Who'd Like A Cocktail? #244

I know, right? That's why I cycle.

DC's October Solicitations

Is it me or is artist Juan Doe just doing superb work with these covers for the Steppenwolf War storyline? Limited palette, a poster feel, block lettering . . . I'm really liking them.

Monday Memories #26 - Green Lantern: Mosaic #3

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!

DC's September Solicitations

FOREVER EVIL #1

"The first universe-wide event of The New 52 begins as FOREVER EVIL launches! The Justice League is DEAD! And the villains shall INHERIT the Earth! An epic tale of the world’s greatest super-villains starts here!"

So the first issue of Villains United oops, Forever Evil hits as the bad guys take over the DCU. For a month. Hardly a long term success, is it?

Everything New (52) Is Old Again. Again.

Confirmation of what a lot of people had known/suspected was released yesterday - DC is having a Villain's Month event in September. Alongside that was news of Forever Evil, a seven issue miniseries that will allow the creators (Geoff Johns and David Finch) to "really exploring what darkness means and the different kinds of darkness that are within these villains."

Villains which apparently include Sinestro whom Johns himself sent away never to be heard from again only a couple of weeks ago. Seems neither death nor exile are permanent these days.

And is that really Dumb Bunny in the background or am I seeing things?!

"As rumored, each of the New 52 series will change titles for that month and shift focus to antagonists like Darkseid, Bizarro, Gorilla Grodd, Two-Face and Poison Ivy."

You can see some of the titles with their funky moving 3D covers here but the one that caught my eye was this:

As you can see, that's Earth 2 but it features Power Girl, Huntress and Desaad, all of whom have been gracing the pages of Worlds' Finest. Does that PG and Huntress get to Earth 2?

In a separate interview, Jim Lee says of the new covers:

""They’re amazing covers. It’s an effect that you haven’t seen before... it’s an entire cover," Lee said. "...The colors and the depth of field allows you to actually see the logo of the new book. Let’s say the Joker is taking over, it’ll be the Batman title in the background, and you’ll see the Joker title splattered on top of the Batman logo itself. It really sells the concept in a very visual way.""

I'll grant you we may not have seen moving covers quite like this before but as for the villains' logos superimposed on the heroes'.... didn't that "sell the concept in a very visual way" back in 2009?

      

      

   

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #228

Jonah Hex asks the important questions

WTF Was That All About? Part 1

Last week saw the final gatefold covers of DC's aborted WTF Certified event in April. The name of the now non-event was widely derided after it was revealed, and rightly so, but the covers themselves - the main cover supplemented by a surprise on the gatefold - was a neat idea. I tried to remain as spoiler free as I could, both in the run up to it when covers were being released on the net, and in my weekly Cocktail posts.

Now it's all over, I figure it's time for a quick look at the ones I bought. So, in alphabetical order...

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #223

This is why Sinestro doesn't have many friends.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #221

God demonstrating the argumentative capacity of a five year old

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #217

He's not wrong.

Monday Memories #4 - Emerald Dawn II #4

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!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #203

The new Green Lantern ingratiates himself to the Justice League.
Well . . . most of them.

Who Was Who Is Who #41

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 Slipknot's chance.

SHRINKING VIOLET - as far as I can see, thanks to the wonders of the internet, Shrinking Violet is appearing in the pages of Legion of Super Heroes so gets in the in place column.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #193

Ummm, because he's a bloke?

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #189

Jordan and Sinestro - the DCU's Odd Couple

Rise Of The Third Army

DC have released a little more information about their forthcoming Green Lantern crossover tale, Rise of The Third Army.

It's been teased for some time - basically the Guardians of the Universe, those once benign blue little munchkins who pretended to have a handle on cosmic affairs, have been getting meaner and meaner over the last year or two and have decided to do away with the Green Lanterns and replace them with a Third Army, the First being the Manhunters and the second the Corps. Of course, they're not counting the space cops that preceded the Corps...

One of the main things released in the news item is a marvellous picture by Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Albert Oclair, and Rod Reis which forms the four inter-connecting covers for issues of Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: New Guardians and Red Lanterns:

Click the above for a slightly bigger version, but the original article has a huuuuuuge version of it.

Notable by their absence from the pic are Hal Jordan and Sinestro; couple that with the similarity between the original promo pic in the top left there with that used for the Death of Superman storyline and it seems possible that one or both of them die. Sinestro's death would prevent Jordan from being in the Corps - he's currently dependent on a ring created by Sinestro - which would explain why they're missing, but the inclusion of the new, masked Green Lantern seems to imply that it's Jordan that dies. Why else would the ring choose "our newest Green Lantern from Earth"?

I also couldn't help but notice that Carol Ferris as Star Sapphire finally gets to cover more than 12% of her body - about time, I say.

Oh, and a happy 4th of July to my American readers!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #183

Frankenstein wants it concisely!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #179

A talking horse? Who's ever heard of such a thing?

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #175

Yeah, you can joke, but here's why you don't want Ray Palmer ticked off at you.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #171

Oh yeah, Ray Palmer shows he's still got it.