Missed out on nabbing a copy of BATMAN AND ROBIN #1? There’s still hope, dear Source readers. After selling out in just a week, BATMAN AND ROBIN #1 is going back to press for a new second printing.

Set to arrive in stores on July 8, this issue features a recolored version of the original cover by Frank Quitely. And if you have a copy already, well, here’s a great reason to buy one more, no?

June is a pretty Bat-centric month, so why not tailor one of these handy link-blog posts to the Dark Knight?

• In addition to picking up The Source’s very own GOTHAM CITY SIRENS and STREETS OF GOTHAM previews, IGN also debuted paged from the first issue of Chris Yost and Ramon Bach’s RED ROBIN and Judd Winick and Ed Benes’ BATTLE FOR THE COWL epilogue in BATMAN #687. That’ll eat up a chunk of time today, huh?

• And, in case you missed it, Chip Kidd announced plans for an upcoming Batman project. We’ll have more details on the project as we get closer to launch.

Think you know Red Tornado? Think again.

This September marks the launch of RED TORNADO, from writer Kevin VanHook and artist Jose Luis, featuring a snazzy cover from superstar Ed Benes.

The mini-series, which will shed new light on the true origins of the stalwart JLA member/android will also introduce a crew of new characters to the DCU. And if Red Tornado has his way, you’ll also uncover the hero’s true android family. But will this reunion cost Red Tornado the love of his adopted, human family? You’ll have to pick up the first issue to find out. In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek at a character we like to call Red Volcano, designed by artist extraordinaire, J.G. Jones.

Apologies for the Bowie pun. Entertain yourself further with the following message on behalf of the Super Young Team, followed by some pages from FINAL CRISIS AFTERMATH: DANCE #2, which hits 6/17:

The Super Young Team would like to formally and publicly sever all ties with the manufacturers of OXY-GEN. When the team agreed to be celebrity sponsors of the product, their contracts in no way disclosed the potential deadly side effects. We in no way endorse a product that could cause our fans to be harmed, and will be making a donation to the charities helping the victims of the OXY-GEN tragedy. In the meantime, please visit our website where you can leave video messages for your favorite member of Super Young Team, and be sure to take part in the trivia challenge.

As discussed in yesterday’s FINAL CRISIS post, here’s the introduction to the hardcover, from Jay Babcock, editor/publisher of ARTHUR magazine. Enjoy:

It’s another rainy Wednesday. We’ve been doing errands all afternoon in a borrowed car and we’re on our way home after the last stop: Fat Jack’s Comic Crypt in downtown Philadelphia. I’m in the passenger seat, giggling like a monkey.

“What are you laughing at?” my girlfriend asks in that way you do when you’re concerned for someone’s mental health.

In my best solemn narrator impression voice, I read aloud: “‘As he speaks, the vast, slow motion INVASION OF REALITY begins. Machines bigger than CITIES arrive out of the VOID and ANCHOR themselves to the garbage heaps of LIMBO.’”

“It does not say that,” she says with a breaking smile.

I turn the page and continue: “‘Phantom armies clash on the battlefields of LIMBO. This strange, last outpost of EXISTENCE. The FORGOTTEN versus the YET TO BE. Like some half-remembered dream. All the rules of Existence are broken.’”

“It does not say that,” she says, starting to chuckle.

“And then Superman yells, ‘There are 52 WORLDS in the multiversal super-structure! …Warn everyone, like Paul Revere! Tell them Mandrakk is coming! I’LL DO WHAT I CAN TO PLUG THE HOLE IN FOREVER!’”

“Wow. And this is a Superman comic book? People are reading this?”

“It’s Superman Beyond 3D Number 2, which is part of the Final Crisis miniseries, the number one title from DC right now.”

We’re stopped at a red light that never turns, so I show her the comic book. And she starts laughing, too. How old are we? We’re both 38. But in this moment I feel like I’m 12 years old, reading aloud from Crisis on Infinite Earths, riding home from an after-school trip to Comics Plus in Pomona, California with my eighth grade friends, courtesy of Kevin Kolodziej’s endlessly benevolent supermom. Or, closer, I’m 28, reading aloud to a college friend on the phone some fantastic captions from a worn-out back issue of New Gods (or was it Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s Best Friend? I can’t remember) I’d just found at Another World Comics in Eagle Rock, California, where the excited narrator is describing the Forever People, Jack Kirby’s cosmic techno-hippies who live harmoniously in a psychedelic tree village somewhere outside Metropolis….

It’s that laughter, that kind of involuntary-response joy/wonder/glee at first awed, disbelieving encounter with an over-the-top-and-beyond your idea/image in a comic book—something so WEIRD and GREAT and TRUE that you can’t believe it actually got published—that is happening here, in this moment, as we wait for the accursed light to change, as we turn the pages and get to the part where Captain Adam demonstrates quantum super-position, and then Superman reaches his hand through… Well, you’ll be finding out through what exactly soon enough. Let me just say this: I’ve been loving moments like this for as long as I’ve been reading comic books, which is a pretty long time, and no one has delivered more of them per issue during the last 20 years than writer Grant Morrison, from Animal Man, Doom Patrol and (Final Crisis overture) Flex Mentallo to New X-Men, JLA and All-Star Superman. But Final Crisis is his grandest-scale moment yet, a particularly harrowing section of the story that is the DC Universe, in which the ultimate conflict goes down—not who would win, Superman or Darkseid (although that’s in here, too)—but the real biggie: existence versus non-existence! Is versus Isn’t! UNIVERSE VERSUS             !!!

Final Crisis is a major achievement of 21st century imagination and craft in mainstream media, works on countless levels, far too many for me to enumerate here. Final Crisis is so good that although it’s part of a continuing, decades-in-the-telling saga involving countless characters, you can follow the plot and dig on the ideas and the dialogue and the sheer spectacle of the events that spiral from the trash up into the transcendent, even if you’re not familiar with all the backstory. (Rest assured that there are detailed annotations available online regarding previous references to Darkseid’s hatred of music, which parallel earth Nubia and where her Wonder Horn comes from, and so on…) Of course, that’s the way it’s always been with DC Universe comic books: you don’t always know everything about everyone, and sometimes you miss stuff, and sometimes you only suss out later what something was really all about. (Same is true for life in the real world, actually…) Final Crisis continues in that tradition, but as you’ll see, it’s at a higher dose—a different pitch, a denser signal—than usual, one that mirrors the world we are living in, when too many things really are going terribly wrong all at the same time, when headlines really do scream about catastrophe, turmoil, doom, collapse and apocalypse.

And maybe that’s this audacious work’s genius, even more than its elegant architecture, its overwhelming dazzle, its virtuoso artwork by J. G. Jones and Doug Mahnke: the way that it shows us, sitting here in a car, a path beyond the current situation, out of economic cataclysm and endless horrible wars and ecological peril and unchanging red lights. We’re being flat-out wowed into a very psychedelic, progressive, imaginative space by a superhero comic book. And that makes us laugh. We hum a brighter, richer tune. And then the light changes, and we go.

Plugging the hole in forever,

Jay Babcock
Philadelphia
February 2009

Jay Babcock is the editor and publisher of Arthur, the free bimonthly magazine of “homegrown counterculture” and Rolling Stone’s “Hot Magazine” of 2005, whose contributors have included Alan Moore, Paul Pope, author Douglas Rushkoff, musicians Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), David Byrne (Talking Heads), and many others.  His writing on music, culture and ideas during the last 15 years has appeared in Mojo, Vibe, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the LAWeekly.

Well, here’s a new image for you, the cover to DETECTIVE COMICS #857, hitting in September. The first issue featuring Batwoman, #854, hits 6/24.

Earlier today, we gave you a look at the first issue of BATMAN: STREETS OF GOTHAM #1. Nice, huh? But did you know Paul Dini’s writing two monthly books featuring Batman and his world? Well, he is. And GOTHAM CITY SIRENS features Dini’s work on some of the most striking femme fatales in Gotham, namely Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. Click below to check out some of lovely Guillem March artwork from the first issue, which hits 6/24.

The FINAL CRISIS hardcover is out this week, and we’re happy to try and list why this collection is essential reading.

Springing from the riotous imagination of New York Times bestselling author Grant Morrison comes a super-hero epic unlike any other (and that’s a good thing). From his earliest work on the metafictional romp ANIMAL MAN to the psychedelic historical mash-up of BATMAN R.I.P., Grant Morrison has built a reputation as a writer overflowing with ideas and executing said ideas with pinpoint precision, energy and a flair for humanity amidst a tidal wave of action, drama and off-the-wall characterization. In short: You don’t just read a Grant Morrison book. You experience it.

FINAL CRISIS pairs Morrison with a trio of artists up to the task of matching his exhilarating output. Featuring the modern, cinematic line work of artists J.G. Jones (52), Carlos Pacheco (SUPERMAN) and Doug Mahnke (BLACKEST NIGHT #0, GREEN LANTERN, BATMAN), FINAL CRISIS is a mind-warping, kinetic rollercoaster ride into the past, present and future of the DC Universe, through the funky, thought provoking filter that is Morrison. A Crisis unlike any other, FINAL CRISIS is as much blockbuster popcorn movie as art house piece.

Join a cabal of the universe’s deadliest villains lead by the mysterious Libra, engage with new, exciting characters like the Alpha Lanterns, watch a legendary hero return and an equally legendary hero fall and experience Morrison’s grand plan for Jack Kirby’s New Gods in the FINAL CRISIS HC collection, which includes FINAL CRISIS #1-7, FINAL CRISIS: SUPERMAN BEYOND #1-2 and FINAL CRISIS: SUBMIT.

The FINAL CRISIS hardcover will be in comic shops on June 10 and in bookstores June 16. Swing back to The Source tomorrow to get a first look at the hardcover introduction, by Arthur Magazine editor and publisher Jay Babcock.

And, because it’s all about me, here’s my favorite sequence, from the second issue of FINAL CRISIS, featuring the return of you-know-who.

There’s a new Batman patrolling the streets of Gotham City — how do the police, criminals and Joe Citizen react? How do the denizens of Gotham City feel about the new vigilante? Can he control the criminal element as effectively as Bruce Wayne?

The acclaimed DETECTIVE COMICS team of Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen reunite to tell Batman tales from another perspective, as we see Dick Grayson learn the ropes and how the people around him deal with it. Also, because we’re all about giving you tons of story with each issue, this also kicks off the MANHUNTER c0-feature, written by Marc Andreyko with art by Georges Jeanty. Click below for a first look.

BATMAN: STREETS OF GOTHAM #1 hits 6/17.

You may have noticed a trend here at The Source. We like to show cool art once it appears in our inbox. SUPERMAN Group Editor Matt Idelson and his assistant Wil Moss, coincidentally, like to forward us cool art. It works out nicely.

So, to close out this Monday, we’ve got three covers from SUPERMAN artist Renato Guedes. The covers, for ACTION COMICS ANNUAL, SUPERMAN ANNUAL and SUPERGIRL form a loose triptych image. What’s better than a Guedes image? Well, three.

ACTION COMICS ANNUAL, which hits 6/17, features the origin of Nightwing and Flamebird, from writer Greg Rucka and Pere Pérez.

On 8/19, SUPERMAN ANNUAL #14, by James Robinson and Javier Pina, delves into the past of Daxam, the home planet of Mon-El, from its roots as a Kryptonian colony to it’s Earth connections. Could the planet Mon-El always saw as peaceful be anything but?

And on 9/2 we have the SUPERGIRL ANNUAL, by Sterling Gates, Fernando Dagnino and Raul Fernandez, gives readers a look into the lives of the two ladies of the Superman family — Supergirl and Superwoman. What’s a day like for Supergirl in her secret identity? Also, what drove Superwoman to become the threat she is now?

Click below for some Guedes goodness.