Comments on: Was this trip really necessary?

By: Anthony Cheng

Anthony Cheng — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:58:48 +0000

Tom, I think you’re giving people too much credit here. There is no master plan here. The Wizard of Oz is just an old guy behind a curtain. Consider:

Superboy was taken off the stage right as litigation was starting with the Siegel estate. Court rulings since then have made it clear DC will retain at least a half-stake in Superman and Superboy, so now he is miraculously back.

Bart was made into the new Flash with a much-ballyhooed Hollywood team. Then the series tanked. He was killed to make way for Wally’s return (under Meltzer), who was then promptly shoved off-stage to make way for Barry’s return (under Johns).

If any of this strikes you as long-term planning, then the threshold for long-term planning has been lowered considerably.

By: Tom Bondurant

Tom Bondurant — Thu, 07 May 2009 01:31:08 +0000

Rik, I think the reversals of the first Crisis’ casualties can be distinguished from Kon and Bart because those deaths were, as far as we knew back in ’85, permanent — like, as permanent as DC could make them. Even when John Byrne created Matrix/Supergirl, she wasn’t “the” Supergirl. When those characters were brought back, it wasn’t as part of some series of interlocking events which you could see clearly as part of the original story — instead, it was different people deciding that it was no longer taboo to have these characters stay dead.

By: Rik Sunn

Rik Sunn — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:05:06 +0000

@Brian – I think that the co-features will be dealt with differently for different books. Dan Jurgens told Comic Related a few weeks ago that there are no immediate plans to comingle Blue Beetle and Booster Gold–but Dan DiDio has said in Newsarama and CBR interviews that Black Canary and Green Arrow will naturally be a fluid relationship, with different characters taking the lead versus the backup story, and sometimes the two playing off each other or crossing over.

By: Rik Sunn

Rik Sunn — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:50:13 +0000

I agree with every beat of this article on principle until your sum-up. “The characters have returned as if Infinite Crisis never happened … so why did it?” immediately leads me to question why, with the return of Kara Zor-El, The Anti-Monitor, The Multiverse and Barry Allen, the FIRST Crisis happened, then.

By: preston

preston — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:56:59 +0000

Yeah, I’m pretty sure there was a needed heroic sacrifice for Infinite Crisis, and originally it was going to be Nightwing but it ended up being Superboy. And the Kid Flash into Flash was completely editorially mandated according to Mark Waid in a past interview.

By: Alan Coil

Alan Coil — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:43:04 +0000

I must admit to getting a warm fuzzy when I saw the re-appearance of Superboy. YAYZ!

By: Jacob

Jacob — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:12:19 +0000

I was just reading the Infinite Crisis TPB, and in the interviews in the back GJ basically says that he was told someone had to die, and he didn’t want it to be Nightwing, so he killed Superboy. Johns has always wanted to bring Superboy back.

By: Squashua

Squashua — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:24:02 +0000

It’s not a slow news week that prompted this article. This is the same sort of DCnalysis GOF always does around this time of the week.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:22:37 +0000

In regards to the co-features, does anyone know if there are plans to combine the stories at different points? I remember Nemesis and Batman teaming up in Brave and the Bold, and it tying into Nemesis’ back-up at that time. I’d love to see the Question and Batwoman together (I’ve probably phrased that wrong), and Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes – well, that’s just self-explanatory.

Cheers,

By: Generalzod33

Generalzod33 — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:10:56 +0000

Wow. Slow news day, huh? Listen, you ask why? There could be any NUMBER of reasons, not the least of which is: A) Money (after all, DC COMICS IS around to make money, right?), and B) A chance to try something new and tell a story at the same time, which dovetails nicely into A.