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DC comics shipped the second week of the ‘New 52’ titles and out of 13,
I picked up seven to give them a shot after being underwhelmed by Justice League #1 last week. The titles available were:
ACTION COMICS #1, ANIMAL MAN #1, BATGIRL #1, BATWING #1, DETECTIVE COMICS #1,
GREEN ARROW #1, HAWK AND DOVE #1, JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #1, MEN OF WAR #1,OMAC #1, STATIC SHOCK #1, STORMWATCH #1 and SWAMP THING #1.
What I purchased, Action #1, Animal Man #1, Batgirl #1, Detective Comics #1,
Green Arrow #1, JLI #1, and Swamp Thing #1.
I didn’t get Batwing cause I don’t have any idea who that is,
I didn’t get Hawk and Dove cause I never really liked the title,
I didn’t buy Men of War because I never liked war comics except Weird War Tales with the Haunted Tank,
Static shock, I never really got into the character except in the cartoon,
Stormwatch…meh, and OMAC was out of stock.
What I found on reading them…caution…spoilers ahead.
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MMMM Kay?
1) Superman in Action Comics #1…. Not sure about this and I refuse to give it a pass just because of Grant Morrison.
This title and Detective comics should be and always were the DC flagship comics (more on Detective comics after)
the book opens with Superman beating confessions out of criminals using Batman like tactics… buzzt… strike one…
Supes is right or wrong… he is and always will be the Boy Scout… truth and justice and morals……
he’s wearing jeans and a t shirt with a tea towel for a cape and what looks like bludstone boots… ick.
Lois and Jimmy are two dimensional at best, but I liked Jimmy’s cell phone. Lex is cool, but Lex is always cool…
Toning down Supes powers also ok… able to leap tall buildings blah blah blah… no origins… no back story… interest fading.
2) Animal Man #1… I always liked Buddy Baker… he was sorta neat… now Jeff Lemire shows us a bit of a Vertigo feel
with this book… Buddy and his family are doing well, he’s an actor now, his wife and kids are close and he still gets out
in the tights now and again… it’s on an outing that things get a bit creepy… I almost expected John Constantine to waltz
through… I’ll see where this is going.
3) Batgirl #1… Ok, Gale Simone… last we saw Babs was in a wheelchair as Oracle…
now she’s out kicking butt as batgirl again… explanation? She got better… pardon the horrid pun, but…lame.
No physio to retrain herself, not montage at all, just back in the Batsuit… now I love Barbara Gordon,
hated her injuries in ‘The Killing Joke’, Loved Oracle… but Gail! She Got Better?... (silent Scream)…
4) Batman in Detective Comics #1… Ahhh now we’re talking… the Bat is back… can’t change him too much,
and look, it’s his psycho twin, the Joker… we’re in territory that we were in after the last Batman movie…
the mayor and the cops hate him, Gordon still defends him. The Joker is a stabby bastard and there seems to be an open
cell policy at Arkham. Classic Batman, grim and gruesome... A+
5) Green Arrow #1… Ollie’s Back, he’s rich and he’s beating up metahumans with a good support team.
J.T. Krul, Dan Jurgens and George Perez are handling this well, with Ollie battling the board at Queen Industries
and keeping them at arm’s length from Q Core, his R and D group and archery supply store…
wait, why does this sound familiar? Solid stuff.
6) JLI #1… my soft spot… I was always a fan of the Giffen, DeMatteis and Maguire books and some of that sense of fun
leaks through in the Dan Jurgens, Aaron Lopresti, Matt Ryan book. The sniping banter is there,
Guy and Booster are well written, Booster is in charge and that pi**es Guy off… The Bat is The Bat and the lineup
seems well balanced from various JL books… Vixen, Fire, Ice, Rocket Red and two relatively unknowns
(to me anyways) August General of Iron and Godiva … a good balance and they are based out of the Hall of Justice
(yes Superfriends)… fun so far.
7) Last but not least Swamp Thing #1… Alec Holland is back and human, sort of… coming off the heels of Brightest Day,
he still is in touch with the green and remembers being Swampy… in dreams, in flashes, in nightmares… he remembers Abby…
sort of but wants’ nothing to do with the violent world of plants… but in a seeming tie in to Animal man #1,
there have been rapid die offs of fauna and weird weather as well… Supes tracks Alec down to a construction site and
wants to know what is going on… Alec wants’ to be left alone… well… not Alan Moore, but some definite Wrightson there…
I wanted to see if OMAC was any good as I loved Jack Kirby, but no luck…
those are my thoughts on the New 52 week two… as always YMMV…
Hugs,
Diana
Comments
"..the book opens with
"..the book opens with Superman beating confessions out of criminals using Batman like tactics… buzzt… strike one…
Supes is right or wrong… he is and always will be the Boy Scout… truth and justice and morals……
he’s wearing jeans and a t shirt with a tea towel for a cape and what looks like bludstone boots… ick.
Lois and Jimmy are two dimensional at best, but I liked Jimmy’s cell phone. Lex is cool, but Lex is always cool…
Toning down Supes powers also ok… able to leap tall buildings blah blah blah… no origins….."
When our wonderful government has pronounced torture of criminals (terrorists) to be acceptable interrogation, can Stuporman be far behind? We have to expect treatment of criminals in fiction to mirror our wishful thinking of reality, do we not? You don't try to capture Bin Laden, you kill him to the cheers of Right Thinking Americans most everywhere. Think somebody has info they won't tell, try waterboarding. It's torture, but it doesn't leave marks......Afraid of terrorists? Get the Govt. to institute ever more stringent security to do such basic things as flying, but don't, just DO NOT stop the manufacture of guns so valued by the drug cartels, but maybe stop making airplanes? After all, 9/11, the insturments of terror were passenger planes. Better not make them, or just treat the customers as criminals, Assumption of innocence out the window. Oh well, but we are "safe" now,
CaroL
CaroL
probably why i prefer the old comics
i prefer my comics without the realism...
Diana
Original concepts
This is actually a return to the original concept of Superman. Supes did most of the things he did in this issue of Action within the first year or so of his appearance. He even ran along high tension wires while juggling a slumlord to coerce a confession. The idea that his behavior in this issue is a reflection of politics in the last decade is just not in line with how the character originated.
The original Superman was anti-establishment, a transgressor and a taunter of authority, a man with the power to put things right and the will to do so. A true adolescent power fantasy and this was what made the character such a success.
Just like the original Batman carried a gun and shot crooks dead. Comics evolved and so did the characters. The history of some comic book characters goes back more than 70 years and is way more textured than might be supposed.
I think DC's plan with Superman is to start with the reckless, immature idealogue we saw in this Action #1 and develop his character into the responsible, thoughtful, humane Superman of the Silver and Modern ages. That will be more interesting than just rebooting him into the end phase to begin with.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
You're safe? What planet are
You're safe? What planet are you from? LOL
Hugs
Cliff
batwing
If you've been reading batman incorporated you'll see that Bruce Wayne/Batman decided to created batmen in other countries.
Batwing is Africa's supposed incarnation.
Comic book blather, DCs New 52
Why the change?
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Short answer?
Money, Stanman... DC thinks the revamp...or ret con perhaps...will bring them a younger readership... maybe, maybe not... i've seen both Marvel and DC do this on several occasions over the years... never seems to stick though.
Shrugs... who knows.
hugs to you my friend,
Diana
some marketing twit
thinks he can piss on 60 years or so of history an no one will notice and he will suddenly attract kids to spend their video money on 3.00 comics
Death of Comics
DC's market share has been dwindling for years at the same time that the comics market itself has been shrinking. Marvel has increased market share while still suffering from reduced sales.
In the 1940s, some comics sold millions of copies regularly despite shortages and rationing of paper. By the 1960s, this had dwindles to about half a million for the best sellers. Now a comic is reckoned a runaway success if it sells 100,000 copies.
And digital distribution is beginning to be felt as a force. Marvel sells access to a huge digital archive for about 80 bucks a year. DC has begun releasing digital versions of all their comics on the same day as store copies. Indies are signing up for digital distribution with a handful of companies that make digital comics readers and even Archie has gone digital.
It's a new era and no one quite knows how to embrace it or avoid its pitfalls. One thing is certain, both DC and Marvel make more from developing their properties as movies and from licensing toys, clothing and games than they do off the little they make at the comic book store.
Another thing, a $3 comic today is cheaper in real money than a 10 cent comic was in 1951. And it's printed on better paper with better color.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
OK, point by point...
First... DC is kinda redoing what they did 25 years ago with "Crisis:" they didn't so much reboot the entire universe, but introduced a... discontinuity... that allows them to change stuff. In this case, the discontinuity was last couple months' event, called "Flashpoint," where the Reverse-Flash changed the world history to keep Barry Allen from becoming the Flash. Of course, it got fixed... but not quite, a few differences remain.
Second... not all titles are "present-time." A few are flashbacks. Action is a flashback to the early days of Supes. Justice League is also a flashback, but no so far back: to the point where Hal Jordan was a rookie and they were still to form the League. I think all the others so far are present-time, but Wonder Woman is likely to be a flashback too. Which, by the way, explains the differences in Superman's and Batman's costumes from one comic to another.
Third... like the Fawcett, Quality and Charlton characters back in Crisis, DC took this opportunity to integrate the Milestone and Wildstorm characters into the main DC continuity.
So, title by title now...
The ones you skipped: Batwing is one of the new "international franchise" Batmen which came from Batman, Inc. It's a brand-new character in an environment (Africa) which hasn't been explored much in DC Comics, so that gives the creators a lot of freedom to experiment.
Hawk & Dove... well, so far nothing special to it, just straight superheroics. Rob Liefeld is drawing it, which may be a strike against it. But he's not writing it, at least.
Men of War... kinda surprised me. It's not quite what I expected. It's military, all right, and the main character apparently is the grandson of Sgt. Rock -- but the story kinda looks at what means being a soldier in a world with superbeings. Might grow into a semi-Vertigo thing. The backup "Navy Seals" story is straight war comics, though.
Too bad you didn't find O.M.A.C., Giffen seems to be co-plotting as well as drawing (as he likes to do), and he is going heavy with the Kirby references -- right of the bat you get O.M.A.C. in/against the Cadmus Project. It's weird, a few things are clearly Giffen's style, but they mesh well with the Kirby-inspired elements. I didn't expect that.
Static Shock is a bit sci-fi-esque, but it's set in New York, not Dakota. I think they are trying to find their "Spider-Man" here -- the young hero that kids identify here. They might succeed, the story is not bad. It's the Milestone foothold in the DC universe, too. If it goes well, they will probably start bringing the other ones. Hardware already plays a secondary role.
In the same vein, "Stormwatch" is where the Wildstorm characters enter DC. They kinda rebooted Wildstorm here -- the first story is the introduction of Apollo and the Midnighter, but the concept is that Stormwatch has been working out of sight of governments and public for centuries. Since I doubt that the Authority will appear in the DC Universe in the same form it had, I think they transferred a number of elements from that book to Stormwatch.
Now commenting on the ones you DID read:
1) Action Comics -- it's a flashback, and as someone pointed out, Superman here is kinda like he was in the early Siegel & Shuster stories -- more of an outlaw, less of a boy scout, and less powerful. You might say that he is still emotionally immature.
2) Animal Man -- Yeah, after all he went through, doing it as a straight superhero book would make no sense. Vertigo overtones here...
3) Batgirl -- At least they didn't ignore the Oracle period. Since Babs is relearning how to do things in a hands-on manner, it's kinda reading a book with a rookie, which is nice. My guess is that she "got better" somehow due to the Flashpoint event, but I didn't read much of that, so I can't know for certain.
4) Detective Comics -- Man, I thought the Joker couldn't get any scarier! I was wrong... and, as you said, the new status quo is Batman in trouble with the police.
5) Green Arrow -- Ollie is not just back into being rich, he's *mega*-rich. His CEO is *disappointed* that the tech division (one division!) is at *the same level* as Waynetech and Luthorcorp, while the rest of the corp is miles above their competition... apparently Ollie is going to be the sugar daddy of the superhero set even more than Bruce Wayne. Liked the new support team (including his own private Oracle expy), wondered about the money, missed the beard. But I would like to know what happened to the *old* support team -- Roy, Connor, Mia, Dinah... ah well, I suppose they will show up eventually.
6) JLI -- August General in Iron appeared as part of a Chinese team in a number of stories. Godiva is an old character, she used to be a member of the Global Guardians. Fun so far, but I'm not much a fan of Jurgens.
7) Swamp Thing -- yes, the horror overtones are still there. And yes, it may be best if read in a pair with Animal Man -- the books are kinda complementary. Notice the first look we have to the *current* Superman costume...
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