DC Comics continues to unveil new number one issues, today featuring Stormwatch, Blackhawks, Sgt. Rock and the Men of War, and more!
STORMWATCH #1
Writer: Paul Cornell
Artist: Miguel Sepulveda
Stormwatch is a dangerous super human strike force whose existence is kept secret from the world. Jack Hawksmoor and the rest of the crew look to recruit two of the deadliest super humans on the planet: Midnighter and Apollo. And if they say no? Perhaps the Martian Manhunter can change their minds.
BLACKHAWKS #1
Writer: Mike Costa
Artist: Ken Lashley
Blackhawk is an elite group of mercenaries made up of brave men from around the world equipped with the latest in cutting-edge hardware and vehicles. Their mission: Kill the bad guys before they kill us. A set of contemporary tales that battle the world’s gravest threats.
SGT. ROCK AND THE MEN OF WAR #1
Writer: Ivan Brandon
Artist: Tom Derenick
The grandson of the original Sgt. Rock assumes the command of Easy Company, a team of crack ex-military men financed by a covert military contractor, as they brave the battle-scarred landscape carved by the DC Universe’s super-villains. SGT. ROCK AND THE MEN OF WAR #1 is contemporary military story fighting under modern conditions.
ALL-STAR WESTERN #1
Writer: Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti
Artist: Moritat
Even when Gotham City was just a one-horse town, crime was rampant – and things only get worse when bounty hunter Jonah Hex comes to town. Can Amadeus Arkham, a pioneer in criminal psychology, enlist Hex’s special brand of justice to help the Gotham Police Department track down a vicious serial killer? Featuring back-up stories starring DC’s other western heroes.
DEATHSTROKE #1
Writer: Kyle Higgins
Artist: Joe Bennett and Art Thibert
A metahuman mercenary who made a living taking out the toughest targets, Deathstroke will reclaim his fearsome legacy by any means necessary in DEATHSTROKE #1
GRIFTER #1
Writer: Nathan Edmondson
Art: CAFU and BIT
Ex-black ops agent Cole Cash is a charming grifter that few can resist. And yet he’s about to be branded a serial killer when he begins hunting and exterminating inhuman creatures hidden in human form – creatures only he can see. Can the biggest sweet talker of all time talk his way out of this one when even his brother thinks he’s gone over the edge?
OMAC #1
Writer: Dan DiDio
Artist: Keith Giffen
A man loses control of his life as the omnipresent Brother Eye transforms him against his will into a powerful killing machine OMAC #1.
There’s still one more day in the week, and news about Superman is just around the corner.
29 Comments
All-Star Western sounds good, since it’s nice to see the genre get some play again, especially since DC has a lot of neglected Old West characters. And while OMAC looks awesome (I like chunky-style Giffen art), the writer turns me off. Shame, really.
Seeing the OMAC cover (and the work he did in the last Legion Annual) makes me long for a Morrison/Giffen New Goods book.
Stormwatch doesn’t look too bad. At this point I’ll pretty much give any Paul Cornell series a chance.
Though it was pretty much a given anyway, seems like this batch of announcements pretty much seals the fate of the Spencer Thunder Agents. :( Oh well, better 9 really good Thunder Agent issues than none at all.
This sucks. This whole relaunch has totally got me. I’m going to have to try out so many of these books, because so many of them could just hit it out of the park. SO far it looks like starting from #1 is giving everyone a chance to do awesome stuff, and stop being dragged down by what has come before. So far, I’m seeing way more titles that I WANT to try, and only a couple that don’t interest me. Some of these could be the new Fables or Secret Six. I’m getting really excited, and I’m going to start pitching this to my non-comic friends.
The ONLY one of these I have even remote interest in is “Stormwatch” (Martian Manhunter & Paul Cornell sells this for me) and *maybe* “Blackhawks” (and that’s a BIG “maybe” boardering on “doubtful”). I simply could care less about any of these violent books. And seeing Dan Didio’s name in any writing credits is a big red flag to AVOID AT ALL COST. I still can’t bring myself to forgive him for that hot mess he made out of “The Outsiders”.
Agreed! I was digging The Outsiders until they were partially screwed with Batman “dying” and then it all went to hell INSTANTLY when Didio took over.
Is that King Faraday heading up the new Blackhawks?
The Western book reminds me of a question that arose for me during the J-Hex issue of Batman Returns: Where the heck is Gotham City supposed to be? I’ve always assumed it was an East Coast city, but I can’t think of any area on the coast that would still be “west” in the 1870s….
Ooookaaay…I’m half-convinced this DCnU is a red herring and that this is actually a set-up for a new Elseworlds line…or maybe Tangent…because if it isn’t, I’m becoming more and more disappointed in DC’s approach. The first few titles announced sounded pretty good, but just about everything in the last two days has sounded awful.
I actually like this set of titles more than any other announced set so far. It’s cool to see Martian Mahunter with Stormwatch. Blackhawk looks okay, but the new Sgt. Rock sounds awesome! I really like All-Star Western and Grifter. I’m ambivalent towards Deathstroke – unless we see Ravager somewhere in it, and the only one I don’t like of the bunch is OMAC – I liked the old new (Infinite Crisis) design better.
Overall, still uneasy about this reboot . . . I’m sorry . . . renumbering but this is pointing me back towards the cautiously optimistic side.
So DC killed and cannibalized Wildstorm, huh, well this actually doesn’t botter me that much given that Wildstorm was already established as a paralel universe and I always imagined that some of its characters would have DCU versions.
You know, even though WildStorm stories may not always have had the best executions even in the very begining their core concepts were always fascinating, the Daemonite and Kheran war, Henry Bendix and the Stormwatch, the Wetworks’s commandos vs. vampires and werewolves concept was gold (heh, heh), Kayzen Gamorra’s cyberpunk nation, how everything eventually was connected to the Team 7, it was first class Universe building, DCU could benefit from these stories.
6 more titles to go and 6 titles from my current monthly pull list absent so far.
Stormwatch seems like an interesting adaptaptation into the true DCU. I might give it a look.
As for the rest… meh.
Blackhawks is a cool concept. I’ll be interested in what they do with it.
The new Deathstroke costume is pretty lame, in my opinion.
I agree on the costume… is Deathstroke part of Batman, Inc. now?
For Deathstroke, I think less would be more. “He” is a killing machine and with a less dangerous costume I believe you could make him appear more dangerous.
I’m looking forward to Grifter’s epic fight with Keith David over putting on a pair of glasses.
Of the remaining six titles, we can safely assume Superman and Action Comics will make the cut. But I’m getting nervous about Justice Society of America, Supergirl, Power Girl and Zatanna, up against Adventure Comics, Booster Gold, Secret Six, Superboy, Superman/Batman and whatever spoilers DC throws into the mix.
I have a funny feeling that Superman’s supporting cast (Supergirl, Superboy and Power Girl) might, at best, find themselves sharing Adventure Comics in lieu of keeping their own titles.
I’m disappointed (though not surprised) at the possibility that we gained Batwoman and Catwoman at the expense of three other heroines.
Finally, this whole relaunch reminds me of Heroes Reborn. Make of that what you will.
Peter Milligan just verified that Zatanna is going to be a member of Justice League Dark over in Newsarama.
I was hoping Grifter would return at some point. Hope they keep him true to his spirit. Stormwatch looks interesting too, wonder if will mention any of the past SW history or start completely new. A new Gen 13 and Wildcats would be cool too.
I suggested a modern Sarge Rock or Blackhawks a long time ago and I am far from a hardline military/red state guy, but I’m pretty disappoointed that both of the military titles are “mercenaries.” The least we can do is attempt to produce a comic that features real military, considering our friends and neighbors are risking their lives all over the place. It would be relevant, hard hitting and a thousand times more dramatic.
You absolutely hit it on the head! The original Sgt. Rock comics were friggin awesome. My friend and I would scavenge back issues at the comic store growing up. The description they give about the new series just seems campy to me. Although the originals and even the “our army at war” were obviously ‘dated’ (in lack of better words), there is no reason in my mind the new ones couldnt incorporate real modern day soldiers putting their mettle to the test everyday against real threats.
Thx for the agreement. I felt the same way with the new Trek flick( I will now rant…sorry). It says something horrible about us that here we are, waging wars all over, which have many complexities, questions and problems, and we have many real people out there doing some amazingly heroic things and yet they remake Kirk as an undisciplined smartass because that’s the new “cool.” Who’d buy “dedicated and hardworking” like the original?
I’m writin’ DC right now for all the good it might do.
If there are truly only six titles left then I’m making a prediction on the remaining 6:
1) Superman: Yeah, I know. Dumb prediction. Though I will predict that the marriage will be nullified and we’ll go back to Lois not knowing who Superman is.
2) Action Comics: Welcome to Supergirl’s new home. We’ll get Connor and Clark sometimes but I feel that we’ll see more of her stories here. We even might see some Jimmy Olsen.
3) JSA: I really don’t see how this title isn’t going to make the jump to the new universe. This will probably be Power Girl’s main book.
4) The Power of Shazam! : We still haven’t seen him in the new DCU so my belief is that he’ll get his own book to share with Mary & Billy.
5) WildC.A.T.s : We’ve seen Voodoo. We’ve seen Grifter. Tell me you really didn’t see this coming. My guess is that the team will have some of the old cast re-invented and some DC characters we haven’t seen in a while.
6) Infinity, Inc. : My belief is that John Henry Irons will get a push and will be heading this title along with some tech-based heroes.
Anyone else want to make predictions?
Anyone else want to make predictions?
Nope.
Why not?
Where are the Milestone characters (besides Static)? Are they dumping the Archieverse? There were some (like Shield) that might have been fits in these “war” comics.
And one of the guys in charge said that even Static would be interacting much more with the DCU than with Milestone characters–although he acknowledged they might *occasionally* pop up….
My prediction is that there is going to be an Action Comics but only Action comics which will have the Super family but there is not going to be a Superman book. There is still too much rangle around in the legal world with Superman at this point. He will come back later but we will see him in JLA and that will be it or in Action. There is not going to be a Superman book. Now that would be amazing and even incredible.
All-Star Western #1 looks pretty good. I actually like Deathstroke and Grifter too.