DC still won't stop with company wide crossovers

Sometimes, I've thought, and I'm sure with much accuracy, that DC's done much worse than Marvel in terms of going out of their way to write up company wide crossovers that leave no room for stand-alone storytelling. Now, Newsarama's reporting without any objectivity that DC's got a "massive" one coming in the summer called "Absolute Power", and it appears to put an anti-heroine created by John Ostrander into a villain's role instead:

There's a new DC summer event on the way - one that will have far-reaching ramifications for the heroes of the DC universe. As previously reported, Absolute Power is set to unite a "trinity of evil" - three villains who are dedicated to eliminating the world's metahumans. Amanda Waller, Braniac, and Failsafe have all been making big power plays over the last few months in various ongoing comics, and now they're set to unite and wreak havoc.

Absolute Power is big. Really, really big, spanning by our count eight separate titles and 15 issues. We've got the full breakdown of the comics that make up the event as well as a whole heap of art and release dates for when you can pick them up below. Let's get into it...

Absolute Power Free Comic Book Day Special Edition

A 32-page one-shot featuring an original 12-page story by writer Mark Waid and artist Mikel Janín, plus a recap of some of the important events leading into Absolute Power, as well as a preview of Absolute Power #1. Available for free in participating comic shops on Saturday, May 4.

This is practically unintentional comedy at this point when the news sites say it's "big". Because it's not, and certainly not in terms of artistic quality, which was lost long ago. That it's prelude may be available for free does not make it worth buying as a whole. And look how Waid continues to make a fool of himself in this day and age by taking part in any way in projects that brought down superhero comicdom in past decades, by tangling plenty of series in crossovers that disrupt and deprive creative freedom and stand-alone integrity.

We do not need a story like this in the format of a whole company wide crossover event, and it's shameful how they keep doing it that way, instead of trying to develop a stand-alone miniseries that could do the job more palatably. And then, DC even has the gall to take a character from Ostrander's original Suicide Squad run from 1987-92 and turn her into what appears to be a full-fledged villainess to boot. We could decidedly do without that too. So it's to be hoped that consumers have learned their lesson and won't fall for DC's latest cynical ploy, many of which reek of attempts by DC to outdo Marvel in terms of shock value. That's what really makes them awful.