![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
DC Trade Paperback Review, May 2014
Jun. 3rd, 2014 05:41 pmI read an interesting factoid the other day: Did you know that, since the New 52 reboot, DC has cancelled almost 52 titles?
Green Lantern Volume 3: The End - The run of the main Green Lantern title that introduces Simon Baz, then goes through the Third Army and First Lantern crossovers. If you’ve read those collections, this is redundant; if you haven’t, there are giant holes in the plot here. Apparently also the last of the GL stories written directly by Geoff Johns, which explains a bit more why they do the “epilogue” bit at the end of the crossover, just to ignore it all immediately thereafter.
Trinity of Sin The Phantom Stranger Volume 2: Breach of Faith - I think I commented before, but the fact that the stories involving the Phantom Stranger in the New 52 are much more explicitly religious than we’ve seen in a very long while (and make him definitively Judas Iscariot) is…interesting.
Earth 2 Volume 2: The Tower of Fate - I had read this already, it’s the arc that introduces the new Doctor Fate and sets up a bunch of the Mr. 8 / Mr. Terrific storyline. I think this is one of the more well-done books in the New 52 line, because the stakes seem real (they don’t have to put the world back the way they found it at the end) and the characters are actually being rebooted, rather than the half-assed retcons in many other books.
Coffin Hill Volume 1: Forest of the Night - A more “classic Vertigo” title than I’ve seen in a while, reminding me a lot of The Witching. Very gothic-punk, very Mage, full of sex and violence mostly because it can be. Also really heavy on the flashbacks. It’s nothing particularly original, but I thought it was fun.
Green Lantern Volume 3: The End - The run of the main Green Lantern title that introduces Simon Baz, then goes through the Third Army and First Lantern crossovers. If you’ve read those collections, this is redundant; if you haven’t, there are giant holes in the plot here. Apparently also the last of the GL stories written directly by Geoff Johns, which explains a bit more why they do the “epilogue” bit at the end of the crossover, just to ignore it all immediately thereafter.
Trinity of Sin The Phantom Stranger Volume 2: Breach of Faith - I think I commented before, but the fact that the stories involving the Phantom Stranger in the New 52 are much more explicitly religious than we’ve seen in a very long while (and make him definitively Judas Iscariot) is…interesting.
Earth 2 Volume 2: The Tower of Fate - I had read this already, it’s the arc that introduces the new Doctor Fate and sets up a bunch of the Mr. 8 / Mr. Terrific storyline. I think this is one of the more well-done books in the New 52 line, because the stakes seem real (they don’t have to put the world back the way they found it at the end) and the characters are actually being rebooted, rather than the half-assed retcons in many other books.
Coffin Hill Volume 1: Forest of the Night - A more “classic Vertigo” title than I’ve seen in a while, reminding me a lot of The Witching. Very gothic-punk, very Mage, full of sex and violence mostly because it can be. Also really heavy on the flashbacks. It’s nothing particularly original, but I thought it was fun.
