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

[Icemizer]

Found myself enjoying Dial H for Hero this past month(only get to the shop once a month so I know I am late)kind of a strange book but interesting enough to keep getting for awhile.
Earth 2 and Worlds Finest are better than some of the first wave books that are still around.
G.I. Combat was not very good and the huge difference in art from story A to B did not help at all.
Still on board with 29 of the original 52 titles.

[Hound of UIster]

Derishton wrote:

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I tried JLI for a few issues, but the "character development" seemed to fall into three categories: Booster Gold evolving to roughly where he already evolved in the old DC; "girl characters" sometimes saying things but mostly getting knocked unconscious; and death.

They should never have given Jurgens the JLI title. Winnick did a great job on Generation Lost, why couldn't they have let him continue writing those characters.

[Guy Gardener]

Because Jurgens thinks that his JLI in the 90s and Giffens JLI in the 90s are exactly the same.

It' like when the guy who sells you your shoes at mall compares himself to Winston Churchill.

[Derishton]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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It' like when the guy who sells you your shoes at mall compares himself to Winston Churchill.

I would've said the same thing before the guy that sells me my shoes - his name is Sandra, she's really nice - beat the crap out of those Nazi Velociraptors on the beach.

[shivkala]

I said it a little over a year ago when all of this was announced that Winnick should have gotten Justice League International, and I say that as someone who, in general, is not a huge Winnick fan. I read Justice League: Generations Lost because it started out as a Keith Giffen book (with help from Winnick), but somewhere along the line, Giffen seemingly dropped out and Winnick took over. Aside from what he did with Ice's origin, I loved the rest of the series and was really hoping to see him pen these characters in another (hopefully on-going) title.

I loved Jurgens back in the mid-90's, but felt his writing started to wear thin in the late 90's (around the time I gave up comics for 2 years). I read his run on Booster Gold and never really loved it, it felt like he was still stuck in the 90's.

I feel as if there has been a shift in the way comics are written now than in the 1990's, just as the comics in the 90's felt different than in the 80's and so on. The 90's stories were very character driven (to the point where some issues of say, Superman felt like the focused more on the staff of the Planet, Jimmy's mother, Clark's parents, Lois' parents, etc. more than on Superman). They also had some fairly straightforward plots and the science fiction was also rather straightforward. Lastly, they seemed to work really hard to take Silver Age concepts and explain them in a more rational way. I felt like Karl Kessel really did a great job of this (such as when, in Superboy, he played with the Kamandi concept by having Superboy end up in a world like Kamandi's with his memory wiped, only to slowly regain his memories and figure out he was just on an uncharted island). As another example, compare the pre-Crisis Comet the Super-Horse to the post-Crisis version.

Now, I feel as if the supporting cast is pared down and we rarely see the soap-opera like plots involving them. They are used as a part of the main narrative. The stories nowadays are less straightforward and science-fiction involves brain-twisting concepts. They also boldly accept the Silver Age concepts, using some super-science fiction to explain them, but keeping them as close to their original forms as possible.

However, Jurgens continues to write as if it were the 90's and the narrative structure has not changed at all. As an example, his run on Booster Gold had Booster dealing with the return of his sister, Goldstar, confronting the New Teen Titans, teaming up with Batgirl, and running across the Cyborg Superman shortly before he destroyed Coast City.

[theenglish]

Caretaker wrote:

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I got a letter from DC Comics today. Legion of Super Heroes issue 11 is the last one available via subscription from DC; further issues (issue 12 and onward) will only be available by going to my local comic shop. For the last two issues of my subscription, I can get a refund or they will automatically switch my subscription over to Superman.

Anyone else get this letter? I can only imagine what prompted this.

This is disappointing. Cancelled it seems?

[Guy Gardener]

Legion is hard to do well.

they used to sell it hard on the OC.

But, at the time (2002 -2006?) by my assessment, the legion was awful.

[JRS]

Professor Zoom wrote:

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Bleeding Cool is reporting Justice League International is being cancelled at issue 12.

That is just great
Now I have to start thinking of replacing that with something else.
Birds of Prey comes to mind first, but I am not sure if I can jump in to that anymore..hmm

[Guy Gardener]

Birds of Prey is shit (now).

Suicide Squad is nice.

The team keeps going crazy or/and evil and Deadshot has to put them down.

[Icemizer]

Have to agree with Guy, Suicide Squad is all kinds of crazy.

[Praetor_Shinzon]

theenglish wrote:

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This is disappointing. Cancelled it seems?

nah, not cancelled. just that for some reason you can't subscribe to certain titles any longer. not sure what the logic is, other than DC wanting you to buy 'core' titles.

[Allyn Gibson]

Praetor_Shinzon wrote:

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nah, not cancelled. just that for some reason you can't subscribe to certain titles any longer. not sure what the logic is, other than DC wanting you to buy 'core' titles.

If the number of subscriptions falls below a certain point, it's simply not cost effective for DC to handle the subscriptions due to economies of scale. My hunch is that's the reason.

[Derishton]

Justice League 9 better be going in a "White Martian" direction, as the alternate cover suggests, and not what the art on the last page suggested. The Shazam backup is getting better. The Bolland art is a treat.

Wonder Woman is clearly heading somewhere other than where the people screaming about the "rapey rapey Amazons" think it's going.

Red Hood was amusing as always, although one inadvertently amusing detail stands out: the footnote to Mr Freeze declaring that he's motivated by love, which directs readers to Batman Annual # 1. Yes, because decades of the character's development would fail to answer that question. DC really seems to think it's acquiring young readers under 18 doesn't it?

[theenglish]

I'm a little confused about the news that a major character will be coming out of the closet. No objections really, but it seems to me that DC has done a pretty good job of incorporating gay characters into its universe already. They have even been making efforts to increase the range of skin tones in its books. (I guess we can't fault them for the lack of sales of Mr. Terrific and Static Shock.) Thoughts anyone?

[Hound of UIster]

It's Wally probably.