So, I don't know if you are into comics very much, I have a wavering love of them. From time to time I give up comics and then at some point later I give in and try to catch up again. I have had many different comic loves through the years, it probably started with Marvel comics and Spider-man and the X-Men, but it branched out to other companies and other characters. First to Image, when a group of amazing artists left Marvel to start their own company. Image consisted of some of my favorite artists, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, and my favorite, then and now, Jim Lee.
I am a fanatical Jim Lee fan, if he draws it I want to read it, when we first 'met' he was rebooting X-Men, then jumped to Image with Wild C.A.T.S. then Deathblow and Stormwatch and Gen13. Following that he went back to Marvel, along with Liefeld and a few others to work on the Heroes Reborn story-line, drawing the Fantastic Four [a title I never cared for before or since, but loved then]. Jim then bounced back to his Image imprint Wildstorm where he did, among other things, Divine Right. He ended up selling Wildstorm to DC and then focused on art alone for awhile, doing a year run on Batman, then Superman, and then All-Star Batman and Robin.
Then Jim went and did the design art for DC Online, a multi-player internet game world. Jim then became a co-publisher at DC, and then...DC stopped the current numbering publication of every title and rebooted with The New 52.
An aside is probably needed before we continue. Other than following Jim Lee's every move my main concentration on comics for the last, say decade or more, has been Batman. Batman is by far my favorite comic character, and since there are a billion comics and a million Batman related ones, I have had to limit my spending to this one character. To that end I have followed Bruce and the gang for awhile. A few years ago Bruce got himself stuck in time and Dick Grayson, aka the first Robin, aka Nightwing, took over the batsuit. It was one of my favorite arcs, because I love Dick Grayson, If Batman is 1 Nightwing is 1A.
Okay, back to The New 52. The first thing is that it has been going on for about a year and a half and I just recently decided to jump back in. I have been borrowing some issues from the same friend who I talked about the other day being devastated by the upcoming, now happened, death of Damien Wayne, aka the fourth, or fifth depending on who you ask, Robin. With her help and with the help of the library and the help of trade paperbacks of the collected first volumes of some of the titles I have been able to catch up on most of the Bat titles, namely, Nightwing, the Teen Titans, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Batman and Robin, as well as Justice League [which Jim had been drawing, until #12].
Overall I would say that I like The New 52, it has a lot of great creative teams working on the Bat books, but its continuity has been driving me bonkers recently. From what I understand a lot of the big stories that happened pre-New 52 still happened, like Batman going away, and Jason Todd, aka the second Robin, aka Red Hood, dying and coming back, but on the other hand some of the characters back-stories have been altered for unknown reasons. For instance Dick never actually lived with Bruce, but instead at a boys home, Tim Drake, aka the third Robin, aka Red Robin, went straight to being Red Robin instead of just plain Robin, and his parents are in witness protection, as opposed to being dead, which I guess means that the Identity Crisis crossover never happened.
To be honest it's rather difficult to keep it all straight. To that end, it all makes sense and all makes absolutely no sense at the same time, like the fact that Damien and Tim came to blows when Damien was first introduced, but I guess Tim was a different character when it happened. Huh? What? In the end it goes to show you that comics are pretty much the [mainly] boy equivalent of soap operas. Well, I guess that is enough for one night's ramblings on comic books.
Peace and Love,
Pastor K
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