Well, it’s actually tomorrow but I felt that it would be better to get the word out for the masses the night before so you collectors can make your plans for some adventures at your neighborhood comic book shops. So what is “Free Comic Book Day” you might ask?

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After having reviewed what seems to be a teeming amount of the releases from DC Comics under their “The New 52″ initiative, I admit that I have come to really enjoy presenting some views to our readers and fellow fans of the hobby. Newcomers might not realize that DC Comics started their relaunch back in September 2011, and so far its been broken up into a number of waves. Some titles from back when this began are already long gone and in some sense even a couple of replacements have been cancelled but the new titles always leave us with 52 different titles a month. That being said, we are now at The Fourth Wave of titles and what is interesting to me is how it has been about ten months since we last saw a wave be introduced. The unaffected family of titles falls to the Superman and Green Lantern ones (each currently have four titles per month) but there will be some more coming later in the year for these. I will discuss those at that time.

Starting in February of this still brand new year 2013, DC Comics will hit us hard with their Fourth Wave of The New 52 titles and while I will get to the new titles in a few sentences, let’s first take a look at the titles that will be going away. On the cancellation block are “Blue Beetle”, “Frankenstein, Agent Of S.H.A.D.E.”, “Grifter”, GI Combat” and “Legion Lost”. Of the batch of them I think I am really only going to miss the “Franksenstein” title since it was a fun read and quirky at times. Maybe we will find him being called upon in the “Justice League Dark” title since he seems to fit the criteria of being one of DC Universe’s “weirdies”. The reasons I will not really miss the rest are simple. I have not enjoyed the integration of the Wildstorm characters into the traditional DC Universe so that means “Grifter” didn’t win me over. It did have some moments but I always felt these characters were out of place. This was so much different an integration from when DC took all the Charlton Comics characters under their wing after the “Crisis On Infinite Earths”. The war titles I have never been sold on and they are a far cry from the original greatness of Kanigher and Kubert and titles like “The Haunted Tank”, “Sgt. Rock” etc. I preferred the original Blue Beetle title (well, the one with Ted Kord at least) and I felt that The Legion Of Super Heroes was best left in the future with the occasional trip to the past. That’s all I have to say about that.

Joining “The New 52″ for this Fourth Wave are “Justice League of America”, “Justice League of America’s Vibe”, “Katana”, “Threshold” and “Constantine”. So what do I think for this go round? I’m very open to an additional Justice League title but am not sure what to expect of this particular team. “JLI” was interesting in it’s own right so let’s see what happens. “Vibe” was never a compelling character to me when he was in the way back in the day “JLA” of the 90′s so his getting a title struck me rather strange. “Katana” I always enjoyed from her original appearance as an Outsider and she did fine with the Birds Of Prey so perhaps this one will stick. “Threshold” brings some characters from other titles into a more cosmic playing field and I think we needed that outside of what Green Lantern or Superman often give us. “Constantine” will be the one with the most attention as it finds the Brit now fully entrenched in the conventional DC Universe as opposed to Vertigo where his “Hellblazer” title just finished at issue #300. Constantine is also a member of the Justice League Dark but this new title will likely allow him to interact with other heroes and villains of the DCU. I’m most intrigued about his happenings. So what do you readers think? The comments are open for opinions and of course we shall be striving to review many of these titles going forward.

Official Website: www.dccomics.com

Readers can peruse all of our existing blogs about “The New 52? by using this tag – http://www.piercingmetal.com/wordpress/?tag=the-new-52

Just for one month…….

New readers might not be aware of this right off the bat but my longer term ones do and that is that I’ve been trying to do more and more comic book related narratives here on the Official Blog for PiercingMetal.com; So far I’ve presented dozens of pieces on the DC Comics initiative for “The New 52″ and that leads me to their next big move which is offering up their readers “0″ issues. Speaking personally, I guess I would have started off the line with that, but I guess it was a nicer idea to put 52 brand new number ones in the hands of fans when they started this last September. Now with the first anniversary of this grand undertaking just coming up they are marking the occasion by doing something special once again. Every title published during September will be issue “0″. Make room in your collection for them.

My plan is to wrangle up as many copies of these issues as possible and deliver narratives in the same kind of segments that I did with the other titles (in essence, a posting for Batman titles, Superman, Green Lantern, The Justice League and so on). It works better for keeping the focus on the mythos for those heroes and makes more logical sense. Until then please stay tuned.

Official Website: www.dccomics.com

If there is one things that I love most about being a music scribe and photographer, it’s that you get the chance to meet a host of wonderful and talented people during your adventures and that is what brings me to this next particular event. Let me scroll back and reflect how during the 2011 Book Expo America we happened upon the Hermes Press booth and met their then publicist Chris Irving. As media outlets both Skeleton Pete and I kept in touch with Chris but as we often find happening in this business, Chris would move on to other pursuits and I would lose track of his adventuring for the time being. Then as luck would have it, while planning out some new events with Pete, he mentioned reading about this happening in Time Out magazine. Apparently Chris and a colleague had put out a book and would be having a discussion about the material at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in New York City.

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In the last quarter of 2011, DC Comics gave us a bold initiative with “The New 52″ relaunch of all their titles. Now it’s Marvel Comics turn to offer up an event of massive proportions with Marvel “NOW!” According to what I have read, this will aim to get new readers into these characters stories but it did not appear to be the same kind of dramatic relaunch as we found DC Comics doing and literally starting us all over on their histories. “NOW!” strikes me as new titles beginning with first issues but continuing along with what longer tenured readers already know.

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I’ve been reviewing as many of the titles as possible here on the PiercingMetal Musings blog for the big September 2011 initiative by DC Comics that they called “The New 52″ and now that the first and second wave have passed it is time for, yep you guessed it, the Third Wave. It sure seems kind of soon but oh well, I am not in charge of how they do things over at DC Comics. So what does this one entail? Well according to what I have read the latest titles to get the chopping block are “Justice League International”, “Captain Atom”, “Resurrection Man”, and “Voodoo”. I was always kind of 50/50 on these books in the first place and am not surprised to see some of them go. I did enjoy “JLI” and “Resurrection Man” but even the redo of this last character was better the first time around. “Captain Atom” kind of lost me, and “Voodoo” never really did it for me. Sorry to those creative teams who put them out there, I mean no offense to your work. I guess I am getting fussy about what I sit down and read these days.

The other day DC Comics let on what the Third Wave of titles would be and those are “Talon”, “Sword of Sorcery”, “Phantom Stranger”, and “Team 7″. Let’s look at where they will land as far as the existing family of titles go. Nothing is being added to the Justice League, Young Justice, Green Lantern or Superman titles with this bunch but “Talon” falls to the “Batman” related titles and now gives that family of releases thirteen titles. Holy printing press Batman that is a lot of titles to keep up on. One title joins “The Edge” roster and two more become part of “The Dark”. What do I think for this go round?

I’m curious about how “The Phantom Stranger” will do in a full on title because the overall mysterious nature of the character leaves him to be most exciting when used in a sparing fashion. “Sword Of Sorcery” brings back Amethyst Princess Of Gemworld to the DC Universe and offers a backing feature with Beowulf. As far as Team 7 goes, I am not sure. I was only ever a casual fan of the title when it was originally in the Wildstorm world so let’s see what happens. What do you readers think?

Official Website: www.dccomics.com

Readers can peruse all of our existing blogs about “The New 52″ by using this tag – http://www.piercingmetal.com/wordpress/?tag=the-new-52

Perhaps you remember my dissecting and analyzing several issues of “Eternal Descent” late in 2010 for the growing Comic Booking It section of the PiercingMetal Blog and if not, here is a REFRESHER LINK to uhm, refresh you on our doing that. The series is the brainchild of musician Llexi Leon and the premise is that of a Supernatural based, Gothic Horror/Romance with a strong dose of Heavy Metal influx. As a longtime fan of many of these angles, I was very intrigued by the stories I read and hope to get caught up on the happenings that took place after I lost track of the series. My hectic concert visiting found little time to read so I need to fix that.

I recently received a piece of press from Llexi informing me that they were actively trying to get “Eternal Descent” to become a full on animated series and when one considers the popularity of Dethklok and “Metalocalypse” I felt this would be a very cool thing to spread the word about. We Metal heads sure seem to like our comics and animated action shows and I think that if they do it up properly, that this can be a winner right out of the gate. It would obviously be a little more serious than “Metalocalypse” which goes for the throat in its humor and premise……and….

Eternal Descent's Bad Guy Loki

it might even allow some of the Metal icons to participate in it as they had done in the comic book. The first three issues that I reviewed featured Doc Coyle from God Forbid and Gus G. from Firewind and Ozzy Osbourne’s band. That would be excellent if it could happen.

Eternal Descent's Good Guy Sirian

The images that we were sent and are posted for your indulgence really look fantastic. Very detailed and not shoddy in terms of the artistic portrayal of the characters. Loki looks like a son of a bitch while Sirian clearly seems heroic and ready to defend the innocent. Do you agree?

Eternal Descent's Femme Fatale Lyra Constance

Having read several of the comics I think that the stories might be an exciting transition to an animated feature series or film and perhaps even eventually a live action feature. Hey, we saw “The Walking Dead” go from comic book to hit television series so anything is possible right?

Eternal Descent's Femme Fatale Lyra Constance in Mortal Form

Llexi and his creative team have set up an IndieGoGo account for the project and this seems to work in the same fashion as Kickstarter does and each level of donation comes with some really cool perks. Essentially the higher the donation, the cooler the return to you as a fan such as signed comics, original artwork and even a guitar. The one thing I noticed was how all the donations will go to the project even if the goal is not met (unless I read this wrong). I think Kickstarter gives back to the donors if the goal is not met so this is a very cool thing. You can watch the trailer and perhaps even offer up some coin for the project if you believe it can work out and its something that you choose to stand behind as a fan of Metal and Comics. The link is below.

Show Support Via This Link: http://www.indiegogo.com/eternaldescent

Official Eternal Descent Website: http://www.eternaldescent.com/

For those really curious about the comic book, here is a link on Amazon.com to purchase the first trade paperback collection of the series. It features the first six issues of the title.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised about this but I guess that I actually am just the same. It seems that the folks at DC Comics will be offering fans of the legendary maxi-series “The Watchmen” a series of titles that let us know what happened before that whole store went down. The title is “Before Watchmen” but before you ask, neither Alan Moore or Dave Gibbons who created the original story will not be involved in the series run.

I loved the original series and have read it several times over the years but I kind of felt that what was done was done. I am not too sure that I agree with doing prequels for many of the characters without the guy who created them in the first place, but DC Comics thinks we will enjoy it. Despite my reservation about the whole thing, I do think that the characters they selected will make for some interesting tales and am willing to give them a shot. Starting in June we shall see the following titles come out at comic shops and specialty stores everywhere. I’m pretty sure that we shall see trade paperbacks coming out to collect them all in one place because that is what has been happening for a few years now.

Before Watchmen: Minutemen #1
Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre #1
Before Watchmen: Comedian #1
Before Watchmen: Nite Owl #1
Before Watchmen: Ozymandias #1
Before Watchmen: Rorschach #1
Before Watchmen: Dr. Manhattan #1

Here are a couple of relevant links related to “The Watchmen”; If you’ve not yet read the amazing story or seen the very entertaining live action version then please use these to get up to speed. You can learn more about the original “Watchmen” series from the Wikipedia entry HERE.

As our readers know, we have been offering up some reviews of the recent crop of comics from the DC Comics line and adding them to our ever expanding Comic Booking It narratives and Convention Adventures coverages. Doing that sort of thing made this little bit of news something that I wanted to share with you all since it seems that we have come to a time when the illustrious DC Comics is opting to change their logo. I did some internet searching and downloaded some publicly available images of their logos from across the years and will offer up a little homage to them all as we approach the company newness. This has been covered by a number of other comics centric bloggers but I felt like tossing my own thoughts into the mix as well. Here is the company’s first one from 1940. Around this time the world at large had only recently heard of the mighty Superman and fantastic detective Batman. That must have been way cool to have such interesting new characters coming to life on the illustrated page.

DC Comics - 1940

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Last week I offered up some overview and opinion on the first two issues of “The Misadventures Of Electrolyte and The Justice Purveyors” that I had gotten my hands on during the 2011 NY Comic Con. I now continue the process for this title with issues three and four.
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