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The DC Thread: How many Crises is Too Many?
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In other news, DC continues to be a paragon of restraint and class.
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It's the first page from an upcoming DCU Online comic.
I know it doesn't "matter," in terms of continuity, but it cracks me up that they'd make that the opening splash page for one of their comics.
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I think that DC overall does use the iconic status of many of it's characters more than Marvel or other companies, and they'd be fool not to, but books that are actually out there to tell great stories seem a little bit leaner on their side of the patch.
Oh and btw I've been reading through the more recent Booster Gold books lately and they are actually pretty great. I like the whole rushing through time, saving the Universe thing and I think that Jurgens makes Time Travel fun, interesting and critically understandable and not overly complex. Which is great, because that's always a threat with time travel stories.
with that and JL: Generation Lost Booster is rapidly becoming one of my favourite DC Heroes.
My predictions are thus:
Superman becomes all Superman all the time, Roberson stays on. Action Comics becomes the Superman Family book, with Cornell staying on as well.
Wonder Woman will return to the old status quo with some new writer, possibly Simone or someone.
Batman Inc. and Batman and Robin remain untouched, but Batman and Detective Comics get relaunched. Snyder will probably stay on 'Tec if only because it remains critically and commercially successful. I think Detective will be Dick's book and Batman will return to Bruce, since Batman Inc. is starting to become more of an ensemble cast.
Green Lantern will get a new number one, but whether it stars Hal Jordan or a brand-new Green Lantern I really have no idea. Hell, it could be John Stewart since the latest GLC shows Kyle in the starring role.
Flash will relaunch again, but this time with a more Flash Family approach. Wally, Bart and Barry will be on board, I predict Sterling Gates taking over for Johns.
Teen Titans will get one, Krul might stay on board as writer.
New ongoings are Aquaman, Firestorm, Hawkman and Swamp Thing. Deadman will either get his own title or will take over Adventure Comics as per the earlier rumors.
Lots of smaller books(such as Superboy and Supergirl) could be folded into other ongoings, or remain their own thing or even be a co-feature with another lagging ongoing Power Man and Iron Fist style.
I'm pretty excited, as I dropped everything DC except for Batman stuff and Flashpoint and some tie-ins. I love the characters but man it has been rough for a while and it needs a fresh start.
Steaaaaaaam
I think Batman and Robin is more or less in the right place to get relaunched. It doesn't have a steady creative team, and it's purpose has wained since INC. was launched.
And while Detective and Batman might have new story pushes or even creative teams, I highly doubt they'll renumber them.
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That is, at earliest, a year and a half or so away.
Plenty of time to renumber it back to 900 when the time comes.
and Detective is hardly the flagship Batman book, which is clearly Batman Inc.
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no one calls it Detective Comics ever
I admit that the publishing history is rather storied, but the whole renumbering and the renumbering again for an anniversary issue happens all the damn time
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The only real culprit of this in DC was the recent Adventure Comics relaunch which wasn't even a renumbering, just choosing to revive a series at it's old numbering instead of starting with a new number 1 and the Flash stuff, which was two different titles with two different names and stars. And that was still before they vocally stated that they preferred not to return to old numbering during the Wonder Woman thing.
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But even that was before Harris stepped in, so who knows.
To relaunching a hundreds of issue series? No.
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There's a difference between getting a new launch of Batman #1, which is a clean break, and getting a new Action Comics #1, which feels straight up wrong and ridiculous.
I entirely agree. I do hope that books like Power Girl, Batgirl, Batwoman and Red Robin continue, as I see no reason to stop or re-number them as they are already somewhat independant. Also I'm sure that there will be a new JLA book, and I'd love to see a JLI book with the Generation Lost team on it.
In any case, a re-structuring would be a great idea, it would help untangle DC's publication list, which honestly needs doing, and would allow great jumping on points. If this does happen, I reckon I'll be getting as much DC stuff as I do Marvel stuff now, maybe even more.
Action Comics, Superman, Batman, Detective, these books will not be renumbered. Superman might go back to "Adventures of" or something if DC tries to launch a third Superman title, that's it.
Looking at the Bat-verse, you have Batman, Batman and Robin, Batman inc, Batgirl, Batwoman, Red Robin and Detective Comics. They all started at different times and so have different numbering, often vastly so. You don't know exactly who stars in each book seeing as there are multiple Batmen right now, you don't know which books you need to get what is going on (Batman Inc, Batman and Robin, Detective Comics? Maybe?) and stuff like events are hard to get around. In Flashpoint everything is different, except the Batbooks are not affected at all, which seems weird to the new reader because there is this different Batman in Flashpoint.
A big restart of books would allow you to say "yes, these are the books for this time, they are similarly numbered, they have these distinct relationships etc." Especially considering that DC Trades are given a name but not a volume number or unifying theme, so it can be hard to tell which Batman story this is, where it is from and when etc.
Marvel make it easy to collect their comics. DC do not.
With the bat books, it's still fairly easy. Are Batman & Robin in B&R? Yeah. Dick is Batman, it says so in the little blurb with the creator credits. I just don't see it as being a problem. And I've just never seen numbering be a problem, I only think it's shady when books get to a number through some hoops like Hulk did and other characters take over the series with the original numbering. It may be a marketing strategy but it's still shady.
Green Lantern is the closest to being cohesive. GL, GLC and EW all have their own purpose and are pretty clear when they take place in relation to each other.
Batman is getting there, but I can understand how the 3 Batmen plus like 4 different titles starring said Batmen could be confusing to a new reader.
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Red Robin is part of the Batman universe, but you don't really need to read it unless you want to read about Tim Drake. Brightest Day may seem like an impossibly complicated arc, but you really only need to read the main book because the others make little to no difference.
The New Krypton stuff was a mess, but that's the only thing in recent memory that really stands out as being troublesome to new readers, if any actually tried to pick up the book during this time (Mon-El's story was still good). Despite Dick being Batman, he was still Batman appearing in the Batman book and B&R. That's completely fair.
With regards to current Superman titles, Action Comics has been used as a non-Superman title before, and making it Lex Luthor's Action Comics seemed a fair way to go. The same with Detective Comics and Batwoman. Would I have preferred Superman in Action Comics? Yes, especially with how bad Superman was, giving fans no place to get a current Superman story, but that isn't confusing when stacked up to Black Panther: Man Without Fear or Hulk or Incredible Hercules or Dark Wolverine.
I don't really get the criticism of Reign of Doomsday being across multiple books, that's the point of a crossover. Again, this has nothing to do with the actual content of the story and whether it was good or not, but in terms of being what it says on the cover and having the people in it, I do not see the difference between DC and Marvel being that apparent in terms of reader friendly, especially when you throw in the trade department. They both do things right, more often do things wrong.
And an even bigger slap is that the storytelling feels really decompressed somehow, which I don't think I've ever felt with Johns before. The first arc could probably have been done in 3 of 4 issues and still kept most of the awesome moments. The Digger and Zoom issues could've probably been combined with a hard split down the middle.
I hope the Hot Pursuit story is a lot better. I'll read that tonight after Parks & Rec ends.
It was even worse when it was coming out. Manapul couldn't stay on schedule so the book ending up shipping bi-monthly.
I ended up going through Hot Pursuit, and it was a lot better than that first arc, but something still felt off about it. I can't help but feel that it's all been nothing but exposition and padding for Flashpoint. Nothing really clicked or excited me that much.
Still, looking forward to Flashpoint. I'll read issue one of that before I go to sleep tonight.
the Hot Pursuit arc was very boring to me, but I liked Death of the Rogues a whole bunch
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anyone know the chronology to the blackest night story via TPB?
i have a little extra cash, and i want to pick up some comics (usually just buy tpbs). i'm pretty uninitiated as far as DC goes (i have read a ton of batman stuff, and read through the moore swamp thing), and wanted to give something recent of theirs a shot. is blackest night a good idea? haven't really read any lantern stuff, thought it looked kind of interesting.
picking up locke and key 2, 3, and pre-ordering 4; but, i wanted to throw some some more superhero style books in my order.
MooMan
Geoff Johns has been building up Blackest Night for his entire Green Lantern run, and he's actually done a great job of revealing the color corps and building the plot over the entirity of it. What to pick up and where to start really depends on how much you want to spend, though. Here's the entire trade list, in chronological order.
Green Lantern: Rebirth
Green Lantern: No Fear
Revenge of the Green Lanterns
Wanted: Hal Jordan
Sinestro Corps War, Volume 1
Sinestro Corps War, Volume 2
Tales of the Sinestro Corps
Rage of the Red Lanterns
Green Lantern: Secret Origin
Agent Orange
Blackest Night
Blackest Night: Green Lantern
I've limed the books that are the most essential to building up Blackest Night, and I've made the other volumes that I think are really good or add a lot to the story orange. I'd say get all the limed and oranged volumes if you can, but if it's not in your budget, just start with the limed ones.
Also, consider picking up the Emerald Eclipse and Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps volumes by Pete Tomasi and Patrick Gleason if you like the Johns stuff and want more. They're fantastic.
the last two have not been released in paperback yet, which lead me to do a bit of reading in the comments, which confused me even further (confusion in comic book chronology, no way!).
so, i looked up blackest night on wikipedia, which listed the following as the blackest night arc:
Blackest Night
Blackest Night: Green Lantern
Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps
Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps
Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps: Volume 1
Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps: Volume 1
Blackest Night: Rise of the Black Lanterns
again, confused even futher, as you only listed the first two. so, i notice the left overs are done by other people, which you mentioned.
still curious, i pushed on and noticed this on wikipedia, as well:
""Sinestro Corps War" is the second part of a trilogy in the Green Lantern storyline, preceded by the 2005 miniseries Green Lantern: Rebirth. The conclusion of "Sinestro Corps War" sets up the third and final part of the trilogy, Blackest Night, which was published in 2009."
so, what you have listed is the first two parts of the arc with the beginning of the third? but, as they're not all geoff johns' books they may not have the same quality as all the ones you listed? is this a correct interpretation?
fucking damn this shit can get convoluted.
- i'm thinking i'm going to pick them all up, short of the last two. as, nothing past blacked night is in paperback, yet. or, would i be screwing myself out of the climax of the arc?
MooMan
Yeah, most of those are just throwaway tie ins.
I'll put it this way
Blackest Night IS Blackest Night. It's all the big event stuff.
Blackest Night: Green Lantern is sort of a "deleted scenes" of Blackest Night. It adds a lot more detail to everything, and shows what Hal Jordan and the other color Lantern leaders were doing when they weren't on screen in the main series.
Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps shows what was going on on the GL homeworld of OA during the whole thing. It's actually really good, but it's not essential to the main story. If you pick it up, also pick up Green Lantern Corps: Emerald Eclipse.
Tales of the Corps is back story on the other color lanterns. Not essential
Black Lantern Corps 1 and 2 are really, really awful tie ins that don't advance the plot at all. Don't bother.
Rise of the Black Lanterns is a really shitty event gimmick they did where they revived a bunch of dead series for one issue. Make sure you don't waste time on it; it's not that good.
You'd be fine just getting Blackest Night and nothing else, and if you do get something else I'd make it Blackest Night: Green Lantern Corps.
MooMan
maybe the re-numbering, but this sounds like it could be something more. I think DC might be about to do a heroic age type thing, which would be good for them.
That's what I'm thinking at least, DC wouldn't be stupid enough to undo the Super-marriage with Flashpoint, would they?
And on DC's blog, DC says this:
Superman needs help more than JLA, really. At least in terms of importance, it looks really bad when Batman's family is doing so well (save for Finch) yet Superman is limping along.
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that's not young