Anything I might add to this present discussion just comes back to this point.

Part of my problem is they kept things too similar to the old stuff. I really wish they would've taken the opportunity to do some drastic changes like keeping some of the Flashpoint things around, instead of just doing a streamlined version of what we already had.

Yes, Dick is Nightwing. I think he is supposed to be about 20-21 years old, and he was Robin for somewhere between 1-2 years.


Personally, I suspect the only reason Damian made it into the relaunch is because Morrison is one of the top people at DC, and DC didn't want to risk pissing him off by erasing Damian. The current regimes at Marvel and DC absolutely hate having their characters be married and/or have kids. Peter and MJ were OMDed. Clark and Lois are gone, and Chris Kent is in limbo. Yet Batman still has a biological son, and it doesn't even make sense how he can have a 10 year old son with Talia when he has been Batman for only 5-6 years in the DCNU. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Damian is tossed into limbo by editorial mandate once Morrison leaves. That is if Morrison doesn't just decide to kill him off. If I remember right, Morrison originally planned to kill Damian very early on in his run, but he became a popular character so Morrison kept him around. I wonder if really his popularity just didn't earn him a postponement on his death and nothing more.

I think Damian is here to stay. I think what will happen 5 or 10 years down the road, is it might come out that Damian isn't really Bruce's biological son. But I agree that Morrison has some real sway, like Johns and now Snyder, to make real changes to characters.

That's the retcon I would almost guarantee to happen at some point. Damian's presence doesn't really jive with the mass media version of Batman and he'll be just another Robin when Morrison is gone.

Yeah, even Green Lantern keeping it's history makes things really confusing, what with the rainbow lanterns, Parallax and it's connection to the Death of Superman, Kyle, Blackest Night, etc., but Johns and Morrison got to keep their toys.

I just read the article and didn't realize until now that when you said editorial decided the stuff about the name, you meant they changed the script right before it went to the printers because someone thought it would be cool. I guess in this new 52 universe, Lobdell's the ideal writer, because he openly admits he doesn't plan too far ahead so that the characters can react organically... I mean, if editorial just makes whatever decisions they want without consulting the writer, I guess you have to write on the fly.

How long is the New 52 going to be "new"? We are into the second year now, and DC is still putting "The New 52" on each cover. If its the second year, its not really new anymore...

As long as Marvel keeps using the New Avengers title.

Until the sales decline enough they need a new gimmick to move comics. I've heard disturbing industry research that the new DC isn't selling to entirely new comic book readers, but lapsed comic book readers from the 90s. It's picked up virtually zero young readers.

If this is true, that would explain why they seem to intent on recreating Image of the 90s. It also wouldn't be all that bad, as those are still lapsed readers. Even if it were current readers who were only reading Marvel before the new 52, that would be good news (even though it wouldn't be good long term news for the industry). A problem may be in how many long-time DC fans they've lost, but so far sales have been better.

At this point I don't think they can get the mainstream back into standard superhero stuff. I mean, how do you pull a guy who's never read comics before into a new series? How do you pull in kids? It's not by releasing 52 number 1 issues at the same time at 2.99 and 3.99 a pop. But you do pull in guys who have been collecting comics for a long time, just like you pull in bigger number with crossovers and big events and new #1s and stuff like that.

The characters exist in too much other media these days, for comics to compete. I was just talking about The Avengers movie with a co-worker who is in his mid 30's. He mentioned reading comics as a kid, but not anymore. And thats just it. Average fan can grab floppies every month that are constantly being re-numbered, titled, crossed-over. etc and try to keep up. Or watch a 30 min cartoon or 2 hour movie.

Hell, I was looking at the October solicits for Marvel and I cant even tell what the main X-Men title is. I was thinking about starting again after AVX, but I dont have a clue. How does the new reader or average fan do it?

Yeah. There's the Nolan Batman films, Batman: Brave and the Bold just wrapped up and I'm sure a new cartoon series is on the way, the DC Direct cartoon movies, and the Batman Arkham games.

And as for the comics, you go into the comic shop and there's like 5 different Batman titles.

DC tops the charts again in September:

http://www.newsarama.com/comics/sept...es-charts.html


Marvel's "Marvel NOW" starts Wednesday so October's sales will be interesting to look at.

Good to see The World's Finest is doing pretty well, sales-wise. I don't need DC cancelling another series on me.

I'm surprised Earth 2 is doing so well. I love the book so I was sure it was going to tank.

I'm not liking DC at the moment but love that Kevin Maguire is drawing the next generation of DC heroes Supergirl and Huntress.

It's doing well sales-wise, but the stories are, IMO, terrible. Gail Simone is doing a fantastic job with her female superhero, and by all accounts here turn on Birds of Prey was good, too. Worlds' Finest is a really good concept, but there's just not much to it right now. Hopefully that changes soon as the story grows and the characters begin interacting w/ there Earth 1 counterparts.

Frankly, at this point I'm just glad that DC is doing a Power Girl book at all. In truth, I'd rather have Amanda Connor working on this than that Watchmen reboot crap, since her run on the old PG book was far and away the best interpretation of the character ever done, but that will likely never happen, so I'll take this, even though it is far from perfect.

They already wiped (IMO the best Batgirl) Cassandra and Red Robin out of continuity, so DC has few other heroes I'm genuinely interested in at this point.

I was looking forward to the Power Girl monthly but was pretty disappointed by the writing, and it was so average that even the artwork wasn't strong enough to make me buy it.

And yet I Connor and Johns collaboration on JSA Classified is what made me a PG fan. I wish they had continued. Power Girl trying to be a normal person and tossing busted door knobs from her apartment door into a box with others, when she should have her own fortress, was great. That was a unique approach to the super hero and instead for her ongoing, they brought her back to just another millionaire superhero.

Still much, much better than the previous incarnations of Power Girl: yellow-suited, short haired feminist and mystically pregnant, non Kryptonian descendant of Arion before Johns worked his retcon magic.

The late 80s style yellow jogging suit with the turtle neck? She was atleast drawn well despite the costume design and had good dialogue in JLE while Sears and the BWAHAHA writing team was there.

The Arion origin sounds pretty bad. I don't necessary like Johns style of writing but agree that his idea for Power Girl really worked well. I saw some youtube videos titled "I'm Power Girl dammit!" which were really good and got the tone of what Johns was going for, IMO. Palmiotti made her kind of boring. Why Terra III or IV got a mini before PG I don't know but it was equally average.

Editorial madlibs?

Justice League of America #1 will get 52 variant covers.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=42020

And people thought the 90s variant craze was ridiculous.

Basically each of the 50 states, plus D.C. and Puerto Rico, gets its own variant.

Also two of the new members, Vibe and Katana, each get their new ongoing series. Yeah, I predict those will be canceled by the end of 2013 due to low sales. Who the hell actually asked for a Vibe or Katana ongoing.

I met a student here at work the other day, and she said Vibe was her favorite character. I couldn't believe it.