Where to start with this week's haul? Why not with the return of some classics?

Marvel is reissue some wonderful old-school SF in the Annihilation Classic collection (including the complete Rocket Racoon series!) Meanwhile, Dynamite finally collects the entirity of Garth Ennis' Dan Dare series (lost in limbo since Virgin Comics went under). And SLG Publishing releases Tron: Ghost In The Machine.

Also, Boom! puts out the first of this week's must-haves: The first issue of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the illustrated version of the Philip K. Dick novel that has to be seen to be believed (We'll have a review later today, but suffice to say it's unlike any other comic you've read). Also in the "adapted novel" category? Marvel's collections of Ender's Game: Battle School and Ender's Shadow: Battle School, both also released this week.

Staying in the classic end of the pool, Dark Horse revive Creepy as a new, quarterly anthology title this week, and it's well worth a look. So is the first issue of IDW's new monthly Doctor Who comic, which captures the feel of the television show better than any comic to date.

Potentially something that'll get overlooked this week, and really shouldn't, is Vertigo's specially-priced reissue of the first issue of the wonderful Fables, which should be picked up by any Fables fan. Why, you ask? Because it also contains a preview of Peter and Max, Bill Willingham's first Fables novel. Now you understand.

Those looking for superhero thrills, don't feel left out: Paul Tobin's enjoyable Dr. Doom and The Masters of Evil series gets a collection from Marvel. So do the first issues of Greg Pak's War Machine.

But the real fun comes from DC's end of the market. They're putting out the hardcover edition of Neil Gaiman's Batman: Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader (which I didn't love, but YMMV, as the kids say). They're also launching Blackest Night, their big summer event with the first issue of the main series as well as the first issue of the anthology Tales of The Corps to help you get up to speed with the main players. The dead will rise, they say, and we're waiting to see just which dead heroes are going to come back to cause trouble for Green Lantern and friends.

Dead superheroes, cosmic classics and even more can be found - as ever - on the complete list of releases from Diamond Distributors this week, and your local comic store remains the best place to buy them. Just remember to save some room in your collection for next week.

To be fair, the new "deluxe editions" of Superman: Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow and Batman: Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader owe as much to their writers - Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman, respectively - as the fates of their central characters. In fact, both books are somewhat misnamed; both books are as much "The Complete Works Of This Big Name Writer On This Big Name Character" as they are about the central story; in fact, the Moore/Superman book has more non-Whatever Happened To material than it has of the title story - which is one of its saving graces - but doesn't Whatever Happened To... just sound better?

Neither books hang together especially well as collections; Moore's Superman stories work well individually, but there's no real theme to them beyond "Hey, it's some Superman stories." The same is true of Gaiman's Batman books only to an even greater extent, as his non-Whatever Happened stories don't even feature Batman, but are "Secret Origins" of Batman villains - or, in one case, an incomplete framing sequence for two other, not-included (non-Gaiman) stories. Yes, there's something to be said for indulging the completist mentality, but at the same time, there's surely just as much to be said for fulfilling reading experiences.

Of the two Whatever Happened tales themselves, Moore's Superman send-off is by far the superior - For one thing, it works as a story outside of a celebration of the character's history, something that Gaiman's overlong Batman farewell feels like it's lacking all too often. It's interesting to compare the tone of the two; Moore's 1986 classic seems like a mean-spirited preview of Watchmen's genre deconstruction at times, especially compared to Gaiman's more recent sentimental trip down memory lane; there's a sense in Moore's take of not only revisiting old characters, but of gaining a new perspective on them as well as a sense of closure. Gaiman's story, on the other hand, replaces plot with nostalgia and an oddly upbeat ending where the execution undercuts what I'm sure was meant to be a much more ambiguous atmosphere (Moore, too, gives Superman a happy ending, but he's Superman; you kind of want that for him).

As I said before, the extra material in Moore's book is a saving grace; it includes the wonderful collaboration with his Watchmen partner Dave Gibbons, "For The Man Who Has Everything" - much more fun than the lead story, in my opinion - as well as a team-up with Swamp Thing, the character with which Moore made his name in the US. The Gaiman book, on the other hand, feels astonishingly slim. Part of this is because Gaiman's back-ups were almost intentionally more throwaway, having originally appeared in the recap-friendly Secret Origins title, and another part is that they're from early enough on in Gaiman's career that you can still see him finding his own voice between the lines. That uncertainty adds value in the same sense as the book has value as a curiosity piece for Gaiman fans, but for the casual reader, it leaves the book the lesser of the two by some distance.

If you're wondering whether to pick either release up, it depends less on your feelings about the characters than the writers. If you're a fan of Moore and don't already own these stories - they've been reprinted many times - then, yes, you should run to your store and pick this up; even if you don't dig Superman stories normally, the humor and inventiveness is classic, if early, Moore. But if you're a Gaiman fan, it's harder to recommend the Caped Crusader, because it'll only really succeed for you if you're also a big enough Batman fan to care about Dick Sprang tributes or catch the amazingly subtle Joe Chill cameo... and how big is that crossover audience?

Superman: Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow is available now, and Batman: Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader is released to comic stores this Wednesday, both published by DC Comics.

High Bloods, John Farris (Tor)

It's the near future, and LA is overrun with werewolves. An International Lycan Control force is set up to keep tabs on the "high bloods," those that can keep their werewolfish nature under control. But then something goes terribly wrong, and the book becomes a hard boiled crime novel. With werewolves.

Wireless, Charles Stross (Ace)

Notorious future-forward sci-fi author Charles Stross has collected the strands of some of his short fiction into this compilation. Stories feature everything from relocating the cold war in deep space to a Lovecraftian take on the Iran-Contra scandal. The collection showcases Stross's short works that have never found their way into any of his longer pieces.

Songs of the Dying Earth, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (Subterranean)

Dozois and Martin have gathered a crop of modern sci fi writers to write their own stories exploring Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" universe. The "Dying Earth" series is a cornerstone of its very own sub-genre of dystopian sci fi, and these stories give some other writers a chance to lend their voice to this seminal canon.

Metatropolis,edited by John Scalzi (Subterranean)

Five sci fi writers collaborated on their own urban future, and then each took a turn writing stories set in their collectively imagined universe. The result is a portrait of a possible future of cities. From the io9 review:

These feel like cities where anything can happen, from getting your skull cracked to discovering your life purpose. And most important of all, when I was done reading about this future dys/utopia, I wanted to spend a lot more time there.

The Osiris Ritual, George Mann (Snowbooks)

George Mann's well-received "The Affinity Bridge" created a steam-punk Victorian London landscape for his intrepid mystery solvers. Now his steam-punk Sherlock Holmes is back to solve another mystery, interacting with some distinct characters along the way. This one is for fans of clockwork robots, airships, and good old fashion mysteries.

Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? Neil Gaiman (DC)

This hardcover volume collects a few of Gaiman's Batman pieces, focusing on his canon-spanning final story, "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" This story stretches from one end of the Bat's career to the other, offering a new angle on the Batman mythos.

Purple and Black, K.J. Parker (Subterranean)

"Purple and Black" is an epistolary novel, or one told only in letters. In this case, the letters are between a reluctant intellectual emperor and his best friend on the front lines of combat. The result is an exploration of the duty of leadership, of war, and of friendship. It's also printed in two colors, purple for the official empire business between the two friends, and black for the less formal, more personal letters.

The Stars Blue Yonder, Sandra McDonald (Tor)

A military commander dies, but then comes back to life on a mission to save all of humanity. This mission takes him all over space and time, where he meets his yet-non-existent grandchildren and his descendants from thousands of years in the future. He also manages to thoroughly confuse his grieving wife with resurrection and stories of far-flung time travel. The two work together to save everything they've ever known.

Bar None, Tim Lebbon (Night Shade)

After the world ends, a group of tenacious survivors hole up in a giant home in Wales, but supplies start to get thin, and they learn from a supernatural stranger of a haven a few days away. It's the Bar None, and it's maybe the last bar on Earth. The survivors then decide to do probably what anyone would do in their situation: against all odds, braving corpse-strewn countryside, they try to track down a cold beer. From the io9 review:

In the end this is a deeply sentimental and intimate look at memory, loss, and those perfect days barbecuing and tossing a few back with good friends. And flesh-eating monsters.

The Kingdom Beyond the Waves, Stephen Hunt (Tor)

Amelia Harsh, a sort of steam-punk female Indiana Jones, and a cast of adventurers sets out in an ancient U-boat to discover the sunken "perfect society" of Camlantis. Also on board are a band of female mercenaries, escapees from an underwater prison, and an insane guide. Sounds good to me.

Blood Red Sphere, Lawrence Barker (Swimming Kangaroo)

A recovering "cactus juice" addict passes his days scavenging ancient artifacts from the surface of mars and selling them. Then one such object, the "blood red sphere," attracts attention from pretty much everyone on Mars and the rest of the solar system. It's like the "Maltese Falcon" on Mars, which is something I can definitely get behind.

The House of Lost Souls, F.G. Cottam (Thomas Dunne)

After a psychic trauma visits itself on four students (causing one to commit suicide), a journalist investigates a home haunted by madness and strange occult happenings. The novel touches on many different eras of the house's history, eventually leading to a confrontation between our protagonist and an ancient evil.

We admit it; it's unlikely-verging-on-impossible that Gaiman ripped off the 2006 indie graphic novel by Jason McNamara and Tony Talbot for the end of his two-part tribute to the Dark Knight (Who knows if he even knows that Continuity exists, despite its 40.000+ readership thanks to it being made available as a free download by the publisher pre-release?). We just thought it was odd to see such a similar end in both books. Apparently protagonists aren't the only things that have tendencies to be born again...

Continuity

Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader?

For one thing, you can support Heroes' Milo Ventimiglia, whose new comic Milo Ventimiglia Presents Berserker gets its very own preview #0 this week. The new series - created by screenwriter Rick Loverd and "produced" by Ventimiglia, which presumably means he wants to play the lead if they make it into a movie - centers around people discovering that they're sleeper Norse Gods with all the powers that brings with it. My fingers are crossed for a Hayden Panatierre-a-like cameo by issue three.

If the television episodes of Battlestar Galactica aren't enough dystopian sci-fi for you, then you can bone up on the history of everyone's favorite messiah figure in Battlestar Galactica: Baltar, which explores the backstory that led one man to be self-centered, comedic and somewhat tragic, in his own way. Yes, it tries to add some pathos, but don't hold that against it.

But really, this is the week of the Bat. DC's pushing out the hardcover collection of uneven-but-much-better-on-second-read Batman RIP (which, to be honest, may be worth it if only for the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh and his colorful costume). But more excitingly, they're also releasing Batman #686, the first half of Neil Gaiman's Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader? send-off to Bruce Wayne. Illustrated by Andy Kubert, it looks beautiful from the previews that we've seen - and a more than worthwhile memorial to a character who isn't even pretending to be dead right now.

Even if you're not in the mood for Gaiman Gotham, you can check out the complete list of this week's new comic releases to find all the other men in tights (and other stories) available tomorrow, and then the Comic Shop Locator Service will help you find just where you should go to indulge yourself... If you're up to it after NYCC, of course.

The images, from Gaiman's two-part Bat-story celebrating the history of the character in the wake of the recent Batman RIP storyline, show a more classical side to the caped crusader - arresting Catwoman (in her 1950s costume, interestingly enough) amid moonlit gazes into each others' eyes, and talking a panicking Riddler down instead of just punching him. Apparently, Gaiman asked artist Andy Kubert to reference various popular artists from Batman's history in this story, and so these images may be a shout-out to the more mellow Batman of the '50s through '70s than a glimpse of Dark Knights to come.
Batman #686, the first part of the storyline, is due in stores February 11th.

Mysteries And Evil Buttons [Neilgaiman.com]

The page, pencilled by Andy Kubert, comes from Batman #686, the last issue of the series before it goes on hiatus and Bruce Wayne is replaced as the Dark Knight for the foreseeable future (or, at least, awhile). While no information about who that is in the car was given to us, we're guessing that all those cats mean that it's probably Selina Kyle, Catwoman herself, rushing to some mysterious destination...

Batman #686 goes on sale February 11th, 2009.

Batman #686 [DC Comics]

Moore's 1986 Superman story, which ran through one issue each of Superman and Action Comics (in the same way that Gaiman's will run across an issue of Batman and Detective Comics), is notable not only for being one of the few Superman stories written by the Watchmen and From Hell author, but also for summing up the entire history of Clark Kent's alter ego before "killing" him and allowing the character to be rebooted and restarted from scratch later that year by John Byrne.

Gaiman's Batman story is due at the start of next year, following on not only from the current Batman RIP storyline, but also something that Grant Morrison calls "The Last Batman Story." We've already told you about rumors that Dick Grayson is set to take over the name and costume in the new year, and Dan Didio slipped up twice at Comic-Con, mentioning something called "Battle for the Cowl", but are we really about to see the end of Bruce Wayne as the Caped Crusader? Didio talked about the similarities between Gaiman's new story and Moore's career-capper for Superman:

There are a number of parallels [between the two stories]. There’s a very particular reason why we call it [Whatever Happened To...], and that information will be coming out later on, but with this, we wanted to get someone of that particular stature to tell this story, a story that will really define the years of Batman’s life.

Our take on the whole thing? Anyone who wants to relive the days of Superman's death at the hands of Doomsday in the early '90s may want to start picking up the monthly Batman books, because Bruce Wayne is probably not going to be Batman this time next year. Of course, it's unlikely to stick; not only is head Batman writer Grant Morrison the man who brought the Flash back more than twenty years after his death in this summer's Final Crisis, but there's almost definitely no way that Warners wouldn't want to have Bruce Wayne where he belongs in the comics if and when they ever do a sequel to The Dark Knight. Everyone knows that corporate synergy is stronger than death or retirement, after all.

More on Gaiman-Batman with Dan DiDio [Newsarama]