This Is It, The Apocalypse: Johns Leaving Aquaman, Manapul and Buccellato Leaving Flash

dc_comics_logo_2013It has not been a good week for DC Comics, publicity wise. In the last week, the creators of Batwoman announced that they were leaving the title early, mostly due to editorial interference on a bunch of story points, including forbidding the planned plotline of Batwoman getting married to another woman. And while that particular story point was not, by the accounts of both the creators and DC Editorial, the primary cause for the split, but it’s what fired the imagination of half of the comics Internet (if by “imagination,” you mean “screeching hate frenzy”)… particularly once Dan DiDio, at this weekend’s Baltimore Comic Con, defended that particular decision by announcing that no DC superheroes are married. Even though a bunch of them, you know, are.

But Baltimore is over now, and the initial hubbub is starting to die down, so DC can get back to focusing on the comics, particularly the few that are left from the New 52 relaunch that still have consistent and successful creative teams. Like Geoff Johns on Aquaman. Right?

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So I guess we’ll start with the good news: the reasons that Johns gives for leaving are completely unrelated to recent events… despite the fact that, just 72 hours before making the announcement, he was working on a comic book about a married couple of superheroes.

Aquaman is one of the greatest characters at DC Comics and one of my favorites. Ultimately, there are some reveals coming up in the “Death of a King” arc through issue #25 that sets the stage for his world and some of those threats are going to carry over to Justice League in a pretty big story next year. But between making Forever Evil and Justice League the best they can be and Gary [Frank] and I doing Batman: Earth One, issue #25 felt like the right time to bid farewell to him for now.

So that’s the public statement… although to be fair, no one asked Johns if editorial interference was a factor in his decision. And to be further fair, that would be kind of a stupid question, because as DC Comics’ Chief Creative Officer, he’s kinda, you know, editorial. So while it’s possible Johns was sitting in his office with the light off, interfering with himself, writing jokes like that would mean that I will never get to ask Johns any questions.

So there are still a couple of lights at the end of the tunnel for DC, the first being that Johns has additional new projects on the horizon:

Yeah, there’s some other stuff brewing but the only thing I’m focused on right now is Justice League and Forever Evil. Right now, it’s 100% villains, 100% of the time. People who love Black Manta, he’s a main character in Forever Evil and there are a lot of plans for him in that. There are plans for Ocean Master. There are plans for lots of characters in Justice League as well, and I’ll still be working with Aquaman and Mera in the months ahead.

And the second is that that should be the end of high-profile creators leaving their books. Right?

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Yeah, Francis Manpul and Brian Buccallato, the guys who have been both writing and doing art on Flash since the New 52 relaunch, also announced today that they’re leaving that title. And once again, the reasons they give have nothing to do with anything that has happened recently:

We were REALLY honored to have the opportunity to usher Barry, Iris, Patty, Lenny, Forrest and the entire Flash universe into the New 52… We’ve lived and breathed Barry and are sorely gonna miss him, but after 3 years and over 30 issues (annuals, zero, Villains Month), we felt it was time to Move Forward and take on a new creative challenge

Look: the timing on these announcements is unfortunate, but there is no reason to believe that the recent cries of “editorial interference!” have anything to do with these departures. Unlike those situations, the announcements came in parallel with DC’s release of their December solicitations, which clearly show new creative teams on Flash (to be written by Christos Gage with art by Neil Googe) and Aquaman (written by Jeff Parker with art by Paul Pelletier and Sean Parsons) on their respective 26th issues. So unlike other recent departures, these were clearly planned in advance, and didn’t start with an angry blog post and end with weird questions by cosplayers at some convention.

But still, it’s a bummer. Off the top of my head, this leaves the number of books being at least written by their original reboot writers down to two: Batman by Scott Snyder (with Greg Capullo also continuing on art most months), Batgirl by Gail Simone, and Batman & Robin by Peter Tomasi, Jeff Lemire on Animal Man, and Geoff Johns on Justice League… and that’s all I can think of. And while it was, and is, only a matter of time before all the original creators have shifted or left, every departure means that we are getting closer to the day when the bloom is truly off the New 52 rose… and we need to decide once and for all if it has all been worth the effort.

(via IGN and Comic Book Resources)