Infinite Ammo

Last month started DC’s rebirth into a fresh, new continuity. This is the fourth week of DC’s 52 new #1′s! To help you decide what’s worth a buy, and what’s worth a one way ticket to the trashcan, Infinite Ammo is doing a one month review of the new #1 issues each week. Here’s our thoughts on week Four of DC’s New 52!

(For Infinite Ammo’s thoughts on the relaunch itself, check out our Round Table, “Crisis of Infinite Do-Overs“.
For a look at how DC closed shop on the old DCU and brought in the New 52, read “Out With the Old, In With the New 52“.
For a look at the last two weeks’ worth of New 52 Reviews, check out “Week Two” and “Week Three“!)

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BATMAN #1 (reviewed by Ed Cambro)
Written by SCOTT SNYDER
Art by GREG CAPULLO and JONATHAN GLAPION
Cover by GREG CAPULLO
Variant cover by ETHAN VAN SCIVER

Snyder had a near classic run on Detective Comics this last year. He knows the Batman characters well, but this issue just didn’t gel right storyline-wise. It’s the little things. The first two-page splash sees Batman facing a multitude of villains new and old. Two-Face looks perfectly creepy, but everyone else looks terrible. Scarecrow is rendered in an awful Nolanesque sack on his head, Prof. Pyg looks silly, Freeze is monochromatic and colored like semen, Croc looks more ridiculous than usual, Riddler looks… godlessly bad, and Batman sighs and says “There’s no place like home” before essentially beating up almost single handedly his entire stock of A and B list villains. If he could easily beat all these guys, why does an arc with a single one of them take four, five, or six issues? How are they a threat alone when together they’re nothing?

Moving on, Bruce continues to thin the line between sanity and himself by wearing a contact lens that feeds him information from the Bat computer. The problem is that it seems to also be an auditory thing, as he is being fed information about people he doesn’t seem to be looking at. I don’t know if it’s an art snafu or a writing snafu, but I’m certain that a snafu has been made. What I can say I like is the dialogue. As in Tomasi’s Batman & Robin, Bruce seems to be a bit less of an asshole, actually engaging in banter with his wards and Alfred (and who among us didn’t smile a bit when his was the only profile that had “highest” access?). Damian even gets meta, mocking Tim for his essential invisibility in the new DCU line.

Tim: “Tell me you’re not using facial rec for the party.”

Damian: “The party? He’s using it to remember who you are, Drake.”

The cliffhanger is odd to say the least. I don’t know if this is an attempt to connect this issue to Nightwing—and to Supergirl for those of you who noticed—(Claw Boy: “Dick Grayson is the fiercest killer in Gotham. And he doesn’t even know it”)—or if this is meant to be a legitimate avenue for Bruce to investigate. If it’s the former, I applaud the desire to connect all of these superheroes and stories (take that, Nolan!), and if it’s the latter, I am appalled by the lack of creativity and the disservice it will be to the Bruce/Dick relationship.

By and large this adds some cool new tech to Batman’s world and is the start of what will hopefully be a new era in his development. Scott Snyder has found a home in the Bat-family.

Browse It.

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BIRDS OF PREY #1 (reviewed by Nel Smith)
Written by DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI
Art and cover by JESUS SAIZ

That’s it? Where is the rest of it? I want to shake it to see if any hidden pages fall out. Having done that with no success I flip through Birds of Prey again to see the problem: a lot is going on, but nothing is actually happening. For a #1 it feels like filler—like the whole thing is a flash back used to explain something in a larger story.

From what I can tell there is no real plot, just a series of events that lead to an explosion that, as far as this issue goes, comes out of left field and serves no purpose. Frankly, I don’t care to know why a reporter starts to cry like a vampire in True Blood and then explodes in the middle of an airport. Normally that kind of ending in anything would get me excited. Here, I just kinda wish Black Canary and Starling would suddenly explode too so this story could end before it has the chance to waste anyone else’s money.

One thing I will give Birds of Prey is the fact that Black Canary is as confused as I am that Barbra Gordon is walking. That is the only highlight in this issue. The costumes are awful, and, no matter what I do, I feel like I walked in on the middle of a movie. And even if I could find the beginning, I just don’t think I care enough to find the remote and go back, or even just fast forward to the good part. I’ll take a nap; wake me when it’s over.

Burn It!

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BLUE BEETLE #1 (reviewed by Louis Santiago)
Written by TONY BEDARD
Art by IG GUARA and RUY JOSE
Cover by TYLER KIRKHAM and SAL REGLA

As a major fan of the Jaime Reyes, I was really excited to hear that the “New Blue Beetle” would get his series back in the new DCU. I was apprehensive though; what if they just shoved together a few hacks to churn out an explosion fest for the failed series’ reboot? What if they replaced Jaime with someone else as an even newer New Blue Beetle?

I’m incredibly pleased to say that DC didn’t on both counts; they brought back Jaime with a great creative team, including a slew of awesome artists. Ig Guara’s pencils are full of life and detail (although I find some of his choices strange [like Brenda, who seems to be Hispanic—who certainly speaks a lot of Spanish at least—being a ginger with freckles]). And it would be a major fail if I didn’t point out how absolutely vivid and stylish Rob Leigh’s colors are.

But the book also comes with a clearly competent writer in Tony Bedard, who opens up this first issue with a few pages of lore that focus on the actual, mysterious blue beetle’s origins and purpose (that’s the small beetle itself, not Jaime). From there, we’re reintroduced to Jamie at school (another typically awkward teen hero), but the issue quickly rolls over into set ups for future plot, a good fight (full of some of the coolest looking villains I’ve seen in a long time), and a cliff hanger that ties right back to the lore from the prologue (and will fail to hook you only if you’re dead).

Buy It!

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CAPTAIN ATOM #1 (reviewed by Chaosrayne)
Written by J.T. KRUL
Art by FREDDIE WILLIAMS II
Cover by STANLEY “ARTGERM” LAU

Despite going into Captain Atom with a fair amount of excitement, the whole first issue never really came together for me.

I enjoyed the character design and the art style, but for the duration of the issue the story never really got it’s hooks into me. Even the cliffhanger at the end seemed somehow both predictable and hard to believe.

Maybe if they drop some more clues in the second issue and leave me feeling more invested, I’ll change my verdict, but for now:

Browse It.

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CATWOMAN #1 (reviewed by Nel Smith)
Written by JUDD WINICK
Art and cover by GUILLEM MARCH

So let me get this straight: she is a sexy female comic book character? Wow, I’ve never seen that before. What I really haven’t seen before is how much effort is put forth to make sure that everyone, blind, deaf, or dumb, get how sexy she really is. I was afraid to get caught reading this at work, and that’s all types of wrong.

I gave myself about 24 hours between reading this issue and writing this review because I was having a hard time forming an opinion on this one, which is a first for me. The fact that I still don’t have a feeling one way or the other about this story makes it a fail for me. This breaks my heart because I love this character so much, and I’m not liking what is being done to her. Firstly, she didn’t steal anything. You would think that the #1 for a world class cat-burglar would have her stealing something, or at least attempting to, but no.

Secondly, I’m a bit insulted. On one hand, as a reader who paid money, I think I deserve to get more than the day in the life of Catwoman issue where the only payoff is an awkward and random hookup with Batman. Have Winick and March ever met a real life woman? Are we really all angles and pouty lips and eyelashes and other bits? Something about the art and the way this woman/women are portrayed here just bothers me. I’m not going to go off on this issue anymore because there will be no end in sight.

Burn it!

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DC UNIVERSE PRESENTS #1 (reviewed by Chaos Mechanica)
Written by PAUL JENKINS
Art by BERNARD CHANG
Cover by RYAN SOOK

Deadman must have hired a really good agent.

Being the closest thing to the main character of DC’s Brightest Day series (following the huge Blackest Night event) and being greenlit for a TV show on the CW, Deadman’s also been given the start of what may be a great storyarc via longtime comics writer Paul Jenkins and the new DC Universe Presents title.

Jenkins takes Deadman’s backstory and gives us a slightly revamped, tightly constructed version of it, that has Boston Brand’s road to redemption envisioned as a huge ledge balancing on a fulcrum. See, Deadman’s been charged by Rama, the divine entity of balance, to jump into the lives of people who have reached their breaking point, people who have a death wish. With every person he saves, so says Rama, their weight leads to the center, to the fulcrum. His redeemed soul also walks from the other edge to meet in the middle, giving him balance. With every person he loses, the greater the chance that Boston Brand loses himself and is doomed to walk the Earth forever as a spirit.

But Boston has reached a crisis. Despite having jumped into the lives of about a dozen people, the enthusiasm is gone, and he can’t distinguish whether what he does actually accomplishes anything for the people he “saves”. Where his first few cases were exciting moments involving detectives and adventures and the like, he’s found recent ones to be just sad, depressed cases of people living on the fringe of society, people literally left in the gutter to be intentionally forgotten and overlooked by a world that would sooner pretend they didn’t exist than offer any real help. And while he has “saved” a number of them from death, he wonders whether he’s given their lives any purpose afterwards.

This question weighs Boston’s soul heavier than anything else, and we experience that through him as he experiences it through his charges. It’s great writing, and certainly gives even more strength to this Quantum Leap inspired direction. After trying to find help in a past friend who would sooner forget him than believe he’s actually a ghost, the issue ends on one hell of a cliffhanger that really makes you question what’s coming next. Coupled with artist Bernard Chang’s visuals and some cool visual sequences involving Deadman’s power of possession, I have to say this is easily one of the stronger #1′s to come out of the New 52.

Buy It!

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GREEN LANTERN CORPS #1 (reviewed by Chaos Mechanica)
Written by PETER J. TOMASI
Art by FERNANDO PASARIN and SCOTT HANNA
Cover by DOUG MAHNKE and CHRISTIAN ALAMY

Personally, I’ve really enjoyed Green Lantern Corps in the past far more than Green Lantern—ever since Rebirth brought us Recharged. Reestablishing the Corps as a huge faction of intergalatic officers and reimaging and expanding upon decades of continuity, this title has explored a lot of themes and storylines and I was wondering, what with the Green Lantern history being largely untouched in DC’s New 52 universe, how DC would introduce (or reintroduce) readers to the Corps.

What you get is a great “getting to know you” issue, which explores Guy Gardner and Jon Stewart’s downtime on Earth, when they’re not ringslinging around the galaxy fighting hundreds of enemies at once. Better yet, title veteran and writer Tomasi gives us just the right scenarios to showcase Guy and Jon’s true character, with Guy trying to become a gym coach, and Jon trying to deal with contractors who don’t want to use his designs—that would save people when huge superhuman fights inevitably break out—to cut costs. Guy and Jon each in their own way get to show what their personalities are like, and how hard it is being a superhero without a secret identity.

Pasarin and Hanna’s pencils are very good, though I must admit to missing longtime Corps artist Patrick Gleason, who’s become as much a staple of the Corps as Salaak or Kilowog, and Tomasi himself. But overall, this slice of life issue is a great jumping in point. If anything, Tomasi has reassured me he knows what he’s doing, and that makes me say:

Buy It!

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LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #1 (reviewed by Chaos Mechanica)
Written by PAUL LEVITZ
Art by FRANCIS PORTELA
Cover by KARL KERSCHL

As I said about last week’s Legion Lost title, the Legion of Super-Heroes is a hard title to introduce to readers, usually. With dozens of members and various takes on the team to keep them relevant, DC did the best and worst thing they could do: skipping past a lengthy introduction and putting readers right into the middle of an ongoing story.

Starting with an espionage squad investigating a lead, and ending with the start of what must be a titanic battle about to ensue, readers are given just enough to keep them interested, their curiosity piqued, but possibly not enough to keep them emotionally invested, especially if they’re new to the Legion. We’re introduced to a handful of storylines and about a dozen Legionnaires, but despite comics veteran Paul Levitz’s (who has written the Legion before to great acclaim) well-honed pacing, newcomers to the title may feel as lost as the Legionnaires from LoSH’s sister title.

For anyone remotely familiar with the LoSH characters, there’s a lot of a little to get you going: from the danger the espionage team stumbles across, or how leader Mon-El has to deal with the weight of losing so many of the thought-dead lost Legionnaires (with his leadership questioned), or the fact that after the preceding disaster (that we’re never told about in detail) a membership drive has called in every reserve Legionnaire who just may not be ready to fill in the now vacant shoes of their well-trained predecessors. But for readers who aren’t familiar with the Legion, however, this issue may just be nothing more than a battle between unfamiliar heroes who are suffering from a conflict they know nothing about (yet).

It seems promising, but for now:

Browse It.

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NIGHTWING #1 (reviewed by Ed Cambro)
Written by KYLE HIGGINS
Art and cover by EDDY BARROWS and JP MAYER

Dick Grayson is my favorite DCU character. As a DickHead, I consider his run as Batman to be a Golden Age for our group. Unfortunately, as Q from Star Trek The Next Generation said, “All good things must come to an end.” Dick Grayson has been demoted (off-screen, just like Commander Riker!) and he’s returned to the role of Nightwing. But his costume’s different! I’m not sure why, as it doesn’t seem to really do anything different. But it’s different by god!

Thankfully, this is a character piece, as we see Gotham City through Dick’s eyes; how he’s changed his opinion of Gotham since becoming Batman. His optimism is now balanced by realism, and he seems to be taking his role in Gotham more seriously. In short, Gotham flashed its teeth, and Grayson started paying attention. Where Nightwing always failed was with his villains. Let’s go through some of the classics from the original run real quick: Blockbuster (roid rage, bad haircut, worse name), Torque (his head was backwards), Nite-Wing (don’t dress villains like Ranger fans), and Jason Todd (crowbar). This new villain is interesting—his obsession seems to be with Grayson rather than Nightwing, which is certainly a new and interesting development—but certain things undermine him. Since he doesn’t have a name yet I’ll call him Claw Boy for now. First of all, his costume has neon green highlights that look silly, even more so when he and Nightwing fight. With the red and green running into each other they look like an angry Christmas card. Moreover, CB looks like a rip off of Deadpool (who in turn was a rip off of Deadshot and Deathstroke, but that’s a rant for another time).

The voice of Dick Grayson is hard to write—equal parts funny, observant, sad, and optimistic—and after Gates of Gotham, Higgins sure does have a knack for getting into Grayson’s head, but there are plenty of things left unsaid in this issue. It may be because he needs to keep the mystery going, or part of DC’s weird de-aging process—despite having been Batman, Dick isn’t 23 or 25 anymore because of Flashpoint; he’s about 21 now. And he’s showing signs of a mullet again. Where’s Peter J Tomasi?

Eddy Barrows is nearly perfect in his artwork. This dark vision of Nightwing goes well with his gritty style and muted colors, yet his character designs are sensible and attractive, and they’re all detailed and real.

Unfortunately, a lot of this seems to be a getting-back-to-basics issue for Nightwing. And if you’ve read the series in the past, you know that this book could easily languish in mediocrity for a while. There’s some life in this, it’s just a matter of wait and see.

Browse It.

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RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS #1 (reviewed by Chaos Mechanica)
Written by SCOTT LOBDELL
Art and cover by KENNETH ROCAFORT

I was really excited for this title when I heard about it. Don’t ask me why. I don’t hate Jason Todd as much as most people do, and I kind of like his “Bat Family’s Rotten Egg” dynamic. Team him up with ex-Titans Roy Harper (formerly known as Red Arrow, Arsenal, and Speedy) and Starfire and give a whole “Outlaw” theme and I could imagine the great punk-flavored stories of rebellious youths against the world. Truth is: nothing much really happens.

The first half of the issue starts off with a bang, and is pretty cool. There’s action, good dialogue, and an introduction to radically different takes on these characters. Jason Todd is fairly the same (besides some hints to training from a mystical organization), and Roy Harper seems to have a past as a Titan and solicits say he was Green Arrow’s rejected sidekick, but here he’s a crazy kid who sent himself to the dangerous fictional country of Qurac to work with Todd, and got in more trouble than he could handle.

The biggest departure comes in Starfire, who also has ex-Titan history, but barely remembers anyone she’s met. This is explained—well, really blamed—on her Tamaraen heritage and how she just sees humans as “sights and smells”, but it just seems like an excuse to turn her into a sexually promiscuous, carefree, scantily clad once slave/now warrior princess who lives for the moment. But the problem arises that she—almost comically and certainly absurdly—can’t even recall her closest friends, or the fact that she was in love with Jason’s predecessor, Dick Grayson/Nightwing. Whether this characterization is good or bad remains to be seen. It works for this title’s theme of reckless, rebellious heroes, but I can’t help but feel that she may be losing character development for it.

Also, the second half of the issue amounts to what I can only coin as literary gibberish. Abandoning the fast moving action in the beginning, writer Scott Lobdell gives us the barest of hints as to the larger conflict going on. This is supposed to give us a hint of mystery, but it feels like a cheap attempt at building suspense. Still, Kenneth’s Rocafort’s art is fantastic, and if the story picks up it could be a fun, wild ride through the alien or mystical underbelly of DC’s New 52. For now, I’ll say:

Browse It.

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SUPERGIRL #1 (reviewed by Louis Santiago)
Written by MICHAEL GREEN and MIKE JOHNSON
Art and cover by MAHMUD ASRAR

I’m not sure how I feel about this first installment of the New 52’s Supergirl. And I mean exactly what I say; the issue is with the comic itself, not the character. I am, in fact, already enamored with this new take on Kara Zor-El. Her new outfit is (from a guy who designs all of his fantasy fiction characters) really awesome and (more than even Superman’s new look) blissfully—thankfully—alien-looking.

So what’s the problem? I’m not sure I can place it. Is the issue entertaining? Yes—even though the plot only carries us through Kara’s crash on Earth and (I’m not even kidding) the two minutes directly afterward, I was engrossed (perhaps partially due to Asrar’s perfectly classy but irreverent pencils [no gratuitous ass shots of our playfully beautiful {not at all Catwoman-slutty} heroine] and McCaig’s animating colors).

No, the problem is, literally, “Wait. What? That’s it?… What?” The issue ends with what I can’t call a cliffhanger because it’s what should’ve (honestly) been the middle of the comic. It feels very much like time constraints led to Green extending a two page intro into an entire issue, ending with what should’ve been the beginning.

Which is really unfortunate because I was really into the issue and would love to say “Buy It!” But, as an unemployed artist writing to potential buyers, I just can’t.

Browse It!

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WONDER WOMAN #1 (reviewed by Ed Cambro)
Written by BRIAN AZZARELLO
Art and cover by CLIFF CHIANG

Now this is wonderful. I never cared for Greeks in the past, but Diana Prince is awesome. She is one of my favorite ladies in the DCU, but it’s been a while since we had a quality writer on the series. Finally, we have Wonder Woman enveloped in an intriguing mystery and on course to fighting the gods themselves, and she’s no longer wearing pants!

Onanism aside, we’re given a new and scary take on Apollo, the death of a long time WW supporting character, and a new member of the supporting cast in Zola, who unwittingly has ties to a god that gets her involved in this plot. Diana here is a perfect balance between warm and nurturing, and violent and kick-ass. She also, for some reason, is very relaxed when it comes to keeping her identity secret. She also doesn’t seem to mind clothes, which is nice.

The graphic nature of the story is a definite plus. It’s often forgotten that Wonder Woman is essentially a soldier; she has no qualms using lethal force (which we saw perfectly when she snapped Maxwell Lord’s neck in the old DCU), and here’s she’s slicing and dicing and it’s pretty damn cool. With several definite nods to Greek mythology, it’s good to have Zola there representing the reader, who will likely either be unfamiliar with mythology or new to Wonder Woman. However, she represents a real rarity in comics these days: a real person with real problems placed into a irregular and outstanding adventure. While the DCU is full of optimistic aliens, mentally ill billionaires and a jackass with an arrow set, it’s good to see an honest to goodness real person respond to a Centaur being cut in half with the requisite amount of confusion and horror it deserves.

It’s good that we now have a villain as creepy as Apollo in this book. Too often, none of Diana’s villains seem like they could be a real threat to her. By fighting a god, who is admittedly more powerful than her, we very well may have a character that can represent a real threat. Keeping that in mind, it’s Zeus that casts a long shadow over the issue, and it’ll be great to see where this story goes (likely, if we’re lucky, to a major confrontation between all of these characters) because this is the newest Wonder Woman has felt in years.

Buy It!

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Tune in next week for the last of the New 52 #1′s!