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

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.

http://mindlessones.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/goodbye.jpg

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.

http://media.dcentertainment.com/sites/default/files/files/2010/04/brcover4rough1.jpg

http://chzheroes.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/superheroes-batman-superman-no-more.png

A beautiful coda. Yes, you have amused and entertained and informed throughout this endeavour. Thank you for your oft-painful service.

My understanding, from talking to people who work in comic shops, is that there are a lot of (dare I say...unsophisticated?) comics readers/buyers who just follow characters and are generally less concerned with whether a particular title is any good than they are with whether someone with a ring on their finger shows up and uses it to make things with colored light. It's no more discerning a process than dutifully showing up to see the latest Transformers shitshow at the theater. The typical comic book nerd is shifting from someone who will lose their shit over continuity errors (I completely agree with you on this, though: if you explicitly state that there's going to be an overarching continui, get off your lazy editorial aqss and make it fucking work) to someone who will buy all of the direct-market figures and statues of Thor. Yeah, it's an oversimplification, but a tendency in that direction is the only rational explanation for why bullshit like the New 52 didn't die on the vine. We could blame it on the kids but I think we all know better than that at this point.

are you going to keep reading any of these (thinking mostly of Dial H)

Batman Inc!

I will still be buying: Action (till GMoz is done then I'll read it for a bit then re-evaluate), Dial H, Batman Inc (again, till GMoz is done), Batman, All-Star Western, Flash, Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing and Suicide Squad. I guess I'll still read another half dozen or so (Animal Man, for example).

From memory of before the Johnsiverse it's about the same number of books, maybe less, than I was buying before the jump. I can't imagine I'm unique in this.

ha I couldn't remember if you was in the tank for Suicide Squad as I was

have to say I am most pissed about how thoroughly they fucked up all the Wildstorm properties, which going into this contained most of my favorite characters tied to this whole shebang (PARTICULARLY the white-washing of Stormwatch/The Authority; I mean how are you even going to have a Stormwatch book without Jackson King in it)

still keeping up with Dial H, SS, Justice League and JL Dark

I'm still reading Batman Inc, and that's it, which puts me in the rare position of buying more Marvel than DC comics -- although even there I'm only buying Daredevil and Hawkeye.

I'll probably check Dial H, Flash and Action when the TPBs come out. I think DC's main issue has been losing its solid (if not always great) writers like Waid, Brubaker and Rucka.

Waid is a sack of shit, though

or at least he was when he tried to write X-Men; somehow he managed to make Scott Lobdell look like Claremont in his prime

I would have agreed with that until his Daredevil run started.
xpost

Between this debacle and Marvel NO! I've pretty much given up on floppies all together. I'll pick up Dial H and Batman Incorporated when they collect them, and maybe Wonder Woman if there is a good sale. If DC ever gets off their asses and creates a DC Digital Unlimited I'll throw them $60 like I will continue to do with Marvel, and maybe catch up on some stuff like All Star Western which wasn't half bad.

Aldo - thanks for entertaining us for the past year +. I owe you many a pint should we meet.

Yeah, thanks for your great work Aldo. Don't think I've visited ILC this often since 52.

yeah, sad yer giving this up, the updates have been a joy but fully understand. also sad re marvel as i am a marvel zombie but again understand. now i need to know where to get my fix as enjoying abt reading all the stuff much more than actually reading t

I salute your fine line between masochism and sadism, Aldo. I couldn't do it.

And while I'm here, I saw a bit of the DC NATION cartoon series yesterday, which featured a short AMETHYST bit. Character/setting had been reconceived, hitting a bunch of modern notes (8-bit aesthetic, many manga/anime stylings, not particularly grim or gritty setting.) Totally workable recreation particularly for contemporary tastes. My daughter who is 9, dug it. She asked about comics for the character, since she knows all the DC NATION stuff has comics attached. I showed her the current AMETHYST and she was pretty unimpressed.

DC's management wouldn't know what to do with itself if it was on fire. In any other media/channel, that character/setting/vibe would work for a cartoon, comics, toy series, whatever. But not in the DM because DM comics, particularly DC at this point, are only for the DM and not for anyone/anything else. I've never been treated to such a blatant display of corporate idiocy with regards to their own properties. They whine that their audiences are shrinking and yet are incapable or unwilling to do anything about it.

Let it burn.

DC Nation is killing it IMO, both Green Lantern and Young Justice have been super enjoyable (and I'm glad they're back on)

I wish they would make more Legion of Super Heroes episodes, personally

(primarily so my daughter could watch them)

I don't really get LoSH at all tbh but I think that's because by the time I got around to them I was old enough that I couldn't get over the character names

what's not to love about Matter Eater Lad

okay lol according to Wikipedia there was a "False Pretenses Lad"

omg this is a treat:

http://geek-news.mtv.com/2011/02/25/the-10-weirdest-members-of-the-legion-of-super-heroes/

HATE FACE

I always loved that after he died they made a statue of Ferro Lad, who could basically turn into a statue.

LOOOOL

I like the ridiculous/taken-to-logical-extreme nature of the Legion but I am a big Silver Age DC stan so

Hate Face is next level

Dan should have started with the Five Year Gap in 1989 to avoid silly names

okay lol according to Wikipedia there was a "False Pretenses Lad"

this is a one-panel joke from 1964 btw

I mean a fan joke ABOUT one panel from 1964

Five Year Gap in 1989 to avoid silly names

also I mean if you accept Reep or Salu as being less silly names than Chameleon Boy or Shrinking Violet

Haha how long would Salo last in LoSH

would watch version of Salo featuring LoSH

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodam Yat.

One major storyline during this period was the discovery of Batch SW6, a group of clones of the early Legion, c. their Adventure Comics days, created by the Dominators. Keith Giffen's original conclusion for the storyline was that the clones would eventually have been revealed to be the real Legion, and the ones whose adventures had been chronicled since the 1950s were actually the clones. The adult Legion's secret programming would kick in, forcing them to fight the younger Legion and leading to a fight to the death in which Legionnaires on both teams would die, with the victims’ names being picked at random out of a hat.

lol I didn't know about this. continuity is the silliest shit ever

the SW6 shit worked for a surprisingly long time, while Jason Pearson was drawing it, before going as wonky as you'd expect

First thing Salo made me think of:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu-CN2C-nJI

to be fair to Reep Daggle and Salu Digby, they are aliens from other star systems

Rokk Krinn needs no excuses though

I am still half-heartedly looking at these, and this panel from Birds of Prey is a doozy:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8370/8417036800_d5e3bfc51e_o.jpg

Babs never finishes her sentence due to blowings up etc but...

What, realistically, could she be about to conclude her sentence with? A No-Prize for anyone who comes up with a non-offensive answer.

In neeed of female companionship

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2013/01/31/wonder-woman-comic-wesley-willis-azzarello-chiang/

I just... well, ok, then.

I kind of thought that was how the first issue with him in read, but... ROCK AND ROLL MCDONALDS

wow
tho i dunno how to feel about this

TS: this vs the Mountain Goats' Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton turning up in Thor.

The Third Army were destroyed by Mogo reforming around them, except the ones that weren't, which were destroyed by Atrocitus learning how to control the Manhunters. Hal and Sinestro are still dead, and Guy, Kyle and Baz are the best Lanterns ever (possibly in that order, with Baz the best as he has done something impossible to every other Lantern ever - although so has Kyle). In response the Guardians have awakened the First Lantern who will destroy everything, including them.

The Black Diamond bullshit seems to have been solved by Jonah Hex throwing a whisky decanter into the sea.

Atlantis Attacks or whatever it's called this time is in internal Atlantean conspiracy involving Johns baddies and Johns' vision of Atlantis history which he hasn't revealed to anybody to date and will make Aquaman the new Green Lantern Action Playset.

H'El on Earth is still ploughing a lone furrow trying not to interfere with any other book (except JL) and not have anything to do with anything else. Something in space is coming to destroy the Earth, like it did Krypton.

Hawkman's crossover has been ignored by every book other than Deathstroke and has achieved nothing except reboot Hawkman into undoing the first twelve or so issues and seems to be over with no consequences.

Batman Joker thing is still going, having teased the final cliffhanger in every book now for a month. The cliffhanger may or may not be under cover blight for Red Hood 19 according to Bleeding Cool.

That seems to cover all the ongoing crossovers.

DC have announced #19s will be "WTF cover month" which will have a Mad-style foldout. From the 3 announced to date, only Red Hood 19 could conceivably by WTF and even then idgi.

Fuck me, even casually reading this bullshit is painful.