On the "New 52!"

At this point, we're six issues into the "New 52!"  I thought I'd take the time to wax a little poetic on what's different, what's working, and what's not working.  I'll save my overall thoughts until the end, so let's get started!

The Villains
The authors seemed to have worked off the same editorial mandate, focusing on creating new villains rather than using older ones.  Batgirl got Mirror and Gretel, Batman got Dollmaker and Nobody, Batwoman got the Weeping Woman, Nightwing got Saiko, Starfire got Crux, Superboy got that couple, and the Teen Titans got Thrice and Grymm.  Only the Justice League went against one of its old villains, in the form of Darkseid.  Other than Nobody, I can't really see any of these characters ever becoming as iconic as Darkseid.  I can't imagine ever looking at an issue of "Teen Titans" thinking, "Ooo, Thrice is on the cover.  I've got to get me one of these!"  I know not every villain can become the next Joker, but you'd think one of these books could've produced a new villain that elicited more than a "Meh" response.  Nobody is probably the best of the bunch, but even he has his limits.  As I mention below, I actually feel like DC could've used the DCnU more to its advantage in making these characters more compelling than they are.

The real trend seems to be the sudden appearance of several new mysterious organizations in the DCnU, with the various authors seemingly taking a page (or several) from Morrison's Leviathan in "Batman Incorporated."  Batman faces the Court of Owls, Batwoman has both the D.E.O. and Medusa, Nightwing is embroiled in some sort of conspiracy, Red Hood faces the Untitled, and Superboy and the Teen Titans are struggling against N.O.W.H.E.R.E.  In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if all these organizations aren't just reflections of Leviathan, or some other organization.  (I'm probably giving too much credit to DC for being that coordinated, but a guy can hope.)  Of these organizaitons, I can only really see N.O.W.H.E.R.E. remaining as a threat beyond these initial issues.  We'll probably have to live with the D.E.O. for a while in "Batwoman," but I assume that Kate will throw off its yoke before too long.  Moreover, however much I love the Court of Owls, I'm guessing Bats is going to defeat it pretty definitively at the end.  Ditto, without the love, Red Hood and the Untitled.
 
I think most of my skepticism about the viability of these new villians and organizations comes from "Brand New Day" in "Amazing Spider-Man," where we found ourselves subjected to Freak, Menace, and Speedball in fairly short order.  They were pretty uninspiring villains, and Marvel eventually moved them into the background (and, presumably, obscurity), focusing instead on engaging in minor reboots of Spidey's main villains.  Although I wasn't a fan of the way the overall "Gauntlet" storyline was presented, its end result -- revamped classic villains like Electro, Lizard, Rhino, and Sandman -- was a significant net positive for "Amazing Spider-Man."  I think Marvel realized, even if it wasn't articulated in this way, that you can only change so much so quickly.  By removing Pete's marrige to Mary Jane and wiping out everyone's memory of Pete's secret identity, Marvel had already changed enough; putting him against a slew of new villains was too much, too soon.  DC seems to have fallen in this trap, and I assume it's going to come to the same conclusion as Marvel.

The Heroes
If I have an overarching assessment, it's that a good number of characters have emerged edgier, to the point where they're all starting to seem the same.  I mean, I should absolutely be able to tell the difference between Tim Drake and Jason Todd, but, honestly, I can't say I see that clear of a line between them anymore.  They're both angry, bratty, and impetuous.  Since we've seen fairly limited emotional connections between the main characters so far, it's hard to tell if they're all edgier for a reason.  I mean, to be fair to DC, six of the nine DC comics I get are Bat-family comics, so I acknowledge that I could have a skewed view of the DCnU, since it's not like the Bat-family comics in the DCU were exactly brimming with emotion either.  But, I still haven't felt any sort of warmth between the characters we see in "Justice League," "Superboy," and "Teen Titans," despite two of them being team books.  I know we're just seeing them all come together, but you'd still think they'd vaguely like one another for at least having a similar mission.  So far, we haven't seen that.  In fact, Superboy almost killed Kid Flash, and Green Lantern makes an emphatic point that the Justice Leaguers aren't friends.

In terms of the Bat-family the DCnU suffers a similar problem that the DCU had:  Bruce's character is portrayed differently depending on the series.  Snyder's Bruce is a pretty stable guy (for Bruce).  For example, in "Batman" #3, Snyder uses Bruce's conversation with Nightwing about why he doesn't believe in the Court of Owls to show the level of trust Bruce has in Dick.  It hints at the more emotionally grounded Bruce we were promised after he returned from the dead.  However, in "Batman and Robin," I often wonder if I'm not reading a Frank Miller comic, given that Bruce's treatment of Damian is distant at best and negligent at worst.  When his emotions do come to the fore in issues #5 and #6, they're angry and violent.  He seems more focused on his failure to help Damian and his need to defeat Nobody than he is on the fact that Damian needed help in the first place.

Moving beyond the Bat-family, characters who are usually realiably even-keeled, like Superman and Wonder Woman, are singificantly angrier.  In "Justice League," it's resulted in Batman becoming the team's emotional core (shudder) and in "Teen Titans" it's forced Lobdell to resort to overly cheery characters like Bunker and Solstice to balance out the angst exuded by Cassie, Skitter, and Tim.  To date, the only real emotional relationships I've seen in any of the "New 52!" is Barbara and Dick's and, to a lesser extent, Jason and Starfire's, but even those relationships are complicated.

I'm harping on the emotional aspects, because it's the lack of emotion that fuels most of what I haven't liked about the DCnU.  I don't like asshole Superboy, uptight Tim, douchebag Hal.  I read comics not only for the action and the stories, but for the connection with the characters.  I don't have to agree with everything they do or think, but I should have some sort of connection, some affinity that makes me want to root for them.  I can't say I have that for anyone but Barbara and Dick right now, which is why I find myself wondering why I'm getting nine books a month when I could be getting two.

The Plots
So far, the plots of the various series seem to be headed to being resolved in fairly uninteresting ways, despite the number of pages that inevitably are going to be devoted to them.  For example, I'm not sure what dramatic potential Superboy's search for his humanity and origins has when the DCU covered similar (if not exactly the same) ground with a 100+ issue series, not to mention his appearances in "Teen Titans" and a 12-issue coda in the form of the relaunched "Adventure Comics."  Speaking of "Teen Titans," we still don't really know what Tim's relationship with the Bat-family is, though, except for his brief appearance in "Batman" #1, it appears distant at best.  Similarly, we saw a hint at the end of the DCU that Jason Todd may have become a member of "Batman Incorporated" (in issue #6), possibly signaling a reconciliation with the Bat-family.  But, his relationship with Bruce and the boys is much less clear in the DCnU, particularly given the poignant scene at the end of "Red Hood and the Outlaws" #2 where he leaves behind his most cherished memory, Bruce deciding to skip patrolling to stay with him while he's sick.  So far, Simone is the only one who's used the differences between the DCU and DCnU Barbara to her advantage, but, of everyone, she was the one who clearly had to address the issue as quickly as possible, given Barabara's sudden ability to walk.

Speaking of Simone, she's also the only one who's really delivered on the real promise of the DCnU, namely streamlining the characters' history.  Simone has created a more clear nuclear family for Barbara, making Commissioner Gordon her father (and not her uncle, as he occasionally was) and removing Sarah Essen from the picture.  It appears that, after Barbara's mother left, James, Jr. stayed with Commissioner Gordon and Barabara, though Simone has yet to tell that story.  The other authors have either largely ignored the recton nature of the DCnU or gone too far with it (completely rebooting Superboy as if he had never before existed).

I get that the reboot was intended to get more new readers.  But, some of us have been here for years, and I think it's time that we start getting some answers.  I mean, I'm not trying to get all angry mob, but I'd like to have some basic questions answered, even for the Bat-books, which suffered a softer reboot.  Why isn't Tim working with Batman?  If it went down the same way it did in the DCU, why is he essentially on the road instead of building his own bunker in Gotham?  (Are his parents still dead?)  Does Jason still have some deed, dark secret, to which Bruce alluded in "Batman:  Battle for the Cowl?"  Is James Gordon, Jr. a sociopath?  Does Stephanie Brown still exist?  What happened to Renee Montoya?

Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, beyond just selling a ton of comics, DC wanted to use the reboot to cut through decades of contuity contradictions and clean house a bit.  To be honest, I think it's a little too early to tell just how succesful that has been.  To my mind, the two most obvious changes have been Barbara Gordon walking again and Superboy essentially returning to the start.  We've had a lot of minor changes, but these two changes are the ones that resulted in drastically different characters than the ones we saw in the DCU.  The thing, though, is only the Superboy reboot really needed a reboot.  Barbara simply had experimental surgery to allow her to walk again.  We didn't need a reboot for that to happen; it could've just as easily happened in the DCU as it could in the DCnU.

In judging the reboot, you have to inevitably use the DCU as your guide.  But, it can't just be a question of whether you enjoy these stories more because of the reboot.  You also have to more or less ask whether you needed the reboot to enjoy these stories.  The answer to me, overall, is that I don't.  For every title other than "Superboy" and "Teen Titans," the stories we're seeing could've been just as easily told in the DCU.  Barbara could've just as easily had surgery to regain her ability to walk.  Dick could've just as easily resumed being Nightwing and gone on the road with the circus.  Johns could've just as easily told an origin story of the Justice League, since it's not like it had as iconic of a first story as the Avengers that anyone would necessarily scream at them for retconning its history.  Jason could've just as easily escaped prison and found Roy and Starfire.  The Court of Owls and Nobody could've just as easily appeared on the scene as they could before.  Only "Superboy" and "Teen Titans" are really the only significantly different books, and I like them significantly less.

I think the real possibility for the DCnU, when it came to the villains, was doing what "Amazing Spider-Man" did with the "Gauntlet."  Rather than foisting a whole host of new villains on us, maybe we could've gotten revamped villains.  The Joker could've been a little more sane, the Penguin a little less.  Since we haven't really spent that much time with the old villains, it's hard to say what the effect of the DCnU has been on them.  But, given how ripe the reboot was to help streamline the villains as much as the heroes, DC seems to have ignored that part, deciding instead to try its luck on a new roster of villains.  I'm not sure it was such a good call.

I'm not going to say the reboot was a failure.  But, to be honest, I think we're going to wind up forgetting about it in a year or two, when the authors get tired of finding ways to differntiante the DCnU from the DCU.  I mean, at some point, it's going to descend into, "OMG, look, Superboy has a different haircut!  All new, all different!"  By the end of the first 12 issues, I think we're going to be seeing Superboy either on the Teen Titans or close to it, and everything will then look exactly like it did...and I think I'll be all the happier for it.