Effective Protest

I have returned from San Francisco and Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference. It was an absolutely awesome experience, but I can’t say much about it as the whole week is under NDA. While I was gone, DC announced all of their fifty-two new books for the September relaunch. We sat around Ret-Conned HQ and discuss everything DC announced, looking at not only what was announced but what wasn’t. Some of those characters who were MIA were pretty upsetting.

Other than Mr. Terrific, who got his own book, there is not a single member of Justice Society of America that has been mentioned in the relaunch. There is no JSA book. There is no All-Star book. There have been no mention of just great legacy characters as Power Girl, Doctor Fate, Jay Garrick’s Flash, Alan Scott’s Green Lantern, Jade, Obsidian, Hourman, Jesse Quick/Liberty Belle, Wild Cat, Stargirl, Sandman, and a whole host of other characters that have at one time been associated with the JSA. This was a huge swath of the DC Universe that is just gone.

Kris thinks that the DCnU version of Supergirl will essentially be Power Girl. If you take Power Girl’s current uniform, change the colors and slap a S-shield where the whole used to be, you essentially get Supergirl’s new uniform. If you look at the body type of the new character, she doesn’t have Power Girl’s musculature and buxomness, but she also doesn’t have the current Supergirl’s extremely petite and delicate frame. Instead, she’s right smack in between the two. Really feels like an amalgamation and Kris is seriously betting that the new Supergirl’s human identity will be Karen Starr.

I honestly expected a reduction in Batman books. The Gnome kept a Bat Count while we were discussing the books so that she could track how often Batman appeared on the cover of a book or was mentioned in the description. Eight of the 52 books include Batman will somehow involve Bruce. This doesn’t include his appearances in things like Batwing and Batgirl. We really want to know what dirt Finch has on Dan Didio that Batman: The Dark Knight still exists. Whatever it is, it has to be good.

The full solicitations will come out on Tuesday, so then we’ll be able to see if there are any non-number-one books around.