DC Solicitation Sneaks: January 2025
Above-the-Board Recommendation:
The Penguin vol. 2: All Bad Things
Oswald Cobblepot was ready to enjoy life as a normal guy away from all of the chaos in Gotham. Then he was press-ganged by a zealous federal agent into taking back his criminal empire from his kids. Now, with the assistance of the crew he put together in vol. 1, he’s ready to put his plan into action and god help anyone who gets in his way.
Written like that, it reads like vol. 1 was all setup. Except it was great setup that entertained you as it was putting things into place for future stories. Tom King clearly had a plan here and he, along with artist Rafael De La Torre, executed it extremely well. Hell, he even threw in a brand new take on The Penguin’s origin with artist Steven Subic as a bonus. Even if this volume is going to be a thinner read than the one that came before it, there’s a pretty good chance it’ll wind up being just as entertaining.
Aquaman #1: It’s not that “Aquaman” comics have been unsuccessful in the past. It’s just that they haven’t been successful enough to support a continuous ongoing series in the way that Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, or even The Flash have in the sense that an absence of an ongoing series featuring them would be regarded as… unnatural by the mainstream superhero comics audience. So we’ll see if this latest relaunch from writer Jeremy Adams and artist John Timms efforts to have Arthur Curry unlock the secrets of “The Blue” gets the character the mainstream success that has eluded him for a while now.
Justice League: The Atom Project #1: In the wake of “Absolute Power” the restoration of superhuman powers to their correct owners has not gone as planned. Enter Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi, the superheroes both known as The Atom who are determined to see these missing powers restored to their rightful owners. Except, what if their owners don’t want their powers back? And what if they’re Captain Atom and don’t want their powers found at all? Co-writers John Ridley and Ryan Parrot are here to suss out the answer to that question while artist Mike Perkins is here to draw it in a moody, noir style as is his wont.
DC’s Lex and the City #1: $10 gets you 80 pages of pre-Valentine’s Day stories. Such as the one where Lex Luthor laments the one that got away: Superman. Uh-huh. We also get stories where Raven and Beast Boy embark on a romantic scavenger hunt across San Francisco, and Damien Wayne tries to evade a dating advice gauntlet orchestrated by Tim Drake. If any of this sounds appealing to you, then you’re welcome to it.
Batman: Dark Age HC: Writer Mark Russell and artist Mike Allred return to give us what is presumably the shadowy flip side to their “Superman: Space Age” miniseries (which arrives in softcover in these solicitations). There aren’t any specifics for the plot of this miniseries given in the solicitation text here, save for the fact that Batman is a hero fighting in history for the fate of a world gone mad. Fair enough, but I think it’s safe to say that this will be worth a look for anyone who liked “Superman: Space Age” which includes me.
Dark Knights of Steel: Allwinter & Batman: Gotham by Gaslight – The Kryptonian Age vol. 1 Hardcovers: Wake me when both of these volumes have been released in softcover.
DC’s Finest: Suicide Squad – Trial by Fire: The original volume of “Trial By Fire” collected the first eight issues of the 80’s run of “Suicide Squad” by writer John Ostrander and artist Luke McDonnel. It was pretty great. This new volume looks to collect a wider swath of the Squad’s history from when it was originally formed in WWII to neutralize supernatural and superhuman threats, to its modern incarnation as a supervillain work-release program. Which means it collects a lot more than the first eight issues, (#’s 1-10, issues of “The Fury of Firestorm” and the “Legends” miniseries) and is something that I’m considering picking up to replace my existing copy as a result.
The Nice House by the Sea vol. 1: Now with an all-new Vertigo trade dress! Which is nice for purposes of nostalgia, but not a guaranteed representation of quality. Vol. 1 of “The Nice House by the Lake” was one of my favorite reads of 2022. However, vol. 2 didn’t reach that standard because it completely lacked the element of surprise its predecessor offered. I don’t think the first volume of this sequel series will replicate that bombshell, but I feel obligated to try and find out if it does. I’m not optimistic, but maybe writer James Tynion IV and artist Alvaro Martinez Bueno have some surprises up their sleeve here.
Batman/Catwoman: Hey, I thought the softcover collection of this maxiseries was canceled and not supposed to be coming out at all. Well, it’s nice to be proven wrong here. So if you were waiting for the reputed climax of Tom King’s “Batman” run to be reprinted in softcover before you picked it up, consider your wish granted.
Titans vol. 2: The Dark-Winged Queen: I don’t know how writer Tom Taylor’s run can be qualified as “epic” after fifteen issues, even if part of them were tie-ins to an event series spinning out of this title. Yet that’s the case here as the back half of his run is collected from issues #8-15. While fallout from the “Beast World” event is expected to be explored here, you can also bet on finding stories involving Amanda Waller looking to enlist Dr. Morrow in developing a weapon to take the Titans down and Raven hiding a secret from the team. Not that I’m expecting these stories to be fatal to the team, just that Taylor will be able to wring some satisfying drama from their predictable bones.