Broken Frontier

Hello, everyone! This is William Gatevackes, back for another week with a bunch of previews to share with you.

It’s a big week for One Year Later books, with four on the docket. I’m going to start with Superman #650, which features a storyline written by Geoff Johns and Kurt Busiek, a dream team for those who like their stories to be solid superheroes tales that respect continuity.

Superman #650 continues the numbering of the Adventures of Superman, which in turn continued the numbering of the pre-1985 Crisis Superman title. DC did this to show the history and longevity of the character. In an interview on Newsarama, DC Senior Vice-President Dan DiDio said, “One of the things that I felt very strongly about was that our four premiere books, which I always feel set the style and tone for the DCU—Superman, Batman, Action Comics and Detective Comics —should have their original numbering. They’re very special series, both given their characters and historically, and they should be treated as such.” 

I love it when companies make an effort to respect the legacy of their characters. And if anyone deserves this treatment, it would be Superman. He is the character that inspired all others. If people hadn’t fallen in love with Superman in the ’30s, we wouldn’t be reading about Wolverine, Hellboy, or Spawn today.

Nightwing is one of the titles that’s changed the most because of the OYL break. Issue #118 has a new creative team (Bruce Jones and Joe Dodd), a new setting (New York City), and possibly a new lead character. Two weeks ago, I mentioned that Jason Todd might be the new Nightwing. The knife you see Nightwing holding on the cover seems to be a major hint, since it’s the one Jason Todd used.

2005 was a big year for deceased sidekicks. The long-dead Bucky returned to plague Captain America as the Winter Soldier. And Jason Todd returned to torment Batman as the Red Hood. Both returns are indicative of the long standing trend in comics of dead characters coming back to life.

Death has never been permanent in comics. Bad guys routinely came back to life to threaten the heroes. The unwritten rule of comics is that if you don’t see a body, then don’t count on the character being dead. Bucky’s death falls within this clause. He was assumed to be blown to smithereens, but no corpse was ever found. Jason Todd, however, was another issue entirely.

Not only was Jason Todd’s body found, his pulse was taken, and he was declared dead. DC left no doubt that Jason Todd was deader than a doornail. Yet, he still returned. Judd Winick explained how he returned in this month’s Batman Annual #26 and the story confirms that this is, in fact, the Jason Todd who was killed by the Joker many years ago.

What is amazing is not that Jason Todd returned, but rather that DC allowed him to return at all. This is a character that was so unpopular in the role of Robin that thousands of readers voted to kill him off.  Thousands! And yet, here he is, getting the big push from DC Comics again. This time, fans are responding. What a difference 18 years makes!

Green Arrow #60 finds its main character in the role of Mayor of Star City. While this is a new take on the character, the plot line is not new to comics. Another book on the stands also revolves around the mayor of a large city. And it’s a book that Green Arrow might not fare well against in comparison.

Ex Machina features a lead character, Mitchell Hundred, who once was a superhero called the Great Machine and is currently the mayor of New York City. It is also one of the best written books on the market. Written by Brian K. Vaughan, the storylines in the title deal more with politics than super heroics. Still, the main premise is close to where DC is going with Green Arrow .

I’m not saying DC or writer Judd Winick are ripping off Ex Machina (published by DC’s arm, Wildstorm). Green Arrow usually sells better anyway. And Winick’s take might be entirely different than Vaughan’s. But if you are going in a new direction with a title, you should put as much distance as you can from what is already on the market.

Birds of Prey #92 celebrates OYL with a new lineup and a new art team, Paulo Siqueira and Robin Riggs. The same great writing by Gail Simone is there, but that didn’t help the title in sales before the OYL event. If there ever was a book that needed something big to happen to draw in new readers, it’s Birds of Prey . Its sales land it consistently in the bottom half of the Diamond 100. Not so low that it is in danger of being cancelled, but lower than most of the comic’s fans think it deserves.

The book has received quite a bit of critical acclaim, and logic dictates that if people were willing to pick up an issue and give it a try, they’d stick around. Unfortunately, I believe Simone and DC haven’t given new customers enough of a reason to take a look at the title. Maybe the OYL event will help.

Marvel releases Annihilation: Prologue tomorrow. This is the kick-off issue of the latest Marvel summer event, this time featuring their “cosmic” characters. In addition to the Prologue , there will be four 4-issue limited series, which lead into a 6-issue limited series.

How many events does Marvel have lined up for this summer? Let’s run them down. There’s Planet Hulk and the big Civil War crossover. Add to that the marriage of Storm and Black Panther and Annihilation, and Marvel appears to be saturating the market with “events”.

But how much is too much? Marvel seems to be getting dangerously close to having too many events going on at the same time. When you have four big multi-issue stories to promote, one or more is bound to get left behind. Nobody expects fans to buy every book in each event. They simply will not have the money to do so. So which storyline will suffer? 

Coming tomorrow from Dark Horse is Conan: Book of Thoth #1 , which tells the origin story of Conan’s greatest nemesis, Thoth-amon. The creative team is top notch. Co-written by Len Wein (creator of both Wolverine and Swamp Thing) and Kurt Busiek with art by Kelley Jones, you are pretty much guaranteed some solid storytelling.

Busiek should be given credit for not only revitalizing the Conan property, but also for giving the “sword and sorcery” genre a shot in the arm as well. This story type is popping up all over the place, and seems to be the one alternate to superhero fiction that is catching on with fans.

Speaking of Conan, tomorrow is supposed to bring a new book featuring another Robert E. Howard character. Red Sonja/Claw the Unconquered: Devil’s Hands #1 is a crossover between Dynamite Entertainment and DC Comics’ Wildstorm imprint. Many people equate Red Sonja with Conan and Robert E. Howard. But before her appearance in Marvel’s Conan book, Red Sonja appeared in an entirely different Howard story and her path did not cross with the Barbarian. As a matter of fact, the character of Red Sonja that appeared in comics differs from the one in the Howard books. Red Sonja was fleshed out by Marvel writers to become a female complement to Conan. 

Red Sonja/Claw is another example of the comic companies trying to give fans something different, while at the same time giving them what they want, increasing readership in the process. But they’d better be careful so that supply doesn’t outweigh demand for this genre. Conan ’s quality brought a lot of people back to the sword and sorcery genre. Glutting the market with poorly produced stories might turn them away again.

William Gatevackes is married and lives in Mamaroneck, NY with his lovely wife Jennifer. He stars in a crossover of sorts by writing Guiding Lines for Broken Frontier as well as the periodic comic review for PopMatters.