If Grant Morrison writes it, it's the MAIN one?

[Jared Song]

All these new 52 titles and the relaunch attempt to gain new readers got me thinking about characters having multiple books.

When you were a kid, how did you differentiate among the various titles?
You had Batman or Detective, Action or Superman, and from the marvelous competition you had Amazing, Spectacular, and Web.
Did you buy them all? If not, how did you choose?

As an adlt, what did you buy? All of them or only one? Why?


Me, as a kid, I didn't know about comic shops, so whatever the grocery store, drugstore or 7-11 had, I would get. They usually had one or the other, never all of them. So I would get an issue of Detective here, an issue of Batman there and only getting bits and pieces of each story.

As a teenager, Batman and Detective were the main titles, Shadow of the Batman was the unimportant one where nothing significant happened, and LOTDK was the artsy one that told self contained stories.

As an adult, with so many Batman books out, I consider whatever Morrison to be writing as the main book. All of his stories are substantial and effect Batman the most so that's normally where my 2.99 would go.

[Frank]

I have a feeling there's gonna be two Superman. The one in Justice League is the younger one and the one Morrison is writing might be the Earth 2 version. At least the old Superman. Noticed in the previews there was emphasis placed on him being "the first one", the "one that inspired them all"?

[FanboyStranger]

As a kid, I was a Marvel Zombie, and it was usually just buying anything on the newstand at the Convenient Food Mart and buying the next issue if I liked it.

These days it's generally creative teams that draw me in first, then I stick with it if the story is good. Second biggest factor is word of mouth. That said, once I saw characters like Animal Man were getting books again, I was like, damn, I love Animal Man before I even saw that Jeff Lemire was writing the new series.

I don't really care what's the main book so much as what's the good book.

[PastePotPete]

I have a feeling there's gonna be two Superman. The one in Justice League is the younger one and the one Morrison is writing might be the Earth 2 version. At least the old Superman. Noticed in the previews there was emphasis placed on him being "the first one", the "one that inspired them all"?

I have a feeling you're going to be wrong. Because they've said it's all taking place on the same earth and both Justice League and Action Comics will be taking place about 5 years in the past to show the debut of both properties.

[randomengine]

I have a feeling there's gonna be two Superman. The one in Justice League is the younger one and the one Morrison is writing might be the Earth 2 version. At least the old Superman. Noticed in the previews there was emphasis placed on him being "the first one", the "one that inspired them all"?

That makes no sense. There are no alternate universe Supermen in the reboot.

[carabas]

All these new 52 titles and the relaunch attempt to gain new readers got me thinking about characters having multiple books.

When you were a kid, how did you differentiate among the various titles?
You had Batman or Detective, Action or Superman, and from the marvelous competition you had Amazing, Spectacular, and Web.
Did you buy them all? If not, how did you choose?
Well, when I was a kid only Superman and Batman had books. The rest of DC and pretty much all of Marvel simply did not exist around here. I got both, but even then (age 10, tops) I found Superman to be rather silly at times.
I mostly got various European books.

When was a bit older they stopped printing those. There was a period where superheroes simply went away altogether here. Then they started up some Marvel translations. I had no conception of Marvel and DC at the time, I just bought (well, made my parents buy them) any and all superheroes I could get my hands on.
Then a bit late it was just mostly X-Men and Spider-Man that continued to be printed, all those I liked got discontinued, the art went to crap, the stories were even worse, and I gave up completely on the genre.

Sure, there was Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, but those were one-offs.

What got me back was finding a store that had original, imported comics. Didn't really try superhero ongoings for a long long while. I did get DC's licenced Dungeons & Dragons books and non-canon Batman stories like Legends Of the Dark Knight. Went from there to stuff like Sandman, Preacher, Transmet, The Invisibles...
And from those books to Ennis's Punisher, Morrison's X-Men and JLA, and so on.

Got hooked on all sorts of ongoing titles. Bought insanlely much books for the next decade or so. And then time caught up with me and all of my favourite characters got put on a bus in favour of some hackneyed old silver age antique, and now I'm down to just a handful of books, mostly Vertigo and independants.

DC's reboot? Yeah, no. Once bitten, twice shy. DC and Marvel don't reward emotional investment in their stories very well.

I'll just continue to pick up the occasional oddball book by a favourite writer (in the reboot, Birds Of Prey, Stormwatch, and JLA Dark look very interesting) and ignore the rest as much as possible.

ETA: Shadow of the Bat was the one I got, because it was continuity-free. I never got near Detective and Batman back then.

[carabas]

I have a feeling there's gonna be two Superman. The one in Justice League is the younger one and the one Morrison is writing might be the Earth 2 version. At least the old Superman. Noticed in the previews there was emphasis placed on him being "the first one", the "one that inspired them all"?It looks like the JSA doesn't exist anymore, or exists on Earth 2. So Superman would be the first superhero of the new DCU. The one in Justice League is younger because Justice League's first arc is an origin story set in the past. And I believe Morriosn is also starting out that way on Action.

[Munkiman]

I base which books are the "main" books of a line on their individual quality. For instance, right now I would say that Snyder's Detective and Morrison's Batman Incorporated are the main Bat-books, because Daniel's Batman isn't that good.

[carabas]

The 'main' book is the one you're enjoying most. As far as I am concerned Secret Six is DC's flagship title and Justice League is nigh-unreadable trash.

[gwangung]

The 'main' book is the one you're enjoying most. As far as I am concerned Secret Six is DC's flagship title and Justice League is nigh-unreadable trash.

'eyyyyyy....I co-sign on that.

[krammocon]

No! I think what Dan Didio writes is the main one. Bwahahahahaha

[Hulk_Is]

Easy answer. When you were a kid you bought what you could afford and whichever title(s) had your favorite character(s) in it.

[randomengine]

Here is what totally confuses me.

Actions Comics appears to be the flagship Superman book.
But, Batman appears to be the flagship Batman book.

Why not just give Grant Morrison the Superman book?

I think this was a good opportunity to retire Action Comics and Detective Comics the names are just too old fashioned. Make the single name titles the main books.

[carabas]

Here is what totally confuses me.

Actions Comics appears to be the flagship Superman book.
But, Batman appears to be the flagship Batman book.
What is this supposition based on? I honestly can't tellwhich of the three solo Batman books is suposed to be the main one. I kinda thougt it was David Finch's book, going by sales.

[Kiryu]

Here is what totally confuses me.

Actions Comics appears to be the flagship Superman book.
But, Batman appears to be the flagship Batman book.

Why not just give Grant Morrison the Superman book?

I think this was a good opportunity to retire Action Comics and Detective Comics the names are just too old fashioned. Make the single name titles the main books.

Because Action Comics debuting Superman is "Iconic" which matters more then logic I guess?

[Imraith Nimphais]

I've never had the habit of buying multiple titles featuring the same characters.

If Wolverine appears in ten comics, I just buy the one that most interests me...Uncanny X-Force. Similarly with DC...

One Batman, if I was so inclined which I am not. As it is, he will be featured in JL and that's enough for me. Wonderwoman and Aquaman are the only two exceptions because they will be featured in both JL and their own solos.

[bluedevil2002]

It's hard to play this game with Superman, because I grew up with the triangle numbers.

With Batman, when I first started, you had Dixon/Nolan on Detective, Moench/Jones on Batman, and Grant/Taylor (soon rotating) on SOTB.

I didn't like Jones's art, so it was one of the others. This is mainly in the no crossover era between Legacy and Cataclysm, so I ended up getting SOTB mostly. It had the cooler covers, and clearly defined "Part 1 of 2" or whatever.

Then it went into NML, so all of the titles matter.

After NML, I still wasn't quite into the get a series every month...so I would get random Detective issues until Brubaker started on Batman. I got every issue he wrote as it came out. Then I was pretty much getting all three during the Murderer/Fugitive run. Afterwards, I stayed just with Batman for Hush, skipped the next arc, and I think I ended up staying with Batman except for a couple of fill ins up until Morrison moved to Batman and Robin. Then I just followed him.

But if I ventured back into other Batman territory, I'd go with Batman again. Snyder seems like a solid choice.

Over at Marvel, with something like Spidey, it was usually whatever story looked cooler. Spectacular had an arc with the X-Men? I got that.

But for me, a lot of what I got as a kid was back issues anyway.

[Jared Song]

It's hard to play this game with Superman, because I grew up with the triangle numbers.
.

At the time I had no idea what those triangles were for. I assumed it was some kind of commorative denoation.

[Gabe De Los Muertos]

Action Comics has Grant Morrison scripting and Rags Morales on art. Of course it will be the main book.

[Flash Gordon]

Well, as a kid I bought anything with Superman even remotely in it.

Action Comics, to me, is his flagship book though. Action and Detective are the cornerstones of DC Comics. I'm glad Action will be his lead feature Post-Flashpoint, it's crazy to think he's been kept back from his own book for this long.

[Tenacious_AA]

All these new 52 titles and the relaunch attempt to gain new readers got me thinking about characters having multiple books.

When you were a kid, how did you differentiate among the various titles?
You had Batman or Detective, Action or Superman, and from the marvelous competition you had Amazing, Spectacular, and Web.
Did you buy them all? If not, how did you choose?


As a kid... I couldn't afford them all, maybe one or two once in a while.

I went for the 80 pagers or annuals because usually I had a whole story when I got it.

As a kid...it was the art that would catch my attention in buying a book first...I wasn't writer savvy enough to know to choose a writer.

Also as a woman...I didn't spend much time choosing...I felt a little self-conscious most of the time because I'd be the only girl there, so would wait over by the used CD section till the guys cleared out around the stacks...swoop in and grab what I could then checked out before any more people could come in the store.



As an adlt, what did you buy? All of them or only one? Why?


I had stopped collecting until I married, and my husband was a big collector he'd get maybe 5 comics a week but didn't have a pull list, so would miss a issue in a story all the time. It ...frustrated me, even though I was trying... not to get caught up in it (soap opera that it is). Finally when I decided to collect the kind I liked (I liked the non powered Batman type comic, and he liked super powered). I started a folder and we combined our moneys and get most of the DC titles.


Me, as a kid, I didn't know about comic shops, so whatever the grocery store, drugstore or 7-11 had, I would get. They usually had one or the other, never all of them. So I would get an issue of Detective here, an issue of Batman there and only getting bits and pieces of each story.

As a teenager, Batman and Detective were the main titles, Shadow of the Batman was the unimportant one where nothing significant happened, and LOTDK was the artsy one that told self contained stories.

As an adult, with so many Batman books out, I consider whatever Morrison to be writing as the main book. All of his stories are substantial and effect Batman the most so that's normally where my 2.99 would go.

Actually I've gone the other way and consider Morrison's stories out of the continuum, he's stories always seem a little off from what other stories are telling. Like the "Bruce" skull.

[carabas]

Like the "Bruce" skull.The what what?

[Tenacious_AA]

The what what?

Not arguing. If you don't know what I'm talking about... you didn't read the story.

[carabas]

Not arguing. If you don't know what I'm talking about... you didn't read the story.Well, I am behind a little. Haven't gotten to Inc. yet.

[Ebon]

When you were a kid, how did you differentiate among the various titles?

Set the wayback machine for 1970...

I differentiated them by the ones that were available :) The downside of the 'spinner rack in the drug store' days is that titles were frequently gone before I got there (not having any real idea that there was a set day of the week or month to expect new comics, it was 'whenever we're over in that area'). Most stories were self-contained, so it didn't matter which title I picked up.

If there were Batman, Brave and Bold, AND Detective all there... I'd look at the villain or guest star and see which one I liked best if there was some reason I could not get all of them. Those being equal, whichever had the best art.


As an adult, with so many Batman books out, I consider whatever Morrison to be writing as the main book.

I don't really look at any one of them as the 'main' one.

I'm still a dabbler in both the main lines of DC books - For Batman, previously I'd pick up a run here and there, or issue or so, depending on if it featured Robin prominately or some other guest star I really liked. Lately, I've been mainly picking up Batman and Robin, and I'll see which of the Batman titles features Damian significantly after the reboot.

[PastePotPete]

In September I'm going with Action Comics because I love Morrison's writing and Morales is a fantastic artist.

I'll be going with Batmanfor my Batman fix because Snyder shows promise and Greg Capullo is really really good.

You guys are debating which books will 'matter' more?? Ugh. Do yourself a huge favor and read the ones you LIKE. Being a completionist is like having a gambling addiction. You keep putting quarters in and pulling the lever and you rarely hit a jackpot. Continuity exists to perpetuate more continuity. The end of Brightest Day is really just the beginning of Search for Swamp Thing. You'll never get closure.

Read runs by great writers and artists and stop reading when they leave.

[Jody Garland]

Well, I am behind a little. Haven't gotten to Inc. yet.

It's not from Inc. It's from Blackest Night/Batman and Robin.

[AgPhoenix]

Here is what totally confuses me.

Actions Comics appears to be the flagship Superman book.
But, Batman appears to be the flagship Batman book.

Why not just give Grant Morrison the Superman book?

I think this was a good opportunity to retire Action Comics and Detective Comics the names are just too old fashioned. Make the single name titles the main books.

While I agree with the notion that The Big 2 are far too stuck in the past and focus far too much on "what is", I'm not sure that the names Action Comics and Detective Comics by themselves are part of the problem.

A Huge part of the problem is that they've gone so far from the Original Anthology roots, starring characters that have been in circulation for 70 years+, that there exists a very clear aura of "Been there, Done That" that exists around these books.

Personally, I think if DC wanted to give this Relaunch a fresher coat of paint, they would've given Detective to Nightwing and Action to Power Girl. If nothing else, you give everyone a clear indication that it won't be business as usual.

[Frank]

I have a feeling you're going to be wrong. Because they've said it's all taking place on the same earth and both Justice League and Action Comics will be taking place about 5 years in the past to show the debut of both properties.

I just got that feeling, especially since on the first cover of Action Comics, Superman seems older, wears jeans, etc...while the image on Superman #1 the character looks younger with a new suit.

Maybe Morrison's book is set in the futur so the Grant can have more freedom...?

[Retro315]

I'd kill to be a writer for a title that was Morrison-adjacent. The guy tosses off crumbs of ideas that make me want to pick them up and build worlds, psychoses or ultimate villain plots around.

Yeah, when he moved to Batman and Robin it became the "main spine" of the Batman books. And Incorporated has dictated a lot of the rest of the Batman line as well, although much more loosely.

It seems that's come to a bit of an end though - while Incorporated is still operating, after the revamp it'll be another ongoing storyline creating cool new ideas and story possibilities, but it seems like Snyder's going to be leading the direction for a while.

Snyder's done no wrong so far, though, so it doesn't sting just yet. That Inc. delay's gonna sting though.