“Ever had the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
Johnny Rotten spat that question to a bewildered San Francisco audience 30 years ago as the Sex Pistols abruptly ended their existence after a particularly chaotic gig.
If Mr. Rotten had the slightest interest in comics, he’d undoubtedly laugh long and hard at DC’s latest attempt to placate a dwindling audience by - how to best put this? - screwing it over.
The company began its week by announcing that the much-hyped Geoff Johns/Richard Donner collaboration on Action Comics would be sidelined for several months while artist Adam Kubert labors to catch up.
So, readers would have to wait five months before reading the conclusion to a storyline that was supposed to change everything™.
Since the “Last Son” story wasn’t all that great anyway, fans grumbled but took consolation in the news that Eric Powell would draw a Bizarro story to help fill the gap.
The other shoe dropped Friday when DC announced that the fifth and final chapter of Alan Heinberg’s much-delayed Wonder Woman arc would not appear in March as scheduled.
Adding insult to injury, the release gave no indication when - or if - the story’s conclusion would be published.
Now the Keeper is admittedly no expert in retail, but isn’t it a bit of a rip-off when readers invest time and money in a story only to learn that the climax would not be revealed until “a future date?”
Although we recently dropped much of our weekly pull list, your humble host did intend to pick up the next two issues of Wonder Woman to see how the first arc concluded.
Now, to be quite honest, we don’t give a damn about “Who Is Wonder Woman” or the Amazons Attack crossover DC is so eager to launch.
While some books - such as Planetary or Astro City, both personal statements produced by great writers and artists - are strong enough to withstand prolonged delays, no flashy, high-profile revamps of corporate properties are interesting or important enough to warrant infinite patience.
(In the public’s mind, Wonder Woman will always be a princess who left paradise to pursue Steve Trevor and bring peace to Man’s World. No superstar creator or shocking retcon will ever change that fact … )
If DC and/or Heinberg can’t get their act together to finish one story - a basic premise most readers accept when purchasing serialized fiction - then we see no need to support the final product.
After all, there’s plenty of other comics, manga and graphic novels out there. Some of them even tell stories with a beginning, middle and end!
*Whew* With that off our chest, here’s what we read last week …
Continue reading ‘The Week That Was’
