The series, which previews February 2009's movie, is co-written by Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman, with art by Bruno Redondo. You can find out more about the series here.

Push #1 Preview [MySpace]

Sleeper, created by Ed Brubaker - the man who killed Captain America and replaced him with a cyborg assassin - and Marvel Zombies' Sean Philips in 2003, centers around Holden Carver, a secret agent whose run-in with an alien artifact leaves him with superpowers including invulnerability... which, according to the government, makes him a perfect candidate to go undercover in a secret society of supervillains because, well, what could they really do to him if he got caught?

The movie version - rumored for years, despite complicated rights issues - is being helped by Cruise's "loose attachment" to the project, according to the Hollywood Reporter:

Together with Sam Raimi, he is setting up "Sleeper" at Warner Bros. Cruise is loosely attached to star in the adaptation of the DC Comics/Wildstorm comic that Raimi would produce with his Star Road Entertainment partner Josh Donen... Raimi and Donen have long been fans of the book, and the project could have found homes at Sony and Regency if [the rights] issues hadn't been so complex. "Sleeper" is a spin-off book from Wildstorm flagship title "WildC.A.T.s" and features characters from another spin-off book, "Gen 13." Both books had been set up at different places around town and some of those deals were made before DC bought the imprint in 1999.

No writer is attached to the project yet.

Tom Cruise wakes up 'Sleeper' [Hollywood Reporter]

Following three Biblically-titled series (Armageddon, Revelations and Number Of The Beast), the Earth has been knocked off its axis, London has been destroyed by a crashed spaceship, and entire cities have been flooded and left unhabitible, all thanks to a battle between superhumans that didn't really go as well as could be expected. Wildstorm editor Ben Abernathy explained the thinking behind permanently changing the status quo of this particular superhero universe:

Looking at the landscape of the industry, we realized we needed to move our universe in a different direction, something that the “Big Two” couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do for a long period of time. And we decided that direction should be toward a sci-fi/horror direction of a post-apocalyptic setting (to a degree, an almost logical extension to where the [Wildstorm Universe] has been headed for years). There have been “visions” of a devastated, bleak future in other mainstream super-hero books, but nothing with the lasting impact or direction that the World’s End books will be tackling.

The World's End setting definitely isn't a cosmetic change for the line; former fan-favorite books have been relaunched with significant changes, including depowering (and deforming) half of The Authority before stranding them in an electricity-less radioactive former London and placing the Wildcats in charge of the sole refugees of a dying New York City.
This isn't the first time that the Wildstorm line has gone all out for change; in 2003, their Coup D'Tat series had the Authority depose the US Government and set themselves up as dictators of the United States, before they realized that they couldn't be bothered with all the paperwork. But with fans still hurting about 2006's failed Worldstorm relaunch (which died when Grant Morrison's core two series Wildcats and The Authority disappeared after one and two issues, respectively), will even the end of the world get them interested in checking out the series again?

Possibly not - comic fans are a notoriously fickle bunch, and I say that as one of the more fickle - but they should; although the lead-ins vary wildly in quality (Armageddon is fairly avoidable, and Revelations could've been half the length; Number Of The Beast, though again overlong, is very enjoyable, however), the World's End relaunch works.With this shift, the books have not only become far less of the generic superhero titles that they used to be, they also move outside of the superhero genre in general, having more in common with movies like I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, and it finally gives them an identity that isn't just "Superheroes who are a little bit more violent than the more famous ones," and watching characters who are more than slightly responsible for the end of the world as we know it having to be responsible for trying to rebuild society - while dealing with their guilt is, if nothing else, different from the traditional superhero angst. I'm not sure about the longterm prospects of the project - and hope that there's no deus ex machina planned, even though they've already partially set one up at the end of Number of The Beast - but for now, World's End is doing something that very few superhero comics can do: Showing what happens when everything goes wrong and no-one can save the day anymore.

Wildstorm: World's End [DC Comics]

The rumor about a resignation were made public by writer Warren Ellis, in one of his Bad Signal mailings early Friday morning:

If what I just heard is true, then it's going to be a really
interesting day in the comics news business... If it's not, well, I just wasted seven seconds of your time. You'll live.

As he had predicted, the news broke on Comic Book Resources, where Rich Johnston shared the following:

I understand that last week, John Nee handed his resignation in to DC Comics. As of today, however, he was still working at the company offices.

DC themselves refused to comment, but Nee's resignation was claimed confirmed for the site by "independent sources." Online reaction to the news was mixed; IDW Publishing's Scott Dunbier, who had worked with Nee at DC's Wildstorm imprint for years before resigning himself last year, posted that

John Nee is an honorable man and my friend. I hope he is happy and successful in whatever he does.

while "Tom Power" (presumably a pseudonym) left the following comment at Newsarama:

Nee’s departure won’t even be noticed by readers and consumers, but it will buoy the spirits of everyone who had to work under him. Nee was known for his being tone deaf to the feelings and sensibilities of others; what he probably saw as being forthright and outspoken was regarded by people with actual human emotions as a form of Tourettes and a total lack of empathy. Knowing people who worked under him at DC as I do (and having interacted with him on various bits of business over the years), I feel safe saying that he won’t be missed.

So, who was this apparently divisive figure?

John Nee came to DC through Wildstorm, the one-time independent studio headed up by 1990s superstar artist Jim Lee purchased by DC late in 1998, where he was VP General Manager for the imprint until his promotion last year to Senior Vice President of Business Development for all of DC Comics. During his time in both roles, he was responsible for the expansion of DC's international publishing programs, as well as the creation of DC's CMX manga imprint, the long-coming Sony/DC Comics MMO, DC's participation in online/cell publisher Flex Comics and - maybe most importantly of all - Lego Batman.

While his stepping down from his current position may not have an immediate effect for fans, it's still unknown what it may mean for the publisher itself; in response to Publisher's Weekly's Heidi MacDonald calling the resignation "capp[ing] off what had to be considered a week of bad news and turmoil for DC," Warren Ellis wrote (in another Bad Signal mailing):

Sadly, I don't think that does cap off the week for DC. I don't think they're going to have a very good day at all, tomorrow. I hate this, really.

Despite that Friday mailing, nothing was announced on Saturday or Sunday... Not that that stopped the rumor mill. Almost everyone assumes that Nee's resignation is part of larger changes, and while the nature of those changes varies depending on who you listen to (Most outlandish take: Nee has resigned in preparation for Jim Lee to leave his own post at DC and start up another independent publisher. Most plausible: Nee has resigned to facilitate a series of sideways moves that will slide Dan DiDio out of the Executive Editor position and someone else in), very few people believe that Nee's resignation is as simple as it seems on first inspection.

Dan DiDio's appearance at this weekend's HeroesCon has done little to inspire confidence in his staying power; although he told fans at the DC Nation panel that such rumors "come with the job" - not that they're helped when Jimmy Palmiotti teases the crowd with a "no comment" when asked if he wanted DiDio's gig (He's since made it clearer that he was joking and doesn't want the job) - others felt that he seemed very worn down and defeated:

DiDio stayed pretty gruff throughout the State of the Industry panel and dodged moderator Tom Spurgeon's questions about the past week at DC, marred by Chuck Dixon's acrimonious exit. Not inspiring anyone, at one point DiDio said, "We have the same characters... There's only so much you can do with them. You've seen it all, you've heard it all."

I mean, it's honest, but, man. Talk about a buzzkill.

It will, it seems, be another very interesting week for DC Comics.

In addition to Batman: Death Mask, an original manga by Yoshimori (Togari - The Sword of Justice) Natsume that will be published in authentic back-to-front format, the main DC/Wildstorm project will be DC/Wildstorm: Dreamwar that crosses over characters from both lines. Editor Scott Peterson described the project simply:

Basically, it's the DC Comics heroes versus the Wildstorm heroes, punching.

When asked about the status of the very late Wildcats series by Grant Morrison that disappeared after a mid-2007 first issue, series artist Jim Lee embarrassedly called it "the dreaded question," before admitting that "there's no way to make amends [for the delay]" but both Morrison and Lee are committed to finish the series at some point, although that may be five or ten years from now. Here's hoping that he was sarcastic on that last point. Peterson said that Morrison's other delayed title, The Authority, has had some "serious forward motion" and will be returning at some point.

In response to questions about Warren Ellis's missing titles Desolation Jones and Planetary, Peterson said that, like any publisher, they're very happy to publish work from Warren Ellis when they get it. He has written the final issue of Planetary, but they're waiting for artist John Cassaday to have time in his schedule to draw it.

Jim Lee also talked about his All-Star Batman series with Frank Miller, saying that he enjoys working on the book, and that he's surprised that Miller continues to work on the series considering his movie schedule. The book is slated to run for twenty issues, and they have around ten still to work on.