Books: DC Comics Reboot Week 4
Sep. 29th, 2011 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
woodwardiocomThe Good: The two surprises this week were Aquaman and Blackhawks. The shtick in Aquaman is that he's a serious hero with bad luck, who is also regarded as the joke of the DC Universe. "What, he swims and talks to fish, right?" He's still getting snide jokes even after he overturns an armored car to stop a highjacking and puts one of the thugs through a windshield. However, this book sold itself to me a little later, when he's suffering through an impromptu blog-interview, and is asked, "What's it like, being nobody's favorite superhero?"
Harsh. Harsh, but very true. I like Aquaman, I've followed several of his titles, and I even regard him as an unsung badass, but he's not my favorite. I don't think he's anyone's favorite. (Oh, and the art is gorgeous.)
Blackhawks wasn't really that special, with cool paramilitary force thumping a bunch of Generic Goons in Goggles. (G3s, from now on.) But it somehow made me care a little bit about the characters, even though I'd never met them before, and I'm interested in what's happening to one of them who Got Bit during the fight. So, surprise, I'll be picking this up.
Green Lantern: New Guardians is all setup for the plot, but it's good setup, showing the scope of the Lantern-verse. I do wish they'd dial down the gore, but I like Kyle. (Whose origin gets retold here, in manner faithful to the original, even!)
The Bad: Voodoo is about an alien stripper and the government agent keeping an eye on her. A close eye because, y'know, stripper. There is nothing here new or good, just T&A and gore. I, Vampire is mostly an argument between a good vampire and the bad vampire he sired. It is not anything new in modern vampire fiction, going back to Louis and Lestat if not earlier. Boring.
The Undecided: The Flash is pretty and solidly written, but the bad guys are another batch of G3s, and the Barry-Iris marriage has been wiped away. Grr. (And Wally might not even exist anymore.) The Savage Hawkman appears to dispense with any alien parts of his history, sticking with the Egypt stuff. I'm not finding the new Carter Hall too interesting, and the bad guy is dull. I wanted to like Superman more, but I've got reboot-exhaustion where he's concerned, and the Clark-Lois marriage was wiped away (notice a trend?), which is making me cranky. Plus, generic boring bad guy. Teen Titans has a couple interesting ideas in it, but it destroys so much of the Titans history (and the histories of Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Superboy) that I find myself, again, cranky. Still, Tim (Red Robin) kicks some ass.
The Unremarkable: If All-Star Western had gone the Demon Knights route and included more of DC's Weird West Wackiness, it would be much improved over "Jonah Hex and Dr. Arkham investigate a Jack Ripper clone." Boring. Batman: The Dark Knight is the only weak title of the four core Bat-books, with nothing new until the last panel, a reinvention of an old villain. Still, it's nice to actually see one of the old villains (the reboot leans heavily on new guys). The Fury Of Firestorm is a cold reboot of the characters, but does little new, and, hey, more G3s. Justice League Dark places emphasis on both the "JL" and the "Dark" parts of its title, but the menace they are gathered to fight is annoyingly vague, and left me cold.
Harsh. Harsh, but very true. I like Aquaman, I've followed several of his titles, and I even regard him as an unsung badass, but he's not my favorite. I don't think he's anyone's favorite. (Oh, and the art is gorgeous.)
Blackhawks wasn't really that special, with cool paramilitary force thumping a bunch of Generic Goons in Goggles. (G3s, from now on.) But it somehow made me care a little bit about the characters, even though I'd never met them before, and I'm interested in what's happening to one of them who Got Bit during the fight. So, surprise, I'll be picking this up.
Green Lantern: New Guardians is all setup for the plot, but it's good setup, showing the scope of the Lantern-verse. I do wish they'd dial down the gore, but I like Kyle. (Whose origin gets retold here, in manner faithful to the original, even!)
The Bad: Voodoo is about an alien stripper and the government agent keeping an eye on her. A close eye because, y'know, stripper. There is nothing here new or good, just T&A and gore. I, Vampire is mostly an argument between a good vampire and the bad vampire he sired. It is not anything new in modern vampire fiction, going back to Louis and Lestat if not earlier. Boring.
The Undecided: The Flash is pretty and solidly written, but the bad guys are another batch of G3s, and the Barry-Iris marriage has been wiped away. Grr. (And Wally might not even exist anymore.) The Savage Hawkman appears to dispense with any alien parts of his history, sticking with the Egypt stuff. I'm not finding the new Carter Hall too interesting, and the bad guy is dull. I wanted to like Superman more, but I've got reboot-exhaustion where he's concerned, and the Clark-Lois marriage was wiped away (notice a trend?), which is making me cranky. Plus, generic boring bad guy. Teen Titans has a couple interesting ideas in it, but it destroys so much of the Titans history (and the histories of Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Superboy) that I find myself, again, cranky. Still, Tim (Red Robin) kicks some ass.
The Unremarkable: If All-Star Western had gone the Demon Knights route and included more of DC's Weird West Wackiness, it would be much improved over "Jonah Hex and Dr. Arkham investigate a Jack Ripper clone." Boring. Batman: The Dark Knight is the only weak title of the four core Bat-books, with nothing new until the last panel, a reinvention of an old villain. Still, it's nice to actually see one of the old villains (the reboot leans heavily on new guys). The Fury Of Firestorm is a cold reboot of the characters, but does little new, and, hey, more G3s. Justice League Dark places emphasis on both the "JL" and the "Dark" parts of its title, but the menace they are gathered to fight is annoyingly vague, and left me cold.
