

I’m not a new reader, but where DC is concerned I might as well be.

Whether it started as brand loyalty, Spideyphilia, or just an aversion to Crises, my love of comics started with Marvel books and stayed that way for a long time. Over the years, I’ve broadened my horizons from Dark Horse to Dynamite, but for some reason no matter how omnivorous I tried to be DC’s titles never stayed on my pull list for long. From The Flash to Green Lantern to Action itself, I always failed to connect with the stories and lost interest. Was it the baggage? Was it the writers? There was no better time to find out than this month.

What follows are the books I’ve tried and how they looked to my (relatively) fresh eyes, (mostly) free of bias.

Batman

What Made Me Try It: Scott Snyder is the King of Comics! Greg Capullo sounds familiar! Batman is always interesting! All systems are go!



What I Knew Before I Bought It: In the DC Universe, Batman is the one… whatever is the opposite of a blind spot for me. I have been reading the adventures of the Caped Crusader on and off since Michael Keaton was giving Knox a grant. I have every issue of Snyder’s Detective. Gotham Central is one of my favorite series of all time. You get the idea.



What I Thought About It: Now I know where I’ve heard Greg Capullo’s name. One look did it instantly: “Oh, right. Spawn guy.” After Snyder’s run on Detective, I wouldn’t have thought “the Spawn guy” would make a good fit, but a more iconic and less severe art style does Snyder (and Bruce Wayne) a world of good. It was like opening the windows and getting some air after a musty, claustrophobic summer. The book functions as a great first chapter for both the arc and Batman alike; even though Batman is probably more well known in pop culture than Mickey Mouse at this point, it references his origin without retreading it and uses a crafty “facial recognition” gimmick to introduce the reader to the cast. My mom could pick this up and learn enough about Batman to bluff her way through a conversation in the Hyatt bar. The book spends enough time talking about What Gotham Is to signal that neither we nor Bruce know the real answer, but that we’re going to find out, by cracky, and the prospect is enough to grab veterans and neophytes alike. Top notch, all the way ’round.



Will I Stick With It?: Come now.

Birds of Prey

What Made Me Try It: If Duane Swierczynski can make me look forward to an issue of Cable, there is nothing he cannot fix. It may be worth it to have him take a look at the economy for us.

What I Knew Before I Bought It: I think that one in the back is Poison Ivy. Otherwise, these people are not even vaguely familiar faces.

What I Thought About It: …which turns out not to matter, because half the people on the cover aren’t in the book. We’ll catch up with them later in the arc, Justice League #1 style. In the meantime, Batgirl is in the book for a couple of pages to explain why she’s not in the book the rest of the time. (Batgirl used to be on this team in another universe, it turns out. This was deemed important enough to drag onto the clean slate for a couple of pages, to bring us new readers up to speed on why something we never knew about in the first place didn’t happen.) Fortunately, this cameo gives Batgirl a chance to say, “I’m not joining the team, friend whose full name I just said in casual conversation, because of all the following exposition I know about you.” That brief clunk aside, I found the book’s preposterous cat-and-mouse one-upmanship between the Birds of Prey and their predators (“I was a pawn to draw you out!” “We knew that all along, so we used you as our pawn to draw them out!” “Well, I knew you would know that, so what I did was…”) fun and engaging. Also, putting a snoopy reporter in your book is a great, Batgirl-free way to show readers what’s going on.

Will I Stick With It?: I will. I love a good getting-the-band-together story, and I want to know why the last page happened. Who is this evildoer who’s somehow out to get this team despite it not having formed yet? Who befouled his proverbial breakfast cereal?

Catwoman

What Made Me Try It: After years of hearing it was excellent, I finally checked out Ed Brubaker’s Catwoman run from the library a month ago, only to find that 1) it was, in fact, excellent and 2) DC’s almost reader-hostile approach to collected editions was such that the trades ended in the middle of Brubaker’s story arc, leaving a void of dissatisfaction that I hoped the new volume would fill.



What I Knew Before I Bought It: As she’s a part of Batman’s world, I have had many opportunities to see Selina Kyle in action, not the least of which was the aforementioned Brubaker series.



What I Thought About It: Is Judd Winick genuinely trying to give someone who bought a Catwoman comic what he thinks they want, or is he just making fun of me for buying this? I’m not going to go back and count, because I’m afraid someone will look over my shoulder and see what I’m reading, but the main character must spend half the pages in this issue cavorting around in her bra. The very first panel is a close-up of her breasts; the very last is… well, it’s essentially the “Fig. A” illustration for the definition of “gratuitous,” and I’ll leave it at that. (Never mind the implications for the other character in that scene; what did it have to do with anything that had come before it in the issue? Was all of that to say “this ain’t your daddy’s Batbook”?) The book seemed exploitative even before I realized every other woman in the book but one was a literal whore. I can’t remember a comic that made me feel more like a grown man in his mother’s basement with a too-small Flash t-shirt encasing his gut and Cheeto dust on his hands. The Catwoman I was familiar with was cunning, calculating, and clever; this lady is a flighty, frivolous sex bomb, and I’m not sure how much more time I could spend around her. She’s like that friend you have in your twenties who thinks she’s “fun” but is actually just exhausting.

Will I Stick With It?: This was like trying to rent Ocean’s Eleven and getting Burlesque instead. I will wait to hear where the story goes before trying this one out again.

Supergirl

What Made Me Try It: I asked Twitter and then did what it said. Use your powers for good, Twitter.

What I Knew Before I Bought It: Like Superman, but a girl? Related, probably?

What I Thought About It: In a way, Supergirl reminded me of what I liked about the first episode of Lost: Our hero crash lands in a mysterious, hostile environment and tries to make sense of what has happened, and we go through it as she does. She has no idea how she got there, so she and the reader are in the same boat. Luckily, the only thing you need to bring with you to the reading experience is “There is such a person as Superman, and hey, there he is.” True, the entire issue is essentially a fight scene, but it still manages to directly communicate who Supergirl is, where she’s from, what she knows, and what she can do, all while pulverizing mecha-soldiers who really need to be briefed on first contact protocol. We also get a sense that Earthlings have seen Kryptonians before, but how they feel about the ones they’ve seen is still an open question. Factor in the consistently wonderful art of Mahmud Asrar, and Supergirl #1 gives you everything you need to determine whether or not this book is for you.

Will I Stick With It?: This book is for me!

Wonder Woman

What Made Me Try It: Cliff Chiang is amazing, and I had fond but very dim memories of Lynda Carter being one of the first superheroes I saw on TV. Everyone seems to agree that there is greatness in Wonder Woman, and she should be right up there with Batman and Superman. The prospect of seeing her finally get her shot was exciting.



What I Knew Before I Bought It: Everything I ever knew about Wonder Woman, I last thought about in 1979. I’ve seen her pop up in other books, but I’ve never read anything with her name on the cover. I had no baggage or information, and did not know her origin story; they could have told me anything about her and it would have been A-OK by me.



What I Thought About It: Mr. Azzarello, pretend for a moment that I don’t know anything about mythology, history, or comics, and just tell me what the hell is going on. I don’t know what this was, but it was not a #1 issue. Wonder Woman is Amazon royalty from an island, if I remember correctly, but I don’t remember it from seeing it come up at all in this first issue of her brand new start-from-scratch comic for new readers. Everyone on earth knows what a Batman is, and Snyder still took the time– just in case– to introduce all the Robins and tell us Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed when he was little. But this…. Who is this Diana? Why doesn’t she like being called “Wonder Woman”? Where is she from? Why does she have powers? People seem to know who she is; has she been around long? What is her connection to these apparently mythological figures, one of whom I guess was Apollo, even though the book never sees fit to say so? Is that a way of depicting Apollo I should have recognized? What’s with Peacock McGee? Should I magically recognize her, too? Is Diana immortal, or nineteen years old? Why does holding a key take you to her in London? Why is she in London? Am I supposed to know who Zola is? Why does Wonder Woman care if Zeus has a baby? By the time the issue is over, I know her name. I think someone calls her “Amazon.” Beyond that, I get page after page of someone I don’t know fighting centaurs I don’t know who are trying to kill a woman I don’t know for reasons I don’t know. Even a panel that conveyed Zola is a nice person with a job, or Diana has thoughts in her head about a subject, would have been appreciated. Instead, every panel is bordered by narration boxes written as crypto-riddle Beat poetry. And every woman in the book who isn’t naked is brutally murdered. If you’d never seen Wonder Woman before, and I gave you this book without telling you what it was called, do you think you could even identify which one was the main character? I don’t know what this was, other than savage, opaque, heartless and pointless. On the other hand, the art was great.



Will I Stick With It?: I don’t even want to hang on to the issue I have.

NEXT: Jim finishes this week’s books, but keeps on buying comics anyway!