Flashpoint is coming, and today DC’s The Source blog is dealing out the teasers all day today. We’ll have them here lickity split for you as well. The heading of the first post was “Whatever Happened to the World’s Greatest Super Heroes?”

So what does that ominous tagline mean? Well, the first tease is: “The Spaceship never crashed.” The most famous spaceship in the DC Universe is the one that brought baby Kal-El from Krypton to Earth, allowing Superman to eventually lead Earth’s heroes.

As Rob pointed out in the comments though, another big spaceship crashed, belonging to Green Lantern Abin Sur. That crash directly lead to the Green Lanterns being heavily involved in Earth history and events, from Hal Jordan receiving his ring, to the other 3 Earth GLs, all their friends and interactions; that one has a LOT of consequences behind it.

What is it that caused the spaceship to never crash? Which one was it? Does this mean it landed naturally, or didn’t make it to Earth at all? Quite a few questions from a single line come to mind, so feel free to speculate below, and stay tuned as we update all day with new teasers.

Updates, and more teasers after the break:

(more…)

We all know superheroes lead very serious lives but they’re also just like everyone else. For the most part. And that means they have pets. Announced this past summer DC is teaming up with Capstone Publishers to release a new series of books called DC Super-Pets. And now, Capstone is sponsoring a writing contest for kids in conjunction with this months launch!

With art by Eisner Award-winning illustrator Art Baltazar, DC Super-Pets features heroes’ companions Krypto, Ace, Streaky, Beppo, Jumpa, Storm, B’dg, Comet and Hoppy fighting against the villains’ animals Rozz, Bad News Birds, Dex-Starr (YES!!), Chauncey, Misty, Sneazers and Gorilla Grodd. Although the book will surely appeal to kids of all ages, the “My Pet Is Super!” contest is for kids in grades 1-3. (more…)

Turns out, adapting comic books to movies or TV shows is a popular practice; so, always, there’s a bunch of casting news out there from comic book-to-film/TV adaptations. Such as:

(more…)

Spawn #200 is out today, and Golden Apple in Los Angeles is putting on a day-of-release celebration for the founding Image Comics title with as big a Spawn-related guest as exists (other than Spawn himself, who happens to be fictional): Todd McFarlane, the character’s creator. It’s taking place from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Pacific time, and the flier boasts “special guests” — which, according to Twitter, look to include Stan Lee and Rob Liefeld, the latter of which contributed to the issue.

Archie Comics is going same-day digital with six of their monthly titles starting in April, in arguably the most significant commitment to digital comics seen yet from a major publisher. The news was originally reported today by the New York Times.

The titles going digital are mainstays Archie, Archie & Friends, Betty, Veronica, Betty and Veronica, and Jughead, which is all of their non-licensed, non-digest, non-magazine format, ongoing monthly comics. The NY Times article wrote that the publisher is “starting” with those comics, implying that more may be coming.

Maybe just as significantly, the digital copies of the comics are priced at $1.99, a full dollar less than the print product. When other publishers have released comics digitally the same day as the print product — such as Ultimate Comics Thor at Marvel or Justice League: Generation Lost at DC — both formats were priced the same.

Unlike most other major publishers, Archie comics have traditionally sold most at newsstands, thus are seemingly not at the same risk at disrupting relationships with direct market retailers, which has been cited as a stumbling block for going same-day digital. Check Newsarama later today for more on this story.

OK, just let that image sink in for a minute.

Announced this morning on The Source, Jesus Saiz is the new ongoing artist of Birds of Prey, starting with issue #12 in May. The Gail Simone-written book has had approximately 350 artists (well 4 or 5, and all pretty great) in its run since last year’s relaunch, but it’ll be nice to see an impressive regular artist joining the team. Plus, he draws everyone as individual people! Look! They all have different faces! With Brave and the Bold Saiz drew a lot of the DC Universe, and Simone is excited to have him on board, according to DC’s blog:

“Jesus is at the top of a very short list of dream artists on our, “Oh, man, wouldn’t HE be fantastic?” list. His previous work has been silky and sexy and powerful all at the same time. He’s fantastic with design, storytelling, body language…an artist this good frees up the writer to make the stories even bigger and more complex.”

Now, of course, Barbara Gordon is front-and-center on that cover, but is also at the heart of the current BoP storyline, “Death of Oracle.” What does that mean for the title of the story? Your guess is as good as mine, so why not share it below?

The only thing more exciting than the current Spider-Man comic strip story arc?: Reading it along with Josh Fruhlinger. I dig his theory on the origin of of the latest big, green underground monster to snatch Aunt May.

“But still, this is carrying a stupid trend to ridiculously stupid extremes“: Comics blogger “Snell” of Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep does not care much for DC’s character-posing-on-white-field-before-their-logo/icon/symbol theme month, arguing that it takes the decade-long trend of generic covers to the extreme. I like most of the ones I’ve seen so far, the exceptions mainly being the ones where the had to reach for a symbol to slap up there and the unfortunate choice for Jonah Hex’s symbol.  Elsewhere on SMotD, Snell notes that the climax of one of those books—Starman/Congorilla #1—contradicts a statement Dan DiDio made about death in the DCU post-Blackest Night.

You’re probably gonna wanna bookmark this one for a while: As is his holiday tradition, Tom “Comics Reporter” Spurgeon ran interviews with seemingly everyone in the comic book industry during late December and early January. The series is now complete, and you can find a nice collection of links to each of the interviews in the finished series right here.

I believe that pen actually is mightier than most swords: Jim Woodring publisher Fantagraphics has plenty of images and video of Woodring and his giant pen in action. Check ‘em out here.

“The Evolution of the Comics Media Tie-in”: At Publishers Weekly, Shannon O’Leary looks at the current spate of comics tied to television and films, and how that association helps sell them. The phrase “The Watchmen Effect” gets thrown around a lot.

Faster then a Speedo-wearing bullet: (Sorry). At the Hooded Utilitarian, Richard Cook revisits that neversending source of out-of-context hilarity, the 1992 Marvel Swimsuit Special, and notices something unusual for a Big Two super-comic: It’s really, really gay (“Amazingly gay,” in Cook’s words). The art and styles are both definitely…of it’s time, but I can see how appealing these things might have been to teenage boys gay and straight in the early ’90s. I say bring back Swimsuit Specials, Axel Alonso!

More on political cartoonists and the Tuscon tragedy: Monday I linked to Daryl Cagle’s Political Cartoonist Index, noting it was a good place to see how the nation’s political cartoonists were processing a killing spree that seems at least partially politically motivated (what with it occuring at a political event and all). Michael Cavna of The Washington Post also offers a nice starting point for such a survey. In this post, he gathers some of the various cartoons (some of which also appear at Cagle’s site), while in this post he speaks to several cartoonists about how they and their colleagues have been responding.

“The charts don’t include a lot of surprises, but a few things are worth pointing out…”: Writing for Techland, Douglas Wolk picks some data points out from the 2010 sales charts and offers up some food for thought. Creator-owned works like Scott Pilgrim and Walking Dead ruled the book charts, but they were also supported by other-media adaptations. Mark Millar-written books featuring his own original characters (or “original” characters) are more popular than Millar-written books featuring Marvel characters. Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison are the beginning and the end of DC Comics’ successes. A lot to ponder, really.

The most specific best-of list I’ve seen so far: At Polite Dissent, a comics blog that often focuses on the practice of medicine within the funny books, Dr. Scott notes “The Best (and Worst) Comic Book Medicine of 2010.” Congratulations to Dr. Mid-Nite and all the winners, and please be wary of this Dr. Blake fellow.

A-O-Ka-Zar: At The Cool Kids Table, Ben Morse discusses “The Ka-Zar Conundrum,” and thus allows me the opportunity to read the name “Ka-Zar” over and over. I love that name—seeing it, saying it, typing it, tinking about it.

It Came From the NYPL

Fallen Angel: Reborn
Written by Peter David
Illustrated by J.K. Woodward
Lettered Chris Mowry & Neil Uyetake
Published by IDW

I am not a Buffy fan and, consequently, am totally unfamiliar with Illyria. I’ve also fallen behind reading Fallen Angel, which prevented me from understanding the roles of several supporting characters – the final page for example.  So perhaps my overall indifference to Fallen Angel: Reborn is partially rooted in those twin disconnects. But not entirely.

I actually went to the library hoping for one of the recent Fallen Angel omnibus editions (my preferred comic format: many hundreds of pages, reasonable financial cost!), aiming to catch up and reimmerse myself in Peter David’s tale of a guardian angel, cast down to Earth, and the mystic city she now protects. Alas, the library had only one book, this one. It’s as close to the itch as I could scratch, so I requested a copy.

(more…)

In my introduction post yesterday I mentioned I got my DC superhero dress from Etsy. In case you’ve never heard of it, Etsy is the greatest/worst website in the world. It’s a place devoted to handmade crafts, art and vintage items people all over the world have decided to sell. And I buy pretty much all of it. It’s a sickness.

Besides shopping for yourself, Etsy is a great place for finding gifts. I bought more than my fair share for friends and family there this holiday season. No matter what you or your loved ones interests are, you can bet there’s an item for it on Etsy. There’s even a whole section of the site devoted to “geekery.”

Once a week I’ll be sifting through the millions of listings to find the best in geek chic for Blog@ readers. I’ll probably stick with certain themes usually but to start us off today, here’s a sampling of just some of the great finds you can score on Etsy.

(more…)

Well, the subject just about covers it, but here’s the deal: Phil Jimenez is now exclusive with DC Comics, and his first assignment is drawing and co-plotting the “Legion Academy” in Adventure Comics, along with series writer Paul Levitz.

Jimenez’s run on the book starts with February’s previously solicited Adventure Comics #523. Jimenez was previously announced as being exclusive to Marvel Comics at 2007′s Comic-Con International: San Diego, having worked on Amazing Spider-Man and Astonishing X-Men during that stint. Jimenez is, of course, no stranger to DC Comics, with a lengthy run on Wonder Woman and 2005′s Infinite Crisis among his credits with the publisher.

Courtesy of DC Comics, more images from Adventure Comics #523 follow after the jump.

(more…)

Nick Spencer’s latest high-concept creator-owned Image Comics series, Infinite Vacation, hits stores tomorrow, and as you’ve surely noticed by now, if your comic doesn’t have a teaser image campaign, then you ain’t tryin’. Here are the first three of Infinite Vacation’s clever, copyright-skirting magazine cover send-up teaser images, with the fourth and final one likely to surface tomorrow afternoon. They’re after the jump, and check back for the last one tomorrow! (And a review of the first issue of the series, which also features art by Christian Ward, is right here, courtesy of this week’s Best Shots Advance.)

(more…)

Last week, when the world wasn’t busy falling in love with the homeless man with a golden voice, they were mildly interested in Seattle’s real-life superhero, Phoenix Jones. The natural first question most people asked upon hearing about him was, “isn’t he going to get hurt?” The answer: yes.

While attempting to break up a fight this past weekend, PJ got kicked in the face, leading to a broken nose. Sounds like it could have been a lot worse, given that, according to a report by Seattle TV station KOMO, Jones was held a gunpoint.

Predictably, authorities aren’t happy with it, making Phoenix Jones more of a Spider-Man than a Batman. “Don’t insert yourself into those situations,” a detective said in KOMO’s report. Though in a quote from last week, a police spokesperson was a bit more amenable: “There’s nothing wrong with citizens getting involved with the criminal justice process – as long as they follow it all the way through.”

The original Phoenix Jones video that made the rounds is after the jump.

(more…)

Update: When e-mailed about the status of the Pixar and Muppet comics, BOOM! responded with the “BOOM! Kids 2.0″ image, first released in September:

Original story: Looks like BOOM! Studios may possibly no longer be in the Pixar or Muppet business. As first pointed out on the Comics Worth Reading blog, the remaining solicited Pixar and Muppets comics from the publisher surfaced on Diamond’s latest cancellation list, with the added twist of having a “3″ code — meaning, “canceled by Previews.”

One of the affected titles, The Incredibles, is in the midst of a story arc, with the earliest canceled issue on that title, #16, originally scheduled to ship in November. The other three, Toy Story: Tales From the Toy Chest, The Muppet Show and Cars: Adventures of Tow Mater had all wrapped story arcs.

BOOM! picked up the Disney and Pixar license in 2008, a year before Disney acquired comic book publisher Marvel Comics. Marvel’s first Disney comics produced since the purchase were tie-ins to last month’s Tron: Legacy feature film; the publisher has held both Disney and Muppet licenses in the past before their acquisition.

BOOM!’s Disney comics, especially The Muppet Show by cartoonist Roger Langidge, have received critical acclaim. Late last November, Langridge announced that he was working on his last story with the Muppet characters, to be released sometime in 2011. Newsarama contacted BOOM! Studios, and will update upon hearing back from the publisher.

A list of the canceled titles follows after the jump.

(more…)

This is your last chance to read Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee’s critically acclaimed, classical take on Marvel’s Thor character in a new single-issue format, as this week’s Thor: The Mighty Avenger #8 is the last issue of the series.

What is the best way to honor the cancellation of one of the best superhero comics of the past year or so? I plan on rolling the last issue up, setting it in the little wooden viking ship I’ve been fashioning since Marvel first announced the end of the series, and then setting it in my bathtub and lighting it afire.

I think it’s what Thor would have wanted.

That’s not the only reason to be sad this week, however, as it looks like a relatively weak week at the old comic shop. Here are a few books of note I noticed…

BPRD: Hell on Earth: Gods #1: Mike Mignola, John Arcudi and Guy Davis keep it up. Preview here.

Daredevil Reborn #1: Andy Diggle and David Gianfelice kick off the next phase of Daredevil’s story post-Shadowland in this $4 one-shot, featuring a neat-o cover by Jock. You can check out a preview here. Meanwhile, T’Challa the Black Panther continues to keep ol’ Horn Head’s subtitle and numbering warm for him in Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #514, by David Liss and Francesco Francavilla.

Hack/Slash: Me Without You: This one-shot features the origin of Vlad, Cassie Hack’s slasher-slashing sidekick. Creator Tim Seeley writes, artist Daniel Leister draws, and the main page has a nine-page preview you can see by clicking here.

Infinite Vacation #1: Suddenly-everywhere writer Nick Spencer and artist Christian Ward team for a high-concept love story about a world where alternate realities exist and are easily accessible, allowing people to buy and trade for variations of themselves. Publisher Image Comics compares it to Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind and Inception. You can start judging that assessment for yourself with this preview.

(more…)

Written and created by Brian Andersen, art, colors and letters by the talented Celina Hernandez. For more So Super Duper go to:www.sosuperduper.com!

Last month, Bruce Timm helped Conan O’Brien get a new DC-esque superhero identity — The Flaming C, complete with oven mitts and fishnet stockings. Last night on the first Conan of the new year, the Flaming C took his next natural step and got inserted in place of Superman into a clip from Young Justice, chewing out Superboy and making the Flash jealous. Conan’s clearly not a Zatara fan, though.

Hey everyone! I’m Jill Pantozzi, otherwise known as The Nerdy Bird. If you’re a loyal Newsarama reader (and I know that you are) you’re probably already familiar with me. I contribute my op/ed column Hey, That’s My Cape! to the site weekly as well as a bunch of interviews and features along the way. But I’ve been told by some people it’s impossible to get enough of me so here I am making my first official appearance on Blog@.

This is my opportunity to introduce myself and the chance for you to get to know me a little better. Pretend this is our first date.

(more…)

Much like Action Comics #800 back in 2003, a cover for April’s Action Comics #900 is also an homage to the first issue of that series, 1938′s Action Comics #1. This one’s a variant, and by Alex Ross. At this point, shouldn’t “guy grabbing his head” have a name, at least?

Yep, more after the jump. (more…)

Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth
Written by Jay Hosler
Illustrated by Zander Cannon & Kevin Cannon
Published by Hill & Wang

There’s a joke about the blasphemy of this book somewhere in here, but let’s cut to the chase.  Following on 2009’s The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA (with writer Mark Schultz), artists Kevin Cannon and Zander Cannon return to the science fold.  This time, it’s Jay Hosler (who brings experience in both science and comics writing to the table, including his “life of a honey bee” epic Clan Apis) handling the script, and Charles Darwin’s favorite theory finds itself in the spotlight.

The framing device for Evolution: The Story of Life on Earth, like the Cannons’ previous science-fact effort, focuses on the king of the alien Glargalian Empire and his son meeting with one of their scientists to determine a solution to their species’ genetic crisis.  After the last book’s DNA lesson, chief researcher Bloort explains to his regent the recently (to the Glargalians) uncovered Earth-based theory of evolution and its many benefits.

(more…)

By Zack Smith (above art by Evan “Doc” Shaner)

As you may have seen, on our main page we’ve been writing a LOT about Captain Marvel. As we talk with many of the character’s biggest fans and creators, something occurred to us – if Captain Marvel gets his own series again, who would be the best creative team to handle it?

So, we came up with 15 “Dream Teams” based on creators who’ve publicly stated they want to work on the character, or whose styles might be a good fit. Which would you be most likely to read? Pick below!

1.) Jeff Parker and Evan Shaner
2.) Gail Simone and Michael Oeming
3.) Mark Waid and Mike Norton
4.) Geoff Johns and Brent Anderson/Alex Ross
5.) Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart
6.) Jeff Lemire and Cully Hamner
7.) Darwyn Cooke
8.) Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover
9.) Joss Whedon and Eric Wight
10.) Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee
11.) Sean McKeever and Ted Naifeh
12.) J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Ploog
13.) Kurt Buisek and Geroge Perez
14.) Paul Dini and Stuart Immonen
15.) Tom Peyer and Rags Morales

Is there a creator we left out? Would you rather mix and match some of these creative teams, so different writers are working with different artists? Or is there a classic Captain Marvel team you’d like to see return?

Let us know in the comments below! Shazam!