Next week is the 7th new comic book day of 2025! This post covers DC Comics February 12 2025 new releases. Missed this week’s releases? Check out last week’s post covering DC Comics February 5 2025 new releases.
This week in DC Comics: Lantern Corps reassembled, the complete Forever Evil in omni, Absolute Batman vs. Black Mask, Finest Doom Patrol, more creepy Dark Patterns for Batman, Deluxe Far Sector, Aquaman through the looking glass, and more!
The Krisis Pick of the Week: As much as I am absolutely addicted to Dan Watters & Hayden Sherman on Batman: Dark Patterns (2024), this week I have to go with Green Lantern Corps (2025) #1 from Jeremy Adams & Fernando Pasarin. After some initial doubts Adams really won me over on his first two years on Green Lantern, and a huge part of that was the fact that I think Pasarin is the best Lantern artist. Having them together to launch a new Hal-less Lanterns book is my dream come true!
This post includes every comic out from DC Comics February 12 2025, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats.
Reader beware: this DC release week has single issues from almost all of the ongoing series that I’m not excited about right now. It’s a bummer to talk about them all in one post, because I am truly bullish on the entire DC line at the moment.
This isn’t the typical comic releases post you can find on other sites. Why? I explain each collection and review every in-continuity series with a new issue out this week. Plus, for most new releases, I’ll point you to a personally-curated guide within the Crushing Comics Guide to DC Comics to find out how to collect that title in full!
There’s no other website on the internet that can claim that.
And now, onto DC Comics February 12 2025 new releases!
DC Comics February 12 2025 Collected Editions
Action Comics Vol. 3: Revenge of the Demon TP
(2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1799500285 / digital)
See Guide to Action Comics (1987 – Present). This collects the A-stories of the finale arc of Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s massively acclaimed run on Action Comics (2016 / 1938).
Despite this building on several years of plot in Action, I found this easy to pick up and love. The art throughout is incredible, and everything from Clark Kent as a journalist to Superman in a super fight is incredible.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with picking this up as a sampler of PKJ’s Superman writing before committing to his upcoming omnibus, but watch out – it does spoil the outcome of his Warworld Saga!
Batman Vol. 4: The War of Jokes and Riddles TP 2025 Edition
(2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1799500346 / digital)
See Guide to Batman (1987 – Present). This is just one slice of Tom King’s ongoing Batman run, which is getting a full-court press of reprints right now with an announced omnibus as well as fat trades and a full set of reprints of the original slim trade collections.
Batman / Superman: World’s Finest Vol. 5: Secret Origins
(2025 hardcover, ISBN 978-1799500315 / 2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1799500339 / digital)
I’ve been tough on this Mark Waid nostalgia title, and this volume contains some of the best and the worst of its second year. I loved the two-parter in issues #18-19 with art from Travis Moore exploring the original Bruce & Clark team-up. However, I really hated the similar Luthor/Joker A-Story in issue #25 and the scattershot 2024 Annual full of unremarkable stories.
I think what grates for me so badly on this series is that it purports to be a way for anyone to enjoy classic stories, but for me many of the tales seem insignificant without understanding their original context. Maybe this is just down to how my brain is wired, but if each issue included an endnote detailing where in DC history the events might have taken place they would click for me much better. And, you know Mark Waid has done his research on this – he was the one that did similar (with editorial aid) on History of the Marvel Universe (2019).
Even for the lovely story in issues #18-19 I would have loved a note that said, “This assumes that Clark and Bruce must have had an out-of-costume run-in prior to the classic story in issue [BLAH], given their seeming familiarity with each other at the end of issue [BLAH].”
Batman and Robin Vol. 2: Growing Pains
(2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1799500292 / digital)
See Guide to Robin(s). This somewhat-chunky trade collects the back half of Joshua Williamson’s year-long run on Batman and Robin (2023).
This series had an uneven pace, with a lengthy initial arc (that continues from the prior trade through issue #10 here) followed by two briefer stories. I found a lot of the art and lettering hard to appreciate until Juan Ferreyra arrived for a Bane story in issues #11-12.
If I had to find the silver lining on this run, it’s that it did well in finding nuance in a domesticated version of Damian Wayne trying to be a regular teenaged boy by day while proving his worth as the Boy Wonder by night.
The Boy Wonder
(2025 hardcover, ISBN 978-1799500322 / digital)
See Guide to Robin(s). This non-continuity tale by Juni Ba recounts the story of Damian Wayne and his Robin brothers in the style of a storybook recounting a myth.
DC Finest: Doom Patrol – The World’s Strangest Heroes
(2025 paperback, ISBN 978-1799500353)
See Guide to Doom Patrol. This is the ground floor of the Doom Patrol’s Silver Age debut! Their comic was so compellingly different than the team model DC had already established with the Justice League that it legendarily inspired Stan Lee & Jack Kirby to create the X-Men – and we see how that turned out!
The Doom Patrol weren’t a single group of mutants, but a random collection of oddballs – outsiders broken in specific ways that granted them unusual abilities.
You need to appreciate some campy 60s comics to love this run, and it doesn’t have the Year 2 pivot into civil rights analogies of X-Men. But, it’s still awesomely entertaining Silver Age material. There’s a reason Doom Patrol is an eternal cult favorite of fans and creators alike.
Far Sector: The Deluxe Edition
(2025 “Deluxe” oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1799500360)
See Guide to Green Lantern Corps. This is one of my most highly-recommended DC Comics reads, and absolutely a book you can hand to any new reader with zero background. That’s because this book was written by award-winning novelist N.K. Jemisin for DC’s Young Animal imprint with no expectations it would be completely absorbed into Prime Earth continuity afterward rather than held at arm’s length.
Also, this collects several subsequent anthology stories by Jemisin that are not included in trade releases of this series.
Forever Evil Omnibus
(2025 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1799500377)
See Guide to New 52. This collects (most of) the first major linewide event of New 52 into a single omnibus.
To me, this has always felt like an event specifically for old DC fans who had stuck around through the first two years of New 52. At the time it really felt as though the DC Universe had gotten much smaller due to how few heroes populated the ever-dwindling slate of 52 titles, so this was a big deal – a chance to put tons of villains back on the board to make New-52 Earth feel like a bigger and more lived-in place.
However, coming after just 24 issues of the new origins of all of our heroes, some of the big hits of this story of their villains all assembled felt unearned unless you just read all of the villains as having (most of) their entire continuity intact.
Read on for a summary of all of the DC Comics February 12 2025 single issue releases!
DC Comics February 12 2025 Physical Comic Releases
Absolute Batman (2024) #5 (digital) – See Guide to DC Absolute Universe. This issue resumes the main plot of the series with Batman circling Black Mask after a one-shot origin issue last month.
I’m never the right person to ask about the quality of Scott Snyder Batman book. His Batman writing slides right off my brain. It didn’t help that I found the lettering hard to read and Gabriel Hernández Walta’s art not up to his usual par.
The bigger problem with that issue – and the series on the whole – is that Snyder has already done a well-received “Year Zero” origin for Batman. I don’t feel like the ideas here are different enough than what he did a decade ago in New 52 to warrant another try.
Yes, Bruce’s mom is alive, he hasn’t met Alfred yet, and he’s bigger and more brutal. Oh, and he has a massive Batmobile. But, fundamentally, this doesn’t feel remarkably different to me from Snyder’s existing Batman oeuvre.
Again, that could be my smooth Snyder Batman brain talking, since plenty of people are obsessed with this series right now. For me, most of the allure is in Nick Dragotta’s artwork with Frank Martin colors.
Action Comics (2016 / 1938) #1083 (digital) – See Guide to Action Comics (1987 – Present). This is the second issue of a three-issue arc by John Ridley.
In the first issue, we had the pleasure of reading the same Clark/Lois conversation held three times, with both of them hugely off-voice through all three conversations.
I think Ridley has landed on a mildly interesting morality play, but it feels like it might have been better explored as a standalone Black Label book rather than an arc in Action Comics. It has action right in the name, dude. Especially coming off of 12 straight weeks of action-packed thrills from Mark Waid, this is hitting with a whimper instead of a big bang.
Aquaman (2025) #2 (digital) – See Guide to Aquaman. The first issue of this new series wasn’t quite dead in the water, but I didn’t feel like it brought anything new or intriguing to the world of Aquaman. He’s king again, he chafes against the the structure of being a rule, his family is kidnapped, there could be some sea-kaiju involved, and in this issue he’s headed through a portal to… somewhere.
We’ve seen Dan Abnett and Kelly Sue DeConnick already nail these same plot beats early in Rebirth – why is Jeremy Adams repeating them again!? Also, I can’t say I’m excited by the weird geometric faces and absurd noses of John Timms and the way Rex Lokus colors them.
The one key difference from those prior runs is that Aquaman may be the highest-profile hero who didn’t wind up with his proper power signature in the wake of Absolute Power (2024). He is primarily wielding aquakinesis powers that usually belong to Mera, which means he can’t muscle through confrontations the way he’s used to.
That all said, Adams has recently piloted both Flash and Green Lantern through franchise-rebuilding arcs, and both started slow. Future solicits tease that this book will involve Aquaman training to harness his new power and that his family’s disappearance is somehow linked to Darkseid and Apokolips. That gives me a glimmer of hope that we’re headed somewhere interesting, but I’m always frustrated when a new writer feels the need to break Aquaman in order to find an interesting story to tell with him.
Batman and Robin (2023) #18 (digital) – See Guide to Robin(s). I loved the initial frame for this first arc from Phillip Kennedy Johnson, but as he presses on I fear he has a fundamental misunderstanding of Damian Wayne – and is also being plagued with the same “nothing every happens” problems he struggles with on Incredible Hulk (2023).
Last issue involved Batman being gassed, and it goes on for pages and pages with no coherent action or plot motion. I kept waiting for all of the back-and-forth action to have some kind of impact or story importance, but it turns out it was just there to burn up panels.
Meanwhile, PKJ is getting Damian very wrong. I buy that Damian was angry with himself for letting the little girl get hurt a few issues ago, but that’s who Damian is – angry with himself for his imperfections. Angry at his father for not being perfectly ruthless the way everyone assumes Batman to be. To somehow turn that into Damian doing volunteer service and lamenting that Batman is a curse on Gotham… that’s just not who Damian is.
I fear someone who approaches the book from that standpoint is going to get a lot of other things wrong. PKJ showed he can write kids well on his stellar run on Action Comics, but I’m losing confidence on a run that seemed to have such a spark to me at first. I need to see his take on Damian snap into focus and his action get significantly tighter.
Batman: Dark Patterns (2024) #3 (digital) – See Guide to Batman (1987 – Present). This Dan Watters & Hayden Sherman series is what I colloquially refer to as a “Year 1.5” series – clearly some amount of time into Batman’s heroism but still relatively early in his career.
It’s also a stunner of a detective story – one that seems to be quickly winning over readers if social media reactions are anything to go by. A second issue only deepened the creepy mystery of The Wound Man, and the amount of detail Sherman’d festoons him with in every panel is transfixing.
Also, there was a beat at the end of last issue I found fascinating. At the end of the isssue, Batman drives out of town to the suburb of Gotham. It’s wild to see him simply walking down a suburban street.
This is the kind of high-quality comic I expect from Watters (not his limp take on Nightwing), so I can’t wait for another issue!
Black Lightning (2024) #4 (digital) – See Guide to Justice League (for now) and Guide to Black Lightning (eventually). I’m really struggling with this series by Brandon Thomas, despite Black Lightning being one of my favorite DC heroes.
I wish it was just one thing, but it’s more like an overall failure for the creative team to cohere in their efforts. The scripts have been inert. The action hasn’t made any sense. The main story doesn’t feel like it has anything to do with Black Lightning himself, but an ongoing back-and-forth as his two daughters and their struggles with their power and independence.
Apparently, the focus on Lightning’s daughter’s could be a spillover effect of the CW Black Lightning show. And, generally I’m all for DC titles taking a family approach to their main hero’s supporting cast. However, in this instance it just doesn’t feel like the book is about anything, and Black Lightning himself has barely any role to play as a father or mentor despite being positioned as the co-captain of the Justice League along with DC’s trinity.
DC vs. Vampires: World War V – Darkness and Light (2025) #1 (digital) – See Guide to DC Universe Elseworlds. This one-shot in the ongoing World War V world by Matthew Rosenberg contrasts the journey of a vampiric Wonder Woman and Alfred as a Green lantern.
Green Lantern Corps (2025) #1 (digital) – See Guide to Green Lantern Corps. After a two-year odyssey through Jeremy Adams’ run on Green Lantern (2023) we finally have the classic conception of the Corps reformed.
Jeremy Adams & Morgan Hampton co-write this new series, which seems like it will rotate its focus across Guy Gardner and several other Lanterns that might include Kyle Rayner, Simon Baz, Jessica Cruz, Sojourner Mullein, and Teen Lantern – Keli Quintela. They finally break free of the barrier around Earth to pursue the colorless Sorrow.
That sounds like a lot of fun to me, AND it’s with my favorite Corps artist Fernando Pasarin! This could turn into one of my favorite comics of 2025.
That’s for DC Comics February 12 2025 new releases! What were you already pulling? And, did I convince you to check out anything new? Sound off in the comments below.
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