penguin

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 week's selection of the best cosplay ever includes Gwen Stacy and Spider-Man, Gamora, Green Lantern, Mary Poppins, and more!

The Lego Batman toy line has been going strong for over a decade now, but with this week's release of the Lego Batman Movie, we've seen a truly unprecedented explosion of merchandise based around the Caped Crusader's blockiest incarnation. And with that many figures, going from the Dark Knight himself all the way down to super obscure deep cuts like the Mime and March Harriet, our course here at ComicsAlliance is clear. We need to rank them. So today, we've dug through every single Lego Batman Movie minifig (and eliminated simple variations like "Batman with a slightly different face") to rank them all, worst to best.

For as much as I love the madness that was the comics of the 1990s, I cannot even imagine how incredible it must have been to be a comic-loving kid (or weird comic loving adult) in the 1950/60s period known as The Silver Age. Within this gallery, I've put together only the smallest of fractions of some of the entertaining, out-of-context fun that Batman's 75 years of non-stop published stories have afforded us. Try your best to make sense of them.

Welcome to Wayne’s World, the latest ComicsAlliance TV recap series, jumping right into the middle of the third season of Fox’s Gotham, the show about the childhood of Bruce Wayne and the world of Batman before Batman. This week, the city of Gotham plunges into chaos as Jerome takes Bruce Wayne out to the carnival in the Gotham winter finale.

Barbara's back from her travels in Asia, but she and Burnside are both different from when she left. The preview for Batgirl #7, by Hope Larson and new ongoing artist Christian Wildgoose, finds Barbara back in school, but now in the Library Science program. This is a nice callback to the original concept of Batgirl as a librarian in her secret identity, but a much more modern take, with her emphasis on community, information, and access.

Check out the best factual, historical, or biographical comics in 2016, including our critics' picks and the comics you voted the runner up and winner in this category!

The DC Universe doesn’t lack for some of the most iconic heroes and heroines in comics. So it’s a good thing for the baddies that the DC Universe also has its share of great and heinous villains. With the DC villains being as colorful as they are, there are plenty of excellent cosplayers out there to offer up the darker side of cosplay. In every cape, cowl, and scar, these cosplayers bring the frightening visages of their favorite villains to life, and make the cosplay world just a little more exciting. These are the best DC Villain cosplays.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Funko's latest Pop figure line, Impopsters (I'm also not sure about that brand name, but what do I know?). On one hand, putting some (slightly) new spins on characters that have been around for decades is cool, and it lets Funko get a little creative with the standard form bodies they've been using to create hundreds and hundreds of collectibles. But I'm also not wild about just Batmanning the Dark Knight's rogues gallery. The concept certainly makes sense though. People love Batman and his big bads, so why not combine them into one thing? Impopsters is just the latest in a long line of Funko's attempts to shake up the game with miniature, budget vinyl collectibles. While I wonder if this was the series of collectibles Funko alluded to in the most recent Marvel Collector Corps, I'm definitely wondering what the Marvel versions of these are going to look like. Oh, that's right. Impopsters won't just be limited this Batman series. Funko apparently has designs on the rest of the DCU and Marvel Comics, too.

After the success of Batman, Warner Bros. once again tapped Tim Burton to bring the Dark Knight to the sliver screen in the sequel, Batman Returns. While there was no Internet to rampantly speculate about what villain Batman should face off against after the Joker's demise at the conclusion of the 1989 film, the possibilities were endless. Batman's rogue gallery was massive and full of great foils for Bruce Wayne's alter-ego. Imagine the world's surprise when Burton, being as Burton as he could possibly be, tapped Danny DeVito for the role of the Penguin. Now, some 20+ years later, NECA is finally giving DeVito's Penguin the action figure due he so deserved. Announced at last year's San Diego Comic-Con, the quarter-scale figure captures everything that made the Penguin such a memorable character, right down to the blue blood, natty hair, and toothy grimace that inspired many a nightmare in terrified kids.

The 1966 Batman television show was one of the most successful and influential adaptations of comic books to mass media of all time. Over the course of three seasons and 120 episodes, the series became a cultural force with its unique combination of tongue-in-cheek humor, thrilling superhero adventure and celebrity guest stars, and shaped the way the public would view the Caped Crusader for the next five decades. Now, in the midst of a well-deserved renaissance of the show, ComicsAlliance is proud to present The Batman '66 Episode Guide, an in-depth examination of every single adventure, arch-criminal and deathtrap cliffhanger of the series. This week, the Penguin's inaugural adventure continues with the perfect crime... planned by the Batman himself!