Remake/Remodel: DC Rebirth so you don't have to

DC Rebirth

DC REBIRTH

The third, or maybe fourth, reboot/soft reboot by DC in under 5 years. And not including the two reboots in the years preceding.

It can't be good, right? Well of course it won't be but I'm clearly mentally defective when it comes to the Distinguished Competition so of course I'm going to jump right in.

The first thing to note is that it looks like not all the books are being Rebirthed - Cyborg and Deathstroke spring to mind, and both inexplicable because they're irredeemably dreadful - so either there are going to be two DCUs or it isn't going to be all-embracing after all; shooting yourself in the foot before you start, it's the DC way.

Secondly there's a Superman crossover which is supposed to be required reading as a prequel but is being published AFTER Rebirth #1 and perhaps more importantly OUT OF SEQUENCE.So part 3 comes out before part 2, and part 4 is the last of the 8 to be published.

Thirdly, Justice League #50 is supposed to be required reading. This is flagged nowhere except on the final page.

With all this in mind, let's boogie.

So, JL #50. The conclusion of he near year-long Darkseid War that literally nobody has been reading and has taken place completely out of continuity. Unless it's always been in Rebirth continuity, which may or may not be the same continuity as all, or some, or none of the other books.

To summarise the plot Darkseid turns up, then his daughter does, then all the JL become actual versions of the New Gods (who don't exist because there's only Apokolips and not New Genesis in the Johnsiverse - yes, I know Orion was in Wonder Woman...) and then the Crime Syndicate turn up and Superwoman has her baby with her leggings on. There's more standing round talking than anything else, and none of it has lodged in my head as much as Superwoman giving birth through her clothes.

Now we're caught up, know that it is still not as dumb as the JRJr variant cover to this issue:

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7381/27072519930_6ee6a298bb_z.jpg

So, in this issue Superwoman's baby gets used as a weapon that attracts inverse Shazam energy and electrocutes people, except when Darkseid's Daughter (oh yeah, that was the whole point of this series - I mean Joker's Daughter went so well it started a trend. Seriously. Sinestro had one too.) gets hold of it and it turns into Darkseid instead because plot. Then the power of talking makes the Anti-Life equation sentient and it decides it doesn't like Darkseid very much and makes him an ACTUAL baby who will be brought up in a cave by his daughter.

Batman had been using Metron's chair until he decides not to, because it has already shared the ultimate answer to everything with him. Which isn't 42 after all, but that there are 3 Jokers. Owlman starts using it but he gets destroyed in a puff of maguffin which looks curiously like the residue Doctor Manhattan leaves behind in Watchmen. OH WAIT.

The Black Rider out of the New Gods wants to kill the Flash who is the Black Rider out of the New Gods but Power Ring from the Crime Syndicate deliberately gets in the way and accidentally gets turned into a good guy during the process and is now yet another GL of Earth.

Since someone has to rule Apokolips someone has to step into the breach and it's Luthor in a power suit. Presumably this is because his power escalation in this makes him too much of a threat to remain in the DCU, I mean he can take out pretty much everyone.

So Wonder Woman doesn't feel left out that she hasn't really played much of a part in this series other than to try and make Darkseid's Daughter renounce evil by talking to her about hair and boys and shit she too gets a closing revelation. A twin brother. This can't end well.

And that's it. It's all kind of left hanging. It's been poorly plotted all the way through and the conclusion is no different. Never change.

I bless you, aldo

This makes some sense of my reading of rebirth 1. It doesnt make it better, just mildly more meaningful.

I know that this is treating the whole thing much more seriously than it deserves, but the whole point of the residue Doctor Manhattan left was that he exploded Rorshach and made his guts look like a Rorschach painting. It says it all that Johns and DC would go 'oh, kewl, let's have him do that to a bunch of other characters'

Rorschach's remains don't look like a Rorscach blot, they look like that visual motif that repeats throughout Watchmen in various forms, first seen as the blood splatter on the smiley button in the very beginning. It's not symmetrical like a Roschach pattern; in fact, the "blood on the smiley" version of it represents broken symmetry (because the blood ruins the symmetrical form of the smiley button), which is a major motif (both visual and thematical) in the comic.

But yeah, without having even read Rebirth, I can guess that Johns doesn't get what Moore & Gibbon's purpose for using that motif was.

Oh, wow, so you're doing this, huh? Well, I salute you and I hope you have a physician at your side to check your vitals as DC slowly saps your lifeforce once again.

You are the real hero, aldo.

i think there's a case to be made that ilx has a moral responsibility to stage an intervention for the benefit of Aldo's wellbeing

Final Days of Superman by Peter Tomasi

You know what? When I referred to the Superman crossover in the opening post, I didn't realise Superman #52 was actually part 8. That's right, true belevers, I had been reading all the parts to date WITHOUT AT ANY POINT REALISING I WAS READING A CROSSOVER OR THAT IT WAS A THING I SHOULD BE PAYING PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO.

In actual fact, having got to the final issue becomes clear that you have to have been reading not just the four titles they suggest but also Superman: Lois and Clark, and not just the two issues in question but probably about a year of continuity. So, since you haven't I'll try and get you up to speed.

80s Superman escaped the end of Convergence and is living on a farm with Lois and their son. Because he has given up being Superman he has a beard and a black costume.
Superman developed some new powers, the main one of which is being able to blow up like an atom bomb. He has to do this in space because so much energy is given out and the second (third?) time he does it he ends up depowered. He eventually cures this by finding the world's stockpile of kryptonite and lying in it. This has given him kryptonite poisoning and will kill him.
Part of the energy given off during one of his explosions has become sentient and possessed another guy who is now convinced he's Superman even though he's on fire. To prove he's one of the good guys he is going to kill Superman because then he'll get to join the Justice League (who, as we've established, don't seem to be in continuity).

All clear? Good.

So, in the final issue Supes distracts Fire Superman by burning him with his heat vision. Because, as we all know, you literally fight literal fire with literal fire. This allows Supergirl to try to beat Fire Superman before he bitchslaps her away, although luckily this allows Batman to fly a plane into Fire Superman while Wonder Woman stands and watches (her entire contribution). Superman realises Fire Superman is gonna 'splode so flies him into space. 80s Supes tries to help but Supes ego gets in the way and he punches him to another planet, then Supes realises that if he blows up at the exact same time then the explosions will cancel each other out and he will be able to absorb both.

There is a giant explosion.

80s Supes catches Supes to stop him hitting himself when he hits the ground (because he's survived whereas the one literally made out of fire hasn't) but Everything's Gone Green and the kryptonite makes him implode and turn to dust - but not before an interminable sequence of goodbyes that just goes on and on and on. Think LotR ending or David Tennant Doctor Says Goodbye To The World. The Steel photobomb is the best bit, he literally turns up in the background of a scene and does nothing else,

Anyway, 80s Supes can't cope and runs away, two pages of villains looking sadface that Supes is dead and Lois writes the front page. But which Lois, HMMM? The Johnsiverse one or the 80s one? Because both are in continuity now.

A real mess.

this is at least in theory supposed to be a jumping-on point for new readers right? not sure how two lois lanes (two! lois! lanes! ffs) is going to help with that

It's a shame that some decent writers have wasted the best years of their lives on sub-sub-prime DC. I liked Tomasi's pre-Nu 52 stuff.

i think there's a case to be made that ilx has a moral responsibility to stage an intervention for the benefit of Aldo's wellbeing

― benzarro ghazarri (bizarro gazzara), Monday, 30 May 2016 17:04 (2 hours ago) Bookmark

I have faith in anyone who made it through Minds and Latter Days (and FOR PLEASURE) to boot. Anything's gotta be a cakewalk after that, right? Er, right?

Haha yes, these are just shit comics. You're not reading pages and pages of mental breakdown (except here, obv).

xpost That was just wrestling with one man's madness. This is like booking a cruise with Sea Org.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7381/27072519930_6ee6a298bb_z.jpg

"Guys, I swear if we just carry this cardboard cut-out of Superman around with us, no-one will ever know the difference..."

Oh Aldo, thank you, blessings, but are you up for it?

i guess one of the underappreciated benefits of being invulnerable is that you don't have to bother looking where you're going: you can just blithely fly along sideways staring into the middle distance, consequences be damned

also, since when can aquaman fly?

I'd like to see a super who flies in an upright standing pose because the usual horizontal thing gives them a crick in the neck.

pretty sure there's some upright flying in jrjr-drawn issues of star brand, ironically enough

DC Universe Rebirth
By: Far too many people for output this low quality.

Page 1 is the most homage-y Watchmen homage since whenever. 9 box grid, really? And it's about a watch, man. GEDDIT?! One broken cog has ruined the watch and it's broken. CLANG goes a plot point I reckon.
The narrator then looks at the world and zooms in on Batman, who he knows is Bruce Wayne. Maybe I slept through something in Batman but I'm sure it's still pretty much a secret identity at the moment so this is either Luthor or a mega powered deus ex machina. Either way, a panel helps us out by telling us Supes is missing at the end of Superman #52 (which saves those of us that aren't me from reading it). Then Bats explains what Metron's chair told him about The Joker (ditto) and very strangely we see on the Bat-computer that Batman has a photo of the Joker taking the picture of Barbara Gordon during the Killing Joke.

This totally confuses me. Did Batman always have a camera in there to spy on Babs, and if so just did nothing while it happened? Did Babs have a webcam or something going while it happened and either Bats hacked it off her computer or Babs shared it with him? Or Joker had a henchman take photos of him taking photos and Joker put it on Instagram and Bats had to thumb it to save it? Seriously, ZERO SENSE.

Aaaaaaand it turns out the narrator is Wally West, the ginger Kid Flash version. Darkseid dying has let him use the speed force to change dimensions/times/Earths/something (wherever the parts of the DCU that Flashpoint broke are, basically) to give plot spoilers to Batman. As ever, however, he doesn't just do the straightforward thing and tell Bats; he makes an oblique reference to a letter from Thomas Wayne. Seriously dude, those sorts of clues are worse than useless. You've told the World's Greatest Detective and he looks more confused and ashamed than anyone who paid actual money to see Dawn of Justice. And if you thought you didn't have time, why didn't you go straight to him rather than deliver your big eulogy? Piss poor decision making Wally. I'm glad you're dead.

So Wally summarises CoIE and Flashpoint then tells us that a magic hand stole 10 years during Flashpoint and that he's the Psycho Pirate of Flashpoint. The hand changed everything by not letting the completely different world be completely different by making it completely completely different different. Somehow. In a way he doesn't understand.

Wally then tries Johnny Quick but he's kind of vague there too and Johnny is NOT A WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE so it doesn't exactly pan out well at all and Wally gets sucked off by the Speed Force. Result.

One of LoSH has come back to tell the police that Superman either is or isn't dead. It doesn't seem to add anything to the plot at the moment but early days I guess.

Ray Palmer/Ryan Choi and Jaime Wossname/Ted Kord make little pre/post Johnsiverse couples laying plot seeds along with some other Johnsiverse heroes (including the new Power Ring GL, presumably to prove JL #52 happened) before Pandora (the one Johns made out was a really, REALLY big thing in the Johnsiverse before she turned out to be nothing) gets exploded EXACTLY like Rorschach at the end of Watchmen. OH SNAP DING DING DING

Darkseid's Daughter summarises the remainder of JL #52 before Wally watches everyone being sad at Dead Supes. 80s Supes is confused he's alive and a Spooky Dude In A Cloak tells him he's right to be confused because Johns is involved in this so it's a natural state.

Disembodied Wally perves on Linda Park for a bit. Maybe he took the photo of the Joker and gave it to Bats. That seems like the sort of dick thing he'd do, he could call it a clue and it would clear his conscience without ACTUALLY HELPING. He then exposes himself to Linda who has no idea who he is, which makes him sad until he gets sucked off again.

Wally then fails to speak to anyone else he knows until he sees Johnsiverse Wally who it turns out is his cousin. He sees Johnsiverse Wally be the Flash so decides to give up. But not before he sees Barry one last time and after delivering the Bat-Clue again Barry remembers who he is and pulls him out of the Speed Force. Now they are both Psycho Pirates. As they discuss which Flash villain is behind it, Bats digs out a smiley face badge from the walls of the Batcave. It appears to be actual badge that the Comedian wears when he hits the tarmac at the beginning of Watchmen, which only exists for a very short period of time as we see Nite Owl chip the blood off while Rorschach makes the 'human bean juice' joke. But surely MASTERS OF CONTINUITY DC would know that.

The epilogue mends the watch from the beginning and monologues about Veidt's plan to destroy the world then ends with a clock/blood stain image which is all too obvious.

Controversially, I'm going to stick my neck out and proclaim this NOT AWFUL. Things which come next will no doubt make me choke on those words but this isn't any worse than bits of 52 and is probably most like Final Crisis. I very nearly enjoyed bits of it.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME?

xp there is!

http://i1247.photobucket.com/albums/gg622/bizarrogazzara/image_zps3fbwgxrz.jpeg

oh god aldo's broken already ;_;

wait, so now there are two lois lanes and two wally wests in the same universe? jesus h christ

Glad you guys liked the JRJr cover as much as me. Horizontal Superman will never not make me laugh and might even be a new DN.

There might even be more other things, it's not clear who else might still around Post-convergence. As a basic example, the Green Arrow and Black Canary that we briefly see are not the Johnsiverse ones so they may well be duplicates too (or lol continuity).

I've just realised I forgot to mention the Aquamarine segment. Nothing happens in it really but forgetting about Aquaman feels like one of the most DC things I can do.

*Aquaman* Fkn autocorrect

does aquaman demonstrate the ability to fly at any point?

No, he just wants to marry Mera but has no idea why.

Couldn't Blue Suit Aquaman fly?

i dunno, but in googling to find out i discovered i'd overlooked the fact that there was recently a series called aquaman and the others, which might be the limpest-sounding title in history

Oh it was dreadful, an attempt to gritty up Aquaman with a team book whose remit was 'be a less epic Aquaman'.

JRJR Supes reminded me of

http://i.imgur.com/JypSYAO.jpg

Out of curiosity I read Rebirth #1, and as I predicted, Johns doesn't seem to get Watchmen's symbology at all... The comic ends with an image of a yellow clock, where big hand is pointing at fifteen to midnight on the left side, while the Comedian blood stain is on the right side of the clock... This completely misses the point of the original comic, where the blood stain on the smiley was in the same position as the big hand of the Doomsday Clock in the beginning of the story, i.e. twelve to midnight. So the Comedian's death and the resulting bloodstain symbolize the beginning of the countdown towards the end of the world, but apparently in Rebirth the world already ended 12 minutes ago? Or maybe that's exactly what Johns wants to say, and he's being more clever than I thought? The bloodstain on the smiley Batman finds is in the same position as in Watchmen though.

Also, when the tattooed lady ("Pandora", according to Aldo) is blown to pieces, unlike Gibbons the artist for this section does not bother to draw the resulting stain of blood in the same shape as the smiley blood stain, so the recurring motif is lost. So lazy.

But yeah, I agree with Aldo that some parts of it were quite okay, especially the scene where Barry helps Wally come back. And it wasn't as incomprehensible as I feared, given that I haven't really read any DC comics at all after Flashpoint, save for Multiversity.

Would also agree with Aldo that, while it is an essentially worthless comic, a product of the problem it purports to be a solution to, exhibits a dunce understanding of Watchmen, and I won't pay for a DC comic until Berg4nza is fired... I enjoyed reading DC Rebirth more than any other 52 comic I've read - low bar indeed, but still.

Perhaps they should just go the whole hog, pulp all existing copies of Watchmen and relabel it BEFORE DC REBIRTH

It's just that the inclusion of the Watchmen themes and characters feels utterly gratuitous, their role coul've been replaced by any number of DC universe cosmic players that would feel less out of place in a story like this.

(xpost)

Also, the funniest bit by far in the comic was Johns' sad attempt at writing Constantine's Britishisms:

Constantine: "Your missus is long gone, chief. Abby Arcane is lost to the dark side and whatnot."

Swamp Thing: "You asked for my help against the capes, Constantine... That is my price."

Constantine: "You've always been a pain in the arse, you bloody turnip."

I half expected Constantine to call him guv'nor and ask for some blood sausage...

If it came from literally any other creator than Didio or Johns or Berganza, stealing the Watchmen characters might have been, at the very least, endearingly cheeky. But this is pretty gross. I mean, Moore has been kind of a dullard lately, but it's still gross.

I found Morrison's Watchmen pastiches in Superman Beyond 3D and Multiversity to be quite clever and intriguing, but of course Morrison A) actually understood what Watchmen is about, and B) was sensible enough to just homage Watchmen instead of trying to integrate it to another universe where it just doesn't fit.

Especially since the JT Krul version of Captain Atom actually did end up being Doctor Manhattan, out of time and space and all powerful. See? Reading those comics was SOME use.

Weirder though was the Ted Kord stuff and some of the angles used looking down on him and the beetle ship...

Guys, I've had a horrible idea.

10 years missing due to an unseen force. There's a line which is misdirected to Oldie and Dinah but says something about "alliances not made" and "teams unformed".

What if we've got it wrong and this isn't about incorporating Watchmen into the DCU. What if this is the story of how it didn't happen to the Charlton heroes but another universe.

bookmarked this thread, munching on imaginary popcorn

bookmarked this thread, praying for u, aldo.

Is there going to be a ReBirth issue two, or will the storyline now just continue across all the DC titles (I'm morbidly interested in how they will develop the Batman scene at the end of issue one)?

I thought there would a separate Rebirth miniseries, like there is with most of these crossover events, but apparently Rebirth #1 is all we're going to get? And AFAIK there isn't any info on where this whole Watchmen/Dr. Manhattan is gonna continue? Presumably in Batman at least, but there are like a kazillion different Bat-titles nowadays. I guess it's no suprise, but seems like DC doesn't really care at all about casual readers (like myself) who might just want to read this one story arc and not every one of the 50+ titles they produce.

Also, apparently this'll be the last DC comic Geoff Johns will write for a while, as he's gonna focus on the live-action adaptations. So I guess there's a good chance this whole thing will never be resolved, and it'll be swiped away in the next inevitable reboot.

I think they've said something something this is a story that will last two years, all over dc titles, we will see it again, don't know how, don't know when, but we know that we will see it agin.

Well I'm not gonna start randomly reading their books just in case some of them they might follow this plot, so I guess it's back to Marvel for me. Great job at attracting new readers, DC!

apparently this'll be the last DC comic Geoff Johns will write for a while

yay!

as he's gonna focus on the live-action adaptations

https://m.popkey.co/603e36/Ow0kL_f-maxage-0.gif

I *think* the initial plot/premise concludes at the end of the Rebirth issues before the numbering changes/reverts/restarts, so just the 22 books to read. Of course, these are spaced out across 4 months so some books will be nearly 6 issues into their regular continuity run before Rebirth gets resolved or explained.

I should have realised earlier of course, that Titans Hunt has also been required reading. As a basic and confusing plot summary, the 60s Teen Titans (Robin, Speedy, Kid Flash etc) were removed from history to protect them from Mr Twister which means all the versions of those characters since are effectively different ones - i.e. the Dick Grayson from the Titans never goes on to be Nightwang etc, making them kind of like the JSA I'd guess. Anyway, they come back into continuity as their own preserved in aspic versions during Titans Hunt except Wally, because everyone forgot about him. Which has now been retconned (already, less than one year on) as being kept by the Speed Force.

And GJ won't just be doing films, he'll also be continuing with Green Lantern (the Simon Baz version, at least).

hold up - there are more duplicate heroes in continuity now in the form of the old-school teen titans?

In terms of books to come, Rebirth specials are Aquaman, Batman, Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lanterns (Simon Baz/Power Ring), Superman, Titans (Wally/Dick/Roy etc), Wonder Woman (all June); Batgirl & the Birds of Prey, Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, The Hellblazer, Justice League, Nightwing, Red Hood & The Outlaws (all July); Blue Beetle, Cyborg, Deathstroke, Suicide Squad, Supergirl, Trinity (Bats/Supes/WW) (August); Batman Beyond, Teen Titans (Damian Wayne, Johnsiverse Wally etc) (September).

Then after the specials come:

Batman (twice a month), Detective (twice a month, Tim Drake, Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, Clayface), Batgirl, Nightwing (twice monthly), All Star Batman (twice monthly), Batgirl & The Birds of Prey

Action (twice a month, 80s Superman, Lex Luthor), Superman (twice a month), Wonder Woman (twice a month, odd numbered issues tell one story and even numbered issues another), New Superman (Chinese Superman), Superwoman (Lois, presumably 80s Lois), Supergirl, Trinity.

Aquaman (twice a month), Flash (twice a month), Green Lanterns (twice a month), Hal Jordan & The Green Lantern Corps (twice a month), Justice League (twice a month), Titans, Cyborg, Justice League America (twice a month), Teen Titans.

Green Arrow (twice a month), Deathstroke (twice a month), Harley Quinn (twice a month), The Hellblazer, red Hood & The Outlaws, Suicide Squad (twice a month), Blue Beetle, Super Sons (Damian Wayne and Jonathan Kent), Batman Beyond.

Who knows how long that'll last.

Yes, and they're going to have their own separate book going forward. xpost

Also, according to this interview, the reason Johns is using Dr. Manhattan in the story is meta-criticism: he's the stand-in for all the creators who thought the way to move superhero comics "forward" was to make them more grim & gritty. While that's not a bad idea in theory, it raises a few points...

1) Morrison has already done the same meta-self-criticism of DC at least three times (Animal Man, Seven Soldier, Final Crisis). so maybe come up with some new ideas?

2) Dr. Manhattan's story in Watchmen ended on an optimistic note: he'd come to appreciate life and its beauty. How does he go from that into making everything dark and depressing?

3) Hasn't Johns himself been the main architect of the DC universe for the last 10+ years? So if he felt DC has become too dark, why hasn't he done anything about it before?

(xxpost)

So wait, if there's the 80s Superman in Action and Chinese Superman in his own book, who's gonna be in the regular Superman book?

Yes, and they're going to have their own separate book going forward

fucking hell. at this point it's probably easier to ask who doesn't have at least one doppelganger in this exciting new universe.

Superman will probably turn out not to be dead. Or we might get Electric Superman, or Mullet Superman.

Hasn't Johns himself been the main architect of the DC universe for the last 10+ years? So if he felt DC has become too dark, why hasn't he done anything about it before?

exactly - he's the guy behind the dcu's weird dismemberment fetish and already the architect of numerous reboots. at this point it's like letting a builder who's managed to accidentally burn down your house three times to take one more crack at getting it right

I would actually be enthused about some of these titles, with the knowledge that they weren't made to start spiralling down a Johns drain, but DiDio still means that they'll probably mostly suck, or the good ones will wink out of existence for no reason.

Such a depressing list of writers -- with maybe one or two not-terrible, but also not-that-exciting exceptions.

Total anecdotal side note: although my general DCU dilettantery ended abruptly with the advent of Flashpoint, it should be noted that I've bought Swamp Thing and Hellblazer comics as long as I've been aware of their existence (since like 1990) and that also abruptly ended at the same time (although I do intend to read Snyder's Swamp Thing at some point, as I've heard good things). It's mildly distressing to see that those characters are still mired in this convoluted garbage that I don't foresee ever wading through. I did look through an issue of the recent (and I guess now cancelled) Swamp Thing by Wein and Kelley Jones and it was easily the worst issue of Swamp Thing that I've ever seen (and I lived through the Nancy Collins run). Congratulations!

And, yeah, with few exceptions their writing roster has been underwhelming. I'll never understand what pulled, like, Greg Pak and Ann Nocenti to the Darkseid.

What I was told at the roadshow leading up to rebirth is that Johns isn't writing because he's overseeing all of the Rebirthverse, not focusing on live action. That could have changed.

This is a fairly recent development in the wake of Superman v Batman's underperformance and what is probably Zack Snyder's quiet demotion.

So that he can bring that Green Lantern magic to the movies.

I'm assuming a Johns Superman film would only make sense if you'd watched Season 3 of Smallville and the first colour season of George Reeves Superman, co-star Dean Cain as an alternate Superman that married Lois, feature the death of AIDS Advert Superman and have Gene Hackman play a Superfriends Suit Luthor.

Actually, what am I saying. I'd rather watch that than another Snyder film.

It's working already!

What are the TV shows like - isn't he involved with them too?

Yeah, he is to some extent. They're dumb and occasionally grim but also goofy and campy and fun and somewhat self-aware.

Greg Berlanti is the exec producer on those shows and he's also apparently moving up to the cinematic leagues (working on a Booster Gold movie) after Snyder's fumble.

Johns wrote two (admittedly pretty good) episodes for Season 1 of Arrow and was Exec VP on Season 1 of Flash. Doesn't do anything any more.

Flash - both seasons have been pretty dumb fun, though S1 more so. S2 in particular, although S1 is still guilty, too frequently indulges in a series arc it doesn't have the chops to carry off. When it's Monster Of The Week in Flash mythos then it's one of the most fun things on TV.

Arrow had an average S1, a pretty great S2, a mediocre S3 and a dreadful S4. Much of this is allegedly because Stephen Amell's supposed to be a nightmare to work with leading to main characters quitting, but that doesn't excuse terrible writing and pedestrian direction.

Legends Of Tomorrow was a lot of fun but kind of disappeared up its own wazoo naking the plot as timey-wimey as possible. Could have been half the length tbh. But next season - JSA!

Supergirl is deeply mired in the Byrne era book and is just as much fun, except when it dips into Silver Age goofiness. The Flash crossover ep was really great, I thought.

At the end of Flash S2 Barry does a Flashpoint. The main effect of that is that Supergirl will move from Earth 1 to Earth 0 (in comics terms, it's actually un-named alternate Earth to earth 1 on tv). Who knows what else will happen.

xp Does that include Gotham - it seemed a very different beast to Flash / Arrow / Legends of Tomorrow.

Gotham is a different beast all together, it's on Fox whereas all the rest are on The CW (now Supergirl's moved to join them).

For me, Gotham has been patchy. The second half of S1 was kind of pointless stretching of plot, and S2 could be cut by at least 5 eps. BUT the last few eps of Gotham have been properly great. Clayface was superb.

xpost Gotham is unrelated to the other shows. Haven't watched.

I also hadn't watched Supergirl yet but aldo's description has definitely piqued my interest.

There's also the dearly departed and short-lived Constantine which was just finding its footing before it was cancelled. Pretty decent adaptation, and Matt Ryan was effing perfect in the title role.

Wally gets sucked off by the Speed Force. Result.

um

Supergirl has an episode called For the Girl Who Has Everything, which is exactly what you think it is. Do I need say more?

They completely fucked up the chance to adapt the Moore/Gibbons story properly, though. So much of the episode was spent developing other subplots that the whole "what if Krypton hadn't exploded and Supergirl still had a good life there?" scenario (i.e. the most interesting part of the original Superman comic) was given maybe 5 minutes of screentime, which totally deflated the drama of Kara finding out what it was all about and forcing herself to leave.

There's always the animated JLA adaptation.

Total sidebar digression here but...why the hell doesn't DC get Timm & Dini to manage their cinematic universe? I for one would be shoveling money in their direction.

Dwayne McDuffie would've been perfect.

they should get jim shooter for the lulz

DJP, you missed the real slashfic payoff sentence:

He then exposes himself to Linda who has no idea who he is, which makes him sad until he gets sucked off again.

oh no I didn't

i read some of the rebirth #1s. I guess i should talk about it?

In Green Arrow #1, we're meant to already know who all the characters are but still want to have the story told to us again. In this incarnation, Oliver Queen is the openminded white billionaire all us openminded white guys know we would be if we were rich; he blows off a date with a conservative hottie when she doesn't agree with his politics and then gives a hundred bucks to a random homeless kid. Or to put it in even clearer terms:
http://i.imgur.com/nB5FHLd.png
then two pages afterward, brokeback pose black canary gets into it with him in an alley. So maybe not THAT social justice warrior, just enough that dinah is meant to pose this a zinger:
http://i.imgur.com/jK2Momb.png
See, as it happens, the homeless population of Seattle lives in a tarzanesque hoovertown that's being terrorized by begoggled morlocks whose sound effect of choice is "slurm" and Black Canary is trying to defend them and Green Arrow didn't realize it was a thing so HERO TEAMUP.
After shooting one of these slurmanites with an arrow to the knee, GA threatens their captive so: "Listen, Worm. There's a special black chamber in my heart. It's full of sharp objects, but it's pretty much absent of mercy. And it's reserved especially for those who prey on the weak. You have five seconds. And then I'm going to take you there for a special V.I.P. tour." So that's Benjamin Percy's writing.
Otto Schmidt's art is sketchy and reductive but not unpleasantly like a swipe of late Eisner or prime Thurber, except when it devolves into sheer amateurishness or the muddy coloring reduces the whole thing to an inkblot.
Here's an example that covers all those bases:
http://i.imgur.com/j3GVvJp.png
Anyways back at the plot: the morlock creatures are capturing the homeless and then selling them as WHITE SLAVES (basically everyone in this book is white and blonde and good or inhuman). Dinah and Ollie shut down the ring with a lot of carnage and some angry reddit style threats: "I might not have any special powers. I might be young. I might be a loudmouth. I might have a lot to learn. But don't underestimate me... I'll make you feel debased, devalued, bankrupt in every possible way." Following which, we get rear view shots of Black Canary's ass falling out of her leather shorts and we are left with them presumably making out in his super cool apartment. This is worse than impotent rage fantasies for kids. It's impotent righteous rage fantasies for manbabies.

as it happens, the homeless population of Seattle lives in a tarzanesque hoovertown that's being terrorized by begoggled morlocks

at least this is pretty otm

Batman Rebirth #1 is considerably better. Tom King, who I love, is co-credited with Scott Snyder for the story; I've read nothing by the latter but I gather he's the batman go-to guy of the moment? I'm totally out of tune with what the dark knight is (or even "is") in DC's current universe. Millionaire ubermensch in the nu-Tony Stark mode? Stoic super soldier with a desperate desire to be a mentor? Morrison-esque untouchable icon? Or Miller-esque sadist bad cop? In twenty pages (this is less of a chapter one and more of an opening paragraph), he's most of those things, more or less, from page to page.
There's a lot of out of sequence story pushed together here. Bruce is training a protege to be not so much a robin as a lieutenant? And he's fighting to save the city. And defusing a bomb? And doing one-handed chin ups off the side of a building while taking a business meetingThe desequenced storyline connects thematically with the current baddie of choice: a version of Calendar Man who does a weird Benjamin Button thing and regenerates anew from his husk of body as the seasons change. He's threatening Gotham with, i dunno, SPORES, I guess. The whole thing is over before it really gets any footing but it's certainly promising. King's tough guy batman dialogue is sufficiently pulpy to hit the spot for me:
http://i.imgur.com/JSyrTZG.png
Mikel Janin's arts is reasonably functional but his bruce wayne looks too much like a young Jon Hamm for my taste. The backgrounds are either undelineated pastels or overcrowded messes of computer assisted art. Worse, Janin's layout grids feel oddly static; witness this triptych of alfred dropping an avocado into the batcave (yes, seriously):
http://i.imgur.com/2QdizWO.png
This book is apparently spinning off in two directions: an eponymous Batman book written by King with next-gen Marc Silvestri David Finch and "All-Star Batman" with Snyder and JR jr.

Green Lanterns Rebirth #1 reminds me of how much I have always loathed Geoff Johns' writing. SO much overwrought self-referential exposition and soap opera monologue. It's like somebody read a lot of Claremont but felt that his characters just didn't talk to themselves enough. I've tried to read Johns' earlier takes on the Lanterns and hoo-boy they're not good. I gather this story takes place in a heavily crafted, thoroughly delineated Lantern Johnsverse and guess what? You don't need to know anything about it to recognize that this is a mismatched buddy cop story and nothing but.
Three pages of ponderous introductions reveal the Guardians are being chased by those dumb Invasion aliens and there's a Pandora's box or who knows what. And now we've got "real life problems" with the two new Green Lanterns on earth and because Marvel seems to be selling more with diversity, one is a presumably middle eastern guy who looks like The Rock and apparently got the ring in guantanamo (what the fuck?) and the other is a presumably latino woman. She's named "Jessica Cruz" but I'm not sure what race means when everyone in the world looks like a Maxim action figure. Here's the totally normal way Jessica is met by a friend:
http://i.imgur.com/SpZow3g.png
In a pair of brilliant character designs, our middle eastern lantern who is TOTALLY NOT A TERRORIST Y'ALL wears a balaclava and the female lantern has no irises and some sort of strange lantern shaped eye highlight and impossible posture.
http://i.imgur.com/yJpmbnM.png
also, hands are hard to draw.
http://i.imgur.com/VzUNSlX.png
So these guys meet and they bicker and then Hal Jordan shows up and they are put on notice that they've got to MAN UP and be partners because there's some huge universe changing thing happening and they don't have TIME to put up with you ROOKIES. Just once it would be nice if the new Lantern could come on board during a period of peace and go through several years of regulation training. Anyways, Hal ditches them and then there's a splash page with a bunch of evil red Lanterns and one of them is named ATROCITUS and the other one is a splayed vampirella on a throne of skulls with an impossibly placed evil cat between her spread legs and the cat has a power ring on its tail and jesus christ am i supposed to take this seriously or what.
The art is total bog standard raised on Image stuff; I was surprised the penciller is Noah Van Sciver's brother but that probably just tells you where my reference points are at these days.

the cat Red Lantern was one of the GOOD things to come out of all that GL hubbub years back

Superman Rebirth #1 is something different from all the rest of these. Where the other three pamphlets serve as reboots of one fashion or another, the Supes book is a muddle of near-hopelessly mashed up continuities with visual details, historical eccentricities and superhero trivia explicitly cherrypicked and reshuffled into a barely coherent guidebook for an uncertain future. We get Byrne's Fortress of Solitude and cleaned up blacksuit Fabio Superman with a beard and Nehru jacket superman and secret agent Lana Lang and SEVEN PAGES of Doomsday Death of Superman recaps and all of this patent absurdity is treated so deadly serious and served by the most apathetic dialogue and lack of action. The transition between panels here is emblematic:
http://i.imgur.com/Mn8QIsJ.png
THE HORROR! THE PAIN! "By the way, that's an interesting device you're using there." "I MAKE things to help me DO things." Hmm, yes. I see, I see.
The plot synopsis, such as it is has Lana Lang trying to take dead superman's body to be buried in smallville when alt-superman shows up to stop her and then they convolutedly stroll down multiple reality memory lanes. Then they bury him and alt-supes smiles. The big takeaway is that dead supermen rise again. Except when they don't and they probably won't now. Except probably they will. I barely follow and I definitely don't care. Read all this essentially meaningless word soup and tell me how much patience you'd have for more:
http://i.imgur.com/BQTTTsf.png
Doug Mahnke's art is... not good. That's a Major Bummer (pun intended) as I grew up reading The Mask and loving his weird mix of photorealism and caricature. I don't know what you'd call this though:
http://i.imgur.com/3D7W6C2.png

in sum: it's been since morrison stopped batman and dini stopped detective since i followed a dc book regularly. Collectively, these four books don't make any compelling argument toward my giving a shit about the structure of their newest universe. I suppose I'll have a go at Tom King Batman but horrendous Top Cow style art may make even that unbearable.

Ugh, that's Mahnke?! His stuff was soooo good when I left DC a few years ago (apparently the same time as you).

Geoff Johns GL has always been dumb as dirt (yellow equals scaredness! red equals angryness!) but that corner of the DCU was pretty fun up until Blackest Night.

Johns' GL was okay, but the Green Lantern Corps was really fun for a while, especially when Dave Gibbons was writing/drawing it. It had a sort of a 2000AD style "space weirdness" vibe to it, with an interesting rotating cast. But then all that Red/Blue/Orange/Pink/etc Lantern Corps bullshit started happening, and everything was swallowed by Johns' silly megacrossover, at which time I bailed out. I did eventually read Blackest Night, but it was just filled with the sort of grim'n'gritty stuff (pointless, gruesome characters deaths, gratuitously gory action scenes, macho posturing, etc) Johns now seems to be highly critical of, so pots and kettles etc.

Noah Van Sciver's brother has been drawing ugly Green Lantern comics since years before Noah was drawing badly-printed sad-sack bakery comics

(and was the first Quitely fill-in on New X-Men, the only thing I've ever read by him)

yeah for a minute there i was like who's Noah? didn't even realize Ethan had a brother

shared feelings on Mahnke btw

The crappy quality of the Mahnke art must be because of the inker, right? He was still producing great stuff in Final Crisis, it's hard to believe his art would've deteriorated so much in only a few years.

The last image Forks posted looks as if Mahnke's pencils were inked by Liefeld, with all the cross-hatching and wrinkles and weird lifeless eyes.

Do any of these Rebirth books actually follow up on the cliffhanger of DC Universe Rebirth #1? I'm still confused on where exactly the Dr. Manhattan plot is supposed to continue?

Mahnke's Johnsiverse work was appalling.

Having them in my 'to read' pile I can't answer for definite but I'm 99% certain none of them follow up the end of DCU Rebirth #1 Special in the slightest.

http://i.imgur.com/BQTTTsf.png

by my count there's 260 words in these panels and none of them are interesting, informative, witty or even comprehensible without the context of however many back issues of superman I'd have to wade through to work out why there are two supermen and one of them is steroidal will riker

the cat has a power ring on its tail

waht

how did i miss out out on this startling development in the dcu

i feel like it says something profound about the cultural milieu of the 90s and the 10s that returned-from-'death', black-suited superman sported a mullet then and now has a beard and both are used to denote that he has been profoundly changed

brb gonna write a thinkpiece on the man of steel and men's grooming

The cat (Dex-Starr or something?) has been around for at least like six or seven years at this point, TBF.

jesus christ dex-starr's origin story is one of the most harrowing things i've ever read

animal abuse + rage-fuelled cosmic powers = comics aren't just for kids anymore!

I've often worried about Geoff Johns. Some of the stuff he writes is like seeing a kid who's constantly drawing pictures of his house on fire and his family dead on the lawn. I hope he's okay.

xp (or not) Yeah, don't read Bleez's then.

challenge accepted!

*reads bleez's wiki entry*

oh god no fuck you geoff johns you are genuinely the worst thing to happen to superhero comics in the last 20 years

i feel like it says something profound about the cultural milieu of the 90s and the 10s that returned-from-'death', black-suited superman sported a mullet then and now has a beard and both are used to denote that he has been profoundly changed

Hasn't growing a beard been used as a shorthand for "becoming more serious" in fiction at least since the aforementioned Riker did so in The Next Generation?

Also, IIRC Supes already did that in the early 90s when he executed those Kryptonian mass murderers, and after that went wondering in space because he felt he wasn't fit to be Superman again?

I'd like to find a website that gathers all of the Johns gratuitous violence panels in one place. There is this one but that's just skimming the surface.

I could identify some of the Geoff Johns bits in 52 by people being ripped in half or dismembered.

tuomas, do you want to start the 'superman's grooming: an intensive textual analysis' thread or shall i?

Old Lunch super otm re: kid horror pictures

I mean, I used to draw a lot of gruesome stuff as a kid cuz I loved horror movies and things that were grody, but I'm talking specifically about that kid you ask to draw a picture of mommy and he just goes ham scribbling an indecipherable mass with a black crayon to the point of ripping the paper to shreds while rocking in his seat and humming tunelessly to himself.

a behind-the-scenes peek at geoff johns' creative process

https://i.makeagif.com/media/8-14-2015/bB0ttL.gif

Tuomas, as I explained ^^^^^ this is that same Superman. The actual same one.

Didn't know about Bleez. Is it that hard to create a female superhero/villain without gruesome rape involved?
Still 100% behind Dex-Starr though

It's proven pretty difficult for DC, sure.

Although, to be fair, not all of their female characters' origins involve gruesome rape. Sometimes that's just how they're ultimately dispatched.

Bleez was once a princess on the planet Havania, renowned for her great beauty. Many men sought her hand, but she rejected them all, often in an extremely rude and abrasive manner. Two of her suitors, especially humiliated, sought out a Sinestro Corpsman and tempted him with stories of Bleez's beauty. He went to Havania, where he murdered Bleez's mother and captured Bleez, taking her to Ranx the Sentient City. For some time during the events of the Sinestro Corps War, Bleez was raped and tortured by members of the Sinestro Corps, but managed to escape when Ranx came under attack during the Battle of Mogo. The Sinestro Corpsman who had originally abducted her pursued and caught her, and forced her to kiss him. As she was being pushed to her limits by this final indignity, a red ring found Bleez and inducted her into the Red Lantern Corps. Her blood was transformed into burning plasma, and she vomited it into the Corpsman's throat. Before he could recover, she killed him in a blind fury. Later, she was among the strike force that ambushed the Green Lanterns transporting Sinestro back to Korugar for execution.

oh look the dc universe wiki has a page devoted to comic-book sexual assaults :( http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Sexual_assault

In a vague attempt to provide any kind of context and/or justification, the Red Lantern Corps are formed through RAGE so they all have pretty horrific origin stories.

On the other hand, the person that created them did so knowing they would all by definition have horrible origin stories.

The only justification I can come up with is that Kirkman is worse

Disagree! But I have a weakness for Bendis-y talk talk.

They can both be terrible, but Kirkman doesn't have control over a whole company's universe (except in the obliquest way as Image's COO).

seemed like refried horseshit to me, but what do i know.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/green-arrow-might-be-the-biggest-surprise-of-dcs-rebirt-1780887777

Tuomas, as I explained ^^^^^ this is that same Superman. The actual same one

But isn't that Superman the post-CoIE version, the one who existed from the Byrne reboot up until Flashpoint? So basically what they'd done is kill the Nu 52 Superman and bring back the regular version?

exactly

Yes. Plus that Lois. And their son, Jonathan.

Johns has written individual comics I have liked and Kirkman hasn't. But yeah, unlike Johns, I guess Kirkman doesn't drag everyone else down with him.

Beardy Superman is really the post-Smallville, post-Infinite Crisis Superman, with younger (dead?) parents rather than the Byrne version with ol' ma and pa.

I thought he was the Adventures Of Superman Superman? He was in Convergence at least.

Kirkman is actually good example, because Invincible kinda presages the tonal shift in DC comics after Johns and his followers took control: that odd combination of Silver Age pastiche interspersed with bursts of gore and violence they could never have done back in the days when the readers were mostly kids. But IMO this is more forgivable in Invincible since it's an original creation, and that tone was there right from the start, so it's not like Kirkman was derailing beloved cultural icons or anything.

otm - at least kirkman was shitting in a sandbox of his own creation

OMG, people mired in comics lore ITT can't figure out which Superman they're discussing. Congratulations, DC!

http://www.newsarama.com/29635-mystery-of-a-second-new-clark-kent-key-to-action-comics-rebirth-run.html

Actually this makes it even more confusing

He's not from the same place as Wally West in Rebirth, so he's from... where?

Johns and Didio's asses?

If they don't care about a coherent continuity, they really should just ditch it altogether. Clear the slate every issue or three.

given the ever-increasing rate of dc reboots from crisis to the present we're probably only a year or two away from continuity being reset from panel to panel

Maybe I'm getting old and soft but I actually am kind of interested in reading adventures of Lois & Clark & Son. Also Chinese Super-Man ofc

I like gene luen yang and have some hope for that book.

I mean, pvmic, but having hope in any DC book in C21 is being on a hiding to nothing

I thought he was the Adventures Of Superman Superman? He was in Convergence at least.

there are (searches quickly) over 700 issues of Adventures Of Superman, did he really stay the exact same version in that title forever? not a pedantozing, but this is prima facie a bemusing distinction

I always associate AoS as an 80s book, ignore me.

Batman Rebirth w: Tom King & Scott Snyder a: Mikel Janin

It's been Mikel Janin's GRITTY cover on the posters but Howard Porter's variant is the highlight of Rebirth so far. Liefeld Groin but with 250% more Batgroin. The costume not only gives no support, but Bats will need to be careful not to knee himself in the cock next time he's in a FITE.

The issue itself sees someone knew turn up to confuse Alfred before the first of many Calendar Man/spores/DYS plot hints is thrown away. We then jump to a quick background catchup advancement - Bruce is back in charge on Wayne Enterprises - before physics CRUMBLES BEFORE THE MIGHT OF THE BAT. Bruce is falling from a pipe but manages to get leverage OFF THIN AIR and jumps back up OFF NOTHING to grab hold again.
Surprise guest and Bats have a conversation about how he isn't going to be Robin because Bruce would rather dress him like a hornet. There are more musings on regeneration including Calendar Man climbing out of his skin and Bats holding his breath as if he's got lungs like Captain America Profile Pic. I thought it was Joker that had some jellyfish DNA? Alfred FEEDS THE BATS, TUPPENCE A BAG with the makings of guacamole. Maybe if they plant the stone they can grow a plant. Regeneration and Renewal. DO YOU SEE?

I liked this, but it feels like Snyder and King were just setting up for their respective Batseries. And it could have been published any time i.e. no apparent Rebirth content.

Green Arrow Rebirth w: Benjamin Percy a: Otto Schmidt

Whereas this is a book which couldn't have happened outside of a reboot.

Dinah is the Johnsiverse Black Canary, only not the time travelling one, whereas Ollie is the Kevin Smith one maybe? Except he is SO close to giving us The Finger (and Dinah even refers to his Denny O'Neil character) it must happen eventually. And there's a reference to Roy Harper, Super Junkie which bearing in mind Ollie appears to be about 30 is going to be confusing in this continuity.

This is an abduction storyline to show Ollie CARES, MAN. Seattle has Morlocks that are selling people to california for nefarious purposes NO DOUBT and the dynamic duo sort of break it up (but not enough for it not to feature in forthcoming issues). Then we get to the real meat of the issue. Ollie and Dinah clearly have The Horn for each other but unless you've read Rebirth #1 and some of the supplementary material you wouldn't actually realise this is supposed to be An Thing and linked to the lost time. So they save the kid (because there's always a kid) and his mum and then go on the roof to make out. OR DO THEY?

No Rebirth plot in here either.

Green Lanterns Rebirth w: Geoff Johns & Sam Humphries a: Ethan van Sciver & Ed Benes

In space a Guardian (hang on, they all died in the Johnsiverse) is fleeing thousands of Dominators (who I thought got wiped out in a different chapter of Geoff Johns Action Figure Funtime, was maybe the reason John Stewart was in Guardian Jail) through space while a narrator (who turns out to be Atrocitous, but could possibly have been Doctor Manhattan if, you know, DC actually wanted to use the Rebirth plot at all) explains what's happening for people who have never read any GL. Which might as well be all of us, let's face it.

Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz are introduced for those of us who have never read any Johnsiverse GL. Which might as well be all of us, let's face it. Hal gives them a crap training mission which they fail, and he tells them they'd better work out how to improve because he's going to be too busy looking up Wonder Woman's skirt, then buggers off to do that.

But OH NOES. ATROCITOUS AND BLEEZ AND DEXSTARR. And a requirement to know what Blackest Night and Brightest Day were. Bang goes your chance to ditch continuity baggage, but then Johns can't bring himself to throw anything away.

Rebirth content: zero.

Superman Rebirth w: Peter Tomasi & Patrick Gleason a: Doug Mahnke & Jaime Mendoza

80s Superman recaps what happened to Johnsiverse Superman AGAIN then climbs into the tomb where he finds Lana breaking in. You didn't know that she was kind of like Danger Girl by the end of the Johnsiverse, did you? A kind of sexy archaeologist spy, but ginger. Anyway, they talk interminably including recapping The Death of Superman and how if he came back like Jesus then the Johnsiverse one is bound to as well. Then attempting to resolve continuity conflicts makes him realise that's not going to happen so he buries him.

All told, this is pretty awful and pointless. If you've read the Superman continuity since Convergence then it doesn't tell you anything you don't know from reading them, and if you haven't then it doesn't do anything other than tell you that 80s Superman is now Superman. And no Rebirth content except a gentle hint that not everything is as it should be.

Definitely some mixed messaging about whether this is actually for new readers or not...

I actually read the entirety of Blackest Night and I remember fuck all about it except that I didn't like it at all. So, yeah, good on DC for handcuffing their newest reboot to that convoluted, 6- or 7-year-old pile of trash.

kinda liked the tom king batman #1 (not batman rebirth #1 which was bad as noted)

i feel like we had more or less the same read there aldo.
I just read wonder woman / aquaman / flash; anybody want hot takes on mostly cold garbage?

please yes, much more fun than actually reading the cold garbage itself

These threads are a reassuring reminder that I'm missing nothing by avoiding post 1990s DC comics

Seriously, what a nightmarish era to be running a comic book shop

do it felicity

Yes please to someone else joining me (I am behind in reading).

These threads are a reassuring reminder that I'm missing nothing by avoiding post 1990s DC comics

― Crazy Eddie & Jesus the Kid (Raymond Cummings), Wednesday, June 15, 2016 9:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ooooh, even as a hardcore Marvel stan, I want to give you a recommendations list. Despite current appearances to the contrary, they've put out some really good stuff in the past twenty years!

I've heard so many good things about Snyder's Batman but I know it's been tainted by a number of crossovers so I don't know if I'll ever muster the courage to actually read it.

Yeah, make no mistake there has been a lot of good comics printed. The trouble is that DC don't seem to know it, and neither do the public (which may be down to DC not pushing them) c.f. Dial H.

Of course, the same is true of Marvel.

I read a book or two of Snyder Batman, it was dumb

will write up some rebirths in a lil bit; just picked up a bunch more of the reboot so there's a deep dive in my soon to be future.
i haven't tried to follow a DC universe reboot since Millenium I think; figured this would be an interesting side project. thus far it's not but it is a heads up into how convoluted they've made the timelines and storylines and reader experience.

Yeah, comicsalliance talked a bit about the convolutions here: http://comicsalliance.com/dc-universe-rebirth-1-roundtable-review/

Millennium was just a two-month crossover, no rebooting involved

(Legends the year before was still doing some boundary-drawing in the wake of Crisis, but not newly changing anything)

more dating myself there; as you say, that's all post crisis cleanup. I do remember waiting breathlessly to buy next issues of the man of steel and perez's wonder woman.
those were the days.

Aquaman Rebirth's writing isn't as bad as, say, Green Lanterns or Green Arrow and the storyline is hardly as convoluted or pointless as Superman. This one's more of a (you should forgive the pun) superstandard book. Plot in a nutshell is the most traditional of first issue intros: a monster attack is thwarted by a superhero and then a new bigtime baddie (SPOILERS: it's Black Manta again) is revealed on the last splash page. If you've read a comic before, you've read this comic already. The art is a confusing mix of five pages of high-detail, dark brooding Image-ry in front and back and the bulk of the work in plasticine orange and teal cartoonishness; the jolting switch from style to style doesn't help build the tension. Compare these two images, only a few pages removed and you tell me what the tone is meant to be:

http://i.imgur.com/c8Shc8q.png

http://i.imgur.com/FKUH7rC.png

Trite and true traditions and Deadline Doom aside, Dan Abnett does a workman's job of injecting some semblance of ham handed complexity to the story. The monsters attacking the surface dwellers are controlled by a fanatical group called The Deluge, "an Atlantean terror cell FIERCELY xenophobic". Just in case you need it spelled out to you:

http://i.imgur.com/cgrwzxn.png

So they're ISIS and Aquaman is Obama, to grab an imperfect simile. Aquaman is the hero stuck between worlds with only the council of his queen Michel- I mean MERA to counsel him the best way forward. There's the suggestion that Aquaman is already exhausted balancing hawks on land and on sea and I suppose dark and brooding NO ONE MAN SHOULD HAVE ALL THIS POWER Aquaman is as reasonable an option as any for a character that really never found a character defining arc. As an aside, I always thought a good take would be an Alan Moore approach and instead of having him "talk to fish", (though apparently he's sensitive about that too?) -

http://i.imgur.com/qNqc3d3.png

- why not have him talk directly to all the microlife in the sea: coalescing plankton and algae and effectively controlling water _itself_, perhaps as an emissary of "the blue" to Swampy's green. Hell, that would power him up to be notably stronger than Superman even and rebuild him as a character who would only come out when the gloves were truly off. Sorta like what they used to do with The Spectre.

Nonetheless, I appreciate them not forcing the rip van winkle beard or captain hook arm on this incarnation; he's an Aquaman familiar to anyone from the Superfriends. I imagine we're bound for a lot of ripped-from-the-headlines suicide bomber and anti-atlantean trooper face offs with our hopey-changey stand in stuck in between.

so, Flash Rebirth. Um, have you seen the Jason Pearson alt cover? You'll believe a man can run without an ass.

http://i.imgur.com/bG0NxxO.png

Even contemporary Frank Miller isn't that sloppy with his chiaroscuro. Di Giandomenico's interior art is an improvement of sorts but his willowy and pensive Metal Hurlant eurostyle is an awkward fit for a book about movement. All's fine when it's just people talking but the (unfortunately very many) flashback panels or fight sequences are labored and the computer-added electric speed force effect unnecessarily crowds the panel. I can deal with it but, especially given the density of the text surrounding the already sketchy art, it's not easy on the eyes.

http://i.imgur.com/kCkINom.png

http://i.imgur.com/C7NMxXh.png

http://i.imgur.com/BFlVIJt.png

So let's talk about that story density. Joshua Williamson is the writer and he's the creator of a handful of Image books run through a Vertigo filter that I flipped through once and never came back to: Ghosted, Nailbiter, Birthright.
He's been tasked here with adding 2+2 and making 15; in one issue we have an origin story, an alter-ego story, family drama, loads of backstory from the last incarnation of the character, the resurrection of a missing character (kid flash), the introduction of a new storyline (a shadowy character has rewritten everyone's memories and revamped continuity and who knows what's real anymore!!!?!?!?!!), a double splash page and two pages of batman team up with TWENTY separate boxes of background text arduously linking all this to the soon-to-be-revealed Dr. Manhattan Rebirth storyline on the strength of The Comedian's blood smeared happy face pin. It adds up to too much of nothing much, a mini-series crammed into 20 pages because we gotta get this goddamn ungainly bird off the ground. I barely know what's happening but it's clear this is meant to be the key storyline to open up the larger themes of rebirth so good luck figuring out why or where we're going from here.

I trust Greg Rucka as a writer; generally he does okay even when he's tasked with thankless work. Wonder Woman Rebirth asks more of him than is fair and it mostly capsizes under its own weight. Again, the balance of words to images is roughly one sentence of omniscient narrator per panel and that's not comics so much as it is Prince Valiant.

http://i.imgur.com/ZVfIUsV.png

Even so, what Rucka's trying to do here is less convoluted and explain-y than most of the other books; he's miles better with dialogue and monologue than most of his DC colleagues. Wonder Woman, armed with a magic lasso of truth, has begun to see through multiple continuities and she doesn't appreciate the idea that she's being regularly rewritten to match some other unknown (presumably male) plotline. So she challenges reality itself and heads off after "God".

http://i.imgur.com/bwAA8Dm.png

It's not much different than the plot of Preacher in some ways but I'm hopeful Rucka can do something interesting with it. Lord knows that Morrison reboot did the character no favors.

This is another book with a bunch of different artists providing an array of different styles. My favorite is Liam Sharp who does a decent job of layout and detail. In any case, it's hard to make heads or tails of all these glimpses of story and drawn-by-committee books; even the best of them don't succeed at telling a coherent story. Wonder Woman is probably among the stronger of the pack but it's still barely a prologue.

Man, I can't even muster enough curiosity of the morbid variety to actually read this stuff. Glad youse guys are sacrificing yourself to the cause for our entertainment, though.

I'm not high, but trying to read those Aquaman pages made me feel like I was.

i just read Green Lanterns 1, Green Arrow 1, Superman 1, Titans Rebirth, Superman 1, Dark Knight Returns: The Darkening 1 and Batman 1. One of them is pretty good. Guess which one.

The Darkening, but only if that's its actual name.

ha, no:
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-dark-knight-returns-story-that-shows-why-bruce-wayn-1782115435

Oy the Miller thing is such sentimental-but-nihilistic garbage.

Tom King's debut was nothing special but I'm curious to read the next issue, at least.

Story reminded me/was a pale imitation of a great old (I think) Messner-Loebs comic where WallyFlash rescues a passenger who's fallen out of an airplane.

Nice to see John Workman - though it says a lot that I was more excited about the lettering than the comic.

wait, "DKIII" isn't even over yet (right?) and they've added another spin-off? surely then Miller would be even less involved than in the main series?

Aquaman Rebirth

w: Dan Abnett a: Scot Eaton & Oscars Jiminez

OH NOES AN ATLANTEAN TERRORIST CELL. This has been a feature of modern day DC for about a decade now - Atlantis launched a genocidal terror attack that destroyed all the cities on the US East Coast (but only for about a month) and killed over a billion (but only for a week) for example and Geoff Johns' entire era (and the bleed into other Johnsiverse writers) was dominated with terrorist cells in varying versions of Atlantis; in fact now I think about it Arthur and Mera have been together, not together, never together, married, on opposite sides... plus Arthur has been king, not king, always king, never king, future Arthur, fake Arthur, Arthur The Legend...I always thought it was just confused rubbish, but MAYBE it was BEFORE REBIRTH. Or am I crediting Johns with too much intelligence? Actually, don't answer that.

So with that in mind, this just reads like an overly wordy attempt to capture all of that. There are very many words in this. An awful lot. And Geoff Johns did the "everyone laughs at Aquaman" thing to kick of the Johnsiverse version too.

I guess if I hadn't been reading it up till now this might have been good, but it just felt like a retread (albeit fairly well crafted). But once more No Rebirth Content.

One more thing to note: the flooding of Gotham was 'one year ago' and was in 2013. Which puts this book in 2014. 80s Superman is in 2016, I can't remember how this was made clear but trust me on this one. So two of their books ARE NOT IN DIRECT CONTINUITY WITH EACH OTHER ALREADY. And they haven't got to #1 yet. My head hurts.

Flash Rebirth

w: Joshua Williamson a: Carmine di Giandomenico

ATTN TUOMAS ACTUAL REBIRTH CONTENT srsly if there is a DCU Rebirth #2 it's this.

Starting off, Barry gets flashbacks/forwards/sideways to whenever his mother died (or didn't) meaning this is both pretty and post Flashpoint in that this is the Barry that came back but whose mother was still killed. That's already too confusing but at least it means this must happen after DCU Rebirth because Barry knows he is a/the Psycho Pirate.

Hang on though, not till later. So we can extrapolate now that there's a speed force thing that allows the knowledge? Barry wants to tell Iris but Wally won't let him (which is the reverse of the TV show so well done on bringing THOSE readers in) but both Flashes agree they know best and that they'll sort it out. So Barry goes off to see Bats and they agree that Quis Custodiet etc and it'll happen in a later issue or somewhere else. More likely the latter as the last page of the issue seems to suggest that Barry's mum dies soon in some kind of narrative causality thing.

I liked this a fair bunch, it could have been more direct but at least the art was individualistic and non-Liefeldy so looked DIFFERENT. Long live that sort of thing.

Wonder Woman Rebirth

w: Greg Rucks a: a giant clusterfuck of people

Talking of retreads, as I was earlier, this issue compresses about 6 issues of Promethea into one and Wonder Woman realises she is a Psycho Pirate too.

Actually, this is a fairly dynamic read and keeps a pace until the end. And IS INTERESTING. Comics aren't just for kids, they are also for people that can hold a couple of vague things in their heads and can remember. On this evidence it's worth sticking with but I have no idea how the odd/even number stuff will work in practicality. Despite that I can quite happily say I'll stick around to find out. (ps NO REBIRTH)

Action Comics 957 (Rebirth)

w: Dan Jurgens a: Patrick Zircher

And so we get into the first of the Rebirth/Not Rebirth/But Rebirth issues.

After some minor tension, yes, Lex Luthor is Superman in the oldest Superman book. This causes Jonathan Kent (no, that one, the sun of 80s Supes) to throw a tantrum so 80s Supes teaches him how to shave then flies off to the future. Him and Lex argue about who's better and then they have a very poor quality fight until ANOTHER CLARK KENT TURNS UP. Now obviously the smart money is on Johnsiverse Supes being brought back to life but seeing as since half of Supes Rebirth LAST FUCKING WEEK said he was DOUBLE PLUS DEAD NO COMEBACKS it's really quick to cave in. Plus Doomsday in a Hazmat Suit WELL JUST FUCKING BECAUSE turn-up at the end to provide something resembling a reason to buy this again.

(Rebirth content is an irrational number which when you divide by it tends towards infinity)

Detective Comics #934 (Rebirth)

w: Peter Tension IV a: Eddy Barrows & Eber Ferreira

In other nostalgia news, the first 1/3 of this book is a Bats vs Azrael FITE which is from BitD based on the costumes.

The rest is about making a team book from a non-team book. Bats tells Kate Kane he's Bruce then they set about getting various Bat People (Spoiler, Red Robin) to be Bat People again without any hints as to why they stopped being Bat People or why they would want to again.

This is being put together by, and to defeat a mystery man. I care not who at this point.

Rebirth content is zip, but at least they have an inexplicable gap in their lives.

aldo you wanna split up the next batch so that we don't burn out? i'll take green arrow, batman, DKR if you take titans rebirth, green lanterns and superman

BitD?

(Back in the Day)

Happy to split them up, although that means we missed the chance to call the thread The Brave And The Bold.

A super hero team up for the ages

BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT! THE TEAM UP OF THE CENTURY! World's Dumbest Comics Reporting Presents:

Titans Rebirth

w: Dan Abnett a: Brett Booth & Norm Rapmund

TUOMAS SIRENS: WITHIN IS ACTUAL REBIRTH PLOT ALSO NB THIS IS TITANS NOT TEEN TITANS WHICH IS A DIFFERENT BOOK WITH A DIFFERENT KID FLASH

Ok, so Wally breaks into Titans Tower to steal the naked shower pics he took of Wonder Girl back when he existed and instead only finds that he's been cosmically photoshopped out of Titans history like Nightwang was Uncle Joe. Dick finds him but Wally somehow makes lightning come out of his hands and it's not just any old lightning, it's special MEMORY RESTORE LIGHTNING. So, Dick remembers who he is but everybody else just think he's some kind of superburglar and attack him. Each time they touch him they get the magic lightning too until everyone is up to speed, or at least they are if they read Titans Hunt (which a handy boxout points out you should have read. Comics! They're not just for people with more money and time than sense any more!) and we get some flashbacks of teenagers having fun, or maybe a 'ten years ago' Facebook montage. Wally turns all Twin Peaks Giant then finds the photos have him in them again after all. Sounds more like Marty McFly to me.

I like my Titans more Teen than this, but I'll take what I get at this point. At least it advanced the Rebirth plot, even if it's glacial and arguably only one page.

Green Lanterns #1

w: Sam Humphries a: Robson Rocha & Jay Leisten

The first couple of pages recap GL Rebirth which came out TWO WEEKS AGO. Seriously dudes, we can remember that long ago. It's really not that difficult and you haven't even published that much in the interim for us to read. Anyway, then The Odd Couple investigate a house their rings tell them to where they meet a punk guy with a home-made Red Lantern t-shirt. DIY TILL I DIE. They knock him out and find he has an ACTUAL Red Lantern nailed to his wall while dramatic music plays at the bottom of the screen (which reads baBUMbaBUMbaBUMbaBUM, although this could be Brokeback Pose Bleez's walk on music). Once Agoraphobic Lantern has been sick into the giant pile of corpses that's mysteriously in a floor space they decide it's a matter for the actual police and not them. Despite the actual alien and their rings telling them it was theirs to deal with. World's Laziest, and this irony is not lost on the police who suspect they're just cosplayers.

This has all just been a distraction so that a Red Lantern bomb can go off, which
... I genuinely don't know. I thought at first it killed everyone and transformed the landscape, then I thought it transported them to the Red Lantern planet; but then ARGUS just turn up and tell them to leave. So they do, and go back to their normal lives which are unchanged so the bomb did... nothing?

It looks like this was all Bleez's plan, as we can tell from the page where she smiles as Atrocitous chokes her in order to give himself the Rage Seed. I wish I had made that up.

Agoraphobic Lantern has a panic attack in Bed, Bath and Beyond and Terrorist Lantern has a rant about profiling before he gets a new Lantern power that lets him read the next issue of Previews. All of this makes Atrocitous' Groin turn into a giant red ball and he boasts about how he's going to split the Odd Couple up. Let no man put asunder what Hal Jordan has put together.

Confusing bomb excepted this isn't actually too bad a read but it's also Just Another Lantern Story with all too familiar Johns-era tropes. And added baBUMbaBUMbaBUMbaBUM sound effects on multiple pages.

Superman #1

w: Peter J Tomasi & Patrick Gleason a: Patrick Gleason & Mick Gray

In case you missed it in the other books we get a quick reminder that 80s Superman died back when he was Superman, and that Johnsiverse Superman is dead but hasn't come back although he does appear to have anti-theft paint on his grave. And that he's ditched the Hipster In Mourning look and started dressing like Superman again because he doesn't have to worry about getting confused with the dead guy.

This is a really nice domestic book about living on a farm and doing perfectly normal things like setting fire to birds with your heat vision. A girl likes Jonathan despite this and she brings him some milk in the evening.

The Justice League turn up near the end and the next issue will no doubt spoil things, but I'd quite happily read more episodes of Harvest Moon monthly just to see whether the tractor can actually be fixed or needs replacing, or whether Colorado Beetle (NOT A SUPERHERO) will affect the potato harvest. A completely unexpected delight.

P.S. No Rebirth in here either.

The cat thing was ridiculously gratuitous. Did not like.

Also Lois Lane: you are not much fun anymore! Is there a new version of fridging where female characters just get erased from continuity or made boring? (See also Mary Jane, Kirsten in Daredevil, etc)

Dark Knight Returns: Even Darker than You Thought is a comic book set at some unknowable time between the signposts of Year One and The Dark Knight Returns (but importantly BEFORE Death in the Family), telling the story of how and why Batman finally retired. It is listed as being co-written by Frank Miller and Brian Azzarello but Azzarello's voice comes through clearest. Even if it is sadistic grim'n'gritty done all over again for no clear reason except DC needs to keep the lights on, it is a readable and essentially coherent story. It's not pleasant or enjoyable but, unlike several of the books we've touched on this month, you can follow what's going on without having to check wikipedia. So it's got that going for it.
The art is John Romita Jr. through the prism of Peter Stegerwald on inks and colors and between the two of them they do a reasonable job of aping Miller's now cliched banal yin of tiny talking television boxes:
http://i.imgur.com/suSCWa7.png

and the in-the-grip-of-puberty yang of gleeful, convoluted Fight Club chic:
http://i.imgur.com/vtEE582.png

Plot synopsis is that Bruce Wayne is losing a step and Jason Todd is getting into the old ultraviolence in a way that's distressing Batman. The Joker escapes Arkham because he's the Joker. Wayne is badly beaten by Croc. He finds Poison Ivy in the midst of seducing Gotham's elite. Wayne is badly beaten by Croc again. Unable to patrol, he tells Jason to stand down. Jason doesn't and is beaten down by a bunch of Joker goons. Cliffhanger. The End. This may sound familiar. It better, it's been done a half dozen times. Do comic readers really want the same story peddled to them over and over? DC says yes.

This is miles better than DK3 to a sober eye but at least that trainwreck took a certain madhouse glee with Miller's batshittery. This is workmanlike but unimaginative and it takes itself entirely too seriously.
http://i.imgur.com/3sXE5UU.png

ELSEWORLDS BRAVE & THE BOLD (because I just had to comment on the books after all)

Batman #1

w: Tom King a: David Finch & Matt Banning

Sometimes the simple stories are the best. Terrorists have fired a surface to air missile at a plane above Gotham, knocking the tail off it and making it crash right in the centre of Gotham. All the flying Justice Leaguers are all having a hot tub together so Bats has to fix it himself. And this is where it gets ridiculous.

Allowing only a minute for Bats to get from the rooftop and get the Batmobile driving, then a 53 second journey (from the text) then three minutes before impact (again, from the text) it means a crashing plane takes AT LEAST FIVE MINUTES to hit central Gotham having started crashing over central Gotham. Around 3 minutes of this are at only about 20 storeys up. Even ignoring the fact Bats gets on the back of it and flies it by ropes like he was breaking in a recalcitrant pony, this is patently bollocks and too incredulous for this to be a successful issue.

But the whole point is to introduce a new hero to Gotham. He's called Gotham and his sidekick is called Gotham Girl. As Efrem Zimbalist Jr said to Efrem Zimbalist Sr, "dad, ain't you got no fucking imagination?" All the speculation was that this was Nite Owl and Silk Spectre in disguise, but they can fly so scratch that one. Could they be <choke> new characters? FIND OUT EVENTUALLY, PROBABLY IN A DIFFERENT BOOK.

Green Arrow #1

w: Benjamin Percy a: Otto Schmidt

SAINTS BE PRAISED, TWO CONSECUTIVE ISSUES THAT ACTUALLY TELL A CONTINUING STORY

Ollie and Dinah have finished their afternoon delight and are after the people smugglers. This involves much kicking to the face (or "putting my fishnets to use" as Dinah has it, in a completely inaccurate description). In fact, this book is a goldmine for dreadful dialogue. "TRY TO OBJECTIFY ME AND YOU'LL BLEED. BECAUSE I'M A WEAPON."

Baddies fought, it's time to go back to the ArrowCave to have some traditional post-fite rumpy-pumpy. Then a ride around the city, showing your fuckbuddy what a great philanthropist you are by naming civic facilities after yourself in epic humblebrag.

Shado puts about a dozen arrows in Ollie because she's working for Masked Smuggler Guy, who also happens to work for Ollie as Chief Tuxedo Tester. He's not much of a judge of character, clearly. IS HE DEADED? (Of course he won't be, but it would be fun if he was.)

"TRY TO OBJECTIFY ME AND YOU'LL BLEED. BECAUSE I'M A WEAPON."

weapons are objects afaik

i guess she's saying that's the consequence of objectification? lol

But the whole point is to introduce a new hero to Gotham

Holy shit, aren't there now about 391 superheroes there?

tbf, their rates of purse snatching, bank robbery, police corruption and straight-up serial murder are pretty high compared to other DCU cities

i was running slow but yes, Green arrow is the worst.
Compare and contrast:

http://i.imgur.com/R7x3vyQ.png
http://i.imgur.com/yRHgSRo.png
http://i.imgur.com/N3sqJPs.png
http://i.imgur.com/0iAc7CZ.png
http://i.imgur.com/mimVXAN.png

women are desperately need of saving except they're not and they're totally empowered, now check out her ass

the "happiness is... " series of lines is, i think, presented entirely without intention to nod to schulz but it's fun to imagine those captions with snoopy and lucy

'well-oiled mitt'

the disconnect between the art and the dialogue suggests the two creative leads are working via a patchy skype connection

Seriously! I expected that one panel to end with "Maxwell House. It really eases the pain of constant loss!"

I'd like to know how "getting close" to bands has hurt Black Canary. Maybe she didn't like Frankie Sinatra either?

Action Comics #958
w: Dan Jurgens a: Patrick Zircher

Talk about shooting your bolt early. After a minor recap, yet again, of the previous year's Superman continuity 80s Superman fights 80s Doomsday (the one that killed him) who he recognises because he's in disguise as a HYDRA agent. Mr Oz (who is white with green eyes, clue hunters) watches on in surprise the plot has moved on that quickly. 80s Lois tells Jonathan 80s Superman's real continuity in 80s Superman Universe and All New Clark Kent acts all mysterious like he's Depowered Superman.

80s Superman and Luthor Superman get all punchy with Doomsday, pausing only to rescue the pesky civilians that get in the way of the destruction. Doomsday is about to crush Luthor Superman's head as Mr Oz watches through his magic See Everywhere Without Cameras televisions and wonders what will happen next because until it does he has no idea what the plot after it is. You and me both buddy, you and me both.

Aquaman #1
w: Dan Abnett a: Brad Walker & Andrew Hennessey

Arthur and Mera talk about how nice it is to be married, throws away last issue's plot and explains at length how diplomatic relations will work in his future Atlantean paradise (now he's definitely Atlantean again, no fingers crossed, no takebacks). Black Manta watches them through binoculars from another cliff top, presumably in case they make out. The scene cuts to the Atlantean Embassy where we get a ridiculously long "first day on the job" section for not one but TWO characters before Arthur turns up. At which point, of course, the British one says "Crikey".

There's an 'amusing' section about the buffet where Mera is concerned about it (because she's a woman DUH so who else would get worried). She is DAD DANCING ALERT worried they'll get "a bad Trip Advisor for our food." The British one says "Crikey" again. I see a catchphrase coming.

And then, quick as a flash, plot happens. Black Manta has been disguised as a reporter and has placed bombs on the inner wall. This blows up the outer wall because PHYSICS which despite being above sea level (according to the dialogue) is actually below sea level (according to a couple of images which appear to have people swimming outside the windows) and causes the water to flood in badly and then not badly depending on whether the plot needs a giant wave or a knee deep puddle. The British One graduates to "oh my God."

I graduate to "Jesus Tittyfucking Christ". This isn't really that bad in high level concept, but the execution is just turgid.

Detective Comics #935
w: James Tynion IV a: Eddy Barrows & Eber Ferreira

The Bat Titans are in the Bat Danger Room practicing BatBall Specials against an army of Jokers before giving up because they're a bit tired and just want to watch a bit of Robot Chicken. Then the SECRETS OF THE BAT DANGER ROOM ARE REVEALED! It turns out to be called the Mud Room and it actually leftover bits of Clayface the BatPuter has made into a giant animatronic. But where do they get leftover bits of Clayface you ask? Simple, they fix him up to a machine and pull bits off when they need them. HOLY HUMAN TRAFFICKING BATMAN!

Blah blah very talky blah blah catch up about Azrael blah blah mention every Bat Titan by name blah blah OH LOOK PLOT SOMETHING IS CALLED COLONY blah blah more talky

Fifty people (we know, because they tell us) turn up to punch Bats. I HAVE A SUSPICION THEY ARE COLONY.

Flash #1
w: Joshua Williamson a: Carmine di Giandomenico

This is a #1. Like a PROPER #1. It has an origin, and background and describes the relationship between characters and shows a bit of superheroing. And then at the end Barry's partner gets shot by "the Black Hole" (no, me neither) only possibly gets speedforced instead.

So is this a full on reboot? It reads like a completely new jumping on point for new buyers but for even converts from the TV show it only says things they already knew. I suppose as a Flash fanboy you'd expect me to say I liked it and I did, but it's utterly unnecessary.

Wonder Woman #1

w: Greg Rucka a: Liam Sharp

Watch! As WW explains how she's a Psycho Pirate! Gasp! As this takes place against a series of unrelated pictures from Jungle Fantasy! Choke! As the plot abruptly shifts to Etta Candy just as Stereotypical Cannibal Mans are about to come out of the jungle! Amaze! As Steve Trevor fights terrists in some undefined African Country (possibly BWUNDA)! Fantasy! Back in the jungle for some butt shots! Listen! As Steve Trevor/Diana backstory gets filled in! Shriek! As WW is attacked by what seems to be an army of Man Bats! Politics! As it turns out Steve Trevor is after Boko Haram! Plot! As the villain WW is after turns out to be the Cheetah who Diana needs to find Themiscrya! Struggle! As you try and think what this is all for!

great chronicle of aldo losing his mind

lol @ action comics smh

of the previous year's Superman continuity 80s Superman fights 80s Doomsday

Sans the comma, it does kind of sound like you're having a breakdown here.

i can't really keep up to be honest; these are very hard reads.

No no no, you are mistaken, this is a reboot and therefore great pains have been taken to make everything new reader friendly.

so idly wondering if Donna Troy still exists, and if so who she is now. as her history was rewritten so many times, getting more convoluted each time, was curious.

Now she's Hawkman

My first reaction: lol. My second reaction: wait, that's totally feasible coming from the DC of today.

My general reaction to this thread is to nod with a look of wonderment on my face as if I were listening intently to a toddler telling me a shaggy dog story that makes absolutely zero sense.

Darkseid had a baby with Wonder Woman's friend and then he died and then she had a baby and her baby was Darkseid

See, I have no idea whether you're fucking with me or not.

Haha no that's really a thing

Can't believe Etta Candy is Darkseid's baby mama/mama.

Then that baby got killed and later (but still in the same issue of the book) another, different, baby got turned into Darkseid.

Wait, I missed a step. The baby gets killed which lets adult Darkseid come back, who gets killed again and comes back as another, different baby.

Still all in the same issue though.

fucking hell

As long as there's some infanticide in my DC comic, I'm happy.

Serious q: has DC figured out how to grim & grittify Sugar and Spike yet?

oh ye of little faith

http://comicsalliance.com/files/2016/03/Sugar02-e1458221105713.jpg

they're now 'a pair of laconic, gun-toting private eyes who specialize in cleaning up embarrassments for superheroes before they get out to the press'

http://comicsalliance.com/files/2016/03/Sugar04.jpg?w=630&h=469&zc=1&s=0&a=t&q=89

haha, thanks for the reply/ies - all seems to make perfect sense

not rebirth, but the ending of the recent DK3 had me cracking up

"superman doesn't have a helmet, so if he had a full-body superman armor created by batman, the headpiece would be a really dumb version of his face, right?"

"i'll get right on drawing that"

sent a picture of it to a friend and he thought it was notable that batman was smiling

"well, yeah, because he can see that ridiculous thing superman is in"

Unrelatedly, I'm rereading 52 for the first time since it was published, and it holds up really, really well.

Yeah, I've got the first volume of the new collected editions on the way and I'm looking forward to it. Ah, those magical times before editorial mandate became the ruinous rule of the day at DC.

bizarre, I don't know how I missed your Sugar & Spike response. It's like someone just plunged their toilet with my heart.

Darkseid had a baby with Wonder Woman's friend and then he died and then she had a baby and her baby was Darkseid

also re sugar and spice: fuck everything

Aquaman #2

w: Dan Abnett a: Scott Eaton & Wayne Faucher

So we're back in the above/underwater Atlantean Embassy again and after a two pager explaining what Manta's beef with aquaman is (and directly contradicting all the Johnsiverse Aquaman continuity in the process, but let's not unpick that pomegranate too much) and a further two pages catching up readers with what happened last issue we get to the action. On page 6 the British one says her first, then second word. Which is "Crikey!" Told you I could smell a catchphrase coming. #dibnynose She gets a "Bloody Hell" on the next page, everyone's seen Harry Potter so know it's a British sweary but you know what would make it more British? Spelling it phonetically. "Bluh-dee". Leave it aaht guvner apples and pears only killed their own etc.

Black Manta's plan is barking. He'll stop the world thinking Aquaman is a hero, and scupper Atlantis/surface relations, by showing them him (Aquaman) beating up a terrorist supervillain (Manta). Ignoring the fact this is taking place in a room that nobody can see in, the plan is roughly akin to Michael Gove proving he's trustworthy by stabbing his best mate Boris in the back. (Wow, that'll date this review.) Instead of fighting they spend pages arguing about why they're the bigger man because they're not going to kill the other one. After a bit, Manta loses the will to live and gives up. IT'S ALMOST LIKE HE WAS READING IT. The British One gets to say her name and Manta gets taken to prison before being freed on the very next page. HOLY SUSPENSFUL CLIFFHANGER! This may well have been worse than #1.

Batman #2

w: Tom King a: David Finch, Matt Banning & Danny Miki

Gotham and Gotham Girl are failing to punch Solomon Grundy while he accidentally destroys the Gotham Statue of Gotham Liberty so Bats turns up like the smug know-it-all that he is an takes him down in seconds while pointing out how much better at superheroing than Gotham he is and that if he was wearing any socks then maybe he should start pulling them up. "That Guy" doesn't want to be "That Guy" BUT shocker.

So it turns out Rebirth Batman remembers being dead, which is a new thing. Him and Jim Gordon meet Gotham and Gotham Girl by the batsignal to find out which of them has the number for the Monster Men in their iPhone and they can drop a pin in the map and find them, but luckily because plot none of them have heard of the Monster Men. I'm betting it has something to do with Hugo Strange though, because he appears on the last page having been brought to Gotham (the city, not the hero) by Amanda Waller. This is going to take some complicated plot development and/or soft rebooting to get round because if he's part of a Suicide Squad/Task Force X deal then he must already be a known villain but the dialogue implies this is his first time in Gotham ergo his crimes were all elsewhere, making him being a previous bat-baddie near impossible? I'm pretty sure this will just turn out to be a dialogue failure but I'll get the popcorn in case.

In other news, Gotham Girl has ultra-vision. Does that help us work out who it secretly is?

Green Arrow #2

w: Benjamin Percy a: Otto Schmidt

So, contrary to what I thought, it looks like Ollie actually did die in #1 of his own book because the issue starts with Shado dumping his corpse in the bay and John Diggle Superhero getting a call telling him Ollie is dead. (Yes, I know this is clearly a fakeout but I'll keep playing the game.) Dinah tells us that "anyone who spent more than 5 minutes with Ollie" yadda yadda despite having only spent 5 minutes with Ollie during #1. I do like that her internal monologue bubbles wear fishnet tights though, that helps you know they're hers.

OH WHAT A SURPRISE OLLIE IS STILL ALIVE. But in the two weeks he's been Not Dead he's had his whole business empire dismantled and his house blown up. So he goes to live in a secret tree and phones his mate who, instead of being confused when a dead guy phones him just says that he needs paying before he helps out. It's all about the Benjamins obviously. Then Green Arrow emerges from the tree ready to fight and like a new man. Why, it's almost like a... <choke> REBIRTH.

Green Lanterns #2

w: Sam Humphries a: Robson Rocha & Jay Leisten

Boys & girls, are you sitting comfortably? Good, because Atrocitous is going to explain his entire evil plan to us. It turns out Earth is actually the most rage-y place in the galaxy so he's put a Hell Tower there so he can inject his seed into the centre of the Earth and bring about a communist invasion. What do you mean, Red Dawn means something else these days?

Agoraphobic Lantern is still playing Twister in Bed Bath & Beyond so Guantanamo Lantern drives an imaginary car through the wall because that's "awesome" and "grimy" like "Detroit". He picks up Agoraphobic Lantern in it, then crashes into a row of shelving, presumably having been distracted by some chintzy soft furnishings. Guantanamo Lantern stops Agoraphobic Lantern getting her head caved in by a baseball bat, then shoplifts a teddy bear before flying them off into space. Because they need to be that far away to work out Atrocitous us behind it, obviously. This really is dreadful and available with two covers - Bleez (who isn't even in the issue) Butt Shot or Agoraphobic Lantern's Amazing Exploding Boobs. It's the Sophie's Choice of cheesecake.

Justice League #1

w: Bryan Hitch a: Bryan Hitch, Daniel Henriques & Scott Hanna

The Justice League fight Cloverfield in Manhattan while 80s Superman discusses career opportunities with 80s Lois. Agoraphobic Lantern and Guantanamo Lantern investigate an earthquake in China because they need a break from what's going on in their own book (and in a shocking display of continuity they actually acknowledge this, that what's happening in future issues of Lanterns - must be future because they mention Bleez and she hasn't appeared to them yet - is happening simultaneously and needs their attention too). Batman decides the best way to negotiate with Cloverfield is to climb inside and go all Fantastic Voyage on it, but not before a flashback where they discuss how they don't trust 80s Superman because he's not from the Johnsiverse like them.

I've just realised, this is Tiny Identity Footprints all over again. The GL discuss various ways of getting rid of Cloverfield's brane but settle instead for posing for a promo photo and sending Cloverfield off into space to tell any other space monsters that they're real tough guys see and will beat up any baddies that come to Earth. Naturally, this makes Flash horny so he hits on Agoraphobic Lantern which makes her giggle like a schoolgirl. The End.

Superman #2

w: Peter J Tomasi & Patrick Gleason a: Patrick Gleason & Mick Gray

80s Superman is showing his boy how to do the family job when, and this happens to me every day I swear, a giant octopus-like creature appears and tries to eat a nearby nuclear submarine. I don't know about you, but I've just about had enough of these kitchen sink dramas. I want to have my imagination exercised and taken to new limits, not just more of the day-to-day grind. Give me heroism and derring-do, dammit!

80s Superman and Boy Superman team up to shine a laser pointer in its eye which makes it swim away, then Boy Superman admits setting fire to the family cat. 80s Superman says he should tell Lois to make her proud so she must have either really hated the cat or be a big fan of pet torture. Back on the farm Boy Superman falls out of a tree because a girl tries to hold his hand and ends up unconscious despite being Super. Her dad brings him to 80s Superman who gets weirdly aggressive about it before deciding to fly him to the Fortress of Solitude because that's where the first aid kit is. But OH NOES Magical Sparkly Superman (who may be called ERADICATOR if the next issue strapping is any indication) has appeared out of nowhere to "save" Johnsiverse Superman. Either he's got a different definition of "save" to the rest of us or he knows something we don't. This is already 10x more convoluted than it needs to be and I can't help thinking it's going to get worse before it gets better.

"Does that help us work out who it secretly is?"

Just read Batman #2. I thought at first it might be bringing the New52 versions of Geo-Force and Terra but it probably is some other world Kryptonians. Ultraman is the name of the 'evil' Superman I do believe.

Just reading the mini-series by Paul Dini a couple weeks back, Hugo Strange was the big bad behind the whole Arkham City video game etc., I got a feeling they might be echoing a bit of that storyline here. Curious to see how the Waller angle plays in, but Suicide Squad should have been 'editorially' along side the other Bat books considering how much of the characters are Batman Rogues.

As for the Superman reboot, I don't think it is at all about making it ready for new readers at all as much as picking up and tying back in the old New Earth comics back into the long game to chill out and hopefully bring back old readers. Its pretty much being setup as a sequel to the Death of Superman (with a new 3 mystery Superman) in Action and this storyline With Chris Kent is an altered sequel to what Geoff Johns was doing on the Superbooks a few years back before it got all New Krypton (which I hated and dumped the titles around then).

Having recently read a bunch of Sam Humphries stuff, I'm very happy that he has a gig at DC now. I don't know what Dan Abnett's doing there, though, or why he's writing Britishisms as if they're a second language.

If DC editorial is as dumb as I think they are, they might be echoing the Hugo Strange characterization from their Gotham tv show

Enjoying Batman. Don't like the art but the writing shows a base level of competence I haven't seen in any of DC's other titles. Base level competence! That's what the kids go crazy for these days.

i know it catches my eye

Isn't Dan Abnett British himself? Making it really weird if he's writing "guv'nor" style colloquialisms now.

Yeah, that's the point I was trying to make a few posts up.

Self-parody?

Meeting editorial expectations?

So it seems the the thing that made the Abnett & Lanning team such a success was actually Andy Lanning? I've read a couple of Abnett's comics before they started working together, and they weren't particularly good, and based on this thread his post-partnership work doesn't appear to be good either.

Has Lanning written any comics all by himself, I'm not aware of any? I know he was an artist before, I've read some of the stuff he drew, but IIRC they were always written by someone else.

I liked Abnett's The New Deadwardians, but the ending was bollocks

Action Comics #959

w: Dan Jurgens a: Tyler Kirkham

Quick, let's catch up like we didn't read Death of Superman (despite it having been done in the last two issues)! It can't hurt, right? We can get 80s Lois to tell Superkiddy.

Now let's get Johnsiverse Jimmy to tell Clark Not Superman that he's Superman so he can say he's Clark Not Superman not Superman or 80s Superman.

Bored with this already? So am I.

Mr Oz (oooooh sekrits) watches 80s Superman and Luthor Superman fail to beat Doomsday only for Luthorman to pull out the Mother Box from his armour that he hid in there when he stayed forever on Apokolips as their ruler at the end of Justice League Beat Up Darkseid And Baby Magic. So in a plot that can't be in the same continuity as this.

Clark Not Superman falls in a sewer and we get another giant explanation of how he's Clark Not Superman and not Superman.

This is really wearying tbh.

Superkiddy thinks Luthorman is a better Superman than Superdad is. But neither of them are good enough to beat Doomsday and he closes in on Clark Not Superman. Oh NOES! Who will save the day? (The next issue box spoils that it's Wonder Woman.)

Dreadful repetitive stuff.

Detective Comics #936

w: James Tynion IV a: Alvaro Martinez & Raul Fernandez

Batman gets a good kicking from Colony (because it turns out that is who it was at the end of the last issue). We know that because Tim Robin and Batwoman are watching it on the big screen and Tim Robin tells us it it's them; pretty remarkable really because last issue nobody had even heard of them but now he knows exactly what they look like.

After an awful lot of standing around watching the screen Batwoman introduces her dad who will save them all but in a SHOCKING TWIST it turns out he's actually the one behind Colony because he hates the Bat Family for an unspecified reason (but probably daddy issues). He asks Kate to be the anti-Bat Woman but she'd rather go and live in a Clayface ball.

Unnecessarily complex storytelling makes this a chore.

Hal Jordan & the GL Corps Rebirth

w: Robert Venditti a: Ethan van Sciver

Sinestro, who has inexplicably aged since he left the Johnsiverse, has build a planet that he has moved through space to be the new Oa so he can rule it with his friend Lingerie Lantern. Hal Jordan comes out of a cave on Planet of the Caves but he's actually only a construct of his own ring. OOH META.

He catches us all up on GL101 including telling us that Simon Baz is dead which kind of buggers up Green Lanterns now, doesn't it. Or rather, it gives us two different Rebirth continuities and not all the first issues are out yet.

Hal then uses some more constructs to smash the Gauntlet (which only makes sense if you read the Hal & Kyle Johnsiverse books). This reverses some bits of Johnsiverse history, but not some others, and it's already far too complicated and mired in at least 5 other books. Then Hal becomes a real boy like Pinnochio and recites his oath to charge his ring from a lantern that doesn't exist.

Parallax is helping Sinestro. Like any of us care.

New Superman #1

w: Gene Luen Yang a: Viktor Bogdanovic & Richard Friend

The primer: this is Chinese Superman, grown in a test tube and the only one of the Secret Chinese Superman Growing Programme that hasn't self-combusted. There you go, now you don't have to read a year of comics from the end of the Johnsiverse.

Anyway, this is the secret origin of him (Kong Kenan), the young reporter (Laney Lan) and the boy he bullies before becoming Chinese Superman (Luo Lixin).

After an interminable Yellowface version of Superman's history The Ministry of Self Reliance make Kong New Superman then because he can't control his powers they call in Yellowface Batman and Yellowface Wonder Woman to stop him. Next month we'll get Yellowface Justice League. Who aren't the GMoz Chinese heroes, even though they were used in the Johnsiverse as late as the final months.

Maybe this will be ok. But the signs aren't good.

Nightwing Rebirth

w: Tim Seeley a: Yanick Paquette

To be clear, this is the Rebirth of Grayson and not Nightwang. After finding out which book the other characters from Grayson are in (Batgirl & the Birds of Prey, which is presumably going to be a pretty crowded book) Dick and Damien play video games while saying HUNDREDS of words. There are some flashbacks to Dick playing with his old Spyral friends, and Midnighter playing with Dick and giving him a bag of poppers in a frantic attempt to drum up some excitement.

The bag of poppers turns out to be a bomb removal device to save Damien's life, which literally wasn't mentioned before it was resolved. The Owls have moved to Greece and swapped their white masks for black ones to confuse Batman just before Lincoln March gets killed by someone who is either Talon or Nite Owl.

Dick decides to be Nightwang again and not Grayson to confuse the Owls but to be honest they seem like an easily confused bunch so he might be overthinking it.

I liked Grayson. I'd rather have it back than Nightwang.

Flash #2

w: Joshua Williamson a: Carmine di Giandomenico

Flash tries to teach August Heart how to be a Speedster but he's too scared to try - although he does get one skill from the Speed Force which is to know Barry's secret identity.

A very talky issue skirts round Wally being a speedster, Iris being a reporter and August wanting to Flashpoint his brother. Eventually through Evolution of a Hero he becomes <name TBA> and helps the Flash. And because the Speed Force is sentient now... it decides helping Barry is good so turns all of Central City into Flashes.

An original plot SHOCKER. Looking forward to seeing how this develops, although it feels like it might be slight.

Wonder Woman #2

w: Greg Rucka a: Nicola Scott

Now remember, the odd and even numbered issues of WW are completely different stories. I had forgotten myself until I started reading and wondered what had happened to the jungle.

So, this is the origin of WW and how Steve Trevor gets to Themiscrya in the first place. All the Amazons talk in bold type which makes it seem like they're permanently shouting. Anyway, cutting to the chase you've read this book hundreds of times before and it's as boring as that sounds.

This does potentially mean that the odd and even issues are in different continuities and the final Johnsiverse revelations don't apply in the even issues. I might just read the odd ones in future because they're 100x better than this. You'd never guess Didio and Johns planned this chaos.

these are all pretty bad imo, even new superman is (at best) a busiek-style fanboy retelling

...has Dick Grayson been a superhero called Grayson at some point in recent years?

radical transparency in superheroics

I am now giggling imagining a Batman comic titled "Wayne". He's out in the open, just some dude named Wayne fighting crime.

do you think his friends have ever nicknamed him "b dubs"

sic, yes, the Johnsiverse Dick Grayson book set with him as an agent of Spyral was called Grayson.

How does that work wrt to his, Bruce Wayne's and Barbara Gordon's secret identities? Whether it was a very bad secret code name or a public super-agent identity, seems a bit easy for either The Ventriloquist or TMZ to draw links.

He had a swirly thing over his face which made him look exactly like Dick Grayson, so the girls school he worked at as Mr Grayson wouldn't put photos of him on Instagram. Helena Bertinelli was there also, same schtick.

I don't actually think Barbara Gordon has a secret identity any more since she's not either Batgirl or Oracle these days.

Or rather she is Batgirl but she's not the same Babs Gordon (unless she is and it'll be explained in Babs Rebirth why she wasn't when she was the Batgirl of Burnside).

Because where that was left hanging at the end of the Johnsiverse was that everything we think of as Batgirl (and even Babs) were implanted false memories designed to fuck her up mentally. (Although that, to a large degree, has been undone by one of the Rebirth books already because Bats had cameras spying on her recording the events of The Killing Joke which was specifically one of the false memories.)

Also I'm pretty sure everyone knows Bruce Wayne is Batman because pretty much all his buddies call him Bruce when he's suited up these days.

He had a swirly thing over his face which made him look exactly like Dick Grayson, so the girls school he worked at as Mr Grayson wouldn't put photos of him on Instagram

I've read this sentence 5 times now, and I still don't get it? Dick Grayson had a mask that made him look like... Dick Grayson? And this somehow stopped people putting photos of him online?

DC gives me a damn headache.

Yes. xpost to Tuomas.

At this point, I'd swear that DC's writing staff is just directly transcribing shaggy dog stories related to them by their three-year-old nephews.

Oooh, is it CV Dazzle?

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5510040/designer-reverse-engineers-face-detection-tech-to-develop-camouflage-makeup

It's facial vajazzle.

I can't turn my face into a vagina.

Also I'm pretty sure everyone knows Bruce Wayne is Batman because pretty much all his buddies call him Bruce when he's suited up these days.

― Horizontal Superman is invulnerable (aldo), Tuesday, July 19, 2016 3:58 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is the thing that bothered me about the Tom King Batman issues (which I've read mostly due to my enjoyment of his Omega Men run). Batman and the plane he's trying to maneuver get saved at the last minute and he's saying "Clark?" because he thinks Superman showed up, but it's two people he's never seen before who now have a clue that there's someone who could stop a crashing plane named Clark. Hmm.

http://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/9e/81/22/9e81225c9aa8379360847c8f734b7569.jpg

'Grayson' just makes me think of Grayson Perry

*googles*

definitely more into that look for a superhero than sleeveless man holding a gun wrong

Because where that was left hanging at the end of the Johnsiverse was that everything we think of as Batgirl (and even Babs) were implanted false memories designed to fuck her up mentally. (Although that, to a large degree, has been undone by one of the Rebirth books already because Bats had cameras spying on her recording the events of The Killing Joke which was specifically one of the false memories.)

New Superman is the first Rebirth flop. I think the bloom may be off the rose for this.

I sometimes forget I'm the only person (possibly in the world) following all of this.

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2016/2016-06.html
huh, superman #1 was outsold by... Han Solo #1. Priorities.

There was a bloom?

Yeah, I mean a ton of people are loving Rebirth and it's the best DC has done sales-wise since the New 52 launched. I Love Comics is not terribly representative of comic fandom as a whole tbh.

In that chart, Civil War II only outsold a bunch of Rebirth titles because people like me were skittish about over-ordering and because Marvel ran an extra discount that brought it down to 30% of cover price if you ordered 200% of some previous title. It was cheaper overall to hit that target than order what you would have otherwise, giving a big incentive for stores to over-order.

Yeah, listening to House to Astonish last night and the DC sales numbers were absurdly high. Though apparently a lot of copies are being sold to be stuffed in those bizarre 'box of pop culture trash delivered to your door every month' schemes

http://io9.gizmodo.com/dc-comics-just-killed-a-superman-character-in-a-serious-1783968356

Cool, graphic on-panel death of random cat and apparent death of Krypto. Nu DC has come a long way, baby!

Looking forward to the surely impending drawn-out vivisection of a child.

what the teetotal fuck
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/iip8ohedvxwy9bzvbz82.PNG

black hole superman just ate kryto

astonished youth stands in for all of us

lol i like this

man of steel in 'sucking dogs' shocker

looooool that is amazing

for those of you placing Harvey and Eisner nominations, the official DC onomatopoeia for "help I'm a sentient flying dog being sucked into oblivion by blackhole superman" is:

RRRAAAR
RRARR
RRRRAROOOO
OOOOOOOOOOO

Aquaman #3

w: Dan Abnett a: Philippe Briones

Who doesn't love a dramatic opening shot? I'll tell you who, someone who doesn't expect the underwater/overwater conundrum from previous issues resolved so unambiguously, because it's made absolutely clear the holes caused by the explosion in #1 which water poured in from is in fact about 20m above water level. No wonder it started flooding.

So, the US government won't let Atlanteans back into their embassy for an obvious reason. The government have suddenly remembered the giant attack by Atlantis where millions died and the entire East coast was flooded. You'll probably recall it because I mentioned it a couple of issues ago, mainly because everybody at DC seemed to be ignoring it and I thought I was the only one that wasn't. Well, I bet this shakes things up, eh? This'll have massive repercussions no doubt?

If it does, it doesn't get mentioned again. Mera complains about her clothes and hair and has a swim and Black Manta was kidnapped by N.E.M.O. which is a remarkably prescient acronym for bad guys in a water based hero book. He has a fight just for the sake of it because HE DOESN'T LIKE BEING TOLD WHAT TO DO MAN.

Oh no wait, we're back to the Government TELLING AQUAMAN WHAT TO DO, MAN. Then some bad guys who probably aren't Atlanteans BUT SAY THEY ARE hijack a Navy ship. OH NOES, TERRISTS! Quick, arrest Aquaman because he is the head of Islamic State Atlantis! But it's what he wants? Whaaaaaaaaaaat?

Batgirl & The Birds of Prey Rebirth

w: Julie & Shawna Benson a: Claire Roe

Batgirl. Black Canary. The Huntress. What could go wrong?

Well, you could be like me and have a car that's missing a couple of pages. But I'm pretty sure I can work round it.

It could go wrong because you could have a Batgirl that completely erases half the Johnsiverse continuity, and critically undermines the continuity of several Bat-books because it has Babs fighting with Bats before he could have started being Batman. It could try and make Killing Joke canon, but incorporate other bits of continuity so it's a different Babs. Oh, and this Babs is a millionaire now because of the tech company she owns.

It could go wrong because it starts with a Black Canary that isn't the Johnsiverse Black Canary or the Rebirth one, but then make it a secret history of the Johnsiverse one came to be the Johnsiverse one, but do it in such a way that it can't be the one that's in Green Arrow.

There could be a new Oracle, but a bad Oracle, who has Batman and Mr Oz's Invisible Silent Everywhere Camera Copters to film things and Babs' old Oracle computer from the flashbacks (although that probably means the processors are knackered, it has to be a decade old now) and has worked it all out.

At least The Huntress is the same one from Nightwang, which means it's the same one from Grayson. That might be the single positive thing I can say about it.

Batman #3

w: Tom King a: David Finch & Danny Miki

Holy fake-out Batman! I thought we were getting another 'Thomas & Martha get shot' page but no, Batman saves a kid from orphanisation.

Well, that non-orphan grew up and had kids, and it turns out his kids are Gotham & Gotham Girl.

Think about that for a second. Let's say those kids are 20 because they've graduated and have been abroad doing charity work. Let's say the guy was 25 when he had them, and 10 when his parents got saved. That means Batman has been Batmanning for 35 years in this continuity and therefore probably makes Bruce 60. I can't see how that could possibly be an issue. ::rolleyes::

We find this out because Bats asks their parents in disguise as Matches Malone, so they tell him. He then becomes 30 year old Bruce again before Batting up because The Monster Men have suicide bombed a bridge. He saves the people on the bridge and gives the old man lecture to Gotham and Gotham Girl. They then run off to another explosion which Bats dgaf about even though he's right there when they see it. It turns out it's been set by Hugo Strange and the Psycho Pirate, which is presumably part of Amanda Waller's plan from the last episode and nothing to do with the Monster Men.

WHAT? THE PSYCHO PIRATE? Yes. BUT WASN'T HE TURNED MAD IN CRISIS, MADDER IN ANIMAL MAN, DEADED IN INFINITE CRISIS AND RESURRECTED THEN KILLED AGAIN IN BLACKEST NIGHT? Yes, but he can't be that one because he's alive and has the mask again. BUT WASN'T THERE A NEW JOHNSIVERSE ONE THAT WAS A PUPPET OF BRANIAC? Yes, but it's not that one either. It's the pre-Crisis one, at least it is until they say it's not.

Somewhere in amongst that there was a comic. I'm not sure it was a very good one.

Green Arrow #3

w: Benjamin Percy a: Juan Ferreyra

John Diggle is avenging Ollie's death by infiltrating a secret society behind the Catholic Church in Italy. Ollie, in the mean time, is still resurrected after the events of the last issue and has broken into the building that got destroyed in the previous issue beating up security guards in the name of beating people up, but it's OK because he'll give them a raise except they don't work for him any more, neither does he have any money (also last issue).

Anyway, it was bankers all along. BANKERS. BECAUSE THEY'RE EVIL. EVIL BANKERS. Human traffickers? BANKERS. Ollie's murderers? BANKERS. Weird zombies that dress up in skin? BANKERS. Church paedophilia? BANKERS. Afghanistan? BANKERS. BANKERS.

Still no appearance of The Finger. This sucks.

Green Lanterns #3

w: Sam Humphries a: FOUR pencillers and FOUR different inkers. Fucked if I'm writing them all out.

Splash page! Shoplifter Lantern, still carrying the bear he just stole, explains at length why he's not a criminal. Agoraphobic Lantern is smiling like an acid casualty despite the fact she's 1) in space, in which 'open' is such a natural descriptor it's taken as a given and 2) she thinks the world is being destroyed. Still, SMILE!

Atrocitous explains what happened in the last issue then grooms a small child to be his sex slave at some indeterminate time in the future (once he's planted his seed in the middle of the planet, do keep up, it's been explained three times in the book now). Shoplifter Lantern pulls out his gun but Bleez kicks his arse. To celebrate, he un-Red Lanterns her and she explains Atrocitous' plot. YES. AGAIN.

Agoraphobic Lantern didn't get the memo though and punches her back into Redness. Then they all fly off to find the tower and then in a wave of plot Agoraphobic Lantern gets Redded. Unlike Bleez, or in fact exactly like everyone else that gets Redded, her clothes don't get changed in the process.

I could have got this far in 10 pages and we've had nearly 100.

Justice League #1

w: Bryan Hitch a: Tony S Daniel & Sandu Florea

The world is all going like the Doctor Strange trailer and the Green Lanterns use green ice to stop it (because as we established in the last issue this might not be the same continuity as their own book).

Short version, some people come out of the Doctor Strange ground and steal the powers of the Justice League. Because it all happens one at a time, it takes the whole issue. Even though it happens in a nearly identical way each time. This might just be the worst book in Rebirth.

Superman #3

w: Peter J Tomasi & Patrick Gleason a: Jorge Jiminez

The one with the dog sucking.

80s Superman is taking Superkiddy to the Fortress of Solitude to see if he can cure his bump to the head but Plastic Man Superman decides to save the Kryptonians by killing them. Until he decides not to after all, because women and children.

While Superkiddy is getting a magic space x-ray Plastic Man Superman explains his Secret Origin (basically he's the living gate to the Phantom Zone) and wants to purify Superkiddy by sucking all the human out of him that 80s Lois put there. Krypto gets in the way and the rest is headlines.

Funnily enough, the press didn't seem so interested that 80s Superman seemingly punches Plastic Man Superman to death on the next and final page. Funny that.

This wants to be a good book, but Super-continuity might be fucked beyond all repair so it will never get to be. Possibly a shame.

The Hellblazer Rebirth

w: Simon Oliver a: Moritat

I've fallen asleep and woken up in the 80s. This is straight out of Deadline. Apart from that it's like every other nondescript Constantine book you've ever read.

There's a great set of cameos when Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel turn up and get stopped from interfering by Swamp Thing. Literally, Wonder Woman turns up and meets Captain Marvel and says "I am Wonder Woman and I should stop this" and then he says "yes, I Captain Marvel will help you" then Swamp Thing turns up and says "you will have to get through me, Swamp Thing first" so they all decide not to bother.

Entertaining in a nostalgic way.

impressed you're continuing tbh

aldo, you misread Batman. Gotham is the kid. It's probably been about a decade.

This all just is what is this

Good catch EZ, that makes much more sense then. Although not the sister's motivation. Her brother gets taken out for a treat and not her? Sucks to be you.

The new Batgirl #1 is the first actually pretty ok Rebrt comic!

Haven't read that yet, just the Batgirl &BoP one from last week. Batgirl came out yesterday I think?

It's nothing epic but it's the first time I've thought one was good enough to keep reading out of choice, rather than hate-slash-curiosity. I didn't like the Cam Stewart run much (nice art, dull writing).

Action Comics #960

w: Dan Jurgens a: Tyler Kirkham

Mr Oz kicks things off by saying things have moved to quickly so far. NOT FROM WHERE I'M SITTING MATEY.

Wonder Woman saves Not Superman Superman who remembers 80s Superman dying the first time against Doomsday. Wonder Woman flies off in disgust because Not Superman Superman doesn't want to jump her bones and they punch Doomsday for the infinity-1th time.

Doomsday finally gets bored of being tickled and runs off to play with Superkiddy (who he has heard cheering his dad on with his new Doomhearing).

After a science lecture where Wonder Woman (who is clearly an evolutionary biologist these days) explains to Luthor Superman how Doomsday came to be, 80s Superman and WW fly off to find Superkiddy and 80s Lois before Doomsday. 80s Lois and WW have a really weird conversation about how they should be all Bros Before Hos about 80s Superman despite it being Johnsiverse Superman that was doing the rinky-dink with WW and how did the 80s couple even know about it anyway? Was Johnsiverse Superman bragging about it on I Love Being Superman?

Anyhow, on the last page Doomsday punches WW. Really? This is moving quickly? Wake me when it's over.

Aquaman #4

w: Dan Abnett a: Philippe Briones

Arthur gets put in Super Guantanamo, Mera chats to her mate on the Aquaphone. That's the first half of the comic dealt with.

In the second half, it turns out the sunk ship was all an attempt to frame Atlantis (during which we also find out that Navy Seal divers are better at fighting underwater than Atlantean soldiers). In some very wordy pages Black Manta gets the bad guy organisation explained to him then Mera busts Arthur out of prison to go home but there are lots of soldiers.

This is meandering rubbish. I have it in me to have a soft spot for Aquaman but this is turning even me off.

Batgirl #1

w: Hope Larson a: Rafael Albuquerque

This was really fun.

Babs is in Japan tracking down a Japanese pre-WW2 Japanese hero called the Fruit Bat to interview her for completeness in her Big Book Of Female Heroes I Have Spoken To. She buddies up with a childhood friend and they eat some food before having a fight with a Sailor Moon-inspired villain which gets broken up by the Fruit Bat. The fight takes it out of her though (hey, she's over 100, give her a break) and she tells Babs she needs to find someone to teach her how to fight better.

It's fun and light and well written with great art. It's never less than engaging. BUT...

This is obviously a different Batgirl to the one in the other Batgirl book. It feels completely like the Batgirl of Burnside, the new, young, totally rebooted Batgirl for whom the Killing Joke never happened (except it did because she refers to being in wheelchair, but that could just have been another false memory). Also since when was Batman a shitty teacher that couldn't teach people how to fight properly? I just can't reconcile the two Rebirth Batgirls at all.

Apart from that, the next issue can't come quickly enough.

Batman #4

w: Tom King a: David Finch & Sandra Hope & Matt Banning

Batman is really losing patience with Gotham (the man, not the city) who reacts badly when Batman tells him and throws a girder through the Batmobile.

Then, though the world's most contrived connecting plot Batman realises Amanda Waller is involved and breaks into her office. She admits she is responsible for Hugo Strange and the Psycho Pirate but it's gone TOTALLY wrong and could you sort it out please Bats? So he goes to see Gotham who has unfortunately gone all murdery.

The pacing is all over the shop in this book. The Waller plot is quite well done but Gotham and Gotham Girl were introduced at pace then very rapidly became something completely different. And it feels like this is all a lead-up to the Monster Men crossover but that can't be Hugo Strange because he was in prison until this book started but we all know it will be. Still very readable though.

Detective Comics #937

w: James Tynion IV a: Alvaro Martinez & Raul Fernández

Batman escapes from Colony, almost as a matter of course while they are jizzing themselves about his utility belt. In other news, Robin has invented the BatTrain by using the Gotham Underground that doesn't exist.

Batman flirts with a new kid genius now that Oracle isn't Oracle and there might be a bad Oracle instead, even pausing for a selfie with him. They watch some torture porn together to get in the mood before Bats breaks his arm as foreplay. But then Batwoman's dad turns up so Bats drops him like yesterday's fried chicken and they talk at length at each other trying to show who's bestest. Batwoman decides to break up the brodown with a fight. Bat-hangers-on attack!

Green Arrow #4

w: Benjamin Percy a: Juan Ferreyra

And of course Green Arrow now takes place in a continuity where the police get to lock up vigilantes. OF COURSE HE DOES. Diggle turns up to kill him to show how much he loves him.

Black Canary in the meantime gets on with the actual plot because she doesn't know that Ollie solved it last issue (and apparently still thinks he's dead although I was sure she'd met him since he was still alive). This involves her getting knocked out and kidnapped awaiting rescue.

It then turns out Diggle didn't want to kill Ollie, just have a laugh and knock him in the water like Robin Hood. OH, YOU BIG SILLY.

It turns out the BANKERS whole secret is an extended riff on the soap burn bit from Fight Club. Woohoo. Eventually they make contact with Ollie through his new computer expert (because everybody likes Felicity on the telly so he needs one) and point out they have a hostage. OH REALLY. Better go save her then.

Green Lanterns #4

w: Sam Humphries a: three pencillers, SIX (count 'em) inkers

That's right Guantanamo Lantern, kick the book off in the now traditional way of recapping the previous issues for people just joining us. Hell Tower, Rage Seed yadda yadda. The tunnel to the centre of the Earth for the Rage Seed is not there yet, because it's only gone 5000 miles. THE DIAMETER OF THE PLANET IS LESS THAN 8000 MILES FFS. But Guantanamo Lantern doesn't care about just how wrong this is, he's more worried that he lost the teddy bear he shoplifted. GET ONE PRIORITY.

Elsewhere the Last Guardian is explaining why he's great while playing with Guantanamo Lantern's nephew, the intended recipient of the purloined bear. Not sure the bear's going to cut it after having been flown around by the Dungeon Master from the D&D cartoon show.

The two Lanterns have a bonding session and decides to be friends after all then the buddy cop show flies back out of the hole only for DexStarr to vomit on them and then Atrocitous to stand heroically and tell them that next issue will be the one where the plot advances. I wish it could have been this one.

Hal Jordan & the GL Corps #1

w: Robert Venditti a: Rafa Sandoval & Jordi Tarragona

Oh yeah, this is the one with the old Sinestro on a fake planet with Parallax as company and Hal looking for other Lanterns except we know from Johnsiverse GLC that they don't. Maybe.

So why not throw all that out and have Sinestro rejuvenated by consuming Parallax's power and have the Sinestro Corps do the GLC's job. Hal can beat up Abelard Snazz Lantern to make him feel better about it.

But what's that? We were promised the GLC so we'd better get them? Then why not have John Stewart and Guy Gardner and Kilowog and all the rest come back on the last page and undo at least a year of GL continuity? I mean they're only readers whose money you've taken, right DC?

Harley Quinn #1

w: Amanda Conner & Jimmy Palmiotti a: Chad Hardin

Here's a plan. Why not take a comic and cancel it because of a company-wide reboot then a week later publish a #1 that follows directly on from the previous issue (and explicitly says so in a boxout on page 1) and changes NOTHING.

It's actually not a bad plan when the book in question is a lot of fun and one of your best sellers, but makes a mockery of Rebirth as a concept. It's also not a bad plan when it's a goofball comic that never really fitted in your continuity anyway.

But because this is a #1, it's in the rules to explain everything that happened before so Harley does all that. Although she leaves out all the stuff about Popeye, and the Inspector Gadget Pensioner. Even if it does take up half the issue.

For the rest, why not take the plot of Skrull Kill Krew and make it about zombies instead? Then end it by throwing the Red Tool (a psycho villain who's a bit like a Costco version of the Punisher and talks in really cool speech bubbles) to hospital in the Scatapult (a catapult Harley has been using to throw bags of shit into unsuspecting neighbourhoods as an art terrorist happening).

Either that sounds like fun or it doesn't. I still get a kick out of it, but then I liked it last week too.

Justice League #2

w: Bryan Hitch a: Tony S Daniel & Sandu Florea

Everyone has their powers back like the last issue never happened (except of course it did, because this issue is about stopping the bad things from the last issue). It turns out there are giant bombs in the Earth and then an alium invasion happens and then oh I just don't fucking care.

Nightwing #1

w: Tim Seeley a: Javier Fernández

Yeah we get it Dick, you used to do trapeze then you were an orphan. So, in the huge Rebirth EARTHSHATTERING CHANGE Nightwang goes from working undercover as a double agent for Spyral to working undercover as a double agent for the Court of Owls. PLUS CA CHANGE.

The Owls realise that he's a shit double agent so he zings them then walks off having taken the moral high ground to zing Batman instead about how he's a shit fighting teacher. Between this and Batgirl I'd say Bats is having a tough time of it and MAYBE THEY HAVE A POINT.

Then, to ram it home, the guy the Owls have shadowing Nightwang kicks his arse then says the reason he could do it so easily is because Batman couldn't teach a labrador to eat spaghetti quickly. This really is kick Batman when he's down month.

Nightwing #2

w: Tim Seeley a: Javier Fernández

Because why not have issues on consecutive weeks.

A whole issue of why Batman is shit, starting off with him throwing a guy off a rooftop to teach DickRobin a life lesson.

Raptor and Nightwang fly off in the Raptorcopter and Batgirl explains that she's the Babs from Batgirl and not the other one, because with the team from Detective and the Gotham kids from Batman there are just too many heroes in Gotham for her to need to be there. Raptor teaching Nightwang seems to work for him because he starts describing his fighting style as "sort of like a freestyle rap battle".

It turns out that yet again the bad guys are doing human trafficking. Is this a major world scandal that passed me by or are DC just randomly shoehorning it into books?

So they get rescued and the Owls are happy. To celebrate Dick stands up Babs on a date he arranged. What a catch.

Red Hood & The Outlaws Rebirth

w: Scott Lobdell a: Dexter Soy

Q: Is there any point in a Jason Todd origin story in 2016?

A: No.

Suicide Squad Rebirth

w: Rob Williams a: Philip Tan and three different inkers

Obama is upset at Amanda Waller so she gets Rick Flag to lead it. Some shit happens with some Mongolian superpowers but they all get shot on the final page to prove Rick Flag's a good guy.

This is rank. Absolutely stinks. And doesn't appear to be in the same continuity as Batman.

Superman #4

w: Peter J Tomasi & Patrick Gleason a: Patrick Gleason & Mick Gray

80s Superman and Superkiddy have a team-up and punch Plastic Man Dog Vacuum Superman's face off. This makes Krypton try and reconstitute itself from bits of the moon and the ghosts that come out of the hole where Plastic Man Dog Vacuum Superman's head used to be.

When his head grows back he tries to vacuum them back in but they like it out there and work with Superman to try and escape to the moon because reasons. Really.

Flash #3

w: Joshua Williamson a: Carmine di Giandomenico

Barry has performance anxiety issues because it turns out whatever turned August into a speedster has also turned 3/4 of Central City into speedsters and STAR Labs are doing what STAR Labs do best and trying to make them all faster.

Black Hole may or may not have been behind this release of the Speed Force but exploiting it in ways yet unknown is a new superbadguy called... GODSPEED. Maybe his sidekick will be Mogwai, who knows.

Very much treading water, and this early.

Titans #1

w: Dan Abnett a: Brett Booth & Norm Rapmund

ACTUAL REBIRTH CONTENT KLAXON

Ok, it's just a recap of the Ginger Wally content of Rebirth to date.

AS YOU WERE

So the Titans storyline is about 'fixing' what happened in Rebirth. The 80s Titans do some Titans hanging out stuff like taking the piss out of Wally because HE LIKES A GURL and Lilith tries to help him remember but in doing so unwrites some more of the stuff undone by the mystery hand.

She undoes Abra Kadabra forgetting who he was. He suddenly remembers and proclaims he was the one that made Ginger Wally disappear.

Is that the big secret about Rebirth, that it doesn't actually have anything to do with Doctor Manhattan after all and DC has just been leading people down the garden path for shits 'n' giggles? I'm not kidding, I think I'll die laughing at the fanboy outrage.

Wonder Woman #3

w: Greg Rucka a: Liam Sharp

BACK IN THE JUNGLE

WW and the Cheetah kiss and make up while Steve Trevor tries to stop Boko Haram. It looks like they end up in the same jungle but the whole thing goes nowhere. This issue might as well not have happened.

Holy shit

this was the month i've stopped all these except for batman and even that's not very good.

http://icv2.com/articles/news/view/35161/icv2-interview-jim-lee-dan-didio-san-diego-comic-con-part-1

I was looking at the Top 100 comic books list recently. I think the #50 was hovering around 30,000 copies. The #100 book was around 18,000 copies, which means that about 300 titles that month, (because there’s about 400 titles per month) were under 18,000 copies. That’s not a sustainable or viable business.

I have wondered about the economics of the Big Two putting out 50+ titles a month. I mean, print sales are actually rising by all accounts, but it seems like volume like that would catch up with you eventually. I guess the retailers wind up taking it on the chin more often than not, but I guess it's unsustainable to run your retailers out of business, as well.

"We drove them out of business in the '90s, we can drive them out of business again! Would you like a 1:50 variant cover?"

For two guys running one of the top 3 comics companies in the US, they seem pretty glib and uninformed. I mean, that's not surprising given their output, but still kind of gobsmacking for industry "leaders".

Action #961

w: Dan Jurgens a: Stephen Segovia & Art Thibert

Luthor Superman and Not Superman Superman discuss whether you can prop up a skyscraper before Luthor Superman melts it with jet fuel his power glove. This isn't the best plan and Superwoman dives in to save them. Yes, Superwoman, who Mr Oz helpfully points out is Lois Lane. (I'll spoil Superwoman for now and confirm it's the Johnsiverse Lois. THIS MAY BE IMPORTANT.) Upstate (which state is Metropolis in? Does anyone care?) it's punchytown until WW carelessly leaves her sword sticking in Doomsday which he throws at Superkiddy. He goes understandably mental and may be more superpowered than his dad, and WW, and maybe both together. 80s Superman makes everyone but him go to the Watchtower so he can punch on his own again. He ends up disappointed though because the seeds that have been dropped through the issue that Mr Oz has some "gate" seem to come to fruition and his supersoldiers seem to be capturing Doomsday and moving him towards it.

Is this another Rebirth fakeout following the possible Titans one? Is Mr Oz only there for Doomsday and doesn't care about any of the Supermen? And is it possible he's not Ozymandias either and a new character?

NOBODY FUCKING CARES.

All Star Batman Rebirth (or maybe #1)

w: Scott Snyder a: JR Jr & Danny Miki

Firefly and Killer Moth are hunting Batman and trash a diner to try and find him because as everyone knows Batman can't start the day without sausage and grits. Batman treats them pretty brutally as he sets Firefly alight and stabs Killer Moth fully through the arm. Then Bats gets pulled out of the window by a robot.

There's then an extended set of flashbacks getting more distant to explain the plot. Simply, Two Face wants to be rid of one of the faces. I'm not sure he cares which, as both halves seem to think they'll be the one left, but only Bats can deliver the module. It then turns out this is just a cover story for his other plan, which is to have Batman killed. I COULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED. Back in the present day the Black Spider turns out to be the robot arms so Bats takes a chainsaw to him. Ultimately it looks like everyone is part of Two Face's scheme but Alfred is the one that betrays him. What has Snyder got against him? He cut his hand off in the Johnsiverse.

This is really quite good, as might be expected, but is as overwritten and overly complex as we've come to expect from Snyder's Batman.

Backup a: Declan Shalvey

This is a framing device for telling how Bats is sick of Robins and is training his new sidekick. Being Snyder, this has to have a Bat Mythology element somewhere so there are hints that Batman trained The Joker. We'll see how it pans out, but I expect it to take months to find out.

Deathstroke Rebirth

w: Priest a: Carlo Pagulayan & Jason Paz

HOORAY! A CHARACTER NOBODY CARES ABOUT GETS A REBIRTH!

But maybe Priest can save it.

tl; dr he can't.

Whether it's the black guy who speaks completely normally except one time when he says "We in de office baby", or the flashback to shooting bears for children, this is a chore. I'd love to think it'll go somewhere but this is a book about a villain DC have been trying to make into a hero for decades despite his superpower being stabbing people in the face. The quality of writing is a cut above the majority of the line but Deathstroke is just an unloveable character.

Detective Comics #938

w: James Tynion IV a: Alvaro Martinez

Oh yeah, this is the one that's really about Kate Kane. Dad flashbacks, Kate proving she's the best of the Batmans, punching, more punching, Robin and Not Oracle (whose name appears to be TH3 G3N3R4L, no kidding) talking about how great they are... this feels like issue 8 of a 12 parter and does absolutely nothing for me. It barely advances the plot and ends where it starts. In fact, it might have even moved the plot back to the end of the previous issue. Not exactly inspiring.

Hal Jordan & The GL Corps #2

w: Robert Venditti a: Rafa Sandoval & Jordi Tarragona

John Stewart, Kilowog and Guy Gardner really don't seem very happy about being saved by Hal so decide to hang about in secret and pretend to be missing after all. Sinestro and his daughter have a lengthy daddy issues chat until he finds out Hal is still alive (because maybe Hal died in the continuity that aged Sinestro, maybe?) and gets jealous he's punching someone else so pilots his planet to Hal (obviously having forgotten he has a ring that could just magic him there). And some other shit happens but it's just water treading.

New Super-man #2

w: Gene Luen Yang a: Viktor Bogdanovic & Richard Friend

In which we find out Chinese superheroes all have hyphens in their name. I can't wait for Spider--Man.

So, Super-man starts his test off against Wonder-woman and Bat-man by disabling her with casual sexism and body-shaming (NB NOT A SUPERHERO) him. He gets his arse handed to him, obviously, but not before we find out about what abilities Wonder-woman and Bat-man have. And that Bat-man is the funny one, almost so you wish it was his book instead.

We finally get an explanation as to how this is different to the Great Ten, who it appears are being written out of the DCU. Poor the GMoz. (Also, is it just me or is there an awful lot of explaining going on?)

There's a zing-tastic (AGAIN, NOT ANOTHER HERO) team-up (DITTO) where the New Justice-league take the BatPrius to investigate the house of a data expert who may have been attacked by a villain. There's a bit of a fight and the villain is defeated remarkably easily as Super-man's erratic powers kick back in.

There's far more potential here than there was in the first issue and I really quite enjoyed it, even if the ideas are pretty much all rehashes of other books; the erratic powers of Superman were a mainstay of the Johnsiverse Action, for example. A glimmer of light in the unrelenting torrent of shit that is Rebirth.

Red Hood & The Outlaws #1

w: Scott Lobdell a: Dexter Soy

The cover(s) imply this is going to be some wacky team-up buddy comedy with Bizarro. Instead it's Deathstroke Mk2, or close enough. This appears to be the story of how Jason Todd takes over the crime empire of the Black Mask because DADDY ISSUES. AGAIN. At the end he blows up a train and a Bad Amazon steps out. Colour me NOT FUCKING ARSED. Dull dull dull dull dull.

Superwoman #1

w: Phil Jiminez a: Phil Jiminez & Matt Santorelli

So, this takes place some time after the events currently in Action and (it appears) the Doomsday threat is over. We get a small catchup on what's been happening around Superwoman (who, if you remember we saw in one panel of this week's Action) including an interview with 80s Steel, the post Death of Superman one. WTF ARE WE BRINGING THAT ENTIRE CONTINUITY BACK? There's a flashback to Johnsiverse Lois working on a farm with Johnsiverse Lana Lang and lifting a tractor above her head like it weighed nothing. WHAAAAAAAAT?

Lana, who is now a reporter (? She was a fearless archaeologist a couple of weeks ago) interviews Luthor Superman about how he's the protector of Metropolis now (which as we all know is bound be contradicted in imminent issues of Action) before SuperLois flies in and spoils it all.

"You've got us? Who's got you?" HAHA DO YOU SEE IT IS LIKE WHAT SUPERMAN SAID TO LOIS IN THAT FILM AND NOW SOMEONE SAYS IT TO HER AND SHE IS FLYING HAHAHA

Turns out SuperLois is not that good at the heroing lark so we flash back to Lana teaching her to fly and stuff because somehow she's an expert at that too now OF COURSE.

And finally an explanation. When Solar Superman blew up at the end of the Johnsiverse he gave Johnsiverse Lois and Johnsiverse Lana his exact powers, made explicit when Lana turns into Solar Superwoman. As Mr Oz puts it, "So. There are two of them." WE CAN SEE THAT YOU DUMMY.

For the next ten pages there is a whole lot of "OH NOES HOW WILL WE COPE WITH TWO SUPERWOMANS" dialogue with as you might expect this dilemma being very swiftly resolved.

SPOILERS

Someone that appears to be Bizarro Superwoman turns up and kills SuperLois.

In a reboot universe that seems to have had two massive fakeouts already (missing years not due to Doctor Manhattan, Mr Oz not interested in Superman MUCH LIKE THE COMICS BUYING PUBLIC, AMIRITE?) this might be the biggest one yet. Ever since this was first trailed the narrative is that thus is SuperLois and instead she gets Janet Leighed. Still, at least the multiple superfamilies have been resolved even if it's by eradicating the Johnsiverse one.

This isn't actually a bad read but feels completely superfluous.

The Flash #4

w: Joshua Williamson a: Neil Googe

At Flash Training Camp it gets explained to us that the speed force wants to be together again and that if can be stolen from the people with it by it setting up winner takes all races. From this everybody makes the direct leap that this means godspeed! you black sprinterer has stolen speed from everyone else and that's why he's fast.

Jump to Black Hole and how his plan is to build a machine to harvest the speed force. Unfortunately this machine kind of eats him alive so an entire team of speedsters (who BECAUSE PLOT the speed force doesn't seem to be racing off) who beat Black Hole by having a race off with him. Consistency, much?

Just... no. I love Flash but this is rotten.

Wonder Woman #4

w: Greg Rucka a: Nicola Scott

EVEN ISSUE PLOT ALERT

Steve Trevor has turned up on Themiscrya and the Amazons go through his pockets and work out what guns are. Steve wakes up and Diana has a crush on him. Because he is a man and they are all women they will have Amazon Olympics to see who gets to take him home with the winner banished forever. And who wouldn't want that over a gold medal?

Diana wins and flies off with Steve in the invisible plane.

Utter shite.

Years after the fact, I found that the post-Crisis titles were a great introduction to DC (particularly the Superman stuff, which I read about a decade of from the Byrne reboot on). For the most part, they were streamlined, coherent, and fun. Reading about this Rebirth shit just gives me a damn headache.

How's it going with the lightness and feels that Johns promised was coming back to the DCU? So far they've killed a Louis Lane and a Krypto, right?

New Super-man has it, maybe? There's maybe more humour in the Bat titles (NB I HAVE NOT TALKED ABOUT THIS WEEK'S BATMAN YET).

There's definitely an attempt to make them more like Marvel books, with zingy chat and real life politics.

lol I read Batman this week and I have to give Tom King all kinds of credit for having Batman say "USE THE BATPHONE" to Alfred

Aquaman #5

w: Dan Abnett a: Philippe Briones

Dealing with the fallout of Mera busting Arthur out of SuperGuantanamo there's a lot of debating goes on. Should Arthur and/or Mera kill soldiers? Should soldiers kill them? Should POTUS have them executed? Should they get AquaDivorced because they can't agree on murdering?

There are single pages of Atlantis, Black Manta and Crikeywoman to remind us those plots exist, then it's back to the punching (to the point where the Aquacouple take the piss out of punching always being the answer.

Finally Superman turns up on POTUS' orders to persuade Arthur to stop fighting because they're mates.

1) Since when was Superman POTUS' lapdog?
2) This is 80s Superman and he knows he's not the Johnsiverse Superman. He's probably never even MET Johnsiverse Aquaman before (or Rebirth Aquaman, because they might not be the same one given Rebirth Mera seems not to be Johnsiverse Mera). So where does this personal relationship appear from?

I have no desire to read any more of these.

Batgirl & The Birds of Prey #1

w: Julie and Shawna Benson a: Claire Roe

Oh look, Gotham has a functioning underground rail service again. Presumably that's a different one from the never commissioned one that enables the BatTrain in Detective? But what do I know, I just read the books...

Babs Not Batgirl Series Babs and the Huntress follow a guy in a car that's driving while dead of bat bites and then Huntress disappears while telling anybody who's listening (luckily no-one) Babs and Dinah's secret identities. Dinah has been stopping a train with the help of Oracle, who you'll remember from the last issue (and from Babs mentioning it in this one) might be a baddie. After that it's just page after page of incoherent crap. Adding layer upon layer of detail doesn't make you a better writer, it means you can't tell a story properly. And having a DO YOU SEE on every page doesn't make you clever, it's just BORING. It's all a bit Agatha Christie, where the murderer or the weapon or the Maguffin is introduced a couple of pages before the detective works it out.

I now have no idea what the plot is supposed to be or who the protagonists are. In 2 issues. One of which was purely Rebirth setup. A car crash.

Batman #5

w: Tom King a: David Finch w/ inks by Finch and three others

Gotham (the person, not the city) has gone mad so Bat-Alfred takes him down. Well he almost does. I guess that takes care of the comedy part of the issue.

Of course Batman is the one that punches him. And kicks him. And blows him up with a car. And crashes a plane into him.

But none of this works so Bats calls in the Justice League to do it instead. And they can't either. So Gotham Girl explains the whole of their plot then kills him.

Exit, pursued by a Bat.

Tom King really is doing this for the bucks. Totally perfunctory. Despite this it's still probably in the top 10 Rebirth books, maybe even top 5. Christ, that's depressing.

Green Arrow #5

w: Benjamin Percy a: Juan Ferreyra

The evil bankers are torturing Dinah while Ollie and Diggle try and rescue her on a boat. A boat you say? Yes, didn't I mention that the bankers' hideout is a giant wheel thing in the sea? (Which must be quite close to shore, because they get there in an inflatable, yet is SECRET).

They break in and pretend to be bankers so they can attend the SATANIC BOARD MEETING. Ollie's ALL PROPERTY IS THEFT shtick is shown for the farce it is when Diggle suggest blowing their base up will defeat the bankers forever but Ollie refuses because they stole it from him therefore it's his and I AIN'T GONNA BLOW UP MY OWN SHIT NIGGA.

So they try and win by negotiation which goes well until Ollie finds the strongroom at which point he goes all Scrooge McDuck MINE ALL MINE and their plans go to shit.

Emiko solves it all because she's been in charge since the beginning playing both sides, and Dinah smoothes with Ollie to make his dreams of avarice go away. They kill lots of bankers then Ollie blows their base up after all.

But he gets cut off on a bridge and falls in the sea! And wakes up back on 'the' island 'again'! Holy I Have No Idea What The Continuity Of Rebirth Arrow Is ArrowMan!

And just like that, all the momentum is sucked out of the book. 5 issues just thrown away. Pointless.

Green Lanterns #5

w: Sam Humphries a: Robson Rocha & Eduardo Pansica & Jay Leisten & Julio Ferreira

The Hell Tower (which, remember from the last issue, was 75% of the diameter of the Earth) has now reached the centre of the Earth (which, remember from BASIC FUCKING COMMON SENSE is 50% of the diameter of the Earth). The Rage Seed, Atrocitous' whole plan, turns out to be a furball coughed up by Dex-Starr. Yes, really.

The Green and Red Lanterns are fighting before Guantanamo Lantern reveals he has a new Lantern power - Emerald Sight - which might coincidentally be like what's going on at Marvel just now about seeing the future and sees the Justice League taken over by Atrocitous (which presumably means he and Agoraphobic Lantern are going to fail in the next couple of issues). They appear to at the end of the issue. I'm not sure I can be bothered finding out if they do.

Harley Quinn #2

w: Jimmy Palmiotti & Amanda Conner a: Bret Blevins, Chad Hardin & John Timms

It turns out the centre of the zombie chaos is Nathan's hot dog place and there is some kind of force field half a mile from there which stops the zombies from getting to Brighton Beach or wherever the cops are and neatly constrains the plot so Harley has to deal with it. It's the usual goofball nonsense with several mise-en-scenes showing Harley dealing with the zombies before Glenn Danzig turns up with his shotgun to help. Eventually they all get trapped in a bumper car cage and look to be done for before Poison Ivy (the cool fun one from HQ, not the miserable one from her own Johnsiverse title) turns up with a brushcutter to mow down a path through. Roll on next month.

Justice League #3

w: Bryan Hitch a: Tony S Daniel & Sandu Florea

The people who have siphoned power in #1 which got reversed in #2 have now fused together to make giant people called The Kindred. What's an appropriate JL response? Talk to them and find out what they want? Nah, just punch them in their giant face. The Kindred get bored of it pretty quickly so suck Wonder Woman in through their mouth then get up for a walk.

Lanterns go to space and smash some potentially unrelated spaceships they find through a wormhole because they're they. Superman has a whole teary OOOH I MIGHT DIE goodbye to Lois before Cyborg boomtubes him to where the giant in-planet bombs are from last issue, which appears to be like space only with more pressure and hotter. Didn't Superman fly into the sun? Shouldn't that make this a doddle?

Aquaman at least talks to the Kindred but what they tell him is worse than useless. It then turns its back on him to join his mates playing ring-a-roses. Superman finds the bomb but realises he can't do anything about it. Well DUH. "I don't know what to do." I do, stop reading.

Nightwing

w: Tim Seeley a: Javier Fernández

Cold open sees Batgirl Babs lambast Nightwang for letting Raptor kill an innocent man. Does this mean she'd be ok with him being killed if he was guilty? Doesn't that go against the Bat-Code or something? Still, let's join the dots...

In the past, Batgirl Babs turns up while Raptor and Nightwang are about to break into the home of a famous maze builder. Of course, because she's Batgirl Babs she's already a better fighter than Raptor (who we established last time is better than Nightwang) so she beats him easily. Nightwang then fills her in about exactly what's going on but she's only bothered about having been stood up last time. Eventually they break in and make their way through a variety of traps before Raptor solves a tarot one first and sucker-punches Batgirl Babs to get to the beginning of the issue first. The Owls are really happy because they were never interested in the house really, just in making Nightwang look a twat in front of Babs. Once they've hung up the video phone to celebrate in private, it's revealed that this was a giant double bluff by Nightwang and Raptor and the guy isn't really dead and Raptor is now a good guy who wants to bring down the Owls.

Babs is pissed off not to have been let in on the plan, and tells Dick not to arrange another date with her because he swings both ways too much. She knows her head that one.

Suicide Squad #1

w: Rob Williams a: Jim Lee & Scott Williams

Someone hasn't told Rob Williams the premise of this book. We see Waller pick the team for her mission - Harley, Deadshot, Boomerang, Croc and June Moone. Spot the flaw? NONE OF THEM ARE GOING TO GET KILLED OFF NOW ARE THEY, ERGO NO SUSPENSE.

They have to steal something from Russia. The only way into Russia these days is to freefall from space and in doing so Croc nearly drowns in his own vomit. That's about as exciting as it gets tbh.

Backup drawn by Jason Fabok

Deadshot is only a bad guy because someone once threatened to kill his daughter if he didn't shoot Bruce Wayne. The ONLY reason. Is this what we've become in the Rebirthiverse?

Supergirl Rebirth

w: Steve Orlando a: Emanuela Lupacchino & Ray McCarthy

Rebirth Supergirl is back with the Scientist Danvers like the TV show and is off on an experimental flight into the Sun when a Kryptonian Werewolf falls out of the Phantom Zone and she comes back to beat it before it causes too much damage. He stops being a werewolf and they repair the damage. The DEO decide to put her into a secret identity, which is as a student in a special science school.

That's all. Yet somehow it's still the second best book this week, nearly the top spot. It's amazing how enjoyable an actual well done comic is.

Superman #5

w: Peter J Tomasi & Patrick Gleason a: Doug Mahnke & Jaime Mendoza

On the moon Supes is busy hiding Lois and Superkiddy in the secret Batcave there. OH NOES Plastic Man Vacuum Superman has followed them there! OH NOES OH NOES HE VACUUMS IN SUPERMAN LIKE HE DID KRYPTO!

He's after Superkiddy next so Lois goes looking for something to fight him with and finds the Batman Iron Man Suit. The two of them punch him until he vomits out Superman who is going to punch him next issue. Perfectly serviceable Comics, although he could have brought Krypto with him.

And I have to say, I'm close to the point to giving up. Before all the books have launched (but not before some have been apparently cancelled). He'll, they're not even done with the Johnsiverse yet, Doctor Fate launched a new storyline just this week.

But there are SO many pedestrian books doing nothing it's enough to make you fall out of love with hero comics. And SUCH an incoherent mess.

I don't know any more.

Dude, if you need to stop, stop - I don't think anyone is thinking this is good for you.

why do you keep saying "Guantanamo Lantern", what does that mean

It's the Green Lantern whose defining characteristic is that he was in Guantanamo Bay and getting the ring bust him out. He was also responsible for the Geoff Johns Doom cryingeagle.jpg (see Johnsiverse thread for picture).

Is that the convergence clusterfuck thread?

Also thanks Andrew.

It's not reading them, it's paying enough attention to write and/or care. And these are SO dreadful - this is worse than the New 52 I think. At least that had a premise; this claimed to then turned out not to except in a couple of books (Titans, maybe Action, maybe odd numbered WW) and the rest have the same characters written as different ones (Batgirl being the most obvious example).

The real problem is that people apply continuity, which they only do because Crisis onward DC insist there is a 'correct' continuity.

xp No, the New 52 thread.

This one

https://flic.kr/p/d9PwZ5

But there are SO many pedestrian books doing nothing it's enough to make you fall out of love with hero comics. And SUCH an incoherent mess.

It's been bemusing for years how this hasn't happened to you already!

Aldo, if you need to quit, quit, but this is certainly more enjoyable than reading the books for me.

Btw, in the dodgy DC Heroes RPG fro the 1980s had a map that put Metropolis in Pennsylvania and Gotham in NJ.

i put in two, maybe three months before i couldn't take it. Opt out!

The real problem is that people apply continuity, which they only do because Crisis onward DC insist there is a 'correct' continuity.

dc even gave themselves an out with the concept of hypertime before rejecting it for... uh... reasons i guess

So far Batgirl is the only thing I've enjoyed.

King's Batman stuff is so disappointing against his Marvel work, I can only assume editorial interference (also the art is terrible).

(Which recalls Morrison's Action Comics run, in a "sure thing mysteriously drops the ball" way.)

I think Action Comic is okay considering that it was clear that all his great ideas went into All-Star.

*Comics

it's cool, guys, this just has all the ideas I had that weren't very good

so perfectly suited for the New 52

I guess I mean, even DC's good writers (as few as there are) aren't best served by editorial right now

That first Batman arc really did not make much sense at all.

ALL NEW GIVE LESS FUCKS FORMAT! DON'T GIVE UP TRUE BELIEVERS!

Action: much punching. It turns out that Mr Oz's plan is not after all to trap Doomsday but to test the limits of Superman's powers because people he has no connection with being killed is exactly enough to send him into a murderous rage. Yes, despite him just saying at the end of last issue his plan was the opposite.

Superman punches him to his new brand new secret new Fortress where he has a new secret new Phantom Zone Sucker In which Doomsday goes through. Yes, despite Plastic Man Dog Vacuum Superman being a two way gate to the Phantom Zone in the other book. Good luck writing your way out of that bollocks.

Mr Oz then reveals he interrupted Doomsday being sucked into the Phantom Zone and that his last plan which was undone was ACTUALLY the plan which is less a sucker-punch than shit writing.

Next month we might find out about Not Superman Superman. Whoopee doo.

i approve of this new regiment

Batgirl (the other non-Simone one): Babs gets into Mma and kisses a boy. Ultimately she gets confused by someone who has a tattoo that changes from her left arm to right arm. I'm betting that it turns out to be An art mistake rather than a plot point.

Blue Beetle Rebirth: oh just fuck off. Stop trying to make the Johnsiverse BB work, much less OOH TED KORD PEOPLE LIKE HIM. Plus the woman at the end died in Johnsiverse BB so it explicitly us for people who didn't read it. I REPEAT JUST FUCK OFF.

Deathstroke: to say this is an utter abortion does a disservice to the notion of choice. Instead let's guess which of these lines isn't from the comic:

"Don't blame me for your uterus"
"My bosom wants to come along with you two"
"At least thirty times you were wearing women's knickers"
"Where the bloody Hell were you?" "Golfing mainly."
"Yellow and black aren't a flattering colour combo."

DECIDE NOW!

the last, what do i win

The right not to read another issue of it!

Detective: 22 pages to work out Tim Drake thinks he's Robin. 22 wasted pages.

Hal Jordan: something something Sinestro something something Sinestro something something. I bet even Lantern anal historians dgaf about this any more.

Flash: called Barry's Day Off. Him and his new girlfriend have breakfast in Bali then go back to work, so don't have any time off at all. She teaches Wally (the black one, not the Rebirthed one) how to be the best Flash ever. godspeed you black sprinter! then shows up at STAR Labs and kills everyone while Barry drinks coffee with Iris. Oops.

The Hellblazer: ok, but reminds me of Deadline even more than the last issue. VERY Philip Bond. The most important revelation is that the 'classic' Swamp Thing series is now back in Rebirth continuity which should cause MASSIVE issues but I suspect it'll get dropped before it does. ACTUALLY WORTH READING.

Titans: Abra Kadabra makes a puppet version of the Titans who may just be a brainwashed set of the Titans when they were taken out of time by (it's now clear) him (and not Doctor Manhattan). They beat each other up, but don't, and Garth "dies". Until next month no doubt.

Wonder Woman (the odd numbers): Steve and Diana finally bring their plots together but it might be too late for Steve (but I bet not). Elsewhere, Etta has been conned by a baddie. Pretty but still inconsequential.

The stuff that used to be under the Vertigo banner is honestly the only post-Flashpoint stuff I have any interest in investigating someday.

Wait waht classic Swamp Thing up to the end of Millar's run?

Presumably. ST and Constantine share a joke about when ST took over Constantine's body to have sex with Abby (ST76, Roarin' Rick Veitch era and is definitely that event because they mention the tattoo) so SOME of it is in continuity at least.

Business side update: week over week sales are falling, new titles are launching at much lower sales than the first wave. I hope DC made a shit ton of money on the first month of releases because this isn't helping their bottom line in the long run.

Apparently there's a huge uncertainty over the bi-weekly titles, it's not clear whether they'll drop to monthly permanently, drop tempo, split into two titles or stay as they are.

There's probably nothing new left to say about it, but I finally watched Bats Vs Supes: Justice is Served, and boy, that was not fun. I mean, it seems relatively of a piece with nu-52 DC, so I guess, good for those people? But yeesh. I haven't seen Man of Steel, and the first 45 mins or so I thought, "This isn't as bad as I thought it would be," and "Mark Zuckerberg is fun in an ironic bad 1980s TV adaptation kind of way" but then, as soon as I started feeling good things, it turned into this awful turd fountain and I just fast-forwarded through the last 90 mins.

I mean, I would rather read 200 Chuck Dixon comics than watch that again.

Aquaman #6: It turns out Aquaman has issues about always being considered to be the crap one and all along he (and Mera, so all Atlanteans?) is strong enough to take out Superman. Of course he is. In the other plot (remember that?) it gets two pages again and Black Manta kills the guy in charge to take control. I can't help thinking it'll get cancelled before the two converge.

Batman #6: Gotham Girl has been driven mental and is stopping Gotham's shittiest criminals badly so obviously he stops her by taking his cowl off and telling her his secret identity. He resolves to get anti-mentalist drugs and the only way to get them is by joining the Suicide Squad. OBVIOUSLY.

Cyborg Rebirth: Someone's read The Anatomy Lesson.

Green Arrow #6: Imagine if you weren't the hero in your own book any more and your daughter was, eh? JUST IMAGINE.

Harley Quinn #3: To escape from the zombies the gang go through some spooky tunnels and there's also some aliens and a humorous arm operation involving sexual assault. Compared to most of the other books they get away with the 'throw everything at the plot and see what sticks' approach but it feels weirdly safe at times, or at least in a rut.

Justice League #4: The secret plan of the giant men is to make the planet theirs by destroying it. I for one long for that to happen rather than have this stretch out even longer.

Nightwing #4: Oh good. Another layer of intrigue. Quite fun to read, no fun to explain. Let's just say the Owls are not what they seem. And Hail Hydra.

Supergirl #1: This should be an Archie book. Can we get Kara to switch universes? It would be even better then.

Superman #6: Krypto is back and he and Superman cause a nuclear explosion on the Moon. You know what the best thing about this book is? The lettering. Make of that what you will.

Just read a thing about this weeks Detective Comics that makes Rebirth sound so misconceived, so fundamentally misguided, that it's almost impressive. Ffs...

tell us the thing so we don't have to read the comic

I haven't read the comic either, just read the news.

But the theme of Rebirth was that somebody had taken the connections, the love and the joy out of the DC. And in Detective Comics, they build on this, not by reintroducing love and joy, but by introducing the character who tries to make life as miserable for the heroes as possible, and succeeds. Which is so so wrongheaded, the whole point was to reintroduce the good parts, not make a gory story about someone trying to make it even more joyless. And it really makes me think the DC editors just are complete and utter morons. Though who is surprised.

apparently there's some mystery character ("Mr. Oz") who is abducting people and knows the truth about New 52 being some cosmic plan

I only read that in a web article but, if they introduced Watchmen into continuity and Dr Manhattan is responsible for other shit, it's pretty obviously Ozymandias, right?

yeah, definitely
at this point the only meta approach they have left to take is that we are in the comic reading the comic and we are the characters, now go fight crime

This new Doom Patrol sounds promising, but their pitch for the imprint it's under sounds too much like "we aren't competent enough to run Vertigo, so we got this famous band guy who is a comics dude to lend his cred to us and it's in continuity because we want all our properties intermingled"

Morrison's Doom Patrol was in continuity too! At least theoretically. It even had the Justice League make a guest apperance.

That said, the Umbrella Academy was exactly the sort of gloomy and angsty comic Morrison was against, so I don't have high hopes for Gerard Way's DP.

from the blurb for the first umbrella academy colelction:

Gerard Way, of My Chemical Romance, makes his comics writing debut in this outrageous superhero epic that Grant Morrison called ‘an ultraviolet psychedelic sherbet bomb of wit and ideas.’

sounds like he liked it!

Yeah, apparently they're pals, because Morrison appeared in his band's music video. Doesn't change the fact that UA has loads of the sort of angsty, emo garbage Morrison normally avoids in his comics.

Have you read Morrison's Doom Patrol?

Yes, and it ends on a more positive, anti-gloomy note than pretty much any other comic I've ever read.

UA is sneaky, because it's starts with an awesome, Morrisonesque scene involving the Eiffel Tower... But that just gets you lured in, and the rest of is like Claremont's mutant soap drama to a tenth degree.

xp yes but it gets there through unending mental turmoil!

I get MCR confused with Fall Out Boy.

Morrison puts his characters through endless mental turmoil, but you get the feeling he actually *likes* his characters, and the gauntlet will end with some kind of bittersweet triumph. He's very good (or used to be very good) at sustaining tension - those triumphs feel earned, and they usually come about in totally unpredictable ways. Every great Grant Morrison story feels like a tragedy, until it suddenly isn't.

Anyway - Umbrella Academy was (iirc) too masochistic about its characters - Hickman has the same problem.

I've already preordered all of the Young Animal stuff that's been solicited thus far. We'll see how long it takes me to regret that decision.

Had a quick go-through Doom Patrol yesterday, actually looks pretty good!

new Doom Patrol is maybe the best new DC book I've read this year!

the "where is niles caulder" page cracked me up

'maybe the best new DC book I've read this year' could easily be read as damnation with the faintest of praise tbf

'better than red hood and the outlaws!' raves ilx poster ulysses

Of all the barbwire-wrapped fists that have been jammed into my ass this year, that one was easily the least painful!

So is Caulder still just a head like he was at the end of the Vertigo run or are we pretending like any of the post-Vertigo DP stuff actually counts?

(I vote no on the latter, if only because they apparently killed off Coagula for no good reason.)

I think Dorothy and Jane got killed off by later writers too

Ugh. Later writers can fuck all the way off.

biz gaz: it was meant to be!

caulder is in the wheelchair but it's much more of an abstract storyline at the moment.

Trade paperbacks for the Rachel Pollack run are probably a lost cause at this point, right?

never read them. Worth the time, you think?

I'm rather fond of her run, particularly once she found her own distinctly un-Morrisonian voice. You could probably snag the entire thing for $20.

let's just say i snagged the entire thing in between posts. will report back.

I actually haven't read that run yet, but it sounds like one of the wilder periods in the series after Morrison, and what I've read about it at second hand makes me curious how Pollack (one of the only trans writers in the industry at that point, as far as I know) handled Coagula's characterization.

Ah, did not know that was part of where Pollack was coming from. Obvs that's some of Gerard Way's background too.

Action #963

Wow, this is dull. Superman Not Superman does a journalism and gets thrown off a roof for his troubles. 80s Superman saves him. Next month: THEY HAVE A CONVERSATION!

All-Star Batman #2

The reason this is the best Batman book at the moment is because it's well-placed, well-planned, has good art and an engaging story. Comics. They're not difficult.

Batgirl & BoP #2

This is all over the place, and TRIGGER WARNING is in a different continuity to the Batgirl book, the Green Arrow book and Grayson (even if it claims the opposite for the latter - but the Batman in Grayson knows who the Huntress is and he doesn't here). There's a picture of Babs at a computer which is Liefeld-esque in anatomy errors. And Computer Dad-Dancing. I hate Computer Dad-Dancing.

Deathstroke #2

Just crap. Flogging this dead horse is beyond me.

Detective #940

Tim Drake joins the Dead Robin Club. OR DOES HE? Mr Oz seems to have him for NEFARIOUS PURPOSES.

Green Lanterns #6

The plot from the first 5 issues is wrapped up in two pages, and mostly off-page. Really, why bother? Guantanamo Lantern gets an attack of guilt and decides to pay for the bear he shoplifted. Plus a Guardian that describes himself as insane. Deep joy.

Hal Jordan #4

In which we learn Guy Gardner is naked and the uniform is just painted on by his ring. Talk about space junk! FNARR FNARR!

New Super-Man #3

I have NO idea what this is supposed to be. A comedy book about the League of Substitute Heroes thinking they're the Justice League? It's the best issue yet, but still a confused mess.

Red Hood #2

There are easier ways to get Bizarro into your book.

Suicide Squad #2

So it looks like I was wrong last time about a squad full of famous villains. And KNEEL BEFORE ZOD. (But seriously, how many ways into/out of the Phantom Zone are there in Rebirth? Is that the fourth so far? Still, as Rick Flag says in this issue it's probably "outside our purview".

Superwoman #2

Hands down the worst book in Rebirth. I can't even begin to explain it. About 10 different plots and a cast of about 30 characters. In 22 pages.

Flash #6

Godspeed turns out to be Barry's mate. He's a shitty judge of character.

Wonder Woman #6

Do we need WW Year Zero in 2016? It's entertaining but I'm not sure we do.

Applause for space junk joke, btw

Aquaman #7

Waitaminnit, so Arthur & Mera AREN'T married after all? Pretty sure that's not what the Rebirth issue said... and to make matters worse the second last page references a plot from the Johnsiverse (and explicitly says in a boxout that's where it happened) which, as established in Rebirth itself, Aquaman Rebirth and Aquaman #1 NEVER HAPPENED. FFS DC.

Batman #7

Hugo Strange does naked weightlifting. Didn't think I'd ever see that. Still, not as weird as Batman burning a giant toddler to death. (Actually this is pretty great, like BPRD Batman.)

Cyborg #1

Nobody ever says a single word when they can say 300 and do a lengthy monologue which explains plot/backstory/whatever. This is a DRAG (maaan) (plus is downtown Detroit really full of jazz clubs?).

Green Arrow #7

All the previous issues took place 12 months ago? WT ACTUAL FUCKING F?

Green Lanterns #7

Agoraphobic Lantern hangs out with Guantanamo Lantern's family for the first time. So how come the kid knows her well enough to call her "Aunt Jessica"? Still, after saving the world last time, this issue they just make some cookies. That's a bold change of pace.

Harley Quinn #4

After she fails to sell Nathan's hot dogs by vomiting them up, Russians make Harley spank an Indian child. It sounds silly when you put it like that.

Justice League #5

Aquaman plants some magic beans, Superman melts his balls in the centre if the Earth and Flash learns to jog. This is enough to make the bad guys disappear. To celebrate, Flash gropes Agoraphobic Lantern, as you would.

Nightwing #5

Part 2 of the Monster Men not as good as part 1. Still readable though but I would guess not outside of that storyline as it doesn't stand alone at all.

Superman #7

Supes does not know how secret identities work. "Clark & Lois Smith" is not a secret. Apart from that, this issue is an absolute joy. Could be the best single issue in Rebirth and the best issue of any Superman book in over a decade. No kidding.

Trinity Rebirth

Something and nothing. A catchup for the Big Three for people that haven't been reading their Rebirth books. Yes, that pointless.

Action #964

80s Superman finds out that Not Superman Superman is Not Superman by subjecting him to a Kryptonian truth machine in his 3rd or 4th reserve Fortress of Solitude. In return Not Superman tells the world 80s Superman is not Johnsiverse Superman and therefore is Not Superman. There's something about Doomsday and a burning meteor in an apartment, like anybody cares.

Batgirl #3

The Burnside Batgirl gets her ass handed to her multiple times and flirts with a guy wearing just a towel. Then she decides to go to South Korea so that she can be somewhere else when the bad guy wants to attack towel guy. This is still enjoyable but really isn't as good as it thinks it is.

Batman Beyond Rebirth

Has this rebooted? Is any of the backstory different? Does anybody care? 100% the most pointless Rebirth book. Given that Gotham Academy has just started a new series outside of the Rebirth Universe, couldn't have this stayed outside it too? Actually not a bad book but WHY?

Blue Beetle #1

So this is a prequel to the Rebirth issue? How does that work? Anyway the Ted Kord Beetle gets to be Nite Owl while the Reyes Beetle gets all confused about what the Blue Beetle actually is and has a dream where Doctor Fate's face melts (and not the Johnsiverse Fate - who, incidentally is still doing fine in the Johnsiverse and shows no signs of Rebirth - but looks like Kent Nelson instead). There's obviously some plot about an other-worldly entity taking over kids but the most interesting thing is that this is the JLI Ted Kord which presumably means he wasn't killed by Max Lord in the Rebirthiverse. Which makes it sound like they're just cherry-picking bits of continuity that they think people want rather than being coherent. No surprise there then.

Deathstroke #3

Can't make head nor tail of this and don't care enough to try.

Detective #941

The smell of cut grass is actually a super secret message from one bit of grass to another saying WATCH OUT THE MOWER IS COMING!!!? I DID NOT KNOW THAT (and I'm not sure I believe it). Anyway, this doesn't advance the BPRD plot much apart from turning Nightwang into an Owlbear. But I guess it does do that in quite a well written way.

Hal Jordan #5

This month's Lantern Lore You Didn't Know: Sinestro has such a hard-on for Hal he has a massive Green Lantern tattoo on his back. In terms of plot, it's possible Hal doesn't exist any more except in his own imagination but that happened in a very very talky part of the book and I might have nodded off at that point.

Suicide Squad #3

I can't remember, did the Darkseid War happen in the Rebirthiverse or not? Because my feeling was that it didn't, given that it ended with Lex Luthor ruling Apokalips, yet here we are explicitly referencing it. Although in a completely throwaway sense because this is all about fighting General Zod in a Russian prison and obviously the Squad are able to defeat him because reasons. And then the Russian Suicide Squad turn up including a guy whose head is literally a hammer, a Jawa, Arseface Deathstroke and Johann from BPRD. Of course.

Teen Titans Rebirth

Just so we're clear, this is the iteration of the Titans with Damian Wayne and Black Wally rather than the Titans Titans with Dick Not Grayson and Ginger Wally. This is how they came to be together (ans: Damian drugs and kidnaps them).

Flash #7

The secret origin of godspeedster you black emperor. As interesting as that sounds. But he might be a good guy now, even if he kills people.

Hellblazer #2

Ever so slightly undermined by DC publishing Six-pack & Dog Welder in the same week. A good book nonetheless, closer in tone to Vertigo than the Johnsiverse.

Titans #3

Just so we're clear, this is the Titans Titans with Dick Not Grayson and Ginger Wally rather than the Titans with Damian Wayne and Black Wally.

Now that's done ACTUAL REBIRTH PLOT TUOMAS ALERT KLAXON

It's confirmed again that Kadabra took the Titans out of time and was responsible for the lost time that caused the Rebirthiverse HOWEVER somebody else ALSO did a time thing in exactly the same instance that changed time as well in a different way ON TOP OF all the changes caused by Kadabra. This is trailed with Watchmen references so it's probably Doctor Manhattan AS WELL after all. What a mess.

Wonder Woman #7

WW beats Boko Haram by holding hands with the kidnapped girls round a Bad Swamp Thing which makes him disintegrate and turn into a flower. No matter how well written and drawn it is, being able to summarise it like that can't be a good thing.

Aquaman #8

BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT! THE RETURN OF A ONE-OFF SILVER AGE VILLAIN! That's right, Black Manta's plan revolves around The Shaggy Man, a Gardner Fox JLA baddie revived once in the early 80s and an un-named guy standing in the background of Secret Society of Super-Villains pictures in the Johnsiverse. As he walks through Atlantis, Mera refuses to read some books. I long for the days of the woman that said "Crikey!" all the time.

Batman #8

Batman uses Clayface as a whole body condom so he can punch the Hellboy monsters. It turns out they can be beaten by SCIENCE instead. Still, best book this week.

Cyborg #2

The bad guy is Flash baddie the Kilg%re, who explains his origin for people that don't remember the Baron/Guice Flash era. Although obviously that era is now not in continuity because Cyborg says he's never fought him before and in the first appearance the Kilg%re is beaten by the Flash specifically with the help of Cyborg. Another one bites the dust. Anyway, his aim in this issue is to debate at length with Cyborg what it is to be human and whether there's anything left of Vic. He saves his dad, who isn't his dad. He can't save this book.

Green Arrow #8

The abrupt jump cut from running away from a bear to 5* sexy holiday funtimes with Dinah is so ridiculous I keep thinking it's going to be undone by the end of the issue but no, just more kissing and flirting and shagging. So basically the plot of this entire arc (of which this was only part 1) lasted 2 pages.

Green Lanterns #8

This is like the Star Wars Holiday Special, only set at Halloween and not as good.

Harley Quinn #5

Harley does a big, difficult shit (no, really) then forms a punk band (no, really). Then she shows Glen Danzig her vagina (no, really).

Justice League #6

Everyone fails to eat their dinner. (There's also a bad guy they beat on page 4 by holding hands but I cba.)

Nightwing #6

The Hellboy Monsters merge to form a giant Hellboy Monster but apparently this has nothing to do with the plot because the whole point of this crossover has been for Batman and Hugo Strange to punch each other in the next issue of Detective. Which, frankly, could have happened in the first couple of pages.

Superman #8

A Darwyn Cooke tribute issue. Lovely, heartwarming stuff but... now the New Frontier is in continuity. Pretty sure that was never part of the plan.

The summaries of green lanterns and harley quinn alone are mindboggling

Batman sounds hilarious

Didn't the shaggy man turn up a few times in Morrison's JLA?

Yeah, with General Eiling's brain transplanted into his body, and shaved down so he wasn't shaggy.

I overstated Green Lanterns for comedy reasons, probably. Dominators and the Guardian that's in it can travel freely about because costumes, foiled by a bunch of plucky kids. Candy ensues.

I wasn't kidding about Harley Quinn though.

Action Comics #965

It turns out dead Johnsiverse Lois wrote to 80s Lois before she died, despite not knowing she was going to die, asking her to take over her job when she died which she clearly knew was going to be soon despite not knowing she was going to die because she wrote down her Planet login. She turns up but nobody knows she is fake because she's wearing a wig identical to her hair, but then can't write because Superman Not Superman manages to erase her hard drive by spilling coffee on her screen. Japes!

All-Star Batman #3

In this issue of Kick-ass we find out that the way to get to the Bat Cave is to LITERALLY follow the signs marked Bat Cave. Still good, but the JRJr makes it very Millar-y.

Batgirl & BoP #3

The glacial pace of Snake-Man Mob Drama or whatever the fuck this is continues. Now on the third change of plot/pace, the headline is that this is the origin of Oracle Not Oracle Maybe Bad Oracle. Actual ONOMBA content = NIL.

Deathstroke #4

Slade cosplays as Normal Walter White to go undercover then shows his daughter his naked backside. His daughter discusses golf terms with Slade's mate Vapo-rub before Slade and Batman juggle with cars. And yet boring as hell.

Detective Comics #942

The finale of Night of the Mignola Men concludes in quite ridiculous circumstances as the Mignola Man vomits up all the bad stuff because of the Nightwang shoved down his throat. Clayface chokes Hugo Strange for thrills then the Justice League clean up the mess.

Hal & the GLC #6

Oh just don't.

New Super-Man #4

Where the bad guys might be the good guys and the good guys are the confused guys. This is supposed to be wacky and fun but has turned into a horrible confused mess. There is a Chinese Starro on the horizon, maybe that'll be something.

Red Hood #3

Both the cover and the alternate cover promise a screwball comedy. Instead; GRITTY. Next!

Suicide Squad #4

Things you did not know: you can now travel by fibre optic via THE INTERNET. Anyway, Zod is beaten easily and the Russians are only there for a racist joke. A waste of paper.

Supergirl #2

Cyborg Superman falls apart and then puts himself back together, but in the meantime there's a scene in a lecture theatre WITH A LECTURE. High stakes stuff.

Superwoman #3

Something something Mother Box something something armour something something newspaper or something something

Flash #8

The speed force gives Black Wally Ginger Wally's Kid Flash costume. The one he wears in whichever Titans it is that has Ginger Wally in it and not the Titans that has Black Wally in it. That can't possibly cause any confusion.

Wonder Woman #8

Because what we need right now is an incomplete origin of the Cheetah. Of course.

aldo, would you recommend ANY of these as having gotten better since launch? Batman has been okay but that's about it for me.

Superman is arguably the only one worth reading. Harley Quinn, if you liked it before. After that, even the better stuff has been inconsistent and not all that great really.

superman, really? the first few issues were utterly opaque to me; it opens up?

Yes and no - it develops a whole load of charm around the relationship of farm life, and between Supes and Jonathon, and the last two issues have been genuinely good but... it's still only the best of a bad bunch.

King's new Batman seemed to improve exponentially just by not having David Finch draw it

I mentioned elsewhere but, since they're technically set in whatever the DCU is these days, the Young Animal books are pretty good thus far. Very reminiscent of the golden age of Vertigo.

Idiotic question but I've always wondered: was BWAHAHA a way people wrote down laughter before JLI?

that's a giffen thing i always thought

I see a lot of it on my Facebook feed, from not-comics-type-people.

I'm not quite sold on Doom Patrol yet, but LOVED the first issue of Shade. Hope these books get to stay around

Aquaman #9

Shaggy keeps going till he makes land, so Arthur teleports him into space. He helpfully leaves his business card with Shaggy so he can tell who did it (assuming he can breathe in space). This book is best summed up by a line of dialogue from it - "It's Aquaman! ... Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" I think we all know which of those options is right.

Batman #9

Batman is putting together an All-Star Suicide Squad for Amanda Waller. Tom King is on top form here and the final couple of pages are just great. A REBIRTH COMIC WORTH READING.

Cyborg #3

Cyborg's power levels get upped again in this issue. I already though he was way too powerful, but now he has full transformation powers on top, and can adjust his weight and density. Or can he? Having introduced that he is dreaming at the beginning it's then unclear what are other dreams and what aren't. But nobody could or should care, because this is really dreadful.

Green Arrow #9

Ollie spends most of the issue trying to find a quick 5 minutes to shag Dinah while the plot goes on around him. Which is pretty wafer thin. Still, a robot bear shows up at one point.

Green Lanterns #9

Blah blah blah. A guy who wants to be a GL and is undoubtedly going to be the Phantom Lantern (yes, that really is a thing) soon. And Volthoom, because what's a splash page without a guy whose name has its own font?

Harley Quinn #6

Harley's punk phase goes all GG Allin (and it's clearly deliberate because she even gets called GG Harlin) to the extent of the stage show featuring actual shit being thrown about. Top marks for authenticity.

Justice League #7

An issue of exploring FEELINGS. I've read it twice and still don't know what happens to the bad guy.

Nightwing #7

A Snakeman kills the Australian Court of Owls. Raptor makes up a theme tune for him and Nightwang to celebrate then kicks back with a beer. It turns out he might be Poppa Wang in the end, upset at Batman for giving Dick a chance in life rather than leaving him penniless and destitute. But I guess we won't find out for sure for a while yet.

Superman #9

Superman and Boy escape from Loser Island after some scrapes with dinosaurs and a giant ape. Plot seeds are funny robotic eyes, but a wooden false leg is the star of the show.

Trinity #2

No idea. Supes/Bats/WW go back in time (maybe) to resuscitate Pa Kent when he has a heart attack. Or is it just a hallucination caused by Poison Ivy? Does anybody care?

Your descriptions have made the Harley Quinn comic sound completely insane, is this accurate y/n

you mean batman #10, yes? The bane/catwoman book? That was surprisingly good.

Harley Quinn is not as insane as It thinks it is, but I'm reporting accurately, It's a fun book, but pretty forgettable. My favourite bit is still that Red Tool has speech bubbles in the shape of tools. Did I mention there's a giant walking talking egg that plays drums?

Haven't read Bats #10 yet, a couple of weeks behind. The Cats reveal was great though, the Joker takeout was really well played.

'Night of the Monster Men' is probably the worst Batman story arc since 'Hush Returns'. They should have just had Batman pull out a can of Batman Monster Repellent and be done with it.

Action Comics #966

Superman makes spaghetti and meatballs while Lois is at work. Lana gets outed and Dead Lois explains that she's dead. Alive Lois hugs lots of people.

Action Comics #967

Supes and Jon discuss superhero fashions to distract themselves from mosquitoes and find the building that went missing a few issues ago in the jungle. Lex reveals his new Super-Suit which is Powered By Apokalips because what happened in the Johnsiverse Justice League might have also happened after all in the Rebirthiverse and some God Killers have arrived to take Lex back there. By killing him, obviously.

All Star Batman #4

Kick Ass Batman escapes in a biplane but gets captured again. This has gone on for a bit.

Aquaman #10

Mera reads a book at discusses what it means with her book group. The Woman That Says Crikey! turns up for the first time in an age, because she's been told what the next plot is. She says Crikey. The plot from the previous issue is not mentioned until the last page.

Batgirl #4

After a lecture about how Korea is inferior to America, Burnside Babs flies to China chasing a boy. It turns out he has been cured of a chemical he was carrying in his stomach because Chinese medicine cures everything. Still less impressive than Burnside Babs being able to look at whatever she likes on the Chinese Interwebs.

Batgirl BoP #4

The Secret History of the Johnsiverse Huntress. Batgirl Babs is good at computers, but might be schizophrenic. They all ride motorbikes.

Batman #10

Who knew that broken backs heal in an hour? (Joking aside, the Batsquad continues apace, looks like Bane is the target. Another good issue.)

Batman Beyond #1

I have rarely been less interested in a comic.

Blue Beetle #2

Blue Beetle has a bug 'posse' now. Doesn't make it readable though.

Cyborg #4

Cyborg battles his own memories and a giant worm. Because worm is a type of computer virus. Obviously. That pun is the best thing about it.

Deathstroke #5&6

Still shit. If you want to understand how shit, this is the plot: in order to spend time with his daughter, Slade hires an assassin to kill her which means he has to hang out with her as her bodyguard and protect her. Once she found out about that Slade kidnapped Robin so she would team up with Batman and come and find him. Then he fights some lions for unclear reasons. Still the worst Johnsiverse book by some margin.

Detective Comics #943 ΰ

The Batgang think again about the Attack of the Mignola Men while Bats beats up Batwoman's dad. Everybody else mopes about banging on about how shit their lives are then go to a big party to celebrate. The new bad guys crash the party and Batjinks ensue.

Green Arrow #10

On the train under the sea Dinah puts on a dress and Ollie stops people from drinking champagne while giving a THE FINGER speech. A waste of paper.

Green Lanterns #10

The Phantom Ring is the same as the Orange Ring. Nobody mentions this but I can't be the only one that notices. Claustrophobic Lantern is Trapped In The Closet.

Hal & The GLC #7&8

Hal and Sinestro wave their cocks at each other until Hal blows up Sinestro's planet. This convinces the Green and Yellow Lanterns that THEY'RE THE SAME MAAAN. Hal is dead. (Again. But won't be. Again.)

Harley Quinn #7

Harley goes to a cosplay sex club as herself. A horse pisses on Glenn Danzig. The talking egg gets drunk. I wish I was making this up.

Justice League #8

Cyborg can't tell the back from the front which lets him get hacked. Obviously this makes all the guns in the Batcave attack Batman. To compensate, Cyborg jumps into space (which fixes hacking) then crashes the Watchtower into San Francisco. Then, I don't know, everyone's brain gets hacked and they fight each other.

Midnighter & Apollo #2

Oh fuck, it's Daemonite shit again. NOBODY CARES DC.

New Super-Man #5

This wants to be the Giffen/de Matteis JL SOOOOOOO MUCH. It isn't. Still, maybe "jackwads" can gain traction as an insult?

Nightwing #8

Dick turns Dadwing over to Spyral even though they don't exist. And then hugs Bruce because HE'S REALLY MY DAD YOU'RE NOT I HATE YOU I'M GOING TO MY ROOM.

Red Hood #4

Still gritty. Still not fun.

Suicide Squad #5

Waller thinks she can control Zod. Rick Flag thinks she can't so kills her. Bet that's undone before the next issue.

Supergirl #3

Cyborg Superman builds a fake Argo City to win Kara over. She's not won over and punches him through the moon. She can punch me through the moon any time. <swoon>

Superman #10

Damian Wayne wants to punish Jon for setting fire to the cat, but their dads argue instead. While that's going on they bond over Bat-Cow. Then start punching each other into cow muck. This upsets their dads. A lot.

Superwoman #4

This is the same story as Action #966. Which is a way to make money I suppose.

Teen Titans #1

The one with Damian Not Dick and Black Wally Not Ginger Wally. It turns out Damian put the team together because he had a really disappointing birthday party. But nothing actually happens in the book.

Flash #9 & 10

In #9 Wally and Wally save Barry, who might also be Daniel (who he?). None of them think it strange, or try and explain. On the plus side we see the Rebirthiverse Chunk. On the minus side I had to read it. In #10 The Shade turns up and it's set months (years?) after what's happening in Teen Titans. Not sure how that works wrt continuity.

Hellblazer #3

OH LOOK A BREXIT PARODY

Titans #4

The one with Dick Not Damian and Ginger Wally Not Black Wally. Kadabra tries to kill Linda Park in a bizarre moustache twiddling silent film villain way. It's entertaining at least.

Wonder Woman #9

Steve Trevor gives his boss a flower while Diana goes clothes shopping. They go on a playdate and she tells him about shagging Superman. This doesn't put him off so they make out then she takes him to meet her mother.

Wonder Woman #10

The Year Zero stuff continues. This week, shopping and margaritas!

Not going to lie, working through these was really difficult. I might be done here.

Is Bat-Cow canon now

aldo, can you compare and contrast "dc rebirth" with earth-prime 2016 and let us know which is more awful?

Yes, Bat-Cow is canon now. Whatever that means these days.

rushomancy, I'd rather read 1000 more election result trauma pieces than another DC book just now. And I just downloaded this week's pack.

Having slept on it, doing this write-up has killed me. I realised that the thought of reading 20 or so books when I came back from holiday had filled me with dread and I was putting off reading them because I knew they were such UTTER shit for by far the most part. Out of that whole three weeks of comics the only ones I enjoyed were ASB, Batman, Harley Quinn, Supergirl, Superman, maybe Teen Titans, actually Titans and maybe Wonder Woman (odd numbers). That's a really poor hit rate.

So I'm bowing out. I'll still probably skim the titles and I'll post any ACTUAL REBIRTH PLOT here but there wasn't any since the last issue of Titans and none in this so I think it might just all be forgotten about. I'd like to say it's been fun, but we all know that's a lie. It's been... an experience.

We salute you for your service! Go enjoy the sun freezing winds on your face.

God bless you for your service, aldo. My question continues to be who (besides masochists) has been buying this shit for the past five years?

rushomancy, I'd rather read 1000 more election result trauma pieces than another DC book just now. And I just downloaded this week's pack.

― Horizontal Superman is invulnerable (aldo)

thanks. sometimes i need a reminder that this is not, actually, the worst of all possible worlds. :)

best holidays to you, aldo, in your recovery from your long nightmare

what they said. enjoy your freedom!

So glad that some sense has fallen on you, aldo.-

Makes me want to read Superman and Rebirth in general:
http://www.polygon.com/2017/1/10/14119712/dc-comics-rebirth-superman

i got into the sixth paragraph explaining why there are two supermen in the dc universe and gave up. i'm a giant fucking nerd and even i couldn't be bothered trying to parse what was going on. i did enjoy the writer's acknowledgement that new readers would be confused but that they should just sit back and enjoy it anyway, which seems insanely optimistic

and lol at the idea of the remade dc universe being a happier, sunnier place when the article prominently features an image of superman and superboy literally punching the jaw clean off a villain's skull

Superman is the brightest light in the small cluster of Rebirth books that are actually any good (but it should be noted that OF COURSE BECAUSE DC INCOMPETENCE) Trinity contradicts bits of Superman in that WW and Bats treat 80s Superman as if they've known him forever, or Aquaman where Superman is actively an executive branch of the US government (that's the Aquaman who is an enemy of the state, not the one in Justice League who is friends with everyone). Without going near GL getting to ignore any elements of reboot it likes because it's Geoff Johns' favourite player.

Anybody who thinks Rebirth is actually a good idea or solves anything is a lunatic, it's another sticking plaster on top of DC You's sticking plaster on top of Convergence's sticking plaster on top of New 52's sticking plaster on top of Final Crisis' sticking plaster on top of on top of on top of all the way down to CoIE's original wound.

i still can't believe dc didn't stick with the concept of hypertime

The worst part is that none of it needed fixing in the first place. Nobody cared that Golden Age Superman had different power levels to Silver Age. Nobody cared that nobody cared who shot Batman's parents. "Omits just a Multiverse" was a good enough handwave and meant that when things like Flash of Two Worlds happened it was thrilling and a specific exception because of a weird set of circumstances (see also Multi-Doctor Doctor Who stories).

I know it sounds like I go on about continuity in DC books, but that's only because post-CoIE they insist THERE IS ONE. If they set that as a rule then they need to comply with it (see also Modern Doctor Who).

And of course also there's BIGGER THAN THE LAST ONE Event Publishing which escalates everything to impossible levels and resets the bar for hyperbole at ridiculous intervals (see also Modern Doctor Who and Sherlock).

Continuity aside, I think there's been a mild-to-moderate uptick in quality across the DC line, although Eddie Berganza still works there, so my general feeling is still screw 'em. Some of the Young Animal titles pretty good too, even if it has "cancelled by September" stamped over it.

Like, the Suicide/JLA crossover that's happening right now is by no means good, but it's certainly about 6000% less bad than it would have been this time three years ago. Baby steps! It's still fanwank, mind.

DC COMICS: NOT GOOD BUT BETTER

Makes me want to read Superman and Rebirth in general:

I read the first 90 or so paragraphs before noping out, and she was still going on about characters getting respect as if they're people, and not talking about authors or art or ethics or politics and it didn't make me want to read either rebirth or anything else she or that website ever publish

Yeah, the little that I read was not convincing. And believe me, I'd love to be convinced that DC got its shit back together. I'm a hardcore Marvel stan but I was reading maybe like an average of a dozen DCU titles for a number of years until Flashpoint, when I abruptly stopped and have not returned.

Thumbs up to Young Animal, though. It's like the early years of Vertigo all over again.

I don't have any sense that things will continue to get better, just that they've reached a comfortable plateau of just-about-averageness for the first time since 2009-ish.

All that said we've arrived at the age where the best book DC are publishing is probably The Flintstones.

Speaking of which, there's a full-on DCU/Hanna-Barbera crossover in a couple of months seemingly in continuity.

Why the hell not, we already have a presumably in-continuity comic of John Constantine battling Dark Orko.

Flintstones _IS_ really good btw

psyched for george jetson vs batman tbh

The cognitive dissonance of mostly decent creators working on comics adapting Hanna Barbera properties (which I always considered the nadir of childhood entertainment) for DC (which has largely been a dud of a company for a while) which are somehow good against all odds is doing my head in.

pictures of minor riots and skirmishes and police with pepper spray in washington being shown on the bbc right now

Crisis on Earth-2

i leave it to your imagination as to whether i posted in the wrong thread

WHITHER HAWKMAN WHEN WASHINGTON NEEDS HIM

This is Earth Prime

I dunno what cable news channel YOU'RE watching but i beg to differ

Just because we elected Per Degaton doesn't mean it's changed.

http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2471785174/HATE.JPG

Both DC and Marvel have been in a big rut for the past few years. I'm trying with the Batman titles, but they swing from doing a scene that might be cool to some of the dumbest Batman comics I have ever read and I have read a few.

It's definitely a different era of comics when they have Batman both getting it on with Catwoman in a current story and put out a movie where he gives it to Batgirl. The nurds definitely have taken over the temple.

Charles Soule's current run on Daredevil has been pretty good.

A new level of customer contempt from DC saw no less than 4 regular books clock in at under 20 pages.

Seriously? That's fucked.

I only noticed when I got to the end of Superman and was confused because it felt like I'd just started reading it. And at 18 pages, I had.

How bizarre.

the food is terrible - and such small portions!

Dr. Manhattan farted, and rebooted the DCU for the 52nd time...

Huh, guess I missed that news about the DC pagecount. What turds. IIRC, Marvel pulled that nonsense under Jemas (the era that also brought us ads indiscriminately plopped between the pages of what was intended to be a two-page spread).

If last week's issue of New Super-Man is true and Ching Lung from Detective Comics #1 is actually the creator of the Rebirthiverse then I could almost see my way to forgiving everyone involved.

Does anyone know about current plans for the Legion of Super-Heroes? Weren't they teased in the "Rebirth" one-shot?

I think the plan is to have them come back, still be boring and have no readers, and then cancel them again.

why should anything ever change?

there's your slogan for the next reboot

The next line-wide reboot should just be a thing where everybody trades costumes for a while. Whoooa, Batman dresses like Booster Gold now, and hey look, is that Beast Boy dressed like Wonder Woman, how fun.

Saturn Girl is in Arkham Asylum as seen in Batman. There's an unknown link to Emerald Empress who was rebooted into the alternative Suicide Squad in JLvSS and Batgirl is going to bust her out of Arkham in her forthcoming annual leading to a Supergirl team-up which presumably will lead to a Legion reveal.

I've got a soft spot for the Legion but they'll get cancelled if they get their own book. Remember, they had not one but TWO Johnsiverse books. And also remember that Deathstroke has a Rebirthiverse book so baffling editorial decisions are clearly a speciality.

Thx for the info. I also have a soft spot for the LSH, but missed both the reboot and "threeboot." I checked out the New 52's "Legion Lost," and it was (without exaggeration) one of the worst comics I've ever read.

batman has been pretty good with Tom King, shame they've fucked it sideways with all this Dr. Manhattan nonsense.

Yeah, it's good. Even the Watchmen stuff isn't as awful as I would've expected - and it's only two issues.

I wish he could lose David Finch, though. They should prize Francesco Francavilla away from Snyder and put him on the main title. Best Batman artist since Norm Breyfogle, maybe?

breyfogle is def my batman artist in the way that neal adams might be for readers a generation before - he was so great

i haven't been keeping up on recent developments in the dcu because, amazingly, even i have better things to do with my time; is there a decent primer somewhere on what's going on with the watchmen shenanigans?

Don't light the Aldo-Signal!

my first post was a suggestion that we might need to stage an intervention itt for his own benefit, so that's a fair point

i'll do some googling of my own and no doubt i'll be back shortly to go 'lol wtf'

let's see if my theory of "you should be able to follow a plot without reading every back issue" holds up here, considering I've only read some news blurbs, Batman, and I think some sort of pre-event one-shot:
- There was something called Flashpoint, where Flash tried to save his mother from this other bad Flash guy (Thawne?) that created another timeline where Bruce's dad became Batman
- Something is screwed up and Batman found a letter from his dad that shouldn't have existed
- Apparently screwing with history in DC doesn't create alternate timelines, according to the Flash, it just rewrites the past and changes the present. So the Flashpoint universe should be gone and someone's held it there to screw with heroes
- Comedian button in Batcave? Watchmen? Something killed that Thawne guy with radiation and I've heard something about Dr. Manhattan being in the DC universe so idk?

i did some googling of my own

lol wtf

the idea of bringing the remnants of previous reboots into your current reboot is utter fucking madness

as far as I can tell, the whole New 52 thing where all the heroes have been doing their thing for a much abbreviated period yet have a bunch of history makes no sense to them in-universe either, and it wasn't a bad editorial decision in the real world but a godlike character from Watchmen that did this

I take back my previous statement, I did read some stuff on io9 about the two Supermen and how they've now merged and have both continuities wrapped into one guy

I thought at first they were going to switch to a Marvel model where changing the past creates an alternate dimension but uhhh apparently not

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kVNACPg_pAs/UOSbFVTZ05I/AAAAAAAAEKk/M-sd6fx9r0Y/s1600/prince.jpg

imo the only real option is to just say that everything that happened in any DC comic, ever, is now in canon

they already did that like 15 years ago! it was called hypertime and it was working fine!

ffs dc you are a total shower of clueless bastards

Man, if only DC had been aware of its genetic predisposition when it took those initial, furtive nips of Crisis back in the '80s, maybe it wouldn't be slouched in an alley, desperately guzzling that off-brand Rebirth mouthwash today.

I demand they rebuild the DC universe but Batman is the one from that comic based on the 60s tv show

also Tom King will still write him

xxpost Watchmen being, I guess, the TV they stole from their brother in this metaphor.

occasionally peeling open a grimy floor-length trenchcoat to reveal tattered copies of red hood and the outlaws stapled to the lining, croaking 'hey kids! comics!' at passersby xxxp