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.

Top 10 List!

I like top 10 lists. They are easy to digest and compare your own picks with. They can say a lot while only saying a little. So I decided to write up a quick top 10 list of my own.

Below you will find my top 10 ongoing series. I picked them by looking at my pull list as though I had to drop all of my ongoing titles except for 10. If that were to happen, these are the books that would make the cut. The top few spots were hard to assign and in a few months they could easily shift around. But as of now, this is what I would pick.

Honorable Mention: Stuff of Legend – it can’t be on the list because it’s a series of miniseries and not an ongoing title. But I enjoy it so much that I felt it needed a mention and if I was dropping all of my books but 10 and a book had to be cut from this top ten list to keep this one I would probably make that sacrifice.

10. Batwoman – I admit it, this is a cheat. This book isn’t even out yet. But I have such high hopes for it that it still sneaks in at the number 10 spot on the list. When I actually have the book in my hands it could jump to an even higher spot, especially if the previous run in Detective Comics is any indication, but the new creative team has to prove themselves a little before that can happen.

9. Darkwing Duck – What can I say, I’m a sucker for nostalgia. The comic will never be as good as the cartoon (and the cartoon will probably never be as good as my memories of the cartoon) but it’s the only way I’m going to get new stories with these characters. And Darkwing, like Batman, has a great rogues gallery (and Batman doesn’t have a Negaduck!) and a fun family of relationships to explore.

8. Zatanna – I love magic. I always have. And really, who doesn’t love the very idea of magic? We all wish we could be magic, or at the very least, wish we could watch someone else being magic. This book is doing a nice job of treading into the magical side of the DCU that has been more or less ignored lately. Here our normal world and the magical world collide and it’s up to Zee to make sure that things don’t get too messy.

7. The Sixth Gun – I really like the weird west setting. Every time they give me another tidbit about the universe I am itching for more. The villains are scary and the heroes are maybe not so heroic. It’s a muddled environment without the clearest sense of who you can trust and who you should believe. And that helps to make it great. I saw someone describe this series as a western horror series but I don’t feel that really fits. It’s a western with fantasy elements (some of which, admittedly are scary). I look forward to seeing where this one will take me.

6. Batgirl – This book had so much to prove. It fought a hard battle to prove that it was a good book with an interesting character who deserved her place in the DCU. I have to say that I think the writer has a great sense of voice as the first year was full of Bat family guest stars and they were all portrayed believably. The stories have been great and the stakes have been high. This book doesn’t have to prove itself anymore, and now it can simply focus on being awesome.

5. Red Robin – Tim Drake is a great character. I HATED the idea of him being Red Robin, but the past year has really made it fit for the character. The book has a lot of great things going for it right now with some serious long term plotting going on. I hope the creative team can stick around for a long time to come because when Tim Drake is written well he is amazingly interesting and fun to read about.

4. iZombie – I figured I’d like this story because I like zombies, but this book is full of concepts that just really click with me. I love that one of the main characters is a were-terrier. When they sat down and laid out how vampires and ghosts and zombies and mummies exist in the world I really liked the explanation behind it all. With such iconic monsters it’s easy to just hand wave their existence as some sort of magic that doesn’t need explaining. But this book lays out easy to understand rules and shows a lot of forethought on the part of the writer. Also the art is fantastic. There are a lot of places this book can go and I look forward to being along for the ride.

3. Unwritten – This book continues to surprise me, and every surprise makes me excited to read the next volume. The characters are well developed and the threat they face is interesting and mysterious. And it has an adorable flying cat that I demand a plushie of immediately if not sooner. The pacing in this book is really solid and its one of the first things I read every month without fail.

2. Morning Glories – I’ve only read five issues so far, but the first one alone was enough to get me hooked and more than enough to earn the number 2 spot. This one could go down the list if it can’t keep up the insanely high standards it has set for itself, but it’s just starting out and with a long form mystery like this it’s an exciting time to be reading. The characters are fun and different and have great personalities that play off of each other in entertaining ways. The pacing of these issues has been fantastic with each issue ending in a way that makes me disappointed that there are no more pages that month and excited to see how things turn out as soon as the next volume is in my hands.

1. Tiny Titans – There is nothing better than this book. I feel like I gush about it all the time and if so it’s only because that’s how much I am enjoying this book. If they had an entire Tiny universe of books I would buy every single one of them and they would all probably be on this list. No matter what happens I know this comic will be fun. It will make me laugh. It will charm me with its whimsy. If I am feeling sad it makes me feel happy and if I’m already happy it makes me happier. Any book that can do that deserves the number 1 spot.


I’m honestly surprised by how many of these series are new (6 of the 10 haven’t even reached issue 10 yet, so in a way this list doubles as my best of 2010 list). I suppose the longer a series runs the more likely it is to lose readers for whatever reason. It doesn’t surprise me that half the books on here are independent titles. More DCU books would probably be on here if I could depend on the creative team sticking around for more than a year. But when I think about comics I want to read for a long time it’s too easy to assume that the writer I like will go away and be replaced by someone who doesn’t know what they are doing. Or that some big DCU event is going to come along and change everything potentially derailing stories that have been building for a while.

I noticed that I didn't talk too much about what these different series were actually about, so I've included links where I could to other places on my blog where I gush about the series in question.
Share your top 10 list with me! If you could only read 10 ongoings what would they be? Do you have less than 10? Share that too!

Fan Ramblings – Rotating Writers

I’m tired of rotating writing teams. These days it seems as though many ongoing titles are plagued by the fact that they can’t keep a consistent writer. As a writer myself (unpublished), not of comics but fictional prose, I know that it takes some time to find your character’s voices. With fiction I can draft a lot and change things before anyone ever reads it. But with periodicals the deadlines are quicker and you are dealing with characters that you did not create. Especially with team books, it’s going to take a while to figure out all your players. You have to balance the main characters and figure out the relations to their supporting cast and enemies. Some of these relationships are very easy, but others are complex and will take some time to get just right. Even if there are plenty of resources to help the writer it takes practice to get the voices out on the page convincingly.

Probably my biggest pet-peeve with changing writers is the loose story ends. Often a writer has some “big plan” in mind when they start a book, some big reveal they are working toward, a relationship they are building for a specific reason, or hints and teases at something bigger down the road. And then for whatever reason the writer goes away. It seems like nine times out of ten the new writer won’t even look at what was going on before. They have their ideas, which may not mesh well with where the story was going or even recent growths in characters. Do writers not talk to each other?

A big example of this that is eating at me right now is the mystery Judd Winick ended his Batman run with. Dick Grayson found something about an old case, and possibly about his parents’ deaths, that Bruce was hiding from him. Winick was the regular writer at the time, and took a break for Tony Daniel to do an arc. The whole time I was reading that arc I realized that I cared less about who Black Mask was and more about what was on that flash drive. I couldn’t wait for Winick to come back and continue that story. But then Winick started writing JL Generations Lost and Daniels was upgraded to the regular writer. I will honestly be shocked if anything comes of that flash drive now. It will probably just be a loose end that hangs around in the air.

I don’t know if Winick doesn’t want to tell Daniels about it because he figures he’ll be back on Batman at some point and can tell the story himself or if he did tell Daniels about it and Daniels doesn’t want to tell that story. I’m sure those aren’t the only two options either. But I feel that it’s hurting the book. Instead of focusing on the story at hand I’m wondering about the story they aren’t telling.

When the Batwoman ongoing hits the shelves it won’t have Greg Rucka’s name attached because he’s focusing on his creator owned work at the moment. He had a three issue arc planned out to explain the origins of Alice, a new enemy introduced in his recent Detective Comics run. This was supposed to be the end of his Detective Comics run, but for whatever reason he didn’t do it. Now I KNOW that this story won’t be picked up by the Batwoman ongoing because in an interview JH Williams III said that its Rucka’s story and he thinks Rucka should be the one to tell it. I understand that thought as a creator, but as a fan it just makes me mad. That’s a highly interesting storyline that I really want to know about. And now we may never get to see it. By the time Rucka gets back to DC someone else may have messed with Alice making the origin he planned when he created her not fit anymore. At the very least it will have been so long that fans may not care about Alice any more. The buzz is hot right now and it seems a shame not to take advantage of it.

Chris Yost has recently left Red Robin. I’m not too fazed by this particular case for three reasons. First is that the major storyline he had going seems to have ended. Since he seemed to know he was leaving, he had time to wrap things up. Second is that the writer taking over is Fabien Nicieza who was writing the Robin series before it was cancelled for Battle for the Cowl. Since this writer already knows and loves the character I feel a little less apprehensive about the change. But third, and most importantly, I’m not that worried about it because I know that Yost and Nicieza have talked. In an interview with Yost he mentions talking with Nicieza about the things that were still up in the air. Just knowing that makes me feel like things won’t be ignored. Clearly egos didn’t get in the way of these two talking about the book and the character they both love. And even if Nicieza doesn’t do things the way Yost would have at least he should be touching on these things rather than ignoring them.

But since Nicieza is taking over Red Robin he’s dropping Azrael, a book he’s been on since it started. This one bothers me in particular because the very first issue of Azrael showed a future scene with him DEAD. At the time I thought it was a ballsy move, because if the readers know the character is going to die then as a writer you’d better make it damn interesting for the reader in the meantime so when he dies it actually means something. It just seemed like Nicieza had a plan to get him to that point, but now that could all go out the window. Maybe David Hine knows where the story was going, but I’m worried that they are going to try to stretch it out. The sales aren’t great either, which makes me wonder why they even bothered to replace Nicieza. Why not just let him finish the book with an ending that would be satisfying to those of us who were reading it? I won’t judge yet; I like some of Hine’s other stuff, but my view on the whole situation is rather pessimistic.

Most of the time I dread a writer shift. I know many people see it as a jumping off point for a book. I think a lot of those people follow writers more than they follow characters, but I too have dropped a book at a writer change. I dropped Outsiders when Dan Didio took over. I picked up the book because it was tied to the Batman universe after Battle for the Cowl and because I liked Tomasi’s work on Nightwing. The solicits after he left the book seemed to take the team away from the Batbooks. And I was frustrated because I felt that most of the upcoming teasers from Origins and Omens would never happen (honestly, did they hold true for any book?). I don’t hate Dan Didio as a writer or anything (although I am still of the opinion that editors shouldn’t be writing anything more than a mini here and there. If you want to be a writer, quit being an editor and be a writer like Tomasi did. If you are an editor you should be focusing on editing /end rant).

I suppose the other thing that chased me away from Outsiders is a common problem that plagues team books (I’m looking at you Teen Titans). Every time a new writer comes on board we have to have a new team lineup (normally with the tagline of a “bold new direction”). I HATE this. I’m buying the book because I like the characters that are in it. If you want to add one or two new characters during your run that’s alright. I don’t mind meeting new faces, and it’s a team after all. And if you are going to have someone leave, that’s okay too, but it better damn well feel organic to the character and not just put them on a bus because you don’t feel like writing them.

Teams work because the members trust each other, know each other, and are able to depend on each other. The “bold new direction” the books always claim to have often works out the same way: the team DOESN’T know each other and so they don’t trust each other and so they get their asses kicked and fight a lot until they can learn to be a team. This can be a good story. However, it is only a good story when it doesn’t keep happening every few years (or months in some cases…). Because the end result of this kind of story should be the team functioning as, you know, a team. Then you can get back to telling real stories about bad guys and how the good guys stop them. It seems like writers don’t remember how to do that lately. It seems like it’s easier to tell the “team doesn’t trust each other” story than the “team working well together playing off of each other’s nuances and getting the tough job done” story.

As I was thinking about this, I remembered another loose end that never got tied up. In the Nightwing comic there was an arc in which Nightwing was targeted by a braces wearing assassin who was rather obsessed with his iPod. He kicked Nightwing’s ass and buried him alive (we’ll ignore the fact that shooting or stabbing him would have been much more effective, and he would have had proof to show who ever hired him). Anyway, Nightwing digs himself out of the grave and survives. As far as I remember there was maybe one more scene with the mysterious assassin (I don’t think he never got a name or even a clear shot of his face) finding out that Nightwing was still alive. And then the writer changed and this was never brought up again. This feels like a wasted plot. He was established as a real threat to Nightwing and honestly, what assassin wouldn’t go to correct their mistake. It’s a matter of professionalism. And it would ruin your rep. It’s always been something I wished they would pick back up, mostly because I want to see Nightwing kick his ass this time around.

I understand that things come up and sometimes can’t go as planned. Someone who had planned to be on a book for a while has some important personal issues and needs the time away or just can’t handle the schedule they are on. Sometimes company politics get in the way and writers leave for long periods of time. Sometimes writers get a better offer. However, it happens way too often to be excusable and there has to be something that DC can do about this. I simply refuse to believe that this is an unfixable problem. Two of the bestselling books right now are Green Lantern and Batman and Robin. Geoff Johns has been on Green Lantern for a good chunk of time and has been able to develop huge stories (and thankfully for fans of the book, has no plans of leaving). Grant Morrison has been on Batman for several years now and is working on the newest chapter of his ongoing epicness. This is what happens when you give writers a chance to grow a title and work with it over time. This is how you keep fans reading a series and excited about what is to come. When it comes to writers I and many fans appreciate some consistency. Even if they don’t click at first, give them a little time to work it all out.

I could continue rambling about the importance of consistent art on a book, but I think this one has gone on long enough. I can’t be the only one this bothers. Share your thoughts below!

Comic Book Issues: Doubles Feature of Awesome!

The other day I read several really good comics. There were those that I expected to be good and were good (The Unwritten, Tiny Titans, Joe the Barbarian) and then there were some that were new that were pretty good (iZombie, Birds of Prey, Zatanna). And then there were 2 that really blew me away. So in a happy change of pace, today’s Comic Book Issues isn’t about a bad comic I had issue with, but two comics that were really really good and stood out to me. As always I’m a month late, and these comics are from May. It’s LONG (about 1000 words for each title) and rambles, but its happy rambling and not ranting!

Let’s dig into Batman and Robin 12 and Red Robin 12!

Spoilers ahead, you have been warned.