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

[Captain Craig]

Timothy...you know they are messing around right?
At most it might crossover with another book or two depending on how Mary's agenda unfolds.

I hate getting in late on Wed and having not read any books yet.
Glad to read up thread that both Swamp Thing and Animal Man were again good reads. Looking forward to Swampy especially.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Y

Broccoli wrote:

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Well...in a way...

Seriously though, judging by this and other posts you've made regarding Smallville, you seem to have so much contempt for a show you never really watched. This strikes me as less Dennis and more...another poster.

I watched it perhaps ten times - I've broken up with people after a lot fewer dates than that, to put this crap in perspective.

[Derishton]

Finally read All-Star Western last night and loved it; it felt like the weightiest of the books in terms of length. I really liked I, Vampire (which even after the good reviews surprised the hell out of me).

Admiral Young, learning that Skeets is stilla round was a good reveal; but we also had in-text confirmation that the UN has never tried a JLI type team before now. I think that was only implied before. I'm still not sure I like the new JLI: Ice's dialogue in particular seems off. I could live with Ice being different; but the dialogue is just bad (she's the most glaring example, but only Booster, Guy and Godiva sound like real people who haven't learned English from a machine overnight). Vixen actually says "that's my native Africa" at one point: given the criticisms Batwing's received for "small continent" syndrome, this seems just as glaring.

[Myasishchev]

Maybe she just wants to do the things we never had.

[Trekker4747]

Seriously, how does Rob Liefeld stay employed?

[A beaker full of death]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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Seriously, how does Rob Liefeld stay employed?

Last night I was bagging up a few hundred 30-year-old Marvel comics and I was wondering the very same thing. I don't recall ever hearing of half the artists in those comics, yet they were all competent. Liefeld couldn't have gotten arrested in that era. WTF happened?

[Trekker4747]

I was at the comic store and looked at the cover for "Hawk and Dove" and just groaned. The cover alone pretty much epitomized everything I've seen, and heard, about his art over the years. It's like it's still 1993 and he's doing the same style of art. Compared to the art in comics like DC, AC and pretty much all of the other titles with DC and it's all fabulous.

Then there's... Rob.

Ugh.

Then I look at his picture on his Wikipedia page and he reminds me of just a goober. You know who he reminds me of? Remember that episode of "Friends" where Monica meets up with, and dates, a guy she knew from high school but could never date him because she was fat? When she's on the date with him she discovers, while in his late-20s, he's still very much like he was in high-school. Lives with his parents, still has the same car he did then and still has the same job in a movie theater and boasts he can "get free posters for your room."

That's Rob Liefeld.

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Something like this wasn't wholly unexpected for September, I suppose, and as everyone likes to point out this is a marathon rather than a sprint. Nonetheless:

The following information will be most likely released tomorrow. But Bleeding Cool has an inside track.

For September 2011, the DC Relaunch, DC Comics had a 35.74% share of dollars spent on comics and graphic novels.

And Marvel had a 35.37% share.

It’s a half point difference, but considering earlier in the year, DC were double figures points behind Marvel, it’s a remarkable shift.

But the biggest change is in the actual number of comics and graphic novels sold. In that, DC had a massive 43.04% marketshare, over five points ahead of Marvel on 37.88%.

The only time DC has been ahead of Marvel in any form for decades was last December, when the Dark Knight comic saw DC take 33.07% in product marketshare to Marvel ‘s 32.28%, but Marvel kept dominance in dollar share with 39.9% to DC’s 36.99%. And in subsequent months, DC’s sales and revenue plummeted, until the middle of this year when they slowly started to regain ground.

The dollar numbers are so close that Marvel can be expected to resurge pretty quickly - or more to the point, the nuDC tide just needs to roll out a bit for those numbers to flip. What will be more interesting is how far and how quickly the number of copies sold slide back.
Link

[Allyn Gibson]

The Huntress #1. I imagine this is a book that got lost in the shuffle, since it's not part 0f the "New 52." But it has a decent enough creative team (Paul Levitz, who created the original Huntress, is writing, and Marcus To of Red Robin is on art), and I've always liked the Helena Bertinelli Huntress (she has a lot of "edges"), so I gave it a shot.

The story is just kinda "there." Helena has gone to Italy to intercept a shipment of weapons being smuggled to Gotham, and then she gets drawn into hunting down a human trafficking ring. A couple of dialogue moments suggest to me that it was planned for pre-Flashpoint, and the costume she wears is the Jim Lee-designed costume but without the bare midriff (in other words, it's a variant that a number of artists have used over the past five years), but because the Bat-verse didn't reboot to the same extent, it still "fits."

Really, the reason to get this is Marcus To's artwork. He draws a seriously lovely Helena Bertinelli, in either guise.

And that's the thing. This book "feels" like Red Robin. It's a globetrotting Red Robin kind of story, with Red Robin's artist.

If you like the Bat-books and you're looking for something different than "just another adventure in Gotham," Huntress wouldn't be a bad choice.

[C_Miller]

My Name Is Legion wrote:

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Something like this wasn't wholly unexpected for September, I suppose, and as everyone likes to point out this is a marathon rather than a sprint. Nonetheless:

The dollar numbers are so close that Marvel can be expected to resurge pretty quickly - or more to the point, the nuDC tide just needs to roll out a bit for those numbers to flip. What will be more interesting is how far and how quickly the number of copies sold slide back.
Link

Marvel does charge a dollar more per their books and they released I think like 88 books last month. These numbers aren't too surprising to me.

[Trekker4747]

Detective Comics #1: An interesting book if a bit grizzly towards the end.

Detective Comics #2: It's okay, but I'm not sure I'm liking the overall tone of this book series or the take on the character. My interest is a bit piqued on the new heavy they're introducing (Dollmaker) and what will happen with Commissioner Gordon.

Action Comics #2: This one was pretty good and I like the continuation of what it's doing with Superman.

[Turtletrekker]

C_Miller wrote:

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Marvel does charge a dollar more per their books...

Marvel is starting a program that they hope will eventually lead to customers getting a free digital copy of any $3.99 paper comic that they buy.

The project/experiment begins wit the release of Avenging Spider-Man #1.

[Hound of UIster]

Allyn Gibson wrote:

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The Huntress #1. I imagine this is a book that got lost in the shuffle, since it's not part 0f the "New 52." But it has a decent enough creative team (Paul Levitz, who created the original Huntress, is writing, and Marcus To of Red Robin is on art), and I've always liked the Helena Bertinelli Huntress (she has a lot of "edges"), so I gave it a shot.

The story is just kinda "there." Helena has gone to Italy to intercept a shipment of weapons being smuggled to Gotham, and then she gets drawn into hunting down a human trafficking ring. A couple of dialogue moments suggest to me that it was planned for pre-Flashpoint, and the costume she wears is the Jim Lee-designed costume but without the bare midriff (in other words, it's a variant that a number of artists have used over the past five years), but because the Bat-verse didn't reboot to the same extent, it still "fits."

Really, the reason to get this is Marcus To's artwork. He draws a seriously lovely Helena Bertinelli, in either guise.

And that's the thing. This book "feels" like Red Robin. It's a globetrotting Red Robin kind of story, with Red Robin's artist.

If you like the Bat-books and you're looking for something different than "just another adventure in Gotham," Huntress wouldn't be a bad choice.

DC is wasting Marcus To with Paul Levitz.

My Name Is Legion wrote:

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Something like this wasn't wholly unexpected for September, I suppose, and as everyone likes to point out this is a marathon rather than a sprint. Nonetheless:

The dollar numbers are so close that Marvel can be expected to resurge pretty quickly - or more to the point, the nuDC tide just needs to roll out a bit for those numbers to flip. What will be more interesting is how far and how quickly the number of copies sold slide back.
Link

I think the dollar share reversal back to Marvel probably will occur this month.

[C_Miller]

Turtletrekker wrote:

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Marvel is starting a program that they hope will eventually lead to customers getting a free digital copy of any $3.99 paper comic that they buy.

The project/experiment begins wit the release of Avenging Spider-Man #1.

Why does getting a free digital copy of the same comic I already bought make it any better? I don't have an Ipad or anything like that. Maybe that's why.

[Myasishchev]

It's a little weird, yeah. I mean, I guess it'd be nice if my house burned down or something.