DC makes it worth your while and you get to be the new Batman group editor. This your chance to fix how it should be done. How many Bat books do you think there should be? Who are the characters? Ideal writers? Ideal artists?
Hard mode: a real, non shitposting answer
Get rid of the Batfamily. Keep Bruce, Alfred, and Gordon.
Make a Grant/Breyfogle 2.0 creative team somehow.
It's impossible to take anyone who says get rid of Dick Grayson seriously.
It's impossible to take anyone who wants to keep Dick Grayson seriously. He's been around for 84 years and hasn't had any good comics.
I like Dick but the last time I cared about him was Morrison's Batman & Robin (same for Damian). He's better off mostly independent instead of being Robin Deluxe, so to that end he should be mostly irrelevant to whatever is happening in Batman and Detective Comics.
Likewise, I don't need either Batman book to be an excuse for superfluous characters popping in for teamups.
Reboot everything back to when Dick was Robin. That literally solves all the issues.
How will that fix what's broken?
You get rid of all the annoying characters that create a bloated continuity.
>Reboot everything back to when Dick was Robin. That literally solves all the issues.
Nightwing is 100% Kino
If anything, reboot everything back to when Jason Todd was robin.
You can't fix current DC, it's impossible. You have to nuke the entire corrupted line and start from stratch.
That Sinclair coloring is so ugly, lifeless, dated, unimaginative, saps the life out of Lee pencils, as always. There's a reason Lee's social media work in black and white looks incredible and his DC printed work looks inert.
Dick is allowed to be Nightwing and frick off back to being an independent again. He's no longer my problem outside of guest appearances after that.
Tim can then slot into position as the "good Robin who grew up" of the Batfamily rather than being stuck in narrative Limbo without any niche or reason to exist with Damian and Dick being Robin and Nightwing respectively, or just die or something to spur the changes. Even before he was gay nobody cared.
Bruce and Jason are made to sit down and actually work through their issues and come to an understanding. This acts as the dramatic framing and emotional plotline for a run of issues where the Batfamily actually just fights fricking crime rather than an endless parade of "Batman but what if he Dark Mirror/Evil" villains made up for that arc and end of the world plots to establish an actual status quo and rebuild these fricking characters by having them do something other than angst and do high stress bullshit to fill out the time between melodrama episodes where they're just b***hing at eachother for the first time in close to 50 goddamn years.
Babs becomes Oracle again, Steph is Spoiler again, Cass can be Batgirl.
Duke can stay where he is on the Outsiders but if I can't foist him off on someone else I'd probably try to actually use his whole "Gotham by Day" gimmick more in general as a holding pattern, Luke I feel like has a chance to maybe stand on his own and I'd probably spin him off to be Batwing on the west coast or something, maybe do some corporate espionage techbro warfare shit with him. Nobody gives a frick about Kate other than her design so she can continue being forgotten about.
I'd unironically be tempted to have JVP bet Batman by day for Bruce.
Maybe, MAYBE take advantage of the recent multiversal frickery over the last few years to walk back some of Talia's character assassination a touch since they torched the Bat/Cat ship and use that as an avenue to do more shit with the LoA in general.
>Dick is allowed to be Nightwing and frick off back to being an independent again
Nobody but nerds care about Nightwing, dude.
Exactly hence why he's not my fricking problem anymore. It satisfies the nerds who want him to go back to banging Starfire and unfricks his character arc of being his own man, and it frees up a Not! Batman to be used by other stables.
This means I don't have to farm Bruce out as often when I'm working on cleaning up the fricking mess that is his books, and it means that Tim is in less of a clusterfrick of being redundant and pointless because he's just gay Diet-Nightwing or gay less of a shithead Robin in the modern Batfamily dynamic and has no reason to exist when both Dick and Damian are around. Let Dick frick off and be his own man and suddenly Tim has a purpose again.
Sadly they probably wouldn't let me de-gay him.
>Sadly they probably wouldn't let me de-gay him.
Which is why it's pointless. It's best to just age Damian up some more and mellow him out a bit, but not too much. Still that kid with a chip on his shoulder, but his heart's in the right place.
>Major story incident happens so now gotham and some neighboring cities of now outlawed all vigilantism, meaning Bruce and others no longer have the city on their side. To make shit worse, Bruce has now been publicly outed as Batman with no easy way to fix it.
>Batman's new status quo is that he has to work low tech and from the shadows again trying to protect a city that is no longer afraid of him. While also constantly on the run from authorities
>Nightwing was at the center of the event that kicked off this whole incident meaning he is now public enemy number one. Blaming himself for everything, Dick leaves Bludhaven and the Titans to go on a globetrotting quest to take down the person who caused all of this.
>Other Bat-Family members would be shipped off into a new Gotham Knights book or be taking up roles Bruce and Dick can no longer fill. Off the top of my head I kind of like the idea of Tim or Damian trying to protect Bludhaven in Dick's absence.
All of this is TERRIBLE
by terrible you mean terribly good 🙂
samegayging is pathetic
Nice photoshop b***h.
We're not discussing what you say when you look in the mirror
you can't "fix" batman because his problems are entirely due to the people writing him. All those extras, dead Alfred, him being an ineffective sadsack, every "case" being some city takeover schizo nonsense, etc. None of this is hard to fix but they won't
Real simple, tell Batman vs villain stories and stop telling meta stories about comics. There I didn’t just fix Batman I fixed every single pin going on the market.
You can't because all the writers at DC are trolls who has given up on life and you can see it in their terrible writing.
I'm so happy that the writers of these books can't write for shit and refuse to change, it's single handedly killing the direct market which I enjoy following.
>Rule 1: No multiverse, no time travel, no super science or magic unless it's in the vein of pulp- anachronistic tech and occult, arcane mysterious approach to mysticism that had a cost to use. Avoid the greater DCU if possible- they need Batman more than the batbooks need them. Nightwing can be an exception because his fans still hold on to the Titans stuff but Batman should never be in the same place as Starfire
>Legends of the Dark Knight is a regular title- it's an anthology title but specifically the creators should be either well respected ones from US comics, but I also think newer creators from the indie scene or outside of comics should be showcased here. If you made a bootleg batman comic, maybe you should get a chance. Also reach out to foreign creators. Generally focus on Batman solo or with 1 Robin/Nightwing.
>Batman is a solo Batman book. Detective can be either Batman solo or with sidekicks.
>Nightwing(Dick), Robin(Damian), Gotham Knights(Tim, Steph, Cass as mains, and others coming and going) are the sidekick books
>Catwoman- possibly turn into a general "Gotham City underground" book about the villain underworld with Selina as a POV character
>Keep a running "villain tracker" on what major villains have been used , if they're jailed or not, kill counts, and write accordingly. If a villain JUST killed a bunch of people, do not try to give them a cutesy scene trying to make them look better a month later. They can be sympathetic, but understand they're villains and what their crimes are.
>as such, keep certain characters limited. Point to Grant/Breyfogle's run as an example. Reinvent old villains who had less than 10 issues, too.
>If your comic idea revolves around "Bruce isn't doing enough to help..the poor!" or "Why doesn't Batman kill the Joker!" you shouldn't be writing Batman.
>Batfamily- realize no one cares about the additions since New 52.
Bruce Wayne is rich again and has his father’s company back.
Lucius Fox and Tim Fox are dead.
Bring back Harold Allnut and make him Batman’s gadget maker.
Have Batman marry Zatanna.
Have Tim Drake become The Peacok as his new superhero name.
Bring back Damian’s old Robin costume.
Have Babs as Batgirl.
>Have Tim Drake become The Peacok as his new superhero name.
Acknowledging a peak shitpost.
No one ever reads the individual posts on these they just post what they’d do but whatever here I go
>reboot but not in a “multiverse crisis resets reality way” but in a “we need a clean slate to work from” way
>The Batman title features Batman in his prime and co-stars a Robin (not Damien, him and Bruce don’t work well off each other at all), super hero focused title with outlandish villains with gimmicks (but no super powers), tone is more in line with the Burton movies, gothic urban shit. Gotham is heavily influenced by Burton’s Gotham. Bruce lives in Wayne Tower and operates from the Bat-Bunker. The only other member of the “bat-family” outside of Batman and Robin is Babs, who started out as an unsanctioned Batgirl but sucked at fighting so she became Oracle
>Detective Comics stars a rookie Batman and focuses more on crime/solving cases. Villains are mobsters/serial killers, no outlandish gimmick villains. Tone is more in line with Nolan/Reeves Batman. Bruce works alone, aside from Alfred, and lives in Wayne Manor and operates out of the Batcave.
I just want BTAS vibes back. That made me like Batman in the fricking first place. All this schizo multiverse trash is fricking moronic beyond belief.
>All this schizo multiverse trash is fricking moronic beyond belief.
It's so annoying. I hate multiverse frickery because it cheapens characters.
>Batman: main book, the blockbuster one, feels cinematic, Batman-as-Bond, overarching villain of the plot is Ra's and the League. Cool splash pages with the Batmobile, Batplane, Batman showing off his martial arts. Idk where she is in the continuity but I'd bring Vicki Vale back as a love interest whose reporting on a possible corporate cover-up in Gotham will unearth a bigger conspiracy. Bruce and Damian are still not the same after Alfred's death. Vicki brings warmth back to cold Wayne Manor. Neal Adams vibes on the art.
>Backup story: one shots starring various members of Batman Inc all working on solving cases in their homelands that are connected to a bigger global conspiracy.
>Detective Comics: double sized comics. More gothic noir pulp stories set in Gotham. Batman working with his network of Knights: Batwoman, Azrael, and Red Robin. Carrie Kelley is introduced to continuity as a wannabe vigilante. Overarching villain is Hugo Strange. Clayface, Scarecrow, Mad Matter, Mr. Freeze, Zsasz, The Riddler feature prominently.
>First backup: GCPD. Gordon, Montoya, Bullock.
>Second backup: one shots starring various detectives: Slam Bradley, Ralph & Sue Dibney, Angle and the Ape, Doctor Occult, MM as John Jones, Ace the Bat Hound and Detective Chimp
>Nightwing: Dick is a man of the people and the Dark Knight of Bludhaven. Working without Wayne tech. Way more street level. Build to the marriage of Dick and Babs.
>Robin: Damian Wayne and his sidequests. Titus and Goliath by his side. Also aided by Ghost Alfred. Is he really back or a figment of Damian's? Adversary is Klarion. Aided by Monkey Prince, Traci 13, Black Alice
other books:
>Birds of Prey: Babs as Oracle leading Black Canary, Huntress, Steph and Cass
>Gotham Girls: Catwoman, Harley and Ivy crime book. Trio is trying to protect girls who live on streets caught in middle of war between Penguin and Black Mask.
>Red Hood and the Outlaws: Jason on a secret mission with Katana, Thunder and Metamorpho.
>Batman and Robin Beyond: new chapter of the Beyond verse
>The Bat-Man: Black Label Maxi Series. Pulpy 1930s world with gun toting Batman urban legend.
Nightwing as the low budget street level hero was what Dixon did and it was just a bad idea 25 years ago. He's the adopted son of a billionaire, a world famous playboy philanthropist. Taking away his toys is stupid, it just makes the batman lite criticisms easier.
The hook is Dick doesn't want any of the money himself and put any money Bruce gives him into improving Bludhaven. Dick mentors at community center and helps wayward youths with troubled home lives.
Frick didn't Batgirl reject Batmans offer of cash and body armor in that God awful purple suit series? All I can remember is Batman showing up offering some body armor and actual good shit and Batgirl screaming she doesn't need his help and goes and creates a new costume with regular cloth, instead of something that might help if someone's got a fricking gun.
>Nightwing: Dick is a man of the people and the Dark Knight of Bludhaven. Working without Wayne tech. Way more street level. Build to the marriage of Dick and Babs.
DOA.
what do you propose instead?
Just keep doing what they're doing today. Nightwing is one of their most popular books, no need to frick with it.
Other stuff
>Legends of the Dark Knight: web comic, anthology short stories.
>Batman: Black and White: Annual prestige mini series. Artist showcase anthology.
>Brave and the Bold: Batman team-up series but the hook is it's Multiverse Brave and the Bold. Different storylines feature different Batman teaming up with heroes on their earths.
>Batman Mystery Inc.: kids book, Batman and the Gotham Knights having team ups with Scooby Dio and Mystery Inc plus Blue Falcon and Dyno Mutt, Cap Caveman and the Teen Angels, Hong Kong Phooey
Various mini series for
>Batman 89 (introducing the 89 verse version of Bane and Knightfall)
>Batman 66 (introducing the 66 verse version of the Justice League of America)
>Batman Adventures (introducing the DCAU version of Batman Inc)
One shot storylines that don't rely on external context nor run for too long. They begin with basic exposition, deal with one good case, and then end and aren't molested for material later.
Single villains or a small group for each run and it changes each time. Villains other than the Joker and Bane are allowed respect.
Part of this is allowing for a floating timeline.
Batman could be a newbie, he could be an older man, he could be in his prime, etc.
The point is to focus on the single good story and leave the rest out.
DC is broken at a narrative level, the only thing you can do is keep on trucking and hope comic fans of the future just aren't aware of how bad things are now.
My goal as DC editor is to just get Batman to an evergreen state, and ignore as much continuity bullshit as possible while at the same time putting up guard rails about what old stuff we allow in current books, 1st rule is easy, No Silver Age, No Morrison.
>How many Bat books do you think there should be?
As many as needed to keep DC in the black every month, so 1 Bat book for every dud DC publishes every month so about 50.
>Batman
flagship title focusing on Bruce Wayne in ongoing run by the writer, this will set up and pay off all the crossover events.
>Detective Comics
4-6 issue mystery story arc with new creative team on every story made for the trade audience.
>The New Adventures of Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder
continuity refresh book, all ages book, retelling classic stories and updating them for 202X, start at Dick Grayson's origin and go from there.
>Shadow of the Bat
Batman teams in done in one issue stories, teaming up with various members of the Batfamily
there's our 4 core Batman books so we have a book every week.
on 5th Wednesdays. we'll release a Batman Family anthology. so not to disturb the release schedule.
other books would be
>Robin
Damian Wayne, goes to Gotham Academy gets in to teen hijinks with that cast people seem to like while also doing superhero stuff.
>Batgirls
Steph, Babs and Cass, treat it like Charlie's Angels but Batman, Babs is less an older sister or mother to the other two, but is now just the hot redhead one.
>Harley Quinn
Grim and gritty crime book, going to the Arkham game/Suicide Squad movie roots that people loved about the character.
>Harley Quinn's Multiversal Adventures
All Ages screwball comedy about Harley traveling multiverse, to poke more holes in the DCU continuity. extreme continuity porn.
cont.
>Nightwing
Ain't broke, I'm not going to try to fix it. the concept is still good.
>Batwoman and Robin
Kate Kane and Tim Drake in a new city fighting crime in our LGBTQIA book.
>Catwoman
this book needs the most help, make it a globetrotting heist book, add the Riddler, Killer Croc and Penguin as her regular accomplices, get these characters out of Gotham for awhile.
>Poison Ivy
stays mostly the same eco-horror but moving her to the Gotham area to be closer to the action
>GCPD
follow two new minority detective characters doing police stuff solving crimes with the rest of the GCPD regulars, and add a will they, won't they romance angle
I don't think I have enough books $70 -$80 a month to follow Batman sounds low , maybe Outsiders and Birds of Prey?
Make him gay. Million copies sold monthly.
POO POO COMICS CAN'T DO ANYTHING RIGHT
Overhaul distribution model. Bundle online catalog service with whatever streaming service owned by DC's parent company
Hire dedicated lore nerd to keep track of things. Retcon when needed, but keep creative teams on roughly the same page
>Batman
>Batman, mostly solo. No Batgod. Limited team ups. Think Arkham games
>Campier, flashier, more toyetic than Tec
>Kill off Joker, keep him as psychohorror hallucination haunting Batman's mind
>Tec
>Batman or general Gotham-based crime/mystery book
>Downbeat, highbrow
>Exempted from mandatory crossover events
>Batwoman and Tim could do some back up shorts like Dick in the 70s
>Titans / Nightwing & the Titans
>includes Damian's Teen Titans mentored by senior Titans
>Batman & Robin / Robin / Urban Legends
>flashbacks: Robin II, Babsgirl, frequent guest Nightwing
>current day: Damian, Batfamily; Gotham Academy
>speculative futures
>Cass Batgirl webtoon
>International wandering martial arts hero. Saves people. Different countries and cultures.
>Sincere, meditative, sometimes bittersweet
>Steph Batgirl webtoon
>Plucky relatable college Batgirl, fun Zoomer adventures in Gotham U suburb. Written by women and/or BQM.
>Damian goes here for Batgirl & Robin adventures
Could bundle Batgirl book, with Cass as main feature and Steph as back up. Sometimes Barbara Batgirl shorts
>Streets of Gotham
>Rotating protags: Catwoman, Harley, Red Hood, Riddler, Two-Face, etc
>Riddler and Two-Face semi-reform
>Kill off Zsasz, Wesker, Black Mask, etc, replace them with hot women for diversity
>Birds of Prey
>Oracle, Huntress, Batwoman, other usual non-Bat lineup
>Platinum Flats, not Gotham
>JL
>Batman guest stars for publicity. Very rarely in a major role. Keep it JLU/JLI-flavored
>Batman: The Brave and the Bold
>Anthology
>One Batman-led short as bait.
>All other stories focused on other DC characters needing a boost. Batman could cameo
Sensitively touch social issues when organic. Bruce is a decent dad with most out of the nest
All right. All right. First thing, now it's not a bunch of floppies. It's an anthology, we're imitating manga. Six stories per book, maybe more. Compressed as frick, no more writing for trades. Episodic stories, one adventure each week, two to four chapters if it's really epic, or if you manage to write an actual mistery. Cheap paper, colors only on the cover and a couple splash pages per issue. Obciously cheaper price. If it improves sales we can do this with other lines too.
At least one Batman story every volume. One Outsiders story, or Birds of Prey. One Batgirl story, can be Cass, Barbara or Steph. Two for the Robins and ex-Robins, can be like Nightwing and Damian, Tim and Red Hood, one is a team up the other is a single, whatever.
Last spot is wildcard, Anyone wants to do a story with the GCPD, or Catwoman, or Etrigan or one of the other non-Bat characters that live in Gotham, it goes here. If nothing else is scheduled an extra Batman story fill in.
If it has any sucess in increasing sales I will do a campaign asking fans if we should increase the number of stories by volume. Put up a poll: Add one more story but raise price by X, add two, three, more with price rising to Y, Z, A, keep as is?
Also I would want to open opportunity for new writes. Frick everybody who is writing right now, most of them are fired. I want to look through mistery and thriller anthology books, find a couple of new or relatively unknown mistery writers and offer them to do short Batman stories. I want to try a system like book houses were you can send a manuscript and if we like it we buy it.
New artists too. I want a stable of new writers and artists, and the right to fire any shitc**t who gets uppity. And while everyone is allowed to make new villains, new secondary characters or continuity changes will be voted on by all stable artists subeditors and me. Anyone wanting to add a new Bat family character will be hit with a brick until they shut up.
>Fix Batman
Make a series about Thomas Wayne t b h
In main Batman continuity: Retire the Joker for a while. I know he sells, but the over-use of him isn't healthy for the comics and it shows. Allow people to flex creative muscles to come up with new original or interesting ideas rather than keep relying on legacy content.
If posible, pitch an AU Batman book that can fill in the "manga" niche in the sense that it'll be it's own run that will start and end by its own hand with no other crossovers or tributlations that would make the read difficult to follow. Maybe a single story arc that lasts 10 issues and if that works, another story arc. No Supes nor because I dislike him but to let this Batman breathe.
No Batfamily
No Supes and other Justice League homosexuals
Less focus on supervillains, more on regular Joe Shmoe criminals
now try typing again without crying
Retcon Joker to have never killed anyone ever, this includes Jason
>Hard mode: a real, non shitposting answer
Kill Joker permanently, retire Bruce, Dick becomes Batman, Babs retires as Batgirl and stays as Oracle permanently (she doesn't have to stay in the wheelchair).
That is a real, non shitposting answer. The reason why everything sucks is they keep going back to the century-long status quo without any progression. Nothing is allowed to progress. Everything is stale garbage. If Nightwing wasn't a known name then you know damn well they'd just go back to Dick being Robin permanently.
Comics don't fricking matter, dude. No one will accept Dick as Batman. People only want Bruce as Batman. You can b***h about zero progression in the DCU, but at the end of the day, the DCU itself doesn't matter at all. It's the everything else. The movies, shows, games and merch are what actually matters. Deal with it.
if they don't matter then you can do all of that.
No, because the brand dictates that Bruce is Batman in everything including the comics. Outside media influences the comics, not the other way around.