Less than two years after DC Comics began selling digital versions of its own comics on the same day as print, the superhero publisher announced two new digital comics formats: DC2, which will feature “dynamic artwork” that unfolds as the reader taps on the screen, and DC2 Multiverse, a choose-your-own-path format that will allow users to make decisions at key points that will unlock different storylines.

The DC2 format will debut with Batman ’66, a digital comic from creators Jeff Parker and Jonathan Case based on the classic Batman television series. Rather than flipping through pages, readers will “tap on the screen to bring the next element of the story to life, whether it’s a whole panel, or a word balloon or a sound effect,” DC Entertainment Co-Publisher Jim Lee told Wired. “What’s cool is that you really get to challenge the rules of traditional storytelling. You aren’t beholden to a strict left to right western culture narrative. You can have elements that leap back and forth.”

Lee says the format will play off many of the tropes of the fan-favorite Adam West show, with sound effects and meta-fictional elements that will appear and unfold in unique ways through the new format. Similarly, the DC2 Multiverse format will debut in Batman: Arkham Origins, a digital comic tie-in for the upcoming Warner Bros. video game where Lee says the ability to choose different paths through the story will “bring an aspect of gameplay to storytelling.”

They’ll also give the stories another quality familiar to gamers: replay value. “If you go back in the decision-making tree and replay other events or other decisions, you’ll get a lot more reading experience and reading content,” said Lee. And while readers will be able to interact with the story – and have different narrative experiences based on the choices they make – they may also have a hand in how the comics unfold in the future.

“We get feedback based on how readers navigate through these stories, and what story branches are most appealing to them,” said Lee. “That’ll give us meaningful input as we create additional chapters for the multiverse storyline, to the point where you can have people vote on the fates of certain characters. The interactivity isn’t just on the screen itself; it’s between us as publishers and readers as fans.”

The idea of A/B testing stories – and allowing the reader to shape their future – is a complicated and potentially controversial one. On the one hand, plebiscite storytelling could be seen as a creative capitulation that would steer stories towards the middle and away from daring choices, and also calls to mind the infamous 1-900 number call-in vote on the fate of Batman's sidekick Robin (aka Jason Todd), which ended with the character getting beaten to death with a crowbar by fan fiat.

On the other hand, the idea of fans being able to choose their own adventure has a certain amount of appeal for anyone who ever loved reading books that let them turn to page 95 to see what happened if they attacked a wizard – not to mention the pleasure of rereading that book over and over to find out what would have happened if they’d taken a different path.

DC Comics also announced that their digital comics sales increased 125 percent between 2011 and 2012, and has become what DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson called “an increasingly important and legitimate business for DC.”

That wasn’t the case in 2011, when Lee stood up at a comics retailer conference and held up a 8.5 x 11” piece of paper in one hand, and a piece of dental floss in the other. The width of the paper represented the sales of print comics, he said, while the dental floss represented digital comics. But times have changed. After two years of triple digital growth, Lee told Wired that the percentage of DC Comics sales coming from digital is now in the double digits.

“Just three years ago, we weren’t in the business of digital publishing at all, or not meaningfully,” said DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson. “Now there are a million downloads a month of DC stories from our digital publishing. It’s not an insignificant business anymore.”