The DC Comics publicity team has been on a great roll in recent months, landing several stories in the NYT arts section for big events like last year's Infinite Crisis launch as well as quirky subjects like the alternative architectural vision of Manhattan in Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers series. Falling somewhere between the two is yesterday's feature on the new wave of multiculturally diverse superheroes and how minority characters have moved beyond token status into simply reflecting the makeup of contemporary society. To be fair, George Gene Gustines also reports on what's happening at Marvel, but DC's footprints are all over this baby...culminating in an nearly-exclusive (and online-only) sneak preview of the Morrison-created Chinese superhero team The Great Ten, including Seven Deadly Brothers (right), described as "a martial arts expert who can divide into many." (Alright, so he's not exactly original—more like a cross between Madrox the Multiple Man and Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu—but he's probably niftier than any superheroes you or I have come up with lately!) The article really ought to come with a spoiler warning, though, as it reveals the identity of the new lesbian Batwoman a few weeks before the issue of 52 in which she debuts is scheduled to come out (heh heh)...all I'll say is that the leading guess in the fanboy community was awfully close. If you don't mind losing all the suspense, DC executive editor Dan Didio spoke with Newsarama about the thinking behind Batwoman's relaunch...

Kudos, by the way, to Gustines for the work he's been doing on this and most of those other stories in recent months. It's great to see that the Times has somebody who can write intelligently about comics, and his reportage puts the Times on an equal footing with publications like PW that have increased the level of serious reporting about the industry.