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 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.

Superhero Shag, Marry, Avoid: The Batfamily

That old game, beloved of drunk people everywhere. Given a choice of (usually inappropriate) people, you have to choose which you'd have a one-off wild night of passion with, which you'd marry, and which you'd avoid like a cold sore. And for some reason I haven't played this game before with superheroes.

So, let's start with an easy one: Batfamily Shag, marry, avoid!

1. Shag - Jason Todd


Come on, this is a no-brainer. Anyone who can keep up with Talia's gotta be a demon in the sack. (See also: Bruce Wayne) Jason wears the constant smirk of a man who knows he'll be the best you've ever had and leave you staring at an unringing phone for weeks on end.

2. Marry - Dick Grayson


Tender, loyal, funny, passionate, great arse, heir to billions - is there a more eligible man in the DCU? Plus, he was an acrobat. There's not a single position in the karma sutra that he couldn't get into.

3. Avoid - Tim Drake
He's a lovely guy, but the sexual identity crisis would always be just around the corner. The double dates with Cassie and Kon would be plain awkward.

Plus, I'd never be able to wear heels on date night. Guy is weeny.

Incidentally, I'd go on a night on the town with Kate, shopping with Steph, and I'd be scared to death of Bruce, Babs, Damien and Cass. What about you guys?

Coming Out

Okay, deep breath, confession time. I've always known I was different to other girls, but I did my best to fit in. I'd talk about boys and shoes and hope no-one noticed that my heart wasn't in it. But now, finally, I feel like I can embrace the real me, the person I've always been under all the social conventions.

I'm a comic book geek.

There, I said it. Wow. I've talked a lot on this blog about film and TV, but that's more acceptible in some way. They are to comic books what marijuana is to heroin. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was my gateway drug. Now I'm hooked on all things geeky (except gaming - I'm still a joypad-mashing hopeless case when it comes to games).

But comics have actually been an important part of my life since I was a child. My Dad was a comic collector before he had to sell all his comics to pay for nappies and baby food and other frivolities. So my destiny as a geek was sealed from birth (my brother has taken a different but similar path - he's into Manga and World of Warcraft). All of Dad's comics were gone by the time I was born, so he'd tell me the stories from memory instead. My bedtime tales were "once upon a time there was a Caped Crusader, and his name was Batman..." Dad was a DC buff, so I was too. We would stand in the kitchen for hours on end as he smoked out the back door, telling me the stories of Watchmen, of the Talia Al Ghul/Silver St Cloud/Batman love triangle, of Starfire arriving on Earth and snogging Robin to learn English.

Then there were the cartoons. Every day on one of my summer holidays I got up at 7am to watch X-Men and Batman: The Animated Series. Then, when I was old enough to know better, I was hooked on X-Men: Evolution, Batman of the Future, Teen Titans and Justice League (which, for my money, is the best of the bunch). Then there were Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Smallville, although, ever my father's daughter, I was never a Supes fan.

The first graphic novel I ever read was The Dark Knight Returns, the one comic Dad had managed to hold onto. Not a bad introduction to comics, but maybe a little heavy for a newbie. But it all really kicked off when I spotted a Watchmen graphic novel, long before the film made it cool again. I remembered Dad's stories, and decided to buy it for his birthday. I think I read it even before he did. It became a tradition. Every birthday and Christmas I buy Dad a graphic novel. Initially, I just got him ones that he reminisced fondly about. Then I nicked it and read it. V for Vendetta, Frank Miller's Daredevil run... Then I started developing my own tastes, and soon I'd even overtaken my father. The day I bought him a comic and handed it to him with the words "I read this the other day, I thought you'd like it" was probably the most proud of me he's ever been. That moment kicked my graduation day into the dirt.

Why is now the time for me to come clean about all of this? Because I've just booked tickets to my first ever Comic Con. In April, I'm off to Kapow!, the brand new British answer to the San Diego Comic Con (thanks Mark Millar!). I'm already excited and most of the line-up hasn't even been announced yet. For the first time I'll be in the company of my nerdy peers, and I'll probably realise how little I actually know about comics, compared to most other people who call themselves fanboys (and girls).

No-one is just one person. I'm about six or seven. The other mes get regular excursions: Professional Me goes to work four days a week, Writer Me never shuts up, Party Girl Me gets glammed up and dances crazily every weekend (ish), Intellectual Me loves the theatre and carries a book everywhere she goes, Lazy Me has her very own sofa arse-print, Friends and Family Me reminds me what's really important. But Geek Me has to sit quietly at the back of the class. It'll never be the loudest or most prominant aspect of me, not unless I achieve my secret secondary dream of being a comic book writer (I really want to write TV), but it's about time I stopped hiding it.

Besides, it makes me quirky and interesting, right?

Cheque, please!

After some recent rejections and failures on the writer front (I'm an aspiring script writer) I've decided to cut loose and live a little by way of shaking off that pesky writer's block. So last night I put on my glad rags and hit the town for a mate's birthday. And, as everyone knows, a birthday party is second only to a houseparty when it comes to copping off with friends-of-friends.

I got chatting to a lovely guy, who of course was already endorsed as not-a-psycho by our mutual friend, and inevitably as the drinks and compliments flowed I did my usual trick of launching myself at him under the pretense of "can you help me carry the drinks back from the bar?" My friends cheered and pointed (although thankfully left their cameras in their bags this time) and gave me their seal of approval. Until one of them uttered the fateful words: "Doesn't he look like you ex?"

Is there are a faster way of turning a girl off than being told that you have just pulled the doppelganger of the bloke you were pretty sure you were over? It's fair to say I lost interest after that. But that's not the worst turn-off I've ever had:

There was the guy who spilt his drink - and then licked it up off the table.

One guy told me I reminded him of his sister shortly before making a pass at me.

One time, mid-snog, the bloke said "I knew I was going to have you as soon as I saw you" - suffice to say, he 'had' nothing more after that.

There was the bloke who had a poster of Beaches on his bedroom wall.

And, worst of all, anyone who says that their favourite programme is 'I'm a Celebrity'.


Best turn-on? The guy who, when I asked him what he liked to read, squirmingly admitted "Batman." A man after my own heart.