Thoughts on DC's 2003

Note: Most of this information comes from Comics Continuum's Coverage and from Newsarama's Coverage of the Retailer Representative Program held in Los Angeles this last weekend.

First off, a serious gripe. Young Justice is being cancelled to make way for a new Teen Titans book with a different creative team. This is pretty sad, because Young Justice is one of the most consistently good books out there, always managing to be the saved-for-last book in my reading pile because I know I'll enjoy it. And the end for the book is really near! PAD reports in his blog that the series will end with issue 55, that's only four more issues! I think this counts as an act of utter stupidity for DC. Well, at least this decision is going to save me a few bucks a month... until Todd Nauck and Peter David get work going on more series that I want to try.

This bad news spins out of the report of an utterly dreadful sounding 3-issue prestige mini-series called The Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day which I'll buy just for the characters involved and hopefully will enjoy much more than I think I will. This whole "mysterious woman from the future" and "death of one of the founding members" just turns me off. Enough with time travel stories and enough with cheap gimmicky deaths that will be undone in a couple of months, if they wait that long. The mini will lead right into two new teams books, with Teen Titans replacing Young Justice and Outsiders replacing the admittedly tepid Titans.

The Teen Titans book will feature Geoff Johns as writer, and Mike McKone as penciller, and I'm afraid that neither one inspires me to pick up the book, since I like Young Justice more for the controlled chaos that PAD manages to sustain rather than the characters, and not one of the member of the new Titans team interests me enough to try the book. YJ qualified as a book I was picking up solely for the writing.

Outsiders is more likely to get on my pull list, despite me not being interested in it at all. I don't dislike Judd Winick's writing, but he's not a writer I intend to follow, and I know nothing about Tom Raney's art. I was only getting Titans because Garth was in the book, and so it may end up I only get Outsiders because Jade is in the book, and hubby-Eric likes Jade. If it were solely up to me, however, this one wouldn't make the cut.

Fwew... I'm hardly even started reviewing the info and I'm already tired of it... Moving on, there wasn't much Aquaman news.

The biggest piece of Aquaman news I could find was the planned 4th Quarter release of new JLA Action Figures, including Aquaman in his new, new look. Yeah, not the harpoon, but the Veitch-look. Depressingly, there was no mention of the Veitch series itself, despite other ongoing series getting promoted.

In other books, Aquaman will make an appearance of some sort in The New Frontier, a six issue prestige series about Hal Jordan's career prior to joining the Justice League. While the series will include others, Hal is apparently the main focus, and all the key figures of the Silver Age, including Aquaman, will make guest appearances. Sounds like one to start saving up for.

Another possible appearance for Aquaman... ok, probably not, but the book sounds good anyway... is Formerly Known As The Justice League which brings back Keith Giffen to write the characters that made him famous and dubbed an entire era "the Giffen League".

Moving on again, JSA: All-Stars is an 8-issue mini with back-up stories that hubby-Eric will probably want to buy. And we're not likely to unsubscribe from Green Arrow or Green Lantern before the Winick and Raab team-up crossover, nor after the books have gone their separate ways again.

The four-issue mini by Kurt Busiek called Superman: Secret Identity looks interesting, if only for the writing. It also sounds like it might be an Elseworlds, which would clinch it for me.

There's a new anthology book about to hit town, and it's title is Solo. While I'm sure DC could have come up with something catchier for a title, the concept has me hooked already, since I like anthology books. Every issue will feature one DCU character in one of the stories, with no other limitations. Sounds like something I'll enjoy.

Astro City: Local Heroes will no doubt be worth the wait, and no doubt it'll sell pretty well despite the long hiatus while Kurt recovered from Mercury Poisoning. There's not a lot to say about this except: WAHOO, New Astro City in February!!

Having become a fan of the Golden Age Spectre through reading old More Fun comics on microfiche, I'm delighted that DC is putting out The Golden Age Spectre Archives and I hope to someday be able to afford it. Even if I don't get it right away, it'll be something to put on my wish list and it'll be nice that more people get to read these classic tales.

In other news, I've already mentioned the John Cleese Superman Elseworlds, so read my previous blog entry on that. The Justice League Cartoon series has been picked up for another season, HUZZAH! and Super Friends will start coming out on DVD next April (which could be very good or very bad, depending on how they do it). Kingdom Come action figures are in the works, and although an Aquaman one hasn't been announced, I can keep wishing...