DC Comics Ongoing Discussion

[Kai "the spy"]

Sorry, I didn't mean this as a put-down. It's cool you're excited for this, and I'm trying never to shame anybody for something they like or are interested in.

And I get that this is, for a lot of people, the first they hear about the Absolute DC line, and as such the marketing is still in the "forget everything you thought you knew about ..." mode. I just got over the "It's different" thing already, I've been hearing about this Absolute DC thing for a few months now, and I'd be more interested to learn what it is rather than what it isn't .

But that would be a bit too fast, since they really just officially announced.

 

[The Realist]

I just meant that I find the idea of versions of those characters who didn't have the things mentioned in the descriptions interesting.

That makes one of us. Mind you, I'll buy and read the Superman book, and I'll hope to be pleasantly surprised, because who actually wants to dislike stuff? (Don't answer that, seeming entirety of the Internet.) But yeah, the description just makes me yawn. Sounds like more angsty, unhappy, alienated Superman. Oh joy, oh bliss. Didn't we do this already?

(And JD, I'll echo what Kai "the spy" said, that this isn't meant as a slam.)

 

[JD]

Sorry, I didn't mean this as a put-down. It's cool you're excited for this, and I'm trying never to shame anybody for something they like or are interested in.

Don't worry, I didn't read it that way.

And I get that this is, for a lot of people, the first they hear about the Absolute DC line, and as such the marketing is still in the "forget everything you thought you knew about ..." mode. I just got over the "It's different" thing already, I've been hearing about this Absolute DC thing for a few months now, and I'd be more interested to learn what it is rather than what it isn't .

But that would be a bit too fast, since they really just officially announced.

I don't think I'd go so far as to say I'm excited, I'm just curious how these versions of the characters are going to compare to the originals.

 

[kirk55555]

How was any of that changed?

Well between House of Brainiac and Absolute Power that pre-event status quo is gone, and apparently some stupid "Lois Lane has super powers" story is taking over the book post-Absolute Power. Its not that big a deal I guess, in my years reading superhero comics regularly Superman has had more terrible runs then he has had good ones, but I was enjoying the book up until it just became event tie-in junk. Honestly, getting 12 issues in a row of a decent Superman book was about as rare as winning the lottery, so I'll just be content with what I got and hope something good with the character (as a solo book) comes around again from DC in a few years.

At least Batman/Superman seems to be sticking around, although with an artist change. Its the only DC book I'm reading at this point, and I'll probably stick with it until its cancelled or Waid leaves. DC is in a really low period right now, they really squandered the good will they had with DC Rebirth (I blame all of the terrible event books).

 

[theenglish]

I totally agree regarding the big events. There have been two or even three (?) a year since Dark Crisis. Too much. That said, I think Superman has been great since Bendis left.

I am not looking forward to Action Comics weekly again--that just means I would need to stop buying three other titles just to read it.

 

[The Realist]

I totally agree regarding the big events. There have been two or even three (?) a year since Dark Crisis. Too much.

Even one is too many. Let me read the titles/characters I want, stop trying to make me read The Dark Attention Whore and The Uninteresting Also-Rans and The Underwhelming Z-Lister just to get a complete story, you greedy .

 

[kirk55555]

I totally agree regarding the big events. There have been two or even three (?) a year since Dark Crisis. Too much. That said, I think Superman has been great since Bendis left.

I am not looking forward to Action Comics weekly again--that just means I would need to stop buying three other titles just to read it.

Before this latest Superman run the last (modern) Superman I had followed was Dan Jurgens excellent Action Comics run where he reintroduced the Pre-New 52 Superman and Lois into the mainstream continuity. This obviously lead to the New 52 Superman and Lois officially going away, and of course Jon Kent being a thing. I liked that run a lot (outside of what it did to Mxy, although Dawn of DC seems to have fixed that), but I think it was ended for Bendis' run, now that I think about it, and I couldn't get more than an issue into Bendis' run.

I actually read through all of Grant Morrison's New 52 Action Comics Superman run, and then read a lot of the New 52 Action comics continuing from there, recently. I read up until the weird depowered buzzcut Superman era (which I couldn't stand). It was actually better then I thought, especially Morrison's Action Comics and the first part of Greg Pak's stuff, but overall I just like the more "Classic" Superman.

 

[theenglish]

I really loved Morrison's version of his Superman story, his versions of Lex and Jimmy as well as Mxy. Jurgens work on the book was excellent too, and I did like the way Red and Blue Superman were reunited. The artists finally had a no trunks costume that worked, and then Bendis came along and took it all away.

So, is this weekly Action Comics just for the month of October or is DC trying to do weekly Superman again?

 

[Nerys Myk]

I just wanna know why Luthor in the latest issue looks like Adam Levine from Maroon 5.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Announced today at SDCC: The Justice League, after being disbanded at the end of Dark Crisis, comes back in the new monthly title Justice League Unlimited, from the team of Mark Waid & Dan Mora.

I'm predicting this is going to be my new favorite ongoing title.

 

[The Realist]

Well, shit. I don't usually do Justice League comics, but with that creative team, I may just have to.

 

[kirk55555]

Thr Justice League book sounds interesting. Waid & Mora have done a great job with World's Finest, so I'll check out their JL book when it comes out. Hopefully its using the JLU premise (no one specific team, just many members picked for teams on a per mission basis), I've always thought that what JLU did (and, to be fair, the JL Task Force in the comics which had a similar premise a few years before the cartoon) made a lot of sense in a world with so many super heroes and super threats.

 

[theenglish]

The previous Justice League series already had the Justice League Unlimited premise, even though it focused on a specific group of characters.

 

[kirk55555]

I don't think thats true, looking at the last JL book (Justice League Volume 4) it had a core cast of 6-7 characters that were in basically every issue, and they were the generic JL members (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Martian manhunter). Just because they had a few extra characters join the team for a story arc or two really doesn't make it the same as the JLU cartoon. That said, speaking of temporary members, hopefully we won't have to see Bendis' vanity project "Naomi" in the new book, I'd completely forgotten about her before looking up the last JL book and remembering that he shoved her in there.

Looking up more about the last JL to refresh my memory, its so weird that JL book started out written by Snyder and then eventually went to bendis, talk about going from bad to worse. It caused weird issues with continuity over its run too, like how there are two Hawkgirls in the DC Universe now for no reason (the real Hawkgirl/woman who is/has always been with Hawkman and the weird New 52 version based version in this book). I can't believe that volume 4 lasted 75 issues and 6 DC events, it may have ended because of a terrible event comic but at that point it was a mercy killing.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I don't think thats true, looking at the last JL book (Justice League Volume 4) it had a core cast of 6-7 characters that were in basically every issue, and they were the generic JL members (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Martian manhunter). Just because they had a few extra characters join the team for a story arc or two really doesn't make it the same as the JLU cartoon. That said, speaking of temporary members, hopefully we won't have to see Bendis' vanity project "Naomi" in the new book, I'd completely forgotten about her before looking up the last JL book and remembering that he shoved her in there.

Looking up more about the last JL to refresh my memory, its so weird that JL book started out written by Snyder and then eventually went to bendis, talk about going from bad to worse. It caused weird issues with continuity over its run too, like how there are two Hawkgirls in the DC Universe now for no reason (the real Hawkgirl/woman who is/has always been with Hawkman and the weird New 52 version based version in this book). I can't believe that volume 4 lasted 75 issues and 6 DC events, it may have ended because of a terrible event comic but at that point it was a mercy killing.

The Hawks with confusing continuity? Say it ain’t so!!!

 

[theenglish]

I don't think thats true, looking at the last JL book (Justice League Volume 4) it had a core cast of 6-7 characters that were in basically every issue, and they were the generic JL members (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Martian manhunter). Just because they had a few extra characters join the team for a story arc or two really doesn't make it the same as the JLU cartoon. That said, speaking of temporary members, hopefully we won't have to see Bendis' vanity project "Naomi" in the new book, I'd completely forgotten about her before looking up the last JL book and remembering that he shoved her in there.

Looking up more about the last JL to refresh my memory, its so weird that JL book started out written by Snyder and then eventually went to bendis, talk about going from bad to worse. It caused weird issues with continuity over its run too, like how there are two Hawkgirls in the DC Universe now for no reason (the real Hawkgirl/woman who is/has always been with Hawkman and the weird New 52 version based version in this book). I can't believe that volume 4 lasted 75 issues and 6 DC events, it may have ended because of a terrible event comic but at that point it was a mercy killing.

The actual story format wasn't like the cartoon; however, the set up of the team was very much JLU in that most superheroes were now considered members. As for Naomi, I haven't seen anything done with her since Bendis left--she was such an odd character as other supers kept going on about how powerful she was, but we never saw her use the supposed extent of them.

Snyder took over the book to specifically lead in to his Death Metal series, leaving the previous volume to wrap up its story with a horribly written and drawn, rushed, story that had the specific purpose to destroy the JL satellite. The Snyder JL was all one story, and I enjoyed it overall, but he turned Lex into a pure villain again, which is not how Lex works best in the modern era. The end of Snyder's run left the team jumping through time to do a better job of inspiring people and hopefully recovering from their defeat. Then, rather than telling that story for a few issues, we got some stories set prior to the beginning of Snyder's book followed by the Death Metal Justice League before Bendis took over. We never did see that League's struggle to better inspire humanity; but they obviously failed at that because...Death Metal.

Bendis once again changed the direction of the book, primarily it seemed, in order to include Naomi. Then the Justice League book was just cancelled to fit in with Dark Crisis.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Some more announcements from SDCC, on the Absolute DC side there's Absolute Flash by Jeff Lemire & Nick Robles, and Absolute Green Lantern by Al Ewing & Jahnoy Lindsay.

And on the proper DCU part of the All-In campaign, there's a New Gods book by Ram V & Evan Cagle.
And I guess DC is done with Geoff Johns constantly missing deadlines, because they're launching a new JSA with writer Jeff Lemire and artist Diego Olortegui, which will feature both a main team with the older heroes, as well as an Infinity Inc. division with the younger heroes.

 

[kirk55555]

I love the old JSA, but Lemire is one of the few writers I'd consider a worse choice for the group then modern geoff Johns. Also, the images show that its using the Snyder JL Hawkgirl (aka the New 52 Hawkgirl stuck into DC Rebirth) alongside hawkman, even though in canon the actual hawkgirl/woman (the one who is constantly reincarnated alongside Hawkman) exists and is around, pprobablu because no DC writer ever checks to see what the characters have been doing before they start writing them. Hope the book gets cancelled quickly.

 

[theenglish]

I love the old JSA, but Lemire is one of the few writers I'd consider a worse choice for the group then modern geoff Johns. Also, the images show that its using the Snyder JL Hawkgirl (aka the New 52 Hawkgirl stuck into DC Rebirth) alongside hawkman, even though in canon the actual hawkgirl/woman (the one who is constantly reincarnated alongside Hawkman) exists and is around, pprobablu because no DC writer ever checks to see what the characters have been doing before they start writing them. Hope the book gets cancelled quickly.

Kendra has been around for about 25 years. She is part of the reincarnation cycle in that Shayera's soul or something shares her body--I don't quite get it.

The recent Hawkman series established the Hawk's reincarnations are not bound by space or linear time--they have reincarnated countless times in many different eras, and more than one can exist in the same time. The original Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkwoman are actually the end of the regeneration cycle with all others having come before them.

 

[JoeZhang]

So I’m re-reading some old Batman comics on DC Universe - just gone through contagion and into the run-up to NML. I forgot how many civilians use to appear in comics compared to the modern day up to and including short stories entirely focused around them.

Also whoever they got to ink later period Jim Aparo is terrible…