DC Reboot: A Second Printing Interview With Second Printing (by Second Printing)

I'm not blowing smoke when I say that Devon Sanders is one of the most astute observers of comics culture (from the printed material to the back rooms of comics shoppes) that I know. I'm sure you, if you're following this sporadically updated blog, think much the same. So, like me, you've probably been wondering what our Mr. Sanders has to say about the DC Reboot. I can't speak for you, but his opinion is the one I've been most looking forward to hearing and I just couldn't wait anymore. So, rather than wait I went to the man himself and asked him, interview style.

GRAIG: You've said in discussion in the recent past that you're not really all that enthused by the mainstream anymore. What does get you excited about comics these days?

DEVON: A lot gets me excited about comics, nowadays. Comics are just this wonderful thing where imagination is your only limit. I love it when creators take something you think you're incredibly intimate with and make it seem new. My current new favorite comic is Batman, Incorporated. Writer Grant Morrison just keeps proving that there's so much more to say and new ways to say within the superhero genre.

What I love about comics these days is just that so many of them are just so damn thoughtful. You look at something like 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente and you don't have to be a baseball fan or black in order to get this. It's a story about a man. You could do this story anywhere; print journalism, documentary film but writer/artist Wilfred Santiago just knew the best way to tell this story was comics. That's a powerful statement. i mean, that's some Ken Burns-type shit right there, man.

Comics, as a medium allows for these types of powerful statements. The Kickstarter program is a great example of creators, fans and patrons taking comics' destiny into their own hands. It's inspiring, really.

I like that folks aren't looking to superheroes or The Big Two to make their way in the world as much.

What are you reading regularly from the Big Two these days, and of those, what are you actually enjoying?

Batman, Inc. is pretty much it. Sad to see it go. Really looking forward to J.H. Williams' Batwoman series, too. My monthly title isn't done by The Big Two. It's Oni's The Sixth Gun. It's just this genre-bending title that you can give to a horror fan and they'll just get it. Any fan of Westerns will get it.

I like comics that aren't necessarily dependent on intimate knowledge of continuity. The older I get, the less sentimental I am about continuity. Don't get me wrong, I still love the fact that someone wants to reward my capacity for ancillary knowledge but man, I don't need catering to like that anymore. Surprise me.


You had a wry post on your Twitter feed about the relaunch ("Oh, man! These new DC Reboot solicits look horrid. It's like they're trying to do "Hunger Games" with their sales.") but overall have been pretty quiet about it. As a comics fan, how do you feel about DC relaunching all of their titles and tweaking their characters/continuity?

Man, you should have seen my initial response. It was all "NERD OUTRAGE!!!!!" Having seen the entire 50-plus solicits, it's honestly turned more into, "I-wish-you-the-best," type of thing. It just looks sort of desperate. Like, "This is it." Like, it's DC Comics' "Hail Mary" pass or something. "Everything you know is CHANGED!" It won't, really. There'll be even MORE Batman comics out than ever before after this but the difference is that for one month, they'll all be Number Ones. Most likely for reasons of intellectual property. Let's be honest. Superheroes are nothing but IP mines right now. Publishing comics is no longer a priority. It's about creating and preserving properties to bring to the greater public. We, the comics readers, aren't the legion we were even five years ago. We're in the tens-of-thousands now and constantly being catered to and quite frankly, to the point where DC is probably sick of us.

What I don't like is DC has stringing along its longtime print readers to believe that with each issue, each crossover, they were making an investment in and a journey with their characters, only for them to say, "Fuck. We're done. We don't care if you cared about the creators, the characters. We need to make a sound folks who care about Superman's citizenship status can hear."

DC's money is in getting kids into Batman pajamas and getting their parents to buy Superman fruit snacks. The movies they make are commercials for that, not your comics. Anyone who ever believed that movies generated comics income never worked in a comics shop.


...So from a retail perspective...

I don't feel great about it but I have to say, I admire the effort. Anything that could potentially bring in new and more importantly, long term readers to our hobby is more than welcome. The execution is just so fucking wrongheaded, though. 52 releases in one month's time in an already struggling economy? I just can't see it working, even under the best economic conditions.

I think we'll see an initial sales bump, of course, but I seriously expect half of the announced titles won't be around this time next year. I believe DC is in a "Heroes Reborn" scenario where they may have to put things back within a years time.

As far as "day and date" goes? Good. Great. Love it. Had to happen. Glad someone big finally had the balls to do it. If you run a great comics shop, you should welcome the opportunity to work harder against anything that could take money from your hands.

Personally, I'm going to use this as an opportunity that should anyone new walks into the store having read any of this digitally to introduce them to comics in its truest form. Comics are meant to be this tactile thing. At the end of the day, we don't know yet if anyone can't wait to go home and sit with a stack of nothing to put on your bookshelf.


Without getting into specifics about each title or grouping of titles, are there any things, generally, that stand out as a terrific and/or terrible ideas about all this?


We've been conditioned to certain things from DC:

Hellblazer is a Vertigo character and a dick. And now, this chain-smoking piece of shit's Justice League? Come on! I can't buy that. Literally, I cannot buy that. It just flies in the face of everything I know.

Grant Morrison's Action Comics title is the one true gem amongst the others. I expect some magic here.

It seems that 90% of the established characters have had a costume overhaul for the reboot. In general, did they go too far? Not far enough? Or did they just approach the visual redesign from the wrong angle?


A lot of it looks like, "Hey' let's see if this works." I like that DC's trying new things but does anyone truly expect Mr. Terrific to pull in Batman numbers? Nope. What we're seeing from DC is an admission that only certain thing work well over there. The core Batman and Green Lantern titles went virtually untouched simply because they sold well previously. They weren't broken, sales-wise, so why fix them. And Justice League featuring these bestselling characters got their top-tier writer and artist. That's what should be happening there but hadn't for too long actually.

As far as design goes, this is superhero comics. It all should look a bit gaudy and interesting. DC seems to get that. In spades. With the collars. Everyone gets a Jim Lee pearl necklace!


I'm assuming you've seen the list of the titles debuting. Anything missing that surprises you DC didn't include in the reboot? In general what do you think about the range of titles offered?

I was surprised but not shocked at the lack of a Justice Society title. DC seems to be headed towards a youth movement at the moment. I was truly surprised that DC seems to be moving towards a "unified" Earth where the Milestone, Vertigo and Wildstorm characters can interact easily.


What about creative teams overall? There's a lot of recognizable names from the early-mid 90's Marvel, and early-era Image. Do you think DC is playing it too safe/generic and/or too set in the past?

And the creative teams, overall, are underwhelming. It seems like DC's banking on nostalgia and ignorance. If I discovered Rob Liefeld on Hawk and Dove as a sixteen year old, what makes you think that in my thirties I'd be nostalgic for his lack of artistic progression?

And while, I applaud a new Blue Beetle title, it's being written by someone who's work I tend to avoid because his name has sort of become synonymous with DC being ready to cancel a title. They've conditioned us to know this and are banking on new readers' not knowing or caring who the creators are.


There are some books I'm curious about because I like the writer or creative team, and others I'm cocking an eye at because I like the character. Are you more or less likely to read a DC book that contains a favourite character of yours (say The Savage Hawkman) now that they're being rebooted and how much does the creative team impact your decision?

Not even interested in the new Savage Hawkman series. It just doesn't look like Hawkman to me. DC's sort of had a hard time figuring out what they would like for him to be, of late. Having him go "savage" just doesn't feel right for some reason. Feels too "Marvel." Plus, Tony Daniel as writer just isn't doing it for me. I tried reading his Batman and it just didn't do it for me.


Besides the usual top-tier mainstays like the Batman, Superman, Green Lantern and Justice League books, do you think any of these titles -- from such a superficial perspective as a a quick blurb, creative roster and cover image (quite literally judging a book by its cover) -- has breakout potential?


Of all the titles out there, I am sort of looking forward to a Stormwatch featuring The Martian Manhunter and The Authority's Hawksmoor, Apollo and The Midnighter. It seems to be taking the most advantage of this new shared universe. The part of me that still loves universal crossovers will kind of enjoy this.


As a rough estimate, how many of these titles do you think will last past the first year?

I, truthfully, don't expect this to be around for that long. I think superhero comics are moving into "houses," where if you're not in a Superman "house" or The Justice League "house," there's really less and less of a place for you. That said, as long as the rocket crashes down in Kansas and the little boy's parents are gunned down in Gotham, comics, as we know them, don't really change all that much.


Thanks Devon.
Coming Soon, Second Printing tackles (with earnestness and acerbity alike) the 52 new releases coming in September.

The New DC

Back in the 1980's the phrases "We're not just for kids anymore" and "These aren't your dad's comics" were rather ubiquitous, part of an intentional marketing effort from the publishers at holding onto readership as they got older by skewing their titles towards their changing interests and sensibilities. They did their job a little too well, to the point where the new readership from younger generations isn't making up for the atrophy of the older generation. Comics, especially the mainstream superhero comics, aren't for kids. They're for teenagers at best, and by that age, if they haven't hooked them already, then they're competing with movies, television, video games, countless on-line and hand-held distractions, and, let's be frank, drugs and sex.

I'm not saying that comics need to be for kids again, not solely, as there have been some pretty good offerings from the big two and beyond (Boom's Pixar books or Bongo's Simpsons comics or even Archie for example), but there's also not a good transition point between the kiddie books and the shared universe books, because, as we all know, continuity is the greatest barrier to entry that faces the mainstream.

In that regard, a relaunch/reboot/tweaking of the establishment's nipple is just what DC needs right now. It's what the industry needs right now. A ground floor, an entry point for new readers, and one that hopefully won't isolate the old, but instead intrigue and entice them, and draw others in with them. It's not unprecedented.

If you point back across DC's history, there was the Golden Age, the dawn of superheroes, where they were created fresh for the mid-war and post-war generation. Powerful American icons to both inspire and distract their audience. 20 years later, the Silver Age, where those old heroes were revamped for a then-current audience. Their powers more grounded in "science", their stories reflecting the economic and cultural growth of the country. Another 20 years passed, to a name-yet-to-be-decided era (bronze age?), when heroes became completely wrapped up in their own world, reflecting less the real world and providing a full-fledged, shared universe for the readers to escape into, full of nuances to be explored and continuity errors to bitch about. Another 20-plus years have passed, and there hasn't been that same flip of the switch to bring the characters into the modern world. The transition has actually happened, somewhat organically, but the characters and universe is still mired pretty deeply in a convoluted continuity. So it's happening now.

It is all happening rather suddenly mind you, and releasing 52 new books in one month is perhaps a tad overwhelming, but it's also can be exciting. To look at it one way, each character, whether it's Superman, Firestorm, or Grifter, they're all starting on equal footing in September. Of course, the bigger characters have the advantage of the recognition factor... even if he's different, you still know who Batman is, as opposed to Deadman who may be a complete unknown to most people. But the potential is there for characters to break out (Mr. Terrific is getting his own series!) where they may have been relegated to the background before. Stripped of all past baggage, a character like Hawkman done as a modern Indiana Jones or Aquaman as eco-terrorist could lend them an air of relevance they've never actually had, and in a global context, rather than simply an American one. The DC pantheon has for too long been focused primarily upon serving the American audience, even in dealing with things on a universal scale. Broadening the scope of their books to an international level (as Grant Morrison has been striving to do for the past few years with, amongst other things, the Great Ten and Batman Inc.) would make sense where the internet and 24 hour cable news puts us face to face with the rest of the world every day.

DC going day-and-date with their relauch/reboot is as bold and positive a step as the relaunch/reboot itself. If the purpose of tweaking and re-engineering their characters is to appeal to a modern audience than so to is addressing the digital age head on. It will be interesting to see how this digital plan impacts the brick-and-mortar stores. I don't see it having much of an immediate impact on weekly floppy sales, but I think trade paperback sales may pick up a little more as digital readers seek out a physical copy (the same way someone buys a dvd after seeing a film in theaters a few months prior), and it could have effects both ways on the aftermarket as physical copies of a hot issue may be in greater demand (but less supply) while an average book may have little to no afterlife if a digital version is always available.

What do I think of the New DC? It's necessary.
How it plays out, I'm not sure. I don't have a complete sense of what the corporate directive is behind the relaunch, except to help strengthen DC's market share. From a story/universe perspective, we're still awaiting details on what's being handed down. Women in pants, apparently, but what else, I can only speculate (as I did a bit yesterday).

Let's see where we are on the confirmed titles front (commentary by me in italics):

1) Justice League #1 by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee
Jim Lee probably shouldn't be designing costumes. Perhaps they should employ, you know, a costume designer. I'm honestly not even sure the guy should be drawing anymore. His comics look as '90's as Liefelds.

Four Green Lantern titles (via CBR)
Spinning out of War of the Green Lanterns, it would appear things are status quo, or moving forward as planned without much reboot-like impact. But we'll see.

2) Green Lantern #1 by Johns and Doug Mahnke w/ Christian Alamy
As long as Mahnke is drawing, I'll be reading

3) Green Lantern Corps #1 by Peter J. Tomasi and Fernando Pasarin w/ Scott Hanna

4) Green Lantern: The New Guardians #1 by Tony Bedard and Tyler Kirkham w/ Batt

5) Red Lanterns #1 by Peter Milligan and Ed Benes w/ Rob Hunter

via Bleeding Cool

6) Wonder Woman #1by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang
I'm totally sold on the creative team, as for what they do with the character, well, I'm hesitant

7) Aquaman #1 by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis
I'm hopeful Johns has something good in mind here. It has to be much, much better than in Brightest Day

8) Flash #1 by Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul
Is it still Barry Allen? Then no thanks.

9) The Fury Of Firestorm #1 by Ethan Van Sciver and Gail Simone (writers)and Yildiray Cinar (art)
Uhhh... I'll probably try it but I'm not expecting to like it

10) Hawkman #1 by Tony Daniel and Philip Tan
Not a fan of Tony Daniel's writing, and not a big enough fan of Hawkman to care what's new.

11) Green Arrow #1 by JT Krul and Dan Jurgens
See above, substitute "Dan Jurgents' art" for "Tony Daniel's writing" and "Green Arrow" for "Hawkman".

12) Justice League International #1 by Dan Jurgens and Aaron Lopresti
All I remember is Jurgens took over the League from Giffen/DeMatteis and added Maxima to the team and invented Bloodwynde. Pass.

13) Mister Terrific #1 by Eric Wallace and Roger Robinson
This is the first thing they've announced that actually has me stoked. I don't think I know Wallace as a writer but I'll keep optimistic.

14) Captain Atom #1 by JT Krul and Freddie Williams II
I have nothing against Freddie Williams II but his style all wrong for Captain Atom. Still, if this is a dimension/time hopping Captain Atom, I'll be happy.

15) DC Universe Presents #1 starring Deadman by Paul Jenkins and Bernard Chang
I'm assuming this is an anthology series with a rotating cast of creators and starring characers, but unlike the recent "The Brave And The Bold" series, it's a solo book instead of a team up book? But I am just assuming.


With definite (16-19):
Superman and Action Comics (perhaps with the involvement of Morrison, George Perez and Rags Morales)
Batman and Detective Comics (perhaps involving Jock and Greg Capullo and Dwayne Swierczynski)

Heavily rumoured (20-30)
Batgirl
Nightwing
Batwoman
Supergirl
Grifter
Omac (by Didio and Giffen)
Teen Titans (by Scott Lobdell and Brett Booth)
Birds of Prey
My Greatest Adventure (w/ stories by Aaron Lopresti and Kevin Maguire)
Legion Lost
Justice Society

Personal Speculation (because it's fun to do):(31-38)
Swamp Thing
Static
Legion of Super Heroes
Robin
Authority
Jonah Hex
Atom
Shazam/Captain Marvel

Reboot to the Head

You may have read the reports by now, that, as of the end of Flashpoint on August 31, DC is relaunching its entire line-up in September, with 52 series all beginning with new first issues. Now that the can of worms has been opened and the beans are spilled (they're bean worms), news and speculation is rampant. What we actually know is very little except that the DCUniverse is getting overhauled, big time.

One possible scenario is Flashpoint could be rewriting history/continuity, so that things are somewhat the same, yet different, in many ways to be revealed. As such with the first issue of each title it's possible we might join a character in-progress, perhaps we know them well, perhaps we don't know them as well as we think we do, or perhaps we don't know them at all. Their pasts may be unclear but that will provide writers the abililty to keep the parts of the past they want and discard the others (though I would not want to be the editor responsible for keeping all the rewritten continuity straight). Hopefully writers will look forward, instead of back, for the most part. But, unlike the "Superboy-punch" of not so long ago, this won't be a means to escape explaining something away, but instead a means of ignoring it altogether. Think the JJ Abrams Star Trek film, how it managed to forge its own path to go forth without completely ignoring or invalidating the past Trek lore.

Another possible scenario is the "coincidence" of 52. I have to wonder if there's not some correlation between the relaunch and the 52 universes introduced in the weekly series of recent yore. Dwayne McDuffie, rest his soul, was a big champion for each title operating as its own stand-alone universe, in a sense, able to incorporate or ignore the "Shared Universe" at its own leisure but not beholden to it in any way, shape or form. McDuffie postulated that the only continuity that would matter for a title is its own continuity. To exemplify, McDuffie explains about guest-appearances:

Guest Shots are permissible, but they only affect the continuity of the book they appeared in. If Flash does a guest-shot in Green Lantern, [where] there's no Empire State Building .... [this] Flash sees nothing wrong with that. Moreover, back in the pages of The Flash, the crossover story never happened.

.
To take his system even further, say if a creative team came aboard and wanted to completely reinvent the character or series, start at issue 1 with a whole new canon, they could. Much in the same way the Bond films work or even how characters like Batman get rebooted in cinema. Personally I think that each creative team should establish their character, their universe for the story they want to tell. If someone wants a ten year run on Batman, go for it, but then the next writer can take and leave what happened there in part or in total. The same as if another creator only wants to dabble in Blue Beetle's waters for a three issue arc, then give them a three issue series to do it in and reboot it again for the next writer.
The alternative to the "Mono-Earth" scenario would be each of these 52 series be their own universe, but part of a larger universe in such a way that, say, Green Lantern's book would have its own Flash, but if he wanted to cross over with the Justice League, he would need to dimension hop and ultimately there could conceivably be 52 iterations of each character? My brain hurts a little thinking about it that way.

But enough speculation on how it will play out, the other speculation is on what series will be involve and what it means for existing books.

Revealed:
Justice League written by Geoff Johns, illustrated by Jim Lee, with a "big seven" focus sort of like Morrison's JLA or the Justice League cartoon. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Flash, Cyborg. (Also, apparently, akin to Morrison's JLA, a sub-roster of 7 other heroes).

Hinted:
Superman and Action Comics (perhaps with the involvement of Morrison, George Perez and Rags Morales)
Wonder Woman (maintaining the new costume but distancing itself from the JMS character relaunch)
Adventure Comics (starring Deadman) (with the rumoured involvement of Gail Simone)
Batgirl (Barbara Gordon... so long Steph?)
Nightwing (also with the rumoured involvement of Simone)
Batwoman (it was likely delayed intentionally to coincide with the September relaunch)
Justice League International (as was promoted at the end of "Generation Lost")
"Team Lantern" - A team book featuring an ensemble of rainbow Lanterns
Green Lantern - Geoff Johns still involved
Aquaman - Also Johns with Ivan Reis
Hawkman with James Robinson and Philip Tan
Birds of Prey (Simone-less)
Teen Titans by Fabian Nicieza
Justice Society (new creative team)

Rumoured:
Firestorm
OMAC (with the involvement of Scott Kolins and/or Dan DiDio and Keith Giffen)
Legion Lost

No Mention, But Obviously:
Batman
Detective Comics
Robin
Green Arrow
Flash

A Good Chance Of:
Swamp Thing
Martian Manhunter
Legion of Super-Heroes (a title which could continue almost entirely unscathed)
Static (or Static Shock)
Supergirl

A Less Good Chance of:
Booster Gold
Blue Beetle solo series
Cyborg solo series
Superboy

Going Bye-Bye? :
Zatanna
Secret Six

I suspected that the lack of a letter column meant they were done for:
Xombi
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents

September

WOAH!

...processing...

commentary to come.

Taking a look at the August Solicits

Ever since I started frequenting a brick-and-mortar/direct market/LCS or whatever you want to call it, I've played the prognostication game, looking 2 months into the future and determining what it is exactly I will be buying. For a decade it was through the medium of Diamond's Previews that I would conduct my fortune telling/dispensing, but for the past decade the internet has just as ably enabled me to do so, though I don't tend to rummage around the smaller-presses as much anymore. I use this future-telling to gauge my general interest in the big guns, an interest that's in an ebb -rather than flow- state right now.

DC Comics

Green Lantern Titles - with the exception of the main GL title I've been avoiding these. I read Green Lantern almost solely out of appreciation for Doug Mahnke's artwork (see also Nicola Scott on Teen Titans), but there isn't even a new issue solicited for August (likely due to Johns' busywork on Flashpoint?). My eyebrow doesn't even twitch at the pairing of Guy Gardner and Batman in August's "Emerald Warriors".

Flashpoint 4-5 - "IMPORTANT NOTE: Because of its impact on the DC Universe, FLASHPOINT #5 is the only title that DC Comics is soliciting in this catalogue to arrive in stores on August 31."
This almost makes me want to read it... almost... but then I remember that EVERY even book has promised to impact the DCU in major ways, and they rarely ever do.

Other Flashpoint Titles - Skip. Not even going to bother reading the solicit text. Don't care. Skip.

DC Retroactive - wow, something I'm actually excited for here... because I'm old... and I believe the glory days of comics were in my youth, so comics that directly recall the 80's and 90's are, like, totally speaking to me man! I'm both being honest and sarcastic. I don't think there is an actual comics heyday. There are good comics that come out of every decade, just as there are trends which typify the times they were published in, for better or worse. I truly am looking forward to more than a few of these, the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire reunion most of all (starring the Injustice League). But to quibble a bit, Giffen/DeMatteis' 5-year run Justice Leauge started in '87 ended in '92, so they were as much the 1980's than the Detroit league. But the '80's Retroactive JLA by Gerry Conway, featuring the Detroit League might be fun, or it might be as horrendous as the JLA Classified issues that featured the Detroit League (years ago I wrote a long diatribe on how awful that story arc was, but it was lost when the computer crashed with no recoverable file).

It's also curious to me why Ron Randall is handling art on the 80's JLA Retroactive, same as Sergio Cariello on the 80's Superman Retroactive, and Mike Bowden on the 90's Flash Retroactive. None of these artists are representative of those books or the eras. I'm not even sure who Mike Bowden is. I'm quite excited to see Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove on Superman again. Bogdanove's style was eccentric but by the time they finished their work on Man of Steel and Steel, I was a firm supporter. Other awesome returns, Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle on 90's Batman and Bill Loebs on both 80's Flash (Loeb's Flash was '88-'92, but I guess getting Cary Bates and Carmine Infantino together for a pre-Crisis 80's Flash reunion was out of the question?) and 90's Wonder Woman.

Detective Comics #881 - wait, what? "the extra-sized conclusion of the acclaimed run by Scott Snyder, Jock and Francesco Francavilla." Great Hera, why? As much as I've enjoyed Morrison's Batman stuff, Snyder's 'Tec has been absolutely incredible Batman. DC doesn't often capitalize of their Vertigo talent (Marvel tends to steal them away) but this was a masterstroke. They should keep this gang together until at least issue 900.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #10 - To be honest, I was expecting this to be the last issue ('specially since issue 7 came out this week and still doesn't have a letters column, which either means they're so far ahead in their production schedule that they couldn't accommodate it yet or it's not going to be around long enough to start one. See also Xombi. I'm happy "this ain't the end -- not by a long shot".

Night Force HC - At last! Because YOU demanded it... didn't you? Because I didn't...

Showcase Presents: All-Star Comics Vol.1 - me and comics from the 1970's don't get along very well. I want to like them but I find them frequently difficult, cheesy, patronizing and unreadable. But 448 pages of Earth 2 insanity from Paul Levitz and Gerry Conway for $20 bucks, sold!

The New York Five TP - I knew I didn't need to buy the floppies. Good ol' predictable Vertigo.

Batman Black and White Statue By Sergio Aragones - Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha



Marvel Comics

Fear Itself - If it's not obvious by now, I'm a DC guy more than a Marvel guy and since I generally avoid all Marvel's event books nearly everything with a "Fear Itself" tag I'm skipping. Even though I really dig Cullen Bunn's work (his awesome Superman/Batman story Sorcerer Kings wrapped up this week and is collected in HC in August), I'm not getting The Deep nor am I getting Homefront despite my general affinity for Speedball. I'll probably get Herc in TPB just as I did the entire Incredible Hercules run.

Ultimate Fallout/Hawkeye/Ultimates - I'm enjoying pretty much everything Jonathan Hickman and Nick Spencer are writing these days so I should really check this out, despite the fact that I haven't read an "Ultimate" book since Ultimate Hulk vs Wolverine and don't care so much (or at all) about the Ultimate universe.


Amazing Spider-Man/Spider Island - It's been quite a few years now since Dan Slott became sort of the key guy on Spider-Man and I've been meaning to check out some of his stuff (is the Spider-Man: Infested collection solicited this month a good read?), but then it all comes back to the fact that I don't really like Spider-Man all that much that keeps me away. As for this "Spider Island" thing, Nick Spencer doing Cloak and Dagger intrigues me (see Ultimate Fallout above) and that Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu book look pretty rad.

Secret Avengers #16 - Warren Ellis? Jamie McKelvie? Sold. Wait. $3.99? Waiting for trade!

Captain America and Bucky #621/Captain America #2 - Brubaker's Cap is still going strong and an incredible read but this reminds me of that one time I was playing blackjack and winning, and got cocky and so I started playing two hands at once and very quickly lost everything (fake money thankfully). I'm worry there's not enough Cap juice in Bru's tank for two Cap monthlies.

X-Men/Iron Man/Thor - skip.skip.skip. The X-universe, despite having some writers I like on books in there, is just far too convoluted for me to wade into. Iron Man, outside of the movies, never really sustained my interest much (I like Ellis, Fraction, Nick Spencer but not enough to read Iron Man regularly). Thor... Thor... What is it good for? Absolutely nothin', say it again. Thor bores the tits off me.

The Punisher #1 & #2 - Big Guns Greg Rucka and Mark Chichetto (who?) take on Marvel's bad-ass vigilante. I know the Punisher has his fans, but personally it seems like after reading one Punisher story, you kind of read them all. If Rucka can shoehorn in some political conspiracy or clandestine organizations, however, it could be fun...I'll wait for the reviews to come in.

Mystery Men #4 - every time I see this I think of the Bob Burden Flaming Carrot spinoff and get a little disappointed I'm not going to see new adventures of Mr. Furious, the Spleen et. al. But even still, this looks kind of nifty.

S.H.I.E.L.D. #2 - Yay, S.H.I.E.L.D. is back.

X-Statix Omnibus - $125. 1200 pages. How does one read a 1200 page omnibus. One runs the risk of having their chest crushed if they fall asleep reading in bed. Anyway, X-Statix was pretty awesome, for its time. I wonder if it still holds up.

Image Comics


The Infinite #1 - Uh oh... Liefeld's back. Shoulder armor. Check. Thigh-belts. Check. Pouches. Check. Absence of feet. Check. It feels like 1991 all over again.

Malinky Robot: Collected Stories and Other Bits TP - I have some of this stuff from old Slave Labor printings, but Sonnie Liew is a damn phenomenal artist and his work is worth buying twice.

Morning Glories Vol. 2 TP - after reading the first volume I've been patiently waiting for this, resisting the siren call of the monthly floppies. So close, yet still so far away.

50 Girls 50 #3 Girls + Frank Cho= ... What? Cho's writing and not drawing? Why? WHY?

The Light At The End of the Brightest Day Tunnel

The bi-weekly "epics" Brightest Day and Justice League: Generation Lost both ended last week. Me being the Giffen-era Justice League fan I am I stuck with JL:GL through to the bitter end, while I abandoned Brightest Day about halfway through as it was doing little to sustain my interest.

I skimmed through the final two issues of Brightest Day last week at the comics shop, half a mind to perhaps pick them up and see how this thing closed out, but the wallet won out and I shelved them again. My curiosity was piqued however (SPOILERS ahead) as Martian Manhunter, Hawkman and Hawkwoman, Firestorm, and Aquaman became the earth, wind, fire and water elementals (respectively) in the 23rd issue to, seemingly, combat a Black Lantern Swamp Thing. Having these characters become elementals seemed like an interesting thing to do, and a rather monolithic change (except for Firestorm who has been the fire elemental in the past) for these characters. Of course, this was reversed in the final issue, Swamp Thing has returned to the land of the living (and the land of the superheroes) with John Constantine not far behind. So, it would seem, ultimately, the point of Brightest Day was to reintroduce a couple Vertigo characters back into the DCU proper. I didn't actually read the whole thing, but this is my impression anyway.

Over in JL:GL(the whole thing I did read and reviewed over at CHUD) - itself tangentially connected to Brightest Day - Maxwell Lord was reborn and decides to make the world forget he ever existed, which frees him to do whatever the hell he wants. The only exception is his former teammates in the JLI - Captain Atom, Booster Gold, Fire and Ice - haven't forgotten him and a cat-and-mouse chase ensues. (More SPOILERS) There's a lot of hinting at Max instigating a dystopian future, essentially bringing about the events of Kingdom Come using Magog as a pawn. But that doesn't come to pass and Max's grand designs ultimately are revealed to simply be revenge on Wonder Woman for killing him the first time. But he doesn't succeed in killing Wonder Woman, he's forced to lift his cloud of forgetfulness off the world (everyone remembering who he is once again, but with the complication that people don't remember who Wonder Woman is because of the events in her book, so they don't remember seeing her kill him), and he gets away to make a youtube video that is supposed to acquit him of all wrong doing in public perception. And Batman reforms the Justice League International... new series coming soon.

In both cases, these 24-issue, bi-weekly non-events were constructed as a gateway to new series. In the case of Brightest Day it's to bring Swamp Thing back to the DCU, in JL:GL, to launch a new, less funny, less heartfelt, less Giffen-y Justice League International. In both cases, it seems like a long way to go, and a lot of demand on the readers' wallets just to launch some new series.

If you want a new Swamp Thing or a new Justice League International title, then just launch them. You don't need to go through the whole pretense of an epic mini-series to get to that end. Quite frankly the experience of JL:GL has had the opposite effect than what I think TPTB at DC had intended. I don't want to revisit the Justice League International anymore. I'm done with that concept. It was awesome back in the late 80's, and the little things Giffen, DeMatteis and Maguire have done over the years to stir up nostalgia were good, but this series didn't rekindle any of that fire and having a new Justice League International series, starring a fuzzy facsimile of the old cast, only seems like pissing on goodwill of the original. Dare I say it, it feels somewhat like the Star Wars prequels in that regard.

I had initially hope Brightest Day would be the testing ground for a new Justice League series starring Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Firestorm, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Deadman, capturing the eclectic second-string feel of the book from the late 70's early 80's, but it instead seems to be angling for individual series for these characters. Had they launched a new Martian Manhunter, Firestorm or Aquaman series instead, I probably would have read all three with more interest than some "event book" that took its time in connecting the threads (if it ever did). And now, if there are new books for those characters, I'm not entirely sure how interested I am in them.

I'm feeling a little bitter about my JL:GL experience and even about my Brightest Day experience (despite bailing early). I think a maxi-series of 24 issues should contain a full, enriching story and not be just and excuse to lead you elsewhere. I'm not saying it has to be as good as Watchmen, but it should at least strive for that level of completeness and complexity. 52 is perhaps the better benchmark, having juggled multiple stories from multiple creators, but all of them completed and satisfyingly so. That derivative series were launched from 52 was more a result of the strength of the series and not some put-upon mandate to lead the reader into something else to try and achieve the completeness that should have already been offered.

Am I wrong? I certainly can justify this feeling with JL:GL but did I otherwise miss something in Brightest Day or is it as it seems, a 24-issue series designed to bring Swamp Thing back? Were the individual arcs for the other characters satisfying in their conclusion or were they left open-ended?

Versus: Batman (DC Comics) Vs. Jack Hawksmoor (DC Comics)

Gotham City has seen plague, quake and infestation. The Joker, once again, poisons her waters. Gotham can take no more, the rivers turn red and with one last gasp, Gotham cries out for healing. Meanwhile, secluded in The Batcave, Batman, unable to stop The Joker's rampage, is hard at work on a cure. Somewhere, deep within The Bleed, a lone figure hears Gotham's plea.

He will put an end to Gotham's suffering, once and for all, no matter who he has to go through...

BATMAN, THE GOTHAM KNIGHT

 VERSUS 

JACK HAWKSMOOR, THE KING OF CITIES...

Second Printers, YOU DECIDE...