Aquaman
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
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
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
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
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...
There's not a DC fan alive (over 18) who wouldn't put this at the top of their TV wishlist. It's The Wire of the DCU, and not just because it's a police procedural, but because it is in a class of its own. Great characters, great stories and villains that range from the outlandish Gotham villains like Two Face and Mr Freeze to real-world bad guys like Corrigan.
Screw a Raven TV show - just do the Teen Titans. You'll end up bringing most of them in as guest stars in Raven anyway, and besides, she works much better as a peripheral character slowly revealed to be far more powerful and screwed-up than anyone realised than as a main character.
She'd make a great TV lead, juggling a showbiz career and a superhero alter ego, wielding a power that she hasn't quite got her head round yet and featuring a supporting cast of DC's magical characters. I'd put her in her mid-20s and take inspiration from Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers interpretation, pegging Zee as a bit of a screw-up who drinks too much, has very inapproriate taste in men (Batman and Constantine? Girl likes a bad boy) and has a very sharp, smart tongue, even when she's speaking words the right way round.
John Constantine, as brought to screen in a British-American co-production would just be heaven. British cast, locations, black humour and grit, with American money. It's about time the Keanu version was wiped from audiences' minds, and this would be the way to do it.
Selina Kyle is a ready-made leading woman. I'd take a heavy influence from Brubaker's run on her book and give it a great gumshoe vibe and a supporting cast including Holly, Karon, Slam Bradley and Leslie Thompkins. The fact that Catwoman is inextricably linked to Batman could cause problems, but she has enough of her own history and stories to carry a good few series' without him: Her training with Wildcat, her background with the Falcone family, her childhood on the streets and rise to wealthy society burglar extraordinaire, with a social conscience. Robin Hood in Louboutins.
Okay, so a show about Booster Gold won't bring in anyone other than DC's usual white male 18-31 audience. But come on, who wouldn't want to see a comedy action show about the world's tackiest superhero? (I have a soft spot for Booster.)
