On Superman #75: Oy.

No really, what more can I say?

Although a lot of people have made a bunch of money of this, and everyone's pleased as punch at the success of it, I question whether it will really do any good, long-term.

If you're at all like me, you ordered somewhere in the vicinity of 1000+% of "normal" Superman numbers. And you still sold out the first day.

This has been followed by weeks of "civilians" calling, every 3.2 seconds, in one of the largest feeding-frenzies this industry has ever seen.

As I write this, the paperback of the entire series is due out in a couple of hours, and a week from now, we'll see the fourth (!) printing of #75.

I would guess that the total print run for all these printings will end up being near 4 million copies (if not far more). The initial printings alone hit nearly 2 million copies.

So there's several points here:

1. In my store, at least, because we ran out so early, we had several forced confrontations with people who believed that they (but no one else) should be privileged to buy as many copies as they liked, despite the need to be fair to all, and since the phone was almost ringing faster than the call-waiting could handle, we were unable to a) deal with our normal needs of business, or b) accomplish almost anything at all. When I look at the extra time that has had to been put in to deal with the madness, weighed against the amount of money that we made, it appears that we actually made less of a profit than we would've from a "normal" issue of Supes. (of course, this is compounded by the fact that Diamond was unable to completely fill our orders on the second printing, and seemingly lost all orders [throughout their entire chain!] for the 3rd -- things may slide back in the profitability section, depending on what happens with the TPB)

2. This is a little more insidious: the immediate skyrocketing price (I've heard as high as $90 less than 3 weeks after the book shipped!). A lot of this is due to genuine "civilian" interest, but everybody is real clear on the fact that there is no way in hell that this book will keep any of this value, right?

Look at the numbers: something nearing 1.6 million copies of the "collector's" edition on the market (and don't forget that DC's original solicitation held forth that we should order more copies of the newstand version than the bagged, because that's what the civilians would want. It was wrong then, and it was far more wrong on Doomsday, itself.) Now, a substantial number of these copies actually made it into the hands of real civilians, maybe as high as 50%, but that still leaves 800,000 copies firmly in the market (that's an average of 133 a store!). It may not seem like it, but 800,000 is a tremendously high number. There are not significantly more than that number of people who read comics at all, let alone care about Superman! Within six months after Supes' inevitable resurrection, this book is gonna be deader then the big red S, hisself.

Look at history, people! The Death of Robin, the Engagement of Superman, the Wedding of Spider-Man – who cares now?

By scalping Superman #75 now at $90 per, knowing that it is not going to be able to sustain that value, you are an unethical fuckwad (and I really, really, really hope that daunting Don Butler, Editor at large doesn't edit that last word out. While I may be a filth-mouth in real life, I try to be somewhat gentile in these pages. The swearing is to show my utter disdain, and offence towards the parasitic scum who take advantage of another's curiosity. Besides, we're all adults in this joint. What kid could bear to read my rantings? [y2k1 note: Don, of course, did edit it out!]) You are clearly ripping people off, for the sake of a bit more profit, which is a sleazy and slimy stunt. In fact, this is exactly the type of crap that's holding our industry back, for if a civilian were to pay that price, then see it dwindle 6 months later, they'd surely swear off comics for life, spreading the word to all their acquaintances.

Go back and read my article on Ethics back in issue one, for a refresher course.

3. And, of course, this was a pretty bad comic book.

No, really, this was!

Try reading it with the eyes of a non-comics reader.

Every stereotype about how insipid and juvenile comic books are is contained between these covers. It is an absolutely mindless slugfest, told in pin-ups with freakishly sappy writing. The conclusion, with Supes and Doomsday killing each other simultaneously by punching each other is the worst type of cliche. This will only confirm "See, Henry, I told you comic books were for children & morons."

While certainly some civilians may get the "bug" from this, it is not anywhere near as many as it could have been, had this been a well-told, poignant story. Moreover, I hold that this will do more harm than good in the eyes of John Q. Public.

Maybe I'm an old fart (but I'm only 25!), but I simply cannot fathom the direction that DC is taking. Between high concept trash like this, the cancellation of a good read like JSA (before the first issue even ships), the death of !mpact, the commercial failure of Piranha (but I really like [and can sell] most of their output), the clumsy handling of the Vertigo launch (hawking an intelligent line for mature readers at collectible nuts is hardly wise marketing), and the soon to be failure of the Milestone line (not one of these books have the smell of success, in my oh so humble opinion), it seems to me that DC is stuck down a well, but they keep digging deeper hoping to find a vein of gold. Then maybe they'll be able to buy their way out.

But all they're striking is pyrite.

And the damn shame of it all is that I like the majority of their output (and they sell well in my store, at least).