Comic Book Resources

I don’t quite agree with you Brian. I’ve only been reading comics regularly for a little over a year now and this seems like the opposite of accessible to me. I mean its fun for a long-time fan like yourself but it sort of hits upon one of the things I’ve felt since I started reading which is that Marvel and DC seem to only cater to their old fans, a group getting naturally smaller.
If this skip month was used as a launching point for a bunch of new titles tied-in to the Blackest Night story (like how Marvel launched a few titles tied-in to Secret Invasion) it would have created more excitement amongst more readers than people who’ve read Starman and still read comics today.

If DC doesn’t do anything in Blackest Night to explain to new readers what this skip month is about, then fair enough, Fayzan, but I’m pretty sure they will.

Nifty idea. And yes, I’ll buy Starman and Suicide Squad. (Not sure which one I’m more excited about. Both have great potential.) But: Bummer that Catwoman isn’t being written by Will Pfeifer, who had such a great run on the title for its last couple years. (Or written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke!)

This is a novel concept, yeah. Yet…

On the one hand, Robinson comes back to write an 81st issue of “Starman” in Opal City.

On the other hand, Jack doesn’t come back, and the issue will be a tie-in to “Blackest Night,” a big crossover event that I’m not reading and feel happy knowing as little about as possible.

Um, yeah, honestly not sure about this.

I will buy Atom & Hawkman and maybe Starman… but the issue that makes this all worthwhile is…

SUICIDE SQUAD!

Oh boy!

Am I the only one who felt that Jack Knight wasn’t even the most interesting part of Starman? Opal City was, so I’m pefectly fine with Jack staying retired and getting his ending and us checking in with Bobo and the O’Dares and co. It’s probably best this way.

The Shazam stuff confused me as well until I saw the number. It’s not a continuation of the Ordway series but of the Judd series instead. Wallace therefore makes more sense.

I love that they’re numbering the Suicide Squad issue 67, despite the fact that there’ve been two Suicide Squad series in the interim, one of which was written by Ostrander.

Suicide Squad, Starman and Phantom Stranger all look good to me!

Gail Simone has also announced that she has a hand in the Suicide Squad issue, too!

Atom & Hawkman might resolve things if the Silver Age Hawks are indeed returning. Should be interesting. I hope Ostrander could just stay on Suicide Squad as if it had never been cancelled. I’ll be picking up the Starman issue as well. Heck, it should be pretty cool to see older titles like Phantom Stranger and Weird Western Tales revived after so many years, if only for a month.

This reminds me of those Golden Age one-shots like All-American and Star-Spangled that DC published just before the huge JSA relaunch in 1999.

Just another in a long line of ideas from DC meant to cater to old fans while thumbing new readers. And yet another tie-in to Blackest Night. It’s even worse than Secret Invasion was!

So glad I’m only getting 2 DC titles, neither of which are affected by this.

can not wait for both the star man one and also the suicide squad one mostly to see how the wall reacts to dead members back around plus to find out what dead squad members are going to be.

Starman. Robinson. I’m sold

Seems to me that recently, DC has stepped up their game a little bit on the ideas front. First 52, then Wednesday Comics and now this. The execution may leave quite a bit to be desired at times, but for interesting concepts DC is leaving the House of Ideas for dead at the moment.

What, no Spectre #62 by Ostrander and Mandrake?

Actually, I’m betting that I won’t be the last person to ask “Where’s _______ #__ by _______?”

DC should have solicited Ennis to do a Hitman: Blackest Night.

If for nothing else than to bring back some members of Section Eight.

DC should have solicited Ennis to do a Hitman: Blackest Night.

Actually, Ennis could do a two for one, with an issue of Hitman (which really should be BL Tommy and some of Section 8 showing up at Noonan’s and getting some drinks) and an issue of Our Army at War* (with the latter being a bunch of shorts featuring Black Lanterns Frank Rock/Unknown Soldier/Enemy Ace/Haunted Tank, similar to what is being done with Weird Western Tales.)

*There might be a more appropriate war comic to revive than OAaW, as I’m sure the war comic experts will point out.

Agreed, Ugly American. No Black Lantern roster is complete without Dogwelder.

People don´t get it: the titles are “coming back from the dead”, the concept of the event. Why lauch a bunch of new comics that will be cancelled in a year or two? Nevertheless, the new titles will come after BN has ended. So stop complaning!

Yeah, Hitman came to my mind too.

Weird Western Tales? WTF???

And our long national nightmare continues — 41 years & counting & I’m still waiting to see BROTHER POWER THE GEEK #3, goddammit!!!

Can you just see Starman Omnibus vol. 6 adding # 81 to the mix?

Wonder who’s drawing it, Tony Harris or Peter Snejbjerg?
Any taker?

What, no OMAC #9?

Pass.

I glad Robinson’s sticking to his gun’s about Jack Knight never returning. Knight had one of the best and most complete endings for a character, and I can see no reason to ever bring the character back. Alternatively, I wouldn’t mind a JLA/Hitman-style miniseries that takes place somewhere in the middle of the Starman series proper.

My first thought was”More ‘Young Heroes in Love’? Finally!”
Don’t know what that says about me.

I agree with Brian. This is a clever idea.

I don’t get the argument that this leaves new readers out of the mix. I’ve only been reading comics since the mid 90s so most of these books ended before I started. But I dont’ see that hurting my enjoyment of these new “last issues.” If you follow the current DCU, you’ll be fine. Ostrander might throw in some references to his past Suicide Squad stories, but that shouldn’t stop new readers from enjoying the main story about the Black Lanterns.

I disagree Marcus Brute-
Robinson’s conclusion might be nice if it was creator owned, but Jack Knight is a part of the DCU. Isn’t it weird that when Vandal Savage was killing the children of legacy Golden Age heroes, that Jack Knight didn’t get brought up? That’s just one instance. Also, I think doing a publicity stunt like this where there is an extra issue years after Robinson claims to have completed his story reeks of desperation.

Agreed, Brian.

The Starman and Suicide Squad issues sound really good to me, but I think I might be most excited about The Atom and Hawkman; there’s both the tie-in story (mostly likely) written by Johns, and the sure-to-be fantastic art by Ryan Sook.

Clever idea.

Oops I was confused about POS because of this Didio comment:

Nrama: Greg Rucka is writing The Question?

DiDio: Of course Greg Rucka is writing it. The list of writers is The Power of Shazam! #18 is being written by Eric Wallace. Catwoman #83 is going to be written by Fabian Nicieza, Suicide Squad #67 is being written by John Ostrander. The Question #37 is Greg Rucka. Phantom Stranger #42 is Peter Tomasi. Weird Western Tales #71 is Dan DiDio. The Atom and Hawkman #46 is Geoff Johns. And Starman #81 is James Robinson.

I guess it is 48 after all. Hopefully Ordway’s on art at least.

Given how unbelievably boring and stupid I’ve found Blackest Night to be so far, I don’t know if even Ostrander writing the Squad again is gonna be enough to get me to buy this. Gail Simone’s apparent participation is another knock against it, as I really don’t care for the way she’s been writing the characters in Secret Six.

Still, it is Ostrander and it is Suicide Squad. I guess it’ll come down to the art and if there’s nothing offensively stupid that jumps out at me when I skim through the issue in the store.

I hope Eric Wallace on Power of Shazam means Freddy’s going to be joining the Titans. That’d be pretty sweet.

I don’t care for Blackest Night or any of these titles, but it is certainly an INTERESTING idea at least.

I’d be a little more excited if I knew who was drawing the issues, but yes, this is one the best ideas to come out of Didio’s regime at DC in a long time.

The Suicide Squad and Starman issues are the ones I’m looking forward to the most, but really, I am kind of interested in all of them, even the Didio-written Weird Western Tales. Used to love that book back in the day when Hex and later Scalphunter were headlining it…

>>My first thought was”More ‘Young Heroes in Love’? Finally!”
Don’t know what that says about me.

I’d say it says you have good taste.

Any guesses/ wishes as to the artist that DiDio gave the clue about? Tony Harris on Starman maybe? Or Ordway drawing Shazam. What about Neal Adams and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez splitting the bill on Weird Western. (Okay that last one’s a stretch for a lot of reasons…)

Sook is apparently working with Johns.

Oh boy! Time for SSOSV and Freedom Fighters#16, Inferior Five #13 and Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #21! What could possibly go wrong?

Whoops, that last Anonymous one was me.

Are people really that excited about seeing Ted Knight’s rotting corpse acting like a villain? You do all realize that that is almost guaranteed to happen in the Starman issue, right?

Unless it’s David. Or more likely, both.

I want Aztek #11.

People do realize it’s the James Robinson who’s been writing Justice League; Cry For Justice writing the new Starman and not the fantastic writer from 15 years ago. Seriously, since he’s returned to writing regularly he’s come out with disappointment after disappointment. Most are purely average, some are pure shite.

Maybe the big reveal is that Robinson is a Black Lantern, Philip.

When asked for comment, Mikaal Tomas only said “JUSTICE!”

Call me crazy, but I have very little desire to pick up a “new” issue of a comic I read when it came out if it’s going to be about reanimated corpses of the characters I liked taunting whichever characters have survived the last few pogroms at Didio’s DC.

@Marcus Brute and Eric-

I agree w/ MB. I think you might be right from a logistical/continuity perspective, Eric, but creatively, there doesn’t seem to be any advantage to bringing Jack Knight back. His powers/basic concept aren’t particularly novel. What made him a great character was Robinson’s clear commitment to giving him a recognizably human personality, and hobbies, interests, and attitudes that are were a serious part of the character and not one-panel gags between fights. In short, he had a life with a proper arc. Batman will never have that, and that’s okay, but there’s room for both, even in the DCU.

That said, some kind of additional attempt to capitalize on Starman’s wild critical success is almost inevitable at a big two company. Bringing back Opal city seems like a reasonable compromise. Personally, I don’t necessarily want more Starman, i just want Robinson to write something that is as good as Starman again.

This seems to me like more of DC’s “let’s throw everything to the wall and see what sticks” mentality of late, as with buying the Milestone characters or publishing Wednesday Comics. On the one hand, I congratulate them for experimenting with new ideas, but on the other, I can’t help but feel they are rudderless. Why are these comics part of Blackest Night? Wouldn’t they go better as part of an Anniversary celebration of some sort? (Presumably, this is about characters being forced to deal (again) with the deaths of their loved ones by way of the zombie Black Lanterns, but the fact most of them currently have no series of their own make the stories feel superfluous in a modern crossover. I wish DC’s editors would not just sit down to discuss new ideas, but also to figure out WHEN they should use them.)

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If this skip month was used as a launching point for a bunch of new titles tied-in to the Blackest Night story (like how Marvel launched a few titles tied-in to Secret Invasion)

You’d think so, but from speaking as someone whio started reading comics in the decade where that was the in-thing, be glad they didn’t.

What is Sigma #1 from ‘Fire From Heaven’ going for today?

it would have created more excitement amongst more readers than people who’ve read Starman and still read comics today.

I think you’d be surprised – Starman wasn’t only a good title, it was a goddamn life raft at the time for people who like Superheroes, but wanted good intelligent stories as well… I’d say more people who read it would still be reading comics.
It also got a lot of outside notice and was the ‘It’ book for news reports/articles mentioning comics.

And if I’m totally wrong about it’s current popularity, then DC are trying to reach out to get people who read it then to come back now and check out this ‘Blackest Night’ crossover.

“Wonder who’s drawing it, Tony Harris or Peter Snejbjerg?
Any taker?”

Harris said he’s doing the cover on Twitter.

What no Ambush Bug?

@Sijo:
“the fact most of them currently have no series of their own make the stories feel superfluous in a modern crossover.”

Isn’t this exactly the point? Starman has no regular series anymore but Robinson came up with a (hopefully) cool story to tie in to BN so they put out a one-shot. What’s the prob?
I mean, yes, none of these will probably be integral to follow the main story (except possibly Atom & Hawman, since it’s written by Johns), but I don’t see why a 3-issue “Blackest Night: Superman” mini is less superfluous than a Catwoman one-shot.

“Can you just see Starman Omnibus vol. 6 adding # 81 to the mix?”

good gordon, I hope not.

anyone else really wish we could have had a new final issue for Birds Of Prey?

Anyone else wondering whether some of the titles chosen might have been chosen for reasons of maintaining trademark? I mean, has there really been a big clamor for “Weird Western Tales” that I was unaware of? Other than Catwoman and Suicide Squad, none of the listed titles has been featured on the cover of a comic book in less than a decade- which is more than enough time for maintenance of trademark to expire. Not that I’m cynical.

Weird Western Tales was used as a title for DC 8 years ago.

Mea culpa- that said, the period of time during which a company can file for trademark termination based on “non-use” is, if I recall correctly, only five years, so my cynicism isn’t exactly punctured by my failure to look up “Weird Western” on the GCDB. Am I correct in assuming it was a a Vertigo title?

Yeppers.

If they’re going to try to hang a blanket over whatever kind of deadline trouble they’re having with the main event, at least they’re doing it in an innovative way.

Please, please, please be the real James Robinson and not that imposter running around the DC universe for the past year.

Man, a Hitman issue would have been awesome.

>>anyone else really wish we could have had a new final issue for Birds Of Prey?

Yes, indeed. And even more so for Shooter’s Legion of Super-Heroes. Didio earned my eternal enmity (which, in truth, he already pretty much had sewn up already just by generally being an imbecile & all) over that.

That, & the Ambush Bug fiasco.

I repeat: what a craven cretin.