Let's start with the most fun book of the week: Harper Collins' Method Man graphic novel, written by and starring the Wu-Tang rapper as Mosely Paine, a Hellboy-esque monster hunter in a city known only as "One Bad Ghetto, USA." I smell potential movie deal...

Oddly enough, this isn't the first Wu-Tang comic - that would be 2002's The Nine Rings of Wu-Tang - nor will it be the last. GZA and Ghostface Killah are both working on their own graphic novels.

It's a big week for Devil's Due Publishing. They're releasing the first issue of a new Voltron series, Voltron: A Legend Forged as well as the alien abduction book NYE Incidents, which we've written about before. More mysterious alien lifeforms can be found in Boom! Studios' virus-from-beyond-the-stars Dominion trade paperback.

Wanting more zombie fiction? Then check out Red5 Comics' ZMD: Zombies Of Mass Destruction series, where the undead are used as the last resort in our ever-ongoing war against terrorism. As you may expect, things don't quite go to plan. If your taste for the undead leans more towards vampires, then IDW probably invite you to sample their new Spike: After The Fall series, showing you just what James Marsters' alter ego has been up to post-Angel season 5.

I know, I know; you're wondering what Marvel and DC are doing with themselves during this indie-heavy week. DC is playing it cool, with its flagships both being the work of Geoff Johns: His very enjoyable Superman And The Legion of Super-Heroes storyline gets a hardcover collection, bringing Clark Kent back to his 31st Century teenage hangout, while Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge sees him return to the world of the Flash and attempt to redeem the villains therein (much to the gratitude of those of us who've read Countdown to Final Crisis). Marvel, meanwhile, is pretty collection-centric in terms of interest, with World War Hulk's spin-off series, Warbound, getting a paperback collection and Steve Gerber's classic run on Howard The Duck finally getting the oversized hardcover it's always deserved.

Just like every other week, you can read about each and everything hitting comic stores on Wednesday right here, and then go and find out where your local store is by clicking on this here link. Just remember that, like the Wu Tang Clan, comic book stores are not, in fact, not something to fuck with.

Let's get the bigger publishers out of the way first: With the exception of a preview of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale's next project, Captain America: White, Marvel pretty much lets this week slide to focus on the latest issue of Secret Invasion and a hardcover collection for Joss Whedon's (disappointing, let's be honest) Runaways story. DC, on the other hand, just seem to be letting it slide altogether, with the exception of Final Crisis: Requiem, a one-shot memorializing the dearly-departed Martian Manhunter. Instead, turn your attention to Dark Horse Comics, which is happy to fill the gap with their new Hellboy spin-off, BPRD: The Warning and equally new Indiana Jones series, Indiana Jones And The Tomb Of The Gods.

Perhaps, however, you'd rather read about robots in disguise who don't go around raping each other; if that's the case, then you should definitely pick up the first issue of Transformers: All Hail Megatron, the "What if the Decepticons took over the Earth?" series that we've told you about already and happen to be waiting for with baited breath. Watching Megatron rule our planet with a literal iron fist seem too much of a downer? Then there's also Transformers Movie Prequel: Saga Of The Allspark premiering this week, giving you all the backstory about the deus ex machina that Michael Bay didn't quite manage to get around to.

For the books of the week, however, you have to go to Image Comics and Ben 10 co-creator Joe Kelly. Not only does his new series I Kill Giants launch on Thursday (featuring Barbara Thorson, a fifth-grader who either has a very, very active imagination or really does kill giants, pixies and other mythical creatures in her spare time), but his children's book Captain Stoneheart And The Truth Fairy also gets a fine re-release. Stoneheart, which started life as an issue of the Elephantmen series, bills itself as "a grim tale of broken bones and broken hearts," but really it's just a beautifully-written, wonderfully-illustrated (by X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man artist Chris Bachalo) children's story... albeit one that you can now get in a deluxe package including the original script, uncolored pencil artwork and CD of the audio version of the story. You can see a trailer for the book here.

As is really honestly always the case, you can find the complete list of everything hitting stores here and then go and buy whatever you want at the store closest to you, a fact that you can work out by going here. Just make sure that your stack has a hippo or robot somewhere in there. Preferably both.Hel

They're the core characters behind DC's summer extravaganza Final Crisis, but that doesn't mean that you necessarily know who Darkseid, Orion, Metron or any of the rest of the New Gods actually are. Before "evil wins" in the DC Universe, here's a quick primer to let you know just what a Fourth World actually is, anyway.

There came a time when the old gods died! The brave died with the cunning! The noble perished, locked in battle with unleashed evil! It was the last day for them! An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!

Those were the words that started the first issue of The New Gods, one of three comics from the 1970s that formed the core of creator Jack Kirby's Fourth World line of books (The line had theoretically started earlier when Kirby had taken over Superman spin-off title Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen, but that book - as enjoyable as it is - is at best peripheral to the main Fourth World storyline. Although it does feature Don Rickles). Kirby, who had co-created the majority of Marvel Comics' big names - essentially, everyone except for Spider-Man, and there's even some doubt there -had jumped ship to main rivals DC in 1970 as a result of increasing frustration at lack of creative or legal control over his creations, and immediately started work on what came to be possibly his greatest achievement: One sprawling, epic, story that gave the old mythical gods new life as technological, alien creatures locked in a war that threaded through multiple comics running simultaneously and could be read on multiple levels.

The story of the Fourth World is deceptively simple: Darkseid, personification of evil and despotic ruler of the planet Apokolips, has come to Earth in order to find The Anti-Life Equation, a mythical concept that will enable him to destroy all free will in the universe and finally win the ongoing war between Apokolips and New Genesis, another planet that happens to be a utopia led by the kind and loving Highfather. There was a lot more to it, of course (Each issue was filled with new concepts - each character could travel through a Boom Tube, which created a tunnel between two points in space, and they each had living computers called Mother Box, who could understand and meet their needs without being asked - and introduced new characters, almost too quickly for the reader to make any sense of what was happening), and that's where each of the three series came into their own. Those series were:

The New Gods: Also titled Orion of The New Gods, this series concentrated on the adventures of New Genesis' greatest warrior, Orion, and his friend Lightray, as they dealt with Darkseid's latest schemes on Earth. In a move that foreshadowed George Lucas' movie franchise, Orion was revealed to be actually the son of Darkseid; he and Highfather's son had been exchanged as babies to be raised on each others' home planets as the result of a (failed) peace treaty. In many ways, this series was WWII-veteran Kirby's chance to deal with war as both an idea and a reality; as well as the sacrifices Orion has to make in order to fight Darkseid (including literally changing his face from handsome to a more natural monster-like appearance; subtlety wasn't Kirby's strong point), there are moments where a pacifist son confront his veteran father over Vietnam, or we see Highfather deal with the loss of his wife, killed as a result of the conflict with Apokolips. Kirby's strengths were always ideas and art, and so the rawness of the writing can sometimes betray the depth of the intent, but nonetheless, this was groundbreaking stuff in 1971.

Mister Miracle: The second of the three series focused on Highfather's son who, after having been given to Darkseid as part of the same pact that brought Orion to New Genesis, had run away from Apokolips to become Earth's Greatest Escape Artist... Well, you'd probably do the same thing in similar circumstances. Mister Miracle - or Scott Free, as he had named himself, mid-escape ("Let me be Scott Free - And let me find myself!") - also ran across Darkseid's plans on a regular basis as the stories demanded, but was much more of a lover than a fighter, especially when his own lover (and, by series' end, wife) Big Barda was involved (Barda had also run away from Darkseid's clutches, abandoning life as a soldier for true love). In some ways the most fanciful and whimsical of the three series - Never mind the hero called Scott Free, check out his dwarf sidekick Oberon - this was also the longest-lived; maybe there was something about series' almost Saturday Morning Cartoon "death trap of the issue" set-up that made people want to stick around, or perhaps kids just wanted to read that it didn't matter about nature or nurture - if you were a good person, it'd find a way to show through somehow.

The Forever People:, Appropriately, given such a hippie-friendly name, this series focused on. essentially, cosmic flower children who rejected the fight between good and evil altogether and just wanted to, like, just be, man. With names like Beautiful Dreamer, Big Bear and Mark Moonrider, there was no escaping the hippie nature of Kirby's intent, even though it came four years after the Summer of Love; they even tuned in and turned on thanks to their "cosmic cartridges," which gave them insight by temporarily making them one with the universe until their mellow was harshed, dude. Nonetheless, these were the only characters who actually came across the real Anti-Life Equation (more than once) in what was possibly commentary on the belief that Kirby felt in the potential of the younger generation of the day.

All three titles were cancelled midway through their planned runs due to claims of low sales, but the characters refused to go away, being revived and making guest-appearances in other series for years afterwards, but all without their creator's involvement; Kirby became disillusioned with DC in the mid-70s following the commercial failure of these and other books, and returned to Marvel.

By the mid-80s, a new market had opened up to comic publishers - A niche "direct market" that would pay more for comics, and could support smaller print-runs. As a result, DC started offering higher-quality reprints of fan-favorite books, and one of those was New Gods. To celebrate this - and also tie-in with the Fourth World characters appearances in the Super Friends TV show of the time, Jack Kirby was invited back to DC to complete the story the way he had originally planned for this series. He accepted and ended up creating a standalone graphic novel, The Hunger Dogs, which... wasn't really what anyone expected. Instead of bringing everything to a pulse-pounding, explosion-filled conclusion, Hunger Dogs is a sad story about technology corrupting everything, even the nobility of war, that ended with no one side truly victorious but everyone having lost, in some way. It's a wonderful book, but hardly likely to sell more Super Powers figures.

Despite having been revived multiple times since - and even having a series called Death Of The New Gods published last year - the entire Fourth World concept has essentially remained in a holding pattern since Kirby's involvement until this year's Final Crisis series, which started with the discovery of Orion's corpse and promises to finish with some kind of resolution for all of the New Gods. The story centers around Darkseid - now hiding in human form as "Boss Dark Side" - finally finding the Anti-Life Equation, and it allowing evil to finally "win," although it remains to be seen just what will happen after that; writer Grant Morrison and others at DC have talked about the series re-examining Kirby's characters and creating the "Fifth World" for them to live in, after all.

Perhaps Kirby had it right the first time; gods clash, die, and always find themselves reborn, doing the same thing over and over again, just looking somewhat different each time.

Jack Kirby's Fourth World [DC Database Project]

Superman appears across multiple series in DC's line, from Justice League of America and Trinity to the kid-centric Superfriends and Justice League Unlimited. But each of his three solo series must've done something to commemorate this rather momentous anniversary, right?

Superman: At least it seems as if he's taken the day off in the first issue of new writer James Robinson's run, hanging out in space with Green Lantern, playing super-frisbee with Krypto the Super-Dog before disaster calls. But where's Lois with his birthday present? Are the rest of the Justice League planning a surprise party while all this is going on?

Action Comics: Everything seems to be fairly quiet for ol' Kal-El over here as well; he's spending most of his time as Clark Kent, in fact, getting reintroduced to all of the Daily Planet crew. Still, I don't see any cake...

All-Star Superman: Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's irregular-yet-entirely-awesome tribute to all that's good about Superman didn't actually have an issue in June, but that's probably a good thing considering that their last issue ended with the Man of Tomorrow's death at the long-term hands of Lex Luthor...

Hmm. Okay, so it's almost as if they've forgotten it's Superman's birthday this month, doesn't it? Wait, wait - I've got it. Last week saw the release of the second issue of DC's big series for the year, Final Crisis. Surely there's something for Clark to cheer about in there...

Man. That's just cold. I know it's meant to be a "never-ending battle," but still. It wouldn't have killed you guys to give him a card or something.

How To Celebrate Superman's Birthday on June 30th [eHow.com]

If September’s The Flash #244 does, indeed, mark the beginning of the end for Wally West – and the fact that that storyline isn’t by recently-announced new writer Tom Peyer suggests that that may be the case, if his longterm plans are being cut short; regular Flash artist Freddie Williams II has already been announced to be returning to the Robin series - this will be the third relaunch of the Flash franchise (and, indeed, may lead to the third Flash character to take over the lead of the franchise) in the last five years.

Following Wally West’s disappearance in 2005’s Infinite Crisis series, former Kid Flash Bart Allen took over the winged cowl in the 2006 series, The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive - only to be killed off a year later, following the critical response to the relaunch. Wally West was brought back to the series – and his absence later retconned as him taking his family for a vacation on an alien planet – last summer in the All-Flash special, before his cancelled series was brought back as if it’d never gone away in the first place, albeit with a new set-up, courtesy of Mark Waid, one of the (if not the) most Flash-fan-friendly writers out there.

Of course, that new set-up didn’t take, much to Waid’s confusion:

I don't know. You know, I just think, in retrospect, the stars were not in alignment in a lot of ways. I kind of knew we were in trouble right off the bat when I so loved Daniel Acuna's artwork. I so loved it. And I was so unprepared for the insane volume of hatred from the online community about how much they just despised his work on the title. I knew at that point, I thought, "Oh god, we're in trouble.” Once more, the online community has me questioning what I thought was good. Which I shouldn't let happen, but it's hard not to do when the volume is that loud.

And at this moment in time, I just ... in terms of superhero work, I feel frozen. I kind of... I feel like I'm momentarily out of step with what fandom wants because I don't get it. The same voices that are screaming that we gave Flash a wife and kids and family, because they say that's not what Flash is, are the same people who are screaming that they've broken up Mary Jane and Peter Parker. "How dare you take his family away!" I'm like, wait! Wait! What? Which way is it? So... growth and change good... or growth and change bad?

Change, as we now know, seems to be the only constant in the Flash franchise. Or, at least, change back; as Waid’s new Flash Family series was floundering with fans, it was revealed that Wally West’s own mentor Barry Allen was being brought back to life 23 years after his death, as part of DC’s Final Crisis event.

Will Barry take Wally’s place (And, as an aside, does this mean that Bart would’ve been accepted more as a Flash if he’d had a “y” at the end of his name?)? It’s possible, and would fit in with a more general move at the publisher to return their comics to their 1980s status quo (See also: Resurrecting Hal Jordan, bringing the multiverse back, returning the Justice League to a mix of big names and c-level characters, thinking that anyone wants to read Batman And The Outsiders, etc. etc.)… but that doesn’t mean that it would be a good move. Having Wally West as the Flash makes him unique in the DC line of characters; while he may not be the only former teen sidekick to grow up, he is the only one to grow up and adopt the costume and title of their mentor on a permanent basis and be accepted by the fans in doing so. He becomes an everyman “in” for the reader, being someone who has also grown up with the superheroes and is as familiar with the clichés and tricks of the trades as the fans themselves, while still being recognizable to kids who know him from the Justice League cartoons. Will all of that be thrown away by DC in favor of the Silver Age nostalgia of having Barry back in the role, or is the title of the new storyline a big fake-out? Expect to find out before the end of the year…

The Flash #244 [DC Comics]

After more than a year of falling sales and stories that left readers and critics cold, DC's summer 2008 flagship comic Final Crisis was seen by many to be the one book that could fix all problems and return the publisher to the #1 spot in terms of fan conversation, critical acclaim and sales. After all, it had a fan-favorite creative team (X-Men, JLA, Invisibles and We3 writer Grant Morrison and 52 cover artist JG Jones) and promised to not only provide thematic closure to, but also wrap up long-running subplots from, the last four years' worth of DC comics. Where could you go wrong?

Well, the first issue of the series (which appeared last month) could have reviews like this one, from well-respected comics critic Tom Spurgeon:

The general feeling that I had in the midst of reading it is a strange one, and not something I've seen anyone else try to put into words. The whole work feels arbitrary in a way, if I can explain it like that. For something that comes out of a shared universe and the last four years of concentrated plot maneuverings made by the company entire, much of the plot in Final Crisis #1 feels strangely impressed on top of the book like an overlay.

Or this, from former DC editor KC Carlson:

I had to find out from the internet what Anthro was drawing in the sand, and it’s a good thing I did, because I also found out that the story really ramps up in its third issue! Meaning I have to be 12 bucks into the story before anything exciting happens?

While there were some positive reviews, this review from Comic Book Resources seemed to sum up the general feeling towards the launch:

This isn't a disaster just yet, but six more issues of this caliber and this could spell the end of the sales power for a company event at DC Comics. "Final Crisis", indeed.

Part of the bad feeling people had for the book was due to the weekly 51 issue prologue series, Countdown to Final Crisis. After a year of apparently hastily put-together stories that sacrificed consistency and coherence for the ability to meet deadline, everyone was more than slightly surprised to see that Final Crisis not only seemed to ignore Countdown's plot, but also outright contradict it in places. To make matters worse, Final Crisis writer Morrison gave an interview about the discrepancy that hinted at disharmony with what was going on behind the scenes at the publisher:

Final Crisis was partly-written and broken down into rough issue-by-issue plots before Countdown was even conceived, let alone written. And J.G. was already working on designs and early layouts by the time Countdown started. There wasn’t really much opportunity, or desire, to modify our content at that stage. [W]hen Countdown was originally being discussed, it was just a case of me saying ‘Here’s issue 1 of Final Crisis and a rough breakdown of the following six issues. As long as you guys leave things off where Final Crisis begins, we‘ll be fine.’ Obviously, I would have preferred it if the New Gods hadn't been spotlighted at all, let alone quite so intensively before I got a chance to bring them back but I don’t run DC and don’t make the decisions as to how and where the characters are deployed... If there was only me involved, Orion would have been the first dead New God we saw in a DC comic, starting off the chain of events that we see in Final Crisis... The Countdown writers were later asked to ‘seed’ material from Final Crisis and in some cases, probably due to the pressure of filling the pages of a weekly book, that seeding amounted to entire plotlines veering off in directions I had never envisaged, anticipated or planned for in Final Crisis.

But, of course, it doesn't matter how you make an omelette as long as it tastes good, right? And Final Crisis was the most successful comic book of last month, as intended, right? Well... not exactly:

Secret Invasion #2 was the bestselling comic book of May, comfortably edging out the first issue of DC's big summer event, Final Crisis.

How comfortably? Well, the second issue of Marvel's Secret Invasion sold 5 copies for every 4 copies sold of Final Crisis, which tends to add up when you're talking in the tens of thousands of copies (Comic Book Resources' estimates a 41,000 difference between the books). In fact, May was a very bad month for DC overall, with main rival Marvel having 50% more market share than them, and seven titles in the top 10 selling comics of the month to DC's three.

Luckily, there's a distraction from the sales disappointment: Chuck Dixon, a long-time DC writer recently fired by the publisher, has taken to the internet to share his dissatisfaction with the situation, officially refusing to discuss the situation while also posting blog comments like

DC, currently, is run from the top down in a way that makes [1980s Marvel Editor in Chief, infamous for his interference in other people's work and ego] Jim Shooter’s aegis at Marvel look like a hippie commune... The difference between his reign at Marvel and the current one at DC is that Shooter was successful at raising circulation and longterm planning.

and

I’ve worked under tyrants and I can say that I’d prefer to work under a talented, knowledgeable tyrant with a successful plan than a directionless gladhander with a ouija board any day of the week.

Nothing like a happy work environment and former employees willing to sing your praises, is there? Not that things look set to get better anytime soon; with confirmation on Monday that concern that JG Jones won't be able to meet deadline on Final Crisis has led to another artist being assigned to draw parts of each future issue bringing yet more calls for DiDio to step down or be fired, it's beginning to look like the rumors that DC is looking for a new guy to turn the publisher around and rebuild bridges with creators, retailers, fans and anyone else who's still paying attention when DiDio's current contract expires in October (or perhaps even earlier) may be true after all.

But who would that new guy be? The loudest buzz is around Jimmy Palmiotti, currently under an exclusive contract as a writer for DC Comics, but whose previous positions include co-founding Event Comics and co-head of Marvel's "Marvel Knights" imprint, both with friend and current Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada. Palmiotti's name has been mentioned as possible replacement in comic pro circles for a while now, and a recent Publishers Weekly article about DC's troubles quickly turned into a "Palmiotti for Boss" session. What was interesting was Palmiotti's response in that same thread as to why his then-partner Quesada got the top Marvel gig and he didn't:

joe wanted the E.I.C. job and went after it while we were doing Marvel Knights…and he was the perfect guy for the job…Its obvious to everyone. I never wanted the job then because i wanted to create new characters and start writing…and to do that, i had to start from the ground up again to make it work.

Interesting use of past tense there, Jimmy: "I never wanted the job then"? "I wanted to create new characters and start writing"? Has something changed, perhaps...?

Other than Palmiotti getting sideways involved in the online chatter, it's notable that no current DC creators have spoken out in support of their boss on this subject (In comparison, when Marvel's Quesada was being called out for removing Spider-Man's marriage via deal with the devil, Marvel's top writers publicly stood behind him on message boards and news sites), adding yet more fuel to the uncomfortable atmosphere fire.

While it's unlikely that DiDio will go before the end of convention season (if he ends up going at all), that decision may just make matters more awkward in the short run for DC, who'll be seen to be unresponsive to all the bad press and have to face multiple convention panels hijacked by fans asking variations on "Why do you still have your job when you suck so bad?" One thing is certain; while it's got to be pretty good to be the guy in charge of Marvel Comics right now (Most successful American comic publisher and two hit movies this summer), if The Dark Knight isn't a box office smash and millions of nerds point the finger at DC's Executive Editor (unfairly, as he has no real control over the movies), there's no way that Dan DiDio is being paid enough money to shoulder the blame for all of DC's perceived problems this year.

Boom! Studios - now home to official friend of io9, Ian Brill - has our first new title of the week, Zombie Tales; Sensibly realizing that there's no long-term story potential in zombies unless you're Robert Kirkman (a conclusion obvious to anyone who's seen 28 Weeks Later), Zombie Tales is a new short story anthology series, letting various creators get their favorite zombie fantasies out of their heads before moving on to healthier things.

Alternatively, if zombies are played out for you, you may want to pick up the first volume of Roswell, Texas, which mixes alternate history (What if Texas didn't join the United States, but remained independent?) with a flying saucer crash and all manner of hell breaking loose as a result, courtesy of SF novelist and Lando Calrissian fanboy L. Neil Smith. Now, if only we could put alternate history zombies into a comic, we'd probably be rich. Or ignored.

The big comics from the Big Two publishers are an interesting bag this week. Marvel has the final issue of Joss Whedon's X-Men, called Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men for subtlety's sake, and the much more fascinating Marvel 1985, in which Wanted and Civil War's Mark Millar works out his childhood issues by bringing the Marvel villains from the comics page into "our world," with only one comic nerd recognizing what's going on. Despite the beautiful artwork from Tommy Lee Edwards, is this just another stage of Mark's "comic nerds will save us all" schtick (see Kick-Ass), or something more sinister?

(Marvel's also putting out the second collection of Kung-Fu actioneer The Immortal Iron Fist, subtitled The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven. Pick it up and find yourself falling in love with a super-sumo wrestler called "Fat Cobra". No, really.)

DC, meanwhile, is really going after your money this week, however: Never mind the long-awaited first issue of Grant Morrison's Final Crisis epic — as beautiful and grand in scale as it will undoubtedly be — or even the second-to-last issue of Morrison's note-perfect All Star Superman series. It's all about the collections this week.

Want to catch up on the critically-acclaimed Starman series by James Robinson and Tony Harris? A new hardcover series of collections starts this week. Want to learn more about Superman's home planet? Pick up the Superman: World of Krypton collection (with early art by Hellboy's Mike Mignola). Prefer 1970s SF weirdness? Jack Kirby's OMAC: One Man Army Corps will prepare you for the world that's coming. Looking for some four-color masturbatory material for the costume fetishist in your life? Comic Book Cover Portfolio: Women of The DC Universe will... um... satisfy you? It's literally all coming from DC's wheelhouse this week, friends.

And it's literally all going to your local comic book store, which you can find here. And if you need to know exactly what you'll find in those stores tomorrow, why not look at the complete list?

This won't be the first time that Wolk - whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Salon.com, as well as writing last year's Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean - has gone out of his way to explain the deeper meanings of a particular comic; in 2006, his 52 Pickup blog made sense of all of the throwaway references and unexpected reappearances from DC's first weekly mini-series, 52. So what made him return to this particular fan service industry - a Grant Morrison fanboy obsession, a celebration of the metatextual school of comic crossover events, or simply having too much free time on his hands? Douglas explained that it was all of the above, and more:

I really enjoyed doing 52 Pickup—especially the community that formed around it—and I missed having the opportunity to use my Ph.D. in DC continuity. I also like helping people enjoy the details of Grant Morrison's more deeply layered comics as much as I do. As for the free time issue... I'll just say that after you read enough back issues of Adventure Comics, you realize that while most people believe there are only 24 hours in a day, that's what the bad guys want you to think.

Even before the series officially starts next week, Douglas already has a few posts up, taking apart DC Universe Zero and the preview Final Crisis Sketchbook with wit and insight, as in this reference to Legion badguy Tyr having his weapon arm ripped off by Superman:

Panel 5: It wouldn't be a Geoff Johns comic without dismemberment, but at least this character's meant to be one-handed—and "hands" are going to be a running theme in this comic, so take note.

Final Crisis Annotations.

Secret Invasion, Marvel's big crossover has a few things on its side. Being written by arguably Marvel's most popular writer Brian Michael Bendis - writer of New Avengers, Mighty Avengers and Ultimate Spider-Man - and the result of literally years of planning (Bendis started laying the groundwork for this storyline with his 2004 Avengers Disassembled story), the idea of aliens having infiltrated Earth by disguising themselves as superheroes and villains throughout history allows for any and all character development (including deaths - This week's second issue brought back a character by retconning the death into having happened to an undercover Skrull - to be undone without having to say that all those old stories never actually happened. They just happened to aliens, is all.

Final Crisis, on the other hand, comes somewhat out of left field. It's also the result of a long-running storyline, but one previously told in scattered titles - Who knew that Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle would be so important? - before ultimately spinning out of an unpopular, critically-panned, series (Countdown to Final Crisis). Its real problem, however, may be its lack of high concept hook; sure, it's what happens when "evil wins," but what does that actually mean?

Let's compare the two in what we do know:

The Pitch: Like all of Marvel's big event stories, Secret Invasion has a movie-conscious high concept sale: "Aliens are amongst us, trying to take over the world! Who do you trust?" Final Crisis, though, is pretty much relying on the creators' star power and a vague promise of putting favored heroes through bad times to sell itself. Evil may have won the cosmic struggle, but how does that concept translate into a story...?

Win: Secret Invasion

The Scale: Secret Invasion more or less takes over the entire Marvel line for its' run - The main series is eight monthly issues, but there are multiple spin-off titles (including Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust, Secret Invasion: Front Line, Secret Invasion: X-Men, Secret Invasion: Spider-Man, Secret Invasion: Thor, Secret Invasion: Young Avengers/Runaways, Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four and Secret Invasion: Inhumans) as well as continuations of the storyline in issues of other series; by midway through its run, the storyline will have totaled 34 comics, and that's not counting all the stories that led up to the official launch. By contrast, Final Crisis is fairly self-contained; besides the seven-issue main series, there are seven spin-offs to bear the brand (The mini-series Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge, Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds and Final Crisis: Revelations, and the one-off issues Final Crisis: Requiem, Final Crisis: Submit, Final Crisis: Resist and Final Crisis: Superman Beyond) with a minimum of crossover into regular series promised. By midway through Crisis' run, you'll have had to purchase nine comics - again, not counting all of the prologue books - to get the whole story.

Win: Depends on how you look at it; Secret Invasion is bigger, but Final Crisis is cheaper

The Creators: Invasion's Bendis and artist Lenil Yu have the fan-favorite thing sewn up, having previously worked together on New Avengers and having separate runs on books like Daredevil, Ultimate Spider-Man, Superman: Birthright and X-Men. However, they've probably not got the cache of Final Crisis' Grant Morrison and JG Jones. Having written acclaimed runs on JLA, X-Men, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, 52 and more personal projects like The Invisibles and We3, Morrison is easily one of the most highly-regarded comic writers around, and Jones' work on Wanted and the covers for 52 have made him a well-loved artist... and one who rarely does anything other than covers. Crisis will be his first sequential work in four years.

Win: Final Crisis

So, is it a tie? Can you play comics Switzerland and not choose a side? The final choice may simply come down to what kind of comics you like - Both series are, in their own way, dealing with cultural and political zeitgeists, so it may just come down to whether you want to see bad guy aliens in positions of power punching Iron Man, or the more metaphorical thrills of submission and subjugation of free will by a New, evil, God. The decision, as they used to say on Blind Date, is yours.

Final Crisis #1 [DC Comics]
Secret Invasion [Marvel Comics]

Don't get us wrong: EW's Final Crisis preview was apocalyptic enough to get us excited to see what's going to happen to Superman and friends when evil takes over the world at the end of the month - especially with gods dying in dumpsters and lines like "Let the space cops handle the fallout" - but it's almost more exciting to see Wizard Magazine's four page preview from Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, showing us another twisted version of Clark Kent's arrival on Earth... Except that, this time, Clark is the insane fanboy-made-bad "Superman Prime," and the people who discover him in a Kansas field 31st-Century bigots who try to kill him. Obviously, that isn't going to end well.

Hitting several comics fanboy G-spots at once in this preview alone, the series is intended to, in the words of writer Geoff Johns, "show fans and readers how awesome the Legion [of Super-Heroes] can be."

The series launches in August.

DC's 'Final Crisis' [EW.com]
Legion of Three Worlds #1, Exclusive Sneak Peek [Wizard Universe]

Wolverine:

The Wolverine solo movie, which already has a pretty massive cast of mutants tromping through it, now also guest-stars the young Scott Summers aka Cyclops. How does Cyclops fit into the storyline of Logan's early years in the Weapon X military taskforce? [Superhero Hype]

Heroes:

Bruce Boxleitner will play a new character in Heroes season three, one who was originally modeled on Sen. John McCain, but who may have been reconceived now that Bruce is playing him. In any case, this new character shares many scenes with one of our female regulars. (Angela, maybe?) This makes me think the new season will be way more political than we'd been led to expect, with that "supervillains" theme. Also, even though we're hearing about lots of new characters in season three, the focus will be on our core characters from the show's original pilot. [Ask Ausiello]

Battlestar Galactica:

Here's a pretty carefully constructed chronology of all the spoilers about upcoming Battlestar Galactica episodes that have come out so far. The only ones that may be news to me are that Tigh gets onboard a baseship, and there's a "powerful scene" between Tigh and Admiral Adama, possibly about President Roslin's capture by the rebel cylons. [Leliana McKay]

Doctor Who:

Here's a snippet from the script and a clip from Saturday's episode, "The Doctor's Daughter":
Jenny picks herself up, unharmed, excited, grinning. The Doctor is furious with her.
The Doctor: Why did you do that?
Jenny: They were trying to kill us!
The Doctor: But they've got my friend
Jenny: Collateral damage. At least you've still got her. He lost both of his men. I'd say you came out ahead. [Planet Gallifrey]

Some kind soul has scanned in some pages from some British magazines that include a few spoilers for the rest of the season. The Doctor's "daughter" is related to him but is necessarily his daughter daughter — it's complicated. So how does he end up with a daughter? According to one article, he sticks his hand into a machine that spits out grown-up offspring a moment later. In the season finale, there's a segment on a fake talk show where the "lights in the sky" are discussed. And one of the companions appearing in the finale may not survive. (My money's on Rose, actually.) [Loftio]

Remember those incredibly suspect spoilers we posted yesterday for the end of the season? The ones where Donna dies, and then the Doctor undoes her death, and then he wipes her memory? The guy who posted them has been banned from Digital Spy, where he posted them, and has become the laughingstock of the Doctor Who forum. Poor guy — he was just trying to keep us entertained. [Boards.ie]

Lost:

Some more preview photos have come out from the season finale, showing the Oceanic Six in mid-escape.

And here are two more short clips from tonight's Lost episode. It looks like Locke meets a ghost from the Dharma Initiative, and Sayid has a plan to save everyone on the island. [Spoilers Lost]

Final Crisis:

Entertainment Weekly has a five-page preview of Final Crisis, with script pages from writer Grant Morrison. It looks very much like 52 part two, or maybe "53." In a nutshell, Dick Turpin (from Metropolis Special Crimes Unit) finds Orion in a dumpster, half dead. And then he has a conversation with ex-cop Rene Montoya, who's become a superhero called The Question. Meanwhile, the sky turns red and freaks out, and John Stewart, who's a Green Lantern (a space cop with a magic ring) gets called to a "1011" emergency. Oh, and old Justice League villain Libra is behind everything, but uber-villain Darkseid also plays a major role. [Entertainment Weekly]

The board - a callback to a subplot from DC's successful 52 series - is made up of multiple phrases or, weirdly enough, math problems that tie into already-announced, rumored or completely unknown stories for Superman, Batman and their (super) friends. Some of them are obvious:

Submit and Resist are both titles tied in with the upcoming Final Crisis storyline, as already announced by DC. Same with Evil Won (Final Crisis taking place after evil has apparently beaten good in that traditional never-ending battle), First Boy/Last Boy (Crisis will, according to writer Grant Morrison, start with Anthro, the first boy on Earth, and end with Kamandi, the last boy on Earth), Girlfight (Morrison has promised a fight between Supergirl, the teen girl personification of all things good, and Mary Marvel, newly-appointed pin-up girl for evil) and Loneliness + Alienation + Fear + Despair + Self Worth (etc.), which is one possible version of "the Anti-Life Equation," DC's mythical way to remove free will in people (This version appeared in Morrison's 2006 Mister Miracle series, which has been named multiple times as the key book to read before Final Crisis).

Equally clear are Best Woman For Job - A Man, which ties into this summer's Wonder Woman storyline where it's decided that Wonder Woman has failed in her mission to bring peace to the world and needs to be replaced with a man called The Olympian; 1,000/3 = 1, a reference to Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, which brings three different worlds of 1000 years in the future together; You Can Go Home Again, tying into this summer's Justice Society of America Annual, which takes Power Girl back to a version of her home planet, Earth 2; I Am Batman?/I Am Bruce Wayne?, about Wayne's identity crisis in Batman: R.I.P.; The Dead Shall Rise, the already-announced tagline of next year's The Blackest Night storyline; and Sightings All Around Us, which is a shout-out to DC's new "Sightings" branding for declared-important comics.

Everything else, though, is a little more shaky - 52 - 1 = 0 could be about DC's 52 alternate Earths, or simply pointing to last week's DC Universe Zero. Kings Reborn may be a reference to the potential return of the original Aquaman, who was, after all, King of Atlantis, and Rockin' Robins just might be about which Robin gets to become the new Batman. But the other ones...? Here are our entirely baseless guesses:

100% Alien - Something to do with the rumored death of 1950s alien-amongst-us, the Martian Manhunter.
Who is Wonder Dog? - Well, it used to be Rex, Nazi-fightin' pup, but for some reason, I'm seeing a Wonder Woman tie-in here...
There is No-One... Yet - Probably a Final Crisis mention of some sort, as is He Is The Force (The "astro-force" being a Jack Kirby invention as is Crisis badguy Darkseid) and He Wakes The World Ends.
The Son Rises - I'll be very surprised if this isn't a reference to Damien, Batman's bastard son, in the wake of Batman R.I.P.. Same with Murder/Suicide, Father/Son, although that one could also apply to Final Crisis villain Darkseid and his good guy son Orion.
The Traitor Among Us - Who better to have traitors (and, for that matter, an "us") than a gang of villains? It's either something to do with Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge or Gail Simone's new Secret Six series.
No 2 For You is more than likely another Power Girl/Earth-2/Justice Society of America Annual reference, as PG has to end up back on regular Earth in time to launch her own series this summer, but 1 (JSA) 2 probably has more to do with the team's rumored break-up this summer.
Mercy Ruling and Who Questions the Question are both very likely to have something to do with Greg Rucka's Final Crisis: Revelations series, where God's spirit of retribution, the Spectre, meets lesbian private eye the Question.
TT Have No Reception reminds us all that there isn't a Teen Titans cartoon any more. Or, perhaps, that the Titans comic will be spinning off something called Terror Titans this Summer, about some unpopular teenage badguys... whereas Titans, the other TT-spinoff book is dealing with the eeeevil reborn Trigon, who just may be 4 Times As Red in his new incarnation.
No Glory No Gold seems to be a shout-out to the Booster Gold series in some way, while Paper Not Plastic feels suspiciously like a reference to a revived Plastic Man for some reason... Better than Rocket Vs. Satellite, which suggests that the JLA's spacebound headquarters is soon not going to be alone up there.

The last two, however, are just weird: Superman: Red or Blue? is, I hope, hints that we'll finally investigate Superman's political preference (Let's face it; he's an Obama man. You know it, I know it, it's pretty obvious) instead of rehash the old Superman-gets-split-in-two storyline we've seen at least twice before, and I am convinced that Post No Bills is there purely to fuck with us.

But now that we've put ourselves out there, why don't you tell us what you think the board is all about? We shouldn't be the only ones embarrassed about how off-base our suggestions are this time next year, after all.

Dan DiDio on DC Universe #0 [Newsarama]

That's not entirely true, of course; there's the new Fables collection, Wolves - but that series, based around what happens after the "happily ever after" at the end of all fairy tales (Here's a clue: Brutal war, New York and marriage, but not necessarily in that order), lacks pretty much any kind of science fiction element that'd let me claim it as part of the io9 mission statement.

There's also DC Universe: Zero, easily the most interesting release of the week - A 50 cent introduction to the current status quo of all of DC's main characters (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, as well as the Legion of Super-Heroes, Green Lantern and others) by writers Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns as well as "a host of comics' best artists" as they say. It all leads into this summer's big Final Crisis, Batman R.I.P., Legion of Three Worlds and Wonder Woman: Rise of Olympus storylines. Even if you're not interested in any of those characters or stories, it's still 32 pages of pretty for half a dollar, so what are you waiting for?

Otherwise, the most interesting two books both come from Platinum Studios, via life as webcomics. A lot has been said about the creating-comics-purely-as-IP-to-sell-as-movies business model of Platinum, but when it produces comics with titles like I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space and Adventures of Tymm: Alien Circus, at least you know that they're not too proud to go sensationalistic in their attempts to get your eyeballs.

As is always the case, you can look at this week's shipping list and see how disappointing it is for yourself here, and then go and find your local comic store here in preparation for the much more exciting free grab-bag that is this weekend. Just give them a call, ask them to keep a copy of DC Universe until you get there on Saturday, and save yourself the time tomorrow. You'll thank me in the end.

Even though you're undoubtedly waiting to find out more about the schoolgirl, I'm going to go with the musclemen first, I'm afraid. Marvel's Secret Invasion storyline slowly builds in this week's Mighty Avengers #12 (bringing David Hasslehoff and Samuel Jackson's favorite super-spy Nick Fury back after years in hiding, to fight off the Skrulls trying to take over the planet). And DC are going full-steam to prepare for the upcoming Final Crisis, with the final issues of both weekly snorefest Countdown to Final Crisis and attempted epic The Death of The New Gods making sure the good guys lose before Grant Morrison lets all of the evil Gods out to play next month. Morrison's also the one behind the 675th issue of Batman, which lets new readers catch up on all the shenanigans that Bruce Wayne has been part of recently, before Bruce meets a fate worse than death when Batman R.I.P. begins in the next issue.

(If you're looking for something slightly more optimistic yet equally apocalyptic from your favorite DC characters, you could do worse that Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come, Part 1, the start of Geoff Johns' and Alex Ross' sequel/prequel to Ross' dark alternate-future tale Kingdom Come, which also comes out this week.)

Otherwise, this week's releases are all about your usual two needs: Your early '90s nostalgia jones can be fixed with X-O Manowar: Birth, a new hardcover collection of the first seven issues of Valiant's high concept "What if Conan was Iron Man" series. (If you're older than that, then Mike Baron and Steve Rude's Nexus: The Origin one-shot should serve the same purpose for the early 1980s. I really can't help you for the early '70s, sadly.) And your much-easier-to-admit-to-in-public schoolgirl uniform fetish should be sufficiently pleased with the new compendium edition of Josh Howard's Dead@17. For those who haven't experienced Howard's series, imagine Buffy The Vampire Slayer but with more zombies and drawn by a cartoonier Bruce Timm. There may be a Heavenly prophecy or two mixed up in there, but you didn't hear that from me. Who could want any more than that?

As usual, you can find a complete list of the week's releases over here before finding out just where to buy any and all of these wonderful books by putting in your zip code over here. Even if this week's books underwhelm you, look up your closest store: Free Comic Book Day is just around the corner...

"Give me some sugar, I am your neighbor!" Morrison growled as we started. He jumped right in, happily answering even the most controversial questions from the audience; we've got a recap below.

To what extent do drugs play a role in your creative process?
They were very big in The Invisibles. I was a very straightedge kid until I was 30 years old — I didn't touch anything, and I was anti-drinking, anti-drugs, everything. But I got to 30 and I kind of decided to treat myself as a laboratory and become something else — I wondered how much you could mess with your own personality. I became a tranny for awhile; I used to dress up as a girl, and I was beautiful! I just started to take tons of psychadelic drugs, though I was never into amphetamines or anything. But I'm getting old now, so I don't do so much of that.

Did that also have a role in your experience in Kathmandu?
The Kathmandu thing was really weird. I had taken a little bit of hash — but just a very little bit. That experience was so profound — nothing like that has ever happened to me again. Part of taking so many drugs in the 90s was trying to recreate the experience: the clarity of everything was so much more real, the way things are made ... all this is just cheap dream compared to the place I was. I've taken DMT, high doses of mushrooms, high doses of acid — nothing took me back. I've never been able to go there again.

In the script for Arkham Asylum there's a joke about two nuns and a donkey. Is that a real joke?
That is a joke. Two nuns find this gigantic penis, and they're working away, and the Mother Superior says "Oh my God! Look what's happened to Flannen McCafferty!" The idea is that some old guy's donkey dies and the donkey's got the biggest dick in the wall, so he cuts it off and throws it over the nunnery wall, which takes me back to the punchline, and ... I can't tell jokes. That's the only joke I know and I still can't tell it.

What writers have inspired and influenced you?
There's a ton of 'em. A lot of playwrights: Peter Shaffer, David Sherwin, Alan Gamma, Timothy Leary, Tolkein, the Beatles, the Buzzcocks, the Sex Pistols ....

What's going on with the film for We3?
The film's script's actually better than the comics script. There's a lot of stuff happening at New Line right now, though. We've been through like 16 different directors, because none of them just really got the movie for me, but they've been really good about it. They really want to create the book. The animals will be CGI, but everything else will be real.

What kind of music do you listen to?
I started out as a punk, I used to play in bands. I was a weird punk, a psychedelic punk. My three favorite bands are the Beatles, the Buzzcocks, and the Sex Pistols. We used to play psychedelic music and speed it up really hard. Just psychedelic pop is my favorite music — stuff that lasts three minutes but transports my head.

Where will you be taking Batman?
To the grave. [laughs] There's a new Batmobile, and it's one of the greatest drawings ever — Daniel really surpassed himself on this. I kinda wanted to humanize the guy, 'cause he's been such a dick for awhile. But if you were Batman, you would be a dick, so that's fine. But underneath it all there's Bruce Wayne, this aristocratic kid who was just growing up and probably going to be a doctor, and then suddenly BANG BANG — so there are psychological weaknesses underneath that superman. It's a total deconstruction of Batman. I've just written the second part, where the bad guys actually take him down, and I'm thinking, "how's he going to get back from this?!" The way I'm doing this is possibly the most shocking Batman revelation in 70 years.

You mentioned putting a lot of autobiographical stuff in your comics. Have you ever considered doing a real autobiography?
Nah, you wouldn't believe it. It makes more sense in comics. They were always more like real life to me. David Lynch is more real life to me than any soap opera. All of our lives have weird shit. British kitchen sink cinema in the '60s was like that, about people having abortions and everything, but what they missed was the weird stuff — everyone has dreams and fantasies, everybody's mother's seen a ghost, everybody's got a weird witchy relative. Like — have you seen the South American dwarf on the internet? Have you guys seen that thing? That's the world we live in — filled with gaps and weirdness and strangeness. I'm just trying to be realistic. This is realism to me.

How did you get into comics?
I took some pages that I'd drawn to a convention in Glasgow — a convention just like this one — and I showed it to a bunch of guys doing a magazine called Near Myths, and they paid me for it! They paid me like 10 pounds a page. I was a poor kid, so to me that was like I was a millionaire. "Hey, I can do this, I can make money!" I thought, and then, twenty years later ... [laughs]

What do you think about the fact that you're a character in the DC Universe?
I think it's pretty cool. And they tried to kill me, but I just keep coming back!

When you were young, who did you want to be?
The Flash — he was the coolest. He was always getting turned into puppets and paving stones and stuff. It was like he was constantly tripping. Also, he's got the greatest suit — the way Carmine Infantino would draw his ass in the books! And the boots, those inch-thick treads. I still want those boots. If anyone here can make boots like that, please.

What do you find most enjoyable about your work? What are you reading right now?
The Filth is my favorite all-time thing I've written. It's the most consistent. It's really wrapped 'round its themes quite well. What am I reading — just superhero comics. I'm a boring guy. Geoff Johns' Green Lantern, Davis' Avengers. Just basic stuff. I'm just like everybody else — I like what's cool and popular.

What do you think of the different Batman movie versions?
Something like Batman can be interpreted so many ways — I love the Adam West Batman, and I love the Christian Bale Batman more than ever. That guy is good — I think that's the best Batman ever. Batman's so adaptable, you can do almost anything with it and it still works. I don't like every version. There are a lot of really good superhero movies, and a lot of really bad ones. [someone yells "Batman and Robin!"] Batman and Robin — Yeah, but the colors are brilliant! Just switch off your brain and think, "okay, I'm watching the gay Batman"!

I heard that Final Crisis begins with the funeral of Captain Marvel ...
Yeah, that's true. It was originally in a thing called "Hyper-Crisis" which I pitched years ago, at the time when I was leaving X-Men — not to say Marvel is dead, 'cause it's a colossal industry, but for me it was kind of over, so I wanted to do this thing where everyone was standing at Captain Marvel's grave. I wanted to do this thing with the Chronovore, where he had eaten the first years of the 21st century, so there was no 21st century, and Superman and his allies had to build a bridge of events across this abyss. It means you have to go tell Batman, "if you don't do this, we're all gonna die, 'cause we need this event to be rivet 205." It was kind of interesting, but I'm glad they went with Identity Crisis instead.

What are you doing next?
Next year I'm doing this thing called War-Cop, this other atomic bomb thing which is kind of psychadelic — back to being me again, a little bit.

Can this really be THE final crisis?
It's definitely the final crisis for me. But who knows? You cannot predict what these people will do in the future. If Final Crisis sells, then there will be more crises — there's no stopping it.

Your characters tend to escape the comic book and go into the real world. Does that happen in Final Crisis?
I was always fascinated with dimensions as a kid. I was five years old, trying to draw the fourth dimension: "I know I can draw a point, a line, a square, a cube ... arrgh!" There won't be any of that in Final Crisis, no. But the idea was: Superman, Batman, they're much more real than we are — created long before any of us were alive. Superman is still vital and young and communicating to people. When we're dead and gone and dust, there will probably still be a Superman. And the world that they inhabit is a two-dimensional world. You can pick up different comics from his whole span of existence, but it's all still there. I began to imagine: what if there were things above us, on a hyper-cube level, if there were people who could look down on us like we look down on Superman, and see the entirety of our lives? The same way we can see the entirety of lives in the second dimension? The experience of The Invisibles in Kathmandu was kind of an actualization of that reality — that there are things up there that can see the entirety of Earth time and Earth space like that. It's an ongoing fascination for me.

What happened in the last issue of The Invisibles? I've read it like 20 times and I have no idea.
Yes, you have. Of course, you have! What happened was that thing you read and all those words. That's what happened.

Despite spinning out of his Seven Soldiers series of books, Morrison wants readers to know that you don't need to know anything about what's come before when you pick up the first issue:

I like to write things so you don't have to read anything extra... Obviously, it sells more books for me, so yes, everyone should go out and buy 'Seven Soldiers.' Particularly 'Mister Miracle,' which was the most hated of the 'Seven Soldiers' books and sold least. Stuff like that has little clues in it, but honestly, you don't have to read anything else. 'Final Crisis' is like picking up a book. It's like you're picking up any science fiction book or a fantasy book and starting from page 1. Everything you need to know about the characters will be in the book.

What would it really be like if bad gods turned up on Earth? Because as this story opens, the war between Good and Evil has been won by the wrong side and Evil is now in control of the DC Universe. And then we see what happens next as a result of that...The Gods are here to destroy everything that we hold dear, everything that has meaning to us, everything that has value for us. They want to utterly crush the human species and reduce us all to slavery and that's as big a threat as it gets. We wanted to do a primal superhero myth that would pit absolute evil against pure good in a way you don't see much of in comics these days so it's the story of the DC universe facing its apocalypse and only Darkseid could cut it as the main villain.

If you've got a favorite character, I am sure he's in it. Supergirl and Mary Marvel are in it. They have a big climatic battle to decide how femininity should be portrayed in superhero comics!

All-Star Grant Morrison 1: Final Crisis [Comic Book Resources]

"Nothing Will Ever Be The Same Again!": What you have to remember at all times is that you should use this line, or variations on it, at all times when talking about your event, but fail to actually follow through on it. On the rare occasions when you appear to follow through, leave yourself at least two different ways of getting out of it if the fan backlash becomes too loud. Case in point: Marvel's Civil War can easily be undone if all of the pro-registration heroes are revealed to have been undercover aliens or brainwashed into becoming fascist dictators. Or, for that matter, if the Scarlet Witch re-writes reality, as per-House of M. Or Mephisto gets rid of another marriage. Or one of another hundred of reasons.

(The corollary of that statement is "What the hell happened?": There should be a point in the center of each event where even the most jaded fan feels the stirrings of something resembling hope that maybe, just maybe, this one will be different and actually mean something. A plot point, perhaps, which promises the potential of real change and growth for characters or a situation. This point should be immediately followed by a return to the status quo or as close to the status quo as is possible while still pretending to be something new. Think of the aftermath of Civil War where none of the "unregistered" heroes had to actually deal with the fact that they're theoretically being hunted down by government forces and breaking the law. Yes, I know that the New Avengers keep being threatened with arrest every couple of issues. But each time that they do, those threatening arrest always change their mind and let them walk away, so it really doesn't count.)

"No-one Gets Out Of Here Alive!": No "event" is complete without a superhero or two dying. What you have to remember is to make sure that the superhero dying is one who is well known enough for fans to feel something approaching nerd emotion but not popular enough to actually matter. See: Any of the body count in DC's Infinite Crisis. I mean, people got their arms ripped off and their heads punched off their bodies, and besides the fact that they were Teen Titans, I have no idea who they were. This idea ties in tightly with...

"From Out Of The Ashes... A Hero Reborn!": If you're killing off some characters, it's only fair to renew some trademarks at the same time. The ideal crossover book will set up multiple new comics to spin off, most if not all of which will be critical and commercial flops that ultimately sully whatever credibility your event will have. For example: Civil War spun out Heroes for Hire, World War Hulk spun out Warbound and Gamma Corps and Infinite Crisis spun out (deep breath) The Trials of Shazam, OMAC and a Creeper book that I can't even remember the name of.

The most important lesson to remember when crafting your ideal superhero crossover epic, of course, is "Everything Can Be Solved With Punching": Sure, it makes the rubes lay down their hard-earned dollars by having some kind of psychological hook to sell your story on ("The heroes of the DC Universe have ideological differences regarding killing!" "The heroes of the Marvel Universe don't know who to trust because of alien invaders!"), but just remember this: There is no problem that can't be solved with good, old-fashioned violence. And if there is, then that's not something that people will want to read (Who really remembers, for example, DC's Genesis, where superheroes tried to discover the shared root of their superpowers without punching, or The Final Night, where superheroes tried to relight the extinguished sun without punching? Exactly). Look at some recent greats: Infinite Crisis started with Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman having fallen out over the murder of a supervillain, and by the end had turned into everyone punching an evil Superboy. Result? Happy fans.

Civil War was initially about whether superheroes needed to be trained in order to be superheroes, but ended with Captain America whaling on Iron Man before losing when he was too much of a pussy to beat his privileged face into mush. Fans may have been upset when Cap lost, but it wasn't because he had the better argument - It was because he had given up punching. That's why he had to die. Almost everyone who has ever read a comic agrees that the greatest recent crossover was World War Hulk, because it started with punching, and then kept punching for each and every issue following. Yes, the conclusion may have disappointed, but that's only because they replaced punching with a deus ex machine laser beam that made the Hulk happy and non-Hulklike or something like that. If it had ended with someone punching the Hulk to death? Comics could've just given up as a medium right there and then; it wouldn't have gotten any better.

So now you know: Promise change, fail to deliver, kill off minor characters, service trademarks and have lots of punching. Follow those simple instructions and one day, you too may be the one person fans pretend could manage to kill Batman.

Marvel & DC - The Summer's Events In A Nutshell [Comic Nerd]

A series that will not only tie in with the eight-part Final Crisis series that runs the entirety of DC history from the first boy on Earth to the last (Yes, Anthro and Kamandi will both appear), but also celebrate the Legion's 50th anniversary and sort out once and for all what's going on with all those multiple versions of the same characters may look like a tall order for most people, considering that that would mean upwards of 50 characters to deal with. Unless, apparently, you're Geoff Johns:

[T]here's a focus on a group of characters. Certain characters will really get the spotlight. A lot of other characters will be in the background. That's what George [Perez, artist on the series as well as 1980s "everyone in the DC universe" series Crisis on Infinite Earths] does. When you have these big epics and you have dozens and dozens of characters, it can get overwhelming, but there's a focus on a group of characters that have their goals and missions that really represent to me the heart of the Legion. And those characters will be getting most of the attention. But everybody will be in there. Just about everybody.

[Y]ou don't have to know anything before you read it. This is Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes vs. Superboy-Prime and the Legion of Super-Villains... [My] goal is to have people cheering for these characters. Some people don't know the Legion yet. Some people don't see the value in the Legion yet. My goal is to have them cheering for them by the end of this. And if you already do know the Legion, you're going to cheer louder.

Legion of 3 Worlds, 1: Geoff Johns [Newsarama]

In response to rumors about DC instituting a new zero-tolerance policy for creators who break deadlines, DiDio dropped his usual huckster persona to talk about the problems that the company faces with late books. Admitting that the "reality is, a lot of people can't meet the monthly schedule," he said that DC's aim was to make sure that books shipped in a timely manner:

We had a month where we didn't put any Superman books out because they were all late... In our minds, that was inexcusable.

Asked to "cut back on killing and maiming young heroes" in their comics, VP of Sales responded that "Sidekicks die!" should be the ad copy for upcoming comics. DiDio admitted that it was a concern, and said that they'd try to cease with the teenage torture. On a related topic, the panel all agreed that they didn't want to pull back on teenage suffering of the emotional type, with writer Judd Winick pointing out that "they can't all be happy, who the hell's gonna buy that?"

The amount of potential deaths was also a topic for discussion when it came down to DC's big summer series, Final Crisis. When asked if there would be a limit to the amount of deaths happening in that series, DiDio said that he couldn't promise anything, and announced the official tagline for the series for the first time: "It's the day evil wins." We also found out that "The Great Disaster" that's been the plot McGuffin of Countdown to Final Crisis will happen within the pages of Countdown (and may include a giant turtle version of Jimmy Olsen fighting New God Darkseid), and that the Final Crisis is something altogether different that may spell doom for the multiverse: "It's called Final Crisis for a reason," DiDio said.

Before that happens, fans can expect to see Power Girl go home to Earth-2 in the pages of Justice Society of America in a way that may lead