DC Comics Becomes DC Entertainment. Yeah, I Don't Know What it Means, Either.

Well. At this rate, the nation's business desk editors are gonna deplete their vast, underground stockpiles of hacky Pow! Zap! headlines.

Fast on the heels of Disney buying Marvel, another fat-cat megalocorporation (Warner Bros Picture Group, this time) announced yesterday that its lidless Sauron-eye has alighted upon another major comic book company (DC Comics, this time — publishers of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman). The difference, and it's a big one, is that Warner didn't need to shell out $4 billion to buy DC - it's owned the company for years now.

And unlike Disney, which went out of its way to reassure Marvel management, shareholders and creators that it had no intention of interfering with (read: didn't particularly care about) the comics, the kind of attention Warner is now suddenly lavishing on DC has taken the form of a top-down corporate restructuring.

After the jump: Who's in, who's out, and how Halle Berry figures in all of this.

 

In comes Diane Nelson, the Warner executive in charge of "corporate franchise management of the Harry Potter property" — so, you know, there's that. She'll become President of the newly established DC Entertainment, and report directly to the head of the Warner Picture Group.

Out goes current DC Comics President and Publisher Paul Levitz, who was part of the first generation of writers who were themselves devout comics fans before getting their start in the business (Levitz and another writer self-published an influential fanzine in the 70s). Levitz will stay on at DC as an editor and consultant — and return to writing stories about The Legion of Super-Heroes, the team of fresh-faced super-powered teens from the future that put him on the map.

Another major difference between last week's announcement and this one: When news of the Disney-Marvel deal broke, the only people who weren't completely taken by surprise were Spidey and Scrooge McDuck. Changes at DC have been whispered about for years.

But the two pieces of news do share one common thread, namely interminable corporate press releases about cross-platform strategizing, branding maximization and distribution synergy. (Seriously, go read a Warner's press release. The Matrix: Reloaded is more cohesive.)

So why is Warner's fussing with DC Comics now? There's been a widespread feeling that Warner's hasn't yet figured out a way to take full advantage of the DC characters in their stable — the success of the Dark Knight films notwithstanding. Yes, sure, there are many movie projects at many different studios. (Lobo? Seriously?) But unlike Marvel, which has its own film company, a given DC property may or may not end up as a Warner film project, and even if it does, communication among that vast company's licensing, distribution and creative tentacles isn't — so insiders say — all that it should be. Yesterday's restructuring may help alleviate that.

One thing's for sure. These two announcements, a little over a week apart, demonstrate the extent to which the comic book is now regarded as little more than a means for corporations to secure, and preserve, their claim on a patch of intellectual property that might prove valuable down the road. As far as Warner and Disney is concerned, any given shelf of comics is just so many glossy, four-color R &D departments.

The thing is: I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.

Until yesterday, the fact that DC Comics seemed to fly so far under Warner's radar seemed to me a good or at least neutral prospect — yes, it meant that mere chaos, in the form of Halle Berry in a catsuit, would be periodically loosed upon the world. But that was endurable — let the movies suck!, I thought, with verve and aplomb! - as long as the center held, and the comics kept coming.

Comic book writer Mark Evanier is less than sanguine about what these developments mean for comic book publishing. And Comics Reporter Tom Spurgeon has his usual cogent thoughts. (Both links via Comic Book Resources Robot 6 blog.) Go, read them, they're smart.

With any luck things'll quiet down, and next week we can return you to your regularly scheduled hacky nerd jokes.