Planeis

And yet you two plus myself have just bumped the thread. What good is his moderation if there are those of us that comment after something like that? I do agree with D_D on this so no more posting in this thread.

Dude. Dude. Dude. I was just thinking yesterday how glad I was that this thread seem to have been bumped down. NOW LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE. AND WHAT YOU MADE ME DO.

Here's my thoughts on Batman 17 (spoilers!)

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Story:

It was a good issue… even if it is wildly predictable. It starts with the entire Bat family (except Batwoman, but maybe she doesn’t count) seated around a table. Nightwing, Tim Drake (IF THAT IS HIS REAL NAME), Damien, Batgirl, Jason all have their faces covered in bandages and we are led to believe they have all had their faces ripped off. But c’mon, I think we ALL knew that wasn’t going to happen. But still, I have to admit there was a very small part of me that wondered how they were all going to get out of this. Also… something awful has happened to Alfred. Makes me wish he would retire.

Anyway, of course they do escape and Batman chases Joker through the caves, until they confront each other on the edge of what appears to be a bottomless pit. As soon as I fall that pit I thought “let me guess… Joker accidentally falls and we’re led to believe he’s dead” which is exactly what happens and OF COURSE HE’S NOT DEAD, HE’S THE FREAKING JOKER.

In the end, Bruce invites everyone over to talk about what happened… and they all bail out on him. Kinda sad. I’m not really clear why they’re meant to have done that.

Good issue.. if a little predictable. I really do think Alfred should kinda retire. It makes me sad to see him get hurt. I mean sheesh, how old is this guy? Bruce should let him retire, let him live in the Manor if he wants, but get a different person or two to run the household. Poor Alfred must be working himself to the bone to keep the house in order and take care of Bruce. It could lead to some interesting stories anyway.

How does DC Comics go back from whats happened with the Joker here?

Art:

Well… the art is good, but its not exactly pretty. I was a little confused at first where they were supposed to be. It didn’t really look like the caves to me, looked like they were surrounded by huge piles of mud or something. Especially with all the flies buzzing around. Sometimes the Joker’s face looked REALLY gross… which I suppose is something.

Cover Art: Bleh. Nothing special at all. Whole lot of nothing really and doesn’t relate to any real scene in the comic. Thought they should have had something special for the end of what has been a pretty big crossover event for the best selling comic in the company.

Anyway, glad the crossover is over and glad the whole return of the joker storyline is over, didn’t like all the extreme violence in this series. What did you all think?

I think the difference is you're looking at this in terms of sales figures - which is valid - but it's not how I'm looking at it. I'm viewing it in terms of storytelling and making me want to read these books on a monthly basis again. About two to three years ago, I stopped buying single issues from DC altogether (I'd given up on Marvel about five years ago). There simply wasn't anything demanding my attention, and I had plenty of trades of older material to keep me happy. When I heard about the New 52 initiative, I vowed to give it a shot. Lo and behold, it worked. I'm reading their books again - monthly - and looking forward to the read.

The point of mentioning the sales figures is that is the

only real gauge of how successful a book is or isn't. If it can't sustain itself in the market, then it really hasn't captured the interest of its intended audience. Or else that audience isn't there in any significant number. You can argue that a book is creatively successful, but if it winds up getting cancelled then it doesn't matter -- it's still gone without making much of an impact. Apart from the initial interest over the relaunch, DC really hasn't caught the interest of most fans outside of a few titles.

Is that necessarily true? I seem to recall another thread that talked about the New 52 doing precisely what it set out to do - bolster sales and renew interest - and deeming it a success on that front. Granted, it didn't do that with Demon Knights, but going to back to the original statement, I still feel they're doing more right than wrong with the reboot.

It only bolstered sales and interest for the first few months, and while it brought in some new readers, it lost a lot of the older readers. Sales have dropped dramatically throughout the line, with only a handful still up in the higher tiers. Consider how many titles from the original 52 have been axed, and that a few of the replacement titles are now also gone. That's hardly a grand success. At best, it's been a very short-term success.

I haven't heard- and this may have been reported and I missed it, so I am legitimately asking- that the numbers have dropped back down to pre-New52 levels. Certainly the numbers have dropped from their initial spike. But have anyone that analyzes the numbers shown that overall DC market share in the direct market is now the same or worse than it was before New52? Has that been reported somewhere?

(And, of course, this is all with the caveat that none of the reporters/number crunchers get to see what the digital numbers are. But a point could be made one way or the other by looking at the direct market numbers.)

Little old, sept 2012, but here I think DC claims their sales and the sales for the industry are still up.

comics/dc-vps-talk-september-2012-new-52-sales.html

When the new 52 happened, I tried a couple things. I started reading Justice League, Superman, Batman, and Supergirl. Justice League is... OK... for now. But when my subscription to Batman and Superman runs out, I don't think I'll be re-newing them.

Batman is the title I have a subscription too, and I've read some trades of the other titles too. I really don't like the writing on the Dark Knight and Batman Inc. Snyder does OK. My main problem is the violence. Maybe I'm too naive or too sensitive or something, but I think we if we added up the number of people who have died on panel in Batman books since the new 52 started, it would be well into the hundreds. There's blood everywhere, especially all over the first Dark Knight trade I just finished. Just gobs of blood all over seemingly every panel. Characters that aren't themselves, including Batman (at one point in The Dark Knight Batman kicks Bane off an incredibly high cliff, Bane falls into the ocean and washes away... seemingly to his death... Batman just responds "he'll be back" ... oh really? is that the writers reasoning for essentially killing someone? just say they'll "be back" and its all ok?).

Am I crazy? I haven't been the most avid read of comics since about 2005, but I've read my fair share and I just don't remember there being this much violence in Batman and this much blood all over everything.

When it comes to Superman its really primarily the writing. At least Scott Snyder does OK writing on Batman. Superman is terrible, just awful. Is anyone reading the Superman title right now? Scott Lobdell has created a version of Clark/Superman that is a giant douche, there's terrible dialogue, a boring go nowhere story, and the art is just... ugh. Kenneth Rocafort has interesting stuff in some panels, in others just bleh. Huge, huge portions of his pages have nothing drawn on them. Just empty space.

Supergirl has good art, but the writing, inconsistant characterization... ugh. I really see myself not reading any DC stuff soon.

I also just don't feel like I have a sense of whats going on. I've read large portions of Teen Titans, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Superman, Action, Supergirl, Batman, Dark Knight, Batman Inc and yet I feel so lost. When I read in Superman 15 about Lex Luthor being in jail and in a prison he designed (what the?) I had no idea. I didn't know Lex was in prison and I don't know what for.

Maybe it's me... I'm gonna be giving some of the Marvel stuff a try though.

I just recently read the first 12 issues of Teen Titans. I don't think I had ever read a Teen Titans comic before and was unfamliar with all of the characters except for Tim Drake, Wonder Girl, and Superboy. But, obviously this incarnation of Superboy is brand new and very different and my experience with Wonder Girl is extremely limited.

I got the series from the library, so price was not a factor. After reading it would I consider buying it? hmmmmmmm...... If the price was right, I'd consider it. I would definently not buy it for the off the rack price. There are some things I liked and some things I didn't like

Like: I like that the characters aren't all miniature versions of someone else. Tim is part of the bat family, and superboy is part of the Super family. But since this is a new incarnation of Superboy he really doesn't feel at all like just a younger version of Superman. Wonder Girl might be a younger version of Wonder Woman, I don't know. Never read WW so for me, Wonder Girl is basically all new and her own character. I think I like her character and like the way her armor is something that comes out of her skin, and is actually painful. Thats kind of interesting to me. Then there are the others, Solstice and Kid Flash. Kid Flash again, could be considered a little Flash... but they start hinting early on that he's something else. And again, I've never read Flash... so he felt very much like his own character. Bunker is unique to me and I like his attitude in the comic. I also enjoy the art a lot.

Don't Like: I am not a fan at all of Robin's costume with the crisscrossing straps and pouches. Also not a fan of Superboy's look at all. Not sure who came up with that, but I hate it. A lot. I also don't really like Scott Lobdell's writing. Since its a new series with new characters and new incarnations of characters, to me it seems like they could have afforded to slow down with the N.O.W.H.E.R.E stuff. Let us breathe a little with the characters and with the idea of what N.O.W.H.E.R.E is. Maybe it felt differently to people who read it over the course of the year, but reading it over the course of a couple days made it seem like I got to the end of issue 12 not really having any idea who Solstice, Bunker and Wonder Girl are. Did Solstice and Bunker exist before? Also, I feel very strongly that Lobdell's dialogue is horrible and that every other issue he turns Tim into a total douche for seemingly no reason.