The Unholy Dragon

Also

Feels like taking the AoA approach (presenting this as the new status quo) and combining it with Sins of Sinister (alternate future that we're going to come back from and avert). I'm interested, but it's going to struggle to stand out long term against all the other X-Men comics like this, especially in the last 15ish years. Age of X, Ages of Apocalypse, Age of X-Man, and Sins of Sinister have all pretty thoroughly done a take on this bit.

These are getting a full reprint from Cryptozoic later this year. Crowdfund ended an age ago but I believe the modules should all be available at retail. It's EVERYTHING. All the sourcebooks and modules, every edition, from the first edition through the Batman ones that ended the Mayfair time with them.

Honestly, Diamond's scumfuck behaviour both in the leadup to and fallout from the sale has probably poisoned any chance of rebuilding they have. It's now becoming a "Extract value from the corpse of this thing" situation. Hilariously, Universal got Alliance for a lower cost and is now using that infrastructure to begin distributing to the US. Given that they're more or less the primary distributor for Canada (Missing a few pubs but Diamond was getting used less and less and Lunar is only at some shops) they could be a major player if they can get DC/Marvel/Image in the US as well.

It was noted in the Marvel thread but honestly, I think deserves one of its own. Jim Shooter passed away yesterday due to esophageal cancer. He was...a complicated figure. Pretty reviled by creators as an EiC, he also gave a lot of people their starts in the industry. He wrote his first published script at 13 and took over writing the Legion at 14, raising their profile and basically being responsible for them having the lasting impression they have. With Secret Wars, he created the crossover and brought us the Black Costume for Spidey. With the Valiant Universe, he created the blueprint for an interconnected superhero universe and arguably had the best example of it until it failed. He was always experimenting and trying new things in the industry and that's really admirable. It is also sort of apropos that the guy who singularly refused to allow Marvel to publish any openly gay characters died on the last day of Pride month. Jim Shooter contained multitudes, good and bad. That said, he contributed to a lot of my favourite comics in one way or another and he's one of the few figures you can honestly say the industry wouldn't have been the same without. RIP.

So, Denny did a very weird thing and chose to give Ra's an Arabic name with a Hebrew-derivative pronunciation. And since Denny iirc explicitly stated it's an Arabic title/name, he's actually just wrong about how it should be pronounced. According to most Arabic speakers I've seen kick in about it online, the Batman Begins pronunciation is closer to accurate, and it should be closer to Rass al Ghul...but also the Gh in Ghul is a substitute for غ (Ghain) which doesn't have a real English alphabet equivalent. So Rass al Ghoul is kinda close enough if you don't have experience with the Arabic alphabet/tones.

DC once again remembering that Batman looks good with a little Dick in him.

This aged well.

There's apparently going to be a significant number of backups in each one. We already know from the cover to that month's Marvel previews that Kevin Smith, Chip Zdarsky, and Kelly Thompson are writing backups in the Marvel produced one. I'm hoping for a Jeff/Krypto crossover from Kelly and Gurihiru personally.

Pretty much the defining writer for the Incredible Hulk, X-Factor, Spider-man 2099 (including co-creation), Aquaman, Young Justice, and one of the big Supergirl iterations. In addition to plenty of other great stuff besides including novels and TV work. Incredibly prolific and one of the best to ever do it (even if I'm not *as* high on his work as I was in my 20s). One of the best to ever do it. One of the few pages of original art I own is from an issue of his second X-Factor run. Another reason to treasure it. RIP.

Deadpool/Batman announced for September by Zeb Wells and Greg Capullo. Batman/Deadpool to follow in November by Grant Morrison and Dan Mora.

Grant Morrison returning to Batman...for a one shot crossover with Deadpool in November. Two one shots total. One written by Zeb Wells with Greg Capullo on art, the other reuniting Morrison and Dan Mora.

More for me. One of the best things about the modern slate is that there's something for everyone even if not everything works for the same someone. Both companies are pretty good at diverse lineups of creators and books so that most readers can find SOMETHING to like.

I'm really, really interested in what his interactions with Miles are gonna look like in Incursion.

So, the issue as it stands is that nobody is sure what the history of the DC Universe IS right now. They went with a "Fuck it, we ball, everything's canon" approach which sorta works from a character informed perspective (the idea being that everyone remembers everything from every timeline now), but less so in terms of the actual events as relate to the timeline they're living in. They've played it fast and loose since. So the JLU stuff seems to be using the Darkseid energy nonsense to play that time is janky and they're sort of doing a Zero Hour with it...slight fiddling to make things more coherent. With the new History of the DCU giving us concrete answers on what the canon timeline looks like now. It's actually a tidy way to sort it out, I think. And I trust Waid to make it work.

I don't think it's a reach tbh. Peter gets bit by the spider at 15, which is either his first or second year depending on when his birthday is. And in Amazing Spider-man #1, the FF are shown to be established at that point. It's not a reach to say they were active 1-2 full years before Peter got bit even without getting wonky with the canon.

Oh, I think characters hitting the public domain is great. I wish the period were shorter honestly. I was just speaking to the point expressed that DC might move away from classic JSA characters for that reason, because I don't think it's a huge issue for them. It was too awesome for this world, alas.

The other solve is making distinct modern imagery and characterization. Like, Alan Scott goes public domain next decade sure. But not gay bearded Alan. He's locked down for our lifetime. And depending on how the courts handle it, that can matter. Likewise, any costumes or major character traits are unlocked year by year relative to when they were published (for the US) so sufficiently modern takes don't have to worry about classic ones being PD so much. DC's Superman isn't going to be especially threatened by public domain Superman because there's gonna be at least 2-3 years before he can even fly and it'll be close to another century before he can resemble contemporary Supes. As long as DC keeps updating the characters, it's a non-issue really. Look at Marvel. One of their top characters in a post-MCU world has been theoretically public domain the entire time.

It's okay. It just means the stage is set for The Immortal Paul in 2030.

Not nearly as funny as Paul, but probably has better story potential. Probably.

First Absolute event coming around the end of the year too, apparently. If they can keep hitting like they do, both quality and sales wise, it feels like they have a lot of room to grow still. That said, I think my favourite detail is that Snyder has been pushing for a Detective Chimp book as a lynchpin to the Darkseid stuff and DC apparently soft shot it down by saying he'd have to take a huge pay cut to do it. He then turned around and asked for an A list artist for it as well.

Oh, this also came out yesterday but don't think anyone mentioned it. 616 Gwen Stacy being resurrected as the new Gwenpool.

Marvel and DC doing new crossovers for the first time since JLA/Avengers. Two one shots in the fall, Marvel/DC produced by Marvel and DC/Marvel produced by DC.

Batman relaunching after Hush 2 with Matt Fraction writing and Jorge Jimenez staying on art. Which is exciting enough, but possibly even cooler, Sophie Campbell writing and drawing a new Supergirl series! Both have a LOT of potential.

It's one of those pet character crossovers. It does a lot of things...for every character Jed MacKay has written the last couple years. It's actually got some mid-term consequences for Miles Morales, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Moon Knight, and Blade which isn't too bad overall for that kind of thing.