DC Relaunch: Batwing

One of the major concerns as news and solicits rolled out for the Relaunch was whether it was a full on reboot or what. Relief hit upon this title (as with a few others), because of its close ties to the current continuity and Batman Incoporated. On the other side of that, many people thought it odd that of all the titles to come out of Batman Incoporated, why this one? At the time, the character had made very few appearances. However, the more that Judd Winick talks about it, the more excited I am for the character and the book.

Batwing is generally considered the Batman of Africa. At the the same time, he has his own city and is established there. Just like Batman may go where adventure/crime takes, so it does for Batwing. It's interesting, the design is based off an old Batman story (that I have somewhere in an oversized collection), and somehow this has been pulled up out the dregs by Morrison & company. Since the character is new, I'm a bit behind on posts, and the writer taking this new direction is Judd Winick, I thought I'd direct you to where he's talked about it some with the comic sites:

with CBR
with Newsarama

Ben Oliver will be joining Winick on art. He's previously made his mark on Robert Kirkman's run of Ultimate X-Men, Christos Gage's issues of Thunderbolts, and The Ten-Seconders with Rob Williams (serialized in 2000 AD).

Later today, we get more of the Dark. Tomorrow, more of stuff in general!

DC Relaunch: Looking Around 7/12

So Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool posted some worth noting, especially with our coverage of Batman: The Dark Knight being mere days ago (Sunday!). You can go take a look, but what seems to be going on, and what seems to have been left off of the September solicitations, is that writer Paul Jenkins (set to work on DCU Presents: Deadman, will be co-writing the book with David Finch. The two work down the plot, Jenkins scripts, and Finch works on the art along with Jay Fabok. Teamwork!

Additionally in the news is the long rumored The Shade 12 issue mini-series by writer James Robinson with artist Cully Hamner (who helped with many of the redesigns along with Jim Lee and others). Comic Book Resources got the break on that one...

Additionally...

DC Relaunch: Catwoman

Bruce Wayne is bad with women. I make a point of saying Bruce because it’s not just in the day job, it’s at night too, as Batman. He either can’t keep them around because of the problems of being Batman and not being able to devote the time necessary as Bruce to warrant a relationship where his secret identity is not known, or he meets them in his time as Batman. Which means that at some level or another, they’re a criminal. There’s almost a complete disregard for his fellow female heroes, relationship wise. But the bad girls, he can’t stay away. Enter suspect number one: Catwoman.

Catwoman has been hanging around Batman for some time, and has been popular enough as a villain to get in the shows and movies multiple times, and even to get her own non-canonical and terribly received movie, of which will speak no further. Selina Kyle (Catwoman, if you didn’t know) has in recent decades turned over a bit in terms of her criminal tendencies. Really, she’s still got a thing for diamonds. That’s not changing. But for the most part otherwise, she does what she wants in the range of the white hats. That doesn’t stop her from being seductive, and her on-again/off-again with Batman comes and goes. And while he may not approve of all her activities, she does enough good for him to keep a blind eye on those. Selina is also extremely sly, and does much more back and forth between the catsuit and the dress than Bruce between the tux and the cowl.

Judd Winick is good fit writing for the book, just as a personal opinion. He’s spent a fair deal of time at DC, working on Green Arrow for a long stretch, The Trials of Shazam! maxi-series, Green Lantern, The Outsiders, and Batman, where he wrote the story collected as Under the Hood, bring back dead Robin Jason Todd. He also worked for Marvel writing Exiles, and on his own creator owned stories in Barry Ween and the autobiographical graphic novel Pedro & Me.
Artist Guillem March has been working with Judd Winick lately on their 3 issue run on Batman & Robin. He’s been doing lots of cover work for the Batman books of late, and was doing interiors for Gotham City Sirens, which featured Catwoman alongside Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, and Azrael with writer David Hine.

Catwoman has had a number of series over time, though for me Brubaker's is tops. It’s worth noting that Batman: Year One serves well as a Year One for Catwoman as well…

Catwoman: The Dark End of the Street by Ed Brubaker & Darwyn Cooke
Catwoman: Crooked Little Town by Ed Brubaker, Brad Rader, & Cameron Stewart
Catwoman: Relentless by Ed Brubaker, Cameron Stewart, & Javier Pullido
Catwoman: Wild Ride by Ed Brubaker, Cameron Stewart, & Guy Davis

Tomorrow we visit an already controversial subject despite the book not even having launched yet, the return of Barbara Gordon to Batgirl!