Archie Superheroes relaunch

[leonmallett]

Archie is relaunching its superheroes. Again. But I am a fan and am happy to hear any news! LOL.

This is in effect arguably the 4th iteration of the characters (the last iteration, New Crusaders, was effectively a continuation of the first iteration, so was not really a reboot as much as a relaunch).

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2014 ... /12483965/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Archie Comics is getting serious about its superheroes and revamping a classic brand.

Red Circle Comics, an imprint started in the 1970s that was the longtime home for characters such as The Fox, Shield, Firefly, Wizard and The Web, is being relaunched under the new Dark Circle Comics banner. The first round of books is slated to arrive early next year.

The Red Circle brand has some level of burden to it, according to Dark Circle editor Alex Segura. Most comic fans know its history of being rebooted a handful of times in various places, most recently as an all-digital line in 2012.

"With Dark Circle, we want to not only break away from that, but also show fans, retailers and newcomers that this is a fresh start featuring recognizable names and icons with zero baggage," Segura says. "It starts here. You don't need to read anything else."

He has a "dream team" of creators for the new ongoing series, which will feature five-issue arcs and breaks for trade collections.

Some of the names involved are familiar to comic fans, while others are more outside the box, admits Segura, who doubles as Archie's senior vice president for marketing and publicity.

"Dark Circle has an entire library of heroes, villains, worlds and teams that has been basically untapped," he says. "We're bringing together a group of great writers, artists and more to jump in without many rules. We're handing them the keys and telling them to go crazy."

Dean Haspiel and Mark Waid's The Fox miniseries was a success soon after its debut last fall, and Segura feels it showed that people were hungry for different, stand-alone takes on these characters, as opposed to the more all-in title like the New Crusaders title that debuted a couple of years ago digitally.

"There's an audience for creator-driven superhero stories that don't require you to read 10 other titles or a decade's worth of continuity just to get a sense of what's going on," Segura says. Instead he wants to focus on creating innovative tales of these characters for readers, "whether they're fans of gritty crime noir, superhero action or off-the-wall adventure."

Archie executives — including publisher/co-CEO Jon Goldwater, chief creative officer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and president Mike Pellerito — gave Segura a mandate to make daring comics that revitalized the characters, weren't tied to the past, and also cut loose a bit to stand out from the main Archie line.

"These are not superhero comics for kids, nor are we trying to make everything-for-everyone comics. These books are on par, content-wise, with anything Image, DC or Marvel are putting out — hopefully better," Segura says.

"We're not looking to be the 53rd book in (DC's) 'The New 52' or the 12th X-Men book. Those guys do those books well. We're taking our inspiration from cable networks like HBO, AMC and FX — great, diverse programming featuring some iconic characters that have yet to see their most definitive stories told. That's what we want to do now."

[Chiclo]

There are yet a few flogs left for this dead horse!

Have any of the iterations of any of these titles ever made it to an issue 20? It seems like no publisher, not even Archie who owns these IPs, are willing to put in the work to build anything with these guys. The trials and foibles of the Red Circle gang only further illustrates how fortunate we were as Valiant fans that our beloved characters ended up where they did.

[leonmallett]

There are yet a few flogs left for this dead horse!

Have any of the iterations of any of these titles ever made it to an issue 20?

Except in the 1940's and 1950's, no (Fly did 31 issues; The Shield did 56 in Pep Comics).

!mpact managed 18 issue of the Fly. in the 1980's Archie managed 13 of the Might Crusaders. In the 2000's DC managed 10 issues plus a one shot apiece for the Shield and The Web.

It seems like no publisher, not even Archie who owns these IPs, are willing to put in the work to build anything with these guys.

True words.

I hope that with changes at Archie, maybe there is a chance of new opportunity.

The trials and foibles of the Red Circle gang only further illustrates how fortunate we were as Valiant fans that our beloved characters ended up where they did.

Indeed. Despite my reservations when VEI were not actively publishing, they have proven themselves.

[Cyberstrike]

There are yet a few flogs left for this dead horse!

Have any of the iterations of any of these titles ever made it to an issue 20? It seems like no publisher, not even Archie who owns these IPs, are willing to put in the work to build anything with these guys. The trials and foibles of the Red Circle gang only further illustrates how fortunate we were as Valiant fans that our beloved characters ended up where they did.

I see a few problems with this reboot.

1) As Chiclo stated Archie Comics seems not to be willing to the money and time into building these characters. They want success at the start and that isn't always the case.

2) Creator-driven instead of character driven comics. I knew Mark Waid plotted and/or co-wrote The Fox but guess what? Waid's name didn't make me want to buy the series or read. Also while Waid is a great writer not everything he's wrote is a classic and he's written his share of turds, the same with any big name creator who has worked on more than one series over 10 years.

3) This feels like Archie wants to make these characters crossover into multimedia (movies, TV shows, animation, video games, etc) really fast but honestly does anyone but the already small number of fans that like these characters which are out there but I don't see a lot of active fan sites dedicated to them. I'm sorry but I don't see The Shield, The Fly, The Comet, The Web, The Fox, The Crusaders, and the rest as on par to anything that Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, IDW, and Image are putting out. Hell I don't see them being on par anything that Boom Studios, Dynamite, VEI, or even Zenoscape puts out.

[leonmallett]

There are yet a few flogs left for this dead horse!

Have any of the iterations of any of these titles ever made it to an issue 20? It seems like no publisher, not even Archie who owns these IPs, are willing to put in the work to build anything with these guys. The trials and foibles of the Red Circle gang only further illustrates how fortunate we were as Valiant fans that our beloved characters ended up where they did.

I see a few problems with this reboot.

1) As Chiclo stated Archie Comics seems not to be willing to the money and time into building these characters. They want success at the start and that isn't always the case.

2) Creator-driven instead of character driven comics. I knew Mark Waid plotted and/or co-wrote The Fox but guess what? Waid's name didn't make me want to buy the series or read. Also while Waid is a great writer not everything he's wrote is a classic and he's written his share of turds, the same with any big name creator who has worked on more than one series over 10 years.

3) This feels like Archie wants to make these characters crossover into multimedia (movies, TV shows, animation, video games, etc) really fast but honestly does anyone but the already small number of fans that like these characters which are out there but I don't see a lot of active fan sites dedicated to them. I'm sorry but I don't see The Shield, The Fly, The Comet, The Web, The Fox, The Crusaders, and the rest as on par to anything that Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, IDW, and Image are putting out. Hell I don't see them being on par anything that Boom Studios, Dynamite, VEI, or even Zenoscape puts out.

I think you are right to say they need to get a few things right to make this work.

One thing they may have going for them is their newsstand distribution. On the downside, if they are building a patchwork of mini series they may miss out on exploiting that strength, except maybe through publication of digests possibly.

[Cyberstrike]

They didn't do newsstand distribution last time, they went digital and direct distribution and no one cared.

[dornwolf]

What ever happened to the last relaunch with all the kids? That kinda fell off the map it seems.

[Cyberstrike]

What ever happened to the last relaunch with all the kids? That kinda fell off the map it seems.

My guess is that no one cared about it.

[leonmallett]

What ever happened to the last relaunch with all the kids? That kinda fell off the map it seems.

My guess is that no one cared about it.

Well one person did, but my purchase of the issues was not enough!

[leonmallett]

They didn't do newsstand distribution last time, they went digital and direct distribution and no one cared.

I hope they learn their lesson. Crazy to ignore an actual fairly unique asset.

[Cyberstrike]

They didn't do newsstand distribution last time, they went digital and direct distribution and no one cared.

I hope they learn their lesson. Crazy to ignore an actual fairly unique asset.

I don't think it would help all that much I can't recall the last time I saw any Archie Comic book or one of their digests on the newsstands.

[Cyberstrike]

What ever happened to the last relaunch with all the kids? That kinda fell off the map it seems.

My guess is that no one cared about it.

Well one person did, but my purchase of the issues was not enough!

Exactly my point: Archie has never marketed these characters right and they still don't! These are cult-classic characters and it's a very small cult at that. Even DC couldn't do anything with them (and some of that IMHO is because DC kind of sucks at linecened properties especially other companies superheroes). They want the sales that DC got when they launched The New 52 and simply put nobody knows or really cares for these characters all that much to buy them.

Now they're trying to dump the sales on the creators' shoulders and do something that seems more like something like the crap that Dynamite does. The "hot" mini-series and/or opening arc by a high profile creator and/or creative team for 4-6 issues followed by a quick and sharp drop-off because the first and/or set of creators they hired only for 4-6 issues do their story and leave to another project. Sorry but unless Archie is going to invest a lot of effort, money and time to actually build the damn line and make people like me want to read a Dark Circle comic book (which IMHO is a dumb name for a line of superhero books) and keep readers like me coming back and wanting to bring others into the fold, then it's just another massive waste of trees, time, and money on their part.

[leonmallett]

They didn't do newsstand distribution last time, they went digital and direct distribution and no one cared.

I hope they learn their lesson. Crazy to ignore an actual fairly unique asset.

I don't think it would help all that much I can't recall the last time I saw any Archie Comic book or one of their digests on the newsstands.

There was a blog post from earlier this I was looking at that suggested it may have a decent impact in their overall sales.

http://comicsworthreading.com/2014/05/0 ... -for-2013/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So there *may* be a little more depth to the market than is immediately apparent.

[StarBrand]

Idea: Let's kill Archie, then relaunch our superheroes in a dark vein. That'll stir things up.

[Tim]

So let me get this straight...they're going to take superheroes and make them dark?

Has that been done before?

/sarcasm

[leonmallett]

What ever happened to the last relaunch with all the kids? That kinda fell off the map it seems.

My guess is that no one cared about it.

Well one person did, but my purchase of the issues was not enough!

Exactly my point: Archie has never marketed these characters right and they still don't! These are cult-classic characters and it's a very small cult at that.

Could not agree more. They are an afterthought at best for the company.

Even DC couldn't do anything with them (and some of that IMHO is because DC kind of sucks at linecened properties especially other companies superheroes). They want the sales that DC got when they launched The New 52 and simply put nobody knows or really cares for these characters all that much to buy them.

Although I liked DC's output with their versions of the characters for the most part (well all except !mpact WEB! LOL).

Now they're trying to dump the sales on the creators' shoulders and do something that seems more like something like the crap that Dynamite does. The "hot" mini-series and/or opening arc by a high profile creator and/or creative team for 4-6 issues followed by a quick and sharp drop-off because the first and/or set of creators they hired only for 4-6 issues do their story and leave to another project. Sorry but unless Archie is going to invest a lot of effort, money and time to actually build the damn line and make people like me want to read a Dark Circle comic book (which IMHO is a dumb name for a line of superhero books) and keep readers like me coming back and wanting to bring others into the fold, then it's just another massive waste of trees, time, and money on their part.

I suspect it will be another failed run out for these characters, but i hope to be pleasantly surprised.

[Chiclo]

Idea: Let's kill Archie, then relaunch our superheroes in a dark vein. That'll stir things up.

Ooh, and blame the Tea Party.

[StarBrand]

Idea: Let's kill Archie, then relaunch our superheroes in a dark vein. That'll stir things up.

Ooh, and blame the Tea Party.

[leonmallett]

So let me get this straight...they're going to take superheroes and make them dark?

Has that been done before?

/sarcasm

[leonmallett]

And some details; 3 ongoings to start with: Shield; The Fox; and Black Hood.

http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=88f ... 0bea1b0aa2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fox is by Haspiel and Waid, so probably a continuation of the recent mini; except tht had some contiuity with the 'old' Shield IIRC.

Duane Swierczynski on the Black Hood sounds like a good fit.

And above all, pretty far removed from their previous history in some ways.

[SJS4]

And some details; 3 ongoings to start with: Shield; The Fox; and Black Hood.

http://us3.campaign-archive1.com/?u=88f ... 0bea1b0aa2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fox is by Haspiel and Waid, so probably a continuation of the recent mini; except tht had some contiuity with the 'old' Shield IIRC.

Duane Swierczynski on the Black Hood sounds like a good fit.

And above all, pretty far removed from their previous history in some ways.

Crap, was so disappointed when he left Bloodshot, but it helped ease the pain since he went to X, which has been awesome. If he leaves X i am gonna be *SQUEE*!

[dornwolf]

so help me out here, are all the titles in a shared-verse or are they stand alone.

[leonmallett]

so help me out here, are all the titles in a shared-verse or are they stand alone.

It looks like they are in shared continuity, and that the continuity *may* continue from the past stuff, but picking up with new iterations of a couple of the leads, which would allow for a fairly fresh start.

This article confirms the shared universe element, but while suggesting the past continuity is intact, does not confirm it:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page ... e&id=54162" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Cyberstrike]

so help me out here, are all the titles in a shared-verse or are they stand alone.

It looks like they are in shared continuity, and that the continuity *may* continue from the past stuff, but picking up with new iterations of a couple of the leads, which would allow for a fairly fresh start.

This article confirms the shared universe element, but while suggesting the past continuity is intact, does not confirm it:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page ... e&id=54162" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Like that worked so well for DC with The New 52.

[leonmallett]

so help me out here, are all the titles in a shared-verse or are they stand alone.

It looks like they are in shared continuity, and that the continuity *may* continue from the past stuff, but picking up with new iterations of a couple of the leads, which would allow for a fairly fresh start.

This article confirms the shared universe element, but while suggesting the past continuity is intact, does not confirm it:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page ... e&id=54162" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Like that worked so well for DC with The New 52.

I suspect it will be clearer closer to the time which way they go. It looks like these could simply be new legacies, in which case no partial reboot for continuity required; just new beats added - they have an unexplored gap of around 30 years where these new iterations of the characters could have been born.