Random links and thoughts for the week of May 16th-May 22nd

—I totally missed Terry Moore’s talk at the Wexner Center last week. Vaneta Rogers did not; you can read her write-up of it here.


—Guy Gardner makes a surprisingly cute woman. Fred Flintstone, unsurprisingly, does not.


—Tom Spurgeon reviews DC Universe 0, and comes up with the central problem in the Big Two’s superhero constant-crossover statuses: Without a status quo to shake up with these events, they cease being extraordinary and become ordinary.

Steven Grant tackles the same subject, and comes up with some interesting analogies.

Personally, I really wish they would start compressing these things into tighter schedules (i.e. weekly or biweekly events), so that a summer blockbuster type of event might only take a summer, instead of at least eight months, plus a few extra to allow for inevitable artist delays.

I would be a lot more interested in Secret Invasion, for example, if I haven’t been reading build-up to it for two years now, and didn’t know I have a good six months left to go before it (hopefully) ends. It’s not a special event comic; it’s just Brian Michael Bendis’ regular Marvel comics. That’s not a value assignment (that is, never mind what you think of Bendis’ Marvel writing in general) so much a recognition that it’s business as usual instead of something out of the ordinary.

Likewise, reading DC’s August solicitations this week just dampened my mild interest in Final Crisis; in three more months, we won’t even be at the halfway point yet.

Say what you will about the annual Annual events at DC like Armageddon 2001 and Eclipso: The Darkness Within, at least they were over in the course of a summer. They were events that could be isolated as events occurring at a particular time; now event comics are more like periods of publishing history.


—I saw Paul Pope give a talk at the Wexner Center last night (full write-up to be posted shortly), and a thought occurred to me as I heard him talk up his affection for Jack Kirby and thought of all the times I’ve seen Pope’s version of Kirby characters. Imagine how awesome it would be if Pope were the artist illustrating Grant Morrison’s upcoming Final Crisis series. Pope + Morrison + Kirby’s New Gods = Comics Nirvana.


—To get a little more serious than I usually do here, as long as I’m linking to The Comics Reporter, I should also point out that the most important piece Spurgeon probably wrote this week was this one about the coming crisis that artist Gene Colan’s current health concerns likely point towards.

Give it a read, and some thought.


—The Panel guys have a great idea: Check out their first Character Wednesday, featuring Moon Knight and, in one brain-scarring example, Namor and Howard the Duck.

Weekly Haul: May 21st

Amazing Spider-Man #559-#560 (Marvel Comics) Marvel and Spider-Man editor Stephen Wacker lined up some pretty incredible talents to work on their continuity re-booted, tri-weekly scheduled Amazing Spider-Man, including Dan Slott, one of the Marvel writers best-suited for Spidey-scripting, and a passel of great artists and other decent-to-pretty damn good writers.

This is the first time that they’ve assembled a writer whom I’ll always at least try something by, Slott, with an artist I’ll buy anything he draws (Marcos Martin, the brilliant artist responsible for 2003’s Batgirl: Year One, last year’s Doctor Strange: The Oath, and the otherwise forgettable 2005 series Breach). I therefore couldn’t resist at least trying these issues, despite the terrible taste for the Marvel Universe Spider-Man franchise that “One More Day” left in my mouth (And with Marvel Adventures Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man, and the Avengers books, it’s not like decent Spider-Man comics are hard to come by).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s damn good Spider-Man comics. Slott introduces not one but two new female villains, parkour-running Screwball* and creepy, 2-D Paper Doll; his Spider-Man banter is as quality as it always is, he pushes forward all of the little soap opera sub-plots involving a large cast of supporting characters (all of which were presumably begun by the ASM “brain trust”), and the idea of photographer Peter Parker becoming a paparazzi is pretty inspired (in #560, there’s a neat sequence in which Parker trash-talks a celeb he’s stalking the same way Spidey would The Rhino or The Vulture or whoever).

Martin’s work is just incredible. He’s the kind of artist whose every line is worthwhile; it’s easy to get lost drinking them in, but only if you pull yourself away from the story they’re in service of, which they push forward effortlessly. But there are a few panels that ask you to come back and do just that with. In #559 alone, there’s page four’s second panel, featuring the multiple Screwball images in sequence; page seven’s stroll down the side of a two-story building; page 15’s similar multi-image sequence of an acrobatic Parker versus some bouncers. Man, I hope the brighter spotlight of ASM manages to confer about Martin the super-star status he deserves. I would love to be able to see art of this quality on a superhero book every month.

As someone trying out this “Brand New Day” for the first time, what I found especially striking about it was how the continuity reboot has nothing to do with what made this an interesting comic book. There’s no reason Marvel couldn’t have a three-times-a-month ASM featuring rotating creators telling more soap operatic stories with new villains and a wide array of supporting characters and several sub-plots without rebooting things. There’s just a panel or two in these two issues that couldn’t have been told with Parker and MJ still married (and none that couldn’t have been told if they were merely divorced instead of magically having been never married at all). And that panel or two? They weren’t even among the good ones.

Now I have a very important question. The cup of coffee Spidey’s sipping on in that scene on page 13 in #560? What does he do with it when he swings into action? Does he just web it to the side of the building? Because it would be cold by the time the webbing wore off. Man, that’s going to bug me forever.



Avengers: The Initiative #13 (Marvel) Co-writer Christos N. Gage goes solo this issue, teaming with artist Steve Uy for a remarkable done-in-one story that mirrors the first issue of the series, and riffs on a half-dozen military training movie clichés in the process.

Gage introduces a new crop of recruits, all of whom are so minor they seem made-up, are actually all apparently pre-existent. Save for the protagonist of the issue, Boulder/Butterball, a fat guy who is completely indestructible but, as a consequence of his powers, is very clumsy, very weak, can’t fight, can’t learn to fight and can’t ever lose weight. He’s also a superhero fanboy, and gets on everyone else’s nerves. (I suppose there could be some meta-commentary going on here, but I didn’t think too deeply about it).

Gage pretty deftly juggles comedy and drama, manages to shoehorn in at least one fight, and spotlights some of the most obscure Marvels he can think of—in other words, he does everything Dan Slott did to make this book so winning back when he was writing it solo.



Batman and The Outsiders #7 (DC Comics) Nothing of interest occurs in this comic book.



The Brave and the Bold #13 (DC) Mark Waid, I know I probably don’t say this as often as I should, but I just want you to know that I love you. Your first twelve issues on this criminally underrated title tried to make each single issue a team-up between at least two heroes that functioned as a story of its own as well as part of a greater whole. They didn’t all work perfectly, but many of them did. Now you’re taking the more traditional Brave and the Bold approach: Two heroes, one of ‘em Batman, meeting for a one-issue team-up. And you could have gone with one of the traditional team-ups, having Batman hang with Green Arrow or Deadman or Phantom Stranger or Hal Jordan or Wildcat, but you went and picked two of the last characters anyone would ever think to pair up, Batman and Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash. Hell does anyone ever team that Flash up with anyone, except maybe the other Flash or one of his old man super-friends?

And yet not only do you make the team-up work, you make it work perfectly, finding something the pair of heroes have in common (beyond both being superheroes, of course), and exploring that while telling a briskly-paced one issue superhero story that’s all fighting, banter and superpower showing off. The results were tremendously exciting: Here’s the kind of story we don’t see every Wednesday and, after reading it, it’s a bit unclear why we don’t. Because Batman and Jay Garrick work great together.

Also, you probably didn’t make it up, but I’ve got to say, I love the word “Samuroid.” Bravo.



Fall of Cthulhu #11-#12 (Boom! Studios) Like a lot of comics fans, I’m pretty fascinated by the work of H.P. Lovecraft, and have spent plenty of time reading and rereading his highly imaginative (and often kind of boring, predictable and occasionally even dumb) stories. Despite my affection for Lovecraft’s oeuvre, I tend to wrinkle my nose at comics (and movies and short stories) that seek to adapt, extend or otherwise riff on them in a serious (i.e. non-parodic) way. There’s just so much of the stuff, and there’s so little of it that ends up being worthwhile.

So I’ve managed to resist Boom’s ongoing Cthulhu title thus far, but I heard that the current story arc, “The Gray Man,” was supposed to be a good jumping on point, so I thought it was time to try jumping on. Hell, if it lasted 11 issues, it can’t be that bad, can it?

Now having missed the first ten issues, surely I’m not up on the back story, but if you’ve read any Lovecraft—or anything derived from his work—you’ll be on solid footing. Horrors beyond mortal understanding, ancient cults, professors who learned terrible knowledge they were better off not knowing, et cetera.

This story is set in modern day Arkham, where Sherrif Dirk is the third in a line of Arkham sherrifs (his grand-father would have been around for some of the stuff in Lovecraft’s stories, I believe) who has managed to keep the peace for a while. Things have apparently gotten less peaceful of late, and in this arc they seem to be getting even more less-peaceful.

A young Brazillian runaway who insists on being called Lucifer (Her real name is Luci Jennifer, you see) is arrested for breaking and entering, but has bigger problems than the local lawmen can give her—she’s pursued by a supernatural agent she eventually explains is kind of like the patron saint of human sacrifice, and he wants a relic her now-deceased friend stole.

Writer Michael Alan Nelson does a pretty admirable job of marrying Lovecraft’s mythology to a more mundane supernatural murder mystery type of story, with the former offering a sort of vague sense of threat underlying the more familiar elements of the plot. The occasional namedrops to Lovecraft inventions, as well as the very name of the series, reveal enough to readers to make us feel like we know something more than the characters, but not what will happen next, or how they’ll deal with it.

Artist Mateus Santolouco (assisted on inks by Andre in #11) presents the action in a straightforward, easily accessible manner. There are no real attempts to create a Lovecraftian mood through the imagery, which could perhaps be read as a weakness, or could perhaps be read as intentional ratcheting up of the contrast between this crazy world of horror beyond mortal ken and the everyday world of sunlight, newspapers, police officers, cars, coffee and the otherwise familiar.

Santolouco isn’t given an opportunity to draw any tentacles or space god-monsters in these two issues, so its hard to judge his fitness to Lovecraftian horror against other artists mining that vein, like Mike Mignola, Troy Nixey or Kelley Jones. There’s a brief scene at the climax of #12 where our hero leaves this plane and meets an…entity of some sort, and while the scenery is imaginative, its in keeping more with Marvel Comics’ versions of the astral plane and different dimensions than something non-Euclidean and mind-blowing. But, like I said, it’s just a brief scene.

I’m certainly interested in what happens in #13, and that’s generally the very best way to measure the success of a serial pop comic like this.



The Incredible Hercules #117 (Marvel) Have you ever wondered what the sound of one Canadian superhero punching another Canadian superhero into the side of a cliff is? It’s “KNADAGHH!”, of course.

There are plenty more cool sound effects—almost enough to put Doug Moench to shame—in the first part of new story arc “Sacred Invasion.” While his superhero peers deal with the invading Skrulls, Hercules finds himself reluctantly leading a “god squad” of divinely graced champions to have at the Skrull gods, whom Earth’s pantheons fear will replace them if the Skrulls take over earth.

See, the Skrulls invading earth are waging a holy war, so how better to stop them then to prove earth’s gods are bigger than theirs? Seems logical. Writers Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente set things up with a nice homage to the cheesy sci-fi B-movies of yesteryear that have at least in part informed Brian Michael Bendis’ Secret Invasion plot, and then plunge into a whirlwind of introductions of various Marvel deities and their champions.

The final line up is Herc, Snowbird of Alpha Flight, an Eternal, Amatsu-Mikaboshi from the Ares mini and the god-eater who appeared in the recent Hulk vs. Hercules one-shot.



Justice League of America #21 (DC) Could it be? Another issue of JLoA with both a decent script and good artwork in it? That’s two in a row! Writer Dwayne McDuffie still isn’t writing the book so much as fleshing out editorially mandates and picking up after previous writer Brad Meltzer—the first half of the book is a call-back to Meltzer’s Trinity-around-the-table scenes, dealing with Meltzer introduced conflicts like Vixen’s powers, and the second half is a Final Crisis prologue—but at least McDuffie can write comic book scripts better than Meltzer, and the crossover in question is at least a promising one.

McDuffie’s paired with the too-slow-for-a-monthly-but-perfect-for-one-off-fill-ins art team of Carlos Pacheco and Jose Merino, and this is by far the best artwork to grace the pages of JLoA since the relaunch, even besting Gene Ha and Ethan Van Sciver’s fill-ins.

McDuffie writes fantastic dialogue for the Trinity, with quick, sharp exchanges that reveal more about the characters and their relationships than the writer’s fondness for them. The scene is nine pages of the three characters just talking, but it never gets tedious. I could read a four-part story arc of them chatting, if the dialogue were this crisp.

The rest of the book is devoted to The Human Flame, who fights Hawkgirl and Red Arrow before getting picked up by Libra, circling back to that scene in DC Universe 0, in which the latter offers villains their fondest desires. The Flame’s is the death of Martian Manhunter, so things aren’t looking any better for J’onn next month when Final Crisis begins in earnest.

None of these Flame/Libra scenes seems too terribly important, all of the information contained in them are the kind of things Final Crisis writer Grant Morrison would generally handle in a few sentences of dialogue, but McDuffie’s writing is sharp enough that even if it is just filigree, it seems worthwhile.

If he were always paired with an artist who could really draw and really tell a story—preferably the same one every month—McDuffie would probably be turning out a must-read superhero team book. As is, issue’s like this and #20 are aberrations, and Ed Benes returns next month, to move JLoA back into the must-avoid category.



Justice Society of America #15 (DC) This is a fight issue of JSoA, in which the fifty-six members of the JSA all pile on a version of Kingdom Come bad guy Magog for most of 22-pages. It’s extremely well-drawn by Dale Eaglesham and Prentis Rollins, writer Geoff Johns throws in a few interesting demonstrations of his characters’ powers, and there’s at least one funny panel, and a nice use of a double-paged spread as an exclamation point at the end of the book, but it all seems to go buy too fast and prove particularly unsatisfying after so long a wait (Going by the DC Nation column in the back, this book is a month late).



Marvel Adventures Avengers #24 (Marvel) No lie: If you’re only going to spend $2.99 on comics this week, make sure you spend it on “Don’t Be Hatin’,” the done-in-one masterpiece of Marvel merriment and mockery that is this issue of MA Avengers.

What’s so great about this issue? You mean aside from the cover of Giant-Girl about to squish Spider-Man who’s about to squish Ant-Man? Well, how about the return of Karl, the AIM henchman you may remember form the greatest Avengers story of all time? How about Bruce Banner staying out of the fight because he just bought a new suit he doesn’t want to rip? Or Captain America proclaiming, “That’s the way we ate our lunch back in the war! We rolled it first!”? Or the debut of Marvel Adventures Bi-Beast? Or the all-new, all-different Hatemonger, with a mind-blowing new secret identity? (Hint: It’s not Hitler).

If you couldn’t tell, Jeff Parker has returned to scripting the best Avengers comic on the stands, and he’s simply outdone himself this time. There’s literally something golden on every single page of this thing, and he manages to get off all these jokes while still working in the daily minimum requirement of superhero fights, tell a few wildly inappropriate jokes that kids won’t even get unless they’re actually grown-ups and delivering a moral today’s youth are sure to take to heart: “Your first mistake was having an idea. Your second was acting on that idea.”



The Mighty Avengers #14 (Marvel) Secret Invasion mastermind Brian Michael Bendis doles out another bit piece in his overarching plot, which he seems to be telling in jigsaw puzzle fashion, with each of the ancillary titles he writes made up of a collection of flashbacks that inform the main series. I think.

This issue deals with The Sentry, whose backstory and relationship with the Marvel Universe I’ve never quite understood, and was thus amused to see a cadre of sleeper agent Skrulls expressing their confusion over how to deal with the guy, since they don’t get him either.

The most notable thing in this issue, however, is probably how gracelessly and tastelessly Bendis hammers home the Skrulls-as-Islamic-terrorists point he’s been trying to make. In a flashback, we’re treated to a scene of Skrulls feverishly praying as one of them tries to fly their spaceship straight into the Baxter Building (Luckily, Sentry was on hand to save the day).

I didn’t understand page 17 at all; was I supposed to, or is that one of those confusing sequences that will make sense in a year or two, like Baby Cage opening its eyes really wide in that one panel of New Avengers from forever ago?



Robin #174 (DC) (Note: This review will feature Spoiler-related spoilers, so if you don’t want spoiled regarding the true identity of the Spoiler, feel free to skip ahead to the next one).

As I’ve said before, I’m no fan of the character Stephanie “Spoiler” Brown, the Robin supporting character killed off in one of the worst Batman stories I’ve ever read, and both somewhat bemused and bewildered by why having Batman and Robin properly memoralize her in the Batcave has become something of a cause among a lot of comics fans (Although I fully understand why readers would object to having a villain torture a teenage girl to death).

So the current Robin story arc, in which Spoiler-creator Chuck Dixon returned to the title he launched for a typically bland but competent story heavily hinting at Spoiler’s return, has been extremely fascinating. In this final chapter, which wastes waaayyy too much time on generic Bat-violence of the sort that can be found in any comic book before getting to the stuff people actually care about, Dixon makes it all official: Spoiler is back in the land of the living, and Batman utters the line, “Now you know why there’s no memorial in the cave.”

This entire story, then, has been a sop to a very loyal, very vocal and, I imagine, rather small** sub-set of fans. The method Dixon used to have Spoiler not-be-dead is one I’ve actually read suggested online a few times before, and is the easiest solution (One that also gets Dr. Leslie Thompkins off the hook for being a child-killer; now the only problem with “War Crimes” is it makes Batman look like an idiot).

Whatever you think of Spoiler or the Bat-books in general—or even if you don’t think of them at all—I think the story behind this particular comics story is pretty interesting for the simple fact that Dixon and DC essentially wrote a story arc dictated by fan fiat. The fans who were advocating for Spoiler’s return or a memorial case in the Batcave will no doubt be quite happy about this; me, I find it a little scary to think that DC’s readership is so small that one of its titles can be so drastically effected by a small group of readers.

Certainly it speaks to the power of those fans, but it also speaks to the weakness of DC and/or the direct market it co-dominates.

As a Batman reader, however, I welcome this turn of events; not so much because I care if I ever read another Spoiler story again, but simply because having Dr. Leslie Thompkins kill her was among the stupidest things I’ve ever read in a Batman comic. Now if they could just undo Jason Todd’s return and Batgirl II’s nonsensical turn to the dark side…




Salem: Queen of Thorns #0-#1 (Boom!) The bulk of Boom’s output consists of miniseries that read like movies. That’s not an ideal attribute for a comic book—I’m of the opinion that the very best examples of any medium are the ones that could only exist in that particular medium—but being filmic isn’t always a negative thing. After all, some movies are good, and some movies are bad, thus comics that read like movies can read like good ones or bad ones.

Unfortunately, Salem is one of those comics that reads like a bad movie. A really, really bad one. The series kicked off with a zero issue a few months back, and begins in earnest this week with a #1.

The premise is this. Imagine if, through the magic of relying on pencil and ink art instead of Hollywood casting agents, you could somehow cast a young Clint Eastwood in the role of Van Helsing from that awful Hugh Jackman movie, and then transplant your Eastwood-as-Jackman-playing-Van Helsing into the Salem witch trials, ignoring the actual history or tenets of the Catholic faith for something more Hollywood.

So witchfinder general Matthew Hopkins (once played by Vincent Price) is a zealous, scarred leader of a secret order of warrior priests, most of whom dress like Crusaders, who cynically, knowingly exterminate the innocents they smear as witches in order to line their pockets, all while ignoring “The True Witch,” a tree monster birthed of God’s anger at Jesus’ crucifixion, a monser that leads an army of spider men in loincloths. The only one who opposes her is our hero, renegade Grand Inquisitor Elias Hooke, the Eastwood-as-Jackman-playing-Van Helsing character.

This is the work of creator/writers Chris Morgan (the screenwriter responsible for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) and Kevin Walsh, and its pretty shoddy work, a concept that’s a Frankenstein’s monster of clichés borrowed from sources of questionable quality and then represented in a more original fashion. The plot is problematic, being needlessly convoluted and ignorant of its purported subject matter, and because so much of the script is devoted to unpacking that plot, there’s little space left for Morgan and Walsh to redeem themselves through its execution.

Wilfredo Torres provides the art, and its quite serviceable, which probably sounds like more of a backhanded compliment than it’s supposed to. Torres’ storytelling is solid and he's fluent in the visual language of comics, but his work isn’t so remarkable that it makes putting up with a pretty dumb script worth the time spent doing so.

When this series was first announced, it ruffled a few feathers for its presumed subject matter—witch-hunting—given the fact that witchcraft is a religion some folks actually practice here in the real world, and the Internet makes it easy for one person to transmit their offenses far and wide quite quickly. As it turns out, the witches aren't really vilified. It’s the church, the tree demon, the spider-men in loin clothes and, to a lesser extent, God whom are the real bad guys here. The so-called witches are mostly innocent victims. So too are the readers.



Tiny Titans #4 (DC) Wildebeest, one of the “Little Tiny Titans,” is so cute I just want to eat this comic book.



*Does the fact that Marvel now has a supervillain based around it mean that parkour is now officially uncool, or does it have to show up in an Archie comic first?

**According to The Beat’s analysis updated for February of 2008, Robin has been selling between 25K and 32K for years, excepting freak bumps for crossovers like “The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul.” Since the entire pool of Robin readers is that small, obviously any sub-sets of them are going to be pretty small too, no matter how large the actual sub-set is. If that makes sense.

Marvel's August preveiews reviewed

Hey, if the Green Goblin were a Skrull, how would you tell?



AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #569
Written by DAN SLOTT
Pencils & Cover by JOHN ROMITA JR.
"NEW WAYS TO DIE!"
SPIDEY'S a villain? NORMAN OSBORN'S a hero? What kind of crazy, mixed-up world is this? Next thing you'll tell us is that black is white and white is black…Or maybe that has something to do with VENOM, MISTER NEGATIVE, and the birth of an all-new Spider Villain! Or would that be an all-new Spider-Hero? Either way, True Believer, this is a 1st appearance you do NOT want to miss!

Well, for the second time since they hit the reset button, the Spider-office has assembled a creative team I'll have a hard time resisting. As long as the current Slott/Marcos Martin arc isn't awful, I imagine I'll check this one out too. Even if this is going to be an arc featuring that stupid-looking Anti-Venom character that EW made a big deal out of a few weeks ago for some reason.



Wow, Ross sure paints Spidey’s webbing true to the way it looked in the movies.

Which is, of course, another way of saying, “Ewww!”



FOOLKILLER: WHITE ANGELS #2 (of 5)
Written by GREGG HURWITZ
Penciled by PAUL AZACETA
Cover by TOMM COKER
"Punishement Fits The Crime," PART 2
Los Angeles. The City of Angels. For a town that thinks it's pretty, there's plenty of ugly to go around. That's where the Foolkiller comes in -- taking a scalpel to warts, expurgating the cancer that grows in society's gut. This time, the Foolkiller has targeted the hate-crime known as the White Angels, a secret socieyt whose arteries snake throughout the city -- from the back alleys to the Hollywood hills. As he eats his way up the food chain, he's about to cross paths with the one vigilante whose legend exceeds his own. A stone-cold killer that has also targeted the White Angels. A predator that doesn't like to share. Enter the Punisher.

Well, that's one way to improve sales across the Max line—just add the Punisher to all of the books.



Now that's a cool, classy cover of a heroine being menaced by tentacles!



MARVEL ADVENTURES FANTASTIC FOUR #39
Written by CHRIS ELIOPOULOS
Pencils by GRAHAM NOLAN
Cover by SALVADOR ESPIN
It's a day of pranks for Ben and Johnny, that is until reality kicks in and the two have to put aside their differences and save the day. But can these two work together after spending the day trying to GET each other? Find out in the all-silent issue, which we can only call "Silent but Deadly"!

Graham Nolan? That guy is a fantastic artist. What's he doing slumming on an MA title instead of, I don't know, drawing JLoA or Batman or Titans? Ah well, I'll enjoy his work wherever I can find it.

I don't like where the name of this story makes it sound like the issue is going, but "pencils by Graham Nolan," "all-silent issue" and The Thing with a giant water baloon that looks like his own head all add up to an exciting sounding comic book.



RUNAWAYS #1
Written by TERRY MOORE
Pencils & Cover by HUMBERTO RAMOS
Come see the beginning of a whole new Runaways! Comics legend Terry Moore (Strangers in Paradise, Echo) and super-star artist Humberto Ramos (X-MEN, WOLVERINE, SPIDER-MAN) run back to Los Angeles with your favorite teen heroes. But it’s not the same city they left so long ago. The Runaways try to stay off the radar, but the sins of their parents won’t make that possible…

Assuming, of course, Joss Whedon actually finishes his run on the series by August.



SECRET INVASION #5 (of 8)
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Penciled by LEINIL FRANCIS YU
Cover by GABRIELE DELL'OTTO
Variant Cover by STEVE MCNIVEN
Variant Cover by LEINIL FRANCIS YU
Sketch Variant Cover by STEVE MCNIVEN
Embrace change. With these two words the Skrull Empire declares their intentions to the entire Marvel Universe.
Embrace change. With these two words thousands and thousands of comic fans who have declared Secret Invasion the comic book blockbuster of the summer brace themselves for the shocking changes that are about to happen to their favorite characters and institutions. Embrace change, True Believer, because change is coming.

Bit presumptuous to say "thousands and thousands of comic fans who have declared Secret Invasion the comic book blockbuster of the summer" before the summer has even began, isn't it?



I like this cover. More logos need to be used as deadly weapons on the covers of superhero comics.



SPIDER-MAN SUMMER SPECIAL
Written by KEITH GIFFEN & PAUL TOBIN
Art by RICK BURCHETT & COLLEEN COOVER
Cover by SALVA ESPIN
August is still summer, right? Yeah? COOL! Then we’re hittin’ ya up with two ALL-NEW Spidey stories from times when he wasn’t Secretly Invading or Branding New Days. First, Spidey teams up with Falcon to handle an outbreak of futuristic weaponry showing up in Harlem, and then MARY JANE takes center stage as she teams up with She-Hulk, Hellcat, Marvel Girl and some other lovely ladies to take on The Enchantress, in this one-shot!

I can’t tell if She-Hulk is supposed to be aroused, angry or a little of both on Salva Espin’s cover there.

The interiors sure sound promising—two good writers and two great artists on fun-sounding Spidey-stories.



Finally, the first really brilliant looking cover The Twelve. With Kaare Andrews handling the covers, I was really expecting something pretty spectacular for the book—similar to his run on the covers for the Bruce Jones-written Hulk—but no dice. This ones by Paolo Rivera though, not Andrews.



X-MEN ORIGINS: JEAN GREY
Written by SEAN MCKEEVER
Art and Cover by MIKE MAYHEW
From the moment Professor Xavier arrived on her doorstep, young Jean Grey knew things would change forever. But she was never prepared for how strange life at the Xavier Institute could be - or just how dangerous she truly was. Will she be able to harness her budding powers in time to prove herself a hero? Or will the ghosts of her past haunt her forever? Sean McKeever and Mike Mayhew bring you the first adventure of the X-Men’s mightiest mutant. Guest starring the original X-Men!
32 PGS./Cardstock Cover/Rated T+…$3.99

Written by who now? Hmm, this is weird. Did McKeever’s exclusive with DC expire and not get renewed, or has this script been waiting around for well over a year to get turned into a finished comic book?

Also, note the price—$3.99 for a 22-page comic (those other 10 will be ads), with a notation for a cardstock cover. It seems Marvel is using cardstock covers on rather random seeming new projects to test the waters for a price increase.

UPDATE: Pretty much everything in the above two paragraphs is off-base. Check the comments for some info on the project from someone who really ought to know, and click here for a bit more.

DC's August previews reviewed

Say what you will about Army @ Love, its covers are always homeruns.



THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #16
Written by Mark Waid
Art and cover by Scott Kolins
Superman and Catwoman – together at last?! This team clearly won’t be held together with super-glue!

Cool; have these two characters ever teamed-up before?

The only time they shared a story sans Batman I can think of was back when Catwoman was a villain, and Superman was a cat:



DC COMICS GOES APE TP
Written by Otto Binder, John Broome, Gardner Fox and others
Art by Carmine Infantino, Wayne Boring, George Papp, Ross Andru, C.C. Beck, Jim Starlin and others
Cover by Arthur Adams
You’ll go bananas for this new title collecting simian stories from SUPERBOY #76, SUPERMAN #138, THE FLASH (VOL. 1) #127, DETECTIVE COMICS #339 and 482, HAWKMAN #16, WONDER WOMAN #170, STRANGE ADVENTURES #201, SHAZAM #9, SUPER FRIENDS #30 and THE FLASH (VOL. 2) #151!
Advance-solicited; on sale October 1 • 168 pg, FC, $19.99 US

Man, I am going to buy the fuck out of this. I woulda preferred a Showcase Presents treatment (Don’t act like you don’t have enough gorilla stories laying around your vaults, DC!).



DC UNIVERSE ILLUSTRATED BY NEAL ADAMS VOL. 1 HC
Written by Robert Kanigher, Bob Haney, Gardner Fox, Neal Adams, Cary Bates, Len Wein and Howard Liss
Art by Neal Adams, Joe Kubert, Nick Cardy, Dick Dillin, Steve Harper and Vince Colletta
Cover by Neal Adams
At last, it’s here – the first of three hardcover volumes collecting nearly every DC Comics story and cover by Neal Adams not already collected in GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW, BATMAN or DEADMAN titles! Featuring rarely seen stories from OUR ARMY AT WAR #182, 183 and 186, STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES #134 and 144, DETECTIVE COMICS #369, TEEN TITANS #20-22, ACTION COMICS #425, SUPERMAN #254, WEIRD WAR TALES #12 and 13 and more!
Advance-solicited; on sale October 22 • 192 pg, FC, $39.99 US

If I were rich, I would buy this, and the next two $40 volumes, too.



FAMILY DYNAMIC #1
Written by J. Torres
Art by Tim Levins & Dan Davis
Cover by Sean Galloway
Pyralis! Sirocco! Troylus! Terran! This is The Family Dynamic, defenders of Storm City who use their mystical Elemental Rings to battle the forces of evil. But what happens when members of their extended family want in on the superhero action? They say the family that plays together stays together – but does that count when they’re playing the good guys? Find out in this exciting new 6-issue miniseries by writer J. Torres (WONDER GIRL) and artist Tim Levins (BATMAN: GOTHAM ADVENTURES).

I like both Torres and Levins, and their preivous collaboration The Copybook Tales, so I’ll give this a shot, but it doesn’t sound like my cup of tea. I’m getting a Captain Planet vibe, and man, I wouldn’t wish a Captain Planet vibe on anyone.

Also, DC just created a new superhero character named Sirocco, like, last year.



FINAL CRISIS #1: DIRECTOR'S CUT SPECIAL
Written by Grant Morrison
Art and cover by J.G. Jones
Come on a guided tour of DC's FINAL CRISIS #1 and become further enveloped in the event of the century. Delve deep into the mind-blowing first issue as we explore what every page and panel represents, and the process behind the story as Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones reveal secrets hidden in the script and art.
On sale August 6 • 64 pg, FC, $4.99 US

For shame DC; for shame.

I can understand wanting to imitate Marvel's success, but you're going about it the wrong way. They haven't been selling more comics than you by offering $3 sketchbooks and over-priced "director's cut" specials of their big event books. They've been doing it by not sucking quite as hard as you have been.

Also, comic books don't have directors.

Also, if this isn't edited differently, than it's not really a "cut." From the solicit, it sounds more like a book of annotations than a "director's cut."



FINAL CRISIS: REVELATIONS #1
Written by Greg Rucka
Art by Philip Tan, Jeff De Los Santos & Jonathan Glapion
Covers by Philip Tan
Greg Rucka (52, Whiteout, THE QUESTION: THE FIVE BOOKS OF BLOOD) and rising superstar Philip Tan unleash the wrath of God in this FINAL CRISIS tie-in!
With the end of creation nigh, Crispus Allen must embrace his role as The Spectre by exacting God's vengeance on some of the DC Universe's most vile sinners. But even as Allen struggles with his duty, a new threat is arising – one that only his former partner, Renee Montoya, a.k.a. The Question, can help him fight!
Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers by Philip Tan that will ship in approximately 50/50 ratio. Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.

DC really needs to lay The Spectre concept to bed once and for all; they haven't come up with a way to make him a workable "legacy" character, and John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake have told the original's story as well as it's going to be told. That said, I may pick this one up simply because Rucka's writing it. I don't like the fact that Montoya is The Question II or that Crispus Allen is The Spectre III, but considering how much time Ruckas spent developing the two characters back when they weren't superhuman legacy characters, I'm interested in how he'll handle them together now. Maybe like Law and Order: SCU if Benson and Stabler were superheroes?



FINAL CRISIS: SUPERMAN BEYOND #1
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Doug Mahnke & Christian Alamy
Covers by Doug Mahnke and J.H. Williams III
To save the woman he loves, the greatest hero of all time becomes the pawn of ultra-dimensional forces when a wounded emissary from a world of doomed super gods comes to Earth on the eve of the Final Crisis. His mission: To recruit Superman's help against an epic, reality-spanning menace that originated in the Crisis on Infinite Earths!
Join the Man of Steel and his alternate-earth counterparts for a mind-blowing voyage to the edge of the DC Universe — and beyond! Can these super champions overcome their differences to beat the clock, find the ultimate treasure and save all existence from extinction? Writer Grant Morrison and artist Doug Mahnke take you on an unforgettable, hyperdelic journey from the streets of Metropolis, through the 52 worlds of the multiverse, to the haunted court of the King of Limbo, in part one of this 2-issue Superman adventure! With a unique 3-D section, eye-popping visuals and mind-boggling glimpses into the mysteries behind FINAL CRISIS, SUPERMAN BEYOND takes the Man of Tomorrow to new dimensions of action and excitement! This issue comes with a pair of 3-D glasses! Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers (one by Doug Mahnke and one by J.H. Williams III) that will ship in a ratio of approximately 50/50.

Awesome; I've never been on a hyperdelic journey.
Hell, I can't even find the word in my dictionary!

This solicit has got a lot of All-Star Superman sounding flavor to it, and after Morrison's work on those out-of-continuity stories, I'm really looking forward to him getting his hands on the DCU's version of the character again.

Also, Doug Mahnke is a great penciller and should totally be drawing JLoA instead of Ed Benes.



INFINITY INC. #12
Written by Peter Milligan
Art by Javier Aranda & David Enebral
Cover by Pete Woods
A Dark Side Club tie-in! The mystery of Professor Fogel and his allegiance to the Dark Side Club are laid bare in this harrowing final issue, in which the Infinity Kids find themselves outmatched in every way! A dream comes to an end, but for Infinity Inc., the nightmare is just beginning.
On sale August 6 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • FINAL ISSUE

I thought it would only last eight issues, so it exceeded my expectations.



JLA: SALVATION RUN TP
Written by Bill Willingham and Matthew Sturges
Art by Sean Chen & Walden Wong
Cover by Joe Corroney
The hit 7-issue miniseries spinning out of COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS is collected in this new trade paperback. Exiled to a distant hell planet, the villains of the DCU split into two warring factions led by Lex Luthor and The Joker!

Um, I’m not so sure disingenuously branding Salvation Run as JLA: Salvation Run is going to help all that much.

Does the JLA even appear in this stupid thing? I know JLoA devoted, like, eight issues to setting up and tying into this book, which is itself a tie-in to Countdown, but so what? None of those issues are even included in this trade collection



RANN/THANAGAR: HOLY WAR #4
Written by Jim Starlin
Art by Ron Lim & Rob Hunter
Cover by Starlin & Hunter
Adam Strange finds himself cornered on Hardcore Station by agents of the Church of Eternal Light. Meanwhile, the people of Rann have been whipped up into a Lady Styx-inspired religious furor and their next target is: Hawkman!

Two words I never thought I’d see used together in a DC comic again: Hardcore Station.



SHOWCASE PRESENTS: BLACKHAWK VOL. 1 TP
Written by Various
Art by Dick Dillin, Charles Cuidera and Sheldon Moldoff
Cover by Dillin
The 1950s adventures of The Blackhawks are collected for the first time in this new volume featuring stories from BLACKHAWK #108-127!

If I was only allowed to buy a single DC Comics publication this month, it would be this: A 500-page, $16.99 comic in which the Blackhawks are depicted being attacked by Killer Shark’s whale sub on the cover.



SUPERMAN/BATMAN #51
Written by Michael Green & Mike Johnson
Art by Rafael Albuequerque
Cover by Ryan Sook
The Man of Steel and the Dark Knight are shocked to discover little versions of themselves fighting a threat in Metropolis. But where did these tiny heroes come from? As Superman and Batman search for answers, things get worse with the arrival of the Li’l League.

Does little Batman’s Bat-symbol have googly eyes on it? Oh man, I may have to actually buy an issue of Superman/Batman again.



TEEN TITANS #62
Written by Sean McKeever
Art and cover by Eddy Barrows & Ruy José
Guest-starring Cyborg! When villains attack, it's up to two remarkable teens to pick up the pieces so the Teen Titans don't have to. This issue: a heartwarming look at Titans Tower through the eyes of its least-known inhabitants: Wendy, Marvin ... and Wonderdog?!

Not to be confused with Rex, The Wonderdog.

Man, Wendy, Marvin and Wonderdog look fucking horrible drawn all quasi-realist like that. I don’t understand why Teen Titans doesn’t have art that might conceivably be found appealing by actual teenagers…



TITANS #5
Written by Judd Winick
Art by Rodney Buchemi
Cover by Ian Churchill
In the stand-alone story “Date Night,” four Titans face the fact that love is a battlefield. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure is making his way to Titans Tower. Who is this ominous stranger – and how does he or she know the Titans?

Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Has Ian Churchill never seen two people kissing before? Not even in a movie, or in another comic book? Who kisses like that, with all tongue and no lips? Besides porn stars, I mean. God; I still can’t believe DC is even publishing this title in its current state.



THE UN-MEN #13
Written by John Whalen
Art by Mike Hawthorne
Cover by Tomer Hanuka
The curtain falls on the freak show. Vertigo’s strange band of mutants and misfits save the best for last in this powerfully perverse conclusion to THE UN-MEN. Cranius “The Living Brain” perpetrates his sickest crime yet, Kilcrop discovers the tragic secret of Niko’s past, and Aberrance erupts in a bloodbath that puts the carnage back in “carny.”
On sale August 27 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS • FINAL ISSUE

Ha ha! In your face, Infinity Inc.!

Wait, how did a book starring old Swamp Thing guest-stars, a book seemingly created just for Progressive Ruin’s Mike Sterling, out-last a book spinning out of 52, even if it was only by one issue?



Cretaceous era cock block!



WATCHMEN MOVIE: DR. MANHATTAN
1:6 Scale Deluxe
Collector Figure

This 1:6 scale deluxe collector figure measures approximately 13” tall and comes with a removable black suit.

Packaged in a deluxe 4-color window box with a fifth panel, it also includes a 4-color Certificate of Authenticity.

Advance-solicited; On Sale January 14, 2009
$99.99

This things’s existence makes me sad. The only thing that makes me sadder is the thought that someone may actually pay $100 for one of these things.

The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #2

Despite the similarities of their synopses—eight-part miniseries from big, New York-based comics publisher about a hostile alien force secretly infiltrating the world of their heroes—Marvel’s 2008 Secret Invasion and DC’s 1988 Millennium diverge sharply within their second issues.

As I mentioned in my review of Secret Invasion’s second issue, relatively little happened in it. The 1970’s-looking Marvels mixed it up with the modern Marvels in the Savage Land until a Tyrannosaur broke it up, we learned that at least one of them may actually be the genuine article and not a Skrull (that doesn’t square with Marvel continuity exactly but then, neither does Brian Michael Bendis*), and a bunch of Super-Skrulls attacked Manhattan, which hasn’t been invaded by aliens since the last big Marvel crossover.

In Steve Englehart, Joe Staton and Ian Gibson’s Millennium #2, however, the Manhunter androids have begun giving the superheroes grief, and Guardian Herupa Hando Hu and a Zamaron Nada Surf Nadia Safir begin their quest to find ten chosen humans who will soon give rise to a new immortal race of earthlings.

In other words, here’s where the book starts to get good. Because Englehart is making an earnest attempt to have the ten chosen people be representative of the diversity of planet earth (racially, ethnically, politically and sexual preference-ly) and Gibson’s art leans hard toward the cartoony (particularly when not drawing a superhero with a well-established model sheet), the results tend to be some pretty broad caricatures.


This second chapter opens in The Daily Planet office, where reporter Clark Kent is busy proofing the credits for the issue. He’s suddenly accosted by ex-girlfriend Lana Lang, who can’t stop shouting about Manhunters and Superman.

What’s her deal? Is she trying to blow his secret identity? Perhaps—since she herself is a Manhunter! She wants him to stay out of the Guardian/Manhunter struggle to start/stop a new race of immortals, and if he refuses to comply, it’s out with his secret identity.

But this isn’t a story about Superman. Oh, no. As Englehart’s narration says,
No? It’s not? Then what were the readers of 1988 flushing away their 75 cents-per-issue for?

This is, it turns out, a story about people—regular, run-of-the-mill human beigns like you or me. Or Australian Aboriginie Betty Clawman, whom HHH and NS find at Ayers Rock near Alice Springs:

She’s the first of their candidates, and embraces their offer. The others are much less likely to do so, HHH explains, as he and Nadia begins their visits.

There’s Takeo Yakata, Japanese business man

whose inscrutable face belies no hint of surprise at Herupa’s conversion of his office, although the “surprise lines” that radiate from his head do give away his true reaction;

Chinese woman Xiang Po

whom the aliens decide to approach while in the middle of a crowded Chinese street, where passersby can shout their own opinions about what to do to her;

the Soviet Union’s Nikolai Latikov

(Please note the portrait of Lenin in his office; did you ever notice how much Green Arrow resembles Lenin?);

Celia Windward of “Birmingham-- --Fascist Britain!”


Iranian Salima Baranizar

(What are the chances of seeing a scene like this in comics today, post-Danishcartoonopaclpyse, I wonder?);

South African asshole Janwillem Kroef, who greets the pair with, “Who are you woman, and what do you and your blue dwarf want?”

(Nadia and Herupa seem rather bemused at the casual racism and chauvanism Kroef displays, don’t they?);

and then, everyone’s favorite character from Millennium, Peruvian Gregorio de la Vega, the gayest character in the history of the DC Universe

When I first read Millennium, about, oh, five to ten years ago, maybe?, I was appalled at Gregorio and just how…broad his character was, and that DC was like, “Yes, this seems like a perfect portrayal of a gay character who will be our first out gay superhero by the time this series is over.”**

The magenta shirt unbuttoned to the crotch, the huge hoop earring, the posture, the moustache, the drink—It’s not easy to stand out as visibly gay in a universe that’s home to Vibe, Wonder Woman and Batman and Robin but, well, mission accomplished Gregorio designers!


Anyway, like I was saying, when I first read Millennium, I was struck by how unbelievably broad Gregorio was. But re-reading it to compare it to Secret Invasion, I found Gregorio hilarious. I don’t know, is he still considered offensive? Because he kinda cracked me up with that “E-ve-ry-body fades in!” line.


While the space immortals were making their rounds, the heroes of the DCU had their own problems. Blue Beetle Ted Kord suspected someone was trying to blackmail him on behalf of the Manhunters (someone who pulls a gun on him, which Kord slaps away to the sound effect of “PLOW!”, which is, coincidentally, the same sound that an android’s fist makes against a man’s face). And meeting with his trusted friend James Gordon, Batman learns that no man escapes the Manhunters—not even a Batman!

Lucky for him the Gordon Manhunter decided to simply pistolwhip him out an open window with the gun in his hand and not, you know, shoot him with it.

What’s that? You thought the space immortals needed ten candidates, but we’ve only heard of eight? Well, they have some words with Harbinger from Crisis On Infinite Earths, The Floronic Man seems to think he’s been chosen (although he is crazy, and incarcerated in Arkham when he begins ranting and raving about it) and, they make one more stop: The hospital room of Hal Jordan’s friend Tom Kalmaku.

You’ll remember last issue Kalmaku was hospitalized when caught by the Manhunters he was syping on for Hal, who was busy at a pool party.

Just before Nadia and Herupa arrive to make Tom an offer, he’s awoken by the Green Lanterns, who adopt extremely manly poses and try to comfort him.


Hey wait a minute…

Check this out. Gregorio, outrageous gay stereotype:



John Stewart:



Gregorio:



John Stewart:


Hmm…

Well, best not to dwell.

Will these nine-to-ten Earthlings accept the space immortals offer? Will the Manhunters get to them first?

If it were 1988, you’d need only wait one week to find out in Millennium #3. Now you’re going to have to wait until Secret Invasion #3 drops, and I waste devote another post to last century’s greatest company-wide crossover about aliens secretly infiltrating a shared superhero universe.

Previously:
The Other Secret Invasion: Millennium #1



*Zing!


**Was Extrano the first out gay superhero in the DCU? This period of DC history is pretty spotty to me, as I wouldn’t start reading comics until a few years after this book was released.

Strike while the iron is ice cold!

This past Wednesday DC debuted the first part of a new six-issue miniseries, Huntress: Year One, by Ivory Madison, Cliff Richards and Art Thibert. It's a pretty perplexing release, and retailer/reviewer Brian Hibbs lists some of the reasons in his Savage Critic review.

As Hibbs pointed out, it can't be a book that DC thought would sell terribly well. The Bat-family solo spin-offs—Nightwing, Robin, soo- to-be-cancelledCatwoman—are all doing less than stellar these days, and the Huntress isn't even part of the Bat-family proper any more. The book she calls home—Birds of Prey—only sells in the 20K neighborhood, a bit bettter than Catwoman and there's she's part of an ensemble, not carrying the book herself.

The artists attached are pretty good, and while Madison is an unknown quantity, she's the sort of unknown quantity I imagine readers will be curious about (I was pretty amused to see that her website referred to this comic book series as "a graphic novel;" perhaps it's just shorthand to communicate to "civilians" and/or the book industry, but it denotes a certain amount of shame and/or sensitivity about the word "comics"). But none of them are the sorts of big names that would move a Huntress book in big numbers, so DC can't be thinking these creators will move such a book where the character won't.

One could also raise the question of relevance, but then, that's been the case for all of DC's recent Year One miniseries.

Green Arrow: Year One re-told an origin that gets pretty regularly re-told, but boasted an interesting creative team (The Losers' Andy Diggle and Jock), came at a time when DC was clearly trying to promote the character (around the time of his wedding to Black Canary), and filled the publishing gap between the end of Green Arrow and the launch of Green Arrow/Black Canary.

Teen Titans: Year One similarly tells an origin that isn't very mysterious and which there are no questions about, but makes a certain amount of sense within DC's nonsensical attempts to flood the market with Titans books (Teen Titans, Titans, Tiny Titans and solo minis for Wonder Girl, Raven and soon Cyborg).

And then there was Metamorpho: Year One, the origin of a bit player in low-selling team title The Outsiders by a not-exactly-hot creative team.*

Of course, Huntress: Year One is unlike the others above in that it falls squarely in the shadow of another six-part Huntress origin miniseries, 2000's Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood, which has the benefit of a higher profile writer, a high profile guest-star (and branding in the title), and being, at the time, much more relevant to other books (Greg Rucka was then writing Detective and was thus part of the Batman office's stable of creators, and Huntress was pretty firmly ensconced in the Bat-family, rather than in Birds of Prey).

From this side of things, it's impossible to tell why DC greenlights certain projects and not others, of course. Perhaps sales on the recent-ish Huntress: Dark Knight Daughter trade paperback (collecting the old pre-Crisis Huntress stories) were brisk enough that DC's data suggested the existence of a bigger Huntress market than seems apparent from where I'm sitting.

What I find most perplexing about all of this, however, is that DC decided to greenlight a miniseries telling the origin of a masked, caped, female, Gotham vigilante, and they went with the Huntress and not, oh, I don't know, Batwoman.

Remember her? The sensational character find of 2006? New character introduced to much fanfare in 52? Often said to be getting her own series (most recently here), a series that never actually materializes? Origins completely shrouded in mystery? Only had a handful of appearances?

She seems like a better candidate for a Year One mini, doesn't she? Her origin is certainly virgin territory, giving a creative reason for such a book's existence, and the fact that she has the word "Bat-" in her name guarantees a higher level of sales than a Huntress series, no matter who the creators are.

Huntress: Year One isn't the only new miniseries starring a masked, caped, female, Gotham vigilante that's not Batwoman, of course. A Batgirl miniseries is also in the works, starring Cassandra Cain. She had formerly starred in an ongoing solo series, which DC canceled not due to sales as much as to streamline the Bat-family and their line of books (presumably to make room for Batwoman and Batwoman). But since that never materialized, they've gone years without selling Batgirl or Batwoman books, and are now trying to sell a Batgirl miniseries. The fact that it is from a writer who is widely perceived as having "ruined" the character and an artist most-associated with Countdown and related projects, makes it another sure-not-to-be-a-hit book.

How did both of these books beat Batwoman out the gate? And why is DC waiting until any and all interest in Batwoman has dwindled before trying to capitalze on her now two-year-old high-profile debut? I honsetly don't know, but these not-Batwoman projects keep raising those questions.



*Meanwhile, top-tier characters whose origins could actually use post-Infinite Crisis/52 rejiggering clarification, like Superman, Batman, the JLA and, most especially, Wonder Woman, get none. I don't think we necessarily need four official Year One minis featuring those characters—certainly they'll never do another book called Batman: Year One—but stories dealing with their new origins would certainly make sense.

Playing dress-up with the DCU

Hey, remember this?


That’s the lovely promotional poster by Adam Hughes in which he gathered many of the DC Universe’s most recognizable super-women and dressed them up like they were going to a wedding (or a Vanity Fair fold-out cover shoot).

It’s a nice image.

I’ne always liked Adam Hughes’ art, far too little of which seems to be inside comics books any more, as he’s sort of transitioned into a cover artist over the year. He’s not perfect—he showed an odd inclination unzipping Catwoman’s top on the covers of her book, for example, and the way he used to draw Wonder Woman’s baggy boots always drove me crazy—but he’s a hell of an artist, and this piece is a nice demonstration of why.

He knows human anatomy and he knows drapery, two things that put him lightyears ahead of plenty of comics artists who like drawing sexy women (And whom DC seems to like to pay to draw sexy women for them).

More importantly, his women all look different. It seems like such a simple, obvious thing, but it’s so damn rare in superhero comics that when you see an artist doing it, it actually seems precious.

Many of the women in the piece are easily identifiable by their props. Catwoman’s the woman with the cat, Barbra Gordon’s the one in the wheel chair, Zatanna’s the one with the top hat, Wonder Woman’s the one wearing the Wonder Woman tiara and bracelets.

But man, how refreshing to see an image of 11 DC heroines in which they’re all different heights and weights; in which they all have different hair cuts and fashion sense; in which they have different bust sizes and different postures and expressions.

Like I said, I like this piece. Hell, I love it. I like the way Supergirl and Power Girl’s dresses reflect their costumes; I like the fact that Catwoman’s wearing black while all the good girls are in white; I like the way Hughes teases the closeness of Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn’s friendship.

The one thing I don’t like is Batwoman, if that is Batwoman in the chair (My eyes tell me its Lois Lane; the Internet tells me its Batwoman). In part because what the hell is Batwoman, whom I don’t think has ever met any of these characters or even appeared in a half-dozen stories yet, doing at a wedding/fashion shoot/Oscar Night party with the rest of them?

Additionally, Batwoman’s an out lesbian, and, well, Hughes put her in pants and has her sitting…well, less than naturally (I don’t know why, but if that was Lois Lane, the pants and weird posture seem less weird to me).

But anyway, a great piece.

It gave Johanna Draper Carlson of Comicsworthreading.com a great idea: How about a male version, with the heroes “in tuxes, classy and attractive?"

I can’t imagine DC hiring Hughes to make one for them, since they seem to only hire him to draw images of sexy super-women (although he is really good at super-men too), but I’m sure Amanda Conner or J. Bone could do something awesome.

Heck, I think Conner was already actually in the ball park during her work on the Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special, when she drew the superheroes all in their casual wear:
(Scan ganked from Living Between Wednesdays).

Sure, most of those guys aren’t actually friends with Green Arrow, and I’m not even sure if some of them have ever even met him, but Judd Winick had them all attending GA’s bachelor party, and Conner sure draws the hell out of them, doesn’t she? And you can pretty much tell who they all are, just by their clothes.

Well, Carlson put out an open call for submissions, and I watched with delight as they trickled in. And sadly, trickle they did, as there were only a handful by the point I’m tying this (Thursday afternoon, the day of the deadline).

I really like the one by Johnny Zito; he gives all of the characters an awful lot of personality, to a rather incredible degree in some cases. I really dig his Bruce Wayne, who seems a little uncharacteristically friendly at first, but then, he’s being Bruce Wayne, not Batman.

I also like how different his Oliver Queen looks from most Oliver Queens (the thin moustache looking much more Golden Age Hollywood swashbuckler than usual). And that Clark Kent’s wearing a dress version of the sort of stuff he used to wear to work in the Golden and Silver Ages. And the ambiguous nature of Aquman’s right hand. And that Steel looks like Steel even though there are no identifiers letting you know what his superhero identity is.

For continuity purposes, however, Ryan “Atom III” Choi and Tim “Robin III” Drake shouldn’t be in the same group as Barry “Flash II” Allen.

Here’s one by Paul Savi. It’s of a pre-Crisis grouping, and it looks really great. His Dick and Bruce are exceptional, and good job putting Hal Jordan in a uniform and making Captain Marvel uncomfortable in formal wear. The only one I don’t much care for is the Superman. The pose is nice (as is the suit), but the face just doesn’t really look like Superman in the way that the other faces look like they belong to the heroes wearing them.

Jeff Hebert probably did the best job of them all on the clothes (even the shoes look great!) and of making many of these guys still look totally badass while in their formal wear.

I’m not sure that Jason Todd and John Stewart should be in the same picture, though. The logo on Todd’d boots is Tim Drake’s Robin logo, and his hair looks a lot like Tom Lyle used to draw Tim Drake’s hair in the first few Robin miniseries.

The first entry was an all-Lego one by David Oakes, which allows for a “boy toys” gag. Zatara and Red Arrow…in the same image? Impossible!

Zatara looks sweet though. Too few good guys wear top hats anymore.

Now, looking at these, as well as the original Hughes piece got me thinking about who would be in a male equivalent, and, well, you know where this is going, right?

The thing is, it’s really, really hard coming up with the male equivalents of the characters in that Hughes picture. Some are easier than others, of course. Going by their respective Q ratings, who’s the male Wonder Woman? Superman? Or Batman? Or Superman and Batman? Power Girl is just kind of a random character most associated with the JSA; you could just plot Wildcat in there, I guess.

But who’s the male Catwoman? Is she there as the DCU’s #1 female villain (in which case her male equivalent would probably be The Joker), or because she’s a villain who’s kinda sorta sometimes a hero (in which case it would be…I don’t know, these days. Ten years ago, maybe Deathstroke. Now? Black Adam, maybe?).

Who’s the male Barbara Gordon, former sidekick turned leader-hero-in her own right…Dick Grayson, or is he a level above Babs in that respect? What about Poison Ivy and Harley? They’re both villain-villains, but not all that well known; who are their male equivalents?

Anyway, you see how hard this is? I still can’t determine any real pattern/criteria in Hughes’ piece, beyond the fact that those are the eleven DCU characters he most wanted to draw.

So, here’s what I came up with:

It didn’t turn out too great, but hopefully it’s clear who everyone is supposed to be.

If anyone cares, I used Rags Morales’ current Nightwing issues as a guide for the hairstyles for Superman and the Bat-family, as Morales puts a great deal of effort in distinguishing his characters from one another, and Kevin Maguire’s version of J’onn for a guide on his face (though he got the current all-red eyeballs). The rest are from memory.

And yes, Aquaman’s one water bottle is extremely unfortunately placed. Sorry about that.

Please note I didn’t draw anyone’s feet. I agree with Michael Turner’s body of work—feet are hard to draw.

You may also note that that is an awful lot white dudes. I honestly couldn’t think of a black dude who seemed to fit in the picture. Hughes threw in Vixen, whose current status as a member of the Justice League kinda sorta makes her fit in there. She’s also an original black superhero—i.e. she’s not a derivation of a white hero—and fits on those grounds as well.

I couldn’t think of a male equivalent for her. Black Lightning’s the closest to a male Vixen—on the Justice League at the moment, not a black version of a white character—but I wasn’t sure how one would communicate that he was actually Black Lightning visually, outside of his costume or using his powers (In a tux, he could be an off-model John Henry Irons or John Stewart).

Steel almost works, but is to a large degree just the black Superman (Due in part to the way he was introduced; I believe Jon Bogdanove had the starts of a Steel character in his sketchbook before the Superman office of the early ‘90s decided to use four replacement Supermen after the original’s temporary death).

Green Lantern John Stewart and the current Mr. Terrific are similarly black versions of white characters.

I didn’t want to put both Hal and John in, as their identifier would be the same—the green rings on their hands—although Mr. T. might have worked as a JSA representative, the male equivalent to Power Girl in Hughes’ piece. A couple floating “T-spheres” above him would identify him out of costume, I think.

The best black hero to go with would probably have been Cyborg, who, even in a tux, would have half a robot face and clearly be Cyborg. But Hughes didn’t put any Titans into his piece, so they seemed kind of out-of bounds. If he’d had Starfire in his, then Cyborg would have been a good candidate for the male Starfire, I guess (Him or Beast Boy, both of whom would still look like themselves in tuxes).

The black hero I cam closest to including was Jakeem Thunder, who I figured would be easy to identify by being a) a kid and b) in the company of a sentient purple thunderbolt. Here’s a sketch of Jakeem, the Thunderbolt and Jaime “Blue Beetle III” Reyes:

Jaime is also a non-white version of a white hero too, but the fact that he is carrying his own title at the moment indicates a certain level of status among DCU character, I think.

I was trying out markers instead of colored-pencils on the sketches. I think I prefer how low-tech the pencils looks. Hell, maybe I should transition into crayons. Jaime’s hair is too light there. Also, he shaved his chin due to the formal occasion; that’s why there’s no scruff.

Here are two characters I had intended to include, but didn’t have room for:

That’s Green Arrow Oliver Queen and Hawkman Carter Hall; GA should be easy to pick out of a line-up, but I guess the only clue to that being Hawkman is that he’s giving GA a dirty look. I thought about drawing a flag pin on his lapel, but it seemed too weird on a tux lapel. If he were in a suit jacket, it would look more appropriate. In my original sketch, they were on the far right of the page, and Plas and Cap were where Hal Jordan was, but I ran out of room.

Finally, here’s Ted Grant:

For a while, I was considering putting the JSA old men on the far left, and some younger characters like Jaime and Jakeem walking on page from the far right.

I ultimately didn’t do any villains in that piece, despite the fact that Hughes drew three—although I guess Catwoman and Harley kind of go back and forth between being anti-heroines and outright villains, huh?—but thinking about their DCU equivalents ultimately lead to this:

This time around I used some pretty diminutive characters, and was this time able to get a full eleven in there.

Again, hopefully they’re all self-explanatory. The little guy with black hair on the far right is supposed to be Dr. Psycho. I used the Golden Age H.G. Peter version (i.e. the awesome version) as a guide, and threw him in at the last minute. He turned out pretty fucked-up looking. Sorry, Dr. Psycho.

The original plan was to put Deathstroke between Sinestro and Bizarro, but, as in the heroes piece, I didn’t plan the spacing right and ran out of room. He was going to be wearing a tux like Aquaman’s in the hero version, a white eye-patch, and be holding a .45 at his side.

Oh, and Mxy’s supposed to be floating in the air, although I realize now it looks almost like he’s balancing on top of Manta’s harpoon.

Man, composing images is a tough business; I don’t know how artists do it.

UPDATED TO ADD: Carlson posted all the entries on Friday. Go check 'em out. I think Philip Rice's is by far the best, in that in addition to being very well drawn and defining the characters quite thoroughly in that drawing, he gets 11 in, including a couple of villains who occassionally straddle the line between villains and anti-heroes. There are a lot of nice little touches in it, like the identifying rings on some of the heroes' fingers, and he even makes Mr. Terrific work quite well, having the tux echo the costume, and using T's for cufflinks.

His Booster Gold is great. I like the out-of-style tux. It may seem like decades out of style to us, but I imagine if you're from 500 years in the future, that's gotta seem close enough for "turn of the 21st century men's formal wear."

Bill Roundy's piece has an aesthetic similar to the new Superfriends comic and line of toys. I love the fact that his Aquaman is bare foot and has left a puddle trail.

UPDATED AGAIN JUST TO POINT OUT: That it is still a few weeks before Memorial Day, and that the Hughes peice was unveiled months ago, and yet ten of the eleven women pictured in it are wearing white. Tsk tsk tsk.