The New 52 – Aquaman, Green Lantern & Justice League Dark

These are Books 28, 29 & 31 finished

The New 52 – Aquaman, Green Lantern & Justice League Dark

Published by DC Comics, 2012

Amazon had a sale on 8 of the New 52 volume 1 comic collections.  I read the Justice League reboot last year and enjoyed it.  That reformation of the JLA was highly entertaining so I was picked up the other 7 offered.  I've read 3 now with 4 to go down the road.  Now the DC universe was never my favorite; I knew it as a child but quickly replaced it with Marvel as a teen since the Marvel universe just felt more fleshed out, less about goodness and flag waving.

But, I always loved the Green Lantern as a boy and I always kinda hated Aquaman (and who ever heard of a Dark Justice League?)  In the JLA reboot, Aquaman wasn't the lame hanger-on superhero I remembered from the 70’s – he was pretty bad-assed. And Green Lantern was more than a bit of a douche.   I was curious about what changed them so these seemed like the natural books to start with.

Aquaman.  OK, he was cool.  I like that there was quite a bit of acknowledgement paid to his rep as a lame hero who talks to fish, can’t fly and really can’t do much out of water; having the police and normal people disrespect him was amusing.  I also liked that he was portrayed as neither fully a man of the sea or of land.  One thing that was majorly different from the DC comics of my childhood is that people die in this book – and baddies from the deep just trying to survive aren’t simply misunderstood.

He was portrayed as a fully emotional being with desires of his own.  He’s also pretty bad ass.  This is a superhero I can get behind.  He’s no Wolverine or Storm, but I like this version.   So 5 stars on this reboot for surprising me.

Green Lantern.  Is I said, I loved Hal Jordan and Green Lantern as a kid and I wondered why he was an arrogant prick in as a member of the Justice League reboot.   Well, this book did nothing to explain that.  It started up the reboot with Hal losing his standing as Green Lantern and Sinestro gaining it.  There were lots of references to a major story arc causing this turn of events with quite a bit in the story around the Guardians but nothing was really explained.  It felt like the story started up in the middle; there was no reboot and no back story.  I would have to back and find a proper starting point to understand why all this is what it is.

Part of what confused me more was that the JLA Green Lantern was Hal, not Sinestro …. So I’m still missing something.

Going forward from that confusing point, Sinestro as a Green Lantern was interesting.  I always liked him as a villain and this story arc fighting the Yellow Lantern Corps was pretty good.  Hal without his ring was angry and ineffective and seemingly unable to do anything in the world as a normal person and when Sinestro offers him a ring, he behaves a bit like a druggie getting a fix – that is to say that superhero is his normal.

This volume, although it started from a very confusing point, it opened up some intriguing storylines suggesting some major battles between the different color Lantern Corps as well as against the Guardians’ new Corps of whatevers.    What started as a disappointing read redeemed itself as I continued into the book.   2.5 stars.

Justice League Dark.  OK, I’m not familiar with the characters this series brought together to form a magical Justice League and most of them seem pretty fragile and borderline insane.  That said, I enjoyed what I read.  I’m pretty sure I won’t read more in this series, but I can see where is could be fun to do a series based on magic and the supernatural instead of aliens and super powers.   3 stars.