Man of Steel and X-Love! (SPOILERS CONTAINED)

So last night I saw Man of Steel for the second time...wanted to make sure I did before I commented on it primarily because I feel, as a former film professor of mine at MSU passed on to his students, it can be a difficult thing to watch a movie critically the first time you see it. I mean I definitely formulated an opinion after my first viewing but I do like to watch a movie twice when possible before rambling on about it.

My first time around was an opening weekend Saturday afternoon show with a barely half-full IMAX theater (no 3D) and I sat on the edge of my seat the vast majority of the 2 1/2 hours.  From the chaos on Krypton to the "Superman:Birthright" inspired transition to Earth, I was hooked into this new Superman world. I thought Henry Cavill did a great job as Clark/Superman, he certainly looks the part, and I enjoyed Amy Adams take on Lois Lane. I highly enjoyed Michael Shannon's take on Zod and his facials, his eyes, they showed the slow descent into madness, especially when he realizes, after the disaster-porn battle, that the job he was born for is no longer relevant.

Diane Lane and Kevin Costner where decent in their roles as Jonathan and Martha Kent.  In particular I loved the scene with Martha and young Clark when his powers kick in during class and the barn scene with Jonathan, Clark, and the "You are my son" line that legit brought a tear to me eye.  The different take on Jonathan did not bother me, perhaps because I am not a "Superman guy", but I understood it as a parent doing everything he can to protect his child for the harsh realities of the real world.  The "maybe you should have let them die" bit after the school bus incident...that was a bit awkward BUT it was Jonathan basically saying he did not know what the best thing to do was.  Yes saving the kids was the right thing to do but what kind of risk did Clark put himself at in doing so?  Jonathan's fears seem to be that someone will come take his child away and he will do anything he can to prevent that from happening, even if that includes keeping Clark from being the hero that's in his heart.

I hated the tornado moment but I do see Jonathan holding up his hand in that "stop, no" gesture and Clark actually doing it as an odd moment of mutual understanding.  Clark sees his dad being a hero, saving a child, saving the dog, and sacrificing himself to keep Clark's secret.  It's motivation and regret, inspiration and loss, and it drives Clark.

As for the ending, the killing of Zod....well the arguments of "Superman doesn't kill" do not hold any water as there is plenty of evidence to the contrary in both comic and film. He has killed.  He is not a killer, he does not wantonly execute a villain, but Superman has been responsible for the death of others before and I'm sure will be again. The Zod "death by cop" scene (as I have read it being called around the 'net) was done about as well as it could possible have been done.  It was a moment of few options for a very inexperienced Superman who, in his first outing in the tights, saw no other option.  It wasn't JUST about saving the family in immediate peril, it was also about saving everyone else on Earth that Zod would execute should he continue to live.  Can't lock him up in prison, the Phantom Zone option is off the table, Kryptonite doesn't exist (yet) to depower him, so what would you do?  I cringed...I felt the agony of the decision...and I felt for Clark when he let out that post-homicide howl.

Sure there was some disaster-porn aspects of the big fight BUT what would you expect from two god-like beings fighting in Metropolis; that fight scene is arguably the best & most comic booky of the super hero movies.  Funny thing though, after I saw it the second time with friends who were seeing it for the first time (my first time was solo), there wasn't much thought given to the whole "millions of people had to have died in the fight" idea.  Their opinions were that every time you saw the interiors of a building it was empty and that you don't actually see anyone die...it is really just the viewer putting the bodies in there themselves.  Yes logically it makes sense there are people in these buildings BUT, with film, if you don't see them are they there?  Just a thought...

Oh yeah, and Avengers does its fair share of destroying the city with little/no consequence.  Hell, between the end of the big fight and the scene of Thor taking Loki back to Asgard (which logic would tell me happens pretty immediately, the next day at best) New York City is basically all fixed up and back to normal.  At least in Man of Steel there isn't a real sense of how much time has elapsed between the fight and Clark walking into the Daily Planet....could have been weeks, months, or just a day...

I do understand a lot of the complaints, and I find some of them have merit....I like the movie BUT it can be a bit joyless and isn't all that hopeful for a character whose symbol represents the concept. It is a Bruckheimer-level disaster movie, it is a sci-fi movie as much as a super hero movie, and maybe that kiss was kind of rushed.

Still, it's action-packed and features a Superman who actually hits things, it doesn't rely on Kryptonite or Lex Luthor or dumbing down Supes power-set. He is both human and not human, he is in his infancy as a hero, and hopefully the sequels play out some repercussions from this movie.  Although I think I could be happy without having Lex in another movie, the fallout from Man of Steel could very easily parlay into his introduction, particularly if it's a xenophobic Lex who sees the financial toll it takes on Metropolis & the world in having a Superman around: "Sure he saved us but he cost the city a billion dollars!".  My fantasy booking of Lex Luthor would have him in the role of puppet master, controlling/manipulating someone else who can go toe-to-toe with Superman because otherwise you have to dumb Clark down with Kryptonite. Either that or you upgrade Lex with his Kryptonian Warsuit.

Putting the positives, negatives, and the stuff in-between aside...the movie certainly accomplished what SHOULD be a goal of every comic book based movie, it sent me to the Barnes & Noble in my mall to finally pick up a copy of "Superman: Birthright" in trade.  Between the moments borrowed and adapted to the movie from that Mark Waid/Lenil Francis Yu masterpiece to the straight-up usage of this from Grant Morrison's "All Star Superman":

...you can certainly see the influence of the comics on the movie beyond just using a comic book character in an action movie.  If you haven't seen the movie, please check it out...there is nothing worse than damning, or praising, something you haven't even given a chance.  If you hate or love it after you see it, at least your opinion is based on your own viewing and not on reading reviews. Oh yeah, and if you like/dislike the movie...or anything really...and all you have to say is "If you like/dislike this you're dumb" then please just do the world a favor and don't bother commenting....and yes that is based off something I saw on CBR.

So as I've said before in this blog, the X-Men family was my introduction to comics and the line that I followed the closest for the longest time.  Uncanny X-Men, Classic X-Men, Wolverine, New Mutants, X-Factor, sadly no Excalibur though because 6 books in one month was too much money when I was a pre-teen.  It continued on into X-Force, the 90s X-Men book, Cable, the glut of mini's featuring Deadpool, Storm, Rogue, & Gambit just to name a few, X-Man, Generation X, if it had an X in the title there was a very likely chance I bought it.  I even had (maybe still have) bagged copies of the X-Cutioner's Song issues with their little card, if Wolverine was in the book then I probably picked it up, I could tell you exactly what happened in every issue, but at some point along the line I stopped being quite so invested in the mutant clan.

I never stopped collecting but I know my interest waned (nearly died actually) when Chuck Austin was on the main book but I think what really hurt my love was Marvel's retcon of Grant Morrison's saga, or at least the Magneto part of it.  Grant's take on X-Men was what made me fall in love with his writing.  I was totally infatuated with his JLA but X-Men is what made me a devoted follower of Grant to the point that I now own pretty much every trade that I can conceivably get INCLUDING the Zenith HC that 2000AD just released earlier today (happy dance).  So when this big master stroke of Wolverine killing Magneto and having to kill Jean (the second time he has had to put one of his loves out of her misery) was retconned away, it upset me to no end.

I continued to read of course but books fell by the wayside.  I didn't bother with the new Excalibur books, didn't bother with Exiles, lost X-Statix after a bit, didn't stay with Wolverine after their first renumbering (a landmark decision in my collecting career), nor did I gravitate to the X-Factor relaunch.  Part of that was due to my tastes expanding outside of the Marvel U, part of it was due to a general lack of interest...even Uncanny I just kind of read but nothing stuck for a long time. It wasn't until Matt Fraction got a few months under his belt that my interest began to swing back again...then Uncanny X-Force hit...and now I must say it is a great time to be an X-Fan!

All New X-Men, X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine & The X-Men...those four books alone are amazing, top of the list every month.  I disliked Legacy at first, even dropped it from my pull, but its extremely unique take on Legion has finally begun to intrigue me (even if I'm not a fan of the art). Uncanny X-Force is a fun ride that plays off the legacy of the previous Rick Remender X-Force book, the first arc on Savage Wolverine was cheesecakey fun and seeing Joe Madureira art on the new arc is awesome.  Wolverine under Paul Cornell and Alan Davis is reminiscent of the old Wolvie series that I fell in love with under Claremont/Hama...and Killable sounds like it could be a very interesting arc.

All in all, it is a good time to be an X-Fan and I just want to put that out there.  If you're not into reading these books yet, seriously go pick up All New X-Men, X-Men, and/or Uncanny X-Men at the very least.  You won't regret it...great writing, great art, a great time!

Off The Top Of My Head....

I opened up my blog for the first time in several months without a specific intent of what I was going to be writing about.  I mean I have spent the last 7 or so blogs putting my fan-fic Jason Todd stories out there and hadn't really addressed anything else.  So when I decided today was the day to put a new blog out there, I realized I didn't have the slightest idea WHAT I wanted to talk about....

There's Iron Man 3...which I enjoyed, thought it tried to hard for laughs at times, still not sure how I feel about The Mandarin twist, was surprised the 9pm premiere audience I was a part of didn't pop for the spots one would expect (like Pepper's big moment), and I thought the post-credits scene was cute...they don't always have to tease you for the next big movie and I don't see how a Thor 2 one would have worked here anyway.

We've got Man of Steel on tap in June and with each new trailer I find my excitement growing. The movie looks amazing and the "Can't I just keep pretending I'm your son? You ARE my son." exchange cinched it for me.  This is my movie of the year and June 14th can't come fast enough but since I now work on Thursday nights there is no midnight (or 7pm Walmart screening) in my future for any upcoming movies.  One thing I wanted to touch on about this movie though, and it's something inspired in my brain by a conversation with a friend yesterday as well as reading this from Brett White on CBR earlier today, is the idea of DARK AND GRITTY!!!

I was asked if I thought Man of Steel would be just that and it led me on a tangent about how there is no reason for that to exist in the world of Clark Kent.  Yes the movie is being put out there by Zach Snyder who helped define those words in movies like 300 & Watchmen (just as much as Nolan did in his Bat-Trilogy) but it doesn't play in the world of Supes.  As White said in his piece, Superman represents hope and unity and all the good things in a world too often filled with negativity and with the bad.  Yes his birth planet was blown up but he was raised by two loving parents in a safe environment, brought up with strong values, grew up believing in the best of humanity, and strives to be that everyday.  This quote IS the perfect summary: "You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards. They'll race behind you. They will stumble. They will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun."

That's what Supes is about and while I, like White, have generally shied away from Superman, there are those tales that capture it perfectly. I have read both Birthright and All-Star and they are amazing books...just takes the right author to make me care.  Obviously Clark is going to have some issues, "surprise you're an alien" would be hard news to take no matter how well you were raised, but I don't want to see a brooding Bruce Wayne clone hiding inside Clark when he's all bearded and looks to be in full-on drifter mode. I want that to be a man learning about a world beyond Smallville and doing what he can to help where he can.  It's hopefully the journey of a man finding out he's a hero, not of a man running away from who he is...

Also, I think I would put the same notion on Captain America as well...a "dark and gritty" Cap is not for me, it worked for Winter Soldier because of the life Bucky had endured but not for Steve Rogers.  Maybe it's no coincidence that one of the Superman stories & the Steve Rogers Captain America stories I dig the most are written by Mark Waid...

So what shocks me, especially coming as a sequel (of sorts) to two of the most despised comic books movies, is that I am totally intrigued by The Wolverine!  At first it was thrown out there as a sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, then it evolved into a sequel to X-Men: The Last Stand, but the movie still maintains it is based on the amazing Chris Claremont/Frank Miller Wolverine mini-series from 1982 (on the must-read list for any X-Fan out there, it's where the whole "best at what I do" catchphrase started after all).  

Based on the experience of Origins (a movie I wanted to like but just can't) and The Last Stand (a movie I enjoy but see why others don't), I wasn't very sure about this movie ever happening in any form and once it was announced that it was, suffice to say my guard was up.  When Darren Aronofsky was briefly attached I was certainly intrigued by how he would present a super hero movie but my interest was about as fleeting as his I suppose.  Having no clue who James Mangold was my desire for this movie to exist was...well...not nonexistent...but damn close.  As a matter of fact it is only just now as I am writing this that I bothered to look at his IMDB to see that he directed two movies I enjoy in Walk The Line & Identity...nice!

Anywho, it wasn't until I started seeing the trailers that my interest was piqued and, just as with Man of Steel, it took multiple variations before it completely captured my attention.  Now, after seeing the ninja fighting, the giant (robot?) Silver Samurai, Yukio, Viper, and the Famke Janssen spot...I am there.  The Jean Grey moment in the trailer was similar to the acknowledgment from Tony in Iron Man 3 that what happened in NYC had affected him.  For better or worse, the fact that X3 is being recognized and that the events of that movie will have repercussions on The Wolverine makes me a happy continuity nerd!  Plus I have a very strong desire to see how, or if, this movie will play into the next piece of film business that has my attention...

 X-Men: Days of Future Past!  I am scared, excited, nervous, happy, anxious, etcetera etcetera for this one.  It sounds so ambitious and loaded with every damn X-Character under the sun, bringing back Shawn Ashmore and Anna Paquin and Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as well as First Class cast members and, of course, Hugh Jackman.  Promises of making sense out of the continuity chaos that is the cinematic X-Verse have me salivating at the prospects of how this could be accomplished.  Will it be like JJ Abrams Star Trek where it plays as a prequel, sequel, and reboot all at the same time?  How will the past & future interact? Time travel? Alternate realities?  How will those tropes of comic book fantasy work in cinema?  I cannot wait to see how it all plays out!  First Class Xavier meet Trilogy Xavier!

My wandering mind just steered back to Iron Man 3, more specifically Robert Downey Jr's future in the Marvel movie-verse.  I think it is impossible to argue that he is the foundation upon which the current Avengers movie franchise was built...if it wasn't for the success of the original Iron Man and how amazing the guy was in the role of Tony Stark, it is extremely safe to say we wouldn't have gotten to the point where Marvel is willing to make the ballsy play of releasing a Guardians of the Galaxy movie.  Hell, we would never have gotten to ONE Avengers movie for that matter...

So while I am dumbfounded by the dollar figures attached to both RDJ and Joss Whedon ($50 million for Downey in Avengers, $100 million contract for Whedon), based on how much money their movies have made for the company, it is hard to argue they aren't worth the price tag.  It's just telling of our society that while we pay entertainers that much, for the majority of us who keep the gears turning on a daily basis those numbers are imaginary and unreachable.  GET OFF THE SOAPBOX!!!

I don't bring this up to talk about that disparity though, I bring it up because of the disparity within the Avengers franchise when it comes to pay scale.  I can understand paying the top draw the top money (to use a wrestling comparison Ricky Steamboat would never have made Hulk Hogan money) but, if the numbers are legit, to pay some of the cast $200,000 while Downey & Whedon made that much...it's insulting.  So when I read that Downey is actually standing up for his fellow castmates and this drastic discrepancy, I want to applaud the man.  Take Scarlet Johansson for one...they obviously feel she is very important, after all she has appeared in two of the Phase One movies (Iron Man 2, Avengers) and is filming Captain America: Winter Soldier.  Aside from Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury and Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson (HIS NAME WAS PHIL!), she has been the most high-profile character to not have her own movie.  I know Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye was also in two of the Phase One movies, but he was barely a factor in Thor...nowhere near as important as Black Widow was to Iron Man 2 or, now that I think about it, Coulson to the whole franchise.

If she is one of the $200K crew, I wouldn't blame her for wanting to balance the scales and get more black in her ledger (that was awful).  Same goes for Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth who are THE LEAD ACTORS in their own franchise...their movies may not bank as much as Iron Man but still, they are the face of the character.

It will be interesting to see if Marvel recasts these parts for Avengers 2 or if they balance the pay scales out to try and keep the band together.  Also can't help but wonder where Mark Ruffalo falls in all of this...he's awesome as Bruce Banner but he will, much like Hawkeye and Black Widow, probably never see his own movie.

Comic books....or at least one of them, the much anticipated and much delayed Age of Ultron event! This damn thing was first teased over two years ago in Avengers (Vol. 4) #12.1, then again during the 2012 Free Comic Comic Book day Age of Ultron #0.1 issue that reprinted the Avengers story, and here we are in 2013 and it is FINALLY starting, and almost over due to a bi-weekly print schedule, presumably to make way for Infinity this summer.

Honestly I should know better by now to expect much out of Bendis written event books after Secret Invasion and Siege.

The former had that snail's pacing with everything of interest to me (i.e. back story) happening in the Avengers tie-in books Bendis was writing.  Sure SI had some cool moments but, in the end & in the long run, none of the Skrull reveals mattered and it ended up feeling like 8 issues of set-up for Dark Reign.

The latter, well, I just didn't care...I loved Norman Osborn's role during Dark Reign and spent the entire time waiting for that Goblin reveal but when it happened, it just fell flat.  The story being cut down to four issues I took as Marvel realizing SI was TOO LONG but even at that shorter length Siege felt long to me.

So now we have AoU, obviously a play on the Age of Apocalypse name, and it feels like this just a story being ran through as quickly as possible because it was promised to us two years ago.  It reads dated too because of that...particularly in the way Bendis writes Spider-Man.  Now it has been insisted by Marvel that the AoU Spidey IS the Superior Spidey version but anyone who reads that book can see that either (A) Bendis has NO idea how to write Octo-Spidey or (B) He wrote this two years ago before Superior Spidey was a thought and just left it as Peter.  Superior Spidey has a very distinctive way of talking that screams "THIS ISN'T PETER", his body language screams "I'M NOT PETER", and yet everything about AoU Spidey reads like Peter.  It drives me nuts....

That aside, the pacing is glacial...the heroes stood around talking for four issues like it was an on-going series...and I just find it hard to get behind an alternate reality story of this nature.  When AoA happened you knew the books would eventually get back to reality BUT the entire X-Men line changed to reflect the death of Xavier.  I know that's not something possible to do in this more integrated Marvel U (back then the X-Men played all by themselves 99.9% of the time) but, maybe in part due to the fact that the next event was being solicited before this one even got started, AoU comes across like an afterthought in every way.  It would have been ballsy but imagine if Marvel had changed the ENTIRE landscape for the duration of this book?  That tells the readers something serious is going on here...and if you plan it in advance, much like the transition into AoA world, a writer can segue their story into it as much as possible then pick up the pieces when reality returns to normal.

Yet, like the glutton for punishment I am, I am continuing to read the series...it's got nice art and some cool moments but, like a review I read said...maybe on CBR...this is a story that could have played out over a couple issues of Exiles or the recently canned Extreme X-Men book.

Everything before this was written Thursday, everything from this point on was written Friday.  It will make sense why I am pointing that out shortly...

So I just finished reading Green Lantern #20, the final issue of Geoff Johns' nearly ten year running manning the Hal Jordan ship and redefining the landscape of the GL-Verse.  I have written about this before...

- Green Lantern & The New 52...10/15/12
- Rebirth 7/1/11
- Sinestro Corps Part 2 6/12/11
- Sinestro Corps Part 1 6/6/11
- Blackest Night 5/16/11

...but not in any detail since the New 52 began.  To be honest about it, I have not been greatly engrossed in anything going on in the GL books since Blackest Night ended.  I was not a fan of the Brightest Day/War of the Green Lanterns saga that wrapped up the old DCU and, aside from enjoying the interaction between Hal & Sinestro, I haven't been very engrossed by the New 52 stories.  I don't care about Baz at all yet, the Wrath of the First Lantern story was boring as hell to me with essentially every chapter just repeating the same "false reality inflicted on a lead character" angle.  The only exception, and the brightest spot of the arc, has been the Hal & Sinestro in the Dead Zone pages of which they were not a great deal. Suffice to say that I couldn't wait for this arc to end even though it meant Johns leaving the book.

All that being said, I have to say that GL #20 was an amazing send-off for Geoff, Doug Mahnke, and everyone else who helped build the GL-Verse into the behemoth it has become since Rebirth.  Yes we have seen the "rewrite reality" schtick done a million times over in comic books but in this issue, for the first time in this arc, it really feels like Volthoom's purpose is secondary to the real story: the story of Hal & Sinestro.  Volthoom is a prop, his mission is background noise, the endless supply of Lanterns from every color are meaningless in this larger story...this is ultimately about Hal, Sinestro, and their enduring friendship despite everything that has happened over the years.  Hal still wants to believe Sinestro is a good man, he will not give up on him, and Sinestro actually does demonstrate he still has that heart.  Hell I think it's safe to say that Sinestro is the MOST emotional of all these beings floating around space.

Add in all the quotes from various creators, friends, and family reflecting on Johns' run as well as Geoff's own farewell to the GL-Verse, and you have quite a complete package for a final issue.  It even answers some of the "what's still continuity?" questions that linger from the old DCU into the New 52!

So despite my general lack of interest in the last year and a half of Green Lantern, I am quite sad to see such an epic run come to an end. Let me say though that it is not a matter of the book being bad, well except for maybe the majority of Wrath of the First Lantern, it just that it is hard to match the levels of awesomeness achieved with Blackest Night, Sinestro Corps War, Rebirth, and all the other stories that have built to this finale.

It changed the face of DC Comics, it brought Hal Jordan, a character I was only tangentially familiar with from Reign of the Supermen, into my wheel house and made me love him, and it used the building blocks of what came before to create a new and very deep mythos around the GLC. 

This is the reason I felt it necessary to point out that I'm writing this part on Friday, hence the reason I didn't just lump it in with the Days of Future Past block.

So Quicksilver, who Joss Whedon had recently announced would be be part of Avengers 2 alongside Scarlet Witch, is now also going to be part of the X-Men: Days of Future Past cast! WTF?!?!

The internet kind of had a meltdown for a minute, thinking we might suddenly start seeing the two distinct movie franchises from two separate studios share a universe or something, but the reality of that ever happening is...none.  Not even slim to none...just the none.

It makes me curious why this is happening...is it a move out of spite? A challenge? Doing it because they can?  It also makes me wonder just what other characters could fall into this same murky water of being available to both movie franchises.  Does it depend on which comic book they first appeared in or which comic they appeared in most frequently?  Not even getting into the current A+X world Marvel Comics lives in, you've got characters like Beast and Carol Danvers who have been involved with both teams for decades, or even Wolverine & Spider-Man who have been part of the Avengers for nearly a decade.  What is it that determines movie rights exactly?  Could the Fantastic Four, three of whom have been Avengers in the past, be used?  I am more intrigued by HOW this works than anything else...

Trinity War is almost here and do I care? I think the answer is a lifeless grunt.  Not quite as drawn out as the delay between AoU's tease and the actual publication, this mega-event for the New 52 was first teased in the 2012 FCBD book from DC.  This isn't something unusual for Geoff Johns by the way as he did exactly that for Sinestro Corps War (teased in the final issue of Rebirth I think) and Blackest Night (teased in the last part of Sinestro Corps War) BUT I felt like those stories were built towards in the gaps.

I'm not sure if Trinity has actually been built towards...maybe that's the kind of thing where the pieces will fall into place when I get to read it.  Right now it it just feels like I am being TOLD this is important instead of being SHOWN it's important. I read JL, JLA, and JLD and I in no way feel like these books are headed for some big collision in just two months time...and building it around a big murder mystery premise is doing nothing for me.  Maybe I'm just being cynical comic book guy here but let's see, Johns just introduced three new JL members in The Atom, Element Woman, and Firestorm (the only one who had his own book).  Well is it a safe bet to say either Atom or Element Woman are dying?  Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Flash all have their own book, Cyborg's involvement (despite not adding up to much of anything for most of the series) was pushed as a big deal, and Green Lantern Jordan technically quit.  So again...safe bet on one of the newbies getting killed.

 Pandora is uninteresting to me thus far aside from wanting to know WHY she said reality had to be rewritten at the end of Flashpoint.  Don't care about Phantom Stranger, this Question isn't Renee Montoya so I don't care, I have not been impressed one bit with Justice League of America thus far, so sadly I am heading to Trinity War with very low expectations. Maybe...as was the case with the Atlantis arc in JL...this will work in my favor and I will be overjoyed by its quality!

And finally let me just say that I am super excited for this one though and a lot of the reason comes from this excerpt from an IGN interview Batman writer Scott Snyder did here


Snyder: What happened was, I started thinking about all the things we never saw in Batman: Year One; the adventures and the early years of Bruce that had been unexplored -- a lot of the first things that happened to him. I was kind of planning on telling a story about that at some point. Then what happened – and this is me just being totally honest with you, Joey, and I guess everybody out there reading [laughs] – is that I realized over the last five or six months that a lot of the things I was trying to work around from Year One, in my story, didn’t track anymore with the present day continuity of the [New] 52.

Meaning, Jim Gordon’s son, James, would be five or six years old. And believe me, nobody loves Year One more than me. Using that book as a foundation of what you build on is hugely important to me. But, Selina Kyle’s origin is different, Barbara Gordon’s origin is different, the Falcone family is different. All of that stuff is different, and so what happened was it became, “Do I do this more tepid early years story that tries very hard to work around the elements of Year One that we could actually show again to show that they exist still and just retread?” Or does it become about saying, “I’m going to be respectful of Year One and the things that I love, but try and do something with Greg that’s our own and shows you how Batman became Batman in the 52?

As I have said before, with the history of the Bat & GL franchises theoretically left intact with the reboot a whole slew of problems were presented but left unaddressed.  As Snyder stated, when the New 52 history began to unfold, characters new origins didn't vibe with that idea so well.  It's refreshing to hear that addressed by the guy spearheading the Bat-Verse and I like that he is making an attempt to do something along these line.  As much of a continuity whore as I can be though, I don't want to see a story that is just a point-by-point history book and I am not so stuck on what carried over from the Old DCU, I just would expect everything within the New 52 to make sense.  Create your rules and then follow them...that's a simple guideline for creating any fantasy realm and the New 52 has shown more than a few hiccups (I'm looking at you Scott Lobdell and your faux-Tim Drake).  Maybe that's why I find it funny that Snyder specifically said this in the interview though, "This is not, 'Why is Damian as old as he is?'"

I keep trying to remind myself that the New 52 is only two years old and that it took an eternity for Marvel and DC to really cement their universes in the first place.  I just wonder, and probably always will, if anyone from DC sat down and thought out the finer points the way Bendis did with Hank Pym's AoU death here?

Anyway, I kind of hope that the idea of Zero Year catches on for some of the other New 52 books and that in five-ten years, when we have all hopefully finally stopped calling it the New 52, we will have some sort of idea of DCU history in the sense we all head it prior to Flashpoint.  Instead of Crisis, we will have Trinity...instead of Knightfall we will have Death of the Family...instead of Death of Superman we will have...I don't know, probably not He'l On Earth though.

I Have Come Not To Bury 2012 But To Praise It (Reflections on the year)

 

Just felt like a good image to kick this off with because EVERYONE loves the word FREE!!!! 

It's been awhile, largely do to the holidays, partly do to my own laziness to be frank, but then again since I do this as something fun and not as a job, or for pay, I suppose there's not really an official schedule, it's just me trying to get a blog out there every so often when I have something to talk about instead of just a long run-on sentence that I will end now.

I figured this time of year was a good one to get back on the horse and what better way to kick it off than to follow the trend of looking back on the previous year and making up my own little list! Haven't done that in awhile (2010 to be exact) so I thought it might be fun to look back on the things I enjoyed about 2012...just the things I enjoyed because, well, I feel like I generally hit on enough of my perceived negatives in comics AND so does most of that darn internet as well.  So let's look at the things I loved, starting with my two  

FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2012:

First up, by a longshot, is Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo's Batman book. With gorgeous, sometimes terrifying, art from Capullo that perfectly syncs up with the tale being spun by Snyder, this book helped quell any fears I had about the New 52.  Yes there are still some major questions of decompression and continuity, particularly where Damian Wayne is concerned, but from the "Court of Owls" arc that started in August 2011 & continued into 2012 to the "Night of Owls" story in the main book (as well in the Bat-Family titles) and the current "Death of the Family" arc spotlighting The Joker, I am hard-pressed to name a moment when this book has faltered.  Even Batman #12 (the "filler" issue) that really introduced Harper Row and was done by Snyder & Becky Cloonan (the only issue thus far NOT drawn by Capullo) was quite a quality piece of business.
Snyder has quite successfully melded elements of the spandex genre with horror, mystery, and suspense as well as playing up the familial aspects of the Bat...family, particularly with the new wrinkle in Nightwing's origin and in the driving impetus behind the "DOTF" storyline.
As for Capullo, well the man I first discovered waybackwhen on X-Force and then Spawn has exceeded my expecatations beyond measure.  Admittedly I was tentative as to how he would pull this one off but visually he has hit all the right marks.  His Batman is one of power generally speaking but then he throws out a cover like this:

Or panels like this:

That image, from Batman #5, was indeed printed upside down in the comic which, while initially jarring, was an amazing and incredibly brave choice to make.  It's one of my favorite issues of the book so far, not only because of the art choices, but because it is an issue that absolutely tears Bruce apart and kind of harkens back to his father's lines from the movies, "Why do we fall down? To pick ourselves back up."

This is the best book of 2012 for me but it is followed in close second by:

Rick Remender & company's Uncanny X-Force book (which was also my favorite new book in 2010) was also up there as one of my faves but in this case it was largely due to the story that unfolded rather than the art/story combo pack of Batman.  Also, another reason it takes a 2nd place to Batman is because while I enjoyed every moment of Batman, I was not a very big fan overall of the "Otherworld" story arc that ate up issues #20-24.  It had it's character moments for me, particularly anything involving Fantomex & Psylocke, but I don't care much for Captain Britain and his pocket of the Marvel U so it didn't work for me as a whole.
Still in terms of the overall story Remender presented, and particularly the "Final Execution" final, this is definitely one of the highlights of my comic book year.
The emotional resonance of the Dark Angel arc that wrapped in 2011 carried the book through to its conclusion and ultimately changed all of the characters in this story.  Remender's portrayal of Deadpool has quite possibly been my favorite ever, the story of Genesis and his temptation was gripping, the fate of Fantomex (he's a Grant Morrison creation, of course I love him), the proper resolution of the Daken/Wolverine story, it all felt, well, epic.

As an aside to another of his projects, I am also digging how Remender has taken the seeds he planted in the "Deathlok Nation" arc of 2011 and carried them over to his current "Secret Avengers" run that is wrapping up shortly.

Now given that Uncanny X-Force was only 37 issues (40 if you throw in the Fear Itself mini) including its two Point One books, I certainly hope gets an Omnibus treatment down the line.  If nothing else, I do hope that Marvel puts the "Dark Angel" and "Final Execution" arcs into one collected edition for each instead of the current two volumes into which they are broken both divided.

As for some other faves of 2012, I would suggest you pick up: Scott Snyder's Swamp Thing, Jeff Lemire's Animal Man, Geoff Johns' Aquaman, Robert Kirkman's Walking Dead & Invincible, Mark Waid's Daredevil, and Jason Aaron's Wolverine & The X-Men.  For a late entry into the field, a book that only just started in the last two months of 2012, try Brian Michael Bendis' All New X-Men...that one has the potential to be my favorite of 2013.  In fact, let's give it the award for:

BEST NEW BOOK OF 2012

I had some serious doubts about how the premise of this book could have legs and the first issue didn't do much to assuage those fears.  In fact it pissed me off because the pages Marvel had solicited to tease the book were straight up the last five pages or so of the book!  That's not a tease, that's a spoiler with no ALERT!

So how does a book with only 5 issues under its belt go from pissing me off to being my "best new"?  Patience and voice, I had the patience to let the story unfold and Bendis' gave the characters a voice that I felt fit.  I mean his best Marvel work (Daredevil aside) has been writing teenagers & high school kids so using the original five X-Men is perfect for one.  For another, aside from a rough spot in issue 3, I think he has given a strong voice to adult Cyclops after AvX, and in some ways Consequences, did him so much damage.  I also appreciate the fact that Bendis flat out addressed the deus ex machina of the entire series by having EVERY character basically say "Professor X is just going to erase our memories as soon as we go back to the past".  It is an obvious out that anyone could have called before picking up a single issue of the book and it was a relief to see it addressed, see the characters accept it as fact, and still decide to go on their mission regardless of that outcome.  Thank you Bendis...

The wonderful art by Stuart Immonen doesn't hurt either!  I hope this book continues the level of quality that 3/5 issues have had and I also hope the Bendis/Chris Bachalo Uncanny X-Men book is at the same level, if not better.

Continuing the tangential nature of this whole list (since I don't really have a format or plan), mentioning Bachalo and Immonen takes my mind to:

MY FAVORITE ARTIST OF 2012: JH WILLIAMS III

That's just a tiny sampling but I think the pictures & layouts speak for themselves. I could look at the pages & covers every day without a bit of text...creative, unique, and beautiful.  I can't wait until this comes out:

As for runner-up selections: obviously Capullo as I raved about earlier, Chris Burnham on Batman Inc, Ivan Reis on Aquaman, and while I'm not really digging the story (not bad just not terribly interesting), what Francis Manapul is doing on Flash is absolutely amazing visually!  Check out this story at Bleeding Cool and this sample:

And the random train of thought went like this Flash...Justice League...Shazam.....

BEST BACK-UP FEATURE

The SHAZAM back-up in Justice League has been blow away awesome in all the ways that the core feature has not been.  Geoff Johns is penning a great coming-of-age tale in just a few pages every month, and that Zero issue above was a godsend because it focused exclusively on the tale of Billy Batson and company.  JL, to me, has felt soulless in the way a big Hollywood action blockbuster can...it has all the big names, all the big creative talent, but it is still just a set piece for big explosions. SHAZAM has been small and meaningful, a story about how I think a kid in Billy's situation would honestly react to suddenly becoming one of the most powerful beings on the planet.  Toss in Gary Frank's amazing artwork (add him to that list above as well) and this story is a surefire hit that I hope gets a collection to call its own when it wraps up (which I would presume would be around Trinity War time).  JL is showing some promise with the newly started Aquaman man arc and it isn't bad by any means, just lackluster, but fortunately the addition of SHAZAM make the book worth the price tag.

Well since that blurb didn't lead my brain directly into another category, I'm just throwing one out there:

BEST "IT'S NEW TO ME" BOOK

I wrote about this "recently" (if you consider November recent) so I'm just pulling a Copy & Paste from that blog:

First up was some back-to-back Robert Kirkman love starting with the "Invincible" Compendium.  Another of his Image books, this one was a book I'd been told repeatedly to read but, since I wasn't getting to it, a friend of mine got it for me as a birthday gift. Well I can say that I'm glad I waited to read it because it was great to read this story...well at least its first half...in one collection! 

To sum it up as much as possible without ruining too much, this one is the story of a kid named Mark Grayson whose father is a superhero and then said kid discovers that he too has superpowers!  It's a story of father-son relationships, of the dynamic in a family with two heroes, a family in which the heroes aren't having to hide it from their family...just the rest of the world of course.

Yet it it also a coming of age story, a tale of betrayal and disappointment, of friends and lovers...essentially it is a tale of life as told through the POV of a superhero kid. High school, college, girlfriends, teams, villains, friends, and aliens are all a part of this tale and by the way, it is quite graphically violent.  That is a trait of this series that I find very intriguing not because I'm a blood mark, but because of the color scheme of this series...it's bright and vibrant, alive I guess you could say, a stark contrast to that other Kirkman work of note: "The Walking Dead".

"Invincible" is available right here in a handy-dandy Compendium that collects not only the first 47 issues of the series but also the Zero issue, an issue of The Pact series, and also excerpts from the 2004 Image Comics Summer Special.  I can't recommend this book highly enough and I cannot wait until there is a Volume 2 Compendium released, which I would imagine will come out shortly after the 100th issue is released.

Other nominees for that little prize include: Neil Gaiman's Sandman (which I only just started at the end of the year so figured it didn't quite qualify here), as well as his Eternals book, shockingly Brian K. Vaughn's Mystique in its rather unique take on the villain as well as his Runaways books, Mark Waid's Captain America run, and Warren Ellis' Thor which, although I wasn't digging the art of Mike Deodato and it isn't Ellis' best work, I thought it was an interesting take on a character I generally don't care about outside of the movie franchise...

What a segue...

BEST SUPERHERO MOVIE OF 2012 (tie)

Yeah...I couldn't decide...I love them both equally and for different reasons.  Click on the poster for each if you want to read my original thoughts on each movie from when they came out.  As for my opinions since being able to watch them back from the comforts of home, not much has changed.  In fact, I think it's safe to say my love for what each of them brings to the table has only gotten deeper.

Avengers is fun and every bit that Hollywood action movie blockbuster BUT with substance and a humor that to feels deeper than, say, a Battleship probably did (to be fair I didn't see the movie so it COULD be the Citizen Kane of action flicks for all I know).  It made me WANT to see sequels and prequels and threequels and spin-offs and got me excited for what is to come in the future of the Marvel Films side of the Marvel U.

DKRises (I feel obligated to write out Rises when I do that because, prior to the movie, to comic book fans DKR meant Dark Knight Returns) was the exact opposite in so many ways.  It had its fun but it, as expected, was more serious in tone and smaller in scale in terms of its threat.  Where Avengers was about the forging of a legacy and explosions, DKRises was about the legacy itself, about identity and worth, and of course, about big explosions ;-)  It was a fitting end, especially the unveiling of the statue, and although I do not expect Joseph Gordon Levitt to be Batman in the Justice League movie, I would be ecstatic to see him continue on in that role.

For those who may have read Grant Morrison's JLA, the Green Lantern of the piece was Kyle Rayner and, while surrounded by Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman to name a few, he was in the position of living up to the legacy of Hal Jordan, the "Greatest Green Lantern". I would find it intriguing if, in the movie, it was Batman in that role of being the one having to live up to the expectations of his predecessor while surrounded by Supes, WW, and GL...especially if those characters were clueless as to the true identity of Batman.  I'm just picturing a JGL Batman coming up short and finally, in a moment of trust and confidence, revealing the truth to his compatriots which in turn leads them to unveiling their truths to each other.  Imagine a Batman who is the one looking for acceptance instead of being the one on the fringes...

Anyway....how about:

MY FAVORITE COMIC BOOK TOY OF 2012

I don't do toy reviews...I solely base this on how cool I think he looks in my display stand!

COOLEST COMIC CON GIVE AWAY OF 2012

 Pick one up on Ebay like I did and scare the crap out of people!

 Man how did I forget this one:

BEST WRITER OF @)!@

Scott Snyder may be terrible at responding at Twitter to compliments or criticisms, at least to me, but given that I am a superhero guy first and foremost, and with that a Batman guy (my ten year old self would be shocked, he tried to will claws to pop out of his hands), I must pick Scott Snyder.  I think you can just go back up to the fave book blurb and see the why where Batman is concerned but it is also because of the stellar work he has done on Swamp Thing and American Vampire.

I'm sure people who know me and read this are shocked I didn't just default pick Grant Morrison for Batman Inc & Happy but I think I have to automatically disqualify him BECAUSE he is my favorite overall.  It's just too easy to go there...

As for other potentials, I'd have to add in Jeff Lemire for his work on Animal Man, Geoff Johns BUT only for his Aquaman book, Jason Aaron for Wolvie & The X-Men, Kirkman for Walking Dead, Remender for UXF...


BEST MINI-SERIES OF 2012

Clone Jesus Christ, attach a former IRA member as his bodyguard, turn it into a reality TV show, and see what happens!  That is the most bare bones premise of Sean Murphy's amazingly nuts mini-series that just recently wrapped up.  I still need to read the final issue but I can, without a doubt, say this was my fave mini of the year.  Its black & white art is a sight to behold, the story is fun and chaotic, potentially controversial to some, heartfelt, and sad all while painting a pretty believable portrayal of how Chris (the clone) would likely respond to the circumstances in which he finds himself AND the fashion in which the world reacts to his presence.  The individual issues are likely still available at your LCS but the collection doesn't come out until April.  If you're interested in pre-ordering it just click here and take a look at how great this one page looks (also throw Murphy's name up there too in that fave artists category now that I think about it):

Runner-up for this one, but a very very close one at that, is definitely James Robinson's "The Shade" 12 issue maxi-series that continued following a character from his epic run on "Starman" that I wrote about in 2011. It was a great continuation of the journey of that character, picking up basically right where he was left at the close of Starman and finally giving us the origin Robinson had only only teased at for years.  The fact that the book boasted a collection of artists like Darwyn Cooke, Frazer Irving, Gene Ha, Jill Thompson, Cully Hamner and Javier Pulido only served to enhance how awesome of a tale this was and one I cannot wait to read back in its entirety...as soon as I'm done with the dozen other reads I have waiting for me.

BEST ANNOUNCEMENT OF 2012

The return of Sandman!

MY MOST ANTICIPATED OF 2013

In addition to that one right above, I also want to add in the debut of Bendis' Uncanny X-Men, the Riddler in Batman, Trinity War, Ultron War (FINALLY!), Dog Logan in Wolvie & The X-Men (seriously), and the return of Jean Paul Valley!!! Yeah there is no way in hell that last one is happening in 2013, 2033, or any other year...

I am also hoping for something from Morrison's Multiversity, Frank Quitely & Mark Millar's Jupiter's Legacy, and pretty excited to make my way through the rest of Sandman (starting Vol. 4 this weekend), and read the Spider-Man Marvel Masterworks Vol. 1, Iron Wars II, and volume of Matt Fraction's Thor I picked up yesterday for only $20 combined!  Gotta love the discount book store!!!  Oh yes, and I just received Scalped Vol. 1 & Fatale Vol. 1 from Amazon as well!  So I already have a great deal of things to read through in the first full week of the year!

OTHER OPINIONS

I asked some friends & people on FB/Twitter for their favorites of the year and this is what I got back:

Duke from Capes & Cowls - Batman & Uncanny X-Force
Pat - Saga
Ryan - Anything from Frank Tieri (sarcastic trolling)
Eric Downes on FB - AvX (only thing he read)
Greg Rice - Uncanny X-Force & Batman
Michael Maberry - Hawkeye (should have included that as my best new series runner up...or tie, make that tie)
Craig - "sorry im still stuck in my nothings better than millers batman bubble oh and the boys but im still way behind"

And my favorite answer from Midge who doesn't read..."the superman one, in the black bag. Bet it's great, but it's in the bag so I don't know #worthmillions"

So I think that about wraps up my look back on 2012 and I won't make any promises this time about what I want to write about next or when it will get done (just discovered I said I was going to write about Rogue War like a year ago....not sure if I ever actually did that!), but it won't be another 6 week gap like this one. I bid you farewell until next time with two plugs for some friends of mine.  The first is for a Deadpool web series starring my buddy Damian in the lead role:

And the second is for my friend Rob's short film "No Clowning Around":

Go show some support for each and, as always, support your Local Comic Shop and if you live in the Philly/Bensalem/Bristol/Croydon area then make sure it's Capes & Cowls you're supporting!

Green Lantern & The New 52: Pulling on Threads...

Before I get to the meat of this one, let me take a second to harken back to my last Bat-Centric blog and point out another mention of Tim Drake as Robin from "Batman & Robin" that was pointed out to me by Brian Thomer aka @PAComicExaminer:

Also something else that has occurred to me in the light of the fact that in Batman #13 it is explicitly stated that The Joker is coming back after a year away which means that Detective Comics #1 was one year ago, which means any Zero issue story marked "One Year Ago" took place around the start of the New 52, which means Damian's "Year and a Half Ago" moment of meeting Bruce (while he was still Batman & before he disappeared for a year) took place around 6 months prior to the beginning of the New 52, which means he has only been Robin for very a short time at the start of the New 52, which means it would be quite difficult for Dick to have been Batman for a year, which means I am going to make my f'n head explode trying to make sense out of it meaning sometimes I wish I could still think like I did when I was a little kid and not really care about this all continuity making some semblance of sense. End scene...

Waiiiiiiiit a second, another thing came out during NYCC after I wrote that opening paragraph, something playing into all that.  Courtesy of Bleeding Cool, Dan DiDio, Jim Lee, and Bob Wayne claimed that Tim Drake was NEVER intended to be a Robin and that the trade edits were intended to maintain the status quo they wanted in the first place.  Okay well,  I'm not going to argue my personal feelings on the whole "Not Robin" idea but rather point out that both the 1st New 52 Batman collection AND Batman & Robin collection came out with references to Tim as Robin before the edited Teen Titans collection came out. 

SO if the "Not Robin" stance on Tim was ALWAYS intended, then who fucked up A YEAR AGO when the New 52 began and then fucked up again in May & June when the collections were released? I mean did the ball get dropped by numerous people here or did the top level forget to tell everyone else that Tim was never supposed to be a Robin?  Too much to get DC Comics to just say "yup, we fucked up"?  Regularly scheduled program time now...

I almost feel like I should start this off by saying that I am a big fan of Green Lantern with Geoff Johns at the helm.  Prior to the day I was given "Rebirth" as a gift, I hadn't really kept up with the adventures of GL in his own book and aside from reading Hal Jordan in "Death of Superman", the only GL I had every really known was Kyle Rayner via his inclusion on the JLA team first penned by Grant Morrison.

Suffice to say that I was hooked and quickly got my hands on the "Emerald Twilight" story to see what happened with Hal Jordan as I had experienced his villainous side in "Zero Hour" and other major stories like his sacrifice to reignite the sun in "Final Night" and his dawning as The Spectre in "Day of Judgement".

After reading "GL: Rebirth", I quickly snatched up all of the collections I could, caught up just in time for the finale of the "Sinestro Corps War", and have continued to read the core book as well as "Green Lantern Corps", "Emerald Warriors", "Red Lanterns", and "The New Guardians". From the original DCU into The New 52, I have followed the exploits of Hal Jordan, Kyle Rayner, Guy Gardner, John Stewart, and the rest of the GLC. 

I have enjoyed the story within the GL book probably more in the New 52 than I did in the latter months of the Original DCU. Sadly the same can't be said for GLC, The New Guardians, or Red Lanterns, at least not initially, but GLC & New Guardians have turned a corner for me in recent months.  Unfortunately I still find Red Lanterns to be a chore to read and if it wasn't for the manner in which I read it, I would have stopped long ago...

Now that the pleasantries and whatnot are out of the way, let me get down to the meat of the thing....my exploration of the threads that make up the current Green Lantern universe and what happens if you follow them back to their origins.

This is where the current face of the Green Lantern corner of the DCU was born...the day Coast City was annihilated by the machinations of The Cyborg Superman Hank Henshaw & Mongul.  Some would argue it began here...

...and that the story started there runs all the way through to this...

...and continues into the most recent issue #13. Yes, I do believe that that belief is right, but only partly right, even my thought that it began with the destruction of Coast City is only PART of the story.  See I firmly believe that the current face of the GL-verse, the face that Geoff Johns has worked so hard to construct, is quite dependant on a number of factors that pre-date his time in DC Comics and thus, obviously, pre-date the creation of the New 52.  This is not a statement on the quality of the New 52, this is not a judgement on the story that HAS Been told thus far in the last year.  Rather it is my look at the events of the Old DCU that played into the formation of the GL Johns-verse and my wondering how/if they fit into the New 52.

First up:

The Anti-Monitor & The Original Crisis.  This might seem like an odd place to begin but it is one of the two most essential elements of the current GL-scape in the New 52.  As we have learned over the last year, the events of Blackest Night still happened in some format in the world of the New 52.  Whether or not they are absolutely identical is not known, but highly unlikely given the involvement of the JSA members and the fact that the death of one Barry Allen (who obviously hasn't died in the the New 52) was a part of the story. 
Well at the core of the Blackest Night story, or rather at the core of the Black Lanterns was a certain BL Battery on the planet Ryut, the battery that powered the zombie tribe, just like the one on Oa powers the Green Lanterns.  Well the power source of that battery was none other than the Anti-Monitor!  How did he end up there you ask?

Well that makes another aspect of a certain old DCU story required in some format or another, and that story is none other than the Sinestro Corps War!  See in the Sinestro Corps War, the Anti-Monitor was part of an alliance of Sinestro, the Cyborg Superman, Superboy-Prime, and the Parallax entity (brought to "life" by possessing Kyle Rayner).  As the SCW neared its conclusion, the Anti-Monitor was near defeat following the detonation of the Central Yellow Lantern battery and was ultimately tossed into space by Superboy-Prime where the Anti-Monitor crash landed on Ryut and was consumed by the BL Battery.

Why did Superboy-Prime toss Anti-Monitor into space you ask?  Well that is also very dependant another aspect of the Old CU, probably the most important story in the history of the Old DCU actually, Crisis on Infinite Earths.  See Superboy-Prime was a resident of Earth-Prime where he was the only superhero of that Earth but it was destroyed by the Anti-Monitor during the Crisis.  Prime joined up with the heroes of Earth-One to stop Anti-Monitor but is exiled to a "paradise" dimension along with three others from alternate Earths including a Lois Lane & Superman from Earth-2 and Alexander Luthor from Earth-3.  Once there he grows frustrated and his punching of the walls of reality create changes including the resurrection of Jason Todd and inconsistent origins of Superman over the years. Eventually he, along with his trio, break free from their "prison" and the subsequent events are known as "Infinite Crisis".  In this crisis we see Superboy (the clone Superman) die, Superboy-Prime go nuts and kill a lot of people, and eventually get locked up inside the Science Cells on Oa.

Wait, what's up with the Superboy who is a clone of Superman you ask?

See that leads to the other story of the Old DCU that I believe is absolutely crucial to the mythos of the current GL-verse:

Superman died...killed at the hands of Doomsday, between the first issue of the New 52 Swamp Thing and recent comments by Grant Morrison at a comic-con, we can confirm that Superman died AND was in fact killed by Doomsday in the New 52.  Beyond that, the question is very much up in the air...well, to an extent.  It is safe to say that in the New 52, the Return/Reign of Superman story did NOT happen in anyway similar to how it happened in the Old DCU.  Superboy was only "born" around the time the New 52 started, meaning he could not have taken part in any story prior to this and Steel in the New 52 is not of the same origin as the original which we've seen in Grant Morrison's Action Comics. No clue if the Eradicator or Hank Henshaw have existed in the New 52, but in SOME FASHION this story needs to have taken place because it is where Coast City was blown up the Cyborg Superman & Mongul.

Why is it so integral that Coast City blew up?

Well Coast City's destruction is what set all the wheels in motion that brought us to this day as far as Hal Jordan's character go.  Hal went nuts following the events of Coast City, tried to use his ring to resurrect the city, but was shut down by the Guardians.  Hal then went to Oa to try and get the power he wanted and ultimately ends up killing all the Guardians save Ganthet as well as Lantern Killowog and the rogue Sinestro who had been imprisoned in the Green Lantern Battery.  Hal takes the name Parallax, tries to rewrite time in Zero Hour, sacrifices his life to reignite the sun in Final Night, becomes the Spectre in Day of Judgement, and that all lead to his resurrection in Rebirth. 

So within the story of Hal Jordan, just to get to what Geoff Johns established in Rebirth, we need Hal to decimate Oa (very likely because we saw a trashed Oa in the New 52 version of GLC #1 prior to Kyle Rayner getting his ring) and for Sinestro to be freed.  We need Hal to have been possessed by the Parallax entity, for it to have somehow survived his sacrifice to reignite the sun (as it did in the Old DCU) and for Hal to have been Spectre with the Parallax entity riding shotgun.

It has been established courtesy of Phantom Stranger #0 that The Spectre exists in the New 52 but, at least in its initial appearance, it is Jim Corrigan who is possessed by The Spectre.  Now this happens at some non-descript time but I couldn't imagine DC introducing Corrigan as the character in the Zero issue only to have him NOT still be Spectre in the following issues. 

I'm not even touching on the issues that play into the history of the assorted Earth GL's.  Did Xanshi still get destroyed in order to shape the character of John Stewart and actually give added weight to his destruction of Mogo (a pre-New 52 event btw)?  Was Kyle Rayner still possessed by the Ion entity or does his New 52 tag of Torchbearer have some different meaning?  Was Guy Gardner still in possession of a yellow ring at an earlier point in his career (it seems he was still possessed by a red ring)?

Those are all just pieces of the Old DCU that play heavily into the shape of the New 52 and while I've chosen to focus on the GL-Verse, specifically Hal Jordan, in this rant, I think it is safe to say that DC's decision to keep GL & Bat history relatively intact creates some problems with elements of the Old DCU.  For GL these are what I consider the key ingredients to have happened IN SOME FASHION for the shape of the current New 52 world:

1) The existence of an Anti-Monitor (power source for BL battery)
2) Coast City destroyed
3) Hal Jordan as Parallax, destroying Oa (partially confirmed)
4) Hal Jordan freeing Sinestro & Parallax entity from the Power Battery
5) Hal Jordan as Spectre
6) Sinestro Corps War happened
7) Blackest Night happened (this has been confirmed)
8) War of the Green Lanterns happened (Krona needs to exist for the events of Red Lanterns)

I am sure I am missing something here as I am trying to do this from memory as opposed to notes this time, but I hope you get the idea.  There are just certain key elements with the Old DCU that had to have happened in some fashion for the current Geoff Johns/GL-Verse to really make sense.  They don't have to be perfect, they don't have to have happened completely identical to the way they happened in the Old DCU, but they do have to have happened somehow. 

Coast City must die, Hal Jordan must have been evil...they are as important as Luke Skywalker seeing Obi-Wan die on the Death Star in "A New Hope" or Dexter being found in a pool of his mother's blood on "Dexter".  They are integral components of an origin story that I had hoped the Zero issues would be used to confirm or flesh out, but sadly that was not in any of the four GL series.  GL #0 told us the origin of a new character, New Guardians #0 gave us nothing origin-based, Red Lanterns #0 was a serious waste, and only GLC #0 gave us anything origin based and, while I enjoyed the look at Guy's back story, it did not fill in any of the blanks I have discussed above.

This isn't a cry for answers, not yet at least, rather this was just an exploration into how the Old DCU events could/should tie into the events of the New 52.  I will be very interested to see if DC Comics does anything to cement any aspects of the old world as part of the new, or if they find a way to rewrite these histories in a logical fashion.

Thus far they have done a subpar job with the Bat-world, creating inconsistencies in time and logic, particularly with the birth of Damian Wayne and their lack of a backbone on the Tim "Drake"/Robin situation as mentioned at the start of this rant.

I hope maybe, just maybe, they will solidify the ground on which the New 52 Green Lantern world is built rather than just the half-assed "everything still happened" explanation we have gotten over the last year.  I know it's a lot to cover in just 14 months of time, but I sincerely hope that maybe in the next 13 months the portrait of GL history is painted with more clarity.