NYCC 2013: DC Comics announces weekly ‘Batman: Eternal’, special ‘Detective Comics #27’ and more

New York Comic-Con 2013 kicked off today and DC Comics has wasted no time announcing some big comic news! I’ll keep this posted updated with all the latest, for now check out the major stories below and full press release from DC with a ton of new info.

Press Release

Comic book fans have a lot to look forward to today with New York Comic-Con kicking off in just a few hours. And just in time for the show, DC Comics made a few announcements that’ll surely be the talk of the convention amongst fans of the Dark Knight!

Launching next spring, BATMAN ETERNAL is an all-new weekly series that comes to you from “showrunner” and BATMAN writer, Scott Snyder, along with writers James Tynion IV, John Layman, Ray Fawkes, and Tim Seeley, and artist Jason Fabok.

BATMAN ETERNAL will “set the stage for a new Gotham and new characters and a new set of stories that will take Batman into 2015,” explained Snyder. “We want this to be a place where you get to tell a story about anything you want in Gotham, so long as we’re also moving this big story forward in the background. You’ll see bombastic arcs as well but there’ll be plenty of room for Ray to explore some of the darker, more mystical aspects of Gotham that he loves or Tim to explore some of the crime we haven’t seen before.”

“We’re five guys doing our best to give you an exciting Gotham that’s changing under the feet of its characters,” Snyder continued.

But BATMAN ETERNAL is not the only Batman news revealed this morning. DC Comics also announced that next year’s DETECTIVE COMICS #27 will be a mega-sized anniversary spectacular! Spanning 104 pages, DETECTIVE COMICS #27 serves as an homage to the original DETECTIVE COMICS #27, which marked Batman’s comic debut in 1939, and features an all-star roster of Batman creators past and present!

In stores January 8, DETECTIVE COMICS #27 includes a modern-day retelling of the Dark Knight’s origin by the incredible team of writer Brad Meltzer and artist Bryan Hitch! Plus, all-new stories by Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy, Peter J. Tomasi and Guillem March, Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen, Gregg Hurwitz and Neal Adams, new art by legendary Batman writer/artist Frank Miller, and more! This issue – which will include variant covers by Neal Adams, Jim Lee, Greg Capullo, Chris Burnham, Kelley Jones, Patrick Gleason and Mike Allred – also includes John Layman and Jason Fabok’s final storyline, “Gothtopia,” before the new creative team of Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato take over writing duties for the series in the spring.

“We want to bring him closer to his roots and be more of a street-level type of hero,” Manapul said about his and Buccellato’s plans for the Dark Knight. “His superheroics will still be present, but the investigative part of Batman will be at the forefront …We’ve always written stories about hope, and it will be very interesting to see what comes out when we walk through the sullen streets of Gotham City.”

“Stylistically, we will use the tools in our toolbox to capture what we think the Bat-universe looks and feels like,” added Buccellato. “Gotham won’t look like Central City, so you won’t be seeing all the bright reds, oranges and yellows that defined Flash’s world.”

The images in the gallery below, courtesy of DC Entertainment, show off Jason Fabok’s first cover for “Batman Eternal”, Chris Burnham’s variant cover for “Detective Comics #27”, and a sneak peek at what Manapul’s artistic rendering of the Dark Knight will look like.