DC can go and fuck itself.

I'll never be sorry for the sentiment that DC can honestly go and fuck itself. I will continue to buy relevant back issues I need and the seminal JSA comic but DC's marketing strategy seems to be akin to giving a hooker charging 2.99 because they only seem to be after short term gratification.

They've done bugger all but universe spanning crossovers and massive events of late to the point were the DCU is about as penetrable as Supergirl's hymen. With the death and return of Batman, the New Krypton story, Final Crises, Blackest Night, Brightest day and now Flashpoint DC can't seem to tell a story any more without making it seem like the end of the world every Wednesday.

But Flashpoint takes more piss than a porn star in 'Golden Showers 3 Here come the elephants!' It's roughly fifteen, 3 part mini series on top of a five part series as well as crossing into almost every book in the DCU adding up to the readers choice of buying a pile of comics you could use to wallpaper Buckingham palace or eating for six months.

Look at the latest crossover 'Fear Itself' in Marvel, an 8 parter (including prologue) and the usual crossing into the regular books but with the surprising assurance you don't need to read them to get the whole story. Now I've read Marvel's crossovers, this tends to ring true. But I've just borrowed Brightest Day book one from the library and every time we come back to Firestorm's part of the story for example I was wondering what the hell was going on as his character as it seemed to alter off camera between his pages. If the fill in story was going on in his own book well thanks DC, instead of making me interested in a potentially cool character and maybe getting me interested in a comic you've hitched up your skirt and shown off your marketing skills. And they cost 2.99.

To draw more comparison 'Fear Itself' is about an ancient evil coming back to show the Earth what it's scared of  in an attempt to cause havoc The title itself suggests something and while the marketing hasn't been as clear cut as say, 'Secret Invasion' it's still presented some interesting imagery that's made me go 'Hmmm' to the point were I'm tempted to buy the issues rather than my usual wait for the collected to come out. Flashpoint on the other hand seems to be an alternate universe thing except it's not and it has something to do with the Flash. And Batman. And Cyborg. And someone else I don't care to remember. In other words it's as clear as the Rock Hudson's blood tests what the crux of Flashpoint is.

Now you may be thinking well so what? Buy what you enjoy, the story is being crafted by Geoff Johns a man gifted in epic verse, so long as he has an artist capable of pulling of his ideas (I'm looking at YOU Sinestro Wars you mealy piece of shit) and no one is forcing you to buy everything!

But they are stopping me from buying what I enjoy. Doom Patrol and All Star JSA (as well as one or two others) have been sacrificed to the deities of greed because they want people to buy the crossover not the lower selling books. Think about it; A DC fan with a limited budget wants to get into Flashpoint but there's only so much he can buy so he's probably not going to buy as much of Flashpoint as DC would like. So DC look at their herd of comics and wonder which they are going to put a bolt gun to. Well it's not going to be a Bat title, heaven forbid ole' dark and pointy should loose one of his completely fucking superfluous comics. It's not going to be Superman mainly because right now he only features in one of his comics and it's already been castrated by loosing it's writer. It's not going to be Green Lantern because there's a movie coming and the market needs saturating like old ladies gusset on a tilt 'a' whirl. And if you cancelled a Wonder Woman book there wouldn't be anything for the potential fans of the new TV show to wipe their arses on.

So it's going to be the low sellers. The small, quality books that the creators love because the editors don't really give a shit and leave them alone to write fun and quirky stories until they drop below the fiscally viable mark and are put to sleep. But as I understand it Doom Patrol at least had some more life in it but in order to make way for the up coming rainforest of paper that is Flashpoint (a name I add which makes me think of board room presentation) it had to go.

Why not tie the existing weaker books into the crossover to make them stronger? It worked for Blackest Night, the Doom Patrol issues were all I bought of that crossover and they were great!

OH because that makes sense and DC stopped making sense when they realised it wasn't making money.