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

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by JD, Aug 30, 2011.

  1. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    The last five pages of Catwoman #1...

    Wow. That's pretty damn hot.
     
  2. JoeZhang

    JoeZhang Vice Admiral Admiral

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    and seems to suggest that Batman is a 'quick shot'! :lol:
     
  3. Professor Zoom

    Professor Zoom Admiral Admiral

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    When I was really comics in the 90s, in High School, I remember how Green Arrow had a "For Mature Readers Only" tag on it. For the sex, the occasional boob, etc.

    Clearly, DC realizes no one but grown ups read comics anymore so they have discarded the For Mature Readers Only...

    I SO wouldn't let my hypothetical 8 year old read Catwoman...
     
  4. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Catwoman was fun and sexy which I expected. Winnick really loves to use the Russian mob in his stories! The most interesting aspect for me was Selina's internal dialogue at the end where she says she doesn't know who Bruce is!!! So they've retconned out their "Hush" moment? That was probably the only thing I liked out of Hush haha. Oh well...I wonder if Morrison will ignore this since they know who each other are obviously in Batman, Inc.


    Supergirl was better than I expected! This has the potential to be a fun book. The art is clean and crisp and the writing is decent. There are references to Zod, and her parents, and she realizes that she's not on Krypton when the sun rises lol. I will be continuing with this.
     
  5. Myasishchev

    Myasishchev Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well, another week, another batch of okayish comics.

    Blue Beetle. The word "cloying" was invented to describe this book. Still, it's okay. From the legendary new reader's perspective, that Random Green Lantern cameo is out of nowhere. I like the scene in the convertible, but if my favorite part of a comic is because a scene in a convertible vaguely reminds me of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, you've sort of failed; at the same time, everything is laid out very nicely and the book is structured beautifully, with that prologue which signals what one should "expect" to happen now that Jaime's been possessed with the scarab (except no one actually expects that because that's not how continuing series work).

    Grade: B.

    Captain Atom. Would you believe that I could conceivably call this my second favorite book of the week (at least that I read)? It feels uber-80s. And I liked it. It's sort of bad, but in a charming way. I liked Stephen Hawking. He's always a delight.

    On the minus side, I LIKED THIS BETTER WHEN JIM SHOOTER WROTE IT AND IT WAS CALLED SOLAR MAN OF THE FUCKING ATOM.

    And J.T. Krul! Why were asleep during science class?

    B... until I realized it was Solar except not nearly as good, then C. Solar, Man of the Atom #1 gets an A+. :)

    Legion of Super-Heroes. Coming in on Part 2.3 X 10^12 of an ongoing story is always hard, but at least it was better than Legion Lost. Seriously, I have no idea what the fuck was happening in this book, but at least I knew whom it involved. Brainiac is in it. I love the last page where it was obvious Levitz thought he was writing page 19 and realized belatedly it was actually page 20.

    Mark Waid, where are you?! We're sorry! New readers? LOSH doesn't need new readers. What are you, insane? It sells in the hundreds of copies. They'd do better reprinting volume 5 and calling it new.

    C.

    Supergirl. This is fucking amateur hour. Or rather, amateur four minutes.

    Okay, by no means is this bad in any positive sense: it's not stupid or truly insipid or anything. What it is, is inept, utterly inept--ungodly badly paced, devoid of any real conflict, and because of that also boring.

    I'm gonna throw some more science at you: there is a page with five panels on it; this is the densest this book gets. The mean number of panels per page is 2.85. I think Rob Liefeld comics have a higher panel count than this.

    Look, there is a time and place for an all-fighting, all-splashing issue of a comic book. Savage Dragon #7. Superman #75. That ridiculous Steranko stuff in Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD. Hell, even Books of Magic pulled it off and all it had was continuity/scenery porn.

    Supergirl fighting nameless, virtually faceless mechs in her first issue is not that time, and not that place.

    "There's something wrong with the sun": Admiral Young accurately identified the only good moment in Supergirl. :p It would've been a lot better had it been on, say, page 3.

    D+. The plus is for at least being pretty. But seriously, this is like passing by a guitar-playing beggar on your way to the Bon Jovi concert...

    What? They're a good band, and they're consummate performers.

    Wonder Woman. Hey, this was really good! It's like they hired someone who knew how to write a comic book, or something! It's still a little short (no one can escape the 20 page cage), but it sets up some stuff that seems like it will be interesting. My favorite part is when the horses are magically and nastily transformed into centaurs, although of course the centaurs themselves, like all centaurs, look kind of stupid.

    A.

    Amount of money wasted this week: $9.

    You know, it might be the best book to come out this week, but after that interview where Winnick said the word "sexy" fifty times in a row while breathing heavily and making shuffling noises, I couldn't bring myself to buy it. Instead I got Captain Atom! Why did I do that?
     
    Last edited: Sep 21, 2011
  6. hyzmarca

    hyzmarca Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    No one but 13-year-old boys read comic anymore. You can tell by how they completely bimbofied Starfire.
     
  7. Myasishchev

    Myasishchev Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yeah, Starfire used to be a model of restraint.
     
  8. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Were you reading Gotham City Sirens? There's an explanation within the last six months there for why Selina might not know who's under the cowl. Basically, Zee and Talia wiped part of Selina's memory because a villain knew that Catwoman knew who Batman was.

    Though if Stephanie is going to be Spoiler in the Batman Inc. one-shot (when she should be Batgirl, to complete that penultimate storyline in Batgirl), who knows.
     
  9. Professor Zoom

    Professor Zoom Admiral Admiral

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    You mean 30 year olds who are LIKE 13 year olds.
     
  10. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Well to be fair, they probably weren't expecting many kids to be picking up Catwoman anyway.
     
  11. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I really like Supergirl.

    I was a thirteen year old kid...over four decades ago.
     
  12. Myasishchev

    Myasishchev Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Don't take this the wrong way--people can react to things in different ways--but why? I'm genuinely curious, and feel like maybe I missed something. It felt like a mint to me when I wanted a meal--I mean, I just realized that it only had one scene.
     
  13. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    @Allyn Gibson I remember about the arc in Gotham City Sirens but I thought they allowed her to keep her memories of Bruce? Just an interesting observation that I noticed.

    Supergirl's writing was better than the issues of Superman/Batman that House of UIster referenced a couple of pages ago...I will agree with Myasichev regarding the pacing of the book. The fight scenes against the mechs was just awful.
     
  14. Professor Zoom

    Professor Zoom Admiral Admiral

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    True. I'm just wondering which book I would give to an 8 to 10 year old...


    Edited to add: Just started reading Supergirl... Man, that opening sequence... I mean... THROUGH the... WOULDN'T that cause A LOT of problems? I mean... if one thought about it... for a second.
     
  15. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Didn't Batman #1 come out today?
     
  16. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I enjoyed the one scene. You know, this one moment in the character's life is what Veep Biden would call "a big fucking deal," maybe the biggest, and so first off I don't have a problem as such with making a story out of it and sticking with it rather than - I don't know, doing flashbacks or going to another POV or setting up a subplot for a future issue in a clear fashion.

    I like the art. I like the character's narration and POV. The fact that she's basically Superman and has no reason to like or even give a shit about anyone around her now is pretty amusing.

    I like the lightness of it all - she's a teenager, she thinks she's going to live forever anyway, and all of this is in turns confusing and annoying and scary but it's going to take a while before any of it gets very real.

    And I think doing the story in first person but having the reader/audience know everything while the character talking to you knows nothing is an approach that always has a nice suspense about it.
     
  17. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    @Trekker yes...


    Wonder Woman was incredibly fun. I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.
     
  18. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Well, I should have it delivered to me soon, has no one read it yet? I mean, it's Batman! Why are we talking about Supergirl and others. What was Batman like?!
     
  19. Admiral_Young

    Admiral_Young Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    ^ Someone briefly reviewed it last page and I think gave it a negative response...at least the opening monologue. I don't remember now lol.


    Okay I just finished reading "Batman #1" and my Rao was the art gorgeous...Greg Capullo's art was spectacular and the splash of the Cave was marvellous. Scott Snyder can write Batman for as long as he wants to. As far as I'm concerned he is the heir apparent to Grant Morrison...and it was nice to see the facial recognition mask from Batman, Inc make it's first field appearance here. We have an interesting mystery afoot now!
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2011
  20. Myasishchev

    Myasishchev Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I can see where you're coming from. This is what I meant when I said it wasn't bad in a positive, or affirmative, way--like, what's there is not badly written--

    --Even the narration, which has a tendency to be badly written. Not by the Mikes, I mean, who do a decent job here, but by everybody else. I think it's interesting that this storytelling trick seems to be making a comeback, although everyone seems to have forgotten how to do it properly--

    --But I didn't get a lot from the comic itself, other than "Kara is confused (and thinks she's dreaming)". Like you said, this is definitely the correct and proper tone, but I thought the execution of that concept, i.e. a very long fight scene with cypher enemies, was a mistake.

    Indeed. That's why I didn't buy it, personally.