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

[davejames]

Justice League just baffles me. It was hyped up to be THE book of the New 52, with Johns and Lee working together for the first time, with all the major characters of the DCU. It is considered the flagship book of the New 52 as well, one of the major selling points. What has been extremely disappointing is Johns writing of the characters as nothing more than un-likeable caricatures of each other, even Aquaman who he writes near perfectly in the solo book, is written different in Justice League. The origin story was bizarre in the way it was structured and written as well. At least Jim Lee was bringing it...his art was pretty fantastic. Can't say the same for Johns writing. I haven't been this disappointed by a book in a long time that I was highly anticipating at first.

Agree completely. The juvenile behavior didn't really bother me much in the first 6 issues, because they were just meeting and getting to know each other (and Lee's art made it all look so damn cool).

But I just flipped through the latest issue and holy shit. All the stuff with Green Arrow trying to join the team, and the constant joking around at his expense, just made these guys seem like the most immature group of assholes ever.

I can understand Johns wanting to make the characters seem "fun and edgy", but he forgot that they still need to act like freakin adults as well.

 

[Derishton]

The Reis splash page of an all-out war with J'onn J'onz does, or tries to do, much of the work of justifying their behaviour. The concluding scene indicates that, if JJ remains the wise soul of the DC Universe that he was before, that we are in fact supposed to see this JLA as relatively immature.

 

[Captain Craig]

I wanted to read all my DC books last night but was too tired.
So, read All-Star Western #8 and this book continues to impress me.
I'm wondering if the new editorial decision for Hex was to go with loose connectivity vs the stand alone issues of the last series. Cause so far that is what is happening here and I'm enjoying it. I say that as someone who bought over 20 issues of the solo, self contained Hex and praised the same thing. Knowing I could just drop in at any time and yet so far this loose continuity 8 issues in is working.

 

[indianatrekker26]

I gave up on the DC relaunch. i had been getting all the batman, superman titles, and some others. I gave these books until the conclusion of their first arcs (except for batman which just keeps going and going and going) but i just wasn't impressed to come back.
I'll just stick with the older era of comics.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Batman: Court of Owls does go into Night of Owls which concludes in May. The second arc of the book is supposed to be a "game changer" according to Bleeding Cool. What that means no one knows yet. Keep in mind though the stuff that Snyder has been doing has tied back to his and Kyle Higgins Gates of Gotham mini-series last summer.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I've just read 2 through 8 of the New Guardians.

Quite enjoyable, however you can tell that Bedard caught a recent screening of The Starlost.

Am I the only one that wants to see Fatality and Poochy Hook up?

 

[The Lensman]

So you guys would rather have the "gosh, golly, gee whiz" Billy back? The one with absolutely no room for character devolpment in the last 50 years? I would rather have a paint by numbers jerk to hero quest set up, than go back to that again.

There has to be something other than the two extremes.

I'm sure Mike Allred would be able to do an awesome Captain Marvel series. Madman had a likeable do-gooder hero, with an upeat, yet modern sensibility. And he was cool. I've been re-reading some of the original 40's Captain Marvel and it's awesome. Simple four color magic that tells you all you need to know about why the character is still remembered today.

There's a trend where modern comics creators try to take some seemingly crazy concept of old and try to make it workable in a more realistic setting. One of the first of these was James Robinson having the Red Bee show up at a spectral dinner in Starman and make him a more believable character.

(The Red Bee fought crime in early comics with two trained bees. Yeah. Trained bees.)

Since then, we've seen plenty of this with Marvel's "The Twelve" being when the concept started to get old for me, because I had been following these types of stories for some time.

Captain Marvel was not made to be "realistic". Superman works, but Captain Marvel has a comic strip (not comic book) vibe to him. Everything seems especially archetypal and mythic in some of his old stories. Simple primary colors abound, and that's what caught the eyes of kids back in the day.

The attempts by Ordway, Smith and Kunkel were decent enough, but I'd love to see Allred bring his retro vibe to an attempt and I'd like DC to stop with the idiotic notion that this is a character that should be made "realistic", "dark" and "edgy". There's a flood of that on the comics stands, we don't need yet another one.

Yes, the final scene in "First Thunder" was interesting and touching and it also showed perfectly why this concept does not work the more "realistic" you try to make it. Superman's reaction was the reaction of a normal adult, both in the comic world and the real world and Shazam did nothing to change my mind. His attitude was basically "I'm going to subject the boy to this anyway and you can either help, or who knows how he'll deal with it."

They need to be looking at melding Cap's original sensibility with something like Tin Tin. Modern fantasy tales set in a timeless world full of super mythic adventures. A world of mad scientists, giant robots, genius worms and a family of super heroes. A world of that's fun to visit and unapologetic about it.

A world of imagination unbound.

Damn realism, edgy, gritty and cynicism. The world has no shortage of that.

 

[TemporalFlux]

I'll just stick with the older era of comics.

I haven't been impressed either, but I'll try back in about five years. DC also had alot of growing pains after the first Crisis; we had crap like Legends, Millenium and Invasion; but by 1992 the tone was starting to change as creators finally began shaping a cohesive identity of the post Crisis era. As we got into the mid 90's, we were heading into the post-Crisis heyday with the Grant Morrison JLA; Phil Jimenez Wonder Woman; Mark Waid's stride; Geoff John's beginnings; etc.

It just takes time to get a stalled motor going again; and right now DC hasn't yet managed to get the engine to turnover again.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You sound like the Shadows from babylon 5.

Sleeping for thousands of years, waiting for things to get just so, before they bring out their A game.

 

[Professor Zoom]

I'm sure Mike Allred would be able to do an awesome Captain Marvel series. Madman had a likeable do-gooder hero, with an upeat, yet modern sensibility. And he was cool. I've been re-reading some of the original 40's Captain Marvel and it's awesome. Simple four color magic that tells you all you need to know about why the character is still remembered today.

I agree with all of your post, but I just wanted to give another shout out about Mike Allred doing Captain Marvel. Yes, yes, yes, and again YES.

Wouldn't it be great if DC had a book that was accessible to... I don't know... the young? The young at heart?

 

[Derishton]

This week: Action, World's Finest, Earth 2. I'll start picking up Batwing again once the Court of Owls stuff is over and, hopefully, the character gets back to the setting that makes the title unique.

 

[Derishton]

I forgot GI Combat is out this week, too, so ... that.

 

[scnj]

I'm super excited to read Dial H. I love China Mieville's novels.

 

[Captain Craig]

I did finish up last weeks books with:

Justice League Dark #8 - part 3 of the I,Vampire crossover about the first evil, Cain, coming to take over things. Am I to understand now that Shade is gone? Not dead I guess but he's with his girlfriend who is dead so he's where? Having Constantine trying to talk Andrew into coming back was a nice bit of dialouge as was Zatanna's remark to the "wait, who you calling a sidekick?" The art remains wonderful for the book!!

I, Vampire #8 - all that talking by John got through to him cause the first page has Andrew back from limbo/hell answering Constantine's question, "I guess I do have some fight left in me". Again, the art in this book is equally well done still. Now, Andrew comes back with some new powers, one of which seems to be a memory wipe. He makes a vocal command for this event(vampire invasion in Gotham) and records of it forgotten. He must've buddied up to Mephisto while he was there. Him taking over the vampire army upon defeating Cain was a unique approach to ending the event. I admit I didn't see it coming. Wondering if we'll see this Order of VanHelsing as mentioned in the closing of the issue by the real "sidekicks", whose names escape me.
Now I'm very new to Andrew and Mary. I,Vampire was one of the titles I tired brand new in the spirit of this nu52 event. Why is Mary light blue? Are those red swirls on her body tattoos or something else?

Aquaman #8 - a decent issue but a step down from the rest so far. Guess John's was taking a breather on this one. Help me, was all the issue told in the past? We were 6yrs ago, then 1yr later--so 5yrs ago and the issue ends. We never jump back to the present do we, right? This was a fill-in-the blanks issue with backstory for sure. It was a good read just a bit slow on actual fun moments.


So for tomorrow:
Animal Man #9 - which I will drop soon
Swamp Thing #9 - the real thing saving AM at this point
X-O ManOWar #1 - Valiant returns!!
no Marvel, IDW, Image, light week for me unless something surprises me.

 

[Broccoli]

Picked up Earth 2 today. Somewhat middling. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything groundbreaking either. It was really nothing but pure back story primarily focusing on characters that seemingly won't appear after this issue; something that would have been serviced better being in an annual or a 0 issue (like how Marvel use to do with their mini-series back in the later 90s/early 00s). Then again, perhaps that was the point.

There is something I'm a bit fuzzy on. Is Earth 2 an ongoing series? Or a limited series (like The Shade). I've seen it called both from various sources.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Well, DC's got me interested in and buying comics for the first time in ages. I sure don't miss that which I couldn't be bothered with before.

Looking forward to Earth 2 this evening. Gee, Supes isn't wearing a red Speedo over there, either.

 

[indianatrekker26]

BleedingCool.com claim to have received word that there'll be another change in the creative team controlling the "Superman" comic book title after the up-coming Zero issue taking place in September.

• I understand that Scott Lobdell, the writer of Red Hood And The Outlaws, Teen Titans and Superboy is to add another, more prominent book, to his New DCU repertoire.
  Namely the monthly Superman title, currently created by Dan Jurgens and Keith Giffen.

Note: All the original New 52 titles will get a issue 0 in September, telling year one stories, with regular numbering returning in October.

 

[Broccoli]

Looking forward to Earth 2 this evening. Gee, Supes isn't wearing a red Speedo over there, either.

Nope, but oddly enough, he's got himself a WWE Championship Belt. Earth 2 is a strange place indeed.

BleedingCool.com claim to have received word that there'll be another change in the creative team controlling the "Superman" comic book title after the up-coming Zero issue taking place in September.

• I understand that Scott Lobdell, the writer of Red Hood And The Outlaws, Teen Titans and Superboy is to add another, more prominent book, to his New DCU repertoire.
  Namely the monthly Superman title, currently created by Dan Jurgens and Keith Giffen.

Note: All the original New 52 titles will get a issue 0 in September, telling year one stories, with regular numbering returning in October.

I wonder if that is meant to be permanent, or just temporary as I seem to remember that the Super-books were going to have a crossover in the near future (where Supes meets his clone) and Lobell seems to be the crossover guy where his books are concerned. I'd be disappointed if Jurgens leaves. I've liked his two issues thus far and his take on Superman (in terms of art), is the definitive Superman to me.

 

[JoeZhang]

The main thing about that costume is that...

Spoiler: Earth 2 spoilers

it's a lot of effort for a guy you kill off in the first issue

 

[davejames]

It would be nice if they found a team who could actually do something interesting and new with the character. Besides just change his costume and tell stories from the 80s all over again.