Sunday, October 16, 2011

DC Makes Big Reveals At New York Comic Con

The New 52 has been generating so many sales that, at the New York Comic Con on Thursday, they finally explained just how big the relaunch has been. According to The Source (which is DC’s official newsblog), the first six weeks of sales have already generated over 5,000,000 first issues sold. To put that in perspective, they gave these interesting statistics:
1) 5,000,000 comics laid out from end to end is enough to cover the distance from New York to Chicago, with a few issues to spare. 2) 174,480 comics stacked on top of each other is enough to reach the top of the Empire State Building. Green Lantern #1 sold more copies than that. 3) 36,600 comics stacked the same way would reach the top of the Statue of Liberty. Wonder Woman #1 sold enough to do that three times over (it’s reportedly the 12th title to surpass the 100,000 mark).

And speaking of Wonder Woman, it was recently revealed that she’ll be getting a new origin as of issue #5. Not too many spoilers have been given, but we do know how she came to life in the current continuity. Pre-Crisis, she was the best of the Amazons created by the Greek goddess, Aphrodite. Post-Crisis, Hyppolita (the Amazon queen) made a baby out of clay and Athena blessed it (and thus Diana/Wonder Woman) with life. In The New 52, Diana is now the daughter of Hyppolita and, wait for it… -DARY! Woopsy! Channelled my inner Neil Patrick Harris, there. It’s friggin’ Zeus.

It looks like issue #5 will be when many comics will have new story-arcs beginning or seeing debuting ones end, as many titles will be changing things up a bit with either new writers and/or gimmicks. I admit I’m greatly looking forward to Justice League’s gimmick, which will be a back-up story written by Geoff Johns called The Curse Of Shazam. No info has been given just yet, but note that Shazam is the name of the wizard in the Captain Marvel mythos. Just pointing that out. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Rounding up today’s news pertaining to The New 52 involves Free Comic Book Day. It turns out that, according to a recent Diamond announcement, it will be the focus of next year’s official FCBD T-shirt. The artwork for the custom T-shirt will be drawn by Jim Lee. Unfortunately, not all comic carriers go as far as to give out or even sell the promo toys and shirts, but you can bet I’ll be bribing my favourite comic shop clerks up the wazoo for one. Here’s hoping I’ll be wearing one on the first Saturday in May.

Elsewhere in the DC Multiverse, the cover of the sequel to Superman: Earth One has been revealed. It’s the picture at the top left of this entry, but if you want to see the image in all its splendour, then click here. Clark Kent’s not the only one getting the Earth One treatment, though. It looks like Bruce Wayne will, as well, since Amazon already has a pre-order listing of Batman: Earth One, which is slated for May 8, 2012.

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