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

I've brought up several books - there was at least one mini-discussion of JLI and several about Justice League. I've said several times that I think great books are being under-purchased because individual budgets only allow for a few titles, and they always end up being the big ones. I am surprised more people aren't talking about the Joker's latest shenanigans, or about Justice League Dark's new take on Zatanna and Constantine.

Admiral Young, I think Action might be top of the heap in sales and acclaim, but going by site reviews only Snyder's Batman (Detective?) would be anywhere near the top critically. Demon Knights and Animal Man get far more attention.

 

I was just about to say that in two pages Derishton brought up Firestorm and Batgirl.
Richard 007 brought up Batman and Robin #1&2. Then 18 posts ago I mention Animal Man and Swamp Thing and everyone reads right over those 3 posts and it's continue on with Action and Morrison love fest.

I'm not reading B&R or Batgirl so I have no comment on those but I'd have enjoyed reading others thoughts on it. I dropped Firestorm so I'm not commenting on that, guess I could have to maybe break up the flow of Action love.

I agree, Dersh, that JLDark has been a good read. I'm much more curious where that is going than the main JLA book which is very standard introduction fare *yawn*. Demon Knights is another I've found to be a very fun read. A Superman "fighting" corporate wrongs is just...wrong. He's Superman and this unrealized power arc doesn't work for me. His Golden Age intro had him opposing more normal crime out of necessity than anything else. My Superman fights more city wide and global threats worthy of his power set and leaves other things to the courts or street level fighters.

 

I really like the contrast between Justice League and Justice League Dark. I might be alone in thinking that the second book needed the League to appear to set up exactly the differences: straight up "punchy punchy" versus whatever it is Xanadu is up to.

I thought the first issue of JL was fine, but the second was really well-put together. Basic super-heroics, but beautiful to look at and a good example of what the medium can do when it comes to fight scenes. JL Dark has this way of showing the corners of the universe in a different way, all dives and small apartments and farmhouses. Equal levels of power, but expressed in entirely opposite ways.

Demon Knights really acts as the third in this trio, not JLI - again, power is expressed differently, and coincidence is allowed to play a central role (as opposed to a kind of bureaucratic idea of the League, and the sense in JLD that coincidence simply doesn't exist).

I've also mentioned All-Star Western, which is probably my third favorite title after Demon Knights and Action. I'm also liking Frankenstein, and about to read Stormwatch 2/3 and Men of War 3. The second issue of Men of War would interest readers of Wonder Woman, because I think they're setting up a future cross-over with the appearance of Circe.

 

The irony, of course, is that if you don't like Morrison, it looks strange that some of the best titles seem to be riffing on things he came up with (specifically in Seven Soldiers of Victory).

 

All-Star Western is among my top 5 titles in the nu52. They really did impress me as I stopped reading Hex at issue 60 anyway. The take and approach has been a fun one to follow thus far. I expect him to get back into the West after this arc but it's been fun.

I'm not anti-Morrison, love his JLA run of the 90's and Aztek. Thought RIP was a let down just to name a few. I'm enjoying Frankenstein(which I only decided to pick up after some posters mentioned it worth checking out) and have found out it was a Morrison creation recently. Are they honoring it how he came up with it?

Anyway, his Action isn't for me and it seems way too much attention is solely on it in a thread about the WHOLE nu52. That's all I wanted to point out. I don't want to stifle Action talk but if there is that much love for it then move it into a separate thread perhaps. Allow some talk on the other titles to break out.

 

Let me try another defense of Men of War!

I'm enjoying this title (the main story, anyways). I agree on one level that the "start in the middle" thing is potentially getting tired, but I think it does what it's supposed to do: constantly reinforce our pov as being Rock's pov. You never know precisely what's going on. The action moves from Libya to Djibouti (I hadn't even realized the first two issues were in Libya, somehow missed that). A goddess intervenes with a warning. There's Lexcorp crates on a boat that isn't supposed to be where it is. Metahumans fight their own battles in the sky over a more human war. The Senator they save dies off camera two pages later, in mysterious circumstances.

If you want a title exploring what it would mean to be human in the DC universe, the territory Waid explored in Kingdom Come , this is probably it.

(Frankenstein is probably less esoteric than he appeared in Seven Soldiers, but that's to be expected in his new Hellboyesque setting).

Edited to add: Finally got around to the first three issues of Batwing and first issue of OMAC. The first is better than expected, the latter absolutely mental Kirby-esque violence in a 1960s mode.

 

I honestly really like Batgirl, I think Barbra's inner monologue, dialog and mannerisms makes it fun.

 

^ Agreed. It's probably my favorite title so far.

 

I'll admit, up until this point I had no interest in MoW, but after reading this it actually sounds really cool. I'm seriously starting to consider just saying to hell with it, and starting to get some of the first issues of the different series. I just have a very limited budget when it comes to this kind of stuff right now.

 

So this is not a WWII series?

 

Again if people want to bring up other books they're enjoying then they're free to do so. I think people are discussing the books they are reading and like. They're not gonna discuss books they think are boring or don't like. It's JD's call as creator of this thread, if he wants to start a Grant Morrison Action Comics thread then so be it. I don't think it is solely dominating the thread discussion.

Batman and Robin I've found slightly disappointing because the writer is focusing on Damian's anger issue which has kind of been focused on already. Exploring it through the POV of Bruce is somewhat interesting but this wasn't the direction I thought the book would be going in right off the bat. It would seem the writer has decided to ignore all of the work that Dick Grayson did with Damian in tempering him. I just don't feel like this book is what it's full potential to be.

 

Batman doesn't interest me in general, but based on a number of the comments in this thread I may buy the first few issues of Batgirl.

 

Have you tried Batwoman? I think it's WAY better than Batgirl--which is fine, but pretty generic. Especially the art.

 

What I've seen of Batwoman doesn't grab me. Catwoman, maybe - I like gratuitous sex.

 

There should be a Batwoman/Catwoman book. Something for everyone.

 

That's what's kept me away from the title: Grayson/Damian worked so well, and covered so much territory, that it feels like I don't need to see it again. It's cooler if Bruce inherits something from Dick, something that Bruce (let's face it) could never have done as well.

 

It's not perfect and, as it stands, is losing its first creative team and is Newsarama's "number 1 on the bubble". But it has huge potential, and like a few other series I've mentioned, it's at least trying to replace and create the kind of diversity the Big Companies have had trouble sustaining (Secret Six, Gotham Central, Agents of Atlas, etc).

 

I'm all for exploring a different direction in handling Damian, i.e. Bruce's tough love approach but the way the writer is handling it is not the way I expected. I can't really explain it but it feels like Batman and Robin is missing something (maybe Grant Morrison?) that I can't put my finger on.

 

The first issue of Men of War was realllllly dull. And I like war comics. But I don't want vague long-shots of super-people in my war comics. I want David Lloyd drawing amazing two-page spreads of Lancasters burning Germans to death and Garth Ennis talking about how they can smell the vaporized fat at 20,000 feet, and Chris Weston drawing Baron von Hammer knocking MiG-3s out of the sky. Man, that revival of Enemy Ace was so fucking great.

I guess it just bugs me that they had the opportunity, the mandate even, to do something that was not in the superhero genre, and denied it, giving us neither quasi-realistic war stories or an interesting super-soldier fantasy (however: I liked the back-up, even if it was a bit perfunctory).

Now, if I wanted to read about soldiers who deal with the superhuman, I'd go through my boxes and read Team 7. Actually, I should, Team 7 was excellent. They should've done that. Frank Rock and John Lynch? Maybe I could get on board with that.

P.S.: Why is it called Men of War if it's not about Ulysses "Gravedigger" Hazard? So Sergeant Rock had sex, so what?

 

But Team 7 all had psi powers or something. The thing that interests me with Men of War is that it's the only title DC is offering, out of 52, in which a human without powers takes center stage (although something happens in the 3rd issue that implies the same doesn't hold true for all of Rock's men). actually, the latter make me wonder if we're not heading to a Sgt Rock/Team 7 hybrid, and that's why the phrase "Easy Company" hasn't appeared yet.

theenglish, no, Rock is the WWII Rock's grandson - one of the series' flashbacks uses this lineage in a very subtle way to drive home the impact of five years of metahuman craziness and social decline.