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

Batgirl #10: Ugh. This series gets worse with every passing issue, and it didn't start from a particularly high beginning. It's hackneyed WOW STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMEN bullshit page on page at the expense of storylines. It might work for people studying Lipstick Feminism 101 but does nothing for me. This particular issue feels like everybody in charge at every stage HAS to be a woman to prove a point that I don't get, although it never gets worse than when the guy who lost half his leg the night before runs away normally.

Batman #10: Umm. Wow. The Lincoln March revelation is indeed a revelation. Didn't see that coming at all. But you're all reading the book already, so I don't need to go into it or spoil it for those that haven't read it yet. The backup story actually works with it and reveals even more - if you read them in the other order, and knew some fairly obscure bat-history, then it would spoiler the main story. Great stuff.

Batman & Robin #10: Damian has an ego. Who knew? Basically, he calls out all the other Robins to prove he's great and Tim Drake is an easy fish to catch. It's good stuff , if not really anything out of the ordinary, but hits the spot before the shitfest to come. Starting with...

Deathstroke #10: There are no words. Honestly. So bad. I can't work out whether the art is worse than the writing and every page my opinion changes. This may well be the single worst issue of the Johnsiverse. If any of you can find a way to read it without paying for it LIKE BORROWING IT FROM A LIBRARY OR SUCH <cough> RIAA <cough> then I recommend you do so, just to see for yourselves how bad it is.

Demon Knights #10: "It's a pirate sea serpent! That is something I have never shouted before!" And not something I expected to be typing. This does the thing it does every month again, and very well it does it too. They travel through the south of England facing giant wolves and a zombie King Arthur and conclude with al Jabr turning into MODOK. That's something else I expected not to be typing.

Frankenstein #10: I still don't like this. This particular issue is more of a mess than usual, although it thinks it's being really clever and all GMozzy. Who's on whose side by the end? Who cares?

Green Lantern #10: The Knights The Say Nok don't exist, then a blue woman gets superhero sadface and cries a single tear, which is enough sadface for them to rebuild their entire power battery and all say Nok again. Unfortunately for Hal this makes Sinestro one of them too, so he tries to persuade them to let him say other words too by saying how much he wubs him. A Black Lantern kills himself rather than say Nok again, then once he's dead becomes a Black Lantern again. As you do. I struggle to believe people take this seriously.

Grifter #10: Amongst the skills Rob Liefeld doesn't have we've found another one - counting. "The word you're looking for is "You're welcome. Although technically that's two words." No, that's ACTUALLY two and TECHNICALLY three. That is as entertaining as this issue gets. Grifter now has telekinetic powers, which is presumably how his friend's costume stays up.

Legion Lost #10: The Legion go back to their own time, find that it needs a bit of redecorating and come back to our time to buy some paint or something. The lustre has totally gone from this book, despite having a couple of my favourite Legionnaires in it and it's become a chore to read. Timber Wolf gets shot at the end, although he probably won't have been by the time the next issue is three pages old.

Ravagers #2: Hoo boy, this is bad. Luckily I have already erased reading it from my mind so I don't need to go into it any further but it's just awful throughout. Don't bother.

Resurrection Man #10: It's so obvious now they're both out, but this is Dial H's crappy little brother. If only it was anywhere near as good. Or good, period. The angels from the early issues are back, and get what Hulk would called SMASHED. There's a secret giant underground technology base and... some other stuff. I don't care enough to try and make sense of this book any more.

Suicide Squad #10: The usual quality product here. Harley is back (although I thought from where we left her she was gone for good for other reasons) and so is Yo-Yo, having been shat out by King Shark and grown himself a new body. But somebody somewhere isn't playing ball with The Wall. Who can it be? Maybe we'll find out next month.

Superboy #10: SUPERBOY PUNCHES A DINOSAUR! In other news there is a hint ot teen romance between him and Wonder Girl then BANG! SMACK IN THE KISSER! This is a really good issue, no messing.

And quite how they're going to work around Clark being dead, since he isn't in any of the other books, I have no idea.

Isn't it still set five or ten years before the rest of Tha Nu-52?

It was supposed to be set 7 years before the Superman title, which pretty much puts it at the same time as the Justice League book (they were supposedto align at issue 8, I think?), I just hadn't eralised before they were absolutely contemporaneous (the hamsters).

This is the only nu-52 proper I'm reading (the Bats Inc and Woman having both been written before the reboot), so I thought you were talking about the Collector's bottle worlds with that hamsters ref.

Batwoman #10: This really isn't getting much better, is it? The diversion about the dying cat is good, but isn't it lifted straight from a Gmoz thing? He does it in Animal Man #26, and also somewhere need the end of The Filth (I think?). But the layouts are really nice, and the escalation in Killer Croc's powers could be interesting - although merging him with Sobek is a new idea which could screw up Geoff Johns' future work on Captain Marvel. I enjoyed this more than any of maybe the previous three or four, but that's not saying a hell of a lot.

Birds of Prey #10: So... new costumes, new faces, Ivy needs planted in a giant Gro-bag and Batman has a grump on. Just another normal issue then. And on the plus side I've now also learned that such a thing as liquid cocaine exists, and that adding water makes something inert very explosive. Which clearly makes the whole venture worthwhile.

Blue Beetle #10: With the whole Ravagers/NOWHERE axis bleeding the will out of us, the last thing we need is another "teenager imprisoned by the government doing experiments on him" book. I tell a lie, the last thing we need is one as badly written as this. The Mexican slang is back, the casual racism of Hispanics having grandmothers that are old battleaxes, the sinister boss and the dumb employees. Hackneyed rubbish.

Captain Atom #10: I know I've said before that I don't have the words, but this is just... the giant lion's mouth of God is about to eat Captain Atom so he and all the other Captain Atom's that he finds in the time stream decide to fight it, then our Captain Atom flies throughout time and sees that if he didn't become Captain Atom then Grodd would instead so he doesn't make the cancer go away that he did in #4(? needs a Fact-Checkin' Ed) and the person dies in the future, which then lets him absorb all the other Captain Atoms and the giant mouth and become Captain Atom. Then he goes back to see Steven Hawking who tells him where the woman with one hand he fancies is. Once he gets there he changes himslef into Doctor Manhattan and Hal Jordan to go on a date with her. Apparently next issue this does not end well. Maybe their panna cotta will be a bit too set for their tastes.

Catwoman #10: None of you are reading this, right? So if I say the only good thing is Catwoman's latest Hispanic (?) fuckbuddy being a plant for some mobsters I'm not spoiling anything for anybody? The Dollhouse plot is an inferior version of the Russian prostitutes plot from the previous run, or even from the Punisher plot which was similar. The book is treading water so hard, I really just think the best thing for it is to get a crippling cramp and sink like a stone.

DCU Presents: The plot plods along in James Robinson's Vandal Savage book, which makes it 1000x better than any of the other books this week. This is the week I think I hate more that the others. WW is the only decent title, although at least Legion, Nightwing and Red Hood are readable. Anyway, Savage has a copycat killer. In a plot COMPLETELY UNLIKE Silence of the Lambs, the authorities want Savage to help. He does, then escapes. Ho hum. I bet it'll have a really straightforward conclusion next month.

It's nice of you to review the dregs of the DCU all together. Though I'm sorry you're reading any of them.

Guillem March's recent variant on his own upcoming Catwoman cover:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-X01_znb7QLs/T973q3eG-tI/AAAAAAAAApI/UZ_XaxPi0do/s640/blogger-image-798245391.jpg

It's nice of DC to publish them all together.

GLC #10: John Stewart is to be executed by the Alpha Lanterns for killing a Green Lantern. Guy doesn't like the idea, so after 20 pages of sadface he busts him out, only for JS to still be all sadface and the Alpha Lanterns shut down the power battery so the GLs can't fight. 2 pages of this are worth reading.

LoSH #10: A small part of Dominators stuff does not make this good. Apart from that it is a fine nostalgiafest, Nostalgia is not necessarily good, as I have learned month on month during this.

Nightwing #10: Kind of procedural, kind of sadface, kind of bollocks. Immaterial to how I feel about anything tbh,

Red Hood #10: Maybe the shortest issue at 16 pages this month. Still probably fails in the "least anount of plot" title for DC. Nothing really happens and that which does is utterly inconsequental. Someone from a planet which doesn@t exist comes to see Starfire, after which we find out they couldn't have existed. Oh well

Supergirl #10: JOHN BYRNE IS THE GREATEST WRITER EVER IN THE HISTORY OF COMICS EVER EVER EVER.

He's not? Yeah, I had worked that out after reading this.

Wonder Woman #10: AT LAST, SOMETHING WORTH READING. The reality is, THIS IS AT LEAST AS GOOD, IF NOT BETTER THAN EVERY BOOK PRECEDING IT. If I had to describe WW I would say it is the best parts of Hellblazer, Fables and Gravel combined; let alone lesser things. You should really all be getting this, even if it's only in trades. LOVE IT.

More key architects of THE NEW 52 continue to speak about what a well-planned, supportive and fulfilling creative environment it is! George Perez:

“Unfortunately when you are writing major characters, you sometimes have to make a lot of compromises, and I was made certain promises, and unfortunately not through any fault of Dan DiDio — he was no longer the last word, I mean a lot of people were now making decisions [...] they were constantly going against each other, contradicting, again in mid-story. The people who love my Superman arc, the first six issues, I thank you. What you read, I don’t know. Because the fact that, after I wrote it I was having such frustration that I told them, ‘Here, this is my script. If you change it, that’s your prerogative, don’t tell me. Don’t ask me to edit it, don’t ask me to correct it, because I don’t want to change something that you’re going to change again in case you disagree.” No no, Superman is a big character. I was flattered by the responsibility, but I thought this was getting a little tough.”

“I didn’t mind the changes in Superman, I just wish it was the same decision from Issue 1 to Issue 2. And I had to keep rewriting things because another person changed their mind, and that was a lot tougher. It wasn’t the same as doing Wonder Woman. I was basically given a full year to get Wonder Woman established before she actually had to be enfolded into the DC Universe properly. And I had a wonderful editor, Karen Berger, who ran shotgun for me. They wanted me to recreate what I did from Wonder Woman, but it’s not the same age, not the same atmosphere, I couldn’t do it any more. And the writer who replaced me, Keith Giffen, [...] he called me up when they asked him to do Superman, to make sure I wasn’t being fired off Superman. And regrettably I did have to tell him no, I can’t wait to get off Superman. It was not the experience I wanted it to be.”

“I had no idea Grant Morrison was going to be working on another Superman title. I had no idea I was doing it five years ahead, which means … my story, I couldn’t do certain things without knowing what he did, and Grant wasn’t telling everybody. So I was kind of stuck. ‘Oh, my gosh, are the Kents alive? What’s his relationship with all of these characters? Who exists?’ And DC couldn’t give me answers. I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, you’re deciding all these things and you mean even you don’t know what’s going on in your own books?’ So I became very frustrated …”

Which caused me to look up Karen Berger's whereabouts:

In 2007 Berger was named supervising editor (along with Senior Editor Shelly Bond) of Minx, a new comic book imprint published by DC. Minx published comics and graphic novels aimed at teenage girls until they were cancelled in 2008.

Oh, DCpaws.

Berger's still a VP at DC IIRC

She's editing China Mieville's Dial H.

"Senior VP - Executive Editor"

I looked inside the one Vertigo comic I've bought this year

I'm trying to remember the last Vertigo book I read monthly. I read SCALPED in trades, and will stick it out (though the last collection was largely by-the-numbers and put me off for that very reason.)

Lo, how the mighty have etc. etc.

In fairness, they started with a lot of big creators writing their defining works, it was always going to be tricky to keep it up. They've arguably still got that now with 100 Bullets / Fables (Okay not quite on the Gaiman / Morrison / Milligan / Ennis / Ellis level)

I have just been handed a piece of paper that informs me that 100 Bullets has ended.

they started with a handful of rebadged DC superheroes and a bunch of books from a failed Disney line

and it's unlikely they'll ever get any strong breakout hits again now that nu-DC has clamped down on any creator-owned works. I've not checked the copyright on the new Azzarello thing, but otherwise a) the only creator-owned things they have going have to be "earned" by simultaneously working on the plantation, and b) the rights deal is so bad that no-one's taking them anything anyway

Gaiman / Morrison / Milligan / Ennis / Ellis level

OK thinking abt this properly: Gaiman was 2/3 of the way through his superhero reboot when Vertigo launched, but it was his defining work.

Morrison had done all his defining works at DC before Vertigo - Invisibles didn't start until almost a year and a half in, and didn't take off for over two years after that.

Milligan did a handful of GREAT things for Vertigo, but none of them were any kind of hit and didn't define or put him on the map in any way. (thinking Face, Girl, "My Generation," a few shorts in anthologies.)

Ennis' only Vertigo at all as far as I can think is a gang of war books and Preacher - the latter was definitely the defining work of his second phase, but started a couple of years into the imprint, and the war books came after Preacher had been successful enough for them to want to keep him sweet.

and I don't think Ellis has EVER taken anything to Vertigo ongoing - Orbital is literally the only book I can think of that he originated there, and that's a one-off that came a good decade after V'go started

what's impressive is rly how they kept going on the momentum of some hefty smoke and mirrors for a few years until some hits did get the sales weight swinging

Yeah, I mean started as anything within the first couple of years, so Sandman / Invisibles / Preacher.

Milligan's work is all over the place in fairness, but I was thinking of Shade / Enigma.

Ellis had Transmetropolitan - started elsewhere it's true (and four years in to the imprint), but solid fuel in the sense of lots of non-comics folks telling their friend "You must go and read this book that has ads for other Vertigo stuff in it".

I suppose I am basically agreeing with Matt, in that it's been a long time since I've had my head turned by the fact that a new series is on Vertigo.

we all agree it's out to pasture I think!

Shade was rebadged superhero and mostly over before Vertigo, Enigma was part of the Touchstone diaspora

Transmet is way too late to count for "starting" even aside from the first 12-idk, 15? being on Helix - it only got to keep going beCAUSe Vertigo was big and strong and able to absorb it

Touchstone

Touchmark, I've just reminded myself in googling to confirm whether Extremist was or not, because I so dearly hope that Disney paid for it

also just remembered I'm still missing three issues of Enigma so haven't read it all yet

I'm genuinely not certain what point you're making with labelling Sandman / Shade as rebadged superheros.

Shade came over at 33/70 - though I know all stuff that people loved it for didn't survive that much past 50.

Enigma is criminally out of print. Utter shame.

That is one of the short Vertigo series that I advocate quite a bit. 2020 Visions also entertaining, and only in print as a one-off b&w version from another publisher.

I'm genuinely not certain what point you're making with labelling Sandman / Shade as rebadged superheros.

mainly that they were already-running revivals of ooold DC properties*, so Vertigo had - I think - literally no actual original material at launch. It's just an interesting point worth noting when talking about how strong it was in early days

(the Death mini was the closest to something original, probably, but if it wasn't requested by editorial for the imprint then it definitely would have been published under DC as a spinoff of this DC title)

*with, in the case of Scarab, a generous ladling of how very poor an idea this was for content generation going forwards. but that's counterargued by my re-reading the entire run of Sandman Mystery Theatre a few months ago


anyway I greatly regret this thread drift taking away from that amazing Perez spiel

Isn't that more a thing where the awareness of "There's probably money in here!" lined up with the opportunity to steal stuff already commissioned for Touchmark to give some backing to a risky venture - they put out 2 new titles (counting Touchmark and 1-shots admittedly) a month for the first year.

I guess Ennis' HELLBLAZER missed the Vertigo banner? Been a long time since I read any of those (and in truth, his run on the book made me drop it).

But yeah, Vertigo was largely based on all kinds of (often great) comics that were all originally mainline DC, and trace almost all of that back to Moore's SWAMP THING which revitalized interest in the magic side of the DC line. Though not everyone embraced that. There's an annual, can't remember which book, that roundly mocked the "trenchcoat brigade" and had a lot of fun doing it. Was it THE DEMON? Ugh, can't remember.

And why would anyone take a book to Vertigo to maintain some semblance of creator ownership when you're not getting any more traction than you would at Image, most likely? Sure, Vertigo will buy ads and place them in places browsed by people who want to buy more AQUAMAN.

I guess Ennis' HELLBLAZER missed the Vertigo banner?

Went to Vertigo on the Zatanna "denots os ma I" issue iirc

And why would anyone take a book to Vertigo to maintain some semblance of creator ownership when you're not getting any more traction than you would at Image, most likely?

(apart from the fact that the semblance isn't even there now...) Page rate.

Sure, Vertigo will buy ads and place them in places browsed by people who want to buy more AQUAMAN.

I don't think they buy ads anywhere.

They buy ads in PREVIEWS. But yeah, you're right on the page rate thing.

All Star Western #10: Just when you thought OWLS were over, ASW is mining the early(?) days of the Court dealing their infiltration into the asylum amongst other shenanigans in Gotham. This issue hits it out of the park once more although I suspect, as with the Jonah Hex book before it, that I'm alone in my love for it. Hex becomes a more rounded and developed character issue by issue, to the point where he's more believable than at any time in his history, but then you add in the Arkham characters and it's packed to the rafters with quality. Throw in a great little Bat Lash backup and I'll pay for this any day of the week.

Aquaman #10: This issue - in fact, this whole plot - seems to have been a slow build to the last couple of panels. It turns out Manta and Shin know each other and that's what this is all about. Yes, along the way we find out how the relationship between Aquaman and Manta works in the Johnsiverse, but primarily it's about the two of them punching each other a step at a time closer to Shin. Dull.

The Dark Knight #10: In which the Johnsiverse Scarecrow makes his entrance. And I'll tell you what, this looks like it's building to one of the most deranged versions of the character we've seen in a while. In other news, Bruce's fuckbuddy dumps him because he'd rather sit in a cave with a small boy than listen to her practice piano. Personally, I think she's got her priorities wrong. Frankly, she's not that hot (although lolFinch, she might be supposed to be) and doesn't seem to be that good at the piano.

Batman Inc #2: GMoz effortlessly shows everyone else how it's done this month, albeit going over old ground (for him) this is Talia's version of events leading up to the Damian reveal. I'm not enough of a Batfan to know whether anyone else has ever dealt with her in this depth, but GMoz clearly isn't done with her and she could well end up being the focus of the book. Good, say I, as she's dynamite in his hands.

GL: New Guardians #10: So,Kyle and his mates finally realise Larfleeze has been playing them like haddies all along. The rest of us worked that out six months ago. There are two things I love about this issue: firstly, it's great that the characters in the story are as confused about what's going on as the rest of us. They need reminded who's in and who's not every month - when people left, what happened to them, and what issues they crossed over into. Secondly, in the last panel we get our first PROPER Superhero sadface of the Johnsiverse when a Blue Lantern starts crying. I'm amazed it's taken 10 months but welcome back guys, we've missed you.

I, Vampire #10: Tighter than any of the previous issues, this one actually makes me remember why I liked this in the first place. All the world's vampires are in the one place. So what do you do if you're in charge of them? Send for the vampire killers, obviously. Who turn into zombies at the end. A welcome breath of humour lifts this from being the emo sadface nonsense of previous months into something I want to read.

Justice League Dark #10: Hooray! The return of Abnegazer, Rath and Ghast! Although they're clearly the most exciting thing about it. Team book standing about squabbling is not what the title should be doing, but it ends up mired in it when it should be exploiting a sound cast and the ability to exist outside of, or at least parallel to, the Johnsiverse but instead is mired in soap opera about how Zootanapus wubs Constantine but he's sometimes a bit nasty to her. You don't know the worst part love, he's probably married (since he is in the Vertigo universe). Not using its potential at all.

Justice League #10: Johns has outdone himself here. He's created a villain who, wait for it... IS POWERED BY SUPERHERO SADFACE. That's, like, Johns cubed or something. All we need is an ancient foe from the beginning of time and we'll have a full set. What? He was given the powers by mysterious aliens from the beginning of time? DING DING DING DING DING The Shazam backup finally seems to be going somewhere, but the Black Adam reveal would have been more effective if he hadn't turned up in a different book already.

Superman #10: Having thought Justice League had done it all, Superman goes one stage further in having a villain GIVEN POWERS BY EMOTIONAL ABUSE AS A CHILD. Her power? To make herself FEEL NOTHING. DYS ETC ETC Highpoint of this issue is midway through where Jimmy has a woman's hairdo on the first panel and then bukkake aftermath on his face in the next one. Superman's "friend", eh?

Teen Titans #10: A blast, as usual. Kid Flash is still my favourite, he's the Spider-man it's OK to like. The dinosaurs are over, although they were never much more than a diversion to settle the core team and do some relationship building. Poor Danny The Street, ;_;

Firestorm #10: Another month, another new Firestorm. Seriously, is there a country that doesn't have one? Am I going to wake up tomorrow and realise I'm Britain's Nuclear Man? I hope not. I didn't care for the 80s much. I have absolutely no idea where this is going, and care where it's going even less. Turgid stuff.

Hawkman #10: Now THAT'S a Liefeld cover. Grimace? Check. Multiple lens flare? Check. Unlikely reflection? Check. Blades which bear no relation to the hand using them? Check. Chest parallel to the ground? Check. SLICE is my new favourite sound effect. Anyway, in the brave new world after the Liefeldening there is no plot, just FITE AFTER FITE. A guy turns up in the last panel with pouches, two swords strapped to his arms and a blade strapped to his leg that would make it impossible to walk, His legs are two different lengths and are narrower than his arms. Goold old Rob, gave us the full house at the death there.

Flash #10: Kind of a minor issue, this one, as there is only really a bit of a scuffle with the Weather Wizard and some Rogues plotting. Oh, and Barry decides he's not going to tell the woman he loves - no, not Iris, she's still lost in time - that he's not dead. Despite this, still one of the highlights of the Johnsiverse.

Voodoo #10: Much as I like seeing Daemonites pulled apart by giant stone statues, I'm still not feeling this at all. I might have to have a re-read because I'm certain this is much better than the previous months but I have nothing to base that on.

Johns has outdone himself here. He's created a villain who, wait for it... IS POWERED BY SUPERHERO SADFACE

This is gold!

Right, I have forgiven so much but...

IF YOU PEOPLE FUCK UP BLUE DEVIL I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND KILL YOU.

Maybe my favourite comic ever. If this is wrong then I will have lost all faith in life.

Seriously. I WILL EAT YOUR SPLEENS.

ha, i like you dude.

You...haven't seen the Blue Devil redesign, have you, Aldo?

Break out you spleen fork.

how rapey is his trident?

he looks like a character from the bondage fairies comic:

http://i2.cdnds.net/12/27/300x450/comics_dc_universe_blue_devil.jpg

At least he doesn't have a high collar.

loooool he has lens flares built into his costume

I have a friend who maintains that all these redesigns are so bad that they're funny. I think they're still just bad.

I... have faith. This is just post-Jim Lee bad art. The writing will be good.

http://img.youtube.com/vi/lOzV9SlyXVQ/hqdefault.jpg

uuuuugh, that design is depressing.

remember the good times when comics looked like comics
http://onceuponageek.com/images/blue_devil_ww85.jpg
http://onceuponageek.com/2009/06/05/exclusive-interview-with-creators-of-blue-devil-amethyst-dan-mishkin-gary-cohn/

http://onceuponageek.com/tag/blue-devil-week/

I wonder if my LCS is still setting aside Batman Inc for me.
A coworker asked me about Gotham Central the other day. I cannot imagine that book existing in the current landscape. How fucking bad is it when a Batman tie-in book written by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker is looked back on as too radical?

INC is still worth yer time, sir.

Just unearthed a near complete run of BLUE DEVIL in my quarter bin rummage, will be getting to it sometime. I remember when that was about the only DC book I read whilst in the throes of Marvel zombiness in the early 80s.

Action #11: OK, so now I'm even less sure where GMoz is going with this. We start off with Clark killed off as working as a fireman. We end with Lois dead and Wonder Tot being taken away by X-Ray from the U-Men? Or is the same book that was previously for comics geeks interested in obscure comics trivia now supposed to not see stuff that's clearly... erm... influenced by other obscure comics trivia? "Nutants"? Really? There's a core plot working at the heart of this but there's too much else going on for it to be engaging. I guess GMoz really said all he had to say about Superman in ASS and this is just the equivalent of a deleted scenes feature on a DVD. You can see what it's trying to do, but it's inessential. Poor old Solly Fisch adds yet another soul-destroying contractual page-filler. I'd like to think I would have more self-respect.

Animal Man #11: Having ended last the last issue (and starting this one) with the reshaping aliens made most famous during the GMoz era, they turn him into the Animal Man of the Jamie Delano era. This kind of works, but I suspect it will be as tenable as his Vertigo run ended up being. I know I've griped about it since the start, but the art team of Alberto Ponticelli and Wayne Faucher are possibly the worst yet. They work fine for the horror sections but are really bad the rest of the time, and for a book largely set there it really affects the treadability of it. It's leading (again) into a Swamp Thing crossover and this time I hope it doesn't make it out. There's nothing here that can't be said in the margins of other books - the entire plot of this could have been dealt with in less than 5 pages - and from a selfish aspect I could do with reading less.

Batwing #11: Oh yes, the one with Long. Which is Chinese for dragon. AND IS A DRAGON. And is then completely forgotten about as Batwing and Nightwing run away to fight another, different baddie on another continent (but not before going to a third different one and sending Batman an I WUB YOU email so he can kiss the Penguin. Is there oil in Africa? WHO CARES. Utterly pointless.

Detective #11: Tony Daniel's time on the book is coming to an end, and truth to tell it's beginning to show. This feels like a tossed-off Norm Breyfogle effort, with a bad guy supposed to be much more threatening than he is and dialogue and exposition in place of plot development. I'm completely ambivalent about the title to be honest - I would love for it to be great but the heart has gone from the writing and it's just pedestrian. The backup is once more the highlight, but is still a procedural crime book - albeit with a significant noir aspect. I'd much prefer to see that being the main book, which is pretty damning.

Dial H #3: It had to happen eventually. Dial H goes from BEST THING EVER to merely being bloody great. We get much more development in the story of the dials, in how they work, in who the bad guys we thought were the bad guys are and who the AHA YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING bad guys actually might be. Still a rampaging success, this title continues to be everything I hoped it would be.

Earth 2 #3: Well, I didn't see that coming. Yes, we'd assumed Alan Scott was going to be Green Lantern, but he's the Earth-2 version of Swamp Thing? And Solomon Grundy is champion of the Grey, which is the Earth-2 version of The Rot? I think they might have bitten off more than they can chew starting off with that as a plot, but let's see where it goes... the Jay Garrick/Hawkgirl stuff is entertaining enough in a 'hero tests powers' way, but it's the Alan Scott stuff that will have me coming back next month.

GI Combat #3: Ah, JT Krul. You really are useless. "NO!" says the last panel, in the best bit of dialogue. Sums up my thoughts. Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti's Unknown Soldier backup is the Punisher by Howard Chaykin. I'll let you make your own minds up as to whether you think that's a good thing or not but I think you know where my sympathies lie.

Green Arrow #11: Ann Nocenti takes some stuff she read on a right wing blog slagging off the Occupy movement and makes them into bad guys for the billionaire Green Arrow to beat up. I wish I was kidding.

Justice League #11: on the splash title page we find out "the man is preachin' truth". Then that people work for "the Man". It then lurches from the 80s to the 90s as our heroes kill the bad guys. How gritty. It ends next month, I think? With a Johnsiverse changing revelation. The mind boggles.

Red Lanterns #11: The Star Sapphires try and save the female Red Lanterns, presumably because they think Bleez will look hotter in their costume. Guy Gardner tries to rebuild their battery to save the rest. Everybody else goes RARRRRRRRRRRRRR. It gets rebooted next month, it seems. Wouldn't it be easier to just cancel it?

Stormwatch #11: I think I need to read this again. There's an awful lot going on, and it all seems to be connected to the Engineer (for whom we get an origin story of sorts) and links to the Planetary device(s) from last month. Possibly the most accomplished issue in some time, but I get the feeling Pete Milligan's other books have sickened me to him. I may update this later.

Swamp Thing #11: Great stuff, but if I'm being picky then at heart it's just a punching fite between Swampy and Arcane no matter how beautiful it is. Then Animal Man turns up, to lead into the next issue of AM. Which would be fine, if the last issue of AM didn't end on a cliffhanger (no pun intended) which isn't resolved here. And presumably won't be resolved in the next AM. Honestly, I thought the point of having the same writer on these was so this wouldn't happen?

World's Finest #3: The present day stuff in this still isn't much cop, but the Kev Maguire illustrated flashbacks are a lot of fun. And hey, we get Power Girl's costume recast as a cocktail dress. Inoffensive stuff, which is probably just about worth reading.

gotta say, had I read Perdido Street Station before starting Dial H, I wouldn't have been so surprised by how great and slightly unhinged Dial H is

There should probably be a catch-all China Mieville thread somewhere but I had read them all in advance and really hoped he would carry the madness and invention forward, so was grateful that my faith was vindicated.

Off topic, but Kraken is maybe the only one of his books I haven't been 100% into.

I kind of want to read Embassytown but i hated Kraken so much it's put me off. I'll probably pick up Dial H when it's collected though