SDCC Roundup

Ain't technology grand?  Thanks to the power of the Internet, we're now able to follow all the news from all the major Cons without ever removing our butts from out office chairs!  Now that things have been settled for a day, I figured I'd unload some thoughts on dearly departed 2008 San Diego Comic Con.

-- One of the earliest annoucements was Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver on Flash: Rebirth, similar to their work on Green Lantern, and featuring the full-scale return of Barry Allen, apparently.  Needless to say I am very happy about this, along with the implication that there is going to be a larger "Flashiverse" for everyone to play in.  Barry and Jay as the main Flashes, a resurrected Bart running around with the Legion, and Wally playing a supporting role with his family?  It could work!

-- A dissapointment was that there was not a peep made about (Batman And) The Outsiders, including who the new creative team will be.  Perhaps the "big plans" DiDio mentioned at HeroesCon was that they were cancelling the title?  That would suck!

-- Keeping on the Batman theme... "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader" by Gaiman and Kubert == Buy.

-- DC's annoucement of the return of the Milestone heroes plus the introduction of the Archie heroes really made me smile.  For one thing, it's about time for the Milestone guys.  I thought this would have happened years ago, after the successful crossover between Justice League and Static Shock.  How these guys are all going to interact is going to be interesting to see.  As for the Archie heroes, why not?  DC has a long history of mergers and acquisitions to diversify their roster (Charlton, Fawcett, and so on), so the addition of these classic heroes is a good thing to me.  Yeah it could end up crashing and burning, but at the very least it gives Alex Ross more Golden Agey types to play with.

-- One of the most unexpected projects announced was the return of Warlord, with Mike Grell handling the writing and covers!  After the last relaunch of the title a few years back I figured that Travis Morgan and company were toxic to DC, so this came as a very pleasant surprise.  It's too bad that Grell can't do the interiors too, but I understand how it goes if they want the book to be consistantly monthly.  Hey DC, if this sells well, can we get a new Arak, Son Of Thunder too?

-- Similarly, while the revamp of The Unknown Soldier was announced last year at SDCC, the new version of the Haunted Tank was a really cool surprise.  That both of these titles are being housed over at Vertigo should give a pretty clear impression of how DC views (most of) it's War properties at this time, and it's a direction I am more than alright with.  Putting the Haunted Tank in Iraq just makes sense (hopefully the series will focus on the Tank and the battles and not politics -- yes, you know what I mean), and the revamp of Unknown Soldier has had me jazzed for literally an entire year.

-- Over on the Marvel side, not too many annoucements which interested me, honestly.  A lot of Ultimate and mutant stuff, and the only title which sounded interesting (besides the aforementioned War Machine ongoing) was War Of The Kings, the seeming next chapter in DnAs' Marvel Cosmic Saga.  The Shi'ar-Inhumans War?  Sounds good to me!  (Can we please say that the Black Bolt that Hulk punked out in WWH was the Skrull?)

-- Hopefully you managed to catch the X-Men Origins: Wolverine trailer before it was removed.  Looks like a lot of fun in a mindless, summer-popcorn kind of way, which is pretty much all I expected from a Wolverine solo movie!

-- Dark Horse had some interesting projects, including more BPRD spinoffs and the upcoming Solomon Kane miniseries, but I was surprised to see that there was no news about the supposed Kull The Conqueror mini, which was supposed to be released in December.  Maybe it's been pushed back?

--Over at Image, the big news of Kirkman being made a partner actually happened before the Con, but the "Big I" swerved everyone by annoucing Image United, reuniting six of the original seven Image founders for one never-going-to-work right jam crossover, with each creator drawing their own characters in each issue.  Mainly this excites me because Jim Valentino will be working on ShadowHawk again, and apparently it's both the new Eddie Collins 'Hawk as well as the intense original 'Hawk Paul Johnstone.  Unfortunately, no Jim Lee, and no Wetworks from Portacio (who instead is making an original character).  I don't know if this will ever be completed in any sort of timely manner, but it does sound like fun for those fans around my age who remember the "Image Revolution."

So what got YOUR ears perked up from SDCC?