In news that was announced last week on DC Comics “All Access” webseries, we learned who the next creative team would be for Superman. Starting this Summer, DC Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns will be handling the writing, while on art will be long-time Marvel artist John Romita Jr.. Also on the book will be inker Klaus Janson, who has collaborated with Romita Jr. many times in the past.

This will mark one of the few times Romita Jr. has not worked for Marvel over his long and storied career and it will be his first work on a book solely published by DC. He did draw a Punisher/Batman crossover, as well as one of the titles in the Amalgam crossover, both of which were done in the 1990s.

On Friday, The Dark Knight Rises, the latest and last Batman film in Christopher Nolan’s epic trilogy, will finally be upon us. So, it’s natural for loads of sites to provide you with “5 Batman Comics To Get You Pumped For The Dark Knight Rises!” But where we differ is, we’re taking a more scholarly approach to these Batman comics. We’ve already talked about The Evolution Of Batman In Popular Culture and given you Batman 101: A Beginner’s Guide To The Dark Knight, which gave you several great places to start reading Batman comics that aren’t heavily drenched in continuity and are some of the more simple stories that The Dark Knight has to offer.

With Batman 202: Intermediate Reading For The Caped Crusader, however, we’re taking a look at some more books that offer a little bit more than just a basic starting point. These books are all great, but they’re also a little more complicated than I would suggest just starting off. This list is here to provide you with the next step into becoming a Batman scholar, and requires a little more of the reader.

Heritage Auctions will be auctioning off a piece of original art from Frank Miller and Klaus Janson‘s 1986 comic book series The Dark Knight Returns this May in New York City.

The auction house expects the art, which is the Batman and Robin splash page 10 from The Dark Knight Returns #3, to fetch over $100,000 at the event.

The Heroic Age: The Avengers #1
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Penciler: John Romita Jr
Inker: Klaus Janson
Colorist: Dean White
Letterer: Cory Petit
Price: $3.99
Marvel Comics
Release date: May 19. 2010

After the last few years worth of Avengers stories where they are constantly on the run or fighting a lot of street level villains, Avengers #1 gets us back to the old school, “Let’s take on a classic threat” story. The action gets moving quickly, and I’m glad to see that writer Brian Michael Bendis wastes no time setting up the team and getting straight into the story.

Kang has come back with a line straight out of Back to The Future. It’s your kids, mighty Avengers, you have to come to the future to stop your kids! It seems this issue is adapting the story from the Next Avengers animated movie from a few years ago. They have certainly taken the character designs for the kids from that movie and used them in this issue. It’s an odd choice for me, and I don’t know if seeing the movie will spoil the last page of this issue (I’ve never seen the Next Avengers movie), but this is the kind of story I think I would like to see out of an Avengers book.