Anyone else have some general thoughts on this? What you're hoping to see? What you're hoping to not see? Most anticipated books?

 

I'm kind of generic, as my most anticipated are King's Batman and Rucka's Wonder Woman. King hasn't written a single bad issue of comics yet in my mind, so I'm excited he's getting the reins to their biggest book. All-Star Batman under Snyder should be a lot of fun as well.

 

Priest's Deathstroke is probably the most intriguing, but I'm tentative on it. I'm not sure it's the best character for him. Given his track record, there's no reason to not at the very least give it a shot though. I would have preferred him on Aquaman - he did such great work on Black Panther with the kingdom of Wakanda stuff, I think he might actually be the guy to give Aquaman that infusion of importance they're looking for.

Hopefully Green Arrow becomes older and grumpy again.

I have a feeling he may get to that point, but not immediately.

 

The Rebirth one-shot came out, and I personally thought it was fantastic. They're well on their way to fixing everything that's gone wrong with the DCU over the last 5 or so years. This is the most optimistic I've been about the brand in quite awhile. Rebirth read like an apology letter and a "we know what we did" of sorts, which was nice.

Not sure if anyone else here has checked this out, but the stuff from last week was pretty solid I thought (Batman, Green Arrow, Superman specifically, Green Lanterns was okay at best). Haven't got around to this week's launches yet, but I've heard good things.

 

The Superman Rebirth one-shot may have had flaws, but it might have been the most inherently "Superman" comic I've read in years.

I'm waiting on my Rebirth: DC Universe, Green Arrow and Hellblazer.

I've seen a lot of division on Green Arrow, but I thought it was a fine return to form for the book. Ollie felt like Ollie for the first time in years, and the overall tone of the book just feels right now. Hope you enjoy it!

I feel you don't understand how much I love Green Arrow! I was buying the Justice League Canada/international based solely on him being in it. XD

Loved it. And Ollie is again a bit older and a grumpy sod. I'm a happy man.

That's all it needed! He has the grumpy sarcasm back, the chemistry with Black Canary is on-point (for them "not knowing each other" anyways). It was all great.

 

Flash Rebirth had to be my favorite of the one-shots so far though. Williamson has been one of my favorite up-and-coming writers for awhile, and he stumbled a bit on his Marvel debut last year, so I'm glad he's immediately found footing here.

So my Universe one shot turned up yesterday... its making me optimistic. However there's a few things I'm wondering about. Previously John Constantine was aware of the various Crisis's, will that pull over? Also the big blue as a potential reality sized threat... eh, The Spectre would swat him easy enough, even after his nerfing. Should be interesting to see if they address that.

Not sure about Constantine, but he does have another ongoing starting up in August, so I imagine we'll get some explanation there maybe.

 

As far as Spectre/Big Blue goes, I think that's just going to end up being a pointless Superman vs. Goku level pissing contest. Both characters have pretty much limitless god powers. The only difference is Spectre has had something like 70+ years to establish this, and the latter only had a handful of issues.

Ol' Blue has powers based in physics (actually supposedly very based in reality) while Spectre has actual power of God. He's the wrath of God, and in a world where God exists God > science. I wonder if comic book battles on gamespot have covered it...

 

edit:

 

Yes.

 

http://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/battles-7/dr-manhattan-vs-the-spectre-386783/

 

http://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/battles-7/the-spectre-vs-dr-manhatten-1598227/

 

:lol That's some geeky arguments right there.

Those are some very compelling arguments (I'm surprised I could bring myself to click the links, since fanboy debates generally make me want to die), but I do think it comes down to your original statement about current Spectre's power level. He's been nerfed pretty hard, and Manhattan literally taking ten years out of the timestream leads me to believe he's being bulked up considerably. Bulking up might not be the right term though, because like I mentioned, we only spent a handful of issues with Manhattan. It's easily argued that we never ACTUALLY saw the extent of his powers.

 

Regardless, the way I always put it is that saying "well, the big bad of this story shouldn't be a threat because of X character" is kind of a joke anyways, because by that logic no story ever should happen. I like when it's touched upon but isn't followed through with though. For example, in the World War Hulk Ghost Rider tie-ins, it's pretty heavily implied that the Spirit of Vengeance could have easily stopped Worldbreaker Hulk, but chose not to once he saw WHY Hulk was doing what he was doing.

 

If we got something here where Spectre saw what was happening but chose not to intervene for whatever reason, that's infinitely more compelling than just piling deus ex machinas on top of one another.

 

Let's not forget he also wasn't capable of stopping the events of series like Crisis on Infinite Earths by himself - he was instrumental in the heroes' plans, but they still needed to act at the same time he did to make it work. If you have Manhattan on the same power level as Anti-Monitor, and have Manhattan have a plan in place where it's more difficult than "turn him to dust," I think there's still plenty of room for compelling story-telling there.

 

I realize I just ranted a bit after saying I hate these debates, but consider this more an explanation of why I think power-level slapfights aren't that important. :p I do concede that on the surface, you're probably right about the Spectre, though ultimately it shouldn't matter if the story is told well.

Eh, bulking up works as a term really.

 

Normally I agree with the logic about why bring it up. But if Dr M is being shown as so powerful it would need to be Spectre level stuff. Watchmen level Manhattan could destroy Lobo and Superman at the same time with no effort at all, so Rebirth level must be off the charts. And I doubt Nightwing has a plan. :lol

 

Either way, should be interesting to see how (if) they address it.

I'm mostly just interested to see where it pops up next. Like if Johns has an event mini planned, or if it's going to play out over the series themselves. So far only Flash and Titans has truly addressed it. Definitely looking forward to it.

 

If only Dr. Manhattan were a woman though. Then Nightwing would have zero issue saving the day. DCU women love them some Nightwing.