[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Andanzas

Oh please. Tell me it sucks. Big time.

Well, if it's any consolation, it's a flash bundle with less than a day to go and the temptation will be removed shortly.

Originally Posted by Andanzas

Actually, that's a selling point. We checked out a Green Lantern movie from the library, which we planned to watch while his little brother took a nap. It turned out that the little one had nightmares and I had to leave the room to soothe him all the time, so I probably missed more than half the movie. Still, I was favorably impressed; I thought it was better than any Marvel animated series we've watched together.

If you can, try to find the DCAU cartoons (Wikipedia, a shorthand nickname for the various related series started by Bruce Timm & Paul Dini) either in the library if they have them in Spain, or maybe DVD/Blu-Ray if they got released in Region 2/B (though I think the Warner Bros Blu-Rays for Justice League might be region-free?).

They're extremely good and some of the very best storytelling that has ever been done with DC characters, both in the cartoons and also in the tie-in comics (I maintain that Mark Millar's brief run on the tie-in Superman Adventures is both some of his very best quality work, as well as some of the best Superman-related stories ever told), which have not always been perfect (there are some real duds in the episodes and sometimes the comics were kind of too dumbed-down for the kiddies), but have always maintained a generally very high quality and taken thoughtful, intelligent, and believable approaches to the characters and their situations.

And watching Justice League & Justice League Unlimited will provide you with a great intro to a lot of the DC characters, including both well-known and more obscure ones, while giving you some very enjoyable stories at the same time, that are suitable for all ages (well, mostly all ages; some of the installments, like the original uncut Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker movie are kind of dark and deal with more disturbing themes and probably best not for kids under 10 or so).

Their take on Superman's death in the episode "Hereafter" was much more affecting (and made more logical sense in terms of why he'd "die" and how he'd come back) than the actual Death of Superman comics storylines (although there's a pretty good non-DCAU animated movie, Superman: Doomsday, which adapts the comics version pretty well). Alan Moore even liked the Justice League Unlimited adaptation of his classic Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything" enough that he even allowed them to use his name on the story credits (he normally hates what people do enough that he demands they remove his name and won't take money from the profits of the movies based on his work).

It's truly awesome and very entertaining stuff which I cannot recommend highly enough, and one of the two TV series franchises I'd take into the next life with me if I had to pick just two (the other is classic The Twilight Zone which was innovative and groundbreaking storytelling which influenced a whole bunch of stuff about how stories are structured we take for granted these days; and I guess I should probably bring Star Trek along, too, and make it a trinity).

Originally Posted by Andanzas

I've read the first issue and I liked it. It wasn't anything to write home about, but I liked it. I like the premise. And from what you say, I think I would enjoy 52.

52 is rather good in a generally more subtle, low-key way than the usual big events and related tie-in gimmicks.

It doesn't matter if you don't know the characters, since they were mostly less well-known sometimes fan-favourite heroes that the writers gradually built up the introduction to throughout their story threads, so you could go in not knowing anything about them at all, but find out everything important about what made them be who and what they were and how they ended up appealing to a whole bunch of their original fans via their dialogue and actions and the ways they reacted to the situations they got into.

And there were also good bits involving how the "ordinary" people of the DC universe view their big heroes and their absence and how they react to getting "substitutes" (a little less ungrateful than the Marvel-verse folk, who kind of tend to turn on their heroes at the drop of a hat but then forgive them a week later like they all got collective amnesia, but that's kind of the fun of the Marvel-verse, protected by heroes they hate and loathe and want to put into mutant extermination camps unless they were lucky enough to be bitten by radioactive something-or-others instead of being born with their powers).

And in the case of Animal Man, you'll be getting Grant Morrison writing one of his favourites again (and one of his best characters with his classic runs on the old series), so you'll be able to see if you like what he does enough to maybe watch for a sale on the collections some day.

And the story plots still hold up really well, IMHO, with the bonus that if there was a particular thread you weren't all that interested in following, there were still a bunch of other storylines you could read with other characters (instead of just being stuck with the one plot you would hope would pick up and become more interesting). And everything kind of ties together in the end in a way that makes sense (even if they went and changed a bunch of the stuff that was supposed to have been important later). And some of the spin-off stuff from this was kind of important (Booster Gold got his own series for a while because of how popular he became from 52, and the new Batwoman was introduced in it, IIRC).

Mind you, it doesn't serve all that well as an introduction to the Big 3 (or Big 7) heroes of the DC, whom you were wanting to get better acquainted with, but it's a really good look at how the more "middle-class" parts of the DC universe function, IMHO.

The Sinestro Corps War is kind of the same way, telling a good self-contained story that stands up well on its own, where you can get to know the more obscure characters and the plotline developments via the story as it went along rather than needing to know who everyone is in advance and remembering that this happens now because of all that stuff in the past stories (even though it's highly based on some stuff alluded to in old Alan Moore Green Lantern stories).

Although Wikipedia does inform me that there's a separate TPB that collects the additional backup stories that originally introduced the new characters as they came along which doesn't appear to exist on Comixology yet, so I don't know how well it would read without having their motivations fleshed out.

Originally Posted by Andanzas

By the way, what do you guys think of Geoff Jones? He seems to be all over the place.

Mixed bag, really. Sometimes he's very good, sometimes, not so much.

He was quite strong on Green Lantern from the stuff I read, with generally interesting ideas that were executed fairly well, but he also has a bit of nostalgic tendency to think that Silver Age-type ideas and characters were better and should be made the forefront (IIRC, he's the guy who's part-responsible for the resurrections of Hal Jordan and Barry Allen, who were the old GL and Flash from the 70s/80s who'd since died/gone away and passed their legacies on, and making them the current main GL/Flash heroes), and kind of sets things up in his stories sometimes so that you get the feeling that "the old ways are the best, the newfangled modern approach isn't as good and people should just stick to tradition, oh by the way, 70s version of hero that I grew up with IS THE BESTEST EVAR!!!!!". This can grate a bit if you want a little more variety in your superheroing or see a little more respect for one of your not-70s-favourites than acting as the enabling sidekick to the awesomeness who is 70s version of hero that Geoff Johns grew up with.

Sometimes this works out pretty well when he's doing an older-hero-focused story like his JSA run (Justice Society of America, who were like the Justice League of the 40s/50s and the newer version mostly stars their kids and other legacy inheritors of their original hero mantles). Sometimes it just doesn't mesh well with storylines where the approach isn't quite as straightforward as determining a good side and a bad side and having truly heroic heroes and obviously villainous villains in it and having a lot of moments for his favourites to shine.

Lack of nuance and subtlety, IMHO. He kind of likes to paint big pictures in broad strokes for you to admire the scope of, and sometimes he even does it pretty well.

Also, he's kind of continuity porn-ish, loving to do a whole bunch of stories that are based on other really old stories from the past that he wanted to follow-up the ideas of and kind of expecting you to already know what he was talking about. So sometimes I guess he can be a bit of a difficult read unless you're willing to look up a whole bunch of references on Wikipedia and/or various fansites and comic book discussion forums (which people are generally quite willing to put up explanations of to help the newbies) or are just kind of relaxed about not knowing exactly what's supposed to be going on.