So, this is the first place that the production of the market has changed: too many titles, and too much overproduction. Marvel is publishing nearly a third more titles, and by and large they’re not new characters or things aimed at expanding their audience. Rather they’re generally expansions of existing franchises, for example five distinct comics that are branded as “Avengers”. While at DC, they’re publishing 15% fewer series, but of their 49 series, a preposterous 24 of them – nearly half! – are “Batman”-family characters.
The truth is that the more you over-produce, the fewer people are willing to buy in. Especially when we look at the customers of the “universes” of Marvel and DC, there is a tendency for readers to want to be “all in” in those universes, because (at least notionally) the works are all interconnected. This, of course, becomes far less true as production scales up (keeping continuity on six “Batman” comics was hard enough. Keeping it on 24? Nigh impossible). If one of your primary selling points is the breadth of your tapestry, it’s very noticeable as your threads begin to fray.
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