Dark Days: The Forge came out this week, and considering it's the Next Big DC Thing, I assume some of us are reading it. It brings a lot of older DC concepts back, an starts exploring some new ones, as well. And it seems wholly differentiated from the whole Button/Watchmen/Mr. Oz brouhaha, which is refreshing.

Spoilers below, BTW.

So did you read it? What did you like about it? I'm pretty jazzed about it, although less so at the just-announced variant Batmen who will apparently be showing up in the DCU from September through November. (I'd heard from my retailer that the Metal miniseries itself would be pushed back to December,so these seem like a bit of a stopgap measure to me -- although maybe I'm getting the cart and the horse mixed up, and DC is pushing Metal back to give them time to publish these one-shots.)

But regardless! The issue at hand gives us Misters Terrific and Miracle, the Immortal Men, Lady Blackhawk, and the Carter Hall Hawkman! We see the original Outsiders, and Plastic Man! Hal Jordan and Duke Thomas working together! We get a hidden connection between all the new elements in the DCU! And one of those giant Crisis tuning forks! We get hints that there's something buried beneath Atantis!

It's fun stuff, and I want to see more. Including, I'm sure, some of those one-shots that'll come out -- as details emerge, I'm sure a few of them will sound like fun to me,

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  • I hadn't heard anything about this title in advance. I flipped through the first issue on wednesday trying to get a feel for what it was, exactly. I put it back, but your enthusiastic remarks have caused me to re-think that decision.

  • Strangely enough, I have a preview:

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  • It's a blast. The Hawkman pages read like mostly setup, but it starts out with a nice action scene (an escape through a volcano) and promises a lot of cool mysteries and teamups. I liked it a lot.

    And this was one that I was coming to not particularly enthusiastically. Reading it won me over.

  • I liked it too. They did a nice job of setting up a mystery and making me curious about the answers. Hopefully those answers are a little more satisfying than the ones we got with The Button.

    It definitely seems to be a lead-in to what appears to be a Crisis in everything but name.  I felt like it struck the right tone in terms of communicating an epic scale and tapping in to the mythology of the DCU. 

    Wasn't too crazy about the jam approach to the art. Especially Romita Jr. I don't really like his stuff and his style stuck out like a sore thumb next to the other two.  I'm also a little surprised at the whole Dark Days, Dark Multiverse angle. DC keeps saying they want to get away from the whole dark/grim vibe but they don't seem to be able to actually do it.

  • I just read this. I thought it was pretty good. It looks like it's going to be a big popcorn story, and that should be neat. I liked the appearances by Duke, Mr. Miracle, and Mr. Terrific. I also like the way it ties in with Scott Snyder's other stuff involving the Joker. I can't stand the Joker as a rule, but who knows, maybe if I just embrace it this time. It looks like this time might be at least a different take on him.

  • Good or not it's 5.00.  I'll wait.

  • I read it. While, I've read a bit of DC i'm not totally up on all of the history. Especially, the Hawkman stuff. However, I enjoyed it and will look for the rest.

  • Got a preview of "The Casting" now.

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  • Some spoiler space, now that The Casting is out...

    1936866713?profile=original

    As enthusiastic as I was about The Forge, you can flip that on its head for The Casting. Exposition takes the place of action, and what action there is centered on GL and Duke vs. the Joker (who ALSO can't stop spouting exposition) -- and Snyder Joker is the worst Joker, IMO.

    There's a development with Duke, but it's very poorly defined. And there's TONS of Hawkman Diaries, which might imply that their incarnations include Blackhawks and the Challengers of the Unknown? I think? It's hard to say, since it's all diary entries over otherwise wordless pictures, which we all know is the best way to do comics.

    Seriously, this one's a bore. I'm looking forward to seeing if there are any Easter eggs I missed, since tying all sorts of DC threads together seems to be this issue's sole purpose.



  • Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

    Some spoiler space, now that The Casting is out...

    1936866713?profile=original

    As enthusiastic as I was about The Forge, you can flip that on its head for The Casting. Exposition takes the place of action, and what action there is centered on GL and Duke vs. the Joker (who ALSO can't stop spouting exposition) -- and Snyder Joker is the worst Joker, IMO.

    There's a development with Duke, but it's very poorly defined. And there's TONS of Hawkman Diaries, which might imply that their incarnations include Blackhawks and the Challengers of the Unknown? I think? It's hard to say, since it's all diary entries over otherwise wordless pictures, which we all know is the best way to do comics.

    Seriously, this one's a bore. I'm looking forward to seeing if there are any Easter eggs I missed, since tying all sorts of DC threads together seems to be this issue's sole purpose.


    I felt the same way. I appreciate that they're going for something that is epic in scale but something feels off here. I'm not sure if I'm buying in to all of this secret history that we never knew about. Even if this is a new continuity of sorts, it feels a little contrived. Also, a lot of the characterizations don't feel right. Batman telling everyone he's frightened of something? Has Batman ever talked like that?
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