In the first few weeks after DC announced this upcoming reboot, I saw a few people here and there mention how the announcement lead them to drop several titles they had been buying. The reasoning seemed to be that since everything was being rebooted, those books no longer mattered, so why keep buying them?
I know it's just an offshoot of the thinking that has people only buying the "important" titles, or what drives some fans to only buy a series if it's tying in to the current big event, but it still seemed a strange reaction to me. In some cases, it seemed as though the news of a series being canceled had helped the fan realize they'd been buying the book out of habit, even though they weren't enjoying it. In that case, I think dropping the book is a logical response. But if they're actually enjoying a series, why drop it one second sooner than necessary?
I know Batgirl is ending soon, so Barbara can take the mantle up again. I know Steph will be around after the reshuffling, but I'm not sure what her backstory will be or if any of what I read recently will still have happened. What I do know is Bryan Q. Miller's writing it until the end, there'll likely be a good artist drawing it, and I really enjoy the book. I'll take every issue I can get. Same with Secret Six. For as often as that title's teetered on the brink of getting dropped, I've still liked several arcs and I want to see how it ends.
If I didn't read series that were in danger of being canceled and swept under the rug, I wouldn't read anything these days. Well, there'd still be mini-series, but not much in the way of ongoings. I don't see why decisions DC made regarding their product in the future should affect what I read in the present.
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3 comments:
I think in some cases there's also a sense of not wanting to have the book just 'peter out' current-storyline-wise. In many ways I wonder if a 'Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?' equivalent for several of the books might not have been a good idea, to bring a definite sense of closure to the line and prepare the fans better for an all-new outlook.
I just took out a couple of DC collections from the library including Paul Cornell's Action Comics. The fanboy part of me thought "but this won't matter come the reboot", but the rest of me couldn't give a monkeys about such things. I enjoy Cornell's writing and a story is a story is a story. I hate to quote Alan Moore, but they're ALL imaginary...
Matthew: I can udnerstand not wanting it to peter out. I think that's happened with Birds of Prey, where Simone's last story ended promising there'd be another arc, except there's a new writer for the last 2 issues, and she's not writing the book after the reboot. So her storyline died, and the other writer has no time to really start anything else.
The big wrap-up idea might work, I'd certainly be intrigued in one for Secret Six or Batman Beyond. I think DC might be carrying over just enough stuff they wouldn't want to do it, in case people decided that was that and walked away. It'd be interesting to see.
rol: I think that's where I'm at. Maybe I'm so used to Marvel's approach, where things can simply get ignored until they stop being part of continuity, I stopped sweating whether something's going to count. Because it might count now, but not in 5 years. Or it hasn't counted in 10 years, but someone's about to drag it out again. They're hinting at bringing back Ben Reilly, for example.
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