Big Two Comics

Creators, talent, architects, makers...maybe we should just call them the Bullpen.

I'll make it short and sweet: creators have to create. Marvel and DC no longer allow them to do that, except within rigidly proscribed guidelines. And the Paolo Riveras of the world are going to have to move on. It might not be too long before the Big Two are just steppingstones to get your name out there for even bigger things.

At iFanboy, Josh Flanagan brings up an issue that we often mention at BarCon:Are There Any Superstar Comic Artists Left?:

Four titles will end, and four will begin! What will they be? And what's a Zero Issue, anyway

DC have made it official that the much-discussed 'iconic' superhero who will be homosexual in their new 52 Universe... is original Green Lantern Alan Scott.

Or: how did we get here anyway? Chris Eckert does something we're surprised more anal retentive fans internet researchers haven't done, and collates Five Years Later: The Oral History of Countdown to Final Crisis using the plethora of internet interviews that flooded the comics internets in the innocent days of 2007. Although, as Eckert points out, a lot of material from that era has been removed, including most of Newsarama and The Pulse, to name but two. So what was Countdown?

Over at iFanboy, Jim Mroczkowski points out that the battle between Good and Wednesday has been very clearly won by Wednesday, with both Marvel and DC sticking to schedules even if it means the artist rosters are in constant flux:

Listen to Heidi MacDonald, The Beat herself, discuss 2011 in comics on a special year-end edition of More To Come, the PW Comics World podcast! As you may or may not know, Heidi has been one of the hosts of our bi-weekly comics news podcast for the past several months. In this episode, Heidi MacDonald and her co-hosts PW Comics World editor Calvin Reid and I discuss the biggest trends and events of the past year, including...

When DC announced the 52 relaunch, there were a handful of titles I was concerned about: Xombi, Legion of Super-Heroes, Jonah Hex and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. As it turns out, the only one I got burned on was the criminally under-appreciated Xombi. Last week, the new volume of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents came out. The first question is: "Did the last series count or is this a total reboot?"

These days, it seems like three years on a title is a good run. Brian Michael Bendis is calling it a day with eight years on the Avengers titles. In an interview with Comic Book Resources, Bendis says:

By Todd Allen What is it about the Legion of Super-Heroes that pulls in ex-Marvel editor-in-chiefs.  Roy Thomas wrote it.  Gerry Conway wrote it.  Jim Shooter came back for another run.  Now Tom DeFalco is...

I happened across Iron Man 2.0 Vol. 1: Palmer Addley Is Dead at the library and thought I'd give it a go. I'd given the monthly version a look, but it hadn't held my attention. Sometimes, a comic reads better as a book and I've enjoyed Nick Spencer's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and Infinite Vacation.