A list of recent bait-and-switch tactics
I've noticed that DC, and to some extent, Marvel, have been pulling quite a few bait-and-switch tactics as a way of selling new titles. Here now is a list of whatever I can think of that's got bait-and-switch connection written all over it, to consider:
While we're on the subject, I recalled that almost two decades ago, while the Batman franchise was being pretty well written at the time the 1989 movie came out, it was told that some of the moviegoers who'd been encouraged to check out the Batbooks following their visit to the movie later felt like victims of bait-and-switch. Whether or not this is so, who would've thought that DC would take an even more genuine approach to this kind of tactic than the moviemakers did?
- Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day, 2003. Written by Judd Winick, who really is one of the most awful writers ever to be employed by a major company, this used 2 poorly and hastily written deaths as a lead-in to the new volume of Teen Titans and the previous volume of the Outsiders. Even if one of the deaths was reversed, I can't see why it was done in the first place, and certainly not why launching 2 new series had to be done that way.
- Identity Crisis. Yes, you could say that this too served as bait-and-switch, leading into some more politically correct ideas, such as:
- Several of the miniseries that followed during 2005, including The OMAC Project, Day of Vengeance, and also:
- Countdown to Infinite Crisis and Infinite Crisis. The former was again ludicrously built on death, and character assassination, the former being Ted Kord, and the latter being Max Lord. And this served as a lead-in to:
- The new Firestorm.
- The All-New Atom.
- The new Blue Beetle.
- And even the weekly 52 series, which served to introduce some otherwise pedestrian ideas and characters.
- Tony Bedard being announced as a writer on Supergirl, but not as clearly announced was that he was only a temp writer for 3 issues.
- The Black Canary/Green Arrow Wedding Special, which purportedly was going to tie the knot between these two longtime super-lovers, and instead scuttled everything as a duke-out with the new Injustice League took place instead.
- Judd Winick's Titans East Special, which kills off several characters as a lead-in to the latest volume of the Titans that he's writing. That's how a new ongoing series is promoted? But what really destroys credibility for Winick's dreck is that Cyborg would ever think to recruit Power Boy if he was really an employee of Darkseid who'd antagonised Supergirl.
- Avengers: Disassembled.
- House of M.
While we're on the subject, I recalled that almost two decades ago, while the Batman franchise was being pretty well written at the time the 1989 movie came out, it was told that some of the moviegoers who'd been encouraged to check out the Batbooks following their visit to the movie later felt like victims of bait-and-switch. Whether or not this is so, who would've thought that DC would take an even more genuine approach to this kind of tactic than the moviemakers did?
Labels: dc comics, marvel comics
