Rise From Your Graves

Well well well. I'll be if this isn't some interesting news. The return of dead titles? That's a clever bit of trickery. A great idea, really. If they have to skip a month (and I'm going to cut Ivan Reis some slack because it looks like he's actually going to finish this big event without any help) this is certainly a clever way to do it. Let us exam each resurrected title in turn:

The Power of Shazam! #48: Black Lantern Osiris? Yes please. But could that really be all? Do the members of the Marvel Family have any other serious dead adversaries? I can't think of any... But there's always Billy and Mary's parents...

The Question #37: Ah, I've been waiting for this since Blackest Night was announced. No one else could write it but Greg Rucka. I'm wondering how exactly they'll do the Black Lantern Question. Most of the Black Lanters are distinguished by their gruesome faces. That won't work with the Question...

Suicide Squad #67: Booyah! More John Ostrander Suicide Squad is always good. And there are a lot of dead guys on that team...

Phantom Stranger #42: I loves me the Phantom Stranger. And Peter Tomasi does good work. This is a definite buy.

Catwoman #83: Black Lantern Black Mask, eh? I suppose it was inevitable... But I didn't see it coming. Sometimes my prognostication skills are better than other times.

The Atom and Hawkman #46: Oh, this oughta be fun. The Atom stuck up against three Black Lanterns? One his loopy, loony, murdering ex-wife? Craazy.

Weird Western Tales #71: Black Lantern Jonah Hex will be worth the price of admission alone.

Starman #81: This is the biggest surprise, I;d say. I never thought James Robinson would ever return to Jack Knight. But there you have it. I hope it lives up to the standards of the original series.

Which one are you looking forward to the most?

Bad Medicine

I took a perverse satisfaction in the "announcement" of Marvel's new book, The Order. It's not because I necessarily think the book will fail, or because I bear the creators any ill will. No, I am satisfied because Marvel was going to call the book The Champions. But now they can't.

If you haven't heard, a small publisher of super-hero comics managed to snatch up the trademark for Champions when Marvel wasn't looking. In much the same way that Marvel snatched up the trademark for Captain Marvel.

DC can't title a book Captain Marvel. They can't use that name on a cover. Even though the Golden Age Captain Marvel predates the existence of Marvel as a comic book company by decades. And all Marvel has to do to keep it that way is have their "Captain Marvel" headline a mini-series every few years.

It's always annoyed me, that. So it pleases me to see that Marvel is getting a taste of its own medicine (even if, admittedly, the medicine in this case is pretty weak). It won't change anything of course... Captain Marvel books will continue to be titled Shazam!, much to the confusion of non-comic book geeks the world over.

But it did make me laugh maniacally for a moment. And that's really what matters, right?