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Saturday, January 22, 2022 

Senior DC executive Daniel Cherry resigns after less than 2 years

The Hollywood Reporter announced a very telling resignation's taken place at DC, for an executive who originally worked more in video games:
Daniel Cherry III, the senior vp and general manager of DC, has stepped down, multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.

Reasons for the abrupt exit, which was characterized as a “quitting,” are unclear. Cherry was in the position for less than two years, having come aboard in September 2020. The role he inhabited was a newly created position at the time, crafted in response to harsh executive layoffs that occurred in 2020 and followed the departure of co-publisher Dan DiDio.

[...] Cherry came in as DC was in rebuilding mode and one of his goals was to “future-proof” the company with one of the aims being to increase its global reach. It is unclear how successful his initiatives were, but sources say DC did have a banner 2021 thanks to editorial initiatives and interest in its publishing lines thanks to The Suicide Squad movie, Sweet Tooth series and The Sandman Audible adaptation, among others.
Just like DiDio, Cherry is another bad choice for employee who won't be missed. I have no idea what they mean by "future-proofing" the publisher, but it's already obvious that, from an artistic perspective, they most definitely haven't, and EIC Marie Javins is only ensuring the excruciating disasters will continue.

It's worth considering that the news of Cherry's departure comes shortly after the news that one of DC's diversity-pandering creations, Yara Flor, is having her series cancelled pretty quickly, according to ComicBook, which predictably sugarcoats the whole subject:
In very unfortunate comics news, a wonderful DC Comics title has abruptly been canceled. In the newest DC Connect update from DC Comics, they have announced that Joelle Jones' stellar Wonder Girl series will now end with Wonder Girl #7, meaning that the previously solicited Wonder Girl #8 will not be released. Instead, Flor's adventures will continue in the upcoming Trial of the Amazons: Wonder Girl #1 and #2, which will hit later this year. This is really a shame, as Wonder Girl was one of the best books DC was releasing, and hopefully, this isn't the end of Yara's solo series shine. You can read the DC Connect announcement below.

[...] No reasoning was given, but regardless of what that reason was, it's disappointing. Yara Flor is a star and is more than deserving of a solo title, especially one that was this good. You can read the official descriptions for Wonder Girl #7, Trial of the Amazons: Wonder Girl #1 and #2, and the now cancelled Wonder Girl #8 below.
This is almost enough to laugh, how they quickly set about fawning over the whole project as instantaneously great, without even considering the way it was intended more as social jutice inclusivity propaganda than an organic effort to introduce a spinoff character from Wonder Woman's legacy. Though if no reason was provided, doesn't that signal sales were poor? Obviously, nobody cared based on the inorganic approach to marketing, thus it makes no sense to merely say the title's heroine is a "star" when they way they went about this was extremely poor.

Speaking of WW, there's some very sickening news on MSN/Games Radar, that several of the Justice League's members are being killed in April:
DC has been teasing what has looked like the death of Superman (again) as part of a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the original 'Death of Superman' story. But as it turns out, DC is going even bigger this time, killing the core roster of the Justice League - including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and more - in a story that will end the current Justice League title with April 19's Justice League #75.

Justice League #75 from writer Josh Williamson and artist Rafa Sandoval will pit Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, John Stewart (Green Lantern), Martian Manhunter, Hawkgirl, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Zatanna against a foe known as the Dark Army - and only one member of the League will return to tell the tale.

Who comes back hasn't been revealed, but a variant cover from 'Death of Superman' artists Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund shows coffins bearing the emblems of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Green Lantern, so we're guessing it won't be one of them.
Well! So Jurgens, one of the architects of one of the most overrated stunts of the 1990s, is contributing to this newest example of PC publishers and editors vehemently refusing to let go of what's become an obsession: killing off characters both major and minor just to make some crazy point, which, post-2000, became increasingly done for political purposes. One more reason why I've lost only so much respect for Jurgens, and have to take even the best efforts in his portfolio with a grain of salt. Interesting they chose to kill off John Stewart rather than Hal Jordan this time, if only because POC and LGBT characters are often protected by this status in fiction publishing. But, it wouldn't make any difference if it were Kyle Rayner who were the one killed, because no matter what character it is, and no matter their gender or racial background, their doing this as part of publicity stunts is exactly what makes this offensive and tasteless. Nobody who cares about entertainment merit should ever buy this.

A writer at Red State addressed the news, but while he's appalled, the way he goes about this is still very screwed up:
But times change, and in our current time, the arts have been hijacked by radical ideologues who wish to insert their politics into every facet of our escapism. Naturally, they infiltrated the comic industry and have been creating storylines and characters that nobody wanted or asked for, and as a result, have effectively crashed the American comic industry. DC didn’t escape the takeover. In fact, it was one of the brands that suffered the worst.

In fact, looking at the top 20 adult graphic novels, not one DC Comic can be seen on the list.

But DC isn’t course correcting. In fact, it’s doubling down on its LGBT, climate-change concerned, anti-patriarchy, feminist characters, and storylines and ridding itself of the past. According to Bounding Into Comics, DC has killed off the Justice League. This means their staples of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and more have met their end.

While this has been done before, DC Comics writer Joshua Williamson indicated that they are “very serious” about killing off those beloved characters.

“We want people to understand, this is serious and this is gonna have a major impact in the DCU moving forward,”
he stated.

It’s entirely possible that this could be a sales stunt and that the heroes will return at a later date…but I hope they don’t, and for several reasons, but the primary one is that I’m tired of watching these heroes be abused and morphed into something they aren’t.

The social justice obsessed and woke culture has been taking these heroes that many of us grew up with and altering them into shadows of their former selves, oftentimes advocating for modern mainstream “morals” and “virtues” that seem outside of their character. Oftentimes these plot elements and additional characters seemed shoehorned in or try-hard to a point where it becomes nonsensical and obviously political.

I would rather Batman and Superman die and stay unmolested than watch their legacies be tortured and destroyed
like a child cruelly pulling the wings off a butterfly for his amusement and then declaring that he somehow improved the insect by doing so.

My hope is that in death they would stay intact and be remembered as they were, not what these social justice-obsessed “artists” attempted to make them into.
While I can understand he's devastated at the severe political abuse the whole franchise has suffered, preferring the characters stay dead is not the answer. Mainly because their PC successors are going to continue from where they left off, serving as political platforms and turning the legacies of the true heroes into totally sick jokes. What the writer should really wish is that the whole franchise as comics were cancelled already, and/or sold off to some more sensible business, if that's how the legacies can be preserved tastefully. How such points are lost on these would-be professional commentators is beyond me.

At least he makes a point about the stark contrast Japanese manga stories have to USA comics:
The reason for this is multifaceted. For one, there’s not a drop of wokeness to be found within their pages, but two, most of them have a beginning and an end. The storylines found in manga have a goal and a purpose. Their characters and situations all work toward a conclusion that — at least the best mangas — tie up the story well and leave it alone after that. There are rarely attempts to artificially extend the storyline, cheapening the story’s finale and overusing the characters until they’ve lost that spark that made them so popular in the first place.

American comics, however, continue to wheel out these characters over and over until even fans lose interest, stop reading, and lose track.
Exactly. The specific serial fiction format used for mainstream US comics has continued so long, without any serious attempts to change it for what could be better in the long run, that it's proven to be its undoing. DC/Marvel refuse to abandon the monthly pamphlet format, nor the company wide crossovers that've been going on since Secret Wars, and even went so far as to largely abandon mainstream bookstores as a way of selling them for many years, that as a result it's no wonder it got to a point where they'd end up abused by bad political motivations. The only way things will improve for now is if the companies are folded, NOT whether the classic heroes will remain in the afterlife.

Cherry obviously condoned the very mistakes spoken about by the Red State writer, and that's why his departure from DC is for the best, as will the departure of Javins, when the publisher presumably goes under or is sold off.

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About me

  • I'm Avi Green
  • From Jerusalem, Israel
  • I was born in Pennsylvania in 1974, and moved to Israel in 1983. I also enjoyed reading a lot of comics when I was young, the first being Fantastic Four. I maintain a strong belief in the public's right to knowledge and accuracy in facts. I like to think of myself as a conservative-style version of Clark Kent. I don't expect to be perfect at the job, but I do my best.
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