The Enduring Siren Song of "Ultimate DC"

 

Wizard Magazine's infamous Ultimate Justice League

For the last few days rumors of an "Ultimate DC" project have been circulating in fan circles. Rob Liefield lit the fire by mentioning it on his podcast. DC filing a trademark for something called "Metal Force" added more fuel to the idea that Scott Snyder would return to DC. Mark Waid and Dan Mora departing SHAZAM caused more speculation, and Scott Snyder himself seemingly confirmed it on twitter:

Now if you've paid any attention to DC Comics over say, the last 20 years, the idea of an Ultimate DC certainly wouldn't be a new one to you. Its something fan circles constantly crowed about in the wake of Ultimate Marvel's astounding popularity. And DC fundamentally agreed, because they've already tried it:

 

Despite generating the critical darling All Star Superman, DC's 2005 attempt at an All Star imprint of looser continuity never really took off. The planned Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Batgirl titles never materialized. 

The Earth One line of graphic novels arrived in in 2010 and produced 13 graphic novels running until 2020 to little fanfare. Sales absolutely must've justified the continued production, and the titles were certainly well reviewed, but I've never seen any fan recommend any of these books. I personally found Batman and Superman's first volumes pretty boring. Green Lantern had a setup that was compelling enough for me to pick up it's second volume that I found very disappointing. 

And then there's Ultimate Wonder Woman,  which no one can really seem to decide is good or bad. Across three volumes this page is probably the only one people ever share, usually to highlight how weird Grant Morrison is when it comes to race:

It's kind of funny how hyperfocused the outrage laser is aimed at Marvel that none of the usual chuds and midwits had a thing to say about DC publishing three volumes of Wonder Woman bringing the entire planet under the guidance of her kinks. Even the absolute weirdos I know who read every comic haven't read any of these.

Like All Star before it, the Earth One line also ended without releasing some promised titles - Flash and Aquaman respectively.

Finally we come to the nu52.

DC's 2011 line wide relaunch/reboot/revamp was the closest shot it's taken in the modern era at creating a line like Marvel's Ultimate Universe. Except they did it to their main universe. And Batman & Green Lantern got to keep their continuity. Except when they didn't.

You see the problem?

Despite their move to create a cleaner, more streamlined universe for adaptation into other media, DC editorial was absolutely terrified of messing with Batman and Green Lantern, the only books in the line at the time were doing well and had a clear direction. Their refusal to rejigger those characters would end up having repercussions we don't have to get into.

While individual titles certainly had interesting stories and there were some cool ideas thrown out (I'm failing to remember them, but I'm sure they were there), the big problem was that the line as a whole just didn't feel cohesive. The Superman in Action Comics was a completely different character than the one in Justice League dating Wonder Woman. Lengthy crossovers bogged down the entire line. 

Editorial mangling of titles was also a thing. This piece on what happened to Static Shock should be mandatory reading for all superhero fans.

And that's to say nothing of the title bloat! 52 books every month was absolute madness. This piece at Comic Book Herald illustrates it a bit more clearly. Absolutely nobody who wanted an easier jumping on point for Superman or Wonder Woman was clamoring for an OMAC book! Grifter? Voodoo? Get that WildStorm whack shit out of here!. 

The demands to meet a completely arbitrary number of books simply fostered way more bottom of the barrel IP scraping than I think anyone is willing to admit, even now in 2024. By 2016 with DC Rebirth, efforts were well underway to roll things back to the pre-Flashpoint status quo. Hell, 2021's Infinite Frontier initiative was just a really longwinded way of re-introducing Hypertime to fold even more pre-Crisis stories back into continuity at-will. 

But DC hasn't, and can't really give up in its quest to modernize its line. With Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman soon to enter the public domain, they're going to be throwing everything at the wall to create versions of their big three that cannot be replicated in low budget horror movies.

How many times do we have to tell you people 

we fucking hate Grifter?

The Future State event, which was their attempt to salvage the failed 5G initiative, is kind of a microcosm of why every attempt to modernize the DC Universe besides the relaunch post Crisis on Infinite Earths (which ended in 1986!) has fallen flat on its face: this wasn't being driven by a desire to tell an interesting story, it was being done in response to one creative's personal bugbears and looming copyright deadlines that would soon open up the world to knock-offs of treasured IPs.

And even through all that, they still had a planned 5 year deadline to see if they'd roll back to the OG versions of the characters.

I might just be speaking from my armchair, but it's very clear that attempting to create from a place of fear and reaction is never going to produce anything good. 

Which brings me right back around these rumors of an Ultimate DC. When I see names like Mark Waid and Scott Snyder attached, I smell blood in the water. 

It's not a surprise or a sin that they want a new publishing initiative to succeed, but does any one expect real surprises in that lineup of books or creators when these are the first two names we get? If there are three writers under 40 and at least one who has NEVER written a DC ongoing before, I'll be impressed.

In general I get the vibe of a company freaking out because the clock is ticking on its cash cows and it can't do anything but reach out to the people they know can shake out some units. It feels like back when every rapper had to have a song with Future. There's nothing wrong with wanting to work with hitmakers, but it's not the only way to write a song.

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In Other News

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• Colin Broadmoor wrote a great thread about the SnyderCut
• Fiti Vidal draws a great Ultimate Spider-man homage (WARNING: Fiti's other art is pretty NSFW. But it's also fantastic.)
• Creators Peter David and Brett Lewis have active Gofundmes. Donate or share if you're able. 
• Channing Tatum is adapting...The Maxx? I'll believe it when I see a trailer.
• Samir Barrett alleged on twitter that the recent Tomorrowverse COIE film used his Black Lightning design without credit. Many bootlickers have been defending the animate studio on this. Don't be a bootlicker.