Super Mega Review Round-up: DC Edition

 
It has been approximately 5 months since I wrote a weekly review.  That's a hell of a lot of comics to catch up on, and there's no way I can possibly write 25 posts for each of the weeks I've missed.  To counteract that, I'm going to write two mega-posts about all of the titles from the two main publishers, DC and Marvel.  They will probably be long, but at least well-organized and you can skip to whatever you're curious about!

So first on the list is going to be Brightest Day, just because I was so excited about it when it first started.  Suffice to say that is no longer the case.  Not because I don't thing the event is interesting, but because I find the pace of the story to be very frustrating given a bi-monthly release schedule.  I don't want to wait two weeks after a really interesting cliffhanger and then have to read about characters I don't like.  Which, also, happens to be most of them, but especially the Hawks and their RANDOM Hawkpeople vs. Lionpeople storyline.  Deathstorm was kind of fun though, and the mystery revolving around their visions will keep me reading.  In other Brightest Day news, I'm up to date on Generation Lost, and I really enjoyed the reference to Kingdom Come.  I still think I wouldn't recommend either storyline until they've come out in Trade form. 

From Brightest Day to Green Lantern's Light.  There are now three titles:  Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, and Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors.  In my opinion GL is the strongest of the batch, and watching all of the different lanterns work together on Earth is quite fascinating.  I especially like watching Atrocitus because he's such a complicated bad guy.  I cannot wait until we figure out what the little thing with the green chain is.  GLC sort of lost me with the whole Alpha Lantern storyline, but I love me some Kyle Raynor and Ganthet.  The Emerald Warriors story is taking a bit longer to get off the ground, hampered by the fact that I find Guy to be a blowhard.  After Blackest Night I'll keep reading any of the Lantern books, I just wish they had picked a different lead.

Where to start on the Bat-titles.  There's so much to say this probably should have gone first.  Over the last six months the return of Bruce Wayne has been amping up not only in the Return of Bruce Wayne titles, but also in Batman and Robin and the mini-series Batman: The Road Home.  Not to mention Red Robin has gotten in on the act.  I hesitate to go into too much depth on this because I hate always being so negative about Grant Morrison; I know many fans consider him to be the Second Coming of Comic Book Writers.  Personally I find his books needlessly over-complicated, engendering a "Oh, you're just too stupid to get it" attitude from many comics fans.  No, I get what he's doing, I just don't like it.  He's throwing out sentence fragments and random images and verbal nonsense to add 'depth' to his stories that in my opinion winds up obscuring his true point.  I don't want to have to read 5 trade paperbacks just to figure out what the hell the first three pages of RoBW #6 are talking about (and I have read those trades and I still don't get it).  But I will give Morrison credit for doing something significant with the character, and while his execution is not my cup of tea the general framework he's set-up is interesting.  He does a lot of interesting things with the character of Batman, breaking him down to build him back up again.  I just wish the trip from A to B to C was not such a mind-fuck (to use Morrison's own words).

Regarding the other Bat titles, Red Robin has rapidly become my favorite.  I love watching Tim orchestrate this huge master plan, but still have so much heart and humanity.  The hug between him and Bruce this last week was great, and that's the sort of thing I love about this book.  I'm sort of caught up on Gotham City Sirens, and while it's not my favorite I do like Catwoman a great deal.  Birds of Prey is a fantastic book every week, and I really like having so many strong female characters on the page.  I just wish they wore pants, but I don't need to go starting that again (I know BoP is technically a Brightest Day title, but as long as Oracle is there it will be a Bat-title for me).  Batman Beyond just makes me miss the cartoon.  I will say I do not approve of the stupid clone twist.  

To finish up the DC universe, I don't have much to say.  Wonder Woman is a great read, and anyone who's stuck with it has to acknowledge that many of the fears about this new turn for the character are unfounded.  It's very clear that the current state of things is not right, and Diana has to go about fixing them  She kicks major ass, but I wish she was a little bit less...unsure of herself?  I guess I just miss the real Diana, and I'm glad she'll be coming back eventually.  I don't think I will miss JMS much, though.  I know for a fact I will not miss him on Superman.  This whole "I'm going to walk the country" storyline is ridiculous in my opinion.  They keep trying to pull tricks to make it less ridiculous, but I don't think they're succeeding very well.  Superman has never been a favorite of mine, though, and I only picked it up for the JMS arc.  With him leaving I can see myself not bothering to catch up on Supes.  Superboy seems fun though, so I will be keeping up with that new title.  I will also keep reading Flash if for no other reason than Manapul's art is fucking gorgeous and I can't wait to see more of it every month.  I'm wary of time-travel storylines though, so I'm waiting to see how this pans out. 

So I think that's everything from the DC universe!  I read so much more DC now than I ever used to, but all the Batman stuff has really sucked me in.  I blame Arnab.  Stay tuned for a similar post for Marvel books sometime this week!