Casualties of Reboot: DC Cancels More Books, Shifts More Creative Teams

It has been 17 months since DC blew up their entire line of comics, shuffled all their creators around to different books, and blew up their entire history of continuity. You know, for everyone except Grant Morrison, who has been allowed to continue his Batman saga that started several years ago in Batman Incorporated like it’s still 2009… or sometimes, considering all the Silver Age characters Morrison’s shoveled into that storyline, like it’s still 1959.

And the New 52 reboot was an unqualified success. It put DC over Marvel, in both sales numbers and dollar earnings, for the first time. It refreshed the classic characters of the DC Universe for a new generation. Truly, those 52 books signalled the start of a thousand-year uncontested reign. Nothing could stop them. They would march to victory on a road of bones. They would drive their enemies before them, see them broken, and hear the lamentations of…

What’s that? DC’s cancelling six more books?

Whoops.

In DC Editor In Chief Bob Harras’s and Editorial Director Bobbie Chase’s weekly interview with Comic Book Resources earlier today, they announced that DC will be cancelling Fury of Firestorm, Ravagers, Savage Hawkman, Deathstroke, Sword of Sorcery, and Team 7 in the immediate future. This announcement comes on top of the weird and quick creative changes on Constantine and Birds of Prey last month, and while a couple of these announcements aren’t particularly surprising – Fury of Firestorm hasn’t exactly set the world on fire even after Dan Jurgens took over, and Savage Hawkman really hasn’t ever done all that well – but Team 7 and Sword of Sorcery are still pretty new, and Justin Jordan just recently took over Deathstroke. So in a lot of ways, this seems like another sudden move of titles and creators.

So what’s the logic, Bob and Bobbie?

Bob Harras: There’s a variety of reasons for when we unfortunately have to cancel a book. The main focus on this, and this is the big picture, is we try to take a look at it as, these characters will not go away. Even though, yes, “Savage Hawkman” is being cancelled, you’ll be seeing a lot of him in “Justice League Of America.” We have also plans for Deathstroke going forward. So even though, as I said, the monthly title is going away, the characters are still going to be very important to the ongoing storyline of the New 52.

Bobbie Chase: Also, we have to take into consideration what the creatives are doing. In terms of the writers, they’re all moving on to other books, so we really want them to concentrate their interest there.

Yes, Hawkman will certainly be appearing in Justice League of America… then again, so will Catwoman and Green Arrow, and their books seem to be okay. Shit, Vibe’s in Justice League of America and there isn’t a human being alive who gives a shit about Vibe without “Geoff Johns” on his driver’s license, and Vibe’s getting a new book. And when it comes to having creative people focusing on the books to which they are assigned, well, that’s pretty easy when you cancel the books they’re already working on and give them other ones.

So the way things are gonna shake out are: Justin Jordan is going from Deathstroke and Team 7 to Superboy, and Chisty Marx will go from Sword of Sorcery to Birds of Prey (but we already knew that). Along with that, Michael Alan Nelson, most recently newsworthy for burning a bunch of variant copies of his indie book Valen The Outcast, will be taking over Supergirl, and Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray will be taking over Batwing.

So what we have here is a whole hell of a lot more churn in the DC lineup of books and creators, and yet another reason to question just what the hell is actually going on between DC Editorial and their writers and artists. Any comment, Bob?

We’re not going into any specifics, because we can’t address any specifics because of those involved. The thing is, we want everyone who works for DC to be as happy as possible, to feel the creative process is as enjoyable as possible. If there are communication problems with talent, we will always work on it to improve our messaging, but on the whole, I think sometimes there are going to be disagreements. Sometimes there are going to be agreements — it’s all part of the editorial process. But as in anything, it’s something all of us can improve on in terms of communication…

But in general, I think we’ve got a very talented bunch of creators working with us, putting out the New 52. We have exciting books every month, and that’s what I want to concentrate on.

I am personally not an expert on communication, and the height of my clarity in messaging usually amounts to, “Do it again, barkeep,” so I am clearly not qualified to work in DC’s front office. Because I can usually make myself understood.

(via Comic Books Resources)