DC Comics General

DC will release 6 One-Shots featuring characters created by Jack Kirby.

They will be released every week in August.

edited 17th May '17 11:04:48 AM by Halberdier17

Darkseid better not be sitting in my loveseat again.

I'm part of a Troper Coven who riffs on movies a la MST 3 K. Tonight, at eight PM eastern standard time, in time for its twentieth anniversary, the Shaquille O'Neal -led attempt [and I do mean attempt] of bringing the Superman spinoff character John Henry Irons, AKA Steel, to the big screen, with Shaft's Richard Roundtree and Judd Nelson rounding out the cast. Come join us

So I want to get into Rebirth. What are some good collections that are currently out that I can dive into? Much to my chagrin Teen Titans and all of Young Animal has yet to be collected.

So far on my list I have Blue Beetle but I've heard some mixed things about it. Also pretty interested in giving Superdad a try.

The first two trades of Superman are really good, and I highly recommend them. I have mixed feelings on everything after that.

I also really liked King/Finch/Janin's "I Am" Trilogy in Batman. It kind of feels like King is re-learning how to write comic books in real time, so there's some weirdness that turned a lot of people off, but its a really cool and interesting run. And the David Finch/Jordie Bellaire art is great.

Nightwing, JL vs. Suicide Squad, and Wonder Woman: Year One, were also good. Super Sons and Deathstroke also look great, but I haven't gotten to read them yet.

Doom Patrol vol 1 comes out next week. Cave Carson vol 1 should be out as well as Shade the Changing Girl. Mother Panic is still releasing issues in vol 1.

All of the Volume 1's are out if I'm not mistaken. The only ones that aren't out are the ones that just started.

I personally recommend Detective Comics, Green Lanterns, and Action Comics.

Edit* Shade the Changing Girl vol 1 releases on July 12th.

edited 28th May '17 9:16:19 AM by Halberdier17

I seem to have the uncanny ability to will collected editions into reality at the opportune moment to embarrass myself online.

Doom Patrol is there, but no Shade on comixology yet, though.

Is Nightwing really that good?

edited 28th May '17 8:29:02 AM by Mr.Badguy

Nightwing is like super-hero comfort food for me. Nothing groundbreaking, and not nearly as good as King/Seeley/Janin's Grayson, but consistently enjoyable. The last arc was a big love-letter to Morrison's Batman and Robin, which is my all-time favorite comic.

But of the five comics I'm following month-to-month right now (Superman, Batman, Nightwing, Silver Surfer, BUG!) Nightwing is easily the weakest one.

edited 28th May '17 9:07:37 AM by Cuber

Speaking of TPB, I wonder if the first volume of New Super-man is released yet? It is one of my favorites from Rebirth and one of the better diversity legacies solos to come out of comics as of recently (than again this is DC and not Marvel, so it goes without saying it would be good).

[One Google Later]

Well what do you know. Made In China arc is out. I should check my local bookstore, Books A Million, to see if a copy of that TPB is being sold. As well as I Am Gotham story arc for Batman. Aaaaand the first arc to Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps.

At the end of the Lazurus Contract Deathstroke quit, and Robin kicked Wally over the team for giving Deathstroke his powers. And because they had to go to the past to disrupt the speed force, Titans Wally has a pacemaker because Damian temporarily stopped his heart, so he has had that pacemaker since then now, and Wally is upset his timeline has been fucked with again and he has a speed limit again.

DC, can you go two months without a timeline hiccup? Thanks

I strongly recommend New Super-Man. It's smart and lighthearted.

1. Let me be rephrase a previous question of mine: Batman has only one villain within his rogues gallery that falls under the category of "World conquering dictator with an army of soldiers to back him up"; Ra's Al Ghul, and that's pretty much it, everyone else he fights is just the standard Supervillain from a Saturday morning cartoon, a common gangster and/or a corrupt business person.

However, Superman has Darkseid, Mongul, Vandal Savage, General Zod and Brainiac

Wonder Woman has Fury (I think) and Ares himself

Even Green Lantern has Sinestro, Despero and Atrocitus.

Why is Batman only left with such low level enemies, he's proven to be able to handle worse threats, hasn't he?

2. Even with the DC villains that I've just mentioned in mind, it seems to me that DC has less "World Conquering villains with entire armies behind them" and "Powerful global enemy organizations" within their works than they do "Standard Saturday morning cartoon Supervillains", 'One man armies' and generic super villain gangs (which, in my opinion, are basically just glorified enhanced street gangs). Marvel comics on the other hand has quite a few world conquerors with armies (e.g. Doctor Doom, Mandarin, The Red Skull, Thanos, Attuma, etc.) and powerful organizations (e.g. HYDRA, A.I.M., the Tongs, Weapon X, etc.). They even have more monarch characters than DC, Aquaman and Wonder Woman could equate with Namor and Thor, but, from where I stand, there's no DC equivalent to Black Panther and Wakanda, Latveria, Spartax or the Kree and the Skrulls. Why is that, exactly, hmm?

DC has Black Adam. and blackfire. and the one gl princess iolande and the one new sinestro corp member space ape who is a prince. but for the most part the royalty of dc planets aren't major players

I dunno about y'all, but I like it when Batman is a street-level vigilante who could conceivably be challenged by any punk with a gun. Stray too far from that and what's the difference between him and, say, Iron Man?

On a slightly related note, I kind of resent Ra's for kicking Bats up into Outright Superhero territory, but maybe that's my personal bias speaking. I've never really found Ra's interesting, either as a character or a plot-device (if I want a Bond story, I'll flip open a damn Bond story, thank you very much), and it continues to baffle me why Bruce would be tempted to join him when he's got a body-count that would make the Joker look like Gandhi.

How was Bruce less of a superhero before Ra's?

Batman had plenty of fantastic stories before Ra's. Even in the Golden Age he fought vampires and a Napoleon lookalike piloting a giant city-destrying blimp (yes, really).

When I say "Outright Superhero", it's less a matter of fantasy and more a matter of scale. Frankly, I don't care to have any Batman story put the entire world at stake; even all of America at stake is kinda pushing it, the kind of thing you do for a Grand Finale if at all.

Other than that, my "ideal" Batman setting is actually fairly tolerant of magic and sci-fi, though I prefer for both of those things to be stuck through a horror filter. Vampires in Gotham are thus a-okay.

Just to nitpick, Vandal Savage isn't exclusively a Superman villain as he is usually an antagonist for the entire Justice Society; same could be said for Despero as he is more of a Justice League villain (though out of the members of the team he antagonizes Martian Manhunter the most). Also, Fury doesn't count since that only applies to her Justice League incarnation where she is Diana's adopted sister who wants to kill all men instead of daughter who is a member of Infinity Inc (before the retcon of course). Darkseid might count due to being a greater antagonist for most of DC universe ala Thanos but does serve as a main antagonist for certain heroes . . . specifically those originating from the Fourth World stories . . . including Superman. So yeah, guess Darkseid has always been a Superman foe.

Now as for your question, well the same can be said for the two DC heroes with a CW Show: The Flash and Green Arrow.

• For the former most, if not all, of his antagonists are pretty much villains of the week whose schemes are the usual petty crimes like bank robberies. Hell they formed their own villain team made to commit such robberies together and combat the Flash who can overcome them all. The only villain Flash have that is greater scope that seeks world domination is Gorilla Grodd, and he isn't as effective as the villain Professor Zoom whose whole goals is to just screw with Barry.
• And Green Arrow, well, what about Green Arrow? His entire rogue gallery does not have one villain that wants to conquer/destroy the world and have the power to do so. Hell, I don't even think he has a strong enough rogue gallery to begin with as they are all criminals, assassins and rogue transplants.

Let's list the things DC does have (to my knowledge at least):

World Conquerors with Armies: Despero, Vandal Savage, Kobra, Mongul, Sinestro (with his Sinestro Corps), Darkseid (of course), Brother Blood, Imperiax, Black Adam, Per Degaton (maybe, I don't know, he does have his legion of followers), General Zod (especially during the New Krypton story arc)

Powerful Organizations: H.I.V.E., Cadmus, League of Assassins, The Key (his Key Men . . . he is the one villain in Justice League to actually destroy the team from the inside), Royal Flush Gang (Amos Fortune would evolve the group into a criminal empire), the Rogue (which would fit in your so called description of 'glorified enhanced street gangs' even though in the comics they aren't), Court of Owls (hey another Batman antagonist . . . or rather Nightwing),

Monarchs/Alien Races: Markovia, Bialya, Quarc, Kahndac (see Black Adam), Gorilla City, Thanagarians, Rainnians, Tamaranians, just about every alien race in Legion of Super Heroes (seriously, too many to list), the Martians, Daxians, Kryptonians (especially during the New Krypton story arc),

So yeah DC does have plenty of those things instead of the usual super villain gangs. Hell, I think Marvel is worse with the described super villain gangs with groups like The Masters of Evil, Lethal Legion, Frightful Four, Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Factor Three, Acolytes, Sinister Six, Intelligencia, The Marauders, Serpent Society, Justin Hammer's entire criminal empire, The Hand's gang, the Fucking Wrecking Crew, etc.

And that is why DC has less of these organizations/groups; because looking at Marvel its an oversaturation to keep track of.

So I finally started reading Priest's Deathstroke, and its amazing and I desperately want it to crossover over with Tom King's Batman.

A Priest/King/Finch/Bellaire jam where Bruce and Slade beat each other up and then have to fight some goofy-but-overpowered silver age villain would be the best thing ever.

Hey guys. I just got back from Wonder Woman to confirm that they didn't fucked it up!

Seriously, it was a very good movie. It manage to even incorparate elements from the Golden Age comics AND George Perez comic into one movie. I urge you guys to check it out.

Batman has Kobra as a villain, too. To the extent that Kobra is any one hero's villain (Darkseid isn't really any one specific hero's villain, either). Ooh, there's an idea for a summer crossover...Kobra versus Ra's Al Ghul.

edited 4th Jun '17 11:24:50 AM by Robbery

Does Lana still have Superpowers?

Kobra was a JSA baddy for a while. Probably the closest he ever came to being a real part of one book's Rogues Gallery.

edited 4th Jun '17 1:54:44 PM by kkhohoho

only in the suit