New 52 in Review - All Star Western

I’d heard good things about the Jonah Hex comic before the new 52, but had never really found the need to pick it up.  I enjoyed the Hex short before the Red Hood animated film.  Since the writers were the same as were working on the character before the New 52 and it was set in Gotham with Amadeus Arkham I thought this one could be interesting.  And I like supporting books that star lesser known characters.  Spoilers below, reader beware.

The story starts out in Gotham, and later moves to New Orleans.  Neither of these cities is really the West as we tend to think of it, but whatever.  The writers pick up several threads from the Gates of Gotham miniseries, referencing old families of Gotham.  It’s nice to see these familiar names and really gives you a sense of the city’s history while reminding you that these stories are set firmly within the same universe as all the other books, even though it’s in the past.  But then we also had the giant bat creatures and the Miagani tribe from the Return of Bruce Wayne and I’m reminded how that story really didn’t make much sense.  And wait, Hex was in the Return of Bruce Wayne and shot Bruce and was working for evil Thomas Wayne, but in this story the current head of the Wayne family is named Alan and apparently not a devil worshipper.  So I guess the shared universe thing is a bit of a win some lose some situation, and I’m still not sure what still counts in continuity…

Hex and Arkham have a sort of Sherlock Holmes and Watson thing going on.  Things are told from Arkham’s point of view, as though he is writing these tales down.  His are the only internal dialogue boxes I think we’ve had.  He observes Hex and comments on his skills.  Like Watson he is also a doctor.  Hex isn’t too Holmes like, although Arkham does remark on his deductive reasoning skills (which I’m not quite sure we’ve seen too clearly in the comic itself). 

I’m kinda with Hex though in that I don’t really understand what Arkham’s role is.  I thought Arkham would be words and Hex would be actions.  But Hex often seems like he’d do just fine on his own.  In Gotham at least Arkham was Hex’s link to the city.  Arkham was familiar with the city and its people and had the manners to talk them into certain places.  Now that they are out of Gotham I’m not really sure what purpose Arkham is really going to serve.  He did save Hex’s life, but I can’t see that kind of situation popping up on a regular basis, especially since Arkham doesn’t seem to want to hurt/kill anyone.  I would also be thrilled to learn that some of his assumptions about Hex’s past are completely wrong.  Or at least have him psychoanalyzing someone other than Hex a bit more.  But it seems from the solicitations that we’ll be heading back to Gotham after this, and we’ll connect more with the history of Gotham, so perhaps that will be Arkham’s time to shine.

The back up stories are pretty good, although I would happily lose them so we could go down to $2.99.  I’m not sure they are worth and extra dollar every month.  It’s a way for them to introduce some new characters who may or may not show up in the story down the line.  And with the story set in the past I suppose it needs these supporting stories to help set up the world that these stories are taking place in.  The stories were okay, but not really remarkable.  I liked the Barbary Ghost if only because she was the first woman we had in the comic who wasn’t a prostitute or a nun. 

Also interesting is that this comic doesn’t seem to have the same no kill rule as most superhero comics.  Hex kills people.  A lot of people.  And so do the heroes in the back up stories.  And so did Arkham.  It sets the tone a bit differently when your hero is torturing people.  And honestly makes for a bit more interesting characters.  It stays away from the black and white idea of good and evil. 

I’m not a huge fan of the art.  The colors are sometimes very muddy and there is something loose with the figure work, especially in the faces, at times that I don’t really like.  It also feels a touch inconsistent (which doesn’t seem like the right word but I honestly don’t know enough about art to tell you the right one) with some pages that almost seem as though they were done by a different artist entirely.  I appreciate the art.  It’s not bad, it’s simply not to my taste. 

And thus we are left with yet another bubble title.  It’s not bad, it’s just not great.  It never wowed me and I’m not especially looking forward to reading the next one.  I’ll probably stick it out at least until we get back to Gotham and see how the pacing of the series settles down.

New 52 in Review - Resurrection Man

Resurrection Man is a character I knew nothing about, but I was excited that DC was pushing some of their lesser known characters and his power seemed interesting, so I picked this series up.  Not much more back story than that.  Spoilers below, reader beware!
My first complaint is that I hate the depiction of women in this series.  I HATE the Body Doubles and the panty shots that come with them.  The angel chick isn’t much better.  There are a lot of cheesecakey poses and clothing getting ripped.  And if they were characters we would never see again I might be able to get past it easier, but I know they will be back.  I didn’t find them to be interesting characters and it bothered me that we don’t seem to have any strong women who aren’t bimbos.

My other big complaint was with the pacing.  I knew nothing about this character and I was hoping for a bit of a more controlled start.  I wanted to learn about him and his powers.  I wish we had spent a few issues with just Mitch being drawn to some place and solving some problem to start with and then thrown in the crazy angels and demons and mysterious people from his past.  I know that there was a comic some years ago and I can’t help but think that many of these characters might be from there.  So if you were a reader then you probably really enjoyed getting thrown right back into the story.  But for me, it was a bit too much at once.  I didn’t even really feel I had a good grip on what kind of person Mitch is before they started throwing stuff in about his past and what kind of person he was before.  So basically I wish the first few issues had been more like the sixth and seventh issues, and then I might have been able to process the arc they put in the first five issues better.

I know it was probably only done to boost sales, but I kinda liked that the last two issues I read were set in Gotham and Metropolis respectively.  It makes sense to me that someone who claims to have powers from dying would end up in Arkham.  This is the kind of shared universe I enjoy, one where it is clear that these things are all happening in the same world without causing other books to get off track.  Neither Batman or Superman appeared in these issues.  Some of their supporting characters did (like Jimmy Olsen and a number of Batman villains) so it felt like Mitch was in those corners of the DCnU without having to wave the big guys around.

I do like the character and feel that he has an interesting power.  I just wish that his power was a bit more of the focus rather than these other characters and his soul and all.  Which, again, the sixth and seventh issues did very well.

I really don’t have much else to say about this one.  I was ready to give it up entirely while reading the first few issues, but it did get better.  I’m not sure if it will stay better though.  I felt the sixth and seventh issues were the best, but I don’t know if we’ll continue to tell stories like this or if this was merely a side quest.  Again, I’ll have to wait until I read more of the new 52 to decide, but this one is definitely on the bubble.

New 52 in Review - Aquaman

So I’m pretty sure we picked this one up because my fiancé wanted to read it.  So I didn’t have any preconceived notions going into this one really.  Aquaman…sure why not?  Spoiler below as always, you have been warned.

First off let me just say that this is the first out of the new 52 series to really impress me.  I really enjoyed this one and will say right off the bat that this is a keeper.  It was fun and interesting and the pacing was really good. 

Aquaman isn’t quite the same character as in Justice League.  I guess he’s had 5 long years of jam packed DC action to bring him a bit more down to earth (seriously, a crap ton of stuff that is still apparently in continuity happened in those 5 short years…).  But he is very similar to the version that popped up in Brightest Day in the old DCU.  I never finished Brightest Day (still intend to, but I want to get caught up on current series first) so I wasn’t sure if things were resolved there or just ignored like his telepathy thing controlling dead fish, but it really didn’t matter.  Everything I needed to know was explained in the comic so I didn’t feel I had any giant lingering questions about who Aquaman was.

The first issue does a great job of showing us what a badass Aquaman is, which I really appreciate since a lot of comics tend to tell us characters are so great without ever really showing us why.  Here we have the opposite though, as we see how awesome Aquaman is and everyone around him is saying that he is lame.  And it’s true that in pop culture Aquaman gets picked on a lot, so I’m okay with this being a reality in the comics as well.  Especially if Aquaman spent a lot of time in Atlantis previous to this, his powers would probably be misunderstood by the general public. 

I could not have given you a list of all of Aquaman’s powers, so I appreciate that they are being introduced to us as they come up naturally in the story.  No info dump or anything, just as things happen you get a sense of what he can do.  I’ve also enjoyed the bits of his backstory we’ve had.  It is all presented in a genuine way that fits into the story without being too intrusive.  It helps a lot since I’m sure I’m not the only reader who knew very little about the character before this series. 

The first arc is only four issues long, which seems short compared to the other new 52 series I’ve read.  But it was really as long as it needed to be and any longer would have been padding.  The first issue introduced the main character and the enemy.  The second issue had the two getting into a direct confrontation.  The third issue ended that first direct encounter and set up the goal of the arc (saving the towns people).  And the fourth issue had the big finale.  And all along the way we learned more about Aquaman and Mera and the Trench, who I suspect we will see again at some point.  The fifth and sixth issues were basically one shots that continued the larger story, but had self contained problems to be solved (which I really enjoyed) and then the seventh continued with the threads from the previous issues and introduced us to something new.  Each issue felt like a rewarding read to me, which doesn’t always happen since many monthlies are now written for the trade paperback release.  They each had a nice cliff hanger to keep you coming back the next month, but none felt over the top.  Just great pacing all around.

I like Mera.  She’s a strong female presence with her own powers and problems.  I love that he has a dog that can’t swim.  I’m happy that although he wants to stay on the surface and protect the people who live on the shoreline he is still very much connected to Atlantis.  I hope this back and forth with things relating to Atlantis and thing on land will continue.  Although he wants to be connected with humans, Aquaman’s connection to Atlantis makes him somewhat unique among superheroes, so I’m glad we’re not ignoring Atlantis entirely. 

I was kinda mad when the second issue had a cute little kid pointing at the incoming boat full of hungry Trench.  I thought that they were introducing the kid just to be killed off so it was even more sad.  I was thrilled when the kid came back at the end, safe and sound thanks to Aquaman.  Even though there was death in these issues, there was also a great rescue and that was really the focus.  It made the whole thing less grim and depressing than it could have been and I appreciated that.  It was also nice to see that Aquaman felt sympathy for the Trench.  He had his priorities and would not sacrifice human lives, but he clearly wished that there was some way they could work things out without killing an entire species.  He was a king and it stands to reason that he would look at problems with a larger viewpoint.

It’s interesting to me that Aquaman doesn’t have any real secret identity.  It makes for some interesting storytelling since anyone can just drop in to see him and he can’t exactly go anywhere without being recognized.  Which also means that villains can find him too.  I’ll be interested to see what they do with that.

All in all, it’s a very good comic.  Definitely recommended and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next.

New 52 in Review - Justice League

So I picked this one up because it looked impressive.  I loved the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons, so I know that the team can be done in amazingly entertaining ways.  Super teams at their best use each member’s strong points and rely on teamwork to do something none of them could do on their own.  And this comic was back to the big guns, which many people had complained about before the new 52, that the Justice League wasn’t the Justice League they wanted to read about.  So I gave it a shot.  Spoilers below, you’ve been warned.

The team gathers slowly over the first four issues, which gives some nice spotlight time to each character’s first appearance.  I enjoy that everyone is shocked that Batman is real.  We also get the origin story of Cyborg, which was the weak point for me as I felt it was a bit too rushed.  As much as I love the character he didn’t have any time to deal with the transition from normal kid to half machine.  He just kinda jumped in and became a superhero.  That could have made for interesting storytelling, but was kinda skipped over in favor of more punching.

Geoff Johns has a massive boy crush on Hal Jordon and Barry Allen and that’s more than apparent here.  It’s hard to fault a creator for focusing on characters he enjoys writing, but I really don’t like Hal Jordon myself, so I didn’t enjoy it as much as he probably enjoyed writing it.  I did grow to like Barry Allen, despite my continuing anger that his return has all but erased Wally West from existence.  Superman was a bit strange as he was portrayed very differently from his traditional boy scout persona.  But this is set five years in the past and I guess that might correspond with his growth in Action Comics, which I am not reading.  Wonder Woman, while very kickass, was a bit flat for my taste.  Kind of a mindless berserker character who just wants to fight things.  Although the ice cream scene was precious.  Aquaman was amusing, and I enjoy his regal arrogance.  He didn’t really do that much, but I did like what was there which gives me high hopes for the Aquaman series I’ve yet to read.  Batman was okay, not the best I’ve seen but also far from the worst.  Solid Batman without being anything too special.

My biggest complaint was with the use of Darkseid as the first villain.  I understand that the threat had to be large in order to assemble all of the great heroes together to fight it, but since these characters are younger and untested and don’t quite understand their powers as well as they could yet and have no idea how to work as a team it kinda just made Darkseid look like a punk.  They use a tiny bit of teamwork, but it all seems to boil down to everyone just punching him.  And woo they win and Darkseid promises he’ll be back, but I don’t care much as they beat him pretty easily this time once they attacked together.  He doesn’t seem like much of a threat. 

Also, when Darkseid first show up at the end of issue four we have a panel that takes up ¾ of the two pages that I have to turn on its side to see followed by a two page spread of I guess Darkseid’s spirit energy smacking everyone and then splash page of just Darkseid’s face.  To me that is an incredibly inefficient use of 5 pages.  You only have 22 pages a month to tell me a story, don’t waste 5 of them telling me that exact same thing.  On the other hand, I thought the splash page at the end of issue five was the perfect use of a splash page.  It shows Batman looking out at Apokolips (I assume, I don’t think it was ever actually named, but its what’s on the other side of the Boom Tube so I feel it’s a safe guess).  It’s an effective page because it demonstrates the massive scale of what Batman is up against, while subverting our expectations as he was in a small hallway moments before.  But by far the worst offender of the overuse of splash pages and double page spreads is issue six with nine out of twenty three pages used in this way.  That’s not quite half, but it’s far more that I want.  The full page spread losses its effectiveness when used that often and just really bugs me.  Although this is perhaps something I should come to expect from Geoff Johns (as demonstrated by this comic).

I don’t feel the comic made great use of everyone’s abilities in the final battle.  Green Lantern got to be a lure, and most everyone else just kinda stabbed or punched at Darkseid.  Cyborg used his crazy alien technology powers to save the day, making him important in the fight.  And I appreciate that Batman had something to do with going to save Superman.  Because really, once you pull out Darkseid, what on earth is Batman really going to do? (Ignoring Final Crisis as I’m still not sure I understand what went down there…)  So it was nice that he didn’t just have to stand on the sidelines throwing Batarangs or something.

Issue seven started a new arc, jumping forward to the present with a government support group and the team still not really understanding teamwork since Hal Jordon is just sooooooo impulsive (why do the Guardians put up with him, anyway?).  The start of the new arc was okay, with some cute stuff with Steve Trevor.  But it was a slow issue that didn’t really do much to introduce the next big threat.  And we get a backup with Billy Batson being a troll of a child that will somehow be found worthy to be Captain Marvel who I guess we’re calling Shazam now and who I really don’t want to read about.  I suppose it was really a teaser more than anything, but it really didn’t make me care about what happens to Billy at all.  I didn’t follow the Marvel family much before all of this, but he is way different from what I remembered or expected.  His costume also has a hoodie cape which I think looks incredibly stupid.

I guess I should also mention the short backup in issue six with Pandora, the mysterious hooded lady from Flashpoint and every issue one of the New 52.  I thought it was a bit odd that this was even here referencing that she “rewrote reality” and all that when the New 52 is supposed to be about new reader accessibility and all.  I would think that they would be avoiding referencing things as they used to be in order to not confuse new readers, but what do I know.  Instead it seems like this is only the beginning for this character and whatever mad quest she is on.  Which makes me wonder how we’re going to keep everything straight if she starts referencing things from the old DCU.  But maybe she won’t.  I dunno, but it just felt like even six months after reshuffling all the cards we couldn’t help but pick up the deck again.  I don’t really mind it too much, but I feel like any new readers who the book attracted could be put off by all of this.

Despite the fact that the story and action were often unimpressive, the dialogue was pretty fun.  There were lots of great lines and bits of interaction between the characters when they weren’t punching each other.

So yeah, it’s another book I am torn on.  It isn’t horrible but it also isn’t fantastic.  It’s just sort of there and hasn’t really wowed me at all.  I know there are plans to add some more characters (and many other DC people have already been mentioned in the comic) so I’m interested in seeing how that all works out.  Also hopeful that they will try to even out the genders a bit so that Wonder Woman isn’t the only girl.  But I have no idea if/when that will happen, so it comes down to if I’m willing to wait it out.  This is another I’ll have to wait until I can see the big picture of what we’re keeping/dropping until I can make a decision.

New 52 in Review - Teen Titans

This is another one I was on the fence about picking up at all.  For some reason almost no one seems to be able to write the Teen Titans well lately.  I don’t know what is so difficult about the concept of the book, but recent writers tended to do certain things with the series such as kill off characters for shock value, cause massive internal strife among the teammates, make everyone angsty, write horrible dialogue, and completely changing the team line up because I guess they don’t feel like writing certain characters.  I am drawn to the book mostly because it is the only place I can read about some of the characters I really like.  With the new 52, this is now the only place I can read about Red Robin, whose solo series was one of my top ten favorite ongoing series before the massive cancellation of the old DCU.  So I picked this one up…  Possible spoilers to follow; you’ve been warned.

First of all I might as well mention that I hate a lot of the new costumes.  Especially Red Robin’s.  I can understand the desire to give him wings and make him able to fly like a lot of the other heroes, but to me it just takes away from the team aspect.  Tim could not fly and that was a personal weakness.  The team had to plan for that and make use of the various strengths that each member had.  Now he’s just Super Tim and flies about.  Wonder Girl’s red costume doesn’t really appeal to me either.  She didn’t have the greatest costume in the old DCU but this really isn’t an improvement to me.  With Red Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash and Superboy there is an awful lot of red in these costumes.  

It pains me to say that Tim Drake is a jerk in this.  They play it off as him not being an insensitive prick but actually just wanting to protect everyone and being all business like in order to accomplish that.  But he’s a jerk.  He simply is not the Tim Drake I knew and loved and that pains me.  One of the best things about old Tim Drake was the great relationships he had with his friends and teammates.  He had very close friendships with Conner, Cassie, and Bart.  I guess they could be trying to develop that again with these new characters, but to me that’s boring as it’s already been done (and done well).  I’d rather read about the characters already being friends and trusting each other and working together on interesting problems than reading about all the strife that goes along with getting there.

But I guess that’s really my biggest problem.  This entire storyline with NOWHERE and capturing and containing metahuman teens has all been done before.  This was all done in Young Justice (the old series not the one based on the cartoon), and done very well.  None of this really feels original in any way.  If I want to read about the young heroes battling a shady organization I’d rather read that series, since I know it was good.  I’m not saying that comic writers can’t tell similar stories from time to time, but for the big debut of the new 52 I was expecting something fresh and unique.  Sure it’s not exactly the same story, but I can’t help but compare it to the Young Justice one and find this one lacking. 

The dialogue is horrible.  I mean, it’s just bad.  The kids don’t talk like teenagers.  And everyone exposits like crazy.  They even lampshade it at one point, pointing out that letting the villain talk is your best bet as he’ll tell you how to beat him.  Many of the jokes fall flat.  It’s just not good writing. 

This is probably nitpicky as well, but I got really really sick of all the editor boxes telling me things that were pretty obvious.  Or telling me that something happened in issue 1.  Seriously we haven’t even been going a year yet.  If I want to know more about something the characters are talking about I think I can handle picking up a handful of previous issues to figure out where it is.  The reader doesn’t need to be told this information constantly, especially since most of the readers at this point have probably read all the issues out at the moment.  Unless it’s something that happened 3 years ago (impossible at this point) or in a different series I really don’t need a note about where to find it.  It was probably more annoying since I read all of them at once, but it was just really unnecessary and made me feel like the editor thinks all the readers are morons who can’t handle characters talking about anything that happened in a previous issue without a guide map of where to find it.  I also did not need what NOWHERE is spelled out for me in every issue.  In issue 4 the comic even tells me what NOWHERE is in context, but then on the next page I get an editor box shoving it in my face, just to be sure.  I like editor boxes when they are used correctly, but here it was just a misuse. 

I appreciate that there is almost an even number of guys and gals on the team.  And that the girls seem pretty strong and able to fend for themselves.  But I really don’t like Solstice’s redesign.  And Wonder Girl is a jerk too.  I wish the team wasn’t half made up of unlikeable characters.  Other than Bunker the team already feels full of potential angst.

Bunker is likable and fun and interesting, but I have to be kinda upset at DC one part.  I knew going in that he was an openly gay character.  But how do they introduce this fact to the reader?  Well he is written as rather flamboyant I guess, but that in and of itself doesn’t mean anything.  I know plenty of guys who are straight who act similar.  But they finally spell it out for us when he is having a conversation with Wonder Girl.  I’m almost certain this is the first conversation they have ever had having just met in the previous issue.  He tells her she is “awesome” and she questions if he uses that line on all the girls (calling someone awesome is a pick up line now?  Really?).  To which Bunker replies “Girls?  Uh…Not exactly.  You do realize I’m gay, right?”  My main question here if why on earth Bunker and perhaps the writer of the comic seem to think that Wonder Girl should have realized he is gay.  It’s not like he was making out with Red Robin or anything.  That would be a legitimate clue.  But short of that I don’t see why Wonder Girl should have just assumed that.  Unless the comic is encouraging making snap judgments about people.  With Bunker’s cheerful character and openness about his sexuality it would have been much better for him to say something like, “Nope, but it’s been known to work on a guy or two.”  Just anything that wasn’t the “Hey person I just met how can you not have noticed that I am gay” that we got.  But I do like the character.

The formula of the issues so far seems to be meet a teen, have a fight, teen joins team.  It isn’t quite as flat as that in the later issues, but it isn’t much better.  The team hasn’t done anything interesting so far.  They haven’t done any investigating.  All they’ve really done is punch things.  They don’t even find the big bad behind NOWHERE themselves, he just kinda shows up and announces himself.  And there hasn’t been much teamwork to speak.  We got a touch of that in the seventh issue with a planned two part attack from Superboy and Kid Flash.  But it just seems like most of the time they all do their own thing and hope for the best.  It’s still a young team and I guess that could still come, but Tim is supposed to be the smart one and the leader here, so why hasn’t he even tried to make use of his assets yet?

The art is okay.  My biggest problem was in issue two when Thrice shows up.  I had no idea he was supposed to be a teenager until Red Robin spelled it out for me.  He was not drawn with the proportions of a young adult.  It also annoyed me that Grymm’s weird mouth never moves but he totally talks.  But other than that I can’t remember having an issue with anything.  It’s not my favorite but it wasn’t bad.

So yeah, long story short I’m torn.  It’s not a horrible comic.  I just don’t think it’s very good.  So at this point I have to decide if I want to keep reading for the characters or drop it due to quality.  It’s a tough call, and one I probably won’t make until I see how many other series we’re dropping.

New 52 in Review - Birds of Prey

I was hesitant about picking up this series.  I really enjoyed the old Birds of Prey series and was upset that lots of plot lines would be left up in the air with it being canceled for the New 52.  I liked the team and the interaction between the members.  From the initial previews, this series seemed to have little to do with the series I loved besides a single member and the name.  But it still looked interesting enough and I took a chance.  Possible spoilers below; you’ve been warned.

My very first observation has to be that this series is hella confusing.  I feel like most of that is intentional story motivated confusion, but since even after seven issues I haven’t reached the end of the first story arc, I’ll have to wait to find out if the payoff is satisfying.  There has been group memory loss/manipulation which makes it kinda hard to figure out what is really going on as none of the girls are reliable narrators.  There was also a bit with Batgirl that seemed to contradict her earlier attitudes in the series, but again I’m not sure if this was due to sloppy writing or if that moment has some bigger implication.

The pacing is also a bit off in places.  I was really thrown by the gap in time between issues 5 and 6.  All of the other issues pick up where the last one left off, so having 6 start somewhere completely unfamiliar with seemingly no acknowledgement of what happened at the end of the previous issue was jarring.  I almost feel as though the writer had something planned and then changed his mind once he sat down to write the issue, since Ev’s ending with her “they really are all out to get me” is just kinda ignored and hand waved away in the next issue.

My biggest complaint is with a rather major inconsistency.  I feel like the writer was told after 3 or 4 issues, “Hey, you know these characters don’t kill people right?”  Because in issue 7 Black Canary makes a big deal out of Ivy killing an innocent dude (completely understandable) and then freaks out again when Katana kills a criminal (which Canary knows Katana has spent the last year doing).  She lays out the fact that no killing is rule number one.  But wait… Back in the issue 2 after Katana joins the team Black Canary says “In battle Katana is everything I’d hoped for.  Lethal.  Disciplined.  Able to watch my back.”  Lethal.  As in, kills people.  And that is what Black Canary herself says she wanted.  She says this after Katana stabs a dude through the chest and then slices up two others.  The only caution she gives at that point is that they need “at least one of them alive” for questioning.  It’s not, “Hey Katana, don’t kill anyone,” it’s more like, “Hey Katana, don’t kill everyone.”  So when did Black Canary suddenly decide that killing was their number one no-no?  It may seem nitpicky, but it was really confusing to me as I was reading through.  I figured they were the team that works kinda outside the law and although they still have morals and all, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill in kill-or-be-killed situations.  But I guess that isn’t the case after all. 

I like the characters.  Starling is fun, although I know very little about her.  I enjoy that she likes breaking things.  Katana is interesting when we aren’t dwelling on the fact that she talks to her sword and could possibly be crazy.  This version of Ivy has potential.  I do appreciate that no one really trusts her, although I’m still not sure what she gets out of being on the team.  The addition of Batgirl makes me happy, provided that they coordinate with the writer of the main series to keep her personality and the timeline of major events in her life consistent.  And Black Canary is okay, although she may be the least interesting of the members.  They have some nice interactions going on, which I appreciate.

The art had a few mistakes that I noticed.  The first might not have been a mistake, but if it wasn’t it was poor sequential story telling as Black Canary kinds just suddenly appears on the cart Starling was driving away from the authorities alone on the previous page.  The other annoyed me as it was a case of the artist forgetting to draw in some bandages on Starling’s arm, despite the fact that she has them on the same page in the bottom panel.  But nothing too bad.  Overall I like the interior art quite a bit.  Even though the girls are all pretty well figured I feel like it isn’t super cheesecakey.  There aren’t a lot of gratuitous ass shots or weird poses.  The girls are portrayed as active and action oriented and they kick a lot of butt. 

Overall I’m still okay with this series.  I’ll probably keep getting this one for a while.  The mystery, although confusing, is still interesting and I want to know how it all works out.  I suppose if the ending is terrible I might drop it, but so far the comic has done its job of entertaining me. 

New 52 in Review - The Fury of Firestorm the Nuclear Men

Why is this series first?  Because it was on the top of the pile that I randomly decided to start with.  Possible spoliers below.  You've been warned.
My interest in Firestorm began with the Superfriends cartoon.  I really liked the younger characters, and an episode was better for me if it included Robin, Cyborg, or Firestorm (but not the Wonder Twins; they were just never as cool).  Firestorm was cool because he wasn’t just an energetic kid with really cool powers, but he had another side, or rather another person who helped to balance him out and be the voice of reason.  This two man team was interesting.  It was like the sidekick and the hero in one.

When I got back into comics Firestorm no longer had his own series and in fact had at some point died and been replaced by a new version.  I didn’t really see much of the new Firestorm until Blackest Night.  I liked that he was in many ways different from the old version.  I liked that while Ronnie needed Professor Stein to help him use his transmutation powers, Jason studied really hard so as to make the most of the power himself (and I am a super nerd, so powers that you can improve by studying appeal to me).  Even though I hadn’t know the characters very long I was quite effected by the death of Gehenna, and the back and forth between the newly not dead Firestorm and his replacement was interesting.  I have not finished Brightest Day to see how all of that turned out, but that storyline was one of the main reasons I picked up Brightest Day in the first place. 

So now we have the new series and everything is different.  Ronnie and Jason start off as normal high school kids who end up thrown together and both become Firestorm, this time with separate bodies, although they can combine into some sort of monster thing called Fury.  Gone is the interesting dynamic with the powers of two normal people in one superhero.  Another thing that seems to have vanished is the need for scientific knowledge to be able to manipulate the powers. 

I could be wrong about that though, because very little was explained in the first seven issues, despite the fact that they had a great excuse for exposition as Ronnie has no idea what is going on and Jason seems to be rather in the know.  My only clue about the powers comes from a battle they have with the Russian Firestorm who mentions something about "first level powers".  I suppose that since Jason and Ronnie both became Firestorm from a bottle that maybe was only supposed to make one person Firestorm that the powers were spilt somehow, with neither receiving the full set.  Maybe Ronnie only got the energy blasts and Jason ended up with the transmutation powers.  But this is all conjecture on my part.  As I said, it’s never really explained.  And I'm sorry, but if I'm a kid with super powers I gonna ask questions to the guy who claims is super smart about how the heck they work. They should have discussed this.  So either they both have the powers and Jason is just being a dick and not telling Ronnie how to use them at all or the powers are split which means that killer blue lady from the first issue should have some part of their power set too. 

And speaking of killing, it really seemed like there was a lot of death in this series.  I mean the first issue starts off, not with our heroes, but with some mysterious soldier terrorist dudes torturing and killing a family for information.  They later do the same thing to a scientist then casually mow down some teachers and students at a school.  And later in the series a stadium of 2,000 people are killed by a suicide bomber with hacked Firestorm powers.  I get that the comic wants to show that the powers these boys posses are dangerous, they are nuclear based after all, but the destruction of the stadium just left me kinda cold.  I appreciate that the event did have significant impact on the main characters and wasn’t simply forgotten about on the next page, but it still didn’t quite feel like enough to me.  It was a shocking event for very little reason other than to have a shocking event and have our characters fail.  And while Ronnie wasn’t killed, he was tortured and had an arm cut off (an injury I am biased against as a sign of poor comics).

The other thing that bothered me is that I never really felt connected to these characters.  The comic started with an origin story with the characters gaining their powers in the first issue.  This didn’t give much time to establish not one, but two main characters, their families, and a love interest, along with a shadowy evil organization.  This bothers me the most with Jason.  I feel like the comic did a lot of telling me how smart Jason was, but it never really showed me that he was as smart as they kept telling me he was.  He wasn’t especially strategic and without the explanation of the science behind the powers, he’s just kinda doing magic. 

I also really don’t understand the motivations of Zithertech.  First they were like kill them at all costs.  And then, for no readily explained reason they were like, “Hey, want a job?”  I have no idea why they suddenly don’t want them dead.  They easily could have just gassed them in their sleep, but instead they are putting on this elaborate ruse and I just can’t think of a good reason why.  Also, there was that whole business with the killers from the beginning, one of whom may have powers and another of whom totally wants these guys dead for nearly killing his girl.  They’ve just been kinda sidelined and not mentioned now.  I’m sure they will make a comeback in some big dramatic way, but I would rather we were dealing with that now rather than leaving us scratching our heads and wondering where those characters ended up.

There was some cute dialogue ("I burned the lake down.  How the hell do you burn a lake down?" for one).  I liked the art, but really didn’t like what I assume is the fill in artist that took over in issue 7 (it wasn't bad art, I just personally hate when characters look different than they did in previous issues).  I kinda liked the Hyenas, with their abilities enhanced by drugs that make them efficient although giggly killers.  But all in all it was not the comic I was hoping it would be.  The characters aren’t the ones I previously enjoyed.  The powers haven’t been explained enough to keep me interested.  I just don’t care enough, even though I wanted to. 

So yeah, chances are very good that I will be dropping this one.  I had far more to say about this than I thought I would, but I don't anticipate them all being this long...

Pull List Maintenance - New 52 in Review

Okay, so for a number of reasons, including an international move and comics piling up during the time surrounding the move and a long vacation in which comics piled up again, I have gotten rather far behind in my comic reading.  There are a few series (Morning Glories, for one) that I have stayed up to date on, but the most notable neglected comics have been the new 52.
You see, I had big dreams.  I wanted to be completely caught up on all of the old DCU before I stepped into the new DCU.  And I started out well.  And then I kinda burned out.  And so the new 52 just kept piling up.

My fiancé was reading them and kept bugging me to do the same.  We bought a lot of the new 52 and so we always planned that we would drop the ones that we weren’t enjoying.  But with me not reading them there was no way to tell which we should be keeping and which we should be dropping.  So we just kept getting all of them.  But after this vacation I made a vow that this month, before we order any more comics, I would read all of the new 52 we currently have.  That’s 7 issues of about 28 series each. 

And so, since my lack of comic reading has also lead to this blog being neglected, I have decided to write up a short blurb on my thoughts about each series as I read them.  Things I like, things I don’t, things that don’t make any sense, and my thoughts on if I’m going to continue the series or not.  The write ups may be long, they may be short; there’s really no telling until I get going on it. 

And here we go!

Comic Buzz - Jimmy Olsen

Creative Team: Nick Spencer (W), RB Silva (A), Amanda Conner (C)
DC, one-shot, $5.99, 80 pages
March 30, 2011

When I heard that the talented Nick Spencer was going to be writing a Jimmy Olsen back-up in Action Comics I almost laughed. “Jimmy Olsen?” I thought, “Who wants to read about him?” And to further confuse me, Spencer was really excited about the whole thing. Jimmy wasn’t a character that I expected someone to be so committed to. I wouldn’t even call him a B-list character. In my mind he was more of a supporting character than anything. I know he’s been around for a long time and has a firm place within the Superman universe, but I didn’t figure the story would hold any interest for me.

Then I found out that Spencer would be introducing the wonderful Chloe Sullivan into the DCU in this story and I did a little dance. And suddenly I cared about the story and really wanted it to be good. But I still wasn’t willing to buy the comic only for the back-up story.

I was playing around with my iPod in Tokyo, one of the few places that I can get a Wi-Fi signal, and as I browsed the free comics on Comixology I noticed that I could read the first chapter of the Jimmy Olsen back-up story. I figured why the heck not since it was free and all. On the train ride back home I decided to give it a read through and was amazed by how great it was. The dialogue was fantastic and very, very funny. I found myself laughing quite a bit for such a short story and more than once had to lean over and share a line or two with my fiancé. And by the end of the story I was really bummed out because I didn’t think that I would get to read the rest of the story.

But then I got some great news. As a result of DC canceling their back-up stories in all their books, in order to cut page count and price, the Jimmy Olsen story is no longer featured in Action Comics. But the seven part story had not finished yet. DC assured readers that the back-up stories would all find new homes somewhere and would be released. In March DC is releasing a one-shot that not only finishes the Jimmy Olsen story, but reprints the first four parts as well! So now I, and all of you, can enjoy this story in its entirety.

This is a rather long set up to explain what you should be buying, so I suppose I should touch at least a bit on why it’s so wonderful. The story is focused on Jimmy and while Superman is off on his walkabout he’s being a bit of a slacker. After his girlfriend, our wonderful Chloe, dumps him he finds out that she is doing a story about his rival, who happens to be a Lexcorp employee, and what a week in his life is like. This energizes Jimmy and motivates him to show that he can have a far more interesting week than the jerk who is now hitting on his ex. And he’s going to start by stopping a well timed alien invasion!

The story is lighthearted and fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. There have been so many crazy stories involving Jimmy Olsen and I feel like the tone of this reflects that. So if you’re against that sort of thing and like the darker more serious comics that seem to dominate the market at the moment this might not be for you. You are meant to have fun while reading it, and it may be a bit crazy and over the top, but Spencer’s ultimate goal is to put a smile on your face. The colors are bright and fun and some of the facial expressions are just priceless. There are some great little details thrown into the backgrounds that made me want to examine the pages on more than my tiny screen. As started before the dialogue is really good, which I’ve found is one of Spencer’s selling points. I haven’t read much of the character before, but I really felt like I understood his voice by the end of the issue. Jimmy is a normal person who is very comfortable in a super powered world and that gives us a different take on the DCU than we get in most books. I also thought Chloe was very well handled and love that she’s a decorated blog reporter, keeping her on the cutting edge of technology and letting her be a reporter while explaining why we’ve never really seen her at the Planet before.

Spencer’s love for the character is clear (he thinks of writing Jimmy as a dream project), and he apparently has more in mind for the character (apparently like a year’s worth of stories). So if this sells decently we might very well get more, and that’s always a good thing. I think it’s a good sign that DC has decided not only to release the end of the story, but the story in its entirety (not all of the back-ups are being given the same treatment). Clearly this story has generated some buzz and I’m sure I’m not the only one who missed out on the story and wanted to read it.

However, I’m always excited when you don’t really have to take my word for any recommendation. Everyone can read the first part of the story on the iPod/iPad/iPhone. It’s free and a decent way to preview these kinds of things. There is an interview about the story here. 

Remember, there probably isn't an option to "wait for trade" here (unless of course we get a bunch more Jimmy Olsen stories that can be collected together), so if this looks interesting tell your local comic shop to order you a copy or pick it up online while you can.

Well, that didn’t last long…

So yeah…this one is going to ramble a little.

*Spoilers for JL: Cry for Justice and the recently released Starman/Congorilla one shot ahead*

Man, where to start. I admit it. I bought Justice League: Cry for Justice. The art was a major draw (although it ended up being pretty offensive in several places and then the artist couldn’t even finish it despite delays) and seemed to contain some characters that I cared about (like Batwoman, who ended up being like three panels of the thing). It ended up being pretty terrible. If you want to know just how terrible it was you should follow the link in the sidebar to Atop the Forth Wall and watch Linkara’s excellent review of it (parts one and two are up now and part three should be up next week).

But as bad as that was, I’m not going to dwell on it too much here. That isn’t what got my attention today. It is important that you know, in case you didn’t read it, that one of the major problems with the series was the insane amount of character death, most of them minor or supporting characters and many of them off panel. The death that got the most attention was probably that of Roy Harper’s (Red Arrow or Arsenal depending on when you are reading) daughter Lian. That one was like a punch in the gut to me, and felt amazingly unnecessary (especially considering poor Roy had just had one of his ARMS TORN OFF). But again, that isn’t what I’m here to rant about.

You may remember a little quote that was floating around after Blackest Night that “dead was dead” from now on. Now of course, we all rolled our eyes knowing that it certainly wouldn’t last. We all know how these things work. But the point was made that they probably wouldn’t be using character death/resurrection as a gimmick for at least a while. The “revolving door of death” in the DCU was apparently going to be closed.

Again, I knew that this wasn’t going to stick for too long. But I figured the editors would be keeping a tight leash on this particular idea and that when the first post Blackest Night resurrection happened that it would be a big deal and would have to have some strong writing to work around the “dead is dead” idea. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, I was wrong.

In the Starman/Congorilla one shot this month (which, for full disclosure, I have not read) the Tasmanian Devil was resurrected by having his remains thrown into a Lazarus pit. Let’s backtrack for a moment. Tas was killed off in the afore mentioned Cry for Justice and, to add insult to injury, his skin was MADE INTO A RUG so that we could all see just what a badass Prometheus was. That’s right. Not only was this character brutally murdered in a rather offhanded manner, but he was skinned and put on display. It was rather distasteful and got quite a reaction when it happened.

One of the reasons that it was a big deal (other than the outright grotesqueness of it)was that Tas, while a rather minor player in the DCU, is one of the few openly gay heroes. And when there are so few of them in the comic universe the loss of even one is felt strongly by fans who are gay and who support gay characters.

Now here’s the rub. Tas was killed in Cry for Justice and brought back in Starman/Congorilla. The writer for BOTH of these works was James Robinson. Wait, what? At first this seemed like it was perhaps some half baked apology for the wonton death of Cry for Justice. But upon reading an interview on Newsarama it seems as though Robinson claims this was “planned all along.” He had always planned for Tas to be brought back and to end up as the boyfriend of Starman (another of the established gay characters). Did I mention that Starman’s previous boyfriend was killed (off panel) in Cry for Justice too? So Robinson’s master plan was to kill the old boyfriend and then kill the soon-to-be-new boyfriend and then bring the new boyfriend back to conveniently take the place of the old (and apparently forgotten) boyfriend?

And now here is the other problem. The big solution to “dead is dead” is the Lazarus pits? Are you freaking serious? Why don’t we just go throw all the bodies of dead superheroes into the Lazarus pit and bring them back too? Why not Lian Harper and Ralph and Sue Digby and all of the other heroes that people miss? Because it’s a terrible idea, that’s why. It has been established many times that while the Lazarus pits are powerful, people have a tendency to come back wrong. Insane wrong usually. Batman decided against bringing Jason Todd back this way. Tim Drake had the opportunity to bring back his parents and best friends (who got better anyway…) and turned it down because he knew that it wouldn’t really be them and this it wasn’t natural. Heck, even when Dick Grayson threw Bruce’s not-body into the pit it was as a last resort that he knew was incredibly dangerous and could have massive side effects. It was a desperation move. But Tas doesn’t seem to have been effected at all. The Lazarus pits were established as a poor solution to death BECAUSE of how broken they are and how many questions are raised if people are brought back with them without consequences.

*Sigh* Even if this was “the plan all along” (which I do not buy at all) it is a terrible plan and some editor somewhere should have put a stop to it. And by it I mean the death in the first place. You want Tas and Starman to hook up? Groovy. You want to kill off Starman’s current boyfriend as a plot device before that? Well…okay, I mean we wish you wouldn’t but it’s not a complete deal breaker. You want to ignore the big status quo change that we have been pimping in the DCU not even a year after it was made so you can kill this character, among a sea of others, for shock value and then almost immediately bring him back? Sorry Mr. Robinson, we’ll have to see another draft of this; I’m afraid this just doesn’t work.

On the cancellation of some Batbooks

I knew this was coming. I didn’t know for sure which titles would be cut, but it had been too long since DC had trimmed off some of their lower selling books. And since there are so many Bat family books out right now, I assumed that a few of them would be getting the axe. March will see the final issue of three of my current ongoing series. Let’s take a closer look at these titles, shall we?

Azreal

I was very close to dropping this book anyway, but the low sales clued me in that this one might not last and it seemed a pity to drop it an issue or two before it ended (since I was there for the beginning and all). This is a title that severely suffered from a change in writers. When Fabian Nicieza had the book I felt that it worked. It wasn’t astonishingly amazing or anything, but it did several very interesting things. I enjoyed the issue with Ragman where the two characters talked about the differences of their powers. It was interesting religious philosophy without being heavy handed. I was intrigued by the fact that the first issue showed the main character dead at some point in the mystery future. I thought it was an interesting gamble, and while I thought it could be a fake out of some kind, I admired the guts it took to set up a story that way.

Unfortunately, Nicieza left the book and was replaced by David Hine. And his take on having a religious hero went from uninteresting to downright offensive. I’m Catholic. The character of Michael Lane is also Catholic. He is “working for” the Order of Purity, a secret religious sect from the middle ages. Now I’m a big girl and can take digs at my religion in forms of media. Nothing said in a comic book or a movie is going to shake my faith. But you would think that the writer or editor might have taken a step back and said, “Hey, Catholicism is a widely practiced religion. Some of our readers might in fact be Catholic. Perhaps we shouldn’t have a splash page that depicts the Pope (who is very real) as a demonic monster. That might be going a bit far.” Azreal was “safe” when he was under the umbrella of the Order of Purity. You could have all sorts of crazy religious commentary things going on and it was okay because that religious sect didn’t actually exist. But suddenly we decided to tie a lot of real world religion into the book in a very unflattering way and it did not come out the better for it. I get that religious conspiracies are cool and hip, but even that felt stale and overused (oh wow, Lane might be the descendent of Jesus, because he didn’t really die and had kids, and this has never ever been thought of or done before, aren’t we edgy?).

I have no idea where Nicieza was planning on going with the book had he stayed on, but I have to assume it would have been better than what we got. As it stands, this book would have been far better off being canceled when Nicieza left instead of trying to squeeze whatever final blood they could get out of the title. I’ll see it through to the end in the hope that it finds a way to redeem itself, but I’m actually pretty glad this one is going away.

Batman Confidential

It really confuses me that this book lasted over 50 issues. DC NEVER promoted this book. I read a lot of interviews online, and even when people were bitching about not being able to read about Bruce Wayne as Batman no one EVER brought this book up. When they were giving the low down about who would be appearing in what Batbook, this title was never mentioned. It was like DC was trying to hide this book for some reason, and yet they kept publishing it.

This book began as a series of untold tales back from when Bruce Wayne had just started being Batman. His first encounter with the Joker, his first this, his first that. It was all very classic stuff. Easy to follow and far less complicated than most of the other books at the time. But then, somewhere along the line, this book seemed to lose its focus. It seemed like we weren’t dealing with a young Batman anymore. It seemed like we were dealing with whatever Batman the writer decided to write about. The stories were still all very “safe” but there didn’t seem to be any connection between the arcs. One arc we’re in Russia, the next we’re dealing with a ghost/fear monster thing, then we’re fighting vampires and werewolves. It really became the weird Batman miniseries book, except that instead of miniseries it was an ongoing with lots of disjointed arcs.

What really bums me out is that the book seemed to be getting back on track. There was a one shot issue that I felt was very good, and the current and final arc seemed to feel more like we were dealing with a young Bruce Wayne still finding his limits and his place. And it was good! And now that I’ve felt we were getting back to where we belonged the rug is pulled out and the book is canceled. Oh, well.

Batman: Streets of Gotham

This is the only cancelation that really surprised me. And apparently surprised the writer too since he mentioned in an interview that he was working on the next year’s worth of stories for the book. I love Paul Dini. Most of his work I have really enjoyed, and I always found Streets to be an interesting read. But I will admit that it didn’t have as clear of a place in the family of Batbooks as some of the others. You can kinda sum up the purpose of most of the other books in a sentence or so. And while I don’t think its necessarily a bad thing that this book didn't have that, I can see it being tough from a marketing point of view. And with so many other Batbooks out there I guess something had to give. Paul Dini is still an amazing writer and I’m sure they will find a place for any Batman stories he still wants to tell. It’s just always sad to hear that a writer had more stuff planned that they won’t get to put out for the readers.



With as many comics as I am getting I will admit that I’m slightly relived to have three less comics a month. I’m sure I’ll find something to replace them with soon enough. And none of them were my top tier favorite books, so all in all I can’t really complain all that much.  But it does serve to remind me to try to help promote those books that I enjoy that have lower sales so that they do not end up cancelled too.