The best part about San Diego Comic Con is comics!
And Gaslamp Pizza!
Geoff Johns is continuing his run on DOOMSDAY CLOCK, which is his quasi-sequel to WATCHMEN. He has some interesting takes with Mime and the Marionette coming up as they are dealing with The Joker. The Clown prince has some issues with these two showing up in Gotham and doing his thing. That will be unfolding this week in DOOMSDAY CLOCK #6.
The book that got a lot of people excited is his upcoming THREE JOKERS prestige format book for the DC BLACK LABEL imprint. He is tackling this with superstar artist Jason Fabok. Back in his JUSTICE LEAGUE run, it is revealed to Batman in issue #42 that there are three Joker’s running around. It was again brought up in REBIRTH, and promised that it will be addressed. Now is the time, and it sounds pretty intriguing. At first I was not super hip to this idea, but the way Johns explained it I am bought in.
Each part of the miniseries will focus on a Joker’s experience with different characters. Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd and Barbara Gordon. If you are playing at home, Bruce is the easy one. But Jason Todd and Barbara have had huge story lines that have had The Joker right at the center.
Johns said this is more of a Joker story than a Batman story. But it will be obvious that The Dark Knight Detective will be a part of the tale. This book we be out hopefully around winter 2018. But to make the wait less painful, stare at this beautiful Jason Fabok cover. He is really channeling Brain Bolland here, especially with the nod to THE KILLING JOKE.
Johns also has a SHAZAM! series coming out with artist Dale Eaglesham this November.
Looking into more awesome Batman books, Scott Snyder revealed at the JUSTICE LEAGUE panel that he is revisiting The Batman Who Laughs with Jock on art. The six issue miniseries launches this November and is surely going to rattle some cages. If any of you read the tie in to DARK KNIGHTS: METAL, you know this character is super honked up. For the uninitiated, this is the Batman who goes full on Joker. After DARK KNIGHTS: METAL ended, we know The Batman Who Laughs is still at large, waiting to return.
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But he won’t be alone. He will have a partner. Another member of the DARK UNIVERSE, a gun obsessed Batman. He has the gun that killed his parents amongst a whole arsenal. Snyder is really excited explore this character again, since there wasn’t a whole lot of time to expand upon him in the mini. Plus he gets to team Batman and his taste for horror together. Throw in Jock on art duties and this is going to be a classic. The last time Jock teamed with Snyder we got THE BLACK MIRROR, so put that in perspective.
Snyder is also continuing his run on JUSTICE LEAGUE. And he said that this is the book he has wanted to write since he was a kid. Since the plotting of METAL, he knows the story he wants to tell and where it is going. He wants this to live up to the levels of Morrison’s JLA.
He is glad he got to tell all his dark and personal Batman stories on his classic run a few years back, because now he gets to write a Batman with the best lines. Look to Batman fight with Lex Luthor in an upcoming issue to see and example of that. No spoiler for this report, but I will say, Batman is always prepared.
JUSTICE LEAGUE has some great issue coming ahead for the year, especially a LEGION OF DOOM focused issue. Every few issues they are going to flip the perspective the LOD’s side to give us a different take. If you are not reading this book, jump on it right now. It has been one of the best Justice League stories in a good while.
On to the Batman Family of books, we have writer Mairghread Scott who will be on BATGIRL with issue #25. She is excited to head back to the Gotham that Gail Simone set up. But mostly she will be exploring the dynamic between Barbara and her brother, James Gordon Jr. She will also be debuting the new Batgirl costume designed by Sean Murphy from BATMAN WHITE KNIGHT.
Bryan Hill talked about his run on DETECTIVE. He didn’t want to do a fill in. It had to matter. It had to contribute to what is happening with these characters. He has a similar story as he taught at risk kids, similar to what he is going with Black Lightning. He loves Cassandra Cain and is looking forward for readers to see a sequence he wrote for her. She communicates through movement, and is able to pull from his own background in martial arts to help make those scenes authentic.
BATMAN: THE DARK PRINCE CHARMING writer and artist, Enrico Marini talked about his 2 part beautiful book a bit. He said, “I wanted an intimate, emotional story, I didn’t want big stakes. It’s about Joker and Batman fighting over the fate of a little girl, it’s a very small story.” He said he just wanted to tell the story he did. He has a certain vision for how these characters work and look. He didn’t feel tied down to anything. Growing up in Italy he didn’t have a lot of comics, but he was aware of who Batman was. He is happy to be a part of his legend now.
Tom King talked about how much he is grateful for fans who have been picking up BATMAN, and especially the love for issue 50. It has been a celebration of all of the work from REBIRTH to now. He said, “We’re halfway through our big epic that I hope will explore the core of what Batman is, if Batman is a human, if he’s a god, if he’s like us or if he’s something else.” The story is not done by a long shot and Tom King is going to go down in history for one of the best and interesting runs in Batman’s publishing history.
As we move into BATMAN #51 (read BOF’s official review by John Bierly), it is a Batman vs. Bruce Wayne story. Dick Grayson is back to help his best friend. That is what a best friend does after a breakup. They get your back.
King went on to joke about losing Joelle Jones to her new role as writer and artist on CATWOMAN. Her inspiration for Catwoman is BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES and the film BATMAN RETURNS. She wanted to write an irredeemable and ugly villain for this series. She said all villains are beautiful and have this propensity to do good or have a softer edge. She wants this villain for Selina to be ugly and awful. As for the new design for Catwoman’s suit, she wanted to see a bit of skin to show she is human and help show movement. If you skipped out on CATWOMAN #1, please check it out (and read BOF’s review by Ryan Lower). It was a great book and the art was gorgeous.
Rounding out the panel is the great Pete Tomasi who announced he is the new writer on DETECTIVE COMICS with artists Doug Mahnke. He will be taking the book back to it’s namesake and is really happy to be working with Mahnke as they march toward #1000. At this point they show some artwork of Batman in a black and white illustration and gone is the REBIRTH suit with yellow outlined bat emblem and purple cape that Rick Shew loves. In is the return of the classic YEAR ONE/HUSH suit.
Tom King jumps in to explain that he “no longer wants to wear the costume he wore when he was with Catwoman.” He made jokes about how you throw away a certain article of clothing you would wear after you ended a relationship. At least that is the in story version for the suit change. They mentioned when you close your eyes, there is a version of Batman that you see. And that is this classic suit. Shorts and all.
Obviously it is a marketing thing since Superman is rocking the underwear again as well.
Get ready to update your pull lists friends, there are some great books coming from DC COMICS this year! – Justin Kowalski