Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Weeding The Garden

A couple of weeks ago, I pondered how DC was going to be able to pull off 15--yes, fifteen--Flashpoint miniseries and "several" one-shots. I was worried about flooding the market, and I was curious where they'd find the talent to produce that much extra material.

Well, one of the shoes has dropped. As the May solicits reveal, DC seems to be clearing away a lot of the deadwood, clearing the decks, as it were, to make room for Flashpoint-a-palooza.

May will see the final issues of Batman And The Outsiders, Doom Patrol, Freedom Fighters, R.E.B.E.L.S, and JSA All-Stars.

It's not exactly the DC Implosion, but 5 cancelled mags is a lot for one month. Given the timing, it's hard not to jump to the conclusion that DC is freeing up resources and clearing rack space for the summer's 50+ issue Flashpoint power dump.

The question is, are they done yet? Or will more titles be on the chopping block in June?

5 comments:

Bill said...

Now that's just a damn shame. This Doom Patrol run has been excellent.

Lazarus Lupin said...

Color me surprised there's still a Batman and the Outsiders? Wow.

delenore said...

Bleh. I have also been enjoying the current run of Doom Patrol and am quite annoyed to see it being axed. On the plus side, I'm not going to buy any of the House of M, er, um, I mean flashpoint comics, so at least I won't have to pony up cash for that.

snell said...

Lazarus--it was just called Outsiders this time around, but apparently they're changing the tilte back to Batman and the Outsiders for the last issue...

Siskoid said...

There has never been an Outsiders comic I've liked, so that's no problem. JSA All-Stars is a redundancy, and Freedom Fighters just can't seem to get off the ground. No biggie, though it's sad for Golden Age properties.

I'll miss Doom Patrol and REBELS, though both books are kinda spinning their wheels lately. DP is confusing to new readers for sure, and REBELS' story lines are on repeat (Starro AGAIN?!). Still, where will I get my DP and Vril Dox fix every month?

Not likely, but DC COULD have cut into the Bat and Green Lantern Families a little (not that they're anywhere as bad as Marvel when it comes to over publishing properties that have made it to the silver screen).