Something I haven't done for quite awhile. DC lost me with New 52, and I hadn't bothered to check out Rebirth or even the Chuck Dixon Bane story(loved his Green Arrow work, though I didn't get into the Bat-books). But, seeing a lot of talk that DC is doing better these days, I thought I'd give it a try. My results? Mixed.
So, the two books I picked up were Ragman and Michael Cray(links are to DC preview pages). In both cases, I will say the artwork was fine. Nothing I found spectacular, but far above a lot of the art we've seen from Marvel of late.
First, I'm going to talk about Michael Case. We've got a covert government ops group dedicated to taking out "bad people". Unfortunately, they're playing politics here. They made Oliver Queen the target, saying he's selling weapons to less than legal organizations. Also, he hunts veterans. Cray's father is an angry black man with an added touch of New Age hipster, drinking kamboucha, and talking about toxicity. Oh, and he doesn't care what they do to Queen as long as they don't make him President.
Yeah. The authors played that card. Now, I don't have a problem with the DCU having extralegal government ops. That's fiction. Going after an industrialist based on lies is another thing. And clearly equating him in some way to our current President is way out of line. I state the equivocation, because there's no other reason for Presidency to have been mentioned. Oh, and Queen's origin(as well as Bruce Wayne's), of losing his parents is now treated as a little pain(from Cray's father).
Now, onto Ragman. This is not classic Ragman, but a new take, bringing it seemingly more in line with the Egyptian origin(as far as aesthetics). We have a PTSD discharged soldier who was a sole survivor of his team. He brought back something else, and has to learn to control it. Oh, so far, no real measure of politics.
Of the two, I will say Ragman will continue to get a chance. Michael Cray, I will not recommend. As I said, I have no artwork complaints on either, but the story, well paints a different picture.
When you play Social Justice, the world loses.
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