I know we're technically on Month 7 now, but as the majority of books I'm still buying come out near the end of the month, I figured I could get away with being a tad late. Plus the last few weeks have been one disappointment after another so far as DC goes, so I needed time to get my thoughts in order.
We'll start with what's no longer in my pull box. I ditched Batgirl after #4 because A: I got the answer I was looking for regarding how come Babs can walk again (it was brief, yeah, but it was an answer) and B: I felt Gail Simone was beginning to write Babs/Batgirl too far off-model. The first two issues were fine, but #3 just didn't sit well with me at all, what with Batgirl beating the crap outta Nightwing for no apparent reason. I did peek at #5, but there was nothing there to convince me to stay (and no, that whole "fan service" shot on the first page didn't offend me, though it did look rather uncomfortable for her).
Also gone after #4 was Resurrection Man. Like Batgirl, it started off pretty good, then slid into "I don't care" territory. I apologized to Tremo after I dropped it, since he was the one who convinced me to give it a whirl, and he in turn apologized to me, saying what Abnett & Lanning was giving us didn't live up to what they'd done with the character in their original run.
The next casualty was DCU Presents, right after #5. The Deadman story was good, and my only reason for dropping it was the next storyarc: Challengers of the Unknown. I don't hate the Challs, I just have no desire to read about them. I will keep an eye on this title, though, and if the next arc sounds good, I'll jump back on...but I'm not going to do like I did with Showcase in the mid-90s and buy every issue just to have a solid run.
So, where does that leave us compared to what I started with six months ago? Well, All-Star Western ain't going nowheres (unlike DnA, J&J ain't dropped a stitch with ol' Jonah, though the backups are hit-or-miss), and I'm still hanging onto Green Lantern at the moment, but if there was a way to buy just the Hal Jordan parts and leave the Sinestro parts at the store, I'd do it. Oh, and I'm still getting Aquaman.
Nope, that's not a typo. I jumped on Aquaman with issue #1. The only reason it wasn't included on my "Final Shuffle" list is I bought it after I posted that, and was too lazy to amend said list. A buddy of mine who brought every single "New 52" book and posted reviews of each chatted it up really good, so I took a peek next time I was at the store (I also peeked at Demon Knights because of him, but it did nothing for me in person). I'm shocked at how much I enjoy this -- I've never been a major Aqua-hater, but I've laughed at my fair share of degrading jokes leveled against the guy -- and though issue #6 was a tad shaky (mostly in the art, it just looked a tad funny), I'm still looking forward to #7. Ever once in a while, I have a thought along the lines of, "Dear God, I'm buying Aquaman and enjoying it!" but hey, I enjoy a good underdog story, and Arthur fits that bill to be sure.
Okay, what else is in the pull box that wasn't before? The Shade miniseries came out, and I've been buying it just like I said I would. We're up to #6 by now, and though James Robinson is rambling on in places, I'm enjoying it overall. Besides, we got to see Greg "Vigilante" Saunders in action, if only for one issue. Yay, Vig! Another mini I'm picking up is The Ray: I peeked out of loyalty to Palmiotti & Gray, and liked what I saw. If this new Ray goes monthly, I'd consider keeping on it. So in the end, I dumped three and picked up three, so that still leaves us with five books...though The Ray is only a 4-issue stint, so we'll be down to four by the end of this month, which will become three once The Shade wraps up in six months. Three titles....my DC Comics quota hasn't been that low since I started buying on a regular basis two decades ago.
What's that you say? What about that Earth-2 project I mentioned a while back, now scheduled to start in May? Funny you should mention that. Turns out it's not even close to what we were hoping for. Essentially, it's what we're already getting in the DCNu, with a few extra tweaks: Power Girl is Supergirl, Huntress is Robin, and Supes might have been married to Lois, but she's dead now. Jay Garrick and Alan Scott are there, but they're new heroes...in a modern-time setting, not the 1940s, so there goes all that whole "legacy" notion the JSA has built up for so long and Robinson was so good at writing. Oh ,and they'll be fighting Darkseid in the first arc, just like the first arc of Justice League. It's like going to to the ice cream shop and getting a choice between scoop of vanilla in a dish or a scoop of vanilla on a waffle cone. I do like me a waffle cone, but dangit, I was expecting chocolate!
just this. Now you have to be a member of Facebook or Twitter if you want to contribute to the propaganda-feed in any way. Lucky for us, a long-standing DC fansite did us the favor of replicating the DCMB on their own message boards, where we got the changes we REALLY wanted: easier interface, avatars, emoticons, private-message capabilities...and we can swear. Okay, I don't think anyone was asking for the ability to swear, but it's nice to know innocent phrases like "Dave Cockrum" won't be censored now.
And before you ask...no, I don't like the newly-released DC logo. Then again, I wasn't all that keen on the previous logo when it first appeared in 2005, but at least they had the decency to make it a logical progression between the old and new designs. This new-new logo looks like it's for a tech firm or pharmaceutical company, not comics. However, this article does make an interesting point of comparing it to the current logos of many other comics companies. Grouped with the rest of 'em, it seems serviceable.
Of course, if the DCNu trend continues unabated, what DC slaps on its covers may not even be a concern for me next year, as I'll be funneling the rest of my money into finishing up my late-90s/early-2000s JSA collection. Read what you enjoy, kiddies.
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