DC's New 52: Final pre-launch opinions

Yes, a little more comic commentary. I'll talk about prose next week, guys, I promise.

It's been long enough that we fans have been hashing over the “New 52”, now impending from DC comics, that I've moved from flabbergasted, to torn between intrigued and angry, through interested, right on to tired of the whole idea. However, I still wanted to add my commentary for the upcoming issues, from most to least anticipated. Think of this as my Pull/Don't Pull List, and/or my Please Don't Cancel/Please Cancel Wish Lists.


Books that I will definitely buy the first few issues:

• Batgirl #1 by Gail Simone, Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes – Despite my sadness to lose Stephanie, I'll definitely check out this series. 
• Demon Knights #1 by Paul Cornell, Diogenes Neves and Oclair Albert – Medival superhero team? By the writer of some of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who? Yes, please!

Books that I will probably try the first issue unless I hear something really negative beforehand:

• Justice League #1 by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee – Actually I'm pretty ambivalent on this title, but I know my husband wants to pick up the first one.
• Wonder Woman #1 by Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang – I want this to be good, but I have no idea whether it will be.
• Justice League Dark #1 by Peter Milligan and Mikel Janin – I have no idea whether I will actually like this, but a team of magic/Vertigo characters sounds interesting to me.
• Swamp Thing #1 by Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette – I like Scott Snyder's horror touch over on AmVamp enough to check this out. His tone isn't much to my taste for superhero titles, but Swamp Thing might be a great fit.

Books that I am interested in flipping through in the store, and might buy if they look interesting enough:

• Justice League International #1 by Dan Jurgens and Aaron Lopresti – Cautiously intrigued by this one, it has a nice assortment of characters, including Booster Gold and Vixen.
• The Fury Of Firestorm #1 by Gail Simone, Ethan Van Sciver and Yildiray Cinar – I believe Gail Simone can make just about anything interesting, but Firestorm? Really?
• The Savage Hawkman #1 by Tony Daniel and Philip Tan – I can't imagine I would actually buy this, but I want to flip through it in a rather masochistic way, because somehow I don't think this is the husband and wife space adventure story that I would rather have.
• Mr Terrific #1 by Eric Wallace and Roger Robinson – I heard that “Karen Starr” is in this title, but she may not be Power Girl? WTF? I'll look, just in case.
• Action Comics #1 by Grant Morrison and Rags Morales – I have heard some crazy things about this title. If Grant Morrison is really moving into 40's inspired “labor agitator” Superman, that could be intriguing.
• Supergirl #1 by Michael Green and Mike Johnson – Maybe? I dislike most of the promotional stuff so far, but they could surprise me.
• Batwoman #1 by J.H. Williams III, Haden Blackman and Amy Reeder – I am personally not won over by this character/series yet, but there's such anticipation that I'll probably check it out.
• Batwing #1 by Judd Winick and Ben Oliver – Intriguing, if kind of token-ish feeling.
• Green Lantern Corps #1 by Peter J. Tomasi, Fernando Pasarin and Scott Hanna – What interests me about Green Lantern is the diversity of the corps, so this book could win me over. 
• Green Lanterns: New Guardians #1 by Tony Bedard, Tyler Kirkham and Batt – I like the idea of high-level interactions between the rainbow corps.
• Blackhawks #1 by Mike Costa and Ken Lashley – Now, a 40's Blackhawks would be on the top of this list. I'm highly skeptical, but I'll flip through.
• All-Star Western #1 by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Grey and Moritat – Maybe? I don't know.
• Blue Beetle #1 by Tony Bedard and Ig Guara – I hope that this can come close to the awesomeness of John Rogers' run on the character, but I'm not convinced yet.
• Legion Lost #1 by Fabian Nicieza and Pete Woods – I always wanted to get into Legion, maybe one of these books will work for me?
• Legion of Superheroes by Paul Levitz and Francis Portela – Ditto.

Books that I am more or less uninterested in, and probably won't even look at unless I hear really good things about them:

• Aquaman #1 by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis
• Flash #1 by Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul
• Captain Atom #1 by JT Krul and Freddie Williams II
• Green Arrow #1 by JT Krul and Dan Jurgens
• DC Universe Presents #1 by Paul Jenkins and Bernard Chang
• Superman #1 by George Pérez and Jesus Merino
• Superboy #1 by Scott Lobdell and R.B. Silva and Rob Lean
• Batman #1 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo – Yes I like Scott Snyder, but nothing about this book is attractive to me yet.
• Detective Comics #1 by Tony Daniel
• Batman: The Dark Knight #1 by David Finch – How many freaking Batman books does one company need? Really?
• Batman And Robin #1 by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason
• Nightwing #1 by Kyle Higgins and Eddy Barrows
• Green Lantern #1 by Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy
• Red Lanterns #1 by Peter Milligan, Ed Benes and Rob Hunter.
• Animal Man #1 by Jeff Lemire, Travel Foreman and Dan Green
• Frankenstein: Agent Of SHADE #1 by Jeff Lemire and Alberto Ponticelli
• I, Vampire #1 by Josh Fialkov and Andrea Sorrentino
• Resurrection Man #1 by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Fernando Dagnino
• Stormwatch #1 by Paul Cornell and Miguel Sepulveda – To be fair, Wildstorm was never my thing, but I have to ask...why?
• Voodoo #1 by Ron Marz and Sami Basri.
• Grifter #1 by Nathan Edmondson and CAFU
• Deathstroke #1 by Kyle Higgins, Joe Bennett and Art Thibert
• OMAC #1 by Dan DiDio and Keith Giffen
• Sgt Rock And The Men Of War #1 by Ivan Brandon and Tom Derenick
• Static Shock #1 by John Rozum, Scott McDaniel
• Hawk And Dove #1 by Sterling Gates and Rob Liefeld

Books that I actively dislike what I've seen so far, and will only pick up if I hear that they are miraculously the best thing ever, but I really doubt it: 

• Catwoman #1 by Judd Winick and Guillem March – So far, nothing to recommend this. 
• Birds Of Prey #1 by Duane Swierczynski and Jesus Saiz – Over and above Canary's hideous new costume and my personal misgivings about the writer, I'm boycotting this book on principle because of how badly the closing of the current run was handled by DC. 
• Red Hood And The Outlaws #1 by Scott Lobdell and Kenneth Rocafort – Ugh.
• Suicide Squad #1 by Adam Glass and Marco Rudy - Double Ugh.
• Teen Titans #1 by  Scott Lobdell, Brett Booth and Norm Rapmund – The art and pitch for this book has revenge of the 90's written all over it.