DC tidbits and an update

After Justice League: Generation Lost concluded, I found myself no longer collecting any DC titles.  Thus this seemingly disastrous gimmick mega event relaunch thing doesn’t directly affect me.  Two titles actually stuck out to me, but for various reasons I have decided against them both.

Justice League International
I had finished JL:GL with every intention of picking this book up when it launched.  Unfortunately (for me, at least) the title has been given to Dan Jurgens for writing duties, but not for art duties.  Of the two, Jurgens’s art has always been stronger than his writing and his taking over Booster Gold twice led to me dropping the title.  I’m not saying his stuff is particularly bad, per se, but it’s not exactly good either.  If it turns out to be epic stuff, I might consider picking up the trades, but more than likely this will just be a title that exists for the sake of existing.  Much like when he took over the original JLI team back in the late eighties and turned it into a Superman book.

Blue Beetle
After much doing, I have gotten over my hatred of Jaime Reyes, with a lot of help from the story in Booster Gold by Giffen and DeMatteis that saw Booster finally coming to terms with Ted Kord’s death.  So for about a minute, I actually considered picking up this relaunch of Blue Beetle, but then I realized I had no interest in the kid’s solo adventures.  I liked him a lot as a member of Teen Titans and he really grew on my in JL:GL.  Much like his predecessor, young Jaime works well in team settings, but I just can’t get hyped up about seeing him solo.  I have a feeling this book is going to be one of the many announced that will quickly fizzle out.

So with those two off my radar, it looks like I will be continuing to Make Mine Marvel.

Okay jerk, so where’s the new Chuck Austen’s X-Men?
This one is about 60% complete, but I ran into an unforeseen case of illness over the weekend and spent a lot of it not thinking or moving.  But that’s not to say I’m going to let it go.  Look for the posting to come tomorrow afternoon at the latest.  Would I lie to you?

Live Action Blue Beetle?

CBR’s daily news feed of comic-based movie/TV stuff had this today:

Geoff Johns began teasing the possibility of a live action “Blue Beetle” show. It began with this Twitter post: “BLUE BEETLE NEWS from DCE!! We have a live-action test of Jaime Reyes’ scarab activating his suit. It. Is. Awesome.” He quickly followed with “Blue Beetle’s going to appear in most of the Brave and the Bold’s this year and we’re hoping to develop a live-action show. Fingers crossed!” Then, in true Stan Lee fashion, he made this half-promise: “If I can break it out of the vault, I’ll bring it to SDCC. LIVE ACTION BLUE BEETLE!!” I suppose the important thing to glean from this is that Jaime Reyes might be coming to TV. Could he replace “Smallville?”

I hate, hate, hate, HATE Geoff Johns.  Hate him.  He can take his stupid Jaime Reyes and go die.

EDIT (time to calm down has passed): Okay, first I suppose I should explain the rant.  Ted Kord is my favorite hero.  I hated how he died and I hate his replacement.  No matter how good Jaime Reyes might be as the Blue Beetle, I will forever hate him specifically because he is not Ted Kord.  That’s just how it is.

But let’s look at the possibility of a Blue Beetle live action series.  My personal preferences aside, using the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle instead of Ted Kord would cause problems from the start.  Unlike Kord, Reyes is a mystical hero, and to reflect his appearance and powers accurately, a decent amount of special effects would need to be used.  I highly doubt too many studios would be willing to pick up an expensive show about a character very few people have heard of.

But if it’s good, won’t people watch?  Sorry, my friend – I’m afraid not.  Good shows get cancelled all the time.  What ever happened to Firefly or Better Off Ted?  These shows were both fantastic, yet both got cancelled for whatever reason.  Blue Beetle would have the immediate hurdle of being a relatively unknown hero.  Sure, his solo book ran 36 issues, but that was more than it probably deserved given how abysmal its sales were.  Why did Smallville work so well?  Because it had Superman and his well-known supporting cast.  That brought people in and from there the quality of show took over and kept people watching.  Blue Beetle doesn’t have this kind of a hook.

So would a Ted Kord show work better?  I’m afraid not.  The draw factor is still missing, and removing the teenaged character would pull it from the CW’s (its likely home) demographic.  I just think the whole thing is destined for failure.  Anyone remember the Birds of Prey live action series?  Exactly.

And Jaime Reyes sucks.

On Ryan Choi

Before looking at the image included, did you have any idea who Ryan Choi was?  I didn’t either, and I have read books that he actually was in.  He was the successor to the identity of the Atom after Ray Palmer vanished at the close of Identity Crisis.  And we was recently killed off in an issue of Titans.  Now, I’d usually throw up a SPOILER warning there, but realistically, since you had no idea who Ryan Choi was, why would you care if he got killed or not?

Apparently, because he’s Asian.

That’s been word floating around the dorkosphere as outrage has been unleashed since Choi was skewered by Deathstroke. I decided to write this when I spotted this quote in an article on Topless Robot:

Ryan Choi is now dead, having died quickly and ignominiously in a Titans: Villians for Hire comic, because — and I’d like to quote Wikipedia, as found by my buddy Sean T. Collins — “he was not white enough for DC Comics.” Whether people are mad because DC killed off yet another non-white character to make room for a white one, that a major non-white character is killed as a minor note in a minor comic, that a Grant Morrison character that was genuinely interesting was murdered in a comic he should have had nothing to do with… I think it’s all of those things.

And I’m here to call BS on that crap.