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Ten Of Bleeding Cool's Biggest Scoops Of 2024

Okay, so Bleeding Cool had a few scoops this year. Here's a look at ten of them that stood out to me over the year.

Okay, so Bleeding Cool had a few scoops this year. Here's a look at ten of them that stood out to me over the year.

1. Scott Snyder Launching The Absolute Universe and DC All In

The first inklings came in October 2023. When Bleeding Cool ran gossip about an upcoming publishing project at DC Comics being spearheaded by Scott Snyder. One that has been compared to Marvel Comics' Ultimate line. And in April 2024, we had a name for it, Absolute Comics. Or just Absolute. In that same post, we also named DC All-In, as the broader initiative Snyder and other creators had been working on as an attempt to do New 52 right, alongside a DC Rebirth with a more holistic approach. That the team on DC All-In are aiming to give fans something bold while leaving alone what's already working, with more details that followed.

2. The Absolute Universe Creative Teams

We scooped that the Absolute line would launch from DC Comics in October 2024 with Absolute Batman by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta (though originally intended to be Donny Cates writing), Absolute Superman by Jason Aaron. Absolute Wonder Woman by Kelly Thompson. Absolute Flash by Jeff Lemire. Oh and that Al Ewing was involved. That the lead writers and artists would be Jason Aaron, Deniz Camp, Wes Craig, Nick Dragotta, Al Ewing, Che Grayson, Jeff Lemire, Jahnoy Lindsay, Pornsak Pichetshote, Nick Robles, Rafa Sandoval, Hayden Sherman, Scott Snyder and Kelly Thompson. Previously we had reported that the line would be about superheroes as underdogs. A radical reinvention of classic DC superheroes in a shared universe, as if they had been invented today with a Batman as a huge, street-level thug. But that this will be one strand of DC narratives going forward, with a jumping-on point across the DC Comics publishing line, as part of DC All-In. And then in July 2024 stated that we would have Al Ewing on Absolute Green Lantern, and Deniz Camp on Absolute Martian Manhunter. And at about that time, DC Comics managed to announce Absolute Batman's existence by accident in a merchandise post.

3. Marvel X-Men Creative Teams

This list wasn't perfect. But for March 2024 it was a pretty fine collation of rumours. You could at least see where each of them was coming from…

• X-Men by Gail Simone and David Marquez
• Sentinels by Alex Paknadel
• Young X by Eve Ewing
• Cyclops by Jed Mackay and Ryan Stegman
• Phoenix by Stephanie Phillips
• Wolverine by Saladin Ahmed and Greg Capullo
• Mystique by Declan Shalvey

4. Jim Lee And Jeph Loeb Returning To DC Comics on Batman: Hush 2.

Firstly in , Bleeding Cool was on the case with the changing Batman schedules. How the ongoing Batman comic written by Chip Zdarsky was meant to be released every two weeks at the end of the year. Then it wasn't, and that it has been pushed out to every month again. Bleeding Cool revealed that this was because the Batman Hush team of Jim Lee and Jeph Loeb were returning to the ongoing Batman comic book in March/April 2025 for a Hush sequel, though they were originally expected to return in November/December, hence the increased schedule for Chip's run to get it out of the door… and the changing the schedules again. We had previously revealed that Marvel had approached Jim Lee to return to the X-Men after the end of the Krakoan Age, but he had used this offer to negotiate an even better, life-changing, deal with DC Comics, for Batman.

5. DC Comics Bringing Back Vertigo

Back in November 2023, Bleeding Cool got the scoop that "in 2024 (or at this stage, more likely 2025), DC Comics will be bringing back Vertigo." And at New York Comic Con in October 2024, they announced that a) this was indeed happening and that b) the creator-owned series Nice House By The Sea by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez Bueno was pivoting from being a Black Label series to being a Vertigo book to launch the imprint.

6. Marvel/DC Omnibus Being Destroyed

This has never been officially confirmed. But Bleeding Cool broke the story that after the previously announced pair of Marvel Vs DC Omnibuses were delayed by corporate procedures, signoffs, schedules and printer availability for what was originally planned as a 3000 print run for each volume. Because they had orders that pushed that into the mid-five figures, making it the biggest print run for any comic book omnibus ever. But everything was (finally) going smoothly until the copies began arriving at the publishers and being sent out to contributors. This was suddenly stopped as it became transparently obvious that something was very, very wrong with the DC/Marvel Amalgam Omnibus. That the printing issues were so egregious, and the issues stemmed directly from the printer rather than the publishing. As a result, the five-figure print run of this thousand-plus page oversized hardcover volume was pulped, and the book was delayed until just this week…  a reprint scale that dwarfed the issues that IDW got into over the recall of Artist Proof copies of Batman Year One Artist's Edition sent out in error – another Bleeding Cool scoop that I should follow up on in the New Year.

7. The IDW Investors Call

The year began well as Bleeding Cool scooped the news that Jason Aaron was writing and launching a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1. Bleeding Cool had a bunch of weird scoops for IDW this year. We were the first to report on a number of staffers being laid off at IDW, including Publisher Mark Doyle, Marketing Manager Holly Aitchison, another in production, and one in shipping. Our story was later re-reported in Publisher's Weekly, almost word for word by Heidi MacDonald.  Then there was our news about a new EIC that IDW didn't announce for months, even though their competitors did. And there was plenty of gossip to fill in the gaps about a number of those appointments and dismissals. But the biggest scoop was probably discovering that the current CEO and new Publisher of IDW, Davidi Jonas of the Jonas family, took an investment call while in the car as as part of his duties of being a publically traded independent comic book publisher. And he gave us all some gems. That included a new George Takei book, a pivot to horror, and IDW's own superhero, Bible, crime, mafia and serial killer comics. But what of the company as a whole? As this is an investment call, he had to be pretty blunt. About how investments in trying to build their own multi-media studio had failed. But that "if those things had panned out, I think everybody would be on a yacht clinking glasses and saying how brilliant that idea was. In retrospect, it didn't work out, and those investments didn't pay off." Certainly the line "If Things Had Panned Out, Everybody Would Be On A Yacht" was repeated a lot at subsequent shows.

8. Bat-Editor Ben No More

On the 9th of January 2024, Bleeding Cool reported that Ben Abernathy had quit the Batman Group Editor job despite denials by DC Comics representatives,  and on the 10th that he was heading to Robert Kirkman's Skybound Entertainment. Almost three months later Skybound confirmed that story. as well as our report that Skybound would publish a new GI Joe #1 this year. We also tagged Rob Levin as Ben Abernathy's likely successor as Bateditor in April, confirmed in July…

9.  Joe Kelly Takes Over From Zeb Wells on Amazing Spider-Man

After scooping the existence of the Moon Knight: First Of Konshu #0 bagged and board comic book received by some comic book stores, in June 2024 we noted that it contained a preview of what was coming for Amazing Spider-Man. And that Joe Kelly would be taking over the Amazing Spider-Man ongoing series for Marvel from Zeb Wells. Recently, Marvel confirmed he would be the writer of the new Amazing Spider-Man #1, which will launch in March 2025…

10. Ultimate Spider-Man Outselling Amazing Spider-Man By 50%

Without the charts that many had relied upon, the knowledge that Ultimate Spider-Man was outselling Amazing Spider-Man was possible to glean, but it was Bleeding Cool that proved Ultimate was outselling Amazing by as much as 50%. We even took on DC Comics PR to point out that, after seven printings, it had more copies out there than Absolute Batman #1 – although that was only after four printings of the latter.

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