Before I start, I just want to let you know that yes, you are reading that title right, and no, you didn’t miss an article. This is part two of a “Two Part DC Fandome Crossover Spectacular featuring ‘Insert Film Blog Name’ and ‘Comics are Important’”! I’m teaming up with my good friend Sully to bring you all our thoughts on the major announcements that came out of DC Fandome. Sully put out an article last night about all the crazy movie news, and you can check that out here….. https://stb646598.wixsite.com/website/post/dc-fandome-hall-of-heroes-recap-review
Today I’ll be covering the huge Milestone news and the two video games that were announced. So sit back, relax, and enjoy!
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
When Rocksteady announced this game via a teaser image a couple weeks ago, I was instantly transported back to the year 2013 when I just beat Batman: Arkham Origins for the WiiU (yes, I owned a WiiU, you want to make something of it?!). The credits end and I’m met with a short cutscene featuring Deathstroke in a cell at Blackgate Prison. A woman walks up to his cell and hands him a form with the words “Suicide Squad” in big, bold, lettering at the top. Fifteen year-old me freaked out because I knew that meant a Suicide Squad game was on the way. So I waited. And waited. And waited. Until six years later where we finally get some confirmation in a form of a single image of Superman with a target on his head and a hashtag reading #SuicideSquadKillsTheJusticeLeague. I’d just have to wait a couple more weeks to learn more about the game at Fandome.
So here we are now. The first teaser trailer and information about the game has been released and what do I think about? I think it’s solid. Granted, the game won’t be out until 2022, and we didn’t see any gameplay, so I’m sure my opinion on this game will change in the future. In the meantime, I’ll just give my thoughts on what we know so far.
Anytime DC does something new with the Suicide Squad, my first question is always “Who’s on the team?” and in this case, it’s pretty standard for Suicide Squad lineups. We have Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark. At first, I was kind of disappointed because of how small it was and the fact that these are the safest choices that Rocksteady could have made. It also doesn’t help that this trailer dropped a couple hours after the cast for James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad film was revealed.
However, after thinking about it for a couple of days, I sort of get it now. If this was the lineup for a Suicide Squad comic, I’d be pretty dissapointed by the size and the lineup, but since this is for a four player action game, it makes sense. You need at least four characters, and since this is the Squad’s first game, you have to make sure that each of those four characters is a fan favorite. Plus, with DLC and microtransactions being so popular today, I could totally see Rocksteady dropping a couple of character packs. Not only will this allow Suicide Squad fans to play as more characters, it will also reflect the revolving door nature of the team.
Another aspect of the Suicide Squad that’s important to have in the game is the character dynamics. This is a team that is forced to go on dangerous missions with other people that they may or may not like. Some iterations of the team have the characters constantly get on eachothers’ nerves and others have the team respect one another. In this game, it seems to lean more towards the latter. From the teaser trailer alone, you can tell that these four villains have been a part of the Suicide Squad for a while. They easily get annoyed with one another, but you can tell that they have a sort of “we’re all in this together” mentality. I really like this team dynamic because it will allow for a lot of fun character interactions.
Now to talk about the other 66% of the Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s title, “Kill the Justice League”. Like a lot of fans, I’m not crazy about the concept of killing the Justice League. I know that the Justice League aren’t the real villains in the game because the first thing we see in the trailer is a Brainiac ship attached to a skyscraper in Metropolis. Because of this, it’s pretty clear to see that Brainiac is controlling the Justice League. Regardless, we still see Superman kill an innocent person and our mission is still to “kill the Justice League”, and that doesn’t really sit well with me.
However, if I’m going to be completely honest, I still plan on getting this game because I’ve been waiting for this game for years, and I feel like the whole “kill the Justice League” aspect of the game is more of a marketing ploy rather than an actual part of the story.
Gotham Knights
The beginning of DC Fandome was exciting to say the least. I was on a Zoom call with my friends to watch some of the early trailers and announcements. I spent the entire Wonder Woman 1984 panel trying to figure out some wi-fi issues I was having, but I thankfully figured that stuff out just as the Warner Bros Montreal reveal panel started.
What happened next was that the Batman game of my dreams was announced: Gotham Knights, a Batman game where Batman isn’t a playable character! I’m not saying I don’t like Batman, I just think that there are a lot of Bat Family characters that are a lot more interesting. The game follows Dick Greyson (Nightwing), Barbara Gordon (Batgirl), Jason Todd (Red Hood), and Tim Drake (Robin) as they all take up the mantle as Gotham’s protectors when Batman is killed. All while this is happening, an old and mysterious organization called the Court of Owls grows in the shadows.
One of my favorite aspects of the DC Universe is the concept of legacy characters. I love the idea of sidekicks taking up the mantle and responsibilities of the heroes that inspired them, so to see this idea come to life in video game form makes me so damn excited! Also, if you know me well, then you’d know that Tim Drake is one of my top five favorite DC characters.
After the trailer, we were treated to a seven minute gameplay video featuring Batgirl and Robin (the two characters I’m the most excited for). As expected, the combat is reminiscent of the previous Batman Arkham games. The two characters seemed like they had two different playstyles, so I think it’s safe to say that Nightwing and Red Hood will also play differently. Robin is even sporting a costume that is similar to his original Red Robin costume from the comics which confirms that alternate costumes are making a comeback too.
The only aspect of this story that I’m kind of worried about is the story. I’ve already mentioned how I love the set-up for the story, but with the inclusion of the Court of Owls and how they’re tied to Nightwing’s origins, I just hope that this game doesn’t turn into “Nightwing (ft. some other people)”. I would like to see how each member of Batfamily including Alfred reacts to Batman’s death.
About a week ago, the Gotham Knights twitter account put out a list of Batman related comics that the developers liked. The list included Gotham Central, Red Robin: The Grail, Batman: Hush, Batman: Gates of Gotham, Grayson: Agents of Spyral, Batgirl of Burnside, Batman: Under the Red Hood, Birds of Prey: End Run, Batman: Court of Owls. It’s clear that the developers will be borrowing parts of these books and putting them into the game. Books like Court of Owls and Gates of Gotham make sense because they deal with the Batfamily discovering Gotham City’s secrets. Other books like Grayson and Birds of Prey bring up some questions because they both involve Nightwing and Batgirl giving up their respective superhero aliases.
2021 already looks like a fantastic year for video games with exciting new games like Resident Evil VIII: The Village and two new Monster Hunter games for Switch; however, Gotham Knights is easily my most anticipated game of 2021, and I can’t wait to learn more about it.
Milestone Returns
Now, for my favorite announcement of DC Fandome; the return of Milestone Media! Well, this isn’t really a “new” announcement per se, but a promise that we will see new Milestone comics early next year. For those of you that don’t know, Milestone Media was a company that was founded in the early 90s by a group of Black comic book writers and artists. The goal of the company was to put out a series of comics with minority leads in order to create more representation in a predominately white medium. If you’re not familiar with their comics like Icon, Hardware, or Blood Syndicate, you’ll probably recognize Static which inspired the Kids WB cartoon, “Static Shock”. The driving force of Milestone Media was the late, great Dwayne McDuffie. The company had a publishing deal with DC Comics; however, in the early 2010s, DC had pushed Milestone aside with the final title being Static Shock which was part of DC’s New 52 initiative. After years of legal issues, DC Comics and Milestone Media have come to an agreement and announced that Milestone would return…..in March of 2018. That date came and went and there was no news as to why there were no new Milestone books. Fast forward again to Fandome and a “Surprise DC Comics panel” is teased. When the panel began we were greeted with moderator, Mark Bernardin, who reveals that he is moderating the Milestone panel! The list of panelists included Denys Cowan (artist), Jim Lee (publisher), Phil LaMarr (voice of Static), and Reginald Hudlin (writer).
The first half of the panel was just the panelists reminiscing about their time with the original Milestone Media along with an abridged history of the company. Then they began talking about the future of Milestone. Hudlin and Cowan made it clear that they wanted to emphasize the “media” aspect of Milestone Media. This means that they want to adapt these characters into other mediums besides comics. They’ve done this in the past with the extremely successful “Static Shock” cartoon. Potential projects that were mentioned included a live action Static movie, direct to video movies, and scripted podcasts. I was really excited when I heard about these; however, there was still one question that was lingering on my and many other fans’ minds; WHEN ARE WE GETTING THE COMICS!? Fortunately, that question was answered! Milestone will return this February! The titles that were discussed included a Static ogn, a Static digital series, and an Icon and Rockette series. In addition to this as well as a promise to fans that this will indeed happen a free preview comic was available to read on the DC Fandome website!
This preview was written, drawn, and colored by a bevvy of creators, some of which were Milestone alums. Personally, I really enjoyed this issue, and I’m super excited to read more about these characters! Thankfully, for me and many other readers who never had the chance to read the original Milestone comics, we don’t have to wait until February. Starting next month, DC Comics will be putting out the original Milestone comics digitally on services like Comixology and their own DC Universe app. In addition to that, DC will also release trade paperbacks of these stories early next year. The world needs Milestone Media more than ever now, and I’m glad that DC is willing to provide it for fans across the world.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I had a lot of fun with DC Fandome! It provided a fantastic virtual convention experience that I could partake in with my friends for free! If I were to rank it among the other virtual-cons, I’d say it was definitely better than SDCC @ Home but not as good as Skybound Xpo. I know that sounds super biased of me because of how big of a Skybound fan I am, but I just felt that Skybound Xpo felt a lot more even regarding coverage of different mediums. If you like comics, there were a couple of comic panels. If you like games, there were a couple of game panels. And so on and so on. With DC Fandome, especially that first day, the majority of the panels were focused on film and tv. I understand why, movies and shows are what DC makes the most money off of, so it makes sense to put a lot of focus on those aspects. Plus, in their defense, the panels were excellent (the best ones being The Suicide Squad and The Batman). My problem is that at the end of the day, DC Comics is a comic book company, and I felt that Fandome just sort of pushed the comics into the corner. Despite that, I would be down for another DC Fandome as long as DC is willing to show their comics (and the creators that work on them) a bit more love.
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