The Rundown: June 7, 2023

Welcome back to The Rundown, our daily breakdown on comic news stories we missed from the previous day. Have a link to share? Email our team at [email protected].

In case you missed it, (most of) the winners of this year's EGL Awards were announced, and we spoke with "Lo & Behold" co-creator Wendy Mass about their new book, and more.

– Via Comic Book Yeti, indie publisher Silver Sprocket revealed their Fall 2023 line-up. "Of Thunder & Lightning," a war/pop music satire by Kimberly Wang, will be released first on August 16, followed by Cam Marshall's LGBTQ+ rom com "Matchmaker" on September 13. "The Chromatic Fantasy," a Medieval adventure starring two very different trans men by H.A., and Cook Like Your Ancestors: An Illustrated Guide to Intuitive Cooking With Recipes From Around the World by Mariah-Rose Marie, will both be then released on October 18. "Leftstar & the Strange Occurrence," a surreal creation story by Jean Fhilippe, will round out the season's releases on November 15.

– Kelly Thompson revealed the second character joining the Birds of Prey in the ‘Dawn of DC’ relaunch will be Cassandra Cain/Batgirl. It marks the first time Cass has joined the team in the comics, although a precedent was set by the 2020 movie Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), which included Ella Jay Basco as the character. Thompson is revealing each member of the new roster every day this week, and the new volume, featuring art by Leonardo Romero and colors by Jordie Bellaire, will begin in September.

– In a photo of cast members Anthony Mackie and Harrison Ford, Marvel revealed Captain America: New World Order has been retitled Captain America: Brave New World. The fourth film in the series, directed by Julius Onah, had drawn some criticism over its original title, due to it sharing a name with an antisemitic conspiracy theory, plus the presence of Jewish actor Tim Blake Nelson as villain Dr. Samuel Sterns (aka the Leader.) Coincidentally, the phrase had been used as the title for the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier series that preceded the film. The retitled Captain America: Brave New World releases in theaters May 3, 2024.

– Publishers Weekly reports Atheneum Books will publish "The Dashing School for Wayward Princes," a middle-grade graphic novel written by Ben Kahn and Jeremy Whitley, with art by Melissa Capriglione ("Basil and Oregano"). It will follow Leo, a closeted trans princess, and be released in Summer 2025. Additionally, the magazine revealed Scholastic Graphix will publish "Wish I Was a Baller," a graphic memoir by Amar Shah, with art by Rashad Doucet, in 2025. The story follows Shah as a teenage sports journalist during the 1990s, when he became friends with Shaquille O’Neal, "while navigating high school, first love, and his Indian American identity."

– Anime News Network reports Hiro Mashima ("Fairy Tail," "Edens Zero") will launch a new series called "Dead Rock" next month. A dark fantasy manga, the comic is set at the titular "Demon King training institution," where "a young demon named Yakuto takes on the challenge of the harsh entrance examination." It will be a shorter series than Mashima's currently ongoing "Edens Zero" (which launched in 2018), and debut in Japanese in Kodansha's Monthly Shonen Magazine on July 6, before presumably receiving an English release in paperback.

– Former Marvel editor Christian Cooper's new documentary series, Extraordinary Birder, will premiere on National Geographic on June 17, and continue to air weekly, while the whole season gets added to Disney+ and Hulu in the United States on Wednesday, June 21. The six-part show will follow Cooper as he travels across the United States (from Puerto Rico to Hawaii), taking "us on a journey to dive into and discover the wild, wonderful and unpredictable world of birds." The show arrives three years after Cooper gained nationwide public sympathy, as a result of the Central Park birdwatching incident.

– Finally, with just days to go before its release, Paramount unleashed a third and final trailer for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which gives us much more of the film's villainous Terrorcons, as well as footage of Michael Kelly's human character, WW2 era Autobot plane Stratosphere (John DiMaggio), and another Maximal ape, the arm blade-wielding Apelinq (David Sobolov). Rise of the Beasts, which releases this Friday, so far has a 55 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 51 reviews), falling halfway between the critical acclaim its predecessor Bumblebee got, and the panning Michael Bay's sequels received.

Chris is the news manager of Multiversity Comics. A writer from London on the autistic spectrum, he enjoys tweeting and blogging on Medium about his favourite films, TV shows, books, music, and games, plus history and religion. He is Lebanese/Chinese, although he can't speak Cantonese or Arabic.