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

Considering how ill-thought-out and poorly-resulting the actual comics have been, that's not in the least surprising.

How many months of better-than-Marvel sales did they mortgage their company for? Five or six?

Let's talk at far too great length about Suicide Squad #1 (2011), and what its characters look like

Loving that he's a comics fan but isn't sure whether an overly fussy redesign with too many lines is down to Jim Lee or not.

He sounds pretty sure?

I am just cracking up that they can't enjoy Deadshot unless he has a mustache

I dunno - it's superhero comics. Minor, asinine details like staches and beards are all part of the iconography. They're still good design.

Also, Superman would clearly be better with a moustache.

Superman would be better if he was still a lion.

Every superhero would be better if they were lions

Maybe not Aquaman.

ESPECIALLY Aquaman!

he wld be a sealion

Yeah, anything interesting happening to Aquaman would be a bonus. (I love him, but he's shit, really.)

So I skimmed this new GREEN TEAM thing and a character says "...he gets all crunk on this sort of thing" which prompts the reply "Crunk?" "Yeah you know, crunk...like crazy drunk."

Timely as always.

So we can expect a twerking subplot about the time the next cicada hatch?

Green Lantern 20 took everything that was eyeroll-inducing/unpalatable about Johns' run and fellated it vigorously and repeatedly for 64 pages.

Fellatio is a good thing though, right?

depends on what you're fellating I guess.

tuesday times crossword puzzle answer to 61 down was DAYO

I know I shouldn't care, but I've been thinking: According to Flashpoint, the creation of the New 52 was because of Pandora, which means that she must have existed before the New 52. But her origin story involves The Phantom Stranger and The Question, who were different persons before the merge, right? So, did her changing the universe change her own story as well, and what was her original story then? Or are the Trinity of Sin from another universe all-together, which has now merged with the rest of the DC Universe?

you realise that none of this was actually planned out, right

Icidentally, amongst a litany of fuck ups the most unforgivable thing DC did was give The Phantom Stranger a definitive origin story.

The only interesting thing about him was the fact that nobody knew who he was and now he's fucking Judas Iscariot. It's like DC comics as imagined by Bill Donahue.

That SS post helps encapsulate everything I loathe about post 2000 superhero comic books

Part two of it: http://everydayislikewednesday.blogspot.com.au/2013/05/review-suicide-squad-vol-1-kicked-in.html

"Why am I willing to describe certain specific events during my brief encounter with them for the New 52? Because I am appalled at the way in which creators are being bullied, and somewhat freaked out at the things I saw in my own time there. I encountered more lies and veiled threats – more attempts to justify dysfunctional behavior and systems – than I have ever encountered in my career."

i'm sure that's all OTM - but why would anyone hire paul jenkins in the first place? truly horrible writer

Holy Fucking Shit at the story about him ghost-dialoging an entire comic because David Finch couldn't be found.

note that that refers to this issue (from upthread):

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.

...and an uncredited ghost-writer.

I said recently to a fan at a convention that there’s little chance DC would want a guy like me to write the Flash. I would have him lose a leg to a roadside bomb, then write about the personal issues that would naturally dominate his life for a while.

Jenkins makes some good points in that interview, but this is a truly, truly terrible idea for a Flash story.

pfft he'd grow it back again. Morrison and Millar broke his leg at the end of their first story.

I mean, it does sound dumb, but at least better than "he saves Chunk, who is now a hot thin woman, from Doctor Rape, then cries on a satellite"

That sounds like a low bar - is it Geoff Johns?

it's a gestalt thing

is there a nu-52 Flash book? I'm just assuming

I just discovered that Gregg Hurwitz, the dude writing Batman: The Dark Knight was in my graduating class from college, which is making me want to buy it

So I was interested in what the deal was with Pandora in the New 52, after having read Flashpoint, but really not touching any of the New 52, and I was amazed at how bad it was. Really, the story is completely predictable from page one, if you know who Pandora is, except for some really baffling details. Like, why on Earth does she get punished, when she doesn't do anything wrong (and as she is punished at the same time as the Phantom Stranger, who is presumably Judas WHEN does she get punished? Or does that weird council thing exist out of time?) Anyways, there was an info-box pointing to the recent Shazam-story, so I picked up the latest Justice League, and was perplexed once again, since the thing with the court wasn't even mentioned. But the sin-creatures were there all of a sudden. Does anything get explained anywhere else?

But really, the most annoying thing was, that there was nothing about Pandora creating the New 52 Universe, which was the entire point of her creation. I don't get it. So has she always existed in the DCU, and pulled other universes into it? If so, did she change her own origin, since she now is tied to The Question and Phantom Stranger, who were different before? Will we ever get her true, pre-52 origin?

But most importantly: Why on earth did she keep singing: 'sing a song, sing a song, we are strong, we are strong'? Did DC pay someone to come up with that? Did they pay anyone on this book? What on earth is going on? How do they expect to get readers on this book, when it's such a weird mixture of absolutely predictable, and still completely incomprehensible?

Geoff Johns explains Trinity War so you don't have to read it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncnbJtabH68

yup, that sounds like a Geoff Johns event. i'll read the trades if my library gets 'em down the road

I have to say that even if they are deeply terrible compared to past books, coming into JL/JLA/JLD relatively context-free has allowed me to enjoy all of them. Also, some of the characters are genuinely fun to read in that context (particularly Shazam, Cyborg, Catwoman and Deadman)

I thought if you had to explain the joke, that meant the joke failed. Now how badly has it failed if you have to explain it pre-emptively?

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=47143

'You think this is gonna be for kids? Stop, stop. We don't publish comics for kids. We publish comics for 45-year olds. If you want to do comics for kids, you can do 'Scooby-Doo.'

Way to go, DiDio.

I am guessing that was the wrong article?

No, it's just one line in a massive piece.

Gist is:

Paul Pope has idea for Kamandi as an all ages book
DiDio tells him that comics are only for middle aged men
DiDio tells him if he wants to write for anybody else he has to write Scooby Doo
Paul Pope tells DC to go fuck themselves

oh lol, I was searching for DiDio rather than 45

Sorry, PP cryptically calls him Head of DC Comics and not by name.

On the plus side, you get to read a Paul Pope interview.

bookmarked for later, thanks. nice to see Gene Yang too

I like Dan's total commitment to inevitable obsolescence

"It was heartbreaking, in a way. There just aren't enough comics for kids. There aren't enough good comics for kids. And I just carried that around for a while."

as a parent who takes his daughter to the local comic shop a couple times a month this is, sadly, really true. the guy who runs the local is great, he has a kids section, little stools set out, he makes kids feel welcome - but there's no doubt that the vast majority of stuff in the shop is not just not aimed at them, or even appropriate for them. I guide my daughter's reading pretty carefully but it sucks that I have to actively search to find a Wonder Woman or Superman comic that isn't loaded with sex or gore.