Super Twos Day

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JL Bait

Standard cover to Justice League #1 © 2011 and characters TM/® DC
Comics. Pencils: Jim Lee. Inks: Scott Williams. Colors: Alex Sinclair.

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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.



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.

Blam’s Lag

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.

The Now 52

Art © 2011 DC Comics. Pencils, Inks: Francis
Manapul. Colors: Brian Buccellato.

I guess the new “52” initiative from DC, which rewrites the continuity of its main superhero universe (again) together with setting up a comprehensive digital-release plan for its comics, gives another meaning to “downloading the latest version of
Flash”.

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.

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.