52 New Beginnings - Justice League/Superman

Action Comics #1

reviewed by Robert Barton-Ancliffe

Re-inventing Action Comics - launched 73 years ago - might seem like a daunting task, but this reviewer, is thrilled to report that Morrison and co. rise to the occasion in fine style. The mantra here is clearly ‘back to basics’ as the issue kicks off with a t-shirt and jeans sporting Superman dispensing rough justice to some corporate “Rats with money…and… guns.” The characterisation is very clear - if a little in your face - as our hero faces off against a hostile police force with the bold statement, “Treat people right, or expect a visit from me.”

Action Comics sets the template for a new DCU where heroes are met with suspicion and fear, and the opening sequence calls to mind the tense atmosphere of Christopher Nolan’s ‘Batman Begins’ as a wary police force slowly corner their quarry. There are flashes of the legend to come though as through several brave acts endear this new hero to the people he strives to protect. The brief interludes of alter ego Clark Kent and new friends Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen also introduce the socially minded, if awkward man behind the bravado.

Refreshingly, there is a strong sense of jeopardy too, and as the action escalates, so do the stakes as the Man of Steel becomes increasingly battered and bloody in the pursuit of justice. It is the very fact that Superman can be injured in the face of such seemingly mundane threats as tanks and runaway trains that keep the adrenaline pumping. The seeds are nevertheless sown for a more epic future with the introduction of famous antagonists General Sam Lane and Lex Luthor, who discuss the threat of the increasingly powerful newcomer.

All of this is supported by clean pencils by Morales that provide plenty of detail while remaining uncluttered, particularly when the action kicks in. The final action packed third of the issue proves to be Morales’s forte as he presents a breathless set piece involving a train that is almost cinematic in its execution.

On the basis of this first issue, I can confidently say that Action Comics is essential reading. Morrison’s new Superman is fun, faster than a speeding bullet, almost as powerful as a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. There are still plenty of unanswered questions, but hopefully the issues to come will live up to this intriguing introduction.

Justice League International #1

reviewed by Ben Fardon

The new 52 exist in two eras - the new present day of the DCU and five years ago, when superheroes were first emerging. Justice League #1 and Action Comics #1 are set in those heady early days. Meanwhile, Justice League International is set in the here-and-now and features the United Nations deciding to assemble their own team - one that they can control unlike the independent Justice League.

The roster assemble is done via committee and it's great fun to see certain characters disregarded for various reasons. Plastic Man - crazy. Green Arrow - too volatile. Blue Beetle - unproven. Batman - uncontrollable.

Instead they settle on Booster Gold, Guy Gardner, Vixen and a host of international superheroes such as Fire and Ice - most of which are largely unknown to me. These newer characters don't get much time for characterisation beyond some fairly generic stereotypes from their countries of origin. The Russian character Rocket Red has clipped speech patterns and says "Da!" a lot for example.

There is a nice moment of conflict between the Rocket Red and the Chinese hero August General In Iron which is defused by Booster Gold talking (and potentially lying) about the future. Sadly, this is counter-balanced by the British character Godiva - an over-sexualised blonde who pushes her boobs together with her arms and bats her eyes at Booster, then proceeds to also fall victim to cliches in her dialogue such as calling people "mate" and telling Batman to "sod off".

Wait, Batman? Yup, this is the fun part of this first issue - Batman is part of the team despite the UN's objections. How? Well, he suspects the UN have other motives for forming the JLI and intercedes - first trying to convince an angry Guy to re-join the team and then hijacking the team's Queen Industries jet! The Dark Knight has come to lend a hand and asserts that he think Booster is up to the challenge - possibly a reference to the Return Of Bruce Wayne/Time Masters storylines, assuing they still happened in the new continuity.

While not without it's faults and shortcomings. it's a fun first issue from Jurgens with serviceable artwork from Aaron Lopresti that's very much straight out of the generic DC style of recent years. I hope future issues will flesh out the characters and continue to explore the potential power struggle between the United Nations and Batman, which I really enjoyed.

Green Arrow #1

reviewed by Matt Puddy

Hidden amongst all the powers and abilities in the various teams you will see that occasionally there are loners and those who have nothing but skill. A perfect example of this was the Green Arrow that I was introduced to in the Rise And Fall series following on from a Cry for Justice.

The new beginning, by J.T. Krul is set before all of this so I have taken a small gamble as it is from a time before GA as I knew him.

Balancing the needs and pressure of a multi-national corporation (Queen Industries) with his alternate life as Green Arrow, a youthful Ollie is seen multitasking by hunting across the roof tops of France. Accompanying him behind the scenes are Naomi and Jax. This may have been normal in the past but in one swoop managed to knock out two of the things I liked from my experience. The story isn’t fantastically strong and it didn’t really grab me as you couldn’t see a definitive point BUT this does change in the final panels as it is clearly a scene setter for a much bigger story to come. I still liked the corporate contempt that Ollie has - another sign of things to come too.

Dan Jurgens has created the artwork which does have a slightly dated feel to it, almost a reboot in itself - and although I’m not a complete convert to this new age, it has been upstaged by the cover by Dave Wilkins. I don’t know why but when reading I was struck by the thought, how do you get your abs showing through a hoodie!?

So the big thing now is where can and does this go? An interesting start with some promise but not yet setting the world on fire.

Midnight Madness - Many thanks!

Thanks to everyone who came down this morning for the UK Midnight Madness!

The new release shelf with an entire row of The New 52!

Customers enjoying browsing at all the new DC comics...

...and the chocolate milk!

Proud Lion re-opens later today at 10am for those of you who couldn't make it to the party.

There's even some milk and cookies left over!

Ben Fardon is going home to bed for a few hours...

52 New Beginnings - Justice League #1

There's a lot riding on Justice League #1. The first full length offering from the new DC Universe will be judged by every blogger, journalist and comics fan - old and new - as the beachhead for this bold new venture.

Over the coming weeks the current Proud Lion blog team will review all 52 of the new DC comics and I kick things off today with my verdict on Justice League.

I was expecting big things from Geoff Johns and Jim Lee. These two titans of DC have served up classic tales from Hush to Green Lantern Rebirth and many more.

But I also remember that despite Johns' amazing work in recent years, he also penned the frankly appalling Infinite Crisis - a convoluted and insipid mess which include Superboy-Prime punching the walls of reality and changing select parts of the timeline. And his partner-in-crime Jim Lee was partly responsible for the trainwreck that was All Star Marv-in-a-cape-and-cowl & Robin. Sorry, I meant Batman, obviously.

So let's not put these two creators on a pedestal and worship them as demigods just yet. They're great, but even the Olympians had their off-days.

I'll nail my colours to the flag pole right now. Justice League #1 is good, but it's not great.

A lot of reviews seem to have neglected to take on board the fact that this opening story arc is set five years ago. This is a cool idea. The team haven't come together yet and superheroes are new to the public eye. They are feared and reviled by the media and hunted by the military - which sounds a lot like the story arc from the final season of Smallville. Suddenly that rings alarm bells. Don't get me wrong, Smallville got lots better during its last few years as it embraced its comic book origins, but it was still melodramatic nonsense. Borrowing from Smallville to reinvigorate the comics is a bad idea.

That said, the current zeitgeist of terrorism, heightened security, economic depression and civil unrest needs to be reflected in the modern comics. I think most of us accept that comic superheroes are the equivalent of the Greek mythology for the modern age; they need to feel like they exist in our world, not a shiny heroic age of white hats and villains. The idea that the authorities would hound superheroes is completely understandable - though the idea of three black ops military helicopters shooting up Gotham just to bring down Batman does slightly stretch any credibility.

Ultimately though, I like Justice League #1. I just don't love it and I really wanted to. Johns is smart enough to introduce the cast gradually rather than throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. This creates an organic flow of action thus far. Batman and Green Lantern have their first meeting in Gotham as they chase down an alien creature that clearly serves a Dark master. There is a lovely bit of business where Batman removes Hal's power ring when he isn't concentrating and a great moment where Green Lantern realises Bruce has no powers to speak of.

Jim Lee's artwork here is great as well - Hal's constructs are superbly detailed and imaginative. The only artwork criticism I have is of the four pages of Victor Stone - the young man destined to be Cyborg - playing American football. As a narrative aside it works, but inker Scott Williams' attempts to make it look like dusk come across as pale and washed out, rather than twilight. Bit of a shame really.

I also have to say though, there is one very odd bit of characterisation with the way Johns depicts Hal in this - he often refers to himself in third person. "Green Lantern's got this." and "Note to self, Batman: Green Lantern can handle anything." I think it's supposed to make him sound arrogant and cocksure. Instead it just makes him sound a bit dense. It's odd considering Johns as spent years writing Hal Jordan - you'd think he'd have the character's voice down by now.

Moving on, our two heroes fly from Gotham to Metropolis in a power ring constructed plane, buzzing over the action with Stone and maintaining the flow. Starting their search for the alien Superman at a LexCorp building site they quickly encounter a red-blue blur (another Smallville touch? Ugh, I hope not!) and a certain Kryptonian hero enters the fray. His debut line leaves A LOT to be desired - really Geoff, is that the best you can do? Still the following full page reveal of Supes is classic Jim Lee and overall the issue left me looking forward to issue #2.

One additional niggle. Bob Wayne told us that DC would continue to hold the line at $2.99, other than four $3.99 titles including Justice League. These four more expensive titles would have extra pages, totaling 40 pages rather than the usual 32. Sadly in Justice League #1, four of these pages are given over to a sketchbook. It's a bit of a cheat really.

I remain massively excited for Action Comics, the Green Lantern titles, Stormwatch and several others but Justice League is simply quite good rather than mindblowing and as the flagship title, this is unsettling.

Minf you, I am reminded of a time over a decade ago when I first read Ultimate Spider-Man #1. I found it to be slow-paced and a bit boring - simply retreading the old Spidey origin.

Then some time later I read the first graphic novel collection and I was hooked.

I'm hoping by issue #6 of Justice League, I feel the same way about this re-imagined team of heroes.

Ben Fardon is gearing up for the midnight opening next week!

Flash Drive - a look back at DC's Flashpoint *will contain spoilers*

A few months ago I was happily reading the Flash knowing that big things were on the way. By big things I mean a shake up of the whole universe as far as DC was concerned.

This was of course then followed by a plethora of marketing showing off the launch of all 52 titles that are beginning (or beginning again) in September, which gave a few more things away as well.

So, into the breach (once more) steps Geoff Johns, supported by Andy Kubert’s artwork, to create the five part series Flashpoint.

Following on immediately from the Reverse Flash’s arrival back in the storyline for the Flash, actions were set in motion which - when Barry awoke - had altered the entire world around him.

Normally a miniseries would be self contained and may occasionally slip into other brands, but on this occasion it has created several new ones. For example there was Kid Flash Lost, Deadman & the Flying Graysons and Abin Sur (to name a couple) and an entire political dynamic with an outright war between the Amazonians and the Atlanteans. Considering that all the different titles are written by different writers, the continuity between them all is very good as they revolve around Johns’ central storyline.

Having read several different DC events, I have come to associate Johns with fantastic stories and this is no exception. The issues lead you through the struggle that Barry faces in not only realising what has happened and trying to prevent it from going further down the wrong path. Typically, also with Johns there are misdirections and hints which lead the reader in various direction complete with one almighty moment which changes everything too.

Andy Kubert, as I mentioned earlier, has provided all of the artwork for the main story. As an artist that I like it’s hard to find fault with his work but on this occasion I didn’t feel he always lived up to his normal standard. Don’t get me wrong, it is still incredible work but on occasion I felt that the sheer number of characters that demanded attention (as quite often they were big names involved) meant that you just couldn’t spread the focus and so some of the detail slipped. In other instances you can see where he has tried really hard to pack absolutely every frame with power, energy and vigour.

The final thing to mention is that drawn/written into the final issue is a two page spread that has been raved about as it potentially sets the scene for the new DCU and how things may play out in the broader sense of thing. I’m personally more interested in what happens next as the ambiguity also starts in the issue as well as Barry visits a rather young looking Batman in his cave which raises questions about what has really happened and where this now fits (see arcs such as Battle for the Cowl and subsequent Batman issues to see what I mean).

Love or hate what is happening now this is a miniseries you want to have or try to procure as it tells the story of HOW things changed. Maybe not necessarily why but most definitely how. Plus you get to see so many people in such a different light, it’s worth taking a peek just for an alternative. This hasn’t been my absolute favourite series of the year so far but it is most definitely one of them and I would happily recommend it to any readers Flash fans or not.

This week Matt knew there was a paradox on the horizon and so rode towards it...