Tuesday, December 13, 2005

March Madness!

Well, the March Solicits are out. And some, but not all of Wizard's questions have been answered. Yet, pretty much nothing about the True Plot of Infinite Crisis has been revealed. The names of several Survivors ahve been revealed, but there are a number of conspicuous bsences. Careful Marketing. (And yes, I'm greatly enjoying it!)

I've never commented on these before, but since I keep getting hits for "DC comics march solicits" (and "red hat society tv gifts for men," but not Jodie Sweeten) I figured I may as well start. Here are the DC Comics March 2006 solicits, by the way (Heavy spoilerage), and what follows is my reaction to them.

Tread carefully, Here There Be Spoilers!

Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Donna Troy, Oracle, Hawkman, and the Flash are conspicuous by their absensce. JLA's absence is not the least bit surprising. The promised Green Lantern Corps ongoing is quite noticable in its absence, but it's possible that they are going to reflect the true shipping schedule of the Green Lantern books, and give us one every two months. In March, we get Green Lantern; then in May, we get GLC, then in July, we finally get to see Kyle again in Ion, and we see Hal again in September, and so on... (Guess what's not on this week's list again, folks!)

Anyway, I'm willing to bet Cassandra Cain has joined the Birds of Prey cast, along with Barbara Gordon as a mobile superheroine. Either that, or one of them is Catwoman now. I'm definitely staying with Birds of Prey, though, because Lady Blackhawk is still there!

Teen Titans may get knocked off my list. It all depends on who those silhouettes belong to -- but I like Johns' Superboy and will miss him if he's not there.

Outsiders sounds tempting, but I think I'll pass. However, not to gloat prematurely, but I can make out most of the cover sihoulettes and I don't see Jade.

Alan Scott, on the other hand, is safe from being turned into Kyle motivation. He's on the cover of JSA: Classified (that is not Hal!) and JSA in March.

That's okay, I was wrong about plenty other things. It does indeed seem that Vandal Savage will be responsible for the death of millions. Oh well. I was so sure it would be Brainiac.

All signs point to Catwoman as the brand-new Mommy (name change, not Cawoman anymore, new cast member) but Wonder Woman and Barbara Gordon are not mentioned at all, so it's still possible. Plus, Aphrodite only knows what happened to Power Girl to position her where she is in these solicits. So, down but not out here.

If they are going by the Pre-Crisis Kandor, Supergirl has been stripped of her powers like Clark always was when he went to that city. But notice both Superman covers feature Clark Kent prominently in his street clothes. It's possible there was more than one right answer to that one.

Already, there are rumors that Nightwing is not Little Dickie. And, to be sure, nothing in the solicits confirms that Little Dickie is still Nightwing. Only that someone who looks like him is wearing the suit. Normally I say, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, odds are it's Dickie Grayson in this duck outfit but I'm going to side with the rumor-mongers here. Because it bodes very badly for Guy Gardner if Dick Grayson is still around as Nightwing after IC. And I like Guy. He's a jerk, but he's still nice enough to take Kyle model-watching to cheer him up after he's been kidnapped and tortured for like the 80th time. I sincerely hope he's not the Kyle-motivation death in the Rann-Thanagar War Special.

The only question for sure answered is the Mayoral one. Mayor Oliver Queen. Rumor has it that the Star City Stand-Up Comedy Guild held an 11-day celebration after the election. He's going to make those boys a lot of money. I'll bet in 2007 we see Lorne Michaels finance his bid for the Presidency. Green Arrow might be interesting.

Amongst all of the other solicits, Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis still looks like Aquaman. I'll pass, thank you.

Greg Rucka

Power Girl

Kandor

I haven't been a Supergirl fan since Peter David, but it looks like I will be again -- Where did I put my T-Shirt?


And finally, I don't want to say the following because a) I'm mad the spin-off is late this week, b) I'm mad the spin-off wasn't solicited for March, and c) there is a disturbing lack of opportunity to see Kyle Rayner's butt in March.

However, Green Lantern #10 was still the most interesting preview this week. Simone Bianchi draws a wonderful Hal Jordan. (I prefer him to Alex Ross as a cover artist). The beautiful pencils of Ivan Reis! The plot thread that kept me buying the book after issue #3! Sinestro!

And, of course, the intriguing comment "And why will the most unlikely of sons become one of Hal Jordan's greatest enemies?"
-- Now, the name Todd Rice has been tossed around, but the way Johns handle him he's hardly "unlikely" (especially if Jade does die somewhere in all of this) so I'm going to rule him out right away.
-- Connor Hawke would be highly unlikely, but it had better be a huge misunderstanding.
The name Kyle Rayner has come up, but the "son" connection is too symbolic there.
-- My favorite suggestion is Capt. Comet from the Comic Bloc Forums. That one is just brilliant. But he can't actually be evil. Just in opposition here.
-- Along that vein -- Superman, Last Son of Krypton, Big-time Green Lantern Antagonist. Again, can't actually be evil, just in opposition. I mean, Batman was the villain in GL: Rebirth.

I'm thinking none of the above, though. The "Grandmaster of the Manhunters" turns out to be a son of one of Hal's old friends, or Hal himself (Rumor has it he was originally going to be the father of Power Girl's Zero Hour baby). It's possible Tom Kalmaku or Carol Ferris had a son that has it out for Jordan for whatever reason. It could be one of Jim or Jack Jordan's kids. Or Airwave, Hal's uncle's kid. Hell, it could be a fourth Jordan brother!

That would be kind of freaky. Jon Jordan? Jake Jordan? Jordan Jordan?

Was Hal's Dad a rabbit?

12 comments:

  1. It does sound bad for Guy. But maybe not, cheesy loopholes remain to be exploited. Like...um...

    In Recharge 1, when Guy goes to see the Guardians, they mention that if he does his job well, a "new status" might be "bestowed upon him". Maybe whatever it is will cause some sort of promotion/rank change, thus Guy wouldn't be known as "Green Lantern" anymore and instead be...um...some sort of Lantern Commander maybe? Thus Nightwing can still be the only one around as per the question and Guy can still be in GLC and be fun and alive and...

    Heh, um, I'm really really good at denial. :-)

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  2. "Here be Spoilers"

    Heh. You KNOW *I* appreciated that. ;)

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  3. Five bucks the "son" in question is Abin Sur's prick kid from that abysmal "Black Circle" storyline a couple years ago. Sure, he's dead, but I've seen dumber plotlines.

    Notable, Black Circle. Boy, that was dumb.

    Leastways, that was the first thing I thought of when I read the solicit. Johns loves legacies, no matter how inane or Ben Raab-created they may be.

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  4. You know, technically any male character is someone's son.

    The verification word is "mxnxni." Maybe that's the villain--the son of Mxyptlk and the Knights who say Ni.

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  5. Three cheers for the bottle world of Kandor! Let's hope Supergirl gets to do some actual superhero-ing, for a change, too.

    I sincerely hope that Pfeifer has the sense to work out all of this Catwoman stuff without ruining everything Ed Brubaker did for the charater and the title...

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  6. I agree with Kalinara. If Dick is still Nightwing, then Guy is getting a name change. "Fist of the Guardians" or something. I doubt he's going anywhere. Jiminy Cricket, he just got a new toy!

    Regarding the fate of Jade, have you seen this:

    I find it impossible to speculate on who the "unlikely son" is. By speculating, you're arguing who's the likely candidate.. but it's supposed to be unlikely. Egads, the headache!

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  7. Well, I called it on Ollie. But I think that's about the extent of my precognitive powers.

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  8. kali -- I hope you're right...

    West -- *Grin*

    Adrian -- Mine's Sjeaxo -- The Alternate universe son of Seaguy and Xoo come to plague Hal Jordan.

    Ian -- Now I'm in denial... If she lives and Capt Comet or Guy dies...

    And in speculating, if we keep throwing out off-the-wall ideas like Adrian's, we're not going to hit on a likely candidate. I mean, likely candidates are Todd Rice and Amon Sur, unlikely candidates are the children of Bat-mite and Ysplt from the Fifth Dimension.

    Maybe the son's not so much an unlike candidate, as an unlikely child. Did anybody in DC have conception problems?

    diamondrock -- There's still a few unanswered questions left.

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  9. Um, as per the link...maybe what it refers to is...um, well an appearance like that of a certain someone in Recharge #2.

    That wouldn't be so bad. :-)

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  10. diamondrock -- There's still a few unanswered questions left.

    Right. And I have no freakin' clue on any of them...

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  11. Maybe someone will write Jade well some day - I mean, she IS Allan Wellington Scott's daughter, after all. She should have inherited some degree of spirit from him. Sure, her brother sometimes tries to destroy the earth, but who doesn't?
    Ron Marz, however, is not that person.

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  12. I have news about Guy's fate! I think! Definitely! IM me for details! :-)

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