This June, DC is again shaking up their superhero universe with Rebirth, a “not a reboot” patch job designed to fix their listing ship. DC is stuck in kind of a strange position. Critics hated the New 52, for good reason. But it sold, at least for a while. The DC Universe, without a doubt, lost more than it gained in that “not quite a reboot” but it had just enough life to draw in some new customers. Last year, DC rolled out their DC You line, a critically well received group of comics that has collectively sold like dog crap. I’ve loved them, and I would argue that the sales problems with DC You have as much to do with the comics industry’s ridiculous business model, but that doesn’t change the fact that the sales are what they are. So now DC is going with this new Rebirth initiative.

The complaint about Rebirth has largely been that DC is that it is completely backward looking, that they are appealing entirely to nostalgia instead of forging something new. That same complaint has been levied at the DC previous two comics to bear the Rebirth title, Green Lantern Rebirth and Flash Rebirth, and it has always been missing the point. There is an element of appealing to nostalgia, since both titles did reintroduce Silver Age stalwarts to the DC Universe, but that is not all that those were about. Before Green Lantern Rebirth, GL had been fine, with more than a decade of comics starring Kyle Rayner, the only GL in the universe. But that status quo was limiting. He was the only one. Rebirth, aside from bringing back Hal Jordan, took a step back to look at what Green Lantern was about and refocus on that. It didn’t just bring back Jordan, it brought back the whole Green Lantern Corps. And it did it without losing anything. Hall Jordan was back, but Kyle was there, still starring in his own book. Flash Rebirth was similar. Before it, the Flash book had been in dire straits. DC editorial had consistently screwed the book over, forcing changes that made no sense. By the time Barry Allen was brought back they had fully run the book into the ground. Flash Rebirth, aside from reintroducing Barry Allen to the wider DC Universe, put the focus on the whole Flash family. It made sure to take time to show every character and where they stood, repositioning them for stories going forward.

Out of Green Lantern Rebirth, Green Lantern exploded from one title to a line of titles. Each Earth based GL had a chance to shine. The outcome wasn’t as positive for Flash Rebirth, where the planned Flash family titles never materialized, what with delays and the coming of the New 52. Still, the work was done to set up those characters for further adventures. That seems like what DC Universe Rebirth is going for, refocusing on what makes their characters work to try to set thing up going forward. It does have the unfortunate effect of reducing the line to only the biggest name titles, all the little books are going away. They are not, obviously, going away forever. Yes, Black Canary, Midnighter and Starfire are not going to have solo books going forward, but they are still going to be appearing in titles.

So what does DC have on the slate for Rebirth? I am not going to go over everything, there are tons of places to get that information, but I will point out a few titles that look especially interesting to me. The books getting the biggest, most needed shot in the arm are the Superman books. While Dan Jurgens is far from an exciting pick for Action Comics, he’s done good work on Superman Lois & Clark and is generally fine. The writer of Superman, Peter Tomasi, is very underrated. His runs on Green Lantern Corps and Batman & Robin were both very good. His Superman should be great. Supergirl, New Superman and Super Sons all sound great as well.

The Batman books don’t look bad either. I almost wish Tom King was writing something else, but after Omega Men and Vision I’ll read whatever he writes. Also, Greg Rucka is back on Wonder Woman, which is cause for excitement. And finally there is Blue Beetle, with both Jaime Reyes and Ted Kord.

There are certainly things to be wary about with DC Rebirth. Their titles will mostly star the biggest of DC characters, but there even in that tight focus there seems a lot of space for smaller characters. Like the good sized cast of Batman supporting characters in Detective Comics. There is enough new and different around the edges to be excited about. And I can’t blame DC for being a little gun shy after the failure of DCYou.

Getting some comic on Kindle sales to read with my new Fire meant that I read enough comics to make it it’s own post instead of dropping them on the end of my What I’m Reading post.

Green Arrow: The Outsiders War – This is the second of Lemire and Sorrentino’s Green Arrow collections.  It continues the dark, adventurous story of the first volume.  This time, it starts to incorporate more elements from the TV show, like Ollie’s partner Diggle, but also goes its own way.  Green Arrow goes with Shado to confront Komodo and the Outsiders in an attempt to save his half-sister, who has been raised as Komodo’s daughter.  While Flyff, Naomi and Diggle work against new threat Richard Dragon (new to this current volume) in Seattle, Ollie searches for the Totem Arrow so he can officially lead the Arrow clan against the other weapon clans that make up the Outsiders.  Things quickly come to a head, and Oliver must lead a few clans against the ones that have teamed with Komodo.  

This continues to be an excellent comic. The art and writing mesh incredibly well and make for the best archer themed comics on the stands over the last few years.  It does come to its conclusion with the Outsiders just a bit too fast.  It doesn’t really spare enough to time to really flesh out this supposed ancient organization.  It just all comes together really quickly right at the end. That doesn’t stop it from being an altogether enthralling read, just one I wish was another ten or so issues long.

Hawkeye Volume 1 – This is the archer themed comic that garnered all the praise.  Much of it was deserved; Fraction and Aja’s work here is really good.  But it might just my disconnect with the current Marvel Universe, but I found it to be more really good than great.  It reads much like Fractions take on Iron Fist, but just not quite as good. It teams Clint Barton Hawkeye with Kate Bishop, the Young Avenger’s Hawkeye, as they have fairly street level adventures. It is fun stuff.

The Immortal Iron Fist: The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven – This is the comic that makes me interested in things done by Matt Fraction, as well as David Aja and Ed Brubaker.  It has Iron Fist transported to the mystical city of K’un-L’un, which when it lines up with the other mystical cities they have a martial arts tournament. While he fights in the tournament and deals with intrigue in the cities, the villainous Xao tries to find a way to break into the cities and Danny’s allies try to stop him.  The mystery and intrigue builds as Danny tries to get to the bottom of things until everything finally explodes. I don’t really want to spoil it; it is just an amazing book.  Read it.

Grayson Volume 1 – I’ve got to be honest, I avoided this one because I thought this take on Dick Grayson sounded terrible and I didn’t know much about the writers, Tom King and Tim Seeley.  Since then, I’ve heard tons of praise about it I picked it up when I saw it on sale for Kindle.  It is much better than I expected.  Dick Grayson goes undercover in the spy organization Spyral and he tries to maintain his cover while staying true to who he is.  It manages to be both a lot of fun and have a fairly affecting story.  It has just a ton of weird spy stuff mixed with some of the best stuff from Morrison’s Batman Inc.  Having Dick pretend to be a gay instructor at a girl’s boarding school that trains its students to be assassins is fun. Having him confront a target and talk him down peacefully before another agent takes him out is shocking.  This is just a really, really well made comic.

The Long Halloween – I had heard good things about this, but I came to comics reading too late to really get my hopes up for any book with Jeph Loeb’s name on it.  Still, the sale on this was too good to pass up.  I was surprised at how much I liked it.  And at how much it influenced The Dark Knight movie.  Everything but the Joker seems to come right from this comic.  It is a loose mystery that last a year that allows Tim Sale to draw all of the Batman expanded cast.  It is great art.  The story is fine, but it doesn’t really amount to anything in the end. I really like this, though, even as just an art showcase.  I don’t mean to be too hard on the story; it is fine, but it is more striking moments that any strong central narrative.  Still, it is good. Definitely worthy of its reputation as one of the must read Batman books.

All New X-Men Volume 1 – God, I don’t care.  I quit reading Bendis comics because I didn’t feel like I was getting my money’s worth in 4 dollar increments.  He is just too slow paced.  Reading it in collected form doesn’t really fix the problem.  Here, the Beast goes and gets past versions of the original X-Men team to try to show Cyclops the error of his editorially mandated ways.  A lot of my problem has to do with how bad some of the stories previous to this one were, but this story is nothing more than serviceable.  Not this it is easy to get a read on it, since it barely gets things started before it ends.  Bendis is great at building stories and setting up interesting status quos, but he never really nails the payoff moments.  This looks to be more of the same.

Even though my reread of JSA has stalled (I’m still working on it) I still wanted to write about some comics. My first instinct was to write about Final Crisis, possibly my favorite big superhero crossover. It has long been on my list of things to write about and it is in my mind right now having just read Multiversity. Unfortunately, I don’t know that I have anything to add to the conversation about Final Crisis, a conversation that has been over for a few years anyway. My next instinct was to write about the Giffen/DeMatteis and Maguire Justice League International, another longtime favorite. I got started looking through that and decided what I wanted to write about it, but what stood out to me was a pair of characters that have a sizable following but aren’t ones that jump to my mind when thinking of that book: Mr. Miracle and Big Barda. They, or at least Mr. Miracle, were longtime members of the team, but characters like Blue Beetle, Booster Gold and Guy Gardner tend to be the ones that take the spotlight. Fortunately, Miracle and Barda have plenty of other comics where they did star. The best, of course, are Jack Kirby’s own Mr. Miracle comic from the 70’s, but they were popular guest stars and got a spin-off from JLI.

Mr. Miracle was one of the comics that come out of Jack Kirby’s ambitious Fourth World project. Mr. Miracle, real name Scott Free, was the son of the Highfather, given to Darkseid in exchange for Darkseid’s son, Orion. Thrown into the villainous Granny Goodness’ orphanage, he escaped to Earth, where he became an escape artist. That is his super power, the ability to escape any trap. In issue 4, Kirby introduced Big Barda, the leader of Granny’s Female Furies. She was trained from birth to be a warrior, but Scott’s refusal to bow to Granny inspired her to forsake Darkseid’s evil forces and join him. Together they forged an unforgettable bond.

There is just something so perfect about them. While Scott is a capable fighter, that is never his first inclination. Barda, though, is a trained warrior and tends to push violently through all of her problems. It is a great contrast. Their methods may be wholly different, but they are tied together by their love for each other (Read this Ask Chris, since he says everything about this I want to say better than I do). Having escaped from Apocalypse and reached Earth, Scott and Barda’s goal is merely to have a normal life; a normal life as a couple in Middle America. It is equally heartwarming and impossible. Impossible because they can never truly have that normal life as long as they are who they are and are appearing in a superhero comic book.

The original Jack Kirby stuff is as great as one would expect from Jack Kirby. Mr. Miracle is still working as an escape artist at that time, and Barda’s part in the act, usually setting up the heavy equipment that is going to be used to potentially squash Scott, draws a lot of attention. Then there are her reactions to his escapes, where she and Oberon, Scott’s assistant, both react as though they just watched Scott die each and every time. At the end of that series, the two of them are married and they largely disappear for a decade.

That desire for a “normal” life is a big part of their motivation in the late 80’s JLI. By that time, they have created a life for themselves in the suburbs. While Barda stays home to unconvincingly play homemaker, Scott joins the Justice League as his day job. The two threads of his life constantly bleed together, of course. The best bit might be in JLI Annual 2, where the Frees host a barbeque for the Justice League. Most of the issue is just the various members of the team getting to trouble trying to get to the party, with the Joker escaping from Arkham and stealing a tank just adding to the confusion. Scott, meanwhile, spends the issue trying to get the grill set up while Barda frets violently around the house, trying to get lunch ready to cook as soon as the grill is operational. It is a perfect shot of skewed domesticity.

These two are a perfect pair, so much that one appearing without the other seems like a waste. Each of their appearances is to be treasured. The episodes they appear on in Justice League Unlimited and Batman: The Brave and the Bold are a lot of fun. Mr. Miracle has appeared recently in Justice League, one can only hope that Barda is not far behind.

Astro City is amazing.  

This is not news to anyone who has read it, but to those unfamiliar it really needs to be brought to your attention.  Astro City is exactly what superhero comics should be.  Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson, along with Alex Ross and various other artists, letters and inkers, have created an amazing world where they tell genuinely mature stories that happen to have superheroes.

For the most part, mature in superhero comics means the exact opposite of mature.  “Mature” comics are usually as juvenile as possible, all blood and boobs.  Good comics that could be called mature are almost unfailingly gritty deconstructions. Stuff like Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns.  Astro City manages to be as thoughtful and mature as those comics, but not be cynical at all.  It is proof that superheroes can be mature and self-aware without losing any of the hope and wonder.

Astro City is an anthology book, taking place in, fittingly, Astro City.  The city features a variety of superheroes and superheroines that are analogous to but not identical to popular DC and Marvel character.  It is not just popular characters with the serial numbers filed off, but roughly similar characters that fit into the same archetypes.  The details of Astro City’s Samaritan are very different from Superman, but they do share similar looks and powers.  The reader’s knowledge of Superman helps fill in the blanks with Samaritan, but he is unique enough that he doesn’t just feel like a knock-off.  The same is true of the somewhat Fantastic Four like First Family.

What sets Astro City apart is that while the usual sort of big super hero stories are frequently happening in the background, the book is about more human concerns. A story that takes place over a couple of issues features Astra, the youngest member of the First Family, realizing that her life is nothing like that of a normal child and leaves her home to find out what that is like.  Her family freaks out, understandably, and go pick fights with their rogues gallery to find her.  It has plenty of superheroes fighting, but the focus in on an abnormal girl trying to experience a normal like.  Wanting to know is the grass is truly greener on the other side or not is a pretty universal desire.  That is where Astro City excels; it takes larger than life characters, but tells very human, relatable stories.  There are no simple fights in Astro City, everything is about something real.

It weaves these very human stories together as it also creates a history for Astro City.  Each issue shows another character or idea or place that is but a footnote in the current story, but eventually these footnotes build up into a very real seeming history.  It creates the feeling of a large universe that the reader only gets an all too brief glimpse at.

 Astro City isn’t the only comic that does these sorts of things.  All-Star Superman has a very similar combination of true heart and larger than life story.  Starman does a similar trick of creating history in dribs and drabs.

I haven’t yet read all of Astro City. I had only read a couple of issues before picking all of the first two series in a Comixology sale.  I read those thirty or so issues fast enough, though.  I am going to be looking into picking up the rest of the series 20 year history as soon as I can.

Astro City is amazing.

This is not a huge entry in the series, covering just an inconsequential event tie-in and a fairly slight two part story.  Those two issues, while not particularly important in themselves, do set into motion some much larger events to come.  The standard in comics, really.

JSA: Our Worlds at War 1

Johns, Saltares and Kryssing

Our Worlds at War was a crossover primarily centered on Superman and his ancillary characters. Villain Imperiex is trying to destroy the universe and trigger a new big bang to fix imperfections in the universe. He intends for Earth to be the epicenter of his recreation of the universe. President Lex Luthor (strange times) rallies the heroes of Earth to fight him, and Brainiac, off and save Earth and the universe.

This issue is far from essential to the run. It does have some interesting things going on, but it is really just fluff. It takes the legacy approach of the title and mixes it with the society. Basically every old or named for an old hero that is not on another team is called into action with the JSA. People like Iron Monroe and the Freedom Fighters. It also has the first JSA appearance of Power Girl. She immediately adds some pep to the team, another character that is just abrasive enough to cause some waves.

The JSA and about three or four more teams worth of characters are given the mission of going into space and stopping Imperiex’s Jupiter sized ship. When the get there, they find that the ship is powered by the planet Daxam, whose inhabitants have Superman like powers. So they split into several teams. The most powerful members cause a distraction while the unpowered characters go to shut down the ship and the Freedom Fighters attempt to free Daxam. Lastly, the magical characters try to find a way to send Daxam back where it belongs.

There really isn’t much more to say than they succeed. It does play up some ongoing character stuff. Atom Smasher doesn’t like having a former villain in Black Adam on the team. Hawkman is chasing after Hawkgirl like she was in heat. Dr. Mid-Nite and Black Canary are dating. There is another appearance by Nemesis. It is a fine tie in issue, but that is all it really is. The art is no great shakes either, but the sheer number of characters around in most issues makes it hard to judge the artist too harshly for it. This could not have been an easy book to draw. It does reinforce that the JSA are the keepers of superhero legacy. The opening pages are all the heroes introducing themselves and saying who they are carrying on for, or maybe just who they stole their name from.

JSA 26 Who Do You Trust

Johns, Morales and Bair

This issue, another sort of breather that is credited to Johns only, starts with Atom Smasher challenging Black Adam to an arm wrestling match. Smasher doesn’t like having Black Adam on the team, despite his approval from the senior members of the team. He doesn’t think villains are capable of reforming. Black Adam doesn’t consider himself a villain and doesn’t think he needs reformation. Atom Smasher is still a little lost from way back in issue #15 when he killed Extant. There to cheer Atom Smasher on is Star Spangled Kid. Those two are in some ways the heart of the book, Star being the good student and Atom the wayward one.

Elsewhere, Sand is showing the new curator, Alex Montez, around the museum area of the Brownstone. He is the brother of Yolanda Montez, who for a time was the second Wildcat, though she was unfortunately killed. Still, there is no piece of history from these characters that Johns won’t incorporate into the title. Alex is something of a legacy to. A crash in the conference room sends them running to find that Atom and Adam have smashed the table. After Sand gives them a dressing down, Star goes to show Hawkgirl the pictures of her new baby sister while Sand and Alex continue with the tour.

They find Wildcat and Hawkman retrieve Hawkman’s mace and chatting about Hawkgirl. Wildcat rushed to catch up with Alex. Sand pulls Hawkman aside and offers him the chairmanship of the JSA. Hawkman declines, telling Sand he’s doing a great job before flying away.

In the infirmary, Dr. Fate is again trying to rouse his comatose wife. When he fails, he retreats to his Tower to research a method of freeing her from Mordu’s curse. After he leaves, Dr. Mid-Nite has a talk with Sentinel about his recent physical. He is in suspiciously perfect health and Terrific and Mid-Nite think that his body is now composed entirely of the Green Flame that gives him his powers.

Star is with Hawkgirl, showing her the pictures of her new baby sister, when Hawkman flies up to the window with flowers for Hawkgirl. He won’t stop pushing her about beginning or continuing their relationship. Really, Hawkman comes off as a huge dick. Which makes sense for Hawkman. Meanwhile, Black Adam and Atom Smasher have finished cleaning up the table when Adam makes a comment about it being a poor use of their powers. They start to argue again, only for it to be broken up this time by the big red cheese himself, Captain Marvel.

Sand finishes with Alex, only to find Hawkgirl crying in her room. He tries to council her. Hawkgirl is in the strange position of being both the continuation of a legacy and the originator of it. She is both Kendra Saunders, Hawkgirl’s cousin and Hawkgirl reborn. All she really wants is for Hawkman to leave her alone and let her sort out her feelings. Outside, Hawkman is flying around trying to figure out how to make her comfortable when he flies to her window again (flying in her window whenever feels like is probably a bad way to go about that) only to see her kissing Sand.

That is where the issue ends, with Hawkman staring in shock at Hawkgirl and Sand kissing. While this story plays out pretty quickly, it never really feels right. Hawkman is consistently a jerk, but here he is just an ass, jumping to conclusions and getting jealous for no damn reason. He is the only one that comes out looking bad in this and the only one that does suffer some adverse consequences from it. The bigger story in this issue is the Atom vs Adam stuff. Johns lays it on thick, but these two have a very good reason to be fighting. Letting Black Adam, who shows no remorse for his misdeeds because he doesn’t consider them his, on to the team does not gel with Atom Smasher increasingly hardline take dealing with villains. He saw first-hand what happens when villains are allowed to go free.

JSA 27 Thunderstruck

Johns, Morales, and Bair

This issue starts right off the last one, with Hawkman seeing Sand and Hawkgirl kissing. It then shows the reactions inside, where Sand pushes Hawkgirl away. She was kissing Sand because she was looking to be in a relationship with anybody but Hawkman, who is pressuring her to get together again. Sand comforts her and agrees to tell Hawkman to back off.

After a quick interlude with Captain Marvel and Black Adam, where Atom Smasher punches Black Adam through the roof, Mr. Terrific and Dr. Mid-Nite prove their hypothesis about Sentinel just as the alarm, trigger by Black Adam’s forcible ejection, goes off. They rush to confront the problem. The all get to the Aviary to find Atom Smasher blaming himself, rightly, for causing trouble with Black Adam as the former villain and Captain Marvel, who is trying to calm him down, fight in the sky. Atom Smasher knows he messed up, that is what he does. He is possible the most earnest member of the team, he is a superhero because he wants nothing more than to help people. Not that the others don’t, but he is the one who grew up specifically wanting to be a superhero. After what he did to Extant, he’s forced to actually examine what it means to him to be a hero. He overreacts to Black Adam’s comment about getting glory for doing good mostly because he doesn’t want to think about whether there is any truth to it. He doesn’t want to accept that someone like Black Adam could reform because he didn’t give Extant the chance to do so. Maybe causing his death was not the right move, maybe Atom Smasher messed up and that is the last thing he wants to do as a superhero.

They all fight with Black Adam for a few pages before Hawkman shows back, drops his mace in the middle of the scrum and declares the fight over. Completely ignore Sand, the team leader recall, Hawkman takes control of the situation and takes Captain Marvel and Black Adam into the meeting room. It turns out that Captain Marvel was actually there to vouch for Black Adam and declare him worthy of receiving a second chance. After he leaves, Sand storms into the room. He confronts Hawkman about whether he wants to lead the team or not, but the rest of the team bursts in and demands they take a vote on the matter. After the votes a quickly tallied, the new chairman is neither Sand nor Hawkman, but Mr. Terrific.

Really, this is mostly a blow to Sand. Hawkman is not a huge player in this book, he was generally busy in his own Johns written book at the time, but until now Sand had been one of the biggest players in this title. A lot of that was due to him being the leader of the team; he was the team’s center. He fit in between the old hands, like Sentinel and Flash, and with the new guns like Star Spangled Kid and Hawkgirl. Now, he is just another cog in the machine. He is not going to leave the team, at least not for a good long time, but he is no longer as front and center as he has been. Mr. Terrific, though, now gets pushed up to the top rung. He is the team’s center.

So Star and Wildcat run out to get some pizza for the team and the others all congratulate Mr. Terrific, one of his T-Sphere’s flies in erratically. But It is not one of his, and it teleports all the team members present (Terrific, Mid-Nite, Sand, Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Atom Smasher and Black Adam) away. The sphere flies away to a woman, Roulette, in an elegant dress and a massive tattoo up her side, who says it is time to place bets. Her limo is licensed in Nevada and it is clear that they are to be used in some sort of gambling scheme.

This issue is rather slight. Much of its real estate is taken up with a pointless fight with Black Adam. Still, some momentous things do happen, from Black Adam’s acceptance on the team to Mr. Terrific becoming team leader. It isn’t bad, but it really feels like more could have been done with the 22 pages of this issue. The fight with Black Adam is neither visually interesting nor is it narratively important. We already know that he is tough and that he has a temper, the big brawl is unnecessary. Still, it works as a slow paced stop after the epic heights of The Return of Hawkman.

Next time: Roulette.