The DC New 52 - One Reader's Plan
Jul. 1st, 2011 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdelmonteSo you may or may have heard about the big DC Comics relaunch in September. What DC is calling the New 52. 52 series starting from issue one, some with major changes, some without. Being a DC fanboy, I plan to try some of these comics. But which ones? Glad you asked...
1. Justice League #1 by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee – Yes. (Strong writer (usually), strong artist (if often late), and the purported center of DC2011. But will the two bosses of DC get this out in a timely fashion?
2. Action Comics #1 by Grant Morrison and Rags Morales – Hell yes. Morrison is born to write Supes.
3. Superman #1 by George Pérez and Jesus Moreno – Yes. Perez’ run on Superman in the late 80s was great. Though it’s been a very long time and while his art (Perez will be doing breakdowns, Moreno does the rest) is still great, what about his scripts?
4. Superboy #1 by Scott Lobdell and R.B. Silva and Rob Lean - No. Not really a big Lobdell fan.
5. Batman #1 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo – Yes. Snyder’s work on Detective has been great. Only quibble is that it’s Bruce and not Dick, and Snyder was really doing Dick well.
6. Detective Comics #1 by Tony Daniel – No. Daniel’s art is good but his stories are lousy.
7. Batgirl #1 by Gail Simone, Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes – Yes. Making Barbara Gordon Batgirl again is DC’s biggest blunder. Everyone but DC seems to know this. But Gail Simone gets who Babs is and therefore gets the chance to make it work.
8. Batwoman #1 by J.H. Williams III, Haden Blackman and Amy Reeder – No. As amazing as Williams’ art is, he’s an unproven writer, and the book has suffered huge delays already.
9. Catwoman #1 by Judd Winick and Guillem March – No. Winick is a better writer now than he’s been in ages, but March is a cheesecake artist whose work repels me.
10. Red Hood And The Outlaws #1 by Scott Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort – No. Not into Lodbell, and not sure anyone but Winick knows what to do with Jason Todd.
11. Batwing #1 by Judd Winick and Ben Oliver – Maybe. This spinoff from Batman Inc, featuring an African Batman, is an unknown quantity, but I am willing to give Winick a chance.
12. Nightwing #1 by Kyle Higgins and Eddy Barrows – Yes. The art will be good, and Higgins’ script in the first two issue of Gates of Gotham was pretty strong. But I still wish that Dick were Batman of Gotham. This is an unnecessary demotion.
13. Batman And Robin #1 by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason – No. Gleason’s art is strong, but Tomasi is hit and miss and didn’t impress me back when he wrote Nightwing.
14. DC Universe Presents #1 by Paul Jenkins and Bernard Chang – No. An anthology series by the unpredictable Paul Jenkins. Not much that grabs me about it.
15. Green Lantern #1 by Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy – Maybe. Been reading the GL books in the trades for a while now. This might be a good time to start buying, if I am not buying that much else.
16. Green Lantern Corps #1 by Peter J. Tomasi, Fernando Pasarin and Scott Hanna – Maybe - see above.
17. Green Lanterns: New Guardians #1 by Tony Bedard, Tyler Kirkham and Batt – No. Not big on Bedard, but glad Kyle has his own series again.
18. Red Lanterns #1 by Peter Milligan, Ed Benes and Rob Hunter – No. A series starring Atrocitus? Blood vomit for everyone? No thanks.
19. Animal Man #1 by Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman and Dan Green – Maybe. Lemire’s Vertigo series, Sweet Tooth, is really good. And his work on Superboy was just good enough to make me wonder what he would do if he didn’t have to deal with the rest of the DCU. Maybe this will be off the beaten path enough to allow that.
20. Swamp Thing #1 by Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette (and occasionally Francesco Francavilla)– Hell yes. Snyder didn’t totally wow me with American Vampire, but between what I did like there and what I love in his Batwork, this seems a great match. And the art will be amazing.
21. Legion Lost #1 by Fabian Nicieza Pete Woods – Yes. The premise – seven lesser Legionnaires stuck in the present – isn’t amazing, but I like Fabian’s writing and want to read a LSH comic.
22. Birds Of Prey #1 by Duane Swierczynski and Jesus Saiz – No. The author has gotten some acclaim for his novels and Marvel work, but I am not particularly interested.
23. Teen Titans #1 by Scott Lobdell, Brett Booth and Norm Rapmund – No. Still not a Lobdell fan.
24. Savage Hawkman #1 by Tony Daniel and Philip Tan – No. Still not a Daniel fan.
25. Blue Beetle #1 by Tony Bedard and Ig Guara – No. Still not a Bedard fan, though glad Jaime Reyes gets a second chance.
26. Supergirl #1 by Michael Green and Mike Johnson – No. Not a writer I like much, and the rebooted Supergirl will apparently be less likeable.
27. Wonder Woman #1 by Brian Azzarello #1 and Cliff Chiang – No. Everyone else likes Azz but he’s never grabbed me. Good art, though. (DC’s books do look great these days, even when they read badly.)
28. Fury Of Firestorm #1 by Gail Simone, Ethan Van Sciver and Yildiray Cinar – Yes. I like Simone and I like Firestorm.
29. Aquaman #1 by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis – No. No one can make Aquaman interesting. Not even Johns and Reis.
30. Mr Terrific #1 by Eric Wallace and Roger Robinson – No. Wallace is one of DC’s worst writers.
31. Flash #1 by Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul – No. The art might be amazing, but letting the artists also write this high profile book like this is foolish.
32. Green Arrow #1 by JT Krul and Dan Jurgens – No. Krul’s current run on GA has been lambasted, and Jurgens is too old-school an artist.
33. Justice League International #1 by Dan Jurgens and Aaron Lopresti – Maybe. Jurgens is also an old-school writer, but I like the cast (Booster Gold, Guy Gardner, Fire and Ice, Batman).
34. Captain Atom #1 by JT Krul and Freddie Williams II – Maybe. My interest in seeing a good Captain Atom comic in balanced by my doubts abut Krul.
35. Grifter #1 by Nathan Edmondson and CAFU and BIT – No. Not familiar either this Wildstorm hero or the writer, though he’s apparently the only rising indie comics talent DC hired for a new book.
36. Legion of Superheroes by Paul Levitz and Francis Portela – No. Levitz’s current Legion work has felt utterly stodgy. I missed the reboot versions of the team.
37. OMAC #1 by Dan DiDio and Keith Giffen – No. Didio is not any better a writer than he is an executive.
38. Batman: The Dark Knight #1 by David Finch – No. Bad artist, bad writer.
39. All-Star Western #1 by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Grey and Meridat – No. I give DC credit for continuing to do a western comic (still starring Jonah Hex), but the current Hex comic was not my thing.
40. Justice League Dark #1 by Peter Milligan and Mikel Janin – No. Interesting premise (harkening back to the Mystic Youth story by Millar and Jimenez in Books of Magic long ago) but Milligan is unreliable.
41. Demon Knights #1 by Paul Cornell, Diogenes Neves and Oclair Albert – Maybe. It’s set in the Middle Ages. Cool enough to consider, but also really risky.
42. Frankenstein: Agent Of SHADE #1 by Jeff Lemire and Alberto Ponticelli – Maybe. Same thoughts about Lemire, and his use of the character in a Flashpoint-related miniseries was interesting.
43. Resurrection Man #1 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Fernando Dagnino – Hell yes. DnA did this series before their long, successful run at Marvel, and I am thrilled they are back at DC, even though I never actually read this comic.
44. I, Vampire #1 by Josh Fialkov and Andrea Sorrentino – No. The cover makes this look like Eye Candy Vampire.
45. Voodoo #1 by Ron Marz and Sami Basri – No. Not much on Marz and not familiar with this Wildstorm character.
46. Static Shock #1 by John Rozum and Scott McDaniel – Maybe. I am not a big fan of Static Shock, but Rozum’s sadly short run on Xombi is great and McDaniel is an underrated artist.
47. Hawk And Dove #1 by Sterling Gates and Rob Liefeld – No. Gates is a decent writer, but I cannot stand Liefeld’s art, and these are not exactly gripping heroes.
48. Men Of War #1 by Ivan Brandon and Tom Derenick – No. This hi-tech war comic sounds like it will alternate between being socially/politically relevant and being a war comic. Not really my thing.
49. Stormwatch #1 by Paul Cornell and Miguel Sepulveda – Maybe. The highly praised Cornell gets to use Wildstorm’s take-no-prisoners characters with J’onn J’Onzz added for fun. This could be terrible. This could be really fun.
50. Deathstroke #1 by Kyle Higgins, Joe Bennett and Art Thibert – No. Lost interest in the comic version of Deathstroke long ago.
51. Suicide Squad #1 by Adam Glass and Marco Rudy – No. The cover art shows Harley Quinn redesigned as a scantily clad rainbow goth chick. That alone would have scared me off. Add in writer Adam Glass, who is also one of Supernatural’s lesser lights, and I would go so far as to say this is at the bottom of my list.
52. Blackhawks #1 by Mike Costa and Ken Lashley – Yet another hi-tech war comic. Same reaction as to Men of War.
Yes – 10
Maybe – 10
If out of these 20 I end up with 10 good comics a month, I will be happy. Especially since I was down to about six a month from DC.
But of the 32 I am not buying, a depressingly high number sound bland or bad and I think a lot of these new books will be gone in a year.
In other words, at the end of the day, the relaunch sounds a lot like the current DC. But I will let you know in September,
1. Justice League #1 by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee – Yes. (Strong writer (usually), strong artist (if often late), and the purported center of DC2011. But will the two bosses of DC get this out in a timely fashion?
2. Action Comics #1 by Grant Morrison and Rags Morales – Hell yes. Morrison is born to write Supes.
3. Superman #1 by George Pérez and Jesus Moreno – Yes. Perez’ run on Superman in the late 80s was great. Though it’s been a very long time and while his art (Perez will be doing breakdowns, Moreno does the rest) is still great, what about his scripts?
4. Superboy #1 by Scott Lobdell and R.B. Silva and Rob Lean - No. Not really a big Lobdell fan.
5. Batman #1 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo – Yes. Snyder’s work on Detective has been great. Only quibble is that it’s Bruce and not Dick, and Snyder was really doing Dick well.
6. Detective Comics #1 by Tony Daniel – No. Daniel’s art is good but his stories are lousy.
7. Batgirl #1 by Gail Simone, Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes – Yes. Making Barbara Gordon Batgirl again is DC’s biggest blunder. Everyone but DC seems to know this. But Gail Simone gets who Babs is and therefore gets the chance to make it work.
8. Batwoman #1 by J.H. Williams III, Haden Blackman and Amy Reeder – No. As amazing as Williams’ art is, he’s an unproven writer, and the book has suffered huge delays already.
9. Catwoman #1 by Judd Winick and Guillem March – No. Winick is a better writer now than he’s been in ages, but March is a cheesecake artist whose work repels me.
10. Red Hood And The Outlaws #1 by Scott Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort – No. Not into Lodbell, and not sure anyone but Winick knows what to do with Jason Todd.
11. Batwing #1 by Judd Winick and Ben Oliver – Maybe. This spinoff from Batman Inc, featuring an African Batman, is an unknown quantity, but I am willing to give Winick a chance.
12. Nightwing #1 by Kyle Higgins and Eddy Barrows – Yes. The art will be good, and Higgins’ script in the first two issue of Gates of Gotham was pretty strong. But I still wish that Dick were Batman of Gotham. This is an unnecessary demotion.
13. Batman And Robin #1 by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason – No. Gleason’s art is strong, but Tomasi is hit and miss and didn’t impress me back when he wrote Nightwing.
14. DC Universe Presents #1 by Paul Jenkins and Bernard Chang – No. An anthology series by the unpredictable Paul Jenkins. Not much that grabs me about it.
15. Green Lantern #1 by Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy – Maybe. Been reading the GL books in the trades for a while now. This might be a good time to start buying, if I am not buying that much else.
16. Green Lantern Corps #1 by Peter J. Tomasi, Fernando Pasarin and Scott Hanna – Maybe - see above.
17. Green Lanterns: New Guardians #1 by Tony Bedard, Tyler Kirkham and Batt – No. Not big on Bedard, but glad Kyle has his own series again.
18. Red Lanterns #1 by Peter Milligan, Ed Benes and Rob Hunter – No. A series starring Atrocitus? Blood vomit for everyone? No thanks.
19. Animal Man #1 by Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman and Dan Green – Maybe. Lemire’s Vertigo series, Sweet Tooth, is really good. And his work on Superboy was just good enough to make me wonder what he would do if he didn’t have to deal with the rest of the DCU. Maybe this will be off the beaten path enough to allow that.
20. Swamp Thing #1 by Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette (and occasionally Francesco Francavilla)– Hell yes. Snyder didn’t totally wow me with American Vampire, but between what I did like there and what I love in his Batwork, this seems a great match. And the art will be amazing.
21. Legion Lost #1 by Fabian Nicieza Pete Woods – Yes. The premise – seven lesser Legionnaires stuck in the present – isn’t amazing, but I like Fabian’s writing and want to read a LSH comic.
22. Birds Of Prey #1 by Duane Swierczynski and Jesus Saiz – No. The author has gotten some acclaim for his novels and Marvel work, but I am not particularly interested.
23. Teen Titans #1 by Scott Lobdell, Brett Booth and Norm Rapmund – No. Still not a Lobdell fan.
24. Savage Hawkman #1 by Tony Daniel and Philip Tan – No. Still not a Daniel fan.
25. Blue Beetle #1 by Tony Bedard and Ig Guara – No. Still not a Bedard fan, though glad Jaime Reyes gets a second chance.
26. Supergirl #1 by Michael Green and Mike Johnson – No. Not a writer I like much, and the rebooted Supergirl will apparently be less likeable.
27. Wonder Woman #1 by Brian Azzarello #1 and Cliff Chiang – No. Everyone else likes Azz but he’s never grabbed me. Good art, though. (DC’s books do look great these days, even when they read badly.)
28. Fury Of Firestorm #1 by Gail Simone, Ethan Van Sciver and Yildiray Cinar – Yes. I like Simone and I like Firestorm.
29. Aquaman #1 by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis – No. No one can make Aquaman interesting. Not even Johns and Reis.
30. Mr Terrific #1 by Eric Wallace and Roger Robinson – No. Wallace is one of DC’s worst writers.
31. Flash #1 by Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul – No. The art might be amazing, but letting the artists also write this high profile book like this is foolish.
32. Green Arrow #1 by JT Krul and Dan Jurgens – No. Krul’s current run on GA has been lambasted, and Jurgens is too old-school an artist.
33. Justice League International #1 by Dan Jurgens and Aaron Lopresti – Maybe. Jurgens is also an old-school writer, but I like the cast (Booster Gold, Guy Gardner, Fire and Ice, Batman).
34. Captain Atom #1 by JT Krul and Freddie Williams II – Maybe. My interest in seeing a good Captain Atom comic in balanced by my doubts abut Krul.
35. Grifter #1 by Nathan Edmondson and CAFU and BIT – No. Not familiar either this Wildstorm hero or the writer, though he’s apparently the only rising indie comics talent DC hired for a new book.
36. Legion of Superheroes by Paul Levitz and Francis Portela – No. Levitz’s current Legion work has felt utterly stodgy. I missed the reboot versions of the team.
37. OMAC #1 by Dan DiDio and Keith Giffen – No. Didio is not any better a writer than he is an executive.
38. Batman: The Dark Knight #1 by David Finch – No. Bad artist, bad writer.
39. All-Star Western #1 by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Grey and Meridat – No. I give DC credit for continuing to do a western comic (still starring Jonah Hex), but the current Hex comic was not my thing.
40. Justice League Dark #1 by Peter Milligan and Mikel Janin – No. Interesting premise (harkening back to the Mystic Youth story by Millar and Jimenez in Books of Magic long ago) but Milligan is unreliable.
41. Demon Knights #1 by Paul Cornell, Diogenes Neves and Oclair Albert – Maybe. It’s set in the Middle Ages. Cool enough to consider, but also really risky.
42. Frankenstein: Agent Of SHADE #1 by Jeff Lemire and Alberto Ponticelli – Maybe. Same thoughts about Lemire, and his use of the character in a Flashpoint-related miniseries was interesting.
43. Resurrection Man #1 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Fernando Dagnino – Hell yes. DnA did this series before their long, successful run at Marvel, and I am thrilled they are back at DC, even though I never actually read this comic.
44. I, Vampire #1 by Josh Fialkov and Andrea Sorrentino – No. The cover makes this look like Eye Candy Vampire.
45. Voodoo #1 by Ron Marz and Sami Basri – No. Not much on Marz and not familiar with this Wildstorm character.
46. Static Shock #1 by John Rozum and Scott McDaniel – Maybe. I am not a big fan of Static Shock, but Rozum’s sadly short run on Xombi is great and McDaniel is an underrated artist.
47. Hawk And Dove #1 by Sterling Gates and Rob Liefeld – No. Gates is a decent writer, but I cannot stand Liefeld’s art, and these are not exactly gripping heroes.
48. Men Of War #1 by Ivan Brandon and Tom Derenick – No. This hi-tech war comic sounds like it will alternate between being socially/politically relevant and being a war comic. Not really my thing.
49. Stormwatch #1 by Paul Cornell and Miguel Sepulveda – Maybe. The highly praised Cornell gets to use Wildstorm’s take-no-prisoners characters with J’onn J’Onzz added for fun. This could be terrible. This could be really fun.
50. Deathstroke #1 by Kyle Higgins, Joe Bennett and Art Thibert – No. Lost interest in the comic version of Deathstroke long ago.
51. Suicide Squad #1 by Adam Glass and Marco Rudy – No. The cover art shows Harley Quinn redesigned as a scantily clad rainbow goth chick. That alone would have scared me off. Add in writer Adam Glass, who is also one of Supernatural’s lesser lights, and I would go so far as to say this is at the bottom of my list.
52. Blackhawks #1 by Mike Costa and Ken Lashley – Yet another hi-tech war comic. Same reaction as to Men of War.
Yes – 10
Maybe – 10
If out of these 20 I end up with 10 good comics a month, I will be happy. Especially since I was down to about six a month from DC.
But of the 32 I am not buying, a depressingly high number sound bland or bad and I think a lot of these new books will be gone in a year.
In other words, at the end of the day, the relaunch sounds a lot like the current DC. But I will let you know in September,
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: Jul. 1st, 2011 05:14 pm (UTC)27. Must resist "Grab Azz" punchline. :)
29. Loved Aquaman by Steve Skeates, Ramona Fradon, Jim Aparo, and Don Newton. Angry Aquaman seems like Sub-Mariner.
(no subject)
Date: Jul. 1st, 2011 06:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: Jul. 1st, 2011 06:58 pm (UTC)You're making me want to do one of these myself. I will definitely be interested in what your opinions will be once it's all released.
Supergirl's supposed to be unlikable again?
Harley's redesign sounds like she belongs in the Flash gallery now or something. I haven't seen it and I'm not sure I even want to.
(why the hell are we getting so many wildstorm series?)
(no subject)
Date: Jul. 6th, 2011 04:06 am (UTC)I had to stop from laughing for about a minute right there. =)
Reading this made me think DC could kill 1/3 of these titles immediately, and I suspect we'd agree on which ones for the most part.
I'm delighted to see Abnett/Lanning back too, but if Johns had any guts, he'd give them a GL book, and the results would be spectacular (based on what they accomplished with the Marvel cosmic titles the past few years). Of course, they'd also overshadow everything Johns is doing, so I won't hold my breath.
Snyder doing Swamp Thing gives me hope that this could be the first series for that character worth reading since the mid-90s. It's been much, *much* too long.
Also glad you're finding Levitz' LOSH as 'stodgy' (exactly the word) as I am. I want Abnett/Lanning on them again too. And bring back the 90s era LOSH while they're at it. I miss that cast. A lot.
52 titles and not one by Brubaker, Rucka, or Dixon (not to mention Wildstorm titles, but not one by Ellis). Way to alienate solid writers, DC.