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.