Oh my… Yesterday I turned in my sub sheet for comics that will be shipping in September. For a comic geek this is nothing new. Local comic book shops offer a service to regular customers in which they can order comics when they are announced and that way the shop knows how many they need and the customer is guaranteed the books they want. I’ve always loved this benefit and when you’ve been going to the same store for 20 years it really is nice. If I forget something on my sheet I’ll be asked about it. If I forget to turn in my sheet on time those comics still appear. This also makes it so I don’t have to rush (although I try) to the comic shop on Wednesdays (new comic book day). So all in all a nice arrangement. Until DC Comics decided to mess it all up.
Comic Carnival North in Indianapolis (where I buy my books) does their sub sheets with all the Marvel titles on one side and all the DC titles on the other. For the uninitiated this means Spider-man, Captain America, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four are on one side, Batman, Superman, Green Lantern are on the other. So what’s the problem? Each year the comic publishers come up with some massive summer story that you only need to buy 120 comics to understand. It didn’t used to be each year, but now one of the signs of summer is some massive crisis in the DC universe or some war in Marvel. This summer in Marvel it is “Fear Itself” which I have not read but seems to be a take off on what DC did last year using Thor’s hammer instead of Green Lantern’s ring. DC decided to do “Flashpoint” in which Professor Zoom goes back and tweaks the space time continuum in order to mess with the newly resurrected Flash’s life. A few things that have happened in this world (spoilers) Batman is Thomas Wayne since his wife and son were killed in a mugging, Wonder Woman & Aquaman are at war trying to take over the world & Superman has been raised as a lab experiment when his rocket crashed into Metropolis. Caught in the middle is Barry Allen, police scientist, who wants everything brought back to “normal.” This is not going to end well.
History Lesson: in the 80’s DC published “Crisis on Infinite Earths” which at the end caused a number of their titles to start over. The result were things like Frank Miller’s “Batman: Year One” & John Byrne’s. “Man of Steel” in which the origins of Batman & Superman were retold and tweaked. Not all the comics that DC published changed… Some just kept plodding along. This time it’s different.
I think I’ve mentioned before in September DC comics will be relaunching their entire line up… 52 titles will all be back at issue #1. Each title will have a new creative team and who knows what else. Now here is my dilemma even with “holding the line at $2.99” that’s over $150 if I want to check out all the titles. Not including any additions in the following months and wanting to give each team time to build (let’s say 3 months) I would be spending $500 just on DC comics! I don’t think so. Because as a good comic book reader I also know that given history, within 12 to 18 months it will all be back and this will have been a wonderful experiment that increased Time Warners profits.
So yesterday I turned in my sub sheet… Befuddled over how to fill it out. I have been reading Flash, Teen Titans, Justice Society, Justice League, Batman, and a few others. So instead I went by title for a few & creative team for others. I might be upset over a few choices, it will be interesting to see how it all ends up. Updates after Comic-Con if I learn anything there or at least in September when this ship.
So today is FREE Comic Book Day and I went to my local comic book shop to get a free copy of Action Comics #1 since it is Free Comic Book Day and all comics in the shop should be “free.” It seems that I was misinformed.
Then again there’s no harm in running out to see and support your local comic shop. If they’ve run out the friendly and helpful staff should be able to set you up with other titles that are just as good, if not better. All you have to do is ask.
