dc bombshells

The brave hero. The wicked villain. These archetypes, and the tales of their struggles, lie at the heart of the comic book medium, providing the basis for many of our favorite stories. While some may scoff at these aspirational stories, we know that they can be empowering, uplifting, and even inspiring. That's often especially true when the hero at the heart of the story is a woman. When women slay monsters, the stories are never just about protecting the kingdom and preserving the status quo. When women slay monsters, they challenge their own oppression, they overturn expectations, and they seize control of the future. When women slay monsters, they change the world. These are some of our favorite comic book stories that celebrate that idea.

In honor of the caped crusaders of the convention scene, ComicsAlliance has created Best Cosplay Ever (This Week), an ongoing collection of some of the most impeccable, creative, and clever costumes that we’ve discovered and assembled into a super-showcase of pure fan-devoted talent. This weekend we were at Boston Comic Con to capture all the best cosplay on the convention floor, including Holtzmann, Harley Quinn, Nightwing, Squirrel Girl, Furiosa, and more!

DC superhero Vixen has been receviving a long overdue push in the last couple of years, led by CW Seed's animated Vixen series, a guest appearance on Arrow, and an upcoming role for a version of the character in Legends of Tomorrow. Yet for all her TV appearances, DC's best known black female hero hasn't had the same sort of support in comics. That may finally change with the news that Vixen will feature in the next arc of the digital first series DC Comics Bombshells.

Despite the successes of the statue series, I don't think anyone expected the DC Bombshells to get an action figure line. That was clearly the biggest reveal of DC Collectibles' San Diego Comic-Con pre-show event though, and making the fan-favorite characters more affordable and easier to display than their resin counterparts is a smart move. And who could be upset with the reveal of the Superman: The Animated Series two-pack? Not us. It's a surprisingly light SDCC for DC Collectibles this year. Many of the items on display had been seen in some form or another before, but what was was new was certainly exciting.

Can’t decide which superheroes are your favorites? Why not enjoy a little bit of all of them? That's the great thing about superhero teams; they bring together everyone from the most famous and iconic heroes to the most bizarre and obscure. And no superteam captures that idea better than the Justice League. For your viewing pleasure, we’ve amassed our own super gallery featuring cosplayers portraying members of the Justice League throughout the years. Every cape, every cowl, every leotard featured shows off the enormous wealth of talent on the part of the cosplayers who take up these heroes' mantles. These are the best Justice League cosplays ever.

The 50th chapter of DC Comics Bombshells is out tomorrow, and it's an exciting one. If you haven't been reading Bombshells --- which is a shame ---you need to know that it's about an alternate version of the DC Universe in which superhero women are the biggest heroes of World War II. It's by writer Marguerite Bennett and a number of great artists, with Chapter 50 drawn by Mirka Andolfo.

“It’s like this now.” Those four words are about as DC a phrase as one gets in comics, more than any quote from any comic, because they summarize DC’s approach to all of its worlds and all of its continuities: we want it to be like this, so It’s like this now. It’s why there’s been anywhere from two to five reboots of the universe during the time I’ve been reading comics. It’s why there’s a multiverse, and why any attempt to bury the multiverse never lasts. And that multiverse is how we’ve wound up with Bombshells, the digital-first series based off a collection of statues issued by DC Direct, written by Marguerite Bennett and illustrated by a team that includes Marguerite Sauvage, Wendy Broome, Laura Braga, Stephen Mooney, Ming Doyle, Ant Lucia, and Bilquis Evely.

When DC Comics Bombshells began back in 2013 as a line of DC superheroine statues based on the retro-pinup art of Ant Lucia, I don't think anyone expected that to lead to a popular digital-first comic, a big mostly-female fanbase, and a line of clothing from Hot Topic. But here we are in 2016, and the Bombshells are going strong, and the credit for that has to be shared between Lucia, writer Marguerite Bennett, artist Marguerite Sauvage, and the other artists who've worked on the comic. Now the next stage in the Bombshells' expansion has been unveiled, including an upcoming annual and new Bombshells merchandise.

The line between fashion and cosplay is blurrier than ever with Hot Topic's new fashion line based on DC Comics: Bombshells. Not that it was ever a particularly stark distinction to begin with, and the difference is almost irrelevant to the Bombshells, since Marguerite Sauvage and the other artists who've worked with Marguerite Bennett on the digital first comic have done a fantastic job of dressing the characters in cute period-appropriate clothes instead of the outlandish outfits common to other superhero comics (especially where women are concerned). So you can wear exactly what the Bombshells characters wear and still be appropriately attired for just about any social setting, not just those held on Halloween or at comic book conventions.

At first glance, DC Bombshells seems like it's operating on a pretty weird premise. It is, after all, a digital comic based on a line of statues that reimagine the company's heroines with retro, pinup-inspired designs, and while a lot of them have been pretty great, trying to create a narrative based around an aesthetic seems like a tough task. In practice, though, Marguerite Bennett and Marguerite Sauvage don't just rise to the occasion, they demolish it. In a summer that's been marked by some of DC's strongest new titles in years, from Black Canary to Prez, the first digital chapter of Bombshells came out swinging and knocked it out of the park with what might just be the best first issue of the bunch.