…We Thought They’d Never End

2011 was one hell of a big year for DC Comics, a year of bold moves against the grain of what Marvel was doing, proudly proclaimed with bold slogans on their comics’ covers: “Holding the line at $2.99!” and “The New 52!” But, as tends to happen with all well-meaning slogans, like “habeas corpus” and “I’ll pull out,” some things are easier to say than to live up to.

In an extensive interview with Newsarama’s Vaneta Rogers, DC Comics Vice President of Sales John Rood and SVP of Sales Bob Wayne announced that Batman and Detective comics will be bumping up to $3.99, while increasing their page count for additional “story and editorial content.” No word, however, on what “editorial content” means. Could be interesting backmatter… could be grainy photos of Grant Morrison’s junk.

Spider-Clones: Marvel’s Recent Moves

It’s been a weird month or so at Marvel, what with a bunch of layoffs, the cancellation of several ongoing books (Including Jason Aaron’s Punisher MAX, Crisis on Infinite Midlives favorite Black Panther: The Man Without Fear, and X-23 and Ghost Rider – Marvel’s only two books with female leads), and a couple of books (Destroyers and Victor Von Doom) that haven’t even come out yet. The word is that Marvel has been particularly nutcutting because of budgetary concerns, which means Marvel may be the first company that requires people with the job title of “Architect” to bring their own fucking toilet paper to work.

Any detailed analysis of what Marvel is doing and why would require more knowledge of the comics industry than a guy who just likes comics has, and, you know… math and shit, which means I’m not the one to do it. Kiel Phegley at Comic Book Resources runs down what’s happening and possibly why from an informed prospective, which you should go read. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

You’re back? What? you want to know what I think? Didn’t I just tell you that I’m not the one to ask? But then again, it’s Thanksgiving weekend, which means that we’re all doomed to listen to some drunkard spouting off in an authoritative manner about things they know nothing whatsoever about. Okay, fine; fill your glass, pull up a chair, and listen to your Uncle Rob run his mouth about something he knows nothing whatsoever about.

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 4: The Justice of F***ing

We here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives finally kicked the cold and got healthy! And then we celebrated with cheap liquor and got sick a different way, so once again, here we are, a day late and a dollar… where’s our f***ing dollar!?

In this week’s episode, we drool over the new trailer for the Avengers movie, we thank DC Comics for announcing that they’ll be selling comics on the Amazon Kindle Fire (When we bought a f***ing Barnes & Noble Nook Color six months ago) by speculating which New 52 book will be canceled first (and which should be canceled first), and talk about our sleeper books of the week!

In addition:

• Amanda would like to announce that she was incorrect when she said that Alex Maleev was the creator of Echo! She meant to say it was Jesus!
• Here’s Rob’s review of The Strange Talent of Luther Strode!
• While tomorrow we will be posting a full-on video of the Avengers trailer in family-friendly and buggy Flash video, here’s the Quicktime edition so that Steve Jobs can cockblock you with upgrade warnings from the grave!
• And simply look up and to the left to see happens when you Google “Captain America Liefeld Boobs”! (via Grotesque Anatomy)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:57 — 42.1MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers! And if you don’t, we’ll show you what happens when you Google “Liefeld Mantits No Seriously Just Liefeld’s Mantits”!

Baseless Speculation For Fun and…

UPDATE 10/12/2011: The September sales numbers have been released, and OMAC #1 actually sold 33,581 copies. So let’s make that purely speculative magic cancellation number a little closer to 15,000 copies. 

Last week Diamond, the company that distributes comics to retailers like my local comic store owner (Who knows me by name and asks me if I would please stop asking to use his bathroom right after buying tentacle hentai), announced the preliminary wholesale sales numbers for September, which include all of the DC New 52 books except for the first print of Justice League #1, which came out in August. There are no specific copies-sold numbers yet, but OMAC came in at number 82, behind all the other New 52 books… including Justice League #1, which came out in… fucking August.

Which is a bummer to hear, since clearly OMAC is growing on us here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives… and even more of a bummer when Bleeding Cool reported last week that it was already in danger of being canceled:

And it’s written by co-publisher [Dan DiDio] and [sic] the man who has been pushing for the relaunch so long. So here’s the thing – will it seem just to anyone if one of the other 52 is cancelled [sic] due to lower sales and the publisher’s own comic, O.M.A.C., survives? I doubt it. Dan DiDio may be forced to sacrifice one of his own…

Wow. That’s depressing. Guess I’d better yank the title off my subscription pull list. At the very least, it’ll be another three bucks toward tentacle porn, or at least two bucks with another buck toward the sock cleaning bill. I guess when God closes a door, he opens a – what’s that, OMAC inker Scott Koblish?

O.M.A.C is not in danger of being cancelled.

GO ON…

Attack Of The Clones – Review Of Huntress #1

We’ve reached the end of the deluge of new #1’s from DC’s universal reboot. With the 52 all new, on-going titles established, DC is now releasing miniseries titles for characters whom they’d like to keep active in the universe but, for whatever reason, did not merit an on-going title. This week’s candidates include Huntress #1, a six issue run that IGN seems to think is set on Earth 2, but actually, according to DC will have events that will play into Birds of Prey (presumably in this universe). DC also released Penguin: Pain And Prejudice #1, which will outline the origins of The Penguin. On October 12, DC will release The Shade #1, which will have a 12 issue run. So, why did DC decide that these characters wouldn’t make the cut for an on-going series over the likes of some of the more marginal Wildstorm characters such as Voodoo or Grifter? The mind of Dan DiDio is a curious place indeed.

1978 Redux, In A Good Way: OMAC #2 Review

“Lemme see,” I said to my local comic store owner, who knows me by name and asks me why his store always smells like a distillery explosion after I leave, “The New 52 week one books that we want to keep getting… definitely Detective Comics. Also Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Justice League International… we’ll call Batgirl ‘on the bubble,’ and, um…”

“Don’t forget OMAC,” Amanda chimed in.

“OMAC? Are you fucking kidding me? You read The Outsiders at the end of its run. Dan DiDio might be a good publisher or editor in chief, but whoever he answers to shouldn’t allow him to write anything longer than his own name.”

“Yeah, but I like Keith Giffen. And I really liked the end of the first issue. So I want to give it another shot.”

Sheesh. Wimmens, man. What’re you gonna do? So I made the commitment to spend another $2.99 a month because hey: I love her, and it isn’t gonna suck itself, and sandwich: I don’t have one, amirite?

Ow. Owwwww. Note to self: don’t write shit like that when you don’t mean it and when your girlfriend is your editor. But I digress.

So this past Wednesday OMAC #2 was, in fact, in my pile of subscription pulls, whether I really wanted it or not. So imagine my surprise when it turned out to be one of the better books of the week.

Brain Bleach: Your Mom Let You Out Of The Basement Looking Like That Edition

Just in time for GirlGeekCon in Seattle this weekend and New York Comic Con in, well, New York City, next weekend, we have a batch of ambitious cosplayers who are ready to embrace the design changes of the relaunched DCnU. Behold the winners of the most recent Gamma Squad cosplay costume contest:

What? No G'nort?

Flipping The Bird: The Savage Hawkman #1 Review

Editor’s Note: This review contains spoilers. But what do you care? It’s not like you were gonna read Hawkman anyway.

And, as usual, one last Wednesday morning review before the comic stores open…

For good or ill, we’ll end our coverage of DC’s New 52, which officially ends today with a new batch of #2 issues, with The Savage Hawkman #1. The Savage Hawkman is the story of Carter Hall, who has a harness made of Nth metal that allows him to… um… fly and stuff… and he… has… yeah, sorry. The problem is I don’t care about Hawkman. The problem is that nobody cares about Hawkman. The only person who cared about Hawkman was Hawkgirl, and nobody gave enough of a fuck about Hawkgirl to leave her alive.

The upside of that general apathy is that it allows writer Tony Daniel to try almost anything he wants to make Hawkman interesting for a new generation. The downside is that what he tries feels like throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. Almost literally.

Daniel opens this new chapter in Hawkman’s rebooted life by showing how exciting it is to be Hawkman… by having him be a depressed alcoholic who hates being Hawkman so much he tries to kill his costume with a flare gun.

Let’s take a moment and examine that, shall we? As a New 52 book, this is meant to make new readers excited about characters they aren’t familiar with. And Daniel has decided to introduce us to this new Hawkman by telling us that:

1. Even Hawkman thinks that being Hawkman sucks, and:
2. Hawkman’s power set is so weak that even Hawkman himself thinks he can be defeated by a roman candle.

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 3: The Fistula Of Justice

The Sudafed finally mixed with the Jack Daniels and made a mellow, Earth-friendly body-meth, which gave us enough energy to complete Episode 3 of the Crisis on Infinite Midlive’s Podcast: The Fistula of Justice!

Thrill to two drunk sick people as they talk about the impact of the New 52, DC Comics’ new Neilsen Survey (Which sadly didn’t include the obvious question: Orange nip slip: horrifying moment or the most horrifying moment?), the overriding post-Catwoman question: are superhero comics sexist (“What’s wrong with being sexist?” “Not sexy, sex… Jesus, you really are a monster, aren’t you?”), and our sleeper favorite books of the week!

And to answer some questions from the show that are enigmas, wrapped in riddles, covered in mucous:

• The Crow said Don’t Look (Seriously: don’t look at this. It’s not safe for work. Or your appetite)!
• Turns out 53 is a prime number!
• Tell DC what you really think without having to spoon Dan DiDio (EDITOR’S NOTE: Rob just tried to take the survey and was told he wasn’t qualified. Probably because of his area code. Or because he said his penis had an area code of its own)!
• Newsarama asks if comic fans want to Smell The Glove!
• Hot, sweet, [male] child on [male] child roundeye action!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:37 — 34.4MB)

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Enjoy the show, sucker! And if you don’t, just hit that “Don’t Look” link up there!

I, Read This – Review Of I, Vampire #1

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: guy meets girl. Guy becomes vampire. Guy bites girl. Girl turns into psychotic hell bitch bent on world destruction. You have? Well, then apparently you’ve met my downstairs neighbor. Or, more likely, you read I, Vampire, either in its current release or in it’s original incarnation, as a short story series in House of Mystery, when it was written by J.M. DeMatteis, between 1981-1983.

The relaunch is written by Joshua Hale Fialkov, whose run of good luck will soon see him taking over writing duties at IDW for Doctor Who as well. He is joined on I, Vampire by Andrea Sorrentino, whose work can previously be seen on God Of War and X-Files: 30 Days Of Night, published by Wildstorm.

Now, to the important question: should you read this book? Answers (and spoilers) after the jump.