Why did you leave mainstream comics?

While I haven’t left the “Big Two” entirely, I have pared down my box to only a few titles between them. There’s been a blatant disregard for quality and character history, and in place of that quality and continuity, we have agenda-pushing and mishandling of beloved characters. Under Tom King, Batman was an ineffectual puss. Bendis has utterly destroyed the entire Superman family as well as Young Justice. And Hickman’s X-Men is all over the place and is ruining characters who have stood as fan favorites for decades. Nick Spencer has been hot-and-cold with his Amazing Spider-Man run thus far, so I keep teetering on the precipice of removing it.

I’m still on board with Scott Snyder’s Justice League, Joshua Williamson’s Flash, and James Tynion IV is killing it on Batman, but that’s just about it. I’m much more enjoying going back through back issues that I missed or re-reading old favorites that stand the test of time, as well as getting my lady educated on some of these stories.

James Tynion IV understands what Batman stories should look and feel like on a level that hasn’t been seen in a long time. I put his first several issues on-par with the likes of Court of Owls. Bendis did great work back in the early 2000s on both Ultimate Spider-Man and New Avengers, but he sucks now.

I saw the proverbial ‘writing on the wall’ all the way back during “52”, DC’s year-long revitalization campaign, when they pushed massive hype about a brand new series that was to debut in 2006.  We had no idea what the big deal was…and DC was being quite vague with any details.

We didn’t know the new character’s name.

We didn’t know if the new character had any superpowers or if they were non-powered.

We didn’t know what the new character’s costume looked like.

We didn’t know the new character’s origin.

Heck, we didn’t even know if this new character was a male or a female.

Frankly, we didn’t know a damned thing about this “major huge thing” that DC promoted the hell out of.

The only thing we readers DID know about this new series (and apparently the only thing you really needed to know about this new character) was…

1) The title character would be directly connected to another long-established, yet still unidentified, popular DC character.

2) It was homosexual.

That’s it.
This was ridiculous.
DC was essentially saying to the fans “Buy this new comic that you know absolutely nothing about because the title character is gay!”
Were I a homosexual, I would’ve been insulted…and talking to a few of the openly homosexual comic readers who frequented my Local Comic Shop, they actually were insulted.

For those who haven’t figured it out yet, the “OMGSuperAwesomeExcellent!” new character/series was “Batwoman”.
Meh.

I take pride that to this very day I have never even seen the interior of a “Batwoman” comic, much less actually read one…and I never will, no matter how good the stories were.  I honestly don’t care if the comic was well-written or if the art was superb or if the plot was engrossing or whatever;  all DC cared about was marketing this as “a comic with a homosexual lead character”…and I had zero interest in something like that.
And when they killed off The Question (one of my most favorite characters of all time) so that they could replace him with a new version of The Question that also filled a few quotas…as in “female”, “non-White”, & “homosexual”…I knew that my days as a weekly comic book buyer (and comic book reader) were numbered.

DC’s “Flashpoint/New 52” a couple of years later was the final nail in the coffin, so to speak.

As for Marvel…well, I was simply fed up with Marvel’s “Everything ties in with X-Men, especially Wolverine” to the point where I suffered from “X”-burnout.

The benefit was that I was able to watch DC & Marvel go “woke” from an outsider’s perspective…it certainly saved me a LOT of money that I might’ve otherwise spent on utter trash.

That’s my story.
Thanks for reading it!

I have been collecting DC Comics for over 3 decades.

If 5G would have stayed as announced, that would have been an end to me purchasing NEW titles.

(I would still buy back issues from before 5G era).

Now, with Future State….  Any titles using these “replacement characters” I am dropping.

Sure, I did keep getting Batman/Detective during the time after Bruce Wayne had his back broken (replaced my Azreal) and when Dick Grayson had to wear the cowl and even those few where Gordon worn a Batman-battlesuit, but this “new batman/batwing 2.0′, etc. No Thanks.

Action Comics/Superman with Clark Kent yes.

Supergirl had her own title, and Superboy is either in its own or as part of the Legionaries (Legion of Super-Heroes).  But NOT as “Superman”.  NO thanks.

The Flash, so long as it is Barry, Wally, (I can even do Bart), but no Future State knock-offs.

I won’t do the Black Label (pay us more) line.  The extra price was not worth it for me.

And if the artwork becomes sub-par (As I have seen some samples of Harley Quinn) I am dropping it/them as well

I already had over a decade ago when one of the Bat-titles did this.  But I had the extra funds I could do it.  Not anymore.

At one time, when I was collecting Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian, Savage Sword of… I was starting to get into Spider-Man.  But Marvel’s mega-story arches where you have to get every title to understand WTF is going on, killed me wanting to get non-conan Marvel titles.

Time will tell if we still get month titles in print.

If they go digital ONLY… No thanks!

I want to own my comic book, not purchase a license to view it (so long as my account is current).

Because manga is easier to get into where you don’t need to read a wiki to get caught up and understand the story. All you need is a single issue.

Nick Spencer, ironically enough, put them back together in issue #1 of his run on the book a few years ago. His run has been hot and cold, with meh stuff, some dumb stuff, and a couple of really great arcs as well.

Identity politics.  I’m just so tired of it.