DC Nation #0 Review

Sneaking A Peek

Written By: Tom King, Brian Michael Bendis, Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson

Art By: Clay Mann, Jordie Bellaire, Clayton Cowles, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Dexter Vines, Alex Sinclair, Josh Reed, Jorge Jimenez, Alejandro Sanchez, Andworld Design

Cover Price: $0.25

Release Date: May 2, 2018

Like we had with "Divergence" a couple of years back that gave us a sneak peek at what the DCYou was going to look like, here we have the beginning of what the world of DC Comics is going to be for the foreseeable future with all its status quo changes in books such as Batman, Superman and Justice League.  Yeah, the DCYou didn't really work out all that well, with all of our heroes going through radical changes all at once, but hopefully DC has learned their lesson and we won't get a "too much, too soon" thing happening again here.  Let's jump into this issue and see the prologues to Batman and Catwoman's wedding, Bendis' Man of Steel mini and No Justice.  Let's check it out.

Like I just made the comparison to Divergence from years ago, this comic does all it can to try and get you on board with all the changes coming our way with DC Comics.......... and really, it doesn't do all that great of a job.  With Batman, you get the Joker showing up and wanting to be invited to Batman and Catwoman's wedding, but the way the story is told is pretty much just more of the same Joker that we got in The War of Jokes and Riddles, where again, he's just hanging out in a suburban home and acting menacing.  Hell, even the art, which I usually love from Clay Mann doesn't do much to get me excited going forward because for whatever reason, the Joker just looked weird........... and not in a good "weird Joker" kind of way.  Really though, I just spent the entire time wondering how everyone from the Joker to Talia Al Ghul's man-servant from the forbidden city knows about Batman and Catwoman getting married.  Overall though, I didn't get much out of this story besides for the Joker is going to be involved going forward............. but at least that's something.

I was most excited going into Superman because I've been wanting some information dropped about what Brian Michael Bendis is going to be doing with our Man of Steel and really, besides for introducing a new character, who's up to no good............ who Bendis didn't do much research when creating her because it's stated that she's from Star City, which has gone back to being Seattle in the Green Arrow book, I didn't get much out of this and what the world of Superman/Clark Kent looks like.  There's something going on with the family dynamic of Clark Kent, but nothing in this issue lets its guard down enough to tell you.  It's all pretty hush-hush and by the end of this story, there wasn't much going on in the page space it had.  I loved the art, but overall, things in this chapter felt weird and made me worried for the future of Superman.

For our final bit of this comic we jump into No Justice, where we get to see the four different teams of the Justice League, see what they're called, find out what they're after and find out who they're fighting........... Which sounds like a lot, but really, from what we get here, all we really learn about is the teams and we've known about that for awhile.  The rest is just words thrown out that we don't really have any context for and that aspect was a little disappointing.  Yeah, I know I can't expect everything right away, but it feels like we didn't really get much out of any of these stories that most fans didn't already know going in.  The biggest takeaway from the Justice League story is the art of course, but also some personal narration between the different teams about how they feel about their current situation and whether or not they think they're doing the right thing.  Which does have its merits, but still, I wanted more.

Overall, this comic didn't feel like it needed to be made for what we got out of it.  Yeah, there's going to be fans out there that don't read up on everything online or who haven't been picking up the books lately who could get excited for what they get here, which is cool, but from my perspective I didn't get enough to get me as excited for what's to come from DC Comics as I wanted to be going into this issue.  The art was pretty solid all the way through, besides for some weird Joker faces and even though this preview issue didn't do it for me, I hope that I can be pleasantly surprised when we actually get the individual comics coming out that are dealing with what we got a sneak peek of here.

Bits and Pieces:

This sneak peek might be good for fans who haven't been keeping up with the books or who don't peruse comic news sites regularly, but for people who do, there isn't much new coming out of this issue.  There's a bit to like in each of the three chapters you get here but overall, it just wasn't enough to get me as hyped for what's to come as I was hoping it would.  

6/10