number15dream

From Ye Olde Comick Booke Blogge:

Due to diminished readership and rising paper costs, it has been decided only fifteen comic titles will be published from this day forward. You have been charged with the decisions of which titles shall be printed and what creative teams will be assigned to them.

What fifteen comic books will we find on the racks next month and who will be the creative teams behind them?

Oooh...

(I'm assuming that the Japanese, Koreans and Europeans are quite happy with their healthy comics industries and don't need my "help".)

2000ad
w: various
a: various
Continues as it is, except with more readers and fewer crappy strips. The comics world needs 2000ad. Where would DC get all its writers and artists from?

Amazing Spider-Man
w: Joss Whedon
a: Skottie Young
Whedon's wasted on the X-Men; as anyone who's seen Buffy will know, he's got the humour and characterisation down for Spidey and his supporting cast. He's a perfect fit, and I'm baffled that Marvel have him slogging away at forgettable X-Men stories. Skottie Young is an artist who seems to be universally reviled, but he's got a funky energy to his art that I think would be perfect for Spider-Man. See also: Spider-Man Tales

Avengers
w: Robert Kirkman
a: Carlos Pacheco
Reading Marvel Team-Up, it's obvious that Kirkman could do this with ease, but I've been struggling to think of an artist. Pacheco is a great superhero artist who I'd like to see have a longer run on Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

Doctor Strange
w: Alan Moore
a: Mike Mignola
'Nuff said.

Fantastic Four
w: Iain Banks
a: Bryan Hitch
It's a sci-fi adventure book, so let's get in a great writer who knows when the sci gets boring and when to put in some fi. Banks says he can't grasp comics on a conceptual level, but we'd teach him and then pair him up with Hitch for a glorious year or so of aliens, space ships, time travel and Doctor Doom. Alternatively, I'd hand it to Morvan and Bucher, the creators of Wake, and let them run with it.

Green Lantern Corps
w: Warren Ellis
a: Ed McGuinness
DC's best concept, and it's never been done amazingly well (although the current series is okay). No hero worship of Hal Jordan, and no particular emhpasis on Earth's Lanterns. Just full on space policery of the highest order. And if the Hallites bitch and moan, we take it over to Marvel and call it Nova Corps or Star Brand Corps or Quasar and the Quasons or something and it'll be just as good.

Hawkmen
w: Grant Morrison
a: Frank Quitely
That's right. Hawkmen. Grant Morrison gets to use any or all of the various Hawkmen as he sees fit. If he can't make sense of the character's continuity, he can at least make some beautiful nonsense out of it.

Invincible
w: Robert Kirkman
a: Ryan Ottley
Continues as normal.

Iron Man
w: Tsutomu Nihei
a: Tsutomu Nihei
I'd previously attached this writer/artist to Batman, but I've thought better of it, and Nihei's approach would bring something genuinely new to Iron Man, and that's that Cronenbergish mixture of technology and horror. He'd need a strong editor though, as Nihei tends to turn all of his projects into clones of his manga Blame!, only with different lead characters.

Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD
w: Greg Rucka
a: ? (suggestions welcome)
Just after Alias turned up, I thought Marvel were missing a trick by not putting out a spy/special ops book. Put Fury's name on the cover, but make it a team thing, really digging into the underbelly of the Marvel Universe. And tie it in, subtly, with the other books, so that if one of Doctor Doom's labs is raided in Fantastic Four, you never know who did it unless you read SHIELD and see them doing the raid. Everything will be behind the scenes, even their appearances in other books.

Sergeant Rock
w: Garth Ennis
a: Carlos Ezquerra
Ennis can write war stories, as well as the similar-but-different genre of stories about soldiers, in his sleep. Ezquerra hasn't done a lot of US work, but he's a veteran of proper war comics back when they actually existed, and his style is perfect for tales about grubby and weary soldiers engaged in endless conflicts. Alternatively, I'd stick both of them on Captain America.


Spider-Man Tales
w: various
a: various
Pare down the Spidey books to Amazing (see above) and this "anything goes" title. This could be used to tell out-of-continuity stories, or tales about supporting characters, or historical stories, or even reprints. Whatever. A combination of Tangled Web, Webspinners, Untold Tales, Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane and MTU, perhaps even as an anthology (although US fans hate and fear anthologies).

Tales of the DCU, Featuring...
w: various
a: various
I don't know or care enough about the DCU to pick too many specific survivors, but there are enough good concepts and creators to put together an anthology and/or "anything goes" book. Perhaps it could even be weekly.

Thor
w: Neil Gaiman
a: Jim Lee
Gaiman has a gift for the mythology stuff, and Lee's bulky yet iconic style is perfect for the larger-than-life Asgardians. In it fortyish year history, Thor has had only two definitve creative teams, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and Walt Simonson. This would be the third. After a suitably epic twelve-issue run, I'd bring in Mike Mignola to draw, and if Gaiman leaves, to write too.

The Walking Dead
w: Robert Kirkman
a: Charlie Adlard.
Ain't broke.


That'll do.