Comic Book Resources

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Ok. You got me. What does Jewel Kryptonite do?

Jewel Kryptonite enhances the psychic powers of people in the Phantom Zone.

And yes, I had to google that. Jesus, who came up with that one?

Btw, very nice article. Thought-provoking, and reminding me that I'll never quite be able to fully kill that Nerd on my shoulder, although I'm getting further and further away from much of DC and Marvel's current superhero output.

The Haney/Aparo run on Brave&Bold is one of my favorite comics ever, in large part because it totally ignored continuity. (Who is Wildcat this month?) It was a chance to see one of my favorite characters (Batman) team with DC heroes that I often knew little about. Who cared if the story took place on Earth One or Earth Two or Earth Kamandi? Not me.

I assumed at the time that the guest star was sometimes chosen because Aparo wanted to draw them. On rare occasions it seemed that the guest star was chosen in order to promote his book (And it worked. I'd never heard of The Demon until I read him in B&B. Then I became a fan for life.). Fun stories and great art. What more do you want? I can't believe the Haney/Aparo run of B&B didn't make the top 100. Wait, yes I can. It was the kind of comic that the internet fanboy community claims they want, then doesn't buy.

BTW Terri Garr is the center of the showbiz universe. She was in several Elvis movies, episodes of Star Trek, Batman, The Monkees, MASH, Friends and SNL. She's been in films by Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman, and Mel Brooks. And she was the MVP of David Letterman's early years.

I simply adore Terri Garr!

It could work.

But I doubt it.

Seriously Greg, you can focus on what DC is doing, but not many people seem to realise that DC is only following Marvel's lead in this regard. Since House of M Marvel have concentrated on nothing but events and bannering and it's been a sales success.

Decimation, Civil War, The Initiative, Back In Black, One More Day, Brand New Day, Planet Hulk, World War Hulk, Endangered Species, Messiah Complex, Divided We Stand, Infiltration, Secret Invasion.

They've been concentrating on events and banners for the last few years, that follow immediately after and flow into each other, and have been raking it in. DC, after Infinite Crisis hasn't, I remember Dan Didio stating that crossovers would take a rest for awhile, and sales are behind those of Marvel.Sure, when DC saw the writing on the wall, they tried to ruch a few out, like Amazon's Attack, but by then the damage had been done, to some extent, though Countdown was able to beat the odds somewhat.
The number of times I see people mention what a sales disaster Countdown has been and don't seem to realise that is plain wrong, it's been a "critical disaster"...Sales of the title have been very good for DC, consistently in the top twenty to thirty titles.

Let's face it, what we're getting now is what the majority want. Since 2004 total sales have actually been rising for both Marvel and DC and I'm seeing more people, that are new to comics, being dragged in. Both younger and older readers. And, for the most part, they get dragged in because of an event.

I'd argue that the current Brave and the Bold isn't really the best example of "writting for the trade." It seems to try hard -- if not always succeed -- at doing the whole "complete story in each issue" idea while following out the larger plot threads. Its problems are twofold: first, the overarching story has ended up being very, very slight, trying to tie everything to an indirect master villain who ends up being singularly derivative and unimpressive precisely because he has to be so vague and indirect; and at the same time it requires a PhD in DC continuity to follow but never gets around to doing anything terribly interesting, let alone "significant," within that continuity. It's fan-gone-pro Mark Waid writing for all the Mark Waid wannabes out there, rather like the countless Roy Thomas stories that exist so that Roy can write manques of his favorite Golden Age characters.

Or alternatively, the new B+B reads like an introductory primer on DC's Silver Age executed in a manner that aims for exactly the sorts of readers who neither need nor want a primer. If you catch all the little Metamorpho references or know who the Silent Knight is, you don't need the belabored reintroductions of those elements that center the plot. On the other side, if you don't get the Metamorpho trivia you miss the plot entirely, and if you don't know who the Silent Knight is, you're not going to care that Waid makes him an ancestor of Superman. Roy Thomas was writing Golden Age pastiches at a time when a new audience could take in the revamped concepts as brand-new superheroes made significant by their very novelty, while the older audience who knew the Golden Agers lacked TPBs and other sources in which to read about their favorites. Golden Age superhero characters in general tend to be evergreens for these purposes, since their adventures are even today only available in pricey niche formats a casual reader of, say, Geoff Johns' JSA is never going to spot, and Johns writes to the old-school fans of Thomas's largely unreprinted 1980s output more than the 1940s material anyway.

And o course, Johns also plays the new version of the "significance" game, sicne he's pals with Brad Meltzer and can thus work in lots of Identity Crisis plot points, or just plain writes the Big Events himself. I suppose it's terribly ironic that Roy Thomas did a lot to invent the crossover-as-significance stuff and the dense shared universe concept for superheroes; stuff like the Kree-Skrull War tied together innumerable minor and previously unrelated plot points from Stan Lee-scripted comics in ways that rewarded continuing readers with prototypical "significance." And Thomas's Avengers basically birthed the modern-day crossover, with bits like the three-part (and coattailed) tale that ran across Sub-Mariner #14, Captain Marvel #14, and Avengers #63-5 or the way in which Avengers #61 wraps up an ongoing Doctor Strange plot while Doc's book keeps running with other aftermaths.* Likewise, it's under Thomas's editorship that the more apparent crossovers of the 1970s happen: he's the guy commissioning scripts from Steve Englehart like the Avengers-Defenders War, and he's the editor when Jim Starlin's first Thanos saga careens across assorted issues of Iron Man, Daredevil, and even a stray Avengers issue. And as we all know, Thanos has since become shorthand for "significance" in Marvel's shared universe, or at least he was for awhile before overexposure and Starlin's repetitive themes sapped most readers' goodwill.

And that's the more basic problem the new B+B suffers from: as crossovers have become the norm, fans have learned to separate the "inconsequential" meetups of various characters from the "consequential" ones that come with special tie-in labels and their own overproduced miniseries. Lord knows what the failure of Countdown augurs for that model, of course, or what the final result of Marvel's increasing willingness to let crossovers work as extended prologues to next year's big event that will surely pay off all the "significant" ongoing plots seeded by last year's Big Event, and that of the year before, ad infinitum. (It already seems to have been a factor in the reboot of the Spider-Man franchise as a single and frequently-published title after everything from Dissassembled to Civil War to franchise-internal crossover the Other gutted the multiple-title model of yesteryear.) But the Big Event is here to stay; the fact that it's metastatizing in increasingly grotesque ways is hardly cause to hope for improvement, let alone to hope for a return to the more direct and perhaps genuine methods of simpler publication and audience models.

* Roy's inspiration here may have been the Golden Age introduction of Fawcett villain Captain Nazi, which crossed between Captain Marvel Adventures and Master Comics' Bulletman feature, and then spawned the Captain Marvel, Jr. spinoff. But that was an exception in GA publishing terms, and more to the point the looser continuity of the Golden Age meant that no one felt it necessary to refer to the three-part story or Bulletman ever again in reusing the characters for Captain Marvel stories.

I should add that "the failure of Countdown" isn't a failure of the main mini's sales, which stayed distressingly healthy to the end; it's that, unlike 52 or Infinite Crisis, the "Countdown" label did absolutely nothing for the sales of regular titles that sported the tie-in badge nor made any of the spinoff minis successful. The 52 Aftermath specials and minis, by contrast, did pretty well, as did various Identity Crisis followups in comics like JLA and Teen Titans.

The number of times I see people mention what a sales disaster Countdown has been and don’t seem to realise that is plain wrong, it’s been a “critical disaster”…Sales of the title have been very good for DC, consistently in the top twenty to thirty titles.

Compared to sales of things like Civil War or Messiah Complex, that is a sales disaster. Event comics should be selling comfortably over 100,000. And the various tie-in such as Countdown to Adventure/Mystery, or the Search for Ray Palmer have all had even worse sales. The only Countdown spin off comic that had good sales was the gimmicky Countdown: Arena. That's what people mean when they call Countdown a sales disaster.

Also, I mostly agree with Omar's assessment of the weakness of the current incarnation of the Brave and the Bold (who really cares enough about the Challenger of the Unknown as presented in the book?)

I'll add that the Brave and the Bold has some surprisingly bad covers. At least twice I've looked at a Brave and the Bold cover and thought I was looking at a sales guide rather than a comic book (Issues 10 and 12 were the offending issues, respectively.)

Compared to sales of things like Civil War or Messiah Complex, that is a sales disaster. Event comics should be selling comfortably over 100,000. And the various tie-in such as Countdown to Adventure/Mystery, or the Search for Ray Palmer have all had even worse sales. The only Countdown spin off comic that had good sales was the gimmicky Countdown: Arena. That’s what people mean when they call Countdown a sales disaster.

And Civil War & Messiah Complex weren't weekly for a year. Even with the lower sales that's still a lot money being collected by DC. As to tie-ins, I think both Marvel & DC are in the same boat. I didn't see the tie-ins to Civil War or World War Hulk selling comfortably over 100,000. Just the main "event".

If 52 and Countdown got the fans into the comic shops each week, every week, then they did their job.

Are DC's sales up over all in the last two years?

"Compared to sales of things like Civil War or Messiah Complex, that is a sales disaster. Event comics should be selling comfortably over 100,000."

I don't think the sales of Countdown can really be compared to those titles. Countdown isn't an event book; it's the setup for an event book, and its sales were comparable to the sales of DC's previous event book setup series, such as OMAC Project or Rann-Thanagar War.

I'll give the toon a shot. My big concern is that Blue Beetle looks a little too freaky for me. Looks like the Creeper in costume-over-costume drag.

Er..DC certainly seemed to be marketing Countdown as an event book, especially early on -- all sorts of regular titles had tie-ins, and DC tried to sell plenty of minis along the same publishing model they'd used with 52. It just didn't work this time 'round, and the sales successes instead came from non-Countdown-related tie-ins like The Sinestro Corps War or the attraction of star creative teams on certain books.

Remember, Dan DiDio called Countdown the "spine" of the DC Universe for 2007. If it's a spine, it's a spine that supported itself but not the rest of the body.

*raises hand*

A couple things: First, it's funny you bring up Star Trek:New Frontier, because the current comic miniseries is all but impenetrable to people who haven't read the books.

Second, I'm way out of your demographic, but I've found the various characters and references brought into The Brave & The Bold pretty easy to grasp. It's really not too hard to grasp; the stories pretty well establish everything they need to (those little concept blurb boxes help), and at least everyone's called by name (as opposed to, say, New Warriors, where the costumed identities weren't established until issue 6).

I do think, though, that the gimmick of sweeping six-issue arcs following a different set of characters each issue is one that has backfired. The Lords of Luck managed to keep itself coherent, but the recent Megistus arc was all over the map, and I still don't understand the significance of most of the chapters (especially since none of the artifacts Megistus was trying to steal were actually stolen in those stories, but he has them all anyway in issue 12). I think the book would have been better served focusing on smaller arcs, two or three issues, and more stable casting within the arcs.

Regardless, Waid is apparently leaving with issue 16, and Perez is already gone, so my guess would be it's not long for this world. Which is a shame; there's nothing wrong with simple, self-contained storytelling that has a pulp adventure feel to it. Especially in superhero comics, for crying out loud.

Are DC’s sales up over all in the last two years?

Last time I saw anything was over at the Beat and they were mentioning that, overall, both Marvel & DC's were up on 2004's numbers. So over a three year period, both companies total sales had increased. This was back in January or February I believe.

I can't seem to find the relevant article at the moment, but I believe it was at the Beat.

Just did a search and apperently ICV2 has just reported that sales in the first quarter of 2008 have slipped.

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/category/sales-charts/

There are usually a few cool moments in the current B&B and it's filled with characters I love but I get bored reading 6 issue arcs about the Book of Destiny . I think it might have been cool if it were mainly one and done stories like the old book. It might actually hold my interest, can't speak for anyone else's. it's just not as fun as I thought it would be.

Actually, I have a lot of comments:

Point One: Man, people bitching about the the new kiddie Batman cartoon made me embarrassed. Embarrassed for them, embarrassed for me that I'm sharing a hobby with them, embarrassed for me that I'm sharing a PLANET with them, embarrassed for their parents, their grandparents.... And their hypothetical-but-not-likely children.

I swear, every, single, argument against this show I heard boiled down to " Every Batman product must appeal to ME or it's a personal insult."

Do these people cry themselves to sleep that Batman underoos don't come in 42-D? How selfish, how stupid, how worthless does your life have to be that the very existence of a Batman cartoon aimed at young children makes you angry?

And then fans being all stupid makes me angry, because, well, I expect decent behavior from the groups I associate with.

This, as I tell the kids on my bus, is why I drink.

Point two: I collect team-up books, so I'll probably (almost definitely) get all the new Brave and the Bold issues SOMEWHERE down the line.

Is it wrong of me to hope that a book gets cancelled, because that leads to back-issues turning up in the three for a buck box? It's not good enough for me to pay three bucks an issue, even to satisfy my collector's itch. And I only need like 125 more team-up books! (OK, I couldn't resist the Wonder Woman Power Girl team-up, or the one with the Silent Knight. I (heart) the Silent Knight.)

But, in my defense, I TOTALLY wish Waid and Perez all the best in their future, not Brave and the Bold, endeavors.

Point three: Countdown counted.

But it also doesn't seem to be good for the DC line as a whole. I hear a LOT of annoyed fans. And DC's getting slaughtered by Marvel in sales, if rumors are true.

Maybe the stuff that counts has to have a certain level of quality?

Then again I'm expecting a crossover backlash huge sales crash at Marvel any day now. I predict a cyclical alternation between more editorial/continuity driven books and more creator driven books, ala
nu-Marvel. People get sick of having to buy everything that counts. And (I predict) leave comics en masse.

Point Four: Brave and the Bold, especially the Haney/Adams/Cardy/first 25 or so Aparo issues + # 150 is some glorious, glorious comics.

Point Five: I don't think my nerd and my visionary are in competition.

Or maybe I don't think visionarilly about comics. Since I'm personally happy with comics in general right now, I don't look too/worry about the future. And my nerd is pretty good at connecting pointless trivia into human narrative... Get me wound up on the Justice League and we may start with an explanation of the Seven Soldiers of Victory arc from JLA 100, but let me talk long enough and I'll be bitching about how DC fired most of their great sixties writer because they wanted health care. (Fuck DC.)

I guess my general view of American comics as of a historical narrative. (And current narrative.) So in order to get the broadest grasp of the form in all it's complexities, I want to be semi-familiar with everything. I don't really have a nostalgic attachment to my nerd-dom.

I AM really emotionally invested, mind. Note complaints about comics fans and historical treatments of creators above. But I don't care about what THEY did to Spider-man's marriage or if Manga, or some derivation thereof, completely replaces American comics. All part of the tapestry. (And the latter might be really interesting.) Changes in the comics medium and treatment of characters doesn't bother me. People being assholes bothers me a lot.

Point Six I really shout re-watch Star Trek TOS. I think I missed the one with Seven. And Kitty! in! Spaaaaaccccccce! really appeals to me.

I would have enjoyed B&tB a lot more if they really were Done In Ones, I think. I still like the series, I just expected to enjoy it even more. I miss those old days.

And on that note, the 6-issue Legion story that just ended in Action Comics was fantastic. They used "the" Legion we remembered and I ate it right up.

Seriously Greg, you can focus on what DC is doing, but not many people seem to realise that DC is only following Marvel’s lead in this regard.

Oh, I agree. It all started with Marvel -- Omar did a nice job of summing all that part up. But the "Sightings" logo announcement is what puts it over the top for me. I mean, my God. They might as well issue a flowchart with each book at that point.

...come to think of it, I think the final issue of Zero Hour DID actually come with some kind of a fold-out flowchart.

Marvel may have started the overall idea of a continuous line wide crossover, but they are also doing it better. Or if not better, then at least cleaner.
Each of the crossovers has picked out a section of the universe, done its thing, then moved on. The main action tends to stick to the titled miniseries and perhaps one or two other core books. If other books are involved it tends to be either small stuff or else characters that are too tied to other parts to ignore.

So, if you are not really into the flavour of the month, the worst you have to look forward to is a couple issues with odd guest stars. Might be good, might be bad, might make sense as a stand alone, might not. But really, you run into an off issue or two with or without a crossover going on. And if you are reading the core series already, well no problem at all. If you ignored all the tie-ins, the recent Hulk crossover was just another Hulk story. And everything tended to go back to status-quo in a fairly self contained way.

DC can't keep it clean. If it doesn't involve the big three, their entire supporting casts and the entire past, present and future cast of the Titans in individual rolls DC doesn't seem to think it counts as a crossover. And to justify it they have to make it 'count'. They do this by killing off random second and third string titles.

If I'm not big on DCs current crossover I can't ignore it like I can with Marvel's. It has gotten to the point where I am avoiding picking up DC titles that I think I would normally like out of fear that the whole thing it going to go sideways as soon as the next crossover comes around.

Ya, I think the failing of this arc was that Megistus was a really lame villain with confusing goals, and that the parts didn't exactly line up. The first arc was so good because each team-up felt natural and led into the next. This arc started off strong, but Megistus quickly went from being an interesting mystery to a lame plot device villain, and I just stopped caring about the team-ups, which became more superficial as the arc went on. Another great part of the first arc and the first few issues of this arc was that you really got into all the character's personalities really well. There just didn't seem to be as many good character moments for the last few issues. So I've dropped the book. I'll look at the solicits and if something sounds incredibly cool I'll grab it, but I think I'm done with this.

I don't care if a title is part of a crossover or this sighting crap. I'll buy a book that has a good story and nice artwork. I don't care if a spandex title or something more arty, if I like it, I'll buy it. Granted, it is getting harder as Marvel and DC are trying to tie in more and more titles to big events in order to milk us all for more and more money...but to be honest, as much as they try to shove it down our throats, it still won't get me to pick up another title I have no interest in getting. With all the resources available, in this day and age, if I ever see a "Continued in Title X", I won't buy it. I'll borrow someone else's copy if I have to, or just google or wikipedia it. With the internet being what it is, there are enough online reviews, synopsis', and scans so that I don't really need to get the title. This website is a good example, why should I spend over $150 for Countdown when I can get weekly detailed reviews here? And from what I gather from people who actually bought the title...I saved myself some money. The Civil War series was another example.

I do agree, there will be a backlash against all this non-stop crossover mess. Eventually.

As for B&B, Waid can sometimes pander to continuity obsessed fanboys. Maybe it's not what the market represents. Either way, i will miss the beautiful Perez art...

As for the cartoon, my only gripe is that I'm not sure the current Blue Beetle will fit in with the retro style they seem to have chosen for the animation. But if that's for only one ep, then it shouldn't be an issue...

I agree whole-heartedly with this article. Fortunately, I've managed to strangle both my inner Nerd and my inner Visionary, which is why I now just pick up comics that are fun to read, without any worries about either whether they count or how they advance the medium.

Maybe that's why I buy so few comics these days...

actually, i assumed that DC more or less switched over to the Star Trek model when they published Mark Waid's Superman: Birthright.

i had only recently come back to comics after a time away, so it was a bit disorienting to see the status quo of the Man of Steel-mandated continuity i had left being upset--especially without the benefit of a full, new, "official" origin story. but once i got past the initial shock, i was cool with it. at that point, my Nerd didn't exactly die, but he kinda packed up and went home. it was liberating.

i think that's why the first three pages of All-Star Superman #1 resonated with me the way they did; it seemed to say "look, we don't definitively know all the specifics and minutiae of Superman's origin... and ultimately, it doesn't matter that much. these are the broad strokes that define the character, and they are what counts."

in some way, i felt like Marvel did the same thing, though it's more centered around characterization than plot (although they've re-jiggered plot elements a lot, too). characters don't seem to have fixed personalities; they change to serve whatever the story is supposed to be... and i'm not too bothered as long as the broad strokes remain consistent and the story is good.

But...but I LIKE Brave & the Bold!

The Heney/Aparo run of Brave and Bold is my favorite run of comic books, period, so it should be pretty obvious where my sympathies lie. Despite my growing reputation (deserved or not) as an expert on Earth-Two continuity, I really don't care about the DC or Marvel Universes per se. I just want to read well-written, well-drawn stories about characters I've loved since childhood, and screw continuity.

This goes a long way towards explaining why the only DC titles I've bought in the last five years were Ross and Braithwaite's Justice, Smith's Shazam: Monster Society... and Waid and Perez's B&B, which I've been enjoying DESPITE the continuity stuff, not because of it. And I haven't bought a Marvel title since Busiek and Davis were doing Avengers.

I've been assuming that it was just an age thing, that I'm no longer the demographic the Big Two are aiming at just as I'm not the demographic contemporary movies, TV shows or recording artists are aiming at. Now I'm not so sure. Maybe the problem IS them, not me. My ego would like to think so anyway.

Oh, and for the record, I can't wait to watch the B&B cartoon. I'm pretty sure I'll love it.

Read Mark Manley's text.

Back in the 1980s it used to bother me a lot that the only exposure the general public had to superheroes was the Adam West Batman TV show and the Superfriends cartoon. But now, after the X-Men movies, after the Heroes TV show, after Batman Begins and the Bruce Timm cartoon, I think the general public is more aware that there is more to superheroes than Adam West.

So it doesn't really bother me anymore if they produce a superhero cartoon for children. I won't watch it, and I still miss Bruce Timm's style, but it doesn't bother me. I wish it good luck.

The approach I've always taken as to what counts is pretty simple. The regular titles are just stories featuring the characters I like. The other mini seires are the events that are "currently" happening in the DCU. So Batman stories in 'Tec or Batman should reflect the general status quo, but I don't need to know where they fit in historically over all. I just need to know if they are post IC, for example, and where Batman should be to get the stories. Everything counts, basically, the events are just signposts along the way.

RE: Brave & The Bold –

I picked it up because it was George Perez doing the art, and dropped it at #12 (Jerry Ordway did a nice job filling in those last two issues).

But the stories have been horrid. What it boils down to is Mark Waid writes a lot of plot that doesn't make sense to me (Why should Wally and Linda take the kids to Dr. Caulder and the Doom Patrol? Aren't there enough super-scientists buddies in the JLA, Titans, Star Labs, etc. for Wally to turn to first? And if they have and turned up goose eggs, then why doesn't Waid just say so for those of us who don't buy every DCU book? Oh, and I'm sorry, but the whole Nth Metal / White Dwarf Matter canceling each other out for Hawkman & Atom and Choi's solution in #9 was horrific.) , and he's been writing incredibly bad fanboy level dialogue (Hal Jordan's internal monologues about Supergirl in #2; Blue Beetle's weird "sir" speeches to Batman in #3 & #4; "That Cro-Magnon stole my flight ring!", "Faster than a speeding Nth Bullet" and "Holy hamstrings!", among a variety of other bad lines in #5; the Doom Patrol "Munsters" gags in #8).

So okay, maybe it's not at bad as COUNTDOWN (I wouldn't know seeing as I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole while wearing a radiation suit). But is certainly isn't a shining example of good comics writing, either.

My least favorite Dan Didio verbal tic is "storybeats" or just "beats." That's the kind of thing that people say when they're diagnosing something at arm's length-- a script doctor, say-- or otherwise are treating something as pure formula (a Hollywood type who just wants to know the values of A, B, and C for some generic action flick). Didio throws the word around as if *readers* are sitting there thinking, "I hope I don't miss the next storybeat!"

It was almost forgivable when discussing 52, because the timing in 52 was so odd that the experimentation with pacing was pretty interesting. But it should have stopped there. Even if one thinks one is producing and selling sheer formulaic crap, one ought not to talk about it in formula terms to the readers.

Sorry - weather got bad and I had to shut down.

The dichotomy between the "inner nerd" (or perhaps inner child as well?) and "visionary" was pretty interesting, Greg. My Inner Child / Nerd typically only cares about getting back issues - the ones that were 'his' from times past that I lost over the many moves as a military brat. The stuff that I didn't get to discover the first time around. And generally, my Visionary Self is okay with that. Probably because much of that material predates the "event" mentality of comics production at the Big Two.

B&B only got picked up because I'd been jonesing for new Perez story art and I had hoped against all hope that DC had enough brains to remember that a book like B&B is supposed to be one-shot or two-part stories, not the decompressed 'writing for the trade' style of writing.

That being said, it's not like I never see anything worth my time. DC does try. Matt Wagner's Batman minis in recent year and Englehart / Rogers' DARK DETECTIVE mini were enjoyable enough. I may get the GOTHAM AFTER MIDNIGHT series in TPB when it comes out, depending on what I think of it as singles. I might try THE WAR THAT TIME FORGOT or MADAME XANADU or that Mike Kunkel version of Shazam. No guarantees, but at least it's something to consider. That's more than Marvel has to offer me these days.

I have to say I totally disagree with Bright-Raven regarding the dialogue in B&B. What he found "incredibly bad fanboy level," I found entertaining and effective. Comic book dialogue has two jobs: to advance the story and to reveal character. Waid did a great job with both. Those early scenes in #2 between Batman and the new Blue Beetle, the one quietly, playfully amused by the awkward nervousness of the other, were charming and funny. They actually tempted me to pick up the Beetle's book to see if the character was as likeable there (I didn't but that's another story)., Isn't that what a team-up is supposed to do? Ditto for the scenes between GL and Supergirl, between Supergirl and Lobo, between Batman and Brainiac 5... well, you get the idea. All of which, I suppose, proves that the old adage "One man's trash is another man's treasure" isas relevant to comics now as it's always been.

Huh. I like the inner nerd vs visionary idea. I have to admit I have both as well but over the years I've pretty much lost interest as to what counts and what not. My 'inner nerd' started boring me on an exceedingly large scale and my 'visionary' still finds interesting new stuff to read.

Lots of things to comment on here, but I'll stick to two:

1. "At which point it dawned on me that Didio isn’t really doing anything other than reacting to the market. Which is, y’know, his job."

No, it's only part of his job, the part that's concerned with preserving what you've already got. Other parts include expanding the market and creating new markets. Which you can't do by appealing only to already existing, long-time fans.

2. Your Nerd vs. Visionary dichotomy has some appeal, but it seems too simple. Where does your fondness for Haney's Brave & Bold fit in? It's not, as you point out, continuity obsessed, but it's all about cool team-ups between characters you already know but don't often get to see together. The former seems un-nerdish; the latter nerdish, and neither seems particularly "visionary." Still, the appeal of Haney's B&B and the appeal of "event" comics seem very different: they don't necessarily both appeal to same nerd. So who's sitting on your third ( 8^) )shoulder, saying, "I just want good stories, told straightforwardly, that are consistent with broad truths about a character [e.g., Bruce Wayne's parents were murdered by criminals and so he became Batman to wage war on crime] but do not hinge on massive knowledge of history and trivia?"

I love the Nerd/Visionary angels-on-the-shoulder approach. It really does clearly represent a dichotomy I see in a lot of fans, especially myself.

My Nerd is definitely the stronger of the two voices, being much older and more persuasive. When I say things like "I will always buy Uncanny X-Men, no matter what, because as long as I've read comics, I've read that book" that's my nerd speaking. The Visionary is the voice that convinced me to buy Iron Fist, even though before that series I had no connection to or interest in Iron Fist, or the voice that kept me reading and enjoying the Order even when it was clear it was doomed to premature cancellation and the characters would likely fade to oblivion.

The Nerd is what keeps me buying things like Secret Invasion and Final Crisis, because I still have "to know" what the big happenings in their respective universes are, but assuages the guilt the Visionary feels by pointing out that Morrison is writing Final Crisis, and that the Nerd has gotten relaxed in recent years so that I don't need to buy every tie-in and crossover story

The Nerd isn't always bad though; I read Age of Bronze (a quality of comic the Visionary fully approves of) because I was a nerd about Greek mythology and the story of the fall of Troy long before I was a comic book nerd.

Your use of Star Trek as an example was also personally interesting to me, as I've always had an odd relationship with the Star Trek "expanded universe" of novels and comics (where continuity, as you say, is pretty loose) and the Star Wars expanded universe (where continuity is much more rigid and contradictions fewer, or addressed more often). My inner Nerd can go with the flow of Star Trek in a way that would enrage him if Star Wars adopted the same attitude.

Hi, Kurt.

Indeed, it's as much as one's own expectations and perceptions of the characters / story as it is the craftsmanship of the author. My expectations exceeded Waid's execution (and oft times exceed that of most of the writers at Marvel or DC, for that matter). Does this mean they're bad writers? No. I know they're trying, within the parameters of their employment with either company.

And you are quite welcome to enjoy the corny bad puns that wink to 40 to 60 year old pop culture, Kurt. Some of us prefer different styles humor and character interaction, though. And I don't see why all of the Marvel / DC superhero comics have to be targeted to suit you, and none to the rest of us. Just because the writers are geeks who are obsessed with continuity effluvia? (And even then, they really aren't, because they all just chuck whatever it is they personally don't agree with and do whatever the hell they want.)