What do I need to know about The New 52?

[Restingvoice]

Justice League is the backbone of the New 52. The story of the era began and end there, and it will make a lot of shout out to other events in the franchise.
Batman and Green Lantern are well received. They're the head of their family books as in they started events and crossovers that the other titles in the Batman and Green Lantern family follows.
Superman was hated for changing Lois Lane's character and separating the iconic romance.
Teen Titans was hated for using well known characters that's been building fanbase since the 90s but changing their lore and backstory to be unrecognizable that's only now returned to... closer to the original with the current Young Justice series by Bendis.

[Sacred Knight]

Ending the marriage had virtually no effect on the Superman titles, actually. "Was hated" however is a far too general term. Some hated it, some liked it.

[Adset]

The reactions in this thread are interesting -- the New 52 Green Lantern is often considered the weakest of the Geoff Johns era, and it got so crossover-heavy before Johns left you needed to read the other three GL-universe books to know what was going on. I'm surprised it's getting the pass that it is in this thread. I mean, I liked it, because I'm a GL shill and I was collecting Corps/Red Lanterns/New Guardians as well so it all flowed OK for me, but it certainly has its detractors.

If you only have access to those titles and nothing else I'd be sure to get Batman and Justice League. The first few years of Justice League were... so-so, but as someone mentioned above, it's kind of the backbone of the New 52. I really liked everything Johns did in the book from the lead-up to Forever Evil through Darkseid War.

[BatmanJones]

Oooooh, yeah, I don’t know if I’d recommend getting almost any of those. New 52 Green Lantern and Batman are pretty great, but those are the only ones I’d recommend reading and only up to a certain point.

I'd say that Justice League is more than worth reading but only after a certain point. I didn't care for the first arc but it gets much better as it goes on IMO. And that Ivan Reis art!

[SiegePerilous02]

I'd say that Justice League is more than worth reading but only after a certain point. I didn't care for the first arc but it gets much better as it goes on IMO. And that Ivan Reis art!

It actually gets better as soon as Jim Lee leaves it.

Throne of Atlantis is great. The rest is uneven but has some good things, but man that first year was rough.

[BatmanJones]

Another good one (but a bit controversial) from the New52 was the Brian Azzarello & Cliff Chiang run on Wonder Woman. It pissed off a lot of die-hard Wonder Woman fans because it made many changes to what had happened before (pre-Flashpoint), but it was otherwise a great read if you could accept the changes in a relaunched DC universe.

Totally agree with this. I've only read Azzarello's DCU stuff but of that his WW has been my favorite. Great run. I also loved Rebirth WW pre-Wilson, though I look forward to reading Wilson's run when it appears on DCUniverse.

[BatmanJones]

Dirt cheap. My friend is selling his comic book collection to make room for a new baby. He knows I love comics and is giving me a great deal.

I don't mean to undercut your friend's deal but there's another dirt-cheap way to read ALL of New 52, its precursors, and their precursors... Plus a ton of Rebirth and all upcoming releases around a year after direct release.

DCUniverse streaming service gives you access to all of that (over 21,000 comics) plus new TV content (Titans, the very good Young Justice, the very GREAT Doom Patrol, and the upcoming Swamp Thing, Stargirl, and Harley Quinn) plus old TV/movies for $7.99/month or $75/year.

Between DCUniverse and Marvel Unlimited the future doesn't look very bright for local comic stores. But the future looks very bright for comic book fans trying to save some money.

[MajorHoy]

Do you have the opportunity to grab Action Comics too? That was the far superior New 52 Superman title. Superman itself suffered from a lot if turnover and not as much direction outside of specific crossover material.

And the problems with Superman seemed to stem in part from editorial mishandling of the situation, asking for constant changes after material had already been completed and submitted.

. . . Superman was hated for changing Lois Lane's character and separating the iconic romance.

And since it seemed like the big push was to have the Superman-Wonder Woman hookup (as seen in early Geoff Johns' Justice League), how much of the blame for what happened with Lois should fall on the Superman series?

Teen Titans was hated for using well known characters that's been building fanbase since the 90s but changing their lore and backstory to be unrecognizable that's only now returned to... closer to the original with the current Young Justice series by Bendis.

And early Teen Titans also got caught in that "Were there or weren't there any previous groups of Teen Titans? mess that wasn't clearly decided until after a few issues of various titles were already published, resulting in alterations to the scripts/dialogue when they were reprinted in trade collections.

[king81992]

A lot of interesting concepts but mostly terrible execution.

[Lee Stone]

I'd say that Justice League is more than worth reading but only after a certain point. I didn't care for the first arc but it gets much better as it goes on IMO. And that Ivan Reis art!

Yeah... Batman pulling Hal's ring off his hand without him knowing? Absurd.

[Kyer]

As someone who started out on fire for comics, but has repeatedly burned by both Marvel and DC since 2010...
Don't fall in love with this stuff. Save your money for anything else that you know you enjoy. Take my word for it or just read the threads: The owners of the comic business will not allow you to enjoy what you purchase for long.

[kingaliencracker]

Morrison's Action run and Johns' Justice League were the only real standouts to me. I guess Snyder's Batman wasn't bad, either, although I hated what he did with Mr. Freeze. Everything else felt like an amalgamation of 90's and Silver/Bronze Age concepts, and not in a fun way.

[Coco Loco]

Ending the marriage had virtually no effect on the Superman titles, actually. "Was hated" however is a far too general term. Some hated it, some liked it.

I liked it, for the most part. Hated the armor, loved the t-shirt and work pants look. I think the problem with that run is they really didn’t know what to do with Lois once she couldn’t be a love interest.

Best of New 52 (IMO): Snyder/ Capullo Batman, the back half of Batman Inc., Lemire/ Sorrentino on Green Arrow, Azzarello/ Chiang on WW, Grayson.

Worst: They couldn’t figure out the Teen Titans at all. WW was a disaster after Azzarello left. A lot of the mid-list books were poorly thought-out and had rapid-fire creative changes.

[Sacred Knight]

Absolutely. I think Perez had some ideas for Lois in regards to her promotion and what I saw as an eventual struggle between weighing keeping the Planet alive in an era when print media was dying vs. her personal codes of professionalism and the way new management was going about trying to save it, but his run was pretty much doomed from the start. Judging on what they did with Lana, I also think Pak and Kuder would have done--and indeed wanted to do--great things with Lois, but for reasons I'll never understand they couldn't use her. It wasn't the SM/WW romance, because the Superman title was more than free to use Lois in that time (just didn't use her well). But that's always going to be a hypothetical now.

Ooutside of than that though it was clear no one knew what to do with her. Which is pretty pathetic considering that still for the vast majority of her existence Lois wasn't Clark's wife. Its not like there was a lack of inspiration to take from the character's past.

[Rod G]

The early issues of World’s Finest featuring Power Girl and the Huntress were wonderful.