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Recently, DC Comics became DC Entertainment, with a stronger relationship with its parent company, Warner Bros. Part of that new relationship included promotions for Dan Didio and Jim Lee (who are essentailly co-executives) and Geoff Johns (becoming one of the heads of the whole Entertainment aspect, including not just comics, but movies, cartoons, etc).

Last week, they announced a Bi-Coastal merger, where a large part of their offices will be moved to California to be closer to the WB's Hollywood studio. The New York office will remain in place, but to a lesser degree.

And now, though no names have been reported yet, there's plan to lay off up to 80 employees within DC Comics. Ouch.

The Big DC Meeting Is Finishing Bleeding Cool Comic Book News and Rumors

Between this and Disney's buyout of Marvel, I get the feeling comics, certainly the Big Two, aren't going to be same anymore. Certainly more corporatized - moreso than before, which is a scary thought.

Just another reason for me to stick with Dark Horse, Image and other smaller companies. That seems to be where all the creativity is coming from these days.

Corporatized does not necessarily mean worse. Both major brands still have fantastic books that are coming out.

I don't know. I'm just not digging much of anything the Big Two are putting out. Blackest Night was a giant mess. I'm starting to realize just how bad of a writer Geoff Johns is, for example. He puts in all these unneeded one or two page splash pages. There is nothing in the way of character development, at least for the main characters (Hal, Barry).

I guess my biggest beef with both companies are their incessant need on giant crossovers and events. Spider-Man is a total mess, thanks to making a deal with the devil, Final Crisis was near impossible to understand, There's too many Avengers books, too many X-Men books, etc. It's becoming harder and harder to following anything unless it's a single book that's got one consistent creative team and mostly free of crossovers. Incredible Hercules or Captain America, for example. Daredevil used to fall into that category. I was digging the cosmic stuff until War of Kings, which I haven't even read because I just don't give a crap about the X-Men related stuff with...something about a third Summers brother or...something?

But then, there's all this amazing, fantastic, creator-owned stuff that's been coming out away from the Big Two. The Goon, Mouse Guard, Parker, Atomic Robo, The Unwritten, Chew, Invincible, Elephantmen, Hack/Slash, DMZ, Northlanders, Sweettooth, Godland, Amulet, Criminal, Incognito, Walking Dead. Cripes, I could go on and on. These are all the best stuff being put out in comics today. The event-driven drivel of the Big Two pales in comparison to all of the stuff I just listed. Admittedly, some of the stuff I listed are under subsideraries of DC (Vertigo) or Marvel (ICON), but they're still self-contained books with only one title to follow and one creative team with a particular vision in mind. I'll happily take that anyday over the editorially driven crap of the mainstream.

Gah. Sorry to rant. It's just one of the biggest things about the business that bothers me. The Big Two are capable of putting out some good stuff, but compared to what else is out there? It's crap.

If you liked Abnett and Lanning's Marvel cosmic stuff, you'll like War of Kings. While X-Men characters feature, it's far more about the Inhumans and the more traditional Marvel cosmic cast.

I generally agree with your sentiment, though I would point out that Dark Horse isn't exactly a small independent company anymore, and that the vast, vast majority of their active catalogue isn't creator-owned work, but derivative works from Star Wars, Aliens, Predator, and Conan, or manga importing. Their creator-owned stuff is top-drawer, to be sure, but let's not kid ourselves about Dark Horse's "non-corporatist" status.

That's true and not something I'm even going to try to argue or deny. Heck, they made their mark through licensing, with Aliens and Predator. But to be honest, and this is something I wish the Big Two would do more of, they still leave lots of room for creator-owned properties to grow. They use the licensing to support those smaller books until they become a license, themselves. Look at Hellboy. It started as this little indy comic that some fans liked and every creator wished they'd thought of. And now? Boom. Movies, cartoons, action figures, spin-off titles. The spin-offs are self-contained enough that you don't need to collect all of it.

Thanks for the heads up on War of Kings, though. I'm still iffy on checking it out. I'm up to date on Nova and still dug it, even wth War of Kings references.

Generally, I trust Abnett & Lanning's stuff. They do a good job (for the most part, jury is still out on the Thanos Imperative stuff for me) of keeping their world-building consistent and their character-development believable and interesting. War of Kings is not as good as Nova (mostly because of the rotating cast of characters), but I think it's better than Annihilation.