brayzie

Promethea meets the Justice League

I'm not excited that DC is bringing so many of Alan Moore's characters into the regular DC Universe.
I never was crazy about Promethea's design, but she always felt like a big deal in her own book, especially the way JH Williams III illustrated her. Seeing her interact with the Justice League makes her seem small and ordinary.

Josh-da-man

I'd say that, between Promethea and Watchmen joining the DC universe, DC is going out of their way to spite Alan Moore, but they're also bringing Gaiman's Sandman stuff into the DCU, too, so it looks more like they're consolidating all of their corporate-owned properties under the DCU umbrella.

It's true that Sandman hasalways operated in the DCU (as the Justice Legue's ppearance in tne title's first year, and mentions of Oa and Rao in the later "Endless Nights" attests), but I believe there is some kind of gentleman's agreement in place with Gaiman where DC asks his permission to use characters like Dream and Death. I wonder if that's still the case.

brayzie

Sandman originally was intended by Gaiman to be in the DCU. But I thought that DC was the one that had second thoughts and told Gaiman to keep Sandman separate.
I know that Gaiman's Death made an appearance in another Vertigo title, Madame Xanadu, written by Matt Wagner. Then she later appeared in Superman or something where she talks with Lex Luthor, and that was supposed to be a big deal.

Alan Moore said that DC was creatively bankrupt and that's why they were making a whole event around a back up story he had written in Green Lantern Corps Quarterly.
"Just Moore just being cranky and bitter," I thought.
Then came Before Watchmen.
Then The Doomsday Clock and the introduction of Watchmen into the DCU.
Now Promethea meets the JLA.

majorjoe23

Tom Strong also recently showed up in The Terrifics.

fujishig

I mean, Sandman was always rooted in the DC universe. Even if you take out the initial storyline with the justice league and Dr. Destiny, you have the fact that Destiny and Cain and Abel and others were taken from old DC books, and then the whole connection with Wesley Dodds, Hector Hall and Fury, etc. The Endless just rarely appear because, well, they're god like entities.

But I think last year they had Morpheus in a Justice League book.

RonG617

Moore signed the work for hire contract knowing full well that anything he created and submitted would be property of DC. He should want his characters used to the full extent, if they get used in the movies or television shows he will get a nice residual check. Warner Brothers/DC gives nice royalty checks to modern day creators.

majorjoe23

Well, at the time he signed the contract he knew the characters would be property of Wildstorm, not DC. DC just happened to buy Wildstorm shortly after that.

Moore considered quitting then, but decided to stick with it so the artist wouldn’t be out of work. I believe he has DC pass all his residuals from other media on to the artists.

Timber

Well technically he signed that contract with WildStorm/Image comics before the DC merger. If ABC/WildStorm were DC subsidiary at the time I doubt Moore would have agreed to work for them.

brayzie

Did not know that about Destiny, Cain and Abel.
Maybe it was something about DC not wanting Gaiman to bring in their mainstream DCU characters (Superman, Batman, etc) once the ball got rolling, but in return Gaiman found out that that gave him even more freedom.
This is from something I read years ago so maybe I'm remembering it wrong.



I'm kind of surprised that Wildstorm and Jim Lee didn't offer Moore and the artist ownership of the characters. That was a big deal when Image was founded.

majorjoe23

Most Image books are creator owned, but that means you don't get paid until money starts coming in, and if the book doesn't make money the creators get squat.

I'm sure Moore and the artists had to weigh between ownership or getting a page rate. For the more time-consuming work of drawing an entire book, it can be tough to work without getting paid for months at a time.

brayzie

Originally that wasn't the case though, was it?
Image originally was giving all these artists in the 90s $$$$$$. When the stores were left with tons of Wildstar, Tribe, and Shaman's Tears #1's, and the speculator market crashed, Image changed it's model.

Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, and Todd McFarlane ended up becoming what they originally rallied against.

Jim Lee sold Wildstorm to DC Comics without even talking to Alan Moore about it.

fujishig

Image was originally mainly about the founders and their studios, and then branched out to other well known creators (hence Al Gordan and Ordway on Wildstar, Stroman on Tribe, Grell on Shaman's Tears, and others like Keown on Pitt and Jae Lee on Hellshock). But Wildstorm as an imprint always had the rights to what was done for them as work for hire (just like Highbrow, Top Cow, Extreme, etc.)

Here's a decent explanation:

https://www.cbr.com/dc-rights-americ...cs-alan-moore/

One thing that stands out really clearly to me though:
It's like completely missing the point. All the Wildstorm stuff which got integrated with the DC universe almost instantly lost their appeal as well, like the Authority, WildCATs, Grifter, etc., and perhaps the greatest product of that imprint, Planetary, would be absolutely hobbled if they made it part of the DC universe.

majorjoe23

The Image model has never really changed, but the partners can hire people to work on books that they own.

Josh-da-man

Sort of, but it wasn't limited to Sandman and Gaiman.

Before Vertigo became an imprint in 1993, all of the titles were still part of the DCU -- Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Sandman, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and Shade The Changing Man -- even though they were tonally different from their mainstream counterparts and some carried a "Mature Readers" label.

When they got their own line, Vertigo, DC sort of mandated that they not cross over into the DC Universe proper, as they didn't want a character like Swamp Thing or Animal Man appearing in regular Code approved title and then have children pick up the Vertigo series. So it sort of became a "don't ask, don't tell" relationship between Vertigo and the DCU.

fujishig

Like children pick up comic books...

Josh-da-man

Yeah.

I think the Vertigo/DCU separation was mandated by Paul Levitz.

Even then, special dispensation was occasionally given when Dream appeared in Morrison's JLA and Sandman Mystery Theater crossed over with Robinson's Starman.

When "New 52" happened, Vertigo gave up all of their properties except Hellblazer and Sandman to the DCU, which, by that time, with the exception of Wagner's Madame Xanadu, was an entirely creator-owned line. Vertigo hadn't done much with Swamp Thing or Animal Man for years, and Doom Patrol had already been returned to the DCU. When Hellblazer was cancelled at #300 it was also returned to the DCU.

fujishig

Now Gaiman has announced a Sandman Universe line of comics overseen by him:

http://ew.com/books/2018/03/01/neil-...niverse-comics