It’s now September, which means we have to start thinking about what we’re saving up for in December. DC Comics has released their full list of solicitations for the final month of the year. Will they rest on their laurels just because Santa is on his way? We hope so, because the spending frenzy of the last few months worth of events has really knocked the wind out of our wallet sails. (FACT: Our wallets have sails in Australia).
So, what stocking-stuffers will you find under the longbox tree this Crimbo?
Batwomangate: Part Deux 2
We don’t really need to go over the circumstances that led to J.H. Williams and W. Haden Blackman’s departure from Batwoman again, do we? After all, we’ve already covered it in detail here and here. Marc Andreyko has been announced to take over writing duties, with Trevor McCarthy and Jeremy Haun on art duties. The December solicitations reflect this, but as we found out last week, it will actually begin from issue #25. The outgoing writer found out the hard way that his last two issue are being cut completely. “Sadly, I guess with a new writer starting on Batwoman 25 means that the issue 25 we wrote already isn’t coming out,” Williams said via Twitter.
The Outsiders War Begins…here!
Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino’s reboot of Green Arrow has been one of the biggest saves of the New 52, and Green Arrow #26 promises the start of “The Outsiders War”. It finally takes us back to the island, where we will presumably get a bigger look at the New 52 version of Ollie’s origin story. It’s not specified as to whether this will crossover into other titles, but the solictation promises big things for the character. “Secrets are revealed, new villains introduced, and a mind-blowing final page kicks off this new storyline with a bang!”
Wither Nightwing?
Things haven’t been looking too good for Nightwing lately. Famously threatened with snubbing out by various members of DC editorial, the first issue of Forever Evil dangled his fate in front of us repeatedly. Will this be the end for an acrobat that’s gotten out of more than one tricky situation? The solicitation for Nightwing #26 teases” “With the events of Forever Evil looming, Nightwing enters the final stages of life as he knows it!” That’s just mean, isn’t it? Can you imagine if Bruce lost Damian and Dick within a few months of each other? It might finally break Batman and make him do something insane, like dress up in an animal costume and stalk the night.
Smallville gets mini and Injustice ends…for now
With the end of Smallville: Season 11, the adventure doesn’t stop for the recently caped Clark Kent. Isn’t that basically a Superman comic? A new mini-series by Bryan Q. Miller, with art by Edgar Salazar and Dym, will be launched called Smallville: Alien. In the four-part series, Superman “finds himself racing against time (and Lex Luthor!) to uncover the secret behind a Russian meteor strike. Something has fallen from space—and it looks an awful lot like a Monitor!”
Meanwhile, Injustice #12 (which is the reprint of the digital first series) comes to an end in December, but the solicitation takes pains to point out that this is only “FOR NOW!” Promising “the shocking turn of events that leads of the next phrase of Injustice“, perhaps writer Tom Taylor will be concentrating on his Earth 2 for the time being.
Bah, humbug!
Okay, so where’s the Christmas books? It’s been something of an annual tradition to have at least one Christmas book out from DC, even if it is just a bumper giant issue with Hal choking down on Ollie’s special Christmas chilli. For our first Christmas on the show, we looked at the wonderful Batman Noël, but were forced to forage for the not-so-good The Last Christmas from Image Comics a year later. Will there be a Christmas miracle? Of all of the concepts that DC is bringing back, surely 1989’s Christmas with the Super-Heroes or the Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special (1991) could be one of them? Perhaps they need to be visited in the night by the ghosts of writers past…
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