LET'S TALK: DC 2.0

[BobBretall]

I've decided to drop the following 4 DC series as of the January order (prior to the Feb spreadsheet coming out):

I, Vampire: Reason will likely be apparent after listening to Weekly Spotlight #233. Basically, having a horror book that needs to do crossovers with Batman & other DCU heroes is not my cup of tea. I'm hoping these crossovers are being inflicted on Fialkov by DC so I can keep on respecting him creatively. This dissatisfaction with the Batman guest shot reinforces my concern over the upcoming crossover with JL Dark, I'm getting off the train before the crossover pulls into the station.

Legion of Super-Heroes: This just seems superfluous after the reboot. I don't get the sense of wonder/excitement I once had from the series. I read #5 and thought it was WAY too soon after the reboot to spend an entire issue on "Day in the Life" stories.

Red Hood & The Outlaws: This went off the rails with the weird lizard-man enemy who is a genetically altered human who is fighting against aliens. Wha huh???? The Red Hood sub-plot with him off on a journey of self discovery was another puzzling story choice. Let's have a team book where the team does not really work together. I also am not feeling that Rocafort's art is as strong (or at least it's not as appealing to me) as it was in Madame Mirage & the first couple of issues of the reboot. I'm out.

Nightwing is currently on probation. They introduce these circus people as long lost elements of his past out of the blue so they can turn them into bad guys conspiring against Dick a couple of issues later?? I wasn't buying this weak plot device when they did it with Hush, why go back to that particular well? I'll give this a few more issues to show some improvement.

I've also (last month) dropped Wonder Woman & Detective. The New 52 is losing ground on my pull list.

[HassanT]

Red Hood & The Outlaws: This went off the rails with the weird lizard-man enemy who is a genetically altered human who is fighting against aliens. Wha huh???? The Red Hood sub-plot with him off on a journey of self discovery was another puzzling story choice. Let's have a team book where the team does not really work together. I also am not feeling that Rocafort's art is as strong (or at least it's not as appealing to me) as it was in Madame Mirage & the first couple of issues of the reboot. I'm out.

I haven't noticed the drop in quality in Rocafort's art, but it might be because he is trying to get the book out on a monthly basis where at Top Cow his books were very late. I think the same thing happened with Hitch. His best art was on the Ultimates but that book was extremely late. When he did FF, which was produced relatively on time, his art was slightly weaker than his Ultimate work. Not that I am saying his art is bad, in fact, I still think he is one of the best artists around. However, when you have to hit a monthly deadline, the quality sometimes suffer.

Nightwing is currently on probation. They introduce these circus people as long lost elements of his past out of the blue so they can turn them into bad guys conspiring against (bleep) a couple of issues later?? I wasn't buying this weak plot device when they did it with Hush, why go back to that particular well? I'll give this a few more issues to show some improvement.

It is a standard plot device, but at the same time since this is a reboot/relaunch of Nightwing, if they couldn't reference a past character from the original series because then new readers wouldn't have gotten it. To me the reveal of the Saiko wasn't that weak because they never set up as a mystery like they did with Hush. And the most shocking reveal of issue 5 wasn't Saiko but his "partner".

Legion of Super-Heroes: This just seems superfluous after the reboot. I don't get the sense of wonder/excitement I once had from the series. I read #5 and thought it was WAY too soon after the reboot to spend an entire issue on "Day in the Life" stories.

Yeah, I agree. I am a huge fan of the Legion, but it has been weak since the 52 relaunch. It is on my probation list.

I need to drop some of these DC books. Unfortunately, the majority of the ones that I was going to drop, DC has cancelled as of number 8, so it really won't help me reduce the number of comics I read. Also, DCBS as just released their order form for April 2012 and is still offering 50% off the new 52 and 75% off the new Vertigo 4.

[abysslord]

About Nightwing, was I supposed to KNOW who Saiko was when the mask was pulled off? I just sat there like "Oh .... I'm either reading way too many books or they didn't do a good job establishing this person." But I agree with HassanT that the reveal was more who the partner was ... at least I guess since I have no clue who the other one is

As far as Bob's newest cancels:

I see Bob's point about I, Vampire. Books like this should really be in their own universe. I still enjoy it and I think the core of the book is still entertaining enough for me but I can see the other side as well.

Legion of Superheroes I dropped after #4 because:

1) I never read it before so it wasn't a very good reboot for new readers.
2) WAY too many characters for me, I have trouble remembering everyone in the team books I read now with like 4-5 members.
3) I understand I'm reading books about heroes in tights but even I have to draw the line with names like "Lightning Lad" and "Cosmic Boy" and "whatever Gal", etc.

[BobBretall]

I haven't noticed the drop in quality in Rocafort's art

I'm not saying his art is bad, it's just lackintg a certain something that used to really catch my eye & make me go "Wow!" when I looked at it. It seems more like standard art now.

And the most shocking reveal of issue 5 wasn't Saiko but his "partner".

Who also got introduced new in the reboot to be a shocking "betrayer". My pint is it's hard for me to swallow the "shocking betrayal from the past" angle when the past is only 5 issues old. It's just a questionable story choice to make so early in the reboot. Tell forward-thinking stories, not ones that rely on a sketchy & ill-defined past.

[BobBretall]

But I agree with HassanT that the reveal was more who the partner was ... at least I guess since I have no clue who the other one is

I had to ask who the heck that dude was when I was reading the issue (apparently he was introduced in #3 & it slid off my mind). Good thing about our SmartPhone comics chatgroup..... I asked & got an answer (from Hassan) pretty quick.

Anyone with a Smart phone who's not in the group yet, come join us!

[HassanT]

I haven't noticed the drop in quality in Rocafort's art

I'm not saying his art is bad, it's just lackintg a certain something that used to really catch my eye & make me go "Wow!" when I looked at it. It seems more like standard art now.

And the most shocking reveal of issue 5 wasn't Saiko but his "partner".

Who also got introduced new in the reboot to be a shocking "betrayer". My pint is it's hard for me to swallow the "shocking betrayal from the past" angle when the past is only 5 issues old. It's just a questionable story choice to make so early in the reboot. Tell forward-thinking stories, not ones that rely on a sketchy & ill-defined past.

That is a valid issue with the book. It would have probably work better as a 2nd year story. To be honest, while I enjoyed the book, I wished the focus more on Grayson going from Batman to Nightwing and not Nightwing and the Circus.

[HassanT]

But I agree with HassanT that the reveal was more who the partner was ... at least I guess since I have no clue who the other one is

I had to ask who the heck that dude was when I was reading the issue (apparently he was introduced in #3 & it slid off my mind). Good thing about our SmartPhone comics chatgroup..... I asked & got an answer (from Hassan) pretty quick.

Anyone with a Smart phone who's not in the group yet, come join us!

I agree. It is a lot of fun.

Since I am a huge Batman family fan, I tend to remember these things well. On the opposite side, is the X-Men. I don't remember or pick up on things as well I should.

[Perry]

Anyone with a Smart phone who's not in the group yet, come join us!

I know you mentioned it in the podcast, but as my memory is as useful to me as a shake-weight is to the Hulk, could you remind me how?

E-mail you ... or ... oh hell, I don't know

[BobBretall]

Anyone with a Smart phone who's not in the group yet, come join us!

I know you mentioned it in the podcast, but as my memory is as useful to me as a shake-weight is to the Hulk, could you remind me how?

E-mail you ... or ... oh hell, I don't know

PM or e-mail me the e-mail address you have linked to your smart phone & I'll send you an invite to download the free app (called Touch).

[spid]

Scott Mcdaniel post his side of the Static Shock Story.

http://scottmcdaniel.net/interviews/STA ... SHOCK.html

Warning it is very very long.

[abysslord]

Scott Mcdaniel post his side of the Static Shock Story.

http://scottmcdaniel.net/interviews/STA ... SHOCK.html

Warning it is very very long.

I think this is the crux of the argument for those who don't want to read the whole thing ... it IS long

As you can see, the pattern is generally followed, regardless of how "cold" or how "hot" #1 sales are. For STATIC SHOCK, the future picture was immediately clear to me (at this time, issue #2 had just come out a week prior):

ANTICIPATED SALES for Static # 4 or 5:
(34,004 units)*(0.60) = 20,402 units.
ANTICIPATED SALES for Static # 12:
(34,004 units)*(0.40) = 13,601 units.

Uh-oh. Any title selling less than 20,000 units will be considered for CANCELLATION.

Anticipating NORMAL, TRADITIONAL SALES PATTERNS, STATIC SHOCK won't make it.

Repeat: left on its own, without special intervention, HISTORICAL SALES PATTERNS PREDICT STATIC SHOCK WILL FAIL.

And #2 had only come out last week!!!

I immediately shared this information with Harvey and John. I'm sure Harvey actually had better data than I did (I only had Diamond Estimates, and no clue to the level of digital comics sales). Harvey was just as concerned as I was, so I assumed the Diamond Sales Estimate was pretty close to the ACTUAL sales (at least for STATIC SHOCK).

To me and Harvey, the best chance for STATIC's survival was to plan big, exciting stories. Create solid story that QUICKLY grew to important and dramatic climaxes for Virgil and Static. There was no time to play it safe, or to do slow-burn stories. Time was our enemy. We needed something nearly geologic to upset the repeat of history in order to keep the book alive.

John dismissed this information, and our strategy, entirely. In his opinion, Harvey and I were too concerned with sales and gimmicks and not legitimate story.

I was frankly stunned by his reaction.

Of ALL people I thought John would be sensitive to the REALITIES of the market. The XOMBI sales data I shared here, AND WITH JOHN AT THE TIME, showed the pattern. It's real. Worse yet, John's XOMBI sales were so low that XOMBI WAS CANCELLED BEFORE ISSUE #1 EVEN SHIPPED.

It's a tough situation. I mean, before any #1 was released many people knew a handful of titles that weren't going to make it. I don't think there was ANYTHING you could do.

But in this situation I think I agree with Rozum. People aren't stupid and gimmicks are called gimmicks for a reason. If the title is going to fail anyway, why not make it the best 8 issues you can instead of saying "Abandon ship, let's throw some gimmicks at the them and maybe it will work!" You never know, establishing a slow, better story may do the same.

If they KNEW the title was going to fail, how about telling the men high up to not even bother wasting their time with it?

The other thing about Xombi ... it made it to #6 or so, so how could that have been cancelled before #1 even shipped? I think he's exaggerating there.

[spid]

The more I read the more I thought Scott McDaniel was proving the writer's point. It seems he and the editor were more concerned with "saving" the book instead of putting out a quality title.

[torchsong]

Here's my current list of DC titles and how they're doing so far:

Justice League - decided to drop this after reading issue 5 last night. I realized I was doing my own personal no-no - buying a book just because. A voice in my head basically was screaming "This is Horrible!" and I wasn't willing to listen to it because I wanted it to be good. Unfortunately, Lee and Johns have managed to embody everything I didn't care for in 90s comics in this book. So it's out of my list.

Resurrection Man - I have not been let down by this book yet in terms of writing and plot. #5 absolutely knocked everything out of the park. Mitch was an jerk, the body doubles DO have a history with him, and there's an obvious origin to why he can't die. In for the duration.

Supergirl - I've been following Kara since the 1970s. This has been the most fun I've had reading her book in a long time. I didn't care for the way she was portrayed through most of the 00s. I like that she's brash, doesn't think it all through, gets confused, tends to strike out without considering the consequences...she makes mistakes! They've put the "girl" back into Supergirl (and I'm not being misogynistic there...what I mean is she's a teenager again!) The costume's grown on me as well.

Aquaman - I know eventually I'll jump to trades on this but for now I've really enjoyed what Johns and Reis are doing with this series. The artwork has been beautiful and it's great to see both him and Mera trying to live normally while retaining their "regal" natures. I want to keep it as a book that outsells all the Marvels as long as possible!

Red Hood and the Outlaws - The reason I'm holding on to this title is because there's a threat that all this looseness is going to come together and I want to be there when it does. Because I get the impression that when it hits, it's going to be huge. Every time I start to doubt it, something happens that gets me going "Ahhh...don't write this one off just yet!"

Wonder Woman - right now, pound for pound, this is the best book DC is putting out. The artwork is great, there's so much imagination and creativity going on with how the Olympic pantheon works, and the role they play in Diana's life, and Diana herself has become interesting again...not Wonder Woman...Diana. Issue 4 floored me, but issue 5 has completely sold me on this series.

[BobBretall]

The more I read the more I thought Scott McDaniel was proving the writer's point. It seems he and the editor were more concerned with "saving" the book instead of putting out a quality title.

Agreed. Their desire to make big splashy stuff is not the draw, when done with no sense of style or flair. I dropped the book like a rock, not because of a slow burn, but because the title was reaching for cheap flash instead of something solid (following the "lopping off a limb" trend that's in fashion at DC).

[BobBretall]

Wonder Woman - right now, pound for pound, this is the best book DC is putting out. The artwork is great, there's so much imagination and creativity going on with how the Olympic pantheon works, and the role they play in Diana's life, and Diana herself has become interesting again...not Wonder Woman...Diana. Issue 4 floored me, but issue 5 has completely sold me on this series.

I couldn't even make it through issue #5. It cemented my decision to drop the series. Another "Diff'rent Strokes" moment.

I agree with you on Aquaman, Supergirl & Resurrection Man, though. They are among my faves in the New46 (I'm taking out the 6 cancelled titles....)