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

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.

Green LAntern's new arch-nemesis:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/images/comic_tot14.gif

Hey, snap, you on the twitter? hit me @highway_62

As for this? Ah, well, you'll get your chance one day, Bruce Wayne.

now following! I'm @EZSnappin if anyone wants to follow along.

Man, you work fast.

just happened to check ILX seconds after you posted. I'm no Ned, where a mere mention of his name summons him from the ether.

Ravagers #1: Seriously, this is every bit as bad as you think it is. One character unzips her suit in the middle of an icefield where they'll freeze to death if they don't keep moving to expose her cleavage, presumably because she needs BEWBS to fly (which is what she does next). All against an angsty Fairchild dialogue of inner thoughts. Technically none of it is awful, but it's one of the most unreable Johnsiverse books.

Animal Man Annual #1: I have to say, as much as I enjoyed this it's an utterly, utterly pointless book. The talking cat tells Maxine a story while it has a piss, a tale of a previous Animal Man and a previous Swamp Thing, fighting a previous version of the Rot in a small town and not winning. Buddy turns up from the future in the story the cat's telling at one point to let them know they're going to fail. Then at the end they go back to a house and prepare for the next issue of Animal Man. It's nicely written and, after a very shakey start, the art's passable. But really, save your money.

Batman Annual #1: Taking place (in effect) during an OWLS crossover, Mr Freeze gets a Johnsiverse origin in this thoroughly decent 40 pager. He's clearly going to be important in Batbooks to come, as he's possibly the only villain that's had this kind of analysis thus far. It turns out the reason the OWLS were after him in the other book is that some of the surgery that's made their regenerative powers stable enough is based on his work, presumably making him the man who knew too much. I'm trying hard not to descend into hyperbole, but I genuinely can't think of a Batwriter that excites me as much as Scott Snyder. Yes, even BatMoz.

That said, I enjoyed Superman Family Adventures even more. Reminded me most of the two Bizarro hardcovers.

Did Lemire write the annual? That sound pretty dire and unnecessary.

Have I mentioned I've given up on the official new 52? 'Cause I have.

Yeah, he did, which made it more surprising how pointless it was. Like he was contractually obliged or something.

Not sure about that Batman Annual -- lots of punching but not much fun, plus the all-new EXTREME MR FREEZE felt a bit hacktastic. I do (normally) dig Snyder though.

Q: if the Owls are using Freeze's tech to reanimate their dead warrior dudes, why does lowering their body temperature slow them down or immobilize them? Seems counter to any sort of logic.

The ‘New 52’ and DC Comics Month-to-Month Sales: The Long View

Freeze and Owls isn't explained in any detail, but it's mentioned during conversations that Freeze has with both the Penguin and Bats that he's been working for them - in the one with the Penguin it seems that he's less than happy about it now, which is presumably why they try and kill him.

Just going to put this here for now, instead of talking about some lameness in the newest Batman:

http://www.ebay.com/itm//Batman-Inc-Vol-2-Page-11-Chris-Burnham-feat-Bat-cow-/120928923783

Action is so frustrating. It feels like reading random back issues of a series that would be great if you had ALL the parts and could read them in the right order.

First Appearance of Bat Cow

Damien OTM

So, I think pulling the plot idea back in again is annoying, but... did you guys read Batman #10 and this Lincoln March revelation?

Action #10: I'm afraid I can't put it any better than James' observation above.

Action is so frustrating. It feels like reading random back issues of a series that would be great if you had ALL the parts and could read them in the right order.

Animal Man #10: This is a frustrating read as well, if I'm honest. It's well enough written, and the art is growing on me, but the pace is glacial and anybody who's familiar with the GMoz/Vertigo Animal Man and Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing has read all of this before. The journey through the Red is like the Hell issues of the American Gothic plot. The architects of all life are going to build Buddy a new body because he/they has/have issues with the current one. Cliff is a gullible dick. I guess I just don't feel like I need to read it. Maybe it's just me, I dunno. The Johnsiverse was supposed to be for new readers, so I guess it'd be a novelty for them. If they actually existed.

Batwing #10: From a frustrating read to a plain boring one. Now all the initial plot is over, and Batwing isn't Owlsing, it's just a very low grade Batfamily book with OH LOOK AFRICA thrown in every now and again. Somali pirates - check! Nightwing expresses surprise Africans know a lot about technology - check! Corrupt deals by dodgy dictators with Western oil companies - check! My favourite bit is where the Chinese guy turns up at the apartment of the kidnapped Chinese guy (who is not drawn as Chinese btw) and immediately turns into a dragon. He then (i.e. AFTER HE'S TURNED INTO A DRAGON) bellows "But please... let me introduce myself. My name is... Long! Do you know what Long means in Chinese? It means dragon!" in a menacing way. Now THAT'S dialogue.

Detective #10: And post-Owls, this is merely a very good one. (As a diversion, wikipedia tells me that the Batman Annual was supposed to conclude the Owls. REALLY? I didn't get that at all from it...) Tony Daniels brings back his Mr Toxic character we saw as a bit-part player in the Penguin floating casino plot but increases his menace considerably. I get the feeling exploding faux-Batmen is a gimmick that's been overused previously, but I'm happy enough to read it again. The Two-Face backup is great though. Reborn as a hero? I can't wait to read the next part.

Dial H #2: Effortless proving last month wasn't a fluke, China Mieville once more writes EXACTLY the sort of book I want to read. The concept of a guy who changes powers each time plays to his strength and I laugh out loud at least twice during this. There are insane levels of thrill power within. Unbelievable.

Earth 2 #2: OK, outside of the Allan Scott reveal what do we actually have here? A JSA origin issue, in a post-Justice League world? Mr Terrific is shoehorned in, and absolute needless, but the Jay Garrick story is pretty engaging and I think this title could have legs if it canmake itself different enough from the other books. Ultimately I don't think it will, but it's decent enough to make me want to hang about for a while to see. I could well be tempted to say it's better than Justice League. We'll see.

GI Combat #2: JT Krul writes dialogue this issue, so the War That Time Forgot segment is predictably shit. The Unknown Soldier stuff is far better, but is neither better nor worse than any of the other attempts at it in recent years. Can't see it lasting any longer than the next wave of cancellations, if I'm honest, as I have no idea what it's for or who it's supposed to appeal to. Ho hum.

Green Arrow #10: WOW, THIS IS SHIT. I mean REALLY shit. Ann Nocenti writes a story here that's completely mired in eighties DO YOU SEE isms, and truthfully it would have been shit then too. It makes the lyrics to Human by the Killers seem like an essay by Kierkegaard. Abject.

JLI #10: Dan Jurgens isn't actually reading any of the other books in the relaunch, right? He's just bumbling on in his own little universe writing something nobody wants to read, unconnected to anything else being published. And make no mistake, this is dreadful stuff - as eighties as Green Arrow but in a different way, full of implied importance but empty and soulless. Cancelled after two more issues, but might end up forming the cornerstone of Year 2 of the Johnsiverse, if the rumours are right. I'm scared.

Red Lanterns #10: RARR RARR RARR RARR OH FUCK OFF. Well not quite, this Stormwatch crossover is at least a vaguely coherent story but they're no closer to finding a new power source since their battery was destroyed and it's been an awful long time for them to be maintaining force fields and the like. It seems like it's given up Lantern logic altogether. Geoff Johns will no doubt be round to give Peter Milligan a punishment essay later, and maybe put him in detention.

Stormwatch #10: I say Stormwatch crossover, they're off doing something completely different. This feels like it wants to be an issue of Planetary. It isn't. It talks about Napoleonic Stormwatch and how they erased the memory of all the world so it forgot they existed, then ends with a gay-angst-a-thon. The next issue blurb convinces me it thinks it is Planetary. It won't be.

Swamp Thing #10: Anton Arcane being back delivers pretty much all you'd expect it to. It's basically a monologue by him, but Scott Snyder's on a roll at the moment and everything he touches is golden. Having been teased at the end of the last issue, and despite being on the cover, Arcane's presence builds throughout until the final page release. "I promise your pain will only last a little longer. In just a moment I'm going to bash your head in." Looks awful written here, but in context is perfect. A great book.

World's Finest #2: Still feels like two books. The Kev Maguire drawn flashback stuff and the George Perez modern day stuff are almost completely separate, and one is fun and engaging while the other is a chore. I wonder if you can guess which is which? Answers on a postcard, with a subscription to a Rob Liefeld book of your choice to the winner.

Batgirl #10: Ugh. This series gets worse with every passing issue, and it didn't start from a particularly high beginning. It's hackneyed WOW STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMEN bullshit page on page at the expense of storylines. It might work for people studying Lipstick Feminism 101 but does nothing for me. This particular issue feels like everybody in charge at every stage HAS to be a woman to prove a point that I don't get, although it never gets worse than when the guy who lost half his leg the night before runs away normally.

Batman #10: Umm. Wow. The Lincoln March revelation is indeed a revelation. Didn't see that coming at all. But you're all reading the book already, so I don't need to go into it or spoil it for those that haven't read it yet. The backup story actually works with it and reveals even more - if you read them in the other order, and knew some fairly obscure bat-history, then it would spoiler the main story. Great stuff.

Batman & Robin #10: Damian has an ego. Who knew? Basically, he calls out all the other Robins to prove he's great and Tim Drake is an easy fish to catch. It's good stuff , if not really anything out of the ordinary, but hits the spot before the shitfest to come. Starting with...

Deathstroke #10: There are no words. Honestly. So bad. I can't work out whether the art is worse than the writing and every page my opinion changes. This may well be the single worst issue of the Johnsiverse. If any of you can find a way to read it without paying for it LIKE BORROWING IT FROM A LIBRARY OR SUCH <cough> RIAA <cough> then I recommend you do so, just to see for yourselves how bad it is.

Demon Knights #10: "It's a pirate sea serpent! That is something I have never shouted before!" And not something I expected to be typing. This does the thing it does every month again, and very well it does it too. They travel through the south of England facing giant wolves and a zombie King Arthur and conclude with al Jabr turning into MODOK. That's something else I expected not to be typing.

Frankenstein #10: I still don't like this. This particular issue is more of a mess than usual, although it thinks it's being really clever and all GMozzy. Who's on whose side by the end? Who cares?

Green Lantern #10: The Knights The Say Nok don't exist, then a blue woman gets superhero sadface and cries a single tear, which is enough sadface for them to rebuild their entire power battery and all say Nok again. Unfortunately for Hal this makes Sinestro one of them too, so he tries to persuade them to let him say other words too by saying how much he wubs him. A Black Lantern kills himself rather than say Nok again, then once he's dead becomes a Black Lantern again. As you do. I struggle to believe people take this seriously.

Grifter #10: Amongst the skills Rob Liefeld doesn't have we've found another one - counting. "The word you're looking for is "You're welcome. Although technically that's two words." No, that's ACTUALLY two and TECHNICALLY three. That is as entertaining as this issue gets. Grifter now has telekinetic powers, which is presumably how his friend's costume stays up.

Legion Lost #10: The Legion go back to their own time, find that it needs a bit of redecorating and come back to our time to buy some paint or something. The lustre has totally gone from this book, despite having a couple of my favourite Legionnaires in it and it's become a chore to read. Timber Wolf gets shot at the end, although he probably won't have been by the time the next issue is three pages old.

Ravagers #2: Hoo boy, this is bad. Luckily I have already erased reading it from my mind so I don't need to go into it any further but it's just awful throughout. Don't bother.

Resurrection Man #10: It's so obvious now they're both out, but this is Dial H's crappy little brother. If only it was anywhere near as good. Or good, period. The angels from the early issues are back, and get what Hulk would called SMASHED. There's a secret giant underground technology base and... some other stuff. I don't care enough to try and make sense of this book any more.

Suicide Squad #10: The usual quality product here. Harley is back (although I thought from where we left her she was gone for good for other reasons) and so is Yo-Yo, having been shat out by King Shark and grown himself a new body. But somebody somewhere isn't playing ball with The Wall. Who can it be? Maybe we'll find out next month.

Superboy #10: SUPERBOY PUNCHES A DINOSAUR! In other news there is a hint ot teen romance between him and Wonder Girl then BANG! SMACK IN THE KISSER! This is a really good issue, no messing.

And quite how they're going to work around Clark being dead, since he isn't in any of the other books, I have no idea.

Isn't it still set five or ten years before the rest of Tha Nu-52?

It was supposed to be set 7 years before the Superman title, which pretty much puts it at the same time as the Justice League book (they were supposedto align at issue 8, I think?), I just hadn't eralised before they were absolutely contemporaneous (the hamsters).

This is the only nu-52 proper I'm reading (the Bats Inc and Woman having both been written before the reboot), so I thought you were talking about the Collector's bottle worlds with that hamsters ref.

Batwoman #10: This really isn't getting much better, is it? The diversion about the dying cat is good, but isn't it lifted straight from a Gmoz thing? He does it in Animal Man #26, and also somewhere need the end of The Filth (I think?). But the layouts are really nice, and the escalation in Killer Croc's powers could be interesting - although merging him with Sobek is a new idea which could screw up Geoff Johns' future work on Captain Marvel. I enjoyed this more than any of maybe the previous three or four, but that's not saying a hell of a lot.

Birds of Prey #10: So... new costumes, new faces, Ivy needs planted in a giant Gro-bag and Batman has a grump on. Just another normal issue then. And on the plus side I've now also learned that such a thing as liquid cocaine exists, and that adding water makes something inert very explosive. Which clearly makes the whole venture worthwhile.

Blue Beetle #10: With the whole Ravagers/NOWHERE axis bleeding the will out of us, the last thing we need is another "teenager imprisoned by the government doing experiments on him" book. I tell a lie, the last thing we need is one as badly written as this. The Mexican slang is back, the casual racism of Hispanics having grandmothers that are old battleaxes, the sinister boss and the dumb employees. Hackneyed rubbish.

Captain Atom #10: I know I've said before that I don't have the words, but this is just... the giant lion's mouth of God is about to eat Captain Atom so he and all the other Captain Atom's that he finds in the time stream decide to fight it, then our Captain Atom flies throughout time and sees that if he didn't become Captain Atom then Grodd would instead so he doesn't make the cancer go away that he did in #4(? needs a Fact-Checkin' Ed) and the person dies in the future, which then lets him absorb all the other Captain Atoms and the giant mouth and become Captain Atom. Then he goes back to see Steven Hawking who tells him where the woman with one hand he fancies is. Once he gets there he changes himslef into Doctor Manhattan and Hal Jordan to go on a date with her. Apparently next issue this does not end well. Maybe their panna cotta will be a bit too set for their tastes.

Catwoman #10: None of you are reading this, right? So if I say the only good thing is Catwoman's latest Hispanic (?) fuckbuddy being a plant for some mobsters I'm not spoiling anything for anybody? The Dollhouse plot is an inferior version of the Russian prostitutes plot from the previous run, or even from the Punisher plot which was similar. The book is treading water so hard, I really just think the best thing for it is to get a crippling cramp and sink like a stone.

DCU Presents: The plot plods along in James Robinson's Vandal Savage book, which makes it 1000x better than any of the other books this week. This is the week I think I hate more that the others. WW is the only decent title, although at least Legion, Nightwing and Red Hood are readable. Anyway, Savage has a copycat killer. In a plot COMPLETELY UNLIKE Silence of the Lambs, the authorities want Savage to help. He does, then escapes. Ho hum. I bet it'll have a really straightforward conclusion next month.

It's nice of you to review the dregs of the DCU all together. Though I'm sorry you're reading any of them.

Guillem March's recent variant on his own upcoming Catwoman cover:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-X01_znb7QLs/T973q3eG-tI/AAAAAAAAApI/UZ_XaxPi0do/s640/blogger-image-798245391.jpg

It's nice of DC to publish them all together.

GLC #10: John Stewart is to be executed by the Alpha Lanterns for killing a Green Lantern. Guy doesn't like the idea, so after 20 pages of sadface he busts him out, only for JS to still be all sadface and the Alpha Lanterns shut down the power battery so the GLs can't fight. 2 pages of this are worth reading.

LoSH #10: A small part of Dominators stuff does not make this good. Apart from that it is a fine nostalgiafest, Nostalgia is not necessarily good, as I have learned month on month during this.

Nightwing #10: Kind of procedural, kind of sadface, kind of bollocks. Immaterial to how I feel about anything tbh,

Red Hood #10: Maybe the shortest issue at 16 pages this month. Still probably fails in the "least anount of plot" title for DC. Nothing really happens and that which does is utterly inconsequental. Someone from a planet which doesn@t exist comes to see Starfire, after which we find out they couldn't have existed. Oh well

Supergirl #10: JOHN BYRNE IS THE GREATEST WRITER EVER IN THE HISTORY OF COMICS EVER EVER EVER.

He's not? Yeah, I had worked that out after reading this.

Wonder Woman #10: AT LAST, SOMETHING WORTH READING. The reality is, THIS IS AT LEAST AS GOOD, IF NOT BETTER THAN EVERY BOOK PRECEDING IT. If I had to describe WW I would say it is the best parts of Hellblazer, Fables and Gravel combined; let alone lesser things. You should really all be getting this, even if it's only in trades. LOVE IT.

More key architects of THE NEW 52 continue to speak about what a well-planned, supportive and fulfilling creative environment it is! George Perez:

“Unfortunately when you are writing major characters, you sometimes have to make a lot of compromises, and I was made certain promises, and unfortunately not through any fault of Dan DiDio — he was no longer the last word, I mean a lot of people were now making decisions [...] they were constantly going against each other, contradicting, again in mid-story. The people who love my Superman arc, the first six issues, I thank you. What you read, I don’t know. Because the fact that, after I wrote it I was having such frustration that I told them, ‘Here, this is my script. If you change it, that’s your prerogative, don’t tell me. Don’t ask me to edit it, don’t ask me to correct it, because I don’t want to change something that you’re going to change again in case you disagree.” No no, Superman is a big character. I was flattered by the responsibility, but I thought this was getting a little tough.”

“I didn’t mind the changes in Superman, I just wish it was the same decision from Issue 1 to Issue 2. And I had to keep rewriting things because another person changed their mind, and that was a lot tougher. It wasn’t the same as doing Wonder Woman. I was basically given a full year to get Wonder Woman established before she actually had to be enfolded into the DC Universe properly. And I had a wonderful editor, Karen Berger, who ran shotgun for me. They wanted me to recreate what I did from Wonder Woman, but it’s not the same age, not the same atmosphere, I couldn’t do it any more. And the writer who replaced me, Keith Giffen, [...] he called me up when they asked him to do Superman, to make sure I wasn’t being fired off Superman. And regrettably I did have to tell him no, I can’t wait to get off Superman. It was not the experience I wanted it to be.”

“I had no idea Grant Morrison was going to be working on another Superman title. I had no idea I was doing it five years ahead, which means … my story, I couldn’t do certain things without knowing what he did, and Grant wasn’t telling everybody. So I was kind of stuck. ‘Oh, my gosh, are the Kents alive? What’s his relationship with all of these characters? Who exists?’ And DC couldn’t give me answers. I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, you’re deciding all these things and you mean even you don’t know what’s going on in your own books?’ So I became very frustrated …”

Which caused me to look up Karen Berger's whereabouts:

In 2007 Berger was named supervising editor (along with Senior Editor Shelly Bond) of Minx, a new comic book imprint published by DC. Minx published comics and graphic novels aimed at teenage girls until they were cancelled in 2008.

Oh, DCpaws.

Berger's still a VP at DC IIRC

She's editing China Mieville's Dial H.

"Senior VP - Executive Editor"

I looked inside the one Vertigo comic I've bought this year