2014 in Review: How DC’s Weeklies Brought Fun and Mystery Back to Comics

2014 in Review has ended, but there are still tons of things Multiversity’s staff loved in comics from the year. As we approach the end of the year, Multiversity’s staff will share one thing a day they loved from the year, highlighting anything from a comic, creator, cover, comic shop, app, or anything really. As long as it involved comics, it can be featured. We hope you enjoy.

One of my jobs at Multiversity is writing a column called “Soliciting Multiversity,” specifically focusing on DC’s offerings. That means that, 3 months prior to release, I get to investigate what DC is publishing – sure, we don’t get to see interior pages or read more than a quick sentence or two detailing each issue’s plot, but the result is very much the same: the element of surprise is nearly gone in my comic reading.

For that reason, among many others, DC’s weekly offerings have been incredibly satisfying, week in and week out. Sure, there are still solicits, but because between the day a solicit is release and the actual issue is released have 12 issues released in between them, the solicits, by default, have to be vague. But that is just one, easy to point to reason, why the weeklies have been such a revelation.

It needs to be noted that while DC has three weekly books – two of which are set to intersect at some point – each book is incredibly different. “Batman Eternal” is a celebration of the Bat-mythos; not in some meta-way like Grant Morrison’s Bat run, but more rooted in the actual comics status quo. Elements from almost every period of Bat-history are in there, as well as fun pieces for the future. Outside of Dick Grayson (notable by his absence), Ra’s al Ghul, Damian Wayne, Two-Face and the Joker, just about every ancillary Bat-character has been present, and used in some of the most effective ways since the dawn of the New 52.

In addition, the art team on “Eternal” has been almost universally excellent – Guillem March, Dustin Nguyen, Jason Fabok, and Andy Clarke, among others, have made up a team that is stylistically diverse, but have created a book that feels unified in really amazing ways. They have gotten to draw every corner of Gotham – from the bowels of Arkham to the top of a skyscraper – as well as focus on the minutia of Batman’s day to day life, as well as the lives of others around him. This is one of the most consistently excellent books in all of superhero comics, and should be praised for its pacing, its sprawling narrative, and its reminders of all that is good in the Bat books.

“Earth 2: World’s End,” on the other hand, is a stomp on the gas pedal for a book that was already speeding along. Over the past two and a half years, “Earth 2” has built a world that feels somehow both more open and, because it is featured in only one or two titles a month, more insular than the main New 52 universe. “World’s End” is, essentially, compressing 2+ years of story into a weekly and, at times, really feels like it.

The book features multiple artists per issue and, because of that, can feel a little jumbled at times – add that to the fact that it is plotted by a novelist writing his first “real” comic, and the book has some excuses for being the least consistent, and least satisfying, of the three weeklies. It isn’t a huge dig to say that this is the weakest weekly, if only because the other two have been so strong. The title also suffers from the design of the series – “Batman Eternal” is telling one big, self-contained story, “Futures End” is all mystery and speculation, and “World’s End” is trying to, essentially, end an entire planet’s major stories that have been building since 2012.

“New 52: Futures End,” as mentioned above, is a book that is all about the prestige, in the magic terminology. The book is set up as taking place 5 years in the future – a future that is not necessarily destined to take place. Because of that, anything goes: want to kill Ronnie Raymond and make Firestorm take a female form? Awesome. Think it would be cool to see the Atom and Black Adam team up? Why not? Think Batman’s neck brace from “Kingdom Come” wasn’t extreme enough? We can top that!

The book is always setting up little magic tricks, creating payoffs for situations for which you didn’t think needed or wanted closure. The four-headed writing team certainly favors certain heads more than others, and the art of the book has been solid, if not a bit pedestrian. On a page to page, issue to issue level, “Futures End” has the most variance between greatness and mediocrity, but each week brings at least one “holy shit!” moment, or at least the prospect of next week’s “holy shit” moment. This is, hands down, the first comic I read each Wednesday, and the one that I think about the most until reading the next issue.

But taken together, these three books buck the trend of over-sharing future plot points, bring an air of mystery to the books, take chances, benefit from long-terms storytelling, and reward fans of the properties. That sounds an awful lot like what comics are supposed to be, doesn’t it?