Black Superheroes: Nubia

Ororo who?

Name: Nubia 

First Appearance: Wonder Woman #204 (1973) 

History: Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons and ruler of Themyscira, famously made a child out of clay that was brought to life by the gods whom would grow up to be known as Diana and throughout the world as Wonder Woman. However, that is only half the story. In reality, Hippolyta sculpted two baby girls, one made from lighter clay and one from darker clay (…excuse me?). Both girls were brought to life and blessed, but the older baby girl was immediately kidnapped by Ares, the Greek god of War. Ultimately, Hippolyta kept all of this a secret from her younger daughter Diana. Ares would name his captive Amazon “Nubia” (…EXCUSE ME?!?) and trained her in every art of combat from infancy, with the intent of her eventually leading his armies. She fights his influence, her spirit still be loyal to the Amazons, but the god of war used mind control to force compliance. Armed with a sword powerful enough to counter the Lasso of Truth, and possessing the same powers as Diana, Nubia is placed as the ruler of an all-male floating island and is dubbed “The Wonder Woman of Slaughter Island.” Her forces invaded Themyscira and she faced off against her younger twin sister. Thankfully Diana was able to break Nubia free of Ares’ mind control and two worked together to defeat the evil god. 

The truth of her existence now revealed, Nubia left her birthplace and vowed to use her position as a ruler of Slaughter Island to spread the Amazon message of love and peace. The question of who was the one and true Wonder Woman was left unanswered…for now.

Beta Says: I was heavily influenced to do a profile on Nubia in the past few years because there was a recurring theme of pictures of the character circulating social media and racist shitbags getting all upset about “DC turning Wonder Woman black”, having no idea she was separate character. Actually, she’s three separate characters (we’ll get into that ). But if there’s one thing I’d like you to take away from this essay it’s that Nubia was actually DC Comics’ first female black superhero, even predating Marvel Comic’s Storm by two years. 

 Well, actually the main takeaway I want you to have is that Slaughter Island is an amazing name for a base of operation. 

 More on Nubia, but less about Slaughter Island, after thee jump.

Black Superheroes: Amazing-Man (I, II, & III)

1940s heroes who is drawn suspiciously like a 1980s hero

Name(s): Will Everett, Will Everett III, Markus Clay 

First Appearance(s): All-Star Squadron #23 (1983), Justice League America #86 (1994), Justice Society of America Vol. 3 #12 (2008)

History: Will Everett was a medal winning athlete who competed in the Berlin Olympics in 1936, but despite that, due to the racism of the time, he fell into obscurity shortly after and the only work he could get was as a janitor for a laboratory belonging to Doctor Terry Curtis. During an incident involving the Ultra-Huminite kidnapping Curtis, Everett as caught in a explosion that granted him super powers. He gained the ability to transform his body into a replica of matter that he touched. Initially he was forced to serve the Ultra-Huminite as the henchman “Amazing-Man”, alongside Curtis (who also developed powers and was forced to operate as “Cyclotron”), but he soon rebelled and instead joined the All-Star Squadron and became one of the most prominent heroes of the era.

Will’s career took a turn when J. Edgar Hoover (stinking sucker) revealed his identity to the public, putting him and his family in danger. Following this, Everett turned his focus to the Civil Rights movement, where he ended up becoming an important figure comparable to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X. Somehow. As the years went by, he started a family, but when his son died, he took his grandson, Will Everett III, into his care. Eventually Will Sr. would die of cancer, and it was ambiguous if it was a direct result of his powers, but Will III was traumatized by it, nonetheless.

In college, Will III developed powers similar to his grandfather but he thought of them as a curse as he desperately wanted to live a normal life. In time, however, he resigned himself to taking up the Amazing-Man mantle, despite believing it would be the eventual death of him. He would join the Justice League when asked by Wonder Woman and served in various incarnations of the team until he proved himself right and died in action, killed by a supervillain named Mist.

Sometime after this, Marcus Clay, Will III’s cousin and Will Sr.’s other grandson, developed similar powers as well and began operating as Amazing-Man in post-Katrina New Orleans, where he differed from his immediate predecessor by not only acting as a superhero but also a community activist, as he believed that aspect of their grandfather’s legacy was the more important one. He was recruited to join the recently revamped Justice Society of America, a team that included several of his grandfather’s contemporaries as well as legacy heroes like himself.

Pictured: The most recent Amazing-Man
Well, the most recent that doesn't completely suck

Beta Says: Geez, I feel like I’ve been sitting on this one for many years, partially because I wasn’t sure how to approach it. Do I focus on the first Amazing-Man? Do I give each one their own profile? Ultimately, because all three of them have  pretty short histories, it would be okay to do all three at once. The main thing about the first Amazing- Man though is his similarity to other modern characters, in that he, despite his bio, is NOT a creation of the Golden Age of Comics but a character created in the 80s, retroactively having been active during the 1940s. In this way he is extremely similar to Sentry, the Blue Marvel, and one of the Captains America. But Will predated all of them by several decades.

More on the amazing history of the Everett family after the jump.

Black Superheroes: Lightning

I don't know why she's naked in her powered form
Seems kind of weird for a teen hero

Name: Jennifer Pierce

First Appearance: Kingdom Come #1 (1996); Justice Society of America (vol. 3) #12 (2008)

History: Jennifer Piece is the youngest daughter of the legendary protector of the Suicide Slum, Black Lightning. As with her older sister Anissa, she was born with a dormant metagene that emerged in her adolescence. Despite this, Black Lightning made it clear that he would not allow either of his children to follow in his footsteps as a hero. Where Anissa gained to ability to control her density, Jennifer instead gained powers similar to their father; the ability to generate and control electricity. In addition she gained the power to fly and to generate an electric aura that came in the form of a golden and spiky appearance. The day she graduated college Anissa, defied their father and became the hero known as Thunder. Over the next few years Black Lightning watched his oldest daughter struggle to find her footing without his help and it made him second guess his decision. With Jennifer, who was having a hard time controlling her abilities, he decided to take the opposite route and make sure she was trained properly in the use of her powers and in fighting crime. To that end he had Jennifer join the Justice Society of America so that they they could give her the mentorship she needed. Soon after she became known as “Lightning.”

Beta Says: If she, along with her sister, hadn’t appeared in the CW Black Lightning show a few years back I’d be certain that Jennifer would be forgotten. In the comics it has been quite a long while since we’ve seen the second daughter of Jefferson Pierce. Hell, the last time we saw was I think at least two reboots ago, so I’m not even sure if she still exists in the current DC continuity. I would say that she is a whole category below Thunder in relevance in the DC Comics, which is a bit annoying considering she debuted with a bit of hype. It’s interesting that she fell in the background, as Jennifer is actually a much older character than you’d think, because the character actually debuted twelve years earlier in the fantastic and historically relevant miniseries Kingdom Come. Sort of.   I shall explain.

 More on the golden child of the Black Lightning clan after the jump.

Black Superheroes: Natasha Irons

John Henry took sick and went to his bed
Polly Ann drove steel like a man, Lord, Lord

Name: Natasha Irons

First Appearance: Steel #1 (1994)

History: Natasha Irons is the niece of superhero and scientist John Henry Irons, better known as Steel. From early on into his hero career Natasha had been his steadfast supporter and ally, to the point where she was the only member of the Irons family to accompany him when John relocated back to Metropolis. One day, John was trapped under the influence of the Entropy Aegis, a powerful armor created by Darkseid. Designing her own armor using Aegis tech, Natasha teamed up with Superman and others to rescue her uncle from the clutches of Apokolips. While they were successful, John was too injured to continue on as Steel. Therefore, he passed the mantle to Natasha, something he had always planned on doing, and with his blessing and support she began her own heroic career as the new Steel.

Sometime later Natasha ad John had a falling out and he stripped her of the armor. Unable to recreate her own, she signed up for the Everyman Project, a superhuman creation program sponsored by Lex Luthor. The program gave her superhuman strength, the ability to fly, and the power to emit light blasts from her hands and she soon took up the name Starlight. However, after realizing that Luthor had criminal ulterior motives with the project she betrayed him to her uncle but was stripped of the powers for her efforts. Later still it turned out that the experiments had lingering effects and she developed new powers, the ability to phase into a gaseous form, and she took up the name Vapor.

Beta Says: Natasha is a bit of a difficult character to write about as she is a spin-off character of a spin-off character; a derivative of a derivative, if you will. Steel has never been all that successful as a character beyond being loosely associated with Superman and a lot the time that Natasha ends up donning the power suit herself it usually feels like current DC Comics’ current writers aren’t interested in John Henry Irons at the moment for whatever reason, and tag her in instead like she’s a back-up character when they need to add a woman or a black person or both to story. Considering she spent so many years as a supporting character to John in his solo series, I to this day wonder why exactly DC felt the need to replace him with her, and then keep replacing her back with her uncle anytime someone decided they had a use for him again. It makes me tired.

More on Natasha Irons after the jump.

Review: Black Adam

My therapist has been telling me that I should go back to writing my blog. So, let’s talk about Black Adam.

Back Adam is a comic book supervillain and sometimes antihero created in 1945 by Otto Binder and C. C. Beck for Fawcett Comics as an antagonist for Captain Marvel. When DC Comics acquired Captain Marvel in 1972 Black Adam came along as well, but it wasn’t until the early 21^st Century that the character become a prominent player in the DC continuity, becoming both a reluctant hero associated with the Justice Society of America or a world spanning threat, depending on what the story needed. These days he is considered one of DC’s big villains on a similar level to the likes of Lex Luthor and the Joker.

Meanwhile in the real world, legend has it that Warner Bros. were able to get increasingly popular Dwayne Johnson to agree to star in a DC superhero movie. Apparently, they pitched Captain Marvel to him but Johnson instead requested Black Adam. It took many years before things came together for a movie to begin production properly and even then it ended up being heavily tied to the DC Expanded Universe line of movies, specifically to the 2019 film Shazam! Then it got delayed some more due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But finally, after years of it lingering in the depth of Warner Bros.’ backlots, Black Adam starring Dwayne Johnson has finally hit theaters. But after such a long gestation period, not to mention the enormous baggage from the so-called DC Expanded Universe, did this flick turn out to be any good?

Full review after the jump.

Captain Marvel Loses His Name

Same guy

I recently wrote up a big post about Carol Danvers in anticipation of her then-upcoming film. Now, in the interest of fairness, I want to do something similar for the other Captain Marvel; everyone’s favorite homeless orphan boy turned superhero, Billy Batson! Or, “Shazam”, if you’re nasty.

The original Captain Marvel predates both Carol Danvers and her predecessor Mar-Vell by about thirty years, debuting back in the Golden Age of Comics. Published by Fawcett Comics at the bottom of 1939, Captain Marvel’s title was considered to be the most popular of the era, outselling Superman. When taking that in mind it might seem a bit curious as to why Billy isn’t more of a widely known character in modern pop culture. Indeed, he can’t legally be called “Captain Marvel” and instead has taken the name “Shazam.” The sad fact is the Billy was the victim of circumstances, both legal and internal design, and where he was once the most popular superhero in America he has since fallen to the level of second-tier, maybe even third-tier, character who struggles to have new ongoing series greenlit. With his new movie about to hit theaters his fortunes are swinging back in his favor, but the fact is that Captain Marvel should be a face on the Mount Rushmore of superheroes alongside the likes of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Spider-Man. But he’s not even close.

Today we’re going to talk about the rise and fall of the Big Red Cheese!

More on the power of Shazam after the jump.

Black Superheroes: Icon & Rocket

Batman & Robin can go to hell: it's Icon & Rocket's time!

Names: Arnus/Augustus Freeman IV and Raquel Irvin

First Appearance: Icon #1 (1993)

History: Arnus was an alien adjunct who, while on vacation, was stranded on Earth after the ship he was on was attacked and destroyed. He survived in a malfunctioning life pod that landed in the American south, circa 1839. The pod reconstructed his body and DNA to match that of a nearby slave, a woman named Miriam; the process left him reborn as a human infant. Miriam adopted the boy, naming him Augustus, and he grew up as a slave. As he got older Augustus realized the process had mutated him, giving him superhuman abilities (including super strength and speed, flight, and a healing factor) and a greatly extended lifespan. He used these powers to covertly help others. Surviving throughout the decades, and periodically assuming the identity of his own son, Augustus became a successful and wealthy lawyer but became distant and reclusive following the death of his wife in 1977.

Enter Raquel Irvin. Growing up in Paris Island, the poorest ghetto of Dakota City, the teenage would-be writer ended up joining her friends in trying to rob Freeman’s mansion. Augustus stopped the teens and shooed them away, but a combination of his powers and his words deeply affected Raquel. She soon returned to the home to try to convince the long-lived alien to fight crime as a superhero with her as his partner. Initially hesitant, Augustus eventually relented, gifting Raquel the Inertia Winder, a belt that allowed the teen to manipulate kinetic energy. The two donned costumes and set out to become the protectors of Dakota City as the superpowered Icon and his teen sidekick Rocket.

Beta Says: I suppose one could argue that Icon might not count as a black character since he’s an alien, but I would say that considering he possesses the DNA of a black woman, was raised by said woman as her own child, and grew up as a slave I’m unsure if there are in fact any blacker comic book characters that exist. Anywho, Icon and Rocket were created by Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan and were among the original batch of characters featured in Milestone Comics, published by DC Comics. While it’s safe to say that neither of these guys are all that well known, they are in fact contemporaries of the hero Static, star of the animated series Static Shock. Static enjoys a tremendous amount of notoriety, especially among those who grew up in the 2000s, and is one of the most recognizable black superheroes in the world. Meanwhile Icon and Rocket have nowhere near as much fame, despite being created by the same group and published a full month earlier. Which is a shame because for all the trailblazing aspects the original Static comic had the Icon comic had just as many. So why is Virgil Hawkins famous enough to be a reoccurring figure in DC Comics and other media and meanwhile I, with all my useless comic trivia knowledge, had to double-check what Augustus and Raquel’s real names were?

More on this iconic duo after the jump.

Black Supervillains: Black Manta

Let this be a lesson to those who insult his helmet

Name: David Hyde

First Appearance: Aquaman #35 (1967)

History: David Hyde aka Black Manta was a treasure hunter who operated with his father on the high seas. At some point he was approached by a scientist named Stephen Shin, a man obsessed with proving the existence of Atlantis. Shin hires Black Manta to steal a blood sample of the half-Atlantean son of his acquaintance and lighthouse keeper Tom Curry. Taking the job, David and Tom had a struggle which resulted in the older man dying from a heart attack. Enraged, Tom’s son Arthur Curry, who would one day became the superhero known as Aquaman, swam out to Manta’s boat and murdered who he thought was David…except it turned out to be David’s own father. Swearing revenge, Black Manta gave up treasure hunting and instead dedicated his life to one singular purpose: kill Aquaman and destroy everything he holds dear.

Beta Says: Obvious we’re doing something a little different with Black Manta, as he is in no way a hero. He’s a card-carrying villain, one that wouldn’t be interested in redemption if it was on the table (unless it somehow included killing Aquaman, of course). Unlike Amanda Waller or Bronze Tigers, characters who either have altruistic motives or were forced to be villainous due to brainwashing, Manta is as evil as they get in DC Comics and would happily kill any number of innocent people in the world so long as his nemesis was one of them. The reason we’re looking at this guy is twofold: 1) he represents something far more rare than black superheroes in comics; black supervillains in comics. The number of villains who happen to black is very, very low and when they do show up they are almost always racially motivated and the whole thing ends up being incredibly awkward at best and racists stereotypes at worst. Black Manta does not do evil for the greater good, nor does he do it because of injustice faced by his people. He does evil because he is a psychopath who’s only thinks about his vendetta against Aquaman and his being black doesn’t figure into it at all. And that’s awesome.

2) He looks super cool. If you disagree feel free to jog on.

More on the scourge of the seas after the jump.

Review in Progress: Countdown #51 - #41

In 2007 DC Comics was bringing their critically acclaimed, yearlong limited series 52 to a conclusion. I hadn't read a single issue of that comic and it killed me. The reviews were great and what I had glimpsed of the story was epic. As luck would have it in those final weeks and months DC begun releasing teasers for a follow-up called "Countdown" which would also be a yearlong/weekly series. Knowing how well received 52 had been I promised myself that I would buy every issue of the comic without fail so I could capture what I had missed out on during the previous twelve months. And, sure enough, I kept my promise.

It was the single biggest blunder of my comic book fandom.

Countdown sucked, plain and simple. When it was over I had never felt so grateful to be done with a comic book in my life. Once it was complete I tossed the books un-bagged and un-boarded on a bookshelf in my rented house and never thought of them again. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Nearly ten years later, during a move, those same comics came back into my possession having been bounced around un-read through a few houses of friends of mine. They were mostly undamaged. Initially I thought that maybe I should just toss them out to make space but then I thought it might be more fun to revisit them. After all it had been a decade. I'm older, I'm wiser and perhaps I might be able to appreciate the comic more. Perhaps I was too hasty in my judgment back then. And what's the point of revisiting such an epic comic if you don't document your thoughts and stick them on the internet?

So here's what's going on: I will read every issue of Countdown and talk about it in a "Review in Progress". This will be several parts, with each post looking at a batch of issues (this first one looks at the first eleven issues). I probably won't be releasing them super regularly but the plan is to have the entire run reviewed by the summer at the latest. We'll see. If you would like more information regarding background story information feel free to check out my previous blogs "Countdown to Countdown Parts One & Two”.

Countdown #51 to #41 after the jump.

Countdown to Countdown, Part II

I feel like most of this stuff doesn't play out in Countdown
Better buy every DC Comic to make sure

We've reached the second and final part of the Countdown pre-blog. If you haven't yet be sure to check out Part I. I'll wait.

There are a lot of characters in Countdown and we follow a lot of plot lines, much like in 52. While looking at every single character that is important in this book would not only be hard to write and hard to read but it would also spoil important plots that I’m not willing to do. (“Yet”, I should say. Trust me; I’ll be spoiling the hell out of this series once we get to the reviews).

However there are certain key characters that I think would be helpful for someone reading my review to have passing knowledge of and know what they were up too leading up to the series. For example, the average person reading this may not know who Kyle Rayner is, that Donna Troy is one of DC’s most complicated characters or that Superman was once Jimmy Olsen’s abusive father.

Superman: "Your love and admiration disgusts me, Jimmy."

Okay, that last one isn’t really all that important, but still…never forget.
Important character notes after the jump.

Countdown to Countdown, Part I

Don't worry; most of this foreshadowing leads nowhere

Today Beta is Dead turns seven years old! Just typing that out made me feel depressed suddenly…

Anyway, I recently moved to a new place and during the process a certain stack of comics came back into my possession, despite me having lost access to them nearly six years earlier; I found every single issue of DC Comic’s Countdown to Final Crisis. This is my least favorite goddamn comic of all time and I’m going to review the hell out of it! Yes, I dislike it more than Spider-Man: One More Day, not because OMD is better (it sure as shit isn’t) but that story only spat in the face of one character’s mythos whereas Countdown took a dump on a huge chunk of the DC Universe. Plus, even though I hate it, OMD did result in many long lasting and (eventual) positive changes to the Spider-Man comics whereas every change and storyline point in Countdown was either retconned (retcon, short for "retroactive continuity"), forgotten or straight up ignored within a MONTH of the series’ end despite months of hype.

 So what is Countdown to Final Crisis? Well, it was a comic book limited series that ran weekly for an entire year beginning in 2007. It was the spiritual successor to the extremely well received 52, another year long comic that took place directly after the events of the big DC crossover Infinite Crisis and ran in real time, instead of the rolling time line most superhero comics adhere to (52 was also the first appearance of the new Batwoman, who I believe was the best new comic creation of the 2000s). The great success of 52 led Dan DiDio, then head honcho of DC Comics, to commission another such series. However, despite the critical success of 52 DiDio supposedly wasn’t a fan of it and opted for the new series to be a “superior” version of the comic. For context, this is the same guy who opted to wipe Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown out of existence and then get upset at fans at conventions who questioned the decision at Q&A sessions at comic conventions. Anyway, though it’s not immediately clear in the beginning it would turn out that Countdown was the lead-up to DC’s next big crossover event, Final Crisis.

 I think I’ll save my exact issues with the comic itself for the review, which will be split into several parts. For today I want to look at the lead-in to Countdown, as this book has a lot of baggage that the Average Joe would need to know before they could possibly understand it (but don’t get it twisted; this comic won’t make any sense no matter what). So this is sort of a “Countdown to Countdown to Final Crisis.”

The Countdown begins after the jump.

Beta vs. The Ages of Comics

"F**k you, car; I'm Superman!"

As I mentioned in previous posts I’m approaching blog #250 (this is #249, not counting the April Fool’s Day post that has since been taken down). I don’t want to make a huge deal about it, since it’s not the huge milestone #200 was or #300 probably will be, but I still wanted to do something special. To that end I decided to do a Nerd Rage post regarding my least favorite era of comic books: The Dark Age of Comic Books, or more specifically the 1990s. You may recall me bitching about how annoying I found 90s comics in the past. However it has occurred to me that it’s difficult to talk about any age of comic books out of context. I know many of you are not comic book fans and may be a little lost. So for this post I’m going to, very briefly, look at all of the ages of comics form 1938 to present day.

A few things to keep in mind: 1) There is a lot of debate over when which era begins and which era ends and in some cases whether or not certain eras ever ended (such as the Bronze Age). So when reading this blog take in mind that this is how I view the divide and that other people may have it different. There’s no exact answer here. 2) I will likely not go into much of any of the detail for the Dark Age of Comics here, since I’m saving that for next time, so save any comments you may have about that for later. 3) I’m only going to sum up the Ages, not go into specifics. As such I’ll be doing A LOT of summarizing and leaving A LOT of information out. I’m not a comic book historian and there are a lot of resources out there that go into far greater detail than I ever could. So If I leave something out take that in mind before you start criticizing me in the comment section. 4) I'm mostly talking about superhero comics today, mainly because I'm significantly more knowledgeable about them than other genres from back in the day.

More after the jump.

Nerd Rage #8: Final Thoughts On the Intitial DCnU

The DCnU does its best to remind you that Aquaman is awesome

We were solidly in Month Two of the Great DC Reboot of 2011.  When I first herd about this big company spanning relaunch I was upset and extremely skeptical, but now after having read a number of the new titles…well, I’m still upset.  Yes I admit that I have read some good comics and I know that there are several comics I didn’t read that have been critical successes as well.   However I still feel like there are a lot of problems with this whole stunt, and it is a stunt.   As of right now I’m sure DC Comics doesn’t care too much about whatever is being said in general (Like, if DC were to read this bog they probably wouldn’t take it any mind) because the bottom line is they killed in sales in the month of September.  Of the top twenty spots seventeen were DCnU books, including all of the top five.  Compare this to Augusts’ sales where things were much more evenly distributed (But Justice League #1 was still the top seller).  Even if a million people went on the internet to declare their hatred of the comics good sales would keep DC motivated to make more of the same.  They’re a business and that’s what businesses do.  Even so these numbers are still in the short term.   Before the new comics came out none of us really knew which ones would be good and which ones would be crap so I imagine most of us just bought what looked good and seemed to gel with our sensibilities.  Not every comic in the top twenty was really all that great after all.  It will be interesting to see what the coming months will tell for DC and whether they can keep this momentum up now that fans have a better idea where to put their money.

Also I’d like to point out that Batgirl #1, Batwoman #1 and Wonder Woman #1, three books I gave positive reviews of, all made it to the Top 20 while Red Hood and the Outlaws #1, which I hated, did not.  I feel somewhat vindicated.

In any event today I want look at the new DCU and discus a bit more on what changed and speculate if it’s good or bad.

More rants after the jump.

Beta Vs. DC Reboot: Part Two

Batman: Back to the Well #1

The New DC Universe starts today.  Regardless of mine or anyone’s feelings this is happening and it will affect the state of DC Comics for the foreseeable future possibly for the better, possibly for the worse.   I’m sure by the end of the year we’ll know have a better idea which way things are leaning.  Yesterday I ran through about half of the upcoming DC titles.  Today we’ll look at the other half.

I will mention one thing before I get into it.  It has been announced (Via Twitter? Groan) that Stephanie Brown will be appearing in the New DCU as The Spoiler.  We already knew her tenure of Batgirl is over but I assumed she was going on the shelf along several other characters DC can’t seem to decide where they fit into all of this.  I’m torn on this. As you may recall I love The Spoiler but I was warming up to Steph as Batgirl. I think I’ll be happy that she’ll be around but I’d be lot happier if she was starring in an ongoing feature.  How about a Black Bat/Spoiler team up book?  I’d buy the hell out of that.

Still no answers about whether she was ever Robin or even Batgirl in this new universe.  Oh well, we’ll see soon enough.

More Reboot Titles after the jump.

Beta Vs. DC Reboot: Part One

Because fans have been demanding a low-powered, t-shirt wearing Supeman for years

So back in June I first brought up the 2011 DC Reboot.  It had only recently been announced, there were a lot of questions and a lot of hot emotions flying around that had to be reined in due to the risk of making knee jerk reactions.   But it’s been a few months now and I know a lot more about what DC has in store for us and a lot of questions have been answered.  Right now I feel I have a much better grasp of everything and that I can give a more thought out opinion on the matter. *Ahem*

Goddamn it all to hell!

Look, there are a lot of positives about the reboot.  And it is indeed a reboot.  We now know that this is a new universe with a new continuity where superheroes have only existed five years at most (That’s not one of the good things).  Titles in general will indeed be more accessible for “new readers”; this being a new universe, albeit one that shares similarities to the one that it’s replacement, that is basically starting from scratch could in theory bring in a whole new generation of readers.   Characters that didn’t have ongoing titles will be receiving them shortly and several of them are black which is damn cool.  I’ve also changed my tune about WildStorm being incorporated into the universe.  The way I see it (Now) a lot of story possibilities are opened up if these characters are part of this new universe, and there’s something kind of neat about books like WildC.A.T.s or Gen¹³ being a part of the DCU proper.  Plus if comic book characters like Captain Atom, Plastic Man, The Question, Static and, of course, Captain Marvel can be incorporated into DC’s main continuity then why not Jenny Quantum?

Despite all this I still feel like the cons outweigh the pros.  With this change I still feel like DC is telling me “We don’t really care about your business, so stay if you like but we won’t miss you if you leave.”  Still it’s impossible to really say too much about all this because even if a lot of the ideas on paper look incredibly stupid and insulting in practice DC may come out with a lot of winners writing wise.  After all they do have a lot of talented guys (And mostly guys, sadly) working on these books so there could be great stories being written and technically that’s the most important thing.

In a possible futile gesture to give DC a chance to keep me from turning my back on them and becoming Marvel exclusive I’ve decided to check out a number of these books.  And since I have a blog where I review stuff I figure I might as well write up what I thought about them.  Starting this week DC will release Justice League #1 and as I understand it will take place in the past, unlike most of the other comics coming out.  As I look at the list of comics I know for sure I’m not going to buy them all as most of them I’m not all that interested in.  Some of those I won’t be reading for political reasons.  But there are a few that I am super interested in buying, possibly thousands of times over.  So let’s take look at where I stand with these individual books.

More after the jump.

Batgirl VS. San Diego (Comic-Con)

Sorry abut the lack of updates.  I'm currently working on reviews for Captain America: The First Avenger and a new anime series.  I'm hoping that they'll be done by this weekend (Maybe).

REBOOT, DAMN IT!

 Today I wanted to just share a link to DC Women Kicking Ass (Which you should be reading anyway because it's pretty darn cool) as there is a really intriguing interview up today.  One of the more interesting stories from the San Diego Comic Con this past weekend was about a woman, dressed as Batgirl/Stephanie Brown, attending several DC Reboot panels and flat out asking questions, and thus voicing concern, about the lack of focus on female characters and a lack of female creators and was met with both praise and shocking jeers from other fans and panelist.  This is an interview with her where she tells her adventure from her point of view.  It's a very interesting and thought provoking , and somewhat disturbing, read.

Click here for the interview.

Nerd Rage #7: The Great DC Comics Reboot of 2011

DC rebuilds the JLA with their most iconic characters
...And also Cyborg

I was debating whether or not I should write about this subject but ultimately I figured I might as well as it deals with several lingering issues that I was planning to address anyway and is really the biggest news story in comics right now.  It’s going to be a pretty stone cold nerdy blog though, I’m afraid.

So for those of you who haven’t heard (And if you indeed haven’t heard than you must not read comic books regularly) but DC Comics is rebooting the DC Universe following the current crossover “Flashpoint”.  Well “reboot” may be the wrong word as DC has been claiming it’s not a proper reboot. Plus all of the details have yet to be made clear.  As I understand what’s happening is that DC will be canceling all their titles and starting in September start releasing 52 new titles, most of which will simply be re-numbered issues of their catalogs (Superman #1, Batman #1, etc.).  At the same time, apparently due time travel madness as seen in Flashpoint (Though honestly I’m not 100% sure about that), the DC Universe continuity will be noticeably altered although to what degree I don’t know.  I’ve heard people say that it’s a full on new continuity and other people say that Batman and Superman are being made drastically younger ala Spider-Man: One More Day and there’s a lot of rumors spinning around the internet.  What we do know for sure is that it seems the vast majority of heroes are getting “updated” costume changes.  Seeing as I’m of the opinion that massive retcons in general are normally just an excuse to re-use old plots I’m not super into this news.

The reason for this change is apparently to give new readers a jumping on point.  New readers, huh?  It seems like DC and Marvel Comics are always trying to gain these “new readers” and it always seems to involve revised origins, massive retcons and new #1 issues.  I’m not sure either company have ever been really successful in the long term using this strategy but, hey, just because it didn’t work the last few times doesn’t mean it won’t work this time.  Or the next time.  Or the next time after that.

Pictured: DC's 2009 "Bold New Change" for Batman
New Readers Gained: Apparently Not Enough

I’m trying not to be too put off by all of this since as of this writing I do not know all the details of this new direction and am still months away from being able to read anything (Though I suspect a lot of things will be revealed during the San Diego Comic-Con).  Still what little I do know makes me feel like DC is about to make a huge blunder and isolate a lot of long time readers.  Plus I feel what I have heard form DC is the same B.S. I’ve hard for years about “Bold New Directions” and “Never Be the Same” and all that noise.   For now I’m cautiously pessimistic: I’m concerned but I’ll keep an open mind.

DC also announced that they’d be releasing digital version of the titles the same day the print versions come out.  A lot of people are excited about this but I HATE digital comics with a fiery passion so all this says to me is “Yet another step until comic book shops go the way of arcades.”

More about the Reboot after the jump.