More 52 Reviews for You

Yes, dear readers, I bought a ton of new #1s from the continual fire hose of D.C.’s, The New 52! IN GENERAL, the reads were OK. There is a propensity across most of these renewed titles to be more visceral and “edgy,” with more graphic violence, more (attempted) sharp language, and more attitude. Definitely, it seems that the books are catering to a young audience, and why not? All of us old geezers won’t be around forever, and one day, these kids may have paychecks of their own and enough disposable income to drop the big bucks on their books every month like us old folk do.

Here’s how last week’s new number one’s (the ones that I read at least) came across. Batman was good but with only a so-so attempt at a shocker cliff-hanger. Green Lantern Corps was pretty good, but trying way too hard to be daring and gritty, while coming across more like a bad slasher movie than anything else.

Wonder Woman was…interesting. There is a different feel to the book. A little more noir, and I’m interested to see where it goes. Batman and Robin. Trying too hard again, but an OK read. Supergirl was pretty cool (and hot at the same time), and her book ties in with pretty well with the Superman story. I’m gonna keep watching this for now.

Red Lanterns was OK, but a bit overdone, and despite the writers trying to add depth to Atrocitus, I can’t see this book having enough depth of its own to be a continuing title. Then again, they have set up a premise that may work. We’ll have to wait and see.

Legion of Super-Heroes had nice art, but honestly, I thought the story was a bit confusing and disjointed. And the Blue Beetle. In all fairness, I haven’t read the Blue Beetle since he was a part of the Charlton Comics lineup. So, this new take on the Beetle may or may not be a fresh departure from the recent Beetle storylines. I will say, however, that I was mildly annoyed by the interspersing of un-translated Spanish throughout the book. And, yeah, I get the fact that we should have more cultural diversity everywhere and that English isn’t REALLY the official language of our country, but…it was still annoying. AND, I even speak enough Spanish to understand most of what was said.

So, there’s the run-down on the latest first issues. More importantly though is the one book that I couldn’t wait to read. This comic wasn’t from DC OR Marvel. It was The Bionic Man #2, by Kevin Smith and published by Dynamite. The art is good. The story and dialogue is good. And…well, it’s The Bionic Man! I think just his eye alone costs more than $6 million dollars today, so he’s probably more like the $6 billion dollar man now, but I think this book is going to be bad-a$$, and I imagine that no matter how many first issues I have in my pile, I’m still going to start with The Bionic Man just for the pure enjoyment of the read.

Until next week…