John Wells (Fanzing contributor and the brains behind a certain metahuman resource company used by a San Fran superhero firm) has passed on this note from Kurt Busiek. As I don’t have a link, here is the text:

It’s true, I’m sorry to say. POWER COMPANY is ending with #18.

(See the extended entry below for the full message from Kurt.)

*sigh* And here I was just telling everyone how Power Company was one of the few books I collect anymore that I truly enjoy. I can’t tell you how disappointing this is. Power Company has been a delight to read, and I wish it could have had a run of at least several years. The most recent issue, in which Firestorm has a disheartening realization about the Power Company team, was terrific.

Kurt is perhaps being too hard on himself, as he may have simply run up against the glass ceiling of DC Comics. It’s been ages since any DC book not related to Superman, Batman or JLA lasted more than two years. There are numerous reasons for this, of course, but that’s a subject for a thesis.

I wish Kurt the best, and hope that the P.C. at least gets some one-shots in the future.

It’s true, I’m sorry to say. POWER COMPANY is ending with #18.

The book simply didn’t catch on. I can’t fault DC, who supported and promoted it all along, and gave us more chances than most books get. And I can’t fault the art, which has been splendid right from the get-go — Tom Grummett is one of the best, and we’ve had good inking and coloring the whole time.

But not enough readers who tried it liked it enough to stick with it, it’s as simple as that.

I think we stumbled coming out of the gate — the launch specials didn’t work, and the first story was the wrong kind of story to open with. And looking back, had I known then what I know now, it’d have been a very different book all along, with much more of an emphasis on the business — and on how the characters dealt with the job — rather than on the action, and how the characters dealt with the villains. Much like how a show like ER is about medcine, but at heart it’s more about surviving a stressful job than about who gets saved that week and how.

In the end, we were too much of a traditional superhero book, and it was the wrong time for a book like that.

That said, I’m delighted to have had the chance to do it, and I think we did good comics along the way. And DC gave us enough advance warning that we’re able to wrap things up pretty well in #16-18, with a blowout final story that’ll answer a lot of readers’ questions. You’ll see what happened to Dr. Cyber, you’ll see what that big blue crystal thing is and what it’s up to, you’ll see the Haunted Tank, and a major fight to save the world. We may be going out, but we’ll go out with style.

And hopefully, this won’t be the end for the characters — there’s been some talk of doing a Manhunter-JSA mini, pitting them against their common foe, the Council, and we could easily see the other Company members as well. And hey, X-Men came back from cancellation. Teen Titans comes back over and over again. And the Hulk was cancelled after six issues, and look at him now!

So we thank everyone who supported the book for their loyalty and enthusiasm, but, well, as of July it’s over, at least for now. Still, that doesn’t mean it’ll be over forever…

kdb