DC Comics Rebirth – Preliminary Thoughts

 

Second biggest surprise is the price rollback.  Re-drawing the line at $2.99 is great.  Now, I know that many of these books will be bi-weekly, and we will ultimately be paying $6 per month for each of those titles… However, when bits and pieces of this started to leak, the bi-weekly schedule was already part of that.  I feared that titles like Action Comics, Batman, and Green Lantern would remain $3.99 and go bi-weekly.  So, I suppose this is more of a relief than anything.  This appears to be a very good customer service move, as well as perhaps something of an acknowledgement that the $3.99 price point is just too high for a new or lapsed reader to embrace.

 

What I wasn’t so surprised about was the aforementioned bi-weekly release schedule for many of the books, as well as relaunching the rest of the line at yet another #1.  The bi-weekly thing, I could really do without, though, I suppose I understand where they are coming from.  I hate to think of what this may do to creative teams.  I’m doubtful that an artist can put out their top-quality work consistently under such a schedule.  Perhaps they will implement rotational art chores… I’m guessing they’ll have to.  I do miss long creative team runs on books, right now the closest thing we have is Snyder and Capullo on Batman.

 

Restarting the numbering on some 30 titles is a bit irritating.  I have always disliked this practice, going back as far as the Heroes Reborn event from Marvel.  I hate tossing out the old volume for some short-term gain.  It bugs me that we will be on volume three of Batman come June.  I hope there is a legitimate reason for the renumbering, however I am doubtful.

 

 

The titles announced all seemed quite interesting.  DC Comics does not seem to be exploring any experimental titles right off the bat.  I think this is a good idea for the launch.  The titles given will hopefully provide a workable foundation for which to build upon.  When The New-52! was launched we had titles like Resurrection Man, Voodoo, OMAC, and Mr. Terrific.  These were going to be challenging sells to potential new (or even seasoned) readers.  If those titles were launched, say a year into The New-52! (potentially after the characters had already been introduced), they may have found a wider audience.  I was going to go blow-by-blow for each title, however, with the limited information we have currently, it would likely be a waste of everyone’s time.

 

 

Now, I am pleased with the news, however, I cannot say that I am 100% optimistic about Rebirth.  I am excited, and really can’t wait to see how things pan out, however there is something I just can’t shake.  During the interview, Geoff Johns mentions that this has been in the works for a long while.  If that’s truly the case… Why did we just go through Convergence?  If this is to be a re-melding of the classic and contemporary DC Universes, Convergence would have been the most opportune time to pull the trigger… the fact that they didn’t, and announced Rebirth six or seven months later makes me question how much forethought is being (or has been) put into this.

 

 

I just hope that this is a better planned launch (story-wise) than The New-52!.  There were so many unanswered questions in late 2011.  Questions that remained unanswered because I don’t think even the creators or editorial had the answers.  (Most) Everything just felt so thrown together.  It felt like the heart had been pulled out, leaving us with just empty characters.  I have high hopes that this will not be the case this summer, and DC Comics will successfully bring their classic legacy into the contemporary market.