COMICS PORTAL: A ‘Rebirth’ Reaction

Last weekend was a BIG one for DC Comics and Warner Bros. Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice did well at the box office, setting records all over the place. I know a lot of people who went to the first Avengers film just to see the characters in live action together for the first time, and that may have helped BvS as well. I saw the movie as well, and while it had its problems, I loved it overall!

But for comics fans, the biggest news came out of WonderCon in California as DC released its slate of creative teams for their books starting in May this year. If you missed that, you can go to this link for the information and to this link for the video.

Do I really need to add that the reaction was mixed across the Internet, from “It all sucks!” to “It’s all great?” Most reaction fell in the middle, and while some choices excite me, there were others that worry me. Let me share my reactions with you!

TWICE-MONTHLY COMICS

Marvel’s been putting out several comics twice a month successfully, and it makes sense on many levels. If you have a lot of fans who enjoy Batman, for instance, then why not make more so they can buy more? It does make business sense!

The trick’s going to be maintaining quality. Not many creative teams can crank out two titles a month, so others may need to come in and pick up the slack. It’ll be strange if only part of a schedule gets cancelled, that one team doesn’t elicit the same sales as another. Weird!

I think the picks for semi-monthly publications were good overall. They’re featuring the more popular characters, but we’ll see how that goes.

STILL HOLDING THE LINE AT $2.99

Making an 80-page kick-off that costs only $2.99 has gotten people’s attention, and so has making all their comics that price.

I really agree with the concept behind this, that it’s important to get your product into the hands of fans, especially if it’s good, than to make more money and have fewer fans. Will the market bear that out? I truly hope so! I know a lot of people with tight budgets who would LOVE to buy more books, so I’m hopeful!

BACK TO THE ORIGINAL NUMBERING

I’m very happy that both Action Comics and Detective Comics will return to their original numbering, which will help them reach #1,000 before long!

I mean, come on! How many comics can say they’ve put out that many books? It’ll be a collector’s dream when it hits since I’m sure they’ll do all kinds of special things in them. What they do AFTER that will be most interesting to me!

WHAT CONCERNS ME

Some of the titles are founded on concepts that, well, I’m not all that excited about. For example, having two rookie GLs be the focus of the Green Lanterns comic as well as members of the Justice League? I don’t know if Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz have that strong an appeal. Granted, they’re more diverse than other DC heroes, but can they sell enough copies of issues to be deemed successful? I’m unsure on this one! Still, Sam Humphries has built quite a name for himself at Marvel, so I’m intrigued by what he’ll do on this comic.

I was struck by how many Superman-family comics DC’s going to make. While I’m happy to see this, I have to say that I’m not sure the comics have known how to deal with the Man of Steel. Should he be completely moral or not? Should he be so powerful he can move planets or not? The best Superman stories I’ve read in years are taking place in Superman: American Alien where they make him less perfect than he has been. I think CBS’ Supergirl show has been doing well in handling her super-ness, but look at them all! Superwoman! The Super-Man! Supergirl! And that doesn’t count Action or Superman! Maybe new blood will help revive this franchise!

The Green Arrow character has long been a favorite of mine despite even his similarities to Batman. I love the Arrow show on The CW, but whenever I’ve attempted to get into his comics recently, it hasn’t caught hold of my attention. Twice monthly? I don’t know about this choice!

The notion also exists that “R” motion pictures can tell broader, more unusual stories. After all, you’re less likely to know what they’re going to do when it comes to plot, right? You can chop off a person’s head or hands, after all, so why not?

Batgirl leaving Burnside to backpack to Asia. Uh, no, thank you. I’ll miss the most recent team on the Batgirl comic, including Babs Tarr, Brenden Fletcher and Cameron Stewart. You guys did well, in my opinion.

And here’s my biggest worry: Detective Comics being made into a team book. I’m looking forward to reading James Tynion IV’s writing on Batman – he’s done a great job whenever he’s touched the Dark Knight, including Batman and the TMNT – but teaming up Spoiler, Tim Drake, Cassandra Cain with – this one spun my head around – Clayface? And Batwoman is a co-leader? I like all those characters and really respect Mr. Tynion’s work, but this one will have to work hard to win me over. (Never mind that I always hope Detective Comics will at some point return to mystery stories!)

THE HIGHLIGHTS

I was really feeling terrible near the end of the Batman family panel. Tom King was taking over the writing of Batman – not a bad thing, but he’s got a HUGE task ahead of him to follow in Scott Snyder’s footsteps – and book after book went by with no mention of Mr. Snyder. Then they brought him on the stage so they could announce that he’s signed an exclusive deal with DC (about time!) and that he’s going to write All-Star Batman. What a relief! This will give him a chance to explore other Bat-villains that he hasn’t gotten to yet. John Romita, Jr., will provide the art, too. Am I looking forward to that!

Dick Grayson is back as Nightwing, even wearing the black and blue, which caused Dan DiDio, who has a longstanding dislike for someone between Batman and Robin, to receive a lot of ribbing.

To have Greg Rucka writing Wonder Woman will be great, in my opinion. I’ll miss the Finch’s there, but at least David will be providing art for Batman.

The Flash is going to be written by Joshua Williamson, one of my favorite scribes. His concept of a Speed Force storm creating a number of speedsters, with one of them going bad, fascinates me. Robert Venditti, who has been doing wonderful things with Green Lantern, is going to work on Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps.

Harley Quinn needs no Rebirth … she’ll just keep on chugging away with Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner (the latter of whom is another exclusive with DC now). Suicide Squad will be twice monthly with art by Jim Lee and Philip Tan, getting ready for the soon-to-be-released film.

I want so badly for Blue Beetles to be a success. I like both Ted Kord and Jaime Reyes, and with Scott Kolins providing the art (Keith Giffen scripting), it should be a fun ride.

Batman Beyond, Deathstroke, Titans, Teen Titans and The Hellblazer all sound good as well.

The mystery of the day was who will be working on Justice League of America. We learned that Bryan Hitch will be writing and Tony Daniel providing art for Justice League, but I’m anxiously awaiting word on who will take on this milestone book for DC.

There is another announcement that really caught my attention as well. They’re going to reveal the identity of Batman’s nemesis, the Joker. Given the mystery that’s been surrounding that character for decades, I’m hoping it’s a great reveal.

WILL THIS WORK?

There’s a lot of good things I’m looking forward to, while others I’ll have to check out as they appear. But the big question is … will this help DC get back up near the top of the heap? While I don’t think it will be as big as The New 52 was (I doubt anything will get back to those levels), it’ll be a HUGE improvement from DCYou.

The Bat-books will continue to be favorites of mine as well as the Justice League titles. I’m glad to see a Supergirl comic coming (especially given the success of CBS’s show).

I do imagine that, like The New 52, we’ll see some surprise hits rise up to demand our attention much like Animal Man did. But which one or ones, I couldn’t say at this point! Still, DC Comics will have 17 twice monthly books and 14 monthly books – not 52, but many worth checking out.

What do you think? Which of these DC comics interest you? Which ones are you going to avoid and why? Be sure to share your thoughts below, and we’ll see you back on April 13 when the catalog for DC Rebirth and on the Rebirth Special scheduled for May 25!