(CBR) DC Comics has spent the past month showing off rafts of new art from their incoming “Villains Month” promotion, and amidst familiar characters like Doomsday, Bane, Killer Croc and Black Adam, there’s one very surprising “new” face.
In his “What’s New In The New 52?” column on the DC blog, Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras revealed a new design for a new version of the classic villain/comedy favorite Lobo. This time out, the character will be a younger, slicker bounty hunter as designed by artist Kenneth Rocafort.
The move is likely to turn heads not only for its departure from the Roger Stern/Keith Giffen creation’s classic biker look but also because Lobo has already appeared in the New 52 continuity. According to Harras, the more traditional version of the character introduced by Rob Liefeld in the pages of “Deathstroke” will now be viewed as an impostor. “The Lobo you”ve seen so far in the New 52 is not who you think he is,” Harras explained of the incoming story by Marguerite Bennett and Ben Oliver. “In this one-shot, you”ll be introduced to the real Lobo. A ruthless killer, Lobo is on a quest to kill the man who has taken his name.”
This is the second time DC has replaced a New 52 version of a character with a “second draft” and, oddly, both instances involved a character introduced by Liefeld. This spring, the publisher announced a new version of Cheshire to appear in their books despite the fact that the character had already been promoted as part of Liefeld’s “Grifter” run, though when she appeared in print, she was referred to only as Niko.
When interviewed by CBR News last month, writer Marguerite Bennett teased this Villains Month twist while describing her take on Lobo. “My goal for him was to make him less comically hyper-masculine and more focused. He’s still vicious, still savage and still entirely immoral, but I wanted a gravity out of the character. When he showed up, I didn’t want him walking away from explosions and smoking a cigar. When he shows up, I want people to feel like, ‘This is it. This is the end.'”
Check out Rocafort’s other Lobo redesigns below, then sound off on the CBR Boards about the new look for the baddest bastich in the universe.