DC Comics announced on Monday that it would be introducing a new done-in-one brand named National Comics to explore single characters within the DC universe.

This new series of one shots will focus on four announced characters that exist within the “New 52” universe, but do not have a complete home or place, so far. The titles announced are Eternity, Madame X, Rose and Thorn, and Looker. Each comic centers around previously explored characters in the old, even pre-Crisis DC Universe. Which makes all of this very interesting. We’ll take a look at the idea of National Comics as a brand after we take a look at each series and the creators that are involved. Ready to go?

Eternity – Written by Jeff Lemire with art from Cully Hamner. Formerly “Kid Eternity,” this series focuses on Christopher Freeman, a police coroner, who has the ability to resurrect the dead. In this book, Freeman teams up with the recently departed to solve the crimes surrounding their deaths. This has the potential to be an excellent comic and in the hands of Lemire and Hamner, I’m sure it will be. It sounds very Chew, while also offering a lot of uniqueness. Creepy, intriguing, possibly humorous? I really like Lemire’s humor when he uses it, so let’s see what happens. I for one am really excited about this AND you can check out the cover here below!

Madame X – Written by Rob Williams with art from Trevor Hairsine. A tarot card reading consultant to law firms? Sounds awesome. I’m not familiar with this character’s life pre-New 52 (all I’ve found regarding a DC character with the name Madame X was a Batman villain from Gotham Knights), but it all sounds really cool and I’m into it, especially considering my fascination with late 80s/early 90s Vertigo Comics. I’m not aware of any comics I’ve read from Williams or Hairsine, but I’ll be checking this out, for sure.

Rose and Thorn – Written by Tom Taylor with art from Neil Googe. Rose Canton is a good person, but she’s got a dark secret. In the vein of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, we see a woman filling the role of a revenge seeking bad-ass, and I’m cool with that. Again, I’m not really familiar with Taylor or Googe, but I’m willing to give this a shot.

Looker – Written by Ian Edington with art from Mike S. Miller. Okay, so if you we reading Outsiders before Flashpoint (you weren’t), you’d know that the last time we saw Looker was as a model turned vampire, and she’s remained as such in “The New 52,” apparently. Cool. I’m okay with Looker the Vampire. And, I know this is getting old, but I’m not too familiar with Edington or Miller, either. But I did like the latest incarnation of Looker, and since this only requires a one issue commitment, I’ll bite (hah. pun.).

Okay, so now that we’ve run down the list of books that we have to look forward to in July, let’s take a look at the entire idea of National Comics. First, why in the blue heck does DC feel the need to create a faux-publisher to put out these comics? That doesn’t make any sense to me, like at all. I tell myself that it could be the fact that they just don’t want to do one-shots under the name DC Comics, which doesn’t make any sense. I also tell myself that it could be the start of a really cool brand, but that doesn’t make any sense, either. If they were going to do something cool, why not just put it under the name DC Comics? Also, I would understand if these characters were to be one shots that don’t have anything to do with the overall New DC Universe, but they’ve said that they do take place within “The New 52.” So yeah, it makes no sense, but maybe I’m over-thinking it. But that’s what I do, so deal with it.

Other than the “why,” though, there’s a lot of cool potential here. Hopefully it doesn’t end with these comics and we can see a wealth of characters explored with this. It’s kind of part two of the DC Universe Presents concept that DC announced with The New 52. Obscure characters getting their shine, I like that a lot. Honestly, I’m still waiting on something Doom Patrol related, so in the future, National Comics might fix that. And hopefully if something like Eternity takes off and does really well, we could see more than one issue in the future.

All in all, as ridiculous as the initiative seems to me, I’m really excited about the end product, and I will absolutely be checking out these comics. National Comics is set to debut in July.

Eternity Cover

[Source: DC Comics]