Where is Regular Ass Batman while Robot Gordon Batman is taking place?
He died in the final battle with the Joker, who was pulling no punches, burning Gotham to the ground, and knew his secret identity and the identities of most of the bat family.
It's interesting that Batman Eternal and Engame both ended right near each other. Eternal was about the concept of Batman never dying no matter how bleak it looked and Endgame was The Joker playing for keeps. Both were good. But Eternal got us Stephanie Brown/Spoiler, Bluebird, and Julia Pennyworth and our new amazing mob boss Selina Kyle.
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
Hmm, buried in a body retrieval denying cave-in next to a pool of magic healing water. As comic book deaths go, that's on par with falling into a river or getting caught in a malfunctioning teleporter.
I tease because I love - I did enjoy that story. Joker's antics this time around behind the scenes were pretty entertaining - the enjoyable kind of creepy, not the gross kind.
Batman 41 was my absolute favorite single issue of Snyder's run so far, and the Batman Mech is the crazy new direction that I've been waiting for. Aside from Court of Owls, I've found Snyder's stories to rely too much on homage to old stories or really common Batman tropes, and it always kind of bugged me because it never felt like he was doing his own thing. His Joker stories were especially bad with that, and they were my least favorite parts of his run. He's finally broken away from that, and I dig it.
Also, I've realized the main reason why his run hasn't clicked with me so far, and it's because there's no real narrative segue between arcs. Every arc happens in a vacuum, there's very little resolution, and then there's a massive jump in time. I'm hoping the book will be a little more traditionally serialized going forward, with natural transitions between stories and more pay-off to things from previous arcs. I know Endgame tried to do this, but the jump back for Zero Year and then the jump forward past Eternal really threw things off.
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Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
Batman #41: Like Action Comics #41 last week, this is another book where we should have not believed the advertising. The new Batman absolutely makes sense in Gotham's new status quo.
Batman 41 was my absolute favorite single issue of Snyder's run so far, and the Batman Mech is the crazy new direction that I've been waiting for. Aside from Court of Owls,
I have really not enjoyed Snyder' Batman, aside from zero year. I don't even really know how to explain why. Court of owls had a great build, but then it had no climax, it was just like all the air that he put in the balloon just leaked out. Death of the family blew chunks and endgame was even worse. It just felt like... He went out of his way to be all "this ain't your daddy's Gotham!" etc like the first issue with nightwing supposedly being the killer, joke's identity being uncovered, joker literally being a demon or whatever the Fuck, but then no, it turns out none of that was true, or it it? No it is. But maybe it isn't?!? It was exhausting in parts and frankly, it doesn't matter if it was a fake out and that's just same random vagrant's sliced-off face on that plate and not actually Robin's or nightwing's or Batgirl's face, it's still exxxtreme to the maxxx and I don't fucking want to see it.
I have really not enjoyed Snyder' Batman, aside from zero year. I don't even really know how to explain why. Court of owls had a great build, but then it had no climax, it was just like all the air that he put in the balloon just leaked out. Death of the family blew chunks and endgame was even worse. It just felt like... He went out of his way to be all "this ain't your daddy's Gotham!" etc like the first issue with nightwing supposedly being the killer, joke's identity being uncovered, joker literally being a demon or whatever the Fuck, but then no, it turns out none of that was true, or it it? No it is. But maybe it isn't?!? It was exhausting in parts and frankly, it doesn't matter if it was a fake out and that's just same random vagrant's sliced-off face on that plate and not actually Robin's or nightwing's or Batgirl's face, it's still exxxtreme to the maxxx and I don't fucking want to see it.
I'll put myself down as being very lukewarm on Snyder's Batman run. There's a weird steady state to his work - its always of a good quality but it never rises to being excellent. No lows but no highs either.
I have really not enjoyed Snyder' Batman, aside from zero year. I don't even really know how to explain why. Court of owls had a great build, but then it had no climax, it was just like all the air that he put in the balloon just leaked out. Death of the family blew chunks and endgame was even worse. It just felt like... He went out of his way to be all "this ain't your daddy's Gotham!" etc like the first issue with nightwing supposedly being the killer, joke's identity being uncovered, joker literally being a demon or whatever the Fuck, but then no, it turns out none of that was true, or it it? No it is. But maybe it isn't?!? It was exhausting in parts and frankly, it doesn't matter if it was a fake out and that's just same random vagrant's sliced-off face on that plate and not actually Robin's or nightwing's or Batgirl's face, it's still exxxtreme to the maxxx and I don't fucking want to see it.
I'll put myself down as being very lukewarm on Snyder's Batman run. There's a weird steady state to his work - its always of a good quality but it never rises to being excellent. No lows but no highs either.
This is exactly how I feel, and I'm relieved that other people feel similarly. His Joker storylines have that fan-fiction quality to them where he just hits the tropes and cliches so hard, ups the violence to ridiculous levels, fills the story with every single homage he can make to past Joker storylines, and tries to build this huge shaggy dog mythology that eventually turns out to be TRUE... OR IS IT!? And part of that has also been him filling the book with psuedo-science over the course of his whole run, which is just a drag to read about and makes the situations Batman becomes trapped in not suspenseful at all, because such-and-such counteracts fantasy chemical x every time.
I've also hated how he's used the Bat-family; they show up occasionally and then have 0 characterization. Death of the Family was such a dud because none of the family members really had any link to Bruce in the context of Snyder's run. Snyder was counting on readers knowing about these relationships from previous runs without adding anything to them himself, which is just lazy storytelling. He's also introduced two new sidekicks (Harper and Duke) just for them to disappear after being in the background for a couple arcs. It's super frustrating, as a reader, and I don't care enough about the Batfamily to read Eternal.
Batman 41 was the first time where I really felt he's been doing his own thing, though. Gordon actually has supporting characters that he can have real interactions with; this is important for character development and was something sorely missing in issues 1-40, where the only realized characters have been Bruce and Alfred, and they've been almost entirely static. Writing these characters is basically creating an illusion; making them seem like they're growing and developing over time when they're really not. Snyder has totally failed at that aspect so far, but focusing on Gordon actually gives him a lot more room to work.
I have really not enjoyed Snyder' Batman, aside from zero year. I don't even really know how to explain why. Court of owls had a great build, but then it had no climax, it was just like all the air that he put in the balloon just leaked out. Death of the family blew chunks and endgame was even worse. It just felt like... He went out of his way to be all "this ain't your daddy's Gotham!" etc like the first issue with nightwing supposedly being the killer, joke's identity being uncovered, joker literally being a demon or whatever the Fuck, but then no, it turns out none of that was true, or it it? No it is. But maybe it isn't?!? It was exhausting in parts and frankly, it doesn't matter if it was a fake out and that's just same random vagrant's sliced-off face on that plate and not actually Robin's or nightwing's or Batgirl's face, it's still exxxtreme to the maxxx and I don't fucking want to see it.
I'll put myself down as being very lukewarm on Snyder's Batman run. There's a weird steady state to his work - its always of a good quality but it never rises to being excellent. No lows but no highs either.
This is exactly how I feel, and I'm relieved that other people feel similarly. His Joker storylines have that fan-fiction quality to them where he just hits the tropes and cliches so hard, ups the violence to ridiculous levels, fills the story with every single homage he can make to past Joker storylines, and tries to build this huge shaggy dog mythology that eventually turns out to be TRUE... OR IS IT!? And part of that has also been him filling the book with psuedo-science over the course of his whole run, which is just a drag to read about and makes the situations Batman becomes trapped in not suspenseful at all, because such-and-such counteracts fantasy chemical x every time.
I've also hated how he's used the Bat-family; they show up occasionally and then have 0 characterization. Death of the Family was such a dud because none of the family members really had any link to Bruce in the context of Snyder's run. Snyder was counting on readers knowing about these relationships from previous runs without adding anything to them himself, which is just lazy storytelling. He's also introduced two new sidekicks (Harper and Duke) just for them to disappear after being in the background for a couple arcs. It's super frustrating, as a reader, and I don't care enough about the Batfamily to read Eternal.
Batman 41 was the first time where I really felt he's been doing his own thing, though. Gordon actually has supporting characters that he can have real interactions with; this is important for character development and was something sorely missing in issues 1-40, where the only realized characters have been Bruce and Alfred, and they've been almost entirely static. Writing these characters is basically creating an illusion; making them seem like they're growing and developing over time when they're really not. Snyder has totally failed at that aspect so far, but focusing on Gordon actually gives him a lot more room to work.
To be fair to Snyder, there have been very few writers who have gotten a handle on how to the do the character well in a monthly format. Batman comics have always been a slog monthly with the massive bright spots coming in the form of miniseries, graphic novels and the occasional one-off issue that hits it out of the park. Stellar regular issue runs like "Ten Nights of the Beast" are very rare.
Brubaker/Rucka managed to elevate their run by making the book more about the extended cast. Even then, things like Renee Montoya's relationship with Two Face was far more compelling than whatever the Bat was up to at the time. Morrison turned everything up to 11 while introducing new concepts to the universe.
In that sense, Snyder has accomplished something by producing dozens of monthly high-quality Batman issues.
Very true. For a long time I ignored Batman ongoings just because the story-telling gets so same-y. Morrison drew me back just because he was doing such high-level things to the character. It's also why I've been ignoring most of the extended Batbooks, sticking just to Snyder's Batman because everyone I know picks it up, and reading Tomasi's Batman and Robin for a final taste of what Morrison was doing.
If Snyder's Batman wasn't such a prime comics discussion piece each month, I'd be pretty satisfied with the doses of the character I get from Justice League and Batman/Superman each month. Johns and Pak both write a Batman that's very similar to the DCAU version, and he's a much more entertaining character when he's playing off of other heroes.
So that JLA book by Bryan Hitch is coming out this week. He is writing it. So my expectation is that it will be a pretty book with terrible writing. Unless he is a good writer?
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
I might check out the first issue because it feels incredibly weird not buying a DC book, but maybe he's got Millar or someone ghostwriting it. Or even just doing a cursory pass over his script.
So that JLA book by Bryan Hitch is coming out this week. He is writing it. So my expectation is that it will be a pretty book with terrible writing. Unless he is a good writer?
That's a high profile book to start writing professionally on.
There's a preview on the regular sites, and it looks fairly stilted. Also, the first issue is double sized and runs at $5.99.
I'm going to give it a try. I can't imagine he'll be on it for more than a year. I'd guess that he'll draw 90% of one arc and then write another one while someone else draws, and hopefully it'll become a rotating space for creators to tell loose-continuity stories with the big 7 Justice League.
He wrote a image mini series Real Heroes recently, though dont think he finished it lol
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"Ride or Die" confirmed Dominic Toretto, as they took off to find the Dragon Balls in hopes of reviving their friend Sonic
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited June 2015
JLA #1 wasn't that good. If Hitch has been working on this for a year he's really in a give no fucks mode with his art, possibly the worst I've seen from him (and I've always felt he's overrated and not worth months of delays). It's very bland and full of posing, with three inkers who look like one or two were drawing just from thumbnails or something (the Aquaman pages in particular look really bad), and the story reads more like a team of dunces than anything else. He's really trying to make it seem like a movie direction with how things and panels happen and characters appear, Superman's kind of a dick, Batman says dammit a lot and no one listens to him, it feels like this same fight with the issue's villain has happened a million times before, it's just not good or even fun. For an issue that is double sized it's just wasting pages (that Hitch will need later to be on time more than likely) and feels boring.
edit: Superman WW #18 was good, does a solid job showing the real fallout that would happen with Clark's identity revealed in Smallville, but the ending feels like it was made for having this arc on the shelf for the movies next year. Tomasi's done a good job making the pair be a believable couple (as did Soule), and we get some nice Diana moments here to be Clark's sounding board, well to the point that Clark is being abloo abloo and oblivious to her in a way that only guarantees the two won't be together soon (probably a misdirect this arc, then it lingers the next, and then the breakup by March or April)
Yeah... JLA was not good. I found the art to be pretty good in my opinion, but yeah... The story was boring and dumb. It was not fun at all. Do not recommend!
I should have listened to my own instincts about this one :bigfrown:
I agree with your assessments of JLA 1... The art was low-detail, the script was weird, Superman and Aquaman felt really out-of-character while the rest of the League came close to being on-key but weren't quite that, people made weird foreshadowy asides to nothing, no sound effects were placed over the art which made it easy to miss plot-centric details of what was going on (Aquaman is suddenly talking on a videophone he didn't have until this panel!). It is a bummer because it feels like Hitch has actually come up with a solid plot, but the execution of it looks to be a total mess. I may still continue to ride this out just because I love the JLA characters so much, and because I recently jumped off the solo books for everyone except Bruce, Clark and Hal.
I picked up some of the actual new titles this week, so I thought I'd provide my impressions:
Prez #1 - This was also really weird. It was so kinetic and rapid-paced, and the whole book is extremely dark satire. Nearly every single panel was used to make a critical observation of modern society, and some of them were really sharp and piercing, others felt strained and ignorant and out of place (fast food companies privatizing food stamp programs), and others fell in-between because they weren't given much context or setup (an ongoing series of jokes at the start of the issue attempts to criticize conservative politicians living in the closet, but instead comes off as oddly homophobic due to how stretched out it is). I'm not sure where I land on the good-to-bad ratio here, but I may give this another shot next month.
Black Canary #1 - I tried a couple issues of the new Batgirl run, but it didn't do a lot for me just because the things Barbara is into as a character (cute dudes and social-media and tech startups and hipster stuff) don't really appeal to me. I decided to give Black Canary a shot because I love the mix of Gem and the Holograms and Siouxsie and the Banshees that it's going for. I was not at all let down; it is rad as hell. That said, I feel like I'm missing something for not having finished out the recent Batgirl issues up until now. The book starts in a weird place and I felt like I had missed all the setup, so I'll have to see if I can check out those Batgirl issues at some point. I am definitely on board with Black Canary for the long run, though.
Martian Manhunter #1 - I really wanted to like this more than I did. Rob Williams writes J'onn like All Star Superman, and that is incredible. Unfortunately the motif of the book seems to be taking J'onn, who has become this god-like force for good, and inserting him into this extremely bloody worldwide crisis that he can't possibly completely win. On top of that, it seems to be setting up some weird team of humans to work with or take over from J'onn, in a setup that weirdly reminds me of Stephen King's The Stand. I am extremely uncertain about this, but I will probably give the next issue a shot again to see whether it will be getting darker or lighter going forward.
Superman/Wonder Woman #18 - This very strangely picks up from Greg Pak's last arc of Action Comics, leading me to believe that next week's issue of Superman will be picking up the cliffhanger from Pak's Batman/Superman. I didn't really care for this, and I didn't really dig the last arc on this book either. Tomasi does amazing things on some titles, and then can be weaker on others when he's given more of a predetermined path to work toward. Not much happened here, and I really don't care about the reveal at the end of the issue.
I also picked up Robin: Son of Batman, but I haven't finished out Tomasi's Batman and Robin yet, so I'm holding onto that for another week or two.
It takes place in multiverse q, which looks exactly like the new 52niverse except that it isn't because superman still has all his powers and batman is not dead and replaced by the gordobot.
Things totally make more sense this way, I swear. Calling it an elsewords would just serve to confuse people, this is clearly the best way to snatch up those elusive New Readers
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chiasaur11Never doubt a raccoon.Do you think it's trademarked?Registered Userregular
It takes place in multiverse q, which looks exactly like the new 52niverse except that it isn't because superman still has all his powers and batman is not dead and replaced by the gordobot.
Speaking of JLA 1 and it being not good... is there any reason why it's completely out of continuity as well?
It's set in the missing 5 year period that people forgot about from the start of the New 52.
If you don't remember, the first arcs of Justice League, Action Comics, and maybe one or two other books were set right at the start of the DCU timeline, and then they jumped forward five years. Every other book started at that five-year point.
As for Darkseid War in the regular JL book, which is also ignoring the new status quos, it either happens pre-Endgame or after the regular status quo returns.
Is it? Hitch has said he isn't really caring about continuity with the book and it has been called out of continuity by various DC folks
I thought it had been officially said, but I can't find it anywhere. Part of the purpose for the 5 year gap was to allow for other teams to eventually go bad and fill it in, so I'm guessing this stuff will be slotted in there by editorial at some point. I imagine he's going to introduce some concepts and characters that may stick around, so I don't see it being completely ignored like an elseworlds title once it's finished.
Superman 41 was... not great. This whole arc is a prequel that sets up the new status quo, and in this first issue nothing was really revealed, and nothing much happened. Beyond that, Superman did some not-very-superman things, including
Turning a mystery woman over to mysterious federal agents because someone blackmailed him into it, and then causing a car accident to save her from said agents a few pages later without his powers.
Also, it looks like the blackmailer is going to be the weird mechanical arms dealer guy from the Johns/JRjr arc, since this issue picked up directly where Johns' last issue left off and featured characters using similar weaponry.
We Are Robin 1 - This was pretty good! Bermejo changes Duke up a bit and makes him a little more stereotypical than he was under Snyder, but it also fits with his status quo after Endgame. There were some teases here of something great, and Bermejo has evolved as a writer quite a bit since Batman Noël, so I'll be giving this at least another issue.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
so basically THE SUPER TRUTH is
Lois outs Superman because if she didn't some new guy who just showed up a handful of issues ago will make him do bad things?
I'd rather just go with Lois being self-centered and having the story of the century.
Grayson #9: The team behind this book knows its audience. They're all out about it, too. They really should pay off the baiting though. Perhaps with Midnighter?
Flash #41: Did... Professor Zoom just mount the Flash? Not a great issue, but I dislike Booth's art, so I'm biased. The new costume design and the general look of the book doesn't work for me, so the all I'm left with is the uninspired writing.
Green Lantern Lost Army #1: This is a GL Corps book in all but name. All setup, giving us the cast, but little else.
Guy Gardner's back, but sadly, the pornstache is gone. BOOOOOOOO!
Superman #41: Did not feel this one as much as Action Comics 41. The reason behind Superman's outing becomes clear. I do really like the Solar Flare power being used to add a bit of vulnerability to Superman.
Justice League 3001 #1: Giffen is quietly writing a JLI book. Super weird, you have to love those characters.
Ice is a ancient goddess, Fire is a demon, Guy is a lady, Superman is a dick, Lois Lane is megalomanic, Booster and Blue Beetle are running free, and the original Supergirl is coming!
We Are Robin #1: The polar opposite of Batman, Inc. Robin as a movement for poor youth. Strong start for the lead. Honestly, I'm wondering what happens when Batman, Inc meets We Are Robin. The central thrust seems to be "who is supplying these kids?"
The central mystery of the book is where are they and how did they get there. They all wake up in a mysterious place with no ability to connect to Mogo, the Central Power Battery, or each other. Interviews have billed this as sending the Corps to a wildly alien universe. There are clues throughout the book on just what universe this is and I'm relieved to say it isn't one of the universes in the multiverse (or, since those rules were recently re-written, maybe just not the new 52 multiverse?)
The clues are in the art design for the few alien things they encounter. The GLs imprisoned in the red crystals... they encounter bits of a broken spear. The last page reveal is of a giant red space triangle thing fueled by rage. They looked very familiar to me and I guessed on where I saw them before.... from Relic's villain's one shot before the GL story Lights Out. The spear is the spear used by the "light smith" of the red from Relic's universe, the universe that existed before the current universe. So, somehow the Corps and a pre-insanity Krona have been pulled billions of years into the past and through a universe destruction and big bang rebirth? Interesting spin on it.
Posts
Dead.
Mind spoiling me on what happened?
He died in the final battle with the Joker, who was pulling no punches, burning Gotham to the ground, and knew his secret identity and the identities of most of the bat family.
It's interesting that Batman Eternal and Engame both ended right near each other. Eternal was about the concept of Batman never dying no matter how bleak it looked and Endgame was The Joker playing for keeps. Both were good. But Eternal got us Stephanie Brown/Spoiler, Bluebird, and Julia Pennyworth and our new amazing mob boss Selina Kyle.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
I tease because I love - I did enjoy that story. Joker's antics this time around behind the scenes were pretty entertaining - the enjoyable kind of creepy, not the gross kind.
Also, I've realized the main reason why his run hasn't clicked with me so far, and it's because there's no real narrative segue between arcs. Every arc happens in a vacuum, there's very little resolution, and then there's a massive jump in time. I'm hoping the book will be a little more traditionally serialized going forward, with natural transitions between stories and more pay-off to things from previous arcs. I know Endgame tried to do this, but the jump back for Zero Year and then the jump forward past Eternal really threw things off.
I'll put myself down as being very lukewarm on Snyder's Batman run. There's a weird steady state to his work - its always of a good quality but it never rises to being excellent. No lows but no highs either.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
This is exactly how I feel, and I'm relieved that other people feel similarly. His Joker storylines have that fan-fiction quality to them where he just hits the tropes and cliches so hard, ups the violence to ridiculous levels, fills the story with every single homage he can make to past Joker storylines, and tries to build this huge shaggy dog mythology that eventually turns out to be TRUE... OR IS IT!? And part of that has also been him filling the book with psuedo-science over the course of his whole run, which is just a drag to read about and makes the situations Batman becomes trapped in not suspenseful at all, because such-and-such counteracts fantasy chemical x every time.
I've also hated how he's used the Bat-family; they show up occasionally and then have 0 characterization. Death of the Family was such a dud because none of the family members really had any link to Bruce in the context of Snyder's run. Snyder was counting on readers knowing about these relationships from previous runs without adding anything to them himself, which is just lazy storytelling. He's also introduced two new sidekicks (Harper and Duke) just for them to disappear after being in the background for a couple arcs. It's super frustrating, as a reader, and I don't care enough about the Batfamily to read Eternal.
Batman 41 was the first time where I really felt he's been doing his own thing, though. Gordon actually has supporting characters that he can have real interactions with; this is important for character development and was something sorely missing in issues 1-40, where the only realized characters have been Bruce and Alfred, and they've been almost entirely static. Writing these characters is basically creating an illusion; making them seem like they're growing and developing over time when they're really not. Snyder has totally failed at that aspect so far, but focusing on Gordon actually gives him a lot more room to work.
To be fair to Snyder, there have been very few writers who have gotten a handle on how to the do the character well in a monthly format. Batman comics have always been a slog monthly with the massive bright spots coming in the form of miniseries, graphic novels and the occasional one-off issue that hits it out of the park. Stellar regular issue runs like "Ten Nights of the Beast" are very rare.
Brubaker/Rucka managed to elevate their run by making the book more about the extended cast. Even then, things like Renee Montoya's relationship with Two Face was far more compelling than whatever the Bat was up to at the time. Morrison turned everything up to 11 while introducing new concepts to the universe.
In that sense, Snyder has accomplished something by producing dozens of monthly high-quality Batman issues.
If Snyder's Batman wasn't such a prime comics discussion piece each month, I'd be pretty satisfied with the doses of the character I get from Justice League and Batman/Superman each month. Johns and Pak both write a Batman that's very similar to the DCAU version, and he's a much more entertaining character when he's playing off of other heroes.
That's a high profile book to start writing professionally on.
I'm going to give it a try. I can't imagine he'll be on it for more than a year. I'd guess that he'll draw 90% of one arc and then write another one while someone else draws, and hopefully it'll become a rotating space for creators to tell loose-continuity stories with the big 7 Justice League.
Edit: http://www.newsarama.com/24824-bryan-hitch-brings-widescreen-carnage-with-jla-1-preview.html
"Ride or Die" confirmed Dominic Toretto, as they took off to find the Dragon Balls in hopes of reviving their friend Sonic
edit: Superman WW #18 was good, does a solid job showing the real fallout that would happen with Clark's identity revealed in Smallville, but the ending feels like it was made for having this arc on the shelf for the movies next year. Tomasi's done a good job making the pair be a believable couple (as did Soule), and we get some nice Diana moments here to be Clark's sounding board, well to the point that Clark is being abloo abloo and oblivious to her in a way that only guarantees the two won't be together soon (probably a misdirect this arc, then it lingers the next, and then the breakup by March or April)
I should have listened to my own instincts about this one :bigfrown:
I picked up some of the actual new titles this week, so I thought I'd provide my impressions:
Prez #1 - This was also really weird. It was so kinetic and rapid-paced, and the whole book is extremely dark satire. Nearly every single panel was used to make a critical observation of modern society, and some of them were really sharp and piercing, others felt strained and ignorant and out of place (fast food companies privatizing food stamp programs), and others fell in-between because they weren't given much context or setup (an ongoing series of jokes at the start of the issue attempts to criticize conservative politicians living in the closet, but instead comes off as oddly homophobic due to how stretched out it is). I'm not sure where I land on the good-to-bad ratio here, but I may give this another shot next month.
Black Canary #1 - I tried a couple issues of the new Batgirl run, but it didn't do a lot for me just because the things Barbara is into as a character (cute dudes and social-media and tech startups and hipster stuff) don't really appeal to me. I decided to give Black Canary a shot because I love the mix of Gem and the Holograms and Siouxsie and the Banshees that it's going for. I was not at all let down; it is rad as hell. That said, I feel like I'm missing something for not having finished out the recent Batgirl issues up until now. The book starts in a weird place and I felt like I had missed all the setup, so I'll have to see if I can check out those Batgirl issues at some point. I am definitely on board with Black Canary for the long run, though.
Martian Manhunter #1 - I really wanted to like this more than I did. Rob Williams writes J'onn like All Star Superman, and that is incredible. Unfortunately the motif of the book seems to be taking J'onn, who has become this god-like force for good, and inserting him into this extremely bloody worldwide crisis that he can't possibly completely win. On top of that, it seems to be setting up some weird team of humans to work with or take over from J'onn, in a setup that weirdly reminds me of Stephen King's The Stand. I am extremely uncertain about this, but I will probably give the next issue a shot again to see whether it will be getting darker or lighter going forward.
Superman/Wonder Woman #18 - This very strangely picks up from Greg Pak's last arc of Action Comics, leading me to believe that next week's issue of Superman will be picking up the cliffhanger from Pak's Batman/Superman. I didn't really care for this, and I didn't really dig the last arc on this book either. Tomasi does amazing things on some titles, and then can be weaker on others when he's given more of a predetermined path to work toward. Not much happened here, and I really don't care about the reveal at the end of the issue.
I also picked up Robin: Son of Batman, but I haven't finished out Tomasi's Batman and Robin yet, so I'm holding onto that for another week or two.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
Things totally make more sense this way, I swear. Calling it an elsewords would just serve to confuse people, this is clearly the best way to snatch up those elusive New Readers
I thought we were calling it the Batlabor now.
Why I fear the ocean.
It's set in the missing 5 year period that people forgot about from the start of the New 52.
If you don't remember, the first arcs of Justice League, Action Comics, and maybe one or two other books were set right at the start of the DCU timeline, and then they jumped forward five years. Every other book started at that five-year point.
As for Darkseid War in the regular JL book, which is also ignoring the new status quos, it either happens pre-Endgame or after the regular status quo returns.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
I thought it had been officially said, but I can't find it anywhere. Part of the purpose for the 5 year gap was to allow for other teams to eventually go bad and fill it in, so I'm guessing this stuff will be slotted in there by editorial at some point. I imagine he's going to introduce some concepts and characters that may stick around, so I don't see it being completely ignored like an elseworlds title once it's finished.
Also, it looks like the blackmailer is going to be the weird mechanical arms dealer guy from the Johns/JRjr arc, since this issue picked up directly where Johns' last issue left off and featured characters using similar weaponry.
We Are Robin 1 - This was pretty good! Bermejo changes Duke up a bit and makes him a little more stereotypical than he was under Snyder, but it also fits with his status quo after Endgame. There were some teases here of something great, and Bermejo has evolved as a writer quite a bit since Batman Noël, so I'll be giving this at least another issue.
I'd rather just go with Lois being self-centered and having the story of the century.
I'd have preferred it if
I'll stick with it for a bit just because I already have been, but I wish they had made a point of revealing the events in this issue.
Grayson #9: The team behind this book knows its audience. They're all out about it, too. They really should pay off the baiting though. Perhaps with Midnighter?
Flash #41: Did... Professor Zoom just mount the Flash? Not a great issue, but I dislike Booth's art, so I'm biased. The new costume design and the general look of the book doesn't work for me, so the all I'm left with is the uninspired writing.
Green Lantern Lost Army #1: This is a GL Corps book in all but name. All setup, giving us the cast, but little else.
Superman #41: Did not feel this one as much as Action Comics 41. The reason behind Superman's outing becomes clear. I do really like the Solar Flare power being used to add a bit of vulnerability to Superman.
Justice League 3001 #1: Giffen is quietly writing a JLI book. Super weird, you have to love those characters.
We Are Robin #1: The polar opposite of Batman, Inc. Robin as a movement for poor youth. Strong start for the lead. Honestly, I'm wondering what happens when Batman, Inc meets We Are Robin. The central thrust seems to be "who is supplying these kids?"
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The clues are in the art design for the few alien things they encounter. The GLs imprisoned in the red crystals... they encounter bits of a broken spear. The last page reveal is of a giant red space triangle thing fueled by rage. They looked very familiar to me and I guessed on where I saw them before.... from Relic's villain's one shot before the GL story Lights Out. The spear is the spear used by the "light smith" of the red from Relic's universe, the universe that existed before the current universe. So, somehow the Corps and a pre-insanity Krona have been pulled billions of years into the past and through a universe destruction and big bang rebirth? Interesting spin on it.