Deja Vu? Or shall I say “Deja Deux??” Don’t worry dear readers of the PiercingMetal Musings Blog you are NOT seeing double or even accidentally stumbling upon an older post about DC Comics’ “The New 52”. Of course the subject matter is exactly the same and should be thought of as a continuing series of reports about the company wide title relaunch that started a couple of months ago. I’ve been a comics fan for many years and when the chance to offer objective views into this initiative came to mind I gave my all for your enjoyment.
If you are just now coming into the blog and don’t know what we are referring to, well let me recap very quickly. In September of 2011, DC Comics cancelled all of their titles and started them over at issue #1 – the initiative was called “The New 52”. The 52 new issues were broken up into groupings by character or theme and that gave us segments focused on the Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Justice League and Young Justice mythos. We also had groupings such as The Edge and The Dark that dealt with both edgy and darker story lines. You get the picture right?
With the characters broken up into such segments As we’ve previously discussed, the titles were broken up into since eachThe narratives The titles appear to be broken up into categories that relate to a particular character, team or even a “theme” of some sort. For instance we have a number of Superman and Batman titles along with a decent crop of books related to The Justice League. Here is the listing of the whole batch and I’ve lined out some of my hopes and anticipations for them and how I felt about the older incarnations of some of these heroes:
Superman Titles: Action Comics; Superman; Superboy; Supergirl – I was really surprised with this but between the four titles that came out for the Superman run I felt the most disappointed with them. There were too many drastic changes for my liking and perhaps I am just a stickler for tradition. To read early adventures of Superman who wears a t-shirt and combat boots to a more contemporary one who sports battle armor was a bit tricky to mentally follow. Armor? Superman? Really? Supergirl had promise as did Superboy but even their new revisions would give you a spin so be prepared. Let’s see what they give me with the second go round. I am thinking that there is a lot to make up to get me back on board with the Man Of Steel.
Batman Titles: Batman; Detective Comics; Batwing; Batman: The Dark Knight; Batman & Robin; Batgirl; Batwoman; Nightwing; Catwoman; Birds Of Prey; Red Hood and the Outlaws – I outlined how Batman was my very favorite hero when I was growing up and one of my earliest memories was of watching the old Adam West television program. That being said I had some strong interest in how all eleven titles were going to work out for the readers. Yes, there were eleven titles all devoted to the Batman universe. While I did have some small reservation about a couple of the happenings that we found going on in both Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws, I felt that title for title was rather strong in this particular line. Each of them managed to keep my interest even if I felt that the Batwing title should be the sacrificial lamb of the bunch. I was very excited about reading the second issues for these books for sure.
Green Lantern Titles: Green Lantern; Green Lantern Corps; Green Lantern: New Guardians; Red Lanterns – When I initially learned that Green Lantern was getting four titles of his own I admit that I was scratching my head about it because I felt that he didn’t need four titles. Anyways these all managed to work out well. The book about the Corps was one of the better ones and I liked the ideas behind the Red Lanterns. Will all four last? Who knows. My one hope is that Hal Jordan is back in the costume soon. I don’t like him standing idly by.
Justice League Titles: Justice League; Justice League International; Aquaman; Wonder Woman; The Flash; Captain Atom; The Fury Of Firestorm; Green Arrow; The Savage Hawkman; Mister Terrific; DC Universe Presents – Another eleven titles to sort through and while some put me over the moon there were a couple that I felt could be sidelined and replaced with something else that might be a lot better. I loved the Justice League International title but felt the main core Justice League book was moving too slow from the start. Aquaman and Fury Of Firestorm were solid and Hawkman kept me interested. There are some great characters here and much to tell so let’s see if Mister Terrific and DC Universe Presents win me over with the second issue or keep me saying “next”.
The Dark Titles: Justice League Dark; Swamp Thing; Animal Man; Frankenstein: Agent Of S.H.A.D.E.; I, Vampire; Resurrection Man; Demon Knights – The Dark series was really something that was on the interesting side to me because it had all of that spooky stuff and gave attention to the things that go bump in the night. As it stands I felt that this was one of the strongest groupings of titles because it was just so “out there”. Winners out of the gate in my eye were “Justice League Dark”, “Resurrection Man” and “Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE”. The rest still seemed to need some fleshing out and I hope to have more information about them in these narratives.
The Edge Titles: Stormwatch; Voodoo; Grifter; Deathstroke; Suicide Squad; O.M.A.C.; Blackhawks; Men Of War; All-Star Western – It was very strange to find a number of the Wildstorm universe characters inter-mingling with the DC Universe heroes of note but there it was. Right off the bat I felt that Stormwatch was among the best and was followed in no certain order by Suicide Squad, Deathstroke and O.M.A.C.. All-Star Western had a lot of promise but should have just been called Jonah Hex at this stage in the characters life. I thought both Voodoo and Grifter were a little out of place here. Voodoo was very different from the character I knew and Grifter took a little long to get moving. He is a fast paced action hero for sure, but please lets get more of a story going. I never followed Blackhawks or shall I say Blackhawk since that is where it originates from and war books were not my cup of tea either so Dogs Of War got a thumbs down from me. My focused attention will be on the ones I like the most of course but I will promise to be objective to the ones that left me a little more for want.
Young Justice Titles: Teen Titans; Static Shock; Hawk & Dove; Blue Beetle; Legion Of Superheroes; Legion Lost – This was another batch that left me a little bit on the half and half side when I read the bunch of first issues. I always enjoyed the Teen Titans and Hawk & Dove but had never really “gotten” what the Legion Of Superheroes was all about. Now I had two titles to contend with. Both Titans and Hawk & Dove I felt were the clear winners and that the Legion offerings would probably appease that fan base but I was less than complimentary about Static Shock and Blue Beetle. They just didn’t do it for me. Let’s see what transpires in the second issues. I fear for a couple of these titles but if they get cancelled will hope something better comes in to replace them.
Having found success in the manner in which we presented the first issue overviews I shall be doing this the same way for the narratives about the second issues. As was done in those chapters we shall assemble as many of the issues as we can possibly get our hands and offer up blog postings on each grouping to let you know what the scoop is. If you are also a comics fan I ask that you also let us know what your hopes are for these second issues or what you have thought of the premise up until this point in our writings. I hope that you will enjoy this next go round. It will begin soon so stay tuned to the website or our Official Facebook.
Official Website: http://dccomics.com/dccomics/
