Batman
Voice actor Kevin Conroy returns for ‘Batman: Arkham Origins’ [Updated]
Despite recent reports to the contrary, longtime Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy has confirmed he will return for the upcoming prequel video game Batman: Arkham Origins.
Batman News reports that while appearing over the weekend at Dallas Comic-Con, Conroy revealed he has been working on the game for the past nine or 10 months but has been prevented by a non-disclosure agreement from talking about the project.
“It’s an unbelievable game,” he told the crowd. “I still can’t say anything about it [...] but it’s amazing. It’s a huge, huge cast, and a big story, and it took almost a year to write and put together. They’ve been working on it for a long time.”
Update (8:21 a.m.): A Warner Bros. spokesman tells IGN.com that “Roger Craig Smith is confirmed as the voice of Batman and Troy Baker is confirmed as the voice of The Joker in Batman: Arkham Origins,” which could mean, as the site suggests, that Conroy is lending his voice for a framing sequence, playing another character entirely, or working on another Arkham game.
Grumpy Old Fan | Canceling the future: DC’s August solicits
See, he dials L-E-G-I-O-N, and it transports him to the 31st Century…
DC Comics’ August solicitations include both the end of “Trinity War” and of four series, including the latest Legion of Super-Heroes title. Otherwise, not much jumps out at me. Even the collected-edition section isn’t that diverse, as it’s heavy on “Death of the Family” books and pretty light on the vintage reprints.
NOT QUITE DEAD
If Talon weren’t a Bat-title, I’d say it was getting ready to be canceled. Issue 11′s solicitation refers to an “epic finale,” with Batman pitching in to help “eliminate the Court of Owls once and for all.” However, because so much work went into making the Court of Owls a credible threat to the Bat-clan, I doubt they’ll be eradicated completely. Likewise, I don’t think Talon is going anywhere, at least not yet.
Similarly, the continued existence of Batman Incorporated is one of the questions posed by the sure-to-be-epic conclusion of Grant Morrison’s Bat-work. In other words, is a revamped Club of Heroes so wrapped up with Morrison that it can’t survive without him? More to the point, is a Morrison-less Batman Inc. still marketable? Presumably the answer rests in the sales numbers for August’s Batman Incorporated Special — which, incidentally, appears to indicate just who among the various Inc.’ers survives the end of the regular series. I guess DC isn’t worried about spoiling such things, because it’s done something similar with the last couple months of Lantern Corps solicits.
Nebraska library refuses to pull ‘Batman: The Killing Joke’
A Nebraska public library has rejected a request to either remove Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke from shelves or move the 1988 DC Comics one-shot out of the young-adult area.
“I don’t find it worthy of being removed from the shelf,” the Columbus Telegram quotes Columbus Public Library board member Carol Keller as saying at last week’s meeting.
It’s a Gotham City wedding for two Nightwing and Batgirl fans
What happens when a Nightwing fan and a Batgirl devotee meet and fall in love? They have a Batman-themed wedding, naturally.
“This guy stopped to help me hang up a poster and three years later he proposed after jumping out of a plane,” user “babsgordon” writes on imgur. “Our relationship bonded over our superhero obsessions, so why not have a Batman wedding?”
This Dynamic Duo didn’t skimp on the details: As you can see from the photos here an on imgur, they wore Nightwing and Batgirl T-shirts in their engagement photos, sent invitations designed to look like tickets to Haly’s Circus, displayed a Gotham City cake, and the bride sported Bat-Signal earrings, custom-made garters, and even a utility belt (for her bridal shoot, at least)!
And the wedding party? Nightwing-blue for the groomsmen and groomswoman, and Batgirl-yellow for the bridesmaids and “bridesdudes” — complete with the appropriate insignia for the boutonnieres.
What Are You Reading? with Allison Baker
Happy Mother’s Day and welcome to What Are You Reading?, our weekly look at the comics, books and what have you we’ve been checking out lately. Joining us today is Allison Baker, co-publisher of Bandette, Edison Rex and all the other Monkeybrain Comics you can find on comiXology.
To see what Allison and the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below.
She-Hulk sought after McDonald’s assault
If anyone happens to have the number for S.H.I.E.L.D., please pass it along to police in York, England. They need help tracking down, well … the She-Hulk.
The York Press reports a green woman with dyed-red hair is wanted in connection with an attack on a 17-year-old girl outside a McDonald’s in the early hours of April 26. “This appears to have been a wholly unprovoked assault,” a police officer tells the newspaper. “Thankfully the injuries were not too severe. However, the outcome could have been far more serious.”
Comics A.M. | Moulinsart launches Tintin app; Jesse Santos dies
The Adventures of Tintin
Digital comics | Moulinsart, the company that holds the rights to Herge’s works, has released the complete Tintin comics in digital form. The iOS app is free, and it looks like the comics are $5.99 each, which is pretty reasonable. The catch is that they are all in the original French; it doesn’t appear as if translations are available yet. [Idboox]
Passings | Filipino komiks creator Jesse Santos died April 27 at the age of 83. Santos began his career in 1946 as an artist for the first serialized comic in the Philippines, Halakhak, and moved to the U.S. in the 1960s. He drew the sword-and-sorcery character Dragar the Invincible and took over from Dan Spiegle as artist for The Occult Files of Doctor Spektor. [Komikero Dot Com]
José Quintero’s superheroic allegories
I’m no polyglot. My understanding of the Spanish on the pages these images come from is regrettably all from Google Translate, but I do know “awesome” when I see it, in any language. Mexican artist José Quintero has produced a series of digital paintings inserting superhero iconography into classically influenced themes. There’s “Alegoría del superhombre,” based loosely upon Michelangelo‘s mural on the Sistine chapel, and painting the Superman on the left with the face of Friedrich Nietzsche; “Alegoria de David Vs Goliat,” inserting Spider-Man and Venom into a composition influenced by Caravaggio; and “Alegoria de San Jorge y el dragon,” replacing the saint from Joseph Boehm‘s statue with Batman.
There’s extensive galleries revealing Quintero’s processes at his Behance site.
Batman fan builds his own $150,000 Batcave in basement
Much like Wayne Manor, the real selling point of Chris Weir’s home in Middletown, Delaware, is what lies underground.
When the lifelong Batman fan and his wife bought their suburban home in 2006, it was largely because it had enough basement space for Weir to construct his dream: his own Batcave.
Two and a half years and $150,000 later, the father of two had constructed his own subterranean lair, accessed through a hidden door in a bookcase that’s opened using a switch on a bust of William Shakespeare, just like on the 1960s Batman television series. Inside, as you can see in the video below, is a home theater made to look like a cave (naturally); it also houses what Weir describes as his “most prized possession”: a Batsuit featured in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.
Although Weir’s wife claims to be fine with her husband’s expensive fixation — “I’m proud of what he’s done,” she says, “I think it’s really, really cool” — his oldest son looks as if he’s had about enough of Dad’s Batman nonsense.
Patton Oswalt is the perfect Penguin in ‘Badman’
Comedian, actor and occasional comics writer Patton Oswalt can now add another title to his resume: the perfect Penguin. In the latest installment of CollegeHumor’s “Badman” series — y’know, the parody in which they simultaneously mock the Dark Knight and Christian Bale’s Batman voice — Oswald Cobblepot teams with Commissioner Gordon to try to make the Caped Crusader understand the concept of death. The results are predictably hilarious.
Why you should be reading ‘Batman: Li’l Gotham’
I imagine that Dustin Nguyen’s cute, chibi-style drawings of the Batman cast in Batman: Li’l Gotham will weed out the segment of comics readers who truly don’t care for that kind of art. For those who like the style, though – or those who, like me, don’t have strong feelings one way or the other about it – the first issue of Li’l Gotham kicks off what promises to be a great all-ages series.
There’s a scarcity of DC and Marvel comics that are appropriate for kids, so I’m all for whatever new thing those companies want to try. Nguyen’s character designs for Li’l Gotham are so adorable though that when I first saw them, I expected a super-sweet tone that I wasn’t sure I’d respond to. I want comics that kids can enjoy, but I don’t want them to be slight or to change the characters’ personalities beyond all recognition. If Li’l Gotham was just going to be Batman’s Precious Moments, I wouldn’t be able to stay interested. But that’s not at all what it is.
Despite his shortened body and enlarged head, Li’l Gotham’s Batman is my Batman: overly serious and unswervingly dedicated to fighting crime. But his rogues gallery isn’t as homicidal or destructive as the current, canonized versions of those villains, so Batman’s able to be a little more relaxed about how he takes them down. They’re still lawbreakers, just not especially deadly ones. For example, Nguyen and co-writer Derek Fridolfs are able to get them together at an Italian restaurant for Halloween without murdering each other.
Comics A.M. | Comparing Image’s worldwide pre-orders and U.S. sales
Image Comics
Publishing | Image Comics provided the retail news and analysis website ICv2 with worldwide pre-order figures for 15 of its March titles, allowing for comparison with estimates of Diamond Comic Distributors sales to U.S. direct market stores. [ICv2.com]
Creators | Mark Waid pens a tribute to the late Carmine Infantino. [Hero Complex]
Creators | Gilbert Hernandez distinguishes between autobiography and art in his new graphic novel, Marble Season, which takes on a 1960s suburban childhood not unlike his own. [Chicago Reader]
Grumpy Old Fan | July brings solicits heard ‘round the world
He’s a Brainiac, Braaaainiac on – the – flo-oo-or …
Don’t ask why — because the answer is too boring and has nothing to do with Steven Spielberg — but the other day I was thinking about the original 13 American colonies, and from there the general course of American history across the 18th and 19th centuries. Naturally, from there I imagined how DC Comics would solicit the story of a young nation. It ended up being something like a team book: Meet the states that will form a great democracy — and discover the shocking secret which threatens to tear them apart–!
And then, as fate would have it, DC released its July solicitations, and my stab at patriotic humor was somewhat justified. So there you go.
In any event, on to “Trinity War” –!
WORLD WAR T
Say, remember when “World War III” was an actual part of DC history? I’m not talking about the Great Disaster, or something that happened in the hazy interregnum between the present and the Legion of Super-Heroes, or even the final Grant Morrison/Howard Porter JLA arc. No, as part of 52 (2006-07), “World War III” was the name given to a week-long global Black Adam rampage. I bring it up because it’s no longer in continuity, and we still don’t know (beyond another “Villain Month”) what’s coming in September for the New 52′s second anniversary.
First screen shots arrive from ‘Batman: Arkham Origins’
On the heels of Tuesday’s announcement that Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment will release a sequel in October to its blockbuster Batman: Arkham City video game, Game Informer has debuted the first screen shots from Batman: Arkham Origins.
Courtesy of Nintendo Everything, we can now see images of Batman squaring off against Deathstroke, Black Mask wielding a hatchet and forceps, Gotham City police officers in tactical gear, and the Penguin brandishing a cattle prod. As the game’s title suggests, Batman: Arkham Origins takes place before Batman: Arkham Asylum when eight of the world’s greatest assassins come to Gotham City on Christmas Eve to kill Batman.
Beware the Court of Owls masks — again!
I’d only just begun to recover from those haunting images of Comic-Con International attendees wearing those giveaway Court of Owls masks when I opened DC Comics’ July solicitations to find the publisher is offering the nightmare-inducing featureless disguises packaged with the trade paperback of Batman: The Court of Owls, by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion.
Arriving Oct. 2, the $24.99 Batman: The Court of Owls Book and Mask Set offers you the chance to introduce a friend or loved one to the first arc of the relaunched Batman — and then scare the bejeezus out of them by wearing the mask. That is, if you’re willing diminish its potential value by opening the box. Oh, go ahead, it’ll be worth it …