As you no doubt ignored last week, I opined about Marvel wasting all of the Malibu and Crossgen characters that they owned but refused to do anything with.

Well, this week it's DC's turn.

Except the intellectual properties DC refuses to do anything with are their very own.

DC controls the vastest, deepest, and honestly most interesting collections of heroes ever assembled. Yet to get them to publish anything besides Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman seems a Sisyphean task.

It's now almost two years since Rebirth, and after all of the the shirt-rending (by the people in charge) about how someone (other than themselves) had forgotten all about legacy and DC's deep history, there's still no Legion Of Super-Heroes book. There's still no Justice Society book.

Heroes who have been mainstays of DC for nearly 80 years, and 60 years, languish in limbo. Hell, we just passed the 60th anniversary of the Legion's first appearance without a single commemoration from DC!

Yes, we were sorta kinda promised that these guys would be brought back by the storytelling magic of Rebirth. But it's all been a terrible, terrible tease.

In the two years after Rebirth, we've had, what, 3 panels in various comics suggesting that Saturn Girl is hiding in Arkham? We've had, what, 2 pages of apparently-senile Johnny Thunder rambling about not finding the lightning? That's it, over two years.

Now, if you believe the rumors (unconfirmed, but undenied), than DC wanted to sign a big-name writer, who wanted to do the Legion. But then they were told (allegedly) that no one could touch the Legion, or the JSA, until Geoff Johns was done with Doomsday Clock, the ludicrous and pointless DC/Watchmen crossover. And, as of this writing, there are still 8 bi-monthly issues of Doomsday Clock left to publish, well, we're not going to see Legion or JSA any time soon.
It's the height of stupidity, whatever the reason. The DC TV shows can bring in the JSA and the Legion...but the comics can't? Seriously, that's one of the more ridiculous situations in comics. It's even more ridiculous than Marvel's refusal to print a Fantastic Four comic because of some fit of pique.

DC's not in danger of losing the trademarks, as Marvel is with Malibu/Crossgen, because they continue to publish trades/omnibuses. That would seem to indicate some sort of public demand, right? But no comics, no new stories for the fans.

Meanwhile...

...don't get me started on DC's continued neglect of the Marvel Family...

WARNING: this post contains SPOILERS for this week's Flash #21 and Action Comics #978. If you haven't read 'em yet, come on back later!!

Poor DC. They never, ever know how to pull the band-aid off quickly.

It's been 11 months since the Rebirth special, and almost everywhere we're still treading water, as if they're waiting for some more cocktail napkin scribblings from Geoff Johns before they dare proceed because they really have no idea what's actually happening in this "story." Even double-publishing their big titles every month, a year later we're no closer to understanding what the hell is going on

Hell, we haven't even had the reveal of who our "villains" are yet, which makes this even more dragged out than the pre-Crisis Monitor cameos. Yes, yes, we know who they are...which makes the whole "gee, who is behind all this" even more frustrating.

At this rate, this whole Rebirth project--whose sole purpose is to (re)(de)(un)boot the fiasco of Flushpoint/nu52--is going to take 3 years. Check back in 2020 to see if I'm wrong.

Still, this last week's comics have made clear that the prime motivation of DC is indeed to largely reinstall the continuity of post-Crisis DC...yet somehow keep the stuff they like about the nu52.

Man, that's going to be messy and awful.

Flash #21, for example, pretty firmly reestablishes that the Justice League was formed in the way we had always known, and that you wasted your time and money reading the Geoff Johns/Jim Lee version:

Oh, and that also told us that Identity Crisis is back in continuity, because who didn't miss that charming tale of rape, brainwashing, jealous ex-spouses walking in people's brains, and heroes no longer being heroic?

But the biggest actual confirmed changes are in Superman's life story, as Action Comics very firmly says that the five year timeline of the nu52 is to be forgotten, and that virtually everything post Byrne-reboot is back as official history. But most (some?) of the nu52 happened, too!

His first meeting with Lois, for example:

Note that this confirms that Kal-El did, at one point, wear the red trunks!! So there's really no reason they can't go back to it...

But note--this also means that the Grant Morrison/young Superman in blue jeans and a home-made cape stories from nu52 Action never happened!! Poor Grant--flushed from continuity again!

And Superman's own memories--and the data crystals at the Fortress of Solitude--confirm that pretty much everything post-Crisis did indeed happen in the current Superman's history:

But he still adopted the terrible nu52 costume at some point...

And all of the nu52 stories happened--except for the ones that didn't, like the dalliance with Wonder Woman, or Clark quitting the Daily Planet to be a blogger, or....well, hold on, we'll have to wait for Geoff Johns to tell us what's what.

Oh, but not everything post-Crisis is back on the table. Take this discussion of the Death Of Superman (which definitely occurred):

Wait...one, two, three...somebody's missing...

Oh, yeah, that guy!!

So, really...Conner Kent/Kon-El Kent, clone created from DNA of both Superman and Lex Luthor, the best incarnation of Superboy, isn't coming back with everyone else??

Others have pointed out, they didn't definitively say he wasn't part of the new history--they just didn't list him. Even though they had plenty of room. Maybe. But dude, they made room to show Space Gladiator Kal-El, so you'd think they squeeze in a guy whose own series lasted 102 issues and was a member of Titans and the Legion, if they wanted to,

And as still others have noted, DC is releasing reprint trades of Superboy's series later this year, and that must mean they have plans for him, right? Sorry, I can't agree there--DC is also releasing reprints of Night Force, and I'll wager they're not coming back. No, DC is in a position where they have to keep releasing reprint collections, so they'll have as many as previous years, or their sales will go down versus previous years and someone will be canned, so everything they can tidy up is being reprinted, whether it's relevant to current plans or not.

It seems that DC is so intent on building up their current Superboy, Jon Kent, that they don't want to reestablish the clone Superboy, despite his being a pretty vital part that era of DC history (Legion! Young Justice! Titans! Ravers! The Superman Family!). So much for Rebirth restoring legacy to the DCU!

Of course, this could all be resolved when Geoff Johns mumbles something in his sleep that the listening device in his quarters passes on to DC as holy writ. But for now, it sure likes DC is restoring post-Crisis continuity, but going out of their way to exclude the best incarnation of Superboy. What a shame.

If you know me at all, you know I've wasted a ridiculous portion of my adult life trying figure the perplexities of DC Geography, specifically the location of their "extra" cities, and most specifically the locations of Gotham City and Metropolis.

I've studied highway signs, and more highway signs, and pursued many a clue, to no real success.

They're both cities with seaports, they're relatively close...and that's about it. Most people go for Connecticut and New Jersey, but the frighteningly inconsistent informational crumbs DC has tossed out leave most of the northeastern seaboard--anywhere from Massachusetts to Maryland being a possibility.

But sometimes, a piece of information gets unveiled, which, well, changes your entire worldview.

In this week's Batman #21 (don't worry, spoiler free), there's a hockey game playing in the early pages...and the announcers tell us this:


Wait Wait Wait WAIT!!!!!!!!

Both Gotham City and Metropolis are in the WESTERN Conference?!? What the...

Look, I'll be the first to admit that sports conference/division alignments can be a bit less than geographically accurate. Sometimes there's tradition; sometimes there's difficulty to getting teams to agree to switching divisions when one team relocates; sometimes there seems to be no reason. The Dallas Cowboys are in the NFC East because no one wanted to break up their rivalries. For two decades Atlanta and Cincinnati played in baseball's NL West, while Chicago and St. Louis played in the NL East. Go figure.

Still, it be exceptionally rare for one team physically on the east coast to be assigned to play in the Western Conference. Two would be pretty much insane. If for no other reason than the travel burdens on those teams--most of their games would be in their own conference, so their travel time/expenses would be astronomical compared to other teams in the own conference! I'm not saying it couldn't happen...just that (on our Earth, at least), it probably wouldn't happen.

So if Gotham and Metropolis are both seaports AND play in the Western Conference, well...is DC telling us that they're on the West Coast?!?

I know I jokingly toyed with clues in The Dark Knight Rises that sorta could have been taken to imply that Gotham City was in California, but seriously?

For what it's worth, the snow we've seen in both cities probably puts southern California right out of the picture. Northern California? Oregon? Washington?

The bigger question is--are we meant to take this seriously? Have Metropolis and Gotham always been on the west coast? Or just since nu52, or Rebirth, and this is a clue that someone is mucking with reality?

Or maybe it's just a writing/lettering/editing snafu....

Not too long ago, I opined that if DC was going to continue to piddle around in bringing back the Legion Of Super-Heroes, Marvel should give a lot more prominence to the Imperial Guard, just to tweak their publishing rivals.

Well, someone was listening.

(No, of course I don't think Jeff Lemire, or anyone at Marvel, reads this cow-town puppet show of a blog. Allow me my fleeting moment of reflected glory, however unearned.)

In this week's Thanos #3, guess who gets to fight the Mad Titan? And guess who gets to be described an awful lot like the Legion?




Hells yes.

And like the LSH...


MANY. MANY. MEMBERS.

And, yeah, just like the Legion beat Darkseid, the Imperial Guard takes out Thanos:

Granted, Thanos is ill, but still...

So go ahead, DC. Continue to drop hints and clues that go nowhere in plot lines that develop at a glacial pace. Hell, we're approaching a year into Rebirth, and DC still hasn't gotten around to actually explaining or clarifying anything yet--so at this pace any Legion revival is at least a year off, if it's not just a big tease to begin with.

In the meantime, Long Live The Imperial Guard!!

I'm glad to see that Rebirth is working out so well for some characters...

Yes, I did purchase a comic from the Quarter Bin solely so I could a lame Rebirth joke.

That's how much I love you guys.

You're welcome.

Someone is attacking Metropolis, but only Lex Luthor's properties:

Let's not forget Lex-Mobile, FedLex, Jimmy Lex's (freaky fast!), Lex Buy, Toys 'r' Lex, 20th Century Lex, Lex's Warehouse, Lexmart, Abercrombie & Lex, LexPro, T.G.I.Lex...

Feel free to add your own...

From Superwoman #2 (2016)

Thought balloons narrative captions from the All-New, All-Different Clark Kent:


So wait a minute...in the Rebirth universe, the Kents had a cattle ranch?

In fairness, we still don't know what the deal with this "Clark Kent" is yet (they're probably waiting for Geoff Johns to send them a memo explaining it). So maybe *this* Clark Kent grew up rousting livestock instead of plowing fields.

Or maybe Clark went off summers to work at Uncle Jedediah Kent's cattle ranch?

Or Smallville had a rodeo?

Or...

From Action Comics #963 (2016)

Apparently, there was some vague notion back in the day that DC's Secret Origins would run the origin stories of Golden Age heroes more or less sorta kinda in nearly the chronological order of their first appearances. Which, in turn, seemed to have created a groundswell of questions:

I wonder what the over/under is on the number of letters that Roy Thomas considered "so many of you." Ten?

Note the claim that, at this point (1988), DC only had the right to the Marvel Family from Fawcett? That's interesting, because in the 70s DC certainly used Ibis, Bulletman, et al; and they used those characters a lot in the 90s in Power Of Shazam and Starman, and on in to the 2000s. Did they lose the rights for a few years? Did DC never properly have the rights to Ibis et al when they were used in the 70s? Or was Roy mistaken/misinformed?

Anyway, here's the list of most of the Golden Age heroes DC controls, and the order in which they first appeared. Enjoy this astonishing feat of pre-internet research!



Thank you, Roy!

Now that DC allegedly cares about "legacy" again, let's just wait and see how long it is until any of these folks appear in a Rebirth era comic, shall we?

From Secret Origins #23 (1988)

Readers in ye olde England are concerned that the American mania for rebooting/relaunching/renumbering might result in an All-New, All-Different 2000 AD #1:

 No worries, Tharg reassures us:

Geez, being proud of your large issue numbers...who woulda thought? That's totally zarjaz.

And no, Dan Jurgens and others, Action Comics will not be the first comic to reach issue #1000. By the time you hit that number, 2000 AD will already have been past 2000 issues--for several years!!

From this week's 2000 AD #1976...yes, 2000 AD has more issues than Action Comics and Detective Comics COMBINED.