DC’s New 52 - The OK

(This is the second of three posts. Go to the following links to read about the “Good” and the “Bad” comics of DC’s new 52)

After reading Ed Howard's reviews of all 52 first issues of DC Comic's new 52 over the last 4 weeks, I decided I would try to read all 52 myself and write some quick comments on them and see what I'd like to continue with going forward. Little did I know that reading 52 first issues consecutively would turn in to quite as much of a slog as it was, but it's inevitable that with 52 books all having a similar editorial mandate of rebooting or reintroducing a character or team there was bound to be some feeling of reading the same thing over and over again. I admit that I was a bit cynical of this entire concept of starting 52 issues at once by DC (and still am cynical as to how long before they try this exact same endeavor again). However, I have to consider it a success in the end as it's gotten a lot of people (including me) interested in a lot of books that would probably be dead off the ground or lost in the shuffle without the line-wide reboot and has likewise introduced me to some creators whom I wasn’t really familiar with before that I’m now interested to follow.

I ranked each #1 and then sorted them into one of three tiers -- the good comics, which I'm excited to continue reading for the foreseeable future, the ok ones, where I may or may not sample them again, but won't follow along closely unless word of mouth convinces me otherwise, and the bad ones, which I have no interest in reading anymore of. In each of those tiers I've also listed the comics in order of preference.

As for the reviews, three things to keep in mind:

1. I read and reviewed the comics in alphabetical order, so the stuff at the beginning of the alphabet has a bit more thought put into it and I wouldn’t be surprised if I was unnecessarily harsher as I went along (I was really beginning to get fatigued and ready to be done with this around the time I got to the "S" books).
2. I feel adequate enough at figuring out what works and doesn't work with comic book writing, but I struggle to find the words to critique artwork, so don't be surprised if my comments on the art are a bit pedestrian
3. I've done a bit of editing on the reviews, but with 52 of them, I figure there will be a lot of repeated phrases and adjectives.

OK

19. Justice League -- Jim Lee's art hasn't impressed me since I was 13 and he was drawing the X-Men. I think Scott Williams was inking Lee even back then, so I'm not quite sure what has changed about Lee's art that makes it look so…unfinished? Perhaps it's the coloring, which seems to overpower the inks, or perhaps it's just a purposeful thing with how Lee draws Batman -- his Green Lantern and Superman do have a much cleaner look to them.

Bottom line, Lee's art isn't anything that really entices me, so it's up to Johns' writing and the high-concept of the series to pull me in here. This already has one up on Meltzer's last volume of JLA, which was less an origin of the team than it was the creation of a pecking order in who's cool and who's not in the DC universe. Here, we are seeing the genesis of the early days of these heroes and how they first get to know each other. It's something that hasn't really been done in so long that there are a lot of story possibilities here. Johns uses Hal Jordan similarly to how he’s represented in the core Green Lantern book and I liked the dynamic of the two most self-assured guys in Batman and Green Lantern trying to one-up how much better they were than the other. I guess I do find it odd that the cover doesn't really hold back any of the suspense of who will be on the team, yet even after the first issue we haven’t been introduced to everyone -- it kind of shows the odd mix of marketing and storytelling that is going on here. Not a bad first issue, but I'm not quite as excited for this endeavor as I hoped I might be.

20. Stormwatch -- There's something so expositionally clunky about much of the dialogue here, where characters talk to each other like "<NAME>, your <POWER> is this," or "My <POWER EXPLAINED IN DEEP DETAIL> tells me that <SOMETHING ABOUT OTHER PERSON'S POWER>." It's just such an inelegant way to introduce all the characters by Paul Cornell and in the end, it ends up making none of them very distinguishable (the only ones I really got what they do are the ones whose powers are actually shown to us). The visual of the giant, tentacled eyeball was good, but the art is overly dark and muddled throughout. I'm stupidly intrigued as to how the DC analogues that were the original Authority are incorporated into the DCU long-term and if somehow Cornell finds a way to tie in his Demon Knights series with this (as a panel in the comic hinted at). I like the overall concept enough that I think I'll give this a few more issues to see if it evens out.

21. The Fury of Firestorm -- Ethan Van Sciver and Gail Simone have a good feel for telling a story here, providing a good setup, though I was a bit confused at the end (I assume that when the two protagonists don't get along, they turn into an uncontrollable creature?). I'm not sure how long I’ll care, but this is a moderately creative start.

22. Nightwing -- Dick Grayson as Batman has proven to be an interesting character (a lot of which is due to the limited time he’s been under the cowl). Dick Grayson as Nightwing is usually kind of boring. So with that in mind, I thought that Kyle Higgins did a good job of at least making me care about Dick as Nightwing, even if it's a bit of a step back to the mundane for his character. The story may or may not tie in with the Batman finale, which is probably going to keep me looking in for the time being.

23. Teen Titans -- Ending with the same last two pages as Superboy -- I guess it hammers home the connection between the two comics. If I'm going to go ahead and read Superboy, I might stick with this too, as I did like the light tone, even if it felt a tad bit pointless. It's fine and I'll be okay sticking with it for a bit to see where it goes.

24. Captain Atom -- Okay, so all the stuff I heard about this being a "Dr. Manhattan" ripoff is entirely accurate. But the art by Freddie Williams II and colors by Jose Villarrubia are very striking, especially the way that Captain Atom is drawn in a smooth, sleek manner while everyone else has heavy, scratchy, one could say ugly, lines. It's a bit too wordy, to the point that I found myself skimming past the pseudoscience babble in the middle of the book, but I can actually see some potential in this character and what can be done with him.

25. Catwoman -- Boobs. And Superhero Sex. Say what you will about the progressiveness or lack thereof of the comic, Guillielm March's European influenced artwork is a sight to behold (and likely a terrific insight into the regions of a woman’s body he most appreciates). I guess the main problem I had was that excluding the goofy Batman/Catwoman bit of fan-fic at the end, I'm not sure if anything at all of consequence really happens in this issue, making it kind of boring. Which leads me to the cynical thought that Winnick likely built the whole thing around that last scene, which then leads me to be kind of annoyed by the pandering of the whole situation. If that's the case, it doesn't bode well for the book going forward.

26. Resurrection Man -- This isn't too terrible, sort of a Final Destination in superhero form. I actually enjoyed it for that and think that the concept has some legs to it.

27. Deathstroke -- I liked the idea of old, curmudgeon Slade Wilson mentoring a bunch of hipster mercenary wannabes, though I really should have seen the twist at the end coming a bit sooner than I did, especially considering just how disposable all of these new characters were (I mean, if this were a Punisher comic I'd have seen that coming from 1000 miles away). That one scene describes the character of Deathstroke better than all the other scenes combined, plus it gave me a chuckle. If this is going to fill that spot in the 52 lineup, I'm willing to see where Kyle Higgins is heading to see if this one can grow.

28. Grifter -- I was a fan of the Wildcats series (when Joe Casey was writing them) so I had a glimmer of hope that something fun could be done with this character. But this is kind of a mess -- a tad too confusing as an introduction to the character.

29. Static Shock -- Well, as "teenage superheroes learning to use their powers" comics go, this is at least better than Blue Beetle. It's still not as good as what it seems to be striving for (Invincible, Spider-Man), but it's firmly average and it is nice to see some racial diversity in mainstream comics. Question: Has the DCU always had a NYC or is this new?

30. Mister Terrific -- I can't really call this a bad comic, it's one of the few books thus far that actually works as a true first issue, laying out an origin, showing the hero in action, and setting up the opening arc of the series, but at the same time it doesn't hook me in to wanting to come back for more. The writing fluctuates between some fun captions that show Mister Terrific’s personality, to a good amount of dialogue that is especially heavy handed and unnatural sounding.

31. Superman -- Okay -- perhaps I’m a bit harsher on this than I need to be, but it all just feels so, so vanilla. I know everyone has said plenty about it at this point, but Superman's new outfit is so extremely stupid (see the picture at the top of the post) that it still amazes me that they thought this actually looked good. As to the actual contents of this issue, Jesus Merino is a fitting person to be penciling over George Perez's layouts, providing some nicely detailed, if a bit static, artwork.

But the story of Superman vs. Rupert Murdoch, Print Media vs. New Media, and Superman vs. generic foe is simply uninteresting and boring. Also, it appears that Clark is less a reporter and more the star columnist who writes personal interest puff pieces (ala Mitch Albom, or “Bart’s People") full of maudlin cliché and cheap sentiment like: "Which as if by some alien form of magic, began to return to normal, with barely a singe, barely a char. Considering Superman is in just about every comic in the reboot, I can skip this one.

32. Batwing -- I initially saw this as one of those filler titles -- you can't have 52 titles without a few random low-level heroes getting books. I'm also not sure if Judd Winnick is the person I go to for deftly handled stories about genocide in Africa. All that said, this isn't bad. If nothing else, it's set in a place where the Batman concept certainly seems novel. I'm not sure I care enough to follow along, but this a decent by the numbers first issue.

33. Batgirl -- I found the narration in this comic really, really clunky -- kind of like Gail Simone was channeling the classic Batman narration panels and forcing them out in a female voice. It felt very by-the-numbers. Or maybe it's that Barbara Gordon was unique and interesting before as Oracle, and now she just another person in a bat costume who punches people.

34. Birds of Prey -- Nothing great, but nothing truly awful either. A so-so story with perfectly competent artwork and a decent introduction to two of the main characters. There's simply nothing here that makes me want to come back.

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DC’s New 52 - The Good
DC’s New 52 - The OK
DC’s New 52 - The Bad

Labels: batwing, birds of prey, captain atom, catwoman, comics, dc new 52, deathstroke, grifter, justice league, mister terrific, nightwing, resurrection man, static shock, stormwatch, superman, teen titans, the fury of firestorm