In between packing boxes, painting, cleaning, and a visit to the hospital because my cat decided to go King Shark on my leg, DC rolled out new titles, a hit on HBO Max, awesome marketing campaigns, more makeup, and announced both dinosaurs and the next crisis. Honestly only makeup was on my 2022 Bat-Bingo, so it was a lot happening in a few months. This isn’t a complete list of everything they announced, but the things that I was most excited about.
In an exciting aspect of the push to have more representation in the brand, DC released the title Monkey Prince. While the origins of the Monkey King are detailed in the Chinese folktale Journey to the West, this title focuses on the son of the Monkey King and his own set of powers, skill, misadventures, and friends. Personally, I love Journey to the West, having been introduced to it in opera form in 2013 while I was interning at Lincoln Center, and also animated form in Dragon Ball Z. So even if you’ve never heard of it, you may already have been exposed to the story. Taking a new, younger approach to the story by focusing on the Monkey Prince makes the story far more approachable and digestible. Plus, Bernard Chang is doing the art and his style is full of movement, angles, and energy. The prologue, Monkey Prince #0 is available for free on DC Ultimate Universe. Monkey Prince #1 is available in retail stores now, including a limited edition lucky red envelope variant for Lunar New Year that I think is totally worth the extra cost because it’s really neat and a great spin on tradition, much like Monkey Prince.
Also taking a spin on an established character is the Young Adult graphic novel, Mister Miracle: The Great Escape. While Mister Miracle was first introduced in the 1970’s, this version of “Scott Free” is a teen looking to escape the physical and emotional boundaries he’s been trapped in. As someone who loves Scott and Big Barda together because I just think they’re so dang cute, I love seeing this retelling of them falling for each other. Plus the art style is a great choice to create a new version of this character to the YA audience. It’s very simplistic, muted, and rounded, letting the focus be on the characters’ and their development. I’m a little bummed that so far it’s just a one issue graphic novel, because I’d absolutely add a Mister Miracle title to my pull list if it was as fun as this was.
Right now, the undisputed king of fun DC times is John Cena, thanks to his runaway fan-favorite role as Peacemaker in James Gunn’s Suicide Squad and Peacemaker series, now streaming on HBO Max. While this satirical snarky take on superheroes presents just shaky the lines between “hero” and “agent of chaos” can be, the biggest standout moment from the show are the opening credits. They are cheesy and goofy and set the perfect tone for a very tongue in cheek show. With as much as DC has struggled to get their film universe off the ground, seeing them embrace their characters, focusing on storytelling and character development, and casting actors who are willing to commit to the bit is a huge breath of fresh air, especially when compared to the darkness of Titans on HBO. Between Peacemaker and Doom Patrol on HBO Max, it really is starting to feel like this trend of gallows humor is becoming DC’s niche.
Of course, Peacemaker isn’t the most unhinged story in DC’s orbit right now. That honor goes to the upcoming Jurassic League. This six issue limited series reinvents the Justice League as dinosaurs. The tone is very early nineties Saturday morning cartoon. I will only be buying it if the tagline on the series is what they’re currently using to promote it- “Truth, Justice, and the Prehistoric way”. Jurassic League #1 hits shelves May 10th.
If you can’t tell from this post’s love of Monkey Prince’s red envelope and Jurassic League’s tagline, I love a good marketing campaign and tie-in. And DC has not let me down on that front. If you’re in New York City, you may have seen the amazing six foot tall, eight foot wide posters scattered around the city to promote the release of I Am Batman #6, which features Jace Fox’s Batman settling into his role as the Batman of the Big Apple. These posters will be on display across New York until Wednesday, February 16th, so if you’re in the area, you’ll want to check out the interactive map on the DC website and snag those pictures.
As for other Batman themed marketing, the March’s variant covers are themed for the release of The Batman. While most of covers depict Robert Pattinson as Batman, Zoë Kravitz’s Catwoman, Paul Dano’s Ridder, and Colin Farrell’s Penguin also make appearances in some of the covers for the nine titles involved. They also announced that Batman: Ego and Other Tails, the iconic Darwyn Cooke book that helped inspired The Batman is March’s DC Universe Infinite Book Club pick. Darwyn Cooke’s one of my favorite writer/artist combinations and I’ll be posting my thoughts on it in March.
Revolution London has expanded their DC collaboration makeup line with two new Batman-centered make-up kits. The Mad Love kit is full of punchy, graphic, neon colors for the insane relationship between Joker and Harley. The Dangerous Love kit is full of beiges, brown, and purples inspired by the romance between the Bat and the Cat. I bought the pallets from the Revolution x Batman collab mostly because of the “Crime Alley”/ “Crime Ally” misspelling and then actually ended up using them. I love them and wear them everyday. It’s a fun way to incorporate my love of DC into my daily life. And who doesn’t want a bat-shaped mirror?
However, the final story of this back issue has a different kind of mirror. Dark Crisis, the newest multiversal crossover story that’s continuing the iconic Wolfman/ Pérez story Crisis on Infinite Earths is a seven issue story starting this May. Dark Crisis sees Pariah using the Great Darkness to destroy Earth-0 as revenge for the destruction of his Earth, and the heroes banding together to help save the Justice League and stop him. Here’s hoping we see some throwbacks to previous Crisis stories and some tributes to the amazing George Pérez, who was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer the winter of 2021. The zero issue of Dark Crisis will be released as part of Free Comic Book Day, with issue #1 hitting stands May 31st.
Much like BOOM!, DC is really working to integrate their brand into multiple mediums. As we head towards the release of The Batman on March 4th, we’ll see more marketing tie-ins for promotions before switching to Black Adam and The Flash marketing.
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