DC New 52 One Year Later
Oct. 4th, 2012 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thelostmaximoffSee what I just did there in the title of this entry? Awesome right? Anyways, I'm a little late on doing this but I decided today that I would do an entry about DC's New 52 since we're a year removed from it. Back when DC did their reboot, I thought it was going to fail but it actually seems to have saved the comics industry or at least saved the company. I posted about the New 52 when it first launched and now I thought I would give my opinion on it after a year. This entry covers all the New 52 titles I've read or skimmed through, which isn't a lot.
Aquaman: I'm going to cheat because I haven't actually read this book but I do plan on it once the trade comes out in paperback. Everyone says really good things about this book though and it must be good because I'm actually going to bother reading it when I've never cared about Aquaman before. I like Geoff Johns though so I'm willing to give this thing a shot.
Batman: This book is nuclear-hot ever since the reboot. If you love Batman and you're not reading this book then you should. I love how Scott Snyder is going into the backstory of not only Bruce's family history but also the history of Gotham with the Court of Owls stuff. I'm not sure what he plans to do for an encore but if it's as good as this stuff has been then I will happily keep reading.
Flash: I miss Wally. No seriously, I've been reading the Geoff Johns Flash Omnibus and I really miss Wally. Also I'm not completely thrilled with all the changes to the Rogues. I don't mind the changes to Captain Cold and it's nice to see Golden Glider back but some of the other changes are kinda bad for me. Heatwave's new design looks horrendous and even though I like the redesign for Weather Wizard I don't like that they basically made him into a new character just to give the book more ethnic diversity. If you want Weather Wizard to be Hispanic then just make up some new character and have him take over the identity instead of retconning the character's origin to change his ethnicity.
Red Lanterns: This book is mediocre. I'm actually a Red Lantern fan and I was excited to hear they would get their own series but Peter Milligan has never done anything for me in the past. People keep telling me that he's a good writer but everything I've read of his has been average and nothing special. I will probably drop this book soon.
Suicide Squad: Wow, what a difference an issue can make. I remember I wasn't high on the first issue of this series but once we got into the team's first mission in the next issue, this book took off. This book is nonstop, fast-paced action with just enough character development to keep you reading. I really enjoyed the two-part "Hunt for Harley Quinn" story in particular but the whole first six or seven issues of this book are good. I like the somewhat rotating cast of characters and the dirty nastiness that is this team's job. It's not as good as Secret Six but I'll take it.
Teen Titans: This book isn't really good. Tim, Cassie, Kon, and Bart are all fine and I actually like this new take on Cassie but the other characters do nothing for me. Skitter is alright but has no real development, Solstice should be replaced with Raven, and Bunker just needs to go. I get it, you want more ethnic and sexual diversity to your series. Fine but does it have to come in the form of such an annoying character? I didn't read the issue #0 oneshot that came out recently and it was supposed to give Bunker more backstory so maybe I'll like him more but right now he's just really annoying. Also, I don't like the whole randomness of this book. Villains will randomly show up with extremely little foreshadowing or thought put into them and will get smacked down in a few pages before we ever learn who they really are and what their motivations are. It just seems like this book was really thrown together haphazardly and that's not even counting the wonky retconning of their own work that DC did. Seriously, if you pick up the first trade there are narration captions that were in the actual issues that are left out in the trade to fix continuity problems.
Aquaman: I'm going to cheat because I haven't actually read this book but I do plan on it once the trade comes out in paperback. Everyone says really good things about this book though and it must be good because I'm actually going to bother reading it when I've never cared about Aquaman before. I like Geoff Johns though so I'm willing to give this thing a shot.
Batman: This book is nuclear-hot ever since the reboot. If you love Batman and you're not reading this book then you should. I love how Scott Snyder is going into the backstory of not only Bruce's family history but also the history of Gotham with the Court of Owls stuff. I'm not sure what he plans to do for an encore but if it's as good as this stuff has been then I will happily keep reading.
Flash: I miss Wally. No seriously, I've been reading the Geoff Johns Flash Omnibus and I really miss Wally. Also I'm not completely thrilled with all the changes to the Rogues. I don't mind the changes to Captain Cold and it's nice to see Golden Glider back but some of the other changes are kinda bad for me. Heatwave's new design looks horrendous and even though I like the redesign for Weather Wizard I don't like that they basically made him into a new character just to give the book more ethnic diversity. If you want Weather Wizard to be Hispanic then just make up some new character and have him take over the identity instead of retconning the character's origin to change his ethnicity.
Red Lanterns: This book is mediocre. I'm actually a Red Lantern fan and I was excited to hear they would get their own series but Peter Milligan has never done anything for me in the past. People keep telling me that he's a good writer but everything I've read of his has been average and nothing special. I will probably drop this book soon.
Suicide Squad: Wow, what a difference an issue can make. I remember I wasn't high on the first issue of this series but once we got into the team's first mission in the next issue, this book took off. This book is nonstop, fast-paced action with just enough character development to keep you reading. I really enjoyed the two-part "Hunt for Harley Quinn" story in particular but the whole first six or seven issues of this book are good. I like the somewhat rotating cast of characters and the dirty nastiness that is this team's job. It's not as good as Secret Six but I'll take it.
Teen Titans: This book isn't really good. Tim, Cassie, Kon, and Bart are all fine and I actually like this new take on Cassie but the other characters do nothing for me. Skitter is alright but has no real development, Solstice should be replaced with Raven, and Bunker just needs to go. I get it, you want more ethnic and sexual diversity to your series. Fine but does it have to come in the form of such an annoying character? I didn't read the issue #0 oneshot that came out recently and it was supposed to give Bunker more backstory so maybe I'll like him more but right now he's just really annoying. Also, I don't like the whole randomness of this book. Villains will randomly show up with extremely little foreshadowing or thought put into them and will get smacked down in a few pages before we ever learn who they really are and what their motivations are. It just seems like this book was really thrown together haphazardly and that's not even counting the wonky retconning of their own work that DC did. Seriously, if you pick up the first trade there are narration captions that were in the actual issues that are left out in the trade to fix continuity problems.
