So... dc has begun it's relaunched continuity. The first time DC has reset it's continuity since... what, every three years for the past decade?
Seriously, though, dc needs to be reset. They had me right through infinite crisis, and most of 52. They started to lose me in countdown... by final crisis I was done. I mean DONE. Who are these characters? It was completely unrecognizable.
So honestly, I don't even care HOW they get here. People have recommended that I read flashpoint, but I have no interest at all in the final chapter of the old DC. Bring on the new stuff!
First off, there's Justice League #1. Written by Geoff Johns, the guy that once upon a time was fameous for taking characters broken beyond repair and making them awesome again (his work on Hawkman will always be a favorite of mine) before he got out of hand and started fixing things that weren't broken, like the green lantern corp (now we have rainbow lanterns!) and the entire DC universe. Art is by Jim Lee, and honestly, even your mom knows who he is; probobly the single most sucessful comic artist in the past 20 years. I still measure every single x-men anything ever against his original chris clairmont-written run, and his wildstorm universe is the best stuff to come out of image that isn't green with a fin on it's head. He's been responsible for a lot of the costume redesigns going on, which is kinda cool, except that other people have to draw these designs, and no one else seems to make them look quite right. I shutter to think what it's going to look like when living legend george perez has to draw the new Superman armor in man of tomorrow.
The new justice league is a pretty good lineup, considering that it's supposed to be a brand new FIRST team: superman, batman, green lantern, wonder woman, flash, aquaman, cyborg. The obviously intriguing idea is that cyborg now gets to be a founding JL member, but honestly, he's always been a hairs breath from being in the league: it was just that he fit so nicely into the teen titans that kept him from making the jump. He even made it into that colossal super-friends style cartoon in the mid eighties that included firestorm and all the new characters like apache chief... I was to young to remember the specific name of the show, but honestly, they all run together.
(And yes, I know cyborg was in some of the recent iterations of the justice league, but honestly... so was congorilla.)
So, cyborg aside, the first thing I noticed was the last minute decision to de-pants wonder woman. All the promotional art featured a slight alteration to her recent pants-centric outfit, simply retooling the gold highlights to silver and adding some new bands. Not until the comic finally dropped did you see that she was suddenly back in her underwear. Even the adds for wonder woman #1 inside show the revamed pantsless look. I was honestly kinda warming up to the pants, but I have to admit, this look is a lot more familiar, so we'll just have to wait for the wonder woman series to see how this plays out.
Meanwhile, how about this actual issue? It reaches back a bit, telling the league's new origin story. This issue features the first meeting of batman and green lantern. The thing that really struck me was how fresh it felt, and yet how familiar. Hal's cockiness is suddenly front and center, no doubt thanks to Ryan Reynold's surprisingly non-horrible-if-moderately-retarded movie. Batman is as gruff as ever; DC would be beyond stupid to mess with him. What really moves in this issue is the layering of these two personalities and the differences in how they operate: both of them think the other is an obvious joke. Then when superman shows up, you REALLY get struck by him. The new tougher supes makes the character just explode from the page... I suddenly can't WAIT for action comics next week.
Supes costume really works when Jim draws it, but then he designed it, didn't he? I feel like such a follower, praising his work, but the fact is, the guy is really, really good. The whole issue looks phenominal. I don't know if I've ever seen Hal be so cavaleer about his constructs... filling whole cities with them. It all just pops.
I honestly don't see how Geoff can maintain this level of clever character interplay between seven seperate characters. If he can find some way to isolate and emphasize the character traits in all these new versions of classic heroes and play them off each other, then this is going to be a great read... but I just don't see how it can be done: it'll be a herculean task.
Great comic, though. Really makes me eager to read the books of the individual characters, and see how they all layer together.
Which was their plan all along. Jerks.
Seriously, though, dc needs to be reset. They had me right through infinite crisis, and most of 52. They started to lose me in countdown... by final crisis I was done. I mean DONE. Who are these characters? It was completely unrecognizable.
So honestly, I don't even care HOW they get here. People have recommended that I read flashpoint, but I have no interest at all in the final chapter of the old DC. Bring on the new stuff!
First off, there's Justice League #1. Written by Geoff Johns, the guy that once upon a time was fameous for taking characters broken beyond repair and making them awesome again (his work on Hawkman will always be a favorite of mine) before he got out of hand and started fixing things that weren't broken, like the green lantern corp (now we have rainbow lanterns!) and the entire DC universe. Art is by Jim Lee, and honestly, even your mom knows who he is; probobly the single most sucessful comic artist in the past 20 years. I still measure every single x-men anything ever against his original chris clairmont-written run, and his wildstorm universe is the best stuff to come out of image that isn't green with a fin on it's head. He's been responsible for a lot of the costume redesigns going on, which is kinda cool, except that other people have to draw these designs, and no one else seems to make them look quite right. I shutter to think what it's going to look like when living legend george perez has to draw the new Superman armor in man of tomorrow.
The new justice league is a pretty good lineup, considering that it's supposed to be a brand new FIRST team: superman, batman, green lantern, wonder woman, flash, aquaman, cyborg. The obviously intriguing idea is that cyborg now gets to be a founding JL member, but honestly, he's always been a hairs breath from being in the league: it was just that he fit so nicely into the teen titans that kept him from making the jump. He even made it into that colossal super-friends style cartoon in the mid eighties that included firestorm and all the new characters like apache chief... I was to young to remember the specific name of the show, but honestly, they all run together.
(And yes, I know cyborg was in some of the recent iterations of the justice league, but honestly... so was congorilla.)
So, cyborg aside, the first thing I noticed was the last minute decision to de-pants wonder woman. All the promotional art featured a slight alteration to her recent pants-centric outfit, simply retooling the gold highlights to silver and adding some new bands. Not until the comic finally dropped did you see that she was suddenly back in her underwear. Even the adds for wonder woman #1 inside show the revamed pantsless look. I was honestly kinda warming up to the pants, but I have to admit, this look is a lot more familiar, so we'll just have to wait for the wonder woman series to see how this plays out.
Meanwhile, how about this actual issue? It reaches back a bit, telling the league's new origin story. This issue features the first meeting of batman and green lantern. The thing that really struck me was how fresh it felt, and yet how familiar. Hal's cockiness is suddenly front and center, no doubt thanks to Ryan Reynold's surprisingly non-horrible-if-moderately-retarded movie. Batman is as gruff as ever; DC would be beyond stupid to mess with him. What really moves in this issue is the layering of these two personalities and the differences in how they operate: both of them think the other is an obvious joke. Then when superman shows up, you REALLY get struck by him. The new tougher supes makes the character just explode from the page... I suddenly can't WAIT for action comics next week.
Supes costume really works when Jim draws it, but then he designed it, didn't he? I feel like such a follower, praising his work, but the fact is, the guy is really, really good. The whole issue looks phenominal. I don't know if I've ever seen Hal be so cavaleer about his constructs... filling whole cities with them. It all just pops.
I honestly don't see how Geoff can maintain this level of clever character interplay between seven seperate characters. If he can find some way to isolate and emphasize the character traits in all these new versions of classic heroes and play them off each other, then this is going to be a great read... but I just don't see how it can be done: it'll be a herculean task.
Great comic, though. Really makes me eager to read the books of the individual characters, and see how they all layer together.
Which was their plan all along. Jerks.
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