52 Geek-Out: Multiverse
[continued from yesterday]
I’m taking a break from listing the 37 main DC Universe titles in my DC reboot,
due in part to issues recovering files after the latest round of computer woes, to share the 15 series of the overall 52 that are part of the non- or alternate-continuity DC Multiverse line-within-a-line. (As with the actual DC relaunch, my 52 titles only cover the core DC continuity dominated by superhero adventure, not the Vertigo imprint, licensed-property titles, titles aimed primarily at younger readers, and so forth.)
The first trio consists of series divorced from continuity with rotating features and creative hands. While everything after that — save for the last title — stands on its own, a couple of series are linked by virtue of being set in the same fictional reality. You can of course rest assured that all the old stories you love still “exist” somewhere out there as well...
My rationale for superhumans and even supertech in this new multiverse paradigm
is that when Kal-El’s rocket arrived from Krypton its wormhole brought with it massive energy that over time accounts for the development or at least the gone-into-overdrive mutation of a metagene whose effects vary from enhanced intelligence to hardiness and longevity to staggering powers in a small but significant minority of the population. That’s something I recall discussing with other fans way back when Crisis on Infinite Earths brought about the first intentional overhaul of DC cosmology 25 years ago; I don’t remember at this point whether we came up with it ourselves or it was suggested by a likely culprit such as John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, or Len Wein in the comics press. The parallel realities in my multiverse differ in when or if a Kryptonian craft landed on Earth, with the debut of Superman or his analogue occurring in ways both strange and familiar yet always marking a kind of singularity in each reality’s development of supernormal phenomena.
All-Star Comics
Batman Beyond
The Brave and the Bold
Writers / Artists: various
All-Star Comics is an anthology that allows contributors from within and without the comics industry to present their takes on characters and concepts spanning DC’s rich and varied history — from Superman to the Sea Devils to Space Cabbie. Of course, almost everyone gravitates towards a certain Dark Knight when invited to dabble in the DC realm, so there’s also Batman Beyond for that very purpose. The Brave and the Bold lives up to its title by inviting creators to conjure up sequels to and/or “remixed” versions of classic tales.
52 Geek-Out: DCU Part 2
[continued from yesterday]
The Atom
Writer: Mark Waid / Artist: Chad Hardin
Ray Palmer has disappeared and Ryan Choi aims to find him, but if, as Ryan suspects, his former physics professor has shrunk to submolecular size, that’s like searching for a needle in a haystack among a nearly infinite succession of barns. Meanwhile, as The Atom, he’s put through his paces as a fledgling superhero by master craftsman Mark Waid [Kingdom Come], who expertly probes the perspectives of those with seemingly impossible abilities, here joined by his Traveler fellow Chad Hardin [Countdown to Mystery]. The stunningly detailed Geof Darrow is on cover duty.
52 Geek-Out: DCU Part 1
I put up a substantial preface to this batch of posts on Friday, but to recap in brief:
DC Comics’ May 31st announcement that it would relaunch its main superhero line
with 52 new or rejiggered titles come September prompted a friend of mine to put out
a call for folks to brainstorm a wish list of what those titles and their creative teams should be. I took up the challenge and, before I knew it, had premises for the whole deck of cards within a new paradigm.
The bulk of my line takes place within a “rebooted” DC Universe whose heroic age began at the dawn of the new millennium with the first appearance of Superman. A few of the series are showcase titles with rotating creative teams divorced from continuity, while a dozen more are largely disconnected but together can be seen as evidence of a wider DC Multiverse; we’ll get to those shortly. I figured that it made sense to start with the big guns.
I did all of this save for some tweaking before DC itself had released much information on its actual slate of titles, by the way, so it’s interesting to see how different and in a few cases how similar my imagined and DC’s genuine rosters turned out to be.
Superman
Writer: Peter J. Tomasi / Artist: Rags Morales
Clark Kent is the Last Son of Krypton. He was raised by a good, kind couple in the heartland of the USA, but although he feels human he knows that, biologically at least, he isn’t — that’s as obvious from his amazing strength, speed, senses, and other super-powers as it is from the alien craft that bore him. For the past decade, since revealing his existence to the world as Superman, he’s inspired others with special abilities to
join his never-ending battle against crime, hatred, and injustice, including some who are themselves from beyond the stars. And while his dedication as well as his very origins have prompted much of humanity to unite, looking at the cosmos in a whole new way, there are those (of pure and perverse intentions) searching for answers to why the 21st century has ushered Earth into the realm of what seems like science fiction. Peter J. Tomasi [Batman and Robin, Green Lantern Corps] pairs with his Nightwing cohort Rags Morales [Hourman, Identity Crisis] to begin an enduring legend anew. Jeffrey Spokes, who provided stunning variants for Boom!’s Irredeemable, handles the covers.
Cameras and Aliens
At some point, Super 8 went from being a top-secret J.J. Abrams movie to being
the J.J. Abrams / Steven Spielberg project.
Photo: François Duhamel © 2011 Paramount Pictures.
I’d say it’s an apt descriptor even though Spielberg “only” served as a producer on
the film, which Abrams wrote and directed. Much as Cloverfield — a previous “top-secret J.J. Abrams movie” — was “only” produced by Abrams yet has Abrams’ fingerprints all over it, Super 8 is so redolent of what you think of when you think of
A Steven Spielberg Film that if Abrams and Spielberg weren’t known to have kicked around the project together for years it would fall almost unnervingly between homage and thematic plagiarism. The movie features precocious kids with deep bonds, distracted but ultimately devoted parents, the government stepping in to contain a mysterious alien phenomenon…
Gene Colan 1926-2011
Nathaniel Dusk sketch © 1983 DC Comics.
This post is currently down for maintenance.
52 Geek-Out: Intro
On the very day that DC let fly news of its plans, come Aug. 31st, to relaunch its main superhero line in the form of 52 first issues — and, not so incidentally, move to digital release simultaneous with print — my interest was piqued by my friend Stefan’s invitation to pitch creative teams for any or all of the titles.
It was purely a fan exercise, to be clear. Stefan Blitz, of the Rhode Island Blitzes, is
a pal from our days working together at the fabled Philadelphia comics shop Fat Jack’s Comicrypt and unlike at least three other friends I made during that time has not gone on to work for DC Comics. No-one had yet heard, 25 days ago, what these 52 titles were or what the state of the DC Universe would be. Stefan, in his capacity as editor-in-chief of Forces of Geek, was just asking a small circle of folks to brainstorm on a lark; then he’d post a slate of the most intriguing combinations. By the time he told me that he’d canned the endeavor I’d already put together an entire roster of 52 series within the framework of a targeted continuity reboot.
Yeah, I know.
In & Out
The blog’s drought should be ending soon, as my computer is expected to come home in full working order tomorrow.
I feel awful about the lack of posts here in recent weeks and will do my best to make it up to you with as much material as possible published as quickly as possible. One silver lining in all of this — very long in coming, to be sure — is that while a tech at the local Apple Store was diagnosing my latest round of hardware problems he was finally able to replicate the connectivity issues that have plagued me for three solid years, so between our recent switch from Comcast to Verizon and the laptop’s new WiFi card there will, fingers crossed, be a lot less trouble getting online.
Def. Jam
I have the blog’s first stand-alone page up, a collection of my word-verification definitions (with an explanation for the uninitiated), so here’s another installment of that series in celebration.
• applayer — [ap play ur] n. Someone hooked on their smartphone games.
• bedness — [bed niss] n. Whedon-esque term for sleeping: “After a night like that, I’m just looking for some quick snackage and the bedness.”
• boation — [bo shun] n. Movement on a seafaring craft.
• cardosm — [kard oz um] n. The result of enjoying shuffling a little too much.
• distendee — [diss ten dee] n. A swelled guy.
• endene — [en deen] n. The last
• exest — [eks est] adj. 1. The most former. 2. (exEST) n. A transplant from the Atlantic coast of North America.
• firefib — [fiyr fib; fiy ur fib] n. Lies about arson.
• Fitican — [fih tih kun] The workout room at the Vatican.