DC’s battle of the comic pitches returns for another round

DC has brought back their Round Robin tournament, where they ask fans to vote on which one of 16 pitches will be made into a miniseries. Last year’s winner, Robins by Tim Seeley and Baldemar Rivas, brought together all the heroes who had worn the “Robin” moniker for a miniseries.

Like last year, DC only revealed the title, a brief pitch and the logo for each pitch in this first round. It wasn’t until round two that we found out who the actual creative teams would be for each of them.

Here’s a look at the bracket:

There are some interesting possibilities here — a Darkseid/Captain Carrot team-up? I’d buy that — but last year had several interesting ones as well that never went anywhere. Although one of the losers, JLQ, did eventually find their way into the DC Pride anthology, so losing doesn’t mean we’ll never see them.

Last year’s tournament had some controversy, particularly around the fact that Robins and JLQ went up against each other in the opening round. The bigger controversy, though, in my eyes, is whether or not the creators are getting paid for taking part in a marketing stunt.

Were the writers paid for these pitches?
I'm a creator myself so I'm fully aware that pitches are usually uncompensated unless they're green-lit for production, but you're using all these ideas for a public-facing publicity/advertising/PR stunt.
I say pay 'em all.

— Ryan Dunlavey (@RyanDunlavey) March 29, 2022

While DC has responded to several questions on Twitter about the tournament, they have remained silent about this question.

Anyway, you can vote on Twitter or on the DC Community site, with voting ending April 3.