The 5 Biggest Things That Happened In Comics This Week

With so many new comics hitting the shelves every Wednesday, it’s easy to miss some of the smaller happenings throughout the week. Once the weekend comes it feels like you finally have a chance to catch up, so why not make it a little easier to find the highlights from the industry in one place?

Videos by ComicBook.com

Sounds good right? Whether it’s Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image, BOOM!, Titan, Oni Press, or industry related, this is a one-stop spot for what went on in comics this week. There’s plenty more that happened of course, and you can always check out the CB Comics hub to find more. If you’re in a hurry though you can hit the next slide to get the cliff notes version.

Before you go though there is one more item that deserves a second look this week. Valiant has some big events coming up that will greatly influence the next year of stories, and one of those events will take place in their upcoming Harbinger Renegade #5. The book will contain a gruesome death for a popular Valiant character, so gruesome in fact that Valiant is shipping the books with special wrap around warning sleeves. The death will have people talking not only for the brutality of it all but for what it means going forward

“The events of this issue are so secret, we can’t even show you the pages yet,” said Valiant CEO & Chief Creative Officer Dinesh Shamdasani. “Outside of the creators and myself, only a handful of Valiant staffers even know the true identity of the character that is on the line in HARBINGER RENEGADE #5… The reality is that what happens here will be one of the most shocking incidents Valiant has ever committed to print. The ramifications of ‘MASSACRE’ will continue to be felt for a long, long time… After all, it’s no mistake that the epic dynamics contributing toward HARBINGER WARS 2, our most ambitious crossover event to date, begin with a bang right here in this very issue.”

With that out of the way, hit the next slide to see what else you missed in the comics industry this week!

Death In Detective Comics

The current League of Shadows arc has pitted Batman and his covert Gotham team of against Shiva and her followers, with Gotham caught in the middle. The surprise last issue was Ra’s Al Ghul’s agreement to work with Batman’s group to take Shiva down, an offer that Batman couldn’t really refuse if he wanted to keep a giant bomb from consuming the city.

Shiva’s daughter Cassandra finally bested her mother in combat, and seemed to earn a rare moment of connection with her. That is, until Ra’s shot her in the back. While Ra’s is always looking for an opportunity to gain benefit his long term goals, the team did not forsee him killing his former ally. Before she passed she whispered something to her daughter, setting something in motion that Ra’s will try his best to discover.

You can see the spoiler images here.

Scott Snyder’s Time On Batman Is Coming To A Close

Even the most popular characters need a change of scenery from time to time, and creative teams are much the same in that regard. That change seems to be approaching soon for All-Star Batman writer Scott Snyder, who’s been one of the premiere Batman writers for the last few years. Synder spoke to Newsarama about his future plans, bringing his time with the Dark Knight to a close.

“So, yeah… after this arc with All-Star Batman, when I get to the story with Sean – which is the one I’ve been kind of waiting to do for three years or more – that to me very well might be the last Batman story that I do proper Batman for a while. It’s sort of a capstone to a lot of things I’ve been thinking about with him over the years.”

Snyder’s been working with Batman in some form or fashion ever since he hopped aboard the core Batman book with Greg Capullo. They ushered in the popular Court of Owls and managed to bring the Joker back for Death of the Family. When that run came to an end Snyder launched All-Star Batman, but it seems he’s looking for a fresh start, and you can’t really blame him.

DC Launching New Mr. Miracle Series

Writer Tom King and artist Mitch Gerads are gearing up for another DC Comics assignment later this year. The talented duo will launch a brand new Maxi series starring Mister Miracle, and the crux of the book will deal with parts of Mister Miracle he might not have even admitted to himself.

“You make up things, and you say things and biographers or autobiographers write about them,” King said to Paste. “The real hidden secrets and the real hidden battles—that’s the story that you don’t want told. You don’t want that exposed. That’s what we’re doing for Mister Miracle. He’s confronting that part of him that doesn’t want to be told.” King also wants to frame the book in the same claustrophobic form that Miracle is fighting to break free from, so readers can get a sense of what the hero is going through.

Mister Miracle launches this August as a 12 part series, and you can find more from King on the series here.

Unused X-Men Designs Revealed

Jonboy Meyers is quite the talented artist and has been involved with a few projects over the last year. One of those included the newly launched X-Men: Gold series with Marc Guggenheim, a project that was eventually taken over by Ardian Syaf for the first three issues.

Meyers recently shared some of the preliminary character designs that went unused, and there are definitely a few here that would have looked amazing. Prestige’s look isn’t too far from the current version, and the jacket on Old Man Logan would have been preferable to the trenchcoat. The biggest differences though lie in Kitty Pryde and Storm’s designs. Any of the three Kitty Pryde costumes would have been an improvement on the current suit, and are all much more modern looking. Storm has six different concepts, though D and F are both improvements as well.

It’s always interesting to see what could have been. You can view the rest of the designs here.

Nightwing New Order Announced

DC ruffled feathers earlier this week when they announced a new Elseworlds story from writer Kyle Higgins and artist Trevor McCarthy that stars the popular Batman protege Nightwing. Nightwing is a fan favorite, so it wasn’t his starring role that got people up in arms. That happened because the storyline paints a picture of an alternate universe where superpowers are outlawed, and Nightwing is the one leading the charge.

The reason why is still unknown, but Higgins has said after the fact that the book is not just Nightwing killing other heroes. In fact, it is more of a character study on why someone with so much hope and spirit fell so far, and how it happened. You can view the description below, and for more information, you can head here.

From The New York Times best-selling BATMAN: GATES OF GOTHAM team, writer Kyle Higgins and artist Trevor McCarthy introduce an authoritarian future in an alternate universe in which superpowers have been eliminated and outlawed. The man responsible? None other than Grayson, the former vigilante Nightwing. But what happens when the system he has created targets his family as the next threat?

Now leader of a government task force called the Crusaders, Grayson’s priorities are to hunt the remaining Supers and repress anyone who works outside the law. But when events transpire that turn the Crusaders’ aim toward Grayson’s own family, he must turn against the very system he created, with aid from the very people he’s been hunting for years—the last metahumans of the DC Universe.