Let's quickly get the superhero stuff out of the way, shall we? DC is launching a new Azrael series, mixing Batman and The DaVinci Code for a new religious hero to light Gotham's streets. Or something.

DC is also putting out a hardcover collection of the much-delayed, but much-awesome Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds series, that redefined the Legion of Super-Heroes franchise at least until the next reboot.

Marvel sees that collection and raises Captain America: Road to Reborn, another hardcover collection, this time of the Cap issues leading up to Steve Rogers' return. Marvel also offers Dark Wolverine Vol. 1: The Prince, a collection of the first solo stories starring Wolverine's bastard (in many senses of the word) son, and the special issue Dark Reign: The List - Hulk, in which gamma irradiated monsters come face to face with Marvel's current New World Order (I predict smashing).

Keeping outside of monsters for the time being, Nexus: Space Opera and Star Trek: Mission's End offer your fill of interstellar drama for the week, with the former bringing back the cult space cop superhero from its 1980s indie comic heyday and the latter offering a take on the final days of James Kirk's original five-year mission. Sticking with movies, the first issue of GI Joe Movie: Snake Eyes lets Ray Park, the movie's own silent ninja, co-write a story about his own character.

But none of those, as fine as they are - and Nexus and Star Trek are both particularly fine - hold a candle to Image Comics' reissue of Five Fists of Science, Matt Fraction and Steven Saunders' alternate-history tale of Twain and Tesla teaming up to save the world from forces more ancient and deadly than many could imagine. If ever there was a book I could eagerly recommend to the majority of io9 readers, it'd be this one. Go forth and buy.

Oh, but not yet. We've still got the Hallowe'enish books to go! You know about Angel Vs. Frankenstein after yesterday's preview, but IDW also has Frankenstein's Mobster, a pun-laden, funny gangster romp recasting of Mary Shelley's misunderstood monster, and Spike Omnibus, a collection of stories about Joss Whedon's other vampire with a soul, for horror fans this week.

Marvel, meanwhile, has the first issue of The Stand: Soul Survivors, a new series adapting part of the Stephen King novel, and DC are putting out their annual DC Universe Hallowe'en Special filled with spooky shorts starring superhero favorites. 'Tis the season, after all.

Whether you're looking for things going bump in the night, or giant steampunk inventions designed to scare the world into peace, you'll be able to find it on this week's shipping list from Diamond Distributors, and then inside your local comic store. But, seriously: At least leaf through Five Fists Of Science. You'll thank me afterwards.

The Mole Man
The Fantastic Four's first villain, the Mole Man's modus operandi switched up from attacking humanity because they weren't monsters to one of ecological conservation, trying to get humanity to leave Monster Island alone and stop bringing the monsters therein to the brink to extinction. Who can't get behind that? He's like a shorter, uglier Al Gore who just happens to command an army of near-unstoppable genetic accidents. If we just let him win, who knows what kind of era of ecological paradise we could be letting ourselves in for?

Zoom
The second Reverse-Flash, Hunter Zolomon was a former police criminal psychologist who became unstuck in time and mind after an accident involving the Flash's Cosmic Treadmill. Obsessed with making heroes "better" by forcing personal tragedies on them so that they'll try harder, he's the poster boy for tough love... But he really is trying to make the world a better place, albeit in a twisted manner. Instead of beating him up for that, why not try and just convince him to soften his methods and let him run free? What's the worst that could happen? Well, besides him trying to kill your family as motivation, of course.

Lex Luthor
For years, Lex has been telling us that, if Superman would just get out of the way, he's turn the world into a beautiful utopia, curing diseases and ending all problems with science. Hell, he's even managed to cure cancer before, even if it was just a ploy to lure Superman into a false sense of security. All I'm saying is this: Would Superman really mind that much if we just asked him to step aside for a bit and let Lex run things his way? If nothing else, the recent Superman/Batman: Public Enemies movie suggested that he could sort out this whole financial disaster thing within weeks...

Magneto
All he wants to do is end genetic persecution! Is that really so wrong? Sure, you can argue with his ways of going about it - I don't think anyone here would be fully supportive of his controversial "enslave and destroy the human race" agenda - but the man's lived through Nazi concentration camps, been acquitted by an international court of evildoing and, if nothing else, is fully dedicated to his beliefs. Is there really any proof that a world controlled by Magneto wouldn't be one less filled with hate? We don't think so... even if it's because most of us would be dead.

Doctor Doom
Those unconvinced of Victor Von Doom's leadership potential need only look to his kingdom of Latveria for the proof: Crime is nearly non-existent! Illness equally so! And the people love their leader (Admittedly, because to admit otherwise may result in death, but still: Details, people). Sure, evidence also points to our having to put up with a merciless police force of Doombots and having to dress and act like Eastern European villagers from the late 19th century, but aren't those prices we're willing to pay for a reduction in crime and illness? Admit it: Maybe we could all benefit from being ruled by an iron (clad) hand or two.

Darkseid
Last year's Final Crisis showed a world under self-styled Ultimate God of Evil Darkseid's will-sapping regime, and aside from the complete absence of free will and slow devolution of the planet into a red-skied radioactive wasteland patrolled by mutated dogs and men with tiger heads, we can't help but notice that those submitting to the Anti-Life Equation seemed much less in emotional turmoil or upset about the direction that their lives had taken - In fact, they seemed confident and assured, unlike those who'd chosen to resist. And, yes; those who resisted eventually assisted in the recreation of existence itself, but still. Isn't having even will-sapped piece of mind about your place in the world worth some sacrifice?

Universo
Here's one we know works from experience. Futuristic hypnotist Universo managed to hoodwink the entire planet under his command in the 1987 Legion of Super-Heroes storyline "The Universo Project," and the result was a peaceful planet where superheroes weren't needed at all. Easily the best case scenario we've seen, it didn't even involve Darkseid-esque worldwide mind control - Only figures of authority (and some superheroes) were hypnotized, meaning that the common man and woman would happily have freedom to toil and work for The Man as usual, without knowing that it was a different The Man all along. Win win!

For almost as long as there have been superheroes, there have been superheroes who were intended to be patriotic figures representing American values by offering up inspirational speeches, standing up for the little guy and socking Hitler in the jaw whenever possible. Considering the popularity of the medium during the Second World War, it's easy to see why Real American Heroes became so prevalent, even if they've failed to find so easy a purpose ever since (Although trying to do so has produced such great stories - and such sly commentary as Captain America's 1970s villains, the Committee to Regain America's Principles... or CRAP, for short). But this isn't a day to think about troubled times... so let's salute the brave, bold and... others... of America's Fictional Finest.

The Classics
Captain America
Still the best of all of America's superheroes - or, at least, the only one who's really weathered the years and stayed in print the longest. Sure, there was that whole period he disappeared after the War, but that's because he was frozen in a block of ice. Who would've wanted to have read that month after month?

Uncle Sam
Who could be more patriotic than Captain America? Well, how about Uncle Sam himself? Oh, alright; this character, created by The Spirit's Will Eisner, wasn't the Uncle Sam, but instead the resurrected spirit of a Revolutionary War-era soldier who mystically returns in America's various hours of need, but still. Look at that beard and wonder just who could argue?

The Shield
Created more than a year before Captain America, Archie Comics' super soldier patriot may not have the name recognition of Marvel's counterpart, but DC Comics is doubtlessly hoping that J. Michael Straczynski's upcoming revival of the superpowered military man will change all of that.

The Fighting Yank
A character so wonderfully named, he's been revived not once but twice in recent years, and by no less than Alan Moore (in a 2001 issue of his America's Best Comics series Tom Strong) and Alex Ross (in his ongoing Project Superpowers series). But who could resist the lure of a man haunted by the ghost of his War of Independence-era ancestor who fights for his country's honor?

Liberty Belle
What are the odds that a woman could have a spiritual connection with the Liberty Bell so strong that it gives her superpowers and the ability to fight Nazis? if you're a comic book character from the 1940s, apparently they'd be good enough for that character's daughter to take on the same costumed identity and fight crime with the Justice Society today.

The Forgotten Heroes
Mr. America/Americommando
Reason #1 to love this 1941 superhero: His secret identity is a Texan oilman out for revenge against the Nazis. Reason #2: His sidekick's name was "Fatman." Reason #3: His Nazi-fighting technique? Dying his hair black and whipping his enemies until they surrender. Why is this character not getting multiple movies and fan worship as we speak?

Miss America
Sadly unrelated to the above, Miss America gained her powers from a dream where the Statue of Liberty came to life and gave them to her, and thankfully kept up that level of weirdness all the way through her career, whether it was faking her own aging process in order to live a quiet life or making a new body for herself from space debris and renaming herself Miss Cosmos. There's something admirable about that kind of ingenuity, wouldn't you agree?

USAgent
A much more recent patriotic hero than most, John Walker hails from the 1980s and an unsuccessful stint as a replacement for Captain America that accidentally led to his parents' death. His success as a character is perhaps best defined by the fact that he - an American-themed hero with a very American name - was transplanted to Canada by Marvel in a desperate attempt to make him a success. It failed.

American Eagle
Marvel Comics' 1981 attempt at inclusiveness resulted in this Native American hero, Jason Strongbow, whose generic origin story (Gained powers in accident caused by supervillain, seeking revenge for a dead brother) and lazy stereotypical costume didn't hint at the potential that's slowly being unlocked by more recent creators in series like Thunderbolts and War Machine.

Star-Spangled Kid
DC Comics keep trying with this name, even if the characters keep getting popular enough to outgrow it; the first SSK became Infinity Inc.'s Skyman in the 1980s, and the second became the Justice Society of America's Stargirl. Luckily, we now apparently have a third in the Teen Titans franchise, even if she does happen to be martian. Does an alien really count as star-spangled?

The Crazy Ones
The Comedian
Sure, there may be nothing particularly American about his name - or even his outfit, most of the time - but there's no doubting that Alan Moore's Watchmen character served his country - or more accurately, his country's government - better than most superheroes. Not enough to stop himself getting thrown out a window, sure, but them's the breaks.

Nuke
Frank Miller's intentionally-failed attempt to repeat the Captain America experiment may have seemed slightly out of place in the classic "Born Again" Daredevil storyline, but there's no denying that his drug-fueled, crazed Vietnam-flashback rantings made him a memorable indictment of mindless patriotism in Reagan's America.

Superpatriot
An old-school superhero captured, made into a cyborg and going insane and murderous in the process? Erik Larsen's quasi-parody may have a history that's as ridiculous as it is eventful - and that's before you've gotten to the kids he didn't remember having and his half-martian grandchild - but we're choosing to look at him as a man who's just made a few mistakes, is all.

Major Victory
Leader of conservative supergroup the Force of July - Get it? - this DC Comics character was everything some would want in a true American hero: Charismatic, attractive, arrogant and racist as all get out. Never given to complex characterization, the character's descent into political parody continued when he joined a new corporate superteam called the Captains of Industry - Get it? - before, thankfully, dying.

Captain America
Yeah, I know; Steve Rogers isn't crazy, right? But his retconned 1950s replacement most definitely was. After all, how else would you describe a man whose take on American values was deemed acceptable by Nazi supervillain the Red Skull on more than one occasion? Yes, he may think he was a patriot - and, thanks to cosmetic surgery, he even looks exactly identical to the original Cap - but this guy is not the kind of hero you want in your corner.

WTF?
Yank & Doodle
Yes, it's a crime-fighting duo called Yank and Doodle. Even during their heyday of the 1940s, there's no way that kids didn't find these two America-loving teenagers more than a little dumb. Surprisingly, they've just been revived in Dynamite's Project Superpowers series... Here's hoping that new names are forthcoming.

Yankee Poodle
Well, what else would you call the world's most patriotic crime-fighting dog? Part of DC Comics' Zoo Crew, Poodle isn't even the most America-centric of the team... That'd be American Eagle. Who, you guessed it, is an actual Eagle. Stunningly, thanks to Final Crisis, these characters are officially part of DC's main continuity these days.

American Maid
Armed with a boomerang tiara and her quick wits, The Tick's occasional partner in crimefighting stands out as being probably the most capable of all the characters in the comic/show - Dressed like Lady Liberty and working for the US government more often than not, evil will never get away with it as long as she's around.

The First American and US Angel
Alan Moore's turn of the millennium take on the idea of patriotic comic characters was this unusual duo - An overweight, incompetent superhero (The latest in a long line of First Americans) and the former stripper who dreams of taking his place. Social satire, or serious commentary on the impotence of American masculinity in the face of an increasingly revelatory society obsessed with surface glamor above all? You be the judge. But it's not the latter.

US 1
If a trucker who can pick up CB transmissions thanks to the metal plate in his head, and then gets kidnapped by aliens before opening an intergalactic diner in space doesn't sound like the very personification of the American Dream to you, then there's only one explanation: You're not an American in the first place. But even that doesn't stop us from wishing you a happy Independence Day... even if it was independence from you that's being celebrated in the first place.

Taken as individual issues during their initial release, Final Crisis felt weirdly insubstantial, as if they needed to be experienced as a whole to gain the weight that you were somehow convinced that they secretly had, hidden away somewhere - and, to an extent, that's true... It's just that the whole they need isn't the whole that DC's new collected edition gives to you. Yes, the handsome $29.99 edition collects all of the Grant Morrison-written issues of the storyline, and puts them all in chronological order, but in doing so it entirely disrupts the experience of reading either the core Final Crisis storyline or the Superman Beyond tie-in series that's also included here (There's a third story, the one issue Submit, but the less said about that, the better; when placed beside the other stories, it feels even more unnecessary and inconsequential than it did originally).

The plot of Final Crisis, for those who missed the original serialization, is essentially that Earth is invaded by Darkseid and his minions, the few remaining "New Gods" from the 1970s Fourth World comics by comic great Jack Kirby, and that Darkseid takes over the world, eradicates free will, and in doing so, brings about the end of everything. Included within this are sequences about divine intervention bringing fire to humanity, Superman transcending reality to save the love of his life and the universe - in that order - the return of the Flash and the death of Batman, amongst many others, and if that description makes it seem very scattered and overly busy, then that's not entirely an unfair complaint (Add in that deadlines on the original publication meant that multiple artists draw the core Final Crisis series, and that their styles aren't always a good match for each other, and you have another complication, although I admit that this particular one didn't bother me at all).

Sadly, one of the things that saved the series in its original format - the consistency of tone, despite the (intentionally) choppy storytelling - is sacrificed here, as Final Crisis itself takes a break after three issues for the Submit and Superman Beyond issues; while Submit is in keeping with the increasingly bleak, disturbing feel of Crisis, Superman Beyond is a much more inspirational story, and ends with a moment of triumph entirely at odds with the continuation of Crisis that immediately follows (In its original release, Superman Beyond's conclusion was released concurrently with the final episode of Crisis, which makes more sense, tonally); reading the collection straight through, there's a wrench going into, and coming out of, Beyond that damages the coherency of the overall story in a way that it struggles to recover from for a long time afterwards.

Like the majority of Morrison's superhero work, this isn't a story that will satisfy fans of the literal; it's very much an allegorical, lyrical story (Literally, on that last point, by the time you reach Darkseid's final confrontation with Superman), with narrative clarity sacrificed on occasion for artistic effect - It's very much a story you feel as much as anything, and because of that, re-reading it becomes a strange celebration of the successful moments with an increasing awareness of its faults; you notice the plots that disappear, or moments that defy sense more clearly, but throughout the entire thing, there's something so ambitious and self-aware about its own superhero comic nature that you can't help but be won over at times nonetheless (The amount of times may rely on how much you enjoy the melodramatic dialogue patterned after Jack Kirby's, or the importance of the spectacle over the minutiae, however). Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream, as one of his heroes once advised, and you'll be fine.

(A word or two about the art: Morrison has spoken, since the series ended, about the shift from original artist JG Jones to Doug Mahnke, who went from the Superman Beyond two-parter to the final chapter of Final Crisis, saying that he felt that the change was organic, and that Mahnke's art suits the more dynamic conclusion as much as Jones' more realistic style suited the downbeat, mundane beginning. He's right, and there are scenes at the end that I can't imagine working under Jones' more photo-realism-tinged brushwork. Although the discontinuity between the artists - and additional artists Carlos Pacheco and Marcos Rudy, lending hands in between - is the kind of thing that'll annoy some purists who'd rather imagine what could have been, everyone involved in the art in this collection offers amazing work, bringing their own strengths to the page without overshadowing anyone else, and Alex Sinclair's coloring throughout manages to hold everything together without becoming too obvious on the page.)

It's difficult to wholeheartedly recommend Final Crisis, especially in this particular form; I wish that they'd placed Superman Beyond later in the collection (Between the fifth and sixth issues of Crisis, perhaps), and can't help but feel that pushing the "Director's Cut" extra material of the original script to Final Crisis #1 to the paperback Final Crisis Companion is a cynical marketing move that lessens this collection, as is the weird inclusion of only a few pages of the Final Crisis Sketchbook preview, which reads as if they just needed some filler material to close out the book and grabbed some pages at random. It's certainly not anyone involved's best work, nor even Morrison's best superhero work (His Seven Soldiers cycle is much, much more successful, although the Mister Miracle arc pretty much belongs at the opening of this story). But, at the same time, there's enough of interest, and enough raw ambition and unfulfilled potential, here that I can't help but feel as if it's something approaching a (at times severly) flawed masterpiece. It's a story, and a collection, that will entertain, inspire, frustrate and potentially even move you, and for that alone, I find myself loving it, even if it's not what it could have - and should have - been.

Final Crisis is released today, and available in all good - and some evil - comic book stores.

Dipping our collective toes into the cross-media area of the pool for awhile, Doctor Who: Autopia is a new one-off story to keep you in the Who mood while you're waiting for The Waters of Mars. Also, Joss Whedon's Runaways run gets a cheap ($9.99 for six issues!) collection as Runaways: Dead End Kids Digest.

If you're looking for a new take on old science fiction tropes, the second series of Warren Ellis' Anna Mercury launches with a different look at the multiverse. And Marc Guggenheim's Resurrection also launches a second series, letting you return to an Earth post-alien invasion, where no-one is quite sure what kind of world they're living in any more.

For those needing their superhero fix, DC's Red Robin takes Tim Drake - the former Robin - off around the world as he tries to prove that Bruce Wayne isn't as dead as many people think he is. (Go, Tim! But you may need a time machine before you're finished!) And you can find out Bruce's true fate in the hardcover collection of Final Crisis (and pick up some other stories from the same era in the Final Crisis Companion coming out the same day).

Marvel, meanwhile, are indulging a Chris Claremont jones, with the X-Men: The End Trilogy collection of Claremont's 18-issue finale to the franchise. (Be warned: He spun another series out of it, so it's not a final finale.) There's also the first issue of X-Men Forever, a new series that lets Claremont pretend that he never stopped writing the characters in 1991, by ignoring every story that came afterwards. If you'd like something less wordy and more bloody, Christos Gage's Absolution offers up another take on the "When a superhero crosses the moral line and decides that doing so was kind of fun" story.

But let's face it; everything else this week may pale beside the release of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan #1, a movie adaptation 27 years in the making (Yes, the movie was that long ago); IDW, realizing that STII was the one movie that had never been made into a comic, have finally fulfilled someone's dreams and offered a chance to see Spock die again.

But if you'd rather watch something come back to life, Dynamite's Buck Rogers #1 brings back the classic pulp hero for an all-new audience, offering space thrills and even some spills along the way. But sadly, no Twiki.

All of these books - and many more, as evidenced in this week's shipping list - can be found at your local comic store, which can be found using the Comic Shop Locator. Just do us a favor and spend a quiet moment when ringing up your week's purchases for the loss of Buck's annoying metallic friend. Bidi bidi bye, old buddy.

Even before most people had heard of Erwin Schrödinger, we knew that there were plenty other Earths out there; we'd seen Star Trek's Mr. Spock with a goatee, or watched the Justice League and Justice Society meet up thanks to a crystal ball. I've already written about my undying love for the concept, and I'm not alone; sci-fi loves to offer glimpses of the roads less taken, whether they're character-based or somewhat more... epic. Consider the following while planning a summer trip to another world:

What Mad Universe
If you're looking to get away from it all, you could do much worse than decide to take a break on the parallel Earth from Fredric Brown's 1949 novel. Admittedly, you'd have to avoid being accused of being an alien spy when you try to spend your money, but isn't that a chance you'd want to pay to visit a world where spaceflight was accidentally discovered in 1903, and astronauts are pin-up girls?

Eye in the Sky
Of course, you'd have to be careful of your own subconscious if travel to parallel Earths followed the rules of Philip K. Dick's 1957 novel, where alternate realities were entirely subjective manifestations of your own state of mind. Unless, of course, your state of mind was completely relaxed because you're going on vacation. Oh, the tangled web we weave...

Doppelgänger/Journey To The Far End Of The Sun
Who doesn't wish that scientists could still discover a parallel Earth on the opposite side of the sun, as in this classic 1969 movie written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, creators of Thunderbirds, UFO and Space: 1999? The idea was recycled three years later in Marvel Comics' Warlock stories (and later in their Heroes Reborn arc), but Doppelgänger's world - where everything is reversed from ours, including writing, thanks to the wonders of flipping film - remains the one to beat. Imagine getting away from it all in a world where everything is backwards.

The Eternal Champion
Michael Moorcock's Multiverse works slightly differently than most, in that each world includes facets of people, instead of multiple versions of the same people, and each world may be vastly different from the one you're familar with. This may be a plus for your holiday, of course; experience something entirely new, and be less likely to run across a more successful, happier and healthier version of yourself in the process. (Much more traditionally multiversual, but feeling like it should be mentioned in the same breath as Jerry Cornelius: Matt Fraction's comic Casanova, where the hero is trapped in a parallel Earth, replacing the him that had died there.)

Star Trek
With this summer's movie, Starfleet's finest have finally come up with a parallel timeline (including an Earth, so it counts, thank you very much) that measures up to the show's classic Mirror Universe. Out of all the revamps and reboots that we've seen, this is one of the few that made the choice to make the revamp the center of the story and patiently explain that history may have been changed, but all that did was create a new parallel timeline. Pandering to the original show's fanbase? Sure - but doing so in such a way that it doesn't stop the movie for everyone else. Yes, the crew of the Enterprise have played around in the timestream many of times, but the new Movie-Earth lines up so well with Mirror-Earth and OriginalSeries-Earth that it's really only a matter of time before some comic or novel seeks to cross them all over in a Spock-centric altern-orgy, and I for one can't wait. As it is, Trek doesn't just offer one utopian future, but two; your choice depends on just how much time you feel like you want to spend with William Shatner.

Fringe


What was the ingredient that made this show more than just an X-Files wannabe with an eccentric scientist and a cow? The sudden, surprise introduction to a war with a parallel Earth (complete with explanation of the multiverse concept for newbies, above). Admittedly, the glimpses we've seen of the alternate Fringe world(s?) haven't been especially alluring to those seeking a quiet getaway - It all seems to be explosions, Charlies with scars and grim skies, unless you're in a shining New York with multiverse magnet Leonard Nimoy and his newspapers that mention JFK still being alive (Maybe we should call this parallel Earth-StereotypicalRightWingViewOfADemocraticFantasy?) - but there's a downside to every vacation spot.

Sliders


Like Quantum Leap (or, if your tastes run to a slightly later vintage, The Time Tunnel) before it, Sliders took the idea of characters just trying to get back home and ran with it... Ran across the multiverse, that is (A similar idea was behind the earlier, and much less successful Otherworld television series from the mid-80s). Five seasons of hopping between Parallel Earth San Franciscos on a television show budget demonstrated a wide variety of possible alternate worlds out there, including an Earth where Britain won the Revolutionary War leading to the British States of America, an Earth where a zombie plague has been unleashed, an Earth where dinosaurs are still alive, and an Earth where Ancient Egyptian is the dominant culture. Sadly, they didn't find an Earth without shitty CGI effects, but it was the 1990s. As a model for how to spend your summer, I'm torn whether or not to recommend it. Maybe you should ask yourself how much you really love San Francisco.

DC Comics
Less one potential getaway than a superpowered version of Orbitz, DC's superhero line loves the idea of a multiverse like almost none other; their original multiverse came from the company trying to come up with ways of haphazardly adding characters from other publishers without confusing things too much as much as anything, but the current version is much more structured... and finite. For one thing, there are "only" 52 Earths, now. Here are the ones we know about. Pick your favorite:

Earth 0 is the "core" Earth, the one that all "regular" stories take place on and - more importantly for the purposes of this post - the one that was the basis for the 51 alternate Earths that are known to exist within DC's current multiverse. Of those 51, the following have been identified:
Earth-1 is, essentially, the Earth that most comic fans grew up reading about - Think of it as "Earth Super Friends."
Earth-2 is an Earth that missed out on all of the Silver Age of comics, so there's no Hal Jordan Green Lantern (or Green Lantern Corps at all, for that matter), nor a Barry Allen, Wally West or Bart Allen Flash. For all intents and purposes, it's the same as DC's original Earth-2.
Earth-3 is an Earth of reversed moralities - the Justice League is the Crime Syndicate, Clark Kent is the villainous Ultraman, Lex Luthor is a superhero, and so on.
Earth-4 is as close to Earth Watchmen as you're likely to get outside of the Watchmen series; it's an Earth where only the Carlton characters who inspired Moore and Gibbons' series exist.
Earth-5 is an Earth where the only superheroes are Captain Marvel and his associated Shazam Family of characters.
Earth-6, Earth-7, Earth-32, Earth-37, Earth-38, and Earth-39 are all Earths where the variations are fairly minor, and very continuity based:"What if Batman became Green Lantern?" - That kind of thing.
Earth-8 is a parody of Marvel Comics' Ultimate Earth, where the Avengers are represented by "The Meta Militia."
Earth-9 is the home to the Tangent Comics characters, who bear the same names as the more familiar characters, but are in all other respects different.
Earth-10 is a world where the Nazis won World War II, and home to the guilt-ridden super-Nazi Uberman.
Earth-11 is an Earth where genders are reversed, so you have Superwoman, Batwoman and Wonderman instead of the more familiar versions of the characters.
Earth-12 is an Earth you're very familiar with; it's officially the world of Batman Beyond, which also means that it's the parallel Earth where all the Bruce Timm DC cartoons took place.
Earth-13 is the Earth where many of DC's Vertigo line apparently occurs.
Earth-15 used to be an Earth where all crime had been eliminated by particularly successful superheroes... but then it was destroyed by Superboy Prime, just to prove how much of an asshole he can be. Of course, it theoretically was rebuilt
Earth-16 is the home planet of the Super-Sons, AKA Batman Junior and Superman Junior. Yes, that's right; Superman and Batman got married (not to each other), had sons, and named them after themselves. Don't ask.
Earth-17 is a post-apocalyptic Earth where nuclear apes rule. I promise you, I'm not making this up.
Earth-18 is an Earth where the world is still in Wild West times, complete with cowboy versions of the Justice League.
Earth-19 is an Earth where the world is still in Victorian times, complete with a Batman who has hunted down Jack the Ripper.
Earth-20 is "Pulp-Earth" - essentially, a parallel world where everything is as if it was a pulp novel.
Earth-21 is the Earth from the wonderful DC: The New Frontier series by Darwyn Cooke.
Earth-22 is the Earth from Kingdom Come, Alex Ross and Mark Waid's cautionary tale about why superheroes can't save the world, except for when they can.
Earth-26 is an Earth of smart, talking animals; it was "rendered uninhabitable" during 2007's Captain Carrot And The Final Ark series because funny animal books apparently are silly and not what the audience wants, but then reconstituted at the end of Final Crisis.
Earth-30 is the Earth from Red Son, where Superman landed in communist Russia.
Earth-31 is the Earth from The Dark Knight Returns series, so it's all mutants with sharp teeth and old grumpy Batman.
Earth-33 is an Earth where all of the familiar superheroes are now suddenly (magically, one might say) magicians, with names like "Batmage" and "Lady Flash, Keeper Of The Speed Force."
Earth-34 is an Earth where the British Empire still exists, and is ruled by a tyrannical despot called King Jack.
Earth-40 is an Earth where there are no public superheroes, just superpowered spies who work for the government. Which, if nothing else, would make James Bond movies more fun.
Earth-43 is a parallel Earth plagued by vampires, who have managed to turn Batman into one of their number. There are all manner of other mythical beasts as well, so this is pretty much "Horror Earth".
Earth-44 is Robot Earth; the main superheroes of this Earth are robotic versions of the Justice League.
Earth-48 is, unlike Earths 18 and 19, an Earth far in the future, where humanity is extinct after an intergalactic war has wiped out all native life on the planet.
Earth-50 is the Earth of DC's Wildstorm line. Again, post-apocalyptic, currently.
Earth-51 is, post-Final Crisis, the home to all of Jack Kirby's creations for DC Comics, following it having been yet another post-apocalyptic Earth. At least this one was repurposed for something constructive.

(There are also some Non-Numbered Earths (or, to be completely correct, Earths we don't know the numbers of yet), which include an Earth where Superman and Wonder Woman are black, an Earth where everyone resembles a manga character, and an Earth "just like our own" where superheroes are just the stuff of fiction.)

Charlie Jade

The 2005 South African/Canadian co-production gave us a glimpse at the parallel Earth you should really try to spend some time in: the Gammaverse, where everything is perfect, humanity has worked out how not to squander our resources, and you'll have no trouble getting a hotel room at an affordable rate. Just remember to ignore any offer of a budget weekend in the Alphaverse; it may sound exciting ("Alpha" just sounds good in general, right?), but it's pretty much the hellhole that give you anecdotes but also various forms of disease during your short stay. And if someone suggests a stay in the Betaverse, remind them that that's where you already live and go find a new travel agent. (For more class-based alternate worlds, Warren Ellis' Anna Mercury may be what you're looking for.)

Additional research and reporting by Sarah Hope Williams.

Most Excellent Superbat - or @mosexsbat, if you want to speak Tweet - is a member of the Super Young Team, who made their first appearances in last year's Final Crisis series from DC Comics, before spinning out into their own series this week, Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance... which, instead of being filled with traditional narration, is filled with Tweetover narration, including "These clubbers don't even have superpowers. Worthless" and "I don't believe in ghosts" (followed by "But I'm also the sanest superhero I know").

Of course, you can't mention Twitter in a story without making sure that the thing exists in real life, and sure enough here it is, although the entries don't match up yet. As Dance continues to satirize the commodification of superheroes and pop culture, here's hoping that Superbat's Tweet stream continues to satirize multimedia cross-platform promotion... or at least spoil upcoming stories for us.

Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #1 [DC Comics]

Actually, even before we get to that masterpiece, there are a few interesting oddities hitting stores this week. DC is launching the first of their Final Crisis spin-offs, the wonderfully bad-mooded Final Crisis Aftermath: Run, as well as the long-awaited first issue of Power Girl's solo series.

Meanwhile, Marvel revives The New Mutants for the first issue of their brand new series. (Also, Brian Michael Bendis' Alias gets a paperback reissue; if you haven't looked at his mature-readers private detective take on the Marvel Universe yet, it's worth checking out).

Elsewhere, you can compare the faces of horror comics through the years; Dark Horse puts out some classics with their first Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery hardcover, while Todd McFarlane's Spawn returns to its roots with an Origins collection. The modern face? Well, that comes from the wonderfully-named Jesus Hates Zombies: Lincoln Hates Werewolves, something sure to make at least one reader very happy (Hello, Bonnie!).

Otherwise, though, it really is all about Plan 9 From Space Strikes Again. Quite why anyone thought that the original movie needed a sequel, I'm not quite sure, but it's now got one in the form of this $3.99 special that promises zombies, aliens and shadowy government conspiracies... and former professional wrestlers, of course. If nothing else, you know that curiosity will make you want to take a look.

As usual, a full list of all comics reaching stores can be found here, and your closest comic store can be found by clicking here, although, of course, your iPhone could also tell you, if you want. Just remember Ed Wood when you visit.

The core problem with Dollhouse, I decided, isn't that it's not a good idea, or even a good take on a good idea (although I'll leave you all to discuss that latter one); it's that it's not an idea that can sustain itself as an ongoing television show. Either we're supposed to swallow that Echo (a) tends to break down a lot on missions, (b) tends to be given missions that are especially exciting and/or violent and (c) this is all apparently standard-operating procedure, considering the fact that, for all the weekly back-at-the-office in-fighting scenes, Echo still gets sent out on missions that will go wrong and involve her breaking down in some way week after week... or we're supposed to believe that all of this is going somewhere. The problem is, the only somewhere it can go that could be satisfying for the audience involves Echo remembering/realizing who and what she is and doing something about it, and in the most important sense - no matter what the outcome of that may be - that finishes the story. Yes, the series can continue, obviously, whether Echo suddenly has self-awareness and can access all these different personalities, or whether she gets reset, or the series shifts onto other characters... but the story we're all watching now will be finished. Same thing with the Ballard subplot - either he finds out that the Dollhouse exists, finishing the story, or he doesn't, and he's an idiot.

Dollhouse, ironically enough considering the ratings, may be too finite a story for its own good as a Friday night Fox show. For it to have the depth and weight that Whedon (and the show's fans, for that matter) think it has, it's not enough to continually show the sexism and everyday abuse that surrounds us, week after week - Surely, at some point of doing only that, the show stops being an ironic commenter on that and simply complicit in it? - but, instead, come to some kind of conclusion about it... but can it really do so in the format it's in?

Watching the show, I'm reminded of comic writer and editor Mark Waid's commentary about DC Comics' Final Crisis series:

I know that sounds like I'm splitting hairs, but I promise I'm not. I felt the same way about FC that a lot of people seemed to—I tried to follow it from issue to issue and my head hurt. A lot. And I was confused and baffled by the series. BUT—when I read it all in one sitting, I got it. Its ideas were clear to me (though they required some mental work from me, which is fine—so do stories spanning the scale of "literature" from James Joyce to J.G. Ballard to last Friday's episode of Battlestar), and I thought they were stunningly innovative and clever and, most importantly, were fresh and unlike anything else I'm gonna get from a random superhero comic... I maintain that the story itself is pretty comprehensible. Should it not have taken the form of a seven-issue series, then? In retrospect, probably not. In an entire lifetime of reading comics, I've never experienced a disconnect so astounding as what I got out of reading it as it came out versus what I got out of reading it straight through. That alone fascinates me and is something worth studying.

So is Dollhouse the Final Crisis of television; something that can't fully be appreciated until it's over? And if so, shouldn't it really be a movie...?

I'm only semi-joking with that last question. With Watchmen coming out next week, I'm getting worryingly obsessed with the idea of stories being told in the most suitable format and medium; after all, Watchmen the movie can never be Watchmen the book for too many reasons - not least of which is the fact that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons created the book in part to explore the differences between comics and movies - but does that mean that there's no reason for the movie to exist? I'm still in two minds; while I tend to lean towards the "No" side of the argument, and wish that Zack Snyder and David Hayter had come up with something original, instead, I still harbor this vague hope that the Watchmen movie can be something as wonderful and poignant as its source in its own right. A few exceptions aside, cross-media adaptations tend to prove how well-suited stories were to their original homes, after all; even something like, say, Serenity just makes you want to watch more Firefly, if that makes sense, because of the potential for new stories that those characters and that world had.

We like to think that the creators of our favorite stories know what they're doing, or at least what they're writing for, and that after-the-fact continuations are fun, but not really the same thing because they're... well, off somehow; Buffy's comic continuation may have all the same writers, but it's lacking the performances that elevated the material, or Star Trek's 1970s cartoon dumbing down material for the kids. But, occasionally, even the greats can slip up; Morrison on the Final Crisis serialization that confused even the pros, or Whedon on Dollhouse's off-putting, repetitive format.

I keep coming back to Douglas Adams' The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy, each iteration of which - well, apart from the comic, perhaps - worked in and of itself, and added to the overall strange tapestry of the story, with Adams writing the radio shows, novels and television episodes and continually refining and reshifting the ideas to fit into the different forms. Perhaps that's what Whedon needs to do to Dollhouse; step back, rethink what he's trying to say with it, and then reapproach it from scratch with a definitive ending - or, at least, coherent point - in mind.

The talk – or, more accurately, the refusal to talk – of all the DC panels was Geoff Johns's upcoming Blackest Night, where Lanterns of every color and persuasion will throw down in a universe-spanning brawl that may or may not feature every single dead character in DC history rising up as a Black Lantern, ready to eat brains and kick butt (my money's on the Earth-2 Superman and Abin Sur). At least two characters have avoided that particular fate, however, as the various Final Crisis books have resurrected Flashes Bart and Barry Allen in preparation for Johns's other massive storyline, April's Flash: Rebirth.

The Man of Tomorrow is also facing his fair share of upheaval, as he'll be leaving Earth and, with it, both Superman and Action Comics to take a starring role in the new Superman: World of New Krypton series. James Robinson and Greg Rucka are cowriting the new book, with Robinson chronicling the many heroes who try to fill the void left in Metropolis in Superman while Rucka follows the adventures of newcomers Nightwing and Flamebird in Action Comics. At the DC Universe panel, James Robinson stressed that the fourth book, Sterling Gates's Supergirl, will no longer be just the fourth book, as her struggle to choose between Earth and new Krypton will have huge consequences throughout the Superman books. Also, because otherwise he would have to sleep, Geoff Johns is working with illustrator Gary Frank on Superman: Secret Origins. Finally, Robinson revealed that all of Superman's adventures dating back to last year are leading up to a huge event in 2010.

Final Crisis lives on in the form of Final Crisis: Aftermath, four books that senior story editor Ian Sattler promises will feature one moment in every issue so wrong that readers won't believe DC actually did it. In keeping with the central premise of Final Crisis – the day that evil won – the four books will take a look at the vilest and sleaziest parts of the DC universe. Run will follow the Human Flame, who is fleeing heroes and villains alike in a miniseries that will explore how you cope as a villain in the DCU if you're also a total idiot. Escape, pitched as a mix of The Prisoner and Saw – which are two things I never really thought needed mixing – follows Nemesis as he attempts to escape the Global Protection Agency. Ink looks at Tattoo Man, who emerged Final Crisis as a reluctant hero, as he fumblingly tries to give up his addiction to evil and do the right thing. Finally, Ian Sattler's favorite title, Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance, follows the Super Young Team as they try to balance being heroes with being celebrities, which Sattler promises will be very, very sleazy.

Elsewhere in the DC universe, fan favorite (and Dan Didio unfavorite) Keith Giffen will start work on Doom Patrol, which he promises will disappoint old school and Grant Morrison fans alike. The Teen Titans will soon finish putting together an eight-member team, although they will be immediately tested by Jericho, who has been driven insane by years of jumping inside the bodies of horrible people. They also have high hopes for Wonder Woman, as she takes on the Olympian in a story that Dan Didio hopes will allow them to build a larger presence for her in the DCU.

Perhaps the most jealously guarded secret is how the disappearance of Bruce Wayne's Batman will affect Superman/Batman. All Ian Sattler is willing to reveal is that it will still be a comic book with a combination of words and art telling stories in sequence. Frankly, I'm surprised they admitted that much.

Talking to Newsarama.com, Morrison confirmed that we'd been right on the money about Bruce Wayne's death scene earlier in January - He had, actually, been sent back in time after all (to pre-historic caveman days, to be specific). But why such a quick reveal of Bruce Wayne's current whenabouts?

[DC editorial asked me to include a particular closing scene] with Batman. I'd made it a little more ambiguous but DC editorial didn't want readers to think Batman might actually be dead for more than a fortnight, so I revised the last page to be somewhat ‘on the nose', as they say in Hollywood.

And if you're wondering if and when Bruce Wayne's future will be addressed, Morrison has a tease ready:

Newsarama: Oh, and and finally, we'd be remiss - Batmanthro? What does the Omega Sanction mean for him? Can he fall back into our world? Is he on our world? Does someone have to go find him? Does he have to live a succession of lives like Shilo? So...many...questions....

GM: I'm returning to Batman in June...

Please please please, let "Batman gets zapped back in time and maybe to a parallel Earth where he has to live with cavemen" be the plot of the Dark Knight sequel.

Grant Morrison: Final Crisis Exit Interview, Part 2 [Newsarama.com]

The black Superman - coincidentally, the President of the United States - appears in the opening pages of DC Comics' final issue of Final Crisis, alongside a black Wonder Woman, as various parallel Earths cross over before the universe is destroyed. The character may never be seen again, but that's not to say that comics are entirely devoid of black superheroes.
Admittedly, mainstream superhero comics do lack high-profile black heroes, and even they are usually relegated to supporting roles (DC Comics have only two black characters headlining their own books this month, both of which are spin-offs of their successful Justice League of America title, and both of which are mini-series; Marvel have three, one of which is a spin-off from X-Men, and two of which are mini-series). Both Marvel and DC are trying to address this, in an admittedly low-key way; DC by bringing back the characters from the 1990s Milestone line - a line focused on ethnic diversity - and Marvel with recent (re)launches of the War Machine and Black Panther titles. We asked friend of io9 - and blogger for comic site 4th Letter - David Brothers, who's written extensively about race in superhero comics, about the companies' current efforts:

The problem with both companies, and one which DC will fix if they can stick the landing of the Milestone relaunch, is that 99% of their black characters fit into a certain character type. There's not really a range of black characters. They have really generic hero motivations. There is some variation (Blade is like the Punisher, but more reasonable because he's killing vampires, Firestorm is a stone-cold newbie, Jakeem Thunder is a horny teenager), but the variation tends to be surface-level stuff. They don't really have the range of differences between say, Superman and Batman, or Cap and Hawkeye, or Wonder Woman and Black Canary. Instead, they're working from that Robbie Robertson archetype — good people in a bad world trying to make better. Sometimes they get a little extra sauce (like John Stewart and that corny "stay black" line from Sinestro Corps War, or any time a black character gets to go "There's no justice here, just us"), but what's the difference between Mr Terrific's personality and John Henry? The Falcon and Goliath? Luke Cage and Jakeem Thunder? Not all that much, I don't think. Both companies may be trying, but they're still coming up fairly short. Sometimes, particularly in the JSA, which has four black characters (none of which did anything of note in the mega-arc of the last two years, save for punching a fake god in the ankle or talking about being atheist after meeting a god), it feels more like lip service.

Of course, even lip service may be better that this:

Ah, the '70s.

Captain Obama ... Is It Time for a Black Comic Book Superhero? [Fox News]

Marvel Comics is all about the collections this week. There are some more Secret Invasion collections — don't forget, there'll be over twenty in the end, so it's not like you have to rush out and buy them this week to get the full story. Marvel is also putting out hardcovers of Mark (Wanted, Kick-Ass) Millar's Marvel 1985 series (in which Marvel characters cross over to the "real" world twenty-four years ago), Jeph Loeb's Ultimatum: March on Ultimatum prelude (in which various characters prepare for the end of the world, even if they don't know it) and X-Men: Original Sin (in which Marvel starts putting out product ahead of the Wolverine movie later this year).

DC isn't entirely letting Marvel corner the hardcover collection market this week; they're putting out the lengthily-titled DC Comics Classics Library: Superman — Kryptonite Nevermore, which collects the classic 1970s storyline where DC did the unthinkable and let Superman get over his weakness of Kryptonite... well, for a few years, at least. That's not the only thing of note that DC's releasing this week, however. In terms of single issues, the first issue of a tie-in to the amazingly enjoyable Batman: The Brave And The Bold and the final issue of confusing-yet-enjoyable Final Crisis are both arriving in stories tomorrow, and both will be worth your time.

That said, there are two books that really should be added to your shopping list no matter what; Jonathan Hickman and JM Ringuet's Transhuman finally makes it into collected form, allowing you to swallow the sly superhuman corporate satire in one sitting. And as a perfect chaser, Dark Horse's Star Wars: Vector Book One collects the first half of this 2008 crossover event, which follows one character through four different time periods in George Lucas' galaxy far, far away, and manages to make you not only a Star Wars fan again, but also kind of curious as to whether the Expanded Universe really is as exciting as it appears here.

If you're looking for a place to find your personal genetically-modified force, then the Comic Shop Locator is always a good place to start... And once you've found your nearest comic store, double check this week's shipping list to make sure that there's nothing you've forgotten. But remember: The force needs to be within your shopping basket. Always.

As those who read this week's comics have apparently already seen, Bruce Wayne is dead. He died at the end of Final Crisis #6, meeting his end while trying to save the planet from evil god Darkseid in DC Comics' much-delayed blockbuster, and if you need proof of his demise, you not only see him being hit by Darkseid's Omega Beams, Superman appears on the last page holding his corpse. Case closed.
Or is it?

Aficionados of Jack Kirby's Fourth World comics - where Crisis' villain Darkseid comes from are somewhat familiar with the Omega Beams, and the effects they have on people. Particularly the effects they had on the title characters from Kirby's Forever People, in the sixth issue of that series, where they too were hit by the Omega Beams, and apparently died... only to be sent back in time, as was revealed in the next issue. While we're not sure what the explanation is for the skeleton in the Batman costume, we're sure of one thing: Somewhere, somewhen, Bruce Wayne is alive... and waiting for whenever DC Comics are ready to bring him back.

Final Crisis [DC Comics]

In terms of SF comics, 2008 feels a bit... lacking, to be honest; there was nothing with the energy of King City or Wonton Soup, and a lot of the best books were final issues, instead of the start of something new (Collections and reprints-wise, it was a great year, however - I'd point you in the direction of Skyscrapers of the Midwest, The Babysitter and Jack Kirby's OMAC, to begin with - but they weren't really created this year...). It might just be a necessary lull; next year has new work from Paul Pope, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Brandon Graham, James Stokoe, et al, after all. But it did make this year seem curiously anemic in retrospect. So here is the pick, perhaps, of a poor bunch:

BEST
All-Star Superman
Quite simply, the best superhero comic of the last few years. Tapping into the awe-filled tone of the 1950s and '60s Superman stories while still seeming contemporary, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's twelve-part reinvigoration of the Man of Steel finished this year with the perfect send-off: Something positive, optimistic and just a little melancholy.

Casanova
Matt Fraction's sci-fi superspy series filled its second run with time-travel, sex and gigantic reality-altering weapons before, in its final issue, folding in on itself with a reveal that, at first, felt like a cheat but ultimately recast everything that had gone before and made you need to re-read it like you need to breath. If only everything was this fearless.

(Fraction almost ended up on this list twice; his Invincible Iron Man series for Marvel was, to my mind, the ideal follow-up to the movie, finally figuring out a way to make the character interesting without making him an asshole.)

Fight Or Run: Shadow Of The Chopper
You can argue amongst yourself whether this silent series of strips is really science fiction or not, but Kevin Huizenga's videogame-inspired shorts that bring two surreal characters face-to-face to see their response works both as an exercise in comic formalism and experimentation, and as a funny, surprising reading experience. Me, I'd probably run.

Final Crisis
Yes, there have been a lot of problems with DC's big 2008 "event" - the seeming inability to hit deadlines and switching of artists midway through the story, to start with - but despite it all, Grant Morrison and company's slow-motion apocalypse has been creepy and hypnotic, all the moreso for the way in which it refuses to play by the rules.

Love & Rockets: New Stories
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis analogs slaughter aliens. Surely I don't need to say anything else.

Patsy Walker: Hellcat
I don't know if it's the lightness of Kathryn Immonen's writing, the pop of David LaFuente's artwork, or just the sass of the book's star, but there's something wonderful and unexpected in this lowkey miniseries from Marvel about a fashion model-turned-superhero fighting magical demons in Alaska. In the middle of the publisher's highly successful year, this hidden gem is easily the best thing they put out.

Project Superpowers
Again with the "unexpected" thing, I didn't expect much from Alex Ross and Jim Kruger's 1940s superhero revival... and certainly not the most strange and unusual superhero series of the year. The US government creating zombie soldiers in the Middle East? Lying ghosts with hidden agendas? An evil corporation of robots manipulating everyone that just so happens to have the same name as the parent company of the publisher? It's all here, my friends. Just don't ask me what it all means.

Teen Titans: Year One
It took animation writer Amy Wolfram and artist Karl Kerschl to finally fulfill the potential of DC's team of sidekicks, by offering a story that stayed on the right side of cartoony, but kept an undercurrent of angst and insecurity to provide characters who actually acted like teenagers, for a change. Add some of the best art to appear in any comic book this year and you have a very underrated winner.

WORST
Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes
A strange one, this. It's not really the quality of the comic strip itself that lands it in "Worst" position - although the comic strip itself was nothing to write home about, pretty much generic "alternate world"isms from Warren Ellis and friends - but the format. Charging $4.99 for 16 pages of comic book would be a bit much for a small indie company with a lot of overhead and little say in the matter... but for Marvel to do it, especially without letting fans or retailers know that that's what they were doing...? Kind of an unnecessarily low blow.

Batman RIP
It started so well, but... well, finished so badly. There's very little way to look back at RIP without getting frustrated at the lack of resolution and all the unfulfilled potential left untouched. It's called Batman RIP people - Couldn't you have done something with that that didn't have a villain who may or may not have been the Devil and the most unconvincing, inconclusive death scene ever? Or, for that matter, had a story that actually ended in its final chapter?

Countdown To Final Crisis
DC's Final Crisis may be flawed but great, but the 52-part prelude series kind of missed out the "but great" part of that idea. As well as missing out the "coherent plots, interesting dialogue and story you feel involved in" bits. And, to make matters worse, it outright contradicted multiple points of the series it was created to lead into. Worst of all, perhaps, was the fact that it took the goodwill that DC had gained from their first weekly series 52 and pissed it away in record fashion. An own goal of almost cosmic proportions.

DC Universe: Last Will & Testament
What do superheroes do when they expect to die the next day? Exactly what you'd expect them to, sadly, according to this uninspired, ponderous comic. While not as much of a disaster as Countdown, Last Will & Testament may have actually been a worse comic by dint of just being... well, not unlike well-illustrated fan-fiction.

Jenna Jameson: Shadow Hunter
From its very conception, you knew that a comic that recreated pornstar Jameson as a comic book demon hunter was a bad idea, but only the comic itself could convince you just how much of a bad idea it actually was. Confusingly written, with overwrought narration and a plot that didn't really go anywhere, this was a celebrity tie-in that made Ed Burns' Dock Walloper look like a good idea.

One More Day
This is, of course, a bit of a cheat; One More Day started in 2007, and the final issue came out in the dying days of that year (December 27th, I believe)... But nonetheless, the full effect of it was what started off this year in comics, and pretty much sabotaged the start of Marvel's (remarkably not-as-bad-as-you-think) Spider-Man relaunch - all because Peter Parker made a deal with the devil just to get a divorce (Note: This may be a somewhat biased take on what actually happened in the story itself). Who would have thought that a boneheaded, out of character move that turned your everyman character into a Satan-handshakin' single man would have been one of the big comic news stories of the year? Oh, that's right - everyone.

Secret Invasion
Yes, it was hugely successful, and yes, it was on-time (unlike Final Crisis). But if there was a point to Secret Invasion beyond "Let's try and sell lots of comics," I must have missed it. With a story that lacked plot - or, for about half the series, anything actually happening - based around a premise that was abandoned almost immediately (What if aliens had invaded without us knowi- Oh, wait, they've started blowing things up and coming to Earth as giant green monsters), this was slick, showy... and entirely hollow.

Ultimates 3
I was no fan of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's Ultimates, but Jeph Loeb's follow-up was a mind-blowing miscalculation that offered fans of the series almost no continuity with its previous incarnation, garish art outshone only by insanely overblown dialogue and, in a reveal that still boggles the mind, a Black Panther who turns out to be the most white of all superheroes. Pretty much an entire series of WTF that led into Loeb's Ultimatum

That said, this week's comics aren't exactly the most overwhelming bunch. But I think we can chalk that up to the holidays.

DC Comics have their Final Crisis Secret Files, acting as a stop-gap for fans of the much-delayed mini-series, but the rest of their week is relatively lowkey unless you're wrapped up in a number of ongoing storylines.

Similarly, Dark Horse and Image both have weeks to keep longterm fans happy, but offer little to newcomers.

Only Marvel steps up to the four-color plate with a raft of big name specials, and new series to tempt those few with some holiday money left over — including Ultimate Hulk Annual (in which the cannibal version of the big green giant goes on a road trip across America), Fantastic Four Cosmic Special (in which the FF have to go under quarantine and don't deal with it well) and Cable, Volume 1: Messiah War (which mashes up Terminator and Lone Wolf And Cub to come up with... well, Lone Cyborg and Cub, really).

The Iron Man fans amongst you may want to check out the first issue of War Machine, which sees James Rhodes cut loose in his own set of armor, kicking ass and taking names.

Everyone else, the one comic that you need to pick up this week is Incognito, the new supervillain series from the creators of Sleeper and Criminal. If you need convincing, here's the set up:

What if you were an ex-super villain hiding out in Witness Protection… but all you could think about were the days when the rules didn’t apply to you? Could you stand the toil of an average life after years of leaving destruction in your wake? And what if you couldn’t stand it? What would you do then?

If you need more convincing, you can find a preview of the first issue here, but trust me: This will be the kind of bad-mood treat that you'll find yourself addicted to throughout 2009.

In 2009, you'll still be able to find this week's shipping list here and also use the Comic Shop Locator to find your local comic store. But that's not to say everything will be the same in the future. For one thing, this week's comics arrive in stores on Friday, due to the holiday. But don't take that as a bad omen or anything.

First, though, let's take a look at how online annotation works. For example: Footnoting the most recent issue of Final Crisis, "Submit," Wolk writes:

Before he was Black Lightning, Jefferson Pierce was an Olympic decathlete, and over the course of this story we see him doing a few decathlon-type things. Jefferson's two daughters are Anissa (Thunder of the Outsiders) and Jennifer (Lightning of the JSA). Jefferson was also a high school teacher for a while, and later the U.S. Secretary of Education under the Lex Luthor administration.

OK, so now you know who Black Lightning was. I certainly didn't know in this granular level of detail before — and nor do many casual comics readers who haven't got what amounts to an advanced degree in comics like Wolk. And yet knowing it enriches the experience of the issue, since DC Comics characters are often decades old and rather complex.

Neal Stephenson reflects the annotation urge in his recent novel Anathem. He's put part of the novel's extensive glossary online, giving readers a place to go to look up some of the words he coined to describe life among the science monks on another planet.

And these kinds of annotations transcend the world of comics and scifi nerdery. Music journalist Alex Ross released a book last year about twentieth century music called The Rest is Noise, which he supplemented by creating an elaborate, stand-alone annotation website. A massive compendium of twentieth-century musical terms, with definitions and illustrative sound files, his site can be read alongside the book to enrich the experience immeasurably. Or it can be absorbed on its own, as a musical dictionary.

There are many other examples: Some created by the authors of books, and others like Wolk's created by knowledgeable readers. These electronic footnote sites do not replace books, but they make reading feel like an erudite discussion rather than a lecture. They also make it possible for authors to write far more complicated and nuanced books. Confused readers have an easy place to go if they want to understand a crucial reference or idea, while in-the-know readers can have fun adding their own annotations to the web.

A culture of rampant annotators isn't exactly what you'd expect from the web, which is still in many people's minds antithetical to book culture. And yet it seems that our newest media have reinvigorated what often seems a lost art. The art of footnoting.

Let's get the new stuff out of the way, first; Dark Horse and DC are both celebrating Hallowe'en a little bit early, with a new Hellboy novel (The All-Seeing Eye) and a new adaptation of The Evil Dead from the Oregon publisher, and a special DC Universe: Hallowe'en 08 oneshot from the Gotham City purveyor. DC's also putting out Final Crisis: Submit, a one-off tie-in to their ongoing Final Crisis series - which has a much-delayed fourth issue out this week, as well.

In terms of new material from Marvel, you're pretty much stuck with Wolverine: Manifest Destiny, which sees the short hairy one with the claws fight super-powered ninjas in San Francisco (and I only wish that I was joking about that), or Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch, a new series about the Ghost Rider that wasn't the one that Nicolas Cage played in that ill-fated movie.

But, really, this week is all about the reprints. Marvel have the most run-of-the-mill of the week, although for every X-Force: Angels And Demons, you also get an Elektra By Frank Miller Omnibus or Sky Doll hardcover. They're also putting out a hardcover of Longshot, the wonderfully neurotic miniseries about a fake boy in a fake decade by Ann Nocenti, who later found her niche as the editor of High Times. It's genuinely worth checking out. DC have two must-have collections this week: a new edition of Paul Pope's wonderful Heavy Liquid and a new collection of Will Eisner's The Spirit strips called Femme Fatales that will both tie in with, and embarrass in terms of quality, the Frank Miller movie at the end of the year. There's also the first in a series of six Y: The Last Man hardcover collections, for those who missed out on the series the first two times.

Weirdly enough, though, the most unexpected release to hit stores tomorrow is a blast from my past and enough of an oddity to make the curious and strong of stomach amongst you shell out the $30-odd necessary to try out The Complete Ace Trucking Co. Volume 1, a lengthy and entirely unusual collection of 2000AD's misguided attempt to try and jump on the CB radio craze of 1980s Britain by creating an unfunny sitcom about space truckers. Who talk in CB lingo. Really, there's no way to do it justice by trying to explain it. Just buy it and see for yourself.

The complete list of this week's new comic releases will give you even more ways for you to spend your money, but only the Comic Shop Locator Service will tell you where said money should be spent. Your humble narrator, of course, simply tells you which of the new releases you should be craving.

It was one thing to see Mary Marvel's new Skin Two-friendly get-up in the recent third issue of DC's summer event book, Final Crisis - writer Grant Morrison has flirted with BDSM imagery before in books like The Invisibles, and has also given uber-badguy Darkseid's minions a very submissive attitude before, after all (Fittingly, considering that Darkseid is all about the eradication of anything but his will, and employs a team of "female furies" with names like "Lashina") - but this week's first appearance of new X-Men villain Red Queen seemed to suggest that maybe we're at the start of a new zeitgeist of superwomen getting their kink on.


What's next? Wonder Woman to start using that lasso in the ways that her creator intended? The Wasp to start using her stings to punish very bad boys? Batwoman with a ball-gag (Oh, wait; that's already happened - Look at the last page of Final Crisis #3)? We wait with baited breath... if we have your permission, of course, Mistress.

Final Crisis #3 [DC Comics], Uncanny X-Men #501 [Marvel Comics]

(And to everyone who's undoubtedly already writing their comments: We're already working on a run-down of the best subtextual Dominatrix Supervillains. Patience is a virtue.)

Morrison on Final Crisis:

I know where it goes, and we come up with the biggest idea ever to be done in superhero comics. I know where it goes, and it's fucking great. I know I'm not supposed to say that, because it says here 'Please do not swear, because there are people here under 18.' Folks, here's the thing: People under 18 have never heard swearing.

Greg Rucka on the plot of tie-in book Final Crisis: Resist:

The losers try not to die. And fail. It is 30 pages of, imagine if you were living in occupied France in WWII. Now imagine occupied France is the entire planet. Now imagine that the Nazis are New Gods. And now imagine that you are you. You're screwed.

Geoff Johns on what happens in Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds:

Superboy Prime goes to the future and messes things up pretty bad. And the Legion recruits these other Legions to stop him, like the Zero Hour Legion and the original Legion. It's got a lot of Green Lantern stuff in it, it's got a lot of [Flash] stuff in it.

Johns again, this time on Final Crisis: Rage Of The Red Lanterns:

Rage of The Red Lanterns starts The Blackest Night. The Guardians have decided to execute Sinestro and the Red Lanterns want to make sure that they do it first.

Dan Didio on Barry Allen's return:

I think it brings the story full-circle. This is the final Crisis story, the fact of the matter is that, when these characters died, the writers and editors always found ways to bring Barry Allen back. The character was so strong that we felt that this was someone that people want to read about. This brings everything back around.

Morrison on the ultimate fate of the DC multiverse:

If you're going to do a crisis, you have to do a multiverse... I created a bunch of new worlds. Basically, in FC #6 and 7, Darkseid starts crashing everything in, and you'll see them then. The multiverse might be broken, but it'll be around afterwards. Did I spoil the end? Okay: The goodies win.

Morrison explains away all continuity problems to do with Final Crisis while also explaining what you'll see in the fourth issue of the series:

Darkseid was beaten in Death Of The New Gods and falls backwards through time, and as he falls backwards in time, he pulls the entire universe with him. So once he pulls New Earth with him, the entire multiverse collapses... So if you see any mistakes, that's that. When he falls backwards through time, it's the first time that Darkseid enters reality, his energy destroys everything. That's what's happening now.

Morrison on what happens with the New Gods post-Final Crisis:

Big plans for the New Gods. Nothing's cooler than Jack Kirby, but this is pretty cool... The ideas with the New Gods were just looking at what Kirby wanted to do and going back to that. Someone like DeSaad, a torture god. We thought, we'll give him more of a combover, and then we thought, sweaty, combover, what else? High heels! The thing is, he makes up Darkseid porn. DeSaad's just sitting there, putting Darkseid's head on sexy bodies and thinking "I don't want to be caught," but he really wants to be caught, you know?

Admit it; that last part sounds much more exciting than shapechanging aliens invading Earth, right?

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]

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 to a future solo series for Superman's parallel-universe cousin. One of the reasons that the multiverse may be about to end again is that even the creators can't keep the various earths straight; when someone asked about Earth-13, no-one on the panel knew exactly what Earth that was. "I have a big white board - " DiDio started to explain, before Countdown editor Mike Carlin cut him off by saying "This is why we have charts."

New titles teased, besides the Batgirl series, were a new Lex Luthor miniseries focusing on his evil genius and technology, as well as a return of the 1990s Milestone characters (better known to most from the WB's Static Shock cartoon); asked about a possible return of those characters, everyone on the panel got very nervous as DiDio chose his words very carefully: "I think the Milestone characters are great," he said, "I think it'd be very exciting to see that creative strength in the DC Universe." Bob Wayne broke in, adding "It's a subject that takes more lawyers than fans to make happen."

The panel closed with DiDio telling everyone that the upcoming The Dark Knight and The New Frontier movies were projects that everyone at DC were very excited about, and inviting everyone to tonight's world premiere of the latter at the convention.

DC started the comic convention season early with an event intended only for comic store owners this weekend. Executive Editor Dan DiDio spilled the beans on the comics that will form the backbone of DC's 2008 plans, alongside the already-announced Final Crisis.

April sees the release of something called DC Universe #0, a 24-page primer on just who's who and what's what for DC's super heroes just in case you've not been paying attention over the past few years. Written by Final Crisis' Grant Morrison and Green Lantern's Geoff Johns, the book will be priced at 50 cents to try and grab the young and stingy in time for the following month's launch of Final Crisis.

A couple of months after that, DC's worst-kept secret — their third year-long weekly mini-series, Trinity — will launch. Unlike previous weeklies 52 and Countdown to Final Crisis, this series does away with the universe-spanning casts and revolving creative teams, with each issue featuring a 12-page lead story focusing on Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman by current Superman writer Kurt Busiek and former Ultimate Spider-Man artist Mark Bagley. The remaining ten pages of content will be filled by stories co-written by Busiek and Fabian Nicieza filling in backstory from the Super Friends' lead.

With both of those books marking continuity-light outreach efforts, those who read the funnybooks for long-running storylines that can't be understood by those who don't have a PhD in DCU will be happy with Rann/Thanagar: Holy War, which brings the Lady Styx plot from 52 to a head, and Reign In Hell which revives the whole "With Satan gone, who shall rule Hell?" idea, after 52 saw DC's Satan, Neron, trapped on Earth.

Whether these projects will be enough to take DC back to the top of the sales charts in a year where Marvel plan to reveal a secret alien invasion across their entire line remains to be seen, but if nothing else, it's always nice to see those little-seen characters Superman and Wonder Woman get some more publicity.

Dan DiDio, Geoff Johns on DC Universe #0 & Final Crisis' Plan [Newsarama.com]
Dan DiDio Talks Trinity [Newsarama.com]
Dan DiDio on R/T: Holy War and Reign In Hell [Newsarama.com]