Reading the DC New 52: Month Five

The fifth month turns out to be a rather good one for the DC Comics New 52 trade releases. The best of the lot is clearly Duane Swierczynski’s relaunched Birds of Prey, followed in distant second by Geoff Johns’s Aquaman: The Trench, which is more notable for how it revitalizes the Aquaman character than for the “Trench” story itself.

I’d definitely read a second volume of Scott Lobdell’s Teen Titans, if not for the relatively likable characters then for the Superboy/Legion Lost crossover. Voodoo had a good ending cliffhanger and I’m interested enough in the Daemonite story to get the second volume, letting alone that the book’s cancellation makes this an easy, no-commitments buy. I’ll stick with Legion Lost because I’m a Legion fan and it, too, is cancelled after its next volume. Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men might be the easiest for me to drop because I’ve never felt a real connection with the title character, but given that a new creative team is about to come on, that’s almost like another volume one for me.

After Firestorm, Peter Tomasi’s Green Lantern Corps might be this month’s title that I’m mostly likely to drop, as I didn’t much enjoy it nor the latest volumes of the related series that preceded it, War of the Green Lanterns and Emerald Warriors. But to some extent I’m not sure one can be a “DC Comics reader” and not read Green Lantern and its associated titles simply as a cultural phenomenon, given how the Green Lantern franchise essentially brought DC back to life in the last ten years. I’m dismayed it seems like there’s two back-to-back Green Lantern crossovers on the horizon — they might as well give up the illusion that there’s four Green Lantern titles and just make Green Lantern weekly — but given that Geoff Johns has been writing Lantern for so long, I just bring myself to look away from any part of it until he finishes.

In terms of continuity this month, the most surprising commonality was between Legion Lost and Voodoo, which both include appearances by the Black Razers team. The new DC Universe has far too many rogue science/military groups (including Firestorm’s lackluster Zithertech), and I figured the Black Razers in Legion were just another one until they popped up in Voodoo, too, given pretty extensive background by writer Ron Marz. The Martian Manhunter also makes cameo appearances in both Legion and Green Lantern Corps this month, plus Stormwatch gets a nod in Voodoo. None of this reveals any deeper fundamentals about the new DC Universe nor hints at future storylines necessarily, but this was a strong month for the books feeling like a cohesive universe.

In this aspect Swierczynski’s Birds of Prey also comes off as a title worth watching. Not only did Swierczynski blend action and humor in a way reminiscent of classic Birds runs, but the first trade also introduces Katana, soon to appear in the new Justice League of America series. This way, a book that’s really an outlier in the Batman family also ties directly to the Justice League franchise. As well, Swierczynski guest-stars Batgirl and preserves the Barbara Gordon/Black Canary friendship, which at least takes a step toward mitigating the fact that a year into the DC New 52, there’s still no mention of Oracle’s status.

It’s December now and I’ve got all my DC New 52 collections in hand. It has been a wild year and a wild reading experience to be sure, especially reading fifty-two “first” volumes that did not involve pausing to read the preceding volume first. This process of always starting from the beginning instead of returning to an established series is exhilarating, but I’m looking forward the second volume of Aquaman, Batman: Night of the Owls, Justice League: Villain’s Journey, and others that are less about introducing the characters and more about getting on with the show.

Two more months of DC New 52 Volume Ones left, including Justice League Dark and I, Vampire, Hawkman, Superman and Supergirl, Nightwing, and Red Hood and the Outlaws. The Collected Editions review of Green Lantern: New Guardians will be up this Thursday. Thanks!

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Reading the DC New 52: Month Four

The newest month of DC Comics New 52 collection releases included two cancelled Wave 1 series, Hawk and Dove and OMAC; one cancelled Wave 2 series (or is it Wave 3, I can't keep up), Resurrection Man; one that will have two or three creative team changes in as many collections, Deathstroke, and then Action Comics, Superboy, and Swamp Thing. I've read all of these except Swamp Thing, which I've set aside for another time. I am quite confident I'll enjoy Swamp Thing, given its rave reviews and the author is current Batman superstar Scott Snyder, but I've some Swamp Thing back-reading I'd like to do in order to really get the gist of Snyder's book, and that's going to have to wait until later.

This is another month of DC's trade releases that feels weak to me. The first Action Comics trade is certainly a big deal and so is Superboy, though with Teen Titans and Legion Lost released next month, Superboy feels more a part of that month than this. Swamp Thing is a big deal but, of course, I skipped it; and then the others aren't necessarily blockbusters.

I begin to think DC maybe structured the year a little too top-heavy (maybe on purpose, to build initial excitement for the New 52 collections); to have Animal Man, Batman, Green Lantern, Justice League, Justice League International, Stormwatch, and Wonder Woman all in the first month doesn't leave much to really crow about toward the end. Yes, Aquaman and Flash and Nightwing and Superman and Supergirl and I, Vampire, but they're none of them released in as close quarters as that first month.

What I'd like to look at this time is the world-building -- in these seven six comics, what does a reader learn about the new DC Comics universe that they would not have known a month before (granting that, given the above, some other month might have yielded more fruitful studying than this one)? If this actually were a totally new universe, and a specifically-planned one (like the Tangent Universe, for instance, or Grant Morrison's interconnected Seven Soldiers stories), each of these volumes would be serving to reveal something about the new DCU; that's not actually the case, but we may find bits and pieces scattered nonetheless.

The book that may ultimately matter most this month is Action Comics, or the mouthful it's officially known as, Superman: Action Comics: Superman and the Men of Steel. This takes place before Justice League: Origin, making it the earliest (modern era) New 52 story so far. It introduces Superman's new costume, Lex Luthor, Steel, Metallo, Brainiac, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Krypton -- essentially, Men of Steel ought be the book a lot of Superman writers will be going back to for a long time (oh, "Men of Steel," Byrne's Man of Steel, I just got that). Set in the past, Men of Steel doesn't give us anything about ARGUS, the Daemonite threat, Darkseid, or other such common threads among the other titles; very possibly there's an Earth 2/multiverse bit here, but that won't be truly explicit until the next volume.

Superboy: Incubation reveals the second-most about the new DCU, arguably more than Action Comics. There have been cameos of different characters between the titles, but Superboy is the first to full-on interconnect with another, Teen Titans. The presence of NOWHERE simply suggests the new DCU has a lot of covert organizations in it, and I rather wish writer Scott Lobdell had taken a moment to contrast NOWHERE with ARGUS, Checkmate, SHADE, and other groups out there to show how they interact -- to really world-build, as it were. Of course, the biggest thing in Superboy is the presence of Rose Wilson on one hand and Caitlyn Fairchild on the other -- for those with knowledge of the Wildstorm universe, Fairchild's presence suggests a lot more stories coming down the pike that DC hasn't begun to address yet.

Third, surprisingly, is OMAC: Omactivate! Again, if you're not already knowledgable about the old DCU, you wouldn't be expected to know this, but Desaad and the whole Project Cadmus group on OMAC work for Darkseid, last seen in Justice League: Origin. I know there's a Fourth World-related storyline going on in one other high-profile DC title right now, though not necessarily how it relates to this. Should Darkseid face off against the new DCU again (which, let's face it, is inevitable, maybe around the also-inevitable Justice League/Earth 2 crossover), OMAC may be the book everyone goes back to look at.

As for the rest of the month, Hawk and Dove: First Strikes was a let-down -- no real world-building here, nor much story to recommend. Deathstroke: Legacy is interesting in that I'm sure writer Kyle Higgins is using it as a send-up of the new DCU itself; the book is ultra-violent but with good characterization, though Higgins leaves after this volume to be replaced by Rob Liefeld and then Justin Jordan. Resurrection Man: Dead Again was also good, taking the best things from the original series and making them even better, and in a bit of synchronicity, also includes a Deathstroke cameo -- but it's hard to get too enthusiastic about a book that we already know will be cancelled after the next volume.

Next week we'll continue down the path set by Superboy: Incubation with the New 52 Teen Titans and Legion Lost collections, but we'll pause in there also to look at the Flash trade before Birds of Prey and more. Stick around, and tell your friends, eh?

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Reading the DC New 52: Month Three

We've skipped around a bit this month in reading the DC New 52, jumping forward to review Aquaman: The Trench in the week it came out, and also you'll notice we've moved on to next month already without reviewing Suicide Squad: Kicked in the Teeth.

I want to read Suicide Squad, I know it ties into Resurrection Man, Detective Comics: Faces of Death and later to the Batman "Death of the Family" crossover, but at the same time I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like it, since I didn't like Adam Glass's alternate-reality lead-in, Flashpoint: Legion of Doom.

You commenters have expressed mixed opinions about negative reviews -- if I'm pretty sure I won't like something, but I read it, is it fair to review it to talk about what I didn't like? Or should I only review things I approach "blind" -- if I think I already have an opinion about something, should that disqualify it from review?

Anyway, I've got Suicide Squad right here, but I'm going to hold off until it's really integral to something else I'm reading before I crack it open. Your results may vary, but I think there's something healthy, if you will, about letting a book sit when you recognize you're not in the headspace to enjoy it, even if the book is relevant right there and now.

Otherwise, this month of the DC New 52 felt "gray" to me going in -- three different Bat-family titles, plus Demon Knights, Grifter, and Men of War -- none of these ground-breaking or super-relevant like a new Justice League or Green Lantern title might be. Some books I had been looking forward to, like Demon Knights, but in all not the most exciting month.

As it turns out, all three of the Bat-family titles were pretty good. Gail Simone really impressed with Batgirl: The Darkest Reflection, breathing for me new life into the stale Barbara Gordon character. Batwing: The Lost Kingdom was a great old-school "Bat-apprentice" story in the style of Dennis O'Neil's Azrael, marred only by the announcement that writer Judd Winick is leaving the title. And Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason's Batman and Robin: Born to Kill met my high expectations -- I only wish this title would have stretched a little farther to produce an unexpected Bruce/Damian story, instead of telling well the story we already expected.

Demon Knights: Seven Against the Dark is clearly the best book of the month, a complete story told in seven issues that feels more like a Vertigo book, like a collection of Fables, like a two-hour television show, than a standard collection of comics. If you asked me after the first two issues of Grifter: Most Wanted, I would have said it was a sleeper hit, one of the strongest DC New 52 debuts so far, but the book loses a lot when artist CAFU departs, ending in disappointing fashion.

It is, in all, a very "dark" month, with a predominance of books from DC's Edge line. Batman and Robin, Batgirl, and Batwing all involve mystery and bloody murder, as Bat-titles do; Demon Knights is the most "fanciful" of the books, involving swords and sorcery, but of them all has some of the most gruesome torture and beheadings. Grifter and Men of War are tamer by comparison, but neither offers the uplifting superheroics one might expect from a Superman comic, for instance.

I've been reading a little of Mark Waid's recent Daredevil, and also Waid talking about Daredevil, and I begin to agree that writing dark comics is easy; writing interesting superhero comics that aren't so grim is hard. Next week I'll be reviewing Kyle Higgins's Deathstroke, which is super-violent; Higgins uses violence well in his story and there's nothing wrong with that, but looking at all the Month Three books together, there's an extent to which the darkness becomes repetitive.

Being as I am a sucker for crossovers and continuity, what I liked most this month were the additional hints of the alien Daemonite threat; we didn't see much of this last month, but now Grifter ties into Stormwatch and even Demon Knights has a subtle connection. We trade-waiters will have to wait another two months for the Voodoo collection for more; meanwhile next month has Swamp Thing, with ties to Animal Man, and Superboy, with ties to Teen Titans and Legion Lost, to tide over my crossover cravings.

The books this month were not bad -- the Bat-titles and Demon Knights at the top of the pack -- but neither were they the most exciting. Despite Superboy and Action Comics, next month is a slow one, too. Eyes on the horizon for Month Five, however; with Titans and Legion Lost, plus Birds of Prey and Green Lantern Corps, that should be a good one.

Like I said, Deathstroke next week, and then we'll jump ahead a few months to review Batman: The Dark Knight: Knight Terrors. Plus Doug's got reviews of some classic DC/Marvel team ups -- don't miss it!

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Reading the DC New 52: Month Two

If possibly to ease trade readers into the DC New 52, the first month of New 52 collections had a comforting familiarity. Batman and Green Lantern were essentially continuations of previous titles, and even books like Justice League, Justice League International, and Stormwatch still essentially functioned like team books of old.

It is in the second month of the DC New 52 collections that readers really start to see a shake-up. Mr. Terrific and Static Shock are the first two New 52 books also cancelled, so they're done-in-one collections -- they're also the first entries that present racial diversity as a tenet of the New 52. Red Lanterns and Frankenstein are relatively new, and relatively weird, entries into the DC Universe, a departure from the same old thing. And then rounding this out are somewhat familiar, but in ways no less distinctive, entries from Detective Comics, Batwoman, and Legion of Super-Heroes.

Batwoman is the one to watch here. It is not the least bit of news to say J. H. Williams returns stellar work, but now he's got a monthly title, which means his Batwoman work can't be dismissed as being just for a "one off" or a special. Having seen work like Williams's on Batwoman and Francis Manapul on Flash, I firmly believe the way to success for the DC New 52 is to up their artistic standards.

Writing matters, yes, but I think when most of the general public think of comic books, they picture art like that of Jim Lee or Tony Daniel on Detective. Both are cogent artists who draw attractive work, but I think it fails at this point to surprise -- and further, cluttered, distorted art like that of Scott McDaniel's on Static Shock only hurt the cause of superhero comics overall.

Williams's art on Batwoman is expansive and it tells an additional story that the script can't tell on its own. In doing so it elevates comics and demonstrates what comics can do as a medium on its own and not just as illustrated books. That's my bar now for "good" art -- art that works in an additive way to the story. Alberto Pontcelli draws wonderful monsters in Frankenstein, but his work simply depicts Jeff Lemire's story, it does not seem to reframe it. I'm hungry for more of that.

At the same time, if we're comparing Batwoman to Frankenstein, the latter has the strongest story, ruling the month overall. Lemire nails the tone of Frankenstein, perhaps not surprisingly since he nailed the tone of Animal Man in the last "month." I have not read Swamp Thing yet and I'm already super-excited for the three-way Frankenstein/Animal Man/Swamp Thing crossover that should be in trade-waiters hands maybe late next year or early the next (a long time to wait!). If you asked me at the outset of the New 52, I wouldn't have guessed that "monster books" would be my personal sleeper hit of the relaunch, but there we are.

My review of Static Shock spawned some interesting discussion; I frankly thought the review of Mr. Terrific would be the more controversial, but the writer never knows these things. Mr. Terrific remains a collection, after the fact, that I really enjoyed and still think about; it was uneven and stilted in a lot of place, but I like writer Eric Wallace's portrayal of Michael Holt, and the emotional conflicts are really strong by the book's end. Static Shock, I will explicitly state, could be one of the poorest collections I've ever read, and if there's a bigger disappointment by the end of the New 52 Volume 1s then we're all in trouble.

The "done in one" format works surprisingly well in both of those books; both of them feel "complete" even with a closing cliffhanger in Terrific. I appreciate very much that DC is willing to collect these titles, in full, after they've been cancelled. I am eager to read Men of War, for instance, knowing it's a "done in one" trade -- there's less pressure on the reader (inasmuch as there's pressure on the reader at all) to read a trade that's a "special," of sorts, and not the start of a long-winded series (a trade without commitments, as it were).

At the same time, where I approve of the DC New 52 collection scheme overall -- there's been plenty to read lately, except, strangely, December -- a title where I think "McCollecting" this month failed was Legion of Super-Heroes. That we're getting the DC New 52 in bite-sized, uniform, six-to-eight issue collections is just right -- but Paul Levitz's last Legion trade collected fourteen issues, compared to a paltry seven for the first New 52 collection, and it's not enough for that title. Legion (under Levitz, at least) is a book that builds wonderfully slowly, so much so that one could read seven issues and feel like nothing happens; it needs a large collection, of the kind that the New 52 doesn't do any more. Hopefully when the second Legion collection comes along, that will help.

... And that's my take on Month Two. I'm tempted to turn now to the first Batgirl trade, but the talk of Men of War has piqued my interest. Maybe a little Men of War, maybe a little Grifter ...

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Reading the DC New 52: Month One

Last week I finished reviewing DC Comics's first month of New 52 collection releases (it may take more than a month to review them, but they were all released in May). As I go through the New 52 collections, each time I finish a month, I'll be here with a "Reading the DC New 52" column -- a more off-the-cuff look at the best and worst of the books, what stuck out at me, what I'm looking forward to, and so on. And I hope you'll consider the titles and chime in as well.

The first month's books are Justice League and Justice League International, Animal Man, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Stormwatch, Catwoman, and Green Arrow.

Of these, hands down the best remains Jeff Lemire's Animal Man: The Hunt. Lemire's New 52 changes are subtle -- Buddy's origins are revised, but they were never so clear to begin with -- and he preserves what has forever made Animal Man stories so successful: not just Buddy Baker, but his wife Ellen, son Cliff, and daughter Maxine. In this way Lemire doesn't reinvent Animal Man so much as give Animal Man a really great, interesting new adventure to take part in, which is ultimately what DC really needs to revive its line (I like the New 52, but if a writer would "pull a Lemire" on every title, they wouldn't need the reboot to generate sales).

If there's a temporary downside to The Hunt as a New 52 premiere title, it's that even as it will be, ultimately, one of the most "connected" books in the DC Universe, the first volume feels very insular and little to do with the world outside. In terms of universe-building, if we're supposed to look at this Animal Man volume as the first Animal Man book of the DC Universe (a pipe dream, given that Hunt itself references the Grant Morrison Animal Man series), Hunt does not largely reveal the new DC Universe to the reader as a whole, though that's the smallest of quibbles in what could very well be called a perfect book.

My second-tier picks for the best books of the first month are Justice League: Origin, Batman: Court of the Owls, Wonder Woman: Blood, and Catwoman: The Game, with Wonder Woman and Catwoman just slightly ahead. For both of those books, I'm not completely sold on either writer's direction on the book, but I love that these books are taking chances and truly reinventing the characters for the New 52 -- Brian Azzarello, with his nightmarish take on Wonder Woman's life, and Judd Winick with his "I dare everything" approach to Catwoman. Both of these are books I was still thinking about long after I finished them.

Justice League: Origin was everything I hoped the premiere Justice League book from Geoff Johns and Jim Lee would be, and moreover it was truly universe-building, as compared to Animal Man; Johns stuck in every nook and cranny seeds for future storylines in Justice League and across the DC Universe, as he is wont to do; Origin plus the Free Comic Book Day issue is a whiz-bang start to the new DC Universe. It may not be "your" DC Universe and you favorite character may not have been included, but Johns and company are telling a big story with levels upon levels, as recent releases like Team 7 suggest, and that's an excellent starting point for the DC Universe to come.

I liked Scott Snyder's second Batman book, though it almost slipped down to the third tier. It was not Batman: The Black Mirror, though few things are, and I might almost have called it unremarkable (though still head and shoulders among any number of other comics on the market) if not that I felt that Snyder really embraced the concept of the New 52, and offered a Batman for the twenty-first century, with tools and gadgets we haven't ever seen with Batman previously. Snyder's book truly did feel like the first Batman story of a new DC Universe, and no Night of the Owls will be stellar.

Third-tier picks are Green Lantern: Sinestro, Justice League International: The Signal Master, and Stormwatch: The Dark Side. I liked all of these books well enough, and enough to buy a second volume, but they were (as many of you have said in the comments sections) indeed unremarkable. I had high hopes for Sinestro, but Johns seems to move the plot in circles a bit and doesn't do anything new with Sinestro and Hal Jordan (that this book is the often-superb Green Lantern, that it's written by Johns, that it has art by Doug Mahnke, and that better things are coming, I think, is all that keeps me from contemplating dropping it).

Justice League International and Stormwatch are both "good enough," but neither contains enough surprises to rise to the level of the top-tier books, nor does either book definitive runs on these titles in the "old" DC Universe.

At the bottom of the bunch is Green Arrow: The Midas Touch. I like the teams involved in this book, but it's mostly standard superhero-versus-villain fare that might be OK on a regular day, but certain expectations come with a book being a New 52 debut, and Green Arrow doesn't offer anything "new." I'll pick up the next volume in part because new writer Ann Noceti comes on (I appreciated that Nocenti, who's also taking Catwoman, had nice things to say about Winick's Catwoman run to Comic Book Resources), but mainly because Nocenti's Green Arrow will cross-over in the next volume or so with Rob Liefeld's Hawkman, and I'm curious about that and want to be caught up for the crossover.

Well, out of space already. That's my take on the first month of DC New 52 collections -- let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments. Coming Monday, we start into month two with the Collected Editions review of Mr. Terrific: Mind Games -- have a good weekend!

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