The New 52 started pretty late in 2011, so this’ll be a quick one- or two-issue sampler of these books to start off, but here’s what’s on the agenda for Post-Flashpoint.
(Order’s a little shuffled because my usual logic is to go by how old the series is and then alphabetically for ones that started in the same month. But these are almost all starting in the same month, so it’s pretty much entirely alphabetical.)
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Batgirl: I hate that this exists and I’ve heard bad things about it. So… I like Gail Simone, but I’m not expecting her usual level of quality here.
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Batman: Already read. The Court of Owls doesn’t make a great deal of sense. It’s never clear what they’re actually doing because they seem to be so secretive that they couldn’t do anything without revealing themselves, and Batman gets oddly bent out of shape about the fact that he thought they weren’t real when he’s clearly at least fighting a group that can convincingly imitate the Court of Owls.
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Batman: The Dark Knight: Wait, this is the one with White Rabbit and One-Face, right? That’s gonna be a ride.
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Batman and Robin: This is supposed to be better than the original series, but I have all the doubts.
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Batwing: I liked the one stray issue of this I read.
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Batwoman: Actually looking forward to this.
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Birds of Prey: It’s not real Birds of Prey without Oracle.
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Catwoman: I have heard not-great things about this.
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Detective Comics: Read an issue. Wasn’t impressed.
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Nightwing: Mostly just hate that red costume.
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Red Hood and the Outlaws: Uuuugh, Lobdell.
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Batman: Odyssey: Well, it’ll be funny, at least.
OK, let’s go.
Batgirl 2011: 2 issues from 2011
Writer: Gail Simone
Have I mentioned how much I resent that this exists? I really, really resent that this exists.
Let me start with the usual “Why regressing Babs into Batgirl is the worst idea” rant and I’ll get around to the book itself momentarily.
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She’d grown up. Batgirl is a junior role based on copying someone else’s gimmick. Oracle is a leader and an adult.
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Oracle is unique, or at least fairly distinctive. There are a few characters who do things similar to Oracle, but not on the same scale and not in the Bat-Family because, well, they already had Oracle. Batgirl is a vaguely tech-savvy secondary facepuncher, of which the Bat-Family has like five and counting.
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It suggests that having a physical disability is just too horrible for her to bear without getting a magic implant to fix it, which is demeaning to both Babs and actual people with actual disabilities.
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Similarly, how many superheroes with disabilities are there, and how many of those don’t have some other superpower that renders it essentially moot? Nice job on representation, guys.
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There were… well, there was one other perfectly serviceable Batgirl and one sort of less sucky Batgirl.
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Some people argue in favor of Batgirl with basically a “Why are you wishing injury on her?” argument. Or more often “I hate seeing her in the chair.” Well, of course you do. That feeling is called pathos. Writers use it to make you care.
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You also can’t really have Birds of Prey like this. The original series is about Oracle having this global intelligence network, with Black Canary and later Huntress acting as field agents for it. But now, she is the field agent and doesn’t do the secret spymaster thing. So that book has no premise now.
Now, the actual issues here. First of all, if I had a roommate who painted “Fight the Power!” all over the wall in blood red, I would be gone within twenty-four hours.
I’m going to give this the benefit of the doubt and assume Babs’ psychological issues are played up to try to take some of the edge off of her suddenly being able-bodied (albeit still condescending to people doing exactly what this book itself is doing) by reminding us that the emotional trauma isn’t just part of the physical scars.
But the way she freezes up just seeing someone vaguely point a gun in her direction really doesn’t match her history at all. And it makes her look extremely reckless for charging back into the field if she can’t handle the pressure.
It’s also trying to make some kind of Statement about a friggin’ cemetery. I really couldn’t care less.
So, here’s the thing. Usually when I don’t like something and complain about it, I’m secretly actually having a great time doing the complaining. But this… Even as much as I complain about the creative decisions behind it, I wasn’t expecting it to have this much of an emotional impact on me. And not in a good way. The whole thing just gives me this sad, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. I mean, as much as I hate what they did to Babs, I like Gail Simone. Part of me was still really hoping she could sell this as a passably enjoyable read in execution. That’s, uh, not really what’s happening so far.
1,311.
Batman: The Dark Knight Vol 2: 2 issues from 2011
Writers: Paul Jenkins and David Finch (co-plotter)
OK, yet another Forgettable Civilian Love Interest™ who is really obviously actually a villain.
But also… “One-Face.”
1,313.
Batman and Robin 2011: 2 issues from 2011
Writer: Peter J. Tomasi
Now, by all means. Continue doing such a brilliant job selling me on Damian.
OK, did you need to one-up (what’s the opposite of one-upping? One-down?) the Subway Rocket with a freaking Sewer Rocket?
“You’re sounding more and more like a cold-hearted ten-year-old boy who only cares about himself.”
First: Wow, that’s really terrible dialogue.
But second: THAT’S BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT HE IS!
Why is there a swimming pool right over a nuclear reactor?
The guys who were trying to escape in the sewer ball thingy (which I can only assume must be called the Bat-Turd)… I honestly can’t even tell if Damian killed them, but, well, he probably did.
Here, observe Damian’s much-vaunted “character arc” in a nutshell:
First: OK, it’s not like all of the dialogue is this horrifically stilted, it just seems to twist itself into knots any time the book is trying to make excuses for Damian. I wonder why.
Second and more importantly: This is not real character development. Yes, he has apparently successfully refrained from being as terrible as he otherwise might have been. Not only is that not particularly impressive, it’s meaningless and unearned.
Wow, check out this character who everyone fawns over for being an animal lover casually crushing a random bat to death for no reason.
1,315.
Batwing: 2 issues from 2011
Writer: Judd Winick
OK, I have a serious problem: In the first two issues, it literally never says what country it’s taking place in. The wiki says it’s the Democratic Republic of the Congo, though I’m not sure how I was supposed to figure that out since the only location referenced is Tinasha, a city which is, as far as I can tell, fictional. Did they even know what country it was, or did Winick start writing with nothing to go on but “Nonspecifically Africa?”
That said, I’m otherwise enjoying this so far. Expecting this series to be one of the closest things to a highlight in this lineup.
1,317.
Oracle: Year One came up in conversation elsewhere, and I felt like rereading it. I think I already discussed it in a review here, but it’s really good, hence the reread. 1,318.
Batwoman: 3 issues from 2011
Writer: J.H. Williams III
Oh, this is really good. And I might just be saying that because the art is pretty, but I’m enjoying the story too.
1,321.
Birds of Prey 2011: 2 issues from 2011
Writer: Duane Swierczynski
Oh, my poor favorite series. This is just… unrelated to the thing I actually like, and not really interesting in its own right. Also, everyone but Dinah is really annoying, and even Dinah is blander than usual.
1,323.
Catwoman: 2 issues from 2011
Writer: Judd Winick
It’s possible that Winick just has an extremely limited reserve of talent and can only spend it on one series at a time. This is a mess.
1,325.
Detective Comics 2011 #2 from 2011
Writer: Tony S. Daniel
The first issue of this already broke me, but here’s the second for some reason.
What’s with the Batbooks around this time and people losing their faces? This is happening with bizarre frequency. Like, Jane Doe, the villain from Batman: Unseen, Professor Pyg’s Dollotrons when you try to take their masks off, Flamingo’s victims, Hush, and now the Joker. It’s weird.
Veritable hurricane of forgettable civilian love interests in this New 52 wave of titles, too.
1,326.
Nightwing: 2 issues from 2011
Writer: Kyle Higgins
This costume is unforgivable.
Also good to see that Dick is the absolute, rock-bottom worst at secret identities.
Otherwise, this is readable, though it’s obviously building up to the clumsy retcons about Dick’s backstory that unnecessarily weirded it up. Not ideal.
1,328.
Red Hood and the Outlaws: 2 issues from 2011
Writer: Scott Lobdell
Oh god.
I mean, like, all of the complaints about this have been made to death and back, but it definitely sucks. The whole book has this wafting stench of dudebro. This portrayal and, frankly, its fans are the reason I used to hate Jason Todd.
1,330.
Batman Odyssey 2011 #1 from 2011
Writer: Neal Adams
I don’t understand anything anymore.
1,331.