Just Stay at Home

So I'm sure you all heard about the onging Magog series that DC has announced. Like me your reactions was probably thus: "Magog? Really? Magog?"

I understand to a degree what DC is trying to do here. It's the old "throw it at the wall and see if it sticks" method. They're basically going to toss as much stuff out there as they can and see if any of it catches fire (to mix metaphors). You can see the same thing with the Red Circle ongoings and the new Azrael.

Now, I'm not saying these are bad characters per se. Heck, they might not even be bad books. Even Magog sounds kind of interesting based on what Keith Giffen has to say.

But it's a simple problem. Books that don't star big names rarely last long. Now, that's not always true. A good example might be Birds of Prey. But consider if you will how Birds of Prey came to be launched. There were several mini-series and one-shots before the ongoing was green lighted. They were able to prove that the concept had legs before they ran with it.

Will Magog have legs? I don't see any reason to expect that it will. The problem with launching a new series is that few people are willing to invest in a theoretically indefinite set of stories on an unproven character. But they might sample a one-shot or a mini. Try that first, DC...