Really liked Wonder Woman. Intrigued by Animal Man.
Really liked Wonder Woman. Intrigued by Animal Man.
"Justice League Dark" was a delight. Some of DC's most exciting characters in a book together? Yes please!
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
That's fair enough, I haven't read a lot of Flash comics before. Anyway, I wasn't arguing that Manapul was the first to do these things so much as he does them really well. Like, if there's anything in older Flash comics as graceful and visually powerful as that page of the Flash falling into the sewer, I'd love to see it. Mostly, I just loved the spirit of fun and kineticism in this comic.Quoting Sven (view post)
How great was that Shade/Kathy scene? This whole book is so obviously Milligan's callback to his 80s/early 90s prime.
"OMAC" may be one of the greatest surprises of the new 52 comics I've read. I went into it knowing nothing about it at all - I honestly thought it had to do with Batman's OMAC project from a few years back.
But no, what I got was a great, loving throwback to Jack Kirby's One Man Army Corps.
Awesome stuff. Cannot wait for issue 2.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
that was definitely the highlight for me. though i hope it didn't spoil anything, as i'm currently about 30 issues into shade.
DiDio got into hot water when he mentioned on Facebook that none of the Crises ever happened in the relaunch. He clarified himself the next day with this:
Movie Theater Diary
I don't even know what that means.
I love that the New 52 was supposed to simplify continuity for the sake of new readers but really it's just confusing as hell when they start talking about how some previous stories happened and some didn't and some maybe kinda sorta happened. Stuff like that is exactly why mainstream superhero comics so often drive me nuts.
I just ignore it. I've never been able to bring myself to care about universe dynamics. A good book will be a good book, regardless of its fidelity to a different book's history.
That's how I see it. Someone mentioned they wouldn't continue with All-Star Western because it was separate from the rest of the DC timeline. Well, one, duh... Two, does it really matter? I guess to some... But just seems weird unless there's an intentional crossover.
Huh? What did they mean by separate timeline? Just in another time period?
Movie Theater Diary
The bad news I heard was that future All Star Westerns are going to be colored in a more conventional, colorful fashion.
Ew. If the story goes in a bad direction, I'll be done.
yeah, i've always found this to be a stumbling block in the past. it's why i got really annoyed when morrison's batman run got folded into final crisis. batman and son > batman RIP stand on their own pretty well. but when you get to the end of return of bruce wayne (which i was loving up until then) and it folds back into all this final crisis stuff i have no idea about i found it kind of diminishing. maybe it's my fault for not being well versed in dc mythology but i'm not sure it's too much to ask that a piece of work at least be parsable on it's own.
Yeah, I loved "Batman and Son" but when I realized Batman's death and resurrection was going to be very related to Final Crisis... I just lost interest and stopped reading, even though I'm sure Morrison writes the hell out of it.
But since Morrison wrote Final Crisis, at least there is a strong sense of unified interconnectivity. Plus, it's some of the best stuff I've ever read. Worse would've been trying to tie his Batman into a Johns crisis.
I've read Morrison's Batman epic so far twice, once without Final Crisis and once with it. It was pretty frustrating the first time, where after "RIP" a lot of what happens is woven together with the aftermath of Final Crisis. Reading it with Final Crisis in its proper place after "RIP" makes a lot of sense of stuff like the cloned Batman that Dick resurrects, everything that happens in Batman #701-702, and especially The Return of Bruce Wayne. It's annoying to me that Morrison's Batman saga can't stand on its own, but I do understand it because, as Sven says, Morrison himself wrote Final Crisis (which isn't bad on its own merits) so it makes sense that he'd tie it all together in that way. It's much worse when a creator's great run on a title is derailed by other people's crossovers.
Also, Morrison's Batman story isn't really intended to stand on its own in other ways, too. The second time I read the whole thing, I also prepared for it by reading stuff like The Black Casebook, Dark Knight, Dark City and Gothic, and those also lay a lot of groundwork for "RIP" and everything else. Morrison references a lot of stuff from those books without explanation, and it all made much more sense to me the second time through with all that background to draw on.
This is why the Final Crisis stuff bothered me less than when the title was interrupted by "The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul" crossover.
Don't forget Silver Age. I mean, if you're familiar with "Robin Dies at Dawn" and "Batman, the Superman of Planet X," there's more to draw from even more. Weirdly enough, I sort of regret the fact that I never got to read Morrison's Batman without that stuff, as I've come across those two stories prior. Knowing what all the "Zurr-En-Arrh" hints were building up to, I'm sure reading it not knowing what the fuck it means would be another experience entirely.
Movie Theater Diary
Yeah, "Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul" was pretty boring, and it was frustrating that it broke up Morrison's story. On re-read I skimmed over all that and didn't feel like I missed much of anything.
The Silver Age stories you're talking about are in The Black Casebook. It's pretty goofy stuff, but very much essential to Morrison's Batman. Frankly, when I read the Morrison stuff the first time without having read all those stories, I was pretty confused by a lot of what Morrison was doing. I could tell he was referencing earlier stories, but when I reread it after reading all those old stories, I realized just how much I was missing by not having that background. Everything falls into place with that added context. Reading the Morrison issues without knowing about all that earlier stuff just isn't nearly as good of an experience.
i read morrison's batman twice before reading any of the stuff that he's referencing. the first time i was a bit at sea. the second time i through it was the best batman story i've ever read (still do). i think it's just so dense it takes a reading or two to fully comprehend. having that background knowledge certainly helps, but i think it works fine on it's own (up til the end of RIP anyway, which is kind of an ending point in and of itself). perhaps i should read final crisis and see how that adds to the experience.
So of the titles I have read so far (I have a few titles on my pull list that I didn't get to read the #1's of yet as they were over-sold), I would rank them as such...
Excellent
OMAC
Swamp Thing
Batwoman
Batman
Justice League Dark
Superman
Good
Action Comics
Batgirl
Detective Comics
Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.
Captain Atom
Wonder Woman
So-So
Justice League
Bad
Catwoman
Biggest surprises: OMAC, Batgirl and Justice League Dark
Biggest disappointments: Action Comics (good, but was expecting brilliance), Justice League, Catwoman
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
I thought "Captain Atom" was gorgeous, but I think it was the colours that did it for me.
Looking at the penciling, it's not particularly impressive.
But man is the colour work divine.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
I'm exceptionally pleased with all my selections today minus one.
OMAC continues its deluge of dunderheaded Kirby chaos, which is wholly satisfying, even if part of me wishes that the writing was punchier. Really I'm just wishing for more Godland.
Stormwatch was a bit obtuse, but the coloring and production combined with Cornell's whimsy on an apocalyptic scale makes it very fun to read regardless.
Action Comics, I'm sorry for contributing to the fanboy wad, read perfectly. So far the structure is impressive and Luthor's characterization is hilarious.
Red Lanterns is still probably my favorite title of the bunch. Milligan has a nebulous approach to focal point which is working excellently here, shifting between divergent emotional fluxes and character perspectives to explore the genesis of rage.
As for Swamp Thing, I can't say it's bad, really, because the art is easily among the best of the reboot, and the script is moody. But for as much time as they've taken explaining the past, I still have no idea what's happening in the present. The poor exposition is killing it.
Plus, re: Swamp Thing, [] is almost a guaranteed way to get me to stop reading.
Posting Permissions
forum
Reply With Quote