The recent news from DC editorial is that Blackest Night will never end. I don’t know if you’ve seen this yet, but apparently this January, the main horde of Blackest Night books and their tie-ins will be taking a break. You know, because they’ve been working hard all year now, they need the rest. But don’t worry readers, because your wallet won’t have to go unused. Instead of shipping the core titles and tie-ins, DC is going to resurrect a bunch of cancelled books. That’s right, no book is safe. If you stopped buying Weird Western Tales in 1977 with a complete run, then you better pick up that upcoming Previews. Not only will you not have a complete run if you don’t order it, but you’ll also never get to see how both sides of Jonah Hex’s face will match.
I seem to remember a long time ago, way back during the Sinestro Corps war, before Blackest Year, Dan Didio said this event was going to stay small, concise. Limited to the Green Lantern books and a couple mini-series. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a good crossover like any other fellow who reads super soap operas , but at what point is there just too much to buy? Final Night, Zero Hour, One Million; all great crossovers that only lasted a month. Ah, the good old days. Now we have multi-year crossover events that not only don’t seem to end, but they also continually drain your wallet with five dollar “special” tie-ins. I know I must be old when one comic costs $5.
Between the main title, the GL/GLC books, the six mini-series, the various tie-in books, and the rise of the cancelled books? That 86 issues. And that’s if there are no surprises in the February and March solicits.
Enough already. They’re dragging Blackest Year out for so long that I’ll have to be resurrected just to read how it ended.
This latest news also brings me to a new trend I’ve noticed happening in the DC ranks. Dan Didio has slowly been creeping his way back to a job as a writer. This irks me for various reasons. The biggest is that it smacks of self-nepotism.
- Got an open spot on the Wednesday Comics roster? Dan Didio looks around his desk, “Looks like I’m the best candidate.”
- Need a new direction for Outsiders? Dan Didio whispers, “Anyone want it? Hello? Guess I’ll take it then.”
- Time for a Weird Western Tales revival? Dan Didio pulls out a musty old Weird Western Tales #70, “Stick ‘em up, Pilgrim.”
I understand wanting to write a story here or there, but when you start giving yourself ongoing books while there are plenty of struggling and undiscovered writers out there who would kill for that opportunity, that’s just bad show. If you want to be a writer, be a writer. If you want to be an editor, be an editor.
My real question is, “Will Starman #81 be included in the last Starman omnibus”
And if it is, what a strange thing to have after that great ending.
Hear, hear! It’s Blackest Night that won’t die.
It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that it’s insanely long. 86 issues? You must not have counted Sinestro Corps War which is just as much a prelude to Blackest Night as anything.
Very true.
I’m loving it. There is a lot to buy, but sooooooo much of it is good. That’s not something most crossovers can claim.
As for Didio, it just doesn’t sound right to take the writing jobs yourself.
Wait what!?!? more tie-ins! Arrrrrgh! Not enough time and money for this. I wish they let you know up front just what kind of commitment you need to make to read one of these crossover things.
LOL. We’d all balk.
Didio: Well, we’ve got this crossover coming up. It’s gonna be 86 issues altogether and uh, it will be in the span of 9 months. They’ll be lots of $4 titles and maybe a $5 special here and there.
doesn’t it kinda feel like DC has just been one big crossover since the end of infinite crisis. Marvel has been in major crossover mode since civil war. It’s like they don’t remember how to just do stories by themselves anymore.
Identity Crisis to Infinite Crisis did feel like one big morass.
And Blackest Night & Sinestro Wa are really one story.
Yay. More tie-ins. :/
I gave up on comics years ago.
Uh, unlike most other events if you don’t care what happens in Blackest Night: Superman, Titans, Batman etc. you don’t really need to read it to understand the main Blackest Night story. If you care about the Billy and Mary Marvel then you can pick up the Power of Shazam! one-shot, but if not it isn’t a big deal. You probably should read GL and GL Corps, but that is the same as Sinestro Corps War with the addition of the mini.
Having an event in which the dead raise is the perfect place for tie-ins and they’d be stupid not to take advantage of the story options of having characters interacting with dead characters that were once important to them.
These tie-ins don’t bother me at all since they just seem to be for the fans of those characters and add a little backdrop to the event. This isn’t like Civil War in Marvel where a number of the New Avengers and other issues were more or less required reading.
Since these seem like good background info and fun for fans, but not essential the only people who should be upset would be completists who are buying everything.
A lot DC events are like this, where the main 5-6 issue mini tells the story and the tie-ins are ancillary, but even then 30 books is about the norm.
I’m not as annoyed as my pal, Rant, I’m enjoying everything except for Robinson’s clueless attempt at small town living, but GL/GLC is part of the main story here so the crossover hits 30 with just the essentials. The rest may be ancillary (Id say BN:Batman is near essential) but there’s still a ton of main work.
I think the only frustrating part is the expansion. 6 books a month was comfy. Then Nov it jumped to 11 and Dec has 14 books. Now Jan has the standard 6 pushed back to throw 8 more in the middle. I do wonder what the last two months hold…
Here’s my real annoyance: they’ll bump GL fans up to buying 9 books a month for a year, bur don’t give Kyle a solo title!!
they did it was called Ion and I was apparently the only person who read it and loved it
Yeah he does need his own series. I think by the time I had heard he had a series called Ion it was alreadly gone.
I’m guessing if they had started a Kyle series before the Corp series and had a regular following it probably would have lasted longer but buying 3 GL books a month probably takes it’s toll on some people.
Ion was supposed to be ongoing, but they went through that “turn all the new books into minis” phase and Kyle got that shaft.
The problem i have with it is the extra issues. Starman isn’t a Jack story, so it’s not really Starman. And will it get omnibussed?
These books don’t thematically fit in with their titles, just BN. It’s dumb.
And $&@! Didio for telling us Blackest Night was skipping a month! There’s 8 issued to buy in Jan! And some sound essential!
I think it is a fun way of bringing the “dead” back to life. Jack Knight isn’t the only Starman, so having a story written by James Robinson which will probably take place in Opal City and feature a dead Starman, it would seem sort of silly to not call the book Starman. I’d be annoyed if it weren’t James Robinson writing Starman, but with him on board I think it should be good.
I could see the Starman issue getting put into the last omnibus as an extra, but I’d guess that the eight one-shots will be collected together under some sort of Blackest Night trade banner.
Robinson’s atrocious these days. The OYL Batman was awful. I couldn’t take the Superman work and dropped it. I look forward to Cry for Justice, but only to make fun of it. The Smallville daily life in BN: Superman verged on clueless.
I’d almost be mad if he wrote #81 well.
I don’t know what happened to him.
I’m not sure BN: Batman has anything that will affect the mini or even GL or GLC.
As long as a tie-in isn’t needed to understand what is going on and is just good background and for fans I’ve got no issue with it. I’m a big DC guy, but I’m only picking up a few of the tie-ins, let alone the one-shots in January. Plus they added that the final issue of Blackest Night will be oversized so they needed to give Ivan Reis time to get it done. Most of the January one-shots don’t seem integral and I’d only be interested in if I liked the character or creators (hence why I’ll pick up the Suicide Squad and Hawkman issues for sure).
I think they’ve billed it that Deadman’s storyline is somehow important, but I could be wrong.
Even if they did, they haven’t paid off yet.
Nicholai is correct. Robinson confirmed Starman #81 will not feature Jack Night, but rather another Starman and Opal City. Robinson said if he were ever to unretire Jack, it would be done in a much bigger fashion
I hope he never does. Robinson’s writing has deteriorated to the point that I cringe when I hear he’s been given a book.
I’d like to see Shade vs. Culp round 2 in that Starman story. I want to know if the Black Lanterns can hurt or even kill the man made out of black.
I am hesitant about Robinson’s return to the book though, considering his current track record is a hair below atrocious.
Actually, better than Culp…
The Ludlow Corps.
Oh, yeah. 😀
You’re right, that would be awesome!
For anyone complaining about there being too many books; Don’t buy them, you bunch of whiners, lol.
If it’s something essential, and you don’t have the money for it, then find a torrent to read, then buy the book later. If you don’t have the willpower to buy a book after you’ve read it, then don’t get into torrents at all, you’ll get addicted. Just borrow money, or sell some plasma (up to $120 a week!), or repaint a Wolverine and sell it for $50 on ebay.
I do think it’s overkill, but other than Robinson’s bad dialogue and Titans being mostly setup, none of it has been bad so far.
Forget Wolverine, I have to learn to customize giant Transformers combiners. 😀
It’s surprisingly easy! It’s just really, really time consuming disassembling each individual TF to paint (and keep track of all the pieces, where they go).
Then just find a placement for your Lego/Bionicle connectors and poof, you’re done in a week xD Yeah, I totally understand why they sell for thousands, lots of labor.
stupid dc… )p
Hehe.