The DCnU 52 Review: Week Four (and Summary)

?Three things before we get started:

1) The review contains mild spoilers for the DCnU comics that come out today, and thus they’re all after the jump. I should also say that after reading all 13 comics on Monday night, I had already forgotten what happened in all but two of them (and one of those because it was so bad). Let’s just say this last week is not the DCnU’s strongest.

2) If you want my reviews of Justice League #1, the Week 1 DCnU releases, or the Weeks 2 and 3 releases, they can be found at the links.

3) If I were willing and wealthy enough to pay $3 each for a comic I can read in 5 minutes, I would purchase Wonder Woman, Animal Man, Batman, Batwoman, Frankenstein Agent of SHADE, O.M.A.C. and Action Comics from here on out. As is, I’ll look for them when they get collected in a trade, assuming they survive that long. Comics I would continue reading if DC kept sending them to me for free include Aquaman, Batgirl, Demon Knights, Resurrection Man, Superboy, Birds of Prey, and Red Hood and the Outlaws (only to see how terrible it can get). Note out of all these, only one — Aquaman — is being released this week. Anyways, the reviews are on the next page.

Aquaman: The best of the week, but hardly the best of the DCnU. Geoff Johns does a good job of making Aquaman start out kicking some serious ass, but then he undercuts it by having every human Aquaman meets make fun of him. I see why Johns did it — he’s trying to disprove the whole “Aquaman is lame shtick,” but there are two problems: 1) most real people already think Aquaman as a joke, so that’s not shit you need to establish in the comic, and 2) it’s just kind of depressing to read about people basically mocking Aquaman to his face. It certainly undercuts the ass-kicking. Oh well, some crazy blue fishmen come out of an ocean crack and start eating sailors, so it could be fun.

The Flash: There’s some kind of a terrorist attack and Flash has a friend who’s one of the terrorists and then the friend has been cloned a lot and I don’t know what the fuck was happening. I know part of that was intentional, but I mean there were whole panels where I just didn’t understand what was supposed to be portrayed in them. Anyways, I had to reread the entire issue just to tell you this much about it.

All-Star Western: This one’s a bit more straightforward; Jonah Hex comes to old west Gotham City where a faux Jack the Ripper is killing whores. Hex also teams up with Dr. Amadeus Arkham for no discernible reason. I’m not a big fan of “Old West” Gotham anyways — I always thought Gotham was a faux NYC, and having it be a frontier town always seems unbelievably stupid to me — and the mystery is pretty standard and not much happens and the whole thing is colored brown-grey and enh.

The Fury of Firestorm: As far as I can tell, The Fury of Firestrom is about two teenagers, one a jock, one a nerd, one black, one white, but both whiny assholes, who both separately turn into Firestorm and then there’s another evil Firestorm or something. I have no desire to ever read any more about any of them.

Blackhawks: The Blackhawks are apparently a super-secret government task force of asskickers whose entire operation is suddenly compromised when someone takes a picture of the big-ass hawk logo on one of their ships during a super-secret operation. Why do they have a big-ass hawk logo on their ships in the first place, you ask? Excellent question. I prefer my super-secret government task forces to be slightly less dumb.

Green Lantern: New Guardians: The GL book about Kyle Rayner. I’m kind of partial to Kyle Rayner, so I had some hope for this, and actually, the idea that one of each of the Skittle Rings suddenly chooses Kyle Rayner to wear them, pissing a lot of the various Skittles Corps. members off, is pretty neat. The problem is this happens on the last page, and all the shit before it kind of boring. That is, except for the very beginning where everyone on Oa is dead and the last Guardian gives the last GL ring to Kyle Rayner. What the fuck? Is this his origin? Is this the present? Is it a new origin? Where the fuck do Hal and Guy and John fit into that? As a new reader, I have no fucking clue, and the comic doesn’t tell me — and after beginning the comic with it, simply ignores it and never mentions it again. Thanks for nothing, DC.

Superman: Ostensibly this issue is about a weird fire alien who shows up, messes up a lot of shit, and then disappears, but it’s mostly about Clark Kent being really, really bitchy about a major news corporation buying the Daily Planet and building a new Daily Planet building. I don’t mind my Superman being a bit naive about the innate goodness of humans, but being naive about business and the print industry is kind of dumb. Also not much fun to read.

The Savage Hawkman: Hawkman doesn’t want to be Hawkman so he shoots the corpse of a dead Hawkman and then an alien shows up and Hawkman turns into Hawkman anyways. Yeah, I’ll pass.

Justice League Dark: Someone named the Enchantress goes crazy and starts fucking with a small section of reality, so Madame Xanadu, Zatanna, Deadman, Resurrection Man and John Constantine team up to stop her. Or they will eventually; at this point everyone’s just dicking around and only two members of the team have assembled (but done nothing). It isn’t a bad idea, it just moves too slowly for me. Although it does feature a great scene where Superman, Wonder Woman and Cyborg try to fight the Enchantress and then immediately leave when they get caught in a tornado of human teeth.

I, Vampire: A vampire guy sires a vampire girl and the boy wants to be a good vampire but the girl vampire wants to kill all humans. This is told in the most confusing way possible. The art’s pretty, though.

Voodoo: This is a comic representation of what it’s like to go to a strip club, watch a stripper for a bit, and then get a lap dance. There’s an alien at the end, but do not be fooled — this is a comic representation of exactly what happens and what you’ll see if you go to a strip club, watch a stripper, and then get a lap dance. It’s awful and totally worthless.

Batman: The Dark Knight: Of all the many, many Batman titles, this is the one I couldn’t remember reading afterwards. It seems to be about a jailbreak at Arkham, but if that description gets you excited about a Batman comic, you clearly don’t discriminate. It’s got nice David Finch art, but Batman #1 is infinitely more interesting.

Teen Titans: Someone’s abducting superpowered teens, so Red Robin/Tim Drake decides to assemble a team of his own, starting with the new blonde Wonder Girl. It’s actually a pretty good idea for a Teen Titans relaunch, and I would have totally included it in my “would read if sent for free” pile if Kid Flash weren’t so awful and annoying at the comic’s beginning.