The Shark: May 2008 Archives

There is nothing sacred or original in DC Comics anymore.

I'd like to use this post as an opportunity to announce my formal decision to cease all future purchases of DC Comics mainstream titles and stories. I've been turned off by a lot of the poor writing in Flash and JLA the last few years anyway, but this is the clincher that has turned me from apathy to a definite "anti-DC" stance.


Ever since Superman died and resurrected, this card has been played far too often in comic bookdom, especially in DC continuity. It was okay when Supes did it. I even thought Hal's death (as Parallax) and resurrection (as Spectre) was really clever. But now it's Steel. And then it's Hal back as Green Lantern. For a while, the only sacred deaths that meant anything anymore, that were to remain untouched, were Jason Todd and Barry Allen. Eventually even Jason came back by "punching through time," a gimmick that, I'm convinced, only existed as a means to boost sales -- because it was too lame to come off as any notion of a good idea for a story.

Only Barry remained. The man who risked everything to save a thousand worlds. The man whose death was almost as magnificent as his well-written "life" was. But they just couldn't leave him be.


Damn you, DC. Damn you, Grant Morrison, for taking one of my all-time favorite stories and cheapening it by undoing it. This silly gimmick is causing death to mean nothing anymore -- for who is afraid of dying when they can inevitably come back to life? Don't even get me started on the reintroduction of the multiverse. What was that whole "Crisis" for, anyway?


No more. I will no more spend my money and invest my interest in stories that simply recycle themselves and don't go anywhere anymore. If DC's writers and executives don't know how to take a character and actually DEVELOP him rather than hitting the reset button over and over again, then they don't know how to make me pull out my wallet. How can I be true to a character whose writers aren't true to him?


Elseworlds-type one-shots and minis are still potential purchases as they are untouchable by the bastardized mainstream of DC continuity, but if I ever get back into regular comics reading, I'm afraid you'll only find me picking up Marvel titles (not that they haven't played the resurrection card at all, but it has been much less frequent).


DC Comics, you have officially lost a customer.