Genevieve Valentine

On this day in 1940, DC Comics published Batman #1, which, as well as being the first appearance of The Joker, also featured the first appearance of the character we would come to know as Catwoman. Selina Kyle has been one of the most versatile characters in not only Batman’s canon, but the whole DC Universe. She’s been a hero, a villain, an ally, a lover, and for over twenty years she has been a leading lady in her own right.

Hajime Isayama’s Attack On Titan has been one of the biggest crossover hits in modern manga, with a successful anime series, movies, video games and more spinning off from the original manga. The series is set in a post-apocalyptic world where society lives behind giant walls to keep the monstrous Titans at bay, and follows members of the military who seek to keep their cities safe from the Titan threat. This October, Kodansha Comics USA will release an Attack On Titan Anthology, featuring some of the best creators from the worlds of manga and western comics, and we’ve got exclusive pages from the likes of Michael Avon Oeming, Evan Dorkin, and the Batgirl team of Brenden Fletcher, Cameron Stewart and Babs Tarr.

This week marked the final issue of Batman & Robin Eternal, and while we're still close enough to it that the honeymoon has barely even started, let alone ended, I'm pretty sure that I can declare it to be my all-time favorite weekly DC project. The shorter run benefited the project, but it was the story that made this comic great. It weaved its way through Batman's long history of sidekicks --- a history that pretty much introduced the very concept of sidekicks to the world of superhero comics --- and ended up looking at Batman, Robin, and what those characters mean, in a way that I'm not sure any other story has.

Dynamite Entertainment has a pretty solid track record when it comes to Xena: Warrior Princess comics. Dark Xena was one of the most fun and entertaining mirror-universe stories that I've ever read, and the Army of Darkness crossover, a no-brainer if there ever was one, was exactly what you've wanted it to be since 1996. The thing is, both of those stories were almost ten years ago, and for most of the past decade, we have been living a dreary existence in a world without Xena comics. Until now! In April, Dynamite is launching a new Xena comic from writer Genevieve Valentine, recently of Catwoman, and artist Ariel Medel, with a story that's promising prophecies, amazons, and a battle against Julius Caesar.

Costume has played a big part in writer Genevieve Valentine's approach to Catwoman since she took over the title with issue #35 late last year. Selina Kyle traded in her famous leather catsuit for a tailored black tuxedo to take on the role of Gotham City mob boss, a look designed to evoke power and status. The next issue, out this Wednesday, sees Sellina putting the suit back on to get her gloves dirty once again --- but that doesn't stop her from also wearing a pretty fabulous opera gown. Check out our exclusive preview, with art by David Messina and colors by Lee Loughridge.

The Comic-Con 2014 season of big announcements is definitely upon us, and today, DC Comics has two that are very interesting. The first is that Catwoman is getting a new creative team in the form of novelist Genevieve Valentine and Five Ghosts artist Garry Brown, tying into the big shakeups coming to Gotham from the pages of Batman Eternal. As for the previous writer of Catwoman, Ann Nocenti, she'll be joined by artist Trevor McCarthy (Batwoman, Nightwing) in a new title, relaunching Jack Kirby's Klarion the Witch Boy for the New 52, with a focus on using magic as a metaphor for technology.