USA Today just announced that DC will be cancelling six titles after their eighth issue, which includes the following:

Men Of War
Mister Terrific
O.M.A.C.
Hawk And Dove
Blackhawks
Static Shock

This announcement doesn’t really surprise me, as most of these titles seemed destined for the chopping block due to poor sales and a lack of quality. I’ve only read three of the titles up there (Static, Mister Terrific, Blackhawks), so I can’t give full reviews, but here’s my thoughts.

Blackhawks

- This book had a very “GI Joe” feeling to it, which sadly included a lot of the throwaway characters without any solid development.
- Like many New 52 titles, we were thrown into action without a chance to actually care about the people we were reading. Here’s a protip: if the first issue of the book closes with a “stunning murder!” cliffhanger, you are doing something wrong.
- The Blackhawks are an act based on Nostalgia: if you’re picking up the book you’re either looking for something completely new (and running into the problems above), or you’re looking for any similarity to the badasses of old. Sadly, that isn’t present here, which leads me to think they could have just made a leap of faith and used them as new IP.
- They had no relevance to the DC Universe. There was never any feeling (unlike with Secret Warriors/Avengers over at Marvel) that their action had some permanence or significance. There’s a number of DC books feel like they could be in their own imprint, instead of part of the universe proper.

Mister Terrific

- This book is possibly my biggest disappointment out of the New 52 (well, maybe besides the Gail Simone-helmed Batgirl). It took an awesome character with defining traits and turned him into a Black Reed Richards, dullness and all.
- Michael Holt was never about super science, but subtle science. He was an atheist while standing beside gods, and stuck to his guns. Medical emergency? Guy was there. Computer virus? Memetic villain? This guy’s your man. Time travel, teleportation and space adventures? Not exactly his forte.
- I’m not saying that that kind of comic scientist isn’t great, but it’s shit we’ve seen before. Michael’s old incarnation wasn’t. He was unique, and DC smeared some vaseline on him, gave him Karen Starr as a fuck-buddy and murdered someone in the first two issues (see above).

Static Shock

- This is perhaps the only surprising entry to this list of cancellations: I was under the impression that this book was at least the same quality as the surviving Blue Beetle.
- Again, this book suffers from poor characterization and a rush to get to the action, leaving us to not care about the people we’re reading about. Static lost a lot of his “realness” as a teen hero, and a convoluted backstory (which is just being revealed now, four-five issues in) did not help him.
- He seems to be a know-it-all, well-funded super-genius, which, again, we have seen before. We didn’t see much interaction between Static and other teens except when he was in “stakeout” mode, and it just took away from the belief that he actually had a life when he wasn’t in the suit.
- The book was a terribly formulaic, poor attempt at replicating the “Spider-Man” success without any qualities for teen readers to identify with and latch onto. Villains would scheme, Vergil would show up, spout some science and zap them into submission.
- He would then go home and deal with his sister and her evil doppelgänger (which still hasn’t been explained and is still treated as a “normal thing”, five issues in), while the villains would scheme again. It was like Tim Burton’s Batman film: Batman ended up not being the main character at all.

A Growing Problem

It’s a pity that two books with African-American leads are cancelled at the same time, but the quality of the books were indicative of a growing problem. Terrific’s creative team changed issue-to-issue, and Static made no traction to actually getting the story under way.

It’s disappointing, because these were characters with a ton of potential. I enjoyed them in Teen Titans, the DCAU and Justice Society in the “old” DCU, and it pains me to see that the New 52 has chewed them up and spit them out.

Consistent quality is the most important factor in the opening months of a new book, as it establishes readers and gives a strong foundation to build off of. These books did not have that.

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(Source: USA Today)

Filed under comics comics market comic books dc new 52 the new 52 dc comics dc new 52 blackhawks birds of prey gail simone batgirl mister terrific static shock Dwayne McDuffie men of war omac

7 notes

January 4, 2012

derribe:

I picked up the new issue of Animal Man, the series that I’m enjoying the most from DC right now. I’ve found this to be the first issue to really disappoint me, though. While I think Jeff Lemire is a tremendous writer and plotter (loving Sweet Tooth!) normally, I don’t think the plotting in Animal Man has been particularly remarkable. From what he’s said, he’s mostly building on the mythos that past writers have established—and that’s fine. For the most part, he’s reintroducing concepts and getting out of the way so that Travel Foreman can visualize them and scare the readers into enjoyment. I don’t want to downplay the excellent dialogue that’s got us to love the interplay between the family members—that’s good too. The series has largely been working for me, and judging by reactions I’ve been reading online, it’s been working for others too. Unfortunately, I don’t think this issue really added any momentum to the series—I’m three dollars poorer, but I’ve not been given anything new by the creative team.

Lemire reminds us that Animal Man needs to save his family, like we’ve been getting each issue. Animal Man saves his family, Messiah daughter uses her powers to display great power again. I’ve finished one chase issue only to receive another chase issue. And the plot of this issue? Almost entirely forgettable to me. Psychobabble and technobabble don’t work for me, and the necrobabble in Animal Man is no exception. For the fifth month in a row, mystic forces remind us that the bad guy[s] can travel in dead flesh, etc. etc. etc. All this culminates in the the cliffhanger, which is the promise of a crossover. Brilliant.

Travel Foreman delivers another solid issue, but failed to live up to the standards that he had set for himself. His work looks great, but nothing was so shocking or gruesome as issues that had come before. It’s possible that I’m expecting too much, but only because I’ve been so satisfied with his work in the prior four issues.

A big disappointment this Wednesday, but not as big as today’s Uncanny X-Force was. I did like some books this week, though. I promise!

This was a big issue I had with this month’s Static Shock (2 star review by me on ComicVine). We’ve had five months to move past the initial phases of a book, where the writers need to hook you into the story with (hopefully) good characters and premise - some books just haven’t even approached that point. The setup for some titles is woefully long, and I’m losing patience for a lot of the New 52.

I mean, look at Mark Waid’s Daredevil or Greg Rucka’s Punisher; they’ve both been around for seven issues and have done legions more in terms of plot and character building than books like Batgirl, Static, Blue Beetle and Frankenstein: Agents of S.H.A.D.E. Each of those books just seems content to drag along with not much actually happening in their pages.

I’m hoping Animal Man isn’t going to join them.

(via allthegreatnamesaretaken)

Filed under comics animal man blue beetle batgirl new 52 static shock

1 note

September 16, 2011

Lines. Lines fucking everywhere.

I’m become increasingly concerned about the new 52, and after reading some of the new Batman/Detective Comics, I thought I’d point out how stupid Bats’ costume looks. I remember when Jim Lee was showing off concept art for All Star Batman & Robin in an old issue of Wizard, and the suit looked quite like this; Lee even made a joke about it: “ribbed, for her pleasure.”

I’m neither an artist, nor am I fashion designer. I’m also not the stereotypical anti-change comics fan; I can appreciate when improvements are made, or when things are taken in a logical direction. But this?

This really just reeks of over-design, impracticality and a step in the direction of the 90’s. I’m surprised there isn’t a bandolier of pouches going from shoulder to hip.

In my review of Mister Terrific #1 this week, I noted that my main complaint is that DC writers seem to be concentrating on flash coming out of the gate, but not a lot of substance. I see the same problems I had with Terrific in Batman & Robin, Detective Comics, Batgirl and Static Shock: there has been little focus on the people the heroes actually are.

Instead, we’re given eye candy, and a lot of it. While this might bring new readers in (or excite older ones), it’s not a good formula for the long-term success of a book. Hell, candy gets old if you’ve been eating it for a long time.

What I want is to feel a connection with the characters I’m reading about. I want Mister Terrific to be more than a DC version of Mister Fantastic. I want Static to be a teenage I can identify with, instead of a surreal super-geek who doesn’t seem to have many problems. I want Barbara Gordon to have some spunk, instead of being valley-girl flippant one minute and uber-serious the next.

The common excuse is that “it’s the first issue. Give it time,” but the problem is that this isn’t the impression that DC needs to be making. I’m afraid that if they get drunk on the massive numbers they’re pulling, these trends will continue until it fails.

And comics without substance is never a good thing.

Filed under comic books dc comics batman new 52