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Friday
Jul082011

Fear the Change

DateFriday, July 8, 2011 at 12:00AM | AuthorTravis

Our favorite comic shop, Bedrock City Comics, has four locations in the city and occasionally they rotate the staff around to the different shops. While this makes sense for them to make sure that all employees know how everything is run, it seems like just about the time we get the staff trained exactly how we want them we get somebody new. Sometimes, we really hate change.

The third issue of Flashpoint came out this week along with the second issue of a quarter of the Flashpoint tie-in mini series. We’ve now read enough Flashpoint related books for us to finally realize what we don’t like about Flashpoint. It feels like that in reinterpreting the characters and tweaking their lives for Flashpoint, DC/Geoff Johns/whoever is mocking the character and the reader. Kris was finally able to identify it while reading World of Flashpoint when they introduced Guy Gardner as a non-drinking, pacifist Buddhist who still runs a bar called Warriors. See? It’s a joke! Guy Gardner’s the angry Green Lantern, but he’s not angry anymore! That was before we got to the Big Reveal in Batman: Knight of Vengeance or the weird character shifts in Abin Sur: Green Lantern. DC is trying so hard to make the Flashpoint version of the characters in this weird quasi-state between being different than their regular DCU counterparts and being the same that the signals are getting really mixed.

Outside of the Batman and Superman franchises, DC seems like it can’t get its act together for live-action movies, especially compared to the juggernaut that is Marvel Studios. However, DC has definitely excelled at animated home distribution movies. While I haven’t seen all of them, I have thoroughly enjoyed every movie I’ve seen. Their next big release is Batman: Year One and from the recently released trailer it looks like they’re continuing their dominance. I’m not a fan of Frank Miller, but I do enjoy Batman: Year One and am really looking forward to this.

Travis, what’s on your pull list?

  • Batman & Robin #25 - If Winick’s Jason Todd is the Jason Todd who leads the Outlaws in The New 52, that book will be awesome.
  • Batman Beyond #7 - Batman did some cool stuff that was awesome, but what Bruce is up to and is up against and what that means -OMG!!!!!
  • Flashpoint: Batman Knight of Vengeance #2 - Not sure which of the two cameo/reveals I think is most disappointing. Both were gratuitous and disappointing.
  • Flashpoint: World of Flashpoint #2 - I’ve always loved Traci 13 and this book makes that even more so. Hope she has a place in The New 52.
  • Secret Six #35 - Simone is finishing this book by making Bane a badass again. I expect he’ll be a major villain for Batman in The New 52 just in time for Dark Knight Rises to come out. Makes me want to read Knightfall.

Kris, what’s on your pull list?