What’s new: DC has a new anthology book. Yay!
What’s the same: It will probably be cancelled.
From the solicit:
It’s the start of a new series spotlighting some of the DC Universes’s most exciting super heroes! First up is Deadman, straight from the pages of BRIGHTEST DAY, in a five-issue epic where the body-hopping hero meets his match in a new foe who wants to make sure the souls that Deadman helps out go straight to Hell!
Looks like Deadman’s 15 minutes have been extended a little. And I think that’s a good thing. After Brightest Day, there’s some chance Boston Brand is developing a following. If this 5-issue arc does well enough, perhaps it could launch a Deadman mini or even an on-going (which would surely be cancelled). That’s what anthologies are meant to do.
Chances for success: When is the last time an anthology worked? In theory, we all like the idea of anthologies giving a spotlight to characters who aren’t able to sustain their own books. But in practice, they never perform very well. Fans of the spotlighted character jump on and off the book as the spotlight changes. As a result, anthologies never really develop much of a readership.
Also, there’s a sense that anthologies just don’t “matter”. Even if you are a fan of Deadman, you may not pick this up because it is unlikely the story will be picked up on anywhere else in the DCU.
Under normal circumstances, I’d proclaim a book like DC Universe Presents to be DOA. But I’m going to say there is a glimmer of hope. IF DC manages to pull in casual readers the way they hope to, an anthology could have some appeal to them. They don’t necessarily want to read stories that connect to a wider shared universe. So the self-contained nature of anthology stories may actually appeal to them.
The question is, are there enough people out there who want to read a 5-issue Deadman arc that doesn’t tie into a major event? I’m saying “no”, but I’d love to be wrong.
Final Thoughts: The premise of this arc actually sounds more interesting to me than anything that happened to Boston Brand in Brightest Day. The creative team of Jenkins and Chang isn’t a huge selling point, but I’ll give them a chance to win me over.
Green Lantern: The New Guardians #1
Of all the new series that DC is coming out with, this is one that I am hoping does well. As much as I enjoy sprawling, years-in-the-making epics when I read comics, I actually enjoy self-contained stories significantly more; from the standpoint of getting new readers, it could be an great way for newer readers to get their feet wet since they wouldn’t necessarily need to invest themselves in a massive story arc that can span years both forward and back (a bit a hyperbole, but sometimes it can seem that way). Maybe this will also be a good way for them to test out characters and concepts that were from canceled books (*coughJSAcough*) on the potential new readers and get them back to on-goings.
I’m sure that’s what DC is hoping for. And as someone who wants to see DC succeed, I’m hoping for it too. I’ve just seen too many anthologies from DC fail over the years. Hopefully, with the digital initiative, this one will turn out differently.
To my mind an anthology is a book featuring a few stories – isn’t this actually a series of minis under an umbrella title? That might help its chances.
I am dubious as well. Not in the quality of the book, but whether it might survive in this market – with comics costing as much as they do, and the number of other books out there, both within DC and without, the chances people will stick with Presents once the character they like is done, is unlikely. 40 years ago it might have worked, people might have picked up the inbetween issues just because it was comics and they liked to read comics. People are much more discriminating now.
As to Deadman’s 15 minutes… look to see him as a regular in JLDark – though how an invisible, inaudible ghost can be a part of a team, is baffling.