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

[Derishton]

This week: Action, World's Finest, Earth 2. I'll start picking up Batwing again once the Court of Owls stuff is over and, hopefully, the character gets back to the setting that makes the title unique.

[Derishton]

I forgot GI Combat is out this week, too, so ... that.

[scnj]

I'm super excited to read Dial H. I love China Mieville's novels.

[Captain Craig]

I did finish up last weeks books with:

Justice League Dark #8 - part 3 of the I,Vampire crossover about the first evil, Cain, coming to take over things. Am I to understand now that Shade is gone? Not dead I guess but he's with his girlfriend who is dead so he's where? Having Constantine trying to talk Andrew into coming back was a nice bit of dialouge as was Zatanna's remark to the "wait, who you calling a sidekick?" The art remains wonderful for the book!!

I, Vampire #8 - all that talking by John got through to him cause the first page has Andrew back from limbo/hell answering Constantine's question, "I guess I do have some fight left in me". Again, the art in this book is equally well done still. Now, Andrew comes back with some new powers, one of which seems to be a memory wipe. He makes a vocal command for this event(vampire invasion in Gotham) and records of it forgotten. He must've buddied up to Mephisto while he was there. Him taking over the vampire army upon defeating Cain was a unique approach to ending the event. I admit I didn't see it coming. Wondering if we'll see this Order of VanHelsing as mentioned in the closing of the issue by the real "sidekicks", whose names escape me.
Now I'm very new to Andrew and Mary. I,Vampire was one of the titles I tired brand new in the spirit of this nu52 event. Why is Mary light blue? Are those red swirls on her body tattoos or something else?

Aquaman #8 - a decent issue but a step down from the rest so far. Guess John's was taking a breather on this one. Help me, was all the issue told in the past? We were 6yrs ago, then 1yr later--so 5yrs ago and the issue ends. We never jump back to the present do we, right? This was a fill-in-the blanks issue with backstory for sure. It was a good read just a bit slow on actual fun moments.


So for tomorrow:
Animal Man #9 - which I will drop soon
Swamp Thing #9 - the real thing saving AM at this point
X-O ManOWar #1 - Valiant returns!!
no Marvel, IDW, Image, light week for me unless something surprises me.

[Broccoli]

Picked up Earth 2 today. Somewhat middling. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything groundbreaking either. It was really nothing but pure back story primarily focusing on characters that seemingly won't appear after this issue; something that would have been serviced better being in an annual or a 0 issue (like how Marvel use to do with their mini-series back in the later 90s/early 00s). Then again, perhaps that was the point.

There is something I'm a bit fuzzy on. Is Earth 2 an ongoing series? Or a limited series (like The Shade). I've seen it called both from various sources.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, DC's got me interested in and buying comics for the first time in ages. I sure don't miss that which I couldn't be bothered with before.

Looking forward to Earth 2 this evening. Gee, Supes isn't wearing a red Speedo over there, either.

[indianatrekker26]

BleedingCool.com claim to have received word that there'll be another change in the creative team controlling the "Superman" comic book title after the up-coming Zero issue taking place in September.

• I understand that Scott [COLOR=#ccffff]Lobdell[/COLOR], the writer of Red Hood And The Outlaws, Teen Titans and [COLOR=#ccffff]Superboy[/COLOR] is to add another, more prominent book, to his New DCU repertoire.
  Namely the monthly Superman title, currently created by Dan Jurgens and Keith Giffen.

Note: All the original New 52 titles will get a issue 0 in September, telling year one stories, with regular numbering returning in October.

[Broccoli]

My Name Is Legion wrote:

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Looking forward to Earth 2 this evening. Gee, Supes isn't wearing a red Speedo over there, either.

Nope, but oddly enough, he's got himself a WWE Championship Belt. Earth 2 is a strange place indeed.

indianatrekker26 wrote:

---

BleedingCool.com claim to have received word that there'll be another change in the creative team controlling the "Superman" comic book title after the up-coming Zero issue taking place in September.

• I understand that Scott [COLOR=#ccffff]Lobdell[/COLOR], the writer of Red Hood And The Outlaws, Teen Titans and [COLOR=#ccffff]Superboy[/COLOR] is to add another, more prominent book, to his New DCU repertoire.
  Namely the monthly Superman title, currently created by Dan Jurgens and Keith Giffen.

Note: All the original New 52 titles will get a issue 0 in September, telling year one stories, with regular numbering returning in October.

I wonder if that is meant to be permanent, or just temporary as I seem to remember that the Super-books were going to have a crossover in the near future (where Supes meets his clone) and Lobell seems to be the crossover guy where his books are concerned. I'd be disappointed if Jurgens leaves. I've liked his two issues thus far and his take on Superman (in terms of art), is the definitive Superman to me.

[JoeZhang]

The main thing about that costume is that...

it's a lot of effort for a guy you kill off in the first issue

[davejames]

It would be nice if they found a team who could actually do something interesting and new with the character. Besides just change his costume and tell stories from the 80s all over again.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Broccoli wrote:

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Nope, but oddly enough, he's got himself a WWE Championship Belt. Earth 2 is a strange place indeed.

The design art for the character features a cape design similar to the one on the current main universe Superman - coming to a point at the back rather than hemmed straight across. In fact the Earth 2 costume looks generally like a more traditionally comic book version of the Lee outfit - tights instead of armor but the similar cape, red belt rather than the Speedo, etc.

The picture of Jay Garrett is...not traditional. Wonder what Alan Scott will be like?

[Derishton]

I liked Earth 2 and Worlds' Finest (the latter is probably better), but I'm wondering how Jay and Joan had time to finish a college degree and look for work while the world was suffering through total war with Apokolips. Michigan looks pretty untouched by the universal conflict. (I mean, I get why Apokolips wouldn't bother with Detroit - the car industry kinda already did the end of the world there.)

[JoeZhang]

Derishton wrote:

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I liked Earth 2 and Worlds' Finest (the latter is probably better), but I'm wondering how Jay and Joan had time to finish a college degree and look for work while the world was suffering through total war with Apokolips. Michigan looks pretty untouched by the universal conflict. (I mean, I get why Apokolips wouldn't bother with Detroit - the car industry kinda already did the end of the world there.)

The war finished two years before they went to college.

[Derishton]

I am just not reading these things closely enough on Comixology, I think.

I guess I always think it's an oddity of the modern superhero genre that things always recover so fast; not just cities and physical space, but attitudes. It's happened after every Crisis and it happens here. If the war was five years ago and places like Metropolis and Italy were completely destroyed - Superman says his city is dead - then the infrastructure was in place for Jay and Joan to start college within two years.

People went on about 9/11 for years, and that was three events on one day. Does it seem reasonable to set up an apocalyptic event, following which society looks exactly as it did the day before that even started?

[PsychoPere]

Issue #1 for all of the titles in the "First Wave" are now $0.99 on Comixology.