Probably THE most universally panned thing to come out of OYL. Ken Lashley's art was very mixed. Great cover and some real nice shots at some points, but overall fairly static and not very engaging. The story was absolutely horrible from the same writers who gave us the horrible Flash tv show of the 90's. Marc Guggenheim, an up and coming writer previously at Marvel, is turning this around, but overall this was definitely an OYL failure. Bart as Flash seemed very artificial and rushed but is eventually going to be more and more accepted as the quality of stories gets better.

Nightwing - not reading, but I never have. While I can appreciate the character, his lack of definition by villains and a less than attention grabbing creative team have not compelled me to pick this up when there are many more titles that are much more interesting. Bruce Jones hurt this title OYL but Marv Wolfman's strong association is slowly regaining ground.

Hawkgirl - Never believed Hawkman would not come back and hoped that this title would eventually become Hawkman & Hawkgirl. Dream team of Simonson & Chaykin both misfired horribly and have turned in some of the worst work in recent memory. Definite OYL failure.

Firestorm - was reading this pre-OYL and enjoying it but OYL made it a good stepping on point for readers. Initially had some gain but eventually devolved and got cancelled. This book has been on thin ice because of the backlash against Jason Rusch. I've really liked the character and direction of the book, but it's been an uphill battle. OYL not a failure but not a success either.

Birds of Prey - no real sales change that I know of. OYL ? flat, therefore not a success.

Green Arrow - Ollie as mayor. Got a lift but book is being cancelled to come back later, probably as GA/Black Canary book after their marriage. OYL success ? mixed but not a real success.

Batgirl - OYL turns her evil. Huge backlash and an OYL failure.

Teen Titans - was losing momentum and OYL shook up the status quo adding Kid Devil and Ravager. Beast Boy and Raven broke up and left the team. Buzz on the book is good and I think sales are up. OYL helped.

Catwoman - Selina has a child and Holly replaces her as Catwoman. Got people talking about the book again. OYL success.

Outsiders - added Capt Boomerang and went underground. While Captain Boomerang is no big bonus for me, I've felt a lift in the title since OYL. I like it more but I've heard a lot more negatives than positives, but this title has been fairly mixed since its inception. OYL mixed.

JLA - definitely up since OYL.


JSA - treated water without a pretty dull final arc by Paul Levitz and George Perez. Later relaunced to great success. OYL success

Legion of Super-Heroes - Supergirl now in the Legion and title changed to Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes. More people picked up the title and are curious what's going on. Limited OYL success.

GL Corps - spins off from the mini. Doing ok. OYL success.

Green Lantern - doing ok pre-OYL but definitely picking up steam since OYL.



Overall, the best I can say about OYL was it was mixed. In fact, given the One Year Later jump in time and we readers finding out from that point how we got there, I guess I would call the concept a good one, but the execution poor. There was some good stuff in here, but I don't think any of it couldn't have been done without OYL, so while overall DC gained slightly more in the long run than it lost, it was not directly a result of OYL as nearly as I can see.

[XPac]

OYL was an innovative idea that a few books in a few ways capitalized on well here and there. And it allowed 52 to occur, which was an obvious sucess.

But in the same breath, I think it made DC a big chaotic mess. The timeline is confusing, and in a way it allowed writers to take a lazy approach of just throwing whatever the hell they wanted out there without needing to build up to it. And that kind of writing got mixed results.

The skip basically gave them a free pass to do whatever they hell they wanted. In some instances that was cool. In others... not so much.

DC in a lot of ways is a mess. And no matter what it does, it keeps getting messier. Multiple words then crisis with retcon on top of retcon and now they're throwing in time skips to boot... it's hard to tell up from down these days. Don't get me wrong, there's some really good stuff in there too... but the universe, timeline, and continuity on the whole is just this big knot.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

OYL was an innovative idea that a few books in a few ways capitalized on well here and there. And it allowed 52 to occur, which was an obvious sucess.

But in the same breath, I think it made DC a big chaotic mess. The timeline is confusing, and in a way it allowed writers to take a lazy approach of just throwing whatever the hell they wanted out there without needing to build up to it. And that kind of writing got mixed results.

The skip basically gave them a free pass to do whatever they hell they wanted. In some instances that was cool. In others... not so much.

DC in a lot of ways is a mess. And no matter what it does, it keeps getting messier. Multiple words then crisis with retcon on top of retcon and now they're throwing in time skips to boot... it's hard to tell up from down these days. Don't get me wrong, there's some really good stuff in there too... but the universe, timeline, and continuity on the whole is just this big knot.

They could pull a Marvel and ignore everything . Because frankly thats what a Marvel does . They rarely explain things when they relaunch a series. How many explanations for Ghost Rider is there with how it returned to Johnny Blaze . I won't even mention how silly where I read that Marvel re-retconned a retcon of Black Panther's 1st story-arc after its relaunch when someone told me they realized....it wasn't right concerning Claw.

If you think DC's confusing....try Marvel's history. Its pretty wild.

[XPac]

They could pull a Marvel and ignore everything . Because frankly thats what a Marvel does . They rarely explain things when they relaunch a series. How many explanations for Ghost Rider is there with how it returned to Johnny Blaze . I won't even mention how silly where I read that Marvel re-retconned a retcon of Black Panther's 1st story-arc after its relaunch when someone told me they realized....it wasn't right concerning Claw.

If you think DC's confusing....try Marvel's history. Its pretty wild.

Marvel has it's share of continuity problems too... really any comicbook company will since you're dealing with dozens of writers doing stories decade after decade.

That said, I think DC has bigger issues in this regard. And it's because of the crisis. Marvel didn't wake up one day and decide all that stuff Kirby and Stan wrote simply didn't happen. DC did... and suddenly you have things like Donna Troy and Beast boy having their entire history erased right before your eyes.

They didn't do the Crisis right the first time, and as a result they spend every few years creating some new Crisis to stack retcon on top of retcon on top of retcon. It's not just fudging a minor characters origin during a reboot... it's the whole freaking universe getting turned upside down every 10 years.

Infinate Crisis basically was another massive reboot... and they throw OYL in there to boot. They alter the past, then throw us a year in the future. With Marvel, the problem simply isn't to scale. I can mock Hudlin all day long for his screwed up BP continuity, but it doesn't effect the whole universe top to bottom so it can be ignored. I don't get that option with IC and OYL.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Marvel has it's share of continuity problems too... really any comicbook company will since you're dealing with dozens of writers doing stories decade after decade.

That said, I think DC has bigger issues in this regard. And it's because of the crisis. Marvel didn't wake up one day and decide all that stuff Kirby and Stan wrote simply didn't happen. DC did... and suddenly you have things like Donna Troy and Beast boy having their entire history erased right before your eyes.

Marvel has Scarlet Witch and she's the Marvel version of Superboy-Prime now. If any continuty problems happen she'll be used to explain them away. Ala DC's using him to explain it away.

DC took a gamble in the mid 80's with Crisis. Yes they had problems but its not like Donna and Beast Boy were the big reasons why. They pretty much killed the Legion of Superheroes when they removed Superboy from the origin. As many have said...the LSH should have ended there . But DC was stubborn and kept trying with them for another 8 to 9 years as that limped to ZERO HOUR.

They didn't do the Crisis right the first time, and as a result they spend every few years creating some new Crisis to stack retcon on top of retcon on top of retcon. It's not just fudging a minor characters origin during a reboot... it's the whole freaking universe getting turned upside down every 10 years.

Whats funny is Marvel just did House of M . A series that turned its Universe upside down by Scarlet Witch. They update and try and to keep their characters origins clear. What else do ya need to know ? Earth 2 happened and so did everything else Pre-Crisis. They all know this now.

Infinate Crisis basically was another massive reboot... and they throw OYL in there to boot. They alter the past, then throw us a year in the future. With Marvel, the problem simply isn't to scale. I can mock Hudlin all day long for his screwed up BP continuity, but it doesn't effect the whole universe top to bottom so it can be ignored. I don't get that option with IC and OYL.

Ask DDM about Marvel's continuty issues. He can really give you a run down on how screwed up they are at times. DC went a year ahead . It happens. And now everyone knows there was an Earth 2 Batman ,Superman and Wonder Woman and all. (Earth 2 Superman seems to be returning soon....IN JSA ! HELL YEAH )

[XPac]

Marvel has Scarlet Witch and she's the Marvel version of Superboy-Prime now. If any continuty problems happen she'll be used to explain them away. Ala DC's using him to explain it away.

DC took a gamble in the mid 80's with Crisis. Yes they had problems but its not like Donna and Beast Boy were the big reasons why. They pretty much killed the Legion of Superheroes when they removed Superboy from the origin. As many have said...the LSH should have ended there . But DC was stubborn and kept trying with them for another 8 to 9 years as that limped to ZERO HOUR.



Whats funny is Marvel just did House of M . A series that turned its Universe upside down by Scarlet Witch. They update and try and to keep their characters origins clear. What else do ya need to know ? Earth 2 happened and so did everything else Pre-Crisis. They all know this now.



Ask DDM about Marvel's continuty issues. He can really give you a run down on how screwed up they are at times. DC went a year ahead . It happens. And now everyone knows there was an Earth 2 Batman ,Superman and Wonder Woman and all. (Earth 2 Superman seems to be returning soon....IN JSA ! HELL YEAH )


I'm a marvel reader, so I'm fairly up to date on their continuity mistakes. Some issues like Black Panther are just grossly sloppy, but a lot of it is just the minor stuff here and there that we can expect in this format of storytelling.

But to me it's just not to scale with the stuff DC does... again, it's basically the equivalent of Joe Q waking up one day and mandating that all that stuff across the board Kirby and Stan Less did suddenly didn't happen. If you feel that marvel's continuty errors are on the same level I guess we can agree to disagree.

I don't want to make this a marvel vs DC thing... if I sound overly critical of DC I don't mean to. But this is one area that I've always felt DC screwed things up in. The whole Crisis thing is this never ending cycle of retconing the entire universe to fix what they didn't do right the first time in COIE. They're in this Crisis Cycle that they're never going to get out of.

[Will.S]

Marvel has Scarlet Witch and she's the Marvel version of Superboy-Prime now. If any continuty problems happen she'll be used to explain them away. Ala DC's using him to explain it away.
This hasn't happened very often, in fact I don't even remember any continuity problems being addressed by House of M.

Whats funny is Marvel just did House of M . A series that turned its Universe upside down by Scarlet Witch.House of M was fairly self contained. If anything Genis and Reed Richards could have "fixed" continuity errors if they really wanted to given that they've both restarted the MU. Same goes for Thanos or anyone who can master the reality gem.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

This hasn't happened very often, in fact I don't even remember any continuity problems being addressed by House of M.

Not really, House of M was fairly self contained. If anything Genis and Reed Richards could have "fixed" continuity errors if they really wanted to given that they've both restarted the MU. Same goes for Thanos or anyone who can master the reality gem.

Scarlet Witch was already used to explain away Zorneto . So she'll likely be used to describe any problems that writers at Marvel come up with.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

I'm a marvel reader, so I'm fairly up to date on their continuity mistakes. Some issues like Black Panther are just grossly sloppy, but a lot of it is just the minor stuff here and there that we can expect in this format of storytelling.

But to me it's just not to scale with the stuff DC does... again, it's basically the equivalent of Joe Q waking up one day and mandating that all that stuff across the board Kirby and Stan Less did suddenly didn't happen. If you feel that marvel's continuty errors are on the same level I guess we can agree to disagree.

I don't want to make this a marvel vs DC thing... if I sound overly critical of DC I don't mean to. But this is one area that I've always felt DC screwed things up in. The whole Crisis thing is this never ending cycle of retconing the entire universe to fix what they didn't do right the first time in COIE. They're in this Crisis Cycle that they're never going to get out of.


Marvel has changed a lot of their past events. One of the funniest retcons and re-retcons was in fact the Magneto one that pissed off a lotta people and Dave Cockrum's wife (may he RIP) .

This one occured in 1992 where Marvel had it that Magneto wasn't of Jewish ancestrory (X-Men Unlimited #2 I belive). That he was in fact a Gypsy. Now I thought that was kinda wild. But not many liked it and withing a few years he was back to Jewish again.

There was Tony Stark who in the mid 90's went crazy as Hal Jordan , woke up one day and killed some people. Turns out that the Stark we had been following for years had always been an agent of Kang . So this was a massive retcon that pissed fans off. Bringing us teen Tony that pissed more fans off.

Spidey Clone.....reveal . We know that story. All stories post 1975 didn't feature the real Peter Parker . Instead it was his clone. This was changed back.

There was Spidey's origin which had a mystical retcon made ala JMS to it with the Spider Totem in 2002.

Spiderman Chapter 1# which was Byrne creating a new orgin for Spidey that sucked hard.

Theres more I can surely think of given time. DC's not the only one who changes the past. Marvel pretty much does it as well.

[Will.S]

Scarlet Witch was already used to explain away Zorneto . So she'll likely be used to describe any problems that writers at Marvel come up with.That was actually already done in Excalibur prior to HoM. They just felt the need to further explain Xorneto was for some reason or another necessary when it was actually redundant.

Crisis and Superboy Prime's retcon punches are constantly being used to get the reader to put those pieces back together by merging both new and old continuity. HoM changed the mutant problem but was far less implicating than Crisis, CW in comparison had a much bigger ripple effect which also doesn't really mess with continuity as much as Crisis did.

[XPac]

That was actually already done in Excalibur prior to HoM. They just felt the need to further explain Xorneto was for some reason or another necessary when it was actually redundant.

Crisis and Superboy Prime's retcon punches are constantly being used to get the reader to put those pieces back together by merging both new and old continuity. HoM changed the mutant problem but was far less implicating than Crisis, CW in comparison had a much bigger ripple effect which also doesn't really mess with continuity as much as Crisis did.

Yeah. Marvel events, for better or for worse, rarely actually do that much.

House of M got rid of a few mutants here and there and set up a few stories, but actually did very little. Civil War did alter the status quo (one of the few Marvel events to actually suceed in doing that), but it didn't retroactively change anything like DC events do.

DC Crisis do what are advertised... they do change the universe. The problem is that they often do more in changing the past than the present. In Marvel, the stuff Jack and Kirby did was done well and done right. There was no reason to decide one day that none of that happened. We have the Ultimate Universe for writers that want to re-imagine this stuff.

There's a respect there that DC didn't have when the did the crisis. Infinate Crisis did have a respect for their roots as far as re-stablishing some of the stuf that the first Crisis abolished... but it disrespected the decades worth of material after the first Crisis that tried to retcon it all in the first place. It's retconing more retcons. A no win situation.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Yeah. Marvel events, for better or for worse, rarely actually do that much.

House of M got rid of a few mutants here and there and set up a few stories, but actually did very little. Civil War did alter the status quo (one of the few Marvel events to actually suceed in doing that), but it didn't retroactively change anything like DC events do.

DC Crisis do what are advertised... they do change the universe. The problem is that they often do more in changing the past than the present. In Marvel, the stuff Jack and Kirby did was done well and done right. There was no reason to decide one day that none of that happened. We have the Ultimate Universe for writers that want to re-imagine this stuff.

There's a respect there that DC didn't have when the did the crisis. Infinate Crisis did have a respect for their roots as far as re-stablishing some of the stuf that the first Crisis abolished... but it disrespected the decades worth of material after the first Crisis that tried to retcon it all in the first place. It's retconing more retcons. A no win situation.

You seemingly ignored the big retcons on the past Marvel has tried . Anyhow....my brain was thinking of more errors retcons to Marvel Past.


1. What Punisher is really The Punisher ? Because over in Garth Ennis's title he has a Punisher who is over 40 and has been killing since his career began. He's more of a urban killer.

Which is fine if thats gonna be The Punisher. Instead Marvel introduces a younger version back into the mainstream Marvel Universe who is in his 30's in War Journal following Civil War.

2. Norman Osborn : His retcon changed his classic death scene in the early 70's . Instead he was hiding in Europe biding his time . Another retcon had him nailing Gwen Stacy really changing those past Spiderman classics. Then in yet another....crazy retcon in MK Spiderman its revealed that Norman was behind all the rogues always being free and targeting Spidey over the years.


Its a wild world where Marvel changes things. Its just that 9 times outta 10 they screw things up and later ignore it since they know many fans won't accept it.

[XPac]

You seemingly ignored the big retcons on the past Marvel has tried . Anyhow....my brain was thinking of more errors retcons to Marvel Past.


1. What Punisher is really The Punisher ? Because over in Garth Ennis's title he has a Punisher who is over 40 and has been killing since his career began. He's more of a urban killer.

Which is fine if thats gonna be The Punisher. Instead Marvel introduces a younger version back into the mainstream Marvel Universe who is in his 30's in War Journal following Civil War.

2. Norman Osborn : His retcon changed his classic death scene in the early 70's . Instead he was hiding in Europe biding his time . Another retcon had him nailing Gwen Stacy really changing those past Spiderman classics. Then in yet another....crazy retcon in MK Spiderman its revealed that Norman was behind all the rogues always being free and targeting Spidey over the years.


Its a wild world where Marvel changes things. Its just that 9 times outta 10 they screw things up and later ignore it since they know many fans won't accept it.


Retcons happen... it's a part of comic book storytelling. Both Marvel and DC are guilty of that. Mistakes do happen, and yes sometimes stuff that didn't work is just ignored.

But the DC Crisis stuff is on another level because it's retconning the ENTIRE Universe intentionally in one foul swoop. It's simply a matter of scale. We could spend all day citing Marvel retcons and come up with a pretty nice list... but it would still be just a drop in the bucket to the original crisis alone, let alone decades and decades worth of retcons that tried to make the crisis work, in addition to the recent retcons stripping all those retcons away.

Again, the Crisis is the equivalent of Joe Q waking up one morning and deciding EVERYTHING Stan and Jack did no longer happened. Nothing even close to that scope ever occured in Marvel. And I dare venture to say nothing ever will. And they even did it with Wildstorm.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Retcons happen... it's a part of comic book storytelling. Both Marvel and DC are guilty of that. Mistakes do happen, and yes sometimes stuff that didn't work is just ignored.

But the DC Crisis stuff is on another level because it's retconning the ENTIRE Universe intentionally in one foul swoop. It's simply a matter of scale. We could spend all day citing Marvel retcons and come up with a pretty nice list... but it would still be just a drop in the bucket to the original crisis alone, let alone decades and decades worth of retcons that tried to make the crisis work, in addition to the recent retcons stripping all those retcons away.

Again, the Crisis is the equivalent of Joe Q waking up one morning and deciding EVERYTHING Stan and Jack did no longer happened. Nothing even close to that scope ever occured in Marvel. And I dare venture to say nothing ever will. And they even did it with Wildstorm.

The original Crisis had a " Some of Pre-Crisis happened...a lot didn't " deal. Like for instance a lot of the Batman era stuff happened. It wasn't all washed away as your trying to put it. If thats the case....how is Dick Grayson "Nightwing" here ? He couldn't be if Pre-Crisis all vanished. He would be Robin again and be a teenager and all.

Wonder Woman was brought back new Post-Crisis. The old WW was never spoken of again until recently as we saw her.

A lot of the Justice League past happened. In fact they in the 1st Geffen issue of Justice League had Martian Manhunter say good-bye to Vibe and Steel. They tried to say Canary was a founding member but changed it back to Wonder Woman again.

DC created holes in what they did. Its true....but a lot of the Pre-Crisis stuff managed to stay in regarding Batman and Justice League. But some like Superman was tossed out.

[fightgar]

i would say they were pretty successful....i was always a superman fan...i used to collect all the titles when i was yonger, i kinda faded out and stopped for a few years...and recenlty ive gotten back into them...OYL gave me a chance to jump right in without to much trouble.....and i even started to pick up more titles that seemed to be more interesting than they used to be to me.....GL, JLA, 52.....

....so as someone who got back into comics because of OYL i would say it was very successful

[rerun]

I think I would consier it slightly more a failure, since I know there are some changes but it wasn't exactly ground-shaking changes. I had really high hopes for NIghtwing for instance.

I don't know if sales is the only way to go with it being considered a success. Some worked and some didn't and since that is the case, I consider it a failure. I think a lot of people picked up the early issues and found they were still not interested in the characters that they weren't interested in before.

[Matt K]

I consider a a sucess on me. Pre-OYL I got no DC books. Post-OYL I get Aquaman (I may drop it though), Blue Beetle, LOSH (although I did pick up the back issues) and Checkmate.

So off of me DC got about $12 a month. Pretty good.

[Captain Jim]

Flash: Its a shame that DC really jumped the gun on Bart. He just needed time to be Kid Flash before he stepped into the majors. In fact the characters changes from Impulse to Kid Flash , to grown up Flash had happened so fast that its turned a lot of older fans off from the character. Johns barely scratched the surface of how Bart had became smart and more serious in Titans.

My feelings exactly. This was not well thought through, and it was entirely unnecessary. It made sense to replace Barry Allen during the original Crisis because the book's sales were absolutely awful. While recent sales on (Wally West) Flash may not have been setting the world on fire, they really weren't all that bad either. To think that this needed to be done just because it's a Crisis "tradition" is silly.

[Captain Jim]

It's not a bad idea in concept, but the execution was bad.

Exactly my point. This could have been a real winner for DC, but amazingly, they dropped the ball on almost every count (IMO). Talk about missed opportunity!

[Karl O'Neill]

Yeah, but how many people are going to stick around for another yearlong weekly series? Personally, I'm already kind of groaning.

EDIT: They said Countdown is supposed to lead in to WW3, correct? So isn't DC doing what we've been decrying Marvel for doing in recent years -- rolling their Big Events one right into the next?

countdown is not leading into ww3, world war 3 is the endgame of 52.

52 is a seperate story.
countdown counts down to a different event

[Andy S.]

But on a larger level, it was my understanding that it was supposed to create new interest in all the books and establish a "jumping on" point for new readers. Surely this was the larger purpose. My question is, did it do so? Or did it fail miserably? I believe it was the latter.


With the exception of the Superman and Batman books I pretty much agree wholeheartedly. Several of the other headlining OYL books did not live up to the hype, IMO and now seem directionless.

[DavidAllred]

Some of things flowing out of OYL have been real treats. Secret Six for example. I agree with most everything people have written here:

1) Up, Up, and Away was a phenomenal story
2) Face the Face was a great read
3) 52 just about makes up for all the crappy decisions by DC editors and staff

In other words, the titles that benefited the most from OYL were Batman and Supes titles. But was it worth it? DC passed on some real golden opportunties in my opinion. You can't count Green Lantern I don't think, because the book was spankingly awesome prior to OYL as well.

Flash -- the biggest botched comic release of my lifetime

Wonder Woman -- competing with Flash for biggest botched comic release of my lifetime

Atom -- missed the opportunity of all the extra interest in Ray after Id. Crisis

Outsiders -- busted up a functional team for no apparent reason

Nightwing -- while Wolfman is getting the book back on track, the interest in this title after the Babs proposal was very high. Then "poof" we have Dick Grayson, male model sleeping with strangers.

Green Arrow -- fans have wanted a creative team change in this book for years. While other failing books got their changes, GA has had the same author for 3.5 years. He finally buried the title at issue #75. DC missed the opportunity to change the creative team, and recapture lost fans.

Teen Titans -- again, this book wasn't broken so why try to "fix" it? The first arc was god aweful. It's starting to pick up again.

There are many other books that remained somewhat neutral during the change (like Birds of Prey), and others that flat out just sucked like Aquaman and Hawkgirl.

The success of JLA and JSA could have been obtained without a OYL universe. So all in all, it was a bold idea, but ultimately I think they threw away some golden opportunties to make big money, and they probably ran off more potential buyers in the long haul. The quick fix is typically not much of a fix at all.

Look for a continuing bottoming out of regular titles, especially in the light of a new weekly sucking down people's resources.

[handOFfate]

Its been a mixed bag. Examples...

GOOD:
52- Overall great stuff, and sales have been great. I don't blame DC for following through with this concept, and i'm sure Marvel will follow suit shortly.

Batman and Superman have benefited from OYL due to high-profile creators on the main titles.

Green Lantern and Teen Titans have both been great. Johns has been on fire post-Infinite Crisis.

Between 52, Trials of Shazam!, and Monster Society of Evil, the Marvels are doing better than they have in many years. To their credit, DC has really tried to spotlight Billy and family the last year.

Justice League of America and Justice Society of America have both had massive increases in sales. I expect JSA to eventually settle down to its previous levels, but JLA should maintain some steam for a while.

Some of the minis, such as Secret Six and Freedom Fighers, were quite good.

BAD:
Judd Winnick is CRAP, and he has killed both Green Arrow and Outsiders. GA is cancelled, Outsiders will be within a year.
DC has no idea what to do with Dick Grayson.
Brave New World was a complete bust. The Atom should have been Ray Palmer, Nobody cares about Creeper and OMAC, and Martian Manhunter has again failed to sell.
The move from Hawkman to Hawkgirl was a bust, as was the name change in Firestorm.
Flash is the most botched relaunch of all time. Its worlds better now, but Guggenheim should have been on this title from the start.
Wonder Woman's delays were somehow worse than Ultimates.

[van_line]

wow. I am shocked and amazed at something I read in this thread. People actually liked the faced to face storyline. I really thought it was terrible, from picking Dent to be the protector of Gotham (should have picked Black Lightning) to him rescarring his face.

I think the execution of OYL was a diaster mainly due to the fact that it seems like the writers didn't buy into it and that they were forced to stop whatever stories and momentum they had going to cram in the OYL stories. I think the potential is there to really tell some exciting/fun stories but they should have brought all of the writers into it.

[Captain Jim]

A lot of people have said nice things about 52, and you can't argue that this was a huge sales success. But I wasn't really thinking about 52 when I brought up OYL; I was thinking about the one year jump ahead in the ongoing titles, along with new creators in most cases.

Again, many people have said nice things about Up, Up and Away and Face the Face. You'll note that I also praised them. But in my opinion, whatever momentum was gained in the Superman and Batman titles from these opening arcs was lost by then turning the books over to big name creators who can't keep deadlines.

[Kevinroc]

DC February 2007 Month to Month sales chart.

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2007/04/03/dc-month-to-month-sales-february-2007/

There's a lot for DC to be concerned about here.

[Alex L]

Even though I also think Outsiders isn't...exactly the greatest book on the stands, among the titles I read it made the most out of the OYL concept.

It used the timeskip to establish a new status quo, to jump from point A to point B without having to spell everything out.

By contrast, Green Arrow did establish that Ollie had become Mayor in the interim, but felt the need to create the "training on the island" storyline, set during the missing year. I thought part of OYL was that the creative team wouldn't have to do something like that.

JLA/JSA are restarts, Superman was retired for a year, so I don't really count those.