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I CALLED IT.

Yes, Comicgasm readers, I called it months ago. When Batman comes back from his time-hopping adventures in Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, I figured that they weren’t going to let Dick Grayson go back to the Nightwing identity that easily. No, I said. A lot of readers have already warmed up to Dick Grayson as Batman, so he was going to stay on as The Dark Knight.

Okay, so I never really wrote my little theory on this blog, and I was hoping for a Batman Beyond kind of dynamic – Dick running around as Batman while Bruce coaches him and feeds him information from the Batcave. I never expected that Grant Morrison would throw a curveball and give us Batman Inc. – a series where the newly-returned Bruce Wayne builds a Starbucks-like franchise of Batmen.

I guess everyone who’s been following the saga of Morrison’s Batman figured out that we’d be getting multiple Batmen the moment Batman Inc. was announced, but the story in The New York Post just made it official:

In fact, two might not be enough either, DC publisher Dan DiDio said.

"Bruce Wayne realizes that he can’t just be the grim avenger he was before," DiDio said. "He wants to be more aggressive in his reach, and realizes the change that Batman as a symbol can effect around the world."

In the new title, "Batman Inc.," Wayne does what any billionaire would: build a Starbucks-style franchise of Dark Knights.

"Without giving too much away here, we wanted to show how Batman can have a global influence," he said.

You know what? I don’t mind having more than one Batman running around the world. That’s cool. That’s a new idea that hasn’t been explored in canon before. I’m just glad they’re keeping Damian “I’m a badass motherfucker” Wayne as Robin.

Now that the Nightwing costume is going to be empty for at least another year, can we have Cassandra Cain as a female Nightwing please? (Fuck Chris Kent as Nightwing, really – the Nightwing identity belongs to the Bat-verse)

What do you think?

[via Cocoy]

Over at Comicbookmovie.com, they have gotten their hands on seven Green Lantern aliens from the upcoming movie starring Ryan Reynolds, and if they are legit, the movie costumes and character designs are pretty close to the comics – with the exception of Hal Jordan’s costume, of course.

The seven aliens are Boodikka, Bzzd, Morro, Galius Zed, M’Dahna, Rot Lop Fan, and Salaak.

The images are after the break.

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So Fred Van Lente is going to write a new Avengers series to add to the current batch of Avenger titles that are going out monthly. Seriously, Avengers, New Avengers, Secret Avengers (which is awesome), Avengers Prime (which would be awesome if Tony Stark stopped acting like a man-child) and Mighty Avengers – it’s like the X-Men, you guys.

It was speculated that Fred Van Lente’s going to write a “Space Avengers” book, led by Nova – and we all know how awesome that would sound. But then Marvel actually took an interesting, albeit head-scratching decision, to make Dead Avengers.

Basically, the three-issue Chaos War tie-in sees The Vision, Captain Mar-Vell, Yellowjacket, Swordsman, Deathcry and Dr. Druid back to life as they fight one of the Chaos king’s allies, who is an Avengers villain.

Okay, the timing of this book couldn’t be more terrible because at DC, Geoff Johns and company is rolling out the uneven Brightest Day, which has a similar concept – heroes coming back to life. Which is a shame, though, because I’m pretty sure Marvel can outdo DC in this.

All in all, Dead Avengers looks like it’s going to be a fun book – I mean dead non-zombie heroes come the fuck on – but I’m wondering why they had to put out this series now.

[via]

There’s absolutely no words to describe how awesomed I was when Grant Morrison first announced that Bruce Wayne is going to start franchising Batman and is going to turn it into a brand in “Batman Inc.". Seriously, it doesn’t matter if you hate or love Morrison’s run on Batman, I think we can all agree that he did more for the character for the last 20 years over any other writer. And Batman as a brand is the logical (or illogical) next step.

In the new series, Batman will create a team of super-heroes who will be wearing his colors. The team will include Dick Grayson, Knight and Squire, El Gaucho and eight others. Again, Morrison says, “it’s all about the branding.”

Incidentally, this new era of Batman also means that we get a costume change:

I don’t need to explain how much I absolutely loathe the yellow oval on Batman’s chest. Although I grew up watching the Adam West TV show and reading Bronze Age Batman comics where he is always depicted with the yellow oval and symbol on his chest, I really prefer the oval-less symbol. It gives me the impression that Batman is a much more badass character that way.

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So. After the amazing Thor trailer was leaked the other week, we now have the SDCC 2010 teaser trailer for the upcoming Josh Whedon film The Avengers out as well.

There isn’t really a lot i n it. In fact, if you were expecting a lot, you’d be disappointed. It’s just Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson) narrating while we watch The Avengers logo (created by Ahmet Ahmet and Peter Frankfurt of Imaginary Forces) being formed.

Click on the logo below (or here) for the trailer. Quick, before it’s taken down!

Okay, it’s not exactly awesome, but it ain’t bad, especially for a film that hasn’t even begun production yet.

The Avengers is going to be directed by Joss Whedon and will star Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Clark Gregg, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner.