DC's New 52: Reviews and Discussion (Spoilers welcolme and likely)

Nope, doesn't appear to be the case. Just Action Comics and Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre #3 for me today. Oh and because I'm curious...Detective Comics #0.

 

That used to be the case but as of a couple years ago Diamond made the choice, or the Publishers did to still get the books on the rack by Wednesday.

 

Detective Comics #0: I have admit that this was better than I expected. Nothing really major to report change wise. Pretty typical Bruce training story, although I will say that it would seem Hurwitz must've watched "Batman Begins" before writing this story, the art was good as well. The Alfred backup story was decent. Not enough to convince me this will be good consistently though to pick it back up.

Action Comics #0: I absolutely loved this issue. The art was beautiful, the story was awesome, and pretty much a perfect prologue to Morrison's story. We get the first public appearance of Superman in the New 52. Get to see Clark hired at the Daily Star, his friendship with Jimmy, as well as back story for Olsen as well. . His first interactions with his landlady...as well as confirmation of her character and relatives Lois also names Superman. This was near perfect IMO. The best issue since the opening arc IMO.

 

I figure I can wait a month for Action 0, even though I've been enjoying the run.

Caught up on Worlds' Finest: it's well done, two great artists at the top of their games. But something still feels off. A conflagration of the kind depicted in Japan should really attract the League's attention: the sheer body count has to have been astronomical. The 0 issue was nicely done, too. Earth 2 is still proving interesting, with some faint glimpses of other earths (with what looks like Magog appearing twice).

Phantom Stranger makes a fundamental narrative and character mistake by giving us the Stranger's own internal monologue, of the kind we've been stuck with since Identity Crisis. It works less often than it doesn't, but with a character whose stock characteristic is "mysteriousness", it really, really doesn't work. Interesting things happen, and it's pretty enough, but the potential power of the Stranger just gets drained out of it. The origin of the Spectre is literally squeezed in here.

 

Action 0 was really pretty good, and I quite liked the artwork in the main story.

Smallville's latest issue dealt with introducing Batman into the Smallville universe and was pretty good, the new art is good as well.

 

This is called decompression.

To most laymen, this is just padding out pages.

To comic book writers, it's suppose to be a writing technique.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompression_(comics)

 

A writing technique...Bwahahahahahaha!!!!

 

Personally, I love decompression. I've recently been reading a bunch of older comics from Marvel and DC, and none of them are able to make anything seem nearly as epic or involved as it should be.

 

What the hell can you do in 20 pages? then you have to try not to regurgitate anyone elses work 11 more times till the year starts up again... That's hard. In the old days when the business was new an small that was hard. Now that it's old and large, oh so large... When a good writer takes an idea and runs with it for two hard covers, that's deompression, but when hack woffles on for a three issue arc, that's padding.

 

Dial H #0: The story didn't make a lot of sense, but it was nice to see a "sundial" device and a user from ancient times.

Smallville #1 to #5: I finally got around to reading these. I love seeing Smallville continue with a full-on version of Superman, but what we got so far hasn't been the best. About the only thing that stood out was the line about how they can start using the name "Superman" now. Can't say that this version of Superman is a good one either. He doesn't have the same kind of presence that you'd expect from the character. I also noticed that General Lane didn't recognize Superman as Clark Kent. That was odd. Moving along... Things really took off with Issue #5. Now we have Smallville's Batman. They tweaked the costume a bit and brought in a female Nightwing. It was all very much in keeping with the kind of thing the show would have done and I enjoyed seeing this new take on things. I wish they would have used Robin though. I also found myself trying to figure out Bruce's age and who might have played him if he were on the show. Lots of fun to be had here and I look forward to reading on. Can't wait to see what they do with Wonder Woman.

I'm going to have to catch up on that season 11 thread.

 

It's Barbara Gordon as Nightwing. Miller originally wanted to use Stephanie Brown but this was rejected by DC Editorial. You're pretty much the only person I've encountered who's read the series so far and had problems with it. I've had nearly no complaints about it. It's been outstanding. Regarding Superman's lack of presence, keep in mind this is essentially a Superman Year One story. Of course Clark would not have the presence that the comic version does. He's earning his stripes still.

 

Thought so, but I had my doubts. They did a good job of hiding that fact. Guess now she can't be Batgirl.

I wonder why they'd reject that but accept Barbara Gordon.

That's surprising. The first four issues weren't as eventful as I thought they'd be and it didn't quite feel as if Smallville was taken to the next level. I'll admit that excitement and high expectations played a part in how I felt though. Can't wait to get to that season 11 thread to see what others think.

It does feel like he's missing something. Perhaps he can use a little more depth. One way to do that would be to have him accept that he's messed up a lot rather than have him trying to be "Superman" outright. John Constantine has messed up a lot and he's got presence and charisma. It's because he accepts who he is. Smallville's Clark can be like that by doing the same thing.

 

World's Finest #0: I wanted to see a backstory where our two girls were still Robin and Supergirl and we finally got it. It was a brief but good glimpse into the past.

 

The House to astonish mp3 review of Phantom Stranger is awesome. "Judas cos-plays Jesus in a Christ-trench coat."

 

"Batman #0" preview. This is one of the zero issues that I've been anticipating for a while though. Already I'm reminded of "Batman Begins". It also seems like we're going to get some 52'Verse retcons in this book. 'Red Hood Gang", etc This should be interesting to see what Snyder does with Bruce's past.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=13555

 

Real Quick:

As I said above I really liked Action #0 this past week. Good, solid, issue and closer to how I wish this book had been from the beginning.

Detective #0 was pretty good as well showing Bruce's early days when it came to his rise as Batman. (I assume all of the Batman books are connected this month to show his rise to Bats?)

World's Finest and Earth 2 were okay. I think the latter was the most lacking in the details of the world before #1, and WF didn't spark much in me either. Art seemed lack-luster too.

Dial H: Was okay, but it's a book that's not really holding my interest overall as it is. I thought the "Hero Dial" being a sundial needing manual rotation over the course of days to be an interesting way to present it, though it being the "usual" phone dial would have been interesting to see how the ancient people would look at such a device.

Batman and Batgirl will be my pulls tomorrow.

 

Batman and Detective Comics #0 show case Bruce's past, Batman Incoprorated #0 show how Bruce recruited all his "lieutenants" for Batman, Inc , Batman and Robin #0 deal with Damian and Talia. Batgirl #0 is supposed to reveal Barbara's New 52 origin and first adventure as Batgirl. I think originally it was supposed to reveal how she is walking now, but that might've changed.

Early reviews of "Batman #0" are that it is outstanding. No surprise here. Pulls tomorrow will be the following:

-Batgirl #0
-Batman #0
-Batman and Robin #0
-He-Man and the Masters of the Universe #2

 

What about "The Dark Knight"?

 

"Batman: The Dark Knight #0" focuses on New 52 Joe Chill and introduces a conspiracy to kill the Wayne Family. This probably starts the Wayne Family murder retcon that has been rumoured. Wonder if there will be any Court references

http://www.dccomics.com/comics/batman-the-dark-knight-2011/batman-the-dark-knight-0

 

Any guesses on who Earth 2's seventh Wonder is?