Holy Superhero Burnout: Can The Comics Industry Survive?

DC and Marvel have announced a new slate of movies and small screen projects. With Marvel canceling it’s Netflix universe, Dark Horse has brought properties such as Umbrella Academy and Polar to it’s streaming service. And that’s just for your viewing pleasure.

The big two comic companies DC and Marvel can’t seem to spend even six months without a ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ universe reboot. Batman is going to be broken for the forty-eighth time. Spider-Man is going to have relationships shattered, again. And if that doesn’t work let’s make Captain America a secret Nazi agent or happy go lucky Booster Gold into a possible murderer.

Does all of this seem overwhelming? Well, you’re not alone you, dear reader is probably suffering from superhero burnout.

Over the last twenty years or so, DC and Marvel Comics, as well as other publishers, have spent serious money on getting their characters to the big and small screens. And especially with the advent of The Marvel Cinematic Universe ten years ago, the push for more and more supersaturation to pursue the big bucks has gone from maybe one or two comic-based projects a year, and maybe one comic book based show to what seems like dozens. And to keep up with a growing base of fans, publishers have tried rebooting their characters in such ways as to either have them connect to their on-screen counterparts or try to inject whatever is the latest #hashtags into their storylines to get the readers into the retail stores.

However this has not always succeeded, and probably the biggest retailer saturation experiment gone wrong was the Captain America as HYDRA storyline by Marvel Comics. Spearheaded by Nick Spencer, comic writer and politician, the idea was to use the symbology of Captain America and twist to reflect the authors own views on the current President and administration. However, this experiment became more and more costly as connected series, issues, backups, and merchandise was forced onto retailers and fans. Although the main series was successful commercially, all of the connected media was not.

This and the current non-wedding of Selin Kyle and Bruce Wayne, that turned into a plot by Bane to break the Batman psychologically has been an issue for fans. During this current s storyline we are led to believe that a man, whom in earlier stories and DC Comics lore, has trained to be resistant to mind control, hypnosis, utilizes intense meditation and self-awareness techniques and genius level focus is now all of the sudden having a nervous breakdown and punching his longtime ally Jim Gordon?

With more reboots planned for ongoing series by DC and Marvel, and both announcing possible reductions in production, it seems that this burnout is inevitable. Some fans, however, are keen on the multimedia versions of their favorite characters:

I have found that too many multi-universe crash/reboot cycles and too many character origin retcons/deaths/resurrections have kinda put me off printed superhero comics in general (except for the occasional flashback trade paperback.)

But I am still fully down for superhero stories in video form, whether movies, television or animated.-

Blane Mather, Houston, TX.

Fandom is only sustainable as long as the comics companies become aware of how pursuing the dollar and not the story, can not only lead to burnout but the industry metaphorically, burning down.