DC--Use Them Or Lose Them!

As you no doubt ignored last week, I opined about Marvel wasting all of the Malibu and Crossgen characters that they owned but refused to do anything with.

Well, this week it's DC's turn.

Except the intellectual properties DC refuses to do anything with are their very own.

DC controls the vastest, deepest, and honestly most interesting collections of heroes ever assembled. Yet to get them to publish anything besides Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman seems a Sisyphean task.

It's now almost two years since Rebirth, and after all of the the shirt-rending (by the people in charge) about how someone (other than themselves) had forgotten all about legacy and DC's deep history, there's still no Legion Of Super-Heroes book. There's still no Justice Society book.

Heroes who have been mainstays of DC for nearly 80 years, and 60 years, languish in limbo. Hell, we just passed the 60th anniversary of the Legion's first appearance without a single commemoration from DC!

Yes, we were sorta kinda promised that these guys would be brought back by the storytelling magic of Rebirth. But it's all been a terrible, terrible tease.

In the two years after Rebirth, we've had, what, 3 panels in various comics suggesting that Saturn Girl is hiding in Arkham? We've had, what, 2 pages of apparently-senile Johnny Thunder rambling about not finding the lightning? That's it, over two years.

Now, if you believe the rumors (unconfirmed, but undenied), than DC wanted to sign a big-name writer, who wanted to do the Legion. But then they were told (allegedly) that no one could touch the Legion, or the JSA, until Geoff Johns was done with Doomsday Clock, the ludicrous and pointless DC/Watchmen crossover. And, as of this writing, there are still 8 bi-monthly issues of Doomsday Clock left to publish, well, we're not going to see Legion or JSA any time soon.

It's the height of stupidity, whatever the reason. The DC TV shows can bring in the JSA and the Legion...but the comics can't? Seriously, that's one of the more ridiculous situations in comics. It's even more ridiculous than Marvel's refusal to print a Fantastic Four comic because of some fit of pique.

DC's not in danger of losing the trademarks, as Marvel is with Malibu/Crossgen, because they continue to publish trades/omnibuses. That would seem to indicate some sort of public demand, right? But no comics, no new stories for the fans.

Meanwhile...

...don't get me started on DC's continued neglect of the Marvel Family...