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Dr.Strangefate

Dr.Strangefate

He Sees You When You're Sleeping. He Knows When Yo
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Oct 24, 2004
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Convention Season has begun, and on top of that, DC will be announcing new series and creative teams over the next few months as 52 progresses, through the various sources of comic book news, through the "DC Nation" weekly write-ups

I propose this become the single thread for those announcements, could a mod Sticky it maybe?

From This week:

So when are things going to slow down?

As CRISIS comes to an end, it's a popular question. In little over a year, we've gone from COUNTDOWN to INFINITE CRISIS to One Year Later, with a whole bunch of wildly exciting series and miniseries in between. It only seems natural that people would think we've hit the wall and want to take a breather.

So when are things going to slow down? Beats me. Maybe I should ask the INFINITE CRISIS team.

I'd ask editor Eddie Berganza but he's busy working on the new JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA with bestselling novelist Brad Meltzer and developing a new RAVEN miniserieswith the character's co-creator, Marv Wolfman. I would have been better off with Geoff Johns if he wasn't chained to his computer preparing TEEN TITANS EAST and a relaunch of JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA. Phil Jimenez, George Perez - nope, no help there, already working on their next projects.

So when are things going to slow down? Still don't know. Maybe the other editors do.

Bad call, no time to talk. Matt Idelson has hung a "Do Not Disturb" sign on his door as he puts the finishing touches on the 80-page, one-dollar extravaganza BRAVE NEW WORLD and the new WONDER WOMAN book. Bob Shreck has been seen waving people off has he preps new spins for two classic titles, MYSTERY IN SPACE and TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED. As a matter of fact, every editor in the DC Universe has been hustling to get new pitches and series in the pipeline for 2006 and 2007.

So when are things going to slow down? Maybe production knows. When it comes to making comics, they know everything.

Production Manager Dave Cichowicz and Lettering Manager Nick Napolitano were seen high-fiving in the halls and crying real tears of joy when the final issue of INFINITE CRISIS was shipped to the printers. But, as you could only imagine, that celebration was short-lived as they and their staffs were back at work, knowing for the next 52 weeks they will ensure that every issue of the most ambitious comic event in decades, 52, ships on time.

Simply put, no part of DC Comics can sit still. A lot of hard work went into getting where we are today, and there's no sense in stopping now. You can feel the energy and excitement build with every new book and series. It powers us up and makes us want to keep raising the bar. Entertaining you, the fan, is our first and foremost goal.

So when are things going to slow down?

Hell, we're just getting started

To be continued. dan didio
Click to expand...

Sounds good to me.
 
DC News from Newsarama:

"Hinted and teased about for months, Sunday's New York Times (already being delivered in the New York area) confirms that DC is brining back a staple of its Silver Age: Batwoman.

The article, entitled "Straight (and Not) Out of the Comics: At DC and Marvel Comics, new heroes are gay, black, Asian and Hispanic. Get used to it," is a full- page feature on page 25 of the Sunday Arts & Leisure section on Marvel and DC's emphasis on increasing the diversity of their respective character libraries over the past months to year-plus. NYT writer George Gene Gustines covers, among others, the attention being placed on the upcoming Black Panther/Storm wedding at Marvel and Luke Cage's key role in New Avengers, and the new Blue Beetle - a Hispanic teen - as well as Batwoman, Kathy Kane, who, according to the article: "…is a wealthy (socialite), buxom lipstick lesbian who has a history with Renee Montoya, an ex-police detective who has a starring role in 52."

According to the article, Batwoman will "appear in costume for the first time in a July issue of 52"

Eagle-eyed DC fans caught a first look at Batwoman in Infinite Crisis #7's splash page showing a swath of new characters – wearing a costume apparently inspired by the original, Silver Age Batwoman, as well as a nod to the color scheme of Batman Beyond. According to the NYT, the costume was designed by Alex Ross. Of course, her name, an obvious homage to the Silver Age "Kathy Kane".

Also mentioned is "the Great Ten", a Chinese-government controlled/sponsored superhero team making their debut next month in 52. According to the article, the team includes, "the Celestial Archer, with ties to Chinese mythology; Mother of Champions, who can give birth to a litter of 25 super-soldiers about every three days; and Seven Deadly Brothers, a martial arts expert who can divide into many."'

BatwomanColor_t.jpg


More news to come as the convention season moves on.
 
Seven Deadly Brothers........Mother Of Champions........the chinese superteams power is that theres a lot of them?!:lol:
 
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NEWSARAMA INTERVIEWS DAN DIDIO RE: BATWOMAN
(Read Article Here)

NRAMA: So – after much rumor, speculation, and teasing, Batwoman is making her debut…

Dan Didio: Yes!

NRAMA: Tell us about her…

DIDIO: We're always looking for ways to reinvigorate the Batman franchise, and look at other characters to inhabit his world. One of my problems with it was that I felt that a lot of the characters were coming form the same place, the same sense of origin, the same sense of tragedy in their backstory. We wanted to find a way to branch out a little bit more in the Bat-world. We looked at the Kathy Kane character, and we wanted to find a way to bring her back to the DC Universe. We figured that coming out of Infinite Crisis was a good time to re-introduce the character to the DCU –we can blame Superboy Prime for that.

We wanted to find a way to make her feel different, and give her a different personality, a different ideology, and a different backstory, so that she wasn't just another Batman or Bruce Wayne clone. She's a member of high society and she is gay. But her sexuality is not the main thrust of the character; it's just another aspect of her personality, one that helps her to determine her choices that she makes as she's fighting crime in Gotham City.

NRAMA: What do you mean by that last part? How does the fact that she's gay help to determine the choices she makes as she's fighting crime in Gotham?

DIDIO: Basically, what it means is that we have another very strong female character, and how her private life plays against her heroic life is going to be where the stories play in; as well as different types of adventures and different types of dramas that she gets caught up in. One of the first stories is that she does have a history with Montoya – because of that, it pulls her directly into a lot of the events in Montoya's world, brings her into confrontation with The Question, and gets her hooked up with the things that are happening in 52.

NRAMA: Playing devil's advocate, as you said, the fact that she is gay will play a role in her activities as a hero – but, when you flip that, it doesn't really apply to say, Batman. You can't say, "Because he's heterosexual, Batman's adventures are thus and so." Heterosexuality as a character trait is has been largely ignored with Batman, yet it's not the same when you're talking about a gay character. Why is that?

DIDIO: If the character is gay, she might have had different levels of challenges in her life. The fact that she conceals her own sexuality to some of the people around her and to her own family is going to be a bit of a story, so there are going to be secrets within secrets. You'll also find more and more about who she is as the story is told, and see how it plays against her lifestyle.

NRAMA: Where does she debut again?

DIDIO: 52 #11

NRAMA: And her name is Kathy Kane…

DIDIO: Or "Kate" as we're calling her now.

NRAMA: Her costume designed by Alex Ross – it has interesting elements, both a nod to the original Silver Age Batwoman, as well as a nod to the Batman Beyond color scheme. What went into the look?

DIDIO: We really attribute the costume fully to Alex. When we went to him, we explained that we were bringing Batwoman back, but she is coming back for a new generation. He knew the backstory of the character as well, and wanted to do something that would both pay tribute to the past, but also move the character into her own identity. He's so incredible when he does these things; he pulls from so many different places and still makes it feel unique while still giving a wink and a nod to everything around him.

NRAMA: Anytime someone shows up in Batman's world, he takes a relatively grumpy reaction…well; he did prior to Infinite Crisis. What's his response to this intrusion, post Infinite Crisis?

DIDIO: Well, remember that she's operating in the city for nearly a year before Bruce comes home. She's going to be able to establish herself in that fashion, and part of the assumption of the identity will be filling that void in Gotham City that has been left by Batman packing up and leaving after Crisis. This plays out on several levels, because you'll also find out that there's history between Bruce Wayne and Kate Kane from before she put on the costume as well. She's someone who's frequented the high society circles – they've encountered each other in the past, and there is some sense of history between the two, although we're not really explaining what just yet. So, more importantly, he's going to have to deal with her on multiple levels, as she reasserts herself in a level of prominence in Gotham society.

NRAMA: Plans for her in the immediate future? Her own series, miniseries, appearances, or can it be said at this point?

DIDIO: One of the things that I would like to do with Batwoman in particular, because we feel that who she is and the development of the character is so unique to what we're trying to accomplish in the DCU, but also to what 52 is about, one of the things I'd like to see, at least in the beginning, is to see her as a character who will be appearing primarily in 52. Them, we'll be exploring things in different ways.

To use a Marvel reference, I always liked the way that Marvel introduced the Punisher. He started in Amazing Spider-Man, and had some really landmark appearances in Daredevil, and they allowed interest in him to grow. I think this is a character that can really benefit form appearing in different books first before we test the waters with her on her own.

NRAMA: And let the fan demand fuel a project?

DIDIO: Yeah. We've introduced a lot of characters in a very short period time, and we've got a lot more coming down the pipeline, but I'd like to believe that mostly everything we do now is coming out of other things so that we're not just throwing books and ideas and concepts at people cold. I want it to be where it feels like everything has time to take root. Again, we're throwing a lot of new ideas, and more importantly, things where people are already predisposed about how they think a character should act and behave. So I want to pull them in a little more slowly now, and get them acclimated to the new directions for the series and the characters themselves, and hopefully enjoy what we're doing.

Therefore, when we do go bigger with series and stories, they're ready for it, and, as the expression goes are coming out, "Because you Demanded It!"

NRAMA: Bigger picture – as you said, you've introduced a large number of characters in a relatively short time coming out of Crisis. A lot of these characters are non-white, or, like Batwoman, minorities in other respects. That was the plan all along?

DIDIO: Always. From the moment I walked in the door. If you go out and try to diversify the DC Universe in 15 minutes – and you can – but you're going to get something that will instantly forgotten like, not to speak too ill of the dead, Planet DC. Noble effort, smart idea, but the execution short-circuited the concept, and it was stillborn.

So what we wanted to do is have a DC Universe that was more reflective, not only of our readership, but as society as a whole. Everything that we're doing, every step that we're taking, we'll keep on pushing that, not only because I think it's the right thing to do, but also because it allows us to create those points of difference. The fact that the Blue Beetle is Hispanic allows you to include a different kind of sensibility into the story that we might not have had in another series. It's the same thing with the new Atom being Asian. It should affect the storytelling in some way, because it allows us to give a different point of view, a different perspective. The same thing with Renee Montoya or Kate Kane being gay – that doesn't matter who they are, but it does help give their stories a different point of view, a different perspective on the DCU that other characters might not have. It's trying to attack these things on a personal level, so we can get much richer, more emotional stories from them.

NRAMA: Wrapping up – Batwoman coming back…Batgirl…not around anymore?

DIDIO: …I didn't say that, did I? [laughs]

NRAMA: So the Bat-shaking's not done?

DIDIO: Yeah. There's a good chance that there are some more twists and turns coming up within the Bat Family. There was that sense that they were a single unit, operating with a single mindset, and all the characters were marching to Batman's orders. One of the key things we need to do; especially coming out of Crisis is reinstate that sense of individuality for all the characters that inhabit Batman's world. We've got a great set of characters with Robin and Nightwing and several others there, but what we need to do is make sure we understand and express what each one of their point of difference is.

I don't want somebody to pick up a Batman book, a Nightwing book, and a Robin book and feel like they're reading the same story. These are three different people with three different perspectives, with three different stories taking place. They all should have their own tonality and their own feel, and that's what we want to do with Batwoman right now – she should have her own tonality, her own feel so that her character and her story has something that's unique to itself, and not just another Batman story with a woman.
 
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http://www.newsarama.com/dcnew/52/GreatTen/gallery.html

Newsarama Introduces Grant Morrison's new Chinese Superhero teem, the Great Ten:

The Celestial Archer
The Ghost Fox Killer
Mother of Champions
Accomplished Perfect Physician
The Seven Deadly Brothers
Thundermind
Socialist Red Guardsman
Immortal Man in Darkness
August General
Shaolin Robots.


Click the link above for Images of all ten members... As well as short descriptions. (many of the images also have notes on them, and would be worth checking out).
 
The Ten Soldiers are excessively awesome. Grant Morrison's great.

Is it just me, or does the Guardsman look surprisingly like the Ultimates version of Crimson Dynamo?

Here's hoping they show up in Checkmate, and not just 52.
 
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Good lord....they're *****ing about Batwoman on CNN.


I'm looking forward to this whole year in the DCU. Morrison's finger on their pulse, only makes it better.


Btw, I'm already loving Batwoman, the costume, and the fact that it's Kathy Kane. What I'm not loving is the number of threatened fanboys, who see any non-white, non-hetero characters as nothing but "forced PC-ism".
 
skotti-chan said:
What I'm not loving is the number of threatened fanboys, who see any non-white, non-hetero characters as nothing but "forced PC-ism".
Click to expand...

DC is threating Fan boys.... now i really will read this....anything to piss off hardcore Fan Boys...
 
Sorry didn't realise this thread had my news about batwoman in it.

Still pretty funny what dc are trying thou
 
Comics have a history of throwing in minotirty characters just to be PC, but I don't think this is the case with Kthy Kane. I'm worried that they're conveniently making it so the only prominent two lesbian characters in the DCU (Batwoman and Montoya) were once romantically involved, but hey, I guess that's comic books for ya.

I dig the possibility though.
 
Captain Maggie Sawyer, who used to run the police in Metropolis, and now runs the GCPD's top forces, was the first openly Gay character in the history of the two companies.

She has been with one partner since her introduction, and her lesbianism has not been swept under the rug at all (hell, her partner was tending to her at a hospital in Superman: TAS, and they were holding hands at the funeral of their boss in that same series)...

Just because she's not a superhero doesn't mean she's not a prominent Lesbian character.

Its just about time that there was a positive gay role model superhero... I mean Northstar was a total jerk, and the kids in Young Avengers havent had enough exposure, let alone the fact that they are too young... And Apollo and Midnighter ain't exactly what I'd like a young gay person to start looking up to.

I hope they do this right. I trust that they will... They have some of the best writers in comics working on this.
 
Dr.Strangefate said:
Captain Maggie Sawyer, who used to run the police in Metropolis, and now runs the GCPD's top forces, was the first openly Gay character in the history of the two companies.

She has been with one partner since her introduction, and her lesbianism has not been swept under the rug at all (hell, her partner was tending to her at a hospital in Superman: TAS, and they were holding hands at the funeral of their boss in that same series)...

Just because she's not a superhero doesn't mean she's not a prominent Lesbian character.

Its just about time that there was a positive gay role model superhero... I mean Northstar was a total jerk, and the kids in Young Avengers havent had enough exposure, let alone the fact that they are too young... And Apollo and Midnighter ain't exactly what I'd like a young gay person to start looking up to.

I hope they do this right. I trust that they will... They have some of the best writers in comics working on this.
Click to expand...

I wasn't familiar with her. That's interesting.

I'm not knocking it. I think they've done a bang-up job with Montoya, without pandering at all. I just think it's funny that the two prominent lesbian characters in Gotham have an old thing going. But, hey, it's comics. They're allowed some coincidence. I'm really not worried.
 
[MOONY'S IGNORANT, HOMOPHOBIC COMMENT OF THE DAY]The only good lesbian is a hot lesbian!!![/MOONY'S IGNORANT, HOMOPHOBIC COMMENT OF THE DAY]
 
Speaking of Which!!!

THINGS ANNOUNCED AT THE DC NATION PANEL:

- 52 #26 is being completed this week, meaning that the series is now half-way completed (scriptwise anyways)

- Nightwing was supposed to die in Infinite Crisis, but it was decided against last minute. Dan Didio said that there was a specific point at which you should have been able to tell that he should have died (I'm guessing the bit where he's blasted by Alex Luthor).

- The Luthor body WAS Alexander Luthor, modified by our universe's Lex.

- Mystery in Space, an eight issue miniseries launching in September, will star Captain Comet, with backup stories regarding "The Weird"

- In talking about the new Batwoman, Didio said that for now, DC is working to make her a supporting member of the Bat-Family, but if fans want to see her in her own series or miniseries, they'll make it happen.

- Conner Hawke, Green Arrow II, will be getting his own Mini later in the year written by Chuck Dixon (Robin: Year One, Nightwing: Year One) and Daimon Scott.

- The current artist of Green Arrow isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

- Supergirl has boosted sales for Legion of Super Heroes

- Johns clarified that the previously announced "Titans East" project he was said to be working on is a storyline in Teen Titans rather than a new series or miniseries. Also, speaking of Titans, Johns said that Wendy and Marvin will continue to appear, albeit sporadically in the series.

- There are upcoming appearances/minis/series for Seven Soldiers characters

- Didio noted how strange it was that the New Gods did not appear in Crisis, implying that the changes made to them in Seven Soldiers are in fact, canon, and that Darkseid has won the war against New Genesis, and obtained the Anti-life equation.

- Manhunter was given a stay of execution for five issues, due to a Spider-Girl level fan uprising.

- There will be more Touches of Batman Beyond in the modern DCU

- They evaded the idea of a The Question ongoing post-52, but did not say that there wouldn't be one.

- http://www.newsarama.com/WWPhilly06/DC/52Cv18.jpg This is the cover to 52 #18, which makes it look like John Constantine is going to be making an appearance in the DCU... (further thought leads me to think that it might be Ralph Dibny, or Victor Sage out of costume)
 
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hm... It looks more like Ralph Dibny than old Johnny to me.

Anyway, what do the touches of Batman Beyond mean?
 
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Hmm, I'm not normally a DC kinda guy, but the idea of a Chinese sponsored super team intrigues me. I'm glad someone else is exploring the idea of other nations creating their own super heroes, ala the metahuman arms race in The Ultimates. But the idea of at least two of the members having the ability to simply spawn more copies does smack a little of racism. But what kind of super soldiers are we talking about that Mother of Champions spawns? They each have their own super power or they're just peak physical specimens like Captain America in 616? Curious to be sure.
 
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