Will spoilers even though it's all out there:
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Reading it in context it actually sorta works with Johns' concept of rolling back to before the first Crisis. And I think it's probably the least objectionable thing Moore could see someone do with Watchmen.
The whole thing actually has some similarities to Moore's Supreme run (which is amazing) in terms of rewriting things back to the "Silver Age" and since Watchmen is often considered to be the usher of the "Dark Age" I'm actually kinda interested in how they're going to use it to restore all the DC Universes. In effect, the work (along with Miller's TDKR) that derailed it all is being used to "fix" it.
One thing that's kinda dumb, putting this out the same week as the end of the Darkseid War and BEFORE Hitch's Justice League of America's final issue comes out. I stupidly read it before reading everything else and it completely spoils, the well known for months now, ending to the plots in those books and the Superman books. But whatever, I'll have to re-read it anyway to make sense of it. I always stupidly read them as they come out instead of waiting, the biggest mistake was doing that with
Batman R.I.P. and
Final Crisis...okay, basically anything Grant Morrison writes. (Except
The Multiversity oddly enough.)
Another thing about Rebirth, is that with the New 52 series all ending and the writers knowing when their issues were ending, I'm looking back on it better now. Everybody knew it was getting wiped away and all the writers/teams were changing so they plotted out actual endings to their runs. Something that didn't happen with
Flashpoint or
Infinite Crisis.
DCYou was a disaster for the most part as I have no idea what it was supposed to do, but not like the start of the New 52 was. They lost the plot almost immediately. I can't see Rebirth being a worse launch, it's almost impossible. The last, two-ish years patched up a lot of holes due to everyone setting up their final arcs.
One little thing I liked about all the
Convergence tie-ins (even if most of them were straight garbage) and also
Futures End was that they had all this self-contained canon* that existed preserved and untouched by the rest of the DC Universe. I'm a continuity fan boy, and also a HYPERTIME/EVERYTHING IS CANON proponent, but I wouldn't mind DC doing some of their books as self-contained or existing outside the mainstream universe. Like the old
Legends of the Dark Knight series, I loved that even when it lost its original focus of "early Batman stories" and just became CRAZY BATMAN STORIES.
On the non-DC front, I've been reading the
Marvel Masterworks the library district has, so #1+ for Spider-Man, Daredevil, Thor, Iron Man, etc. A lot of it is simply amazing in terms of being 50 years dated. Top two moments, Jane in Thor daydreaming about dating Thor and it being her ironing his cape and cutting his hair. And then Spider-Man having a check written out to Spider-Man and trying to cash it. Runner-up "And then because she
IS a female..." "She's fainted!"
And then around 1967 everyone, especially Mary Jane, starts talking in some completely incomprehensible slang. It's the end, dad. And seriously every other issue Aunt May is fainting or having a heart attack and Peter wants to give up being Spider-Man. And there's a recurring doctor who basically accuses him repeatedly of slowly killing Aunt May.
Also, like some of the worst villains of all-time. Paste-Pot Pete is a top favorite. Just some dude dressed like Jack Nicholson from Batman 1989 when he goes to the art museum who has a gun that shoots paste out of it. Amazing! Also, the amazingly bad science is incredible. The Human Torch, who from like issue one is established as basically being able to turn into a supernova, is constantly thwarted by simple layers of asbestos. All of Iron Man's insane technology is constantly explained as TRANSISTOR POWERED. Nothing about some of Spider-Man/Daredevil's powers make any sense. And then there's literally everything involving space or the military. I love it.
Actually, Marvel should launch a new imprint where they just use these old scripts and dialogue exactly but draw new art. It'd probably take less than six months for someone to write about Marvel's new controversial and dark take on superheroes. Because in retrospect everyone in the Marvel Universe seems like a psychopath or sociopath, kinda like that website about how Doug Funnie has severe mental issues.
And leave in all of Stan Lee's dickish editor notes. Especially the ones where he insults the artists as being garbage storytellers unlike him. And when he gives them shitty nicknames while all his are great. It's like Norm MacDonald's routine about the Fantastic Four.
Arguably the best thing though is the storyline about Flash Thompson being drafted into Vietnam. Everyone is hyped as fuck about how great it is and how much fun he gets to have with Harry and Peter and others lamenting they don't get to be drafted.
FACE FRONT!
Third party comics, read
The Infinite Horizon. Kinda wished it was a longer series rather than six issues. Finally got back to restart and finish
The Authority. Such whiplash, much wow stop.
*The one with Harley Quinn was fun, how she was living a normal-ish life in that walled off Gotham but they didn't lard it on with flashbacks, just dumped you into her then status.
