Don’t fuck them up.

I’m looking at a lot of things online and in the local comic books shops.

Introduced about 3 years ago, DC Comics’s The New 52! completely retconned the established DC Comics Universe. It made all the characters 5 years younger, and completely changed a lot of back stories, while leaving others rather intact. Batman pretty much stayed the same, except for the costume. Superman, however, started out wearing a t-shirt with the S insignia, like a kid jumping off the roof, thinking he could fly. Yes, it is as stupid as it sounds.

Nice art, good artist. Dumb concept.  And, yes, those are jeans.

In 2009, the owners of Star Trek, Paramount, decided to breathe new life into what they perceived was a stagnant tentpole for the studio. They were wrong, but the alternate universe they created alongside the existing universe (NuTrek and Trek Prime, respectively), while young and dynamic, has been resoundingly ridiculed over merely the last five years.

These things that they do are crafted to MAKE MONEY. The Powers That Be don’t give a damn how good a thing is, or how well liked a thing is. Their thinking is: What can we do to make more revenue than we did before?

Answer 1: Skew younger. As an existing audience gets older, they want to adapt to hit the younger audience that will grow with them.

Our Critical Response 1: We understand the thinking, but it doesn’t always work.

Answer 2: Change things up on an irregular/as needed basis to create artificial events designed to maximize sales…regardless of what the audience thinks about the existing works, the status quo…

Our Critical Response 2: The only time it works when things are changed is To Make Things Better. But…To Make Things More Commercial always bites you in the ass.

The original Star Trek universe was original. It should be maintained…and even bettered, with more original stories and concepts…another generation, but not a “new universe.”

DC Comics and its managers has an obligation to make money for the parent company…but when those changes make no sense, and are clearly transparent as the revenue-producing machines that they truly are, then they have violated the trust between creator and audience.

The only answer to this dilemma:

Destroy the new universes. Create for them stories that will resolve back into the original universes. Use true creativity and solid story to make old audiences happy and bring new audiences into the fold. Otherwise, you’ll be creating a new universe for everything every 3-5 years.

And then, you’ll continually lose every prior, established audience for the sake of a smaller new audience.

Just stop playing games and trying to second-guess your audience in the name of short-term profits.