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The New 52 Twelve Issues On – Part One

Today begins the twelfth issues of DC Comics's increasingly inaccurately named New 52 (no longer new, and with annuals and the extra zero issues, creeping past 52. So how are they standing up?

Well Justice League International is a walking dead title, cancelled with this issue (though there's an Annual still to come from a different creative team) but no one seems to have told the cast who are insistent of keeping on keeping on. There's a weird time trip here where the usual "six hours before" and "now" captions aren't in evidence and a panel sequence that seems to join them makes for a rather confusing few pages where you try to work out where and when things are actually happening. But it's a highlight of this book which seems to have failed on living up to the JLI glory days, it's repeatedly felt bland and boring, artwork that rarely inspires and dialogue and scenarios that didn't snap like it once used to, being less than the sum of its parts. The book was also subject to clear editorial intervention, as the disappearance of Alexandra Gianopoulous made clear. A case of too many cooks? Or was the broth tasteless to start with?

Animanl Man finally gets to the crossover it has been promising since day one, the avatar of the Red meeting the avatar of the Green. It can't have come soon enough, the last few issues seem to have been spinning the wheels to get to this point. This book has been one of the main breakouts of the New 52 being far more popular that DC expected it would be and making writer Jeff Lemire a rather notable creator at the company. And bringing back Animal Man artist extraordinaire Steve Pugh to help out Travel Foreman was an inspired move, both the Rot and the Swamp here giving Pugh a chance to build up his original artwork in layers of ink again.

And it's the same in Swamp Thing. Finally we get to this point. The meeting of two forces against a rising third. By, you know, climbing down a ladder of bones into a rotting core. Lovely. Hope Buddy Baker isn't using his animal senses of smell right now. Marco Rudy takes over from Francavilla and Paquette on this issue, but we still get innovative storytelling layout, that shows the move into three dimensions… and even four, that has realy helped propel this comic book against its more superheroic companions.

And in the same week as the Green and the Red fight the Grey in Earth 52, so the Green fights the Grey in Earth One. With fists. A little less metaphysical, but there's a greater feeling of reality here, superheroes unsure of their abilities or even names, give this book a timbre denied to, say, JLI. It's far from being the best superhero comic on the planet, but it does go in directions ignored by many. We're only four issues in, but we've had death and destruction, and the idea that superhero fights may not be as neatly tied up on this world.

Action Comics has tried to take familiar Superman tropes from the past and integrated them into modern storytelling techniques, even if they feel at odds. So we've had the socialist Superman, the cities in bottles, now we have the superlearning speed as Superman becomes a supersurgeon in seconds – which does open up the question why Superman, at a similar speed, doesn't become a supersurgeon all the time, or at least in the moment between saving the universe.

We also see the denizens of the firth dimension (that I can't show without serious spoilerage) who have been hiding here in the third, that turns a two dimensional comic book into a Picasso drawing. The kind of dimensional interplay familiar to readers of Morrison's JLA.

Action had a hard task, Morrison expected to follow up on the astounding All Star Superman. It didn't come close to reaching those heights, but it has demonstrated a very quirky, edgy, nontraditional superhero book – that simultaneously plays off, uses, loves and integrates so many traditions that many have considered no longer relevant. And for that, this book must be saluted.

That's what you need folks, terrorist villains who stand around outlying their every plan to each other and ignoring even the basics of cell structure. This is G.I. Combat, the series that magically relaunched Men At War with a new format, new characters and a new creative team. I enjoyed the earlier version more, but this mix of soldiers fighting dinosaurs and Unknown Soldiers embedded with the enemy continues to be an enjoyable break from the rest of the DC Universe. I doubt anyone will read this either, and it will soon be cancelled again, but them's the breaks.

Stormwatch started hideously, got slightly better and then got worse again. It seems to ignore the very basis of what made Stormwatch and The Authority work, as it smoothed over the rough edges of familiar characters such as Jack Hawksmoor, intended to be the big crossover book… until, it seems, plans changed on that as well. A definite example of too many cooks spoiling all manner of broths on this one, as a simple, clever idea of an external team that keep things in order was abandoned to become as much a superhero team as any other, and occasional attempts to recapture its old spirit leaving a big mess.

Nice line about Midnighter's spike though.

Green Arrow, another rather bland book gained recent spikiness from Ann Nocenti it seems. It hasn't always worked, but at least it's interesting to read now, and it suits the Claremont-like verbosity of a first person narration. Even the Wikipedia version of China gets broken up into meaty little chunks as the Arrow jumps from spot to spot to spot. The art, while dynamic and detailed, does exhibit shortcomings, a scene where Arrow and his antagonist look like twelve year old children standing next to each other, and the above scene, where Arrow's face looks like a mask, even as he is commenting on the masks of his opponent.

Dial H has failed to live up to the razzle dazzle of its opening issue, but does continue in its parade of oddities. Such as this lizard-like fellow hogging the cover who speaks in the manner of an EC Comic. Still missing Boy Chimney though, like a Wolverine-less X-Men. It also sticks out as quite the oddity, yet conforms to superhero tropes, in the same way that Doom Patrol did.

Detective Comics without Tony S Daniel drawing the book as well as writing it, misses out on a number of aspects that made the book very readable, as the writer and the artist aren't sharing brainspace. And it was on this book that Daniel put that together in a fashion he had never achieved before. The back up story here does also reach back to the shock image from issue 1 in a way to foreshadow the return of the Joker, and helps create a more complete twelve issue package as a result.

Just as JLI don't realise their book is cancelled, Batwing doesn't seem to realise that JLI is cancelled either. This book has seen a dramatic change in tone, one superhero managing a vastness, the lawlessness, the corruption and the death, now seems happy to bring in the superheroes, which suddenly takes away much of what made it special and unique. Everything suddenly seems to have gone a little bland. To some degree, Batwing is coasting on sales by virtue of being a batbook but has shown some remarkable things on its journey.

While Catwoman and Red Hood have been castigated for perceived sexism, Red Lanterns seems to have dodged a bullet on its extreme nihilism, a cast made up of characters who have been fridged or fridgees, and have taken their revenge in fifty shades of red. It's the torture porn book of the DC Universe full of the most fucked up creatures in the universe, given immeasurable power and trying to come to terms with the humanity under it. It doesn't succeed in making any kind of point, like Crossed does, and seems to end up glorifying violence over everything. And the people seem to like it.

World's Finest is that wonderful blend of serious superhero action and an overall tone of not taking it seriously at all. Paul Levitz may be writing the book of his career right here, with two fine artists to convey that across. It's really quite special, and whether planned out, or put together from available component parts, the seeding of the characters in the New 52 over the year was masterful. It dips its toes into the water of Adam Warren's Empowered but stays very much on the New 52 side. Is this really the same Paul Levitz who made all those changes to The Authority? Oh and there's a scene this week that probably deserves its own post later…

So, the first week of the twelfth month of the New 52. What impresses me most is the diversity of books still, even in the case of some, those differences are being chipped away. Secondly, how impressed I am that certain books that couldn't have succeeded two years ago, have this time found an audience. And thirdly, there are still a number of mediocre books, and a haphazardness about writer and artist teams that sadly seems to have become business as usual at the top of the comics industry. Maybe it's time to bring back a little flexibility? Like Batman Inc is getting?

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