The BLACKEST NIGHT darkens the skies over the Justice League in this important tie-in issue by the new team of James Robinson and artist Mark Bagley. Can the team get it together in time to survive the return of the undead Dr. Light? Or will his now-shadowy evil strangle everybody where they stand? Good, valid questions that we won’t answer here. But we do have a few Bagley pages to kick the week off.

You know, these days, with the Internet and all, lots of DC’s business is conducted through e-mail and on the telephone. So it IS unusual to see the hallways of DC’s offices bustling with writers and artists!

This used to be normal back when I entered the business—before fax machines!!!—as the writers and artists would actually hand deliver material on a weekly basis. Shortly after Fed Ex became a factor artists and writers started moving away from the big bad city that the comics publishers resided in—probably just so they could breathe some fresh air, though more likely because it was harder for us to grab them when we needed something ASAP!

Nowadays with everyone able to post high resolution scans of the art for any given title—we work with people all over the globe and we don’t even touch the physical art boards here in New York City anymore. (Man, THAT’s weird for a guy whose first gig in comics was photocopying Jack Kirby’s actual penciled art for KAMANDI and/or Walt Simonson’s pages for the Batman/Manhunter team-up back in the early 70s!!! Yup… I was a High School Intern at DC back in the day!)

So, not touching art, or seeing writers and artists in person makes it a real event when the talent comes into town to meet with us about the future!

In these two weeks before Thanksgiving we have Geoff Johns, Pete Tomasi, James Robinson, Sterling Gates, Eric Trautman, Tony Bedard, Keith Giffen, Judd Winick and more coming through the hallowed halls to help plan, with their editors and Dan DiDio, all of 2010– and beyond– in the DC Universe!

These meetings for a couple of new series as well as Superman and Justice League related titles are some of my favorite part of making the comics. They bond everyone involved to the goals and concepts shaped and honed TOGETHER and everyone leaves feeling like they are part of the family and that they matter to making the agreed upon stories “the best ever”! (And yes, Families sometimes have “feuds” but even THAT passion can help fuel the Never-ending Battle between the covers!)

I was in on instigating some of these so-called Summits back when I was editor of SUPERMAN… and they all came about because of a dinner a bunch of us had at a convention in Cleveland, IL during Superman’s 5oth anniversary in 1988.

There were a bunch of us Superman types on hand to help celebrate. Jerry Ordway and Roger Stern were there… George Perez was about to join us on the return of Superman TO ACTION COMICS… and the master himself Curt Swan even joined us at this legendary dinner. Together we all went out to discuss an ACTION ANNUAL that would bring George into our team… and would have Curt returning to the Man of Tomorrow as well! The dinner was fun and productive with everyone contributing ideas to the mix—including Curt who was only to draw a few pages in the annual.

When the dinner was over I asked Curt how this “plotting session” compared with the ones he’d done in the old days. He said that it was great—because he was never invited to join in the plotting back then. He was clearly excited to have been involved.

This got me to thinking… excitement behind the scenes always makes for excitement on the page… so we quickly scheduled the first real Super-Summit for shortly after that. And the meetings have stayed a staple of the creative process since then in one form or another.

The excitement in the halls this mid-November promises to translate well for next year… so let them keep inventing ways to keep us all apart—we’ll still find a way to get together and blow everyone away with what we can come up with!

The one thing I’ll never understand is how anyone did comics (or ANYTHING) before Post-It notes were invented! (But even those work best when everyone’s all in the same room!)

Kicking off a new 5-issue storyline, writer James Robinson sets the stage for the monumental SUPERMAN #700, with some help from artist Javier Pina. Mon-El makes his triumphant return to Metropolis with a new look and a determined manner just in time to combat the unstoppable fury of Bizarro. But with his powers phasing in and out, will the new Mon-El be able to save his city even with the help of the Guardian and Metropolis’s Science Police?

SUPERMAN #694 hits 11/25.

Writer James Robinson and artist Mark Bagley are in the early stages of their run on JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, but they’ve been anything but quiet. As you saw in their first issue, some heroes have already fallen. And #39 brings the League into BLACKEST NIGHT. But what happens after? Well, that’d be telling. What I can do, though, is show you some pencils for February’s JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #42, from Bagley.

Since “Codename: Patriot,” Earth’s hatred for Kryptonians has only escalated – which is what makes it so odd that Nightwing and Flamebird pick now to go public as super heroes. Meanwhile, Lois Lane finally meets with the man she thought long dead – her father, General Lane. But he has a message to deliver to his journalist daughter: “You’re either with us or against us.”

And in part 5 of the new co-feature, Captain Atom, now back on Earth and knowing the truth about his mission, must face an old foe: Major Force. All courtesy of the team of Greg Rucka, Eric Trautmann, James Robinson, Pere Pérez and CAFU.

ACTION COMICS #883 hits 11/11.

Think humans and Kryptonians are the only two races in our solar system? Wrong. Jemm, Son of Saturn, ruler of the super-powered Saturnian race, arrives in Kandor demanding answers to New Krypton’s recent actions – answers he intends to get even if he has to fight his way through Commander Kal-El and the entire Kryptonian army. Not the recipe for a friendly sitdown, eh? All this and a Mark Buckingham variant cover, courtesy of writers James Robinson and Greg Rucka, along with artists Pete Woods and Ron Randall.

SUPERMAN: WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON #9 hits 11/4.

Hola, folks!

I wish I could be like my ultra-trendy pal Michael Siglain, and give you a nice Halloween theme here, but let’s face it: on New Krypton, everyone wears a costume 24/7, and they don’t have candy there. (Notice none of the Kryptonians are overweight—well, except for Kal’s lawyer, but that’s genetic.) You’d think having been trapped in a bottle for decades they’d all be out of shape—or at least have invented Malomars. Whatever.

In celebration of not celebrating Halloween in space this year, here’s a shot from WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON (WONK to you insiders) #9, featuring Kal-El, some bodiless heads that are really big, and a couple of people I really wish were just dressing up, courtesy of James Robinson, Greg Rucka, Pete Woods and Nei Ruffino.

You can get the full horrific scoop of what’s going on here next Wednesday, the 4th, which is not just the first Wednesday of November, but about the time I’ll be trying to figure out a “What Superman’s Thankful for This Year” theme for the next column. Continuing our non-scary tour of the DC books, check out this upcoming page from ACTION #883, which comes out November 11th.

Wow, who knew Flamebird’s super-power was a knockout kiss? And hey, that Brimstone dude’s kinda Halloween-like, right? At least Rucka, Eric Trautmann, Pere Pérez and Javier Mena think so.

Check out this page from November 18th’s SUPERGIRL #47. Guess we know what Alura Zor-El thinks of Halloween, huh?

And if you want to see something that’s really scary, just imagine this day which Alura has been both eagerly anticipating and dreading simultaneously, as she at last comes face-to-face with the man who murdered her husband—Reactron!

Bet you wish you knew what they were saying, huh? My thanks to Sterling Gates, Matt Camp and the aforementioned Nei Ruffino for these glimpses into Supergirl’s future—well, her book’s future, anyway. Which brings us to November 25th, Thanksgiving eve, and SUPERMAN #694. Anyone remember Javi Pina? He teamed up with James Robinson to bring you this past summer’s SUPERMAN ANNUAL. Well, the scream team is at it again, this time for SUPERMAN #694, a.k.a. “Man of Valor” part 1, the arc which will bring Mon-El back in time to the very day Halloween was conceived, and… okay, it has nothing to do with Candy Day, but Bizarro is pretty scary, right? Huh? Please?

Wow, that’s some heady stuff, particularly with Blond’s coloring in place! Why, I—er, what? Oh, okay. That was Alex Segura on the phone, telling me I have failed utterly in my Halloween themage. Maybe I’d better get an early start on the Thanksgiving column. Anyone have a good suggestion for words that rhyme with “Turkey”?

I’m sure many of you dedicated readers picked up on the most recent DC NATION column in the back of the books this week, where our very own Simona Martore gave the page some international flavor. And, because we’re completists here at The Source, we’ve got the translation of Simona’s original text, to help those who couldn’t translate it on their own. Take it away, Simona:

As it is my turn, honor and duty to deliver a memorable DC Nation, I would like to approach this task in a peculiar manner. As you all know, we have so many exciting projects to discuss that I don’t even know where to begin, and the fact is that I don’t want to reveal too much! That’s why I came up with another interesting path to follow that will make my words harder for you to understand. Yes! Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Thus, I will transform myself into the multilingual African Deity Orumnila for a couple of paragraphs, and will discuss some of these projects in other languages.

Ready?

Vous êtes prêt? Avez-vous un dictionnaire multilingue proche de vous? Très bien! Je commence par écrire en français, la langue la plus belle. Je voudrais vous parlez d’une nuit noire, la plus noire de toutes les nuits, quand des anneaux noirs provoque l’enfer dans l’univers des super-héros. Il y était une fois un super-héro, son nom : l’Homme des Etoiles. Apres la mort de Ted Knight, Starman s’est incarné plusieurs fois. Je suis donc heureuse d’annoncer que l’une de ces incarnations sera de retour dans l’univers de DC. Mais cette fois, il y aura quelque chose d’étrange et de terrifiant ! Notre ami se conduira d’une façon bizarre et aura un rendez-vous peu agréable avec une vieille amie irlandaise et avec un personnage obscur à la fois. Cette nouvelle histoire de Starman sera écrite par la main magique de James Robinson qui connait parfaitement l’univers de l’Homme des Etoiles.

TRANSLATION: Do you have a multilingual dictionary with you? Very good! Let’s begin, then. I will start writing in French, which is the most beautiful language in the world. What I’d like to do is to tell you something about a night, the darkest of them all, when some black rings caused hell in the heroes’ world. Once upon a time, there was a superhero named Starman. After his death, he came back several times under different names. I am very happy to announce that one of his incarnations is coming back, but this time, he will do something strange and terrifying! Our superhero will behave in a peculiar manner and will have an interesting encounter with an old, Irish friend and another character who’s very dark in his own way. This new Starman episode will be written by the magic hand of James Robinson.

E con l’italiano, come va la cavate? Meglio di me? Puo’ darsi; tuttavia, essendo la mia lingua madre, mi sento in dovere di onorare la patria degli spaghetti e degli imperatori romani e di annoiarvi ulteriormente imprimendo qualche pensiero su carta in quello che alla maggior parte di voi potrebbe sembrare Latin gibberish.

A proposito di “Notti piu’ oscure”… Sono sempre entusiasta all’idea di leggere una storia dall’intreccio solido e originale e penso proprio che questo sia uno di quei fortunati esempi. Si da’ il caso, infatti, che una nuova avventura avente come protagonista Catwoman e in qualche modo associata ad una “notte buia”, sia in procinto di essere immortalata su carta da Fabian Nicieza. Questa volta la nostra felina preferita si trovera’ alle prese con un vecchio nemico che ostenta da sempre una passione poco ortodossa per artefatti generalmente usati a scopo protettivo od ornamentale.

TRANSLATION: And what about Italian? Do you speak it better than I do? Perhaps. However, as it’s my mother tongue, I feel obliged to honor the country of spaghetti and Roman emperors and to annoy you even further by writing something in a language that probably sounds like Latin gibberish to many you. Let’s start then. Speaking of blackest nights again…I am always very excited at the idea of reading a story that has a solid and original plot, and I think that this time I am dealing with something like that. In fact, a new adventure featuring Catwoman, associated somehow to a “dark night” and written by Fabian Nicieza, is going to be presented to you very soon. This time, our favorite feline will have to face an old enemy who is known for his passion for artifacts generally used ornamentally.

How do you like them apples? Shouldn’t we play U.N. more often? It’s fun! Thank you for your patience! Zai jian!

Not long ago, we gave you a quick look at the first issue of writer James Robinson and artist Mark Bagley’s upcoming JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA run. But why stop there? With the issue hitting stands tomorrow, we thought a few more pages were worth checking out. Prepare to be surprised.

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #38 hits tomorrow.

In January, ACTION COMICS #885 and SUPERMAN #696 will cross over as Nightwing and Flamebird’s hunt for Zod’s sleeper agents leads them right to Science Police Headquarters in Metropolis, home of the Guardian and Mon-El. James Robinson, Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann packed these two issues with so many twists and turns, we needed the covers to be as equally dynamic – and since the amazing CAFU regularly draws both covers, why not have the covers cross over as well? We cornered Superman Editor Matt Idelson’s able assistant Wil Moss for more info. Take it away, Wil:

Once the joint cover idea was hatched and we thought up a concept, CAFU sent in his first round of sketches. We all liked option A the best, and then with one piece of sage advice from Dan DiDio (“Wouldn’t it be nice if readers could see the heroes’ faces?”), CAFU came back with another version of option A. We all quickly approved the new sketch, then came CAFU’s inks, and finally the sublime colors by Santiago Arcas.

ACTION COMICS #885, featuring interior art by Pere Pérez (with CAFU handling the CAPTAIN ATOM co-feature), is on sale January 13. And SUPERMAN #696, with interior art by Bernard Chang, is on sale January 27. Make sure and check out the last page of #696 – that one’s gonna knock over quite a few dominoes …