It’s Comics Relief time kids, and in celebration of this week’s Batman v Superman, featuring the live-action debut of the DC Trinity together, we have comics news items on Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. How’s that for the stars aligning? Read on for all the details, starting with the Dark Knight getting some new threads.
DC Reveals Greg Capullo’s Newly Re-designed Batman Costume
For the better part of the last year for DC Comics, the resident Batman in Gotham has been Commissioner James Gordon, working a robotic Bat-mecha suit. But now Bruce Wayne is back as the Dark Knight, in this week’s issue #50 of Batman, by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. And along with the return comes an all-new costume. Well, not that new — it’s still Batman after all, you can’t deviate too much, but there are some new yellow highlights to the bat-symbol, as well as other new details. You can see Capullo’s new bat costume design below. [Newsarama]
BOOM! Studios To Release First Ever Picture Book, From Married Couple Dustin Nguyen & Nicole Hoang
Publisher BOOM! Studios has announced that they are releasing their first-ever picture book , titled What Is It?, which will be illustrated by Eisner Award-winner Dustin Nguyen and written by his wife, Nicole Hoang. The book will be written under the publisher’s kid’s imprint, KaBOOM! Apparently, What Is It was originally conceived in 2002 as a comic book that Nguyen made for Hoang as a wedding gift.
Nguyen told EW:
“With the first pass of the story, I just wanted to create something fun and special for Nicole as a surprise for our wedding in 2002. I went off of Nicole’s original hand-drawn, hand-written comic she made when she was about 10 or 11 years old. She drew the story on index cards and tied the pages together with ribbons. It was a half-frantic rush; I made a short run of about 200 copies for our guests, stapled stitched and all. With What Is It? publishing through KaBOOM!, I am redrawing this story once again 13 years later with Nicole’s original story.”
The picture book will arrive later this year. [EW via CBR]
DC Share Superman’s Biggest Fights on DC All Access
Besides fighting with Batman, Superman has been is some pretty serious brawls over the past seventy-five years. Now DC All Access has made a video detailing  the top ten best and most badass fights the Man of Steel has ever been in, in the comics anyway. You can watch the full video below.
Cake Wars Celebrates 75 Years of Archie Comics
There’s been a lot of activity around the Archie brand lately, with a newly rebooted comic, a TV show in development called Riverdale, and just the overall celebration of Archie’s 75th anniversay. Now as part of the celebration, Food Network’s popular series Cake Wars is doing an Archie-themed episode on Monday, March 28.
The episode will feature four bakers competing to make the best Archie-inspired creation, and will feature Archie Comics’ Publisher/CEO Jon Goldwater appearing on the episode as a guest judge. This Archie-themed episode of Cake Wars is scheduled to air Monday at 9pm EST on the Food Network. [Newsarama]
Spider-Gwen’s Robbi Rodriguez To Retire From Comics
Spider-Gwen was one of Marvel’s biggest success stories last year, starting as an image appearing on Instagram and then gaining steam online, until she finally got her own title. Essentially an alternate universe version of Spider-Man’s long dead girlfriend Gwen Stacy was bitten by that pesky radioactive spider instead of Peter Parker. She goes on to a career as Spider-Woman, and is even part of a band. The comic has been a big hit with fans since day one. But it seems that the character’s co-creator Robbi Rodriguez is soon leaving the title and comics altogether. After appearing at C2E2 last weekend, Rodriguez tweeted out the following:
Thanks for everyone who stop by the table at C2E2 and I’m also glad you kids are cool with my retirement announcement.
— RobbiRodriguez (@RobbiRodriguez) March 21, 2016
Apparently, Robbi Rodriguez announced he was retiring from comics after the upcoming “Gwenom” storyline, which features Gwen Stacy bond with the Venom alien symbiote. That storyline will last about a year, so the departure is still a ways away. Hopefully Gwen will find an appropriate new creative team who brought as much fun and inventiveness to the title as Rodriguez did. [Comics Beat]
Could Writer Greg Rucka Be Returning to Wonder Woman For Rebirth?
One of the best writers for Wonder Woman in the modern era has been Greg Rucka, who wrote the title from 2003-2006, and also wrote the Wonder Woman OGN, The Hiketia. No other modern writer outside of maybe George Perez understood what made Princess Diana tick as a character as much as Rucka, and now it seems he might be returning to Themyscira, as the writer of the upcoming Wonder Woman: Rebirth. This is all according to a rumor run over at Bleeding Cool. It’s still 100% unconfirmed, but we’ll know for sure this weekend, when DC announces the creative teams for all their Rebirth titles at WonderCon in Los Angeles. [Bleeding Cool]
Check Out All Eleven Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Variant Covers
This week saw the release of the first issue for Titan Comics new series Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor.The mini-series features new stories for the Tom Baker version of the Doctor, written by Gordon Rennie and Emma Beeby, with art by Brian Williamson. The first issue has a whopping eleven variant covers, plus a blank convention sketch cover. You can check out ten of the variant covers in our gallery below: [Bleeding Cool]
Which of the comics news stories has you most excited this week? Let us know in the comments!
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Images: DC Comics / Boom Studios / Titan Comics / Marvel Comics / Archie Comics
