I actually really liked Death of the Family. Yes, the timeline of it was a bit questionable, but this is DC Comics. You have to remember that time is just an object to be bought, traded, modified, and sold like VW Beetle. Once you get over this, everything improves.

Well even thinking like that it doesn't help make the story better. I haven't liked Scott Snyder's writing since Dick Grayson was Batman. Even his Swamp Thing run nothing really happened for 18 issues and in 1 issue Charles Soule made me love Swamp Thing so much more.

Personally I find Peter Tomasi's Batman and Robin and John Layman's Detective Comics run of the New 52 Bat books.

Thanks for your help! But this has also really pissed me off.

Going by the back of the trades - as that is all I had to go on - Night makes it sound like it's tie in issues only while Joker presents itself as a compendium. In reality then it's the other way round? So by buying city and night, I've basically bought the same stuff twice? Grr. And now I need to go away and buy Death in the families trade as well? Sneaky bastards. I like supporting the artists but not when it feels like I'm being ripped off.

I've heard Batman and The Owls is the best of the New 52 stuff. Most people seem pretty meh on Batman and Robin but seem to praise how Batman is portrayed. Personally i like my Batman riding solo, with his sidekicks just cameos.

It seems everyone finds Dark Knight terrible, as they did with Detective Comics which apparently got loads better, Dark Knight apparently doesnt. Then the rest of the Bat books are still ground in their own continuity. So auto avoid from me.

Batman is to Robins and Batgirls what James Bond is to women. They always die horribly.

Well...not that many Batgirls have died. But still, that's kind of the point. It's Batman's war and a constant reminder why no one else should join in on it. But also that he can't do it alone.

The Robins and Batgirls are way more interesting than Batman though. Yeah it's a one sided war too because Batman doesn't kill or have his own Bat-Prison, Bat-Villains normally always come back.

Oh I agree, I was just explaining why they usually don't fare very well :lol

I'm in two minds on how to feel about Court of Owls. On the one hand, it's gorgeous and art really should be our main pull, right? Capullo ' s art is a little scruffy at times but artists who can be consistently heavily stylised do it for me. I love the subtle tweaks to the costumes and the way he captured that noir feel of Gotham.

Similarly the action is brief, but wonderfully staged using beautiful imagery and cool locations. This book is pretty light on the action but it never drags as it's always so visually interesting.

No, my main issues were with the writing. I get why they might have made Batman feel so human and I didn't care for the belt that could solve all problems either but I just think they went a little too far. There are quite a few character moments I wish happened internally, not externally, as at points he started to not feel like Batman any more.

Another disappointment were the fantasy elements, I think Talon would have been more formidable as just an anti - Batman assassin rather than some science jargon pseudo zombie. It's impressive that even Batman can jump the shark.

Plus although I liked the Court as a concept, they feel weird as the first villains. Since they are 'behind everything' and firmly integrated into everything it feels like there should have been more build up and context. A lot of the twists fell flat.

They either end up dead or crippled. He needs to do it alone, and hopefully he learns that since Damien and Spoiler both died.

although its the only one I read I rather liked batman death by design. I thought the art style and story were rather interesting.

But if Batman had never taken Dick in, Dick would just be another mindless zombie Talon. Plus I actually like Dick now he is Nightwing, as Nightwing is less of a kid with a bad attitude that can take down fully grown men because of...reasons and more his own Batman, with a design like Batman Beyond, which helps.

Oh, definitely Dick is the exception. He grew up, moved on, ran his own team, and lost Bludhaven. But he recovered as much as you can from something like that. But sooner or later, you'd think, Batman would stop a minute and go "Huh... Maybe it's me." Though I'm not blaming him for Jason Todd. DC killed Jason Todd because of a rigged phone poll.

Tim? Dont you mean Jason Todd?

Edited my post a second after I made it because I saw my mistake. You're slow, Convoy :p

So I guess old dogs can learn new tricks he? :lol

Or get taken behind the woodshed :lol

How is Batgirl and The Birds of Prey in the New 52? Gail Simone is one of my favourite comic writers, and her Batgirl sections of Night of The Owl proved to be a highlight of a very fun book. Also does Batgirl and Birds start fresh as well?

Yay, another Simone fan! :D

Batgirl has been amazing, my favourite new 52 by far. I was incredibly skeptical that DC could pull off making Babs Batgirl again given how amazing she was as Oracle, but thanks to Simone's writing they've really made it work. The story is a reboot of sorts - the paralysing in the Killing Joke still happened, but she's suddenly got better and started fighting crime again. They haven't fully explained the miracle healing yet, but I like to believe they will eventually. The fact its frequently referenced is a sure sign they haven't forgotten it.

Birds is pretty much a reboot too, although I inferred from it that Babs did act as Oracle with Black Canary during her paralysis. I followed it for a few issues and was really disappointed in it. Black Canary is fine, but Starling is no Huntress (Helena Beternelli doesn't exist any more) or Zinda Blake. The early roster isn't too bad with Katana and Poison Ivy filling the slots, and then Batgirl joins up eventually as well. But the team switches around quite quickly and I lost interest.

A talon becoming a team member was pretty much the last straw for me. I liked Court of Owls but I don't think it needs shoe-horning in everywhere.

Absolutely adored her run on Wonder Woman the most. Never thought I'd enjoy the character, but I was sold as soon as Wonder Woman made Captain Nazi cry :lol

That is a shame about Birds, then, but good to know about Batgirl. I'll add that trade to the pile I'm gathering in my Amazon Basket along with New 52 Batman and Robin, New 52 Earth 2 and that other New 52 Batman trade I need.

Spoiler never died, but Damian has and Jason came back so Damian should be back later this year, I mean he is an Al Ghul too.

Yes she did. She died in the end of War Games.

Anyway, the new Birds of Prey series is awful. I gave up on it after 3 issues because it sucked so bad.

Batgirl was not bad from what I read, but she isn't really my type of character, especially because I prefer Cassie over Barbara.

http://i.imgur.com/w5N7i9w.jpg

Twenty percent off in Waterstones!

I really hate the N52 version of Joker, and I hated that whole family storyline.

Maybe it's because I have low standards, but I liked Death of the Family. The Batman part of the story was done incredibly well, and while the tie-ins did throw the timeline into a funk, they were great as individual stories.

I also liked Batman: The Dark Knight. Yeah, it is a bit pointless, but the Scarecrow arc was amazing.

I dunno man, the timeline in Night of The Owls is all fucked as well, one story will actively spoil another and this isn't an isolated incident, it happens four or five times.

No she never died, she actually lived after War Games, Leslie Thompkins faked her death. She came back later and was Batgirl before the New 52 began.


Also her run as Batgirl was one of my favorite comics ever I highly recommend it.

Also I just want to say if anyone loves Cosmic/Space Stories the Green Lantern Universe is absolutely amazing right now. All four books Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, Red Lanterns, and Green Lantern: New Guardians I highly, highly recommend.

Good man, I love Green Lantern. Each and every one of them.

HUSH!! I don't buy it!! Stephanie died by Black Mask and that is the end of it.

Cassie Cain was Batgirl.

Awesomeness =) and same here, my room is full of Green Lantern stuff. I own all the trades and the comics of the last volume and the current run. I actually have met the previous Writer of Green Lantern and the current GLC writer.

I love both Cassandra and Stephanie, I wish they were both still around in the New 52.

Isn't Steph going to be in that new weekly Bat book?

I hope so.

Me too, but the crossovers upon crossovers wore me out. After Rebirth there was like five crossover events back to back, and as I guess they didn't wanna make a thousand issues of crossovers redundant New 52 just carried on the continuity even though that makes absolutely no sense.

I guess it's lucky I've still got my Earth 2 Lantern to enjoy (even if he isn't the same) as I've had to steer pretty clear of New 52 Lantern books.

If you start from issues 21 of the Green Lantern books from the New 52 it's actually been really really amazing.

Why issue 21?

It's because Geoff Johns concluded his 9 year run with issue 20, so he finished all of his plotlines with that issue.

That is why he is saying start at 21, so you can just start at the beginning of the brand new inferior story line.

Just finished Night of The Owls. I think it's best described as a 'Hot Mess'. It wants to be this sprawling epic, but it's more meandering and confused. It leaves in the most pointless chapters from City of The Owls but leaves out pretty much all of the key ones. This means Night of The Owls regularly slams head first into walls or just full on fizzles out because its destination was for some reason left out. But oh well, lucky we left in those chapters about Mr. Freeze because they were so crucial!

It's so bad, at times, I contemplated if my book was just misprinted. The issues placed within this are genuinely in the wrong order. I understand what they are trying to do with the books timeline, but there is at least five instances where an issue will actively spoil another issue that comes way later in the book, as if they just slotted in the issues at random. And also because of some of the most key stuff of City is left out, sometimes the characters are referencing things that haven't even happened in this book. It really pulls you out of the story, as it's meant to be this sprawling, chaotic war in Gotham but it seems at times, even DC can't keep up.

I guess it's more frustrating, because pretty much all the chapters, individually are wonderful. With Court laying most of the groundwork, Night could start at Eleven and go for there and although at times it was a shameless advert for the extended Batman Family, look who bought the first Batgirl trade.

DC seems quite happy with the heroes losing, regularly, as long as the heroes win in the end. The Court and their army of Talons practically bring Gotham to its knees before the book is done, and I don't mean that in some cheap gimmicky way, I mean that genuinely with each page it's like the Batman Families grip on victory becomes looser and looser.

Plus, although I really didn't enjoy a lot of the art, I enjoyed the contrast of so many different styles from page to page, it was beautiful stuff. Especially with all the different Talon designs and the contrast of the Bat families styles and motivations. Very visually fulfilling. Probably the best artist in the whole book is Kenneth Rocafort, it's a shame I've heard so many bad things about the book, because his art alone made me wanna go out and read Red Hood and The Outlaws.

JL War Spoilers:

So yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah, what the hell did I just watch? This movie was down right terrible and reflects EVERYTHING wrong with the New 52. First off, the animation is subpar, but my god, the lip synching was terrible. The lips rarely ever seemed to match up with the dialog. Secondly, the voices were quite bad, especially on Darkseid, Batman, and Hal. Yes, they did a lot better job of hiding Blum's voice than the trailers made it sound, but he just sounded robotic rather than godly. Batman and Hal were off on all accounts. Another issue is I just don't understand the need to put Captain Marvel in here. Not only did he feel out of place, but I just don't get it. He says the word "Shazam" to transform, and then says "Shazam' later and stays as is, then does it again and it transforms him. It just does not make sense at all. Not to mention what the hell happened to Billy. Gone is the sweet kind hearted always positive child and he is now a little sack of **** you just want to whack with a belt. How is this kid deserving of Shazam's power? In fact, that is the other problem here and with the N52. Except for Flash, every character in this movie was broody and ready to insult one another. There was not a single different character trait among them to make them not seem like the same character several times over. Speaking of Flash, how come he is in his non-N52 costume? That makes no freaking sense either!!! Superman killing Zod in "Man of Steel" made sense. His killing Desaad here does NOT!! However, the worst atrocity was Darkseid, or rather, I swear that Doomsday took Darkseid's Olympic clothing because this character did not even feel like Darkseid. He just felt like an unstoppable killing machine. There was no purpose to his invasion because this movie had no plot. It is like the writers just took the action scenes out of the comic and instead of turning it into DLC for "Injustice Gods Among Us," they made it into a movie.

On the positive side, the constant banter between Hal and Batman remained the best part of the movie as it did in the comic. Flash was golden. They did a good job of Cyborg. Other than that, there is nothing I can really praise this movie for. This is one of the worst, if not the worst, DC animated movie WB has ever done. It was insulting the audience, and as I previously said, it highlights everything that is wrong with the current state of the comics. Oh yeah, and Superman and Wonder Woman is just no no NO!!! NO!!!!!

Overall, I give this piece of garbage a 4/10 and that is only because the action scenes were sort of cool and there were good one liners in it (such as Batman stealing Hal's ring and his first words to Flash).

She is, they already confirmed she will return in it.

I absolutely loved Justice League War, mainly because GL and Shazam are totally awesome in it. Also it focused more on everyone besides Batman and Superman.

But that was NOT Captain Marvel!!! He did not have any resemblance to the character's personality.

And the movie was nothing but one long action sequence.