Here’s something you don’t see everyday. SOE is giving fans a chance to animate their favorite heroes and villains for the upcoming DC Universe Online MMO. All you have to do is head over to the DCUO fan page on Facebook starting December 7, 2009. All the tools needed to make your own animations can be found there as well a way to view and vote on the entries submitted by others.

“The DCUO/Mass Animation contest takes a part of the game out of the development studio and puts it in the hands of fans, an empowering opportunity for our community,” said John Smedley, president of SOE. “Players will have a chance through qualified contest submissions to be involved with the game’s development at a deeper level than ever before by animating actions for in-game heroes and villains.”

All the tools that animators will need to collaborate on this project, including a special edition of Autodesk Maya 3D Animation software, storyboards, designs and fully-rigged 3-D models will be provided to contest entrants and accessed through the Mass Animation application on the DCUO Facebook fan page. Participating animators will upload their contest submissions back to the application for viewing, voting and sharing with their friends. New to the contest this year will be the Mass Animation iPhone app, which gives people a new way to view and vote on submissions. Qualified contest winners will receive cash or other prizes. Each week, voters and a panel of judges will help determine what shots qualify as the “best” and will be eligible for voter prizes.

Hair-raising news! Not merely content to resurrect deceased characters, DC Comics is now bringing eight series back from the dead for Blackest Night! These include Atom and Hawkman, The Question, The Phantom Stranger, Starman, Catwoman, The Power of Shazam, Suicide Squad, and Weird Western Tales. Each title will pick up, numbering wise, right where they left off, but each story will take place in modern continuity. Some of DC’s most popular writers are involved, including Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, and Dan DiDio!

We were struck by the unique, polarized covers (negatives of each series’ last issue)–is this final art? We’re not sure. Is each only coming back for one issue? That seems to be the story for now, but if any of these are big sellers, we can imagine DC might be tempted to make at least some of these resurrections stick.

Which “back from the dead” series are you most excited about?

Six years ago, a series of grisly murders rocked the city of Gotham. Despite the efforts of the police and the legendary Batman, the crimes remained unsolved, the victims unavenged.

Now, the killer has returned and Batman has been granted a chance at redemption. But the pursuit of a murderer unlike any he has ever faced leads Batman on a strange and unexpected path: a young girl, the fields of Vietnam, and ultimately to his own dark soul.

The time of the Harvest Breed has come, when the gates of Hell will be thrown open forever.

This excellent graphic novel, Batman Harvest Breed TPB, is just $16.15, so make sure to add it to your collection if you’re a fan of the Bat. You can find this and many other awesome horror titles on our Horror Month page.

On a very special Halloween night, five separate yet interwoven stories unfold, involving secret lives, college virgins, mean pranks, ghouls, goblins, and more! The tricks and treats are deadly, but you can order Trick R Treat for just $17.99 and enjoy every spine-tingling twist!

Questions? Comments? Post them below, and make sure to check out our Horror Month page for more spooky, ghastly fun!

This gorgeous, slipcased hardcover edition is oversized and contains the miniseries Death: The High Cost of Living, and Death: The Time of Your Life. Death befriends various people in need and helps them deal with life . . . and the hereafter, of course. Extras include an intro from Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls; the AIDS pamphlet Death Talks About Life; tales from Vertigo: Winter’s Edge #2 and The Sandman: Endless Nights; The Wheel, a short story from the 9/11 tribute book; Sandman #8 and #20; and material from the Death Gallery one-shot!

This is the first time these pieces have been collected in one volume, and the oversized format shows off Dave McKean’s lyrical art to its fullest advantage. Check out the Absolute Death Hardcover now!

For more horror comics and graphic novels, visit our Horror Month page.

Questions? Comments? Leave ‘em below!

Anyway, Palmiotti, Gray and especially Amanda Connor hit it out of the park with this beauty. Check out the preview pages:

Power Girl #2, Adam Hughes cover

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Hey DC! Nice new homepage. Might want to look into the coding of the tag cloud in the lower right corner, though. It’s more confusing than Final Crisis. OH SNAP I SAID IT.

Anyway, here’s a close up for those of you who can’t see it above. And I assume this will be fixed by the time you read this, and I’ll be the one who looks stupid:

I watched the finale of The Shield the other night. It was nothing I expected and everything I wanted out of the end of that series. Loose ends were wrapped up without it being obvious or rushed, characters moved logically in their arcs, and I was left with an overall sense of both completion and wonder. What’s next for the cast? Where are these characters going to go?

Like The Wire, the ending to The Shield was well-done and elegant. We found out what we needed to know, some of what we wanted to know, and it all made sense. It fit together.

It’s kind of funny that I read this the night before I read Batman #681, which was basically the opposite experience.

I thought the first half of the book was pretty good. The action kept going, the story cracked, and the typical Morrison Batman got to play his “I suspected all along” card. I don’t buy his admission that he never loved Jezebel Jet (that was very much a “I’m rubber, you’re glue” scene), but the rest of it worked. He was ready. He didn’t know what he was ready for, or when it was coming, but he was prepared for when it got there. The reveals were nicely paced with the Club of Heroes, too.

Just going on the first part of the book alone, it’d be one of the better issues of Morrions’s extremely rocky and uneven run. It’s good, but not Morrison Good. It isn’t that far from Rock of Ages or one of the better Chuck Dixon issues.

But, my problem is with the reveal of who Simon Hurt really is, the “death,” and the feeling of anticlimax I was left with. Those reveals and scenes dropped the book down to hovering just above average for me. Grant Morrison promised that the reveal of the Black Glove’s identity would be the biggest surprise for Bat-fans in 70 years and blow the lid off the series and so on and so forth.

Turns out that the Black Glove is a group of five rich people, and Simon Hurt is an actor named Mangrove Pierce, who must be nigh-on fifty years old and hates Bruce Wayne enough to try and ruin his life. I just checked– all the lids are still on the series and I have yet to spittake.

The reveal is the worst sin a comic book can commit- it’s boring. Hurt claims to be Thomas Wayne, but Batman tells him that no, you’re wrong, you are actually Mangrove Pierce. Hurt replies that Pierce is just the skin he’s wearing, bringing the idea of fictionsuits to my mind, and that he is actually just the hole in things.

I mean, really? That’s it? He isn’t Alfred, Robin, or anyone else that anyone has any reason to care about? He’s some rich, and old, jerk who looks just like Bruce Wayne and his father? That sucks.

I wonder if I’m not being fair to the story, but then I remember that Morrison’s run has been seeded with all kinds of clues and allusions and depth. It’s clear that something is supposed to be there, but what we got in Batman 681 was nothing. Less than nothing, in fact, considering the build-up to a nothing reveal.

Simply put– We, as readers, expect more from Morrison. He’s built a rep for writing comics that are interesting to talk about, and feature topics that can fuel conversation for weeks or months. Tim Callahan wrote a must-have book on the man’s work.

Fantastic Four: 1234, New X-Men, and The Invisibles alone have all dealt with the idea of ultimate evil and identity and done it fairly well. My guess for the identity of the Black Glove was that he was Batman’s tulpa, as seen in FF:1234. After enduring Thogal, Bruce expelled all the negativity that’s followed him around since his parents died. (One of the best bits in Year One is the picture of Bruce’s eyes just after his parents were shot. His eyes are not sad, or despondent, or closed. They are open, angry, and resolved. That is the moment Batman was born, though he wasn’t given shape until nearly twenty years later.) Expelling the energy healed Bruce, but all that energy needed somewhere to go.

David Uzumeri had a fun theory about Alfred being the glove. Graeme McMillan and Jeff Lester told me it’d be either Robin or Alfred one night, and had various reasons why. We’ve talked it over for plenty of hours and dozens of emails. Batman RIP 1-5 gave us plenty of things to chew on and discuss.

Batman 681 just gave us something to be disappointed about. Geoff Klock nails a lot of the reason why here, and I agree with his points. We got a lot of build-up for a payoff that would fit pretty well on any generic mid-90s “Superhero… no more!” story, complete with the exploding helicopter and leftover bit of costume.

I was expecting the next New X-Men (solid story, uneven art teams, good payoff), but I got the next Knightfall instead. A well-written Knightfall, but a Knightfall nonetheless.

Mortal Kombat makes a Next-Gen debut in Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe. While some fans may be worried that having a crossover title may water down the core of what makes Mortal Kombat what it is, they need not worry.

Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe pits the characters of Mortal Kombat and the DC Universe against each other in a tale of the two realms colliding. With characters on both sides having no idea of why the two realms are merging or who the ‘invaders’ from the other realm are, the table is set for a struggle to stop a catastrophic event that will lead to the destruction of both universes.

Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe has a story mode that is split into two halves. One half is the Mortal Kombat side and the other is the DC Universe side. Choosing either storyline will split up the game into multiple chapters. Each of these chapters will have you play as a different character as heroes and villains alike try to get to the bottom of what is going on with their realm and the threat posed by the merging of the universes.

As you play the story mode with each realm, you’ll only be able to see a small part of the role in which they play in the overall narrative. Only by completing the story mode with both universes, will you be able to learn the full extent of what’s going on.

The classic arcade mode is exactly as one would expect. The one slight deviation made here due to the crossover licenses is that after choosing which character you’d like to play as, you’ll need to choose whether you’d rather fight against Mortal Kombat characters, DC Universe characters or a mixture of both. Also, you’ll be able to perform fatalities in this mode as well (fatalities aren’t possible in story mode).

Speaking of fatalities, bringing DC Universe characters into the mix does change things a bit. While all the Mortal Kombat characters and DC Universe villains can perform fatalities, things are just a little bit different for DC Universe heroes. Instead of fatalities, they perform Heroic Brutalities. While they won’t kill their opponents with Heroic Brutalities, they will give them the beatdown of their lives. This had to be done to keep the DC heroes within the confines of their lore. You wouldn’t expect to see Superman kill someone after all.

The fatalities themselves have been watered down quite a bit. They’re much tamer than and not nearly as shocking as they used to be. While one could argue that we as a society have become accustomed to having a much higher tolerance for shock and gore, its simply a case of the fatalities being very mild to keep the ESRB rating as Walmart-friendly as possible.

Another worry some may have had about the game is that the DC Universe characters would play like already established Mortal Kombat characters. There is no need for Mortal Kombat veterans or DC fans to worry about that either. None of the DC Universe characters are mere palette swaps of Mortal Kombat characters. They all have their own styles and animations. While some may seem to share a similar basic stance, all of the moves are unique.

If the Mortal Kombat fighting experience has been your thing, you’ll find the gameplay to be solid. Even though the title is 3D, it takes place on a 2D plane. You can hold down a trigger button and move around freely, but the core mechanics are classic Mortal Kombat. The next-gen consoles have made the animations and attack transitions more fluid, but there are still the jerky and awkward movements if you’re not spot on with your combos. Nothing against this game so much as just a quirk inherent with the way the combos are handled in the franchise. Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe is definitely a tighter experience when compared to Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.

Mortal Kombat has always had its own unique style and either people have loved it or hated it. If you didn’t like Mortal Kombat before, this is not the game that is going to make you change your mind. However, Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe does have enough going for it to satiate fans of the franchise.

If you’re of the DC faithful and want to play the latest videogame with your favorite characters, we recommend having a little taste of it first before wolfing down the whole meal. You just may find that the Mortal Kombat flavor is a delicacy that you can’t get accustomed to.

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe will release on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 16.

The first thing that struck me upon finishing this comic was how long it took me to read it.

I don’t mean that it was overly confusing or hard to follow; on the contrary, the basic story is quite the opposite, and the gist of the book and nuances of the characters could be picked up by a new reader. What I mean is the density. Geoff Johns and George Perez manage to pack story into a single issue in a way we don’t usually see these days. Sure, the extra eight-ten pages are a huge help, but it’s not just that – it’s the economy.

Every page, panel and word of this comic counts. On the rare occasions these two go for a double-page spread, it’s not to provide impact to what could be a single panel, it’s because there’s so much damn stuff to show that a single panel doesn’t cut it – for instance, the credit spread is a widescreen look at the Superman museum, and every inch of it is swathed with detail that, while all researched and accurate, in-story acts as a barrage of homage that overwhelmes both the reader and Superboy-Prime.

Regarding the art, this book is everything Brave and the Bold was criticized for not being – expansive, detailed, clear and futuristic. I expect a lot of it is Hi-Fi replacing Perez’s usual colorist Tom Smith; they bring a vibrancy and modernism to Perez’s art that Smith never did. Perez himself is at the top of his game; despite a humongous cast of characters that are, at this point, largely unknown to most readers, Johns and Perez present all of them as startlingly unique, from their dialogue to their mannerisms to their reactions. I’ve never been a Legion fan beyond following the Waid “threeboot,” but this comic makes me want to remedy that.

While many people think Johns can be guilty of using a character’s name and concept and then extending that to their every action – see Mirror Master’s cocaine addiction especially, as well as the rest of the Rogues and Black Hand’s sudden obsession with humping dead people – sometimes with large casts such as this it’s a blessing with establishing characterization. If he gets the ongoing later, let him work on them; a lot of the characters of the JSA are pretty interesting behind the plotcentric Kingdom Come wankfest. For this kind of five-issue miniseries – especially with such a huge number of characters unfamiliar to many audiences – it works.

The story itself is almost an afterthought; not for Johns, but for the reader – the character moments and character interactions steal the show, and the stuff about the Legion maybe being disbanded and etc etc etc is, while not boring, just a backdrop to see these characters Johns has such a clear vision of interact. It’s not lifechanging, it’s not philosophical, but it’s well-done and it’s fun.