Sunday, January 15, 2012

Newslets

Some other bits of big DC news recently:
  • ]"Justice League" is getting the widely-anticipated delay suggested ever since Jim Lee was announced as the penciller. Hopefully the book can quickly get back on track, even if it means bringing some fill-in artists in, but it doesn't bode well for the flagship title to slip a week.
  • Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy is getting a graphic novel adaptation at Vertigo. I had no interest in the series, but I watched the American version of the film, and it was entertaining enough (except, unsurprisingly, the extended and graphic rape scene). I'd actually be much more inclined to read the graphic version, though I doubt that I'd want to pay for the full price of two graphic novels to get one story that I'm kind of lukewarm on. Maybe I'll look into the digital pricing when it comes around.
  • Rumor has it that CW is developing a Green Arrow series as a follow-up to "Smallville" it's definitely an odd choice (though not too odd, given that GA was basically "Smallville"'s Batman), but maybe it'll lead to the wheels turning on that old "Supermax" movie project. The idea of Green Arrow (or almost any other superhero, really) going undercover in a supervillain prison would make a great, original superhero movie. Or a terrible one, but hopefully the former.
  • Rob Liefeld is joining the creative teams for three more titles, what with the cancellation of "Hawk & Dove." I...I don't understand this at all. Okay, sure, keep the guy working, his name is still a draw for some folks. But his name is also synonymous with lateness, and he wasn't enough of a draw to keep his last book afloat sales-wise. It might actually be interesting to see a title that he's writing but not drawing, because the interview makes him sound like an excitable child talking about the storylines he's concocted with his action figures. And that's...kind of awesome, that after all the hate and jokes, this is a guy who still loves the hell out of comics and gets super-excited about the things he's working on. I wonder what a book written by Rob Liefeld and drawn by Ethan Nicolle would be like.
  • With the revelation that "Huntress" is following Earth-2's character, I'm wondering what other glimpses of Earth-2 we've gotten already. "The Shade" almost has to be an Earth-2 title, because it's the only way that the long Starman history makes sense. I'm willing to bet, though, that "The Ray" is on Earth-2 as well, if not a modern Earth-X. There's the casual and oblique references to an earlier hero using "The Ray" as an alias before, but also the specific reference to Happy Terrill's ballooning origin story. Plus, this world is apparently quite used to superheroes zipping about in the sky, something that really can't be said for the "heroes showed up five years ago" fear and distrust in the New 52 Earth.
  • Which brings up a point that I talked about with my retailer: the Earth-2 Earth is probably going to look a lot more like the pre-Flashpoint DCU we're used to. That could mean good things for people who miss the fun/whimsy of a world saturated with superheroics, and the legacies that are missing from the New-52 Earth, and could provide a story outlet for folks who want that material. It, of course, means making the universe potentially so confusing that it needs a major reboot in 20 years, but that's the way these things go anyway.

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