I think there is a growing disdain (I think that is best word to describe it) for the Marvel Universe and the DC Universe or at least how the companies are ran. I think a growing number of fans, retailers, and creators are sick of the never ending crossover events that only lead to another crossover event, the bad PR stunts like the "deaths" of Steve Rogers and Bruce Wayne and the whole Spider-Man: One More Day debacles, titles get canceled and restarted over and over, legacy numbering, retcons after retcons, endless variant covers, single characters like Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, and Wolverine each being in over dozen different books published every month, late books by creators with egos bigger than the state of Alaska, and well you get the point. So some fans, like me, are looking for an alternative to the corporate nonsensical crap that Marvel and DC are currently putting out.
So some companies are looking to the past to find "new" ideas or inspirations so companies like IDW, Ardden Entertainment, Dark Horse, Dynamite Entertainment, and others are looking around and picking up old properties and dusting them off and re-introducing them to the world and hoping for some fans of the old stuff and maybe get some new ones as well because there is was market for new Atlas Comics. Jason Goodman (whose grandfather Martin founded Marvel Comics and his family owns the rights to the Atlas Comics) and his partners at Ardden Entertainment know this and hope to feed off both nostalgia and hopefully produce new comics that will appeal to fans, (like me because I wasn't born yet) that missed Atlas/Seaborad the first time around. While some companies like Boom! Studios are creating new superhero universes with high-profile comic book creators like Mark Waid and the legendary Marvel Universe co-creator Stan Lee, mostly I think this so that Lee can prove he's still "The Man" in comics but maybe he has some ideas he thinks will bring new readers to the company.
As for Marvel dusting off the New Universe, 2099, and Crossgen lines and DC dusting off Milestone and the Impact/Red Circle lines is basically so that they can't lose the copyrights and trademarks. The sad truth is that IIRC none of the Impact/Red Circle titles that DC published lasted longer than a year and I will be surprised if DC's revival of Milestone's Xombi survives the year. Marvel's 2099: Timestorm was a mini-series, the same with New Universal and The Untold Tales of New Universe was a bunch of one-shots and a couple of back ups. Marvel's recent revival of Crossgen is right now 2 mini-series that both look awful. The people running both Marvel and DC really don't see comics as anything more than as beta-tests for movies, TV shows, video games, and other media.
While titles like John Byrne's Next Men is being published again by IDW because the fans wanted Byrne to finish what is in my opinion is his greatest masterpiece and deep down I think Byrne wants to finish it too. The same with Breed III by Jim Starlin slated to be released this summer from Image Comics, Starlin stated in The Art of Jim Starlin (which is a great book check it out if you get a chance) that he doesn't need the money to do comics (he said that he sold the movie rights to his prose novels years ago and that made him financially secure) now he does it because it's his addiction and he loves doing them.
In cases with companies like IDW, Dark Horse, Ardden, Dynamite, and the rest it's easier to bring back an existing brand or known characters because they have a built in audience that is hungry for new material so it's easier to get people to read their books without having to build up a brand which takes a long time to. While companies like Boom use high-profile creators like Stan Lee and Mark Waid to lure in customers. I mean think about it: if Stan Lee's name wasn't attached to The Traveler, Starborn, and Solider Zero and the same with Mark Waid on Irredeemable and Incorruptible do you think anybody would have cared about them?
There is nothing wrong with bringing back known brands and high-profile creators' names attached to a title as long the books are good, if not then they don't sell and they get cancelled. Which is how it should be.
This is of course is just my opinion, and I might be wrong.
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