DC + Aardman Animation = Genius

Over here in the UK, Aardman Animation has been a mainstay of quirky British humour for years and to find that they've teamed with DC and produced a short film featuring Superman, Batman and others in the style of Creature Comforts just made me smile so much.

Enjoy:


DC Nation - Aardman by redruger

Can we have a full half hour episode, please?

Global Guardians #1 - Who's Who?

Back last year, I had some great fun - okay, some of it wasn't that great - looking back over two incarnations of the Justice League, specifically the much derided Justice League Detroit and the mostly forgotten but should be remembered and derided a bit more Jurgens League.

While I was wondering where to go next, commenter Jeremy Patterson wrote:

"How about instead of looking at another League, let's try to focus on some of the 'lesser light' superteams of the DCU, either:


*  A look at one of DC's two attempts at revamping the MLJ heroes: The early 1990s Impact Comics or the 2009-2010 attempt to integrate them into the DCU. (With 'New Crusaders' coming in 2012, it is time to take a look at the subject!).


*  Or at the many attempts to give focus to the Global Guardians, as the Global Guardians seemed to have never existed at all in the DCnU, so it is intriguing to see what went wrong with the G.G.!"

Having never read any of the Impact / Red Circle comics, I decided to go with Jeremy's second suggestion and take a look at the Global Guardians.

Please . . . try to contain your excitement.

Who Was Who Is Who #4

So for want of anything better to write about on a Monday, and with DC's New 52 well under way (how long are they keeping that title do you think?) I'm going to go through all my copies of Who's Who and see who's made it over to the new DCU, who might make it and who hasn't got a Big Bear's chance.

BEAUTIFUL DREAMER - oh, Jack Kirby you old hippy. Beautiful Dreamer, along with the rest of the Forever People, are great examples of how embedding characters' looks, behaviour and speech patters in a particular time frame utterly date them. I can't see any of them coming back any time soon.

BEN BOXER - another Kirby character, this one's tied in with Kamandi and the Great Disaster so unless he turns up on Earth-51 as part of Mutiversity, I don't think we'll be seeing him, either.

BIG BARDA - with the first villain of the relaunched Justice League's title being Darkseid, there's a good possibility that the New Gods may be viable characters once more. That is unless some version of Final Crisis took place between the start of the League and the current Year 5 or so which is when most DC titles are taking place. If Final Crisis didn't happen (and I hope that's true) then the New Gods aren't dead - and yes, that includes Beautiful Dreamer - and so could be brought back, which means Mr Miracle and Big Barda could be back in business. I'm going for a possible on this one.

BIG BEAR - same applies here as with Beautiful Dreamer above: the Forever People really are just too dated a concept to be brought back, I think.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #163

That's something we've all had to contend with, I'm sure.

Don't Ask... Just Buy It! Justice League International #8

From the solicitation:

"The plan was for the JLI was to be installed as Earth’s official protective team. But once Breakdown attacked, that all came to a swift and sudden end. Now, as the pall of death and injury hang over the team, all that matters is survival. Featuring the introduction of a surprise new team member!"

A "surprise new team member"? Would that be Batwing on the cover? If so, it's not much of a surprise. Unless they're referring to the JLI's mystery woman?

Was Brad Meltzer Right?

With Earth-2's announcement the other day (and yes, I'm really excited about it) the possibility of a crossover between it and Justice League of America started to occur which, in turn, made me remember this page from Brad Meltzer's run on JLA:

The Earth-2 that's shown there features characters from both the classic Justice Society and what appears to be the satellite-era League (am I the only one who prefers that blue and white costume on Zatanna?)

Will we see anything like it over the next year or two? Difficult to call when, but it would be just like Geoff Johns and James Robinson to do a crossover between the two titles when JLA gets to issue #21 in eighteen months or so . . .

New Guys On The Block?

Most, if not all, of DC's latest issues (certainly the ones I saw last week) featured a double page spread of "sneak peeks" at the back, showcasing "some concept sketches of characters you may be seeing in upcoming months" and invited us to guess where they'd appear.

I'm not going to go through all of them, but there were a few that caught my eye:

That sure as heck looks like Nighthawk to me and I figure he's going to be turning up in the pages of the wonderful All-Star Western sometime soon.