DC Comic Reviews from a Total N00b
Way back when the DCnU relaunch was first announced, I remember feeling a flush of giddy enthusiasm. Sure, the DC fans in my life were understandably hesitant, but for a fleeting moment I was pumped; the relaunch was a chance for me, at last, to wade into DC Comics without the suffocating crush of decades worth of back canon weighing on my shoulders.
Of course, reality soon sunk in. I didn’t know much about the DCU first-hand* (my already limited past experience with DC had been exclusively Bat-related; as far as I was concerned, the world basically ended at Gotham City’s borders), but what I did know was enough to recognize that a lot of the coming changes sucked - and hard.
The situation wasn’t helped by the folks at DC, public relations geniuses that they are, whose response to ensuing wave of criticism was almost comically bad.
For a while there, it looked like I wasn’t going to buy a single issue largely out of spite.
But the recent Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 et. al. debacle (Laura Hudson discusses her problems with the issue here) has reinforced for me the importance of voting with my pocketbook. If I want to punish the comics that suck, I have to pay for the ones that don’t.
So here I am.
I’ve read two of the New 52 #1s so far, but over the next month I plan to give Animal Man #1, Batwoman #1, Demon Knights #1, Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE #1, Justice League Dark #1, Men of War #1, Stormwatch #1 and Swamp Thing #1 a try.
If anyone has other recommendations for a comic book fan who likes monsters (Hellboy, Hellblazer), badass normals (Nick Fury) and things that don’t suck, let me know.
All-Star Western #1
How much do I know about this stuff?
I saw the Jonah Hex movie, to my continuing regret.
The review
The concept for this storyline is, on its face, pretty damn cool. Jonah Hex, scarred bounty hunter and all-around badass, joins forces with psychologist Dr. Amadeus Arkham (of Arkham Asylum fame, I assume - this is the first I’ve heard of him) to track down a serial killer hunting the dusky, lantern-lit streets of late nineteenth century Gotham City.
If it sounds like a homage to the Jack the Ripper murders, that’s because it is and unapologetically so. The story lays the cliches on thick - butchered prostitutes, blood-smeared messages in foreign languages (a device lifted from the Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet; it was dumb then and it’s dumb now), and hints of a dark conspiracy involving Gotham City’s ruling elite - and that’s before the standard genre filler of busty saloon girl-cum-informants (immediately fridged, what a shock) and barroom brawls and all those things you’d expect in a western comic if you’d never actually read one.
That was my biggest problem with the book. Frankly, I’m tired of the Jack the Ripper formula. I’m tired of secret societies that issue sinister-looking skull rings to their membership because, yeah, that’s subtle. (“The silver ring shaped like a skull indicates an affiliation with death.” O RLY.) There are a few elements that caught my interest (Arkham’s mother, for example), but on the whole I wasn’t moved.
Despite all that, I’m going to give the title another try. Sure, the base plot is kind of generic and the writing’s sometimes weak (Dr. Arkham’s monologues often read more like pop psychology’s greatest hits than the inner musings of a real person), but the art is gorgeous and atmospheric and, as a character, Hex has the potential to be a lot of fun. And okay, it isn't a true western setting, but I'm enjoying historical Gotham, too. One of the most entertaining elements of the book is how little the place has changed.
Later issues will also benefit from the fact that Arkham’s introductory TL;DR on Hex’s psychological state will be over and done with. Doc, I get that you’re "Watson" in this little arrangement but, for the love of god, shut up.
Next up, Wonder Woman #1...
* Living as I do with crimsonquills, my second-hand knowledge of Green Lantern and its surrounding mythos is both extensive and mostly wrong. One day I should write a guide to Green Lantern as I understand it, about how Guy Gardner is amazing and Hal Jordan is a huge jerk who was possessed by a yellow alien and killed everyone but got better and Vath and Issimo are, like, BFFs somehow, despite the fact their planets hate each other for some reason I’m not clear on and, uh, Issimo gave Vath his legs at some point because… he’s a lizard alien and he can do that? I don’t know. I’ve never read an issue, people.
Of course, reality soon sunk in. I didn’t know much about the DCU first-hand* (my already limited past experience with DC had been exclusively Bat-related; as far as I was concerned, the world basically ended at Gotham City’s borders), but what I did know was enough to recognize that a lot of the coming changes sucked - and hard.
The situation wasn’t helped by the folks at DC, public relations geniuses that they are, whose response to ensuing wave of criticism was almost comically bad.
For a while there, it looked like I wasn’t going to buy a single issue largely out of spite.
But the recent Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 et. al. debacle (Laura Hudson discusses her problems with the issue here) has reinforced for me the importance of voting with my pocketbook. If I want to punish the comics that suck, I have to pay for the ones that don’t.
So here I am.
I’ve read two of the New 52 #1s so far, but over the next month I plan to give Animal Man #1, Batwoman #1, Demon Knights #1, Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE #1, Justice League Dark #1, Men of War #1, Stormwatch #1 and Swamp Thing #1 a try.
If anyone has other recommendations for a comic book fan who likes monsters (Hellboy, Hellblazer), badass normals (Nick Fury) and things that don’t suck, let me know.
All-Star Western #1
How much do I know about this stuff?
I saw the Jonah Hex movie, to my continuing regret.
The review
The concept for this storyline is, on its face, pretty damn cool. Jonah Hex, scarred bounty hunter and all-around badass, joins forces with psychologist Dr. Amadeus Arkham (of Arkham Asylum fame, I assume - this is the first I’ve heard of him) to track down a serial killer hunting the dusky, lantern-lit streets of late nineteenth century Gotham City.
If it sounds like a homage to the Jack the Ripper murders, that’s because it is and unapologetically so. The story lays the cliches on thick - butchered prostitutes, blood-smeared messages in foreign languages (a device lifted from the Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet; it was dumb then and it’s dumb now), and hints of a dark conspiracy involving Gotham City’s ruling elite - and that’s before the standard genre filler of busty saloon girl-cum-informants (immediately fridged, what a shock) and barroom brawls and all those things you’d expect in a western comic if you’d never actually read one.
That was my biggest problem with the book. Frankly, I’m tired of the Jack the Ripper formula. I’m tired of secret societies that issue sinister-looking skull rings to their membership because, yeah, that’s subtle. (“The silver ring shaped like a skull indicates an affiliation with death.” O RLY.) There are a few elements that caught my interest (Arkham’s mother, for example), but on the whole I wasn’t moved.
Despite all that, I’m going to give the title another try. Sure, the base plot is kind of generic and the writing’s sometimes weak (Dr. Arkham’s monologues often read more like pop psychology’s greatest hits than the inner musings of a real person), but the art is gorgeous and atmospheric and, as a character, Hex has the potential to be a lot of fun. And okay, it isn't a true western setting, but I'm enjoying historical Gotham, too. One of the most entertaining elements of the book is how little the place has changed.
Later issues will also benefit from the fact that Arkham’s introductory TL;DR on Hex’s psychological state will be over and done with. Doc, I get that you’re "Watson" in this little arrangement but, for the love of god, shut up.
Next up, Wonder Woman #1...
* Living as I do with crimsonquills, my second-hand knowledge of Green Lantern and its surrounding mythos is both extensive and mostly wrong. One day I should write a guide to Green Lantern as I understand it, about how Guy Gardner is amazing and Hal Jordan is a huge jerk who was possessed by a yellow alien and killed everyone but got better and Vath and Issimo are, like, BFFs somehow, despite the fact their planets hate each other for some reason I’m not clear on and, uh, Issimo gave Vath his legs at some point because… he’s a lizard alien and he can do that? I don’t know. I’ve never read an issue, people.