Weird Science DC Comics: 2020

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Last 52: War of the Multiverses #1 Review

They Couldn't Come Up With A Shorter Title?

Written By: Che Grayson, Scott Snyder, Joshua Williamson, and many more
Art By: Dexter Soy, Alitha Martinez, Alex Maleev, Scott Koblish, and many more
Cover Price: $8.99
Release Date: December 29, 2020
Giant-sized Wonder Woman, decked out in golden armor from the World Forge, faces off against the Batman Who Laughs on the battle-ravaged ruins of Themyscira while all the surviving heroes and villains of Earth battle their evil, fear-inspired doppelgangers for the fate of the Multiverse. At 80 pages, this is not so much an anthology of stories as it is a series of vignettes from different locations on the battlefield, each from the perspective of a different set of characters. Some of the scenes are bizarre, some harrowing, and one, in particular, manages to find a little humor at the end of existence. The writing and art style varies in style from scene to scene but at the very least you wind up with a very thorough setup for the final battle.

Tales From The Dark Universe: Dark Nights: Metal #1 Review

Nu Metal

Written By: Scott Snyder, Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing

Art By: Karl Mostert, Trevor Scott, Norm Rapmund, Romulo Fajardo Jr., Andworld Design

Cover Price: $5.99

Release Date: December 29, 2020

It's time to head on back down into the Dark Multiverse for the final time as we hear Tempus Fuginaut's last story of darkness and woe, where this time we'll be seeing the outcome of the world if Barbatos had successfully pulled Earth-0 into his realm. Let's jump into this story and see who the heroes will be and what has come of our heroes of old. Let's check it out.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Jinny?

Writer: Magdalene Visaggio
Art: Gleb Melnikov
Colors: Luis Guerrero

Letters: Gabriela Downie
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: December 30, 2020

Jinny Hex Special #1 pits the descendant of the famed DC cowboy against an immortal searching for an all-powerful artifact. One year after her mother's death, a mysterious stranger named Jack Duckett shows up claiming to be Jinny's father. Duckett explains he left Jinny's mother without knowing she was pregnant and decided to connect with his presumed daughter after hearing of her mother's death. Duckett's motives are less than pure as we learn he's an immortal cowboy searching for the Godseye - a powerful artifact stolen by Jonah Hex years ago. Believing the Godseye is still possessed by the Hex family, Duckett gains Jinny's trust so he can search for and steal back the artifact to make himself a god. When Duckett finds, steals, and merges with the Godseye, he becomes the supervillain called Three-Eyed Jack and begins to remake reality to his own liking. Jinny and Lady Bird are confronted with haunted saloons, friends turned into monsters, and ghosts of Jinny's past while Three-Eyed Jack attempts to possess Jinny's body as a permanent host. Ultimately, Lady Bird and Jinny defeat Three-Eyed Jack with the power of will, friendship, and a solid uppercut, setting the stage for a mystical, magical road trip of future adventures.

Put On Ice

Written By: Andy Lanning, Ron Marz

Art By: Carmine Di Giandomenico, Howard Porter, Hi-Fi, Andworld Design

Cover Price: $4.99

Release Date: December 29, 2020

It's the finale to the story that felt like it took forever to start, that really didn't have our Justice League do much of anything except for talk about family and fight ice monsters around the world. Maybe that's fine for some but for an event that took up the entire month and one that is taking place in our current timeline before two months full of dark futures and little else, I was looking for more out of this 9 part event. Hopefully with this ending things will feel like it was all worth it and what felt like padding before will feel more like useful installments. Let's check it out.

PREVIEW: Tales From The Dark Multiverse: Dark Nights: Metal #1

Written By: Scott Snyder, Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing
Art By: Karl Mostert, Trevor Scott, Norm Rapmund, Romulo Fajardo Jr., Andworld Design

Cover Price: $5.99

Release Date: December 29, 2020

In the event-defining epic Dark Nights: Metal, the Justice League defeated the vile Barbatos and his Dark Knights to save our universe from sinking into the abyss of the Dark Multiverse. But...what if they failed? What if Barbatos reigned victorious? Enter an alternate timeline where the DCU as you know it has been dragged down into the darkness. Witness the Justice League you once knew, hideously transformed into dragons who serve at the mercy of evil. Duke Thomas, the Last Monitor, will have to seek out Nightwing and the few remaining survivors of the Metal event to assemble the Final Justice League in an attempt to save the Multiverse. Featuring a story by Metal architect Scott Snyder, rising stars Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing, and art by red-hot artist Karl Mostert, you won’t want to miss the biggest, loudest arena rock concert in the history of the DC Universe!

Written By: Andy Lanning, Ron Marz
Art By: Carmine Di Giandomenico, Howard Porter, Hi-Fi, Andworld Design

Cover Price: $4.99

Release Date: December 29, 2020

“Endless Winter” chapter nine! This is it-the final chapter in the five-week, nine-issue Justice League crossover! With the Frost King’s origin revealed, the Justice League must battle the mistakes of the past as well as the global freeze that now threatens the entire population. This issue is snow-packed with characters and action as Superman battles Black Adam while Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Queen Hippolyta, and Swamp Thing face the Frost King and his monstrous army! All of the world is watching, and the Justice League must make a choice.

Batman: White Knight Presents Harley Quinn #3 Review

Dressed To Kill?

Writer: Katana Collins
Art: Matteo Scalera
Colors: Dave Stewart
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: December 22, 2020

Batman: White Knight Presents Harley Quinn #3 follows Quinzel and Quimby as they track down the killer after a botched attempt on Simon Trent's life aka the Gray Ghost. Through some fairly solid detective sleuthing, Q2 discover the killer is filming interviews on special camera equipment that leads them to the next series of clues, and the revelation that Quimby is connected to the victims. With each bread crumb, the connections between Quimby, the movie star victims, and the killer get increasingly bizarre. We wrap with a cliffhanger that confirms one of the characters is cuckoo for cocoa puffs, and it isn't Harley... for once.

One Way or Another

Writer: Mariko Tamaki

Artist: Steve Pugh

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 23, 2020

It's time to put Mariko Tamaki's run on Wonder Woman to bed as she goes off to write Detective Comics in 2021. I don't know how Detective will turn out, but I hope it's better than this Liar Liar / Maxwell Lord nonsense! Tamaki seemed like she couldn't decide who was the real big bad in this book, so she skimped on the details and changed stuff we did know many times. Oh well, at least it's over after this!

Punching Upward

Writer: Geoff Johns, Scott Snyder

Artist: Ryan Benjamin, Francis Manapul, Jerry Ordway, Paul Pelletier

Cover Price: $5.99

Release Date: December 22, 2020

While I have been lukewarm with many of these Death Metal tie-ins, Scott Snyder teaming up with Geoff Johns had me intrigued when DC Comics announced this, and then they threw Jerry Ordway into the mix? Oh my! So, does this one-shot tell a good story AND manage to be critical with only one main Death Metal issue left? Let's find out...

What The Future Used To Look Like

Written By: Dan Jurgens

Art By: Sean Chen, Sean Parsons, Chris Sotomayor, Travis Lanham

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 22, 2020

It's the final time we'll be heading off to thirty-five years from now..... at least for the time being, Future State notwithstanding, and with that, we'll see Batman Beyond go up against something he's seen time and time again..... A final issue. There's no real arc to detail going into this so let's just quit with the jibber-jabber and see what Dan Jurgens has planned for us for Terry's final (for now) flight. Let's check it out.

A Hill Of Beans

Written By: Shawn Martinbrough

Art By: Tony Akins, Moritat, Stefano Gaudiano, Paul Mounts, Troy Peteri

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 22, 2020

Let's head back to Gotham, to a little neighborhood called The Hill, where a group of concerned citizens got together during the Joker War and decided to take justice into their own hands and try the vigilante route. If that wasn't enough of a story, we also have a war going on within a gang in this neighborhood that has one aspiring shoe mogul in the gang going outside his comfort zone and bringing in Killer Croc to be his muscle. If you think it's weird that all fo this is going on and I haven't mentioned Red Hood once....... well, I find it pretty weird too but like we saw in the previous issue, there wasn't a lot of Red Hood to be found as we spent the majority of this new arc setting up a neighborhood that hasn't been talked about in comics for twenty years and throwing Jason Todd into it with little thought. Let's jump into this issue and see if things can turn around and we can start caring about.... and have an easier time following Jason Todd's foray back in Gotham. Let's check it out.

Frigid Frenzy

Written By: Ron Marz, Andy Lanning

Art By: Brandon Peterson, Mike Atiyeh, Wes Abbott, Marco Santucci, Arif Prianto, Troy Peteri

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 22, 2020

It's the penultimate issue to our Endless Winter Event and with that hopefully, we'll finally be getting more than our heroes punching ice monsters and actually get to the real meat of the story.... the Frost King himself. I have to think that will be the case since we're pulling a Black Adam one-shot out of nowhere to tell this chapter and if you've gotten anything out of this mini-event so far, it's that Black Adam is an asshole and that the Frost King has every reason in the world to want to see him laid low. Let's jump into Chapter 8 here and see if Black Adam will be able to hold his own against this chilly threat and if we'll find out more about the Frost King family suspended in ice at Stagg Industries. Let's check it out.

Writer: Peter J. Tomasi
Pencils: Brad Walker
Ink: Andrew Hennessy
Colors: Dave McCaig
Letters: Rob Leigh
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: December 21st, 2020

It's Peter Tomasi's last issue in this run of Detective Comics. Although his run overall wasn't all that special, and it got frustrating at times unless you're way too much into cults, it had moments that I really did enjoy sprinkled all the way throughout. But does it end on a high note?

Some Old Friends And Some Nice Cold Drinks

Written By: Andy Lanning, Ron Marz

Art By: Amancay Nahuelpan, June Chung, Rob Leigh, Marco Santucci, Arif Prianto, Troy Peteri

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December, 22, 2020

It's about to get cold in here as we move back into the Endless Winter, where previously we saw our heroes running around and not doing much beyond punching ice monsters, which is kind of nuts since this is Chapter 7 of our story, but thankfully it looks like we're finally going to do something here because in the last Chapter, the Teen Titans: Endless Winter Special #1, we were told by Donna Troy that our current situation feels a lot like a bedtime story that Hippolyta used to tell her...... and with that, Barry Allen and Donna Troy made their way to Themyscira to get the 411 on what our Amazon Queen knows. Yeah, it's a bit of a silly clue to get us to our main bit of information, but at this point, I'll take it as we get this story moving. Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

Play Free Bird!

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artist: John Romita Jr.

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 22, 2020

It's the end of the line for Brian Michael Bendis on the Superman books, but don't cry for him (Argentina) since he will be writing the Justice League book in 2021. So, how does he wrap his story up here? Well, a little bit of catch-up, some over-explanation...

Grundy Go BOOM!

Written By: Joshua Williamson

Art By: Andrei Bressan

Colors By: Alejandro Sánchez

Lettering By: John J. Hill

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 22, 2020

Batman / Superman #15 brings the World's Finest together to help the current Solomon Grundy cool off before he goes nuclear. We learn that each reincarnation of Grundy comes with some random quirk, and this time just so happens to be a nuclear energy buildup that threatens to take out half of North America when he blows. Poison Ivy grudgingly lends a hand and concludes they can diffuse the situation by getting Grundy to the swamp that "birthed" him. It's a mad dash to get Grundy home before he goes BOOM! Of course, the Secret Society of Super-Villains sees this as an opportunity to use WMD Grundy for their own nefarious purposes and show up at the worst possible time.

Weird Science DC Comics Podcast Ep 331: DC Comics, Death Metal, Endless Winter, Batman, Heists & Endings

DC Comics has a bunch of big books this week and we take 3 1/2 hours to go through things. Justice League #58 & Endless Winter: Teen Titans #1 were Patreon Spotlight books and If you would like to help out the podcast and get a ton of exclusive shows in return, head over to our Patreon (patreon.com/weirdscience), and If you can, please leave us a review on iTunes! We would love to hear from you! Send us your thoughts, dreams, hopes, corrections...anything to weirdsciencedccomics@gmail.com Also, Check out our Youtube Channel - Weird Science Comics

Writer: Peter J. Tomasi

Artist: Brad Walker

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 23, 2020

Detective Comics #1033 Preview -On the eve of some of the biggest changes ever in Gotham City, Batman finds himself at a crossroads with the people of the city he has sworn to protect. A landslide victory for anti-vigilante mayoral candidate Christopher Nakano is bringing with it new legislation to outlaw the Bat-Family’s very way of life-and with his rogues gallery still knocking on his door, Bruce will need to make some tough decisions about the future...

Writer: Geoff Johns, Scott Snyder

Artist: Ryan Benjamin, Francis Manapul, Jerry Ordway, Paul Pelletier

Cover Price: $5.99

Release Date: December 23, 2020

Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Secret Origin #1 Preview - The DCU’s darkest secrets are explored while two titans clash! The heroes search for a way to defeat the Darkest Knight through the universe’s past, while Superboy Prime faces down the demonic Batman!

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis

Artist: John Romita Jr.

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 23, 2020

Action Comics #1028 Preview - The powerhouse creative team of Brian Michael Bendis, John Romita Jr., and Klaus Janson wrap up their run on Action Comics with “House of Kent: Epilogue”! With the final fate of Metropolis’s underworld revealed at last, it’s time for each member of the House of Kent to face their unknown futures head-on, including Lois, Conner, Jon, Kara, Jimmy, and, of course, Clark Kent! This standalone Superman story connects threads from Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Superman, Justice League, Legion of Super-Heroes, and other unforgettable series in epic-and unexpected-ways!

Written By: Joshua Williamson

Art By: Andrei Bressan

Colors By: Alejandro Sánchez

Lettering By: John J. Hill

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 22, 2020

Check out our Batman / Superman #15 Preview - “Solomon Grundy died on a Sunday!” But when this monster man kicks the bucket, all hell breaks loose! When the body of Grundy begins to break down, so begins a toxic time bomb that could wipe out half of North America! It’s up to the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight to get Grundy from S.T.A.R. Labs to Slaughter Swamp before the clock hits zero...but with a horde of super-villains all looking to snag the sizzling super-titan for their own nefarious ends, our heroes had better move quickly!

Written By: Ron Marz, Andy Lanning
Art By: Brandon Peterson, Mike Atiyeh, Wes Abbott, Marco Santucci, Arif Prianto, Troy Peteri

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 22, 2020

“Endless Winter” chapter eight! Seeking to bolster his nation’s place in the world, Black Adam arrives in Gotham City demanding action to end the threat causing an endless winter across the globe. But Black Adam isn’t telling the world’s leaders everything-especially not that he’s faced the mysterious Frost King before and won. Find out what Adam’s hiding in the penultimate chapter of “Endless Winter.”

Written By: Andy Lanning, Ron Marz
Art By: Amancay Nahuelpan, June Chung, Rob Leigh, Marco Santucci, Arif Prianto, Troy Peteri

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December, 22, 2020

“Endless Winter” chapter seven! The past holds the key to surviving the Endless Winter, as the Justice League Dark seeks to resurrect both Swamp Thing and the spirit of Viking Prince. Queen Hippolyta reveals a shocking secret to Wonder Woman as the past and present collide. Buried secrets are unearthed as the Justice League and Justice League Dark must come together with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

Written By: Shawn Martinbrough
Art By: Tony Akins, Moritat, Stefano Gaudiano, Paul Mounts, Troy Peteri

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 22, 2020

After making his dramatic return to Gotham City, Jason Todd finds himself in the middle of a turf war between a violent gang aided by Killer Croc and a new group of vigilantes dedicated to protecting his old neighborhood of the Hill. When a childhood friend is targeted for assassination by a vicious new crime lord on the rise, the Red Hood must forge an uneasy alliance with the vigilantes to save her.

Written By: Dan Jurgens

Art By: Sean Chen, Sean Parsons, Chris Sotomayor, Travis Lanham

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 22, 2020

The finale of Dan Jurgens’s iconic run on Batman Beyond finds Terry McGinnis accused of crimes he didn’t commit! When one of his greatest rogues, the formidable Inque, poses as Batman and causes havoc around Gotham City, Wonder Woman will stop by to confront Batman Beyond. Will Terry be able to convince her that he’s innocent or will he find himself the enemy of one of the DC Universe’s greatest heroes? The epic conclusion of the series is here!

Stillwater #4 Review

Would you sacrifice freedom for safety?

Written By: Chip Zdarsky

Art By: Ramón K. Perez

Colors By: Mike Spicer

Lettering By: Rus Wooton

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: December 16, 2020

Review by: Gabriel Hernandez

Long Story Short

Laura recounts the history of Stillwater from the very first time they discovered they were immortal in 1986 to the present day. The townspeople quickly devolve from confusion and uncertainty to fear. The mayor proves he’s not the man to lead Stillwater through this crisis, and the Judge steps in to “temporarily” institute martial law. As the years pass, it becomes clear the citizens of Stillwater have exchanged safety for freedom, and Laura executes a plan to save her son from growing old in a toddler’s body.

Navigation

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

They Couldn't Come Up With A Shorter Title?

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Nu Metal

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Jinny?

Put On Ice

Monday, December 28, 2020

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Dressed To Kill?

One Way or Another

Punching Upward

What The Future Used To Look Like

A Hill Of Beans

Frigid Frenzy

Some Old Friends And Some Nice Cold Drinks

Play Free Bird!

Grundy Go BOOM!

Monday, December 21, 2020

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Would you sacrifice freedom for safety?