Today, maybe more than ever, we need a dose of good ol’ fashioned Comics Relief. To start things off this week, we have speculation of whether or not one of DC’s favorite teams is maybe heading for a comic book comeback. Read on for all the details.
Could Young Justice Return to Comics, Too?
Earlier this week, fans rejoiced at the news that beloved DC Comics animated series Young Justice was getting a long-awaited season three, following three years off the air filled with tons of petitions and online pleading for its return. With the show making a much heralded comeback, is it safe to speculate that a DC Rebirth version of the team is coming as well to actual comic books? The new Teen Titans series has removed such YJ players as Red Robin, Wonder Girl, and Superboy. Could these characters possibly be reserved a new Young Justice comic series? With the popularity of the cartoon, this one seems like a no-brainer.
Chris Claremont’s Marvel Work Collected in Oversized Omnibus
Although Marvel Comics has him under exclusive contract, it seems they don’t really want legendary Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont writing any actual comics for them. Why that is we don’t really know, but we do know that Marvel is still celebrating Claremont’s many contributions to the overall Marvel Universe with a new Omnibus Edition, called Chris Claremont’s Marvel Universe. Coming in the summer of next year, at $125 and 1,144 pages, this tome will collect Claremont’s work on characters such as Dr. Strange, Man-Thing, Captain Britain, and even Big Hero 6. The oversized omnibus is due in August. [Bleeding Cool]
Winners Announced for Canadian Shuster Awards
Most comics fans know the American Eisner or the Inkpot Awards, but Canada has their own ceremonial celebration of the comics industry, too. Named for Superman co-creator Joe Shuster—a born Canadian!—The Shuster Awards represent the best of the Canadian Comic book world. This year’s winners were announced this week and saw Jeff Lemire nabbing Best Writer, and Steve Skorce taking home Best Artist. For the complete list of nominees and winners, click here. [Comics Beat]
Marvel Releases Monsters Unleashed One-Shot Tie-Ins
Marvel’s 2017 event Monsters Unleashed has four new tie-in one shots which have just been announced. These include new one-shots for Doctor Strange, Champions, Uncanny Inhumans, and All-New X-Men, and are all scheduled to be released in February, with the numbering of #”1.MU” behind each title. They join the previously announced Spider-Man/Deadpool #1.MU and Avengers #1.MU scheduled for January. A still-undetermined amount of one-shots are scheduled to be announced for March, two ongoing titles spinning out of the early 2017 event.
Doctor Strange #1.MU is by writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Julian Lopez, and up next is writer Jeremy Whitley teaming up with Ro Stein and Ted brandt on Champions #1.MU. All-New X-Men #1.MU is also coming from Whitley, with Carlo Barberi on art. Finally, Uncanny Inhumans #1.MU is on tap by the creative team of Paul Allor and Brian Level. You can see the cover for Doctor Strange: MU #1 above. [Newsarama]
New Art from Rejected “Rockabilly Batman” Comic
Current Red Hood/Arsenal artist Denis Medri released cover art from a rejected “rockabilly Batman” series to fans this week, a title he and longtime DC Comics writer Scott Lobdell pitched to DC back in 2015. The book was going to be based on the artist’s series of fan-art, which—you guessed it!—mashed-up Batman and his related characters with a rockabilly sensibility.
Medri said, “at the begin of 2015 Scott Lobdell proposed me to work together on a miniseries inspired by my old ‘famous’ concept Rockabilly Batman, a six-issue miniseries called Batman: Rebel Yell. We proposed to DC Comics months ago, but we never got feedback.” You cans the cover for the rejected pitch above. [Newsarama]
Jim Starlin, Alan Davis Team Up for Guardians of the Galaxy Mini-Series
Marvel’s longtime #1 cosmic writer Jim Starlin—a man who’s written for space-faring characters like The Silver Surfer, Thanos and Adam Warlock—is about to return to the Guardians of the Galaxy. Teaming up with veteran artist Alan Davis, for a new mini-series featuring the ragtag cosmic crew, this will be their second outing together, having previously worked on a mini-series with these same characters called The Infinity Entity.
With the five-part series Guardians Of The Galaxy: Mother Entropy, the Guardians “are entrusted with an important but seemingly straight-forward delivery, nothing can go wrong, right? Right! Until everything starts going very wrong. Things might get a little more chaotic when the team meets the mysterious Mother Entropy: Who is she and what is her business with the Guardians?” We’ll find out sometime in 2017. You can see art from The Infinity Entity, the previous Jim Starlin and Alan Davis collaboration, above. [Bleeding Cool]
Marvel Releases Five New Variants for Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows
This week, the latest new comic series featuring everyone’s favorite friendly neighborhood wallcrawler is set to come out, with the newest series Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, which unite Spider-Man Peter Parker, his wife Mary Jane Watson, and their daughter Annie in an alternate universe series where all characters are superheroes.
This series is coming from Gerry Conway, who is returning to write the book, together with artist Ryan Stegman. For this comic, Marvel has teamed up with five comics retailers to produce unique variant covers for the first issue. The five variant covers can bee seen in our gallery below.
Images: DC Comics / Marvel Comics
