DC comics, self-hatred, and the drive to death

[fpb]

I have a suspicion that when a business becomes invincible, when its market position makes it so unchallenged that its leaders are more in the position of hereditary barons than of anyone who has to work to live - even at a very high level - sooner or later a sort of greed for destruction sets in, and they start making decisions that can only be

Comments

[ravenclaw_eric]

As I understand it, the problems with the Edsel were partly due to bad timing (it was a big car hitting the market at a time when big cars were not in favor), partly "not-ready-for-prime-time" innovations, and partly poor quality control.

Kind of like Harley-Davidson during the AMF years. They were a subsidiary of a larger firm, and between being apparently unable to jump on the bandwagon for smaller, handier motorcycles that the Japanese had found was waiting and poor quality control, they nearly went under. During the AMF years, the mocking chant was "Harley, Harley, made of tin---ride it out and push it in!" The same could be said of the British marques, and it wasn't because they were
"foreign;" the Italians and Germans were putting out quality machines at that time.

And while the network was actively sabotaging the third season of Star Trek (the original show), one thing that did not help was their acceptance of massively substandard scripts. "Spock's Brain" comes to mind here... Poor quality control again.

I haven't seen these free comics you mention, but it sounds like the scripts were ones that a sane comic company would have rejected with inexpressible scorn.

Quality control is one thing that any company that wants to stay in business will be on top of like a duck on a June bug.