Polly Wants the Darkness

Over the weekend, Geoff Johns and Jim Lee were running the press circuit stumping for The New 52. In one of the interviews, they revealed the villain for the first arc of Justice League. We at Ret-Conned HQ were very excited to hear the news, but concerned for its consequences.

If Darkseid is back for the first arc of Justice League, then it’s possible that the rest of the New Gods are back in The New 52 as well. This is really exciting because it might mean that we get more of Scott Free and Big Barda, who are hands down the coolest couple ever. Once again, the reappearance of Darkseid helps to add to the confusion of how much of this is a full reboot. From what we understand, all of the Batman continuity is intact in The New 52, which means that the events of Final Crisis will have occurred where Darkseid zapped Batman with his Omega Sanctions at the same time as Batman shot and killed Darkseid. If Darkseid is alive and a villain in the first Justice League arc, does that mean that the first Justice League arc takes place before Final Crisis or is this Darkseid resurrected post-FC? It’s been stated that the first arc of Justice League takes place in the past of The New 52 continuity, relaying how the Justice League was formed, so it’s possible that this story will take place BFC (Before Final Crisis), while the “current day” time period of The New 52 will be AO (After Omega). We are eight days away from finally starting to get these questions answered, which is good because they’re starting to give me a headache.

The Batwoman series that will make its debut in The New 52 has been a long time in the making and was originally supposed to begin before The New 52 reboot, but was delayed to be a part of it. JH Williams and Amy Reeder are sharing art duties, swapping after each story arc. Back as the series was originally conceived, whichever artist was “on break” from art duties would be providing variant covers for the other artist’s story arc. It’s a neat idea and something that would have been fun to see. Unfortunately, as part of the series’ shift to The New 52, DC has dropped its plans to offer variant covers for Batwoman. Since the first story arc is drawn by JH Williams, Amy Reeder was on variant cover duty and had already completed four of the five variants before DC changed their plans. Now that these variants will probably never see print, she’s posted them online and they are gorgeous. I especially love the first and last of the variants and would seriously consider buying a print of either if it ever exists.

Batman: Arkham City, the highly anticipated sequel to Arkham Asylum is still on track to come out just in time for my birthday. Previously, they’ve announced different skins for Batman that will be available in the game, letting you play as Frank Miller’s Dark Knight or even The Animated Series Batman. It appears that the same type of skinning will be available for Robin as well. So far only three versions have leaked: in game Robin, Red Robin, and the Dick Grayson Robin from The Animated Series. I love these little homages. It feels like Warner Brothers Interactive really gets the nerd crowd that is their primary audience and knows just the right way to get DLC money from them. Bravo Warner, now give me my game!