Earlier today, DC Comics announced that famed creators Jim Lee and Geoff Johns would be making a very special appearance at the Hero Complex Film Festival on Saturday, June 11, 2011. The two will participate in an interview session with Los Angeles Times journalist Geoff Boucher.

Their appearance will be followed by a tribute to Richard Donner, in which Superman and Superman II: The Donner Cut will be shown prior to a Q&A session with Donner himself.

That’s all well and good, but see below for the parts of DC’s statement that caught my attention.

and this:

To fans of the DC Universe, this could very well be Earth-shattering as there have been many rumors that have accompanied the recent comic book solicitations for August. Almost every single title in DC’s publishing catalog is reaching the end of a major story arc, and the final issue of Flashpoint, DC’s summer event, will be the only book that DC Comics is releasing on August 31, 2011.

Rumors have been circulating since the release of these solicitations about many titles getting cut as the directive seems to be a more streamlined approach to the DC Universe that may make things more new reader friendly. Considering the company’s recent move to get more properties in theaters, it’s definitely a believable theory. But as a fan of some of the comics that don’t feature the main heroes from the DCU, I could not be any more disappointed/heartbroken if this comes to light. A lot of the books that don’t sell very well month to month do extremely well in a collected format, and if history can prove anything, it doesn’t matter how good a book is, it just matters how well a book sells.

So, it basically breaks down to these questions: What is DC going to do with Superman in the near future? Bring him closer to the movie version that we’ll see in Man of Steel? And if that’s the case, that’s erasing a lot of history, and as we’ve seen, that’s kind of what Flashpoint has started — re-imagining origins. Could that be the lasting effect? If so, how many other heroes will they knock back to origin status? And if this is a trend in DC’s line of September books, what titles will we see canceled? I honestly hope they don’t do any of this, as it would be a slap in the face of any DC fan who has spent the money and time to be truly invested in the universe (Read: Me), but it’s all speculation at this point, and if they do go through with the hypothetical initiative, hopefully they handle it in a way that will make customers happy.

But I guess we’ll all find out the answers to these questions on June 11, so stay tuned!

[Source: DC]