Over the next few weeks and months we’ll be publishing a series of articles discussing the general state of a variety of families of titles or of major comic book initiatives. With February marking the end of the sixth month of DC’s New 52 relaunch it seemed like an opportune time to revisit the line and evaluate its current status. PTB has only been following a few DC titles so we’ll focus on those while still addressing the broader line.

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Last year we spent some time talking about the relaunch of Marvel’s Avengers line here at MLD. These series introduced the publisher’s new Heroic Age that introduced new lineups, new creative teams and new threats. It was a good time to give all of these titles a shot. Some of the books really captured my attention, others did not, but they all have their appeal. As we gear up for this year’s Fear Itself crossover, the books are wrapping their current arcs and headed for some changes that make now a good time to revisit them.

Some spoiling may occur.

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I don’t follow too many Marvel Comics titles very closely. For whatever reason I’ve always found their characters hard to relate to with the exception being the Hulk. He was my one Marvel character and I was ridiculously loyal to him for a long time. When I finally stopped reading the monthly Hulk title early on during Jeph Loeb’s tenure,  it had been at least eight years since there had really been a run with the character that appealed to me. That type of loyalty is kind of sad actually… but I’ve digressed. Jeph Loeb is gone. I’m back. And the number of Hulks seem to have multiplied considerably.

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Let me start off by saying that I’ve always thought Green Lantern was a terrible character. When I was a kid I totally would have taken Aquaman and his ability to talk to his fish friends over Green Lantern’s stupid magic ring and glowing fists. It’s terrible, and Hal Jordan’s lack of a personality never helped things. So if you were to tell me there would come a day that I’d be reading three monthly Green Lantern titles and really enjoying them, I’d have thought you were crazy. It’s a HUGE tribute to Geoff Johns’ writing ability that Green Lantern was ever even an exciting title; let alone soaring at the heights it hit during the Sinestro Corps War and the lead up to Blackest Night. Blackest Night didn’t really work for me overall. The Black Lanterns were mostly annoying rather than horrifying. The tie-ins all told the exact same story, but the series still had some really nice moments such as Lex Luthor becoming an Orange Lantern, the Scarecrow joining the Sinestro Corps, and Sinestro himself being the first to wield the white ring. Which leads us to today and the question we are now faced with: What is the current state of the Green Lanterns?

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It really feels like ever since playing a crucial role in ending the Final Crisis, Superman has basically been missing from the DC Universe. He spent a year away from the Earth on New Krypton amongst 10,000 other Kryptonian supermen including General Zod. During this storyline, Superman did not star in either Action Comics or Superman as those books highlighted a series of replacement heroes operating in and around Metropolis. The New Krypton storyline climaxed with the destruction of New Krypton and an extremely short but brutal war between the surviving Kryptonians led by General Zod and what I guess amounted to the American military lead by General Lane (Lois’ father). Upon the conclusion of the World of New Krypton series, Superman returned not just to Earth but also to his namesake comic, Superman, as superstar writer J. Michael Straczynski (JMS) took the book’s reigns amidst much fanfare. Things, however, have not worked out quite as DC Comics may have planned.

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