New Comic Day June 13 2012 Overview

So it occurs to me that I of course don't read everything that comes out. My list of reservations at my wonderful local comic book shop already sets me back quite a long way money wise. Though comics are my vice, and at least they don't give you cancer (or at least it hasn't proven to yet). I do however read so many that I may not be able to do detailed reviews of absolutely everything I read and that could mean I'm missing out on something some would like to hear about. So starting this week, each week on the day or day after, as soon as I've read them all (or most) I will post an Overview "review" post. I may still do more detailed reviews especially of the more concerning ones, but for now this will do. This week I got four comics.

Amazing Spider-man #687
This week marked the end of the "End of the World" story arc. Spidey's new suit may or may not come back in the future, which is a shame as it was quite cool. Doc Ock was still an cool villain and stayed in character all the way through. Something I find to be rare for villains some times. SPOILER Silver Sable "dies" at the end along with Rhino in a really, kinda creepy, way. Though it wouldn't surprise me if this isn't the last we see of either of them.

AVX VS #3
The first two issues of VS were actually quite good. Despite a fight or two going the wrong way in my opinion. Of course that is what this series is designed to do, polarize the fan base. On that front it does a good job, and with out going into the details of the main line, this tie in does exactly what it advertises. Nothing but action. For a lot of readers that will be a problem and for more, including myself, it gets worse when the action doesn't go the way you'd expect or want. Also this issue is a big culprit for the AR nonsense that Marvel has come up with. Normally I think it's quite nifty, I might go back over after reading an issue and look at it with my phone. Mostly because it doesn't always work instantly. So why the hell have half of this issue in Russian so that you have to use the AR. It really broke up the flow of the read. Not so good this issue.

Spider-men #1
The "Spider-man event of the century" features Peter Parker finally meeting Miles Morales. I say finally. I personally do not care. Not really. I care enough that I want to read it because I follow Peter. I however do not care about Ultimate comics, what I have seen of them I do not like. So really this cross over isn't that important to me, I just want to see if Marvel screw me a round and make out that this Miles is better than the real Spider-man, Peter. Who knows? Over all this issue does nothing but serve as an introductory issue, we only see Miles Spider-man in the last panel, so there is no real cross over or story line here.

Batman #10
First thing I noticed was that the "Night of the Owls" title was not on this issue. I know I said that I wouldn't get the tie ins but surely they aren't calling this over? This issue is, well pretty good, with only story and no real action. It does set up nicely for a conclusionary battle. Also the Fall of Wayne story is in the comic so luckily that's not another tie-in after all. The issue was good but I don't see why it didn't have "Night of the Owls" on the cover, the story still isn't finished.

Overall, a good week for my reservations.

Night of the Owls! Batman Vol. 2 #8 and #9.

So, anyone who knows me or reads my blog knows that I took a peculiar sort of, well, offense to DC deciding to reboot everything. So much so that I gave up reading them well in advance of Flashpoint and the event. I decided that if DC wanted to ignore their history, so would I and that I wouldn't want anything to do with them anymore.

I know a lot of people who claim that it's to help new readers get into comics, ala Marvels (awful) Ultimates series. Some people I know have even claimed that you can't truly collect comic books because unless you have issue one you don't have a complete collection. To that I of course brandish many expletives. Regardless recently a friend of mine convinced me I should give DC a try once again. So after thinking hard about it, I went with Batman, Superman and Justice League. Granted he then told me "Well of course the flagship characters will win you over." To which I respond, "Yes, but if it turns out they can't write their flagship characters, I'm going back to only Marvel again."

Despite saying that, I am not going back to only Marvel again. I will review Superman and Justice League at a later date, but boy oh boy is Batman back on track.

Granted I never thought that Batman got particularly bad. I'm one of the few who thought that the Return of Bruce Wayne was good fun. Though of course DC had many, many, poor stories featuring all of their characters being dumb or poorly written at some point. Then they rebooted it and all the rumors, etc, well I just gave up hope. Batman after all is one of the best characters of all time. I mean;

Ok so that's a poor example of Batman. Funnily enough it's hard to think of one specifically good example of Batman. He is awesome the world over, even when it's a poor writer he just emits brilliance. Does he now still?

Well I don't know about when the reboot first came out. I didn't read any up until now. Let's start with Issue #8.

Holy Art Batman! That cover is impressive. What's better is, unlike the issue of Incredible Hulk I reviewed recently, this cover actually has something to do with the issue! Jumping in at this point can be confusing however, I had to do a little bit of research but otherwise this issue works well. You get a lot of what makes Batman great.

Specifically you get (for most of the issue) a wounded Bruce Wayne fighting off possibly hundreds of ninjas (come on that's what they are) with nothing but his pajama bottoms and dressing gown. Does he win? Not exactly, but then again he doesn't lose either. It just continues into the next issue. I will admit I was a little worried in one panel, when it seemed he killed one of them. Though they were careful to have the guy talking afterwards, and it turns out these guys have some sort of Wolverine-esqe healing factor, I didn't like the fact that he still stabs him to pin him to the roof. A bit over the top for my taste. I've always thought of Batman as a "fighter so skilled, he doesn't really need to maim." Let alone kill. Either way at least he doesn't kill.

Issue #8 ends with the signal being sent out to the Bat-Family as the Owls aren't only attacking Wayne (who they didn't know was Batman), but all of the key officials in Gotham. The Family are mobilised to take down the Owls. It's a good cliffhanger, but unfortunately it's also a lead into other books. Which I doubt I will read as my comic list is getting expensive enough at the moment. I can't complain about tie-ins when they make sense though. For example Nightwing and Batman Incorporated, etc. The Batman Family titles. They should be tied-in. I'm all for keeping the whole Universe going as one giant thing, but when you do events like say Countdown, that have tie-ins to nearly all of your books, and stupidly high numbers of limited series created to be tie-ins. That's when it gets bad. So, as far as I can tell, there aren't many tie ins to this. Just the ones that count. After all it'd be a bit silly for Superman to become part of this struggle, wouldn't it?

Issue #9 is not as grand as #8 but still good. 

The cover isn't awful, and it does again tie in to the book, which we've learnt lately isn't always true. It's just a little bland. The issue opens with Batman kicking ass in a specially designed suit that will protect him from the caves now sub zero temperatures. Then during this fight so many things happen that confuse me. For one, I am not a fan of seeing Batman getting thrown around like he does for a lot of this fight. I don't care if they're ninjas, he's Batman. I tend to think of him as mostly untouchable, yet in this fight he gets beat on, a lot. 

Confusing element number two, is the dinosaur in the cave suddenly alive, or robotic? Since when? Is this a reboot thing or just a random thing thrown in? It's kind of cool but seems really random to me. Also; ninjas blind sided by a t-rex? Ok then.

Then we have this whole back story about owls being released into the cave when the house was first purchased. It's true cheese, oh the bats were killed, but they weren't because they can survive in the darkest coldest parts of the cave, then they killed the owls when... yeah you see where this is going. Batman takes off the clunky, slowing him down, heat suit and proceeds to fight in his normal suit. In sub zero temps. You know, because he's the god damn Batman! The story this issue ends with the death of Mr March whose last words are about saving Gotham from being a hell hole. Nice guy really. Though this isn't the end of the issue.

I can not work out if this is going to be a limited three issue series that ties in, or is in fact going to be a three part story (with this being part one already). I hope the latter because I don't want to buy another comic to get the full story. Either way we have Fall of the House of Wayne which, in this part at least, is from Alfred's father's point of view. Which is, ok, but to be honest kind of boring. It's all a letter to Alfred so totally narrated and quite expository. It is not as good as the rest of the issue. 

So is Batman still worth reading, post reboot? Yes. Is he as good as he was? In canon yes. Will I carry on reading him? Definitely. Seriously, who would of gotten upset over the reboot?...