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

[shivkala]

Loved both Swamp Thing and Animal Man. I think there probably is a link between the villains in the two books.

Scott Snyder confirmed that there is a link in a Talksplode interview. He and Jeff Lemire are good friends and they share scripts.

Snyder said it's less of a crossover at this point (though they have a story planned) and more of a shared universe. The "villain" is another elemental force, which is neither good nor bad. He said it's a case where any of the forces, be it the red, the green, or the "villain" work best when they are in balance. When any of them are dominate, it's a bad thing.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

There are so many short bits and panels I liked, it would be hard to pick one. Lois finding him in the elevator was a great one. Did I read that Morales had a fill-in artist for a couple of pages on this issue? The faces looked somewhat...off in a few places.

The credits for the issue says Rags Morales and Brent Anderson. The second artist, I think, did all of the pages with Lois and also Corben.

Ah, I didn't think she was as gorgeous as she was last month.

Corben sounds familiar. I assume he's someone from previous Superman continuity over the last ten or twelve years? I did think the writing in the set-up of his attraction to Lois and how it motivates him as regards the exo-suit was somewhat clumsy and choppy. He comes across as pretty adolescent.

 

[Admiral_Young]

^ John Corben is Metallo. One of Superman's long time rogues.

 

[Hound of UIster]

He is Metallo

I think this version with the military background borrows from Johns Secret Origins and the New Krypton stuff.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Ah, okay. I remember Silver Age Metallo and Byrne's version early on, but the name never stuck.

The Silver Age story about "Evil" Superman taking over the world had him split between a super-powered half and an earth-normal Clark Kent, who gets shot interfering with a crime and has himself turned into a Metallo in the hopes of getting close enough to King Superman to expose him to Kryptonite and kill him. Seriously. It was a real cool story for the time.

 

[Trekker4747]

Usually how long after the "shelf date" can one expect to get their copy in the mail?

 

[Admiral_Young]

Yes this John Corben is very much seems to be inspired by Geoff Johns' version (and the Brian Austin Green version on Smallville). This one is obsessed with Lois who couldn't stand him after dating one or two times and has a hatred of Superman and becomes Metallo in an attempt to stop him. Secret Origin had Luthor creating him.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I just read the Wikipedia entry on Metallo and judging from that some of the Secret Origin Metallo storyline is definitely in there.

The Brian Austin Green thing is...well, I paid so little attention to fucking Smallville that if you told me Zod was Clark's father in that version I'd have to believe it.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Yes this John Corben is very much seems to be inspired by Geoff Johns' version (and the Brian Austin Green version on Smallville). This one is obsessed with Lois who couldn't stand him after dating one or two times and has a hatred of Superman and becomes Metallo in an attempt to stop him. Secret Origin had Luthor creating him.

I think there is also a good dose of animated Superman in Action Comics.

Corben is going to fight Superman in the exosuit. That goes back to their first encounter in the cartoon with Superman against him in a giant stolen mechsuit.

And I think Morrison may probably use the animated version of Brainiac (Braniac as the Supercomputer of Krypton) seeing his preference for that origin in All-Star Superman.

 

[Myasishchev]

And I think Morrison may probably use the animated version of Brainiac (Braniac as the Supercomputer of Krypton) seeing his preference for that origin in All-Star Superman.

Er? A statue of Brainiac appears in the corner of one panel in All-Star. I mean, Solaris, the Tyrant Sun, exists. Sans any explanation whatsoever (A-SS, not the perfect comic it's been accused of being), but he exists. Brainiac's not in it at all.

They're good pictures. I like pictures.

I also don't know from page count - if other people hadn't mentioned it I couldn't have told you how long the story in Action #2 was. If I had to guess about last month's books, I'd say that Supergirl was probably a short page count and Superman was the longest. Or maybe Justice League. Now I guess I'll have to go look.

I dunno. I mean, I read the backmatter. But a scratchy sketch of Kandor (IT'S FULL OF INFORMATION!) or Rags Morales explaining how he hates any Superman that isn't a domestic terrorist isn't worth a dollar to me. Especially when I realize that it spoils visual surprises like the neat back-of-the-head mask Gene Ha designed. Why would I want to see that in pre-production before I saw it in my story?

I think what I found really off-putting was how arrogant it was. "This is a great comic! You will listen while we explain aspects of its creation and pay for the privilege!" You wanna do that with V For Vendetta in the ten year anniversary release? Or, hey, not to be mean to Morrison, The Invisibles? Yes. These works have been tested by time and placed in the sequential art canon. Action Comics vol. 2 has not. And, going back to what I said about spoiling, it's also universal practice to put that stuff at the end of a completed story.

And finally, I don't think it was clearly labeled. Checking... nope. Comixology lists its page count as 27 pages,* and doesn't mention that the story is only 20 of 'em. I would not have purchased a $4 comic if I'd known there would be only 20 story pages. I mean, other people can, that's fine, that's market forces, but saying it's 27 pages? That's misleading. Yeah, I know it's pretty immaterial in the long. Just a dollar. But it's obnoxious.

*Which is wrong. I am clearly counting 20 + 8.

 

[Hound of UIster]

He has said that if he had done more All-Star, he would use the animated Brainiac. Barring the problems of the shared universe, an animated Brainiac would work the best imo with Superman story instead of the Coluan scientist.

 

[Admiral_Young]

We do know that Morrison loves to pull from all aspects of the character's past so yeah I wouldn't be surprised if he used the Animated Brainiac...who happens to be one of my favourite incarnations of the character.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Brainiac as Kryptonian is certainly a tighter story; it's what you'd probably do if you were writing the character into a Superman movie - the tendency is most often to try to tie the lives and even existence of the hero and villain together.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Oh and Dennis...I wouldn't be surprised if Kandor was bottled in the city ship, just to reply to your earlier comment. I'm really looking forward to the rest of this arc and beyond when we catch up to the present. I knew that I was gonna love Action.

 

[Myasishchev]

We do know that Morrison loves to pull from all aspects of the character's past so yeah I wouldn't be surprised if he used the Animated Brainiac...who happens to be one of my favourite incarnations of the character.

I dunno. I like Colu. My favorite Brainiac's still animated, though, but it's not really DCAU, it's its own little bubble--the LSH Brainiac. That is a perfect example of reimagination done right.

Then again, they were making him the nemesis of Brainiac 5, not Superman, so the narrative purposes differ.

Of course, if they used the DCAU Brainiac, Querl really makes even less sense than he already does. "Hi, I'm Hitler 5--no relation."

Here's a fun query: does the colloquialism "brainiac" exist in the DC Universe? Explain your answer.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Oh and Dennis...I wouldn't be surprised if Kandor was bottled in the city ship, just to reply to your earlier comment. I'm really looking forward to the rest of this arc and beyond when we catch up to the present. I knew that I was gonna love Action.

Of course, it won't be a literal glass jar like in the old days, right? Check out the concept drawings and notes for Kandor on Krypton - instead of shrinking it he probably folds it into an nth-dimensional tesseract maintained at the edge of a naked singularity...or something. I have no idea what any of the words I just typed mean.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Unless Morrison goes an entire different direction completely with Krypton and has all facets of the planet destroyed making Kara and Kal-El truly the last son of Krypton. That would be something different for once.


Johns retconned the shrinking technology for New Krypton, I think Brainiac used some kind of highly advanced Coluan nanotech to shrink the city.

@Myasichev...indeed if this is a Kryptonian Brainiac it makes Brainy's existence rather interesting. We also know that Clark still has some connection to the Legion since the three founders were referenced in issue one.

 

[Myasishchev]

Oh and Dennis...I wouldn't be surprised if Kandor was bottled in the city ship, just to reply to your earlier comment. I'm really looking forward to the rest of this arc and beyond when we catch up to the present. I knew that I was gonna love Action.

Of course, it won't be a literal glass jar like in the old days, right? Check out the concept drawings and notes for Kandor on Krypton - instead of shrinking it he probably folds it into an nth-dimensional tesseract maintained at the edge of a naked singularity...or something. I have no idea what any of the words I just typed mean.

Brainiac = computer. (Probably. Maybe. He at least has a computer.)

I actually sort of like the bottle, but if you were gonna update it, I'd eschew technobabble and just have it be a bit more direct.

Apropos of nothing, remember when Morrison claimed that the Matrix was a ripoff of the Invisibles?

@Myasichev...indeed if this is a Kryptonian Brainiac it makes Brainy's existence rather interesting. We also know that Clark still has some connection to the Legion since the three founders were referenced in issue one.

Yeah, I mean, that's par. Brainiac 5's been a bit fucked, or at least convoluted, ever since they turned Brainiac 1 into a robot back in the 80s, let alone all that post-Crisis Milton Fine/Vril Dox stuff. I think I've mentioned this before, but I thought Brainiac 5 was a robot well before I ever watched the cartoon.

 

[timothy]

Do I need to read the rest of Dc universe if I just want to read Ivampire.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Is the 80s when they made Brainiac look like a robot? Because they turned him into one in the mid 60s - they claimed at the time that they'd known in-house that he was a machine ever since his second or third appearance.

Do I need to read the rest of Dc universe if I just want to read Ivampire.

Pretty much you need to read about fifty of the comics, yeah, if you want the vampire story continuity and mythology to make sense. I think you can skip OMAC; I'm not sure about Blackhawks.