The big news yesterday was that Warner Bros. had decided to open Superman Returns two days early, on June 28 instead of June 30.

But why?

Entertainment Weekly‘s Popwatch notes that while studio executives claim they’d been thinking about June 28 from the very beginning, the real reason likely has to do with a desire for a “record” box office:

Read all the fine print about X3‘s “record” haul and you’ll start to get an idea what Warner’s after. Almost every “record” these days has some sort of asterisk after it — either it’s three-day vs. five-day, Friday vs. Saturday, Memorial Day vs. any old weekend, domestic vs. global, 1,000 screens vs. 3,000, or some combination of factors that casual observers rarely take the time to suss out. The studios trumpet their winnings, and all we hear is “big” and “record.” Execs are looking for new hurdles to clear because they want a big headline and two-page ad in Variety to settle some stockholder nerves Back East.

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Tracking response to this weekend’s revelation that the “new” Batwoman will be a lesbian socialite has been a somewhat surreal exercise. And I’m not even talking about the comic-book message boards.

The story broke Sunday in The New York Times as part of a much larger article about efforts by DC Comics and Marvel to diversify their superhero universes. By Monday, news had crossed the Atlantic to the U.K., where it met with mixed reaction from gay and lesbian advocacy groups. (One organization suggested DC was pandering to fanboy fantasies, while another lauded the publisher for promoting diversity.)

From there, news wound its way to France, India, South Africa and Australia before ending up back in the United States, where even DC Comics executive editor Dan DiDio admits to being overwhelmed by media interest in Kathy Kane.

“It’s kind of weird,” he told The Associated Press. “We had a feeling it would attract some attention, but we’re a little surprised it did this much.”

Just as weird are the headlines accompanying the coverage. Most are fairly straightforward, but others, well … aren’t:

“New incarnation of Batwoman likes girls” is the headline for The AP story.

“Lady-lovin’ Batwoman comic fuels rabid debate,” the New York Daily News says.

And because headline-writers can’t resist, Ireland’s GCN goes with, “Kerpow! Batwoman is back — and gay.” (UK’s The Sun pushes the allusion and fumbles the facts with, “Batgirl kerpow-t of closet.”)

Related: Newsarama has Batwoman previews from 52 #11

If you haven’t visited Chris J. Miller’s Unauthorized Chronology of the DC Universe, now’s a great time to start. He’s put together an exhaustive timeline of DC history, from the birth of the Source to multiple versions of the 30th Century and beyond. Now that Infinite Crisis has ended, he’s even compiled a day-by-day account of the cataclysmic events.

As might be expected, given the current nature of DC’s continuity, the site won’t be updated for at least the next year, but there’s so much to explore, it may well take you that long to get through it. Of course, by then history may be entirely different …

After $120 million this weekend, the question now is not “if,” but more likely “when” we’ll see a fourth X-Men movie. Kelsey Grammer, aka the Beast, is looking forward to it:

X-Men: The Last Stand star Kelsey Grammer wants to make another movie in the comic book franchise.

The actor – who shot to fame as psychiatrist Frasier Crane in 80s sitcom ‘Cheers’ – says he loved playing mutant politician Beast in the film.

Despite ‘The Last Stand’ being considered the final film in a trilogy, Grammer says he expects Hollywood bosses to order a fourth movie after it smashed box office records.

The movie has already taken over $120 million in the US alone when it opened over the Memorial Day weekend making it the fourth biggest opening in American box office history.

You’d think Wall Street would be impressed at those kinds of numbers. But Investor’s Business Daily looks at the effect the X-Men movie has had on Marvel’s stock … or the lack of an effect, actually:

Marvel’s stock actually was sputtering during Tuesday trading after “X-Men” raked in an estimated $120.1 million. Shares ended the day off 15 cents to $19.82.

The reason is that the “X-Men” deal, forged by Marvel with Twentieth-Century Fox in the late 1990s, came as the comic-book company was emerging from bankruptcy. While it gave Marvel some much-needed exposure, it wasn’t nearly as lucrative as the agreement cooked up a few years later with Sony Corp. for the “Spider-Man” film series.

“It’s an old film deal, so the economics weren’t what we were able to generate with later deals,” said David Collins, a spokesman for Marvel.

And lastly, SciFiWire talks to Ben Foster, aka X3′s Angel, about earning his wings:

“It was really cool,” Foster said in an interview . “You stand differently when you have wings on your back. They were not heavy. They were made of really light [material]. It’s weird telling secrets, because when I watch [something], I get really excited, and when I hear how they did it, [it] bums me out. ‘Oh, yeah, well, that’s foam.’”

The Miami Poetry Review (seriously) have put together a list of “10 Directors That Know How To Make Comic Book Movies.” The list includes Bryan Singer, Sam Raimi and Robert Rodriguez:

Not just any director could adapt the atmospheric and bleak Sin City comic/graphic novel by acclaimed writer Frank Miller. Robert Rodriguez has what so few film directors possess nowadays: a powerful vision, and the will to uphold that vision. To witness Sin City, with its deliberate clash of colors and audacious writing, whether in comic form or on cinematic display, is an art lover’s dream.

What’s interesting about the list is who came in at no. 1 — someone whose comic book movie resume only includes one scene.

NBC is offering a “first look” at their new drama Heroes, which will air on Mondays next fall. The site currently features a video showing a guy jumping off a building, with a brief description of the show:

They thought they were like everyone else… until they woke with incredible abilities. In Japan, a lowly office worker can teleport at will. In New York, a struggling artist can paint the future. In Los Angeles, a discontented beat cop can hear the thoughts of others. Elsewhere, a high school cheerleader discovers she is unbreakable and a single mom realizes she has a powerful alter ego. Heroes chronicles the lives of these people and the lives of others like them — whose destiny just might be saving humankind.

NBC.com weekly exclusives include an original, animated graphic novel that follows new hero adventures.

The graphic novel isn’t up yet, but I’m interested in seeing what they do with it.

Elsewhere, The Seattle Times examines the ‘science fiction” trend of the previous Fall season. Inspired by the success of Lost, shows like Invasion and Surface hit the air in September, but were not renewed for 2006-2007. Of the genre shows that had their debut on network TV last year, only The CW’s Supernatural will be back next season.

ComingSoon.net reports that Warner Bros. will release Superman Returns on June 28 instead of June 30, to give the movie an extra two days before the July 7 opening of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

The shuffle is one of a handful of changes announced by the studio — the others being new dates for The Ant Bully and Barnyard, and the move of Brad Pitt’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford from Sept. 15 to sometime in 2007.

Superman Returns had an initial budget of $184.5 million, and is said to have finished “well south of $200 million.”

Since some of the comments on TGC’s Top 52 list mentioned other characters with strong showings, here are the rest of the top 100, with the number of first-place votes in parentheses.

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The Toronto Star recently spoke with Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O’Malley on the third chapter in the life of Scott Pilgrim and how Toronto is featured in the book:

His illustration style may be foreign, but much of the series’ inspiration is closer to home. Familiar Toronto landmarks (Casa Loma and the Toronto Reference Library have made appearances) play a major role in O’Malley’s books as Scott and his pals flit about the city. While local readers might delight in seeing Lee’s Palace (also in Vol. 2) and Honest Ed’s (in Vol. 3) pop up, readers elsewhere find our edifices a bit, well, cartoonish.

“Everyone’s like, `Is Honest Ed’s real? What is this circus place?’ In the comic, I make it explode, so when I was back in Toronto recently, I was like, `It’s still here!’ I’d been living in my own little world,” O’Malley laughs.

They also talked to him about the Scott Pilgrim movie deal:

Ah, yes, the movie deal. Universal Pictures optioned the series last year, enlisting director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) and screenwriter Michael Bacall to adapt the comic for the big screen.

“I met with them in Toronto last October, showed them the neighbourhoods, and it was great. I’ve been very involved, which is very nice and doesn’t happen a lot, I think,” O’Malley says of the film, which has yet to begin production.

Go check it out.

As comic-book message boards buzz over this weekend’s revelation that DC Comics’ new Batwoman is a lesbian, U.K.’s Metro turns to a gay and lesbian advocacy group, which says the publisher’s move is more about pandering to male fantasies than it is diversity.

“Most pre-adolescent children neither know nor care about the sexuality of their comic book heroes,” Outrage spokesman David Allison said. “And it is well known that lots of men get turned on by the idea of lesbians.”

However, DC’s Dan DiDio told Newsarama this weekend that it’s not about titillation, but character and storytelling: “If the character is gay, she might have had different levels of challenges in her life. The fact that she conceals her own sexuality to some of the people around her and to her own family is going to be a bit of a story, so there are going to be secrets within secrets. You’ll also find more and more about who she is as the story is told, and see how it plays against her lifestyle.”

Kathy Kane originally was introduced as Batwoman in Detective Comics in 1956, and appeared as an occasional guest star until 1964, when much of the extended “Bat Family” was weeded from the titles. She carried a “utility purse,” and used charm-bracelet handcuffs and an expanding hairnet.

The new Kathy Kane, who will debut in a July issue of 52, is a lesbian socialite with a connection to former Gotham City police detective Renee Montoya. Her traditional yellow-and-red Batwoman outfit has been traded in for a black-and-red costume designed by artist Alex Ross. The “utility purse,” too, is gone, replaced with a utility belt.

Update: A spokesman for the gay group Stonewall sees the new Batwoman differently:

“I think anything that promotes diversity is a very good thing and we welcome the introduction of characters like this,” he told The Independent. “A lot of lesbians and gay men are fans of these comics and it is good that the publishers are beginning to recognise that, and feature people who reflect the society we live in. Lesbians and gay men may also identify with the genre because comic book characters are often misfits who are left on the margins of society and have to fight to be accepted.”

Okay, I couldn’t resist: here’s the Great Curve’s list of the *52* (woo!) Best DC Characters, as voted on by 89 commentators. There are only seven women, but six are in the top 20. Two characters are African-American and three others have Egyptian backgrounds (sort of). Gardner Fox had a hand in creating eight, as compared to Carmine Infantino and Bob Kane’s seven apiece, Bill Finger’s six, John Broome’s five, and Jerry Siegel’s four. Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, and Joe Shuster were each present at the creation of three, which doesn’t take into account Wolfman and Pérez’s renovations to a few others. By my count, thirty-nine have been adapted for film and/or television.

Let’s have a hand for Mr. Kevin Melrose, who helped immeasurably by putting up most of the pictures you’re about to enjoy.

And finally, thanks to all of you who voted. It was fun putting everything together!

Here we go:

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The New York Times looks at efforts by the two biggest superhero publishers to diversify their fictional universes by adding more minority characters.

The focus is on DC Comics, which, in the wake of Infinite Crisis, has introduced a Mexican-American Blue Beetle, a Chinese Atom, and now a Chinese superhero team and a lesbian Batwoman.

That’s right, The Times has the scoop on the “new” Batwoman, whom some readers thought might be former Gotham police detective Renee Montoya. Instead, the newspaper reports, this Batwoman will be a little of the old mixed with a little of the new: She’s still Kathy Kane — introduced in Detective Comics in 1956 — but now she’s a lesbian socialite who has a history with the hard-drinking Montoya.

Judging from the concept sketch, the new version has abandoned her traditional “utility purse,” charm-bracelet handcuffs and expanding hairnet for a more practical utility belt.

DC’s Dan DiDio said that because readers are often resistant to new characters, the companies are carefully linking fresh faces to “legacy” heroes.

More interesting, I think, is the Chinese government-controlled Great Ten, which has Grant Morrison’s name written all over it. Shaolin Robot, Accomplished Perfect Physician, August General in Iron, and Mother of Champions, “who can give birth to a litter of 25 super-soldiers about every three days”? That has to be Morrison.

The team is set to debut next month. (You can see character designs here.)

The newspaper also speaks to Marvel’s Joe Quesada, who spearheaded the creation of the Latina superhero Araña in 2004: “I do look at the universe with a different set of eyes, but I don’t let race enter or interfere with the story. There’s nothing worse than thinking, ‘We need three more black characters in the Marvel universe.’ ”

Writers Judd Winick and Reginald Hudlin are also interviewed. And Winick has a few words for those who complain about him pushing an agenda in his stories: “When I get gripes for my need to force my social agenda into comics, I always ask: which social agenda are you complaining about? Is it the gay people? Or the black people or the Asian people? After a while, it doesn’t look like a social agenda. This is the world we live in.”

Related: Dan DiDio tells Newsarama about the new Batwoman