Upcoming Comics February 20, 2024

Welcome back to Upcoming Comics! Last week I commented on the fact that it was Valentine's Day, and sure I guess that's a holiday that some people are aware of, but now we can celebrate something much bigger. Join me and the rest of the Batman News crew as we ring in the day that everyone looks forward to all year: President's Day. It's a truly sacred occasion that brings us together in a shared sense of community and brotherhood. As is tradition, we will honor those holy leaders with some comic books:

Upcoming Comics

Batman #144

The climactic, chilling conclusion to “The Joker Year One” that will have massive repercussions for the future! The Red Hood Gang is on a rampage and the only man who can stop them…is The Joker! And can Batman stop a devastating new virus in a future where The Joker looms over him?

Written By: Chip Zdarsky
Penciled By: Giuseppe Camuncoli, Andrea Sorrentino
Inks By: Stefano Nesi, Andrea Sorrentino
Colors By: Dave Stewart, Alejandro Sanchez
Cover By: Giuseppe Camuncoli, Stefano Nesi, Tomeu Morey

Thoughts: Not since Joker War have I so wanted Joker to simply go away for a long time. Writers can have him back when they learn to use him responsibly.

Batman News Critic: Jackson

Batman/Superman: World's Finest #24

“Return to Kingdom Come” concludes! With no way back to their own Earth, will Superman and Batman have to witness the tragic events that led to cataclysm-or are they fated to take the place of their doppelgangers?

Written By: Mark Waid
Penciled By: Dan Mora
Inks By: Dan Mora
Colors By: Tamra Bonvillain
Cover By: Dan Mora

Thoughts: I'm very excited to see how Waid manages to stick the landing in this pseudo-prequel to Kingdom Come. It's a high bar to live up to, but I hope it can all come together.

Batman News Critic: Casper

Nightwing #111

Something’s very wrong with Nightwing and it’s starting to catch up to him. Can the world’s greatest detective help him figure out what’s going on before it’s too late? Plus: The Plague has left 14th Century Europe in chaos, as a young man known only as the Son of Gray hunts the man who killed his father. A story of revenge, told in two parts.

Written By: Tom Taylor, Michael Conrad
Penciled By: Sami Basri, Francesco Francavilla
Inks By: Sami Basri, Francesco Francavilla, Vicente Cifuentes
Colors By: Francesco Francavilla, Adriano Lucas
Cover By: Bruno Redondo

Thoughts: It's always concerning to me when a story tries to give family backstory to a well known hero. It's so easy for it to fall on its face.

Batman News Critic: Aaron

Titans #8

The Titans are not the same heroes they were when Beast World began. Can this team hold the world together after everything they’ve been through? Can these friends unite against strengthening enemies hellbent on tearing them apart? Or will they crumble in the face of a new world order?

Written By: Tom Taylor
Penciled By: Stephen Segovia
Inks By: Stephen Segovia
Colors By: Annette Kwok
Cover By: Dan Mora

Thoughts: I'll be curious to see how this title deals with the aftermath of Beast World or if it will just sweep it all under the rug

Batman News Critic: None

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #5

The cataclysmic crossover between the DCU and Legendary’s Monsterverse continues! The Justice League have regrouped after their initial losses and discover nefarious plans by the Legion of Doom AND the League of Assassins are underway to use the Monsters for their evil purposes. As Lois Lane uncovers truths about the monster's identities, the League also learns of a beacon that’s drawing all the creatures to one location…the final battle to save Earth is about to begin!

Written By: Brian Buccellato
Penciled By: Christian Duce, Tom Derenick
Inks By: Christian Duce, Tom Derenick
Colors By: Luis Guerrero
Cover By: Romulo Fajardo, Drew Edward Johnson

Thoughts: With this and the new Godzilla x Kong movie coming out, it's a big moment for the world of giant monkeys fighting dinosaurs

Batman News Critic: None

Catwoman #62

NINE LIVES PART FOUR Catwoman has completed three of her “impossible” heists, but her nine lives are running out faster than she thought! Little does she know, someone with a particular use for disposable lives has been paying attention to her new mission-and that someone is none other than AMANDA WALLER! Welcome to the Suicide Squad, Selina Kyle-hope you survive the experience!

Written By: Tini Howard
Penciled By: Carmine Di Giandomenico
Inks By: Carmine Di Giandomenico
Colors By: Veronica Gandini
Cover By: David Nakayama

Thoughts: Don't know why DC is putting Waller everywhere (the latest May solicits even indicate she's going to be a villain in Batman) but I just want her whole mega-event master plan to hurry up so we can get it over with.

Batman News Critic: William

Beyond the Bat

Welcome to Beyond the Bat, where we take a quick look at the rest of DC’s comics coming out this week.

Gallery

Graphic Novel Watch

Sometimes you need more than floppies. Sometimes you want something that can sit nicely on your shelf that proudly displays your favorite stories. That’s when you turn to graphic novels. Let’s see what bat collections are coming out this week:

Gallery

Ratings

Most Excited: Batman/Superman: World's Finest #24- I always look forward to this title, and I want to see how this latest arc turns out.

Least Excited: Batman #144- Getting a Joker origin story at this point is just tiring, and it seems to be hitting every element of modern Joker that I don't like

Wild Card: Catwoman #62- I'm no fan of Tini Howard's, but Will's reviews of this latest arc for Catwoman seem surprisingly positive

Well that’s it for this week! Let us know in the comments what comics you’re looking forward to.

14 comments

Ylva

February 17, 2024

I'm already sorry that World’s Finest is coming to an end later in the year 😢 It's been a consistently good read.
But I'm not sure his to feel about Taylor and Redondo leaving Nightwing. On the one hand, I don't think it’s been great storywise. And I can't look forward to another run of not-Nightwing. On the other, there have been worse writers and you never know what will pop up… Also, it's always nice to see your favourite character selling well because it probably means they will stay in the DC spotlight, and Taylor has managed in that department.
I dropped Titans before Beast World, I'm curious to see your thoughts about it in the coming months and if I should start reading it again.

Jackson Luken
February 17, 2024
World's Finest might not be ending. The initial leaked solicit pages call it the "last arc", but subsequent releases call it the "latest arc". It's not clear which is the typo.
1. Ylva
  February 17, 2024
  Oh, keeping my fingers crossed!
Kaingerc
February 17, 2024
'Beast World' felt like (another) very shallow event.
it had some nice looking art with some eye catching action scenes here and there, but any kind of character work or plot progression felt like it was on fast forward mode. (even the big cliffhanger at the end felt very tacked on)
and not just in the main event book, even the spin-offs felt like they had an obligation to have a short story of some heroes\villains turning into furries and then the situation gets almost immediately resolved
Victor Fuentes
February 17, 2024
Taylor's run on Nightwing coming to an end is something that storywise is logical because there has been too many issues for telling the confrontation with Heartless. I think in 18-24 issue you can tell that story.
The problem is to lose the spotlight and sales that Taylor brings, and also, we don't know if the next writer will be better or worse...
My candidates are:
- Dan Watters (please give him a Bat-related ongoing!! He understand Gotham)
- Mark Waid
- Ram V
- PKJ
And please don't experiment here with artists who now want to write!
1. Sara
  February 17, 2024
  I have this vague fear that Michael Conrad could take over Nightwing. He co-wrote the Knight Terrors: Nightwing story with Becky Cloonan and has been writing Nightwing back-ups.
  I want Watters, Ram V, or PKJ for a Red Hood book. I want Martinbrough's mini to be over already.
  1. Victor Fuentes
    February 17, 2024
    I don't think Conrad/Cloonan will take over Nightwing... because they already wrote Batgirls and it was meh.
    Maybe Jason Aaron could be... He moved to DC but he isn't in any ongoing title (not counting mini arc in Action and his Batman mini).
    On the other hand... poor Red Hood... maybe it will be better to kill him... Seriously, to make a powerful statement on the difficult that is Gotham, will be to kill a character (or a pair).
    1. Sara
      February 17, 2024
      You're seriously replying to one of MY comments with a recommendation to kill Jason?
      I'm very extremely against the idea. Shocking.
      I don't know why people bring this up. It would be cheap and vile of DC to do it. And killing a character who's popular would be a ridiculously bad choice even for DC.
      Did Alfred's death make a powerful statement about violence in Gotham? Were the consequences in any way positive for Batman books? I don't feel that it did or that they are. Killing major characters is almost always a sign of weakness when DC or Marvel does it. It says that they've forgotten how to talk like adults so they scream like children.
      What DC needs to do is give Jason a solo series where the violence of Gotham can be explored closer and more frankly than it can in a Batman or Nightwing book.
    2. Victor Fuentes
      February 17, 2024
      Dear Sara, I apologize! :( It's just that the ideas we all have about Red
      Hood, no writer has been able to bring them to the pages. The only way
      is to give him to a very good writer (Ram V, PKJ, Watters,
      Priest, Rucka...) and they have never done so. Also, only appearing when
      the entire Bat-family is needed, it lowers his level.
      Sorry again!
    3. Sara
      February 17, 2024
      No worries, no worries...
      I do get where you're coming from. DC chooses writers poorly and is afraid of telling *good* dark stories. (They tell plenty of bad ones.) But the quality of Jason's stories isn't really worse than the quality of most other Bat-Family stories. His worst run by far was New 52 RHATO. I don't know what they were thinking with that, but it's why Jason has no clear direction to this day. I'm hoping that with Abernathy leaving they'll get Jason a better writer and an ongoing after Martinbrough's mini is done. We'll probably never get the Red Hood run that I dream of, but we could get something decent.

Kaingerc

February 17, 2024

what is going to be added next to Dick's family's already overly contrived and convoluted backstory?!

what, having him be always connected to the Court of Owls and him having a long lost step sister not enough?!

this kind of stuff doesn't add depth to your characters, it just makes them unrelatable.

Sara

February 17, 2024

"Massive repercussions for the future" is just the phrase everyone loves to read in a solicit. Hopefully this "future" is limited to Zdarsky's hot shart of a run.

May solicits were awful.

I'm trying to make myself wait it out. Again? Again...

Beast World conceptually irritated me. This kind of infection plot is almost always ableist by excluding difficult cases. If Bruce or Jason transforms, whatever. They're young and fit. What happens if someone with osteoporosis, a pacemaker, advanced diabetes, or on an oxygen or a dialysis machine transforms? Shouldn't infection rates of other diseases rise, too? The human body isn't made of Play-Doh.

Madeleine

February 17, 2024

I'm reading Hellblazer: Dead in America this week. No Bat books.

DCs ambition to turn Moore's short, elegant Joker comic into the opening chapter of an unwieldy pseudo-religious epic is mindboggling.

Tyranus

February 19, 2024

Picking up World's Finest and Godzilla vs Kong vs JL for sure. Maybe I will pick up Titans. I am not sure yet.

I am so damn tired of the Joker. DC just shoves him everywhere. Joker does not work if he is in every other story arc! And I am tired of his current humor of "just violently murder everyone and everything I see". What made Joker great was being unpredictable. You had no idea what was going to set him, who he would kill, and who he would spare. That is real chaos. Now, he is just a murder hobo.

As for outside the Bat, going to be picking up Hellblazer, Superman, WW, and GL.

Seems like a lot of series are ending/resetting in Summer for the big event. I do not know what it is or if it will be good. All I care about is to keep books like GL, GA, Blue Beetle, etc. going. These are great books with good teams. Let them keep cooking. But...could we get a new team for Titans? I really feel like Taylor does not understand these characters still.

Oh, and I better get an Aquaman ongoing. They cancelled his Dawn of DC book for some reason (especially when his movie was coming out) and he has not had a solo book in years. Stop treating my man like week old fish left out in the sun! Give him a good team and bring his whole family back! We are still missing Lorena, Koryak, and Deep Blue and they have been gone for over a decade now!

Ylva
February 17, 2024
I'm already sorry that World’s Finest is coming to an end later in the year 😢 It's been a consistently good read.
But I'm not sure his to feel about Taylor and Redondo leaving Nightwing. On the one hand, I don't think it’s been great storywise. And I can't look forward to another run of not-Nightwing. On the other, there have been worse writers and you never know what will pop up… Also, it's always nice to see your favourite character selling well because it probably means they will stay in the DC spotlight, and Taylor has managed in that department.
I dropped Titans before Beast World, I'm curious to see your thoughts about it in the coming months and if I should start reading it again.
1. Jackson Luken
  February 17, 2024
  World's Finest might not be ending. The initial leaked solicit pages call it the "last arc", but subsequent releases call it the "latest arc". It's not clear which is the typo.
  1. Ylva
    February 17, 2024
    Oh, keeping my fingers crossed!
2. Kaingerc
  February 17, 2024
  'Beast World' felt like (another) very shallow event.
  it had some nice looking art with some eye catching action scenes here and there, but any kind of character work or plot progression felt like it was on fast forward mode. (even the big cliffhanger at the end felt very tacked on)
  and not just in the main event book, even the spin-offs felt like they had an obligation to have a short story of some heroes\villains turning into furries and then the situation gets almost immediately resolved
3. Victor Fuentes
  February 17, 2024
  Taylor's run on Nightwing coming to an end is something that storywise is logical because there has been too many issues for telling the confrontation with Heartless. I think in 18-24 issue you can tell that story.
  The problem is to lose the spotlight and sales that Taylor brings, and also, we don't know if the next writer will be better or worse...
  My candidates are:
  - Dan Watters (please give him a Bat-related ongoing!! He understand Gotham)
  - Mark Waid
  - Ram V
  - PKJ
  And please don't experiment here with artists who now want to write!
  1. Sara
    February 17, 2024
    I have this vague fear that Michael Conrad could take over Nightwing. He co-wrote the Knight Terrors: Nightwing story with Becky Cloonan and has been writing Nightwing back-ups.
    I want Watters, Ram V, or PKJ for a Red Hood book. I want Martinbrough's mini to be over already.
    1. Victor Fuentes
      February 17, 2024
      I don't think Conrad/Cloonan will take over Nightwing... because they already wrote Batgirls and it was meh.
      Maybe Jason Aaron could be... He moved to DC but he isn't in any ongoing title (not counting mini arc in Action and his Batman mini).
      On the other hand... poor Red Hood... maybe it will be better to kill him... Seriously, to make a powerful statement on the difficult that is Gotham, will be to kill a character (or a pair).
      1. Sara
        February 17, 2024
        You're seriously replying to one of MY comments with a recommendation to kill Jason?
        I'm very extremely against the idea. Shocking.
        I don't know why people bring this up. It would be cheap and vile of DC to do it. And killing a character who's popular would be a ridiculously bad choice even for DC.
        Did Alfred's death make a powerful statement about violence in Gotham? Were the consequences in any way positive for Batman books? I don't feel that it did or that they are. Killing major characters is almost always a sign of weakness when DC or Marvel does it. It says that they've forgotten how to talk like adults so they scream like children.
        What DC needs to do is give Jason a solo series where the violence of Gotham can be explored closer and more frankly than it can in a Batman or Nightwing book.
      2. Victor Fuentes
        February 17, 2024
        Dear Sara, I apologize! :( It's just that the ideas we all have about Red
        Hood, no writer has been able to bring them to the pages. The only way
        is to give him to a very good writer (Ram V, PKJ, Watters,
        Priest, Rucka...) and they have never done so. Also, only appearing when
        the entire Bat-family is needed, it lowers his level.
        Sorry again!
      3. Sara
        February 17, 2024
        No worries, no worries...
        I do get where you're coming from. DC chooses writers poorly and is afraid of telling *good* dark stories. (They tell plenty of bad ones.) But the quality of Jason's stories isn't really worse than the quality of most other Bat-Family stories. His worst run by far was New 52 RHATO. I don't know what they were thinking with that, but it's why Jason has no clear direction to this day. I'm hoping that with Abernathy leaving they'll get Jason a better writer and an ongoing after Martinbrough's mini is done. We'll probably never get the Red Hood run that I dream of, but we could get something decent.
Kaingerc
February 17, 2024
what is going to be added next to Dick's family's already overly contrived and convoluted backstory?!
what, having him be always connected to the Court of Owls and him having a long lost step sister not enough?!
this kind of stuff doesn't add depth to your characters, it just makes them unrelatable.
Sara
February 17, 2024
"Massive repercussions for the future" is just the phrase everyone loves to read in a solicit. Hopefully this "future" is limited to Zdarsky's hot shart of a run.
May solicits were awful.
I'm trying to make myself wait it out. Again? Again...
Beast World conceptually irritated me. This kind of infection plot is almost always ableist by excluding difficult cases. If Bruce or Jason transforms, whatever. They're young and fit. What happens if someone with osteoporosis, a pacemaker, advanced diabetes, or on an oxygen or a dialysis machine transforms? Shouldn't infection rates of other diseases rise, too? The human body isn't made of Play-Doh.
Madeleine
February 17, 2024
I'm reading Hellblazer: Dead in America this week. No Bat books.
DCs ambition to turn Moore's short, elegant Joker comic into the opening chapter of an unwieldy pseudo-religious epic is mindboggling.
Tyranus
February 19, 2024
Picking up World's Finest and Godzilla vs Kong vs JL for sure. Maybe I will pick up Titans. I am not sure yet.
I am so damn tired of the Joker. DC just shoves him everywhere. Joker does not work if he is in every other story arc! And I am tired of his current humor of "just violently murder everyone and everything I see". What made Joker great was being unpredictable. You had no idea what was going to set him, who he would kill, and who he would spare. That is real chaos. Now, he is just a murder hobo.
As for outside the Bat, going to be picking up Hellblazer, Superman, WW, and GL.
Seems like a lot of series are ending/resetting in Summer for the big event. I do not know what it is or if it will be good. All I care about is to keep books like GL, GA, Blue Beetle, etc. going. These are great books with good teams. Let them keep cooking. But...could we get a new team for Titans? I really feel like Taylor does not understand these characters still.
Oh, and I better get an Aquaman ongoing. They cancelled his Dawn of DC book for some reason (especially when his movie was coming out) and he has not had a solo book in years. Stop treating my man like week old fish left out in the sun! Give him a good team and bring his whole family back! We are still missing Lorena, Koryak, and Deep Blue and they have been gone for over a decade now!

Batman News Archive

Upcoming Comics February 20, 2024

Upcoming Comics

Beyond the Bat

Graphic Novel Watch

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