Alright! Big update time on what I’ve been reading for anyone that cares. Lots of Batman related stuff mostly TBH.
-Batman and Robin with Dick and Damian: Really loved this, great stretch of comics
-Heroes in Crisis: Interesting take on heroes and PTSD. Not sure where it’s going.
-Long Halloween and Dark Victory: Both were exemplary
-Batwoman (New 52): Like the character, and love the art, but a lot of the storylines fall a little flat to me.
-Justice League Dark: It’s fine. Not quite as gothic as I had hoped for.
-Deathstroke (Rebirth): Seems like they really don’t know what to do with the character, dropped it relatively quickly.
-All-Star Batman: Solid. Enjoyed the arc focused on Alfred.
-Legends of the Dark Knight: Liked Gothic, Prey was “eh”, and Venom was pretty terrible.
-Batman Who Laughs: Metal follow up. I liked Metal, so this is keeping me entertained.
-Green Arrow: Enjoyed year one. Other stuff didn’t really grab me too much.
-Nightwing (Rebirth): Liked it a lot. Good reset for the character.
-Constantine: Dipped my toes in a couple of the DC Constantine runs. Good art in some of them, but uh, pretty boring?
-Future’s End: Uh, in my mind this was a mess. Too many threads to keep track of. Villains that fall kind of flat (Uh a mega-Brainiac is trying to steal NYC? And, generic AI gone bad). And pretty unsatisfying conclusion. Fairly disappointed with that 40+ issue arc.
-Lots of other Batman: Really liked Court of Owls. Fan of Zero Year. Hell, even liked when Gordon became mecha-Batman for a bit. Joker really stands out as a villain that some authors can have a lot of trouble with. Sometimes he’s the manifestation of chaos and evil. Other times he’s a psycho in a purple suit.
What’s next:
Looking forward to Gotham Central and War Games Wonder Woman and Conan looks fun
Is Convergence any good? Didn’t enjoy Future’s End, but the tagline seems interesting. And uh, I’ve got lots of quaran-time to readthrough it Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow sounds like a good read!
I’ve been slowly reading my way through some of the big DC summer events. Finished up Identity Crisis last week, and I think I’m getting close to the end of Infinite Crisis now. Then I’ll head into Final Crisis and Blackest Night and Flashpoint (which I’ve read before, but I need a refresher) before belatedly diving into Rebirth.
Despite the criticism from heavy comics nerds, so far these events have been pretty decent. Enjoyable fluff, anyway.
Almost all pages are made with standard squares and rectangles with symmetry. Even when chaos is taking hold you don’t see crazy splash pages. The art style follows suit; properly proportioned humans, subdued action shots, and lots of noir-ish shadow.
But for me what makes it is the dialogue. Any of the banter feels like it could be lifted straight from your favorite cop show. The characters are humanized so well. Their relationships are complicated and it doesnt shy away from showing the toll this kind of life would have on someone. Instead of being background noise for a Batman story, Batman is background noise for a cop story.
I’m thinking of picking up a DC Universe subscription. I haven’t read Gotham Central, but I love Ed Brubaker as a writer. Probably worth the price of admission just for that series.
I think they still have a free trial, so at the very least worth checking out. I’d say definitely worth it for Gotham Central; I’ll likely pick up the omnibus at some point.
Finished it today. The final arc absolutely crushed me. Definitely going to look into some of Brubaker’s Daredevil and Captain America work.
Is DC Universe’s comic coverage getting better? I thought they only had limited runs of the major series a year or so back, which is a huge drop off compared to Marvel Unlimited
