When AT&T bought WarnerMedia, there was a lot of speculation that DC Comics could be sold off. Rumour had it they were looking to get out of the comic book business, a move that's not overly surprising considering the fact it's not an overly profitable business compared to merchandising and movies/TV shows adapting those stories.
Joker proved that Warner Bros. doesn't need the source material to tell an effective story with characters from that world, so could we be nearing the end of DC Comics? No, according to Jim Lee.
"I don’t think they want to stop us from publishing comics," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. "Comics serve a lot of different purposes and one of them is it’s a great way to incubate ideas and creating the next great franchises. We want to continue that. Why would you want to stop that? Why would you want to stop creating great content that could be used across the greater enterprise?"
The trade later put one particularly silly question to the publisher when they asked about the rumour DC Comics will start only selling trades and original graphic novels, making a deal with Marvel Comics to take charge of characters like Batman and Superman. "There is nothing further from the truth in that," Lee laughed. "I don’t know where you would even connect those dots. Why would we ever do that?"
Lee would later prove that work will continue as normal at DC Comics, but pointed out that those titles which haven't been selling well or have made a loss are going to be scrapped. However, there's lots to still look forward too, including a Batman miniseries from Oscar-winning writer John Ridley (12 Years a Slave). He says that, "It will have a huge impact on the rest of the line."
So, big changes are taking place at DC Comics, but they're perhaps not as big as some believe...
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