New Comics!: The #0 Edition #3 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Justice League #0:  Seriously, Billy Batson is probably the best thing to come from Geoff Johns' "Justice League" so far.  With an entire issue dedicated to him, Johns really gets to delve into his character, showing other sides to the sarcastic and sharp teenager that we've already seen.  ("Listen, Chester, that stuff might work like candy on six-year-old, but you come any closer and I'll knock out the last of your teeth.")  Whereas we've seen Billy's sarcasm plenty before, it's the sharpness that most comes into play here.  I thought Johns did a great job by having Billy earn the right to become Shazam by teaching the Wizard that a "pure good" person didn't exist.  He's not just handed the role.  Instead, we're reminded that Billy has seen a lot in his fifteen years and, as a result, has an unique insight into the way that the world works, one that he shares with the Wizard.  In so doing, we get our flawed hero straight from the gates, as the Wizard realizes that having the "embers" of good, at least at this point, are more important than being "pure good."

In "Flashpoint," Billy and his foster siblings shared the Captain Marvel body, if I'm not mistaken, but, here, at least for now, it seems just to be Billy, as the "full potential" of himself.  In this issue, Johns really manages to play up the "Big"-esque laughs of a child-in-a-man's-body scenario; I particularly liked when he smashed the Wizard's throne, looked at his now-adult fist, and declared, 'Sweet."  As it usually goes with wizards imparting gifts before they die, the Wizard sets the stage for future storylines:  he instructs Billy to stop Black Adam from awaking the Seven Deadly Sins of Man; he informs him that he can also weave spells in addition to controlling the Living Lightning; and he tells Billy that he should rally his family around him, but that it should be the family that "can be" and not "should be."

Johns also makes it clear that Billy's probably going to learn some tough lessons in adulthood and responsibility in the coming days.  As the Wizard saw, he has the "embers" of good, which we see when he stops the mugger from stealing toys from a woman.  But, he definitely isn't "pure good," given that he asks for money after helping her.  I'm hoping that Johns doesn't overdo that part too much, but it'll be interesting to watch Billy work through those issues.  Johns and Frank play up that anticipation, showing us a gleeful Billy in the last panel who believes that Shazam is going to help him earn money.  He's clearly got some heart-breaking, Uncle-Ben-getting-shot-by-a-robber-he-failed-to-stop moment coming and the fact that I'm already worried about him shows how much Johns has done with his character already.  It seems pretty clear that he's going to realize that he needs the personalities of his foster siblings to create a true superhero, one that balances out his faults, but I trust Johns to get us there in an interesting way.  Seriously, at this point, I'm just waiting for Billy to get his own book.

Nightwing #0:  DeFalco and Higgins update Dick's origin story for the DCnU and do the best with what they have, largely by seemingly adopting much of the origin as its found in "Dark Victory."  I believe that Dick going to live with Bruce for a while since the police need to stash him somewhere as a material witness comes straight from "Dark Victory" (and makes a lot more sense than Bruce just taking in a teenage boy).  The problem, though, is that DeFalco and Higgins diverge from that script by eventually sending Dick to an orphanage, presumably after the police are no longer worried about his safety.  Really?  Thanks for staying kid, good luck with processing your dead parents.  Really?  Are we supposed to believe that Dick never lived with Bruce?  It seems to be an extremely powerful ret-con, one that essentially undoes their relationship as father-and-son (or, at least, older-brother-and-younger-brother) and puts a lot more emotional distance between them.

DeFalco and Higgins more successfully use a version of a powerful scene in "Dark Victory" to flesh out the relationship between Alfred and Dick.  In "Dark Victory," Alfred comforts Dick over his loss, telling him that he'll never be alone again, something that he wishes he had said to Bruce in the wake of his parents' death (rather than being all stoically English).  In this issue, it's Alfred telling Dick that he shouldn't feel guilty for healing, something that Bruce has never really done; it's not the same conversation, but the impact is the same, as the reader realizes that Alfred has learned from his mistakes with Bruce when it comes to parenting Dick.

Similarly, Dick goes on patrols to find Zucco in the early days of his time with Bruce.  Eventually, Bruce finds him and brings him to the Batcave, revealing his identity.  Here, Dick guesses his identity, but the impact is the same.  Bruce doesn't just decide to endanger a child's life; he realizes that Dick has the same drive he does and nothing he can do is going to stop him from pursuing justice.  If having Dick stay with him to protect him as a material witness makes Bruce less child-molster-y, having Bruce take on Dick as a partner because he's seen him in action and realizes that he's not going to be able to stop him at least makes him less criminally negligent as a parent.  (Though, now, maybe he never was his parent in the first place.  But, I digress.)  Finally, Robin gets his name here from his mother, as he did in "Dark Victory," where we learned that she called him that because he was always "bobbing around."  Here, he's similarly constantly moving; in fact, the whole point of the issue is that he's in "perpetual motion."  To emphasize the link, DeFalco and Higgins have her refer to Dick as her "robin" in this issue.

Overall, except for the orphanage part, I'm happy with the details described here.  However, I am extremely NOT happy about the other two big revelations in this issue, that Dick is 15-years-old when his parents die and that Barbara and he never dated.  Based on "Batman" #0, that makes him 20 years old now.  That seems way, way, way too young.  It also makes it somewhat creepy that Barbara is four or five years older than he is.  She became Batgirl roughly three years ago, meaning that she was hoping for a romantic relationship with Dick when he was 17 years old and she was 21 or 22 years old.  Really?  Are we supposed to believe that?  The only thing that I can imagine mitigating that age difference would be the revelation that Barbara started college early, making her a little younger now.  On the second point, I think the bio page has the Barbara information wrong.  Several issues of "Batgirl" and "Nightwing" have made it pretty clear that the two of them were an item.  I'm not saying that it was the longest relationship of all time, but it's pretty clear that one exists.  [Sigh.]  I'm just going to have to ignore these parts.  I wish someone would invent a beer that helped you selectively forget certain pieces of information.  Of course, given the way the DCnU is going, I'd probably be catatonic given how much of it that I'd have to drink.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #0:  OK, let's leave the Joker story aside for a moment.  The main story in this issue pretty much follows Jason's actual origin and improves certain parts of it.  He turns to crime as a teenager to make ends meet after his dad is taken to jail and his mom overdoses on drugs.  After getting beaten unconscious he's found by Leslie Tompkins and gets caught by Batman when he tries to steal prescription drugs from her.  (This part is a whole lot better than stealing hubcaps off the Batmobile.)  Leslie convinces Bruce to adopt him and the rest is history.  Bruce taking in Jason doesn't make a lot of sense, but, it didn't make a lot of sense in the DCU either, so I certainly can't hold that against Lobdell.

In terms of Jason's narrative, we see the softer side of him that other people don't get to see, like when he laments the fact that he didn't get to say good-bye to Bruce or thank him for everything he had done for him before he dies.  The most poignant comment, for me, was when he framed the violence that he brought to the role of Robin as him trying to punch away the ghost of his father before he could adopt Bruce as his new one.  It's a nice touch on Lobdell's part, building off Tynion's work in "Batman" #0 to show Jason as probably the most sympathetic of all the characters in DCnU.

The Joker story is of course the most interesting one, since it implies that he knows who Batman is and manipulates events to install Jason as his second Robin.  It suggests an even more intimate connection between the two of them and, with the upcoming Joker arc in "Batman," I'm intrigued where DC goes with it.  All in all, this #0 issue was much better than the other Bat-family ones, other than "Batgirl" #0.  Jason's origin at least rough matches some logical sequence of events, more so than Dick's.  At this point, I'll take it.