Thursday, November 13, 2008

Blue Beetle Canceled


Thought I'd share a quick bit regarding Didio's announcement regarding Blue Beetle:

One of the books that I’m most disappointed about in that regard is a book like Blue Beetle, which we are cancelling. That’s a book that we started with very high expectations, but it lost its audience along the way. Recently, we felt that it was standing on firmer ground, and was getting a more positive response. The problem is that the firmer ground and positive response is not enough to keep the book afloat. So unfortunately, we had to cancel that series.

You put Matt Sturges on the book and pretty much immediately had an arc about illegal immigration/border-crossing. When that happens right after a writer change, it feels a little dubious. If it happened in the middle of Rogers' run, I wouldn't have raised a brow. If it happened after a half year of the new team, maybe I'd be fine with it. But it turned me off immediately to where I dropped it quickly.

I can deal with message books, but not when they're heavy-handed. Blame Winick, but I've been made very wary of the overall quality of a story in a message book. Having it be about the first thing of an announced new direction (right after the Spanish language gimmick issue), didn't send signals that would leave me hopeful.

7 comments:

  1. Such a bummer. I only read a handful of DC books, and two of them (Blue Beetle and Manhunter) have now been canceled. Here's hoping Jonah Hex isn't next in line.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Did you read the border issues? They were not heavy-handed. They were character centric, and felt like an editorial mandate that was turned around, and given a vitak sign. Matt Sturges wrote a wonderful arc, and people jumped without giving him a chance. Look what happened. Blue Beetle really did feel like a hip book to read, and this just proves it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Did the blogger even read the issues in question? Because I certainly did and nowhere in the story have they actually go and preach anything other than that science beats supervillainy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You're arguing against something that wasn't said.

    I'm not saying that the stories wound up that way. I'm saying that when there's all that change on the title at once, with the gimmick language issue and then the solicitations for the illegal immigration stuff, it gave the impression that things were taking a downturn.

    That's part of why I referenced how Winick has led me to be "once bitten, twice shy" on such things. So it made it a convenient place to exit a series that obviously wasn't much longer for the publishing world.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "You're arguing against something that wasn't said."

    But that's the easiest way to argue...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh, Khuxford has never let things like "facts" get in the way of his conspiracy theories.

    F The C

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ever the lazy reader, eh, FtC?

    ReplyDelete

It is preferred that you sign some sort of name to your posts, rather than remain completely anonymous. Even if it is just an internet nickname/alias, it makes it easier to get to know the people that post here. I hope you all will give it some consideration. Thank you.