Month 13: Typically, hope is dashed.

All Star Western #13: You know by now whether you like this by now. I do, so it's great. Jingles (which sounds like it should be a reference I should pick up) is a clown at Haly's Circus. In fact, I'm guessing this is the time when Haly's dettles in the greater Gotham area, allowing the plot of Nu Nightwing to take place. Anyway, Jingles is sort of a proto-Joker, who paints his victims with a clown face despite being a clown and this being a BIT of a clue because he was abused by a priest when he was an altar boy. He says STABBY STABBY STABBY while he stabs people, which is kind of endearing. Plus people get eaten by tigers, which is always cool. The Tomahawk backup is kinda meh (and not helped by me watching Rich Hall's "Inventing The Indian" during the week) but, y'know, it's only the backup to a great book. More people should buy this.
Batman Inc #4: GMoz ploughs his own furrow and great though it is you're left scratching your head as to why it's in the New 52 at all, since it can't be happening for about another year based on what's going on elsewhere and assuming nothing happens in those books that means this can't be happening. Any editor worth his salt would be publishing this under a different imprint and that's the only way to think about it - preserved in isolation, like ASS. Which is what DiDio clearly is for doing it the way he has.
Batman TDK #13: Going from strength to strength since Finch gave up on the writing, this take on the Scarecrow could well end up being one of the definitive ones. Are children's tears really one of the prime components of fear gas? Well worth your time if you have the inclination.
I, Vampire #13: Oh good, the book has undergone ANOTHER reboot. There are no vampires any more, except for the ones that are, and the ones that aren't decide to kill the ones that are because a mugger scared them. They all meet up at the house of the character from the cover, who it turns out is an important character in the good old days of these characters pre-Johnsiverse. You know the only thing that goes on longer than the interminable living forever of the undead? Reading this book. After a brief diversion into comedy this has returned to the unreadable pile.
Justice League Dark #13: For everything this does which is great (recasting minor DC horror heroes in the Johnsiverse, Zatanna's powerlessness) it does something which sucks (Nick's whole motivation is, wait for it, coat jealousy; and houses racing each other, seriously? That just feels like 'TARDIS chasing a taxi' level stupid.) and that's what undermines the book. It can't go on much longer, surely?
Red Lanterns #13: Oh, just fucking give up. It's the usual torture porn, then the Third Army turn up and Atrocitus works out how to kill them (making the whole OH NOES THE THIRD ARMY ARE THE BEST redundant already). And does this happen before or after he's shown as a benevolent tutor in GL:NG? Hmm?
Superman #13: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it. Superman is sick of Clark Kent's life and usual human shit (actually this is pretty entertaining if I'm honest) and then A DRAGON TURNS UP. But wait! The dragon knocks him all the way over to Europe, to Ireland specifically. 

Into the middle of a desert oil well. Like what you get in Texas and the like, and the likes of which there is < 1 of in Ireland. 

Oh wait, it's a Kryptonian dragon, and Supergirl is here and there's another Kryptonian lurking in the background. But never mind that. IRELAND? 

 

REALLY?
Talon #1: Wow, this is wordy. It tells the entire plot of all the Johnsiverse batbooks in boxouts on the first page, that's how wordy it is. I'm really not sure what the point of this is. We've got Talon doing Batman's job for him and tracking down the OWLS who are still out there, aided by his Talon Cave, Talon Alfred and his Talon Utility Belt. I'm betting there might be a Talon robin soon. Pointless but by virtue of not being the Phantom Stranger or Amethyst is the best of the new titles this month. Damning with faint praise there.
Teen Titans #13: The origin of Wonder Girl is that a secret ancient cave in Cambodia gave her magic armour, and the boyfriend she had at the time was going to be taken over by it before she 'stole' it. As slight a comic as that makes it sound.
Flash #13: Gorillas! Rogues! Good Rogues! Gorillas! Bad Rogues! Gorillas! A blast, as ever. You like it or you don't, but you do like it. What happens to the Pied Piper is... a surprise, but the final page is pure Kev O'Neill. READ THIS BOOK.
Firestorm #13: DAN JURGENS PLEASE WAKE UP! YOU ARE NOT STILL IN THE EIGHTIES! Everybody knows about Firestorm, Jason and Ronnie's parents are dating, Ronnie's grades are slipping, which cute boy will ask Heather to the Prom? (Scratch that last one, that might be from something else.) I'd say it's impossible to like this, but Dan does and DiDio must as well, because he keeps giving Dan books to write. Can we not just cancel this waste of paper?
Hawkman #13: Liefeld's last stand is pretty much as dreadful as you'd imagine it to be, as the now rebooted Hawkman is simultaneously Thanagarian and a human possessed by Nth Metal, sometimes on the same page. (It finally settles on a complete reboot, with Hawkman being Thanagarian.) I feel like I've wasted a chunk of my life reading this when I could have been doing something far more productive. Like picking a scab.

Month 13: A New Hope

Batwoman #13: JH Williams is determined to leave Batwoman with a bang, clearly. This is basically 9 splash pages and a complete showcase for the artwork, but for the first time in months it feels like there's an actual story behind the issue. Batwoman and Wonder Woman go and visit the "Amazon Arkham Asylum" on a hunch and find out that although they're wrong in the detail their hunch was right. It does seem to be that Batwoman is being completely played though and not in control of what she chooses to do. I'm still not sure how WW's characterisation here, or in Justice League, squares with the Azzarello book but I've enjoyed reading this for the first time in months and maybe that's enough.
Birds of Prey #13: What is this, 'make all our books suddenly better' week? This is suprisingly readable and drawn well enough, ignoring the previous arcs to a large extent and just being a decent enough team-up book. Yes, the torture scenes (although not shown) feel a bit gratuitous but the pay-off of how Starling gets suckered into the trap which is no doubt going to form the next issue makes that fairly easy to forgive. A significant improvement and one hopefully they can keep up.
Blue Beetle #13: Has something happened when I wasn't looking? This is half-decent too, as the plot hurtles towards a conclusion. We end up on Reachworld and meet a similarly-minded Scarab guy (who I have no recollection of from GL:NG despite a box-out telling me I should) and they head off to destroy the Scarab planet. But OH NOES they're being chased by the guy from BB#0! Incredibly, this means one of the books from Zero Month wasn't a waste of time. Remarkable.
Catwoman #13: And just like that, Ann Nocenti gets involved and the week turns to shit. The overall plot isn't too bad (Catwoman playing a giant chess game across the city for unexplained reasons) but as usual the dialogue is dreadful and can't be saved by the art which has retreated to the T&A of the first couple of issues. How many gratuitous bra shots? Yet, curiously, I want to know what comes next. I suspect I won't be interested once I find out.
DCU Presents #13: Oh God, I'd forgotten about this. The Johnsiverse fucks up Blue Devil, as expected. This is a pretty basic "heroes mistake each other for the bad guys" tale - which is odd, because both of them are tracking drug dealers and not supervillains - and with a bit of background. Blue Devil is not Blue Devil yet, he's just a guy in a suit, but we do get a FWOOM and a different speech bubble, so maybe it happens in the last panel. There's a bad guy who is clearly NOT THE KINGPIN. Because Marvel wouldn't be happy if he was. Just like I'm not happy having read it. I'm more angry than disappointed, because I knew it would be like this.
GL:NG #13: So, we left Zero Month not in a zero, but firmly in main GL continuity... we're not really there, but maybe we are and there's just a gap of some description. I mean there must be gaps - in GL:NG #1 we see Ganthet give Kyle his ring and he immediately change into his costume. Yet, in this issue we learn about the girlfriend who designed his costume over a number of weeks (days? months?) after Ganthet gave him the ring. So is this a soft reboot? It can't be, surely, because Atrocitus refers to the events of previous issues (even if he wasn't in them - in fact, I'm not sure he can be in this based on what's happening in Red Lanterns). Anyway, Carol is making sure Kyle can channel the powers of all the other Lantern colours so he can be the best Lantern ever and get Hal back from the dead because he's the best Lantern ever Lantern Lantern Lantern Lantern AAAAARRGH MAKE IT STOP.

Justice League #13: The fallout from Super Horny Snogfest starts here! Or does it? It's the first page, but then never really comes up apart from to say "it was nice" as unemotionally as possible. Instead, we get Sadface about the relationship between WW and the Cheetah, who seems to be powered up in the Johnsiverse. Best of all, Superman seems to randomly hover in the JL Clubhouse. Anyway, Superman gets turned into a cheetah. Not, as all fans of Showcase Presents Superman would have wanted, a lion.

There's a pretty sadface Steve Trevor backup which is essentially Justice League of America #0 and seems to feature the Green Arrow from television's Arrow and not the one from the DC comic Green Arrow. Good. How's that there continuity working out for you?
LoSH #13: As ever, solid enough space opera. Nothing to write home about, then nothing to complain about either I guess. I wish it was better, but it's still fans only.
Nightwing #13: This is rubbish. Moving it back to Gotham has made it pretty redundant as a comic and it has to do a whole scene to remind you this is the one with the circus. It points out that the Joker is back, but then in a boxout says that it's just in Batman so Nightwing doesn't need to help take him down. I really thought beforehand there was a surfeit of Batbooks and this just proves it.
Red Hood #13: Irrespective of what's happening in Batman and Robin, the gang are still in space. But the Joker appears on the last page. Does that mean B&R is taking place after the other Batbooks? If not, then how does Damian encounter Jason in Gotham? Am I the only person that cares about stuff like this? This is a good book, whichever was you look at it, although this issue maybe isn't quite as thrill powered as the last half dozen have been.
Supergirl #13: Kara investigates the Shoe Shop of Solitude, which eats the guy from the first plotline. She then phones up the Byrne Banshee girl to boast about how totes amazeballs it is before the Shoeshop tries to force her into the Superfamily crossover (which, I'm betting, is going to contradict the Superman/Daemonite stuff which the Johnsiverse was founded on). I really don't understand why anybody would willingly read this.
Sword of Sorcery #1: Jesus, after 20 pages this Amethyst strip is interminable. File under "would never have been commissioned if someone hadn't read a one-line review of Game of Thrones in the NYT". The Beowulf backup, on the other hand, chunters along nicely and we get our first view of "iron trolls" i.e. robots. It wouldn't be enough to encourage me to pay for it, but it's pretty moreish.
Wonder Woman #13: Still maintaining a level of excellence that Johns and DiDio don't deserve, Azzarello mines an almost BPRD aspect to the book amid hints from Lennox (not Constantine or Gravel) what she should be doing and alongside a Gods' conference of War. Still well worth your time and effort.

Month 13: Shoot me. Now.

Batgirl #13: Bat Cross over prequel! Except it just does the previous Batgirl plot, a needless cheesecake shot and a conspiracy that revives the plots of the previous year. Doesn't seem very Joker-y or prequel-y to me. But why reist the temptation of putting a banner on the cover in the hope of selling another couple of issues, eh? Because it's all about the money, obviously. And not the integrity that our heroes are supposed to have. YOU MAKE ME SICK.
Batman #13: NOW THAT'S HOW YOU BRING THE JOKER BACK. TENSION TENSION TENSION TENSIO TENSION BAM. This is how you write batbooks. Damn. And the betrayal of Harley backup is great too. BOOM that's boom of the week right there.
Batman & Robin #13: A middling book but the page 13 BAM makes it worth reading. All the same, a very good effort and one which ignores both the Zero Month nonsense and the Joker return in order to tell the story it wants to. Which is zombies in Gotham and so still maybe of marginal interest. Ho hum.
Deathstroke #13: Oh God Rob, I thought you were done. "I'm the best at what I do." You're not mate. Seriously. I'd like to say you were the worst, but JT Krul has stolen that even from you. Must Try Harder. Just not on anything I'm reading.
Demon Knights #13: Cornell sends all the Demon Knights to Hell under the thrall of Lucifer and does a pretty good job of it. Yes, it's Etrigan heavy and yes, he makes him kind of a wuss... but we get Vandal Savage being funny and the other characters being themselves so perfectly good but not up there with the great book this week. But better than everything else, so you pays your money you takes your choice.
Frankenstein #13: Rotworld but not Rotworld but Rotworld without Rot except in the real world. Feels tacked-on. Feels inessential. Is tacked-on. Is inessential.
GLC #13: The Guardians decide Guy Gardner is the best Lantern ever and give him a new name to prove it, but in doing so bring out his worst enemy ever (the chap he fought in GLC #0) from their prison and set him free. Guy is compromised during a trade mission they've set him up on and heads to Earth but OH NOES ambushed on the way and all the OH WHO CARES. Some people are dead, some aren't, some might be next month. I can feel the blood draining from my eyes trying to keep the lights on long enough to get to the end of this.
Grifter #13: Rob says Grifter is still great. Marat Mychaels draws Voodoo boss-eyed. Like, PROPERLY boss-eyed. Pontoon eyes - one twists, one sticks.
 
He then eats her face while still speaking. My favourite bit though is Apollo out of Stormwatch dancing while displaying the world's smallest dinkle.  
You'd think any of this made it worth your time. You'd be wrong.
Legion Lost #13: Even I am tired of Tellus being affected by the "death cry of billions". Bored of it now and no amount of sprockin' sprockin' can make it worth the effort.
Suicide Squad #13: Ignoring the Zero Month bullshit, this picks up where it was beforehand (you remember, betrayal, ambush etc) and is great but I'm not spoiling the end other than to say I never saw Floyd doing that. A great read, again.
Superboy #13: So this crosses over into Ravagers while simultaneously crossing over into Superman and Supergirl. None of these things make it any more fun to read. It's sort of ok but all over the place and so really not worth it but in comparison this week is still very accomplished.
Team Seven #1: Holographic Wolverine is the only readable thing in this twenty pages of bollocks. So DiDio, this is going to rejuvenate your line, huh? "I DON'T THINK SO!" 
 
This pre-dates Justice League #1, yes? WAIT, WHY AM I PRETENDING I CARE?
Ravagers #5: Oh, I'm past fucking caring. Somebody punches somebody else but they're not the X-Men OBVIOUSLY. Not anything worth your time.
Phantom Stranger #1: Our hero kills a kid with a car in order to chat up a girl inside Stonehenge. But it turns out rather than doing what God wants him to he's actually living a secret life with a wife and children without God knowing. SHH IT'S A SECRET but Pandora has opened her box and found out. This really is not a promising start. Or a promising finish to the week. I've had better ones. Oh well.

Month 13: Askit fights the miseries. And the misery is Geoff Johns.

Action #13: Other people have talked about getting off the GMoz bus after the way this book has gone, and after several months of just being unimpressed this drivel has me rapidly agreeing with them. The tale of Krypto has the trappings of We3 in places and although the Phantom Zone is reborn well the whole reason why the bad guy is dressed as a mummy apart from it being Hallowe'en is never explained or even questioned apart from OOH SPOOKY. What next? Jimmy Olsen as a Sexy Pirate? Add to this a Phantom Stranger which is entirely inconsistent with the New52 official version as established during zero month and you just have a mess. Poor old Solly Fisch's backup is even more desperate, the sort of thing a primary school kid would write if given the assignment to tell the story of a ghost dog. Thanks DC for letting me cut one of the books I was still buying. Although I'm not sure that's your intent.
Animal Man #13: I'm going to keep this simple. At least twice, Buddy asks the question we're thinking while reading. "Tell me this is... some alternate dimension or something". And he is reassured that no, this is the real Earth, this is the real Johnsiverse, The Flash, Supergirl, Batwoman, Hawkman (that we actively see) are all dead and consumed by The Rot. I repeat, this is really, asbsolutely definitely what happens to the Johnsiverse in a year's time and is not an alternate Earth or another dimension, or some time wrinkle or anything like that. I'm getting the popcorn, this is the clusterfuck to end them all.
Batwing #13: All Africans can do witch doctor magic. All African police are corrupt. Any Africans that can't do magic are Batwing or have magic swords and are also undercover policemen. Everybody in Africa is related. Oh Winickpaws.
Detective #13: BRUCE WAYNE'S PHILANTHROPY EXPLAINED! He only gives money to charity so that when he beats up thugs the money that gets spent on their medical help doesn't mean that more deserving victims get treatment because he makes sure there's enough cash to treat them all. OF COURSE. We next see him giving money for a Children's Wing. Just who exactly are these "criminals" he's "punishing", eh? FRED WERTHAM WAS RIGHT AFTER ALL. In the actual plot, the bad guys from Nightwing (who are also, it appears, the bad guys in the new Green Arrow TV series) are paid by the Penguin to kill Bruce Wayne as part of a plot to improve Cobblepot's public image. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly how that was supposed to work either. Oh, and there are no superheroes in the Johnsiverse Miami, according to the backup. Really? Not Aquaman then?
Dial H #5: More inspired weirdness even if, as Mieville deliberately acknowledges "it's just a bad pun". We get the partial resolution of the plot to date then the tease of more to come. I'm expecting one month to report that he's got it wrong, but it's not this month. I strongly suspect that a year will be the absolute limit it can get stretched out for, in which case it'll make the first truly essential trade of the modern era.
Earth 2 #5: Gays. You can't trust them not to betray you, eh? What do you mean that's not what I was supposed to think? Then what else were the last pages about? Actually, this is a perfectly adequate book even if the constant Golden Age refs do feel a bit "for the fans" rather than actually adding anything and overall it's telling exactly the same Rotworld/Black Hand story from the real Johnsiverse. It's just kind of pointless really.
GI Combat #5: With JT Krul gone and the Haunted Tank installed this book rises to the top level of this week's output. What initially seems like a bad case of Old Man Shouting At The TV turns into a pseudo-mystical romp featuring some of Howard Chaykin's best-looking work in years. Unknown Soldier is merely competent, but I still can't wait for next month. BRINGING BACK THE FUN.
Green Arrow #13: Ann Nocenti proves she's really Frank Miller with some anti-Chinese Dirty Commie bullshit that is otherwise impenetrable. "China's pride and ambition know no bounds." "I'm sorry Suzie Ming. You seem personally hurt by the history of your China." The whole thing is about China trying to cheat their way to technological advancement by stealing it from America and adds to the confusion by assuming all Asians are the same as we have women with swords and ghosts of ancestors talking to people (like our old friend Katana) and that ancient Chinese tradition of karaoke. Do these people really still live in the 80s? Party on duds!
Green Lantern #13: Geoff Johns fucks continuity a big one up the arse again on page one of this bollocks. You know how I described the problems of his carrying things over into GL:NG and how the proliferation of that story affects any number of other titles? Well, in panel 3 he says Kyle Rayner became a Green Lantern two years ago. So, GL:NG took place two years ago. In which case, so did GL #12. WAIT A MINNIT, WHO BROUGHT US ONE YEAR LATER? Only this time it's through an accident... And Obama is president. So, to be clear, Justice League #1 happened when Shrub was Pres. Yes? If I go back and read that again it'll confirm it? Bush set up Team 7 with Waller in charge, yes? Oh, and Baz is from MIAMI. Who are the editors again? The Mosque have banned the family of somone involvd in terrorism and so have his sister's work DO YOU SEE? The Third Army are looking for Mr Baz. Even if that makes him sound like one of Basil Brush's handlers. As are the Justice League. OOOOOOOOOOOH WHO GIVES A FUCK.
Stormwatch #13: Peter Milligan is a fucking idiot. He manages to make the introduction of Etrigan a chore, which is ever so slightly A GIANT FUCKING MISTAKE. I love Etrigan and you're not treating him very well. With JT Krul and Rob gone, I think Pete is the worst writer on the books. Which would worry anybody if it wasn't Geoff Johns writing the cheques. I hate all of this.
Swamp Thing #13: As in Animal Man, the Johnsiverse is destroyed a year in the future. Or is that a year in the past depending on what books you believe? This cannot end well. Is there really a plan behind this? REALLY?
World's Finest #5: At least we're finish with some intentional light relief. No, we're not. In a stroke of genius, DiDio has cancelled the one part of this book that was actually good and so instead we get a ho-hum villain-of-the-week Huntress and power Girl story which improves my life not one jot.
Two readable books out of 12 does not predispose me to continuing this, I have to say.

Johnsiverse Year One: Many things could be improved by the inclusion of Miller or Mazzucchelli

So, DC have got to the end of their first year of rebooted titles. * And, remarkably, I haven't flown to the States and killed any of them yet. But how has the year actually been?

Winners

There have undoubtedly been some success stories. Wonder Woman and Flash have never put a foot wrong and are rightly the jewels in the crown of the DCU. Dial H turned up partway through and, for me, blew everything else away but China Mieville is possibly an acquired taste and it remains to be seen whether his first foray into comics can keep up the blistering pace it has set. Scott Snyder has written some of the best bat-books in recent memory but the multitude of bat-titles can arguably seem like it swamps his efforts. Grant M has restarted the Batman book he was doing before the jump and his run on Action has been mixed to say the least, as it was originally supposed to be a 6 issue run that has inexplicably been extended to 16 without (it sometimes feels) writing much new material to increase the volume. The 'Dark' line has been fairly solid with some real highs (Scott Snyder again, with his reworking of familiar material on Swamp Thing) amid some plodders (Jeff Lemire's Frankenstein has never risen above being a But the biggest winner in my opinion has been All Star Western. Those of us who were reading Jonah Hex beforehand always knew it was a good solid book but the renewed interest has stayed with it and after the first stage drop off it shared with everything else the numbers have solidifed and it looks nowhere near cancellation - which it definitely was before the reboot. 

The other obvious winners are some of the writers and artists, not forgetting the editors, who have taken a working wage under false pretences. The return of Rob L is merely baffling, even if threatening to turn over half the line to him is one of the more bizarre decisions in DC history, but heading this class is JT Krul. He is, simply, the most inept writer I have ever come across. Even more strangely, after being kicked off Green Arrow remarkably quickly he was then given another book as a replacement. Does he have photos of Johns and DiDio doing the unmentionable? 

Seriously, is this the face of a man you could trust?

Losers

The list of dreadful titles is sufficiently long that the biggest loser is the fan. Sticking with this has been an absolute test of endurance, as the unrelenting tide of wasted paper just keeps coming week after week. And beyond the stuff which is outright bad, there's a long, long queue of the mediocre, the underdeveloped and the shoddy. And for all there are idiots like me, the regular guy doesn't have the time, the patience or the money to pick through the bones of it all to try and find the material worth spending time and money on. Thanks to the way Diamond operate these days, and DC's rigid weekly schedule, you can't wait until the reviews are out to decide - or rather your Local Comic Shop can't wait to decide - so there is every chance the titles will get missed. Miss one issue, maybe you can pick it up online. Miss two, maybe you can wait for the trade. Miss three, you won't bother. It's this failure to connect with, or seem like they care about, their core income stream that's DC's biggest sin during this process and it feels like the one which will eventually see the end of their print arm.

The fan also wasn't helped by the sexism controversy in month 1. Red Hood was certainly penalised for a shockingly sexist effort by never really recovering despite becoming DC's closest comparator to Deadpool. Catwoman and Red Lantern featured cheesecake shot after cheesecake shot, although it was inconceivable anyone was buying it for the writing. Although pretty much driven out now, the scandal was either a publicity stunt which backfired or a poor editorial decision which nobody was punished for. 

The more esoteric loser, and the most surprising one given the motivation for the introduction of the Johnsiverse, is continuity. Let me explain:

Once upon a time there were just comics. They all ran along down their own little furrow, sometimes crossing over and sometimes in team books. Eventually, to do away with books getting characters wrong and to revisit previous origins, we ended up with a multiverse. Different Supermen, with their different origins, all existed on different worlds. There was a place where Jay Garrick was still the Flash. Woozy Winks was still being protected by Mother Nature. In the 80s DC decided it was all getting a bit silly and  through the Crisis merged all the Earths into one, with a single history. The history was so complicated it had its own series and the characters were all explained in yet another series just so there was no confusion. It seemed like a lot of work but it was THOUGHT THROUGH and PLANNED. Despite this, it needed Zero Hour ten years later to work through all the timing issues that existed, but at least it was done and everyone could go forward together. Some different universes still existed but these were different publishing arms and might feature (as in Stormwatch) analogues of DCU heroes.

Then in a fit of rape, tiny footprints, mindwiping and a company-wide brainfart Goeff Johns became the most important writer at DC. In order to tell an event story he wanted to the single universe became untenable, ending up with SUPERBOY PUNCHING THE UNIVERSE and restoring the Multiverse. I strongly remember trying to explain the concept to comics-literate friends at the time and it making the veins in his head stand out as he tried to parse it. Johns then upped it and told the Barry Allen story he had him brought back for. Which meant the DC universe had to go back to a single universe rebooted again, where we are now. (Yes, you read that right. Johns wrote a plot that meant the multiverse existed then destroyed it again. In 5 YEARS. It kind of puts RTD's bringing back the Time Lords just to destroy them in perspective, because at least RTD wasn't playing toys with THE ENTIRE BUSINESS MODEL.)

It's caused nothing but problems. They want the condensed Bat-history, but it has to have all the Robins within 5 years. Several titles have rebooted already during the year. Books are contradicted by other titles published, sometimes in the same week, or in one example by the Who's Who entry in the back of the very same issue. Something can get written in Teen Titans #1, edited out in the trade, explained away by Scott Lobdell at SDCC, and then contradicted AGAIN by Scott Lobdell in Titans #0. The issues on any given month are supposed to happen concurrently but (to pick one example) the majority of Green Lantern: New Guardians happens between two issues of Red Lanterns, which it then turns out must have taken place before Red Lanterns #2 which it can't have done because of the way Bleez is portrayed. Johns loves his Green Lantern history so much that everything he did before Flashpoint (Blackest Day, Brightest Night, How The Orange Lantern Stole Christmas) were never undone or rebooted so Green Lantern still takes place in the original universe. Green Lantern: New Guardians doesn't, because Kyle Rayner becomes a new GL in #1. Except it is eventually shown to be in the same unverse after all, explicitly in GL:NG #0 when Carol Ferris shows up and it crosses over directly with GL #12 and GL #0. And it did before when Larfleeze turned up. So that must mean Red Lanterns is also in non-New 52 continuity as Bleez is in it. Which means Stormwatch isn't in New 52 continuity because it crossed over with Red Lanterns. Which means Justice League can't be, because Martian Manhunter got asked to join them. And Voodoo, Grifter, Superman can't be because of the Daemonites. That's how quickly it all unravels, which is nearly as quickly as people's enthusiasm for it evaporates.

One of these men is not a good comics writer. CAN YOU GUESS WHICH ONE?

* I am excluding Zero Month from this. It was, frankly, an unmitigated disaster. It pointlessly disrupted some plotlines and cliffhangers, retold some origins adding nothing to the experience - literally in the case of Rob L's work on the Deathstroke origin which was cribbed almost from start to finish from the origin in Titans; art and dialogue alike - except frustration at the waste of everyone's time, ignored the whole sorry mess and just continued the main plot, or published material for cancelled books (presumably to meet contractual obligations). Oh, and ruining Phantom Stranger forever. 

Month 0: One good book and it contradicts the head writer

All Star Western #0: Hex gets drunk and tells his life in flashes to Arkham and Jekyll's mate. A handy reminder for people who jumped on in the Johnsiverse, it probably isn't worth your time if I'm honest but it's the first time Gray and Palmiotti have told the story so I guess some of us would say it is. Certainly those of us who have been with it since they started working on it would say so.
Aquaman #0: We find out how Aquaman was conceived, born and raised but in a typical Johnsian move it's drenched in blood - not least when he's nearly eaten by a shark before he learns he can talk to it. At the end it takes us with him to Atlantis. So are we sticking with the origin for a while since Johns' run has shown us Arthur destroys it? Or is it going to be just another origin loose end waiting for him to tell it elsewhere? GJ makes my head hurt in a bad way. I really enjoyed the first couple of issues of this book, but the more Johns-y it gets the more unreadable it is.
Batman Inc #0: OK, so this book confirms that the previous Batman Inc book didn't happen and that Bruce started this Batman Inc some time after Damian became Robin (but presumably not long after). That's OK though, because it lets GMoz tell the story again which he does with aplomb and arguably better (certainly more compactly) than he did last time. A thoroughly good read but perhaps unfortunately one which is best undertaken already knowing who all the characters being introduced for the first time are. That can't be a normal expectatio after a reboot, surely?
Batman The Dark Knight #0: OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE, NOT ANOTHER BATMAN ORIGIN THIS MONTH. This one, at least goes back to Crime Alley and the shooting of Thomas and Martha which MUST be a giant conspiracy because the two bestest people that ever lived ever EVARR couldn't have just been randomly shot. Except they were. Ultimately this is Batmang Year One in 20 pages but with more conspiracy emo bollocks, plus we find out that Batman knew about teh Court of Owls before he was even Batman which contradicts Scott Snyder's whole OWLS arc. An editor! An editor! My kingdom for an editor!
I Vampire #0: Andrew gets turned into a vampire by Cain himself, which is how he gets to be such a GRATE FANTASTIC GUY in about #5. A bunch of pretentious twaddle telling a story going nowhere, which ends with a whole page of quoted Shakespeare. It's very pretty, as ever, but I want the comedy back. Nul point.
Justice League Dark #0: And with a wink, all of Alan Moore's characterisation and all of Hellblazer is gone. Constantine became who he is in idol worship over a guy who showed up in JLD#12, and because the pair of them and Zatanna were in an episode of Charmed. An insult to anyone who's been reading DC and/or Vertigo books for any length of time.
Red Lanterns #0: Atrocitus becomes Atrocitus after his daughter fronts up to a Manhunter who then decides to eliminate the whole planet because someone jaywalks. Atrocitus decides he wants to fuck the space creature who looks like three or four octopodes welded and the fact that he feels love proves that he doesn't and could never have felt love or something and is therefore shown to always have been a creature of pure rage. As a result Bleez, the goat faced one and Bouncing Rage Boy turn up in the last page. Presumably someone, somewhere thought this was good. Someone other than Pete Milligan, I mean.
Hawkman #0: WTF dude? Has Rob not been reading Hawkman, including the issues HE WROTE HIMSELF? This is all about Katar Hol, who it looks like from this issue onwards is going to become the Hawkman of the Johnsiverse. Did the previous 12 issues not happen or what? Not a soft reboot, this is a hard reboot. Has Rob done this out of spite and nobody checked up on it?
Supergirl #0: These are the events on Krypton leading up to the Johnsiverse Supergirl #1. Do you ever think it diminishes the story of Kal-el, specifically how everybody supposedly though Jor-el was mad for preparing for the end times, if lots of other Kryptonians thought the same thing and were preparing magical space ships to send their children too? Or how Kara leaves Krypton before Kal-el and is a teenager compared to his infancy, yet he is older than her on Earth? And what is the Johnsiverse Superboy doing on Krypton talking to Kara's mum? I don't understand who this is supposed to appeal to, if I'm honest.
Superman #0: And with a single bound, a story where Jor-el is thought mad by everyone because he says Krypton is about to explode. It's really pretty entertaining stuff, but doesn't add anything to the mythology that already exists. You don't need to read it, but it's diverting at least.
Talon #0: I'm split on this. It could go somewhere - Calvin Rose is basically the anti-Dick Grayson. He's a child performer at the Flying Graysons' circus who is taken away by a rich benefactor and taught to be a better acrobat, how to fight yadda yadda yadda but it turns out the OWLS were training him. And now he's decided to split from them and will fight crime (probably) and the OWLS are after him. On the other hand: 1) we don't really need another Robin 2) The battyverse is pretty full and I'm not sure we need another hero 3) Talon being good enough to escape the OWLS maze without breaking sweat sort of implies he's better than Batman and weakens the impact of Scott Snyder's OWLS plot and 4) If, as Nightwang has told us Dick was some kind of chosen one and the whole circus thing was to make him a fighter doesn't that make Talon a kind of failed experiment? Conflicted but still potentially interested, I guess.
Teen Titans #0: Ummm... wut? The editorially changed version of the first Titans collection says this didn't happen. I guess that proves that Scott Lobdell didn't approve the edit. This is a decent enough telling of the Tim Drake story but I have no idea what DC are playing at at this point. Hang on. To remind myself of the story it seems Scott Lobdell himself announced at SDCC that Tim Drake had never been Robin. We are not at war with Oceania, we have never been at war with Oceania.
Flash #0: BIFF! BANG! POW! Take that Geoff Johns! Flashpoint is erased from the Johnsiverse! (which is odd, as it's what caused the Johnsiverse) As ever, the Flash can be relied on to thoroughly entertain and is easily orders of magnitude better than anything else this week. Nothing else is worth your money. Can we have some more Silver Age style stuff next? Maybe a new take on this?

Ta.
Firestorm #0: After #12 killed off all the Firestorms, #0 retells #1 set after #12. Seriously, same villain, the works. Throw in a couple of flashbacks to Firestorm #1-12 and you have the laziest issue published all month. Yes, even lazier than Rob L trying to pass off all that Perez/Wolfman Deathstroke material as his own. Jesus, that's lazy.
Voodoo #0: And so we close the month out with an origin of a cancelled title. Seems somehow appropriate. Completely irrelevant, but possibly needs to be told since Voodoo is apparently going to ake over the Grifter book. Why not call it Wildstorm and be done with it? I bet nobody's ever done that before... I sort of like this book, but I don't understand what it's FOR and accordingly couldn't recommend it to anyone who hasn't read the first 12 and isn't intending reading Grifter. So that'll be none of you then.