Trade Perspectives: DC Comics Co-Features and Trade Paperbacks

I found quite a bit interesting in DC Comics's announcement (via Newsarama) that they'd be running Ravager and Blue Beetle co-features in Teen Titans and Booster Gold respectively, along with the previously announced Metal Men in Doom Patrol.

This is, in my opinion, a brilliant idea. Take a well-selling (or even mid-selling) title, get a good creative team, and put another fan favorite character at the end of the book. Blue Beetle and Ravager are great examples. So would be a Manhunter co-feature at the end of Detective or Wonder Woman. Or a Shadowpact co-feature. Or Checkmate. Or Chase. Or Damage. Or Aztek. Or H-E-R-O. (I could do this all day.)

There's so many beloved characters out there that can't support a regular title; this is a perfect solution that doesn't clutter up the Diamond list with more mini-series. As creators get wind of this, I hope this draws significant talent to characters they've always wanted to work with; the risk here is minimal, because if a co-feature doesn't work, DC can simply drop it from the book or replace it with a different feature.

Some of the commenters over at Newsarama have expressed dismay that DC will raise the prices accordingly of the comics with co-features; not to be flip, but as a wait-for-trader, that doesn't necessarily bother me. What I expect instead is that DC is going to collect these co-features into trade paperbacks separate from the main series, and as such there's the potential for new collections of series already cancelled; fantastic news especially if DC keeps the same trade dresses.

In short, there might one day be a sixth Blue Beetle collection to stand next to the existing five. Great, great, great.

I turn the microphone over to you now, dear readers. What other characters would you like to see featured in co-features, and what series would you want that character co-featured with?

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