Angry Wall

Alternately titled: “Me to DC Comics: GO FUCK YOURSELVES!!”

So, to this point, I have largely avoided commenting on DC’s reboot of the DCU (the “new 52” initiative, or DCnU). Too many negative feelings, life’s short enough as it is, the blog-o-sphere’s doing plenty enough spleen venting without my unseen whinging being added. And I don’t imagine that my readers much care. But this is my platform, I will use it as I please, and in light of their latest announcements, some things must be said.

Because I am breaking up with DC.

I’ve been kicking the metaphor around in my head for a while, but still there was still something to hold out for, or some other character likely to pop back up, and while my buying might be way down (so, one DCU title a month, down from about 6-8 a couple years ago, before Rucka left), we weren’t totally on the outs. And I’ve loved your characters for so long. And you’re the only reason I give the slightest fuck about superheroes. And… And…

But between talking to Casey at the comic shop and DC’s announcements this week, it finally became clear to me that I already have broken up with DC. 2000(ish)-2011 is my DCU era, never to be seen again. They changed, too much, unforgivably, and now I must go. True, for the time being I still continue to give them money for exactly two titles–Batwoman, which I’ve been waiting years for and is essentially a coda to the aforementioned era, with a few irritating detail changes, and The Unwritten, which is a Vertigo title (and so, not actually DCU) by the awesome creative team behind Lucifer, one of my favorite books ever, and which I’ll be riding out–but it is very much the “giving back the books and CD’s” part of the post-relationship.

But since every messy break-up needs a bloody post-mortem, let’s dig into what hurt the most:

Huntress — GONE! Never existed. And I mean my Huntress, Helena Bertinelli, not whoever Paul Levitz used to write and wants to write again.

Oracle — GONE! Might as well not have existed. Don’t care if you do put one of my favorite writers on the book–I will never read a title that has Barbara Gordon de-aged and demoted to being Batgirl.

Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown — GONE! Oh, I’m sorry, “MIA.” But let’s face it, Didio hates them, and they’re not Silver Age, so Morrison doesn’t give a crap about them and won’t stick his neck out to save them. I’m not holding my breath.

Secret Six (and the character’s therein) — GONE! Right, they’re also “MIA,” but aside from the cameo-est of cameos, or as easy death-fodder for some BS cross-over “event,” I don’t expect to see any of these characters I loved ever again.

Deadshot’s mustache — GONE! Which is perhaps the nicest bit of all the things that are HORRIBLY, HORRIBLY WRONG with the godawful Suicide Squad reboot.

Savant and Creote — Speaking of the cameo-est of cameos, I heard tell the Savant got summarily offed at the start of SS. Way to not hate on the gays, DC–unless I’m mistaken in that detail, in which case I still expect to never see either of these guys again. What a waste.

Manhunter (Kate Spencer) — MIA. She’s got a slim shot for a cameo in Batwoman, maybe. Or maybe they’ll let Andreyko go play in a corner again and she’ll reappear. Again, not holding my breath.

The Question (Renee Montoya) — If not my absolute favorite fictional character, then pretty goddamn close, so this almost hurts too much to type. MIA, with the narrowest of chances she’ll reappear in Batwoman with her accumulated character growth intact. But really, let’s face it, unless you know the character as well as or better than I do (and I think few people who are not Greg Rucka do), I’m not terribly interested in what you have to say about her anyway. The way DC’s going, she’ll show up as a clueless beat cop again, but either way, I don’t think I can bring myself to read whatever pale simulacrum they might try and pass off as her. She lives in my head, and in my old trades, and she’s joining Babs and Helena off in the sunset there, too good to hang around and endure this crap.

And there’s so many more, we could go on all day, from god awful creative teams, to employing Rob Leifeld in any capacity, to tone-deaf management, to everything Titans related (oh wait, that’s been terrible for years), to the hatchet jobs done on Selina, Kory, Harley, Waller… I just don’t have anymore fucks to give. I give up, DC. Like I said, I’ll honor my remaining commitments as long as you do–but then we both walk away.

And the worst part is, you won’t even notice.