Not much leapt out at me from November’s DC solicitations. Many of the titles have already been announced, whether in previous solicits or at the summer conventions.

Anyway, November 1 is my birthday — let’s see what DC’s getting me.

WORLDS TOUR ‘07

If there’s a theme to the Countdown tie-ins, it appears to be “touring.” Everything’s a survey of the vast (well, not so much anymore) Multiverse. In C. to Mystery, Eclipso’s corrupting various good guys. C. to Adventure and The Search For Ray Palmer showcase a different parallel Earth in every issue. The Lord Havok miniseries features Marvel pastiches, and the Captain Carrot miniseries parodies superheroes generally. Countdown: Arena (which we’ll see solicited next month) pits alternate versions of characters against one another. Therefore, each of these relies on some knowledge of superhero tropes. Moreover, what used to be called “Elseworlds” is now Tales of the Multiverse – “familiar heroes reimagined in startling ways,” as the (reimagined) solicit copy says.

Naturally, when DC calls its characters “familiar,” the cynical among us may well ask, “Familiar to whom?” I’d like to think that Infinite Crisis’ continuity-tweaking was designed to return the standard-bearing DC characters to a certain baseline level of accessibility, so that they’d still be familiar to the general public while maintaining a somewhat updated, modern-as-tomorrow feel. The broad strokes of “Elseworlds” which Countdown exploits suggest such an approach. “Batman is a vampire,” “a world based on magic,” and “Nazi Justice League” aren’t the coin-wasn’t-heads differences of a What If? story, nor are they the won’t-fit-anywhere-else stories of an Earth-E.

Instead, at least on a superficial level, these Multiversal permutations are very high-concept. Fighting Batman or Superman would be hard enough, but fighting Vampire Batman or Nazi Superman — oh noes!! If that’s as far as it goes, then these various tie-ins seem like big dumb fun at best. However, I wonder if Final Crisis won’t involve Grant Morrison’s fascination with duplicates and doppelgangers, and result eventually in the Platonic ideal of the main DC superhero line.

COUNTING UP COUNTDOWN

This month’s Countdown portion is fourteen issues, pretty much the same as last month’s. I count ten floppies (C. To Mystery, C. To Adventure, Captain Carrot, Gotham Underground, Death of the New Gods, Lord Havok, two Search For Ray Palmer issues, and two Superman/Batmans) in addition to the four installments of Countdown – excuse me, Countdown To Final Crisis. The month’s extra credit also includes a Jimmy Olsen Special which reprints three Jack Kirby issues, and the “Batman Vampire Trilogy” paperback. Those would be worth reading apart from Countdown, though.

Anyway, fourteen floppies isn’t an insignificant portion of the sixty-four solicited in the DCU line, but it’s not exactly taking the DCU titles over, either. It’s a little over twenty percent. For comparison’s sake, there are eleven Batman-franchise issues solicited in November (Batman, Detective, Confidential, All-Star, Outsiders, Catwoman, Robin, Nightwing, and the aforementioned Superman/Batmans and Gotham Underground). Four of those are part of a separate crossover, and therefore “must-have” for followers of that storyline. Essentially, if numbers are any guide, Countdown is apparently a bit more important to DC’s superheroes than Batman is. That seems about right.

ONE EVENT ENDS, ANOTHER BEGINS

Said events would be, respectively, the Sinestro Corps War (concluded in Green Lantern #25, epilogue in GL Corps #18) and the Resurrection Of Ra’s Al Ghul (as mentioned above, 4 of 7 parts offered this month). There’s also the final two parts of “The Third Kryptonian” in Superman #670 and Annual #13. After the Action Comics and Wonder Woman shipping snafus, I don’t blame DC for having a “get ‘em done, get ‘em out the door” attitude.

With regard to the Batman crossover, honestly, I haven’t been waiting for Ra’s to return, so this project will have to sell itself to me a bit more. I mean, I’d be excited about any collaboration involving Grant Morrison, Paul Dini, and Peter Milligan (who wrote some spooky Detective Comics back in the early ’90s), and Ra’s actually does play pretty well into the “James Bond Batman” Morrison wrote so well in JLA. The solicits aren’t pushing my buttons, though. I’ll get it, but I’m just not that jazzed for it right now.

As for the month’s new event, Salvation Run: meh. Even if the idea didn’t seem like a mash-up of the Negative Zone Prison and World War Hulk, I’ve never been a big fan of Bill Willingham’s writing. Although — if they all came back to Earth as zombies…?

POTPOURRI

No Justice Society Of America this time, which is a little peculiar considering the big Kingdom Come story will have just started in October’s issue. Another title delayed, perhaps? And speaking of which, Gail Simone’s Wonder Woman tenure begins an issue later than previously advertised. (But this time for sure!)

The cover of Infinity Inc. #3 is quite pretty, and may well be enough to get me to try the series.

Looks like Dick Grayson finally becomes the Goddamn Robin in All-Star Batman #8.

Is The Brave and the Bold going to single-issue stories for a while? This month’s Flash/Doom Patrol team-up, good as it looks, doesn’t seem to have much to do with last issue’s Wonder Woman/Power Girl story.

Supergirl leaves the Legion of Super-Heroes in S/LOSH #36, and Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone leave The Spirit with #12. November also sees the debut of the latest Supergirl creative team, Kelley Puckett, Drew Johnson, and Ray Snyder.

DC dives deeper into the licensing pool with the Heroes “graphic novel” collection and the new Worlds Of Warcraft series (written by Walt Simonson, no less). I haven’t been following the “Heroes” webcomics, and don’t play WoW, so I may not be the best person to comment on these. I watch the show, but I’m not sure if the comics are worth $25.00 in handy printed form. As for the WoW comic, Marvel seems to have had success with its Halo books, so who am I to begrudge DC its own videogame tie-in?

That Green Arrow figure looks like the last one anyone would ever need or want. If it’s the one I’ve seen, it comes with trick arrows (boxing-glove, etc.) which actually fit in GA’s quiver (not a euphemism). Maybe I can save up $80.00 by next April….

It’s not listed in these solicitations, but the long-awaited League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier finally (fingers crossed!) comes out November 14.

COLLECTIONS

Ed Brubaker wrote both stories (well, adapted the Joker story from Batman #1), but beyond that it seems a bit odd to pair Brubaker and Doug Mahnke’s The Man Who Laughs with a 3-part arc from Detective guest-starring the Golden Age Green Lantern. And in a hardcover, too. They’re both good stories, and I even give the edge to the GL story (drawn by Patrick Zircher).

I always found the Batman “Vampire Trilogy” to be unsettling in a very visceral, penny-dreadful kind of way, which I suppose is appropriate. I hesitate to compare it to Marvel Zombies, mostly because I’ve never read Marvel Zombies, but it’s probably the same kind of thing. Not great art, nor a new insight into the core of the character, but an effective exploration of a story that obviously would never work in the mainstream comics.

(Speaking of which, I should’ve mentioned this with the October solicits, but when is DC going to do an “Issue 666″ month like it did with “Zero Month” and the DC One Million tie-ins? Last month’s Batman #666 and this week’s Superman #666 were both good, spooky fun. Do ‘em like the “actual” issue #666 of Wonder Woman, JLA, etc., at whatever point in the future those issues would fall, and go nuts. Those titles will get rebooted so often, they’ll never reach #666 otherwise. It’s the perfect setup this year, too — October 31 is the fifth Wednesday, perfect for a Halloween fifth-week event! Man, first DC fails to send out checklist cards disguised as Lance/Queen wedding invitations, and now this missed opportunity. Ye gods!)

Ahem. At first I was surprised that DC would collect the first several issues of Harley Quinn in a $25.00 hardcover. Then I was even more surprised to learn – yes, after all my years of following the company – that the series ran for 38 issues. Crikey, where was I? Obviously not buying Harley Quinn. The lesson seems to be “never underestimate Harley’s popularity,” with the corollary being “save your pennies” – at this rate, the entire series will run you at least $125.00.

At the risk of wading back into the Superboy discussion, I am glad to see that more of the Levitz/Giffen Legion is being collected. Of course, the Eye For An Eye story apparently provides a big clue that the Karate Kid of Countdown can’t possibly be the Karate Kid of Earth-1 – at least, not without a big retcon.

Elsewhere in the “things which don’t fit” category is perhaps the funkiest deviation from standard DC continuity, the Super-Sons. If their Earth isn’t one of the 52, I will wonder indeed who decided to leave it out. The basic Super-Sons premise is that they’re the teenage children of Superman and Batman, born to faceless, unnamed mothers, and each looking, acting, and dressing like younger versions of their dads. Each of their adventures finds them getting into the kind of trouble you’d expect to see on a “Greatest American Hero” episode. At least, I don’t remember too many outer-space adventures or fights with Luthor or the Joker.

THE FUTURE IS CLASSIFIED?

It’s curious to me that JLA Classified is nearing the venerable Issue #50 mark. The title started strong, with a 3-part Grant Morrison/Ed McGuinness romp which led indirectly into Seven Soldiers. That was followed by the last hurrah of Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire on the Justice League International characters, and then a moderately well-received Warren Ellis/Butch Guice story. After that, though, it’s been hit and miss. Gail Simone, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, and Klaus Janson presented a “dictator grows his own supers” story, but then so did Howard Chaykin and Killian Plunkett. Dan Slott and Dan Jurgens’ “Red King,” and Peter Milligan and Carlos D’Anda’s “Kid Amazo,” both sat in an editor’s drawer for years and subsequently failed to live up to the accumulated hype. The Steve Englehart/Tom Derenick Detroit League arc was just a mess.

JLA Classified did, however, give readers a steady shot of reliable Justice League action during the months when the in-continuity League was in flux. The fact that the “real” JLA seems to have settled down therefore makes me wonder about Classified’s future. In June it sold some 21,000 copies, ahead of Catwoman and Checkmate but well behind Robin and Birds Of Prey. None of those other titles are going anywhere anytime soon (well, maybe Checkmate), but JLA Classified seems even more ancillary now. Batman Confidential and Superman Confidential seem to be doing better having dedicated themselves to “flashback” stories, so that may be where JLA Classified needs to go. November’s second issue (#47) begins a two-part retro-style story, and you’d have to think something special was planned for #50.

Come to think of it, though, this whole “tour of the Multiverse” thing seems like a good fit for a Justice League anthology. You could have the Crime Syndicate one month, the Justice Riders the next, and Justice Legion A after that. It would be a nice change from the inventory stories, that’s for sure. Makes me wonder why it’s not being exploited thusly by Countdown….

So, what looks good to you?

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