Random comics News

DC will put new creative teams on a few of their books, including Superman and Batman’s Detective Comics. The new team to handle the Original Superhero is Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco. The team was first paired on Avengers Forever for Marvel Comics, but both have been hanging around the Distinguished Competition lately: Pacheco handled art chores most recently on Green Lantern with writer Geoff Johns, and drew an arc of Batman/Superman for Jeff Loeb. After penning the JLA/Avengers crossover, Kurt Busiek parlayed it into a gig on the regular JLA book, which in turn landed him on the Superman title.

Batman’s flagship book, Detective Comics, will be written by Batman: the Animated Series writer/director Paul Dini, with art by Rags Morales, who drew last years unqualified runaway hit, the superhero murder mystery Identity Crisis. Paul Dini’s Batman has been heralded by some (including me!) to be the most definitive Batman portrayal since Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. Additionally, Rags Morales is at the top of his game. It will be interesting to see what will become of this pairing of two such stellar talents on one of the best superhero characters around.

Speaking of Superman… please tell me you have been checking out that Ultima… I mean All-Star Superman series by Grant Morisson and Frank Quitely. Not for nothing’, but that mess is the bomb!

Civil War is breaking out at marvel… apparently there is some sort of tragedy where hundreds of get hurt or killed, motivating the gov’t to pass a superhero registration law requiring all heroes to reveal their secret ID’s…this causes a schism between Avengers buddies Iron Man and Captain America, and spreads out, as all the heroes start taking sides. There will be serious repercussions for some heroes (notably my favorite, the Amazing Spider-man) as changes in public policy, perception, and the balance of power spread through the Marvel U… the miniseries, entitled simply Civil War, will be written by Ultimates scribe Mark Millar, with art by slick newcomer Steve McNiven, who’ll be inked by Dexter Vines.

Get Down… my main man Warren Ellis, writer of cult hit Planetary and the Ultimate Galactus trilogy is the busiest guy in comics. To my delight, he has teamed again with artist Cully Hamner to do Down (remember their last collabo: RED? i know i do...), a 4 issue miniseries about police detective Deena Ransome going undercover as a hitman (or would that be hit person..?) in order to take down a local crime lord. However, she may lose her humanity in the process: she has already killed cops, crooks and innocent bystanders… and this thing is only half over!!! COP IT!