DC's New 52 (And everything within it.)

Like most people who were against the New 52, I was one of those people. The idea of DC restarting its timeline just to make more sales or expand to younger audiences made me super sick to my stomach. Cause it was another chance to restart the universe yet again. However, after a while I started to give the New 52 a chance. When it was launched they had a lot of great writers and artists on their imprint. They had Jeff Lemire, Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Adam Glass, etc. And although some of these series were few in far between. They actually became memorable. While Marvel was doing "NOW!" which was by standards complete and utter **** and pales in comparison to DC dominating them.

To be honest, I've always been a DC guy more than a Marvel guy. I like Marvel a lot and I do collect the Omnibuses of certain things I really enjoyed. But DC is like, when the series and writers get dark, they get super dark and tell great stories. Unlike Marvel who's dominated by Joe Q and he did awful moves like get rid of Ed Brubaker and some of his best guys until almost everyone left the damn imprint. DC was taking these guys and doing wondrous things with them, I won't say Jim Lee is a saint by any means necessary. But Jim Lee has a better vision of taking liberties when needed to be taken along with Geoff Johns. And the New 52 is proof of that for both guys. The New 52 was beyond dark, it was borderline suicidal with the risks they took on it.

Green Lantern was still going strong, and towards the end of Johns run it was beyond anything ever seen coming. Robert Vendetti took over and it's still great.

Flash by Francis M. and Brian B. I liked it, I thought the art was crazy good. But the story itself plainly sucked. The first arc had made no sense whatsoever. It was like a waste of great efforts on nothing. The second arc was okay, third was nice, fourth alright, and fifth just awful. Francis M. is a great artist, but he's not so great telling a story. The new Flash series I just don't feel it at all, and I dislike the artwork a lot. Scott Kollins is the Flash artist of the modern age no one else.

Aquaman, from beginning to end was great. That was a fantastic run. Johns went out of his way to establish Aquaman as a prominent Justice League member. Cullen Bunn, as small as his run was, it was still amazing.

Batman by Snyder was fantastic as well. Snyder and Capullo work great together. But, I'm happy Snyder is doing something else other than Batman, with his current run on Justice League.

Justice League by Johns is a series I loved a lot in the whole New 52, and I always hype that series up like crazy. It's worth your money, cause the entire story is memorable.

Batman and Robin was great by Tomasi and Gleason, as well as Tomasi's conclusion on Green Lantern Corps. That was also really good and enjoyable.

Suicide Squad by Adam Glass was great, I thoroughly enjoyed that a lot. As well as the new series by Rob Williams. I'd say Suicide Squad is a very consistent comic no matter who's writing it.

Wonder Woman by Brian A. was great, I know people claim Brain's best work was in 100 Bullets, which I agree to a certain point. But his Wonder Woman was great. Plus most recently DKIII was also fantastic.

Justice League Canada was nice, and Lemire did a damn fantastic job on it. Everything Lemire puts out is great, that's a fact. His Thanos and Old Man Logan for Marvel respectively were top-tier writing.

Swamp Thing by Snyder was as good as it was going to get in the same vein as Alan Moore. That's one instance where I was damn happy someone went into the same direction with their own twist.

Deathstroke by Tony S. Daniel was quite possibly the greatest run in Deathstroke's entire history besides Perez's New Teen Titans. His Detective Comics was also equally great.

Animalman by Lemire was entirely great. It was a phenomenal series and I hope DC Omnibuses it sometime soon. If you haven't read that series, I suggest you do.

There's so many series to cover and talk about, but case and point, as bad as people might've thought the New 52 was. It was by far the most incredible piece of work in the modern age ever done. Things were being done, that haven't been done in decades. Series came out that no one seen. Understanding they changed history, and re-wrote some stuff. Ultimately in the end it was some of the best work they've done in years. Sadly, I can't say the same about Rebirth, Rebirth continued most New 52 series and that was cool. But Rebirth feels really off to me. It feels fake, I don't know how to explain it. I feel like most series are being done just for the sake of being done and being put out.

I really like Suicide Squad a lot, Deathstroke and so fourth. But I don't know why I feel that way about Rebirth. Now Dark Knights Metal was great, and I enjoyed Justice League Voltron a hell of a lot. Now that spanned a new Imprint along with Black Label, and I'll tell you, I'm excited about this whole thing. Because now, we'll see how crazy and how far DC will allow creators to take their own characters and run with them with absolutely no restraints. In closing, New 52 deserves more respect than what it got and has been in recent years.

It deserves more respect yes, but it also did a lot.of stupid things as well. I can appreciate them for bold moves DC never would have done otherwise. Of course they don't really exist now and many have been retconned. DC built a lot of momentum, but for whatever reason, never executed their chance. Take the next Aquaman/JL crossover, the fabled Seven Seas arc. It came at a time where both books were undoubtedly popular. DC teased it, and it never happened. Same with the JLD teaser that saw all the magic heroes on a boat. Never happened. Remember the build up to a returning character to the N52 at the end of Forever Evil? Nothing happened. So I dont know why DC never followed through with their plans, that IMO and based on the fans reactions, were exciting and had so much potential.

They also fell horribly flat with their promises they did make. Villains month? 5 Years Later? Convergence? Good ideas, but a massive amount of issues, fancy covers, but only a small handful of decent issues caused it to be unsuccessful, and dreadful in some instances. Convergence in particular i feel killed any momentum the N52 had going for it. Earth 2 Society by Abnett is exceptionally well written with beautiful art, but is a hidden gem because everyone gave up. I've read a lot of the N52, and i overall love it, but I really disagree with a lot of it. But hey, anything that brought back Princess Amethyst is a homerun for me.

To be honest, I never cared for Convergence or for Villain's Month. It was too many issues and it was too stupid to follow up on and no one cared either for D-Rate comic authors either. I also agree on the Seven Seas Arc, I was dying to check that out and then it turns out they throw a swerve ball at us like Vince Russo destroying Goldberg. Earth 2 Society was also great, I loved it, and you can't forget about He-Man, that was miles ahead.

[QUOTE=Katatonia;3753819]To be honest, I never cared for Convergence or for Villain's Month. It was too many issues and it was too stupid to follow up on and no one cared either for D-Rate comic authors either. I also agree on the Seven Seas Arc, I was dying to check that out and then it turns out they throw a swerve ball at us like Vince Russo destroying Goldberg. Earth 2 Society was also great, I loved it, and you can't forget about He-Man, that was miles ahead.[/QUOTE]

I can sympathize with up and coming authors/writers wanting to write comics, and DC giving them something"tame" to start on. Remember, heavy hitters like Morrison or Loeb started off as nobodies writing characters no one cared about.

Maybe if DC had started with Ultimate Universing it, an alternate universe with more permanence than the average Elseworld. It leaves Flashpoint Flash-centric as it was intended, and the New 52 versions of the characters could be introduced gradually rather than being hit with the sudden reset. There's mileage in characters who go over to New 52 having their absence felt in the pre-New 52 continuity, or at least characters wrapping up storylines that weren't concluded adequately before Flashpoint New 52-ed everything.

The main reason it wasn't as good as it could have been was the lack of communication between writers, and DC being quick to change things up when sales were low or there was something else they wanted to do. The first couple of years saw lots of titles cancelled and replaced, notably most of the Wildstorm titles and we didn't get a resolution on why Pandora got Barry to merge the timelines until Rebirth brought Doctor Manhattan into the picture.