The Slow Death of DC Comics

Or at least my interest in them. I was always a DC guy. I like Batman, Green Lantern, the Flash, and the JSA in all their old man glory. Its a shame I can't buy them anymore.

When DC rebooted their comic line after Flashpoint I wasn't reading much in the way of comics. I was still getting the Green Lantern books, The Legion of Superheroes  Adventure Comics, Criminal when it came out but not much else. Shadowland had pushed me out of the Marvel universe. My interest in the corporate books had slowly drained out and there wasn't much in the way of creator owned comics that I was interested in.. I was almost out. Then we got the New 52 and I was back on board. The promise of a fresh start for the entire line was enough and I picked up half of the initial offernigs. Of course that didn't last long. I didn't get second issues on some but I stuck with so much more than I was expecting to.

There was energy to the books again. Because of the reboot we didn't know everything for a change. It was refreshing. Then about 6 months in things started to get stale again. I started dropping books that had just been spinning their wheels since the relaunch. Teen Titans and Superboy never really went anywhere. Green Lantern just seemed to be a staging ground for whatever event was coming. Action Comics was a mess. And some books were just terrible. *coughcoughlegionlostcough* So my pull list from DC shrank. Then they canceled a round of books, but from their second wave there was books I was interested in. Then they canceled books, and that third wave? Well, there's Talon. Its pretty good.

So at this point I'm getting the following

Batman
Nightwing
Talon
Animal Man
Swamp Thing
All Star Western
Wonder Woman
Legion of SuperHeroes

And I plan to drop Animal Man and Swamp Thing when Rotworld is over. I've enjoyed them but its taken way too long to get to where we are. Combine that with Scott Snyder leaving Swampy and I'm out. I'm also feeling the shine come off Batman but I'm hoping that's just all the set up we've had on the Joker story and it'll bear fruit. I haven't read Legion in... probably a year by now. I'll continue to get it because I do like The Legion, I just fell behind. And I've got a hell of a Legion run going, no reason to mess that up.

So I'm moving on from DC. But unlike where I was when the New 52 happened I'm reading a lot more from other publishers. I'm getting BPRD, Saga, The Manhattan Projects, Fatale, Prophet and some other minis. I love Brian Wood's Conan The Barbarian. I even jumped into Marvel with both feet thanks to Marvel Now and have been pleasantly surprised. Hickman's Avengers is good, Aaron's Thor is good, Waid's Hulk is good. Remender's Captain America is trippy and fun. I'm even enjoying Bendis' All New X-Men, a title which seems to really suit his style.

Goodbye DC. I hope you get your act together. I miss the characters.