Rebirth missing in Action: Where is Cyborg, John Stewart, Jakeem Thunder, BL...

[iron chimp]

You're not listening to me.

What happens when Bendis leaves or isn't writing those books anymore? Is DC going to continue supporting those characters the way they support Superman or Wonder Woman regardless of who is writing them?

I am listening perfectly well.

Complete artistic freedom by some of biggest names in comics isn't enough support. It needs something "significant" to happen.

So now it's ok.. there may be something "significant" happening to ... yes but what then ...

The thread (not you personally) has literally gone from there are no black lead books to "but after this potentially universe changing event in a black lead book by the creator of Miles Morales then what.."

I see...

The safest thing is to keep that $4 in your pocket.

[Tenzel Kim]

Cyborg has a strong track record in regards to sales. But like every other comic his sales dip as time passes but DC just didn't make the right choices to boost his sales. When Marv Wolfman came back to write Cyborg after it was cancelled the solicitation copy was terribled. If I was a comic shop owner I wouldn't have order heavy either on that issue. But Cyborg # 22 sold out the week it came out because fans really seemed to like the new villain Mekkan X. And today it's still selling above cover price on Ebay. But instead of trying to capitalise on the popularity of Mekkan X, like Marvel would have done they instead cancelled Cyborg with issue # 23. Like I said if this was Marvel, Mekkan X would have had his own mini-series by now.

Not sure I agree with this. Yes, his own series started off strong but it dropped very quickly. By issue 6 it was below 25,000 copies and by issue 10 it had dropped below 15,000 copies. I agree that the solicitation copy for Wolfman's return wasn't very good and the cancellation and restart most definitely didn't help, but to claim that issue 22 was a success because it sold out or that fans seemed to like Mekkan X seems like wishful thinking. It sold out because very few copies were printed and DC does not do a lot of overprinting on their books, especially not on low selling ones and Cyborg #22 sold just over 8,000 copies, so little in fact that they ended the series mid-story, with the last issue indicating that the story would continue in the next issue which would never show up. Usually the creative team are told to wrap things up quickly or to do very short stories so that they can easily be cut off if the series does not improve.

Honestly I think Cyborg would have been better served by having his book actually fully cancelled after issue 20 and been put to rest for a while until they got a good pitch that wasn't just Cyborg vs. another tech-villain. That's been their go-to pitch most of the time and gets old very quickly. They need someone to take Cyborg in a direction that is less obvious and should have done so with a new number 1 after giving him a bit of a break.

Also, again, sales for Cyborg solo series has been strong. His first solo debuted with about 52,000 copies order, Cyborg Rebirth 62,000, Cyborg # 1 about 52,000. JLO which is basically a Cyborg book debuted with about 42,000. And the recent mini-series DCeased which is a Cyborg lead book debuted with 240,000 copies order. So Cyborg can generate sales. But I want to read a Cyborg solo book. Team books haven't been good for a long time.

What the strong start of Cyborg shows is that there was quite a bit of interest in reading a book with Cyborg as the star. The quick decline in sales showed that it needs a strong vision to keep people interested. Being Cyborg is in itself not enough to generate sales. The strong sales of JLO and DCeased are hardly because of the inclusion of Cyborg. JLO got a good start as a result of it tying to the Justice League: No Justice event and from being a Justice League book. It is still the worst selling Justice League book though and doing under 25,000 copies at present. DCeased was not marketed as a Cyborg-lead book and so far he has only been shown as the means to start the spread the virus. In fact he has not been mentioned in any of the solicitation copy at all and has not been seen on any of the covers.

[Aahz]

Also, again, sales for Cyborg solo series has been strong. His first solo debuted with about 52,000 copies order, Cyborg Rebirth 62,000, Cyborg # 1 about 52,000.

If you look what the Rebirth Issues of other characters sold 62,000 is not that impressive.
And the first issue of his first solo (from 2015) sold only 45.000 issues, which is not a great start.

And #1 issues have allways sales numbers that are way higher than what the later issues will sell. You see typically the sales numbers drop to something between 30% and 50% (in case of Rebirth the drops probably even bigger since the initial numbers were completely crazy) of the sales of the first issue before the sale numbers stabilise. So best case scenario for Cyborg based on the sales of the #1 issues would have still just been somewhere in in the 20K region.

[Godlike13]

The main Justice League book is not about character development, it is about massive events.

And honestly if they would use the book to develop C-list characters, the readers would be rightfully pissed about that.

That’s what Titans is for...

[Vampire Savior]

Cyborg's last solo series dropped to about 8,000 or 9,000 unit sales before it was cancelled, so I don't think we should try to spin it as a sales success.

[king81992]

That’s what Titans is for...

DC used the Titans book to derail everyone everyone who was involved.

[iron chimp]

Couldnt even support David f Walker or Jamal Campbell who is on fire. Couldnt even acknowledge their book existed.

[Aahz]

Also, again, sales for Cyborg solo series has been strong. His first solo debuted with about 52,000 copies order, Cyborg Rebirth 62,000, Cyborg # 1 about 52,000.

I just looked it up, Cyborg Rebirth #1, was (if I didn't overlook anything) the lowest selling Rebirth issue. That's kind of the opposite of being a strong seller.

[Wakeneuron]

I just looked it up, Cyborg Rebirth #1, was (if I didn't overlook anything) the lowest selling Rebirth issue. That's kind of the opposite of being a strong seller.

Well, it's still better than the numbers produced by the recent Hawkman and Martian Manhunter Series. Martian Manhunter only had about 42,000 copies ordered even with 3 variants for the first issue. And as I stated before Cyborg's first solo series in the DCu era had about 52,000 copies ordered with only 2 variants. And the recent DCeased mini-series had 242,000 copies ordered for issue # 1 which focused on a techo virus similar to the ones in the Singularity Aftermath storyline in the last Cyborg solo book written by John Semper jr.

[Arsenal]

I don’t think Dceased’s success has anything to do with Cyborg.

I legit forgot he was even in the series.

[Wakeneuron]

I don’t think Dceased’s success has anything to do with Cyborg.

I legit forgot he was even in the series.

About a month or so before DCeased was released DC put out promo pages featuring Cyborg.

DC.fandom.com/wiki/DCeased

Cyborg is listed as a featured character while the other members of the Justice League are listed in supporting roles. Without going into spoilers Cyborg was basically the reason why the Zombie crisis happened. And comic shop retailers knew Cyborg was going to be the main character weeks before FOC because of the preview that DC released featuring Cyborg. So I would say that the preview that DC released helped upped the orders of DCeased # 1 to 240,000 copies.

DCeased_01_preview1.jpg

[Vampire Savior]

Couldnt even support David f Walker or Jamal Campbell who is on fire. Couldnt even acknowledge their book existed.

No matter how many times I tell you this, you do not listen. This isn't about editornial freedom.

Okay. The reason Naomi is being published is because Brian Michael Bendis has a black daughter or black daughters, so he clearly has black females playing huge roles in his life, and he seems to value their perspective. Take Brian Michael Bendis out of the equation and *poof*, in all probability Naomi is going to disappear.

Now imagine that Brian Michael Bendis writes a Wonder Woman series. Now take Brian Michael Bendis away from Wonder Woman. What happens? Wonder Woman keeps on trucking!

Here's what this means:
DC Comics likely doesn't care enough about Naomi to continue publishing that character even after Bendis leaves. (Honestly, I'm not positive on all the conditions and legalities of Naomi, but let's pretend that DC has total unbridled use of the character).

DC Comics cares enough about Wonder Woman to keep her in constant publication and constantly at or near the forefront of their publishing company.

The black character does not take priority here. As has always been the case with DC, the white characters do. There just currently happens to be a big name writer at DC who cares about writing a black female right now. This does not mean that DC is particularly interested in the black female character. They are more so interested in the writer.

I hold that black characters are not prioritized at DC. I don't even know how anybody can even debate that.

[Wakeneuron]

Maybe DC is taking their cues from their parent company Warner Bros. In the comic book movie genre it seems that Warner Bros idea of diversity according to their rumored and real comic book movie line up is Harley Quinn, Supergirl, and Batgirl but not Vixen, Bronze Tiger, Static, Rocket, Icon or Cyborg. It's kind of surprising that Warner Bros have not lined up a Black solo Superhero movie for released in the near future because they do regularly put out regular movies with African Americans in the lead role.

[Ascended]

I hold that black characters are not prioritized at DC. I don't even know how anybody can even debate that.

IS anyone debating that? Because it's pretty obvious.

The question I ask is whether that's due to the fact that there's some inherent racism in the company culture, or if they just prioritize their biggest, most profitable IP's and tunnel vision on those brands, who all happen to be white because they were created eighty years ago. Either way its BS of course, but I'd rather believe its just bad business. That, at least, is innocent, while there's no excuse for racism.

[Ascended]

Maybe DC is taking their cues from their parent company Warner Bros. In the comic book movie genre it seems that Warner Bros idea of diversity according to their rumored and real comic book movie line up is Harley Quinn, Supergirl, and Batgirl but not Vixen, Bronze Tiger, Static, Rocket, Icon or Cyborg. It's kind of surprising that Warner Bros have not lined up a Black solo Superhero movie for released in the near future because they do regularly put out regular movies with African Americans in the lead role.

They were planning on doing a Cyborg solo film, but Justice League's failure put a stop to that. Shame too, Fisher's Cyborg was one of the few highlights that movie had.