Tuesday, August 25, 2009

One Down, Two To Go?

Hey, remember back at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con, when DC announced the acquisition of the Milestone characters, and made a huge deal about integrating them into the DC Universe, and Straczynski's Brave & The Bold stories were just going to be a start of a glorious future? When Dan DiDio declared, "You’ll be seeing other characters show up in other series [outside of the JLA and Teen Titans]. It’s going to be very organic and very natural in the way that we bring them in...." Not to mention,

There is a depth to these characters, there is an awareness to these characters, there’s a strength in personality, and there’s great development in these characters. When you have characters like ICON, Static, Hardware, the Shadow Cabinet...these are great characters and great concepts in their own right. This isn’t about a diversity issue – this is about bringing great material into the DC Universe, and being able to add value to everything that we do.

And 13 months later?

5. kryptofan1 asked:
Do you have plans for the Milestone characters (other than Static in the Teen Titans) after the Brave and Bold stories?


DiDio: At this particular time, we have Static in the Teen Titans, and we're looking at a storyline that might be built around Static later in the run. But right now, no other plans.

Oh. Never mind.

So much for "value added," eh? So much for the grand plans of a mini-series wrapping up the old Milestone continuity, or DiDio's statement that the characters would be at the "forefront" of the "big storylines in the DC Universe."

I can't help but wonder if the canning of Dwayne McDuffie from JLA had something to do with this; maybe he took his toys and went home.

Or maybe the DC Borg Collective finally found a species it couldn't assimilate.

But let me remind you of a prediction I made three weeks ago: "I predict dismal, flaming failure followed by a thorough under-the-carpet sweeping for DC's attempts to integrate 3 disparate continuities into their recently re-convoluted universe."

One down, two to go.

10 comments:

Scott said...

Yeah, color me madder'n spit. I loved Milestone, and I was thrilled when DC said they were going to start using them.

I don't know if DiDio decided he had to appease racist fanboys. I don't know if he just wanted Static and felt that he could fuck with McDuffie to get him. I'm almost willing to put it all down to DiDio having the attention span of a mayfly. He got distracted by some shiny project and forgot he'd ever expressed any enthusiasm for the Milestone characters...

Sea-of-Green said...

See? This is just all part of DC's grand scheme to acquire properties and SHUT 'EM DOWN FOR GOOD! Mwaaaa, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaa!!

snell said...

Like Marvel did for Malibu?!? Seriously, what was the point of that...?

ShadowWing Tronix said...

Marvel wanted Malibu's coloring process, from what I hear. I wonder if anyone can acquire the Ultraverse characters the same way DC did the Archie/Red Circle superheroes for the Impact imprint> (And what does "Red Circle" even mean?)

snell said...

Shadow, during one of their many incarnations, the "Archie" heroes were published under the "Red Circle Comics" banner. And you've gotta admit, "Red Circle Heroes" sounds a lot better than "Archie Heroes."

Marvel wanted Malibu's coloring process? Then Lordy, why are all of Marvel's books, 295% darker and danker than Malibu's ever were?

Mark Engblom said...

Keep up the great work, Snell! Nobody holds these clowns' feet to the fire like you do!

I've always known comic book promotion is mostly smoke and mirrors, but your posts really expose it for the tottering house of cards it really is (especially DC).

Mark Engblom said...

"...during one of their many incarnations, the "Archie" heroes were published under the "Red Circle Comics" banner."

Didn't DC publish the Archie heroes for awhile under their short-lived "Imprint" banner in the early 1990's?

snell said...

Mark--yes, it lasted about a year, give or take.

ShadowWing Tronix said...

Marvel wanted Malibu's coloring process? Then Lordy, why are all of Marvel's books, 295% darker and danker than Malibu's ever were?

Wish I knew. They use Malibu's coloring process quite a bit after they first acquired it (however that works), but it seemed to disappear. Moose Bauman (sp?), a name I remember from when I collected their DS9 comics, is working for one of the smaller groups now (I want to say IDW). I wonder if it was Quesada's idea.

It's kind of like when Turner bought Hanna-Barbera (which also obtained Rbuy-Spears prior), and now Time Warner just uses it to make terrible live-action Scooby movies and air content on Boomerang. (Since they're too busy making reality shows to come up with a decent airing schedule on their main network.)

ShadowWing Tronix again said...

Quesada's idea to drop it, I mean.