Wonder Woman
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.
Wonder Woman to make her ‘Smallville Season 11′ debut
After introducing DC Universe staples ranging from Batman and Nightwing to Monsieur Mallah and the Brain to the world of Smallville, writer Bryan Q. Miller is turning his attention to comics’ best-known superheroine. Or at least an interpretation of her.
In an interview with MTV Geek, Miller reveals August’s Smallville Season 11 #16 will see the debut of Wonder Woman in the world established by the long-running television series, although not by that name. Yet. Still, the writer assures, she is “Diana of Themyscira. Daughter of Queen Hippolyta. Amazon Princess.”
Grumpy Old Fan | Filling out Wonder Woman’s backlist
“… And isn’t it about time you reprinted this storyline?”
Last month DC Comics announced it had put together a new list of “essential” graphic novels and collections, designed to help casual readers and completists alike. This week I picked up a copy of the 121-page catalog (Issue 1, of course) along with my regular Wednesday haul.
Now, we all love lists, and this looks to be more comprehensive than the 30-item Jeph Loeb-heavy suggestions DC had previously offered. Could the new DC Entertainment Essential Graphic Novels and Chronology 2013 actually represent the depth and breadth of DC’s vast publishing history, and at least try to give each major character the attention he or she deserved?
Well …
I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but judging from the two pages devoted to “Women of DC Comics,” the answer doesn’t look promising for said women. As Sue (of DC Women Kicking Ass) and Bleeding Cool have already pointed out, Green Arrow and the Flash both get two-page spreads (each, to be fair, split between a one-page portrait and a one-page checklist), while Wonder Woman has to share two pages with Batgirl, Batwoman, Catwoman and the Huntress. Although the DC Entertainment Essential Graphic Novels and Chronology 2013 could use more female-centric titles (no Power Girl, Manhunter, Stephanie Brown or Cass Cain Batgirl, or Stars and STRIPE, and not a lot of Supergirl), today it may be enough just to focus on Wonder Woman.
Watch incredible fan-made title sequence for ‘Man of Steel’
I can’t help but admire the devotion to a comic book or a character that leads some fans to create tributes in the form of tribute films, webseries, or trailers for motion pictures that will probably never exist — and I wish I had that sort of passion for a work of fiction (and, y’know, the talent and resources to do something like that).
Luckily for us, however, the folks at the production company Will & Tale don’t lack in any of those areas, and gleefully undertook a three-month “passion project” to create an unofficial title sequence for director Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel.
Comics A.M. | Calgary Expo sells out; Wizard World loses $1M
Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo
Conventions | Kandrix Foong, founder of Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo, cautions latecomers that all 56,000 tickets for this weekend’s event are sold out. “We tell everybody now: ‘There are no on-site ticket sales,’” he said. “So they say: ‘OK, I’ll just try my luck when I get there.’ ‘No, no, no, you don’t understand. There are no on-site ticket sales. The end. If you show up you will be turned away. Sorry, but that’s the way it’s going to be.’” [Calgary Herald]
Conventions | Wizard World has released its annual report for 2012, and while its convention business was way up, from $3.8 million to $6.7 million, the company still finished the year with a net loss of $1 million. [The Beat]
Reminder: ‘Wonder Women!’ airs tonight on PBS
As we noted in February, PBS will air Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines tonight as part of its Independent Lens series.
Funded through Kickstarter, the documentary by director Kristy Guevara-Flanagan traces the evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman, from her introduction in 1941 to her role as a feminist icon in the 1970s to her depictions today, and examines how “popular representations of powerful women often reflect society’s anxieties about women’s liberation.” Among those interviewed for the film are Gloria Steinem, Lynda Carter, Lindsay Wagner, Trina Robbins, George Perez, Gail Simone, Danny Fingeroth and Andy Mangels. An interview with Kristy Guevara-Flanagan about “Wonder Women” can be found on CBR.
Wonder Women! premieres tonight at 10 ET/PT on PBS (check your local listings).
Grumpy Old Fan | Sequelizing the New 52
Someday I will run a landscaping company called Kneel Before Sod
Gather ‘round, kiddos, because we begin with another tale of Gen-X adolescence!
From 1977 through 1986, I grew from a snot-nosed third-grade punk into a snot-nosed (I had allergies) high-school senior, accompanied along the way by at least one big-budget sci-fi/fantasy movie milestone.* Specifically, right in the middle of the run were three sequels by which every self-respecting fan swears: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Superman II (released in the United States in 1981) and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). Each built on its predecessor using darker elements and/or more “mature” themes, because each had the sequel’s luxury of an established setting.
For Young Tom, though, the cumulative effect of these three movies was mind-expanding, if not mind-blowing. I’m not talking about Empire’s Big Reveal (echoed coincidentally in Khan) or the unsettling sight of a powerless Clark Kent. Instead, each catapulted the fevered suppositions of a junior-high imagination to higher levels of awareness. I went into the theater each time wondering will this be as good? and came out giddy at how much better each one was.
So what’s this have to do with comics? Read on …
The New 52 creative management review
Apparently we misunderstood: The New 52 doesn’t refer to the number of titles DC Comics publishes each month but rather the number of times each title changes creative hands. That’s what it seems like sometimes, what with firings by email, quitting on Twitter, rehirings and more. The general impression from behind-the-scenes tales is that the New 52 is in chaos. However, the end product might suggest DC is actually somewhat holding it together.
Creative changes are nothing new; turnover is inevitable. The key is how that turnover is managed. The ideal is to have a long and satisfying run by a cohesive team smoothly transitioning to a new team. Lord knows that doesn’t always happen, and we’ve certainly been hearing about it not happening recently.
With all of the news of creators coming and going, or going before they even get there, it’s easy to get distracted from the results of the finished product. So, I decided to take a look at a sampling of DC’s New 52, from its launch in late summer 2011 to today, and see how the stability of various titles was affected by creative changes. For my survey, I looked at the Justice League family of books, which includes the flagship Justice League, as well as Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Arrow and others generally associated with the JLA that haven’t had a big Hollywood movie.
What Are You Reading? with Brandon Thomas
Happy Easter and welcome once again to What Are You Reading?, where we review the stuff we’ve been checking out lately. Today we are joined by Miranda Mercury and Voltron writer Brandon Thomas, whose collection of original art and other stuff we featured in Shelf Porn yesterday.
To see what Brandon and the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below.
IDW to reprint Superman, Batman & Wonder Woman comic strips
IDW Publishing’s Library of American Comics is partnering with DC Entertainment to reprint rare newspaper strips starring Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. The archival collections will debut in July with Superman: The Silver Age Newspaper Dailies, Vol. 1: 1958-1961.
Although DC and Kitchen Sink Press reprinted the first few years of the Superman and Batman newspaper strips in the 1990s, they only scratched the surface of the comics’ run: Superman, which featured the work of such creators as Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Curt Swan and Wayne Boring, was serialized from 1939 to 1966. The Batman strip, originally titled Batman and Robin, saw three major runs — 1943 to 1946, 1966 to 1974, and 1989-1991. Wonder Woman’s newspaper tenure was much short-lived, lasting less than a year (in 1944).
The Superman daily strips will be released in three collections, organized by era — the Silver Age, the Atomic Age and the Golden Age — with Sunday reprints published in a separate, concurrent series later in the year.
Wonder Woman kicks Nazi butt in amazing fan trailer
Considering Warner Bros.’ hand-wringing about the long-planned Justice League movie and The CW’s uncertainty about the Amazon pilot, it may be some time before we see a live-action Wonder Woman on the screen. Until that day, we’ll have to make do with the well-produced fan trailer directed by stuntman Jesse V. Johnson that evokes the first season of the Lynda Carter television series by pitting Wonder Woman (Nina Bergman) against a bunch of Nazis.
After some torture and interrogation (the latter at the hands of Peter Stormare, no less), Wonder Woman naturally unleashes on her former captors, and even brings down a fighter plane. Maybe this is what The CW is looking for!
“It was my manager/producing partner Kailey Marsh’s idea to shoot the trailer,” Johnson explained to Latino Review. “She really believes I should be a studio director, and thought shooting Wonder Woman would be a great way to show off my skills in a fun way that people could get excited about.”
There’s also a concept poster by Robert Sebree, which you can see below, along with the trailer.
Wonder Women! documentary to premiere in April on PBS
PBS, which just last month broadcast the superhero-themed episode of Pioneers of Television, in April will turn its attention to the history of DC Comics’ Amazing Amazon with the premiere of Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines.
Airing as part of the Independent Lens series, the Kickstarter-funded documentary by director Kristy Guevara-Flanagan traces the evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman, from her introduction in 1941 to her role as a feminist icon in the 1970s to her depictions today, and examines how “popular representations of powerful women often reflect society’s anxieties about women’s liberation.”
Among those interviewed for the film are Gloria Steinem, Lynda Carter, Lindsay Wagner, Trina Robbins, George Perez, Gail Simone, Danny Fingeroth and Andy Mangels.
“I loved the idea of looking at something as populist as comics to reveal our cultural obsessions, and in particular, how women’s roles have changed over time,” Guevara-Flanagan says in a statement. “The narratives of our most iconic superheroes, told and re-told over decades, boldly outline our shifting values. For some it’s Lara Croft, for others it’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but we all need those iconic heroes that tell us we have the power to slay our dragons and don’t have to wait around to be rescued.”
Wonder Women! premieres on Independent Lens April 15 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on PBS (check local listings).
A little about each of the stories in DC’s Young Romance special
Whether due to use-it-or-lose-it legal concerns about trademarks, or simply to remind everyone of exactly what it owns, DC Comics has come up with a variety of ways to recycle old titles, ranging from the 1997 Tangent event to the anthologies Mystery in Space and Ghosts to the short-lived National Comics revival.
This week the company brought back Young Romance, the title of the Joe Simon/Jack Kirby-created comic that was published from 1947 to 1975, as a Valentine’s Day special featuring a half-dozen stories of romance in the New 52 DC Universe.
An interesting mix of creators are involved, an interesting enough mix to merit a look at what they might do with some of these characters and couples in eight pages. So join me for mini-reviews of every story in Young Romance: The New 52 Valentine’s Day Special.
Women of Action | Ame-Comi Girls
Amanda Conner's Wonder Woman
When DC Comics announced it was launching a series based on its popular Ame-Comi line of figures, I don’t think I heard a single person say, “Yes! I was hoping for that!” The Ame-Comi collectibles can be imaginative and attractive (some more than others), but no one was clamoring for a series that sexualized DC’s superheroines even more overtly than they already are. In fact, the most common responses were either head-scratching or eye-rolling, depending on how much the person thought DC has legitimately tried to reach out to female readers lately. But then the creators were announced.
Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray write the series and Amanda Conner drew the first couple of installments, which were serialized digitally first, 10 pages at a time. Putting the creators of the well-regarded Power Girl series on Ame-Comi Girls was a smart move and convinced a lot of readers who otherwise would have dismissed the comic – including me – to give it at least an initial look.
Do costumes in Injustice do justice to Justice League’s costumes?
The first issue of the improbably titled Injustice: Gods Among Us includes a dystopian future featuring a fascist Superman, a half-dozen or so superheroes, a handful of supervillains, a pregnant Lois Lane, the deaths of multiple characters, a submarine hijacking and the detonation of a nuclear bomb.
I was most interested in what everyone was wearing.
Injustice is the print version of the digital-first comic based on the upcoming fighting video game from the makers of Mortal Kombat. The game is, of course, based on DC’s characters, so with the release of this issue, the circle is complete: This is the precise part of the tail where the transmedia ouroboros chomps down.
The aspect of DC’s overall New 52 refurbishing — from the de-cluttering continuity reboot to the costume redesigns — that has most fascinated me is that the timing seemed to indicate it was part of a transmedia strategy, which of course has led to months of trying to figure out why particular changes or decisions might have been made, and what that indicates about the publisher’s priorities.
This deep in to the New 52, it’s clear DC eschewed making its comics universe more closely resemble that of the popular, all-ages cartoons like Justice League Unlimited, Teen Titans, the decades of assorted Batman shows and even Young Justice, which seems rather remarkably able to synthesize aspects of complicated comic-book continuity. And it’s clear the publisher has instead focused its energies on the older teen/adult audiences of video games Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City and, to a lesser extent, Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies and their DC Universe Online video game.
So here’s a comic book based on the company’s next big video game, which was being developed and produced just as the New 52 line was being developed and produced: What will this comic look like? What will it be like?