The Unholy Dragon

Honestly? Relative to how some of the LEGO sets have been, these don't even look that good. LEGO Game Boy is less than half the price and looks way cleaner.

On the Flash note, new writer after DC KO is Ryan North, and while I never want a writer to pigeonhole themselves, I do want exactly his approach to Fantastic Four but with the Flash family.

In general the Absolute Universe is a shining example of how an elevator pitch isn't a book. In the specific case of Wonder Woman, I trusted Kelly Thompson to be doing something interesting with that premise and it's panned out.

DC's sales have been pretty strong lately tbh. I think if anything it has more to do with making newsworthy stuff and trying to capture interest outside the typical direct market crowd. I definitely saw people who don't typically buy single issue comics checking out Batman/Deadpool and "Homelander vs. Superman" has appeal outside the DM crowd as well in 2025. Also, for DC specifically, I think there's probably an element of being first to bat with a lot of these given we're less than ten years away from some version of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and more beginning to land in the public domain. If DC has the officially stamped, in their control version of Superman vs. Homelander, it has less impact if Ennis/Robertson decide to do their own spin on it once he hits PD. They may as well take the big swings and find new approaches, especially since the Absolute versions of these characters for example still won't see public domain within our lifetimes. And part of that is cashing in on the crossovers now before the other license holders don't have to pay them. For Marvel I think it's a slightly newer editorial team being more willing to play ball and the fact that the Mouse always craves more money.

So far just as variant covers, though there is an DC x AEW miniseries coming next year.

DC Next Level is the initiative following DC K.O. with a lot of interesting titles, including: Deathstroke the Terminator Firestorm the Nuclear Man Shadows of the Bat Zatanna Lobo The Demon Barbara Gordon: Breakout But forget all that because GREG RUCKA IS WRITING BATWOMAN AGAIN! EDIT: Williamson writing a Legion series as part of it too.

According to Bleeding Cool, a real definitive ending after a fixed time period was apparently in Hickman's contract and the only reason he did it after Krakoa went off the rails for him.

DC K.O. getting a "Bonus Level" one shot in January or February that features the fighters in the tournament facing: Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat Annabelle from the Conjuring Homelander from the Boys Vampirella Red Sonja Samantha from Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees This is not a joke or a bit. This is real news and it's crazy.

New History is just trying to smooth out what things are like after Death Metal did a sort of hybrid canon. DC KO #1 doesn't have any impact on it...though there is some timey wimey stuff going on around it, they pretty explicitly veer away from messing with history (though the Flash tie-ins seem to have Impulse trying to do just that).

Just as an opposing take, Zero Year is my favourite part of the Snyder Batman run and the part where I thought it really got the confidence to be its own thing rather than trying to do a new swing on a more traditionalist take. Speaking of Snyder, read Absolute Batman #13 and DC KO #1 yesterday night (retailer privilege) and no spoilers but AB 13 is primarily setup for the big finale in #14 but has two important first appearances and some important character beats. DC KO is the best take Snyder has done at Morrison style nonsense so far with a few bits I really, really enjoyed. There's two big twists in it (one that's been spoiled by Bleeding Cool and one that hasn't) and I'm real curious to see where they lead and how the whole thing plays out. It's definitely delivering the fun that was promised on the tin. Also for cover nerds, the acetate cover looks GREAT in person imo.

Man, I like Brevoort and his newsletter, but seeing his line of X-Books combust a bit and him get clearly uncomfortable with all the X weirdos feels sort of satisfying after him kinda polite passive aggressively criticizing Jordan White's handling of the line and the sales results.

Just read the Marvel produced DC/Marvel crossover (retailer privilege). Some thoughts. Zeb Wells does a pretty good job with the feature. His Joker is a little basic, but the core concept is good and the dynamic he has between Batman and Wade is great. Capullo is as great as ever though I don't think he had his usual inker/colorist because it looks different from his normal stuff. It's also going to piss a lot of power scalers off because uh Backups are all fun. Cap/WW gives an interesting alternate history, Daredevil/Green Arrow is a sort of fun bit of nothing, Logo...exists, love Al Ewing and the pitch but I forgot the GL/GotG crossover happened and had to come back and edit this in (it was fine), Krypto/Jeff is the best of them and an absolute delight as expected, and Frank Miller doing three pages of DKR Batman vs. Wolverine is so weird and goofy but kinda fun despite Marvel still giving him inkers/colorists who REALLY don't know what to do with his current style. Overall, the first go around is a success imo. Nothing blowaway great but a lot of fun novelty stuff that's well worth the price of admission. Though with DC giving us a Morrison/Mora lead, I expect it'll rule.

Honestly, if you want to read through that era, the current DC's Finest volumes are a way better way to do it. They're going through like two years at a time in a pretty well mapped reading order and including stuff like Killing Joke. There's two volumes out (plus Red Skies for the last couple pre-Crisis years) and it's both a better experience and easier/cheaper to collect because quite a few of those Caped Crusader/Dark Knight Detective volumes are OOP and on the pricey side.

This has literally never stopped being true, they just made it less "Every book all the time" and more "Some books where it fits the tone".

It's all good Mysterio got us. Anyway, I like the setup. I think it's good old fashioned Spidey drama done in a totally different way that plays well off the current status quo and Joe Kelly is one of those guys who's really good at building something interesting, so I'm excited to see where he goes with it. Definitely the most interesting alternate vehicle for the themes of power and responsibility since Superior also, imo.