Posts Tagged ‘ The Purge ’

I’m a pretty big advocate for sticking with a book through thick and thin and not dropping it at the first sign of trouble, but I don’t think I’ve ever stuck quite so long with a book quite so bad as Teen Titans has been.

It’s not even like I’m a diehard fan. By the time I came on board New Titans post-Zero Hour, the glory days of Wolfman and Perez were long gone. Instead you had a team was led by Arsenal in a dreadful blue and yellow number (if ever there was a character who needed an Agent of S.T.Y.L.E. intervention, it’s Roy Harper), Beast BoyChangeling who was turning bad and, if I remember correctly, actually killed and raped a couple of people under the influence of Trigon (funny that never comes up in group meetings), Terra and Mirage who were apparently some kind of alternate Titan members of some kind (never really did get Team Titans) and, more importantly, Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner), Impulse and Damage – all three of whom I liked and got their individual books. Soon after Darkstar Donna Troy joined up and a way down the road, Supergirl did too.

It wasn’t the Justice League (a book which had its own troubles at the time) but it could be pretty entertaining at times. However after a couple of years it lost its direction and was eventually canceled in what felt like a mercy killing.

It wasn’t long before the inevitable relaunch of Teen Titans under Dan Jurgens with a youthful Ray Palmer (de-aged in Zero Hour) taking a group of superpowered half alien teens under his wing – or something like that, the details are hazy now.

The book was a solid superhero book, actually, with little to no ties to the original Teen Titans, which suited me just fine. It didn’t suit the franchise’s fans, however, and little by little attempts were made to tie it back to the Titans – Omen joined the cast and the book featured older members like Nightwing and Arsenal in a prominent storyline.

It never really caught on, though, and was canceled after 24 issues and a few spotlight one-shots.

The Titans name didn’t stay dormant for long, with a book titled simply Titans mixing the old – Nightwing, the Flash, Arsenal, Donna Troy, Tempest and Cyborg – with the new – Damage, Argent and Jesse Quick. It lasted longer than the previous incarnation under multiple creative teams but never really hit its stride with storylines dragging on and on, including one which involved the team taking superpowered orphan children under their wing.

Again, when cancellation came it felt like a mercy killing.

Later that year, though, Geoff Johns and Mike McKone relaunched Teen Titans once again and it was a smash. Taking the remnants of the Young Justice and Titans team after the Graduation Day mini, the book was a huge success in spite of some controversial story decisions. It’s kind-of sister book Outsiders was a little darker, but the books worked in conjunction for a while and the brand never seemed stronger.

When Adam Beechen succeeded Johns on the title for a few issues he had a hard time; tying it into mega-flop Amazons Attack didn’t help but when the book hit #50, a new scribe came on board: Sean McKeever. In spite of stellar work on teen heroes at Marvel in books like Gravity, Sentinel and his oft-overlooked Inhumans run, his Teen Titans never felt right.

Between revisiting one of Johns’ best storylines less successfully (the Titans of the Future) to having a demonic dog eat one of the support staff, to the seemingly endless line of Titans deaths, his run was beset by problems even though (some would say because) the book was edited directly by Dan Didio.

At the same time, the original Titans regrouped in a new series simply titled Titans- which launched with yet another dull as dishwater storyline about Raven, possibly the least interesting character the franchise has ever produced. About a year in, the two books crossed over with Vigilante in the ill-conceived and frankly terrible crossover Deathtrap before the Titans book went into a series of spotlight issues before breaking up the team entirely to be replaced by a team of villains left by Deathstroke.

And you know what? I stayed with the books through all of this, sometimes via back issues but more often than not (I’m embarrassed to say) off the rack. I saw the Deathstroke team as a convenient break point though and got off the Titans book then – but I stayed with Teen Titans under new scribe Felicia D. Henderson (who started on that book some time before the Deathstroke thing happened over in Titans, just to be clear on timelines).

Now.

I’ll fully admit that I’m in a precarious position criticizing anyone’s writing because, honestly, if I wanted to have a leg to stand on I would have pulled my finger out and written more myself. That said, though, that said…Felicia D Henderson’s run on Teen Titans may be the worst run of comics I’ve ever stuck with.

Ever.

Think about that. Worse than One More Day. Worse than Steve Englehart phoning it in at the end of his Fantastic Four run under a pseudonym. Worse than Youngblood. Worse than The Draco.

I’ll say it again: worse that The Draco.

It’s not all her fault of course; there’s plenty of blame to go around here and I think the quick dismissal of four members of the team that happens in her final issue is probably editorially mandated to set up the next run on the book and the upcoming Static series she’s meant to be writing.

But I stuck with it anyway. Now, though, now I’m done. Not because I don’t think the next creative team will work – I generally like J.T.Krul’s work even when it has dead cats in it, and Nicola Scott’s art is great. And let’s face it, it’ll be hard pressed to be worse.

But I’m tired. I’m tired of justifying spending a few extra bucks on something that just doesn’t float my boat any more – and the fact that when I look back on all the books I bought in this franchise, I realize that it never really floated my boat just makes me even more tired. So that’s it, I’m done with Teen Titans.

After yesterday’s look at the state of my DC pulls, it’s Marvel’s turn, what with the new solicits being up and all.

And the grand total of ongoing titles I’ll be picking up is…EIGHT – another incredibly low number for me. One of them is Amazing Spider-Man though, so I guess that counts as three which makes eleven titles, the others being Web of Spider-Man, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Young Allies, Deadpool, Deadpool Merc With A Mouth (ending in July) and Deadpool Team-Up.

There’s probably another post or two about my current Deadpool obsession, but at least I’m picking up Deadpool Corps in trade, okay?

So what happened to all the rest of the Marvel Universe?

Well my X-Men withdrawal is pretty well documented, but what I haven’t really mentioned before is that I’m out of the Avengers once everything comes to an end with Siege. It’s a tough decision for me, too, since Avengers has for a long time been hands down my favorite team book out there – and the Stern/Buscema reprints of the Sanctuary II saga and tie-ins to Secret Wars II in the UK weekly are what converted me to US comics in the first place.

But I’ve finally come round to the fact that these Avengers aren’t my Avengers. I’ve been dissatisfied with New Avengers for a while now as it limped from event to event; Mighty Avengers is ending; Dark Avengers was never going to last and just felt like Thunderbolts anyway, and Avengers The Initiative is done too. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll probably be picking up the trades but monthly-wise, I’m done.

Then there’s the cosmic books. With Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy both going on hiatus for the duration of The Thanos Imperative, I think I’ll move to trades for them too – and the big hardcover collections of the cosmic crossovers have been pretty impressive, so I’ll be getting the Thanos story in that format.

I’m waiting patiently for a great big Fall of the Hulks hardcover to be solicited containing the entire thing, so I’m not following the Hulk books right now, even if I’ve grown quite fond of Llyra in her appearances so far.

I was disappointed in the conclusion of Incredible Hercules – the Assault on New Olympus storyline felt rushed and packed with too many incidental characters that weren’t needed or didn’t add anything. I don’t believe Hercules to be gone for good, of course, but I don’t feel the need to follow Amadeus Cho into his own Prince of Power series, at least not in monthly installments.

Similarly, the relaunched Atlas holds limited appeal monthly as I found the last series read better when I read a few issues together. I haven’t picked up Thor since this volume began (but have already pre-ordered the JMS omnibus), and I won’t be starting now. I like Black Widow a lot, and I’m intrigued by her ongoing but, again, it’s a trades issue for me; same with the new iteration of Thunderbolts (which I dropped a while back anyway), and the new Hawkeye & Mockingbird series – I like the Reunion mini but it read better in one sitting than it did in single issues.

Iron Man I moved onto trades a few months back, Secret Warriors I dropped because I honestly believe it to be a very poorly written book (I know I’m in the minority there), and as a result I have very little interest in Shield. I’m sticking with Hickman’s FF only because it’s the Fantastic Goddamn Four, and I’ve been through a hell of a lot worse with them. Hickman’s big ideas are great, the execution not so much – and you know what no comic should have? A last text page telling you what happens at the end of the story. If it’s important to the story, put it in the story.

If there’s one thing I may get outside of these, it’s David Gallaher and Steve Ellis’ Darkstar and the Winter Guard mini – partly because I’m a big fan of both creators and partly because, you know, Ursa Major.

He’s a talking bear, people. A talking bear.

Yesterday DC Comics released their solicits for June 2010 – and for the first time since jumping back onto the DC bandwagon around 1994, I’m down to less than a dozen ongoing comics.

In fact I’m down to just FIVE titles – Action Comics, Superman, Supergirl, Batgirl and Red Robin – with another one a possibility (the one being Teen Titans which, despite not being very good, I just can’t seem to quit).

Beyond that, there’s only one mini on there – and that’s the final issue of the Rise of Arsenal, the first issue of which comes out this week.

Everything else is either off my pull list completely, or I intend to pick it up in trades at some point. Of course, because of DC’s terrible trades policies I may not even do that, having forgotten them by the time they came out.

This isn’t exactly unexpected for me, as I’ve been making an effort to purge my pull list over the past several months with varying degrees of success, but this is a huge step down.

The end of Blackest Night is really the final nail in the Green Lantern books for me – I intend to pick them up in trades, but the Blackest Night/Brightest Day demarcation line is a pretty clear one for me. It’s a jumping off point for their monthly adventures. Yes, even Guy’s when his book launches.

As far as Batman goes, I weaned my self off the core books (Batman, Batman and Robin and Detective) a few months into the Reborn arc, along with ancillary titles like Streets of Gotham and Gotham City Sirens which I simply wasn’t enjoying that much. The intention is to pick up the main books in trades but, well, again I guess it depends on when those trades come out.

I’ll continue following Wonder Woman and Secret Six in trades, and I intend to for the Justice Society books, the new Green Arrow and the Justice League too – but again it’s the same old song: depends when they come out.

I quit The Outsiders not because I don’t like the team (or the creative team either, although I’m not a fan of Tan and I’ve heard Dan Didio may have his detractors) but because no matter what direction the team has taken in the past few years, it hasn’t felt right to me. I like the characters, I like the name. I just don’t feel that either have been done justice.

The Flash and Legion relaunches (in both their own book and Adventure Comics) I have no interest in. Barry Allen isn’t my Flash; these aren’t my Legion. My Legion is the post-Zero Hour Legion. I gave the Waid/Kitson relaunch a chance but it never quite felt like a good fit and I’ll be damned if I’m doing that again here. Maybe in trades, but probably not.

Of the more recent launches, R.E.B.E.L.S was the only one I really started picking up but something just wasn’t clicking for me with it, so I dropped that a few months back too.

The two biweekly books, Brightest Day and Generation Lost, both have a lot of appeal to me but honestly the older I get the more I’d rather have trades on the bookshelf to reread than comics stored in a longbox somewhere. Same with Booster Gold, as that book looks to be tying in with Generation Lost somewhat.

And I think that’s what it comes down to – the five books I’m definitely getting contain my favorite DC characters – Superman, Lois, Supergirl, Tim and Stephanie – and I want to support them.

The rest I can take or leave on a weekly basis (and honestly, depending on how I find JMS and Guggenheim, the same may happen with the Superman books) and if and when I do catch up with the trade paperbacks, I’ll be paying less for them and storing them easier.

I wonder what Marvel’s June solicits will hold for me?

If you swing by the blog semi-regularly, you may recall me saying on Monday that I was dropping New Mutants in single issues as part of the purge in spite of the fact that I love these characters and have been waiting for this book for literally years.

And I did. This week, I didn’t pick up New Mutants #6 which throws the team into Necrosha, which I can pretty safely assume will be a pretty hardcover one day.

Then I went over to the ever-awesome Scans Daily this morning and oh my god, it looks like the issue fit right into the unusually brutal week in comics.

It looks like undead Doug Ramsey (hey, anyone know what happened to Douglock?) has been mixing it up with the team until Warlock (yay!) comes to see what’s what and help his old self/friend out…

…wait, what? A trojan? Look out, Warlock!

Are those tears in Doug’s eyes? Could there be mercy?

Apparently not.

HE JUST TORE WARLOCK’S HEAD OFF!!!!!

AAAHHHHH!!!

I know they’ve both been dead before, but still, this actually hurts a little.

Happier times…

This is the week. The week that The Purge starts. There’s just too many books to buy – and between the (a few years late) realization last week at BACC that you can pick up a lot of recent books for 50cents or a buck if you wait a few months, and the impending arrival of the unborn, then it’s just time to start cutting.