So, as y'all know I'm a Batman guy. But recently I got a crazy idea. With the great stuff going on with the reboot of Batman...what about the rest of the reboot?
Growing up, I loved superhero anything. I've already talked about how I lived in a golden age for comics being on TV so my generation was exposed to a LOT of heroes. Everything from the Fleischer Superman cartoons, to movies, to the shows currently airing (all the Fox Kids stuff and then all the KidsWB stuff): if it was about superheroes, I was going to watch it.
My parents when I started reading showed me the "funny pages" in our newspaper. I was addicted. I read all of them. Even the ones I couldn't stand.
How was this seen as feminist?
Eventually, my funny pages interest and my superheroes interest combined when my parents got me a comic book for an early christmas. I actually still remember it.
I was like 6, cut me some slack.
Much like when my parents bought my Nintendo when I was 3, they had no idea what they had just unleashed. On long car trips, a comic book was all I needed as I'd read it repeatedly until I almost had it memorized. I loved seeing my favorite characters (Sonic, TMNT, WWF, Mario Brothers) with new settings and new stories. I devoured them. We fast forward a few years My parents used to yell at me as we'd go to the public library and I'd walk out with a stack of graphic novels. I would read all of them repeatedly until they had to go back. X-men, old school Spider-man, anything I could find on the shelf that was a comic I was going home with.
Ever since I could read, I've had this great love for comics. Its never changed. I'm not sure it ever will. It's an excellent time to be a comic fan as a new generation of authors with great ideas is breathing new life into characters that were long since dead. Not just that, but comics can be acquired for an extremely low price and read quickly in digital form. No more sorting issues or bagging and boarding. Throw it in a folder on your hard drive and you're good to go. This rekindled my love of comics a few years ago.
I know that was a long story and my other comic reviews will talk about the comics more, but I'm trying to give you guys a sense of where I'm coming from. I love this artform.
Recently, DC was sick of getting it's ass handed to them by Marvel except for Batman titles. Their marketing department came out with a plan. With the long history of comics, if you wanted to catch up on the current Batman continuity, you had years of stuff to read (See my Grant Morrison review for a guide: http://reviewswithoutlegs.blogspot.com/2013/01/morrisons-bat-epic.html). That was scaring people off. No one has that kind of time. So they said "What if we came up with a crazy story where we reset EVERYTHING back to #1?" Every single title worth a damn, a fresh beginning. The New 52.
While the story to trigger this universe reset didn't pique my interest, after reading some of the Batman titles in the new 52, I became intrigued. Is there other stuff this good I'm missing out on? I enjoyed some of these authors runs on other books (especially Geoff Johns pre-Blackest Night), so why not check them out?
There have been 75 weeks of the new 52 continuity. I now have all of them on my computer. Every thing that has come out in this new DC Universe.
I've been jumping around reading the starting issues of characters I'm interested in but none had really caught me and grabbed me.
Until I got to Justice League.
Justice League is DC's answer to The Avengers. Every big name in their universe bands together to fight threats that one hero can't handle alone. But what was great about this first arc, most of the characters hadn't met before.
The set up is pretty basic, all over the world in each hero's respective city, these strange aliens are planting unidentifiable boxes then blowing themselves up. One in Metropolis, One in Gotham, One in Washington DC et al. Even Atlantis isn't spared. Turns out the boxes are portals for hordes of enemies to fly through to harvest Earth's organic materials. For those of you that aren't science-y, that means us. Each hero follows the trail of what's going on to bump into one another, fight and question each others abilities, then fuck up some aliens. Everything seems to be under control when the big bad comes in, Darkseid.
The interactions between all the heroes are well written and everyone stays true to character. Hal Jordan (at least I think its Hal) is a cocky asshole, Superman is a boy scout but tries to look tough, Batman is paranoid of the power levels of everyone around him, Wonder Woman just wants a valiant fight. I was already hooked, then this exchange happened after Batman and Green Lantern meet up and lock horns.
If that right there doesn't give you an indication what awesomeness is in store, go ahead, skip this book.
Another thing I have to give Geoff Johns credit for is he took his time with the arc. It lasts 7 issues and isn't your usual origin story of "Heroes team up instantly and bang this out in 3-4 issues." I wouldn't say its grueling, but the battle takes something out of the heroes and you can feel that, even though everything is moving so fast around them. The pacing is absolutely fantastic. It never feels rushed, or dragged out.
I don't want to spoil the whole thing, but almost everyone has their moment to shine (mainly Batman and Green Lantern). If you have any interest in the 7 guys on the cover, you should give the new 52 Justice League a look. Its actually the most fun I've had reading a non-Batman DC comic. Period.
Just some guy with no legs,
-Oz
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