All of us have holiday traditions: some of us watch A Charlie Brown Christmas each year, some of politely ask the three major shared comics universes (Marvel, DC, Valiant) to make some changes to their comic lines to please our interests. Wanna guess which one we are doing today?
We turn our sights to Burbank today, and give DC some of our thoughts about the direction their company is going. If you have any further suggestions, leave them in the comments!
So, without any further ado:
Zach Wilkerson
Give us a Legion of Super Heroes ongoing by an all-star creative team
It’s time for Legion to shine, folks. If you’ve ever listen to the DC3Cast you’ve probably heard this song and dance before. The property is ripe for a modern day reimagining, thanks to its large and diverse cast, futuristic setting, and rich history. Get Jonathan Hickman or the Tom King that wrote “Vision” and “Omega Men” to pen it. Get someone like Otto Schmidt, Riley Rossmo, or Evan Shaner to draw. Give it a Justice League sized marketing push. Make. This. Book. Work.
Make Green Lantern feel special
Ever since Geoff Johns left Green Lantern, and arguably well before that, Green Lantern has been in a steady state of decline from the golden years of “Rebirth,” “Sinestro Corps War,” and “Blackest Night.” Unfortunately, none of the current Rebirth magic has shone on the franchise. We’ve seen glimmers of greatness, particularly from Tom King’s efforts on “Omega Men” and “Darkseid War: Green Lantern.” These two stories that get to the heart of what makes the Lanterns great without relying heavily on Johns’ work, something that continues to hold back the current Green Lantern books. I want to see the series get a hard shake up in 2017.
Vince Ostrowski
More curated lines
Young Animal was such a stroke of genius that it has me frothing for Warren Ellis’ ‘Wildstorm’ line in ways that are not safe for work for me to type out. It has me thinking that you could actually condense the “Rebirth” line a little bit and run more tangential material, but only if it’s carefully curated. The long-rumored, long-teased Milestone line of books that’s supposed to be released as “Earth M” in the near future? Well, what if it were Reginald Hudlin acting in the Gerard Way/Warren Ellis role? Hell, this one might even be happening already. How about we dream bigger?
I know he’s busy with “Heavy Metal” among other things, but as long as we’re dreaming, what if Grant Morrison were allowed to make “The Multiversity” an ongoing imprint of else-earths DC Comics titles, with creative teams and titles of his choosing? Could you imagine the writers and artists he could attract? What if Marguerite Bennett was given a “DC Comics Bombshells” line of titles, so we could get even more variety in our cape comics?
I think DC is really on to something with these curated lines: they’re good for the company and they’re good for creator-publisher relations. If they produce something half as good as ‘Young Animal’, they’d be worth it, in my estimation.
Ken Godberson III
Young Just Us
Listen. You didn’t take advantage of this the first time. But with the announcement of Season 3 coming, along with reprints of the original David/Nauck work, it seems to be the Young Justice generation will be getting their own Rebirth in 2017. My wish is simple: Don’t Screw It Up.
Legion of Super-Heroes: The Force Awakens
This has been a long time coming. We need more optimistic science fiction in our comics. We need books to challenge us. We need a future that -while not perfect- is hopeful. We need the Legion back. Problem is the the miasma of continuity that franchise is constantly stuck in. This is a solution that I’m kind of piggybacking from an article on CBR, but it is an interesting idea: Make a Next Generation of the Legion. If DC Rebirth is about bringing the legacy back, why not have that impact the far future too? Why not go further beyond 3017 and see those that inherit the original mantles of Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy, and Lightning Lad?
Continued belowRobbie Pleasant
Mix up the Justice League a bit
The Justice League has had a wide array of members throughout its history, but it always seems to come back to a core group: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, and Aquaman. There’s an extra slot that can vary now and then, but it looks like Cyborg is the current go-to for that. What’s the current team? Pretty much just that, but with two different Green Lanterns.
Look, that’s all well and good, but there are more heroes we can see in action. We’ve had the JLA, JLI, JLD, different Justice League teams for different nations, all with a variety of superheroes that bring a new dynamic. I’d like to see more of that, so we can see different heroes working together. I get that you need the core team to hype up the movies, but we can always have more Justice Leagues. (“New Super-Man” is already providing us with a Justice League China, albeit one with its own versions of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, though it’s still a fantastic comic.)
Bring back Booster Gold
Okay, this is a selfish wish, but I love Booster Gold. The last I saw of him was when the classic Booster and New 52 Booster met during “Convergence,” and while classic Booster ended up becoming Waverider, at least we still have the New 52 one around to have his own adventures.
Heck, Ted Kord is alive and well in the pages of “Blue Beetle,” let’s have them meet up – give us the Blue and the Gold all over again! (I’m going to forget about the time New 52 Booster Gold met and attacked Jaime Reyes, because that was the issue that made me rage quit the New 52 “Blue Beetle” comics.) The pre-Flashpoint versions of them appeared in “Justice League 3000” for a time, but even then they were mostly off doing their own side things in the background.
So it may just be me wishing for this, but DC, please give us more Booster Gold.
Alice W. Castle
Kill The Double Shipping
DC had an amazing year with Rebirth ushering in a new era of stories that people actually want to read again. As per my main request last year, Superman and Wonder Woman were revitalised with good stories from great creators that allowed books focusing on the rest of the main DC cast like “The Flash” and “Green Lantern”s to flourish.
There’s one problem, though: double shipping. Double shipping the majority of your books every month only accomplishes two things: it puts your readers out in the cold in a shitty economic environment where they end up only buying a small margin of your books if they want to read anything from other companies and it means books need to rely on multiple artists each month leaving art inconsistent from issue to issue. It is a lose/lose/lose situation and you need to bite the bullet and dump it before people start realising that no book is worth two issues a month.
You have some great creative teams. Stop fucking that up by forcing double shipping that requires guest artists because, guess what, no one can make those kinds of deadlines. Trust in the stories and trust in the creators instead of milking everyone for an extra $2.99 a month.
Brian Salvatore
Magic in 2017
Aside from “The Hellblazer,” DC’s magical characters have no place to call home right now. And, yes, Constantine and (to a lesser extent) Swamp Thing do count, they aren’t who I’m talking about. We haven’t seen Zatanna, Shazam, the Phantom Stranger, the Spectre – you get my point. But I don’t just want those characters back; I want a Shadowpact series in 2017.
Stop laughing. Hear me out.
While it would be easy to just re-launch “Justice League Dark” (and I assure you, they will do that around the time of the film’s release), the Shadowpact is different. I want the covert, operating out of a bar team with the full monty of magic weirdness: Detective Chimp, Blue Devil, Ragman, the works. And here is how you tie it into the current line: Shazam is the Justice League envoy to the team. You get to have all the fun ‘Billy Batson is a fish out of water’ business and you still can keep all the weird.
Continued belowThe kicker? Put in Zatanna as the leader, giving DC something they’ve lacked in a long time: a female-led team that isn’t just made up of women. The presence of Zatanna and Shazam will help the book, sales wise, initially, and you can (and should) spin those two off into their own solo series six months or a year down the line.
Keep Superman in focus
‘Rebirth’ has, rightly, kept Superman squarely in the spotlight of the line. While “Action Comics” is a glorified dumpster fire, “Superman” has been tops, and has gotten the character back to what he used to be: the moral center of the DC Universe. DC can’t afford to lose sight of that and shove him back into the ghetto that he was residing in for the last 10 years.
When Superman is working, DC feels like DC. It is that simple.
Mend more bridges
It has been wonderful to see folks like Greg Rucka, Christopher Priest, and Warren Ellis return home to DC, after years away. With Marvel on the ropes, now is the time for DC to make amends and bring back the two men at Marvel who represent DC so thoroughly in their bones that it is still weird to see them write for the House of Ideas.
Bring back Mark Waid and James Robinson.
You’re almost poised perfectly for them, too. In a few months, give Wally West his own series, written by Waid. When the JSA comes back? Give ’em to Robinson. These are the characters these guys were meant to write, and you have openings for them to do exactly that.
So, DiDio, Lee: get on your knees, pucker up, and cash out your stock options. Pull out all the stops. Bring ’em back.
