DC

Wandering the halls of the 2011 Toy Fair for even a few moments, it was hard to avoid Green Lantern -- not only action figures (for both collectors and actual children) but costumes, board games, mugs, rings, and more, more, more. It's all by design as this report from Variety details. It's hard to overemphasize how important this summer's Green Lantern movie is to Warners. This is potentially their new Star Wars, with a giant universe of aliens and adventure and a wisecracking, aspirational hero at the center. The promotional push at Toy Fair and the upcoming MAGIC apparel show is huge -- but it isn't an automatic slam dunk, hence the push:

MAC Cosmetics has debuted a commercial for its Wonder Woman themed makeup line, featuring animations by Michael Allred. Call us nutso, but this seems to be one of the more successful attempts at a "mocom" -- probably because it wasn't just a comic book to begin with but was conceived as limited animation.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

On the surface, December 2010 was a great month for DC Comics. The company had a bigger share of the market than its main competitor Marvel, if only in terms of dollar value, and took all of the Top 5 spots on the chart, as well as a total 8 out of the Top 10. That doesn't happen a lot.

Upon closer inspection, though, a less rosy picture emerges: DC's average comic-book sales in the direct market were slightly down from November, average dollar and unit sales were only slightly up. So, despite big releases like the debut of writer/artist David Finch's Batman: The Dark Knight and, over in the "Graphic Novel" section, J. Michael Straczynski's Superman: Earth One book, it turns out December was more or less business as usual, from a commercial vantage point.

Meanwhile, DC's WildStorm imprint, which the company bought from Jim Lee in 1998 and then proceeded to slowly but determinedly squeeze the life out of, ceased publication in December. Average WildStorm sales sagged below the 5K mark, to the lowest number in history.

Is it really newsworthy that a popular music figure is being mocked in the mages of MAD Magazine, where they invented the pop culture mockery?The AP says Yes!

It's the Flash and he's....coming apart????? Oh dear. Art by Andy Kubert and Sandra Hope.

DC has posted logos for five of their FLASHPOINT miniseries. FLASHPOINT seems to be a kind of DC-only alternative reality Amalgam comic where Cyborg is Superman and so on.

While we're spotlighting creators issues and outlooks here at Anniversary Week at The Beat, here's an oldie but a goodie: The (Sad) Saga of Black Lightning’s Creation by Daniel Best which presents documents and drawings from writer Tony Isabella and artist Trevor von Eeden, the team known to have created Black Lightning's first appearance. There's some dispute over how the two should be credited -- Isabella claims sole creative credit due to having come up with the character all on his own and described the costume and so on -- but von Eeden has drawings but...we'll we won't get into that here. von Eeden doesn't want the creator's credit--or the royalties that come with it -- but has his own opinions. But that's not what we're here to talk about today. As is well known, Isabella had the foresight to keep a piece of the character he had created independently of DC editorial -- a move he thinks backfired…

Superman casting rumors were heating up this week and now it's final: English actor Henry Cavill will play the Man of Steel in the Zack Snyder reboot. Cavill, 28, is not a big name here -- he's currently starring inThe Tudors -- but he was previously considered for both Batman and James Bond, so obviously studios have had their eye on him for a while. According to Deadline:

There is a new DC event speeding towards us -- this one spearheaded by Geoff Johns and based around the supersonic Flash. Several teasers have been released on the DCU Source blog, all hinting that this will be some kind of alternate reality thing -- but today a few more details were released -- and the cost is discussed, as much as $170 for the whole event.

With the Comics Code all but buried, what ever happened to the CMAA's priceless archives of historical documents?

Over on the various DC blogs, Jim Lee and Dan DiDio have announced that DC is pulling out of the Comics Code in favor of a multi-layer ratings system:

After months of speculation, we now know that Christopher Nolan isn't giving up the Batman franchise without going into the sexy feminine side of the myth: Anne Hathaway will play Catwoman in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES -- and yes, that sounds pretty dirty. And the previously announced Tom Hardy will play back-breaker Bane, an escaped criminal who gets super strength after getting jacked on drugs. (Bane was responsible for breaking Batman's spine in a '90s comics storyline.)