DC Relaunch: Swamp Thing

And now we venture our way into The Dark. It was an interesting idea, for DC to separate the books into "families." I think it works out pretty well. For a long time, the character that inhabit the "Dark" region of the DCU were pretty limited to the world of Vertigo Comics, DC's mature readers imprint. They weren't even seen anymore in the regular world of DC, which was even sadder considering some characters, such as Swamp Thing and Animal Man, had long since had their series ended. And then slowly, the characters trickled their way back into the regular books. And then, the flood officially came rushing in when in the last few issues of Brightest Day, Swamp Thing came stumbling through the brush.

Swamp Thing runs multiple fields, and is a complicated beast. At first glance, here's a swamp monster in the same vein as Man-Thing, the Heap, and more recently Aaron Lopresti's Garbage Man. What more is there? Well, how about that he's the represenative of the Green, the life force of all plantlife of on Earth and beyond. There's also the man behind the plant, Alec Holland. Previously, he was believed to be dead, and that his memories were merely imprinted on Swamp Thing. Now the two are one being, and on top of everything being the one representative of the white energy of the light entity on earth, the sole White Lantern. Yes, it's busy being Swamp Thing.

The thing is, Swamp Thing has always wanted much less out of life. To live without much complication. He has usually kept to the swamps and only traveling outside of when needed. The powers he has becomes extremely impressive as you learn about the Green. Like a giant network, Swamp Thing can travel it, from one place to the other. He can create a new self out of any plant life, even alien life. This new direction, of him being between the Green and the white energy, will prove interesting.

DC Relaunch: Red Hood & the Outlaws

So you're the Red Hood. Life hasn't just been tough; it's been weird. First of all, you've got some bad beginnings on the street. A man comes along and tries to lift you up and brighten your life. That man is Batman. Somewhere you can see where that might go wrong. Oh and then you're brutally murdered, resurrected and trained by assassins, and decided to execute your own justice on the city you call home.
Now, you've got a couple of other people who are sitting on the wrong side of the fence of their own people, and they seem drawn to you. Exactly what you wanted.

Red Hood & the Outlaws is one of those series that none of us saw coming, but it doesn't leave people unintrigued. Jason Todd has been gaining popular since his reemergence as the Red Hood, despite the previous years of phone call ins regarding his death. Jason is generally not good at working with others, and usually prefers to do things his way. Compromise and consideration are not appropriate descriptives. Recently, fellow Outlaw Roy Harper has fallen on hard times and back into drugs. On his good days though, he's one of the best in the world with a bow and arrow, and just about any other weapon for that matter. He's hard-headed, which he gets from his mentor, the Green Arrow, and he seems to have picked up some of that ladies' man charm as well. Starfire has recently been in some odd places for her, after years of being on Earth being off world and working with REBELS. She expresses herself very openly, and her level of personal intimacy is much less guarded than most people. She's also one of the most powerful beings on Earth.

Diversion: The Gathering

When I was a kid, up until someone thought it would be a great idea for me to take art lessons, I wrote and drew stories. Not always comics, as I didn't have access to alot of comics at the time, but generally the process of storytelling with art. As we are want to do when we grow older, I did fall out of reading comics in general, but I continued to sketch and continued to write. Over the years I've infrequently maintained a webcomic, and I've plotted and scripted a number of ideas, but outside of internet self-publishing, I had no idea how I'd ever have a story published.

Enter The Gathering. The Gathering is literally a group of people, friends, collaborators, who came together on forums and decided that they were going to do it this time. They would self-publish their own print comic. What they are doing is publishing a themed black and white anthology comic (quarterly) for a reasonable price (cheaper than that 20 page Avengers story you may have purchased this week!), with up and coming writers and artists who are finally getting that chance to put out their stories and art. It's a beautiful thing, both the community that's developed and the opportunity it affords for newcomers. To actually be able to say, "Yes, I have had something published," instead of being completely unproven.

Right now, GrayHaven Comics, which publishes The Gathering, is raising money to help put out the Horror-themed fourth volume, "Into the Abyss." There's even a story in there written by me. You can help out by contributing through Kickstarter here, and you can purchase that volume here. There's some pretty cool incentives if you contribute to the Kickstarter campaign, so take a look at those as well.

Help participate in something different. Help support small press comics. Enjoy new and original stories.

Your support is appreciated.

DC Relaunch: Nightwing

As people, one of the more difficult things we often have to accept in our lives is that we have outgrown something. Whether it be something as simply watching a show that's not quite our age level as we progress up, or something more complex, where we feel embarrassed for our old attachments.  But we move on, and create new pieces for ourselves, new molds for us to grow in. In comics we often want our heroes for freeze in time and stay that same age we remember forever. But what ended up being a surprise move was the day that Dick Grayson grew up, threw off the pixie boots, put on some damn pants, and became Nightwing.

Nightwing is the Dick Grayson coming into his own. While many people may argue that his brief tenure as Batman would be this, I would say that his time as Batman is him holding up the mantle, waiting for the true bearer to come pick it up so he could go back to the life he felt he should be living. Nightwing represented Dick's freedom from the Bat, no longer being the necessary sidekick to the bat and cowl. And while at the time of the original self-transformation, there was an argument between him and Bruce, Dick has maintained his friendship with his old chum .

Usually as Nightwing, Dick Grayson has stayed somewhere other than Gotham for his personal adventures. Often early on this was wherever the Titans were. As time went on, he established himself as protector Bludhaven, and later in New York City when Bludhaven fell under a nuclear attack. This time he'll be staying in Gotham, and the dark mirror than was placed under him as Batman will only warp slightly in image. Despite these new villains, Dick's personality always shines through. Extremely friendly and light in mood at just about all times, Dick has been there as adopted son, surrogate older brother, mentor, and even lover. So now Nightwing dons again the shoes that feel most comfortable, albeit with a slightly different design, and returns to us as Nightwing.

DC Relaunch: Looking Around 7/14



Batwoman was originally scheduled to run this Spring, but was held off. So there's some interviews about the characters and process (plus a sizable lead time!) from around then.

Here's a couple from when the series was first announced last year:
A few talks from JH Williams III about the series at CBR and Robot 6...
And one with Amy Reeder at Newsarama.

More recently, Williams has talked to The Fandom Post about the series with regards to the relaunch...

Above is the cover for Batwoman #2. DC has had a few additional announcements today as well, and more October solicitations...

DC Relaunch: Batwoman

As I've mentioned before, the world of Gotham is a big place, ever expanding. Very few villains go away, and new ones pile up all the time. So it's no surprise that there's some counter action to that as well. In the weekly year long series 52, we were introduced to Kate Kane, and her beginnings as Batwoman.

Batwoman does not handle the same type of adventures that Batman does. No, hers are much more surreal,  more dreamlike, and more deadly. Her primary opponents are those who follow the religion of crime, under The Crime Bible, and they've nearly killed her. Like Bruce Wayne, Kate Kane not only comes from money, but from old money, being one of the legendary families of Gotham. She is very hard-nosed, and still very new to the business of the superhero. In our brief looks into her world, she's taken some heavy hits, and has uneasily balanced her life as Batwoman and her life as Kate Kane. As she becomes enveloped in more of the former and less of the latter, both worlds become stranger.

I've made it this far and surely there's at least one person reading who has been adding to the end of every sentence he reads, "...and she's a lesbian." Well congratulations, here's your paragraph. Yes, Kate Kane is a lesbian. It's been handled rather gracefully, I think. Whenever the character was first announced, that was pretty much all some people caught. You'd wondered if they bothered to read the comics in the first place. "DC Introduces Lesbian Character, Batwoman," they'd read. And that was mostly it. It tells us about as much about the characters as does saying, "Batwoman likes pie." In both cases, we know what to expect. In the first, we do expect that at some point Batwoman will develop a romantic interest that will likely be a woman. In the latter, we expect Batwoman to be eating pies. In both cases, we are given background information, but nothing real about the character. DC and its writers have treated Batwoman better than that, and have portrayed not a stereotype, but a real person dealing with their life.

DC Relaunch: Looking Around 7/13

While today we were taking a look over at what's up with Batgirl, Gail Simone has spoken some about it online already.

Over at DC's blog The Source, they published a short blurb of Gail talking about Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, while over at Newsarama they had a much more extensive interview.

And here's Adam Hughes' cover for Batgirl #2, on sale in October!

So today, DC released their October soliciations for their Green Lantern books. It's very exciting. Also, there's some spoilery stuff about the War of the Green Lanterns. If you don't care, go right ahead, but otherwise, you may want to hold off until you read the issue. 

Link after the jump, along with some more DC Relaunch goodies...