With the movie coming out soon, I thought this was a good time to go over the history of DC’s team of rogues. They first appeared in 1959 in the Brave and the Bold anthology title, and have had a few different incarnations. This piece will go over the major eras, and some of the big players.
Warnings/disclaimers: The Killing Joke is not a typical Batman story. There are a lot of serious plot threads in this one and subject matter that might offend, insult, or be something of a trigger issue for people. You are warned. Proceed at your own risk.
Birds of Prey is a long time favorite of mine. Chuck Dixon started the series, although it’s probably most associated with fan favorite Gail Simone. The Birds’ long history was wiped out when DC did their line-wide reboot, and the new book just wasn’t as good. I had every single appearance of the Birds until that point, and ended up dropping the “DCNU” version within three issues. But, the Birds are back, and the new book looks fantastic.
Well Comic-Con has produced the usual almost overwhelming amount of news, hints, rumors and trailers. There’s a lot to look at, think on, and speculate about. Here, I’m looking at the Justice League trailer. There’s a lot in that almost two and a half minutes.
I’m a huge Nightwing fan, so I was very glad to see he was back in costume again. I really didn’t care for the “Grayson” title. Dick as a spy didn’t really interest me. But now he’s back, and the costume has the classic blue accents again instead of the red silliness of the reboot, which never made any sense to me.
DC has certainly had their issues with live action movies over the last several years, but their animated features continue to be great. Kind of the reverse of Marvel in my opinion. The DC Animated Universe is one of the finest bodies of work out there, and the individual ones they’ve done since have been pretty damn good. There are various spoilers below. Thou art warned, reader.
Mera disappeared during the Battle of London, with things really not looking good for her. At least part of this issue deals with what happened to her. It’s a very nicely done story, and features one of the very rare male characters in the “Bombshells” era. From the ocean, the issue moves to Berlin, where we learn more about what’s been happening to Zatanna and John Constantine. A new character makes her Bombshell debut during that sequence, and there’s the return of the Joker’s Daughter.
By now, I’m presuming anyone that’s interested saw “Schism,” the season finale of Arrow. If not, be warned, there are spoilers here for that. And some news about season five. So, with that in mind, off we go.
Like a lot of long time DC Comics fans, I loathed the reboot they did several years ago. Then, recently, Rebirth started, and it seemed like the people in charge were finally listening to some of the fans. Rebirth undid a lot of what the reboot did to DC’s history.
I was one of the many long-time DC fans who didn’t like much about the reboot. I was absolutely thrilled when many elements of it seemed to be “fixed” in my admittedly biased term, when the Rebirth special hit the stores on June 1st. Now some of the new stories are being explored in more depth.
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