On the Shelf: A fox returns, and a new Batman is revealed

Archie Comics' Dark Circle line debuted Mark Waid & Dean Haspiel's second The Fox series on Wednesday, promising that this one will be an ongoing concern as opposed to the 5-issue miniseries issued in 2012-3. "Fox Hunt" has Fox (Paul Patton, Jr.) promising to retire after his latest adventure, but of course, things aren't meant to go smoothly. They never did. The only quibble, of course, is the fact that Archie raised their cover price for all their titles to $3.99 a few months back, and that won't help generate interest in their on-again, off-again line of in-house-created superhero books. Their latest incarnation of The Shield has been delayed to mid-June, so deadline problems continue to plague them.

The Fox gets a B.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina returns with its long-delayed 2nd issue. This was supposed to have been out in December, but writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, as we've documented, has been busy with the live-action Riverdale project for Fox, but in a letters-page memo, danced around the issue, giving readers a lame excuse for the 4 month delay between issues. His promise that this won't happen again rings a bit hollow, just like the story.

Rating: C.

Afterlife With Archie, oh by the way, is due to return next month. However, the question is whether or not the newly reminted Archie Horror line can retain its audience after the long delay.

Other news: Come June, DC Comics readers will be introduced to a new Batman, but unlike the last couple of times where Bruce Wayne has been shuffled off stage, Dick Grayson, too busy being DC's answer to James Bond these days, won't be donning the Batsuit. Instead, writer Scott Snyder threw the fanbase a major curveball by tying his latest idea to a certain Fox drama.

Yep, the new Batman, safely tucked into some high tech armor, is police commissioner James Gordon. To me, this reeks of Snyder cashing in on Gotham. We'll see in a couple of months if readers agree.

The proposed "Wonder Woman" movie at WB has had to change directors due to the dreaded "creative differences". Seems there was an idea about giving the Amazing Amazon a sidekick. More specifically, a pet tiger.

SAY WHAT???

Wonder Woman won't ever be mistaken for, say, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, but this illustrates how difficult it is to mount a feature film, much less a new TV show, without raising a few eyebrows. I suppose the tiger was thrown in so there'd be some toys to push. Fortunately, with a new director on board, the tiger is now out of the picture. We hope.

Saw a headline online that reported that NBC has, in fact, cancelled Constantine, rather than farm it out to SyFy for next season. Well, if it was airing at 8 (ET) all season instead of 10, we wouldn't be discussing this bad news, would we now? Who can say, really?

Current episodes of Doctor Who air on BBC America, but it was a major shocker the other day when it was announced that recent reruns with David Tennant in the title role would turn up on, of all places, DisneyXD. Could it be that the Mouse House has plans for the Doctor down the line? Marvel, now a Disney subsidiary, once had a license on the Doctor 35 years ago. Stay tuned.