Category: News

The New DCEU… Oh Dear

Over at The Beat, there’s news about the James Gunn led plans for the reboot of the DC films universe, apparently being called “Gods and Monsters”

Among the interesting news like the animated Creature Commandos movie above, there’s talk of a new Superman film (no surprise there), a new Batman film with Damian Wayne as Robin (m’eh), Booster Gold coming to TV along with “Lanterns” described as an “enormous TV event series” with both John Stewart and Hal Jordan in the role, and The Authority coming to the big screen as well.

And most of that sounds interesting to me . . . and then I read this:

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow – this science fiction adventure, which will be based on Tom King’s amazing, award-winning recent comics stories, presents a Supergirl viewers are not used to seeing.

Ugh. Tom King, he of the over-rated OMEGA MEN and the god-awful HEROES IN CRISIS. And what’s worse, James Gunn is saying that Tom King is one of his go-to guys, one of the circle of writers who will help him fashion this whole new slew of films and TVs. Were the Snyder movies not dark and grim enough for you, James? Please, anyone but Tom King needs to be involved in this.

And regarding the Supergirl film, I’ll let you go read Anj’s take on that.

Batman: Three Jokers Actually Happening!

Well colour me surprised – I honestly thought the long awaited BATMAN: THREE JOKERS was never going to appear, that it was consigned to the bin following Geoff Johns essentially leaving DC comics to go and write/produce in the movies/TV world.

Turns out I was wrong and the first of three issues is due to land in June and, according to the article, all three issues are already complete so no more months long wait between issues as happened with DOOMSDAY CLOCK.

While I’m not a Batman reader – I’ve got a bunch of trades over the years, but don’t bother with the monthly titles – I’m sort of tempted by this.

Inferior Five’s Final Issues Postponed Indefinitely

I can’t say I’m particularly surprised by the news that INFERIOR FIVE‘s final two issues have been postponed.

The series was originally going to be twelve issues and, around the third issue’s solicitation, that got dropped to six.

As much as I like Keith Giffen’s writing, it’s not for everyone and setting a story in a never heard of before town, at the time of the original INVASION! crossover from 1988, featuring characters that clearly weren’t what people were expecting from a series called INFERIOR FIVE . . . all that was going to be a tough sell.

That said, I was enjoying it and it’s a shame we may not get to see the story behind the cover of #5, shown above, where original Inferior Five member Awkwardman is clearly having a very bad day.

The news story does say the issue may be resolicited later but I wouldn’t put too much money on that.

Dan DiDio Out of DC?!

I’ve just got back from a weekend away with no access to comic news – catching up, I read this piece over at the Beat about Dan DiDio having left DC Comics.

Bloody hell!

There’s a post at The Absorbascon that sums up something that’s been in my head for a while:

People have been describing this as ‘the end of an era’, which it is. But that isn’t the “DiDio Era”; it’s the “DiDio versus Johns Era”. Like some sort of real-life Anti-Monitor and Monitor, DiDio and Johns have been waging a barely disguised universe-threatening battle over whether the DCU would be positive or negative.

You can trace it through nearly everything that’s happened in the last 10 years. The New 52 versus Rebirth. Wally West the symbol of hopefulness versus Wally West PTSD-crippled mass murderer. Dark Multiverse versus the Metaverse. Eventually, Johns, realizing that his power over DC’s characters in mass media gave him greater influence than DiDio’s power over them in comics, left DC Comics for DC Entertainment. And without Johns to counterbalance DiDio’s negativity, DC Comics became sour enough that readers finally started to spit it out rather than swallow it.

Johns has his problems – he seems to blame Alan Moore and WATCHMEN for the whole grim and gritty problems in DC, but let’s not forget he was the one who gave us FOREVER EVIL where the Justice League were defeated and the bad guys – Lex Luthor and the Rogues – had to save the day.

That said, I’ll take a Geoff Johns led DC over DiDio any day; maybe the forthcoming 5G thing will actually pick up and run with the Rebirth refresh?

Man this is going to be interesting over the next few days.