Aldo reads DC's New 52 (So you don't have to)

I enjoyed Dial H, but a career writing baroque fantasy has certainly given Mieville a tin ear for "real world" dialogue. Loved Captain Lachrymose, though.

I liked ACTION quite a bit, but I wonder if the newly-introduced thread was good for more than a one-off. Or if DC sill even bother to try, until they decide to do BEFORE SUPERMAN OF EARTH 23 or something.

Dial H #1 is the single best New 52 issue I've read to date

man, not that Grifter wasn't already becoming terrible but now it's ultra super terrible; I'm pretty sure Liefeld has a phrase wheel he spins to pick some clunky dialog construction on his poor scriptwriter because most of the issue reads like early X-Force

DC (non-Vertigo) books I am picking up currently: Dial H, Batman, Batman Inc., leafing through Animal Man

I am tempted to go into Resurrection Man and Animal Man after enjoying Dial H so much

http://bashinginminds.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/miracleman.jpg

Batgirl #9: Damn, if this isn't the best issue of this book to date. How much of it is down to Owls and how much is down to Gail Simone isn't clear, as the good bits (the female Owl - and specifically her training history, the attack on GCPD, the frankly ASTONISHINGLY GOOD Jim Gordon conclusion) feel like they were Bat-editorial decisions foisted on her. But the bottom line is this - if Owls is making Batgirl this good then you should be buying the trade when it turns up. Next up is Knightfall? wtf?

Batman #9: Despite having praised Gail Simone above, Scott Snyder is very probably the best Bat-writer of our generation. His work on this book just goes from strength to strength as this this issue sees the conclusion to the Owls in the Batcave and begins to reveal the extent with which the tertiary Gotham cast has been reduced as a result of this plotline. A triumph. There's a seemingly inessential Alfred backup story. Well, until the last page. BUY THE TRADES.

Batman & Robin #9: A tale of a single Owl told from start to finish, having waited nearly 250 years for this assignment. It's maybe a welcome change of pace in the overall plot, but by the same token is therefore less engaging. At one point I thought Damien was going to try and talk him out of it in the whole "DON'T YOU SEE? I'M JUST LIKE YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" emo nonsense we've been subjected to before, but this isn't where Batbooks are any more and that's got to be a good thing for everybody.

Deathstroke #9: A bad thing for everyone, not least for DC's accountants, is the continuing publication of Deathstroke. Of course, since this is now ALL LIEFELD ALL THE TIME it features SWORDS and POUCHES and NO FEET. I love the bit when one of his mates brings Deathstroke EXTRA POUCHES in the middle of a fight, but this is every bit as inept as his work on other Johnsiverse books would make you think. But this isn't the worst crime. After I noticed last month that Vega had been destroyed, I wondered what that meant for the Omega Men and now I got my answer. THEY'VE GIVEN THEM TO ROB FRICKIN' LIEFELD. Which means they all look alike. I seriously didn't realise it was them for 5 or 6 pages, and I'm a bit of a fanboy. THIS IS YOUR WORST BETRAYAL YET DIDIO. In the end, Zealot and Deathstroke go off to find Lobo. This can't work out well for anybody, not least the reader.

Demon Knights #9: A filler issue pretty much, churning bits of the Merlin plot and advancing it slowly, but the continuing reason why this is still one of the great unsung books of the Johnsiverse is simply that it's so different. Next month - SEA SERPENTS! You didn't see that coming now, did you?

Frankenstein #9: This rehashes parts of the current Animal Man plot and largely resolves the bit not being dealt with in that book through the use of a Magic Science Device Deus Ex Machina in two pages. We then get left with the notion that Frankie and Not Abe Sapien are going to make the beast with two backs. Really, not as worthwhile as BPRD.

Green Lantern #9: So, the Knights That Say Nok reveal that there's a new Older Than Time Began Threat to the GLC and that Abin Sur discovered it. And it's the Guardians themselves, which might have been nice for him to have told Hal right back at Day 1 if I'm honest. Anyway, he predicted everything Johnsy including that Blackest Night would happen. Again, it would have been nice to have said any of it. Dull rubbish.

Grifter #9: THE LIEFELDENING. Yet bizarrely they don't actually trust him to do the dialogue, so it's handled instead by "Frank Tieri". I'm going with scarequotes here, because this is SO Liefeld - and as inept as Deathstroke - that it has to be pseudonymous for tax reasons. On the plus side, it does show how much I hated Grifter before, and how badly written it was, because I can't help thinking it's slightly improved. Worse and better at the same time, huh? Fancy that.

Legion Lost #9: Culling blah blah. Oh wait, a Time Bubble? Are we flagging the end of the title here? But let's not find out, let's see a FITE. The Fairchild/Rose page is spectacularly bad, but the dialogue throughout is awful. I kind of hope this is the end, if I'm honest, as it's not being handled very well any more and I think I'd like to stop reading it now before my goodwill evaporates.

Resurrection Man #9: Best issue yet, by some significant margin as our hero is integrated into the mainstream Johnsiverse via the Suicide Squad. Actually, all the Belle Reve scenes are getting on for being - dare I say it - great. This could maybe turn out to be a hidden gem after all and I absolutely didn't see that coming.

Suicide Squad #9: The precursor to the issue above and, as expected, better. But that's mainly down to the Belle Reve material. Six words. Harleen Quintzel is back in charge. BOOM.

Superboy #9: The Culling is shit, isn't it? This is no exception.

Batwoman #9: Ugh. Dark pages, light pages, dark pages, light pages. This is really kind of painful to read, and the dialogue and plot don't help either. Tuomabait alert: lesbians are promiscuous and can't stay in a settled relationship without snogging the next lesbian they find. Somehow Batwoman is exempt from Owls, but then nobody has noticed the link between the utterly white skinned Kate Kane and the utterly white skinned Batwoman either so it's clearly set in Stupidtown and not Gotham. Bored with this now.

Birds of Prey #9: So, for those of you paying attention in the last review, you will no doubt be amazed that this is IN Owls. Which makes little sense. Anyway, quite early on it's clear that Duane S does not know who Edgar Allen Poe is, and possibly not Tim Burton either since he seems to confuse them. Whatever, we get some creative reuse of material from #1 and eventually the same plot as in Batgirl and/or B&R. It's still worth reading but wait for the Owls trades.

Blue Beetle #9: So, back in the days of GL:NG #1 we get this story, which I suppose3 means the first 8 issues of this happened prior to all the books that aren't Justice League. Or it's happening now and Red Lanterns isn't, plus all the previous issues of GL:NG have simultaneously happened and not happened. I wish people like Julie Schwartz were still running comics. In this, Blue Beetle gets an erection which Bleez doesn't notice but we're supposed to laugh at, and Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean turns up at a fancy dress party as Deathstroke. Laughably bad.

Captain Atom #9: Lurching from bad to worse, our old friend JT Krul makes us wonder for another month whose dick he's sucking at DC to stay employed. I'm not even going to try and summarise this, other than to say CA is the bad guy from all the previous issues due to wibbly wobbly timey wimey and is going to transform into a different bad guy who, presumably, he's going to fight in his own future. I don't know why I bother sometimes.

Catwoman #9: More Owl stuff as Cats saves Pengy from a fate worse than death because he owns a knife. The fact she has 5 doesn't seem to have attracted the Owl's attention, strangely. The Owl here doesn't seem to be affected by the same rules of Owliness as the other either. Kind of a nothing issue, if I'm honest.

DCU Presents #9: James Robinson brings us a Vandal Savage story which rips off Silence of the Lambs shockingly badly but is still a shining beacon in this, the cruellest week of the month. It's up to the standard we expect from him and thoroughly enjoyable - although it needs to go somewhere and not just meander like his current Shade book is in danger of doing.

Green Lantern Corps #9: John Stewart stands to be executed at the end of this tortuous piece of crap. I wish I was him. Than I'd know the next issue was my last one.

Justice League #9: Bleh. Goes nowhere in pursuit of a plot a mother couldn't love. The Shazam backup is the clear highlight as Sivana finds Black Adam. We think. And it rips off Preacher.

LoSH #9: A perfectly serviceable Legion book, and more coherent and/or plotted than in previous months, this exists in its own little bubble that has nothing to do with the Johnsiverse. The Dominators are still the biggest threat to everybody and nobody had said Daemonite at any point which by default makes it better than a great many of the reboot titles.

Nightwing #9: Another 20 pages, another Owl. This is really building to something - it looks like the whole Batfamily has been hand-picked over the years and are all tied into the history of the Owls. It also looks like the House of Leaves issue of Batman a few months ago wasn't an anti-Bats tactic but an attempt to recruit him to their cadre. PAY ATTENTION MARVEL. This is how to do a multi-book crossover event.

Red Hood #9: Maybe the best of all the crossover tie-ins, this has Jason saving Mr Freeze in Gotham's Chinatown and is an absolute blast from start to finish. Afte the controversy of the first issue this has grown and grown, and has got beyond guilty pleasure territory into a genuinely good read. I'm only sorry I judged it so quickly.

Supergirl #9: Conversely this went from a great start to a bag of shit in the blink of an eye. Michael Green has returned this book to the worst excesses of John Byrne's run on Superman, fake Oirish accents and all to be sure so it is begorrah. I'm only still reading for the issue where an alium pornographer makes Kara do a film with Scott Free. It must be coming soon.

Wonder Woman #9: A joy, as ever. The sequence when Aphrodite turns up in the park, or specifically the way the panels borders are drawn, is my favourite thing all month. Strife, as a character, goes from strength to strength. Hades in one of the most fun characters in any of the books. When did Brian Azzarello get this good? I flat out love this title and commend it to you all. Again.

All-Star Western #9: Old time Owls are, in many ways, more fun than modern ones. This is as solid as ever but if I'm completely honest it's an absolutely pointless crossover and we should have just stuck with the original storyline. The Nighthawk and Cinnamon backup is still pointless though, as the only message of note is that they fill in their time by making out.

Aquaman #9: The first half of this is light on plot and dialogue, making it nothing more than a succession of pictures of things you don't really care about. The second half has a lengthy conversation between Mera and the scientist bloke from before, which establishes pretty firmly that Arthur and Manta have previous, and that Arthur is a stinkypants liar to his wife. I had to read it to work this out. Go me.

David Finch's Batman The Dark Knight By David Finch #9: This book is perpetually better the less the David Finch content. This month it's just the pencils, on an Winicky Owls story which doesn't really stand up to the other Owls stories that well. Or is just too similar to the rest, which isn't what you want in the last week of the month. This takes place before Batman #9, which makes perfect editorial sense to put it on sale 2 weeks later. The final page is great though, maybe the best one Finch has done in the Johnsiverse.

Batman Incorporated #9: GMoz gives us a new title, which is effectively one he gave us before but Johnsiverse rebranded. If you liked it before, you'll like it now. But it thinks it's better than it is. It's not even the best Batbook being published any more. But it is GMoz. Actually, it feels like a retread of his previous work more than anything else but maybe that's just over-familiarity. I think I would rather have seen him do an Owls book.

GL:NG #9: GET ONE EDITOR. Remember how in Blue Beetle we saw Bleez and Glomulus on Earth when Kyle found out about the Blue Beetle suit guys invading the Blue Lantern Planet and flew off to save them? And remember how in Red Lantern the Red Battery is knackered and nobody is sure how they're going to recharge anything? Well imagine my surprise when in this book Kyle flies off to save the Blue Lantern Planet and pages other Lanterns on the way. Including Bleez on the Red Lantern Planet and Glomulous on the Orange Lantern Planet. Oh, and one of the Knights Who Say Nok who stopped being Lanterns in this month's Green Lantern. How hard is it to actually keep an eye on all these books and make sure they're coherent? I to read them all and I'm not the one being paid. Anyway, rubbish.

Now that some time has passed, I'm considering checking out the books that seem like a good use of my reading time. Please, aldo, if you would, tell me if this seems a sensible back-issue reading list (based on what would seem to be reasonably good reviews in your awesome recaps):

Batman
The Flash
Wonder Woman
Teen Titans
Suicide Squad
O.M.A.C.

Also, if I read Batman, will I also need to catch up on Nightwing (or read the other crossovers) to make heads or tails of this Owls stuff? Also also, is reading Superboy at all essential to following Teen Titans (which I only ask since they share a writer)?

If I go down this road, I will absolutely be reading Action Comics and all of the horror stuff whether it's advisable or not, so no advice needed there, thanks.

Teen Titans might be take it or leave it for some people. I enjoy the hell out of it every month but after about #4 it is COMPLETELY tied into Superboy and at the moment neither make much sense if you're not reading Legion Lost and (I suspect) The Ravagers. All the #9s can't be read in isolation.

OMAC should be compiled in a single trade. Wait for the price to drop then knock yourself out, it's definitely for fans of Savage Dragon, Godland and all the other Kirby rips - but this seems more authentic because it uses ACTUAL KIRBY PROPERTY.

You can easily make sense of Owls without reading anything other than Batman. I'm not sure I'd advise jumping into any commitment for the others - maybe Detective.

I, Vampire #9: The best issue in some considerable time. All the vampires are hiding in the desert in Utah, so some blokes go to Europe to get a secret army of vampire killers to bomb the shit out of them. In the mean time, after last month Andrew became the MOST POWERFUL VAMPIRE OF ALL TIME ALL TIEM EVER and Mary decided to go with him she is now bored and offers to fight him for the vampire army on the last page. Man, does she have a short memory. Still good stuff though.

Justice League Dark #9: New writer, new team members, same old crap. It's a dull old fetch quest, which leads into OH NOES WE KNOW WHERE THE BOOKS OF MAGIC MIGHT BE BUT WE HAVE PROMISED TO BRING THE MAP BACK. At one point Steve Trevor leaves Constantine's London flat (where his wife isn't, because he's only married in the Vertigo Universe) through the window. How is that 100 foot fall working out for you then Steve?

Superman #9: Pretty awful stuff all round. SEKRET SOVIETZ EXPERIMENTZ. Mistaken identity as someone else gets outed as the real secret identity of Superman! Lois books an expensive restaurant and expects Clark to pay! Hmm.

Teen Titans #9: Thankfully, this is the end of The Culling. Red Robin explains everything that's happened to date for people not reading all the books, and then a whole pile of stuff happens that means nothing to people not reading all the books. It's still the best of all these titles, and next month we get "the mystery of Mystery Island". Which seems to involve dinosaurs. Ace.

Flash #9: EFFORTLESSLY SUPERB. From the ultra-stylish splash page to throwaway pop culture references ("Maybe we're all dead and don't know it. Like in that old TV show where they all got lost..." "You mean Lost?" "I don't know, I don't watch much TV...") every page exudes joy. If Grodd is dealt with too quickly - and there's a reasonable argument he is, I could have easily read another couple of issues of him - next month we get Weather Wizard, and Pied Piper has been introduced (see my next post, once I've done the next three reviews). The Turtle can't be far away. NOT JUST FOR FANBOYS (ALTHOUGH IT HELPS).

Firestorm #9: The world of Firestorms is getting wearying, especially Captain Britain Firestorm. Oh look, they can merge together and form a TransformerStorm. The high point of this is when OMAC pulls the head off a Firestorm. Talk about damning with faint praise.

Hawkman #9: Swords on the cover can only mean one thing: The Liefeldening. While I think DiDio's Plan B is barking mad, you have to admire his faith in Rob. He gets to do plot and co-scripts here, two of his four worst skills (the other two being pencils and inks). To his credit, this is the best book he's produced this month, but it still isn't any good. I think we should start a book on how long he lasts.

Voodoo #9: One of the best issues in some time, although the writer hasn't been reading the core Superman books as Lord Helspont seems now to be in 19th century Mexico. It's obviously not Peru, because that's where Justice League Dark are at the moment. It's building to something, definitely. I'm betting it's cancellation.

OK, I said I was coming back, and it's to ask this question. Who do we think DC's gay character is going to be? They said last week it was somebody who hadn't appeared yet - then Flash 9 came out so Pied Piper is a candidate. But because he was gay before that wouldn't really be a thing. So...

is it Wally West? I remember a story from somebody saying they wanted to use him but weren't allowed to by the editors. That's some weird choices if so.

I think it's going to be an Earth 2 JSA character - I figure either Flash or Green Lantern. Because no one would care because no one buys or reads James Robinson books and it wouldn't be one of their core licenses.

Maybe I'm too cynical, but then again, maybe not.

Stray observation, looking through Suicide Squad: I'm glad someone finally had the good sense to make Amanda Waller skinny and hot. I'd like to think that was the real reason for the reboot.

Well I agree it's going to be a non-Silver Age character so you could be right. Is there going to be an Alan Scott though? xpost

Alan Scott is the one narrating that documentary that tells the backstory in the beginning of the first issue of Earth 2. They show him looking it over on the plane. He looks like a big blonde douche.

Oh, that seems like a lock then.

Looking through these and peeking at DC's solicitations for the coming months, I'm a little baffled to see (as I'm sure someone has mentioned in this thread) a slew of writers who I wrote off 15+ years ago as Marvel hacks (e.g. Mackie, DeFalco, effing Liefeld) holding a pretty sizable share of the reins. Like, I don't in any way feel that this is going to end well for DC unless they do some massive restructuring (probably wrt their current managerial practices, so top-drawer creators feel like they'd be at all valued for their creative input).

this entire "we're going to make an old character newly gay for pay" press-grubbing is just disgusting prima facie, and such an insult to every writer who's non-ostentatiously included gay characters in their DC superbooks over the last 25 years

Somehow Batwoman is exempt from Owls

It's probably exempt from Owls because it was written before the Owls were invented, and thank fuck because despite reading your reviews I have no idea what the Owls are or an Owl is or whoo Owls are all about, so it would make me drop the book. And the enormous improvement this issue with Bloke McManly's JHW-impersonation art has just convinced me to hang in through real JHW's return.

but then nobody has noticed the link between the utterly white skinned Kate Kane and the utterly white skinned Batwoman either so it's clearly set in Stupidtown and not Gotham.

a) we only know of one character who's ever set eyes on both Batwoman's chin (the only exposed part of her skin), and Kate Kane.
b) no-one in Gotham seems to notice all the weird 19th Century filigrees around the edges of their field of vision either, so both could perhaps be read as artistic licence with purpose by Williams.

Batman Incorporated #9: GMoz gives us a new title, which is effectively one he gave us before but Johnsiverse rebranded. If you liked it before, you'll like it now. But it thinks it's better than it is.

Being a joyful display of actual drawn storytelling, and genuine communication between writer and artist, automatically makes it better than every single other New 52 book, except maybe the Western one, which I've not seen. And isn't this #12 or so, not #9?

Wonder Woman really is excellent. Never thought I'd be reading a WW book each month.

Batwoman looks great again this issue, but is still actually boring and confused in the storytelling. I think only Greg Rucka could actually write her well as a main character, though I enjoyed her appearances in GMoz issues.

The Batman owl thing is great! Do not judge before a read.

p.s. Batwoman sucks without Rucka writing. There, I said it.

#0 and JHW3 issues were still dope enuf. new dude shows that Reeder and/or inker were not bringing the necessary visual stylisation to keep the ....six? separate story strands, taking place at different times, clearly delineated

Yeah, the art in this is an improvement and helps but the separate strands and delineated by being BRIGHT and DARK and so forth. It just feels jarring to me.

I made a mistake through tiredness and repetition - this is Batman Incorporated #1, not #9.

(btw sic, I understand artistic licence, I kind of use it myself when I write these to pull things out when they occur to me...)

sure sure. but we don't have another thraed where we're discussing the book so might as well throw all of it in here!

Come on Aldo, that Batman Inc was all kinds of good.

Yeah, you're right but I had a grump on by then probably. And part of it is certainly that GMoz has been completely treading water on Action.

I sent the BAT-COW panel to several friends

Yeah, part of my enjoyment just stemmed from relief that GMoz was back on form after Action Comics.

Confession: I have no real motivation to read Action

Action 9 was really good after some very wobbly issues

Not confident that the series is actually very well conceived, though.

I am highly confident that it is very poorly conceived.

Editorial shenanigans or just Grant running out of time/inspiration? (Or all three?)

The scripts have been pretty pedestrian so don’t think we can blame the artist(s) this time.

I wonder that myself. I've heard that the new system has not worked like the old one, even for someone as rarefied as Morrison. Perhaps the bloom is off the rose. And perhaps he really said what he wanted to about Superman with ALL-STAR. Compared to that, ACTION is really the dog's breakfast.

Have the new INC, but haven't yet read it (though someone spoiled BATCOW and it made me laugh really, really hard.)

Like I said, I still haven't read Action, but even if it's as poor as y'all suggest, I'm hardly gonna think less of Morrison for suffering a misstep after his amazing Seven Soldiers/52/Batman/Final Crisis/Batman & Robin/Batman Inc. run. Particularly within this New 52 world, wherein the concept of the writer seems to have become severely devalued by editorial.

still think We3 and Seaguy are still my favorite Morrison projects

Don't get me wrong. I don't think Morrison's lost it. But ACTION just ain't that great.

And perhaps he really said what he wanted to about Superman with ALL-STAR. Compared to that, ACTION is really the dog's breakfast.

I think this is very otm.

well yeah, he didn't have any interest of his own in doing more Superman or this Superman - DC came to him a few months before issue 1 came out and asked him if he'd do it.

Oh, the sad capriciousness of timing (15 years and the roles reverse)...

Yeah, ain't it, though? He's come a long way from writing JLA so that DC would finish publishing THE INVISIBLES.

I still marvel at that particular piece of magick. INVISIBLES is a book that shouldn't exist, coming from one of the major comics publication companies in America, and yet it happened (warts and all.)

Oh, as for the new 52, I've dropped all but ACTION and WONDER WOMAN and am a hair's breadth from dropping those, Cliff Chiang or no Cliff Chiang. But DC has proved that they don't want my money, 'cept for reprints.

And perhaps he really said what he wanted to about Superman with ALL-STAR. Compared to that, ACTION is really the dog's breakfast.

otm, and sadly. when AC started out, i was excited by the prospect of this young, angry, 99%-er superman with very limited powers going up against fat cat plutocrats and their uniformed stooges in a world largely devoid of super-stuff. seemed brave & timely, with lots of potential for character-building and slow expansion into the more familiar continuity. but morrison seemed to drop that angle as quickly as he presented it, rushing to incorporate lex luthor, kandor, a tiresome origin story and so on.

like, i was hoping for a neoteny recapitulates phylogeny superman, where we'd get to spend some time with a relatively small-scale man of steel.

Matt, look at Dial H. It is shockingly entertaining.

I actually have it in one of my scattered piles of singles to read. Should clean house one of these days.

I'd also argue that DIAL H isn't really NEW 52 territory, but that's probably just splitting hairs, huh?

eh I'm a Marvel Fanboy, AFAIC anything remotely DC-related is New 52

So turns out Alan Scott is the gay man why because Obsidian doesn't exist anymore which means the gay that was in Alan never had a chance to escape through his son I guess? This feels really perfunctory, but whatever.

I guessed right. 'Bout time I got something right.

Tom Spurgeon ‏@comicsreporter

like any progressive human being, my first thought on hearing DC's announcement was "Oh, God: 10,000 stupid 'weakness is wood' jokes."

Hahaha. I will take back every bad thing I've said about the New 52 initiative if they're able to work in a new Alan Scott villain with a magic cockring.