On DC’s “Con Away From Con” blog post series covering the events of WonderCon, they’ve spent most of the day talking Batman with writer Scott Snyder (more on that later) but following on the heels of the contentious Before Watchmen panels earlier today, the publisher has released Jim Lee’s variant cover for Nite Owl #1, which debuted at WonderCon, to the general public on their website.Nite Owl was arguably the most sympathetic and relatable of the characters in Moore’s original Watchmen maxi-series and has been described by writer J.M. Straczynski as the most vulnerable of the Minute Men, as opposed to the godlike Dr. Manhattan, whose series Straczynski is also writing. In the pages of the original story, fans never really got to see the character “in his prime,” instead being treated to a latter-day version who was considered a “flabby failure” by his former partner and regularly visited the Golden Age Nite Owl to get a taste of the glory days. The image at right, then, evokes a bit more of the Crime Syndicate’s Owlman, perhaps, or even the movie version who was necessarily somewhat more camera-friendly than his comic book counterpart.The first in a series of variant covers by DC Co-Publisher Lee, which he told the audience at today’s DC All Access panel are meant to evoke the feel of a police lineup, the Nite-Owl cover will grace the first issue of the series, which is being written by J. Michael Straczynski with art by legendary comics artist Joe Kubert and his son Andy, who not only worked on the X-Men titles shortly after Lee left in the ’90s but was the artist on Geoff Johns’ universe-altering miniseries Flashpoint.
