joe bennett

Every month, comic publishers release their solicitation announcements to provide information to readers and retailers on comics that are coming out in three months’ time, but there’s so much information dropped at once that a lot can slip through the cracks. This month in Marvel's April solicitations, some long lost character make big leading role returns, Marvel gambles big on the success of its latest event, and Jubilee goes to the mall.

The current Deathstroke story finds Slade and his daughter Rose --- alias the teenaged titan called Ravager --- driving to Gotham City on the trail of an assassination contract. It's a family bonding road trip with two deadly assassins from Christopher Priest, Joe Bennett, Mark Morales, Jeremy Cox, and Willie Schubert. Check out an exclusive preview!

For the past five years, XO Manowar has been Valiant's flagship title, but now the story of Aric of Dacia, a barbarian plucked from the fringes of the Roman empire and returned to Earth with an alien battle-suit that might be the single most powerful weapon in the galaxy, is coming to a close. And given that high concept, you can probably guess that it's not going to be a quiet ending. When the final issue hits shelves next week, it's coming with 64 pages of story and a truly overwhelming number of variant covers --- including a Ninjak story from Jody Houser and Javier Pulido that looks fantastic. Check it out with a preview below!

DC's Rebirth initiative has been an opportunity to revitalize some of its core characters and get back to the roots of what made them icons in the first place. Deathstroke, AKA Slade Wilson, has been sliding more and more into antiheroism over the past few years, and was one of those characters desperately in need of a reset. Many fans were pleasantly surprised when they heard that Christopher Priest would be the writer to take the helm on that project. Ahead of Deathstroke: Rebirth #1, ComicsAlliance caught up with Priest and artist Carlo Pagulayan to chat about the core of Deathstroke's character, his dysfunctional family and his place in the DC Universe.

Legendary comics artist Colleen Doran is contributing a gorgeous variant cover to the landmark 50th issue of Valiant's X-O Manowar. Her cover, seen above, is an homage to Michelangelo's sculpture The Pietà, with the titular armor in place of Jesus Christ. The mix of sci fi and Celtic fantasy imagery (not to mention the androgynous white-haired figure), while appropriate for X-O Manowar, is also reminiscent of Doran's own magnum opus, A Distant Soil.

Here's the nice thing about the world of X-O Manowar: Everything is labeled in a very convenient manner. I mean, just look at the man himself: He's a warrior from barbarian times --- a literal man of war --- flying around in a high-tech exo-suit. And the Vine, the alien race that kidnapped him from barbarian times? They're essentially just cosmic gardeners although their idea of "pruning" tends to involve killing all humans. It's a very straightforward way to keep track of everything. So when a new group shows up with claims of being a legendary, omnipotent force from beyond the stars, you really hope that they're going to be named something like "The Niceness" or "The Friendlies," or maybe even "The Make-You-Some-Pancakes Bunch." Unfortunately for Aric of Dacia, though, they're called "The Torment," and when X-O Manowar #47 hits in June, from Robert Venditti, Joe Bennett and Roberto De La Torre, they're probably going to live up to that name. Check out a preview (with some unfinished but beautiful art) below!

Q: In light of your recent discussion of Copra, what's the best comic riffing on another comic? -- @davidwynne A: Listen, Dave, if we're honest with each other here, the answer is definitely Batman. He might not have been riffing on a comic, but it's hard to get around the fact that those earliest adventures were just Bill Finger and Bob Kane filing the serial numbers off the Shadow and putting him into a slightly more ridiculous outfit. I mean, the guy even has an autogyro, and if that's not a dead giveaway, I don't knoW what is. But at the same time, Batman only really gets good once he evolves into his own thing. If you're talking about comics that were created with the clear intention of riffing on something else and staying that way for the duration (and I say this knowing there's a whole lot of good riffing in Jack Staff), there's really only one answer: It has to be Supreme.

If you've already picked up Iron Man #18 by Kieron Gillen and Joe Bennett, which hit comic-shop shelves today, you've already seen this title page for the new Iron Metropolitan storyline. What you may not have known is that Super Graphic author Tim Leong designed it, and it's his first-ever work in a published Marvel comic. Read what he had to say about it on Facebook after the jump.

Flashpoint is DC Comics' summer event of 2011 that promises to change the DC Universe unrecognizably until the event's climactic finale, when the DC Universe will instead be left changed somewhat recognizably. In support of the event, DC is releasing 60+ issues of comic books across 22 titles in just three months...

Flashpoint is DC Comics' summer event of 2011 that promises to change the DC Universe unrecognizably until the event's climactic finale, when the DC Universe will instead be left changed somewhat recognizably. In support of the event, DC is releasing 60+ issues of comic books across 22 titles in just three months...