Reviews Incoming! Take Cover!
What, you thought I was dead or something?
No, quite the opposite: I've been reading more comics than ever, grad school or no, and biting my tongue about DC's New 52 until such time as I had enough material to be worth reviewing.
What constitutes enough? Nothing less than at least the first five issues. You see, the Internet's self-induced and -enforcing model of insta-reviews so that readers can be told what to buy or leave on the shelf before the shelves are even stocked just doesn't suit me and it sure as hell doesn't suit an event like The New 52. I'm not trying to oversell DC's event, mind you. Rather, I seek to acknowledge two things about the big reboot last year: first, that it was gutsy no matter the output because anything that hyped and weighted with that much potential for customer backlash is gutsy, period, and second that it needed time to develop its own merits before it could be properly judged on them.
A million blog posts were launched on little more than a first issue of one title or another and a shallow impression of what the future might hold for many of them but what the hell is that kind of review worth? I didn't want to know whether some fellow fanboy out there believed Catwoman was doomed from the get-go because they were freaked out by the last page of issue #1 and, similarly, I didn't want to shoot my mouth off about any of the books I've been reading before they had a chance to prove themselves or die trying.
So, as this goes up I am also scheduling automated postings of reviews of the first five or six issues (however many were available when I wrote them) of the following titles:
- All-Star Comics
- Animal Man
- Batman
- Batman & Robin
- Batwoman
- Catwoman
- Demon Knights
- Detective Comics
- Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E.
- Stormwatch
- Swamp Thing
- Wonder Woman
I'm also going to be posting a round-up of the #1's I read that didn't make the cut, long-term, and the #1's I read and said, "I love this, but I have to wait for the trade," and why. I haven't given up on my non-DC comics, either, but I admit that those have been piling up waiting to be read. Once these are done I have, like, months of X-Factor and Secret Avengers and Young Avengers: The Children's Crusade and Hack/Slash (which is just crazy good and if you are't reading it then there is something wrong with the world - something you can fix by reading it).
It's ambitious, I know, which is why this isn't going up until I've got the reviews ready to go, too. Then, through the magic of post scheduling, they'll go up over the next few weeks for your perusal.
Fun!
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