Justice League of America #1 to Get 52 Variant Covers, New Series for Vibe and Katana

In a story released this morning at MTV Geek, DC Entertainment revealed that the upcoming Justice League of America #1 by Geoff Johns will beat both Uncanny Avengers #1 and The Walking Dead #100 and have not just twenty-odd variant covers but fifty-two of them. Identified by DC as one cover for each U.S. state, plus one for Washington D.C. and one for Puerto Rico, DC readers will know that's likely just a very thin veil for yet another play on 52/the New 52. For his part, DC Entertainment co-publisher Dan DiDio said they were looking to honor the country and the individual states since the series was announced in an election year (even though it will not debut in 2012). Vibe will be written by Arrow writer Andrew Kreisberg (who's also working on the Booster Gold pilot for Syfy) and will feature art by Pete Woods, late of Legion Lost. If reports that Vibe will be Bunker's boyfriend are accurate, he may be the first homosexual, male character to have his own title in the DC Universe. There was a Midnighter series at one point, but that was back when WildStorm was its own imprint. Katana, which has long been rumored as a potential "fourth wave" title for the New 52, will be written by Ann Nocenti with art by Alex Sanchez. In addition to appearing in Justice League of America alongside Vibe, Green Arrow and others, the character is slated to appear on the Cartoon Network series Beware the Batman later this year. "We've done a lot of great things with the New 52," DiDio told MTV Geek, "and now we're putting the focus back on Justice League, with the launch of Justice League of America. We want to make people realize that this is one of our key franchises, and we plan to build it out not just with the main Justice League titles, but other books that tie into them as well." Talk of "putting the focus back" on the Justice League even though it's never really been off it (the team's monthly book is written by the chief creative officer and drawn by a co-publisher) seems like the kind of corporate codespeak to prepare fans for a big 2013--probably one where the long-rumored Justice League movie is finally officially announced. More on these titles as news develops.