Liveblogging: The New 52
DC Comics Micro-Reviews All Day

NoisyDvL5

Today is a rare weekday off and yesterday was my first chance to get to my LCS in a month. That means I’ve just picked up my first DC Comics from “The New 52” and I’ve got all day to read them. Sounds like a good recipe for some liveblogging…

My schedule the last couple months has been particularly crazy. A promotion at work has soaked up my free time like a sponge and life threw me a few curveballs to keep the positives that come with a promotion in balance. Yesterday was the first time I could swing by my shop in September and I had a nice stack of “The New 52” waiting for me. I’d perused a few at the comic shop in the mall, read some reviews, and I couldn’t help but look at a spoiler here or there – so it’s not exactly all fresh to me, but I’ll be reading everything anew today.

As I’m prone to crazy blog experiments (let’s not talk about DailyThor, okay, I’m going to get that worked back into the schedule, darn it!), I had the silly idea to liveblog my thoughts about each issue as I read it. Fifty-two comics is a lot to read in a day, but let’s face it – these are modern comics, $3 for 7-8 minutes of entertainment. It won’t really take all day to read each one and do a little write-up. And I do mean little – just some first thoughts, what I liked/didn’t, a rating, and a simple yes/no system for if I’m going to keep reading beyond this issue.

I’m going to use one of Searchable/Sortable tables (like we used for our New 52 Solicits a few months back) and I’ll update it as I read each #1. To help make this article not boring at the outset, I got a head start this morning and have Week One ready to go.

As I’m reading along, I’d love to hear what you’ve been thinking about these new titles this month and how much agree or disagree with my assessments!

And, yes, there will be some spoilers…

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131 thoughts on “Liveblogging: The New 52
DC Comics Micro-Reviews All Day”

  1. You’re crazy. But we knew that already. 😉

    Sounds like a cool idea. I’m interested to see what you think when you get to the Green Lantern books!

    1. Yes. My craziness is well documented at this site. Now that I’m a little over halfway done at 3pm, I’m starting to rethink this idea… LOL 😀

      I enjoyed GL, I’m sure I’ll like the other two too. We’ll find out soon… 🙂

  3. I’ll warn you. Weeks 1 and 2 are going to suck, but Week 3 and Week 4 will pay off in spades.

    I still hate that they’ve done this, but I have to admit we did get some good comics out if it.

    1. Good god, yes! I couldn’t believe DC let so much of the slop out at first and made us wait on the better titles. And like Noisy sorta mentioned, they were stupid to release JL #1 by itself with so little story and so little impact on the overall line for us to have to sit there for a week with no better idea of the DCnU. Stupid.

      1. Personally, I wish they wouldn’t sell bad books at all. It’s not like there’s a lack of talented writers and artists they could be using…

        Anyway, I think it’s been an okay balance. I’ve read some great stuff already today and I know there’s some awfulness ahead.

  4. It’s cool that you’re doing this, but my comic reading stopped back in August. I’m too old to start reading a new universe and making sense out which of my memories don’t play into it. I wish DC well, it was a good run.

    1. There’s a few books you could conceivably still buy if you were already buying Batman and Green Lantern appear to have just picked up right afterwards. It’s not all flushed away.

  5. Cool idea, but so much to read. LOL

    My favorite books from the first week were Batgirl & OMAC. I know there was a lot of nerdrage about Barbara being up and walking around, but I think it was long overdue!

    1. I… liked her better as Oracle. And I loved Cassandra & Stephanie. It’s going to be really difficult for Gail to overcome that much of a deficit.

      OMAC is fun, I’ll be interested to see if it stays that way and I may go back and pick up issues I missed.

  7. I love Batwoman. The art on the back is ****ing beautiful and the new issue was no exception. I’m so happy that its finaly out and DC better not plan on cancelling it any time soon!

      1. I’m sure Montoya isn’t dead. They can’t just kill her in a relaunch… Think of it this way, we’re questioning if she’s even alive. 😉

        As for Williams. Absolutely. That book is art moreso than anything else from the Relaunch. I do hope Hadley still fits into the Relaunch plans somewhere though, I enjoy her work.

  8. I was so bored by Stormwatch and Demon Knights! I felt like there was a lot of larger plot going on and the writer didn’t bother to fill us in. Those books are written for the trade which is something Didio promised would stop.

    1. Yeah, they are bigger pictures books (and appear to be slightly connected on top of that), but they were so well written, I’m willing to let them slide for only being part of a story.

      And writing for the trade is here to stay, no matter what Dan Didio says.

  9. I gotta take exception with Batgirl being serviceable! Gail Simone knocked that issue out of the park! It’s wonderful to have Batgirl back and be so full of life. I’m looking forward to her being in Birds of Prey, yeah, but it’ll be better with her as Batgirl than as Oracle!

    1. Serviceable isn’t bad, just average.

      The only value I see with her showing up in BOP is that we can figure out her history. It’s pretty screwed up at the moment.

  10. IMO the books of the month are Swamp things, Demon knights, Batman, Batman and Robin, Teen titans,, and justice league Dark. I loved each and every one of those. On a side note The new Daredevil comic is OUTSTANDING and I recomend everyone give it shot.

    1. I like the first three, but I just couldn’t get into Batman & Robin, too much clashing. I’m looking forward to JL Dark and I’m not sure about Titans. We’ll see soon!

      I was tempted by that Daredevil… hmm…

  11. Also it certainly was a tough month for reviewing comics with all these new books coming out glad its slowed a little to just the good ones each month!

    1. It’s tough for me since I usually review toys. I’m not sure if I’m saying the right things, particularly since I’m trying to keep it short and simple.

      2. I agree with you 100% about writing comic reviews .
        JL Dark if your interested in you will prob love!
        Teen Titans suprised me I wasnt expceting much but I was blown away

  12. Great idea for a blog. There’s some nasties coming up on your list though. This’ll be interesting.

  14. I wanted to read all 52 but it was just too much money! And reading them all in one day is pretty cool. Great job so far!!

  15. Grifter’s an odd title; people either loved it or hated it. I’ve been reviewing the books off and on for the past few weeks but ‘Legion Lost’ was one of the books I had the most to say about. I’m pretty familiar with the LoSH but the book was… an odd one.
    Anyway, you can see where I went on about it forever

    http://t.co/RaX0h3so

    1. Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out… later tonight? tomorrow? 😉 I’m interested to see what I missed from being Lost myself.

      Grifter just… maybe it will read better as part of a trade? I don’t know.

      1. The main issue I had with Grifter was that there wasn’t enough to really identify him as that particular character; I’m not really familiar with the character at all but there wasn’t enough to say that they couldn’t have made this star Nightwing or Richard Dragon or somebody. But I also think that’s the problem with most of the New 52 stuff: there’s a lot of team books that don’t introduce the members well and a lot of solo books that show cool action for the protagonist but not a huge amount of character. Still, I thought Grifter was solid and I appreciated it a lot more than I was expecting. That may stem from having had zero expectations in the first place, having bought it only to review for the site, but a surprise is a surprise either way.

        Legion Lost was just… awkward. There isn’t enough to define the characters as individuals outside of Timber Wolf being a loner. Wildfire and Dawnstar are a couple but you’d just barely get that from the book. Chameleon Girl’s a relatively minor character but the book makes her seem overly disposable (if not incompetent) despite her being married to Colossal Boy. The cliffhanger was also a little forced and more than a little incomprehensible.

        I’m picking up All-Star Western, Aquaman and probably New Guardians tomorrow. I’m a big fan of Tony Bedard but I was pretty disappointed with how much was overturned or altered with Blue Beetle. Still, I do like Kyle even though Bedard’s GLC was decent for the most part; I liked that he used characters that weren’t Guy (or Kryb for that matter who was the most bizarrely overpowered Corps member ever underneath Tomasi) but he really only got to do 1 real story arc before War of the GLs started. I, Vampire sounds interesting but the only thing I’ve read by the writer was the GN Tumor, which was only ok. We’ll see. I’ve already bought more books than I was intending, just so I could write about them; in a way DC’s strategy worked though it wasn’t really what I think they were going for.

        1. You’re definitely right about Grifter not being Grifter, future issues might come around and help that book be better. My buddy still has faith in the writer. You’re also right on how few books made a big “must read” splash with missing key elements or even team members.

          Most of those relationships were lost on me! I noted that Colossal Boy was upset over his wife, but I couldn’t tell you who. That book could really use a catchup page. I don’t know why DC just doesn’t do it. I don’t care if it’s “Marvel thing” – it will sell books surely.

          I think Blue Beetle hooked me early because of the backstory on the scarab and the Green Lantern, I didn’t care so much through the middle. Also, it was posited to me that Wally can’t exist because his legacy origin requires Barry. It’s possible that Jaime had Ted & Dan cut out for the opposite reason. I really enjoyed Jonah Hex, Aquaman was good and so was

          And I definitely hear you on the last part – I wouldn’t have read them all if it weren’t for my crazy idea to do so all in one day. Not even close.

  16. I picked up about half the books and enjoyed them enough, all the books are selling out those so DC must be doing something right.

      1. I was told yesterday they could have limited the print runs (before going into a 2nd, etc) so they could all sold out, but this has been a big event. I’m curious if sales are as strong in a few months though.

        2. DC printed 10-20% over national pre-order depending on the title. Because of last minute order increases and restock orders all 52 sold through those over prints and have had second printings and even third printings ordered. 11 of the titles have sold 100k copies and JLA has sold over 200k. In contrast only 9 other books this entire year have sold 100k copies.

  17. I don’t understand all the Liefeld hate. I get that what he tries to draw sometimes exceeds his abilities, but he impacted a large portion of where comics have been the last twenty years. I’m glad to have him back on Hawk and Dove.

    1. No hate from me, I just don’t much care for his style. I don’t talk much about the art because I like to focus on writing, but I’m really picky with artists when I do talk about it.

        2. liefeld sucks so bad, that 20 years later, one of his character designs made it into motuc and the creator is trying to claim it’s a 30 year old design… do you any other comic artists so pervasive and penetrative that their character designs actually go back in time 10 years to influence an 8 year old? that’s flat out magic balls homeslice.

  18. Batman was totally awesome!! ‘Nuff said!

    Curious what you think about Dark Knight though given the review. Heh heh.

  20. Does it pain anyone else that Geoff Johns gets to just keep his own storylines going while Snyder, BQ Miller, and so many other great creators had to have there stories ****ed up by this relaunch.

    1. Except the only thing Johns has done at DC that escapes somewhat unscathed from the relaunch is Green Lantern. His runs on Action/Superman: Secret Origin, Teen Titans, JSA, The Flash (Wally West), and Superboy are all wiped from continuity. Snyder has James Gordon Jr. from his recent run on Detective appearing in Batman #1 and has said that Swamp Thing isn’t going to be much different New 52 or not. BQ Miller did get the short end of the stick along with Stephanie Brown, but that is assuredly because very few people read his Batgirl in comparison to titles like Batman and Green Lantern.

      1. I saw James Gordon, Jr! I was so happy about that.

        Nicholai is right, Johns did “lose” a lot of the stuff he’d written. GL was saved more because how many issues they were printing and didn’t want to risk losing than it was his coveted baby. If other titles had been selling better, they might have been saved as well.

        That said, some pet projects did sneak through and I’m crushed that BoP & Batgirl weren’t two of them. I’d much rather have the old books back on that front.

  22. Deadman’s book was awful! He goes into some depressed, handicapped soldier and puts a gun to his head? That’s supposed to get me to read the next issue? Forget it!!

  23. Legion has been very good at Levitz and I’m happy it’s continuing. People always says that Legionis too hard to get into because it’s not connected, but I don’t think so. Great books if you’re just willing to learn a little bit about them before you jump in.

    1. I don’t disagree that people need to learn more backstory if they’re confused rather than just give up. That problem is so endemic that it helped spur on this Relaunch.

      The Legion does have a lot to learn though. It’s a whole ‘nother universe (future of one anyway) shoved into one or two books.

    1. Man, you didn’t hate on that book nearly enough. That and Catwoman were both ****ing awful! At least it got an unsatisfactory. It was that at best.

    1. It has been a long day. I turned off my phone and put on some music to make sure I got through it! It’s probably time to take a break and get some dinner before plunging into this week’s comics…

  27. The key word you used Noisy was UNREMARKABLE. Being a lifelong DC fan i bought them all and out of all the 52, i’d say maybe a third were unremarkable. Top of my list is Green Arrow, Grifer,Mr. Terrific and Red Hood on the ho hum side. Most others have kept me interested to go to issue 2. My standouts were Action, Animal Man, Green Lantern, Swampy, Batman, Resurrection Man, Flash, and Aquaman

    1. I really liked unremarkable as a rating when I thought of it. Sounds like you and I are on the same wavelength on the likes and dislikes.

  28. Some of the choices on the relaunch smack of under the table deals at DC. The Wildstorm characters have no place in the DC Universe and were probably put there to secure Jim Lee on JL (Stormwatch is okay, but the other Wildstorm characters have terrible books that waste slots that should have gone to other DC characters.) Crappy 90s Marvel EiC Bob Harras seems to have put a lot of 90s Marvel people on the books (Scott Lobdell gets 3? He writes Tim Drake the way he writes his own tweets…like an asshat.) Fabian Niceza, Rob Leifeld, George Perez, all 90s Marvel guys. And Perez on writing only? Crazy. BQM and Greg Rucka (as in “awesome writer, muthatrucka!”) are left out in the cold.

    But with that out of the way, there have been some good books to come out of this. Glad we get a follow up to Elegy at long last. I do find a lot of them aren’t new reader friendly. Wish more could be like Aquaman, which does not deny his long career in the DCU but perfectly sets up a new direction while giving you a great introduction to the character (still miss the hook hand.)

    1. As much as I would love Rucka on any book, I think he’s done with DC for now; they did something to make him walk a little while back, right after before War of the Supermen. Heck, it might have BEEN War of the Supermen though I think it was more to do with Batwoman than anything else. I haven’t read his Punisher stuff at Marvel but he can make pretty much any character’s book a gripping read. Maybe someday…

      1. I’d still love to have him back in there. Definitely better than the current plan which seemed to heavily involve letting artists (and no offense to all, some artists can be really good writers) pitch all these books.

    2. I think the universes could be combined, but intelligently. This relaunch wasn’t done intelligently – it wasn’t a group process restructuring the DC Universe, making things more seamless and sensible, it was a bunch of people pitching ideas and getting approval – which is how it’s always been. A lot of the 52 is different, but it’s also a lot more of the same.

      I was thinking about the writers you mention today when I read about Perez. You have a high profile book changing teams and you just go to Giffen? C’mon. Call back BQM, Diggle, Pfiefer – someone fresh that can bring something to this new 52.

    3. I think the universes could be combined, but intelligently. This relaunch wasn’t done intelligently – it wasn’t a group process restructuring the DC Universe, making things more seamless and sensible, it was a bunch of people pitching ideas and getting approval – which is how it’s always been. A lot of the 52 is different, but it’s also a lot more of the same.

      I was thinking about the writers you mention today when I read about Perez. You have a high profile book changing teams and you just go to Giffen? C’mon. Call back BQM, Diggle, Pfiefer – someone fresh that can bring something to this new 52.

  29. Noisy, I’ve read them all and come to one earth-shattering conclusion!

    You should do this every week!

  30. I enjoyed the Dark Knight quite a bit, but I do think you’re right. Daniel got our attention better, Snyder wrote a better book, and Tomasi had Damian. Dark Knight didn’t really stand out from the others.

    1. I did like it, but one of the books had to be fourth and it just turned out to be that one. Though I think the other 3 were all distant to Snyder’s Batman.

    1. I missed Aquaman on accident, but skipped Kyle’s book. I figured I should get a few that I wasn’t excited about out of the way before I left myself with a bunch of ones I wasn’t sure about at the end!

    1. Kupperberg wrote Aquaman back in the sixties when they first introduced Mera and the family. Lots of good back issues in that era. Peter David (wrote the hooked Aquaman which I absolutely loved. We need a DC Classics of that look, damn it. And Pfeifer (& Arcudi) wrote the middle part of the last title between Veitch and Busiek – the Sub Diego era which is probably one of my all-time favorite periods. Speaking of, I hope Lorena survived the Relaunch…

  35. Kyle’s book was really good I thought. I didn’t really understand Justice League Dark. I hadn’t heard of a lot of those characters.

    1. I enjoyed both of those books immensely. Justice League Dark could’ve been a little more clear on the Enchantress’ back story, but that is what wikipedia is for. 🙂

      1. question: is anyone who’s currently reading the wildstorm relaunches a fan of the origins of any of those books? i’d be curious to see if we had any wildc.a.t.s. fans in here who kind of give me an idea of where they’ve gone w/ the new titles from the original. i will say, i was a fan of the original series, but it got old. i wonder how much of that mythos has been preserved and how much has been discarded. thanks for any input.

        1. So far it’s just been some of the Authority, Grifter, Voodoo, and Fairchild. I can’t speak to the originals but the Authority seemed slightly different while the other characters really don’t seem to evoke much of the originals.

        2. It’s funny, in the Flashpoint minis, they put together a rag-tag “Team 7”, just to kill them all off.
          In the DCnU, there’s been no mention of Team One, or Team 7, and the foundations of Stormwatch seem to go back to the dark ages or possibly farther, not just the 1960’s. Seems more Century-babies-oriented than Team One…
          There don’t seem to be any Gen-Actives, yet. If that is Fairchild in the NOWHERE facility, she hasn’t shown any Gen-Active powers yet.
          Grifter also seems to have no Gen-Active abilities, and no mention of Coda training, rather just one mention of being a “Delta Operator, turned con man”.
          I liked how in the Wildstorm universe, the most powerful were labeled “Majestic-class”. Without a Mr. Majestic, Stormwatch now refers to Apollo as “Superman-class”. Doesn’t have the same ring to it.
          Voodoo is definitely half-monster, but whether that’s Daemonite or not, who knows. They were far more interested in the “T+” scenes than they were in telling you anything about her in her first issue.
          For a title called “Stormwach”, it’s been only Authority characters so far. Other titles have featured behind-the-scenes schemers/manipulators that could have easily been Jackson King, or Henry Bendix, but they decided to use new characters from Central Casting, rather than, you know, write something interesting…
          Despite getting three books in the relaunch, Wildstorm seems to have suffered the logic bombs worse than the other two co-joined universes. It seems pretty easy for the Vertigo characters to walk out of the reboot unscathed. DC got shaken up without much rhyme or reason, and Wildstorm, which never needed a past other than covert action teams in the 60’s, a glowy comet, and an interstellar war, suddenly contributed ‘immortal guides’ and ‘century babies protecting the world from little green men since AD 1’ to the merged universe. Hunh?
          Not really sure what glowy Red girl did to mix the universes when Flash un-saved his mom, but it makes very little sense, yet. I have zero hope that it ever will. She said it was going to make the world stronger, but so far, I have to think that she lied.

          1. thanks… that seems a real shame, since as you point out, there was a lot of potential in those original wildstorm titles… like why half the wildstorm characters aren’t gen-active… that could be played in a really cool way, like these two generations of heroes, deriving their powers from a new mutation (or however they want to retcon gen-active abilities) facing off w/ the old school heroes and kind of leaving them behind… like what would you do if you were superman and suddenly the next generation of really powerful heroes were called “majestic class” after a hero who has similar abilities to you? superman’s ego is still very human in capacity, so what happens to him when he’s not the top dog anymore? what happens to batman when grifter is taking out the scum of gotham before you can even get there? that could have been some offered some great chances to craft story.

  37. Nice to read your thoughts on these! Kinda curious what your pull list looks like.
    I was dreading reading Teen Titans yesterday, but I think it worked relatively well, considering.
    I think I’ll stick with the Lantern books, Batman, Batman & Robin, Nightwing, Teen Titans, and Resurrection Man. Might pick up some of the others too, but leave them off my pull list. I’m fairly certain I’ll want to grab the trade of Demon knights when it comes out based on all the reviews I’ve read, watched, and heard.

    1. Teen Titans gets a star for not being as bad as we were all expecting, I think! 🙂

      My current pull list will be the top 20 or so from the above list as well as FF, Captain America, Thor, JiM, SHIELD, & whatever Crossgen Marvel is throwing out. Nothing too spectacular.

      You’ve got some great choices on your list!

  38. I saw these tweets all day but couldn’t find time to read it until this morning. Awesome job and we agree on most of the titles that I read from the 52.

  39. Heck of a task you undertook, Noisy. Now, that’s what I call dedication! Thanks for your hard work in putting together this project for the rest of us.

  40. I’ve not got around to picking these up yet, but a few comments based on your reviews and the comments here:

    Wildstorm – I’m an lifelong Wildstorm fan, and the characters don’t fit with DC. THe whole point is that their world is a lot more accepting of violence and morally grey SPBs, and that just doesn’t fit with the main DCU

    Flash – was there no mention of Wally at all? WHere is he in the new world?

    Deadman – as a disabled person and the member of a number of disabilty organisations, I hate the way disabled people are portrayed. We’re not all villains these days, but I hate the emphasis from both here and Avatar that losing the use of your legs is the end of your life and you should kill yourself. Do what a real man does, adjust to your new situation and go on to have a fulfilling life like most people do.

    Jo
    I’m ill, tired and cranky, and I’ve had enough of work already today

    1. Oh, and I forgot to say – outstanding work on that huge chunk of reviews.

      Now we just need you to do the same every week 😉

      1. Thanks! Every week is a bit much… DC would need to send ’em to me. 🙂

        Wildstorm – I can see that, that the nature of the world was too different. They definitely seem like echoes in a sense, even the relatively unchanged Authority members.

        Flash – I don’t know. He’s basically useless to them it seems. One thing I thought of that might be cool is if the Earth-2 heroes are old and Wally is Jay’s successor on that Earth. I doubt anything like that will happen though. Barry and Iris are barely connected in the book and we’re still not even sure if Bart is still related to Barry.

        Deadman – The man in the wheelchair didn’t really get much screen time to himself, but I hear what you’re saying. He had some PTSD issues I believe, but he was shown as staring off into a mirror. Definitely a reverse image from Oracle.

    2. are they trying to maintain that in the relaunch titles, the morality ambiguity? i actually liked that, for the most part, that no one was good or evil in the traditional sense, they played out a lot more like people. my beef w/ the old wildstorm titles was, eventually, too many characters who were in essence cookie cutters scenarios every month.

      1. Stormwatch acts like they’re the higher authority, dealing indiscriminantly with real problems while the JLA plays hero. Grifter didn’t get enough development to know what’s going on and Voodoo is a loner.

  41. Excellent work! Any conclusions?

    I’m personally torn: DC has managed to get the spotlight and sell a lot of comics, and I’m probably going to be buying two more books than I was previously. (Two more than none, everything I like gets cancelled…) But some of the books have generated a lot of hate, I don’t like the haphazard rebooting of some things but not others, and was this the absolute best that DC could do? Really? I don’t know.

    1. Wow. That’s a really tough question. While I found some stuff to love, I think I have to say I’m rather unimpressed. (isn’t that such a mean word? perhaps meaner than I intend.)

      I think you hit the nail on the head. This wasn’t the best DC can do. They’re clearly making a effort to get books on time and that’s very important despite any creator protests.

      But they didn’t make that same commitment to quality and it shows. Granted, quality is a fickle thing. The books I found atrocious have been lauded elsewhere while some of the books I drooled over where blasted on other sites. There were some that overcame the disagreements – Swamp Thing was highly praised almost everywhere, Catwoman was similarly derided. But so many of the titles weren’t well put together or well conceived.

      Things didn’t connect. Top talent wasn’t recruited (the talent appears to have been recruited via the same good ol’ boys network as always). Artists that had yet to prove themselves as writers were given books that sorely needed trained writers.

      This wasn’t a big orchestrated relaunch. Reading through – plot points are different, historical data is in doubt, characterizations have changed, but the whole day felt like reading a lot more of the same comics I always have with the names changed.

      After the dust settles, I’ll be back to my normal routine – not reading Superman or Justice League, but enjoying the fringe titles where quality writing is much more important. All this upheaval, but in the end, I imagine my pull list will look very much the same.

  42. Thanks for taking the time to put this together, it was cool to see someone else’s thoughts on the whole new DC. It looks like we had really different interests going into this. I liked a lot of the books that you had little interest in or found unremarkable. I enjoyed most of the Batman titles except Batwoman, Hal is my favorite Green Lantern, and I absolutely despise Grant Morisson – LOL! I’d have to say on the whole, most of it has been a bit underwhelming but I hope the new Universe finds it’s footing soon.

    1. Thanks for reading! It just goes to show that tastes are so different. I think my overall thought is that it just isn’t different enough – any why should it be, they’re using the same people, the editors are still the same, etc. I wish there had been something larger, more orchestrated. It didn’t feel like a new Universe, just ours with random changes made for no coherent reason.

  43. Even tho first issues are an easy sell, i think these first issues are tough in this reboot setting. Its one thing to take a long gone character out of comic book limbo and tweak and redesign and then send them out into battle for our comic book buying dollars. Its another thing completely to take a character that we just saw a month ago and see them changed around. I personally think that DC should have changed the mixture of keeping built in fans happy and hooking new readers just a bit. Maybe 70/30.

    I most of your reviews would have been better had DC taken a different approach editorially. I enjoyed most of the new 52 and i will stay with most of them at least thru their first story arc, but i felt that most of the books had the same formula. Action in the beginning, a little vague set up for whats to come and a surprise last page. Some of the books didnt even show their title character till the last couple pages. I think it would have made for a better book if they had their title characters already in the thick of things and then thru flashbacks or internal monologue to explain origins or backstory.

    I also feel that in this day and age with our instant satisfaction and extremely short attention spans that the current storytelling techniques are not working. I’m a 30+ year collector of comics and will continue to buy comics on a monthly issue basis. But when you read that the trades sell so well and are sometimes outselling the monthly books, that should tell you something. I think the days of telling self contained, single issue stories are more or less a thing of the past. BUT on the other hand i think its also tough to sell monthly episodic comics as well. We could some day see a tapering off of monthly 30 page comics and see more original trade formatted stories. Seems these days people just dont have the patience to read monthly comics

    1. I definitely agree. The comic industry has been adamantly doing the same thing over and over for years and then wondering where the readers are going. DC has this weird dichotomy going where they Rebirth GL while decimating Aquaman or bringing back Barry, but completely distorting the Captain Marvel franchise.

      I know I don’t need self-contained stories – Jonah Hex had a hard time keeping me interested because I wanted longer epics, but they still need to tell a story. It’s not easy to tell a story in 20 pages – some stories don’t take 20 pages, some take more. I think things would go a little better if writers made sure that the arc packed a punch and the issue packed a punch. It may be difficult, but there are plenty of other writers out there that can do it, surely more than 52. Get those people writing these books.

    2. I definitely agree. The comic industry has been adamantly doing the same thing over and over for years and then wondering where the readers are going. DC has this weird dichotomy going where they Rebirth GL while decimating Aquaman or bringing back Barry, but completely distorting the Captain Marvel franchise.

      I know I don’t need self-contained stories – Jonah Hex had a hard time keeping me interested because I wanted longer epics, but they still need to tell a story. It’s not easy to tell a story in 20 pages – some stories don’t take 20 pages, some take more. I think things would go a little better if writers made sure that the arc packed a punch and the issue packed a punch. It may be difficult, but there are plenty of other writers out there that can do it, surely more than 52. Get those people writing these books.

  44. I will be buying the second issues of: Action Comics, Animal Man, JLI, Swamp Thing, OMAC, Demon Knights, Frankenstein, Superboy, Batman, Birds of Prey, DCU Presents, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Justice League, Aquaman, I Vampire, JL Dark, and Superman. There are a couple I’m on the fence with and a few I loved (All-Star Western, Flash) that a friend will be picking up.

    1. As you saw, I agree with a lot of your list. Do you mind telling me more abotu what you saw in JLIU, DCU Presents, and BoP that kept your interest? Do you think there was something I might’ve missed?

      1. I liked Justice League International because I’m a big fan of B-list teams and like the dynamic with Booster Gold leading the team. The different take on Batman was nice too. Plus, I’m happy to hear that Jurgens is going to be rotating in different characters for the team. While it isn’t the JLI I know and love I’m still going to give it a shot.

        DCU Presents I like because I’m a big fan of giving characters like Deadman or other B, C, or D-list characters a chance to shine. I’m a big fan of the Silver Age and loved anthologies and such that spotlighted different characters. This first story set a good stage for Deadman and I hope keeps his push (being in three different #1s is pretty cool for such a character).

        Birds of Prey I’m happy with because I like the idea of taking the team in a different direction than it has been before. More of a outside-the-law and respectability team than has been seen before. An X-Force lite if you will. I like to see if new characters (Starling) will develop and I hope this book gives a different feel than so many other books out there. I like stuff the writer has done before (I dare not attempt to spell his name) and think it could be good.

  45. Good job with the reviews! I picked up 21 of the 52 and I only 2 were books I didn’t enjoy (Green Arrow and The Flash). But I will continue to ppick up all 21 of these titles at least thru issue #4. And quite a few others have piqued my interest in trying (Demon Knights, Wonder Woman, Frankenstein, Superboy, Batwoman, Batgirl, VooDoo). Just getting back into comics after being away for a few years, seemed like a good point to start:)

    1. Thanks! I added that “Will I buy #2” thing on there to help articulate my feelings, but it did seem a bit harsh. Some of these books just aren’t going to get into a stride in that timeframe. Props to you for sticking with it. My LCS only carries the pull lists, so I’ll be buying up through whatever the last issues he ordered for me… I need to check on that. 🙂

      It’s surely a good place to start, but I do wish a few of the writers took better advantage of it. Levitz would be a great example – he got to continue his previous work, but it would’ve been so much better had they taken an introductory track. They really blew their first impression on that front.

  46. I had no idea Rucka had bad blood with DC. Googling him got me some information, he was kicked off Detective before he could do Alice’s origin story (What the hell DC?) And I guess he wanted to write his own characters…except isn’t he doing The Punisher now? I guess he might have been diplomatic about things. The only other thing I could dig up was that some people behind the scenes at DC have bad mouthed Batwoman (used the dy-word) despite using her as an example of diversity in press releases and stuff.

    Makes me really sad that we’ll never get another Batwoman story out of Rucka. Hopefully he and JH Williams discussed Alice and her origins so it can be followed up on at some point. When Alan Davis took over Excalibur he managed to make the book as awesome as when Claremont was writing it AND wrapped up all the storylines left hanging.

  47. I’d have to say that having read all 52 like you Noisy, i enjoyed them all. Some better than others. Some had faults and some had less. Some i cant wait for number 2 and some i’m ok with waiting. Hehe how’s that for being diplomatic!!

    Now that i’ve read them all and i’m looking at them covering my dining room table, i’d have to say if there were any books i’d actually pass on…it’d be the Grifter and Voodoo. I bought all the Image books when they came out back in 91 or 92 or whenever they first came out. After most of those early Image books proved that they were all hype and no substance, i stuck with Spawn and dropped the rest. I don’t really have any love for any of the Wildstorm characters at all…no time invested in reading years of their storylines. So i could let those 2 books go. I DID however read Authority and loved the first couple of arcs. Add in Martian Manhunter and i’m very interested to see what happens in the Stormwatch book. Perhaps if DC put Grifter and Voodoo in a team book, it’d be an easier transition for new readers and not having to commit to a solo book. I’m sure that’d anger die hard Wildstorm fans…but DC has sole custody now. hehe

  48. Agree with your Animal Man review. As a long-time Animal Man fan, not only was I pleased to see him get a solo book, but I thought this particular effort was a home run.

    I really don’t like the new uniform–I miss the orange and blue, plus the goggles. Aside from this, I thought the writing was outstanding, and the art was nearly perfect, better than anything in the Grant Morrison days.

    Mostly, I’m just pleased that Buddy is getting another shot at his own book.

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