|
Now. Here. Man.
|
Nowhere Man takes on the New 52, Week 3!!!!
Batman:
Like Green Lantern, Batman's continuity is pretty much unchanged, so there's no 'fresh start' to be had here. What we do have, though, is a really good jumping-on point, showing the awesome gadgets that Bruce is sporting these days, setting up the current status quo, and then throwing a bigass wrench in the works at the very end to get you into the next one. I also really liked the interaction between Batman and Harvey Bullock; it's nice to see Bats chat with cops that aren't Jim Gordon. The art's very nice as well. This one was.....mediocre. I mean, the artwork is nice (though Black Canary's new costume is kind of ugly) and it does its job of setting things up, but there's nothing really to make it work. Plus, the framing of the story, constantly switching between flashbacks and the present, was jarring and poorly constructed. And what's up with Barbara being against Dinah forming a new team? I mean, you'd think she would be on board at the drop of a hat, considering she can walk again now. It's nothing offensively bad, but it's also kind of slapped together and ultimately very forgettable. Seriously, can we please get Ted Kord back? I've been missing the Beetle/Booster duo for about five years now, and DC's never really done anything to make me like the new kid. It's annoying enough that their version of expanding diversity in their superhero lineups comes not from creating new and original characters that would appeal to the demographic they're meant to represent, but instead by killing off existing characters and replacing them with acceptably 'diverse' ones. It's even more annoying that they continue to shove a character down the audience's throat who has no interesting characteristics beyond his ethnicity.
Also, it annoys me to no end how they feel the need to hammer home the fact that he's Latino by having him speak nearly a complete sentence in English, then pick out one or two random words and say them in Spanish. That just seems cartoony. Granted, it's not as bad as in, say, Assassin's Creed II when everyone's Italian and it's assumed that they're speaking in Italian and the audience just hears it in English so you don't have to read subtitles, but then they'd pick random words and say them in Italian anyway, so it's like they're speaking double-Italian. In Blue Beetle, I can accept them being bi-lingual, even if it comes off as extremely forced.
Anyway, rant aside, this comic was serviceable. It did its job of setting up what the Scarab does, who's out to get it, and why. Plus the art really fits the tone of the comic, methinks. Overall, it's an okay comic, but like Birds of Prey, not a particularly memorable one. This was an interesting book. I liked that Atom's got a bit more personality than he's usually portrayed, and the angle they're doing with his powers is pretty entertaining. The art seems like kind of a love-it-or-hate-it sort of stylistic choice (I personally did not care for it), but overall it's a solid book. Hey, I don't know if you're in the know on this, but.....are you aware that Catwoman has breasts? Because the writers apparently feel that raising awareness of Catwoman's breasts is a major issue in this day and age. I get that she's supposed to be the femme fatale character who uses her sex appeal to get her way, but I honestly cannot imagine being able to read this comic in public and not feel like an enormous pervert. Also, the ending where she has sex with Batman pretty much came out of nowhere, and seems like they blew their load way too early with that, both figuratively and literally. I really enjoyed this one. Guy Gardner and Jon Stewart play off each other really well, as both of them have trouble dealing with their 'down-time' and coping with the fact that they're usually redundant when you've got Hal and Kyle around. They also set up a rather interesting new threat for the GLC, one that should make for a very entertaining story. I am absolutely bowled over by how much I don't care about the Legion of Super-Heroes. And like too many of the lesser titles in the DCnU lineup, this comic didn't do much of anything to warm me up to them. Like Legion Lost, there's no real jumping-on point for new readers, so the whole thing feels really inaccessible unless you've already read the Legion before. I didn't actively hate the book, but it completely failed to get me to care about it. In terms of storyline, this one felt very weak, as a lot of it was just Dick putzing around until the last few pages. In terms of character, though, this one was great. Out of everyone in the Batman universe, Dick feels like the most developed and matured character, seeing how far he's come over the years, and it's nice to just follow him around and get back in touch with himself. The ending was a little jarring, though, but it did leave me wanting answers, and that's kind of the point of a detective story. Anyway, even if it did kind of drag its feet, I really liked it. I've never cared about Roy Harper, and in my opinion the most worthwhile thing Jason Todd ever did was get killed. They played off each other fairly well, though. What really bugged me, though, was their treatment of Starfire. It's like they all sat down, looked at Harley Quinn's trashy new outfit, then went "okay, we're really going to have to apply ourselves if we want to make Stafire even more pointlessly skanky than that," and by gum, they pulled it off. I mean, now she's a flighty slut who doesn't remember any of her romance with Dick or her tenure on the Teen Titans because "human stuff is boring, now let's fuck." It's like she was written by a 13-year-old; nothing beyond pure wank material. And considering she's already boning both Jason and Roy at the same time, right now the only major long-term plot development they've got is when they're going to attempt a spit-roast on her. The art's nice, but the writing is drivel, and reinforces the stereotype that comic-fans are in dire need of getting laid. There isn't much going on here story-wise, although it does have a rather nice action sequence. Unfortunately, since the action sequence takes up the majority of the book, you plow through it really quickly and feel like you've only read half a comic. On the plus side, it does do a good job of making Supergirl rather sympathetic, showing how disoriented and confused she is arriving on an alien planet. A decent showing, and hopefully it'll get better as it goes. This one I was not expecting to like, let alone love. And I was wrong. This is one of the most intriguing and exciting takes on the WW mythos I've ever seen. Shifting gears away from being a traditional superhero comic and more towards mythological horror is a big step in the right direction, as it carves out a niche for Wonder Woman to excel on her own, without drawing comparisons to Superman and Batman (plus she can do the regular cape-and-tights stuff in Justice League). Having the Greek gods portrayed as unsympathetic bastards wandering around the real world doing fucked-up things is good too, as it gives Diana a way better cast of villains than her usual stuff, and calls up shades of Neil Gaiman. Wonder Woman's been needing an exciting new take on her franchise to justify her spot on the A-list for a long time now, and this absolutely gets the job done. |