The Expanding DCU: Fawcett, Charlton, Red Circle and Milestone

[johnnystorm]

Starlin just mired himself down in that Cosmic Religious Catholic church bashing stuff over & over, guess it worked for him with Warlock so he just used it forever.

It's too bad, he has a distinctive art style that would be nice if used on some other type of series, but he's just worked himself into a corner.

I know he was at odds with Marvel Comics over something and heard he wouldn't be working there again, guess he's done the same with DC?

[The Toyroom]

Starlin just mired himself down in that Cosmic Religious Catholic church bashing stuff over & over, guess it worked for him with Warlock so he just used it forever.

Warlock was fresh and of the time-period in the 70s.....but today it's been there done that. That's all this guy does it seems...the only time I can remember him doing something non-cosmic is when he wrote the Death in the Family stories in Batman.

I know he was at odds with Marvel Comics over something and heard he wouldn't be working there again, guess he's done the same with DC?

It was something to do with the direction on a Thanos series he was working on....there was some sort of editorial conflict. One too many times to the same well though is what I think.....

[samurainoir]

Warlock was fresh and of the time-period in the 70s.....but today it's been there done that. That's all this guy does it seems...the only time I can remember him doing something non-cosmic is when he wrote the Death in the Family stories in Batman.



It was something to do with the direction on a Thanos series he was working on....there was some sort of editorial conflict. One too many times to the same well though is what I think.....

There was Batman The Cult. I think this was one of the first if not the first of the "Prestige Format" avalanche of Batman minis and one-shots following The Dark Knight Returns. I think it may have even preceded Killing Joke.



Wrightson and Starlin followed that up with a Punisher prestige series.


Then their was their collaboration on the Giffen era Justice League.


As much as I dig Wrightson, having him on Cape Books is kind of a waste of his talents when you know he is better served doing creepier stuff. It might have been kind of cool to let him come back for an issue or two of Swamp Thing with Alan Moore. Even a book like Spectre or ANY of the pre-Vertigo titles like Sandman might have suited him better than Blue Beetle and Martian Manhunter.


Inifinity Gauntlet had potential based around Perez's art, but that was during Perez's "awkward" period of not really completing much of his projects. I'm sure it would have had much more impact had Perez actually completed it. Of course they ran it into the ground anyways with ludicrous crossovers and followup sequels.

[samurainoir]

When did DC acquire Plastic Man? Did they own the character when he had his Saturday morning TV series?


I always thought !mpact was in interesting experiment.

You had Mark Waid doing some of his earliest writing on The Comet.


And I always thought The Crucible which wrapped up the line was quite good.

I think it benefitted from the fact that the license was expiring and it was one of those things where the creators were let loose to do whatever they felt like because by then, no one was reading anyways.

[The Toyroom]

There was Batman The Cult. I think this was one of the first if not the first of the "Prestige Format" avalanche of Batman minis and one-shots following The Dark Knight Returns. I think it may have even preceded Killing Joke.

I forgot about The Cult.....The Killing Joke actually preceeded it by a couple of months...both '88 releases though.

Then their was their collaboration on the Giffen era Justice League.

Yeah The Weird was just....weird. Starlin recently revisited this character as well in his Strange Adventures mini....

Inifinity Gauntlet had potential based around Perez's art, but that was during Perez's "awkward" period of not really completing much of his projects. I'm sure it would have had much more impact had Perez actually completed it. Of course they ran it into the ground anyways with ludicrous crossovers and followup sequels.

Yeah the first one is ok....Perez was the original draw for me (no pun intended) but I stuck through even when Ron Lim took over the art.
Actually, I stuck around through Infinity War but bailed after the first issue of the Infinity Crusade follow-up....talk about beating a dead horse.



It's funny....I'm not a big fan of Starlin's recent work but just last week I found myself re-reading The Death of Captain Marvel and Dreadstar garphic novels again. Good stuff! Speaking of Dreadstar, why doesn't Starlin mess with his own characters again if he wants to handle the cosmic preachy stuff and leave the Marvel and DC universes alone? Probably not a lot of dough in Dreadstar these days though I imagine.

[The Toyroom]

When did DC acquire Plastic Man? Did they own the character when he had his Saturday morning TV series?

Quality Comic stopped publication in 1956 and DC bought many of its characters then I think....Uncle Sam (and the Freedom Fighters), Blackhawk and Plastic Man included.

Blackhawk never missed a beat in publication....DC (then National) picked up the month after Quality stopped (in '57).

But DC sat on Plastic Man for 10 years before they revived his own series (in '66) after a couple of try-outs. Interestingly this Plas was supposedly the son of the Golden Age Quality Plas. This was during the DC humor phase of Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis and the Inferior 5 and it was later decided that this Plas was the Earth-12 Plas.

Eventually Earth-1 got its own Plas and the character's book was revived in 1976 and then he appeared for awhile in Adventure Comics.

So yeah...they owned the character by the time of his cartoon back in '79.

[samurainoir]

It's funny....I'm not a big fan of Starlin's recent work but just last week I found myself re-reading The Death of Captain Marvel and Dreadstar garphic novels again. Good stuff! Speaking of Dreadstar, why doesn't Starlin mess with his own characters again if he wants to handle the cosmic preachy stuff and leave the Marvel and DC universes alone? Probably not a lot of dough in Dreadstar these days though I imagine.

I'm not a fan of "Cosmic" myself, but I remember Dreadstar did have quite the newsstand following back in the day along with Groo and Elfquest.

Given how Wendy Pini has pretty much carved out her Elfquest niche over the years, maybe Starlin should have tried the same. Is Dreadstar even still in print as collected editions?

Loved Groo. I have a great fondness for Sergio Aragones.

Epic Comics in itself as an interesting experiment for Marvel... giving Archie Goodwin his own fiefdom and then letting him run wild with a tremendous diversity of stuff... including getting creator owned indies like Elfquest and Groo to a mass market audience they otherwise wouldn't have found.

[ctc]

>Is Dreadstar even still in print as collected editions?

I kinda remember someone announced they were bringing it back a few years ago.

Don C.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Starlin actually had a pretty good run on Batman before "Death in the Family". He addressed the continuity nightmare Max Allan Collins created by having Dick shot and Bruce firing him as Robin (one of the bigger post-Crisis "What the..." moments no one ever mentions) and began to develop Jason Todd as an unstable character in the monthly. Oddly enough, Jason saves Batman's bacon in "The Cult" and comes across as a very capable Robin, and these books were written by the same guy! I've always suspected upper management didn't think the Toddster was well-liked in either pre or post-Crisis incarnations, and gave Starlin orders to make him slightly nuts so they could justify getting rid of him.

Starlin's other stuff never grabbed me much. I like his artwork okay, although his characters occasionally look cross-eyed.

Chris