WW-CHICAGO: DC at the crossroads
At Wizard World Chicago this weekend DC staffers sat down for another DC Nation panel and gave fans some insight into what we can expect in the Immediate" future."
Editorial honcho Dan Didio was joined by coordinating editor Jann Jones, marketeer Bob Wayne, Jim Starlin and Sean McKeever. Starting off we heard what we have down the pipeline after Countdown to Final Crisis, the aptly named Final Crisis will be a seven issue series by Grant Morrison and J.G. Jones starting in May 2008.
And since the weekly format has been so successful for DC over the recent years, starting weekly in December Countdown: Arena starts bringing us more tastes of the Multiverse pitting three different versions of a character fighting out to be a leader in Monarch’s army. The results will be determined by the fans who will get to vote on the DC website for the winner. That’s right folks its reality comics!
Salvation Run will place DC villains in a penal colony, their own planet resulting from the DC heroes looking for a better solution than prisons and Arkham.
Starlin will be killing off whomever he feels like in Death of the New Gods, an eight-part mini-series starting in October. At the panel he jovially made it clear that no one is safe.
The long awaited Marv Wolfman/Damian Scott Raven has been slated for early 2008. In other Titans news we’ll see a Terra mini-series in March.
,
Kyle Rayner will be joining the Challengers. DiDio suggested for everything to make sense read GL 26 then Atom #18 (Actually, DiDio was unsure of the actual issue number but assured us it’s the one after GL 26) then Countdown, all of which should be going down in December/January if I’ve done my math correctly.
Jann Jones described The Black Canary Wedding Planner (out in September) as the “girliest book” ever put out and marveled at how a man (J. Torres) could be doing such a great job writing it.
Cassandra Kane will pop up again in Gotham Underground. McKeever said to look for Manhunter to join the Birds of Prey and DiDio says the Manhunter series isn’t gone, they just want to have a few issues put to bed before they start publishing up again.
DiDio also assures us he’s got a big map of the multiverse and is plotting out what all 52 planets are to ensure the richest DC Universe possible. On a side note, Earth 26 is the Captain Carrot Earth and Vertigo is still not going to be a part of any DC Universe.
DiDio said that Captain Carrot existed in Earth 26 because z is the 26th letter in the alphabet. He then said (paraphrased) "whatever that means". In case he is reading this and also was not joking (as he is prone to do), 'Zoo' starts with z, as in Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew. Ergo, it only makes sense.
"Jann Jones described The Black Canary Wedding Planner (out in September) as the “girliest book” ever put out and marveled at how a man (J. Torres) could be doing such a great job writing it."That answers a question I've been wondering about for a while and never knew how to ask. Initials (at least in regular fiction) are often used to obfuscate a writers gender, a la C.J. (Carolyn) Cherryh. So I always half wondered about "J." Torres, having never met him.And considering the Captain Carrot mini is being touted as a Countdown piece, DiDio may not be kidding. In which case I totally want Pig-Iron to be a part of Arena. Although Flash vs Impulse vs Fastback tickles my fancy as well…