As a species, we have survived DC’s “New 52” Initiative. Now, it’s time to see who some of the biggest winners and losers of the month were.
Click the jump for the verdict.
Best Book Of The Month: Batman #1
No question about it, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman is September’s champion. Capullo’s art, an early target for the Image-ization of DC, is a revelation; Snyder’s script is full of action, great characterization, and has a cliffhanger I can’t imagine any fan not returning next month for. A winner on all levels (except for the cover, one of the worst of the month).
Runner Up: Animal Man #1
Worst Book Of The Month: Mister Terrific #1
It’s no secret that I hated this book in a way usually reserved for The Rise of Arsenal; what is surprising is how many people agree with me! When visiting my LCS this week, the store manager told me that he hasn’t heard one good thing about the book in the 3 weeks it has been released. I know that Legion Lost has been an equally reviled book, but I defend my position thusly: Try and explain the Legion of Superheroes to a non-fan in twenty words or less. You can’t adequately do it; there are layers of continuity and character work that need to be there for understanding to take place. On the other hand, exhibit B: Mister Terrific is the world’s third smartest man, as well as a widower, a billionaire and a super hero. It is a simple character who just needed a good story to make it work, and it failed from jump street.
Runner Up: Legion Lost #1
Best Scene Of The Month: Buddy Baker is interviewed in The Believer
For a guy who buys The Believer regularly, to see it referenced on the first page of Animal Man #1 was cool enough, but the interview provides invaluable for the issue as a whole. It was a non-clunky way to catch people up with the status quo, and since Baker can be a complex character, taking one page to do all of that left 19 pages to tell a new story, something Lemire did masterfully. In addition to being functional and fun, it was also just so different; it was the last thing I expected when I opened the book up, and it is the one scene I keep coming back to, simply because of its unique nature.
Runner Up: Batman and the Joker fight together in Batman #1
Worst Scene Of The Month: Starfire is now a tabula rasa/fuck machine (from Red Hood and the Outlaws #1)
Women are the real losers of the DCnU, and nowhere is that more apparent than this Cinemax after nine p.m. clunker. No one has a problem with sexually liberated women, so let’s get that off the table, but what people do have a problem with is lazy writing and mischaracterizations. Certain characters have had their origins tweaked, but this one makes absolutely no sense, especially since Arsenal mentions their time as Titans together, as well as alluding to Starfire’s relationship with Dick Grayson. So all that still happened, but Lobdell and co. still thought the best story move was to make her a blank slate sex addict. Shame on everyone involved here.
Runner Up: TIE: Catwoman and Batman do the Bat-toosie / Voodoo strips and strips and strips
Best Writer Of The Month: Tie – Jeff Lemire/Scott Snyder
These two writers are responsible for SEVEN titles this month (four as part of the New 52), and each of them knocked it out of the park. Leaving aside their Vertigo work, Snyder took two of DC’s biggest properties, Batman and Swamp Thing, and breathed new life into them without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Lemire, on the other hand, took two characters that many new fans would be unfamiliar with and made both into must-buy titles. Everything about Animal Man references the past but looks to the future, creating one of the most completely realized books out there, and Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. may be the most fun book DC published this past month.
Runner Up: Grant Morrison
Worst Writer Of The Month: Eric Wallace
Again, no surprises here. I feel like I’m going to get some flak for saying this as a white guy, but one of the more disturbing parts of Mister Terrific #1 is the need to make Holt’s race such a part of the work; especially as the character has always, to me at least, transcended race. And the times it did come up, it was awkwardly shoehorned into a place where it was unnecessary and not needed. It almost felt like Wallace needed to defend the character’s blackness as part of his script. Well, he didn’t, and the work suffered greatly for it.
Runner Up: Jonathan Vankin for the unreadable backup in Men of War #1
Best Artist Of The Month: Francis Manapul
The Flash, at its best, is a book all about movement, and Manapul showed with this issue that he gets that completely. One of the underrated aspects of comic art is the layouts and placement of panels, and this book has the best layout of the New 52. From the gorgeous double title page to the full page drop down into the sewer, every page looks beautiful both from a distance and panel by panel. Manapul has been suspect of late books in his career, but let’s hope he keeps this up, because there isn’t a more perfect pairing of artist and comic out there.
Runner Up: Ben Oliver
Worst Artist Of The Month: Gianluca Gugliotta
I know it seems like I’m really hitting Mister Terrific hard, but the artwork in this issue is almost as offensive as the writing. Characters looks grossly different from panel to panel, the perspective is all over the place, and he Gugliotta managed to make a comic about super science look boring. How the hell can you do that?
Runner Up: Pete Woods
Best New Book Of The Month: Animal Man
My criteria for this category in this new release heavy month was “What is the best title that didn’t exist in some capacity in August,” and if that is the case, then Animal Man is the clear winner. A family story that is also a horror story that is also a metatextual commentary on being a superhero that is also funny — that’s a winner in my book.
Runner Up: Swamp Thing
