On "Villains Month"

Going into "Villains Month," I had pretty low expectations.  They were raised after reading "Forever Evil" #1, because I figured that, in addition to being the obvious money grab that they are, we at least now had a reason for it, exploring what the various super-villains of the DCnU would do with the superheroes gone.

However, of the several issues I read, only the Riddler, Penguin, and Bane stories actually did that (to varying degrees of effect).  The others -- Joker, Desaad, Solomon Grundy, and Doomsday -- issues decided instead to focus on those characters' origins.  I was theoretically OK with that, so long as they didn't wreck the same sort of havok to the villains' origins as the #0 issues did the Bat-family's.

In the end, DC didn't really deliver on the promise of either premise.  The Penguin issue was the best of the "absence" issues, if you will, in that it felt like a normal issue of "Detective Comics" (despite appearing in "Batman").  The Bane issue most directly addressed the absence of the heroes, with Bane deciding to take on Gotham, but Tomasi diverted attention that he should've paid on that story to Bane's origin, in the end leaving the reader unsatisfied with both stories.  The Joker origin story was the best of the "origin" issue, but, in the end, I probably was more interested in seeing what Joker was doing in the absence of the superheroes, particularly since, as the other villains discussed in "Forever Evil" #1, he'd probably be displeased at being convoked by the Crime Syndicate.

Moreover, beyond the gimmick covers, which I didn't buy, every issue suffered from some form of pet peeve #2, showing the villains defeating characters who they never actually combat during the issue.

So, yeah, in the end?  Money grab, plain and simple.

New-ish Comics!: The "Villains Month" Edition (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Earth 2 #15.1/Desaad #1:  Occasionally, I have a problem reading the DCnU, given my lack of historical knowledge of DC comics in general.  I only really started reading DC in earnest in 2010; before then, I was an occasional reader of the Bat-books.  So, although I'm familiar enough with the Bat-family's history to be intrigued (and occasionally outraged) by the "fresh take" that the DCnU has brought, I'm often left baffled in other books when a detailed knowledge of the character's history is required to understand what the author is doing (particularly when I'm supposed to be intrigued by how it differs from the character's DCU analogue).  This issue is a case in point.  I'm not really sure who Desaad is, making it difficult to follow (or care about) this issue.  At the very least, his goal is pretty clear, seeking someone named the Tunneler to help him return to Apokolips.  I failed to understand two things, though.  First, he seems to discover how to create Boom Tubes on Earth 2, since he uses one to approach the artist with whom he seems to be obsessed.  As such, why can't he use it to go to Apokolips?  It's possible that he doesn't have enough power, but Levitz doesn't make that clear.  Second, the Tunneler has something to do with Michael Holt, given that Desaad sends his agents to Holt Industries to acquire him/it.  We haven't really seen boo of Holt since he appeared and just as quickly disappeared under the manipulation of Terry Sloane, so, honestly, Holt's connection to the Tunneler is probably the least mysterious thing about him.  But, we learn that the Tunneler has been taken from him and it's unclear if Desaad knows where he is by the end of the issue.  Moreover, I'm not really sure how anything depicted here relates to the events currently happening in "Earth 2."  Basically, this issue is essentially what I expected Villains Month to be, which isn't a compliment.

Batman #23.2/Riddler #1:  Honestly, I've never been a huge fan of Riddler.  Snyder gives us a textbook Riddler story here, with him using an elaborate scheme to exact revenge against someone who wronged him years earlier.  But, I can't say that I care.  (Maybe I'm just over the Riddler given that I'm playing "Batman:  Arkham Origins" and his character is as annoying as ever in it.)

Earth 2 #15.2/Solomon Grundy #1:  Kindt does a good job of explaining how Solomon Grundy got his rage, if you will, showing him as a poor abattoir worker (and newly minted father) whose cruel boss pays his wife for sex.  His wife is driven over the edge after their most recent encounter and kills herself, causing Solomon to go on a murder spree.  The part that I don't get - and that Kindt probably could've explained - is how Grundy gets his powers.  The events that I just described happened in 1898.  After Grundy kills himself, he falls into the river next to the abattoir and something...happens, turning him into the zombie that he normally is.  But, Kindt doesn't explain what happened.  Instead, we burn a few pages of Grundy searching for "the green man" in the present, with no explanation of why he's motivated to find him.  Although Kindt hits the right emotional notes to describe the tragedy of Grundy (as Kubert did with the "Batman #23.1/Joker #1" issue), I'm still kind of shocked that he didn't explain Grundy's supernatural origin or obsession with the Green Lantern.  We know that the latter comes from some sort of Green/Grey dichotomy from his previous conflict with Green Lantern, but Kindt could've helped flesh out that concept here.  Again, it's another missed opportunity.

Batman #23.3/Penguin #1:  Whereas "Batman" #23.1 and "Earth 2" #15.2 deal with the origins of some of the DCnU super-villains, Tieri sticks to a similar script as Snyder in "Batman" #23.2, showing how the Penguin is taking advantage of the absence of Batman.  I honestly expected more stories like this one from "Villains Month" and the fact that I enjoyed this one so much probably reflects that.  I particularly liked how Tieri embraced the Penguin's status quo, showing him as reassembling his power base after the assault on his criminal empire by Emperor Penguin in "Detective Comics" (making me wonder why it wasn't part of that title's "Villains Month" issues).  Penguin is particularly bold here, murdering three illusionists trying to fleece him at his casino and engineering the fall of the Governor of the state where Gotham is located, who also just happens to be an old friend from boarding school who used to protect him from bullies.  Whereas we've seen attempts to make Joker and Solomon Grundy into sympathetic characters with these "Villains Month" issues, Tieri does no such thing here, showing the Penguin as the brutal, remorseless killer that he is.  I can't say that it's a necessary read, but it's probably the "Villains Month" issue that does its job the best for me so far.

Batman #23.4/Bane #1:  "Villains Month" authors so far have focused either on origin stories (Joker, Solomon Grundy) or showing how the super-villains are taking advantage of the disappearance of the superheroes to push their agendas (Riddler, Penguin).  (I'm not really sure what the Desaad issue was, so we'll just ignore that one for now.)  Tomasi seemingly couldn't make up his mind, so we get both here.  Bane spends time in Santa Prisca so that we can get lectured by pretty much everyone about his origin and philosophy, but, after he leaves via ship to Gotham City, we learn that he plans on building his own army from freed Blackgate prisoners to take over Gotham.  Something that's always bothered me about Bane but didn't become clear until this issue is that I've never understood why he cares about Gotham.  Tomasi makes it clear that he wasn't like most super-villains, who come to Gotham to tangle with Batman.  Bane wanted Gotham itself, but why would a kid from a Caribbean country care about Gotham?  Tomasi never really explains it, making both his origin story and the present story fall flat.

Batman/Superman #3.1:  Similar to my problem with "Earth 2" #15.1 and #15.2, this issue had less of an impact to me in part because I'm not sure what I'm seeing here.  Whereas I've been an intermittent reader of the various Bat-books for years, my knowledge of Superman is pretty much limited to "Doomsday" and "Funeral for a Friend."  In those series, Doomsday was simply a mute alien bent on destruction.  Here, he's the same, though he's wrecking Krypton rather than Metropolis.  But, similar to my complaint about the Solomon Grundy edition of "Earth 2," Pak stops short of giving us a full origin.  Just like we never discovered how Grundy got his powers, we never learn here how Doomsday eventually made it to Earth (or from where he came).  Instead, Pak diverts attention to Zod (who, we learn in this issue, made his career in defending Krypton from Doomsday), who's apparently speaking to a young Supergirl from the Negative Zone.  It seems an unnecessary diversion, given the questions about Doomsday that remain on the table and the fact that we don't really learn much interesting about Zod or Supergirl here.

Batman #23.1/Joker #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Given its subject, it's no surprise that this issue is deeply disturbing.  Kubert delivers yet another version of Joker's origin, showing him as a scared orphan living with a sociopathic aunt with only a hand puppet as a friend.  If that wasn't enough, Kubert has Joker steal a baby gorilla from the zoo, raising him as his own twisted version of Robin.  As kooky as it sounds, it really works, since Kubert uses the Joker's violent yet oddly caring upbringing of the gorilla as a contrast to his aunt's abusive and undoubtedly terrible upbringing of him.

In this way, Kubert comes close to making Joker into a sympathetic character, but, given all his previous origin stories, it's hard to know if we're seeing the real one or an imagined one.  Joker is sufficiently depraved to create his own Aunt Eunice.  In fact, Joker is sufficiently depraved to create Jackanape himself, making you wonder if anything in this issue was real at all.  Joker's childhood is shown as so compellingly and terribly sad (thanks in no small party to Clarke's artwork brilliantly conveying the emotion on a young Joker's face) that you find yourself hoping that it's not real, because, if it is, you'd be forced to see Joker in a different light.  In that way, it's one of the better entries into the various versions of Joker's origin.

On Dropping Some Titles, or Why DC Can go F&%^ Itself with "Villains Month"

I had a moment of clarity at some point during the last few weeks and found myself dropping a number of titles over the last few days:  "Batman and Robin," "Justice League," "Justice League of America," "New Avengers," "Nova," "Red Hood and the Outlaws," and "Venom."

I had been considering dropping "Nova" and "Venom" for a while and finally just reached the point where I felt like I legitimately didn't want to read another issue.  The authors were telling solid stories, but I just didn't really care about the characters enough to keep reading.  I also tried hanging in there as long as I could with "New Avengers," but Hickman finally just lost me.  In all three cases, I feel like it was a pretty informed decision, made after giving each series a few issues to convince me to stay.

DC, on the other hand, really forced my hand.

I'll be honest that my patience with DC has been limited after the disastrous #0 issues of the Bat-family titles, with the histories of the various Robins getting horribly butchered.  But, the upcoming "Villains Month" is such an obvious money grab that I found myself disgusted.

I've been disappointed with most of the DC titles on this list for a long time, but asking me to buy four extra issues each of "Batman and Robin," "Justice League," and "Justice League of America" goes beyond the pale, even for a comic publisher.  After all, looking at the titles participating in the event that I still plan on collecting  ("Batman," "Batman/Superman," "Detective Comics," and "Earth 2"), I have to buy 11 extra issues, if I want to stay current.  (I've actually decided to take a pass on the "Detective Comics" ones since they're not written by Layman.)

But, it goes beyond even that.  I'm clearly also supposed to be buying the "Forever Ever" mini-series and probably the three related mini-series.  It also seems, based on what I've read about "Forever Evil" on the Internet, that my failure to buy the mini-series at least means that the issues I do buy of the titles I'm getting will make little sense to me.  It takes some real chutzpah to ask me to cough up $40+ for issues of titles that I normally collect but now won't understand.

I, of course, get why DC is doing what it's doing.  Another version of me would've studiously collected as many of the issues as I could.  But, it runs the risk of doing (and, frankly, will likely do) what "Fear Itself" did to me, where my need to collect as many issues as I could left me reading a lot of terrible comics.  You could tell Marvel phoned in a lot of the tie-in issues as it hustled to make as much money off the idea as possible.  Given what I know about DC, I'm going to doubt that the authors of the various .1 issues had enough time (or experience with the characters) to craft a good story.  With "Fear Itself," I felt horribly and terribly disappointed.  It was like having a mugger decide not only to take your wallet but your watch at the last minute.  I can't imagine "Forever Evil" won't leave me feeling the same way, if not worse.

But, Marvel had at least been telling good stories at that point and continued to do so after it.  DC is an entirely different story.  My stable of DC titles has been getting progressively smaller since the "New 52!" began.  I'm down to six and, after what I hear happens to Dick in "Forever Evil," I wonder if that number if going to drop to five soon.  Of the six, "Batgirl," "Detective Comics," and "Earth 2" are the only ones that I'm really excited to get.  ("Batman/Superman" has been great, but it's too new to know how long it's going to last.)

How did a company that gave us Scott Snyder's amazing work in "Detective Comics" or Grant Morrison's trippy tales in "Batman" fall so far so quickly?  Remember the amazing "House of Hush" story in "Batman:  Streets of Gotham?"  How did we end up here?  It's pretty clear that the answer is editorial interference and I have to wonder, with Robinson leaving "Earth 2" and Simone's seemingly tenuous grasp on "Batgirl," if I'll be getting any DC titles a year from now.  [Sigh.]