If it's the end of a decade, then it's time for multiple Best Of The Decade lists. This isn't exactly one of them, though, despite what it looks like; for one thing, even if it was, you'd all disagree with it and complain that we left off something essential - although anyone arguing for the inclusion of Ultimatum, we believe that can be disproven through the use of science and charts - and for another, we've not read every single thing published in the last decade, so for all we know, there's something really obvious that we'll have somehow overlooked through accident instead of malice. Instead of The Ten Best, then, these are Ten Of The Best (Click on the titles for our explanations why and, in some cases, runners-up to the list that we couldn't help but sneak in):

100% by Paul Pope (DC/Vertigo)
All Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC Comics)
Black Hole by Charles Burns (Pantheon)
Casanova by Matt Fraction, Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon (Image Comics)
Laika by Nick Abadzis (First Second Books)
Planetes by Makoto Yukimura (Tokyopop)
Pluto by Osamu Tazuka and Naoki Urasawa (Viz Media)
Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O'Malley (Oni Press)
We3 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC/Vertigo)
Y The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra and many more (DC/Vertigo)

(Thanks to Lauren, David Brothers, Jeff Lester and all who offered advice and good reasons why we were entirely wrong in some original choices.)

And, yes, we know that between this and Laika, we've got two animal-centric comics in our top 10. What can we say? We're pet people.

Next: Y: The Last Man

Retro may have been the way to go with superheroes, this decade; our second choice for Best Superhero Book is DC: The New Frontier, where Darwyn Cooke makes the Justice League of America seem fresh and new again by simply returning the characters to their core concepts and, just as importantly, original time frame and contexts. Admittedly, again, it's all about the execution. Cooke's skill as a cartoonist is almost unmatched these days (Particularly amongst those who make their living in mainstream comics), and it's that level of quality - along with his obvious love for the characters - that makes The New Frontier such a joy to read.

Next: Black Hole

Wired's Underwire blog premiered these two clips from Patrick Meaney's upcoming documentary on the Scottish writer, teasing his particular take on George Bush (and world leaders in general) and why our Earth would seem like hell to fictional characters:


Featuring not just a lengthy interview with Morrison about his life and work - including the alien abduction that led to his 1990s series The Invisibles - but also contributions from friends and collaborators like Blackest Night and Green Lantern writer Geoff Johns, Seaguy and Invisibles artist Cameron Stewart, and DC Executive Editor Dan Didio, Meaney plans to have the movie (tentatively called Grant Morrison: The Documentary Film) complete in time for a world premiere at SDCC 2010. We'll see you in line.

Counterculture Comics Hero Grant Morrison Gets a Biopic [The Underwire/Wired]

The idea of traveling between alternate realities is a common theme in speculative fiction. Multiverse stories are a logical extension of allohistory, and a close relative of that other grand old convention, time travel. The idea is often explained as inspired by the Many-Worlds Interpretation first formulated by Hugh Everett in 1957, but its use in literature and storytelling has been long with us. Jorge Luis Borges used the theme in his 1941 story "The Garden of Forking Paths". There are earlier examples in Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World of 1666 (recently revisited by Alan Moore) and in one of the stories in the One Thousand and One Nights. Ancient multiverses can be found in the Hindu cosmology and the nine worlds of the Norse mythos were around long before Jack Kirby.

Right from the start, Banks' Transition has superficial similarities to Michael Moorcock, especially the Jerry Cornelius stories. Both books feature amoral agents with shifting loyalties, flitting between versions of Earth. They party down in exotic locales, averting or causing global calamity — like rock stars trashing an infinity of hotel suites. Victorian airships and super-assassins abound. The theory goes that all of Moorcock's fiction is one big multiverse, from the Sword and Sorcery worlds of Elric of Melniboné or Corum Jhaelen Irsei to the decadent Dancers at the End of Time. All the various characters in these works are aspects or avatars of a stock cast of meta-players often compared to the Commedia dell'Arte theater tradition with its tricksters, oafs, and backstabbers. Jerry Cornelius is a 20th Century face of the slightly mis-named Eternal Champion. He's an anarchist secret-agent, a super-slick antihero whirling in a blaze of intoxicants and ready fuck anything that fucking moves. David Bowie as Doctor Who, turned up to fuckin' twelve! While quite entertaining, it should be no surprise that these quintessential examples of SF's New Wave movement can be a wee bit disorienting. Product of the times.

For a speculative fiction ride of sex, drugs, and rock&roll that's less experimental (ahem, easier to read), I prefer Mick Farren, singer of the proto-punk band The Deviants, White Panther Party member, and Elvis scholar. Out of print, but well worth the hunt, are his multiverse romps in The DNA Cowboys Trilogy and Necrom, some truly weird fun shit. The dimension-tripping demon Yancey Slide from those adventures also turns up in the more recent Kindling and Conflagration He also wrote the Victor Renquist novels, a series of vampire novels that aren't totally lame. 2002's Underland has the CIA, vampires, and Nazis duking it out with flying saucers in the Hollow Earth beneath Antarctica. Yeah. Hell, just track down anything you can by Mick Farren.

Along with Moorcock, two other Monsters of Multiverse Literature ( or "Mul-Lit") are The Amber Chronicles by Roger Zelazny and the series that inspired that, World of Tiers by Philip José Farmer. They have much more of a fantasy feel than the above, especially because of an overuse of courtly language in the former and centaurs and other classic monsters in the latter. You'll also find plenty of complex machinations by powerful groups or families (Zelazny is notorious for Daddy Issues) and decadent, lusty adventure (more of Farmer's bag in trade, but evident in both). I enjoyed both of these series as a teen, but to be honest that was a long time ago and my impressions are murky at best. I recall the fiveTiers with more fondness, but that might be due to the risqué covers by Boris Vallejo. I can assert with some authority that the reader should stop after the first five Amber books, do not read the second series, do not collect the recent stuff written by John Gregory Betancourt. Sadly, Amber suffers from a terminal case of Herberts' Syndrome.

The quirky standalone Roadmarks by Zelazny could be considered a multiverse book. In it, the space-time continuum is an actual highway accessible to a few. The protagonist tools around the centuries in a dusty old pickup running guns to the Persians at Marathon. Occassionally he passes Hitler, his VW bug parked at the side of the road looking for the weed-choked off road to where he won WWII. I'm going to try and fit in some Amber andTiers, maybe revisit Riverworld too, just for old time's sake.

Now that I'm thoroughly soaked in nostalgia, allow me to wax rhetorical on multiverse comic books I always liked. Yes, they're old, I'm old; get used to it, and get off my urine-covered stoop.

The capes-and-tights set is plagued with multiverses, and they're always having Ultimate Critical Infinity Wars — boooring. A refreshing change from all that was the " Zenith" strip in2000 AD (1987-1992). This was young Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell's contribution to the British superhero deconstruction attack of the 1980s. It had battles between multiple Earths, hippie/fascist versions of the same superheroes, the Lloigor from the Cthulhu Mythos, and a hero who was a real asshole. Yeowell's brushy B & W artwork was a sweet counterpoint to the usual 4-color superhero look, too.

For graphical goodies of a more science fictional bent, you cant go wrong with the ligne claire and spacey psychedlia of Jean Giraud better known as Moebius, co-creator of Métal Hurlant magazine. The Airtight Garage is a series of artificial pocket universes built into the asteroid Flower 51. They are the playgrounds/battlefields for the likes of Lady Malvina, Major Gubert, the crew of the spaceship Ciguri, and Jerry Cornelius. Hey, whaaa? Yep, Moorcock allowed other artists, writers, and musicians the use of the character in a sort of Open Source deal. For a while Marvel had a problem with that and the character was renamed Lewis Carnelian for a while. Weird. There are songs about Jerry by Blue Öyster Cult and Hawkwind, but I digress. Moebius returned to the Airtight Garage in '96 with Man from the Ciguri from Dark Horse. All lots of fun.

Bryan Talbot's The Adventures of Luther Arkwright is also often compared to Moorcock, and in many ways improves upon him. Frankly, when you want to read about sexy psychic spies fighting transdimensional evil, it's hard to top the Arkwright stories. I love Talbot's vision of alternate Britains, like the one where Cromwell's Revolution still rages on and the Puritans terrorize the skies from massive airships. The complex plot jumps around jarringly in the original series, before finally coalescing, as you begin to see the multiverse as Luther does. There is also an audio version with the voices of David Tennant and Paul Darrow, I've never heard it — but wow, fangasm. The later 1999 sequel, Heart of Empire from Dark Horse again, follows the story of Luther's daughter in a much more linear fashion, with absolutely gorgeous art and much of that retro-Victorian futurism the kids like.

I have a particular fondness for the idiosyncratic doodles of doom by of Matt Howarth. His anarchic city-world of Bugtown is the home of indestructible assassins, rockstars, giant sharks, and nuclear goddesses; all of whom flit through the most surreal and impossible alternate universes imaginable. The series Those Annoying Post Brothers and Savage Henry are just packed full of crazy. Many experimental underground musicians make regular appearances in Howarth's work. There are adventures featuring Conrad Schnitzler, The Residents, and Micheal Moorcock collaborators, Hawkwind. Geez, that guy gets his beard into everything. Howarth also draws great aliens that look really alien, like cacti crossed with really uncomfortable furniture. Look for the very funny SF Konny & Czu strips.

"So Grey", I hear you say, " how about something less reminiscent of your college-dorm lava-lamp days? Something more, y'know [describes a circle in the air] for the kids?"

Well, the most well known Young Adult books with multiverse themes would probably be Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Chris Roberson should be getting a lot more attention for his time-space tripping adventures of the Bonaventure-Carmody family in novels likeHere, There & Everywhere, Paragea, and End of the Century. Oh and big surprise, Roberson has worked with Michael Moorcock often.

For something different, try Changing Planes by Ursula K. LeGuin. This is a collection of bright and witty capriccios about a woman who discovers how to shift to alternate worlds by being bored and dyspeptic in airport waiting rooms. As usual, LeGuin makes many wry observations about society and class. There's one story about a civilization of flightless avian people and their transcontinentaln migrations...the ending is beautiful. I could mention Dark Tower series by Stephen King or Charles Stross' The Merchant Princes but I'm just not into them, so I won't. Philip K. Dick's doesn't make the cut either: that's really only a duoverse.

I really loved Neal Stephenson's Anathem and it's all about the multiverse, but does it really belong with these other stories? Well of course it does! If for no other reason than it's completely different from the Michael Moorcock imitators. Yes, all the action takes place in one cosmos — going to another world is a one-way trip and requires a big honkin' generation starship. There is the mystery of Fraa Jaad, who appears to be able to move at will between the slightest possibilities. I noticed something odd, even though Stephenson beats us about the head and neck with tons of higher mathematics and metaphysics, he's awfully vague about the actual mechanism for traveling from one reality to another. This is probably the smartest move. Some writers do a lot of handwaving about Quantum and dress it up in blinky lights and an Einstein-Rosen bridge. But usually, it just boils down to closing your eyes and clicking your heels three times. How very apt for a thought experiment.

Multiverse stories are becoming more prevalent on TV these days. That kid from Stand by Me fought Nazi cavemen from Dimension X or whatever in Sliders. The color coded Charlie Jade looked interesting, but I haven't watched it yet. Lost has used the Many Worlds Interpretation, but they will try just about anything these days.

I see Leonard Nimoy is going back and forth in alternate worlds a lot these days (in Fringe and the Star Trek movie.) Glad to see that sort of thing again.

Somebody asked me recently if multiverses were the Next Big Thing in Speculative Fiction? I like the multiverse concept and would like to see different takes on it, that aren't all about decadent ubermensch and their interdimensional power struggles.

And honestly, we don't need Next Big Things. Trendy conventions in writing are a symptom of a lack of originality. Speculative fiction itself should be a glorious sprawling multiverse exploring all manner of settings and styles. Right now, too many of the worlds in the new book section are getting too recognizable, I'm looking at you Contemporary Urban Fantasy! And you with the top hat and goggles, we've talked before about this, you need to seek help.

So yeah, this trip down multiverse lane has been fun — but I think it points out a flaw in sub-genre stories. Why do they all start running together? Why so many Shadowy Conspirancies, Power Hungry Libertarian Scensters and Moral Relatavisim in a majority of these alternate reality adventures. The Multiverse must have more possibilities than that.

Special thanks to Alan Beatts and Chris Braak for their helpful ideas.
Top image from Heart of Empire by Bryan Talbot, 1999.

Commenter Grey_Area is known on many worlds as Chris Hsiang. He brachiates through the endlessly forking branches of possibility frightening all the turtledoves.

In addition to the trailer, the project's website also includes notes from Morrison about how he approached the project, which he likened to "a psychedelic The Lord of the Rings with Star Wars technology":

Given the nature of the medium and the kaleidoscopic possibilities of the original narrative, my intention is not to tell the story in strict chronological order (beginning with Shantanu and progressing through the various stories towards the war) instead I'd like to approach the text not in a linear fashion but as a 3-dimensional structure to which we can continually add new modular episodes which will eventually build up into an incredible mosaic of the War and the events surrounding it. In this way the story will grow in power and interconnectivity as we build it up piece by piece, episode by episode.

As I see it, the whole of the Mahabharata, and indeed the whole of Hindu thought and ultimately of all contemplative thought, expands outwards like the Big Bang from one timeless Singularity – the moment when Krishna stops time to deliver the terrible wisdom of the Gita and reveal to Arjuna his – and our own - place in the cosmos. Here is the ‘crack' in time, the crack between Ages and the crack in every human heart through which the light of A New Way To Think can come.

Poised between massive opposing forces, from the Singularity of Krishna's message, we expand outwards into duality and the War that comes to represent all opposing dualities in the cosmos beyond the Singularity. This is a story with a timeless resonance.

If the finished movies can live up to Morrison's descriptions ("Our world of Bharat is a place of incredible art and technology... The armour and vehicles they use look like the kind of thing you'd expect from a culture more glorious than anything we in the degraded Kali Yuga could aspire to... Use familiar historical styles and fashions that we associate with traditional depictions of the Mahabharata and then mutate those traditional influences into a much more shiny, reflective, decorative look. Like Jack Kirby doing the Hindu gods," he writes), we're in for a treat.

18 Days is expected to be released in Spring 2010.

During his LA appearance with Clive Barker earlier this week, Morrison admitted that Wonder Woman had disappeared from Final Crisis midway through the series, although he had a good reason why:

[The ideas] went into a different project with Wonder Woman... The basics of Wonder Woman come from William Moulton Marston, a psychologist who created the lie detector, of all things. His idea was that a utopia would be achieved if men were placed in subjugation to women. So, Wonder Woman is a character where you imagine this very strange mélange of girl power, bondage, and a slightly disturbed sexuality. There is this bondage element; these extremely weird dark elements of Wonder Woman haven't been adequately dealt with. Wonder Woman remains a really bizarre, untouchable character. She should represent women in the same way Superman represents men.

The project - all detail of which, including release date, format, artist and (most importantly) whether or not DC have greenlit it - has a simple mission statement, according to the author:

To make it work, to give [Wonder Woman] a sexuality that isn't exploitive, because that's too easy; but also to give her a [narrative] power.

Well, it's definitely better than her calling men "sperm bank," I guess.

Grant Morrison & Clive Barker Meltdown Hollywood [Comic Book Resources]

There's something iconic about the title "Batman and Robin" (as well as the idea of Batman as this well-adjusted, not-entirely-fucked-up character) - With getting a new #1 and new series to continue the story you've been telling since 2006, is this your attempt to open up the character to another audience who either have never been interested in the character, or who may have strayed away as Bruce Wayne became more and more grim?

I hadn't thought of it in those terms. The 'grim 'n' gritty', noir approach to Batman has been fairly successful over the last 25 years, so I don't know if I ever imagined it keeping readers away. It's an interesting thought. If the style of Batman and Robin opens the door for new or returning readers, I'd be very happy.

You've talked before about this title being a mix of the '60s Adam West TV show and David Lynch, with Chris Cunningham's peculiar brand of wrongness thrown in as well... This seems to continue to an extent both the pop-art imagery of early in your Batman run with Andy Kubert, and the weird psychological darkness of Batman RIP - Audiences are used to seeing a screwed-up Batman thanks to things like The Dark Knight, but the comedy/brightness that you bring to the character has kind of been shied away from since, perhaps, Bob Haney and Adam West. Is it important to you that the character has that balance?

Certainly. The Bruce Wayne voice I hear in my head when I'm writing is sardonic, upper-class, absolutely self-assured and hyper-intelligent. He's seen it all, he's been desensitized to a lot of stuff the rest of us might find shocking and I've always imagined him as a man with a very refined, jet-black sense of humour.

There have been other attempts to do a 'brighter' Batman, of course. Immediately after Frank Miller reinvented the wheel with The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One, Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis launched a brilliant run of stories which owed more to Adam West than to Frank Miller. Bruce Timm and Paul Dini's Batman from the Animated Series was portrayed as a tough but psychologically-healthy individual and Miller and Lee's All Star Batman and Robin has plenty of room for comedy, so these aspects of the character have never truly gone away and form an intrinsic part of the appeal of Batman for many people. The Batman TV series was immensely popular after all and retains a certain undeniable charm even today.

I think any good, long-running thoroughly-developed fictional character will naturally come to have many faces and aspects. Batman's had 70 years to build up quite a complex and layered 'personality'.

Of course, one of my all-time favourite Batman panels was written by Haney and drawn by Jim Aparo and shows Batman strolling down the sunlit streets of Gotham, checking out the mini-skirted girls and accompanied by the line to end all lines: 'Yes, Batman digs this day!'

I'm not saying that's the Batman we want to see on every page, but I love that he might have this aspect to his character. I love the notion of a Batman who enjoys a peaceful stroll down the summer sidewalks of the city he keeps safe. There's something very human about that and it makes him much more relatable and rounded. I can certainly see the Dick Grayson Batman digging this day on a more regular basis!

To my mind, you've firmly put the sci-fi back into Batman, after years of his comics becoming more and more... mundane isn't the right word, but more of a hardcore crime book. Then you come along and suddenly there are crazy psychosomatic drug hallucinations of aliens and then Bruce Wayne gets zapped back in time by an evil god. Is this just trying to bring back all the pre-Silver Age ideas from the character's history that've been lost, or do you feel as if Batman works better as a concept when the weirdness of his rogues gallery gets amped up?

Putting Batman up against ordinary street criminals or organized gang bosses is fine but it's a bit one-sided in Batman's favour, given his training. I tend to assume that Batman goes out every single night as Gotham's Guardian and stops dozens of robberies, muggings, suicides or whatever all the time. Those 'ordinary', 'mundane' crimes are his bread and butter but they don't really challenge him and they don't necessarily make for compelling stories, so I prefer to focus on the wilder, weirder nights of his career and I like to see him facing devilishly brilliant, flamboyant psychos who can actually put him under pressure and take him to his limits. Watching a billionaire Batman disarm poorly-trained, poverty-stricken muggers effortlessly or beating up skinny junkies might be fun for a scene or two but does tend to raise thorny issues of class and privilege that the basic adventure hero concept is not necessarily equipped to deal with adequately.

As for the sci-fi elements, there's actually very little genuine sci-fi in the Batman title or in Batman and Robin. Batman RIP was certainly an attempt to recuperate those elements of Batman's long and contradictory history which no longer fit the profile of the Grim Avenger (although it's nice to see a lot of that material resurfacing in the Brave and The Bold cartoon, which features one of the most enjoyable takes on the character I've seen for a long time).

I don't have many comics in my tattered, bath-damaged 'collection' that date before 1972 when I became a 'fan' and a collector. My era of comics is the 'dark age' of the 70s and 80s, not the so-called 'silver age', so contrary to popular belief, I don't have any particular emotional attachment to 60s comics, other than John Broome's Flash stories which enchanted me as a small child.

I grew up with Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil, Len Wein, Engelhart, Starlin, Gerber, McGregor so my comic-writing style can be traced back to some combination of O'Neil' 'relevance' and Starlin 'cosmic'. Silver age, not so much.

Something that struck me about Batman RIP was the meta-deconstruction of the Batman mythos - When Jezebel Jet told Bruce Wayne that it wasn't healthy to be Batman, she may have been evil and trying to undermine his mission, but was she really completely wrong? With a new (and probably temporary) Batman who's going to not have those demons, are you trying to show how a healthier Bruce Wayne would do things?

I never really subscribed to the idea that Bruce was insane or unhealthy. As I've said before, Bruce Wayne's physical and psychological training regimes (including advanced meditation techniques) would tend to encourage a fairly balanced and healthy personality. Bruce Wayne would have gone mad if he HADN'T dressed as a bat and found a startling way to channel the grief, guilt and helplessness he felt after the death of his parents. Without Batman, Bruce would be truly screwed-up but with Batman he becomes mythic, more than human and genuinely useful to his community. I believe he began to slay his demons the moment he became a demon.

I also wanted to show a healthier Gotham City too. That whole Son-of-Sam, Rorschach-narration - 'This city is an open sewer where the rats feed on the broken dreams and filth of umm...other rats...where sneering, gnawing urban predators...blah blah...' - has become clichéd, tired and unconvincing. If Gotham was so bloody awful, no-one normal would live there and there'd be no-one to protect from criminals. If Gotham really was an open sewer of crime and corruption, every story set there would serve to demonstrate the complete and utter failure of Batman's mission, which isn't really the message we want to send, is it? You've got Batman and all his allies as well as Commissioner Gordon and the city still exudes a vile miasma of darkness and death? I can't buy that. It's simply not realistic and flies in the face of in-story logic (and you know I like my comics realistic!) so my artists and I have taken a different tack and we want to show the cool, vibrant side of Gotham, the energy and excitement that would draw people to live and visit there.

Gotham needs as many faces as Batman - it should be the loudest, sexiest, jazziest city on Earth. It has the best restaurants, the best theaters, the best art, the best criminals, the best crimefighters etc etc. People put up with the weird crime for the sheer buzz.

Why does Damian want to be Robin, if he can't show off to his dad?

Ultimately, Damian wants to be Batman. Being Robin is a step along the way.

Are you going to reference Dick Grayson's previous attempt to be Batman in the early '90s at any point in Batman and Robin?

Probably. I've tried to keep Dick Grayson's entire character history in mind, much as I did with Bruce Wayne in the earlier volumes of the story. Issue 2 has a reference to Grayson's time as a beat cop in the Bludhaven PD and the Bat-Bunker has a few trophies of his Nightwing adventures.

You've talked before about how the first year of the series works out, with artist Frank Quitely drawing the first and last three issues. What happens after the first year of the book? Are you planning on sticking around with Batman as a character, or will you be finished with Gotham for awhile once #13 rolls around?

That was the original plan but I can't seem to stop coming up with ideas for Batman, so we'll see how it goes.

Okay, last one. How would you sell Batman and Robin to people who haven't picked up a Batman comic in years?

Batman is dead. Robin is now Batman and Batman's evil son is now Robin. Everything is new again. If you ever liked Batman and don't want to see how that dynamic plays out, then may the Lord have mercy on your dry and shriveled worthless husk of a 'soul'! G'wan, g'wan, g'wan and buy Batman and Robin before the whole world starts laughing at you for missing out! Missing this is like missing your own birthday!

Batman and Robin #2 is in comic stores now.

It's a bold new Batman status quo, with a whole new lineup of crimefighters behind the various masks. In case you've been taking a break from the goings on in Gotham City (and, considering a lot of what's been coming out lately, I couldn't exactly blame you), Dick Grayson is Batman, Damian Wayne (the supposed son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul) is Robin, Tim Drake is Red Robin, and somebody still to be revealed is Batgirl.

There's plenty more happening beyond just the immediate Batman family. Socialite Kate Kane is still Batwoman and is taking over the starring role in Detective Comics, the rogues Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn are reluctantly teaming up, and Kate Spencer (alias the lethal vigilante Manhunter) is Gotham's new District Attorney. And both the Question and the Outsiders are still doing their things.

There's a lot there to set up and establish, but with so many books (two of which even have second features), things don't get too rushed. Admittedly, it can be a little hard to remember exactly who is doing what and where. So let's break this down one book at a time.

The flagship for the relaunch really has to be Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's Batman and Robin. Considering their last collaboration was the pretty much universally beloved All-Star Superman, expectations were understandably high for this new book, which is already guaranteed to run at least twelve issues with Morrison at the helm (although Quitely will depart after just three issues).

As I mentioned in my Trinity review, I have mixed feelings about Quitely's distinctive drawing style, which despite its unmistakable energy can make some of the characters look a bit, well...ugly. Still, I'd say his work has improved with each new project he undertakes, and it's hard to imagine a better partner for his images than Grant Morrison's ideas.

Compared to Final Crisis or Batman: RIP, Morrison is downright straightforward here, eschewing a lot of his usual mystical material for a more grounded tale that's a better fit for the world of Batman. In particular, Dick Grayson and Commissioner Gordon are far too sensible to readily fit into the usual insanity of Morrison's work, and it's nice to see Grant Morrison can write normal just as well as he can the crazy.

That said, there's still a giant talking toad who is introduced as one of the main new villains and goes completely unexplained, so I'm clearly grading on a curve here. And I'd be remiss if I ignored just how creepy and horrific the final few pages are, as they introduce the utterly deranged main villain for the book's first arc. Even for those who swore off reading Morrison in the wake of his last two big events, Batman and Robin is not to be missed.

Judd Winick's first issue of Batman (and the only one to feature the art of Ed Benes) largely concerns itself with retelling the events of the last few months, starting with Bruce Wayne's death at the end of Final Crisis. This might well seem redundant, but Winick manages to do in one issue what the entire Battle for the Cowl event could not - explain what Bruce's death means to the two people closest to him, namely Alfred Pennyworth and Dick Grayson (with apologies to Tim Drake).

This first issue is long on character and emotion and short on plot, and it works beautifully. It alternates between filling in the gaps of what happened during Battle for the Cowl and simply rewriting it, and it's hard to find fault with any of the alterations. In Battle for the Cowl, Dick's character arc was that he didn't really have any big problem with becoming Batman, but Bruce didn't want him to. It's valid enough, I suppose, but distinctly less satisfying than what Winick does here, as Dick tries to figure out how he can truly be Batman, not just an impostor wearing Bruce's suit.

Great as this first issue is, it doesn't necessarily give the best sense of Winick's ongoing run on Batman. This is very much a prologue to everything that will follow, and how he handles Batman in a character piece might not the same thing as how he will use him in an action story, but there's every reason here in this first issue to be optimistic for what lies ahead. If nothing else, the art will likely be enough to justify picking Batman up on a regular basis. Ed Benes is wonderful here, and I'm expecting similar brilliance from his successor, Trinity's Mark Bagley.

I suppose the big story with Detective Comics is that DC is making a lesbian character the protagonist of their longest continuously published book. That really should be some kind of milestone, right?* But, much like Batman's death, DC really hasn't done much to publicize this development. Whatever one makes of the company's public relations, Detective Comics is at least a pretty good consolation prize for Batwoman, who was meant to get her own book shortly after she was first introduced way back in 52.

Greg Rucka played a huge role in originating this new incarnation of Batwoman in 52, and it's hard to imagine a better writer to handle the character's starring debut. Kate Kane's close relationship with her military-minded father is a real highlight of the first issue, although it's fairly clear that's about the only thing going well in her life. Still scarred emotionally and physically by being stabbed in the heart at the end of 52, Kate's life is mostly in turmoil, with only the thought of vengeance against those who stabbed her to give her purpose.

Which brings me to the villains of this and pretty much every other Batwoman story, the religious fanatics of Intergang. Their role shouldn't really come as a surprise, considering how important the Crime Bible was to her story in both 52 and Final Crisis: Revelations (both written by Rucka, and both costarring Renee Montoya as the Question, who now occupies the second feature in Detective Comics). But I must admit some disappointment that they look set to dominate her story for the foreseeable future, partially because I've never really found the Crime Bible stuff all that interesting. Mostly, however, I'd like to see her establish herself as a character independent of Intergang, particularly when there is such an iconic cast of Gotham City villains for her to interact with.

I'm also not crazy about J.H. Williams's artwork. It veers wildly between gorgeous and pedestrian, with the former style for the Batwoman sequences and the latter for those following her alter ego. It's an interesting conceit, but I didn't really enjoying looking at the Kate Kane sequences, which seems like a drawback to a medium dependent on visual storytelling. Unlike, say, Ed Benes, whose style is consistently aesthetically pleasing and well-suited to action sequences, Williams seems more interested in establishing mood and atmosphere, which at times works beautifully.

There's no denying the Batwoman parts of Detective Comics are visually stunning, and it's entirely possible Williams's style will grow on me. Although - and this may sound like a very minor gripe - I doubt I'll ever like how pale Williams has made Kate Kane. There's one panel where she looks more like V from V from Vendetta than anything else, and that was a guy wearing a mask.

*In case you doubt the special place of Detective Comics, I would remind you what the "DC" in DC Comics stands for. And, yes, that does technically mean the company's full name is Detective Comics Comics. But I digress.

When I heard all the new titles announced back at New York Comic Con, I'd have to say Gotham City Sirens sounded the most intriguing. It also sounded like it had the potential to be DC's answer to Marvel Divas, which isn't what I'd call a good thing. The presence of writer Paul Dini confirmed my initial optimism, and I'm happy to say that he doesn't disappoint.

First, Dini created Harley Quinn back in Batman: The Animated Series. Then, he paired her up with Poison Ivy later in the show's run, with fantastic results. Now, he's adding Catwoman to the mix, who provides the perfect voice of sanity for this unlikely trio. (At this rate, by 2040 Paul Dini will be writing a movie that teams up every female character in the DC universe. I can't wait.) Dini is on very firm ground here with characters he knows very well, and it shows. (Another Dini favorite, Zatanna, also puts in an appearance, and I can only hope we'll see more of her as the series progresses.)

Catwoman is still recovering from having her heart removed by Hush (long story, but a good one), and she recognizes the need for teamwork in this harsher, more deadly Gotham City. Although the new would-be supervillain Boneblaster provides the trio with some rather irritating distractions, this first issue is mainly about setting up the dynamics of the three potential partners. The article ends with Poison Ivy drugging Catwoman and forcing her to answer one simple question: "Who is Batman?" Actually, that's not such a simple question these days, and I'm not completely sure Catwoman knows the answer herself. Either way, it's a pretty fantastic hook for the next issue, and I'm having trouble imagining what scenario Dini could come up with in which the team of Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and Catwoman wouldn't be massively entertaining. Plus, Guillem March's artwork is a joy to look at.

The big question for Batman: Streets of Gotham is how it's going to distinguish itself as something more than just the other, other Batman book after Batman and Batman and Robin. Reteaming Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen, who last worked together on what was easily the best part of Batman: RIP, the Detective Comics storyline "Heart of Hush", is a good start. The series is also taking its "Streets of Gotham" subtitle seriously, as this story is as much about Commissioner Gordon and a mysterious (but seemingly benevolent) new vigilante as it is about Batman.

Indeed, Dick Grayson is only seen "in character" as Batman, and Alfred is nowhere to be seen; I wonder whether this series will tend to downplay the behind-the-scenes aspects of Batman in favor of, well, the streets of Gotham. Still, Damian Wayne is given some time in the spotlight, and he's paired with a most worrying new chess partner: the recently incarcerated Thomas Elliott, alias Hush, who has surgically altered his appearance so that now he looks exactly like Bruce Wayne. I'm interested to see where that particular dynamic takes the series, although I'm guessing it's nowhere good.

The main thrust of this first issue is that even second-rate villains have become far more creative and disturbing in their schemes, as the formerly low-level bad guy Firefly starts remotely lighting people on fire using explosive nanites. The sight of people spontaneously bursting into flames is a horrific image, and the sight of Batman shooting the victims with a gun (even if it is just loaded with foam capsules) is off-putting in an entirely different way. Dini and Nguyen clearly aren't afraid of disturbing content and imagery, something confirmed by a scene where this brutal new vigilante rescues a child prostitute.

Still, none of it seems gratuitous or exploitative, and considering Paul Dini's work on Batman: The Animated Series is a huge reason why I love superheroes in the first place, I'm definitely optimistic that he knows what he's doing. Batman: Streets of Gotham also features a second feature starring Manhunter, which picks up on some threads from Battle for the Cowl. Right now, I'm treating it strictly as a nice bonus to the main story, but I was impressed with what I saw and am interested to see how successfully a complete story can be told in this shorter format.

Red Robin is something of an oddball compared to the other five major new or renewed Batman books. It's very decidedly not set in Gotham City, as Tim Drake sets out to travel the world in search of Bruce Wayne, who he is convinced is still alive (looks like somebody read to the very end of Final Crisis). He's also struggling to make sense of Dick Grayson choosing Damian Wayne over him as Robin, forcing him to don his new Red Robin identity. Even his name is providing him with existential angst - is he Tim Drake or Tim Wayne, and what does either say about him?

Tim Drake was probably always destined to be the character who lost the most in the wake of Bruce Wayne's death. There was no way he was ever going to become Batman instead of Dick Grayson, and I'm not sure the two really could have worked as a Batman and Robin pairing. Clearly, the powers-that-be at DC agreed, as a flashback shows Dick rather unceremoniously sending Tim on his merry way, primarily on the grounds that Dick needs to keep a close eye on the probably psychotic Damian Wayne. Dick has a point, but it doesn't make it seem any less unfair.

Not to belittle Chris Yost's writing or the artwork of Ramon Bachs, but I suspect Red Robin will become more interesting down the road. This is clearly being set up as the key book in Bruce Wayne's ultimate return, but that isn't going to happen for at least a year or two. Much as I like Tim Drake, I'm not sure his angst-ridden solo adventures can really maintain consistent quality before the series reaches its natural conclusion, in which Tim finds his adoptive father.

Tim states explicitly in this issue that he became Red Robin in part because it is not closely associated with Batman, meaning he can cross lines without reflecting poorly on Dick and Alfred. He is clearly headed for a darker place, and DC's recent track record in taking characters to darker places gives me serious concern. (I'm still not over what they did to poor Mary Marvel.) That said, this first issue pulls off the new, darker Tim fairly well, and placing at the end of the issue a reveal of Ra's al Ghul (who is fast becoming Tim Drake's archenemy) is a pretty good way to keep my interest.

Finally, Outsiders seems barely related to the rest of these Batman books, and it's almost surprising that this month's issue actually carries the "Batman Reborn" banner. As though to remind casual readers of the connection, issue 19 features Alfred and the Batman-influenced Owlman on the cover, but this is the only book of the seven in which Batman isn't even really referenced.

That said, writer Peter Tomasi is crafting a worthy followup to his work on final Nightwing and Robin books, and if the somewhat tenuous Batman connection was highlighted to drive up sales, at least readers are being pointed in the direction of a good book. It's refreshing to see a superhero team that can actually work together effectively (although the angst gets ratcheted up in this issue as Geo-Force looks for some even more final vengeance against Deathstroke).

The ongoing story pits the Outsiders against the very appropriately named Insiders, a mysterious quintet with greatly extended lifespans who are looking to achieve true immortality. To do this, they need to recover fragments of the meteorite that gave supervillain Vandal Savage his immortality 52,000 years ago. The story becomes significantly more interesting in this issue, as Savage himself turns up, followed by DC's other immortal supervillain, Ra's al Ghul, whose appearance will hopefully push this into more solidly Batman-related territory. (Also, if you're scoring at home, that means two different books in this month's "Batman Reborn" showcase end with last page Ra's al Ghul reveals. That guy sure gets around.)

So with all these various launches, relaunches, and continuations, which books are actually worth buying on a regular basis? Honestly, I'm excited for all seven of them (I'm also excited about my impending bankruptcy). But for those looking to be a little more selective, I'd have to say Batman and Robin, Batman, and Gotham City Sirens are the most promising series thus far and the ones most deserving of your immediate attention. It's been a long road back, but it looks like Batman is finally in safe hands once again, even if Bruce Wayne is still nowhere to be seen.

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.

Talking to IGN, Morrison explained what to expect from his new Batman series (and new Batman in general; this is former Robin Dick Grayson under the cowl, remember):

The only way I can explain the tone is that I had this idea of recapitulating the television show in a certain way... I was thinking of what other aspects of Batman are completely out of favor - that people tend to hate and don't seem to work anymore. The Batman 60s TV show was one of those. Obviously it was camp and a product of its time. But when I was a kid I thought it was really serious. [laughs] So I wanted to take some of that bizarre, psychedelic feel. I wanted to take the idea of very short, punchy stories that just kind of existed on their own terms. Rather than Batman RIP, which was a big, epic story that had a lot of secret subtext and hidden meanings and stuff, these are just crazy stories that are pretty upfront.

It was taking that aspect of the Batman TV show and then trying it in with David Lynch and Twin Peaks. [laughs] And creepy European cartoons and marionettes and stuff like that. That bad dreamlike feeling of a Marilyn Manson video in the '90s, or like Chris Cunningham's video for 'Windowlicker'. [laughs] Again, it was about trying to fuse those two things together into a bad trip, Lewis Carroll kind of world.

And that's exactly why we can't wait to read it. Batman And Robin #1 is released next week.

Talking to Comic Book Resources about his upcoming work for DC Comics, Morrison said,

I've just been doing an Earth Four book, which is the Charlton characters but I've decided to write it like "Watchmen." [laughs] So it's written backwards and sideways and filled with all kinds of symbolism and because of that it's taking quite a long time to write.

The "Charlton characters" that he mentions were the inspiration behind (and the original characters for) Watchmen; the Question, Peacemaker, Blue Beetle and Captain Atom (AKA, respectively, Rorschach, the Comedian, Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan). This won't be the first time that Morrison has revisited Moore's 1985 series so blatantly; his Final Crisis: Superman Beyond 3-D series from last year featured Captain Nathaniel Adam (The secret identity of Captain Atom), who was - for all intents and purposes - Dr. Manhattan with hair and clothes. Whether this project represents Morrison - who's often spoken out about his dislike of the gritty, deconstructionist storytelling ushered in by Watchmen - coming to terms with the influence of Moore and Gibbons' series, some kind of metatextual joke or just a chance to take the piss, there's no doubt that Morrison's Earth Four story will be eagerly awaited by the fanboys and the curious alike.

Morrison on the return of 'Seaguy'! [Comic Book Resources]

Seaguy, a surprisingly non-aquatic superhero who made his first appearance in a 2004 eponymous mini-series, returns in this summer's Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye, which sees the David Lynchian, Soylent Green-inspired story heading in a more adolescent direction, as Morrison explained to MySpace:

The first book in the Seaguy trilogy, ‘Seaguy and The Wasps of Atlantis', began with our hero's ‘birth'. We saw him living in a childlike world without consequence: Death is ineffectual, everything is just right and everyone is his friend in Book One. Then he goes on his big adventure, discovers some harsh truths about the world and about life, loses his dearest companion and is finally dragged home for brainwashing by a culture that no longer seems quite as tolerant of him now he's begun to see through its temptations. In the first book, although he's not a child, he's written with the kind of wide-eyed, vacant, naivety that typifies young kids.

When we meet Seaguy in this second book, ‘Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye', his features are sharper and more defined. He's restless, bored, and suspicious of everything. He's beginning to question all the things he previously took for granted. He is, in short, a teenager. So this second volume is ‘dark' Seaguy and it's all about what happens when society decides you're a troublemaker and sets out to remould you in its own image. Where the first book was done in a picaresque style, this one is pure Hollywood 3-act adventure. Can Seaguy escape from the false ‘El Macho' identity They've trapped him in? Can he make it back to New Venice in time to prevent the wedding of Seadog and She-Beard and thwart a plan to turn everyone into mindless, dribbling idiot slaves?

Ignore the strange names and the metaphorical world reveals itself, according to Morrison:

Blogging makes everyone a writer or a critic. MySpace makes everyone famous until there are so many famous people that no-one's really famous for anything at all. Twitter turns every twitch, fart and half-baked thought into a global press statement. ‘American Idol' makes everyone a potential celebrity. The Renaissance/Romantic idea of the special person, the genius, the ‘superhero', is dying before our very eyes. Everybody wants to be a rockstar and nobody wants to clean the streets. At the same time as all this desperate self-aggrandizement, we're watching endless reruns of the same shows, the way kids repetitively watch the same DVD cartoons over and over again. Our most successful movies are about children's cartoon characters as we try to cocoon ourselves with nostalgia and repetition against the howling, incoherent darkness of ecological disaster, paranoid surveillance culture, Terror and financial collapse.

In ‘Seaguy', this process is taken to an extreme; the world he's grown up in has been dumbed-down and infantilised to a ridiculous degree. People live in designated ‘Comfort Zones' arranged around sinister theme parks. Alienated, lonely, confused and self-important, they confide these fears to an anonymous voice in ‘Diary Rooms', inspired by ‘Big Brother', while pretending an outward happiness to the other self-absorbed people they encounter on their trips to the shops or the Park.

Of course, now I'm worried that I'm going to end up reading too much of my blogging self into the story when Seaguy: Slaves Of Mickey Eye begins next month.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW AND PREVIEW: Grant Morrison creator of SEAGUY! [MySpace Comic Books]

Here's the full quote:

"The basic idea of the superhuman is a very malleable one – you can do ‘realistic' superhero stories like say Watchmen, which takes a hard-nosed look at how these creatures might alter the social and political landscape of our own world, or you can – as I prefer to do – position them as archetypes that allow us to talk about the world using the language of symbolism and allegory. There have been ‘realistic' superhero stories, ‘surreal' superhero stories, superhero westerns, superhero war stories, superhero detective stories, superhero horror stories, superhero romances etc.

"I'm not even sure if there is a superhero genre or if the idea of the superhero is a special chilli pepper-like ingredient designed to energize other genres. The costumed superhero has survived since 1938, constantly shifting in tone from decade to decade to reflect the fears and the needs of the audience. The current mainstream popularity of the superhero has, I think, a lot to do with the fact that the Terror-stricken, environmentally-handicapped, overpopulated, paedophile-haunted world that's being peddled by our news media is crying out for utopian role models and for any hopeful images of humankind's future potential!" - Grant Morrison, interviewed in The Big Issue In Scotland, thanks SuneetiCadiwampus

To anyone who's seen Morrison - writer of The Invisibles and We3, as well as the man who didn't kill Batman in Batman RIP recently - speak at a convention, the story of Sleepless Knights is probably very familiar by this point. The script deals with a world that, thanks to a time machine-related accident, is permanently stuck on Hallowe'en, and the only thing saving humanity from destruction at the hands of gleeful supernatural beasties is a group of demon hunters who keep themselves permanently awake through somewhat inventive and chemical uses. At one point, the movie was going to be directed by Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy director del Toro - but now, Morrison told MTV's Splash Page blog, that doesn't seem to be the case:

[I]t’s no longer, as far as I know. It’s not at Dreamworks anymore, as far as I know. We spoke to some people after the [San Diego Comic] convention, and that aspect seems to have gone quiet again.

With del Toro now rumored to be attached to The Hobbit, a Pinnochio movie as well as an adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Witches and many, many other movies, he's probably too busy to return to this project, but that doesn't mean we'll stop hoping that he realizes that the world needs a supernatural Goonies more than it needs more Peter Jackson-produced Tolkien. You know it's true, Guillermo.

Grant Morrison And Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Sleepless Knights’ Movie: Put To Bed? [MTV Splash Page]

Morrison's comic is basically Watership Down for turn-of-the-century biopunks - a serious story about a merging of animal and artificial consciousness that gets at something fundamental in humanity. But a huge part of what makes the comic work is the art. The animals, created out of Quitely's stylized curves, look surrealistically like missiles or tanks. And their adventures bloom with lurid, unreal reds: Of blood, of fire, of sunsets. And eye-watering greens.

And yet producer Don Murphy told Shock Til You Drop that the movie is going to live-action. By which he must mean photorealistic CGI, which seems to me the wrong way to approach a tale whose look has to be as stylized as possible. I hate to sound like a kneejerk fan, getting all mouth-breathy about how the original is being desecrated. I don't care if the original is desecrated, as long as what results is cool in its own way. I just think this tale can't stand the jump to live action without major tweaking. Maybe, if "live action" means something like the pseudo-live action of a Frank Miller flick, it will work.

Even more potentially disturbing is the director. Shock Til You Drop reports:

Even though the film is going to be live-action, we brought on the lead director of Kung Fu Panda [John Stevenson]. He's attached to direct We3. We're doing it as an R-rating. It's not going to be cutesy. There's killer rabbits and stuff. We're in the process right now of trying to figure out where we're going to make it.

Stevenson's known best for a cute animal comedy whose tone is precisely what We3 turns on its head.

Stevenson may hit it out of the park, though - I'm hopeful about that R-rating. And Grant Morrison adapted the comic for screen himself, which is also a good sign.

Stevenson Attached to Direct Comic Adaptation We3 [via Shock Til You Drop]

Asked by MTV's Jennifer Vineyard about the on-again-off-again movie that would bring DC's Fastest Man Alive to the big screen, Morrison - who brought the 1960s version of the character back to life in Final Crisis - suddenly got surprisingly cagey:

Yeah, that’s the kind of thing I can’t talk about... Yes, I have talked to them. I’m deeply involved in those discussions. I know what’s going down with all of that, and it’s actually really exciting. But beyond that, I can’t say anything. I wish I could tell you. I’m sure announcements will probably be made at some point, but I can’t say anything.

Someone should explain to Morrison that "not saying anything" generally involves not telling people that you're "deeply involved in discussions" or that "announcements will probably be made at some point," but we have to admit - We're even more excited about a possible Flash movie now that we know that Morrison may be involved. After all, any man who thinks that the cover below is one of the greatest comic covers of all time is clearly a man of taste.
What Does Grant Morrison Have To Do With A ‘Flash’ Movie? He’s Not Telling…Yet [Splash Page]

Takashita is happy to explain where his desire for a two-dimensional wife really comes from:

I am no longer interested in three dimensions. I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world... However, that seems impossible with present-day technology. Therefore, at the very least, would it be possible to legally authorise marriage with a two-dimensional character?

I'd love to see what the bigoted proponents of California's Proposition 8 would have to say about this.

If the whole concept of crossing over from 3D into a fictional 2D existence sounds like something out of a - well, a comic book, it's because it is: This story reminded me of Secret Original, one of the many broken characters of Grant Morrison's The Filth - and a two-dimensional fictional superhero who accidentally ended up in the "real world," bemoaning reality when compared with the comic book world he came from:

I can see the cruel reality beyond all our hopes and dreams now. I know us for what we truly are. Not supermen but super-slaves in a synthetic prison. Playing out crummy meaningless adventures written by amoral monsters. They farm us, Eve; they farm us for the wonders we simply accept in our ignorance.

If that alone doesn't make you want to sign Takashita's petition, I don't know what will.

Japanese man petitions to marry comic book wife [News.Com.Au]

For those unfamiliar with the Area 51 game, the plot revolves around the outbreak of a mysterious virus in Nevada's infamous mysterious military base that transforms people into zombie-esque mutants... and leads a HazMat team of investigators to the discovery of an alien spacecraft hidden under the base. Talking to MTV's Splash Page blog, Morrison explained how he approached the movie:

That’s the existing idea and I have to get to the core of that, dismantle it, and make it work. It’ll be a totally different view of the aliens and the whole mythology.

What does that mean? Morrison's NDA stops him from explaining any further, but judging by his work on things like The Invisibles, The Filth and even We3, we can probably expect something somewhat psychedelic and unlike the usual movie version of alien invaders - but what else would you expect from a man who claims to have been abducted by aliens in the early 1990s?

Grant Morrison Talks ‘Area 51’ Video Game-To-Film Script [Splash Page]