why is cosmic DC lacking.

[Pixie_Solanas]

Hey! Back slowly away from seeming to suggest GI Combat should go away!

lol, plenty of other titles we can safely do away with. Ravagers, i'm sure.

[Jim Thompson]

lol, plenty of other titles we can safely do away with. Ravagers, i'm sure.

Y'know, it is possible to simply start a new book without cancelling another.

[Desaad]

The Legion of Superheroes is more pure sci fi than anything Marvel is currently putting out, I think, or anything they've put out in years. Even books like Nova, Annihilators, etc weren't as concerned with the sheer world and culture building and idea generation as the Legion of Superheroes historically has been.

And if you want to talk reasonable and interesting set pieces and antagonists, you need look no further; Mordru, the Time Trapper, Pulsar Stargrave, The Luck Lords, Validus, The Emerald Eye of Ekron, The Infinite Man, Computo, The Controllers, Dominus, Omega, etc.

It's just that since it's a book in the future no one really pays attention to it.

[MajorHoy]

Can DC do a great cosmic series without GL or Superman in the storyline? I don't think so.

sure they can and have.

You sort of shoot yourself in the foot with that last example.

Legion of Super-Heroes began as part of a Superboy (young Clark, not Conner) story in Adventure Comics in 1958, and were heavily tied to Superboy until after sometime after Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1986. They've brought back that connection to Superboy/Superman in the past several years (after Infinite Crisis re-established Kal-El as having a Superboy career when he was in Smallville).

[Doctor Voodoo]

You sort of shoot yourself in the foot with that last example.

Legion of Super-Heroes began as part of a Superboy (young Clark, not Conner) story in Adventure Comics in 1958, and were heavily tied to Superboy until after sometime after Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1986. They've brought back that connection to Superboy/Superman in the past several years (after Infinite Crisis re-established Kal-El as having a Superboy career when he was in Smallville).

Their origins are tied to Superman, but they are still their own entity now.

[Pixie_Solanas]

Y'know, it is possible to simply start a new book without cancelling another.

The 52 is sacrosanct. Two men enter, one man leaves.

[Spiderboy12]

You sort of shoot yourself in the foot with that last example.

Legion of Super-Heroes began as part of a Superboy (young Clark, not Conner) story in Adventure Comics in 1958, and were heavily tied to Superboy until after sometime after Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1986. They've brought back that connection to Superboy/Superman in the past several years (after Infinite Crisis re-established Kal-El as having a Superboy career when he was in Smallville).

The Legion of Super-Heroes earned its own popularity apart from Superboy well before COIE. The team's popularity first pushed solo Superboy stories out of Adventure Comics back in the 1960s, and then out of Superboy in the early 1970s. Though historically (in the 1950s and 1960s) the title's sales had always been strong, Superboy's sales were falling before the Legion took over in 1973. They helped to keep Superboy's sales strong for the rest of the decade. Finally, in late 1979, Superboy left the Legion (and his original solo series) and the team was left to sink or swim without the Boy of Steel. It not only "swam" without young Kal-El, the LSH was the second-best selling DC property in the years before COIE, and still sold well in the late 1980s. And the Legion was very cosmic during that time, helping to build up a "future universe" and cosmology that would eventually intrude upon the "present-day" DCU, in Invasion.

The point of all of this is that the Legion didn't need Superboy/Superman to be popular (though he certainly didn't hurt), and by the same token, having that connection to Superman doesn't guarantee them success. Nor did they need Superboy/man to be "cosmic". The Great Darkness Saga, anyone?

Not that Superman is exactly lacking in the "cosmic" department himself. As an extremely powerful alien living on Earth (someone who often has a galactic reputation), Superman has long provided a connection between the cosmic DCU and Earth, when creators are creative enough to exploit that connection successfully.

[Fate's Faith]

Hey! Back slowly away from seeming to suggest GI Combat should go away!

Well, I wasn't a great fan of Men of War and GI Combat, while looking miles better, doesn't do it for me either. Obviously, war comics just aren't for me.

I like the thought of using Adam Strange. Captain Comet is another though he definitely seems team oriented to me. In fact, of the two, I'd rather a team which includes Comet over just Adam's adventures on or near Rann. Never read REBELS but did read LEGION and Vril Dox I did like even if there's no Brainiac connection. Omega Men too but not limited to the Vegan system.

[Will.S]

In terms of real characters, Marvel has just a few; the Silver Surfer is one of them, definitely. Quasar held a series. Fine. They are both very, very tough sells. Captain Marvel generally has a series -- but that title has gone now to Carol Danvers, who won't have any more cosmic touches than any standard superhero does, really.

I don't know if I'd just say a few, Nova and the Guardians were also really cool cosmic characters throughout the duration of their runs. During the Annihilation time you also had Drax, Super Skrull, Silver Surfer, Ronan, and Nova all with their own mini's all dovetailing into a major cosmic event. The sky was the limit as to where they would go with them but usually after a while the sales are never sustainable to the point of keeping the titles around indefinitely. Now I do find that Marvel's cosmic area feels like more of a known developed quantity to me whereas DC's cosmic area has a lot to offer but tends to be a bit scatter shot given how they tend to handle that whole area.

DC has a nice range of cosmic or cosmic related characters like Adam Strange/Rann, Daxamites, Kryptonians, Khunds, Tamaraneans, Durlan's, The New Gods, the GL (and rainbow corps), R.E.B.E.L.S., L.E.G.I.O.N., Legion of Superheroes, Qwardians, Manhunters, Anti-Monitor, Monitor's, Lobo, The Omega Men, Captain Comet, the Dominators, etc. so they have a nice canvas there but for whatever reason I just don't feel like they're always the most developed nor do they typically share the same space unless you do what Bedard did and tie in a lot of other cosmic stuff into R.E.B.E.L.S. like the GL's, Lobo, Starfire, Adam Strange, and so on. In that vein, I think DC's closest thing to Annihilation was basically R.E.B.E.L.S. with Starro which I really enjoyed but unfortunately that also got cancelled but I've got to give it to DC they gave it as far an extension as they could.

With cosmic titles in either universe I suppose it depends on how you launch them and whether they can maintain interest in the lines after that. Green Lantern works a lot for DC basically because it's a superhero tied into all the cosmic stuff and Marvel's answer to that for a bit was Nova but the problem with DC is that they kind of over-saturated that area with various lantern corps to the point of not really exploring other non-ringed villains/aliens/etc. in the cosmic area all that often. Geoff Johns Green Lantern book is practically the epitome of that by just mainly exploring rainbow corps stuff while leaving other cosmic concepts to the wayside which is why I feel that titles like New Guardians and GLC are more expansive in that regard.

I would love to see the GL's go up against the New Gods exclusively or have a major defining cosmic event involving a lot of cosmic stuff that can maybe launch a whole line but it seems like we might not see that for a bit given how cosmic stuff by itself tend to be risky ventures unless you tie them into bigger franchise books or events.

[comicstvcomputer]

The case as always been this: Marvel focuses on the more spatial/cosmic side while DC focuses on the mystical/spiritual side although it seems to me especially in the new 52 DC has been getting more cosmic with things like pandora

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

The case as always been this: Marvel focuses on the more spatial/cosmic side while DC focuses on the mystical/spiritual side although it seems to me especially in the new 52 DC has been getting more cosmic with things like pandora

But is Pandora really cosmic. She's more like high-level supernatural than anything, what with her being cursed by council of gods? Wizards? I'm not sure.

[Will.S]

But is Pandora really cosmic. She's more like high-level supernatural than anything, what with her being cursed by council of gods? Wizards? I'm not sure.

Yeah that's pretty much how I see it too.

[comicstvcomputer]

Geoff Johns himself claimed she was a very cosmic character and she did create a new form of existence what else would you call her

[Will.S]

Geoff Johns himself claimed she was a very cosmic character and she did create a new form of existence what else would you call her

She seems like she's of mythic/mystic origin more than anything else, cosmic tends to veer more into the sci fi area but admittedly there are also times where there's a blurred line between cosmic/mystic.

[MajorHoy]

Geoff Johns himself claimed she was a very cosmic character and she did create a new form of existence what else would you call her

Rhymes with "witch"?