Today I’m going to rage about DC and their trades! Hurray!Let’s just get down to it, DC has it screwed up when it comes to trade collections. Usually, they’re pretty good about it, but the crossovers screw them over! It’s been revealed someone of the material coming out late this year, and most of it is pretty nice. Some are a good idea, but not for me, such as The Long Halloween Noir. It’s the same book, but in black and white. I like the idea, but if I already have the book, then why would I need to buy it again? Does it add anything new? Not what I can tell. There’s some awesome things coming out, like the entire Court of Owls arc in one book. All 12 issues collected just right. It’s a shame they can’t do this again, since Death of the Family is much shorter, and after that, it’s Zero Year. For sure they’ll collect Zero Year into one book eventually, since they’re doing that for the Tie-Ins already. I’ve also noticed a lack of anything Wonder Woman related. So much for a powerhouse of the “Trinity”.
A lot of what’s coming out is also based on The New 52, going into Volume’s 4 and 5 of several series. This is where my rant begins. Today is 3/19/14, so if you’re reading this in the future, things might have changed. As of now, the entire Trinity War arc is collected in a trade. Perfect, all issues, all tie-in’s, collected in chronological order, easy to read and follow. The problem? JLA V.1, JLD V.4, and JL V.4 all include the Trinity War issues. WHY!? This is a confusing mess, since the two issues are not in order. It starts with Justice League #22, and is followed by JLA #6 and then JLD #22. So imagine if you’re reading JL V.4, and you read issue #22 and then #23, by #23 you’re so confused as to what happened, because you’re literally reading the ending, and missed everything.
Let’s just take a look at JLA. Sure I’m disappointed when there’s only 5 issues in a trade, but I’ll take it, if it means It’s easier to follow the story arcs. If JLA V.1 just had issues #1-5, then it would have everything before the TW. Then we could refer to the TW Trade to see what happens next, and then JLA V.2 could just start with everything after the TW. “But wouldn’t that confuse some people?”. Yes, but not if DC was smart about it. At the end of the trade, let’s add a page that says “To Be Continued In…TRINITY WAR. It’s not like DC doesn’t do this already, there are a number of trades that direct my attention elsewhere, like V.3 at the end of V.2. So now if I want read the Trinity War, I’ll have to get all three trades for the core story, and 3 more for the tie-ins. Which means I’ll have to be going back and forth through 6 trades, just to get the TW story arc. Thanks DC. But this isn’t the first time they’ve done this either!
In Supergirl V.3, half of the issues are part of the H’el on Earth arc. What’s confusing here, is more than 2 issues make up the arc, so once you’re on the next issue, a LOT has happened since the previous one, and I was completely lost. And again, the released and entire trade with all the issues to H’el on Earth, so why couldn’t they just leave it at that. Again, I can see how this can be confusing, since Supergirl did have a part in this, but would it be so hard to add a caption saying “See H’el on Earth” to add clarification as to when certain events happened to Supergirl? And if we do choose to read it all, then we’d get the full story, and really understand the character more, not a rushed and sloppy story of only a handful of issues. It’s a nightmare. Even Green Lantern is guilty of doing this now, when they had it done perfectly for War of the Green Lanterns.
There’s also all the Forever Evil stuff coming out, and I can be more forgiving to that. Like Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis, the spin-off books have their own trades. So Rouges Rebellion for example has its own trade, and it includes the Villains Month issue, smart move. Forever Evil itself has all 7 issues. Sure Justice League ties-in closely to this series, but I can justify JL V.5 being a companion book to Forever Evil. So not too much to say here, it’s a little annoying, but I can be forgiving since there’s not a lot of options here.
On a final note, these trades wont be out for quite a while. Which means DC has some time to make changes, especially since technically, Blight isn’t even finished at this time. DC has been known to make last-minute changes to their trades, so HOPEFULLY, they realize what a horrible move this is, and fixes it. I’m not done talking about my frustrations with trades just yet, but that’s all I can take this week. Next week is Part 2.
Source for releases: http://comicsbeat.com/new-titles-from-dc-comics-fall-2014-and-spring-2015/
COMIC BOOK HERETIC 