Messed Up! #7 - This week, I talk about Rob Liefeld quitting DC Comics and the editorial problems.

Don't forget to leave suggestions in the comments for what topics you want me to talk about in future episodes!

I was nine kinds of shocked, when I first read about Liefeld writing the DC titles he was on. It struck me as a ploy on DC's part to distract him from his titles at Image, and that seems to have worked. I think DC knew Liefeld would self destruct eventually - I certainly thought he might - and here we are, at Liefeld quitting his DC work. That's a theory, anyway. Another one is that DC is just spread too thin - 52 titles a month is an insane publishing schedule, especially in today's economy. The cost of publishing that many titles aside, you're talking about a lot of creators, to keep that many books going, and frankly, not all of them are going to be good. I think DC knew certain books would fail early on, and they knew certain creators could only be counted on for a certain amount of time.

Hiring Liefeld, comics' favorite whipping boy, seemed like a case of "We need a warm body working on these titles." I doubt DC expected greatness, and I doubt they expected it to last long. They were just coasting, waiting for it to end, and now they'll either hire someone else to take over the titles, or they'll replace those titles with new ones. DC cannot keep up this 52 title schedule. They're going to implode eventually, much like the "DC Implosion" of the late 1970's. I think they know this, and they're trying to work it out so a certain core of books survives.

I've had the distinct sense that there's something going on behind the scenes of the New 52, like DC has been directed by TW/AOL to develop titles that could become movie properties, with certain directives for what they think will work. So DC is developing books, knowing certain things aren't going to work, and waiting for TW/AOL to get the heck out of the way, and let them do their jobs. That's a complete guess though. It just seems like DC has committed to publishing the New 52 with all-new storylines and histories, but the creators involved are putting forth lackadaisical effort, much the way they half-heartedly created new characters for the Bloodlines Annuals in 1993 - handing in enough to get a paycheck, but saving their better ideas for their creator owned projects.