Category Archives: DC
The 6 Best and the 6 Worst Parts of DC’s New 52
The New 52 is over; long live DC Comics. After more than three years of sticking to their rigid, grim and gritty house style, the second biggest publisher in comics has decided to try something different — and I couldn’t be happier. I quickly soured to the New 52 and have barely hung on all these years later.
Get out of there Cyborg, you’re not Justice League
When DC rebooted their entire comics lineup in 2011 — including everyone from Superman and Batman to Green Lantern — they decided that the best way to reach fans was with dark, gritty comics aimed at teenage boys and young men. They published 52 comics a month and called the whole event the ‘New 52’. But comic book fans are prone to change, and nowadays we want a variety of different comics and styles, definitely not just grim and gritty. Marvel Comics, the biggest publisher, understands this and routinely beats DC in sales.
So starting in June, DC will abandon their New 52 way of thinking and will start offering new comics with new styles for new audiences. It’s a great plan! But before it’s gone, I wanted to take a look back at 6 things I liked and 6 things I loathed in the New 52. Hopefully DC can learn from this.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 2/7/15
What a week! Just yesterday, DC Comics announced a new rebranding of their entire New 52 line! Gone are the last vestiges of that reboot and the DC house style! Now they want to produce a variety of comics for the wide variety of people that read comics! That’s exciting news. Marvel has found a ton of success going down that route, and if DC is willing to bite the bullet and follow Marvel’s lead, then we’ll all benefit.
The most important thing is that we will get good comics. Like this week’s Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
Squirrel Girl #2 easily picks up Comic Book of the Week for being so gosh darn hilarious! I hope you’re reading and laughing along with me. But this week also so good issues for Ant-Man, Ms. Marvel, Star Wars and the long-awaited return of Hawkeye! Matt Fraction and David Aja’s archer-led comic was close to capturing the top spot, but it took a little stumble.
This week you can check out my review of Black Vortex Alpha over at Word of the Nerd. It’s a cosmic crossover between the Guardians of the Galaxy and the All-New X-Men, and while writer Sam Humphries is having some fun, it’s not better than the sum of its parts.
Comic Reviews: Angela: Asgard’s Assassin #3, Ant-Man #2, Batman Eternal #44, Hawkeye #21, Ms. Marvel #11, Star Wars #2, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #2.
2 New Robin Comics Coming This Summer; DC’s ‘New 52’ Out the Door…Kind of!
Breaking comic book news today is that DC Comics is going to do a little rebranding of the New 52 this June. They aren’t producing 52 comics a month anymore, so the name doesn’t make any sense. The New 52 continuity and characters will remain the same, but they’re bringing in 24 new comics and basically just doing away with the ‘New 52’ name tag. All of this will launch after the April-May Convergence mini-series. IGN has part of the scoop. And CBR has some more! And Newsarama has even more!
Chief among the new comics will be something called We Are Robin. I have no idea what this is, but I am hugely excited!
I’m going to be scouring the Internet for any news about this series. Will it star the various Robins already hanging out in Gotham City? Or, like the cover implies, will it be about a bunch of street kids who wear Robin-branded clothing? Who knows! I am beyond excited to find out.
Also announced is a new solo series for Damian Wayne, which will replace the Batman and Robin ongoing. Robin: Son of Batman will be written and drawn by Patrick Gleason, a true superstar!
No word yet why Robin will be teaming up with a giant red monster.
There will also be new comics for Bat-Mite, Bizarro, Black Canary, Cyborg, Dr. Fate, Martian Manunter and many more. My favorite comic book artist, Bryan Hitch, will also be taking over both writing and art duties on Justice League! Check out the various titles at the links above.
Another announcement I’m excited about will see Starfire split away from the long-running Red Hood and the Outlaws comic into her own series, written by the Harley Quinn team of Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner, with art by Emanuela Lupacchino. That sounds pretty amazing, considering I love me some Harley Quinn comic. The Outlaws book will be shrunk down to just Red Hood/Arsenal. Could this be an attempt to finally cater to fans of the Teen Titans cartoon? Starfire’s new costume seems to suggest as much (though she’s still wearing incredibly short shorts)!
That is a damn good idea, since everybody was pretty soured to Starfire in the New 52, whereas she could be getting a ton of fans.
I’m going to try to update this post throughout the day with new information as it comes in! For me, I’m just excited to see Robin getting some attention! I can’t wait to find out more about We Are Robin!
What do you henchies think? Any of these new comics look good to you? Or do you think DC should do away with the New 52 entirely? Looks to me like they’re going to take a play out of the Marvel NOW! playbook and just introduce waves of new titles to see what takes off. The focus of this new rebranding is to reach out to a wider audience. When the New 52 launched, it was rigidly tied to DC’s grim and gritty house style, but then both Marvel and DC had much more success with a wide variety of comics (like Ms. Marvel and Batgirl). Now it looks like DC learned their lesson. The house style is out and variety reigns!
I like the sound of that!
Sound off in the comments!
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Iron Man to Appear on Arrow — Oh No, Wait…
So, uh…here’s the first look at Brandon Routh’s Atom on the TV show Arrow.
The poor man’s Robert Downey Jr.
Remind you of anyone else? Like, in a clearly obvious, almost wincing kind of way? Like, in a way that The CW might be paying more attention to Marvel’s movie success than DC’s?
Keep in mind that the Atom, whose super-power is shrinking, does not wear armor like this in the comic. He wears a normal, ordinary spandex superhero costume. The armor has been created for the show. So…uh…does DC Comics know they’re doing this?
Also, way to put zero effort into protecting your secret identity, pal.
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Arrow is Treating Sidekicks Right
How great is Arrow these days? The drama is intense, the characters are as strong as ever, and Oliver’s fight with R’as al Ghul was a highpoint of the entire series. But you know what I’m loving the most? Roy Harper, the sidekick!
Arrow is doing almost everything I could possibly want from a superhero sidekick on live action TV.
The awesome costume is a big plus
I never thought we would see the day. I never in my wildest dreams imagined Arrow would follow through with the introduction of Roy Harper and turn him into a solid, successful superhero in his own right. Granted, Roy Harper is kind of a train wreck in the comics, and there is plenty of time for the show to go down that route. But right now, Arsenal is the sidekick superhero I’ve dreamed about.
If only Arrow was actually about Batman and Robin, but we don’t live in a perfect world.
Besides, it’s been done
The only thing Arrow needs to do now is push Arsenal one step further and make it so that he isn’t a complete failure just because Oliver isn’t around.
Join me after the jump for the full story!
Henchman-4-Hire 