More New 52 thoughts
Sep. 9th, 2011 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcWell, the first batch of actual comics is out, and so I thought I'd do some more wibbling. My first thought is that, as I suspected from the way this was being presented, there's a curious mix of "basically the same things you remember happened" and "OMG, everything's different!" Sometimes within the same book.
Detective Comics is a case in point. We know New52 Batman also went through Batman RIP etc., because Morrison hasn't finished telling that story, and he's not going to stop now. Detective portrays him as familiar with the Joker from the five year career he has behind him.
And yet ... dialogue would seem to suggest that this is Joker's first visit to Arkham Asylum. So that bit of RIP didn't happen. And Jeremiah Arkham is still running the place, so the storyline where he turned out to be Black Mask and got incarcerated didn't happen either. Which is a shame, because I got the distinct impression that David Hine hadn't finished with that story either. Ah, well.
The weirdest part though, is that Jim Gordon is Comissioner, but doesn't have grey hair. He looks like he did when he was Lieutennant Gordon in Batman: Year One. Synergy with the Nolan movies?
Green Arrow is one where everything has completely changed. Ollie now runs a tech-company called Q-Core that's semidetached from Queen Industries. Q-phones get namechecked. Presumably there are also Q-pads. And while before history changed he was a middle-aged man with a goatee in a Robin Hood costume, now he's ... well, there's no two ways about it, he's Justin Hartley. Why, when Smallville's finished in the States, is anyone's guess.
Batwing, apart from being the key proof that Batman Inc is still ongoing, is a totally standard Batman story, except that it happens to be set in a fictional city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, instead of a fictional city in the US. Which, considering the trainwreck of cultural stereotypes I was expecting, is actually quite a relief. I don't have huge hopes of it staying that way, though.
(It's by Judd Winick, the guy who revealed Kyle Rayner was Hispanic and Tora Olafsdotter was Romany. I give him six issues before it turns out David Zavimbi is Welsh.)
Justice League International. Well, it's the return of my favourite comic ever, and not written by Winick any more. In the New 52 this team has never existed before, but has now been set up by a UN diplomat who totally isn't a counterpart to Maxwell Lord in any way. It's a shame Blue Beetle isn't in it (yet?), but apart from him it's got the usual JLI dynamic - Booster, Guy, Fire & Ice, Rocket Red. As a story, it scores points over Justice League in that all the characters on the cover appear in the book, and they actually form a team.
Interesting that JLI have (or at least had) the Hall of Justice. Presumably the other League have the satelite.
Action Comics Now this was interesting. It's set very early in Superman's career, and it's clear that Morrison is not writing his All-Star Superman character. At least, not yet.
In the same way as his run on Batman had flashbacks to all the fifties stories everyone had forgotten about, Morrison has decided that the start of Superman's career means that he's still the Superman Seigel & Shuster wrote about in their earliest stories. The political one. The one who appeared in stories like "Superman In The Slums" and "Terror In The Truckers Union". That Superman.
And it's awesome. Presumably, he's going to become the champion of Truth, Justice and the American Way, but at the moment he's the guy who gets so angry at the injustice in Metropolis (and Metropolis itself is practically Gotham!), he throws ordinary hoodlums through walls. It makes for a very different take on the character, even though, as I said, it's the original take. Even the title "Superman Versus The City of Tomorrow" has an early-Golden Age feel to it.
Another interesting twist: Morrison also keeps the Golden Age concept that Clark Kent works for the Daily Star ... but Lois and Jimmy are already at the Planet. So the Lois/Clark rivalry is a lot more intense; if Clark gets a scoop it's not Lois who loses it, it's the Daily Planet itself!
And for those who prefer more typical Superman adventures, Lex Luthor tries to kill him by firing a bullet train at him! Yes, Clark, whose powers are still developing, has to be faster than a bullet and more powerful than a locomotive at the same time!
Still not at all sure about New52 as a concept, but it's almost worth it just for Morrison's Golden Age Superman.
Detective Comics is a case in point. We know New52 Batman also went through Batman RIP etc., because Morrison hasn't finished telling that story, and he's not going to stop now. Detective portrays him as familiar with the Joker from the five year career he has behind him.
And yet ... dialogue would seem to suggest that this is Joker's first visit to Arkham Asylum. So that bit of RIP didn't happen. And Jeremiah Arkham is still running the place, so the storyline where he turned out to be Black Mask and got incarcerated didn't happen either. Which is a shame, because I got the distinct impression that David Hine hadn't finished with that story either. Ah, well.
The weirdest part though, is that Jim Gordon is Comissioner, but doesn't have grey hair. He looks like he did when he was Lieutennant Gordon in Batman: Year One. Synergy with the Nolan movies?
Green Arrow is one where everything has completely changed. Ollie now runs a tech-company called Q-Core that's semidetached from Queen Industries. Q-phones get namechecked. Presumably there are also Q-pads. And while before history changed he was a middle-aged man with a goatee in a Robin Hood costume, now he's ... well, there's no two ways about it, he's Justin Hartley. Why, when Smallville's finished in the States, is anyone's guess.
Batwing, apart from being the key proof that Batman Inc is still ongoing, is a totally standard Batman story, except that it happens to be set in a fictional city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, instead of a fictional city in the US. Which, considering the trainwreck of cultural stereotypes I was expecting, is actually quite a relief. I don't have huge hopes of it staying that way, though.
(It's by Judd Winick, the guy who revealed Kyle Rayner was Hispanic and Tora Olafsdotter was Romany. I give him six issues before it turns out David Zavimbi is Welsh.)
Justice League International. Well, it's the return of my favourite comic ever, and not written by Winick any more. In the New 52 this team has never existed before, but has now been set up by a UN diplomat who totally isn't a counterpart to Maxwell Lord in any way. It's a shame Blue Beetle isn't in it (yet?), but apart from him it's got the usual JLI dynamic - Booster, Guy, Fire & Ice, Rocket Red. As a story, it scores points over Justice League in that all the characters on the cover appear in the book, and they actually form a team.
Interesting that JLI have (or at least had) the Hall of Justice. Presumably the other League have the satelite.
Action Comics Now this was interesting. It's set very early in Superman's career, and it's clear that Morrison is not writing his All-Star Superman character. At least, not yet.
In the same way as his run on Batman had flashbacks to all the fifties stories everyone had forgotten about, Morrison has decided that the start of Superman's career means that he's still the Superman Seigel & Shuster wrote about in their earliest stories. The political one. The one who appeared in stories like "Superman In The Slums" and "Terror In The Truckers Union". That Superman.
And it's awesome. Presumably, he's going to become the champion of Truth, Justice and the American Way, but at the moment he's the guy who gets so angry at the injustice in Metropolis (and Metropolis itself is practically Gotham!), he throws ordinary hoodlums through walls. It makes for a very different take on the character, even though, as I said, it's the original take. Even the title "Superman Versus The City of Tomorrow" has an early-Golden Age feel to it.
Another interesting twist: Morrison also keeps the Golden Age concept that Clark Kent works for the Daily Star ... but Lois and Jimmy are already at the Planet. So the Lois/Clark rivalry is a lot more intense; if Clark gets a scoop it's not Lois who loses it, it's the Daily Planet itself!
And for those who prefer more typical Superman adventures, Lex Luthor tries to kill him by firing a bullet train at him! Yes, Clark, whose powers are still developing, has to be faster than a bullet and more powerful than a locomotive at the same time!
Still not at all sure about New52 as a concept, but it's almost worth it just for Morrison's Golden Age Superman.
