A little less than 5 years later and DC has kind of raised the white flag on the New 52 and decided they need to bring elements back from the original DC universe.
I wasn't going to give them the time of day. I tried the new Marvel stuff and nothing really stuck with me. The books weren't bad but Marvel has changed so many characters at this point that it's alienating if you've followed their titles for any length of time. But this isn't about Marvel.
Being the degenerate comic book addict that I am, I started kind of peaking at the new lineup of DC titles. I have to admit that while I'm not expecting an amazing turn around to their output of books they did do just enough to make me curious.
So my goal is to blog about my experiences with the DC Rebirth. I've plotted out the books that I'm going to get at the start. Nothing out of the ordinary for me. I will spend a future post discussing what I plan to pull. So let's get into the DC Universe Rebirth #1.
Overview: This story essentially boils down to the return of the real Wally West as Kid Flash. He reveals that the DC Universe was changed and attacked by someone at the end of Flashpoint. The main plot is Wally visiting a number of characters in the DCU and trying to get them to pull him out of the Speedforce. The book also introduces some elements returning to the DCU. The JSA are mentioned, the Legion appear and Ray Palmer and Ryan Choi make an appearance.
This book also makes a big introduction to the DCU as the Watchmen are now a part of the DCU proper. Yes, go ahead and groan with me right now.
The big climax of the book is Wally appearing to Barry Allen right before he is about to die. In a rarely powerful moment Wally pours his heart out to Barry and Barry remembers at the last moment and pulls Wally from the Speedforce. After years of soulless writing, they finally had a scene that had some emotional punch to it. It actually took me by surprise that DC was still capable of making you feel anything while reading one of their books. It actually kind of gives me hope for the future of this Rebirth idea.
Final Thoughts: Let's start with the good on this comic. This is probably the best single issue of a comic book I've read from DC since the Justice League Dark had a brief teamup with the Flash and Swamp Thing a couple of years ago. It feels like they finally got why people didn't like the New 52 and while not doing away with it completely changed some serious problems with it.
It feels like there's some actual diversity in their heroes again. Everyone in this book didn't feel like an angst ridden teenager or 20something that wasn't married. We're hopefully regaining heroes from every age bracket and from different walks of life. This made the DCU feel big again.
Coming out of this issue I would say my interest in the Rebirth titles has grown. I originally had a list of about 4 books I was going to get and I decided to grow that to about 12. That might not last for long but that's the most DC I've had on my list since probably somewhere in 2009.
I do have some real issues with the Watchmen coming into the regular DCU though. That strikes me that they learned nothing from Wildstorm's failure to integrate. The characters just don't fit in that universe and it's going to be painfully obvious. I also think the Watchmen characters lose their impact as ongoing DCU characters. I'm hoping that they're easy to avoid or minimally used.
I also looked through the new books and it still looks like Tim Drake is getting the shaft in these new books. That really disappoints me because he's probably my favorite DC character. But I guess we have to take small steps here.
I would probably give this book an A- as far as quality goes. Really solid story that sets the foundation for what they're going to be doing with the new titles. Hopefully DC can deliver on it.
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