§ It’s made official at Newsarama. The three long-running titles were part of the “Batman Family” but that family looks to be very dysfunctional after Grant Morrison’s “Batman RIP” storyline wraps up:
While fans are still up in the air about whether or not Batman will actually die at the end of Grant Morrison’s “Batman: R.I.P.” arc, DC has confirmed three casualties for Newsarama.
According to the publisher, the February-shipping issues of Robin, Nightwing and Birds of Prey will be the final issues of the respective series.
As well as being the final issues, Robin #183, Nightwing #153 and Birds of Prey #127 will end eras for Batman-related titles, as each stretches back at least nine years.
Birds of Prey (which debuted in 1999) is currently written by Tony Bedard and follows the adventures of Barbra Gordon, the former Batgirl (now “Oracle”), Black canary and a rotating cast of DC’s female heroes; Nightwing (which debuted in 1996) is written by Peter Tomasi, and Robin (which debuted in 1994) is currently written by Fabian Nicieza.
All three titles were once written by Chuck Dixon, whose sudden removal from the titles has still not been explained. Internet conspiracy theorists thinks this is all tied together somehow, and Rich Johnston says they’re all coming back anyhoo.
§ Newsarama has also started a regular interview series with Dan Didio. In the first one, Didio addressed the Final Crisis situation and took a little heat off of JG Jones:
Also, when J.G. went out there and took the blame for lack of a better term for not being part of the book, that wasn’t really his call. It was my call, and my place to take the blame.
The choice was very simple – we saw how the book was running, and we saw what the schedule was ahead of us. The fact that at a point we were waiting for parts of the script from issues #6 and #7, the reality came to be that we were never going to be able to hit our dates. We know hw quickly JG works, and we knew that going in. I feel bad that JG went out there and took the blame like that, because he shouldn’t have. We all went in with our eyes open and knew how the schedule works. Quite honestly, the decision was made quite a while ago that I wanted to hold the schedule and have the book come out in January, but in doing so, I knew that JG would not be the artist.
I realize this isn’t some kind of original contribution to the discussion, but they have to bring them all back in some way. I mean that’s just, like, cancelling… oh I don’t even know, my brain is soup this week. Tired, jumpy soup.
The best analogy I’ve heard so far is when Marvel cancelled all the X-books during “age of apocalypse” and then brought them all back four months later.
That’s why I think is pretty much going to happen, even if the books have new names.
Please, please, please, enough gimmicks, cross-overs, title-changes etc. Just give creators books and let them create! I for one am tired of editorially driven story-lines. Editors edit, creators create. Capishce?
Also, what a freakin’ great cover that is! Is that Ordway? It’s awesome.
With the cancellation of BIRDS OF PREY, so dies another of the few genuinely fun and readable DC books.
“With the cancellation of BIRDS OF PREY, so dies another of the few genuinely fun and readable DC books.”
Sorry to stray off topic, but “fun” is practically synonymous for “cancer” in mainstream superhero books. Darker stories and tones are in vogue at the moment (and thanks to Dark Knight, for some time to come) and anything remotely marketed or put in the same word as “fun” suffers. That’s just where the world is at the moment and where the stories are going to be. The usual way for a fun book to do well by the usual standards is to sandwich a lot of selling-points such as sex, violence, death, or any combination of them.
That’s what I’ve noticed, anyway.
Back on topic, as said above, this is more than likely a story gimmick and not entirely reflective as sales. They’re all bat-related books, so after the entire “we’re really getting rid of Batman this time, seriously, we’re for-realsies” situation, you can expect these characters to pop up in one way or another. Probably like what they did with JSA and Green Arrow (relaunching as J.S.A. and GA/BC with a new #1) to show a change in direction and because #1s sell relatively better. Proven fact.
I’d be more worried about Blue Beetle right now. The Blue Beetle and Manhunter books are ones that DC claimed to support even though the fans don’t (with sales), and Manhunter just got scrapped.
Cheers.