I Am Walter noticed that Amazon is taking pre-orders for a classic Wonder Woman story Wonder Woman: The Twelve Labors. The trade paperback collects Wonder Woman #212-222 and tells the story of her return to the Justice League shortly after regaining her powers in the early ’70s. Feeling unsure of herself, Wonder Woman asks the JLA to monitor her next 12 adventures to judge whether she still has what it takes to join the team. The collection is priced at $14.99 and scheduled for release on July 10. Check out Walter’s blog for a cover gallery of the collected issues.

(Image from My Comics Shop)

I will not caption this cover "Pistol Packin' Mama"

The big news from April’s solicitations was revealed last week, as DC announced the cancellation of six of the original New-52 books (to be replaced with five new series plus the returning Batman Incorporated). While there’s more to say about this on its merits, I do like DC keeping a fixed number of ongoing series. Nerds love structure, right? (Besides, it’s kind of like programming a television schedule.)

Of course, just two weeks ago I predicted that all of the original New-52 books would get to their twelfth issues, in part so that DC could claim they each “told their stories.” That doesn’t seem to be the case here, at least not from the solicitation texts. Instead, the solicits for each final issue mostly advertise how the series are all going down swinging. We know now, too, that in some ways this isn’t really the end: Mister Terrific’s Karen Starr looks like the Power Girl of the upcoming Worlds’ Finest; Men Of War’s superhero/military mashup should transition smoothly to G.I. Combat; and I don’t think DC will kill off Hawk and Dove again.

Actually, if I were Captain Atom, I’d be a little nervous. According to ICV2′s December sales estimates, Hawk & Dove was the highest-selling New-52 book to be cancelled (18,014 copies at #114), but CA was right behind (17,917; #115).

Anyway, on to the solicits themselves….

* * *

LO, THERE SHALL BE … OH, YOU KNOW

Lots of finality in the April solicits, even beyond the obvious. Mister Terrific signs off with the Blackhawks and (more than likely) the return of Power Girl; and Men Of War guest-stars Frankenstein. Blackhawks and Hawk and Dove tease doom and gloom. Action Comics, Batman, Batwing, and Batman and Robin all wrap up their inaugural arcs (as does OMAC, but its first arc turned out to be its last), and the Justice League Dark/I, Vampire crossover concludes. Batman: Odyssey and THUNDER Agents finish their limited runs, and over at Vertigo, Northlanders ends with #50. Finally, Static Shock’s last issue looks more like an epilogue, hopefully indicating a decent role for the character beyond the end of his latest series.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

Possible groundwork for the next Pandora appearance: dark visions of the future show up in Captain Atom #8 and Teen Titans #8, while the Flash visits the Speed Force in Flash #8. If I wanted to connect it to the Daemonite plots over in Grifter, Voodoo, and Superman, I’d say that the Daemonites realize (somehow) that the former WildStorm Earth was probably a lot easier to conquer without the Justice League in the way, so they’re going after Superman to eliminate the biggest threat first. It’s all very “countdown to Infinite Crisis”-esque, you see.

Since I dropped Teen Titans after issue #1, it’s been surprisingly easy for me to ignore it and still read Superboy. However, I’m worried that might not continue as Superboy becomes more involved with both Titans and the upcoming Ravagers series. Then there’s Superboy’s crossover with Teen Titans and Legion Lost, which I should have seen coming back in September. Ordinarily, that would all be okay, but I have a bad feeling that Ravagers will get dragged into the whole thing, and the Gen13 kids will be there, and it’ll just turn into a whole big mulligan stew of teenaged super-people. Wow, now I really do feel old.

By contrast, the upcoming Resurrection Man/Suicide Squad crossover should be easier to take, just because it looks more isolated. Oh, and who else thinks the Squad’s traitor is involved with Skinny Amanda Waller? She’s got to be a fake, and the real deal will be about twice her size…. Regardless, the old Amanda shows up in Batman Beyond Unlimited #3, so that’ll be good.

ONE LEAGUE UNDER THE SEA

I am probably more excited than is necessary at the prospect of Green Arrow in Justice League. To be sure, I don’t know this version of Ollie that well, having dropped the current Green Arrow after issue #1 for being too bland. Maybe Ann Nocenti will light the proper fire under him, and maybe that will be reflected in his JL #8 characterization? After all, cross-promotion is one of the Justice League’s oldest and most subtle missions.

Meanwhile, it seems eminently appropriate for Batwing to join Justice League International — I’m guessing he’s not the “surprise team member” if he’s on the cover of #8 — but I kind of want him to take a page from his patron, and claim that he’s too busy with his own crusade.

And as long as we’re talking Leagues here, I agree with Scipio that Aquaman’s old team should turn out to have been the Sea Devils.

THIS AND THAT

There is a sort of backhanded precedent for Wonder Woman packing heat (issue #8′s“Pistols of Eros,” snicker). It comes from the end of Greg Rucka’s run, when the Amazons reverse the polarity of their Purple Healing Ray, build an industrial-sized version, and call it the Purple Death Ray. I trusted Rucka to do that, and I trust Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang to make the P’s. of E. work too.

I’ll never turn down George Pérez artwork, so it’s good to see his guest pencils on April’s Supergirl #8. It may also be a nice way to warm up for his work on another Girl of Steel in Worlds’ Finest.

COLLECTIONS

The Infinite Crisis Omnibus mentions “villains uniting,” but it doesn’t seem to collect Villains United. However, the miniseries and specials listed in the solicits only add up to about half of the Omnibus’ page count, so there seems to be room for VU and the Return of Donna Troy miniseries as well.

I have a feeling that the Batman: Prey paperback is meant to capitalize on Catwoman’s role in The Dark Knight Rises, even though “Prey” was primarily a Hugo Strange story. In fact, for my money, “Prey” is the second-most-influential Hugo Strange story, behind the seminal Engelhart/Rogers Detective Comics arc. “Prey” takes one iconic scene from Englehart/Rogers — Hugo as Batman, with a Bruce Wayne mask under the cowl — and extrapolates from that an entire psychosexual obsession with the Darknight Detective, also involving a second Batman impersonator in Hugo’s scheme to destroy our hero. All that and the post-“Year One” origin of the Batmobile too! It’s a good story, is what I’m saying.

I’m not sure about the causal relationship between the various reprint lines. The Archives came before the Showcase Presents books, so there were Challengers of the Unknown Archives and Sgt. Rock Archives before there were SP reprints. However, I bet the sales of the SP volumes supported the upcoming Challengers Omnibus and the latest Sgt. Rock Archives.  In any event, the hardcover market may be more eclectic than I thought.

The character — or at least this phase of his development — doesn’t seem to be remembered that fondly, but I’m looking forward to revisiting the “AzBats” Batman in the new Knightfall Volume 2. What’s funny is that two Batman artists from that period, Graham Nolan and Mike Manley, are now drawing the soap-opera strips Rex Morgan M.D. and Judge Parker. I wonder if their newspaper fans will want to see their superhero work.

I’ve already mentioned the Sea Devils, but I believe their Showcase Presents solicitation helps clarify certain recent events. Reading between the lines, it seems that DC has been working on a hush-hush follow-up to this series called Flame-Headed Watchman 2….

* * *

Well, that’s what jumped out at me this month. What looks good to you?

DC Comics’ new logo was officially unveiled this morning, followed by the release of mockups showing how the “peel” design would appear on digital devices, collected editions and single issues. However, a closer look at the latter reveals a comics conundrum: a New 52 cover for Batman, with the current creative team of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, is labeled as Issue 708, while George Perez’s Superman #1 cover is numbered somewhere between #700 and #709 (it’s partially obscured, making it difficult to tell). Here’s the thing — despite the New 52 covers, both of those issues were published before the New 52 was announced in July 2011.

Batman #708 was printed in March 2011 during David Hine and Guillem March’s run on the book. Any issue of Superman that begins with “#70_” would had to have been somewhere between June 2010 and March 2011, spanning J. Michael Straczynski and Chris Roberson’s runs. Assuming these are the numberings from March 2011, that would mean the final two issues should be Green Lantern #64 and Wonder Woman #609. Could this be a sign of the New 52 numbering being a last-minute change for DC? Or maybe DC wasn’t letting the outside firm in on its relaunch plans, which could indicate this logo has been in development since well before March.

Then again, it could just be a coincidence, but it is an odd oversight to present a new logo with numberings from issues that hit stores 10 months ago.

Whatever the case, it brings us to the question why the company didn’t roll out its new brand identity in late August, when it relaunched its entire line, or even last month, when it published a mammoth hardcover collecting all 52 first issues – one that now rests on shelves sporting the nearly seven-year-old “swoosh.”

DC’s “peel” logo will make its comics debut in March, when most of the covers presumably will bear the number 7.

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.

3. Batman: Earth One. I was looking forward to the next “Earth One” release in 2011, and I’m still looking.  [Edited to add:  Of course, DC picked this morning, well after I'd finished this post, to preview both Batman:  Earth One and Superman:  Earth One Volume 2.]

4. All Star Batman/Multiversity/Teen Titans: Games. Last year I had hoped to see all three of these long-delayed projects finally published. However, only Games, started in the late ‘80s and finished over 25 years later, made it across the finish line. Of the remaining two, I suppose we’re most likely to see Multiversity, although its Earth-4 installment may have to compete with an actual Watchmen follow-up.

5. The United Colors of Batman. I was “curious to see what [Batman Incorporated] look[ed] like at the end of 2011,” and now I know: a gigundo $7.99 special issue, a brief appearance from the Batman of Moscow in Batman and Robin, and the ongoing Batwing series. That’s actually not bad for a concept which grew out of Grant Morrison’s conceit that “every Batman story counts,” considering that all those Batman stories must now fit into an arbitrary-seeming five-year history.

6. End of the Archives? Last year I thought the Archives line was being phased out in favor of the hardcover Omnibii, paperback Chronicles, and black-and-white Showcase Presents reprints. Not so fast, my friend — there are more on the way.

7. Reprint floodgates. Were the Sugar & Spike Archives and the Flex Mentallo hardcover (coming in February) really “the first crack in the dam holding back collections of Suicide Squad, Captain Carrot, Secret Society of Super-Villains, and Jonah Hex?” Hmm — kind of. Suicide Squad got one paperback (although the second is at least in limbo) and Secret Society got a Volume 1 hardcover (with Vol. 2 coming in the spring), but still no Captain Carrot or Jonah Hex Volume 2. Still, among semi-obscure ‘70s and ‘80s fare, there was that Firestorm paperback; and collections of I … Vampire! and Night Force are apparently on the way. Good news for the 300 of us on the Internet who care about such things.

8. The changing shape of Events. Last January I thought Flashpoint and the Wonder Woman storyline “Odyssey” contained the seeds of a stealth crossover, and they’d eventually intersect in some kind of big-event way. That didn’t really happen, at least not how I pictured it.

9. The spirit of ‘86. Last year I wanted to see “a behind-the-scenes look at what went into that seminal year,” especially focusing on the revamps of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman supposedly called the “Metropolis Line.” That didn’t happen either, but we did get a whole slew of revamps.

10. DC on TV. I thought things looked good for “Human Target,” “Wonder Woman,” and the proposed “Raven” series. 0-for-3.

* * *

So, for 2012:

1. The Dark Knight Rises. Can it make a skillion dollars? Will it have Robin? Will it have subtitles?

2. The New 52, one year later. The more I think about it, the more I believe the New-52 books will each get at least twelve issues, regardless of sales. If any books are cancelled (and you have to think some of them will be), it’ll be in such a way that DC can claim they “told their stories,” not that readers grew tired of them.

3. The Next 52 (or however many). This is where I mention the promised-but-not-solicited Justice Society series and its Earth-2 setting. More to the point, here DC has a chance to expand the scope of its main line beyond that which made the New 52 a little too familiar. I got into this a little a few weeks back, but that was based on conventional wisdom and a little tea-leaf reading. Maybe a little more originality will work into the next batch of books.

4. Pandora’s playlist. Part of the reason I think the initial New-52 books will all get their twelve issues is this notion that they’re all building to some line-wide event involving the Hooded Woman from the No. 1 issues. DC says to call her Pandora, and she dresses like the Phantom Stranger’s aunt. From her I’m expecting some insight on the fate of the pre-relaunch timeline. Not that I care, of course.

5. More Watchmen. Really, what more is there to say? If the prequel rumors turn out to be true, whatever merits the stories themselves may have will surely be outweighed by the project’s inherent irrelevance. Also, the phrase “naked cash grab” won’t stop popping into my head. Still, there’s time for DC to repurpose the art which has been leaked thus far, and claim it’s all part of some commemorative portfolio. A big part of Watchmen deals with the nature of superhero comics themselves, so naturally it continually risks further exploitation. For characters reworked from their Charlton beginnings, so that DC could subsequently put out Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, The Question, et al., this is somehow ironic, sad, and inevitable, all at once.

6. More multimedia expansion. For various reasons, I haven’t owned a videogame system since my faithful Super Nintendo (almost twenty years ago — yikes!), and haven’t played a game-system kind of game regularly since X-Wing Alliance. Nevertheless, last year I heard nothing but accolades for Batman: Arkham City, which followed the similarly-praised Batman: Arkham Asylum, and which helped cement the Dark Knight’s insertion into another non-comics entertainment area. Although the DC Universe Online game doesn’t seem to have captured the gaming world’s collective heart, it’s still out there too, now free to play. Even if DCUO fades away, surely more Arkham-style games are in development. As for TV, “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” ended its Cartoon Network run, but “Young Justice” and “Green Lantern” will anchor CN’s DC Nation block of … well, a whole lot of different things, perhaps enough to warrant another new show just through the law of averages. Oh, and there have been announcements about new live-action TV series featuring Deadman and The Spectre. I got burned last year on DC’s TV prospects, so I’m not predicting anything about them. One thing’s for sure, though — DC is trying its darnedest to establish footholds in non-comics venues, even if that doesn’t translate into more comics sales.

7. Man of Steel and Green Lantern 2. Carla and I talked about these over the weekend, but I think we’ll learn a lot about the prospects of each by the end of 2012. Specifically, we should know more about whether either of those can replace the Batman (and/or Harry Potter) series as Warner Brothers’ go-to movie franchises. Now, this isn’t quite fair, because there will be another set of Batman movies after Christian Bale takes off his cape. Still, 2013′s Man of Steel is yet another chance for Warners to prove that Superman can be successful without either Christopher Reeve or the particular charms of “Smallville.” From what I have seen, I am hopeful but not optimistic. In fact, if the animated GL series does well enough, it could boost the chances of a live-action sequel, and it’s easier to replace a Green Lantern than it is a Superman.

8. Market share. December’s sales numbers show Marvel reclaiming the largest share of the Direct Market, after four months of coming in second to DC’s superhero titles. This doesn’t shock me, because Marvel just publishes more titles than DC does, and as the initial enthusiasm for the New-52 fades, the numbers tend not to be in DC’s favor. Still, now that DC has had a taste of the top spot, I wonder whether the publisher will start chasing it. Maybe it has started already.

9. Digital effects. Barring some unforeseen collapse, 2012 should provide a year’s worth of insight into DC’s day-and-date digital sales. Whether DC decides to share that with the public at large is another matter. If nothing else, though, digital sales help enforce a stricter shipping schedule for the print books. That could mean more changes in creative teams, whether temporary or permanent, but it could also help foster some every-Wednesday comics-shop habits in those coveted new readers. Of course, digital comics don’t need to conform to standard pamphlet lengths, and if DC decides to offer more digital-only (or at least digital-first) stories, it might open up new avenues for both readers and creators.

And that brings us to …

10. A return to storytelling. I have complained to various degrees about the problems the New-52 relaunch created for us longtime fans. I have also tried hard to be understanding, and to embrace the spirit of freedom and creativity a relaunch encourages. Accordingly, to the extent the New-52 books haven’t themselves embraced that spirit, I’ve been disappointed. If you have the chance to do what you want, you probably need to justify why you do the same old things. Here’s hoping that in 2012, the superhero line uses its still-new freedom wisely, as books like Animal Man, Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing, and Batwoman have, and that it cultivates an atmosphere of experimentation. If the DC of 2012 is built on solid fundamentals and good comics, that’ll be the best news I get all year.

Justice League #1

Publishing | Four months in, the DC Comics relaunch seems to be a success. The most recent sales figures show Justice League #1 selling more than 360,000 copies since August, and Batman #1 and Action Comics #1 selling more than 250,000. By contrast, Marvel’s strongest seller was Ultimate Spider-Man #160, which was in the 160,000-copy neighborhood. These figures seem to reflect sales in the direct market only; it would be interesting to see how many digital copies have been sold. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Awards | Nominations are open for this year’s Eagle Awards. [Eagle Awards]

Retailing | San Francisco retailer Brian Hibbs shares the top-selling graphic novels in his store for 2011, by units and by dollars. [Savage Critics]

Retailing | Christopher Butcher looks back on the events of the past year in the comics store he manages, Toronto’s The Beguiling. [The Beguiling blog]

Commentary | Mike Gold explains why the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a terrible idea. [ComicMix]

Comics | Enough with the best-of lists: Ron Richards presents his lovingly compiled list of the worst things in comics in 2011. His No. 1 point stands in stark contrast to The Hollywood Reporter piece: Overall, sales are dropping. [iFanboy]

Gingerbread Girl

Comics | Tom Spurgeon continues his holiday interview series, talking to Rina Piccolo, Steve Bissette, Colleen Coover, Todd DePastino and Robot 6′s own Chris Mautner. [The Comics Reporter]

Comics | The Houston Chronicle covers the arrival of its own local superhero, the Scarlet Spider. [Houston Chronicle]

Publishing | Jim Shooter recounts his time at Broadway Comics, as well as dealings he had with the World Wrestling Federation when Valiant had the rights to produce wrestling comics: “VALIANT, as you may know, was forced into a license to do WWF comics by my corrupt partner Steve Massarsky, who represented both Leisure Concepts International (the WWF’s licensing agency) and VALIANT. Can you say ‘conflict of interest?’ Massarsky made a ton of money personally by making a deal with himself with utter disregard for what made sense for VALIANT, and I was stuck with actually producing WWF comics.” [Jim Shooter]

Creators | Christopher Irving and Seth Kushner profile Legion of Super-Heroes writer and former DC Comics president and publisher Paul Levitz. [Graphic NYC]

Brilliant #1

Creators | This profile of Mark Bagley covers his entry into comics and his collaborations with Brian Michael Bendis on Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers Assemble and their own Brilliant. [Creative Loafing]

Creators | Ron Marz reports he raised $500 last month for Toys for Tots by selling signed comics to fans. [Messages from Marz]

Creators | Guest-blogging for Whitney Matheson, Grace Bello interviews Tony Millionaire. [Pop Candy]

Creators | Kurtis Wiebe discusses Green Wake, The Intrepids and his new series Peter Panzerfaust. [The Outhouse]

Craft | Colorist Matt Wilson explains how he went about coloring a page of Wonder Woman #4 that presented some challenges. [SeeEmWhyKay, via Blog@Newsarama]

Commentary | Filmmaker and blogger Becki Burrows interviews Paul Gravett, author of many books on comics and graphic novels, most recently, 1001 Comics to Read Before You Die. [Paul Gravett]

Commentary | David Uzumeri makes the case for why The Flash is “the most visually inventive book of the [DC Comics] relaunch”: “The first hint of this came when DC began promoting the first issue’s title page the promotional rounds, an absolutely gorgeous piece of work that integrated the design sense of the logo into not only the artwork but the actual storytelling. Manapul drew Barry Allen disarming an army of mysterious sci-fi marines in a breathtaking clockwise sequence that was immediately readable despite its complexity, guiding the eye in a circle across a sequence where the Flash basically hands all of these dudes their butts in a series of small panels within the letters of his own name. Then it kept getting better.” [ComicsAlliance]

Commentary | Sean Kleefeld examines the world view of One Piece and wonders if some of the folks at the Occupy protests were there because of Luffy and the Straw Hats. [Kleefeld on Comics]

Review | Rob Clough reads Seth’s The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists. [The Comics Journal]

The Season's Finest

… [T]here were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

– Luke 2: 8-14 (King James Version)

If you are inexorably compelled to top off that passage with “And that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown,” join the club. As well, if you’re wondering how this relates to DC Comics’ superheroes, fear not — we’ll get there. (And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, don’t worry — I’ll try not to prosletyze.)

* * *

Each of us, as we age, edits our tastes; revising and, inevitably, revisiting them. For me, it came down to “I liked this before — why shouldn’t I like it again?” Over the years I have been through this process with pretty much everything which entertained me as a youngster: comics, music, D&D, even the big things like Star Trek and Star Wars. (While my Star Wars sabbatical only lasted from 1984-87, it still felt like an eternity.)

Naturally, when I decided I was going to get serious (relatively speaking) about religion, I took a second look at how I’d been celebrating Christmas. Along the way I winnowed down the number of Christmas specials I watched — not quite in an ideological-purity way, but by and large that’s how it turned out. The cuts were pretty brutal, especially on the animated side, because most of them dealt with the more secular aspects of the holiday: Santa, reindeer, snowmen, and a non-denominational “attitude of gratitude.” Nothing wrong with any of that on its own, of course; but to me it didn’t seem particularly Christmas-y. In fact, for a number of years only “A Charlie Brown Christmas” made the must-watch list, mostly for Linus’ recitation from the Gospel of Luke. Again, I wasn’t condemning Rudolph and Frosty to the fiery pit — I just didn’t feel like I was missing out on any lessons about Jesus’ birth if I failed to watch ‘em each year.

Accordingly, since then I have tried hard to set aside twenty or so minutes for the simple, affecting tale of an alienated boy struggling to find his place in the confusion of the Christmas season (and not, I should mention, seeking solace in a Red Ryder BB gun). Not only does it point the way to a key Scriptural lesson, it also reminds me of Charles Schulz’ singular view of the world, and how he was able to communicate that vision so skillfully for almost the last fifty years of his life. Of course he did it through the modest medium of comics; and of course his work both elevated and transcended that medium. When I watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (which I realize isn’t comics, but close enough for our purposes), I see the genius that was Peanuts; and it warms my heart almost as much as the holiday sentiment does.

* * *

Lately, though, part of me wants to see a more baroque, retro-gonzo, Morrison/Quitely-esque Nativity account. Page One: a handful of silent, dark panels show shepherds keeping watch. Open up pages 2 and 3 for an eruption of radiance, as the angel makes ‘em sore afraid for three-quarters of the splash and calms ‘em down in inset panels running along the right side. Pages 4 and 5 up the ante even more with another two-page spread: the Heavenly Host exploding with light and fanfare over the dark desert, praising God and singing the most beautifully unearthly music any human had ever heard. I know the music is a tall order for print, but sometimes you just want to go all-out.

Sometimes, too, you want to make your pastimes fit where they might not ordinarily go. Hearing Luke’s account, it’s hard for me not to be reminded of the Kents finding baby Kal-El on the bleak Kansas plains. In John Byrne’s 1986 revision, the Kryptonian pod landed just before a Snowstorm of the Century conveniently trapped much of Small County in their homes, and gave Martha time to explain why no one saw her pregnant. Moreover, the ‘86 origin included an outer-space battle between the Green Lantern Corps and the Manhunters, the latter trying to claim Kal-El for their own. I like to think they fought close enough to the Earth that the green Oan energy could be seen from the ground, not unlike the angels’ display over Bethlehem.

That’s probably wishful thinking on my part, though. In terms of Biblical parallels, the Superman legend tracks closer to Moses than Jesus, and it’s only superficially similar at best. Superman may come “from above,” but his mission is based squarely on terrestrial ethics. In fact, Wonder Woman is more of a messianic figure, since it’s pretty much her job to bring Amazonian values to Patriarch’s World. Her classic origin is both mythic and poignant, but if one is looking for Christian parallels, the New-52 revisions are certainly helpful (besides being “in character” for the Greek gods, of course). The Christian Nativity is its own thing, just as Superman’s and Wonder Woman’s origins are largely their own, regardless of the connections we readers try to make.

Nevertheless, we make these connections, because we want our pastimes to be meaningful beyond their escapist thrills. When Superman died and returned, it wasn’t to save DC-Earth from its sins. (Instead, it helped propagate the sins of ‘90s excess.) However, those storylines helped reinforce those easy, familiar parallels. What, then, does that make the New-52 Supes? Is he “Buddy Christ,” the user-friendly Jesus for the 21st Century?

Actually, if we’re talking about periodic revisions, Superman is closer to Santa Claus. Snopes.com describes the latter as

a hybrid, a character descended from a religious figure (St. Nicholas) whose physical appearance and backstory were created and shaped by many different hands over the course of years until he finally coalesced into the now familiar (secular) character of a jolly, rotund, red-and-white garbed father figure who oversees a North Pole workshop manned by elves and travels in a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer to deliver toys to children all around the world every Christmas Eve.

Thus, one was inspired by a real person — a wealthy orphan, as it happens, whose fortune helped him do good — and one sprung from the imaginations of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, but the intervention of “many hands” shaped both irrevocably. While the illustrator Haddon Sundblom drew iconic images of Santa for the Coca-Cola Company, and pencillers like Wayne Boring and Curt Swan set the style for Superman for decades, the looks of both characters had already been fairly well-established. We don’t see too many revisions to Santa’s look these days, and I suspect that before too long, the New-52 Superman will revert to a more classic appearance as well.

* * *

In a way, this is what puzzles me about people who say they don’t “get” Superman and Wonder Woman. I understand that it’s easier to grasp the ideas behind Batman, Green Lantern, and the Flash. Under their abilities and gear, they’re just guys, driven by relatively mundane mindsets. Superman and Wonder Woman are allegedly more obtuse because they represent higher ideals. Well, what about Santa? His mission of omniscient compassion and annual rewards (coupled these days with a dollop of economic stimulus) is just as lofty, but no one looks to relaunch him every few years.

Now, you may say that Santa is hardly as complex as either the Last Son of Krypton or the Amazing Amazon, and there is some truth to that. However, with Superman and Wonder Woman, it’s possible as well to go overboard on complexity — to bend over backwards to make them “relevant” or “realistic” at the expense of what made them appealing initially. And this, too, is part of the reason no one looks to relaunch Santa — because Santa’s audience is self-renewing, and never really goes away.

Similarly, there will always be an audience for Superman, and that audience will know, deep in its collective heart, when Superman is done right. When that happens, whether it comes from Siegel & Shuster or Morrison & Quitely or Christopher Reeve, it’s one of the most special things on Earth. Superman is one of those rare creations of fiction which, like Charlie Brown and Santa Claus, has transcended its original state to become an icon of something pure and true. After that point, tweaking tends to yield diminishing returns. We “know” Superman like we know the others, because he speaks to the best parts of ourselves.

Accordingly, this time of the year it doesn’t take much to trigger my sentimental impulses. For me, the best trappings of Christmas are the most primal, the most elementary: the dark desert, the angels, the shepherds, and of course the Child. The primal Superman elements do the same: the costume, the transformation, the powers. Adding too much else threatens to obscure them.

Introducing his ultimate Superman story, Alan Moore referred to “a perfect man who came from the sky and did only good.” Whoever that is for you, I hope this season inspires you to do the same. After all, that’s what Christmas is all about.

Wizard

Conventions | Wizard’s executive chairman Mike Mathews tells Heidi MacDonald that after the resignation of former CEO Gareb Shamus, the company wants to be “a Switzerland of entertainment” and mend fences with members of the industry: “Gareb is one of these types of personalities who has taken strong positions over the years with various people in the industry and brands. And that kind of hurt us because of where we are trying to go — we’re trying to be a Switzerland of entertainment and we want to try to try to reach out to brands.” MacDonald notes the company is offering a $100 credit toward Wizard conventions to former Wizard subscribers whose subscriptions abruptly ended when the magazine was shut down. A new CEO is expected to be named early next month. [The Beat]

Conventions | Image Comics announced several more guests for the Image Expo, scheduled for Feb. 24-26 in Oakland, California. The lineup now includes Blair Butler, John Layman, Rob Guillory, Nick Spencer, Joshua Fialkov, Joe Keatinge, Jim McCann and Jim Zubkavich, among many others. [press release]

Organizations | The Associação da Luta Contra o Cancer is running an awareness campaign in Mozambique featuring images drawn by artist Maisa Chaves of Wonder Woman, Catwoman, She-Hulk and Storm checking their breasts for lumps. [Daily Mail]

Retailing | The Sacramento Press surveys local comic shops. [Part 1, Part 2]

Comics | Greg Elias talks to Dr. Peter A. Hancock about the use of augmented cognition in The Flash. [Speed Force]

The Massive

Creators | Brian Wood reflects on Channel Zero, one of his earliest works, and discusses digital comics, the financial hit he took when his exclusive contract with DC expired, and his upcoming work at Dark Horse on Conan and The Massive: “The Massive is at once both a stylistic and tonal followup to DMZ, and representative of a radical new approach in how I’m writing my comics. It was designed, originally, to be a Vertigo book and follow right after DMZ’s end and capture that same audience, to give those diehard readers something they would enjoy just as much. That obviously didn’t come to pass (conflicts with the new contracts Vertigo was offering, mostly) but the intent is the same. Existing readers of my Vertigo work, The Massive is for you.” [ComicsAlliance]

Creators | Chew artist Rob Guillory is briefly profiled by his local newspaper. [The Advertiser]

Commentary | K. Thor Jensen lists 11 comic characters “that should have stayed dead.” [UGO]

Awards | Houston Chronicle editorial cartoonist Nick Anderson is the recipient of the National Press Foundation’s 2011 Clifford K. & James T. Berryman Award for Editorial Cartooning. [The Daily Cartoonist]

Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.

20th Century Boys, Volume 18

Chris Arrant

If I only had $15, I would only be buying one title this week: 20th Century Boys, Vol. 18 (Viz, $12.99). Sorry Americanos, but Naoki Urasawa is delivering a gripping, sprawling drama that most other books can’t live up to. Wait, I’m wrong – I’d buy two comics with a $15 budget this week; I’d snag the $1 The Strain #1 (Dark Horse, $1) for the price point and Mike Huddleston. I’ve read the novels, but for $1 I can’t miss sampling at least the first issue.

If I had $30, I’d be thankful to double-back and first get Uncanny X-Force #18 (Marvel, $3.99). This issue, the finale of the “Dark Angel Saga,” has been a long time coming and I’m excited for the writing, the art and the story itself; and I can’t forget colorist Dean White, sheesh he’s good. After that I’d pick up my usual Walking Dead #92 (Image, $2.99) and then try Ed McGuinness’ new work in Avengers: X-Sanction #1 (Marvel, $3.99). I’m a big fan of McG’s work, but also realize just how different he is than the standard Marvel (or mainstream super-hero) artist in general. I’ve loved his storytelling sense since Mr. Majestic, and will pick up most any of his work without knowing much about the book itself. Next up would be James Robinson & Cully Hamner’s The Shade #3 (DC, $2.99). I’m surprised DC hasn’t done more marketing for this book, especially considering it’s a character who’s never held a series before; they’ve done little-to-any marketing to define just who the character is, relying on his ties to a lesser-selling series that ended ten years ago (no matter how good it was). Getting off my soapbox: those that have been reading The Shade know it’s good. After that I’d round it off with the best looking comic on shelves, Batwoman #4 (DC, $2.99).

If I was to splurge, I’d double-up my J.H Williams 3 fix with the final volume of Absolute Promethea (DC/ABC, $99.99). Although I already own these issues in singles, getting it over-sized and in hardcover is a treat. I’m hoping it also includes some production art or process sketches – I’m a nut for that.

Jim Henson's The Storyteller

Graeme McMillan

If I just had $15 for comics this week, it’d be gone in one fell swoop, with Fables, Vol. 16: Super Team (DC/Vertigo, $14.99) filling that empty void in my heart I’ve had for the last few months as I’ve awaited the latest collection of Bill Willingham’s long-running series.

If I had $30, however, I’d be picking up The Shade #3, Batwoman #4 and Demon Knights #4 (All DC, $2.99) to continue some of my favorite reads from the New 52 set-up, and sampling the much-hyped Avengers: X-Sanction #1 (Marvel, $3.99) to see if the future of Marvel Comics looks significantly different from its recent past (I suspect that it won’t. Spoilers, as River Song would chide).

In the world of splurging, it really has to be Archaia’s Jim Henson’s The Storyteller hardcover for me ($19.95); with a creative line-up including Jeff Parker, Colleen Coover, Paul Tobin, Ton Fowler and more, this is pretty much an all-star must-read for me, and one I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time.

A Tale of Sand

Brigid Alverson

If I had $15, I’d stick to singles. Let’s start with Doctor Who #12 ($3.99), from IDW; it’s a Christmas story by Tony Lee. Sold! Next, issue #2 of P.C. Cast’s House of Night ($2.99), from Dark Horse. Yes, it’s vampires — oh, excuse me, “vampyres” — but Joelle Jones’s art kicks it up a notch, bringing in a sense of energy that pushes the story beyond the usual teen-vampire melodrama. Then just for fun I’ll take Atomic Robo and the Ghost of Station X #4 ($3.50) and Roger Langridge’s Snarked #3 ($3.99). Now that’s a nice stack of comics.

If I had $30, though…the floppies would have to wait, because I’ll be buying A Tale of Sand from Archaia ($29.95). Based on an unproduced film script by Jim Henson, illustrated by Ramon Perez, this book has a lot going for it — the art alone looks fantastic — and I can’t wait to see it.

Splurge: I think I would find it hard to resist the first volume of the Hermes Press collection of My Favorite Martian ($49.99). I loved the show as a kid (although come to think of it, I don’t remember the comics), and I’m hearing good things about Hermes’s production values. And there has to be room in my splurge for vol. 18 of Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys, still one of the best manga being published in English.

The Sigh

Chris Mautner

If I had $15: In what must be one of the most notable “gets” in a long while, Archaia picked up the rights to Marjane Satrapi’s latest graphic novel, The Sigh, a seeming Persian-styled fairy tale about love and longing. I really don’t know much about this book other than it’s out, but I’m extremely curious to see what the author of Persepolis is up to now.

If I had $30: I still haven’t gotten the first volume, but new Tezuka is always cause for celebration, so let’s herald the arrival of the second volume of Princess Knight. This brick-sized book collects the remainder of the maestro’s gender-swapping tale of a girl who must pretend to be a boy in order to inherit the throne. I’d also pick up the latest issue of Tales Designed to Thrizzle, because, hey, Michael Kupperman.

Splurge: 500 Portraits is a collection of drawings by the mighty Tony Millionaire of various people, some famous, some not so famous. I’m sure it all will be exquisitely rendered. If I was indeed splurging, this is what I’d go for.

Demon Knights #4

Michael May

If I had $15, I’d grab the latest issues to some series I’ve been enjoying. Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE #4 ($2.99) is my easiest pick. I love that series and I’m even more eager to continue reading it having heard about what Jeff Lemire has planned for the future.  Avengers 1959 #4 ($2.99) puts us into the home stretch on that exciting series and like Chris A and Graeme, I’m very much enjoying The Shade, so #3 ($2.99) is another must-get. Demon Knights #4 ($2.99) also goes on the pile, because I’m growing fond of the characters. It also has a fun, high-concept battle going on; I just wish the story moved faster than it is. Since I’ve got $3 left in my pocket, I’ll give Batwoman #4 ($2.99) a shot to see why everyone loves it.

If I had $30, I’d add Moonstone’s Airboy Presents: Air Vixens #1 ($3.50), because I like Valkyrie (no, not that one; the other one) and Black Angel. The rest of my money would go to Marjane Satrapi’s The Sigh ($10.95), because she’s only ever surprised and delighted me.

There are a ton of items I’d love to splurge on, but I managed to narrow the list to three. I’m reading a lot of old Wonder Woman comics lately, so Showcase Presents Wonder Woman, Volume 4 ($19.99) is a welcome release. But I’d gladly wait on that to get either one of Archaia’s Jim Henson books coming out this week: Jim Henson’s The Storyteller ($19.95) or A Tale of Sand ($29.95). Both sound fantastic, but if forced to choose, I’d grab Storyteller first for its impressive line-up of its own storytellers. In addition to the ones Graeme mentioned above, I’m especially looking forward to stories by Roger Langridge, Marjorie Liu, Ron Marz, Francesco Francavilla, Chris Eliopoulos, Colleen Coover, and Janet Lee.

Hark! A Vagrant cartoonist Kate Beaton’s no stranger to superheroes, and her salty take on Wonder Woman really brings out the best in both women, real and imaginary. This time around, Beaton’s Wondy receives advice on how to be more awesome from Superman, Batman, some DC honchos, admiring fans, angry detractors, and more. Needless to say, she’s having none of it. Go read, but be careful not to touch that tiara. It looks dangerous!

If the rapid approach of the holidays has pushed you into panic mode, just relax, because you’ve already found the perfect gift for the superhero-comics fan in your life (or, y’know, yourself): a superhero Snuggie, or as the trademark sticklers prefer to call it, a “Comfy Throw Blanket With Sleeves”!

If you can’t fight crime like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman or Spider-Man, you can at least look like them — well, kind of? — while remaining toasty in the comfort of your own beige living room, while sitting on your own beige sofa and watching your own (probably) beige television. Hey, I’m only going by the product photos, which do a better job of advertising furniture than selling one-size-fits-all Snuggies Comfy Throw Blankets With Sleeves using two models and Photoshop.

Batman is out of stock, but you can still get Superman ($30.97), Wonder Woman ($25.99) and Spider-Man ($24.95) while supplies last! Act now and you’ll get … I don’t know, peace of mind? The satisfaction of seeing your loved one smile uncomfortably while modeling, and pretending to appreciate, a garish, yet comfy, fleece shroud? Yeah, probably that.

(via Geekologie)

Hiya kids, it’s time for What Are You Reading?, a weekly look into what the Robot 6 crew has been reading lately. Today’s special guest is Thom Zahler, creator of the delightful superhero/romantic comedy comic Love and Capes.

To find out what Thom and the Robot 6 crew have been reading lately, click below.

*****

Michael May

Baltimore

I didn’t get to Baltimore: The Plague Ships before Halloween like I’d planned. I had illusions about reading the novel it’s based on first, but I’m slow with prose and the graphic novel was just sitting there on my reading table; taunting me with its gorgeously gruesome Mignola cover and its peg-legged, harpoon-wielding hero. I’m sure that I would have gotten more out of it had I read the novel first, but Mignola and Christopher Golden did a fine job (as they will) of keeping the comic self-contained and filling in enough details to explain the world (an alternate reality in which WWI was cancelled on account of vampire-plague) and What’s Come Before (Lord Henry Baltimore may have sort of caused the whole vampire-plague and is hunting the Vampire-in-Charge for reasons having as much to do with Revenge as Saving the World).

Ben Stenbeck’s art has a great look (he’s got a special gift for fungus-zombies) and in the sketchbook part he explains how closely he worked with Mignola on creature designs. And thanks to Dave Stewart’s colors, The Plague Ships feels very much like part of the Hellboy-verse even though it’s not.

I wasn’t planning to say anything about Justice League #3, because I’m still frustrated by the price tag, but I have to mention how perfectly and succinctly Geoff Johns updated Wonder Woman’s mission for the post-Flashpoint DCU. “This place…is filled with so many wonderful things…but there is also a darkness that lurks here too. One I’m going to fight. That’s what I’m here for. That’s why I’m staying. To fight.” The post-Crisis missionary-of-peace/Amazon-warrior dichotomy never worked for me, but this essentially updates her Golden Age motivation for coming to our world and it’s awesome in its simplicity.

Brigid Alverson

Tesoro

Natsume Ono’s Tesoro is a collection of her short stories that were published between 1998 and 2008. Ono has a lovely, linear drawing style, and we can see it develop from scribbly to more controlled between the earlier and the later stories. Her storytelling technique improved as well. I like Ono’s work because her characters are so human; a lot of manga characters behave in stereotyped ways, almost like little person-bots, but hers have moments of real doubt, awkwardness, and silliness. Several of the stories are set in Italy, as were her manga Gente and Ristorante Paradiso, and others reflect small incidents in everyday life in Japan. The book is beautifully produced with French flaps and earth-toned inks, and it really feels like something special. While genre manga such as Naruto and Vampire Knight will always dominate the American market, it’s nice to see Viz bringing over more literary titles like this one.

It’s well known that Osamu Tezuka was an admirer of Walt Disney, and that shines through in his Princess Knight, which was originally published in 1953. The edition I am reading, published by Vertical, is actually a retelling of the story that Tezuka did in the early 1960s, but the Disney connection is still there; this is a children’s story, and it is filled with adorable animals and cutely rounded angels and villains. The pacing also makes me think of animated cartoons, with lots of short gags and asides. Princess Knight was one of the early shoujo manga that set the style and the conventions for many manga that followed, but it is quite enjoyable in its own right, aside from any historical significance.

Tim O’Shea

Supergirl #3

Supergirl #3: As I settled into the third issue of this series, I realized something I should have realized at the outset of this series. Why did DC set up a new universe where right out of the gates it’s clear that Superman is not the sole survivor of the destruction of Krypton? Why did the new Supergirl have to be so oddly related to Superman, essentially in the same way it was in the old DC universe? I was distracted in the first two issues as the new Supergirl gathered her wits about her. In this third issue, I just found myself bored, feeling like the series has settled into another Supergirl series that will suffer ultimately lackluster sales and tread on the brink of cancellation. But I am getting ahead of myself, for right now, with this issue #3, I realize I have no interest in returning for issue 4.

Blue Beetle #3: Again a new DCU retreading much of the same ground as the last Blue Beetle series. But in this instance, there’s a major difference in that I find myself still interested. And the reason likely is the supporting cast—namely Jamie’s strong family ties. In this issue, writer Tony Bedard allows Jamie’s mom (and her love of her son) to shine through with a really great, intense scene. Also the villains in this round of the Blue Beetle seem a bit more violent than the last one (not an asset, or a detriment, merely an observation).

Captain America #4

Captain America #4: For the first arc of a new Ed Brubaker Captain America title, this plot is sluggish and not engaging at all. What really astounded me in this issue was Steve McNiven’s art; more specifically his portrayal of Sharon Carter in one scene. Worried about the fate of Steve Rogers, McNiven has Carter nervously bite her lip. It would be understood she’d worry about Steve, but to have a longtime, accomplished SHIELD agent and a member of the Secret Avengers bite her lip? The helpless female lip bite is beneath Carter’s character, no matter how much she may care for Rogers. (Plus it shows minimal faith in a guy that just a year or so ago proved he could come back from the friggin dead)

Birds of Prey #3: This new incarnation of the Birds of Prey has little in common with the old one, but to my delight it continues to work for me. Writer Duane Swierczynski does a great job of juggling all of the cast members and giving them little moments to impact the storyline, while still moving it forward and engaging.

Avengers Academy

Avengers Academy #22: I was glad to read writer Christos Gage tweet that the book is not at risk for cancellation (unless the rumors of its cancellation negatively impacts the number of people buying it, then we have the infernal self-fulfilling prophecy), so I can respect his request for folks to pre-order the book. For Quicksilver fans wanting to know if he was ever going to talk to dad (Magneto) in this series, you get your answer in this issue. Clearly Gage had been loading up and looking forward to writing this issue, but in his haste to tackle the meet-up at every single angle, he dropped the ball slightly. I still love the series, do not get me wrong. But when given the chance to unleash a major character reveal, the reaction to the news is muddled and lost amongst the other action ongoing in the issue. It is my hope this reveal has rippling impacts. In the meantime, however, I still consider this the best Avengers book Marvel is publishing.

Thunderbolts #165: Regular WAYR readers will not be surprised. A book written by Jeff Parker? O’Shea loves it. Indeed, but this is an extra enjoyable Parker story (no really), because it is a time travel story. Parker getting to play in 1940s Marvel, with the Invaders is never a bad thing in my book. With this issue, Parker is at his best with the Namor and Satana scenes (though the dialogue and action from Moonstone is a close second).

Thom Zahler

Daredevil

Mark Waid’s Daredevil has been raking in its share of accolades. You now why? It’s fantastic! Everything they say is true. Mark’s writing a comic book in the very best sense of the world: long stories, short stories, overreaching arcs and yet ever 20 page issue is a satisfying chunk. What’s most remarkable to me is how quickly he manages to pivot Daredevil from the bleak character he’s been to a more shiny happy character, and yet it doesn’t feel forced but effortless.

Mark, along with his artists Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin are also finding new ways to show and to use Daredevil’s powers. That’s not an insignificant task for a character who’s been around as long as The Man Without Fear has. They manage to visually illustrate Daredevil’s very non-visual senses in just a stunning way.

Really, I love everything about it. It’s Shakespeare the way it was meant to be seen.

Over at DC, I find myself loving Action Comics. That’s a superhuman feat in itself because the new telling of Superman’s early years is not the one I’ve gotten used to, or even the one I’d prefer. But Grant Morrison is harkening back to the early 30’s rough-and-tumble Superman and carrying me along for the ride. It’s a Superman with a bit of an edge, and if you’d pitched it to me that was I would have turned it down. But it seems to be working.

Grant Morrison has a way of embracing all the varied, and sometimes conflicting, facets of a character. He’s making this book one of the ones I have to read as soon as it comes out. And the art by Rags Morales is just beautiful. That guy must have gone to a good school. (Kubies rule!)

You may have missed it, but Dracula the Unconquered was one of the highlights of Halloween. The other was seeing the Tim Burton exhibition at the LACMA, but that’s not important right now. The book, written by Chris Sims with art by Steve Downer and Josh Krach is the type of comic I want to see more of. I think in complimenting Chris on it, I compared it to a Twix bar. It’s got all sorts of sugary goodness to it, but enough of a solid crunchy core to it that it’s not empty calories.

Dracula the Unconquered

Dracula the Unconquered takes place in 1901 as Dracula is freed from his imprisonment in the Tower of London by nefarious people for nefarious plans. I don’t want to spoil anything more than that. Here’s the thing: it’s an all-ages comic. My goddaughter will love it when I give it to her, and I love it to. It doesn’t make the common all-ages mistake of talking down to its audience. She will like the fun art and the frenetic pace of the story.

Most interesting to me is that Dracula here seems to have the bloody past from the novels, and yet the character is instantly engaging and likable. I’m looking forward to seeing how Chris straddles that line.

Also, the comic is embracing digital only. It’s a 24-page story all for just a dollar! (Listen up Big Two.) It’s the perfect price that you can’t say “no” to, and distributed in a way that wouldn’t be possible years before. I thing digital and print books can co-exist, and I’ going to enjoy seeing Action Age help carve this path.

The Dreamer

Lastly, while I haven’t finished reading it yet, I adore Lora Innes’s The Dreamer, published by IDW. The second collection of Lora’s time-traveling historical romance just came out this week, and so far it’s just as good as the first. Lora writes and draws the book, with colors by Julie Wright.

Lora excels at portraying very grounded, human characters doing grounded, human things. It’s an artist’s compliment, but I envy her ability to portray fashion and fabric in a way which eludes so many of us. Yet, her art is never overwrought and has a Disneylike quality to it. It’s just so… smooth.

It’s also a historical piece and Lora doesn’t skimp on the history. She’s clearly got a love for the American Revolution time period and it shines out of every inch of the book. She doesn’t sacrifice storytelling for accuracy or the other way around either, it’s very much a well-balanced approach. I find myself thinking “I wonder if that really happened” and then, more often than not, find out that it did indeed. It’s great to see someone who cares so much about the accuracy of the world they’re building and the story they’re telling.

The book also exists as a webcomic, too, so give it a look at http://www.thedreamercomic.com/.

Wonder Woman #6

DC Comics completed their list of 52 collections for the new 52 relaunch titles by announcing that a Wonder Woman hardcover, collecting issues #1-6 of the series by writer Brian Azzarello and artists Cliff Chiang and Tony Akins, will come out next May. The 144-page book will retail for $22.99.

DC announced via their January solicitations that Akins, who has previously drawn Jack of Fables, Elementals and, with Azzarello, a comic called Red Dragon from the now defunct Comico, would fill in for artist Cliff Chiang on issue #5 and #6. According to Chiang on Twitter, he’ll be back on the book with issue #7.

Mudman

Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop 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 a “Splurge” item.

Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.

Graeme McMillan

What’s that, you say? Paul Grist’s new Mudman series starts this week (#1, Image Comics, $3.50)? Well, that’s how I’m starting my $15 haul this week. While I’m at it, let’s add Avengers Origins: Luke Cage #1 (Marvel, $3.99) and Kirby Genesis: Captain Victory #1 (Dynamite, $3.99), before finishing up with the third issue of Wonder Woman (DC, $2.99) for a superheroic week that goes from the earth to the gods, with some blaxploitation and aliens thrown in the middle for flavor.

DC would dominate the other half of my budget if I had $30. I’d be grabbing the third issues of Green Lantern Corps, Justice League and Supergirl ($2.99 each, except Justice League for $3.99), but I’m surprising myself as much as anyone else by grabbing The Bionic Man #4 (Dynamite, $3.99) for my final pick – I read the first three issues in a bunch this weekend and really enjoyed the book to date much more than I’d been expecting.

If I were to splurge this week, my money would probably end up going to Dark Horse, because I’m kind of tempted by Drawing Down The Moon: The Art of Charles Vess ($29.99). I’ve liked Vess’ art ever since I first saw it, which was possibly in his Spider-Man graphic novel in the late 1980s…? Nonetheless, this is more than likely something I’ll end up loving the hell out of.

Chris Arrant

Wonder Woman #3

If I had $15, I’d grab (with both hands) Wonder Woman #3 (DC, $2.99). The only time I’ve bought three issues in a row of Wonder Woman was the Amazons Attack crossover Pete Woods drew years ago, but this team-up between Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang has been consistently amazing. Next up I’d go from amazons to vikings for Northlanders #46 (DC/Vertigo, $2.99); I’ve bought every issue of this in singles, but seeing artist Paul Azaceta’s arc on this re-invigorated my appreciation for the title. Getting my super-hero fix on, next I’d get Avengers #19 (Marvel, $3.99). I admit seeing Norman Osborn’s Dark Avengers isn’t high on my list, but I’ve continually enjoyed what Bendis has done to varying degrees and seeing Daniel Acuna join the book is a big bonus in my book. Lastly, I’d be one of the zombie horde to buy Walking Dead #91 (Image, $2.99).

If I had $30, I’d thankfully double-back to get Greg Capullo’s ongoing return in Batman #3 (DC, $2.99) – seriously, I think Capullo is entrenching himself as a top artist in mainstream comics (again). Next up I’d get two Marvel joints – Thunderbolts #165 (Marvel, $2.99) and Venom #9 (Marvel, $2.99). After that, I’d get me weekly fix of Pilot Season with Seraph (Image/Top Cow, $3.99) then get Justice League #3 (DC, $3.99).

For splurging, there would be no question that I’d get the trade paperback edition of Drawing Down The Moon (Dark Horse, $29.99). I missed this when it came out in hardcover in 2009, so I’m glad to see it coming back into print. I seriously think Vess is one of the overlooked great in comics, but only because he hasn’t done a standard “run” on a title like seems to be needed to ingratiate yourself with the comic buying world at large. Regardless, Vess is a master and I’m glad to finally get my hands on this for a decent price.

Chris Mautner

Butcher Baker Candlestickmaker

If I had $15: It’s a quiet week for me for the most part, so I’d probably limit my initial purchases to the fifth issue of The Boys‘ spin-off Butcher Baker Candlestickmaker. For some reason I was under the delusion that it was a four-issue series and not six. Oh well.

If I had $30: A lot of people who’s opinions I respect really like the work of Golden Age artist Bob Powell, so I’d at least take a gander through Bob Powell’s Terror, a Craig Yoe-edited collection of ghoulish tales.

Splurge: That $150 one-volume anniversary edition of Bone would probably make a good Christmas present for somebody on my gift list. If I was splurging for myself though, I’d grab another Yoe-edited book, Felix the Cat: The Great Comic Book Tails, a collection of long-form stories done for Dell and Harvey back in the day by Otto Messmer, who did the original Felix comic strip as well.

Brigid Alverson

Saturn Apartments

If I had $15: I would end up leaving some of it on the table, because this is a good week for manga, and all the manga costs less than $15. Viz has three new volumes coming out this week, and my first choice among them is volume four of Saturn Apartments ($12.99), which I mentioned in What Are You Reading? this past weekend. It’s a lovely sci-fi story about a window washer in a space colony and the people he encounters. I’m hooked, and I’m ready for volume four.

If I had $30: I would add Tesoro, an anthology of short stories by Natsume Ono. Viz has been publishing a lot of Ono’s work lately, and it’s all beautiful. Her stories are more literary and romantic than your standard run of teenage manga, and she has a clean, linear style that is easy on the eyes. With the leftover money, I’d pick up Atomic Robo and the Ghost of Station X #3, just for something different–and because I find Atomic Robo irresistible.

Splurge: Let’s start with the third Viz release of the week, vol. 10 of Real. It’s a splurge for me because it’s a bit of a risk–I haven’t been keeping up with the series, and I don’t know anything about basketball, let alone wheelchair basketball. But volume 1 was amazing, and I’d like to see more. And if I’m really binging, I’d add the first volume of Fantagraphics’ Pogo collection ($39.99) and Drawn & Quarterly’s The Adventures of Herge ($19.95), a graphic biography of the creator of Tintin, drawn in his own ligne claire style.

Michael May

If I had #15, I’d spend most of it on DC. Eventually, I’m going to have to cut back on the number of series I’m buying from them, but not this week. I’m still enjoying Batman ($2.99), Birds of Prey ($2.99), Supergirl ($2.99), and Wonder Woman ($2.99) and want the third issues of each of them. Finishing off my budget, I’d grab Fear Itself: The Fearless #3 ($2.99). I caught up on it last night and even though I didn’t read Fear Itself, I’m going to enjoy Valkyrie’s globe-trotting adventures tracking down a bunch of MacGuffiny weapons and fighting vampires and Avengers along the way.

If I had $30, I’d quickly add Planet of the Apes #8 ($3.99), Bonnie Lass #3 ($2.99), and Atomic Robo and the Ghost of Station X #3 ($3.50). And like Graeme, I’d be sure to try out Paul Grist’s Mudman #1.

Splurge-wise, how unfair is the universe for making the color, one-volume Bone ($150.00) available on the same day as Fantagraphic’s Pogo: The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips, Volume 1 ($39.99)? And that’s on top of DC’s Legends of the Dark Knight: Marshall Rogers collection ($49.99) and SLG’s Royal Historian of Oz ($14.95). Bone and Pogo are especially impossible to pick between, even with the massive price difference.

As I continue to wait patiently for word that I can put a Snoopy license plate on my car out here in California, Andy Khouri at ComicsAlliance brings word that Australians in the state of Victoria will soon be able to sport DC Comics heroes on theirs.

The character plates include Superman, Supergirl, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash and Green Lantern, and for all but the Flash, you can choose a plate that either features the hero or their associated logo. Or, in the case of Supergirl, a pink license plate. As Khouri points out, the plates will sport images taken directly from the DC Comics Style Guide circa 1982, drawn by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Dick Giordano, rather than the recently redesigned “New 52″ versions of the characters. They’ll become available on Nov. 30, along with several Looney Tunes plates.

Check out the plate after the jump, and for more information, visit the Vic Road Custom Plates website.

*****

Justice League #2

Comics | John Jackson Miller slices and dices the October numbers for the direct market, noting that overall dollar orders for comic books, trade paperbacks, and magazines topped $40 million for the first time since September 2009. Orders rose 6.9 percent over September, the first month of DC’s relaunch. “While that may sound counter-intuitive, it isn’t when you consider that all those first issues continued to have reorders selling through October,” Miller writes. “Retailers with an eye on the aftermarket may also have some sense that second issues are historically under-ordered — something which goes at least back to the experience of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #2 in the 1980s, which wound up being much more valuable than its first issue.” [The Comichron]

Passings | Tom Spurgeon reports that author Les Daniels has passed away. Daniels wrote horror fiction and nonfiction books on the comic industry, which include Comix: A History of the Comic Book in America, Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World’s Greatest Comics and DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes. [The Comics Reporter]

Action Comics #2

Creators | Grant Morrison talks about coming back to Superman after his work on the character in All-Star Superman: “After I‘d done that story, it was kind of the end of Superman’s life, and I was interested in going back to the roots of the character, and his social and political roots, and maybe doing a take that dealt with him as a young man, but I didn’t really have any plans for that until Dan [DiDio] came over and then when he gave me the opportunity, and he said that they were willing to even change the continuity, and to let some new ideas and energy into it, it seemed perfect for that.” [CNN Geek Out]

Creators | Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang discuss their work on the relaunched Wonder Woman and her recently revealed new daddy.”If you went to the average person on the street and showed them a picture of Wonder Woman they would recognize her immediately,” Chiang said. “Ask those people her origin story and some of them might know the clay story but many, many others would not know that at all. That’s not a problem you have with Superman or Batman; everyone knows their origin. By making her the daughter of Zeus, we’ve gotten a big driving force behind our story. It gives her a motivation and it’s a key to character that we now feel is very important. She’s a child of the gods who defends us from them, in the same way that Superman is from another planet trying to save humanity and Batman is the orphan who is protecting us from the criminals who killed his parents.” [Hero Complex]

Creators | The student-run Observer reports on a lecture given by Notre Dame alum and Marvel editor Bill Rosemann: “The comic books industry is many fields coming together at once. It’s never been just about art. Instead, it’s this glorious American collision of art, commerce and history.” [Observer]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 #3

Creators | Andrew Chambliss discusses his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 9 and Dollhouse. [TFAW]

Creators | Ian Flynn talks about his approach to writing the New Crusaders, the Red Circle reboot due from Archie Comics due next year: “The Red Circle characters are brimming with untapped potential. We’ve seen how other super hero properties have grown and matured from their silly, sometimes zany origins into the blockbusters they are today. The Red Circle heroes are no different. They have powers, desires and stories that can be fascinating when run through today’s filter of modern sensibilities. Everything is so wild and free, it’ll be a lot of fun to make it all work in one coherent world.” [ComicsAlliance]

Conventions | Dave Roman reports in from Quai des Bulles, the second-largest comics convention in France. [The Beat]

Manga | Deb Aoki talks to Hikaru Sasahara, the CEO of Digital Manga Publishing, about his company’s acquisition of Yaoi-Con and the progress of the Digital Manga Guild, their experiment in online publication using amateur translators and editors. [About.com]

Review | Jocelyne Allen reviews Adam Hines’s Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One, which won the Lynd Ward graphic novel prize earlier this year. [Brain Vs Book]

Awards | Irish Comics News appears to have only been around for a few months, but they have already given their first awards, which were based on a popular vote. And here’s a nice touch: The award for Best Mainstream Published Irish Writer went to Garth Ennis, who won by a single vote—and that vote was cast by another nominee, Nick Roche. [Irish Comics News]

The Challengers of the Unknown

Catching up on various episodes of “Batman: The Brave And The Bold,” I was pleasantly surprised that one teaser (YouTube — careful!) focused on the Challengers of the Unknown.

Not having read their Silver Age adventures, I wouldn’t consider myself a Challengers expert, but I do like the basic idea. They’re straight-up adventurers brought together largely by a shared experience of cheating death, and because they live “on borrowed time,” they have decided to spend that time saving the world. First appearing in 1957′s Showcase #6 (just two issues after the Silver Age Flash’s debut in #4), and springing at least in part from Jack Kirby’s fertile imagination, the Challs are often tied to a pre-superhero Silver Age either explicitly (as in Darwyn Cooke’s New Frontier and the recent Legacies miniseries) or as spiritual representatives of that time (as in Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett’s Superboy or Mark Waid, George Pérez, and Jerry Ordway’s run on The Brave and the Bold). Attempts to “update” the team, whether by aging the originals or creating new Challengers, haven’t gotten much traction, despite the best efforts of folks like Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale, Steven Grant, Len Kaminski, John Paul Leon, and Howard Chaykin.

That may explain why the Challs don’t have a New-52 makeover like the Blackhawks, another group associated with a particular era (World War II) without being wedded to it. An ill-advised “superhero phase” notwithstanding, Blackhawk started off as a Golden Age title which survived well into the Silver Age (1944-68, 235 issues), and was revived in the ‘70s (7 issues), early ‘80s (23 issues) and late ‘80s (22 issues, including a 3-issue Chaykin makeover). The characters have never really gone away, and until the New 52 relaunch came along, the original-recipe team survived in the person of a time-displaced Zinda “Lady Blackhawk” Blake.

However, Blackhawk appears to be the exception. The Challengers and their non-super cousins like Cave Carson or the Sea Devils are too evocative of the era in which they were conceived.

Moreover, I’m not really here today to argue for a new Challengers of the Unknown. Instead, the more I wondered why DC wouldn’t give the Challs another shot, the more the Challs looked like symbols of the Silver Age. As they go, so it goes — and why indeed is the Silver Age so persistent?

For one thing, there are Dan DiDio’s comments from a few years ago about DC’s need to reinforce the most “recognizable” and/or “definitive” versions of various characters in order to make its superhero line new-reader-friendly. Because the Silver Age laid the foundation for the next few decades’ worth of superhero books, DC apparently imagined that those characters would, by and large, get the nod.

I remain skeptical of this approach. It is inherently conservative, seeking to preserve an existing take rather than moving forward with a character’s development. Along those same lines, the “most recognizable” version of a character is not necessarily the most creatively satisfying. Furthermore, terms like “most recognizable” and “definitive” are more subjective than they might look — and they don’t always match up, either — allowing pros and fans alike to argue for what they want while claiming fidelity to some Platonic ideal. Naturally, one person’s ideal is another’s corruption, and with DC’s legacy-character model, there are plenty of “ideal” candidates.

Of course, there’s always fidelity to the original intent of a character’s creator(s), but that can be problematic. Grant Morrison and Rags Morales’ “Springsteen Superman,” currently seen in the New-52′s Action Comics, is meant to recall the less-powerful, socially-conscious hero of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s earliest adventures, but with its cobbled-together costume and younger Clark Kent, it’s not quite a re-creation. Indeed, Superman’s other New-52 appearances follow a more conventional interpretation, even substituting Kryptonian battle armor for red briefs and spandex.

This is to be expected: the Superman who could only leap an eighth of a mile, and whose resistance to damage was measured by a “bursting shell,” is now an artifact, occupying a niche. Likewise, the original Wonder Woman stories of creator William Moulton Marston and artist H.G. Peter are in their own niche, although apparently Morrison wants to return that certain “weird, libidinous element” to the Amazing Amazon, perhaps as soon as 2012.

Then there’s Batman, whose original conception as a grim, gothic avenger lasted just under a year before Robin arrived to lighten things up. Of DC’s Trinitarians, Batman’s current depiction is arguably the closest to the Golden Age originals, but it wasn’t always so. When Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams (and editor Julius Schwartz) reintroduced the “Darknight Detective” in late 1969, the character was about five years removed from the end of the “Sci-Fi” period, which had begun in the late 1940s/early ‘50s. Accordingly, although O’Neil and Adams sought deliberately to tell their versions of Kane/Finger stories, their interpretation was about as radical in the early ‘70s as Morrison and Morales’ Superman is today. Clearly it was not the most recognizable version, which at the time might well have been Dick Sprang’s or even Adam West’s. Regardless, O’Neil/Adams became the model for the Batman of the ‘70s and ‘80s, and (even if you think it’s been superseded by Frank Miller’s work) is still a powerful influence.

We can group another set of interpretations under a sort of hybrid approach, where original intent has become augmented by details accumulated from various sources. This is the “ideal aggregation” I described almost (yikes) four years ago, which holds that something like All Star Superman or the Christopher Reeve movies may be the most definitive versions of the character.  No doubt there are other ways of gauging interpretive validity. However, let’s shift gears.

While it’s not really accurate to apply those analyses generally to DC’s shared superhero universe, I believe the publisher does something similar for each feature, especially the New 52 and their follow-ups. Thus, you have original-intent books like Action Comics alongside “most-recognizable” titles (Batgirl, Aquaman), updates like Blackhawks, and outright reinventions (Fury Of Firestorm, OMAC). Although each title has significant roots in the company’s past, at least in broad strokes the line doesn’t look particularly like any previous era. Instead, it’s an aggregation (idealized or otherwise) of what somebody — creative personnel, editorial, marketing, whomever — thinks DC Comics should be publishing.

And that’s fine, for what it is. It’s not a wholesale Silver Age revival, which I suppose is ironic considering all the contortions DC went through to bring back Hal Jordan and Barry Allen. That’s fine too — it doesn’t have to be, especially if dense Silver Age history gets in the way of accessibility.

However, the New 52 risks being so new that it loses the appeal of maturity, and that’s (part of) what bothers me about it. It’s one thing to say that the superheroes have only been around for five years or so, but it’s another to use that timeline to limit the kinds of stories you can tell. If All Star Western could move Jonah Hex to Gotham City, Men of War and Blackhawks could easily have kept their WWII settings (although Sgt. Rock was more grounded in reality than the Blackhawks). It would help distinguish them from the superhero books; and for whatever it’s worth, they would be DC’s only New-52 titles set primarily in the 20th Century. New seems to be working out pretty well, but retro ought not to be dismissed entirely. In that context, a period-piece Challengers of the Unknown could be a nice complement, telling the kinds of Eisenhower-era stories readers might expect from a company which reinvented itself fairly significantly back then.

So yeah, a Challengers revival would be nice. Maybe there’s one in the pipeline already. I just hope it’s faithful to the feature’s origins, not modern for the sake of being modern — and I say that not because I think everything’s gone downhill since the Silver Age ended. (I don’t think that, by the way.)  The aggregation of qualities in DC’s main-line roster isn’t as ideal as it could be. It needs a little borrowed time.

"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!

JUSTICE LEAGUES

When I saw the solicit for Justice League #5, I thought it was another indication that Geoff Johns and Jim Lee were telling a more decompressed story, as issue #1 threatened. Accordingly, I imagined that Cyborg would be ready to go at the end of the issue, with the big Darkseid battle taking up an oversized issue #6. However, I was pleasantly surprised that issue #2 was such an improvement over #1. It moved more quickly, it brought together more of the future Leaguers, it kicked off Cyborg’s origin in earnest, and it teased another big Parademon fight. Plus it worked in a Gorilla Grodd reference, which I wouldn’t have expected so soon in the New-52 DCU. So now my mood has swung more to the manic side, and I am expecting the big fight to start in #5.

When a solicitation threatens that “[o]ne of these heroes will not make it out alive,” as Justice League Dark #5′s does, normally you think it’d be Mindwarp, the least familiar of the group. However, I then realized it could be a trick question, since that group includes Deadman — who’s not going into whatever-it-is alive….

CREATIVE TEAM SHUFFLING

I know that Tony Akins’ two-issue fill-in on Wonder Woman was planned, in order to give Cliff Chiang some flexibility, but the solicitation copy makes it sound like the issues come at least at the end (if not in the middle) of WW’s first arc. Maybe there’s some shift in the story’s tone which a different artist might help reinforce. By the same token, I can’t wait to see Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone’s guest-shot on The Shade #4.

Part of me is ready to give Green Arrow another shot, what with the three issues from Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens and the upcoming Ann Nocenti Era, but part of me just thinks that this version of Ollie is almost too boring to fix. If anyone needed to lose his fortune, stop shaving, and go all #OccupyStarCity, it’s him.

Static Shock #5 is the first written entirely by Scott McDaniel, following the mysterious (but apparently amicable) departure of John Rozum. Walt Simonson pencils Legion of Super-Heroes #5, and contributes to THUNDER Agents #3.

THIS AND THAT

“Aquaman stranded in the desert” was actually a cliffhanger from 1985′s DC Challenge miniseries, and I want to say Aquaman killed a bird and drank its blood in order to get the liquid he needed to stay alive. Or maybe that was Watchmen; I always get those two confused. (They were both twelve issues….) Still, I bet the All-New, All-Hardcore Aquaman would totally rip out a bird’s throat with his teeth.

Considering he’s not part of the Doom Patrol, and his assistant is apparently a New-52 reworking of an old DP enemy, Robotman’s New-52 origin (as revealed in My Greatest Adventure #4) probably won’t feature the classic team. In fact, from what I saw of the New-52 Robotman in MGA #1, it looks like the Doom Patrol has gone the way of the original Teen Titans. Maybe the MGA feature is testing the waters for yet another Doom Patrol revival?

The “seduction of Damian” subplot described in the solicit for Batman And Robin #5 sounds good, although it seems like Grant Morrison covered similar ground when Damian faced his mother and the rest of the League of Assassins back around issue #12 of the previous series. Likewise, I look forward to Gail Simone’s Batgirl take on the old “female hero fights female villain who controls men’s minds” story, but I kinda want her to drop in a reference to Marsha, Queen of Diamonds.

SYNERGY

There have been plenty of guest appearances so far, but is the OMAC/Frankenstein intertitle crossover the first for the New 52? It may depend on how you categorize the connections between Superman and Stormwatch and/or Stormwatch and Demon Knights.

Speaking of which, only Hawkman can see “horrifying visions of the dead,” and so he “question[s] his own sanity?” Maybe he should talk to Grifter about that.

The solicitation for I, Vampire #5 — featuring a Batman appearance — makes me think I was right about the series’ vampires-vs.-superheroes aspect. That’s not a bad thing (apparently the original character met Batman in the pages of Brave and the Bold, as discussed below) but I wonder how much the series will go to that well.

I was surprised (synergy again!) to see Deadman figuring prominently into Hawk & Dove #5.  While they all were introduced in the late 1960s, I always associated Deadman and Hawk & Dove with different generations.  See, I keep forgetting that Hawk and the late Dove were teenagers back then, and adjunct members of the Teen Titans as well. And not to digress, but I have been thinking about the ways in which that generation of characters has been taken out of the New 52.  While I never put Hawk in that group (or the new Dove either, but I’m not sure how old she’s supposed to be), he should be there. Thus, DC hasn’t completely eliminated the Original-Titans generation from the New 52, because there’s Nightwing, Hawk, and Red Arrow. I should be satisfied with that, right?

(Again, not to digress.)

COLLECTIONS

Prior to the new I, Vampire series, the only exposure I had to this character was in the good-natured mockery of Tales of the Unexpected’s “Architecture & Mortality.” However, I have to say, I am totally ready for the omnibus I, Vampire paperback, reprinting the serial from House Of Mystery and Brave and the Bold vol. 1 #195. Ironically, while I am most interested in it as a rare example of main-line ‘80s DC doing a non-superhero story, I’m very curious to see the Batman team-up….

Hardly surprising considering the artist’s role in the New-52 relaunch, DC collects the original Karl & Barbara Kesel/Rob Liefeld Hawk & Dove miniseries (5 issues!). I didn’t read the miniseries when it came out (and still haven’t), but now I am curious to see what a strong inker like Karl Kesel did with a relatively-new penciller like Liefeld. I do remember thinking that regular-series penciller Greg Guler meshed with Kesel better.

For those who might have missed it the first time around, the Batman: Year One hardcover is well worth getting. Even if you have the original issues or an earlier collection, the hardcover (and maybe a 2007 paperback, but I’m not sure) features new coloring by Richmond Lewis which really makes David Mazzucchelli’s work pop even more. Plus, the hardcover is more durable, and you will want to look at this book a lot.

The Batman Vs. Bane paperback is a curious thing to me. The Bane of the Demon miniseries was better as a Bane story than as a Bruce-vs.-Bane rematch, mostly because it introduced Bane to Rā’s and Talia al-Ghūl, and (shall we say) gave them some non-Batman options. I don’t remember much about the Batman/Bane special except that it was a tie-in to the infamous Batman And Robin movie, and as such probably confused the heck out of anyone who might have known the character only from that. I understand that (as it happens) this paperback is meant to tie into The Dark Knight Rises, so DC is interested in the more villainous side of Bane, but it might also consider collecting “Tabula Rasa,” a nice little arc from Batman: Gotham Knights #s 33-36. Written by Scott Beatty and drawn by Mike Collins & Bill Sienkiewicz and Roger Robinson & John Floyd, it features Bane’s uneasy alliance with, and unexpected connection to, the Darknight Detective.

This month’s pleasant reprint surprise is Showcase Presents Young Love Volume 1 — more to come, I presume! — which I feel somewhat obligated to buy considering I have dinged DC previously for not reprinting its romance books. Still, I would probably have bought it anyway, just to see some non-superhero work from artists more closely identified with the caped crowd. No doubt some of the stories will be “so bad they’re good,” but on the whole it should be a fun read.

Here’s hoping that sales of the Xombi paperback — a bargain at $14.99, cheaper than the individual issues’ retail prices — are enough to make DC want more elegantly-crafted goodness from John Rozum and Frazer Irving. Xombi was just getting started when the New-52 came along, and I don’t want Rozum to have left Static Shock in vain.

AND FINALLY…

The “Batman: Black & White” line of statues has been pretty appealing so far, even if most of them are outside my price range. However, it’s going to be hard to turn down the Sergio Aragones one. What a great expression!

* * *

Well, that’s what jumped out at me this month. What looks good to you?

Batman #2

Welcome to Food or Comics?, where every week we talk about what comics we’d buy at our local comic shop 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 a “Splurge” item.

Check out Diamond’s release list or ComicList, and tell us what you’re getting in our comments field.

Michael May

If I had $15, I’d mostly grab the second issues of some DC stuff I enjoyed last month: Batman ($2.99), Birds of Prey ($2.99), and especially Wonder Woman ($2.99). No Justice League for me though. Unlike Action Comics, I didn’t enjoy the first issue enough that I can rationalize paying $4 for it. Instead, I’ll grab Avengers 1959 #2 ($2.99) and Red 5′s Bonnie Lass #2 ($2.95), both of which had strong first issues.

If I had $30, I’d have to put back Bonnie Lass and wait for the collection in order to afford Jonathan Case’s atomic-sea-monster-love-story Dear Creature ($15.99).

If I had some splurge money, I’d likely grab the first issues of the 30 Days of Night ongoing ($3.99) and John Byrne’s Cold War ($3.99) as well as Dark Horse Presents #5 ($7.99). And if I had lots of extra money, I’d take First Second’s Nursery Rhyme Comics ($18.99) and Orcs, Volume 1: Forged for War ($17.99) too. I’ve already read Nursery Rhyme Comics and it’s wonderful; I’m curious to see if Orcs can redeem those creatures from the ennui I feel about them from growing up with Tolkien and D&D. If it was anybody but First Second publishing it, I don’t think I’d give it a chance.

Graeme McMillan

Star Trek/Legion of Superheroes #1

If I had $15 this week, the first thing I’d make a run for in the store would be Star Trek/Legion of Superheroes #1 (IDW, $3.99), Chris Roberson and Jeffrey Moy’s mash-up of two of my favorite SF series and something I have been embarrassingly looking forward to since its original announcement. I’m also finding myself obsessed with Fear Itself #7 (Marvel, $4.99), for slightly different reasons; after a year in which the climaxes of both Flashpoint and Schism underwhelmed, I just want Fear Itself to go out with a bang. Talking of underwhelming, I wasn’t completely on board with the first issue of DC’s new Justice League, but I’ll be picking up #2 (DC, $3.99) to see what happens next nonetheless, and seeing if things improve.

If I had $30, I’d continue my Legion of Super-Heroes love with DC Comics Presents Superboy’s Legion #1 (DC, $7.99), the latter a collection of an Alan Davis/Mark Farmer Elseworlds series that I’ve never read. I’d round out my purchases with another DC $7.99 reprint book – I have money left from the original $15, honest – and grab Vertigo Resurrected: The Eaters (DC, $7.99), which brings a Peter Milligan horror story from the early ’90s back into print for the first time in far, far too long.

If I were going to splurge this week, I could be persuaded to grab Marvel’s 15-Love TP ($14.99), based upon surprisingly good reviews of the mini. I admit, “tennis manga done by American and European creators” doesn’t sound like a great idea to me, but some of those reviews really sold it to me.

Chris Mautner

If I had $15: Butcher Baker, Candlestickmaker #4, the latest issue of the last of The Boys spin-off mini-series would be my first grab. I might also pick up the fourth issue of the newspaper anthology Pood, which, with this issue, features the work of Joe Staton.

If I had $30: Well, I’ve been long intrigued to read Alan Moore’s Neonomicon, especially since it generated such controversy and outright hatred. Now that it’s been collected in trade paperback it seems like I have a golden opportunity.

Nursery Rhyme Comics

On the complete other end of the spectrum I feel obliged to point out that First Second’s Nursery Rhyme Comics anthology, which we highlighted via a series of interviews with contributors on the blog last week, is also out in stores. Even if you don’t have young children at home, it’s a pretty boss book.

Splurge: Let’s see, there’s Vol. 16 of Tezuka’s Black Jack (and it’s always nice to see that’s continuing along) as well as MetaMaus, the “DVD features” companion to Art Spiegelman’s Maus that comes with an actual DVD and (I think) is thicker than the work it references.

But if you really want to splurge, you gotta go for The Metabarons Ultimate Collectors Slipcase edition. $130 gets you all of Alexandro Jodorowsky and Juan Gimenez’s trippy, multi-generational sci-fi epic. Get it for the Eurocomic nerd in your life.

Chris Arrant

If I had $15, my first purchase would be Jason Aaron’s Wolverine #17 (Marvel, $3.99). Re-teaming with his original Wolverine collaborator Ron Garney, this one is billed as a post-Schism tale but the shadows of the last story arc of the title itself cast longer on the series to me. Next up would be Wonder Woman #2 (DC, $2.99), because I’m really interested to see Azzarello explore the mythological worldview that Diana inhabits. Lastly would be the de facto anthology of record in comics currently, Dark Horse Presents #5 (Dark Horse, $7.99). This issue promises a short by Eric Powell about a suicidal space robot, so what’s not to love.

Fear Itself #7

If I had $30, I’d double-back and get the finale of Fear Itself #7 (Marvel, $4.99). Although the writing hasn’t lived up to my expectations compared to previous events or previous work by Matt Fraction, I still enjoy Stuart Immonen’s work here and am interested to see what he pulls out for the final issue. After that I’d get the under-the-radar OGN by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Juan Santacruz – Book Smart (Kickstart, $8.99). This is out of the poorly publicized line of titles that the film company Kickstart is doing in comics, but the stories are strong as is the creators involved.

If I could splurge, I’d splurge all over the Metabarons Ultimate Collection Slip Case (Humanoids, $129.95). Sure I have most of these in earlier editions, but by adding this to my bookshelf I can give away those older ones and spread the love. That’s validation, right? You’ll back me up with my wife when I spent $130 on comics I already have, right? Right?

From Wonder Woman #2, by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang

It’s perhaps a little fitting that Wonder Woman’s first post-relaunch visit to Themyscira, a magical, hidden island that can teleport to any location or time, should have echoes of Lost. In the preview of this week’s Wonder Woman #2, from the Maxim magazine website of all places, we get our first exposure to the (re-) rebranded Paradise Island, complete with unnerving, and downright threatening, whispers, and Others Amazons emerging from the shadows of the jungle.

Also worth noting: Queen Hippolyta is blonde again, for the firs time since, when, the 1987 relaunch? Wonder Woman #2, by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang, goes on sale Wednesday.

Wonder Woman #5, by Cliff Chiang

DC Comics has begun parceling out its January solicitations ahead of the full release this afternoon, revealing Tony Akins as the first fill-in artist for Wonder Woman. As noted last week, Cliff Chiang will still provide the cover for Issue 5, which finds Diana back home in London dealing with “two of the most powerful deities of the pantheon.”

Chiang and Wonder Woman writer Brian Azzarello had one of the most acclaimed debuts in DC’s New 52.

Beyond that, the creative teams in the Justice League, Superman and Batman groups, the only solicitations released so far, appear stable in the fifth month of DC’s relaunch. The covers range from dazzling — Wonder Woman by Chiang, Batwoman by J.H. Williams III and Batgirl by Adam Hughes are particularly noteworthy –  to confounding. Starfire appears to be bleeding from her hair on Red Hood and the Outlaws (damned cheap Tamaranian dye jobs), while the covers of Detective Comics and Superman employ some oddly executed split images.

And then there’s the enormous demonic creature gnawing on Nightwing …

Check out some of the highlights, and lowlights, below, and visit Comic Book Resources at 2 p.m. PT to see DC’s full solicitations for January.

Aquaman #5, by Ivan Reis

Batgirl #5, by Adam Hughes

Batman #5, by Greg Capullo

Batwoman #5, by J.H. Williams III

Catwoman #5, by Guillem March

Detective Comics #5, by Tony S. Daniel

DC Universe Presents #5, by Ryan Sook

Justice League #5, by Jim Lee

Nightwing #5, by Eddy Barrows

Red Hood and the Outlaws #5, by Kenneth Rocafort

Superman #5, by George Perez