Comics are Awesome III

[andersonh1]

The "New 52" branding will be gone after Convergence: http://multiversitycomics.com/news/dc-t ... s-in-june/

http://comicsalliance.com/?p=118892

Unless they incorporate the jettisoned history and characters back into DC's current line, it'll still be the same shallow, dreary DC universe we've seen for the past three and a half years, whatever they call it.

On the other hand, a Bat-Mite title? Really? And "We are Robin" could be good, if it's a team made up of all the former Robins. Though again, if all they have is the five year timeline they've tried to cram Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake and Damien Wayne into, I don't know how well that's going to work.

http://www.newsarama.com/23456-dc-revea ... -line.html

“In this new era of storytelling, story will trump continuity as we continue to empower creators to tell the best stories in the industry,” DC Co-Publisher Dan DiDio says in a press release announcing the June launch, which follows the company's two-month break for its line-wide Convergence event.

I wish Didio and a lot of other people would realize that continuity isn't an impediment to good storytelling.

And not that I'm reading the book currently, but: http://multiversitycomics.com/news/geof ... issue-run/

How many writers has that book had now, in only three years? And DC really hyped the combo of Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr. I'm convinced that one of the many problems some of these DC books have is lack of consistency. When the writer and/or artist change so often, how many people use that as a reason to drop the book? I wonder if part of Batman's solid sales are because Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo have been writing and drawing since the first issue?

[Dominic]

Johns/Romita is going to be expensive. Both are established talent and will command high salaries.

The "New 52" branding will be gone after Convergence:

It is hard to play something up as "new" after 3 years.

And, calling it "New 52", rather than "regular DC", gives people more grounds to say it is not "really" DC.

Who is Daniel Wilson? "Earth 2 Society"? Any word on what the books are actually about.

None of the creative teams are impressing me. (Giffen's "Justice League 3000" is the closest to getting me to buy in for a writer.)

Pak is not a bad writer. But, not sure he is good enough to get me to buy in for another DC ongoing (especially given how DC cancelled and trashed the last 3 or 4 I bought in for).

I wish Didio and a lot of other people would realize that continuity isn't an impediment to good storytelling.

I can partly agree with what Didio is saying. Quesada has been using that model for years now. And, while there were stumbles early on, the over-all results have been good. DC experimented with this model in the 90s using the "Elseworlds" imprint, and it led to some of the best comics they produced in those years.

But, I am not sure that DC has the talent pool to pull that off. If a comic is not rooted to other comics, it needs to be able to stand on its own. Given how much talent DC has driven off, I am not sure they can managed this.

And, making comic runs short-terms and self-contained is double-edged.

Good: It makes it easier for new or casual readers to buy-in on a series. This can lead to increased sales.

Bad: It makes it easier for casual readers to wander off.

Are new/casual readers going to stick around? Will casual readers be able to identify creative teams or some other trait that they will select comics for? If a book changes to much between runs, will the draw of a specific character be enough to keep readers interested?


I still plan to skip "Convergence". But, assuming that I can get more than one book on Free Comic Book Day, I will give DC one more chance after "Multiversity" has ended. ("Secret Wars" is still my first priority.)

[Sparky Prime]

Bizzaro and Bat-Mite? Not really sure those characters need their own ongoing series...

Green Lantern: Lost Army? Interesting title. Wonder who it'll star now that Guy, Kyle and John have all lost their own titles. Earth 2 Society is a bit surprising to see. Figured with that universe coming to an end so would any Earth 2 titles. Really wondering what this "We are Robin" book will be about. Cover makes it look like a legion of Robin's, which kinda makes me think of "Batman Inc."... Some interesting developments at any rate. Looking forward to hearing more about some of these new titles.

[Dominic]

Consider why "Earth 2" the book is ending. People whined about it not being the (damn near a century) old JSA characters.

DC may be wiping out the current Earth 2 to replace it with a retro Earth 2. The new "Earth 2 Society" is likely the book for that setting. The name is really stupid though, and is likely a feeble attempt to get fans of the current (soon to be ending) "Earth 2" to stick around.

I want to see the premise for the different books before buying in.

[Sparky Prime]

Consider why "Earth 2" the book is ending. People whined about it not being the (damn near a century) old JSA characters.

A lot of people also really enjoyed the book for what it was... until they started with all the death and destruction.

[andersonh1]

Consider why "Earth 2" the book is ending. People whined about it not being the (damn near a century) old JSA characters.

A lot of people also really enjoyed the book for what it was... until they started with all the death and destruction.

I wasn't one of those that enjoyed the book, because I was busy "whining" that it wasn't the original JSA. But yes, I think Sparky's exactly right, and the book sold fairly well until Robinson left, after which it's been declining at a faster rate. I think that has everything to do with how the book has become death and destruction all the time rather than the fact that it's new, younger versions of DC's Golden Age characters.

Consider why "Earth 2" the book is ending. People whined about it not being the (damn near a century) old JSA characters.

DC may be wiping out the current Earth 2 to replace it with a retro Earth 2. The new "Earth 2 Society" is likely the book for that setting.

The book I'd most like to see is one that brings back the original JSA on the original Earth 2. I doubt we'll get it, but if that's what DC actually does, I'd certainly enjoy it.

I'm not sure where they'd go with the current Earth 2, either the cast or the planet. There's not much of a planet or society left at this point.

[JediTricks]

Batman '66 One Shot - Two Face The Lost Episode - Harlan Ellison's writing is included in the back of this book along with a sampling of the pencils (to justify the inflated $10 pricetag for an issue and a half worth of actual content) and Ellison's raw writing is shit, I don't know how he can stroke his ego so fucking hard for so long with this being the outcome. I love that he stepped up and said "let's do something with Two-Face" when the show was is its infancy, and I like that he recognized key elements of Batman that the show needed, but his outline scripting sucks donkey balls and it's only Len Wein who saves the day here with some script polishing to convert it to comic format. The Alex Ross cover is great, it's weird and it's not quite Batman '66 in style but it's got a manic energy and good likenesses. José Luis Garcia-López's art is almost its own two-face, some panels it's a little more Batman '66 art style, and some panels it's more regular Batman comic book - Garcia-Lopez apparently thinks Adam West has got some killer traps! And then you have some panels where it's Batman comic book style but it's actually a gimmick where Batman is wearing white lenses over his eyes. It's not bad though, the coloring certainly has that Batman '66 energy. I would have liked a little more variety in the actual story beats, the locales do all the heavy lifting for variety while the characters repeat the same behaviors twice.

Grade: B (B- or C+ if you're not feeling that cover price)

Afterlife with Archie #7 - finally! This book took forever to come out. I got the awesome variant cover. The story is "Betty RIP" and of course she doesn't die, instead it deals with her recreating her diary and Polly is a slut who gets beaten by her boyfriend, Veronica a manipulative assface, and then hints at Betty and Archie getting it on in present day as our group spends weeks on the run outside of Riverdale, ending on Cheryl Blossom kills her incestuous twin brother Jason. Even though everything I just said was incredibly schlocky, the book pulls it off.

I just do not get the appeal of this book.

Much of that is probably my dislike of the zombie genre.

I suppose Veronica being a manipulative bitch is probably balancing out the fact that "Life with Archie" was set up so that whoever ended up with Veronica (Archie or Reggie, depending on the timeline) was better off over-all (and not just in terms of money). The idea of that series was the Veronica grew up to be more stable than Betty. (Only read a few issues. But, that was a definite theme.)

I hate the zombie genre, but this is working out pretty well. You are boiling down these existing comedy characters in a real-life stew that then takes all that and dumps it into a survival premise. Who is stalwart? Who is a backstabber? And why?

Wait, Veronica was the better ending to Life with Archie? What a crock of shit! She's an awful, spoiled cunt even in her best days.

You are probably the only person in the world who would complain about Darth Vader showing up in 'Star Wars'.

Having Vader show up and fight Luke so soon after the loss of the Death Star takes away from the impact of him showing up on Hoth several years later.

Yeah, that's why I didn't like the Marvel books back when I was a kid, too much stuff like that where it goes far beyond the movie-verse and feels exploitative of the brand rather than representative.

I don't think they ever explain why the Dominion came through early.

Maybe a result of Vulcan being destroyed? The loss of a major power might make the Alpha Quadrant look provocatively weak. (I dunno. I did not read the comic in question.)

They would have no knowledge of such things, they weren't exploring that far out, they were just massing their own empire in the Gamma quadrant.

Goddamn the New Coke Trek ruins everything it touches.

My Little Pony is outselling Transformers by quite a bit. Not quite sure what to think of that...

http://comicsbeat.com/indie-month-to-mo ... ge-rising/

166. Transformers vs. GI Joe #4 (IDW)
7/1/2014: Transformers Vs GI Joe #1 - 23,009
8/1/2014: Transformers Vs GI Joe #2 - 15,472 (-32.8%)
10/1/2014: Transformers Vs GI Joe #3 - 14,293 (-7.6%)
11/1/2014: Transformers Vs GI Joe #4 - 12,733 (-10.9%)

193. Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye #35 (IDW)
7/1/2014: Transformers More Than Meets Eye #30 - 9,395 (-1.6%)
8/1/2014: Transformers More Than Meets Eye #31 - 10,063 (+7.1%)
9/1/2014: Transformers More Than Meets Eye #32 - 9,857 (-2.0%)
9/1/2014: Transformers More Than Meets Eye #33 - 9,744 (-1.1%)
10/1/2014: Transformers More Than Meets Eye #34 - 9,670 (-0.8%)
11/1/2014: Transformers More Than Meets Eye #35 - 9,390 (-2.9%)


195. Transformers Robots in Disguise #35 (IDW)
6/1/2014: Transformers Robots In Disguise #30 - 9,714 (+1.8%)
7/1/2014: Transformers Robots In Disguise #31 - 8,706 (-10.4%)
8/1/2014: Transformers Robots In Disguise #32 - 9,762 (+12.1%)
9/1/2014: Transformers Robots In Disguise #33 - 10,815 (+10.8%)
10/1/2014: Transformers Robots In Disguise #34 - 9,418 (-12.9%)
11/1/2014: Transformers Robots In Disguise #35 - 9,354 (-0.7%)


199. Transformers Drift Empire of Stone #1 (IDW)
11/1/2014: TRANSFORMERS DRIFT EMPIRE OF STONE #1 - 9,246

Doesn't surprise me a bit, MLP is a book that has a multitude of crossover audiences, while TF books are basically for older kids and fanboys.

Look at the huge hits RID and Joe took! Not remotely surprising to me, although I'm actually disappointed at how little fanfare Empire of Stone came to - that's some bad marketing right there.

How the hell is Scioli's creative coproma out-selling the other two books?

It gets some of the regular fan market AND the hipster market AND the "comics r fun" market. What amazes me is the lack of a more significant decline from the missed deadline on issue 3, it means that a lot of people were keeping an eye out for its release.

Superman's new costume.

Basically it's just a few tweaks to his New52 costume. I like that the yellow belt buckle is back, but everything else just doesn't seem like it wasn't a necessary change to me.

The intent is to tone down the armor-ness of it, because WHY THE FUCK DOES SUPERMAN NEED ARMOR??? thinking. I hate the fingerless glove-sleeves though, this is dipshittery that tries to look futurey, and you add that to the remaining panel lines and lack of trunks to get something that looks puked out of the LOSH era.


I'm more interested in his new power though. Basically, Supes can now drain all his solar energy in one nuclear-like blast, leaving him drained of all powers for a day.

I have a feeling it isn't a bit of nineties comic trivia that is fondly remembered, but I liked the Electric Superman costume. The blue one, anyway. For some reason I thought the red looked awful, but blue was a-ok. It's a shame I didn't like more of the comics in which said suit appeared, though.

Agreed on both points.

[andersonh1]

Batman '66 One Shot - Two Face The Lost Episode - Harlan Ellison's writing is included in the back of this book along with a sampling of the pencils (to justify the inflated $10 pricetag for an issue and a half worth of actual content) and Ellison's raw writing is shit, I don't know how he can stroke his ego so fucking hard for so long with this being the outcome. I love that he stepped up and said "let's do something with Two-Face" when the show was is its infancy, and I like that he recognized key elements of Batman that the show needed, but his outline scripting sucks donkey balls and it's only Len Wein who saves the day here with some script polishing to convert it to comic format. The Alex Ross cover is great, it's weird and it's not quite Batman '66 in style but it's got a manic energy and good likenesses. José Luis Garcia-López's art is almost its own two-face, some panels it's a little more Batman '66 art style, and some panels it's more regular Batman comic book - Garcia-Lopez apparently thinks Adam West has got some killer traps! And then you have some panels where it's Batman comic book style but it's actually a gimmick where Batman is wearing white lenses over his eyes. It's not bad though, the coloring certainly has that Batman '66 energy. I would have liked a little more variety in the actual story beats, the locales do all the heavy lifting for variety while the characters repeat the same behaviors twice.

Grade: B (B- or C+ if you're not feeling that cover price)

I skipped it because it just wasn't worth $9.99 to me. I'm glad to hear it was decent though.

[Sparky Prime]

The intent is to tone down the armor-ness of it, because WHY THE FUCK DOES SUPERMAN NEED ARMOR??? thinking.

They were trying to explain how Clark could easily hide the suit under his civilian clothes as well as why it wouldn't be damaged in (most) fights by making it Kryptonian armor. Not to mention, Kryptonians wouldn't have had super powers on Krypton.

[Onslaught Six]

I'm more interested in his new power though. Basically, Supes can now drain all his solar energy in one nuclear-like blast, leaving him drained of all powers for a day.

"Goku! Use the Spirit Bomb!"