The Four Color Media Monitor

On a tip from Hube, I learned that Bob Harras, formerly EIC for Marvel, has now been hired for that very position at DC. Quite a surprise.

But is this good news? As the article I linked to says, the industry say it's good, but will we, the audience, feel the same way after a year or two, if the majors are still around by that time?

When Harras was EIC for Marvel, there were some pluses, like Peter David's run on the Incredible Hulk (though I think his terminating Betty Banner at the end was a mistake), and the Thunderbolts was launched during this time. But there were also plenty of minuses, like how a]Spider-Man suffered badly at the hands of the Clone Saga, b]the Avengers sunk into mediocrity, c]the X-Men really became weak under his reign, d]Iron Man was reverted to a teenager, and e] even the Fantastic Four didn't do well at the time. All of which led to the monstrosity that was Heroes Reborn. Some of these disasters were the result of editorial mandates, the biggest problem during the 1990s. Their storytelling approach became seriously implausible too, as they veered away from the kind of convincing human relations that made the MCU really famous in its time.

I suppose it's fair to note that towards the end of Harras' run as EIC, some things did begin to climb back, as some decent writers were brought in to fix the Heroes Reborn mess, and they backed away from the Clone Saga's premise that Peter Parker was the clone, and the real one was done away with. Even so, Harras did a lot of damage during his time as EIC, which may have been what led to the massive drop in sales. And even then, they were still having dire straits: Spider-Man was damaged again when the Final Chapter undid the death of aunt May Parker in 1998, and Mary Jane was "killed off", leading to a very dismal year for the series. And the X-Men was still a very mediocre affair. That's what led them to let him go, yet it did no good as they brought in Quesada in his stead, and we've all seen where that led in the long term.

I'd argue in fairness that he may not be as bad as his successors have been, but that was years ago, and it remains to be seen what he's like now, and if he's learned any lessons from his past mistakes when he worked at Marvel. These could include reversing the damage Dan DiDio inflicted upon the DCU when he was EIC, and if he can bring back some of the writers DiDio fired (Chuck Dixon, for example), while distancing them from writers like Geoff Johns. This can also include cutting out the company-wide crossovers, and even adopting a better format than monthly pamphlets with rising prices.

But if he doesn't do any of these steps, then it's just business as usual, and he may find himself out of a job as quickly as he came, since there'll be no publishing left. I'm sure there's many Marvel fans who'll attest they'd be wary of what he could do now that he's in charge of DC.

And I still think it'd be a lot better if DC and Marvel's comics publishing were owned separately from the conglomerates they're part of, and owned by a book publisher like Simon & Schuster instead. That way, they could get back to basics, be repaired, and even adapt to the current age much more convincingly.

Labels: Avengers, dc comics, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, marvel comics, Spider-Man, women of marvel

Here's an article in the Boston Herald about the Massachusettes Independent Comics Expo, their first convention for indie productions and creators.

Labels: conventions

Comics Bulletin has published a list of the top 10 deaths in comics, according to some of their contributors. Now, a few of the deaths listed here, such as those of Gwen Stacy, Kraven the Hunter, Captain Mar-Vell of the Kree, and Barry Allen, are worthy choices for most impactful deaths in comics, one more reason why it's tragic the people in charge today have gone out of their way to desecrate them (the choice of Silver Age Supergirl I have no idea what to make of). But the other choices listed here are dumbfounding: Superman's "death" in 1993? Please. Vision? That too is limp. So too is that of Nightcrawler. But the most truly awful, distasteful inclusion on the list has to be that of Alexandra DeWitt, the girlfriend of Kyle Rayner, whose death has been particularly notorious. She was around for probably less than a year, making barely a handful of appearances, before editorial mandate, the biggest problem with Green Lantern back in the 1990s, decreed that she be executed by dismemberment at the hands of Major Force. This led to Rayner being boxed into a corner as a character: he's had at least 2 other ladyfriends since then - Jade and Donna Troy - who are both superheroines long established, and not creations of the writer in charge (Ron Marz), yet to my knowledge has never since been involved with a woman without superpowers, or isn't a crimefighter.

And this is what they think is worth making a list out of? Deaths that only serve as a limp substitute for character drama, or are incredibly cliched, boring, and downright disgusting? It just shows how badly the culture's been corrupted.

I think I also disapprove of the choice of Betty Ross-Banner's death, whom Peter David may have killed off as a way of taking out his anger over personal issues, all without considering that it was unfair to some Hulk fans out there, or that it may have since left jade giant without a female life-saver. To make matters worse, her recent resurrection has been made impossible to appreciate either, since she may have turned against Bruce Banner.

Labels: Avengers, dc comics, Flash, golden calf of death, Green Lantern, Hulk, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, Spider-Man, Superman, violence, X-Men

Who would've thought someone like Brian Bendis, who'd surely rather it be the other way around, would be asking for better journalism about comics. At the same time, he's attacking the comics blogosphere:

comics as an art form is in fantastic shape. the only things missing? thoughtful longform investigative journalism and critique. all we get nowadays are knee-jerk reviews and cut and paste blogging. which I have no problem with but it’s ALL we get. on a slow news week like this one I would love to see some of our better reporters rolling up her sleeves and helping the medium thrive. even reviews of trade paperbacks and graphic novels have seemed to have fallen by the wayside even though the sales are crazy large.

you’ll forgive me but I think that a snarky pseudo-hip attitude towards mainstream comics is uninteresting. if you’re a cut-and-paste blogger or comics journalist and I just annoyed the shit out of you… prove me wrong.

I am enjoying the e-mails from professionals agreeing with me but not wanting to stir the pot Cut and paste blogging is cut and pastes from an article from another source… then adding a line of comment & signing their name to it.

I’m sorry I got on my high horse, I just do love this medium and I know a lot of you out there do as well. I miss amazing heroes and for clarification I go to almost every cut-and-paste comics blog

Look who's talking! He misses amazing heroes? Well then why doesn't he just prove he can help them make a convincing comeback with plausible character focus included, and not just ruin superhero comics as he's done with the Avengers for more than 5 years now?

And who is Bendis to wish for thoughtful investigative journalism and especially critiques? He might actually wish he hadn't said that, because if there was, he wouldn't be so high and mighty, and the Avengers franchise wouldn't have suffered so badly, nor the Scarlet Witch. Then again, he confirms simultaneously that he's got no problem with knee-jerk reviews, so maybe he wasn't thinking clearly when he wrote all that on Twitter's database.

I'm actually rather proud that, as a blogger, he's attacked people like me. It just shows that he's unhappy with the opposition he does have in the blogosphere, fortunately, to the mess he made of the Earth's Mightiest Heroes. An opposition that's finally managed to lower sales of his worthless works to less than 100,000 copies. And an opposition that's sooner or later going to dethrone him as Marvel's yes-man, ditto Joe Quesada!

Labels: Avengers, dreadful writers, marvel comics, misogyny and racism

In another sign of how weak DC has become, they're discontinuing the Wildstorm label. What does this mean though:

"While these will be the final issues published under the WildStorm imprint, it will not be the last we will see of many of these heroes. We, along with Geoff Johns, have a lot of exciting plans for these amazing characters, so stay tuned. Going forward, WildStorm’s licensed titles and kids comics will now be published under the DC banner."

Assuming they're alluding to their own titles like WildC.A.T.S and The Authority, that doesn't mean they're going to merge them with the DCU proper, does it? Because we've all seen where that went with Milestone.

Not only that, there appear to be additional layoffs in the works (via Comics Beat):

Nelson: It’s not so much that we’re taking stock. We have a very specific plan. But we’re making every effort to handle this really personally with our employees, so we’re going to have conversations with each of them, and until everyone arrives their individual dispositions, we’re not able to talk specifics. But we know our intent with it and now we want to make sure our employees have a chance to consider all of the good news and, unfortunately in some cases, some layoffs.

That's not good news I'm afraid. It's just the sign of how badly they're collapsing along with Marvel.

Big announcements, they said several days ago. I'm not surprised they weren't.

Labels: dc comics

This article on the Yomiuri Shimbun tells about a website that's been set up to help explain a lot of the expressions and slangs found in the original formats of Japan's manga and anime productions.

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime

The Harrisburg Patriot-News's comics section writes a superficial review of Avengers: The Children's Crusade, and we learn that:

Wanda Maximoff has been missing since the "House Of M" debacle, and has only appeared twice since 2005.

And one of those appearances, IIRC, was actually Loki in disguise. Who knows if Scarlet Witch will ever turn up again? Even if she does finally reappear and is exonerated from the damage Brian Bendis did to her 6 years before...they have really caused serious harm to the Avengers franchise nevertheless.

Oh, and they got that right about House of M: as a story, it was a real debacle alright.

Labels: Avengers, dreadful writers, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, women of marvel

On Robot 6 this past week, they revealed that DC, in a typical botch job, hasn't promoted Superman #703, scheduled to be the next in J. Michael Stracynski's silly tale of Superman walking across the USA to visit real life cities. Not only that, the issue's been delayed till next month, thanks in part to the delays that have plagued quite a few of the assignments JMS has taken over the past decade.

I guess that means the buzz is off as quickly as it came. Indeed, Superman #702 only sold about 50,000 copies, which is nothing to write home about these days.

And the retailer in question who's irked at DC for failing to provide any help to him said the following:

I know for a fact that as of August 18th, the day DC’s The Source blog announced that Cincinnati was Superman’s next destination, there was no script. 28 days to go, and J. Michael Straczynski had not turned the script in. Gotta be penciled, inked, lettered, colored, printed and shipped in 28 days. This is the same J. Michael Straczynski that has very publicly proclaimed his love for Superman, who can’t/won’t/didn’t turn the script in on time. Famously late on Thor, never finished The Twelve, loves Superman more than any other comic character, and he isn’t living up to his end of the deal. Straczynski made me a Thor fan, and I didn’t think that was possible. So I was genuinely excited to see him move to DC and take on the Man of Steel. But if you can’t stand the pressures of delivering twenty-two pages every thirty days, write someplace else.

Ultimately, I think it’s about taking responsibility. DC can’t get the script in on time? Fire the guy. He’s one writer. A very good writer, perhaps, but just one writer.

Now there's something I can agree with. If JMS - and his accompanying artist - can't the job done on time, give them their notice of dismissal. JMS would do well enough to go back to Hollywood where he belongs and not annoy us with his increasing obsession of letting his liberal leanings seep into just about anything he writes these days.

Clearly DC has lost interest in making this something special. The local media has begun to lose interest. The local population who never buys comic books but think it would be cool to own issue #703 has started to lose interest. By the time the damn thing arrives, everyone will be distracted by something else shiny.

No doubt about that. But if DC wanted to make this something special, I think it's more likely they were hoping to make it a short-term moneymaking strategy. Now, it's clear it won't be.

Update: JMS, I hadn't noticed before, said in the comments section at CBR that he'd had problems with bronchitis over the past years. Okay, I suppose it's understandable there if he's been unable to get his scripting done on time, and I hope he's been getting better since.

That said, it does not change my opinion about his very weak approach to writing, how he fails to make any serious use of a regular supporting cast in the books he's been assigned to, or how he lets his overly liberal politics find their way very annoyingly into his writing. And that's what's really galling about him as a writer.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, Superman

I discovered that the main writer in charge of comics coverage for the Colorado Springs Gazette is ceasing to write his column after 15 years. I really can't care, since he wrote some of the worst, most sugary, double-talking items possible over the years, including his fawning over Identity Crisis while supposedly having a problem with Sins Past in Spider-Man (and if Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson had been protagonists in the DCU, I suspect he'd be even less likely to come to their defense), gushed over Barack Obama's guest starring roles in Spider-Man and the Savage Dragon, had no complaints about Marvel's recent rendering of Iron Man, and wrote an unobjective article about the desecration of Roy Harper and Green Arrow.

And in this closing column of his, he says:

For 15 years, I have funneled my longtime love for comic books into a Sunday column for The Gazette. Over that time, Marvel — once known for some truly awful movies — saw its characters win blockbuster status on the big screen. CrossGen tried to shake up the comics industry but died. “Smallville” hit the small screen. Spider-Man’s marriage to Mary Jane was erased. Digital comics arose. Captain America was killed, but got better. DC weathered an “Infinite Crisis” and a “Final Crisis.”

Yeah, but did he make any serious attempt to write a serious argument about where Marvel and DC, among others, were handling everything the wrong way? Nope, and that makes me doubt he really means it when he talks about his "longtime love" for comic books. Otherwise, he would've objected to the monstrosities of Identity Crisis, Avengers: Disassembled, Civil War, Blackest Night, etc. But no matter how hard he tried to make it look like the contrary, I was never convinced he wanted to help defend the better values of the industry and the art form, nor did he really want to stand up to Quesada and DiDio.

Surprisingly enough, he even says in this short closing item of his that:

...after having been through event after event, through blackest nights and secret invasions and superhero civil wars and dark reigns, I’m a bit burned out. I doubt I’ll ever give up on comics completely, but Wednesday — new comics day — isn’t the lure that it once was.

Well how about that, now he tells us how discouraged he is with mainstream comics! And even that statement is muted. Did it ever occur to him that if he'd spoken out years earlier and clearly complained - via a serious, meaty opinion article, and even criticized Quesada and DiDio for all the horrendous mess they caused - that he might not feel so burned out? What's the point of only saying so now, after he failed to write up any objective opinions and coverage all these years, about how the people in charge of DC and Marvel today have brought about ruin in the long term?

I think that the less journalists employed to write comics coverage as fawning, superficial and unobjective as what the one working for the Colorado Springs Gazette was turning out, the better it will be for all of us. I certainly won't be missing the Gazette's reporter, if all he can do is make J. Jonah Jameson look far more informative by comparison (and then why did any MSM journalists in real life ever want to read comics like Spider-Man if JJJ was meant to be reflection of them? I just don't get it.)

The only way to save the comics medium is if any journalists with expertise in the subject are willing to do an objective report on who and what's destroying them today, and not worry about whether they'll get to do an up front interview with the EICs and publishers, nor whether the head honchos will resent them for asking straightforward questions and challenging them boldly about whether they're going in the right or wrong direction. After all, people like Quesada and DiDio aren't deserving of press coverage as fawning as what some of these MSM writers are sadly giving them.

Labels: msm propaganda

And Marvel's doing this latest publicity stunt in the silliest way possible. Now, it turns out that the numbering isn't going to end, but rather, continue with #513 with Black Panther described as the Man Without Fear! Although this is true, that T'Challa is a very fearless fighter, the way it's being marketed, with Daredevil's special mantra still on the cover, is ridiculous.

As noted here, they've pulled the same stunt as they did with Hercules when he took over the Incredible Hulk's numbering a few years ago, with one difference being that Black Panther actually did enjoy a little bit more popularity at one point, even though the 2 previous series from the past decade were ultimately treated badly by the editors, or became victimized by additional publicity stunts, and that's one of the reasons why they failed. As this latest stunt is bound to, very soon, I predict. Mainly because T'Challa, very much like what Iron Man's been through, is being cast away from his riches and living in Hell's Kitchen without Wakanda technology research within reach.

And that's another of Marvel's likely deliberate mistakes: when you take the heroes away from what makes them whom he/she are as blatantly as they're doing, it only reduces the heroes' significance and makes it all a farce.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, marvel comics

It was bound to happen, but for the first time since March 2009, there was nothing selling above the 100,000 mark this August. It looks like even Brian Bendis' influence has begun to wear off.

Not only that, graphic novels sank in sales too. Again, it my guesses are correct, what ICV2 means is that any trades collecting some of the worst crossovers today didn't sell well. And if the crossovers were worthless in pamphlets, there's no reason why anyone should waste time on the trades either.

This, sadly, is the industry decaying before our eyes as we know it.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics, sales

As I figured when I found the first official news, DC's next missteps with the Masked Manhunter are going to be sillier than thought. The Batman Inc. title is going to depict Bruce Wayne recruiting various Batmen the world over, instead of recruiting crimefighters with distinctions, as the Outsiders had when he formed them in 1983.

Once again, DC does little more than to milk a once-impressive hero dry by reducing his uniqueness with a mirror of their own problems: too much commercialization, exactly what's hurt comics this century.

Labels: Batman, dc comics

This post at Comics Beat talks about how, in the year since Disney bought Marvel and DC announced changes in management, they haven't really made any real achievements; surprise, surprise. But what raised my eyebrows was the following:

Neither company seemed to do much in the bookstore or library markets. They actually seemed to be retreating from these markets. Neither company exhibited at BEA or ALA. DC was marginally represented by Random House at these shows; only a few of their books were on display at ALA and Random House had a greatly reduced presence at BEA. At the very least both companies should have a least one staffer around to answer questions. I only saw one DC executive at BEA and didn’t see anyone from Marvel. Compare this to the army of people they send to San Diego Comic-Con.

No talent from Marvel or DC toured bookstores or libraries and I didn’t see any significant expansion of either publisher’s books on the shelves.

No kidding. And they wonder why they're fading away. Truly, they want to fail. That's why we can't even expect them to change their marketing approach and switch from pamphlets to a more viable format.

Labels: dc comics, libraries, marvel comics

Techland is arguing that that we need more weekly comic series. But I disagree, and besides, it's one of the biggest mistakes the big two have made recently to boot. The rising prices aren't going to help matters either.

Labels: dc comics, marvel comics, msm propaganda

Brian Hibbs, the owner of the ComixExperience LCS in SanFrancisco and blogmaster of The Savage Critics, has posted his latest Tilting at Windmills column on CBR, and makes some great points from a business perspective about how the big two are going nowhere fast. He even points to the following commentary by Kurt Busiek, who says:

I get all the DC books free, like Steve, and don't read most of them.

Part of it's that they're just not aimed at me — there are a lot of line-wide stunts that seem to affect all the books, which makes it hard to follow them as individual series, but at the same time there's no apparent interest in building or maintaining a coherent universe. So whether you're looking for self-contained series or want to wallow in the peculiar glories of a shared universe (and I like both), they're presented in a way that messes up either thrill. At least for me.

Add to that the tone of the books, which seems to be overwhelmingly grim, cheerless and bleak, and it's a sandbox I don't much want to play in or read about. But like I said, they're not aimed at me.

I guess he too has had to agree that their editorially mandated direction has only led to disaster, and lost readers in the process, and as Hibbs tells, his own customer base's interest in Marvel and DC's output has dwindled drastically. Sales for X-Men, for example, have gone down, with the new adjectiveless series getting a very small percentage of orders. If that's how it is at his own store, it could be that way at a lot of other LCS across the country too. The price rise to 4 dollars certainly isn't helping.

Until now, I hadn't thought to look much at Hibbs' writings, but now, I think I'll need to give him a try more seriously, to get some insight on how bad it's become for comics sales today. He does seem to have some good insight on just what's gone wrong with the industry, particularly the mainstream.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, marvel comics, sales, X-Men

Den of Geek interviewed John Romita Jr, whose quality of artwork has been very iffy in the past decade, and his comments on Marvel management make me sad:

I've always found it quite interesting that you've never done any work for DC, having been a Marvel guy for pretty much your entire career. Is there any particular reason for that, or is it circumstance that you started out there and have been happy there ever since?

It's a little bit of happenstance. Ultimately, until my father retired, I chose to stay with Marvel, because it was a family thing. After he retired, there was interest from other companies, and some negotiations with DC, but Marvel was adamant about keeping me and always made sure that I stayed.

I'm loyal to the people that are loyal to me, and it's kind of chicken and egg. They're loyal to me because I'm loyal to them. But the people I've been working with at Marvel since the mid-to-late 90s. Joe Quesada, Dan Buckley, David Bogart, the brain trust at Marvel, they are very good to me and my family, and I will be the same way to them. So long as they stay at Marvel, I'll be signing contracts with them.

Does that mean that, if a more rational editor and publisher inherit the office one day, he'll split? Maybe not, but even so, it's very sad to see that he's such a yes-man, and has no objections to how bad they are to the universe they hold the keys to.

Labels: marvel comics

When Geoff Johns brought back Hal Jordan 6 years ago to the land of living, not only did this eventually degenerate into pointless bloodletting, even Carol Ferris soon found herself dealing with the Star Sapphire guise again. Now, to make matters even sillier, we have a male Star Sapphire coming up, who, no matter what the advertising blurb says, I'm sure no one was asking for. Nor do we need to know what his interest in Carol is.

The Star Sapphire guise was one of the most blatantly obvious of Johns' regurgitations of older elements, one that should've been left in the past, and Carol should've been left well enough alone. It's sad to see how DC management can't consider that.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, Green Lantern, violence, women of dc

This article on Publisher's Weekly talks about Captain Tsubasa, a famous manga book from the early 1980s about soccer, as well as a few other mangas that focus on sports.

Labels: manga and anime

I think this is from JSA's Blackest Night tie-in (I found it via Tyler Quick Time), and [correction:] I think James Robinson wrote Jesse's narrative here. What kind of way is that to superficially describe her husband Rick Tyler, as though he were a real drug addict? That's not nice. It's another example of Geoff Johns' absurd self-referential tactics, here alluding to how the original Hourman, Rex Tyler, switched from Miraclo pills to ray-based effects, all because of that exaggerated concern in the 80s that any hero who took pills or drank chemicals would look like a junkie. But the current tactic they're using only makes it more embarrassing.

This also signals that Robinson is losing his touch ever further as a writer, and becoming more like Geoff Johns in resorting to peculiar self-referential steps.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful writers, Justice Society of America, women of dc

Here's an article in the Japan Times about the latest convention for manga and anime that's taken place in Kyoto.

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime

In a followup to the previous post, I even managed to scan several pictures from the TPB that followed, simply called "Rogues", which features this:
Just the world needs, that even Chunk shed blood! This story existed for little more than to show off Chunk's power, and to "advance" to the next thing, which was "Crossfire".
Here's a picture from this series' tie-in to Joker's Last Laugh, where Wally gets stuck in the leg by a Jokerized Capt. Boomerang.
This is Johns' humorless depiction of Gorilla Grodd. It's quite possible to depict Grodd in a more sophisticated approach without losing any humor potential, but Johns does not have what it takes to master that.
And if the above scene was meant to be funny, I'm afraid it bombs big time. Grodd is causing a ruckus, potentially endangering lives, the Flash's presence notwithstanding, and Goldface is asking the guy to join his union? Please. He was a supervillain once, surely he could think of something to help stop Grodd before someone innocent gets hurt? Why is he concerned about getting people to join the union at a time like this?
Johns seems to have forgotten that Vic Stone was burned by a giant, flammable alien worm his father, Silas, accidentally teleported into his workplace in STAR Labs, which also took the life of Vic's mother, Elinore. The true origin story can be found in the 4-part Tales of the New Teen Titans miniseries from 1982. It wasn't a mere explosion that damaged his body.


Johns made Capt. Cold and Golden Glider's backgrounds worse than need be. This also seems to include an ambiguous retcon of how Lisa Snart became a Rogue, which was not in order to join the rest of them, but rather, to seek revenge upon the Scarlet Speedster, whom she blamed for the death of the Top, her boyfriend (who technically came back in the body of a politician, possibly in Hawk and Dove in 1989, and was later seen in the Flash in late 1996, some time after her death). Here, Johns retcons that, making her more of a tagalong who wants to be just like her brother, taking up a life of crime for the sport of it.
This is a bio for both Iron Heights and, more importantly, warden Gregory Wolfe. I could be mistaken, but I get the feeling that Wolfe was written as a subtle attack on Rudy Giuliani, who was a federal prosecutor in New York years before he became NYC mayor.
In this scene from "Crossfire", the villainess Blacksmith kills the Rainbow Raider, apparently because Johns didn't like him. Well gee whiz, if he didn't like or want to use him, he didn't even have to come up with this pointless scene! Besides, Blacksmith's powers were nothing to write home about.
Here's a picture scanned from the "Crossfire" TPB, where Murmer, alas, drives blades drawing blood into more victims again, and to make matters worse, the new Trickster applauds this.

And then, here's a really weird scene that bears some scrutiny:
Let me get this straight. All the thieving the Rogues did helped the 2 cities' economy? For heaven't sake, that doesn't make any sense! The insurance companies wouldn't be able to cover for that much stolen loot, if it was never recovered, and the businesses victimized by their thefts would be on the verge of bankruptcy. What it does imply is that Barry Allen failed to recover more than half the goods they stole, and that Keystone/Central's businesses and leaderships were all just corrupt. Ludicrous.
In another lack of imagination, Johns depicts the Pied Piper summoning an army of rats. Yawn.
Oh, that's just what we need! A supervillain who threatens a pregnant woman! Even this scene in retrospect is embarrassing. What will Johns think of next, a villain who goes all the way and aborts her pregnancy? Oh wait, he did, in the Blitz storyline that came later, where the new Zoom accomplished what Brother Grimm failed, its subsequent reversal notwithstanding. In fact, here's one panel from that lowly story right here:
I don't like this either. Neo-Zoom was little more than a cardboard caricature of the first Reverse-Flash (who comes off pretty weakly under Johns' pen too). Just more awful sensationalism, that's what that story was.

And that sums up another batch of Johns' limpest work from the early part of his career. A man with little to no creativity, only bankruptcy.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful artists, dreadful writers, Flash, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, violence

The New York Post tells that even after Bruce Wayne returns from the trivial time trip he took, Dick Grayson won't be going back to his Nightwing guise:

The Joker isn't going to be wild about this, but there will soon be not one, but two Batmen defending Gotham City.

After years toiling as Bruce Wayne's wingman in the comic-book series, Dick Grayson -- better known as Robin -- will now share top billing with the Dark Knight, DC Comics told The Post.

Grayson had already unofficially taken the reins as the Caped Crusader while Bruce Wayne was lost traveling through time (don't ask), but upon his return to Gotham City in October, Wayne decides that just one Batman isn't enough.

In fact, two might not be enough either, DC publisher Dan DiDio said.

"Bruce Wayne realizes that he can't just be the grim avenger he was before," DiDio said. "He wants to be more aggressive in his reach, and realizes the change that Batman as a symbol can effect around the world."

In the new title, "Batman Inc.," Wayne does what any billionaire would: build a Starbucks-style franchise of Dark Knights.

"Without giving too much away here, we wanted to show how Batman can have a global influence," he said.

Umm, he already has had global influence: he's worked with the Justice League and was a leader of the Outsiders for a few years. This is just another publicity stunt, as DC continues to climb a high tree to further levels of embarrassment and ridicule. And Batman's already had special teams of his own too, without even trying to make it look like a McDonald's network.

To avoid confusion between the two Batmen, Grayson's costume features just the black bat logo, whereas Wayne's will include the black bat over a yellow moon.

As for Grayson, the Boy Wonder is now all grown up, DiDio said

But that's just why he became Nightwing, a role that's not even mentioned in this article. And Dick's characterization actually worked quite well that way, because he was sent on more of his own path, and led the Teen Titans quite effectively for many years. This planned direction of theirs looks to be just as wobbly as what Geoff Johns is doing with the Flash, by featuring too many protagonists in the same role, just to placate fans of both Barry and Wally, and Jay too, now that I think of it. Worst, it's likely to be just as editorially-mandated as Green Lantern was during the 1990s.

Labels: bad editors, Batman, dc comics, msm propaganda

Cooke, who's authored New Frontier for DC, offers a few good points on how the big two must change their approach to marketing, starting with how they can't just market to perverted 45-year-olds. I can think of at least one more he didn't mention: they've got to change their format to something that would be accepted in bookstores more easily, even if it doesn't have advertising included (something I'm sure a lot of people would actually prefer). That's another serious problem with the comics industry today, that they're not adapting to new times and updating their whole approach to serial fiction. If they don't, how do they expect their products to find wider attention and markets?

Labels: Batman, dc comics, golden calf of death, marvel comics, sales, violence