It’s the 20th new comic book day of the new year! This post covers DC Comics May 15 2024 releases, which actually hit comic stores on Tuesday May 14 2024. Missed last week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering DC Comics May 8 2024 new releases.
(DC is still releasing their comics on Tuesday until the start of July, but I think most folks think of Wednesday as release day, so that’s how I’m labelling my posts until then.)
This week in DC Comics: all-new iconic Superman villains, an all-in Justice League omnibus, best-ever Poison Ivy, Blue Beetle swings big, Outsiders after the reveal, the House of Brainiac continues, Batman & Dylan Dog concludes, Hal reunites with the Corps, and more!
This list includes every comic and digital comic out from DC this week, plus collected editions including omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. I recap and review every new single issue. Plus, for every new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to DC Comics to find out how to collect each character in full – and, if a guide is linked from this post, that means it is updated through the present day!
DC Comics May 15 2024 Collected Editions
Adventures of Superman: George Pérez
(2024 hardcover, ISBN 978-1779525871/ digital)
See Guide to Action Comics (Post-Crisis, 1987 – Present) or Guide to Superman (Post-Crisis, 1987 – Present). This collects George Pérez’s work on Superman from two different transitional periods – from Action Comics in 1989 just after the year of “Action Comics Weekly” (and just before the Triangle Era), and his launch of Superman (2011) for DC New 52.
The late-80s material is much more compelling, but it’s just starting to be covered in omnibus right now – so the only reason to pick this up is if you’re a major George Pérez fan rather than a huge Super-fan.
Batman: Fortress
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1779525086 / digital)
DC’s solicit text calls this Gary Whitta & Darick Robertson mini-series an “Elsewords-style” story about Batman breaking into the Fortress of Solitude, which means it’s not in current DC continuity.
As a result, I haven’t caught up on this one – but I’ve seen it savaged by fans online. While we should all make up our own minds (when do I ever agree with fans online?), there’s also a surplus of fantastic Batman material right now – both in and out of continuity. For an easy-to-pick up Batman series, check out my rapturous reaction to Batman / Dylan Dog (2023), below.
Justice League International Omnibus Vol. 3
(2024 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1779525642)
See Guide to Justice League. This isn’t just an International omnibus, it’s a dream League omnibus. That’s because as this omnibus line has pressed on past the initial run of Justice League International it has collected everything Justice League in the Post-Crisis era. It collects Justice League America (1989), Justice League Europe (1989), and Justice League Quarterly (1990).
This volume adds some 00s era material by Keith Giffen, John Dematteis, & Kevin Maguire, which makes me slightly nervous this is a final volume. Fingers crossed that DC keeps up this all-in omnibus line – you can see the mapping in my Justice League Omnibus Mapping post from earlier this week!
Poison Ivy Vol. 1: The Virtuous Cycle
(2024 paperback, ISBN 978-1779525031 / digital)
See Guide to Harley Quinn (for now). This opening arc of G. Willow Wilson’s Poison Ivy is a series of tightly-wound one-shots that link together that reveal the tension in Poison Ivy thanks to the divide between her humanity and her connection to The Green (a divide that was quite literal in James Tynion’s run on Batman).
If you’ve always loved Poison Ivy from comics, cartoons, or films, her material doesn’t get any better than this.
You’ve got two more months to get on the hype train of this incredible series before it comes to a close!
Superman Vol. 2: The Chained
(2024 paperback 978-1779525048 / digital)
See Guide to Superman (Post-Crisis, 1987 – Present). I just caught up on all of Superman (2023) before starting this post and I might go right back to read it again as soon as I am done writing. It was SO GOOD – this arc, especially.
This entire title is playing with the idea of characters who have been in the shadows of Metropolis from even before Superman’s arrival. Why are they all creeping out from their unseen hiding places right now? In the case of The Chained, it’s Superman’s own fault – and his emergence accelerates the process that leads to Superman and Lex Luthor confronting masterminds who are done lurking in the shadows.
A great Superman villain has to be more than just powerful. Yes, your new bad guy needs to be able to slug it out with the big blue boy scout for more than a panel or two to make their fights interesting. But, the very best Superman villains aren’t about power, they’re about problem-solving. The Chained presents an intriguing problem for Superman, as well as a spicy retcon to connect him to the Super Family, and I ate it all up.
I’d endorse picking up the first trade as well, since the climax of this includes resolution to everything from the first year of this title.
Read on for a summary of all of the DC Comics May 15 2024 single issues.
DC Comics May 15 2024 Physical Comic Releases
Action Comics (1938) #1065 – See Guide to Action Comics (Post-Crisis, 1987 – Present). This is the third chapter of the “House of Brainiac” crossover between Action and Superman (2013). We are living in a world where the Superman titles could be the best monthly one-two punch in all of comics and I am loving it.
Before I say another thing: RAFA SANDOVAL.
I have enjoyed Sandoval’s art in the past, but he has transformed into something else entirely over the past year of Action Comics. I stop and gawk at even his most minor panels. We’re seeing Sandoval hit the level of modern-day icons like Jorge Jimenez and Pepe Larraz as he delivers iconic images month after month.
The art hasn’t been the only thing that is great about Action Comics. Both Action Comics (1938) and Superman (2023) have been on fire for over a year now (aside from my quibbles with the close of Aaron’s Bizarro arc in #1062-63), and this “House of Brainiac” crossover is no exception. It’s not just “Brainiac invades Earth.” It’s Brainiac bringing Lobo’s race back into play, the entire Super-Family being pulled of the board (and putting themselves back on), and Superman’s uneasy alliance with Lex Luthor (who clearly knows more than he’s letting on).
You don’t need to be caught up on Action or Superman to enjoy this story, but once you do catch up you’ll see how many minor plot hooks from the past year subtly connect to this crossover. Highly recommended if you’d love some large-scale Superman drama.
Batman / Dylan Dog (2024) #3 – Y’all. Y’ALL. This is one of the best comic books I have read in years. It makes me want to learn to read Italian just so I can read more Dylan Dog, because if what he gets up to on his own is half as interesting as this it would be at the top of my pull every damn month.
And, given the creepy BDSM mass murdering Dylan Dog villain we met last issue, it could be that his own book is actually more interesting than this team-up series, which has to pay a lot of attention to DC’s continuity!
I was wildly in love with issue #2. It was a perfect comic book. Every line of dialog and line in the art was so well-considered. Dylan Dog is the perfect external character to comment on the twisted lives of characters like Batman and Constantine, because his own life is just as strange and twisted.
This has my highest possible recommendation. Yes, even though it is out of continuity. It is that good.
Batman and Robin (2023) #9 – See Guide to Robin(s). Just like there are 3 Jokers in the DC Universe, sometimes I think there are three Joshua Williamsons. I mean, there might have to be, considering how many scripts he churns out each month and how much of the DC Universe he seems to be piloting all at once. He’s writing this book, House of Brainiac, Green Arrow, and I’m sure at least one other book I’m forgetting about.
The Joshua Williamson who writes Batman and Robin (2023) is the one who dispenses tiny, bite-sized morsels of plot that keep things moving forward while leaving readers hungry. It reminds me a lot of his indie book Nailbiter, which was always fun but had a way of drawing out even the most minor of plot developments for an arc at a time.
I wish this could get a little more dense, but I don’t know if any of the plot morsels of Flatline, Man-Bat, and Shush are quite savory enough on their own to merit more focus. This is lightweight, decompressed Williamson – like it or not.
Batman and Robin and Howard (2024) #3 – See Guide to Robin(s). More serialization of the adorable kids OGN of the same name.
Blue Beetle (2023) #9 & Blue Beetle: Edición en Español (2023) #9 – I caught up on this book this week as a complete Blue Beetle novice who has only ever read two issues of any iteration of the character: his New 52 #1 and his Rebirth special.
I wasn’t sure if I would like it or not, but I had no idea I would be so very lost. This draws heavily on story beats and characters from Blue Beetle: Graduation Day (2022) without even a hint of a recap.
There are multiple colors of Beetles attached to multiple characters! Aliens living among us! Magical Ex-Girlfriends! Lesbian Aunts running a local diner! Ted Kord’s evil sister and her intern! Starfire knowing everyone and randomly hanging out with them rather than The Titans, for some reason! A random other magical girl with a satchel of deadly hair care products!
I’m no novice at this comic-reading thing, but I was completely lost for most of my catch-up read of this book. I had no idea who was talking, if they had superpowers, or how they knew Jamie Reyes.
Even if that was a little annoying, I have to respect the game of the entire creative team returning to write a complex ongoing run that doesn’t spend a second pandering to new fans from last year’s Blue Beetle film. Josh Trujillo, Adrián Gutiérrez, Wil Quintana, and Lucas Gattoni aren’t going to waste any time – they are focused on developing Reyes’s story and his supporting cast (though they’ll spare a moment to tease us old folks with some little nuggets of classic Justice League International).
I wound up liking this book despite myself. I still have no idea who anyone is and things get a little messy in the action sequences (okay: a lot messy), but the core theme of Jamie’s increasing discomfort with his Blue Scarab is obvious and it continues to deepen.
Also, I think co-publishing a Spanish language version of this book is the kind of thing that makes DC such a cool and inviting publisher right now compared to Marvel. I have no idea how that book is selling, but there’s no reason DC has to do that. They’re doing to to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to diversity and inclusion.
Green Lantern (2023) #11 – See Guide to Green Lantern – Hal Jordan. I’m deep enough into my DC catch-up reading that I actually sat down this week and read a comic about Hal Jordan, perhaps my least favorite character at all of the Big Two.
(That is really saying something, since I’m an X-Men fan and there are plenty of mutants to hate!).
If you love Hal Jordan and have been craving a book that gets him back to Earth and back to the center ring of the neverending circus of the rainbow of lanterns, this book is for you! It is pure, unadulterated Hal. Hal being right. Hal doing feats. Hal having the most-special ring ever. Hal low-key stalking Carol Ferris trying to “nice guy” her into loving him again.
Throughout all of it, this book has been stunningly illustrated almost entirely by Xermánico with colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr. And, it’s deeply invested in digging into why the United Planets has quarantined Earth – and what they might be getting up to outside of that quarantine.
Despite my intense hatred for Hal, that level of consistency in art and story focus has made every issue of this book enjoyable even when I spent entire issues wanting to punch Hal in the face. Whether you like to root for Hal Jordan or against him, it’s hard to argue against the merits of a comic that is so good-looking with such a clear idea of what it is.
Looney Tunes (1994) #278 – Is this cartoon comic book the current longest continuously-running book published by Marvel or DC, which has run bi-monthly since New 52 in 2011? It celebrated it’s 20th anniversary with issue #277 in March!
Do kids today still care about these characters? My kid has no idea who they are? How are the children discovering Bugs Bunny?
I’ve paged through a few prior issues, and they deliver perfectly on-model Looney Tunes characters every time – and every issue includes at least a back-up featuring Bugs Bunny.
This series is not collected in trade.
Outsiders (2023) #7 – See Guide to Outsiders. If this wasn’t already an obvious sequel to Planetary after the first five issues, issue #6 really went there – as does the cover to issue #7! Not only did issue #6 fully reveal the connection to Planetary, but it reveled in making tons of meta jokes about DC’s many acquired and cancelled comic lines whose characters are stuck in a white picket fence Limbo – waiting for their next reboot.
I think that threads the needle perfectly between two influences – Planetary and DC’s many Crisis events. The original Planetary was ultimately a story about stories, examining the different tropes of not only comic books but all manners of genre storytelling. Sometimes, it was more about those tropes than about its own story. DC’s Crisis events are about acknowledging the complexity of the multiverse only to try to smooth its many wrinkles. Sometimes the attempted smoothing gets so complicated that the story stops making sense.
Outsiders is both of those thing but also neither. It has played with some common tropes (like the many Batmen in issue #2 and horror in issue #5), but it’s also doing the Crisis thing in pulling old plot threads and tying them together (as in the Authority riff in issue #4 and all of issue #6).
I think the danger here could be this title is too clever or too obscure for the current marketplace. It’s not a traditional “Outsiders” book that can trade on the limited nostalgia of that title. It’s not a Batwoman vehicle. And, had it been called “Planetary” it would have been savaged by older fans for not holding up the pedigree of the original. Instead, we have some peculiar, hard-to-catagorize, but tons of fun for anyone who knows Planetary, Batwoman’s character, and DC’s publishing history.
And, even if you know none of that, this is for you if you’d like a Bat-Family book that uses the ruthless pragmatism of Batman to looks far outside the city limits of Gotham.
Red Hood: The Hill (2024) #4 – As a reminder, this series isn’t quite set in the present day – it picks up directly after the conclusion of his ongoing Red Hood: Outlaw run at the end of Joker War.
I think this series is less of a must-read for Red Hood fans and more of a comic for folks who sometimes crave a truly street-level book about Gotham citizens.
I was tough on this series after issue #2 because of the lack of Red Hood and because it felt like there were way too many plainclothes, unpowered heroes to follow who barely even got named on panel. Part of the fun of reading superhero books isn’t just the punching, it’s that characters are iconic and easy to identify! They’re defined by their costumes and powers, even if you don’t catch their names.
Issue #3 resolved that problem for me! It put our primary cast of regular people heroes in a situation where they all shared details of their lives and what they’re fighting for. And, it made it clear why they’re all targets of several different antagonists – from investigators to supervillains. Plus, the art from Tony Akins is really, really good.
Sinister Sons (2024) #4 – Now that I’ve caught on on Kneel Before Zod (2024) and back-ups in Green Lantern (2023) I know more about Lor-Zod and Sinson and where they came from, so I have more context for this Super Sons sorta-sequel.
Issue #3 was stronger for me than the first two, but I don’t know if that was a good thing.
First, the art worked much better for me without launch artist David LaFuente. I preferred fill-in Vasco Georgiev, who will be back for issue #4. LaFuente draws everything like it’s a piece from a Lego Movie, all perfectly rounded and 3-dimensional. It’s a super-cool, super-consistent style without a single thing wrong with it, but something about it takes me out of DC Universe. Georgiev allowed his characters to act more and with more subtlety.
Second, I think issue #3 worked specifically because it had an additional protagonist in the form of a stranded spaceman. It’s telling that a disposable third wheel immediately became the most interesting part of the series. It’s an indication that these Sinister Sons aren’t all that interesting or fun to root for or against.
Lor-Zod somewhat works as the anti-Jon Kent and he has an obvious plot hook of hating his father. However, Sinson has very little personality other than “want to have a spaceship.” He’s not an anti-Damian, or even just a Damian. He doesn’t work well as either a miniature version of or a contrast to Sinister. Without an established relationship to his intergalactic war criminal father, he’s just some random pink brat.
Ultimately, the problem is that this book is ill-conceived. The sons don’t have the inherent cuteness factor going for them that Jon Kent and Damian Wayne had. They’re mostly just annoying. And, the book isn’t even all-ages! It’s 13+! So, why does it even exist?! I think it if was written in a more deliberately all-ages way, the idea of two cute-but-mean kid villains rebelling against their respective dads would be more compelling. However, trying to make them into two tiny, unrepentant villains who are meant to resonate with teen and adult readers simply isn’t clicking.
Suicide Squad: Dream Team (2024) #3 – See Guide to Suicide Squad. I’m enjoying this Suicide Squad x Dreamer mash-up. There are a lot of different tropes that work well on Suicide Squad, and two of them are “team vs. Waller” and “idealistic character gets sucked into the squad.” This mini-series from Dreamer actor Nicole Maines ticks both boxes.
The one hesitation I have on this series is the pace. The first issue set out a specific mission in Gamorra, and it’s already over and done with by the end of this second issue. I’m all for a quick-moving, compressed plot, but in a mini-series I think it can be dangerous to abandon the main plot hook too quickly. If I was a monthly LCS shopper, I might be tempted to drop this.
What’s the larger theme here? For Dreamer to face down against Waller? Waller’s newfound vendetta against extra-terrestrials? I’m looking forward to seeing how it pivots in this third issue.
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