As Nightwing & Flamebird wrap up their run in next week's ACTION COMICS #889, we wanted to give them a truly dynamite final cover, so we contacted the talented Alex Garner, and he delivered this gorgeous piece of work! Check it out and don't miss #889, as Nightwing & Flamebird have their final showdown with the warped clone of the Kryptonian sun god, Rao, which leads directly into May's WAR OF THE SUPERMEN event!

Hey comics fan, got any plans this weekend? If you're like me you're at a bit of a crossroads during this time of year. The NFL season is over, the Olympics are over, Oscar Season is over...what are you supposed to do? Well fear not because Convention Season has just started! That's right, chances are that we'll be bringing the 2010 DC Nation Tour to a town near you sometime soon and trust me when I tell you that it's a show you won't want to miss.

I leave for our first stop this week and I am STOKED. We'll be at the Emerald City Comicon at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, Washington on March 13th & 14th. If you're anywhere near the area please come out and see us. As if the chance to meet myself and Group Editor Eddie Berganza wasn't enough there are some special guests at the convention that you've maybe heard of. Check it out:

Brian Azzarello, Kurt Busiek, Sterling Gates, Patrick Gleason, Brandon Jerwa, Geoff Johns, Aaron Lopresti, Kevin Maguire, Doug Mahnke, Dustin Nguyen, Mike Norton, James Robinson, Greg Rucka, Philip Tan, Pete Tomasi, Eric Trautmann, Jen Van Meter, Len Wein, JH Williams III and Pete Woods.

I hope your face is OK after it was melted off by the sheer awesomeness of that list of artists and writers!

If you are planning to attend the show, please come by and get all kinds of cool stuff from us at the DC booth and be sure to check out our panels:

DC NATION!

Saturday, 1-2pm

GREEN LANTERN: THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT

Saturday, 3-4pm

SUNDAY CONVERSATION

Sunday, 12-1pm

SUPERMAN GOES TO WAR

Sunday, 2-3pm

And listen Seattle - no pressure but you guys are the first convention of 2010 and the Canadian fans have started to bring us potato chips so I hope you guys are ready to step it up.

See you in Seattle!

We’ve gotten a kick reading the great work writers Eric Trautmann, Brandon Jerwa, John Rozum, Matthew Sturges and all involved have done in the pages of THE SHIELD and THE WEB – so what else is in store for the Red Circle heroes? And if, like me, you’ve been a fan of these characters for a long time, you also know that in previous incarnations these characters were in a little group called…well, I’ll leave it up to Red Circle Editor Rachel Gluckstern to do the heavy lifting on this post. Take it away, Rachel:

“Back when the Red Circle books launched, I said that these characters have such different agendas and personalities that it would take a damn good reason to get them all in a room together.

Well.

Intel says the passphrase is "Crusaders". But can they defeat the threat they've uncovered? Or will they destroy each other instead?”

We’re right in the thick of the holidays, but for the Superman books, it’s the dawn of a new day. James Robinson and Greg Rucka are in the same boat, balancing their holiday shopping with writing WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON #12 and turning the other Superman books on their respective heads in anticipation of… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

WONK #12 (gosh, I’m going to miss that name) is the finale, the wrap-up, the cherry on the sundae that has been WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON for the last year. A very devious conspiracy has been afoot on New Krypton, one that could change the balance of power in our solar system, and not in a good way! Because we were all raised not to do things in a simple, easy way, that means change abounds in the related Super-titles as well. Since we’re not in a position yet to show you any interiors, check out this variant cover by Ladrönn, who handled the variant for the first issue of the series! (And as a bonus, check out this page by Pete Woods from WONK #11!)

While WONK is doing its death dance, in SUPERMAN James is bringing Mon-El front and center once more in a story that could only be called “Man of Valor.” Check out these pages from issue #695, due out in time for Christmas. Man, that Bernard Chang and Blond make a heck of an artist/colorist team, don’t they?

Meanwhile, Greg and the one writer who truly understands him, Eric Trautmann, are feverishly bringing the story of Nightwing and Flamebird to a head. Check out what they’re making the book’s artist, Pere Pérez, draw. Yikes! (And yes, that is indeed Guardian and Mon-El, along with their pals the Science Police—this is part one of a two-part crossover between ACTION #885 and SUPES #696 that will reveal, among other things, yet another of General Zod’s sleeper agents!)

So we’ve covered the middle of the month and the end of the month, but what about the middle? Well, that’s where you’ll find SUPERGIRL. Doing his own juggling act, writer Sterling Gates is keeping me on my toes with issues #49 and #50. Matt Camp, who did an amazing job with issue #47, is back for another go-around (where things take a turn for the worse for poor Lana Lang!). And your pal and mine, Jamal Igle, returns for our big, shocking, oversized issue #50, where, among many other things, we pick up on the story of the not-so-nice Superwoman and her even-more-not-so-nice father, General Lane!

But I’ve digressed, I fear. I started this off talking about balancing the present with the new day in the Superman titles. Come March, a brand new miniseries (emphasis on the “mini”) will arrive, taking the place of the dearly departed WONK. You’ll be learning a lot more about this in a few short weeks, but what I can tell you is that James and Sterling are teaming up with a recharged Pete Woods for this story. And weighing in at 30 pages per issue, it’s one heck of a page-turner for the Superman line. Oh, and I might as well mention that a certain colleague of Lex Luthor’s will be showing up. And if that weren’t enough, said miniseries will be roping in SUPES, ACTION, SUPERGIRL aaannnnddd… ADVENTURE COMICS! (And check out Wil Moss’ recent blog post for more clues to all of this!) Can you feel the excitement? If not, you will!

All of this -- these events, these changes -- are just the table-setter for what’s to come. Man, when May rolls around, readers and non-readers of the Superbooks alike will be very, very tickled. And, yes, I did just say “tickled.”