Think the Mayans have cornered the market on 2012 “End of the World” scenarios? Think again. Top Cow is kicking off the year with a bang. A big one.

For more than a year now the core Top Cow titles, including two of the Image imprint’s longest-running series’, Witchblade and The Darkness, have been leading up to a wholesale shakeup of the company’s titles.

“This is truly the most ambitious change to the Top Cow Universe we’ve ever attempted,” Top Cow Publisher Filip Sablik said in a press release.

Comic book companies pledge on an almost yearly basis that “Big changes are coming!” and that “Things will never be the same!” Rarely do such empty promises come to fruition. After all, the main tenet of mainstream superhero comics is “Maintain the status quo.” Even after such game-changing events as Marvel’s recent “Fear Itself” and DC’s much-touted reboot, things are chugging along as they always have with nary a consequence in sight. In truth, I have not read a single “New 52″ comic that couldn’t have taken place pre-reboot.

So will Top Cow’s latest event have lasting changes? Or will things be back to “same old, same old” by this time next year? That remains to be seen. But for now, it’s the End of the World. So how do you feel?

More after the jump.

This week sees the release of the universe-shattering Artifacts #13, written by longtime Top Cow architect Ron Marz, with art by Dale Keown, and the introduction of the new Top Cow Universe with Witchblade #151, by the new creative team of writer Tim Seeley and artist Diego Bernard. And in celebration of the new status quo, Top Cow writers and artists will be invading comic book shops across the country to sign books, draw sketches and schmooze with customers.

“This nationwide event will allow us to interact with the biggest group of fans and we want to be there first hand to see their reactions,” Sablik said.

I’ll be hanging out at Omaha’s Krypton Comics, where The Darkness writer Phil Hester will be signing from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Come on out and say “hi.” And be sure to check back here next week for photos of the event and a few words from Hester himself.

(Personally, I’ve always been a huge fan of Hester’s indie books The Coffin and Deep Sleeper, both illustrated by Butcher Baker and The Strain artist Mike Huddleston, and available from IDW.)

Click here for a complete list of “End of the World” shop signings.

Top Picks of the Week

• Action Comics #5 (DC) – Superman’s origin! Again! By Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert.
• Animal Man #5 (DC) – by Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman
• Defenders #2 (Marvel) – by Matt Fraction and Terry Dodson
• Fatale #1 (Image) – One of my most anticipated comics of 2012, by the Criminal team of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.
• Punisher #7 (Marvel) – Greg Rucka and Michael Lark together again for the first time since a guest stint during Ed Brubaker’s epic Daredevil run!
• Swamp Thing #5 (DC) – by Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette
• Wolverine and the X-Men: Alpha & Omega #1 (Marvel) – Brian Wood has said Marvel’s Generation X was one of the first comics to get him interested in creating comics. Now he’s back writing Marvel’s merry mutants for the first time since the “Counter-X” titles more than a decade ago! Joining Wood are artists Mark Brooks and Roland Boschi.

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Related articles

• Hester Starts Final Arc on Darkness (manodogs.blogspot.com)
• In this week’s comics, Wolverine engages in psychic warfare and Ed Brubaker pens gangster horror! (io9.com)