No Supergirl Comic On The Horizon

The cancellation of the Supergirl title.

The end of the Brian Michael Bendis run on the Superman books.

Future State and Infinite Frontier re-imagining the whole DCU.

No mention of Kara in any of the solicits.

It made me wonder if and when we would see Supergirl again.

I wrote that just last week when I thought I saw Supergirl in a Future State page as part of the Legion. Since then Supergirl has been announced as being a character in the upcoming DCEU Flash movie. 

I wondered if maybe we would get a new Supergirl book. After all, she has a show, an upcoming movie appearance, and a fandom. 

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like we will see any Supergirl any time soon. On its web site, DC announced upcoming series. Here is the link.

https://www.dccomics.com/blog/2021/02/19/dc-teases-new-series-and-confirms-free-comic-book-day-at-comicspro

Marie Javins Named Editor-In-Chief

 

The DC bloodbath was a couple of months ago. At the height of the pandemic,Dan Didio and senior editors were shown the door. Comics were canceled. The '5G' future was scrapped (sort of ... you can't convince me that Future State isn't some grab at material already produced). And I began to wonder if DC was in trouble.

It didn't help that there was no inkling at all about what is happening post-Future State. Will we pick up where we left off? Is Death Metal a death knell for the Rebirth timeline? 

Finally, this week, some good news came out. Marie Javins was named Editor-In-Chief. Here is a link to Variety's article: https://variety.com/2020/film/news/dc-comics-marie-javins-editor-in-chief-1234826235/ 

 For me, this was a great announcement. It might sound dramatic but I thought to myself 'this is a great move'.

And the article and a quote from Javins only bolstered that feeling.

The Abattoir That Is DC Comics Editorial

 

 When AT&T bought Warner Brothers, I assumed that some changes would be made to the WB and some of that would trickle down to DC Comics. I have been wondering when the axe would drop or when corporate changes would be made.

 It seems that time is now. As of 8/10, news had leaked out that there were going to be major changes in the DC C suite and Editorial offices. Here is a link to Bleeding Cool's coverage of the proceedings: https://bleedingcool.com/comics/jim-lee-bob-harras-marie-javins-new-dc-comics-implosion-rumors/ 

 This is not trimming of the fat. This is a culling of the herd. 

Now I certainly haven't agreed with the path DC has taken in their comics, probably an overall sentiment of the last 20 years or so. But some of the names are good comics people, people who love comics and the characters, and who interact with fans.

Seeing Hank Kanalz, Andy Khouri, and Brian Cunningham listed among those who are leaving was shocking. These were solid folk who I followed and trusted.

Does AT&T even care about this little corner of WB? Is there a vision for the future? Or was this just a purge? 

Does AT&T care about stories and characters? Or only (as Gerry Conway states so eloquently on Twitter) the ability to strip mine the IP for profit?

Or was this just a result of downward economic trends in the pandemic? Employees were laid off everywhere within WB. Or is that just an excuse?

 

 This doesn't sound too good either. 

'A rapid reduction in titles' means less product on the shelves. I suppose the dust has to settle a bit and new people have to be brought on board. Or maybe AT&T thinks that the world simply doesn't need 50 DC titles a month.

And I will say that I simply dislike reading digital comics. If this is AT&T's way of moving out of the paper publishing business, this might be the death knell for my fandom.

I have pondered the death of comic books and the death of DC Comics for a long time. It suddenly feels a bit more real.

 

Part of this is the complete dissolution of DC Direct.

Again, per Bleeding Cool, rather than having an in-house department to control and parse out merchandise, AT&T will most likely sell the license for the properties to other companies. 

This also sounds like a bit of a cash grab.

Maybe it just what DC needs. To paraphrase the great Harry Lime, times of chaos are often times of great creativity. If I am sick of most of what DC has been doing recently, maybe things need to be shaken things up a bit.

Still I can't help but feel that this is more like a salting of the Earth than sowing a new crop.

 

 Maybe I should be thinking more about Swamp Thing #50 and Swampy's thoughts on aphids. Maybe it is only from the evil of this destruction that a purer, more virtuous DC Universe.

I guess we'll have to see.

All that said, only the best for those who have lost their jobs in this cycle.

DC Comics Website Supergirl Page

So the other day I was on the DC Comics main website, mostly to check on what books were coming out the following week. While perusing, I noticed they have 'character' pages available, sort of an electronic Who's Who to give a thumbnail history of a character.

And yes they do have a Supergirl page:http://www.dccomics.com/characters/supergirl

I found it a little interesting that the one picture they have of her has her in the Michael Turner costume from 2004. That is two costumes ago, maybe three if you consider the changes that Jamal Igle made to it back in the day.

But I figured that the Turner picture is somewhat iconic for Kara Zor-El's return to the DCU so maybe I could understand.

Then I read the text ...

2015 NYCC Supergirl Comic News

I'll be covering the NYCC over the next two days looking at comic news today and show news tomorrow.

We'll start out with the obvious.

There was no announcement about any Supergirl book at the convention. No mainstream book. No show tie-in book. Nothing.

I have talked about how inane this is from a business point of view so no need to flog that dead horse.

I did review the transcript of most of the DC panels. Interestingly enough, there was no Superman panel. Despite all the radical changes, the upcoming comic series, DC didn't think Superman deserved his own panel.

In the Heroes panel, Dan Didio had this quote saying that the powers that be "have never forsaken the core qualities of these characters."

I think if you look at Superman alone, you might say that the current Superman is about as far away from the core qualities of the character as you can get. Someone even says later that they are asking 'can he still be Superman without his abilities'? The answer for 75 years has been yes. Because it is the person inside, it's Clark, that defines the character. Not the powers.

I found it laughable that Didio would say such a thing when this two page spread ends Action Comics. On one side we have a bloody Clark arrested. On the other, an angry Superman mutating into a monster.

Does Didio really think this represents the core qualities of Superman?

Insanity!

Otherwise, the only real Supergirl news was on the DC SuperHero Girls front. There seemed to be a lot of news on that front. I recommend people going over to the site as they are starting to post some quick webisodes: http://www.dcsuperherogirls.com/en-us

But here we see the characters adorning steps in the Javits Center.

We got a good luck at the action figures and dolls coming out.

And there was also a ton of merchandise on display for all the characters. Action figures! Shirts! Skateboards! Elbow pads! Phone cases! Just incredible.

I like the look of this Supergirl, especially those Chuck Taylor sneakers.

And while I will have a post tomorrow about the Supergirl panel, I did like how DC was marketing the show by having a display cast onto buildings from (I guess) a moving vehicle.

You can find a gif of this online with the figure of Melissa Benoist/Supergirl streaking on the side of the building as whatever is projecting it moves down the street.

And then a nice spotlight of the symbol and show info in the shadow of the Empire State Building.

Unbelievable!

You'd think there would be a comic out there for this character to capture all this energy surrounding Supergirl!

DC All Access

I have been pleasantly surprised with the amount of publicity DC has been giving the new creative team on Supergirl. Between interviews on the usual websites and videos on DC All Access, the creative team has been spreading the word about the 'new' Kara and  Crucible.

And that coverage reached a wide audience of DC fans this week when the Supergirl book was the topic of the DC All Access page in all comics this week!

The opening paragraphs talk about angst and confusion but there isn't the bratty negative overlay of prior runs and prior runs publicity. Instead this one goes on to talk about the new direction and Crucible.

And mentioning the new Batgirl and Divergent is savvy. Both of those properties are wildly popular right now.

In fact, I keep wondering why this run hasn't caught the 'lightning in a bottle' that Babs new direction has. This Kara is strong, independent, heroic, and fierce. The book has a female writer and artist. The concept of Crucible is solid and fun.

I can only hope that this little article entices some new readers into the fold.

And kudos for DC for promoting the book!

Romita Is Coming! Is He The Next Great One?

I read last week's comics and was surprised to see this ad page.

I'm not the biggest JRJR fan so for me it isn't such a dramatic announcement. In fact, I would think that Geoff Johns returning to Superman would be the bigger announcement.

But there is something familiar about that simple proclamation that 'Romita is Coming!'

Way back in the 70's, DC lured Jack Kirby away from Marvel and DC included a similar advertisement.

In fact, they didn't even name check Kirby at first, simply calling him The Great One! I love that it starts with "the word from high is ..." Almost religious!

Of course, Kirby came on board and was cratively prolific. He unveiled the Fourth World, the Demon, the Guardian and the Newsboy Legion, OMAC, and a variety of 1st Issue Special properties.

But I think Jack Kirby coming to DC warranted a "____ is Coming!" ad more than JRJR.

If you didn't know The Great One was Kirby, DC took care of you.

They also had a true 'Kirby is Coming!' advertisement, half pagers touting his coming on board the Jimmy Olsen book.

So ... does Romita coming to DC merit a Kirby-esque push?