DCU Week 2
Everyone else may want to call it week three, but here at House to Astonish we’re choosing to pretend Justice League didn’t happen.
And for those of you checking in late of a weekend: you’ll find this week’s X-book reviews here, you’ll find this week’s podcast here (with reviews of Pigs, Ultimate Spider-Man and Demon Knights), and you’ll find the wrestling preview here. Content!
The DCU titles I didn’t get this week: Batman and Robin (reviews suggest it’s okay), Deathstroke (sounds like I’m not missing much), Green Lantern (mixed reviews elsewhere, and nothing that makes me feel like I want to read it), Mr Terrific (seems to be getting a fairly muted reaction), Resurrection Man (ditto, and I never much cared for the book first time round), Suicide Squad (critical consensus: destroy) and Superboy (Al’s read it, and he says it’s better than you’d expect). If you want to persuade me to give any of these a go, the comments thread is at the bottom.
But now for the six I did buy…
Batwoman #1 – Originally solicited for, ooh, ages ago – the preview issue shipped last November – this is a book that was pushed back to coincide with the relaunch. And, one hopes, to give J H Williams III a chance to get a few issues ahead. Given that background, this wasn’t conceived as any sort of reboot, and it naturally continues on from the stories written by Greg Rucka last year.
One of the big questions here was how Williams would get on when he became writer as well as artist. And the answer is, pretty well. He sets up a storyline about some weird mystical woman stealing kids (which resonates vaguely with the lead character’s origin story), he brings on some supporting characters, he sets up an odd relationship between Batwoman and her sidekick. And he brings in Chase, a character he used to draw years ago. There’s also a double-page spread ploughing through Batwoman’s back story – though, oddly, not to the point of actually explaining why she became a superhero or what connection, if any, she has with Batman.
But the real draw on this title is the art, which is as spectacular as you’d expect. It’s not just that Williams is good; it’s that he’s got range, and shifts style from scene to scene, sometimes even within a page, in a way that plays to the requirements of each scene. Be warned that he’s very fond of swirly double-page spreads which are spectacularly unsuited to the digital format; this is one to buy physically or not at all. This is a showcase for an artist at the very top of his game; the story is there to support that, but it gets the job done.
Demon Knights #1 – We talked about this on the podcast, but suffice to say it’s a pretty good debut. If Paul Cornell’s voice seemed to get lost on the first issue of StormWatch, it’s nice and clear on this book. A team book set in the Dark Ages, even with established DC characters, seems like a tough sell, but they’re certainly committing to the idea; there are no obvious cheats here, it’s essentially a fantasy title. The central figures in the first issue are the Demon and Madame Xanadu (with a cute romantic triangle set-up), and Cornell certainly sells them as fun characters to read about. The Seven Soldiers version of the Shining Knight is also in here, and apparently still thinks she’s fooling people with the cross-dressing thing.
The rest of the cast don’t get much of an intro, but they’re mainly being steered into place so that they can get a proper intro in the next issue, I suspect. There’s a slightly arbitrary feel to the way everyone ends up in the same place, though I gather this works rather better if you read it as a joke about stock opening scenes for Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. And I’ll grant that Madame Xanadu’s actions in the opening flashback are pretty hard to make sense of, though I’m going to treat that as a deliberate choice. Good art from Diogenes Neves, who seems to be very happy to draw Dark Ages fighting and (ahem) “dragons”, and a pretty good debut which does the key job of making these guys seem like they’ll be entertaining to read about.
Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE #1 – This is the Seven Soldiers take on Frankenstein, still around fighting weirdness in the modern day. SHADE is a secret organisation full of mad scientist types, with the Atom of all people, floating around in the mix as well. And in this issue, Frankenstein’s wildly eccentric boss, recently reincarnated as an eight-year-old girl, packs him off with the Creature Commandos to take on a bunch of weird monsters who’ve decimated a small town.
I’ve seen some really good reviews for this one, but for me, it didn’t quite land it. It’s basically a parade of seriously weird ideas clustering around a very straightforward plot, and I felt it never really made it past the stage of weirdness for its own sake. It’s certainly a very different kind of book for writer Jeff Lemire; this is the one where he seems to be revelling in post-Silver Age quirkiness, and it’s well supported by Alberto Ponticelli’s deadpan yet over-the-top art. I think the problem for me is that it’s so self-consciously oddball that it never really gives me a reason to care about the story.
Grifter #1 – Notionally an import of the WildStorm character into the DC Universe, in practice this seems to be a completely different concept tacked on to Grifter’s name and character design. Cole Cash is a travelling conman (hence the codename), he gets caught up in some sort of Invasion of the Body-Snatchers kind of thing, and after escaping, finds that he can hear all the weird aliens around him posing as human beings. Unfortunately, just because he can hear their voices, it doesn’t mean he can tell which person they’re coming from… and cue the paranoia and misunderstandings.
I seem to be out of line with the consensus here, but I thought this was alright. It’s a perfectly solid premise which would have made a decent Image title. It’s also the premise of Rom and, to be fair, there’s apparently something long-since-dropped from the early days of WildCATS along vaguely similar lines. It could have done more to flesh out Cole’s personality in the first issue; there’s an odd narrative stumble about whether he’s been missing for days or hours; and a closing scene where he puts on the mask comes across as a fairly desperate attempt to yoke this unrelated story to an existing trade mark. And yet… I do kind of like the concept. I’ll give it some time and see how it beds down.
Legion Lost #1 – Um. Fabian Nicieza and Pete Woods have done good work together in the past, and they’re usually solid storytellers, but I can’t help wondering whether this is one of the last-minute rush jobs. Legion Lost was originally a twelve-issue series from 2000-2001, but from the look of it we’re mainly recycling the name here. The actual premise seems to be that some of the Legion characters come back to the present day chasing a baddie, and get stuck here.
Since that much is clear, the book technically does succeed in getting the premise over. But there’s not much in the way of context for new readers, nor do the individual characters get much of a chance to shine, with the possible exception of Timber Wolf. I guess the story is going for the approach of dropping us into the middle and letting us figure it out for ourselves, which is fine as far as it goes, but there isn’t really a character hook here to keep me reading.
Red Lanterns #1 – Oh lordy. This one always sounded like a probable trainwreck – who the hell wants to build a series about a bunch of blood-vomiting lunatics whose defining trait is that they’re always very, very angry? But it’s Peter Milligan, so at least there’s a fair bet he’ll try to do something interesting with it.
From the look of it, Milligan’s starting point is that rage and vengeance are eternal storytelling themes, therefore it ought to be possible to use the Red Lanterns to do something with that. Specifically, he’s really trying to write a solo series about Atrocitus, the one Red Lantern who actually has something approaching a personality – the story goes out of its way to make clear that the others are barely capable of stringing a sentence together. Somewhere in here, there’s also a subplot about a really bitter and vengeful human, who’s presumably going to end up being a Red Lantern down the line.
On a purely abstract level you can kind of see what Milligan’s going for here; just how angry can Atrocitus continue to be and still qualify as a character, and vice versa? But even with Green Lantern, I’ve always had a feeling that later writers have been trying to nail drama onto a flimsy construct that isn’t quite up to the job. With the Red Lanterns, it’s even more of a stretch; the Corps as a whole are basically anti-characters, and trying to do poetic tragedy with Atrocitus is just a horrid tone clash.
On the bright side, fans of Ed Benes’ art will be pleased to know that the mere fact that he’s drawing a comic full of angry lunatics has evidently not dimmed his ability to find an excuse to draw arses. And everyone else will be pleased to know that he’s drawing Red Lanterns, a comic they probably won’t be reading.
I stumbled upon an art dealer’s website a few days ago that was for Ed Benes, his siblings and various other, mostly South American artists following in his footsteps. It was indescribably horrifying. The even the very best of his imitators seemed to have a worse grasp of anatomy and greater predilection for t&a than Benes and the worst were, well, it’s best not said.
I’m surprised you didn’t like the original Resurrection Man, Paul. I think it’s one of the best comics of the 90s (though loses it’s way after #1,000,000). Can’t speak for the revival yet, as I’ve not picked up my copy yet.
At least Peter Milligan had the good sense to open with hate kitty, hate kitty is awesome.
Paul, I’d give Batman and Robin a try. It’s not the sort of book I’d normally be interested in, but I picked it up on the strength of the reviews and quite liked it. Largely due to Damien, who, when I think about it, is exactly the son Batman deserves given the attitude he’s thrown around at other people over the years. Karma’s a bitch.
Superboy was surprisingly good, with some dense storytelling, fun cameos and just plain good writing (I love the “small town” sequence). It even gave me a little hope that Teen Titans might not be a trainwreck.
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=user_review&id=3916
http://comicbook.com/blog/2011/09/15/suicide-squad-1-review-hits-some-already-familiar-targets/
The first thought it was okay and the second still gave it an okay rating (from the first few hits on my google search). Why destroy?
Legion Lost was originally a twelve-issue series from 2000-2001
Quite a good one too — and I say that as someone who has little interest in the DCU — and one that DC refused to reprint or collect for a decade. They’ve done so now, although they left out the lead-in story in the main Legion titles. Sigh.
Found some of the bad reviews, very funny stuff, I find it hard to take the following guys seriously:
“It all comes down to an aesthetic change that they’ve made with the relaunch, taking away something that made a character visually unique in favor of the same look we’ve seen over and over again in comics. I speak, of course, of Deadshot’s mustache.”
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/09/15/suicide-squad-1-review-amanda-waller/#ixzz1YL65BUq6
“And really, the torture scene in the beginning– what exactly are they doing to Deadshot? Cooking live rats on him? I’m really confused by this.”
http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2011/09/16/suicide-squad-1-review/
‘What are you doing to my cat?’
Atrocitus or Anonymous? That line makes him a lot more awesome in my eyes.
I would recommend Deathstroke; it doesn’t exactly break new ground, but it presents a very approachable version of the character while also establishing a conflict for the ongoing series: Wilson is seen as a legend of the past rather than the most dangerous of the present. It has a certain No Country for Old Men vibe to it, though underscored slightly by the fact that it goes out of its way to point out that those doubting Wilson are flat-out wrong and he is indeed still the biggest bad-ass in the assassin world. Still, it is a nice self-contained issue that creates a sense of forward momentum, and has a marginally unexpected ending if you’ve been lucky enough to not have it spoiled for you yet. For what its worth, I thought it was far better than Grifter, but you seemed to like that book far more than I did anyway.
I can’t really sell you on any of this weeks books, last week I thought Men of War was a good comic but it will be crushed by a $3.99 price.
I also liked Grifter but feel this was a book that needed to be “decompressed.” A perfect cliffhanger would have been the intro of the aliens to Grifter. I’m going to stick with Red Lanterns, it was a book that had a lot of prep time and I think Milligan is going to throw a curveball with the Humans. At this point the star character is an angry cat so he has character building to do.
Now back to my weekly complaint (I would let it go but I keep finding hang ups in books.) The selective “reboot” drives me nuts! Batwoman is obviously written before it and chooses to ignore this. Batman shows up to make her part of Batman inc and Flamebird mentions being with the teen titans. In the interviews thus far I have been led to believe that there never were a teen titans until next weeks book. Wally West and Donna Troy don’t exist and Cyborg was always a JLA member. Batman and Robin is written as the next arc of that book with Batman inc still going. If they want me to believe that this isn’t all just cool stories to lead into a crossover to change it back…stop having books contradict it.
@thomas – Yeah. From the looks of things, it’s shaping up to be “Crisis” all over again with poor post-reboot planning and not everyone being on the same page.
Seriously, how difficult is it to map out this stuff beforehand and send everyone involved a guide? “This person was a member of this team, but not this team.” etc. Sloppy planning eventually leads to later retcons for the purpose of explaining away previous errors/inconsistencies, and these solutions sometimes cause as many problems as they solve leading to more retconning. Then it becomes precedent and writers begin retconning whenever it suits them and because they know DC is lax about it.
It’s a lot to do with why I jumped ship on DC years ago. Got to the point where I felt like I was just following a bunch of brand names around rather than investing myself in a continued lore where characters can develop and be depicted as the sum of their previous experiences. If the experiences keep getting wiped out, then there’s little to inform the character and less to care about.
Thought I’d give them another chance here with one more full-scale clean slate but I’m getting the sinking feeling that we’re heading for another deluge of “Oops. That didn’t really happen that way. It happened this way.” moments.
Wish I had skipped Green Lantern like you. I understand that the books have been one of DC’s better draws over the last several years and that DC decided to keep the continuity. But one would think that the first issue might go so far as to be accessible to new fans. Having not read the title in the last year, I found myself completely at loss and understood very little. -Highly disappointing.
Green Lantern didn’t even have a freaking recap page. Great starting point DC.
I enjoyed Superboy myself: it packed a lot of story in there and the art was better than I expected. I was disappointed though that it seems to be immediately leading into joining up with Titans continuity; I was hoping at least the initial arc was an origin flashback.
I found it really interesting last week Paul when you mentioned you bought some titles digitally that you hadn’t planned on reading. I hope you continue to note that fact when discussing books it applies to. I believe you can “gift” people books via Comixology — would you ever be up for reviewing a book someone in the comments felt passionately about if they were to do so?
Also, I really wish this blog had something like Disqus installed so we could subscribe to receive notification of followup posts.
I don’t know what critics you’re reading, but their opinions of Mr. Terrific and Suicide Squad are the reverse of what I would expect. Mr. T was just dreadful, but Suicide Squad wasn’t bad at all.
I’d recommend Resurrection Man, but if you didn’t like the original series I guess there’d be no reason why you’d change your mind now. I’ve never even read the old series, but I’m already hooked. Other than that, you’re not missing anything from among the books you passed on (although Al’s right that Superboy is much better than you’d think).
So, has DC finally completely forgotten that Ray Palmer isn’t Hank Pym?
Of course, I’m not deeply familiar with Palmer’s history; for all I know he was doing the “veteran hero whose ex-wife issues almost destroyed his career and his sanity but now he’s gotten his life back on track at least enough to be considered useful as a mentor and superhero tech-support who uses his scientific genius and size-changing specialty to provide other heroes with gear and a headquarters” thing before Hank was.
Ray Palmer is currently not the Atom.
The Asian one that got killed off is now back.
No, Palmer’s around (although I forget what book he’s meant to be in), he’s just not going to be the Atom on the Justice League.
Ray Palmer is in Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE, doing an impression of Hank Pym in Avengers Academy. (I’m exaggerating for comedic effect, but I think the career trajectories match up on a more-than-passing level).
@Brian — I recall reading somewhere (by a guy speaking for DC) that we should expect a new attitude towards “continuity” with DCnU.
Mind, even in the months before DCnU, it seemed like it was going to end up a mess, and that feeling only grew as more info was released. I’d say DC’s current approach to continuity is pretty much “**** it.” Everything seems to be pretty free and wild, with not even the most token effort being made to keep two writers/books on the same page anymore.
After reading the reviews here for so long, the reviews on Comic Book Resources just seem so…pedestrian.
Also, Secret Six? One of the most overrated titles. EVER.
‘demon knights’ is fun. i love neves’ art. ive been meaning to check out some sword&sorcery in comics form anyway… any suggestions?
I would like to second the recommendation for Batman and Robin. I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Besides the wonderful art, this is mostly down to Damian’s merciless mocking of Bruce. When he starts talking about the murder of his parents, Damian basically tells him to get over it and quit whining. I’ve seen many reviewers complain about this, but I found it extremely enjoyable.
@ww5kd: I don’t think you can call a comic with Secret Six’s tiny audience “overrated.” Granted, some podcasters and internet reviewers really liked it, but it’s not like it was winning Eisners, or even a Prism award.
More broadly (and I’m not attributing this view to you), I have been seeing people referring to “Gail Simone apologists” on message boards lately, with a strong implication that, if she weren’t a woman, people like Evie Nagy wouldn’t push her so hard. I think this is an unacknowledged problem with the dearth of woman creators in comics; the gender becomes too much of an issue. People who are turned off by Simone’s quirky style are forced into a defensive crouch, whereas people who like her style are automatically suspect.
But there are plenty of women who create solid comics, so this really shouldn’t be a problem. I’d like to see publishers try something like the Rooney Rule for women in American football. There’s no harm in hearing an extra pitch.
I liked Superboy well enough, they’re clearly drawing more from the new “Young Justice” cartoon version of the character than from the comic character.
Still, while I’ll be picking up the next issue, I could have used a little more story. This issue established that he’s largely a blank slate, but he’s more aware of his surrounding than his handlers realize he is. And Rose Wilson is in the book and not as nice as the VR version of her that gets all the panel time.
A lot of ambiguous hints about what the characters are like and a story that’ll start up next time out is what I got out of it.
For what it’s worth, I was a big fan of Ostrander’s Suicide Squad and Simone’s Secret 6. (And I usually enjoy the work of both writers regardless of which chromosones they carry.) SS and S6 were dark, funny and had good heist/action plots with characters I liked (even though they were of course, not likable.) While there was always a vocal support for both books, neither ever sold very well and didn’t ultimately last. My fondness for the concept led me to buy the new version and….it’s pretty good. It does what a first issue is supposed to in effectively introducing all the characters and the concept and sets everything up to take off next issue. If you liked the original concept, there’s no reason you wouldn’t enjoy this one.
Ray Palmer is in Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE, doing an impression of Hank Pym in Avengers Academy.
But isn’t Frankenstein doing an impression of Hellboy? It’s all so confusing!
ive been meaning to check out some sword&sorcery in comics form anyway… any suggestions?
Well, Conan.
Also, Nemesis the Warlock, which is a bit science fictiony, but close enough. In terms of newer stuff, Skullkickers is well-liked, but it didn’t do much for me.
“Also, Secret Six? One of the most overrated titles. EVER.”
Ok, let me rephrase. Secret Six? According to most internet reviews, blogs, and posts, was one of the most overrated titles. EVER.
“Ok, let me rephrase. Secret Six? According to most internet reviews, blogs, and posts, was one of the most overrated titles. EVER.”
Now you’re saying the reviews and blogs and posts said it was overrated.
Just deal with the fact that others may have liked it even though you didn’t.
Pardon me, English isn’t my first language. But thanks, I appreciate the free lesson. I think you and others got my point, though. I’ll try and deal it with, but the thought that there are people out there who loved the title that makes me shudder. Granted, not the way so many people loving Youngblood in the early 90s makes me shudder. But still.
It actually offends you that other people enjoy a book?
That Gail Simone managed to make a very readable good, solid team book (one of about two or three comics that actually worked as a team book), with consistent characterisation, with only villains, a category that’s traditionally hard to make work, and a rather more diverse cast than most, for three years, of consistent quality is pretty impressive. It was a very solid book with a good sense of humour that actually managed to do a lot of genuinely unexpected and interesting twists, at a time when very few other books were.
That it did it while still being about terrible people was really rather impressive, as was the fsct it went out on as high.
I’m not going to claim it’s the best comic ever or anything, but I’d say it ws consistently one of the couple of titles coming from DC (discounting Vertigo) for the last few years. That its sales were low means that promoting it made sense.
I’m sorry I make you shudder.
Nicely stated, Jonny K.
@wwk5d: Do you perhaps not like Secret Six due to hype backlash from people on the internets telling you how awesome it is?
If so I feel the same way about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and every 6th thing I read about on tvtropes.
I’m actually genuinely interested in your reasons for not liking the book, it’s nice to get different opinions.
No, it’s not backlash. Sometimes, a title just leaves you cold. It has nothing to do with whether other people like it or not.
And Johnny K, don’t apologize, I’m sure there are some titles that I enjoy that would produce a similar reaction from you
Paul,
Exactly right on the two shining stars of last week’s books – Batwoman and Demon Knights. All the rest were either instantly forgettable (Batman and Robin), unreadable (Suicide Squad), or repulsive (Deathstroke).
Belatedly picked up Grifter and Resurrection Man today. I agree about Grifter, it’s fairly good. Admittedly I’ve no prior knowledge of the character beyond ‘he was in lots of Wildstorm books I’ve never read’ but the book sets out its stall nicely for a series. It explains pretty much everything you need to know going ahead. The art’s pretty good, like a less neurotic Gary Frank. The only problem I had was some rather lame dialogue in places and the confusion between 17 days and 17 hours.
Wasn’t a big fan of Grifter… but then again, I thought that despite the Jim Lee art, WildCATs was one of the weakest offerings from the original Image crew. The fact that the bland Daemonites are the villains this time around just does not fill me with any confidence. It’s a pity, because I like the “Sawyer from Lost as a superhero” concept.
In fact… I kinda liked both Green Lantern and Suicide Squad better than Grifter this week.
Huh, usually my opinions fall pretty much right in line with Paul’s. But I thought Suicide Squad was quite good (though not a replacement for Secret Six, which consistently was the best book DC had produced in the last couple of years) and I was horribly disappointed by Grifter. But I was a huge Wildstorm/Wildcats fan, and seeing Grifter’s character contorted into something not even resembling who he actually was kinda infuriated me.
I also think I disliked Red Lanterns even more than you did, Paul. It’s been the only one of the new titles that I’ve tried that’s actually made me regret picking it up. Just awful on every level.
EW reviews a few #1s…
http://shelf-life.ew.com/2011/09/21/batman-1-dc-comics/
I think I have more faith in Paul’s reviews.
I happened to like Captain Atom (and the critics seem to be divided), and Supergirl was a lot of fun (didn’t expect me to like a Supergirl comic, but there it is).