DC Announces Black Label Imprint

DC Comics will expand even further later this year with its “Black Label” imprint, announced today by the publisher. It’s stated aim, according to the official press release, is to provide “premier talent the opportunity to expand upon the canon of DC’s iconic superhero comic book characters with unique, standalone stories that are outside of the current DC Universe continuity,” and the initial lineup of books will include new stories starring DC’s Trinity of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman.

Creators announced for DC Black Label’s launch slate include Frank Miller, John Romita Jr., the fan-favorite Batman team of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, and Bitch Planet co-creator Kelly Sue DeConnick, in her first major work for DC Comics since a three-issue stint on Supergirl in 2011. Previously announced projects Superman: Year One, by Miller and Romita, and the John Ridley-written The Other History of the DC Universe, will both be released under the Black Label banner. An artist has not yet been named for The Other History of the DC Universe.

DC Black Label will launch in August with the debut of Superman: Year One, a three-part series. Mark Doyle, Executive Editor of DC Comics’ mature readers imprint Vertigo, will also oversee DC Black Label.

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>“DC Black Label offers leading writers and artists of any industry the opportunity to tell their definitive DC stories without being confined to canon,” Doyle said in the announcement, released via The Hollywood Reporter. “We are carefully crafting each series to fit the vision of the creative team. All of these creators are masters of their craft. I’m psyched to be working on a Wonder Woman story with Kelly Sue and Phil [Jimenez], helping to bring John’s vision of The Other History of the DC Universe to life and reuniting with some of the greatest Batman talents in the industry.”

It’s not specifically stated in DC’s announcement that any Black Label books will be labeled as for “mature readers,” but the words “edgy” and “provocative” are used, and it’s said the new comics will have a “sense of sophistication.” Along with that, it’s said each book will have its own distinct format and release schedule (details still to come), and Black Label books will sport a separate logo, seen in the images accompanying this article.

In the announcement, DC named Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier, Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke and Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen as inspirations for the line. Each featured stories of DC Universe superheroes, other than Watchmen — though Watchmen characters have now intersected with the DCU as a result of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank’s currently unfolding Doomsday Clock.

>“Many of our perennially best-selling, critically acclaimed books were produced when we unleashed our top talent on standalone, often out-of-continuity projects featuring our most iconic characters, a prime example being Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns,” DC Co-Publisher Jim Lee said. “Creating DC Black Label doubles down on our commitment to working with all-star talent and trusting them to tell epic, moving stories that only they can tell with the highest levels of creative freedom.”

Along with Superman: Year One and The Other History of the DC Universe, DC Black Label will include Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons from Kelly Sue DeConnick and Phil Jimenez, a three-book series that spans “from the creation of the Amazons to the moment Steve Trevor washes up on the shores of Paradise Island.” Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, fresh from even series Dark Nights: Metal, will re-team for Batman: Last Knight on Earth, taking place in a “strange future, villains are triumphant and society has liberated itself from the burden of ethical codes.” Snyder first discussed the series this past October at New York Comic Con, with Batman: White Knight‘s Sean G. Murphy attached as artist at the time.

The Joker team of Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo will reunite for Batman: Damned, featuring a team-up between Batman and John Constantine, following the Joker’s apparent death. Writer Greg Rucka will return to Wonder Woman for Wonder Woman: Diana’s Daughter (working title), which tells the story of “a young woman seeks to reclaim what has been forgotten” in a hopeless world.

As DC Comics has stressed that these stories are “outside of the current DC Universe continuity,” it’s easy to draw comparisons to Elseworlds, the publisher’s outside-continuity imprint that ran from 1989 to 2003 and included famous stories such as Batman & Dracula: Red Rain and Superman: Red Son.

Here’s the official initial lineup for DC Black Label, along with synopses from the publisher:

Superman: Year One by Frank Miller and John Romita Jr.:

“A groundbreaking, definitive treatment of Superman’s classic origin story in honor of his 80th anniversary. This story details new revelations that reframe the Man of Steel’s most famous milestones—from Kal-El’s frantic exile from Krypton, to Clark Kent’s childhood in Kansas, to his inevitable rise to become the most powerful and inspiring superhero of all time.”

Batman: Last Knight on Earth by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo:

“Batman wakes up in a desert. He doesn’t know what year it is or how The Joker’s head is alive in a jar beside him, but it’s the beginning of a quest unlike anything the Dark Knight has undertaken before. In this strange future, villains are triumphant and society has liberated itself from the burden of ethical codes. Fighting to survive while in search of answers, Bruce Wayne uncovers the truth about his role in this new world—and begins the last Batman story ever told.”

Batman: Damned by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo:

“On a deserted Gotham City bridge, a body is found. Whispers spread the news: Joker is dead. But is this a dream come true or a nightmare being born? Now Batman and DC’s outlaw magician John Constantine must hunt the truth through a Gotham City hellscape. The city’s supernatural recesses are laced with hints about a killer’s identity, but the Dark Knight’s descent into horror will test his sanity and the limits of rationality, as he must face a horror that doesn’t wear a mask.”

Wonder Woman Hisoria: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Phil Jimenez:

“A Homeric epic of the lost history of the Amazons and Queen Hippolyta’s rise to power. Featuring monsters and myths, this three-book saga spans history from the creation of the Amazons to the moment Steve Trevor washes up on the shores of Paradise Island, changing our world forever.”

Wonder Woman: Diana’s Daughter by Greg Rucka (no artist yet announced)

“It’s been 20 years since the world stopped looking to the skies for hope, help, and inspiration. Now the world keeps its eyes down, and the powers that have risen have every intention of keeping things that way. Amongst a scattered, broken resistance, a young woman seeks to reclaim what has been forgotten, and on the way will learn the truth about herself, her heritage, and her destiny.”

The Other History of the DC Universe by John Ridley (no artist yet announced)

“A compelling literary series analyzing iconic DC moments and charting sociopolitical gains through the perspectives of DC Super Heroes who come from traditionally disenfranchised groups, including John Stewart, Extraño, Vixen, Supergirl, Katana and Rene Montoya, among others. At its core, the story focuses on the lives of those behind the costumes, and their endeavors to overcome real-world issues. It isn’t about saving the world, it’s about having the strength to simply be who you are.”

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Wow this really is the end.

it'll look pretty at least

All of this sounds interesting, except for the Cucka book.

>Wonder Woman Hisoria: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Phil Jimenez
as long as Phil is not actually writing this, it should be good

>Supes and whores out this year
Nice

Ok, DC. I have been really bored with your comics for months now, but you are gaining my interest again with these imprints.

>Batman wakes up in a desert. He doesn’t know what year it is or how The Joker’s head is alive in a jar beside him
I mean, okay? That got my attention

>Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons from Kelly Sue DeConnick and Phil Jimenez
Oh christ no no no no no
#freephiljimenez

Frank Miller writing Supes sounds like the single worst thing that anyone ever thought of. Lois Lane confirmed for being a prostitute.

I'll take 5 books by Greg Rucka before seeing this dumb ass destroy Superman. Superman had one chance to not suck with this, but Superman is doomed in 2018 it seems. Bendis will destroy him, and Frank Miller will just feast on his corpse.

So now we know what the shill line will be for the foreseeable future.

>Writer Greg Rucka will return to Wonder Woman for Wonder Woman: Diana’s Daughter (working title), which tells the story of “a young woman seeks to reclaim what has been forgotten” in a hopeless world.
Daughter has a cock calling it right now.

>Darwyn Cooke’s DC: The New Frontier
If we get more "mature" books like New Frontier as opposed to just edgy shit I'm happy

Jesus this is just painful to watch


Why not at least try to die with some dignity DC

I don't care, just as long as he does not write.

>Batman: Last Knight on Earth by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo:
>“Batman wakes up in a desert. He doesn’t know what year it is or how The Joker’s head is alive in a jar beside him, but it’s the beginning of a quest unlike anything the Dark Knight has undertaken before. In this strange future, villains are triumphant and society has liberated itself from the burden of ethical codes. Fighting to survive while in search of answers, Bruce Wayne uncovers the truth about his role in this new world—and begins the last Batman story ever told.”

So...Batman wakes up in The Purge?

Get Otto Schimdt on the book ASAP

Kill yourself, Linkara. Frank Miller is still a better writer than 99% of writers who have written Superman for the past 30 years.

>featured stories of DC Universe superheroes, other than Watchmen — though Watchmen characters have now intersected with the DCU
I mean, technically they've always been there. Watchmen is just a very, very far removed AU for the Charleton characters.

I hope we get to see the notes to artist for uncle Frank's Superman book.

Did you miss the entire last issue of Master Race

Get your head out of your ass. Current Frank Miller isn't even better than Dark Knight Strikes Again Frank Miller.

>the John Ridley-written The Other History of the DC
Oh man I forgot all about this one. It has promise to set Sup Forums ablaze with shitposting

>Batman: Last Knight on Earth by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo:
>
>“Batman wakes up in a desert. He doesn’t know what year it is or how The Joker’s head is alive in a jar beside him, but it’s the beginning of a quest unlike anything the Dark Knight has undertaken before. In this strange future, villains are triumphant and society has liberated itself from the burden of ethical codes. Fighting to survive while in search of answers, Bruce Wayne uncovers the truth about his role in this new world—and begins the last Batman story ever told.”

Didn't Snyder already do his Batman ending with his Future's End clone stuff?
Anyway I wonder if it'll be about this future

>shill
>shill
>shill
Shoo, child.

I don't read his shit anymore. So yes.

He still fucking sucks and a mentally ill old man.

>Frank Miller
>Good Writer

HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAAHA
I hope you burn in the deepest parts of hell and live an eternity in pain.

Why not just use the spine from Multiversity and use those 53 and counting Earths and the Dark Multiverse Earths?

>Supergirl
So, will they go for the immigrant angle or the woman angle? It's dumb either way, but the immigrant part could at least be portrayed in a slightly non-cringy way,

I really like how Snyder is just going "these are comic books, fuck it" and has fun with the whole thing. Metal has been my favorite "crisis" since Final Crisis.

Ok, I know that normies are stupid and so on, but could they maybe do at least one thing that isn't trinity or (most definitely) a soapbox in comic format?

How many shiny new number ones are you gonna buy and put on your wall?

Rev up those imprint counter boys, we might be in for the long haul
>DC mainline - regular comic readers
>DC Ink - kids
>DC Zoom - young adults
>Young Animal - Gerard Way curated
>Vertigo - dead
>Jinxworld - Benis curated
>Sandman - Gaiman curated
>DC Black Label - mature
What else am I missing?

Does DC even have enough talent to spread around all these lines? I mean, they must have the resource and editorial backing for it, but do they have enough writers and artists for this?

It was still better than anything Tomasi and Jurgens have ever written or anything Bendis has written in the past decade.

I'd be really down for a Swamp Thing "black label" comic book that super trippy and fun.

Same reason why this isn't called Elseworlds. Good ideas are not the priority. Marketing is.

Because it's a writer driven imprint and not a Geoff Johns comic.

This all sounds incredibly derivative and boring. Oh shit, Rucka writes Wonder Woman AGAIN? well shit, how exciting. And you know, everyone Jesus led about that black matter or whatever its called line and how the artists are slow but when you're already announcing said artists moving on to different stuff just as the comics start, well... it's just incredibly disrespectful towards the gullible fucks that buy those comics and if it weren't for this good publicity everyone is eager to give DC they'd get shit on, and rightfully so.

Dude, DC is doing like the WWE, they are creating their own future talent with their artist school program and Snyder is doing a writer program too I think. They are not scared at all. I think the idea is to put the in-house made talent on mainline books, try to make them into big names creator and then move them up on those kind of prestige imprints.

I like the idea of imprints tho, it creates variety in their products.

Zoom and Ink don't need regular artists or to be written by comic book writers, and there's and endless amount of ok-ish YA book authors out there.

Jinxworld and Sandman will probably be pretty small, and Black Label will probably be less frequent.

So they can probably manage it.

Is the Hannah-Barbera still on is that dead?

Ladderbro, keeping them honest since 2018.

I'd like something cosmic where the writer can play around with all of DC's toys without having to go back to Earth all the time.

>Frank Miller ... a better writer

>99% of writers who have written Superman for the past 30 years.

I too like the idea of imprints. Cast a wide net and see what audience you fish up. It's a solid strategy and they can add more fuel to the lines that sells well
>DC is doing like the WWE
Does that make Marvel WCW in this comparison?

Sounds like it, until the next round of crossover at least. Batman Elmur Fudd solid like hotcakes and they'd be stupid not doing it again

Good point, although that makes me a bit sad if they are not frequently coming out with new books.

Its pretty sad that they're not trying to scount new talent with this line but instead fall down on the same old fags. I mean, these are out of continuity minis, even if they're bad, what's the harm? Not like you're using GOOD old writers, you're using Frank Miller, someone who's lost it for a loooong time now.

Wildstorm?

>new talent
>prestige format line of books
u wot m8?

Are you retarded? None of the imprints share creators. Gerard Way has his own staff, Ellis has his own, Gaiman has his own hand-picked fantasy writers and Ink and Zoom has YA writers unrelated to mainline DC. It's not like they're picking Bendis or Dogfucker to write one of the Sandman books.
Imprints is a good idea since it protects your creators from Johns and his annual events and without the imprints DC would have nothing to look forward to.

What's confusing you, child?

Maybe if you keep pretending you're that dumb people will start to believe it.

Has anything came out of that since they announced it last year?

Well, yes, I am retarded because I don't know how imprint works. I want to get into it with all these new lines

But... they are using the same staff, same editors and sometimes same writers(Spurrier on Sandman and Vertigo, Houser on YA and Rebirth etc).

>Jimenez drawing WW again

Yesssssss

There's no point in hiring new talent when you're just going to have to fire them in a few months when the company shuts down

Jody Houser is just an exception and she's co writing a book, not spearheading her own book. Motherlands is just another creator owned book for Spurrier.

>Superman: Year One, a three-part series

FUCK.

It was originally going to be a 100 page graphic novel. I would have MUCH preferred to read it in that format.

Except DC doesn't even have the management capabilities to make sure their mainline books are decent, so launching infinite new imprints (i.e. the same strategy they've been employing to terrible results for the past decade) seems like it will only exacerbate the problem instead of providing a solution.

>complaining about Rucka writing WW again
>not complaining about Snyder writing Batman again

Vertigo isn't completely creator owned, you still get paid/page and you still have an editor, in this case one that works on different imprints.

Your commitment to stupidity.

>Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons from Kelly Sue DeConnick
The flying fuck are they doing?

I'm complaining about all of them, I just singled out Rucka because his recent return to the character failed both critically and financially.

Frank probably can't do it any more, so they are trying to get things out as soon as possible.

How dare people be interested in comics on this comic board.

So this is basically bringing back Elseworlds without the "high concept" aspect.

I was hoping it would have actually be "DC MAX" like the rumors were saying.

This still has potential though. I'll definitely read some of the stuff they've announced.

Are there any release dates announced? Or at least release windows?

Are you retarded? I asked you a simple question.

>they are creating their own future talent with their artist school program and Snyder is doing a writer program
Results haven't been impressive so far.

How was it a financial failure?

Wasn't a big seller.

The contract depends on the creators.

Bitch Island

My only question is whether Frank will use the Birthing Matrix or the Baby Rocket

Name at least 5 decent writers who wrote a Superman run in the past 30 years.

You thought it would reach Batman levels of success?

Baby rocket ofc. The birthing matrix was a retarded idea and Frank had a pitch to revamp Superman's origin around the same time.

>definitive treatment of Superman’s classic origin story

FUCK YOU, BENDIS!

No you doubled down on being a faggot.

>Has anything came out of that since they announced it last year?
The Wild Storm
Michael Cray

Johns, Bisiek, Tomasi, Pak, Robinson, Jurgens, and soon Bendis

Miller is one of those guys who basically will not acknowledge any cannon that happened after 1970. You can almost bet it'll be the baby in a rocket.

Amen. Saying fuck and showing trannies isn't edgy when every hack on Netflix, Amazon and Hulu do that every day. These need to be smart and artistic.

Because I made a valid point while you're shilling like a tard?

nigga did you read Dark Knight 3?

that shit is gonna be badass as fuck

Nah, I just thought it would sell better. Detective Comics and Flash for example saw a considerable boost in sales.

Dark Knight III and Dark Knight The Last Crusade were both solid, if less than great, comics.

>Amen. Saying fuck and showing trannies isn't edgy when every hack on Netflix, Amazon and Hulu do that every day. These need to be smart and artistic.
They're chasing that audience though, and who could blame them even getting .01% of it would be a massive coup

>The Joker team of Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo will reunite for Batman: Damned

After The Joker they shouldn't let them write batman again

>>DC Black Label - mature

Try "DC Black Label - LITERALLY ELSEWORLDS".

You made a terrible point and are raging out of embarrassment.

DC also has a line of comics for younger kids, highlighted with Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo Team-Up and Teen Titans Go.

Scooby-Doo Team-Up is actually a love letter to all things Hanna Barbara and DC's bizarre history. Where else can we go from team ups with Secret Squirrel to Cave Carson (who denies this new rumor of having a Cybernetic Eye.)

Your tears are delicious.

Jesus, this thread.

Yes, hiring new blood is indeed a terrible point. Let's just use the same 60 year olds again.

Swamp Thing needs to go back to being a horror comic. Writers have taken too much inspiration from the "weird" parts of Moore's run and not the "quality writing and storytelling" parts.

Bendis? What?
>Frank Miller and John Romita Jr.
What?

He's only written 3 bad comics in his entire career, and he has a 50% quality ration this century. That's better than 99% of the people currently in the industry.

He's apparently healthy enough that he wants to do Dark Knight 4, so I doubt that.