Blue Beetle #1

So part of the impetus behind this whole reboot was to de-clutter the complicated histories that many DC characters have. Superman's been around since 1938, Batman's only a year younger, and the DC Universe has only grown more complex in the decades since. However, there are plenty of characters who've only been around a few years and are in no need of rebooting. But that didn't stop Didio and company from working their magic (SARCASM DETECTED) on a relatively fresh character by the name of Blue Beetle.

Jamie Reyes, the third hero to call himself Blue Beetle, first appeared in a 2005 DC crossover by the name of Infinite Crisis, but don't hold that against him. This crossover wasn't the usual abortion that Marvel and DC tend to put out. In a pretty well done sequence, Jamie becomes Blue Beetle, gets introduced to Batman, recruited for a mission in space to shut down an evil sentient satellite (sometimes I really love comics) and helps the world's greatest heroes save the day. He segued into his own ongoing series, which lasted only a few years, but was generally beloved by its readers. It was credited with being clever, light-hearted, and presented a young Latino character in a very positive light. This is rare in any sort of media, much less the comic industry, where the vast majority of creators and a sizable percentage of the readers are a bunch of old white dudes.

But alas, DC decided to mess with a good thing, and here we are at Blue Beetle #1. It's a ground-zero approach, so NONE of Jamie's six years of stories are relevant. In their place, we have a Hispanic family speaking a laughably bad combination of English and Spanish, despite being Americans who live in Texas and give off no indications of being recent immigrants. "No way I'm letting you to la casa de amparo cardenas!" exclaims Jamie's mother. "Pero mami, porque? Did Brenda's tia do something to you?" Jesus. I've read more realistic portrayals of Hispanic people in Stormfront newsletters. But it gets mas malo, amigos. Jamie's best friend is Paco, a dropout gang member who wears a half-buttoned shirt and drives a car with lifts. Fucking hell, Tony Bedard. You're a better writer than this. You wrote REBELS like, two minutes ago, and that was one of the best sci-fi comics ever. Do you owe a favor to a racist GOP senator or something?

Buy again: No, but I wish I could, in good conscience.

New reader friendly: Assuming you're looking for readers that dress up as pointy ghosts, sure.

Batman #1

Despite an uninspired opening (Batman fights a bunch of his enemies as they try to bust out of Arkham Asylum, never seen that before, right?), this comic is the tits. Scott Snyder, the writer of this issue, just gets how to write Batman. Let me count the ways.

1) Batman is a stoic, serious, focused hero, but he can still hold a conversation with friends (Jim Gordon, Harvey Bullock), family (the various Robins, Alfred), and civilians he interacts with as Bruce Wayne. There's a lot of writers who seem convinced that Batman's at his best when he's an unshaven, nigh-psychopathic, and only cares about crime fighting. Snyder presents a more balanced Batman.

2) Batman shows off his detective skills. For everything the Nolan films get right, the one thing they fall down on is showing Batman's keen mind. We see Bats show up at a crime scene that's already been processed by the Gotham City PD, and catch things that they missed.

3) Not only is Batman a detective, the story itself asks us as readers to try to figure out what's coming next, via a pretty decent cliffhanger.

4) He's working with artist Greg Capullo. Capullo's spent years drawing Spawn (God knows why, he must've lost a bet, or maybe Todd McFarlane has pictures of Capullo murdering Girl Scouts or something. It's impossible that he actually LIKED drawing Spawn.) and it shows, in his command of shadow, knowledge of how to draw an urban setting, and how big capes can look cool as hell.

Buy again: Aye, m'lord.

New reader friendly: Very, though there's nothing here that couldn't have been done pre-reboot or "preboot", as the kids say.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #1

There must be some sort of random comic title generator over at the DC Comics headquarters. It's sorta like the Fanfic Generator, in that it's complete fan-fiction, except the writer gets paid. Red Hood and the Outlaws (starring ex-Robin Jason Todd, suerpowered alien princess Starfire, and recovering junkie archer Arsenal) was the result. It could've been a worse idea, I suppose. We could've gotten a team-up book with Bouncing Boy, the Red Bee, and Hawkman (Hawkman is the worst, everyone hates Hawkman).

Anyways, out of this random combo of characters, we have a random something resembling a comic. There's some decent action to kick off the series, with Red Hood and Starfire busting Arsenal out of a Middle Eastern prison. That goes smoothly, no issues there. To relax after their little adventure, the trio relax on the beach. Starfire mugs a bit for the camera, but that's okay, right? Then we have this exchange:

Now, I have no problem with Starfire being down with random hook-ups. What I do have a problem with is Arsenal referring to her as "Jason's girl", which is pretty paternalistic. But it gets worse from there. We find out that Starfire's species "have a terribly short attention span about all things Earth." Translation: Starfire has sex with guys and then forgets about it. That's basically the equivalent of having sex with a human who gets blackout drunk. Which is rape. So now that we've established that writer Scott Lobdell views Starfire as a RealDoll (REALLLLLLLY don't click that at work), we can jump back into the rest of the issue. But there's not much that can top that. Jason runs afoul of some warrior monks or something.

Writer Scott Lobdell, except for his bizarre fucking choice to make Starfire into an amnesic fuck machine, turns in an unremarkable but occasionally fun script. Artist Kenneth Rocafort, on the other hand, does some great work. The art is vibrant, detailed, and pleasing to the eye.

Buy again: I'd like to give it another try, especially cause of the art, but the comic just didn't grab me.

New reader friendly: Not really. Starfire, Red Hood and Arsenal are all supporting characters at heart, and without their connections to Batman, Nightwing, and Green Arrow made clear, they are pretty confusing leads.

Red Lanterns #1

Atrocitus is a guy/monster whose family and entire race was murdered by some robots sent by the OA Guardians. Now he's assembled a team of freaks called the Red Lanterns to go out into the universe and wreak vengeance in a really disorganized, ad-hoc fashion. This team is apparently tubercular, since they're constantly spitting up blood. Atrocitus included his cat in the mix:

So what did we learn in this first issue? Other than that Atrocitus needs to attend some management seminars, not much. There is some kind of B-plot about a British grad student whose grandfather is mugged. This has nothing to do with the weirdos on Crazy Blood Planet, but I can only assume that he will become Sector 2814's Red Lantern after he defends his thesis. Have you ever tried defending a thesis while blood is pouring out of your mouth? I don't recommend it.

Atrocitus spends his off-hours talking to a Guardian corpse, saying things like "I am married to you in my rage," which is pretty much how I feel about writer Peter Milligan.

Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #1

When Grant Morrison put out the Frankenstein mini-series that was part of his Seven Soldiers of Victory epic, I thought it was the cat's tits. Goddamn fantastic.

Then Frankenstein made a few cameo appearances in Final Crisis, though apparently only to quote Milton. Here he still quotes Milton, seemingly for no reason other than the fact that he used to after his creation in the early 19th century. He works for a gothy version of S.H.I.E.L.D. called S.H.A.D.E. and they've teamed up with other genetic recreations of famous Universal Monsters. My reaction to this was similar to my reaction to a lot of these DC reboot titles:

Seriously, this book seems like someone went on a weeklong cocaine and vodka jag while reading every issue of B.P.R.D., watching The Monster Squad over and over again, and jerking off into a Dracula coffee mug.

Deathstroke #1

A series devoted to Deathstroke. I was not excited about this, mainly because Deathstroke is not an interesting character. He's the ultimate badass who kills tons of folks, occasionally growling surly things. Giving him his own series is kind of like giving a TV show to the cow gun killer from No Country for Old Men.

So who are the supporting characters? Well, there's his slick agent who hooks him up with work and there's a team of goofy young mercenaries who call themselves the Alpha Dawgs. Sounds like the spiritual successor to Entourage, right? Not quite. By the end of the issue, Deathstroke kills the alpha Dawgs for no reason and realizes the job was a set-up for him to recover the mysterious briefcase from Pulp Fiction. Super yawn.

Batwoman #1

I went into this knowing nothing about Batwoman other than she's a lesbian. I think now I know even less. Batwoman is Kate Kane, an impossibly pale ginger girl who lives with her sidekick. She had a sister Alice whom I guess was a supervillain? I don't know. It was all very confusing.

The enemy Batwoman is up against here is a ghost. An evil ghost woman that's kidnapping and drowning children. The issue ended with Batman wanting to talk to her, presumably about what dish she's making for the next Batfamily potluck.

Would I pick up issue 2? Probably. I like the art a lot and though I literally had no idea what was happening, I got this feeling that the writer was actually going somewhere interesting with all of it.