The Unholy Dragon

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.

Yeah, she was on the Standard Attrition message board which was one of the coolest experiments ever and unfortunately imploded for reasons that felt obvious in retrospect. It was a forum made by Jason Aaron for the then-Vertigo creators to interact more closely with fans (I stand by that lineup being an all timer for Vertigo quality wise despite selling like hot garbage) and Willow was one of a few who really took to it (David Lapham, Darick Robertson, Brian Wood, and Ivan Brandon were all real active too). It was a super close knit group of users and all very relaxed...which proved to be its downfall as dirt sheet writers started lurking for scoops and caused drama when Darick Robertson expressed frustration about needing John McCrea to fill in on part of the end run of the Boys (he was bummed he couldn't see it through the whole way) and that got reported as him having beef with McCrea. It made all the creators super conscious of anything they said being picked up and misinterpreted that way and killed the vibe of the place, leading to it being shut down. Anyway, yeah, very online at the time and she was an absolute delight the whole way.

I see this claim a lot but it's not exactly substantiated by anything. It went 18 issues plus another 6 under different branding and he's basically the top draw for the new Secret Six series as a character. None of that implies poor sales, Tom Taylor had said the sales were good (and he'd have direct figures), and we haven't had actual sales ranking charts based on anything since DC left Diamond. Like, it's an incredibly pervasive rumour but I have yet to see any confirmations beyond "Title gone now" which you could also say about both current Robins.

That sucks so much for a whole lot of reasons, not least is that it's a bland and bad name.

Tony Isabella came out as a trans woman, now named Jenny Blake Isabella. Jenny has clarified that she will still use Tony on work done under that name and may use it professionally at some point in the future, she doesn't think of it as a deadname the way some trans folks do. Apparently DC proactively offered to amend credits on all reprints of her work, but she declined. I feel like there's a few segments of the neckbeard brigade who will have *opinions* about this but I'm happy she's being true to herself. A lot of folks hit their 70s convinced it's too late.

In the event that you didn't see the upcoming wave, I have good news for you.

Yeah, I've stopped being particularly heated about stuff. What's good will be good, what's not won't be. The classics are all there and the good stuff will still rise. That said, I think in terms of modernizing the big challenge is the shift from soap opera style stories to more condensed runs which are meant to fit together like puzzle pieces that weren't cut right. It allows for bigger and better stories that you can cut out and show off as a higher quality example of form outside the specific sort of pop art niche that the existing stuff inhabited, but it also forces the stagnation of characters as creators try to figure out how to keep breaking new ground without ever really changing anything. The biggest impact is on supporting casts. Read 90s Superman or Spider-man and you know what's up with like half the newspaper staff, some friends outside work, cousins, love interests, whatever. You could do a story where Perry gets cancer or where Superman has to choose between saving Ron Troupe and Jimmy Olsen and it'd work because you cared about those characters. In a post-Authority efficiency model, everyone is their most archetypical self and anyone outside primary supporting characters are basically there for trivia purposes which makes the worlds feel less lived in and the consequences outside direct harm to the leads or their primary supports less important. It's a shift which I have real mixed feelings on because it's produced some of my favourite comics runs ever but the general month to month keeps my attention less than 60s-90s stuff did.