Marvel's October previews reviewed

After years of heroes-fighting-heroes being the motivating factors of Marvel's big event series (from House of M, Civil War, "The Initiative," World War Hulk, Avengers Vs. X-Men), it looks like Marvel's upcoming Axis event/series will be a more old-fashioned, bunch-of-good-guys-vs.-a-bunch-of-bad-guys sort of conflict. And, based on the publisher's solicitations for what it plans to ship and sell in October of this year, it looks like it will be big, sprawling, and hard-to-figure-out-what-to-read, as was the case with Avengers Vs. X-Men, Original Sin (which included a companion series called Original Sins and also some issues with decimal points in their issue numbers) and, to a lesser extent, Infinity (I recently tried reading Johnathan Hickmans' Avengers books, and made it through the first three volumes of Avengers just fine, but had to quit half-way through New Avengers Vol. 2: Infinity, because I had no idea what the hell was going on—Infinity apparently began off-page somewhere in the middle of the run of single issues that volume was collecting).

I think the main series wil be the one called Avengers & X-Men: Axis, but there's also "companion" series Axis: Revolutions, and few short miniseries entitled Axis: (Insert Name of Character Here), and then a bunch of tie-ins from regular, ongoing series that do not have the word "Axis" in their titles (Deadpool #36, Loki #7, Magneto #11, etc). From the plot descriptions, it seems as if the storyline will be an expansion of that from Avengers & X-Men: Axis writer Rick Remender's first story arc of Uncanny Avengers, in which the Red Skull sticks Charles Xavier's brain in himself somehow in order to...make people hate mutants more than usual, or something like that.

There are, as always, a bunch of variants for, like, every series, but the one that intrigued me the most were those called "Hasbro variants," as I have no idea what those might entail (Hopefully Marvel action figures posed atop My Little Pony toys). There are also "Deadpool 75th" and "Stomp Out Bullying" variants mentioned in a lot of solicits.

So what can we expect from Marvel come October? Let's take a look...

AVENGERS & X-MEN: AXIS #1 (OF 9)
RICK REMENDER (W) • ADAM KUBERT (A)
Cover by JIM CHEUNG
...
ACT I: THE RED SUPREMACY
• The Red Skull has exploited the gifts of the world’s greatest telepath to broadcast pure hatred across the globe. Now, born of the murder of Charles Xavier, World War Hate has begun.
• Tony Stark discovers a secret truth that will upend not only his life, but also the lives of everyone he cares for.
• Can The Avengers and X-Men finally unite? Would their combined strength be enough to hold back the darkness of the Red Onslaught?
• Magneto murdered the wrong man, releasing the greatest evil the Marvel Universe has ever known. Now Rogue and Scarlet Witch are all that stand in its way.
40 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99

As with Age of Ultron, it looks like the series will kick off at a decent price point, before reverting to the $4 for 20-22-pages price point of the average Marvel comic. I like the term "World War Hate," and that this book seems to be shipping quickly, either on a weekly or weekly-ish basis.

Now, what on earth is The Red Skull wearing here...?


AVENGERS & X-MEN: AXIS #2 (OF 9)
RICK REMENDER (W) • ADAM KUBERT (A)
Cover by JIM CHEUNG
...
ACT I: THE RED SUPREMACY
• The heroes of the Marvel Universe storm the beaches of Red Skull’s Genoshian Reeducation camps. What they discover within will lead to a bleak new era.
• The revelation of Tony Stark’s dark secret promises to shatter the fragile alliance between A and X.
• The all-new Captain America pays a terrible price.
• Nova’s attempt at solving the crisis leads to disaster.
• Magneto betrays his alliance to join an army of evil.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

The new Captain America, ex-Falcon Sam Wilson, pays a terrible price? Noooooooooo! Not Redwing!

AVENGERS & X-MEN: AXIS #3 (OF 9)
RICK REMENDER (W) • LEINIL FRANCIS YU (A)
...
ACT I: THE RED SUPREMACY
• With the heroes lost, the world’s fate lies in the hands of the vilest syndicate known to man.
• Scarlet Witch is forced to join Dr. Doom, the man who unleashed her power to cause M-Day, or she will watch those she loves most die.
• The return of one of the Marvel Universe’s great villains!
• An Avenger quits, a heart is broken, and the world as we know it is gone.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

That first bullet point reminds me of Forever Evil.

I really like Jack O' Lantern's design, although I don't think I've ever read a story in the character in it that I liked.

I really like Javier Rodriguez's cover for this new Axis: Hobgoblin miniseries, and am excited to hear that he's providing interior art as well. The writer he's paired with, however, is "Robot Chicken writer Kevin Shinick," which I guess means it's written by a comedy writer with no sense of humor...?

Or did that show get better after the first terrible, terrible, terrible season...?

The mini is only three over-priced issues long, so I assume it will ultimately end up collected along with another book or two, in something like Axis: Carnage and Hobgoblin.

Marco Rudy's cover for the first issue of the unfortunately titled Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier kinda freaks me out a little.

DEATH OF WOLVERINE: THE LOGAN LEGACY #1 (OF 7)
CHARLES SOULE (W) • OLIVER NOME (A/C)
...
• Wolverine—the greatest X-Men ever—is dead!
• With this mutant powerhouse now permanently out of the picture, various factions of both good and evil are scrambling to fill the void left by Logan’s death!
• Will Wolverine’s Legacy be shaped by heroes who valiantly fought alongside him …or by those villains treacherous enough to have challenged him over the many years of his long life?
• The answers will be revealed in this special 7-issue limited series that spins directly out of the mega-popular DEATH OF WOLVERINE!
• This series will feature unique solo adventures of several instrumental figures in shaping Logan’s Legacy: X-23, Sabretooth, Daken, Lady Deathstrike and Mystique!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Ha ha, they said "permanently"...!

DEATHLOK #1
NATHAN EDMONDSON (W) • MIKE PERKINS (A/C)
...
“Enemy of My Enemy”
• After Michael Collins, there was Henry Hayes
• A medic who travels to war zones to heal the wounded, he has no idea that when he’s in the field, he’s activated by a mysterious group and becomes the ultimate weapon of assassination and war: DEATHLOK
• From the writer of BLACK WIDOW and THE PUNISHER comes a new take on the iconic cyborg character making waves on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

It is weird that one of the Big Two direct market publishers is releasing a solo series starring a black man identified as "the iconc cyborg character," and that the publisher is Marvel and the character Deathlok, rather than DC and Cyborg, right?

It's not just me...?

GUARDIANS 3000 #1
DAN ABNETT (w) • GERARDO SANDOVAL (a/C)
Cover BY Alex Ross
...
• Dive right into the action as the original Guardians of the Galaxy—Vance Astro, Yondu, Martinex, Starhawk and Charlie-27--try to save the future universe from the menace of the Badoon.
• But what happens when the Guardians discover something behind the Badoon…something even worse than they could have ever imagined?
• The very future itself is in danger, and the only possibility of salvation relies on the shoulders of this ragtag, bombastic group of underdogs. Thrown together by fate and fighting against intolerable oppression, how can they even hope to survive the first issue?!
32 PGS/Rated T+…$3.99

If you would have told me as recently as January that, by the end of this year, Marvel would be publishing four Guardians of the Galaxy-related ongoing series (GoG, Rocket Raccoon, Legendary Star-Lord and now this), I would have told you that you were a crazy person.

HAWKEYE #22
MATT FRACTION (W)
DAVID AJA (A/C)
• Hawkeyes vs. Tracksuits. Final Round!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Oh good, so it's not canceled after all. It is too goddam expensive though. Goodbye Hawkeye! It was fun while it lasted, back when you came out on some sort of schedule, and were reasonably priced at $3 per issue!

One lady I work with is super-into the old-school, '90s-era cartoon X-Men, but the only Marvel comic she's currently reading is Ms. Marvel. She will occasionally ask me questions about the goings-on in the wider Marvel Universe, since she doesn't spend her life on the comics Internet like I do. You know, why doesn't Wolverine have his healing factor anymore, why can't Rogue be in Uncanny Avengers and X-Men at the same time, if Wolverine can simultaneously be in Uncanny Avengers and Wolverine and The X-Men and Amazing X-Men (and Avengers and...well, you get the picture), that kind of thing.

I honestly cannot wait to have a conversation about why there's a giant bulldog with a mustache and a tuning fork sticking out of his head in October!!!

THE SUPERIOR FOES OF SPIDER-MAN #16
NICK SPENCER (W) • STEVE LIEBER (A/C)
• STILL NOT still not canceled!
• GANG WAR rages on at its rageful-iest.
• The Sinister Six versus EVERYONE!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

"STILL NOT still not canceled" is a a pretty good tag-line. Maybe they should swap out "The Superior" for "The Still Not Canceled" in the book's title...?

I read The Superior Foes of Spider-Man (despite the too-expensive $3.99 price tag, because I think it's actually good enough a read to pay 33% extra for), I'd read The Still-Not-Caneceled Foes of Spider-Man.

My favorite part of the book is how they never, ever, ever fight Spider-Man.


THANOS: A GOD UP THERE LISTENING #1-4 (of 4)
ROB WILLIAMS (W)
NEIL EDWARDS, PACO DIAZ, IBAN COELLO (A)
Covers BY DUSTIN NGUYEN
• At the close of INFINITY, Thane discovered he was the son of Thanos and that his touch was death. • Now, accompanied by the constantly whispered advice of the Ebony Maw, he wants to discover his father’s history, and his own future.
32 PGS. (EACH)/Rated T+ …$3.99 (EACH)

Oh shit, the God up there listening is Thanos? Man, that makes Are You There God? It's Me Margaret seem like a very different story now...


WOLVERINE & THE X-MEN #10 & 11
JASON LATOUR (W) • ROBBI RODRIGUEZ, JASON LATOUR, JIM RUGG, James Harren, Kris Anka & more (A)
Cover by MAHMUD ASRAR & MARTE GRACIA
THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF WOLVERINE
• The X-Men mourn as one of their own is finally put to rest.
• As a reporter digs further in Wolverine’s past, what will be uncovered as the X-Men retell their favorite personal adventures and Wolverine stories
• Some of the industry’s best and brightest lend a hand to say farewell in these two jam-packed issues: Robbi Rodriguez, Jason Latour, Jim Rugg, James Harren & more.
ISSUE #10 - 40 PGS./Rated T+ …$4.99
ISSUE #11 - 32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99


Please be advised: Jim Rugg is drawing the X-Men. At least a little.

Spider-Man is a go-go head.

My 22-month-old nephew was in my bedroom at my ancestral home this morning, and spotted this little Spider-Man toy I bought on a whim from a vending machine in a movie theater lobby a few years ago. He immediately pointed at it and exclaimed "Go-go," his word for a basketball, which is one of his favorite things in the world.

When he was handed the toy, he handled it curiously for a few moments, seemingly unsure what to make of Spider-Man's body. His older sister grabbed it, snapped the head in half (the toy came in three parts), removed the body, and then re-snapped the head back together.

Seeing this, my nephew's eyes lit up and he clapped with excitement, "Go-go!" He then proceeded to carry Spider-Man's perfectly round head around the remainder of the visit, clutching it in one hand and a small plastic ball in the other. Both of these he threw to various family members and tried (and failed) to catch when they threw them back to him,

Obviously, the toy design has purposely exaggerated the size of Spidey's head in relation to his body, but I guess I never realized just how much Spidey's head looks like a basketball until today.

Meanwhile...

I reviewed the first volume of Hiro Mashima's new (to the English language and U.S. markets) Monster Soul for Good Comics For Kids. Mashima's the guy who did Rave Master which I tried and wanted to like (because of the art), but couldn't get into, and Fairy Tail, which I made it about four volumes into, liking it a bit more, but it fell by the wayside on account of there being, like, a million awesome comics being published all the time these days. I liked it okay; I would read another volume, but don't think I'll be following it as its released, as I'm currently doing with, say, Animal Land, Cage of Eden, Flowers of Evil and Yotsuba&!.

I reviewed Noah Van Sciver's Youth Is Wasted for Las Vegas Weekly. That's a pretty great collection. I really like that guy's comics, and there's an introduction by current Sinestro artist Ethan Van Sciver (Noah's brother). I know comics are likely only a part of their lives, but, since I know them both exclusively through their comics work, I have a hard time imagining them, at, like, Thanksgiving dinner or whatever. In my head, Noah Van Sciver looks like drawings of him I've seen, whereas Ethan Van Sciver looks like Barry Allen in his Flash costume in my mind's eye.

Among the stories included are that awesome two-page one about a 19th-century cartoonist, from which the above two panels are taken, and several rather remarkably long, serious, affecting stories, which may come as a surprise to those that know Noah Van Sciver mainly from his gag comics linked-to online.

Finally, I reviewed Batman: A Celebration of 75 Years and The Joker: A Celebration of 75 Years for Robot 6. I found them both fairly fascinating, but, in both cases, more so as windows into how DC perceives and promotes the history of those characters right this moment, and as sorts of conversation pieces; fans will find themselves engaged in perhaps somewhat heated, subconscious dialogues with the books, regarding what stories, what creators and what takes are included, and which are not. I hope to pick them apart more exhaustively here in the near future, more along the lines of "Ha ha, look at this funny panel!" and linking to reviews of some of the suggested content more than anything as formal as I what I wrote for Robot 6.

************************

Another new book that came out this week that I did not review was the new Teen Titans #1, the relaunch of the relaunched and rebooted Teen Titans that debuted in September 2011 along with the rest of the New 52 titles and was then canceled. Presumably for marketing/sales purposes, as this roster is almost identical to the previous one, and there's a new creative team attached.

I just read it last night, and I did so under strange circumstances. I was at a friend's house, and we watched an episode of Teen Titans Go! on DVD ("The Date," written by none other than EDILW favorite Sholly Fisch!). I took the DVD set home with me, and watched a few more episodes. Then I read Teen Titans #1. And then I watched a few more episodes of Teen Titans Go!.

Talk about cognitive dissonance.

The cartoon was surprisingly funny, reminding me of the generally excellent Teen Titans cartoon from a few years back, cut with a Cartoon Network original and/or old-school Adult Swim cartoon. I know DC has a comic based on the cartoon being published at the moment, and I'm sure it does well enough, but while I was watching that and reading Teen Titans, I kept thinking to what Boom has done with Adventure Time in terms of comics.

I'm still a little bewildered by the New 52's 180-degree spin from the popular and recognizable versions of the Teen Titans characters seen on that show. Raven, Robin and Beast Boy are on the new Teen Titans line-up in Teen Titans...sorta. Robin is actually Red Robin and looks nothing like the Robin in the cartoons (and he doesn't even have a staff!) and Raven...man, I don't know what's up with New 52 Raven.

I read the new issue though, and that's more than I can say for any issue of the previous volume (I did suffer through the few issues included in the The Joker: The Death of The Family mega-collection of all the tie-ins to the Batman story arc, and, man, it was rough). I did so because I like the writer and artist well enough to not look away in horror when I see their names.

It was okay. I didn't like it a third as much as Chris Sims did, and he's generally a pretty smart, insightful guy whose opinions and comics assessments often align with my own though, so I suppose your mileage may vary. It didn't do anything to correct the aesthetics problem of the title, and the cover, like the advertising campaign, really seems to be coming from the desperate, insincere place of a middle-aged uncle trying to be cool to relate to the kids.

They do a decent enough job of introducing some of the characters and their powers, but, given that this was more-or-less my first exposure to all of these various characters in this New 52 context (save Red Robin), there was still a lot I didn't know, get or understand, like what Wonder Girl's powers are, for example, or how they work.

I was also surprised that the Titans seemed to kill their foes left and right, or at least to express extreme apathy as to whether they did or not (Oh, and there's a Mr. Power and a Mr. Black who work at STAR Labs, the latter of whom uses British slang—they're not meant to be and Manchester Black, are they...?).

********************

Speaking of Sims, I enjoyed this post, and completely concur with the headline. Given the circumstances under which they asked Ramon Perez for a pitch—it was apparently Zuda-related—I suppose it makes sense that his awesome looking (and sounding) The Adventures of Mister Miracle & Big Barda pitch went down, and, as Sims notes, it's not exactly like Perez has had a bum career or anything these last few years. In reality, it seems like more of a loss for DC, who one would think would be all over a series they could promote as "from the critically-acclaimed, Eisner-winning creator of Jim Henson's Tale of Sand."

I don't really get the publisher's stance on continuity, either; they have that New 52 line thing going, but they do publish a bunch of superhero stuff outside of the DCU/New 52, mostly kids stuff and digital-first series, and then there's those weird "Earth-One" branded OGNs, so a it's not like it would have been impossible to print a Ramon Perez Mister Miracle & Big Barda series or original graphic novel.

Since the publisher's relaunch, the characters' only appearances have been in Earth 2, and it looks like they will play a role in the dark, dystopian, kill-y weekly series, New 52: Futures End. They both also appeared in recent-ish Justice League Beyond stories, too; those were really good.

*********************

Finally, did you read Tom Bondurant's analysis of DC's October solicitations yet? It is, as usual, better than mine. But then, Tom generally knows what he's talking about, and thinks before he starts typing. Me? Not so much. goog

Good God, that's some chutzpah.

The above is a two-panel sequence from this week's Harley Quinn Invades Comic-Con International San Diego #1, a new one-shot by regular writing team of the surprise-hit Harley Quinn monthly series, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti (the issue is drawn jam-issue style by nine different artists, although the above panels come from artist Dave Johnson's pages).

The premise of the comic, in brief, is that that Harley and her supporting cast are visiting CCI to sell merch, and she is using the opportunity to shop her portfolio of sample pages around (she's created a comic book character called Hurl Girl, which Conner draws). In punchline of the above joke is apparently that DC's direct market and superhero IP rival Marvel Entertainment doesn't pay as well as DC does (I guess...? It's one of the many inside baseball jokes that are so inside I think you actually have to work for DC to get, appreciate or care about them), and, of course, that "They," which would be Marvel, "aren't looking for anything new or original."

That hopefully good-natured slam comes in a comic book about a once-serious violent psychopathic comic book character now played for laughs invading a comic book convention (as in Keith Giffen, Alan Grant and Kevin O'Neill's 1993 Lobo Convention Special #1), a character created by in 1992 by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, and currently being used in her second ongoing series by Conner and Palmiotti as DC's answer to Deadpool, a crazy, anarchic character who hears voices, frequently breaks the fourth wall, and is portrayed as silly and comedic in her own book, but seriously outside her own title.

Excusing the fact that DC's current editorial strategy is re-do and re-mix pre-existing characters, costumes and even stories as part of their New 52 initiative, I think it's worth noting the recent bibliograpies of the writers making fun of Marvel's unwillingness to try something "new" and "original."

Conner's most recent work for DC prior to co-writing and providing covers for Harley Quinn was working on a prequel to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' 1986 Watchmen, over the very loud and very vociferous objections of the original author, featuring Moore and Gibbons creations inspired by superhero characters from the 1960s, created by a bunch of other creators.

The much more prolific Palimiotti's recent output for DC has consisted mainly of a very long run with co-writer Justin Grey on Tony DeZuniga and John Albano's 1972 Jonah Hex character, which, as it neared its cancellation, included a Booster Gold/Hex team-up that followed the pairing of the characters by Geoff Johns and Jeff Katz in 2007 and a Hex-thrown-into-his-future storyline that followed the same premise that Michael Fleisher-written Hex series from 1985.

He and Gray also wrote a bunch of miniseries based on Grant Morrison's reimaginings of the Golden Age Freedom Fighters characters and took over the Batwing title starring a legacy version of Morrison's re-creation of a black Batman originally conceived by Frank Robbins and Dick Giordano from a 1973 issue of Batman. They are currently writing a character dubbed "G.I. Zombie," whose name echoes that of the 1962-created Robert Kanigher co-created character G.I. Robot, and who is a monster serving in the military, like the characters of J.M. DeMatteis/Pat Broderick 1980-created Creature Commandos.

It's also a fucking zombie comic. Launched in 2014.

I'd like to think that Conner and Palmiotti were being ironic in their Marvel diss, that they were lampooning DC and themselves rather than taking a crack at their main competitors, as a quick survey of the output of the two publishers features a very, very, very wide gulf in terms of quality, originality, relevance, vitality and, of course, variety. DC mostly publishes New 52 comics which, with few exceptions, all look alike and share a very similar tone, whereas Marvel's output includes incredibly quirky books like a Mike Allred-drawn Silver Surfer, that All-New Ghost Rider, a superhero-humor-comic-that-is-actually-funny She-Hulk, sad-sack super-crime comedy The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, and books like Hawkeye, Daredevil, Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel.

I don't want to get into a Marvel vs. DC thing here, but Conner and Palmiotti apparently do, and for anyone at DC to be trying to troll Marvel in 2014 for being adverse to anything new and original is, well, crazy-sounding.

Like I said, I would like to think they weren't serious, but those panels immediately follow this weird-ass one, in which Palmiotti and Conner have Dan DiDio making fun of the frequent (constant?) complaints from fans and ex-DC creators that DC is just way too involved in dictating stories and interfering in the creative process in a way that is weird, random, unwelcome and unproductive and, obviously, usually results in pretty shitty comics:

I think the DiDio in the comic is meant to be making fun of the idea of letting creators go crazy and do what they want on their books, but that actually sounds kind of awesome, doesn't it?

The reason DC doesn't do that, DiDio's avatar seems to say, is that they won't sell more than a thousand units, which seems pretty contrary to much of the available evidence of auteur-style/creator-driven comics in the direct market that outsell a great deal of DC's output (Walking Dead, Saga, anything written by Mark Millar no matter how terrible it is), the general success of Marvel's current editorial model in relation to that of DC's (which almost always has a greater share of the market than DC's comics, and produces many more positive reviews) and even in-[DC's]house evidence, with DC's consistently best-selling comic being the one where Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo do whatever they want with Batman, and other outliers like Geoff Johns' Green Lantern franchise or Grant Morrison's Batman Inc being exempted from "New 52" continuity, save for a costume-tweaking here or there.

They're pretty damn weird jokes to be sharing a page, with creators Conner and Palmiotti arguing in favor of strict editorial control of books and that sales are the best metric of success in one panel, and then arguing in the next to panels that Marvel isn't willing to try new and original ideas like DC is.

I hope to discuss the book further and at greater length in the near future, when I get some time to review-review it, but, in the meantime, I wanted to at least stop and point at the unbelievable chutzpah of the Conner/Palmiotti writing team. This doesn't seem to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black so much as the pot calling the good china black.

DC's October previews reviewed

Halloween is in October, so it seems to be an appropriate month for DC to include "monster variants" of many of their titles. These are just what they sound like—images of the title characters depicted as monsters of one kind or another, like the above Flash cover by Ryan Ottley, which, like the Marvel Zombies comics, depicts a superhero as a zombie. Some of the others are a lot more inspired, to the point that I really like them, and would love to read comics in which the interiors matched the titles (That's how Archie's awesome Afterlife With Archie series began it's life actually, a Francesco Francavilla-drawn zombie cover of an Archie comic that writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and the publisher decided was so awesome it needed a comic to go with it).

Beyond that, October looks like an interesting month at DC, with a few new titles launching (two of which are Batman-adjacent titles, of course), and a few new creative teams coming aboard, like the already quite-celebrated-by-the-Internet Batgirl team. DC's also launching a third weekly series, which, impossible as it seems, actually looks less interesting than Futures End, and the never-ending Green Lantern crossovers will now involved The New Gods, which is...well, it's something (I've noted before, in relation to the announcement of the new and not-yet-canceled Infinity Man and The Forever People title, how odd it is that DC has been reintroducing the New Gods characters quite haphazardly in a half-dozen different titles by different creative teams, with little apparent coordination).

Here's a link to the complete solicitations, and my own slightly-belated assessment of them is, of course, below.

ARKHAM MANOR #1
Written by GERRY DUGGAN
Art and cover by SHAWN CRYSTAL
...
On sale OCTOBER 22 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
When catastrophe strikes Arkham Asylum, where will Gotham City house the world’s most dangerous criminals, and when inmates are found murdered, what is Batman prepared to do in search of justice? Arkham’s madness comes home in ARKHAM MANOR! A bold new series brought to you by the mad minds of Gerry Duggan (Deadpool, Nova) and Shawn Crystal (Deadpool, Wolverine and the X-Men).

One of the first suspension of disbelief problems I had with the Batman line of comics when I first started reading them as a teenager had to do with the fact that Arkham Asylum was so easily and frequently escaped from. The Alan Grant-written storyline "The Last Arkham" from the initial issues of The Shadow of The Bat introduced the new character of Jeremiah Arkham and featured a brand-new, upgraded, high-security version of Arkham that was meant to be practically escape-proof (which heightened the mystery element of the fact that Mr. Zsasz seemed to be able to be killing people on a nightly basis while locked away in the asylum).

"Well," I thought, "That should take care of that; I guess the writers will just have to be more creative about what happens to the villains at the ends of each story from now on, as they can't keep getting dropped off and sprung from Arkham each story arc any more."

I was so young and foolish then. Since then, of course, Arkham has become even easier to escape from, since writers and artists are (understandably) more hesitant to create new villains for Batman, and the increase in the number of Batman titles means the same pool of villains must be dipped into repeatedly, sometimes within the same month for different titles. (Also hard on the old suspension-of-disbelief? The fact that none of these guys ever gets executed, or at least sentenced to death, or, hell, killed by a police officer or a drone-launched missiles. In the New 52, not only is The Joker a mass-murderer with hundreds of deaths to his name, but so too is Harley Quinn, The Scarecrow and even The Mad Hatter, whose plots have involved large-scale, terrorist-like attacks).

I used to wonder why billionaire Bruce Wayne didn't devote his wealth, even if it took all of it, to building an impregnable Arkham Asylum and, later, wondered why Batman didn't just take some of his vilest villains into permanent custody himself in the Bat-cave. I imagined a story in which Batman would call on Mister Miracle to help him build an completely escape-proof cell in which to keep The Joker indefinitely in the Bat-cave; given Batman's willingness to break so many other laws, surely kidnapping a mass-murderer to prevent him from murdering again would be the sort of ethical line Batman would have no problem crossing, right?

This...isn't really that story, but it sounds close enough to be interesting. I can't tell from the image or the solicitation if this is meant to be in-continuity (in-new52ity) or not, as it sounds like the premise for a limited series or an Elseworlds/Imaginary Story type of thing, rather than an ongoing.

BATGIRL #35
Written by CAMERON STEWART and BRENDEN FLETCHER
Art by BABS TARR
Cover by CAMERON STEWART
MONSTERS Variant cover by KEVIN NOWLAN
On sale OCTOBER 8 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
Barbara Gordon is no stranger to dusting herself off when disaster strikes… so when a fire destroys everything she owned, she spots the opportunity for a new lease on life — and seizes it! Following the rest of Gotham’s young adults to the hip border district of Burnside, Barbara sets about building an all-new Batgirl… and discovers all-new threats preying on her peers! It’s a re-invention of Batgirl from the boots up, by the incredible creative team of Cameron Stewart (BATMAN INC.), Brenden Fletcher (WEDNESDAY COMICS), and rising star Babs Tarr!

As I said last week, this sounds like the exact sort of solicitation we should have read in like June of 2011, in reference to the relaunched and rebooted Barbara Gordon: Brand-new awesome-looking costume, exciting creative team featuring talented creators who weren't working on DCU ongoing monthlies during the years immediately preceding the reboot (I never quite understood the implied "These comics suck, we need to restart them all, and have the exact same people who were making the sucky ones make the new ones" argument of the reboot), one of whom is an up-and-coming, rising star who most DC readers will be meeting for the first time here.

And, as I also said the other day, better late than never.

I am amused by the fact that Babs' comic book will now be drawn by an artist also named Babs.

As everyone's already seen and gushed over Tarr's cover, here's the monster variant, by the almost always reliable Mr. Kevin Nowlan:

It's basically just Batgirl's original costume, only with nowhere for her voluminous red hair to stick out the back of the cowl. Those vampire fangs look hella goofy, though.

BATMAN #35
Written by SCOTT SNYDER
Backup story written by SCOTT SNYDER and JAMES TYNION IV
Art by GREG CAPULLO and DANNY MIKI
Cover by GREG CAPULLO
...
On sale OCTOBER 8 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
...
From the superstar creative team that brought you a new start to the Caped Crusader comes the story that could end him. Be there in October for the biggest, deadliest and most epic story yet from writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo – “Batman: Endgame” begins here!

For the sake of Batman, the Batman line, Batman fans, DC Comics and me as a reader of good Batman comics, I hope the title of this story arc and the fact that this is the "biggest, deadliest and most epic story yet" from the creative team doesn't signal the departure of the Snyder/Capullo team any time soon. I may be mistaken, but I believe that come October, they will be the only creative team still working on their title since September of 2011, when all of the DCU comics relaunched (Well actually, come November; the last issue of the Brian Azzarello/Cliff Chiang Wonder Woman ships in October, although it's worth noting that Wonder Woman has had many more fill-in artists on a much more frequent basis then Batman has yet needed).

Chris Burnham's "monster variant" for Batman and Robin, featuring the title characters as mummies, is easily the coolest thing in this month's solicitations, and it's a damn shame it's only a cover. Admit it; after looking at that image, you want to read Batman: The Dark Pharaoh Returns as bad as I do, don't you?

Or wait, maybe that's Egypt's member of Batman, Inc. and his sidekick, Robin the Ba Wonder...?


BATMAN ETERNAL #30
Written by SCOTT SNYDER, JAMES TYNION IV, RAY FAWKES, KYLE HIGGINS and TIM SEELEY
Art by FERNANDO PASARIN
Cover by CLAY MANN
On sale OCTOBER 29 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
The last time Deacon Blackfire took control of Gotham City, Batman nearly died...How will the city fare now that he wields unspeakable power?

"The last time"...? Seriously? Tim Drake's entire career as Robin has been retconned out of existence, along with Cassandra Cain, Oracle and Spoiler, but fucking Batman: The Cult is still in continuity...? Really? (Or is this just in reference to something in some New 52 Bat-title I missed...?)

Jon Bogdanove's monster variant cover for Batman/Superman #15 imagines the World's Finest team as a pair of superhero, crime-fighting werewolves.

The actual content of the comic book apparently involves Lord Satanus, Catwoman and Lois Lane, but eh, I think I'd rather read a comic book about Superman and Batman as werewolves, thanks. Can someone make that happen somewhere, please...?

BATWOMAN #35
Written by MARC ANDREYKO
Art by GEORGES JEANTY
Cover by RAFAEL ALBUQUERQUE
On sale OCTOBER 15 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+
The new storyline “Batwoman and the Unknowns” starts now with new artist Georges Jeanty (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)! Batwoman is neck-deep in danger with her new allies Ragman, The Demon, Clayface and Red Alice! What is going on and how did Batwoman end up here? Find out beginning in this issue!

I've been mostly ignoring this book since the creative team got kicked off it (and, it's worth noting, I didn't think the book was very good while they were on it, even if it was pretty and weird looking), but I do so love Ragman, one of my all-time favorite superhero costume designs, and I'm awfully fond of various versions of The Demon (though not the New 52 one introduced in the pages of Demon Kngihts, which looks to be the one being used here), so this has me curious.

That's a hell of a cool cover by Rafael Albuquerque, too...

CATWOMAN #35
Written by GENEVIEVE VALENTINE
Art by GARRY BROWN
Cover by JAE LEE
...
On sale OCTOBER 22 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+
...
Meet Selina Kyle – Crime Boss of Gotham City! Spinning out of events in BATMAN ETERNAL Selina has accepted the family mantle and embraced her true criminal side, but is Gotham City ready for her reign? And with the Cat away, who’s the stranger haunting the empty rooftops of the city? Don’t miss the start of a bold new direction for Selina Kyle by the new creative team of novelist Genevieve Valentine and Garry Brown (Five Ghosts, Iron Patriot).

All that cover is missing is a little dialogue bubble above the cat saying "Lying."

This is the most intersting sounding new direction for Catwoman in...forever? At least since she's had her own title she's been a thief with a heart-of-gold/sometime-vigilante, so having her return to crime and villainy, even if it's a softer, lesser-of-two-evils kind of thing, as this solicitation and the goings-on of Batman Eternal seem to suggest, sounds interesting.

Like Batgirl, this seems like another case where this is the sort of team and direction that would have made more sense with a rebooted Catwoman #1 in September 2011, not the start of Creative Team #3 (giver or take a team) on Catwoman #35 in October 2014, but, again, better late than never....

DEATHSTROKE #1
Written by TONY S. DANIEL
Art by TONY S. DANIEL and SANDU FLOREA
Cover by TONY S. DANIEL
...
On sale OCTOBER 22 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+
Retailers: This issue will ship with two covers. Please see the order form for details.
The DCU’s deadliest assassin stars in his own ongoing series by writer/artist Tony S. Daniel! See him as never before in this explosive new series, with one surprise after another as we see Slade Wilson in the fight of his life!

Well, the one positive of DC's trying to keep 52-ish monthlies in print, despite the fact that the market couldn't support that many DCU titles, was that it meant the publisher could keep throwing out unlikely-seeming characters and concepts in new books that, even if they were swiftly canceled, allowed them to try something different and/or to renew whatever trademarks or copyrights are associated with them.

I was sorta hoping we'd see Shazam, Plastic Man, Kid Eternity, All-Star All-Star Squadron and Robin, The Boy Wonder, Angel and The Ape featuring Zauriel and Congorilla, The Red Bee, The Legion of Super-Pets, Club of Heroes, The Forgotten Heroes, The Wonder Twins and Cave Carson before they started re-launching books from the first wave of New 52 titles that were canceled, but whatever, DC's re-launching Deathstroke, one of the first 52 books of the New 52, canceled not really all that long ago. This time Tony Daniel's writing and drawing it, so maybe that will prove more salable than having Rob Liefeld attached...? Maybe...?

EARTH 2: WORLD’S END #1
Written by DANIEL H. WILSON, MARGUERITE BENNETT and MIKE JOHNSON
Art by ARDIAN SYAF, JORGE JIMENEZ, EDDY BARROWS and PAULO SIQUIERA
Cover by ARDIAN SYAF and JAIME MENDOZA
...
On sale OCTOBER 8 • 48 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
Daniel H. Wilson, New York Times best-selling author of Robopocalypse and Robogenesis, delves into the world of EARTH 2 for the start of a new weekly series that will see the origins of a world much like the New 52 Earth, but yet so different. A world that saw its greatest heroes die – and new ones take their places. A world where Superman became it’ greatest villain, and a man named Zod seeks to save it, along with Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash and other heroes. A world they can only save from the forces of Apokolips through great personal sacrifice! Death and destruction will follow each week, and you’ll never know who will live and who will die! It all begins with this extra-sized debut issue!

So here's DC's third weekly series, set on Earth-2, which, as that cover and the solicits for the first few issues will clue you in even if you haven't been paying attention to the title, bears less and less resemblance to the original Earth 2 conception, and has become more and more of an Elseworlds Justice League story.

Note the second-to-last line: "Death and destruction will follow each week, and you'll never know who will live and who will die!" I thought that was, like, all the DC comics now...?

Judging from this first batch of solicits, it looks like the writing team will all be involved with writing each issue, and each issue will feature multiple artists, which makes it different from both New 52: Futures End and Batman Eternal.

GOTHAM ACADEMY #1
Written by BECKY CLOONAN and BRENDEN FLETCHER
Art and cover by KARL KERSCHL
...
On sale OCTOBER 1 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
WELCOME TO GOTHAM ACADEMY! Gotham City’s most prestigious prep school is a very weird place. It’s got a spooky campus, oddball teachers, and rich benefactors always dropping by...like that weirdo Bruce Wayne. But nothing is as strange is the students!

Like, what’s up with Olive Silverlock? Is she crazy or what? Where did she go last summer? And what’s the deal with her creepy mom? And how come that Freshman MAPS is always following her around? And is she still going out with Kyle? P.S. Did you hear the rumor about the ghost in the North Hall?!

GOTHAM ACADEMY is a new, monthly teen drama set in the shadow of Batman and the craziness of Gotham City, with new characters and old plus a secret tie to Gotham’s past…

If this lives up to the promise of Batman comics + teen drama/high school comedy, then this promise to be the most exciting comic book in DC's line. To me. Until they publish a Chris Burnham Batman-and-Robin-as-mummies comic, anyway.

Jan Duursema's "monster variant" for Grayson. I honestly didn't recognize her work here, it's changed so much since DC/TSR's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, my gateway comic book.


GREEN ARROW #35
Written by ANDREW KREISBERG and BEN SOKOLOWSKI
Art by DANIEL SAMPERE
Cover by BRYAN HITCH
On sale OCTOBER 1 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Welcome new series writers straight from the hit TV show Arrow! Ollie is trying to put his life together after the grueling events of “Broken,” and finds himself back in Seattle on a mission from a mystery woman. Who is she – and what’s next for Green Arrow?

What's next for Green Arrow? I don't know. Probably another new creative team in 8-12 months, the way that guy's title seems to go through creative teams.


HARLEY QUINN ANNUAL #1
Written by AMANDA CONNER and JIMMY PALMIOTTI
Art by JOHN TIMMS
Cover by AMANDA CONNER
...
On sale OCTOBER 29 • 48 pg, FC, $5.99 US • RATED T
...
We have to warn you, readers: This issue stinks! Seriously! Like, unpleasant odors are literally in the story! In this first-ever HQ ANNUAL, take a trip to Harley’s home of Coney Island in a groundbreaking “scent-ticular” issue, featuring actual, honest-to-gosh smells. This issue comes polybagged to contain the stench.

I have mentioned before that DC's latest take on Harley Quinn, as exemplified in her own title rather than Suicide Squad, is basically a sexy, scantily-clad, lady version of Marvel's Deadpool, right? Here's...what are letter are we on now?...Exhibit E.

Artist John Timms is one of the several artists who contributed to this week's mostly-bad Harley Quinn Invades Comic-Con International special (which I'll discuss at greater length in the near future); he's pretty good, and his Harley is probably the most overtly sexy of all the Harleys in the issue, wit the smallest, tightest depiction of her costume.

EDILW favorite Guillem March's cover for Justice League Dark Annual #2, the solicitation for which reads, in its entirety, "The JLD team struggles to contain the House of Mystery and the House of Secrets when both take human form!" So that's what's going on in that image.

I haven't really liked Justice League United, like, at all, but here's the October issue's monster variant, courtesy of EDILW favorite Kelley Jones.

KLARION #1
Written by ANN NOCENTI
Art and cover by TREVOR McCARTHY
1:25 Variant cover by FRAZER IRVING
On sale OCTOBER 8 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
...
Klarion the Witch Boy makes his New 52 debut and stands for the forces of chaos in this new ongoing series!

Klarion the Witch Boy! See, that's the kind of title it's nice to see DC throwing out there for a year before it gets cancelled, instead of the second attempt at a Deathstroke title in three years.

This appears to be Ann Nocenti and Trevor McCarthy's version of Grant Morrison and Frazer Irving's version of Jack Kirby's character, so, um, I have no idea what to expect.

THE NEW 52: FUTURES END #22
Written by BRIAN AZZARELLO, JEFF LEMIRE, DAN JURGENS and KEITH GIFFEN
Art by PATRICK ZIRCHER
Cover by RYAN SOOK
On sale OCTOBER 1 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
How will the world react to discovering the identity of the masked Superman?

Hmm, the cover seems to suggest Captain Marvel Shazam in the Superman suit, but he looks enough like Superman that he wouldn't really need a helmet like that, would he...?


SUPERMAN #35
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art and cover by JOHN ROMITA, JR. and KLAUS JANSON
...
On sale OCTOBER 22 • 32 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
...
The hit SUPERMAN run by Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr. continues with “THE MEN OF TOMORROW” Chapter four! Superman and Ulysses are still dealing with the traumatic revelations of last issue, but the hunt for The Machinist must continue before his would-be-victims fall into his hands. But what happens when the two heroes learn the truth behind The Machinist and the cost to stopping his mad plan?

What's that? The Machinist?

Surely Superman's not going up against this guy...

Is he?

So guess who I ran into the other night

I was in my local Barnes and Noble the other night, walking between the cafe and the graphic novel section in the back corner of the store, when something oddly familiar but out-of-place caught my eye. There was a table of gaudy green plastic set up about midway between the service desk and the music section, decorated with a very large, wouldn't-this-look-nice-haning-on-your-wall image of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters on a stand in the middle of the table.

The merchandise all around it was all associated with the current Nickelodeon animated series featuring the characters, including such random things as Lego sets and starter reader books and action figures, but co-creator Kevin Eastman looks like he pretty much jsut drew the characters as he always has, the only nod to any post-Eastman and Laird life of the characters being the variously-colored masks on the four ninja turtles.

As classic as it may look, the signature, barely visible in this picture, but the blades on the back of The Shredder's left hand are pointing at it, reads "Eastman '14." Even harder to make out is the fine-print in the lower right-hand corner of the image, which reads, "Artwork created exclusively for Barnes and Noble." While I woulda preferred to see it on a table filled with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics, it's a hell of a nice image (someday it would be neat if someone tried making a movie or animated something-or-over that looks just like that, only in motion), and that's cool that Barnes and Noble presumably commissioned an original piece of art from the co-creator of the characters to put up in their stores as the latest movie looms in theaters.

I'm all for randomly stumbling across large, public displays of art from favorite cartoonists in unexpected places.

The Batman/Judge Dredd Collection, Part 3: The Ultimate Riddle

As mentioned in the last installment, 1995's Batman/Judge Dredd: The Ultimate Riddle seems to have been the result of some sort of scheduling issue, perhaps with the artists or with some unguessable outside factor. The story is not so inspired that one imagines writers John Wagner and Alan Grant having a brilliant Riddler story they wanted to tell, and decided to tell it before they got to a more proper, epic conclusion to the their stories of the two crimefighters clashing, and it exists in an almost Elseworlds-like corner of the Batman line, so it's not like editorial pressures should have been a factor.

Whatever the reason, readers of Vendetta in Gotham were told to expect Die Laughing in 1994, but instead got no Dredd/Batman team-ups in that year, and then got The Ultimate Riddle the following year. And whatever the ultimate origins of Ultimate Riddle, it brought painted artwork back into the fold, with artist Carl Critchlow handling the majority of the book (31 pages) and Dermot Power handling the rest (13 pages).

The story begins with Batman receiving a clue from The Riddler, and chasing the villain down, before a strange green light zaps them both, and they find themselves sharing one of many hanging cages in a dark room. In one of them is Judge Dredd, and the felon he was pursuing before being zapped there, someone he refers to as "The Creep," but who appears to be a The Creep and not the The Creep. Other warriors from other places are in the other cages; most of these have convincing enough names and looks that I suspected some of them might have been pulled from Judge Dredd's home comics, but a quick Internet search doesn't show any other appearances for Mekarnos Mandroid, Brutalix, Living Nightmare, Sauron-Dos or Gulagg of Gnulp anywhere else. There is one other character from the DC Universe...sorta. This is Yanok, who is a member of the Khund race of aliens in the DCU.

They've all been gathered by a mysterious, weird-looking figure with a magical wand calling himself "Emperor Xero." Upon his arrival, The Riddler immediately demands he be paid for luring Batman into a trap, and Xero responds by killing The Riddler dead. On page 9. If that seems like a pretty quick exit for The Riddler in a prestige format Batman book with the word "Riddle" in the title—and it sure seemed like it to me—don't worry; all is not what it seems.

Xero has gathered these gladiators to play a game of his own amusement. He produces a giant, eight-sided Dungeons & Dragons die to roll to choose the "quarry." It will be the task of the other seven to hunt and kill the quarry, and whoever successfully does so will be set free; the others will all be killed.

The die lands on Batman, and Xero teleports the eight players into a bizarre urban environment—one with even stranger and more sinister gargoyles than even Gotham City—from whence the hunt can commence.

Obviously Batman wants no part of the game, as his role is to either be killed or to kill Dredd and the other six hunters. And while Dredd isn't as adverse to killing as Batman, he shouts at Xero, "I kill for no man's entertainment!" (No, Joe? What about for the entertainment of your many readers?).

The other six have no moral qualms about killing Batman, Dredd or each other. The entire middle act of the book features a sort of violent game of hide-and-seek involving the various characters, with Batman and Dredd kinda sorta teaming up as they battle the various villains, who come in such forms as an S&M minotaur, an android with a gatling gun for one hand and a rocket launcher for the other and a humanoid lizard, all the while bickering over Dredd's quickness to kill (Batman even gets pissed when Dredd puts a bullet in bull-man Brutalix's knee-cap, instead of just leaving him tied up with a bat-rope to a pillar, punching the good judge hard enough to summon blood spray and put him on his ass).

The Living Nightmare has some kind of psychic nightmare powers, which he uses on Batman, summoning up some of his wort fears, which gives Power the opportunity to do a neat inside-Batman's-mind splash page of the sort that Simon Bisley painted in Judgement on Gotham:

He puts in a lot more villains. Notably missing is Catwoman, who was in Batman's mind in Judgement and, among the additions, is the then rather new Bane (who was only two years old at the time).

Now, to spoil the ending, so don't read on if you don't want to know what's-what with the story, it turns out Batman and Dredd are the only players left standing and/or breathing at the end, and, Batman manages to figure out The Riddler's riddle from page 2 just in time to unmask Xero.

This whole thing was an elaborate ruse built by a super sci-fi power scepter that appeared in front of The Riddler.

So that makes The Ultimate Riddle maybe the weirdest of DC's Zero Hour crossovers; so weird it wasn't even labeled as such! (You know, DC could really do with some trade paperback collections of Zero Hour tie-ins. A lot of those ones where time is messed up are really rather good; certainly there were enough solid Batman ones to fill a decent-sized trade paperback).

I was thinking about it after reading this, and I couldn't recall any other occasions in which Alan Grant had written The Riddler, who was more-or-less in some sort of semi-retirement for a large chunk of the 1990s (Maybe everyone liked Neil Gaiman's "last" Riddler story in 1989's Secret Origins Special #1 so much that no one much felt like writing new Riddler stories for a while, with the possible exception of Peter Milligan in "Dark Knight, Dark City"...?). At any rate, he's one of the few Batman rogues I can't think of an example of Grant writing during his long collaboration with Norm Breyfogle, although maybe he did and I'm just having trouble remembering. But Riddler's stated motivation of always wanting to kill Batman seems a little...off to me.

After an intense showdown with an interesting result, The Riddler is wounded and Batman gets his hands on the scepter, their ticket out of here, as Dredd puts it, adding, "Any idea how it works?"

"If Riddler can figure it out, we can," Batman says.

And so this story seems to have a little in common with the first crossover, being once again fully-painted, and a bit more in common with the second (featuring just a single Batman villain and no Dredd villains save the perp he was in the middle of strip-searching when they were zapped here, taking place partially in Gotham and not at all in Mega-City One).

It's not until the next—and final—Dredd/Batman crossover that the series will again combine the settings, supporting characters and villains of both franchises. And what a big, epic story that will be, boasting a length somewhere in the area of double that of the first three, and featuring The Joker and all four Dark Judges...

Quick question for Stephanie Brown fans in the reading audience

I have a friend currently working her way through the previous volume of Batgirl comics, the one prior to the New 52-reboot, starring Stephanie Brown as Batgirl.

She asked me what other trades were available featuring Stephanie as Robin and Spoiler and I drew a blank. As a supporting character, I know she appears here and there, in some of the Batgirl trades featuring Cassandra Cain, for example, or in the big Bat-crossovers, but are there any, like, Stephanie/Spoiler/Robin IV-heavy trades you guys can think of to recommend...?

Thanks!

Meanwhile and Misc.

I've had a couple of articles about comics appear in places that aren't here this week, so let's get links to those out of the way first before I babble about some other comics-related stuff. First, I reviewed the first volume of the new manga series My Love Story!! by Kazune Kawahara and Aruko at Good Comics For Kids. That's the cover there. I really rather liked it.

Then I reviewed Justice League United #1, Grayson #1 and New Suicide Squad #3 (the above classy panel is from the last of those) at Robot 6 today. None of those are particularly good; there's some well-drawn action in Grayson, which is probably the strongest of the three, and some poorly-drawn action in Suicide Squad; I couldn't help wondering if the book was as terrible as it looked and read, or if a more competent artist with a style of his or her own might have been able to sell it as something better than it seems now. For other, more expert opinions on Grayson allow me to direct you to Comics Alliance's Batman super-fan Chris Sims, who really liked the book, and to Robot 6's DC expert Tom Bondurant, who tries to contextualize it in the publisher's history and its current shared-universe setting. Me, I think I'm okay with the one issue I read, and, if I continue to hear good things, I'll happily check out the trade.

And, finally, I wrote at some length about Scooby-Doo Team-Up #5 by Sholly Fisch and Dario Brizuela for Comics Alliance. That's the one in which the gang journeys to Paradise Island to help Wonder Woman and her sisters solve a mystery, and it turns out to be every bit as awesome as a Scooby-Doo/Wonder Woman team-up should be.

And that's all the stuff I wrote for other places this week. Couple of other things I wanted to note, though.

*********************

First, I woke up to some really good news today: DC is redesigning Batgirl's godawful New 52 costume into something that actually looks cool, and they're putting an extremely promising new creative team on the book. You can real all about it here.

I'm not as familiar with the work of co-writer Brendan Fletcher and artist Barbara Tarr as Sims and some of his fellow Comics Alliance Allies are, but I'm a huge fan of Cameron Stewart, who will apparently be writing, providing layouts and doing covers (The Cameron Stewart tag to the right, you'll notice, is not simply "Cameron Stewart," but "Cameron Stewart Is Awesome").

I really like the new costume, which looks like something that might have come out of a Project: Rooftop redesign contest, and I like the fact that Batgirl looks like an actual teenager girl. I like that there's some style and personality to the artwork as well, and that it doesn't just look like muddied WildStorm art. Everything about this announcement—the new costume design, the new creative team consisting of talented pros who weren't already working on DC monthlies in summer of 2011—seems like the exact sort of announcement DC should have been making when they first announced their New 52 line, not three years into it. But, well, better late than never!

******************

This announcement regarding another DC character made me laugh and laugh though. It's about a new Deathstroke title, which will be the second attempt at a Deathstroke solo book since the New 52's September 2011 launch (that first book lasted 20 issues, even surviving Rob Liefeld's involvement, before ultimately being canceled last summer). Writer/artist Tony S. Daniel, who has hopped around from book-to-book quite a bit the last few years (he was the original, rebooted TEC creator, he wrote the since-canceled Savage Hawkman, he illustrated an arc of Justice League and Superman/Wonder Woman), will be writing and drawing it.

Perhaps I'm just not familiar enough with MTV's style and audience, but the article completely baffled me, right up until the Q-and-A portion, where I quit reading, because I don't really care about Deathstroke and/or Tony S. Daniel.

First, the post is labeled "movies," though it's obviously about comic books.

Then the story is designated as "exclusive," which, to be fair to MTV, is something a lot of entertainment sites do (probably even some that pay me), even though it's ridiculous to do so when the story in question appears on the Internet: I mean, I just linked to it here, and am talking about it here, so how exclusive is it, really? It's not like one needs to buy the latest issue of The MTV Daily News in order to hear that DC is launching a new Deathstroke comic.

The headline refers to Deathstroke as "'Arrow' Bad Guy Deathstroke," so apparently the character is on the TV show Arrow. But then, what gives with this part of the lede...?

The unstable assassin, who once took down the Justice League single-handedly, may be better known to the public at large as the main villain in the second, blockbuster season of “Arrow.”

But his all-new solo adventures may bring him an even bigger audience, thanks to writer/artist Tony S. Daniel and co-artist Sandu Florea, who will team up for the monthly series.

The comic book character identified in the headline as a character known from a TV show is better known for appearing in a TV show than in comics, but now he's getting another new solo ongoing comic, which might bring him to an "even bigger" audience than the TV show?

Is there any comic book in North America in which has a bigger audience than any television show in North America? Like, Batman scores some 100,000 pairs of eyeballs a month, but 100,000 viewers a month would be a terrible statistic for any television show, right? Like, there are infomercials that draw bigger numbers than most mid-list DC and Marvel super-comics, right? And this is just another Tony Daniel comic and another attempt at a title that the market soundly rejected as recently as a year ago.

I also don't really get the sub-head—"Company that sells things to sell a thing!"—or the reference to DC selling a bust of Deathstroke as an attempt by the publisher "to sweeten the pot." What is "the pot" in this metaphor? The Deathstroke monthly comic? How does the availability of a bust sweeten it?

Anyway, this article was stupid and dumb and I hated it, but it made me laugh a bunch, so I also loved it.

*********************

I'm not sure where I saw the link that lead me to that weird MTV story, but it was definitely at The Comics Reporter that I saw a link to this article in The Hollywood Reporter-affiliated blog Heat Vision regarding the fact that Marvel is going to be temporarily replacing Captain America with a new, temporary Captain America. Again.

Remember, it was just a couple of years ago that OC (Original Captain) Steve Rogers resumed the identity that his one-time sidekick Bucky Barnes had assumed while Steve was temporarily "dead."

I have no idea how this storyline came about, but I like to imagine Captain America writer Rick Remender in a meeting with a Marvel Editor, pitching the story, and the editor responding, "Didn't we just do this story? How long has it been since Ed Brubaker wrote this same basic thing?"

And Remender replying, "And how long has it been since you relaunched Captain America with a new #1 after the last time you relaunched it with a new #1...?"

At which point the editor nods "Fair point," and signs off on the idea.

***********************

I walked into my friend's apartment the other day, and she was watching the direct-to-DVD animated movie Justice League: War, which seems to have been pretty tightly based on Geoff Johns, Jim Lee and company's first six issues of Justice League, the story that kicked off The New 52 and served as the new origin of the Justice League.

I assumed it was very near the ending, given that they were already fighting Darkseid, but it went on a bit longer than I would have guessed. There was a lot more action than in the splash-page filled comic book, which was one of the more notable changes. The most notable change was that they had swapped out Aquaman for Captain Marvel Shazam. That was fine with me; I think Captain Marvel should be part of the nine-hero core for any good Justice League (The first seven you think of, plus Plastic Man and Cap).

I was quite surprised by how much swearing there was. I gasped at the first few hells, damns and asses, and again when I heard "shit;" my friend repeatedly told me it was rated PG-13, so it was okay, and that I had missed the word "douche" or "douchebag."

I was surprised still more by how violent it was. Wonder Woman stabs out one of Darkseid's eyes, this being the gung-ho, brutal warrior version of Wonder Woman (in a new costume; all of the costume designs are slightly stripped-down, better-looking versions of the one's Jim Lee created, with only Wonder Woman and Shazam looking radically different). That wasn't that shocking; but Barry "The Flash" Allen listening when Wonder Woman tells him to take out Darkseid's other eye? And then proceeding to grab a crowbar and jam it into Darkseid's eye? That was shocking. (For a second, I thought he was going to use it to pry out Darkseid's eyeball; instead he just shoves it into his eye and then Shazam uses it as a lightning rod).

The final surprise was how cheap it looked. I guess they used some computer effects in order to multiply the same images of Parademons to fill the skies, and the scenes of them in flight look ridiculously fake and cheap. It's worse when Boom Tube portals are opened up all over, and the Parademons get sucked into them. It looked like an Aqua Teen Hunger Force level of animation sophistication to my untrained eye.

I liked how big Darkseid was, and I thought they did an okay job of updating his look, so it looked closer to that of Jim Lee's than Jack Kirby's, but not as dumb as Lee's did. And I thought it was interesting that they gave Shazam lightning powers. That is, in addition to being the vehicle by which his powers are channeled into him, lightning is something he uses as an offensive weapon, shooting it out of his hands and fists. As presented here, Captain Marvel/Shazam is more of a Black Lightning/Superman hybrid than a magic riff on Superman.

As for my friend's reaction, she said I missed a really funny part with Wonder Woman, and when I asked if it involved ice cream, she said that it did.

She was not a fan of Green Lantern at all, repeatedly saying he was the worst superhero and the worst, and she laughed incredulously at his using his ring to create boxing gloves, catcher's mitts and a bed (on which he caught a falling Flash). She was pretty familiar with all of the characters except Green Lantern, and was I guess caught off-guard by him.

She didn't really understand why Shazam/Captain Marvel wasn't really working right either, despite not being super-familiar with the character (I believe her only prior experience to him was in the Young Justice cartoon, and the direct-to-DVD Flashpoint Paradox movie). "Isn't he supposed to turn back into a little boy when he says that?" she asked, "Why isn't he turning back into a boy?" She also thought it strange that he'd take his magic word for his name, as he shouldn't be able to introduce himself without transforming.

So in your face, DC; here is a relative newcomer to the character who had no problem distinguishing "Shazam!" the magic word from Captain Marvel, the character who appears and disappears when the magic word is said.