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Crisis on Infinite Reboots: The Commercial


In order to let non-comics fans know about the rebootlaunchmagining of the DC universe, DC has made a commercial, set to air on TV and in movie theaters, in hopes of interesting this potential audience in their 52 new #1 issues. Unfortunately, it’s that “interesting” part that DC seems to be having trouble with. Behold:

Um… yeah. A generic heavy metal song and a little bit of motion comics does not a good commercial make. First of all, DC is explaining nothing about the DCnU, and giving people no reason to pick it up other than “there’s a bunch of #1 issues.” Hell, there are new #1 issues all the time, why should people care about this more than those? Why not explain that the DCU is starting fresh? That there’s never been a better time to start reading? Why not describe a single thing about any of the comics to make them sound even slightly interesting (“Superman, before the world knew him!” “The Justice League’s first adventure!” “Wonder Woman… something!”)? Robot 6’s Kevin Melrose puts it best:

No, the major problem is that there’s no substance, and no excitement,
to the trailer, nothing to make the “average” film-goer sit up and
think, “When I get home in three hours, I just have to check out that website!” (Now what was that website again?) “All-new” doesn’t tell a non-comics reader anything; neither do Star Trek-style lens flares and tilted, static shots of characters a mainstream audience has seen fully realized on film and television.

You know what this commercial says to me? It says this: “DC — We still don’t know what we’re doing, and we don’t know why you should care.”