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.
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