C2E2 2014: DC Comics The New 52 Panel Recap

Yesterday at the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo, DC Entertainment held its New 52 panel. Featured were The New 52: Futures End co-writer/artist Dan Jurgens, Batgirl writer Gail Simone, Harley Quinn co-writer Jimmy Palmiotti, Executive Editor Bobbie Chase, Action Comics artist Aaron Kuder and moderator John Cunningham. Cunningham began by suggesting that in recognition of Batman's 75th anniversary, there will be a number of announcements coming as soon as this week about events beginning in July. Jurgens said that Futures End is about "what the DC Universe looks like 35 years from now and, more importantly, what it looks like five years from now." That series, of course, kicks off on Free Comic Book Day next weekend. It will have ties to the Jurgens-written Aquaman and the Others. He later hinted during the Q&A session that we might see Deathstroke in the weekly as well.

"We knew Harley was popular," Palmiotti said of his monthly series, drawn by Amanda Conner. "We approached the book thinking, we love the character, but there are so many different versions. We made kind of an amalgamation of those characters." He also discussed the July one-shot Harley Quinn Invades Comic-Con, which will be drawn by six different artists and is divided into chapters for each day of convention. Cunningham said that because the issue is approved by Comic-Con International, the artists had to "make sure everybody in every panel is wearing badges [because] nobody gets into Comic-Con without badges." Palmiotti added, "I will say that there are celebrities that appear, but they're not people who are celebrities to people outside this room." Palmiotti also touched on the upcoming Star-Spangled War Stories Featuring G.I. Zombie, which is about an American soldier "who's fought in all our wars." Palmiotti co-writes the series with Justin Gray and art by Scott Hampton. All-Star Western's latest story, where Jonah Hex returns to the past to find an impostor has taken his place, will run through #34, which will be drawn by Darwyn Cooke in August. Kuder, who joined the panel late, told fans "I took on more than I can chew" when he accepted a gig writing Superboy for an arc, which has led to other artists having to fill in pages on Action Comics. Once the first arc of his Superboy is finished, he won't come back for a second and will return to being the full-time Action Comics artist.