>>8362534>Trying to pander to comic book buyers didn't exactly help.Actually, almost everything that does pander to comic book fans works.
Highest sales has come from books that specifically do that. The Ultimate universe was a big turn around in the 00s. Same with Morrison's XMen. Morrison's Batman. Sales went up.
DC killing the universe and rebooting it is the same thing, complete with bringing dead characters back.
Every event (read: cross overs, where fan favorite characters interact with each other) is what fans love seeing, hence bigger sales.
Problem is that companies like DC and Marvel want to expand sales even more, hence trying to cater to people outside of comic fans. But again, it doesn't really work. Not any more than making comic book movies. Sales only go up slightly when movies come out.
I think the biggest thing is just trying to sell the comic books themselves, like we've seen with Free Comic Book Day and being included with lootboxes, or DC trying to sell their anthology issues at Walmarts and Barnes and Noble.
