DC spoils comic for up to dozens of readers... why?

Spoilers for "Trial of the Amazons".

So why does DC insist on spoiling their comics?

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[jthompson]

I remember when Bart Allen was killed in the early 2000s by the Rogues accidentally DC published fake solicitations for future issues. That was genius

[benevolentremnant]

To your explanation that a lot of the staff just doesn't care, I would add that storytelling is one of the things the management at DC has been signaling it's ok not to care about for a while. "Why does DC spoil comics in its solicitations?" has the same answer as "Why does DC offer so many variant covers?", "Why does DC keep releasing so many Batman titles?", and "Why does DC keep trying to pass mantles to uninteresting knockoffs rather than just make new characters?" DC--along with Marvel--has for some time been relying on gimmicks and already-established IP rather than storytelling to sell comic books. Which you and others have said countless times. It just bears repeating.

[BainesMkII]

Soliciting the new series as "[REDACTED]: Wanted" makes it harder for stores to estimate how many copies to buy ("Batman: Wanted" is going to sell more than "Plastic Man: Wanted"), which itself makes it harder for the publisher to figure out how many copies to print. Which is the reason solicits are published.

[CrisisComics]

Oh man, I really hope Artemis being on the run isn't just a way for Vita to justify her killing Hippolyta and joining a team she really wants to write (Secret Six, perhaps?). Because that would be stupid.

[MrGabeHernandez]

Spoiler-not-Spoiler: In this week's issue for the event, Artemis is revealed as the killer but she refuses to reveal why. I suppose the creators were thinking readers would be so enthralled by what's going on, that they'd just HAVE to get the next issue to find out why she did it. This is how you try to drum up intrigue for the next issue the WRONG way.

[drewtheunspoken]

Wait, it's Artemis? I had my money on Wally West.

[jbbrolic]

Is the picture Joelle Jones traced supposed to look like a pose for instagram? (which has sadly become a trope in comic books, although this is miles better than the "selfie cover" gimick.) Yara Flor and anonymous "Wonder Family" member 378 smiling/making faces and looking directly into the "camera" looks kind of odd to me.

[EricOSullivan]

Hey, Perch. It’s me Sully. Hi. So I had my last experience with a spoiler because of a creator tweeting the months-ahead solicitation. It was a few years ago, big title, big writer. It was something kinda silly yet it’s strange what makes Us Fans Care About Things. I love Robins. So when Batman met Duke Thomas, I was so enthralled. I wanted to see where this was going, who Duke’s going to become. And I liked his training suit too. The color and the helmet too. I mean you wouldn’t let your kid play hockey without a helmet yet you’ll let them fight PopCrime and Go Costume Adventuring
🤷‍♂️ so when the 6-issue mini Batman and The Signal was solicited, Snyder tweeted that.
But he hadn’t revealed Duke’s codename in-Story yet. I was incensed. And it was the penultimate time I cared about a superhero comicbook until what happened to Wally In Heroes In Crisis shortly after this.
I respect the hell out of Snyder. He emailed me. He asked me to walk that back and I did. He actually asked me to stop being “such a sh!t”. And he didn’t block me on Twitter either after that. But I got mad respect for Scott reaching out to me like that. Yet that was the last spoiler I let break my heart.

[bigdaddydavejordan]

I think it's a mix of: previous issue's solicits have already led to low orders making "accidental" spoilers a tactic to salvage succeeding issue's orders. The other being the publisher behind the scenes acknowledging the low quality of the product.

[kendershot]

"for dozens of readers", nice one.

[Daviedootle]

I was excited for this crossover event and was invested during the first 2 issues. DC did something similar with the death of WW's mother. She just gut off the JL title and then suddenly stopped appearing on the WW covers right around the time that the creative team was saying they were going to kill an important character. I don't know if they were trying to milk this into another series, but having Artemis reveal she's the character, but not saying feels like the creative team doesn't know why she did it, but thought the betrayal aspect was interesting. 5 issues and several backup preludes to this event and all these characters are doing is talking and contemplating. There's no actual contest or action. The murder mystery was the only sorta interesting thing about it now and it's been spoiled. The entire problem with this "event" is that it's got no direction. How do you spend the first 5 issues with them procrastinating so much, oh, and they give Donna Troy a new scarf. I'm a big fan of WW. I want to support her. Give me something to support.

[dakinademino]

What the hell kind of an expression is that girl sporting?

Is she yawning and laughing at the same time.

[JuliePascal]

The Sixth Sense was like watching the movie for the same time twice. The first time, not realizing that Bruce Willis is dead was an entirely different experience. You say that Unbreakable is better? Maybe. But part of what makes Sixth Sense good is that the movie itself, while being a different experience when you know the "twist", still stands and doesn't depend wholly on the twist. Most "twist" type stories fail at that.

[brion]

I used to like Artemis in the 90's. She had a fun mini series back then too. The issue #1 cover of her coming out of a grave was pretty cool. I'm always a sucker for that visual.

[ShoutOfCoffee]

Dozens readers...it's all DC have left 😄

[davidgantenbein]

Looking at your sales videos, there was a clear pattern of „nobody increases the audience anymore“ aka units sold went down in nearly all instances. I think the method of „we don’t care if our marketing spoils an ongoing title as long as it stirs the pot“ is just a logical result of this. The mystery itself isn’t increasing sales as sales go down no matter what happens in the comic. Hence it’s more important to place the new book as that one has a chance to sell more issues at the start before it fiddles out later on.
And all of this is probably an accurate picture of the customers! There are likely two types, collectors that just want to know what makes the next issue special (= they want to be spoiled) and fans that decided to read the story (=stick till the end), everybody else is out by issue 3-4 no matter the mystery/spoilers.
I admit, it’s all just a theory, so it’s up to Perch to find some cases for a sales analysis between similar books, one where they kept the secret and one where they spoiled it all. …. But I‘m afraid that a cheap variant cover does more for sales than a well built and kept secret.

[shotsavereboundscore]

Perch just bodied the entire ww writer's room...err cubicle...err rented desk.

[InfamyOrDeath-__-]

I usually never care about spoilers at all, once the spoiler is coming from people, not a company spoiling their own story. That goes for things like movie trailers showing every single good scene in the trailer & giving away the plot.

The only time I’m glad I wasn’t spoiled was with the eclipse in Berserk, I would constantly hear people mention the eclipse but they never actually said what happened which is great of these guys.

[blackphoenix]

I haven't been keeping up with this "event, " so I don't really care about spoilers.

[mietha]

The better question is why at the idiots at DC letting Vita destroy the Amazons?