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

[Broccoli]

Interesting article. It seems to give the suggestion that General Lane won't be such a bad guy this time around. I know that's something I didn't overly care for when they turned Lois's family into villains.

I'm curious who the main villain Morrison referenced is. Glenmorgan, perhaps?

Still, I think I'm going to drop the title and wait for the trade.

I liked how in A-SS Luthor was a musclehead. "Feel this. This takes real work!" You'd think the world's smartest human would recognize an inferiority complex but I guess not.

Thing is, people with intense inferiority complexes rarely recognize them themselves.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

You'd think the world's smartest human would recognize an inferiority complex but I guess not.

I think our world would be a lot different if that were the case.

They're treating him as an alien being, Morrison says, "so he has absolutely no rights in any way and they're experimenting on him.

You know, somehow I suspect our social, legislative and judicial reaction to a publicly known alien would not uniformly be "LOL he's not from Earth so we can torture him."

It looks like they've just managed to skip all of that by not telling people. Let's see, this supposedly takes place five or six years ago, right...?

Today, they'd probably just try to take him out with a drone.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

And it looks like sales are up for The Outlaws...

 

[Hound of UIster]

Yeah, can't wait to get this.

I got a kick out of Morrison's instruction to draw Luthor as a once-heavy, fitness-obsessed kind of guy. He's a character who's mutated physically over the decades of his existence in the comics. Early on he seemed to be older than Supes (in fact, his first pretty-much-forgotten appearance in Superboy was as an adult) and fairly paunchy if not heavy at times. When he was retconned into being a contemporary of Clark's in Smallville that changed. Byrne drew him as a big guy who shaved his head after Lois Lane sarcastically compared his balding appearance to Fred Mertz.

Action is getting all the mainstream media attention - deservedly so - in the Superman relaunch. One can see why DC would want to rearrange the creative team over on Superman after the somewhat lackluster first issue.

Morrison is also looking to give Steel a larger role in the book since he is suppose to be embodiment of what Superman is out to do (inspire others to heroism). From what I heard, the Mr. Terrific book was originally suppose to be a Steel book before Morrison's plans got in the way.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Action #2.... is GOOD.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Action #2.... is GOOD.

Can't wait to check it out this evening.

 

[Mike Farley]

And the digital week 1 #1's have all dropped in price by a dollar.

 

[Saga]

Action Comics #2 was really good. still getting use to Superman running around jeans. the Jor-El redesign preview looked pretty cool.

 

[Myasishchev]

Action Comics 2. I paid $4 for a 28 page comic that is actually 20 pages of comic and 8 pages of production art. Fuck this.

Grade: FA

Animal Man 2. Still awesome, in much the same way. Although actually, I think I might like it better than the last issue. If I have any criticism, it's that the hunter-things' dialogue is a little flat. Because they're magic monsters or something, I guess they can't have anything interesting to say. Maxine is interesting though. She's one creepy little kid.

Grade: A+

And from last week, I, Vampire. It's pretty, with Sorrentino doing (I know everyone's said it already) a good Jae Lee impression. It's not really very Twilighty despite the insipid cover. The framing device is nice, a conversation between two vampires who fuck, but have to split over political differences, i.e. one wants to kill all humans, the other doesn't. The central conceit makes sense: at the dawn of the age of superheroes, shadowy superhumans like vampires know their days are numbered, so they engage in a last-ditch effort to conquer the world. On the other hand, this feels so un-DCU that when the guy mentions Superman and Green Lanterns you expect the girl to say, "Those were just movies, Andrew."

P.S.: the vampires are shapeshifters, which is neat.
P.P.S.: the story closes with a pair of epigraphs. One is the maximum number. Actually, maybe it should be zero. One of them is pretty clever, though, so it gets a pass. The Sun Tzu one is trite and lame.

Grade: B.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, Action #2 was all kinds of great. I love the Krytonian designs - although Jor-El and the rocket are both a little retro next to some of the other stuff.

Clark's got as good a personal reason to dislike Lex as Lex does Supes, now.

Absolutely love the reveal in the last panel. Wonder who that is?

 

[Hound of UIster]

Stormwatch was much better this week though art was off with two artists for the issue. Harry Tanner really does remind me of Fantomex and his diversion powers from Uncanny X-Force.

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

And Corben's likely future use of the exo-suit is undoubtedly a callback to the Superman cartoon where he faces off Superman in the Lexosuit.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

Action Comics: Pretty darn awesome. Superman continues to be quite the dick, but I'm cool with it. The big reveal on the end panel, well that was cool. I'm actually anxious to see how this one plays out.

Detective Comics: Freaking disgusting. This one was one I was giving one more chance, and it didn't deliver. It just made me sick. Not picking this one up again next month

Red Lanterns: Another one in the "give it one more chance" pile. It wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't bad either. Certainly more happened in it than next week. So Atrocitus is deliberately keeping the Red Lanterns as feral animals? That makes no sense whatsoever. Also, are we supposed to care which one he chooses to make more intelligent? None of them so far can even be considered characters. It's probably just going to be Bleez, since she's really the only one we've ever seen in the spotlight other than Dex-Starr.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Action Comics is my clear favourite of the New 52 with Batman a close second. This issue was awesome!!! I can't wait for the third issue. I love the little extras section at the back of the book and yes the Jor-El redesign looks awesome. Retro-neo golden age?? I think my favourite scene in this book was the cape scene.

The most important thing learned about in Justice League International #2...SKEETS!!! Also Batman is cool.

Tony Daniels writing irritates me...the artwork on Detective is awesome but not enough to keep me reading the book. I like the Charlotte Rivers character, but I don't buy that Bruce would get involved with another journalist so soon after the fiasco with Vicki Vale during the Return. That just speaks of bad judgement on Bruce's part.

 

[Myasishchev]

Action Comics is my clear favourite of the New 52 with Batman a close second. This issue was awesome!!! I can't wait for the third issue. I love the little extras section at the back of the book and yes the Jor-El redesign looks awesome. Retro-neo golden age?? I think my favourite scene in this book was the cape scene.

I have never disagreed more with you than I do right now, at this moment. Promotional materials are not content! Don't be fooled!

 

[Hound of UIster]

Tony Daniels writing irritates me...the artwork on Detective is awesome but not enough to keep me reading the book. I like the Charlotte Rivers character, but I don't buy that Bruce would get involved with another journalist so soon after the fiasco with Vicki Vale during the Return. That just speaks of bad judgement on Bruce's part.

I just wish he would jump ship to Marvel. Except for Hawkman, where he does a passable job. He is wasting everyones time with the Detective Comics title.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Action Comics is my clear favourite of the New 52 with Batman a close second. This issue was awesome!!! I can't wait for the third issue. I love the little extras section at the back of the book and yes the Jor-El redesign looks awesome. Retro-neo golden age?? I think my favourite scene in this book was the cape scene.

I have never disagreed more with you than I do right now, at this moment. Promotional materials are not content! Don't be fooled!

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 think my favourite scene in this book was the cape scene.

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.

When do these bureaucratic incompetents discover Kryptonite?

Do you supposed Brainiac's got Kandor with him up in his tentacle ship?

 

[Admiral_Young]

I personally blame all the ads for lack of content more than promotional content. Seriously. Why aren't we bitching more about the ads? I really am looking forward to the first Action Comics trade.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I'm buying digital, so I'm assuming there are ads in the print editions that I'm not seeing...cause aside from variant covers and promo pages for other comics included in the Comixology things, I don't see any.

 

[Hound of UIster]

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.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Stormwatch #2 was indeed an improvement over the first issue and felt almost like old school Authority. Sigh. So let me get this straight. We have Jenny Quantum (one assumes) Angie still as the Engineer. Jack is there. Someone called Adam One, . The Swordmaster. But we have new versions of Apollo and Midnighter who have only just met each other? I'm starting to wonder if the jumbled timeline isn't meant to be part of the whole relaunch now. We know three realities merged into one new timeline. The Purple Lady stated to Barry she needed his help in fixing the timeline at the end of Flashpoint. We know time travel has been "sealed off". I'm starting to think that perhaps there is a "plan" or semblance of sanity behind the madness.