The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Marc Alan Fishman: Rebooted, Rewritten, Revolting

573-9175888I gave up buying comics monthly basically two years ago. The New52 let me down. Marvel’s events didn’t grab my gaze either. With Marvel’s TV and movies being excellent alternatives, and DC’s archives of animated adventures at my beck and call, I was as comically sated as I needed to be. And seemingly, I’ve not missed much in the down time since.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, a whole mess of news hit the wires. The two biggest ones to note: Eric Stephenson of Image Comics had the same rant Robert Kirkman had five years ago, and Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Alan Moore, and plenty of other big names have had prior to them. My ComicMix compatriot Molly Jackson covered it well. For those who are afraid of clicking? Stephenson came out to proclaim it was time to stop cutting corners for short term success, and to celebrate our collective creativity to build new characters and such. You can’t see it, obviously, but I’ve only got one eyebrow and one corner of my mouth in the “up” position.

Stephenson’s call to arms aside, DC went ahead and announced their next short term success gamble “DC REBIRTH”. What is it exactly? It’s not a reboot. It’s not a retcon. It’s not a reshaping of their universe. No, they don’t want you to think any of that. What it is, according to their own newspost, is a line-wide title relaunch. Which is so not a reboot, guys. The non-event begins in June with REBIRTH Specials for Aquaman, Batman, The Flash, Green Lanterns, Superman, Titans, and Wonder Woman. In the same month, there will be $2.99 releases – two times a month – for Aquaman, Batman, The Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lanterns, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Oh, and Action Comics and Detective Comics.

I’d like to stop right here to denote that during an interview about this so totally not a reboot, seriously dudes, DC Co-Publisher Dan DiDio said (and he speaks FAST, so I’m paraphrasing):

“I thought that was a big issue (the price drop). We’ve seen a lot of resistance to the prices creeping up. And it was a great thing for us to get people to reinvest in DC Comics, with these double ships.”

So, if you like Batman (and who doesn’t!)… and you’re ready to reinvest in DC Comics? Well then! Get ready for a REBIRTH special, and 4 issues of Batman between his self-titled release and Detective Comics. Five books in a month. And DiDio was quick to note that REBIRTH brings with it a “return to continuity” and “universe building”. That’s code for you’ll want to buy all the books to see the bigger picture. If that doesn’t set Eric Stephenson on fire from frustration, I don’t know what would.

Therein lay the rub. Every so often, our best and brightest scream to the heavens with desire to change the world. But they seemingly forget their success doesn’t work the same for everyone else. DC Comics won’t invest in new characters, stories, and ideas when they can mine their history in an unending loop. When they hit the reset button twice a decade – or more – it equals short term sales spikes they then attempt to clutch to in order to reach that brass ring of sales they haven’t seen since their last short term spike effort.

And don’t think I’m not looking with a crooked eye at Marvel. Because it’s a whole ‘nother article for me to write about choking your coffers with continuity. All-New All-Different Superior Spider-Verse I’m looking at you.

The fact is no speech will change the way our medium works. The movies and TV shows will rake in the real profits, while the comics continue to build, destroy, and re-release in perpetuity. For better or worse… this is the way of world.

If you don’t like it? Wait 6 months. It’ll reboot soon enough.

(Image hat-tip to Super-Team Family: The Lost Issues!)

The Law Is A Ass

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THE BLACK CANARY LADY SINGS THE BRUISE

Now there’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Or three.

Dinah Drake, who when she’s wearing her super heroine costume and not her street clothes goes by the name Black Canary, found a new job in Black Canary vol.4 #1. black_canary_vol_4_1-9818139black_canary_0013-3295210

Now she wears a rock star costume – which looks like a shoddy version of the pre-Flashpoint Black Canary costume, goes by the handle D.D., and, oh yeah, is the lead singer for a rock band called Black Canary.

But behind the music, Black Canary is a trouble magnet. Did I mean the heroine or the band? Take your pick. Be it an armed rival rock band crashing a Black Canary concert or a group of overly aggressive “suitors” hitting on women, both figuratively and literally, five of the band’s last seven concerts ended in violence. Ended with D.D. getting into fights with someone at the concert. According to the background information for the current Black Canary series, D.D. is “more comfortable in combat than on stage” and that venues and promoters are “making noise about striking the band from upcoming bills.”

Well I should hope so. Otherwise, there’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.

I mean, let’s assume you’re a club owner thinking of booking Black Canary – the band not the super heroine; you don’t know the lead singer is the super heroine. (Although I don’t know why not. If Black Canary appearing as the lead singer of a rock band called Black Canary and getting into constant fights in which she displayed the same martial arts skills as the super heroine with the same name isn’t an open invitation to piercing her secret identity, it’s only because it lacked an R.S.V.P. card.) Why would you, the club owner, risk hiring Black Canary? Especially when the odds are 5 out of 7 – or 71.43% for the Vegas inclined – that the band will get into a fight which will cause damage to your club or injury to your patrons. Or, more likely, both.

Should that happen, you, the club owner, would have to pay for the damage to the club and would probably have to pay for the injuries to the patrons. Either pay now or be sued by the patrons and then pay later for both their injuries and their attorneys’ fees.

Once the word on Black Canary the band spread – and in these days of social media, the word would spread faster than schmear on a bagel – why would you, or any club owner, risk having Black Canary perform in your club? If your answer is I don’t know, you have what it takes to make a go of it as a club owner. Or in the legal profession. If your answer is I don’t know, that also puts you one up on all the club owners in the DC Universe, who gave Black Canary enough bookings to last through seven issues of her current series.

That, however, is only the first of the lawsuits waiting to happen found in Black Canary # 1. Let’s move on to more serious matters. The band Black Canary is made up of D.D., Lord Byron, Paloma Terrific, and Ditto; plus their manager Heathcliff Ray. I’m not sure how old Lord Byron is but I’m guessing late teens to early 20s. Heathcliff, was a student at Gotham Academy who left the school to manage Black Canary. So he’s a teenager. Probably 18 though, otherwise he couldn’t sign or negotiate legally-binding contracts. Paloma looks to be about 15. And Ditto is a little girl; 10ish. Oh and none of them have any combat or fighting training.

So, naturally, none of them were prepared when weird alien shadow monsters attacked one of their concerts. Black Canary, the heroine not the band, defeated the monsters and learned that they were, for reasons which will, I hope, be revealed later in the series, hunting Ditto.

What did Black Canary do in light of these events? Why she contacted Superman, Batman, the Justice League or some super hero capable of handling alien shadow monsters and let them know what was happening. Then she made sure that Superman, Batman, the Justice League or some hero capable of handling alien shadow monsters was going to protect Ditto from these alien shadow monsters. Right?

Wrong!

No, Black Canary the heroine agreed to continue touring with Black Canary the band knowing that she’d be putting the other members of the band in danger. Not to mention the fans attending their concerts. The only concession to common sense that Black Canary made was to insist that she train the other members of the band in combat; first hand-to-hand and then weapons training.

Because that makes so much sense. Let’s continually put a group of untrained amateurs – at least two of whom are minors – into dangerous situations without anyone to protect them except one super heroine – a lesser-powered super heroine armed with fighting skills and a sonic super scream called the Canary Cry. That’s it for the defense team, Black Canary and four kids who have a total of – what? ten? twenty? – hours training in combat. But no help from Superman, Batman, the Justice League or anyone who would actually be good in a fight against alien shadow monsters. (Hell, at this point, I’d have settled for Ambush Bug.) Not only did Black Canary’s actions court several negligence lawsuits, they were several counts of criminal child endangerment just waiting to happen.

This is not logical. Unless, as Mr. Spock said when he was trying to destroy an android’s logic circuits, logic really is “a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad.”

Oh and while we’re at it, let’s have this group of untrained kids keep on performing in public concerts in public venues while knowing that they’ll be attacked by alien shadow monsters. That way you can pretty much insure that whenever the alien shadow monsters attack, it will be sometime when large numbers of innocent, and easily injured, civilians will be present. Because, short of shooting a gun into the audience, nothing screams negligence lawsuit like intentionally creating collateral damage. This was the Canary Cry of screaming negligence.

I’ve just gone over this column and found that I’ve given you some incorrect information. What Black Canary did wasn’t, as I said earlier, a lawsuit or three waiting to happen. I was off by a few dozen exponents.

Martha Thomases: Leap of Faith

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Monday is Leap Year Day, an otherwise insignificant marker of the passage of time except that our calendar is weird. Because time, its measurements and our perception of it have always fascinated me, I am enthralled by the way we react to this “extra” day.

As we established a few weeks ago, I’m old. I’m so old that, when I was a kid, there was no feminist movement – at least not one that extended to Youngstown, Ohio. So I learned that girls didn’t ask boys out on dates, or propose, or do anything but wait to be noticed. The ideal woman, I was told, was beautiful, thin, blonde, busty, demure, sexy and, perhaps most of all, quiet and undemanding.

The only exception was on Leap Year Day. On the day, girls could propose marriage.

(By the way, for a look at these ideas that show how completely screwed up they are, you can’t beat the movie musical Li’l Abner, based on the Broadway show that was based on the Al Capp newspaper strip. Really, the family relationships and social contracts portrayed in it are completely fucked up, but as a film, I have fun every time I see it.)

In any case, this thinking, which assumes that our only function as women is to love a man and have “his” children, is, thankfully, a dying remnant of a doomed mindset. Still, I hate to lose a perfectly good holiday, especially one that gives me “special rights” (i.e. I get to do the same things that straight white men expect to be able to do every single day).

Especially for women in comics.

Here are a few things I suggest we all do on Monday.

  • Go to our local comic book store, the one with the semi-nude brokeback posed statues in the window, and question to sincerity of the guys looking through the books. Ask them how long they’ve been reading comics, or if they just come to the store to meet girls.
  • Grab the ass of male con-goers dressed as their favorite superhero. When they complain, ask them what they expected if they walk around like that.
  • Organize a “Men in Comics” panel for the local comic convention. Put only one man on it, the husband of an established female creator. Explain that you couldn’t have any more than that because you asked Scott Snyder to come, but he was busy.
  • After the convention shuts down for the day, go to the bar at the host hotel and explain that the male creator of that hot new book only got the job because he slept with the editor. And the new artist on the best-selling series was only hired because the publisher has to be “politically correct.”
  • Relax and read a comic book where the main character looks like you, shares your assumptions about reality and generally makes you feel like you are an active player in the universe. Since that could actually happen, please make your suggestions in the comments.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to propose to Tom Hiddleston.

Tweeks Long Beach Comic Expo 2016

We spent last weekend at the 6th annual Long Beach Comic Expo. Basically we shopped and counted Deadpool costumes, but we also interviewed some comic creators and went to some panels too. Here are some of our highlights, so you can feel like you were there too. We’ll be back next week with some interviews.

Oh, and our final Deadpool count was 68. Maddy won.

Dennis O’Neil: A Vision Softly Creeping…

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Our pal Denny O’Neil is under the weather this week – and if you live east of the Mississippi, you know that’s a lot of weather to be under right now. He should be back here next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-site.

Yes, we really said that.

Get well soon, Denny!

Molly Jackson: Breath of Fresh Air

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Last week was the ComicsPRO Members Meeting. In case you don’t know, this is a gathering of the comic industry, creators, and retailers to discuss the future of comics. A lot of interesting bits of news comes out of these meetings but one thing in particular really grabbed lot of attention. Image Comics head Eric Stephenson gave a speech encouraging change and growth for the industry.

You can read the entire transcript online, but some of the highlights included a look back to the history of comics, an encouragement in creativity, a discouragement of too many titles, and a call to think long-term. As he put it “If you – if any of us – are putting short-term needs ahead of long-term thinking: Stop. Stop stunting your own growth by doing things the way they’ve always been done.”

My favorite part of the speech still is “If you are a creator – a writer, an artist, both – the legends of yesteryear have done their work. For decades now, we’ve all been standing on the shoulders of giants. It’s time to stop. Let them have their rest. Now is the time to create new characters, to explore new worlds, to tell new stories.”

This speech says a truncated version of things that I have asked for in my columns. While it doesn’t specifically call for diversity, he does mention female supporters of comics during his speech. He also mentions that new creativity and voices are needed and should be given room to grow. I can only hope that this call will bring women, LGBTQ, and racial minorities into the view of comic publishers, so that new, diverse stories can be created.

Reading this speech made me feel hopeful and inspired. Someone out there (and at a major player, no less) cares about the future, not just the present. Someone is looking at what the past has cost us but is trying to learn from it rather than repeat it. As someone on the fringe of the industry, I care if it’s here in two decades. As a fan, I care that there is someone who wants to evolve stories rather than rehash them. In fact, it inspires me to create, to envision and to be bold.

There are real challenges ahead for comics, including ways to bring in new readers, rising costs of printing, and digital comics hurting brick and mortar stores. Now, this speech won’t instigate immediate, widespread changes in the industry. No one believes that it will. However, my sincere hope is that it sparks discussion. Real conversations about the current and future state of comics. And as fans, I think we should all hope that the stories keep getting better, new worlds keep getting created, and new creators lead the way.

Mike Gold: The Ghost Who Rocks!

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harvey-hits-9476257People have been arguing the “who was comics’ first costumed hero” question for decades. Some feel it was Mandrake the Magician, by Lee Falk and Phil Davis (1934), others cite the truly obscure Red Knight created by John Welch and Jack McGuire, and still others prefer to credit E.C. Segar’s Popeye (1929). But I think it’s safe to say that most comics fans and scholars bestow that honor upon The Phantom, created by Lee Falk and Ray Moore 80 years ago this past week.

Neither Mandrake nor Popeye are “costumed heroes.” They perform their feats of daring in their regular work clothes. Whereas the Red Knight got his start in 1934 as a guy named Bullet Benton, he did not don the Red Knight costume and, therefore, the costumed hero persona until April of 1940. I suspect somebody at the Register and Tribune Syndicate took a gander at the McClure Syndicate’s success with Superman.

So much for history. Here’s where it gets personal. Yep, this is really all about me.

I discovered The Phantom in a comic book called Harvey Hits #26, which was sort of like DC’s Showcase but with a much shorter attention span. This was in 1959, when costumed heroes were very few and extremely far between. DC had just given The Flash his own bi-monthly title, Archie was struggling with The Fly and The Shield, and Marvel was devoting its energies to such monster fare as “Invasion of the Stone Men.” So finding this treasure was quite an event for a kid who had just turned nine years old.

phantom-7706928It didn’t matter that Wilson McCoy’s artwork was, to be polite, clunky. So clunky that Falk hated it, but the guy was foisted upon him by King Features. Even the cover to this reprint comic was clunky – if you take a good look at it, the perspective is out of the Negative Zone. Attributed to Joe Simon, the cover was in keeping with the interior art.

That didn’t matter. I loved it. The whole bit about the hero replacing his father for an uninterrupted chain of 400 years or so was breathtaking – sort of like how my peers in England felt about Doctor Who in 1966 when the Time Lord “reincarnated.” But, for me, something more important came out of my discovery of Harvey Hits #26.

I was sitting around my school’s lunchroom talking with my pals and mentioned this Phantom comic book. One of my friends said “Oh, that’s in the newspaper!” Really, I replied excitedly. “Yeah; the Chicago American.” Well, until a couple years before the Chicago American was a Hearst paper and no such rag would befoul my parents’ home. It had been sold to the Chicago Tribune and that paper was allowed, but only on Sundays.

leefalk-1224440The next day my friend brought in the American’s Sunday comics section and changed my life forever. Yep, the Phantom was there – but so was Mac Raboy’s Flash Gordon. Every Sunday morning I was wedded to our teevee set watching Buster Crabbe gleefully taunt Charles Middleton, but I had no idea he got his start in the comics. And Raboy’s art was something mighty to behold… and it still is. Blondie, the Little King, Bringing Up Father – I was familiar with all of them from other Harvey Comics reprint titles. But when I turned to Hal Foster’s full-page Prince Valiant feature, I was incapable of speech and I might have needed a respirator.

This led to my discovering the other newspapers in my town – Chicago had five back then – as well as in neighboring areas. That, in turn, led to my falling in love with newspaper lore. Within a year I was buying four of those five newspapers every day, and I read them damn near cover-to-cover. This exercise had a massive expansionary impact on my worldview and it led me to journalism school which ultimately led to my typing these words now.

I had the privilege of knowing and working with Lee Falk – we double-teamed King Features to get them out of the way of our Phantom comic book at DC, but that’s a tale for another time. I thank Lee from the bottom of my heart for showing me my life’s path.

The Phantom is also known as The Ghost Who Walks. Not in my case. In my case, The Phantom is the Ghost Who Rocks.

Box Office Democracy: The Witch

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I will never love The Witch but I absolutely respect it. It’s a horror movie without jump scares, without the score leading you to every moment; instead it’s a slow build and a more psychological form of terror. It feels earned, and that goes a long way in a landscape bogged down by a wave of films going for the cheapest scares available. I’m never going to be the kind of person who genuinely loves horror movies, I just don’t like being scared that much in these ways, but I appreciate the craft here and hope (likely in vain) that this is a step towards a better path.

In the end credits the makers of The Witch claim that the film was compiled from contemporary reports, diaries, and official records and that the majority of the dialogue is from those real sources. While that’s a chilling credit after the grisly events depicted it’s completely believable. Most of the dialogue is about 16th century farm life and has no supernatural elements at all. It’s 85% a very slow movie about farm calamities and parental favoritism intercut with brief moments of disturbing supernatural terror.

It might seem lazy to compare this movie to The Blair Witch Project but they have more in common than just witches and long amounts of time spent in the woods. I remember people asking me what was so scary about The Blair Witch Project and saying things like “well, there’s a lot of noises in the night and they get scared and then once they found all these men made of sticks” and no one who hadn’t seen the movie understood a damn thing I was talking about. The same thing applies here as I sit thinking of specific imagery to try and sell how scary this movie is, and I come up with things like “they keep showing this one rabbit with really intense eyes” and “you wouldn’t believe how smug this one goat looked” or even “there was a three second shot of a baby and a knife but nothing happened” and none of it comes across. I promise you that’s the scariest rabbit I’ve ever seen on film, but what’s the point? The Witch creates tension by making you care about the characters and then showing how afraid they can be. That and some damn fine rabbit casting.

The human casting isn’t bad either. Aside from some small parts on Game of Thrones this entire cast was unknown to me but I came away very impressed. The period dialogue and thick accents would trip up any cast but even with mostly child actors it all sounded authentic to me. I’m sure it doesn’t actually pass muster with any expert but that’s not the point. Anya Taylor-Joy seems to have literally emerged from nowhere to completely carry this movie as oldest daughter Thomasin. She has to convey a broad range of emotions with a thick language and dialogue gap to cross but she nails it. I was afraid for her, I was sad for her, I raged against the injustice of the societal machine on her behalf, and it was her quiet presence that gets the film through its rather out there climax. Harvey Scrimshaw also impresses doing an outstanding job acting out the struggle of coming of age in a repressive society despite looking like he’s no older than 11, and while I’m sure he’s actually older there’s nothing about him on the internet, leading me to believe all the young people in this movie were grown in a lab solely to make this movie.

It’s hard to give a solid recommendation on The Witch. I almost walked out of the theater I was so uncomfortable in the tail end of the second act even going so far as giving my fiancée instructions if she didn’t want to leave with me. I’m glad I didn’t because none of what I thought was going to happen did, and I quite enjoyed the climax, but it’s hard to shake that feeling. I’ll probably never watch The Witch again but it’s nice to see a filmmaker like Robert Eggers pushing the boundaries of the genre even if it sort of feels like we’re pushing in the direction that leads back to where we’ve been before. Anything that leads away from the Blumhouse style is fine with me.

Emily S. Whitten: Deadpool’s Reilly Brown, Comics, and Community

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Back in 2010 and 2011 I was going through a bit of a hard time. For those who don’t know, I have a degenerative eye disease, keratoconus, which had at that time progressed to the point where it looked like my next step in attempting to retain my vision was going to have to be corneal transplant surgery. Fortunately, it turned out there was a less drastic option that would halt the degeneration I was experiencing. However, because that option was experimental it wasn’t covered by my health insurance, and was going to be very expensive.

In a demonstration of how wonderful the fandom community is, a number of friends convinced me that in a situation like this accepting assistance was not a bad idea, and then worked together to raise money to pay for the surgeries, primarily via a fandom auction (a fact I will never forget and for which I continue to feel blessed). It was a dramatic demonstration of how supportive the fandom community can be; and not only the fans, but also the creators, as several comics and literary professionals who learned of the auction or my situation contributed auction items or funds as well.

One of those creators is a wonderfully nice dude who also happens to be one of my favorite Deadpool and comics artists, Reilly Brown. I’ve been privileged to know Reilly since my first New York Comic Con in 2009 and can attest to the fact that he’s an all-around good guy who cares about the comics community and has occasionally done things like reviewing portfolios for free just to help new artists out. For the auction, he contributed this beautiful Deadpool piece along with a nice post asking for support for my situation, and it was a big help and really meant a lot to me.

Recently, Reilly’s had some really great things happen – getting to see a character he’s worked extensively on in his very own successful box office hit; seeing his co-creation Bob, Agent of HYDRA, show up in the Deadpool movie); starting work on a new Deadpool & Cable project; and most important, welcoming his adorable son William (seen here wearing a Deadpool hat to continue the theme) into the world.

Unfortunately, on February 13 (shockingly, not a Friday), one epically bad thing happened as well – a fire started in an apartment building near the one Reilly, his wife, and their new baby live in and quickly spread from building to building. Although no one was hurt (thank goodness!) and the fire itself didn’t reach their apartment, it did hit the apartment directly next door, and the resulting smoke permeated everything, including everything the Browns own. The water the firefighters used to quench the blaze also damaged their belongings.

Reilly writes about the experience here and notes that, although insurance will cover some of the damage, it will not be enough to assist with cleaning or replacing everything, or with moving expenses. Happily, he also includes several means by which you can assist him and his family in getting back on their feet, if you’d like to do so. Among them are purchasing original comics art he currently has for sale; contacting him via his website to commission an original piece; and purchasing a downloadable version of one or both of his sketchbooks for whatever amount you’d like to contribute.

From experience, I can tell you that when going through a hard time, every little bit helps; and knowing there are people out there rooting for you and wanting to help means a lot as well. In addition, lessening the financial worry for someone in difficulty makes it easier for them to bear the stress attendant on a bad situation. In my case, not having as much money stress, and knowing people were out there caring about my situation, made having to go through two surgeries and recovery periods more bearable. I can imagine that, likewise, whatever people might be able to contribute will help the Browns in dealing with the stress and daunting list of things to be done to get back to equilibrium after losing a large chunk of their belongings, as well as a settled place to live (not to mention dealing with all of that and taking care of an infant!).

So if you’re in the market for some really cool comics art, or if you can spare a little bit for a family who needs it (and are also wonderful people), please consider looking at the options Reilly has provided and giving your assistance. Let’s continue to be a great comics community that cares about and looks after its own.

And until next time, Servo Lectio!

Joe Corallo: Don’t Call It A Comeback!

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I’m sure many of you are aware of the upcoming DC Rebirth. I’ve been following it along since the first bits of news surfaced, and I almost wrote about it last week. Now I feel enough is out there where I can start forming some level of opinion on it. And try as I might, it’s not a particularly positive opinion. However, that’s strictly regarding Rebirth. I do think DC may have a couple of good ideas here. Just not with diversity in mind.

Hear me out on this one.

Rebirth shouldn’t shock anybody. As far back as last August, we heard that DC was going to “Stop Batgirling” and get back to “meat and potatoes.” Many people wrote about this and how problematic it was since “meat and potatoes” came off as “more straight cis white guy stories.” Back in August, that was just an opinion on what might happen. Granted, a well informed opinion, but still an opinion. Based on the titles being offered starting in June, it’s hard to argue that this isn’t now a fact. At least it took almost a year for this all to happen, which gave us time to enjoy comics like Doctor Fate and Midnighter. They will be sorely missed by me and quite a few people I know. Not enough people, apparently, but still quite a few.

In lieu of diversity, DC is doubling down on its core characters. It may come of as a sound conservative move to retreat back, reassess, and plan accordingly to expand after. Looking at the line-up DC has presented certainly shows that they are taking far fewer risks than they did back with the New 52. Outside of arguably Gotham Academy: Next Semester, every single title is a superhero one. At a time of where publishers like Image are encroaching on the big two with its wider variety of genres, this seems like more than just one step back for DC Comics.

Why would DC think this is such a good idea?

The short answer may very well be DC’s Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns. He’s a talented writer that has helped DC a great deal in the past. However, he’s also constantly looking backward when it comes to important aspects of the stories he’s telling. This is the guy that orchestrated the biggest reboot of Green Lantern which involved bringing back straight cis white Hal Jordan as its torchbearer. Similar strategies were used in his runs on comics like The Flash and Teen Titans. His comments that he made regarding Rebirth are troubling. A lot of looking backward and keeping the fan base small, isolated, and nearly impenetrable is what I and many others got out of it.

As a queer reader, canceling the only gay male superhero comic alone hits a bit hard, especially after a fairly short run. Cancelling Catwoman as well seems a bit excessive. In addition to Batwoman staying gone, Poison Ivy not continuing to have a series (I know it was just meant to be a mini-series, but still), that just leaves Harley Quinn and Hellblazer. The only queer characters worth having in their line are only the ones who have been in movies and TV shows I suppose. It’s rough enough that the queer representation lately has been almost exclusively cis and white (at least in headlining a book), but this step back makes it seem like it may be a long time before we can even move past that. It looks like it could be a long time before Alysia Yeoh becomes a kickass vigilante (if she ever does) and don’t even get me started on when we’ll see Rene Montoya as The Question or Kate Godwin as Coagula again.

At this point you may be curious as to what I was getting at before when I said that DC may have some good ideas here. They might. Not with Rebirth, but with Vertigo and their Hanna-Barbera titles. Not too long ago, DC’s New 52 did have quite a few risky books coming out. While doing that, they neglected the Vertigo line. Saying Vertigo as an imprint was anemic at the time would have been a nice way to put it. Part of that was DC bringing back characters like Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Constantine, and Doom Patrol into the main continuity. They also just weren’t pumping out the same number of titles, and books like Fables were coming to an end. Now, Vertigo appears to be thriving. It seems pretty clear to me that DC’s approach now is to keep it’s main line more conservative and less risky and using Vertigo to take chances and experiment again. When framed in this context, it doesn’t sound quite as bad. I haven’t really seen it framed this way yet, but maybe as the new Vertigo titles get further along and Rebirth begins, we’ll see commentators putting this all in a slightly different context.

With the Hanna-Barbera titles, DC can address the problem with the lack of comic offerings they have for kids. That’s a good thing. We need more kids reading comics if we’re going to keep expanding the readership. And the way Jim Lee is apparently looking into making Hanna-Barbera comics a shared universe, it allows the kind of story telling that’s used in most DC comics while having it for a younger audience. Hey, it works for Archie.

If your head is currently exploding because I haven’t taken the time to acknowledge how much I hate the new hipster looking Scooby Doo character designs, it’s because I don’t. If you have a non exploded head on your shoulders you’ll be able to find out why. It’s because the new Scooby Doo isn’t supposed to be for me. It’s supposed to be for kids. Some of which might not even be aware of Scooby Doo. This could be their first look at these characters. Maybe the kids will hate it. I don’t know. What I do know is hating character designs for kids’ comics clearly not made for me is a waste of my own time and energy. I have plenty of other things to get angry about. This is an election year after all.

My qualms with the Hanna-Barbera line of comics lie in diversity. They are white. Very very white. And straight. And cis. That’s the downside of going back to older properties like this. It’s a point I’ve brought up before, and this is just another example of the problems of resurrecting much older properties that didn’t have diversity in mind. I’m not angry that Scooby and the gang look like they’re living in Williamsburg or Bushwick now, but if you don’t mind updating the designs, why do they all still have to be straight cis white people? If it’s not at all important that Shaggy stays clean shaven and is allowed to be drawn with crazy facial hair, then why is it so important that he has to be portrayed as white?

The Vertigo line seems to have more stories involving women than the main DC line. That’s great. We definitely need more of that. However, Vertigo does seem very white. They have some great titles, but between DC’s main line, the Hanna-Barbera offerings, and Vertigo, I can’t help but feel we’ve taken a few steps back in queer and minority representation. Maybe this is temporary, since comics focusing on diversity seemed temporary at DC, but we’ll have to wait and see.

In other news, I’ve caught up on Image Comics’ The Wicked + The Divine. Now that is a great inclusive comic.

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