As Indiana federal judge Philip Simon puts the key question in setting up his ruling, “Is it trademark infringement if a fictional company or product in a movie or television drama bears the same name or brand as a real company or product?” Judge Simon answers, No!

“Warner Bros. ‘clean slate’ software only exists in the fictional world of Gotham; it does not exist in reality. This may seem to be a small point, but it has big ramifications for the consumer confusion analysis, which become apparent once you realize the argument that Fortres Grand has not made – and cannot make.”

Judge Simon also accepts Warner Bros.’ point that there can be no confusion of the source of origin because of the business it is in. The studio argued, ““Plaintiff is not in the motion picture business, and it would be absurd to think that customers buy tickets to The Dark Knight Rises or purchase the DVD/Blu-ray because of a perceived association of the Film with Fortres Grand’s products.”

When a movie makes over $1 billion at the box office alone, everyone thinks they deserve a piece of it. For all you law nerds, check out the official ruling here.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter (via IGN)

The post Warner Bros. sued over The Dark Knight Rises’ “clean slate” appeared first on Batman News.

Content

LEGO Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite is made up of most of the cut scenes from last year’s video game LEGO Batman 2. I only played about 1/4 of LEGO Batman 2, but I thought it was hilarious and a great deal of fun with some amazing unlockables. If you want to relax and can find that game for around $20 bucks then I highly recommend you do so. As for my nephew, he owns that game too and he’s played through it numerous times. He’s never beaten it mind you, he gets frustrated 3/4 of the way through and restarts from the very beginning, or at least he did until the new Skylanders game was released. Since then, LEGO Batman 2 has been collecting dust… until now. Immediately after watching the Blu-Ray our little review is about, my nephew has done nothing but play LEGO Batman 2 and I hope he actually sees it through to the end this time. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s start from the beginning.

LEGO Batman doesn’t take note of the Nolan films, those weren’t exactly the most fun for the 13 and under crowd. It instead draws quite heavily from a casual knowledge of the comics and cartoons and Tim Burton’s first film, BATMAN (1989), even going so far as playing homage to its opening title sequence as we ride the grooves of the batsymbol like a roller coaster. As you can imagine, the channels of Batman’s trademark emblem aren’t quite as smooth because it’s made out of — you guessed it– LEGO. From there we open cold to a scene in which Batman and Superman are apparently killed. Yes, you read that right. Already we’re breaking away from the structure of the video game by telling the story in a non-linear fashion and that works well. After their apparent demise, the story rewinds 2 days prior where we pick up at the moment the video game started only you should notice a drastic improvement in the visuals.

Although 90% or more of this movie (again, I never finished playing the game myself) is lifted directly from last year’s video game, the graphics have been given a good polish. Just to make sure I wasn’t fooling myself, I popped in the video game immediately afterward and compared the two. It’s a noticeable upgrade. However, that doesn’t mean that it suddenly jumped to Pixar-like quality throughout. At around the 20 minute mark I started noticing shots that looked lazily lifted from in-game footage rather than cut-scenes that could be transferred to the movie screen. Shots like that were a bit annoying, but they are very few and far between. And, of course, the six year old never cared at all. He was too busy laughing at the chicken.

What chicken? Well, the humor in this is actually quite good and kids and adults alike can laugh out loud. I know I did a number of times. But there are also the outright ridiculous things like a banana being used by Two-Face instead of a gun or, as I mentioned, the chicken. I don’t know why, but my six year old pal found this random chicken that shows up in one or two scenes to be one of the funniest things he had ever seen. The idea that Joker and company would be in the same room as a clucking LEGO chicken was too absurd to not enjoy. Things that adults will love more than the kids are the many references to the Tim Burton films and the way the grumpy Batman and cheerful Superman clash. Superman’s perfection is overplayed to a really humorous degree and seeing Batman’s frustration toward the guy who can fix anything without breaking a sweat makes for some of the best laughs.

Superman and Robin are without a doubt the funniest characters in the story while Lex Luthor is played pretty straight forward by Clancy Brown. It’s kind of funny how every character in this story is toned down for kids yet Lex Luthor still feels like his usual maniacal self. It’s Lex who is actually the main villain of the film. He wishes to become the next president but in order to get the public to fall in love with him he needs Joker’s gas, which for whatever reason makes people adore the Joker. The change in the gas’s intent is one of the few examples of outright changing something major about the mythology. As you know, Joker’s gas is lethal, whereas Poison Ivy is the one who is better known for chemicals that bring out the effect Luthor wants. But I suppose Poison Ivy just wouldn’t make as marketable a central villain as the Clown Prince of Crime. Other changes I noted were that Bane has a “Mole Machine”, a giant truck with a drill on the front of it… that was kind of an odd choice but, it’s a LEGO movie so obviously you can let it slide. And then there’s Clark Kent, who is seen as a television reporter rather than a newpaper man, a change that I actually think is overdue (or maybe not, I don’t read many Superman comics so I might be way off base with that statement). Anyway, Joker and Luthor team up to neutralize Batman’s gadgets and Superman’s powers so that Lex can become the POTUS. Along the way we see our heroes confront a wide variety of Batman rogues and some cameos by some of DC’s most well known superheroes.

The music in the film is quite good, borrowing most of its score from Danny Elfman’s BATMAN and John Williams’ Superman, which was even used as a great joke while Superman and Batman are riding in an elevator together. Voice acting is top notch. I have absolutely no complaints about the cast and thought that everyone fit their LEGO counterparts well. In addition to Clancy Brown as Lex, many other actors have worked in the realm of Batman before. Troy Baker, who does the voice for Batman, actually played Robin and Two-Face in the video game Arkham City, though you would never notice since he’s so versatile. And then there’s Rob Paulsen, who is terrific in everything, playing The Riddler. Paulsen has starred in The Batman, Batman: The Animated Series, and The Dark Knight Returns.

The use of LEGO in the movie is really well done and makes for some great sight gags, but I was most impressed by the visual of Green Lantern building constructs with his ring! I would actually go so far as saying that the LEGO effect was better than what we saw in the Green Lantern movie starring Ryan Reynolds. Seeing the green, glowing LEGO quickly assemble out of thin air looked really cool. The world in which our story takes place, however is surprisingly organic and only appears to be made of LEGO on occasion. I would’ve liked to have seen more blocks int he environment, but I suppose it is difficult finding just the right balance of what should and shouldn’t be made of blocks in order to make something that’s still pleasing to the eye. Perhaps if there was too much use of LEGO in things like dirty terrain or grass, audiences would be too focused on those details to pay any mind to the story.

And what is the moral of our story? After all, a good kids movie should probably have some kind of life lesson, right? Batman needs to turn to other for help once in a while! It’s okay to call upon friends in a time of need and you don’t have do go it all alone. It’s really a pretty good message and one that’s fitting for a Batman film. After all, that was the very same message taken away from Grant Morrison’s Return of Bruce Wayne. Batman isn’t in this alone.

As you can imagine the hour flew by and more importantly, I never had the feeling of “Jeez, this is just like the video game only without the fun of playing it.” Never. It never happened. Nor did my nephew whine about how he would rather be playing the game. He stayed put, laughed, cheered for The Flash more than I was comfortable with (this is a Batman household, son) and then ran upstairs to play Xbox as soon as it was all over. It’s been LEGO Batman everything in his home ever since. Director Jon Burton and writer David A. Goodman made a very entertaining movie for kids and adults and they did it with material based on a video game, which was based on a toy, which was based on movies, which were based on comics. No small feat. Just small blocks.

Bonus Material

Here’s where the Blu-ray really convinces folks to pick it up. Simply offering spruced up footage from the video game is kind of a hard sell, but luckily the disc also includes quite a bit of supplemental material. Unfortunately, none of it involves a look behind the scenes. How it is that there wasn’t a glimpse into the making of the game, the making of the movie, or a sneak peak at the next LEGO Batman game is pretty disappointing, but my nephew, again, didn’t mind. He was too enthralled by the collection of LEGO stop-motion shorts.

“Building Batman” is a 15 minute long special that shows a group of children learning the art of stop-motion animation from master builder Garret Barati. The short video is filled with pop-up fun facts about LEGO that further educate kids about these famous blocks as Barati shows them how they too can use their imagination to build fun creations of their own and then turn those makeshift toys into a movie. It’s really an amazing time we live in when inexpensive cameras and smart phones are so ubiquitous that anyone can make a stop-motion feature if they just put in the time and effort. It certainly got the wheels in my nephew’s head to turn and he’s been asking his mom to help him “bring his LEGOs to life” for days now.

That’s the most substantial original content on the disc and it’s backed by five contest winning stop-motion short films. Most of these were quite good and my nephew was disappointed to learn that there were no more than five and he even wanted to watch them all again the very next day.

Something everyone can enjoy again and again, are the three cartoons that are included. These features include two Batman the Brave and the Bold episodes and an episode of Teen Titans that’s centered around Cyborg. The first Batman episode, Triumvirate was excellent and had some wonderful nods to the Mark Waid and Alex Ross classic, Kingdom Come. The second episode, however was very Green Lantern focused and had a more serious tone than the majority of B&B episodes. But it’s worth noting that the before-credits vignette about Wonder Woman was fantastic and very funny and that the Green Lantern of the main story was voiced by the same voice actor who played Dick Grayson in BTAS and it was a treat to hear him in a Batman cartoon again.

The Teen Titans episode? …meh. Let me make it clear that the six year old superhero fan this collection of entertainment is marketed toward loved all of these cartoons, but this was my first time sitting through an entire episode of that Teen Titans and I still don’t see the appeal. At least now I see where Cyborg’s “Booyah!” catchphrase from Injustice: Gods Among Us came from.

Last, but certainly not least, this Blu-Ray Combo-Pack includes a real LEGO! Packaged here is a LEGO Clark Kent who is changing into Superman, or as my nephew called it “Superman dressed as Clark Kent.” But that’s a whole other discussion altogether.

Value:   Sale Price

Even with around an 60-90 minutes worth of bonus features and Blu-Ray presentation, I think that a cover price of $24.98 is still asking too much when you consider that the LEGO Batman 2 game it’s based on is only $19.99 and will give you and your kids a lot more bang for your buck with at least 10+ hours of gameplay plus the bulk of the cutscenes from this movie. Amazon is offering it for $13.99 right now, which is reasonable when you take into account the 3 extra cartoons and exclusive toy.

Overall

This is a must-have for kids who love these heroes and since it comes with an Ultra-violet and DVD copy as well you can always store the flick on your phone or play it on an overhead screen in the back of your car during long trips to keep the little one entertained the whole time. It’s really funny, well animated, and comes with quite a few nifty bonus features that won’t only entertain, but they’ll light up a child’s imagination as well. Do I think it has a very high replay value? Meh. That remains to be seen. Since it’s based on a video game and my nephew just so happens to own that video game, he’s more interested in playing the game now than re-watching the movie. Kids who have never touched the game might pop this disc in over and over and over or they might demand you buy them the video game too. And with the game being cheaper than the movie… you might be better off buying it instead.

SCORE: 7/10

The post LEGO Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite review appeared first on Batman News.

Content

This trade paperback collects issues #8-12 and #0, that’s six comics in total. The very first TPB of the Birds of Prey series featured an arc that was great at developing these characters and giving readers a complex story with plenty of action. It was also a tale that seemed to hint at even bigger things to come, but in Your Kiss Might Kill, I found a collection of mostly unrelated stories that felt as though they were from an entirely different series.

With issue #8 we get plenty of action and the mysterious murder of Black Canary’s husband is addressed as well, but even though it’s the closest we come to capturing the look and feel of Volume 1, it’s far too chaotic. Most of the issue is spent watching the Birds of Prey battle a group of no-name villains of the week inside a burning building while a hologram barks orders. It didn’t do a very good job of easing the reader into what was happening. I read and liked Volume 1, but even I had trouble recalling exactly what was going on and how we got here in the first place. And truthfully, it’s not worth your time to dig back in the previous volume or catch-up on Wikipedia because after issue #8 the Birds of Prey series of I knew ceased to exist. Everything gets tossed out the window as soon as the original artist Jesus Saiz exits the book.

When Saiz leaves, Animal Man’s Travel Foreman joins the series for a Court of the Owls tie-in that’s very good, but very out of place in this collection. Issue #8 had such a dramatic ending and you’re ready to get answers, but when you turn the page you’re confronted with owls. It’s one of the very best Court of Owls tie-ins and if you’ve read Foreman’s run on Animal Man, you know he can draw horror well, but this story simply doesn’t fit with what we saw in issue #8 whatsoever. This would have been forgivable had we returned to Black Canary’s drama in the following chapter, but that never happens.

Instead we get what makes up the bulk of Your Kiss Might Kill, a Poison Ivy story that had all the ingredients to be very good. I’m all for seeing her return to straight-up villainy but the story is very jumpy, the reasoning behind much of the action is ludicrous, SHOW SPOILER ▼

As soon as the greatest consequences of Poison Ivy’s plot should go into effect, we are interrupted by a the #0 issue, which is good but just like with the Court of Owls tie-in it’s not what you want to see at this point in time. I want the story to stay on task. It’s bad enough that we’re being asked to forget the huge thing that happened at the end of the first chapter, now we have to wait until volume 3 to find out what happens next to the Birds of Prey?

Besides the half-hearted writing, it seems that no artist had any interest in illustrating this book. First Jesus Saiz left and was replaced by Travel Foreman. Foreman is great, but this isn’t the book he should be illustrating .He was awesome at capturing the gritty, gory details for Animal Man and it was a damn shame to see him leave that series. His pencils were a perfect fit for the tone of that book. And while his style worked well with the horror themed Court of Owls chapter, it didn’t lend itself to the adventure in a jungle chapters at all. Everyone looks too scrawny and twisted and then in the final pages there are some panels that look hastily sketched and I had to flip back to the credits to make sure it was still Foreman doing them. Timothy Green II had to take over on pencils for the second half of the following issue and we never saw from Foreman again.  Green’s pencils were far cleaner and captured movement and expression better. His pencil suited these ladies surprisingly well and I thought he was a much better fit here than in his brief stint on Red Hood & the Outlaws. And then in the next chapter we have Cliff Richards showing up! Yeah, another artist with a different style. This time, we see more detail but we also get a lot of unnecessary lines on the character’s faces and a Poison Ivy who uses vines like Doc Ock uses his arms and one shot in which she is having a full conversation with the Birds while they parachute– only she’s not wearing a parachute. Finally there’s Romano Molenaar, who drew issue #0 and in my opinion he wins this massive artist mash-up. His work fits the series very nicely and from what I understand he stuck around for a few more issues after all of this ended.

Bonus Material

8 pages of cover sketches and one character design for the highly forgettable character Napalm.

Value:   Dirt Cheap

I wouldn’t give $14.99 for this or the $11.86 price that Amazon is currently offering. It would take a drastic clearance to make this book worth it. I would recommend that you pick up the stand-alone issues #9 and #0 as they are both very enjoyable reads. The rest of this stuff should just be forgotten about. And as far as re-read value goes? Let me put it this way: when I started this review I read half of the book and then cast it aside to go do something else.  I ended up forgetting that it existed for a full week and began reading other graphic novels instead.

Overall

It just doesn’t feel like a book that anyone had their heart in. Duane Swierczynski’s first arc of this series was full of ambition with developed characters, a complex plot, and terrific action that was well illustrated by Jesus Saiz. This was an absolute mess of poorly thought-out concepts, one of which had the potential to be a really great Poison Ivy story. And the artwork is woefully inconsistent due to artists constantly coming and going. I can’t recommend that you bother yourself with the entire volume, but I will say that it is worth your time to seek out issues #9 and #0, which were stand-alone episodes and the only highlight of this collection.

SCORE: 3/10

The post Birds of Prey, Vol. 2: Your Kiss Might Kill review appeared first on Batman News.

Also, the winner of the 1939 poll is Detective Comics #31, which earned well over half of the votes!

Pick the cover you like the most. You’re not voting for which comic you think was the most significant to Bat-history or what story you liked the best. This is specifically for which cover moves you the most. Poll ends in 2 weeks!

Detective Comics #35

Cover by Bob Kane

Detective Comics #36

Cover by Bob Kane

The first appearance of Hugo Strange, the first Batman rogue with real staying power. Professor Strange will be seen again when he escapes from prison in Batman #1 later in the spring of 1940. Issue #36 also marks the first time we see the spikes (or fins) on Batman’s gloves. 

Detective Comics #37

Cover by Bob Kane

Cosmo, the master of disguise first seen in issue #1 of Detective Comics, has his final adventure as he is forever replaced by the Batman. However, Detective Comics will still remain an anthology series with Batman sharing the title with the likes of the Crimson Avenger.

Detective Comics #38

Cover by Bob Kane

It might surprise you to know that Batman wasn’t even around to fight crime solo for a full year before DC introduced his sidekick Robin. Besides being the first appearance of Dick Grayson, it is also the first we see of Tony Zucco, Mister Haley, Dick’s parents, and Haley’s Circus. 

Batman #1

Cover by Bob Kane

The Joker’s first appearance. There is no battle at Axis chemicals, no mention of the Monarch Trading Card Company, and no Red Hood disguise. In fact, Axis chemicals and the Red Hood concept are never introduced into the Batman mythology until 1951! Much like the way he was represented in the film The Dark Knight, the Joker of the comics  came out of nowhere. It was almost as if this evil city had created him to counter-balance all the good that Batman represented. In this issue, Joker goes on the radio and causes panic among the average citizens of Gotham, the police, and even the underworld as he announces that he will kill three of the city’s most prominent figures. We even get a glimpse at the rivalry between gangsters and freaks as mobster Brute Nelson plans a trap for the Joker that fails miserably. Another first is the use of Joker venom. The Joker racks up quite the body count using this bizarre weapon and even to this day we still see victims of the Clown Prince of Crime wearing a permanent grin! It’s really quite amazing how perfectly formed The Joker was in his very first appearance. Very little has changed about him over the years and it could be argued that Batman has evolved more than the Joker. And as if the monumental first appearance of Joker wasn’t enough, Batman #1 also marks the first appearance of Catwoman, but here she is simply known as The Cat. And yes, Batman does allow her to escape. 

Detective Comics #39

Cover by Bob Kane

Detective Comics #40

Cover by Bob Kane

Think that crappy remakes of classic horror films are something new? Think again! In June of 1940, actor and makeup artist Basil Karlo was furious to discover that his most famous film, The Terror, was being remade and shot without him so he went on a bit of a killing spree. He’s not a shape shifter or a mud man at all. The villain in the movie being remade is called Clayface and the enraged Basil dons the character’s mask, hat, and cloak before roaming the set with a dagger (it’s a hatchet on the cover) and killing the actors in the same order they would die in the movie. When we think of the very first Batman villains, I’m sure we all instantly list such names as Joker, Hugo Strange, Catwoman, Penguin, Riddler, etc. But many don’t realize that Clayface is one of the oldest. 

The post Poll: the best Batman cover…1940 Pt. 1 appeared first on Batman News.

Seeing as Batman: Arkham Origins is the only Arkham game that’s been announced, many (including myself) assumed that Conroy would once again be the voice of Batman. Today we learned that isn’t the case, Batman will be voiced by Roger Craig Smith.

It turns out Kevin Conroy let the cat out of the bag a little early… he was referring to the next Arkham game, after Batman: Arkham Origins. Which by the way, hasn’t been announced yet and probably won’t be for a long time. Check out Conroy’s clarification below, and follow him on Twitter!

Update: And to make matters even worse… Conroy just deleted his Tweet. I’ve included a screenshot of what it said. Conroy definitely wasn’t supposed to talk about the game he’s working on this early (Arkham 3?) and likely got it mixed up with Batman: Arkham Origins.

There have been a lot of fakes, but this is Kevin Conroy’s official Twitter account. Confirmed by Warner Bros. PR rep Gary Miereanu.

The post Kevin Conroy joins Twitter, clears up ‘Batman: Arkham Origins’ confusion appeared first on Batman News.

Roger Craig Smith is the new voice of Batman, so why did Kevin Conroy say that he’s in the game too? We know that Batman: Arkham Origins is a prequel to the previous two Batman: Arkham games… perhaps Batman takes a “look back” at his earlier days and Kevin Conroy will narrate while Roger Craig Smith provides the voice for Batman in the actual story? There’s definitely some confusion here, so hopefully Warner Bros. will clear it all up soon.

Mark Hamill has said that Batman: Arkham City was the last time he’d voice the Joker and that appears to be true. Troy Baker is the voice of the Joker now, but this isn’t his first time voicing a Batman villain. Baker was also the voice of Two-Face in Batman: Arkham City.

For more on the new information that was released today, check out the previews below:

Polygon

• Batman: Arkham Origins — the lessons learned from City and Asylum

IGN

• Batman: Arkham Origins is a Blast From the Past
• Exploring Combat, Upgrades, and Gotham in Batman: Arkham Origins

Joystiq

• Year Wane: The challenges facing Batman in Arkham Origins

Game Informer

• The Joker Appears In Batman: Arkham Origins Hands-on Preview

And if you missed it, check out the full 5 minute trailer and the newly released screenshots in the gallery below.

The post ‘Batman: Arkham Origins’ preview: Roger Craig Smith is Batman, Troy Baker is Joker, plus more appeared first on Batman News.

The post New ‘Batman: Arkham Origins’ screenshots give first look at the Joker appeared first on Batman News.

The trailer gives us a first look at the game’s main villain Black Mask, and features Deathstroke and Deadshot competing for Black Mask’s big reward by killing Batman. It also confirms the news that leaked yesterday – Deathstroke will be playable via DLC, which you can get on day 1 if you pre-order. The trailer is done in CGI and doesn’t show off any actual game footage, but it’s still nothing short of awesome. Check it out!

The post First full ‘Batman: Arkham Origins’ trailer is here (video) appeared first on Batman News.

Pre-order Batman: Arkham Origins now to play as Deathstroke — gain access to two additional challenge maps and two Deathstroke skins (Internet connection required for downloadable content; not available on all platforms)

This sounds very similar to Batman: Arkham City’s challenge maps which let you play as Catwoman, Robin, and Nightwing via downloadable content.

Last week a short teaser trailer was released, but the full Batman: Arkham Origins trailer will be online tomorrow. Be sure to come back to Batman News, I’ll have the trailer posted here as soon as it’s available.

SOURCE: Amazon, Best Buy (via The Slanted, Arkhamverse)

The post Deathstroke to be playable in ‘Batman: Arkham Origins’ via DLC appeared first on Batman News.

Here are the review comics coming out this week, May 22nd, graded on a scale of my own anticipation.

Hell no!  –   I’d rather not   –   Ambivalent  –  Interested  –  TAKE MY MONEY

Scroll to the bottom of the page and post in the comments section what books you’re most looking forward to this week!

May 22nd

TALON #8

Written by JAMES TYNION IV
Art by MICHAEL SEPULVEDA
Cover by GUILLEM MARCH
1:25 B&W Variant cover by GUILLEM MARCH
On sale MAY 22 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Anticipation Level:   TAKE MY MONEY!!!

SHOW SPOILER ▼

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #20

Written by GREGG HURWITZ
Art and cover by ETHAN VAN SCIVER
1:25 B&W Variant cover by ETHAN VAN SCIVER
On sale MAY 22 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T

Anticipation Level:   Interested

I was rather annoyed with how predictable the Alice-kidnapping plot went in the last issue and the whole arc in general is running too long, but Mad Hatter killed so many people in the final pages of last month’s installment that I can’t help but be curious as to how Batman and the rest of Gotham responds to all of this.

BATMAN, INCORPORATED #11

Written by GRANT MORRISON & CHRIS BURNHAM
Art and cover by JORGE LUCAS
Variant cover by GUILLEM MARCH
1:100 B&W Variant cover by CHRIS BURNHAM
On sale MAY 22 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Combo pack edition: $3.99 US

Anticipation Level:   Ambivalent

We’re SO close to the end (wraps up in issue #13 and a special in August) and there’s SO much happening in this comic that you would think that every issue would count, right? The last couple of issues have been rather cluttered and chaotic because there’s too much going on and too many characters. And after the last issue ended with Batman equipping every weapon he has to bring down Talia and Heretic once and for all, I’m pretty disappointed to learn that this issue is walking away from all of that. Batman, Incorporated #11 is supposed to showcase many of the characters we saw in issue #0, with a special emphasis on Batman Japan. Since issue #0 is easily my least favorite of the New 52 run of Batman, Inc. I can’t say I’m that excited for this comic.

JUSTICE LEAGUE #20

Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art and cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO
Backup story art by GARY FRANK
Variant cover by HOWARD PORTER
1:100 B&W Variant cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO
On sale MAY 22 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
Combo pack edition: $4.99

Anticipation Level:   Interested

It’s the prologue to Trinity War, which will be a very big event for all of the DC Universe this summer, but most importantly, issue #20 is the penultimate chapter of Shazam. I really love Shazam.

Graphic Novel Watch!

There aren’t any Batman graphic novels coming out this week. That’s a good thing. For me anyway. Maybe now Jim Gordon can approve the graphic novel review he so rudely pocketed in last week’s Upcoming Comics article. Oh well, I printed another copy of the Black Mirror review and decided that if I want some helpful feedback to ensure it’s worth posting for all you readers anxiously awaiting this piece, I need to go straight to the source with it. That’s right, I’m going to have Batman read it! I mailed it a couple days ago in a really nice hand-written letter with a lovely envelope and everything. I’m sure he’s jotting down a few notes for me right now and we should have that article posted right here on the website any day…

OH COME ON!!!

The post Upcoming Comics: May 22nd, 2013 appeared first on Batman News.