The Flashpoint That Wasn't

The Flash season finale – which if you’ve not seen it yet, STOP:  BE WARNED – SPOILERS AHEAD  … Should have been called “Flashpoint.”  Because that’s what it was, except that it bypassed the view of the warped universe that was the subject of the miniseries.

 

What was Flashpoint?  Flashpoint was the 2011 DC miniseries where Barry Allen wakes up in a totally messed up world, one in which he had saved his mother but as a consequence had never become the Flash.  In one changed instant everything about the old Post-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe that had prevailed from 1985 to 2011 (with a couple of tweaks along the way – 1994’s Zero Hour, 2006’s Infinite Crisis) was altered – for the worse.  Sure, Barry Allen’s mother had lived, but he did not become the Flash, and the world was now on the brink of catastrophe, torn by warring factions between unstable super-beings because, to name a few other differences (DC milked it for all it was worth, of course – in addition to the seven-issue main story, there were something like fifteen ancillary three-issue miniseries telling side-stories; I read only the main story and a couple of the side-stories):  Instead of Thomas and Martha Wayne being killed and inspiring Bruce Wayne to eventually become the Batman, Bruce was killed, leading to Thomas becoming a darker, murderous vigilante Batman – and Martha becoming his archenemy, the Joker; the spaceship carrying young Kal-El was discovered by the U.S. military who had raised him secluded away from yellow solar energy; a diplomatic marriage between King Arthur of Atlantis and Princess Diana of Themyscira had been scuttled by an Atlantean assassination of Queen Hippolyta, leading to a global conflagration between the two superpower nations that by now threatened to destroy the world; and so forth.  To make a long story short, Barry eventually does find a way to regain his speed just as an Atlantean-Amazon Armageddon is destroying the Flashpoint Earth, he runs back through time and prevents himself from saving his mother … and the DC Universe is restored – except it isn’t.  It is now different than it had been before.  It was the “New 52” Universe that has prevailed since 2011. (The fact that I have grown to dislike the direction DC is going is beside the (flash)point (sorry, couldn’t help it!) – there were developments that I found increasingly repugnant even before; the New 52 just hastened things along, in my opinion.)

Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (Warner-DC 2015)

Directed by Ethan Spaulding, "Inspired by the Graphic Novel, 'Justice League: Throne of Atlantis'"

A few evenings ago, I watched the newest DC Animated Movie, the second “New 52” offering, Justice League:  Throne of Atlantis.  I enjoyed this one much more on the initial viewing than I did the first [LINK].  Even though I’m still irked they replaced Aquaman with Captain Marvel “Shazam” in Justice League:  War, it allowed them to give the King of the Seven Seas a really good story in this one, being introduced and discovering his heritage right along with his teammates-to-be (because he’s been admitted to the still-new Justice League” by the end).  It also gave his mother a larger, and heartbreaking, role in the story (but still better than how they’re currently treating her in the comics, although that story is still playing out).  Of course, it simplified and streamlined the story as it appeared in the comics, even beyond the necessary changes to the storyline.  Mostly it worked, even though Orm comes off as nothing more than a villain here, with no redeeming qualities as he’s been given in the comics.  Mera's comics origin seems to be completely negated here.  And there was ‘way too much continuous fighting toward the end – inevitable especially when you’ve got such a large cast to juggle.  I was reminded of Man of Steel.  Overall, however, I really liked this movie.  This was the Aquaman I would like to see on the big screen.  Although I try to give Zack Snyder the benefit of the doubt in what’s coming for Superman V. Batman:  Dawn of Justice, Jason Momoa is just nothing like the Aquaman I would like to see – he may do a fine job (he does seem to have enthusiasm for the role), but the image they released last week ... 

...was the first thing connected to the upcoming movie that I’ve just had a visceral “No!” ripped from me over – literally, sitting with my wife, waiting for an appointment, paging down my Facebook feed, I blurted out a strangled “No!”  … She did not understand even once I tried to explain.  But I think I could show her this movie and maybe she would get it….  I definitely will be watching and enjoying this movie again.

Cheers! ... and Thanks for reading!

(N.B.:  I have no idea what is up with the duplication of the title "Throne of Atlantis" for two different graphic novels.  I have the original comics, in which the story arc crossed over between the two ongoing titles.  Did DC publish all of the chapters in each series' collections?  Or, horrific as it might sound, did they only the chapters proper to each series in that title's collections?)

Library-Bound Comics: 1960s and New 52 Legion of Super-Heroes; 1970-1971 Aquaman; New 52 Wonder Woman; and New 52 Action Comics correction

A couple of weeks ago I got the much-anticipated email from Herring and Robinson Bookbinders out in California that my most recent batch of library-bound comics were ready, and about a week after that I received the books. The turnaround from shipping the books out to getting them back this time was about seven weeks, I think, which pleased me mightily. It also pleased a colleague of mine who dipped his toe into the wild world of comic-book binding by sending along three volumes of his own comics, to whom I had high-balled the estimated turnaround so he had a nice surprise. This post is, of course, only about my own books, but it sounds like he will do at least some more volumes, when he can piggy-back onto one of my orders.

Green Arrow (New 52), Volume 4: The Kill Machine (DC Comics, 2014)

Reprinted from issues #17-24 and 23.1 (2013) by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino

Green Arrow has never been a character I really followed. I liked him well enough in the context of Green Lantern's “hard travellin'” partner in the classic Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams stories of ca. 1970 (which I didn't really read many of or appreciate at all until much later, but I was only eight years old), in the context of the Justice League (especially as Hawkman's political opposite – although I was always far more on Hawkman's conservative side than Green Arrow's liberal side), even occasionally in his own stories (e.g, The Longbow Hunters), but beyond that, not so much. It was mainly as a second-tier character that he worked best for me. I had no interest in the new, beardless, younger Green Arrow of the series which came in with the New 52 in 2011, and frankly found him an uninteresting character those times he did appear in titles I did get. Green Arrow can be interesting – I particularly liked him in the Smallville TV series, and when I first heard that the CW was developing a [Green] Arrow follow-up, I was quite disappointed that it would be an entirely new reimagining of the character with no connection to Smallville. I've written elsewhere of my revulsion at the debut of Arrow in 2012 [LINK], but in the same place of my giving it a second chance at the end of the first season such that it became one of my most highly anticipated shows through the second season. It's surprisingly good, with a rather broad appeal. I was surprised along the way to find that my parish priest watches it, as well as our parish liturgical director and his wife (who are avid archers themselves); my wife doesn't actually follow it, but she will watch it with me if she happens to be in the room; the show is a runaway success by CW standards.

Batman Eternal #1-4 (DC Comics, June 2014)

By Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Jason Fabok, and others

DC Comics are trying to recapture the magic they inadvertently stumbled on back in 2006 (eight years ago?!) in the year-long weekly 52. As usual these days, it seems they are blundering right in with little thought – in the next few months no less than three (is that all? – this one plus Future's End and Earth 2: World's End) new weeklies will be going. Hey! – If one is a good idea, three must be a better idea, right? – Throw 'em at the wall and see what sticks! – Whether they will “stick” and be going “strong” is another matter, but I am happy to say that this first one out the gate is a winner in my book. I'm not going to say a whole lot about it, except that this is the kind of Batman story I like – characterization and action, fast-paced, an intriguing mystery, involving both the full range of primary Bat-family characters (including the New 52 debut of Stephanie Brown!) and secondary (sometimes new, sometimes just New 52 reintroduced) characters including the Gotham City Police – all graced by dark, moody, but cleanly realistic art. Makes me wish I had a local comic shop so I could be there every Wednesday for the newest chapter rather than waiting until the end of the month for my mail-order subscription service to dump them all on me at once. Which is part of the strategy of the weekly model in the first place – to encourage that weekly compulsion to get thee to a comic shop! I'll make do, but at the moment, just four weeks into the story, Batman Eternal has catapulted to the top of my short list of titles I'm really looking forward to each month. It sets a very high bar for those to come.

Cheers, and Thanks for reading!

Reviews [LINK]

Justice League: War (Warner-DC 2014)

Directed by Jay Oliva

Okay. This is actually my second attempt at writing a review of the latest DC Animated Movie, which reportedly sets up a prospective series of animated versions of the 2011 Reboot “New 52” Universe. My initial reaction upon viewing Justice League: War, which is based upon the opening story arc (issues #1-6) of the New 52 Justice League comic by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee, there entitled Origin, was a visceral revulsion that verged on physical sickness. Although for whatever reason I felt compelled to share my reaction and envisioned it launching a full-bore diatribe about how it exemplifies all those things I do not like about the New 52 in general, in truth, I really do not like writing negative reviews and could get nowhere over the course of several days in trying to put my feelings into words to bring those ends about. My son pointed out my reluctance to be a negativist and wondered why I was trying to do so here. He could not understand the seething rage that needed some kind of release in this case, and as I got further and further away from the experience neither did I. That was when I decided to subject myself to it again for fairness' sake, determined to be more objective. I'm glad I did so. The resulting review is, I believe, far more balanced.

Shazam! (DC 2013, The New 52!)

By Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. Reprinted from Justice League #7-11, 0, 14-16, 18-21 (2012-2013)

Well, nobody's more surprised than me that I ended up buying this collection, and in hardcover to boot! From the very beginning of the New 52 version of The Hero Formerly Known As Captain Marvel, I found so many things to dislike about Geoff Johns' portrayal, mainly centering on the surly characterization he imparted to Billy Batson, which seemed very much a stereotypical obnoxious brat just like his similar and nearly simultaneous portrayal of young Bruce Wayne in Batman: Earth One. That wasn't the only aspect of the “updating” of the story that I didn't care for, to be sure. The new Dr. Sivana, bulked up and looking more like a cheap Lex Luthor knock-off, also rubbed me the wrong way. And the mess just seemed to get worse and worse as month after month of the back-up series appeared in the pages of Justice League, what with Billy and Freddy first attempting to capitalize on Billy's new powers to make money, then considering Billy's new adult appearance as a way for them to get alcohol. For someone like me, who loves the simple, almost childlike wonder and charm of the original Captain Marvel, which has, however imperfectly, informed most of DC's portrayals of the character hitherto (Dark Mary Marvel and subsequent developments being lamentable departures from that model, essentially exceptions that prove the rule), it seemed like these newest horrors were just going from bad to worse. It was heartbreaking.

And then...

Wonder Woman, vol. 3: Iron (DC, 2013 – The New 52)

By Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang. Reprints issues #0, 13-18.

It's actually been several weeks since I read this volume, as part of my new luxury of reading the current month's batch of comics quicker and leaving time to pick up various collections. I think I read it early in Thanksgiving week, but the latter part of that week's family activities followed by the next two weeks finishing up the fall semester, with all the papers and final exam grading which that entails, as well as my son's soccer season kicking off (pardon the pun) and a fairly miserable head cold over the past week left little or no time for blogging. This will likely be a short entry – no worries about spoilers!

I've mentioned several times how my regard for this series has shifted radically, from high to low, and back to high with a realization that, for me at least, Azzarello's tale is much more readable and enjoyable in large chunks, which led me to drop the monthlies after the first dozen or so to wait for the collections. This is the first volume to pick up after the point I had gotten to about a year or so ago. It took a little review to get back set to proceed, but once I settled into it I really enjoyed this batch of stories. It definitely is not your standard super-hero fare, and doesn't mesh very well in terms of tone with Diana's other appearances in the new DCU even though it is during this period, especially with the re-introduction of the New Gods in the pages of this book, that it becomes clear that the events of this book are indeed contemporaneous with the rest of the DCU. But taken on its own terms, and with the possible exception of the introduction of Orion of the New Gods into the story, Azzarello is crafting a tale that is considerably more mythic – no pun intended – than your standard, run-of-the-mill super-hero fare, one that easily stands on its own. It's complemented very well by Chiang's straightforward artistic style. This series has been polarizing among Wonder Woman fans – my own reaction has run the gamut – but I think it will ultimately go down as one of the high points in the character's long history. I'm definitely looking forward to future volumes.

I liked this one so much, indeed, that I have already pulled out the previous twelve issues and prepped them for library-binding – one of the thinnest volumes I've ever had bound, but I would like to have those issues standing beside this one and future collections in this series.

Cheers! – and Thanks for reading!

Green Lantern: Rise of the Third Army (DC 2013)

By Geoff Johns et al. (reprinting various issues, see below)

Like a couple of other DC series, I like Green Lantern – and indeed much of the Lantern'verse corner of the DC nUniverse – very much … in collected format. Readers of this blog may in fact remember how I chose to drop back to collected format with the advent of the New 52 after “burning out” on monthlies and repeated Lantern'verse-wide events in the months beforehand, but when I acquired and read Green Lantern vol. 1: Sinestro, the first New 52 collection, I enjoyed it so much [link] that I jumped back into the monthlies – for just a couple months that quickly reminded me that the series indeed reads much better in collected format.

Then a few months back came the realization that with the return of Lantern'verse-wide events, DC was going to collect the four franchise titles (GL, GL Corps, New Guardians, and Red Lanterns) both in their separate titles and in “compendium” volumes centered around the event and interweaving the four titles' issues to (presumably) tell the entire multifaceted story. I initially decided to just stick with the collections for the two titles I was interested in (GL and GLC), but then accidentally neglected to pre-order the next GL volume. Finally, a few weeks ago, I was in Barnes and Noble and, seeing this “compendium” volume, I impulsively bought it.

Of course, an effect of me, relatively speaking, whizzing through my monthlies that I received early in November was that for the first time in a while I was actually able to get to a pretty vast and growing backlog of collections that I have accumulated. (I actually got through several in the past couple of weeks, what with also being off for Thanksgiving week.) Rise of the Third Army was the first.

DC Comics – December 2013, New 52 Month 26

A record of the DC Comics that I read that were released during October that I received near the beginning of November. Caution: Linked reviews may contain spoilers! [Link to previous month]

Well, as I hoped, I did enjoy this batch of comics better than previous months. Simply not feeling the constant pressure to read overly critically (in the technical sense of the word) and take notes geared toward having something “meaningful” to say about each and every issue was liberating. And it sure did speed me up! I can't tell you how relieving this is. Comics have been part of my life, to one degree or another, all my life, and while I couldn't imagine giving up on them entirely, working my way through that stack every month was really getting hard. Plus the prospect of six or eight hours, all told, composing that bloated monthly roundup post that I had been doing....Putting together the illustrated list with review links is, comparatively speaking, a piece of cake. Not that everything was bad, it just wasn't fun anymore. This month was different.

DC Comics – November 2013, New 52 Month 25

Well, my OCD is indeed getting the better of me, to a certain extent. No, I'm not going to restart blogging the New 52 with pages and pages of commentary [link]. But I have liked having a record of what I read each month ready at hand here on the blog, as well having a quick link to ComicBookRoundUp.com [link]'s compendium of reviews for each issue. So I will put in the work each month to compile and post that much – yes, starting with “Villains' Month” which I finally finished trudging through a couple of weeks ago.  As usual, my reading is delayed by roughly a month from the comics' official on-sale date since I receive my comics by once-a-month shipping from Discount Comic Book Service [link].

As to the news round-up I used to start with, it was never very thorough in the first place, and I don't like being constantly negative – which it's too easy to be when talking about DC these days. Any news items that do compel me to comment will get their own separate post in a more timely manner.

As to these particular issues, I just couldn't bring myself to take notes as I went along, and frankly most of the issues are pretty forgettable. As I figured I would, I consider this to be basically a wasted month – and the most wasted money I've ever spent on this hobby. But I do like having the quick links to various reviewers for myself to refer to if need be, so I am putting this little bit of work into it before going forward and hopefully wiping the bad taste of “Villains' Month” out of my mouth. Truthfully, without the pressure of reading toward writing something “meaningful” for each issue, I have already enjoyed the next month's issues (which I've mostly finished already) more than I can remember in many months. But I do not believe my growing distaste with the direction of DC Comics is totally due to my own issues (pardon the pun) – I just do not like some directions they have taken. More perhaps on those points later.

DC Comics – Announcing open-ended hiatus on blogging the New 52

If you've been reading my increasingly delayed blog posts regarding DC Comics, over the past few months you've doubtless perceived my discontent with the direction the company and its stories have taken. [Last month is here - link.] That discontent really goes back virtually to when I began this blog, which was almost coincident with the announcing of the New 52 at the end of May 2011 [link], only a few months before its actual advent in September of that year. Last year I posted a fairly substantial summation of how I saw the situation a year into what DC insisted was not a line-wide reboot, and yet clearly was – what I sometimes called the “Nottaboot” [link]. While I have changed my mind on certain points (most notably gaining a new respect for Azzarello's Wonder Woman through a complete rereading only a few weeks after posting that review [link]), in general I have come to like much of what I've been reading less and less. In fact, it staggers me to see how many of the points I actually did approve of a year ago that DC seems to have discarded! If they were actively trying to drive me away as a reader they could not do much better.

It occurs to me that the burden I took upon myself in attempting to blog about these comics month after month has perhaps contributed toward my decreasing enjoyment of them. I finished reading September's “Villains' Month” stunt a couple of weeks ago, but although there were individually good issues I disliked the concept so thoroughly that I have been unable to bring myself to the keyboard to compose a post about it. Its cornerstone, Forever Evil #1 kicking off the latest-in-a-series-of-events-collect-them-all, wasn't much better – an okay story but ultimately going forward will depend on a plot device so laughably stupid that I am aghast somebody didn't catch it. Or do they not care? If they do not, it's hard for me. And so I have decided it's time I gave up that blogging commitment. My hope is that by simply reading the comics I am getting – which do look to be fewer in number over the coming months than it has been, given some shifts in story-direction in some titles I've been reading that I really have no desire to continue with [e.g., link] – perhaps I can recover some of that enjoyment. I sincerely hope so. There are some titles I have continued to enjoy and intend to stick with, but I will henceforth only blog about any that strike me as truly worthy of my time and effort to write about. Even among those that I am enjoying, there are frankly not that many.  And given what I perceive, rightly or wrongly, as almost contempt on the part of DC for its readers, especially those like me who have been with the company for decades (45 years in my case), I don't see that situation changing very soon.

So for now, at least, I'm done with blogging the New 52.

DC Comics – October 2013, New 52 Month 24

Reviews, commentary, general reactions, and random notes on the DC Comics that were released during August that I received near the beginning of September. Caution: Spoilers ahead! [ Link to previous month ]

Here's the link to the October solicitations (for comics to be released mostly in December): (link).

I only made note of a couple of news items. One is that Smallville Season 11 is shifting to a “series of miniseries” format, dropping the “Season 11” branding and sequential numbering, supposedly to remove a perceived bar for new readers picking it up (link). This mainly irks me because it will make the weekly purchase from Comixology quite a bit more cumbersome, especially since they just a short while ago introduced an efficient “subscription” function which automatically purchases each week's installment for me and has it ready for me to download whenever I want, rather than having to manually go in and make the purchase each week. Being title-based, the subscription will no longer work. Also, it will be harder (impossible) to keep reading order straight if you're not purchasing them week-to-week. Yeah, that helps the new reader.

Secondly, and we're far enough along into October as I write this (the 12th) that sales data for September has been released, it seems that the September-released “Villains' Month” stunt paid off big time for DC. More next month, maybe – except that DC's immediate exultation really rubbed at least one retailer the wrong way (link). By all accounts, the retailers were the ones who really got screwed in the resulting debacle.

Whatever, before “Villains' Month,” there is this one more month of story-driven rather than stunt-driven comics to get through....

DC Comics – September 2013, New 52 Month 23

Reviews, commentary, general reactions, and random notes on the DC Comics that were released during July that I received near the beginning of August. Caution: Spoilers ahead! [ Link to previous month ]

I am 'way, 'way, 'way behind this month, so this write-up may not be much more than a fleshing out of my notes, without much expansion along the way....

In the news over the past month or so: 1) The September solicits went up mid-August per usual [link]. 2) The Justice League 3000 fiasco [link], wherein DC fired or drove off another high profile creator, Kevin Maguire, replacing him with Howard Porter, and lost this sale to me. 3) Batman was cast for Man of Steel 2 – Ben Affleck [link]. Outcry ensued [link]. I actually can live with this. He's a capable enough actor. My main problem with him would be The Voice. He really should study Kevin Conroy's portrayal (the voice of Batman in the animated series) – not Christian Bale's. 4) The Justice League of America is emigrating to Canada [link]. 5) Rumors flew but ultimately no real clarification on whether Bryan Cranston will play Lex Luthor in Man of Steel 2 [link]. I like Breaking Bad, but I'm not sure I see him as Lex Luthor. 6) DC drove off another set of Batwoman creators – J.H.Williams III and Haden Blackman – allegedly over whether to marry Kate Kane and Maggie Sawyer [link]. It may or may not have been because of the homosexual nature of the relationship; they tapped Marc Andreyko, who is homosexual himself, as the new writer [link] (possibly keeping me on the title since I loved his Manhunter), and proclaimed their stance as that the Bat-family's personal lives have to be sucky, and heroes can't be married [link], both of which I think are stupid as mandates. They also announced their intent to pull Batwoman closer into the rest of the Bat'verse. 7) Finally, another blogger put the sad state of affairs regarding DC Editorials' bad relationship with creators and the general chaos that has plagued the company since even before the New 52 into a timeline that makes for terribly depressing reading [link]. Something is definitely rotten in Denmark.

Let's discuss some comics:

DC Comics – August 2013, New 52 Month 22

Reviews, commentary, general reactions, and random notes on the DC Comics that were released during June that I received near the beginning of July. Caution: Spoilers ahead! [ Link to previous month ]

The online previews of the DC solicitations which will appear in the August issue of Diamond's Previews catalog (and therefore solicit items mostly on-sale during the month of October) appeared while the days of July were still in single digits, earlier than I ever remember. Not sure why so early, but you may see them here (link).

News that dropped during the period I was reading this batch of comics included George Perez's announcement of what he had cryptically referred to when I was talking with him in Houston (link). It turns out he is going to Boom! Comics (link). He's the second creator in as many months that has left DC for Boom! – Paul Jenkins (last month) also was headed that direction, and although Perez's announcement is not filled with the vitriol some others' departures from DC have been, he has clearly been dissatisfied with the corporate culture that increasingly prevails at DC. That was clear both of the times I've had the pleasure of meeting him, and comes through clearly albeit graciously in the linked interview. It's DC's loss, is all I can say.

Library-Bound Comics: Grant Morrison's New 52 Superman in Action Comics; “Retroboot” Legion of Super-Heroes; and Young All-Stars

A few weeks ago (Monday, 1 July), I received a box with my four most recently library-bound volumes of comic books, which I had sent off to Herring & Robinson Bookbinders about three months ago. I had been looking forward to this shipment for some time, because it contained what I consider one of the highlights of DC Comics' New 52 “reboot” that launched in September 2011 with the appearance of the new Action Comics #1, featuring Grant Morrison's revisionist version of the origin of Superman and his earliest adventures. Also included were two volumes completing the pre-New 52 Legion of Super-Heroes as well as a single-volume collection of the full run of Roy Thomas' Young All-Stars sequel to All-Star Squadron.

DC Comics – July 2013 New 52 Month 21

Reviews, commentary, general reactions, and random notes on the DC Comics that were released during May that I received near the beginning of June. Caution: Spoilers ahead! [ Link to previous month ]

Here I am, back again, a little late because we had our family vacation at the beginning of June which put me behind getting and starting to read my May-released comics. Then, by the time I finished the Man of Steel post (link) I was a bit blogged out.

And, not really meaning to start out on a downer (again), because there are a lot of things I liked in the comics I read, the various news items that hit in the past month or so make me less and less able to get excited about DC Comics as a brand. Particularly damning was yet another disheartening creator rant, another creator basically walking out and telling DC (and Marvel) “A pox on all your houses!” (link) This time it's Paul Jenkins, who wrote Batman: The Dark Knight for a while after David Finch figured out writing is a lot harder than it looks as well as Stormwatch after Paul Cornell left that title. Whether or not I really cared that much for what he wrote, in either case, is immaterial – something is dreadfully wrong there. A company can't piss off that many creators otherwise. Where there's smoke....

DC Comics – June 2013 – New 52 Month 20

Reviews, commentary, general reactions, and random notes on the DC Comics that were released during April that I received near the beginning of May. Caution: Spoilers ahead! [ Link to previous month ]

Well, here it is … “WTF”-month. Thankfully, no “WTF”-branding, however, at least on the comics. Continued little bits of news regarding what seems to be total editorial and creative chaos at DC does, on the other hand, make me wonder if they ought to just change the overall comics brand from “DC” to “WTF”....

Actually, no. Just in case some numbskull there thinks that's a good idea.

Again, I really don't want to go into details, except to note the two just-announced changes that most directly affect my reading:

DC Comics – May 2013 – New 52 Month 19

Reviews, commentary, general reactions, and random notes on the DC Comics that were released during March that I received near the beginning of April. Caution: Spoilers ahead! [ Link to previous month ]

I think the biggest news to come out in recent weeks has been with the on-line previews of the new solicitations that will be published in the next issue of Diamond's Previews. What was assumed to be DC's first “mega” event of the New 52, probably drawing in everything like Blackest Night or Flashpoint did, seems not to be all that. In fact, instead of being presented as an independent miniseries with tie-in issues within various regular series, plus maybe some specials and ancillary miniseries, it is simply rotating through the three Justice League titles – JL itself, Justice League of America, and Justice League Dark. Which is not a good thing. I know for a fact that it is driving at least one new reader away, who had recently came on board Justice League as the putative flagship book of the DCnU starring the big names (well, and Cyborg...) but finds the book steadily departing from that ideal and attempting to compel him to buy two other series that he has no interest in! 'Way to go, DC!

Also notable, although there was little fanfare, was the addition of new verbiage to the “created by” credits for the Superman books. I first noticed it on Smallville Season 11 – “SUPERMAN created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster / By Special Arrangement with the Jerry Siegel Family.” It seems to be a result of recent developments in the ongoing legal case.

DC keeps creating public relations faux pas for itself and giving the real impression that the lunatics are running the asylum. The specific examples are quite frankly too irritating to detail, so I won't.

I'd rather write about the comics....

DC Comics – April 2013 – New 52 Month 18

Reviews, commentary, general reactions, and random notes on the DC Comics that were released during February that I received near the beginning of March. Caution: Spoilers ahead! [ Link to previous month ]

The news coming out of DC – or rather about DC, 'cause DC themselves are being rather mum except with excited “great news” type damage-control announcements that invariably turn out to be premature or not the whole story at all – seems dominated these days by continuing word of chaos among DC editorial. The most disconcerting came within a handful of days just this past week (I'm starting this on 25 March) was that Andy Diggle is leaving Action Comics after only one issue as Grant Morrison's successor. Since Diggle's announced plans and vision for the greatest super-hero of them all seemed a step in the right direction, this is bad enough. Worse was the corollary news that Tony Daniel was to take over writing the title as well as art. The anguished “NOOOOOOO” you may have heard mid-week was me. Daniel is a decent artist. His writing in the New 52 has invariably sucked, and frankly before that was seldom more than adequate. Yeah, I couldn't wait to see Action Comics end up looking like the first year or so of Detective Comics. A couple of days to contemplate that bleakness was followed by the announcement that, no, Daniel won't be lasting but a three-issue arc then moving on to a preplanned, “major” project. No word that I've seen so far as to what Action Comics might look like four months hence ....

During roughly the same period came word that Joshua Hale Fialkov, whose writing I've really liked on the just-ending I, Vampire would not be taking over Green Lantern Corps – because editorial sucker-punched him with the mandate that John Stewart die. Fialkov walked and made no secret why. Whereupon DC crawfished and announced that there are currently “no plans” to kill off John Stewart.

See? Chaos. Do those people have a clue? It's ultimately quite disturbing, especially with rumors coming out of Bleeding Cool of other lame stunts under consideration – “Villains Month” in which, e.g., Batman #24 would be renamed “Joker #24” for that month only; mass cancellation of sixteen titles to be replaced by four weekly titles. And how is that last supposed to help?

Morons.

The only thing to do is sit back, not think about that kind of stuff, just read and enjoy what we're getting … where it's enjoyable. Some's getting a little marginal on that score, though.

On to the comics....