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[Gladiator X]

I'd say it was pretty good but not all that much better than it was before.

Pre-launch I was buying the Legion and Power Girl (and waiting for Batwoman)

I tried quite a few book s of the new 52 and enjoyed most of them and if money wasn't an issue, I would still be buying almost all of them.

6 months later, my pull-list isn't really much differant than it was before.

I will be sticking with Batwoman, LSH and Legion Lost and will be pickin' up Worlds Finest so aside from making me pick up some books I wouldn't have normally read for a couple months, the only real addition to my list is Justice League which I'm mostly buying for Jim Lee's art.

If it was a complete reboot and every book was like Justice League and Action set at the beginning of the heroic era, I'd have a helluva lot more books on my pull but they didn't, so I don't.

[SaturnKnight]

I think overall, the quality is better. DC was a rut since Infinite Crisis, IMO, with very few consistent quality titles and a disparity of talent between them and Marvel.

Since the Nu52, sales are stronger across the board, the company consolidated their talent and strengthened their core titles immensely. We have quality Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, and Aquaman titles, a strong horror line and a few other pleasant surprises (Superboy, Batman and Robin, Birds of Prey).

Was it a perfect reboot? Nope. Did it leave their line in a better state than it was before? Yes.

Wow! Concise, succinct and right on all the major points. Great post and good job!

Would I have preferred that DC didn't have to reboot? Yeah, sure, absolutely. But like BlueStreak said, sales are stronger...much stronger. DC has a lockdown on the Top 10 titles. They're selling more comics (#1 in unit share) and have totally shut Marvel out of the Top 10. It is very hard to argue with their success. Plus, they're selling more titles at a lower price point on the overwhelming majority of their books.

I can honestly not remember a time that DC's Big Seven heroes all had well-reviewed, bestselling books coming out simultaneously: Batman, Action Comics, Wonder Woman, Aquaman (!), Green Lantern, The Flash. It's unreal to me how well all of those books are doing both creatively and commercially. Biggest surprises in that bunch are Flash (for the surprising strength & success of art team Manapul & Buccellato as writers who have actually made Barry Allen interesting) and Aquaman (for Geoff Johns & Ivan Reis' unprecedented success at turning Aquaman into a Top 10 smash outselling every Marvel Comic in less than 6 months--unbelievable!).

The diversity in DC's lineup is a welcome breath of fresh air. You want horror? Pick up I, Vampire or Swamp Thing or Animal Man. You want westerns? Buy All-Star Western. You want war stories? Read Men At War or G.I. Combat. There's the DC Dark line, the DC Edge line. And perhaps most appreciated is DC's commitment to female-led titles. Wonder Woman hasn't been this well-written and beautifully drawn in years. Batwoman isn't my cup of tea, but it's well-reviewed and a bestseller. Supergirl has been surprisingly addictive with its slow burn story and shockingly good art by Mahmud Asrar (who reminds me more and more of a budding Mahnke or Reis). Catwoman and Batgirl are selling better than they have in years. The DCnU is refreshingly not a "boys-only/no girls allowed" club anymore and that's a very welcome change. Best of all...people are actually buying them.

Of course, there have been the inevitable disappointments; every book wasn't going to succeed. Ethan Van Sciver's revamp of Firestorm has been an epic trainwreck. Rife with horribly forced dialogue and painful takes on race relations, plus the deplorable depiction of Martin Stein, this book needs to just go away and be forgotten as soon as possible. Savage Hawkman is a towering monument to mediocrity in plot and characterization. It fails even as a big, dumb action book which is pretty sad given that's the one thing it seemed to promise. Blue Beetle is overly dark and violent and is no fun to read. And Mister Terrific...heavy sigh. What can you say about Mister Terrific that hasn't already been said hundreds of times? Sadly, this last one is finally getting a much-needed mercy killing.

I, too, dropped Legion Lost. Sooner or later, the team must be reunited with LSH. The concept just isn't working. I had a lot of hope, but really there's no point to creating a 2nd Legion book that is completely cut off from the Legion. It makes no sense and suffers from the same "we-need-to-get-home-but-can't-get-home" malaise that eventually killed Star Trek: Voyager, too.

Teen Titans is a mess. Outside of a begrudging respect for how Lobdell is developing Bunker, all of the Titans have been turned into two dimensional caricatures of their former selves--and the new costumes are absolutely hideous. Still, it is nice to see that people clearly like it and thus it's a Top 20 hit. As a franchise, I can't quibble with the fact that this revamp is popular and as a Titans fan, I'm happy that people like the book even if I don't. (Ravagers, though, looks and sounds terrible.)

Very much looking forward to Earth 2 and World's Finest. Plus I'm going to check out Dial H.

Love it or hate it, the New 52 is a huge success for DC. They've taken #1 in Unit Share and totally dominate the Top 10 books. Most of my favorite franchises have great writers and lovely art. My rating is A-.

I can't wait to see what comes next.

[fieldy snuts]

I think the idea is good but it's really being mismanaged by editorial making the same mistakes. After being told stuff would be self contained for new readers were getting crossovers galore, stuff happening in one book that affects the other and hints of a Daemonite event, Darkseid event, hooded lady stuff, small crossovers between other books etc.

They're doing too much too suddenly to stick with their hot-shot writing. It's the Russo formula in the comics medium which will eventually burn out readers just like after Identity Crisis where we got this treatment for 6+ years to result in this reboot being needed to clean up editorials mess.

And they still haven't learned.

[SaturnKnight]

I think the idea is good but it's really being mismanaged by editorial making the same mistakes. After being told stuff would be self contained for new readers were getting crossovers galore, stuff happening in one book that affects the other and hints of a Daemonite event, Darkseid event, hooded lady stuff, small crossovers between other books etc.

They're doing too much too suddenly to stick with their hot-shot writing. It's the Russo formula in the comics medium which will eventually burn out readers just like after Identity Crisis where we got this treatment for 6+ years to result in this reboot being needed to clean up editorials mess.

And they still haven't learned.

I strongly disagree. The New 52 DC is nothing like the post-Identity Crisis DCU. Primarily, because *this* DCU is a success both commercially and critically. The New 52 consistently gets more good reviews than bad--and these stories are selling in higher numbers than ever.

The DCnU is heavily editorially-driven. It's not all over the place and chronically disorganized. On the contrary, there's an obvious overarching vision for all the storylines and it is being very tightly controlled by editors. DC early in the last decade wasn't nearly this controlled and regimented. The writers are "coloring within the lines" if you will. They have their ideas, but I think it's clear that any story direction has to stay within the larger editorial vision for the entire line.

DC in 2012 is way, way more consistent than DC in 2004 or 2005.

[Dragavon]

The DCnU is heavily editorially-driven.

Which is why so many books are crap. Comics books need to be driven by story and art. If the editors are in charge of what appears in front of us, this experiment is going to collapse on itself soon enough.

[Cat-Scratch]

Unchanged. For me it's still largely nothing more then a curiosity. Some of it is good, some no where near, some interesting. But what will drag it down is that it may not last.

[SaturnKnight]

Which is why so many books are crap. Comics books need to be driven by story and art. If the editors are in charge of what appears in front of us, this experiment is going to collapse on itself soon enough.

Half a year into this and DC's sales are higher than they've been in years. And we've still got Earth 2 and Worlds Finest about to hit. I can understand why some people don't like it. But there is no denying that this reboot has dramatically increased sales and won over the majority of readers--myself included.

[SaturnKnight]

Unchanged. For me it's still largely nothing more then a curiosity. Some of it is good, some no where near, some interesting. But what will drag it down is that it may not last.

Whenever I hear someone say this, my mind flashes back to the introductions of Hal and Barry in the mid-Fifties. How did fans react back then in the pre-Internet era?

I think the sales dominance of the New 52 makes it very difficult to claim it's going away soon. Case in point: Marvel reclaimed #1 back in December and fanboys flipped out, screeching, "IT'S OVER!! THE NEW 52 IS A FAILURE; NOW DC WILL GO BACK!" Then DC shut Marvel out of the Top 10 and took #1 in Unit Share and even Dan Buckley said DC deserved credit for a win.

Those are definitely not signs of imminent return to the past. Just the opposite.

[Log-Man]

I've got a question, a serious one though it sounds sarcastic: how many of these reboots were really necessary? I mean, some had to be restarted to use the stories they're in now, but others weren't really rebooted at all. Couldn't a majority of these stories have worked in the old DC?

[Dragavon]

Half a year into this and DC's sales are higher than they've been in years. And we've still got Earth 2 and Worlds Finest about to hit. I can understand why some people don't like it. But there is no denying that this reboot has dramatically increased sales and won over the majority of readers--myself included.

A temporary boost due to DC's incredible marketing. Dan Buckley, the head of Marvel said they are going to start looking at what DC's marketing department is doing. He didn't say anything about copying editorial.

[Cat-Scratch]

Whenever I hear someone say this, my mind flashes back to the introductions of Hal and Barry in the mid-Fifties. How did fans react back then in the pre-Internet era?

I think the sales dominance of the New 52 makes it very difficult to claim it's going away soon. Case in point: Marvel reclaimed #1 back in December and fanboys flipped out, screeching, "IT'S OVER!! THE NEW 52 IS A FAILURE; NOW DC WILL GO BACK!" Then DC shut Marvel out of the Top 10 and took #1 in Unit Share and even Dan Buckley said DC deserved credit for a win.

Those are definitely not signs of imminent return to the past. Just the opposite.

Again, considering the changes that have gone on and the nature of it... I still say it.

You can point to those all you want, you're ignoring the factors involved given those characters.

In the end, DC decided to change the continuity because they thought it wasn't working. When the sales drop more, this will happen again.

[ReturnoftheMack]

I dropped most of the books I was buying. I just don't care.

I'll buy a few trades of stuff I dropped, but otherwise meh.

It is better than it was.

[SaturnKnight]

A temporary boost due to DC's incredible marketing. Dan Buckley, the head of Marvel said they are going to start looking at what DC's marketing department is doing. He didn't say anything about copying editorial.

LOL, sorry, but I find that funny. Copying marketing strategy isn't going to make Avengers Vs X-Men as well-written and illustrated as books like Batman, Wonder Woman, Swamp Thing, Animal Man, The Flash, et cetera.

And half a year and counting is a little bit more than "temporary" in my book.

[nietoperz]

And half a year and counting is a little bit more than "temporary" in my book.

Scott Snyder has said on Twitter that he has Batman plotted out past the arc that will begin in #20. Two years does not signify temporariness in my book...

[SaturnKnight]

Again, considering the changes that have gone on and the nature of it... I still say it.

You can point to those all you want, you're ignoring the factors involved given those characters.

In the end, DC decided to change the continuity because they thought it wasn't working. When the sales drop more, this will happen again.

I honestly don't think so. If there's any big changes for DC franchises on the horizon, it's with WB's movies. That will be where the next big sweeping changes happen in terms of story direction and visuals.