The Four Color Media Monitor

ComicBook says the unendurable former EIC and publisher of DC showed off a t-shirt that's not amusing at all:

As is a rite of passage in comic book lore, Blue Beetle is one of the hundreds of thousands of superheroes to have died at one point in their crime-fighting career. During one of the character's latest deaths, DC Comics was being overseen by Dan DiDio, and he was given a pretty hilarious shirt to commemorate the occasion. Sunday, DiDio posted a picture of the shirt in question to his Instagram alongside a copy of Countdown to Infinite Crisis.

"Going through some boxes and came across this old office oddity. I was gifted this shirt following the success of Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1," DiDio wrote. "It was culmination of a year's worth of planning and a big moment for all who worked on the book. More importantly, it was the event that launched a thousand stories. Fun, crazy times."

In Infinite Crisis, Blue Beetle—the mantle worn by Ted Kord at the time—was killed by Maxwell Lord, setting off a chain of events that eventually would have ramifications across the DC Multiverse.

That is not funny. It definitely wouldn't have been if they produced a t-shirt bragging about all they did to the ladies in Identity Crisis, and even to Stephanie Brown and Dr. Leslie Thompkins in Batman: War Games/Crimes. And as for an "event" launching a thousand more, that was precisely the problem: it served as a catalyst for only so many pointless universe-spanning crossovers that took up only so much space in other comics, and wasn't fun at all. Though it sure was crazy in an atrocious way.

And if DiDio posted that data to coincide with the release of the new movie, then again, it's thudding pretty hard, as Breitbart notes:

Blue Beetle, which was stupidly sold as an affirmative action project instead of an exciting, unifying, good time at the movies, is suffering a slow box office death both at home and abroad.

After two weekends in release, The First *yawn* Hispanic Superhero Movie has grossed a measly $46 million domestic and only an additional $35 million overseas. With a pathetic $82 million worldwide gross, Blue Beetle isn’t coming close to breaking even.

Between the production and promotion budget, Warner Bros. likely spent around $200 million. That means Blue Beetle would have to gross somewhere around $400 million to simply break even. That is not going to happen.

It's just too bad the stupefyingly woke Barbie movie had to take in over a billion bucks, lest we forget. That said, getting back to the Beetle issue, film reviewer Dennis Schwartz had the following to say about the story premise:

As the family is threatened with eviction due to unfair rent hikes by its industrial landlords, Jaime seeking a high-paid job, gets turned down by the wealthy and influential industrialist Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon), the head of Kord Industries, after recommended for work by her liberal niece Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine). While leaving the industrial complex, Jenny secretly gives Jaime in a lunch box a high-tech alien blue Scarab to hide from her evil aunt, as she eludes the enemies within her family’s industrial corporation who are after her for not agreeing with their power-hungry trip to manufacture high-tech weapons. By getting close to the Scarab, Jaime gets possessed by its hidden powers (he can now fly and has a metal body of armor for protection). Jamie now must deal with being a superhero.

The film suffers from a listless screenplay, dull CGI action scenes, clunky dialogue, an uninteresting villain and an unappealing by-the-numbers superhero, too many heavy-handed exposition scenes and for being a cliched derivative film that arouses no excitement or suspense. I also found it pitiful that it gets its comedy at the expense of ripping its own cultural traits and customs, and its political ploys were so simplistic.

On the latter matter, maybe the political ploys were simplistic because the filmmakers' leftism was so obviously influential here, and they forced it in at all costs. Right down to making "Victoria" a stand-in for a right-winger, while the niece is portrayed as liberal. And all the while Ted Kord is indirectly slighted.

So for those who think Ted Kord faced unfair treatment over the years, this film isn't making things any better by kicking him to the curb much like DiDio did in the mid-2000s, all for the sake of a leftist political metaphor that, if DiDio and company had the chance, they'd make use of themselves back in the day. It sure is weird how, if a Latino superhero is important, nobody wants to make any use of Vibe, the guy introduced towards the end of the 1960-87 Justice League of America run, but was put to death in the end, all because George Perez didn't like the accent applied by Gerry Conway. It's utterly head-shaking how fictional characters get punished for the mistakes of the writers.

Labels: bad editors, crossoverloading, dc comics, golden calf of death, history, msm propaganda