Top 10 New 52 titles

A few friends of mine have been bugging me about a wanting a top 10 list of my favorite titles from the DC Comics New 52, and after reading a article, in my universities news paper, that celebrates the more mediocre or mainstream titles of the reboot I found myself inspired to voice my opinion on what I view as some of the top titles of the New 52 (I will not be counting any miniseries to also come out of the re-launch).

10. Action Comics: This is a title I was fully expecting to like based strictly on the creative team of Grant Morrison, who is my favorite writer in comics today, and Rags Morales. I love Grant Morrison’s love of the odd 50’s stories of superheroes, and how he reinterprets those stories into the modern era. I do have to say this is also one of the titles I been kind of disappointed with since I was expecting the big epic craziness that is Grant Morrison, but it is still enjoyable enough to leave it in the 10^th spot on this list. I await every issue just to see what happens next, I’m sure as this series continues I will be more in love with it.

9. Wonder Woman: This is the first time I have ever read a Wonder Woman title, and so far it is doing its part in really drawing me into the story. Now when I say this is my first time reading a Wonder Woman title that isn’t for the lack of wanting, I just never knew where to start (thanks to Alan Kistler over at Newsarama for his wonderful top 10 list of Wonder Woman stories to check out I now know where to start reading in trades) because of the characters rich history and several recons I didn’t know where to start, as well as have a great respect for the character I didn’t want to soil my views of the character with a less then stellar title to start off with. This Wonder Woman

series by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang had me from the very first issue, with its fast paced

story telling that doesn’t make you feel like you were shorted, and its depictions of strong female characters that I found to be a breath of fresh air in comparison to some of the other titles that come out around the same time, e.g., Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws. If you like to see strong female characters handled with well and with respect I highly recommend this title for you.

8. Stormwatch: This title is one of the DC Universe’s “Edge” books for its darker perspective and character base. In it we see a lot of the Wild Storm characters, how their operations would work in the new DC Universe. That said it also a kind of secret Justice League title that with the writer, Paul Cornel, of this title other title, the excellent Demon Knight, seem to be chronicling the history of this new universe. The headlining characters of Stormwatch are Apollo, Midnighter, and one of my personal favorite characters the Martian Manhunter. Stormwatch is a group that has been protecting the Earth for a long title, and is now dealing with this rise of “super heroes” of the past five years, as they are the “Professionals”. I would recommend this title and Demon Knight strictly for Cornel’s great story telling ability, I have heard some criticism on it being a bit slow and hard to get into, but coming to this title as someone with no background with the Wild Storm universe I have found this title to be quite enjoyable compared to some of the other titles I have sampled from the reboot.

7. Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E.: This is written by the great comic book writer Jeff Lemire, who will be brought up again later on in this list for another amazing title. This book had me with Lemire’s name being attached to the title, but after reading his work on the Flashpoint crossover of Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown I was even more sold on this title. It has been everything I would want from this title; character development, twists on traditional concepts, connections to other works, and Frankenstein fighting big ass monsters. All the characters seem to be fully developed, and I can’t wait to see the back history issue of Frankenstein in different era’s as well as the possibly seeing issues about the people behind the parts that make up Frankenstein like Lemire hinted at well talking on a panel at the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo this past summer.

6. O.M.A.C.: Now I know this title has received some bad reviews over its third issue, but I liked it. It’s just a big fun dumb book. Dan DiDio and Keith Giffen do an amazing job at giving us probably one of the most fun and light books in the reboot that pulls inspiration from the amazing works of Jack Kirby. Without taking itself to seriously the books adventures are fun and keep me coming back every month. Unfortunately I have heard comments from my friends that are new to comics that the title is hard to understand if you don’t have knowledge of the works of Jack Kirby.

5. All Star Western: Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti continue their amazing wok that they were doing on the Jonah Hex title prior to the reboot b

ut instead of it just being one and done titles they expand it to a multi issue story arc that does not seem to suffer from that. The story is great with having

Jonah Hex teamed up with Amadeus Arkham in a

crime-solving caper through late 1800’s Gotham City. As well with this title we get a back up story that showcases other western characters, the

first of which being El Diablo. If this is any indication of what we can expect from Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti in the DCnU then I can’t wait to get my hand on their take on The Ray.

4. Batwoman: By all means this title should be

higher on my list, but loses out to favoritism and complete shock and surprise by the next three titles. This story is pretty much a continuation

of the great Batwoman run in Detective Comics, by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III, which is collected in Batwoman Elegy. Tough Greg Rucka does not return to work on this title J.H. Williams III is doing a phenomenal job at writing this with co-writer W. Haden Blackman. And if the story of strong female Batman-esque superhero doesn’t float your but alone check this title out for its stunning and beautiful art, which is also done by J.H. Williams III.

3. Swamp Thing: This title and the next one are rea

lly interchangeable for me. I never expected to fall

head over heels for them like I have because I only picked them up because of who the writer are. Swamp Thing is written by the Scott Snyder, who is carving his way through the comic book industry as a creator with an amazing talent fo

r telling great character driven stories without them having any real low point. Prior to this you could have seen Snyder on Detective Comics writing amazing story with the Dick Grayson Batman, as well as over at Vertigo with the American Vampire title. Scott Snyder will be popping up one more time on this list.

2. Animal Man: Again a title I wasn’t expecting to like as much as I did and only picked up because of who the writer is. The writer of this title is one

Jeff Lemire, who was mentioned earlier on the list with the Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. title. But its not just the writing of this indie comic super star that drives this book, by no means show we over look the amazing art by Travel Foreman. This and Swamp Thing are interchangeable for me because not only was I so surprised by how much I like them but that the stories are so interconnected without them yet crossing over it is amazing, with in the fourth issue of both you do get references to the other.

1. Batman: By no means is this the best title in the new 52, it though would be for sure in the top 5 I have to put it at number one just for how much care the writer of this title gives to telling the best possible story with the character. Thank you Scott Snyder for making this best Batman book out of the new 52 titles. You are an amazing writer and I cannot wait to see where this story line you are currently giving us goes. Batman is my favorite comic book character and also through that nostalgia we end up with the Scott Snyder Batman being number 1 on my list of top ten titles of the new 52.

My Week In Geek

This last week for me as of geek I picked up Flashpoint 5, The Incredible Hulks 635, Justice League 1, The Amazing Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt, Absolute Batman: The Long Halloween, X-Men: Age of X, House of M, Thor: The Trials of Loki, and Season 1 of Wolverine and the X-Men.

You can see my thoughts on the first issue of the Justice League here. As for the other comics I have to say my favorite issue from last week was The Incredible Hulks 635. It’s the stunning conclusion to Greg Pak’s run with the character as well as the end of this volume. I am going to greatly miss his work with the characters, but I look forward to the new series starting in October.

So far I have only read Age of X out of the trades I picked up, which I really enjoyed. I have a tendency to love alternative history stories of well-established characters. I wont say much more on this story because I think I will end up doing a review of it later this month in a Random Trade Tuesday. The same can be said for almost all the trades I picked up this week.

As for Wolverine and the X-Men I’ve only watched the first disc and wow do I love it. It reminds me of the Anti-Mutant stuff from the 90’s X-men series mixed with a continuation of the X-Men Evolution series from the 2000’s. Really loved both those series so this combination of them is just awesome for me.

Well that was last week in geek for me, and this week looks to be just as geek heavy with more new DC first issues and more X-men stuff. See you tomorrow with my weekly comic reviews.

Random Trade Tuesday

For the first Random Trade Tuesday I am going to be talking about volume one of a story that is very near and dear to me, that story is DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke and Dave Stewart. The reason this story is so important to me is that this was one of the first stories I read in comics, well in trades, and it doesn’t hurt that it is also just an amazing superhero period piece. That is why I have order the Absolute version of it when Thwipster had it on sale.

The book starts off in 1945 with the tale of The Losers and their last mission. That mission is to go to this island and retrieve Rick Flagg’s team and a Nazi scientist, but in the end the only one who survives is Flagg. On the island the Losers have to face off against dinosaurs, this will be the Losers last stand. After this we get a little background on the history of this world, as well as a where all the Golden Age superheroes went. Darwyn Cooke has remarked that this DC: The New Frontier was inspired by the James Robinson miniseries The Golden Age in which by the end the Justice Society is called in front of congress to unmakes and work for the government or be arrested, and in the heroes decide to hang up their costumes and disappear. If you can find this story I highly recommend picking it up. After that we are at an Air Force Base in 1948 and a young Hal Jordan tracking down a pilot that flew with his dad in the war. After this we get treated to a seen of Hourman still in action followed by an article by Iris West about his death and more of this world’s history, in this it brings up an interesting look on how McCarthyism would affect a world with superheroes. As you can already tell there is quite a bit of jumping from story to story, and that’s the way the whole volume is. I quite enjoy it in how it gives you just enough on each character at a time to build on. After the Hourman section we move on to a tale of Hal Jordan in the Korean War, and how he would not kill enemy fighters but instead put himself in situation that he would bate them so his fellow fighter pilots would be able to shoot them down. Also at this time we get to meet Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen as they are covering the Korean War for the Daily Planet. After the Hal story in which he ends up having to kill a man for survival we get the introduction of the Martian Manhunter being accidently teleported to Earth. Here we get to see some amazing art of J’onn J’onzz in his Martian form; I absolutely love Darwyn Cooke’s art, especially when it comes to The Martian Manhunter. Headlines read “Wonder Woman: Winning the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised”. Cut to Superman finding bodies and fire everywhere. Superman walks into a hut to find Wonder Woman and a bunch of other women (how are holding guns) celebrating, Superman finds out what happened here and does not approve of what Wonder Woman let happen here. Darwyn Cooke has been on record as to saying he had a hard time trying to figure out how to show Wonder Woman as powerful, and so what he did was make her taller then Superman, we don’t get to see that until after she gets off the table to confront him. Back to J’onn J’onzz learning about our world through television and testing out his shape shifting abilities. We get a panel showing us the origin of the Flash. After that we get Detective John Jones working with a Private Investigator by the name of Slam Bradley, they are working on a case about a kidnapped boy. When they arrive at the church where the boy is being held by some strange cult they see the Batman there taking down members of the cult. John tries using his phasing ability to get closer to the boy to save him, but is stopped by fire. The batman we see here is the darker scarier version, pre-Robin, and thusly scares the young boy he’s trying to rescue. Batman takes down the cult leader and takes his necklace; well John takes the book that the cult was working from. It’s Fight Night in Las Vegas as heavy weight champ Ted “Wildcat” Grant goes up against the young up start Cassius Clay. Ted barely wins the fight, and at the after party we see him walk in with Selina Kyle on his arm. Captain Cold attacks the fights after party, where Iris West also just happens to be at. The Flash shows up to save the day, which leaves Ted remarking how he wished Jay Garret were there to see this new speedster. Since we’ve set this up as a world in which heroes aren’t allowed to openly operate we get a room full of heroes doing nothing but watching this one guy from Central City stopping this criminal. I can’t read The Flash in this with out hearing the voice of Neil Patrick Harris from the New Frontier animated movie. After that we get a little Hal story that kind of ties in with the origin of the Challengers of the Unknown, which is followed by a John Henry story. After that we are treated to John Jones at the movies, where he watches the Fleischer Superman cartoon, a newsreel on The Challengers of the Unknown, and followed by the main attraction Invasion From Mars, which John finds to be hilarious, but the people around him are genuinely frightened by it. When John gets home he is greeted by the shadowing figure of Batman who is there to work with John on the case of that cult. He brought him the necklace that goes with the book, and told him how he has a seventy thousand dollar sliver of space rock to take down the alien from Metropolis, but for John he only needs a penny for a book of matches if he ever needs to take him down, because if there’s one thing in life that’s a constant that is Batman doesn’t trust anyone. Then there is an award ceremony for Wonder Woman, which after we have President Eisenhower telling Wonder Woman that she needs a vacation and that she should fall into place. Hal and Faraday meet, and Hal is finally informed as to what he’s training for. It’s a mission to Mars. And we end this volume with John Jones reading from the cults book, main about a Viking prince on an island with monsters.

Now the over all story of DC: The New Frontier is probably one of my favorite stories of all time, and this volume sets so much up for the second half as well as has so many winks and nods to DC Comics continuity from the Golden Age and the Silver Age of comics that its damn near impossible to not love. I hope that you will join me back here next Tuesday for the fast passed action adventure that is DC: The New Frontier volume 2.

Not a Regular Occurrence

I was originally planning on todays post to be a review of the first X-Men movie since this month we see the release of X-Men: First Class on DVD and BluRay (actually this week even). But due to a blind date, getting ready for the beginning of a new school year, and a family visit I was unable to watch X-Men so I could review it. I hope that this non-movie review Monday doesn’t become a habit. So instead of giving you the X-Men review I will give you a hint to the posts for Tuesday and Friday.

Tuesday:

Friday:

Batman Friday: The Black Casebook

For the first Batman Friday I will be looking at the trade of Batman: The Black Casebook. These are some of the stories that inspired Batman: R.I.P. and has an introduction by Grant Morrison. This trade collects an assortment of Batman stories from the 50’s and one from the 1964, and if you have read Grant Morrison’s book Supergods you will get a taste here on how weird the post war era of Batman was. At the beginning of the trade there is a general introduction on how and why Grant Morrison ended up on Batman as well as a background on the twelve Batman stories that he chose for the trade.

The first story collected is “A Partner for Batman” which is a story of Robin confronting his greatest fear… the Batman replacing him with someone else. In the beginning of the story Batman and Robin are taking down some criminals on a boat, well doing that Robin ends up breaking his leg. For the remainder of the story Robin is stuck being on bed rest, so for the time being Batman needs a replacement sidekick and that’s where Wingman comes in. By the end of the story we see that all of Robins fretting was for not since Wingman was actually being trained by Batman to go be a Batman in Europe. Grant Morrison in his Batman and Son & Batman: The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul story arcs touched on this story with the replacing of Tim Drake as Robin for Damian Wayne.

The next story in the trade is “Batman—Indian Chief”. This is the story that introduces us to the characters of Man-of-the-Bats & Little Raven. Now I could go on & on about this story in comparison with the seventh issue of Batman Incorporated. These characters have evolved from their first appearance in 1954 to their most resent appearance; they went from being depicted as uncivilized versions of Batman & Robin to fully formed character dealing with the real issues that are faced by the First Nations people on reserves. Anyways in the story Batman has to take on the role of Man-of-the-Bats so Great Eagle isn’t found out to be Man-of-the-Bats by his enemy Black Elk. As I have mentioned these characters appear again in Batman Incorporated seven, but they also return in Grant Morrison’s Batman: The Black Glove story arc. Grant Morrison has done amazing work in developing these two characters, & I feel out of any of the Bat characters to come out of Gran Morrison’s run with Batman these two are in desperate need of a mini-series or even on going series.

“The Batmen of All Nations” is central to Grant Morrison’s Batman: The Black Glove with it being the story in which all the different heroes that have been inspired by Batman have come together. It’s your basic story of murder and deceit with on of the other Batmen being someone out to kill Batman. Overall its kind of a forgettable story if it was for what Grant Morrison and Paul Cornel would do with those characters fifty some years later.

Did you know that there was a Batman before Bruce Wayne was ever Batman… well that is reveled in the story of “The First Batman”, where it turns out that Thomas Wayne wore the cape and cowl before his son ever did. This story tells the tale of how Thomas & Martha Wayne were at a costume party Thomas ended up stopping the sinister plans of a gangster who would later hire Joe Chill to murder the Wayne’s. Batman tries to bring down the gangster through his normal route, but that doesn’t work for him. So after all normal methods have been proven fruitless Bruce Wayne puts on his father bat costume and goes after the criminal with great success. In the end Bruce hangs his fathers costume up in the Batcave like he would with any of his past costumes. This story plays a role in Batman: R.I.P. & Grant Morrison’s run on Batman and Robin as the outfit for the villainous Doctor Hurt.

“The Club of Heroes” is a sequel to the “Batmen of all Nation” story talked about earlier in the trade. This story reunites our international team of Batman like heroes and introduces the character of billionaire John Mayhew, a character that would return with the Club in Batman: The Black Glove as a connection to Doctor Hurt and the sinister Black Glove. The story itself isn’t much, it’s a Superman Batman team up where Batman & the Club of Heroes are trying to figure out who will be its leader, & Superman is dealing with a new hero in town by the name of Lighting Man. Turns out the leader for the Club will be chosen by the person that does the most amazing feat, and that person ends up being our Dark Knight who discovers that Lighting Man is actually Superman well suffering from Kryptonite amnesia. Who new Batman was such a great detective?

Who would be capable of ending the Batman’s career, well that is what we find out in “The Man Who Ended Batman’s Career”. Turns out its no one, but we do get a gripping psychological story of how Professor Milo plans on stopping the Batman by making him afraid of the very thing he is, so without missing a beat he becomes the character of Starman. With the help of his faithful ward Robin helps Batman get over his phobia and become the Batman again well taking down Professor Milo. These kind of stories where inspirational to Grant Morrison in his creating of Batman: R.I.P., because of the potential for psychological damage to Batman from years of mind altering attacks.

“Am I Really Batman?” is another story heavy in psychological drama for the Batman, as well as the return of dear Professor Milo who has dosed Batman with a mind-altering chemical that changed his state of mind. The chemical Milo uses causes the victim to loose all desire to live, so Robin & Alfred give Batman a reason by denouncing him as Batman & thusly giving him a caused to keep fighting. They do this for the twenty-four hour time period it would take for the chemical to wear off. Again it is another psychological drama stories that paved the way for Batman: R.I.P.

Zur-En-Arrh! If you were to pinpoint key phrases that have been important to the Batman title in the last ten years “Zur-En-Arrh” would be one of them without a doubt. The concept of the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh from Grant Morrison’s Batman: R.I.P. can be traced back to a one-shot story from February 1958 in “Batman – The Superman of Planet X”. In that story our Batman is teleported to the planet Zur-En-Arrh by its Batman. Well there our Batman finds out that he has powers similar to those of his friend Superman, and so with these new abilities he stops disasters, fights invaders and hordes of giant robots. By the end of the story he is sent back home, and is left trying to figure out if it was or wasn’t all just a dream… with a little gift from the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, the Bat-Radia. So much of what happens in this story is brought up in Batman: R.I.P. & I love that. I think out of all the stories in this collected trade this is by far my favorite.

“Batman Meets Bat-Mite” is the first appearance of Batman’s number one fan, the fifth dimension being known as Bat-Mite. In this story Bat-Mite does all he can to make this the best Batman adventure ever by throwing all sorts of changes at him with his fifth dimensional magic. This character makes important appearances in both Batman: The Black Glove & Batman: R.I.P.

“The Rainbow Creature” & “The Batman Creature” are both stories depicting how this had drastically changed in this post war era of Batman. With the waning interest in superhero comics by the general public this were done differently then how they were in the past. Also at this time Batman & Robin were facing claims of homosexuality, which at that time was less accepted then say today. In the story of “The Rainbow Creature” we showcase the weird stories that they told in order to get away form some of the issues of the past with new & weird bad guys for Batman to fight. In this case a multi colored monster with different powers base on its colors, as apposed to random street gang crime. As for “The Batman Creature” we so both a story showcasing the new Bat-family members, Batwoman and Ace the Bat-Hound, as well as a story about the weird things that would happen to the Batman, such as in this story being turned into a Gorilla.

The two part story “Robin Dies at Dawn” is the really rocket fuel to the story of Batman: R.I.P. with it having to deal with the loneliness of Batman and the emotional toll that can take on the character. It also is the bases for the idea of the three different Batmen we seen in Batman: and Son, as well as Batman: R.I.P., through the isolation experiment, as well the doctor conducting the experiment would also be retconned into being Doctor Hurt. This story is very weird in that we are dealing with things of Batman’s imagination, criminals in gorilla suits, and Batman hallucinating things from his time in the isolation experiment. In the end Batman does save Robin and thusly saves the day.

In the end I would highly recommend this trade to anyone wanting a way to better understand Grant Morrison’s run on Batman, as well as to anyone that would want to get familiar with Batman stories of this time. I would like to mention that I wouldn’t mind if DC would do one of these for All Star Superman, since that is another Grant Morrison story based off of some of those weird Superman stories of the post war era.

Thursday Comics: Justice League

Justice League #1

Warning this review contains spoilers for the first issue of Justice League by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee

First off I want to say that only 4/7 of the characters on the cover show up at all in this first issue, and I have a problem with that since in the 80’s we could have a half a book story in Secret Origin and we would get the back story on all the characters and why they needed to come together in the first place. Anyways so yes in this issue we are privy to see Batman, Green Lantern, Vic Stone (eventually Cyborg), and the Man of Steel himself Superman. As we saw in the six-page preview two months ago the world, or just Gotham, isn’t to friendly to the whole vigilante super hero thing with the police hunting down Batman and the thing he is chasing. The beast Batman is chasing looks to me like some kind of strange robot/Parademon/Doomsday hybrid. Then out comes Green Lantern to help out old Bats, but Batman doesn’t care for how bright Green Lantern is. At this point the beast shots some sort of laser blast at the two heroes, but misses them and hits the police helicopter instead. To be the hero Green Lantern catches the crashing helicopters with bats, have to say I would preferred to have seen him use a catchers glove instead. This is where we find out that old robo-para-doomsday can shape shift, as he does so to run away. The creature escapes underground and our heroes are quick to follow. By this point we are made fully aware of how cocky and arrogant Green Lantern is, with his attitude of “I can do everything and you can do nothing because you are just a puny man dressed as a bat. Nothing makes you special.” The batman spots the creature and that’s when it sets of some ort of device, Green Lantern protects the two heroes as the creature cries out “FOR DARKSEID”. Green Lantern mistakes it as “Dark Side”. The two heroes check out the device after all the smoke and fire subside, Green Lantern scans it with his ring and guess what its unable to identify the strange thing, well Batman thinks it could be some sort of alien computer (possibly and exploding Mother Box). So since Batman and Green Lantern both agree that the device is alien they decide to be xenophobic and question the only known alien on the planet. Cut to a football game where star athlete Vic Stone scores a touchdown, but that means nothing to him since the person who he had a reserved seat for did. In the coaches office scouts offer anything they can to get Vic, but the coach wont let any of them talk with Vic till his dad is there, unfortunately for Vic daddy is a busy man. A green light construct of a fighter jet fly’s overhead, and everyone is excited to see”…one of them!” even if its not Superman. This also where we find out that Vic’s dad studies super-humans. Now if I were abetting man I would be putting money down on Vic’s life being drastically changed after this. Batman and Green Lantern land at a Lexcorp demolition zone where Superman is supposed to be according to the ring. Batman grumbles about how they should have been stealthy in their approach instead of taking “a glowing green jet”. Green Lantern has still got the cocky attitude that he can handle anything, so he locks Batman in a construct and faces off against Superman all by himself. Turn the page and Superman is knocking Green Lantern out, and with the three dialogue balloons I get an attitude of arrogance from Superman that I don’t care for, hopefully Grant Morrison can fix that. After that we get a couple of pages of concept art from the designing stage of the title.

As much as I have my problems with this issue I still enjoyed it. There’s not a lot of meat to this first issue, but it’s paving the groundwork for this new universe to take shape. I don’t think they should have reveled that the big bad was Darkseid, because now the suspense of who is behind all this is gone. One more problem I have with the Darkseid story plot was that all through SDCC we kept hearing that the New Gods were going to be Earth-51 and that we would see them in Multiversity, but here we are in Justice League getting a New God, or is it that Darkseid isn’t a New God anymore or is this “Darkseid” something completely different? The final thing I have to say is that I still feel Geoff Johns can’t write Batman anywhere near as good as we have some to expect thanks to writers like Grant Morrison and Scott Snyder, Johns still seems trapped in writing Batman as “I’m dark, brooding, and angry… FEAR ME!!!” and we all know that Batman doesn’t have to be like that anymore. Sadly the personality traits Johns gives Batman lead me to believe that he still thinks of Batman as the paranoid crazy person that dresses up as a bat and has plans to take down everyone in the universe because he can’t trust them.

The next issue is Batman vs. Superman out in store on October 19, 2011. I hope you all enjoy this first month of the reboots.

Review written by Justin Gyorfi

My version of the Justice League for the DCnU

As some of you may know I have started a new tumblr blog dedicated to the new Justice League book that is coming out in September from the creative team of Geoff Johns and Jim Lee. I’ll be focusing more on this title then any of the other titles to come out of the DCnU reboot since it is the flagship of the reboot. With that being said it doesn’t mean I am yet a big fan of the current direction of this Justice League. Heavens no, I have my big qualms with its roster, and that’s what this blog post is going to be about. Things I would be doing differently if I was in charge of the Justice League reboot.

First off with them promoting the idea of diversity with in the titles as well as in the Justice League I would definitely be changing up the new roster, but still keeping to the tradition of the original seven. So yes you would still see Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter, those seven are the heart and soul of what the Justice League is, or at least they are to me. But that would only be seven of the members, and since Septembers Justice League is going to be fifteen members so shall this, and the remaining members would be; Doctor Light (Kimiyo Hoshi), Vibe (Paco Ramone), Cyborg (Victor Stone), Zatanna (Zatanna Zatara), The Ray (Ray Terrill), Steel (John Henry Irons), Firestorm (Ronnie Raymond & Jason Rusch), and the Atom (Ryan Choi).

Now with my roster I would almost rather see Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern, because I find him to be more relatable version of the character, but I can also see the point that DC has of how he is one character away from really connecting to the new audience. Yes you need to know the history of Hal Jordan, at least up to Emerald Twilight. Another reason I would want to see Kyle over Hal in the Justice League is because Hal seems to be far to busy in the Green Lantern books that I don’t think he would have the time to be a part of the Justice League. Finally Kyle is just more interesting then Hal. I’m not saying this because I came in with Kyle being Green Lantern, no when I started reading Green Lantern it was with Hal staring in the book, but compared to the personality Kyle has Hal is just far to vanilla. He’s just kind of dull and bland, and they even had to bring over some of Kyle’s personality to liven him up in the movie.

Beside for the Hal Kyle issue I would accept the rest of the Justice League as classic incarnations of the characters, even Barry over Wally as the Flash. But as mentioned earlier I would still have J’onn J’onzz Martian Manhunter still on the team because of all the potential use of the character, as well as he is one of the classic pillars of the Justice League. If I were on the title would have the first story arch be that of J’onn being the elder statesman of the team and bringing all the characters together. As well I would have in the individual characters books one when background character that looks the same which we would find out in Justice League to be J’onn watching & monitoring the heroes to see when they would be ready to be apart of the Justice League. As well we would see him brought back to the role of tactician in a very similar way to how he was in JLA. It really on makes sense that he would be giving strategy trough his telepathy so they could still surprise their adversaries with their tactics.

As for my choices in the my eight other members for the League each one has a purpose as well as a tie to other classic incarnations of the Justice League, and yes some of their origins/backgrounds would be changed. One character that we would see changed would be Vibe; he wouldn’t be so much the breakdancing super hero that had street gang ties. No this time I would make it so that Paco was used as a tool by a Crime Cartel in New Mexico for his ability to shatter walls with his sonic shock waves. We would also see the Martian Manhunter be the rescuer of Paco saving him from his life of imprisoned servitude to the cartel. This would decrease the datedness of the character being a primarily a stereotyped 80’s Hispanic Break Dancer. As well it would harken to the days of Justice League Detroit, it would just be a nod to the history of the team.

Steel would basically fill the role of Ironman on the League, but also he would show the significance of what the heroes do in this Universe with being a shining beacon of hope and potential for all people of the world. John Henry Irons is a man; yes a man able to build a high-tech suit that gives him powers to fight crime but still just a man. He shows that anyone could become the hero when inspired. It doesn’t matter if you have powers or not, but given the skills that you already have you can do what is needed to make the world a better place. There is also the added benefit of him being heavy into tech development which when partnered with other members of the team could lead to such marvels as the; JL Satellite base, teleportation devices, and the Javelin.

Cyborg who is already on the Geoff Johns and Jim Lee Justice League would still play a pivotal role in my version of the Justice League. Much like Steel he would have a big part to do with tech, but he would also play an important role in leading. To me the often miss used and under appreciated former Titan could play just as critical of a role in the role of field commander as Superman or the Martian Manhunter. He has all the necessary strength, speed, and durability to go head to head with many heavy hitters, but he also has all the sensory upgrades to make him perfect for stealth-based missions. Cyborg is a well-rounded character with a natural born leader quality that makes him perfect for the team. He’s more then just a guy to leave on the satellite to rebuild Red Tornado when he is broken or goes haywire, Victor Stone deserves to play with the other big name players of the Justice League.

Out of all the characters on Justice League Dark why is it Deadman that is on the Justice League proper? If I were to pick one character from Dark that would make a better connector to both Justice League’s I would pick Zatanna hands down. She has all the magical power of a god as long as she can talk; as well she has a longer history of active membership in the Justice League (like that matters in a reboot) as well as being a former leader of the League. I realize though that there could be a stigma for the character of Zatanna being on the Justice League thanks to Identity Crisis and the issue of mind wiping, but that can always be taken care of by retconning that story out of existence, its not like it would be the first time a big event has been retconned out of existence, example: Crisis on Infinite Earths. An easy way for DC to retcon mind wiping out of Identity Crisis would be by having Kimiyo Hoshi become the first and only Doctor Light. As well the inclusion of Doctor Light would give the team a doctor that isn’t a PhD, but instead she’s an MD, which would suit the team perfectly if they wrote her as someone with a background in meta-human medicine.

Reason I chose The Ray to be on the Justice League is because it’s about time that the character got a shot a being a full time member of the Justice League. We have a history of him being a reserve member on the Justice League and the Justice Society. As well Ray was a member of such team as Justice League Task Force, Young Justice, and the Freedom Fighters. With this reboot feeling like its trying to go back to the 90’s why not bring it back with one of the better characters from the 90’s. Ray has got a great power set based off of light.

With the character of Firestorm it seems to me that it would be best to use both Ronnie and Jason as primary members of the Justice League. They could still be Firestorm Red and Firestorm Yellow that form together to be the Composite Firestorm that is ten foot tall, which would allow for some major possibilities in field operations. Say the team has to split into two attack squads then each one, in theory, would be able to use a Firestorm, even if it was depowered compared to the Composite Firestorm, on the mission and then when regrouped they join for the extra final push. That’s just a theory anyways, but the other reasons I have for Firestorm to be on the Justice League is because both members of the Firestorm Matrix have a connections to past incarnations of the Justice League which you can see has been very important to me in choosing my Justice League roster.

As for Ryan Choi I just find him a lot more interesting over his predecessor Ray Palmer. He has a far more interesting dynamic to him, especially when you bring into play the fact that he really doesn’t need the belt to change sizes. Also Ryan has far less baggage compared to Ray, come on Ryan doesn’t have a crazy ex-wife that accidently murders one of his best friends wives to stage an attack so they could get back together. He also doesn’t that same crazy ex-wife become taken over by a super evil fallen angel type of thing. No, Ryan doesn’t have that at all, but what he does have is super awesome sexual chemistry between him and a female super villain. As for what about Ray and his connection to the Atom I say why not make him more of a mentor type character, in a similar fashion to how Dr. Stein was for Ronnie Raymond, but instead have him be veteran professor well Ryan would be the newly hired professor at Ivy University.

As for mentioned I will be getting this new Geoff Johns and Jim Lee Justice League, these would be some of the changes I would have made to the team roster given a chance to work on this book. Just like any other fan I’ve chosen characters I would most like to read, and I hope others would too.

Justice League Great White North?

In this reboot of DC Comics has planned for September we are hear a plan for more diversity among the characters in the titles, but so far there is one group of people far to under represented as far as I can tell, and that group is Canadians. Now yes I am a proud Canadian and I love this land I call home, in fact it is the primary focus of what I study, but I’m not here to talk about that. No I am here to talk about the lack of Canadian characters in the current pantheon of characters over in the DC Universe. Yes DC dose have some Canadian characters, at last count I could recall 2; Flying Fox and that Shadow Mountie guy that James Robinson is used in the first issue of his current Eclipso story in Justice League of America. Canada isn’t this perfectly polite little country that people like to depict it as, Canada does have crime it’s just not as bad as the U.S. because we don’t have the same population. We all don’t watch hockey, all our police aren’t Mounties, we aren’t all lumber jacks, we don’t all live in igloos, we don’t drink maple syrup, we are how ever very similar to Americans. Now yes our countries and cultures are different we still take in the same media. DC I have a question for you, on same day release as the states, what’s your largest market out side of the U.S.? My guess would be Canada, come on we are right above you, we are you closest largest foreign, and your first ever favorite trading partner. Now I say all this about Canada and the U.S. because I feel as if we need to be shown acknowledgement for our importance to you. Marvel has a whole slue of Canadian characters; two of which are probably two of the biggest names for Marvel; Wolverine and Deadpool. Well over in the DC Universe you have to start to wonder if Canada even exists in the books, and I feel this reboot would be the perfect time to right this wrong. Now I’m not saying go all over board and that DC should create their own version of Alpha Flight but that they could used this reboot to maybe give a slight birth place tweak to a major character and/or a hand full of minor characters. There is no reason for DC to come up with Canada Man, but what about a Snow Owl? It could be the Toronto based member of Batman Inc. Or like I said change of birthplace, why not make it so Victor Stone a.k.a. Cyborg be born in Vancouver. Heck they could even have a western story take place for a couple of issue in Alberta since old west Alberta had strong tie to America (I should know, the town I live in has still got an American Fort in it) as well as had a prominent railway line (also know a lot about that his my town is known primarily for its train bridge). Now come on writers of DC do you want Canada to be something that you loose Marvel, or do you want to draw a line in the sand and take this market as your? As a Canadian I ask that you don’t let the only representation of Canadians in comic books be; Wolverine, Deadpool, Alpha Flight, and the Windigoes. Through retooling and new ideas we could build a bigger brighter future for Canadians in your universe.

Little Note

Just a little note on what I pulled out of the old short boxes for this weeks read:
-Wolverine Origins #1-10
-Giant-Size Ms. Marvel
-Ms. Marvel #1-8
-Spider-Man Saga #1-4

Should be fun reads, next weekend going to look through to see which Maximum Carnage books I'm missing, if any, then give that a read.

Crisis of the 52 Titles

Earlier this week DC Comics announced that they will be rebooting the franchise once the Flashpoint event wraps up. Now I didn't really want to talk about this reboot since I was really ticked off by it when they announced it, but then the idea started to grow on me. There is a lot for exciting change and new stories. Now I realized this wont change the fact that stories are being written for trades, but I feel we could actually see stories having meaning and consequence, which means no more event and then its Tuesday. This could be the dawning of a brand new day in DC Comics (I mean no implications by saying "brand new day" I don't even really read Spider-man, but I'm going to be giving it a try) one where the actions of say Blackest Nights was felt for years in the comic universe instead of barely mentioned in its spin off. Plus we get to see tweaked or even all new origins for some of our favorite characters, but please no more Thomas Wayne as Batman after Flashpoint.


After seeing the title s that DC has announced so far I'm have to say that I am excited for majority of them, there are some that I just don't care for the character but are interested in the team making it. How can you go wrong with the teams on; Justice League, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Firestorm, Hawkman, Green Arrow, Justice League International, Mister Terrific, Captain Atom, DC Universe Presents, Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: The New Guardians, and Red Lanterns.


So come on we can all think of the terrible things to happen with this reboot, but lets look to the positive. Where would comic books be today if DC didn't do its reboot with Crisis on Infinite Earths? Where would comic books be if Marvel didn't make events like Civil War or Secret Invasion has consequence? Lets look forward to the bright future of comic books we have coming before us in September, and if it ends up being terrible we could always see DC just saying these were the events on Earth- give a random number between 2 and 52.

I Fell in to a Burning Ring of Work Days

I think for the time being I'm going to try to make sure I blog when I can and I have something to blog about, because I'm finding it to hard to blog out of nothing these days. I am currently working roughly 82 hours a week and I'm burning out fast. I don't get much sleep since there's to much noise going on at work (yes I get paid to sleep, but no its not good pay) and in the day I've got to pack a weeks worth of house stuff into two 12 hour periods, its getting exhausting. I do want to write up a couple of things about Green Lantern, X-men, Black Panther, and this DC restart, but it will just have to be in time. Most days/nights I don't have the mental fortitude to express my thoughts, or even come up with thoughts. I will still try to get the random weekend post in, but for now I'm leaving it up in the air as to when and if something gets posted.

How do I get on the guest list?

So far I am unimpressed with the guest list for this years Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo. The only TV & Film celebrity I am looking forward to is William Shatner and Teddy Wilson from Space Channel. Other then that the only people I'm looking forward to meeting is creators. This is from the the case of last years where there were to many celebrities that I wanted to meet. Last year there was; Brent Spiner, Malcolm McDowell, Lloyd Kaufman, Kirby Krackle, Leonard Nimoy, and Billy Dee Williams, plus tie in the creators that I met it was just a great time. Now this year I'm stuck wanting for there to be some Star Wars actors, Patrick Stewart, and/or Stan Lee. I think this year I will be spending most of my money on comics and trades unfortunately. Well anyways this is just some of my thoughts on what I think this years Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo is going to be like. I plan on blogging the days events of each day of the expo that night. I will also be live tweeting each day. Anyways till next time true believers.

P.S. I really hope this year there isn't a identity theft scheme with the ATM's that was a major downer last year.

Ben Affleck could play the Shark from Jaws

I just finished watching the 2003 Daredevil movie staring Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, and Colin Farrell, and its not half bad. Now Daredevil is not one of my favorite character, and yes the movie has some big flaws, but I still like it. One thing I love about the movie is the blatant name dropping of members the Daredevil creative team (as seen on the right). I really enjoy a lot of the acting in this film and I don't think they could cast this movie any better, I honestly buy Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock and I don't think they could have cast anyone better for Kingpin/Wilson Fisk then Michael Clarke Duncan. I remember being in some arguments back in 2003 about how Kingpin was the "wrong colour" but I don't think I can think of a single Caucasian actor that could better fill the role of the Kingpin even today. Now yes I know this film did more for the band Evanescence then it do for the careers of the actors, but I do prefer the actual movie to the sound track. Another thing I really like about the film is how they didn't overly beat into you that Matt was Catholic, but still having the evidence of his religious background still prominent. This is something a little more meaningful to me because at that time I was still somewhat religious, in that I was still grieving the loss of my Grandpa, who was my father figure since my actual father has had nothing to with me, also it didn't hurt that I was brought up in a Catholic family. Now I have changed my stripes on the issue of religion, but that's not something to talk about here since this is about the Daredevil movie. Now before I saw this movie I never cared for Daredevil as a character, and it hasn't been until now that I've ever really wanted to read about him. Thanks to the latest episode of Views From The Longbox I've gotten a lot more into the character. Anyways for a early 2000's comic book movie I really have to say this movie has held up well, and is a lot better then people tend to give it credit. I give it 3.5 braille covered stars out of 5.

Secret Origin

I had always been into super heroes from a young age, thanks to things like; the Ninja Turtles, Batman (movies, 60's Adam West show, and Bruce Timm animated series), Spider-Man cartoon, X-Men cartoon, and much more. But I started getting into comic books as a medium about four or five years ago, only buying trade paper backs to start off with, most notably; JLA Earth 2, Superman Red Son, and Justice League New Frontier. Then summer three years ago my neighbours gave me eight boxes of comic books, which were mostly X-Men and Spider-Man titles, but little did I know when I got them that there would be a series in there that would change my life forever. That series was 52, a book published by DC Comics, after reading it and hearing about what was to happen in Batman R.I.P./ Final Crisis I started picking up new comics on a weekly bases. For the most part when I started I was reading the Batman books that were available to me at my local comic shop and Chapters (i.e. Batman and Detective Comics) then shortly after that I made my way into more books, primarily Green Lantern and Green Lantern CORPS thanks to the Blackest Night event (but as that raged on I got into more and more books thanks to the cross overs, I started picking up R.E.B.E.L.S. & Booster Gold thanks to the cross overs). By the time winter of that year rolled in I got tired of just that one universe of characters, so that's when I started picking up the Hulk books. I started with the Hulk books when I made my way to Marvel because of the infectious love for the character that Michael Bailey and Steve Glosson showed for him on a hand full of episode of Views From The Longbox. From that moment on I did my best to catch up on the Hulk books, in fact now I am 6 issues away from having a complete Hulk run. Through those Hulk books I slowly got more and more involved in the Marvel universe, this lead me to picking up the Avengers titles, Captain America, and Black Panther, and my first Marvel event, Fear Itself.