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

[Guy Gardener]

It's not the height of negativity to say that DC fucked the chicken with most of their decisions here.

What they did in September will become as synonymous with cockeyed backward thinking as Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

I think it's probable that half of these books will be cancelled by issue 4.

Then they'll be forced to launch a new imprint called classi... Oh? Retro DC?

How can you call an new imprint "retro" when it's all just cancelled last month books?

I did like the Blackest Night plus one books that gave all those cancelled books from the 80s one more issue.

It's not too late.

Dan can admit his mistake and wash their hands of this new 52 bollocks.

This is still not the height of negativity.

[JoeZhang]

sojourner wrote:

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Damn, comics shop missed half my pull from last week and their credit card system was down. No comics for me.

It never ceases to amaze me how amateur a lot of comic shops are compared to other small retailers - I was talking to the owner of a comic store once about stock control system and he was amazed that "there is a computer that does that?"

[Guy Gardener]

shop I worked in used microsoft outlook to cross reference the comics with each other and the box holders and their comics... It was all so simply elegant. On the other side of town the other shop was using and probably is still using little pieces of cardboard with instructions written in blue pen.

[Icemizer]

So after reading all 52 #1's there are only ten books that did not grab me enough to continue picking them up.
Captain Atom, Green Arrow, My Greatest Adventure, Mister Terrific, I Vampire, Grifter, Voodoo, Men of War, Static Shock and Legion Lost.
There are 8 books that are teetering on the cusp and need serious help or issue 3 will be the end. Batwing, Birds of Prey, Red Lanterns, Resurrection Man, Storm Watch, OMAC, Justice League Dark and Hawk & Dove.
The remaining 34 seem solid enough now and through the issue #5 solicits. Oddly these amount to mostly what I was pulling previous to the relaunch.

[Mr Light]

^^ You sir must be loaded to buying that many comics

[Hound of UIster]

Icemizer wrote:

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So after reading all 52 #1's there are only ten books that did not grab me enough to continue picking them up.
Captain Atom, Green Arrow, My Greatest Adventure, Mister Terrific, I Vampire, Grifter, Voodoo, Men of War, Static Shock and Legion Lost.
There are 8 books that are teetering on the cusp and need serious help or issue 3 will be the end. Batwing, Birds of Prey, Red Lanterns, Resurrection Man, Storm Watch, OMAC, Justice League Dark and Hawk & Dove.
The remaining 34 seem solid enough now and through the issue #5 solicits. Oddly these amount to mostly what I was pulling previous to the relaunch.

I'm hoping a lot of these books eventually just get cancelled. I'm looking at Red Lanterns, Red Hood, Hawk and Dove, Captain Atom, Firestorm, Static Shock, Deathstroke, Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, Blue Beetle, Grifter, Blackhawks, Terrifice and Voodoo in particular. The salvageable ones like Detective, JLD/JLI, Titans and Legion probably need change in writers.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

A lot of them will be, and they'll be replaced by other some of which will be canceled, etc until they have a more stable line.

This whole nuDC 52 thing is working really well, so far. Didio's got nothing to "admit" here, and they're not going to go back to the old status quo for the simple reason that it was failing. At this point Didio's bosses wouldn't stand for it.

[Allyn Gibson]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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I think it's probable that half of these books will be cancelled by issue 4.

Given that DC has solicited all 52 through issue #5, I think that prediction is highly unlikely to come to pass...

On a different note, Red Hood and the Outlaws #2 was pretty enjoyable. You don't even need to have read issue #1, and the sexualization of Kory from issue #1 doesn't carry over into issue #2. I really like Lobdell's characterization of Jason as, essentially, a harder-edged Bruce Wayne (and Red Hood: The Lost Years is still in continuity), and there's something fun about Roy Harper as a slacker fratboy hero. Plus, Rocafort draws a lovely Talia al-Ghul.

[Myasishchev]

I still think a book about Roy teaching Connor the joys of heroin would have been more fun.

Anyway, I assume that Captain Marvel backup and any new book that winds up spinning out of it's still gonna be called Power of Shazam? It amazes me that DC still permits Marvel to call that shot, given how much leverage DC could theoretically exercise (and since 85 could have exercised) against them. An infringement claim against the Squadron Supreme might be waived by now, but it sure would be unfortunate if someone filed for an injunction to prevent republication of that famous book about the guy who says a magic word and is granted powers. Maybe we'll let you call it Power of Kimota when we're done.

Also, I was reading some more crap about Red Hood, and it occurred to me: isn't the point of casual sex that you can tell the people you're fucking apart? I mean, there's no use in having two identical sexbots. Well, there's one use, but that didn't come up in the book.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The reviews of Justice League #2 are pretty positive - I'll read it this evening.

[Hound of UIster]

Myasishchev wrote:

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I still think a book about Roy teaching Connor the joys of heroin would have been more fun.

Anyway, I assume that Captain Marvel backup and any new book that winds up spinning out of it's still gonna be called Power of Shazam? It amazes me that DC still permits Marvel to call that shot, given how much leverage DC could theoretically exercise (and since 85 could have exercised) against them. An infringement claim against the Squadron Supreme might be waived by now, but it sure would be unfortunate if someone filed for an injunction to prevent republication of that famous book about the guy who says a magic word and is granted powers. Maybe we'll let you call it Power of Kimota when we're done.

DC and Marvel have ripped off each other so much that your proposal idea would only cause volleys of countersuits from Disney.

[Myasishchev]

I dunno. It seems most of it went Marvel's way. I'm not really familiar with any long-running DC expies on the scale of Squadron Supreme. One-shot and clearly joke characters may be protected by parody, and a character like Mongul was obviously influenced by (and created by the same guy as) Thanos, but he's not very similar. Squadron Supreme is way infringing though. Just tolerated.

So is Miracleman; explicitly so, since Mick Anglo just slapped a new name and costume onto Captain Marvel and somewhat retooled the concept to make him more British, more sciency and not in direct defiance of the infringement suit already leveled against Fawcett.

While it's probably the case he failed to distinguish the character any further from Superman (than he already was, the appellate order viz. National Comics Publ. being a shit of a decision), but he definitely failed to distance him from Capt. Marvel.

In any event, I'd offer a nominal sum to license the name first.

[Nerys Myk]

Captain Marvel has always been a hardluck case in the copyright arena. When he was first developed by Fawcett he was going to be "Captain Thunder" in "Flash Comics" or "Thrill Comics". But Fawcett was beaten to the punch by other comics using those names so they had to settle on "Captain Marvel" and "Whiz Comics". Marvel staked a claim on "Marvel" back in the late thirties with "Marvel Mystery Comics", so once the Captain Marvel copyright lapsed they could claim that only Marvel could use "Marvel" as a comic's name. Which is why the Shazam comic of the seventies had to drop the "Captain Marvel" tagline on it's covers.

[Nerys Myk]

Duplicate

[Admiral Buzzkill]

So basically it sounds as if the argument is more about protecting the word "Marvel" as a trademark in marketing comics than an issue of copyright infringement.