The-Omega-Men

DC Comics just announced to CBR that five ongoing series of the DC You launch are being cancelled. Among the books just announced for cancellation include fan favorite title The Omega Men by Tom King and Barnaby Bagenda. The others include Lobo, Justice League United, Doomed, and Gotham By Midnight. Catwoman has been assigned a new creative team as well, with Genevieve Valentine and David Messina being replaced by Frank Tieri and Inaki Miranda.

Lobo, The Omega Men, Gotham By Midnight, and Justice League United are all slated to ship their final issues in December, followed by Doomed, which as of this moment does not have a confirmed final issue launch date. Of the brand new titles, The Omega Men and Doomed are both brand new books in the DC You relaunched as a part of the new line by the publisher.

The Omega Men was a beloved comic in the brand new DC launch line-up, here’s what our very own Kyle Pinion had to say in assessing the first issue of the series:

This does not read like any other comic that I’ve read in the New 52, there’s little to no exposition, and half the dialogue is obscured in alien language. I also rather enjoyed it, because sometimes the more challenging a comic, the more rewarding it can be. That’s not to say it’s like reading the Brandon Graham/Simon Roy Prophet, but I did have to take a few moments to figure out what was going on and that lack of hand-holding by Tom King was something I really appreciated. I look forward to reading more!

Since then, the title has grown in the amount of nuance and violence, pushing the boundaries of language and things that can physically happen in the world of DC. While sales for the comic were lackluster, this is the kind of series that fans will likely cite as a special take on the Omega Men in the immediate future. Also, the material with Kyle Rayner was the most interesting use of the character in decades, here’s to a series that ended too soon!

Another problem is the creative team switch on Catwoman, one of the very best books published by DC since Genevieve Valentine and Garry Brown took over the comic. What should have been a gimmicky reboot inspired by status quota shifts turned into a full blown The Wire stylized crime fiction title. Valentine’s writing was perfectly suited to the tone of the old Marvel Knights crime books of the early ‘2000s. While her status quota shift was never going to last forever (especially regarding the change in tone of the series after the reboot,) we still would have liked to see the book conclude in a more organic fashion considering the slow evolution of this series pacing.

Gotham By Midnight was no slouch in terms of quality either, even though the early departure of the gritty violence depicted by Ben Templesmith was a loss. The comic likely could have used the extra spaced in developing the rest of the characters on the night shift. Here is David Carter‘s most recent DC sales analysis for July where he assessed the current climate of the company.

9 COMMENTS

  1. Comics barely get a chance today, unless you have a Bat, Super, or Spider as part of your title. I mean, JLU had three issues to prove itself (they pretty much mini-rebooted the thing with this new version since coming back from hiatus.) And I just started picking up Gotham by Midnight (after Templesmith left, which was actually what was keeping me from originally picking up the book.) Ah well, I’ve learned over my long comics reading career to enjoy the books while they’re around, because I usually always end up reading the books that get the cancellation axe, sooner or later…

  2. Agreed on Ms. Valentine’s Catwoman. Gone too soon; her take on the character has been breathtaking — the first time since Will Pfeiffer was on the book where I’ve felt compelled to read it regularly and frankly the best the character has been treated since Ed Brubaker and Cameron Stewart, Darwyn Cooke, et al., were crafting her tales.

  3. I’ve found Valentine’s talking heads to be a bit boring – looking forward to something with more action and adventure.

  4. This is how a rudderless ship navigates.

    No vision, no long-term strategy, no commitment.

    I’m not paranoid enough to think that they want “DC You” to fail, but I definitely get the impression they don’t care if it does. And in that case, why do they even bother?

  5. They wanted it to succeed; it didn’t, or at least didn’t meet their minimum expectations. Now it’s time to go back to things that have more of a proven history of success.

  6. RE: Lobo

    So they take a character that had Stan Lee lament in QA at Wizardworld that the one DC character he wished he created was Lobo — the 90s version.

    And so DC takes a character who at its prime was the most popular character at the time and reimagine it into an unrecognizable mess, not merely as a new take but with purpose of destroying that prior popular take story wise.

    What could go wrong with that plan?

    Silly but True

  7. Lamenting the end of the Omega Men. Haven’t been this excited about a book for a decade and not about an Omega Men book since the 80s. Come on DC-recognise a good thing when you’re onto it!

  8. Cancelling good comics like Omega Men proves DC has no plan for success. If it doesn’t have the holy trinity in it, it flops. DC has squandered their rep as fans have no faith in their new books. When DC fans don’t bother to show up for Omega or Catwoman, the writing seems to be on the wall for the current management. At least let’s hope so.

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