Apparently the Coward Curse (where comic books I like and have on my pull list die a relatively quick death) has struck again. The Source has announced the cancellation of six titles:

Blackhawks
Hawk and Dove
Men of War
Mister Terrifc
O.M.A.C.
Static Shock

The only one I didn’t have on my pull list was Static Shock because I have no confidence that DC would do the title right and, from all that I’ve heard, I was correct. I liked all of the titles I was getting (obviously) but I can also see why most of them were cancelled.

Blackhawks should have been DC’s version of GI Joe, which is what I thought. Instead of introducing the team and showing them as bad asses in their first storyline (or at least semi-competent), Blackhawks started out with a Team Under Siege story, but since no one knew or cared about the team members, it was pretty boring and confusing. When one of the characters is infected with a life-threatening illness but no one can even remember their name, then maybe you should have started with a different story.

Hawk and Dove had pretty artwork (remember that I am an unapologetic Rob Liefeld fan), but I didn’t like the story that Sterling Gates had put together. Of course, Rob will probably get the blame for the failure, but that’s just because haters like to hate.

Men of War was a good title, but it was one of the more expensive ones and that’s why a lot of people were going to pass on it. However, I think the book also suffered from not facing a familiar threat. There was a superbeing in the first issue that I thought was going to be someone we had at least heard of, but it wasn’t to be. If the story had passed on the superpowered aspects and was more like the backup features, then it might have reached a different audience.

Mister Terrific was just getting good. Like the other books, the first storyline was weakened by having an unfamiliar villain as the main bad guy. Once they started the Mister Terrific In Space story, it looked like the book was going to start getting good, but now it won’t get the chance to show what it could be.

O.M.A.C. was a really good title and most of the people who read it said they liked it. I guess people don’t like to try new things or they don’t like the fact that Dan Didio wrote it. I don’t get understand why this one isn’t selling better.

These are some of the reasons why I think the books didn’t sell better, but they were all pretty good books and if given time I think they would have found their audiences. However, don’t think the fact that half of the books cancelled had “diverse” lead characters wasn’t lost on me, but that’s a podcast topic for another day.