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

You have to query the editorial mentality at DC, really. EVERY cancelled book - which has been cancelled because of poor sales, remember - has been merged or continued in another title. Here's the thing: people weren't buying it because they didn't like it. They still won't like it if/when you change the name and continue it in secret. Or am I missing something?

The only characters and plot that exist are dictated by editorial fiat, not writer's impetus. If a take on a character, or a storyline, fails in the marketplace, then it is the fault of the market, not of the content. To come up with new characters or stories would require more time than is available, or rely on writers' ideas. Thus they must be continued in another interchangeable module of The Nu-52.

The 52 is all. The 52 is everything. There is no reading outside The 52.

All DC comics are great because they contain DC stories. All DC stories are great because they contain DC characters. All DC characters are great because they appear in DC comics.

If it's established that all the titles of a particular line are supposed to exist within a shared continuity, then yeah, I sure as shit expect the editors to do the job they're being paid to do and make it happen. If it's understood that certain titles or lines have their own continuity, that's cool, too. But you don't get to constantly shift the goalposts and call it a sundae.

what the fuck kind of sundaes are you eating

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a friend of mine gave me a pile of new comics the other day, including a fair few 'new 52s' - the first time i've really looked at any of them. all i can say is, HOW CAN YOU READ THIS SHIT?

protective eyewear

xpost It's a mixed metaphor sundae, with nuts.

I dunno, this brings up a very obvious question that's been plaguing me a lot lately: namely, am I finally getting too old for superheroes, or are mainstream comics just incerdibly shit at the moment?

I'm still getting a lot of pleasure out of other, better comics right now (Dungeon!) so I suspect it's the latter, as much as I personally enjoy my inner me-as-curmudgeon meme.

Anyway, sundaes.

I mean, even the Marvel Now stuff, which is leagues more competent than DC's stuff, I still find basically unreadable.

I think the two main purveyors of superhero comics are in creative troughs right now, but I'm not prepared to write off the genre just yet. It's a good time to divert $$$ to other stuff, for sure.

Yeah, I'm just reading, like, '80s Spider-Man and Love & Rockets and Finder (and Dungeon!) right now so I really only care about most of this stuff in a gossipy way and to the extent that I'd generally prefer that the Big Two don't implode.

Ah, maybe I'll check out Finder. I've mentally filed it under "mid-range black and white indie comic that no one ever borrows from the library", which is probably unfair.

I've got all the Beto volumes of L&R but never read them! Excited, but still waiting for the opportune moment to dive in.

Ward, you might have missed from the title I'm doing this because there's no way I'd recommend you do it yourself. I'm supposed to be picking out the actual good issues out of the overwhelming tide of crap.

(I'm getting by because I'm cutting it with Golden and Silver Age classics. I'm currently just finishing off Roy Thomas faves the Seven Soldiers of Victory and will next work on the second Kanigher/Andru Metal Men collection.)

I dunno, this brings up a very obvious question that's been plaguing me a lot lately: namely, am I finally getting too old for superheroes, or are mainstream comics just incerdibly shit at the moment?

I feel much the same. Reading funny stuff ABOUt the comics, like Aldo's commentary, is almost invariably more entertaining than Big 2 superhero stuff these days.

Chuck, both Finder (as far as I've gotten into it) and Beto's L&R are awesome. Highly recommended.

"or are mainstream comics just incerdibly shit at the moment?"

Other than Hickman's Fantastic Four/FF, which was really great, I think the super hero comics have been pretty underwelming the past couple years. Journey into Mystery was pretty fun, but that came to an end. Everything else is pretty average at best and I probably have more fun reading the old 60s-70s stuff, as it is just way more wacky and filled with oddball thrillpower. I tried some of the nu-DC stuff and pretty much dropped it all (and I am a pretty big Batman fan and loved the Secret Six).

I have liked the two Valient reboots I have checked out XO Manowar and Harbinger. Never read the original comics at all, so it's all new to me, but so far I have liked both titles. That said, they are total reboots, so there isn't any backstory earlier than #1, so they got that going for them.

I generally mark Secret Invasion and Blackest Night as the points where my interest started to wane. The Big Two still put out some great stuff after that (e.g. Morrison's Bat-stuff and Second Coming), but those bloated and half-cooked epics seemed to halt a lot of their respective lines' momentum.

I really liked Secret Invasion, it seemed well set up and had a great hook (and a toolbox for tidying away previous continuity) - in fact I think I've grown fonder of the Bendis the Mighty era of crossovers, from a fairly hostile start.

No argument about Blackest Night though - is DC1,000,000 the only decent crossover from DC?

I've been brewing a lengthy piece for So You Don't Have To for some time with my opinions on the end of the heroic age in comics - spurred on undoubtedly by the torture of having to read so many awful comics over the past year. Maybe I'll try and get it out for Christmas.

xpost I really like most of the Bendis-era Avengers stuff I've read. And I realized on a second readthrough that Secret Invasion was more well-constructed than I had initially thought...which is the problem, in a way. The mini was wholly unsatisfying on its own (the climactic battle took place "offscreen" and was only related via exposition!) but worked rather well as eight chapters in a 432-chapter, $5,678 "book", which was itself simply a large chapter nestled between the inception of Bendis' run and Dark Reign. Once every title became a component of this larger machine, it became too exhausting (and too expensive) to follow. And now that even the X-line (which, for my sins, I've read the bulk of from the first Claremont up until Fear Itself) has been consumed by the Behemoth, I'm pretty much just done with it all until/unless I have the wherewithal to play catch-up.

And Blackest Night was a pile of shit.

No argument about Blackest Night though - is DC1,000,000 the only decent crossover from DC?

Invasion! is the best "event" crossover ever, plotted by Giffen and able to be followed 100% with the core 3 issues and whatever you were reading anyway.

Agreed. Reading through the post-Crisis Superman + events a few years back, that was both surprisingly easy to follow and pretty good. As opposed to the occasional incoherence of Legends and the "dredged from a public toilet" quality of Millennium.

I still have fond memories of Armageddon 2001, even although I know in my heart of hearts it was objectively terrible. Whatever happened to Waverider, the Sensational Character Find of 1991, anyway?

Would have been nice if publishers decided to restrict more crossover mega-events to a miniseries and regular series' annuals like A2001 did.

As bad as DC has been with crossovers, they've never hit the lows of the three straight years of Atlantis Attacks, Acts of Vengeance and Days of Future Present.

Those only hit a subset of books, though, right?

Yes. Secret Wars 2 was the nadir of all-encompassing crossovers.

FACT: Waverider was melted by evil Skeets in 52, who used his skin to make an EVIL SUIT OF TIME

or thereabouts

RIP Waverider ;_;

http://youtu.be/4lOb799cTxM

In a shocking twist nobody saw coming, the Batgirl writer replacing the sacked Gail Simone is...

is...

is...

Gail Simone.

Yes. Secret Wars 2 was the nadir of all-encompassing crossovers.

It was fantastic for a crossover premised largely on a hair style.

amazing re Simone

same editor?

Believe so, yes.

Batwoman #15: A completely nothing issue involving a vaguely Christmassy church scene about gun-toting vigilantes worshipping the Mother of All Children. Told as though Batwoman is watching it in a scrying glass, which probably is as much as you need to know.

Birds of Prey #15: Bye bye Katana. As a way of writing someone out of a book, it's 20 pages too long. As a readable comic it's 21 pages too long. The bomb, which the bloke who left never to return in the last issue having betrayed everyone and knocked out Dinah, rescues a bomb from a sewer and doesn't blow anyone up with it because Katana cuts it in half. Because everyone thinks that will make it blow up. Then the bad guys all just give up, and so the good guys let them all go off-panel. Terrible stuff, all told.

Blue Beetle #15: After the ENTIRELY UNCONNECTED COVER (which may well be meant for the next issue instead but ended up here by accident) we get some crappy Star Wars pastiche and some "Mexico is the worst/best place in the world" bollocks. As ever. Then the Mayan bloke turns up but is blown out of the bar by Galactic Talent Agents looking for BB to be be on the next series of Big Brother. The end can't come soon enough.

Catwoman #15: Catwoman's part in the current ONGOING Bat-crossover (which, let's not forget, the last issue was part of) is dispatched in a single line in the hurry to get to a different giant crossover. The rest is just some straight bullshit as Catwoam does 10 pages of just regular robbery shite then 10 pages of OOOH MYSTIC SHE MIGHT BE TOUCHED BY ECLIPSO OOOH stuff which involves her wearing a false nose and pretending to be a SEXEY scientist. In the end she cuddles up with a demon and the severed arm of a black Irishman. Not the best thing I've read.

DCU Presents #15: The final page says "to be concluded". Which is the best thing about this pile of Blue Devil getting-wrong crap. Seriously? Nebiros was ruined by Etrigan which means his favourite thing is to see Dan naked? Ugh.

Green Lantern #15: The Third Army is now a swarm the size of a planet. Baz thinks it was all just some kind of coincidence that the van he stole was FULL OF BOMBS and goes to apologise to the guy who it belonged to but stumbled into a plot that the likes of Baz from Four Lions would come up with. Sinestro and Hal walk about in black and white being the most awesomest Lanterns ever EVARR. It ends with the First Lantern, who it still isn't clear whether he's on the Guardians' side despite him being in a cell of their making. His name is Volthoom, which is the Johnsiest thing I can imagine this close to Christmas.

Green Lantern New Guardians #15: Continuity busted! Issue 1 took place two years before the rest of the DCU (except for the things that took place 5 years beforehand like Justice League and Action) which explains... nothing as it happens. Anyway, Kyle and the Third Army are both racing to see Larfleeze as he (apparently) is the URGENT AND MOST IMPORTANT key to all things Lantern. Presumably also making him the most important and the best. At the end, because Kyle is the best Lantern ever (who isn't Hal, or indeed Larfleeze) he is so much better than the Third Army that only a Guardian can bring him in. I can't remember where we are in power escalation storylines, but that just doesn't feel right.

LoSH #15: A dinosaur in future Barcelona. That's about it.

Nightwing #15: The Joker kills some of Dick's mates from the circus he does/doesn't own/perform in in some quite boring ways. Dull, more than anything else.

Red Hood #15: Jason kills a whole pile fo policemen to prove he's not a murderer. Roy and Starfire nearly have sex then turn up to save the day. Bleh.

Supergirl #15: MAKE IT STOP. The H'El on Earth crossover is interminable. Kara gets sent into the bottle city of Kandor to bring back a crystal that the H'El within Kandor has. Which does make you wonder if he had the power to send her in and out why he just didn't take himself out. Dreadful stuff.

Sword of Sorcery #3: "Death is the only fate I seek!" Death is preferable to the Amethyst part of this book. In the Boewulf backup Marilyn Manson explains how we got from the one state of affairs to the other state of affairs, or how Boewulf came to be. Then she blows shit up, just because. It's the most readable pages thus far this week, and still isn't very good.

Wonder Woman #15: ORION ORION ORION ORION ORION (the WW stuff is a bit Byrne-y) ORION ORION ORION ORION ORION. Then Abominable Snowmen. YAY. SOMETHING WORTH READING.

Told as though Batwoman is watching it in a scrying glass, which probably is as much as you need to know.

This is completely narrated by Maggie Sawyer, with Batwoman elswhere and unaware of any of the events

That glossed over me. I may have read too many New 52 books for my health.

I've been behind on Tom Spurgeon's end-of-year interviews:

What's strange about DC Comics to me right now is that I'm not enjoying reading their actual comics all that much -- there's only two "New 52" titles I'm still subscribed to at my local comic shop -- but good God is it fun watching DC Comics itself these days.

This is how I've come to think of the publisher. Imagine standing across the street from moderately sized office building. You can't see what exactly is going on in there, and you can't really hear what's going on in any great detail, but there are all these signs that something really dramatic and probably terribly wrong is happening in the building. Flashes of light, strange noises, screaming, smoke, vibrations -- whatever.

Every once in a while, someone will jump out a window or get thrown through a window. Or come running screaming out of the door. They will have horror stories on their lips, and as they're relating them, someone still in the building will open up a second story window and shout, "Don't worry, everything's fine. Don't listen to them. They're crazy!"

Sad to see you missed out in the new years honours list aldo....

this thread has been very helpful for me.

I am thinking my New Year Resolution mught be to give this shit up.

as much as i enjoy the thread, i would support that decision

I might go another month and see how I feel, but I think it's beginning to detract from my comprehension of actually good comics.

I too would support you stopping this.

Yeah, it's like watching someone eat a bunch of lightbulbs. It's fascinating but you kinda want them to stop for the sake of their own well-being.

INTERVENTION

Entirely selfishly, I would vote for Aldo to continue.

I am down with Intervention - what will you get from issues 16-27 that you didn't from 1-15?

GPWM

Aquaman 15 and Justice League 15 came out last week. I'll finish them for completeness then wrap it. The Marvel one will wither on the vine as well, I'm not feeling it at all.

I salute your work here! But yeah, save yourself from the wreckage.

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With some pieces of shit written by Geoff Johns, resulting in a slightly dirty feeling.

Or not. These are parts one and two of the third or fourth simultaneous crossovers going on (Third Army, Black Diamond, Death of the Family) in Throne of Atlantis so it seems unfair to tease with the beginning of something rather than the end. Needless to say, this is Geoff John's take on a Michael Bay film - don't worry about doing something big because you can do it bigger a couple of pages later and then REALLY FUCKING BIG at the end. Basically, everybody on the whole East coast of America is dead, apart from half a dozen people or so. Yeah. Get out of that.

And after those, the last two Johnsiverse books of 2012, I'm done with it. I can't keep on putting myself through it any more. At first it was a laugh, but I'm not sure whether my net appreciation of comics themselves wasn't suffering as a result. Who did DC think these were for and, more tellingly, who was actually buying some of this crap? Some of these were impenetrable to anybody with even the vaguest sense of plot, English or form YET PEOPLE RECEIVED MONEY FOR WRITING, DRAWING AND EDITING THEM. Editing has actually been my bugbear through the whole thing, as you may have gathered - Johnsiverse continuity existed, and didn't exist, in varying books, sometimes even in the same book and in the case of GL:NG THE SAME ISSUE. I know I seem like a continuity obsessive but that was the WHOLE damn point of the New 52. That post-Flashpoint, everything started again. We even got the hooded woman from Flashpoint in every #1 to ram the point home. Except Geoff Johns loved GL so much he couldn't give up any of the stuff he'd written before. Except when he was writing Hal in Justice League, because that was a different Hal to the one in GL. Add to that reboots within the first year, Captain Atom being God (and now isn't), keeping cancelled characters going in new books, the obsession with the Daemonites being the thing that makes the DCU work and ROB FUCKING LIEFELD and it just got too much. I hope I've at least amused over the course of this, because if not then it's been even more of a waste of my brain cells. I'd love to know what somebody like DiDio would think of the opinions of a normal reader instead of the usual Johns cheerleaders that must have been telling him how much everybody liked them, but some things are just beyond our ken. I wish I could say it's been fun, but for the most part it hasn't.

I'm drawing a line under doing Marvel NOW as well - it's a completely different proposition as pretty much all the books are just 20 pages which stand independently and don't have enough of a theme together to make it a thing. Plus, if I'm honest, I never really cared for Marvel. Sorry Stan.

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