So many books and so little time. I’ve been lucky enough to read most of the new 52 so far, but there’s only so much time I can get to tell you good folks about them. I think I’ll go with a wrap-up post with the exciting highlights (and lowlights) so far, BUT FIRST, let’s look at two books that may have surprised a lot of comic fans….
Aquaman #1
This is one I’d been eager to check out and happily Johns did not disappoint. Over many years, writers have tried everything to try to make this character work and arguably failed every time. In one issue, Johns gets it right. There’s nothing drastically different about this version of Arthur and it’s very much a clean cut classic view of the King of Atlantis. No Conan overtones, no harpoon, and no attitude. There is, I’ll concede, a sense of everyone giving it their all, but I think that can be forgiven in a first issue about a character that historically no-one’s really that excited about.
So what happens? Aquaman arrives on land, gets a few show-stopping moments demonstrating his powers and even has a cute little scene in a diner where a merciless “aquafan” quizzes him on exactly what his powers are and how he feels about being the guy that no-one takes seriously. It was a clever move to get that dealt with in the first issue and we can get on with things now. The one thing I’m not too clear on is the status of the new Aqualad DC debuted in Brightest day. Is he another casuality of Flashpoint? There’s certainly no mention of him in this issue, and I suppose we’ll have to wait and see on that. Johns has made Aquaman a character I want to read about, and one of the very best of DC’s new books. Let’s hope he can keep it up. 5/5
Mr Terrific #1
And now for the bad news. Michael Holt was always a great character. I loved him in JSA. He’s one of the smartest men in the world, openly an atheist, and can hold his own in a room full of superheroes by virtue of his intellect alone. He was a serious character, who could be taken seriously.
Oh DC, what have you done? In giving him his own book, it’s to be expected that there would be new background characters to give the writers a bit more to work with. What took me by surprise reading it, was with that a reliance on cheap racial tension and stereotyping that really does not sit well with the character. Now Terrific is obviously African American but there is so much about him that makes him an interesting superhero that wheeling in generic soap opera nonsense about someone being jealous of him hanging around with a pretty white woman is tremendously patronising. And that was not the only example of a sense of DC over-representing what has always been a routine detail. It’s the worst kind of cookie-cutter diversity. Michael Holt deserves much better than this and it absolutely got in the way of what could have been an interesting book. If they get it under control, they might be able to salvage things before it gets cancelled, but this was a massively disappointing first issue. 2/5
Next: A ‘New 52’ wrap-up of the first 2 issues of as many books as possible, and let’s take a look at that schism they’re having over there in the X-Men books.
Adventures in Comics 