This relatively brief overview of DC Comics’ short-term publishing plans from Scripps Howard News Service is interesting both for a couple of wha-huh? statements and for a few newsy items (there may be a spoiler or two, so beware):
1. The description of DC as “the world’s largest publisher of monthly comics.” It has a better ring to it than Marvel’s boilerplate statement that it’s “one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies,” to be sure, but I wonder what criteria was used. The number of titles produced each month? The entire company catalog?
2. Dan DiDio’s comment that the company is “tempted by” the weekly format, and that DC is in the planning stages of doing a third weekly series, set for next year. I don’t recall seeing that mentioned anywhere else, but I’m probably wrong.
3. DiDio’s acknowledgment that Countdown is selling “maybe 10 percent less” than 52, but that the series is performing better than DC expected.
4. The weirdness of the writer’s characterization of the relationship history of Black Canary and Green Arrow: “Their relationship has gone on for 30 years and has endured rape, infidelity and numerous breakups.”
5. Although the writer stumbles a little with the end of Flash: The Fastest Man Alive and the restarting in September using the numbering of the previous series — hey, it’s a little confusing even to those who cover that kind of stuff on a daily basis — he gets a firm statement from DiDio that Barry Allen won’t be resurrected as the next Flash. Yeah, yeah, we saw Wally West and family return at the end of Justice League of America #10, but there’s been message-board speculation that it’s nothing more than a red herring. Of course, the phrase was “next Flash,” so maybe it is. Eh, I don’t really care.
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:22 am
Hey Kevin,
Regarding #4, a better word choice might have been “survived” rather than “endured”. Clearly, the rape part is referencing “The Longbow Hunters”, but you’re right in that it’s just an awkwardly worded statement that might lead one to believe that Green Arrow was a participant in the rape (like the Luke/Laura scenario from General Hospital), rather than rape being a trauma that Dinah endured that they dealt with as a couple.
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:02 pm
I would like to see DC try a weekly ongoing, in the same spirit of Countdown but without the element of impending doom – just a weekly “spine,” featuring a few minor characters (much lke Countdown and 52), tying together different goings-on in the DCU, and serving as a promotional tool to highlight various titles (especially underperforming titles as well as new ones). Price it at $1.99 (or less), maybe a few less pages, and I think it was be a nice experiment…
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Actually, the bit about going weekly a third time is a scoop, as far as I know. Terry’s a friend of mine. He’s just lucky that it stayed a scoop from Heroes Con until he got to run the story.
June 23rd, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Oh yeah…and if Dan actually specifically used “resurrected”, that still leaves open the Captain-Mar-Vell option. It is actually the built-in method that Marv Wolfman purposely put into Crisis for bringing Barry back…he pops out from any of those little “flashes” of him right before he died against the monitor. He’d know he had to go back to die. I think that was the thing Marv did, at least.
June 24th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Dinah was never raped, Grell’s been quoted as saying so.