News Roundup – July 14, 2012
The San Diego Comic Con is in full swing, and though I will have lots to share with you all as a result, the convention will still be going on when this News column goes live; therefore, anything I miss I will cover with all of my favorite Heathens next week. Let’s get into it, eh?
Probably the biggest news I have read thus far out of SDCC is that Neil Gaiman is returning to Vertigo Comics with a brand new Sandman mini-series in 2013. Look for it in October or November of that year to celebrate 25 years of Sandman! J.H. Williams III will be providing the art for the mini. The story takes place right before Sandman is captured in the first issue of the original series. Some have jokingly called it “Before Sandman”, but many stories in Sandman took place before the first issue as the Sandman story was never quite linear in the way it was told. This is huge for the Vertigo imprint and for Sandman fans in particular!
Speaking of Gaiman, the writer gave his blessing for his Books of Magic character Tim Hunter to be incorporated into Justice League Dark. I cannot wait to see what Jeff Lemire does with the character.
Nathan Edmondson (Who is Jake Ellis?, Grifter) will be writing a four issue Ultimate Comics Iron Man mini-series for October with Matteo Buffangni (Daken) on the art. I may not have loved Edmondson’s Grifter, but that wasn’t because it was bad and instead just different from what I loved about the Wildstorm character. See DC? Take him off of Grifter and Marvel snatched him right up. Maybe you should have given him a new book instead of giving Rob Liefeld three of them.
Chris Roberson is writing the crossover mini-series Masks for Dynamite Entertainment that will see pulp heroes The Shadow, Zorro, The Spider, Green Hornet, Miss Fury, Kato, The Black Batand, and more teaming up together. Alex Ross will paint the entire series. That’s right, it is the first painted comic he has done since Justice. I will definitely be reading this one.
Artist Becky Cloonan (Conan the Barbarian, Demo) will be joining writer Gerald Way (The Umbrella Academy) on a new comic for Dark Horse called Killjoys. Look for it in 2013.
J. Michael Straczynski is reviving his Joe’s Comics imprint at Image in Spring 2013 with comic book titles Falling Angel, Ten Grand, Sidekick, and Guardians. He has also launched Studio JMS to produce comics, TV, film, and games.
Continuing the trend of creators focusing on more creator-owned books, artist Terry Dodson decided not to renew his Marvel Exclusive to concentrate more on his creator-owned comics.
The next big storyline in the Batman book will feature the Joker, but it will also reteam writer Scott Snyder with artist Jock, who will be providing the art on the back-up stories in the book. This is excellent news as their run on Detective Comics was one of my favorite Batman stories ever!
Writer Duane Swierczynski will be writing and artist Nelson Daniel will be illustrating the new Judge Dredd at IDW in November. I think this will be a great team for the character and look forward to see what they have in store.
Dan Jurgens is taking over writing and illustrating The Fury of Firestorm starting in October with issue #13. I think the biggest surprise for me was not Jurgens taking the title over, but that it had not been canceled yet.
The Hulk will become Red She-Hulk with issue #58 and the spotlight will shift from Thunderbolt Ross’ Red Hulk to Betty Banner’s Red She-Hulk. I actually think this will make it a much more entertaining book. Jeff Parker will stay on as the writer.
Speaking of the Hulk, it has not been confirmed, but rumors point to the relaunched Incredible Hulk title for Marvel Now! being written by Mark Waid with art by Leinil Yu! Man, I hope this is true!
Writer/Artist Terry Moore stated that Rachel Rising will go on for another 30-40 issues and after that his next project will be an all-ages comic. Moore is also writing an all prose Strangers In Paradise story in time for the 20th Anniversary.
Dynamite Entertainment will be rebooting the Evil Ernie character in October. Jesse Blaze Snider is writing the new series with art by Jason Craig.
Bryan Q. Miller recently announced that in Smallville Season Eleven that the introduction of Batman would find him not with Robin, but with a female Nightwing and that it would be the Smallville version of Stephanie Brown. I thought this was a great idea since it was not mainstream DC continuity and it sounded like something that Smallville might have done. Also, since Miller wrote a great Batgirl series starring Stephanie, it felt like the perfect fit. Sadly we now know that DC has decided they don’t want Stephanie Brown in the comic at all and are making Miller change the character to Barbara Gordon. Dan Didio claims he only wanted the “iconic” versions of characters in Smallville. He obvious never watched Smallville because many characters – such as Green Arrow, Doomsday, Supergirl, and many others – were not necessarily the “iconic” versions of those characters and all had a Smallville twist to them. Heck, Flash was always Bart Allen and there never was a Barry or Wally. I think an alternate reality like Smallville is the perfect opportunity to bring back fan-favorite characters they do not have room for in the DC52. If it was not for the Sandman news I would probably not have been very happy with the DC news coming out of SDCC.
One interesting bit from DC was that there is only one Darkseid in the DC52. That the one that appeared in Justice League is also the one mentioned in Earth 2, hinting that Darkseid can move within the multiverse. It could also be the bridge that eventually crosses Earth 2 with the regular DC52.
David Marquez, the current artist on Ultimate Spider-Man, has signed an exclusive contract with Marvel. This is good for both parties since his art is amazing.
Actress Jessica Biel has been cast as Viper in The Wolverine film. It is too bad we could not have gotten her a better comic book character. She’s in very fit shape, is all I am saying. Ahem.
Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliff, will star in the film adaptation of Joe Hill’s novel Horns. I actually think this is a rather good move casting-wise. Alexandre Aja will be directing the movie.
-SJD
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The DC news is actually pretty boring. Bottom Line the new DCU was a mistake in my opinion. None of the capes books are that good and even Snyder’s work on Batman is below his best work. It more interesting to see so many creators like Brubaker and Dodson walk away and do creator owned work. I think Marvel and DC need to find away to reward the creators for bringing in new characters, but sadly both companies seem content to play a pat hand. The best DC stuff, is BW, and that recipe is great writers and great artists, tell a story and get out, it seems to work.
I agree that the new DCU hasn’t been very good, but I’m not sure that makes it a mistake. Think back to where DC was before Flashpoint. We’d just come out of a year-long Brightest Day whose sole purpose seemed to be to resurrect Swamp Thing. If nothing else they cleared the deck of a lot of dead wood, though they’ve certainly squandered the opportunity. As you pointed out at the time, they left the same people in charge (Didio and Johns) and seem to have a lot of the same problems. At least they are trying some different thing, though too many re-treads in the creative department have bogged them down. Still, from a bottom line point of view I suspect they’re happy with the increased sales.
Except for the Sandman news, the best news out of SDCC were all of the creator-owned books coming from Image Comics! That’ll be in the column for next week.
And Marvel had nothing exciting really except for talking about their movies.