Batman’s 85th anniversary celebrations continue with a pop-up newsstand in NYC. DC Comics announces Joker: The World anthology. Marvel is celebrating 10 years of Skottie Young’s variant covers. All on Comic Book Club News for March 28, 2024.
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Episode Transcript:
Batman’s birthday gets newsstand pop-up.
Joker heading on a world tour.
Marvel celebrates Skottie Young.
This is Comic Book Club News for March 28, 2024.
Batman’s Anniversary Celebrated With Newsstand Pop-Up In NYC:
From Gotham City to Gotham, Batman’s 85th anniversary celebration continues this weekend, with a pop-up newsstand in NYC.
As long as supplies last on Saturday, March 30, the Soho News International stand at the corner of 186 Prince St. and Sullivan St. in New York will be giving out free copies of the 85th-anniversary edition of Detective Comics #27, aka the comic that introduced Batman to the world.
In addition to the originally printed material, the book also features “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate,” a retelling of the 1939 story by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, written by Brad Meltzer with art by Bryan Hitch. That story was originally released in 2014 in the renumbered Detective Comics #27, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Batman.
The special newsstand pop-up will start giving away copies one per person beginning at 11 am on Saturday. However, you can snag the special issue free at a number of other locations in New York as well: Action City Comics, Alex’s MVP Cards & Comics, Forbidden Planet NYC, St. Mark’s Comics, and all three Midtown Comics locations in NYC.
We’d say it’s a steal, but we wouldn’t want Batman to beat us up.
Joker: The World Announced By DC Comics:
Perhaps upset about Batman getting all the attention, The Joker will be heading on a world tour in the appropriately named book Joker: The World.
Popverse reports that the pseudo-sequel to 2021’s Batman: The World will be 184 pages long, and feature 13 stories from 13 different writing and art teams from 13 different countries. It’s sort of like The Olympics, but smaller, and with no competition, and also it’s not at all like the Olympics.
The countries involved are: the good ol’ US of A, Spain, Germany, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, Czech Republic, Turkey, Japan, Korea, Cameroon, Poland, and Argentina. Initially announced creators include Geoff Johns and Jason Fabok, Satoshi Miyagawa, David Rubin, German Peralta, and Alvaro Fong Varela, with more to come.
Here’s the synopsis: “What does The Joker do when on holiday in Spain? How has he inspired others to follow in his footsteps, creating Joker duplicates in Germany and Turkey? How does a Joker in Cameroon find inspiration? Only the top writers and artists from each country can provide the answers, in unique stories celebrating one of the most compelling characters in pop culture.”
The book will hit stores on September 17.
Marvel Celebrates Skottie Young:
And now a story that I don’t think has anything to with Batman. Marvel will be celebrating artist Skottie Young for 10 years of creating his iconic little Marvel covers with a poster, a print version of his Infinity Comic, and 27 additional variant covers. Which doesn’t really seem like a celebration if they’re making you do all the work, but whatever.
Said Young via press release: “It’s hard to believe that we’re celebrating 10 years of my Young Variants. It’s easier to believe that we’re celebrating 10 years of my covers on the 12th year of me doing them. I mean, it’s Marvel Comics. Everyone’s crazy busy and it’s hard to keep track of every anniversary. And hey, we love playing fast in loose with numbering of things, right? Joking aside, it’s a been such a fun twelve years of getting to make people smile and laugh with my take on the Marvel Universe. Here’s to ten-ish or twelve-ish more!”
The poster and first batch of variants will hit stores on June 5, with new variants rolling out through the end of July.
For Comic Book Club News, I’m Alex Zalben. And does he draw babies because his last name is Young? I just got that.
Got tips or stories you’d like us to cover? Email us at comicbookclublive@gmail.com.
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Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Meltzer and Hitch’s story as “The Case of the Criminal Syndicate.”
