Comic Book Resources

30 issues is really not a bad run, and it's not anything to be ashamed of. You can do a lot with 30 issues, and Manhunter did, so it's all good. I had the same reaction to the cancellations of, say, Martian Manhunter and Gotham Central -- sure, the books could have run longer but they took good advantage of the runs they had.

Far more depressing is when a good book is cancelled after 6-12 issues. That really grinds my gears.

I'm still waiting to find out who the writer of The Brotherhood was!

In my first comic-collecting incarnation I had a habit of collecting books that would last about twenty issues and then stick their spoons in the wall. Atari Force, Blue Beetle, Blue Devil, Electric Warrior, Manhunter (this was the Mark Shaw Manhunter), Captain Carrot... It happens.

I miss Orion. I do. It was way better than Manhunter and died at 25.

Let it go. In a year or two, they'll bring the concept back, probably with a twist, either desecrating your treasured Manhunter memories or taking the concept to "11". In the meantime, you won't have to put up with years of Manhunter books written and drawn with indifference.
If only they'd cancel Nightwing or Iron Man and bring them back only when the creators have a good story to tell, and cancel them before it turns to crap.

BRING BACK DAN SLOTT'S THING!!!!!!!!

Sorry. All this talk of good books cancelled angries up my blood.

It's not like the character's going into limbo. She's still in Birds of Prey.

Now Slingers, there's a series where the cast got hosed.

I think it's unfortunate any book that people were enjoying gets canceled. Regardless how long the run is.

Wait. People are legitimately pissed that Manhunter is ending?
I'm just going to say that I never read Manhunter, and one title that fans SHOULD be pissed off about cancellation is Nextwave.
No wait. You've never heard of Nextwave, so you didn't buy it.
So whatever.

Well at least the character will still be around.

The real shame are the books that are quickly canceled with the title characters to never be seen again and/or not seen for a long, long time.

"Now Slingers, there’s a series where the cast got hosed."

No, that was the readers. The cast couldn't really get any lower.

manhunter was easily one of the top 5 books currently being published by the big 2.

i will miss it.

but 30 issues is a good run, they just better get androkyno (sp?) on something else soon.

as for nextwave, i would have far more enjoyed a raging case of chlamydia than to have to read another issue of that worthless train wreak. seriously, and i normally quite like ellis. pastiche for pastiche sake is about as interesting as imaginary pancakes.

Yes, it's unfortunate, Grant, and it's a shame that it's getting canceled, because we need all the good books we can find that are a bit different from the usual. But to moan about it as if it's the greatest injustice ever is silly. As others have pointed out, she's still in Birds of Prey!

"But to moan about it as if it’s the greatest injustice ever is silly. As others have pointed out, she’s still in Birds of Prey!"

Maybe they don't want to read her in Birds of Prey versus her solo book. Plus there's a different creative team involved. So they might not like Birds of Prey.

It's like telling a "Homicide" fan not to be disappointed that show is no longer airing not to worry because Munch is on "Law & Order: SVU."

Either way I don't dig this harping on people who are disappointed that a favorite book is canceled. Whether or not you think worthier books have been canceled. It's kicking a man while he's down.

Man, I still miss Slingers.

Also, Young Heroes in Love.

And soon, Nextwave.

So much sadness.

I like Nextwave, but having it end after 12 issues really doesn't bother me... it seems appropriate to that particular project to burn briefly and brightly.

Besides, we'll probably see future miniseries.

I think that Didio's stay of execution to let the series go for an extra arc to see if sales improve mainly caused the uproar. DC's going after initial orders for one issue and actual sales for one more, which ignores the crossover Blue Beetle, and that seems like a shame. Still, if those numbers didn't improve, how was the end of the arc going to?

I miss Plastic Man.

"It’s like telling a “Homicide” fan not to be disappointed that show is no longer airing not to worry because Munch is on “Law & Order: SVU.”"

Actually, it's even dumber than that, because at least Munch is still played by the same actor, so there's still some of the same talent involved.

(in fact doesn't SVU have some of the same writers as H:LOTS?)

We are talking about a fictional character!

Being written and drawn by completely different people!

Bummed out by the death of Will Eisner? Well, it's okay because Darwin Cooke is drawing the Spirit now! Hey, fans of Photon/Captain Marvel, Liefield's X-Force, and Machine Man- read NEXTWAVE! IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME THING AND YOU'LL LOVE IT!

(For the record, I like Cooke's version of the Spirit so far, and Nextwave is the best Marvel comic for 30 years, but that's beside the point)

Sorry for the rant, especially as (*ahem*) I've never read Manhunter or Birds Of Prey, but the idea of following characters rather than specific comics and their creators really bugs the hell out of me. I thought we got over that in the 90's.

I keep hearing everything about Nextwave being cancelled, but I'm almost certain I remember it from the beginning as being a 12 issue mini or maxi series, whichever you prefer.

"pastiche for pastiche sake is about as interesting as imaginary pancakes."

Which are still more interesting than real pancakes.

And you're analysis is actually wrong. It was pastiche for fun's sake.

"No, that was the readers. The cast couldn’t really get any lower."

Oh, no?

Hornet: Killed by a brainwashed Wolverine, mistaken for Spider-Man by a retarded SHIELD agent.

Ricochet: Burned-out loser in Runaways and The Loners.

Prodigy: Summarily thrown into Superhero Guantanamo, started crying for his Mommy.

Dusk has never appeared again, and as it turns out, she got off light.

I wish I proofread my last post better.

Ah, how comics fandom eats its own.

"What? Something you didn't like happened? Something that made you really unhappy happened, and you're going online hoping that bitching in the company of like-minded people will give you some catharsis?

You are a whining naive brain-damaged idiot, and I hope you die in a fire. Look how much smarter and cooler than you I am for pointing this out! See how much better my taste in comics is!"

The only this could be better is if there was some way to deliver simultaneous electric shocks to everyone upset about Manhunter. Perhaps high-intensity enough to cause muscle spasms! That'd give those fanboys some real problems to whine about.

Because, you know, if you've ever complained online about anything? That's obviously the only thing in your life that was ever important to you! It can't be, say, a time-killing trifle you enjoy while dealing with life's bigger problems.

Ha! Like comics fans have bigger problems!

Note: I actually didn't like the Manhunter book much at all, and I'll be even more pleased when the character is out of circulation, too.

"The only this could be better is if there was some way to deliver simultaneous electric shocks to everyone upset about Manhunter. Perhaps high-intensity enough to cause muscle spasms! That’d give those fanboys some real problems to whine about."

I'm all for this. As long as it's something frivolous, like Manhunter. Not a matter of vital life-altering importance, like Big Barda or Kid Colt: Outlaw.

"Hornet: Killed by a brainwashed Wolverine, mistaken for Spider-Man by a retarded SHIELD agent.

Ricochet: Burned-out loser in Runaways and The Loners.

Prodigy: Summarily thrown into Superhero Guantanamo, started crying for his Mommy.

Dusk has never appeared again, and as it turns out, she got off light."

The point is that they were already boring and lame. You can't go downhill in a valley.

"Which are still more interesting than real pancakes.

And you’re analysis is actually wrong. It was pastiche for fun’s sake."

I'm glad Nextwave got cancelled.
Maybe it'll stop people talking like this, or linking to pictures of MODOK Elvis' and thinking it's funny.

I'm glad Manhunter got cancelled as well.
It was trying too hard and I just couldn't get into it.
It felt like a little kid dressing up as a gangster and expecting you to take them seriously.

There you go, two books I don't like for two different reasons get cancelled.
Who says it isn't a good time to be a comic fan?

When a book that I'm buying gets cancelled then that means I've got a complete work from beginning to end on my shelves (or in a longbox in my loft), so I can't get too upset about it. The alternative is that the comic hangs around until either a lesser talent takes over (Animal Man, Doom Patrol) or the original talent runs out of steam (Shade the Changing Man, Giffen's Justice League) and either way the quality slips

Dan

Yup. Gotham Central and Nextwave, to name some recent titles.

Heck, I'm still mad they cancelled Thriller.

Heck, I'm still mad they cancelled 'Hawk and Dove'. And then killed Dove, and drove Hawk insane, and then turned him into Extant, and...

Let's just not go there.

I don't quite get the whole "I'm glad it's gone" backlash that seems to have arisen as of late with Manhunter. It's probably the same attitude "Marvel Zombies" (for example) have when they see every blogger say how great Mouse Guard (for example) is and why they should be buying it instead of Civil War (for example). A good chunk of popular comic blogs are dedicated to bringing attention to low-selling/indie comics and tearing down whatever the more popular offerings from the big two are at the time. Seems hypocritical to begrudge a dedicated fanbase of what many (intelligent) people consider to be a good book for trying to do the same. I'd much rather listen to people complain about quality books being cancelled than listen to people complain about crappy books selling big numbers.

I didn't like Manhunter much, and I even indulged in some quite stupid and ill-advised schadenfreude at the first blush of its cancellation.

But since then, I've come back around to a realization I had -- and should've kept by -- a year or two back. It's a simple one, really:

Not every comic book should be to my taste; if every comic book is, something is wrong with the industry.

No healthy entertainment or creative industry is in goo shape if it can't cater to widely different tastes. There should be comics I love, comics I hate, and comics I have no interest in trying. Because someone else will feel differently about the latter two categories, there need to be books in those subjective categories.

Immanuel Kant was dead on when he pointed out that everyone makes judgements of tase as if their judgments were universal and universally comprehensible and agreeable. But to me, that means being on guard a bit more

One of the best responses I've ever seen on a comics message board involved a new poster asking if "Book X" was a good comic. Amid all the summary sentences about why it was pure crap or solid gold, one person -- just one -- took the tactic of askign what books the new guy already liked. And then he talked about how Book X was or wasn't different than the stuff on that list. It was probably the most helpful way of responding to the question, and very liekly the healthiest.

Oh well, enough of my hippie crap. It's back to slagging comics for me.

Brotherhood? Seriously?

What a bunch of wasted potential that book was--I only stuck with it till the end because they got Sean Phillips to do some issues.

(And people complain about the Omega Flight situation. The Brotherhood was a 12-issue series that immediately became an ongoing and was then cancelled at #9.)

I was joking, Niels. I actually bought the first 6 issues, I think, but dropped it. It had a ton of potential, but wasn't very good at all.

So. Did Brotherhoood get better? I bought the first issue (There was ONE month where I bought all the X-books) and thought it was really sucky. But I never read any after that.

Apodaca: "The point is that they were already boring and lame. You can’t go downhill in a valley."

I liked Slingers. When it came out, it was the only Marvel book I bought. In fact, it was the first Marvel book I bought (I mostly read, well, whatever wasn't Marvel), and I didn't buy another Marvel book for years afterward. I have nothing but fond memories of the book and was annoyed when it was canceled after only 12 issues. I've actually looked for a complete run of the book every once in a while, but haven't found it yet. If I do find the complete run somewhere, I'll probably buy it.

So there.

Jeez, just had to get me thinking about Young Heroes In Love. That book was great.

Actually, most of my DC favorites are cut down in their prime...

Manhunter (Mark Shaw)
Hawk and Dove
Starman (Will Payton - okay, yes, he got 40-some issues)
Aztek
Takion
That one Mr. Miracle that only went 7 issues.