Out of the weeks I felt like Week 4 was the closest to being an actual reboot as its gotten. Many of the comics proved to be actual #1s or at least close to it, and I appreciated it for the most part. The quality of the comics still went up and down but that is always going to happen. With that…
Batman
Out of the various Batman comics, I still think that Detective Comics was the best so far, however just straight Batman was also pretty darn good. It features all the Robins except for Red Hood, it has a lot of Bruce Wayne’s fenagling, a few twists, a brief appearance of many bad guys. It’s overall a solid book, and I look forward to reading more of it.
Birds of Prey
Probably the main reboot of the Batman universe. This one actually starts over from scratch so if you’ve liked what happened before, you will notice none of it actually happened. Despite the cover, there were actually only two birds here: Black Canary and Starling. The book seemed straight forward to me on first read, but a friend mentioned something about the end that made me think and now I am eager for the next book. I don’t think this comic is great, but it isn’t bad. I will continue on with it at least another month to see where it goes.
Blue Beetle
I really liked this book. I don’t really know much about the beetle and have no history with it. But this comic does a good job of setting up exactly what it is, and sets up the new owner of the Beetle. In a lot of ways, the Blue Beetle is actually very similar to the Green Lanterns. It is an object from space which gives its wearer special powers. The difference is that the Blue Beetle Scarab that joins with people tends to enslave them so we will see how that works out. It was a really good book, but the Spanglish was a bit much, otherwise I think I might continue it.
Captain Atom
Not really sure why I bought this, the reviews on it were mixed but some were good enough that I decided to give it a shot. It was decent, there was a great amount of self reflection about Atom’s super powers that I enjoyed and the art was pretty good. But overall, I felt that it wasn’t my typeof comic book so I don’t think I’m going to continue getting it.
DC Universe Presents
This is supposed to be basically a set of mini-series that concentrate on lesser super heroes in the DC Universe. They are starting with Deadman which has a really interesting premise. I really wanted to read this due to Deadman’s history in the Green Lantern lore of being keeper of the White Lantern ring. Deadman is essentially Quantum Leap without the time travel. Deadman was a bad person in life and is given the chance to redeem himself by leaping into people’s lives and fixing their problems. I enjoyed it overall, it’s always a great premise. I will probably continue on with it but I’m not sure how much my interest will last on this one.
Green Lantern Corps
Green Lantern Corps follows a storyline where the Green Lanterns are trying to figure out why an entire world (and a couple of Green Lanterns) were brutally slaughtered, in fact the brutality actually feels quite out of place given the rest of the comic. I wish they would have found a better way to portray that… At any rate it centers around Guy Gardner and John Stewart who are trying to cope with making money on Earth while being Lanterns. I appreciate the attempt at struggle, but given the power of the ring it falls short in my mind. Overall the book is entertaining but not great. I feel it is the weakest of the Lantern books, even Red Lanterns, though worth a second shot. It isn’t terrible.
Nightwing
Nightwing is probably one of my favorite all time Batman spin-offs. It made sense to me that Robin would eventually grow up and split off from Batman and become a super hero in his own right. And thus I have high hopes for this comic going forward. This isn’t exactly a #1 per say, but it does a better job than usual at bringing the reader up to speed while also providing Nightwing a storyline and dilemma for the future. I liked it overall, though it didn’t really grab me as much as many others did.
Red Hood & The Outlaws
The other Robin who grew up to not be Robin… I like the concept of Red Hood A LOT. I don’t really know much about the hero even while he was Robin, but I do like the concept. Even reading the comic, the first section was quite good. The problem with the female of the group, whom I can’t even remember her name, and I don’t think the writers would care that you didn’t. A more clear character built towards teenage boys I can’t imagine. She is a big breasted scantily clad woman that wants to have sex with any male she sees and doesn’t want any relationship whatsoever out of it. I don’t even really understand how this could be important to anything outside of turning guys on which is really not why I buy comics, I could buy penthouse or something if I wanted that (or use the internet). Given how few pages there are in a DC comic, I would rather them not have wasted it on this. I’m not really interested in this comic in the future even though i am interested in Red Hood as a character.
Wonder Woman
The main reason why I got this comic was because I am looking for the opportunity of getting my daughter a subscription to a comic book for her Christmas present. I thought Wonder Woman might fit the bill because it wasn’t a character she was really familiar with and I figured a strong woman would appeal to her. After reading this one, I have no interest in ever looking at it again. The gore content was much higher than I was expecting, more than most of the other New 52 comics. I also wasn’t particularly fond of the comic despite the gore…. needless to say I was quite disappointed.
Ultimate X-Men
Getting away from DC for a moment, Marvel released their #1 for Ultimate X-Men. I think it was a very good issue, and I like the new direction for the universe. I like that what Professor X had always worried was going to happen and fought against happening finally happened and for the most part the mutants have needed to go underground. Further, I think the teaming of Kitty Pryde, Iceman and Human Torch is a pretty good one. I’m not particularly fond of the son of Wolverine, but we’ll see where it goes…