DC Comics announced a number of major initiatives at the DC Universe Panel at WizardWorld Chicago, including a new horror series, Toe Tags by Richard Corben and George Romero; a revamping of the Challengers of the Unknown by Howard Chaykin; and the Focus Line, a new group of contemporary superhero titles.  But the biggest bombshell DC's V.P. of Sales & Marketing Bob Wayne dropped in Chicago was the announcement that Michael Turner and Talent Caldwell of Aspen Comics will be illustrating two major DC Comics projects in 2004.  Caldwell will draw a six-issue Superman series, while Turner will illustrate a high profile series featuring an as-yet-unnamed major DC character equal to Superman in stature.  In comments to ICv2, Wayne was very guarded about the relationship between DC and Aspen, saying only that Turner and Caldwell would be working on two projects for DC in 2004.  

Wayne was very excited about the crossover potential of Toe Tags, the new DC horror title, which Bob Schreck will be editing with Night of the Living Dead auteur George Romero doing the writing and Richard Corben, the legendary underground master of painted comic art, illustrating.

Another veteran artist, Howard Chaykin, returns to comics with a six-issue mini-series based on Challengers Of the Unkown, the 1957-70 DC comic title created by the great Jack Kirby.  In addition to his considerable artistic talents, Chaykin is also a skilled writer, and he has come up with a contemporary twist on Kirby's concept of a group of ordinary people who miraculously survive a terrible incident which frees them from the fear of death.  It's nice to see the return of a comics auteur who can do it all -- the question is can he revive a series which has proved to be stubbornly moribund despite several attempts to revive it during the past 20 years?