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DC Comics: Rebirth

kirk55555 said:
Starfire literally could not remember any guys names that she wasn't currently or recently had sex with. She also had sex with literally any adult male she could find and who wanted to, which is not how Starfire was pre-new 52. Also, apparently the art in the first issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws was so risque in regards to Starfire's bikini that they had to recolor it, which is kind of hilarious.
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Was she handled any better in her 2015 solo series from the Harley Quinn writers?
 
JD said:
Was she handled any better in her 2015 solo series from the Harley Quinn writers?
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Oh yeah, a thousand times better. I'm not the biggest fan of those writers, but that was a decent series, and basically ignored anything that came before it anyway, at least in regards to the bad version of Starfire.
 
I didn't read her solo series, but she seems to be back to her old self in the Justice League Odyssey series that just wrapped up this month.
 
theenglish said:
In the original Justice League Dark, it wasn't just that they had had a relationship--it was that the relationship power dynamic was lopsided. She was written as having been saved from a mediocre life doing "tricks for money" by Constantine. She was also subservient to Constantine in the early days of that book which didn't sit very well with me.
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Yeah, I can see why that would be annoying.

kirk55555 said:
Yep, thats what pissed me off. I don't like them having a romantic relationship, but it doesn't bother me that much (looking it up, I remembered Zatanna and Constantine having been together being mentioned in an old secret Origins issue starring Zatanna, and that came out in 1988). Him becoming basically the most important person to her magical development, and basically dominating her life, is what really pissed me off.
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kirk55555 said:
It was 100% done because some writers basically just want to "Gary Stu" Constantine, when he should really not be a particularly powerful or influential magician, especially when it comes to Zatanna. He's a demon hunter type guy, who gets by on luck, con man gimmicks and a bit of magic. Zatanna is a magician, who wields powerful magic to fight shit that Constantine would never deal with normally. They don't even really overlap when it comes to what magical threats they fight, outside of a few big demonic threats.
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IMO, there are some elements of "The Dreaded" to the character of Constantine, and that's been the case since at least The Books of Magic. My favourite quote on that is mentioned on the Badass Boast/Comics page on TVTropes:

During the first The Books of Magic, Zatanna takes Timothy Hunter to a party attended by a wide variety of powerful evil magicians. We are led to believe that everyone at the party is either Affably Evil or a Punch-Clock Villain on their off time, or both, until the party's host announces Tim's presence and announces that a hefty price has been put on his head ("Which need not be attached to his body"). Things are pretty tense until all of a sudden, John Constantine appears in a doorway, and everyone stops to watch him calmly light his cigarette.
John Constantine: "No one touches the boy. That's right, the boy's mine. And in thirty seconds, me, and him, and the witch are going to walk out of here. You know who I am. Or you ought to. You know my reputation. Now, does anyone really want to start something?" (Nothing happens) "Right. Come on, you lot. We're moving."
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kirk55555 said:
Zatanna (in good comics) was taught by her father and then became even more powerful on her own. New 52 Zatanna owes literally everything to some British asshole and its completely nonsensical and honestly fairly sexist to make the woman totally dependent on a guy (even in the old comics her dad taught her the basics but she took it from there and earned her reputation, in the New 52 basically everything she is revolves around Constantine).
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YMMV, but for me, the problem isn't so much that she is "totally dependent on a guy" -- though I agree that it's not great -- but that it's Constantine, a "British arsehole" who's never been more than fifteen years older than she is and has limited formal, magical training. If for some reason a mentor is required -- and I'm not against it per se -- then centuries old magicians like Nabu/Doctor Fate, Nommo "Doctor Mist" Balewa, Jason Blood or even Madame Xanadu would provide this without being as insulting to Zee.

kirk55555 said:
As someone who was neutral on Constantine pre-New 52 and has always liked Zatanna a lot, I've really grown to loathe Constantine in the comics because of this stuff.
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While IMO Constantine certainly has his place, I'd say its fair that he's acquired almost "Batman Publicity" level prominence in the last ten to fifteen years or so, in ways that often don't make a lot of sense and even demean other characters.
 
They pretty much stick to themselves. Officially they're set in the same universe, but from just reading them, you couldn't even tell.
 
I really liked the first two (Gary Frank has been my favourite artist since his Hulk run with Peter David and he's only gotten better), so this is definitely welcome news.

Earth One is basically their Ultimate line to me. Just not as connected and way more sporadic. And like the Ultimate line, only a few titles worth reading with the rest being simply there. I honestly thought it was pretty much done, but glad I was mistaken.
 
I am looking for the March, April, May solicitations to come out before deciding which series I will buy so it is good to have some idea of what Future State is actually about. At minimum, I will pick up Justice League, LSH, GL, and Swamp Thing. Anything else, I would have to see if it has any effect on my monthly pull list.
 
I'm really glad that this future slate stuff is just a throwaway event and not a new status quo, otherwise I probably would never get another DC Comic. As it is, I won't be reading a single one of these. It's just the same crap with a new paint job but somehow still ends up being worse.
 
Well, there is a chance that at least some of the stuff we see here will eventually happen in some of the comics.
Most of this sounds like it has potential.
I didn't see until after my other post that there is also a free magazine that has these articles, a few others, and a whole bunch of art that's not in the online articles. The digital version is free on Comixology and Kindle.
 
DC announces new ongoing series for Suicide Squad and Swamp Thing in March.

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Suicide Squad will be written by Robbie Thompson (who also wrote the Future State Suicide Squad book), with art by Eduardo Pansica.

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Swamp Thing will be written by Ram V (who also wrote the character's Future State issues, on top of writing the character in the last year of Justice League Dark) with art by Mike Perkins.
 
Cool. I am excited to have a new Swamp Thing ongoing. He is one of the characters who really benefited from the New 52. His original series built upon Moore's Swamp Thing and alongside Animal Man created some really interesting and fun concepts. The recent incarnation of Justice League Dark has only built upon that and made Swamp Thing a vital DC character again.
 
I'm kind of interested in a new Suicide Squad comic. I liked the Rebirth book, and while the one after that (which recently ended) wasn't very good, the concept works well enough that I generally try a new version out when they get made.

As for Swamp Thing, I've only ever liked Charles Soule's run (he took over from Scott Snyder's really shitty run, during the New 52) and at this point I really just hate everything associated with the Red/Green/Grey dynamic, so that's a complete pass for me.
 
Further new launches in March are "Teen Titans Academy" by writer Tim Sheridan and artist Rafa Sandoval, and "Green Lantern" by writer Geoffrey Thorne and artist Tom Raney. In both cases, the creative teams are the same as the respective Future State books. TTA also appears to feature the Red X character, who will be introduced during Future State.
 
Geoffrey Throne is a former TrekBBS member and author of the Titan Treklit series novel The Sword of Damocles (among many other things).
 
"Justice League Dark" will relaunch with a new #1 in March, though Ram V stays on as writer. He's joined by artist Xermanico.

Meanwhile, "Wonder Woman" will continue with #770 (good, I was actually afraid they'd start with #1 on the traditional books which just returned to the original numbering), written by Becky Cloonan & Michael Conrad, with art by Travis Moore.
 
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JLD on my list. I have loved Ram V's work on this title--the story lines are written in a similar way to the New 52 Earth 2 book (which was under rated in my opinion). By this I mean that the stakes always seem to be high and the characters written in to a series of no win scenarios where their victories only lead to more complications.
 
Further post-Future State announcements:

Writer Mariko Tamaki and artist Dan Mora take over Detective Comics with #1034.

Writer Gene Luen Yang and artist artist Ivan Reis take over Batman/Superman with #16.

Harley Quinn gets a relaunch starting with #1, with writer Stephanie Phillips and artist Riley Rossmo.
 
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