Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly gives the world of pop culture-loving fools a run-down of most, but not all, of the “One Year Later” books that have been released this far.
Finally — a big comic book event that brings the goods!
I’d say that DC is hitting for a pretty high average thus far with the “One Year Later” books. I’ve read probably 80% of them, and the clunkers (Birds of Prey) have been far outweighed by the strong successes (Detective Comics, Superman, Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis), or even the middle of the road books (Green Arrow, Nightwing, The Outsiders).
This bodes well for the 52 series.
Now, if Marvel can pull off Civil War, this should be a very good year for comics.
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a very good year for marvel and DC comics. I’d like to see another year 2000 when good stuff was coming from all over.
So, is this officially the ‘One Year Later’ thread for iFanboy?
First off, I have to say I love this idea of having everything jump a year forward. It gives the authors breathing room, a huge gap in which to write an interesting plot device or plant the seeds of a new villian. I mean, Superman and Batman and Robin and just about every book going through OYL (Except maybe Teen Titans) was running into a slump, post-Identity Crisis. I think that they were bogged down with nothing to do until Crisis, with all their ‘exposition and plot building’, so they just went with what they had to work with. But now they can freely throw some crazy ideas out there and SUCCESSFULLY make them work (Pray we don’t get a DC comics version of ‘The Other’)
52 is also a really unique concept. It’s just like a good episode of a TV show, except you won’t have to wait for a month between seasons (Or a year or 2 like the Sopranos). I think it might be really fun to enjoy this year long series. And from what i’ve seen, there are surprises (Powerless Superman?! A missing Batman and Robin?!) and other points that SHOULDN’T warrant more than a page or 2 of an issue (Jason Todd, Nightwing)
Civil War…I have to say, this looks really exciting. I’m only really dissapointed that the X-men, who have faced the prejudice of public identities more than anyone, are going to be somewhat absent from the main conflict. But with the new Spider Armor, and a schism between the New Avengers…this could very well turn out to be a brand new door for new series to appear (Who knows, maybe Gravity will come into the spotlight with his own series now!)
I am looking forward to Civil War as well. I don’t know what happened in house of M or secret war. I do have them coming in TPB. I need to read them because they are both being refered to in many of the Marvel titles I have read lately. I do like the fact that all of the major marvel titles seem intertwined right now.
For the one year later thing; I just can’t bring my self to read DC. When I started reading comics (late 70’s, early 80’s) Batman and Superman were so juvinille and I can’t get past it. ‘just can’t take them seriously. To each his own. I respect DC readers, I just can’t do it. Reading comics at my age is goofy enough.
One more thing. It would be nice if you guys made so we could use avatars here. I have a cool little hulk one I would like to use.
I agree with the sentiment that this could be a big year for comics. I think a lot goes back to Identity Crisis and it bringing some good press to the work being done in comics. I think both of the big publishers have done well in capitalizing on this momentum and are producing some really good work. In almost all cases this is because of simplifying their universes and giving their writers something to work with (198 mutants leads to some good mutant stories, and OYL does the same for the DCU). I think it’s pretty exciting.
I will challenge Hulkingmarvelman to pick up some of the DC books. Sounds like we’re from the same age group and I understand his position. When I started reading comics the Marvel books were more realistic and less campy but that changed MHO about 20 years ago and I think the two are on fairly even ground since then. I am much more of a DC guy but House of M and Civil War are bringing me to some Marvel titles and the freshness of it is something I enjoy. It’s been about 5 years since I read much Marvel but I am glad to pick some up and keep up with the Marvelverse (while not dropping my DC stuff). I challenge you to try something new, you might be surprised.
Identity Crisis was really good. I know it’s been said, but I don’t read those books at all, and I really really enjoyed it. It was just well done. I can’t say that everything that followed it was great, but the One Year Later thing is a great way to pick up and try some of these books. It’s not far enough in to tell you for sure if they’ll be any good in the long run, but some are off to a good start. Batman, Superman, etc.