I am looking around at my local comic shops and online to see how this relaunch is going. Some things are really bothering me. We can bitch about DC and Marvel and how they handle the characters. All fair arguments I tend to agree with. However, I really think most of todays problems come with distribution. Either comic shops haven't ordered enough or they are online selling the books at a high price on ebay. Batgirl # 1 just came out today and people are already selling it for over cover price! Once again the retailers take the quick buck over creating good will with potential new customers. I will never figure out that loser mentailty. Good luck selling the same amount of issue 2, because you've either angered or let down any potential new customers with your behavior. *

*Yes I know there are good retailers. However, it's hard to wash the stentch off of you when your fellow retailers ruin it for others.

I went to the comic shop last Thurs for my monthly buys, and there were dozens of copies of JLA 1 and not a single copy of the new Waid/Martin DAREDEVIL.

Now, I'd have expected it to be the other way around. Waid has just rebooted Daredevil, with two phenomenal artists, and basically did it by saying, "Yeah, a bunch of bad stuff happened to Matt Murdock. But he's over all that now. This is a new Daredevil." And, like magic, it was.

Meanwhile, DC has to create this disturbing Twister game of akimbo titles and bizarre manipulations, just to justify a change. When DC could've just went the Waid route: we're not saying all the other junk didn't happen, but now everything is different and we're moving on.

If there's one trend DC should have picked up on, as it's wont to do by copying whatever Marvel is doing, why not this Daredevil one? Why not the trend of a non-iconic superhero whose first two new issues have sold out? The one everyone who cares about comics is talking about? The one two readers I know who have read it already feels is the most fun, most quality book on the market? Two readers, by the by, who buy the superhero crap comics, enjoy some of them, complain about them. And when quality comes along and slaps them in the kisser, they respond to it.

Why can't comic books do what Waid just did?

I was reading a part of an article, by former member Glenn Greenberg, in "Back Issue" 50, about Batman in the early 1980s, the Len Wein/Gerry Conway/Don Newton/Gene Colan years.

Doug Moench, who rolled in behind those writers, pointed out he'd wanted to reboot Batman around CRISIS, completely reboot from the ground up with a new Batman Issue 1. This was going to be a series to retell every major faucet of the Batman's history in the modern era. Like JB had done with Superman (as much as was allowed.)

But Moench was undone by DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, a one-off and distinct vision of Frank Miller's, quickly followed by not-as-talented little Frank Millers, and the allure of sure money with the Batman transformed into a sociopathic vigilante.

I bring this up because, again, professionals in the comics business could see very clearly what needed to be done, back in 1985. The way to sustain and fortify a superhero legend is to adapt while maintaining all of the fundamentals.

I'm not arguing for anybody not to buy what DC Comics is selling right now. But the way these people run their company is counter to every single professional instinct which sustained these characters for 75 years. There is a reason that superheroes were the way they were, and were solidly successful, for huge chunks of those decades. And what DC is doing now is going off-model just for the sake of being off-model.

For those who are enjoying the titles, what's working for you? Story and character-wise?

Chad, getting back to your comment about "dozens of Justice Leagues" on the shelves vs no Daredevils:  Were the JL's 1st printings, 2nd, 3rd?  Did they order the exact same amount of each?  More of Daredevil and less of JL?  Or did they under order on Daredevil?

Just because you see LOTS of one issue and none of another, that does not mean they were order equally.