My month without the New 52 continues

Back in late spring/early summer, +DC Comics announced "Villain Month" for September -- that instead of publishing their regular issues, they would publish one-shots showing the origins or back-stories of important villains in the New 52 DC Universe (aka. "the DCnU")..  These one-shots were set to have special "3D covers" (thought to me they look like clear plastic with stickers on them), and were clearly designed specifically as a marketing gimmick.  I began to balk at the idea, and then when I heard how DC was screwing over the retailers by playing games with the ordering system, I became so fed up with the whole thing that I swore off of DC's New 52 line of comics for the month.  I've discussed this at length elsewhere, so I won't go into further detail about my dislike for this "event" here.

But along with swearing off DC's mainstream comics for the month, I wanted to make sure that my own retailer in North Carolina was not harmed by my decision. None of this is the comic-shop's fault, and in fact they did everything they could to make all their customers happy with this Villain Month nonsense.  So to help out my retailer, and also to provide me with something to read as well as explore some non-DC options for buying comics, I decided that for me, instead of being "Villain Month," September would be "Independent Month." This month, I will be spending twice as much as I normally spend on DC's New 52 line, but instead of buying New 52 issues, I will buy product from the other companies out there, like Dark Horse, Image, and Dynamite.

Why I'm making September a DC-Free month

Some time ago, +DC Comics announced that this September, their annual "event" for their entire line would be something called "Villain Month."  In September, all 52 comics published by DC will be about the villains rather than about heroes.  So, for example, instead of Justice League being about Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, it will be about their arch-nemesis, Darkseid.  Meanwhile, instead of Superman's comic being about him, it  will be about Bizarro.  DC is producing these comics with special "3D" covers.  Additionally, they will be using "decimal" numbering, so that instead of being issue #24 or what have you, we will get issue #23.1, 23.2, and so on.  Thus, issue 23 comes out for most of the original New 52 titles in August, and 24 in October, with the ones in between numbered as fractions.  And finally, not all titles will be published. Lower-tier characters like Batgirl won't be published at all, to make space for multiple versions of the top tier ones like Batman.

All of this adds up to one thing: this is a pure, 100% marketing campaign. It's a giant gimmick.  And as readers of this blog know, I hate gimmicks.  I had already told my comic shop not to put aside any DC titles in September that are normally on my pull list (fortunately, my awesome comic shop was really on the ball about it and has worked with their customers to make sure we are kept happy in the face of this marketing firestorm), figuring that I would "play it by ear."  But the more I hear about this obscene marketing ploy, the uglier it gets.  Now The Outhouse is reporting that DC is basically screwing the retailers over the 3D covers and the retailers are claiming that they're not even sure at this point how many copies of each title they are going to be saddled with.  And so at this point, I've decided that I just can't support DC whatsoever regarding this marketing ruse.

Therefore, in September, I will not be buying any DC comic-books. Period.  Not one.

New Comic-book Night - 6/19/13

Two items came out on my pull-list today, but only one that I collect in print - Supergirl 21.  The other (Wonder Woman 21), I get via ComiXology and I won't be putting an order in there until the weekend.  My camera and photography equipment are still buried in the pile of stuff that's heaped in my guest bedroom awaiting sorting and organization after my move, and it's only one comic, so once again I didn't take a picture.  I will briefly review Supergirl 21 below.

In the mean time, I got an e-mail from my comic-book shop regarding +DC Comics' "Villain Month" - a month-long interregnum in DC's entire line that will see the villains starring in the various super-books.  The general idea is that each arch-enemy or major villain who fights a given hero will be the star of that hero's book for one month  So, for example, instead of Superman starring in Action Comics, we get Bizzarro or Cyborg Superman or Lex Luthor.

However, this won't be a one-to-one correspondence. DC is still going to put out 52 titles in September during "Villain Month," but not every title will be published. To my knowledge, DC has not publicly admitted the reason for this, which is quite simple -- most of their "B-list" characters don't have an established arch-enemy or rogues' gallery in the New 52 (examples include Batgirl and Supergirl).  The A-listers, however, have many, many arch-foes (examples include Superman and Batman). Therefore, DC is giving the A-listers' series more issues in September in exchange for halting publication of many B-list titles for the month.  As a simple example, there will be four issues of Justice League in September, but none of Supergirl or Batgirl. Because these are not stories about the starring characters (at least, not directly), DC is copying Marvel's asinine "decimal point" numbering system -- JL 23 comes out in August, and 24 in October. So in September? We get JL 23.1, 23.2, 23.3, and 23.4.

Now that we understand what is going on during "Villain Month," I can return to the e-mail my comic shop sent me. Basically, their e-mail says that for the month of September, all DC comics on the pull list are suspended.  They are not, by default, pulling anything for anyone.  Presumably the reasons for this are two-fold.  First, if you "subscribe" (as they call the pull list) to get Justice League, you are technically subscribing to an issue per month.  They can't force you to take four issues in September just because DC decided to change the publication schedule. And second, there's no guarantee that people who signed up to read a monthly comic about Superman, by the Superman creative team, are going to want to buy an issue about Bizzarro, but a totally different creative team.

I was glad to receive this e-mail, because I had already been planning to go down there and ask them to not pull any of the "Villain Month" stuff for me.  But those guys know what they are doing, and they must realize a lot of people won't want to just buy their regular titles as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.  So I have no pull list in September for DC.  I will still, of course, be getting Thor, God of Thunder and Red Sonja, which are not DC titles and therefore are not affected by the pull list changes.

I'll have a lot more to say about "Villain Month" and DC's other events in an upcoming post later this month, but now, on to my mini-review of this month's Supergirl.

Supergirl 21 - Last month, we saw Kara attacked by her own Sanctuary. Supergirl teamed up with her Earth-2 alter-ego Power Girl (also confusingly named Kara) to destroy it.  Now we see her flying through space on a galactic bike, which she has apparently stolen from Dr. Veritas.  Apparently, Kara is still "sick" from Kryptonite poisoning, although other than the statement that this is true, there is no evidence of it in this issue.  Kara finds a planetoid of some sort (from the double-page spread I would guess it is asteroid-sized) that is being attacked by a giant robot. She defends the city and the people thank her. Meanwhile she is being observed by a mysterious guy named "Delacore" who is able to shape-shift. Ultimately Delacore tells her that the whole world is made of a special clay-like material that can change into many other things. To demonstrate, he shape-shifts into a hero of Kryptonian legend.  Kara asks if the whole place could re-create Krypton, and Delacore says it's not really possible. But then the creature behind all this appears -- Cyborg Superman -- and asks Kara if she is really willing to do "anything" to make her wish come true.

Overall, I thought this was an interesting issue.  The art style is rather different, since it is done by Diogenese Neves instead of Mahmud Asrar.  Although I'm not a huge fan of Asrar (his sloppy-looking style has never been one I care for), Neves isn't necessarily an improvement.  The art was OK, but I think Asrar is better with facial expressions.  The storyline of the actual issue was interesting.  However, certain elements of the Kara story are starting to wear thin. For example, the Kryptonite poisoning has been going on since issue 18 now, and it's really enough already.  Superman's been exposed to Kryptonite before, and usually gets better fairly quickly. I don't understand why this "poisoning"being drawn out so much -- Supergirl was not exposed to the green K for all that long.  Additionally, the whole "Kara trying to restore Krypton" thing is wearing even thinner.  Every time it seems like she has finally accepted the fate of her home-world, the writers change their minds hand have her engaged in a hair-brained scheme to bring it back.  I had hoped that at least one good thing to come out of the awful H'el story-line was that Kara would finally accept reality, but here she is again 3 issues later, trying to get a world of shapeshifters to pretend to be Kryptonians.  At some point, she needs to get some closure and start moving forward.

Because the overall story was good and the art was decent, I give this issue an 8/10.  I deducted 2 points for the 2 tired plot elements -- the writers really need to wrap these up and start moving Supergirl forward.