By Todd Allen

With the March (issue 7) solicitations out, we have a little better idea of what the first round of changes for the New 52/DCnU are.  Some of these departures are thought to be the writer choosing to leave (Simone, Brandon) and some appear to be the writer getting the quick hook  Gates).  When these change decisions were made, there has been history of collected edition sale and it may be a little early to judge digital sales.  (Do we know what happens to sales when the titles drop to $1.99?  This is new enough, you’d really like to see more than 2-3 months of digital sales before trusting it.)

So what kind of changes are we looking at?

  1. Green Arrow: JT Krul off / Ann Nocenti on
  2. Men of War: Ivan Brandon off / New permanent writer not announced
  3. Legion Lost: Fabian Nicieza off / Tom DeFalco on
  4. Firestorm: Gail Simone off (as co-writer) / Joe Harris on (as co-writer)
  5. Stormwatch: Paul Cornell off / New permanent writer not announced
  6. Static Shock: John Rozum and Scott McDaniel off / Marc Bernardin on
  7. Hawk and Dove: Sterling Gates off / Rob Liefeld on
  8. Voodoo: Ron Marz off / Josh Williamson on
  9. Savage Hawkman – James Bonny added as co-writer starting with issue 5

Artist changes are a little harder to keep track of, since the relaunch appears to have been launched on short notice and the lack of lead time has already led to guest artists.  Issue #7’s solicited with a different artist than issue #1 (in some cases, this is a temporary artist and the regular will be back, like Gene Ha filling in on Justice League for Jim Lee).  21% of the new 52 have a different artist on issue 7.  That isn’t 21% permanent artist changes, but this is what it is for March.

  1. Grifter – #1: CAFU; #7 Scott Clark and Dave Beatty
  2. Suicide Squad – #1 Marco Rudy; #7 Clayton Henry
  3. Blackhawks – #1 Ken Lashley; #7 CAFU and Bit
  4. Men of War – #1 Tom Derenick; #7 Scott Kolins and Phil Winslade
  5. Green Lantern Corps – #1 Fernando Pasarin and Scott Hanna; #7 Claude St. Aubin and Scott Hanna
  6. Batwoman – #1 J.H. Williams III; #7 Amy Reeder and Rob Hunter
  7. Superman – #1 George Perez and Jesus Merino; Dan Jurgens and Jesus Merino
  8. Justice League -#1 Jim Lee and Scott Williams #7 Gene Ha and Gary Frank
  9. The Fury of Firestorm – #1 Yildiray Cinar; #7 Ethan Van Sciver
  10. Green Arrow – #1 Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund; #7 Harvey Tolibao
  11. Mister Terrific – #1 Roger Robinson; #7 Gianluca Gugliotta and Wayne Faucher

17% writer changes, 21% artist changes… well, now you have a score card for it.

1 COMMENT

  1. This is some lame speculating based on solicitations that are three months out.

    Gianluca Gugliotta & Wayne Faucher have been the regular team since #1, replacing Robinson before the book came out.

    Amy Reeder has been scheduled for the second arc since the BATWOMAN series was first announced in April of 2010.

  2. Come on, nobody ever willingly quit writing a comic-book! That’d be like asking a girl to stop blowing you. If that girl was Batman.

  3. Is this counting the issues that’ve had multiple artists? There was an issue of Stormwatch that had two different pencil artists, ditto an issue of GL: New Guardians.

  4. I was enjoying what Cornell was doing on Stormwatch. If moving to someone else why not let James Robinson loose on the book, he’s OG Wildstorm, and quite frankly isn’t as tired and dated as many of the other inter-changeable DC writers.

  5. As if creator changes is anything new to comics – Marvel flips creators like coins – or should be treated as a surprise with the new 52. They’ve been mentioning it since before the first issue ever came out: if a book is late, or looks to be late, if it’s not heading in a direction that is catching fire, etc – changes will happen.

    In other words – as much as the Beat and Bleeding Cool and other places want it to be – THIS IS NOT NEWS.

  6. Stormwatch is the only one in the writer changes section I’m collecting. Bummed that Cornell is leaving, but I’ll wait to see the replacement before I decide to cancel or not.

    The new artist for Green Arrow looks amazing, so that combined with Krul now being off the book means I’ll give it a try.

    The rest are still not appealing.

    Might have to try Grifter #7 for Scott Clark too! :)

  7. james robinson has copped a lot of flack for his work on superman but the guy can write, and write very, very well. starman, the shade, the golden age, jsa, wildcats…

    …let him loose on stormwatch!

  8. Phil Winslade was on Men of War #1 as well. The first issue of Suicide Squad wasn’t done by Marco Rudy, Federico Dallocchio and another artist did the first issue and from announcements should be back on the book after the Hunt for Harley arc. Green Arrow #1 also didn’t have Norm Rapmund inking Jurgens.

    I think you need to go beyond the solicitations when your information is thus faulty.

  9. I second Shawn’s comment on Stormwatch and Demon Knights. I was buying Stormwatch on an issue by issue basis until issue four when I got hooked. Now I am in stand by to see if I like the new writer.

    Hopefully Animal Man and Swamp Thing keep their writers and artists for a while. Love both of those and those were the two surprise hits for me of the new DC.

  10. I don’t know that fill-in artists (like Gene Ha doing an issue of Justice League) counts as an artist change.