Spritenaut 32 Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 Finished marathoning Earth-2 a few nights ago. Mixed bag. In general, I liked it a lot less than I wanted to. Though as a big JSA fan, I'm not really in favor of de-aging everybody. Johns had the right approach, mixing younger characters with the older or introducing a new, younger character to fill the super suit. Liked Robinson's time on the book well enough. Love Nicola Scott's art. Wish JDR had stayed longer, but he abruptly left for Marvel mid-story. Feel like he spent too much time world-building, then never really got to tell his story. Tom Taylor's tenure was prob my favorite. Not quite ready to put him up there with my favorite writers - though I also liked his short Iron Man run - but scripts were good and there were a lot of fun ideas and characters cycling in and out. Hated the Daniel Wilson run. Ugh. Really hated World's End. Found Earth 2: Society... incomprehensible, maybe? So many ideas I hate. I still don't understand why Terry Sloane was wanted to imprint (terraform) the new planet with the patterns from Earth 2's ecosystem. Earth 3 looked largely the same and, if there were key differences, they weren't explained. Likewise, I had no clue how Dr. Impossible impossible intended to "control every molecule" using the gizmo. Some of the changes seemed.... unnecessary. I liked the Red Tornado character but making her Earth 2 Lois Lane seemed a little too coincidental. Is there a reason every alternate version of Lois ends up a metahuman? She's not a metahuman on Earth 1 and the only real connection is she's a supporting Superman character. Likewise, unmasking an alternate version of Jimmy Olsen as a super villain didn't go down all that well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 I was wondering how Earth-2 was. I stopped reading after the shit that was World's End. It sounds like it sadly didn't improve. I really wish Robinson had gotten the second book he was supposed to get. It would have allowed to him to continue to world build while hopefully speeding the plot up a little. I liked Taylor's run well enough, but you can tell he was just finishing off what he could of Robinson's plots while building to World's End. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spritenaut 32 Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 I thought Society was worse than World's End. Like I said, there was a lot in Society that I just didn't follow (even after re-reading some bits). The need for Batman's terraforming gizmo is... odd, because I couldn't seen any reason they'd need to terraform the planet. The planet seemed basically like the one they had left, and it was never explained what the crucial differences were. Also, they apparently had the ability to create insta-cities (they built nine cities on the new planet pretty quickly and with little effort, so.....). It was a fairly important plot point, but how this was going to work or why it was necessary was pretty murky. I'm have no idea how Doctor Impossible was going to take over the new world and control everyone and everything (every molecule, he said) with a terraforming device. At least Sloane's plan seemed doable, even if you weren't sure of the how or why. I thought Taylor turned in better scripts than JDR. But, yeah, he was probably working from JDR's outline. Taylor moved things along better than JDR, though it's hard to compare since JDR was obviously setting up a lot of long-term stuff. The net effect was the war with Darkseid went on way too long and way too draggy. The Superman turn and another Kryptonian stuff was fun, though. I've liked JDR's recent Marvel team books more than I liked Earth 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 I never did finish Robinson's Invaders run. I also have yet to check out his Squadron Supreme. How has the latter been? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 2, 2016 Author Share Posted June 2, 2016 Its okay. I would recommend Scarlet Witch first. The rotating artist gimmick makes it a little like times past. Flipped through batman 1. Wasnt not expecting that kind of reboot from Calendar Man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 I think I like Batman the least of the four Rebirth books today. Although Superman wasn't so much a story as it was a recap of the (admittedly out there) status quo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 I'm disappointed to hear that. Batman was one of the ones I had considered picking up later. How are the other books? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Unholy Dragon Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 I liked all four Rebirth specials this week a lot. The Superman one was probably the weakest by virtue of being mostly recap. The Batman one was fine but felt more like a Snyder one off than anything monumental. Green Lanterns impressed me a lot. More excited for that than I expected to be. I think the best of the four was actually Green Arrow though. Ben Percy was doing low key great stuff pre-Rebirth but this is a step up, doing a lot to merge the current take with the classic. Also bringing in Black Canary worked super well...in general I'm way more pumped for this than I was beforehand and it may be a sleeper standout of the line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 Yeah, Batman wasn't bad, but the two Green books were really good. Especially Arrow. I hadn't read GA don't the first few New 52 issues, but that was solid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 2, 2016 Author Share Posted June 2, 2016 Because i was quickly skinming, who is the new kid? Relative of Lucius? The guy from batwing? Someone new? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 He's the lead character from We Are Robin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 2, 2016 Author Share Posted June 2, 2016 Gotcha. Never looked at one of those. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 Duke Thomas. First appeared in Zero Year. We Are... Robin is kinda a group of teens who just decide to all become Robins. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 Never read We Are Robin, but he had a decent arc in Batman & Robin Eternal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Unholy Dragon Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 4 hours ago, Brian Fowler said: Yeah, Batman wasn't bad, but the two Green books were really good. Especially Arrow. I hadn't read GA don't the first few New 52 issues, but that was solid. FWIW Lemire+Sorrentino had a killer run and Percy wrote the character for about ten issues before Rebirth too. I read the first three before flipping back to tradewaiting, but it was comparably good. The only reason I might go singles this time is because I'm such a sucker for Ollie/Dinah. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 On 26/05/2016 at 1:57 PM, Vader does my taxes! said: Rebirth was pretty damn great. As was the wrap-up of Justice League. Like I said a page or two back, I'm really going to miss Johns as a writer. Glad they brought back Wally. Wish they'd bring back older Oliver Queen and his goatee, but that seems somewhat unlikely as long as the tv show is a thing. So sooner or later, Dr. Manhattan will be positioned as the new Anti-Monitor in some sort of Crisis event, right? Moore will go berzerk. I'm really digging the idea of Rebrth, but I'm not sure that translates into sales for DC. Right now, my DC pull list is down to four titles (King Batman, Wonder Woman, All-Star Batman, Tomasi Superman book). Though some (all?) of those are bi-monthly so I may actually end spending more on DC. I'm going to miss DC Now (and New 52, for that matter) being willing to take more chances on experimental books/creators/characters. I'm not really a huge fan of the iconic characters, so paring the line to focus mostly on the Bat family, Supes, Wonder Woman, etc. isn't really the way to pull me in. I was a lot more interested in Omega Men and Secret Six than I am anything in Rebirth except WW. Also, like Marvel right now, DC is sort of thin on esiablished writers I like well enough to follow to most any title. I bought DC Universe Rebirth Special #1, great stuff. I'm getting Batman: Rebirth #1, Detective Comics #934 and Batman #1. I'll likely be getting All Star Batman #1 and Nightwing: Rebirth #1 too. I'll then read what's in Batman, a UK publication which reprints recent Batman stories. Batman's a given in it, probably All Star Batman to carry on Scott Snyder's stories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WholeFnMachine Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 6 hours ago, The Unholy Dragon said: FWIW Lemire+Sorrentino had a killer run and Percy wrote the character for about ten issues before Rebirth too. I read the first three before flipping back to tradewaiting, but it was comparably good. The only reason I might go singles this time is because I'm such a sucker for Ollie/Dinah. Nice to see the Lemire & Sorrentino run getting some love as it was great. I also liked Percy's pre-rebirth run and am stoke to see him continue on. The short run between Lemire & Percy sucked ass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spritenaut 32 Posted June 5, 2016 Share Posted June 5, 2016 So I'm rereading Jamie Delano's Animal run for like the fourth time. This... may be the most polarizing comic I've ever read. Large stretches of it are very, very good, but the whole thing is just so weird. I really can't decide if it's genius or the shit that results when you do a lot of drugs and crawl really far up your own butt, and no one is around to reign you in. It kinda reminds me of the story Lawrence Block tells about the time he and some other mystery novelists decided to play poker all night and write a novel at the same time (one guy would tap out of the poker game and go write for an hour or two while the others played, then someone would come relieve him and guy 1 would rejoin the poker game while someone else picked up the novel where the first guy left off, and so on). One of the dudes took some pills to stay awake, then drank a lot of alcohol. He banged out his chapters and then some in about two hours, but, when the rest of them read it later, they realized he was writing gibberish that made sense only to his hopped-up brain. I am pretty sure that greenlighting this was a terrible idea, even for a Vertigo book. Most of this is too anti-commerical even for Vertigo's crowd. It's a fascinating experiment, but... I dunno. I kinda want to see Buddy beat up Mirror Master once in a while, not watch him transform into a winged monster and have interspecies sex with followers high on peyote. Oh, and the Cliff stuff is just icky. The uncle who was a serial killer was nasty and perverse, but Delano strongly implies Cliff has psychopathic/sociopathic tendencies. Ick. Ick. Ick. Mostly, this really seems like the sort of thing Johns was taking shots at in Rebirth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 5, 2016 Author Share Posted June 5, 2016 I think the Milligan arc is now underrated and prob mostly forgotten comng right after Morrison. i gave up on Delano's run early on. Much prefer his Hellblazer run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 DC Universe Rebirth Special #1. This comic introduces us to DC’s Universe Rebirth and what a debut. A great comic I read twice with important happenings… Wally West is back. Wally is my Flash down to the animated Justice League, Justice League Unlimited series and the few comics I’ve read. I’m happy for those (Brian Fowler) who know the character more than I do. I really like how Wally’s commentary in parts can be directed at criticisms people have of the New 52. “I’m forgotten”, “Legacies were destroyed, “A darkness from somewhere has infected us” and “Barry, it wasn’t just me that was forgotten. There were friendships. Relationships”. I’m intrigued by the reveal there’s three Jokers. Pictured are original Joker, The Killing Joke Joker and Endgame Joker. Let’s see how this plays out. A Superman has died yet there’s another on this Earth, bearded with Lois Lane and Son. THE Holy Shit moment for me is the DC Universe is watched by the Watchmen with the Comedian’s smiley badge Batman retrieves in the Batcave and the epilogue with Doctor Manhattan responsible for stealing ten years from the DC Universe. At the start of Chapter 2: Do you know more about the old man and the woman who’s seen the future? I ask as I’m not familiar with Flash’s history apart from the recap in Chapter 1. Also the other Wally West, created for the New 52 to try and appease fans of the original cast aside? Forgot something, who’s Jackson? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Unholy Dragon Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 The New 52 Wally is such a weird issue. He's a fine character in his own right and progressing things to a more diverse racial lineup is good, but he's so different from classic Wally that he may as well be a different character which makes him *actually* being a different character a decent solution. On one hand, there's dicey racial politics in the notion that only the white Wally gets to be the Flash, but with the current admins' hard on for the Silver Age now having spent a decade regressing to those iterations and cementing them as *the* characters, black Wally wasn't going to be the Flash in a meaningful way anyway so they were kind of already in that hole. The stupid thing is, I think in a lot of ways that in 2016 a black Barry Allen would work better than the white one we've got and would be a better statement for diversity, but it's not gonna happen so it's a moot point. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 The old man was Johnny Thunder from the Justice Society of America. The girl was a member of Legion of Superheroes, possibly Dream Girl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted June 7, 2016 Author Share Posted June 7, 2016 Spoiler I thought it was Saturn Girl. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bustronaut Posted June 7, 2016 Share Posted June 7, 2016 She was wearing red Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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