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

[OdoWanKenobi]

Justice League #8: Ugh, that's it. I'm done. This book is just stupid. The characters are all being written as incredibly unlikable, and I just don't give a crap.

Batman #8: Night of the Owls begins, and it is awesome. This is a pure action book, but it kicks every kind of ass. Alfred putting out the call to the whole Bat family at the end, even Jason(!!) shows that some serious shit is going down.

Nightwing #8: And the serious shit continues here. The last couple pages are pretty striking. That's a hell of a problem Dick has here. Yeeeeeeouwch.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #8: Ah, ok. Jason wasn't a target of Alfred's broadcast, but was eavesdropping. This book has gotten a lot better since issue 1, but it still seems like this team is not actually a team. It's always Kori and Roy are off doing one thing while Jason is off doing another. I'd like to see them all fighting together for once. Maybe they'll get the change against Mr. Freeze or the Talons. The bit between Jason and Tim was nice. It's an odd change of pace seeing Jason be civil to any of the other Robins.

Green Lantern Corps #8: More nazi-I mean Alpha Lantern problems. Yay. I also think that Guy had better be wary about the promotion he's getting. I forsee the Guardians trying to force him onto the surgery block next. Looks like John didn't get off as easy as I thought, either. Good. They kicked Hal out of the Corps for less.

[Admiral_Young]

I saw Rich's report about the Trinity War...very interesting indeed. Looks like we're finally going to get to the bottom of what Pandora's agenda is and her connection to the New 52 timeline.


Supergirl #8: I've been extremely patient with this book and it showed a lot of promise with the opening arc and the art is pretty good and consistent, but there are still a lot of problems with this book. I guess the military who we can assume have worked with Superman by this point and are familiar with him and his costume can't decipher that Kara has a similar costume to him, and she just saved their asses as well. Kara's new friend who seems to be the New 52 version of Dazzler lol...is kind of interesting and i'm guessing she is going to room with her and she is going to teach her about Earth custom and we're going to find out why she has a gift with languages, but I just have run out of patience with this book. There seems to be a lot of stupid people in the New 52 as opposed to the DCU. I might pick this up again during the Superman Family crossover later this summer but it's dropped now.

Batman #8: Prelude to the Night of Owls and oh man has business picked up!! Yeah I've been critical of the whole Court of Owls arc but it is very clear to me that Snyder is weaving an even larger tale here. This is just the start of something bigger. The art is simply awesome. Greg Capullo is really killing it here, just some beautiful art. I might have to start reading the other books that I dropped in order to follow the rest of the arc.

[Praetor_Shinzon]

yeah, kinda feel the same way about Supergirl. feeling that way about a lot of books at this point. of the DC stuff i read tonight i thought Nightwing and Wonder Woman were pretty good. everything else was just...there.

[Admiral_Young]

Wonder Woman still continues to be one of my favourite books, and in my top three. I was hesitant over the direction of the book, but it has really worked out right now, and Cliff Chiang's art while not for everyone works with the story tone of the book. I really like Diana and the ongoing story we're dealing with her.

[Guy Gardener]

DC doesn't feel real to me without 70 years of history to prop it up.

Why is Green Arrow acting like a young Booster Gold?

Actually he reminds me of Spider-Man's early audition with the fantastic Four, in the 60s, when he changed his mind after they told him there was no pay cheque... Which in the story line of "Ben Billions" we found out that Pete was on the money about the money and Reed just forgot to tell his friends that they were being paid a salary.

Where's Jim Lee?

I made an invested commitment to this book because it was going to be beautiful.

Bait and switch.

(Again.)

[Trekker4747]

Batman: Good issue, the "Night of Owls" thing is picking up now which is cool, and I liked the "call to the Batfamily." Though I didn't like the art change about mid-way through when Bruce puts on the prototype Iron Man suit from the movie, that seemed out of nowhere. The art there seemed a touch rougher.

But the story -for me- has picked back up. I likely won't pick-up the other Bat-books to read the whole Night of Owls arc (probably will if it goes to a trade) but it looks interesting.

Catwoman: This book is losing steam for me, mostly because of the art change which I really don't care-for (more particular the coloring of it.)

On the "Night of the Owls" thing, it looks like it's going to span all of the Batman titles which I creates a continuity blackhole in my head as I'm not sure how all of the Bat-books overlap one another, especially since at times they seem to contradict one another.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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DC doesn't feel real to me without 70 years of history to prop it up.

Psst - it's not real.

I've been reading DC off and on for about fifty of its seventy years. I'm not missing the (continually revised, frequently contradicted, repeatedly rebooted) faux "history" even a smidgeon. Right now the current Superman is probably my favorite version since I was about seven years old, much as I liked Byrne's version in it's early years. Honestly, he and the people around him just "feel more real."

[Professor Zoom]

OdoWanKenobi wrote:

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Justice League #8: Ugh, that's it. I'm done. This book is just stupid. The characters are all being written as incredibly unlikable, and I just don't give a crap.

Yeah. I feel the same way. I miss Morrison's League. I miss the Bwah Ha Ha years. This, I won't miss when it's gone.

[Admiral_Young]

Justice League just baffles me. It was hyped up to be THE book of the New 52, with Johns and Lee working together for the first time, with all the major characters of the DCU. It is considered the flagship book of the New 52 as well, one of the major selling points. What has been extremely disappointing is Johns writing of the characters as nothing more than un-likeable caricatures of each other, even Aquaman who he writes near perfectly in the solo book, is written different in Justice League. The origin story was bizarre in the way it was structured and written as well. At least Jim Lee was bringing it...his art was pretty fantastic. Can't say the same for Johns writing. I haven't been this disappointed by a book in a long time that I was highly anticipating at first.

[Admiral_Young]

I'm surprised we haven't heard more of this yet given what went down after the initial announcement of the New 52 and all the creator problems. Chris Roberson will be missed at least to me. He took over JMS's Superman run and actually improved it somewhat IMO. I enjoyed the second half of it. He also wrote recently the Legion/Star Trek crossover. He was my pick to take over Legion of Superheroes from Paul Levitz, but I guess that won't happen now. He's critical of Marvel as well...I wonder if this means he'll end up in IDW?

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/04/...its-dc-comics/

[The Lensman]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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Justice League just baffles me. It was hyped up to be THE book of the New 52, with Johns and Lee working together for the first time, with all the major characters of the DCU. It is considered the flagship book of the New 52 as well, one of the major selling points. What has been extremely disappointing is Johns writing of the characters as nothing more than un-likeable caricatures of each other, even Aquaman who he writes near perfectly in the solo book, is written different in Justice League. The origin story was bizarre in the way it was structured and written as well. At least Jim Lee was bringing it...his art was pretty fantastic. Can't say the same for Johns writing. I haven't been this disappointed by a book in a long time that I was highly anticipating at first.

Interesting. I've read similar claims about GL. Is JLA intended to be the gateway by which new readers jump into the greater DCU? Sorta "start here.....then get better characterization in the solo books." It almost sounds like JLA is "sorta" in the same continuity, character wise, but not exactly.

As a long time JSA fan (since the 70's when I had my first run in with them) I'm very interested in the new Earth-2 book. I'm that rare JSA fan that has long felt it was time to cut their ties to WW2. After a certain point, the age thing just doesn't work....especially when certain artists drew them pretty much like seniors.

Jay, Alan and Ted, the retconned "core" of the team all had perfectly good excuses to be presented as young....the trick came in the desire to have them with their original loves. Except that these weren't love interests with the staying power or "iconic-ness" of a Lois Lane.

Even tied to WW2, they could've had the original ladies pass on, and have the guys move on, Highlander style. And then you just sort of rarely mention their WW2 adventures.

Or, you just have them as always about ten years older than the JLA, on a sliding timescale. I mean, they weren't The Invaders.....they didn't actually fight in either theater of war....they just fought spies and saboteurs here in the states for the most part, with the occasional circus appearance for War Bond Drives.

IMO, they just seem to be in a better place than The Invaders to divorce from WW2.

So now that they're being updated to contemporaries of the JLA, at least from what I've read so far, I'm very interested to see what they do with these characters and how they make them fresh.

My biggest dilemma is buy it off the stands, or wait for the trade. This is probably the first book in the last year that I'm actually wanting to read as it comes out.




Since we're on the subject of trades.....any recommendations of nu52 trades? More than likely I'll pick up Morrison's Action run, as I loved his All Star Superman. But beyond that, nothing really jumps out at me.

[Admiral_Young]

Trades don't start coming out until I believe late next month, early June. I'd check out the trades to Snyder's Batman, Morrison's Action Comics, Azzarello's Wonder Woman, Johns Aquaman (it actually is a good book), some of the other titles that others have praised in the thread like Flash, Batwoman, etc.

Would I consider Justice League a "gateway book"? No not at all. Nothing in the origin arc really ties in to the other books since Justice League takes place five years in the past of the New 52.

[The Lensman]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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Trades don't start coming out until I believe late next month, early June. I'd check out the trades to Snyder's Batman, Morrison's Action Comics, Azzarello's Wonder Woman, Johns Aquaman (it actually is a good book), some of the other titles that others have praised in the thread like Flash, Batwoman, etc.

Would I consider Justice League a "gateway book"? No not at all. Nothing in the origin arc really ties in to the other books since Justice League takes place five years in the past of the New 52.

Thanks for the suggestions Admiral.

In regards to JLA, I think it's lack of hard ties to the other books would make it the gateway book, especially with it being in a different time frame.

So a noob could come onto JLA, get all the big name heroes, and if they wanted a deeper exploration of those characters, go to the solo books. The characters themselves would also be more thought out in terms of how they act etc.

I generally remember that back in the old days, characters acted the same regardless of where they appeared. But in this newer, shorter attention span era, you have to maybe hook them with a slightly different approach in one book.

From what I understand, Hal is an arrogant ass in JLA, but not in GL. Do arrogant assholes work better to draw in noobs? Maybe.

How cohesive is the new universe presented? Is it fairly tight, or are they going for something looser so as not to have to worry about crazy continuity stuff? If so the latter, that might explain the character difference.

[Admiral_Young]

How cohesive is the New 52? I think that'd be one of the biggest criticisms of the relaunch. Mostly to do with the fact that some of the books have continuity carried over from the DCU, mainly Batman and Green Lantern's continuities carried over. I'd say that the overall structure of the New 52 is very loose. Some in the thread may disagree with me knowing my vocal issues on the subject. There really isn't one particular common link yet as the writers are still really building and crafting the new continuity.

[Guy Gardener]

1-6 of JLA was in the past.

7-the next reboot is set in the present.