Breaking News: Bob Harras Named DC EiC

DC announced yet another stunning bit of news today, this time taking pretty much everyone off guard with their out-of-nowhere announcement that former Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras has been named DC's new Editor-in-Chief.

Exactly what this means, mind you, is a bit unclear; DC hasn't actually had an Editor-in-Chief for years. But with the recent restructuring of the company, with Dan DiDio and Jim Lee named co-publishers, the elimination of Wildstorm from the face of the Earth and the move of everything non-comics to Los Angeles, it's clear that DC has some sort of game plan they are finally implementing.

The fact that that plan leans heavily on Bob Harras, however, is still a shocker on some levels. For the past several years, after all, Harras (who was once also writer on Avengers) has been toiling in near-obscurity as the editor in charge of DC's collections department -- collections as in trades and reprints, not as in billing. That position is about as far as you could get from Harras's glory days when he presided over Marvel Comics from 1995-2000.

Just how fans are going to react the news is almost as unclear as just what Harras's role will be in relation to DiDio and Lee. Many fans remember Harras as editor most for the whole Heroes Reborn fiasco (and I use the word fiasco in terms of fan reaction, not in terms of sales, as by all accounts the event did what it was intended to do). Harras is also somewhat unfairly held responsible by many fans for the many troubles Marvel had during this time period, when the company went bankrupt. That really stemmed from things way over his head, but the trickle down effect -- and the poor quality of many of the titles he inherited during the whole 90's Image/speculation era -- have led many fans to forget all the highlights of Harras's tenure in favor of the lowlights.

Among those highlights, of course, are not just the Heroes Return relaunches, which led to such fan favorite teams as Kurt Busiek and George Perez on Avengers, but also the greenlighting of Busiek's Thunderbolts series, the creation of the Ultimate universe and the launching of Marvel Knights, which eventually ushered in the era of his successor, Marvel Knights honcho Joe Quesada.

On balance, then, Harras's hits probably outweigh his misses as he helped return Marvel to a firm creative foundation after the near disaster of their bankruptcy. How his style or experience will effect DC, with their increasingly elaborate editorial structure -- in addition to DiDio and Lee, DC also has Geoff Johns on board in the official capacity of Chief Creative Officer, whatever the hell that is -- is a big question mark.

One thing is for sure though: DC is definitely shaking things up. And judging by their sales and the vocal complaints of the internet minority, anyway, that can't be anything but a good thing. Here's hoping Harras can straighten things out.

For more on the promotion of Harras, here's Newsarama with the press release and CBR with industry reaction.

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Breaking News: DC Shuts Down Wildstorm, Zuda

DC Comics announced in a press release earlier today that they are shutting down Jim Lee's Wildstorm imprint and absorbing the characters into DC. The move was one of several major changes announced, including the end of Zuda Comics as well as the relocation of numerous jobs from DC's New York headquarters to Los Angeles.

Wildstorm, of course, has been one of the premiere imprints in comics since it debuted nearly 20 years ago as part of the Image launch in 1991. Under Lee's guidance, Wildstorm published acclaimed and groundbreaking titles by creators such as Warren Ellis and Alan Moore, including influential series such as Gen13, WildCATS, Planetary, The Authority, Tom Strong, DV8, Ex Machina and Top Ten. For the last few years it has also been the publisher for Kurt Busiek's Astro City.

Considering Lee is now a co-publisher of DC itself, the move isn't necessarily a complete shock, but it's still a bit of a surprise that leaves many questions unanswered, particularly the future of the many Wildstorm characters. Will they now be folded into the DCU itself? Will some of them be DCU characters and others go to Vertigo to maintain their feel? And what will happen to creator owned works like Astro City (Busiek has said on his facebook page that he hasn't heard anything from DC yet)?

The decision to dump Wildstorm came at the same time as DC's decision to dump Zuda Comics, which as you know (thanks to my reviews last year) was a digital comics experiment that for a while provided a unique platform for new creators. That's gone and in it's place is... a nebulous something that DC is working on instead; their press release indicated that Lee will now be heading the new digital initiative, but what form that's going to take is unclear.

Also unclear is how the decision to move a number of jobs from New York to Los Angeles will affect DC. One has to assume that this is a result of last year's move by parent company Time/Warner to consolidate the management of DC under the Warner Bros. entertainment banner.

In short, pretty much nothing is certain as a result of these moves other than the fact that Wildstorm and Zuda no longer exist. It appears on first blush, though, that these moves all are part of a larger plan to focus on and leverage DC's core properties -- which unfortunately may come at the expense of their more innovative and creative smaller branches.

We'll see.


p.s. The DC website where they posted the press release seems to have crashed but I'll try to get a link to it when I can. Here's an interview with DC's head honcho Diane Nelson, though, where she sort of talks about the changes.

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The Real Top 70 Marvel Covers: #70-61

All week long we're counting down the Real top 70 covers in Marvel history as determined by a panel of experts: me, myself and I. So let's get right to it; there's a lot of classic art to see. P.S. -- Click on the images for larger versions.

And for a shortcut, here's the Real Top 70 Marvel Cover Master List.


70) X-Men #50

It's only fitting that we kick off our countdown with this classic from Jim Steranko, because we're going to be seeing an awful lot of him over the next week. Not only is this a very striking cover thanks both to Steranko's pencils and the mono-green color scheme; it's also the debut of the classic X-Men logo which has adorned the title ever since. The designer of that logo? Jim Steranko, of course.











69) Web of Spider-man #32

The Death of Kraven the Hunter is one of the most acclaimed stories in Spider-man history, and one of the most memorable aspects are the great covers from Mike Zeck, who, like Steranko, will be popping up several more times on this list. Zeck is interesting because I think his cover work is better than his interior work; his strong sense of design can be overwhelmed by his stylization when smaller panels are involved. This, though, is a classic image and a bit of a personal favorite.










68) X-Men #114

John Byrne makes the third artist in three entries who has multiple covers represented on our list. It will be no surprise to anyone, of course, that many of these covers are from his legendary stint drawing X-Men. This cover is a bit unusual for superhero comics, as it emphasizes mood and emotion over action and dynamism. It's also got Beast, who was on the Avengers at the time and was apparently slumming for an issue with the X-people.











67) Captain America Comics #57

It's unfortunate that Golden Age comics are so hard to afford, because many younger readers have never even seen these covers much less read the stories inside. Captain America Comics #57 features one of the best known Golden Age covers from Timely, a great symbolic cover from Vince Alascia, just one of the hundreds of great Golden Age creators who have been all but forgotten.












66) Moon Knight #23

Bill Sienkiewicz brought a new artistic sensibility and sophistication to Marvel that was both ahead of its time and perfectly suited for moody, dark books like Moon Knight. As a kid I wasn't much of a fan of his work, because it was too arty to really allow me to get into the stories. As an adult I can appreciate his work a lot more. But both kid and adult versions of me love his covers, especially this great image from Moon Knight #32, one in a run of great covers he turned in on the title.










65) Thor #127

The pieta style cover has been around in comics basically as long as there have been knowledgeable artists working in the field. One of the earlier and best known examples is this Jack Kirby cover from Thor #127, which also benefits from being the front piece for a well known storyline. While the impact of the cover may have been dulled slightly by more recent takes on this classic pose (one of which appears later on our list), it's still an iconic image from the Silver Age of Marvel.










64) New Mutants #39

Art Adams occupies an interesting spot on Marvel art history. In many ways he can be seen as a vital link between earlier artists like Mike Ploog and Michael Golden --who fused a loose, cartoony sense of design with tight, highly rendered line work -- and later megastars like Todd McFarlane and Jim Lee, who took those developments and ran with them all the way to the bank. For my money, Art Adams was a perfect hybrid of these styles and for a time was the single coolest artist in the business. He later began doing more cartoony stuff that I didn't like quite as much, but one of the pieces he put out during his heyday was this cover to New Mutants #39, which remains one of the most memorable covers in comics to a whole generation of young boys who had the image seared into their brains on first sight.





63) X-Men #1

Speaking of Jim Lee, here he is with his giant gatefold cover to X-Men #1. The very existence of this comic is a tribute to the star power of Lee's art, as he proved so popular they needed to market him in two different X-Men comics at once. This remains perhaps the best selling comic book in the history of the world, even if two-thirds of the copies sold are sitting in forgotten piles in the basements of angry speculators. Everybody who read comics in the 1990's was familiar with this image.



62) Daredevil #1

You have to give it up for this cover: it really is pretty awesome. It's also of special importance to the development of Marvel and the comic book industry as a whole. Drawn by Joe Quesada, the success of this title and the other Marvel Knights books turned over to Quesada and partner Jimmy Palmiotti paved the way for Quesada to eventually become the editor in chief of Marvel, a position which he still holds today. And it was this cover to Daredevil #1 that kicked it all off.










61) Secret Wars #8

Of all the covers on this list -- and maybe in Marvel history -- Secret Wars #8 might have the stupidest cover text. Mike Zeck is back for his second go-round on the list, with the issue that introduced the world to Spider-man's black costume. The costume and the cover are undoubted fan favorites, though I prefer the Web cover that I listed at #69 to this somewhat less exciting pose.












Tomorrow: We count down #60-51. More Jack Kirby! More Golden Age Timely! More pieta covers! And an image that's probably better known among non-comic fans than anything else on the list appears on a cover you may never have seen!

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