Doom Patrol
Comics College | Grant Morrison
Absolute All-Star Superman
Comics College is a monthly feature where we provide an introductory guide to some of the comics medium’s most important auteurs and offer our best educated suggestions on how to become familiar with their body of work.
Strap yourself in, kids, because this is going to be a big one, as we run through the lengthy and considerable career of one of mainstream comics’ biggest stars, Grant Morrison.
- November 26, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Chris Mautner
Grumpy Old Fan | Already? DC Solicits for January 2012
"I throw him a growl I've brought all the way from Africa"
I was going to open with some snotty Wow, the holidays went by super-quickly! comment, but then I read the first issue of Justice League in seven weeks. Sometimes DC gets ahead of itself; sometimes it’s a little behind. Happens to the best of us — sometimes you do two solicitation roundups in three weeks….
Anyway, with the January solicitations, the New-52 books each turn five issues old. Series wrapping up their first arcs this month include Blackhawks, Batwoman, Animal Man, and the Deadman feature in DC Universe Presents. (Not to worry about the latter, because there is a lot of Deadman in these solicits.) I’m not sure why five issues is such a wonky number for story arcs — there are five-issue miniseries all the time and they collect just fine. Still, I expected most of the New-52 books to take six issues for their introductory stories, and most of them may yet do that. Only a few books look to finish their first arcs after December’s issue #4s (Hawkman and Frankenstein, probably OMAC, maybe Batgirl), and those plus this month’s are barely an eighth of the relaunched line. It makes next month’s solicits more intriguing, I suppose.
Regardless, we live in the now (as it were…) so — onward to January!
Continue Reading »
- October 20, 2011 @ 02:12 PM by Tom Bondurant
Comics A.M. | Stan Lee’s Guardian Project target of lawsuit
Stan Lee
Legal | Stan Lee’s Guardian Project, introduced last year at New York Comic Con, has sparked a lawsuit from a Hollywood manager who claims he was cut out of the venture, which transformed National Hockey League mascots into superheroes.
In the lawsuit, filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court, Adam Asherson contends the project, now co-owned by NBC Universal, dates back to 2003, when he was introduced to the idea by fellow manager Anthony Chargin and Chargin’s client Jake Shapiro. Asherson, who had a relationship with Lee, says he suggested the legendary comics writer would be the “perfect” partner for the endeavor. They pitched Lee on the project, called Defenders, which focused on the National Football League, with plans to expand to Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the NHL. For unspecified reasons, the NFL deal never came together. However, six years later The Guardian Project emerged with the involvement of Chargin, Shapiro and Lee — but without Asherson.
Asherson claims Guardian Media Entertainment, SLG Entertainment, Chargin and Shapiro have breach an oral joint-venture agreement, committed promissory estoppel and fraud, and breach fiduciary duties by leaving him out of the NHL agreement. [Hollywood, Esq.]
- September 30, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Kevin Melrose
Grumpy Old Fan | Into the hundred-issue woods
Green Lantern vol. 2 #100
News of The Flash’s cancellation has led to speculation that the title, whenever it returns, will pick up its original numbering. Considering that Wonder Woman was renumbered last year to reflect the accumulation of all its various incarnations, and Adventure Comics resumed its original numbering as well, Flash might not be the last title DC renumbers.
Today I’ll look at Flash and several other DC titles which could get this treatment in the next several years.
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First, though, let’s consider Wonder Woman. Last year, the 45th issue of WW Vol. 3 was dubbed issue #600, thereby implicitly treating the current series and its predecessor as direct continuations of the original 1942 series. The math was pretty straightforward: Vol. 1 went to issue #329, and vol. 2 went to #226, so that left the 600th issue to vol. 3′s 45th. (329+226+45 = 600.) Volume 2 did have two irregularly-numbered issues, #0 (part of 1994′s “Zero Month,” which the rest of us called August), and #1,000,000 (for DC One Million, naturally).
- March 31, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
May brings the end for five DC series
Doom Patrol #22
The solicitations for DC’s May titles hit earlier today, bringing official word that five DC series have been canceled. Doom Patrol, JSA All-Stars, Freedom Fighters and R.E.B.E.L.S. join The Outsiders on the chopping block. They follow Azrael, Batman: Streets Of Gotham and Batman Confidential, which met their ends in March.
Looking at the most recent month-to-month sales figures for DC that Mark-Oliver Frisch analyzes on The Beat, it’s not surprising to see any of these titles ending. Probably the biggest surprise, if you were looking just at the numbers, is JSA All-Stars, which looks to be selling better than other monthly series not getting the axe, like Booster Gold and Power Girl. I bet many of the characters in it will find their way back to the flagship JSA title.
Freedom Fighters co-writer Jimmy Palmiotti commented on the cancellation of the book on Twitter, noting, “If a book doesn’t break even or make a profit, it gets cancelled and opens up the door for another title,” he said. “Wait for the big picture. things get cancelled and others get green lit. the nature of publishing.”
Doom Patrol, Freedom Fighters, Outsiders and L.E.G.I.O.N./R.E.B.E.L.S. have all ended before — despite their name, Doom Patrol has been resurrected four times since the original series ended — and no doubt they’ll all be back again somewhere down the road.
- February 14, 2011 @ 04:00 PM by JK Parkin
David Johnson joins Comic Twart
Just what we need — one more comic artist twarting around.
Iconic cover artist Dave Johnson has announced that he’s joining the online group Comic Twart. Spun out of online camaraderie on Twitter among a group of comic artists, Comic Twart is a site where those artists draw a new piece based on a theme each week. Johnson joins a murderer’s row of comic artists that include Francesco Francavilla, Mike Hawthorne, Mitch Breitweiser, Dan Panosian, Chris Samnee and Evan Shaner.
This week’s theme over on Comic Twart is Doom Patrol, and Dave’s submission on the left is the first of the bunch. Go to the site to see what the others turn in!
- February 11, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by Chris Arrant
Food or Comics? | This week’s comics on a budget
Thor the Mighty Avenger #8
Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy on Wednesday based on certain spending limits — $15 and $30 — as well as what we’d get if we had extra money or a gift card to spend on what we call our “Splurge” item.
Check out Diamond’s release list for this week if you’d like to play along in our comments section.
Chris Arrant
With $15 worth of dingy bills and loose quarters, I’d go my local comic shop and start with Thor: The Mighty Avenger #8 ($2.99). Probably the pick of the week in some circles (even for a square like me), it’s a celebration of what Langridge and Samnee accomplished – and although it’s the last issue, there’s that FCBD issue on the horizon. I’d also pick up two number ones -– Casanova: Gula #1 ($3.99) and Daredevil: Reborn #1 ($3.99). With my last $4, I’d be hard-pressed to pick between Thunder Agents #3 ($2.99) and Infinite Vacation #1 ($3.50), but would probably pick the latter –- Nick Spencer’s on both, but Christian Ward’s art makes Infinite Vacation #1 worth the buy.
- January 11, 2011 @ 03:00 PM by JK Parkin
What Are You Reading?
Thor: The Mighty Avenger #1
Hello and welcome once again to What Are You Reading?, where the Robot 6 crew talk about the comics and graphic novels that they’ve been enjoying lately.
Today’s guest is Zom from the Mindless Ones blog. To see what Zom and the rest of the Robot 6 team have been reading, click below.
- November 7, 2010 @ 03:01 PM by JK Parkin
Grumpy Old Fan | Old favorites, new memories
New Teen Titans #13
Many times we superhero fans talk about the “need” to read certain prior issues and/or storylines. Blah blah blah, every issue is someone’s first, etc.
Well, I’m here to tell you … if you’re a fan of Silver Age DC, or of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s New Teen Titans, and especially if you’re a fan of NTT‘s Garfield Logan, you need to read the original Doom Patrol. Having just finished Showcase Presents The Doom Patrol Volume 2, which reprints the back half of the DP’s original series, I can say honestly that my eyes have been opened. I never really “got” the appeal of the Doom Patrol before I read this collection — but I get it now.
What’s more, those old stories shed new light not just on what the DP meant to its fans, but on what Wolfman and Pérez were trying to do with Titans.
SPOILERS FOLLOW for some decades-old stories …
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- September 16, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
What Are You Reading?
Starman Omnibus
Welcome to another edition of What Are You Reading? Today’s special guest is STORM, who works at San Francisco’s Isotope Comics, is the creator of Princess Witch Boy (the second issue of which will be available at APE this year), reads Heroic Tarot with X-Men cards and is a member of Writers Old Fashioned.
To see what STORM and the Robot 6 crew are reading this week, read on …
- August 22, 2010 @ 01:40 PM by JK Parkin
Grumpy Old Fan | Retired … or “Doomed?”
Doom Patrol #121
(This starts out cynical, but it gets better.)
DC’s superhero line is essentially an intellectual-property farm. Every new issue cements the company’s hold on its existing characters and/or introduces new characters for future exploitation. If, by some chance, a particular story turns out to be Art, so much the better. The important thing is to maintain those property rights.
Accordingly, it’s rare that a character is “retired,” a la Jack “Starman” Knight or Tommy “Hitman” Monaghan, when his story has reached a stopping point. A little while back I wrote that maybe the New Teen Titans had reached their own peak at the end of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s original run. Originally I wanted to revisit that, and list a few more titles which perhaps might have benefited from similar retirements. Let’s do that, at least briefly….
- July 8, 2010 @ 04:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Grumpy Old Fan | Today, DC stands for “dance card”
Strange Sports Stories #4
Every March, college basketball fans carefully study the NCAA brackets to see which teams have the best chance of making the Final Four. Every year, certain teams seem like locks, and this year won’t be much different. The high seeds will include perennial powerhouses like Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse, and Duke on the men’s side; and Connecticut and Tennessee on the women’s. The lowest seeds are, inevitably, those teams who are satisfied just to be included (fingers crossed for William & Mary — they’re so close!). That leaves the vast middle populated by a number of familiar names: Old Dominion, Winthrop, San Diego State, Siena, et al. You’re never surprised to see them, but they don’t make it every year. However, every now and then one of these teams becomes more of a fixture; and nowadays fans would probably be surprised if Gonzaga or Butler failed to make the tournament.
Naturally, comparing DC’s superhero line to the field of 65 isn’t especially precise; but there is the notion that a title or character can shake off that Cinderella status and become a perennial player in the Big Dance. DC has been working pretty steadily towards making its characters more “familiar” to the general public, and to a certain extent that means putting familiar favorites in its lineup. With that in mind, let’s examine the staying power of some venerable DC books and separate some pretenders from contenders.
- March 11, 2010 @ 03:30 PM by Tom Bondurant
Straight for the art | Matthew Clark’s Doom Patrol
Doom Patrol by Matthew Clark and John Livesay
Over on his MySpace page, Doom Patrol artist Matthew Clark shares some promo art recently inked by John Livesay (found via Periscope Studios).
- July 9, 2009 @ 09:01 AM by Chris Mautner
The ‘mettle’ of a man: ‘Metal Men’ preview
Metal Men
I was pretty excited to hear that the Justice League International team supreme of Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire were reuniting to do a ‘Metal Men’ back-up feature in the upcoming Doom Patrol series by Giffen and artist Matthew Clark … and now seeing a preview of Maguire’s work whets my appetite to see more.
And let’s not forget that they’re also appearing in DC’s Wednesday Comics series, with art by some other legendary creators, José Luis García-López and Kevin Nowlan. It’s going to be a good year for the six (seven?) elemental robots this year.
- May 18, 2009 @ 11:37 AM by JK Parkin