There have been a lot of different Detective logos over the past fifty years. This is not the worst by far, but it does give me a Batman and the Outsiders vibe.
There was nothing surprising about this, it was identical to the format Action Comics 1000 used. And I feel I got more bang for my buck instead of just getting a single story that had just as good a chance as disappointing as any of these smaller stories. But at least we wouldn't be stuck with just the one.
We've also got Detective 1027 coming up in a year or so (assuming they continue publishing TEC twice monthly), one presumes that'll get the same treatment as 1000. Maybe they'll change the logo again for that.
While I'm not reading Tom King's Batman, this seems interesting in itself: CBR| Batman #70 Gets New Cover Art & Story It seems the original solicitations for #70 announced a story involving the Flashpoint Batman. This has been replaced by "Chapter One of 'The Fall and the Fallen'", which has Batman locked up in Arkham, having to fight his way out through all the villains. I wonder what the story is behind the sudden change. King's still writing the new story, so it's not a matter of him falling behind schedule.
CBR| DC's Walmart-Exclusive Stories Heading to Comic Book Stores as Miniseries They announced the Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman stories. I think they also did original stories in the other Walmart-Exclusives, but it's probably smart not to launch all of those in the same month.
I don't know if it's really noteworthy enough to get it's own thread, so I'll just post it here. DC is bringing back the Showcase shorts that accompany their DTV animated movies. They will be doing new shorts focused on Sgt. Rock, Adam Strange, Death from the Sandman comics, The Phantom Stranger, and a Batman: Death in the Family short. Not quite sure what to make of the Death in the Family one, since the comic storyline was way to complicated to cover in a short.
Batman: Death in the Family was also pretty much told in a few minutes in the excellent Batman: Under the Red Hood DTV animated movie, so its weird to do a short about it.
Red hood movie was unfortunately pre flashpoint and no longer counts. They redid death of Superman as well.
Well, these animated shorts aren't necessarily connected to the New 52 DTV movies, so that probably doesn't matter. But, Under the Red Hood was only in continuity with itself anyway. I'm definitely interested in seeing the short (and the other new ones, the first round of shorts were all very good except for the Catwoman one so hopefully these end up being good), I just wish they'd done something different, although I guess they needed one short starring a big DC character. Although, if they really wanted to adapt a Batman comic I can think of several Batman one shot stories that would have made for a great 10-20 minute short (I'd love to see Paul Dini's Slayride as an animated short for example, although its more of a Joker/Robin story then a batman story) then doing a small part of a larger story.
Neal Adams will write and draw new mini-series "Batman vs. Ra's al Ghul". It will, apparently, be released under the "Year of the Villain" banner, indicating it to be set in the DCU proper, as opposed to last few DC mini-series by Adams. Also, Deadman to appear. I do wish Adams would get another writer to help him out a little. He's got great ideas, and his layouts are fantastic, but he does have some issues with story structure and dialogue. It's too much to hope for a Adams/O'Neil reunion, I guess. Also, DC will release a facsimile edition of Batman #232, the first appearance by Ra's al Ghul, by O'Neil & Adams.
I had the opportunity at work yesterday to read the first issue of Superman: Year One. It is very definitely not set in the DKR universe. It is "alternate universe stuff," though, and that's okay. Miller is riffing on a lot of stuff, from the Silver Age to Richard Donner to John Byrne, and updating them to the near-present/future for his own take. Miller has a very sentimental, even reverent, take on Clark Kent's Smallville years. I was surprised by two tear-jerk moments -- when Jonathan introduces Martha to the infant Clark and, later, something about Lana Lang when Clark leaves Smallville after high school. Miller has always said that DKR isn't how he sees Superman, and this is the corrective. Romita's art is wonderful, especially the sequence between Krypton's destruction and Kal-El's arrival on Earth. The aging of Jonathan and Martha is handled realistically, with Jonathan having a bit of a Bruce Greenwood look by the end. I know that DC originally solicited this as "Mature Readers," then changed it to "Teen," but there's nothing here that would have been inappropriate when I was ten. I can't wait to read the rest.
Presumably, DC didn't know themselves what they would be getting. But what you describe definitely sounds encouraging, especially after Miller's work of the past two decades.
So I'm curious if there has been any major events that involve the multiverse since Convergence. The only thing I know about Convergence that was fairly major is that the original multiverse is back and that they really undid the events of Crisis. If that's true, I'd really like to know what happened to Kal-L, Earth 2 Superman. If they were able to avert COIE, and every Earth that ever existed is back, then did Earth 1 Barry Allen and Earth 1 Kara Zor El still die? And if there was no COIE, then there wouldn't be an Infinite Crisis, so they would not have killed Earth 2 Superman. And where is Earth 1 Superman? The one that was the most powerful of them all? Did he depower himself and become Jordan Elliot? If so, despite the old "gold krytonite depowers you permanently," did they get around that? I'd love to find out.
There was the Multiplicity storyline in the Peter Tomasi & Patrick Gleason Superman book, which, if I remember correctly, was a quasi-sequel to Grant Morrison's Multiversity series.
Tom King's run on "Batman" has been cut short. While it was supposed to last a hundred issues, now King will leave the book before the end of the year. Instead, he'll team up with his "Heroes in Crisis" artist Clay Mann on a 12-issue "Batman/Catwoman" series, starting in 2020. Dan Didio also spoke of "making changes to our comic book publishing line to set DC up for continued success", and also indicated that "Batman" would change back to a monthly release schedule, indicating that the "Batman/Catwoman" would take the freed up spot in the schedule. It looks like DC does not want to overcrowd the market with too many single issues per month. CBR| DC Announces Batman/Catwoman Comic By Tom King & Clay Mann I haven't been reading King's Batman run, mostly because I'm tired of the event-driven "epics" in the Batman books, as I prefer the smaller, noir/pulp-y detective stories. I'm not quite happy the way his run has affected the books of other heroes, mainly Nightwing and, by extension, Titans. I'm certainly not happy with "Heroes in Crisis", especially regarding Wally West, but I don't blame King for that (that's really on Didio, he appears to loathe the character). I'm not going to read this new book, but I'm curious who'll take over the "Batman" title, and what they'll do with it.
I'm reading Batman because of Tom King. I'll follow him to the new book for sure. Whoever takes over Batman doesn't interest me in the slightest.