Milligan News Round-up

Earlier this month, DC announced that Peter Milligan would be writing a new ongoing series, The Red Lantern Corps, a spin-off of Geoff Johns' Green Lantern stuff. I find this interesting news because it's about the last thing I would expect from Milligan. The last spin-off he did for DC, the Infinity Inc. ongoing series which brachiated from 52, didn't seem to do so well. It was canceled after a year and didn't really have a smooth ending.


I always assumed he got the Infinity Inc. gig because of his friendship and mutual respect with Grant Morrison, but I shouldn't be surprised if Johns has respect for him as well.


I'm hopeful that this would increase Milligan's profile with the general superhero comics-buying masses, and maybe even lead to more work. The cynical part of me has a feeling that this series will get canceled before its prime, or that Milligan will have to appease so many ridiculous editorial mandates that he will lose before he even begins. My general feeling with DC's editorial lately is that they really don't know what they are doing, so I have no confidence in them. They are fortunate that Grant Morrison is writing so many of their Batman books because most of the rest of their DC Universe line is just unimaginative, middle-of-the-road stuff.


Just read the Joe Casey interview with The Comics Reporter that I pointed out last month for some evidence on how sour an effect DC's amateurish editorialship can have on a seasoned, talented creator.


Here's the link with a few comments from Milligan himself about the upcoming Red Lantern book:
http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/2011/01/03/dcu-in-2011-peter-milligan-announces-red-lanterns/


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Moving on to Marvel, there's been some more news on March's upcoming 5 Ronin miniseries. I'm definitely far more interested and excited by this series than the DC news. For one, I have more confidence in Marvel letting their creators play around in their sandbox, particularly on out-of-continuity miniseries like this one. Second, it's going to be released weekly. (March has 5 Wednesdays.) Third, the artists lined up for the issues is pretty stellar by my standards.


Last week, CBR posted an interview with Milligan and I thought he did a good job of selling the miniseries. It sounds interesting and fun. The covers are rather attractive, too.


http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=30334