DC COMICS: ABSOLUTE DC UNIVERSE!

Published on September 24, 2024October 2, 2024 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hey everyone,

Paul here…

*DC ALL IN: A new initiative at DC Comics. A huge part of DC ALL IN is the launch of The Absolute DC Universe*

Beginning in October, DC Comics will be launching an ambitious new, two pronged, publishing initiative called DC ALL IN. There are two major components of the DC ALL IN Initiative. The first part is all about reinvigorating the main DCU, encouraging their artists to “take big creative swings”. However, this isn’t a universe wide reboot, like The New 52 Era. The main, classic, Earth-1 DC Universe will continue, with some of the industry’s best creators, and a new publishing mandate to take chances, try new ideas, and as said before, “take big creative swings”. The goal is to create jumping on points for fans, new and old, while also getting people excited about comic books again. Across both parts of DC ALL IN, there seems to be something tailored to every kind of fan.

For example, some of DC’s flagship books will be debuting exciting new creative teams, writer Tom Taylor and artist Mikel Janín jumping onboard Detective Comics. Fantastic comics like Wonder Woman written by Tom King with art by Daniel Sampere, will continue on with the same creative teams, while launching major new story arcs. We can also expect to see few brand new titles, like Justice League Unlimited by Mark Waid and Dan Mora, and The New Gods by Ram V and Evan Cagle.

DC ALL IN is spearheaded by writers Joshua Williamson and Scott Snyder. If I had to choose, I’d say Scott Snyder is probably my favorite working comic book writer, so his involvement here is a huge plus for me. This quote from Snyder puts it well…

“The creation of the Absolute Universe is how I always imagined coming back to DC, and DC All In will be a great jumping-on point for new readers as well as lapsed fans to discover new stories to love and the chance to explore the new directions in store for DC’s core series lineup,”

DC put out the video below, featuring Williamson and Snyder officially revealing the details of the DC ALL IN and Absolute DC. It’s extremely interesting and they explain everything I’m discussing in this article much better than I could, so I highly recommend giving this a watch;

However, it’s the second part of this initiative has been really excited: ABSOLUTE DC. Basically, this is the DC version of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, but I don’t mean that like it’s a bad thing. In this new Absolute Universe, all of the typical, iconic, external elements associated with these characters are gone, but the fundamental essence of who they are remains. Complete, top to bottom reimaginings of DC’s most iconic characters, starting with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. This is a Bruce Wayne without the fortune, the mansion, the butler, and high tech arsenal. Superman doesn’t have The Kents or Lois Lane. The only thing we know for sure is that Krypton exploded. Wonder Woman isn’t from Themyscira. These are some pretty drastic departures from your average stories about DC’s Holy Trinity of Heroes. The Absolute line is keeping the core of who these characters are, but anything else is fair game. These are some really wild changes that I’m sure some people hate and some people will love. Anyway, I’ll get into a little bit more of the details about each of these book, along with some of the cool art that’s been released.

ABSOLUTE DC

Absolute Batman

Writer: Scott Snyder

Artist: Nick Dragotta

Release Date: 10/9/24

The first Absolute DC book to debut, Absolute Batman, alongside artist Nick Dragotta, this series Scott Snyder’s return to The Dark Knight and his world. As I’ve already mentioned, I’m a huge Scott Snyder fan. Snyder came onto the mainstream comic book scene with his incredible series, American Vampire and crafted one the greatest Batman noir, mystery tales with Batman: The Black Mirror. In fact his New 52 Batman title that he wrote alongside artist Greg Capullo is my favorite Batman run in the character’s history. Not to mention his excellent work on Dark Nights: Metal and Dark Knights: Death Metal. Bottom line: this guys knows how to write the hell out of Batman. So his return to the character, with a fresh take, is definitely something to be excited about. Snyder talks more about what we can expect from Absolute Batman in the video below:

A few details we know about the new series, is that Bruce is a city engineer, Alfred is an old guard MI6 spy/assassin, and the first villain is Black Mask. Below are some character designs from Nick Dragotta as well as some preview art from Absolute Batman #1…

Concept Art:

Preview for Absolute Batman #1:

Variant Covers:

Absolute Wonder Woman

Writer: Kelly Thompson

Artist: Hayden Sherman

Release Date: 10/23/24

Thompson has described this Wonder Woman as “lava under rocks”, which is a pretty hardcore description. Absolute Wonder Woman is the last Amazon and literally raised in Hell. She’s also the first publicly recognized “superhero” of the Absolute Universe. Oh, and she’s a witch. Beyond what I’ve already covered, there isn’t much else that we know about Absolute Wonder Woman. I guess we’ll just have to wait for Issue #1 to find out more, but I’m really intrigued about this one! Below is some concept art from artist Hayden Sherman, some art from Issue #1 and the cover for issue #2…

CONCEPT ART:

ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #1 Interiors:

*Preview for Absolute Wonder Woman #1 from AIPTcomics.com*

VARIANT COVERS:

ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN #2 Cover:

Absolute Superman

Writer: Jason Aaron

Artist: Rafa Sandoval

Release Date: 11/6/24

Jason Aaron was behind the definitive modern Thor run, as well as working on books like Avengers and Doctor Strange. His original creator owned work like Southern Bastards, is phenomenal as well. I think he’s perfect for this kind of book. He recently had this to say about the series…

He recently gave an interview, which you can check out below, where he reveals some intriguing new details about this upcoming series. He still managed to dance around anything too specific to preserve the surprise and avoid spoilers, but there were still definitely some cool details that he revealed here. I recommend giving it a watch if you really looking forward to Absolute Superman:

Concept Art:

Variant Covers & More Promo Art:

ABSOLUTE SUPERMAN #2 Cover

Looking ahead, Absolute Green Lantern and Absolute Flash have also been announced, but all we really know about them are the creative teams, some promotional artwork, and few interesting little details.

COMING SOON

Absolute Green Lantern

Writer: Al Ewing

Artist: Unknown

Release Date: TBA

Ewing is another exciting writer, with his killer work on books like Immortal Hulk and various X-Men titles. I’m not 100% certain who the artist is on this book. DC hasn’t revealed a lot about Absolute Green Lantern beyond the creative team, some teaser art, and that it’s a “complete reimagining” of the property. However, DC has also described it as first-contact style in story, that will feature classic Green Lantern characters like Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and relatively new characters like Jo Mullein, who made her first appearance a few years back in the miniseries “Far Sector”.

Absolute Flash

Writer: Jeff Lemire

Artist: Nick Robles

Release Date: TBA

The fourth ongoing series in DC’s Absolute Universe, Absolute Flash by Jeff Lemire and Nick Robles. Like Absolute Green Lantern, very little is known about the new series except for the creative team and some teaser art. Right off the bat, just from the promo art, we can tell Absolute Flash’s powers work very differently from what we traditionally see. You can see what appear to be faces in the energy coming off of Wally, in agony, as if they’re trying to escape. However, it’s been confirmed that this is Wally West in the teaser image and he’ll be The Flash in this new iteration. On a sidenote, even though DC made the decision to bring back Barry Allen over a decade ago and focus on him in the comics and all other DC media, it doesn’t change the fact that the best, the fastest, the one true Flash IS Wally West. More specifically, in this series, it will be a teenage Wally West according to writer Jeff Lemire.

It’s been reported that 7 or 8 Absolute titles in total, have been planned by DC. Which means they have at least 2 more Absolute books coming that we don’t know anything about. As one of the main voices guiding the DC All In/Absolute DC initiative, Snyder has been clear that we shouldn’t expect any big crossovers anytime soon. Unlike DC’s Earth One, a series of graphic novels that tried to reinvent DC heroes, all of the Absolute DC titles exist in the same universe. Aside from some easter eggs and references, according to Snyder it will be at least 13 issues before we can expect to see any major overlap among the Absolute DC books. It may even be longer, Snyder only referenced 13 issues because that’s how many issues of Absolute Batman he has written and in the can, at the time of this article. So by Absolute Batman #13, the heroes still haven’t had any significant crossovers. Which makes a lot of sense because what they’re trying to establish is a very stripped down version of these characters. They don’t have the support systems around them that we typically associate with these heroes. They’re isolated and alone, in a more dangerous world. So Batman and Wonder Woman popping up in each other’s books in issue 3, would undercut the central themes and ideas in this Absolute line. However, that doesn’t mean we’re never going to see team-ups among the Absolute DC characters. As one the main creative architects, Snyder confirmed that these heroes and villains will definitely crossover, just anytime in the near future.

Absolute DC is all about showing us radical and very different takes on Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman (and more to come) with some of the best writers and artists in the business. Personally, I love this kind of stuff and was very excited when it was announced. The art immediately captured my imagination and I’m really looking forward finding more when the comics hit the shelves. So, as a huge comic book advocate, this was something that I really wanted to draw peoples attention on. Because if you like superhero movies or TV shows, and thought about picking up a comic book at some point, this will be the perfect time to do it. You’ll find these comics at your local comic book stores, you can read them online through apps like Kindle and Comixology. Even Target of all places will be carrying some of these books.

DC’s new era officially kicks off with DC All In Special #1 on October 2nd!

Thanks for reading! Follow us on Twitter @PJWrightWBM, Instagram @worldsbestmedia2017, and our Facebook Page, Worlds Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews for the podcast, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again! Stay healthy and stay safe!

PODCAST: BEST & WORST MOVIES of 2020!

Published on January 15, 2021January 15, 2021 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hey Everyone,

Paul here…

On this episode of The World’s Best Podcast, we’re going over The Best & Worst Movies of 2020! Normally, choosing the best and worst movies at the end of the year, is one of my favorite movie rituals. Unfortunately, this year didn’t have quite as many opportunities to see new films in theaters, due to the obvious mitigating circumstances. I still manage to see quite a few movies nonetheless. It just meant watching a lot more steaming content and movies On Demand. So GODDAMMIT!, I was gonna do my best and worst movies of 2020 list, so help me God! Because if I don’t the virus wins! So here it is! It’s nothing to write home about, but hey they can’t all the gems! Please let me know in the comments what movies you loved, or hated, 2020!

Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/42893825 Or subscribe/listen on Spotify, Stitcher, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Podchaser, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Google Podcasts, & Apple Podcasts/ITunes…

iTunes/Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-worlds-best-podcast/id1246038441#episodeGuid=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.spreaker.com%2Fepisode%2F42893825

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/11mA9kClyevVZjWYMQB1Io?si=7TfnqkBiShqTQpZhh2UDsA

Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=185563

We are also going to be posting either an article or a podcast about our favorite TV shows of 2020, as well as the projects we’re p most looking forward to in 2021! Those will be up in the very near future, so keep an eye out…

Thanks for listening! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. We’re on Instagram @worldsbestmedia2017. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again! Stay healthy and stay safe!

-Paul

POCAST: Birds Of Prey Review! With Co-Host Tim Cuff!

Published on February 11, 2020December 1, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hey Everyone,

Paul here…

On this very special episode of “The World’s Best Podcast”, Tim Cuff makes his triumphant return to the show! Tim was one of the original co-hosts of “The World’s Best Podcast” and helped make the podcast the success that it is today! What better occasion to have Tim return to the show, than to join up with me to review “Birds of Prey”? The film focuses on Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, who’s trying to survive the brutal Gotham underworld after her break up with The Joker. Harley allies herself with other classic DC characters like Black Canary, Huntress, and Det. Rene Montoya to take on the vicious Gotham crime boss, Black Mask. Tim and I are both DC mega-fans, so it’s been great to see the DCEU (or The Worlds of DC) get back on track with movies like Aquaman, SHAZAM!, and of course, JOKER. Does “Birds of Prey” continue DC’s winning streak or do we have another Suicide Squad on our hands? Check out the episode to find out! Enjoy! FULL SPOILERS!

Make sure to check out Tim’s podcast, Cuff’s Basement, available on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cuffs-basement/id1315442078

Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/22616693 Or subscribe on Stitcher, Spreaker, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Podchaser, Castbox, Podcast Addict, Google Podcasts, & Apple Podcasts/ITunes…

iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-worlds-best-podcast/id1246038441#episodeGuid=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.spreaker.com%2Fepisode%2F22616693

Thanks for reading and listening! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!

-Paul

TRAILER & ANALYSIS: Birds of Prey

Published on January 11, 2020December 1, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hey Everyone,

Paul here..

The new trailer for Birds of Prey (Or The Who Gives A Fuck Bullshit of Fucking Harley Quinn) has dropped. Do with that information what you will. My only interest in this movie is a vague curiosity about how characters I’ve been reading on the comic book pages for years, will be translated into into a live action big budget comic book movie. Check out the trailer here and then read my thoughts on the project below:
https://youtu.be/x3HbbzHK5Mc

Is it just me or does it seem like Warner Bros. really doesn’t give a shit about this movie? It should be a bigger event for DC/Warner Bros., studios have seemed to realize niche genre movies released I’m mid-February have a tendency to do well. Movies like Kingsman: The Secret Service and Deadpool we’re both big successes, coming out on, or near, Valentines Day weekend. So at the very least, this seems like a good spot to release a movie like this. But it feels like two steps forward one step back with DC. After a string of hits with Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam!, and Joker, as well as the. highly anticipated Wonder Woman 1984 coming out this summer, Birds of Prey seems like a step backwards into the realm of Suicide Squad and Justice League.

On one hand, this look like it could be a real dumpster fire, but there’s a part of me that thinks there’s a small chance it could be cool. After watching the trailer a few times, I’ll say this for the trailer, it definitely has a fun energy to it. I also noticed some interesting elements and choices made by the filmmakers. For example, there are big visual cues and callbacks to several excellent Harley Quinn focused episodes of Batman The Animated Series like “Harley’s Holiday”, “Harlequinade”, and “Harley and Ivy”. If there’s any source material Birds of Prey would be wise to draw inspiration from, it’s Batman The Animated Series . Especially because two of the leads in Birds of Prey, Rene Montoya (Rosie Perez) and Harley Quinn, were characters that were created on Batman The Animated Series and eventually made their jump into the comic books. One of the things I disliked about Suicide Squad was how little they used Harley’s story from Batman The Animated Series. The film didn’t have any interest in showcasing the fascinating and complex relationship that developed between Harley and The Joker, while she was treating him as a psychiatrist at Arkham. Suicide Squad also opted to use an inferior, new origin for Harley that had recently been showcased at the time in a DC Comics revamp, instead of using the superior transformation from Dr. Harleen Quinzell into Harley Quinn that we saw in The Animated Series, (for what little they showed of her origin and her relationship with The Joker at all).

Then there are the problems with the villains in the movie. I love seeing Ewan McGregor in a DC movie, I just wish he was playing a more interesting character than Black Mask (and what seems to be an extremely loose interpretation of Black Mask at that). There was a rumor a while back that Ewan McGregor would feature in the rumored Justice League Dark movie where he was supposedly going to play either John Constantine or Jason Blood/Etrigan The Demon. McGregor would have been amazing in either of those roles and they’re both far more interesting than Black Mask. Which brings me to another double edge sword presented by this film. I like the inclusion of lesser used Batman villains like Roman Sionus a.k.a. Black Mask and Victor Zsasz, but they seem to be different enough from their comic book counterparts to wonder why they were included at all. I understand what works on the comic book page may not work on the big screen and certain things get lost in translation, especially from one medium to another. Sometimes those changes can even be for the better. However, it seems like these characters are Black Mask and Zsasz in name only, so why bother to use them? I could be wrong, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

To wrap things up, I’ve seen more negatives than positives when it comes to Birds Of Prey, so my expectations are pretty low going into this. But sometimes the best movie going experiences happen when your expectations for a film are in the toilet and the movie pleasantly surprises you.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews, which go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!

Birds of Prey hits theaters 2/7/20

-Paul

TRAILER: Birds of Prey (My Thoughts)

Published on October 3, 2019December 1, 2020 by theworldsbestblogwithpaulwrightLeave a comment

Hey Everyone,

Paul here…

If it wasn’t for Justice League, the DC films would be on quite the streak right now. Yes, if you look at all of their films besides Justice League, after Suicide Squad, you have Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and SHAZAM!, each a success in their own way. Aquaman in particular made a shitload of money at the box office. Now, later this week we have the much hyped and much anticipated premier of JOKER. I think the direction of the DC Cinematic Universe from here on will be largely predicated upon how JOKER performs financially. If it’s a smash hit, I think they’ll probably continue trying stand-alone, “Elseworlds” style stories like JOKER that are independent of The DCEU (I’m not calling it The Worlds of DC! I’m not fucking doing it!!!). If the film under performs I would imagine they will go back to embracing universe building, single continuity films like the upcoming Wonder Woman 1984 and Aquaman 2.

Out of all their upcoming projects, I am by far most intrigued by Matt Reeves’ new Batman film. I think Robert Pattinson is a great choice for Batman. I think he’s underestimated as an actor by a lot of people who don’t know his work outside of the Twilight series. Also Matt Reeves is a great filmmaker and writer, who wants to bring Batman back to his detective roots. Reeves seems to finally be making a Batman film that’s a noir-detective story, which is something we’ve never really seen from the character, ironically enough. Despite it being such a massive part of who he is and his mythology, we’ve never seen “Batman: The World’s Greatest Detective” on the big screen.

Then, we had the trailer for Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn) drop like a ton of shit today. I’ll be honest with you,this movie kind of came out of nowhere for me. For someone who follows comic books movies so closely, I had no idea the movie was this close to release until I saw a teaser for during my screening of It: Chapter 2. First things first, I want you guys to get a chance to check out the trailer, which I’ve posted below and I’ll give you my thoughts after…

First of all, regardless of what I think about this film as a DC Comics adaptation, this is just a bad trailer. There’s no clear indication of what’s really going on, who the good guys and the bad guys are, what the hell the story is, it’s just a big goddamn mess. The only thing that is clear is that we’re getting a shitload of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn front and center. If I didn’t know better I would say this is just a straight up Harley Quinn solo film. It looks nothing like up what I would imagine a Birds of Prey movie would look like (I’ll get back to that in a minute). Don’t get me wrong, I really like Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn and I thought she was one of the high points of the otherwise abysmal Suicide Squad. Unfortunately, Harley Quinn is one of those characters that’s really popular with fans and tends to get over used. Just to give you an example from the world of comics, DC has at least three or four Harley Quinn-centric books being published right now. Four Harley Quinn comics is three Harley Quinn comics too many. Even though they’re very different characters, Wolverine came to mind as I watched this trailer. Some of the greatest X-Men comic book writers of all time have understood one thing: less is more with Wolverine when he’s with The X-Men. He such a popular character that the temptation for most writers is to put him front and center, make him the most important character in the story. However with Wolverine, (at least when he’s in the X-Men, not his solo books) if he’s used in small doses, the moments the writers let him off the chain and really allow the character to shine, the moment is that much more special because they showed restraint. With Birds of Prey, all I’ve seen is the trailer and I’m already sick of Harley Quinn.

In the comics Birds of Prey is a long running, very beloved series about 3 great female DC heroes, who come together to pool their skills, and eventually become a little family. The team classically consist of the wheelchair bound Barbara Gordon, who after retiring as Batgirl due to her injuries at the hands of The Joker, has taken up the mantle of Oracle. She is the ultimate hacker, she’s the hub of all knowledge and information for the heroes of the DC Universe. She handles everything from tracking criminals to hacking into The Pentagon, she’s the ultimate field support team. As Ned from the Spider-Man films likes to say that he’s the “man in the chair“, well Oracle is the original “woman in the chair“. Everything Felicity did on the TV show Arrow was basically Oracle. They even make a joke on the show about how Felicity should get a code name like everyone else on Team Arrow and Oliver mentioned he wanted her code name to be Oracle “but it’s taken”. She is the best of the best at what she does. Heroes all the way from Batman and Superman come to her for her help and expertise.

The field team usually consists of Helena Bertinelli a.k.a. Huntress, a violent Gotham vigilante who is almost always an outsider/pariah within the community of Gotham City vigilantes. Huntress is not afraid to kill to get the job done, which of course Batman does not approve of. But Huntress doesn’t particularly give a shit what Batman does and does not approve of.

Finally,there is Dinah Lance a.k.a. Black Canary, she is one of the greatest martial artists in the DC Universe, she could easily go toe to toe with the very best hand to hand fighters in the DCU. She’s also a meta-human who can emit intense sonic “canary cries“. She can modulate the power of her sonic blasts so it can be used as a simple distraction or powerful enough to rip through a concrete wall. Gail Simone was the writer who made this series what it was. There have been a lot of other writers who’ve worked on Birds of Prey, but Gail Simone is by far the most well-known and beloved.

My point is Birds of Prey is about these 3 female Gotham vigilantes coming together to fight the good fight. There’s nothing wrong with throwing Harley Quinn into the mix, in fact I think that could be really fun. However, based on the trailer none of that seems to be there, it’s just all Harley Quinn, all the time.

I haven’t even touched on the villain, Gotham crime boss Roman Sionus a.k.a. Black Mask played by Ewan McGregor. Black Mask is known for 3 things: first, he’s one of the biggest organize crime figures in Gotham, who leans more towards the traditional criminal side of things, than over the top insanity of some of Batman‘s other rogues gallery like Scarecrow, for example. Second, his entire head and face permanently resemble a black skull. Think The Red Skull from Captain America, but completely black instead and wearing a business suit and that’s exactly what Black Mask looks like. Finally, he’s known for loving to torture his victims to death. So all around he’s a really nice, pleasant guy. You don’t see any indication of him looking anything like the traditional Black Mask in this trailer, so why not just make him a different character if you’re not gonna use that interesting visual motif Black Mask possesses? But it’s hard to be too critical because I didn’t really get enough of Ewan McGregor in the trailer to get a sense of how he’s playing the part. I love Ewan McGregor so I hope they actually give him something interesting to do. The trailer is cut together so poorly I can’t even understand some of Ewan McGregor’s lines sometimes.

Look, obviously I want this movie to be good. I want it to be a success. I love the DC Universe and I love these characters. I hope I’m wrong and I hope they pull it off. However, at the moment the Birds of Prey a.k.a. “Harley Quinn: The Movie”, looks pretty shitty in my opinion.

Thanks for READING! Follow me on Twitter @PJWrightWBM or type Worlds Best Media into the search bar, you can also like and follow us on our Facebook page; World’s Best Media. Those likes and follows, as well as iTunes reviews for our podcast, go a long way to supporting World’s Best Media. We really appreciate the loyalty and support shown to us by our fans, so thanks again!

-Paul