The New 52: Because It's Far Too Early to be Asking This, I Will Ask It, Because That's How I Roll!

[The Baron]

Based on the extremely cursory look that you've had at the "DCnU', how do you think it's going to work out for DC? Smash? Trash? Mixed bag?  As for me so far, I'm going with "mixed bag".  I don't think it's going to be the resounding success that will propel DC to the forefront of the comics industry, leaving Marvel in their metaphorical dust, but neither do I think it will be an utter flop, to be un-done with all due haste at the next possible Crisis.  I'm sure there will be an inital upsurge of interest, but I imagine that by early next year, things will have settled back down again, and DC will be hard at work on their next desperate publicity stunt.

[Alan M.]

The only New 52 book I expected to keep with, but didn't, is Blue Beetle. Other than that, Batman and Action Comics have been the comics I anticipated they would be (i.e. an excellent read month to month); the one-two punch of Animal Man and Swamp Thing have been what I hoped they would be — moody and compelling — but wasn't sure they would be; and I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm sticking with Justice League Dark, which I wasn't sure would be to my liking, and The Flash, which was a HUGE surprise, as I wasn't even planning to consider it, but wound up counting it as one of my top books.

Oh, and The Shade has been a decent return to James Robinson's best (though I wouldn't say The Shade *is* Robinson's best.)

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I started out reading six but dropped three (one dropped me).

As of yesterday, I’m back up to reading four.

Here’s the tally:

Action Comics - still reading
Superman - still reading
JLA - dropped
Batgirl - dropped
Swamp Thing - dropped
OMAC - dropped me
Earth-2 - new addition
World’s Finest - new addition

[Figserello]

For me, the latest issue of Action Comics was probably the best yet.  Full of ideas and commentary on the world we live in (even if a lot of it was just the comics part of the world.)

 

Apart from that the Flash is holding on by its fingernails.  It's not that its a fantastic comic, merely that its pretty good in a field that seems quite disappointing. 

 

Batwoman is hanging in there too, but it was a bad move to continue the crying ghost storyline into the next arc.  It feels padded and never-ending.  Where's my zing and zip?  I've been rereading Rucka's Question/Batwoman stories.  He had such a good handle on them.  DC were so stupid, whatever they did to p%%% him off. 

 

It occurred to me that DC's New 52 seems to be, in a way, the 'Poochie-fication' of the DCU.  Giving the 'kids' what middle-aged guys in suits think will appeal to them, but which completely ignores what made the product so appealing in the first place.  In this case the market was guaged to be responsive to stories featuring prostitutes and strippers, casual sex, and grand guignol violence.

 

Way back in Sep, Bill Reed wrote what I see as the best commentary on the DCnU yet, as indirect as it is.  (Also, strong language.)

 

This review of the first arc of Justice League makes me glad I didn't shell out the 25-30 bucks it would have cost me.  It sounds insulting to the reader.  The argument that it is modeled on 'Big Dumb' summer blockbusters doesn't cut it with me either, as I made a conscious decision about 15 years ago to stop going to summer blockbusters as I didn't like feeling insulted as I walked out of the cinema.  Why pay money to feel that?

 

The review leaves out the fact that Superman goes on a murder/dismemberment spree of the parademons the JLA come up against.  This is the new Superman?

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

The Flash has actually been one of my favorites of the new series. Not all of this angst and talking heads, etc. It's a hero fighting villains.  With just enough sub-plots to carry it from issue to issue.

Your argument against the new JLA series was the same I had against the Vertigo version of The Losers. It being like a Summer blockbuster.