Seriously: why 52 in the New 52?

I've been watching the progress of DC's New 52 over the past 18 months, and one of the elements that is striking me as particularly stupid is their insistence on always publishing 52 monthly comics. I get it: it's in the name, there's brand awareness, and it harks back to the classic weekly series 52 (that, ironically, DC publisher Dan Didio loathed). What it means though is that every time DC cancel a poor-selling series, they immediately replace it with something else. Most of those replacements have failure written all over them.

Seriously, what was the logic of replacing the low-selling Men of War with the near-identical G.I. Combat? Is Team 7 and Phantom Stranger seriously going to shift more units that Static Shock or Mr Terrific? More often than not when a new DC book is announced, it's as good as visible from space how few months that book is going to last before poor sales take it off the market.

I really think a smaller DCU, with less editorial interference, would only help the company in the long run. New titles shouldn't be launched because there's a desire to have 52 monthly books, but rather they should be introduced when there's a demand for a particular character or set-up. Talon is a good example, spinning a new hero out of the popular "Court of Owls" storyline in Batman. DC should be doing more of this - allowing the range to develop organically. Randomly launching Sword of Sorcery or Threshold helps no one. It's a wild stab in the dark, and nine times out of ten it's not going to result in a viable title.


As an experiment, let's imagine a DCU where the only books published are the ones selling 25,000 copies or more. Based on December 2012 sales estimates, that immediately cuts the range down from 52 titles to 27. Essentially half of DC's monthly range is, to be blunt, not worth the company publishing. It leave us with:

• 10 Batman titles. This seems like quite a lot. Personally I'd axe Batman: The Dark Knight, the lowest-selling of the core Bat-books, and replace it with a Robin solo title. Damian Wayne certainly has a big enough fanbase to manage more than 25,000 readers a month. I'd also boost the popularity of Batgirl significantly by giving Barbara Gordon two sidekicks named Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown, and then stand back and watch it's sales improve a good 20-40%.
• Four Superman books, which seems fair enough. Superboy and Supergirl can run along independently, while they need to maintain a good division between Action Comics and Superman: how does each title handle the character of Superman? Personally I'd base one in Metropolis and make the other more of an 'out there' space adventure.
• Three Green Lantern books: Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps and Red Lanterns. I'm not personally a fan of Red Lanterns, but it's selling so we keep it. Three books seems enough - the low-selling New Guardians gets axed.
• Let's lump the other Justice League members together: that gives us Justice League, Aquaman and Wonder Woman. Is it ridiculous to add Animal Man, Huntress and Power Girl to the Justice League? It would boost their own books and bring this line up to a healthy five monthlies.
• This leaves us with five books: Earth 2, which could potentially lead to a few monthly spin-offs of its own as it develops, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Suicide Squad, Swamp Thing and Teen Titans.

It's clear that there are some things that aren't selling for DC. Wildstorm spin-offs aren't gaining any traction, whether it's Stormwatch, Team 7 or Grifter. Books that admirably attempt to broaden the DC range into westerns (All-Star Western), horror (I, Vampire), fantasy (Sword of Sorcery) and war (G.I. Combat) simply don't sell. While it may be unadventurous for DC to narrow its focus back to purely superhero titles, I can't help but feel it might strengthen the company as a whole.

(As a final note, under my 'anything under 25,000 copies gets axed' plan, we lose: All-Star Western, Batwing, Birds of Prey, Blue Beetle, DC Universe Presents, Deathstroke, Demon Knights, Dial H, Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE, Fury of Firestorm, G.I. Combat, Green Arrow, Grifter, I Vampire, Legion of Super-Heroes, Legion Lost, Phantom Stranger, Ravagers, Savage Hawkman, Stormwatch, Sword of Sorcery and Team 7.)