DC Implosion II: DC Comics in 2020 and Beyond

I'm enjoying it for the basics, i.e. reading comics from the golden era between COIE and Death of Superman, and the brief few years between Gotham Central and Final Crisis when DC seemed relatively interesting again. But, yeah, the app (although marginally less buggy than Marvel Unlimited) isn't great.

The curation of storylines (e.g. being able to read crossovers in one go) seems more carefully curated than in the Marvel app, but -- as with Marvel -- once you finish reading an issue, it sends you to the subsequent issue of that comic rather than the next part of the crossover, which is an annoying basic to fuck up.

I'm less concerned about reproductions, but, yes, the recolouring remains awful and the digitization seems to give everything a slightly more "ligne claire" inked look than I remember in the original comics. Still -- the access to the great 85-92 years is pretty thorough.

I've never been that interested in pre-Crisis DC -- with the exception of Batman, it always seems pretty square and dry. I find the Curt Swan house style deeply drab. What am I missing?

Like - does DC have analogues to the Gerber/Starlin weirdo Marvel comics of the 70s, or the Miller/Sienkewicz innovations of the early 80s -- or does all that stuff happen later in the 1980s? I know the Titans are a pretty lame substitute for the XMen.

Well there's the Kirby stuff but I'm guessing you've read that already?

would Shade The Changing Man qualify? i only know the vertigo reboot but the original is Ditko

I have some of the Kirby stuff in print collections. TBH I find them completely unreadable but they're terrific art books.

Unfortunately the Milligan & Ditko Shades are both missing

Kamandi and Demon are pretty readable imo.

Also, I find myself unmoved by LOSH or the Silver Age "Batman turns into a frog and fights aliens" type stories so beloved by GM, but I could try harder I guess

I went in hard on those Showcase volumes when they first started coming out and in retrospect a lot of it is unbearably tedious. The Captain Marvel stuff felt like actually well done kid's humor comics, and the Superman volume was best for the WTF moments, but important to just read an issue or two at a time or you just become numb to the insanity.

def not the same flavour as Starlin or Gerber tho!

Demon's not on there. Kamandi is a good shout

Not really a DC stan - and if you find the Fourth World 'unreadable' we're probs not on the same page anyway - but I would say all of the following are worth a download:

Wonder Woman by Denny O'Neil, Mike Sekowsky and Dick Giordano - WW becomes Emma Peel.
Swamp Thing by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson - foundational DC gothic - lots of great art in the horror anthology titles like Witching Hour, House of Secrets, House of Mystery too.
Stalker by Paul Levitz, Steve Ditko and Wally Wood - nice self-contained little fantasy four-parter with a great art combo. Ditko's 60s series The Creeper and Hawk and Dove are essential too. Don't know if Charlton's The Question will be available but it's the apex of Ditko's masked hero work.
The Shadow by O'Neil and Michael Kaluta. I like the Frank Robbins issue very much too, but he is the definition of an acquired taste.
Green Lantern/Green Arrow by O'Neil and Neal Adams. The 'relevance' stories have dated of course, and seem clumsy and corny now, but Adams really elevated the material with his intensity and attention to detail. Deadman, the O'Neil and Adams Batman issues and Superman v Ali also worth a read.
The Brave and the Bold and Batman comics drawn by Jim Aparo in the late 60s/early 70s are clearly influenced by Adams's work and have some of the same energy and excitement, a definite break from the Swan house style. Aparo also drew a very consistent run of Aquaman comics in the late 60s, written by Steve Skeates, and in the early 70s an amazing run of mind bogglingly violent Spectre comics written by Michael Fleisher. Talking of whom ...
Jonah Hex by Michael Fleischer. Very consistent western series with great art from Tony DeZuniga and others. The special issue where Jonah dies and is stuffed and mounted as a museum exhibit is one of the all-time great DC strips, beautifully drawn by Russ Heath (who together with Joe Kubert did great work on the DC war comics, often on some fairly tasty Robert Kanigher scripts (his 'White Devil, Yellow Devil', masterfully drawn by Alex Toth, is another all-timer.)
Plop!
Captain Action by Jim Shooter and Gil Kane, inked by Wally Wood. Again, a beautiful art combo and not bad stories for one of the earliest toy cash-ins. Just about to be reprinted in book form.
The Angel and Ape by E Nelson Bridwell and Bob Oksner. There are a number of these uncategorisablegroovy 60s titles that are quite unlike anything Marvel was producing at the time - Brother Power the Geek, Anthro by Howie Post (caveman), Secret Six, Metamorpho (drawn by Ramona Fradon), etc.
USS Stevens by Sam Glanzman. Autobiographical war strip that appeared as a back up in Sgt Rock etc throughout the 70s. Again, totally unlike anything else being published in mainstream comics at the time.
Manhunter by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson. Terrific self-contained story that appeared as a back up strip in the 70s issues of Detective Comics that Goodwin edited, all of them worth checking out. There's Alex Toth's only Batman story, written by Goodwin, and an excellent silent Batman strip by Steve Englehart and Sal Amendola.

Awesome thanks. I bet 90% of those aren't on the app but I'll definitely check out a bunch in... some way or other. "Jonah dies and is stuffed and mounted" sounds like a must-read

The Manhunter series by Simonson and Goodwin is a high water mark for DC.

weird to me that DC hasn't hopped into the NFT field. Seems like you could sell each individual comic that way and create your own lame ass stock market.

― i cannot help if you made yourself not funny (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 2 February 2022 05:24 (three months ago)

they did NFTs "hand-selected by Jim Lee" four months ago

― bad luck banging, or Lorna Doone (sic), Wednesday, 2 February 2022 09:19 (three months ago)

It’s about time we get some Batman NFTs already! DC Comics and Palm NFT Studio will drop a collection of 200,000 Bat Cowls at $300 each. There is no limit as to how many a user can purchase, but there is a $3,000 daily limit on the platform. The collection will be available on 26 April 2022, with more than 2 billion possible trait combinations. Similar to bats, this will be a blind drop, where purchases will only be revealed in May.

Bat Cowl holders will receive access to exclusive products and collectibles, such as the Bat Cowl apparel collection. They will also get exclusive access and benefits at IRL DC fan events. Furthermore, holders will get the first bite of future DC NFT collections.

In addition, the company revealed a two-year roadmap, releasing new utility every 52 days. Basically, Batman will upgrade the Bat Cowl, rewarding holders with greater access within the DC Universe. By the way, these Bat Cowls are already AR ready, in case you want to flex them on your socials. Last but not least, DC plans to use these Bat Cowls in future DC Comics stories.

If you claimed the free DC Fandome NFTs from 2021, there is some utility after all. Owners will get early access to this Bat Cowl collection. In addition, owners will soon be able to move their assets to non-custodial wallets such as MetaMask.

https://nft.dcuniverse.com/

I like the Frank Robbins issue very much too, but he is the definition of an acquired taste.

LOL, I couldn't remember him by name but based on your description I immediately wondered if he was the dude who drew the '70s Invaders series, and wouldn't you know it.

He had a good style for Sunday strips, not for comic books.

Spent the last month binging all four seasons of Young Justice on HBO Max. Wow - it's really good! Definitely one of the best iterations of the Titans in any medium. They actually took the ambition developed from Justice League Unlimited and ran with it, going much crazier with the sheer amount of characters and years of thoughtful plotting. Hopefully HBO isn't stupid and gives them another season or two to wrap up all the dangling threads.

Last week DC bosses scrapped a $19 million Batgirl movie for a tax write-down.

In May they paid $2 million for the DC.com url.

Closer to $90 million!

Source on the cost of the domain name acquisition?

19 90

ha xp

morrisp: Rich J

dunno who that is

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/when-dc-com-used-to-be-the-url-for-the-crappy-american-car-page/

Thx. "It is estimated," ok

"No you don't understand, this is as coherent as we can make it"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Crisis

“The heroes disapprove of this”

Did not know they officially changed the title to "Dark Crisis ON INFINITE EARTHS"

The original was a lighthearted romp, needed a gritty reboot.

This Wikipedia summary reads like it’s written by one of those AIs that you feed a few lines for inspiration.

Well it doesn't help that the contributor doesn't understand basic sentence structure. But maybe that's just what the attempt to summarize modern-day DC does to the language center of one's brain.

DC continues its unbroken run of absolute chaos since, what, 2009?

I think Flashpoint (2011) was when the freefall began. I was still reading and enjoying like a dozen DC titles up to that point and noped out when that mess began. Still, eleven years of chaos is a very impressive run.

I think I tapped out during Blackest Night, except to finish Morrison’s Batman run.

The period from Gotham Central to Final Crisis was probably DC/Vertigo’s best period since the early 90s imo. Lots of absolute shit, too, but isn’t there always?

Who knew Countdown would turn out to be such a blueprint for the next decade-plus? Depressing

Remind me what Countdown did. That was the their lead-in to Flashpoint after 52, right?

I think DiDio famously said that Countdown was 52 done right. Everything Morrison touched in that period marked the apex of DC's 21st Century output. Leave it to ol' Dan to fail to recognize that. Wotta choad.

Countdown was a New Gods-centric multiverse Crisis weekly that never cohered Into an actual story, but featured a lot of pointlessly nasty character deaths in the Geoff Johns/2007-era bad prestige TV style that was “popular” back then. I think a bunch of Legion characters get eaten by rats or something? It’s bad and non-fun. Every event since then seems to have been some violent & incoherent cosmic epic thing and all DC stories seemed to become boring meta stories about themselves

Brian Hibbs on why 'Distributor discounts are making it harder and harder to carry DC periodical comics':

https://www.comicsbeat.com/dc-periodical-comics-distributor-problems/?fbclid=IwAR1DcIu34qy9AVY-78ZhtkMRVa39LCO0mNjH1fldmRu-dKWRW94JUhJoIo4

If it’s of any diminishing interest to anyone, Mark Waid’s new Batman v Robin is good fun, in a 2000s kid of way, the sort of fun and forgettable thing I always want DC to publish but never do

Obviously in my head the mid-2000s we’re just a couple of years ago but never mind that

Has anyone tried DC Infinite's new "ultra" level?

I tried the trial and read The Nice House at the Lake (starts well, ends hopeless) and some 1990-era triangle Superman (which still holds up, pleasingly). Ultra includes collected editions (which are less fiddly) plus most of Vertigo, and the print-to-digital window is only a month.

It's £85/year which is... a lot, but tempting. Anyone else tried it?

Not a bad price. Maybe this is finally the year I abandon floppies again... if I could get DCUI and Marvel Unlimited for $50 each (that's the typical annual MU deal that pops up) I would probably just pull the trigger, LCS be damned

Right now it's USD $120 per year vs Marvel's $69 annual (but that's with the 3 month delay which tbh there are so few comics I buy and read within that time)

I finished book one of Nice House and while it succumbs to a lot of Tynion's worst impulses, I will certainly read the next volume
it is SCREAMING to be an HBO series

Ha, yes, I will still read the next volume.

I haven't read enough Tynion to understand his worst impulses - my sense was that his restlessness at changing the status quo every other issue (and not in a graceful way like, say, DEATH NOTE) eventually worked against the larger storyline, which is to say, by issue 10 I couldn't figure out WTF was happening or who to care about.

And the characters aren't very exciting. HBO might fix that.

(Sorry ignore my oblique references to Vol 2, which I just spotted that you haven't read!)

oh i read the first 12 issues, which i assumed was "book one"
you do seem to understand his worst impulses btw

Anything in this “Dawn of DC” era worth checking out? I’ve been sort of DC-curious lately, but have no clue where anything stands now.

Yes, every time I take a look at new DC releases they’re all bannered with some impenetrable crossover dressing and it’s extremely offputting. Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths! Knight Terrors! lazarus Planet! Interest lost!

Much like Future State I like the concept and effort, but geez sooo many books that I won't bother.

Hope that The Golden Age/JSA revival turns out well, will check it out in trade

I don't follow regular DC but if anyone here likes the Batman family or "one last job" comics and hasn't read Catwoman: Lonely City by Cliff Chiang, rectify that.