DCnU First Issue Fan-Comic *spoilers*

[auggie18]

A little comic I did summarizing the first issue of Justice League. Warning, spoilers and stuff. Sorta. Not that a lot happened.



Even though it goes over really well-troden territory, I really liked the first issue from the new DC universe. Nice art, good, if somewhat bland, story. Really pretty Superman.

The main thing that bothered me with the issue is how much better all of the concept stuff looked. And also the fact that the opening reminded me of All Star Batman and Robin a bit.



 

Comments

[golden_orange]

I still don't get why everyone's taken the "Batman's being a huge dickhead" interpretation from #1. Especially since Green Lantern's the WAY bigger jerk.

[coldfiredragon]

Agreed! Hal had the much larger ego. Bruce was just trying to keep them alive because he knew that the GPD was on his tail. When you aren't on friendly terms with the police department in your city you really don't want other people making your problems worse.

[perletwo]

I think it's because the characterization - and the Lee art - give off such a strong whiff of ASBAR. Who knew DC really wanted to go back there with Bats?

[golden_orange]

See, the art aspect I get -- I was kind of flashing back to ASBAR myself in that regard, I admit it.

But the characterization -- at least with regards to Bats -- is where I'm stumped, because based on this alone NuDC Bats is nothing like ASBAR Bats.

[an_idol_mind]

Didn't you notice how the new Batman is killing cops and punching kids? Didn't you?

Honestly, I think the biggest ray of hope in the whole issue was the fact that Batman smiled and told a joke. I can get on board with a grim and serious Batman who still has a dry wit.

[auggie18]

It isn't so much "Batman's a huge dickhead" as "everyone's sorta a dickhead."

[golden_orange]

This I agree with (sort of), but everyone seems to be stressing Batman's dickheadedness over everyone else's to a degree that's way out of proportion to what he actually does. I mean, Green Lantern's the much bigger jerk in the actual comic, but if you were to just go by your comic you'd think he was the reasonable one; it's clearly the other way around.

(ETA: Just realized / remembered that you drew this comic -- apologies, it's been a long day.)

[auggie18]

I was mostly trying to be funny here and way more bad things happened to GL in this issue than Batman, so he got the role of straight man. It isn't exactly supposed to be a serious critique.

Green Lantern's dickishness seemed more like he was a kid with a shiny new toy more than anything else. He just discovered he could do all this neat new stuff and didn't want anyone else raining on his parade. Hal kinda comes off as a child.

[golden_orange]

Fair enough -- it's your comic, you can do as you wish. And I certainly get that it's a parody and not intended to be serious. I certainly don't mean to criticise.

But shiny-new-toy syndrome or not, Hal still spent most of the issue acting like a kid (and a particularly obnoxious one at that), whereas Batman was more-or-less reasonable, and even though he did have a few jerky-or-slightly-jerky moments certainly wasn't nearly as bad as he's either been in past depictions or as everyone seems to claiming he was. I guess it just kind of bugs me that loads of people seem to be emphasising everything Batman does in this issue to take the worst possible interpretation out of it.

[auggie18]

Hal being a child isn't a good thing. He's in his twenties. (Although I could see them getting a lot out of his over-inflated ego/tendency to overestimate his own abilities.)


I actually like Batman in the first issue because he has a sense of humor for once. Sure, it came out in his somewhat dickier moments, but snarky!Batman is a hell of a lot more fun than supergrim!Batman.


I'm hoping he doesn't turn into Bat-God for the next issue, which it seems like they might do.

[fifthie]

Dickhead sensors are pinging, people are just getting mixed readouts on the source.

NOTE TO SELF, BATMAN

[aaron_bourque]

Green Lantern was not only the bigger jerk in this issue, he was also an idiot.

Re: NOTE TO SELF, BATMAN

[biznizzonpeyote]

How long had Hal been a Green Lantern by this point though? He probably was, to use an appropriate term, very green. In the rookie sense.

Re: NOTE TO SELF, BATMAN

[aaron_bourque]

How long had Bruce been Batman? How long had Clark been Superman? It doesn't matter, because Hal was still being an idiot.

Re: NOTE TO SELF, BATMAN

[fifthie]

I still can't get past saying "note to self" to somebody else.

Re: NOTE TO SELF, BATMAN

[katzedecimal]

Oh thank goodness, somebody else noticed... er, i mean, MOTTO! Really, Hal, glowing green firemen?

[biznizzonpeyote]

It's not hard to see WHY Hal was being very egotisitcal in the issue. He'd heard rumors that Gotham is being protected by this mysterious, shadowy figure who strikes fear in the hearts of criminals. And when he finally meets him... it's a guy in a Bat-suit. Kind of a let down for an intergalatic space cop who regularly interacts with aliens.

And Batman honestly wasn't a jerk here. There have been much, MUCH lower levels of Bat-dickery he has shown before, and could have done here.

[icon_uk]

Stealing Hal's ring without being certain what the effects would be is pretty high level Bat-dickery. For all he knew it could be like turning off Tony Stark's artifical heart.

[golden_orange]

Point about him not knowing what the effects were, but to be fair it's a fairly safe bet that a ring isn't going to be a life support system, given that it's very nature means that it's something easily removable -- not much good having a life support system that can be removed as easily as a ring can be.

[icon_uk]

The ring could be a limiter that allows Hal to focus his energy in a controlled manner otherwise BOOM! Or a cursed object that uneashes holy hell if removed from it's owner

There's this guy I read about, Smeagol by name, who could tell you a thing or two about the inherent risks of rings...

[golden_orange]

Which is why I agreed that you had a point that he didn't know what the risks were when he took the ring off (although not thinking ahead doesn't necessarily equal being a jerk, particularly if the potential consequences aren't anything you'd be conditioned to think of yet and if the guy you're taking the ring from should be paying more attention to his potentially-destructive-yet-strangely-easily-swiped power source rather than throwing his weight around and being a bigger jerk to you). But you did specifically use the example of a 'life-support system' in your first post.

(And if it was the One True Ring, then Batman just saved Green Lantern from the influence of the Dark Lord Sauron -- putting it on was the bad thing, not taking it off. :-D)

[golden_orange]

In fact, now I think of it, the very fact that Hal isn't paying attention to the ring and it's pretty easy to remove is probably a good indication for Batman that removing it's not going to have massively destructive consequences, since he'd probably be both keeping a closer eye on it and would make it more difficult to remove.

But still, I agree that you have a point here. I just don't think it's as huge an example of dickery as you appear to.

[rdfox]

You might be surprised how hard it is to remove a ring from someone who doesn't want it removed--I believe that I've read that many thieves say that if you can't get the person wearing it to take it off, it's not worth the effort, because the only reliable way to get a ring off a non-cooperating victim is to cut the whole finger off... which kind of makes your life a lot worse if you get caught. (Quite likely why the concept of engagement and wedding rings got started in the first place--they were a sign of commitment that a pickpocket, cutpurse, or general mugger couldn't easily remove.)

[golden_orange]

I wasn't actually aware of that, and it makes sense. Although to be fair, the point here is that Hal clearly wasn't paying attention enough to be strictly 'non-cooperating' in the first place.

[an_idol_mind]

There's also the fact that at this point Hal has every reason to believe that he's the most powerful dude in the sector. He's got a magic ring that can do anything he can imagine granted by nigh-omniscient beings. By comparison, he didn't even know if Batman was real. And if he knew anything about Superman, he probably just assumed that it was a dude in blue tights (sorry...ARMOR...) who could fly and punch things. Presumably, Hal's ego cooled down a bit when he realized that he wasn't the be-all and end-all of Sector 2814.

[eyz]

I miss Grant Morrisson's league :/

[adze]

This.

[eyz]

I loved how he used characters than most writers then to avoid in big stories at DC or aren't your usual JL material. Like Plastic Man! Or Steel! Kyle Rayner, Connor Hawke, etc.. (though those two were the current bearers of their respective legacies..)
:D

[mrstatham]

The biggest problem with the new Justice League run is that they've already told us, before it was even revealed in the freaking book with the not-at-all-subtle use of the Mother Box, that the big bad that brings the League together is going to be Darkseid.

I mean, come on. We all knew that Darkseid was going to be the big bad of Final Crisis because that was what Morrison had been building to for a while - The fall of the Fourth World and the arrival of the Fifth. But the DC Reboot is meant to be something really, really special. And now they've told us the secret villain powerful enough to bring together this world's team of heroes about eight or nine months before he'll probably be revealed properly in-story.

It makes you long for Meltzer's run on Justice League, where the art was maybe a little crummy and ass-tastic, but the reveal of Grundy being the big bad was actually... Well, a surprise.

[an_idol_mind]

I dunno...I'm kinda jazzed about seeing Darkseid again, provided that he isn't made into a chump. And in terms of things that would require the Earth's greatest heroes to band together, I think Darkseid is suitably epic.

[mrstatham]

That's not really my point. We had Lee and Johns telling us that Darkseid was the big bad two weeks before the book came out. That's my point. It'd be great if DC had kept us in the dark about that one, frankly.

[an_idol_mind]

Ah...having not read through a lot of the promotional stuff, Darkseid's mention here was a nice surprise for me. Definitely bad form if it was spoiled ahead of time.

[golden_orange]

To be entirely fair, they're clearly targeting an audience who probably has never even heard of Darkseid (which is not entirely unreasonable if you're someone who has never read a comic in his / her life and only knows what you know from various movies or TV shows), wouldn't know what a Mother Box was if it came up to them and danced a little jig, and probably doesn't read or watch interviews with comics creators. They're clearly doing a "Who is Darkseid?" thing for the new intake.

And let's face it, as an idol mind points out, there's worse villains you could pick if you want to do a "what brings Earth's greatest superheroes together?" story.

(Although like an idol mind the 'Darkseid' spoiler obviously passed me by as well.)

[aeka]

"Got yer ring! Who's a regular dude now, douchebag? Haha, it's so small!"

Batman has clearly watched the Birds of Prey musical number too many a time on youtube.

"Goddamn, I hope Superman is less of a dick than you."

LOL Jealous much.

I actually enjoyed this more than the actual issue. The only think I liked was the Jim Lee art. :(