"Justice League" Turns 50 In DC Comics' April 2016 Solicitations, Harley's Presence Grows & More

[RobinFan4880]

Tomasi hasn't written anything good Superman related. And I'm a fan of his GLC, B&R and Nightwing.

Lobdell is entirely to blame for Teen Titans. A lot of things could've been a mess and they weren't at the start of new 52. Thankfully Tom King isn't leaving. https://twitter.com/TomKingTK/status/689581788218265600

Don't get me wrong, the book sucked but Lobdell shares the blame with the slapdash, haphazard continuity that DC created. You cannot build a teen team whose characters rely on their connection to both the wider DCU and very specific characters without first fleshing those relationships out. DC did not do this. At all. Everything was up in the air at the beginning of the New 52. All of Batman's stories are still canon, right? DC said yes... Then it said no 12 issues in. How long had Bruce been a crime fighter? Jim Lee actually said 10 years! ooopsies! Are the Kents alive? Who knows, Morrison is not telling anyone (including the writers of Superman!). Where is Diana? No one knows because she is, for all intents a purposes, off on an Elseworlds adventure and does not interact with the DCU proper for 30 issues. Tim was Robin, right? Lobdell thought so. The Bat Office retroactively disagreed. Was there another Teen titans team? Lobdell and Johns thought so but Editorial retroactively said no... Then four years later retroactively said yes! Green Lantern wasn't rebooted, right? Well... It is complicated, so complicated that it is best to not ask questions. Where's Wally West? DC said he wasn't coming to the DC, then they created a new character that used Wall's name.

The list goes on and on. DC had no idea what they were doing at the beginning of the New 52. They just needed to shove books out and sort it all out later. Books that relied on continuity the way a Titans book does cannot be successful in this environment. If everything is up in the air, then your hands as a writer are tied, since anything you do say or do with a legacy character/sidekick is libel to be retroactively altered.

It would have been better if DC had not used any legacy characters for the new Titans and instead focused on characters that came with less baggage (i.e. Raven, Beastboy, Bunker, Blue Beetle, Gnarrk, Lilith, Starfire, Static, etc.)

[GlennSimpson]

Geez, sorry you guys are so down on what DC has coming up. All sounds like good fun to me.

As for Lobdell on Titans Hunt, I assume Abnett and his editor had worked all of the plot out ahead of time, so things will probably end up roughly the same.

[Lee Stone]

Ok, let's look at the bright side: it can't get much crappier than this. It reminds me of the days before Flashpoint, when everything stank because they knew that they were rebooting and the uglier were things before the reboot, the more the New52 would seem fine.

You may be onto something.

Looking at the solicits...
It looks like they are gearing up to move Grayson and Batgirl back to Gotham and ending their current status quo.

[Lee Stone]

-Justice League #50

At first I'm upset that I'm down to one DC book, but seeing all the Superman books be tied into yet another dang crossover event really doesn't make me regret my decision in dropping Action Comics and Batman/Superman. Forget it.

Regardless of Lobdell's skills, there's no reason whatsoever to have fill in writers/artists on a mini-series. Ongoings are one thing, but the entire point of minis is to have one complete story told. That thing should have been done, planned and out the door before the first issue hit.

My guess is that Abnett dropped it when DC knocked it down from 12 issues to 8.

[JasonTodd428]

My guess is that Abnett dropped it when DC knocked it down from 12 issues to 8.

That's my guess as well.

[Mister Ferro]

You may be onto something.

Looking at the solicits...
It looks like they are gearing up to move Grayson and Batgirl back to Gotham and ending their current status quo.

After the ending of Robin War? I don't see that happening just yet.

Plus the Wonder Bros. are tweeting about something big happening with Dick.

As for Batgirl, she's been in Gotham this whole time.

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Taking a more optimistic look at things, maybe DC has good things planned with new and exciting creative teams for books that are failing and retaining the creative teams that are doing a good job so far. Maybe April and June are filler, so that the new/retained creative teams have plenty of time to avoid delays.

[Cowtools]

Oh goody, another multipart Superman crossover. Just what we needed...

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Maybe with the failure of Titans Hunt and Lois & Clark, DC has realized that they can't rely on Pre-52 nostalgia to sell books. Maybe.

So many maybes.

[vartox]

A lot of this feels like filler and lulls for a couple months before new teams/books/relaunches/directions happen.

I'm bummed Seeley and King are off Grayson for the foreseeable future but they do sound like they have some cool stuff planned at least.

[Lee Stone]

After the ending of Robin War? I don't see that happening just yet.

Plus the Wonder Bros. are tweeting about something big happening with Dick.

As for Batgirl, she's been in Gotham this whole time.

I mean back to Gotham's Batfamily central and more traditional superhero stuff...
A costume for Dick, more Justice League/Batman style art on Batgirl...
That sort of thing.

[Badou]

The New 52 was a mess and Lobdell wasn't allowed to use certain character, like Static, but he still wrote the ones he had very badly. He turned Tim into a very unlikable character, made the entire DC fanbase hate him for how he wrote Starfire and forced in some relationship with Roy, he turned Superboy's character into a convoluted mess that his character is still dealing with, Cassie is some thief now with magic armor, Bart is isn't named Bart anymore, and Raven was evil manipulating everyone but then suddenly good and is never brought up again. I don't know if anyone could have really succeeded given the circumstances, but he sort of went beyond not succeeding.

Still, he has written the Titans character vastly more than anyone else in the whole reboot. So it isn't really a surprise they go back to him again since they already put him back on all the other Titans related books for a second time. I think it just shows that Abnett lost the drive to see his mini series to the end and wanted to go ahead and move on to something else. DC seems to have a lot of big things planned after May so maybe Abnett wanted to focus on those upcoming plans rather than Titans Hunt.

[SkyMason21]

I'm interest to see what happens in May and June with a number of DCYou books likely to end. DC's lack of consistency and commitment is really irritating, hasn't effected my pull much but it's really disappointing to see. Not at all surprised to see most of the Vertigo minis being cut to 6 issues (glad Sheriff of Babylon got bump to 12 from 8 though).

Black Canary #11
Catwoman #51 (Gonna give it a shot after hearing good things about the first two issues)
Constantine Hellblazer #11 (Slowly creeping into my top 2 DCYou titles, art is consistently fantastic and always has great fill-in artists)
Cyborg #10
DC Bombshells #11
Dr Fate #11
Justice League #50
Martian Manhunter #11
Midnighter #11
New Suicide Squad #19
Omega Men #11
Starfire #11
Superman Lois & Clark #7
Teen Titans #19
Poison Ivy Cycle of Life & Death #4
We Are Robin #11
Legend of Wonder Woman #4
Clean Room #7
Sheriff of Babylon #5
Survivors' Club #7
Unfollow #6
Suiciders Kinds of Hell.A #2

[solletaire]

I mean back to Gotham's Batfamily central and more traditional superhero stuff...
A costume for Dick, more Justice League/Batman style art on Batgirl...
That sort of thing.

Oh, I hope not!

I am a huge fan of having different art styles... that was one of the most off putting things for me so far with DC, for the longest time all their comics looked the same...

Greyson is the most interesting Dick has been in a while...

[Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever]

Batgirl should be relaunched with the same creative team. They lost readers after the Convergence break, but a relaunch can make up for that.