Voices in the Walls

Remember to read every chapter in Secret Passages for Dummies or you might forget a crucial step.

I was originally going to write a mini-review of Vertigo’s The Unwritten, but there was a bunch of major comic news today so we’re going to have to push that later. I’m such a tease aren’t I? After all, I need to find some way to convince you to keep coming back here. It’s not like we post an awesome comic three times a week or anything.

Before we really jump into today’s news, we need to jump back to August 2009 when Disney bought Marvel Comics. Impressed with marvel’s movie success with the Spider-man, Iron Man, and X-Men franchises, Disney decided they wanted to guarantee themselves access to the the vast collection of characters available to them in the Marvel universe. With the planned slate of Marvel movies over the next couple of years, including Thor, Captain America, the Spider-man reboot and culminating in the Avengers movie, it was probably a good plan by The House that Mickey Built to get in on the House of Ideas pie.

Not to be outdone, a month later Warner Bros, DC Comic’s parent company, announced the creation of DC Entertainment a new entity that would not only oversee the DC Comics publisher but would also help to manage DC related properties in other media. Warner Bros. had seen the writing on the wall that after July 2011, their blockbuster Harry Potter franchise would be at an end. Looking for something to fill the void, Warner has looked at the success of Marvel’s movies as well as Christopher Nolan’s reboot of the Batman franchise and decided to take a closer look at the properties of the DCU. The first new DCU movie to be released will be Green Lantern in 2011 staring Ryan Reynolds. Christopher Nolan has also agreed to be the executive producer on a new Superman reboot as well as his work on the yet-untitled Batman Begins 3. The same writers who wrote the screenplay for Green Lantern are also supposedly working on a Flash script, as well as a second Green Lantern film.

The DC Entertainment restructuring meant that Paul Levitz could take up his pen once again and reintroduce a new generation to the Legion of Super-Heroes. This was also when Dan Didio and Jim Lee were made Co-Editors and Geoff Johns was made Cheif Creative Officer. So far, these administrative changes have brought about some exciting storylines with the new Brightest Day banner and event.

Today, DC Entertainment made several announcements based on the continuing restructuring of the company. First, the DC Entertainment organization, basically anything that is not directly tied to the print publishing, is moving from DC’s current offices in New York to Burbank, California to be closer to the Warner Bros. studios. While this probably won’t directly impact print comics, I expect to see much more about non-comic related usage of DCU characters.

The second announcement is more immediate. First, Zuda - DC’s webcomic initiative - is being completely shutdown. This doesn’t come as a huge surprise, especially after Zuda’s website [was shuttered in July]. In the grand scheme of things, this makes a lot of sense with DC’s big push into digital comics under it’s main imprint. If they have DC comics being published digitally under the much more recognizable DC brand, why do they need a second digital-only imprint? The much bigger news is that they are [killing the WildStorm imprint]. All WildStorm books are ending after December’s issues. All of the original Wildstorm Universe characters are going to be shelved as their characters “need a break to regroup and redefine what made them once unique and cutting edge.” Meanwhile, the licensed comics currently being published by WildStorm will continue under the main DC imprint.

While I’ve never read any of the WildStorm books, I’m disappointed to see any massive set of characters get shelved, especially considering the possible job loses shelving these comics will entail. In interviews, the DC editors have stated that there are future plans to re-use some of these characters. I hope when they do, they do a better job of using them than they did with the Red Circle characters who were shoved off into their own books and then forgotten.