Wonder Woman
Because X-23 is so enormously popular!
Superman
We finally remembered Superman used to be sexier in 1939!
Superman/Wonder Woman
They're back and they're bad-ass.
They're angry and ready to have sex about it!
Superman/The Tick
Because this is effing HILARIOUS.
Harley Quin
We put our psychotic kewpie doll killer on every cover for no reasons other than to appeal to sex-starved fanboys...but that's not enough! Nor is just ONE Harley Quin, so we've xeroxed a fleet of them for everyone's possible fantasy.
Grayson
If the sensational character find of 1940 can't make you read spy comics, NO ONE can!
Catwoman
Turns out no one likes Fish Mooney in COMICS either! The leathery spandex is in the mail, boys.
Flash
Professor Zoom is back! Because Flash must fight nothing but anti-Flashes, fake-Flashes, evil-Flashes, etc. forever!
Green Arrow
After 70 years at about 20 attempts, we finally learned how to make Green Arrow work... from the CW!
Green Lantern
He's a rebel, Dottie; a loner!
Hoodie Hal with his bad-ass biker's glove of power. Why didn't we ever think of making Hal a bad-ass hooded guy before...?!
Detective
We know you liked BTAS 20 years ago so we're teaming Bullock and Montoya for the first time. Again!
Deathstroke
Because a Deathstroke who can only defeat entire Justice League is so LAME and 2000s, we'll give you one who's coming to kick the ASSES OF THE GODS, OMGXXX!
Lobo
Because someone finally sent us a member saying metrosexuals are OUT and lumbersexuals are IN!
Secret Six
Because quirky people need SOMETHING to read and what the heck else would we do with Gail Simone!
Oh, dear. Is Superman standing in a puddle of blood?
ReplyDeleteI will buy Secret Six, though. On the rest, I'm ... ah, not sure.
So ... Harley holds a beaver with a hole in it. Someone drew that. Someone appovoed it. It's on a cover.
ReplyDelete"Wow" isn't quite the word I'm thinking of, but it'll have to do in the absence of anything of the expletive variety.
ReplyDeleteMy first reaction was that Wonder Woman finally got her stupid Jim Lee collar and wondering why they can't let go of the Greek warrior image and just make Diana a superhero.
Then...wow. It's like the '90s just got randomly barfed back up onto the post-New52 DCU (doo-be-doo-be-doo). But with more sitcom expressions instead of the universal constipation grimace.
In fact, weren't most of these designs (including, I believe, hooded Hal) used in that forgettable Elseworld where aliens enslaved Earth? Ah, yes. Part one and part two.
I read a brief blurb on the Harley Quinn thing, and apparently they're going for ethnic diversity, which I'm sure won't end up seeming horribly offensive. And is non-beaver Harley holding that idiotic "haunted comic" from Multiversity? Probably not, but that got too stupid too fast, so it wouldn't surprise me.
And yes, the bat-armor might be the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. That, and the recurring "laser warning" symbol on the comics, which I assume aren't actual warnings about lasers, because that would be odd...er.
Just when I thought it might be worthwhile to go back to the DCU...
ReplyDelete– Jack of Spades
@john: the comic she's holding is We Are Robin, which that cover is a reference to.
ReplyDeleteAnd the laser warning symbol is the logo for Nerdist, which is where those covers came from.
Leave it to Dick Grayson to be the best-looking character, just by putting on a suit.
ReplyDeleteThat Wonder Woman costume doesn't work, at all. That Bat Armor is pretty damn hilarious, though.
Several images of Superman and he's not smiling in a single one of them, nothing but Badass Face. Were you raised in a barn, young man? The "real" Superman still seems to be MIA.
Also, Think of Batman Pooping Snakes:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_DKp_GQ5LE
Apparently Warner Brothers knows even less about how to run a comic book company than Disney does.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Chad. I was half-worried that was an imprint or some sort of weird new approach to crossovers ("we ain't having one, but if we were...").
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, good point about Grayson. Maybe it's time for DC characters to just go clothes shopping like normal people?
Except for Batman. I may never stop giggling over the armor.
For a second I thought they were making a comic book about Archer, and then realized it was Dick Grayson. But man...he does look nice!
ReplyDeleteWonder Woman on the other hand...did someone tell her to put on every last damned outfit in her closet all at once? Yeesh!
I rather liked the Superman in the t-shirt and jeans and work boots back in the (recent) day, but now he just looks like a thug. A mean thug.
The whole thing with Hal Jordan going off on his own, is just...stupid. Hal is like Beau Brummel...he barely exists if he doesn't have an admiring audience. Plus he would NEVER cover up his hair! Hal peeks at himself in mirrors and store windows all the time!
*urgh*
Also, can we please throw both Lobo and Deathstroke into the sun or something?
But I do have to admit, that Secret Six cover looks like fun.
Sally; I think Wonder Woman went shopping with Imperiex. Or DC (as is typical) has overreacted to longstanding criticism of her bareness, threw up its hand and said "FINE! ALL THE CLOTHES SHE WILL WEAR ALL THE CLOTHES ALL THE TIME!"
ReplyDeleteP.S. If you threw these fanboy versions of Lobo and Deathstroke into the sun, Lobo would just regenerate while Deathstroke simply stabbed the sun to death in a story no doubt called "SUNSTROKE!"
ReplyDeleteGrayson is the one cover that shines.
ReplyDeleteThe rest? Not so much.
Not to rain on the mock parade, but this all seems pretty innocuous to me. I mean I have zero interest in Deathstroke or hoddie Hal or Lobo, but if other people enjoy it, good for them.
ReplyDeleteThe latest round of Superman changes are par for the course. The character is a cultural icon but one who doesn't easily fit into a modern aesthetic so there is always going to be some experimentation and push-pull.
Bat-bunny looks silly but there is no DC property more adaptable. Plus Snyder has earned the benefit of the doubt and the right to make some mistakes.
Poor Wonder Woman - the outfit is patently ridiculous but it reveals an interesting truth. There are fans on the internet who love to bash DC for micromanaging their creators and not letting them tell the stories they want. Well, welcome to the Dark Side of Creative Freedom. Because I believe that outfit is 100% what David and Meredith Finch intended.
At one time, appreciation for BTAS was like a jolt of creative adrenaline for the character and his world. Has nostalgia for that program has become a creative straightjacket?
On the Harley thing - I thought the sales of that book are being driven by the "new, expanding" audience not by traditional fan boys; that it was the success of Harley and the revamped Batgirl that are prompting the spirit of experimentation on non-core titles? The book isn't to my taste so I don't read it but I don't really begrudge its success.
Diversity of tone and content - if its real - means that there should be things I don't like as well as things I do like. If DC produces 49 titles and one person actually wants to buy all 49 titles and enjoys all 49 titles, then they've failed. And the reverse is true as well.
As much as certain segments of the internet love to rag on Dan Didio, the truth is that the guy is basically the archetype of the fanboy - filled with weird fixations, an inability to distinguish "nostalgia" from "iconic", character prejudices, pet obsessions and utterly unwilling to see anyone else's point of view. So I thought the most revelatory part of the interviews they gave was Jim Lee admitting that DC needed to publish books that may not appeal to his and Didio's personal tastes. DC would have been better off if they had come to that realization a decade ago but better late than never.
"Dan Didio, the truth is that the guy is basically the archetype of the fanboy - filled with weird fixations, an inability to distinguish "nostalgia" from "iconic", character prejudices, pet obsessions and utterly unwilling to see anyone else's point of view"
ReplyDeleteInteresting point.
That Superman / Wonder Woman cover really needs a thought balloon where they're both thinking, "As soon as Kara turns 18 I am so done with you".
ReplyDeleteOkay, "Sunstroke" just cracked me up.
ReplyDeleteWait, both Superman and Wonder Woman are waiting for Kara to turn 18?
ReplyDeleteI think we just discovered THE TRUTH about the first arc of Superman/Batman. Yeah, Wonder Woman took Supergirl to Themyscira to train. Yeah, train all right. In the sapphic arts, that is. Lois was probably in on the whole scheme as well (to keep Kara away from Clark AND take Wonder Woman out as a rival by having her focus on getting another kind of sweet sweet kryptonian loving).