superfro

I had high hopes with Lemire on the book, but I was still blown away. Just a ton of awesome. Easily the top of the pack for this week's releases.

Hokeyboy

Hawk and Dove #1 - Meh. Story was OK, but the Liefeld art was... well, it was Liefeld art. Loathed it back then, and it hasn't gotten any better really. Count how many grimaces you can find on the first 4 pages alone...

Men Of War #1 - Really Good... maybe even Excellent, really. I just don't quite know how well All in all though, my 2nd favorite "New 52" title so far (after Animal Man).

kgrogers1979

Its way too premature to call it a success, even in the short term. We are only in the second week and less than half the titles are out yet. Anyway, #1 issues always sell like hotcakes, so the first month will prove nothing anyway. Wait a few more months and see how well the #3 and #4 issues sell to determine just how much of a success/failure it is.

boredsilly

I really liked Detective and Action. Detective was actually a pretty dense read (by modern comic standards) as well. Like others have said, Detective feels like it is set in the past as well, but I don't know if DC has said it was. If it is, then Action and Detective are set before JLA is set before the rest of the DC books?

If anyone read Tom De Haven's wonderful It's Superman, Action made me think about that book's portrayal of Supes a lot.

superfro

And thus my problem with this whole launch. The disjointed timelines and no notification of when anything is taking place in reference to everything else. It really goes against any kind of cohesive feeling that this universe should be creating out of the gate. Shit just doesn't make sense time wise as it is if you're reading everything.

BobO'Link

I enjoyed the 12 issues of GA he wrote prior to this current stunt. However, I did not like the new #1. It just felt trite and cliche' *way* too often. The "villans" also didn't impress me much and overall I felt it is a very generic type comic/story. It got dropped.

I wasn't planning to get any of the Superman titles but one of the guys talked good about Action so I read it in the store. It was pretty good and has a fairly interesting premise I don't recall seeing in a Supes book before. I added it to my file at least for the first story arc. I'm not happy about the price but at least the page count is higher and, if the page count stays the same, a better value than the $2.99 titles especially since their page count is now lower.

I've not yet read Batgirl, but picked it up simply because I like Barbara as Batgirl (and Oracle for that matter) and Simone did a good job on BOP. I'm willing to give it at least the first arc's worth of books before I decide.

I didn't look at or pick up any of the other titles this week but another customer commented that he really wanted Detective to be Batman *solving* crimes *not* just another "superhero" type book. I have to agree on that point. I might have picked it up had it returned more to its roots, although it *is* nice to have Bruce back in the suit. Damian as Robin is the main reason I'm not getting any of the Batman books. I do not like the character. I'm one of the few in the store here who didn't care for the Dick/Damian duo and dropped the Batman books when that pairing occurred.

PhantomStranger

DC has been purposely vague it appears on when the events in Detective are occurring. My guess is there will be some reveal in a future issue related to this development.

In other news, I actually saw the DC commercial in HD during a show on Comedy Central. If I didn't know anything about comics, I am not sure it would make me run down to find a local comics ship. The commercial looks targeted towards people already familiar with the industry.

boredsilly

Yeah, the timeline stuff is a little messy, and probably needlessly "complex", but I get it. I could say how this might confuse new readers and yadda yadda, but I don't really care about that. I'm selfish. I just want to read some cool comics, and Tec and Action certainly felt like that to me. It's been AGES since I've been interested in either Batman or Superman comics. So that makes me happy.

That said, I do agree that the cohesive nature of the launch might prove to be weird. I don't know how it's going to be reading Tec and Action with the rookie versions of the characters, and if those versions of the characters not reading similar to the JLA versions, who might not feel similar to the Batman and Superman versions of the characters. But we'll see.

LorenzoL

I was disappointed with Batgirl. Not that the first issue was bad but it didn't leave me wanting more. Maybe I had too much expectation from Simone and it was only the first issue so I'll take a wait and see attitude towards this title.
I was also enjoying Stephanie Brown turn as Batgirl so I'm hoping that she shows up in the new DC Universe.

Super X

Never read it in any of its previous incarnations, but I really enjoyed Stormwatch. It's what Justice League should have been. The various characters were introduced through the issue, characterizations and relationships are established, and several intriguing plotlines are set up. Lots of promise in this one.

Hokeyboy

Static #1 - EXCELLENT. A fun, well-written, exciting superhero comic. Great intro to the character, his powers, his setup, his family, everything. The "villains" were a little on the cliche side, but it was the character moments that really stood out (as well as the science bits too -- I'm always a sucker for those.) Of all the "pure superhero" comics that came out so far, this one is my favorite. To be fair though, I was a HUGE Milestone fan back in the day.

Swamp Thing #1 -- OK. Setup, really. I'll have to see how this plays out over the next issue or two in order to determine if I want to stick around. Decent enough to get me to purchase #2, but that has to step its urgency up considerably.

Still haven't read STORMWATCH yet. I suppose I'll get around to it over the weekend...

boredsilly

Hokey, does Static now feel like he's a part of the DCU now, or does he still feel like he's in his own corner?

mrhan

A friend who works in a comic store gave me a copy of JLA#1. Knowing I don't buy new stuff he thought I might like it. wow...what a POS. I was a huge Jim Lee fan when he first started but his art hasn't gotten any better and don't get me started with the story. Awful and all for only $4. Good thing I stopped buying new books years ago and just concentrated on BA and SA books. On a sidenote I started reading the Starman series from the nineties. Even though I hated most books from then; this series is amazing. I'm glad I discovered this even though I'm a decade late. Awesome storyline; reads like a good long novel. I'd like to see DC top that.

Supermallet

Animal Man is most definitely the best of the current set of issues.

Hokeyboy

He's in no further corner than, say, Stormwatch or Animal Man or Batwing or whatever. But it's a great comic. There's appearances by Hardware (SWEET!) and references to Dakota, plus he now works at S.T.A.R. Labs.

Hokeyboy

The James Robinson who wrote STARMAN in the 90s can NOT be the same James Robinson who put out all those turdlicious JLA and Superman books over the past few years. Holy moley.

But I agree with you. His STARMAN series was TOP FREAKIN' NOTCH.

reubs82

I'm wanting to pick these up and jump in with Detective Comics and The Dark Knight and maybe a Superman title, but none of the stores around here have them yet. We've only got a Books a Million (Barnes and Noble shut their doors here), and they still haven't put out the books from Sept. 7. This may mean I don't jump onboard, which would be fine. I'm just interested in getting into some titles since this seems like kind of a fresh start.

Travis McClain

Ron Marz retweeted this earlier from @makehavoc247:



So, yeah, this is just what the industry needs. A lot of us interested in checking out comics again for the first time in ages and ridiculous mark-ups within days of hitting the shelves.

Also, I was at Barnes & Noble earlier tonight and took a gander. They had nary a relaunch issue on their shelves. Do they not stock on the same schedule as the local shops?

Hokeyboy

^This is why downloading (legally) is the way to go. Fucking LCBS's doing the same markup bullshit that collapsed the industry in the 90s. Nice work. All your customers are being driven to three little letters: d.c.p...

Supermallet

Uch. I hate how speculative the comic market has become. The whole reason old comics are valuable is because people didn't know they would ever be an item of value, so most were lost/tossed away/damaged/not protected. Heck, my dad told me that he got most of his valuable comics years after the fact for $7 or $8 a piece. And I'm talking about very early runs of famous comics. No one in the 60's assumed that comics could ever be worth more than that.

Now, when everyone is encasing comics in marble and sealing them in vacuum bubbles, no one comic will ever be worth all that much. This shit is one of the reasons I went digital this time around.

Also, anyone who pays $7.50 for Batwing deserves to be ripped off.

kgrogers1979

"Most violent Joker story ever!"



Only the last page was really all that violent. The Killing Joke was far more violent.

Josh-da-man

I remember seeing a photograph (I think it posted at Heidi MacDonald's The Beat blog) of a book shop from the 1960s that also sold comic books.

Sitting atop a big pile of comic books on the counter is a copy of Action Comics #1. Yes, that one.

kgrogers1979

Exactly. Its all about supply and demand, which most people don't seem to understand. The original Action Comics #1 is worth a million dollars precisely because the supply is so low. It is 70 years old, and there are only a handful of copies still in existence, and even fewer in good shape. Today's comics will never have low supply. 70 years from now there will still be thousands upon thousands of copies out there because everyone bags and boards now and takes better care of their comics. This price gouging on the new 52 is just a temporary thing because it is currently the hot new fad. A year from now they are going to be worth only a couple dollars, just like X-men Vol. 2 #1.

movieguru

The money the LCBS's will make off of this will help them stay in business a little longer, it won't make them rich.

superfro

For what it's worth, my wife sold all her copies of Batgirl this week for $1.50. So not ALL LCBS's are shit.