So Batman & Robin is still going post return? Is it still Dick and Damien? I just got the first two hardbacks as an early gift from the girlfriend (Along with some Marvle 3 3/4 figures, I love these things) and just playing catch up.
Yeah it’s still going with Dick and Damian. After Cornell’s run Tomasi takes over. It’s still weird. Not Morrison weird but in the ballpark.
Cool, thanks a lot Sano.
Yeah well… Cornell is a beast of a writer, IMHO the 2nd best DC got after Morrison ATM. Too bad he is going to leave the book when the arc is over
I hope DC will recognize Cornell’s talent and will give him more major books cause Action Comics and Knight and Squire (both great) are not enough for me
Conan’s messing with DC Animation again lol! Saw this on TV last night and was rolling! 
“Batman seem a little moody if he had sex with WW he would have chill a little bit”
This is just depressing
>First of all, when DC approached Lyons and asked him to pitch some ideas, the one upon which Steel #1 would eventually be based didn?t have Doomsday in it at all. The original villain was Metallo, who in fact was named as the book?s antagonist in the initial solicits for the issue. ?Then, everything changed,? says Lyons, and voila, Steel vs. Metallo became Steel vs. Doomsday and the launchpad for a crossover that also involves Superboy, Justice League of America, and Outsiders. Lyons himself isn?t involved with any of those issues, or with the overall direction of the crossover, which is being overseen by editors Matt Idelson and Wil Moss. Indeed, Lyons says ?even I don?t know the full answer? to why Doomsday is attacking Steel in the first place. It strikes me as a pretty remarkable situation for the writer of a comic not to be privy to the motives of the antagonist in the comic he?s writing ? the apotheosis, perhaps, of working as a writer in the top-down event-comic era.
>>Speaking of which, you may recall that Doomsday too died at the end of ?Death of Superman,? killed by Kal-El in a mutual-destruction scenario. Of course, you can?t keep a good superhero-comics character down (or even a lousy one, these days), and Doomsday didn?t stay dead for much longer than Superman himself did. (Actually, I think he was revealed to be alive first!) What?s interesting about Doomsday starring in an event now is that he was dead again as recently as two years and one Superman era ago ? beaten to death by the people of Kandor in November 2008?s Action Comics #871, during the ?New Krypton? mega-story. That event had its cake and ate it too when it came to Doomsday, killing him for effect, then almost immediately revealing that his body was in the possession of the evil General Sam Lane (Lois?s wingnut dad), who turned it over to Lex Luthor for ?improvements.? Apparently, whatever Lex did was good enough to get Doomsday up and running in time to headline his own event comic just a few short months after the one in which he ?died? ended. If you want to make the argument that death and resurrection are devalued currencies in contemporary superhero comics, you probably need look no further than ol? Bone-Brows.
>Moving on, the identity of the villain isn?t the only thing that changed since Steel #1?s conception and solicitation ? so too did the identity of the artist. The book was originally slated to be drawn by Sean Chen, but ?[t]he revised schedule interfered with his other work,? according to Lyons, and Ed Benes has drawn the issue in Chen?s stead. Benes is a DC mainstay and fan favorite who?s worked on multiple marquee titles for the publisher, so he?s certainly about as good a ?fill-in? artist as one could hope for, but he?s not Sean Chen, he?s Ed Benes. That?s another big change, and I think it may speak to how thin the top talent ? writers and artists with craft chops, personal style, and a dependable work rate ? can be stretched at the Big Two.
>Finally ? and I?m extremely hesitant to go here because, again, the book isn?t even out yet ? but there?s every indication that Steel may not survive Steel #1. Lyons understandably plays this one coy, as a writer really ought to if he hopes to maintain some suspense about what will happen in his action-based comic book. But given readers? long-standing and vocal dissatisfaction with the treatment of non-white characters in the DCU, killing off one of the company?s most prominent such characters ? the one who wears the Superman ?S? on his chest and cape to boot ? would surely touch off a firestorm of controversy. (Sorry, Jason Rusch.) Discretion is no doubt the better part of valor when it comes to potentially spoiling the outcome of your big ?Death of Superman?/?Reign of the Supermen?-based hero-villain grudge match, but the same can probably be said about (unnecessarily, I hope) freaking out your audience that yet another bastion of DCU diversity is about to bite the dust.
>So, when the Steel coin is finally flipped, how will it land? Heads ? a fun, exciting face-off between two underrated superhero-comic characters brought to you by a promising newcomer and a talented veteran? Or tails ? a trail of odd production hiccups leading to the death of a beloved character in service of comics? umpteenth event? Or will it land on its edge, with vocal fans arguing mightily to push it to the side of their choosing? I?ll say this much: I?ll be reading it to find out.
What’s so depressing about that article? I thought it was a decent read. (The article, not the comic.)
So Morrison’s off Batman and Robin now, yeah? I will follow him to Batman Inc, because I think I like Yanick Paquette…? I don’t know.
Morrison got stuck with terrible art rotations in New X-Men and with Batman. It’s gotta be a screw up from above, because I can’t imagine Morrison being happy with pushing their flagship book and telling such a big story with some truly garbage art from guys like Igor Kordey, who likely did it under extremely tight timelines and also apparently possibly under torture as well, because that is some terrible art. Likewise, can’t imagine Morrison wanting an art rotation that went from Andy Kubert to Tony Daniel and etc. Likewise with Batman & Robin going from Frank Quitely to a rotation of Philip Tan/Caeron Stewart/Andy Clarke/Frazer Irving.
…actually Steward/Clarke/Irving are all good, just Philip Tan sucked. Still the point is made. He got Howard Porter as a solid regular artist for his JLA run and some very early Frank Quitely to start New X-Men, and outside of that I can’t remember too many consistent runs on big books with solid artists.
Who was the artist for that cowboy issue of Return of Bruce Wayne? Ugh.
And just so that this point isn’t lost…Tony Daniel is terrible. He is a terrible storyteller, loves the clenched teeth look on everyone, and from all those Black Glove dudes and Catgirl, I can conclusively say that his design is terrible too. Is Peacock by him too? NOTHING IS GOOD
I would read a Stewart drawn book any day of the week. IMO he is the 2nd best DC got after Quietly
and yea Tan sucked
the Wild West issue was drawn by Jeanty and he was a fill in artist after Stewart decided to drop that issue in the last minute(godammit)
The very fact that the guy writing the mini not only had to change things last minute he doesn’t even fucking know all the details or how things are going to wrap up. It’s just pretty much a large collection of all the screwed up things at DC editorial all wrapped up in one.
Man tell me about it.They should’ve had Kubert doing interiors instead of the covers.Chris Sprouse’s Caveman Batman was pretty good also.His art has that “in your face” feel to it
My fav artist was Ryan Sook un the Noir issue well actuly it was my fav issue overall
Any good Question comics?
Exactly the point I made a while ago. I remember Kordey admitted that New X-Men’s usual fill-in artist (Ethan van Sciver at the time, I think) was behind schedule so there was one issue he had to draw over the weekend. Over the weekend! Just to get it out there and keep the book on schedule! The Marvel editors knew he had a reputation for being fast so they just asked him to do it. (Coulda been worse, I guess - they could have asked Mark Bagley instead. ZING) You know Morrison didn’t handpick Igor Kordey to draw an issue of New X-Men in three friggin’ days. Just like I’m sure Morrison didn’t personally ask for Philip Tan or Tony Daniel to draw his Batman comics.
Neither can I. Feels like most things he’s written have been with various artists, other than JLA. All-Star Superman, fortunately, was all Quitely. (Sometimes I wish Quitely did all of New X-Men. We’d still be waiting for him to finish it, but dadgum if it wouldn’t be the be-all, end-all X-Men comic of all time in that case. If Quitely had drawn all of New X-Men, we would never have to read another X-Men book again.) Chris Weston did all 13 issues of The Filth.
Amen. Preach it, my brother. Preach it.
True. I guess I’m such a cynical and jaded comics reader that such a fact doesn’t even faze me. I mean, stuff like that is pretty standard, especially at DC. Joe Casey recently wrote a story for Superman/Batman, but halfway through the last issue, DC (without telling him) rewrote his script and changed his story. Also, they marketed each issue of his story with an “Our Worlds at War” banner, implying that the story was related to a ten year-old Superman crossover! (They also did that without telling him.) Now that’s fucked up. And stupid. But you know what, Joe Casey wasn’t even surprised by that asinine behavior… I guess now whenever I hear of dumbass things that DC does, I just nod my head. It’s par for the course.
Check out the Denny O’Neil/Denys Cowan run that’s recently been reprinted in a series of TRADES, BABY. I think that’s pretty much the definitive Question.
Also, Greg Rucka did some mighty fine work with The Question in the Batman/Huntress: Cry for Blood miniseries with pretty art by Rick Burchett. (Also available in TRADE, BABY.) I also liked what Rucka and Cully Hamner did with the Renee Montoya Question in those 'Tec back-ups when Batwoman was going on. Not sure if those have been collected yet, though.
I’d really like to read those myself, but I’ve heard that O’Neil’s Question is much different than the original objectivist vigilante created by Dikto.
Aw, van Sciver, that’s the dude I couldn’t remember. Really impressive if Kordey did actually do an issue of New X-Men inside of a week. Impressive, but not that surprising - I distinctly remember thinking some of those issues did give me that impression. Mark Bagley could definitively draw a comic in a week. He probably regularly does…that’s why all his stuff sucks.
HEYOOOOOOOOOO
Aw, he’s not that bad. I’m not a fan though, but there is something to be said about that crazy long run he had with Bendis on Ultimate Spider-Man. Even just the fact that they pumped so many books out on time was pretty impressive, regardless of the content inside them. Bendis and Bagley…that’s a punctual editor’s dream team right there. They could go biweekly and not skip a beat. The comic would suck just as much as if it was monthly.
HEYOOOOOOOOOOOO
Yeah, I also think the O’Neil Question is generally considered the definitive character - they did more martial artist/zen type stuff than the objectivist stuff. Latter was too highbrow for me, I always liked the kung fu and the kickin’ more.
There was a great Question miniseries a few years back by Rick Veitch, that almost kind of reconned him into a weird urban zen dude instead of the crazy Ayn Rand banner holder or even what O’Neil did with him. I really enjoyed it - really cool take on the character as like a martial artist/chi sensing/psuedo-magic shaman dude but from an urban perspective. He could listen to cities through visual coincidences and random pieces of bystanders’ conversations…almost Jack Hawksmoor style but not…I don’t know, but it was a neat storytelling device. He goes to Metropolios to prevent Lex Luthor’s attempted murdering of Superman via a giant chi cannon disguised a new skyscraper he was building…?
Something like that, it was a great story. I hope that one’s collected in trade.
Yeah, it’s pretty different from Ditko’s Question. I have no idea what Ditko or Ditko purists make of the O’Neil/Cowan Question. Wouldn’t be surprised if they hate it. Oh, well.
Good point, Clinty. I forgot about the Rick Veitch Question miniseries. (Mainly because I was looking at my bookshelves when trying to think of good Question comics, only those comics are in a box somewhere because those jerks at DC never collected the thing in TRADE, DAMMIT.) Rick Veitch and Tommy Lee Edwards. That was fantastic stuff. I don’t think anything other DC story has ever made any sort of reference to it, so it’s probably not an important story for all the continuity pornographers out there, but it’s still one of the best minis that DC churned out during their really crappy Identity Crisis-era.
I got interested in Question from watching old Justice League Unlimited episodes. I was looking for something that would resemble that type of character.
Hmm, in that case, maybe you should seek out Ditko’s original Question comics. (I don’t know if those have ever been reprinted or where you can find them for a reasonable price. Perhaps Carpet Lint can give you pointers on how to…acquire…difficult-to-find comics. He is a comics pimp.) I think the team behind JLU based their Question more on Ditko’s original version and Rorschach from Watchmen. The whole thing between him and the Huntress was inspired by Rucka’s Batman/Huntress miniseries I mentioned earlier, though.