Comic Book Resources

Isotope Comics teams with James Robinson to take over Bloomingdale's

James Robinson at Bloomingdale's

James Sime and James Robinson -- I'm sure there's a "James Gang" joke to be made here -- are taking over Bloomingdale's in San Francisco next Wednesday.

The owner of Isotope Comics and the writer of Justice League, along with Details Magazine and Warner Bros., will host "an evening of cocktails, DJs, comics, and high fashion! The screen-used costume from Dark Knight as well as the movie costumes of Catwoman and Two-Face will be on display as well," Sime said.

You can find all the details here.

The new Justice League, working against the clock

Grumpy Old Fan

Although it's been a few weeks since the new Justice League lineup was revealed, I have been slow to post about it. Sometimes even we emotionally-stunted man-children have other obligations, you know?

The new League won't come together until a six-parter starting next year (according to the preview writer James Robinson gave CBR), but this is a rare occasion for me. Normally when I get stuck for a blogging topic I fall back on either Dick Grayson (with or without his Titan peers) or the JLA, so I can't really avoid this.

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With a rebel yell...

Grumpy Old Fan

By the time this post goes live, you may be quite sick of hearing about Justice League: Cry For Justice #1. Back on Sunday, I said I didn't hate it; and I suspect mine was one of the more positive comments. Yes, the script has many questionable moments, including an apparent lack of irony where Hal Jordan and Ray Palmer are concerned. I complained more about the staging of the first scene, which I felt sacrificed common sense for capital-D Drama!. And yes, the idea behind this series was a bit tired fifteen years ago when it was called Extreme Justice.

And yet … it's movement, you know? It's light at the end of the tunnel -- the hope that almost three years into Justice League of America Volume 2, the book will at last gain its own direction and its own identity, free from crossover intrusions and editorial dictates….

… well, as free as any corporate superhero title could be; especially one designed specifically to use characters who already appear in other books.  To me, writing Justice League is sort of like competing on "Iron Chef" -- you don't have total control over all the ingredients; and more likely than not you'll have to bring new life to old standbys like salmon or Hawkgirl. Accordingly, as Rich Johnston pointed out last week, this has produced a particular cycle of retooling and rebuilding, such that it takes just the right combination of characters and circumstances to keep the League stable.

* * *

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Robinson, Bagley named JLA creative team

Mark Bagley's Justice League

DC Comics announced on their Source blog today that James Robinson and Mark Bagley will take over the flagship Justice League title in October.

Robinson, of course, is no stranger to the franchise, having written the upcoming Cry for Justice mini-series that features a spin-off team led by Hal Jordan and Green Arrow. And Bagley just wrapped up a 52-issue stint on Trinity, which featured, well, just about everybody in the DC universe.

“It’s a thrill to be given the reins of DC’s flagship team book and to know that my partner in crime(fighting) will be the esteemed Mark Bagley who’s dynamic storytelling skills I intend to make full use of," Robinson said. "It’s further exciting/gratifying for me that I can dove-tail the events of Cry For Justice into the main book where post-Blackest Night will emerge a new team and a new exciting direction as they get caught up in the next wave of events building throughout the DCU.”

Robinson replaces regular writer Dwayne McDuffie, whose last issue was #33. As we noted at the end of May, McDuffie was fired from the series. A story by Len Wein is currently running in the title.

Six by 6 | Six other comics I'd like to see more of

Miracleman #23

After almost 20 years, it looked like the first two issues of Big Numbers were the only issues we'd ever see. But last week the third issue miraculously surfaced on the internet.

Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz's aborted epic is one of those series that, even 20 years later, still gets people talking and wondering about what might have been. On his blog, Eddie Campbell remembers talking to Kevin Eastman about why the third issue was never published, even though it was finished: "I recall asking publisher Kevin Eastman at the time why, even though the 12-issue series was abandoned, he couldn't put out the existing third issue," Campbell writes. "He looked at me as though I was daft. Who would want a third issue if they knew there wouldn't be any after that?"

And yet here we are, in 2009, talking about a third issue no one would want.

Big Numbers is far from the only series that ever fell into comic limbo. In honor of Pádraig O Méalóid's eBay purchase, here are six other comics that I'd like to see more of. Note that for the purpose of this list, I avoided titles that were officially canceled for sales reasons (like Blue Beetle, Aztek or Chase ... that's another list for another day) and instead focused on comics that we expected to see one day, but for some reason or another, they were never published (at least not yet, anyway). Books where I feel I could use some closure. Like last week, I received a little help from my fellow Robot 6 bloggers, so thanks to Kevin Melrose, Tim O'Shea and Michael May for their suggestions.

1. Miracleman: I would consider three comic titles the "holy trinity" of stories lost to comic book limbo -- three books that were created but never saw print for one reason or another. One would be the previously mentioned Big Numbers #3, while another would be Miracleman #25. Written by Neil Gaiman and drawn by Mark Buckingham, the 25th issue of this epic series was never published.

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