Bizarro

Those of you who spend all your time watching superhero cartoons made for tiny babies (and by that I mean me) may have noticed that there was a half-hour special late last year called LEGO Justice League: Batman Beleagured. If you missed it, it was a very blocky origin story for how Batman joined the Justice League, and it was actually pretty great -- especially the twist ending. Now, it seems that they're following it up with a second special, and this time, it's about Bizarro arriving in Metropolis and doing... well, exactly what Bizarro does every time he shows up, which is screw things up on a catastrophic level and terrify the populace. And apparently, that's just the tip of a mixed-up iceberg that's going to involve an entire Bizarro League.

Since the launch of DC Comics' New 52 back in 2011, Superman's costume has been basically trunkless, causing consternation among many hardcore fans. Best known for his contributions to DC: The New Frontier, The Spirit and IDW's The Rocketeer, cartoonist J. Bone has concocted a costume that is almost exactly the opposite of the characters armor-like New 52 togs: They're pretty much just trunks and a cape.

Superman and Batman played a huge role when I was learning to read back in the mid-1980s. Not only did I have plenty of storybooks and comics featuring the two, but I also had read-along books and records (yes, records) that I listened to on a nearly daily basis. It looks like the kids of 2014 are going to have the opportunity to experience an updated version of that with a new interactive storybook from Livo Books, Superman and Bizarro Save the Planet. It's available through the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Medicom kicked off its line of DC Comics soft vinyl Sofubi figures pretty conservatively with Batman and the Joker, but it looks like the second wave will get a little weirder. Sure, Superman's leading the three-figure wave, but he's joined by none other than Bizarro and Swamp Thing (who is am-ay-zing, and fights everything nasty).

Greg Capullo, Forever Evil, Batman: Arkham City and George Pérez are some of the key draws in the DC Collectibles solicitations for January, with a number of the items serving as the first chance fans have had to pick them up since they appeared as San Diego Comic-Con exclusives this past summer. New Batman, Talon, Riddler and Nightwing action figures based on Capullo's artwork are slated to roll

Artist Phil Postma, who recently brought his toon style to a September variant cover on IDW's Judge Dredd series, has posted a series of images to his blog of some sadly fictional cerealsSuperman fans may soon be clamoring to make real. Cereal manufacturers Kellogg's, General Mills and Post will want to pay heed, too, as the artist's design work stands head and shoulders above most super market aisle fair. Most CA readers probably couldn't walk past boxes bearing these designs without filling a shopping cart... or three.

We make a regular practice at ComicsAlliance of spotlighting particular artists or specific bodies of work, but because cartoonists, illustrators and their fans share countless numbers of great images on sites like Flickr, Tumblr, DeviantArt and seemingly infinite art blogs that we've created Best Art Ever (This Week), a weekly depository for just some of the pieces of especially compelling artwork that we come across in our regular travels across the Web. Some of it's new, some of it's old, some of it's created by working professionals, some of it's created by future stars, some of it's created by talented fans, and some of it's endearingly silly. All of it's awesome. In honor of this year's 75th anniversary of the first appearance of Superman and this weekend's release of Man of Steel, we present for the second time a compilation of some of the coolest portraits of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's brilliant creation that we've highlighted in this feature over the last few years. We know it's cheating but we didn't count on going away for a month and then coming back in the middle of a big media event. All-new next week evermore.

Unlike CA Senior Writer Chris Sims, who steadfastly scours the funny pages each month for his Funky Winkerbean/Crankshaft chronicle, Funkywatch (to say nothing of his inspiration, Josh Fruhlinger at the daily Comics Curmudgeon blog), there's a good chance you don't indulge in traditional comic strips as much as you'd like...

When I started soliciting questions for my Halloween-themed Ask Chris columns, one of the questions I got pretty often was about whether there was a comic book character that I found to be genuinely frightening. There are certainly a few, like the Invunche from Swamp Thing that are built from such disturbing, horrifying imagery that they stick with you long after you put down the book, but there'

As with every season finale in the 'Smallville' realm, last season left us hanging with one calamity after the next and millions of questions. #1 Are Chloe and Lana really dead? #2 Did Lex kill Lana, his wife? #3 How will Clark defeat his Bizarro phantom nemesis...