I know I write about Marvel a lot here, but truth be told, as of today (April 23rd), the only Marvel books I'm subscribed to are Marvel Two-in-One, Captain America, and X-Men Red, though I'll occasionally grab a random issue.
No, srsly - this book owns. And I understand who every character in the book is, unlike X-Men Blue or Gold.
Everything else is DC. And there's a lot of DC.
That's because with DC's New 52 Reboot in 2011, I stopped buying comics. Everything I'd been reading over the past... lifetime, was suddenly up for debate and some of my favorite characters were all of a sudden never real (y'know, in the comics world. I know they were never real to begin with).
Marvel got me back in for a bit in 2013/2014 with their "Marvel Now" line but within a year a new series was started. And then another one. And then there was Secret Wars. And then a new series. And then they went back to old numbering. And now they're doing new series. And I read comic books all the fucking time and even I'm confused about which volume is which and what's actually worth reading.
I then didn't buy comics for another 2 years - I'd buy old shit trades, but nothing new. I couldn't be fucking bothered to sub to a book because in 8 months it would either be:
A) undone
B) rebooted with the same creative team
C) Cancelled (honestly, this pissed me off least)
and I just didn't have the patience for it. I couldn't be bothered with one company that shat all over everything they'd done to get me excited, and another that hit the reset button every year and a half because they figured out #1's sell more than #15's. In the case of Ms. Marvel, look - they used the same damn layout and font for the title - at least with Spider-Gwen they added an adjective, but tracking down back issues was a nightmare.
Turns out when your first new initiative is "Marvel Now" and your follow up is "All-New Marvel Now", there can be some confusion between the two ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
But then DC released a book called DC Universe: Rebirth and al of a sudden I gave a shit about comics for the first time in years.
Rebirth was a giant-ass 80-page book priced competitively at $2.99 (Marvel's attempt to do this a year later would be $5.99, and honestly not as good), with some of the best artists at DC working on a script from one of the greatest modern comic book writers - Geoff Johns. And since the book came out two years ago, I'm just gonna cut to the highlights because this is - like Countdown to Infinite Crisis (another awesome 80 page-giant Johns wrote over 10 years ago).
Batman sits there pondering something he learned at the tail-end of a major justice league story - that over the years, the Joker was actually three different people. Two years on, still waiting to hear what the hell is going on here.
There's a narrator that Johns returns to - it's Wally West, the character he wrote for years on The Flash. Though he was gone/changed during the New 52, the red-headed nephew of Barry Allen (the current Flash)'s romance, Iris Allen isn't dead but he is dying. He's forgotten by everyone in the DC Universe, and he's basically the Ghost of Christmas Past at this point, a vestige of old things.
And you know what? It's so fucking good to see Wally again. Wally being written out is part of the reason why I left DC/comics to begin with.
He comes to Batman in the hopes of being remembered. Wally is basically looking for what Barry was looking for in Flash: Rebirth, a (surprise, surprise) awesome Geoff Johns book from a few years back. He's looking for a lightning rod - something that can tether him to this reality. He thought it'd be Batman since Bruce still has proof of another world, and he's incredibly smart. It's not.
But one thing that's pretty sweet about this interaction is we find out that Flashpoint and New 52, the entire thing - it was all by design. Someone stepped behind the universe and pulled some strings to make things different, and nobody knows except Wally. So come hell or high-water, whether he lives or dies, he has to deliver a message. He's just not sure whom to yet.
Once it's clear that Bruce isn't the one that can bring Wally back, he's pulled away to another connection. After Bruce he tracks down an old man in a nursing home who for all intents and purposes seems like he's going fucking crazy, except of course he's not crazy - he's Johnny fucking Thunder - the coolest name in all of the DC Universe and a member of the Justice Society (guess what? Geoff Johns wrote that book too. Noticing a pattern yet?), and he's missing his team.
Two years on, still waiting to hear what the hell is going on here too. We saw a teammate from the Justice Society for half a goddamn second. And that's pretty much it.
After failing to get freed by Johnny, Wally takes a little tour of the contemporary DC Universe. He sees a woman in lockup at Gotham City Police Department and it turns out - yeah, she's a superhero. And a pretty important one. She's Saturn Girl, a member of the Legion of Superheroes, the super team of the future. Yeah, everyone thinks she's crazy too.
Two years on, we're starting to hear what the hell is going on here. She appeared in the same story we saw the JSA teammate in, and she was just featured in Doomsday Clock, a big-ass 12 issue series from Geoff Johns (SURPRISE, MOTHER FUCKERS) and Gary Frank.
After that we see The Atom in a story I never really cared about. Followed up Blue Beetle and Dr Fate in another story that I never really cared about either. But then we see Pandora, one of the characters introduced in New 52 (she appeared in every single #1 issue of the entire publishing initiative), and she gets 86'd - which is great, because this was the proof that New 52 was a mistake and they heard the complaints of fans. This was the promise that they were undoing the shit they'd done that nobody liked, and the rest of the issue was proof of them working hard to keep the stuff people did like.
Wally sees the death site of the New 52 Superman, and comments on the shit that's changed so much - stuff like Dinah Lance and Ollie Queen not really knowing each other at all, when they used to be so close. As a fan it was nice to hear someone with Johns' knowledge comment on the drastic changes made during the New 52 because there was an implied intention to change things, to let these people rediscover each other. We see the Superman from Pre-New 52 who somehow survived, he meets Mr. Oz - a superfucking powerful dude who seems intent on testing Superman the way God tested Job. Two years later - we've answered this one.
But then Wally remembers he's dying and needs to find someone who remembers him. He was married so next on the list after best friends is, well, his wife. His ex-wife? The dude technically never existed, so not entirely sure how to qualify her. For the first time all issue, we see Wally smile when he's finally reintroduced to Linda, the woman who had twins with the guy.
And then she uses her non-super-powered hands to rip Wally's super-powered heart out of his super-powered chest.
Wally pops in on a few more friends to see if any of them are the lightning rod he needs to get back to reality. None of them are, but he takes a second to peak in on Wally West - the one that was created for the New 52 and in typical Johns fashion, an incredibly simple explanation clears up why there are two fucking Wally Wests.
And then Wally is ready to die. But there's one person he has to see before he can officially let go. And I'm going to put all the pages for it in there because holy hell is it emotional as shit.
And just like that, Wally accepts his fate like a goddamn hero. He's ready to die, and his last words were those of love, respect, and kindness, because he's too good for this world, and that's why he has to leave it.
But Barry is a fucking hero too, and he refuses to let anyone die. Especially someone like Wally.
Whoever is cutting onions needs to fucking quit it, okay? There's only one real page of consequence left and it's the last one. While there was a ton of foreshadowing (like the nine-panel pages, the breakdown of the clock, etc.) throughout the issue, the final page is a hammer straight to the dome, where we get the first hint as to who caused this entire universe that shouldn't have happened to happen and it's a fucking doozy.
Two years on, this is finally started to get addressed the aforementioned miniseries Doomsday Clock. A 12-issue, bi-monthly series that's seemingly taking place in DC Continuity but not, and is currently moving slower than anything I could possibly make up a metaphor for. I'm no longer excited for this series. I'm waiting for it all to come out, because this every two month bullshit is just that - bullshit. It's killing all momentum.
And that's the book that got me back into comics. It's epic, it's emotional, it's apologetic, and it's exciting, and it's self-aware. But... two years later and we still don't have a lot of answers, and it's starting to wear thin on me. We got a four part crossover between Flash and Batman called "The Button" where essentially one thing happened in four issues, and everything else was just a wink and a nod. In two fucking years.
DC is starting to make me less excited about comics because they don't seem to have to the chutzpah to actually commit to a story one way or the other. Their books are doing fine, generally, but few are rollicking must-reads the way they were to me a few years ago when I thought we'd get some goddamn answers.
For the past two years it's been hurry up and wait for the ball to move forward, and in spite of some great issues we've gotten from all the series (Aquaman, Green Arrow, Red Hood and the Outlaws, Super Sons, Detective Comics, Action Comics, Batman, and Superman in particular have been awesome) and we got an All-time event in the form of Metal - that advanced the universe, but it was the promise of answers that got me back into DC to begin with and two years on, we're severely lacking in that department.
I'm going to cancel a few DC books on my sub. I'm going to be adding more Marvel until they dick me over again. But with DC's wheels spinning in place on what they promised the story would be (for two years), and Marvel seemingly firing on a more cylinders than it's used to, I'm going to follow the momentum.
That's what got me into comics in the first place.