Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities DC comics have lost me

The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Lash makes a good argument not to buy the big three. I read about them in the JLA and now Trinity.

JSA annual just got my interest back and hopefully their main title stops dragging. Speaking of dragging...man Marvel is really extending that Secret Invasion!

Is Terror Titans arc any good? Rann-Thanager Holy War?

A few of us thought the recent TERROR TITANS arc was surprisingly good, see the Teen Titans spoilers thread for more details.

I found it surprisingly enjoyable too. One side effect, and I risk spoiling a little for you, is the Titans lost my favorite member at story's end. Still, it feels like at any minute it could become a GREAT comic again. Much more so than JLA or Legion.

So maybe you can help me out , Jorge?

hey you know, i thought those other final crisis books would suck, but requiem made me bawl and rogue's revenge was really good (the first issue anyways!)!

i can't follow batman rip, unfortunately. it spans too many books and i don't know what order they go in (the checklist, it is useless). every issue i read of it something baffling was going on in it. so if some higher being than me wants to make a thread explaining it...

Batman RIP is exclusively in "Batman", all the other titles are tie-ins (some in name only), but don't affect or intersect with the main storyline. It's more like "Hey I wonder where the heck <insert character/team here> is while all this is going on."

So if you don't count Manhunter and Legion (since one was kind of imminent and the other will be relaunched), DC is cancelling all of the following soon:

(1) Blue Beetle

(2) Robin

(3) Nightwing

(4) Birds of Prey.

Wow, mass cancellations across the board and all the new titles DC has launched since Infinite Crisis have been cancelled.

Well, DC just sucks right now, that's why.

And if Bruce Wayne isn't really going to be Batman anymore (which I've always doubted), expect those sales to plummet.

They're now thinking Wonder Woman will get a second book (as if we needed that!). I doubt that will have any major effect.

This is probably the worst era of DC Comics in the history of the company. Worse than any point in the 90's, or 70's, or any time. I pray it is over soon in the next few years, and that Didio is gone and someone takes over that can *FIX* this company.

I do not plan to replace any cancelled DC Comics with another DC Comics. I'll simply allocate that money to Marvel or the independents. I basically only enjoy so few DC comics nowadays that I can count them on two hands, maybe even one.

It pleases me that DC can't touch the Vertigo characters--because *that* company (Vertigo) is sound. And DC would simply poison them. Thank the Lord that Swamp Thing, Constantine and several others are safe. Too bad DC got ahold of Animal Man.

Whoa - Birds of Prey is being cancelled!? Are you sure about this info, Cobie?

If their sales aren't up to snuff, they may want to cut back to their 'iconic' properties, like the JLA, and stuff that's selling well, like JSA, and dump the stuff that's just costing them money and not bringing in enough scratch to cover itself.

Granted, that way lies market shrinkage, extinction and death (which we learned from Michael J Fox in Secret of My Success, so we know it's true!), but companies do sometimes try to 'cut back to focus on our core competencies' as part of the long-drawn out death-rattle that occurs before they end up in the dustbin of history.

They try and try to define Wonder Woman as one of their big three, along with Superman and Batman, but her books seem to be universally ill-conceived and doomed to failure, and I refuse to believe that the genre doesn't appreciate strong female characters (in a world where we watch Seven of Nine, Aeryn Sun, Buffy Summers and this new Terminator, Cameron, beat the crap out of men twice their size), when I can instead blame it on the very core of the Wonder Woman character, who was created by a raging sexist as a weaker-sex version of Superman who gets half of her powers from magic jewelry, like some sort of Superhero Barbie.

I checked it out on newsrama - and #127 is the last issue of BoP. Doesn't Bedard have a history of writing titles before they get the ax?

Funny - the only 3 titles I am currently reading are Legion, Legion of 3 Worlds, and Birds of Prey. More money for me, I guess.

Yeah, same here Lance. Don't know why they'd cancel any of these titles really (sure, Nightwing has been relatively terrible and mediocre at best since since Devin Grayson, but still).

Dinah leaving BoP was a series killer. Only Gail could pull that off and only for a limited time. Once McKeever came on, he simply can do it without Black Canary and maintain the fan base. I'm not saying BoP is terrible, but it isn't as good as it was.

OK, that's it!!! All of you negative-Nancy, mopey-Mildred, whiny-Wilbur, Johnny comic book-dropping DC doom-sayers have got one thing coming!

...

And that's a thread from me in Gym'll's reminding everyone what DC is actually doing *right* these days!

See you there.

Saw your thread

The problem is what DC is doing right makes up so little of their huge line. But I also cling to those too (Jonah Hex, Ambush Bug, WW, Booster Gold, GL, GLC, Batman).

For so many years, hell ever two decades, DC was no doubt in my mind the superior company to Marvel and the rest of comics. But that's all gone now. Marvel is a much better company both (1) in the quality of the comics and (2) the integrity of the company. Yes, you heard that last one right. Marvel, who is long renowned these last twenty years as the 'trickster/huckster' has more integrity these days (and they are by far not saints, just ask Spider-Man fans).

DC deserves to be hated on . Because until there's major company wide change in its outlook and the spirit of the Company, we'll continue to get 'Decisions' and 'Terror Titans'.

Jonah Hex! A-ha! Thanks CK! You've just reminded me of one more book I can add to my 'DC is cool and rules over all others' list! Mwah-ha-ha-ha...

And your bringing up of the company that shall not be named (also called Marvel) has reminded me of another good thing DC has going for it - the difference in how much money fans would've spent collecting all of Secret Invasion compared to collecting all of Final Crisis (as reported on by Newsarama today). Mwah-ha-ha-ha again.

'Decisions' I will give you though. But we all know which "writer" gave us that turd and he is a pox on all our houses!

I still gravitate to DC, but in January I'll have 6 Marvel books on my list - never had more than one before this - Criminal, Incognito (the new Brubaker series), the three Marvel Noir and Guardians. Add Immortal Iron Fist trades for 7.

Both companies lose me with these massive crossover series. I haven't picked up any of the Final Crisis books apart from the first Morrison issue and Lo3W. The big 3 at DC - Supes, Bats and Wonder Woman, haven't interested me, apart from RIP - and we know where that's going. No Bruce Wayne, no Batman comics for me, unless they pull a rabbit out of the hat.

How much of SI is actually essential reading to understand the plot, though? Most of the tie-ins - and almost all of the better ones, like Incredible Herc, Nova and GotG - used the skrulls' invasion simply as a jumping-off point to tell their own story. There is no *need* to collect everything unless you're rich, obsessed or masochistic, and everyone should know that by now. And if you're *that* obsessed, you're probably buying everything anyway.

If the core story made all of the books required reading to understand the plot, your "Mwah-ha-ha" would be justified. It's not.

^^^ If it's good enough for Newsarama then it's good enough for my heavily biased argument!

Dan Didio derails FINAL CRISIS plans--editorial interference!!

Per Rich Johnson:
IT'S ARMAGEDDON 2001 ALL OVER AGAIN
A familiar source known collectively as "New York comics industry employees talking in bars" tells me that the last issue of "Final Crisis" is further delayed as it is suffering from serious rewrites. It appears that DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio was unhappy with the way the story concluded and the implications for the DC Universe for a while and had ordered changes from a, naturally, rather unhappy Grant Morrison. Considering this is the way he wrote the pitch for the book.

As a result, creative teams working on a number of spinoff and affected books have also had to stop work while the “Final Crisis” ending is reworked.

Expect more lateness, more annoyance and less likelihood of Grant Morrison doing DCU work in the near future.

IT GOES FURTHER:

Morrison is not the only person having difficulties with DiDio's direction. I understand that James Robinson and Dan had a stand up argument that led to Robinson quitting the Superman books and the DCU in general.

AND THEN:

Dan DiDio is currently in the process of recruiting film and TV writers for their books. The recent “Batman: Cacophony” by Kevin Smith and Walt Flanagan has been cited, apparently the script was perfect, with very little editing needed.

This, of course, would be the comic where the The Joker offers his bottom to be sexually violated by his rescuer, jokes about the colour of his pubic hair, a scene depicting genital torture and no sign of a Mature Readers tag.

Who needs guys like James Robinson and Grant Morrison anyway? Not when DC has things like rape and sexual torture ready to be used in all of its comics! Way to go Dan Didio!

Ouch ouch ouch!! I wonder if we'll find out how Morrison wanted to end Crisis.

I don't mind lateness if the book is good, but .... at this rate, maybe we'll get the Comics Code back. These stories have just gotten too sick and violent for us adults.

Alternative title for this news:

DAN DIDIO REINFORCES EDE'S LACK OF INTEREST IN CURRENT COMICS!

COBALT KID PREPARES ROAD TRIP TO MANHATTAN...IN THE SAME TRADITION AS THE FACELESS CREATURE!

This thread should be renamed

DC COMICS HAS TREATED ME LIKE THESEUS TREATED ARIADNE!

AT LEAST DR. WERTHAM NEVER RUINED DC COMICS!