Scotching Those 4Chan DC Comics Rumours

I've been reporting gossip about the comic book industry online for nigh on 25 years. When I began, all this were message boards round these parts. But stories, gossip, rumours can come from anywhere, and I like to keep an eye on what others are saying.

Message boards are still a good place to find leaks that don't come directly to you, but anonymity can makes it hard to judge veracity. Sometimes, like this post on Neogaf, they are bang on the money. Other times, like these posts on 4Chan, they are well off the mark.

Sometimes certain folk will take stories from Bleeding Cool that have been well sourced, even if I can't share that source, add a whole load of made-up bollocks, and then post it somewhere else. And it has the frisson of truth as some people might have already read aspects of the stories on Bleeding Cool.

So it seems to be with this 4Chan post from yesterday which has been doing the rounds.

What's coming to DC in the future

Anonymous Mon 09 Jul 2018 21:35:54

>Tom King won't be changing any of his plot ideas despite the public backlash of the wedding. Next two arcs will be about Bruce Wayne self-reflecting on if being Batman is a good thing. He'll ask Dick to take over temporarily. The Bane cliffhanger won't be followed up on until around Decemeber/January.

>Dickbats won't be a thing in Justice League, but it will spill over to Ben Percy's Nightwing. It'll double ship for a few months, and go back to monthly. DC's also going to push the Nightwing-Batgirl relationship as damage control for the wedding trainwreck, but don't expect anything big to come out of it.

>The solo Red Hood direction will just be for an arc. Scott Lobdell originally wanted to use Roy Harper's death as the catalyst for this angle, but editors stepped in so that he could be used for Heroes in Crisis. Joker's Daughter will be taking Roy's place on the chopping block. Lobdell will be gone after this arc, by the way, to focus more on screenwriting.

>Peter Tomasi will be on Detective Comics, but not until after 1000. His pitch is a globe-trotting Batman fighting the League of Assassins worldwide.

>Speaking of Heroes in Crisis, it's in a messy state. Tom King originally wanted to do just a 6-issue mini-series about PTSD, but Didio wanted to be more like Identity Crisis 2.0. The three suspects are Booster Gold, Harley Quinn, and Wally West, since they're the only survivors. The two victims are Ray Palmer and Kyle Rayner. Rayner doesn't die until late in the event, though. The killer is Hunter Zolomon disguised as Wally.

>After the fallout from Flash War and HiC, Wally will get a mini-series written by John Walker, about him getting his life together and back with Linda.

>Huge Justice League crossover happening in January, between Justice League, Justice League Dark, and maybe Odyssey (see below). Superboy Prime is unleashed from the Source Wall. Yeah, you heard me. Green Lantern Corps might have a tie-in, too.

>Justice League Odyssey is dead on arrival, by the way. Editorial demanded that some changes in the script after Sejic had already drawn two issues. Sejic's pissed about it, and is only going to do four issues instead of 12. Then he'll write and draw his Black Label book.

>Editorial is letting Adam Glass a lot of leeway with Teen Titans. He pitched it to them as "teenage Suicide Squad", and they're are letting him run with it. Expect new characters to join, and others to be killed off. The higher-ups are really happy with this direction so far.

>Titans, on the other hand, the top brass isn't happy with. Abnett has about 8 issues of scripts done, and DC's going to double-ship them just to get them out of the way before cancelling or revamping the title. They're letting writers make pitches. The general feeling is that they want to move Nightwing out of the group, and replace him with Red Robin.

>Bryan Edward Hill will be writing an Outsiders title, with Black Lightning, Katana, Geo-Force, Halo. Nightwing will replace Batman as the team supervisor (and for Young Justice synergy). Simon Baz will be on the team, too. A crossover between this and Percy's Nightwing is planned.

>Grant Morrison Green Lantern is real, btw, and it's a 12-issue run about Hal Jordan exploring the Multiverse and learning about how Lantern willpower works in other worlds. Expect an SDCC announcement. Green Lanterns will be retitled as Green Lantern Corps (it'll keep the numbering) and will follow the other Lanterns (John, Guy, Kilowog, etc), with Dan Jurgens writing.

>KSD takes over Aquaman after the SS crossover, and she'll be writing about Mera, Queen of Atlantis. Aquaman will stay as an underwater Robin Hood, and there will be a Romeo and Juliet doomed romance.

>Brian Azzarello is taking Suicide Squad back to its roots, kind of. Harley, Deadshot, and Boomerang are still on the team, but the rest will be expendable villains (like Cheshire, Clock King, Raptor), with a mix of old and new. DC might publish this under Black Label.

>New Age of Heroes has been disappointing, saleswise. The Unexpected is done after six issues. Immortal Men and Damage are ending at 12. The Terrifics is doing well enough to last. Sideways and Silencer might get a few more issues because Didio likes them.

Some of them share aspects with previously reported Bleeding Cool stories, such as David F. Walker writing a Flash comic, Kelly Sue DeConnick on Aquaman, Brian Azzarello on Suicide Squad, Booster, Harley and Wally as the three suspects in Heroes In Crisis, Grant Morrison on a 12-issue run with Green Lantern,  Peter Tomasi starting on Detective Comics, or New Age of Heroes finishing with issues 12. And I like the idea that he might start on Detective Comics #1000 — it has symmetry with Brian Michael Bendis on Action Comics #1000, the man who pushed Tomasi off Superman. It's a neat idea — but I've no idea if it's true. Could it be a clever guess?

Because I have been able to scotch a number of the details of these stories with very well-connected sources. And since it's been spreading, maybe here's an opportunity to cry bunkum.

Just as people are free to do with me… 

The difference, if any, is this. I've been writing this kind of thing for 25 years under my own name. Decades worth of scoops you can look to. And yes, occasional times when I get things wrong. But hopefully there's a history there you can make a judgment on. And I thank you for staying with me this long.

UPDATE: One of the mentioned creators just pitched in…