Aldo reads DC's New 52 (So you don't have to)

OK, you've got three months of this, guys, before the wholesale cutting of books.

Justice League #1

"Five Years ago" reads the caption and this is not, and can never be, a good start. It's still 5 years ago by the end of the book too, which had originally guessed was Geoff John's hamfisted way of establishing the overall continuity so that Action (and I think Detective) happen 5 years previously to the other books, but a bit of googling tells me is so there can be a Hal Jordan book as well as all the other Lantern books, so JL is 5 years behind the other continuity as well. They're not all going to start like this, are they? With lumbering explanations of the immediate post-Flashpoint scenario? "There was a time when the world didn't know what a superhero was." Top way to summarise how Flashpoint ended, however, since I haven't touched that piece of crap I'm reliant on Wikipedia which tells me Barry Allen has Mommy Issues and recreated the universe before Flashpoint started by saving her and recreates it again at the end by letting her die.* So to summarise the New 52 then, it's Flashpoint rolled out against the whole DC Universe and not just a limited attempt to cash in on your traditional summer crossover sales-fest (one main book, 20 spin off titles and several big crossovers such as Flash and Booster Gold). Keeping on milking it while you can, I guess.

So, the book itself. Well it's kind of an inconsequential thing about nothing. Batman is chasing what turns out to be a parademon under fire from Gotham cops, Green Lantern turns up and explains to the reader who he is, what the GLC is (kind of) and a little bit about Batman. He's pretty stupid, although this might just be Johns trying to write howz da yung kidz speek 2day innit. The parademon blows itself up, leaving behind a Mother Box and the dynamic duo take it away to see Superman. On the way, they buzz a football field where the Not-Yet-Cyborg is being Good At Sports and he fills us in about his dad's work at STAR Labs in a VERY SUBTLE way. Arriving in Metropolis, we then get GJ's version of this:

http://comicattack.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/GGvsBats.jpg

And this is the heart of the problem with the book. It doesn't know what the target market is. ** The dialogue seems to be for new starters, but we're really going to have Apokolips in the first storyline? Some of the best writers of the Bronze Age failed to explain fully over 20 years what Darkseid was all about, so I struggle to see how it's going to work for people without 40 years of DCU in their brains. Also, you're going up against Final Crisis this soon after it? Are the New Gods inside or outside of the Flashpoint? I'm already beginning not to care.

At the back we get some extra draft sketches and things which try hard to convince me Jim Lee should have his pencils taken away, but also that this could have been worse. Then I notice Superman has kneepads. WTF? Are his knees suddenly vulnerable? Unless they're MacFarlane Pouches for the keys to his flat I'm going to be upset.

"It combusted into fire."

https://img.skitch.com/20110831-ew7mqhysd8j87kc2brb674ni4j.jpg

Lets's say that again. "It combusted into fire." Welcome to the new universe.

*It also lets me know about things Geoff Johns has written that no sane adult should ever know, like this:

Hot Pursuit

First Appearance: Flash v.3 #6 (January 2011) Created by writer Geoff Johns and artist Francis Manapul

Hot Pursuit's full origin and point of origin is unknown, currently, he claims to be a superhero from a parallel universe, who built the Cosmic Motorcycle. The motorcycle transforms into a high-tech nightstick which can steal speed, store information, and project holograms. This motorcycle also needs to be charged constantly with mass amounts of electricity in order for it to continue to be able to access the Speed Force, thus it is unable to naturally access the Speed Force like Barry Allen or the rest of the Flash Family.

With the help of his nephew Wally West he became Hot Pursuit, the Fastest Man Alive. Just after Barry Allen acquits himself of the murder of the 25th century Renegade's Mirror Monarch, a futuristic version of Mirror Master, Hot Pursuit braves the Bleed between universes and appears in the 21st century on his cosmic motorcycle, rushing to find Allen, in order to warn him about a grave event that leads to Flashpoint (comics), a 2011 DC Comics event.

After time traveling, Hot Pursuit desperately searches through Central City for energy that will allow his motorcycle to continue to function. After causing a black out as well as wrecking the Central City Police Department's crime lab, he attracts the attention of Allen, who gives chase. Stopping to speak with Allen, he tells The Flash that they're on the same time line, revealing to him that he is also Barry Allen, from the future, there to warn him of the "single greatest time anomaly to ever threaten reality."

He thought that Bart Allen was the cause of the anomaly, but later learned that it was, in fact, Professor Zoom (Eobard Thawne), also known simply as the Reverse-Flash. He tried to save Flash and Kid Flash by using his Speed Force draining nightstick. This proved futile as the Reverse-Flash was able to negate the nightstick's abilities and age Hot Pursuit to death, fufilling Thwane's desire to kill Barry Allen.

Hot Pursuit's mission is to protect the timestream from historical anomalies

Seriously? Cosmic motorcycle that turns into a nightstick? I'm guessing he saw the new Tron film before sitting down and writing that. Oh, and in Flashpoint she's a woman. And hawt. GEDDIT?

http://rantingintongues.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/geoff-johns-rings.jpg

** This is the same problem I have with Russell T Davies' Award Winning Doctor Who tm (not kidding btw, he did once try and get that registered and he used to force people to call it that on internal memos). You keep on giving nods to the old fans - the Macra in the one that rips off 200AD, badly, for example - but then dismiss them if they don't fawn all over you or criticise what you do. Well do you want to appeal to them or not? If you value their opinion then fill your boots, but if you don't then why try and please them?

I didn't thank you enough for doing this in the other thread. Thank you!

I did spend the 2 minutes it took to read Justice League, shook my head, and moved on to the end of Greg Pak's Incredible Hulk run. I hate Geoff Johns, which makes me afraid I'm going to loathe much of this pointless reboot.

how did Johns wear those holes in the brim of his baseball cap?

He bought it like that. That's how.

Yeah, let that one roll around in your head.

To all reports, Mr Johns is an incredibly nice guy whose writing I will never ever enjoy reading.

God bless and keep you, Aldo.
At this point, I'm not even sure I'll be able to read Action because I have a hard time seeing anything other than sadface in RM's art.

Aldo, nice work--I salute you. Much more fun to read than the comic itself

Good luck, Aldo, I hope you come through the other side of this with your sanity.

Thanks for all the kind words, but having read JL#1 I think this is going to be more of a challenge than re-reading Latter Days.

It'll probably be weekends when new things go up btw - Thursdays are Comics Day in the UK, and Fridays tend to be winding down from the week beer type affairs.

I wouldn't worry about Action Comics sadface as they will have changed the artist by issue 3.

This is great, keep it going!

superman ACTION comics #1

Week one proper and we start with a GMoz book, so that's bound to be the highlight of the reboot, yes? RONG.

Another week, another book that doesn't know what it wants to be. It starts off reminding me of GMoz's Marvel Boy, but then turns into The Hulk. The first page with General Lane and the un-named Lex Luthor could be out of any Green Hulk book from the 70s onwards to be honest, and even has the added frisson of the General's daughter being the love interest. Stopping the train would have been good had everyone not immediately thought of the first Spider-man film. The confrontation between Supes and the cops at the beginning is mediocre Bat-book fare. And robocopters?

http://www.beano.com/media/122221/retro_characters_genjumbo_005_500x375.jpg

And yet there's something more to this. The pacing is excellent and it doesn't really feel like an origin book despite the fact it clearly is. There's lots of twists on things we thought we knew are rewritten - Lois and Jimmy work for a different newspaper, for example - and there's a real groundedness with Clark and Jimmy ACTUALLY USING MOBILE PHONES which bizarrely makes this one of the most modern-feeling comic books in modern memory.

Foreshadowing is similarly very well handled. We get told Superman is getting stronger. Luthor talks about something approaching through space, which might turn out to be the maguffin that enables the books that aren't in the past. We meet his landlady, Mrs Nxyly. Now, I'm not an expert on American surnames but not only does it seem uncommon I would guess it points this way:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lpwrwngWjNg/TIoIld9LKlI/AAAAAAAAFYk/Baa6R7C0ofI/s1600/765615-mr__myx_super.jpg

The most intruiging foreshadow, however, is this:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6176/6132249107_7c77cd2b79_z.jpg

There's something about the way he looks, and the way he speaks, and whatever it is he's doing with his tie that implies to me he's a big deal. And I'm on board to find out.

Because I'm a mug and bought so many books I get a variant cover with Superman wearing a different costume to the one he does in Action. Go me.

Animal Man #1

One of the strangest choices possible for the relaunch, a remarkably minor character resurrected by a great GMoz run then devolved back into self-prophesising obscurity, coming in and out of Vertigo continuity and at one point becoming essentially a villain back when he was spending his life as a giant bird. No, really, he was. He also probably died more than any character except Lobo, I even think it was 4 or 5 times in the same book towards the end.

So, what do we have here? A book written by Vertigo's hottest property about a boy with antlers, and drawn by the improbably named Travel Foreman who's most famous for Doctor Spectrum (no, me neither). The family unit is the same as previous continuity before they all dies, then were broght back to life again, then died again or something and has the Cliff & Maxine from GMoz continuity, the black costume from after the first time the family were killed off and the whole vegan thing going on.

First off, this looks horrible. I mean, seriously, what's going on here?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6163/6133229120_af80159d8c_z.jpg

It's not just that, later on it looks like everybody has really bad skin complaints. Still, at least the characters are distinct and you don't get them mixed up which is a novelty these days. Anyway, on to the plot. There's some soap opera stuff and a marital argument, then Buddy punches out an ordinary member of the public who has a gun in a hospital. He then starts having some physical issues that you've all seen the promo pictures for but is SUBTLY introduced in the book with this panel:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6077/6132705215_1acf751001_z.jpg

I'm glad he pointed to them, because somehow I had got to this age without knowing where my eyes were. That probably explains why I don't wear contact lenses.

So, we end up with Buddy and Maxine sharing a dream with Buddy walking around like Doctor Manhattan when he comes back as a disembodied nervous system, introduces the baddies, and leads into what looks like the Maxine's 'The Red' arc from the Children's Crusade era. It ends with a splash page as have all the other books thus far. Is this a 'thing'? I like it.

Ultimately, this is a Vertigo book in the wrong continuity and is far more adult than I'd expect. It's very well written, but it hurts my eyes. It needs to save itself from being cut, and quickly, but I'm not sure how it can without changing artist. Shame.

I kinda dig Foreman's art on Animal Man, but can see how YMMV.

It works really well in the dream world, the real world not so much.

Action Comics #1: I had the same thought about Mrs. Nxyly as you; the name is far too weird not to be important. Though the way she disparages artists and bohemians doesn't sound like Mxytzptlk at all.

Funnily enough, at first I thought the guy with the tie was Mxytzptlk, since he's very short and looks impish. You're right that there certainly a heavy foreshadowing of him being important. In the first two panels, when he's making a deal with Mr. Glenmorgan, he looks kinda devilish... And we never found out what exactly the deal is, so it could actually be some kind of a deal with Devil. Does Superman have other classic villains who are of short stature and impish besides Mxytzptlk?

I agree with you about the genericness of the action sequences, but all in all I thought this issue did a fine job in introducing this particular version of Superman (and to a lesser degree, Luthor). Lets just hope Morrison and DC have the guts to stick to the idea of Superman as a proper social crusader and not water it down, because it's an interesting take on Siegel's and Shuster's original character. (Though apparently this is supposed to be the "past" version of Superman, and someone else will write the current version? So probably he'll be watered down from the get-go.)

And I gotta say that the final page of this issue certainly packed a punch. What a great, classic cliffhanger.

Opening ANIMAL MAN #1 with a text page is a tactical error of the similar magnitude to trying to win a land war in Asia. I wanted it to improve from there and it never did. Maybe if it had started on page 7 or something. Feels like it kinda wants to be a Vertigo book, but there's no Vertigo for it to be in anymore. The art in the dream sequences looked great, in the waking world it was...Not great. I was hoping that I'd turn a page and it would magically turn into any of the hundred Filipino or Spanish artists that DC recruited in the 70s and that just never happened. Tough to justify continuing.

Wanted to get OMAC, but it was sold out.

I haven't read AM yet, but the new Swamp Thing series has a pretty good start. The writer (Scott Snyder, who've I've never heard of before) had interesting way to reboot Swamp Thing: apparently most of the stuff that happened in ST's history really did happen, but as per Moore's famous retcon, it happened to a sentient plant life form, not to Alec Holland. So in this issue we get to meet the real Alec Holland for the first time since he had his lab accident (from which he has somehow healed, I guess this'll be explained later on). OTOH this doesn't make issue #1 particularly easy for a new reader, as stuff in ST's past is referred to, but not always explained properly.

Yanick Pacqutte's art looks really neat here, his clean, detailed line fits the plant theme nicely. Looks like Snyder is aiming for old school horror comic vibes, which makes me wonder why this series has to be in the main DC continuity? The Superman appearance in issue #1 is totally superfluous.

Feels like it kinda wants to be a Vertigo book, but there's no Vertigo for it to be in anymore.

Are you saying DC has completely deleted the Vertigo imprint? What about all the Vertigo titles? Will they just continuity as regular, non-continuity DC comic books now?

Not sure, Tuomas. But there's no DCU superheroes in Vertigo now; all of them back in the DCU in the 52 books.

Were there even that many DC superheroes in Vertigo at the moment? Animal Man's and Swamp Thing's and Shade's series were cancelled, and Doom Patrol already emigrated back to the main DC universe some time ago. I think Hellblazer is the only Vertigo title left where the character originally started in the DCU.

IIRC Justice League Dark is going to be all of the Vertigo title characters on a team

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_League_Dark

Hmm, doesn't quite look like that: only Constantine and Shade have (had) their own Vertigo titles, all the others are main DCU characters. But it's really called Justice League Dark?! Is it the nineties again? On the other hand this does sound like an early 90s Vertigo title, and since Milligan's writing it, I'm probably gonna check it out. Also, I love Zatanna!

tbf I have no idea who the DC heroes are, even though I own a Zatanna miniseries I couldn't tell you much about her beyond "ludicrous costume"

she casts magic spells by saying words backwards

Is Zatanna DC's first second generation hero*?
*Her father, Zatara, first appeared in a single-digit issue of Action, maybe #1?

(confirmed, Action#1)

I can't think of another, much less an earlier instance.

Is it too spoilery to talk about the Flashpoint Mystery Woman?

Flashpointina?

Batgirl #1

So Gail Simone was arguably the most successful writer of female heroes before the reboot, including having worked with Barbara Gordon before, and it gives DC a way of extending Adam Hughes' contract* so this is bound to be AWESOMES, right?

Well, for the most part it is. We get a new villain who seems to show people the worst bits of their lives then kills them imaginatively in an appropriate way (AND NOT LIKE THE SPECTRE AT ALL) and then we get Barbara Gordon as Batgirl. Then a splashpage that I just can't work out at all:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6174/6135790320_cf2159ed7e.jpg

Where's she coming from? Where's she going? Where's the rope connected? Why are there no buildings behind her? WHAT'S UP WITH THAT FOOT?**

We have a fight with a small time gang of weird kids and then a flashback to The Killing Joke. And so it begins, as previous continuity begins to creep in. Although that needn't matter because it gets handwaved away on the next page as "a miracle happened".

We then get the usual attempt by Gail to pretend she's still a teenager with a lolworthy room-mate, but it's redeemed by a great closing sequence where Babs is unable to act because of Killing Joke memories (unfortunately not Jaz Coleman, so no Honouring of The Fire here) and people hate her.

I'm staying with this I think "but just fair warning, okay?"

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6163/6135301247_ae74f74c14.jpg

* The man responsible for one of the most pointless and exploitative bits of DC promo material in years:

http://herospy.com/wp-content/2008/comics/DC_Babes.jpg

Which is for what, exactly? It just appeared standalone with no context - I particularly like how it fails to sexy up the wheelchair.

** Noticing feet in Book three of a week that has a Rob Liefeld book in it cannot be a good sign. I might melt down later.

Batwing #1

WING, not WANG. I should be excited because this is a brand new hero for the reboot, but frankly it's all too WINICKY.

Actually, that's not fair. I actually quite like this despite it being a 30 second read. It's very, very pretty and establishes that GMoz's Batman Inc is in continuity as well (having happened just before the continuity 'present day') and references another hero group (The Kingdom) who also existed in the Gap. The new villain, Massacre, doesn't really make any sense though and this might have been better as an Unknown Soldier book (which it could still turn into given the final splash page).

It's so slight there really isn't anything else to say about it, so let's just look at how lovely the art is for a bit.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6079/6135881698_3e33c298c3.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6074/6135336293_655df548f2.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6205/6135882248_b775c19fe1.jpg

BECAUSE OF THE WING

batman DETECTIVE comics

Tony S Daniel was obviously sleeping when the DCU got rebooted because this is basically his Batman book from before the jump. Hey ho, I liked it then and I like it now. It doesn't even really pretend it's anything new either, as Bats knows all about The Joker already (which he would if this is in present day, but I thought it was 5 years ago like Action and Justice League?) and there's a Batsignal and all sorts. It's neither up nor down, really. The dialogue is sometimes crappy:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6074/6135931064_1121bb0ffc.jpg

I'm not exactly in love with the art either because for every great panel there's one that looks like this:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6206/6135931110_42fd9703e9.jpg

The background of it is really nice, but what's up with his JOKERFACE HIS JO-JOKERFACE JO-JO-JO-JOKERFACE HIS JO-JOKERFACE?

The best thing about this book* is the lettering though, which is some of the best I've seen in a mainstream hero book in ages. Seriously, this panel reminds me of Cerebus:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6065/6135931140_9255feb48c.jpg

And frankly that's enough to keep me onboard, although I might have to bail if Batman starts rewriting the Torah.** There's not enough good lettering out there any more and I don't care how anal that makes me sound.

* This is a lie. The best thing is the final splash page but I can't show you that as it's far too spoilery. It's also what's really keeping me buying it. But hey, it's another splash page as the final one - that makes Batgirl the only one so far that isn't.

** This is obviously another lie. How cool would that be?

In the beginning I created the heaven and the earth. I'm the me-damn God. And the Earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Darkness. My old ally. I am a creature of the dark. And the Spirit of Me moved upon the face of the waters. Like a symbol. That's it - I shall become a me. And I said, let there be light: and there was light. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Never learn.

Green Arrow #1

Hoo boy. Written by a guy most famous for his work on the GGA series Fathom can't a good sign and guess what. IT ISN'T.*

For starters, Green Arrow is Steve Jobs - although to be honest that seems an easy mistake to make.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2011/08/steve-jobs-young.jpg

Anyway, this is the very definition of filler. We get a pointless fight with three minor villains that are so hackneyed it's almost unbelievable (a strong guy, one that controls electricity and a woman with two faces and four arms, that look like they've wandered in by accident from a lazy mid-80s X-Franchise) and some loose references to YouTube, nightclubs and happyslapping** to make it "current" and "edgy", I have visions of J.T. Krul sitting at home in a Global HyperColour t-shirt thinking how AWESOME he looks.

http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/images/2011/04/Bill-and-Ted.jpg

Getting to #3 will be a struggle, but going past there will be a mistake.

* This gives me the PH34R about Captain Atom too, because he's writing it too. Boo.

** For our American friends, Happyslapping was a media outrage in Britain in 2005, when cameraphones that did video were a new thing. It didn't really last long, despite the attempts of the Daily Mail amongst others to portray it as evidence of BROKEN BRITAIN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_slapping

Quite why it's in here I have no idea, but for evidence that it is:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6080/6135489191_0ac5d854bb.jpg

It's also the splash page too. Wait, it can't be just HIS BUSINESS IS COMPUTERS SO HE IS FUTURISTIC LET'S TURN HIS DOWNFALL ONTO HIS Q-PAD DO YOU SEE, can it? Is anybody that stupid?

No, don't answer that.

Hawk & Dove #1

Oh, Liefeldpaws.

No, wait, go back. I was almost excited about this because I have ridiculously fond memories of the Karl & Barbara Kesel run on it back in the 80s, but couldn't see why it was part of the new line, or written by a guy who hasn't done anything of note other than a few issues of Supergirl. Luckily Wikipedia gave me the answer:

Gates lives in Los Angeles, where he is good friends with fellow writers and collaborators James Robinson and Geoff Johns.

If you can't beat them, make friends with them and beg them for a job, eh?

Anyway, the writing is best summed up by ANGST! SHOUTING! SHOUTING! ANGST! DADDY ISSUES! INTERNAL CONFLICT! ANGST! and could have come exactly from that same book nearly 25 years ago. It has a long dialogue which lays out all the history and ends with a two-page splash which is CLASSIC Liefeld fodder but also implies CoIE is part of the new continuity too (but hang on, Barry Allen died during that, so doesn't that make a mess of everything?):

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6162/6136210768_d1fbc32d36.jpg

I do have to draw attention to this stunning bit of dialogue though:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6084/6136210774_04a665b22b.jpg

Seriously, "You smell like.. Hawk & Dove"? Wtf does that even mean?

I've spent too long laughing at the writer though, and not enough laughing at Rob Liefeld. Have a montage, and remember - all these were drawn independently and I haven't included any of them twice.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6190/6136210778_cee9fa5a02_z.jpg

There, now you don't need to read it.

Any other books will have to go a long, long way to be as bad as this. I will only make it to #3 because I love you.

Bigger, for more ANGST:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6190/6136210778_cee9fa5a02_b.jpg

^lol

wait, Barry Allen never died in this reboot universe? but Batman's gone through four different Robins in five years?

Essentially, yes. It's the post-Final Crisis Barry Allen that Flashpoint happens to, during which time it was revealed (IIRC) that he didn't die in CoIE he was always just chasing back Darkseid's God Bullet, or something.

After reading all this week's books I don't think I know any more.

Justice League International #1

You know, I don't have too much to say about this other than I'm sure it'll be a grower. It wants to be like the Giffen/de Matteis book but doesn't have the balls to do that much comedy so soon, so settles for being vaguely amusing although probably not amusing enough. I'm sure it'll get there once Booster Gold stops worrying about how good he is and is less emo, which can't be far off.

Nothing much happens. The group forms and goes off to investigate an incident in Peru, and it all ends in a splash for which the reference is clearly a Kirby work for Marvel but I can't decide which one. It's something like this

http://theworldsgreatestblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/ff1cover.jpg

but it isn't. Is it Galactus? A Sentinel? Don't know. Happy for someone else to pick it out.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aIMrxkijdUM/Tl0vddZDTTI/AAAAAAAAIR8/UF70JwErDsw/s1600/justice%2Bleague%2Binternational%2B1c.jpg

Anyway, this is OK, but isn't actually good either which is probably why I can't muster up the enthusiasm to say anything about it.

Enjoying these so far. Stay strong.

Men of War #1

This is a two part book, the first of which is the new 52 version of Sgt Rock. All we can pretty much tell from it is that he's in an un-named foreign country conducting a covert assassination and one or maybe two superheroes royally fuck it up for him. Since this is not written by Bob Haney, Robert Kanigher or Garth Ennis it is not very good. If it's going to be set in a universe where there are heroes I can't see how it's going to work - or will end up like Qurac from 80s continuity where plots get inceasingly more ridiculous to justify the heroes not preventing the war or just defeating America's enemies.

The second part is Navy SEALs, which is military enthusiast level crazy, obsessed with acronyms that needed spelled out in sidebars. It's dreadful though, mainly because it doesn't have a plot. It also has the worst foot of the entire week, no small claim when there is an entire Liefeld book out.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6186/6136377974_f0752b7399.jpg

Or closer:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6204/6135832319_b6b0c24599.jpg

Seriously, wtf? Has he got a joint in the middle of his foot that makes his toes point at 45 degrees to where they should be? I would say this spoils the book, but in fact it does the opposite and creates the only think worth talking about in it.

Getting to #3 will be easier than other books, but I can'tsee me going any further.

OMAC

MUCH KIRBY GOODNESS WITHIN. YOU NEED THIS BOOK.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6062/6136412240_ba9279375d.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6066/6135867101_e4f4393a56.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6162/6136412418_570411df24.jpg

This is Kirby's original OMAC premise, with only a very small element of the Rucka era. Look, just buy it, OK? Best thing all week.

Static Shock #1

This completely passed me by. I knew nothing about the original so had no attachment to it, but this is the most out of place book thus far in the relaunch. Nothing of note happens and to be honest I can't remember a thing about it. Even reading through it again prompts no response about the first time. The whole thing smacks of 90s affirmative action product, even down to the cover story where he gets set up as a juvenile criminal but we all know he's not. DO YOU SEE? YOU THOUGHT HE MIGHT BE SO YOU ARE A RACIST BADDIE!

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6153/6136498532_2e243fd443_z.jpg

So, it ends with a cliffhanger where Static gets his arm cut off and may die. I'm willing to bet that he doesn't die and his arm is back by the end of the next book. You can take over doing this from me if I'm wrong.

Thanks again Aldo. These recaps are great.

Stormwatch #1

This, however, is the book which should be the most out of place. It featured substitutes for Superman, Batman, Captain Atom etc because they couldn't use them and featured the spaces out of the universe as run-off between worlds using a ship too big for any universe as the maguffin. In the reboot we have a ship in "hyperspace", which looks like an attempt to rationalise The Carrier, but thee's no context for how they got out there. There's a flashback to previous Stormwatches through history, mention of a "Shadow Cabinet" and a giant eye inside the Moon.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6167/6136539726_e0b12e4eff_z.jpg

I wonder if the incoming thing it refers to is what Luthor notices in Action? (There's also a reference to Superman #1, not yet published.) Anyway, The Engineer and Jack Hawksmoor are still there, they're trying to recruit Apollo and it looks like The Midnighter is on the other side. Jenny Quantum is in the book, but doesn't look like she's in Stormwatch yet, whereas the Martian Manhunter is.

I'm not really sure it's worth trying to rationalise this, but I'm sure it'll make sense eventually. I guess I have faith in Paul Cornell to get it right eventually, but this is pretty slow going even if it does seem to be about the Moon turning into a monster.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6205/6136018407_9cf03cd748_z.jpg

One for the fans, I think.

Swamp Thing #1

Having been a massive Swamp Thing stan at one point, I somehow missed everything that was happening around Brightest Day and only read one issue of the Search For.. book so I've had to fill in the gaps. Which, frankly, seem like a load of old bollocks. Anyway, Alec Holland is now just a man, but has connections to the plant world he can't explain. There's something weird happening with bones as well (which most likely tie into The Red as I noted in Animal Man and Jeff Lemire confirms the two books will cross over soon). He has a bio-restorative formula again, but nobody except Superman wants him to use it.

Some obvious nods to the old fans in here - the cover is reminiscent of the last panel of Rite of Spring and Totleben's Motel is a nice touch - but as with Animal Man this is a Vertigo book in all but name and some of the pages are amongst the best I've seen in a DC horror book for some time. This is my favourite page:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6169/6136613260_0606efaedf_z.jpg

A sleeper title maybe, but one you should be reading. I will be.

So Gail Simone was arguably the most successful writer of female heroes before the reboot, including having worked with Barbara Gordon before, and it gives DC a way of extending Adam Hughes' contract* so this is bound to be AWESOMES, right?

* The man responsible for one of the most pointless and exploitative bits of DC promo material in years:

But Batgirl isn't drawn by Adam Hughes, it's by someone called Ardian Syaf (never heard of him before). I was actually surprised how little beefcake there was in Batgirl #1, even Babs' breast size was not the mandatory superheroine D cup, she actually looks like someone who has trained her upper body a lot. I agree that the leg spread splash page looks a bit silly, but on the other hand it was probably supposed to emphasize how great she feels being able to use her legs again. Other than that I thought this Syaf fellow is a very solid artist and good at drawing action, there were some nice kinetic panels in the fight between Batgirl and the masked gang.

Sorry, by "beefcake" I meant cheesecake, obviously.

Adam Hughes did the cover.

Look, just buy it, OK? Best thing all week.

HELL NO, I WON'T DIDIO

but it isn't. Is it Galactus? A Sentinel? Don't know. Happy for someone else to pick it out.

Which turned out to be misplaced giant robot belonging to...
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110618153219/marvel_dc/images/0/0b/Metron_014.jpg

man, that Workman fill-in looks so wrong

So Best thing all week is by DiDio? My world is crumbling!

Aldo, these are great. That Hawk&Dove montage alone was wonderful. You've made me buy some books I wasn't going to.

what do yall have against the Hughes pinup?

I don't really have anything against the Hughes pinup (hell, I might have bought more than one Frank Cho book in my life), but the Women of DC thing was utterly pointless cheesecake which iirc appeared for the first time in three segments as inside back covers. No context, nothing. I think there's something funny as well about his sexying up Barbara Goredon then realising composition means he has to have another character sitting down for no reason at the other side.

As for the JLI splash, no, it's definitely a Kirby thing I'm thinking of. Look at the Action Poses!

Barbara Goredon

don't give Geoff Johns ideas

I kinda dig Foreman's art on Animal Man, but can see how YMMV.

I liked it too... I think maybe the online reproduction of it is losing some of the detail.

one thing I don't like about all this nu-52 shite is the way all the issue 1s are swamping the new comics space in my local shop.

Batman and Robin #1

Woohoo! A book by Rolo Tomassi! \m/ \m/

http://static.nme.com/images/gallery/rolo_Tomassi_DF_L80509.jpg

Oh. Peter Tomasi.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_zWPZ3jc1d9s/TEAviEO80dI/AAAAAAAAAEI/fnbo1mefSXw/s320/tomasi.jpg

WELL THAT'S HARDLY THE SAME THING NOW, IS IT? I mean seriously, you think a Geoff Johns Sadface collaborator is a substitute for Nottingham Mathcore?

To be fair to the book, it's not bad. A universe's worth of BatHistory is tied up and rejected in about 10 pages, and it's really clear that Barry Allen's Cosmic Brane remembers all of Batman Inc even though the rest of us can't. But from the double page centre splash onwards it's good knockabout generic BatFun, even if it took me five goes to work out what was going on in this panel and how it connects to the panels before and after:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6076/6157922365_d38662b9c6_z.jpg

The last page, however, redeems pretty much any failings even if it's probably the most brutal thing in any of the new books to date. I'm staying for now, but not wedded to continuing to buy this yet.

Batwoman #1

All Hail Geoff Johns! He has managed to get JH Williams to get an issue of Batwoman out on time! NB I am not taking bets against this being the only one...

Anyway, the reasoning why is well known - Williams was so late this has been rescheduled multiple times since the original Feb solicit and boy does it show. This comes straight out of the Detective feature, barely even acknowledging the whole Brightest Day/Blackest Night bollocks.

Accordingly, this probably needs no selling to you. It's absolutely beautiful, as you'd expect. I mean, LOOK AT THIS (no apologies for HUGENESS):

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6156/6158555802_dfc27c2934_b.jpg

One complaint? Continuity. BRA ON:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6173/6158013485_eef1131276_z.jpg

PRESTO SWAPSIES!:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6200/6158555958_f734a4e5dd.jpg

I mean, you could argue there's too much GAY AGENDAR, but you must have known you were buying a book about a lesbian crimefighter. I can't see any possible way you could sell this to kids because the plot is just too complicated, but as long as they keep publishing it I'll keep buying it.

Deathstroke #1

Bleh. No interest in the character and the artist comes from the Draw Characters Like Rob Liefeld Draws Captain America And/Or Cable school.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6157/6158585882_9f6c9616e6.jpg

Luckily he took evening classes in MacFarlane Pouches.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6173/6158043417_4f85418019.jpg

The worst thing about this was the teen sidekicks though, and it's only Deathstroke's reaction to them in the closing pages that makes me remotely interested in reading any more of these.

Demon Knights #1

Damn the consequences, I really quite liked this. There, I said it.

I have absolutely NO idea how this ties into the modern DCU, but what's not to like about a comic that stars Jason Blood, Madame Xanadu, The Shining Knight and Vandal Savage?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6193/6158618394_1042d7d68b.jpg

Does it deliver kind of mystic action with added FITES?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6069/6158618428_1dfd63d553.jpg

This sort of thing just makes me feel all benevolent.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6183/6158618490_a99cb20a95.jpg

This won't be for everyone. It might not actually be for anyone other than me. But I'm sticking with this for now.

The bra-off shot is several weeks after the bra-on shot, not minutes later. If that's a continuty error, I'm glad I don't have to wash your smalls.

btw is it just me or was Mr Bones not rhyming at all? I know Johnson and Williams hid them in Chase, but I didn't spot a sneaky rhyme scheme in this.

Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1

You know, I really, really want to like this but it's such a B.P.R.D. rip-off it's nigh-on impossible.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6189/6158647548_85748f607b.jpg

You took the words right out of my mouth, Frankie. Look, they even have a new character (? I think) that rips off Abe Sapien!

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6204/6158647682_c57485f021.jpg

This must be able to be made good, but I have no idea how. Putting Ray Palmer in it, presumably to allow The Atom later, doesn't cut it. Me and Jeff Lemire, last night:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6209/6158105669_bcbacc628e.jpg

I'm Frankie, if you hadn't guessed. Anybody who wants to read this sort of thing done well should buy the FrankenCastle run on The Punisher instead.

Just re-read that bit of Batwoman and there's nothing anywhere to suggest that they're not continuous - we see the characters dress and go out, then come back and undress while talking about one fight (which is intercut in the undressing art). I agree it makes far more sense for it to reflect several weeks but that's not what the comic itself says at all; and since this is supposed to be part of attracting a new comics audience who are not necessarily comics literate, asking them to read implicit textual changes is a bit of a low blow.

"You're not being fair, Kate. I HAVE been working really hard."
"You still scare me out there."

This dialogue indicates clearly that they have been out on patrol on multiple occasions over a moderately extended period of time.

Green Lantern #1

AAAAAARGH GEOFF JOHNS AAAAAAARGH MANKELIPS AAAAAARGH FUCK OFF FUCK OFF FUCK OFF

A book so mired in continuity it makes no sense if you haven't read every GL book ever like what Geoff has.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6187/6158163331_600f0fd71e.jpg

Ok, I'm exaggerating slightly, but how is a new reader supposed to know or care about Star Sapphire? Or the Sinestro Corps War?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6192/6158163375_88756988cc.jpg

Reading something else. What I'm not doing is having dinner with Geoff Johns and Sterling Gates.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6076/6158163427_1afe50916b.jpg

Impenetrable bollocks for the casual reader. A searing indictment of the real state of DC for the rest of us. This, unfortunately, is the future.

I take your point sic, but the new reader would struggle with that and that's who these books are supposed to be for.

aldo you are performing a great service to humanity w these reviews, just one thing, cld you possibly give us full creator credits at the start of em, ty

I can think of many things that might scare new readers off these books, but somehow I don't think a magical bra-swap in one panel is gonna be among those.

Attracting new readers oughtn't mean dumbing everything down for a punch-and-biff lowest common denominator, though. And it's not fair to hold a JH Williams comic from late 2009 to a March 2011 idea by Dan DiDio.

And let's face it, this book was always going to bring non-regular-DC-readers to it, reboot or no reboot - and they were going to largely be comics-literate people who are here FOR the JHW3 storytelling. (Hi there!)

Equally Tuomas they're not going to be put off by boob size either, yet the GRITTY REALISM of that seems to be the primary thing you got out of Batgirl.

sic, violently agree with you but unfortunately we are living in a Didio world, and Kate Kane is a DiDio girl.

Equally Tuomas they're not going to be put off by boob size either, yet the GRITTY REALISM of that seems to be the primary thing you got out of Batgirl.

It wasn't! I just wanted to mention that one detail, because I thought it was a positive thing compared to most other superhero comics. Though I'm pretty sure there are actually many potential readers who are put off by the constant objectification of female characters in superhero comics (off which the "everyone has D cups" phenomenon is just a part of).

For Ward, creator run-down to date (writer/pencils/inks unless noted)

Justice League: Geoff Johns/Jim Lee/Scott Williams
Action: GMoz/Rags Morales/Rick Bryant
Animal Man: Jeff Lemire/Travel Foreman/Dan Green
Batwang: Judd Winick/Ben Oliver (all art)
Batgirl: Gail Simone/Ardian Syaf/Vincente Cifuentes
Detective: Tony S Daniel/Ryan Winn (all art)
Green Arrow: JT Krul/Dan Jurgens/George Perez
Hawk & Dove: Sterling Gates/Rob Liefeld (all art)
Justice League International: Dan Jugens/Aaron Lopresti/Matt Ryan
Men Of War: Ivan Brandon (Rock writer)/Tom Derenik (Rock artist)/Jonathon Vankin (SEALS writer)/Phil Winslade (SEALS artist)
OMAC: Dan DiDio/Keith Giffen/Scott Koblish
Static Shock: Scott McDaniel and John Rozum/Jonathon Glapion/LeBeau Underwood
Stormwatch: Paul Cornell/Miguel Sepulveda (all art)
Swamp Thing: Scott Snyder/Yanick Paquette (all art)
B&R: Peter J Tomasi/Patrick Gleason/Mick Gray
Batwoman: JH Williams (everything)/W Haden Blackman (co-writer)
Deathstroke: Kyle Higgins/Joe Bennett/Art Thibert
Demon Knights: Paul Cornell/Diogenes Neves/Oclair Albert
Frankie: Jeff Lemire/Alberto Ponticelli (all art)
GL: Geoff Johns/Doug Mahnke/Christian Alamy

Also, the Geoff Johns universe does not have people put off by BEWBS or women in refigerators. That is the law. (In fact, maybe every single book has been dominated by female characters - when they appear - being portrayed in better light than the male ones. IT'S A POLITICAL CORRECTNESS CONSPIRACY. Maybe now all the old fans will have to stop reading comics now their illusions are shattered and they can't see past their close minded view of gender politics.)

Grifter #1 W: Nathan Edmondson P: Cafu (presumably not the Brazilian footballer. Or Alan Hutton.) I: Jason Gorder

Um. I was never enough of a Wildstorm fan for this to mean anything to me really, but it chugs along at a steady enough pace and generates enough interest to get me reading the next couple without complaint. The art's nice enough, and doesn't lean nearly as heavily on Josh Holloway as you'd expect it to have for a model. What confuses me the most though is whether it's seventeen minutes, hours or days as it appears as all three in the text. And ends up back where it began.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6172/6158319825_b7b5472cd4.jpg

The real value of the book is it captures some candid shots of me round Dan DiDio's house.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6080/6158861274_6821a50892.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6172/6158319863_4559fec05f.jpg

PRINT MORE OF THESE NOW, IF YOU CAN. BWAHAHAHAHA.

Legion Lost #1: Fabien Nicieza and Pete Woods (no sub-credits)

So, I'm a sucker for LoSH. I always knew it, but how much of a kick I get out of it is best summed up by this picture of you and me reading it together.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6172/6158973844_67aab42f50.jpg

It's really good, I think. Chasing a super-villain through time, the Time Bubble blows up leading to the titular scenario. There's a bit of a fight and WHOA

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6083/6158974040_0dd28edefc_z.jpg

Some fairly crappy dialogue, another couple of explosions with some character deaths thrown in and we're at the end with me eagerly waiting the next installment. Don't expect more detail because there isn't any - this is a fast-paced flipper (with a bit of exposition).

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6193/6158432725_6de0781f48_z.jpg

I don't know, but if I go down I'm taking you with me.

so these comix i've never heard of are all wildstorm things right?

Some are, some are just unlikely titles.

the last two?

You've never heard of the Legion of Super Heroes?

Legion Lost?

It's a new Legion of Super Heroes spinoff.

oh cool, didn't realize. is Brainiac 5 still in continuity somewhere?

Guessing he's going to be in the main LoSH title. Big names in this one were TimberWolf and Wildfire.

It's a new Legion of Super Heroes spinoff.

also an old Legion of Super Heroes spinoff.

Mister Terrific #1 W: Eric Wallace P: Gianluca Gugliotta I: Wayne Faucher

Another day, another character I know nothing about. A Golden Age hero who was brought into the Justice Society of America, quite why he's been catapulted into one of the only 52 books remaining is really unclear since it reads like second string throughout. It's competent enough, but never exciting at any point and has a real identity crisis - it starts in the present day London and appears to have been written by somebody who has never been there, before skipping far into the past for a bit of character establishing and then back to the present day for a plot completely unrelated to the London sequence. It's easy enough to find yourself swept along liking it enough, but two panels stand out for me:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6190/6159476894_329e715067_z.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6181/6158936951_937dea953e_z.jpg

Ummm. Wow. Race complex, much? Self-identifying as "black guy"? "Black woman" who is genetically different to a white one solely on the basis of colour? Wow again.

I really have no idea who thinks stuff like this is a good idea. But it's weird enough to make me think about not taking this beyond #1.

Red Lanterns #1 W: Peter Milligan P: Ed Benes I: Rob Hunter

SO CONFLICTED. SO WINICKY, SO JOHNSY BUT PETE MILLIGAN.

This is complete torture/violence porn, but there's almost something that resembles a plot in there. I'm struggling to write about it because it's more of a FEELING that it's good - the internalised dialogue is good, the art is clean and distinct and it feels like it's going somewhere (unlike most of the other books this week). But I'm still conflicted. The final page sums up how I felt when I finished it:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6207/6159514082_50b064e964_z.jpg

Happy to stick with it for the time being but I'm not sure how long I can sustain the levels of hate required to enjoy this. And as one of the most misanthropic people on the planet, that's some claim.

Resurrection Man #1 W: Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning Art: Fernando Dagnino

OK, there's obscure and there's Resurrection Man. Around for two years in the late 90s and that's pretty much it, the creators of the character have been given a second chance with him; which is kind of fitting as his powers are that he dies and comes back to life with a new power (that he doesn't know what it is).

This ends up working maybe the best of any of the 52 books then just because of this, primarily because it hasn't got any huge amount of history it has to cram in or ignore and nothing to be inconsistent with. And although I enjoyed it I wasn't engaged at any point, plus the whole "fixed events and you can't prevent them because you cause them" part of the plot reminded me of everything I hate about modern Doctor Who.

The art is the thing though. It reminds me of the last attempt to bring back Marvel's New Universe, or lower tier Marvel supernatural books of the 80s/90s like Druid. And it features the worst piece of art this week, coupled with one of the weirdest bits of dialogue:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6066/6159052817_c3220c0ddd_z.jpg

"A GaGa kind of way". Plus the hands. Ignoring his giant hand at the front of the panel, we have this behind:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6179/6159591778_d71e02f638.jpg

Uh. It's her hand that's behind that doesn't work, as that inexplicable bit of width makes it look like it's her thumb and not his. Still, a decent first issue and I'm sticking with it.

Kind of looks like she has a case of toethumb

That scene hopefully takes place in the waiting room of Resurrection Man's dentist's office, which just happens to have an interesting painting of Resurrection Man scowling out a window. Does "a gaga kind of way" mean like Lady Gaga (who belongs in Red Lantern or Demon Knights) or as in Freudian/Oedipal hoochie-wawa?
"I need Red Lanterns in my shorts"

I think the former. I'd prefer the latter. (Actually, yr whole post has put "Metal Fingers In My Body" on my IJ which is no bad thing and somewhat appropriate for the first half of this book.)

I know I have two books left btw, they'll turn up tomorrow. One of them was my favourite thing this week. OOH THE TENSION.

the current Mr. Terrific as works better as a DC Reed Richards type IMO

re: JLI image, vaguely resembles:
http://images.wikia.com/marvel_dc/images/9/99/Brave_and_the_Bold_28.jpg
Is Jurgens doing layouts on JLI? Because that splash was very deliberately composed to evoke classic iconography of team books. I've always liked Jurgens as a penciller (though not really as a stylist, if that makes sense), got no opinion of him as a writer, have no idea what his comics values are. He seems to turn out consistently MOR work. His art never gets in the way of the story, but it doesn't really enhance it either.

That's a really good effort but not what I was thinking of. It'll come to me, I'm sure.

I just read OMAC. And while its heart was in the right place, I guess, I had to wonder why this book even got made. Doing a Kirby thing (and OMAC is incredibly Kirby, perhaps the Kirbyest, or within spitting distance of it) without the King just doesn't make any sense. In the meantime, I'll just pull the old HC off the shelf and flip through it again, since it will be everything that this series is shooting for, and more.

prob DiDio got excited about the good reviews for Paul Pope’s cover version of Omac #1 in Solo and went “gissa job, I can do that”

and the boss said “alright then”

the boss: http://americanthings.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/looney-tunes-by-zewebanimdotcom.jpg

http://www.flashbackuniverse.com/blogImages/random/DanDidio.jpg

YOUR SOUL. GIVE IT TO ME.

Suicide Squad #1 W: Adam Glass Art: Federico Dallocchio/Ransom Getty/Scott Hanna

Different Universe, same Suicide Squad. Supervillains get let out of jail in return for pulling off covert missions as part of Task Force X, the catch being that it's unlikely they'll all make it. This can be kind of predictable, as it's usually the small-time villains you've never heard of that buy the farm, but whatevs.

This is an establishing book, with a bit of history on Task Force X and a bit of history of the current members, but this is a blast from start to finish. Members in #1 are Deadshot, Harley Quinn, King Shark, Black Spider, el Diablo, Voltaic and Savant and guess what? Not all of them get to the end of the issue, where we get a brief Amanda Waller cameo (boy, has she been working out in the Johns Universe...) and the next mission, which looks like a doozy.

But putting all that aside, FUN FUN FUN

King Shark is the best thing about this issue by a country mile.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6158/6162473170_590fb3342e_z.jpg

And I defy anyone not to love the contrast between him and everybody else here.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6204/6161938199_ddd39b065a_z.jpg

Welcome back. I've missed you not being about.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6173/6162473518_7d0d024c0c_z.jpg

Aldo's winner of the week. Guaranteed to contain no Sadface.

Is this Deadshot supposed to be someone else than Floyd Lawton? If not, what happened to his cool mask and moustache? Why mess with a great character design?

Superboy #1 W: Scott Lobdell P: RB Silva I: Rob Lean

And after that, a let-down. For starters, this is not Superboy as in Young Clark Kent. It's kind of Superboy as in Kon-El. But the fact I've mis-typed Superboy as Superbot several times is a bit of a giveaway - this is Superboy as in Astro Boy:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6159/6161977871_66dd60c600_z.jpg

There's an awful lot of setup in this, and I'm not sure I followed it fully to be honest. I mean, what's this even about?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6176/6162513812_6853c555a0_z.jpg

And there are words. Lots of words. Lots and lots of words. Neal Adams Batman levels of words. LOOK AT THEM!

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6077/6162513732_489a5b6ec2_z.jpg

But then it all happens in the last page. Is this a hint towards Universe Punching? If so I'm up for it, if not I'm out.

Yes, Deadshot is Floyd Lawton. His mask is broken here, he has the full thing elsewhere in the book. He doesn't have a moustache because he isn't in his 60, Scandanavian or living in the 1970s.

In a stunning twist of fate, I have managed to last longer on the books than one of the creative teams - John Rozum has announced he's left Static Shock.

hah!

I think the obsolete moustache was a great part of his character... Even if he was occasionally portrayed sympathetically, you knew he was never gonna make a full turn into being a good guy, because he had such an obvious old-school Evil Moustache. So I would assume the lack of moustache means he's now gonna become a Usually Moral Anti-Hero instead of a Usually Amoral one.

(xx-post)

Also, in Secret Six Gail Simone made it clear that his fashion sense in general is a relic of the 1970s.

In a stunning twist of fate, I have managed to last longer on the books than one of the creative teams

Haven't several of them lost their artists before or during the first issues already? And Action #2 and #3 have both been solicited with fill-in artists doing substantial chunks of the pages.

you knew he was never gonna make a full turn into being a good guy, because he had such an obvious old-school Evil Moustache. So I would assume the lack of moustache means he's now gonna become a Usually Moral Anti-Hero instead of a Usually Amoral one.

^booming post

One of the funniest moments in Invincible (SPOILERS if you haven't read it) was related to that... The main bad guys in the series are this race of Evil Fascist Aliens who have conquered half the galaxy, and all of the men of that race sport a 70s style Evil Moustache. Now, the main opponent of Evil Empire is an interplanetary alliance lead by an old dude with a Gandalf beard. In a SHOCKING TWIST the old dude reveals to the good guys that he is actually a reformed member of the Evil Alien Race. How does he do that? By pulling of his fake beard, revealing that the only real facial hair he has is a 70s moustache.

i don't know why the world needs another punisher, but i guess the world didn't need lobo either and now here we are

http://images.wikia.com/marvel_dc/images/9/98/Lobo_Paramilitary_Christmas_Special_1.jpg

oops i meanhttp://images.wikia.com/marvel_dc/images/9/98/Lobo_Paramilitary_Christmas_Special_1.jpg

Are you talking about Deadshot? He's not like The Punisher at all.

u know, i was actually thinking of deathstroke whose new incarnation is kinda punisher-esque. i haven't read the new Suicide Squad yet

Deadshot is older than the Punisher AFAIK, Deathstroke was always 'inspired' by him AAFAIK

Only one mustache allowed in this brave new universe.

is it wrong that I'm still giggling that someone thought Batwing was a good title for a comic book

It just means you go outside to do things other than go to a comic store, imo.

What is this outside you speak of?

I think it has something to do with where Superman flies, or jumps, or whatever it is he does now.

at first I thought you were talking about batwing, not outside

And now JT Krul is off Green Arrow and Keith Giffen is in. How is that supposed to help me shed titles after #3?

Action #4 has also been solicited with a fill-in artist, AND a back-up story by another writer and artist "spinning off from the events of #2!"

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/mazing12.jpg

So after a month where it looked like the ACTUALLY MIGHT HAVE PULLED THIS OFF, DC seem determined to fuck it all up. Where does the fault lie. DiDio?

If by "pulling this off" you mean "making the rebooted titles accessible to new readers", I don't think they ever pulled it off. Out of the titles I've read so far, only OMAC and possibly Action Comics haven't required the reader to know previous continuity in order to fully understand the plot.

Take Swamp Thing, for example: I mentioned above that I thought Alec Holland being alive again was some kind of a mystery that would be explained in later issues, but it turns out this was something that actually happened in Blackest Night, which I haven't read. So even you if are aware of Moore's classic Swamp Thing (like I was) in order to get the stuff that Holland is talking about troughout the issue, you still have to read a big superhero crossover to understand what happened to Holland and the previous Swamp Thing. Why can't superhero comics have those little "see Blackest Night #8 for more details - your helpful editor" boxes anymore?

No, by "pulling it off" I meant actually making money from publishing funnybooks which afaik they hadn't been for some time. And tbh only a small handful of the books have required you to know previous continuity - Batwing and Batman & Robin being the most obvious examples - and even then I suspect all it does is produces a different reading. I've shown them to someone who doesn't do the whole continuity thing and we've pretty much liked the same books (though sometimes for different reasons).

Suicide Squad has one of those little boxes, as does at least one other of this week's books (memory says it's Superman related?).

I get what you say about Alec Holland, but does it actually matter to a new reader? If you don't have the level of continuity that you already have in your brain, would you care what the answer is?

Well, let's assume I would be a totally new reader who's never read any Swamp Thing related comics. If I was, for me the plot of SW #1 would be something like this:

* There's a botanist named Alec Holland. He developed some super-growth plant serum, then died in an accident. While he was dead something unexplained happened, which is why he has some memories that don't belong to him. Then he was resurrected for unexplained reasons. He monnologues about weird things that are not explained, like "Swamp Thing" and "the Green".

* He meets Superman (presumably even this new reader knows who Superman is), who tells him that various forms of fauna are inexplicably dying in masses. Then they have an oblique discussion about some unexplained things that happened in the recent past.

* Creepy stuff happens in the desert. This is actually pretty cool!

* Holland has further monologues about unexplained things, and he keeps repeating he's not this "Swamp Thing".

* The issue ends with him meeting a monster made of plants. Maybe this is the "Swamp Thing"?

I'd say that the basic requirement for a successful issue #1 would be to establish the protagonist(s): who is he, what does he do, what drives him to do what do what he does? Unless you know the previous continuity, Swamp Thing #1 has none of that. More than half of the issue is about some mysterious guy mulling over past events that are not really explained at all.

Or, you know, you could explain that as a slow build.

Trying deconstructing OMAC in the same way, and see what that looks like.

Well yeah, I guess if all these mysterious past events are explained in later issues, then the title might get accessible to new readers. But since all these events have already happened in previous comics, I'm not sure if they ever bother to do that.

Trying deconstructing OMAC in the same way, and see what that looks like.

This is actually interesting, because I've never read any OMAC related comics before, so I was actually the "new reader" here, as I knew nothing about the characters involved. So, what I got out of it:

* There's a secret high-tech lab underneath a regular lab, and the secret lab is involved in some shady business.

* A superpowered creature named OMAC is sent to infiltrate it by his boss.

* The secret lab is ran by some villainous non-human character who sends his minions to fight OMAC.

* We find out that OMAC's boss wants to merge with a supersecret computer network inside the secret lab, and that he once inhabited this network. So presumably he's some kind of an AI who wants to get some data out of the network.

* OMAC beats the minions and manages to connect to the network, thus giving his boss access to it.

* OMAC exits the lab, and it turns out he's one of the workers of the regular lab, who's been changed without his knowledge into this creature by the AI.

* The AI is shown to be occupying a satellite in the sky, and he has some further plans.

So yeah, there still are some unexplained questions left (what exactly did the AI want from the network? what are its further plans for OMAC?), but there's definitely much more for the new reader to grasp than in ST #1.

don't think these mythical 'new readers' exist any more, or exist in this state of divine ignorance, or ever set foot in a comic bk store, or buy comics without first reading their relevant wiki entry or the comic book news sites, tbh

or ever set foot in a comic bk store,

hence day-and-date,in theory

but none of them are going to pay $3.99 for 24 .jpgs

Back when I was (much) younger, being (initially) confused was actually quite appealing for me as a first-time reader on a given title.

Great thread! I have to admit this marketing gimmick did the trick for me, I picked up three new comics for the first time in nearly a decade last night. Unfortunately it was only at a local bookstore, not a comic shop, so all they had was Justic League, Action Comics, and Swamp Thing.

Back when I was (much) younger, being (initially) confused was actually quite appealing for me as a first-time reader on a given title.

Me too, but at least back then comic books heavily positioned in continuity used to

A) provide you with some kind of synopsis of what has happened before,

and/or

B) tell you which previous issues the current events refer to.

Sadly, both of these practices seem to have fallen out of flavour, at least with Marvel and DC. I'm sure there are many other reasons for it, but I can't help but think this newbie-unfriendliness is one explanation why the readership for superhero comics has dwindled and why new readers aren't getting on board, despite superheroes themselves being more popular than in ages due to various movies and TV series.

Yeah my inner nerd always loved the astericked "- issue #52" notes at the bottom of panels.

Let’s do a rundown – I’m sure this is going to be incomplete, anyone who has more please add below.

Action Comics: #1 - OK, #2 - maybe OK? #3 - art fill-ins by Brent Anderson, #4 - art fill-ins by Gene Ha, back-up fill-ins by writer Joshua Hale Fialkov and artist Matt Camp

Mr Terrific: #1 - Roger Robinson solicited, replaced by Gianluca Gugliotta. #2 - solicited as by Gianluca Gugliotta, TBC. #3 - solicited as Scott Clark and Dave Beaty. #4 – Gugliotta back, with fill-in inker added.

Static Shock: #2 - two-man inking team replaced. #3 - co-writer drops back to just pencilling. #5 - remaining writer quits.

Suicide Squad: #2 - artist Marco Rudy dropped, replaced by Federico Dallochio and Ransom Getty. THEN #1 released without Rudy, despite solicitation.

Green Arrow: #1 - inker replaced. #4 - horrible writer JT Krul dropped. Another writer offered book, turned it down. Didio tags regular shrugging sidekick Giffen to step in alongside penciller Dan Jurgens as co-writing team.

Swamp Thing: #3 - inker added. #4 - artist drops out altogether, inker takes over.

Demon Knights: #4 - fill-in artist added, also draws cover – sign of future takeover?

Green Lantern Corps: #3 - artist replaced. #4 - artist returns.

Voodoo: #3 - inker added.

Blackhawks: #2 - artist replaced with fill-in art team. #3 - art team replaced with still another new artist. New artist claims he turned down offer, and is still under exclusive contract to Marvel, so probably knows what he’s talking about. Fuck knows who’s actually going to draw it. #4 – fill-in artist from #2 returns, with new fill-in inker.

Batwing: #4 - artist replaced.

Stormwatch: #2 - fill-in artist added.

Men Of War: #2 - back-up fill-in added by Jonathan Vankin and Phil Winslade. #4 – back-up fill-in team replaced by B Clay Moore and Paul McAffrey.

All-Star Western: #2 - back-up fill-in by Jordi Bernet. #4 – dropped from Men Of War, Phil Winslade becomes fill-in artist over here.

Red Hood And The Outlaws: #2 - fill-in artist added.

Green Lantern New Guardians: #2 - inker replaced.

Animal Man: #2 - inker replaced.

Legion Secret Origin: #2 - inker replaced.

Detective Comics: #4 - inker replaced.

Blue Beetle: #4 – inker replaced.

Red Lanterns: #4 - fill-in artist added.

Grifter: #4 - new art team replace previous artist.

Nightwang: #4 – artist replaced. Writer considers leaving due to editorial difficulties. Writer staying for now, artist expecting to be back for #5 but who knows.

The Dark Knight: let’s include the pre-reboot run of this here, so we can see why Didio, Johns & Lee had such faith in this dude to be a strong monthly lynchpin of their new no-delays universe.

DAVID FINCH’S THE DARK KNIGHT #1: solicited for November 24th 2010. Published December 29th, after #2 was supposed to be out. By David Finch.

DAVID FINCH’S THE DARK KNIGHT #2: published 23rd March, four months after #1’s intended date. Finch replaced on inks by Scott Williams. Finch replaced on colours by some dude. Script had not been written when #1 was due to print.

DAVID FINCH’S THE DARK KNIGHT #3: was not solicited to appear two months after #1. Published 13th July, SEVEN months after #1. Finch failed to ink or colour the issue in this time, a second fill-in inker has been added, and a second fill-in colourist has been added.

DAVID FINCH’S THE DARK KNIGHT #4: Published July 27th, just two weeks after #3. Unsurprisingly, Finch has failed to draw or colour any of this issue. It has a new fill-in penciller, two new fill-in inkers, and two new fill-in colourists.
I repeat, on just the fourth issue of a book ENTIRELY CREATED for one author to write and draw monthly, no issues have come out on time, the entire thing is five months late, and it is taking NINE extra people to manage to get two issues done in a timeframe faster than four months.

DAVID FINCH’S THE DARK KNIGHT #5: Published August 24th. This is the only time an issue has come out one month after the previous one. Finch has again failed to draw, paint, ink, or colour his solo title. The same fill-in penciller as last issue remains.
ONE of the fill-in inkers from last issue remains, but an additional FOUR fill-in inkers, none of whom have worked on any previous issue, are added. One of the new fill-in colourists from last issue remains, but needs another fill-in colourist to get the job done.
This is the last issue before the reboot. In order to have just ONE (1) MONTH out of TEN (10) in which an issue was published monthly, the creator needed to have FIFTEEN (15) fill-in artists help out that month.

Note that he is not actually a professional writer, and has given several interviews saying he knows that's the weakest part of the book, and he's finding it really hard.

So! With this standard set, and his title rebooted after five issues, only one of which he completed himself, and none on time, he was given the exact same job again. Solicitations say...

The Dark Knight: (redux)
#1 - he’s getting it done OK, but with an inker. Fair enough, learnt his lesson, let’s assume that’s the new model. No word on colours, so let’s assume he’s given up that as well.
#2 – uh. He’s added an inker for the cover, had to call back the fill-in penciller from the last two, and added Paul Jenkins as co- writer.
#3 – Finch has dropped out of writing altogether, with Jenkins now a fill-in writer, and the fill-in penciller retained.
#4 – solicited with Finch back as co-writer, and as sole penciller. Let’s see what actually comes out!

Hoo boy.

Best (?) news for me there is that with a different art team on Batwing I don't think I need to keep buying it. Worst news is that list implies JT Krul will still be writing a book (Captain Atom).

Oh man, sometimes I wonder how artists back in the day managed to produce art for superhero comics in schedule, month after month. Shouldn't it be easier to do now than back then, now that hey have computers to help? So what has changed? Has the artists' work ethic lowered? Have Marvel's and DC's employer policies become less strict?

I think this might become the reboot's biggest legacy. DC is taking no shit from creative freelancers. Everyone is replaceable. You want to work on Blackhawk, THE LEGENDARY BLACKHAWK THE KIDS CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF? You play by our rules, buddy. Over the last few years "talent" has become the key draw on most books, and DC is obviously trying to wrest that back and create some kind of loyalty to character or IP or whatever. And in a way, I can get behind that. Have a line of adventure stories where the most important thing is the shipping date, go for it. They're going to have to loosen some of the editorial constraints on storytelling, but a lot of great stories have been told in TV, radio, magazines, because YOU GOT TO HIT YOUR DEADLINE (full stop). And then, yeah, have your All Star or Earth One or OGN line where people create "works of art" at their own pace, but I think DC's hardline on delivery dates could revolutionize mainstream superhero comics.

The big problem here isn't artists slacking, it's that DC didn’t start this with planning a year ahead to get everyone with three months in the tank before launch; they were still commissioning artists two months before launch and expecting them to get three issues finished by the end of the week. Several titles have already had inventory stories commissioned, too, which you can bet will be used sooner rather than later, regardless of continuity, because as everything’s returnable until December, it won’t hurt DC to run an unsolicited creative team up until then.

Over-rendering takes a lot more time than under-rendering. And if you're under-rendering, you have to switch things up at the layout level to keep things interesting. Artists now seem to worry about the textures and details because LOOK AT THOSE RIVETS ON BATMAN'S BOOTS MAN THAT'S SO COOL and not the storytelling. Consequently, they spend more time doing work that's harder to read.

My take. Most people don't agree.

People overlooked it because the monthly comic wasn't the object of record, the trade was. Make it look good for the trade and nobody will care how late it was as a single issue. Nobody but some malcontents...

There actually was a golden age character Deadshot is based upon who was more of a cowboy trick shot guy. Steve Englehart knew the character and updated him with the classic Marshall Rogers designed costume in their classic run back in the late 70s. He appeared a few times, but really it was John Ostrander and his use of Deadshot in Suicide Squad and a mini-series that really established the character. I don't think he really fits into the whole Executioner/Mac Bolan thing that the Punisher was based upon other than maybe Deadshot was a gun for hire, which kind of tangentially ties into the whole "Soldier of Fortune" magazine kind of badass that was also popular around the same time.

Deathstroke from the New Teen Titans is pretty much George Perez not letting a good character design go to waste as he pretty much just re-used at the time many elements from The Taskmaster that he had created for Marvel in his Avengers run.

http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh148/nurgh/2004GeorgePrezTaskmasterandDeathstr.jpg

Oddly enough a few years later, Rob Liefield pretty much nicked a version of Deathstroke (down to the Wilson last name in the alter ego) in creating Deadpool. Funny enough a few years back in a Superman/Batman Annual you had Superman, Batman and Deathstroke fighting alternate universe versions of themselves and there was a alternate-Deathstroke which was a nod back to Deadpool. It's actually a fun issue.

"Oh man, sometimes I wonder how artists back in the day managed to produce art for superhero comics in schedule, month after month. Shouldn't it be easier to do now than back then, now that hey have computers to help? So what has changed? Has the artists' work ethic lowered? Have Marvel's and DC's employer policies become less strict?"

I think in the old days they got paid by the page, so they just sat down and blasted the stuff out and had the will to make it happen. I think those golden age guys were also tempered by living through the depression and WWII, so they had a real blue collar, I got to get this done for the family mentality. And I think some of them, because they just did so much volume over the years got to the point they could layout and do pages at speeds many of these modern guys can't comprehend as they haven't put out 30-80 pages a month on and off for years.

I'd bet Joe Kubert in his prime probably did more pages in a couple of months than his sons do in a year. It isn't nearly as flashy in the backgrounds but the reproduction values have changed since then, so that doing all that extra detail would just get lost anyway, so they never got much.

One thing that is different is I don't think you have as many studios with assistants going now. I think alot of things that were inked that have one guy on them back in the day was probably one main guy doing the characters and a couple of employees that would do backgrounds and other items. I'm not sure you have that going on as much now as you would in the old days, maybe more overseas perhaps.

I think in the old days they got paid by the page

as opposed to?

Batman #1 W: Scott Snyder P: Greg Capullo I: Jonathon Glapion

No pics as I can't find a working t0rr3nt

Another week, another Bat-book, and this is probably the weakest yet. I guess the heart of the problem is a very basic one - when this many established books are running it isn't a problem as all their stories are different and their plots are in different places, but when you start the same book multiple times with different people telling THE SAME ORIGIN STORY it's inevitable you'll want to compare them.

So, why is this worse? It's hard to put your finger on, but maybe the centre panel of Page 14 goes some of the way to explain it: it features Dick, Bruce, Damian and Tim standing together. Dick, let's not forget, is Nightwang WHO HAS HIS OWN BOOK IN THE RELAUNCH. His physique is roughly like Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter. I can't wait to read that book (also this week) and see him standing at about 5'6" tall and weighing about 10st. OH NO WAIT. I think it's down, in part, to the manga-lite art style but I could just be burning out through putting myself through this.

Maybe I'm being to hard on this and misremembering just how mediocre Batman & Robin was, as flipping back through the plot is actually pretty engaging in the last four or 5 pages after Harvey Dent turns up. I think I probably need a re-read comparison of all the Batbooks once Month One is over as the final pages have actually got me keen to read #2 and this might be the first time I can say it about a non-FUN book in the relaunch (or at least the first time it's specifically because of the plot).

Birds Of Prey #1 W: Duane Swierczynski A: Jesus Saiz

Title promises a team title, but by the end we still only have a pairing. Now there's a slow build or there's the glacial pace this seems to be constructed at. Nothing much seems to happen except a WOW KEWL WOW kerfuffle in a church which seems to exist mainly to delivery zingy dialogue like this:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6159/6177843718_b5d4b0a44c.jpg

And you know, it's pretty much all that clunky. The image above is really the first in which everybody changes places and perspective in a car to suit the composition (including one panel where I can't get to grips with the perspective at all) but really exists to segue into Starling in the same position, in a diner (and/or a bar) at a different time. Now this might have been a nice effect (albeit the second time they pull it in this issue) but this one os spoiled by an advert being in the middle - not the best planning really. And when I said clunky, I did mean it - there's some real confusion about the effect the bad guys have had on Black Canary during the FITE, but her power is worse:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6180/6177843770_bae412df6f.jpg

So the power level has been re-baselined in the Johns Universe, but if it's that good then why only use it once? She walks out of this panel into a room with more bad guys in it - so why not use it again? Not doing so makes the pages smack of filler as they just run through the same thing again, and surely in #1 of a title filler is a CRAZY thing to do?

The best thing about the book is this panel, which captures perfectly how I feel about the Johns Universe by now.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6175/6177316117_34aa065fc7.jpg

Why, that I won't be so keen next time. This could arguably be saveable as I don't hate it, but it's hovering over the cut list at the moment.

Blue Beetle W: Tony Bedard P: Ig Guara I: Ruy Jose

Is this racist? I can't tell. If a Puerto Rican guy writes a comic book character who is Puerto Rican for non-Hispanics (as we must assume this is to a degree - something I will touch further on when I get to Red Hood) as a ridiculous stereotype, what does that make him, an Uncle Tom of sorts? Oh and it's not just Hispanic, there's some comedy writing of French and German speakers too in a sub-Batroc style.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6163/6177935238_6f76ac0e85.jpg

Anyway, this is plotted in the Johns Universe as follows: The Reach are foes of the GLC from since BEFORE TIME and massively powerful - planet-wiping-out powerful. But the GLC are too stupid to find, control or destroy them.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6165/6177935288_5a29e1e3bc.jpg

The great and mighty Abin Sur didn't find that then, did he. So, this is going to become yet another Green Lantern book, of sorts. On the second last page our hero gets turned into Blue Beetle and it's impossible to read the dialogue on the final splash as anything more than a triumphant "TA-DA!" (except we know it's not from earlier).

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6152/6177408213_6e9d9f463d_z.jpg

ETHNICS gets would back (this isn't, and never will be, Love & Rockets) but I miss Ted Kord. I want him back. BACK, DO YOU HEAR ME?

Captain Atom W: JT Krul A: Freddie Williams II

JT Krul again. What have I done to deserve this?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6178/6178041052_8b0c536c2e_z.jpg

I'd love to be able to tell you this is better than Green Arrow (which he's already been kicked off, remember). Unfortunately, I can't.

I mean, look at this dialogue:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6164/6178041056_1227d78cf1_z.jpg

Despite that, I think I hate the art more than I hate the writing. Let's watch Captain Atom run though the gamut of facial emotions (a couple of which I'll leave the explanation in for):

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6168/6178041048_843f038e3f_b.jpg

Centre top, for reference, is anger. Yes, anger. Not vacant.

The back end of the plot begins to look like it's going down the route of War of the Elementals from the end of the John Ostrander run on Firestorm, but really I couldn't care less. Vile vile vile vile vile. Already on the cut list and have absolutely no desire to get beyond #1 (but I'll go to #3, obviously).

Catwoman #1 W: Judd Winick A: Guillem March

You know what? I'm not going to focus on any of the sexism in this book that other people have focused on for two reasons. Firstly, I'll save it all for Red Hood. Secondly, Winick ALMOST manages to make it enough of a plot point that it's justifiable. Yes, we could argue about the presentation - particularly the last panel of page 2 which is quite frankly pornographic - but it's nowhere near the worst thing about this book so I'm not going to dwell on it.

Winick's writing is, dare I say it, not horrible. I was a fan of the Brubaker and Pfeifer runs on the book though, so it's still the worst Catwoman book in modern memory. What is wrong with this is the art.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6169/6178172008_c4d46a3e34.jpg

And the worst thing about the art isn't even the faces. It's the feet. At least twice they're reversed where the left foot is the right foot and vice versa (top left has a bonus knee bending the wrong way). Have some examples:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6172/6177645789_0e93f734e5_z.jpg

The worst Winicking and worst art come togther at the end. Catwoman and Batman doing the nasty is an established trope, I guess, but this astonishingly ineptly handled and featured a final panel which is worse than 80% of fanart on the same topic.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6155/6177645551_84e88cd99f_b.jpg

Holy Bat-Cock, Batman! My eyes need bleach. Wtf is happening with bat-torso? And nothing has been good yet this week. FUCK YOU DIDIO.

so i don't really want to read that but i am curious about

Yes, we could argue about the presentation - particularly the last panel of page 2 which is quite frankly pornographic - but it's nowhere near the worst thing about this book so I'm not going to dwell on it.

Ok, since I still have the rar live:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6153/6178192906_2a6d952f2a_z.jpg

I mean, seriously? Without going nsfw, there isn't a comparison pic but this is classic 'fuck me from behind' porn stylings. Do we really need to see her pudenda? If we going for physical accuracy at this point to justify it, why not go the whole hog and show her vagina lips? It's just wrong in so many ways.

tbh, i think the most egregious thing about that panel is that human beings don't look/move like that. it looks like she has two balloons in the back pockets of her pants.

DC Universe Presents: Deadman #1 Collective credit: Paul Juankins and Bernard Chang

The best thing so far in this rundown, which is no great claim. It kind of works as a Deadman establishing story, however, the character has already been in Hawk & Dove by now as the post-Brightest Day version so we know this book must happen at some time in the past - what's the beeting it doesn't? ARG CONTINUITY IS CRISIS

It's tidily enough written I suppose and is a clear enough Secret Origin for people who aren't familiar with the origin of Deadman. I also don't hate the art. Both of them give me reason to though - I feel bruised by the strength with which the DO YOU SEE from this panel hits me.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6172/6177714915_80ae1457db_z.jpg

Ultimately though there's nothing to really complain about. The lack of anything actually good will have to wait, but this week I'm taking whatever I can get.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DWrDd6C4itY/TlkQiPSJHQI/AAAAAAAAC4o/VPmQoYVyrtI/s1600/whatever%2Bfacebook.jpg

Mordy, if I told you that was in fact one of the most realistic depictions of human form and motion in that issue you wouldn't believe me, but you should. Because it's true.

based on your review i wasn't going to bother checking out Batman #1 but then i read hannibal tabu's glowing words about it and tho i almost always disagree w/ him (he tends to severely underrate Grant Morrison + X-titles and he likes a lot of shit and encyclopedia type bullshit I'm not interested in) when someone writes the following, no matter who the someone is, I'm interested:

"There's no place like home..." Batman wistfully whispers these words as he faces off against virtually the entire populace of Arkham Asylum, feeling so comfortable in his work that he almost makes it look easy. The extended Bat family is introduced very smartly and this, quite honestly, is an almost perfect comic book. New readers? Covered. Long time fans? Tons of in jokes, just for you. Art? Greg Capullo, Jonathan Glapion and FCO Plascencia are on freaking fire. Scott Snyder's script purrs like an Italian performance sportscar -- when you toss in the wonderful back and forth between "the boys" and Bruce Wayne's inspirational speech (combined with his underhanded plan to expand the reach of the Bat), reading this is a delight. In a word: wow. This is the Batman you want to read. Just... wow.

As I kind of talked myself around to, it's actually much better than I thought it was while I was writing - I think. Still think the art sucks though ymmv but there is no excuse for the Nightwang looks like he's a skinny 15 year old thing.

Otoh, this may be because nearly everything this week was an absolute sack of shit and it just glistens like a bit of sweetcorn that a dog ate once.

Green Lantern Corps #1 W: Peter J Tomasi A: Fernando Pasarin I: Scott Hanna

A Foamasi wrote this book? Cool! Let's all head off for Argolis!

http://images.wikia.com/tardis/images/a/a6/St--5n04foamasi.jpg

No, it's our old friend Peter Tomasi again. Don't worry, I can't think of any other comical mispronunciations of his name so this will probably be the last one.

MAHNKELIPS COVER WARNING - actual comics contains no Doug Mahnke and only four of the characters on the cover. Which is nice.

I actually quite like this. It's by far the most traditional book of the relaunch (GLs turn up on planet where random genocide has taken place to attract their attention must have been done dozens of times before) but is pulled off pretty well. The establishing stuff with Guy Gardner and his interview (or rather the sequence in the waiting room before it) is, dare I say it, a joy and really lifts the book in a way most others in the relaunch (particularly this week) fail to.

Nothing really to say about it other than you should give this a shot, as on this evidence it's worth sticking with.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6158/6180575593_2e70ec14e1_b.jpg

Legion of Super-Heroes W: Paul Levitz A: Francis Portela

I'll stan for LoSH any day, but seriously, this could have been published at any point from 1980 onwards. If you like LoSH you'll like this. If you don't then WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU. It's got crap jokes, a great team dynamic and a vaguely engaging plot. Vaguely engaging doesn't sound like a good thing but in LoSH it kind of is. As in Legion Lost you just get carried along with the swing of the thing and go with it.

Am I a fanboy?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6167/6181144050_04889c4341.jpg

Yes, yes I am a fanboy. I suspect if you're not you won't like this. I DON'T CARE.

Nightwing #1 W: Kyle Higgins P: Eddy Barrows I: JP Mayer

Oh, KyleHigginspaws. So let me get this straight - in the five years since Batman appeared (according to Justice League) Dick's parents have died, he's become Bruce's ward and been both Robin and Batman? This new continuity thing isn't really working for you, is it. Also, get one Urban Dictionary:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6162/6180694167_87a8bee377.jpg

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=catcher

FRED WERTHAM WAS RIGHT!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/77/Batbed.png

Quibbles apart, this is a really solid Batbook. The scripting is sound while being slightly GRITTY and the art has a real fluidity to it that you need for the sort of motion that's trying to be captured here. Yes, it pulls the old 'repeat the image in the same panel to show movement' trick but is that really a problem? Worth reading, worth staying with for now.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6170/6181217120_747e441fa6_z.jpg

I'm apprehensive to, because I know what's up next. But here we go...

Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 W: Scott Lobdell A: Kenneth Rocafort

Oh boy. This is the post where I admit that although I think his whole schtick about the way women are portrayed in comics is far too broadbrush and simplistic, just this once I ABSOLUTELY see where he's coming from.

This is a horrible, HORRIBLE piece of misogynistic crap. Starfire is in it for no reason other than to provide a teenage boy's wank fantasy on every page she appears, and is contorted into ridiculous poses to push her tits or arse into the reader's face - because let's face it, she has to be posing for somebody, right? I mean, wtf is this about?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6152/6180775895_40b94f8cdd_z.jpg

I tell a lie, she is there for another reason - to have sex with the main characters.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6173/6181277628_fe57e8861a_z.jpg

In fact, it's established she's had sex with nearly everybody in the DCU, but that's OK because "Tamaraneans don't see humans as much humans as much more than sights and smells." So basically, casual sex is the order of the day and you're just a conquest she can't recall as part of an animal process. "You don't remember anyone named Dick?" "No."

Lobdell has gone for Deadpool Max with the script and very nearly pulls it off, but I just feel dirty and appalled by the whole thing. I really don't want to touch any of the rest of these, but know I'll be drawn back like a car crash. You all NEED to read this, just to show you how wrong it's possible to get things.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6164/6181277540_cf7a694db2_z.jpg

No, you're confusing that with you being a giant bell-end, Scott Lobdell. I want lettuce in my refrigerator, not women.

Just to ram the above point home (as it were), Scott Lobdell is interviewed in the back of every book published this week. He's asked what his favourite page is in the issue and this is his choice:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6163/6180754167_246071de91_z.jpg

Not one with snappy dialogue, not one that drives the plot forward, not one with a good joke, but one you can have a nice relaxing wank over.

"Kori just stepping out of the ocean, just basking in the sunshine. I love the joy on her face. The people of this planet may not want here here.. but God, how she loves this place." Joy? Where? Go and wash your hands, you pervert.

Supergirl #1 W: Michael Green/Mike Johnson P: Mahmud Asrar I: "Dan Green with Asrar"

There have been some weird costumes in the reboot, but none to compare to this. Seriously, wtf if going on with these boots?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6155/6180830995_8dcbec4571_z.jpg

In a world where Superman now has kneepads (presumably because he needs them), Supergirl's boots deliberately avoid knee protection? It's probably something to do with female Kryptonian skin being toghter than the men's in various places, and when it's revealed that Superman also wears a chest-plate then Power Girl's costume will finally make sense.

http://www.comicsbulletin.com/features/images/100915/pgbust.jpg

I guess this is a typical LOST ALIUM DOESN'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON OH NOES intro story and I don't hate it. I don't particularly like it either, but there isn't anything individual enough about the story to judge it as yet.

http://www.abcpastor.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/whats-next.jpg

holy shit how many boobs, DC? how many boobs??

Wonder Woman #1 W: Brian Azzarello A: Cliff Chiang

Aldo's book of the week, in an admittedly pretty shitty week but that doesn't mean this isn't any good

I read an interview with Brian Azzarello before this started where he said we had to think of his version of Wonder Woman as a horror book and not a hero book. Now I was no fan of his Hellblazer run, so this worried me, but you know what? I GET IT completely.

Show me a regular hero book where people cut the heads off horses to make centaurs. YOU CAN'T, CAN YOU?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6155/6181406702_3ebceb4125_z.jpg

This is a fantastically worked piece of fiction, reconstructing the Gods of Olympus as the fantastic creatures they SHOULD be - I mean, Zeus convinced Leda to have sex with him by disguising himself as a swan. A SWAN, FOR FUCK'S SAKE. So in this book we have Hermes looking more like a winged messenger than anyone's ever captured him before, and expressions of raw, unbridled power.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6165/6181406908_a8531cab94_z.jpg

I didn't like the cover, thought it was too stylised, but over the course of the book the art really grows on you. Yes, there are arguably similarities with Guy Arcudi and some of the other Hellboy universe artists but Cliff Chiang pulls it off really well.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6154/6181406840_491e580b49_z.jpg

BUY THIS BOOK. I can't stress it enough. The highlight of the relaunch. Bet it gets cancelled soon.

http://papercutz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/img_1106-225x300.jpg

"I love the joy on his face. The people of this planet may not want him here..."

Comic Book Resources has a good recap of the thing, including the Catwoman softcore
http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2011/09/dcs-push-for-the-new-52-this-is-a-catwoman-for-2011/

but it's best summed up in this webcomic
http://i.imgur.com/VBZqw.png

on one hand it is kinda gross, especially for books that are supposed to be for kids and mainstream audiences. otoh, i find it kinda hilarious

apparently this was the original illustration before, i guess, DC forced them to change it http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/red-hood-outlaws-original.jpg

um, is her nipple shaped like a heart?

haha, clever way to "deflect" i guess..

i can't make my nipple into a heart

Haha, that's awesome.

wtf is wrong with these people?

http://emmetreads.tumblr.com/post/9552604527/if-youve-read-his-work-youll-know-what-im-talking

If you want to write good superhero comics, please do more than read superhero comics and play videogames.

So very otm.

Given this new information, I have to express some disappointment at the relative dearth of characters turning one another into babies in Geoff Johns books.

Thank you for the OMAC rec, I wasn't going to get it originally and ended up enjoying it--a good romp! I hope you survive this week, there were some real pieces of poop. :(

UPDATES:

David Finch failed to get even the first issue of The Dark Knight out with the solicited credits, and Paul Jenkins is writing.*

George Perez gone from Superman as writer/layouts with issue #7, replaced by the Giffen/Jurgens writing/pencilling team that also replaced the Green Arrow writer.

*I actually remembered to pick it up and check the credits for this thread, while in the shop buying Love & Rockets, Roger Langridge's Snarked, and Simpsons comics by Evan Dorkin and Ty Templeton

I fully expect Giffen/Jurgens to be producing 80% of DC Comics by next summer.

All Star Western #1 W: Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti A: Moritat

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I was buying Jonah Hex up till the end, and for one simple reason - it was the most consistently good books that DC were publishing. And so it is with All Star Western, which is the same book retitled, for better or worse. As before, the artists rotate with each minor storyline but the writing core is constant.

So, to the plot.

http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_2044/subcat_6119/Mignola%20Gotham%20by%20Gaslight%20promo.jpg

I'm being unfair. But it's not hard to draw comparisons, especially (arguably) as Gotham By Gaslight was retconned out of Elseworlds and into the DCU during Countdown.

Putting that aside, this is as well written as ever and is thoroughly recommended to all. The relationship between Amadeus Arkham and Jonah is superbly done and if this panel isn't leading up to a Lovecraftian reveal in future weeks I will be really disappointed:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6155/6200275478_7bfe96651c_z.jpg

It's not all future seeding either, the plot actually in the issue in hand bowls along splendidly and damn, if this isn't the most thrilling panel all week:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6143/6199763737_a32a705fc3.jpg

See you next time. You should be reading this book (but then you should have been reading it before).

Aquaman #1 W: Geoff Johns P: Ivan Reis I: Joe Prado

In an amazing twist of fate, not only is Aquaman my MUST BUY book this week but a fucking GEOFF JOHNS BOOK is my Must Buy book this week

No pictures, t0rr3nt is fuxored.

Seriously, I'm not kidding. This is great. There's an extended story running through the middle about how Aquaman is the laughing stock of, basically, the world and the whole sequence with Aquaman in the fish restraurant is frankly hilarious. I'm not sure about how good The Trench will be as a Big Bad, as they look all a bit too Johnsy, but (and this is a big shout) the middle 2/3 of the book is as good as this:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6180/6199783817_ccd4344004_z.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/6199784635_947026109f_z.jpg

Stranger things have happened, but I'm struggling to think of one. Superb.

David Finch's Batman The Dark Knight#1 W: Paul Jenkins P: David Finch I: Richard Friend

WELL AT LEAST IT CAME OUT.

And talking of coming out...

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6174/6199763827_1b5dce97d1.jpg

Holy Dancehall Slang, Batman! The Gay Agendar strikes again! Is there some kind of subversive plot at DC to play up the homosexual subtext in all the Batbooks? I really can't tell any more.

Anyway, the last Batbook of the relaunch is pretty standard fare although the conclusion is pretty great. What isn't so great, or indeed understandable, is why DiDio (and we must presume Johns) place so much faith in the talents of David Finch's Batman The Dark Knight's David Finch to produce work on time or even why they rate him. I mean he's not so much touched by the hand of Jim Lee as rubbed all over by the hand of Jim Lee sufficiently hard that the fingerprints have disappeared and they share DNA. Take this as an example:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6156/6199763771_551d4c8cd7_z.jpg

But that isn't even the worst of it. This page shows some of the worst anatomy since the relaunch. HIS CALF IS BIGGER THAN HIS THIGH.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6155/6199763803_57d24e0de6_z.jpg

Yes. Yes that's exactly the quality of artist that you should make the focus of the New DC. FUCK YOU DIDIO.

(Despite the art, I liked this.)

Blackhawks #1 W: Mike Costa Layouts: Graham Nolan Finisher: Ken Lashley

This is far and away the most traditional 'modern' book of the relaunch - it could be any one of dozens of mid-90s team books - but it's as entertaining now as it would have been at the time.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6159/6199933119_d1ee6d6130.jpg

It's kind of odd though, it feels old and still quite new. There's a kind of clumsy feel to the updating that's gone on, and it wants to be a Cold War plot in places.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6178/6200445912_7384eb7530.jpg

They have spies everywhere though - they can even see me doing this!

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6135/6200445964_c43e200891.jpg

I can't really think of anything to add as this is such a nothing book. We'll wait and see how the next couple of months pan out, but this is hovering over the precipice of being cut.

The Flash #1 W: Francis Manapul & Brian Buccellato A: Francis Manapul

In a bizarre turn of events, more than one book this month has made me think of the two Bizarro hardbacks, and for this one it's this story:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6168/6200506869_e4b2c9bab9_z.jpg

OK, there's more JRJr in this book, but am I the only one that sees it in the layouts?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6161/6201020878_227154189f_z.jpg

Given that this is supposed to be the Barry Allen Universe I kind of expected something different, like for him to have remembered himself to be fantastically rich or something as well as being the Flash because that's kind of what we'd all do I think. And part of it feels ripped off from Portal: No Escape:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drucg1A6Xk

Anyhoo, the setup is good, the plot rattles along and the cliffhanger leaves you wanting to read the next issue straight away - which can't be a bad thing.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6165/6200509529_2a989e0e85_z.jpg

Nothing to criticise here really although perhaps not that memorable. But then he is the FASTEST MAN ALIVE so maybe we shouldn't be surprised that it's a speedy read.

The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #1 W: Ethan van Sciver & Gail Simone A: Yildiray Cinar

I used to love Firestorm back when I was younger and held high hopes for this, given it's being written by the closest they have to A-list talent, but the reality doesn't nearly meet up to expectations. The terrorist plot is far too violent for the rest of the book, and the whole idea of having two of them seems to just be to encourage childish taunts

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6174/6200576907_16e9a4b7b6_z.jpg

and to make it DC's OMG RACISTS ARE RACIST AND YOU ARE ALL RACISTS DO YOU SEE!!1!!ELEVEN! book of the week.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6162/6200576685_949d706333.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6175/6201088846_8471e31233.jpg

So whereas it's not as awful as, say, either of the JT Krul books it's not actually much cop either. I think we need to see where the Fury plot goes in #2 before making judgement.

Green Lantern New Guardians #1 W: Tony Bedard P: Tyler Kirkham I: Batt

I don't know what Tony Bedard has done to deserve this, but he has the unenviable task of INTRODUCING Kyle Rayner as a new character and integrating him into the Johns GL Universe. I mean, how does that even work? Everything from GL over the past 10 years or so all happened EXCEPT Kyle Rayner being a Lantern? GEOFF JOHNS I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU (except when you're writing Aquaman) but I HATE DIDIO MORE (except when he's writing OMAC).

So, we're now in the position where we're supposed to remember everything from recent continuity, even the stuff Barry Allen could never have known about, except when we're not. OR ARE WE? What we really need here is some kind of editor, preferably somebody who has a lot of experience as one - maybe they're Executive Editor of a company or something - to oversee the whole thing and make sure it makes sense... OH WAIT. So fair play to Tony Bedard then, who sends a firm message to Johns and DiDio:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6139/6201217908_daf41b1e71_z.jpg

He even takes time out to slag off the bag of shit he's been given.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6166/6200707197_bbea0236b5_z.jpg

DESPITE THIS, HE HAS PROBABLY PRODUCED THE BEST GL BOOK OF THE REBOOT. It's cute and funny and has a plot and is FUN although the art really does bite JRJr:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6153/6201217990_f594d9053a_z.jpg

Still, A for effort, one and a half thumbs up.

So there's no Green Lantern Corps comic in the rebooted universe? Fuck that shit, the only reason I cared about the new Green Lantern stuff was GLC. The alien Green Lanterns were much more interesting than the human ones, except for Guy Gardner (who was prominent in GLC).

Yes, there's a Green Lantern Corps comic, it was published last week and see what I said about it upthread.

I, Vampire #1 W: Joshua Hale Fialkov A: Andrea Sorrentino

Obscure? A character who ran for 24 issues as a third backup story in an anthology book?

Well, from what history exists it's pretty clear this is entirely within the established continuity of I, Vampire just rebooted into (possibly) the current day. But that and daft names aside (Mary Queen of Blood is just STUPID) this is a lovely, lovely piece of work.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6131/6202873383_64e8b35ab2.jpg

The story tells the interlinked story of Andrew (the titular hero) and Mary and Andrew's fight against the army of vampires. It arguably doesn't move nearly fast enough for your bog standard hero comic, or indeed for a Buffy or Twilight reader/viewer if it was hoping to bring them in, but the pace is just fine for me thanks and is sufficiently plotted that panels like this work perfectly:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6122/6202873425_d8d36cc23b_z.jpg

As you might have guessed from the above, this book is gorgeous. It guess it's most reminiscent of Moonshadow, but I think I can see P Craig Russell in there as well. And Mignola and/or Guy Davis to a degree. But a triumph nonetheless.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6179/6202873367_2881262349.jpg

This is exactly the sort of venture we should be rewarding DC for. Just buy it.

Justice League Dark #1 W: Peter Milligan A: Mikel Janin

Yes, the title of this book is stupid. But if DC want to call their supernatural line 'Dark' then it's up to them and so the title is what it is. What we should instead be considering is how good it is - which is pretty good. It's the most successful of the Justice League titles, probably not least because it lets Peter Milligan play with Shade The Changing Man again.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6124/6202962539_4826b8e7d7.jpg

But it's not all about Shade. We establish why the regular Justice League can't do it:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6165/6203477470_ba36fb4fe5.jpg

then it's in with the NOT QUITE VERTIGO League.

I think that's maybe the biggest problem this book has is that it's a big team and they're all essentially 'new' characters in that non-Vertigo readers won't be that familiar with them - without even going near the fact that Vertigo is still sort of ongoing so we have two Constantines running about (or do we?). And because of the size of the team the book doesn't really get going.

In its favour though, it still gets going much better than the other JL books - especially Justice League - and pulls off what it tries to with an appropriate level of Vertigo quirkiness.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6001/6202962585_ccd597855e.jpg

So a curate's egg then and one that maybe only gets credit for being better than its peers, but worth buying for the moment.

The Savage Hawkman #1 W: Tony S Daniel A: Philip Tan

New Universe, New Old Hawkman. Carter Hall dons the wings of Nth Metal once more, although for the vast majority of this book he seems to be desperate to forget it all and just get on with his regular job.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6007/6203034509_27ef8b31d8_z.jpg

I was prepared to give Tony Daniel some latitude, because I enjoyed the writing on Detective, but this is pretty much a mess. Firstly, it features an 'enemy from the dawn of time' (which, as people might have read on other threads, is exactly what I hated the most one of the things I found particularly objectionable about Russell T Davies' Award Winning Doctor Who tm) and secondly because the dialogue is this bad:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6166/6203033879_360bb424de_z.jpg

Even Philip Tan's artwork, which I've liked in the past, is reduced to a smear on these pages with little more than expressions of colour and motion which although it could conceivably be A THING is not his intention I'm sure.

I'd rather be reading this Hawkman:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6171/6203549844_d8f842a79d_z.jpg

I'll see it to #3, but it's not much better than either of the JT Krul books.

Superman #1 Writer & Breakdowns: George Perez Pencils & Inks: Jesus Merino

Words. So many words. And more words. And exposition. And words.

It's no real wonder Perez has to do breakdowns on this because it's just so cluttered with dialogue and explanation. I would show you, but my t0rr3nt hasn't worked for this either which is probably just as well as the weight of text would most likely crash the ILX server.

And that's why the book isn't any good. It's too wordy and too cluttered and just doesn't work. George Perez will be on this longer than me, and he's announced #6 is his last.

Teen Titans #1 W: Scott Lobdell P: Brett Booth I: Norm Rapmund

Another formation story, but with added brattiness. I'm getting totally sick of origin stories but this just about pulls it off by virtue of the sheer likability of the characters - or at least Kid Flash and Red Robin - against clunky dialogue and tortured breakdowns, specifically once Wonder Girl turns up.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6153/6203266467_5ceee5dd59_z.jpg

This is much better than Red Hood, but that's not exactly setting it a challenge. But is it better than Batfink?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6157/6203782174_f529c020c0.jpg

NO.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6012/6203782206_a1f0d8fb72_z.jpg

But there's enough good will generated in the Kid Flash section to keep me reading for now. A solid C.

Voodoo #1 W: Ron Marz A: Sami Basri

Hooray! Another female exploitation comic!

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6141/6203824724_727d7bfd0a_z.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6140/6203824792_1a1fbe2df4_z.jpg

Except I don't, because although the setting of this (a strip club) is kind of badly chosen there's no evidence it's going to continue beyond this issue. And purely on that basis I'm going to give it a free ride. Let's just call this the Cheesecake Issue and get over it. Because the investigator plot and panels like this make me want to believe this can be good:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6163/6203309287_4e8809e08e_z.jpg

Let's just forget 80% of this existed and move forward.

So, at the end of month 1 the tally is as follows:

The Good

Action
Animal Man
Justice League International
OMAC
Swamp Thing
Batwoman
Demon Knights
Legion Lost
Suicide Squad
Batman - yes, I know I have changed my mind about this
Legion of Super Heroes
Nightwing
Wonder Woman
All Star Western
Aquaman
Flash
I, Vampire
Justice League Dark

The Undecided

Justice League
Batgirl
Batwing
Detective
Men of War
Stormwatch
Batman & Robin
Frankenstein
Grifter
Red Lanterns
Superboy
Birds of Prey
DCU Presents
Green Lantern Corps
Supergirl
David Finch's Batman The Dark Knight
Blackhawks
Firestorm
Green Lantern New Guardians
Savage Hawkman
Teen Titans
Voodoo

The Cut Already

Green Arrow
Static Shock
Deathstroke
Green Lantern
Mister Terrific
Resurrection Man
Blue Beetle
Catwoman
Superman

The Car Crash

Hawk & Dove
Captain Atom
Red Hood and the Outlaws

The thing about Voodoo is that the character was a stripper before she got pulled into WildCATs so they're just working with the source material there.

In which case, no problems with it. Still not completely engaging though.

Is there an upper tier of "goods" that rate as must reads just yet?

OMAC, Batwoman, Suicide Squad, Batman, Wonder Woman, All Star Western, Aquaman, I Vampire IMO.

I think in Voodoo's solo series she was a mystery-solving stripper, so it may not be going away? I never read it tbh, I was always a Stormwatch/Authority dude rather than WildCATs/Gen13

The last page implies, to me at least, that the stripper plot is done.

Interesting to hear about I, Vampire - lame title, I wouldn't have even thought about it.

i couldn't finish it. was too boring.

Jonah Hex in Gotham! Amadeus Arkham!

SATURDAY!

Didio says on Facebook that none of the Crises ever happened.

MONDAY!

After it is pointed out that several of the already-published #1s alone refer to prior Crises, such as Bruce Wayne being thrown back in time at the end of FC, Didio announces that, fuck, I dunno, maybe some of them have happened, we'll figure it out as we go along, I haven't read them, just because we said we were planning this for a year doesn't mean we actually worked anything out in advance, I guess the writers can decide what did or didn't happen as they need to in writing their individual books, JESUS this is what I get for answering a question on Facebook BEFORE I'D HAD MY FUCKING DINNER you JACKALS

THURSDAY!

The grotesquely pandering promo guff in the back of new issues, written to their intended 18-35yo male audience as through they're infinitely dumber than the actual 8-15yo audience that Dick Giordano's columns were in 1984, announces a new JUSTICE SOCIETY series by James Robinson and Nicola Scott that TAKES PLACE ON EARTH-2, starring Earth-2 Huntress. That's the daughter of Retired Earth-2 Batman and Evening Gown Earth-2 Catwoman. Who was created in 1977 and erased from history in 1985. AHOY, NEW READERS!!! They also breathlessly suggest that you study the new Huntress miniseries, by original 1977 creator Paul Levitz, for exciting clues about how this retroactive coil of insular arse-inspection is going to tie into the exciting all-new rebooted universe, true believers!

Oh god this is the clusterfuck of all clusterfucks

I can't even make a joke about how stupid that is.

wait, this really happened? seriously?

lololol

UPDATE!

Action Comics: #1 - OK, #2 - maybe OK? #3 - art fill-ins by Brent Anderson, #4 - art fill-ins by Gene Ha, back-up fill-ins by writer Joshua Hale Fialkov and artist Matt Camp

#2 is now out, and has, I dunno, a third of its pages drawn by Brent Anderson. Oddly, they look like the opening ones, not a desperate rush at the end.

DC have now announced that Andy Kubert will be drawing all of #5 and #6.

That makes ONE issue out of every SIX that the artist assigned to THE ICONIC FLAGSHIP TITLE OF THE ENTIRE COMPANY has managed to complete. Or will, according to current re-re-re-re-vised projections. Given Didio and Lee's claims that they were planning this for about a year before launch, that ends up being ONE ISSUE IN EIGHTEEN MONTHS.

“When Editor Matt Idelson asked if I would be interested and/or able to fit into my schedule two upcoming issues of Action Comics with Grant, I couldn’t say no,” said Kubert. “I don’t know of any other artist that would have."

Here's three: Rags Morales, Brent Anderson and Gene Ha.

oh I forgot! #2 was also meant to be, I guess, 28 or 30 pages because of the $3.99 PRINT AND DIGITAL pricetag? Only 20 pages of story here. HOLDING THE LINE AT TWENTY CENTS A PAGE! THE NEW DC: THERE'S NO SHAMING US NOW.

(There's some "bonus" sketches and notes by Morrison, Morales and Ha of character designs for future issues, strongly indicating that this was not intended to be the content for this issue.

Morrison also alluded to the smooth reading experience we can expect from the Kubert issues in this interview:

...suddenly came this dictat that now everything had to be monthly and they want to keep to that so it’s just the case that if your artist can’t meet that then somebody else will finish up the pages. So it’s kinda, for me it hits the long term collections of it to have things done like that but at the same time it brings back a lot of the freshness and improvisation of doing comics again and just responding to that and also sometimes you know they’ll be like we need a two part filler here – okay I’ll just come up with something, and it might not necessarily fit it in to the middle of this but okay, you need a filler.

keerist

I started the reviews yesterday but after ILX ate my post on Action for the third time I gave up. I guess I'll try again tonight.

Superman Action Comics W: Grant Morrison P: Rags Morales & Brent Anderson I: Rick Bryant & Brent Anderson

GMoz is the best writer involved anywhere in the Nu DCU. He knows this. Dan DiDio knows this. How do we know Dan DiDio knows this? This:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6237/6227255873_69fc5383ed_z.jpg

WTF? Has Superman had a stroke? And how come his head is tiny?

But you know, the writing in this is brilliant. I mean seriously great and never less than captivating. Even if the art does rip off the Invisibles (as the original Invisibles page with Mr Quimper that looks like this is on my wall I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about here).

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6059/6227255019_37cc95f25e.jpg

The whole sequence with Superman in chains and, most tellingly, Lex's behaviour - his insistence on referring to Supes as "it" in particular - is stunning and some of the best comics being written just now. But the most exciting this about the issue is the proof GMoz reads ILX:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6117/6227255737_82b8a712d0.jpg
L-R: Tuomas, Deadshot.

Don't miss out on this book.

you'd think that if you're going to have grant morrison relaunch your flagship comic with your most important iconic character, you'd get a great artist to work with him. but (as with Batman RIP) I'm constantly shocked by the shitty caliber of art they give him. i have to imagine at this point that it's intentional, like maybe they figure they should save their great artists to sell the shitty written books and use morrison to help sell a poorly drawn book.

I think Morrison's too big a name to be "used" that way.

how else do you explain DC's consistent pairing of him with terrible artists? (with the obv exception of Quitely)

I thought most of the RoBW artists were pretty ok! What other titles has he had specifically bad ones one? iirc there were some sketchy ones in the early part of his Batman run

Morrison's name pre-sells a book, so they can (foolishly imo) play Musical Art Chairs in an attempt to keep it on schedule. But it's not a case of "here's a title with a volatile unpredictable artist or art team -- let's put GM on it so it will sell better." Morrison is the horse, not the cart.

Oh, ok. I didn't quite mean it like that. More like, "Well, GM is writing this book so we don't have to bother with great artists since he'll sell it on his name alone"

I thought that was it -- we're pretty much in agreement then.

Animal Man W: Jeff Lemire A: Travel Foreman

You know what? It's not just GMoz that gets stiffed with artists I can't stand, Jeff Lemire does to. I know people said last month that ymmv and they liked him but for me

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6118/6232164700_857593126f_z.jpg

I mean seriously?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6049/6231646225_097f4f2a70.jpg

WTF is this shit?

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6112/6231646379_5ee4399079_z.jpg

The writing is pretty great though, even if it is a rewrite of the post-GMoz A-Man plot. The Red is back, and has some mentallist avatars in the real world. Meanwhile, Buddy and Maxine are off looking for a giant hidden tree to eat them.

You heard me. I just wish I could get over the art.

one of the major problems for DC since abt 1970 is their generally 2nd-rate artists, once you get beyond the few big name dudes like j.h.williams - ie marvel's second and third string guys are generally way way better than DC's second and third string guys (ts: sal buscema vs dick dillin!) in part, it's just institutionalised intertia/idiocy/corporate arrogance: back in the 60s, DC really did think that marvel were outselling them because marvel's comics had 'bad art' compared to the sleeker, more sophisticated and exceptionally BORING post-Dan Barry style of the DC mainstay guys (kirby, romita and colan, to name 3 key silver age marvel artists, were never allowed anywhere near DC's major superhero titles when they worked for DC in the 50s and 60s. gil kane, another guy who switched from dc to marvel, always moaned about the inking he received at DC from ppl like joe giella and bernie sachs, which robbed his pencils of so much of their expressive power.)

I always thought of DC as having art that was generally poorer than Marvel's, but I was never really able to pin it down.

I think the problem with pairing Morrison with a "name" artist is that Morrison is known for turning his scripts in late, and most of the biggest artists at the moment do the same with their art, so the combination of the two is too volatile for a flagship title like Action Comics or Batman. Just look at what happened with the last two issues of Final Crisis, with Seven Soldiers #1, with New X-Men, etc. The last time Morrison managed to produce an monthly title with a truly good regular artist was with Phil Jimenez on The Invisibles, 15 years ago.

Just look at what happened with the last two issues of Final Crisis, with Seven Soldiers #1, with New X-Men, etc.

Those were all late-script problems?

I think FC and SS were a combination of late script and slow artist. New X-Men might've been solely because of Quitely... But the point remains: marrying Morrison and any of the name superhero artists of today does not result in a comic that would run on schedule, at least not without fill-in artists.

You don't need to be a "name superhero artist" to not be shit.

Morrison is known for turning his scripts in late

Is this true? I mean, I have heard this about a number of writers, and possibly Morrison, but it's not coming to mind at the minute.

Yeah, I don't really buy this yet, especially since Tuomas immediately qualified it when I asked. Maybe he could cite some sources?

It's definitely a thing, and has been going back to The Invisibles - Phil Jiminez actually left because Morrison wasn't able to keep monthly, therefore reducing Jiminez' income. However, the fact that it sometimes happens means people immediately blame any and all delays on GM being late, rather than the artist being late, or the publisher dicking with things, etc.

On DC’s historical second-rate artists – to some degree this has a strong argument behind it, but there’s also a definite taste counterarg (as a kid I found Kirby weird and repellent, but generally loved the entire tone of Weisinger-era reprints, down to the sedate storytelling and non-dynamics of Swan and Mooney. And to this day the first year of Spider-Man is the only Stan Lee I’ve ever rly been able to bear reading. [I’ll try Fantastic Four sometime, maybe.]). But who are the avatars of DC who really did think that marvel were outselling them because marvel's comics had 'bad art'? Most of the heads of depts. were old farts who’d never known whether anything was good or not, they just knew their jobsworth and how to buckle their belts above their navels iirc.

But the time period Ward’s citing was when Cinfa was EIC or publisher, and out of anyone who’d been promoted from artist to exec from the DC ranks, you’d think he would have a good grasp on dynamic anatomy and exciting panel layouts being a positive in superhero comics? And Adams had revitalised Batman by here, I think?

Anyway, I’m reading Ostrander’s Suicide Squad for the first time at the moment, and oh man does this fit in with Ward’s endemic theory – the artist is just awful, basically, but you can pretty much tell who people are and where they’re standing, and by god he cranks it out monthly. 20 issues in and he’s had no fill-ins yet, I think. (though the inkers have changed, and he inked one issue himself, to his advantage.) The other DC ongoing of the time I’m familiar with (JL/I) had needed about five fill-ins from three different artists by now. Admittedly, all four were good to excellent, so.

Marvel art isn't necessarily much better from the period once you get off the first tier though - I once recklessly bought a pile of books from ebay in a Warren Ellis Completist frenzy (I may have been drunk) like Hellstorm and Druid and by Christ they looked terrible.

sic, i'll try and find a bit more of a concrete reference for all this when i'm not at work, hurriedly tapping this out - my memory tells me that it's something i've picked up from mark evanier, somewhere. again, evanier may also be the 'source' for my gut feeling that infantino never really liked or understood the kirby aesthetic - although yeah, he clearly LOVED adams and made him the unofficial style template for his era as EIC. in general, i would say that infantino's tastes still ran to the illustrative - nestor rendondo! - and the elegantly designed over and above the dynamic and powerful (although again, kirby and ditko were, in their own ways, just as much masters of design as infa...) as you say, it's also a matter of taste - my perference has always been for the artist-led 'marvel style' over the editor-led 'full script' DC method.

i also wanted to introduce the subject of MONEY into all this, but then i realised that i know almost nothing about modern-day contractual rewards at marvel and dc for their corporate-comic bks - is there even a royalty system still in place? back when the royalty system was first introduced in the 80s, the fact that most marvel comics outsold most dc comics certainly helped marvel to attract or keep the 'better' artists, and my suspicion is still that marvel prob pays better than dc, on the whole.

Anyway, I’m reading Ostrander’s Suicide Squad for the first time at the moment, and oh man does this fit in with Ward’s endemic theory – the artist is just awful, basically, but you can pretty much tell who people are and where they’re standing, and by god he cranks it out monthly. 20 issues in and he’s had no fill-ins yet, I think.

When I first read scanned copies of SS I too thought McDonnell's art was awful... But when the first trade came out and I reread it on paper for the first time, it didn't look so awful anymore (possibly because the colours look much better than on the low-quality scans). Sure, McDonnell's character work is totally generic, but at least he has a solid grasp of anatomy, perspective, and visual storytelling in general. By the time 1990s came, all that was often missing even from flagship Marvel and DC titles. IIRC the final issues of SS suffer from this kind of Leifeldian art that makes McDonnell look like Kirby.

I'm reading the originals! (picked up half the run for 50c each at lunch one day, then got drunk a week or three later and bought almost all the rest at 60% off and free int'l shipping from Mile High.) I would substitute "insecure but just barely evident" for "solid," I think. But we should probably find a better thread. (It's definitely hugely preferable to, say, dude from Morrison's JLA, the sort of thing you're talking about. But even then, you had eg JH Williams on Chase, and John McCrea being allowed to half-underground, half-bigfoot monthly on DCU stuff for about seven years straight...)

Can definitely see Infantino not comprehending Kirby - brute power vs elegance!

I was about to say - the period of "Grant Morrison can write a flagship title" started with JLA and terrible Howard Porter art - I can definitely imagine the takeaway lesson being "GM's writing sells by itself".

(also on the subject of DC vs Marvel I was thinking the other day that although I have a lot of issues with Bendis, there really is no comparison between him and DiDio/Johns as regards having a coherent plan for how to shake things up rather than just wanking dead superheroes back to life)

Okay, _apart_ from the fact that he hasn't written a crossover since Siege :)

I get the impression he exerts plenty of influence on long-range planning of the whole MU, not just the Avengers titles.

And the Ultimate universe, really.

is there even a royalty system still in place?

IIRC: DC pays royalties, though they had to revise their thresholds when the market slipped below where they used to actually kick in for almost everyone. Marvel pays "incentives" when they feel like it, and as a rule pay nothing at all for foreign licenses - ie if your big successful Marvel books get reprinted in the UK and Spain and Italy and France, you're probably not getting a reprint fee or bonus or royalty of any kind. They're starting to extend this to domestic now - the big pretty magazine-size reprints of Roger Langridge's Muppets comics (without Langridge art on the cover, or any creator credit whatsoever) are not paying him anything, nor did they even tell him they were doing them.

from Jim Shooter's hugely untrustworthy blog:

"Jim, there's an old story that there was an editorial meeting at DC and someone said that the secret to Marvel's success was "bad art". In an Alter-Ego article George Kashdan didn't recall such an event but said he might have agreed with such a statement. Your recollection here would seem to validate the idea that the Marvel material was looked down upon by the old timers."

I wasn't at the alleged meeting in question, but I was in several smaller-scale discussions at DC that echoed the sentiments allegedly expressed at said meeting. DC editors thought Marvel's art, especially Kirby, Ditko and Ayers', was "crude" and child-like. Mort mused that maybe kids related to it because it was like their own scribbles in their school notebooks. I never actually heard anyone tell an artist "draw worse," but that was the implication.

Evanier, writing about the go-go checks period, says:

In later years, some of them would deny it but others say it was true; that the DC execs thought the Marvel books were horrible — bad art, bad stories, bad characters, bad everything. DC artist Mike Sekowsky used to do an impression of the company's publisher throwing down a Marvel book and gasping, "This is garbage! The readers have no taste!" At some point, an explanation began to emerge for the ghastly sales trends. Obviously, it went, readers were getting confused and were buying non-DC books thinking they were DCs.

Count me as one of the people who think these are so much better than what actually came out. I have some issues (Lantern having no ring, Supes' 'alien form') but I would actually buy and read the DC reboots if they were nearly as clever (I am digging Action though). Reminds me of Tom Strong, which I love.

Actually, as far as Marvel's long-term planning goes, I feel like they're "pulling a DC" at the moment -- i.e. crossovers and continuity fanwankery, no jumping on points. (Loving Daredevil, though.)

actually X-Men just reached an excellent jumping on point (Cyke/Wolvie ideological fallout where Cyke continues running a separatist paramilitary team on Utopia and Wolvie goes back to Westchester to rebuild the school with the major X-Men splitting along interesting and sometimes unexpected lines behind them)

UPDATE!

Green Arrow: #1 - inker replaced. #4 - horrible writer JT Krul dropped. Another writer offered book, turned it down. Didio tags regular shrugging sidekick Giffen to step in alongside penciller Dan Jurgens as co-writing team.

Giffen/Jurgens out as writers with #7, to be replaced by ANN NOCENTI. Yes, three months after challenging those complaints about gender imbalance at SDCC, Didio has reconsidered, racked his brains, and boldly brought into the fold The Only Woman Superhero Comics Writer He's Ever Heard Of.

at this rate, I'm guessing we can expect Gerry Conway to take over from issue #10.

This must be due to Giffen replacing Perez on Superman, no?

Luke McDonnell's art does look better when he inked himself. I'd think with as much black he liked to use, those Suicide Squads would have looked pretty good in a black and white Showcase.

If you are a fan of that run of Suicide Squad, be sure to check out the Deadshot mini-series that Ostrander, Kim Yale and McDonnell did when the series was going That's one of the best of the lot.

Yeah, I realised after my noting his reliable monthliness upthread that he also did a four-issue spin-off miniseries at the same time. Take that, Rags Morales!

He also did 12 consecutive issues of The Phantom around that time.

There's actually a couple-ish jumping on points at Marvel now, particularly in THUNDERBOLTS and THE HULK, but I'd be the first to admit that they're "blink and you miss 'em."

But overall, Marvel is where DC was just a couple years ago: Line Architects, Too Many Crossovers, Fanservice 101.

A book like DD is completely unexpected and wonderful, and honestly, it's simply bog-standard superheroics. But it's bog-standard superheroics that have largely jettisoned the baggage that the character has been stuck with since one F. Miller took over the book in NINETEEN EIGHTY ONE. It should not have taken this long, and yet it did.

I really do wonder what the DC line is going to look like in a year. How many number twelves will there be?

10

20

$1 office pool, anyone?

I'll chuck one in.

I was gonna say 23, but I'm going with 17.

Ewige blumenkraft!

30, although they may not all be from the launch 52.

My LCS had their order sent to the wrong place this week, so I will be catching up on last week's titles this weekend.

We might want to put caveats in there. I was basing my number off of the original 52.

I was assuming that everything would be so delayed that by the end of the first year something that hasn't been published yet might manage to cram 12 issues in.

I've only been hitting the comic shop once every 2-4 weeks and this is the first time there was more than a couple of the titles on the shelves, as my local store got stocked up with a bunch of the reprints.

I have liked everything I have read so far, even though there is a whole lot of 'this is so and so' and this is how it is going on. But I really dug how all of the epic back story is kind of swept away and it's a new start, it really made some of the old ideas seem kind of fresh like OMAC which is definitely Kirby as genre and welcome now that Godland is almost done.

Action 1-2
Frankenstein Agent of SHADE 1-2
Animal-man 1-2
Stormfront 1-2
OMAC 1-2

Sad thing is that I know I am going to love some of the weird titles and they are just going to run 8 issues.

Still to read-
Swamp Thing 1-2
Superman 1
Batman 1
Detective 1
Batwoman 1

On the Marvel tip, Thunderbolts is quite a bit of fun even the tie in to Fear Itself which was actually used as a good way to shake things up and change the status quo.

Then again it does often seem the better comics at Marvel and DC are the one's furthest from the major characters.

"one of the major problems for DC since abt 1970 is their generally 2nd-rate artists"

DC seemed to be run so different than Marvel back in those days, as you would have editors that worked almost with their own lines and seemed to have regular artists that stayed on their titles.

Oddly enough many of the the better artists DC would have outside of Jim Aparo would regularly not be doing the super hero comics instead could be found on the war or western or mystery horror titles. And some others like Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez or Neal Adams would do quite a bit of work for DC in the 70s, but often generally doing advertising or artwork used outside the comics for toys etc.

Outside of Swan on Superman and say Aparo on Brave and the Bold, you also got a quite a bit of artist change up all the time and I think it goes back to the editorial difference on comics with DC in that it was much more rare to ever have a story go beyond a single issue or even sometimes fill up a whole issue, as DC continued to use the shorter format stories so much more so than Marvel in the 70s, especially in the comics that were not super hero books. They kind of used their back stock a bit different than Marvel, as even in the mid to later 70s you see occasional drop in issues that are reprints- which became a big no-no at Marvel after a certain point in the early 70s. DC's lines always had a ton of reprints going too with the 80 and 100 page giants.

come back, aldo!

another casualty of the new 52

Aldo has changed writers.

too many pouches, couldn't have his feet drawn right, etc

ILX downtime, comic shop fuckup, me being away last weekend: I'll summarise the Week 2s when I have actually read them (before the end of the week I guess) but it is unlikely to be picture heavy just because of the time that takes.

Feel free to commission some fill-in artists, Aldo

OK, catch-up. Week one of month 2 i.e. the ones I have read thus far:

Batwing #2: Still lovely to look at, still Winicky, still not buying it past #3. The cliffhanger from the last issue is resolved by "he got better", although in a true Batman way it takes two weeks, during which the bad guy has advanced his plot NOT ONE IOTA. Once we've established the hero is well enough again then he continues. Actually, I quite like the new character that gets introduced and could have been on the fence for getting this if the same team was sticking to it, but no.

Detective Comics #2: Blimey, Bruce Wayne is a right dirty shagger in the new DCU, isn't he? The awesome climax of the last issue gets forgotten so he can have possibly non-plot related sex, but when we actually get into it this is still pretty good. Dollmaker has the makings of a pretty good Bat-villain, even if I don't like his retinue very much.

Green Arrow #2: JT Krul just goes from bad to worse. This is truly appalling stuff, with crap youthspeak peppered throughout and the characters are plain ridiculous - Lime and Light, for example, are attention-seeking criminals. Light's power is light, so Lime's power is... not being a lemon? Making cuts sting? No idea. Anyway, we get the murder of a young kid just so it can get filmed and put on the Internets, following the happyslapping theme of the first issue, which is a trap to get GA to FITE. Which is going to be streamed live on the internets. My head hurts with the amount of DO YOU SEE in this comic. Dreadful stuff.

Hawk & Dove #2: Oh my. I thought #1 was bad, but this takes the biscuit. We start with the introduction of the new villains of the piece, Condor and Swan. Don't laugh. Actually, this throws away some of the basic premises of the history of the characters - firstly, Hawk and Dove makes sense because they are birds we would associate with war and peace and it makes sense for their avatars to be called that. But what are Condor and Swan? The gods of getting trapped in valleys and appearing serene while frantically moving your legs? To make it worse (as if it could be) Swan becomes Swan after killing Osprey. Now as above, does the god of catching fish really need an avatar? But also how does he then change what he's the god of? As we saw after the death of Don and Dove transferring into Dawn, it doesn't change what the avatar is. The writing is possibly worse than the first issue but it's a close run thing. In other news, this is as Liefeld-tastic as the first issue. I may do another montage.

Justice League International #2: After a good first issue, this dips back to being a pretty standard hero book with not much to offer. The one thing that is clear is Dan Jurgens seems to have lost his ability to write - do we really need lines like "...and that looks like my native Africa!"? We also learn that Dan has no idea what menage a trois actually means. Not a winner, but this issue might just be a blip.

Men of War #2: The Rock part of this book is better than last month, the SEALS part worse. Tbh I don't get what the flying woman with the red scarf for clothes has to do with any of it, but it kind of works and at least shows the book is going somewhere. The SEALS thing is still going nowhere though, and takes 8 pages to move the plot on about 3 panels. And the artist still can't draw feet or ankles.

OMAC #2: See notes for #1. This is just really more of the same, although the Brother Eye plot is beginning to expand. This issue kind of reminds me of RASL, of all things. Probably the most all-out fun of any of the 52 books. You should still all be getting it.

Red Lanterns #2: After the first issue, this is more philosophical musing on the nature of rage and anger barely held within the confines of a funnybook. I think if this was an indie we'd all be raving about it but I'm not entirely convinced it works in this context. I'm prepared to stick around and see. We are teased at the end that Atrocitus will make one of his Red Lanterns more than the vegetative state they currently are. Who will it be? MAYBE THE ONE THAT'S ALREADY BEEN IN ANOTHER BOOK?

Static Shock #2: Putting the boot in with yet another shitty book, this is at least slightly better than #1. I can't really explain why, as flipping through it to remind myself while I write this there's so much to hate I'd forgotten about - Dakota being the nexus of America for street gangs, for example. Somebody should tell Scott McDaniel there's a black Spider-Man now, so we don't need this one.

Stormwatch #2: This is more like it. The plot of the first issue is developed at pace and we get some proper thrill power. Yes, it's still kind of sub-GMoz, but let's go with it. I'm genuinely looking froward to #3, for nothing else than to see the teased villain reveal.

Swamp Thing #2: As Tuomas asked for it last month, this issue explains a lot of the history he wanted. That done, the second half is a rollercoaster ride through the threat to our hero with a whole pile of artistic nods to the Moore/Bissette/Totleben era and a final splash page sure to have you buying #3. A triumph.

Batgirl #2: Stop trying so hard. This is so tied up in trying to work the Killing Joke and crippled Babs into the reality of the current book that it gets in the way of the storytelling. There are times (the fight in the cemetery, for example) when the book is an absolute joy and times (the policemen in the hospital) when it's a complete mess. It's so frustrating, but Gail Simone's a good enough writer to work past it. I just wish she would, and quickly.

Batman #2: If the first issue of this was some people's highlight of the #1s, this may well be the standout #2 for most. An utter pleasure, and the fight between Bats and NOT NITE OWL is quite superb. Buy this book.

Batman and Robin #2: If this was issue 217 and not issue 2 I suspect I would be enjoying this book far more than I am. It's kind of a mid-paced filler book and the problem is that it has to stand on its own merits, which it fails to do against the other batbooks. It's not bad as such (the "Yes, that's exactly where you are tonight!" splash is the closest it gets to that) but it feels bloated and could be far tighter. Maybe the introduction of BatDog will help? Good job that's the direction Peter Tomasi appears to be going.

Batwoman #2: Find a dictionary and open it. Look up the word awesome. If it doesn't have a picture of Batwoman #2 in lieu of a definition then throw it out and get a better one. I have no doubts that this won't keep up the quality (not least if all the rumours of the issues being in the bank because of the slow pace JH Williams works at) but enjoy it while it's here.

Birds of Prey #2: I'm pretty sure I have already cut this book, which on the evidence of this issue might have been a little hasty. It definitely seems to be going somewhere, even if it is a bit Sadface in places. On the other hand, it just isn't distinctive enough to be worth it - I finished it about 10 minutes ago and the diversion of making a cup of tea has meant I don't remember a single thing about it. Something that slight isn't worth your money.

Blue Beetle #2: I definitely cut this after #1, but #2 is not without its charms. The 'kid trapped in a suit he can't control and doesn't understand' trope is an old reliable one and well done here, especially once they get to the party, but then OH NOES A DESTROYER OF WORLDS IS COMING TO EARTH TO GET THE SCARAB BACK. We're all doomed (although probably we're not).

Captain Atom #2: Hoo boy. If JT Krul ever works in comics again then there's something wrong with the world. A complete stinker. Over-written rubbish of the highest order. Don't even think about reading this out of curiosity.

Catwoman #2: The things people hated about the first issue are back in this one. So are the things people liked about it. This issue isn't going to change anyone's opinions about it, but I think it's okay. It's annoying inconsistent though, primarily with the ease in which Catwoman is smeared across the walls of her apartment, and that's probably the main reson why I'm not going to be sticking with it. And the post-coital stuff at the beginning with Batman is just weird. Sorry.

DCU Presents: Deadman #2: Is this even the same book as the first one? The two issues seem almost completely unconnected and despite seemingly being sequential (the climax of the first leads directly into this) Boston Brand is a completely different character and understands far more about himself and the Supernatural DCU than he did last month. Maybe it's all that hanging out with Dove. Maybe his real name is Vulture. Maybe this will be more readable next month.

Demon Knights #2: SLEEPER BOOK OF THE RELAUNCH. I wouldn't be surprised if nobody was picking this up, but they're all missing out. This is a hoot from start to finish, and Vandal Savage is a damn fine comedy creation. Who knew? If the editorship is letting people write books like this then more power to them.

Frankenstein #2: Up until this is cancelled people will be calling it a poor man's BPRD , and with good reason because it is. I guess it's entertaining enough but it always feels like it's ripping off other material and the constant comparison detracts massively. A shame, because the writing is quite good, but inescapable.

Green Lantern Corps #2: This comic will never get better than the panel where John Stewart goes "RRARR!" and Guy Gardner goes "YARRH!". After praise for the last one, this is far more prosaic and to be truthful much less of a good read. I'm not sure I like it, it's pointlessly violent in a TINY STOMPING FEET way and has OH SNAP a villain who is immune to Green Lantern constructs and rings. WHO CAN GUESS HOW THIS WILL END? I bet I can, and it's with me quitting the book.

Grifter #2: I really can't bring myself to care about this. In issue 1 the lead character was confused about what was going on and in issue 2 the reader is. Bizarrely, this covers a whole pile of the same ground as OMAC #2 but is in no way engaging. A waste of ink and paper.

Justice League #2: Parademons! For Darkseid! I don't know what's more surprising, their appearance or the fact I actually like a Geoff Johns book. This is far superior to the first issue and actually goes some way to establishing the relationship between all the characters - the interplay between Hal and Barry is pretty great. I repeat, A GOOD GEOFF JOHNS BOOK.

Legion of Super Heroes #2: This has about 5 different plots going on and works on distraction. If you keep moving from the main Daxamite plot to one of the sub-soap opera plots about the internal relationships between Legionnaires fast enough then it stops all the Legion fanboys realising nothing's actually going on. Which I don't mind, but I could see people hating. Really not recommended for anyone who isn't a LoSH fan.

Legion Lost #2: Conversely, this is much less WOW KEWL than the previous issue and is far more enjoyable. The characterisation of several of the cast is brilliant (specifically Timber Wolf) and Wildfire's difficulties in understanding exactly what's happening with the Doctor and how it relates to his own life. Excellent stuff.

Mister Terrific #2: Better than the first one, but that's not saying much. I can't think of a single reason why anyone would want to buy or read this, and absolutely none of it stands out or sticks in the memory. Really, why?

Nightwing #2: Maintaining the high standard of the first issue is very much order of the day here and it just about achieves it, although I couldn't care less about Dick's relationship with Circus Girl and really don't need to see them joining the Mile High Club. (Trousersnakes on a plane!) At the end we get some kind of really weird reveal about the circus he grew up in - given the tone of many of the New 52 books I won't be surprised if it's a paedophile ring - which has me dying to read the next issue, which is always a good sign.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #2: I've been dreading this one. Yet, somewhat bizarrely, it barely has any of the faults which bedevilled the first issue and is actually quite a good read (although, like the first, in a sub-Deadpool Max kind of way). The Jason and Talia stuff is, dare I say it, actually pretty good. The sexism is never too fara away though and I'm sure it'll be business as usual next month, which is when I leave it.

Resurrection Man #2: Well, we have a plot this month. Unfortunately it's not a very good one. We also have some SEXEY KILLER GURLS who can get drawn in stylised poses, one of whom is wearing what I believe passes in American pr0n for school uniform. That's bound to help things. Neither of the above make me want to keep reading this, so thankfully I only have one to go. Very poor.

Suicide Squad #2: The trouble with reading too many of these in one go, or writing as you go along, is that you end up contradicting yourself. This is the genuine sleeper hit of the relaunch, a fantastic book which makes you wonder why the creators weren't employed before this. BUY THIS. "Relax. I have a giant hammer."

Supergirl #2: I think this is secretly the best Superman Family book of the relaunch. Kara's failure to comprehend the reality of her situation, which forms the centrepiece of this issue, is excellently written and only generates further mystery - how did she leave Krypton well after it was destroyed? Why is someone using her as a trap for Superman? ALL THIS AND MORE WILL BE REVEALED, TRUE BELIEVERS.

Wonder Woman #2: Boo, hiss etc. Not a patch on issue 1. You promised us this was a horror book, Azzarello, so make it one. The first issue hinted you could do it, so DO IT. (Confession time; I actually did like this but it's a plain WW book and could have been written at any point, possibly most identifiably during the George Perez comeback run.) Disappointed.

The one thing that is clear is Dan Jurgens seems to have lost his ability to write - do we really need lines like "...and that looks like my native Africa!"? We also learn that Dan has no idea what menage a trois actually means.

lol that he ever could write - that said, post the page that prompted the last sentence!

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6112/6287255712_21c98c03ba_z.jpg

eh, I'll allow it, there's three of them and it's just some blond chick having a cheap perv

more lol at Batman pledging to follow Jurgens' pet character tbh

dan jurgens never had the ability to draw, never mind write

it's a hard competition as to which he's worse at tbh

though I just also remembered making small talk to be polite at a convention table in high school, bcz I was looking at preview pages and he was standing behind it, and getting shudders at his weird nerdery

erm sorry, drunk, shouldn't have said that!

lol go for it! he always been esp despised by brit comic fans of a certain age after he named ronald reagan as his hero in a convention booklet

It is really odd that this relaunch has killed all of my interest in Stormwatch/The Authority but has made me interested in Grifter and Voodoo.

So far, Action Comics and Batwoman are the only keepers for me, but the Lemire, Cornell and Snyder titles are all decent. The rest I'm too broke to buy. Hopefully there'll be some digital deal in the next year: if there was a 5 for $5 weekly deal, I'd probably spend, well, $260 more every year than I do now.

eh, I'll allow it, there's three of them and it's just some blond chick having a cheap perv

Maybe she's saying "who gives a shit about Booster Gold, why don't you two come over here and party with me"? Seems like it would go with the female voices presented in half of the other books.

aquaman #2 felt like it was 8 pages long and sucked. i almost worked up a little bit of respect (or less-hatred) for geoff johns w/ the 1st issue then, boom, $2.99 for a bunch of splash pages of aquaman spearing dagons.

loving batman, swamp thing, demon knights, i vampire.

and action obv

I am getting into Justice League? Which is shocking to me as I've never cared about that book before.

All-Star Western #2: This builds on the success of the first issue by continuing to be the Jonah Hex book it replaced. Yes, it weaves in Bat-elements like the Crime Bible but this only adds to how great it is. I appreciate (given that I was buying it until the reboot) I might be predisposed to the title, but it really is brilliant. Buy it.

Aquaman #2: FUCK YOU GEOFF JOHNS. I liked the last issue but this is Johns Sadface bollocks. Miserable shite.

Batman The Dark Knight #2: Amazingly, for the second issue on the trot there actually is David Finch content in this issue. And it's sort of OK I suppose, but it barely goes anywhere. It's almost a circular story with the conclusion of this issue the same as the last one, with very little happening of note in between. I get the feeling if Finch drops out altogether this could be all right, but I'm not sure I've got either the patience or inclination to find out.

Blackhawks #2: Insubstantial might well be the middle name of Mike Costa. This does nothing and goes nowhere and is not worth your time. Remember the way Nick Fury strips read in the late 80s? No? Exactly. And that's why this is so unmemorable.

Deathstroke #2: Can this be redeemed after the first issue? Simple answer: No. Slightly more detailed answer: Fuck, no. This is poor quality violence pr0n and plotless. I could have done something useful in the time it took me to read this like, I don't know, peeled a banana.

Firestorm #2: Who are Terror Grunt and what do they sound like? That's what inquiring minds really want to know having read this slice of 80s nostalgia. Blah blah nuclear winter blah blah emergency broadcasts blah THIS ISN'T THREADS. "Think I'm scared? I'm from Belfast, monster!"

Flash #2: Barry gets to grips with being Flash and pushes what he can do. It doesn't need any more of a description than that to be honest as this just develops what we saw last month and adds enough to the mystery to keep you reading next month, which I will be. Seeing how Barry sees the world is kind of marvellous.

Green Lantern New Guardians #2: Oh, this went from a fun issue 1 to impenetrable Johnsy GL bullshit. Wake me up whe you're finished. The comic itself makes no sense either, with Kyle INCREASING the amount of casualties from "Red Lanterns and their napalm blood puke" and X Factor arithmetic (i.e. things being >100% of themselves). Also, unless I'm mistaken, quite some years appear to have passed between the end of the last issue and this one, as Kyle reminisces about the Guardian who chose him and how he's come to think of him as his "fairy godfather" despite only meeting him the day before. No.

I, Vampire #2: I can't believe for a minute this is going to run past 6 issues. If it does, there will be one like this every 10 or so. It's a trap/escape/spread the legend vampire story, with about as much backstory as last time. It looks beautiful, but then so does Batwing and this doesn't have the legs of, say, 30 Days Of Night or The Walking Dead. I'll enjoy it while it's being published, but I don't expect that to be much longer.

Justice League Dark #2: This is a step backwards from last month, with pointless setup and an unhealthy fascination with Deadman having a shag. Yes, sex again. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, DIDIO? Not every book in the DCU has to have sex on every page, don't make it editorially mandated. He gets this >< close to having a fake lesbian scene in it too (fake in that one of the women is a man, kind of). This is going to turn into a complete abortion of a book, isn't it?

Savage Hawkman #2: "INCREDIBLE. THE SYMBOLS ARE BECOMING EASIER FOR ME TO READ!" And the symbols appear to be saying THIS BOOK IS SHIT, DO NOT READ IT. This is just muddled twaddle, with the big bad from number one thrown away for a bigger (maybe) bad and some minor plot related shit in the background. There's a girlfriend now, possibly, and something something something don't care.

Superboy #2: In which Astro Boy tries to punch the universe but his neural inhibitors stop him. It turns out he's some kind of weapon which it turns out comes in very handy when some giant shark monsters from Sector 3 turn up. Maybe less so when SHIT BLOWS UP, as it inevitably does. This is a whole pile of fun, but I have no idea where it's going. A bit like canoeing blindfold.

Superman #2: WORDS AGAIN. Last month was wordy, but this is full of them straight out of the gate. THERE'S A THIRTY-TWO WORD SENTENCE ON THE FOURTH PAGE! This is such a hackneyed idea I can't possibly believe it hasn't been done a hundred times before in Superman/Action/whatever and similarly I can't believe it wasn't done better on the previous occasions. I can't wait for this to be crossing over with Action and turning it to shit, which is happening soon. Hitting my cut list, right now.

Teen Titans #2: Kid Flash, I like. The rest of this book, not so much. MAKE IT MORE ABOUT HIM. Anyway, this is still a 'build the team' issue but is starting to get towards an actual storyline. Although yet again we have some tiresome sexism with chat about Wonder Girl's boobage, and I'm beginning to get tired of it all. I'm prepared to go with it for a while but only because Kid Flash is so great. Give him his own book and I can stop buying this?

Voodoo #2: Last month I gave this the benefit of the doubt. This month I'm taking it back. Next month has Kyle Rayner. CUT!

I've heard numbers on VAMPIRE have held steady as of last round of orders, so it might not go away that quickly. My store never got it, so I have yet to give it a read.

The only book that's got any real excitement for me so far is ACTION. HEX is decent but hasn't been as great as the first series (which I was reading for the art as much as anything else. Jordi Bernet, yay!) But still, ACTION feels pretty thin for a monthly book, as opposed to ALL-STAR, which was substantial issue-in, issue-out. Trade arcs sap so much out of the monthlies, it's painful to read most of them.

UPDATE!

Action #3 is now out, and advertised fill-in artist Brent Anderson is not present; the first seven pages here are drawn by Gene Ha.

This issue is again 20 pages for $3.99.

Given the huge media buzz and sales success of this giant line-wide relaunch, here is a full and complete breakdown of the ads they have thus been able to sell on non-cover pages of this book:

1p: The Big Bang Theory is now in syndicated repeats on basic cable!

That's it.

There are 18 (EIGHTEEN) pages of unpaid ads for DC's The New 52, and the standard page of content-free house advertorial in the back.

HOLY COW.

Wonder if that means a tacit admission that they're not able to wring much ad revenue from these books and the value is in the IP, not the audience?

It seems weird that Time Warner wouldn't have it at least to the point where DC would be selling their own products in the comics.

Green Lantern #2: This is Geoff Johns wank fantasy made flesh. Basically Sinestro turns up and gives Hal his ring back if he agrees to admit he's great. He then withdraws it more than once to prove HIS ULTIMATE POWER OVER GREEN LANTERN. This couldn't get more Johnsy if it was printed in his spunk. The very fact I'm writing this is probably setting off his Johns-sense and he's getting wood as I type.

I feel dirty.

Action Comics #3: You know what I think? GMoz should put as much distance between himself and people who are linked to Alan Moore as he should. The entire Krypton sequence looks and feels like offcuts from Top Ten and that ends up colouring the entire book. The Metropolis stuff is nice and the Big Bad looks fun but nothing that hasn't been done before. I'm looking forward to sseing how GMoz gets out of it, but since the 5 year gap is consumed by #7 I'

m assuming that's as long as he's on the book and DC just aren't announcing it yet. (PS Gossip says Dan Jurgens is writing both)

{Continuing the previous post which got posted G_d knows why)

Animal Man #3: Do I like this? I'm really not sure any more. This seems confused at times, but then Buddy realises he is slave to his daughter and it kicks off into a level of awesomeness. I don't care at all for the Ellen and Cliff stuff and I'm not sure at all how the 'real world' pans into the Red at all but I'm not really bothered. I guess the big problem is this is all based on Old Universe DCU stuff so I'm reading it for the second time. Hmm.

but since the 5 year gap is consumed by #7 I'm assuming that's as long as he's on the book and DC just aren't announcing it yet.

god I hope so, the pricing makes me actually angry

Batwing #3: This almost does enough. Really nearly makes me want to keep on buying it. Then I remember Ben Oliver is off it with this issue and I'm convinced the other way. Arguably not enough happens during the issue, but the hints of The Kingdom being a big thing which fucked up really badly and sold out a continent could be a great thing. But Ben Oliver is what makes the book and this is the end of his involvement and also mine. I might torrent the next couple to see where the plot goes. SO HOW'S THAT STRATEGY WORKING, DIDIO?

Detective Comics #3: I actually kind of love the writing on this. Ultimately, The Dollmaker isn't nearly as good as I thought he would be last month but I can put up with it because the characterisation of Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock is the best in the reboot. Still not sold on the art but this is the New DC - I might not even have to put up with it till the end of the next issue! Still onboard and will stay that way.

Green Arrow #3: I'd love to be able to say the writing on this became competent with my last issue. I'd love to say the art doesn't look like the worst kind of 80s throwback. I'd love to be able to say what has passed to date for a plot is resolved satisfactorily. I'd love to be able to say the fake Steve Jobs characterisation becomes realistic. Unfortunately this is still the same bag of shite it has been since the first issue. Maybe even worse. If JT Krul ever works again it will be too soon.

Hawk & Dove #3: This ends with the phrase "He's not too old to answer some questions though... and I've got plenty." I only have 2: "How is Sterling Gates in work?" and "How is Rob Liefeld in work?" The answer to the first appears to be that he is good mates with Geoff Johns. The second is a challenge up there with Fermat's Last Theorem. Every line is delivered between gritted teeth. Barack Obama looks like a chocolate popsicle. There's a panel with Swan and Dove where they have the same face. Not similar faces, IDENTICAL ones. Woeful.

Justice League International #3: http://www.clashmusic.com/files/imagecache/big_node_view/files/Jaz-Coleman-Killing-Joke.jpg EIGHTIES. I'M LIVING IN THE EIGHTIES. You know what the highlight of this is? Vixen uses the powers of a badger. Some people would say this is damning with faint praise. I'm characterising it as reaching to find anything worth enjoying. Average is a compliment.

Men of War #3: What was the Rock section of this has turned to shit. Absolutely nothing happens in it. It's a completely failed attempt at a Two Fisted Tales type effort and totally worthless. Can it be save by the completion of the SEALS backup story? No. It's shite as well. Deserves to be cut andhas been.

OMAC #3: The writing in this really isn't that great is it? And I'm beginning to think the art isn't either. I hate this reboot. Still entertaining enough, but that probably says more about the other books than this one. I'm already looking forward to next month when I am reading less new comics.

Red Lanterns #3: WHAT A SURPRISE. The character I predicted last month is made clevererer is the one that is made clevererer. Unfortunately, because she is A WOMANG she has to be better than 'the hero'. This doesn't work at all. The issue ends with a gratuitous arse picture. One that makes Red Hood #1 look like Andrea Dworkin. You're better than this, Pete Milligan.

Static Shock #3: No. No. No. Static Shite. Features a piss-poor joke about someone not knowing what The Joker looks like. Losing the will to live here.

Stormwatch #3: So we don't get the villain reveal the last issue promised... I can put up with that because this is still a pretty servicable comic. Filler, yes, but servicable. Plot doesn't get advanced much and Jack's foot/ankle about halfway through is one of the worst pieces of art in the reboot (I know, a huge claim) but NOT AWFUL.

Swamp Thing #3: In which our hero compresses over 70 issues of a comic into a VERY short narrative. But the ACTUAL PLOT is great when it kicks in, even if it does rip off SoST 23-26 (the Floronic Man/JLA issues). LET'S GO WITH BRILLIANT mainly because we don't have any competition.

You can't reference the worst panel in the reboot and not share a bad scan!

Otherwise, kudos.

Yeah, I'll find the panel tonight. I realised as I was typing it I would need to. Also, two Liefeld montages to do.

have you dropped wonder woman aldo? my roommate & i are subscribed to omac, wonder woman, action comics, animal man thru a joint reservation account, should be caught up in a week or so

The first WW was great, the second smacked massively of the Perez 80s run. Am sticking with it until #4 at the moment but I know where it needs to go.

is there even a royalty system still in place?

now less than ever

okay I broke down and bought Suicide Squad

this is so exactly my type of shit

also Harley is hilarious

Fabian Nicieza discusses the valuable creative input of DC editorial into New 52 plotting:

Nrama: You know, Fabian, a lot of people picked up the first issue and got the idea that this book was going to be all about action and character peril, but you seem to be doing a lot more with this comic now. As a writer, were you planning from the start that the first issue should be fast-moving to grab readers with the perilous situation and confusion of the characters?

Nicieza: Actually, as a writer, I wasn't. This is the first time I'm even talking about it, so I have to be diplomatic about it. It was not my original intention to break the story down that way. After we did a six-issue outline, we had lunch and a meeting editorially, and we all talked about it. There were aspects of my original six-issue outline that they didn't want to do yet. They thought it was too soon, too fast. They wanted a slower burn for some of the things, like the spread of the disease and the Legionnaires themselves having options available to them.

So I had to go back reconfigure my six-issue plans to kind of create more of a slow burning fuse to their presence here on Earth.

Part of that meant that, instead of opening it the way that I'd envisioned, which was them here for a few days already, them contacting Superman for help, and clearly putting out on the table exactly what's going on within the first eight pages of the book -- that changed.

What they wanted, and I understand why they wanted it, they wanted the first 20 minutes of the Lost TV pilot.

Nrama: Ah, yeah. The peril is similar, with the crashed airplane.

Nicieza: Exactly. They wanted a sense of frantic, chaotic turmoil and uncertainty. That, in and of itself, is twisting the usual "Legion in the past" story. And they wanted a twist on the usual "Legion in the past" story. And I get that.

So I turned the dial on my head a little bit and reconfigured it, and this is what we got.

There's a lot of good to that, but there's some bad to that too. And I do think clarity is one of the things that got sacrificed in that first issue, which is a bit frustrating, because I felt that it was an important aspect that we needed in that first issue.

So, by publishing solicitation details for the first New 52 collections, DC have not only given more hints into their focus but also spoilered some more as-yet-unannounced team changes.

Dig through to note what's being given hardcover prestige, how worthy-of-colllection every single title appears to be considered even before they're written or drawn, and how evidently everyone's stories must be no less than 6 issues and no more than 8.

The pricing disparity on Action gets tilted the other way on the collection - while buying the floppies costs $8 more than any other series for the same number of pages, the collection gives you 40 pages more than any other HC for only $2 extra. SURE, THAT MAKES SENSE, WHATEVER.

Writer: Grant Morrison
Artists: Rags Morales, Rick Bryant, Brent Anderson, Gene Ha, Andy Kubert and Jesse Delperdang

Obviously Kubert isn’t so excited about drawing those two last-minute story-derailing issues that he can do them by himself. This shows amazing confidence that Morales will have his shit together enough to draw #7 and #8 though!

GREEN ARROW VOL. 1 TP
Writers: J.T. Krul, Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens
Artists: Dan Jurgens, George Pérez, Ignacio Calero and Ray McCarthy

Let’s see if it manages to hold to a mere four artists in six issues.

BATWOMAN VOL. 1: HYDROLOGY HC
Writers: J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman
Artist: J.H. Williams III
Collects: BATWOMAN #0-5
$22.99 US, 144 pg

Sure, don’t bother looking inside those comics to see if anyone else, say Amy Reeder, may have drawn half of every page of one of them. Or reading the cover. More evidence of Dan DiDio’s frenzied campaign to drive out all female creators from the halls of DC!*

Also, this means that the three issues of Detective Batwoman by Rucka and Jock that go in between BATWOMAN VOL. 1 HC and, er, BATWOMAN VOL. 1 HC (well done, there) are being completely orphaned. YOU NO WORK FOR US NO MORE, YOUR COMICS NEVER EXISTED.

*actually holy fuck, this may be more accurate than my mockery intended: DC paid for and scrapped EIGHT covers by Reeder this year, including VARIANTS FOR EVERY ISSUE OF BATWOMAN.

And I guess DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS was always meant to be rotating teams, but with #1-5 still coming out, this solicitation is a sneak reveal of what an amazing team they were able to line up by working five months ahead of the rest of the entire line!:

DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS VOL. 1 TP
Writers: Paul Jenkins, Dan DiDio and Jerry Ordway
Artists: Bernard Chang and Jerry Ordway
Collects: DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS #1-8

Oh.

And my favourite one to track the creators on...

BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT VOL. 1 HC
Writer: Paul Jenkins and David Finch
Artists: David Finch and Richard Friend
Collects: BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #1-6

So either the solicited fill-in penciller from #2 and #3 wasn’t needed (!) or Finch managed to have him wrestled back to proper, uncredited ghosting by the time the issues came out. Or the people in the trades department don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, which is not implausible at this stage I'll grant you.

i love the updates in this thread, DC sounds utterly out of control

I checked BATMAN THE DARK KNIGHT #2 in the shop and Jay Fabok is not credited inside. I'm putting my money on 'ghost'.

i love the updates in this thread, DC sounds utterly out of control

Me too. THis whole thread is hugely fun to read.

Batgirl #3: The biggest problem about this issue is contained within the spread page internal DC advert and the MTV quote therein: "DC is actually delivering what they promised... these books give you everything you need to know, right there, in the first issue." So why do I spend all this issue wondering when the "how Babs left her wheelchair" is going to get resolved? The book spends the entire time CULTIVATING mystery about what happened prior to the reboot, not resolving it. And it just isn't that good at it - I enjoyed #1, disliked #2 and have no real opinion on this so I'm going to read the next one (which apparently finishes this storyline) then cut it. Good work, DC.

Batman and Robin #3: Umm... what? I have read this three times now and it still makes very little sense. Damian is bad at chess and disobedient. The guy from the last issue has a cool costume. Batman doesn't know the Green Cross Code. BatDog is a cutesy dopey love. Yes he is. Who's a cutesy dopey love then? It's you, isn't it? Yes it is. What is the film going to be in the next issue? FIND OUT IN A MONTH. I hope it's The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Claus.

Batwoman #3: KEEP FOCUSING ON THE ART. The first half of this is maybe some of the most beautiful stuff JH Williams has done. The second half, the part that's more like a regular book, not so much. The first half flows perfectly, the second half is stilted and awkward. But it looks so lovely I can forgive it all of this. I'm so shallow.

Deathstroke #3: HOORAY! MY LAST ISSUE! And it's possibly the worst of the three, with no plot to speak of and confusing art that presumably to even up the gender issues in some of the #1s has a load of upskirt style shots of MANLY MEN BEING MANLY AND KILLING EACH OTHER WITH KNIVES. Anyway, now we're at the end I can summarise the first three issues as follows: blah FITE blah FITE FITE blah blah FITE FITE FITE FITE HEAD IN A BOX.

Demon Knights #3: What is this, severed head month at DC? Anyway, this doesn't quite live it to the first two issues but the plot barrels on with a near-death Madame Xanadu, a Jason Blood returned from Hell, a priest Etrigan has put there, some joke about the Seven Soldiers version of the Shining Knight and Vandal Savage, Leader Of Men. Somehow this has become the book I look forward to reading most every month. I have no idea how this took place.

Frankenstein #3: Another month on, another month of low quality BPRD rip-off. It's no use ramping up the excitement with TWO (count 'em) new threats at the end of the story, you're still a poor man's Dark Horse product. I think I'll stick with this as it puts me in the price break that my LCS give me as it keeps them in Diamond's sale-or-return bracket, but I'd much rather be reading something by Mike Mignola or Guy Davis.

Green Lantern #3: I don't EVER want to see Doug Mahnke drawing Sinestro laughing again. Is he secretly having sex with Geoff Johns or something? How does this man hold a job down? Although he's not the worst thing about this book, Geoff Johns is. You know what his plan is now? The Guardians have decided that after creating the Green Lanterns (plus all the other colours that make up the Lantern Pride Alliance) and the Manhunters they now need to create a Third Army (I guess answering the question about whether Millenium/New Guardians exists in the the new DCU with a resounding NO). And he has a paradox in this issue that Hal Jordan points out and has a fight with Sinestro about. And a character called Arsona. Can anybody actually want to read this? I don't think I could even muster the enthusiasm to t0rr3nt it in future.

Grifter #3: Inexplicable. This cannot be explained. Next month it involves a Green Arrow team up. There is no way this can make it better. GRifter shouts a Platoon-style NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO in the middle of this. It's how I feel about the title too.

Legion Lost #3: It's like watching the footage from Bottom Live 3: Hooligan's Island - OH WE'VE GOT A PLOT THIS YEAR, HAVE WE? After the slight disappointment of last month this is really going somewhere, and the revelation at the end is cracking. Yes, the second half of the issue is a lengthy Timber Wolf fight but SO WHAT. Fabien Nicieza might not like the pacing of this, but I think it's just fine. #1 set up the scenario and introduced the characters, #2 brought in the real bad guy, #3 developed it all further and gave you something to make you really care about. All while bringing the THRILLPOWER. Give us more of this sort of thing.

Mister Terrific #3: This features a bad guy called Brainstorm who was a computer scientist and is now a blue bloke with a WiFi symbol on his head. He can shoot USB cables - sorry, 'Intelligence Spikes' out of his arm to hard wire himself to people and download the things they know. Some kids film Mister Terrific beating him up on their iPhones because it turns out he was having mental sex with the satnav in her car which caused her crash and subsequent death. I really wish I was making this shit up. I'm done with this.

Resurrection Man #3: The weird sexualisation of the previous issue continues in new, even more bizarre ways (I mean was there really any reason to show us those heart-covered panties?) and despite the whole Limbo bit of dialogue nothing is actually progressed. It feels like a filler issue, which for only the third is a horrible accusation. If this gets to #10 I'll be amazed, as I would guess will the writers because it doesn't feel like it's supposed to.

Suicide Squad #3: I love Harley Quinn and the way she's written here. Can you guess what may or may not be happening when she says "This reminds me of a joke about a clown car..."? Between this and King Shark "keeping a low profile" this is hands down the most FUN in anything DC are publishing for the third month in a row. And at the end? Two words. CAPTAIN BOOMERANG. This just keeps getting better. MORE FUN COMICS (not More Fun Comics though).

Superboy #3: "I am so not following any of this." You and me both, Superboy. I think I like this but I have no idea why. Apparently next month Superboy destroys a Christmas tree. Doesn't that sound worth your money?

I can't wait for all the six-month postmortems. And the one-year should be HILARIOUS.

I am on board for buying about 25 #4s at the moment. That doesn't mean I won't keep up by t0rr3nt with the rest just for you lot.

The panels from last week that wound me up:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6052/6337730959_a50ee96baf_z.jpg

I know in relation to some of the other things you see this doesn't seem that bad, but THESE ARE HIS ACTUAL FEET AND ANKLES. You know, there isn't a boot or something in the way that changes the shape, this is just poor drawing skills.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6035/6337731055_6a59c6fd21_z.jpg

You see what I mean about it being hard to credit this was Pete Milligan's direction? I have also realised in the week since that the two text boxes make it look like she's been holding a lottery for who gets to give her anal. WHY DOES MY BRAIN WORK THIS WAY?

It's the ROB LIEFELD CAN'T DRAW FOR SHIT EXTRAVAGANZA. Hawk & Dove #2:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6107/6338685160_a2e30d733f_b.jpg

Ask if you want it biggerer.

lol i don't know from comics but this is god's work yr doing

That Stormwatch panel is all kinds of twenty colors of crap.

And from H&D#3:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6031/6338074655_5ec0ebf5bc_b.jpg

Yes, that black gentleman is Barack Obama.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJhoa2SVGNA
so rob...you had any formal art training?

To be fair maybe he twisted his ankle and it's gone all swollen

re Batwoman #3: Maggie Sawyer is meant to be a tough cop, and not a sook in matters of romance, I take it from her other appearances in this series? So why is she such a marshmallow pushover for Kate's bullshit? This is the only thing that bothers me about the writing so far.

Wish it was still Rucka writing, tbh

happy for him that he fled the sinking ship before getting dicked around even more, if I have any opinion

I'm not completely familiar with what was done to him, but I applaud anyone who felt it a good time to bail before this relaunch business.

me neither, Batwomang was prob the first thing I'd read by him in ten years, but he made hints and allusions at the time. that now seem more illuminated, yeah.

I liked Gotham Central, although I read it after publication

I fully intend to read it if they ever do a complete TPB series.

Ty Templeton, back in launch month:

http://tytempletonart.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/websized-revised1.jpg

UPDATE!

Birds Of Prey #s 1-4 were all solicited with Duane Swierczunski as writer and Jesus Saiz as sole artist. Once #5 is solicited with Saiz needing an inker to help out, a fill-in issue is promptly commissioned from George Perez and Writer TK.

Tonight, as I get closer to finishing my run on SUPERMAN and prepare for my next project (still only in the negotiation stage right now) I am starting to pencil an inventory issue of BIRDS OF PREY-- just so I can draw some nice looking babes!

so rob...you had any formal art training?

this guy is totally a real-life Liefield drawing
http://i39.tinypic.com/9j0ocg.gif

I saw a changed teams list for #6s but I can't remember where. Basically there's barely half of the original line-up doing the same jobs iirc. I kind of fail to see how that encourages anybody to buy the books.

Batman #3: Hot damn. Yes, this introduces another OH NOES GOTHAM HAS ALWAYS EVER ALWAYS HAD DARK SEKRITS mythology, and I'm still not completely sold on the art, but this is quite brilliantly written. The history of the Owls and the ties to Alan Wayne AND THEN THE DENOUEMENT, holy crap. Read this at all costs.

Birds of Prey #3: This is very nearly good enough to make me reconsider cutting it. Poison Ivy is re-cast in the Johnsiverse as a superpowered Earth First activist and the plot threads laid down in the first two issues begin to come to fruition. The issue ends with a BLACK CANARY IS ABOUT TO DIE cliffhanger which, as we've learned from the Johnsiverse (or in fact basic comics theory) means it won't happen but the nagging reality doesn't prevent you getting swept up in it. Apparently the inclusion of Batgirl as the lead character is imminent, which can also only mean return of The Simone. Shame, as the writer here is starting to find his feet.

Blue Beetle #3: After one of the least surprising reveals of the reboot (I mean, really? You think we didn't know it was the Auntie all along?) this rumbles along trying to find its feet. The Hispanic histrionics in dialogue make me grateful for all that time I put in with Amor Y Cohetes and the possibility of the Scarab Lanterns or whatever the fuck they are destroying Earth might be a thing, but ridiculous poses and HANDS DOWN THE WORST NEW CHARACTER DESIGN I HAVE SEEN IN MANY YEARS (seriously, this Silverback dude is like the worst excesses of the 90s. He's Cable invented on crystal meth.) makes this a dung beetle.

Captain Atom #3: The moment we all waited for - JT Krul writes the Flash. No, wait, the moment we were waiting for was Captain Atom and the Flash solving the conflict in Libya. Until Gadaffi sets off a nuclear bomb to destroy the country. Captain Atom sucks in the energy and Flash outruns the blast picking people up on the way. Did I mention Captain Atom turned himself into God in the first couple of pages? It makes me pine for the good old days of Qurac. Please don't let any of this make you think you should look at the book because it's really not worth your time.

Catwoman #3: Torture porn! Strippers! Visible labia! At one point Catwoman's thighs are bigger than her waist! Holy BatSnogging! Awful, awful, awful.

DCU Presents Deadman #3: I really wish this was ready to move on to the next story. Basically this issue rehashes the last one and doesn't advance the plot apart from the first and last pages. Consequently, it does nothing for me. I can't help thinking it's a wasted opportunity but I can't offer any suggestions as to how it could be improved as it's just a whole pile of nothing.

Green Lantern Corps #3: "Beware the Ring Slayers!" Sounds like a porn film to me. Yadda yadda ring fites (although since inventiveness was always supposed to be a thing, why they all will guns into existence doesn't show much imagination) and it turns out the titular Ring Slayers are in fact an unknown species comprising vast reserves of raw willpower. Glad that's all cleared up. The best dialogue on the first page is "RRAGHH!" and comes from the dinosaur GL that had his arms and legs cut off in the last issue. Presumably he can only say RRAGHH because he is wearing his ring on his tongue now he is limbless. I wish I was making this up. I might start putting in some fake details from now on.

Justice League #3: "Steve, this place, your home, is filled with so many wonderful things. Ice cream and Rock and Roll and... many wonderful things." FUCK YOU GEOFF JOHNS. How can you have the gall to write this shit? Wait, Superman's just managed to cleanly slice off a Parademon's arm with a car tyre. Hal Jordan's just claimed shagging rights on Wonder Woman. This could be a triumph but instead is a disaster. Vic Stone's heart races up his spinal cord (according to the dialogue, but that can't be right) then he screams one of the most epic pieces of dialogue from the reboot - "AAHH01010101000010111". And finally Aquaman turns up. I don't think I can look away.

LoSH #3: Yes! The return of the Dominators! How to subdue Daxamites! This is pointless crap for the rest of you. It's still a fanboy's book. I wish I could actually judge the quality of this title.

DCU Presents Deadman #3: I really wish this was ready to move on to the next story.

note this folks, aldo now CANNOT WAIT to read a Dan Didio comic sight unseen. IS THIS WHAT WE'VE DONE TO HIM?

I just wanted to say that I don't give a shit that its moving at a snail's pace and is predictable as hell, I love Red Lanterns!

Catwoman #3: ... Visible labia!

Waitaminute, surely not?

Maybe a slight exaggeration, but there's one panel where you can see exactly what Catwoman's packing down there, if you see what I'm saying. Every contour.

Nightwing #3: This book just keeps getting better and better. A new bad guy (although, it has to be said, one that Dick appears to completely have the better of after their first encounter, so probably no staying power there) and great pacing as the storyline builds and Dick's life - the one that he never had, since he was with Bruce - is laid out for all to see. Maybe this always happened in the Nightwing book? All I remember about it was that city got destroyed when Chemo got dropped on it. Plus Dick gets to make the sex with the hawt redhead. UNLEASH THE NIGHTWANG! What could possibly make this book better? "Next issue: Batgirl". Because she's only in about half a dozen books already next month. Babs is going to have a busy old time of it.

Red Hood & The Outlaws #3: WHY DID #1 OF THIS COME OUT.

Obviously this is a rhetorical question, since if #1 hadn't come out then neither could #2 or #3. Fact-checkin' Ed.

Supergirl #3: We get plot development (but not anything we haven't seen before). We get a new bad guy (who is basically Kara's version of Lex Luthor, which makes you wonder how he existed for so long with nobody noticing). We get a new artist (who isn't as good as the previous one). We get a real sense of deja vu (and a slight sense of boredom).

Wonder Woman :3 I have no idea why crab claws are so important, or what they're a metaphor for, but they feature really heavily in this issue. And they're really tasty, which is presumably a subliminal message to get me to like this. Luckily I like it anyway. It's still more Perez than Lovecraft (which was what we were promised) and OH LOOK, SOME SEXING but it feels like it's going somewhere and next month seems to see us back of Paradise Island which might improve it. A slow burner.

CATCHUP:

All Star Western #3: The Gotham Butcher plot concludes just as the cover promises, with guns and gore. This has been the best Hex storyline in a number of years - Doctor Arkham mans up and we see a whole pile of retribution but the sides appear able to co-exist after the resolution. But just when it looks like Hex is leaving (and his interplay with Arkham and Gotham itself as he tries to get out is really well done) he gets sucked into something else... I guess he may be sticking around the city for a bit longer. The backup El Diablo strip is neither here nor there, to be honest, but it's nice to see some second (third?) string Western characters get a run out. I still can't decde whether this is one of the highlights of the reboot or not, since it's still pretty much the same book it was before the reboot.

Aquaman #3: Arthur Curry is a dick, everyone knows it and his powers are so shit everyone laughs at him. That's pretty much all you need to know about Geoff Johns' take on him. There's a fight with last month's new baddies and a bit of development for them where we find out some genetic stuff about them (with another cast-iron opportunity for Aquaman to be a dick and show off his new power of flight) but there's not really enough in this to make it endearing - there's always the hint of Johnsiness about it to put you off - but maybe the mystery of whose trident it is might be worth keeping up with.

Batman The Dark Knight #3: Disappointingly, the Joker elements of this (which have been the most entertaining parts) are wrapped up in the opening pages which leaves us with David Finch trying to puff up his own new David Finch character, the White Rabbit. Who, surprise, surprise, is an sexey womang in an impractical and ridiculous outfit. Flash appears and is immediately sidelined so he plays no further part in the story, and we get one of the most bizarre lines of dialogue in the Johnsiverse: "Thank God for small mercies and lace panties." Is this really something people say? Google suggests it's only ever appeared in amateur pr0n fiction and I think I believe them. The Bat-stuff in this is good, the rest not so much. I'm sure the actual David Finch content in David Finch's own book will soon dwindle to nothing. Will this improve it? Who knows. Or possibly cares.

Blackhawks #3: I like the talking dogs. I don't care about the rest of it. It has the heart of a decent espionage book but it just tries too hard, throwing ideas at the wall to see what sticks - the only propblem is that when you get to the end you realise it's ALL supposed to have stuck which just makes it a confused mess. Still, talking dogs, eh?

Firestorm #3: OH NOES, THE TRAGEDY OF A SUPER-SOLDIER! Oh noes, the tragedy of this book, more like. Helix could have been pretty good, and the world through his eyes is the one memorable thing about this, but we get minor plot development and a HUGE fight which at times appears to have been blown up to make it fill the page more. This is really going nowhere.

― aldo, Friday, 2 December 2011 12:31 (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Permalink

Flash #3: I hate to bring the ghost of Eisner into this, but from the title page onwards this reminds me of nothing more than The Spirit. Has the Flash ever landed a plane that way before? I'm not sure. But the cliffhanger! THRILLING!

Green Lantern New Guardians #3: What's that you say? Kyle Rayner is the most powerful bestest Lantern ever? Careful now, Hal Jordan will covet his ring... Bleez has clearly been through the process from Red Lanterns, but has degraded back to being a typical Red Lantern, it looks like. Really, you'd think there should be an editor in charge of the whole thing to ensure continuity, or something. In top JRJr-biting, some panels of this could have been in Kick-Ass. Anyway, it turns out the whole plot WHICH WAS GOOD ENOUGH TO TRICK EVERYBODY IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE, INCLUDING EVERYONE ON OA was just a construct of the Orange Lantern (no, me neither) Glomulus. Or maybe Larfleeze. Who may also be called Agent Orange. OH WAIT, IT A GEOFF JOHNS CHARACTER.* Kyle says "God, this just keeps getting worse..." and I know how he feels.

* Amongst other appearances, there is this. My head hurts.

Larfleeze Christmas Special

On Christmas Day, Larfleeze is outraged to discover that Santa Claus hasn't brought him anything that he asked for. He attacks every costumed Santa in the nearby town, and tries to melt the North Pole, only to be stopped by Hal Jordan. Jordan tells Larfleeze of Christmas spirit, and how it comes from giving. On Hal's suggestion, Larfleeze gives away every item in his mountain of possessions, but afterwards declares that he doesn't like Christmas spirit. Jordan then suggests that he look over his Christmas list and see if he actually needed anything there. That night, Larfleeze stares at a part of his list, on which he had written "my family".

I, Vampire #3: This is still beautiful but I'm not sure why it's being shoehorned into crossovers. Next month sees us in Gotham City, and features John Constantine (presumably the Johnsiverse Constantine from Justice League Dark and not the Vertigo one). I'm finding less reasons to stay with this month on month, but staying for now.

Justice League Dark #3: Constantine and Zatanna have the sex! Deadman desperately tries to get his end away with June Moon! The M-Vest tries to make a new Kathy for Shade to have the sex with! There's almost a plot! GET ON WITH IT! (NB this review only has slightly more exclamation marks than the cover of this book)

― aldo, Friday, 2 December 2011 13:23 (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Permalink

Savage Hawkman #3: No no no no no. A confused mess again. The muddy art doesn't help one jot, but Morphicus seems to be alive, then dead, then cut up, then never have existed, then alive again. And Hawkman? Fuck knows. Anyway, next issue promises "The Final Showdown". Pity I won't be there to see it.

Superman #3: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ACTION COMICS. I mean, seriously, why print what happens in Action #4 onwards as part of this issue? IF ONLY THERE WAS A JOHNSIVERSE EDITOR. Anyway, back to the comic itself and this still has lots and lots and lots of words. Far too many. Yet again, this book concentrates about half the page-count to a fight which is part of a bigger overarching plot and still overlays it with so many text boxes you can't see it properly. This will convert nobody.

Teen Titans #3: This is still a joy from front to back. As I've said before, Kid Flash is the undisputed star of the book but Red Robin begins to come into his own in this as well and the team looks mostly complete. I'm still not absolutely sold on the Jim Lee-lite art (especially Wonder Girl in the hospital, which just looks... odd...) but I can get over it. I'm very pleasantly surprised how much I'm getting out of it and very happy that I am.

Voodoo #3: This doesn't really go anywhere. There's a whole load of plot (which doesn't actually make anything much clearer) and some kind of distinction between whatever Voodoo is and whatever the other aliums are which is good enough to get one over on Kyle Rayner (who, let's not forget, is shown elsewhere this month to be the bestest Lantern ever). And then somebody dies in the end. Oh well.

― aldo, Friday, 2 December 2011 13:45 (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Permalink

Thanks aldo! I'll take your word on Titans - I dislike the characters and the art so can't even try it.

Flash is so good it overcomes my natural anti-Flash bias (I've never liked the character (or the derivatives) except in his Golden Age incarnation).

― EZ Snappin, Friday, 2 December 2011 14:45 (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Permalink

So, we reach the end of 3 months and I start cutting books. I'm down to just under half, from memory, but my observations on the experiment thus far:

I had really fallen out of the habit of reading comics. I know we'd discussed it before in ILC, about how we'd cut down to 4 or 5 floppies a week, but the sheer volume overwhelmed me to start with. I ended up having to read them alphabetically because any other way would have been detrimental to the books I was enjoying less - otherwise I would have read the ones I liked and then just left with a pile of dross to plod through (which, truth to tell, was the case some weeks anyway). But then in order to get these reviews out, I was having to read them straight away so I could find the time to do this at the weekend. Discipline was very much the order of the day, and this may have made me less tolerant of the lesser quality books to be honest.

It's important to pick up comics every week. The week of the Diamond fuck-up with my LCS caused me great pain. I was finding one week hard going, now I had to do two in the same timeframe. That almost killed me. I have no idea now how I would have done this on the month I'm on holiday next year.

This process has made me far more judgemental. I had written off Red Hood after the first issue, yet it turns out I actually really quite like it. I proclaimed the first issue of Aquaman to be brilliant, but it fell off a massive cliff edge. And I ended up comparing books to the other ones out that week, probably unfairly.

Three months isn't long enough to judge comics on. See the above. But also see complaints through the process about pacing. They've been uneven but that's only through comparison to each other - since they all started at the same time you'd expect them to be consistent, however, some have raced forward with plot with no hints of backstory, some have concentrated in minutae over things past which may or may not have happened and some are just glacial. It's the change that's jarring though, as some of these books were at #2-300 when this started and the pacing would have been fine on them. So I would have welcomed the opportunity to do this for longer but Diamond set their sale or return at that level. Was this within DC's influence? Probably.

This hasn't really been a success for existing customers. Looking round the internet, it seems people have generally reverted to type. People who were buying Batbooks are still buying Batbooks (irrespective of quality). People who were buying Superfamily books are still buying Superfamily books (irrespective of quality). People who were buying Geoff Johns books are still mad. Nobody is more inclined to pick up Jonah Hex than they were. I'm even aware of one online trend to deliberately cut to only 8 books by month 4. A failure then.

This hasn't exactly been a success for new customers either. OK, so Justice League #1 is on the 5th printing. You don't get sales across the line, you haven't brought in new readers. And in the week James Robinson notes that his Shade mini-series will probably be cancelled before #12 because of sales* it seems like general interest in the new line hasn't transferred into curiosity about things they don't already know about.

Comics professionals aren't what they used to be. I know it looks like I'm being picky, but some of the artwork in the reboot has been exceptionally shoddy. I'm currently reading Prince Valiant Vol 4 and the gulf in quality is amazing, but even in comparison to some of the dailies (Dick Tracy for example) the gulf in quality is astonishing. And what is it with the staying power of these people? The sheer volume of creative changes is overwhelming, and then you remember this was PLANNED. And then you remember David Finch and what's happened with David Finch's Batman The Dark Knight. That's sitcom territory.

Rob Liefeld is exactly what he used to be. Seriously, how is he still employed?

The Johnsiverse is all about the sex. I mean we all know the controversy about Catwoman and the first Red Hood, but really, they've been like rabbits across the line. Is this what it's come to?

I'll keep going with this via t0rr3nt for the titles I'm not sticking with, but it may well be more sporadic (and some may just say "still shit").

* I mean OK, a Golden Age Flash villain might not be the best of choices but it sort of spins off out of Robinson's Starman series and is probably better than 80-90% of the Johnsiverse. You're in the shop already, why not buy something good when you're in there?

― aldo, Friday, 2 December 2011 15:52 (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Permalink

I don't know why Grifter and Voodoo are resonating so hard with me, esp. considering I never was a WildC.A.T.S. fan, but the direction they're talking the whole Kherubim/Daemonite conflict and how it seems both sides are now leaning anti-human is very interesting to me. Also, I can't believe how much I disliked that first issue of Stormwatch (possibly because it was The Authority with all of the minorities associated with Stormwatch/The Authority removed)

― OH NOES, Friday, 2 December 2011 16:07 (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Permalink

I mean, I'm not screaming for token representation; Battalion and Fuji have been associated with the team since its inception and Flint and Swift have been mainstays since '96.

― OH NOES, Friday, 2 December 2011 16:13 (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Permalink

And after DC inexplicably take a week off...

Action #4: The premise of this is great - Earth is being harvested by the same guy who put Kandor in a bottle last month - but the execution not so much. The main part of the comic is a fun read (although it does smack slightly of Disco Dad at times; "your favourite band is the Red Hot Chili Peppers"? Really?) but the worst part is undoubtedly that GMoz can't even be arsed writing it all himself.

"So, Steel's turned up to fight the Terminaut. At the end I want Steel there, but I don't care about any of the rest of it. I'm not bothered who writes it either. Sholly Fisch? Who he? He writes DC kids' books, huh?"

Is it just me who finds that lazy and slack? Oh and the next two issues are a different story before we come back to this one. Except that takes us to #7, where DC have already said Action and Superman are in the same time. So 6 years elapse between this issue and the next part. Hmm.

Animal Man #4: This continues to be a confounding read. The art is still sketchy - I love it when it's doing wilding impressionistic swathes of... weird... but don't get on with it when it's supposed to be real. In terms of plot, basically Maxine could have meant the last issue didn't need to exist, there's a sentient cat from The Red living with the Bakers now and Cliff might be dead having been eaten by Mr Potato Head. I already feel the groan for next month when Maxine makes it so it didn't happen. Poor Cliff. I hope he becomes the Kenny McCormack or Rory Williams of the Johnsiverse.

Batwing #4: I thought I had cut this but it appears the LCS still want me to take it, which isn't really a problem since the story has got better now the art has got worse. That said, you or I could write a SEKRIT ORIGIN OF AN ARFRICAN BOY GROWING UP WITH GUNS AND STUFF and it would look pretty much like this, except we wouldn't be getting paid thousands of bucks to do it. This is now not doing anything the recent run of Unknown Soldier by Josh Dysart wasn't, which was cancelled through lack of readers. HOLY BAT-FRANCHISE! It's the only explanation.

Detective Comics #4: The previous issues of this have been great, but this is a mess of ACTION shots and JUMPING and GRIMACING. Jim Gordon looks and acts like a stoner. The issue ends pretty much exactly where we were at the end of #1, which makes it feel like it's been kind of a waste of time. Looks like the Penguin next. My curiosity will keep me reading but this is a book on the brink of being dropped after this issue. Oh fickle me.

OMAC #4: In which Didio and Giffen embrace the fact they're doing nothing clever here and go all out for the Kirby. GIANT ALLIGATORS WITH ROBOT NUCLEAR HEADS! It looks like Frankenstein shows up next month and the books cross over. This seems to be a trend in the first of the #4s, setting up crossover events early. I suspect this is all pointing to a giant X-Over event next summer (the traditional point for EVENTs) during which the Johnsiverse will be re-integrated back into the 52niverse. Maybe. This is a blast in the meantime, as usual.

Red Lanterns #4: Atrocitus finds out about Bleez' possible deception that's been apparent from the start, given she's been in other books and it's been mentioned in the editorial, but being a creature of RAGE GRRRR reacts by throwing three other Red Lanterns in the sea like he did with Bleez to have more smarter ones. No, I don't understand how having more smart ones will help him if they were plotting against him even when they were stupid either. (He finds this out, by the way, in the time-honoured telepathic manner of biting their necks. Anyway, since the three he chooses aren't SEXEY RED ALIUMS (they are, in fact, a goat, a floating brane and MODOK the rubber ball aliums) they don't get nearly as much character development as Bleez does. In the end Atrocitus' nemesis and confidant Krona appears to have risen from the dead in a stunning cliffhanger. Or at least it would have been if Pete Milligan hadn't said it in the interview in the back of every book this month. You'd think they'd learn by now.

Stormwatch #4: Blah blah blah blah blah. The villain turns out not to be "The Dark Side" after all, but a city swallowed by an alien force which means Jack Hawksmoor can solve it in a page. Then Apollo gets blasted by the power of the sun and frees everyone by punching a hole in its stomach. All that plot takes about 2 pages, so G_d knows what fills the rest. Ho hum.

Swamp Thing #4: This trundles along being entertaining and pulling all the strands together, neatly tying up pretty much all Rick Veitch's writing on the book in a page. It's going somewhere, definitely, but the fact this issue has THREE different inkers can make you wonder whether you want to go there with it. There's a big Animal Man crossover soon, you know. That might be where it gets into fanboy only territory.

― aldo, Sunday, 11 December 2011 14:02 (1 week ago) Bookmark Permalink

And the books I am only reading on CBR...

Green Arrow #4: Giffen and Jurgens don't make this much better. There's a character called Blood Rose, who seems to have become Asian since her cameo at the end of last month and her boss (who in one panel seems to have had the lower half od his body replaced by a chair) who tells her he is ABSOLUTELY 100% CERTAIN there is no link between Green Arrow and Ollie. She appears not to think so either, even after virtually watching him change into his costume in front of her. She also has super-strength, which she doesn't use until after GA's escape - which confuses him as much as it confuses us. In other news, Steve Jobs Ollie is setting up a games company. It's all go round these parts.

Hawk & Dove #4: This just doesn't get any better. Liefeld arguably gets worse. There's now something called the War Circle which may have something to do with all the avatars' owners ganging up on each other. Dawn might have eaten Swan off-page in the last issue. Swan returns the favour in this issue by pulling Deadman's face back like in gonzo pr0n, or on the cover of Gnaw Their Tongues' "All the dread magnificence of perversity". Then a helicopter turns up and they all go home, apart from Dawn who starts acting like Jackie Chan. Oh dear.

JLI #4: A couple of notable things happen in this issue. First, Godiva wanks off Batman with her hair. Second, they are all trapped in mud which absorbs their powers, however, not when it's cold so Ice freezes it and they escape. So why didn't she do that to start with? They then get beaten again and the robots from the previous issues start to work while our heroes are attacked by mud and midgets - in other words back where we were at the start of #3. So the only different thing that happened this month was Godiva wanking off Batman with her hair. I'll leave you with that thought of how far the Johnsiverse has taken us.

Men of War #4: "Next issue: Who is the enemy?" Aldo sez: who gives a fuck? This is dreadful hackneyed war writing, full of cliche tech speak and two separate strands just so we can see Rock dressed up in two different outfits, like some kind of 2D Action Man. Oh and what a surprise, there's magic/superpowers involved animating the dead, maybe. The backups this month is Skull Bots which would be less mature if written by the kid from Axe Cop. Ridiculous stuff.

Static Shock #4: Not even worth writing about. The mid-80s have so much to answer for, and this looks pedestrian compared to the worst excesses of that era. Flabby villain of the week nonsense.

― aldo, Sunday, 11 December 2011 14:57 (1 week ago) Bookmark Permalink

Is the mysterious hooded woman still showing up in every book?

― William (C), Sunday, 11 December 2011 15:02 (1 week ago) Bookmark Permalink

Haven't seen her, but then I missed her in most of the #1s. I think Geoff Johns has said she's only going to show up in Justice League (possibly because she may be a Jim Lee character from the Wildstorm universe, apparently).

― aldo, Sunday, 11 December 2011 15:08 (1 week ago) Bookmark Permalink

aw man I missed that this fill-in thread existed! there has been SO MUCH amazing creator turnover in the last week that has made me twitchy to not be able to post about ;_;

how we'd cut down to 4 or 5 floppies a week

4 or 5 a week* has always seemed a monumental intake to me!

*every week, that is. leaving the shop with five comics I like is obviously great and desirable, but I usually go once a month

― The Larry Sandbox Show (sic), Monday, 12 December 2011 04:35 (1 week ago) Bookmark Permalink

Batgirl #4: This is a solid enough close out to the Mirror storyline. Babs works out the motivation and plot at about the same time as the reader, despite having much more information than we do, and we also get a whole pile of Babs Backstory including finding out she got out of the chair because of "a clinic in South Africa". Hmm. Babs' mum turning up at the end is a bit of a shocker though. Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a bit of Dad Dancing from Gail Simone, and this month's is that bad guys have an app for their iPhones that lets them know where Batman is. I know, right? This story arc was good enough to keep me on board for the next one, I guess.

Batman & Robin #4: To be honest, I think most people had been sleeping on this Batbook and a lot might have cut it. This issue, particularly the final pages, shows they were wrong. Yes, it's a bit wordy but Nobody has turned by stealth into a great character. The next few issues are going to be the making of Damian, it looks like.

Batwoman #4: In contrast, this has got an easy ride because of how good it was. And it spectacularly fails to drop the ball here, with the strongest issue yet. Kate Kane's world teeters on the brink of complete collapse and I have no idea how it's going to pan out. And just to show all the SEXEY TIMES FUN doesn't just happen in other books, this has probably the most graphic and explicit sex of the Johnsiverse to date but will pass without comment because it's sapphic shenanigans. Oh, and it's intercut with a graphic fight, torture and bloody slashing. Still immune from comment? It seems so. If this was Catwoman the blogverse would be calling for everyone involved to be sacked.

Demon Knights #4: You know what the most under-rated book of the Johnsiverse is? It's this one. An absolute pleasure from start to finish as ever, and as usual Vandal Savage is the best thing about it. "Wake up!It is your comrades! Vandal Savage! Jason Blood! That tall woman!" This is the origin story of this version of the Shining Knight and comes close to out GMoz-ing Gmoz' take on it. Can we have more books like this please?

Frankenstein #4: The other Seven Soldiers character pulled through into the Johnsiverse still feels like an inferior BPRD but this is most accomplished issue so far, and makes me glad I hadn't cut it. Aquaman gets slagged off and giant monsters get killed. What's not to like? I'm hoping Ray Palmer is going to start playing a bigger part in this because he's the part which makes it work the best.

Legion Lost #4: You know what? Even I'm coming round to the idea that this book isn't really that great. We push the idea that the alien is partly Chameleon Girl and the main baddie becomes massively powerful at the end. But not much else happens really. Even this summary is boring.

Suicide Squad #4: Here's the thing. Without going into specifics, the Squad core team regularises and not in the way you'd expect. Also, King Shark actually gets clear-headed at one point. You really should still all be reading this book.

― aldo, Sunday, 18 December 2011 13:01 (6 days ago) Bookmark Permalink

CBR-only books:

Deathstroke #4: Deathstroke gets out of prison. Deathstroke kills some people. Deathstroke's mate gets offed. Reading this text is marginally less boring than reading the comic.

Green Lantern #4: Hal didn't die and is still in WUB with Carol. Sinestro gets tortured for a bit. The rest of the issue is clearly about some OBVIOUSLY HISTORIC Geoff Johns GL thing I never read about which gives us a pile of Sinestro backstory. Then Hal manages to fuck it up for him (by accident, OBVIOUSLY). BLAH BLAH WHO CARES.

Grifter #4: What the fuck has this got to do with the previous issues? They were all about the mystery of who Cole was. Now it's a gun-for-hire book that almost succeeds to be the worst Johnsiverse book that's had Green Arrow in it, and that's some claim. It looks like the daemonites are behind it all, probably. Woohoo, we're off into the Wildstorm universe again. Who cares.

Mister Terrific #4: Big brains are really useful in space. Still, the artist got to draw some cool aliens. Well not really because they don't actually look that cool. Michael uses his intellect once and mostly the aliens do things with each other that he's not that involved with. Dreadful stuff that goes nowhere and, again, seems unlinked to the previous issues.

Resurrection Man #4: Huh? OH LOOK BEWBS! The plot actually moves slightly forward in this, but only by essentially writing the previous two issues out (or at least making their content irrelevant). Thumb-woman from #1 turns out to be an angel, who (it appears) permanently kills our titular hero. Might be for the best.

Superboy #4: Superboy burns a Christmas tree with his heat vision and scares some carollers. Makes a change from punching the universe, I suppose. Anyway, the previous 3 issues may just have been a ruse to capture Fairchild. Superboy seems resigned to his lot and decides to work for the people who are the bad guysin Teen Titans. CROSSOVER ALERT. Again.

― aldo, Wednesday, 21 December 2011 19:57 (3 days ago) Bookmark Permalink

I can definitely believe there's a "where is Batman?" app - written by Waynetech, with Alfred putting plausible sightings in when he's not ironing the Batsuits.

― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 21 December 2011 22:42 (3 days ago) Bookmark Permalink

No, it's being done by villains - and low rent ones at that as 5 of them are shaking down a couple for a fake fur.

― aldo, Wednesday, 21 December 2011 23:02 (3 days ago) Bookmark Permalink

I missed all of these in the crash/sandbox stuff. Wonderful read, as usual, and unlike the most of the comics described

Aldo, do you write about comics (or anything else) somewhere online? Because I would read the hell out of it.

UPDATE!
Action Comics finally decides to stop being 20pp for $4 by adding an eight-page back-up story by Joshua Hale Fialkov, not Grant Morrison!
Joshua Hale Fialkov replaced by Sholly Fisch, not Grant Morrison, before anything sees print.
#4 ships, and the 8-page story turns out to not only not be by Grant Morrison, but actually be an eight-page fight scene that Morrison specifically left out of his pages because it would have been tedious, pointless, redundant and a waste of pages. And money, I guess, if anyone had ever told him that this was a 30 page book, not a 20pp one, at any point in the process of creating any of these issues.

UPDATE!
Early-90s (Jamie Delano era) Animal Man artist Steve Pugh added to Travel Foreman as Animal Man artist from #7.

UPDATE!
Fernando Pasarin replaced as Green Lantern Corps artist by Acclaim-era Giffen inker Claude St. Aubin from #7

UPDATE!
Jesus Saiz replaced as Birds Of Prey artist by Javier Pina halfway through #5
Javier Pina replaced as Birds Of Prey artist by Jesus Saiz halfway through #7

UPDATE!
Yanick Paquette, having managed a gruelling two issues of Swamp Thing in a row, is partially filled-in-for by Victor Ibanez on #3.
With the breather allowed by not having to do a full issue, Paquette fails to catch up, and is completely replaced by Ibanez for #4.
Before publication, but after solicitation, writer Scott Snyder says that Ibanez has been replaced by Marco Rudy as fill-in artist on #4.
Back with a vengeance, Paquette storms back to draw all of #5 by himself! Nothing can stop him now!
Marco Rudy is filling in for Paquette on #6. Unless he gets replaced by Victor Ibanez.
Pow! Fully refreshed and ready to roll, Yanick Paquette is drawing the living fuck out of Swamp Thing #7 and #8! There’s really no stopping him now!
An unannounced fill-in artist will draw the second half of Swamp Thing #9. Hopefully Marco Rudy. Does anyone have Victor Ibanez’ phone number?

UPDATE!
The artist on Mr Terrific #1-2 is Gianluca Gugliotta.
#3 has a fill-in by Jim Lee inker Scott Clark, being inked by Dave Beaty.
Gugliotta returns for #4-5, but now inked by Wayne Faucher.
#6 has a fill-in by Oliver Nome.
The team of Gugliotta and Faucher returns for #7.

UPDATE!
The classic beloved super-villain team-up property SUICIDE SQUAD returns to stands as part of THE NEW 52 in a series written by Adam Glass and drawn by Marco Rudy! Get in on the ground floor!
Exciting news kids! Marco Rudy couldn’t handle the heavy-handed editorial fiddling, from #2 Suicide Squad will be drawn by Federico Dellocchio, with a helping hand on his first issue by Ransom Getty!
Wow kids, great news! Federicho Dellocchio will be replaced by Wildstorm superstar Tom Raney for issues 6 and 7 – make sure you pick up Stormwatch #6 for the crossover with that issue’s explosive events!
Hey kids, we can barely contain our excitement to tell you that Tom Raney got jack of the heavy-handed editorial fiddling, or couldn’t keep pace with it, or something, so has been replaced on ishes 6 and 7, without drawing anything, by Clayton Henry! #6 is now thrillingly returnable, retail minutia fans!

UPDATE!
SEPTEMBER 28th: Hotheaded hero FIRESTORM returns to stands as part of THE NEW 52 in a series written by right-wing X-Men penciller Ethan Van Sciver and the only female creator on any New 52 comic, Gail Simone!
OCTOBER 12th: The only female creator on any New 52 comic, Gail Simone, is reported to have walked off Firestorm due to frustration with the heavy-handed editorial meddling and micro-management. DC is reported to be all, like, “psssch, what? That’s crazy, you’re crazy. Everything’s chill.”
OCTOBER 17th: Yildiray Cinar, artist on Firestorm, is to be assisted by an inker from issue #5, quite possibly unable to keep up with repeated changes demanded by editorial.
DECEMBER 6th: Now one of a vast two female creators on The New 52, Gail Simone is confirmed to have walked off Firestorm.
From issue #7, Van Sciver will be joined by co-plotter and scripter Joe Harris, writer of a film about the Tooth Fairy being evil. The team of Yilidray Cinar and Norm Rapmund will also be filled in for on issues 7 & 8 by Sciver.

UPDATE!
Writer Sterling Gates is OFF Hawk And Dove with issue #6, replaced by the continuing artist on the book. That’s right, it’s 2011 and the single most consistent and reliable creator on DC’s The NEW 52 is Rob Liefeld.
Rob.
Liefeld.
FURTHER UPDATE!
Gates was actually sacked mid-story, with his completed script for #6 being spiked, and Liefeld co-re-writing #5 with Gates post-sacking.

UPDATE!
Writer JT Krul replaced on Green Arrow from #4 with penciller Dan Jurgens and Keith Giffen.
Finisher George Perez replaced from #5 with inker Ray McCarthy.
Writer/penciller Dan Jurgens replaced as penciller on #6 with Ignacio Calero.
Co-writers Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens replaced from #7 with Ann Nocenti.
Artists Dan Jurgens, George Perez, Ray McCarthy and Ignacio Calero replaced from #7 with Harvey Tolibao.
- That’s right, in just seven months this series has turned over FIVE separate creative teams.

UPDATE!
Ivan Brandon is reported to have walked off Men Of War after #6 due to due to frustration with the heavy-handed editorial meddling and micro-management. DC is like “pfft what? That’s silly, everything’s totes chill over here, everything’s under control".
FURTHER UPDATE!
Men Of War #7 will contain not one but TWO separate fill-in stories, by James Robinson and HEROIC MAN OF THE HOUR J.T. Krul!

UPDATE!
Ron Marz’ script for Voodoo #5, as accepted, paid for, and solicited, will now not be used; Marz has been replaced on the series by some dude who writes a video-game adaptation comic.
Marz has no idea what DC wanted differently, having only a 10-minute conversation with the editor about his boning, but the editor had also quit and was leaving the next day, so probably didn’t a) know or b) give a shit.

UPDATE!
DC announce Paul Jenkins as fill-in-writer on Stormwatch #7 and #8.
FURTHER UPDATE!
Regular Paul Cornell allows that, actually, he’s walked off the book altogether.
HEY KIDS! Follow the ending of Stormwatch #6 in upcoming issues of Grifter and Voodoo! And don’t forget that Cornell’s Demon Knights is actually Ancient Stormwatch – you can’t afford to miss an issue!

There was way more of this by the way, but somewhere along the way, the will to track it seeped completely out of my fingertips.

way

Bridwell would be proud.

holy waht

that is an implosion of epic proportions

also stop making me want to buy Hawk and Dove

There was a piece about it on CBR the other day. 21% of art teams and 17% of creative teams as a whole have changed by the end of month 4.

Mystery Hooded Woman has been revealed to be called Pandora. I'm hoping beyond hope she turns out to be the unused Len Wein/Ross Andru 1981 creation Pandora Parr. I'm not holding my breath.

I kind of hope she's a mysterious link to the old universe and they will magically revert all the series that aren't selling well or have shitty creative teams

Batman #4: This is maybe the most prosaic issue of this book to date, but that's OK because it's quite nice not to be so thrill-powered for a change. We get a lot of dialogue about Young Bruce and some family history leading to BIFF! BANG! POW! Another great cliffhanger! Best BatBook of the bunch.

Birds of Prey #4: Eh? So knocking people out solves the walking bomb problems and handily resolves the DINAH MUST DIE! cliffhanger from the last issue. But it also makes her entirely redundant as a character as the plot is resolved without her and told to her in flashback. Anyway, the people blowing up thing is supposedly because of a new experimental anti-stroke drug (here's a hint, I suspect most stroke victims would rather have had the stroke than ended up spread across the tarmac and taken to the morgue in a couple of carrier bags) which is cured by new Doctor McHandsome. We end back up in the lair of the invisible robots (and Doctor McHandsome's handy new Invisible Robot Uninvisibling Machine) where they show off their new power of teleporting people (although they're not that good at it because Batgirl goes missing - someone more cynical might suggest this is just a normal DC art error though). Maybe somebody new will join next month? Maybe somebody else will read it next month?

Blue Beetle #4: Hooray! The crap villain from last month's reveal is just as crap as I thought he'd be! More sterotypical hispanic nonsense with marginal plot advancement (but maybe that's fine after last month's revelations about the baddie), although Jaime is more in control of the suit... until it skewers his best mate at the very end. Oops. Maybe it's got some magic make-better rays that haven't been shown yet.

Captain Atom #4: Find a copy of Watchmen. Read the Doctor Manhattan sections. It obviously must have been massively influenced by this issue then taken back in time by Rip Hunter or Booster Gold or somebody. I mean, what are the chances that two people could write something so similar? Even bits of the art are the same. I don't know who this Moore fellow is, but he's clearly a nobody compared to the giant of comics that is JT Krul. The villain for the next issue appears to have been a huge influence on Krang from the TMNT animated show (and taken back in time by Rip Hunter/Booster Gold etc). Hoo boy.

Catwoman #4: Mmm. Winicky. Selina meets an old friend, lots of people talk to each other, I still hate the art. This looks like the most unsurvivable cliffhanger in the who Johnsiverse thus far, and it's got some competition (Static Shock having his arm cut off, for one). This could be a really good book, but it just... isn't. Maybe it can pick it up, I don't know.

DC Presents #4: The 90s are back! Back! Back! This is like a third or fourth tier Vertigo book from the very early days (like Vamps or something like that) in an OOOOOOOOOH MYSTICAL SPOOKINESS LOOK THE PICTURE IS STRETCHED way. I just wish this Deadman story would be over, because it's not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. Actually, I did think it was over last month. Apparently not, and there is at least one to go. Wonderful.

Green Lantern Corps #4: OK, this is just stupid. We start off with a Lantern getting a mind-sword through the head JUST BECAUSE. It turns out the swords are a green, glowing, transparent sort of a thing keyed to individual people "just like your rings". ENOUGH HINTS YET? The captive Lanterns are walked across the Emerald Plains where there are hundreds of Lantern shaped indents. GOT IT FINALLY? Jonn Jonn'z turns up eventually and after slagging Guy Gardner off for not saving Mars interrogates the captive bad guy from the last issue. It turns out (DUH!) that they were the people who used to look after the power batteries before the Guardians were dicks about it, and are now just annoyed enough about it to commit genocide on random planets. Or something. They also patently did it on a planet that has the same atmosphere as every other planet in the universe simultaneously, as a pile of Lanterns manage to survive on it with completely exhausted rings (and therefore no life support system). Lantern Tongue has become Lantern Tail in the course of an issue. I just don't know what to think any more, it's like my whole life's fallen apart.

Justice League #4: CHOOOOOOOMM One of the worst kept secrets in the Johnsiverse comes to pass as Darkseid turns up. And this is a pretty good book outside of this, even if the majority of the fun elsewhere is laughing at Hal Jordan. Even Aquaman gets in on the act, and you've got to be pretty shit for him to take the piss out of you. I could almost get to like Cyborg out of this. There, I said it. I'll leave the last word to Aquaman's Amazing Parademon-Eathing Non-pathetic Sharks - OM NOM NOM.

Legion of Super Heroes #4: A thrilling end to the Dominators storyline, though it does sort of come out of nowhere. One minute Cham is wondering how to signal the Legion, a couple of pages later they just turn up. As a special Brucie Bonus, Braniac works out how Glorith's powers work. What's not to like?

Nightwing #4: Dick's conquest from last month gets all huffy when Babs Gordon turns up, with her big city hair and her big city clothes and her big city acrobatic abilities. They defeat Spinebender by electrifying him until he turns into glass (give me a break, I didn't write it). There's lots of rooftops and ropes and everything else that makes Batbooks good and this is definitely a solid enough title - just not a very popular one and might not be unique enough to survive future line-slashing by DiDio. A mysterious book turns up in the end, bringing the total for the Johnsiverse to about 6. This might be becoming A Thing.

Red Hood #4: This genuinely is just getting better and better. Starfire gets some character development and then mistakenly flies into the giant green glowing ring that couldn't be more obvious not to fly through if it had a giant sign marked DO NOT FLY INTO THIS GIANT GREEN GLOWING RING on it. Jason and Roy try to put the moves on girls in a bar and end up fighting a Bewbs Cop Alium with half a head (after Roy shot arrows through it). In his defence, I don't think he knew she was a alium before he shot her. I can't explain how I got to like this as much as I do. It's just FUN. Remember that, kids?

Supergirl #4: In contrast, Supergirl gets objectively worse. It's not awful, but it just doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Supergirl escapes and the bad guy is almost killed but gets saved with the technology of the bad guy from a couple of issues ago and not like Cyborg or somebody like that, honest. This needs to start improving.

Wonder Woman #4: This is more like it. Diana, Hermes and Zola go to an awesome metal show in London. Fortunately they do not pass go and go directly to Chaki's bed to wait for him, but have a squabble instead. Apollo and Ares plot something very carefully - so carefully that Ares is accused of being Greek's Obtusest God. Hera visits Hippolyta to have it out with her over Zeus shagging her (although why she isn't having the conversation with him or, say, Leda isn't mentioned) and ends up forgiving her by turning her into a statue and all her friends into snakes. Given that it looked like they were going to lez up at one point, it's a disappointing ending for all parties to be honest - but at least Azzarello is taking us back in the horror direction he promised.

All-Star Western #4: Just when you thought he was leaving, Amadeus Arkham is back after all and pair go off looking for a missing kid (although Jonah almost certainly hasn't told him about the money) but how can this be bad? It's a detective comic set in Gotham City. It ends with Jonah taunted for not being Superman by a guy possibly uglier than him. The new backup is a brand new character, The Barbary Ghost, and is about as good as the EL Diablo one was previously i.e. not that hot. I hate how few people buy this, but hats off to DC for sticking with it.

Aquaman #4: This just in: Aquaman is still a dick. He kills an entire species (the one that all 4 issues of the Johnsiverse series have been about) because he can't speak to them with his mind control powers thing - although to be fair they are trying to eat him at the time. He then gets a dog. That can't swim. Jeez, I would have felt irresponsible if I got a dog and had to leave it in the house while I went to work. Still, Geoff Johns is going to tell us who sank Atlantis soon. That'll bring in the readers, huh?

Batman The Dark Knight #4: In which Batman explains to Wonder Woman that Flash is outrunning some poison, then has a nice ice cream. Alfred has a crying wank about the woman in the rabbit suit from the last issue, Bruce stands up the pretty girl from previous months and Deathstroke chops the batplane in half before the Scarecrow shows up (and is possibly revealed as the guy who's been making violent people violent) and quotes Neil Gaiman. Yes, I'm aware of how stupid that all looks but it's a really good read. Honest. You can trust this face.

Blackhawks #4: Is this sort of going anywhere? The past issues have made so little impression the plot read as follows: somebody I don't recognise has stolen something I don't recognise and fights him after being given a knife by somebody I don't recognise. She then hits him with a plane and is congratulated by somebody I don't recognise. In the mean time two people I don't recognise hit someone I don't recognise with a toolbox and steal a different plane which flies off into space. I'm sure they'll all be back next month and I won't know who they are then either.

Flash #4: This is still as gorgeous to look at as ever, and the plot seems to be racing towards a conclusion. We even have enough time for a flashback (no pun intended) to Barry's mum, reminding us that BARRY ALLEN IS TO BLAME FOR THE WHOLE DAMN JOHNSIVERSE IN THE FIRST PLACE. It turns out Barry is not faster than a speeding bullet, but his brain is. We find out why there seemed to be so many Manuels in previous issues. Iris smashes some ice. Are all my favourite comics secretly retarded when you actually explain them?

Green Lantern New Guardians #4: Speaking of which (and I don't mean favourite comics)... it turns out Larfleeze is so obviously confident because he has a pet Guardian, who may turn out to be female based on the descriptions. And a bit pervy, as she tries to fight all the other Guardians by attacking them with anal love beads while saying she's going to spit roast them. Kyle decides Ganthet, who he only met the other day but is "like a father" to him, isn't for him and decides to betray him and hang out with the cool kids like Bleez (who obviously doesn't share the sentiment as she buggers off as soon as she can), Arkillo and Munk. He's so clever.

I, Vampire #4: Absolutely beautiful, as ever. This is a really nice, almost self-contained story although Constantine's presence in it is utterly redundant. It does raise the question though of how all this vampiring has been going on in the mainstream Johnsiverse without the Justice League or, at a pinch, Static Shock getting involved and killing them. Still, this and Batwoman might be worth springing for oversized collections of in the future just to revel in them.

Justice League Dark #4: Is this Watchmen month? Dawn comes into her apartment and meets a sinister man in a trenchcoat eating cold baked beans directly from the tin. Anyway, all the sub-threads of this seems to be coming together and the team should actually form next issue, but I think we might also see another lover's tiff as Deadman's still trying to get into June Moon's pants and maybe Shade will have a crack at Zatanna while he's at it. I do like this, but I'm not sure why.

Superman #4: The villain is revealed; IT WAS SUPERMAN ALL ALONG! Presumably it was the other Superman that we see briefly while Clark is on the phone to Lois. Anyway, aside from the cop-out ending this is still far too wordy - although it's been cut back so at least you can see some of the art this time round. Really, this is just boring nonsense.

Teen Titans #4: The two halves of the team finally get together, although quite how the random street in the snow from last month gets you into a penthouse flat I have no idea (and to his credit, Scott Lobdell says he has no idea how it happened either). Wonder Girl and Superboy have a slugfest in Times Square (meaning we now have Gotham, Metropolis and New York in the Johnsiverse) and then everybody else turns up to join in. Kid Flash is still the best thing in it.

Firestorm #4: Wait, what? Qurac is back! It is the 80s after all! And now they have nuculer weapons! And now Russia has a Firestorm as well we can have a Cold War! Can we please get back to normal?

Hawkman #4: On page three of this there is a green woman who flies with blobs on her feet and talks through her arse. Is it just bad art? Probably, but nothing would surprise me any more. A complete mess, again.

Voodoo #4: Inconsequential stuff, as Voodoo breaks into a top secret faciltity (possibly to find out about Superman) then breaks back out again. She changes shape an awful lot of times including at the last into a dog. That's about as much as you need to know, frankly. Glad I'm not paying for it.

I don't know, the idea of the Daemonite/Kherubim war co-opting some of the mainstream DC heroes is kind of enthralling to me

I was never a Wildstorm kid, I guess.

I never cared about the Daemonites/Kherubim until now, lol!

I was always about Stormwatch/The Authority but the relaunch has been actively repellent to me.

...what exactly is the Johnsiverse for the purpose of this discussion?

the DC Universe

Wait, does the Johnsiverse extend to say...DARKEST NIGHT as well? This is an important hair to split.

dym Blackest Night? if so I would split the hair into proto-Johnsiverse, as Aldo is using it (since all his GL stuff is apparently still in continuity).

although I think Johnsiverse is unfair - I find his entire ouevre repellent, but get the impression that he genuinely does have a good grasp on broad-range plotting and making bits of continuity fit together in a coherent enough manner, if you like his style. if he and Morrison had been able to draw up a forward plan for the reboot, it could well have made sense; instead, the Didioverse/Leeiverse/Nelsoniverse plainly would have struggled to be fucked up any worse if they'd aimed to do so from the start.

That Batman bit with the owls is going pretty well, imo

I feel like a dork for saying so, even in this context, but Superman's new costume is still creeping me out.

All the titles I'm reading out of the reboot now feel like they're moving too slowly, but maybe for ACTION and HEX. I suspect I'm not cut out to read serials anymore.

NEW YEAR! SAME SHIT!

(btw I use Johnsiverse because it's post-Flashpoint universe, which implies the concepts and what's in/what's out is his doing - or else we have to assume somebody else came up with the resolution for Flashpoint and he was just writing to order, which you would have thought might have been credited somewhere.)

Action Comics #5: GMoz fails to disappoint once more, but you know what? This all feels a bit unnecessary. Nothing is substantially different in the origin to John Byrne's established continuity (apart from the Kents being younger, I guess) and the BRAND NEW GMOZ BAD GUYS are kind of GMoz by numbers. I would reckon we will continue to get a couple of pages of this plot every issue until a 6 part CONCLUDING EPIC YOU SHOULD NOT MISS. After the unrestrained 60s joy of ASS this seems to be treading water, but since it's better written than 90% of the other books out there I can put up with it. Scholly Fisch's bank balance says thanks for another utterly redundant backup script though.

Animal Man #5: Boo Hiss Cliff is not dead. I was really hoping he was going to be. Ellen gets her nose cleaned by a tentacle, the talking cat turns out to be a complete twat and Maxine fucks up SPECTACULARLY. This book is absolutely revelling in being allowed to be a horror book (pushing the envelope about as far as post-code, pre-Vertigo SoST ever went) and to be honest makes a mockery of Vertigo being considered the adult arm of DC's publishing. I'm still not in love with the art, but the more out-there the imagery gets the better it suits it which makes it a good job Jeff Lemire is taking it that way.

Detective Comics #5: Two separate but linked stories in this issue, the first of which is the one contributing to the main storyline. But as Matt identifies above, the pace of this is pretty slow appears not to be going anywhere. It clearly is - and the Penguin reveal would have been excellent had it not been spoiled on the cover - and in a way the speed of it after so many of the titles raced through trying to set up continuity it's kind of refreshing. Solid stuff.

OMAC #5: Is this just a big fight scene? Yes. It is enormous fun? Yes. It even admits as much itself, with Brother Eye teleporting OMAC out because he's getting bored. Careful with that arm, Frankenstein! The Eye/SHADE rivalry is kind of interesting, even if it does appear that the whoel thing might instead be part of (or will become) part of Darkseid's plan. You know what I took away most from this though? That if Frankenstein's own book is BPRD, when you put him in another book to punch the crap out of someone else he becomes a cut-price Hellboy instead. Now just maybe, with Hellboy dead, there's room for another one; but I'm not so sure there's a need for one.

Red Lanterns #5: Peter Milligan, you are British. There is, therefore, no excuse for the last four pages of this. Not a single one. THAT IS NOT BRITAIN. As if that wasn't enough, the book itself has entirely lost its direction, and just rehashing the stuff it's done already in the run. Blah blah RRRRRAAAAARGH blah blah. The goat, the brane and the rubber ball are all now clever, as if you care. I'm not paying for this any more.

Stormwatch #5: ? There are no words. I might have paid for one too many of these. Half of this is kind of entertaining, the other half pointless except to set up the biggest continuity event yet in the Johnsiverse. And possibly finish this book off. Oh well.

Swamp Thing #5: This is the ideal companion book to Animal Man, mainly because it takes all the good bits from that and makes them better - and then has none of the bad bits either. I'm going to stick my neck out and say this might be as good as American Gothic i.e. possibly the best run of all time on Swamp Thing. There are certainly elements of it pandering to old fans, but come on - reanimated pigs being choked to death with roots?How can you not love it? "Why the peaches?" "They're your favourite Abby... I remember you told me." Book of the week.

you know the effect of this may be to make me start reading comics again, which probably is not yr aim

effect of this is that i'm torrenting comics again

yes well. 'reading'

man, peter milligan is really phoning it in these days

also, justice league dark gives you enough context to work out who constantine, zatanna are, almost does so with deadman, totally fails to explain 'enchantress' and 'madame xanadu'

also enchantress is drawn to look like a corpse except for her rack, which is miraculously preserved

time to stop reading comics again, that did not last long

But if she didn't have such a great rack then Deadman wouldn't want to fuck her then there would be no romantic tension in Rob Liefeld's Hawk & Dove!

Maybe I should stop reading comics now...

i was wondering why the dove in JLD didn't square with the one i remembered and then i realised i was actually thinking of marvel's 'cloak and dagger'

superhero duos who did not need to exist i. hawk and dove ii. cloak and dagger

I thought Abby liked limes.

Yes, I'm totally serious.

Haven't read #5, but ST is just not giving me enough each issue to really justify it any longer. I'm supposed to care that this little boy is the Avatar of All That Is Bad, but it's just not scary in the least (which at least American Gothic succeeded in).

The Abby thing is from SoST 23-24 I think?

I can see why people don't like it, maybe I'm poisoned by the last run on the book.

I actually liked Dysart's run on the book, but I'm in the vast, screaming minority on it.

Pretty sure the limes thing is from whenever Swampy and Abby consummated their relationship, which means the "Rites of Spring" storyline, whatever issues those were.

I think that's where limes come from (#29?) but I'm positive she talks about peaches while she's working in the children's home that becomes the Monkey King - "Selina has already decided she doesn't want the lawn chairs" is the standout line, obviously.

lime/consummation = #34

wow, it took a long time to work out what you were talking about there

haha, personal shorthand. I'm not even posting from a phone, which is what brief gibberish can usually be attributed to around here.

THINGS I DON'T CARE ENOUGH ABOUT TO BUY UPDATE

Batwing #5: OOOH, gender conflict. Truly, it is BECAUSE OF THE WANG. And then lol at people who have no idea about African geography, politics, geo-politics or in fact anything outside their own continent. Seriously, what does Egypt matter to any Africans who aren't from Egypt? Without these two utter wtf parts the rest of the book is actually pretty good, but indebted to GMoz' Batman Inc in more than just the origin of the hero, more in the overall faceless bad-guy-terrorist-organisation-The-Base level. I just don't get why anybody would buy this, which is probably explained by the sales levels.

Green Arrow #5: So the bad guy from a couple of issues ago has now become unbelievably stupid and wants to undo everything from those episodes (presumably because he doesn't remember it). Plus he sees Ollie walking off-page as a civvy and coming back onpage as GA and makes no connection. That was the most intelligent thing written either in this issue or in connection to it. Mid-80s fourth rate crap hero book, nothing more.

Hawk & Dove #5: ROB LIEFELD TAKES OVER! THE FUTURE STARTS HERE! But wait, Rob needs help. So who does he bring in? MARAT FUCKING MICHAELS. Sub-porno shitty Avatar standby of the first water. But seriously, page 10 is maybe the most ridiculous page in a mainstream bok maybe EVER. Dawn's "normal clothes" are a good start, and the levitating foot is a stroke of genius, but kicking down the chimney is laugh-out-loud hysterical. And that is better than the following 10 pages. Reading this shot is barely tolerable any more. Anyway, Dawn and Deadman have split up which fucks up the continuity (and a huge chunk of plot) in two other ongoing books which in <6 months is a pretty spectacular collapse. Nearly as good as changing 20% of your staff.

JLI #5: "She puts the diva in Godiva." That is genuinely the best thing about this book, and even that doesn't work in terms of pronunciation. 'dEEva' vs 'godEYEva'. Anyway, this is all about INTERNAL TENSION. Vixen vs Batman = optimist vs pessimist. Booster and Guy Gardner fighting for who's the best. Me fighting the bile rising as I read this bollocks. Booster and Godiva are fucking right now, off page. That's a comforting though, isn't it?

Men of War #5: YES, YES THAT'S TRUE. BEING FROM ONE OF THE QUARTERS OF NEW YORK MAKES YOU NATURALLY BETTER THAN A RESSURECTED HERO OF WATERLOO.Gung-ho is one thing, this is something else. The backup story is maybe even worse, a cross between a Brangelina action film and an overly romanticised pair of Cold War soldiers. In a week of shit 'shit books' this is maybe the worst.

Static Shock #5: Last issue cliffhanger dealt with in two pages. Check. Multiple references to Wildstorm property. Check. New character introduced in lieu of plot. Check. Racist NOT RACIST REALLY language. Check. Implication everybody who is not in this book is racist? Check. Dreadful comic? Check.

You know, I might be conflating the ST peach thing with the one near to the end of Moore's run (proving Alec is back after Gotham?) when a room gets filled with peach blossom.

Peter Milligan, you are British.

So I hear.

There is, therefore, no excuse for the last four pages of this.

What's on them?

Not a single one. THAT IS NOT BRITAIN.

What isn't?

As if that wasn't enough,

What wasn't?

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

So do you think the whole "new 52" exercise is already starting to lose it's momentum?

it never had any, they started out running late with no coherent creative vision of the reboot, and by four months in are running multi-title crossovers between Wildstorm titles

given that and the creators hired, Didio's grand vision appears to be "be 90s Image" without the lateness

dude wonderwoman blows

OK, the Pete Milligan thing is a scene where a guy gets pulled out of an American house with an American car outside of it, by three cops in American unifroms driving an American car and then beaten to death with American clubs in the street in front of his brother (who then becomes a Red Lantern. It's set, for no apparent reason in "Little Ockdon, United Kingdom". Which doesn't exist - closest match I can find is Little Ockenden, which is in Essex. And if you want to know what that's like... start googling "The Only Way Is Essex" or TOWIE and prepare to be amazed.

Best case is that it's all the artist and Pete Milligan never bothered to collaborate with him at all, or didn't care to correct where he didn't understand what he was being told to draw - worst case is that Milligan wrote it that way. So why the random location?

by four months in are running multi-title crossovers between Wildstorm titles

New board description.

Best case is that it's all the artist and Pete Milligan never bothered to collaborate with him at all, or didn't care to correct where he didn't understand what he was being told to draw

dude, loooooool at the idea that Milligan gets to see a copy of the art before it's printed, let alone that on the running-late-from-the-start nu52 deadlines that any editor would have time to ask for corrections. not that DC have seemed to have editors capable of seeking corrections at all, generally, in the last 15 years.

IIRC the John Smith issue of Hellblazer had American cop cars in it? And check out the Sydney Opera House in DC's Invasion! mini someday.

hawk&dove = classic when done by ditko (just the other day i saw in forbidden planet a nice new hardback collecting all the ditko H&Ds - retail price = £45!!)

btw is it just me or was Mr Bones not rhyming at all? I know Johnson and Williams hid them in Chase, but I didn't spot a sneaky rhyme scheme in this.

― robocop last year was a 'shop (sic), Sunday, 18 September 2011 21:38 (3 months ago)

now we've got an extended scene of him in Batwomang #5, and maybe I'm looking too much for a rhythm to clue off of, but I can't pick any consistent rhyming.

China Mieville to write a new title based on existing property

Not sure how I feel about that

Never heard of China Mieville, who is she?

oh that is just perfection

I feel so proud, I don't think I've ever said anything that resulted in a Tuomas question before.

he was supposed to be doing Swamp Thing at one point wasn't he?

oh right, it's Dial H for Hero. With Brian Bolland tho

where did you get that from, i'm curious about this idea / can't work out what kind of dc property i'd want to see him write

xpost oh. what the hell is that

Dial H = 60s DC series, revivied in the 80s. Every issue a teenage boy would use his magical phone to transform into a different superhero that had been designed/suggested by the readers. It was balls.

Is Bolland actually going to be drawing a comic strip again? And if so, what's the publication schedule?

Just going by google
http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/story/2012-01-12/dc-comics-unveils-six-new-series/52504982/1

that does not sound like something i can imagine wanting to see a mieville version of, though i don't know what would be. new gods, maybe.

The irony is so delicious as to be borderline toxic.

I can't imagine having much interest in this, though I do wonder what Mr. Miéville will do without towering edifices of prose.

He wrote/drew his own web comic on his tumblr site, although it's a single panel per installment and was short-lived: http://chinamieville.net/tagged/London_intrusion

BTW, Mr. Bolland isn't doing interiors, just covers.

And I remember seeing a few of his comics and not being particularly struck by any of them.

first cancellations announced, all ending with issue 8 (leaving the final two out of the already announced collections - way to go DC!):

BLACKHAWKS, HAWK AND DOVE, MEN OF WAR, MISTER TERRIFIC, O.M.A.C. and STATIC SHOCK

sad to see O.M.A.C. go, if only for the art.

Batgirl #5: This feels like it does less, but achieves more than any of the previous issues. The cliffhanger last time about Babs' mum is almost thrown away as they have a coffee together and Babs tells her she's not that interested (although it'll undoubtedly come back to the plot as she's moving to Gotham - HELLO SOAP OPERA!). Anyway, this new plot deals with a character called Gretel who, to be honest is a bit hackneyed - she has some kind of mind control gun which makes people violent, but she seems to be doing it to complain about Bruce buying a building to do urban renewal. Which makes this probably the least likely campaign against the gentrification of New York since Alex in NYC kept on going round CBGBs taking photos of his kids in front of it. Still, we find out that Babs' recovery from being crippled was down to some 'neural implant surgery' which probably means it was down to Bruce, following Mister Terrific's plans, or something. It ends with Bruce attacking Batgirl with a crowbar under Gretel's power, which presumably means he isn't because I'm not having it that he isn't so much better than her at fighting that he wouldn't win in the first few seconds. But, you know, let's keep up the pretence so we're still excited next month.

Batman & Robin #5: I really wish this was better. Bruce and Alfred find out what we knew last month about Damien going off with the bad guy, then Bruce tells us a lot about him without actually telling us anything. Still, we get to a climax with Robin pointing a gun at the head of a slave trader. Let's see them go another month without advancing this after that.

Batwoman #5: Beautiful as ever, but the writing here feels a bit rushed in order to get the Weeping Woman stuff out of the way and have Bones give Kate the same gig as she should be on. Maybe I've been giving the writing too much of a free pass becasue of how this looks. I mean, if it's been building to this reveal of YET ANOTHER global crime operation running out of Gotham, doesn't this suggest Batman isn't really that effective? Not that I'd say it to his face, but maybe he should stick to shaking down petty thugs after people's fur coats after all. At least he seems able to cope with that.

Demon Knights #5: After last month's trip into GMoz territory this is far simpler but no less fun. The shooting of last week was just to cause pain and teach Exoristos, who in turn is revealed as a precursor to Wonder Woman (and who, secretly, I hope she turns out to be - continuity be damned). Merlin, Mordred and Morgaine all turn up as ghosts to push up the Arthurian content then BAM! Vandal Savage reveals his true colours and people get attcked by a giant stone rhinocerous. I'll just repeat that. A GIANT STONE RHINOCEROUS. You don't get that in your X-Mans now, do you? Eh?

Frankenstein #5: This tells the same story as OMAC#5, yet it's not the one being cancelled. GET BETTER STANDARDS, DC READERS. Still, Ray Palmer becomes The Atom (kind of) and Frankie is clearly going too shag Not Abe Sapien, despite the fact he's married. OOH, CONTROVERSIAL. Why can't this get cut instead?

Legion Lost #5: A fantastic cop-out ending as the bad guy gets shown he's actually done the right thing after all and the plague he was bringing is the next stage of human development to take us to THE FUTURE i.e. Legion-era proper. Then the Martian Manhunter talks up and gives one of those introductions where his name appears in a fancy font like it does on the cover of his own book when he speaks it - except of course he doesn't have his own book so this is the first time anybody sees it, and by G_d it's hideous. On the other hand, SPROCKING HELL, Gates is back! That's worth celebrating, isn't it? We were all supposed to thing he died a couple of issues back. Take your plusses where you find them, I say. Other wise you end up in Sadface territory, mark my words.

Suicide Squad #5: Floyd shoots lots of people, Diablo burns lots of other, King Shark has a light snack that JUST MIGHT extend his sentence. Oops. Amanda Waller has a conversation with her husband that rips off the guy in the power station in The Hand Of Fear, but since that's one of my favourite things ever I don't really care. She's then an absolute bitch to Floyd, mainly because she needs him to go straight back out on the road - it turns out Harley Quinn is much cleverer than she is and set up the whole thing. This undoubtedly links back into her being told the Joker was dead last time round, but it's hard to see how the Squad can do what they do and her remain alive which is kind of a limiting plot as far as the DCU is concerned. Never mind, this is still one of the highlight books of the Johnsiverse and commended to all of you.

Deathstroke #5: I should love a comic where somebody throws a nuclear submarine at somebody else, right? So why do I hate this? Well, first off they get to the aforementioned submarine throwing appropos of nothing. The thrower turns up on Page 16, then 17-18 and 19-20 are splash pages. Does that seem lazy? The rest is Deathstroke wandering round being GRUFF AND MANLY talking to himself, when he's not criticising trainees. He has an ice bath to show he's old and it's very nearly the most exciting thing that happens. A travesty.

Green Lantern #5: All you need to know about this is that Sinestro decomissions his giant yellow lantern, which means the Sinestro Lanterns don't exist any more. Presumably including the one that's currently in the Kyle Rayner book, but I'm betting not given we have such on-the-ball, continuity-monitoring editors and editors-in-chief. Sinestro them dumps Hal on Earth and lets him keep his ring but doesn't give him a lantern to charge it. Hal has a bit of a rage about it (unfortunately for him he's not sufficiently upset that the Red Lantern recruiting beacon which turns somebody on Earth into one at the same time wasn't looking at him, or maybe he just wasn't RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH enough) then has a bit of a snog with Carol. For the finale we cut to the Guardians who, in YET ANOTHER UTTERLY DICK MOVE decide they're going to create another army to replace the GLC. Because they Manhunters were such a success at that, obviously. Aw, little blue guys. Will you never learn?

Grifter #5: You know what this reminds me of? An Avatar book, designed to show off the talents of an artist who isn't really all that good. I couldn't care less about the blue ghosty things or the black curate, whoever that is, to be honest. Page 10 typifies what's wrong with the writing on this: Grifter shoots an alium on the last panel of P9 - in panel one he gloats and shouts about it bare-faced and wearing a jacket - in panel two it is shown he's surrounded by them only with the closest only about two feet away and they all spot him, he still is barefaced and wearing a jacket - in panel three he draws a gun out from his underpants, still wearing the jacket - in panel four he puts on his mask, while not wearing the jacket, and with both hands free - in panel five he takes the jacket off - in the first panel of the next page he's firing guns with both hands. HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? I thought about saying Rob Liefeld isn't that incompetent, but he clearly is so that isn't a very good example. Any halfway decent artist isn't that incompetent. Does that work? This is an absolute chore to read and is arguably worse than Hawk & Dove. There, I said it.

Mister Terrific #5: Michael thinks his way out of the fight by setting everybody else free, then gets sadfaced about slavery in front of a picture of a panel which implies the 19th C slave traders used to throw their captives overboard in massive numbers for shits & giggles, which of course would have made complete economic sense... he then tries to draw a parallel between being black and being a hermaphrodite... who then blows up a spaceship with a blast of pure hermaphroditism. He then steps through a blue wibbly think and ends up in his lab, having been upstaged in his own book by every other character for the second month on the bounce. The end of this will be a mercy killing, but it's possibly more amazing this ever got the green light in the first place.

Resurrection Man #5: So, last issue's cliffhanger is resolved in that he only got hit so hard so he won't resurrect "on Earth". So how does an angel fix that? She gets on her mobile phone to Heaven and asks them to look for Mitch when he gets admitted to Heaven Hospital. Obviously. Deathstroke shows up and kills some people and a speech bubble saves a REALLY weird piece of art where a woman's arm shrinks by about 50% (and don't try and claim it's perspective, please). The script actually draws attention to it, although it's actually talking about a different character whose arm has ACTUALLY gone. THIS ALL SEEMS TO BE A FLASHBACK TO BEFORE THE BOOK STARTED. Maybe. It turns out in the end that the angel fucked up. So much for infallibility.

Superboy #5: Hmm. It is "impossible" for a superhuman (or a robot mimicking a superhuman) to lift three tons. Which isn't much heavier than most American cars. Do writers read anything these days? This also features a man turns into shadow dogs when he's annoyed, Superboy being Not Magneto and some bedroom antics. OK, that last one is a bit of a blind - some bad guys turn up in Superboy's room and call him names. I want to love this, but this is the most Wildstorm book in the Johnsiverse and I have no affection or nostalgia for it. A shame.

UPDATE!
Hawk & Dove cancelled two issues after Rob Liefeld made writer & artist, before a single one of his authorial issues ships.
FURTHER UPDATE!
Kyle Higgins and Joe Bennett fired off Deathstroke, to be replaced by writer/artist Rob Liefeld!
Artist-turned-writer Tony Daniel fired off The Savage Hawkman, to be replaced by artist-turned-writer Rob Liefeld!
One of (if not the) the only new-to-DC writers on The Nu52, Nathan Edmondson, fired off Grifter, to be replaced with 24-year-DC-veteran-without-ever-showing-one-iota-of-skill-development, Rob Liefeld.

I love that the answer to a Liefield comic being cancelled for low sales is more Liefeld. Maybe they want those other three to die too.

http://i1.cdnds.net/12/02/618x940/comics_deathstroke_rob_liefeld.jpg

There are claims online this is an X-Force cover of Cable which has been tracecd and re-drawn.

I like how he incorporated a life jacket into the outfit. Those are nice and soft looking shoulder whatever they ares.

Liefeld, still drawing shoulder pads on comic characters in 2012. You've got to love it.

DC2012 = Marvel 1992?

Only without the foil embossed covers.

YET

DC2012 = Marvel 1992?

given that and the creators hired, Didio's grand vision appears to be "be 90s Image" without the lateness

― Θ ̨Θƪ (sic), Monday, 9 January 2012 16:25 (1 week ago)

Batman #5: Umm. Wow. This is one of the best Batbooks of all time. There are undoubtedly times when people could compare it to GMoz's Batman of Zur-en-arrh, and I'm sure there have been some superb 'trapped Batman gets a bit deranged' stories in the past, but this is never less than brilliant. The raggedy Batman's disorientation leaps off the page, abetted by some good old-fashioned creative pagination, but the payoff has to be a hallucination, right? RIGHT? Why isn't it time for the next issue yet? This is how reading comics is supposed to feel.

DCU Presents Deadman #5: Is it wrong to be glad this is over and we'll (hopefully) get a better story next time round? This is basically a monologue about OOOH MYSTIC AAAH DO YOU SEE with the odd interjection from someone who wants to be a God but isn't up to the job yet. And a largely pointless fight at the end with weird observations from strangers - "Hey! I know that guy! We swapped spit!" might just be the standout. I guess there's an argument which says this is about 30 issues of Cerebus condensed to 20 pages but I'd rather read Dave Sim any day. Not great, but it's the Challs up next. Unfortunately it's written by Dan DiDio. Ho hum.

LoSH #5: After the conclusion of the plot in the last issue we get the semi-traditional 'look at the Legion in downtime' issue where nothing happens and we see personal lives. I don't mind these at all, but is issue 5 not maybe a bit early for one in the run of a series? Oh well. I know I always say 'for the fans' but it's more true than ever this month. NOT FOR YOU.

Nightwing #5: SPOOKYTIMES AT THE CIRCUS. The book we found last time maybe has something to do with demons and shit. This is not the direction I expected the book to go in. For me, this is not a good thing although I can live with it. Part of me wants it to go down the 9PM ON FOX route of it just being about a travelling circus where one of them dresses up to fight crime and fuck a hot chick off camera every week. I would read the shit out of that book. Someone should write it. Maybe I will.

Supergirl #5: Plot, plot and more plot. We get the background story that explains all the Superman stuff from the first couple of issues and we find out just about everything we needto know about Kara. Despite the stuff with Reign at the end this is pretty much all filler no thriller - I guess it's inevitable when you're setting up a new universe you have to explain things eventually, it just feels like this book is doing all the backstory first which instinctively seems wrong. It's still better than most of the Johnsiverse output at the end of the day though.

Wonder Woman #5: The first thing you need to know about this book is that Poseidon is now living in the River Thames. Actually, that's pretty much all you need to know. A giant talking fish and some mer-horses. Throw in a cameo fron Cerberus and you've pretty much got everything you could want. Marvellous. Is it wrong to want Lennox to the one from Animal Man rather than Constantine-lite?

Birds of Prey #5: Now with added lesbians! So it turns out the events of the previous issues may not now have happened, or if they did then everybody's forgotten about them. In fact, everybody seems to have amnesia in this, and Black Canary may have set up Starling but it'll probably turn out she didn't and it was all set up by our mystery exploding bad guys and nobody will remember anyway so they'll all go for a cup of coffee and a muffin and talk about guys they fancy but are out of their league and the latest ways to accessorise a cape with sexy crime-fighting boots. I think I like the bad books more than the good books these days.

Blue Beetle #5: A summary. The hero gives his best mate a beetle robot to make him better after trying to kill him last month, which turns him into Darth Maul at the end of the issue. The bad woman reveals herself as the bad woman, while simultaneously offending any Indians reading (Did you know they routinely blind orphans in ritualised ceremonies? Neither did I.) and almost but doesn't quite capture our hero. Meanwhile in space, the Older Than The Lanterns good/bad guys who own the scarab forget what they're supposed to be doing because they're going to fight a space elephant in Green Lantern New Guardians #10. Two issues after this title has been cancelled. You couldn't make it up. Although Tony Bedard obviously did.

Captain Atom #5: The good Captain has a dream, which he discusses at length with a terrapin. Then "some kind of organic bile" surrounds a diner. How do you fight organic bile? WITH ATOMS. Unfortunately it has weird mouth/arm things which are better than atoms, it seems according to the final panel. JT Krul gets paid for this, you know.

Catwoman #5: Judd Wimick does not understand physics. Falling half a mile out of the sky then stopping in a matter of feet is going to hurt more than dislocating your shoulder. And I'm not quite convinced it gives you the strength to punch out somebody who might be as powerful as Superman either. Throw in an opportunity to get nekkid and show Selina nekkid trying to get into bed with a masseur and HEY PRESTO that's DC today. So, Catwoman has all the money that bents cops in Gotham ever took which just happens to be in the same bag at the same time? WHO CARES. Just give us more T&A.

Green Lantern Corps #5: Lanterns grow like plants and act as fertiliser. Do you need any more than that? Now wonder the Keepers got pissed off when their World Manure got taken away by the little bald blue guys. Guy Gardner puts together a team of old hard men to go and beat them up. Anyone would think he'd been watching recent Stallone films. It turns out they need guns to do it so they steal them from Space Pirates. This cannot end well.

Red Hood #5: Arsenal shoots a dragon/gargoyle thing with an electric arrow, and then heats Starfire up with one of his special thermal arrows. Meanwhile Red Hood is fighting the half-headed ploice alium woman who seems to have gone all Witchblade on us. Still, he manages to kill her by pretending she's the Joker and Batman combined or something. Which, unsurprisingly since she's the police, doesn't endear himself to the locals. The gargoyle gets blown up with Roy's self-destruct device and we realise Starfire's powers aren't actually much use. "My power isn't a subtle one, Roy. It's pretty much set to "incinerate". I think we need a new plan." Then they all run away to the origin issue. I love that the editor of this book twice refers to the last issue and expresses surprise we don't remember exactly what happened in it. Anybody would think he thought this was a disposable portion of Thrill Power too. Still the biggest guilty pleasure of the Johnsiverse.