DC Solicitation Sneaks: August 2022
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
DCeased: War of the Undead Gods #1 (of 8)
This just goes to show you can’t keep a good superheroes-as-zombies franchise down. Of course, there were hints that “Dead Planet” wasn’t going to be the end of it. The biggest being that an Anti-Life infected Darkseid was still left in play at the end of the previous miniseries. This serves as the kickoff to this finale as Darkseid is now spreading the infection throughout the cosmos and it’s up to the surviving heroes of Earth to stop him. With maybe a little help from the other lingering plot thread which spent the entirety of “Dead Earth” in the sun. Tom Taylor returns to write the finale while Trevor Hairsine is back to illustrate it, which leads me to believe that this will be just as good as the previous mainline entries. “Unkillables” is still the high point for “DCeased” as a whole, so let’s see if the creators can infuse more of its darkly comic cleverness into this wrap-up.
Batman: One Bad Day – The Riddler: It’s not the first time that writer Tom King will be tackling the title character, he was also part of “The War of Jokes and Riddles” if you’ll recall. It does look like we’re going to get more of a deep dive into what makes Edward Nygma tick after he kills a random person in broad daylight for no apparent reason. Except there’s always a reason and it’s going to be up to Batman to find out what it is. King is joined by frequent collaborator Mitch Gerads, and I have no reason not to expect this to be a great read. It’s just a question of whether or not I’ll pick up this one-shot by itself, digitally, or as part of a collection of future “One Bad Day” one-shots featuring other members of Batman’s rogues gallery.
By the way, if you’re wondering where the “One Bad Day” branding for these one shots is coming from, it’s from “The Killing Joke.” It’s what the Joker said is all it takes for someone to lose their mind. I imagine it’s being used again here because DC, and King to a certain extent, sure do love pillaging Alan Moore’s work for inspiration.
Batman: Dear Detective: You may have noticed that Lee Bermejo has been doing a lot of variant covers for various Bat-titles over the past couple of years. What you may not have known was that the creator was also telling a “Batman” story one page at a time with all of these covers. These covers are going to be collected in this one-shot, with accompanying text to make the story clear for the first time. It’s a clever idea and it’s always impressive to behold Bermejo’s “Batman” work. As for his writing, “Noel” wasn’t bad, but…
DC: Saved by the Bell Reve #1: (I see what they did there.) This is another one of those periodic anthologies DC publishes to tie in with a particular time of year. The occasion here is the start of school, so expect everything from whimsy – Art Baltazar and Franco returning to “Tiny Titans” – to nightmare – Jean Paul Valley, a.k.a. Azrael, returns to the school that made him – and the middle ground in between – a new semester starts at Gotham Academy. Oh, and because it’s obligated by the title, a “Suicide Squad” story as well as the team infiltrates an international prep school to protect a dignitary’s son.
Tales of the Human Target #1: It looks like Tom King’s latest maxiseries is going to take a little longer than initially planned. That’s because the next issue, #7, is missing from these solicitations. In its place, however, is this one-shot featuring new stories about Christopher Chance. Maxiseries artist Greg Smallwood is contributing to this, as are artists Kevin Maguire, Rafael Albuquerque, and Mikel Janin. The buzz around this series has been good and based on that I’d say that getting more of this “Human Target” would be a good thing. Unfortunately, that’s not quite the case here…
The Human Target Book One, Dark Knights of Steel vol. 1, & DC vs. Vampires vol. 1: All of these are hardcover collections. That’s kind of annoying by itself, but what really irritates me is that they’re all hardcover collections of the first half of their respective stories. I’ve become used to paying $30 to read a 12-issue maxiseries collection in softcover, or $40 in hardcover, so it’s kind of galling to see DC try to wring more money out of me and their general readership by putting these collections in $25 hardcovers. For “Dark Knights” and “Vampires,” anyway. “Human Target” will set you back $30, because it contains 16 more pages than “Dark Knights.” Had these collections all been in softcover, I might be debating which one would get the Above-the-Board Recommendation. As they are now, I’ll look forward to reading them in their one-volume editions next year, or in 2024.
Black Adam: Rise and Fall of an Empire: “52” was DC’s first stab at a weekly series and arguably its most successful one. In a gap year where Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman weren’t present, other superheroes and villains got their time to shine. It was a fun event that got me to care about characters like Booster Gold and Elongated Man in a way that I hadn’t before. Black Adam most of all, though, as we got to see sides of the frequent JSA antagonist that we hadn’t before. Enough to turn him into a tragic character by the end of his story. While I do recommend the entirety of “52,” “Rise and Fall of an Empire” collects all of the Black Adam-centric parts of it, which I imagine will still read pretty well on their own.
If you do read this and like it, then you should also know that Black Adam: The Dark Age tells the story of what happens next to the character. It’s being re-solicited here along with a TON of other “Black Adam” related collections because the character has a movie coming out in October. This miniseries is written by Peter Tomasi with art by Doug Mahnke and it’s fine for what it is. You knew the reset button was going to be hit on the character eventually, but it wound up happening much sooner than I or anyone else was expecting.