So DC Comics is now a couple of weeks into their huge new deal, the DC New 52. Fifty two new first issues essentially relaunching the DC Universe proper and releasing them simultaneously in comic stores and digitally. It’s a huge move, one that feels just a little bit desperate, but it’s nevertheless a bold and interesting thing to do. However, my knowledge of and interest in the DCU has always been extremely limited largely to just following specific creators. Still though, their overall excitement and the heaps of exposure they've been getting still got me interested in a few of their titles…
…Only the fringe stuff, of course. DC’s pantheon of superheroes never really appealed to me as much as Marvel, and I’ve never tried to puzzle out why, nor will I.
It all started, for me, with OMAC. Everyone involved are clearly trying their hardest to be like Jack Kirby was when he created the character. Keith Giffen is doing his best to draw like Kirby, and while the colorist is also trying their best to make everything into a shiny plastic mess, it still works. The writing is juvenile. The first issue is 20 pages of OMAC busting things up and smacking strange villains around. Like the Build-A-Friend chick! Her face PEELS BACK to reveal twin laser cannons, where a skull (mechanical or not) should be! And those crazy Gobbler things. They just line up to get smacked down by OMAC in these horribly bright colors, spouting off silly dialogue, AND I LOVE IT. There’s a genuine sense of child-like glee in the book that’s infectious. It’s crazy, not in a Grant Morrison talking about time centipedes way, but in an odd, sincere, childish way, like some of the superhero stuff I would make up when I was in elementary school. And I mean that as a compliment. I hope it stays weird, and I hope it stays silly. It’s nothing groundbreaking, and admittedly I’d rather have actual Kirby art than someone aping Kirby, but still, it’s a lot of fun.
I wanted to buy Animal Man, but it sold out and I can’t find a copy. Arg. Well, I guess I could get it on ComiXology, but I don’t want to read it one panel at a time.
Which leaves me with the only other comic I bought, Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE. The title alone hooked me. I had to know if DC were really trying to reference Marvel’s Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD stuff and, well, the truth is that no, they’re actually trying to be more like the DCU equivalent of Hellboy and the BPRD. I’m not complaining. Frankenstein and his Creature Commandos (get it? GET IT?!) are like if the Universal movie monsters got together as a special ops team. There’s a winged vampire dude, an amphibious scientist chick, a mummy whose identity is unknown, and a werewolf. In the first issue, they’re dropped into a town that’s been taken over by monsters that have mysteriously appeared. Their commander is Frankenstein’s father, Father Time, who for some reason is a little asian girl with a domino mask. Their base of operations is a tiny sphere that they have to be shrunk down and teleported into, created by Ray Palmer, the Atom. And here I was thinking OMAC was nutty. Read this paragraph again. If a team of horror movie icons fighting monsters doesn’t appeal to you in any way, I don’t want to know you.
Apparently further down the line, OMAC and Frankenstein are going to cross over. It’s meant to be.
Looking at the checklist of all of the other titles, there’s nothing else that grabs me in the same way these do. I don’t know how the merging of the Wildstorm universe with DC is going to play out (awkwardly?), but I don’t think there’s much reinventing the wheel going on. Yes, they’re starting from scratch (for the most part, there may be some continuity snags here and there I’m sure, but I am indifferent), but it’s not like they’re radically re-envisioning these characters and stories, which is kind of a shame. I keep wondering if we’ll ever see something new and monumental out of the superhero genre like the Dark Knight Returns, Elektra: Assassin, or Watchmen, something that breaks the rules and changes the way the game is played. Chances are? Not very likely.
Ah well. At least there’s a comic about a bulky blue guy with a shimmering mohawk beating people up, I really think the world needs more of that.
[Brett]