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

[Hound of UIster]

Seventy years of Batman continuity according to GM is only 20 years in the life of Bruce Wayne.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Hound of UIster wrote:

---

Seventy years of Batman continuity according to GM is only 20 years in the life of Bruce Wayne.

Well, it could hardly be seventy or even forty years in the life Bruce Wayne, could it?

[Myasishchev]

Mr Light wrote:

---

I wonder if they'll eventually do "remakes" of those stories. A Death of Superman where Luthor is not a red-haired clone of himself and Supergirl is not a protoplasm blob

BOYCOTT!!1

Seriously, that part where Doomsday smashes her into grape jelly is pretty awesome.

[theenglish]

Mr Light wrote:

---

Most comic books only take place over 1-2 days. And each comic ends on a cliffhanger that leads right into the next. So 700 issues of Superman would only equal 1,400 days, or 3.8 years.

And then you count time between story lines. Normally five years of real time is considered one year of comic time. Marvel seems to reference this every once in a while, and there was supposed to have only been a little over two years between Superman's death and Infinite Crisis I think.

[Nerys Myk]

I wouldn't worry about it. As little or as much time passed between storylines as is needed. And if needed you can drop another infinite number of storylines between them.

[theenglish]

Nerys Myk wrote:

---

I wouldn't worry about it. As little or as much time passed between storylines as is needed. And if needed you can drop another infinite number of storylines between them.

That was the original point that I was trying to make. Five years could encompass all the events since COIE or it could encompass none of them. Or any 25 years worth of stories since 1938 for that matter.

Let's see. 1938-1940 will be in continuity, 1957-1962, etc...

I am just kidding, of course.

[JoeZhang]

Nerys Myk wrote:

---

I'd guess the "death" of Superman happened, but not necessarily "The Death of Superman".

Which is really no different to how they treated "Crisis on infinite earths" for a number of years - it happened in the post-crisis universe but unfolded in a slightly different than we saw in the actual series (there were no multiple earth, it was simply the matter and anti-matter universe etc).

Of course when Infinite Crisis happened, they changed their minds and it *did* go down as shown in 'Crisis on infinite earths'.

[Mr Light]

One thing I'm STILL confused about... after COIE, did the stories before COIE happen? Because I thought it was a hard reboot and nothing happened before (clearly the Superman Man of Steel was completely different than anything that came before). Yet they started referencing COIE as happening (but I guess nobody remembered it?).

[Vendikarr]

Mr Light wrote:

---

Most comic books only take place over 1-2 days. And each comic ends on a cliffhanger that leads right into the next. So 700 issues of Superman would only equal 1,400 days, or 3.8 years.

When Roy Thomas was writing All-Star Squadron, he was fitting one month of comics time into one year of real time. With that thought, a year in the comics could take 12 real years.

If that was the way everything was handled, Superman would just be in his sixth year. That fits their "Super heroes have only been around five year" thing.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Mr Light wrote:

---

One thing I'm STILL confused about... after COIE, did the stories before COIE happen? Because I thought it was a hard reboot and nothing happened before (clearly the Superman Man of Steel was completely different than anything that came before). Yet they started referencing COIE as happening (but I guess nobody remembered it?).

At first, no one even remembered the Crisis except for a couple of folks like the Psycho-Pirate. After a while, DC allowed as how the characters remembered a crisis involving the Anti-Monitor and "our" Universe and the anti-matter Universe. I believe, however, that except for characters like Superman who underwent his own reboot shortly thereafter the characters were supposed to remember some versions of their earlier lives.

The narration in the preview for Batman #1 just absolutely sucks - it's overwrought and straining way too hard.

[Allyn Gibson]

The last five pages of Catwoman #1...

Wow. That's pretty damn hot.

[JoeZhang]

and seems to suggest that Batman is a 'quick shot'!

[Professor Zoom]

Allyn Gibson wrote:

---

The last five pages of Catwoman #1...

Wow. That's pretty damn hot.

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...

[Admiral_Young]

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.

[Myasishchev]

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. 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.

Admiral Young wrote:

---

Catwoman was fun and sexy which I expected

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?