Jim Lee offers reassurances about DC Comics' future, teases new Batman book by John Ridley
Aux Features Comics
On Monday, widespread WarnerMedia layoffs came for the DC Comics offices, with DC Universe, merchandise manufacturer DC Direct, and the company’s actual comic-publishing arm all getting effectively gutted (to the extent that DC Direct is dead and DC Universe is probably dead). But much like Superman after getting obliterated by Doomsday or Batman after getting zapped by Darkseid, DC Comics itself lives on. Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, Chief Creative Officer Jim Lee (the guy who put all of that stylish piping on the Justice League’s New 52 costumes) discussed the company’s future and offered some reassurances that things—while bad—aren’t quite apocalyptic. (Apokalypitc?)
For starters, and this may sound less optimistic than Lee intended, he says that DC Comics is “still in the business of publishing comics” and that no work on that front has been halted because of the layoffs (no previously greenlit comics have been canceled). DC Comics exists to publish comics, so we would hope it’s still in that business, but at least it sounds like DC isn’t going to go the way of, say, Fawcett Comics or Charlton Comics and have all of its best characters get swallowed up by some more-successful competitor. That being said, Marvel coming along and doing a Watchmen-style deconstruction of the Justice League would be pretty funny.
Anyway, in other news, Jim Lee says that Oscar-winning screenwriter John Ridley is doing a Batman book that will have “a huge impact on the rest of the line,” which seems both exciting and unlikely (when was the last time any comic had a huge impact on the rest of the line?), and DC is also resurrecting the Milestone imprint to showcase “underrepresented heroes and creators.” As for DC Universe, Lee says that its original content is being moved over to HBO Max (which has mostly happened already), but that there “is always going to be a need” for the kind of “community and experience” that DC Universe was built around. He suggests that the service is going to change in some way, and given the fact that he highlights the amount of “backlist content” on the platform (i.e. old comics), we’d guess that it’ll turn into something more like Marvel Unlimited’s huge comic vault. Maybe we’ll know more when the DC FanDome descends next weekend.
35 Comments
Oh, thank goodness! I was so worried that DC would stop making Batman comics! /s
Yet another reason to be super sad about Dwayne McDuffie’s untimely passing. No offense to Jim Lee, but in a fair world McDuffie is running DC.
Jim Lee’s an overrated artist, a crappy writer, and his New 52 costume designs are ugly. I guess he was good at running Wildstorm, if he was the one who hired the good writers (Moore, Ellis, Joe Casey) who eventually made his characters interesting, but the last decade he has been in charge of DC has been a mess to my eyes. The best books seem to happen by accident or separate from what the majority of the line is trying to do. I did like his X-Men and Wildcats art when I was a kid, though.
I think he’s a great artist but like all artists he works best with a good editor. His designs from New 52 are garbage but Hush will always look great.
Agreed. I’m always going to be a fan of Lee’s artwork after his X-men run, WildC.A.T.S and Hush. His other stuff like Punisher War Journal, Superman, Justice League etc is pretty good too but those first three are really special to me.
Hush is actually where my opinion turned on his art. I was excited for a big blockbuster run with an artist I had grown up loving on one of my favorite characters, but I ended up dropping the book after a couple issues. In the intervening years between his Wildcats stuff and Hush I had gotten into indie comics and Vertigo and other stuff that exposed me to more art styles, and on the superhero side I was also was into the later Wildstorm artists (especially Travis Charest and Bryan Hitch). Lee’s art just didn’t feel as impressive any more, and I hated his Killer Croc redesign so that started the whole book on the wrong foot for me. I did like his Harley Quinn, though, I actually got my wife her toy from the Hush line (which since it followed Lee’s proportions fittingly could not stand up on its own and one of the limbs quickly snapped off). It also didn’t help that I felt Loeb’s writing on Hush was completely empty, I eventually read the whole thing in a bookstore and was glad I did not pay for it. Some of Lee’s X-Men and Wildcats stuff can still get my nostalgia juices flowing, though.
Agreed. Hush was where I realized I didn’t like about both Loeb and Lee. Lee was such a dramatic move in the opposite direction of Tim Sale.
Ok after reading this, after your comment about him being overrated. I get what you’re saying. His Killer Croc was pretty…whatever that was. But honestly, even his bad stuff is still better than half the artists out there. I couldn’t care less about the Hush storyline, just as long as Lee was drawing it. That is how my comic book consumption is nowadays, any of my favorite artists drawing a book no matter how obscure, I will buy it. If the story is good…bonus!
yes, Hush sucksit’s the thing that makes Grant Morrison’s run SEEM so much better when it’s just more pointlessly complicated
He can be good; while I never liked his “classic” X-Men run or the Image stuff that is basically the peak of his popularity, I actually started considering his work non-ugly with Hush and even Goddamn Batman (sorry, “All-Star”), whatever the issues with the writing on those. The nu52 look though, especially the costume designs, seemed to backslide into everything I never cared for in the look of his work.
yeah, Hush is greatif you ignore the story that doesn’t make sense
I think Lee gets more praise then he deserves because, of that first group of Image breakaways, he was the only one who knew how to draw feet.
The Wildstorm line beyond Jim Lee’s characters was truly great. Ellis with Authority (Hitch), Planetary (Cassaday), Desolation Jones (J.H. Williams III). BKV with his first hit, Ex Machina. Brubaker & Phillips, now legends, started there with Sleeper. The ABC sub-imprint! They had the best writers and artists doing the best comics of that era. It’s possible Lee lucked out with a good editorial team, but at the least he was the one who hired those people. So I kind of see the value in having that guy working for you (DC)..
Yeah, Wildstorm produced some of my favorite books ever. I’m still sour that DC just canned the whole thing and did a half-assed job of folding it into their own universe. Sleeper is probably one of the best (mostly) self-contained superhero or superhero adjacent comics of all time, one of the few comics that actually had me yelling “NO!” at the page as the main character got deeper and deeper into the shit and supporting characters met horrible fates. And don’t forget The Authority was birthed from Ellis’ also excellent work on Lee’s Stormwatch characters.I would add Joe Casey’s Wildcats to that list also. His first run (with Sean Phillips no less!) was an interesting look at broken characters trying to find their way after finding out the war that defined their lives is long over. And his follow-up Wildcats 3.0 was ahead of its time in many ways, with the HALO Corporation literally trying to change the world for the better not by super-punching, but by using super-tech to disrupt the entire status quo of energy production/distribution and capitalism on a global scale. Then on the more personal level it had the characters clashing over their egos and shortcomings, my avatar is HALO accountant Edwin Dolby, who a crippled Grifter tries to turn into a substitute Grifter and it ends up giving the poor bastard severe PTSD. It also had great art/covers/design work from the underrated Dustin Nguyen. I’m still bitter the book got cancelled before Casey could do his planned final year, its one of the few books where I really had no idea where it was going to go in its conclusion. That and the British TV series Utopia are the two unfinished pieces of pop-culture that I most wish could get a proper conclusion.
I did like his X-Men and Wildcats art when I was a kid, though.Then how can you say he’s an overrated artist? His style hasn’t changed that much back in the late 80s, early 90s days. He still puts crazy amount of detail in his pages. Sometimes a little too much. Overrated is hardly what he is as an artist. He’s still one of the best IMO but if ya think he’s overrated then that’s yours.
DC seriously needs to figure out what they want do with the Batman continuity as at the moment it is just absurd and starting to almost become cumbersome for the line itself. I don’t mean that everything needs to canon, but rather that they are trying to make everything be canon despite the continuous contradictions.I mean, Jesus Christ, they are at the moment simultaneously running two Joker storyline events which both promise to redefine the character and Batman by proxy. That is just absurd, especially considering we are just coming from Tom King’s run which somehow both tried to chain the Batman canon to massive changes while absolutely ignoring everything that people before him did, including literally the previous well received run. And now, in the middle of this, they are already promoting the next Batman changing event?My only selfish hope would be that they would terminate the Cat marriage and pretend it never happen, but even then I don’t they should be continuously cramming these Batman defining storylines like this.
Or you could just let canon go and enjoy the stories on their own merits.
Way to completely and utterly miss my point there.Also ignoring the canon argument is fundamentally weak as they build existing stories on what has been established before. The fact that you have a character like Nightwing requires canon to support him and establish his relationship there.
It’s not an argument, it’s a lifestyle choice. Join us. Entire multiverses are up for grabs.
So I’m not even touching the somewhat questionable assumption that I don’t enjoy stories for their own merits or that multiverse thing as you really keep hitting more on how you really didn’t understand my point at all. Although I guess there’s a possibility that you are responding to a comment I made in another verse.
You know what, you’re right. Re-reading your post, it seems that the real problem is you seem to be giving undue weight to marketing hyperbole. I mean, ‘promise to re-define the character’ is as much bullshit as anything else, right?
I think part of the problem is these stunts can stifle long-term enjoyment for fans, whether they let canon go or not. For instance, what do Dick Grayson fans get out of him being shot in the head and being an edgy bro called Rick?
Everything I’ve seen by anyone who might be considered in any way a Dick Grayson fan that I know or follow online hated the living shit out of that whole storyline, so I’m guessing not much at all.
While the Rick choice was a bit weird, that’s for me actually an example to the other direction. Yes, they did something big with Dick, but then they committed to it and used it as a clear foundation to build to the next step. And even when they undid it, they still addressed it within the story as it was treated as this big thing within that character arc.
The problem with Batman is that they seem to be constantly wanting to do things that will impact that continuoity, but they seem completely unable to commit to it. Instead of at least of allowing that new situation to run for a while and seeing how it impacts or even works with other writers, they are instead rushing to another huge everything changes story. And it isn’t just the promotion, because they are doing things that should be huge things for the character, which makes it so awkward as either things matter or they don’t.To use those two Joker stories as an example, so if you read them, why would anyone be excited for what comes next for the Joker after them as they are already settings things up in a way where you don’t know what is supposed to be the foundation.
The Batman Who Laughs is a fun ideabut too much of him makes the entire idea look…..stupidand poorly thought outlike, say, Red and Blue Superman or The Super-Sons
“and the company’s actual comic-publishing arm all getting effectively gutted (to the extent that DC Direct is dead and DC Universe is probably dead).”
What do DC Direct and DC Universe have to do with the comic-publishing arm? DC Direct is collectibles and DEC Universe is TV. Neither have anything to do with the publishing arm.
And also, let’s not pretend that Warner shifting its *three* DC Universe shows to HBO Max is some sort of crazy change that nobody saw coming.
DC Universe also has a huge comics archive, which is why some of us subscribe. Otherwise I’d just torrent Doom Patrol and call it good.
Marvel doing a deconstruction of the Justice League already happened. Squadron Supreme. It was great.
I just saw another article that said that DC just cancelled a bunch of their titles, including Young Justice, Suicide Squad, and the current John Constantine series.
Hey, Barsanti! Marvel already did a Watchmen-style takedown of DC. It’s called Supreme Power! J. Michael Straczynski wrote it, it’s better than a chilli cheese burrito, and now that you know about it, you’re 15% cooler than you were when you wrote this article.
Marvel, DC, Image, and the rest of them were already publish nothing but movie script proofs of concept. DC is just going to be doing it more openly now.
they’ve been talking about bringing Milestone back for years now, so sadly i’ll believe it when i see it.
to be honest, i don’t know if there’s anything that’d get me to spend $3-5/month per floppy, but i would look forward to collections and if they try an anthology approach or even just back issue collections similar in price/page count to those 100-page giant Walmart collections they offered a year or so back, i’d be enthusiastically onboard for myself and also buying up extra copies for nieces and nephews.
note: barring Blood Syndicate, Milestone really needs more female characters than just Rocket and whoever is dating Static or Hardware.
Marvel coming along and doing a Watchmen-style deconstruction of the Justice League would be pretty funny.Marvel already did that more than 30 years ago. And it was great.
Watchmen-style deconstruction of the Justice LeaguePlease god, not another one
“…Marvel coming along and doing a Watchmen-style deconstruction of the Justice League would be pretty funny.”they did it in 1962, it’s called “The Avengers”dumbass.