DC Comics

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This puts a new spin on Batman's origin...

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DC Comics is currently on a lot of people's craplists, including mine. Two years ago, everything seemed to be changing for the better with the whole "DC Rebirth" thing with the return of the pre-New 52 continuity, which began with the return of the original Wally West.

Well, last week...

Wally West was found dead, shot to death. Apparently by Booster Gold. How someone that is imbued with the Speed Force can be shot to death, I have no idea. But I digress.

After two years of good will, it's like DC Comics decided to piss it all away.
 
I have a hard time believing that is real.
 
So... uhh...

First, DC Comics killed off Wally West a couple of weeks ago. Then, this week, they had Batman intentionally snap the neck of the KGBeast and leave him for dead. Not only that, but DC Comics brought back the New 52 Superman, who is now running around the DC Universe in addition to the post-Crisis Superman.

WTF, DC?
 
The one good thing DC Comics is doing lately is re-printing and putting up on Comixology and Google Play Books the old Captain Marvel/Shazam! comic books and graphic novels to tie-in with the upcoming film. I just bought The Power of Shazam! by Jerry Ordway. Shazam!: Power of Hope by Paul Dini and Alex Ross is scheduled to be reprinted/put up on Comixology and Google Play Books sometime next month, IIRC.
 
If it doesn't have corner box art, skip it.
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The actual scrpiting and art in comics is better across the board than it ever has been. The problem the big two have is regurgitating old story lines over and over again instead of just letting them be. Yes, because super heroes are myths, you will be telling similar stories over and over again. Just don’t give me Secret Wars or Crisis ad nauseum. I used to be huge proponent on one-and-done issues, but I realized that it really isn’t that important if you treat each book like an act in a play. My favorite comic growing up was G.I.Joe and Hama did string out stories over multiple issues all the time, especially after the initial dozen or so issues. It became a soap opera on the page. Also, Stern did that quite a bit in ASM and that is considered one of the best runs of any book at that time.
 
The other problem is the ever increasing gratuitous graphic violence, IMO. It started in the mid-2000s and has only gotten worse. Then again, that may just be me.
 
The other problem is the ever increasing gratuitous graphic violence, IMO. It started in the mid-2000s and has only gotten worse. Then again, that may just be me.

In DC? That surprises me. I wonder if they are trying to follow suit with their films and go "grimdark". If so, that's a shame.
 
In DC? That surprises me. I wonder if they are trying to follow suit with their films and go "grimdark". If so, that's a shame.

Oh, it started before Man of Steel. It started around the time of Identity Crisis in the mid-2000s, and really kicked into high gear with the New 52 in 2011.
 
Oh, it started before Man of Steel. It started around the time of Identity Crisis in the mid-2000s, and really kicked into high gear with the New 52 in 2011.

Oh, yeah, Identity Crisis. That was really an awful way to go about being "mature".
 
I only really know DC from the DCAU. The Justice League series in particular is just about as good as at it gets. I recall picking up the odd Batman and Green Lantern kid, but even for a kid I could tell they were pretty silly. But I was lucky enough to stumbled onto the Fantastic Four and I was instantly hooked.

Quick tangent: for the younger audience in the forum I should clarify, unlikely as it might sound, there was a time when the Fantastic Four was a really great comic. World's Greatest to be exact.

I gradually expanded my reading across multiple Marvel comics and even now, though I haven't been collecting comics for ages I still carry with me more Marvel lore in my head than is healthy. I have tried reading the odd DC comic. And even if it basically the same writers and artists who flip-flop between Marvel and DC depending on which company pissed them off last, DC comic never seem to have the same impact to me. I guess it that I lack the history and context.
 
I miss Karen Berger's Vertigo. As far as I'm concerned that era was the high point of DC Comics in regards to writing. I'm including Star Man , Arkham Asylum, Killing Joke, and JLA Year One in that, even though they weren't technically Vertigo imprint. That era in general, when the rest of the comicbook superhero world was pissing away their livelihood to cater to collectors.
 
WarnerMedia has begun work on a Blue Beetle film, featuring the Jaime Reyes version.

Comic Book said:
According to a new report from The Wrap, writer Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer is working on the script for the new movie, while Zev Foreman will serve as executive producer for Warner Bros.

Dunnet-Alcocer previously wrote Universal Pictures' reboot of Scarface.

[...]It appears as if this project is different from the Booster Gold and Blue Beetle movie that was in the works at Warner Bros. years ago, which was supposedly going to come from DC TV wunderkind Greg Berlanti, with Marvel movie veteran Zak Penn writing the script.
Those plans have likely been scrapped or never came to fruition, like many other DC Comics-based projects that have either been announced or reported in the press.

I wish it was the Ted Kord version.
 
I actually am kind of intrigued by the Aquaman film and am interested in seeing it. It looks very Silver Age to me. They didn’t seem to be embarrassed to make a comic book come to life.
 
I actually am kind of intrigued by the Aquaman film and am interested in seeing it. It looks very Silver Age to me. They didn’t seem to be embarrassed to make a comic book come to life.
That's what DC have needed to do all along. Embrace the slightly camp and cheesy nature of superheroes and jave fun with it.

I'd love to see an adaptation of Guy Gardner Reborn, the Green Lantern Ryan Reynolds should have played.
 
Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin are all slated for release in 4K Ultra HD sometime in May or June.
 
DC plans to cut back on releasing collected editions, and are considering adding exclusive materials to the print versions of products over digital.

DC plans to reduce the number of collected editions it releases due to perceived glut in the marketplace, according to Co-Publisher Dan DiDio. This comes following a presentation at this past weekend's closed-door ComicsPRO annual meeting.

"We feel there are too many collections in the market and the shelves are overcrowded with nothing standing out," DiDio wrote in a private retailer Facebook group, shared by several retailers with Newsarama. "We are rethinking ways to build collections, including adding material in the print versions that will not be available in the digital."

Others have noted elsewhere that they've noticed that the big three comic book publishers (DC, Marvel, and Image), have recently slowed down the release of collected editions. For the past several years, six issue runs would be collected in a hardcover or trade paperback within a couple of months after the release of the sixth issue... now some are not being released until several months later.

This whole thing seems aimed at appeasing comic book retailers, who are very pro-floppy and very anti-digital.
 
Given I usually wait for sales on comixology, I tend to pick up stuff on the cheap. Most times, the single issues are cheaper than the collected editions.
 
I used to buy single issues each month until three years ago. In the switch over from the New 52 to Rebirth, DC Comics canceled several issues of a few comic books which wrapped up a few New 52 storylines, and only published them in the collected editions. So if I wanted to read the last few issues, I had to buy the collected editions even though I bought the rest of the single issues. It seriously honked me off, and I figured if DC were favoring collected editions like that, screw it, I may as well.
 
DC plans to cut back on releasing collected editions, and are considering adding exclusive materials to the print versions of products over digital.



Others have noted elsewhere that they've noticed that the big three comic book publishers (DC, Marvel, and Image), have recently slowed down the release of collected editions. For the past several years, six issue runs would be collected in a hardcover or trade paperback within a couple of months after the release of the sixth issue... now some are not being released until several months later.

This whole thing seems aimed at appeasing comic book retailers, who are very pro-floppy and very anti-digital.

From what I've read a bigger and bigger part of the market is TBP sales in bookstores so that is probably a consideration as well.
 
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