Was it really THAT bad?

Was it really THAT bad?

The JL run?

Yes it was.

N52 started out pretty decent then went to decent/good depending on the book then back to bad with Post-Convergence

Not as bad as rebirth

The answer as always depends on who you’re talking about.
Batman? Most casuals would say Snyder was better than King. I personally prefer King.
Superman? Outside of Morrison’s Action Run New 52 Supes sucked. Tons of shitty runs, crossovers, and meaningless gimmicks. Rebirth is far better imo.
Wonder Woman? Depends on how you feel about the Zeus and Rapeazons.
Flash? New 52 was garbage.
Green Lantern? Johns was still good but Venditti was terrible. He’s slightly better now.
Justice League? New 52 was better. We’ll see how Priest does.

I'd defend n52 Flash on art alone.
And I remember liking a few of the Superman stories outside of Action Comics.

>thinking king's shitty ooc run is better than snyder's.

It killed DC for what is looking like all time so yeah, it was that bad.

It's variable. The JL associated titles were mediocre at best with a few exceptions like WW and Aquaman. Young heroes titles were a disaster, however the Vertigo inspired series were pretty decent

Actually looking at a few of the yesrly sales for 2010,2011,2012,etc the sales of comics in general have gone up in unit numbers since N52.

Obviously there are other factors such as movies and cartoons which always get people talking and promoting the comic sources, but n52 has not killed anyone especially not DC.

>Justice League? New 52 was better. We’ll see how Priest does.
N52 JL was offensively bad. I hateread that shit.

See you're talking sales. I'm talking creativity.

New 52 Flash was carried by Manapul's art.

Yes. Disorganized as fuck, mostly.

The purpose was to attract new readers, yet they fucked with the timeline and made it just as confusing as post-infinite crisis

More like the New Shitty Poo.

Most of the stuff that was good was planned before the reboot and a lot of the stuff was obviously rushed at the last minute.

It needlessly wiped out so much history that's never coming back. Even as they've brought back familiar stuff, it just feels like empty nostalgia and isn't the same.

Like COIE, it may have been financially a huge success. But from a fan's perspective, it's done irreversible damage that we're still trying to rebuild from.

Earth-2's plot actually works as a metaphor for it. After they wiped out the old Earth they made a new one, but even though they rebuilt cities and named them after the old ones, at the end of the day it's just an empty copy of what came before and will never be the same as the old Earth.

And the ending can be a metaphor for Rebirth. Even though they restored all this normalcy and created a better status quo that's more like the old one, it's still poisoned by the memory of the rest of Earth-2.

I'm being dramatic and there's a lot of stuff I still liked about post-Crisis and New 52 and books from Rebirth that are good. But as a fan, the DCU I loved most is long gone.

Even at the time it seemed rushed and not though out. Probably because it was rushed and not thought out. It got to the stage where Midnighter was a Kosovan shepherd boy who was abducted and raped by space owls because nobody knew what the fuck was happening so they were throwing mud at the walls and hoping it stuck. Writers were just doing whatever they felt like, Johns and Morrison were flat-out ignoring it for their Green Lantern and Batman comics, Gail Simone was driven quite mad
CoIE had years of planning ahead of it and they still fucked things up. This had six months, by the end of which they still weren't sure how much of the old universe had happened - see Superman telling Swamp Thing that he too had died and come back to life.

And that's without mandated shit like "nobody's allowed to be happy" "all first arc villains must be guys nobody's ever heard of" or the horror show that was Berganza's editing of the Young Justice line.
In retrospect, the fact two of the lines were unironically called "Dark" and "Edge" should have been a warning sign that important people were asleep at the helm.

Blue beetle was almost unsalvagable and even after rebirth it's still not the great.

It tried to replicate the success of the last hard-reboot, which was Crisis on Infinite Earths. The difference is that after COIE, DC had brain-drained all the best writers and artists from Marvel to make some AMAZING comics. They didn't do that with the New 52. There were some top-tier talent, but also too many confused editorial dictates and the good talent was stretched thin. Ultimately, it tried to be all things to all people (preserve stuff for older fans, intro stuff for new fans, laying groundwork for making the books movie-and-game friendly) and fell flat on its face. Now it's gone a bit too hard the other way with pandering to older fans, but at least the characters feel consistent with the past 30-odd years of comics and aren't wearing dumbass armour plating.

>Was it really THAT bad?
They gave two books to Rob Liefeld to WRITE.

Some good books, mostly a bunch of bad. But it got Aquaman on the right track.

It's what got me into comics. I have complete collections of Action Comics, Batman, Robin: SoB and Justice League. Those are the ones I like most and for them I am grateful.

I know JL was not good until halfway through

Some utter shit taste here. Regardless of nonreaders chimping out about the rapeazons the run is head and shoulders above anything after it. King's Run is trash. Manapul Flash was decently written and carried by great art. JL was fucking horrible especially at the start.

Go fuck yourself anti-King drone

I just read flash for the top tier art

How to spot a nonreader continuityfag 101
>Unironically preferring JMS WW to Azz WW
>Unironically preferring grounded Superman to Morrison Action
>Unironically preferring Search for Swamp Thing to Snyder
>Unironically enjoying Johns' Second Flash Run over Mana/Bucc Flash
>Not liking the shot in the arm for characters like Aquaman and Animal Man
>Not liking their willingness to expand genre with titles like Men of War, OMAC, Frankenstein agent of SHADE, Gotham by Midnight and Dial H
>Not liking that they carried over their best pre-relaunch titles like Morrison Batman, Johns GL, and Grey/Palmiotti Hex
In summary, if you actually preferred 2011 DC to 2012 DC, you didn't read 2011 DC. Fuck you.

I hate Jim Lee's art, no-trunk Superman is criminal, Cyborg being on Justice League over Titans is retarded, but at the same time I liked Baz and Jessica so it wasn't all bad.

>SM/WW garbage that was spread out not only through team books but solo runs
Yes New52was garbage.

Exactly dude

If you like Manupal’s run you’re the one with shit taste kiddo. Venditti’s was even worse. I liked Azz’s WW but the Zeus and Rapezons are a make it or break it deal. Johns’ JL was lightyears ahead of Hitch.

>Anyone in the world
>Preferring grounded Superman to [insert other option]

Some people are worse than Luthor I swear.

You cared about it though. Hitch was garbage but it couldn’t even make people care.

The only “good” Action Comic run I heard about was Pak’s. I tried that and there were some decent parts, like the monster that fed on fear. But there was so much garbage like the shadow monsters arc. That was boring. Boring plot, boring Enemies, boring art. Johns and Yang’s runs were “ok” but again nothing to write home about. I liked Supes telling Jimmy his secret and the god fighting tournament. Yang got fucked by crossovers though, I hope he gets another shot.

Just saying...

>Johns GL post-Blackest Night

Who cares?

Yes.
The more of it that's undone, the better

>Yes it was.

Yep.

Main books were mostly crap, with a little bit to fair in a few rare cases, with the exception being the outlier books like Frank, Dial H, that never got even to Convergence.

Manbuch (or however folks were spelling it) was great on title designs and art, and fun, but when you thought about some of the stories and ideas, it fell apart. It's not really re-readable. But beautiful to look at.

>Not liking their willingness to expand genre with titles like Men of War, OMAC, Frankenstein agent of SHADE, Gotham by Midnight and Dial H

This is probably your best (and really only significant post as far as the entire thread goes) -- the rest of it is just replies/refers to a few comments here and, like many here, you're spending way more time on these people than they deserve or will make note.

No. It provided the perfect jumping on point for newbs like.
Now Rebirth, Rebirth is shit. Especially Superman. New 52 made me like Superman and Rebirth took that away

I left comics until 2014 because of it, and whenever I try to read the stuff I missed, I am reminded of why. It was not a good time.

You really enjoy the bland, no-more-than-functional "Jim Lee" house style?

Absolute shit taste

>Says the guy who prefers Jurgens bland plot over stories where shit actually happens

I hate almost everything about these designs. Jim Lee should never be allowed to design another costume ever again.

Most people on Sup Forums haven't read anything before infinite crisis, so they haven't read much of DC's golden era.

Pros
>shook up the dc universe and status quo
>gave a chance to get rid of convoluted backstories
>breathe new life into various characters and modernize some of them
>aquaman got a huge boost in popularity
>brought in a lot of new readers

Cons
>completely fucked up continuity in that some stories were still canon when everyone should've started at square one
>retcons ruining many characters like mr. freeze
>making decades of comics non canon and confusing people turned off a bunch of long time readers
>shifting ongoings based on replacing low selling comics turned out to be a bad tactic
>many changes ended up getting altered to resemble pre-Flashpoint
>majority of good runs didn't even need the reboot

People liked it because it was fresh and appealed to a lot of new readers. It was a massive success in the first year and even when dying down it was pretty popular. The real problem was Convergence and DCYou where sales took a huge hit. Allegedly Johns didn't want the reboot so he took the opportunity to put things back to the way it was.

He is talking about Manapul not Booth.
How the fuck is pic related ANYTHING like Jim Lee's style?

>but the Zeus and Rapezons are a make it or break it deal.
Which is utterly fucking absurd.
The Zeus is dad thing is merely a philosophical change that is irrelevant to her issue by issue/arc by arc characterization & personality.
Rapezons were only relevant for 1 issue and only a small portion of the Amazons participated or even knew about it.

>Yes it was.
Nah...
Origin = Poor
Graves = Meh
Cheetah = Good
Throne of Atlantis = Great
Trinity War = Good
Forever Evil (event) = Ok
JL FE tie in issues = Great
Amazo Virus = Good
Darkseid War = Good

>Morrison's Action Comics>>>>>>Rebirth Superman & Action comics
>Azzarello WW>Rucka WW
>Buccatello Flash>Williamson Flash, only if for Manapul
>GL has always been shit
>Batman Inc>>>>>King's Batman, Snyder's ASB & Tynion's Tec
>Snyder's Batman>King's Batman, Snyder's ASB & Tynion's Tec
>Lemire's GA>Percy's GA
>All 4 Aquaman runs since new 52 have been mediocre.
New 52 and DCYou had a lot of variety in Multiversity, Shade, Grayson, Dial H, All Star Western, Demon Knights, Omega men, Martian Manhunter.
While Rebirth has been completely safe, generic and mediocre. Only Deathstroke is a series which manages to be good. Seems like DC wanted to attract the DCEU and MCU crowd with rebirth, which has led to its worst era ever.

Pros
> Phenomenal Aquaman era (minus Bunn to a extent)
> Great Batman run
> Great Wonder Woman (minus Finch)
> Great Swamp Thing/Animal Man stuff as far as I have heard
> A good handling of the Crime Syndicate
> Darkseid War repaired some of the problems with his portrayal in Origin.
> Batwoman was great until JH Willaims left the book.
> Great art all over the place, Booth was about the worse you could come across and he is VASTLY better then many of Marvel's recent crop.

Mixed Elements
> Superman books were extremely inconsistent quality wise. Pak did some great stuff but then he did the depowered crossovers which was the worst of the new 52.

Cons
> Titans messed up in various ways.
> Starfire's Red Hood problems only lasted for barely a arc or so but it tainted the character for years.
> First JLA run & it's great team line up wasted by getting interrupted by Forever Evil
> Hawkman still convoluted as fuck (In his ongoing he was a human explorer, in JLA he was space cop)

>>Morrison's Action Comics>>>>>>Rebirth Superman & Action comics
Dude don't...

> Morrison's AC >>> Rebirth Super >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Rebirth AC.

Don't lump the Rebirth books in together, Action has been garbage compared to Super.

>Trinity War = Good
>Darkseid War = Good
oh, you're retarded

All-Star Western, Amethyst and Frankenstein > Rebirth besides New Super-Man and Shade the Changing Girl

If you didnt get hyped when reading the double page spreads, then there's something wrong with you

What does double page spreads have to do with anything?
What what was hype worthy was the intense sense of mystery during Trinity War and sense of Darkness & Doom in the early part of Darkseid War.
Yes Grail is a villain-sue but she was also menacing as fuck that reveal issue of her wiping the floor with the team.
John's writing of Diana improved vastly between the horrid stuff with her in the Graves arc & Amazo Virus.
Fabok & Manapul both put in superb art.

Explain what is wrong with these 2 arcs without resorting to "it's dumb". Explain why it was incompetently written.
If you issue is that it was a blockbuster action oriented arc then it wasn't incompetent, it just wasn't something you enjoy. That does not make it a bad comic.

>depowered crossovers which was the worst of the new 52.
I disagree completely.
Pak's depowered Superman arc was solid stuff, and there was FAR FAR worse stuff during New 52.
I tried reading Teen Titans. I gave up when Cassie found her daddy or something.

Trinity War served as nothing but a bait and switch hype show for Forever Evil.
Nothing that happened in it mattered in the least until the last page that stated FE.

if they were going to do a reboot

it should have been a hard-reboot, not this half baked bullshit that we got

>and there was FAR FAR worse stuff during New 52.
I meant just in regards to Superman.

Trinity War was disappointing but the Darkseid War was awesome, retard.

Snyder's is really bad so it's not hard

What's with this "Only Deathstroke is good" meme?

Then I will remind you of Lobdell's run after Morrison's, and the entire H'el on Earth bullshit.

The stuff with Lois sucked but the art was great & nothing wrong with H'el.

Nightwing, Animal Man, and Morrison's Action Comics were the best of New 52.

I'll take Abnett's Aquaman over Bunn and Parker's runs and Percy's GL is still good even if it's not as good as Lemire's.

Also Johns GL run at the start of New 52 is far superior to everything that followed after.

Yeah.

None of the things you listed justified wiping the slate clean with new number ones and getting rid of the former best universe in comics. In summary, if you actually preferred 2012 DC to 2011 DC, you started reading comics with a soulless corporate reboot (and are probably a shill as evidenced by you sucking shareholder dick for "continuing" two measly runs while shackling them to new and contradictory editorial mandates) and think books like Azz Wonder Woman, New 52 Flash, and comics by Geoff Johns are anything but kindling for the trash fire that DC has become, you don't know jack shit about fuck all. Fuck you.

That doesn't make it better though. "No bad publicity" isn't a real thing.

>Also Johns GL run at the start of New 52 is far superior to everything that followed after.
Johns' GL wasn't good since like 2009.

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that people actually defend the second half of Johns' run considering how much steam it lost and how unlikable the protagonist was.

You guys are absolute morons, this is why people don't have any respect for Johnsfags.
How can anyone like a story that retcon's diana's age TWICE, or that outright shats on the new gods, or that spends 2 issues trying to free the CSA just to get rid of them in one page, lex's sister betrayal, grail dialogue, the info dumps and exposition of the same fucking stuff in every issue, Spamming "mobius the anti-god", darkseid as the god of evil, the "omegaforce" being literally just like a power ring that you can wear, Steve Trevor, Grail's backstory with ROMANS 5000 years ago, Batman literally doing nothing useful...

Of the fact the entire "war" only destroyed 2-4 blocks in gotham. Pic related, the entire event was like this "we need to stop mobius, the anti-monitor, he is the anti-god in case you forgot". It was shit.
It wasnt as bad as the stuff that came later, sadly his second is also part of the reason why everything lated was so bad.

>that spends 2 issues trying to free the CSA just to get rid of them in one page

Johns really seems to have lost all appreciation for the scale of the threats he's implementing. That's what soured me on his Aquaman. It was pretty strong in most aspects, but goddamn they open and close that damn Trench every two or three issues. Everything is just a cheap plot device in his books nowadays.

The anti-monitor is defeated in 1 page.

...

And that's how the anti-monitor dies. One fucking panel.

The next issue starts with so much information, almost as if johns himself had forgot what happened in the other issues.

Plus the writers infighting over characters and the editorial just not giving a fuck made it all the worse. It was WBs mandate and choice wasn't it?

I feel like Nightwing in theory was this amazing run that never found it's footing because Higgins was forced to change his status quo every few issues because of events.

Nice bait

That only prooves that N52 Superman was never Superman.

>stories were shit
See I corrected it for you

Rebirth is the afterbirth of The New 52. I hate the New 52, but at least there was Dial H.

>Diana's backstory is irrelevant to her characterization

It you can't see the problem with this nobody can help you

People who use afterbirth are mostly idiotic SM/WW shippers who are butthurt that their “power couple“ won't populate the DC universe with a new master race

Fuck that shitty comic, fuck the New 52. That doesn't change the fact that nothing has changed since then except things getting even blander.

>it's another "DC doesn't take risks with rebirth" fag
so where the fuck were you when they did?

fuck off & go read young animals

>a new master race
The literally did this in DKIII though.

Dial H is sitting on my shelf. How bout you?

I am still mad about this.

And destroyed parts of earth boning

When the JSA come back what will happen to Earth 2?

Hopefully it gets erased entirely

Like the shitfest that was Lobdell's run?

No

He'l on Earth was good, retard

it was unironically the best Superman of the past 5 years besides Yang

Never had I hated flash more. Yes it was bad

>WW in tight latex pants
Hot

Much like the Marvel Ultimate universe, parts of the 52 were good, lots was meh, the parts that were bad were terrible because unlike most bad comics these weren’t funny in retrospect.

No, not at all.

>Superman
Mixed bag, but Morrison Action was great, Batman/Superman was solid, Lobdell was stupid but fun, and PAKtion was good until the whole identity arc shit things up.
>Batman
Snyder had ups and downs but overall, good run. Morrison got to finish his story and Tomasi on B&R is always a good time. I liked the Damian solo.
Everything else was kinda mediocre and they're still trying to recover the mess made of the Batfamily.
>Wonder Woman
Love it or hate it, Azz made Diana more popular than she's been in years and you can feel the influence of his run in the movie. God baby WW should stick around for a long time, even fucking Morrison used it.
>Green Lantern
Johns crew got to finish up even if continuity made no sense. Everything after that is shit for GL. BUT we got good spin-offs to make up for it. Larfleeze, Sinestro, Soule Red Lanterns, all great.
>Aquaman
After basically being absent for years, had consistently solid stories throughout the New 52.
>Flash
Went from solid stories with beautiful art, to a trainwreck with pretty art, to just a trainwreck.
>Justice League
Basically trash until Throne of Atlantis, then it becomes enjoyable. Forever Evil is a good event, and the book remains good until Darkseid War which is mostly nonsense.

A lot of characters got shit on. Waller, Martian Manhunter, Shazam, Booster, Black Canary, hell the ENTIRE JSA. Earth-2 had extreme promise until Robinson fucked off, though this really sets the tone. New 52 is filled with failed experiments.

But a lot of the best stuff isn't A-listers.
>Animal Man, Swamp Thing, Gotham Academy, Prez, Dial H, JL3K, Vibe, Multiversity, more but I know I'm forgetting some

Overall I think it was an interesting experiment and it wasn't a complete waste. Especially towards the end they were sort of saying fuck continuity and just doing whatever the hell they wanted.