DC Previews Picks: June 2015

With “Convergence” behind them in these solicitations, the company (presumably safely ensconced in its new Burbank headquarters) moves on to the business of the mini-relaunch of its superhero universe.  Though DC is leaving the “New 52” branding behind, as they haven’t published 52 monthly comics for a while now, the continuity of that relaunch will remain.  Their aim for most of the new titles here is to serve a broader demographic of comics readers than the straight white male that was the assumed target of nearly all of the comics launched at the start of the “New 52.”  What does this mean?  In addition to the usual spate of expected relaunches, you’ll be seeing several titles that are taking a page from the successful “Batgirl” soft relaunch and displaying a style and approach you wouldn’t normally see associated with DC’s house style.

As for me, I’m more surprised by the fact that they’re publishing a title from a creator I never thought I’d see (allowed) back into the DC Universe.  I mean, utter contempt for the superhero genre is one of his main calling cards these days…

Section Eight #1 (of 6):  … and it was also “The Boys” that saw Garth Ennis’ (self-imposed?) exile from the company after they declined to publish it after its sixth issue.  Yet now he’s back writing about the worst superhero team in the world from his run on “Hitman.”  Interestingly, he’s not taking advantage of the clean slate offered by the reboot and instead working forward from the end of that series.  So we get Sixpack (apparently relapsed after we last saw him clean, sober, and in AA), Bueno Excellente, and Dogwelder (because we didn’t actually see him die…) along with Baytor and a couple new recruits who have banded together in the face of some kind of dire fate-of-the-universe threat.  As I’ve heard it, the nature of the threat is so great that they’re going around recruiting other DC superheroes for help.  Batman is up first, naturally.  Expect to see five other superheroes humiliated in ways that they’d never be in their own books — except for Superman, because Ennis actually likes him.

It may be hard to tell from that paragraph, but this is the one title in the relaunch that I’m most looking forward to.  Surprisingly, Ennis’ humor works best when he’s reined in by some standard of decency.  (When it’s not, we get the likes of “Dicks”…)  I’ll also admit that the idea of seeing these characters again after all this time does appeal to my nostalgia in all the right ways.  As a six-issue miniseries, it also sounds just long enough to do the concept justice without overstaying its welcome.  I doubt Ennis will be asked back to write any more superhero comics for DC after this (I’m still wondering who had the idea for his involvement in the first place), but I think it sounds like a great time.

Justice League of America #1:  The biggest title of the relaunch, with Bryan Hitch writing and illustrating DC’s premier superhero team.  Who are still starring in “Justice League,” by the way.  Hitch has been one of my favorite artists for a long time because no one does big, epic, action like he does.  He did this several years ago with Mark Waid on their short-lived run together on “JLA” and I’m expecting to see even bigger and better things from the art in this run.  My only concern is that I don’t know what to expect from his writing.  There is that series he did for Image, “Real Heroes,” but it hasn’t arrived in paperback yet and the solicitation text — a peaceful alien tribe with a dark secret heads to Earth — doesn’t sound particularly imaginative.  Probably best to wait for the eventual paperback edition to find out whether or not it succeeds in addition to or in spite of the writing.

What are the team in the vanilla title up to in “Justice League #41?”  Kicking off the double-sized first chapter of the “Darkseid War.”  Remember when he showed up towards the end of the first volume?  Well, he’s back and in a battle against the Anti-Monitor who made his appearance at the end of “Forever Evil.”  The League is caught in the middle and has to deal with their own drama along the way.  I wasn’t impressed enough with writer Geoff Johns’ previous event story to get excited for this one.  Meh, for now.

Constantine:  The Hellblazer #1:  Yeah, the name change doesn’t impress me at all.  The long and short of it is that after 300 issues and assorted specials and miniseries, I really don’t have any interest in reading about the adventures of John Constantine outside of his Vertigo adventures.  If they ever decide to put him back there… we’ll see.

Midnighter #1:  I picked up the first volume of the character’s original series because it was written by Garth Ennis and I liked how the writer had handled him in the “Kev” miniseries.  Long story short, if you ever want an example of how the writer can still put together a readable story when he is completely indifferent to the character or material then check it out.  In this case, we have the character’s latest set of adventures (spinning out of the pages of “Grayson” as we’re told) from a writer I’m unfamiliar with, Steve Orlando.  With this solo title, the character now becomes the company’s most prominent gay superhero.  If only he were still being written by Paul Cornell — who left after one volume of “Stormwatch” — instead of a writer I know nothing about.  I’ll wait to see if the reviews and word-of-mouth have anything good to say about this before giving it a shot.

Prez #1:  The original version of this character (America’s first teen president!) was something that didn’t make much of an impression when it came out back in the 70’s and only aged into ridicule.  It took the combined forces of Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred to make the character’s appearance in “The Sandman” memorable and excellent.  Now, all of that stuff is being chucked out in favor of a teenage girl who is voted into office by the power of Twitter.  Will it be an instant smash?  Will it age as badly?  Does it even take place in the DCU?  It’s a twelve-issue maxiseries, and I think I’ll have to pick it up when it’s collected to answer these questions.

Batman #41:  Forget what’s up with cyborg rabbit Batman, I want to know what’s up with bored cover Joker.  He’s portrayed to be so disinterested on Sean Murphy’s cover.  This incarnation of the character looks like he just showed up to collect his paycheck before going out to kill some more people on a Thursday in Gotham.  Almost makes you wonder if that’s what the usually excellent Sean Murphy did here.  Show up for the paycheck, not go out on a murder spree.

Batman:  Second Chances:  Collecting the first appearances of Jason Todd, who went on to become the second Robin.  Who was then killed by the Joker.  Then came back to life and took up a career as the vigilante Red Hood years later.  Max Allan Collins and Jim Starlin are credited as the writers here.  While I can’t find a quote for it, I could swear that I read an interview years ago about how Collins remarked that his “Batman” run was so terrible that it got Todd killed when the company did a phone-in vote to see if the character would live or die.  The event was rigged — Todd was destined to die — but the fans did vote to kill him.  It’d be a shame if I was misremembering this because I’m morbidly curious to check these stories out to see if they’re as bad as their original writer thought they were.

Fables vol. 22:  Also issue #150 — “Called it!”  It’s 150 pages of new stories, with an 80-page lead one from creator Bill Willingham and longtime artist Mark Buckingham and assorted shorts from Willingham and other creators.  After following this series for all these years, there’s no way I’d miss the finale!

Swamp Thing:  The Root of All Evil:  Wow.  First DC publishes a new superhero comic from Garth Ennis, then they start reprinting Mark Millar’s run on “Swamp Thing.”  Of course, this may be because the first four issues collected here were co-written with Grant Morrison before their partnership went sour years later.  I do remember this run being quite fun, but that was back when I actually thought Millar was a good writer.  Thinking about it now, the thought of re-reading these to find out how they’ve aged kind of scares me.  Then again, I am kind of stumped for material in regards to my next podcast…