The paint ain’t even dry on the new 52, and DC promises to cull 6 crappers out of the rotation, cancelling Blackhawks, Hawk & Dove, Men Of War, Mister Terrific, OMAC, and Static Shock—all with issue #8. The titles will make way for:
· The return of Grant Morrison’s Batman, Inc. Rather than being a 12-issue series that would end Morrison’s work with Batman, it’s now being promoted as a “reader friendly” new series that will fit Morrison’s ideas into the new 52. Grant will still be the writer, at least initially. Not sure how I feel about this one. On the one hand, Morrison Batman is never a bad thing. On the other hand, I can’t imagine it without being laden thick and heavy with continuity. That’s pretty much what his entire run has been about: Batman’s bizarre past and the vast legend that exists. In fact, that was the very basis for Batman, Inc., in the first place!
· A new book by James Robinson and Nicola Scott titled Earth 2. And with the return of Earth 2, Crisis on Infinite Earths is officially out of the New 52 lexicon. The new 52 was supposed to clean up the DCU, but it turns out they just can’t wait to start muddying it up again.
· World’s Finest featuring Power Girl, written by Paul Levitz with art by George Perez (two old timers on a very, very old character). The story will involve PG trying to return to Earth 2, which is where she started out according to her pre-New 52 origin. I’m already getting continuity-annoyance.
· Dial H. Remember this one? Dude dials a rotary phone thingy and gets powers? High concept. It’ll be written by China Mieville, best known for non-comic Sci Fi novels.
· G.I. Combat. So the good news is they’re dumping Men of War and Blackhawks, but the bad news is they’re replacing it with this. Which will be written by JT Krul. Which means it will suck wind.
· The Ravagers. Sounds a bit like Runaways: Four kids with powers fleeing an evil corporate-like entity who wants to make them be bad guys.
Tags: Superman, The Caped Crusader
In with the old, out with the new…Let’s start this year with a look back.
launch in April, just a few months before each character will be featured in a major motion picture.
Also known as the top 10 suggestions D.C. will ignore in 2012….For indies and the overall industry, go here.
4. Less books, better books. 
2. ‘Mazing Man: Absolute Edition and Steve Gerber’s Hard Time Vol. 2. 
The lead story has to be the October 2011 sales figures, which still show success vis a vis DC’s new 52. It’s safe to say that the new 52, and the new 52 alone, is responsible for America spending 12% more on comic books than they did last October. Comic-book unit orders are also up—by over 32% from last year. That’s tremendous. They’re also up from the first month of the new 52, but I assume that’s because so many DC #1s sold out in September and were reprinted in October. What does 32% mean? It means a million more comic books were sold. DC’s market share was 42%–a new record for the world’s number two comic book publisher. They haven’t hit that number since December 1999, when Grant Morrison’s JLA came out. In comparison, all indie publishers combined got only 28% of the market.
