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

There are unused designs for Green Lantern and Aquaman, but the Superman sketch is just his current outfit.

 

There is a scetch of a new version that is not seen in JL #1. It has red on the fore arm and the cape is attached to the shield. The blue is darker. It reads

Superman: The red underwear is gone, and in this version the cape is attached to the armor itelf. The full story of this costume will be played out in Action Comics.

This is what I don't get, why does Superman need armor?

 

If in AC1 he doesn't know about his kryptonian heritage, then where does the "S" shield that he is wearing come from?

 

Superman doesn't. But if it's Kryptonian armor (which I think it is), it's because on Krypton, they don't have powers

 

You know, if they wanted to go balls-out for the Golden Age, they would all have powers. Of course, then it makes even less sense unless the whole species agreed to commit suigenocide.

Science!:



First, I want to say I really adore the transhumanist bent of the piece, and those guys jumping around in the super-gravity is really cool. What happens when they land wherever they're aiming for at 500m/s? Do they have designated landing pads? Imagine the city planning on a planet where people leap an 1/8th of a mile instead of walking.

But, yeah. I guess this sort of thing seemed less retarded before an understanding of geology that included plate tectonics and the relationship between gravity and geological activity. Interestingly, a bigger planet means less likelihood of a biosphere-ending event; my understanding is that it's smaller planets, like Venus, that wind up with vulcanism-related holocausts, because they aren't massive enough to force hot material through the crust and release energy in shorter, less damaging bursts, as happens on Earth, and instead the crust just keeps cooling and thickening until finally it's too heavy for the mantle to support, when the entire damn thing collapses.*

Anyway, there's no excuse for the ignorance of the cube-square law up there. Humans would have a high strength to mass ratio too if they were only two millimeters tall. So an ant isn't crushed by a third of a gram, color me impressed.

Of course, for all of its problems, it's certainly no sillier than the classical yellow rays stuff.

Personally, I prefer a hybrid, where Kryptonians are sort-of-super on Krypton, with roughly Action Comics #1 powers, but under a G-type star develop their god-mode. I think about these things because I am a total dork.

*And by the way, God bless the Legion of Super-Heroes show for depicting Krypton as simply subsumed by lava instead of completely shattered.

 

Did anyone notice the Legion reference in Action Comics 1?

Wait...people buy comics? Its easier and cheaper just to steal them.

 

And cbrs look better than legitimately purchased digital comics.

 

Detective Comics #1: What can I say really, it's Batman all the way. It's very gritty, very dark and very cool. It reminds me very much of the Nolanverse. I love the costume, I love Gordon's look, I love the Batcave and I absolutely love the Batmobile. This is by far my favorite Batmobile, it has a Burton look to it, but cooler. I can't really say much else, it's just awsome. You just have to see for yourself. When I read Batman my inner voice automatically sounds like Kevin Conroy's Batman and sometimes Bale, but my Joker is clearly Mark Hamil. I just can't help it, those are engrained into my brain. I love Superman, but I have to give it to Batman this time Detectice Comics #1 is better than Action Comics#1 this time around, though I liked them both. A/A+

Green Arrow is next.

 

@Sojourner there have been depictions of Superman where he has known nothing about his Kryptonian heritage and still worn the S. "Smallville" I think is an example of this and I may be wrong but didn't "Lois and Clark" Clark didn't know about his heritage until he was contacted by those Kryptonians? I've forgotten. There are examples. Besides which, Morrison knows what he's doing.

 

In Lois and Clark, the S came from Kal-El's ship. In Byrne's Superman reboot the S was just a design that Clark and Pa came up with when Ma was designing and sewing the rest of the costume. In both versions he learned more about his heritage only after he became Superman.

 

They really do. Sadly, it'll be betamax all over again.

 

My take on the issues read thus far:

Batwing: I was surprised by how much I liked this one. The artwork was pretty good. The story was fast paced and ended on a great cliffhanger.

Batman: Solid enough Batman/Joker story, elevated by the mysterious, cliffhanger ending.

Action: I liked this one better than I expected. The social crusading Superman is interesting, as is the overt mention of class.

Static: I was a little disappointed in this one. Didn't care for the artwork and the story was just okay. I did like the inclusion of Hardware as Static's mentor of sorts.

Justice League International: Decent opener. I think it's an interesting team mix. It's one that I might give a couple more shots to get a feel for.

Batgirl: Not as bad as some of the critics said, though I wish they had just started out Barbara as Batgirl from scratch, eliminating The Killing Joke as part of her past. Adding it, perhaps in an attempt to satisfy Oracle fans, doesn't quite work for me. This is a book I could take or leave.

Green Arrow: Serviceable, but I could take or leave.

 

I don't know much about digital comics, so what's cbrs?

 

.cbr (RAR archive) and .cbz (ZIP archive) files are the standard format that scanned comic book jpeg/png archives are kept in, accessible by a specialized comic book reader like CDisplay or Comical.

They're the usual format for pirated books, but also stuff like the Digital Comics Museum.

And I admit I'm pretty new to the ComiXology stuff, so maybe there's an option to turn it into something as simple and elegant as big png's of pages on my screen, rather than the attempted illusion of my monitor holding up a physical comic a foot and a half from my face, complete with laughable shading gradient in the center of the two-page spread to indicate the curve toward the spine.

 

Same place it's come from for most of his existence - it stands for

wait for it

"Superman."

This "House of El" shit didn't start until they slapped the S on Marlon Brando in 1978.

 

@Broc...Myasischev and I both brought up the Legion reference He did first

 

There haven't been any opinions of the new Swamp Thing or Animal Man. I'm waiting to pick them up but wouldn't mind hearing some non-spoilerish news about them.

 

I guess the TL;DR version is "it's pretty great, and easily the best comic DC published last week."

 

So did everyone spot the "Lady in Purple" for week two of the 'The New 52'?

Action Comics #1

Animal Man #1

Batwing #1

Green Arrow #1

Hawk & Dove #1

JLI #1

Stormwatch #1

Swamp Thing #1


If anyone has a scan/photo of the appearance in Batgirl #1 or Detective #1 and wants to add it. Those are the only two I don't have a pic of.

She clearly has a glow around her. If we are to stick with our assumption then I guess the glow is a type of temporal energy? The Stormwatch panel is the first where it appears she/he has a type of weapon. Looks like a staff? Does that add or detract from this person being the Time Trapper?

 

I think it's the pre-asian, martial artist makeover of Psylocke from X-men.