Tuesday, September 24, 2013

DC Villains Month – Fail

Granted I did not get every single book from DC’s villain’s month but I got around 20 of the books, so I think that is a fair sample size even without reading this weeks books yet.

The reasons I think it was a fail is due to the content of the books. It felt like almost every book was a fill in issue. They were not origin stories for the most part, they were not character defining moments and most had limited tie-in to the over all theme of what is going on with Forever Evil. They were often just a stand alone story about the character. Clayface is a good example, he is in the middle of a job with a crew, goes nuts and kills the crew. Next he finds out the world is taken over by bad guys. He tries to impress the new leaders and fails. What was the point?

For me, that was the problem, the point was the covers. Heck I find the covers to actually be garish. On one level they are neat and maybe I should hold onto one or two to give my grandsons when they get older as a novelty item. But that is all they are, a novelty item.

Worse then that it has caused an extra month lag in the story lines that I’m still following with DC and therefore loosing even more of my interest in the entire line. I hope that Green Arrow will be back on track and I’m guessing Green Lantern is not impacted as they are all off world. Batman has cleverly side stepped the whole thing being set in the past for an over long arc. I’m not sure if Swamp Thing or Animal Man are impacted by all of this stuff.

Heck even with writers that I love it felt like many of these stories were phoned in, Of course I’m blaming that on the direction that was given out. I have to assume given how DC appears to be run that the list of villains was chosen and direction was given as to what was to be done and often it was to tell a Clayface story or something of that ilk.

As I sit here typing this and thinking about October for the regular DCU nothing jumps to mind as something I’m dying to read anymore. That one month gap lets me know I can drop even more books as time goes on. I tried Superman/Batman, but that has to go after the first arc is over. Maybe I will check out Matt Kindt on Suicide Squad as I’m a fan of his work. Even with Soule on Superman/Wonder Woman I can’t say I’m looking forward to that title. Soule has Letter 44 coming out from Oni (and I forget to mention it last post) and that is what I’m truly looking forward to reading from him.

The final part of what made this marketing gimmick so bad is that it proves how empty the new DCU is and how little they know of how they want to fill it. It could have been a chance to give a ton of writers the chance to write origins for 52 Villains and let them strut their stuff; instead I read a lot of the stories and got nothing. Correction I got that these are no longer the villains I remembered and I got the feeling many writers were not sure who these villains were supposed to be either.


4 comments:

  1. I'm done with Green Arrow after selling the Lemire issues on ebay for $30. I'm done with Detective (even though I liked it better than Batman). I'm only on board for Superman/Batman and Superman Unchained until I can sell the books at a logical point. I may just hold out to get the entire zero year story for Batman, but pretty soon -- NO MORE DC FOR ME!!! I thought the covers were kinda cool (the one I got), but for only a dollar extra, they could just do that on a regular book. My theory, which Rusty rejected, was that the Villain month was a way for the regular books to get on schedule. I'm drifting faster and faster down the Back Issue Top Hat (Lidsville) Time Tunnel. Without the drive to write about new stuff for the blog, it's just me spending way too much money on mostly forgettable books.

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  2. Ijust sold my Lemire issues of GA. I thought that while it was a Villain month that it did also give many creators a breather. Still it was all crap and DC is better read in trade or collections of older stuff.

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  3. I have read Relic and Desaad. Relic gave an origin for that character and will lead into the next big Lantern tale. Desaad was interesting as we get a look at him and are being shown that he was on Earth-2. Still wonder if the Apokolips is the same on each world.

    I will probably get the trade of Forever Evil because it seems interesting if they are going where I think. Prices are killing me. I am more concerned with prices than with gimmicks.

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  4. Barry, price points are killers, for some reason the $4 price point is the final straw for me with most Marvel and DC books, it means the books needs to be very good for me to want to buy it. As for the Villains month Relic and a couple other books were exceptions, but the vast majority of the books were pure fill in material.

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