Elephant In The Room: DC Comics’s Before Watchmen Panel, SDCC 2012

I expected things to be a little more contentious than they wound up being at DC Comics’s Before Watchmen panel yesterday.

After all, this is Comic-Con. It is packed to the gills with rabid fanboys and fangirls, many of whom were swirlied in junior high school (Hi, Paul Jameson! I make a comfortable living in the software industry now! How’s that A in woodshop treating you, fucker?) and now that they have strength in numbers, are itching for a fight. This convention has fundraisers for Jack Kirby, panels dedicated to pointing out the injustice of Bill Finger not getting enough credit for co-creating Batman, and a panel called The Most Dangerous Women in Comics. It is a place where a lone nut in a Batgirl suit can change the course of an entire comics company, and come back the next year bearing gifts for the creators and none for the thousand or so paying customers whose convention experience she fucked with last year in order to further a personal agenda. In short: this is Angry Fanboy Central, and if there was a place for them to show their colors, it was this panel.

But that didn’t happen. Sure, the panel started a little bit late, and the whole Quentin Tarantino announcement smack in the middle sucked up some question time, so maybe the slavering, angry, “You fucked Alan Moore!” guy just didn’t get his turn at the microphone. The people who did get a turn were generally really enthusiastic about the whole Before Watchmen project; one fan flat-out said that he was one of those “keyboard commandos” who ranted against the whole project, but wound up really getting sucked into it. Hell, the entire Alan Moore elephant in the room was only addressed once by anyone in the crowd… and it was a guy who was hoping that DC could get Moore to work on a Watchmen sequel.

How’d that turn out? Well, let’s watch!

Like Mother, Like Daughter: Silk Spectre #1 Review

I will say this about Silk Spectre #1, written by Darwyn Cooke with art by Amanda Conner: these are two artists who are bringing their A Game to the very possibly losing proposition of Before Watchmen.

This is a book that, at least generally, looks like Watchmen, reads more like Watchmen than Cooke’s Minutemen (which reads more like a standard DC superhero comic, only with Hooded Justice as Batman and Nite Owl as Batman and Captain Metropolis as Batman), and embraces the character-over-action ethos of Watchmen, and what action is here is visceral and real-feeling, as it generally did in its parent book.

The book features a relatable and believable sixteen year old female protagonist, and a believable character in her mother, provided you believe that any WASPy community middle-1960s suburban community would accept a Polish former softcore porn star and her Jewish husband… but it also portrays that community being intolerant of the “family” in a way that feels realistic… for 1966. If it took place anytime after 1988, Sally Jupiter’s house would be surrounded by teenaged boys with copies of She Devils In Silk whimpering for an autograph and praying she understood that “autograph” was shorthand for “handjob.” But I digress.

My point is that, God help me, Silk Spectre #1 is a good comic book. However, it is a good comic book that takes place in the Watchmen universe, and I’m not sure my prejudices in favor of the original will ever allow me to rank one of these Before Watchmen books as great.

A Republic Serial Villain: More Before Watchmen News

A hair late on this news, but DC Comics has announced the release dates for the first four issues of Before Watchmen. Minutemen by Darwyn Cooke, Silk Spectre by Cooke and Amanda Connor, Comedian by Brian Azzarello and J. G. Jones, and Nite Owl by J. Michael Straczynski, Joe Kubert and Andy Kubert will all drop on June 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th respectively… although if DC really wanted to announce that kind of decisive action, they should have gotten Dan DiDio to stand in front of a bank of flat-screens and say, “I released them thirty-five minutes ago.”

The books will be $3.99 a pop, or $4.99 for the digital combo pack if you want your childhood… shall we say affected… on your tablet, phone or computer. You can see the covers to these first four issues after the jump.

Manufactured Past: DC Announces Before Watchmen

Well, it’s official: DC’s putting aside the wishes of Alan Moore and their own long-time policy, and they’re putting out a prequel to Watchmen sometime this summer… either because they want to give some high-toned creators a chance to play in a legendary playground… or possibly because it would be unseemly to send Dan DiDio to stand outside the DC offices jingling change in a styrofoam coffee cup.

The story, called Before Watchmen as a whole, is gonna be released in seven different titles on a weekly basis, by some of the bigger names in comics today, and all with a backup pirate comics story called Curse of The Crimson Corsair, written by original series editor Len Wein and original series colorist John Higgins… which ties this new series to the original on a creator basis, but in a way similar to casting Die Hard 5 starring Reginald VelJohnson and that weasel who played Ellis.

So what are the books, and who’s doing them? Glad you asked:

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? Or: Happy New Year, Watchmen Fans

UPDATE, 1/4/2011, 4:45 p.m.: Funny story: turns out that we’re not too small, and Fair Use is great… in theory. We’ve pulled the image at DC Comics’ request… as have pretty much all the sites linked below (except for comics-x-aminer, as of this writing). Hope you saw it while it was available!

UPDATE, 1/2/2012, 8:45 a.m.: Well, Rich Johnston got C&D’ed by DC Legal, which is a pretty solid indication that this image was legit. We’ve heard nothing yet ourselves, possibly either because we’re still too small to notice, or because the snippet of the full image we’ve posted falls under the tenets of Fair Use, so we’ll leave ours up for the time being. Regardless, as of this update, the full image can still be found at Comic Book Movie, io9, Scans Daily, and comics-x-aminer.

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So 2011 brought in a ton of rumors that DC Comics was quietly moving forward with a bunch of Watchmen prequels done by A-List talent (Provided you don’t keep Alan Moore on your personal A-List). Rumors like this have been a dime a dozen over the past few years… except this time, Bleeding Cool came up with speculative cover art for a Comedian series by J.G. Jones and a Nite Owl cover by Andy and Joe Kubert, and if they’re not real, the cease and desists that Time Warner sent Bleeding Cool sure were.

All that happened while the Crisis On Infinite Midlives home office stood unoccupied for the Christmas Holiday. But it’s New Year’s Day, and we are back, weighed down by swollen livers and crippling hangovers, with just enough energy to dial up the Internets… to find the alleged cover art to the Silk Spectre miniseries by Amanda Conner.

Something Here Is Made Of Steel

It's probably not her telepathy that's turned you into a drooling vegetable.

Who knew that Emma Frost was actually being fashion forward and not a ginormous slut in her everyday battle wear of corsets and hooker boots? While plenty of super heroines have been outfitted, charitably, in questionable attire, outside of your typical convention cosplay and Halloween we don’t generally find super hero couture to be at the forefront of cutting edge fashion.

Until now.

Superhero couture will come to television on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 at 10pm (Eastern) on CBS.

Oooo, exciting!

Aren’t you excited?

You’re not excited.

Why aren’t you excited?

I can keep doing this, you know.

Real, live semi naked ladies with spandex and wings after the jump!