Comic Book Resources

Yeah, it was pretty lousy, wasn't it? More than anything, it didn't feel like a good issue to introduce this series, which needed a big bang to get it off and running. And then it was just blah.

The Monitors have been referenced in Stormwatch PHD and Ion for some months now, so I imagine whatever plans for using them have been cooking for quite some time and the writers of 52 were quite aware of it.

I think Grant was just trying to assure people not to worry too much about continuity and canon and stop getting all their panties in a bunch.

Hey kids, it's comics!

Yeah, it was pretty bad. Even worse as #1.

Nothing in this debut issue (except for Piper and Trickster) to intrigue me enough to buy #2/#50. Which is extra sad for the kick-off to another weekly comic, which really needs some special ooomph to hook us potential readers into a weekly commitment. Instead of buying the next few issues, I'll read the pages of the next one online for free, then pick up an issue in a month or so to see how it's going. And by "pick up," I mean, "lift it off the shelves of the comic shop and read it for free."

Puzzled as to why the Joker's Daughter was named Dent, and why Jason Todd wasn't evil and/or dead, I just read the wiki on them. My head hurts.

I thought it was quite interesting that Darksied plays with heroclicks. And I am quite interested in the Rogues angle. but this was a let down.

The monitor business just makes me want to roll my eyes. And Jason Todd and Dulea Dent, well whooptie-fucking-doo.

I am quite interested to see what happens, but this was a poor issue.

You know, I read 52 and for the most part I enjoyed it. When I first heard about Countdown, though, I figured it would be crap. Just DC trying desperately to recapture the success they had with 52.

And my God, are they really counting down to another crisis already?! The mega-events at DC and Marvel need to take a break for a while.

I'm just sad to see Duella Dent getting killed. And actually, Brian, considering Duella's insanity, it's very likely her own deluded mind just used the "other Earth" thing as an excuse that just happens to be true according to the latest Dan Didio interview.

I was pretty underwhelmed, too. I really enjoyed 52, but I wasn't really sure what to expect here. Still, I expected something a bit more from it. I'll stick around for now, though. Not fair to judge it until we at least see all the writers.

Pity about Duela, she was... mildly interesting, I guess.

Was that actually a line from the book? Dear lord...

What's up with the perspective on Hawkman's mace on the right side of the cover, btw? The head of that thing must be gigantic. Odd for a Kubert to draw Hawkman so weirdly, but there it is.

I think I'm the only one here on the CSBG crew who enjoyed 52 all the way through, and *I* thought this was pretty crappy.

What bothered me most about it, though, was the editorial in the back, the part where Didio promised that all the other main DCU books are going to be spinning in and out of this thing over the coming year. So basically, if all goes according to plan, I will have to put up with an occasional incomprehensible-bullshit issue of the DC titles I DO enjoy reading erupting every so often for the next year.

More and more I see DC and Marvel moving towards this weird kind of tapestry model where they essentially have ONE title, "The Universe," and it comes out in installments of five or eight issues a week. The more we support this by buying the books, the more they'll do it.

Countdown and the inevitable tie-ins, along with the crap that was Infinite Crisis, are good enough reason for me not to buy any of the DCU titles, and I haven't picked one up regularly in a while. I was considering getting Flash, but not if it's going to be bogged down by this kind of stuff, and Wonder Woman with Gail Simone writing is appealing, but I'll be jumping off the minute that I'm required to read any other title. It's BS; I paid my dues in the 90s with this kind of garbage.

I don't think DC saw this as a first issue. I think they saw it as halfway through an event that everyone's used to buying weekly, so they can raise the price and they can slide by a weak intro.

"it’s very likely her own deluded mind just used the “other Earth” thing as an excuse that just happens to be true according to the latest Dan Didio interview."

oh wow, then that's even lamer.

and as for the hand spelling things out - worst hand drawing ever. a minor point, realy, but if you're going to have your big mystical wall say something at least make it look good.

I'm just shocked that this many people still by the DCU titles after all the times they've burned readers with bad stories, cheesy Didio interviews, weird editorial choices, excessive crossovers...I'm in stealthwise's camp, I do my best to avoid DC altogether.

It just struck me that DC is, with the "new" multiverse (based on the quote from Grant Morrison), trying to duplicate Marvel's different imprints i.e. Ultimate, Marvel Adventures, etc.
This really takes away from the whole thing for me.

I didn't think it was awful, just... peculiar. A weak start for a "big" series, but I *like* what DC's been up to lately, and trust Dini, and am curious to see where this is all going....

Why they didn't deliver at least a *hint* at the most compelling "teaser" ("Jimmy Olsen Must Die!") perplexes me, though.

I thought it was fun.

That multiverse stuff really turned me off too. It is turning out to be way to easy to jump around from Earth to Earth. And having the Monitors show up as both the big bads and the heroes(?) just points out the problems when you have 52 versions of every character.

Actually, this wasn't the first character to mention they were from a different Earth. I don't have the books in front of me, but one of the characters in the crowded Teen Titans scene in a later issue of 52 (one of the Robin-like characters) made a comment along the lines of, "We wouldn't handle it that way on my Earth."

I still like DC more than Marvel, but this is just getting gross. I'm just too tired, I cannot read another fifty-two thing.

And I'm not a fan of JD dying instead of JT dying.

See, I trust Dini. Dini getting instructions from Didio while trying to coordinate his ideas with Winick, Johns and the rest of the gang? No thanks.

I’m just shocked that this many people still by the DCU titles after all the times they’ve burned readers with bad stories, cheesy Didio interviews, weird editorial choices, excessive crossovers…

You can say that for DC *and* Marvel. It's why I only buy books on the fringes, these days, and only by creators I know I can trust.

I read the preview on Myspace, and DAMN was that dialogue painful.

Especially the awkward "parallel earth" line from Duela Dent. It read like fan-fiction.

You can say that for DC *and* Marvel. It’s why I only buy books on the fringes, these days, and only by creators I know I can trust.

No, DC's definitely been putting out more crossover-heavy stuff...they've pretty much been in a non-stop crossover-mode since Identity Crisis, and it's all been total dreck. Most of the recent surge in crossover activity at Marvel has been in direct response to DC's recent crossover stuff, and even then it really didn't start getting as awful as DC's product until Civil War.

As for following creators rather than companies, it sounds good in theory but for some reason even creators I like start writing worse under Didio's editorial watch. Look at Dini for example.