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![r/DCcomics - [Discussion] What is something/someone DC tried to hype up as a "big thing" but totally flopped? (My pick is Black Adam) (Black Adam Special edition 2022)](https://i.redd.it/0xkagp208byc1.png)
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I love Adam but they really were pushing for him to be the next big leading hero and IMO it didn’t work that well. He’s fun as an opposing character or bouncing off the heroes, but him as a JL member just felt weird IMO.
Yeah. Not to mention, Dwayne Johnson genuinely tried Soft-Rebooting the DCEU with Black Adam (or at least tried restructuring it and steering/changing the goal post) so he could have Black Adam be the Tony Stark face/lead of the DCEU. Which would NOT have worked at all. Thank God that didn't go through, like, could you imagine if it did. That would've sucked.
and only because of his own ego
He was also SUPER obsessed with Adam fighting Superman and had seemingly no interest in Adam fighting his actual nemesis, Billy.
That’s because Shazam isn’t as popular as Superman and that if he had fought Shazam he would have to be a villain instead of a villain instead of a anti hero
Ahh yes, because fighting Superman doesn't make you a villain at all.
Also the anti-hero angle is dumb.
Because Johnson didn’t get the core of Black Adam. He saw a guy who can beat up Superman, “me. With lightning powers! YEAH!” instead of Billy Batson/Shazam’s dark mirror. Adam works as a Shazam villain best and then you branch him out to the DCU.
I mean it did suck, but it would’ve sucked too.
I really think he's an idiot after that whole mess. He's been in the industry longer than a lot of people, he should understand that you don't take a relatively little known character and try to shoehorn him in as the face of a franchise that's existed longer than most people have been alive.
Surprisingly what was awesome about that movie was a killer Hawkman and Dr Fate
That's the wild thing, it's another case of everyone being solid except the title character, I can only imagine that did wonders for Mister Rock's ego.
I don't know if anybody mentioned it yet and it could be apocryphal but I've heard that part of the rocks contract stipulates he can't lose a fight, and he can't be the bad guy, which kinda derails Black Adam as a conceptual character.
Adam was a solid superhero popcorn film but the weirdness with the occupying force, the deviations from source material on it, and all that crud threatened it's viability.
Rock's actions behind the scenes really hurt too unfortunately. He was great, he did the job well but you can't upset everyone and expect good results.
Yeah, honestly if I’m ever rewatching BA, I‘ll probably fastforward all the Black Adam scenes that aren’t fights because, guess what, I already saw Terminator 2 (seriously, the kid rides a skateboard and teaches Black Adam “cool words” to say, they weren’t even being subtle), but I will gladly watch the JSA scenes, they were pretty good, especially Dr. Fate and Hawkman.
Probably Doomsday Clock, It was set up to bring in the second phase of the rebirth inititave and bring the Legion of Superheroes along with the Justice Society of America. Along with some new characters such Dr. Manhattans son Clark, A new Rorschach and a new female Ozymandis. Plus that whole thing with the Metaverse and how it relates to Superman.
After Doomsday Clock thats when Johns left and Didio took over and started messing with the lineup again. Aging up Jon Kent, Stopping the Bat/Cat wedding and the abomination known as Ric Grayson.
I think Doomsday Clock itself got a pretty consistent and well enough received hype.
But all the ending set up for the 5G event that never materialized fits the bill!
I enjoyed Doomsday Clock, even if it’s some of Johns’ worst tendencies on display, but it suffers from having to set up 5G (which would’ve been bad IMO). It should’ve just been used to softly reset/undo the New 52 stuff instead of try to create a new timeline.
Doomsday Clock told me that the Watchmen franchise needs left alone for a bit. The HBO series did it well, but the best Watchmen story to me is Darwyn Cooke’s “Minutemen” series.
Ithinm it's mostly that it was supposed to be the introduction of the Rebirth era, but it accumulated to much delay over the course of its publication that it couldn't be that anymore. But I think it was both a great story and great homages to Watchmen and Superman.
I think the metaverse thing had a pretty decent concept that would have gone over really well if a majority of the fans actually understood it.
I think it was kind of unnecessary to say that the universe changes based on superman arrival and all that stuff, I don't know why everyone has this huge obsession with everything having to be canon to the exact same continuity when we had it pretty clean cut before with main vs elseworld.
2001: Armageddon kind of just petered out once it got leaked Monarch was supposed to be Captain Atom. Instead of just rolling with it the best way they could, DC back-tracked and had Monarch's identity be someone else, despite it not making a lick of sense.
I really loved this series, and I find it insane that fan response in 1991 to a “leak” (side note: fucking where would people hear about his leak?) caused DC editorial to change the identity of Monarch.
I kinda like the idea of a JLI style comic with Adam as Monarch looking for redemption. Like in that Brightest Day bi-weekly title timeframe.
I'm still curious to hear how it even leaked to begin with, nowadays leaks are next to impossible to prevent but back in 1991?
In the old days we used message boards, email chains, and random comments to fan sites. Cooler still is leaks happened even earlier. I remember reading about one in the early 80's (pre-internet). Those getting out were a trip. But in 91 there was an internet. Just not what your used to
The Monarch/Captain Atom leak was in the weekly, print Comics Buyers Guide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Buyer%27s_Guide
Don and Maggie Thompson were in the editors chairs back then.
Before the internet, before podcasts, before message boards, before USENET, before bulletin boards, we had fanzines. They were dead-tree media. TBG, RBCC, TCR, etc.
The news about Monarch/Cap A/Hawk made it onto USENET.
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.comics.dc.universe/c/jIjGoYZ4JXg/m/FZpT5meCibMJ
We weren't just banging the rocks together, back then.
The DCEU basically
You beat me to it 🤣
Probably DCYOU. As the New 52 was nearing it's end, DC decided to launch it's DCYOU initiative after the Convergance event. Their whole focus was to move away from established continuity and focus solely on creator driven stories. People didn't really like Convergance, the stories, nor the disregard to canon, so it pretty much failed.
DCYou had some good comics. I really liked wrestler Clark in his 40s logo shirt and Jim as Batman. Starfire and Cyborg were pretty good as well.
Brian Michael Bendis moving to DC, his older Marvel work is really great so DC basically did a whole marketing campaign on him coming over. BENDIS IS COMING!
His whole time at DC is basically stupid retcons, meh books and new characters that basically went nowhere.
In retrospect "BENDIS IS COMING" was actually a warning ala "DOOMSDAY IS COMING" rather than something amazing.
Even at the time it felt like a warning after we were subjected to the likes of Civil War 2 and Ironheart.
lol I remember people saying “BENDIS IS COMING” sounds like a threat.
Batman Universe is great but yeah he definitely has more noticeable duds than hits
I mean, the entire Explosion/Implosion saga.
More recently: Naomi. A boring character created by a superstar writer who's entire DC run was, to put it diplomatically, lackluster, but who got a TV show anyway.
I enjoyed Naomi’s first volume but afterwards, while they really tried to push her as a JL member, it really felt like they didn’t know what to do with her and she just kind of faded away.
Right thats really where they fucked up. They could have just let her kind of float in her own place. Maybe put her in the Milestone universe.
Sucks that she flopped. I liked her a lot
What makes it feel even more tragic is she's likely to be ignored forever since she was so clearly Bendis' project I can't imagine any writer really wanting to revisit her when they could easily just make their own character from scratch and own the credit for that achievement. Any writer that succeeds in popularizing her would really just elevate Bendis. And it seems unlikely Bendis will feel overly inclined to revisit her.
So she just sits in the void created and then forgotten.
Superstar writer is such a nonsense term that both companies really started to push in the 00s, but really, there’s only about 5 superstar writers in the history of the medium, and Bendis sure ain’t on that list.
Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Gardner Fox...who else?
Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Frank Miller in his prime.
Al Ewing and Gail Simone. Maybe not recognized as such, but I’ll snatch up anything they do.
I’ll say Geoff Johns and Warren Ellis pre-controversy.
What controversy was Johns involved in? Oh wait, didn't he help to enable Whedon's racist/sexist behavior? I seem to recall Fisher claiming it was Johns that said "we can't have an angry black man at the center of this film."
Warren Ellis was grooming young girls, so...ick.
I mean, Marv Wolfman and George Perez did a whole lot of legwork across their careers, although I'm not sure how consistently well-received it was; I'd also maybe nominate Neil Gaiman, I certainly feel like he has quite a bit of star power.
He isn’t on the list as of right now but when he was setting up everything on Marvel he sure was
If I remember correctly she kinda hijacked the most recent Young Justice run (the one with Keli Quintela, Amethyst, and Jinny Hex). I think DC hired Brian Michael Bendis expecting to get their very own Miles Morales, but I think what makes Miles work is that he takes an already-popular character who everyone knows the basic gist of (Spider-Man) and changes enough stuff to make it new and different without being too alienating (new powers, different personality and passions, etc.), and while Naomi is kind of a riff off of Superman, she has too little in-common with him to really capture what made Miles so popular. Naming her after Dwayne McDuffie was cute and all, but if you wanted a black superheroine tied to Dwayne McDuffie, Rocket is standing right there, and if you want a black Superman expy, again, you've got Icon.
I mean, Bendis already tried to copy the Miles formula twice before Naomi with Iron Heart and Teen Lantern, and both of them failed. Both were supposed to be a new version of a beloved hero, but Riri was too abrasive with no redeeming qualities until Ewings run, and TL was the eighth Green Lantern of Earth and the third introduced that decade.
A part of me thinks the only reason Naomi wasn’t Kryptonian is because of how poorly his Superman run was received.
Was teen lantern before Naomi? I thought Teen came after Lantern Jo which far sector was created after Naomi had a trade.
I just looked it up to double-check. Apparently, TL and Naomi were created concurrently: Young Justice 2019 and Naomi both launched in March of 2019. This was still before Jo appeared in Far Sector in January 2020.
So Teen Lantern wasn’t before Naomi, but the point still stands that Bendis tried to recreate his success with Miles 3 times in 3 years, and none of them worked out.
Naomi was supposed to be DCs Miles Morales??
I honestly thought she was created because of Bendis adopted black daughters, which I thought was nice.
I also thought that’s why he created Riri Williams too. For his adopted kids
Any time we see a kid of a different race take on a mantle, fans cry "it's just miles morales!" it's not a solid take
lol fr
Like for some reason a writer can’t just create a POC for completely different reasons
All three fit the description of "young Black superhero made by Brian Michael Bendis for his adopted kids."
Idk. He adopted them like a month before Miles first appeared. I don’t think he created miles instantly
I think Miles was for completely separate reasons.
Oh, I genuinely didn't know that; I just thought DC was like "Brian Michael Bendis, your black/Latino Spiderman does gangbusters, please, do that again but Superman, and also a girl!" To be clear, I wouldn't make the Miles comparison if it was someone other than Bendis, but knowing that he has two adopted daughters who are black honestly makes this a lot sweeter and less cynical... Now I kinda feel bad Naomi flopped
It's worth noting how many fans jump to conclusions and ideas like this that are pretty baseless. Once they get context behind the scenes, it's usually a lightbulb moment.
Icon is so dope it breaks my heart DC doesn't use him more. I would totally pick up a new Icon book.
Rocket is Milestone's and any deal DC would work out wouldn't be permanent without a serious buy out. Rocket isn't an option for a permanent addition to the DC universe.
DC owns Milestone; Static is a Milestone character
This is wrong, mate. DC does NOT own Milestone. They have a publishing deal for all Milestone's comics but Milestone Media is, and has always been, an independent company. Any time their characters show up in DC, it's with a deal.
Milestone merged their comics properties with DC back in 2008 but they never were bought or purchased by DC. This is true to this day.
Ugh. Naomi has potential as idea but she's just superman but supermanier. Survivor of a dead universe so she gets super powers. That's just superman.
I think the introduction of what should be a lead in the next generation of DC heroes is a great idea, but it doesn't help that she doesn't have a strong code name or identity.
Maybe she'd work better if she got the energy Superman powers, though I don't exactly know what the energy Superman powerset is, and I believe that's also kinda Jon's whole deal
Naomi is a good one. Respectfully though, I never liked her. From the get go it felt like a manufactured new-Mikes-Morales. I tired. I read her first volume and her in the Justice League but I eventually lost to my contrarian comic book radar.
Another teen who finds out about new unexpected powers from m another universe we’ve never heard of before? Who poses a threat to life as we know it? Seriously?
Yara Flor, Jace Fox, and Jon Kent aka the Future State JL Trinity
At least Yara and Jon still show up in stuff as guests. Has Jace even been in anything since Dark Crisis?
No. Pushing a single button to save the day takes a lot of a person so he’s prolly resting.
I give it about five years at most before he ends up being the "opening kill to show the villain is a serious threat".
Not that I’m aware of. DC stopped investing in him after his book ended.
I still think Yara Flor could have worked if they kept up with her original concept, a Brazilian Wonder Woman/Wonder Girl with backstory in the amazon forest and her design already showed a lot of hype.
What killed it was basically cutting everything interesting about her in her main book, Joelle Jones clearly didn't do much research on Brazillian indigenous history so she just gave up and basically made Yara american after Future State and made a lot of Brazilian fans mad.
For me Yara is the kind of character a writer/artist actually interested in the concept can make a superstar.
Meanwhile normally aged Jon, Damien and Lizzy are more well liked
Jace just never made sense
Out of all these characters Damian’s the only good one.
I liked young Jon. And lizzy hasn't had much to form an opinion, let alone dislike
-TT-! It's spelled "Damian"! You would do well in respecting the blood son!
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The New Age of DC was supposed to be a new artist-focused line, and then almost all of the art was super generic Jim Lee–clone house style.
The different books all had different styles. Which artist are you referring to as the Jim Lee clone?
All of them except The Terrifics had pretty similar art that I found to be a very dated early Image-founder look. But that's pretty much been DC house style for all long as Jim Lee has been an executive.
Kenneth Rocafort, JRJR, Andy Kubert, Ryan Sook, and Tony S. Daniel all have styles quite different from Lee.
Lee only penciled one issue of The Immortal Men before handing it off to Tyler Kirkham.
No, the problem was all the artists they announced did like 3 issues and then handed it off to lesser knowns. So it was massive false advertising.
The creative teams they announced were exciting, but they backed out of the whole idea after 1 or 2 issues.
Jim Lee, Tony S. Daniel, Philip Tan, Ryan Sook, John Romita, Jr, and Andy Kubert all backed out after almost zero time. But they were the advertised names to sell the books.
I think Kennerh Rocafort on Sideways was the only one to stick around for any significant amount of time
Jim-Lee clone? That sounds pretty good.
earth one, there are some really good stories but they totally dropped the ball by releasing one issue every idk every 6 months?
I wish it was every 6 months lol. The most recent Earth One book came out in 2021
Surprise Countdown (later called Countdown to Final Crisis) didn't show up here. It tried to recreate the magic that The 52 managed to pull off with multiple view points during a year of no Trinity following the end of Infinite Crisis. And while the choice of main characters are fine, the outcomes are not, with literally nothing mattering in the book even through it ran for 52 issues as Final Crisis completely ignored anything the book contained. Imagine other people got more to say about this flop.
I often forget that countdown happened, but that's a good call.
In several places it actively contradicted.Final Crisis. What an editorial catastrophe that was.
black label. i dont even think dc knew what it suppose to be. then it just became batman/joker/harley fanfics
Black Label failed when they decided to censor Batman's dick in one of their first books, the whole point of the line was supposed to be a line aimed at older audiences. The whole line basically being Batman books didn't help either.
That was during the epitome of DC's "Batman only" mindset, not that we're fully out of it.
The idea of Black label seemed counter intuitive too because like wasn't that what Vertigo was for?