DC Troubles

So if the recent Lying in the Gutters story is correct, DC is falling into disarray. It is very disappointing to me. There was so much momentum behind its line right now. And it may all be for naught.

First is:

“The last issue of "Final Crisis" is further delayed as it is suffering from serious rewrites. It appears that DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio was unhappy with the way the story concluded and the implications for the DC Universe for a while and had ordered changes from a, naturally, rather unhappy Grant Morrison. Considering this is the way he wrote the pitch for the book.

As a result, creative teams working on a number of spinoff and affected books have also had to stop work while the “Final Crisis” ending is reworked.

Expect more lateness, more annoyance and less likelihood of Grant Morrison doing DCU work in the near future.”

DiDio has set the entire future of the DCU on this book. Remember when Countdown was the “spine” of the DCU and it got scoliosis and cracked a vertebrae. Now Final Crisis (“Heroes Die, Legends Live Forever”) is in disarray. And late. Very very late. We didn’t get an issue in September and it doesn’t look like we will get one in November, either. The first 3 issues were a jumbled mess of bits and pieces. “You need to have read Morrison’s stuff to understand it.” Well, that’s not good for the casual reader. What about the people who don’t like Morrison (and I can understand why)? They have been pushed away from this, DC’s big story setting up the future.

And now Morrison may be pissed and leaving the DCU. Well, that’s fine and dandy except for the fact that he has spent a long time carefully crafting Batman RIP. Is it now going to fall to just anyone to pick up the pieces and make a story out of it?

Also, if the end of Final Crisis didn’t fit in with the direction the DCU is going, does anyone know what’s going on? At least at Marvel, I have the feeling that they know where they are going for the next year. DC seems to be playing a month at a time. People were thinking that there was going to be a complete reboot of the DCU. Well, first, that would be a shame because of the great things going on in Batman, Superman and Green Lantern. Throwing all of that away would be silly. But on the other hand, is Final Crisis going to have any effect on the DCU? I don’t see how. Batman is dead (supposedly) but not in the pages of Final Crisis. Superman is heading to outer space with someone else taking over his titles (New Kryptonians, maybe?). Secret Invasion is a one day event and there apparently will be effects shown in the Marvel Universe. DC has shown no correlation between Final Crisis and anything going on in any other book.

The Second story is this:

“Morrison is not the only person having difficulties with DiDio's direction. I understand that James Robinson and Dan had a stand up argument that led to Robinson quitting the Superman books and the DCU in general.”

The Morrison Superman issues have been good. People really seem to like them. Why piss off yet another creator? Geoff Johns can’t write everything.

Overall, there just seems to be a lack of leadership, or vision, or something at DC right now and this is not the time for it. Get your act together DC. Comics are in the middle of a nice boom right now. Lets keep it going.