A two-month Kingdom of Zod event will take over DC’s Superman books. Mary Jane celebrates 60th anniversary. Jeffrey Epstein suicide note found in graphic novel.
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Episode Transcript:
Kingdom of Zod event takes over Superman books.
Mary Jane celebrates 60th anniversary.
Epstein suicide note found in graphic novel.
This is Comic Book Club News for May 8, 2026.
Kingdom of Zod Event Takes Over Superman Books:
They’ve been teasing this one for a long time, and it’s finally happening: this August and September DC’s Superman line of books will kneel before Zod with a two-month long event titled Kingdom of Zod.
Kicking off on August 12 in Supergirl #16, per PR rom the publisher, “a mysterious military coup dangerously destabilizes the Kryptonite Kingdom of El Caldero. Supergirl assembles her own strike team—a Super-Force including Superboy-Prime, Conner Kent, Tomorrow Man, Steel, and more—to infiltrate the occupied territory. Fresh off the epic Reign of the Superboys storyline, Kara’s Superboy crew is shocked to discover this conquering force is Kryptonian in origin…and deadly. That same day, Action Comics #1101 sees Superman crash-land back into the present day after the events of Action Comics #1100 (no spoilers here!), only to find himself immediately drawn into the escalating conflict.”
To take a little step back, after the events of the 2024 limited series Kneel Before Zod, the former General found his powers missing — and readers discovered that they had moved over to Lois Lane, transforming her into Superwoman. Those powers have popped on and off, and in the meantime Superman has been told by a skinny Doomsday from the future called Time Trapper that an enormous threat is coming for him and his family that will lead devastation in it wake. That threat? Probably Zod.
DC teases a “shocking twist” right at the beginning of the crossover, and it will continue throughout the next two months, ending in a Superman: Kingdom of Zod Special on September 30.
Mary Jane Celebrates 60th Anniversary:
Mary Jane. Wacky Weed. Reefer. Sweet Green. Marijuana has many names, and frankly it’s disgusting that Marvel is celebrating the 60th anniversary of this DEADLY drug with… Oh, I’m sorry, I’m being told this is the anniversary of the fictional character, Mary Jane Watson. My bad!
Anywho, because Mary Jane said a thing one time 60 years ago, the publisher will release the one-shot Mary Jane: Face It, Tiger #1, a celebration of all things MJ featuring all-new stories and a glimpse of what’s to come.
In the book, you’ll get stories from J.M. DeMatteis, J. Michael Straczynski, Ann Nocenti, and Ashley Allen, alongside art from Phil Noto, Alina Erofeeva, Andrea Broccardo, and Luigi Zagaria.
Mary Jane: Face It, Tiger #1 hits stores on August 5, 2026.
Jeffrey Epstein Suicide Note Found In Graphic Novel:
They say all press is good press, but I’ll be honest: I don’t know if that applies here, because Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged suicide note was found inside a graphic novel.
The news comes via the New York Times, and while there are plenty of more pressing questions about this, one tends to wonder: which graphic novel was Epstein reading?
Last November, while combing through 18,000 of Epstein’s emails, Bloomberg assembled a rough reading list for the convicted sex offender. The list doesn’t seem to include any graphic novels, so if Epstein was busy reading Batman or was getting into Invincible, it doesn’t say there.
So I looked at the publicly available Epstein Files provided by the government, and most of the scant emails that mention graphic novels are from Kickstarter, which Epstein was not pledging; he was just on the mailing list. There are two exceptions. The first is a long email thread about a cancer benefit that mentions Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s excellent 2009 memoir Cancer Vixen.
The second, and slightly more eye-opening set of documents are financial reports from ADW Capital Partners from February 17, 2016. Why is this interesting? That’s because the documents are about ADW’s investment in… IDW. And they call out mostly media properties like Wynonna Earp, but specifically also mention, “One of the Company’s most famous properties, ‘Locke and Key,’ is co-owned with Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son).”
As far as I can gather, ADW, which it’s likely Epstein was an investor in, was heavily invested in IDW. And so much so that on March 5, 2019, ADW urged a sale of IDW in a publicly released press release. Later than month, IDW hired JP Morgan to explore a sale, and then less than five months later, on August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide. Coincidence??? Yes.
Look, will we ever know what graphic novel Epstein was reading? Do we want to know? And was it Locke & Key? More on this as it develops. Maybe.
For Comic Book Club News, I’m Alex Zalben. And if you want to hit the jackpot, tigers, then stay away from hitting that bong!
Got tips or stories you’d like us to cover? Email us at comicbookclublive@gmail.com.
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