Questions about DC's relaunch

[anarky]

My mind is still boggled by the chutzpah involved in so thoroughly integrating Jim Lee's rather mediocre Wildstorm stuff* into the cherished, iconic, 80+ year old DCU.

*--Don't point out stuff by Ellis or Millar or guys like that. They were polishing the turds that were Jim Lee's knockoff X-Men.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I would've thought those books featuring WS characters would get axed quickly. I haven't bothered looking at sales for the past few months because all the DC books were handicapped by their returnability. Now that it's a new year we'll be getting more accurate numbers on these titles.

[anarky]

Not only did you have the Wildstorm books (with "re-imagined" versions that were more popular rolled back to the "X-Men knockoff" days), but they incorporated Wildstorm characters all over the place.

You cannot tell me that Grifter and Voodoo outsold Static Shock. I don't care what figures you show me; those are based on orders, not actual sales.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Looks like DC is raising the price on Batman to $3.99. So much for holding the line at $2.99. Ostensibly, it's justified by a larger page count in the book, but who wants to bet the page count quietly drops back in about six months, but the price remains the same? And if it works for Batman, how long before their other "Best Sellers" follow suit?

[RoIIo Tomassi]

A buddy of mine set me the 1st issues of Detective, Flash, Wonder Woman, and Justice League from the DCnU reboot. He didn't want them anymore.

Flash 1 was about as boring as I figured it would be. A bunch of boring supporting characters with Boring Allen at the nexus. And something about. Cloning.
Wonder Woman 1 had two evil centaurs trying to kill a hillbilly woman who's pregnant with Zeus' baby, and Diana having to save her. For being Azarello, it was rather dull.
Detective 1 (ugh, it disgusts me to type that) was surprisingly decent considering Tony Daniel was writing it. Batman beats up Joker and throws him in Arkham. Then Joker CUTS OFF HIS OWN FACE and hangs it on the wall. What. The. Fuck???
JLA 1. It was a special issue given to WB employees with a note from DC President Diane Nelson. So I left it sealed in the bag it came in.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

If the idea behind the DcnU52 relaunch was to simplify and unclutter all that pesky continuity of the last 70 years, why is DC launching a bunch of Earth-2 (an Earth-2 with its own Batman, Wonder Woman, etc) comics that star Huntress and PowerGirl, who are Earth-2's Robin and Supergirl, who are now stuck in Earth-1's continuity, which already has its own Robins and Supergirls, which is not the Earth-1 that's in the OGNs by JMS and Goeff Johns...

[anarky]

http://blog.comichron.com/2012/05/aveng ... -five.html

DC's higher-ups would do well to read this and learn the implied lesson.

In all of Avengers history, it appears the best-selling issue of all time was the Avengers #1 from Heroes Reborn. Y'know, the relaunch that sold well initially and quickly became one of the most reviled clusterfucks in comic book history. Because they're in the midst of doing the same thing, and with many of the same people.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

It should always be noted, those numbers are what the Comic Shops ordered from the Publisher. Not what sold thru to customers.

It happened last month when all the Pro-Marvel fanboys were "In your face, DC!" when AvX and Avengers Assemble topped the sales charts. Duh. Of course LCSs ordered more of the first issues of the Event books associated with the summers biggest tentpole film. Doesn't mean it's a hit.

[anarky]

Indeed. I have to wonder what the longterm numbers are--the real numbers of customers buying and sticking with the titles.

It's like the fucked-up way the Billboard charts are in an age where the radio is corporate schlock, downloads aren't counted properly, and physical media is mostly sold through Walmart and places like that. You cannot make me believe that Britney Spears has been a consistent #1 artist for over a decade. You simply cannot.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Back on the subject of DCs Relaunch. The new Earth-2 and World's Finest books came out today.
Earth-2 features an alt Universe Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman on the cover.
Worlds Finest is about E2s Power Girl(E2s SuperGirl) and Huntress(E2 Batman's daughter) trapped in Earth-1(which is presumably the DCnUniverse.
Neither of which is the Earth-1 that is the focus of the DC Graphic Novels JMS and Geoff Johns are writing, (although that might get confusing when your DCnU TPBs are sitting next to them on the shelf).

I only mention this because DC went to great lengths last September to reboot their continuity into something less confusing.

Mission Accomplished!

[anarky]

Factor in the Wildstorm characters have somehow supposedly all been there all along, and it gets even worse.

[anarky]

Wanting to keep the threads on the DCU and the DCnU separate....

So, who's it gonna be?

Superman, Batman: No way are they fucking with them. They're too big.
Wonder Woman: No way are they fucking with her. They mistakenly think she's too big. Also, that would render Steve Trevor useless.
Aquaman: Too obvious as the brunt of jokes for ages. Also, the guy's been happily married forever.
Robin: Too obvious as the brunt of jokes for ages. Dick's been in relationships with many girls, including Barbara. Tim's been in a few himself. Jason, perhaps, but the mindless Scott Lobdell drivel indicates not. Damian's too young; that'd be weird.
Green Arrow and Black Canary: Really, really unlikely.
Green Lantern: Unless they really want to fuck with the importance of Star Sapphire, Katma Tui, Ice, and, uh, refrigerator woman in the backstories, no.

My money's on Cyborg. No one has ever given a shit about him, but they're trying to make him huge. I don't think there's ever been a big character-driven story starring him. I think his backstory was pretty blank even before the reboot.

This would also allow them to have a guy who's two different minority groups on the JLA as a founding member in this nu universe.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

My guess is Barry Allen. Iris was obviously a fucking beard the entire time.

After he comes out, he'll be ruthlessly beaten to death by a mob of Teabaggers, setting off DCs next big crossover event "Sexual Identity Crisis"

I like how the article points out that this isn't the first Gay comic character, then namechecks Kevin Keller. Uh, yeah. If there were 100 gay comic characters, and DC Mystery Boy was 100th, Keller was 99th. Nice research, dipshit.

I look forward to my email from OneMillionMoms denouncing this. Heh. Bunch a fucktards.

[anarky]

Yeah, I thought the Kevin Keller reference was rich. Especially since the very next sentence is about Northstar's wedding. Northstar pre-dates Keller by, what, 30 years? And was officially out of the closet for, what, over 20 of those years?

[RoIIo Tomassi]

As long as we're switching orientations, I've just arbitrarily decided Bob Harras and Geoff Johns are gay. And Johns is definitely the bottom.