One of the biggest comic announcements of 2008 has been the news that Gail Simone and Nicola Scott would be teaming up to bring The Secret Six back, this time, as an ongoing. Making their first appearance in Villains United in the Infinite Crisis story, the Secret Six soon became an instant classic, with fans wanting more and more of them.

The team started out as Catman, Deadshot, and Cheshire, and the newly created Ragdoll, Scandal Savage, and Parademon. At the end of the Villains United storyline, Parademon and Cheshire are gone, later to be replaced by Knockout. The Mad Hatter joins, is kicked out, to be replaced by Harley Quinn, who then quits. Many of the members were also seen in Salvation Run.

However it was Gail Simone’s rendering of the characters in her series Birds of Prey that really sparked the love affair, and at New York Comic Con earlier this year, Simone announced that she would be writing the ongoing Secret Six series.

The team was announced to include Catman, Deadshot, Scandal, and Ragdoll. It would also see the introduction of an “a-list Bat-villain, and then a new character, a female, who is hot beyond reason,” according to Simone in an interview earlier this year.

Rampant speculation and rumors followed this announcement, with the majority of the DC world hoping that it would be Catwoman joining the book, seeing as her own series was to be canceled (last issue is #82). However, in an interview with Wizard, Gail Simone announced in the middle of July that the fifth member of the team would be Bane.

“Bane is the fifth member and he begins to develop some very odd feelings for another member of the Secret Six. And we’re going to see a side of Bane that no one’s ever seen before.”

DC have already got cover art up for the first two issues, the first issue to go on sale on September 3, with cover art by Cliff Chiang, most notably known for his amazing work on Green Arrow and Black Canary. And anything that reunites Simone and Scott, and brings Chiang in to do covers, is OK in my books.