Graphic Novel Reviews: "New 52" Volume 1s - "Batman", "Aquaman", "Swamp Thing

New 52 Batman Volume 1: The Court of Owls
W: Scott Snyder, A: Greg Capullo

 
Snyder and Capullo start a justly famous run here, and pull off something quite special: “reboot” Batman without actually discarding continuity. (You’ll see the timeline problems pointed out by those invested in that pre-New 52 continuity, but in the self-contained world of the book, they don’t come across.)
 
An example: this is positioned as a starter issue, as somewhere where we see Batman’s identity discussed, where his (largely) adoptive family is introduced, where he hits all his high notes – detective work, tech use, fighting. But the family includes three Robins (Nightwing, Red Robin, and Damian Wayne as “Robin Proper”), and the mystery is one grounded on the longevity of Batman’s character – a nasty surprise lurks within Gotham. This would be too much for an *actual* origin issue, and it could easily go wrong as a soft reboot – but Snyder’s plotting and Capullo’s clean art land the plane.
 
The book starts with Batman in Arkham beating up his Rogues Gallery – this trades on familiarity to a degree, but also uses those villains to sum up negative conceptions of Gotham. Gordon is introduced next to the Batsignal. We see the classic Batcave with a giant penny and an animatronic dinosaur, as well as far too many Batmobiles. The Robins are all introduced in the same panel, as Bruce’s new retinal computer identifies them and their security clearance (High). We are given glimpses of “minor cast”, really there for the longtimers – Vicki Vale, Leslie Tompkins. Finally, a retinal ID on Alfred (security clearance: Highest – this is very efficient communication from Snyder).
 
Snyder trades on a little background familiarity, though efficiently communicates concepts to the theoretical alien from outer space. He doesn’t rely on any detailed plot knowledge, as long as you’re willing to accept the shorthand. You may think Dick Grayson is the only Robin, but there’s two more, and one of Bruce’s son. Okay? Okay.
 
The actual story is justly famous, too, as Bruce’s conception of Gotham as defined by Batman is wrecked by the emergence of an urban legend into the light – the Court of Owls, with safehouses across the city in hidden spaces in famous buildings. The Court send one of their necromantically-empowered assassins, the Talon, to kill Bruce, to stop his plans to improve Gotham, and Bruce’s first real issue is that he doesn’t believe in the Court of Owls. They threaten his self-conception.
 
This is very effective, and Snyder and Capullo both do their work very well. Snyder is economic, despite being famously “talky” – his many boxes and bubbles do not waste space or time. That does make this sometimes more cerebral than a given other book, but that’s no bad thing, and this still isn’t Morrison or Moore. Capullo has a muscular and clean style, though always shaded well. He manages to simultaneously “originate” the new characters well, present the sunny side of Gotham (there are a few daytime scenes here!), and get some good horror and action-in-the-dark scenes in, too. There is the occasional awkward angle or pose, but nothing terribly noticeable.
 
The chief Bat Family members to get a runout here are Nightwing (who turns out to have been an intended recruit for the Talons, but foiled long ago by Bruce; this is picked up in Nightwing Volume 1, which even has a parallel scene but from Dick’s perspective) and Alfred. Lincoln March, new mayoral candidate and seemingly a fellow believer in Bruce’s vision for urban regeneration, also debuts here, and is an effective babyface.
 
The New 52 was good (and fun) for trying out fringe concepts, and was actually more liable to struggle with re-establishing main characters and long-running continuities – but Batman is a triumph.
 
Collects Batman #1-7.
 
8.5/10

New 52 Swamp Thing Volume 1: Raise Them Bones
W: Scott Snyder, A: Yannick Paquette/Marco Rudy

Scott Snyder’s other big New 52 book was Swamp Thing, which gave a soft reboot to Alan Moore’s continuity and linked Swamp Thing into a wider mythos, crossing over particularly with Jeff Lemire’s Animal Man and Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. in the “Dark” range of New 52 books. Moore’s Swamp Thing turns out to have been a stopgap avatar of the Green, the life-locus of vegetative life (as the Red is for animal life); Alec Holland was meant to be the avatar, the warrior-king, in an upcoming apocalyptic battle, but his accidental death led to the creation of the bestial Moore Swamp Thing. Now, via Flashpoint, Holland is back, and the Green want him to take on the mantle, and go fight the Rot.
 
This volume largely features Holland as Holland, not Swamp Thing. He doesn’t want to be a monster-avatar-king for a force of nature, but the Rot won’t leave him be, and of course he is eventually convinced to take up the cause. As in Batman, Snyder expertly restarts continuity whilst retaining it: we are told everything we need to know about the past whilst still being clear this is a fresh start, no past reading required. Via Alec having confused memories of key supporting cast and storylines – particularly around Abigail Arcane – we, the audience, are introduced to facts with Alec. The mythology rewrite, as with Animal Man, brings everyone in on the ground floor together. This is all technically very successful.
 
Paquette’s art is vibrant and superbly detailed in a modern style. Rudy does a very fine Paquette imitation – there is much less noticeable difference than between Foreman and Pugh in the equivalent Animal Man volume, though Pugh is a very good artist in his own right – but I am glad Paquette managed to stay on for a fairly long run, where Travel Foreman dropped from sight. If it’s possible, Paquette is more visceral and horrid than Foreman (and Pugh) – perhaps Snyder is to “blame” for this, but nonetheless it is Paquette drawing dead children. This certainly hints that the age rating is, if anything, higher than Animal Man. Nonetheless, none of this feels gratuitous.
 
This falls short, though, of being quite as brilliant as the first volumes of Batman or Animal Man¸ for different reasons the obvious comparisons. Holland is a much flatter character than Buddy, whose reality and depth Lemire immediately asserts. The environments are certainly less compelling than Snyder’s Gotham. The stakes here are perhaps muddier than in either “Court of Owls” or “The Hunt”. But it is still very fine.
 
Collects Swamp Thing #1-7.
 
7.5/10

New 52 Aquaman Volume 1: The Trench
W: Geoff Johns, P: Ivan Reis, I: Joe Prado

 
Aquaman’s first volume is comfortably better than Justice League’s equivalent. Popular wisdom on JL is wrong – it’s perfectly good at introducing the characters, with its real struggle lying in the actual plot of the book, the botched use of Darkseid and the rest of it. Aquaman both introduces the key characters – Arthur, Mera, and to a lesser degree Dr Shin, this one doggo, and maybe a lady called Jennifer – and offers a fairly enjoyable antagonist/plot for the first half of the book (it arguably falls apart a little in the back half).
 
Johns presents Aquaman as a reluctant Atlantean Prince and a misunderstood superhero – plenty of jokes are made by landlubbers about Aquaman and his ability to speak to fish and the like. It’s easy to look back, after Jason Momoa’s success, and think: was it necessary to construct an apologetic for Aquaman, when he could just be, you know, cool? That is to miss both the difference in media and the difference in audience involved. Aquaman is here earning his place to a solo book amongst an ambivalent fandom.
 
Mera – trained to kill Arthur, now his lover – is an able enough secondary character, though her solo issue at the end of the collection suffers from a comically poor “bad guy” (a creepy supermarket manager whose arm she breaks). The moment at the end between shopgirl Jennifer, Mera, and the dog who Arthur has adopted works well, though – Johns is good at intimate moments, at grounding superheroes in “the real”.
 
The main plot running through the first four issues revolves around coelacanth-humanoids who swim up from the Atlantic Trench in search of food – which has become very scarce near their home. Of course, their preferred food is red meat! There are some solid horror and action scenes around this, and the actual revelation of their “society” is good, as is the follow-up investigation of what they were or what went wrong to drive them to the surface. Some moments stretch credulity – Arthur and Mera go down alone, not just to investigate, but eventually to storm the actual home of these beings – and the philosophical consideration of, uh, whether or not to commit genocide is a little stunted (though not without any value). However, it still works well, and places Arthur in both his worlds, wet and dry.
 
Ivan Reis and Joe Prado offer a heavily textured and fairly dark art style (coloured by Rod Reis). It’s as competent and flashy as the names involved would have you expect, if (forgive me) a little “cartoony” at points – but then, Jim Lee, co-publisher at DC at the time, industry legend, and artist for Johns’ JL, is exactly the same. It was a style very popular for a period either side of the New 52, and can be enjoyed more in that light.
 
Collects Aquaman #1-6.

7/10

Graphic Novel Reviews: "New 52" Volume 1s - Justice League, All-Star Western, & Animal Man

The antipathy for the New 52 relaunch by DC was unsurprising but not always earned - there were many problems, of course, but it wasn't as if there were no problems in the line pre-Flashpoint. In this passing world below, perfection is not to be expected. However, I've found the Trade Praperback line a really enjoyable way into various DC heroes - though there are some clunkers! - and have a good collection of them. I thought I'd write some short reviews to discuss them. I'll also review other books in future, not just New 52. Tell me what you think.

New 52 Justice League Volume 1: Origin

W: Geoff Johns, P: Jim Lee, I: Scott Williams
 
The inauguration of the New 52 – though Flashpoint is the first story in the continuity – and a solid enough entry. This isn’t terribly well-reviewed as a collection, though not quite panned, but I think the critiques I see miss the mark.
 
The problem here isn’t the “repetition”, the titular origin of the Justice League (set five years before the “present day”) – the individual characters are introduced nicely, and I actually enjoyed the slightly bombastic early rivalries between Batman, Lantern, and Superman (with Lantern helped by Flash, who then mediates along with Batman). Nor is there a disjuncture, for me, between the relative interiority of Johns’ writing, compared to the blockbuster stylings of Lee – it’s not quite a perfect match, but both elements are good on the whole. (And the collection cover, from issue #1, is fantastic.)
 
The real issue, and the blame lays with both headliners, is that the actual story here is bad and badly presented. There are nice elements – Batman coaxing Hal Jordan into a leadership role, a brash young Superman, as well as silly elements – the sheer rapidity of Cyborg’s elevation – but the villain and his “arc” are just naff. Darkseid was the real Big Bad of the DCAU – he was built quite carefully from rather chilling subsidiary appearances in two minor episodes before appearing as an invader in the famous Apokolips...Now!, and his role in the universe went all the way through to the end of JLU. Here, the paradaemons pop up and invade due to exploding Boomtubey boxes, they kidnap people, and Darkseid turns up to fight the Justice League. He is hamfistedly introduced, his role is purely instrumental, and he comes off as lame. He is an “Avengers-level threat”, yes, but only by dint of us being hammered over the head with how bad this situation is. There’s no inner life to this story.
 
There is an epilogue here bringing in Pandora and the Gray Phantom, and some “background” prose pieces on the heroes, as well as sketches and covers. The main backup, Shazam!, is collected separately.
 
Collects Justice League #1-6.
 
6/10

New 52 All-Star Western Volume 1: Guns and Gotham

W: Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, A: Moritat
 
Jonah Hex teams with up with Amadeus Arkham and takes on the “Cult of Crime” in Gotham in the 1880s. This is, on the whole, really quite good, if limited by a reliance on easter eggs and perhaps not quite exploiting Hex’s Western genre roots.
 
I’ll address the final point first: aside from a couple pages at the end, and the included backups (Barbary Ghost and El Diablo), this is set entirely in Gotham, or underneath it. Both the volume’s title and Hex’s presence indicate a Weird Western – whereas this is “culture clash” Western at best, with the outlander coming to civilisation and struggling. Hex’s voice is sometimes overblown in its Cowboyness, precisely to contrast him with Gotham – but that simply adds a further jarring note.
 
On the other hand, the plot and setting are often good on their own terms. Moritat is uniformly good at drawing Gotham (more variable at drawing characters; an excellent Hex cover on issue #1 is not matched consistently in the pages themselves), and the Cult of Crime is an interesting and disturbing subtext to the plot of child-snatching. This, perhaps unfortunately, reminds me of BTAS’ “The Underdwellers” – but the real Sewer Kings here are the cabal of rich and powerful, who kidnap the Police Chief after he refuses to join. Another non-joiner is Alan Wayne, of course. This – and its sequel volume – ties in at various points to Scott Snyder’s concurrent exploration of Gotham’s secret history (including Alan Wayne’s role in it!) in Batman.
 
We do get a lot of “this is Gotham before Batman” stuff – Alan Wayne, Amadeus Arkham, Mayor Cobbleplot, giant bat in an enormous cave network beneath Wayne Manor, and the rest. This is usually okay but at points a little much. Using a Hex story to set up Batman material doesn’t feel fair on Hex.
 
Hex is captured quite well, though, as a man caught between light and dark, a Han Solo claiming to be a rogue, but motivated at points by higher duties. Arkham, too, is neurotic, nerdy, but willing to try to keep up with Hex.
 
The backups are both good fun – Barbary Ghost is original to Gray and Palmiotti, and is a nice addition. The art in both (not by Moritat) is very respectable. Barbary Ghost is not actually a Weird Western, but a tale of a San Francisco Chinese woman avenging her family upon the Triads in the late 19^th century, using smoke and mirrors to project a ghost-like persona; El Diablo is a Weird Western, and a satisfying one about a Ghost Rider/Hulk-type who can give over control to a demonic rider, to exact justice against the wicked. This has zombies in it, too. It’s good!
 
Collects All-Star Western #1-6.
 
7.5/10

New 52 Animal Man Volume 1: The Hunt

W: Jeff Lemire, A: Travel Foreman (John Paul Leon on one segment)
 
A great glory of the early New 52 – alongside Batman, Action Comics, Shazam!, and All-Star Western, amongst others – is the interlinking “Dark” stories of Animal Man, Swamp Thing, and Frankenstein & The Agents of S.H.A.D.E. The latter two were by Scott Snyder of Batman, who was on a hot streak for the ages; Buddy Baker the “Animal Man”, able to take on the powers of any animal, is taken by Jeff Lemire, who may end up as one of the real top tier of the writing canon. Turns out when you hire good writers (and give them good artists), special things happen.
 
Buddy is a washed-up superhero here, having just done a Mickey Rourke and starred in a film about being a washed up superhero (directed by “Ryan Daranofsky”, in fact!). His conflicted identity – his uncertainty about whether he wants the suit or not – clashes with his family life, where there are definitely tensions. This, naturally, is quickly exacerbated by his daughter turning out to be the Avatar of the “Red”, the true granter of Buddy’s powers, and one of the primal forces of nature (here, animal life; the “Green” of Swamp Thing represents plant life).
 
Hunting him are the Hunters Three, horrifying villains who serve the “Rot”, the anti-life equation of this particular story. They come after Buddy’s family, whilst Buddy and his daughter are drawn away to visit the Red and discover their destiny.
 
Lemire’s introduction of the characters and stakes, though at times brief, is much more artful than Johns in Justice League, and much more integrated with the wider story than in All-Star Western. Buddy – the harassed family man, the nascent mid-life crisis, the natural hero – is perfectly captured here, and Lemire’s new mythology and monsters work perfectly.There is scarcely a wasted word, let alone panel – this is surely one of the best New 52 books from a writing perspective.
 
It is matched here by Travel Foreman’s atmospheric and disturbing art – normality is flat-planed, suburban, but collapses into intricate horror, especially with the Hunters Three. The colorist, Lovern Kindzierski, must be given especially credit here too – the washed-out pastels match the tone of disturbed domesticity perfectly. It’s a shame Foreman didn’t draw many issues beyond this one, but it is an excellent start.
 
Collects Animal Man #1-6.
 
8.5/10