Its really no surprise that Action Comics was excellent. A Superman whose powers aren’t quite up there yet, and a nice reference to Smallville early on (at least, I have to assume it was intentional ). Its interesting to see Clark pushed more into a Green Arrow esque role here, but it works, especially with the idea that this is Superman starting out. He’s not at the level of cosmic threats yet (although Luthor’s dialogue hints towards something coming). Morrison’s on good form here, and Rags Morale’s artwork is great. I do wish artists would stop overusing the Superman with glowing red eyes thing, but that’s just a personal peeve.  To be honest, given that this is the premier Superman title, and is probably the earliest set of the superhero books in the new 52, I think they could’ve easily used this as the launch title instead of Justice League.  Really strong first issue that shows Clark as much more of a Superboy than a Superman, and also a nice showcase of Luthor.  Very interested to see how this book develops.

Batgirl, also lived up to the hype.  Its no secret I had  a lot of misgivings about the book.  Barbara’s role as Oracle had been a big part of the DCU for years, and the character of Batgirl had gone on to enjoy success first with Cassie, and then more recently with Steph.  To be honest, pre-reboot the Steph Batgirl series by Bryan Millar was one of the best books DC was putting out, so I really disliked the way it had the rug pulled out from under it.  However, then DC put Gail Simone on the book, who was possibly the only writer that could’ve convinced me to pick it up.  And Gail came through brilliantly.

Instead of being ignored or rebooted, the story nicely uses Barbara’s disability throughout the book. I did have a nagging wish for more of a bridge between this and the previous series, which is a peril of not rebooting as cleanly as Superman has – but I do find myself itching to know what happened with Steph and why Barabara’s walking – only one of those questions is likely to be answered in the near future though.

The way Gail used the fact that Barbara was new to being back out as Batgirl worked brilliantly, and her characterisation using The Killing Joke is built up to the point where Barbara freezes when a gun is pointed at her, causing her rescue of someone to go badly wrong.  Its powerful stuff, and despite really being against Barbara’s reinstatement as Batgirl, I now can’t recommend it enough.  Between this and Action Comics, DC couldn’t have asked for a better couple of books for this first proper week of the reboot.

JLI was fun, but entirely setup. Dan Jurgens definitely convinced me he can pull off this team book though after writing Booster Gold’s solo adventures for so many years, but I was quite surprised just how quickly Guy exited the title. Frankly putting him on the cover was a bit cheeky (makes me wonder if he was sticking around longer in the initial plans?). For me, it seemed to carry on the tone of the recent Generation Lost series I enjoyed, so I’m happy.   It was nice to see Booster brought in from the beginning as the team leader, and it feels like the dialogue between the team is just right to capture that lighter hearted JLI feeling.  I’m also a big fan of the friendly relationship between Booster and Batman, something that in this rebooted universe is pretty unexpected. I assume there’s a story there that’s going to be revealed at somepoint (I’m not going to be surprised if this is the original timeline Booster who went to the DCNu’s Bruce for help after finding himself stuck here – we know Bruce found out about the timeline changes from Barry).

Animal Man was a nice surprise too. Really well written and intriguing. I had been going to skip it, but I was glad I didn’t. There’s some nice balancing of the superheroics, Buddie’s domestic life, and the horror elements.

The two books that didn’t blow me away were Detective Comics (enjoyable, but didn’t feel as fresh as the other books to me – I have to wonder if not rebooting Batman and Green Lantern in a similar way is going to make them stick out in all this), and Stormwatch, which I’d expected really good things from but didn’t really grab me (And good lord, Midnighter’s new costume is bloody awful – although that’s not a complaint restricted to him in this new DCU). I have to wonder if Stormwatch was just juggling too many characters in its first issue. And the fact that part of the setup seems to hang off of a Superman issue that’s not out for a couple of weeks seems a weird decision.

So overall, as someone who wasn’t entirely convinced of the reboot, this first proper week of books did a lot to convince me.  Action Comics, Batgirl, JLI and Animal Man are all books I’m definitely going to keep picking up.

I’ve been waiting on this series patiently since Dan Jurgens left the Booster Gold book, and it didn’t disappoint.   Despite the Batman tie in, and Superman and Green Lantern being along for the ride, this feels like a natural extension of the Booster Gold book, as Jurgens also works in Daniel Carter as Supernova to the story, an element that will be lost on anyone who wasn’t following the Booster Gold book (although who he is is explained in the book).

This first issue worked well to me, both as a continuation of Dan Jurgens run, and as a Return of Bruce Wayne tie-in, with the action picking up not long after the Archivist (a disguised Bruce Wayne), left the group on the soon-to-be destroyed Vanishing Point.  Escaping into the past (not long after pirate issue  of the other mini-series) the group then has to figure out how to get back and stop Bruce.

I’ve always liked the idea behind this series.  Given that Rip Hunter and Booster Gold are now the DCU’s defenders of the time stream, it made a lot of sense to me that they’d be involved.  However, I guess it also means the list of people who know the truth about Booster is expanding, with Superman and Green Lantern joining the group.  Its not been specifically covered in either series, but I assume there must’ve been a moment off-screen when Rip and Booster discussed letting the others know.   I wonder if anyone else from the League is aware of Booster’s status, or if they’ve managed to keep it quiet and limited to just Supes and GL?  Of course, Superman finding out is fine.  Hal?  Well, Green Lantern does help shift the books these days

Of course, that’s all by the by.  The appearance of Supernova was a nice surprise in this series, which I’d assumed would just feature the characters already seen in Return of Bruce Wayne.   Supernova’s not been seen in a while in the Booster Gold book, so its nice to see the character still active, and his time travel abilities make him a natural way to try and rescue Booster and co.

There’s a big difference between this series and Booster Gold though.  In this series, things are being written from Rip Hunter’s perspective, which adds a fresh spin on things.  It allows more of an insight into his relationship with Booster, giving us the nice flashback to when he was a boy, being taken by his Dad (Booster) to see Dinosaurs in the past, but also serves to underline that he’s been trained in time travel and its complexities from a young age, and so is uniquely qualified to deal with the current situation, despite the presence of heavyweight heroes Superman and Green Lantern.

Another aspect to this series I like, is the way its plugging one of the gaps in the Return of Bruce Wayne story.  Prior to Blackest Night, Bruce was assumed dead by all except Tim Drake.  After Blackest Night, Dick tried to revive the body of Bruce, only to suddenly discover the body was actually that of a clone created by Darkseid.  So far, so good.  However then things suddenly jumped.  Now, granted Tim had discovered the cave painting Bruce made at the end of Final Crisis, but suddenly all the characters knew that not only was Bruce alive, but also that he was trapped, bouncing around time as a result of the Omega Effect.  It was a bit jarring with no real explanation of how they all found this out.  This issue though suggests that it was Rip and Booster who filled everyone in (or at least, they recruited Superman and GL, who told everyone else).

Overall a great start.   Perhaps Superman and GL weren’t being completely written in character, but to be honest, its not them I’m reading this for.  And as a continuation of Dan Jurgens Booster Gold, this is ticking the right boxes for me.

Not for its quality.  Out of the three tie-ins thus far, its been the strongest for most of its issues (which is saying something, as all of them have been excellent).   No, what really surprised me was the brilliant use of Kon-El, Superboy.

Geoff Johns has been doing great work with the character in his soon-to-be-finished run on Adventure Comics, and here James Robinson really picks up that ball and runs with it, allowing Conner to emerge as the hero of the piece.   Especially nice was the scene addressing why Conner has been avoiding using his tactile TK over the last few years, explaining that he avoids it as he’s trying to be more like Superman.  Clark, of course, berates him for this, telling him he should use all his powers (especially when faced by emotion-eating zombies).  This tied in nicely to the story Geoff’s been telling I thought, with Conner measuring his own life experiences up against Clark’s and Lex’s.

The New Krypton segment I was less bothered about.  Almost an afterthought in the first two issues, its appearance here seems largely to explain why New Krypton isn’t more involved in the event and to remove all the extra Kryptonians from the story.  I do see the point of its inclusion, but it also feels out of place next to all the Smallville goings on.

In terms of the larger Blackest Night storyline, there’s a nice twist with the Medusa Mask.  In last issue, it and Psycho Pirate seemed to be the ultimate weapon for the Black Lanterns, able to instil any emotion in large groups of people with no effort, but here we see there’s a flipside to it, when Conner grabs the mask and uses it against Black Lantern Kal-L.  The result is that the black ring shuts down, saving the day.

This is pretty interesting, and again has me wondering about the potential resurrection of people currently running around as Black Lanterns.  I’ve previously speculated that in the final issue, when the white light is revealed (either through a “White Lantern” or the current Lanterns working together) that any Black Lanterns caught in it will be restored to life.  To me, the effect of the Medusa Mask on Kal-L (or perhaps more accurately, his ring) reinforces this.  I wonder if the Mask hadn’t shattered, and Conner had been able to keep using it on Kal-L, if we’d have seen Kal-L fully restored.  Of course, we know that Kal-L and Lois will be back in the Blackest Night: JSA mini-series, so it’ll be interesting to see if the nature of Kal-L’s defeat will be referenced there.

I think this is so far probably my favourite of the tie-ins.    James Robinson evokes a horror film vibe brilliantly in the opening pages, as the newly Black Lanterned Kal-L rises and starts working his way through Smallville, wiping out whole groups of people and causing the Black Lantern power reading to slowly work its way up.

Eddy Barrows also turns in some great art.  Can’t remember seeing his stuff before, but I was pretty impressed by it here.

I was especially drawn to the scenes with Ma Kent, Conner and Clark all together.  Realistically this family dynamic to the Kents is a new development, but still I really like how the three characters interact.  It feels quite natural to have them together, especially with Jonathan’s recent death in the series.   I’ve always liked comics that build up a family feel.  Something I’ve always been a fan of in Wally’s Flash series for example.

There were a few surprises here as well, including Black Lantern Zor-El and the return of Earth-2 Lois as a Black Lantern.  Granted, I’ve not really been reading the New Krypton stuff, but it’ll be interesting to see the impact Blackest Night has on a planet of Kryptonians and how well they hold their own.

I’m still interested in seeing what happens to the Earth-2 characters at the end of this storyline.  I’d still like to see E-2 Superman properly restored at somepoint, however despite my misgivings about using him in this way I must admit that James Robinson and Eddy Barrows turned in a cracking book that overcame any worries I had.

So far, Blackest Night is off to an incredibly strong start with its own first two issues, GL, GLC and the Batman and Superman tie-ins.  I’m still unsure if I’ll pickup the Titans tie-in, and may well end up skipping it, but if the other tie-ins are anything to go by, it should be well worth a read for any Titans fans.

Firstly, I’ve got to say how much I love that cover for Blackest Night #4.  While I’m still a little unsure about the raised GL badge on Hal’s uniform, the rest of the cover is a cracking image.  It needs to be at least a desktop wallpaper onDC’s site, if not get a release as a poster.

The Blackest Night Superman solicit introduces us to an idea I hadn’t even thought about, but makes so much sense, when the Psycho Pirate’s Medusa Mask is hinted as a weapon against the Black Lanterns.  As something that controls emotions, it would make a lot of sense that it could be used against them.

Also interesting is the appearance of John Stewart on the variant cover for not Green Lantern, but Green Lantern Corps.  I’m guessing his Xanshi subplot may turn out to be a big thread in Blackest Night then, and perhaps this hints that there’ll be a lot more crossover in the plots of GL and GLC than there was in Sinestro Corps War.

The preview for Green Lantern #44 is also up, expanding on Hal and Barry’s conversation at Bruce’s grave as the Black Lantern J’onn turns up.  Again Geoff Johns writing Hal and Barry’s friendship continues to be a real highlight of the DCU at the moment.  I love their conversation regarding secret identities, and Barry commenting on how much better Kyle’s crab mask is than Hal’s

Again we’re seeing that the Black Lanterns seem to possess their personalities rather than the usual “Brainzzzzzz” zombies, so it’ll be interesting to see what exactly their nature is.  Do they have the actual souls bound to them, or are they just copies of the original personalities within the body?  Are Ralph and Sue still out there doing their ghost detective bit, while their physical remains were off killing the Hawks?  Of course, if so then it suggests the possibility of a resurrected Carter and Shiera Hall versus Black Lantern Hawkman and Hawkgirl/woman.

For those that don’t know, its markedly different to their previously weeklies, which took the form of normal comics.  This time, they’ve launched something in broadsheet form, printed on newspaper (and nicely folded up to regular comic size for the benefit of the shelves).

Its a bold experiment.  We get stories from some of DC’s best creators using a wide range of characters, from the obvious Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash and Green Lantern, to Adam Strange, Catwoman and Kamandi.  However each week, we only get a single page of the story in each case.  It sounds really odd, but it actually worked very well, barring possibly the Wonder Woman story which tried to be too dense I think.

But for me, what really made this work was the style of story.  There was a very retro feel to the whole thing, in both the stories and the art style.  Completely moving away from the mainline DC comics, these are standalone stories, taking the iconic characters unencumbered by multiverses and the like.   There’s a distinct silver age, or newspaper strip feel to the whole project, and I loved it.

After Countdown, DC really needed to rethink what people would look for in a weekly comic, and I think they may have nailed it.  It’ll be interesting to see how the format holds up over the next 12 week.s

Interestingly the cover shown for Blackest Night #3 is the Firestorm-focused variant cover.  So it’ll be interesting to see what’s on the Ivan Reis main cover, but I’m guessing its considered spoilery (the main villain?).

Its also interesting that the Superman tie-in doesn’t mention the Earth-2 Superman, but does reveal that Psycho Pirate will be back as a Black Lantern.  I love how there’s a hole still in his head from where Black Adam punched him  (although it does raise the issue of how the Black Lanterns come back.  This lends itself towards them being the actual remains of the dead, but then we’ve got the question of how Black Lanterns come back where there aren’t any physical remains, such as Firestorm).  Given the prominance of Earth-2 Superman on the cover and in the solicit for August, it’ll be interesting to see where he’s gone, or if its just a natural shift of focus for this issue to Clark and Connor (speaking of which, its great seeing Connor on these solicits again.  I can’t wait for Adventure Comics).

Despite the firepower on display on the Batman cover, which I’m a bit dubious about, I love seeing Batman, Robin and Red Robin side by side on that cover.  I’m really hoping this is something that happens in the book, rather than the cover just reflecting the fact that all three of them are in the story, albeit separately.  I really want to see them team up, although it’ll be interesting to see how that jibes with the events of Red Robin #1, given Tim is currently globe-trotting.   And not a big fan of Richard.

Titans is still the book that’s highest on my “could skip” list, although the Donna focus of this issue grabs my attention.  Again, it wins the “most twisted cover” award of the month.  I’ve got a soft spot for Donna after the Kyle run, and realistically I’ll probably go all completist over this event anyway.

The Green Lantern solicits also cover a plot point I’d been wondering about, as the Green Lantern #46 solicit tells us this is the long-awaited Sinestro/Mongul confrontation.  I’m a bit surprised about this, as I’d really thought it would’ve happened by now (specifically by the end of Emerald Eclipse in GLC).  However its going to be great to finally see.  Its pretty much being taken as granted that Mongul is going to lose, but it’ll be interesting to see exactly what happens to him.  He’s been a great nemesis for the GLC and I hope Geoff resolves this conflict well and leaves Mongul open as a character for a new direction (ie, he doesn’t end up killed by Sinestro).

The cover of Green Lantern Corps #40 also provides us a tantalising image, with the various Black Lanterns appearing to absorb different aspects of the emotional spectrum from Guy, Arisia and Kyle.   It strikes me as something that could be quite amusing potentially.  Will we see the return of “nice” Guy from the JLI if he’s been drained of his hate?  And will Kyle without fear be roughly equivalent to Dave Lister in the episode Polymorph of Red Dwarf?

Ok, I joke, but it really does remind me of Polymorph, however I’ll be surprised if any aspect of this is played for laughs.  Its interesting as well that the cover is focused solely on the main/classic  Green Lanterns.   No Sodam Yat or Soranik Natu here.   Just Guy, Kyle and Arisia.  I wonder if this signals that the title will be very focused on these characters for the duration of this event, to ensure all the Guy and Kyle fans are left happy that they were properly involved in Blackest Night.  although I’ll still be annoyed if the four Musketeers aren’t playing a major role in the main mini series.  I’d rather have Hal, John, Kyle and Guy front and centre in Blackest Night and the GL series (albeit slanted towards Hal), allowing GLC to focus on the other Lanterns, much like happened in the Sinestro Corps War.

So the solicits are still looking very promising for this event.  And again, I think they’ve hit a good balance with the number of tie-ins for this event.  Presumably only Blackest Night, GL and GLC will be the “must-read” titles for the event, but the other tie-ins are restricted enough in number that I’ll be fairly happy to pick them up, without breaking the bank too badly.

There seems to be a heavy Secret Invasion influence in the way they’re carrying out this event. In that the tie-ins are taking the form of mini-series separate from the characters’ regular books (for example Blackest Night: Superman). I’m a big fan of this idea, as it prevents big events from messing with ongoing storylines for other characters (which especially in the case of Superman and Batman could be very disruptive indeed). We also now know thanks to a Newsarama interview with Doug Mahnke that the mini-series will be 8 issues rather than 7.

I like the look of some of the tie-ins as well.  Specifically the three Tales of the Corps issues in July.  Presumably these will focus on all the Corps (probably partly as a primer to those who haven’t been buying GL and GLC) and it’ll be nice to see stories focusing on them.

I find it interesting that one of the three non-GL tie-ins is Titans. Superman and Batman getting their own is a no-brainer, but you’d have expected Wonder Woman to complete the trinity. I presume she’ll get her own Blackest Night mini in the following months, and I suppose there are a lot of dead Titans around to tell a story with

The Superman tie-in should be interesting. I’m guessing Clark will still be on New Krypton at this point, so does this mean it will feature ex-Kryptonians returning to plague the new planet of survivors? Or will it deal more with the supporting cast of Mon-El, Nightwing, Flamebird etc?

And of course, everyone’s waiting to see if Zombie-Bruce will turn up in the Batman tie-in. Although I’m hoping not to be honest.

From this checklist I can see me picking up all of those.  At about 6 issues a month, it’ll dent the wallet, but its still reasonably contained compared to some events.  My only worry is that the scope of this results in some delays.  DC took a lot of flack for delays to Final Crisis, so hopefully they’ll have it well in hand, but the sight of two issues of GL in July worries me slightly, as this series doesn’t have the greatest track-record.  Although with Phillip Tan doing the Agent Orange storyline, I guess Doug will have a fair headstart on the Blackest Night issues.  And in complete fairness, Doug did get Final Crisis wrapped up in January so he’s obviously a fast worker.  

The extra tie-ins should also help this event keep its momentum as well.  Final Crisis’ delays probably wouldn’t have been perceived so badly if there’d been a few direct tie-ins being released in the gaps.  The main series might’ve stuttered, but the event as a whole would’ve kept going (although I still applaud DC’s attempt to make a more affordable, scaled down event, its just that in retrospect, the tie-ins do help a lot to give things that “event” feeling).

Instead, for me the big DC release this week was Strange Adventures #1.

Replaying the pages seen in the preview, Adam is on (Old) Rann scavaging supplies and technology needed for New Rann, before he and his team level all the cities on the planet to ensure that Thanagarians can get any of their technology. On Rann meanwhile, the vote to bring criminal charges against Adam for Rann’s destruction is shot down by the council, thanks in part to Prince Gavyn’s testimony that Adam had no choice, since Rann’s destruction was unavoidable anyway.

Not long after Adam returns to New Rann, a scavenger ship is tracked entering the system. Knowing that they have to convince people that Throneworld is still populated despite Lady Styx attacking them, Prince Gavyn and Adam use some of the remaining Throneworld ships to head off the scavengers, noting that they hope that once they head off a few more, world will spread that Throneworld was not in fact attacked (whereas we know that it was, and the residents are now the Rannians).

Meanwhile Comet (I still miss the Captain part) is back on hardcore station, but also runs into trouble. He’s approached by some local heavies who saw him at lunch with Tigor the previous day. Sadly it turns out that Tigor was scamming them, and led them to believe Comet was his cohort in obtaining some data for them. They manage to surprise Comet with their telepathic defenses, but fortunately his new teleporting ability allows him to retreat to the Hole once again (I wonder how long its going to take before his teleport power becomes common knowledge? He’s not been that shy in using them). With people tracking him on Hardcore, Comet once again discusses with Tyrone the possibility of heading away from Hardcore to lie low for a while.

Using the same format as Mystery in Space, we also have a backup story, that I’m assuming will dovetail with the main story as things go on. The focus here is on Deacon Dark, who is attempting to locate and learn about the Aberrant Six, as he knows they’re important to Synnar. However, the spell he casts goes wrong, and he instead sends Bizarro to another dimension, who is informed by someone who appears as Superman (I’m assuming its Synnar), that the timelines have been altered and Bizarro must replace Hawkman as the warrior in the Aberrant Six.

Its a great start to the series, and I’m glad to see the cast greatly reduced, as to be honest, Holy War really felt too busy, with its large cast. Here the Mystery in Space backup helps a lot, as it allows Starlin to develop the story as two separate (for now) plots, and keep the cast members separated. Which also means the main story is allowed to focus on Adam Strange and Comet, which I’m very happy about as they were my favourite characters from the previous minis.

It is a bit of a shame to see Comet being chased off of Hardcore so soon however. The same thing pretty much happened in Holy War, but I enjoyed Hardcore as a setting in the Mystery in Space mini, so I’d like to see it being used more. However I can also see that the situation with New Rann is possibly going to offer more story possibilities with both the rebuilding effort, and the attempt to keep the true nature of the population secret (and talking about the rebuilding, that’s a heckuva city that’s already sprung up – I was sure Throneworld had been virtually levelled).

The backup storyline follows up the Holy War threats with Deacon Dark and the Aberrant Six, but is possibly a bit less interesting than the main storyline.  However I expect this to change as the two plots crossover more (in the same way the Weird backups became more significant as he got more involved with the Church, and their prescence was more felt in the Comet main during Mystery in Space).   It is interesting to see how Hawkman has been removed from things however.  I felt Bizarro was much more interesting during Holy War, and the Hawkman special seemed to put off a lot of readers by muddying up Hawkman’s origin once again.  I’m guessing the events of that special will end up as Synnar messing with Hawkman’s head, and quietly forgotten.

So overall, a really good start.  The art’s really nice, and the reduced cast is very welcome.   Looking forward to issue 2.

My immediate thought is that, as this is the first 3d comic I’ve bought. I’m not overly thrilled with the gimmick. I didn’t really feel it added anything to the book, and for me it just made the art distracting, and at times I was struggling to follow what was going on. There was quite a lot of story going on in these two issues, and I really didn’t feel the 3d stuff helped make it any easier to digest.

As for the story. I kind of followed what was going on, but I’m really not sure I really got that into it. The stuff with the monitors being vampires and Superman’s essence possessing a giant statue of himself just really seemed a bit too out-there for me. I can’t help but wonder if there was maybe enough going on here to make it a three part story?

Out of the tie-ins so far, this is undoubtedly the one that’s worked for me the least (a pity, as I usually enjoy Morrison’s stuff). However, its also the one that leaves me the most worried.

I’m really concerned that this 2-parter is actually going to be required reading for Final Crisis #7. There were hints in Final Crisis #6 about a great threat if mankind pierced the bleed, and this series seems to indicate its Mandraak. If Mandraak does turn out to be the main villain in Final Crisis, I’m going to feel a bit cheated by the FC mini-series, as he’s not been mentioned at all. However, I still hold out hope that its mis-direction. I’m not convinced Darkseid was defeated by Batman last issue, as Barry says that he holds the key to defeating Darkseid. Since Barry hasn’t really done anything yet, there’s obviously still stuff to come.

My key problem is that Final Crisis should tell its own story. Take the upcoming hardcover in the April solicits. All it contains is Final Crisis #1-7. Now, there’s already a gap in that story, as Lois goes from blown up in FC #2 (I think), to walked around without a scratch in FC #6. No explanation within those issues. I’m really worried that Superman Beyond is going to cover ground that’s going to lead to much bigger gaps in the FC #1-7 story.

Heck, as it stands, I really think Final Crisis: Submit should be included in that hardcover.

So, I await issue 7 of Final Crisis with baited breath. I’ve been outspoken in my love of the story so far, but will Mandraak ruin it all? Or will my worry be for nothing, and it’ll all be presented in a way that makes sense, without bothering with the Superman Beyond backstory?