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

I for one applaud them for making use of every part of the corpse. I hear they're planning to use its ligaments in the binding of the collected edition and are giving away necklaces of its teeth and small finger bones as retailer exclusives. And I guess they've somehow fashioned a crude latrine out of Alan Moore's writing credit?

I agree with all the above but I enjoyed it as a guilty pleasure.

I flipped thru it in the shop while my son chose to buy "Super Sons." (I had tried to steer him toward another Scooby-Doo Team-Up...)

aldo, can you or another helpful soul explain what this goddamn 'Metal' thing is all about? I saw a solicitation for some 'origins of whatever the hell Metal is' trade which includes a couple issues of Final Crisis and I would like to understand without having to actually research it, thx.

Super Sons is a wonderful book.

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Cool, I'm gonna read it with (to) him tonight.

I think I have a slight aversion on sight to "cool" preteen boy characters with spiky hair and ripped jeans. But I'm sure I can look past the surface.

As far as I can tell, Metal is just an evil doppelgänger story that's been suffocated inside in mounds of unecessary plotting and multiversal whatnot. The baddie is Barbatos, some some of demon-thing who's spent three decades off-panel in various Peter Milligan and Grant Morrison stories - but he hasn't turned up in Metal yet. Instead of ruining all the parallel earths like in Countdown, Snyder's created a new set of "dark parallel universes" to play action figure armageddon with.

Tonally it's supposed to be a fun cosmic punchy action thing, but Snyder's main book is incoherent with backstory, and the spinoff books are all uberviolent sub-Geoff Johns arm-ripping type things written by shitty DC fill-in crews. It's basically Blackesy Night with parallel universe Batmangs instead of zombies. A crossover, in other words.

Chuck has Metal pretty well summed up - there's a series of alt-Batmans (some with the powers of other heroes, some with the powers of other villains) that have come through into the universe through a doorway opened because Bruce has been trying to find what metal drove the Joker mad (having already established there are metals not from our Universe - like Nth Metal -and deciding it's an unknown one of them) and unknowingly bringing Barbatos into the Rebirthiverse. It isn't any good at all.

Super Sons is generally great but the Annual racks it up a notch and is Obe of the top 5 DC books of the year. Tom King's Batman annual (also out last week) might be as good.

Tom King's Batman has been a revelation after he slogged through that first arc. The Bane and Catwoman stuff is all A++.

Agreed! Liking the Batman run.
I actually enjoy the fake-goth silliness of Metal, I have to admit, though. Hellraiser Batman alone tickles me.

Thanks, guys. Metal sounds about as incoherent/unappealing as I'd expected. So this is the Hyper-Adapter thing that was pursuing Bruce Wayne through time after Darkseid 'killed' him? The name 'Barbatos' in a DC book conjures up a whole other image for me (from John Ney Reiber's Books of Magic series):

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/marvel_dc/images/a/ab/Barbatos_0001.jpeg

As a fan of moreoreless everything else Tom King has done, I'm finding his run on Mister Miracle really unenjoyable and gratuitous. There's too much quirk to write it off as a Gritty Reboot, but it seems very alienating and fanboys-only-ish. Anyone else?

I love it! Gratuitous in what way?

Everyone keeps getting brained by Barda in an over-lovingly detailed way

Maybe it'll read better in the trade tho'

I would say, I'm finally reading Omega Man and it's fantastic

This is probably the right time to point out that DC removed Rebirth branding from all their books last week.

So are their books going to be officially rebranded as Afterbirth or is that just implied?

As a fan of moreoreless everything else Tom King has done, I'm finding his run on Mister Miracle really unenjoyable and gratuitous. There's too much quirk to write it off as a Gritty Reboot, but it seems very alienating and fanboys-only-ish. Anyone else?

I only read the first issue, but it was hilariously dumb

officially rebranded as Afterbirth

Marvel and DC have both put the old-school rectangle back on their covers, but the design is super-garish in both cases, looks hella naff

I haven't read the latest Miracle but the way I interpreted the book so far is King is trying to get into the headspace of the depressed - I thought he captured the deadening of affect, the disassociation, finally erupting in rage after being pressed beyond endurance really well. I have a hard time reading it because like Ware it cuts a little too deep. I'm sure King picked the character of Free to go into these themes because of his traumatic backstory and the irony of him being an escape artist. I don't think it justifies quite all the hype, because the distance between the superhero fantasy world of empowerment and the dead-inside life of the mentally ill is just too much dissonance and the reader can't connect those two worlds. I'm not really sure who the audience for the book is, but I'm still glad it exists.

the newest one was where it all clicked for me, and all of the themes aligned

and the meta-commentary that funky flashman brings to the table was well utilized

I'm reading Dark Nights Metal #4, in the first half we've got a fish shouting "By Poseidon's Beard!" at Deathstroke and Starro the Conquerer making a grand entrance with "HAHAHAH! I'm back, losers!" I'm into this.

I couldn't work out what the fuck was going on, but I did also lol at that Starro line

Is this Phantom Girl as in LSH's Phantom Girl? How'd she get here?: http://www.dccomics.com/comics/the-terrifics-2018/the-terrifics-1

NM, guess this "explains" it: https://www.cbr.com/who-are-dc-comics-terrifics/

Excited to see how the Legion is reintroduced, whenever it finally happens (after all these dribs & drabs)...

She got sent back to the current day by Glorith in a trans-time body-swap with The Durlan when he returned to become RJ Brande, DUH.

morrisp = #fakegeekgirl

I thought that happened during the "Five Years Later" storyline, which is no longer canon in the "retroboot" version of the team (or something).

Legion's history has never made any sense

when they're doing it right, yes

I personally feel that random individual Legionnaires, off on their own, are of very limited interest... the main appeal of the Legion (for me) is the space-opera scope of the whole team together, in its element.

are you suggesting that DC might be making a dumb publishing decision based solely on airing some dormant IP

i'm suggesting a split gilbert hernandez matter eater lad / jaime night girl/phantom book or gtfo

Penny Century >> Laurel Gand

Without wishing to troll, the Legion is dumb dated bullshit and can fuck off

it did!

It has at least 3 times in 20 years, LOL

I am quite enjoying... Doomsday Clock

Weird mix of curiosity about where the story's going, hate read, and actual enjoyment

Forgive me

The first issue had me guiltily intrigued. The second issue was a hot mess and I'm done.

Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. Whoops, it’s Krypto... :(

It makes more sense to think of this as the se

I mean,

It makes more sense to think of this as the sequel to Zak Snyder's Watchmen

I see that they mention Tom Strong in that Terrifics solicitation. The Mooresploitation continues apace!

Why doesn't Moore own the ABC stuff again?

Looked it up; ABC was an imprint of Wildstorm which got acquired by DC

Not shedding any tears for Snake Man though

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WildStorm#Creator-owned_titles

ABC is listed under Wildstorm's creator owned titles. I know that several of these titles have nothing to do with DC now but where did ABC go wrong?