DC New 52 - Week 4

The final week in the issue-by-issue reveal of DC's brave new world. We've seen Barbara Gordon walk again, a dramatic change for the Joker, a new direction for Wonder Woman, a disturbing Cat/Bat sex scene, exploding babies and lots and lots of bras and thought boxes. So what does the final week bring?

Aquaman

Reboot or not, I never thought anyone could ever get me to buy an Aquaman book. And they didn't. I read it quickly in the shop. (I was buying four other comics, okay?! They got plenty of money off me) But here's a shocker, possibly the biggest shocker of the New 52. Geoff Johns might have actually made Aquaman... cool. Sort of. Almost.

Johns has done the only thing that could have been done: he acknowledged that Aquaman is a joke. And it's not just us real-world folk who think so. This comic is littered with people asking AC how it feels to be the laughing stock hero, asking him if he needs a glass of water and gaping when he orders fish and chips (Americans have fish and chips? This is massive news.) He spends the entire comic looking slightly pissed off.

He has a sexy new look (although the ridiculous orange and green costume somehow survived the reboot) and Johns seems to have wisely scrapped the Atlantean angle, focusing instead on the fact that Aquaman is half-human. If anyone can make the character work, it's Johns. So, it might not be long before Aquaman actually becomes one of the DC big-hitters.

The Fury of Firestorm

I picked this one up just because Gail Simone's name was on the cover. I have no love for the character and, I've got to be honest, after reading it I still don't. Two teenagers bitch at each other, wonder if the tension may be racial, get superpowers and try to blow each other up. I never felt the conflict between the characters and the fact that, once empowered, they attacked each other rather than the gun-wielding villains was just bizarre.

Yildiray Cinar's art is good and one page showing Jason and Ronnie having family meals hinted at the more subtle path the comic could have gone down, but frankly this is a bit of a mess. I don't expect to have all questions answered at the end of each number one, but The Fury of Firestorm just bewildered me and left me unengaged.

I, Vampire

The extent of my knowledge of the character of vampire Andrew was (the brilliant) Doctor 13: Architecture and Morality. So you'll understand why I was surprised that, 1. He was getting a comic in the reboot, and 2. That it was getting good reviews.

I picked it up, not wanting to miss out like I did with Animal Man and Swamp Thing, and I'm glad I did. Moody art, interesting take on the vampire mythology, and ticking boxes both for people who like their vamps romantic and those who like them blood thirsty.

I'm not entirely sure where this comic is going to go (surely any one of the three Justice Leagues would soon be on hand to put down a vampire uprising?) but the central relationship between the two warring lovers was compelling and it could be an interesting addition to the DC catalogue - albeit a quiet one.

Justice League Dark

This is one I was really looking forward to, and my opinion on it may be clouded by the fact that I desperately want it to be good. But I really enjoyed it.

It's not perfect and some of the dialogue is clunky, but it's stuffed full of weird and wonderful ideas (and the most inventive motorway pile-up I've ever seen) and nicely sets up the tone and plot of the series. Xanadu, Zatanna and Shade are sketched out nicely here and John Constantine makes a helluva entrance (although I'm concerned that they're setting him up more as a conman than a mage).

Mikel Janin's art is lovely and the book has done enough to hook me. Unlike the other team book of the week...

Teen Titans

I love Teen Titans and I came to this book already pissed off that it was getting a hard reboot. I was concerned that not only were DC wiping out the New Teen Titans, they were also messing with the chemistry of the most successful TT line-up since the Perez/Wolfman era: Tim Drake, Wonder Girl, Superboy and Kid Flash (and Ravager, who I can only hope will return one day to her rughtful place as a Titan).

It remains to be seen whether they will eventually recapture this chemistry - as of the end of this book the 'team' only consists of Tim and Cassie, and they're not exactly getting on. But, from what I've seen so far, I'm not enthused by this book. After the disaster that was Red Hood and the Outlaws, Scott Lobdell manages not to do anything horribly offensive in his first issue, but he also fails to do anything exciting. Tim is still in character (although the wings are just as bad as you'd expect) and Bart's homemade costume is a cute touch. Cassie is just an Angry Young Woman.

And as for the art... urgh. So very dated.

It's impossible to tell how this book will go in the long term as only half the team actually showed up. We still have no idea who - or what -  the new characters are. The most interesting part of the whole book were brief computer clips of Miss Martian, Solstice and - New Teen Titans Watch alert - Raven, the first indication that those characters still exist in rebooted DCU. Which is good news.


I'm still wondering if I made a mistake by not picking up The Flash and All-Star Western, both of which have had excellent reviews. I may go back for those two...

How do you solve a problem like Starfire?

Starfire is a character that, admittedly, few writers and artists have got right since Perez and Wolfman. But none have got her quite as wrong as Scott Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort in Red Hood and the Outlaws. Starfire comes from a planet of nudist free-lovers. This we know. Starfire likes sex and isn't ashamed of it. For some reason Lobdell and Rocafort take this to mean that she is an unemotional sexbot. No. Starfire is not a slut. There is something beautifully pure and pre-lapsarian about her attitude to sex, she sees the body as something to celebrate and be proud of. This doesn't mean she'd have sex with just anyone, and she certainly would never cheat on someone.

New T&A Kory



And as for the idea that people aren't important to Kory, and that she doesn't even remember Dick, that's just ridiculous. Kory loves openly and without fear of rejection. She's often too affectionate. And that was what was always so distinctive about Kory - she's a stunningly beautiful woman but her levels of affection make her almost goofy. She's had a crap history as an abused prisoner, but retains the capacity for optimism. That makes (made) her one of the strongest (and most often overlooked) heroines in the DCU.

Old pro-love Kory

It has emerged that DC had words with Lobdell about how sexualised he made Kory. They wanted him to suggest that it might be the result of post-traumatic-stress after her history as a sex slave, but he was adament that he didn't want her to be defined by that. SO WHY MAKE HER COMPLETELY DEFINED BY HER LOVE OF SEX? Why have her do everything Jason asks her without questioning it? Why have both her arse and boobs in every picture of her?

Why not have her just being happy, joyous Kory, a fun counterpoint to brooding recovering drug addict Roy and brooding recovering psychopath Jason? If she was chirpy and upbeat and then slaughtered a tonne of mercenaries in tanks, that would be interesting. Because Kory is a warrier when she has to be, and she never had a problem with killing bad people. I'm not saying have her cover up and become a prude, and she should absolutely hit on Roy and Jason. In fact, she should make the same objectifying comments about them that they make about her. She would act as a great destabiliser in the comic, someone the boys don't quite get and are a little scared of. Happy one minute, cheerful nympho the next, hugging them and declaring her team mate love for them the second after that. Then slaughtering a tonne of mercenaries in tanks.

It worries me that some creators choose not to see past the 'likes sex' aspect of Kory's personality. It's not just a guy thing. She was created by two men who also happened to establish three of DC's best female characters (two of whom are now MIA). Men can write Kory. But many see her exclusively through a male gaze. In Red Hood it's a triple-filtered male gaze: she's gazed at and commented on by the male characters and defined by the male creators for what they clearly assume to be a male audience (even though, in my experience, Jason and Roy's fans are mostly female). I love all three characters in this book - or, at least, what they used to be - which makes me their key audience. But I simply don't feel like I can read this. And it's not just a crusading feminist thing - I've read plenty of comments by male fans who feel the same way. They actually find Kory less sexy now.

Thank God that Wonder Woman, Supergirl and Birds of Prey also came out this week, otherwise with this and Catwoman (which I ranted about in the below post) I'd be accusing DC of actively driving away female readers. But, as it is, DC put out a lot of books featuring women this week. Most of them were good and presented their female characters as strong and rounded. But so long as comics like Red Hood and Catwoman keep coming out, comics are never going to shake off the 'just for boys' tag. Cut your loses on those two very quickly, DC. I'll be surprised if the creative teams stay in place for more than six issues.

DC New 52 Week 3

Week three was my most expensive week so far. Wonder Woman and Batman were a must. And, being the Bat completist I am, so were Nightwing, Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws, even though I was pretty sure the latter two would just give me something to shout about. But hey, I like having something to get indignant about. Which I will get to later. Let's start from the best and work our way down.

Wonder Woman

When everyone was busy ranting about how they didn't want the reboot to damage characters like Batman, Superman and the Birds of Prey, no-one really mentioned Wonder Woman. Everyone was just relieved that a reboot meant they could pretend that JMS' disastrous run never happened.

And my God does this pick up the Wonder Woman mythology and run with it. For a long time editors seem to have been scared of her Greek myth origins, fearing that it would scare casual readers away. Well, in a year where a film about a Norse god superhero attracted huge audiences, I think we can all finally agree that's not the case. Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang have put Diana right back where she belongs, in a world populated by centaurs and gods with the power to turn party girls into oracles. Superman goes toe-to-toe with the smartest man on earth. So what? Wonder Woman fights gods.

Azzarello's script throws us right into the centre of the action, setting up a great villain in the shape of Apollo and kick-starting the story arc. So many of these new 52 books have been concerned with re-establishing heroes, explaining their histories and motivations with an abundance of thought boxes. Blessedly, Wonder Woman doesn't have a single one. We don't get into Diana's head. We don't know why she's living in London and not Themyscira. The word 'Amazon' isn't even mentioned. Azzarello doesn't bash us over the head with the facts and it's refreshing.

It goes without saying, of course, that Cliff Chiang's art is just gorgeous. I'm a big fan (I'd kill for a commission from him - and in fact I'd have to kill for it, because I certainly couldn't afford it...) He draws Diana as the strong Amazon she is, not as some pretty girl to be fantasised about. His emotional story-telling is great (Zola has a whole heap of brilliant facial expressions) and his action scenes have a great sense of movement.

The storyline this sets up is hugely promising, and it's one I'll definitely stick with. I'm a trades girl, but I think I'll eschew that to keep abreast of Diana's adventures.

Batman

I never read Scott Snyder's run on Detective, but I heard resoundingly good things about it, so his Batman was one of the books in the New 52 that I was sure would be good. And I wasn't wrong.

This is a great Bat book and Snyder nails the Dark Knight and his supporting characters - including Gotham. A clever opening scene shows off Batman's rogues, a blend of classic and modern villains including Two-Face with a more, shall we say, realistic look. Snyder follows this with a glimpse of the Batcave, Alfred, Robins past and present and a typical Bruce Wayne fundraiser. This comic is saying, loud and clear, "everything you love about Batman is still here".

Snyder throws in some nice surprises along the way that I won't spoil here, but this is clearly going to be a title in which you can't always believe what you see. It also sets up an arc that looks set to be cross-over heavy with one other title in particular and which also makes sure that things stay personal for Bats for a little while yet. At the same time we get some funny lines and some excellent Bruce/Dick banter. This book isn't mired in darkness and misery - Bruce, for once, seems to be coming from a more positive place. Perhaps that letter at the end of Flashpoint did him some good.

Greg Capullo's art keeps everything nice and gothic (or perhaps neo-gothic is a better term, given the new WayneTech on display), although he draws Dick too small. And, frankly, when 'Dick Grayson isn't tall enough' is the biggest complaint you have to make, it must be a pretty damn good comic. It may not have got such wide, astounded praise as Wonder Woman but that's just because Batman has been great for years and Snyder and Capullo are just building on some sterling foundations, rather than re-establishing a 'broken' hero.

And, okay, there are thought boxes, but then they're revealed not to be thought boxes, so all is forgiven. I think I will now arbitrarily rate all comics by how many of these boxes they feature.

Nightwing

Well, he already loses points on the thought box scale. There are an awful lot here, drumming home the whole 'I used to be Batman, and before that I was Nightwing/Robin, and before that I was an acrobat and my parents died and I like red-heads...' All the stuff even casual fans know about Dick Grayson (yes, even the red-head thing). I would have liked to see Kyle Higgins forget some of the back-story and get stuck into the action a bit quicker instead.

It's nice to see Dick back as Nightwing and this comic deliberately sets him up as a solo hero, not even featuring cameo appearences from the likes of Bruce and Damien (now that they're no longer partners I like to think that Damien comes up with flimsy reasons to come over and hang out with Dick). The first part of the comic focuses on just how together Dick is, only for him to make a massive mistake later on that costs two police officers their life. And he just shrugs it off. That doesn't really feel like Dick. It would have made more sense (and been more interesting) if his flaws as Nightwing were the result of that fact that he spent months with a sidekick, and he got used to it. He's got to learn how to go solo all over again.

There was nothing particularly bad about this comic, but there wasn't anything to make it really good either. Over the last few years, Dick became one of DCs most prominant and popular characters, and it feels like he's been massively demoted here and landed with a third-tier writer. Snyder wrote him much better over in Batman.

Catwoman

Now we're getting progressively worse. Thought boxes? Plentiful. Bras? Even more so. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that about half the panels in this comic feature bras. Judd Winick has been talking no end about how 'sexy' his Catwoman is, and fans couldn't help but feel he was missing the point. Yes, Catwoman is sexy. But that wouldn't be the first word I'd use to describe her. If you asked Ed Brubaker or Will Pfeifer, her last two writers, I'm sure they'd agree with me over adjectives like resourceful, smart, protective, crusading, witty, loyal, brave, and, yes, sexy. Winick only took one of those on board.

Worst of all, he has somehow failed to understand what makes someone sexy. Showing boob on the first panel isn't sexy. Even the sleaziest of strippers know that something needs to be saved til the end. In fact, that's just it. Catwoman should be sexy in a sophisticated burlesque way, teasing and playing with expectations, making you think she'll give it all up, yet she always leaves with her modesty in place and the audience wanting more. Winick thinks sexy is a back-room stripper who'll go home with you for a tenner.

But that's not even the worst of the comic - in fact, for most of it I was thinking that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I found the anatomically mind-boggling T&A shots amusing rather than offensive. But then, in the final pages... urgh. I don't want to see Batman and Catwoman having sex. I really, really don't. I want them to flirt on rooftops, kiss a little, and make suggestive comments. I don't want to see them going at it on the floor. And, I'm sorry, but can we have a little inter-comic continuity here? Snyder's Batman would not have sex with Catwoman on the floor of a random penthouse surrounded by kittens and bras.

Frustratingly, there were elements here that were good. Guillem March draws a great Selina (in the one scene that we get to see her out of disguise) and it seems a shame that he didn't have anything else to do with her bar suggestive poses on the other 18 pages. Those kittens were just joyous. I liked Selina's fence Lola as well, she felt real and different. But everything else was basically Judd Winick turning one of DC's three most recognisable female characters into a thoroughly uninspiring, insecure nymphomaniac. Get him off this book as fast as you can.

Red Hood and the Outlaws

And the winner for worst book of the week goes to...

I'll ignore the actual plot (what little there was), the characters of Jason Todd (disappointingly sane) and Roy Harper (disappointingly Ron Weasley), and the abundance of thought boxes and skip straight to my Rant of the Week: What the fuck have they done to Starfire?!?

I'm so angry about it that I'm going to give it a post all of its own straight after this one.

But, while I'm the subject of Red Hood, here's my a quick New Teen Titans in the New 52 update: Here it is revealed that Kory used to be part of a team that including Dick, Vic, Gar, Garth, Lilith and someone called Dustin. No mention of Wally, Donna or Raven. Surely this has to be significant? Surely they're saving these characters for something important down the line, right? Right?!

I also speed-read a couple of other books in my comic shop:

Supergirl: Great art, nice introduction, but it felt more like a prologue than an opening chapter. Frankly, I'd have been pissed off if I'd spent money on something that took 60 seconds to read.

Birds of Prey: I like Starling (although, really, just about everything she did could have been done by Lady Blackhawk) and Black Canary's still bad-ass, but this lacked the wow factor and the sense of cammeraderie that defined Simone's run. That might just be because the full team isn't together yet.

New 52 - Week 2

Week two came rolling around with far fewer comics that whetted my appetite that week one (I will probably go back and pick up Swamp Thing and Animal Man just to see what all the excitement is about). However, two in particular made me very, erm, whet.

Demon Knights

For the sheer fact that I love Madame Xanadu and Paul Cornell is almost equal measures, this one was a no-brainer. It had a pleasing continuity with Matt Wagner's Xanadu series, showing a similar disregard for what constitutes an acceptible timespan in a comic, and surprising touches of Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory.

The concept - a bunch of DC's immortals, among them the aforementioned Madame, Etrigan the Demon (and his human host with the very un-dark-ages name Jason) and Vandall Savage, fight various medieval threats and magic - doesn't seem like the stuff hits are made of. But Cornell has a real deftness of touch, balancing humour (a great face-palm moment, a brilliant first line for Exoristos) with buckets of gore, including some pretty horrific stuff surrounding a possessed baby.

The characters are all introduced in a hurry but here Cornell and the artisits Neves and Albert show JLA just how an ensemble should be introduced - all have distinctive voices, motives and facial expressions. Shining Knight, for instance, has next to nothing to do, but is conveyed through smirk alone.

It was my most pleasant surprise of the DCnU so far, and also probably the comic I most enjoyed. Possibly because it is a genuine Number 1 with a completely new scenario and some new characters, rather than rehashing old stories from the old continuity.

Batwoman 1

Since reading Batwoman Elegy, this has probably been the #1 that's gotten me the most excited. I was nervous given Greg Rucka's departure, but J. H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman nail it.

Everyone talks about just how gorgeous the art is, so let's get that out the way now: It is hands-down the most beautiful comic I've ever seen. The shift in art styles to indicate Kate's dreamy nocturnal adventures as Batwoman and her real life (still making her stand-out with her utterly colourless skin) are flawless. The layouts are inspired. Thanks to Williams, Batwoman is one of the most striking and instantly recognisable characters in the DCU.

Elegy already put Batwoman in a world slightly more surreal that Batman, so the watery ghost lady seen here isn't out of place. It just further drums home the fact that the Dark Knight will be chasing psychos across Gotham's rooftops while Kate deals with the... weirder elements.

Williams and Blackman set up a strong cast of characters, adding Maggie Sawyer, Cameron Chase and Bette Kane to the roster, and very little has been changed by the reboot. So little, in fact, that Bette's reference to being a former Teen Titan was either a tantalising hint that the DCnU's team wasn't the first after all, or that the DC editors failed to notice the error. I'm hoping for the former, simply because I am still unspeakably furious at them for undoing The New Teen Titans.

I came into this book with high expectations, and they were met. Which, by my standards, means that this has been the best Bat-book so far in the reboot. Sorry Batgirl.


I also skim-read Superboy, just to make sure I was up-to-speed for Teen Titans, which I plan on picking up in week 4, and to make sure Rose Wilson was still psychotic (spoiler alert: She is) From what I saw, it looked like an enjoyable book. The burning building section was especially good.

But, on the bad side of things, what THE FUCK have they done to Amanda Waller?!?

One of the best female characters in the old DCU, mainly because she was far more concerned with screwing everyone else over and coming out on top than with her own appearance. And now... words cannot express the anger and disappointment. There have been a few mis-steps in the New 52. This might just be the biggest.

New 52 - Week one

Strictly speaking, I have not up until now been a comic book reader. I'm a trades reader. I like to dip into a complete arc with a beginning, middle and end, one that's long enough to get immersed in rather than 20 pages of entertainment being interrupted by a month-long wait for the next installment.

But the New 52 are out, and I just couldn't wait for the first round of trades. Not when it comes to my favourite characters. Those last two words are key. I'm not a completist. I haven't read all the issues, I can't give you a neat little review of all the first batch of the New 52. But I can give you reviews of the ones I was most interested in:

Justice League International

Yes, I know. In a week when everyone was raving about Action Comics and Swamp Thing, I was reading JLI. But Giffens' run was one of my favourite ever comics, and I just had to see how it survived in the revamp. Answer: not brilliantly. This is the first iteration of the JLI - yes, that's right, along with so many of my other favourites, the Guy Gardner-Bruce Wayne one-punch has been retconned out of existence.

But at least those two characters feature in this, along with Booster Gold. And, in fact, they are the only ones to get any kind of characterisation. It's to be expected when you have 11 characters to introduce, but the others are under-characterised to the point that in one panel a white character with short dark hair appears in the background. Either they accidentally made Ice a brunette or they made Vixen white.

Dan Jurgens and Aaron Lopresti have the difficult job of producing a comic that is pretty much a carbon copy of a classic, but minus some of the best characters (I miss Ted). Having said that, Booster, Guy and Bats come out of it well, Booster gets a good gag about adult diapers and Godiva looks like she could be fun. With a cast list this big, though, it's understandable it would take a few issues to settle in.

Detective Comics

I wasn't going to get this one, I was saving myself for Scott Snyder's Batman, but everyone was raving about a shock ending, and I wanted to see it for myself before I was well and truly spoilered.

As it was, the ending wasn't quite as shocking as I expected it to be. Then I thought about it for a bit, and decided that, actually, yes it was.

Unfortunately, Detective is made by that ending. Without it, it's a fairly mundane Batman story, as he tries to put an end to another of Joker's murderous rampages. Jim Gordon is still his ally, still hanging around the Bat Signal on windy evenings, and Alfred is still the loyal, tech-savvy butler. Gotham is still Gotham. If nothing else, this comic serves to calm any nerves people may have had that Batman would have been changed dramatically. He really hasn't.

Tony S Daniels is a great artist (is it weird to say he draws an especially good Gordon?) and Detective's art was the best of the three comics I got. But Daniels isn't the best writer, so with him at the helm Detective will be dark and atmospheric, sure, but not revolutionary.

Batgirl

This was the one I always knew I'd pick up, both because of the author on the cover and to see whether my rants about what they've done to Barbara Gordon were justified.

Well, yes and no. Mostly no. This is a good Batgirl book. It's very well paced, with more crammed in than in both JLI and Detective put together. It also, unlike those two, examines both the hero and the person behind the mask. Gail Simone is reining in the snark here, but it's still funny in places, and she introduces an effective new villain.

The problem is that at the moment this could be any Batgirl. Barbara's defining feature, as both Batgirl and Oracle, was her confidence. She wasn't perfect, and as Oracle her intelligence would occassionally leapfrog her humanity, but she was always confident in her actions. This Babs is riddled with insecurities, putting her victories down to luck and kicking herself for her mistakes. Inexplicably, Ardian Syaf draws her with her eyebrows constantly drawn together in a stressed expression.

But no-one knows Babs better than Simone, and a lot is left unexplained here. We still don't know how she regained use of her legs, and no doubt as all this is revealed more layers of Barbara's character will unpeel.


Maybe I'm being too hard on these. After all, I'm writing as a seasoned DC fan, one who squeals when she sees the name Rose Wilson written in Superboy's solicit (she better have a damn eyepatch). But these comics were written for people who are new to DC. Bats is written as an EveryBatgirl because she has to be. Readers need to know who Batgirl is before they can learn who Babs is. With that goal in mind, all three of these comics were successful. But dammit - I miss the backstory!

Next week I'll be picking up Batwoman for definite (finally read Elegy recently - SO beautiful). None of the others leap out at me yet.