Who'd Like A Cocktail? #254

Oh, that's going to end well

DC's February Solicitations

FOREVER EVIL #6
The final fate of Nightwing! The most unlikely of allies have set the Crime Syndicate in their sights — and they’re playing for keeps while the life of a hero hangs in the balance! Plus, the identity of the mysterious man in the hood is finally revealed!

Nightwing - will he live or die? And the man in the hood? My money's still on Earth-3's Alexander Luthor who will join forces with this world's Lex to defeat the Syndicate.

DC's November Solicitations

FOREVER EVIL #3

With the world under the rule of the mysterious and deadly Crime Syndicate and our greatest heroes dead, it’s up to the unlikeliest of defenders to rise up to save us—humanity’s only hope—Lex Luthor?!

So looks like my guess of the Crime Syndicate's involvement in Forever Evil was right.

Monday Memories #32 - Justice League Of Arkham

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Forever Evil Teasers

Despite yesterday's post claiming I was unwell, I seem to have recovered faster than expected - again, I blame the heat.

Anyway, on to news (of a sort) about DC's upcoming Forever Evil series/event and a series of teaser posters that they've released:

A female Green Lantern . . . of Earth? That would be a nice change and might not be that far-fetched: Hal's currently in charge of the Corps; Kyle's off being a White Lantern; Guy's off being a Red Lantern; leaving John as the only GL of Sector 2814. Does he get a new partner?

The Teen Titans are due to get their behinds kicked in Forever Evil so it's no surprise seeing their shattered logo. However, is that Superman and Catwoman walking over it? Or is that the shadow of a cape at the top of the lady's thighs... is that Ultraman and Superwoman of the Crime Syndicate?! That would be nice.

Nightwing, who barely escaped death in Infinite Crisis, doesn't look to be having much fun here as his logo appears dripping with blood.

Any thoughts?

Monday Memories #25 - Action Comics #616

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

New DCU Team?

I saw this post over at Erin's blog and it intrigued me enough to comment on it over here. Erin found a photo from artist R.B. Silva which seems to depict an unusual grouping of DC characters:

and he includes a line about not being able to talk about it. The characters involved are Nightwing, Batgirl, Booster Gold, Hawkman, Shazam, Black Canary and Red Tornado.

• Nightwing and Batgirl on a team together? Sounds a little redundant to me
• Booster back in action is no bad thing
• Hawkman is, as far as I'm aware, going to be in the new Justice League of America
• Shazam is slated to join the ranks of the established Justice League
• Black Canary still heads up the Birds of Prey as far as I know
• Red Tornado is the one that piques my curiosity most - she's already appeared in Earth 2, albeit not active, and there's an embargo on the duplication of names between the two universes, over and above a handful of them, and the figure in that picture appears to be male. That also ties in with what T.O. Morrow said in the most recent Justice League issue.

Are we looking at an alternate League? Something that comes out of Trinity War? Or just an artist enjoying himself? I can't think of anything that immediately links these characters.

Who Was Who Is Who #33

So for want of anything better to write about on a Monday, I'm going to go through all my copies of Who's Who and see if I can predict who will make it over to the new DCU by the end of 2012, who might make it and who hasn't got a Nuclear Family's chance.

NIGHTSHADE - pretty sure the last time we saw Nightshade was in Shadowpact which folded far too quickly for my liking. Don't think she's made it into the New 52 yet (as at the start of April) and while it'd be nice to see her, I don't think it likely.

NIGHT-SLAYER - a Batman villain that sounds like a metal band. Don't think Bruce needs to worry about this guy turning up again.

NIGHTWING - having survived and editorial edict to kill him off during Infinite Crisis, Dick Grayson's alive and well and in his eponymous title so he goes into the "in place" column.

A Little Research Needed

Back in the late 80's, well before the success of 52, Trinity or *cough* Countdown, DC's experiment with weekly comics wasn't as well received.

Action Comics, the one that launched Superman and could be said to have started the whole superhero thing, took their main character and, between #601 and #642, squeezed him into a two page spread while the remaining pages were filled in an anthology style with stories starring other characters. Oh, and they published it weekly.

Action Comics Weekly was an odd title - it had it's minus points like the time when Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show; or there was the laboriously plotted and dreadfully illustrated Black Canary tale Bitter Fruit; but it also had some plus points.

One of them was the gorgeous Mike Mignola cover of #614 shown on the right but there was also that time when Deadman met D.B. Cooper  (who turned out to be the Devil/an alien astronaut); it had Blackhawk doing what he does best (flying planes and trying to pull anything in a skirt); and had Catwoman frame Holly Robinson's husband for the murder of two security guards which she threw out of a hotel room window to their deaths, all in retaliation for him killing Holly.  That's right - Holly died and Catwoman killed people.

Re-reading them recently, though, I did come across something that made me chuckle. I've picked up the woeful attempts of American writers to come up with believable British dialogue before in the Cor Blimey Guv'nor posts and while this isn't speech, it's the same sort of thing:

That's Speedy and Nightwing rushing to save the life of an ambassador who's attending a rally for the Labour party. That's Labour party.

See, over here, we spell that L-A-B-O-U-R.

Don't even get me started on using the Union Flag as a symbol of Labour . . .

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #34

Two comics! Two bloody comics this week! Hardly worth going in to see my local comic shop.

• Justice League of America #32 - Dr Light's well pissed off and Starbreaker's back in town.
• Trinity #47 - why would Red Arrow called Nightwing by an abbreviation that contains twice as many syllables?

And what made me chuckle this week (not that there was much choice):

Supergirl really needs to work on her rallying cry, doesn't she? "Smack 'em up!" is hardly "Titans together!" is it?