Words in Balloons

Welcome back to another semester of Words In Balloons. This year is shaping up to be a huge year for comics with Marvel’s big Avengers vs. X-Men comic coming up and The Dark Knight Rises being released in the summer.

Nothing is more important to watch this year, though, than how the DC Comics re-launch from last September pans out in the long run. The re-launch is now five months in, and so far, the overall results have mostly been great.

This past week, DC announced the first casualties of the line with six titles being canceled, including Static Shock and Mister Terrific. It’s not shocking that they were canned, as they continually showed up at the bottom of sales lists, but it’s a shame to see any titles go, especially ones like those two that star heroes of non-Caucasian backgrounds.

Surprisingly, these titles will be replaced by six new titles in May after their final issues in April, showing that DC is serious about keeping the re-launch fresh.

The re-launch has also been a major success for DC in terms of sales. While their totals still lagged behind Marvel at the end of the year, they have benefited from releasing digital versions of all their comics the same day as their print release. Marvel still won’t have day-and-date digital until March, giving DC a six-month lead.

The re-launch has also resulted in a huge boom in creativity. Before, you could go a week ignoring DC’s new releases. Now, it feels like every week they release something awesome. Comics like Wonder Woman, for instance, show the characters at their best while throwing new ideas into back stories; her reworked origin (now a daughter of Zeus instead of a statue given life) finally gives her a sense of humanity and a driving purpose to her character.

Still, nothing out of DC’s 52 new books beats Animal Man. Writer Jeff Lemire creates a strange blend of horror, super heroics and family ties that mixes with the bizarre artwork of artist Travel Foreman into the most fun and disturbing series coming out these days. If you check out anything from the new 52, make it this.

The only serious flaw with the re-launch is that many titles could have come out from DC without the reboot hubbub. Green Lantern, for instance, picked up exactly where its story left off.

If the re-launch was supposed to be a good jumping-on point for new readers, why continue ongoing stories? It makes the whole thing feel even more like a marketing stunt.

That quibble aside, the re-launch has so far provided new stuff every month. It will be interesting to see if DC can maintain this fresh feeling throughout the year. But, as of five months in, it makes walking into a comic shop like walking into a candy store.