why is cosmic DC lacking.

[galactica]

Instead of the lower-ebb titles (GI Combat, really?), there should be a comprehensive DC Cosmic book (Giffen? Yes!). Center it around Adam Strange, and give it more balls than the aborted R.E.B.E.L.S.

I know he is busy with Hollywood stuff but I thought JMS would be a good choice for something like this. Basically give him everything outside Earth, include cosmic elements from Wildstorm and Milestone, center it around a few established characters and a few new ones. It can remain fairly uninvolved with the rest of the DCU for as long as he wants. They wouldn't even need to worry about the Green Lanterns too much since they always seem to be fighting among themselves of with other Lantern Corps.

I really wish Geoff Johns and DC had used the success of the Green Lantern franchise to reinvigorate their Cosmic universe. All the big things happening in the GL books haven't had any effect on the big alien races in the DCU. Over in Marvel when the Shi'ar get a new emperor, Hala feels it. When someone invades from the negative zone the whole universe feels it.

[Red Winter]

We had REBELS, but nobody bought it. The reason why "cosmic DC" is lacking is because DC readers don't buy anything that isn't Batman.

The only Bat titles I get are Nightwing,Red Hood & the Outlaws(Roy Harper fan),and Batwoman. Before the Earth 2 books came out besides the "Bat" books I only read Grifter,Stormwatch, and Frankenstein. Not all DC fans are friends to the Big Three.
I would like to see the return of Space Ranger,Captain Comet,and Space Cabbie. I always liked scifi & westerns in comics.

[MajorHoy]

I know he is busy with Hollywood stuff but I thought JMS would be a good choice for something like this. Basically give him everything outside Earth, include cosmic elements from Wildstorm and Milestone, center it around a few established characters and a few new ones. It can remain fairly uninvolved with the rest of the DCU for as long as he wants. They wouldn't even need to worry about the Green Lanterns too much since they always seem to be fighting among themselves of with other Lantern Corps.

You actually think JMS could keep on schedule with a monthly book?

What sort of dope are you smoking?

[Lemurion]

I think Marvel has more "Cosmic Entities" than DC but otherwise I think it's pretty much a wash. On the one hand the Shi'ar and Kree may be better developed, but on the other hand I think DC has more important races than Marvel with the Durlans, Dominators, Daxamites, Khunds, Thanagarians, and Rannians to name a few.

Personally, I'd love to see more stuff with Captain Comet, Space Cabbie, Space Ranger, and Star Hawkins.

[Will.S]

I think Marvel has more "Cosmic Entities" than DC but otherwise I think it's pretty much a wash. On the one hand the Shi'ar and Kree may be better developed, but on the other hand I think DC has more important races than Marvel with the Durlans, Dominators, Daxamites, Khunds, Thanagarians, and Rannians to name a few.

Personally, I'd love to see more stuff with Captain Comet, Space Cabbie, Space Ranger, and Star Hawkins.

What makes you think that DC has more important alien races?

[Desaad]

What makes you think that DC has more important alien races?

I think he's saying in the sense that they are featured more, usually through the Legion of Superheroes.

Marvel tends to focus on the Sh'iar, Kree and Skrull empire wars/cold wars.

[Will.S]

I think he's saying in the sense that they are featured more, usually through the Legion of Superheroes.

Marvel tends to focus on the Sh'iar, Kree and Skrull empire wars/cold wars.

They do tend to frequently revisit those alien races but at the same time they also tend to birth so much more cool ideas and characters like Super Skrull, Mar-Vell, Ronan, Supreme Intelligence, Noh-Var, the Imperial Guard/Deathbird/Lilandra/Phoenix etc.

There was even an entire cosmic event dedicated towards Ultron and the Technarchy/Phalanx who mainly had their origins in the X-Men comics and same goes for the Brood as well. On the whole I think Marvel does a pretty good job with their cosmic universe and when DC is on point they do equally good work but I don't know if DC's done the best job at making some of their cosmic areas as relevant as Marvel has over the years. For example, if I didn't read R.E.B.E.L.S. I'd have no idea who the Khunds/Dominators were as I'm not as well versed in those not having read the Invasion event DC had back in the day but at the same time it's not like DC has made any attempts to bring those alien races back into comic fan consciousness as of late by featuring them in JLA or Green Lantern.

The closest I can remember is maybe during 52 (the event) and R.E.B.E.L.S.

[golgi]

I think Marvel has more "Cosmic Entities" than DC but otherwise I think it's pretty much a wash. On the one hand the Shi'ar and Kree may be better developed, but on the other hand I think DC has more important races than Marvel with the Durlans, Dominators, Daxamites, Khunds, Thanagarians, and Rannians to name a few.

Personally, I'd love to see more stuff with Captain Comet, Space Cabbie, Space Ranger, and Star Hawkins.

There really is no way of knowing this unless you have read every book. 2 posters on another board were trying to figure out which universe had more cosmic entities. Or high end entities. One represented Marvel and the other represented DC. The one for DC wasn't half way done, but in the end, DC had a bigger list of high end entities. It's a misconception that Marvel has more.

[Desaad]

They do tend to frequently revisit those alien races but at the same time they also tend to birth so much more cool ideas and characters like Super Skrull, Mar-Vell, Ronan, Supreme Intelligence, Noh-Var, the Imperial Guard/Deathbird/Lilandra/Phoenix etc.

With the exception of Noh-Varr, who is actually other-dimensional and isn't that cool anymore (unfortunately), I wouldn't call any of those 'so much more cool' than guys like Brainiac, Vril Dox, Brainiac 5 (all from Colu), Chamelon Boy/Girl, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Adam Strange, Onimar Synn, the Nth Metal, the Zeta/Omega Beams, Mon El, etc.

I won't even get into the vast, beautiful mythology of the Green Lantern Corps, the Controllers, and all of that.

There was even an entire cosmic event dedicated towards Ultron and the Technarchy/Phalanx who mainly had their origins in the X-Men comics and same goes for the Brood as well.

Using that as an example, though, I thought that was decidely WRONG headed, and perpetuated the thing that I find really tiresome about the GL mythology. Namely, that Earth is above everything else; someone Ultron wrested control of the Phalanx? Absurd, IMHO, but there it is.

Also we had plenty of cosmic stories centering on Rann/Thanagar's war that included the various cosmic races. I won't say that Rann/Thanagar War was as good as the original Annihilation - Giffen made sure that was quite amazing - but by that same token even going back all the way to Marvel's Infinity Gauntlet and Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch and all that I wouldn't say that was as good even as the stuff we've been getting out of the GL universe, to make no mention of the Legion of Superheroes in its prime.

Again, though, that's all really just personal opinion. I haven't really enjoyed DnA's work in the cosmic universe at Marvel; I find it fairly ho hum and derivative, lacking real creativity.

On the whole I think Marvel does a pretty good job with their cosmic universe and when DC is on point they do equally good work but I don't know if DC's done the best job at making some of their cosmic areas as relevant as Marvel has over the years.

I think it's safe to say that if you include the Green Lantern stuff, they've done a far better job of making the cosmic stuff 'relevant' to the readership, given the comparative numbers of the GL franchise and the cosmic franchise at Marvel.

For example, if I didn't read R.E.B.E.L.S. I'd have no idea who the Khunds/Dominators were as I'm not as well versed in those not having read the Invasion event DC had back in the day but at the same time it's not like DC has made any attempts to bring those alien races back into comic fan consciousness as of late by featuring them in JLA or Green Lantern.

Why should you? That's a bit like saying if you didn't read the Annihilation stuff you'd have no idea who the Strontians were, isn't it? If you aren't reading the books you'd have no idea who any of these guys were. The closest Marvel came to giving their alien stuff a high profile was Secret Invasion, and that was just the skrulls.

[Desaad]

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.

If you are going to dip into characters that once had books then we'd have to go through the Omega Men for DC, Captain Comet, Space Cabbie (!!), Tommy Tomorrow, etc.

I'm talking about characters that are uniquely viable, that have a degree of cache and name recognition. No one is going to pick up a Drax book independently. Adam Warlock's last series was canceled before it came out (!), despite being very good.

Both companies have TONS of characters I think are cool or that could be cool. But that's different from 'viable'.

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.

Different strokes, but I don't want all my stuff tying in. I think that's my main problem with Green Lantern -- everything ties in.

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.

But you just said you wanted it all to dovetail and tie in, didn't you? That's what he did; he took a bunch of disparate concepts like the Controllers, the Empire of Tears, the Vega System, the Anti Matter Universe of Qward, the Manhunters, Krona, etc and he tied them into one cohesive unit.

I hate it, but it all connects now.

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.

GL's already went up against the New Gods. That was the reason they built their corps up to 3600 strong, to have enough numbers to 'drag apokolips kicking and screaming into the light'. They got slaughtered by Darkseid, who realized that they were weak against the color yellow.

But I tend to think the NEw Gods should be above and separate from a group like the Green Lanterns. I loved that they basically sent one of their agents to take down the entire Corps (Granny Goodness).

[Desaad]

I'm not trying to crap on Marvel's cosmic universe, by the way. I love it; I own all of the original Captain Mar-vell series, from Kirby to Starlin to Englehart. I own all the original Adam Warlock stuff, from "Him" in Thor to all the various iterations with the High Evolutionary and Counter Earth to the trippy Starlin stuff with the original Afro Magus and Thanos' Cosmic Cube saga, his Soul Gem last stand, etc. I own every issue of every volume of the Silver Surfer, from Stan Lee to John Byrne (little known v2!), to Steve Englehart to horrible Weiss series to In Thy Name to the Annihilation to the Pak series. I own all the Infinitys (Gauntlet, War, Crusade, Abyss), Warlock Chronicles, Warlock and the Infinity Watch, The End, the Thanos series. All the Annihilation stuff. The entire (great!) Quasar run, including Cosmos In Collision which was far better than infinity gauntlet (its in company competitor for summer event).

I know Marvel has an interesting crop of creators. I don't agree it's been as rich as many internet pundits have shouted from the rooftops, particularly I didn't enjoy really much post-Giffen from the Annihilation events. But I've largely felt that way about DC's cosmic stuff, post-Planet Heist and Sinestro Corps War.

I'm waiting for an intelligent, more creative, harder sci fi take on the universe. I think I'm going to get it in a revitalized Levitz/Giffen Legion, if the rumors are true. Their run, and Giffen's solo run, comprised some of the most creative, expansive, intelligent sci fi we've gotten in either of the main two universes.

[Desaad]

Guys who I'd like to see writing sci fi on either side of the aisle, for me, are...

Grant Morrison, Keith Giffen, John Hickman, Andy Diggle, Warren Ellis, Paul Pope, John Smith, Alan Grant, China Mieville, Paul Cornell. Maybe Kieron Gillen as well.

[Will.S]

With the exception of Noh-Varr, who is actually other-dimensional and isn't that cool anymore (unfortunately), I wouldn't call any of those 'so much more cool' than guys like Brainiac, Vril Dox, Brainiac 5 (all from Colu), Chamelon Boy/Girl, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Adam Strange, Onimar Synn, the Nth Metal, the Zeta/Omega Beams, Mon El, etc.

I won't even get into the vast, beautiful mythology of the Green Lantern Corps, the Controllers, and all of that.

You misunderstand my wording but that's probably more my fault, I don't mean "so much more cool" in the way of saying that Marvel's cosmic characters are cooler than DC's. What I mean is that whenever Marvel revisits the Kree/Skrull/Shi'ar they tend to breed a good quantity of cool ideas and characters which is why they keep going back to them. I enjoy all of those characters and ideas that you've listed but they tend to exist in their own little pockets of DC cosmology so I'd like to see a somewhat more unified approach to this with perhaps some sort of DCU cosmic event or something.

Using that as an example, though, I thought that was decidely WRONG headed, and perpetuated the thing that I find really tiresome about the GL mythology. Namely, that Earth is above everything else; someone Ultron wrested control of the Phalanx? Absurd, IMHO, but there it is.

Also we had plenty of cosmic stories centering on Rann/Thanagar's war that included the various cosmic races. I won't say that Rann/Thanagar War was as good as the original Annihilation - Giffen made sure that was quite amazing - but by that same token even going back all the way to Marvel's Infinity Gauntlet and Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch and all that I wouldn't say that was as good even as the stuff we've been getting out of the GL universe, to make no mention of the Legion of Superheroes in its prime.

Again, though, that's all really just personal opinion. I haven't really enjoyed DnA's work in the cosmic universe at Marvel; I find it fairly ho hum and derivative, lacking real creativity.

I didn't particularly love having Ultron take control of the Phalanx as I thought that part felt flat compared to the Annihilus reveal. Ultron's never been a villain I would put on the cosmic pedestal but at the same time I have to admit that using that particular X-Men villain race was pretty interesting and if Ultron used the Phalanx avenue as part of a future Avengers confrontation it would have been a pretty cool potential Avengers epic. But basically what I was getting at was that despite whatever problems you or I may have had with that whole event Marvel managed to take this X-Men villain concept and expanded on it instead of relying on the usual mainstays which was nice.

I think it's safe to say that if you include the Green Lantern stuff, they've done a far better job of making the cosmic stuff 'relevant' to the readership, given the comparative numbers of the GL franchise and the cosmic franchise at Marvel.

I'm not really arguing against that as I've acknowledged that DC has made cosmic pretty successful in that regard and Marvel's cosmic area has pretty much evaporated outside of a few mini's. But the GL books are only among the few corners that really does that with any sort of regularity and as well written as it's been, Johns Green Lantern title tends to focus a lot more on the rainbow corps. Given that the GL animated series is doing that as well I'm a little tired of that personally so I tend to gravitate towards the other DCU cosmic universe happenings in titles like New Guardians and GLC but again I think DC can do more to expand and explore their cosmic arena with a title like R.E.B.E.L.S. which was a great venue to do it with.

Why should you? That's a bit like saying if you didn't read the Annihilation stuff you'd have no idea who the Strontians were, isn't it? If you aren't reading the books you'd have no idea who any of these guys were. The closest Marvel came to giving their alien stuff a high profile was Secret Invasion, and that was just the skrulls.

I was mainly using the Khunds as an example but DC hasn't really tried to push much of those alien presences in the same way Marvel's alien races like the Kree, Shi'ar, Skrulls tend to be pushed. I mean, sure you'll see Durlans in Legion or Dominators in REBELS but wouldn't they raise more awareness of them through GL or JLA? I'm not saying to make everything revolve around the earth or earth characters but I do think Marvel spotlights their races better.

[Will.S]

If you are going to dip into characters that once had books then we'd have to go through the Omega Men for DC, Captain Comet, Space Cabbie (!!), Tommy Tomorrow, etc.

I'm talking about characters that are uniquely viable, that have a degree of cache and name recognition. No one is going to pick up a Drax book independently. Adam Warlock's last series was canceled before it came out (!), despite being very good.

Both companies have TONS of characters I think are cool or that could be cool. But that's different from 'viable'.

All of the Marvel characters that I've listed have been viable towards a particular purpose such as say an Annihilation event or some other cosmic story which is fine but for a while Nova and Guardians WERE viable characters in which Marvel was able to explore their cosmic universe through. That was why I mentioned them when you listed Quasar, Silver Surfer, etc., in fact I'd expect Marvel to revisit those two properties in the future given that they've been injecting them into the public eye more in other media such as toys, video games and cartoons.

I like the Omega Men and Comet Man as much as the next guy and DC has been trying to inject them into their DC cosmic stuff over the years when they could with titles like Adam Strange, Mystery in Space, and R.E.B.E.L.S. but I do think they should keep trying to build on that stuff as I think a lot of that has fallen by the wayside in the wake of the new 52 but it's still early.

They're kind of exhausting all the genre stuff like Westerns and Vampire stuff so hopefully they'll start scrounging up the cosmic areas.

Different strokes, but I don't want all my stuff tying in. I think that's my main problem with Green Lantern -- everything ties in.

Fair enough, I just think a big cosmic event would make DCU cosmic more relative.

But you just said you wanted it all to dovetail and tie in, didn't you? That's what he did; he took a bunch of disparate concepts like the Controllers, the Empire of Tears, the Vega System, the Anti Matter Universe of Qward, the Manhunters, Krona, etc and he tied them into one cohesive unit.

I hate it, but it all connects now.

I actually don't have anything against it if done well, that was a good way to make those cosmic ideas relevant to the overall scheme of things. Having said that, they don't necessarily have to be done through Green Lantern but since that's the most popular cosmic book I suppose it makes a certain degree of sense to do it there. Again, I don't think Krona has to be mainly a Green Lantern villain nor do Anti-Monitor, Cyborg Superman, or Superman Prime but if it exposes them and the cosmic areas of the DCU more then cool.

GL's already went up against the New Gods. That was the reason they built their corps up to 3600 strong, to have enough numbers to 'drag apokolips kicking and screaming into the light'. They got slaughtered by Darkseid, who realized that they were weak against the color yellow.

But I tend to think the NEw Gods should be above and separate from a group like the Green Lanterns. I loved that they basically sent one of their agents to take down the entire Corps (Granny Goodness).

I haven't read a whole lot of GL vs New Gods stuff aside from some of their involvement in Final Crisis which was cool but I think that's well within their wheelhouse given that they're both in the sci fi/cosmic area but I wouldn't make that confrontation a constant thing, perhaps maybe a mini event within the GL books. Personally, it seems weird to me that the GL's don't really have an answer to the New Gods and yet earth heroes manage to defeat them time and again which kind of makes them look ineffectual in comparison and the same happened in Infinite Crisis where Superboy Prime just plowed through a wall of GL's.

[golgi]

I think we should be getting some New God stuff soon. As in a ongoing or mini. They are really pushing them lately.