Monday Memories #36 - Legend Of The Hawkman #3

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Monday Memories #20 - Justice Society Of America #8

Each Monday this year I'll be taking a look back at a random comic, prestige format issue, graphic novel or collection of reprints from amongst my 3,000 or so comics that date from 1962 to 2003 - I figured anything in the last ten years would be too recent to hark back to.

The comics are chosen completely at random and apart from a four week lead-in period, even I don't know what I'll be looking at in the weeks to come!

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #226

Heheh... snort...ha... hahaha,,, sorry... heh...

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #219

No, pray tell.

DC's June Solicitations

TRINITY OF SIN: PANDORA #1 - sort of tempted by this but, I have to admit, more from the point of it's a multiversal title, something that feeds into the forthcoming Trinity War and so I'm more interested in how it fits in rather than the character herself. Maybe I'll pick it up, maybe not.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #213

Blueholes. Heh.

New DCU Team?

I saw this post over at Erin's blog and it intrigued me enough to comment on it over here. Erin found a photo from artist R.B. Silva which seems to depict an unusual grouping of DC characters:

and he includes a line about not being able to talk about it. The characters involved are Nightwing, Batgirl, Booster Gold, Hawkman, Shazam, Black Canary and Red Tornado.

• Nightwing and Batgirl on a team together? Sounds a little redundant to me
• Booster back in action is no bad thing
• Hawkman is, as far as I'm aware, going to be in the new Justice League of America
• Shazam is slated to join the ranks of the established Justice League
• Black Canary still heads up the Birds of Prey as far as I know
• Red Tornado is the one that piques my curiosity most - she's already appeared in Earth 2, albeit not active, and there's an embargo on the duplication of names between the two universes, over and above a handful of them, and the figure in that picture appears to be male. That also ties in with what T.O. Morrow said in the most recent Justice League issue.

Are we looking at an alternate League? Something that comes out of Trinity War? Or just an artist enjoying himself? I can't think of anything that immediately links these characters.

Who Was Who Is Who #19

So for want of anything better to write about on a Monday, I'm going to go through all my copies of Who's Who and see if I can predict who will make it over to the new DCU by the end of 2012, who might make it and who hasn't got a Helix's chance.

GUNNER & SARGE - again, an example of those characters that a year or so ago you'd never have expected to see in a mainstream DC title. However, with DC still going for war titles even after Men of War didn't make the cut, it wouldn't surprise me if they turned up before 2012 finished. They're going in the possible column.

Trinity War Speculation

DC's unveiled a big picture of the four page gatefold in the Free Comic Book Day issue (which I didn't get - need to speak to my comic book guy)

and Newsarama has a link to an absolutely massive version of it.

Not wanting to miss out on the speculation about Trinity War, I thought I'd have a quick look and see what we've got:

Liefeld On Hawkman? I'm Out

A couple of Cocktails ago, I wrote about The Savage Hawkman:

"Of all the New 52 titles that I've picked up, this one is closest to being ditched. A few more issues and we'll see what happens."

In the announcement of the Second Wave of New 52 titles, Hawk and Dove, originally pencilled then written by Rob Liefeld, was one of the series to be cancelled with #8 in a couple of months. It seems, however, that whatever incriminating evidence Liefeld has on DiDio, Johns and Lee has proved useful for the guy as DC announced on its Source blog:

"This May, writer/artist Rob Liefeld will take on an expanded role in DC COMICS-THE NEW 52. He will be joining three titles – DEATHSTROKE, GRIFTER and THE SAVAGE HAWKMAN – beginning with their ninth issues."

Hawkman wasn't really working for me this time round which is a shame as I like the character. I've said before, in many cases I've stuck with a character regardless of my feelings on the writer/artist - Green Arrow under Winick or Kreisberg and Sienkiewicz, Teen Titans under Henderson - but this time round, I shan't be bothering.

I've never liked Liefeld's art, his writing or his "edgy" reputation and will take this opportunity to bid farewell to The Savage Hawkman.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #160

If you have to make something with a grenade, I'd vote for a curry.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #156

Yeah, Kyle, you'd have thought that, wouldn't you?

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #153

Adam shows he's not best at forward planning.

Jurgens League #5 - Destiny's Hand

And here we go again, casting our eyes back over an older incarnation of the Justice League, this time from the early 90's when Dan Jurgens was in charge. With that in mind, I had to call this the

JUSTICE LEAGUE AMERICA #72 - 75, written by Dan Jurgens with art by Dan Jurgens, Rick Burchett, Bob Smith and Romeo Tanghal.

Who'd Like A Cocktail? #148

Jonah Hex: as forthcoming after the relaunch as he ever was

Cherry Picking Canon

Erin over at Exploring The Time Lab posted a simple yet interesting question the other day:

"What would you change or keep in canon if you were in charge of the DCnU?"

She has her own ideas, most of which I agree with (particularly "Countdown never happened. Countdown happened for no one.") and it got me to thinking about my own choices.

First, I'd keep everything pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths. Even the really weird stuff because by keeping all of that, we get to keep this:

Yep - Crisis... itself. It's a great story and one of my all time faves. You keep Crisis... and you can then get to keep the good stuff that came out of it, principally the revamps of Batman and Superman. But you also get to keep Power Girl (as survivor of Earth-2 - the Arion stuff never happened) and Helena Bertinelli's Huntress which then leads into Birds of Prey which is well worth keeping.

I'm happy with keeping Infinite Crisis as it does form a good sequel to the original, but we can lose both Identity Crisis and Final Crisis from my new DCU. Keeping Infinite Crisis allows us to keep Villains United which means we keep Secret Six so all's well and good there.

I'd keep the Justice Society and, in general, keep most of the legacy heroes as well - Ryan Choi's Atom, Mia Dearden's Speedy, Conner Hawke's Green Arrow and Jaime Reyes's Blue Beetle off the top of my head.

52 would remain canon as well because I like having a multiverse, dammit, though Grant Morrison would not get to keep it all to himself and his long-touted yet never appearing Multiversity which, I suspect, will do for the multiverse what the original Crisis... did to Hawkman: make it so toxic no-one will approach it for years.

Oh and Ice has her original origin restored, though that should go without saying.

Monday Memes #31

Seriously, now: if you were asked to pick one DC hero who was ready to pick up a weapon and smack one of his friends around with it, I'd be willing to bet this guy would come out on top:

Even his other half's up to it:

Hawkman. You gotta love him.

Good News, Everyone!

Following the big announcement about the DCU reboot, we're getting more details as the time goes one. Just read this over at the DCU blog:

"A team of internationally-drafted superheroes fight each other and their bureaucratic supervisors as much as they do global crime in JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #1 from writer Dan Jurgens and artist Aaron Lopresti. The cover to issue #1 is by Aaron Lopresti."

And here's the cover:

Retroactive - The 90's Part 1

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

And here we are, finally in the 90's.

Retroactive - The 70's Part 2

As DC Comics are celebrating the creators that made an impact in the 70's, 80's and 90's, I thought I'd wander through the same decades and pull out my favourite comic of each year.

Any excuse to look at old comics, eh?