the dark knight returns

If you're not familiar with Italian cartoonist Hugo Pratt's sailor and adventurer Corto Maltese, it's likely because you're reading this in English. Though Pratt is widely regarded as one of the pioneers of comics as literature, releasing the first Corto Maltese story, "The Ballad of the Salty Sea," in 1967, stories featuring the character have been translated into English sporadically. (They were originally published in either Italian or French.) Some have never been translated. IDW's new imprint EuroComics is planning to change that by collecting every single Corto Maltese comic, translated into English, in 12 volumes starting this December.

Medicom's 1/6 scale Real Action Heroes line is set to expand in 2014 with a new take on Batman based on Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. Adorned in the usual RAH fabric clothing, the upcoming action figure will include as-yet unrevealed optional hand pieces and a special figure stand. Presumably, it'll also come with weapons and accessories such as batarangs too.

Saturday's Warner Bros. Pictures panel at Comic-Con International in San Diego concluded in grand fashion, with Man of Steel director Zack Snyder and stars Henry Cavill (Superman) and Harry Lennix (General Swanwick) joining him on stage to announce the team's intention to produce a film featuring both Superman and Batman...

The cover for The Dark Knight Returns #2 -- the second part of Frank Miller, Klaus Janson and Lynn Varley's masterpiece  -- is one of the definitive images both from that story, and of Batman. Aging, bloodied but defiant, the cover encompasses nearly everything about the 1986 miniseries that continues to attract so many readers. And now that image is available at auction, meaning one of the most r

Over a lifetime of reading comics, Senior Writer Chris Sims has developed an inexhaustible arsenal of facts and opinions. That's why, each and every week, we turn to you to put his comics culture knowledge to the test as he responds to your reader questions...

The trouble with DC having a title called Batman and Robin is, well, they've got to have a Robin. If the cover to this month's issue is to be believed, that new Robin could very well be The Dark Knight Returns' Carrie Kelley. However, series writer Peter Tomasi sort of stops that train of thought in its tracks in an interview with The New York Post: "What you'll find out once you crack the

TV: New Arrow stills show what Seth Gabel (Fringe) will look like as The Count in the Jan. 30 episode, "Vertigo." Reality TV: One of the people who worked on King of the Nerds is more or less sorry for how the show has turned out, after working hard to make it as decent as possible...

Batman fans who dig DC Collectibles statues and toys, it looks like March and April are going to be your month. Fans of, well, everyone else? You're just going to have to be really happy for your Batman-loving bros and brodettes. That's right, the latest batch of product solicitations from DCC are all about the Caped Crusader and his many incarnations...

Recently I read Miguel Corti's experimental comic Watchmen #13. A cut-up pdf created by numbering and randomizing the panels in Alan Moore and David Gibbon's Watchmen, the book is laid out along variations of the original's consistent nine-panel grid...

Animation: The first trailer for The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 home video release sees Batman clash with Superman, among other foes. Opinion: Kendra James lays out some important "Do's and Dont's" for ABC's potential upcoming S.H.I.E...