Top 10 Biggest Comic Book news out of #SDCC San Diego Comic-Con 2018

Biggest Comic Book news out of #SDCC San Diego Comic-Con 2018

10. Gail Simone at Lions Forge: Simone will become the architect of this diverse line of superheroes. Not much detail on the direction the brand will take going forward, but Simone is a veteran creator with a proven following and some hotness at the moment with Domino and Plastic Man. 

9. X-Men: I won’t list Black and Uncanny as separate announcements since Uncanny’s return didn’t even feature a creative team (although Jordan White insists on Twitter that they have four issues in the can but are retaining a tight lip about the team, perhaps until Extermination concludes, I suppose hinting that it’s a Brisson title), but it’s exciting to her the title is coming back. Black will be a series of one-shots focused on villains. Magneto by Chris Claremont, Mojo by Scott Aukerman, Mystique by Seanan McGuire, Juggernaut by Robbie Thompson, and Emma Fros by fan-favorites Leah Williams and Chris Bachalo. Why is Mojo getting so much attention from X-teams? No one is sure. It’s a terrible character. 

8. Hellboy: the 25th anniversary of Hellboy will feature a new Hellboy and the BPRD mini, a series of one-shots, and some new collections. Mignola’s retirement from Hellboy continues to be productive. 

7. Shazam & Aquaman: it’s hard to get too excited about Aquaman but Kelly Sue DeConnick (Bitch Planet, Captain Marvel) has a track record of solid writing and a Allan following as a result. She could do for Aquaman’s movie tie-in what Greg Rucka did for Wonder Woman’s: make it mean something for establishing a higher base for comic sales going forward. Johns on Shazam with Dale Eaglesham could be a huge hit or a major bust. It’s a risky title but a great creative team. 

6. Marvel and DC both go digital: DC Universe premiered at SDCC 2018, a multimedia hub including new tv shows, digital versions of DC comics, and more. Marvel launched a series of digital first comics including Jessica Jones with Kelly “Ask Me About My Feminist Agenda” Thompson, Bendis’s handpicked successor on his creation. Other titles will stay in the defenders universe including Luke Cage, Daughters of the Dragon, and Iron Fist. Hard to get too excited about these books given the limited creator investment and the mostly flagging content, but I’ll buy Jessica Jones when it’s in print. 

5. Marvel Knights: For the 20th anniversary of the imprint, Marvel is relaunching the Knights under the management of phenom creator Donny Cates (Venom, Thanos, Doctor Strange, Redneck). He’ll produce what sounds like a single bookend volume to kick off individual stories written by Tini Howard, Matthew Rosenberg, and Vita Ayala. No certainty on what titles will be included but Punisher, Black Panther, Daredevil, and Karnak (of the Inhumans) are all on the promo art. If Cates is doing more than a single book on this imprint, it’ll be a bigger deal than #5. 

4. So many Batman & Joker books: Snyder & Jock On Batman Who Laughs mini, Silvestri on Batman/Joker book, Johns on Three Jokers, and King & Taylor on Batman Secret Files. Everyone loves Batman. Everyone loves Joker. 

3. Miracleman: The Silver Age: To be clear, there’s no details including a release date, but the team ensures us that the books have been cleared legally to proceed on Gaiman’s final chapter of the Miracleman saga. I’m excited. You’re excited. Miracleman is a legendary property written by two of the very best creators in the history of comics. Anything new on this work after 30 years would be a major, spectacular project. We know now that it CAN happen. 

2. Berger Books: Karen Berger’s (long-time editor at Vertigo) new imprint at Dark Horse will kick off with Ann Nocenti & David Aja’s The Seeds, an exciting title featuring one of the greatest artists of the modern era and a fan favorite indie writer. But an equally big announcement is G. Willow Wilson (Ms. Marvel, Cairo) and Christian Ward (Thor, Eisner Award winning Black Bolt) on their new space epic The Invisible Kingdom. Wilson, an expert at human-centered storytelling focused on relationships but not skimping in action, described the book as Dune meets Cowboy Bebop, which has our attention. 

1. Grant Morris on Green Lantern: when Grant Morrison writes for one of the big two companies, it’s always huge news. His last project, Multiversity, explores the hundreds of universes contained in the DC multiverse. This new book with Liam Sharp (Wonder Woman, Brave and the Bold) will focus on Hal Jordan as a space cop, a sort of cosmic police procedural. If not be surprised now that the Source Wall has come down and the multiverse appears to be “leaking” to see Hal and the GL Corps tasked with investigating what has come through in the deepest reaches of space. Morrison is always best when unleashed from the tethers of continuity to create unexpected and odd characters and situations. DC at the moment, especially cosmic DC, seems a great place to do this. I’m here for it. 

SDCC Days 3 and 4 Round-up: Shazam, Aquaman, & Wonder Woman 1984 & more

Worlds of DC replaced the DC Extended Universe as a label for the shared universe of DC films. The idea seems to be replicating the DC multiverse, allowing the films to exist in the same universe without directly affecting one another, at least initially. This could explain the multiple Jokers, Miller & Gustin’s different Flash portrayals, & a new Batman (replacing Ben Affleck). 

Batman: Hush and Justice League vs. the Fatal Five animated series are coming in the Fall. Hush was Mark Waid and Jim Lee’s beloved early 2000’s Batman story about an obsessive childhood friend of Bruce’s. The Fatal Five is something I don’t know about but I presume you can google as well as I can. Sounds boring though. 

Aquaman was well-received but downplayed Momoa’s performance. To be fair, he’s a known commodity and the rest of the cast is as if not more talented than he, so featuring those actors and actresses makes sense from a marketing perspective. Much attention has been placed on the tonal change from dark BvS and JL to this, more consistent w WW. I didn’t love WW, but it was clearly massively improved over the terrible Snyder era. 

WW 1984 also had footage but it showed neither Kristen Wiig nor Pedro Pascal’s villains. Patty Jenkins did hint that more of her powers will be on display since she’s now “at full power” whatever that means. Hard to imagine her going nuclear on Cheetah who is more of a hand-to-hand combatant than the GOD she was fighting in the last film. But here we go. 

I just watched the Shazam trailer and I have to say that this looks awesome. Zach Levi was a blast in Chuck, a show that ended way too soon. He appears to have the same pathos here. The kids seem great. It reminds me a bit of Spider-Man and the Ant-Man franchise which, to me, is the most consistent Marvel product atm. I’m here for it. Check out the trailer. 

First looks for a live action Kim Possible & the second Godzilla film featuring Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown & completion of Robbie Williams pilot for a Judge Dredd tv show were all news at SDCC on Saturday. 

Luke Cage, Iron Fist, & Daughters of the Dragon (Misty Knight & Colleen Wing) are getting Marvel Digital Firsts series from no one you’ve ever heard of. The Vision is getting a sequel to the Tom King/Gabriel Walta story from “Ask me about my feminist agenda” Mockingbird scribe Chelsea Cain. Something is happening with Gwenpool, a character that exists for no apparent reason. 

Rumors of an Ironheart treatment script surfaced over the weekend. Obviously Robert Downey Jr. can’t continue in the role of Tony Stark forever. Someone will have to take over the suit at some point. No word from Marvel to confirm or deny and nothing approaching a release date or start date even exists. 

Slow news day on Saturday but we have an X-Men panel later today. I’d expect at least one more major announcement from the House of Ideas beyond the obvious X-Men announcement. 

Not much out of Image this weekend. Could be a couple of things from them today too. I wouldn’t be shocked if the comics folks want their news to come out late Sunday so it shows up as front page news on Monday rather than being drowned out by movie and TV news releasing Friday and Saturday. 

Update: 

Uncanny X-Men is back in the Fall, but no team is announced today. What. The. Fudgesicles. The Fall is only a couple of months away, Cebulski. You should probably make a gosh darned decision on the team. I’m annoyed in Cade you couldn’t tell. 

X-Men Black: a series of one shots running in October w J. Scott Campbell covers. 

Chris Claremont & Dalibor Talajic on Magneto, Juggernaut by Robbie Thompson and Shawn Crystal, Mojo by Scott Auckerman and Nick Bradshaw, and Mystique by Seanan McGuire and Marco Failla. 

Most intriguing, Leah Williams (X-Men Gold Annual) & Chris Bachalo on Emma Frost. Leah has been leaking Frost info for a couple of weeks on Twitter & is pumped for the project. Bachalo is a fan fav.

Update 2:

Tim Seeley is writing Shatterstar. Womp womp. 

Astonishing X-Men will bring back Banshee, who has been dead but apparently Beast put him in a freezer bc what could possibly go wrong w that? 

X-Men Red will be in Atlantis. It sounds dumb but Tom Taylor is writing it so I’m a believer. 

Wolverine will have a team. That’s all of the Wolverine news from the panel. But hooray McNiven, who we found out about Friday. 

More news as it breaks today...we’ll mark it as update. 

Eisner award winners SDCC 2018

We’ve got analysis, picks, and the actual winners here for you in the essential categories (i.e. the categories where I’ve read most of or all the titles). They're being updated as the news rolls in. 

Best Continuing Series: An easy category for me. I don’t think most of these books are that good. Wicked + Divine is closest to a top tier book, but clearly not as good as BH.

Our pick: Black Hammer

Winner: Monstress

Best Limited Series: X-Men: Grand Design is very good, but Mister Miracle is a top 10 book. It’s the clear choice.

Our pick: Mister Miracle

Winner: Black Panther: World of Wakanda (?)

Best New Series: This category has 3 very good series in it, including Black Bolt by newcomer of the year Saladin Ahmed & Grass Kings by the woefully underrated Matt Kindt & the even more woefully underrated Tyler Jenkins. But, Royal City is the best of these books by a limited margin.

Our Pick: Royal City

Winner: Black Bolt

Best Writer: Toughest category for me. Both King & Lemire are great & Kindt is very good. Mark Russell is the biggest stretch in any category this year imo. Marjorie Liu is good, but Monstress is overrated. Today though, Lemire is writing 5 top 20 books. That’s unprecedented.

Our Pick: Jeff Lemire

Winner: Tom King/Marjorie Liu (the first tie ever)

Best Writer/Artist: I only read three of these, but My Favorite Thing is Monsters was fantastic. Easy choice.

Our Pick: Emil Ferris

Winner: Ferris

Best Penciller/Inker: Into the Silent Sea was unbelievable. It was beyond anything I’ve seen in a Hellboy book before and I think Mignola is a master. Gianni was amazing. Must win. Mitch Gerads (Mister Miracle, Sheriff of Babylon) has been doing some great work though so I won’t be shocked or sore if he takes it home.

Our Pick: Gary Gianni

Winner: Gerads

Best Cover Artist: The best part of Monstress is those covers. They’re unbelievable. I don’t think these are the five top cover artists today, but I believe Takeda is the easy choice in this category.

Our Pick: Sana Takeda

Winner: Takeda

Best Coloring: Dave Stewart is always the best colorist. Elizabeth Breitweiser was robbed from being nominated in this category for her work on Kill or Be Killed btw.

Our Pick: Dave Stewart

Winner: Emil Ferris (a fair pick, she did that whole book – writing, pencils, inks, colors, and letters – on her own)

Biggest surprise: World of Wakanda over Mister Miracle. Both creators won their categories for best pencil/inks & best writer but their series failed to bring home the title? Hard to understand there. World of Wakanda was a weak title in a strong category imo. Pretty shocking.

Biggest hype: Monstress. Liu won in best writer. Takeda for best covers. Best series for teens. Best ongoing. That’s a lot for a middling fantasy title methinks. Isola is objectively a better book already. I get that folks really want “not superheroes” to win awards, but this seems like a serious stretch. I think Black Hammer will go down as one of the most important titles maybe ever so I’m especially surprised to see Lemire leave tonight with nothing. 

Side comment: I saw some goofball call Mister Miracle “THE DC book of the moment”. That’s a farce. Both Batman & Justice League are better books in terms of story, art, & execution. Mister Miracle is up there, but it’s not quite on that level. I know it’s not popular to give traditional superhero fare the nod, but those books are exceptional examples of how regular superhero books with no existential angst can deliver powerfully compelling stories nonetheless.

SDCC Day 2 Round Up: Miracleman, Joker, Drowned Earth, & Cates on Marvel Knights

The return of the Go-Bots! Glass covers at Valiant! And the real news...

Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham will return to Miracleman to complete their Silver Age arc for Marvel after legal issues tied up the book’s planned 2017 release. While the reprints were big news in 2014, new content for this legendary series featuring some of comics’ towering talents should get people excited. The original Miracleman written by Alan Moore and then Gaiman was scarce at the time, out of print for decades, and often revered as one of the finest comics ever made with graphic novel collections demanding prices upwards of $300. 

Scott Snyder and Jock will collaborate on a The Batman Who Laughs mini series extending the life of the fan favorite character introduced in Snyder’s Dark Knights: Metal series in 2017. The series will also introduce a heavily armed Batman who appears to not share the earth-616 version’s aversion to firearms. This is part 5 of DC’s effort to release a Batman and Joker series every day for one year (jk, but it does seem that way). Breaking news: just announced the second arc of Snyder’s Justice League will team him with Flash writer Francis Manapaul as the artist in Drowned Earth, an Aquaman-centric storyline that will lead into DeConnick’s Aquaman ongoing later this Fall. 

Donny Cates is extending his Marvel exclusive contract & has announced that his new project is a Marvel Knights relaunch w Mike Deodato (on its 20th anniversary) featuring Daredevil, Punisher, Blade, and Black Panther. Cates is showrunning the line of new titles by Tini Howard, Matthew Rosenberg, and Vita Ayala, but writing a bookend volume to kick it off. No word on his ongoing involvement in writing duties on any of the books. The original Marvel Knights imprint rebooted Daredevil, Black Panther, & Punisher, updating them to a grim, more realistic street-level version of the Marvel U. Other Marvel Knights titles featured work by Grant Morrison on Fantastic Four & Greg Rucka on Black Widow. Joe Quezada and Jimmy Palmiotti oversaw the imprint and chaired the panel today for Marvel. 

New Star Wars books from Marvel Age of Republic by Jodi Houser, Age of Rebellion by Greg Pak, and Age of Resistance by Tom Taylor are linked together in a maxi-series format. The Houser book sports a Darth Maul cover, perhaps focusing on the Clone Wars era exploits of the popular Sith. The other series will explore points throughout the Star Wars timeline. IDW is also releasing Tales from Vader’s Castle under the Star Wars Adventures imprint and are written by Cavan Scott w art by Derek Charm. 

Joss Whedon, fan favorite creator of Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and Astonishing X-Men, announces they’ll be extending their Dr. Horrible from the web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along (with Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day, my favorite person in the world & personal hero) with a new comic book series. Whedon also recently announced he’ll have a new series premiering on HBO after an apparent bidding war between the studio & Netflix. The new book will be titled Dr. Horrible, Best Friends Forever. 

Iron Fist 2 has a surprisingly positive panel appearance given the resounding thud with which the character has premiered in the Marvel Netflix U. The panel unveiled the S2 villain, Alice Eve playing Typhoid Mary, a pyromorph with multiple personalities drawn from the pages of 1990’s Daredevil. Eve described her as consistent with the character from the comics and extremely violent. Footage also showed Fist in his traditional yellow mask and the panelists discussed that the series will have a more Heroes for Hire-feel to it, playing off of Danny Rand’s and Luke Cage’s friendship/bromance. If Marvel can rehabilitate this title, that would be big for the Netflix properties which have languished a bit after a strong start. Defenders, Iron Fist, and Jessica Jones S2 are widely regarded as the three worst shows in the Netflix U, all releasing in the last 2 years. 

DC Animated announced S3 of Young Justice titled Young Justice: The Outsiders. The Outsiders, longtime DC fans will remember, are a group formed by Batman to operate in tough situations that traditional heroes can’t handle. The group in the comics was actually led by Batman for years before he turned leadership over to Black Lightning and Metamorpho. Young Justice is a solid animated series and S3’s announcement was highly anticipated by fans. 

James Gunn was fired from the MCU due to internet outrage by Pizzagate promoter Mike Cernovich concerning old tweets, ending his work of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and causing Sony to cancel their secret announcement of a new project he had in the works for their studio. Gunn had already issued several apologies for the tweets & released another statement of regret in Friday. Marvel Studios released a brief statement as well. 

Marvel hosted a Marvel Rising cast meeting Thursday night featuring the actor playing Patriot and the actresses voicing Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, Quake & Ghost Spider (formerly Spider-Gwen). In addition to Jess characters, the cartoon will feature America Chavez, Captain Marvel, and Lockjaw, the Inhumans’ teleporting dog. Internet Nazis have been in a tizzy over the show featuring only one white male character but no one cares at all what they think.

DC Films’ new Joker origin film with Joaquin Phoenix has released a few details including the alter ego of this version of the Joker, Arthur Fleck. Fleck is rumored to have some ties to the Wayne family to play up the drama between Joker & Batman’s alter ego, Bruce Wayne. Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2’s Domino) is said to be portraying a new character not drawn from comics. Rumors also concern Robert De Niro’s interest in being attached to the project. 

In other DC Films’ news, Shazam costumes were on display, including a tiger patched backpack & the classic red leotard with a cape pinned to it by golden buttons. Nothing else at this time, although I’d expect a trailer for both this & Aquaman by Saturday night. 

Dave Micheline (co-creator of Venom) will be working on the Venom annual w writers Donny Cates and Jeff Loveness. 

Andrew Lincoln (Rick) is officially off of The Walking Dead, which is not really news bc it was so heavily telegraphed by the show & Lincoln. 

Jodie Whittaker, the 13th Doctor Who, has made a huge splash at SDCC 2018. Everyone loves her except internet Nazis (who we’ve already established no one cares about) & she made her debut at SDCC showing up at a fashion show in the show’s honor and style, in disguise until she hit the end of the runway & tossed off her hood to reveal the new Dr. Who costume which Whittaker described as neither for men or women, but for anyone, just like the show. 

Better Call Saul was at SDCC 2018 w a lot of the staff from Breaking Bad (including Walter White himself, Bryan Cranston) for their S3 launch in a month (8/6) and the 10-year anniversary of BB’s premier. 

Updates:

Jeff Lemire announced two projects: a completed script for the pilot of Essex County, his project for Top Shelf that launched his mainstream career, & an upcoming 12-issue Black Hammer series w Jose Villarrubia. The Essex County option is held by Canada’s CBC network & according to Lemire a decision on the six-episode series will be made shortly. No release info is ready for the new Black Hammer project. 

Player Unknown Battlegrounds is going mobile. That’s all I know about that. 

Venom footage from SDCC shows him fighting a silver version of the symbiote believed to be Riz Ahmed. Venom apparently bites a dude’s head off and says “yeah”. This should be a part of a Justice League movie (or at least Aquaman).  

Cloak and Dagger has been renewed for a 2nd season on Freeform. 

There are lady Predators. That’s all you need to know about that. 

Frances McDormand will be the voice of God in the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens. She’s amazing so that’s also great. 

We’ll have more news as stories develop throughout the night and weekend. 

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SDCC Day 1 News: DC Universe, Morrison on Green Lantern, Johns on Joker/Shazam, & More!

Day one SDCC News is up! We’ll be keeping you posted here on all the announcements and goings-on. 

Biggest announcement: Grant Morrison & Liam Sharp on Green Lantern. This book has been rumored for quite a bit now, but knowing the exact team will bring the excitement to a fever pitch. Morrison has a cult following esp. w DC fans and will give this title a real shot in the arm. A crime procedural in space sounds pretty compelling. Sharp is just off of his solo creating the Batman/WW Brave & The Bold and his run on WW w Rucka was well liked. This book should sell well & be high quality. 

Runner up: two Geoff Johns titles, Shazam w Dale Eaglesham & 3 Jokers w Jason Fabok. Johns recently announced he was stepping down from his VP position w DC to rejoin the creative team & he’s hitting the ground running. Shazam seems like a stretch for a guy of his talent. But they’ve got a movie coming out & his vision will help sell it to the comic book faithful. Eaglesham is a talented artist who should realize Johns plots well. 3 Jokers should be a top-selling book & a creative success. Recent stories hinted that the Joker has not always been one man but is rather a spirit of chaos/murder. This tale will resolve that thread w a fan favorite villain & a very hot artist. Should be a solid book. UPDATE: Johns also dropped some info on his new imprint at DC. It’s called The Killing Zone, it’s politically motivated, & it deals with characters from the Golden Age (1940’s) to the 2040’s (Legion?). It’ll hit the stands in May 2019. No details yet on what will be released at that time but it’ll be multiple characters & properties under one banner telling a semi-unified narrative. 

Also, Kelly Sue DeConnick & Robson Rocha (recently of Deathstroke & Supergirl) are taking over Aquaman ahead of a the movie’s release. This should be a vote of confidence in a team that will see interest in this cast of characters at an all-time high. DeConnick has a solid fan base & the recent success of their Mera solo title bodes well for interest in this book. 

Clone Wars returns for a new season on the Disney streaming service. Not a lot of detail to this announcement, but it’ll be red hot given that the next Star Wars film isn’t for over a year & the intense polarization over The Last Jedi & Solo. The Clone Wars is nearly universally well received by fans & should be a notch in the belt of the Star Wars universe Disney envisions. 

Wolverine returns! Logan will be back in his solo title this Fall with Charles Soule (architect of the character’s death) & fan favorite artist Steve McNiven at the helm. Word has it that Wolvie has a new power set that heats up his claws to ridiculous temperatures, which I don’t know — sounds dumb — but maybe it’ll be cool? Soule is a talented writer & I’ve liked all of his work including Daredevil, Vader, & the series returning Wolverine to the MU. We’ll have to see the reasoning behind it. 

DC Universe streaming service: it’ll be 74.95 annually. You’ll get to watch Titans & (another Geoff Johns production — and his creation). Dick Grayson says fuck and kills people, apparently. Raven looks cool. Starfire is portrayed by a black actress. Beast Boy looks like Beast Boy. Stargirl will feature the JSA, which is way more interesting than Stargirl is. At any rate, no one is subscribing to this & everyone will stream it, right? Right. Hard to know if these will be any good or just more of the Arrowverse type garbage we’ve gotten from DC tv. The extra dark version of Titans seems to hint that they still think everyone should be Batman or more dark/grim than even that.

Mark Silvestri Batman/Joker team-up was announced during the Black Label panel. Some story details including the kidnapping of Jim Gordon & a new villain, but no release date or format details at the moment. 

There should be a bevy of additional announcements from Marvel coming up, including FF, Gaiman & Miracleman, & at least one, maybe more, X-book. HBO, MCU, & Star Wars are all OUT on SDCC this year, so it’ll be nearly all comics, TV, & DCU films. I’d expect Fox to show us more Venom & maybe some Phoenix, Netflix may have some Millarverse material for us, & BBC will definitely be getting folks hyped for the new (and first female) Doctor. I’ll be around tomorrow with more news.