Regarding the "Make A Wish Foundation" stuff, have you come across Dr McNinja? There was a good guest strip there the other day on a similar theme:
http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pa...geNum=8&
issue=7
(there's a 2nd page to that story).
And, in fact, the answer is no, they wouldn't be that tacky. Considering this is the company that thought Muhammad Hassan was a good idea, that's actually rather surprising.
and because of the thai government blocking youtube I can't see the latest indie novelty music video. damn.
I was kind of hoping they'd give the kid an entrance video with big signs reading "CANCER BOY", "DYING CHILD" and "CHEER NOW."
I'm shocked; I never knew DC were doing so badly. And Wildstorm, cripes, surely the pre-reboot numbers were better than that, regardless of the abysmal delays. Shocking stuff.
I couldn't see All Star Superman on that list; is it, at least, doing well? Because it deserves to.
Is there any truth to the oft-mentioned-by-Marvel rumour that DC is being financially subsidised by AOL/Time Warner, and that sales don't matter as much to them as they do to MArvel?
I think the flipside to that is that sales of Marvel are being subsidized by...Marvel, specifically the film/licensing suits. Comics as a not-super-profitable arm that generates the material to later be farmed into other, big-dollar projects. Not saying Marvel Comics is necessarily struggling (if there's any money to be made in the comics biz they're making it) but that it's how I as a fan understand the business model at this point. Even middling-selling books like Runaways have got to have people ogling them for a TV series, especially in the post-Heroes era...
It may partially reflect what happens when Company A is running a linewide crossover and Company B isn't; the crossover-buyers switch their pull lists to Company A for the duration. Notice that 52, DC's crossover-linked comic du jour, is still selling quite well; ditto Superman/Batman and Brave and the Bold, both of which amount to internal-crossover books.
Marvel is in permanent crossover mode these days, and the sales of the last few years seem to say that tie-ins now outdo relaunches where sales are concerned.
Of course it also doesn't appear that DC have an "Ultimate"-style line or imprint, and that's perhaps more troubling. To the extent that hot creators can juice sales without crossoveritis, DC's move towards traditionalist creators and inability to get much work out of non-comics writers bodes ill for them in the short and long term. They're simply not as effective at making names or keeping big names happy these days.
OTOH, the actual Ultimate imprint no longer seems to be much of a guarantor of hit status. The books are performing pretty well, but they're no longer chart-toppers, and they're also no longer an outlet for hot creators. Now that the Ultimate creators are now for all intents and purposes running the Marvel Universe, it's probably time for a revamp to the Ultimate line; perhaps that's on Marvel's agenda after Planet Hulk and the summer xbooks crossover play out?
BTW, Paul, count me as one of those left deeply excited and curious by your cryptic reference to the indices...
Hmmm. Well. I'm pretty interested in the Index reasons. You've got me all wanting to know.
Joe, I'd argue that DC are also in a perpetual state of crossover. Marvel lost the taste for them for a while in the early 2000's, but DC have had them going on almost constantly; even if they're not line-wide, they've been in all the Superman books, or all the Bat-Books, etc. I mean, there weren't any line-wide crossovers between Our Worlds at War and InC that I can think of, but we had umpteen Batman crossovers at least in that time, and there are enough books in that line to make it seem like a big event.
I'd agree with you on the rest though.
DC had been, but they seem to have effectively stopped with Infinite Crisis for the time being, at least as far as line-wide materal goes. 52, by definition, doesn't directly cross over into anything. The Superman and Batman books haven't crossed over since their respective 8-part OYL stories almost a year ago, and don't look to be crossing over again anytime soon.
DC simply hasn't been publishing line-wide crossovers since IC, and it's since IC that the sales slide has been happening. It's easy to forget that IC was boosting the numbers of its tie-in books substantially; absent that boosting, DC is falling well behind on nearly every title.
That's my point: DC was far more competetive with Marvel during IC, when it was using the same publishing strategy. Now that DC isn't, their sales are horrifically lower than Marvel's.
(I really should have posted this on Monday, but kept forgetting to).
Re: your review of Omega Flight #1, I think you're short-selling the effect the CW had on villains. First of all, during the War itself and immediately after, the US government was letting Zemo round up and brainwash anyone he could for his Thunderbolts Army. Second, the final page of Initiative #1 raises another concern--if they're going to forcibly "ground" anyone who washes out of the Initiative, what then will they do to villains or unregs captured by affiliate heroes? Logically they HAVE to attempt the same thing, or it's a massive legal and PR clusterfuck should anyone take their issues to the press. "They spent three weeks of surgery to make sure I could never fly again, but Mentallo killed three people and he's just in jail!" So it seems that, while it would've been nice for them to ACKNOWLEDGE this point, the stakes are pretty high for villains as well.
Ha ha ha. Logic. Marvel. Good one. 
> There is, honestly, a reason why I haven't been updating the Indexes. Trust me.
Didn't you say X-Men #80-90 & Giant-Size X-Men #1-4 were going to come before "the back story listing for (god help me) Wolverine."? 
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