New 52?

The editorial and overall planning seems chaotic, and I'm struggling to get excited about it as a universe...

But individual titles and creative names have come out well from this. It's been a really great opportunity for up-and-coming talents and there are some really great books being created (among some terribly mediocre ones, but that's to be expected).

There are titles that I get excited about, and can't wait for, and there are titles that I save for later reading when they're nicely collected (Batwoman, Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing, Animal Man are prime examples of this...beautiful stuff but it reads better at length rather than serialized).

So yes, it's been beneficial on the small scale, but a softer reboot with the same creative shake-up would have been much better in the long run without creating a bland, seemingly poorly thought-out continuity (there are titles that are already rewriting the facts presented in their earlier issues, which is a really weird state to be in).

If you haven't listened to any of the Fatman on Batman podcasts, they're worth a listen for hearing Scott Snyder and Kyle Higgins talk about what they're doing in the new 52 (regardless of your opinion on Kevin Smith, he does a great job of just chatting about everything with these people).
Plus Dini talks about various animated episodes and his comic work...I mean, yeah. He loves what he does and he does it exceptionally well.

Right now, the best I'm reading are Batman, Wonder Woman, Earth 2, Justice League, Aquaman, and Animal Man. Demon Knights is on the fence because Paul Cornell left it. Swamp Thing's probably gonna get dropped after Snyder's done there.

Really, Marvel's doing a lot better with NOW! than the New 52. The Avengers books have been pretty damn good. Although I think Image is on top right now, with books like Chew, Manhattan Projects, and especially especially Saga. Seriously, I could talk about how good Saga is for hours.

-UDC

I started out trying a lot of different titles, but am now back to casually keeping up with just a few. Mainly Flash, Earth 2, and Justice League. There are others I'd still like to check out. Wonder Woman and Aquaman seem to have a consensus of good reviews. I have been disappointed that the whole process obviously wasn't thought out better. It would have been nice to see DC tighten up their characters and continuity without all the mess. I made the joke about the Young Justice cartoon, but I find myself watching it and missing the old continuity quite a bit.

I guess I should have asked about Marvel NOW also. Biggest major refocuses for both companies in quite some time. I like their cover treatments so far and the Fantastic Four stuff seems like something I'd dig. I'm having trouble parsing out all the Avenger and X-men books though. There are so many!

I've read a few Manhattan Projects and liked it okay. Picked up the first trade of the revamped Prophet and will dive into that this weekend. And yeah, everybody is going nuts for Saga so I guess I'm reading that next. ha

I'll have to look through all the recommendations here a second time also. Definitely looking for a few new good reads.

NOW! is less of a reboot and more of a shake-up, with new creative teams on new old titles (they're #1's, but they'll go back to the old numbering systems eventually). It's been consistently better than the New 52 was when it kicked off. Without going into too much detail, here's the best so far:

Avengers (Jonathan Hickman, Jerome Opena) - Hickman goes big in his stories, which makes him kind of perfect for an expanded Avengers team (upwards of 20 members to choose from). There's less of a character focus than Bendis's run, but the plotting looks like it's going somewhere good and I'm excited for it.
Thor: God of Thunder (Jason Aaron, Esad Ribic) - I didn't read past the first issue, but I've heard a lot of good things about it and Aaron is my favorite writer in comics right now.
All New X-Men (Brian Michael Bendis, Stuart Immonen) - This is a one of the most reliably great creative teams out there. Bendis has a fantastic handle on the X-Men and Immonen's artwork is soooooo bloody gorgeous it hurts. I knew this was going to be good, I just didn't expect it to be THIS good.
Young Avengers (Kieron Gillan, Jamie McKelvie) - Yeah, we're one issue in. So what? Go read it. It's gonna be awesome.
FF (Matt Fraction, Mike Allred) - Didn't follow any of the F4 stuff before now, and I can still dig it. Fraction's got a handle on the weird science and family dynamic of it, but the real hook is Allred, who is an absolute beast on artwork.



I don't use this word often, but Saga is amazeballs. It's pure imagination in every book and it's an absolute blast.

Also, Chew is pretty damn awesome. We're thirty one issues, but it's all in trades right now, so check that out if you get a chance. It's weird and funny and fun and weird and awesome.

-UDC

I know. I'm a big Hickman booster, and the super-science of the F4 seems like a great sandbox for him to play in. I'll pick up the trades of FF and read them someday, but right now I'm backed up on reading stuff. Between Yahtzee Croshaw's new novel (It's called "Jam". It's about an apocalypse. With jam in it.), Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, and a few GN's I got for Christmas, plus the plays I'm going to have to read for my Script Analysis class, I've got enough reading to do for the next few months.

-UDC

I'm down to 2 titles: All-Star Western and Green Lantern. J&J will have to screw up really, REALLY bad for me to abandon Jonah Hex, but GL hinges on Geoff Johns keeping me interested. Almost dropped it until I saw that Simon Baz is actually a good character, not just some gimmick. Just wish I could avoid all this "Third Army" crap, because these sort of storylines have grown stale for me.

My husband and I are only getting a few Marvel NOW! titles -- Indestructible Hulk, Captain America, and Uncanny Avengers -- and we've been very happy with them so far. Outside of the Big Two, I just started buying Planet of the Apes: Cataclysm from BOOM! Studios, and I have to say it's probably one of the best licensed titles I've ever read. They took what little info we're given in the movies and expanded logically from there, plus it's set eight years before Taylor and his crew landed, so they could run with this for a long time.

Okay, guys and gals.

What would you like to see from the New 52 you haven't seen yet? What would grab your imagination at this point?

Or, would you like to go back to the Pre-Flashpoint DCU?

It is not enough to go back to the pre-Flashpoint universe. Not as it was right before Flashpoint, anyway. You'd have to go back further than that.

But above all, it's more than rewriting continuity or not rewriting it. Whether they restore the original Golden Age continuity, or reboot the whole thing again next week, won't matter at all, *unless the publishers, writers and editors change their attitude towards the heroes*.

The superhero has been deconstructed, victimized, brutalized, villainized, and in many other ways treated like garbage. As long as that continues, sales will continue to slump, and more and more reboots will be neccesarry to prop up sales.

Let the superhero be a superhero. Then we can worry about what continuity we should have.

Very good points. Is it superhero burn out then? I got lost in all the crossover madness too. I had high hopes for the reboot but it's lost me too. If I read a title I really just want to have to keep up with that one title. And more importantly I just want good comics. But I'd rather not have to hold my breath until the odd All-Star Superman comes along.

I want to hold onto the mainstream, because I've always loved it. And because I don't want to go off grumbling and sequestered into indie this and that or reserved entirely to hunting down work by individual artists.