DCU News

Looks like Redhead Fangirl had good info. There were no comics on my pull list today, but I did pick up the new Wizard and CSN, both of which had updates on goings on at DC. I'm ambivalent overall. Some of this I like, some I think I could love, and the rest is making me a bit uneasy.

To put things into perspective. I never actually read Crisis on Infinite Earths. I was skimming the issues, planning to read the whole thing in one sitting once I had all the issues. When I got the Supergirl dies issues, I stopped buying it, didn't read any of them, and quietly stopped buying comics (I'd lost interest in the few Marvels I'd been reading by then), except for Titans. I gave THAT up in 1991 and my long farewell LoC was actually printed. I sure miss the lettercols.

Supergirl was one of the few characters that got me hooked on superheroes and kept me reading, along with Dick Grayson, Roy Harper, Lois Lane, and a bunch of teens called the Legion of Super-Heroes. And I loved the multi-verse, which was revealed fairly early in my comic reading "career," so its "death" (collapse, implosion, merger, whatever) ended something that I thought was great fun.

It's not that I don't like change and as a writer (okay, mostly fanfic fic and self-published material, but still, I do wrestle with characters and plot, so can appreciate that the writers of comics want do write cool stuff that gets their creative juices flowing. I just want characters I enjoy reading and when my favorite characters die, that gets difficult.

Okay, on to the news and teasers. From CSN comes the most exciting news. DC publisher Paul Levitz is penning a 6-part JSA story arc for next year, to cover the transition period between Crisis and the One Year Later books, with art by first, George Perez, then Rags Morales. It doesn't get much better than that. Paul Levitz wrote some amazing stories back in the day, and way back when, before he wrote for DC, his letters kept me entertained.

A bunch of books are being cancelled in February, some to be relaunched later in the year. The relaunchings weren't listed, but since some of the cancellations involve major characters, they are the likeliest for relaunching, I'd think, in one form or another: Flash (ending in January), Wonder Woman, Batgirl. Since BoP and Outsiders, my fav comics, weren't mentioned, I'm relaxing a bit, but I suspect they're likely to be changed in the aftermath of Crisis and 52.

Hawkman will become Hawkgirl with issue 50, which sounds neat. But the really good news is the creative team will be Walt Simonson writing and Howard Chaykin on art. Well, I find that exciting, though I love Walt's art as much as I do Howie's.

Also, major new series are set to launch every week in June, with new creative teams on an existing series as of July. Now these shakeups could be great (as with the one for Hawkgirl listed above) or they could take a good team off a book and replace them with something I (we?) don't like, so I'm going to take a wait and see with this.

Mike Grell's Travis Morgan will be back, too, in a book by Bruce Jones and Bart Sears. It's been so long since I've read this. I loved it at first, then it got dull and repititious. If they can really punch some life into Travis, this could be cool.

Wizard really pushed things with teasers: Illos of 4 DC characters and loaded questions, ie which among Wonder Woman, Power Girl, Catwoman, and Oracle will give birth next year? And which among Superman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, and GL Hal Jordan will be stripped of their powers? I gotta believe for the latter, it won't be newly returned SG or Hal/GL. But things sure do sound like they'll be getting very interesting. And I'll be reevaluating my pull list, for sure.