No reviews this just a Comic-Con wrap-up with the news from the San Diego Comic Con last week. Four days of comic book news and announcements from everyone under the sun. Obviously a lot of news came and I missed some of it. Here’s what I caught and what I thought of it.
Previously…
San Diego Comic Con News
“I don’t understand… why do you want me to call you Solo?” – W. Fisk
Making Music: Archie Andrews continues his inexplicable crossovers by meeting the Ramones. Maybe it will be a battle of the bands comic? However they’re going to do it, I think I’ll pass. I’m not comics based around a band. Regardless on how well it’s written, something gets lost in the translation.
Legend of Korra: I was a big fan of Korra and of the Last Airbender. If Dark Horse wants to continue both as comic series, I’m definitely in. Filling in the gap between Last Airbender and Korra has been a fun ride so far and we still don’t know what happened to a lot of the characters. On the other hand, the further adventures of Korra and her friends is very appealing. Especially given how much changed in here time.
The Twist: Joss Whedon makes his triumphant return to comics with an original character called the Twist. She will a steampunk superhero set in Victoria London. So, “original” all around. I’m sure it will be very good and I’ll definitely be checking out the first issue.
Spotlight – Robin: DC came out of the gate firing. Out of all of the major publishers, they seem have to had the most amount of announcements. This one is very Robin-centric with the announcement of Batman & Robin: Eternal, a new weekly; and Robin War, which looks to set Damian Wayne (and maybe the other former Robins) against We Are… Robin. It’s a good time to be a Robin fan.
Batfleck: When I first started this column, I decided that I wasn’t going to report on rumors, but this one was too good to pass up. Mr. Affleck is an amazing director and a really good writer and Mr. Johns is one of the best writers in the industry today, so if this turns out to be true – that’s going to be a fantastic movie.
Vertigo: I remember a few months ago, there was a rumor that DC Entertainment was going to shut down Vertigo, but that doesn’t appear to be the case as they announced 12 new titles coming at the end of the year from some top flight talent.
Convergence Spin-offs: This is the news that had me the most excited from Comic-Con (which says something about me). I was a big fan of the marriage between Lois and Clark and was very disappointed when that history was erased. Now with Convergence putting everything in, we are able to revisit this and correct the mistake of getting rid of the Dick Grayson’s version of the Teen Titans. The Telos book could be interesting if for no other reason than to see who Telos once was. I’m still holding out hope for a Time Masters book starring the new Waverider, Rp Hunter, and Booster Gold.
Coming of the Supermen: So DC announced more Superman projects coming out now, than they did during the 75th Anniversary. This one by Neal Adams will feature Superman taking on the New Gods with the help of the Bottled City of Kandor. While I’m not a huge fan of the New Gods, Mr. Adams does excellent work, so I might check this out.
American Alien: Max Landis (best known for Chronicle and his drunken rant on the death of Superman) will be writing a seven part Superman series. Each issue will take place at a random point in the Man of Steel’s life. Mr. Landis is a very good storyteller (even drunk), so I’ll check this out.
Gods and Men: Geoff Johns announced a series of oneshots based around the Darkseid War in October. These stories will showcase the League gaining the powers of the New Gods. This is going to be a lot of fun.
Animated Schedule: DC Animated announced that they will be doing The Killing Joke, Batman: Bad Blood, and Justice League vs Titans. While I like a lot of what DC Animated is doing, I really wish we would get more than Batman and the Justice League.
Earth-M: Milestone Media will return to DC as the new Earth M – hopefully with new books sometime in the near future. The other good news is Geoff Johns and Jim Lee will be taking a personal hand in the development of these properties.
Green Lantern Corps: We had trailers for a few of the upcoming DC movies, but there are still a lot of burning questions out there. And with all of those questions, which one does DC and WB answer? The question of Lanterns – we’ll have multiple Lanterns in this movie and honestly, I could care less. I want to know more about the movies coming out sooner than that.
Multiversity, Too: Not a sequel. Just exploring. And I’ll be there for the ride.
Dawn of Justice: The trailer here was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed. It also seems to have bought some goodwill from people that didn’t like the original trailer. So good job on that.
Earth One: JMS will be taking on the Flash and Francis Manapul will be doing Earth One Aquaman. I’m guessing in a year, we’ll see a Justice League Earth One, which could be interesting given the way some of its members are shaping up.
Added Cast: So, The Flash will be adding Jay Garrick (Teddy Sears), Patty Spivot (Shantel VanSanten), and Wally West (no casting yet). I think we’ll explore more of the Speed Force now. I also wonder if the Reverse Flash will be back – or if Eddie will back.
Zoom is Coming: They also revealed that Zoom (not to be confused with the Reverse Flash) will be the villain for Season 2. It sounds like Hunter Zolomon and his time powers will be making an appearance. While this is fine, I was kind of hoping for more of the Rogues. I would like to see them actually form and fight the Flash.
Vixen: So the trailer to this looks excellent and most of the guest stars (Arrow and Flash) will be voiced by the actual actors. My biggest objection is this isn’t live action. Though casting makes me hope that she will get on to the live shows sometime in the near future.
Hawkman: While no big surprise, it’s nice to see Hawkman will be coming to Legends of Tomorrow. I wonder if they’ll get Michael Shanks to play him again.
Maxwell Lord: While several characters were announced to be joining the series (Livewire and Reactron), Maxwell Lord was the only one announced as cast. Peter Facinelli will be playing the villain doing the right thing from comics. I wonder if this means the United Nations will be coming to this at all.
The Avengers: No, not the famous ones, but the ones from the Swinging Sixties – Steed and Mrs. Peel will be teaming up with Batman and Robin ‘66. As long as they stay away from the plot of the movie, we should be good.
Back to the Future: IDW has announced a Back to the Future series that will explore the untold tales of Marty McFly and Doc Brown, such as how they meet and Doc Brown’s past. This could be a good book, but all I think it will do is make people want more stories that they don’t seem willing to give.
Street Fighter X G.I. Joe: G.I. Joe and the Street Fighters will be joining together to fight off Cobra and M. Bison’s forces. So if this is anything like the video game and the cartoon, this will be two Street Fighters fighting while the Joes and Cobra shoot at each other without hitting anything.
Micronauts and Rom: There’s not much information on these titles yet, just the tease saying their coming.
Star Trek: IDW announced Starfleet Academy. So the long rumored TV show is finally coming just in comic book form. I’m imagining it’s going to be the rebooted cast, but I think they have an opportunity to revisit the Next Gen cast.
ESPN and Marvel: I feel bad for Marvel. I think a large amount of their announcements for this con were leaked online, so they’re going with some less exciting ones. Case in point, the Marvel Heroes will get naked for the ESPN Body Issue – because, yeah, sure why not?
Chewie: Marvel announced a new Chewbacca series – once more spotlighting a character we can’t understand without giving us the translation. But, it’s Chewbacca – so I’m in. At least for the first issue.
All-New, All-Different: The All-New, All-Different Marvel universe will be kicked off with Avengers #0. This will showcase some of the changes in the universe and give the readers a small preview. However, in addition to this, I think Marvel should take a page out of DC’s book and release free previews to all of their books.
Avengers Animated: So Avengers Assembled will change it’s name to Avengers: Ultron Revolution and Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, Black Panther and the Inhumans will all be joining the team. Why? Because movies, man, movies..
Star Wars Crossover: Marvel has been doing a great job with their Star Wars books, filling in the gaps between movies. However, the upcoming Darth Vader and Star Wars crossover, “Vader Down”, seems to take things a little far. The problem comes down to the fact that they can’t change anything – it might be a great story, but in the end nothing will change because it’s between movies.
Agents: The villains of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent character have been revealed. Agent Carter will be facing off against the Secret Empire while the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be fighting Lash, a new villain from the Inhumans comic.
Unbeatable: So one of the things that drives me nuts about Marvel is their constant renumbering of series. Especially when they drop down to a new number #1 with the same creative team and continuing the same plot line as they are doing with Squirrel Girl. Which is still a thing for some reason.
Spidey: So Marvel is going to have it’s cake and eat twice. Not only will they have the successful Peter Parker and a teenaged Miles Morales, they will also be showing an all-ages in continuity teenage Spider-Man. I think this is a great idea – my only thing is that they have to drop the price. If this is really aimed at bringing kids into comics, this has to be between a dollar and two dollars. Any more than that and it’s not going to draw in kids.
Blade: Vampire hunting becomes a family business as Blade gains a teenaged daughter – that he didn’t know about. This will answer the age old question: What is Blade’s first name? Oh, and there won’t be any vampires for the vampire hunters to fight. Which is just hysterical.
Deadpool and Spider-man: These two top sellers will share a book – I’m sure it will be great, but I’ll be over there. Not reading it. Man, I really hate Deadpool.
Miscellaneous
Transformers: So there’s going to be a new Transformer show on Machinima that takes place during the Combiner War. This sounds great, but I’ve never been able to get into the comics. So I don’t really have a stake in this. One of these days, I’m actually going to start reading those Transformer comics.
Street Fighter: So, Street Fighter has always seemed like a strange duck to me. Unlike Mortal Kombat, there was never really a need for a story. Illegal street fighting for a top prize was pretty much all you need. As they began to have more and more sequels, the story and backgrounds got more and more complicated. Now Street Fighter will get a new ongoing that will try once more to make sense out of whatever the hell is going with these characters.
Heroes Reborn: I loved the first season of Heroes – it was fantastic and a well told. Then they did more seasons and didn’t follow their own rules and the show just tanked. The new video seems to have call backs to the original season – which is good. The one thing is that twirling hole at the end. This looks like the right ingredients for a reboot and I’m not sure how I feel about this.