One Year of 52: 10 Best and Worse list

[Will E Worm]

One Year of DC's the NEW 52: The 10 Best Things

15 months since the announcement. Twelve issues in. Ten canceled titles, ten new ones to replace. Several creative team shifts, a handful of mini-series, lots of new and changed characters, and still no Wally West sightings.

We're now days away from the first anniversary of the launch of the New 52. Beginning on Aug. 31, 2011, with the publication of Justice League #1, a new era of superhero comics began, allowing for new readers, updated concepts, and leaner back-stories to make these tales easier to navigate.

This week, as we recognize the one-year marker of its publication debut, we'll focus on how the New 52 has affected the reading experience. Tonight, Newsarama takes a look at what has gone right over the first 12 months of this daring initiative, declaring the 10 Best Things about the New 52.

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10. ARTISTS TURNED WRITERS
When DC announced the New 52, several names that showed up under the title "writer" were people previously known for their art. In September 2011, it became clear that DC was utilizing the relaunch to give artists the chance to try out writing.

While not all the artists-turned-writers have worked out as well as we'd like, we've been surprised by some of the results. While we always knew J.H. Williams was an innovative artist, he's proven his writing skills working with Haden Blackman on Batwoman. And the combination of Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul on The Flash has helped redefine the way comics are read, as they rely heavily on their art to explain what's usually spelled out in captions.

We're betting there are more writing stars within the ranks of comics' artists, and that DC has opened the door for more of them to try it out.


9. A BEST-SELLING AQUAMAN TITLE (NO, REALLY)
Before the reboot, Wonder Woman and Aquaman had a tough time getting much respect, whether in the DC Universe or in the sales charts.

They are two of DC's most iconic and well-known characters, but the company struggled to sell a solo title featuring either one of them.

For the relaunch, DC approached the two characters in unlikely ways. Fan-favorite creative team Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis revamped Aquaman by embracing the humorous dismissal of the character and turning it on its head. And for Wonder Woman, DC let Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang not only keep all those crazy gods around, but embrace the horror side of their story.

Results? Wonder Woman is consistently selling well for the first time in years, and Aquaman broke into the Top 10. Talk about respect.


8. GRANT MORRISON ON SUPERMAN
For years, it seemed like an idea whose time would never come. After the near-miss of Superman 2000 and the majesty of All Star Superman, Grant Morrison writing an ongoing Superman series seemed to be something that would never happen -- especially considering that his hands were full redefining Batman's world on a seemingly bi-annual basis. The New 52 changed that, however, not only giving Morrison Action Comics, but also a chance to recreate the origins of the Man of Steel as he saw fit.

The result was a younger hero who wears his heart on his sleeve a little bit more openly, who isn't quite the spokesman for the status quo (and especially the legal system) that he once was, and whose monthly adventures now go through time and into other realities when necessary.

Morrison's reborn Superman isn't the breathless Easter egg-filled pop culture love letter that his Batman Incorporated is, nor is it the stately epic that was All-Star Superman, but something in between; not only one of the best of The New 52 lineup month-in and month-out, but arguably the best a monthly Superman title has been in decades.

Now that the writer has revealed he's leaving the title after issue #16, we should enjoy this benefit of the New 52 as long as we can.

7. THE RETURN OF EARTH 2
Despite the promise of exploring the multiverse more following Infinite Crisis (and before that, The Kingdom), the pre-New 52 DC Universe could never quite bring itself to fully embrace its "Infinite Earths." Sure, we had the Justice Society of America jump across and Countdown: Arena played the analogues off against each other, but for the most part, it was as if Earths 2 through 52 just didn't exist.

No longer; not only do we have Power Girl and Huntress trapped in worlds they never made every month in Worlds' Finest, but James Robinson and Nicola Scott get to show off their world-building skills by restoring the Justice Society as their world's greatest super-heroes in the ongoing Earth-2 series.

It's not quite the 1980s heyday of Roy Thomas' All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc., but the future hasn't looked this good for DC's multiverse since 1985.


6. STELLAR BAT-BOOKS
While the Batman line of comics has been strong for a while -- evidenced by DC's reluctance to make sweeping changes to the character -- the relaunch seemed to make the good even better, while adding some much needed diversity to the line. They may not all be perfect all the time, but the Batman lineup includes some fantastic work -- and they're almost all among the best-selling titles in the DCU.

Proof that it's working: DC currently has five ongoing comics featuring Bruce Wayne in the lead, yet fans haven't really raised much of a stink. And they all sell well enough to land in the Top 25.

The Batman books are also doing the type of crossovers we like. With May's "Night of the Owls" and the upcoming "Death of the ******," readers don't have to buy all the Bat-books, but can sample from a truly diverse line that all utilizes the same backdrop. According to DC execs, it succeeded in increasing sales in May, and the approach added cohesion to a line that was already strong.

5.(ALMOST) NO MORE LATE COMICS
If there was one logistical problem that kept plaguing comics in the last decade, it was books shipping late. Some comics became running jokes because of frequent delays, but others were just pushed back here and there to the point that there were months where some of Marvel and DC's best-selling comics didn't ship at all.

Those missed sales not only hurt the publishers' bottom lines, but they hurt retailer sales and longer-term reader retention.

With The New 52, DC has had an impeccable record for not only shipping each title once a month, but usually doing it on the exact same week of the month. It's even more impressive when combined with the earlier deadlines necessary to meet digital publishing schedules.

While we're not a fan of the fill-ins currently required to keep the trains running on time, the "late" problem has been soundly defeated at DC since The New 52.

4. UP WITH DIVERSITY
For a line of superhero comics, The New 52 certainly tried some interesting variations on tried and tested formulas. Reclaimed Vertigo titles like Swamp Thing and ****** Man offered more horrific takes on the genre, while Demon Knights, I, Vampire, Blackhawks, Men of War and All Star Western stretched definitions even further.

In terms of lead characters, the line launched with a number of non-white straight male leads that suggested more than the usual lip service about diversity from mainstream superhero publishers. Even if the market didn't support the majority of the more diverse (in terms of character and genre) titles -- Blackhawks, Men of War, Static Shock, Mister Terrific and OMAC, all of which featured something other than "white male superhero punches white male supervillain," were five of the six titles cancelled with #8 -- DC should still be applauded for the attempt, if only in the hope that it'll lead them (and others) to do more in future. The new Green Lantern being of Arab descent is an intriguing continuation of the idea.


3. THE DIRECT MARKET COMES ALIVE
The New 52 certainly jump-started the direct market -- and, we suspect, the digital market too, although we don't have sales estimates to back that up -- as much as expected, if not moreso. Not only did DC's overall sales rise dramatically in September, but it turned out that the line about rising tides lifting all ships turned out to be true: Sales rose across the entire industry seemingly as a result of the relaunch.

Losing market share dominance for the first time in years seemed to put a spark back into Marvel, as well, with the publisher coming back with Avengers Vs. X-Men, an event that sparked sales, and the newly announced "Marvel NOW!" gradual relaunch initiative, promising multiple #1s over the coming months.

When it was first announced, critics derided The New 52 as a sales stunt. That may have been true, but it's a sales stunt that definitely worked.


2. SAME-DAY DIGITAL
Until The New 52, publishers and retailers alike were concerned that releasing digital versions of comic books on the same day the
y were available in print would hurt comic sales overall. While DC, Marvel and others had dabbled in same-day digital, there hadn't been a major move toward the practice.

That all changed in September 2011, when DC proved that there's still a substantial print-only audience even if there's a digital version available on the same day. While that may be altered over time - as readers become more digital-savvy or the print audience ages -- that would have happened anyway. Because of The New 52 switch to same-day digital, a new digital audience that may have previously been unable to find a comic shop can now find timely comic books immediately.

1. THE UNIVERSE OPENS UP
The New 52's simplest success was the one that was built into it from the very start: In relaunching the line and restarting the universe, everyone started from the same place, and thoughts of rooting stories in hard-to-remember past continuity suddenly evaporated. Rebooting the universe -- despite the idea of a reboot being denied by DC ahead of time -- ****** creators out of comfortably lazy positions and had them addressing whether the stories could work for brand new readers picking the book up for the first time.

Some creators took more advantage of the cold open than others -- Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang's Wonder Woman, for example, feels like a story that would have been impossible with the previous version of the character -- but merely having that potential there, and the question of whether or not their comics could succeed as a jumping-on point, resulted in some great work that surprised and succeeded better than many expected.

 

[Will E Worm]

One Year of DC's the NEW 52: The 10 Worst Things

This Friday sees the one-year anniversary of the release of Justice League #1, the first title from DC Comics' much-heralded New 52 that rebooted the DC Universe for a new audience and a new era. By turns exciting, controversial and downright confusing, the 600+ issues that have appeared since last August's launch of a new universe have brought new highs to Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the rest of the World's Greatest Super-Heroes, but also some new lows.

On Monday, we celebrated some of the high points of the New 52's first year of print. Today... well, here are some of those not-so-high points, as we count down our 10 least favorite results of the revamp, from the lack of some favorite characters to conflicts between creators and editors.

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10. EVERYONE'S A STAR
One of the great things about the pre-New 52 DC Universe was its depth; it wasn't just the Justice League or Teen Titans that protected the world, there was an entire lineup of C-grade (and lower) characters to fight the good fight while the stars were having their moments in the spotlight.

Post-New 52, however, the superheroic universe seems so much smaller, and so less interesting. Where are oddball characters like the Knight and Squire, Tasmanian Devil and B'Wana ***** these days? When a character as obscure as Vibe makes a reappearance, these days, it comes via the high-profile Justice League of America title, and even the Outsiders' Looker is getting her own National Comics one-shot (pictured) as she debuts in the New 52niverse.

In the current DCU, it feels as if almost all of the superheroes are the stars of their own stories, and therefore their adventures have to have the importance and intensity that that kind of thing demands in order for readers to come back month after month. The current DCU is at a loss for having more stars, and fewer bit players.


9. PARTY LIKE IT'S 1991
With all the advance publicity and media interest, The New 52 provided DC with its strongest chance to reach new readers in recent memory. The "Young Justice" line of teen heroes, in particular, seemed perfectly placed to offer up new takes on the publisher's youngest heroes that would appeal to those who'd grown up with the Teen Titans and Young Justice TV shows.

All the more perplexing, then, to see veteran creators with two decades (or more) of superhero experience given titles like Teen Titans, The Ravagers and Legion Lost, not to mention taking over books like Grifter and Deathstroke from younger, up-and-coming creators. Ignoring the fact that Scott Lobdell, Rob Liefeld (who recently, and very publicly, cut ties with DC), Howard Mackie and Fabian Nicieza (who left Legion Lost after issue #6 and was replaced by former Marvel editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco) were surprising choices for the relaunch considering their lack of previous history with DC, giving the books that should specifically be the most in tune with contemporary pop culture and "the ****" to creators a generation or two removed raises some questions. Maybe they were hoping for a mini-revival of the Image boom?

8. CHARACTERS LEFT BEHIND
With 52 monthly titles up for grabs, it was disappointing to see deserving characters left on the shelf. The now-canceled Static Shock was the only revival from the entire Milestone line? Stormwatch, Voodoo and Grifter were the only Wildstorm books? (Sure, Team 7 is coming, but Voodoo has already disappeared.) Even among more traditional DC characters, there have been noticeable absences: the lack of an Atom book, for example, or seeing Steel as the only Superman ****** hero without an ongoing.

Worse still, as the second and third wave of titles have debuted, there've been few surprises in the selection of titles, with only ***** of Sorcery's Amethyst and Dial H pulling from the publisher's varied back catalog of characters and concepts in any manner of depth outside of the superhero genre.

It feels greedy to complain about conservative allocation of titles when the initial lineup included both OMAC and Mister Terrific, but still: Would the world really rather have Red Lanterns more than a well-done Hardware series?


7. EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN
Twelve months of comics -- and three "waves" of launch announcements -- in, and you'd be forgiven for thinking that, just maybe, you've seen all of this before somewhere. Sixty-two ongoing series have been created for The New 52 at this point, in addition to the series of National Comics one-shots designed to showcase characters who don't have their own series (yet) plus a handful of miniseries, and yet, the number of brand new characters who have been introduced to the DC Universe as a result of a year of creativity can apparently be counted on your fingers.

In fact, only one series from The New 52's entire first year of publication -- The Ravagers -- isn't a revival of an existing DC title, and even in that case, its core characters are revivals of heroes who had existed in the old DC and Wildstorm universes (Talon will double that total when it debuts next month).

It's one thing to want to focus on reviving fan-favorite characters and meet the demand for familiar faces, but if The New 52 really wants to live up to its billing, it needs to start coming up with something that is genuinely new, and soon.


6. FILL-IN FRENZY
OK, we admit it. We listed "no more late books" as one of the best things about The New 52. But that accomplishment is tainted by the fact that, in order to keep the books coming out on time, artwork has sometimes suffered.

Having an issue or two drawn by an alternate artist is understandable -- and sometimes it turns out to be awesome, like George Perez giving Mahmud Asrar a rest on Supergirl, or Gene Ha working on Justice League (the cover to issue #7, which Ha did the interiors for, is pictured).

But too often, a single issue will have more than one penciler involved. In the middle of a story, the art will switch, often interrupting the flow of an otherwise good story. We'd like DC to get long-term planning into place that would prevent those types of problems so comics can retain the "wow" factor of a great penciller on a great story. (One penciller per story, that is, unless the plot calls for varying visuals.)


5. ORACLE'S ABSENCE
Although we're trying to look at the big picture of The New 52 in this list -- without getting too specific on which of our favorite characters or concepts have changed or vanished (Wally? Donna? The apparently cursed Stephanie Brown?) -- we keep coming back to this one character as a sticking point. We just can't get around the fact that the loss of Oracle was among the worst things to happen with The New 52.

Yes, Barbara is pretty cool as Batgirl, and Gail Simone was the right person to handle the change. Yes, we understand the "pros" of making her a younger, more active heroine.

But losing one of the most high-profile disabled characters in all of comics -- one that has already been established in other, more mainstream media -- seemed like a negative at the time The New 52 was announced. And after a year of the comics themselves, it's still a negative.


4. WHAT NOT TO WEAR
The original Silver Age costumes for characters like The Flash and Green Lantern are classics of minimal design and branding, based around simple shapes and icons to represent the characters and their abilities. In much the same way, Superman and Batman's outfits were deservedly iconic.

The idea that any of those costumes would be improved by adding more lines (especially ones that seem to serve no purpose; is Hal Jordan wearing shoulder pads now...?) and making their cleanliness unnecessarily busier remains one of the greater mysteries of The New 52 to date: Who thought that was a good idea? And how long do we have to wait until everyone agrees that, sure, maybe getting rid of the red trunks on Superman wasn't the worst idea in the world, but there's really no reason a completely invulnerable man would need to wear a suit of armor -- even an ***** suit of armor?

We can but hope that the costume changes prove to be something that are constantly revised as the series go on, and that each subsequent makeover restores some of the original grace to each hero's look.

And maybe gives Wonder Woman some pants, too.


3. CROSSOVER CRAZY
One of the side effects of getting rid of your universe's entire history is that suddenly, nothing fits together like it used to. While there were benefits to tearing down the giant walls of continuity that were blocking writers, The New 52 ended up ripping out too much of the foundation in the process. Are fans interested in a Deathstroke that has never fought the Teen Titans? Does a Superboy interest Superman fans if he has nothing to do with Clark Kent?

Seemingly trying to make up for that lost cohesiveness, DC started crossing over titles within a couple months of The New 52's launch. Batman and Superman started showing up in other titles, and from January to May, there was rarely a week that didn't have a crossover issue released. Readers had to choose whether to buy extra comics every month to understand the titles that were just starting to establish themselves in the first place.

While it's a good idea to build the DCU foundation again, the crossovers are getting a little silly. DC backed away from the trend this summer, but that was apparently just a temporary reprieve as we prepared for more inter-title crossovers this fall, and next year's full-scale Trinity War crossover event.

2. THE TIME IS NOW... JUST NOW
Once upon a time -- in other words, before September 2011 -- the DC Universe had history. It wasn't that the stories were part of a larger narrative that had been published for decades, although there was that, but that characters in the DCU had at least the illusion of growth and aging.

The Justice Society had fought in World War II. New characters took on the name and legacy of their predecessors, and had to deal with the weight and responsibility that brought.

There was, at the very least, the idea of things being impermanent and change being part of the world, because you knew that Hal Jordan was Earth's second Green Lantern, or that Dick Grayson had not only retired as Robin, but that he'd gone on to grow into the mantle of his mentor.

Now, all of that has been wiped away, and the DCU's superheroic history only stretches back for five years or so. Sure, that might make the stories easier to sell as jumping on points for new readers, but there's a lot that's been lost in the process that didn't need to be.


1. CREATIVE DIFFERENCES
Soon after the relaunch, DC was making surprising changes to its creative lineup. Several writers were suddenly yanked from books -- sometimes being given no reason why -- and others were announcing their departure over "editorial differences."

It became difficult to keep up the changes, particularly between months three and eight. From the revolving door on Stormwatch and Green Arrow, to the weird shake-up on Static Shock, to the unused scripts from previously acclaimed writers like Sterling Gates and Ron Marz, to the revolving door for writers and artists on titles like Superman and Firestorm, it's starting to look like a juggling act since The New 52's inception.

If a book isn't doing well, it's admirable for an editor to swiftly make changes and try something new. But as we've seen from Rob Liefeld's public resignation from the publisher, there are times when creators and editors are not only not on the same page about the direction of a title, but openly in conflict over the topic. And that's not a good thing for anyone, especially not the reader.