Wassup With DC Comics, Impact Comics, and Red Circle?
They Failed TWICE
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(Photo by Mick Haupt ln Unsplash) -
Medium: Change the way we can manipulate images say to put, some beside each other. I just had to redo my layout, because placing everything led to several pages, looking ugly. I’ll have to be more creative to fit everything in. I have some skill with page layout — but it would take too much time putting design tricks, much less writing.
That would a nice improvement, and would save me from a ton of ton of extra work.
[/digression]
A short time ago, I spoke about Marvel Comics ruining a franchise:
Now it’s DC Comics turn.
Red Circle. It has a long history, going through many publishing iterations and failed revivals… this being several of them.
MLJ Magazines (the company that became Archie Comics), published their own line of superheroes from the 1970s to the mid 1980s. They went under many different title ideas and many imprint names… but they never really took off. The character names did, their concepts too — but the comicbooks themselves, not so much.(I’ll put on my Captain Comicbook (tm) hat: based on the digests I have of their exploits, they lacked dynamic art and storytelling. The only thing memorable about the Jaguar, for example, was that he looked like Tony Stark!)
DC Comics came in with try #1.
DC created an entire line called Impact Comics. This was a separate universe, not connected to the rest of its multiverse. It used 4 characters: Shield, The Fly, The Comet, and Jaguar.
The Shield © DC Comics
The visuals for the first two were almost identical to the Red Circle originals. The Comet got a more interesting look, and a new origin as a teenager .
The Fly ©DC Comics
The Comet ©DC Comics
Jaguar was the character the most changed. First, the character was female. Her origin was interesting, her costume too (not tough, granted).
The Jaguar ©DC Comics
{Medium, no more word wrap on images? Seriously?)
The problem was: there was nothing memorable about these comics. I can’t remember even one storyline, only the final story, and its wasted potential:
The Comet here had ties to an evil alien race (his powers come from them). He had one of their ships. All 4 heroes, calling themselves The Crusaders (the Red Circle superteam was called the Mighty Crusaders) went to deal with them.
Next we got a one shot of the heroes return. their mission successful (missed stories). The Shield’s costume is ripped and he and Jaguar are a couple (more missed stories). The Shield and the Fly both have beards, so it’s been a long time…
- Oh yeah: all of a sudden, Comet becomes a villain.
There are two possible reasons for this:
- the license was over, but DC made a story that would make a new license worthwhile.
- the license was over, but DC ended their stories “poisoning the well” so Archie Comics couldn’t continue it.
Whichever is the reason this was strike one.
Integration
DC Comics tried another approach: license characters into the DC Universe.
This worked with the Faucette and Charlton characters. Shazam, Blue Beetle, The Question, Captain Atom… they’re not even seen as not originally from the DCU.
Did it work this time?
Full Disclosure: I wasn’t in the comicbook scene when these came out (budget), just saw cuts from articles on Newsarama and Wikipedia. My memory might be far off. A sign of how good they were…
The first thing they released was their version of the hero… Fireball (or Inferno?)…
Blink
Blink
Wikipedia has no entry on either. Captain Comicbook (tm) , AKA me, never heard of him.
I didn’t read the sales for it, but I suspect they weren’t great.
Next was (I think) Mister Justice (or the Hangman?). It was designed as a supernatural book.
No one cared.
Other creators had pitches for others, but was too late. In 2011, the license was pulled.
EPIC FAIL. #2.
Afterword
DC were blown away here twice. They hope we forget. I can’t. Hope you too.
(Marvel failed with one property, with many titles . DC failed twice with less titles. Does this balance? You decide…)
Jeffrey Allan Boman is a writer from Montreal, Canada (I only wear a toque in winter, don’t like hockey, don’t drink beer).
