SDCC 2015: Joss Whedon Announces New Comic, His "Victorian, Female Batman"

[Ragdoll]

Am I a bad fan if I wish Joss wasn't so successful these days? I wish he had free time to write the Buffy comics personally still, and could write some Serenity comics.

Does he have any projects besides this in the works, now that he is done doing Marvel movies for the foreseeable future?

[TheFerg714]

Am I a bad fan if I wish Joss wasn't so successful these days? I wish he had free time to write the Buffy comics personally still, and could write some Serenity comics.

Does he have any projects besides this in the works, now that he is done doing Marvel movies for the foreseeable future?

I still haven't watched his SDCC panel yet, but I know Dr. Horrible 2 has been in the works for years now.

I'm actually really liking what Dark Horse is doing with the Serenity comics. His brother seems to have a pretty good grasp on the world and characters. And I'm digging the "when the time is right; when we have a good enough story" approach.
Theoretically, I'm sort of okay with the franchise moving away from Whedon's direct involvement, but it's just not turning out very good. Half of Season 9 was phenomenal. The Buffy half mostly sucked, but they (they, being Whedon and DH) were left with a perfect opportunity to round out the whole line. Unfortunately it's not turning out as well as I had hoped.

If you have to introduce your character by saying "It's X, but...", then you open yourself to that kind of criticism.

I think it's pretty clear that he didn't mean a literal female, Victorian Batman. She's just SIMILAR TO Batman. Here's the exact quote:
"It’s a Victorian thriller about a meek chambermaid who is fed to a dark horror -- but instead of dying, she returns, with knowledge, power, and rage she can neither deny nor control."

Obviously, he was using Batman as a very rough and general archetype. To criticize it so soon, just because the character is somehow related to Batman, is silly.

[MrStatham]

Yawn. I'm sure she'll be a standard Whedon badass female with goofy dialogue and a traumatic backstory to justify how badass she is rather than just being badass, and it'll be dressed up with some pretty art. Whedon did not encourage me the last time he tried to do a period piece with his Runaways run, where he seemed to include a child bride subjected to physical, sexual and mental abuse just because, rather than just making a girl who wanted to escape poverty in that era.

[TheFerg714]

I'm sure she'll be a standard Whedon badass female with goofy dialogue and a traumatic backstory to justify how badass she is rather than just being badass

Yea totally. Like Buffy, Willow, Cordelia, Zoe, Kaylee, Inara, Adele DeWitt, Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost, Satsu, Fray, Bea, Skye, Melinda May, Simmons, and Mockingbird.

Oh, wait.. your stereotype kind of fell about there, didn't it?

[AdamFTF]

If you have to introduce your character by saying "It's X, but...", then you open yourself to that kind of criticism.

But almost all comic characters are retreads/mash-ups going back to the beginning. Superman was originally John Carter crossed with Doc Savage crossed with Moses and with a social justice spin. The original Green Lantern was the Ring of the Niebelung crossed with Aladdin plus some stuff about the power of the human will. Heck, the original Green Arrow and Speedy were a direct Batman and Robin rip-off with some Robin Hood and Will Scarlet, Robinson Crusoe and Last of the Mohicans added for flavor.

I suppose maybe the problem isn't so much making comparisons to similar characters as drawing from too few sources.

[MajorHoy]

Does anybody follow Whedon on twitter or anything?

Has this project even been mentioned again by him in 2016?

[TheFerg714]

Does anybody follow Whedon on twitter or anything?

Has this project even been mentioned again by him in 2016?

Not that I know of... I was under the impression that he was taking 2016 off, and we'd get more stuff in 2017. With Buffy and Angel Season 11 coming out in November and January respectively, it looks like this might be the case.

[MajorHoy]

I've seen a few stories recently where they're linking this project to the more recently announced plans for a Whedon Batgirl movie.

http://uproxx.com/hitfix/batgirl-jos...n-twist-comic/
&
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/...tman-marvel-dc

[dishpan]

I've seen a few stories recently where they're linking this project to the more recently announced plans for a Whedon Batgirl movie.

http://uproxx.com/hitfix/batgirl-jos...n-twist-comic/
&
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/...tman-marvel-dc

Nice find, and thanks for sharing because I would've missed these otherwise.

I was looking forward to the comic a lot and that's an interesting connection. I hope one of the companies they contacted responds with details.

[MajorHoy]

And the delays begin with #2.

Hell, we haven't even seen issue #1 yet!

my bank account is screwed. yet another book on my list.

I think your bank account is still safe at the moment.

Joss Whedon can basically do no wrong, so I'm in.

Well, since we haven't had any further word on this that I'm aware of, I'm not sure I can fully support that "Joss Whedon can basically do no wrong" part.

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By the way, the only reason I'm resurrecting this thread is in the vain hope somebody heard something about this at some point since back in May of this year.
(And I started thinking again about Twist since Lady Mechanika: The Clockwork Assassin just wrapped up this month.)

[TotalSnorefest]

By the way, the only reason I'm resurrecting this thread is in the vain hope somebody heard something about this at some point since back in May of this year.
(And I started thinking again about Twist since Lady Mechanika: The Clockwork Assassin just wrapped up this month.)

Joss Whedon got called in last-minute to take over the entire Justice League movie project, after Zack Snyder had to step away due to an awful family tragedy. Reshoots, editing, post-production, etc. are most likely Whedon's primary concern right now, maybe we'll hear more after that is finished & released in late November?

[MajorHoy]

Joss Whedon got called in last-minute to take over the entire Justice League movie project, after Zack Snyder had to step away due to an awful family tragedy. Reshoots, editing, post-production, etc. are most likely Whedon's primary concern right now, maybe we'll hear more after that is finished & released in late November?

Well, considering this project was announced two years ago back in 2015, then there was NOTHING more, I really wonder how much the DC movie projects (including that Batgirl movie talked about back in the spring) are really the problem (or are they more just a minor excuse).

[TotalSnorefest]

Well, considering this project was announced two years ago back in 2015, then there was NOTHING more, I really wonder how much the DC movie projects (including that Batgirl movie talked about back in the spring) are really the problem (or are they more just a minor excuse).

Yeah good point, looks like it was announced in Summer '15 as well? So maybe right after Avengers 2 was done & released? In that case I'm not really sure, could be any number of things. Perhaps he scrapped the series and mined its best "female Batman" scenes to alter for the Batgirl script instead, like this link suggests. Or maybe the project is on (indefinite) hold for another, more boring reason, like conflicting schedules/someone involved took another job during the wait/maybe someone decided the whole thing wasn't good enough.

Just baseless speculation, mind, I don't think Dark Horse has said it's cancelled outright whiiiichhhh, could mean they're expecting it to emerge at some point, or, alternatively, nobody really knows the current status of the project (yet) and they don't wanna can it outright should anyone want to return to it after all.

[TheFerg714]

I highly doubt this is ever going to happen tbh.

He just got done with JL, Batgirl is on the way, and a Giles mini-series is coming out in February. I would very surprised if this thing got any traction.

[MajorHoy]

It's just that since a big deal was made about it being an upcoming project at San Diego Comic Con back in 2015 you would think something more specific about what happened would have been said at some point.