DP09- M01 Figurine Magazine #105, #109 and #116

.....In the most recent Diamond Previews (issue 280, January 2012 for products shipping beginning in March) there is a DP-related product being offered. I hadn't previously covered licensed merchandise or other non-comics paraphernalia but with the series discontinued and Robotman's serial in My Greatest Adventure only half finished, I wanted to note something current before I dive into the older material I've been rereading for review.

.....In the 1990's DC entered into an exclusive direct market distribution deal with Diamond. I don't know if that deal is still in place or even if it has any bearing on this line of merchandise, so it may be available through other venues as well. There is an ongoing series combining original figurines of DC characters with a magazine featuring that character and unique to the package. DC Super-hero Collection Figurine Magazine #105 (cover date TBA) will feature a figurine of Elasti-woman (solicited as 'Elasti-girl'). If the prototype on page 352 is adhered to, she'll have a tiny Bumblebee standing on her expanded palm. Although the comic books being offered at this time are mostly expected to ship in March, this figurine and magazine combination is expected in June, according to Forbidden Planet.

.....Previous DP-related entries include Beast Boy (#49), Metamorpho (#59), Power Girl (#70), and Ambush Bug (#87). Scheduled for forthcoming release in England are Robotman (#109, in July) and Negative Man (#116, in September), no doubt available here soon after. That would mean that within one calendar year the original core team (minus the Chief) will become available.

DP09- Third trade update

.....After about a month of rumors, Diamond Comics Distributors confirmed this morning that the third and final collected trade paperback reprinting Keith Giffen's run as plotter/scripter on Doom Patrol has been 'cancelled by the publisher'. Solicited with the title "Fire Away" and scheduled for August 24th, there was some confusion prompted by the original solicitation which described the contents as omitting the final issue only. Also, the ostensible length of a single trade including all previously unpublished issues plus the Secret Six crossover during that run is not unheard of in a trade, but would probably have pushed the title into a suggested list price bracket that DC felt uncomfortable with for a title whose monthly counterpart posted low numbers.

.....While it is likely that the cancellation is part and parcel of a larger drift from a print-oriented publishing model, that can't be certain. As with most of these notices, there was no explanation of the reasoning behind it. Anticipating what is or isn't profitable (or even commercially practical) is ultimately a matter of educated guessing for publishers. When you publish that many titles regularly you have a small number of people juggling a large number of variables. However, if there were concerns that a larger list price might kill potential sales then there may be plans to split the remainder of the run into two smaller arcs and then supplement each with short stories otherwise unlikely to be collected (such as the retro stories discussed on this blog in May and June, prefixed DP09-AP). This might make the earlier half with the Kryptonian tie-in more palatable to Superman fans not otherwise interested in the Doom Patrol, likewise for Secret Six fans with the second half.

.....Well, summer's over. Back to work.

DP09-AB Giffen Period update

.....[Both this post and the previous one were saved for editing and needed to be altered prior to posting. That explains, if not necessarily excuses, the gap between their stated dates and their eventual publication. Since this blog usually deals with the past and is meant to be a record to be referenced for some time to come I don't generally worry about those gaps. In this case the prior post was delayed because three weeks ago I came close to losing an eye. Don't panic; the damage has nearly reversed and I will have stopped needing medication soon. But until recently it meant that I would have to limit my time in front of the screen to reading (and briefly commenting) e-mails, other blogs et al to keep myself current. If you've seen the previous post, I don't have to explain why proof-reading and fact-checking it was out of the question. Until I've fully recovered (very soon now) I'll be keeping myself to conversational essays like the one below which really only require a read-though for grammar and spelling, or recording existing playlists such as the recent Hüsker Dü post on one of my music blogs.]

.....Yesterday the last issue of Keith Giffen's run on the Doom Patrol shipped on schedule. That doesn't necessarily mean that the Giffen period is over, per se. While it is true that this had been the third series in ten years, each failing to exceed the two year mark, this blog has already identified extraneous guest appearances in other periods published immediately before or after the nominal series proper. I'm holding off identifying a specific cut-off for this period just yet, but need to acknowledge the cut-off of the series.

.....An excellent statement about the use and significance of death in the Doom Patrol franchise can be found at the Histories Of Things To Come blog. The post is part of a larger, open-ended series on the permanence (or impermanence) of death in comics. Here's a shortcut:

http://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2011/05/reflections-on-revolving-door-of-death.html

.....Now, as to the future of the group? There's no word yet that I've heard, but it may turn out that their last ten years has been a dress rehearsal of sorts for a larger trend at DC. We're nearly a year and a half from the twentieth anniversary of the Vertigo imprint, which launched by converting six mature readers' titles from DC continuity to a separate, parallel continuity. Each month during that first year they would be joined by new ongoing titles and mini-series, often based on other DC characters excised from super-hero continuity. Doom Patrol was one of those Cardinal Six, all of which but Hellblazer were cancelled before the end of 1996. In a previous post, "DP05-AB The Wilderness Years" (intended as an appendix to the Pollack Period), I listed the appearances of the group (or more often, merely Cliff) between the Pollack and Arcudi tenures. The cumulative effect is the distinct sense that writers and editors alike missed having quirky and fringe characters to contrast their mainstream heroes. When those characters were already engaged in their own titles in another imprint, not being allowed to use them must have been easier to accept. But to see them sitting in the cancelled pile while you've got two dozen Bloodlines characters to work with (or not, as was the case with nearly every one but Hitman) must have been unbearably galling. After 2000's Totems the efforts at reintegration became more overt than the period pieces and cameos of The Wilderness Years. There was the Arcudi Period, of course, but also Animal Man's appearance in Hawkman and his much higher profile roles in the Rann/Thanagar War and 52, both spun off from Infinite Crisis. But it was during the Giffen period that the gate started opening in both directions.

.....Not long before the (until recently) current series began in the DCU, Madame Xanadu began under the Vertigo imprint. She debuted in the seventies as a DC horror host, eventually stepping forward as a character in her own one-shot. She was one of the few hosts who did not become characters in Sandman. [Side note: considering how many did become Gaiman's cast (Cain, Abel, Eve, Destiny, Lucien and the Three Witches, at least) I've often wondered if there's an old DC, Charlton, Fawcett or Quality horror comic out there hosted by Mad Hattie.] Since 1996 the Vertigo imprint has predominantly introduced original characters and features. It is commonly assumed that the explanation for Vertigo's early success was some combination of three factors: it retained older readers who had become disenchanted with the conventions of adventure fantasy; it brought in new, previously non-comics-reading audiences who had never been enchanted by super-heroes in the first place; and it freed creators from obligations to continuity, an incentive that would attract the most creative contributors. Whatever cache an established character might have, to remove them from the DCU in order to publish them under Vertigo might not impede any of those factors, but that cache also ceases to be the advantage it might have been in the DCU. There have been occasional attempts at re-imagining existing characters, some successful (Human Target), some not (The Creeper) and some forgotten (Vertigo Visions:Tomahawk). But the greatest volume of Vertigo's publishing since 2000 has been legacy titles (Hellblazer, Fables, House of Mystery, House of Secrets) and original properties (100 Bullets, Y the Last Man, Transmetroplitan- originally Helix, DMZ). The last that I had noticed Madame Xanadu in the DCU, she had been blinded by the unanchored Spectre during Infinite Crisis. The Vertigo title takes place in the past, moving forward from the days of King Arthur in the first issue and ending the first arc with the 1930's (and the start of DC Comics) in issue #10. Along the way she meets Jason Blood, the Phantom Stranger, Zatara and a few other surprises from DC's supernatural history. For the second arc, Exodus Noir, she meets the Golden Age Sandman (Wesley Dodds) and Dian Belmont in 1940. Wes and Dian had their own long-running Vertigo title without ever really being removed from the DCU, but Wes became inactive for health reasons in the Justice Society Of America series that was cancelled just as his Vertigo title Sandman Mystery Theatre began in 1993. Right after it was cancelled in 1999 the Justice Society returned in a series of one-shots (fighting Steve Ditko's 1975 Stalker character of all people). While his Vertigo series went on his old teammates appeared individually (Jay in Flash, Alan in Green Lantern Quarterly, Nabu in Fate, and Spectre in his own title-- more on that later) but outside of Zero Hour the Justice Society rarely appeared as a group. It would almost appear as though Wes was complying with the continuity quarantine, give or take a Starman arc. But the next Madame Xanadu story really raised an eyebrow when it used the Martian Manhunter as a guest star (and given J'onn's eyebrows, that's saying something). Set in the 1950's, Broken House Of Cards may have been a nod to Gerard Jones' American Secrets prestige mini-series, but there's no precedent for the JLA stalwart being anything other than squarely in the DCU, Final Crisis or not. Now the last six issues of Madame Xanadu are scheduled to be collected on August 10th as Extra Sensory. They are six stand-alone issues each by a different artist with the only unifying themes being the 1960's and the senses of perception. There are no DCU guests until the last issue, the sixth sense, when the Phantom Stranger reappears. Their exchange, on pages 19-20, is a pretty explicit acknowledgement of the DCU:

• PS: "A new age dawns. A return to the time of heroes...Such an era will see dramatic changes, a procession of nearly infinite crises...You have, I assume, foreseen such a confluence of grandeur?
• MX: "I-- yes...I have seen their coming. A new speedster and a green guardian. A micronaut and a sea king. An archer and his siren. Even... a Martian. And this pantheon shall spawn a trinity of epic scale-- three champions who shall fight for and inspire the entire nation... but that doesn't explain why you are here..."
• PS: "I merely seek to understand your position in these upcoming events-- and to react accordingly... Do you still plan to...what is the saying? 'Sit this one out'?"

.....Well, that's what we all want to know. All 29 issues were written by Matt Wagner with #13 on edited by Shelly Bond. While the two of them aren't going to be dictating companywide editorial policy, the Stranger is asking of Madame Xanadu what we the audience would like to ask Vertigo as a whole. As you might guess from the gaps in the quotes above, I've heavily edited the exchange for brevity's sake. Xanadu's response is, in essence, "if it happens, it happens". Well, it's been happening more and more. Last year Death had a major part in Action Comics #894 (12/10). Shade (the Changing Man, or Rac Shade) featured in two Hellblazer arcs; "Sectioned" in #267 (07/10)- #270 (10/10) and "Bloody Carnations" in #271 (11/10)- #275 (03/11). He was last seen on the planet Meta on a single page in #272, but will appear again this year as one of at least three DCU mini-series featuring ex-Vertigo stars:

• Flashpoint: Secret Seven - A three part series written by Peter Milligan, who wrote the Hellblazer arcs, and drawn by George Pérez. It will include, at least, Shade, Amethyst and Enchantress.
• Flashpoint: Legion Of Doom - A three part series written by Adam Glass and including Animal Man among others.
• Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing - The title sort of explains itself. It's another three part series, this one written by one-time Hellblazer editor Jonathan Vankin. This one will most likely be in for the greatest amount of preemptory bile owing to the fact that there had been plans for a China Miéville-scripted Vertigo Swamp Thing series due to begin publishing in 2010 that was cancelled in the scripting stage. After considering the series, DC had made a decision about returning the established characters who had migrated to Vertigo back to their native DCU soil and no one's soil is richer than Swamp Thing's. While the publisher didn't have misgivings about Miéville's work to my knowledge, an age-restricted script with no connection to any other publications in their roster would be inconsistent with their plans beyond 2010. To Swamp Thing fans this translated to knowingly shelving a good script in favor of one that had not been plotted yet. It's difficult to rail against a blank spot on a rack but when the BDA series arrives it will provide a locus for the resentment over a lost year of Swamp Thing stories.

.....So what does all this mean for the Doom Patrol? With the series cancelled it means less than it could. At best the greater the number of characters with similar marketing histories and, by implication, audiences makes it more likely that DC can cultivate a group identity functionally like the shared identity that the Cardinal Six had as mature readers titles before they were formally rebranded as 'Vertigo'. It's commonly understood that the Vertigo name was created so that the identity that those titles already shared could be extended to new titles and projects. There was no need to build a brand; it already existed, it just didn't have a name. This year it seems DC has decided to remove the stone from the stone soup. Frankly, Vertigo no longer needs Shade or Kid Eternity to sell Fables or American Vampire. At worst, DC could create a pointless, bureaucratic imprint-for-its-own-sake like Marvel's Marvel Knights or Midnight Sons. At best it could trust their audiences to make those associations among repatriated titles and perhaps create a group editorial page unique to them in place of On The Ledge or DC Nation. Doom Patrol and other characters not currently under their own titles could move amongst titles in the group during the year but still participate in annual Crisis events, providing those events are once a year and last 6 or 7 weeks instead of 6 or 7 months. A quarterly anthology wouldn't be a bad idea, but a proper Doom Patrol story needs a few issues to, first, lay out the weirdness and, then, make sense of it, or at least sense enough to wrangle it. Ultimately, it may go direct-to-trade.

.....I mentioned earlier that there would be more on the Spectre. There will be, but not in this post. And Mento is involved.

Petition For Grievance... and Grieving

.....I've been catching up on reading other blogs and in my absence here I've forgotten to note that the current series of Doom Patrol is scheduled for cancellation after the publication of issue #22 this spring. It is one of several titles selling below expectations that will be cancelled before a far-reaching summer 'event' storyline. It's true that shortly after this series started it was drawn into the Blackest Night storyline and that it had two noticeable effects: an enormous jump in sales for those two issues (#'s 4 and 5) and the derailment of the planned storyline, requiring a few months to get back on track, during which the sales slid below where they had been before hand. That's bad news for any title, but critical to this one because it was widely promoted as being an attempt to reconcile conflicting histories and failed attempts over the past seven years to radically rewrite continuity. While the group's history has always been strange, with some periods seeming irrelevant to the events of others, for nearly forty years it was never technically in gross contradiction as it has been this past decade. In interviews, Keith Giffen seemed to view it as a professional challenge and personal mission to be able to relate the group's history both accurately and coherently while somehow also telling an interesting story in the present time. Putting all that aside to participate in a thousand-character crossover, as he was required to do, has chased short-term sales at the expense of the brand itself. The book has been back on track for almost a year now, but since few people have been reading it, they don't know that. Hopefully, once the summer event is over, the team will appear in some other vehicle, with the best-case scenario being an opportunity for Giffen to return with them in their own feature. When he started, the Doom Patrol had disambiguation problems that were probably only second to the Legion Of Super-heroes in the DC Universe. In just a year and a half he has already made enormous progress.

.....Of course, since the purpose of this blog has always been to recount that history and add the reader's perspective, the blog will continue, however far apart I have allowed the posts to come. I would also recommend that you add your voice to an existing petition at:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/savethedp/

and follow the petition's progress at Doompedia (the link is on the left).

News and Irresponsible Speculation for the New School Year

.....The good news is that the technological problems that interrupted my flow here and on the "So, What Kind Of..." music blog I had been cobbling together have (I think) been overcome or at least circumvented by upgrade. The bad news, if there is any, is that, obviously (a) in technology there are no permanent solutions, only current situations and (b) no amount of technology can make me less lazy. And before some smart aleck out there adds that no amount of anything could possibly make me any more lazy, I just want to say while researching DC's publishing history leading up to the 1978 "Implosion" I got distracted by a more ambitious project that I set aside years ago-- and still will not have finished once I get back to analyzing the Showcase arc. Since the two research projects involve a lot of overlap and much redundant handwriting, I decided to combine them, at least until I follow them past the period where they dovetail. When I want to return to the larger project, its notes will be waiting, half completed. Well, I'm assuming we all live that long. It's a more of perpetual hobby than something that could conceivably bear fruit.

.....I mentioned news in the post title. Here 'tis: as of yesterday (September 13, 2010) I noticed that Amazon is offering pre-orders for the trade paperback "DOOM PATROL: BROTHERHOOD", collecting the second helping of the current series. Elsewhere on this blog I have a history of DP trades entitled DP08- AT Trade Format Survey that should link when you click on the "D". (Cross your fingers.) This entry will have to be updated soon since the Black and White trades of the Original Period apparently don't include the Challengers portion of their crossover, nor the Flash team-up from Brave And The Bold. However inexpensive the Showcase Presents... format is, I think it is extremely unreasonable to ask readers to buy both the DP volumes as well as the yet-unreleased third Challengers volume, totalling over sixty issues, in order to read a three-issue arc. If anyone at DC is reading this, could I respectfully suggest collecting the two DP issues, the Challengers' chapter between them, the Flash team-up, Beast Boy's guest spot in Teen Titans #6 and the Niles Caulder appearance in Plastic Man, all tied up into a color paperback that could fit neatly between the two DP 'phonebooks'? That would account for absolutely every DP appearance outside of their own title during the 1960's. The details are on page DP01- AA.

.....If the Amazon entry for the upcoming trade is correct, it will ship (from them) on January 18, 2011 for a list price of $17.99. The direct market shipping will likely be the previous Wednesday, January 12. (For reasons lost on me, Amazon lists availability of books on Tuesdays, the day brick-and-mortar stores conventionally release new titles. Both the first Giffen trade, "WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE...", and the second Showcase Presents... volume were listed at Diamond on the Wednesday prior to their respective Amazon dates in the past few months.) Two weeks from now you can expect to go to your local comic book store and find distributor catalogs soliciting DC comics for December and trades for January. Most stores will take advance orders if you want to reserve a copy, or at least give you more reliable stats than a non-specialist web-site. For instance, they say the volume will be 168 pages, but are vague about what issues that covers. Most likely it will be #'s 7-12.

.....Speaking of the new series, I haven't noticed many people making much of a familiar name being dropped into the conclusion of that arc. In issue #12 (09/10), page 4, a memo from MSE is signed "E. Garguax". Granted, if we have the daughter of Egg Fu/ Dr. Yes running around then it's not too far-fetched that Garguax left an heir. Or perhaps it's the original and the 'E' stands for "Emperor"? To the best of my knowledge, Garguax died in the aftermath of Invasion! when his space ship crashed into Arani's Kansas DP HQ. When I saw the signature on the memo I filed it away in my memory as a bit of foreshadowing for an eventual appearance by lime-green invader (or his successor) but the subsequent story arc, in which The Chief simulates Superman's powers, got me to thinking about the circumstances of Garguax' death. Because it occurred in both a mini-series and multiple monthly titles, the Invasion! storyline had multiple elements concurrently at work. There were a few main elements that determined the outcome however (not to disclose too much of the plot), including our own Cliff Steele trading on his non-human appearance to infiltrate an enemy base and the intervention of the Daxamites. Before all the recent foofarrah with the Kandorians, the Daxamites were the only post-Crisis folk who shared Superman's solar-based... talents. They were generally only seen in the Legion of Super-Heroes' 30th Century stories, but a story about several alien races coming to Earth seemed the perfect vehicle for explaining how they originally discovered the effects of our 'yellow' sun. It was very clever how the whole thing played out. It also hinted at how Earth might confront someone with Superman's powers should they become unstable. Who plotted that story, anyway? Wellllll..... whaddayaknow? It was Keith Giffen...

DP09-AA Giffen Period synopsis

.....[As of this writing, the Giffen period is roughly six months old and plans have been announced for its first trade collection, "We Who Are About To Die", to be released later this year. For obvious reasons it is impossible to analyze the work this early in the game. What can be said is that the series' early momentum was undercut somewhat by the need to participate in the DCU crossover "Blackest Night" in issues #4(01/10)- #5(02/10). Although the default background mood for any good Doom Patrol series dovetails nicely with the premise of "Blackest Night", and it did here, it can't avoid putting numerous subplots aside for the duration. This entry will necessarily be updated when it is seen how, if at all, those plot elements are resolved.]