It’s Wednesday (actually Wednesday not like that fake Wednesday I started the day with yesterday). That means it’s comic book day, but instead of talking about today’s new books we’re discussing what is expected to be one of the biggest comic book movies ever to hit the screen, next summer’s Batman: The Dark Knight Rises. Last night we had a chance to see a special presentation of a six minute prologue for the new film by Christopher Nolan and it left a lot to talk about. The IMAX screen we saw it on and some of the production choices left us a little less thrilled than we’d hoped.

A spoiler filled discussion of the prologue and The Dark Knight Rises in general follows…

UPDATED 12/20/2011: With the release of the first trailer for The Dark Knight Rises.

UPDATED 5/2/2012: Footage from the latest trailer released this week contained much of what we attempt to describe in this post. See below.

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Now that we’re a few issues into each of DC Comics’ New 52 titles, KevinMLD and I thought it was a good time to focus on some of the books we’re both following beyond Jim Lee and Geoff Johns’ Justice League. I read the first issues of a number of books in the spirit of trying something new (as I’m not an avid DC reader) and Kevin went out and read most of them (he’s a DC die-hard). In the end there are only a few titles that we both decided to continue to follow. Today we’re talking about Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman. It’s hard not to like Batman, but with four ongoing titles featuring Bruce Wayne each month there’s certainly a range of quality. This book is tops among them for both of us and brings some great new threats to the table.

In what we’re calling “No 52” Week, as DC is taking a break from their relaunched ongoing titles for November’s fifth Wednesday, spoilers for Batman will follow.

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Last night was the opening of the 2011 New York Comic Con commonly called “preview night.” It’s a chance for press, professionals and 4-day pass holders to be the first on the show floor to see what this year has to offer. NYCC has grown by leaps and bounds and the inclusion of a preview night brings it closer to being on par with the annual mayhem at the San Diego Comic Con. One of the key attractions of Thursday night is undoubtedly the lighter crowds and we took full advantage trying to take in as much as we could in the time allotted.

So what exactly can attendees expect over the next thee days? Read on…

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KevinMLD spent a lot of time here discussing what titles were expected to be hits and misses for him this month from DC Comics’ line-wide relaunch referred to as The New 52. I’ve remained relatively quiet while considering his recommendations and spending my time talking about some of September’s Other #1s. I did sample a fair number of New 52 books as well and not surprisingly, I went with almost all super hero titles choosing to leave most of DC’s “Dark” and “Edge” stuff off of my pull list. In fact, even though I feel like I invested a lot in the New 52 this month, I bought fewer than they’re shipping in one week and it’s time to evaluate whether I’ll be back for issue #2 of any of these titles.

Kevin has agreed to join me in running down these books and his perspective as someone who’s followed DC’s publishing line closely over the years should be very different from my own as I’m relatively out of touch with it.

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Last Wednesday, in recognition of the second full week of DC Comics’ New 52 promotion, I recommended the seven new DC titles that I thought were most likely to be worthy of your attention and your money sight unseen. Now that we’ve had a week to digest them, the question is how did I do? I think it’s safe to characterize the entire promotion as a monster success for DC at least in terms of PR for month one: sellouts across the line, reprints on the way and copies being ordered in the six figure range. Overall, I can honestly say the quality of the actual product has been stronger than I was expecting. The books I personally recommended for week three in order of expected quality were as follows: Batman, Wonder Woman, Nightwing, Green Lantern Corps, DC Universe Presents: Deadman, Red Hood and the Outlaws and Catwoman.

So how were they in reality?

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