mikel janin

While DC Rebirth has reinvigorated the entire publishing line, the Batman family of titles have been solid-to-great since Mark Doyle took over as group editor several years ago, and with talent like Tom King, Rafael Albuquerque and Hope Larson helming the books, it's no surprise they're so successful. Ahead of the full release next week, DC has provided us with an exclusive first look at some of June's Batman family titles, highlighting what's to come in the pages of Batman, All-Star Batman, Batgirl and Super Sons.

Batman #12, the fourth part of "I Am Suicide," is a a story about Batman coming to terms with the nature of his identity (and perhaps Catwoman's) as he travels to Santa Prisca to confront Bane and bring back the Psycho-Pirate --- who might be the only person who can save Gotham Girl's life. In captions throughout issue #12, writer Tom King presents us with a painfully honest letter from Batman to Catwoman, while artist Mikel Janin tells a parallel story in the visuals of Batman fighting an entire army to get to Bane. ComicsAlliance sat down with King to talk about the moment when Bruce Wayne's life ended, the true nature of Catwoman (and her fandom), and why Bane has stopped wearing pants.

When Batman #9 hits shelves in October, we're getting one of the biggest returns of the series so far from Tom King and Mikel Janin. Bane is back, and in case you were concerned that he wouldn't be all that threatening, he's reintroduced literally seated upon a throne of skulls. Check out a preview.

Heroes are defined by the challenges that they overcome, and I think we can all agree that there are no greater challenges than those faced by the Batman. Over the past 77 years, he's saved the world countless times and foiled countless dastardly plots, battling some of the most sinister arch-villains of all time. But now, he is facing his single greatest challenge ever: Can he make wearing just underwear and black socks look good? I mean, seriously, that's one of the classic all-time Bad Looks, but it seems that Mikel Janin, who's coming in as one of the artists on Batman after DC's "Rebirth" event this summer, has decided that now is the time for Bruce Wayne to redeem it. Check out his designs and decide for yourself!

In the first issue of Alan Moore, Joe Bennett and Keith Giffen's run on Supreme, there's a line about how superhero universes always tend to get really in those last few months right before the universe corrects itself with the latest revision to continuity. With DC's big Rebirth event just over the horizon, that's something that's been on my mind a lot lately, partially because of the inevitable feeling that we're stuck in a holding pattern, and partly because it feels like a pretty accurate description of what's been going on in the pages of Superman. In this week's Superman #51, Peter J. Tomasi and Mikel Janin are bringing the Man of Steel face-to-face with his mortality with the first part of "The Final Days of Superman." That in itself isn't that weird - Superman's been in mortal peril at least twice a month for the past few decades - but the way they're going about it but that has just enough strangeness on every level to be downright fascinating.

So here's what we know about the upcoming "Super League" crossover that's running through Action Comics, Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman/Superman in April and May: Ever since Convergence, the pre-New 52 Superman (you know, the John Byrne/Dan Jurgens Superman who was rebooted, killed, brought back as four guys, turned electrical, brought back as two guys, and married Lois Lane?) has been running around the current DC Universe, completely separate from the current Superman. Now, they're finally going to meet in a crossover that sees Superman forming his own team and traveling across the world with Batman and Wonder Woman on the trail of a missing Supergirl, with a brand new villain pulling the strings.

Ever since it launched, Grayson has been defined by blending the bizarre extremes of espionage action with the even more bizarre extremes of a superhero universe full of villains with guns for eyes and mind-altering hypno-contacts, and as you might expect, it's the latter that gets most of the attention. This is, after all, a spy story set in a world of masks and capes, and there are certain expectations that the genre brings with it. This week, though, Tom King, Tim Seeley, Mikel Janin and Jeromy Cox have taken things in a decidedly more spy-inspired --- or inspyred --- direction. Not only do we get a cover that evokes the beautiful opening of A View To A Kill, and a five-page sequence of Dick Grayson singing a song that sounds an awful lot like the theme from Goldfinger, but, in case you missed it, Dick Grayson just kicked a very familiar face.

In his 75-year career as a superhero, Dick Grayson has been a lot of things. He's been a circus acrobat, Robin, Nightwing, Batman, a Teen Titan, a member of the Justice League, Batman again, and he's been a world-traveling super-spy charged with bringing down some of the strangest threats that the DC Universe. But more than that, today's Dick Grayson is something else. Something more. Something that inspires us all in a way that few other super-heroes do. He is an exceptionally good-looking man. That, more than anything else, came to define him over the past year, and now, before we move inexorably into the future, we look back at how Dick Grayson had the handsomest year ever.

A great comic book cover is an advertisement, a work of art, a statement, and an invitation. A great comic book cover is a glimpse of another world through a canvas no bigger than a window pane. In Best Comic Book Covers Ever (This Month), we look back over some of the most eye-catching, original and exceptional covers of the past month. 2015 got off to an impressive start with stunning compositions from Riley Rossmo, James Harren, and Ken Niimura; wonderful character portraits from Marko Djurdjevic, Becky Cloonan, and Kaare Andrews; amazing colors from Darwyn Cooke and Artyom Trakhanov; and a really fun He-Man piece from Stjepan Sejic.

Each week, ComicsAlliance’s Chris Sims and Matt Wilson host the War Rocket Ajax podcast, their online audio venue for interviews with comics creators, reviews of the books of the week, and whatever else they want to talk about. ComicsAlliance is offering clips of the comics-specific segments of the show several days before the full podcast goes up at WarRocketAjax.com on Mondays. This week, Chris and Matt start off by gushing about Grayson #2 by Tim Seeley, Tom King, and Mikel Janin. Then, they do pretty much the opposite to Genius #1 by Marc Bernardin, Adam Freeman and Afua Richardson. Then, it's back to gushing about Moon Knight #6 by Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire!