justice society
Grumpy Old Fan | Can the New 52 count on the Next Six’s Earth-2?
"You're not going out in *that*?!?"
Although they won’t be solicited for a few more weeks, DC has already been talking up the six new(ish) titles coming in May. G.I. Combat, Dial H, Ravagers, and Worlds’ Finest join the returning Batman Incorporated and the long-rumored Justice So– I mean, Earth 2 — as the replacements for most of the New-52′s lowest-selling books.
As with the original New-52 group, every new title except one is familiar to longtime DC fans; and as with the original New-52, that book spins out of an existing feature. (Then it was Batman Incorporated begetting Batwing; here it’s the Teen Titans/Superboy nexus spawning Ravagers.) However, where the New-52 tried noticeably to make many of its books accessible — or at least uprooted them from established DC lore — most of the new titles seem to require some prerequisite reading.
- January 26, 2012 @ 02:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Grumpy Old Fan | Ten from 2011, ten for 2012
Red underwear makes a comeback in 2965
Before we jump into 2012, I have one last bit of business to take care of: toting up my 2011 predictions, and offering a set for the new year.
2011
1. The Green Lantern movie. Last year I predicted that GL would be “more lucrative than Captain America, not as much as Thor. It ended up making $116 million domestically ($219 million worldwide), well behind Cap’s $176 million ($368M globally) and Thor’s $181 million ($449M globally). Also, it wasn’t as good. I liked it well enough (and from what I hear I may like the Blu-Ray version more), but apparently I was in the minority.
2. Superman and Wonder Woman after JMS. I just had questions for this entry: will Roberson and Barrows stay on Superman? (No.) Will Diana keep the jacket and pants? (No jacket, pants optional.) Finally, I asked “[w]ill sales improve once ‘Grounded’ ends?” Guess that depends on how you define “ends,” because “Grounded” closed out that Superman series; and the next issue of Superman was a New-52 No. 1 which sold almost 100,000 more copies than its predecessor. We may never know what might have happened to Superman without the New 52, but probably not that.
Continue Reading »
- January 5, 2012 @ 03:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
FanExpo Canada | A rundown of news from this weekend’s convention
Brian Wood returns to Marvel
FanExpo Canada wraps up today in Toronto, and both Marvel and DC were there this weekend announcing various projects:
- DC Comics will relaunch the Justice Society by writer James Robinson and artist Nicola Scott. The new adventures of the JSA will be set not on the “New 52″ Earth, but on Earth-2, as they were before Crisis on Infinite Earths combined DC’s multiple Earths into one big sandbox back in the 1980s. “Everyone’s saying, ‘How can there be superheroes before the five years?’ We’re actually bringing back Earth-2,” Robinson said.
- Marvel announced Brian Wood will write for the publisher once again, in a teaser that seems to point a finger at a Wolverine project.
- Marvel’s Alpha Flight has been upgraded from a limited series to an ongoing.”We’ve got Taskmaster showing up, we’ve got Wolverine and other characters journeying north to find out what’s going on with Alpha Flight,” said co-writer Fred Van Lente. “We learn that Alpha flight’s actually a member of a super, super team called The Commonwealth of Heroes. I’m very excited about writing those characters — I love them a lot and it’s going to be a good time.” The Commonwealth of Heroes? I am intrigued. CBR has more details in an interview with Van Lente and Greg Pak, where they mention that Captain Britain and MI-13 will play a role in the Commonwealth Heroes.
- In addition to Jill Thompson, other artists working on the upcoming Shade miniseries written by James Robinson include Gene Ha and Darwyn Cooke.
- Marvel will publish a five-issue miniseries called Destroyers, by writer Fred Van Lente and artist Kyle Hotz. The book will feature The Thing, the Beast, A-Bomb, She-Hulk, Karkas the Deviant and Devil Dinosaur. “A lot of this series is about how monsters feel about being monsters and how comfortable they are with it. Hank McCoy is probably the most comfortable in his furry blue skin. He’s got an analytical mind. In this story, a colleague from his past gets murdered. That sets him on a quest to solve a mystery and puts him on a collision course with the Destroyers,” Van Lente told CBR.
- Marvel also announced the return of two more CrossGen properties — Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in December by writer Peter Milligan and artist Roman Rosanas, and Route 666 in February by writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and artist Peter Nguyen. Both are four-issue mini-series.
- August 28, 2011 @ 03:41 PM by JK Parkin
SDCC ’11 | DiDio tackles questions online in ‘virtual convention panel’
Dan DiDio
Warming up for a grueling Comic-Con International schedule, DC Comics Co-Publisher Dan DiDio held a virtual convention panel last night on Facebook for fans who can’t make it to San Diego. Highlights from the Q&A include:
• DC no longer has the rights to Archie’s Red Circle superheroes.
• Stephanie Brown will remain part of the DC Universe following the September relaunch. However, DiDio won’t reveal where she is just yet. “Sorry, but we are keeping some secrets,” he wrote, “and one of them involves Stephanie.”
• He’s sticking by his earlier remarks about the status of the Justice Society, saying “the official answer on JSA is that ‘They’re resting’.”
• When can we expect the release of Dark Knight: Boy Wonder, the planned six-issue conclusion of Frank Miller and Jim Lee’s All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder? “Probably when he is The Teen Wonder.”
• Asked whether we’ll ever see the new version of Who’s Who in the DC Universe announced in December 2009, DiDio replied, “the question is not who’s who but when’s when.”
DiDio’s first actual Comic-Con panel, “DC Comics — The New 52,” kicks off at 2 p.m. Thursday in San Diego.
- July 20, 2011 @ 09:30 AM by Kevin Melrose
Dan DiDio: DC Comics has ‘decided to rest’ the Justice Society
Justice Society of America #26, by Alex Ross
One of the many questions surrounding DC Comics’ line-wide renumbering centered on the absence of Justice Society of America, a title that in recent years had undergone its own high-profile reboot and spawned two spinoff series. The Justice Society, with a sprawling membership that includes Golden Age characters (or their namesakes) like The Flash, Hawkman, Green Lantern and Hourman, reached deep into DC, and comic-book, history, forming the very first team of superheroes.
But Justice Society wasn’t among the 52 books rolled out by the publisher last week. Neither, for that matter, was Power Girl, whose title character has been closely associated with the JSA since her debut in 1976. And the solicitation for Mister Terrific #1, featuring a new take on “the world’s third-smartest man” — and two-time chairman of the team — makes no mention of the group. Then came the unveiling on Friday of Action Comics #1 which, as Robot 6′s J.K. Parkin pointed out, refers to “a world that doesn’t trust their first Super Hero.”
If all of that isn’t enough to signal the end, or non-existence, of the world’s first team of superheroes, official word came over the weekend from Co-Publisher Dan DiDio, who wrote on his Facebook page, “As for JSA, we have decided to rest this concept while we devote our attention on the launch of the three new Justice League series. As for other characters and series not part of the initial 52, there are plenty of stories to be told, and we’re just getting started.”
As with any demise in superhero comics, this one is probably only temporary (heck, the JSA itself has been put to “rest,” only to be resurrected, a handful of times over the past 60 years). However, when the publisher is pushing a “modern” and “contemporary” take on its superhero universe, grappling with graying characters so firmly rooted in World War II will undoubtedly prove problematic.
- June 13, 2011 @ 10:59 AM by Kevin Melrose
DC relaunch scorecard: DCnU or DC No?
Green Lantern #1, by Dave Johnson
Although it seems like DC’s big relaunch announcement came out an eternity ago, it actually took the publisher less than two weeks to roll out the 52 titles and their creative teams for the big relaunch/reboot/overhaul coming in September. Now that the cats are out of their respective bags, I thought I’d see where various creators and characters will land after the reboot.
So I went back through DC’s August solicitations to see who was writing or drawing what, and tried to map everyone to their post-relaunch project — if they had one. However, looking at DC’s August solicitations, there seem to be several fill-in issues, so where appropriate I tried to map the most recent ongoing creative teams to their new projects (for instance, I consider Gail Simone and Jesus Saiz the regular creative team for Birds of Prey, even if they aren’t doing the last two issues before September hits). Keep in mind that I just went through the ongoing series and skipped over all the miniseries … of which there are a lot, what with Flashpoint winding up in August.
It’s also worth noting that although several creators didn’t appear in the “big 52″ announcements, that doesn’t mean their tenure with DC is necessarily over — some, like Frazer Irving, have said they have future projects that haven’t been announced. So I tried to note where creators have talked publicly about their post-relaunch plans with DC (or lack thereof, as the case may be). The same could probably be said for some of DC’s characters as well. Or, as Gail Simone said on Twitter: “Again, September is NOT THE END. There’s still plans for characters that we haven’t seen yet.”
So let’s get to it ….
- June 12, 2011 @ 04:14 AM by JK Parkin
Grumpy Old Fan | Surprise me: DC Comics Solicitations for August 2011
Featuring the classic Blizzard vs. Polar Bear battle!
One tagline for the big alien-invasion movie Independence Day cautioned, “Don’t make plans for August.” Well, perhaps the biggest news coming out of DC’s August solicitations is the pervasive sense of foreboding they have about September. Rich Johnston maintains that a whole crop of new No. 1 issues is on tap for the fall, but there are no “FINAL ISSUE!” blurbs to be found on any of the current ongoing series.
While that doesn’t rule out a line-wide relaunch, the solicits also seem to say that readers won’t have to worry about a line-wide reboot. As noted in this space a couple of weeks back, the degree of change will probably be different for different titles. Nevertheless, now that we have a better idea of how August will look, let’s see what it says about September….
- May 19, 2011 @ 03:00 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
What Are You Reading?
Deadpool Team-Up #886
Hello and welcome to a special “birthday bash” edition of our weekly “What Are You Reading” feature, where the Robot 6 crew talks about what books we’ve read recently. Usually we invite a special guest to share what they’ve been reading, but since today isn’t just an ordinary day for us, we thought we’d invite a whole bunch of special guests to help us out — our friends and colleagues from Comic Book Resources, Spinoff and Comics Should Be Good!
To see what everyone has been reading, click below …
- January 2, 2011 @ 05:00 PM by JK Parkin
Grumpy Old Fan | The singularities of Earth-Two
Infinity, Inc. #1
This business about both Bruce and Dick being Batman (or “Batmen,” I guess) got me thinking about Earth-Two.
At the risk of being remedial — and some of you may want to skip to the next paragraph — Earth-Two was the home of DC’s original-formula superheroes, whose adventures took place roughly in real time. Superman first appeared in 1938, Batman in 1939, Robin in 1940, Wonder Woman in 1941, etc. It was the Justice Society’s Earth, where the Jay Garrick Flash had been around since 1940 before being “discovered” by Barry Allen decades later. Because the Golden Agers had all pretty much gone into semi-retirement, they had time to get married and raise kids. These children then became superheroes themselves. Earth-Two was retired itself in Crisis On Infinite Earths, but DC’s current Multiverse has its own Earth-2 (note the subtle change to numerals) which is very similar to the old one in most respects.
- September 2, 2010 @ 02:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
Perez, Simonson supply DC 75th anniversary variant covers
DC rolled out two more variant covers this week, as artists continue to provide their renditions of classic DC covers. Ironically, the two artists featured here are responsible for a good number of classic covers themselves.
First up, here’s Walt Simonson’s version of Jerry Robinson’s Detective Comics #69 cover, which will be a variant cover for Detective #866:
Detective Comics #866
- May 21, 2010 @ 11:00 AM by JK Parkin
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
Jen Van Meter responds to comments on that Power Girl/Cyclone scene
Last week Esther Inglis-Arkell over at the 4thletter called out a scene in the recent JSA: 80 Page Giant comic where Cyclone and Power Girl have a discussion about the latter’s costume … or, more specifically, the great big hole right in the middle of it.
“Are you kidding me? I’m getting an ‘I choose my choice’ speech from a fictional character?” Inglis-Arkell wrote. “Feminist fans are getting a slap because they won’t accept one bullshit excuse after another for why male heroes are mostly fully-clothed and female heroes mostly walk around in their underwear?”
That original post sparked up quite the discussion around the ‘net, not only at the 4thletter, but also at The Beat, Jezebel, Comics Alliance and right here at Robot 6, among many others.
You’d think that sort of attention might send the story’s writer, Jen Van Meter, running for cover, but instead she shows up in the 4thletter comments section to explain her intent when writing the story.
“A friend forwarded me links to your post and to a couple other blogs that have picked up on your comments, and I feel compelled to reply because you’re right — I failed in what I was trying to accomplish with the ‘Spin Cycle’ story, or, at the very least, I failed you and many of your respondents,” Van Meter posted.
Inglis-Arkell pulled the comment out into its own post, which I encourage you to read … it isn’t often you get to see a writer offer insight into a story where they “misstepped,” as Van Meter notes.
- December 1, 2009 @ 09:27 AM by JK Parkin
If by “river” you mean “vibrational barrier” and by “woods” you mean “transmatter chamber,” then yes
Grumpy Old Fan
Despite the fact that most of them were published in summer, Thanksgiving is always a good time to reminisce about the annual meetings of the Justice League and Justice Society. Back in the day, these meetings were special because, by definition, they were built around the idea of an “alternate” DC history. Readers could compare and contrast two demonstrably different versions of the Flash, Green Lantern, and Atom; and even get a glimpse at what Superman, Batman and/or Robin, and Wonder Woman would look like decades down the road. In the 1970s, when the Justice Society gained a younger generation, characters like Power Girl and the Huntress played well off their Earth-1 “relatives.” This reinforced further the notion that the two teams were branches of the same family tree. Such sentiment is certainly Thanksgiving-y, regardless of the season; and the fact that these stories were annual traditions didn’t hurt either. Still, just as the fourth Thursday afternoon in November can easily find one doped up on poultry and zoned out on football, sometimes simply being with family isn’t enough.
- November 26, 2009 @ 11:45 AM by Tom Bondurant
Paul Kupperberg shares a few bits & pieces of his unpublished JSA novel
JSA: Ragnarok
Writer Paul Kupperberg started a series of posts last August about JSA: Ragnarok, a novel he finished in 2005 about the Justice Society. It was supposed to be published by iBooks before it went bankrupt in 2006. Since then, he’s posted multiple excerpts from the book; check out additional ones here, here and the latest one here.
In that latest post, Kupperberg says efforts to get it into print still continue.
- July 7, 2009 @ 09:49 AM by JK Parkin