Tag: Joshua Williamson

‘Action’ #1050 kicks off a new era for Superman

Lex Luthor targets the Superfamily in this oversized anniversary issue.

With Clark Kent returning to Earth to reunite with Jon and Lois, DC has announced that Action Comics #1050 will be an oversized issue featuring the creative teams of Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Mike Perkins, Tom Taylor and Clayton Henry, and Joshua Williamson and Nick Dragotta.

The comic will come out on the last Tuesday of the year and will introduce a new era for the Superfamily, following the events of Warworld, Dark Crisis and everything else that’s been going on in the DCU over the past few years. Also, Lex Luthor seems to be retaking his rightful place as Superman’s no. 1 villain.

“Writing Action Comics for the past two years has been one of the most rewarding writing experiences I’ve ever had, and everything that’s happened in that time—Future State, Superman: Son of Kal-El, The Warworld Saga, and Kal-El Returns—has all been building to Action Comics #1050,” said Johnson. “Clark Kent has returned to Earth stronger than ever, Jon has fully come into his own, and the Superfamily is poised to make Metropolis the true City of Tomorrow. It’s no overstatement to say Action Comics #1050 is a NEW BEGINNING for Superman, and the era that’s about to begin is as bright and fun and exciting as anything fans have ever seen at DC Comics.”

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Turns out it was ‘Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths’ all along

DC announces a name change for its big event series at Comic-Con, plus more details on all things Dark Crisis.

As part of their announcements at Comic-Con International in San Diego, DC Comics has revealed that their Dark Crisis event is actually called something else — Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths.

The announcement came during today’s Dark Crisis panel at the convention, which featured Joshua Williamson, Daniel Sampere, Jeremy Adams, Meghan Fitzmartin, Tom King and Ram V.

“We’ve kept the real name a secret from the start because we didn’t want to give away what was happening in the middle of the story, with the return of the Infinite Earths,” Williamson said.

The event series by Williamson and Sampere was also revealed to be a sequel to the original Crisis on Infinite Earths by Marv Wolfman and the late George Pérez — although I kind of thought that was obvious by the name Dark Crisis, the inclusion of Pariah and the whole “Great Darkness” thing … but Williamson and Sampere have more to say about the connection between the two series:

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Queue up for ‘Dark Ride’ by Williamson + Bressan

The ‘Birthright’ team reunites for a four-issue miniseries set in a horrific amusement park.

I was reading this Rolling Stone article about adult Disney fans being seen as a “plague upon society” when the press release for a new series called Dark Ride hit my inbox. Dark Ride is a new title coming from Skybound this fall by the Birthright team of Joshua Williamson and Andrei Bressan that “introduces readers to The Scariest Place on Earth.” And they don’t mean a Disney World filled with Disneybounding adults or Purple Wall selfie-takers.

“Two of my biggest obsessions have always been HORROR…and AMUSEMENT PARKS. So, I had to find a way to combine them into something new. It’s a dream book I’ve been working on for a LONG time and it’s been awesome to finally pull it together with Andrei and the whole Birthright team!” said Williamson. “It’s great to get back to horror after Nailbiter ended, and here we dive into some new themes with horror: What is scary in today’s world? How can you create something scary when every day we’re living in a horror show? Those are the themes I wanted to explore with DARK RIDE. Amusement Parks are meant to be a place of FUN…but here we really bring the HORROR.” 

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What Are You Reading? | ‘Batman: Fortress,’ ‘The Closet’ and more

See what the Smash Pages crew has been reading lately, which includes ‘Avengers Forever,’ ‘JLA Classified,’ ‘Little Monsters,’ ‘Strange’ and more.

Welcome to What Are You Reading?, our look at what the Smash Pages crew has been checking off their “to read” list lately. Today’s reviews include some Batman, some Justice League, some Avengers and some horror comics.

Let us know what you’ve been reading lately in the comments or on social media.

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Batman villains steal the spotlight in ‘One Bad Day’ one-shots

Tom King, Mitch Gerads, G. Willow Wilson, Jamie McKelvie and more tell new stories about Riddler, Catwoman, Bane and more.

DC Comics spent the day on social media revealing a series of eight one-shots starring Batman’s villains by a variety of comics’ finest.

The 64-page one-shots will feature The Riddler, Two-Face, The Penguin, Mr. Freeze, Catwoman, Bane, Clayface and Ra’s al Ghul, by the likes of Tom King, Mitch Gerads, John Ridley and more. They’ll be released monthly starting in August.

Here’s a rundown of who is doing what, along with cover art for six of the projects:

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Dark Crisis expands with five specials focused on the Justice League members who just died

‘Dark Crisis’ will run through December with multiple tie-ins, crossover issues and more.

DC has revealed more of their plans for Dark Crisis, the big event series spearheaded by Joshua Williamson that kicked off in Justice League #75 with the “death” of several members of the Justice League.

I put “death” in quotes because with this latest announcement, we find out that all those dead Leaguers will appear in a series of specials over the next few months, with the big conclusion to the event expected to land in December.

Here’s a look at what’s been announced thus far:

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DC announces ‘Dark Crisis’ event series

Joshua Williamson and Daniel Sampere team up for a crossover that spins out of ‘Justice League’ #75 and pays tribute to DC’s past.

DC has announced their next big “Crisis” crossover series, following on a long tradition of using the term, whether said crisis is Infinite, on Multiple Earths, Final or, um, “Identity.” (Maybe it’s best to skip that last one).

This particular crisis ties back to Crisis on Infinite Earths, the landmark 1980s series by Marv Wolfman and George Perez that reduced the multiverse to a single Earth and introduced us to Pariah, who watched multiple universes die after his own did. It also has roots (appropriately) in one of my favorite stories from Swamp Thing, issue #50 by Alan Moore and Stan Woch, which saw Swamp Thing and his allies attempting to save Heaven from “The Great Darkness.” Finally, it’ll spin out of Justice League #75, due out in April, where the team will die at the hands of “a new  Dark  Army  made  up  of  the  DCU’s  greatest  villains.”

Dark Crisis will run for seven issues and is written by Joshua Williamson, featuring art by Daniel Sampere, colors by Alejandro Sánchez and lettering by Tom Napolitano.

“Dark Crisis is an epic DCU event about legacy,” said writer Joshua Williamson. “It will have all the giant, fun cosmic battles and Multiversal set pieces, but it’s not about reboots, retcons, or rewriting time and space. At its core it’s about the characters and the relationships that we’ve seen built over DC’s great history. Dark Crisis spins out of Justice League 75 ‘Death of the Justice League’ and connects all the story threads across the DCU since Infinite Frontier #0 in a major way. Unifying the new legacy of the DCU as we honor the classic. You can’t miss it!”

Here’s a teaser trailer:

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Williamson + Leomacs go rogue on new DC Black Label title

The Flash’s villains take the spotlight as they go for one last, big heist — robbing Gorilla Grodd.

DC Comics has announced Rogues, the rare un-Batman project from DC’s Black Label imprint, by Joshua Williamson (Batman, Robin, Flash) and Leomacs (the wonderful Basketful of Heads).

The four-issue, prestige format series will feature the Flash’s rogue gallery 10 years after they disbanded, as Captain Cold brings them together for one more heist. And what a heist it is — he wants to rob Gorilla Grodd.

“Rogues is unlike anything I’ve done at DC,” said Williamson. “It’s closer to my own creator-owned works. It’s a crime book full of super-science, dark humor, lost civilizations, and crazy action set pieces, but it’s all played straight, with the dark edge and morality-play qualities of classic noir stories. Rogues takes everything we love about these classic characters and sends them violently crashing into a noir story that makes the ideal DC Black Label series.”

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Deathstroke goes to war with Talia al Ghul in ‘Shadow War’

The crossover series will run through the Joshua Williamson-written titles ‘Deathstroke Inc.,’ ‘Robin’ and ‘Batman.’

Several of the plots hatched by Joshua Williamson over the last year will come to a head next March in Shadow War, a DC Comics event that will run through issues of Batman, Deathstroke Inc. and Robin.

The crossover will begin in Shadow War Alpha #1, by Williamson and Viktor Bogdanovic. The 48-page issue will set up the story, which finds Deathstroke committing “an unthinkable act” that angers Talia al Ghul and the League of Shadows. As Deathstroke, Inc. and the League of Shadows go to war, Batman and Robin seek to bring Deathstroke to justice.

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Williamson + Molina to pit Batman against the new villain Abyss in December

Williamson takes over the flagship Batman title following the departure of James Tynion IV.

Following the departure of James Tynion IV from Batman, Joshua Williamson has announced on Twitter that he’ll write the title beginning with issue #118, with Jorge Molina on art.

“As Batman leaves Gotham, I’m starting a new storyline called ‘Abyss’ drawn by the awesome Jorge Molina,” he said. “We’re honoring the plan that the other books in the bat-line are doing while telling a brand-new story for Bruce Wayne as Batman in the DCU.”

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‘Justice League Incarnate’ spins out of ‘Infinite Frontier’ in November

Joshua Williamson and Dennis Culver helm the miniseries featuring the multiverse’s Justice League.

Joshua Williamson and Dennis Culver will follow up this summer’s Infinite Frontier miniseries with Justice League Incarnate, a five-issue oversized series. The first issue features artwork by Andrei Bressan and Brandon Peterson.

The series will feature the team made up of members from each world in the multiverse, including their recent addition, Flashpoint Batman, and a new character, Dr. Multiverse from Earth-8. Earth-8 is the Marvel-equivalent world that’s home to the Extremists and the Retaliators.

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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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