Suggestions For Geoff Johns

Hey, good news, apparently Barry Allen is coming back. Now his comic didn't see particularly well when he was the Flash, and he primary characterization over the last twenty years was, "That guy who was really good at being the Flash and who's standard must be upheld."

You know, I can understand why you'd want to replace Wally West as the Flash, because you made the fundamental mistake of giving him a family, but two things:

A) To the extent the status quo of Wally's life is a problem, I don't know I'd hand the book back to the guy who screwed it up in the first place.

B) The last time that DC decided to replace Wally West with a guy whose name was B. Allen this happened:

Which, in short order, led to this:

Also, I can't imagine how this makes sense from the standpoint of marketing the Flash to new readers. Barry Allen died in 1985, there's no good reason to go back.

July 2008 DC Comic Obituary

Checkmate (v2)
Length of Series: 31 Issues

Why it Failed: Well, I mean, I do recall putting it on my list of comics that should be cancelled, so if I delude myself enough, I can pretend I made a difference.

But seriously, Checkmate is a C-List DC title, and there was no way that it was going to last with anything less than a A-List writer, and once Rucka left...well, it was probably doomed no matter what.

Granted, Bruce Jones managed to take it down in incredible time, I mean, given the lag time between commissioning issues and receiving sales reports...well, it was pretty fast.

But hey, it lasted two and half years, which isn't bad at all.

Bad Characters: Danny Chase

Let's be honest, like many other DC properties, the Titans have spent most of the last twenty years coasting on one good run, in this case the seminal Wolfman/Perez issues. I mean, what do you have after that?

Anyway, at some point Wolfman and Perez decided to let the characters gradually age into their early twenties...which wasn't the greatest idea, as it has led to a bunch of other problems, not the least of which was the breakdown of exactly what made the Titans different from every other super-team.

Marv Wolfman's reponse to this problem was to introduce Danny Chase, in an attempt to put the "Teen" back in Teen Titans...it didn't go so well. Why, you ask? First, let's look at his origin story from New Titans Annual #3 (1987)




A thirteen year-old who's some sort of secret agent for the government? Are you fucking kidding me?

But wait, there's more, because Danny Chase also has super-secret powers:
And how did he get his super-powers? Radiation, World War II and genetics, why choose one when you can have them all:



And, for the hell of it, why not add some parental abandonment:



And since his parents apparently have to go somewhere for some...reason, the Titans decide to adopt Secret Agent Danny Chase, because...well, they do anyway. (And by the way, I'm pretty sure Danny Chase's parents hate him as much as I do)

Thus, Danny Chase joined the Titans, and was given the chance to show his charming personality on a monthly basis:




And that one page basically sums up the character; an asshole with superpowers, and not the lovable kind.

He's also afraid of blood:

So, there you go, Danny Chase, the lamest Titan of all of Wolfman's run.

Coming This Fall

Wondering how Bill Willingham is going to write his half of the soon-to-be catastrophically bad DCU: Decisions? Well, here's a hint, from Fable #74:

So remember, gun control is just the man's way of keeping you down. So, to keep our country safe from terrorists and evil magical empires, make sure to vote Republican.

Heroic Failures In Comics: Counter-X

The year was 2000, and the world was a much different place. Over-extension of the X-Men line had led to there existing several books of...dubious quality.

Actually, I guess it's not really that different from today.

But back then, Marvel had a solution, turn over three of its marginal X-titles to Warren Ellis and friends to see if he turn them around. Long story short: He couldn't. Although it's worth noting that one conceit of the Counter-X gimmick was that Warren Ellis would gradually turn over control of the books to his chosen successors.

Why did it fail...well, let's look at the three books...

Generation X
You see, the first X-Men spinoff was The New Mutants, and it was a tremendous success. Interestingly enough, it eventually evolved into X-Force, which I'll look at in a second...

Before Counter-X: Jay Faerber was the writer, and the Massachusetts Academy (home of Generation X) had been forced to take in normal students in order to pay the bills. The drama came from the mutants being forced to hide their powers. Your standard teen soap opera, basically.

After Counter-X: Brian Wood gets rid of the normal students and the least interesting member of the team via a series of events not worth getting into at the moment. Frankly, the retool only lasted about a year, and a large part of that was taken up by a series of spotlight issues, so it's kind of hard to say there were a lot of changes. Either way, the book ended by scattering the team and closing the school.

X-Force
In a shocking twist, the X-book most tied into the worst excesses of the '90s started to show its age after about a decade, hence it was also involved in the Counter-X initiative.

Before Counter-X: X-Force was a band of young mutants (but not as young as Generation X) who were "edgier" than the main X-Teams. At least I think that's what it was about, it's kind of hard to figure out exactly what makes the bunch of mutants different from every other bunch of mutants.

After Counter-X: X-Force is a "black-ops" team, operating extra-legally in order to stop evil-doers. I think the key difference is that they play up the "extra-legal" concept. There's probably supposed to be a sort of ambiguous morality or something inherent in this approach, but it doesn't really come through.

Actually, X-Force survived the Counter-X implosion and was given over to Peter Milligan and Mike Allred and changed into an entirely different book about the convergence of celebrity and super-heroics.

X-Man
Behold the most superfluous X-Book that ever was!

Before Counter-X: Nate Grey was the super-powerful son who, through a complicated series of event was the biological child of Cyclops and Jean Grey and raised in a dystopia, and yes, that does sound a lot like Cable...except without guns...or a sense of purpose. It sounds as good as it was.

After Counter-X: The most successful Counter-X in terms of quality, it succeeded because it actually fixed one of the key flaws in the book by giving Nate Grey something to do. Unfortunately, it involved Nate Grey becoming some sort of shaman and involved bunches of alternate universes, but at least it tried.

Counter-X never really had a chance, the books Ellis was given to overhaul were marginal to begin with, and the industry wasn't in great shape at the moment. Still, the relaunches were mainly giving the existing bad concept a Ellisian gloss and sending them on their way, and that certainly wasn't going to work.

Great Comics of Our Times: Mutant X #31

Mutant X was a series that starred Havok, the younger, dumber, less interesting brother of Cyclops being trapped in an alternate universe where everyone's basically the same except for some perfunctory twist. Given that in the history of the X-Franchise there has been exactly one good run involving the character, (Peter David's first X-Factor run) it isn't surprising that the series didn't go too well.

But Mutant X #31 is a surreally bad issue that involves an American-Canadian war, Captain America blowing up the moon and a cliffhanger that comes out of nowhere.



The issue begins with the revelation of a terrifying, world-shattering evil...yeah, it's an alternate version of the Beyonder, because nothing says ominous like a guy with a White man's Afro
.

Meanwhile, in the main plot, Havok's team is in a tense standoff with...Canadian supersoldiers. For some reason, this encounter drives Captain America completely insane.

Really insane. And how the hell did the good Captain suddenly gain the ability to shoot undefined energy beams at people.



And it just goes on like this for a while, Captain America killing off minor characters for no real good reason until Havok shows up, and that's when it really goes off the rails.

Bad comic or Dragon Ball Z homage, you decide!



Now, I understand that alternate universes allow for all sorts of crazy ideas, but Canada as the world's "most militarily aggressive nation?" Really? I mean, looks like the most dangerous thing in this story is Captain America and his tendency to destroy everyone because they're not American...or American enough...or something.

...And that's when Havok destroyed the moon...somehow. It looks likes Havok's waves are destroying the moon, but that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Anyway, with Captain America defeated, the team decides to retire back to its headquarters, where Havok promptly gets ambushed. By whom you ask? Is it the mysterious entity alluding to throughout the story? A disgruntled Canadian? The owner of a tidal power plant? No, it's a villain perfectly suited to a guy who can level small planets...