DC Solicitation Sneaks: August 2024
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
The Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing – The Complete Series
One Joker was bad enough. Now there are two and they’ve both got very different ideas about how to get back on top of Gotham’s criminal underworld. One thinks that the best way to do it is to assemble an army of criminal masterminds. The other is just bent on killing anyone who gets in his way. This comes to us from writer Matthew Rosenberg and artists Carmine Di Giandomenico and Francesco Francavilla who were following up on the previous “Joker” series from James Tynion IV, which wasn’t really a series about the Clown Prince of Crime, but a stealth Commissoner Gordon series. Putting aside my mixed feelings about the writer, you can see why I didn’t bother with that title. If you’re going to do a series called “The Joker,” make sure he’s the main character. Which, at the very least, looks to be what Rosenberg, Di Giandomenico and Francavilla have done here, and if it’s as crazy as some of the story beats I’ve heard about (The Joker – pregnant?!) we should be in for a good time.
Wonder Woman #12: Most everything is tying in to “Absolute Power” this month and this title is no exception. Fortunately for us, writer Tom King is using it as an opportunity to have a team up between Diana and another character that you normally wouldn’t expect to see her working with. That would be Damian “Robin” Wayne as they find themselves working together to break into Amanda Waller’s supermax prison on Gamorra. Which, given how headstrong the two can be at times, sounds more like a recipe for disaster than anything else. Should be fun for us, though, especially with Tony Daniel providing the art.
Zero Hour 30th Anniversary Special: “Zero Hour” was a miniseries event back in the 90’s that marked the latest recalibration of DC’s timeline. I couldn’t tell you more about it aside from the fact that Parallax was involved and it spawned a bunch of “Zero” issues that were meant to serve as jumping on points for multiple titles. Two of DC’s major creators from that time, Dan Jurgens and Ron Marz, are co-writing this special which sees the return of the Parallax-dominated timeline that was once thought destroyed. I read this and can only wonder if they’re going to incorporate any of Geoff Johns’ retcons regarding the character or if they’re going to go full bore into keeping the villain as an Evil Hal Jordan. We shall see.
Jenny Sparks #1 (of 6): Because every WildStorm concept that worked once is due for a second shot these days. Originally created by Warren Ellis and Tom Raney in the pages of “Stormwatch,” Jenny could control electricity and was dubbed The Spirit of the 21st Century who later went on to form and lead The Authority for a time. Now she’s back to… stop Captain Atom from blowing up the world. Okay, sure. This comes to us from writer Tom King and artist Jeff Spokes so it probably won’t be bad. We’ll see if it’s better than the solicitation text here makes it sound.
DC vs. Vampires: World War V #1 (of 6): Well, at least we’re not getting twelve more issues of this. The previous maxiseries ended by establishing Barbara Gordon as the new Queen of the Vampires and implying that we weren’t going to see a wrap-up to this story anytime soon. That continues to be the case here as peace talks between the humans and vampires are dashed by vampire Damian Wayne who is determined to continue fighting back against the bloodthirsty hordes. Green Arrow now has to face a choice between blah, blah, blah… Look, I already said in my review that I wasn’t interested in reading any more of this and that hasn’t changed after reading this solicitation.
Suicide Squad: Kill Arkham Asylum: You know, I bet when writer John Layman and artist Jesus Hervas accepted the job to write a prequel to the “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League” game, they thought it was a pretty sweet gig. A chance to write the lead-in to what was going to be hyped as one of the year’s biggest games which would serve to raise their profiles? Sounds like a winner to me. Well, living in the present has shown that things didn’t turn out that way and god knows how many rewrites the creators had to do because of the game’s development problems. Still, this is Layman writing the “Suicide Squad” and previous experience leads me to believe that there’s got to be some entertainment value to be had in seeing how that turned out.
Elseworlds: Batman vol. 2 (2024 Edition): A.K.A. “The One With All of the Vampire Batman Stories.” Back in the 90’s, writer Doug Moench and artist Kelly Jones did a graphic novel called “Batman & Dracula: Red Rain” where the two faced off against each other. It was both surprisingly good and successful, enough to spawn two follow-up volumes. I’ve read the first two, but not the third and slept on the previous edition of this collection. That’s not something I’m going to do again even if it means shelling out $50 for 568 pages. Which, while a little pricey, is still a better value than other collections in these solicitations…
American Vampire Book 1: $50 for 352 pages, or the first twelve issues of Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque’s vampire-themed journey through American history. $30 would’ve been a better price point for this collection, even though we’re also getting Stephen King’s work on this series here as well. That was from the first volume, which I’m still glad I picked up in hardcover to mark the writer’s contribution.
Animal Man by Grant Morrison and Chas Truog Compendium: Surprisingly, this is advertised as the first time this historic run has been collected in one volume. It may be $60 for 712 pages, but this is still one of the most memorable runs that Morrison has written. You wouldn’t think that the adventures of Buddy Baker, family man and superhero with the power to take on any animal ability, would’ve made for revolutionary storytelling. Things got weird. Things got violent. Things got sad. Things went beyond the pages of the comic itself. It wasn’t what anyone was expecting, which is why this run is still being reprinted today.
John Constantine: Hellblazer by Jamie Delano vol. 1 Omnibus HC: Delano was the first person to write the solo adventures of Mr. Constantine and while he wasn’t the best, his work still proved to be foundational to the character. Not only did he give us John’s best (and arguably only) friend Chas Chandler, but he established the character’s family ties, his dead unborn twin, and fleshed out the Newcastle incident in memorable fashion. Even if later writers provided more memorable adventures, they still kept coming back to the groundwork that Delano established, and that’s saying something.