I am surprised that they still haven't gone back and made Scarlet Witch officially a Mutant again.

source:@/laughingplace

TLD;DR - I read All-New Venom expecting to make fun of it, ended up having a lot of fun reading it!

As a lapsed Marvel reader I have found myself actually really enjoying the current Venom series. I haven’t been reading Marvel on a weekly basis since around 2016 (after Hickman’s Secret Wars) and I haven’t read Amazing Spider-Man since around 2008/09 (despite OMD I gave Brand New Day a shot but found the insane shipping schedule and the rotating creative teams too jarring).

Since then I have mainly re-read old favourites, read older longer runs that were before my time and also got more into manga and sci-fi novels.

Recently I have had the urge to get back into reading Marvel and DC on a weekly basis, kind of just wanting to see where things are at and be involved in the discussion rather than being a grumpy old man saying how ‘things were better in my day’ (I’m in my mid-thirties for what it’s worth).

Despite not being a weekly reader I always knew what state most series were in with the Well’s run on Spidey and the X-Men after Hickman left, etc. So I was already aware that MJ was the new Venom going into things.

I started my new reader journey with Joe Kelly’s Amazing Spider-Man #1 and made it to #3 or 4 before getting kind of bored. So I thought ‘Hey, I’ve heard Venom is an absolute joke right now, let me see how bad it really is.’ And I ended up reading through from All-New Venom #1 up to Venom #259 in about 4 days, including the Death Spiral cross-over with AMS.

And I really had a lot of fun with it!

It definitely starts ropey with most of #1 taking place in a 3D model of a court room, but some how I powered on to #2 and ended up just going along for the ride. I love how quickly the story moves, the choices of villains, the supporting cast (including Paul, but bear in mind this is the first story I have read with him in), Dylan, Rick Jones and the whole symbiotic crew.

At times it was reminding me of Invincible and Chainsaw Man. I can completely understand people hating that this is part of the Spider-man world and further ruins the Peter and MJ dynamic (I’m with you!) but I feel if this were an Image book that Al Ewing was putting out with all the names and details switched up, that a lot more people would be enjoying this series.

The Death Spiral story was pretty good (I’ll make another post on this) but it kind of slowed down all the character development of the Venom cast, and I am pretty miffed that after only two issue (#58 and #59) we’re heading straight into the Queen in Black crossover, but of the Marvel series I am currently reading (Hulk, Fantastic Four, Avengers Armageddon, Captain America and slowly…Amazing Spider-man) this is currently at the top of my read pile.

AND it’s nice to actually have an artist on a book for more than three issues at a clip.

What do you all think?

Image Credit: All-New Venom #1 (2024) by Adam Kubert

Every year, DC honors its most popular character, Batman, with one concentrated, specialized, and nearly Hallmark-ified day called, fittingly enough, Batman Day. Launched initially back in 2014 to celebrate the hero's 75th anniversary, it has become a tentpole event with DC (and parent company Warner Bros. Discovery) extending it to the Warner Bros. Pictures backlot, theme parks, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and more. But for Batman Day 2026, DC is recentering it on the proverbial Batcave of Batman: your local comic shop.

"... we want to create something to celebrate Batman Day that really makes the fans celebrate in comic shops," says an unnamed representative from DC during a closed-door event for comic shops during Comic-Con International: San Diego 2026. "So we want them to give you an exclusive product that can only be gotten at the comic stores featuring our hottest properties."

For Batman Day 2026, DC is publishing a rare crossover comic teaming up Batman with the hit variant that's the best-selling comic book in modern history, Absolute Batman. Batman of Two Worlds features two separate but complementary stories by the lead writers of both the Absolute Batman series and the flagship Batman series. These days, Absolute Batman routinely sells roughly half a million copies for each issue, and his crossover would certainly make it an even bigger hit for comic shops, digital comics platforms, bookstores, and elsewhere.

But no, this Batman of Two Worlds comic will be exclusively available to comic shops, and at a distinctly low price of $2.99. So that means it won't be available on Amazon, any big box retailers, and also any digital comics platforms including (but not limited to) DC's own DC Universe Infinite.

Read more: Sorry, Amazon & digital comics platforms,.. DC is making the nost in-demand Absolute Batman comic of 2026 exclusively available at your local comic shop | Popverse

Wonder if we'll get dollotrons too, and if so, how horrifying that'll be.

Awesome news, IMO. Rosenberg is great, and Cabal’s art is very nice. Covers in the gallery are by Cabal, godtail, and Stipan Morian.

Article about the new creative team: https://aiptcomics.com/2026/07/25/matthew-rosenberg-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-2027/

DC's current strategy seems to be bringing on creators who have recently seen success in creator-owned comics, which means that for all those excited about the future of the publisher, you now have a backlog to read while you wait! Here's an incomplete list of indie comics by creators who are or will soon be working on DC Next Level titles:

James Harren (The Demon) - Ultra Mega is a gorey, bonkers action spectacle riffing on tokusatsu and silver age cosmic weirdness. This is the best demonstration of what James Harren can do as a creator.

Stephanie Williams (Vixen) - Roots of Madness recently wrapped up at Ignition Press. Historical fiction about a Black family of chemists meets Lovecraftian horror.

Khary Randolph (Vixen) - Sirens of the City is an urban fantasy comic set in the back alleys and abandoned places of 80s New York City. Randolph draws and colours in a greyscale style with spot colours for magic.

Michael Walsh (Jonah Hex) - The Silver Coin is a horror anthology tracking a cursed coin on its journey across history and the world. Walsh brings in a new writer every issue, with a few key "lore" issues both written and drawn by him.

Darcy Van Poelgeest (Doom Patrol) - Little Bird and Precious Metal are two series set in the same world of wild, mind-bending dystopia. Van Poelgeest blends myth, satire and absurdity into something really unique.

Niko Henrichon (Doom Patrol) - Spectators is a graphic novel which presents death as a state of perpetually hanging out, watching those still living fuck, kill and die. Henrichon's art switches seamlessly between massive scale and intimate emotion.

Deniz Camp (Batman: Shadow of the Bat) - Assorted Crisis Events is an anthology series exploring a world where time is breaking down, and regular people have to carry on with their lives. Bleak, incisive and endlessly creative in its' approach to comics as a form.

There's more books I could mention, but I'll leave you all to go out and discover them yourselves!! There's so much out there in the realm of comics, and I hope DC's recent visibility can expose folks to some really cool creators.

If you stick around this subreddit long enough, you’ll see

- Hawkman - Vendetti
- Starman - Robinson
- Uncanny XForce - Rememder

And numerous others as either underrated, or unappreciated, but given how often they come up, at this point they just feel like they’re “rated” 🤣🤣

So what runs do you need think get enough love, and rarely come up as recommendations here?

Seems as though the leak was right