the dcu reboot

[ane]

Anyone interested in starting some discussions about the dcu reboot?

What titles did you read? Are you trying out any new titles?

I made two posts on my journal with short comments about the titles I read.
DC Comics
the rest of the new dcu comics

I rarely do any serious reading outside of the Batfamily titles so the ones I read were heavily weighed toward the bat titles. I thought the best two of the ones I read were Nightwing and Batman. The one new title that I didn't read before that I think I'll continue with is Blue Beetle.

Comments

[coldfiredragon]

You asked if anyone was up for discussing :) Here I am!

I posted this same set of comments on your actual journal so you can respond here or there its up to you.

Batman was my favorite book of the relaunch. I loved everything about it.

Birds of Prey I'm giving one more issue to see if something gets going. Only introducing two members of a four member team in the first issue felt like too slow of a start to me.

The Flash was okay. I like the new way Barry puts on his suit and there was a decent mystery established at the end of the issue.

Teen Titans I only read because my friends wanted to. It got off to a better start than I had anticipated. I like that they are restarting that version of the team. I wish though that DC was giving us a better explanation of what the Titans had been before this point so we had some references to what still stood from the past.

Red Hood and the Outlaws I really liked. I know I'm in a terrible small majority but I think now that the sex is hopefully out of the way and they have some kind of mystery going that it will get better.

Nightwing. I was super psyched for this book and it was kind of a let down in some ways. In other ways it was exactly what I wanted. I've been reading every interview Kyle Higgins has done since the title was announced and I have a good idea where he plans to go with the first few issues. It sounds awesome but I worry that it might be rehashing some of Dixon's run on the original Nightwing series. My main problem was the art. It was REALLY good art but the artist does NOT make Dick look like he's 21 again. (Higgins has stated on multiple occasions that Dick IS 21 again) The art makes him look 25 or older and it really throws me out of the story.

Other books I read that aren't mentioned here that I liked included:

Aquaman! OMG was this book good. They basically used the first issue to say 'this is what you THOUGHT Aquaman did but here's what he really CAN do and its way more than you thought'

All-Star Westerns wasn't set in the American west but in Gotham during that time period which was fine and dandy with me. It gave us a great cast of back characters from Gotham's history which made for a far better set-up than any story set in the west with a bunch of random characters we don't know.

Deathstroke was a surprise for me. It definitely wasn't the Slade Wilson I wanted to see but the book wasn't as bad as I expected either.

Justice League International introduced its whole cast in a single issue AND set them up on their first mission. This is what I want from a team book! Its going to be a mish-mash of international heroes who don't necessarily get along at first and have to learn to live with each other. its going to be great!

[ane]

I've seen a couple other people mention that Aquaman was really good, so maybe I'll take a look at it.

I didn't read any interviews with any writers so I didn't have any expectations for any of the titles. There certainly seemed to be a lack of collaboration in the art between Batman and Nightwing. In Batman, Dick looked tiny and very young, then in Nightwing he did look mid-20s-ish. Since I didn't know he was supposed to be 21 it didn't jar me. In Batman I'd wondered whether Dick had still been Batman for a year because I didn't think that anyone would have ever believed he was Batman since he was so much smaller than Bruce.

I'm going to give Red Hood and the Outlaws a chance. I can't resist a Jason and Roy title.

[coldfiredragon]

Dick was still Batman for a year. They kept everything that happened in the Batman titles before the relaunch and really didn't change a thing for the DCnU except for moving Dick back to Nightwing and healing Barbara so she could be Batgirl again. The worst thing about this is that DC is trying to apply their 5 year timeline idea to the Batman books without editing the history. Each of the Robins... yes there were still four of them, Dick, Tim, Jason, and Damian.... each was only Robin for about a year each.

The Batman characters all got deaged some. Higgins has stated that Dick's 21 but the artist for the Batman book stated somewhere that he was told that Dick was only 19... and that Bruce was only 30... with Tim being sixteen and Damian being ten. That is why they look so young in his art.

It pisses me off that there is such a change from one book to another and that DCs being so unclear that their own creators don't even know the right ages for sure.