Comic Books – Page 122

‘King in Black’ expands its kingdom

Marvel announces several tie-in titles for the upcoming Venom-centric crossover.

Symbiotes are back in fashion this winter, as Marvel’s King in Black event stretches its gooey black tentacles out to characters from Daredevil to Spider-Gwen to Valkyrie.

In case you need a refresher, Knull is the god of the symbiotes, and in King in Black, he’ll be taking on not just Venom, but the Avengers, the X-Men, the Hulk and more, as he heads for Earth. Now Marvel has revealed details on what existing and new titles will help support the event.

Here’s a rundown of what to expect:

The Justice League at 60, Part 10: Rebirth on repeat

Tom Bondurant wraps up (for now) his series looking back at 60 years of the Justice League with a look at the most recent era.

Check out part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight and part nine of this series!

The New 52 lasted four years and nine months, from August 31, 2011 to May 25, 2016. On each of those Wednesdays, DC Comics released one universe-changing big-event issue and one issue of Justice League. In 2011 it was Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1; and in 2016 it was Justice League #50 and the DC Universe Rebirth special. All were written by Geoff Johns, still one of DC’s main guiding forces even as his attention shifted away from comics. The DCU Rebirth issue kicked off a months-long apology-in-print marked by “Rebirth” banners on all of the superhero books’ covers. This publishing strategy aimed to reintroduce elements of the DC Universe which the New 52 had stripped away, including the pre-New 52 Superman – who, as a distinct character, had been living in a sort of multiversal fishbowl – and the classic version of Wally “Flash” West. Among other things, this meant that Superman was now the newest member of the Justice League, since he replaced his late New 52 predecessor.

Although those cover banners were gone by February 2018, in terms of continuity we may still be in the “Rebirth” era today. Among other things, DCU Rebirth set up Doomsday Clock, the 12-issue miniseries from Johns and Gary Frank. Going on sale November 22, 2017 (cover date January 2018), it would explain how Watchmen‘s Doctor Manhattan had changed the DC timeline into the New 52, and how he would change it back.

Well, back-ish.

Terry Moore to launch ‘Serial’ in January

Zoe, the breakout supporting character from ‘Rachel Rising,’ will star in the series.

Strangers in Paradise creator Terry Moore has announced his next project — Serial, a 10-issue series that will star Zoe, one of his “most beloved characters.”

Zoe first appeared in the pages of Rachel Rising. She’s a young girl who was possessed by a demon for 50 years before she was able to free herself and then team up with Rachel against it. She appeared most recently in Five Years, which brought together characters from several of Moore’s comics.

Ewing + Schiti raise their ‘S.W.O.R.D.’ in December

The new Marvel series spins out of events in ‘Empyre’ and ‘X of Swords.’

Al Ewing and Valerio Schiti, the creative team behind the recent Empyre: Aftermath Avengers comic, will pull S.W.O.R.D. out of its sheath this December.

If you read that Aftermath issue, you know that Abigail Brand, who most recently worked with Captain Marvel as part of Alpha Flight, wasn’t happy that the Avengers and Fantastic Four never called her during Empyre. She quit Alpha Flight, and the last two pages showed a dark future for the new Kree/Skrull Alliance led by Hulkling — thanks to Brand and her new team.

But despite the foreshadowing in Empyre, this is actually an X-title and will tie into that line, as part of the aftermath of the just-started X of Swords crossover — which ends in November, right before this one debuts in December.

The Justice League at 60, Part 9: High collars and wide screens

It’s time for a relaunch: take a look back at the Geoff Johns-helmed New 52 relaunch of ‘Justice League.’

Check out part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven and part eight of this series!

When the comprehensive history of DC Comics is written, I hope it goes into exhaustive detail on the conception, execution and ultimate retraction of the New 52. Let’s be clear right from the beginning: I did not love the New 52, but I didn’t hate it either. It represented DC’s willingness – although maybe not its best efforts – to try new approaches with key characters and to revive non-superhero genres.

As the spring of 2011 wound down, DC was wrapping up a couple of year-long biweekly series, Brightest Day (co-written by Geoff Johns) and Justice League: Generation Lost. The former followed a handful of superheroes who had been revived in Blackest Night – including Justice League stalwarts Aquaman, Hawkman, Firestorm and Martian Manhunter – while the latter was a Justice League International reunion that saw them trying to stop their old buddy-turned-baddie Maxwell Lord. Meanwhile, the Bat-books, Superman and Wonder Woman were each in the middle of altered-status-quo storylines.

IDW to retell Marvel origin stories in new series

The origins of Spider-Man, Hulk, Thanos, Venom and more will be retold in the all ages series.

IDW will add to its Marvel Action line in December with Marvel Action: Origins, a new series that retells the origin stories of Spider-Man, Thanos, Venom, Hulk and more.

Christopher Eliopoulos will write the series, while Lanna Souvanny will provide the art.

“Creating a gateway for young readers to learn more about the amazing characters of the Marvel Universe is a dream job,” Eliopoulos said. “In this series, readers are going to learn about the emotions and inner thoughts of these heroes and villains while learning about values and character. It’s a series that shows the character behind the characters!”

M.O.D.O.K. heads into his own comic in December

‘M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games’ by Jordan Blum, Patton Oswalt and Scott Hepburn brings the KIrby creation into his own comic.

M.O.D.O.K. is having quite an autumn, not only appearing in the big Avengers video game, but also preparing for the debut of his own show on Hulu.

The newfound fame of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby creation is also translating into a comic series, as Marvel as announced that Jordan Blum and Patton Oswalt, the showrunners of the upcoming animated Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K., are writing M.O.D.O.K.: Head Games. Scott Hpeburn will provide the art.

“One of the things that tickled us about M.O.D.O.K. was his insistence on keeping up this intimidating/frightening front even when all visible evidence pointed to the opposite,” Oswalt said. “Even from the git-go, those early Kirby issues, he’s still frothing and gnashing about the majesty of himself even when he’s been knocked to the ground. The malevolent Weeble was love at first sight for us. So after exploring every aspect of that in the series — showing him in lonely moments when he’s got no one to impress but this desperate self-image he keeps trying to prop up — it was super-fun to bear down on M.O.D.O.K. trying to unravel a specific mystery about his origin.”

‘Lumberjanes’ to end in December

‘Lumberjanes: End of Summer #1’ wraps up the series, with the promise of ‘new adventures’ to come.

BOOM! Studios has announced that their award-winning BOOM! Box series, Lumberjanes, will wrap up in December with Lumberjanes: End of Summer #1.

The oversized issue is by from cartoonist Kat Leyh, co-writer and co-creator Shannon Watters, artists Kanesha C. Bryant and Alexa Bosy, as well as returning co-creator and series artist Brooklyn Allen.

In the special — which follows November issue #75, which I guess is technically the last issue of the ongoing series — “the brave campers and counselors of Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types are in the fight of their lives against the mysterious force known as the Grey. Molly has discovered a deep and ancient forest magic which she hopes to use to protect her friends and the home they’ve all found at camp. But will she be strong enough to save everyone in the camp and the forest? Or is the all-encompassing, all-erasing Grey just too powerful for anyone to stop?”

The Justice League at 60, Part 8: Fantasy Drafts

In this edition, Tom Bondurant dives into the “Crisis Cycle” era that defined the Justice League before the New 52 kicked in.

For a series which only lasted five years, there’s a lot to talk about with regard to Justice League of America volume 2. Much of this involves events outside the series, both in DC’s other comics and with the people producing them. Meanwhile, the “comics blogosphere” came into its own, intensifying fan scrutiny and offering real-time commentary on controversies. This post won’t go too deeply into all that extratextual drama; but rest assured it was there, and it crept inevitably into the work.

With that said, let’s get started.

The Legends miniseries begat Justice League International and the Justice League: A Midsummer’s Nightmare miniseries begat JLA. The 2006-2011 Justice League of America similarly traced its roots to 2004’s Identity Crisis, written by novelist Brad Meltzer, pencilled by Rags Morales and inked by Michael Bair. Featuring the murder of a superhero’s spouse and reaching back into the League’s hidden history, Identity Crisis kicked off a “Crisis cycle” that churned through DC books for the next several years.

Mail Call | Fantastic Four take a ‘Road Trip’ in December

A round-up of news from DC, Marvel, Image and more.

Fresh from saving the Earth from being destroyed by the sun in Empyre, the Fantastic Four will get a much-needed vacation in a one-shot by new Iron Man scribe Christopher Cantwell and artist Filipe Andrade. It’s titled Fantastic Four: Road Trip, and it features family fun, a station wagon … and a Reed Richards experiment gone wrong.

DC FanDome: Reaction + news round-up

Although there weren’t any big comics announcements during the second day of DC FanDome, the company did reveal a few small tidbits.

This weekend DC presented the second round of their DC FanDome event, which featured pre-recorded virtual panels on their comics, movies, TV shows, video games and much more.

Although some viewers complained of technical issues when everything went online on Saturday morning, the event this time was much smoother and easier to absorb than the first day of the event, which took place back in August. For that one, everything was streamed on a continuous loop, which made it difficult to figure out when certain panels were going live — and if you didn’t have eight hours to dedicate to watching it, you were going to miss something.

This time around everything was posted on-demand style, so you could easily pick and choose what you wanted to see. If you just wanted to see the comics panels, you could pull those up and watch them without having to sit through a panel on the Flash TV show, for instance. Across five different channels, they had a LOT of content, and like before, it was only up for 24 hours. Which is a bummer — if you missed it, it’s gone, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. They could easily put at least some of it up on their YouTube channel.

If you did miss FanDome, here’s a round-up of some of the comic news that came out of the event.

DC resurrects ‘Batman: Black and White’

The anthology series spotlighting the Dark Knight returns in December.

DC has announced the return of Batman: Black and White, the popular series from the 1990s that featured rotating creators telling stories about Batman, his friends and his foes — all in black and white.

This new iteration will be a six-issue, prestige-format, $5.99 miniseries with an impressive lineup of creators on tap to produce colorless tales of the Dark Knight.

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