Mail Call | Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day titles

Get ready for Free Comic Book Day, which is coming up this Saturday. Also check out news from DC, Image Comics, IDW, AfterShock Comics and more.

Mail Call is a roundup of the announcements we’ve received from comics publishers in our mailboxes recently that we haven’t already covered. Hit the links for more information.

Marvel’s Free Comic Book Day offerings for this year have been somewhat confusing — at one point Chip Zdarsky was mentioned as contributing — but the company has put out a press release detailing what you specifically can from them this coming Saturday.

Marvel will have two books, as previously announced — Spider-Man/Venom and Hulk/Avengers, both of which will tease upcoming storylines for the four titles represented.

As previously reported, Amazing Spider-Man is getting a new creative team AND a new person under the mask, as infamous clone Ben Reilly returns to take on the mantle of Spider-Man. One of the new writers of Amazing, Zeb Wells, will team with artist Patrick Gleason for a story featuring Reilly as Spider-Man. It will be accompanied by a Venom story by the new creative team of Ram V., Al Ewing and Bryan Hitch “in a glimpse that will show you just how twisted their upcoming run will be.”

Then, in the second title, Donny Cates and Ryan Ottley will present a look at their upcoming run on Hulk. And Jason Aaron teams up with Iban Coello to “present the dangerous new threat that the Avengers will face in the next arc of his hit Avengers run.”

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Nguyen + Lemire team up for a tale about Dick Grayson’s early career

‘Robin & Batman,’ a three-issue, prestige-format miniseries, kicks off in November.

The creative team behind the hit creator-owned titles Descender and Ascender are trading space operas for street crime, as they team up for a new miniseries focused on the Boy Wonder and his bat-themed mentor.

Robin & Batman, a three-issue, prestige-format miniseries by writer Jeff Lemire and artist Dustin Nguyen, will debut in November. As the title suggest, the story will focus Robin, in this case Dick Grayson early in his career as a crimefighter.

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A tale of two Sleepers

A recent graphic novel published by Simon & Schuster is in the spotlight for using the same title as a DC/Wildstorm comic.

Variety is reporting that Warner Bros. is considering legal action against the creators of a recent graphic novel called Sleeper.

Jed Mercurio, the showrunner for a British TV show called Line of Duty, co-wrote Sleeper with Prasanna Puwanarajah, an actor he’s worked with before. Coke Navarro drew the project. The problem, of course, is that the title “Sleeper” is already taken — Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips used it back in the 2000s for a series about the Wildstorm hero Grifter that was published by DC Comics.

“Somehow no one in the entire comics industry had heard about this book of his until it was already at the printer,” Brubaker said about Mercurio’s graphic novel in his email newsletter. “Needless to say, WB owns the copyright and trademark to Sleeper as a series of graphic novels (and TV and film, I believe) and obviously they were more than concerned. So from what I understand there are a lot of legal things happening with them and the other publisher right now.”

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‘Robins’ wins DC’s Round Robin tournament, will debut in November

DC Universe Infinite subscribers will get the new comic first, as it arrives on the platform Oct. 26.

DC Comics has announced the winner of their Round Robin tournament, which asks fans to vote on which pitch should become a series, and it’s not surprising to see that Robins by Tim Seeley and Baldemar Rivas came out on top.

Robins #1, the first of a six-issue miniseries, will arrive in November. But if you are a DC Universe Infinite subscriber, you’ll get to see it on Oct. 26.

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Mail Call | ‘X-Men: Inferno’ teasers say ‘Trust No One’

Check out news, announcements and previews from DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Image and more.

Mail Call is a roundup of the announcements we’ve received from comics publishers in our mailboxes recently that we haven’t already covered. Hit the links for more information.

Marvel has released three teasers for X-Men: Inferno, the upcoming X-Men crossover event that shares a name with a 1989 X-Men crossover event (not to be confused with The Trial of Magneto, another X-Men event that kicks off in August and also shares a name with a 1980s X-Men storyline.)

The teasers all build on the concept of trust, suggesting that you pretty much can’t trust anyone on Krakoa these days:

“An homage to the original house ads for 1989’s milestone X-Men crossover Inferno, Silva’s artwork presents all the major players of the upcoming saga and teases the day of reckoning that will soon be upon them,” Marvel.com says about the teasers. Inferno is written by Jonathan Hickman with artwork by Valerio Schiti, R.B. Silva and Stefano Caselli.

“I’m very excited that we’re finally getting to share with everyone the follow-up to House of X/Powers of X,” Hickman said. “The story is 160 pages over four issues drawn exquisitely by Valerio Schiti, R.B. Silva and Stefano Caselli. I cannot wait for people to read it.” 

Inferno #1 arrives Sept. 29.

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DC celebrates 80 years of Wonder Woman with ‘Nubia and the Amazons’ + more

A new title featuring Wonder Woman’s sister headlines a slate of Wonder Woman projects arriving this fall.

DC Comics have announced several Wonder Woman projects for September and October, when they plan to pull out all the stops in celebrating the character’s 80th anniversary.

Wonder Woman debuted in the pages of All-Star Comics #8, which was published Oct. 21, 1941. Oct. 21, at least according to DC’s marketing department, is now known as “Wonder Woman Day” (although they have celebrated it at other times of the year as well).

October will bring the debut of at least one new Wonder Woman title, featuring her fellow Amazon Nubia, as well as an 80th anniversary special, an oversized issue of her regular title, a previously announced Black Label project, some free comics and more. Check’em out below.

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Joe Hill’s Hill House imprint returns in October with ‘Refrigerator Full Of Heads’

Novelist Rio Youers and artist Tom Fowler continue the story started in ‘Basketful of Heads.’

DC will return to Brody Island, the setting of 2019’s Basketful of Heads, for a new horror series that at least triples its capacity for head-holding: Refrigerator Full Of Heads.

Novelist Rio Youers and artist Tom Fowler will team for the sequel to Joe Hill and Leomacs’ previous series. The new series, which will be released under the Hill House imprint, will feature new characters, including a vacationing couple who stumble into Brody Island’s more “unsavory” elements.

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‘Dark Nights: Death Metal’ soundtrack available now

Mastodon, Manchester Orchestra, Soccer Mommy, Grey Daze and more provide tracks inspired by the comic series.

The soundtrack for Dark Nights: Death Metal has arrived on digital music platforms, featuring new tracks by Mastodon, Denzel Curry, Manchester Orchestra, Chelsea Wolfe, IDLES, Soccer Mommy, Grey Daze and more.

The soundtrack serves as a companion piece to the DC’s big event series by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo and man others. It was executive produced by Tyler Bates, and each track features lyrics directly inspired by the text. Bates also produced a series of stop-motion comics featuring some of the songs with voice overs.

Here’s the track by Soccer Mommy, which was released as a single and video:

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DC announces several new projects for September as ‘DC Connect’ goes to print

‘Deathstroke Inc.,’ ‘Titans United,’ ‘Black Manta’ and more arrive from DC in September.

DC Comics has announced that their monthly online preview magazine DC Connect will be available in print starting in September — and in doing so, revealed several new projects slated for that month as well.

As luck would have it, today is also the day DC released their September solicitations, so let’s break down some of these new announcements …

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‘Batman: Earth One’ Vol. 3 ‘reframes a number of classic elements in an entertaining way’

Tom Bondurant reviews the latest in DC’s line of Earth One graphic novels, the long-awaited third part of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank’s Batman trilogy.

This week I read a lot of Batman, which sounds stereotypical, but it’s kind of unavoidable. The new issue of Detective came out this week, along with the third issue of Batman: The Detective; and both featured Bruce Wayne battling overmuscled man-mountains with handlebar mustaches and crazy glints in their eyes. There was also issue #3 of The Batman/Scooby-Doo Mysteries, plus a decent amount of the Darknight Detective in issue #2 of Justice League: Last Ride. And I’m still in the middle of a New 52 Batman re-read, getting into the “Zero Year” epic.

All that said, I’m going to talk about Batman: Earth One Volume Three, written by Geoff Johns, pencilled by Gary Frank, inked by Jon Sibal and colored by Brad Anderson.

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Sunday with ‘Sandman’ | Looking back at the earliest issues of the beloved series

Shane Bailey cracks open ‘Sandman: The Deluxe Edition V1,’ journeying back to the late 1980s for a look at the influential series.

Last week I decided to start a massive reread of the Neil Gaiman-written Sandman family of books, starting with the Deluxe Edition v1, and honestly I forgot how great these books are. Over the years I’ve come to take them for granted, but they are really top of the class in terms of subject and craft.

Reading these books again I see how heavily it leans into horror, which I had forgotten. It has that creeping horror feel down, the kind that starts the hairs on the back of your neck to signal that something isn’t quite right, rather than in-your-face shock horror.

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Jackson Hyde will take center stage in ‘Aquaman: The Becoming’

The second Aqualad will get a six-issue miniseries starting in September.

This article from The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Jackson Hyde, a.k.a Aqualad, will get his own miniseries in September titled Aquaman: The Becoming.

It’s tucked into a bigger story about both DC and Marvel’s Pride Month efforts, but THR reveals the creative team — Brandon Thomas and Diego Olortegui, with covers by David Talaski — as well as the first issue’s cover:

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