House To Astonish Episode 67
Having managed (apparently, touch wood) to sort out our problems with our RSS feed, we’re back, with a load of chat about the sales on the New 52, the possible upcoming Deadman TV show, and the solicitations for November. We’ve also got reviews of Secret Avengers, Angel & Faith and Justice League, and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe has got it covered. All this plus random bricks, the further adventures of Cockney Frank Cho and vampires touching each other up.
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A little surprised just how down you two were on Justice League #1, though I agree with your general criticism that as a single, blow-out intro to both Justice League and the New 52, it fails. I guess my position is that it clearly isn’t meant to be read as a single issue, but is rather that hyper-decompressed first chapter for the introduction to the new League, with each character having plenty of time to be introduced, with Vic getting the most time to be given character because he probably is the one new readers are unfamiliar with. So yes, it doesn’t quite grab you by the collar (and it was interesting to hold it up against Secret Avengers, which is the exact opposite in terms of storytelling technique), but I am suitably interested to see how they introduce Darkseid, how it brings the group together and how the three absent characters are presented in their rookie status. I was suitably entertained, and look forward to the next issue. Is that not the function of a first issue?
I didn’t enjoy Justice League myself but I have been against the while reboot. This didn’t seem any different than the last 5 times they have tried to start fresh. The issue also feels like it plays off what fans already know and against their expectations. If you truly are going to attempt to bring in new readers seems like you would want the entire team together in the first issue. I have a feeling we won’t see the entire team until issue 5 or 6 like in New Avengers breakout arc.
Nixon: This is the spearhead book of DC’s massive publicity campaign which is supposed to be bringing in new readers. It’s their one (or at least main) chance to grab those readers. They are not going to meekly come back for the following chapters in the hope that it will become entertaining in the end. If it “clearly isn’t meant to be read as a single issue” then it is a total, utter failure on every level.
Marvel have updated one of their western heroes — Ghost Rider, sort of — before with considerable success, so perhaps they’re thinking they can do the same with the others.
It’s been said that on some level, the reboot was doomed to failure from the beginning simply because there hasn’t been any creative turnover for the “new DCU” – it’s the same batch of writers, assigned to different books. More than anything, I think that demonstrates just how superficial the upcoming changes will be.
Admittedly I’m not completely up to speed with the newer solicitations, but aren’t the Green lantern books basically just continuing from what they did before the re-boot? This would mean that Hal Jordan is pretty much sidelined, right? So I wonder how this is supposed to work out with him being the GL of the Justice League unless they pull a switch between “5 years ago” and the present of the book, which doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Yeah, the Green Lantern books continue straight on from the books in the previous version of the continuity, as does the Batman books, apparently…
Which is another reason I walked away from comics once the DiCk Nu was announced–it’s just the latest of a long, looooong line of attempts to jumpstart the line, something that Dan Didio has been doing ever since he got there on September 12th, 2001…
Northanger Abby? Cool. I can’t wait to see more adaptions of Jane Austin, that little known author from the hipster Alamo of Texas.
You’re understating Angel & Faith’s past relationship a bit. It was Angel who got Faith to give up her psycho killer phase and got her to seek redemption. He also used to visit her in prison, and when she broke out, it was because Angel had gone evil again.
There’s a fairly strong history there of them helping each other seek redemption.
I really like Secret Avengers, though it felt closer to Planetary than Global Frequency to me. Shame McKelvie’s only on this issue, but I’ll check out the next ones for Walker, Aja and Lark.
Blue Shield showed up during the Busiek/Perez Avengers. During the Squadron Surpreme issues.
Also, Faith tried to turn Angel into Angelus in Buffy Season 3. They ended up on opposite sides during the whole Mayor thing.
@Webalus: OTOH, if they set a book “Five years ago”, and things in the present are exactly the same, what’s the point in it being set five years ago? Sinestro-GL is clearly not meant to be status-quo; it’s a situation that needs dealt with, so using JL to establish Hal as the “proper” Lantern might actually be a sensible idea.
I found Justice League inoffensively bogstandard, judged purely as a random comic, because I’m a regular comic reader and am resigned to them writing for the trades. Judged as the keystone of the New 52, intended to attract the new readers, I agree it’s a huge failure. (Vic Stone’s scenes are tolerable if you know he’s going to be Cyborg. If you don’t know who he is, there’s just no perceivable point to them.)
To be completely fair to the new Superman costume, it’s not as ridiculous as the thing on-set photos show Henry Cavill wearing.
The Littlest Deadman? “There’s a voice, keeps on possessing me…”
I firmly approve of the Dark Romance genre, on the grounds that it keeps them off the regular SF&F shelves.
I’m glad T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents isn’t just cancelled, but I’m sort of surprised at the minis and oneshots being released in the wake of the New 52. I’d say it weakened the brand, if I thought starting everything at #1 was coherent branding in the first place.
The megacrossover paradox: DC managed to botch this completely a few years back. Wonder Woman was one of several books that crossed over with The OMAC Project. Since all the other crossovers were pointless scenes of random heroes fighting OMACs, this was ignored. It turned out to contain a major plot twist (er, so to speak) which was then not clearly explained in the main book.
North Anger Abby reminds me of the gag about Downtown Abby, the costume drama about … oh, you get the idea.
Six Guns sounds fun. ISTR DC did a miniseries a while back about a modern-day version of Cinnamon, complete with the original’s “avenging dead sheriff dad” backstory. (She didn’t meet the modern-day Nighthawk, a bounty hunter Chuck Dixon created in Robin, which was a shame.)
Come to think of it, “ooh, I found a belt somewhere” was also the origin of Thunderbolt Jaxon. Which at least told us where the belt came from.
Daibhid:
Well, like Paul & Al said, a lot of the book is geared towards new readers, otherwise the long exposition and explanation stuff would be redundant. So you could assume these mystical new readers don’t know one GL from another or at best might know Hal Jordan from the movie. In that case, they’re more likely to be confused who that GL in Justice League is that doesn’t show up in the GL books – for now. I agree that he’ll be back (though probably not that soon otherwise the Sinestro stunt would be wasted), but a new reader wouldn’t know this.
Come to think of it, Hal Jordan wasn’t even once referenced to by name in the book, so he actually could be anyone at this stage…
I entirely agree with the review of JUSTICE LEAGUE #1, though I think a decompressed story can work just fine if you do it right. This one just didn’t.
Just a thought that occurred to me after reading: if Wonder Woman had been in it instead of Green Lantern, thus setting up all of the “Trinity” – the book’s core – would some people dissing it have found it more palatable?
Because if so, a second thought occurs to me: this book DOES set up the trinity of the DC Universe, as it truly exists today. There are three characters who can support multiple titles right now: Superman, Batman, and the Green Lantern. Really, the core of the DCU did get mostly set up here.
As far as your question why they didn’t use John Stewart as GL in Justice League. If the people in charge were willing to do that, they would have done it years ago and this reboot would be completely different and perhaps unnecessary.
DC has one great advantage when it comes to keeping characters fresh and relevant. Most of their characters are legacy heroes or easily could be. Need to refresh a character? Simply give the ring, cosmic rod, speed force, etc. to a new character. DC had been doing this, often successfully for decades before their creative leadership decided to undo all those changes and take everything back to the Silver Age.
If you use the legacy approach to keeping characters modern then reboots or relaunches only need to eliminate the cruft and intoduce new versions of characters whose specific identity is central to their story and appeal (Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel). Start fresh, with no limits on what stories you can tell. And do it all at once with no series relying on previous continuity. Let Morrison and Johns end their storylines and then start a brand new story with similar approaches and takes on the characters. Instead we have a piecemeal approach of everything is new except when it’s not and out characters will be young and fresh by making them the same characters they were 50 years ago except younger and wearing 90s costumes.
One thing brought out by Northanger Abbey is that the original Gothic romances inspired scores of imitators and were especially popular among young women – viz the famous passage in which two girls share a list of “horrid” novels which they eagerly look forward to reading. Not much change there…
P.S. At first I thought Batman and Green Lantern were fighting a “parodyman”. Well, there have been plenty of comedian-villains.
I am rather indifferent to the new DC as I wasn´t buying much of the old anyway with the exception of the odd Batman if the mood strikes me. But that JLA is basically written for the trade is a bad sign.
But I will never get how they could throw titles like Detective and Action that casually into the shredder. Other periodical publishers would love to have a vol 1 which is sold for 70+ years. “So your are publishing Superman since 1938? – Technically yes. But now only our brand new and better Vol.2 matters!” How superficial can you get?
Sure, numbering have become meaningless as Marvel so aptly demonstrates, but it makes product increasingly exchangeable, especially if you have 6 Avengers to buy or whatever.
Northanger Abby of course is embarassing as it can get.It speakes volumes about todays editorial.
DC’s attitude seems to be ‘there are two types of people, those who love Hal Jordan and those who don’t know him yet’.
I do not believe this is correct.
I’m in the ‘why the hell didn’t they use John Stewart as the Green Lantern for at least Justice League?’ He has mainstream exposure, thanks to the Justice League cartoon that Hal Jordan could only dream of now, let alone before his film tanked. Plus if they used John, maybe Cyborg wouldn’t feel like so much of a token inclusion (because Cyborg sure as hell isn’t on the team because he’s a big/popular enough character, despite what Geoff Johns might want to believe).
Also, Blue Shield’s origin actually sounds quite similar to Kyle Rayner’s. He found a thingy that gave him powers. Kyle’s just happened to be second-hand and famous.
[…] a podcast weekend, so don’t forget to check out the show just one post down from here. Strangely enough, there’s a lot of stuff about the DC relaunch, but we’re also […]
@Weblaus: Good point. I would hope (but perhaps not very optimistically) that GL #1 would explain the current Hal situation for the new readers. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be totally surprised if “Hal wants his ring back” wasn’t a subplot.
@AndyD: Totally agree about the numbering. In fact, I would confidentally predict that the new numbering will last for eight years at most.
Because I really don’t see DC saying “Oh, we’re publishing the first monthly comic to see a thousand issues … but we did the renumbering thing, so it’s just Action #94 and doesn’t count.”
Regarding Northanger Abby, I’m reminded of the classic Calamity Jane Austin site: http://home.tiac.net/~cri/2004/austin.html
The guys at my local shop were very up on the DC relaunch; apparently they held a midnight release party and sold out of JL #1 in an hour. (Although there was still plenty of issues of Flashpoint #5 when I was there the next day.) The owner seemed to be optimistic about the sales going forward, but one thing he didn’t mention was how many copies he sold to regular or irregular customers, and how many to new people giving it a shot.
He also claimed that the new DC was so successful that Marvel had announced they were going to do the same thing in 2012. However, since I can’t find any rumor of that on the internet, I’m going to assume he didn’t know what he was talking about.
Brilliant riff on Northanger Abbey, she’s a candidate for the OHOTOHOTMU if ever I heard one.
But I’m taking away your Tiger Tots for being mean to Aquaaman, I’m so tired of him being used as an easy joke. He does have some fans, y’know!
@Mark Clapham: Yep. Hal Jordan is the fourth-most interesting human member of the Green Lantern Corps, and probably the twentieth-most interesting member of the entire Corps.
I started reading GL when it was Kyle Rayner, but I enjoyed Rebirth, and tried to get into the new Jordan series. But for me it was a good concept with a cipher at its core; every attempt to make Hal seem more human felt empty. He was much more interesting as a villain.
Kyle being handed the last ring and told “You shall have to do” is the iconic Green Lantern moment for me. Some of the stuff Johns and Tomasi have done with the larger cast has been interesting, but I just have no interest in Hal.