With the release of DC's new 52, there's a new interest to comics that I haven't seen in well over a decade.
I, myself, have gotten back into comics this way.
I've also downloaded them. While you can't appreciate the large layouts of Batwoman, I do like the focuses on panels, in which a small panel in a book can occupy a full screen without loss of detail.
DISCUSS.
A tip of the hat for creating this thread.
I am finding that thus far, halfway there, the books on a whole have been of surprising quality. Only a handful of nays and just a few more shrugs, these have been largely defensible individual works of comic narrative, if not quite art in most cases. The actual universe narrative doesn't make any sense, but it never has, and I have a hard time caring about that anyway. There's a lot of dynamism and talent on display, and a few great stories. And though little has been radical or earth-shattering, it's more comics and that's a good thing, and people are reading them and that's a good thing. Hopefully it is more than a flash in the pan.
It's certainly created a renewed curiosity in the comics themselves amongst people (myself included) that haven't read comics in well over ten years. So long as they don't have crossovers in which you have to get 6-7 issues, I'm fine.Quoting Sven (view post)
So far...
Yays (Definitely continue to get):
Detective Comics
Action Comics
Batgirl
Batwoman
Animal Man (biggest surprise)
Maybes:
Swamp Thing
No's:
Men of War
Batman and Robin
Suicide Squad
Next week, probably just Batman and Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman has the neatest looking art direction that I've seen thus far. Getting it for that reason alone. The Flash has a similar appeal.
I find it funny on twitter that some people are confused about the timelines. I don't really care about it at all, enjoying them as their own stories.
i was skeptical when the relaunch was announced, but at this point there are 5 issue #2s i want to read (action, animal man, swamp thing, batwoman and demon knights (and MAYBE batgirl)) which is like 3 or 4 more DC books than i was reading previously. and 5 of the 10 i've read i am interested enough to pick up another issue. so that's something.
My responses thus far:
Excellent
Action Comics
Swamp Thing
Red Lanterns
Demon Knights
Batwoman
Real good
Men of War
Detective Comics
Stormwatch
Batgirl
Suicide Squad
Green Lantern
Good
Justice League
Hawk and Dove
OMAC
Static Shock
Resurrection Man
Mister Terrific
Deathstroke
Grifter
Poor
Green Arrow
Animal Man
Batwing
Batman and Robin
Frankenstein
Awful
Justice League International
Superboy
Legion Lost
Seeing the preview for the Green Lantern Corps made me realize how frustrated I'm getting with establishing panels, though. It's like that damn fourth Harry Potter movie that couldn't introduce a new location with anything other than a sweeping CG establishing shot.
Suicide Squad was one of my favorite series of all time. I was sad that it was cancelled, but I was happy that it had a lengthy run while staying top quality. Then along came Secret Six and while it was its own series, it paid plenty of homage to and respected Suicide Squad a great deal. It quickly became my new favorite series.
And then they cancelled Secret Six so they could poach the roster and start up a new Suicide Squad series that reads like an asshole's loose hair. :sad:
Movie Theater Diary
really not much else you can expect from a suicide squad book by adam glass, especially if you read his flashpoint tie-in "legion of doom"
what a crummy book
Also, I might have liked Red Lanterns more if it wasn't Ed Benes drawing it. Not only is that guy's art the boring bastard child of Jim Lee and Michael Turner, but I also think the really internal and emo narrative would have benefited from an artist who's less... "traditional" superhero art. Like a Ben Templesmith or Dave McKean or Sam Keith or someone like that.
Movie Theater Diary
The only offense at SS I see is the Waller aspect. I don't know what the objections are otherwise. I thought it was terrifically structured to capture tone and introduce characters. One of the few new books that reads confidently as a single issue, too. Care to offer any more details on the negative response?
I'm certainly no great fan of Benes (Bleez's ass shots I find particularly eye roll worthy), but I'm not sure I agree with your suggestions. When Atrocitus begins his flashback inner monologue, I agree that perhaps one of those illustrators would have been interesting. However, I could not see any of those guys tackling the opening satisfactorily, an opening which I think aligns the tone of the book to allow for a hopeful degree of whimsy. The first scene reads like classic Bad Company-era Milligan. Come to think of it, Brett Ewins would have been an amazing choice, though I don't even know if he's still around.
And at the same time, I'm fascinated by the choice of Benes. When Atrocitus is doused in the blood of a walking, popping vegetable pod, spurring and deepening his rage-filled soliloquy, to see such oddness illustrated with the same hatch-lines and cloudy textures that define conventional superhero illustration creates, what is to my mind, an aesthetic space that parallels Milligan's plain, poetic turns of phrase.
haven't read ss, but legion of doom was basically just torture porn. there was literally no point to the book besides glass trying to figure out the most ridiculous ways to kill b-list dc characters
and it sounds like that's what suicide squad will basically be. no thanks
Miguel Sepulvuda's cover for STORMWATCH #4 is very Burnham. Me like.
Movie Theater Diary
I never would've even guessed that was Sepulveda.
i think that is burnham
look at the street sign
Doh. I think I figured out how people got confused, given the solicits. That's the variant cover. Sepulvuda does the regular covers and Burnham is doing variants.
This is Burnham's cover for #1. I wish I'd gotten this one.
Movie Theater Diary
I guess there's an easter egg of some woman in a red hood in all the issues.
Well, I think I'll try Wonder Woman (for Azzarello), Batman (for Snyder), and maybe Catwoman (curiosity, not because I feel the creators to be anything special) this week...
The Boat People - 9
The Power of the Dog - 7.5
The King of Pigs - 7
Yeah, she reset the world or something in Flashpoint 5. I think her presence is there to acknowledge the reset as an internal narrative choice rather than an exegetic marketing event. Or maybe she is an instrument of potential backpeddling. I doubt they'll do much with her across the board in further issues, but I dunno. It's distracting.
I really think she's supposed to be their out. They added her in at the last minute (penciled/inked pages of the issues didn't have her, she appears to be photoshopped in after they decided to have that woman in Flashpoint 5) so whenever they want to undo any of the changes that don't work, they can just use her.
Movie Theater Diary
New 52 readings:
Red Hood and the Outlaws - A more credible read than Lobdell's Superboy, thanks largely to Rocafort's efficient sequencing (even if some of his character figures could use some polish), but the dialogue is still a lurching terror, and the fantasy of Starfire, loose hips and dreamlike boobs and all, is pretty laughable. The loosey-goosey attitude is welcome, though. **1/2
Supergirl - This is barfy. Takes about twenty seconds to digest, lazy writing that banks on large panels of consequence-free action, destroying focus, replacing time, space, and character cohesion with randomly scattered robot debris. The slew of colorful sound effect texts creates an almost intriguing visual reason to look at a few pages of this otherwise unnecessary book. *
Nightwing - Eddy Barrows can draw single panels well enough, but his action sequences (nice opening subway scene aside) are illogical, his general sense of spatial orientation needs tuning. And I think Higgins, with this and Death Stroke, may be too infatuated with the concept of badassery. **
Blue Beetle - Ig Guara draws the hell out of this thing, and Bedard's script quickly and neatly introduces the fantastic spectrum of the narrative playing field. I hope the series veers toward the more outer-spacey milieu, as Guara's knack is clearly one for rendering creaturebeasts. ***
Legion of Super-Heroes - This book introduces about twenty characters, all of whom appear to have a significant level of involvement with the rote proceedings. Much too much to keep in mind. I've never read any Legion books, so as an introduction, I can confidently say that neither this or Legion Lost are sensible books for Legion virgins. Portela's artwork is a'ight, though. **
Catwoman - Delightfully, unapologetically trashy. March's unreal proportions still manage to entice given the healthily free-spirited context. Best is the subtle expressiveness of the faces and pheromone drenched creased leather of the final few pages. ***
Birds of Prey - Like Supergirl, it is a comic of few words, but this one has slightly more at stake. Still, the substance here is minimal. Starling's self-awareness makes for a refreshing trait, but Canary is basically a cipher. A good example of poor sequential decompression, reading like the first page of a chapter rather than the first chapter of a story. One thing I've noticed with several of these new books is a disregard for developing interesting antagonists. **
Captain Atom - I had no idea that Freddie Williams II could be this excellent. His inks achieve a stark, dramatic effect and his pencilling on Atom himself, complemented exceptionally by the always reliable Villarrubia, give the character a proper extraworldly feel. And the crazy stuff, monsters, atomic microscans, volcanic meltdowns, I couldn't be more excited by. The story is, aside from a scene or two of some rote exposition, a great showcase vehicle that leaves more than a trace of promise for a satisfyingly nuclear scale. ****
Batman - I like when stories are as much about places and locations as they are about characters and events. Snyder sets a clear design to wrangle with the concept of Gotham, and has already thrown a few exciting wrenches in the gears. Capullo's squarish Batman, despite its simplicity, is immediately signature. ***1/2
Wonder Woman - An admitted letdown. I'm confused about the key and the teleporting and the magic. And I think Chiang's action lines are tacky, even if his figures are impressive. And Wonder Woman kills centaurs. No sense for why anything matters. Yet another comic to feature a boring establishing shot of a city skyline, and definitely the lesser of the new 52 to feature post-possession disintegration. The best would be Demon Knights. **
Green Lantern Corps - Solid introduction that has the same rhythm and scope of a blockbuster. Pasarin's textures are as impressive as his sense of dimension, and Tomasi pitches the tone between lightheartedness and a-little-too-violent, a bankable window for sure. ***
DC Universe Presents: Deadman - I don't understand the last page, which was a nagging disruption from the reverie on which the book's laden approach to death, emptiness, and immediacy set me. I read it twice because I realized that I was barely aware of the fantastic artwork and its effective supplementation of Jenkins's emotional text. I do wish Chang would vary Boston's facial expressions a bit. ****
Sven, what did you think of the "establishing shots" in Batman? Pretty damn impressive to me.
It's definitely got the best "Gotham" feel.
Oh, absolutely love those. Since it feels like Snyder is taking on Gotham specifically, it was only appropriate to dwell on the cityscape. But a whole bunch of these stories feel like they have to, in the most generic way, establish location first thing. Reading them all, the formula involved in writing and drawing these books has never been clearer to me.
freddie williams art makes me barf
Normally I agree with you. But have you seen pages from Captain Atom? It's unlike anything I've seen of his, and I like it a lot.
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