COMICS: Duke Thomas Officially Gets Spin-Off Series #SDCC2017
Despite being a new addition to the DC comic universe as Batman’s latest partner, the Lark, Duke Thomas has quickly risen the ranks from vigilante fanboy to a superhero in his own right.
In the face of numerous fan questions about his future, Batman writer Scott Snyder has previously revealed that he had big plans for his original character. We knew that this may include a new superhero name and the possibility of a solo series, but that has been the extent of available information in the last few weeks. To quell fan anxiety, Snyder insisted that an official announcement would come at the end of his two-issue series, Dark Days. Dark Days serves as a prequel to the upcoming DC summer event, Dark Nights: Metal.
Fortunately, Snyder is good at keeping his promises. During Friday’s Dark Nights panel at San Diego Comic Con, it was officially confirmed that Duke has graduated from Batman’s training and is now ready for his own heroic adventures.
Now known as the Signal, “Gotham’s hero by day,” Duke will helm his own spin-off series called Batman: The Signal sometime in the near future. This new series will be written by Tony Patrick, a new comics writer who himself graduated from DC’s Talent Workshop training in 2016.
Tony Patrick – Source: Bleeding Cool
With his original character maturing under a new creative team, Snyder has expressed his excitement about Duke’s future place in his solo series and in the greater Batman mythology. In a recent interview with Comic Book Resources, he stated that:
“What I will say about The Signal, or Signal, is that Duke is a character I’ve had a lot invested in for a long time, and there’s been so many calls to get him his own book and his own name and his own story.
One of the reasons we put him in [Dark Days] was to show his importance to us and spotlight the part of the mythology in Gotham that he’s actually essential to. So the other half of this, from just a logistics standpoint, is that I wanted this to be a place where I could bring in new talent… it’s something we haven’t seen and [it] gives Duke a mythology that is brand new.”
Are you excited to finally see Duke Thomas shine in his own series? How do you feel about DC’s continued commitment to bring in diverse new talent to its creative teams? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Source: Dark Nights: Metal and Dark Matter panel, as summarized by Comic Book Resources
