The first batch of Trades for The New 52 have been released. I bought the one for the new Justice League and liked it. I was interested in getting the trades that had Superman and Batman’s origin stories/first adventures but they each have several different titles and I wasn’t sure what exactly to get. Any guidance is appreciated also any spoiler free reviews of how good they are. Thanks.
I don’t think Batman has had a New 52 origin story yet. They’ve changed very little about him with the reboot.
Superman’s early adventures and some of his origin, though, are in Action Comics. Which I highly recommend. Young, brash Superman fighting for social justice and such.
Yeah, Batman was pretty much untouched in the relaunch, so he hasn’t gotten his origin retold.
Action Comics is not just Clark’s early adventures, it’s a return to the Golden Age ‘social crusader’ Superman (albeit, a less violent version). This does carry over into Superman and Justice League, but Action has more focus on it. (Mostly since Clark’s decided it’s better to do it as Clark than Superman.)
Thanks for the suggestions so far. So if there are no Batman origin stories, if I was interested in what was chronologically earliest, what title should I get? The Justice League book had people referring to Batman as if he were a myth (not a spoiler, it was literally the first page), that seemed interesting to me. People not even sure Batman was real.
Backstories for the retconned (officially not-reconned) “New 52” titles will be covered in the upcoming #0 issues in September. There’s zillions of Bat Family titles by DC, so presumably some of those will recover Batman’s current origin story.
Mind you, it’s likely whichever Bat Family #0 covers Batman’s current origin will be contradicted by whatever Morrison does over in Batman Inc. #0, because that’s the way it has been going with most of Morrison’s “New 52” work: no coordination between him and editorial.
Action Comics and the first arc of Justice League each take place roughly five years in the past relative to the rest of the New 52 DCU. All of the Batman titles take place in the present. They mostly tell separate stories with no particular chronological order between them, but there have been a few shared events like the “Night of the Owls” crossover (which involved all the Bat books except Batwoman dealing with the events of a single night) and a mention in Batman Incorporated of something that happened in an earlier issue of Batman and Robin.
As for which one you should get, Batman has been the most popular, and it’s been conscientiously new-reader-friendly. Personally, I think it’s been good but not great. It’s been doing a moderate amount of retconning of Batman’s history in a way that I find a little trite and contrived, but other comics fans (who usually hate this sort of thing!) seem to be reacting positively. I’m not optimistic about the next arc either. It’s about a new-look Joker that’s supposed to be more horror-show.
I think Batman and Robin is the best of the bunch, and very much an underrated gem in the New 52 overall. Then again, I love Damien, the current Robin (and Batman’s son).
Detective Comics has been mediocre. It had one good bit in the first issue (a tease for the new Joker) and then went downhill fast. I dropped it early, but I haven’t heard about any surprise improvements. Batman: The Dark Knight has gotten terrible reviews, and I haven’t bothered looking at it. ETA: It is getting a new team soon, so it may get better.
Batman Incorporated blows all of those out of the water, even Batman and Robin, but I don’t think of it as a Batman book as much as a Grant Morrison book. Which is good, because the last thing I need in my pull list is another freaking Batman book, but there’s always space for Grant Morrison.