Whom Gods Destroy is a 1996 four-issue comic book mini-series. Written by Chris Claremont, with artwork by Dusty Abell and Drew Geraci, under the Elseworlds imprint of DC Comics.
In a world where Superman hasn’t aged a day since the Nazis won WWII; Clark Kent infiltrates Axis dominated Europe in pursuit of Lana Lang, who has fallen prey to the enchantress Circe, while Lois Lane finds herself transformed by the power of the ancient gods into a Wonder Woman.
As part of Marvel NOW!, a new volume of Uncanny X-Men was launched in 2013 written by Brian Michael Bendis, and drawn by Chris Bachalo. It features Cyclops and remnants of his Extinction Team recruiting new mutants to help them prepare for what Cyclops believes to be an inevitable revolution, coinciding events of the first All-New X-Men story arc. This volume saw Cyclops leading his team to an abandoned Weapon X facility to train new recruits and prepare for impending war against the humans, who see Cyclops as a terrorist’s due to his actions in Avengers Vs. X-Men. Eventually, Kitty Pryde and the time-displaced X-Men join his cause after facing a team of X-Men from a dystopian future. It lasted 36 issues, with the final issue reverting to the legacy numbering of Uncanny X-Men #600.
In 1967, Gold Key reprinted a number of selected issues of their comics under the title Top Comics which were sold in plastic bags containing five comics at gas stations and various eateries. Like Dell, Gold Key was one of the few major American publishers of comic books never to display the Comics Code Authority seal on its covers.
In the new status quo, all of DC history “counts” when understanding a character’s backstory, and legacy and history within the franchise is being emphasised by editorial mandate, with many characters now sharing the same codenames. For example, Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain share the Batgirl title, while Oracle (Barbara Gordon) reserves the right to also wear the Batgirl costume from time to time. Jonathan Kent and his father Clark Kent are both Superman, while Conner Kent is once again Superboy. Wally West has stepped up as primary Flash while Barry Allen and the Flash of China, Avery Ho, participate in Justice League Incarnate. While Diana of Themiscyra continues in her role as Wonder Woman from the afterlife, her mother Hippolyta serves in Wonder Woman’s place on the Justice League, and her sister Nubia explores the idea of succeeding Diana as Wonder Woman. New Batman Jace Fox succeeds Bruce Wayne for a short time, before later serving as the Batman of New York City while Bruce remains in Gotham. Another example of a relaxed approach to codename sharing among legacy characters is Robin: Tim Drake is officially Robin once again, but previous Robin (Damian Wayne) continues to head up the Robin comic book without an official codename, while newcomer Maps Mizoguchi steps into the role briefly in a short story.
The soft relaunch and new approach to history also completes what began with DC Rebirth in restoring the status quo of characters prior to popular New 52 changes, re-establishing characters’ memories and relationships with each other, while selectively retaining some of the simplified backstories from the modern era and many of the new characters. An example of this is Tim Drake once again serving as Robin. Some characters have simply returned to being as fans remembered then. For example Black Canary, who in The New 52 had been presented as a singular new version of the character, has been restored to being the daughter of her Golden Age predecessor.
Grifter was an ongoing comic book series originally published by Image Comics. It featured the popular adventurer known as Grifter – a member of the super-hero team, the WildC.A.T.s, as well as the 70’s black ops outfit, Team-7. Grifter is the first member of the WildC.A.T.s to receive his own series. Oddly, the series began as part of a ten-chapter story-arc called “WildStorm Rising“, which swept through all of the published WildStorm titles of 1995 and was book-ended by the two-issue WildStorm Rising limited series.
The first issue of Avengers: The Initiative was released on 4 April 2007. The tagline initially used in solicitations was “Marvel’s Army of Super Heroes just became a Super Hero Army”.
The series was originally solicited as a six issue limited series, but prior to the publication of the first issue, Marvel announced that this had changed and that Avengers: The Initiative would become an ongoing series, the third regularly published ‘Avengers’ title from 2007 onwards, after The New Avengers and The Mighty Avengers.
Issues #20-22 dealt with “Dark Reign“, the aftermath to Secret Invasion, and Christos Gage moved to full writing duties.
The series was canceled after Avengers: The Initiative #35 (April 2010), at the conclusion of the “Siege” storyline and replaced by Avengers Academy.
Lady of Pharis introduces new Lodoss characters including the heroine, Flaus, a savage warrior fire maiden, who leaves her evil master to live a life of her own amid the demons and vampires of Lodoss. She meets Wort and Beld, who join her quest to find the legendary King Fahn. They journey to Allania where they are tested to the limit in defending Lodoss from the horned Beast and the powerful witch Mana!
After Eddie fought the Symbiote god Knul, and seemingly killed him, Eddie’s Symbiote has lost its personality. In a new tie-in issue Web Of Venom: Venom Unleashed #1, written by Ryan Stegman with art by Kyle Hotz and Juan Gedeon, that story pushes forward and it appears Carnage is attempting to fill the void Knull left when he died.
The English language version of the Dragon Ball manga is licensed for North America by Viz Media. Viz originally published the first 194 chapters as Dragon Ball and chapters over 195 as Dragon Ball Z to mimic the names of the anime series, feeling it would reduce the potential for confusion by its readers. They initially released both series simultaneously, chapter by chapter in a monthly comic book format starting in 1998, before stopping in 2000 to switch to a graphic novel format similar to the Japanese tankōbon.
Paul Kupperberg laid the groundwork for the new series by writing the John Byrne illustrated Secret Origins Annual #1, published in 1987, which recapped the origins of the two iterations of the Doom Patrol that had existed thus far. In October 1987, DC relaunched Doom Patrol, written by Kupperberg and illustrated by Steve Lightle.
After the first 18 issues (and various crossovers and annuals), Kupperberg was replaced by Grant Morrison, starting with issue #19. Kupperberg agreed to help Morrison by writing out characters Morrison did not want to use: Celsius and Scott Fischer died before issue #18—Celsius was killed in an explosion in DC Comics’ “Invasion!” event, and Scott Fischer (already suffering from a recurrence of childhood leukemia) was the only known active superhero casualty of the Dominators‘ gene-bomb (also in “Invasion!”); Karma had left the team as he was still on the run from the law (he became a member of the Suicide Squad and died on his first mission with them in the “War of the Gods” crossover event); the Negative Spirit left Negative Woman’s body; and Lodestone plunged into a coma, where she would remain for the first half of Morrison’s run on the book. Tempest gave up fieldwork to become the team’s physician. Conversely, Morrison picked up a throw-away character from DP #14, who was slipped into the art on the last page of #18 to set up Morrison’s use: Dorothy Spinner is an ape-faced girl with powerful “imaginary friends.” Morrison also substantially retooled Negative Man: Larry Trainor (revealed to be alive in the Kupperburg run, as a prisoner of an underground society but now powerless) is forcibly merged with the Negative Spirit (now a cosmic entity) and a black doctor named Dr. Eleanor Poole, to create a transgender transracial gestalt entity known as Rebis. The new writer introduced some new characters to the team, including the multiple personality-afflicted Crazy Jane; and sentient roadway Danny the Street.
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