My Overall Thought On The New 52

The New 52 has come and gone and I have only read 28 out of the 52 and I have had a different experience with each one; some were really good and a few were really bad.

At first, I believed that The New 52 would retell stories, origin stories at the most, but that's what we didn't get at all; if you're rebooting series to bring in new stories, you should at least retell the origins of the characters, DC can still probably do that in the next few issues, and hopefully they will. Honestly, DC doesn't really need to explain Batman or Superman. That's just one big irk I have with the reboot, it doesn't go back all they way to the beginning, DC still uses stuff that happened in previous comics. I don't mind using Google to look up the back stories, but I don't want to do that with too many comics.

If I had to pick my top 10 from the twenty eight I have read, it would go like this:

1. Aquaman
2. Red Hood and the Outlaws
3. Batman and Robin
4. Batman
5. Nightwing
6. Deathstroke
7. Suicide Squad
8. Batman: The Dark Knight
9. Blue Beetle
10. Justice League

Surprisingly, Aquaman is my favorite by far (read my review on it if you want to know why). I'm going to continue reading most of the ones I have picked up, some I most likely won't continue with, but I will pick up some new ones I haven't read; I've heard All-Star Westerns and Blackhawks were good, so I'll have to give those a read. For those wondering, these are the one's I have read:

• Action Comics
• Aquaman
• Batman
• Batman: The Dark Knight
• Batman and Robin
• Blue Beetle
• Catwoman
• Deathstroke
• Detective Comics
• Green Arrow
• Green Lantern
• Green Lantern: New Guardians
• Green Lantern Corps
• Justice League
• Justice League Dark
• Justice League International
• Legion Lost
• Nightwing
• O.M.A.C.
• Red Hood and the Outlaws
• Red Lanterns
• Static Shock
• Suicide Squad
• Superman
• Swamp Thing
• Teen Titans
• The Flash
• Wonder Woman

There are some I haven't read yet, such as Green Lantern: New Guardians, Justice League Dark, Legion Lost and Teen Titans. Like I said though, I do plan on continuing with all of these except for Green Arrow, O.M.A.C., Swamp Thing and possibly Static Shock (I'm going to wait a few more issues to see what I'm going to do with Static Shock). Green Arrow, I couldn't get into, O.M.A.C. is too weird for me and holds nothing interesting, Swamp Thing and Static Shock are in the same boat, I want to like them but I'm having such a hard time with them.

In the end, I really did enjoy The New 52 and I believed it to be successful. I was a Marvel fan boy at first and now I'm enjoying the DC Universe way more than I initially thought I would, hell, Aquaman is my favorite comic for DC right now, who would've though that would happen. If you really want to jump into the DC Universe, then now is the chance, it's not 100% the best way, but it is the best way for now. Kudos to DC for drawing me in to their comics, I'm going to have a blast with these new comics I'm reading.

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The Flash Review

The Flash has been a comic I have wanted to get into and learn more about, and luckily The New 52 has given me the chance this week with the relaunch of the Fastest Man Alive. The first issue of The Flash from The New 52 was just an alright issue for me, nothing really stood out besides that the artwork was really nice and the end was a surprise.

The beginning of the issue reminded me a lot of Spider-Man in the sense that Barry was on a date at an event, a robbery took place at the event, Barry had to sneak out to turn into the Flash in order to keep his identity a secret and after the baddies are taken care of he sneaks back while someone was trying to find him. I'm not saying all that is a bad thing, it just kept me with something familiar and made me want to read more on what's going on.

The artwork in here was really well done, it's probably one of the best parts about the issue; Brian Buccellato did a superb job with the nice coloring and Francis Manapul was excellent with his crisp artwork. Speaking of the look of the comic, I really enjoyed how the beginning was laid out, it reminded me a bit of a movie. You have the beginning of the comic with something dramatic going on and them the hero comes running out with the credits between each panel of Barry turning into Flash; you really don't see that too much in comics.

In here, we are not given a villain straight away or having some bad guy blow something up, instead we have a mystery at foot in which Barry is trying to figure out, which seems to involve clones of a dead friend of his. It looks like it has potential, that's why I'm going to continue reading, just to see what happens.

I've heard that Flashpoint is still canon in the New 52, I'm not too sure if that is entirely true or not considering I haven't read much DC comics prior to the reboot. If it is true though, then I'm surprised because you don't need to know much backstory unlike Green Lantern, all you need to do is Wikipedia Barry's background and that should be good for now.


Overall, I believed The Flash to be just alright; it wasn't the best comic to come out of The New 52, but it wasn't the worst either. The writing was weak, but what Flash is going to face in the next issue made it interesting at least and the artwork to me is what held the comic together the most. Nothing pops out besides the artwork, the opening and the end. I'm going to continue reading the series though, just to see if it does pick up for me.

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DC 52 Covers

While surfing the internet, I found this picture someone made that shows the covers of the upcoming DC 52 relaunch/reboot (whatever you want to call it) along with the writer and artist for the comics.

I'll most likely be checking out:

• Justice League
• The Flash
• Green Arrow
• Justice League International
• Captain Atom
• Green Lantern
• Green Lantern Corps
• Green Lantern: The New Guardians
• Red Lanterns
• Batman
• Batman & Robin
• Teen Titans
• Static Shock
• Deathstroke
• OMAC
• Blue Beetle

The others don't interest me as much, but I'll ask around and see what others thinks of them and I'll go from there. I'm still excited for this new relaunch/reboot since it will give me a chance to jump into DC without reading an excessive amount of comics.

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DC Renumbering All Titles

DC Comics has announced that they will be renumbering over 50 of their comic titles back to No. 1; their reason for doing such a leap is to bring in new readers. The renumbered comics will be more up to date with current events and more modern costumes.

"In September, more than 50 more first issues will debut, introducing readers to stories that are grounded in each character's specific legend but also reflect today's real-world themes and events. Lee spearheaded the redesign of more than 50 costumes to make characters more identifiable and accessible to comic fans new and old."

"We looked at what was going on in the marketplace and felt we really want to inject new life in our characters and line," says Dan DiDio, who co-publishes DC with Lee. "This was a chance to start, not at the beginning, but at a point where our characters are younger and the stories are being told for today's audience."

The first comic to be renumbered will be Justice League this Summer on August 31st, written by Geoff Johns, the JL will include heroes such as: Aquaman, Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, Superman and Wonder Woman. 

This might or might not be a smart move for DC; it gives them a chance to bring in new readers, or it might dissuade current readers and make them feel like they are wasting their time re-reading their favorite heroes. Either way, I am supporting this, just because it finally gives me a chance to jump into the DC Universe. For the past few months I have been trying to start reading more DC comics, starting with Infinite Crisis and trying to catch up. skipping Final Crisis just because I found it so boring. I am currently on the prelude to Darkest Night, and I will try to catch up all the way to Flashpoint. We'll see how all of this turns out soon enough.

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