Day-And-Date: Justice League 2, Batman 2, Nightwing 2, Wonder Woman 2

Justice League 2
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artists: Jim Lee & Scott Williams
Rating: 4 out of 5 Pixels

Like the first issue, this is not the world-changing comic it was promised to be, but it's still an enjoyable read. Even better than the first in that it's starting to feel more like a Justice League book now that we have Superman and the Flash in addition to Batman and Green Lantern. Still no sign of Wonder Woman (except in a text piece at the end) or Aquaman, though. In true Geoff Johns fashion, we get a sequence where Barry Allen proves that he's the awesomist ever,

but then on the next page Clark shows that he's still pretty darn awesome too, lest we piss off Superman fans. (And I think I might be a Superman fan, now that he has a personality. It's interesting to see the dynamic between these characters now that Clark is no longer the level-headed one.)

But memo to Geoff Johns: A cliffhanger where the left half of Victor Stone's body is all mangled from an explosion is not really a cliffhanger. It's not like anyone doesn't know how that story ends. (His brain is put into a robot body and he becomes Robotman, of course.)

Batman 2
Writer: Scott Snyder
Artists: Greg Capullo & Jonathan Glapion
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Pixels

Good stuff, from page 1 to 20. Great character moments for Bruce, fascinating historical details about Gotham, intriguing hints of some kind of secret society. Also, I love that Bruce has a page full of captions to represent the thoughts that run through his head in the couple of seconds it must take to be thrown out a window and fall toward the ground below:

Nightwing 2
Writer: Kyle Higgins
Artists: Eddy Barrows, J.P. Mayer, & Paulo Siquiera
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Pixels

A good issue all around, but I dunno, nothing really stands out about it. Except that Dick's redhead of the week calls Bruce his boss, and Dick doesn't correct her. Did Bruce never adopt Dick in the new continuity? If so, that will make me sad. Also, I could swear that there's been a story where Dick bought Haly's Circus before, which bothers me not so much for continuity's sake as for the sake of feeling like I'm reading a new story, not one I've read before. Oh well, the last page promises some kind of huge reveal about the circus coming up, which hopefully will make this story stand out from similar ones that have preceded it.

Wonder Woman 2
Writer: Brian Azzarello
Artist: Cliff Chiang
Rating: 4 out of 5 Pixels

I felt a little lukewarm about the first issue of this series, but this issue rocks. It's got humor, action, intrigue, and best of all, the plot is much easier to follow than the first issue's was. I'm kind of angry that the last page reveal was spoiled in all the coverage of the New York Comic Con, though, because otherwise I think it would have totally caught me off guard (in a good way). I love that Hippolyta is blonde again, because it goes back to her roots (no pun intended) and because it visually distinguishes her from Diana. Depending on who was drawing her, black-haired Hippolyta often looked like Wonder Woman's identical twin. Also, I love this exchange:

The look on Hermes' face in that middle panel made me laugh out loud.

A Month Late and a Dollar Short: The Last Flashpoint Friday

Flashpoint 5
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artists: Andy Kubert, Jesse Delperdang, & Sandra Hope
Rating: 2 out of 5 Pixels

In this finale that was meant to tie-up about twenty loose plot threads, introduce the biggest reboot in decades, and wow us all to pieces, Geoff Johns fails to deliver. Instead what we get is a story that takes us from Point A to Point B in a rather anticlimactic fashion, playing fast and loose with logic as it does so. Somehow, Barry saving his mother thirty years ago was "like a bullet shattering a windshield," altering time in every direction, in ways that no one bothers to explain. When the Flash runs, it's not so much about traveling from one place (or time) to another, but rather just the act of going really fast makes him magically appear wherever the story needs him to be, whether it's on his mother's couch or at his cosmic treadmill (which apparently exists in empty space, outside of reality) at the precise moment when he needs to be there in order to stop himself from saving his mother's life and thereby destroying the world. I can deal with these leaps of logic, though. Comic book laws of physics are typically... creative, especially when it comes to time travel and alternate realities. The thing that really bugged me about this issue, that made me just now drop the rating from 2.5 to 2 Pixels (even lower than I rated Red Hood and the Outlaws 1), is this scene:

See, Geoff Johns realized that if Barry decided to sacrifice his mom, even in order to save the entire world, he wouldn't come across as a hero. Rather, he'd come across as a douche who decided his mom's life wasn't worth everyone else's. So Johns writes in this scene where Barry's mom herself makes the decision to die in order to save the world, so instead of being the victim of Barry's douchery she's a hero, right? Except that this scene more or less comes out of nowhere, as far as characterization is concerned. We've seen Barry's mom for what, a few pages in the first issue or two of the series? If she was going to be the hero of this series, then she needed to be a bigger part of it all along. We needed to get to know her so that we'd understand that she's the type of person who sacrifices herself to save the world. We needed to care about her so that we recognize what this sacrifice means to her. Not what it means to Barry. Because this woman has been in the background for most of this series (as most women have), this scene comes across instead as her recognizing that she's not as important as the big (male) heroes, Flash and Batman and Cyborg, so she might as well just get out of the way so they can have their happy world back.

Sorry, Mr. Johns, I generally like your writing, but this just doesn't work for me. You created a (female) supporting character simply as motivation for the (male) main character, then tried to convince me that she's the hero of the story when in fact you just didn't want to make the main character look like a complete asshole. Bzzt. Try again.

Also, is it just me, or does Batman have a total double standard when it comes to fellow heroes who have tried to rewrite reality and in the process have killed innocents? Remember how he didn't forgive Green Lantern for years? This time, Flash tells him, "You know what? I just tried to go back in time and save my mom, but instead I created this new reality where millions of people suffered and died needlessly." And Batman is all like, "No worries, bro, it's cool."

Admit it, Batman, you just don't like Hal. It has nothing to do with him having been Parallax.

Day-And-Date: Teen Titans 1, Superman 1, Aquaman 1, Flash 1

This was a good week for comics. I enjoyed all four books I read and there wasn't any appalling hypersexualization of women in any of them. Good job, DC!

Teen Titans 1
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Artists: Brett Booth & Norm Rapmund
Rating: 4 out of 5 Pixels

I was pretty hesitant about this book after reading last week's Red Hood and the Outlaws, but I was pleasantly surprised by Teen Titans. Which makes me happy, because these are some of my favorite characters. I absolutely love Tim Drake here, as the veteran teen superhero trying to work behind the scenes, causing problems for the bad guys by blogging and wiki-leaking classified information. This is true to the character I have known since I first started reading comics. Bart Allen as glory hound isn't exactly as he's been portrayed in the past (he comes across a little more like the Timmverse version of Wally West), but it's not antithetical to his character in the way that sex-without-love blowup doll Starfire is, and there is a great moment where Bart demonstrates at once the impulsiveness of his Mark Waid era and the encyclopedic knowledge of his Geoff Johns era:

And then there's Cassie as car thief. Honestly, this doesn't seem out of character at all to me. Back when John Byrne first introduced the character, she became Wonder Girl by "borrowing" Diana's wig, gauntlet, and winged sandals. The character has always been a thief.

The overarching concept of the book, meanwhile, is a winner. In a world where people have superpowers, teenagers who have superpowers and do stupid things with them (regardless of good intentions) would be a real problem. The idea of teen heroes banding together to protect a world that fears and hates them is very X-Men, but it's enough of a twist on the concept that it doesn't feel overly derivative and in fact feels true to the core of Teen Titans. From the Fab Five (or was it Four at the time?) teaming up to fight their possessed mentors to Raven seeking out the teen heroes because the adults wouldn't trust her, the Titans have always been about superpowered teens coming together because grown-ups just don't get them. Thank you, Scott Lobdell, for not screwing this up.

Superman 1
Writer: George Perez
Artist: Jesus Merino
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Pixels

I was impressed by how much bang this comic gives for my buck. Every page is packed with panels and every panel is packed with words. And then I remembered that George Perez wrote this, and (a) Perez comes from the old school where a 22-page comic should take more than five minutes to read, and (b) Perez likely writes as if he's going to be doing the art, and heaven knows he can pack a ton into a single page of art. I'm still digging Superman's new personality, which is a little toned down here compared to Action Comics, but that makes sense since this Superman is a few years older. He's still way more interesting than Superman has been in years.

Aquaman 1
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artists: Ivan Reis & Joe Prado
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Pixels

In true Geoff Johns fashion, this comic is all about how awesome Aquaman is. It gets all metatextual with everyone being like, "Aquaman is lame" and "Did you see those SNL skits where they make fun of Aquaman?" and Aquaman is all like, "I'm too badass to even acknowledge your mockery of me." Not much happens, really, except that some Evil Creatures escape from The Trench and start Eating People (not sure why I capitalized that, it just seemed appropriate), Aquaman stops some bad guys, doesn't eat lunch, then tells Mera he's decided to live in the surface world. He doesn't really explain why, so one can only assume it's to prove to all the haters that he's the badassest superhero around. He does explain, however, that he doesn't talk to fish because fish are too stupid to talk, and therefore he has no problem eating them. I kind of dig this, as it goes against the obvious. I wonder whether Wonder Woman eats birds?

The Flash 1
Creators: Brian Buccellato & Francis Manapul
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Pixels

This actually reads very much like a Geoff Johns-written comic, in a good way. You've got the character-defining bits of newly-revealed backstory, the off-beat sci-fi mystery, and the shocking last-page revelation. I'm not too bothered by the somewhat murky continuity, as all the necessary basics are here: Barry is the Flash, he's a CSI guy, he's kind of dating his coworker, and Iris West is a pushy reporter who will likely be the third corner of a love triangle. Also, not only has Barry stolen Wally's costume (a hybrid of his comics and animated costumes that actually looks pretty cool), but he also totally stole Wally's opening line:

A Month Late and a Dollar Short: Flashpoint 4 + Other Flashpoint Stuff

Flashpoint 4
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artists: Andy Kubert & Jesse Delperdang
Release Date: August 3, 2011 (print)/September 2, 2011 (digital)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Pixels

In a recent post at Living Between Wednesdays, Johnathan asks what the theme of Flashpoint's world is. I don't know how well this theme carries through the end of the series, but I believe this panel from issue 4 suggests one possibility:

Flashpoint asks, "What would the DC Universe be like without hope?" Which makes it even more ironic that in the world of Flashpoint Barack Obama is president, whereas he isn't in the "world with hope" Billy Batson refers to above; is Geoff Johns really that cynical or did he just not carry that thought through to its logical conclusion? Regardless of Johns's feelings about President Obama, the fact that he's contrasting the hopeless world of Flashpoint with the hope-filled DCU gives me hope that the new DCU he's now constructing will not simply be a Marvelized DC Universe. Many consider the primary difference between Marvel and DC to be the latter's optimism versus the former's pessimism, and I'm reassured to see that Flashpoint 4 suggests that Johns considers that hopeful optimism an intrinsic part of the universe he's recreating.

When Justice League 1 came out this week, I was beginning to feel annoyed by DC's decision to release Flashpoint digitally a month after the print release date. Now that the New 52 has begun, who cares about Flashpoint? I'm thinking now, though, that it will be kind of fun to read the final month of Flashpoint concurrently with the first month of the New 52, and look for thematic throughlines.

Mini-reviews of other Flashpoint titles released digitally this week:

Flashpoint: Lois Lane and the Resistance 2
Rating: 3 out of 5 Pixels
Lois Lane meets up with Grifter's Resistance. High adventure with several unexpected cameos. I like that this story picks up threads from Flashpoint: Canterbury Cricket, as part of the appeal of Flashpoint is the idea of an entire world being contained within this set of miniseries and specials, and otherwise the Canterbury Cricket one-shot might have felt relatively pointless.

Flashpoint: Project Superman 2
Rating: 3 out of 5 Pixels
I was feeling pretty uninterested in this story about some random guy who the government tried to give Superman's powers, until the last few pages where we see a tweenage Kal-El meet a tweenage Lois Lane for the first time, protect her from a threat, and then watch her father selflessly sacrifice himself to save both kids. It was a nice moment, and good to see Sam Lane not be a total bastard for once.

Flashpoint: Batman, Knight of Vengeance 3
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Pixels
I really dig the premise of this series, that (spoiler alert!) Bruce Wayne was killed by a mugger instead of his parents, and that Thomas becomes Batman and Martha the Joker. This makes the Joker interesting in a way that the character has never been for me, and makes for a fascinating Batman/Joker dynamic. This issue has a particularly poignant moment in which Thomas asks Martha whether he should do what he can to change history so that they die instead of Bruce, and she makes him promise her he will do so.

Flashpoint: Secret Seven 3
Rating: 2 out of 5 Pixels
Um... I'm not sure exactly what happened in this issue. I'm kind of sort of intrigued by the possibility that plot threads will carry over from this book into Justice League Dark, considering the fact that both books share the same writer, protagonists, and antagonist, and the fact that these characters by their nature transcend dimensional boundaries, but honestly if Justice League Dark is as confusing as this is, I don't see myself sticking with it for long.

Flashpoint: World of Flashpoint 3
Rating: 3 out of 5 Pixels
This issue returns to the theme of hope, the idea here being that hope does exist in the world of Flashpoint, it's just not so visible. A nice issue focusing on the relationship between Traci 13 and her father, but the niceness crosses the line into cheesiness on the last page, in which everything is tied up nicely in a neat little package.

Day-And-Date: Justice League 1

Justice League 1
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artists: Jim Lee & Scott Williams
Release Date: August 31, 2011
Rating: 4 out of 5 Pixels

Perhaps more than any other New 52 title, this issue had a lot of hype to live up to. Does it succeed? Well, it depends on what exactly you were expecting. If you were expecting the greatest thing ever to happen to the Justice League, maybe not, but if you were expecting an entertaining, well-written comic with pretty pictures of iconic DC characters looking just a little different than you're used to, then yes it delivers. There are a lot of things this comic gets right: It establishes the new DC universe, where superheroes are not yet trusted by the public at large and the authorities. It focuses on the tense dynamic between Batman and Green Lantern, which is still new enough that it feels fresh and lends itself to natural character development and conflict. It sets the stage for Cyborg's new origin, which looks like it will keep the important pieces of the original--Victor is a successful athlete who doesn't get along with his scientist father--but loses the more dated "angry young Black man" aspects, and adds an interesting twist that ties Cyborg into the Justice League--his father is presumably one of the first experts in the emerging scientific field of superhuman studies. This comic also sets up the coming conflict that will no doubt bring this Justice League together, with a sense of foreboding. It does all this in a relatively quick-paced, fun-to-read narrative with equal shares of action, excitement, and humor.

A couple of things didn't quite work for me. First, Johns has committed the same sin that Grant Morrison did with 1997's JLA 1: After months of hype about the new, awesomer-than-ever Justice League, we didn't even get to see the entire team in the first issue. I understand that this is an origin story and the team hasn't formed yet, but at least make sure each of the characters on the cover makes an appearance! Of seven members of this League, three aren't to be found anywhere in this issue (unless you count the sketchbook material at the end). Making this even worse than Morrison's sin is the fact that Justice League 2 will not be out for another seven weeks, so really this issue feels like a teaser more than anything. It's a teaser that suggests good things to come, though, and I have faith that once this team comes together it will have been worth the wait, as it was with JLA.

The second thing that didn't work for me--well, "didn't work for me" is a little strong; perhaps better "that may or may not work for me in the long run"--is that the changes to the DC Universe we've seen so far suggest that the New 52 is DC's attempt to be more like Marvel. So far we've established that the Justice League lives in a world of people who hate and fear them, and that when superheroes first meet, they must naturally fight each other. Like I said, this may or may not work in the long run. Creating conflict for the protagonists and allowing personalities to clash are not necessarily bad things. And Marvel has been outselling DC for a long time, so I can understand why they might want to try out Marvel's secret sauce. I just hope that the creators involved in this initiative are not simply saying, "Let's Marvelize the DCU," but that rather they are taking what works for Marvel and applying it to the DCU in a way that makes sense for the characters and their world. And I also hope that's not the extent of their plan.

One thing that did work for me, though, is Jim Lee's art. It isn't perfect--there were a few panels that I had to look at twice to figure out what was going on--but overall the pictures were pretty, as you'd expect, and Lee even managed to surprise me. He is not typically known for great facial expressions, at least not in the way Kevin Maguire is, but Batman's self-satisfied smile here is priceless:

Perhaps a question I should answer on each of these Day-And-Date reviews is whether it's worth paying full price to read this comic now, or if you'd be better off waiting a month to save a dollar? I say buy it now. This is a great read, and clearly an important prelude to everything coming up in the next month.