DC’s Detective Comics Wins GLAAD Media Award
Last night, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), handed out its annual awards to various forms of media for positive depictions of gays and lesbians, and this year DC Comics has a big reason to celebrate. Batwoman, arguably DC’s highest profile lesbian character, helped to win Detective Comics the Outstanding Comic Book award at this year’s ceremony in New York City. Detective Comics also has a back-up feature in each issue, starring The Question, a former romantic partner of Batwoman’s. Read more
Comic Book Previews for the Week of September 23rd, 2009
The days of summer are slowly waning, soon we’ll break out sweaters and jackets, and pumpkins, hopefully not of the bomb variety, will pop up everywhere. That doesn’t mean we have to slow down our reading of comics, especially THIS week!! Marvel brings the long-awaited, much-ballyhooed, debut of the new Spider-Woman solo series is HERE!! Spider-Woman #1 arrives, courtesy of power team Bendis and Maleev. What will await Jessica Drew as she makes her way in a savage new world? Dark Reign: The List takes aim at the X-Men this week, and also look for the one-shot Dark Reign: Made Men, which will focus on the lesser villains of Marvel and how Osborn’s world has affected them. Amazing Spider-Man #606 brings old flame/nemesis/ally The Black Cat back into Spidey’s life, and look for Ms. Marvel #45 as the battle between the original and current Ms. Marvel reaches its climax! Read more
Comic Book Previews for September 2nd, 2009
Before you hit the beach, the mountains or some other locale for the Labor Day holiday, don’t forget to swing by your local comic book shop and pick up this week’s new releases! Image Comics continues to serve up plenty for fans of their runaway hit series Chew. Issue four bows this week, along with reprints of the first three issues! This is your chance to catch up on the adventures of Detective Tony Chu all in one week! Pete Wentz, frontman for the band Fall Out Boy, sees his co-creation debut this week with the first issue of Fall Out Toy Works, the first in a five issue limited series! Mice Templar: Destiny #3 also lands in stores this week, giving fans of Image even more to be excited about! Read more
Comic Book Releases for July 29, 2009
Well kids of all ages, the final days of July are upon us, and as we turn to our final vacations, cookouts and day trips before the children head back to school and the final heat waves hit us, it’s time to celebrate the last week of this month with some comic book happenings for July 29th, 2009! Mystery, terror and lots more await us! Let’s dive right in! Read more
Batwoman Scores Big in Her Detective Comics Debut
Batwoman, one of DC Comic’s few openly gay/lesbian characters, has finally seen her day in the sun, or moon more appropriately. Taking off in this month’s Detective Comics #854, Kate Kane has fallen into the gifted hands of writer Greg Ruka, artist J.H. Williams III and colorist Dave Stewart. Together, these three craft a cracking good story for Batwoman as she makes the jump to the main stage of DC’s pages.
Her appearance in Detective Comics couldn’t be better. Right away her presence as a force to be reckoned with by the Gotham City underworld is made clear, as she forces a low-level crook to give her information about the arrival of the new leader of the religion of crime, a group that almost succeeded in ending Batwoman’s career in crimefighting not so very long ago. Even new Batman Dick Grayson makes an appearance here, and it’s safe to say that he doesn’t seem to mind the extra support in light of recent increased criminal activity. Read more
Comic Book Releases for June 24, 2009! Major Events!
What a Wednesday! With a few new titles, some big events, and other major releases happening today, the last shipment of comics for June promises to keep comic book readers busy for quite awhile! Now that the full swing of summer is here, expect to see more big waves of releases coming throughout the summer months (as previewed right here, and here, and here at comicbook.com a couple of weeks ago *nudge, nudge*
DC Comics has a couple of big things dropping into comic book stores today, mainly in the Batman universe. Gotham City Sirens (cover seen above) spreads its wings and flies today, focusing mostly on the actions of Poison Ivy, Catwoman and Harley Quinn. Perhaps we’ll see some guest appearances from another DC female, as Batwoman takes over main player status in the pages of Detective Comics with issue 854’s release today. Wrapping up today is the Sgt. Rock mini-series Sgt. Rock: The Lost Battalion concluding with issue number six. Read more
It’s a Comic Book Summer! DC Comics Sizzles!
In my previous article I laid out for you eager readers many of the delicious treats that Marvel has in store for the summer. Not to be outdone, DC has several big events and happenings on the not too distant horizon. Just check out this sampling of big storylines and events sure to make you sit up and take notice during the hot summer months!
Total Blackout After giving us a taste of bad things to come in a Free Comic Book Day issue, Green Lantern and its tie-ins will launch the highly anticipated Blackest Night storyline, the follow-up to the smash Sinestro Corps. It’s safe to say that this will be the epic DC event of the year, as the story will cross over into the worlds of heroes such as Superman, Batman and the Teen Titans. Promising visits from recently and long-deceased members of the DCU, Blackest Night is expected to pack quite an emotional punch on members of an already-shaken hero community.
Battle for the Cowl: Who Will Be The Next Batman?
Now that Battle for the Cowl #1 has hit the comic book shops and the subsequent tie-ins are certainly on their way, let the speculation as to who will inherit said cowl commence. If the first issue of this intriguing storyline has told us anything, it’s that the future of Gotham City is truly what’s at stake here. With Arkham freshly emptied by an (alive?) Black Mask, a desperate Bat-Family and a pretender to Batman’s name all working overtime, who, at the end, will be left standing to lead Gotham into, hopefully, a time of peace? Below, some odds on who it might be.
Catwoman: 250 to 1: Even though she has emerged as a champion, of sorts, for Gotham City in the recent past, and has become an intimate part of Bruce Wayne’s life, the disconnect in different parts of their moral codes keeps the good Ms. Kyle from ever really being able to inherit the cape and symbol. Will she still be an effective part of the extended Bat-Family after BFTC ends? Probably, but Batman, she’s not. Her interest in the East End mostly also may hinder this.
Holy Impact! Why Batman Today Owes TV’s Batman
Quick, how many Batman related projects can you think of in five seconds? Do things such as The Dark Knight Strikes Back, Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan’s Batman films and a host of supporting characters come to mind? They are probably just the tip of the iceberg, and in many, perhaps surprising ways, a part of this is due to none other than Adam West.
Not Adam West on his own, but the three season, 120 episode high-camp TV series of the late 1960’s, starring West as the titular Batman. Comics as a whole were about a decade removed from the scare of Dr. Fredric Wertham’s alarmist book about the “dangers” of comic books, Seduction of the Innocent. Batman had slowly devolved over the course of the 1950’s and early 1960’s, mainly due to silly costumes, adventures in sci-fi, outer space and various other machinations, including the odd additions of Batwoman and Bat-Girl as heterosexual supports for the supposedly, according to Wertham, homosexual heroes.
DC’s Faces of Evil: Review Number One
DC Comics could have been taking a page from Marvel with their focus on the villainy of their universe with the January Faces of Evil specials, but they’re taking it in a different direction by using these issues to either tell the story from the baddie’s point of view and/or displaying what their role in their nemesis’ life is.
With several major titles and smaller ones taking part, a massive amount of reading is to be done! Below is a review of six of the issues with another review on the way, rated on a scale of 1-6, one being meek and mild, six being really rotten.
Secret Six #5: Deadshot - It seems odd that DC would choose to highlight a villain in a book that’s already about villains, but Deadshot gets to narrate the action in this month’s issue. Although his narration is an interesting change from the series’ usual storytelling, it’s not much more than a “so?”. A villain-driven series has to do a bit more than add narration from one of it’s characters, that doesn’t add much to what we already knew of Deadshot, by the way. Plus, the biggest shock of the issue had nothing to do with Deadshot. All in all, pretty unscary: Terror Scale Score: 1
