What do GA collector's think of DCs New 52 Universe?

[tabcom]

I've suspended my GA comics reading for the past couple months now. With the release of the new 52 DC line of comics hitting the trade publication starting to arrive at my local library, my attention has been turned to the new genre. I've read the first anthologies of Detective Comics, Batman, Green Arrow, JSA, Batwoman, Frankenstein, Red Lantern, Batman and Robin, Batman, Inc., and Men Of War. With the exception of the Green Arrow, they are all well written and offer state-of-the-art visual presentation. However, I am deeply disturbed by how much attention the villains get. I feel the Batman and Robin story crosses the Rubicon with a good guy actually committing murder. Where as in the typical GA story, the villain maybe gets 5-10% story time, today's story lines the villain is nearly even with the hero in character development.

 

I'm curious what other GA collectors think of the New 52 Universe.

 

 

[jerome34]

I refer to it as the "52 upchuck" and it has caused me to stop buying

new DC comics. I will concentrate on the back issues I am missing

or have in incomplete form and the dratted variants (pre-upchuck).

[excelsior1986]

Whats a "New 52 universe"?

[shrunkenhead]

Wonder woman and batman are good. The others I've read, not so much. I'm looking forward to phantom stranger, though. Spectre is supposed to have a part in that book.

[Hawkman]

I refer to it as the "52 upchuck" and it has caused me to stop buying

new DC comics. I will concentrate on the back issues I am missing

or have in incomplete form and the dratted variants (pre-upchuck).

 

 

problem with this, is your missing out on one of the best batman stories in a long time. batman and swamp thing are both GREAT (then again, both are written by scott snyder)

[tabcom]

Whats a "New 52 universe"?

 

With the exception of the Green Arrow, which to its credit knows it is on the 'B' list of titles, the rest of the titles I have read so far universally recognize a malevolent force that persistently strives to express itself. The 'Batman and Robin' story being the most dramatic representation of this style of story telling. Unlike the generational conflict of the babyboomer Robin needing to express himself independently of Batman of the late sixties, the contemporary Robin, at the tender age of 10, is continuously trying to keep in check his desire to kill. With respects to 'Batman Comics', the 'Night of the Owls' series describes the malevolent force as a battle between the establishment and the basic needs of the people. This class warfare is best represented when Bruce Wayne and the candidate for Mayor opposing the incumbent come together to share their vision of Gotham City. The occult world of the Owls takes the threat to their power very seriously and reanimates their most violent phantom to take Batman out. The 'Detective Comics' Gotham City is a world I do not want to drive thru, let along visit. These Dark Knight themes are just disturbing to me.

 

Moving on the 'Red Lanterns'. The main characters are all the villains. Too much time is spent trying to make the reader sympathetic towards them. When the Green Lantern does appear, we only see him for a couple panels. Despite the Green Lantern's bravado, he is outnumbered and can't prevent much of anything. The world in which the guy that becomes a Red Lantern reminds me of that part of London where Michael Caine has to creep into in the 2009 movie Harry Brown. Like Harry Brown, the Green Lantern really can't make a difference beyond the personal responsibility he takes.

 

The 'Batwoman' title is the most stylistic in art and layouts. The universe that Ms. Kane resides in fits neatly with the rest of the DC line-up, the occult.

 

'Frankenstein' is fun and quirky. The irony of a team of monsters are assemblies to fight the mass-psychosis of the general populations is cleaver.

 

Although the first story arch of the JLA is an ordinary PG-13 Saturday matinee movie, the reader is teased with the presents of Darkseid at the end. Based on the character of the New 52 universe, I have an educated guess now as to where the JLA is heading.

[tabcom]

I read the most eloquent op-ed on the subject of the New 52 Universe this morning in the New York Times.

 

"(The Batman trilogy's) are effective dramatizations of the Way We Fear Now. Their villains are inscrutable, protean, appearing from nowhere to terrorize, seeking no higher end than chaos, no higher thrill than fear. Their hero fights, not for truth, justice and the American Way, but for a more basic form of civilizational order: (Batman) knows his society — his Gotham, our America — is decadent and corrupt in many ways, but he also knows that the alternatives are almost infinitely worse.

 

You can read the full article here:

The Way We Fear Now

[Flash105]

I wonder if Ian has stopped buying. He claimed he would when they announced this 2 years ago.

[Dr Carl]

I read the most eloquent op-ed on the subject of the New 52 Universe this morning in the New York Times.

 

"(The Batman trilogy's) are effective dramatizations of the Way We Fear Now. Their villains are inscrutable, protean, appearing from nowhere to terrorize, seeking no higher end than chaos, no higher thrill than fear. Their hero fights, not for truth, justice and the American Way, but for a more basic form of civilizational order: (Batman) knows his society — his Gotham, our America — is decadent and corrupt in many ways, but he also knows that the alternatives are almost infinitely worse.

 

You can read the full article here:

The Way We Fear Now

 

Thank you for bringing that article to my attention. I was quite touched by it's closing line:

 

"And the real heroes are neither police nor politicians nor an imaginary batsuited billionaire, but the people — whether in Columbine or Lower Manhattan or now Aurora, Colo. — who carry one another through the valley of the shadow of death, and by their conduct ensure that the Jokers and James Holmeses of the world win only temporary victories."

 

Amen.

[shrunkenhead]

I read the most eloquent op-ed on the subject of the New 52 Universe this morning in the New York Times.

 

"(The Batman trilogy's) are effective dramatizations of the Way We Fear Now. Their villains are inscrutable, protean, appearing from nowhere to terrorize, seeking no higher end than chaos, no higher thrill than fear. Their hero fights, not for truth, justice and the American Way, but for a more basic form of civilizational order: (Batman) knows his society — his Gotham, our America — is decadent and corrupt in many ways, but he also knows that the alternatives are almost infinitely worse.

 

You can read the full article here:

The Way We Fear Now

 

I think this article is correct, but I don't think much has changed (in representing heroes or villains) from the earliest of GA representations. That might be a controversial view--I don't know. And yes, Miller and Moore on down the line have given us a greater exploration of the villainy and the chaos---but those components were built in from the get-go. Reread Joker's earliest appearances---it's all already there.

[tabcom]

Yes, the Joker's unpredictable and nihilistic. His vendetta against society at-large goes all the way back to before the USA entered WWII. However, that fear of the unknown terror strike by a loner was greatly overshadowed by the nationalistic threat of world domination coming from Germany and Japan. I grew up fearing nuclear war raining down from the USSR. I used to wake up with night terrors thinking about it. Comics of the '70's and early '80's helped me cope with that threat.

 

At the myth making level of the New 52 Universe at DC Comics, if the USA had a political system (and a face to match) to be identified as the bad guy, we would be talking about the new Superman V movie. Superman can't protect us from our collective xenophobia. That is what is different about the New 52.

 

Maybe that is why I like GA comics. I always know the outcome -- I get a good nights sleep.

[vaillant]

Maybe that is why I like GA comics. I always know the outcome -- I get a good nights sleep.

Tabcom, you have been the first person I crossed as I arrived here on the boards, and I liked your attitude. Now I see better why. (thumbs u

 

BTW, I am no DC reader, but for what matters – with all the due differences – those considerations may be applied to the involution Marvel Comics have had in the last 15 years. The biggest difference is that with Marvel this happened mostly as a "what if", thanks to the continuity essence which safeguarded the editors' ego trips, but eventually they went on to ruin the characters in the Marvel universe as well.

 

To me – for example – it doesn’t take a degree in theology to see that in "Earth X" most of the XX century negative theology is put into a supposedly artistic comic book narration. Well, it is not (artistic). It just ends up giving you a sense of suffocation in the immanent, since all the trascendental is suppressed.

[Mister_Comics]

Once the original series ended I quit buying. Not gonna get sucked into it.

[tabcom]

vaillant . . . thanks for the

 

And your comments.

 

. . . all the transcendental is suppressed.

(thumbs u

[adamstrange]

Whats a "New 52 universe"?

 

Sums it up for me. I read very little Marvel/DC mainstream superhero fare. I do read moderns in TPB form but am usually going for independent and international fare.

[tabcom]

The past couple months, I've been keeping up with the Volume 1 trades as they have been released. The themes can further be deconstructed into those characters with a drive for the greater good (i. e. the Flash, Superman) vs. those battling alien memes masking greater psychological struggles (the Red Hood, Nightwing, Animal Man, Batgirl).

 

Wonder Woman is interesting in that the ancient mythology energies are manifested in the modern world. Regretfully, the girl these forces are fighting to control displays anti-hero tendencies. She is from a broken home, pregnant and alone -- until Wonder Woman becomes her intercessor.

 

I'm not trying to be moralistic. Comic book themes are secular in nature. If one needs spiritual guidance, there are better sources to reach out to.

[vaillant]

vaillant . . . thanks for the

 

And your comments.

 

. . . all the transcendental is suppressed.

(thumbs u

 

My joy. I could go on for hours in commenting and criticizing such things, but I usually avoid is as they touch important issues which I am not enough learned to discuss at length. Of course I am talking mostly of Marvel, as I know little of DC, but you get the idea, it’s the "zeitgeist".

 

BTW, I wish to make a clarification: by saying that every trascendental element "is suppressed" I am not implying by no means an atheist writer can’t write good stories. Steve Gerber was agnostic, but he could have eaten on top of the heads of the majority of the current writers.

 

Biggest problem is a lack of background and culture at large, that most american writers of my generation does not seem to have.

For example, as a substantially ignorant DC reader I was suprised as I went on to see what Geoff Johns did with the Green Lanterns. This "emotional spectrum" idea is so stupid and confused that a thorough writer would never have taken it seriously until not so much years ago. And as you said alluding to the Red Lanterns: there is a problematic glorification of the irrational in super-villains which does not seem to make any sense.

 

I recalled the Green Lanterns from when I was 17. I was at the sea and I happened to find some Green Lantern Corps issues. I knew nothing of the series, but although I understood little to nothing I enjoyed the love & care I perceived had been put into the narration. Writer was Steve Englehart. Englehart is admittedly an agnostic, but the sense of a larger scope was all there, and he could produce an entertaining comic book even for a reader which was totally unfamiliar with the DC characters like me.

Now you pick up a DC title like the Red Lanterns and you ask yourself: where is this heading? Is this supposed to be entertaining? How much will it last? Until each character has massacred the others? Totally unreal and misguided.

[vaillant]

I'm not trying to be moralistic. Comic book themes are secular in nature. If one needs spiritual guidance, there are better sources to reach out to.

 

Well, I don’t think you are being "moralistic" at all. Making moral considerations doesn’t make you moralistic, that’s another deviation of modern thought.

 

It’s clear that you do not have to expect education or guidance from comics, but this is not prohibited either. I owe most of the nuances of my moral attitudes to comics, precisely because they weren’t moralistic, but rather gave convincing examples of rational choices and decisions towards a good that trascended the mere individual.

 

I must admit that the ground for these tendencies must have been laid in a good part by the english writers responsible of the "new wave" of the eighties. A good 80% of them dabbles in the occult and have no interest in producing more objective entertainment. They rather prefer to cultivate their obsessions.

[AmazingSaul]

I purchased the new 52 books. Mainly to read them? Maybe collect but it's pointless otherwise it's just if you want to have them. Here's how I buy them- I go on ebay and buy the whole set in a lot. I refuse to take the drive to the local comic shop and put them together piece by piece. I would do this with any modern set.

[ComicConnoisseur]

As usual the Batman books are the good reads,but that`s been the story the last 25 years. I think Batman has carried DC this last decade,and now it`s time for Superman to step to the plate to help,as the rest of the DC characters would have a hardtime beating Ghost Rider at the movie box office.