Pull List for 10/22/08 and Reactions on January Marvel and DC Solicits

Captain America #43 - As always I can't wait to get this comic and now with that "Death of Captain America" arc is over I am interested to see were Brubaker takes Bucky and his role as the new Captain America. This issue might feel a bit odd since for 42 issues Red Skull and his crew have been the only villains to appear in Captain America. But it should be interesting to see what Bucky can do when facing someone other than Red Skull.

Daredevil #112 - The last issue did a nice job in setting up Lady Bullseye as the villain for this story arc. If anything else this issue should be an entertaining martial arts issue with characters that are going to involved in this story.

Final Crisis #4 - With over a month since the last issue, whether intentional or not, I may have to re-read the last three issue of this crossover to understand the complex story Morrison is weaving in Final Crisis. It is going to be great seeing Wally and Barry interacting again. I just hope that Darkseid finally appears in this issue since he has is suppose to be the big bad of this series but has yet to physically appear.

Final Crisis: Submit - I have to admit that I have enjoyed all the one-shots and mini-series related to Final Crisis more than the actual event itself. It seems that if a reader wants to even understand everything that is going on in Final Crisis these mini's have been essential. And even though I am indifferent about Black Lightining with Morrison writing this one-shot it may make this issue that much more important to get.

Ultimate Spider-man #127 - The last issue of USM was disappointing but with this issue I hope that Bendis returns to fousing on Peter Parker and not Spider-Man. And with the return of Gwen Stacy it looks like that is what we are going to get.

Also I just wanted to comment on the new DC Comics and Marvel solicits for January. The most noticible thing about DC solicits is that JG Jones is not drawing the last issue of Final Crisis instead leaving the art Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy. Right after the solicits Jones put out a statement apologizing for not being able to draw the last issue (read here). As of right now I don't know enough to start playing the blame game but this just shows that when making an crossover event that the company should give the writer and artist enough time that by the time the first issue comes out four or five of the issue to the mini-series are already done. The other telling thing about the DC Comics solicits is "The Faces of Evil" event that is taking over almost all of DC's comics. I don't know about anyone else but outside Green Lantern, GLC, and Nightwing none of the comics coming out of in January interest me.

And on the Marvel side I get the same feeling with"Dark Reign" inititive that is taking over most of Marvel's comics due to the aftermath of Secret Invasion. Though I got to say the that I am starting to get interested in Spider-Man: Noir and X-Men: Noir series for some reason. Also since I was able to drop two titles this week I am adding Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy to my pull list after the obligitory Secret Invasion tie-ins on both titles are over.

Pull List for 9/17/08 and Marvel and DC December Solicits and News

Action Comics #869 - Brainiac has always been my favorite Superman villain after Lex Luthor. And while I do not plan on continue to pick up this title after this Brainiac story, since I would have to pick up Superman and Supergirl titles, Geoff Johns has been able to write one of the more entertaining Superman stories I have read in a long time.

Titans #5 - This is Judd Winnick last shot at convincing me to continue to read this title. But knowing Winnick this is probably the last issue I will be reading till a new creative team replaces Winnick and his rotating art teams. It sad because I never thought I would drop a title with my favorite team in comics but again Winnick proves that no matter how many great characters a bad writer can have on a title a bad writer will continue to be bad no matter what.

Uncanny X-Men #502 - Uncanny X-Men is another title that I am considering on dropping. I thought that after Messiah Complex all the X-titles would get on track but since Fraction has joined his Iron Fist partner Brubaker Uncanny has actually gone down in quality. But like always I am willing to give a creative team one story to continue to read a title and that is what I am giving Fraction and Brubaker.

The new solicits for both Marvel and DC have come out and it looks like some interesting things are coming for both companies in December. In the Marvel side some of there titles have been classified due to Secret Invasion. Also even though Loeb hasn't written anything in the past few years that I have been a fan of I am still excited about Ultimatum due to Mark Millar returning to the Ultimate Universe after that event. On the DC side it looks like the last chapter to Morrison's Final Crisis will not be released till January and instead Morrison will team up with Tomasi for Final Crisis: Secret Files that will reveal things about Final Crisis. Also all Bat-fans should be excited that legendary Bat-writer and -editor Dennis O'Neil will write a two-part story in Batman and Detective Comics with a Gotham without a Batman.

Recently Newsarama recently posted the Diamond August comic sales (click here). And again it looks like Secret Invasion took the top spot while Final Crisis placed second which has to have Marvel jumping for joy that they again beat out DC event. Also out of the 7 DC titles that appear on the top 25 only JLA and JSA, which sell themselves, that do not tie into Morrison's Final Crisis or Batman RIP. It doesn't look good for DC considering Marvel has 17 titles on the top 25 and only 4 of those titles tie into Marvel's big event Secret Invasion.

And for anyone reading Secret Invasion you should read the interview IGN did with Brian Bendis about Secret Invasion and what Dark Reign is about if you haven't already. For the interview click here

Commentary: Marvel vs DC

With all the bad press DC Comics has been getting these past few weeks I thought I would give my thoughts on the two biggest comicbook companies. The bad press started for DC with the announcement that Chuck Dixon posting on his message board that he no longer works for the company. When asked if he quit or was fired he stated that he did not quit, since their really is only two options when someone leaves a job it's obvious that Dixon was fired. Then to top it off Diamond came out with the May 2008 Sales Chart and Market Share Report (found here) showing Marvel having 47.56% of the unit shares and DC only having 29.95% of the unit shares for May. That is a pretty large discrepency between the two comic book companies and these are just a rough estimate since in other comicbook websites it is being reported that the discrepency might be even larger. And to top it of in the battle of the big events Secret Invasion #2 top the sales chart at the number one while Final Crisis #1 came second. Here is the list of the top 25 comics in May:



1) Secret Invasion #2– 200,344 (MARVEL)
2) Final Crisis #1 – 159,036 (DC)
3) New Avengers #41 – 119,898 (MARVEL)
4) Avengers/Invaders #1 – 118,767 (MARVEL)
5) Invincible Iron Man #1 - 116,251 (MARVEL)
6) Giant Size X-Men #1 – 115,860 (MARVEL)
7) Batman #676 – 115,345 (DC)
8) Mighty Avengers #13 – 106,397 (MARVEL)
9) Batman #677 – 105,547 (DC)
10) Mighty Avengers #14 – 104,630 (MARVEL)
11) Justice League of America #21 – 98,869 (DC)
12) Dark Towers: Long Road Home #3 – 96,229 (MARVEL)
13) Thor #9 – 95,648 (MARVEL)
14) Uncanny X-Men – 90,144 (MARVEL)
15) Buffy the Vampire Slayer #14 – 90,122 (DARK HORSE)
16) X-Force #4 – 88,041 (MARVEL)
17) X-Men: Legacy #211 – 87,650 (MARVEL)
18) Captain America #38 – 87,135 (MARVEL)
19) Justice Society of America #15 – 85,994 (DC)
20) Amazing Spider-Man #558 – 86,518 (MARVEL)
21) Amazing Spider-Man #559 – 81,487 (MARVEL)
22) X-Men: Legacy #212 – 81,297 (MARVEL)
23) Amazing Spider-Man – 81,274 (MARVEL)
24) All-Star Superman #11 – 77,254 (DC)
25) Green Lantern #31 – 72,337 (DC)


It is important to note that these total sale numbers does not reflect which comic sold well with customers but it shows how much retailers ordered for each issue. While Secret Invasion #2 from total sales from the first issue it is still suprising that Final Crisis #1 did not out sell Secret Invasion. If there was ever a time when Final Crisis would outsell Secret Invasion it should have been with its first issue. This just goes to show that retailers were not confident enough in Final Crisis to order more copies of the first issue which they have a right to be since DC really bauched the lead in to Final Crisis with the sorry excuse that is Countdown to Final Crisis. So its understandable why Secret Invasion crushed Final Crisis by a little over 40,000 comics.

The embarrasment for DC doesn't end there because DC only had 7 of there titles in the top 25, four of the titles are written by Grant Morrison. That is just pathetic especially when you compare it to Marvel having 17 of their titles on the top 25, more than double DC number. To make things worse if you look at the sales numbers for DC Trinity characters ongoing series only one (Batman) was able to crack the top 25 while Superman's Action Comic and Superman titles were 47 and 49 respectively on the sales chart and Wonder Women was 55.

We just know that the heads at Marvel are kust enjoying the success they are having in both comics and the movies while DC is struggling with just their comics. This really just show that outside of Batman DC really does not have much appeal with comic fans and it may be the case where it is only those DC fanboys that are reading their titles in an ongoing bases.


I may not be happy with a lot of the stuff Joe Q has done (One More Day) I have to give him credit because overall Joe Q has risen the interest in all his comics in general. It doesn't hurt that Marvel has had success with their movies Spider-man, X-men, Daredevil, Blade, Punisher, Ghost Rider, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and The Hulk. While some of these movies have been better than the others there is no doubt the Marvel has pique the interest of the public with there characters.


While over in DC Didio and company have been really struggeling with their sales after Infinite Crisis and the One Year Later storylines. It is not a quality issue because DC does have some real great stuff coming out with Batman, Green Lantern, Booster Gold, Teen Titans, and 52. The real issue is that Marvel is just much more reader friendly than DC and in the past 9 years Marvel has been much more in the main stream than DC.


Going back to the reader friendly stuff the truth is that Marvel make sure that the reader is able to pick up an issue of Amazing Spider-man or Iron Man with out have read it to much in the past. Also it helps that the first page on Marvel's comics has a recap page were it informs the reader what has happend to lead to the point of said comic. Another thing that helps new readers to comics or to a title is that Marvel, especially in their crossover and team books, they have a small text next to each character so that the reader does not have to fry there brain thinking who Luke Cage or Iron Fist are.


It also helps that Marvel has the Ultimate Universe that helps new readers become familiar with the characters. And while many say that the Ultimate Universe has out lived its pupose I think it still helps new readers trying to get into comics. I know that when my friends asked me to what I would recommend them reading to get familiar with Spider-man or the X-men or Iron Man I always gave them Ultimate Spider-man, Ultimate X-men (at least Millars run anyways), and Ultimates 1 and 2 for them to read.


With DC it is much harder for new readers to get into the titles because you would have had to be reading the characters for a while to understand what is going on in the title. Final Crisis #1 is a perfect example of this a title that was not new reader friendly title. While I was able to recognize most of the characters in the title I could not recognize who the hell was that detective at the beggining of the book who talked to The Question (Montoya). For new readers trying it might have been harder to recognize some of the characters. I know I had a couple of friends that decided to give this title a try since they haven't read a DC title in a while ask me who the hell is Tupin? I thought Question was a dude? Why are all the New Gods children? Why was Orion in a dumpster? and so for.


If I was an editor at DC I would have the books always have the first page of the comic be a recap page similar to Marvel instead of having to read three pages of internal monologue of the main character recaping what is happenning. I know that Didio has said he does not want to copy a Marvel thing but I really think that it is neccessary for a title like Action Comics were the reader had to wait almost a year for them to receive the last issue of the "Last Son" storyline. Last Son is only one example of the huge delay issues that DC has had in the past and that blame has to fall on Didio lap.


Also another thing that DC seems to face is that there is a lack of communication between the Editors and Writers. From an interview Morrison did before the start of Final Crisis he said that he already handed the script for the first issue of Final Crisis to Didio before Countdown even began. So really what was Didio and those behind Countdown doing and not building on what Morrison was going to do with Final Crisis. Countdown, which I am happy I did not read, is seen by many as a complete and utter failure which went off on its own that did not develop any of the characters and left all those involve no better than they were before Countdown started. And really can any title be a success when the reader had to through 52 issues of crap so that the payoff is Jimmy Olsen vs. Darkseid? Seriously, I know that a lot people I talked to that read Countdown were pissed of with how it turned out. And now it seems Morrison is just ignoring everything that happend in Countdown, which makes completely errelavent and a waste of $156.


Also if you keep calling your crossover a "Crises" than really loose appeal with readers since in many minds they are just saying "Oh great another end of a World event." But while over in Marvel , while not all the events are great, each event like Civil War, World War Hulk, Messiah Complex, and Secret Invasion have their own way to market them which appeals much greater with a casual reader unlike calling all your events as "Crises." Also each of these events have there own way to market them.



Now I am not about call for Didio's head mostly because I don't think the heads of DC would fire Didio before Final Crisis ends which isn't until late in the year barring any delays. What I would do if I was Didio and the rest of DC staff is to suggest using the Multiverse that has largely been unused since Infinite Crisis to tell stories similar to that of Marvel's Ultimate Universe. I know that DC wouldn't go for it but if they did make one of the 52 Earths into somthing similar to the Ultimate Universe than that will give new readers a way to familiarize themselves with the characters and then they could start reading the regular "Earth-1" characters. These stories would more or less act along the lines of the Year One, Two, etc stories DC published after Crisis of Infinite Earth. The only difference is that these titles would act in there own "Ultimate" universe free from any continuity.


And I know DC has there All-Star linebut that line has just been bogged down with delays that made it unsuccesful. So for this new "Ultimate" line I would have Batman, Superman, and Green Lantern be the three titles for the new line. Also DC should place Geoff Johns and Mark Waid as the architects of this new universe similar to how Marvel had Brian Bendis and Mark Millar as the architects to the Ultimate Universe. Also this new universe could also allow new takes on characters that have existed for over 70 years with a fresh start.

Now if Didio was fired from his post the most likely canidate for his job in my mind would be Mark Waid. Waid has an encyclopedia knowledge of the DC Universe and also has a good relationship with all the writers and artist as well as editors.

I know thaat this really seems like an anti-DC article but the truth is Marvel has just done as many as mistakes as DC but at least Marvel has also found a way to keep there readers and attract new ones while DC struggles keeping their reader and attracting new ones. And I say all this because there are a lot of good stuff being done by DC that should be more popular than they are.