Two of the comics on my pull-list had their final issues yesterday.

Blue Beetle #36

Definitely one of my favorite comics series of the last few years, and I’m really sad to see this one end. Jaime Reyes and his impossibly awesome supporting cast have been the focus of some of DC’s best stories and most engaging storytelling. And there’s not much else out there to replace it with.

We pick up where we left off last issue — the remaining alien scarabs of the Reach are fighting Jaime because he refuses to join their crusade against all oppression across the universe. But wait, how can Jaime be fighting the aliens as Blue Beetle at the same time that he’s helping evacuate his classmates from the high school gym in his civilian guise? Turns out he’s got some remote-controlled holographic projectors invented by Ted Kord that let him be in two places at once. But it still doesn’t leave any good options for beating up a bunch of bloodthirsty aliens all by himself. The Scarab says it can force a hard reboot of all the scarabs, including Jaime’s own — but that leaves Jaime with no powers, a mile or two above the Earth, with no chance of the Scarab rebooting for almost a month. Is there anything that can keep Jaime from hitting the ground hard? Nope.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A good, fun story, a bit sadder than I was expecting (I’d mostly discounted the idea that they were going to kill a member of the supporting cast), and quite a bit more exciting than I was expecting, considering some of the less-than-awesome final issues I’ve seen out there. If you still wanna see Jaime, you can find him in “Teen Titans,” but I don’t read that one anymore. He’s also going to be showing up in Cartoon Network’s “The Brave and the Bold” cartoon from time to time.

Seriously, I’m gonna miss this series so much. Awesome writing, awesome characterization, awesome dialogue. If you haven’t read this one previously, go get the trade paperbacks. You’ll love ’em.

She-Hulk #38

Niiiice cover. Hello, Tall, Green and Gorgeous!

The story inside, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the cover. Shulkie is back on top of the world, but she gets a telepathic message from her Skrull friend Jazinda, who tells her that she’s been captured by the government and she has to absolutely disavow any knowledge that she was a Skrull. She-Hulk reluctantly agrees, but is eventually summoned to a secret base where a bunch of scientists are torturing Jazinda and repeatedly killing her to watch her resurrect herself. Of course, Shulkie can’t stay quiet for long, so she moves in to save Jazinda. But then she gets attacked by the Man-Elephant (snicker), but the cavalry shows up in the form of the Lady Liberators. Is there a way for everyone to get Jazinda free? Is there a way to keep She-Hulk out of prison? Is anyone going to finally break the fourth wall?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Peter David’s run on this book has been sorta off-and-on, but he hits all the right notes in this one. The story’s fun, funny, exciting, clever. They get some nods to previous series, they get a little legal mumbo-jumbo, they get a lot of fisticuffs. I’m gonna miss this series, too — I’ve always thought She-Hulk was a cool character.

Well, I was going to devote today’s blog to one of my rare sports posts so I could talk about the Mike-Leach-vs.-Texas-Tech thing. But Tech finally decided they didn’t want to deal with angry, torch-bearing mobs and gave Leach his contract. So in the absence of anything else, let’s hit some quick reviews.

Birds of Prey #127

It’s the last issue of this comic, and they don’t send it off on a high note. The Calculator has new powers that let him control any machinery, and he’s invaded the Birds’ HQ with a giant scary robot. They manage to get away, but lose their headquarters in the process. They raid the last stronghold of the Silicon Syndicate and mash ’em flat except, again, for Calculator. So Babs has a crisis of confidence and quits the team to see if she can get the use of her legs back and become Batgirl again. Wait, what?

Verdict: Thumbs down. The story was far, far too rushed. The ending was forced. Characterization was almost nonexistent. And I really don’t get DC’s new craze for rolling back their clock to the Silver Age. They brought Hal Jordan back, they brought Barry Allen back, they’re somehow going to shoehorn Babs Gordon out of her completely awesome role as Oracle the computer guru and try to turn her back into one of Batman’s dull sidekicks again. Wouldn’t surprise me to hear that they’re going to de-age Nightwing to get him back in the Robin costume next.

Justice League of America #30

The Justice League has managed to subdue the Shadow Cabinet, but they all get ambushed by the Shadow Thief, who’s managed to get a lot more powerful recently and has decided to kill both teams as a sacrifice to some unnamed god. They all have to fight shadow-versions of themselves. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Rocket shows up (Yay! Rocket!), schools Batman (Wait, what?), and reveals that the Shadow Cabinet has given Dr. Light (the female Japanese superhero, not the crazy evil barfbag villain) a new powersuit that lets her use her superpowers again. So they all manage to defeat Shadow Thief, but he has one last surprise — he’s created an evil shadow-version of the moon, and he’s going to crash it into the Earth. Superman manages to bash it to bits, but the Shadow Cabinet gets away.

Verdict: Thumbs down. I actually liked some parts of this — I still can’t get over how much I’m liking seeing the Milestone Media characters here in the DCU, some of the dialogue was quite good, and the Evil Shadow Moon was both cheesy and cool. But dangit, I just cannot take any comic seriously that tries to tell me that a halfwit dork like the Shadow Thief is a serious threat. And isn’t it about time they gave the superhero Dr. Light a new name?

In light of the news of the cancellation of “Blue Beetle,” a comic that he helped turn into the best comic DC published, John Rogers ponders what the future might bring:

Although I’ve gotten some outraged e-mails from fans, I have to say this isn’t unexpected. Both DC and Marvel are in a weird place right now — are they publishing companies in a dying market or IP companies in a growing one? The answers to these questions demand different strategies, neither of which are necessarily the best circumstances for the creative participants.

Time to go creator-owned, and digitally distributed. Because that’s the only solution that makes sense for our side of the equation.

Go read the whole thing, as they say in the funny pages.

Do I think he’s right? Yeah, in a lot of ways, he’s right on the money. The only comics out there that are 100% guaranteed safe from cancellation are the ones starring Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man. In just the last week or so, Marvel and DC have announced the cancellations of comics about Blue Beetle, Manhunter, Robin, Nightwing, the Birds of Prey, and She-Hulk. All of those have lots of devoted fans, but they just can’t provide enough readers to make the books profitable.

And Rogers’ advice to go the creator-owned route and distribute your work digitally is something else that I think is pretty smart. If you’re an artist or writer, it’s hard to argue that your time would be better spent displaying your work online than haunting comics conventions trying to convince DiDio and Quesada to look at your portfolio. Web space can be found for cheap, if not free, and there are a lot more payment options out there, from micropayments to subscriptions to print-on-demand. Heck, I know folks who put their work online for free, just for the pleasure of getting their artwork out there for other people to enjoy.

It’s not a perfect solution. It still requires a lot of work, there’s still not a lot of chance that you’ll get Buddy-Holly-famous or Donald-Trump-rich, and the entire concept of digital distribution is still in its infancy, with lots of weird twists ahead if it’s going to mature into a seriously useful distribution model. But I still think it’s a pretty good idea.

What’s your take?

DC’s outstanding “Blue Beetle” series is being cancelled.

One of the books that I’m most disappointed about in that regard is a book like Blue Beetle, which we are cancelling. That’s a book that we started with very high expectations, but it lost its audience along the way. Recently, we felt that it was standing on firmer ground, and was getting a more positive response. The problem is that the firmer ground and positive response is not enough to keep the book afloat. So unfortunately, we had to cancel that series.

This comes on the heels of DC cancelling “Robin,” “Nightwing,” “Birds of Prey,” and “Manhunter.” That’s an awful lot of prominent and well-regarded comics to toss onto the trash heap.

Of course, the problem is that DC is a business, and “Blue Beetle,” no matter how much critical acclaim it’s received, just hasn’t sold well. And with the economy on a screaming downslide and everyone worried about rising unemployment, flat wages, and everything getting more and more expensive, leisure-based businesses, like comics, gaming, electronics, etc., are cutting back.

It’s really kinda hard to fault DC here. They’ve given “Blue Beetle” lots and lots of time to find an audience, and for some reason, the audience has stayed away. I wish they could keep giving it more chances, because I love the book. I love the El Paso setting, I love the focus on Hispanic culture, I love all the awesome characters. I’ll miss the book enormously, and the comics industry as a whole will be worse off for losing it.

So read the single issues while you can, pick up the trade paperbacks while you can. DC’s best monthly comic is riding off into the sunset soon.