DC Previews Picks: November 2014
There’s a kind of item being offered in these solicitations that I’ve never seen offered before. Either that or I just can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a TV series on DVD/Blu-Ray being promoted in comics solicitations. What’s the series being solicited here: None other than “Batman ‘66.” After decades in legal limbo, you’ll be able to buy all 120 episodes with plenty of physical and digital extras come this November — just in time for Black Friday and Christmas too! I’ll be passing on this because, as I’ve probably mentioned here before, I didn’t watch this series as a kid and didn’t acquire the necessary suspension of disbelief to make its camp interpretation of the franchise palatable. As it is, whenever I see this series I’m reminded of how it continues to cast a defining shadow on comics themselves that the medium continues to struggle against to this day.
…Man that was maudlin. In other solicitations news, Lego variant covers are the theme this month. Why, because everything is awesome!
Wonder Woman #36: I mentioned this last month, but this is the debut issue for the Finches. David is providing the art while his wife does the writing. There’s not much to add here, except for the fact that DC isn’t going the relaunch route for this title in the way Marvel does whenever they put an A-list team on a new title. This would be one of those rare cases where I think that a relaunch would’ve been more appropriate in this case, given that “Wonder Woman” by the Finches is going to be a very different beast than the Azzarello/Chiang “Wonder Woman” that preceded it. I wonder how many of the fans of that run were just like me and only buying it for the creative team and not out of a particular interest in the character herself? Probably not as many readers as the Finches will bring to this issue.
Gotham by Midnight #1: Another month, another new “Batman” spinoff title occupying some specific genre territory. This time the theme is “supernatural mystery” as Jim Corrigan leads a strange, quirky group of investigators as they look into the darkest corners of the city. It’s written by Ray Fawkes, who I have yet to read anything from. However, the artist is a much bigger selling point for me: Ben Templesmith. He is the PERFECT artist for a title like this and I think I’ll be picking up the inevitable collection just to see his vision of Gotham. That is, unless Templesmith’s personality and style prove to be too odd a fit for DC and he’s gone after two issues. It may happen, let’s hope it doesn’t. (Unless he quits to do more “Fell” with Warren Ellis, then it’ll be totally justified.)
Earth 2: World’s End #’s 5-8: I’m not mentioning these for their story content, though there is crossover with this month’s issue of “Constantine,” but the subdivision of art starting with issue #6 piques my interest. Multiple artists are contributing to this weekly series so that it can come out on time, and one of them is Jan Duursema. Any longtime reader of this blog knows that I’m a fan of her “Star Wars” collaborations with John Ostrander, and I believe this is the first work she’s done for the “Big Two” in quite some time. I’m curious to see how it’ll look, but more in a “flip through the trade paperback when I spot it on sale” than a “buy the issue” kind of way. I picked up the first volume of “Earth 2” at Comic-Con after a friend kept talking it up, so if that’s as good as he says, there’s the glimmer of a chance I might actually buy the collection of these issues. Eventually. Someday.
Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga vol. 1: It’s “Batman” manga! From the 60’s! Which means that this was likely inspired by the TV series! Even if I’m wrong about that last bit, I can’t quite muster up a lot of enthusiasm for this. Everything I’ve read about this series has had people talking about how crazy and weird it is, rather than praising it for any kind of quality storytelling at all. Grant Morrison did use one of its villains, Lord Death Man, in his “Batman, Inc.” run, so it has that to recommend it. It’s also priced pretty attractively too: $15 for 352 B&W manga-sized pages. Even if I’m not that excited about this, with a price like that I may just buy it anyway because I’m sure it’ll offer me something I’ll want to write about here. While we’re on the subject of attractive pricing…
Batman Eternal vol. 1: Yes, the $40 cover price is steep, but you’re getting the first 20 issues of this weekly title. At $3.99 an issue, you’re basically getting them here for half their cover price. That’s an idea I can get behind even before you consider that this is series written by a couple of people I like, some I’m indifferent towards… and Ray Fawkes! So by November I will have finally read something by him and maybe even formed an opinion on whether “Gotham by Midnight” will be worth picking up for its writing as well as its art.
Divine Right: The Adventures of Max Faraday: Here’s a series that posed an interesting question back in the day. (The day in question being “The 90’s.”) Is “Jim Lee” the artist a big enough star to make people care about “Jim Lee” the writer? Wait, that’s kind of a dumb question. Back in the 90’s, Jim Lee could get you to care about any writer: Even Brandon Choi! Given that you never hear people talk about this series, about a pizza delivery guy who gains incredible powers when he downloads the “creation equation” off of the internet, when bringing up his contributions to Image and Wildstorm I’m thinking this may be of more interest to Lee completists than fans of good comics.
The Spectre vol. 2: The Wrath of God: Hey, I picked up the first volume of the collection reprinting the John Ostrander/Tom Mandrake take on the character from the late 80’s/early 90’s when I was at Comic-Con. It’s good to know that there’ll be another one waiting for me in November… assuming I’ve managed to read it by then. (I got a lot of stuff at the con before I lost my badge.) Speaking of old Ostrander series, when are we going to get another volume of “Suicide Squad?” We got that collection of the first eight issues a couple years back and since then there’s been nothing. Am I going to have to re-activate my E-Bay account in order to read this series? It’s starting to look that way.
American Vampire vol. 7: Did that quasi-year-long-break lead to a revitalized “Vampire” from Snyder/Albuquerque? I’m all for finding out!