Happy new year! It’s been an eventful one for DC Comics (and a huge number of releases as well!) The theme of this month’s Pubwatch seems to be adaptations, both good, bad, and hopeful, including the final issue of Superman ’78.
The News
The GLAAD Award nominees were announced and DC had several nominations across four categories. On the adaptation front, Batwoman, Supergirl, and Doom Patrol were all nominated for Outstanding Drama Series, while Y: The Last Man was nominated for Outstanding New TV Series. On the comics side of things, DC dominated the nominations garnering nominations for Aquaman: The Becoming, Crush & Lobo, The Dreaming: Waking Hours, Harley Quinn: The Eat, Bang! Kill Tour, and Superman: Son of Kal-El in the Outstanding Comic Book category and for DC: Pride and I Am Not Starfire in the new Outstanding Original Graphic Novel/Anthology category. The fact that half the nominations for the Outstanding Comic Book category come from DC is a testament to the amount of growth that the company has shown towards queer representation over the last two years, and is wonderful to see this work getting recognized.
In sadder news, Senior Vice President and General Manager Daniel Cherry has left the company after only a year and a half in the role. He was known for championing diversity at the company I hope he’s successful in whatever comes next.
However, this means a new General Manager for DC Comics, and its long-time company employee Anne Leung DePies stepping into that role. Most recently she was the Senior Vice President, Global Brands and Franchises where, as part of the DC leadership team, she developed a new strategic and operating focus on value creation by focusing the unit on franchises.
Highlights
Superman ’78 #6
Jordie Bellaire (colors), Mikel Janin (cover), Dave Lanphear (letters), Wilfredo Torres (art), Robert Venditti (writer)
This book from start to finish was just an absolute love letter to the Richard Donner and Christopher Reeve Superman movies, and got to play with those versions of the characters in a way that wouldn’t have been possible with the special effects limitations of the early 1980s. In a perfect world, this would have been the third Superman movie, and it’s my hope that we may get another series out of this team in the near future.
Grade: A+
Batman: The Knight #1
Pat Brosseau (letters), Carmine Di Giandomenico (art and cover), Ivan Plascencia (colors), Chip Zdarsky (writer)
Okay, so this is yet another Batman origin story. I get it, I get it. But hear me out on this. This one takes a much different approach than most have. The Bruce Wayne in this book is a boiling pot of rage and pain, still trying to do the right thing but in a broken and violent way (well more violent I guess). This is a Bruce Wayne that poisons and haunts a bullying classmate and it’s an interesting look at how close to becoming a villain young Bruce was.
Grade: A
Peacemaker: Disturbing the Peace #1
Garry Brown (art), Garth Ennis (writer), Juan Ferreyra (cover), Lee Loughridge (colors), Rob Steen (letters)
Hey, remember the Ennis comics of the late ’90s and early 2000s? You know, the shit that was edgy and toxic, while trying to be funny? Well, guess who has not evolved as a writer at all? That’s right! Garth Ennis. This comic was needlessly edgy in every possible way, including, but not limited to, child death. Every page brought more levels of cringe disguised as cool. It’s incredible that with how well the majority of the DC line is going, every single movie/tie-in of the last several years has utterly failed to capture the feeling of the movie or show it’s coinciding with.
Grade: D
Robins #3
Romulo Fajardo Jr. (colors), Balderma Rivas (art and cover), Tim Seely (writer), Steve Wands (letters)
If you’re going to sell me on a story involving all the past Robins (and including Steph Brown who is often ignored in that regard), you have to give them to me in character. I spent last summer reading literally every single appearance of Tim Drake over the last 30 years, and so when he was written even further out of character than the New 52 version of the character had been? That soured me on not only this issue by the whole series. Tim suggesting that they allow the Obeah Man and the other gauntlet members to die by asphyxiation is so wildly contradictory to everything Tim stands for that it sickens me. Shortly after Tim took the Robin cape, he was presented a similar situation where Jean-Paul Valley similarly let a criminal die rather than try to save him, and that was the final straw for Tim in not allowing Jean-Paul to continue as Batman. So to suggest that he’d ever do something similar is insulting to the character and disappointing from the writer.
Grade: F
Grades
A+
Superman ’78 #6
A
Action Comics #1039
Arkham City: The Order of the World #4
Batgirls #2
Batman: The Knight #1
Batman/Catwoman Special #1
Catwoman #39
Crush & Lobo #8
Detective Comics #1047, #1049-1050
Nightwing #88
Nubia and the Amazons #4
Robin and Batman #3
Static: Season One #5
World of Krypton #2
B
Aquaman: The Becoming #5
Aquaman/Green Arrow: Deep Target #4
Batman #119
Batman: Urban Legends #11
Black Manta #5
DC vs. Vampires #4
Detective Comics #1048
Harley Quinn #11
I Am Batman #5
Icon and Rocket: Season One #5
Justice League Incarnate #3
One-Star Squadron #2
Superman: Son of Kal-El #6-7
Task Force Z #4
The Flash #778
The Joker #11
Wonder Girl #7
Wonder Woman #783
Wonder Woman Evolution #3
C
Batman vs Bigby: A Wolf In Gotham #5
Blue and Gold #5
Dark Knights of Steel #3
DC Horror Presents: Soul Plumber #4
Deathstroke Inc. #5
Future State: Gotham #9
Green Lantern #10
Harley Quinn: The Eat Bang Kill Tour #5
Justice League #71
Justice League Infinity #7
Justice League vs The Legion of Super-Heroes #1
Pennyworth #6
Robin #10
Suicide Squad #11
Suicide Squad: King Shark #5
Teen Titans Academy #11
Titans United #5
D
Peacemaker: Disturbing the Peace #1
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #7
Superman & Robin Special #1
F
Robins #3
Solicitation Situation
Earth-Prime #2
- Written by ADAM MALLINGER, JAI JAMISON, and ANDREW WONG
- Art by TOM GRUMMETT and NORM RAPMUND
- Cover by KIM JACINTO
- Photo variant cover
- $5.99 US | 48 pages | 2 of 6 | Variant $6.99 US (card stock)
- ON SALE 4/19/22
Clark Kent and Lois Lane try to celebrate their first wedding anniversary but can’t quite seem to find their rhythm as heroics and reporting continue to spoil the couple’s plans. Plus, learn the true origins of the evil Superman from John Henry’s world!
Earth-Prime looks to be the title that breaks the recent slate of media tie-ins that don’t capture the feelings of the media they’re adapting, mostly because the series is bringing in writers from the shows in question. Adam Mallinger is a ride or die Superman fan of similar persuasion to me (meaning we both grew up with the Triangle Era as our imprinting point), and the fact that he gets to team up with legendary Adventures of Superman artist Tom Grummett on this issue is a dream come true for both him and for me.
Justice League #75
- Written by JOSHUA WILLIAMSON
- Art by RAFA SANDOVAL
- Cover by DANIEL SAMPERE and ALEJANDRO SÁNCHEZ
- Variant covers by ALEX MALEEV, DAN JURGENS and NORM RAPMUND, and MIKEL JANÍN
- 1:25 variant cover by SIMONE DI MEO
- 1:50 variant cover by TONY HARRIS
- Team variant cover by TODD NAUCK
- $6.99 US | 48 pages | (All on card stock)
- ON SALE 4/19/22
Oversize special issue! Superstar writer Joshua Williamson pens the beginning of the next big DCU event! It all starts here!
A new Dark Army made up of the DCU’s greatest villains has formed on the edges of the Multiverse! The DCU’s best and most powerful heroes are pulled together in an epic war to push the darkness back! But in the end, they are no match for it! That’s right, you heard it here first: the Justice League are killed by the Dark Army, with only one survivor to warn the remaining heroes of Earth about what is coming for them!
FINAL ISSUE!
Gosh where have I read this before? Was it in Joe Kelly’s Obsidian Age? Or was it in Death Metal? Like the Justice League hasn’t even really been back for very long only to die again? And how does this tie-in to continuity? Superman’s off Earth in Action Comics. Mountains of shit are going down on Oa in Green Lantern. Barry Allen’s already “dead” from Infinite Frontier. This just seems like a mess.
That’s a wrap for January, in February we can finally close the book on Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.
