A Comic Book Blog Synthesis

To sum up our look at A Comic Book Blog, we are going to look at how the blog feels about DC's New 52 relaunch and promotion as a whole and how that influences their opinion on the comics industry.

The second post that we looked at last month shows that the Blog feels that the New 52 is just another sales gimmick and that DC is not living up to the promises they made of this new line. Though there are a lot of new and innovative books coming from this relaunch, namely in the Edge and Dark categories, a lot of the books in the New 52 fall prey to the same problems DC had pre-relaunch. For example, in the Blog's review of Batwing #4, they note that the recapping of the title character's origin story felt like "filler" and that it felt like DC was once again writing the story to sell a 6 issue trade paperback. While there are a number of comics that tell stories in less than 5 issues, such as Mister Terrific, Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E., Suicide Squad and Detective Comics, a majority of DC's so called "flagship" titles tell stories in 6 or even 7 issues. These include such big names as Justice League, Action Comics, Batman, and Batman and Robin, among others. Also, DC still relies on an overabundance of sexual and violent themes to provide shock value. Whether it's Catwoman jumping out of a building half nude or Green Lantern shooting a villain's head off, these kind of scenes make one wonder if DC is still relying on these tropes as a crutch. It is now the beginning of the 5'th month of the New 52, and while sales are still up from last year,  a lot of the more obscure books are not doing so well and creative team change ups occur all over the line. Marvel has just taken back the lead spot as the top comic publisher in December, a spot DC has held since September. It will be interesting to see where the New 52 develops from here.