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DC Rebirth |OT| It's not a reboot, and it always was [SPOILERS for Rebirth #1]

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Really enjoyed Batman #1 and Superman #1. How was Green Arrow and Titans? I'm just getting back to DC starting with Rebirth #1 and the latest Detective Comics and Action Comics, will I be lost?
 

sploatee

formerly Oynox Slider
The New 52 isn't a complete waste of time. There were good books in it.

Read the whole New 52 Batman run. Issues 1-52 or Volumes 1-8 if you are reading it in graphic novel form. It's not light hearted but it's great.

I definitely wouldn't say it was pointless. Perhaps now deemed unnecessary, but we got some great stuff out of it.

Before the New 52, there was just the DCU; the post-Crisis DCU, that is. New 52 was the latest in a number of large-scale reboots following events. People were worried Rebirth would be more of the same, but so far that seems not to be the case.

Edit: Holy shit, Batman #1 was literally everything I was hoping it would be. King da gawd.

And the art was great too! Turns out Finch isn't so bad when he's propped up by a fantastic inker and colorist.

Thanks dudes. On it like a car bonnet.
 
Not exactly Rebirth but I did like Justice Leauge 51, it was a fun story and Abnett was on point. Only real issue I had was that he fucked up the timeline, it has been 5 years in universe since the start of that New 52, which started at Year 5, so the Darkseid fight in the first JL arc should have been 10 years ago now, not five. Not that THAT makes a whole lot of sense either, but it is what it is.
 
Really enjoyed Batman #1 and Superman #1. How was Green Arrow and Titans? I'm just getting back to DC starting with Rebirth #1 and the latest Detective Comics and Action Comics, will I be lost?

Green Arrow and Titans were great. I can't speak for Detective Comics, but if you were fine with Superman, you'll be fine with Action Comics.
 
Was with Batman #1 until that ending, which felt incredibly contrived as a excuse to introduce two new characters by having them "save the day." Also found myself hating the color palette Bellaire is using here; dull, muddied monochromatics punctuated by bursts of orange that accentuate just how dull the rest of it looks.
 
Not exactly Rebirth but I did like Justice Leauge 51, it was a fun story and Abnett was on point. Only real issue I had was that he fucked up the timeline, it has been 5 years in universe since the start of that New 52, which started at Year 5, so the Darkseid fight in the first JL arc should have been 10 years ago now, not five. Not that THAT makes a whole lot of sense either, but it is what it is.

No, the entire issue was set 5 years ago / 5 years after the JLA formed. It's when Robin I (Dick Grayson) first met the Justice League. I mean that's still incredibly problematic since it means Batman has had 3 Robins in 5 years (they really should have pushed Dick meeting the Justice League back at least 2 or 3 more years).

Really enjoyed Batman #1 and Superman #1. How was Green Arrow and Titans? I'm just getting back to DC starting with Rebirth #1 and the latest Detective Comics and Action Comics, will I be lost?

'Tec is a Gotham team book , at the moment. The first issue is almost nothing but introducing the characters and establishing their relationships to each other so you should be good to jump in.
 
Really enjoyed Batman #1 and Superman #1. How was Green Arrow and Titans? I'm just getting back to DC starting with Rebirth #1 and the latest Detective Comics and Action Comics, will I be lost?

Should be fine. GA was excellent, Titans was solid if you can look past the art.

Was with Batman #1 until that ending, which felt incredibly contrived as a excuse to introduce two new characters by having them "save the day." Also found myself hating the color palette Bellaire is using here; dull, muddied monochromatics punctuated by bursts of orange that accentuate just how dull the rest of it looks.

I don't know about "contrived," but it was abrupt. Suppose that's the point. Pacing up until then was just about perfect, so I'm cool with having the reveal be a last-page affair.

I knew he
wasn't going to die
, but I got genuinely emotional during the goodbyes bit.
 
Should be fine. GA was excellent, Titans was solid if you can look past the art.



I don't know about "contrived," but it was abrupt. Suppose that's the point. Pacing up until then was just about perfect, so I'm cool with having the reveal be a last-page affair.

I knew he
wasn't going to die
, but I got genuinely emotional during the goodbyes bit.

I think it was supposed to feel abrupt and out of place. I think the point is that they aren't the normal type of heroes of Gotham.
I'll be surprised if they are still around and heroic by the end of this arc
 

MartyStu

Member
Was with Batman #1 until that ending, which felt incredibly contrived as a excuse to introduce two new characters by having them "save the day." Also found myself hating the color palette Bellaire is using here; dull, muddied monochromatics punctuated by bursts of orange that accentuate just how dull the rest of it looks.

I rode it all the way. But I knew that these two characters were going to be introduced this issue, so I expected it.
 
I think it was supposed to feel abrupt and out of place. I think the point is that they aren't the normal type of heroes of Gotham.
I'll be surprised if they are still around and heroic by the end of this arc

They should remain heroic, but failures. I'm under the assumption that Mr. former CIA employee Tom King is doing a US-Iraq War allegory here.

Superpowers enter Gotham thinking they can fix it with all their abilities and power. End up realizing they're misguided and possibly making it worse too. I hope this is the case. It would be an extremely clever arc, especially for a writer's first stab at a freaking batman comic.
 
Books are quality but there are problems.


As said bringing back Old Superman is just plain dumb. Could have had both or killed old one and had younger Superman train Jon.
That's what I mean. There are problems. They jettisoned their entire continuity for sales. The new 52 was incredibly inconsistent keeping some continuity intact for certain characters and making everything brand new for others. It didn't make sense and now this doesn't make sense, to me at least. I hope they figure out what the fuck they're doing because I love DC. I just can't bring myself into buying a reboot that reverts the previous reboot.
 
That's what I mean. There are problems. They jettisoned their entire continuity for sales. The new 52 was incredibly inconsistent keeping some continuity intact for certain characters and making everything brand new for others. It didn't make sense and now this doesn't make sense, to me at least. I hope they figure out what the fuck they're doing because I love DC. I just can't bring myself into buying a reboot that reverts the previous reboot.

There is no reboot.

Seriously. N52 Superman died, and was replaced by post-Crisis Superman, who joined the 'verse summer of last year.
 
Superdad #1 was freaking great. It went by incredibly quick too, not sure if that's a good or bad thing. How long are these issues?

I lol'd at the kid seeing a few other league members outside his window. An image like that would be surreal. And then when they caught him creeping it was a genuine "oh shit" moment. Especially the final page....somebody's about to get spanked.
 

kmfdmpig

Member
For me, at the end of the day all I want are good comic runs. Whether they are in continuity with Nu52, Post Crisis, Pre-Crisis, Elseworlds, etc... I don't really care. A good run is a good run and to me the continuity part is such a small part of what makes a run good or bad.

If we look at Batman as an example some of his most celebrated stories are out of continuity, some are in the future, some in pre-Crisis timeline, some in Nu52. The quality, to me, is not really hurt based on the continuity they were in, but instead based on the quality of the writing and art. In that regard, so far Rebirth seems like a success as the quality seems much higher than Nu52.
 

Yamabro

Banned
That's what I mean. There are problems. They jettisoned their entire continuity for sales. The new 52 was incredibly inconsistent keeping some continuity intact for certain characters and making everything brand new for others. It didn't make sense and now this doesn't make sense, to me at least. I hope they figure out what the fuck they're doing because I love DC. I just can't bring myself into buying a reboot that reverts the previous reboot.

It's not a reboot.
 

VanWinkle

Member
For me, at the end of the day all I want are good comic runs. Whether they are in continuity with Nu52, Post Crisis, Pre-Crisis, Elseworlds, etc... I don't really care. A good run is a good run and to me the continuity part is such a small part of what makes a run good or bad.

If we look at Batman as an example some of his most celebrated stories are out of continuity, some are in the future, some in pre-Crisis timeline, some in Nu52. The quality, to me, is not really hurt based on the continuity they were in, but instead based on the quality of the writing and art. In that regard, so far Rebirth seems like a success as the quality seems much higher than Nu52.

Agreed 100%. Except your last line. I thought the start of N52 Batman was much stronger than the start of Rebirth Batman. Mostly because of the art. Green Arrow was a big step up, although N52 did have that great Lemire/Sorrentino run. Flash looks like it could be better than all the N52 stuff, although like all of this it's too early to say.

I think a lot of people forgot or neglect to realize how much great stuff there was in N52.
 

kmfdmpig

Member
Agreed 100%. Except your last line. I thought the start of N52 Batman was much stronger than the start of Rebirth Batman. Mostly because of the art. Green Arrow was a big step up, although N52 did have that great Lemire/Sorrentino run. Flash looks like it could be better than all the N52 stuff, although like all of this it's too early to say.

I think a lot of people forgot or neglect to realize how much great stuff there was in N52.

That's a good point.

I did like a fair number of the titles at the start of Nu52, particularly:
Batman
Batman and Robin
Demon Knights
and
Aquaman

The average quality so far of Rebirth seems higher to me, although to be fair that's based on a small sample size at this point.

You're right that the one run in Nu52's Green Arrow was great (perhaps the best Green Arrow in many years, but it was sandwiched between lesser quality before it and lesser quality afterwards, so that seemed like a bright spot in an overall failed series to me.

I guess the one thing I really liked about Nu52 was that they tried to diversify their portfolio with fantasy, war, horror, etc.. Those all mostly failed pretty quickly and Rebirth seems very safe by literally doubling down on their most popular characters. As long as the quality stays high I'll be OK with that.

The book I'm looking forward to the most is likely one of it's least likely to be successful: Blue Beetle.
 

VanWinkle

Member
That's a good point.

I did like a fair number of the titles at the start of Nu52, particularly:
Batman
Batman and Robin
Demon Knights
and
Aquaman

The average quality so far of Rebirth seems higher to me, although to be fair that's based on a small sample size at this point.

You're right that the one run in Nu52's Green Arrow was great (perhaps the best Green Arrow in many years, but it was sandwiched between lesser quality before it and lesser quality afterwards, so that seemed like a bright spot in an overall failed series to me.

I guess the one thing I really liked about Nu52 was that they tried to diversify their portfolio with fantasy, war, horror, etc.. Those all mostly failed pretty quickly and Rebirth seems very safe by literally doubling down on their most popular characters. As long as the quality stays high I'll be OK with that.

The book I'm looking forward to the most is likely one of it's least likely to be successful: Blue Beetle.

Dude I hope so bad that Blue Beetle will be good. And at least mildly successful.
 
Superman was great. Felt real short but it was good. Batman, Titans and Green Arrow were awesome aswell. Haven't real Lanterns yet but DC is killing it so far with Rebirth.
 

kmfdmpig

Member
Dude I hope so bad that Blue Beetle will be good. And at least mildly successful.

Justice League International was my favorite comic as a child, so I've been a Ted fan for quite some time. I didn't learn to really appreciate Jaime until watching Young Justice (such a great show), but now I really look forward to the two together. Giffen is one of my all time favorites, but his work is more hit or miss for me than it used to be, so I'm hopeful that this will be a return to form for him. In any event I'm looking forward to it.

The one thing I would have liked to have seen in Rebirth was more focus on female led comics. Power Girl and Zatanna were both top-tier comics before Nu52 and it would be nice to have a lighthearted comic in the same vein. Starfire filled that void a bit recently, but I don't see anything that will in the future.
 
The bit with Jaime and Ted in Rebirth was pretty good, and of course I'm contractually obligated to be HYPED AS FUCK for the book, but I am a little worried. Changing the Scarab's origin is probably necessary after what they ended up doing to the Reach shakes fist at Johns, but Giffen has... kinda fallen into a bit of a rut? His writing tics are just really really apparent to me these days, and not all of 'em are good. Like, he's really fond of having characters narrate through dialogue, and then hanging a corny-ass lampshade on that. Or really specifically paced exchanges of banter. I dunno. I like the end product well enough, but it's rarely as good as it could be these days.
 
Rankings!

Green Arrow>Titans>Batman>Superman>Green Lanterns

Green Arrow: I am still mystified that this is the same writer as the last few arcs I've read of Green Arrow. I was the biggest Percy hater coming into Rebirth but so far he has really completely changed my mind.

Titans: This is kind of what I thought all the Rebirth issues were going to be. Showing some effect of the main Rebirth book and transitioning to a new status quo. It being so easy for the team because of speed force seems cheap after he had trouble the whole time in Rebirth, but it was still a great read and makes me look forward to the book going forward.

Batman: Action wise I really loved this issue. The goodbye stuff just felt super weird to me though. This Batman is just back, this is issue number 1, we just went through the parents being happy thing in Batman 52. All of that just seemed super weird to go to in issue one.

Superman: I wanted more of Jon, but not so much in Superman... I'm more interested in that conversation that went on between the Trinity. I was happy with the issue, but bummed it was at the expense of Supes.

Green Lanterns: Ehhh, I liked it and I'm still in it, but I'm just not sure it's for me. I like what I read but at the end of it I'm just not sure I want to read it. I know nothing about the characters and really not much about Green Lanterns so I just don't know if this is the place to start. I'll stick around and see how I feel going forward.
 
Rankings!

Green Arrow>Titans>Batman>Superman>Green Lanterns

Green Arrow: I am still mystified that this is the same writer as the last few arcs I've read of Green Arrow. I was the biggest Percy hater coming into Rebirth but so far he has really completely changed my mind.

Titans: This is kind of what I thought all the Rebirth issues were going to be. Showing some effect of the main Rebirth book and transitioning to a new status quo. It being so easy for the team because of speed force seems cheap after he had trouble the whole time in Rebirth, but it was still a great read and makes me look forward to the book going forward.

Batman: Action wise I really loved this issue. The goodbye stuff just felt super weird to me though. This Batman is just back, this is issue number 1, we just went through the parents being happy thing in Batman 52. All of that just seemed super weird to go to in issue one.

Superman: I wanted more of Jon, but not so much in Superman... I'm more interested in that conversation that went on between the Trinity. I was happy with the issue, but bummed it was at the expense of Supes.

Green Lanterns: Ehhh, I liked it and I'm still in it, but I'm just not sure it's for me. I like what I read but at the end of it I'm just not sure I want to read it. I know nothing about the characters and really not much about Green Lanterns so I just don't know if this is the place to start. I'll stick around and see how I feel going forward.

I can give the Speed Force in Titans a pass since before he was trying to get pulled back into reality and he's already grounded in it now.

Yeah , I think DC has really been overplaying the Batman may die thing , he's been "dead" for 12 months twice in the last decade. It's getting kinda trite at this point. I can understand why Snyder wanted to tell that story but the Nu52 was too young for it to really work (and as a side effect of that not long has passed since Morrison's Dead Batman story either.)

With Percy I wonder if he was a pre-Nu52 Green Arrow fan and avoiding using the significant touchstones he thought defined the character had a negative quality on his writing. It would sort of explain why he's suddenly writing leagues better.
 
I can give the Speed Force in Titans a pass since before he was trying to get pulled back into reality and he's already grounded in it now.

Yeah , I think DC has really been overplaying the Batman may die thing , he's been "dead" for 12 months twice in the last decade. It's getting kinda trite at this point. I can understand why Snyder wanted to tell that story but the Nu52 was too young for it to really work (and as a side effect of that not long has passed since Morrison's Dead Batman story either.)

With Percy I wonder if he was a pre-Nu52 Green Arrow fan and avoiding using the significant touchstones he thought defined the character had a negative quality on his writing. It would sort of explain why he's suddenly writing leagues better.

I just don't know with Percy. Half of me wants to think he was taking the DC YOU thing to so much heart and he was trying to take the whole SJW(Hate this damn term) to the most extreme and see if it grabbed that audience or something?

There was just so much dumb shit about those arcs.
 
They should remain heroic, but failures. I'm under the assumption that Mr. former CIA employee Tom King is doing a US-Iraq War allegory here.

Superpowers enter Gotham thinking they can fix it with all their abilities and power. End up realizing they're misguided and possibly making it worse too. I hope this is the case. It would be an extremely clever arc, especially for a writer's first stab at a freaking batman comic.

I hope there are more than this. US invading allegory has been overused (Ultimates, etc). King is more capable.
 
Yeah , I think DC has really been overplaying the Batman may die thing , he's been "dead" for 12 months twice in the last decade. It's getting kinda trite at this point. I can understand why Snyder wanted to tell that story but the Nu52 was too young for it to really work (and as a side effect of that not long has passed since Morrison's Dead Batman story either.)

I think the reason it worked for me is that it spent like 0 time on the "WILL HE DIE!" drama aspect, because let's be real, we all knew he wasn't going to. King immediately transitioned past that: yes, barring intervention, he dead. So instead of having to play that old song, he moved immediately to the will and testament stuff, which I thought was really strong.

I just don't know with Percy. Half of me wants to think he was taking the DC YOU thing to so much heart and he was trying to take the whole SJW(Hate this damn term) to the most extreme and see if it grabbed that audience or something?

There was just so much dumb shit about those arcs.

Percy's big problem is (was?) that he's a novelist first and foremost, imo. Way way too wordy, and he structures (or rather, structured) his stories in such a way that that wordiness was required. Guess somebody sat him down at some point and walked him through those issues because he's made a dramatic turnaround. The fundamental material of those stories was fine, he just didn't know how to write them. If anything, the SJW elements are even more pronounced now, but it's fine, because he's handling them much better.

I hope there are more than this. US invading allegory has been overused (Ultimates, etc). King is more capable.

Agreed. Apparently, the new heroes end up fixating on Batman as a problem, which makes me think he's carrying the metaphor a step further (good intentions don't just lead to bad results, they can be twisted into outright bad intentions). We'll see how it goes, it could just be a supremely well executed take on the usual fare and I'd probably be fine with it. In King we trust.
 
Percy's big problem is (was?) that he's a novelist first and foremost, imo. Way way too wordy, and he structures (or rather, structured) his stories in such a way that that wordiness was required. Guess somebody sat him down at some point and walked him through those issues because he's made a dramatic turnaround. The fundamental material of those stories was fine, he just didn't know how to write them. If anything, the SJW elements are even more pronounced now, but it's fine, because he's handling them much better.

The only real arc I had a structural problem with was the first one, with the drones. It seemed like it was setting something up and then it all just ended completely abrupt. The Dog/Mexico stuff I thought was his best arc it just seemed weird to hinge on a love interest that came out of nowhere and was apparently super strong and then went nowhere.

My problem with his SJW stuff before is that it was so over the top and hilarious. The drones are racist and are killing people because they're black. The African gang is called "The whites" because they rape, steal, and ruin like the white people. The wolfs are segregated and need to be 'cured' while they are being hunted by the patriot extremists willing to die or sever limbs than be a filthy wolf!

It was just so laughable and dumb. That stuff on top of the weird structuring just made it all bad but the over the top sjw commentary was just way too hilarious bad.
 

jph139

Member
Damn, Green Arrow is just SO good looking. I'm actually worried that they're going to burn out the artist with the bimonthly release. I mean, the writing is top-notch (the whole "prisons are corrupt!" speech to justify paying off cops/human traffickers was perfect), but the art is what ties it all together.

And Batman delivered for sure. I was skeptical about Gotham and Gotham Girl, but seeing their designs in action sold me. Very interested in seeing where they go next.
 

cr0w

Old Member
Finally sat down and read Superman and Batman. Superman I enjoyed, and the scene at the end with the Trinity was really, really cool. I liked how it was drawn, and how frightening that would be if you were in Jonathan's shoes.

Batman...I loved the shit out of it. The interaction between Bruce and Alfred when Bruce thought he wasn't going to make it was beautiful. Great issue.
 

VanWinkle

Member
Serious? Because the book art is what I don't like at all...

Aw man, really? I thought it was GLORIOUS. I take it you're only into the really realistic stuff?

Ot6mRPO.png


That just looks incredible to me.
 

dcelw540

Junior Member
I have a question, it's probably dumb but is detective comics and batman #1 the same batman carrying over from the new 52? I just finished reading batman #52 and wasn't sure which one I should read or if they are connected? Rebirth confuses me a bit :p
 
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