As many comic fans will know, DC has recently announced that from May onward, the DC Universe will be changed up by an event called Rebirth. This has been teased for some time by Geoff Johns, among others from DC, but over the Easter weekend we were granted the first information about the impact that Rebirth will have. Alongside this we were also treated to some information about the new titles and the creative teams who will be working on them.
The first key part of these announcements came before any real information on content, as DC have announced that the new line of comics launching from May/June through the summer will all be released at the price of $2.99 US, and that many of the bigger titles will now be shipping twice a month, rather than once. For me this held some concerns, firstly as the promise of the lower price for comics was to help people with less disposable income, however this is somewhat outweighed by the twice monthly releases. As an example, look at the big three names in DC, all of their solo books will ship twice a month meaning an expense of $5.98 US, however currently the main titles for these ship once a month at a lower cost, which seems that the Rebirth launch isn’t really helping that much in terms of expense.
The other concern I have seen raised, and have wondered about myself, is the quality of content, particularly in relation to the art. Both writing and illustrating a comic book is a difficult task from all accounts (I have no personal experience in this and am basing this upon reading columns on the subject), and in some cases meeting even a deadline once a month is a hard task, a recent example of this being the delay in release of the final chapter in Marvel’s ‘Secret Wars’ event last summer. However, the announcements have somewhat calmed this concern, for myself anyway, as the majority of these titles will have two artists working on them, and in a few cases two writers as well. Some titles are evening using the twice monthly releases to run two different stories, as with Wonder Woman which will be telling a modern day story from launch in the odd numbered comics, and a ‘Wonder Woman Year One’ tale in the even numbers, each story being worked on by only one of the two artists attached to the book.
While most of the titles had a very short announcement from a part of the creative team behind it regarding what to expect from the initial story arcs in them, the more notable titles were those that did not have creative teams present. These titles included the main Superman title, along with Trinity, Superwoman, Suicide Squad (which will largely feature the same line-up as the film released this summer), Hellblazer, Justice League of America and Green Arrow among others. Some of the titles missing were surprising mainly as I was expecting a push on several due to current or upcoming media tie-ins.
Overall I have to say the announcements do seem to have built up a certain amount of hype for the launch of the Rebirth titles throughout the summer. I must admit that I am more of a Marvel than a DC fan, and have been for as long as I can remember. However, numerous titles in this announcement hooked me almost immediately, and I will be sure to pick up several of the upcoming releases. Some of these titles sound like very inventive uses of the characters in DC Comics, and the return of several characters to the forefront of this new line is a welcome change and surprise. I advise anyone who is interested to start reading DC Comics to have a watch of the announcement video on Youtube, I have no doubt that you will be able to find at least one title that peaks your interest, and be sure to pick up the DC Universe: Rebirth special in late May.
For anyone who liked the post about diversity in the All-New All-Different Marvel lineup, after the full launch of Rebirth I will be doing the same for the DC titles, so stay tuned. Also, please look on the contact page and support the blog on any social media you have.
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