Another busy week of DC Entertainment news, the biggest, of course, being the North American release of Warner Bros. Pictures’ Aquaman directed by James Wan, starring Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Dolph Lundren, Yahya Adbul Mateen and Nicole Kidman. Also, we had a lot of casting news for the upcoming Stargirl series and the finale of the first season of Titans. In comics, DC Daily celebrated 50 years of Marv Wolfman and the reveal of several covers for Detective #1000. So let’s dive right in! (Pun totally intended)

Aquaman in now in theaters everywhere, but as most of us know it had been released early in foreign markets to beat the rush of other holiday films like Bumblebee and Mary Poppins Returns. As of Wednesday, the film had done very well overseas, bringing in over $300 million, $200 million of that coming from China alone. Currently on Rotten Tomatoes it has a score 68% with 132 fresh reviews and 62 rotten reviews. What is interesting about the reviews it looks like people either loved it or hated it.

I had the opportunity to see the film last Saturday in a special screening provided by Amazon Prime and I thought I found it to be a very enjoyable superhero film. I was impressed with Wan’s film because of all the challenges he faced making this film. First is the fact that he had to address the underwater conversations and character’s movements. He also needed to address the seven underwater kingdoms all while telling the story of Arthur, his mother Atlanna and his brother Orm, while somehow fitting in Mera and an origin story for one of his biggest enemies, Black Manta. For as bad as some of DC’s films have been this is definitely a step in the right direction and I look forward to hopefully getting a sequel.

In other DC movie news, Todd Phillips, director for Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix, shared via his Instagram account that the film had officially finished production and was headed over to the editing room. Speaking of the Clown Prince of Crime, Lakeith Stanfield who we’ve seen in Get Out and Death Note, has once again lobbied his interest in playing his version of the Joker saying that it was “inevitably going to happen” even if he had to make the film himself. This is not the first time he has talked about playing the iconic Batman villain, so it will be interesting to see if he would get an opportunity in the future.

Today on the DC Universe’s streaming service is the finale for their first live-action series Titans. I will give my thoughts on the first season on next week’s DC Weekly. Although there are many other series in the works for the streaming service, rumors are that the second season of Titans may begin production as soon as February, as the team had started working on it as soon as they found out they had been picked up for another season.

Also this week there has been a lot of additions to the cast of DC Universe’s Stargirl which is scheduled to debut in August of 2019. It looks like the Justice Society of America and the Injustice Society are going to play a large role in the series. Below is a list of actors and the roles they are playing for the series that have recently been announced, click on the names for more on their roles!

Joel McHale – Starman
Henry Thomas – Dr. Mid-Nite
Brian Stapf – Wildcat
Lou Ferrigno Jr. – Hourman
Joy Osmanski – Tigress
Neil Hopkins – Sportsmaster
Nelson Lee – Dragon King

In comic book news this week, DC Entertainment released the main and variant covers for Detective Comics #1000, you can check them all out in the link below. We also got our first look at the new version of the Arkham Knight, who will make his jump from the video game into the pages of Detective #1000 in a story written by Peter J. Tomasi. Along with the variant covers, the link also contains the names of all of the contributors who will be adding in their original stories to celebrate this amazing milestone in pop culture. This 96-page book will be available in stores and digitally on March 27th, 2019 and is part of a year-long celebration of 80 years of Batman.

FIRST LOOK AT THE ARKHAM KNIGHT AND COVERS FOR DETECTIVE COMICS #1000

This week on DC Daily, DC Comics publisher Dan Didio surprised legendary writer Marv Wolfman with a one of a kind Deathstroke Statue based on his first appearance, celebrating his fifty years with DC Comics. Next year will also mark 40 years since Wolfman and George Perez launched their iconic New Teen Titans #1. Speaking to DC Daily about the series, Wolfman talked about how important this series was to him because it’s characters were a perfect age to tell emotional stories. Also it was important to him for his Teen Titans not to have adult supervision so that they could handle their own problems and fail at times. The New Teen Titans introduced a variety of new villains to DC Comics including Deathstroke, Trigon, H.I.V.E. and the Fearsome Five. The influence of his work can be seen today in many comic books, animated and live action series featuring the Teen Titans. Currently Wolfman is the writer featuring one of the characters he created, Raven, titled Raven: Daughter of Darkness, which will release it’s eleventh issue January 2nd, 2019.

As always I will wrap this up with my top DC Comics for this week. For more in-depth coverage on these books and others be sure to listen to The Comic Source Podcast!

5. Catwoman #6 written and illustrated by Joelle Jones
4. Batman #61 written by Tom King with artwork by Travis Moore
3. Justice League #14 written by James Tynion IV & Scott Snyder with artwork by Jim Cheung, Stephen Segovia and Mark Morales.
2. Freedom Fighters #1 written by Robert Venditti with artwork by Eddie Barrows
1. American Carnage #2 written by Bryan Edward Hill with artwork by Leandro Fernandez

Another busy week for all things DC! What news stood out to you this week? Let us know in the comment section below!

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