52 Geek-Out: Index


Here’s a summary of the DC reboot I put together. For synopses of the 52 titles —
six posts on the 37 series in the main DC Universe line, plus one covering the 15 “Multiverse” projects — you can click through to each post. This was fun.


DC 
Swoosh emblem with stylized 52 logo

DCU Part 1

Superman
Writer: Peter J. Tomasi / Artist: Rags Morales
Batman
Writer: Scott Snyder / Artist: Paul Azaceta
Wonder Woman
Writer: Kathryn Immonen / Artist: Stuart Immonen
Aquaman
Writer: Greg Rucka / Artist: Steve Epting
The Flash
Writer: Paul Chadwick / Artist: Nicola Scott
Green Lantern
Writer: Robert Kirkman / Artist: Ryan Ottley
Hawkman
Writer: Kurt Busiek / Artist: Michael Gaydos

52 Geek-Out: DCU Part 6


[continued from yesterday]

The Secret Six
Writer: Marc Andreyko / Artist: Stefano Gaudiano

Even among those beings of power and valor dedicated to patrolling the vast skies
and dank alleyways, few are aware of all that imperils humanity, peace, and the very existence of life as we know it. Yet through the ages demons and dark magic have ever lurked, and ever have six champions wielding sorcerous arts and artifacts been chosen by the mysterious Seventh to defend the world. The Secret Six follows the fractious endeavors of the latest such assembly, whose current membership consists of investigator Richard Occult; modern-day ronin Tatsu Yamashiro, alias Katana; the shaman known only as Doctor Mist; the enchantress named June Moon; the medicine woman called Manitou Dawn; and powerful but irreverent wizard John Constantine. Writer Marc Andreyko [DC’s Manhunter, Image’s Torso] and interior artist Stefano Gaudiano [DC’s Gotham Central, Marvel’s Daredevil], bring grim humor and grit to this crossroads of the literal and metaphorical underworld, with covers from The Unknown’s Erik Jones.

52 Geek-Out: DCU Part 5


[continued from yesterday]

Action Comics
Writers: Bill Willingham, Jane Espenson, et al. /
Artists: Jesus Saiz, Amy Reeder, et al.

Metropolis has been ground zero for rapidly developing technology and metahuman activity since Superman’s arrival. Action Comics is an anthology set in America’s First City that explores the Man of Tomorrow’s friends and foes, from Lois Lane to Lex Luthor, in a variety of features — fronted by a look inside the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit written by Bill Willingham [Fables, Shadowpact] and drawn by Jésus Saiz [Manhunter, Checkmate]. Among the first round of rotating backups is a Daily Planet dramedy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Jane Espenson and Madame Xanadu’s Amy Reeder; Kane creator Paul Grist waits on deck with a story about Mr. Action himself, Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen, while Dan Panosian handles the covers.

52 Geek-Out: DCU Part 4


[continued from yesterday]

Supergirl

Writer: Landry Q. Walker / Artist: Zander Cannon

While numerous extraterrestrials have appeared on Earth following Superman’s revelation to the world, none have concerned Kal-El more, in both senses of the word, than a girl named Kara. She claims to be the sole survivor of a Kryptonian lunar colony known as Argon, wiped out in the wake of Krypton’s destruction, but there’s no mention of Argon in what little information Superman has of his birthplace and the memory tapes in her spacecraft are Kara’s only evidence. Americans, Amazons, and even Atlanteans — most especially her occasional boyfriend — have embraced her, yet for all her charm questions about Supergirl remain. Landry Q. Walker provided a delightful spin on Kara Zor-El in Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade; now he transfers to the brand-new DC Universe proper to teach some revised history. The Replacement God creator and Top Ten artist Zander Cannon handles the interior art with covers illustrated by Age of Bronze’s Eric Shanower.

52 Geek-Out: DCU Part 3


I’m finally picking up the geeking out that is my DC reboot again with mere days to
go until the real thing hits. As I wrote in a preface two months ago in greater detail, I’ve gone for broke on a friend’s challenge to come up with 52 titles and attendant creative teams relaunching DC’s main superhero line just as the company itself is doing; I couldn’t help devising springboard premises for many of them as well. My first and second capsule-bible posts covered 10 of the 37 series taking place in the new core DC Universe, while my third covered 15 mostly independent Multiverse projects. Another 12 of the DC Universe series appear today and tomorrow with the final 15, all anthologies or team titles, to be published as soon as possible.

Starman
Writer: Jeff Parker / Artist: Rafael Albuquerque

The Starman name first belonged to a second-string superhero and was then bequeathed upon a litany of lesser lights until a legacy was built around the label over
a dozen years ago. Now the newest DC Universe is seen through the eyes of its newest champion as another Starman is born at the hands of writer Jeff Parker [Marvel’s Hulk and X-Men: First Class], who reinvented characters from a bygone era for DC’s distinguished competition in Agents of Atlas. Rafael Albuquerque [Blue Beetle, American Vampire] applies his fluid yet crisp linework as interior and cover artist.

Post Crisis


25 years after Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC Comics is doing what many fans and creators felt it should have done back then: making a clean break with the continuity it’s rewriting, streamlining, and/or leaving behind entirely by starting every pertinent series over with #1.

This isn’t the post where I talk about that rapidly approaching “New 52” initiative from reading and retailing perspectives, however. Nor is it the post where I go all retcon scholar by tracing the history of DC’s reboots, reimaginings, and reintegrations from the establishment of the Multiverse, through the 50th-anniversary event that could not long ago be shorthanded simply as Crisis and which had its own 25th birthday last year, on to Zero Hour and the dithering recent run of Infinite Crisis, 52, Countdown, Final Crisis, and, yes, this thing that’s come after Final Crisis. Rather it’s another stopgap post where I tell you that that stuff is on its way, fingers crossed, as quickly as possible, but, alas, not necessarily — oh, the irony she hurts — in time.

Superman DCC


Superman in flight holding Lois Lane, their free arms held palms out and legs awkwardly splayed, as friends look on from room of Daily Planet building
Cover to Superman #700 © 2011 and characters TM/® DC Comics.
Pencils, Inks: Gary Frank. Colors: Brad Anderson.


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25 Face-Off



Cover to Avengers #273 [digital] © 1986 and characters TM/®
Marvel Comics. Pencils, Inks: Tom Palmer (Black Knight);
John Romita (border). Colors: Unknown.


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The Clog


On this blog’s first anniversary in February 2010, I gave a State of the Blog report
— coining it “The Slog” by contraction due to technical problems and vandalism that had rendered dealing with Blam’s Blog more of a trudge than it should be.

The post was as much about why I hadn’t been writing, and why I’d resumed, as it
was about where the blog itself was headed. A couple of Mini-Slogs came along later
in the year, even if neither really had any more to say than did the usual periodic complaints about various gremlins (now their own blog label) that have kept me from being productive here. I’d hoped to have thoughts on the blog’s present and future when its second anniversary rolled around six months ago, but life — which, as John Lennon reminded us, is what happens while you’re busy making plans — got in the way, partly in the form of my grandfather’s passing. What follows is very like what I would have said this past February except that certain deadlines are now ever closer upon me, so many posts backed up in the pipeline, making the current state of the blog less a
slog and more of, well, a clog.

50 Four



Cover to Fantastic Four #1 [digital] © 1963 Marvel Comics.
Pencils: Jack Kirby. Inks: George Klein. Colors: Stan
Goldberg. Letters: Artie Simek. Text: Stan Lee.


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