DC Rebirth review - Action Comics/Detective Comics/Batman/Superman/The Flash/Wonder Woman

So DC has decided to relaunch all their titles with new creative teams and is attempting to bring legacy back into the DCU. This is a very good idea, legacy is one of the greatest assets DC has over Marvel, which has almost all of its heroes operating in the current day. Another interesting part a number of series are now biweekly, and since the Hiatus combined with how many titles I’m covering make it impossible to do 4 issue tests on all of them I’m going to review the bi-weekly titles in 2 reviews. The first will cover the titles that first came out in June, and the second will cover those that came out in July.

As usual, I’ll cover the first 4 issues of the relaunch, plus the rebirth issue if there is one. But bear in mind that I won’t be covering them in as much detail as I would a regular 4 issue test because I’m covering several comics at once.

4 issue Test #13 - Batman and Robin Eternal

The weekly miniseries is something DC brought back in 52, an excellent title written by 4 renowned writers focusing on the minor heroes in the DC Universe after the big 3 were taken off the table thanks to infinite crisis

Then came Countdown, an awful work head-written by great writer Paul Dini and a load of crappy writers intended to set up an event it didn’t set up, kill things without mercy and push tie-ins wherever it could. It was awful and killed the miniseries off for a while. With the New52 came 3 new mini-series. Future’s end, Earth 2: World’s end, neither of which I’ve read but I can’t say I’ve heard great things about, and Batman: Eternal, intended to celebrate the 75^th anniversary of Batman, which I did a 4 issue test of in January despite the fact issue 4 came out in April of the previous year.

Batman: Eternal was reasonably well written and successful enough that a 26-issue second mini-series Batman and Robin Eternal, this time celebrating the 75^th anniversary of Robin. I don’t like to give too much background as I feel a new title should provide that anyway. But it’s best to know that during the Batman story endgame. Batman and his long-time nemesis the Joker ‘died.’ James Gordon became a fully police sanctioned Batman with a robotic suit as he lacks the skills Batman had. Bruce has since returned, but with no memories of his time as Batman and lacking the skills.

I hate the idea of Jim Gordon as Batman, I’ll just go out and say it. I haven’t been picking up titles with him as the focus because Jim Gordon to me is the legal centre of Batman. He’s Batman’s ally in the police and the main difference between him and Batman is that he is a firm believer in the law. Becoming a vigilante is backwards for his character, and I hate the ro-bat suit. One other thing. Dick Grayson revealed himself to Robin, Red Robin, Batgirl and the Red Hood to be alive after his ‘death’ in Forever evil and becoming a super-spy (see my 4 issue Test of Grayson for more info)

OK, let’s take a look.

Editorial: 5 things I want to see in Batman and Robin Eternal

Batman Eternal; I did a 4 issue test on the series in January (despite the fact the 4th issue came out in April the year before, before I even started this blog) it was a good story but it's focus on the plot and big reveals whilst character work was limited to only Batman, Julia Pennyworth, Spoiler and Jim Gordon (with a few sprinkles for Batgirl and the Red Hood) preventing me from calling it a great story. Next month, a new series of Batman Eternal is coming out, titled Batman and Robin: Eternal focusing more on the family of Batman than Batman (who is now Jim Gordon in a stupid robot bat-suit)

So, what needs to happen in this 6-month weekly series to improve upon it's predecessor, here are my 5 suggestions

4 issue Test #3 - Batman Eternal

Sorry this one doesn't look too good, pity they write in white in this one

What was originally going to be a Gotham Academy review had to be delayed owing to the release date being too close to the review date, so let’s dig into the first 4 issues of the series: Batman Eternal, the mini-series to celebrate Batman’s 75^th Anniversary and see how good or otherwise it is.

4 issue test #2 - Teen Titans (DCYou)

I love the Teen Titans, before the New 52, before Felecia D Henderson ruined just about everything just for JT Krul to a decent job at reviving it from the brink but then came the New 52. I read the first few issues of the new 52 Teen Titans, I currently own the first vol trade, which is OK and the culling, which is a confusing messy piece of sh*t (maybe another time but Linkara covered it fairly well) and of course of the worst thing ever to happen to Tim Drake, issue 0. At this point, I gave up on Lobdell’s area of comics (Titans and Superboy and there was no way in hell I was picking up his Superman book) but the book was cancelled and then rebooted with a new team on board. So, I figured I’d take a look.

Taking the helm of Teen Titans is Will Pfeifer. His works include Amazons Attack, a story that despite the Amazonian nature, barely features Wonder Woman (and go ahead and watch Linkara’s video on that too) and has barely written anything at all since 2008. OK… those are not good signs, let’s dig into the first 4 issues of Teen Titans and see if it’s any good.