Essential New 52

[Xistel]

Hello,

I'm catching up on my reading and I know that some titles were good for a while and then crashed and vice-versa.

Could you tell me what is actually good and what to avoid? For instance, I know Action comics was really good with Grant Morrison and then crashed, until Pak picked it up.

I'm looking to read:

Justice League
Superman (Action Comics or otherwise)
Green Lantern (and derivatives)
Green Arrow
Nightwing
We Are Robin
Batman


Thank you in advance for your help.

[Jekyll]

I didn't read much of anything from the new 52.

I did read Jeff Lemires run on Green Arrow and it was decent I think it takes up two graphic novels. I read Geoff Johns run on Aquaman and it was one of the few things that I absolutely loved.

[Timothy Hunter]

One series you should avoid is Batman: The Dark Knight, which is complete trash, trying leaps and bounds hard to be like Hush, but forgetting to be a quality story beforehand.

I loved Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman, it's one of the best iterations of the characters in my opinion, but if you're a Wonder Woman fan,(from what I've seen by the reception of Azzarello's run by Wonder Woman fans), you will probably hate it.

I really loathed the New 52 Nightwing.

[Darkseid Is]

Justice League, Aquaman and Batman are all excellent. I've read the first 20 issues of Green Lantern (Johns' last issues) and they are very good as well. I haven't gotten around to reading the rest of the series though. There is a book called Grayson that I haven't read but I hear only good things about it.

[dan12456]

Justice League is solid the whole way through but really picks up after Forever Evil (last 3 trades)
Green Arrow only the three Jeff Lemire trades are good but they are amazing so definitely pick them up.
I loved the court/city of owls trades for Batman, but didn't enjoy the rest.
I loved all of Nightwing (and the follow up series Grayson)

Didn't read the others you mentioned.

[Nick Miller]

Hello,

I'm catching up on my reading and I know that some titles were good for a while and then crashed and vice-versa.

Could you tell me what is actually good and what to avoid? For instance, I know Action comics was really good with Grant Morrison and then crashed, until Pak picked it up.

I'm looking to read:

Justice League
Superman (Action Comics or otherwise)
Green Lantern (and derivatives)
Green Arrow
Nightwing
We Are Robin
Batman


Thank you in advance for your help.

JL as said, get the last 3 trades.

Superman get Morrison, and I liked Superman/WW by Soule, get Doomed if you like Doomsday, get the Johns/Romita run and the last big crossover where Superman is (spoiler).………. Dying.

GReen Arrow by Lemire is great
GRayson is great
We are Robin is good, if you like teen vigilantes

Batman, get the Snyder run, get Get detective too, and the weeklys Batman eternal, Batman and Robin Eternal

Get Batman and Robin and Robin, Son of Batman if u like Damian , and it has the best superhero art by Gleason

[Flash Gordon]

Grant Morrison's Action Comics and Batman Incorporated
Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman
Geoff John's Aquaman
China Melville's Dial H
Tom King and Tim Seely's Grayson

Captain Atom (JT Krul and Freddie Williams II) was also great, purely if visually compelling.

Scott Synder's Batman, while not really my thing, made a lot of people happy. It's also hard not to respect the man's craft and passion in what he does.

[Caivu]

Some additions to those already mentioned:

Animal Man

Batwoman Vol. 1-4

Catwoman Vol. 6

Demon Knights is relatively short and was pretty fun.

[Outside_85]

I'm looking to read:

1 Justice League
2 Superman (Action Comics or otherwise)
3 Green Lantern (and derivatives)
4 Green Arrow
5 Nightwing
6 We Are Robin
7 Batman

My advices:
1. To be honest I'd avoid this, it may read well enough if you isolate it from the rest of the DCU because noone else played into what it was doing and vice versa, which does lead to some pretty jarring depictions of various characters... also most of the stories were just kinda rubbish in my opinion.
2. Stick to Morrison's Action Comics, after that Superman has been a cat in tumbledryer going round and round between occasional greatness and garbage. It's pretty much only since Rebirth the books have stabilized and started to be mostly decent again.
3. It going to be an expensive venture if you want to look into all of the GL offspring books. But the main GL books have been fairly stable.
4. Here you should just stay with Lemire's run which is the greatest the books been in years. Think the current Percy run is also fairly decent. Avoid the Krul and Nocenti runs.
5. Avoid it unless the title on the book is Grayson. New 52 Nightwing has otherwise been a number of stop-starts, he sets off in one direction, then an event happens from Scott Snyders corner and everything Nightwing was doing is thrown aside and he starts all over again when its done. Grayson was great however.
6. Wouldn't bother, the only character of note in it is Duke Thomas, a character only Scott Snyder appears to have any interest in writing.
7. Do it.

Other suggestions:
Wonder Woman by Brian Azzarello
Captain Atom by JT Krul
Animal Man/Swamp Thing by Jeff Lemire and Scott Snyder
Dial H by China Meville

[Assam]

Only books I can completely recommend:

- Aquaman
- Aquaman and the Others (ONLY if you really enjoy The Others in the main Aquaman book)
- Secret Six
- Swamp Thing

[batnbreakfast]

I'd add
- Frankenstein (1st trade)
- AllStarWestern (all of it)

[MajorHoy]

Hello,

I'm catching up on my reading and I know that some titles were good for a while and then crashed and vice-versa.

Could you tell me what is actually good and what to avoid? For instance, I know Action comics was really good with Grant Morrison and then crashed, until Pak picked it up.

I'm looking to read:

Justice League
Superman (Action Comics or otherwise)
Green Lantern (and derivatives)
Green Arrow
Nightwing
We Are Robin
Batman

Talk about your loaded questions!

Much of what is "good" depends on what you generally have liked before.

I am not a fan of Morrison's Action Comics run. Aside from the start of Superman in the New 52, I generally was unhappy with how the character was treated for much of the New 52.

If you liked Superman before the New 52, especially when he and Lois were married, the book to look into is the eight-issue Superman: Lois and Clark series.



Of those others you listed, I liked We Are Robin, but that was a very different Bat-book that many others seemed to avoid. (But then again, I had grown tired of Snyder's writing of New 52 Batman, even with the fantastic art.)

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Another vote for Johns & Reis's Aquaman. It's fantastic.

Is Multiversity considered part of the New 52? Certainly a great piece of work if you like Morrison's deep DCU dives.

Justice League was up and down in terms of quality, but otherall worth checking out. I loved the hell out of Darkseid War.

[Batmaniac]

Read:
Batman
Justice League
Green Arrow #17-34
Nightwing and then Grayson

Avoid:
Everything New 52 Superman (half of its been retconned now)
We Are Robin
Green Arrow #1-16 #35-40

[Xistel]

Read:
Batman
Justice League
Green Arrow #17-34
Nightwing and then Grayson

Avoid:
Everything New 52 Superman (half of its been retconned now)
We Are Robin
Green Arrow #1-16 #35-40

Thanks! That actually helps a lot!