… how can it ever truly be Batman without you?

You might’ve already heard: next April in the comicbook world, we’ll get to see the Return of Bruce Wayne.

As revealed by The Source, (and as we’ve seen in the last pages of Final Crisis) instead of outright just dying, Darkseid‘s Omega Sanction just sent Bruce to the past.  (Another type of Omega Effect is the Omega Sanction, that traps the organism in a series of alternate realities, each worse than the previous one.)  News: Bruce is still alive, etching bat symbols in prehistoric caves.

In a USA Today  interview with Grant Morrison about Bruce Wayne’s return, it would appear that Bruce has also lost his memory.  And from the preview images, it would also seem that he’d be doing like a quantum leap across time, without fully knowing why or to when.

With all his friends and enemies thinking that he’s dead, what lies in store for Bruce Wayne?  And what of the Dick Grayson Batman?  (Admit it, the Dick/Damian partnership’s growing on you…)

We’ll just have to wait for 2010 to find out.  Let’s just hope he doesn’t return as a baby or something.

[Info/images from The Source and USA Today!]

Goes to show how much I HAVEN’T been keeping up — there’s a new DCU Animated Feature out — this time, it’s Superman/Batman Public Enemies!  Although not knowing about this until today gave me a pleasant surprise, so there!

Obviously, this one’s based on Jeph Loeb/Ed McGuiness’ first story arc on the Superman/Batman comics.  A DCU Animated feature BASED on Ed McGuiness art?  Awesome.  Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy voice acting?  YES!  (Somewhere out there, Jeph Loeb is laughing hysterically.)  What’s exciting is FINALLY seeing some McGuiness art rendered in animated form!  (Damion Scott Batgirl next feature, please?)

Also, Composite Superman/Batman robot wut wot!

Here’s a link to the official Superman/Batman DVD site, and here’s the trailer from that site:

Superman Batman: Public Enemies – Official Trailer

Also, they have twitter!  Release is on 9.29.09!  Woot!

Favorite Amazonian-comicbook-character-invented-by-a-psychologist?  Wonder Woman.

These Direct-to-Video animated features are something to behold — who would’ve thought we’d be seeing an animated version of Deadpool earlier this year?

Admitted, the first few DCU animated features didn’t take off on a good start — Superman:Doomsday, anyone?  There was now a reason to hesitate;  and what if a new feature just sucks?  That’d be such a waste of money and fan-anticipation.

Wonder Woman, on the other hand, is a surprise.  From the get-go, this Gail-Simone-crafted retelling of Diana’s origin is filled with action.  Clocking in at just over an hour, viewers will get a ton of action scenes, a preview of life on Themyscira, Diana’s reckless youth, and a grand showdown finale in Washington.

It also helps that there’s surprisingly sharp banter between Diana and Trevor, as they debate on how men and women are different by design.

Keri Russel voices Diana, and several other celebrities turn in some of the best voicework for any superhero animated feature yet.  I’m also loving the grown-up Timm-iverse style that’s present here.  It’s just the beginning, and I’m already looking forward to a follow-up.  If all DCU animated features are going to be this good, I’m going to be crossing my fingers very, very hard in the hopes that they give The Dark Knight Returns a treatment.

Wonder Woman is amazing — 5/5 for me, and if you’re still not convinced, two words: Amazon Zombies. 

5/5

Would you honestly play through a game with Batman and Sub-Zero because of the story?

If it’s all well and good to you, then I’m gonna drop a massive SPOILER bomb — when you finish the game as a good guy, he’d/she’d find some unique way to keep their own OR BOTH universes safe from destruction — there might be a morality play involved, etc, etc, along the way — you play as a bad guy?  There’s bound to be a twist somewhere where the villain(s) from the DC Universe team up with the MK bad guys to take over the world, let the other universe exist and move on to it, or maybe the villain might opt to go save his/her own universe, only, in a darker, meaner, badder-er way.  (with the Fatalities and whatnot)

Either way, I’m pretty sure the writers did a good job of making sense of this universe-crossing fisticuff.  By the way, here’s the story trailer.  Enjoy!

(By 1:41, Batman says, “It’s worse than I expected … much worse.” … WAT)

There isn’t even a scene where they try to talk it out — become one big, inter-universal group, trying to take down the “bigger forces at play” — but then that would’ve meant the fighting didn’t have to happen.  Which would make for a really boring non-game.

From what we’ve seen over the last 6 or 7 months, the game is getting the same amount of attention and development lovin’ that a new MK would get, so fight-fans don’t need to worry.

What I do wonder about is, would you be able to pit same-universe characters against each other?  All the media downloads seem to want to project the worlds colliding thing.  (I’d like to see some Batman – Deathstroke in there.)  Plus, that’d completely screw up the story, right?

Which side will you choose?  The game comes out November 16.

Isn’t it quite obvious?  Midway/DC thinks that Batman is the star in MK vs DC!  Why else would he be at the forefront (and be the first one in those demo videos) of the game cover?  Supes is waaaaay in the back.

Plus, why is he suddenly paired up against Scorpion?  What happened to those teaser images/video?  The one where he’s getting beat up by Sub-Zero?

With all the hype surrounding THAT other game with DC characters, it’s easy to overlook this other game in development.

It seems like they’re taking a Matrix Online approach — so instead of being any one of the members of the JLA, you’re this new up-and-coming hero who fights alongside Batman, Superman, etc.

The cool thing about it is, the overall creative director for this game is Jim Lee — so here’s your chance to see 3D representations of his work, in game form.

The video from here. The game’s myspace page here.

For reals?! Well, apparently, MK 8 will be MK vs. DC. This preview trailer shows a video of Batman beating the iceblocks off Sub-Zero. Which raises a few questions, namely, you know, Batman being a mortal and Sub-Zero an undead mystical supernatural ninja-type — how would he do actual damage?! (These are things I geek about.) Well, Namco DID mix in Star Wars with Soul Calibur, so crossovers shouldn’t surprise me.

Plus, the game’s title will be … (wait for it…) Worlds Collide. Huh. So it took a decade to catch up with MvC? (Plus, comments like “DC won’t allow its heroes to kill…” meaning … an MK without fatalities?)

From the official website: http://www.worldscollide.com
Batman belongs to DC; MK and Sub-Zero belong to Midway Entertainment.

Click the image for the video.