My thoughts on the 13 New DC #1 Books

The first real week of the New 52 has come. 13 issues of new stories, characters and plots. After reading them, I have some general observations. First off, for the most part I find the stories pretty well done. They do a good job introducing the characters and defines them in their place in the new DC Universe. And each issue ends in some kind of cliffhanger forcing the dedicated comic book aficionado to pick up the second issue. But thinking back to other starts of series’ in the past, this is pretty normal and it takes 4 to 6 issues to complete the first story arc.

I won’t go into as much detail as I did with my discussion of the Justice League book, but here are some thoughts on these issues.

O.M.A.C. #1 - By Dan Didio, Kieth Giffen and Scott Koblish, I found this book to be confusing. The entire book is about some big blue guy, with the urging of a disembodied voice, to break into Cadmus, a genetic research facility, to merge with a mainframe. What’s the most striking is the artwork. From the first page, I felt like I was reading a book from my young childhood. It was so close to a Jack Kirby style, I took a double long time looking at all the panels. The layouts, designs, caricatures, everything reminded me of reading the old Marvel origin books. Will I continue getting this book? No.

Stormwatch #1 - Written by Paul Cornell with art by Miguel Sepulveda, this book is about a covert team of super-powered being (not heroes) who consider themselves soldiers. We get introduced to several characters that I haven’t seen before as they try and recruit a new member who is supposed to be more powerful than Superman. Not until the end of the book do we meet Martian Manhunter, who kind of explains what the group does a little bit. The art is pretty good, but there is nothing too extraordinary or unique to it. I kind of get a Planetary vibe to this book, but it’s not enough for me to continue picking it up.

Batwing #1 - Written by Judd Winick with art and cover by Ben Oliver. This book is an offshoot of the Batman Inc. book. Set in Africa, we meet David Zavimbe, a supervisor at the police department and Batwing. There was a massacre with no definitive clues, but the Batman Inc. resources help guide the investigation which leads to a machete wielding bad guy named fittingly enough Massacre. The story has potential and the setting is not in Gotham and the art work is very good. But the story seems a little thin at this point for me to continue picking it up.

Men of War #1 - Written by Ivan Brandon and Jonathan Vankin with art by Tom Derenick and Phil Winslad, this is a book that has two stories in it. The first is about Sgt. Rock, who at the beginning of the story is Lt. Rock being chewed up by his superiors. The back up story is about two SEAL members in a Middle Eastern city trying to flush out a sniper. Both stories are fine, but not great. The Sgt. Rock story has an intriguing aspect where there are super-beings fighting on the battle. And in the “fog of war” we don’t get a clear view of them or what their objectives are. But I don’t think this is enough to compel me to continue reading this title after the first 3 issues.

Swamp Thing #1 - I wanted this book by Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette to be really good. But I’m comparing it to the only other Swamp Thing books I’ve read, which are the Alan Moore and John Totleben issues many years ago. However, this comparisons isn’t fair. DC is trying to redefine all these characters and I’m coming in with the baggage of the past. However, I sense that Snyder is trying to get back to that type of story Alan Moore did. He is raising both global and individual problems for the main character, Alec Holland. The world needs to consider plants (The Green) and how animals need to live together with them. Also Alec needs to find his identity within being the omniscient avatar for The Green. As I said, I wanted this to be a phenomenal book, but it’s seems par for the course to me. I’ll not be continuing this one.

Animal Man #1 - On the other side of the the spectrum is this book by Jeff Lemire, Travel Foreman and Dan Green. Instead of plants in Swamp Thing, Animal Man taps into The Red, which grants him powers of any animal. I missed out on the Grant Morrison run with this character. And perhaps if I did, I’d have the same problem I had with Swamp Thing. But coming fresh to this book, I was pleased with how it presented itself. It starts off with a full typed page of an interview with the main character, Buddy Baker. This gave all the background needed to jump right into the story. As far as the artwork is concerned, I really like it. Unlike most typical comics, Forman uses a style that isn’t seen too much in comics. Fine lines and bold blacks make this book interesting to look at as well as read. I’ll continue picking this one up each month.

Green Arrow #1 - Written by J.T. Krul with pencils by Dan Jurgens with inks by George Perez, I was hoping for a lot from this book. Oliver Queen runs his multinational corporation while jaunting around the world stopping crime. With the help of some close friends, Naomi who is an uber-hacker and Jax, a pacifist who is the Green Arrow’s weapons developer. I’m not sure about this one. Unlike Swamp Thing, Krul isn’t pulling out the Mike Grell version of Green Arrow. Instead, it’s kind of like a Batman theme. Rich guy. No powers. Uses technology and a powerful network of friends to help solve crime. Sure there are differences, and that’s the interesting part, but it’s not interesting enough for me to continue reading.

Detective Comics #1 - This is one of the big titles this week. Written and drawn by Tony Daniels with inks by Ryan Winn, this book starts with Batman hunting a serial killer for the first time. The Joker. So that sets the tone of the book. We’re meeting Batman starting out. Gotham Police don’t know if hes a good guy or not. And we’re seeing him find out just how crazy/evil/unpredictable the Joker is. But after reading this book, I only really had one thing to say. “Yuck”. The level of violence in this book I think has been ramped up. Sure, the Bat books always had a dark side, but when I finished this issue, I had to look at the rating on the cover again to make sure it wasn’t for mature audiences. As for continuing this book, I’ve been getting Detective for many years, so I’ll continue even though I don’t think this was a particularly strong first issue.

Hawk and Dove #1 - By Sterling Gates and Rob Liefeld, I wasn’t really expecting much with this book and I wasn’t too surprised by what I read. Hawk and Dove are avatars of war and peace on Earth and the story starts off with them trying to stop a hijacked plane from crashing somewhere in Washington D.C. As the story fills in, we learn that Hawk’s (Hank Hall) brother was the original Dove, who died sometime in the past. And he doen’t like the current Dove (Dawn Granger). But we find out that Dawn Granger had a past with the old Dove and that she is dating Deadman (who we haven’t met yet in this new reboot). Got that? I think I do, but I’m not interested enough to see how this might play out.

Justice League International #1 - This book is written by Dan Jurgens, penciled by Aaron Lopresti and inked by Matt Ryan and is about a multinational superhero team put together by the United Nations to be a counter to the regular Justice League. By having diplomats pick the member of this team, we get a bunch of relatively minor heroes bunched together. And that is potentially the most interesting part. If written well, the characters interactions could drive the book and make it really interesting. And I’m not sure if one book is enough to see this dynamic happen, but even though there is potential here, I’ll let the comic shop know I won’t need this one pulled.

Batgirl #1 - Written by Gail Simone with art by Adrian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes, we get re-introduced to Barbara Gordon as Batgirl. For the past decade or so, Barbara Gordon has been confined to a wheelchair after the Joker shoots and paralyzes her in the book The Killing Joke. And that still happened in this book, but in this new book, she gets better. But the pain of the shooting is still raw in Barbara’s psyche. Her thoughts and actions still are effected by this event. And that’s what’s kind of cool about this book. It does take an event that happened in the DC Universe past and uses it to define the actions of the character. But unlike the Hawk character lamenting over his dead brother, Simone takes the Joker attack and makes it the defining moment in Batgirls persona that she must overcome to survive. I don’t know if I’ll continue this one forever, but I’ll keep getting it long enough to complete the first story arc.

Static Shock #1 - This book is written by two people, Scott McDaniel and John Rozum with artwork done by Jonathan Glapion and Le Beau Underwood. My knowledge of Static Shock comes from the Saturday morning cartoon and a brief stint he did in the latest Teen Titans book. In this book, he still is a teenager named Virgil Hawkins, but now he is working at S.T.A.R. labs after-school. This is so he can keep an eye on them for some reason. For this first issue, he stops someone from stealing a plasma suit for a shady group of baddies. I found this book to be pretty average. There were some interesting points, but not nearly enough to make me read more.

And finally, this week:

Action Comics #1 - Written by Grant Morrison and Rags Morales and Rick Bryant doing the artwork. Like the Detective Comics issue, this one starts with the beginning of Superman's career. So much so that he wears a blue t-shirt (with the Super S on it), jeans and work boots as his costume. This is a throwback to the 1939 Superman who was more a strong guy who instead of flying could “leap over tall buildings.” And unlike the other books here, Morrison didn’t have to tell us who Jimmy Olson, Lois Lane or Lex Luthor were. Rather he had to define them in this new DC universe. The art of Morales is strong and I like that Morrison relies on the art to convey parts of the story. There are several pages with little dialog. You see the boredom in Luthor’s face. You are shown the chaos of the climax of this story without any words cluttering the panels. Though Superman isn’t my favorite, and I haven’t been collecting his books for a long time, I think I’ll continue this one for a little while.