DC Comics Relaunch: the first month in review.

Over the last month we saw the release of the 1^st issues for DC comics new 52, the relaunch of their universe.  It’s clear that it has been an initial success.  Many titles are already in reprint, DC is dominating the sales chart and Marvel is already showing signs of their attempt to rip it off.

But was it any good?

I guess the final answer is…..sort of.

There are certainly individual books that are good.  Originally I was not going to pick up Green Arrow or Swamp Thing on a regular basis, but both first issues were good enough to change my mind. Batwing and Justice League International were not as good, but good enough for me to give to want to read more.  Aquaman I bought on the strength that it was being written by Geoff Johns, and it paid off. The Superman books and Wonder Woman were well written and I enjoyed them. The Batman and Green Lantern books were continuing stories from prior to the relaunch and still enjoyable. Resurrection Man also seems to be jumping off from the old series from a few years back, but its nature makes it flow well into the new continuity and was a good relaunch of the character.

I have heard good things about Animal Man, Blue Beetle and Demon Knights, but as of yet I have not picked those up.

On the negative side were Catwoman, Red Hood and the Outlaws and Deathstroke. And each case it is an issue of bad or lazy writing. No second issues for these.

I’ve also heard bad buzz on Hawk and Dove, OMAC and Suicide Squad, but again I did not pick them up.

And on the meh side was the Flash, Justice League Dark. Both were passable individual stories, but didn’t fire me up. I’ll give them a few issues to see if they are worth keeping up with.

And then there is Justice League. The way it was written, I have no idea yet. I can’t help feel this one was paced for the trade edition. I’ll give it a few.

Overall I am happy with the books I am getting, but I see a major flaw developing. The source of this flaw is an issue with consistency of continuity.

When the relaunch happened you had some characters like Superman and Flash getting full on reboots. Others like Wonder Woman and Aquaman were more or less getting some retooling. Characters like Booster Gold and Resurrection Man are vague on what, if anything has been changed. And then you have Batman and the Green Lanterns, where they have not been changed and are in fact continuing their stories uninterrupted. 

Add to that there we have some books taking place today, and others five years ago.

This leads to confusion as knowing how characters relate becomes muddled.  The Kid Flash in teen titans, who if he? Barry Allen is not dating Iris West, so it is unlikely he is Wally West. Is he Bart Allen? Ok but again Barry and Iris are not together so saying he is their grandson from the future is still awkward at best. Is he option C, none of the above?

What about Superman? In Action comics, the book that takes place 5 years ago his costume is jeans, a t-shirt, and a cape that I suspect started life as a table cloth. In Superman which is set today his custom is some sort of Kryptonian armor. Ok fine, expect that Superman appears at the end of Justice League number 1. That issue was set five years ago and yet he was wearing the Kryptonian armor.

I’m sure the real answer was that the editors were not keeping up on what the creators were doing; this seems to be a problem at both DC and Marvel right now.

Once a few more issues are out I will probably start giving more in-depth opinions on the various titles.  

DC Comics Relaunch: Fairwell to the old DCU

With last week’s release of Flashpoint we have seen the end of the old DC universe. I can’t really comment on the New DC Universe yet as the only book out is Justice League. So let’s look at how the DCU of old ended.

Remember that we only heard about this change back in June. At that time the DCU was chugging along and none of us knew the end was nigh. What I wonder about is how many creators had advanced knowledge.

Zantanna was a title that was still relatively new with issue #16 being the final issue. During its run there was the set-up of a new mystic villain Brother Night and a new love interest Dale Colton. At around issue 12 the series was I would say midway through the Brother Night arc. I assume the plan was to go on with this story for a while.

Then we get the relaunch. Rather than accelerate the arc, the writers ignored it, Brother Night and Dale. The last issues of Zatanna were all stand-alone stories. To be fair they were good stories, but they did nothing to resolve the hanging plot threads of the series.

Zatanna will still be in the new DCU. She is a member of Justice League Dark. Maybe these threads will be picked up there, but I personally doubt it.

Wonder Woman was different in that the story already was dealing with an altered timeline. In this case the final issue resolved the storyline restoring Wonder Woman to her proper self. In a nod to the coming change Wonder Woman herself said she felt another change was coming. At least in this case there were no major plot threads left hanging.

This leaves the final story of the old DCU, Flashpoint.

Here is a case where I wanted to like this story, but in the end it just left me a bit cold.

Had this been just a simple Flash story line I would have been fine with it. But it isn’t, it is the catalyst for the new DCU.

When DC did its first major reboot in 1985 with Crisis on Infinite Earths it was a story on a grand scale. It incorporated the majority of the characters in the universe, was played on a cosmic scale and took place over the course of a year. Basically DC earned the reboot.

With Flashpoint it was in the end a Flash story dealing with time travel. While it could be argued that it dealt with major characters of the DCU, they were in unrecognizable forms, with half the heroes being turned into villains.  None of the mini-series that went along with Flashpoint have any apparent impact on what is to come and were really nothing more than a sales ploy. Some of them were good stories, but they do not add to the relaunch in any way that I can see.

The whole thing leaves me with the feeling that this is reboot feels soft and that at any moment the powers that be at DC (Dido, Lee and Johns) can say “Ok, done with that, fix the timeline and return the DC Universe to normal.”

So in the end the DCU went out not with a bang, but a whimper.

DC Comics Relaunch: Today is the Day.

Today is the Alpha and Omega for the DC Universe.

Today DC comics will release Flashpoint #5 which is basically while taking place in a altered timeline marks the end of the mainstream DCU that has been in existence since the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985.

Today also sees the release of Justice League #1 which users in what many are calling the DCnU.

I won’t be picking up my new books until later this week so I will not really have a solid opinion on anything until then. If I am truly honest I will give the new books until November to really pass judgment.

Here is what I do know. DC reports that they have orders for over 200,000 copies of Action Comics #1. That is easily doubling what they were previously.

My friend Aron, who runs The Dreaming Comic and Games here in Seattle, tells me his in-store numbers are up. People are really interested in what is happening and this is bringing people back who gave up or coming in for the first time. This was exactly what DC has said they were shooting for. For now Aron agrees.

His exact quote “This makes him both excited and nervous.”

He is excited because he is getting the increased sales and traffic in the store.  He is nervous because until we see how the books are received there is no way to know if these numbers can be sustained.

Well we will know soon enough. Once I actually get the books and have a chance to read them I will give you my thoughts.

And of course I wait with anticipation on how Marvel will try to make a veiled copy of all of this.

The great Marvel Flashpoint cover cut up controversy

Marvel and DC, the big two in the comics industry were always friendly rivals. Note the past tense.

When Joe Quesada rose to the position of Editor-in-chief at Marvel the friendly part faded away. Pot shots became common and the hope of joint crossovers like they did in the eights and nineties became a thing of the past.

The biggest shot in the rivalry was fired last year.  At the time both companies were in the middle of big cross over events. DC had Blackest Night and Marvel had Siege. Both were selling well, but Blackest Night was getting better press. Marvel had a unique response.

Marvel made an offer to comic shops. Rip of the covers off of 50 Blackest Night tie in books and send them in and Marvel would send you a special variant cover of Siege #3.

Yes you read that right.

Destroy $150.00 worth of our competitor’s product and we will send you a copy of one of ours with a special cover.

Yeah I don’t thing Douchebag is too strong a word here.

The claim was that they were helping retailers get a return on unsold books, which is odd because you were not finding unsold Blackest Night books.

Marvel claims they received tens of thousands of covers. I never heard of any store taking up the offer. A search of EBay does not turn up any copies of the variant for sale. So it was a mean spirited ploy that got Marvel a lot of scorn and no real return.

DC took the high road and largely ignored the whole thing. The only response I ever heard were some jokes made by the DC staff at Emerald City Comic-con that year.

Really that should have been the end of it. But Marvel must have liked the press, because they are doing it again.

Right now Marvel has an event going on called Fear Itself. Don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of it. It’s not getting much buzz. It is basically Marvel getting around to ripping off the plot of Blackest Night. DC has Flashpoint.  This event is getting plenty of buzz as it is the lead in to the September relaunch.

So naturally Marvel felt that history needed to be repeated.

For every 50 covers of Flashpoint books retailers rip off and send in, Marvel will send a variant cover copy of Fear Itself #6. Once again they claim it is to help out retailers in these tough economic times.

It strikes me as a desperate grab for press. DC has been overshadowing Marvel in the press with the upcoming relaunch. Sure Marvel has their movies, but in the end they are a comic book company and losing the limelight to DC must be intolerable.

It would be nice if they could find a way to do it without acting like jackasses.