You’re going to want a n explanation for juts what the heck is going on here if you didn’t read last Wednesday’s post. So go check it out. I’ll wait.
Okay, got it?
All of a sudden some crazy deity (likely the same one that presides over rounds of “Would You Rather”) gives you absolute control of a comic book publisher – in this case DC, in last week’s article it was Marvel.
The catch is, you only get to put out twelve books a month. Shit.
Marvel actually proved a bit easier than I thought it would, but I have a feeling DC is going to be a bear. I am mostly sort of more of a DC guy. This might be tough. Just like last time, here’s the list of titles that DC published this past May; not including trades or other collections (I don’t think, anyway – there are a couple of things I wasn’t too sure what they even were):
ACTION COMICS
ADVENTURE COMICS
ALL NEW BATMAN THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD
AMERICAN VAMPIRE
BATGIRL
BATMAN
BATMAN AND ROBIN
BATMAN ARKHAM CITY
BATMAN BEYOND
BATMAN GATES OF GOTHAM
BATMAN INCORPORATED
BIRDS OF PREY
BOOSTER GOLD
CARTOON NETWORK ACTION PACK
CINDERELLA FABLES ARE FOREVER
DC UNIVERSE ONLINE LEGENDS
DETECTIVE COMICS
DEUS EX
DMZ
DOC SAVAGE
DOOM PATROL
FABLES
FLASH
FLASHPOINT
FREEDOM FIGHTERS
GOTHAM CITY SIRENS
GREEN ARROW
GREEN LANTERN
GREEN LANTERN CORPS
GREEN LANTERN EMERALD WARRIORS
HELLBLAZER
HOUSE OF MYSTERY
INFAMOUS
IZOMBIE
JONAH HEX
JSA ALL STARS
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA
LEGION OF SUPER HEROES
LOONEY TUNES
NORTHLANDERS
OUTSIDERS
POWER GIRL
REBELS
RED ROBIN
SCOOBY DOO WHERE ARE YOU
SECRET SIX
SPIRIT
STRANGE ADVENTURES
SUPERBOY
SUPERGIRL
SUPERMAN
SUPERMAN BATMAN
SWEET TOOTH
TEEN TITANS
THUNDER AGENTS
TINY TITANS
TITANS
UNWRITTEN
WEIRD WORLDS
XOMBI
YOUNG JUSTICE
ZATANNA I’m a little shocked here. In putting together the DC release list, it seemed like DC was putting out a lot more books than Marvel. It turns out they actually released sixteen fewer books. DC just has a lot more variety in their titles. I think there might be a few things that just didn’t see release in May, though; but I’m pretty sure Marvel can say the same. I know Scarlet didn’t have a May issue (neither did Wonder Woman). So yeah, DC is going to be a lot harder given the huge variety of titles they offer. Their licensed stuff presents a problem, as does the stuff unrelated to the DCU. I was going to try and take the easy way out and just go with DCU stuff, but that’s just not how I roll.
How I do roll, however, is in reusing good ideas. So just like my reduced Marvel universe, each of these books is $4.99 and thirty-two pages. Read on to find out how that shakes out.
- Batman
- DC Presents Action Comics
- DC Presents All-Star Comics Starring Wonder Woman
- DC Presents House of Mystery
- DC Presents Justice Comics
- DC Presents Strange Adventures
- DC Presents Super Heroes!
- DC Presents Vertigo
- Detective Comics
- Flash Comics
- Green Lantern Corps
- Superman Comics
That was extremely difficult and I’m not entirely happy with it. But I don’t think there is a good answer when you’re cutting the kind of variety DC offers down to 12 titles. It’s just crazy. All the licensed stuff is gone (just like with Marvel), but so is most of the interesting creator-owned stuff that I don’t bother with but a lot of people seem to like. I found a nook for it, but I don’t think anybody is going to be pleased.
Batman
It’s Batman. Twenty-two pages about whoever is Gotham’s Dark Knight at the time with a backup story about any of the other Batmans. Er, Batmen. Whatever. The rest of the extended Bat-Family will be taken care of in a minute.
DC Presents Action Comics
This will be an anthology book dedicated to the likes of Green Arrow, Captain Marvel and well… any other DC heroes that got left out of the other books on this list. That seems to be DC’s main issue – their characters are either so huge they actually warrant more than one book a month or they’re so minor it becomes hard to sustain them in their own titles.
DC Presents All-Star Comics Starring Wonder Woman
This would be twenty pages of Wonder Woman, six pages of Birds of Prey and then six pages of Manhunter or Huntress or any of the other ladies of the DCU. It kills me to not have the Birds on their own comic, but there’s a lot of that going on here at the DC downsizing.
DC Presents Vertigo
This is where all the non-DCU stuff goes. I hate to stick it all in one book, but what other choice do I have? Fables, DMZ, iZombie, Sweet Tooth. All of it has to coexist here. I don’t like it any more than you do, but at least it’s something.
DC Presents Justice Comics
Twenty-two pages about the JLA with ten page backups about the JSA. But every six months it switches.
DC Presents House of Mystery
This and Vertigo are going to get a little confusing, but it makes sense – trust me. House of Mystery would be an anthology book featuring all of the Vertigo characters that are from or have been brought to the DCU proper; as well as other DC characters that make sense for the supernatural tone of the book – John Constantine, Swamp Thing, Shade – Changing Man and Dickie Swift varieties, Zatanna, Etrigan. Those folks.
DC Presents Strange Adventures
Here’s where we get Secret Six, R.E.B.E.L.S., Doom Patrol – all the team books that are going to get massively compressed. Rather than doing an anthology I think I would just rotate the teams every few months. One would get the twenty-two page feature, one the ten page backup.
DC Presents Super Hero Comics!
The same as my Marvel idea, right down to the title (sort of). It’s not like this nightmare is going to happen with both companies in the same world. This is an all-ages family anthology that is designed to tie in with whatever media may be going on at the time. Any DCU characters may be featured.
Detective Comics
An anthology series about the Bat-people that aren’t Batman or Robin. Batgirl, Red Robin, whatever the heck they’re calling Cassandra Cain now, Huntress and probably by extension The Question.
Flash Comics
This would be twenty pages of Barry Allen (or whoever the “main” Flash is at the time) with backup stories about the rest of the Speedsters.
Green Lantern Corps
Much like Flash Comics, this would be twenty pages about whoever was considered the main Lantern at the time. The remaining twelve pages would be divided up among other members of the Corps.
Superman Comics
It may not seem fair to shove the whole Super family into one book when Batman’s people get two, but I think we can all admit that Batman’s extended family is much larger and more interesting than Superman’s. The main feature would be about the big blue boy scout and the backups would feature rotating stories about Supergirl, Superboy, Krypto, Jimmy Olsen, Beppo – whatever.
This exercise wasn’t that big of a deal for Marvel but I think it has royally fucked up the DC Universe, not to mention all the non-DCU stuff. It’s amazing to sit here and realize the sheer variety of books put out by DC. I never would have guessed off the top of my head that put out so many books that had absolutely nothing to do with superheroes. Not to mention the wild variety that exists within the regular DCU.
Needless to say I am not at all happy with this one. I was actually thinking it might be a good idea for Marvel to reduce their titles. For DC it would be a disaster.
Until next time, stay creepy
-Phantom
I still haven't gotten around to doing my Marvel list. DC was definitely a struggle, but I did give myself a bit of a break with my list by keeping it solely DCU. The Vertigo and Wildstorm stuff, I assumed would have some other quantity restriction unrelated to these 12.
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