Lest We Forget

It's time to say good-bye.

To the Secret Six,

I never felt like you had a plan, a destination you were heading to, and I enjoyed that. Not every book needs to have an end game in place, in fact, that was kind of the point of comics was that characters could live on forever. Alas. You were twisted and weird and darkly funny, showcasing that, yes, villains are still human. All those freaky love stories and disturbing innuendo. Gail Simone, you made Catman respectable, you gave Bane an actual personality (and, finally, a reason why he should be a premiere Bat-villain), and your original creations, like Scandal Savage and Jeanette, despite their blah names were welcome additions to the DC canon. You will all be missed.

To Batgirl,

Stephanie Brown, what can I say? You got screwed. There are plenty of entertaining and exciting books on the stand each month, but yours was the most fun. I would like to think the New DC is born out of the "Batgirl" model, a hero who's already established, but still rough around the edges, still learning, still fallible, still struggling in their fight against crime. Not all heroes need to punch-out bad guys with a smile on their face, in fact it would seem rather out-of-place for most characters, but for Steph, you could tell she was having fun doing good. Hopefully you will be back, and soon, in the new DC... you're just too bright a character to be pushed aside.

To Xombi,

Well dude, the fact that after 15 years you got to have a comeback at all was freaking awesome. I'm not sure why you couldn't have been a Vertigo book and perhaps be granted a longer life, as you would seem far more at home there, alas, it was good to see you and your strange crew again. If it's true what they say about you, that you cannot die, well mate, I hope to see you again.

To the Teen Titans,

Oh Titans, you'd been so mishandled for so long that I thought you'd never get back to being what you once were, but with J.T. Krul in charge, you looked the part and acted it. You're adventures felt like vintage Wolfman-era Titans, but instead of George Perez's hyper-detailed settings, and super-sculpted figures, you had Nicola Scott's more natural take, exquisitely rendered environments populated by characters who looked less like comic book characters and more like people. When I see what they've done to you in the new DC, dear Titans, I feel immense sorrow for what we've just lost, and great pity for what's about to come.

To Oracle,

There's the old adage "Knowledge is power" and if that's the case then you were one of the most powerful characters in the DCU, capable of accessing virtually all knowledge stored or transmitted electronically. And you did it all from a chair, proving that the body doesn't always need to be strong to fight. You were an inspiration, not just to the handy capable but also to the wimps and tech geeks, the timid and the tredpidatious. You made us believe that we could still contribute by sitting on our asses. It's not a great message, really but there you go.

To Wally West,

I miss you, please come back.

EDIT:
To Action Comics and Detective Comics

Your longevity as titles is your legacy, and I'm sorry to see that taken away from you. You have both survived for many, many decades, and indeed will continue on for decades more, however your issue numbers are tragically being reset, which would be like McDonald's reformulating their hamburgers using soy instead and resetting all their volume served signs to "0". Action, you're less than a decade from your 1000th issue, which is a phenomenal feat, and doubtless there will still be a celebration in that honor, but it does actually mean less knowing that it's not contiguous as it should be.