The various retail sites are now announcing the Blackest Night hardcover to be released in July 2010.
Given the increasing popularity of deluxe format editions (Batman: RIP, Batman & Robin, Superman: Secret Origins, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Blackest Night also in deluxe format -- but a hardcover will do just nicely!
We'll be back a little later to talk more about the Blackest Night collection. In the meantime, also forthcoming from DC Comics:
* Batman: Long Shadows
This hardcover collection by Judd Winick definitely includes the four part Batman story from #688-691, and potentially also the issue 687 Battle for the Cowl epilogue.
* Outsiders: The Hunting
Following The Deep, which collects Outsiders #15-20, this collection picks up with artist Tom Mandrake joining Peter Tomasi, and likely includes a Blackest Night tie-in issue.
* Batman: Streets of Gotham Vol. 1: Hush Money
The real question about this hardcover collection of Paul Dini's new series Streets of Gotham is whether it'll also contain Detective Comics #852 and Batman #685, which bridged Dini's Detective Comics and Streets of Gotham runs.
* DC Greatest Imaginary Stories Vol. 2: Batman & Robin
In 2005, DC published a volume of their "greatest imaginary stories," including Superman-Red and Superman-Blue. That volume contained a number of Superman stories; this new one, as you can see, focuses on Batman and Robin. If it's successful, might Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, and other volumes be on the way?
* Showcase Presents Suicide Squad Vol. 1
Suicide Squad was one of the Showcase volumes announced and then cancelled due to royalty issues a few years back. Maybe this is an erroneous entry, but I sure would be glad to see this back on the table.
* Icon Vol. 2: The Mothership Connection
Milestone title Icon formerly received only one collection of issues #1-8. A second collection of issues #9-14 would take this right up to the Worlds Collide crossover with the then-separate DC Universe.
* Green Arrow/Black Canary Vol. 5: Big Game
At this point, Green Arrow/Black Canary splits into a feature and co-feature, though interviews have suggested these two will be collected in the same volume.
UPDATED:
* Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?
* Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow
These two books, released as deluxe hardcovers last year, now in paperback.
* JSA vs. Kobra
Very excited by the news that Greg Rucka and Eric Trautmann's final Checkmate story will appear in the Kobra: Resurrection trade paperback -- this trade by Trautmann continues that story.
* Batgirl Vol. 1: Batgirl Rising
* Azrael: Death's Dark Knight
Two more "Batman Reborn" titles, both in paperback.
So other than Blackest Night (naturally), what's on your to-buy list?
Orphan TV DVDs Include Anything But Love
44 minutes ago
That Blackest Night hardcover is huge - Final Crisis huge. I'd assume it's including the Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps issues as well.
I think I'll be waiting for the softcovers on the Batman stuff. I quite liked Judd Winick's run pre-Infinite Crisis, even if I thought the ending was pretty terrible (editorially-mandated or not).
I really hope it IS including Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. Those series have basically fit in nicely between issues fleshing out the entire event. Publishing those issues in volumes separate from the event would be rather nonsensical, I'd think.
I seriously doubt it'll contain anything from GLC, because that story so far has really stood aside from what Hal's been up to so far. Even in SCW, GLC focused on an entirely different campaign for almost the entire crossover.
However, I bet we'll see a number of GL issues.
Then again, each issue of Blackest Night is how long? And issues 6 and 8 (I believe) are supposed to be even longer. If Final Crisis was 7 oversized issues and then 3 extra (also oversized) issues, how many extra issues would the 8 oversized Blackest Night leave space for?
And I can't say any of those other collections peak my interest. Winnick's Batman has been weak beyond the epilogue issue, and Streets of Gotham is fun in singles, but not good enough to pick up in collected form.
I'm hoping this is just volume one of a two volume thing, like Sinestro Corps War, because that page number is just enough to do the entire series and maybe two regular sized issues. At least that's what my math shows. If they seperate Green Lantern from the event in trades, I'm going to be kind of pissed; the series during Blackest Night is practically hash if not read in between the gaps of Blackest Night, so it's stupid to separate it.
It's good to see that DC is going back to the well with their Greatest Imaginary Stories. The first trade is worth the price for the Captain Marvel story alone.
Blackest Night - sigh - what to make of that? I made the decision to buy it all (yes, all) in monthly format and then bind it together. I think I'm looking at 3-4 total volumes.
Suicide Squad - I'll believe it when I see it.
What about the Blackest Night tie-in mini-series (Batman, Superman, Flash, etc.)? Any idea if they'll be collected together, or within collections of their respective titles?
I suspect the tie-in mini's are going to recieve the same treatment that Final Crisis ones did; collected in their own volumes seperate from the series associated.
I'm intrigued by the page count of the Blackest Night hardcover, too. Even if you consider the fact that issues #1 and #8 are double-sized, not to mention the 12-page prologue from issue #0, 304 pages is about 60 more than necessary to collect the whole mini series, but not enough to include all Green Lantern tie-ins.
As for the tie-in mini series, since they're too short to be collected individually (only 3 issues each), I wonder if DC will pair some of them up or collect them as two Blackest Night companion volumes.
Stop back tomorrow for more discussion of the Blackest Night hardcover. But if #1 and #8 are 48 pages, and the rest are 40 pages, doesn't that come to 336, which is more than the Amazon solicitation? Now, the Amazon solicit might still be changed ... but yeah, it seems like the Green Lantern titles are going to be separate.
CE - it's not 48 pages of story, though. If the solicitation states 48 pages, that's usually 38 pages of story.
I just checked the individual issues, and the story page counts break down as follows:
BN 0 - 12 pages
BN 1 - 40 pages
BN 2 - 26 pages
BN 3 - 26 pages
Assuming the page count for 4-7 is consistent, and # 8 is back up to 40 pages, you're looking at 248 pages total. With sketches, character profiles and an introduction piece, you're only about 20 pages off the advertised page count of 304.