I haven’t been doing these posts in the past few weeks because there was really nothing to talk about.
However, since this is week 26 that marks the halfway point in the year for The New 52 and I wanted to do sort of a brief state of the union kind of post on The New 52 so far. In a word disappointing.
The Superman and Batman titles have been a disheveled mess. It’s sad that the cursory Bat and Super titles (Nightwing, Batgirl, Supergirl, etc.) have been better than the flagship titles.
Justice League was another mess that basically wrote off Darkseid as a throwaway character. They didn’t need 7 issues to tell that story.
There are already continuity issues. Is the Red Robin version of the Teen Titan’s the first incarnation or was Nightwing’s?
I’ve gone over the gratuitous sex and violence before in titles like Deathstroke and Catwoman. Again, it doesn’t offend my sensibilities or anything like that. I just think that sex and violence for the sake of it are just pandering.
I despise Green Arrow’s new look.
And still no Ted Kord, Vic Sage or Captain Marvel. And from what I understand about Cap I’m not looking forward to his return.
There has been some good. The Green Lantern titles have been quite entertaining. Aquaman is interesting since the first time in forever. Stormwatch got off to a sloppy start but it just started getting much better and more coherent. And lastly Batwing has been an amazing title.
But the bottom line is was a reboot really necessary to update some of the characters? Did they really need updating, to begin with? Could they have not done an ‘Ultimate’ line instead of alienating long-time readers?
If you want new readers, write good stories and don’t rely on gimmicks.
The Trench Reynolds Report 