DC Solicitation Sneaks: December 2024
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dead in America
Longtime readers will know that while I was really looking forward to Simon Spurrier’s take on Constantine, it didn’t wrap up in an enjoyable way. While vol. 1 delivered on the goods I expect from a “Hellblazer” series, the finale of vol. 2 shows us just how dark such a story has to be before it goes off the rails. So why am I giving the writer, and artist Aaron Campbell’s, follow-up series the top spot here? Call it a belief in second chances, in that having gone really dark for the end of the previous series, Spurrier and Campbell take things in a different direction here.
More than that, however, is the fact that this follow-up series is going to deliver some resolution to the cliffhanger ending of vol. 2 that saw John, his tough-as nails friend Nat, and his deaf son Noah (whose soul is now damned thanks to his dad) on the run and wanted for murder. Oh, and John’s body might be dead and starting to rot. Good thing that Dream of the Endless has a proposition that might save the magus’ bacon. It’ll involve a trip to America, which should be a lot of fun as the writer mined Britain’s sociopolitical issues for quality supernatural action in the first series.
Wonder Woman #16: Wherein Diana tries to chip away at Sovereign’s armor of anonymity with the help of none other than… Detective Chimp? You’d think that he’d be too silly to show up in a Tom-King-written series, but this is a writer who turned Kite Man into a study in tragedy within the pages of “Batman.” So it should be interesting to see how he’s made to work in this ongoing storyline.
The New Gods #1: Darkseid is dead and the rest of the New Gods are going to have to deal with the fallout. Starting with the powers of a child on Earth that were awakened with the god’s passing. That’s probably not a coincidence. Ram V writes and Evan Cagle illustrates, and I’ve found that the writer’s work is just a bit too inconsistent for me to get really excited about this latest attempt to make this Jack Kirby concept work. As only the Man Himself has really been able to. V is at least taking a cue from one of the most successful storylines involving the New Gods in recent memory, Tom King and Mitch Gerads’ “Mister Miracle,” as we’re told that Scott Free and Big Barda are otherwise occupied with impending parenthood.
Challengers of the Unknown #1: Also following up on the chaos of the Death of Darkseid is this series which sees the titular characters working alongside the Justice League to seal up the rifts that have subsequently opened up in the galaxy. We’re told that a foe from the Challengers’ past lurks in the shadows… but I’ve got no idea who that could be since this will be the first of their titles that I’ll be reading. Why? Well it’s got a writer I trust, Christopher Cantwell, and an artist I know I can expect good work from, Sean Izaakse, as its primary creative team. It’s not listed as a limited series, so let’s see how far they’ll be able to go with their take on it.
Two-Face #1: This isn’t listed as a miniseries, but I’m really not sure if it’s meant to function as an ongoing series. That said, it’s got an interesting concept with Two-Face, using his skills as an attorney and criminal, working to resolve conflicts in Gotham’s underworld. Which makes it sound like the “Batman” version of Chip Zdarsky and Jacob Phillips’ “Newburn,” about the Mob’s own private investigator. I can really see that working here, even if I’m more familiar with writer Christian Ward’s work as an artist than a writer (which is to say, not at all). Fabio Veras illustrates, and I hope the writer and artist deliver a comic that’s worthy of its concept.
Metamorpho: The Element Man #1: Here we have Marvel Mainstay Al Ewing debuting with his first ongoing series for DC. It was bound to happen, but we should all be happy for it. Especially since it’s being illustrated by the very talented Steve Lieber, whose presence has me hoping we’ll be getting something as entertainingly goofy as his and Matt Fraction’s “Superman’s Pal: Jimmy Olsen” maxiseries. I wish them both the best… even if history has shown that Ewing’s attempts to make series about C-and-D-list characters work tend to crash and burn pretty quickly no matter how good they are.
Absolute Power HC: Amanda Waller has been working behind the scenes for years to take the DC Universe back from its superpowered protectors. Now, she’s finally succeeded thanks to some help from friends like the fascist Batman robot Failsafe, and a newly reprogrammed Brainiac Queen, and all of the superheroes are now without their superpowers. That’s not going to stop them from trying to take Waller down, especially when someone like Batman is still in the wind. DC has been building to this storyline for a good long while now, and I… haven’t been following the titles they’ve been building it up in because I didn’t want to bother with picking up “Superman” and “Batman” in hardcover. Fortunately for me, DC is including an oversized “Zero” issue here to catch people like me up, who are interested in how we got to this point and are looking to enjoy an event series from the A-list creative team of Mark Waid and Dan Mora. Speaking of those two…
SHAZAM! vol. 2: …only Waid is contributing to this second volume after they both delivered a very fun vol. 1. However, rather than just doing one volume collecting everything the writer did on this series, DC is choosing to spread it over two volumes, with the second half of vol. 2 featuring current creative team featuring Josie Campbell and Emanuela Lupacchino. I approve of this because while I’m definitely here to see how the writer resolves the Shazam/Black Adam confrontation teased at the end of vol. 1, I’ll get to see if the incoming team can deliver stories on the same level of what has come before.
Superman: Action Comics vol. 3 – Revenge of the Demon: I finally got around to reading what I thought was going to be the follow-up to writer Philip Kennedy Johnson’s current run on “Action,” “To Hell and Back.” Imagine my surprise when I found that the only issues he wrote there were the two “Knight Terrors” issues of the title, with a gaggle of other writers contributing to the other ones collected here. To be fair, Dan Watters and Gene Luen Yang turned in solid work, but I was fully expecting to read about the head of Blue Earth’s plan to take out the Super-Family in Metropolis. That looks like what we’ll be getting here, even if it looks like we’ll be getting a lot of other stuff collected along with it. Yay, I guess?