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DC’s Black Label Was Pitched As Jokerverse, Marvel Says No Time Travel Characters In New X-Men Books, Image Comics Announces SDCC Schedule | Comic Book Club News For July 8, 2024

Comic Book Club News July 8 2024

DC’s Black Label line was originally pitched as the Jokerverse. Marvel has taken any time travel characters off the board for their new X-Men relaunch. Image Comics has announced its schedule for San Diego Comic-Con. All on Comic Book Club News for July 8, 2024.

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Episode Transcript:

DC’s Black Label was once called Jokerverse.

No time travel characters in X-Men relaunch?

Image Comics announces San Diego schedule.

This is Comic Book Club News for July 8, 2024.

DC’s Black Label Line Was Once Pitched As Jokerverse:

DC’s Black Label line presents a series of usually mature reader-aimed, out-of-continuity stories. But according to writer Brian Azzarello, it could have gone by another name: Jokerverse.

The news comes via PopVerse, which reports that after the success of Azzarello and Lee Bermejo’s 2008 graphic novel Joker, DC pitched the higher-ups on an extension of the line. Said Azzarello: “Joker, my and Lee’s book, was used as an example, saying ‘This is what we want to do with the other characters.’ Before it was called Black Label, it was called Jokerverse – just sort of floating around. But not where every book is Joker.”

As Azzarello notes, the idea wasn’t to make every book revolve around The Joker, nor set every book in the same universe as the Joker novel. So given that, it’s probably best the line took on a more generic name like Black Label, versus a specific one like Jokerverse. That said, ten years later, Black Label kicked off with Azzarello and Bermejo on Batman: Damned… A book that subsequently fractured their relationship with DC. Looks like the Jokerverse got the last laugh.

Tom Brevoort Explains Marvel Has Taken Time Travel Characters Off The Board For New X-Men Books:

Love characters like Cable, Bishop, or Rasputin IV? Well, bad news then: they won’t appear in the new X-Men comics from Marvel. At least, at first.

Editor Tom Brevoort noted as much in this week’s edition of his Substack newsletter, explaining that the goal was to simplify things for new readers.

Said Brevoort: “One of my first decrees to all of my creative teams as we started things up was that I wanted everything to take place in the here and now. And I wanted it to be digestible for ordinary people who hadn’t been following the books for a couple of years. So that meant momentarily sidelining any characters who came from the future or from an alternate timeline or any of that stuff.”

Brevoort continues that he made one or two exceptions for characters like Rachel Summers, who is romantically involved with Betsy Braddock. But added that, “Even relatively popular characters such as Cable and Bishop were sidelined for this reason. They’ll all begin to show up here and there as we get things established, but at the outset, i wanted a clean entry point, and there was already a ton of baggage from Krakoa that needed to be covered without trying to do alternate future origin or ‘a chimera made from the DNA of four other mutants.'”

So there you go! Sorry, time travel fans. The new X-Men books will be sticking to less complicated characters like Magik, the younger sister of Colossus who has mutant teleporting powers and was kidnapped by demons as a child, raised in a demon dimension called Limbo, eventually rose to rule that dimension, and now carries a giant sword and lives in Alaska.

Image Comics Announces San Diego Comic-Con Schedule:

Image Comics has announced its full lineup of signings and panels for San Diego Comic-Con. And if you’re a fan of Image, they’ve got some good stuff lined up.

Per The Beat, pretty much every Image Comics creator you would expect to be there will, indeed, be present at the convention. There will be exclusives, of course, including deluxe editions of Geiger and Little Monsters, as well as a foil cover variant of Witchblade #1. For signings, everyone from Daniel Warren Johnson to Geoff Johns will be hitting the Image Comics booth.

When it comes to panels, they’re mostly taking the form of, well, actual discussion panels. One focuses on the artistic process and features Johnson, Skottie Young, and Derk Kirk Kim. Another on storytelling with Johns, Gerry Duggan, Erica Schultz, and more. As for more specific panels, Zoe Thorogood will get her own spotlight panel. And if you’re looking for a more news-based panel, the Massive-Verse is holding an hour featuring the titles’ main writers that promises, “special surprise guests as the crew unveils exciting new developments and announcements in store for the Massive-verse this year and next!”

Stay tuned for plenty more from San Diego Comic-Con as it rapidly approaches at the end of this month.

For Comic Book Club News, I’m Alex Zalben. And in a weird coincidence, this podcast was also at one point called Jokerverse.

Got tips or stories you’d like us to cover? Email us at comicbookclublive@gmail.com.

For more comic book news, reviews, and interviews, check out comicbookclublive.com.

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