Throughout January, DC Comics is shipping all of their books with covers connected by a similar style. The design is simple with a white background, a logo and in most cases a single character. I particularly like the way the issue title and number is subtly added to the upper right corner. On their own, you might not think much of them, but seeing them on the shelves together looked really cool. I don’t know if this promotion has a name (when these books were announced it was said to be part of DC putting the focus on its characters), but it’s a fun idea and it drew my attention to a lot of books I never would have looked at otherwise.

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It really feels like ever since playing a crucial role in ending the Final Crisis, Superman has basically been missing from the DC Universe. He spent a year away from the Earth on New Krypton amongst 10,000 other Kryptonian supermen including General Zod. During this storyline, Superman did not star in either Action Comics or Superman as those books highlighted a series of replacement heroes operating in and around Metropolis. The New Krypton storyline climaxed with the destruction of New Krypton and an extremely short but brutal war between the surviving Kryptonians led by General Zod and what I guess amounted to the American military lead by General Lane (Lois’ father). Upon the conclusion of the World of New Krypton series, Superman returned not just to Earth but also to his namesake comic, Superman, as superstar writer J. Michael Straczynski (JMS) took the book’s reigns amidst much fanfare. Things, however, have not worked out quite as DC Comics may have planned.

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This year’s New York Comic Con came and went this weekend (10/8/10-10/10/10), and this is a tough one to write up. In a word, it was overwhelming. I want to say I had a good time, but I don’t know that I came away from it with the experience that I was looking for. Thankfully, that wasn’t true for everyone here at MLD, and I did come back with a lot to write about.

The Show

Saturday was impossibly crowded. Reports indicate that 97,000 people attended the show throughout the weekend and it felt like every one of them was in the same aisle (Evan Dorkin sums it up well here). Attendees reported waiting up to an hour to get into the building and even to get into some of the panels. Both Saturday and Sunday were reported as “sold out,” but I’m not sure that point reflects a reasonable number for that space. Combining the show with the Anime Festival may have just been too much.

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August 28th and 29th brought the 11th Annual Baltimore Comic Con to Charm City and Angie and I made some time to drive down and check it out. We were only able to attend on Saturday, but in the short time we were there it was clear that this is the show for true comics fans.

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Last week we ran a preview of the fall movie RED starring Bruce Willis. If you had actually read that primer, you may have wondered, “Why are you writing a primer for a movie that doesn’t come out for over two months?” Well as it turns out, the real question is “Why is Summit screening the film two months early?” Because on Friday I got to be part of “one of the first audiences in the country” to see RED.

The movie stars Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren as retired government assassins. The chick from Weeds plays a potential love interest for Willis and the dude from Nip/Tuck plays the Vice President of the United States.

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