General State of DC Comics

So, this post is not going to talk about Batman. My views on the Snyder series are in my top 10. It’s a very solid book, mostly remarkable for being one of the few books to survive the dumpster fire that is the New 52. Look, if DC wants to get all excited that their BATMAN book is almost as good as Hawkeye, they should feel free. How proud they must be! That alone is a testament to how much is going wrong at DC. I am aggressive about this because I honestly felt like prior to the new 52 a lot was going right for DC. They’d kicked Superman out of Action Comics and turned it over to Luthor and Paul Cornell, a wonderful team. They had a great Batgirl and Supergirl book. Detective Comics was interesting. Aquaman by Geoff Johns had some real promise. So did GL. Flash with Johns has great, again. Justice League needed to get an upgrade, but finding writing talent that can do that shouldn’t be that hard. Superman was, well, Superman (sort of sucks). For DC, this is a pretty good line-up.

In comes the New 52. Superman is a dicky teenager. Batman is a dicky twenty-something. Flash is written by an artist. David Finch is pretending to be a writer. Martian Manhunter is in the Authority. Dogs and cats are laying together. I have pretty strong feelings, clearly, about how crappy I think the New 52 has been. It’s way bad. I liked early Suicide Squad, Batman, and…basically nothing else. A few more books have popped up here and there, but, for the most part, I am not doing much DC reading at the moment. The reason being that, frankly, their writing talent is subpar. A lot of their books have very talented artists writing books that are clearly moronic. The Jason Todd, Arsenal, Starfire series is one of the ten worst book ideas I’ve ever heard of, but Kenneth Rocafort draws beautifully. I just don’t care about a single one of those characters and the turkey writing it couldn’t tell a story if it would get him out of hell. This is just infantile boob shots of Starfire over and over again. It’s 1990’s Marvel. It’s sad.

That said, not everything at DC is a disaster. Aquaman always needs to be relaunched as a result of him being a total tool. Jeff Parker is doing a pretty solid job of doing so. No one is going to care in a few years when Scott Snyder rewrites him as a vampire, but this book is actually going exceptionally well in my opinion. The Hercules story was great. The Chimera arc was solid. The Swamp Thing and Manhunter appearances have been handled well. I really enjoy this book. I’m a huge Parker supporter and, while I’m sad he’s writing a dead end book, I’m glad he’s writing something. Batman ’66 was actually pretty fun if you’re into that sort of thing. It’s not my cup o tea, but I can see nostalgics or Deadpool fans really digging it.

Green Arrow with Jeff Lemire was sweet. Look, Jeff Lemire is just good at writing. He had the obnoxious task of writing this book while the OC version of Arrow was being released on TV and handled it well. He borrowed the Diggle character (the best thing about the show) and did so well. He expanded the idea of what the arrow is all about (why an arrow at all instead of some other weapon?). He introduced some updated kung-fu like versions of the classic Arrow rogues in a way that gave credit to the old while inventing something new and fresh. I really liked this book. If you liked the Bru and Fracton Iron Fist – and you’d better – you’d like this book. They’ve already, of course, changed it over to be even more like the TV show – basically, an extension of the show – and turned it over to one of the folks from the Arrow program, Kreisberg. I dropped the book. I hated that move. Maybe it will still be good. I dunno. I will pick it up I trade if I hear it is I guess.

Suicide Squad by Sean Ryan is a solid book. I dropped it in a fit of rage at DC, but I didn’t hate it. I actually like a lot of the characters better here than I have in their appropriate places in the DC universe. For instance, the Harley solo book is a train wreck, but Harley here is pretty interesting. Deadshot is always a good character, complex and interesting as a result. The rotating parts of the cast seemed well-chosen, like a Morrison’s Animal Man Who’s Who of suckage. These characters should be lovable losers. I liked it in Thunderbolts and I like it here when it’s done well. I suspect this is one of their very best titles and I’d be reading it if I weren’t so pissed at DC at the moment.

Superman Unchained, a Scott Snyder production, and Superman/Wonder Woman with Charles Soule and Tony Daniel have both been good, actually. Snyder is pretty good on Batman because the dumb way that Snyder writes dialogue works for Clark where it’s just annoying when Bruce says the things he writes. Jim Lee is ok too, but clearly past his prime. His art is no longer as detailed or as eye-popping as it was even ten years ago. It’s telling that Jr Jr was promoted as a Superman artist more than Lee was, telling and a bit sad. Jim Lee was new to comics when I was first starting and he has a special place in my heart as a result. Of course, one of the first comics I ever bought was a Jr Jr issue of Daredevil, and I didn’t even consider reading his new run on Superman with Johns. It looks like Sandman in Superman’s cape. It’s sad. Anyway, Unchained is good so far.

Superman/WW I dropped because of the Doomed Doomsday cross-over. I f’ing hate Doomsday. If I could uninvent two characters in comics, the first would be Bane and second would be Doomsday. They’re so stupid. They represent everything terrible about the 1990’s in comics. Superman/WW started off with a cool Zod and Faora arc and was followed with the Doomsday poopsickle, so I dropped it. I may pick it back up again. Charles Soule is a solid writer. I like most of his stuff except the conceptually incoherent Red Thunderbolts (which I suspect was an editorial problem, not entirely his fault). Tony Daniel is drawing the hell out of this book. The only real knock on it is that a lot of it is Wonder Woman and Superman talking about their feelings for each other (they’re banging in the new 52). That gets old pretty fast. If it was like grown-ups having feelings even, it could be better, but they basically make these two out to be 14 year-old super-powered ass clowns when it comes to emotions. That’s bad. Fortunately, it’s not too much and doesn’t cancel out all that’s good about the book.

While I’m not going to talk about the main Batman book, I will talk about some of the follow-on titles associated with the Bat. It’s too bad what happened to Batwoman, the most interesting new DC character in many years. Editorial ran off J.H. Williams III and that book took a nosedive. It was another great book prior to the New 52 and survived unscathed for more than a year before editorial decided to take the meathooks to it. Ok, I’ll say it: I do not give a flying fartburger about Joker’s Daughter. I’m sorry. I don’t care. I’ve read the first two “books” she appeared in – one in the Villains United month and the other a special edition – and they were both trash. Neither story is any good, the character doesn’t matter, and it’s a tasteless gimmick. If I never hear anything about the Joker’s Daughter again, it will be too soon. I tried the new Catwoman, largely because of the Jae Lee cover, and it’s stinky. I dropped it as soon as I read it. Catwoman is now in charge of the criminal element of Gotham, like the Kingpin in Hell’s Kitchen except boring. I’m still trying Gotham Academy, which so far has no bats at all, but has featured Bruce Wayne and some kids. I’m going to give it at least an arc. The art is solid and the premise has some potential.

Wither Geoff Johns? Oh man. I feel bad actually insulting Johns, but his current writing is just not up-to-snuff compared to things others are doing. He’s been passed by his peers and a new wave of young talent. I suspect his responsibilities administratively and with the TV and film divisions of DC have distracted him greatly from writing the caliber of book we’ve been used to from him. Justice League has a broken narrative. It’s actually pretty hard to follow. Adding Luthor to the team is a straight up aping of Cornell, who is probably available to write this book for you should you need some help (hint: you do). His role in Forever Evil was solid, but the subsequent production of JL has been, in a word, off. It just doesn’t feel right. It feels forced. Johns always had this ability to write team books effortlessly, from Justice Society to Teen Titans to Avengers, he excelled at the dynamics of groups. He’s failing here. Justice League is not a very good book.

I liked Forever Evil. David Finch was doing his actual job instead of posing as a writer. Nightwing was getting tortured as he should. Bizarro was spectacular, a great version of the character in my opinion. The Crime Syndicate is, for comics fans of a certain age, incredibly nostalgic. I loved those old stories both on TV and in the comics. They were expanded to a full roster and fully-fleshed out here in a way they’ve never been done before. It was well-executed. That said, everything in the DCU just went back to normal the next day apparently, with the exception that Luthor is now a hero. It’s weird. I’m not saying that everything should be turned upside down, but this is a story with incredibly far-reaching impact on the entire universe and the DC editorial treated it as a speed bump. It feels like they weren’t prepared to own up to the consequences of wanting a big story. That’s a cop out.

Justice League of America and Justice League United are written by Matt Kindt, one of my favorite writers, and they’re awful. I’m sorry. They just are. They’re unreadable crapola. It’s like if Alpha Flight sucked harder. Also, stop trying to make Animal Man happen. One person, ever, wrote a good Animal Man. It’s not ever going to happen again unless Morrison wants to do it again and he doesn’t. End of story.

That leaves us to Future’s End. I’m sick and god damned tired of weekly comics series. They’re too much. It’s a huge expenditure of time and money for a limited, usually poorly delivered, series. I’m so far behind on this book it’s not even funny. I loved the TV show of Batman Beyond. If you’ve never seen it, you should. It’s wonderful. I bought this book because it looked like there was going to be some cool cross-overs between the Beyond U. and the DCU. I’m now regretting it. The month of Future’s End books was even worse. I think I only got maybe eight of those books. The writing teams were craptastic. I read Booster Gold and Flash because they seemed to tie-in with the conclusions of Flashpoint and I was hopeful DC was reverting from the New 52 back to the main DCU. It’s unclear from those books that this is happening. The Harley Future’s End book was actually really good, an excellent Harley story comparable to her comics introduction in quality. Anyhow, I’ll have to get back to you regarding how well done Future’s End is once I’ve read it. I’ll say this: the focus on Mr. Terrific is impressing no one.

That’s what’s up with most of the DC books I’m reading. Others will be covered when I talk about the writers (Cullen Bunn on Sinestro & Lobo, for instance), but generally, this is a C-level product if I was giving it a grade. And those are the self-selected “best books” I could find from DC. Who knows how bad Amethyst is? Wonder Woman written by Meredith Finch should be a mess. Johns Superman has been a critical flop. Teen Titans looks terrible (HOW?). Earth-2 was well liked, but is going away because Robinson can’t along with anyone these days. Maybe Gail Simone’s Birds of Prey will be good, but I’m not getting any more Simone books (her quality has dropped off so much since the old series). What in the actual hell was Grayson? Is it cancelled yet?

The real question is: Can DC produce a non-Batman book that is worthy of the top 10? I don’t think that they can with their current configuration. It seems like their general direction is not on solid ground at the moment. I’d steady the ship and move on. Cutting down to, say, 25 books or so a month would be a good idea. Scouring the indie ranks for writing talent is another great plan. Focus on core characters and concepts. Take some risks, but don’t flip everything on its head. Most importantly, identify what is good about your characters, what is central to who they are, and then move out from that to tell stories that test and push those ideas. Develop conflict, real drama. Push your heroes. Deliver lasting stories, not gimmicks. Right now, DC is pretty far out from doing any of these things.