And Another One Down, And Another One Down: Animal Man, Batman: The Dark Knight Coming To A Close

It’s been a little more than two years since DC launched their New 52 reboot, and while DC still puts a big, “The New 52!” bullet on almost every cover of every book each month, there sure as hell aren’t 52 of those original release titles from September, 2011 still kicking around.

And now there will be two fewer. DC and book creators Jeff Lemire and Gregg Hurwitz have announced the cancellation of two original New 52 books, one surprising, one not (and yet still disappointing).

To wit: Animal Man and Batman: The Dark Knight will be concluding their runs in a few months, each with issue #29.

We’ll start with Animal Man, a book based on a character who had a flash of popularity immediately post-Crisis On Infinite Earths when Grant Morrison revitalized him (and stuck himself into his own comic book), before dropping out of favor and kinda disappearing sometime around when Morrison buried the Justice League International era (Animal Man was a member of Justice League Europe) with his JLA reboot. So when DC announced that Animal Man would be getting his own title in the New 52, I don’t think anyone thought it would survive, despite Buddy Baker showing an ability to bounce back from even a severed arm (showing that in the 80s, Morrison had a serious misunderstanding of the regenerative properties of earthworms. Seriously: Animal Man should have an ass poking out of his shoulder right now, and that arm should have another set of fingers sticking out of the shoulder, making it able to flip off all comers. But man, do I digress).

But still, the book became a reasonable hit, so it’s surprising that it’s closing out… and even more surprising that apparently writer Jeff Lemire is the one pulling the plug, not DC.

After finishing the script for #29, I felt I had completed the story I wanted to tell with the Baker family and thought it was a perfect ending for the series.  The best way for me to explore new things with the character would be to move him to a team setting and shakeup his status quo, DC agreed, and the Animal Man series will end with my final issue in March.

And, that last issue will be even more special for me, because I have not only written issue 29, I will also draw the majority of that final issue as well! Original Animal Man artist, the mad genius that is Travel Foreman, will join me to illustrate a framing sequence for my pages. And, my Sweet Tooth and Trillium collaborator, Jose Villarrubia will colour my pages.

That team book, presumably, will be Justice League of America (which will be turning briefly into Justice League Canada before becoming something else entirely), which Lemire announced a few months ago that he would be taking over. That book will also include Adam Strange, which means that it should be one hell of a weird lineup.

A little more surprising is the closeout of Batman: The Dark Knight (which ranked #38 in October comic sales figures, compared to #130 for Animal Man), and with that title, it’s a little harder to tell whether writer Gregg Hurwitz or DC decided to pull the plug:

Batman is forever, but sadly not all of his titles are. Batman: The Dark Knight will be ending with Issue 29. When I first signed on to do a single arc with David Finch, I never imagined I’d stay this long. Because of my work in novels and screenplays, I’m rarely sure what sorts of deadlines I’ll be juggling at any time, so I usually commit to a single six-issue story at a time and write way out ahead of schedule. DC has been great and gracious about accommodating this, and because of their flexibility, I wound up writing on the title for two (really damn fun) years…

It’s been almost four years ago to the day that I sat down for a breakfast meeting with Dan DiDio. DC had put out some feelers to me, wondering if I might be interested in doing a project over there. So when Dan asked what sounded fun, I told him I really wanted to do a Penguin story. I don’t think this was the answer he was expecting, but I’d recently read Azzarello and Bermejo’s superb Joker and I thought they really elevated the game with what they did there (plus, I love my villains). To my delight, DC said yes, and some months later we announced the project to what I can only describe as a resounding lack of enthusiasm in the Blogosphere (or whatever more contemporary noun has replaced the Blogosphere). I remember one contest rating upcoming titles had poor Oswald pulling a mere .07% of the vote. And this is where I get to my last and biggest thank you—to the readers.

It was you guys who picked up Penguin (Editor’s Note: That link is to Amanda’s review of the first couple of issues, which we liked) and through word of mouth turned it into the commercial and critical success it was. It was you who put TDK consistently way up there on bestsellers charts, landing us at the top of the New York Times hardcover graphic novel list. And it’s been your enthusiasm and energy that’s made my run on the title one of the most gratifying jobs I’ve ever had.

Before we take our bow, we still have great stuff in store for you. The gifted Alberto Ponticelli will be bringing to life a two-parter that is very dear to my heart. And our Dark Knight finale issues will see my good buddy Van Sciver introducing a Man-Bat you’ve never seen before.

I have more coming up beyond the title as well. I’m honored to be contributing to the Detective #27 anniversary issue with a story drawn by Neal Adams, and I’m hoping we’ll find more excuses for me to dive into Batcave beyond that. But for the moment, I want to dim the Bat-Signal and thank you all for supporting Batman: The Dark Knight. The ride would not have been possible without you.

This one’s kind of a bummer. While often it seemed Batman: The Dark Knight didn’t closely follow the continuity of the core Batman titles, it made good use of interesting villains, and featured some solid artists to give you some good eye candy, even if the books didn’t exactly advance Death of The Family or whatever else was happening in the main books.

Overall, it’s a bummer to see two books that have been on our pull list since they debuted coming to a close… but it’s somewhat refreshing to see a couple of DC books (apparently) coming to a close with the… if not blessing, at least understanding… of their long-time writers. As opposed to DC Editorial unceremoniously yanking and shifting people around with no notice or explanation. Maybe those days are past us…

Oh wait: this is comics. Probably not.