DC DIGRESSION: A publishing tradition in crisis

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By Zack Quaintance — I wasn’t going to write this column. Originally, I was going to write about how DC’s summer event — Dark Nights: Death Metal — was just fine, coming close to transcending self-seriousness to become a winking, grandiose celebration of big and goofy superhero books via this week’s Dark Night: Death Metal #3. But that was before news broke that DC Comics’ corporate owners were essentially laying off the entire leadership of the comics publishing division, save for Marie Javins and Jim Lee.

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DC DIGRESSION: Dark Nights - Death Metal is a raucous college-town bar band playing covers

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By Zack Quaintance — The musical metaphors are too easy with DC Comics’ big summer event, Dark Nights: Death Metal. You can call it an encore to the first event — Dark Nights: Metal — a simple echo of ideas, inflated to new volume to give the audience more of the things they’ve cheered all along. Or, perhaps you can call it a sophomore album, a tricky followup to an earlier success that needs to check similar boxes while also going in new, stimulating directions.

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