DC Comics Relaunch revisited

The Ronin here,

The DC relaunch is here and its so far been mildly successful, in that the reviews have been more positive then negative and sales for September were good. So back in July I looked over some of the new DC books and wrote a short blog post about what books I was likely going to pick up. With one exception I have picked up all of those books. So did they live up to expectations? Let's see.

1) Action Comics

Action Comics is good, but controversial. There are basically two opinions of Action Comics. "Holy shit this is good!" and "This guy isn't MY Superman!" I am definitely in the first camp. Not only is it fun and actually action filled but Morrison does a good job making it accessible and easy to follow. Superman is new, young and willing to kick as some ass if it means standing up for the poor and disenfranchised.

I think Action Comics succeeds for the same reason the original Action Comics succeeded, by having Superman fight for the everyman, in a time period when the everyman has very little, and no one standing up for them.

Action Comics is good and is on the 'pull list'. With the second issue out I do not see that changing any time soon. I can not encourage people to try it more. After issue 6 it is supposedly jumping forward to 'modern time', I don't know how well the formula will hold out but so far its great. The Art is also brilliant (if not a little inconsistent, sometimes Supes looks 17, other times 38) and we get a Superman who looks scary when he wants to and understands how to intimidate and have fun. Some people felt he has been a little to rough, but honestly I am not going to shed any tears over a fictional man who roughs up his own wife (who Supes threw out a window into a river off panel) and a millionaire who endangered the lives of hundreds for a few more dirty bucks.

Star Trek #1

The Ronin here,

I am a huge Star Trek fan. I love it all, even some of Voyager. I also loved the 2009 movie. It was not flawless by any means but it was great fun. It brought tons of new viewers in as well, something that is never bad. IDW has the license to produce “Star Trek” comics and damnit they are going to use it.

Trek is an interesting property, because there is tons of crossover appeal between people already in comic shops and people who like Star Trek.

That means this cover, and this issue has a really easy job to do. Put Star Trek on the cover and put it out there, if people want to pick up some trek they will get it. Easy enough. This is a first issue and starts a new journey appropriately enough. The cover is pretty simple, well actually there were a bunch of covers all of them do a good job tying this issue into the 2009 movie.

The Green Lantern: Better late than never

I don't have much to say about a movie I didn't care much about to begin with. With time to kill on my husbands fathers day, I went in just wanting to be entertained for a couple of hours.

Although it didn't entertain quite as well as I hoped, it wasn't the worst.

I noticed a couple things that if I were to be a fan, would have made me pissed. Hector Hammond's backstory is basically non existent. They never let us in on the relationships he had with Hal and Carol growing up. Which made me wonder what the point of him being there was anyway.

The thing that bothered me the most was this: So much potential for bad ass battles, but not a lot was offered. I spent a good deal of the movie imagining things of my own that would have been a hundred times better than...a racetrack?

Captain America 615.1

The Ronin here,

Today we have Captain America 615.1. I liked this comic book, however I have a few issues with it. We will get into that in a moment.

As a 'point one' issue this is designed to introduce the illusive new reader into the book. I suspect that explains our cover. It is a fairly generic cover. Cap is running at the reader but in a world war II setting, and he appears to be wearing his costume from the up and coming movie, my only issue with this is this issue has nothing to do with World War Two, (aside from a couple of panels of flashback) and he does not wear this costume in the book at all.

We start with a very brief recap page, which is good, the only problem is it is a little to vague. For example there is a big subplot going on about Bucky, and while it is mentioned in the book in passing, The book never explains to the reader what has happened. I feel they could of been a little more specific. (they said "legal trouble" then quickly moved on.)

I liked the art on the book, it was very moody and fit the tone of the book, though I can understand why some people would not like it.

Green Lantern doesn't suck!

The Ronin here,

This is a spoiler free half assed look at the 'Green Lantern'.

Going to go over a few quick things, I went into the theater ready to be disappointed friday, but I walked out of the theater with a smile on my face.

'Green Lantern' is the sole DC property up this year, and DC has not had the same kind of success Marvel has had outside of the Nolan films. (which won't be in the same continuity as Green Lantern or any later Justice League movies) 'Green Lantern' is probably also DC's most difficult super hero to pull off well. He flies through space with aliens acting as a cop, he gets his powers from a goofy ring given to him by blue dwarves, he uses his ring to make goofy constructs to fight villains etc. In some ways it is DC's 'Thor', in that it would be the hardest to sell to a mainstream audience.

Why aren't you reading Avengers Academy?

The Ronin here,

No one is buying Avengers Academy.

In a way we are fortunate, Marvel likes this series. Which is probably the only thing keeping it from suffering the same fate as 'Young Allies' and 'Spider-Girl'. Of course it is also better then 'Young Allies' and 'Spider-girl'. Not that Young Allies actually had much of a chance to shine. the titular allies barely come together by the final issue of the series.

I understand why people aren't giving it a try. For one there are a lot of Avengers titles right now, 'Avengers', 'New Avengers', 'Secret Avengers', 'Avengers: The Children Crusade', 'Ultimate Avengers', 'Avengers: Rehab', 'Avengers: Cleveland' and finally 'Avengers: Daycare'. Some of the real ones even sell quite well. Actually there is a lot of good stuff out there for today's busy Avengers fan.