DC Announces May 2013 Cancellations

Following the April cancellations DC will be cancelling even more series this May. Some series finales include Deathstroke with issue 20, The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man, The Ravagers, The Savage Hawkman, Sword of Sorcery and Team 7. None of these cancellations are too surprising, however, when you look at their monthly sales figures.  According to Comic Book Resources, the “line of death” for comic book sales is 20,000 copies which each of these cancelled series was under in December’s sales estimates. According to Bob Harras, the editor-in-chief at DC, even though these titles are being cancelled (for a “variety of reasons) that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll never see these characters again. Hawkman will still appear in Justice League of America and there are plans to use Deathstroke in the future as well. The cancellation of Deathstroke and The Savage Hawkman  seemed to be set into motion when Rob Liefeld, who previously took over both titles, abruptly stopped writing for both of the titles leading to some quick creative team changes. I’ve read every issue of Deathstroke, an action title about mercenary Slade Wilson (a.k.a. Deathstroke) who is getting up in years but refuses to let it show.  I’ve got to say while I’ve loved reviewing it, Liefeld’s run on Deathstroke was pretty terrible and that’s not just my opinion. I’ve gotten comments from some people before telling me on multiple occasions that giving Liefeld’s first issue of Deathstroke, Deathstroke #9, a 3.5, was generous. As for The Savage Hawkman, I haven’t had the pleasure of reading it, but there was a crossover between the winged-protagonist Hawkman and Deathstroke which I saw a part of which remains average at best. Out of all the cancelled titles, The Ravagers sold the most copies at 16,117. The book was a spin-off of the N.O.W.H.E.R.E. story arc from Teen Titans. The Ravagers are a group of young teen heroes which includes Fairchild and Ravager, Deathstroke’s daughter who I wanted to see outside the pages of Superboy but unfortunately I never picked up this title either. Firestorm: The Nuclear Man sold the lowest number of books: a total of 11,997 copies. I haven’t read the title, featuring two nuclear power superheroes who could combine together to create an even bigger superhero, even when they did a crossover with Justice League International, but it sounds like the punchline to a dirty joke... The other two cancelled books were very short lived, having premiered during Zero Month in September of 2012 and ending after only eight issues (I’m having Static Shock and Blackhawks flashbacks). Sword of Sorcery originally sold 26,959 copies and Team 7 sold 31,053 copies. Those numbers were down by half in December. I’m not a huge fantasy fan so I never subscribed to Sword of Sorcery, a title starring Amethyst, the long lost princess of Gemworld who leads a rather odd life with her mother before she even realizes her true identity and that there are people after her for more than just her good looks. But I did consider pulling Team 7 because it seemed to have a similar concept as that of Suicide Squad. I assumed it was just about a team of vigilantes to break the rules and it sounds somewhat right: Team 7 a reinvention of the team with the same name and features younger versions of characters from the DC universe and Wildstorm, a publisher which included the likes of the popular gay couple Midnighter and Apollo. Particularly Grifter and, my two main interests, Amanda Waller and Deathstroke. Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of other people had my same indecision. What’s the next title we can expect to see go? I’m not holding my breath but I think Batwing isn’t going to make another round of cancellation. What started out as my favorite New 52 title has gotten so mediocre I was resigned to unsubscribe a couple months ago. What do you think? Comment below and let me know.