DC Comics Trades and Collections May-June 2008

DC recently announced its upcoming trades and collections for the beginning of the summer, and the list is up here. As in previous lists, I found some things worth commenting on.

DC is really pushing out the Batman stuff to coincide with the upcoming film. Joker: The Last Laugh is really best forgotten, but I guess it makes sense to put this out from a business standpoint, since the Joker will be all over the place this summer. Paul Jenkins's Two-Face story, Batman: Jekyll and Hyde, is an interesting choice: despite good art, the series was just okay, and it's pretty easy to get in cheap back issues. However, that book, combined with the Batman vs. Two-Face trade, seems to indicate a spoiler about the movie: Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent will probably turn in to Two-Face by the end of the movie. The Two-Face collection, which features random appearances from throughout the character's history, looks good. It contains the Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams story, which is one of my all-time favorite Batman comics.

I also want to mention that I'm glad I'm not buying the current Ra's al Ghul crossover in single issues, as the collection is being pushed out pretty quickly. In fact, I'm surprised how many collections are announced for storylines or miniseries that aren't even over yet. DC seems to be showing its support for the new Infinity Inc. series by issuing a quick trade, though that comic got off to a pretty boring start.

While the number of Batman books on this list is understandable, I'm not sure why DC is putting out so much Superman stuff, especially collections of stories from John Byrne's revamp, like the World of Krypton collection. Also, if DC is going to do a collection like this, that mixes pre- and post-Crisis Krypton stories, why not include the first World of Krypton series from 1979, which has the added importance of being DC's first real miniseries (plus, it has some nice art by Howard Chaykin and Murphy Anderson)?

It's also interesting to see what DC added to the Bizarro World hardcover to get a collection out of the recent 3-issue story.

The Showcase Presents volumes are an interesting lot, in that all are continuations of series that already have volumes, like Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, and The Haunted Tank. I'll be curious to see what other series get the Showcase treatment later this summer.

On the flipside of the Showcase books are the Archive collections. Rumor has it that the two listed here--for Seven Soldiers of Victory and The Doom Patrol--are the last of this format, and DC is going to move more series into the Omnibus format, like the nice Starman collection. Speaking of that book, I probably won't be getting it because I have all the single issues, but I can't recommend it highly enough. It's one of my all-time favorite series, and I'm glad it's being released in this format.

The real exciting news in this list, however, is the announcement of the harcover collection of Jack Kirby's OMAC series in a format similar to the Fourth World Omnibi. At last summer's HeroesCon, I asked DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio at one of the DC panels if they would release OMAC in a format similar to Kirby's Fourth World. Clearly, I have some pull, as this collection will be out in less than a year from the time I asked the question. At the next opportunity I have to talk to Dan DiDio, I will use that influence more ambitiously.

Dr. K's Halloween Countdown Presents: The 13th Page!

In the old House of Mystery series from DC Comics, the thirteenth page of each issue was specially marked in some way. Often, by looking at the page, the reader was promised bad luck for a signficant amount of time: anywhere between 7 and 100 years.

Now, anyone familiar with DC's horror comics in the 60s and 70s knows that, for the most part, they weren't very scary. As a kid, I was scared by just about anything, and even I found these horror comics to be tame. Here's an exception, from the 13th page of House of Mystery 175 (1968)--reprinted in the Showcase Presents: House of Mystery Volume 1 collection--written by Joe Orlando and drawn by Sergio Aragones.

Some of these choices are pretty scary, and I have to wonder who the target audience was for this. Clearly, this was pitched at college-aged readers, with choices like "You are drafted" and "You will be caught in the dormitory," though some of the parent-related choices seem aimed at a younger audience. The "drafted" one is particularly disturbing, considering the time the cartoon was published. In addition, many are downright edgy and subversive. What is it your father found? What is the "truth" your parents found out about? What kind of "trip" are we talking about here?

DC Showcase Presents: What's Going On?

A little stir has started over DC's cancellation of pre-orders on several eagerly anticipated Showcase Presents editions, as reported here. I was planning on getting all five of the titles: Captain Carrot, Suicide Squad, The Great Disaster, Secret Society of Super-Villains, and Jonah Hex Vol. 2. I was especially looking forward to the SSOV volume, which was to reprint the issues of that series previously published only in the notoriously rare Cancelled Comics Cavalcade. DC states in their press release that these will be resolicited in the future, and I sincerely hope that this is the case--that the postponement is simply due to production delays or some other manageable problem.

However, the pessimist in me fears that this is another sign of bad times at DC. As commenters on the Newsarama forum and elsewhere have mentioned, all of these books contain work published after the "1976-wall," where DC significantly raised its royalty rates. DC still seems to be planning to publish the Batman and the Outsiders volume, which also falls after that date, so it may only be a coincidence. There may also be other reasons that the BATO book is going forward, but I have to think that the royalty cost is a factor here in the cancellation or postponement of the other books. I was surprised when these books were solicited in the first place: I had heard that the 1976 cut-off was the reason for the first Jonah Hex volume containing the odd Outlaw reprints, as well as the reason why there were no plans for a Warlord Showcase. If these books don't come back on the schedule, that may mean DC is going to steer clear of reprinting post-1976 comics in the cheap Showcase volumes, which would be sad. The only exceptions might be Batman- or Superman-related reprints.

I may be over-reacting here. Or I may just be nervous because DC might be cancelling reprints of material from the "DC Implosion" era of the mid-70s, and the irony is just too much for me.

I want to add how much I love these Showcase Presents volumes. Last Christmas, the Other Dr. K put stacks of these under the tree, and I was as happy as a little kid. (And I may get halfway through all those books by the time next Christmas comes around.)

Also, this little tidbit from the press release seems to have escaped others' notice:

DC COMICS ANNOUNCES NEW TITLE FOR TALES OF THE SINESTRO CORPS PRESENTS: THE ANTI-MONITOR #1

TALES OF THE SINESTRO CORPS PRESENTS: THE ANTI-MONITOR #1 (AUG070223) will arrive in store with the title TALES OF THE SINESTRO CORPS PRESENTS: SUPERMAN PRIME #1. This issue now will run 48 pages and feature a cover price of $3.99 U.S.

The most important item here: DC seems to have settled on the name "Superman Prime" for the character formerly known as "Superboy Prime." Though it's unfortunate that a name change had to occur at all, the new name is infinitely better than the annoying "Prime" or all the other awkward ways DC was trying to get around the legal restrictions of using the name "Superboy." I wonder, though, why they merged two separate Tales of the Sinestro Corps books into one. It seems like a good idea, regardless.