The Four Color Media Monitor

One of the writers on Broken Frontier this week spoke about Bruce Jones taking up the writing on the low-selling Checkmate at DC, and brought up Jones' run on the Incredible Hulk a couple years ago, which was decidedly limp and overlong:

While many criticized his mostly Hulk-free stories for the title, fans responded to the game of cat-and-mouse and the twisty conspiracy tales he wove for the title. Sales on the series improved, and it became one of Marvel’s most talked about comics of that era.

I think this is a bit glossed over, though it does tell why some weren't happy with it back then: Bruce Banner barely turned into the Hulk during Jones' run, if at all, or wasn't clearly seen in action as the green goliath. But there's also a thing or two this column isn't telling: for example, the story, with its conspiracy-laden plot, took more than 20-plus issues to complete, which may have been what really drew the flak. And, weirder still, it may have been out-of-continuity (Betty Banner turned up alive, but from what I can gather now, it appears that no, she's still dead). Which begs the question: if Marvel's contributors really want to do something that's not in regular continuity, why does it have to be in a series that usually IS in continuity? And how does being outside continuity justify such a protracted story either? Are they really that incapable of publishing an Elseworlds-style book?

While it may not have sold much more than 50,000 copies at the time, I'll have to admit that it was surprising that it sold as well as it did almost 5 years ago. But maybe there's a simple explanation why: people back then were taken in because they felt they had to keep reading to see the ending to Jones' story. But that only led to people getting ripped off.

Jones hasn't been having the same luck over at DC (neither his run on Nightwing nor the new Warlord series he wrote did well), and Broken Frontier is now wondering if, having been assigned to Checkmate, he'll just be wrapping it up. But I think it's for the best that it end. As something that was a spinoff in some ways from Identity/Infinite Crisis, I don't think it earned its right to be honestly. Nor in fact did the new Firestorm, Atom and Blue Beetle, two of which have been cancelled as well, and the third which may not be far behind. The way that these series were launched was on decidedly dishonest grounds, and a big problem with all of them was that they were all overshadowed by too much of an emphasis on "diversity" (or, as is called by others, multiculturalism), something that's becoming very overdone by now. So too was Kyle Rayner's introduction as Green Lantern back in 1994, now that I think of it. And judging from sales, it wouldn't surprise me if others thought so too.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics