The Coming of the Dawn
We're talking about the next big tentpole in the Dawn of DC line-up, and following up on the opening salvo.
You Read These With Your Eyes (Feb 22nd, 2023)
A quick feature about selling stories, featuring the week’s newest reads.
The sales spotlight is back on DC Comics this week, as they continue their slow rollout of their Dawn of DC. We’re taking a look at two books this week that lie at the core of the line.
ONGOING | Superman #1
by Joshua Williamson, Jamal Campbell, & Ariana Maher w/ editorial support by Jillian Grant & Paul Kaminski
After the events of Dark Crisis, it has been evident that DC is pushing in the direction of offering more aspirational stories. It is a smart move for the company, as the DC characters have always been the “gods”, so to speak. While Marvel built heroes around a sense of flawed humanity, DC built from a place of power, with many of their characters embodying the best. You see it in the formation of their core characters. In Green Lantern, you have a man without fear. In the Flash you have the fastest man alive. With Wonder Woman, you have creator William Moulton Marston mapping out an indomitable female force. Batman has evolved into someone whose main trait tends to be operation without flaw. And then there’s Superman.
Superman is meant to be the best of the them all. The ideal, in terms of morals and power. A defining statement on “nature vs. nurture”. Because of this, he’s often hard to write in a way that grabs people’s attention. Culture tends to drift toward the quiet murder boys who have the problems, and Clark is often seen as pushing against the times we live in. This is why, alongside Nightwing, Superman is the perfect character to use as a centrepiece for the entire Dawn of DC operation.
If you’re trying to commit to a line at DC that is built around building and being better, you need a solid take on Superman, and you need to put your strongest on the book. Coming off of Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths and other high profile projects, Joshua Williamson name brings weight to the project. And Jamal Campbell successfully launching Naomi (who garnered her own TV series) and Far Sector (an absolute barn-burner, perennial book), gives the book momentum. Putting them together sends on hell of a message on its own - but that only counts for so much in a market and a world with such fractured attention. The real success of a new Superman book would and will come down to the execution of the story, and how that execution would be communicated to retailers.
Now while I can’t talk a lot about what happened during the call, I can say the DC put together an interaction between retailers and writer Joshua Williamson several days before final orders would be due for the first issue. During the call, Williamson gave retailers some insight on some future plot points, as well as what the book intended to accomplish. This, was a very important thing. Lately, I’ve been fond of saying that the single issue market needs “blood for the machine”, and that retailers are in control of that blood. We are the folks who are putting our money on the line for these projects, and our buy-in (or lack thereof) often determines the viability of books. The open chat, offered to any takers in the retail community, armed retailers with all the information they would need to know about making an informed ordering decision for this title, for their customers. It also armed us with the ability to bring new readers into the fold.
Outside of that, they also offered us the ability to read most of this first issue.1 I can’t tell you how important something like this is for the viability of the single issue format. When retailers are ordering blind, they tend to run more conservative in their orders. For larger characters, that usually isn’t an issue - there will always be a basic level of ordering for Batman, which is why he features heavy in DC’s current line. But when you’re trying to build a new core for people to gravitate towards, providing access is imperative. Being able to preview this issue meant that I ordered more than I typically would, because I knew exactly who was going to be interested in this book - and it is going to be a lot of people
THE PITCH | This is some truly ground level stuff. Williamson and Campbell drop an incredibly first issue that accomplishes pretty much everything you want it to. It introduces you to the current status quo, and it doesn’t get bogged down with how we got here. Some folks disagree with me, but I feel like it is greatly important to sideways glance at things that folks might identify as “outside of the norm” in terms of status quo until the purpose of a book is set in stone. In this book, there are a few things that don’t jive with what we know as a “base level” for Superman, and those things are handled well. A fresh reader is going to have some questions, but the actual driving plot takes hold and keeps things moving. Then, the stinger sets a larger thing into play that I will be talking about in Friday’s post.
All in all, if you’re looking for some uplifting super heroics with a great attention to small moments that just make the whole story shine, you want your hands on this book.
ONGOING | Nightwing #101
by Tom Taylor, Travis Moore, C.S. Pacat, Eduardo Pansica, Júlio Ferreira, Adriano Lucas & Wes Abbott, w/ editorial support by Jessica Berbey, Jessica Chan & Ben Abernathy
I will admit to being a little disappointed in this issue, but that’s completely down to my own expectations than anybody else’s. This issue of Nightwing is not labeled as a Dawn of DC title, but in my brain, it should have been. Between the finalé of Dark Crisis and Nightwing #100, Dick Grayson was set up as the heart and soul of this new status quo. This issue would have been an incredible follow up. And don’t get me wrong - this is a great comic. The Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo (with pals) run has been outstanding, and this is no different. That said, I still feel like the company and creators missed an opportunity to make this one a little more new reader friendly, especially considering this issue is meant to start cementing The Titans as the core team of this new status quo. All of the elements are in play, but they are well and truly tied to smaller events that occurred in the Nightwing run before this point, and it sat in contrast to Superman, which didn’t let past continuity pull the momentum backwards. This is not bad for current readers of this incredible series, but I’ll admit, I was hoping to be able to get some more people on board. I almost definitely still will, due to the well-deserved praise of the series to date, but it will be quite a bit easier to pop Superman in folks’ hands if they’re looking for a clean start.
THE PITCH | This is still a great book. I don’t think there’s ever going to be a time in this particular feature where I’ll talk about trying to pitch a book that I don’t believe in (although that might make an interesting topic at The Beat one day). That said, if I’m pitching this book to folks, I’m pitching it to folks who have a high tolerance for back history. New and old readers alike all have different levels of comfort when it comes to unknown information when it comes to their comic book reading. Some can deal with a bit of missing information, and some are actively repelled by it. This is a book that I’d put in the hands of fresh readers who have an aptitude for rolling with the punches. Or truly, folks who have a soft spot for the classic Titans team, because that still does lie at the heart of this new arc.
Previously…
If you want to see me talking more about the positives on Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo’s Nightwing run, I highly recommend an edition of this feature from about a month ago.
With these features, I’m trying to divorce my personal love for the comics from my wants as a retailer. Many times, those ideas will be at odds, like today. I hope all who read my takes realize that when I’m being cold, that doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying the project - I just wish it was a bit easier for me to get others to enjoy it too.
Variant Edition Presents… The New Releases Show
Each and every week, my partner Danica and I run a stream where we talk about ourselves, the shop, and the week’s new releases. This week’s edition features more details about our signing with Chip Zdarsky and something… strange happening with a local creator’s upcoming Image Comics release.
And finally this week, I want to draw some attention to a retailer pal who has been doing some remarkable stuff over the past ten years.
Recently, a storm of unfortunate circumstances has caused things to be a little tight for Menachem over at Escape Pod Comics - and instead of going the crowdfunding route, he’s calling upon the wonderful community he’s built to pull him up.
I consider myself part of his community and wanted to share his campaign with you, just in case you’re in the area, or want to place some orders with a person who I feel has done an incredible amount to foster positivity in the realm of comic retailers.
Head over to Escape Pod Comics to help out!
That’s it for today. Talk with you soon.
-B.
The last two pages were missing in order to protect some larger plans for the line.