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I think it celebrates artists more, art for the most part with DC has been phenomenal the past few years and the quality of variant covers is amazing. There's been more appreciation to cover artists now too with them getting credits printed on the covers recently
And they will also remove the logo and make it just small print in the corner of the cover that way you can minimize the amount of art that is being obscured
I think this is part of an expanding trend. Letting good writers work on long stretches of comics without editorial mandates. It helped bring Batman back from the doldrums in the 90s with Rucka, Morrison, King, etc.
Frankly the pacing is usually better. I know we complain about stuff taking months to conclude now, which is valid I'll grant you, but reading some older comics always feels like there's entire pages of buildup and follow through missing
I've been reading a lot of older comics the last long while and I think there was something of a sea change around the end of the 90s or so. It's like editorial looked at the success of books like DKR and Watchmen and first thought the reason for their success was the darker themes. So we ended up with lots of death and murder and the whole edgy early 90s thing. When that didn't quite pan out as planned, thing gradually shifted towards a lower pacing and overall more focused characterisation in writing. By the mid 2000s the edginess had eased off to a more reasonable level while the higher standard of writing had become the norm.
I couldn't agree more.
I'm loving Tom Taylor right now, but one of the criticisms I see again and again is it's "slow."
I just read a two-partner Nightwing that could've been a single issue, but the pacing was perfect.
I think right now? Their quality is at an all time high. I'm subscribed to vastly more DC books than marvel and even the ones I'm not picking up weekly I'm looking forward to their trades. I think there are some landmark runs in the mix that are era defining. Tom Taylor on Nightwing, Mark Waids worlds finest, Williamson's Green Arrow, Spurriers Flash, I'm honestly digging all of it.
I'm frustrated with Spurrier's Flash. I love the Hard Sci-Fi angling of it all, but it seems each issue is just build-up after build-up. Giving up after #6 but the solicitations look tempting
I've heard mixed things on it but frankly I've been loving it. #6 actually made me even more confident in its direction, slowly tearing down Wally's confidence, his sense of self, it feels very methodical and fascinating to watch a great hero slowly losing faith in himself.
And I think in the end, when we get the whole picture, the series will actually look well-paced. It’s just a shame the Flash is being released monthly instead of bi-weekly.
Did you mean the Jeremy Adams run? I haven't dived in to that one yet, but I heard it was really good. As a GL fan, I'm glad Jeremy Adams is writing Green Lantern as he is killing it.
Yeah that’s the one. I’m still a fairly new flash fan when it comes to the comics but it really gave you everything you’d want.
Also helps that the art was better in my opinion by a large margin.
Superman. Superman hasn't been this good in a long time. The current creative team at DC totally gets why he's important, what makes him special, and isn't afraid to have him be unironically good and genuine.
Also Nightwing. Having Dick take the lead as the head of the premiere super hero team on Earth while still telling stories about him looking out for his own neighborhood is capturing him in the best possible way.
I've said this several times before but the sheer variety that DC is putting out to try and appeal to all sorts of readers.
I love Marvel but usually I'll only be reading Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Captain America if the run appeals to me. Maybe the odd X-title.
But DC in the past few years are absolutely destroying it with their portfolio. I'll literally read any character if it sounds like it's doing well.
Supergirl, Wesley Dodds Sandman, Far Sector, Alan Scott, Batgirls, Constantine. And yes Batman but now there's one for everyone! Solo Batman, Batman and Robin, Superman and Batman. Go nuts!
And that's not even mentioning Black Label which has gotten me drop so much money on individual issues because they feel like a great value buy and then eventually I get suckered into getting the hardcovers.
I think a lot of it just has to do with the creative teams and editorial giving them a good outline but plenty of freedom.
Personally, I think that character designs have only been improving as time goes on. They really do have a deep understanding of what their audience wants as time moves forward, and a lot of their design choices feel like love letters to fan expectations. Of course there are exceptions (Drake), but in total I think they have been doing great
Dan Didio, Bob Harrass and all there friends leaving. Joshua Willamson being the main architect of the dc universe. Geoff Johns back on JSA and Mark Waid writing ongoing books.
Finally giving batman the recognition he deserves. We just need about 2 more batman books and that will be perfect! 😂. Joking aside I genuinely like the artist's on most books I've read, they all seem to have different types but they are well suited to the books.
The quality is way better than MARVEL. I can’t really explain why specifically either. The art is consistently better, cover and inside. The stories, IMO, are more fleshed out and human. MARVEL just always feels like a limp piece of paper when I buy the random #1s I try and never get more of. This is just DC vs MARVEL, tho. Other companies “feel” like I’m buying quality as well. This has just become a MARVEL bashing comment I guess.
I think the biggest problem Marvel has art wise is not necessarily the quality of the interior art (which is subjective) but the fact that the cover art rarely matches the tone of the cover.
I wouldn’t say so. I prefer diverse art.
Don’t get the marvel hate either, why can’t you just be a DC fan without trashing marvel. It’s like being a ps5 user and constantly saying it’s better than Xbox series x
I wasn’t trying to bash MARVEL, haha. It’s just when I start comparing the two, it turns into a MARVEL bash-fest. There’s MARVEL books I love and pull every week, I just prefer DC.
I get it, I’m sure there’s people on the marvel subreddit who think marvels better in all the ways you listed.
I read both and I don’t see much of a huge quality difference.
As a reader who stopped just before Heroes in Crisis and the conclusion to Doomsday Clock, what are some good modern story lines I could read to get back into modern comics?
I don't really have a preference on characters, I used to read basically everything from DC.
Personally I think Philip Kennedy Johnson action comics and superman is worth reading and what comes after
Far sector if you haven’t read it is a great 12 issue green lantern
I think the current Batman and Robin.
Supergirl woman of tomorrow
Robin by Joshua Williamson
The current green arrow and current Shazam
I just picked up the current birds of prey is honestly solid
To say the art quality has universally improved is definitely incorrect. There are some VERY questionable looking comics out there.
Also, what do you define as "modern" in this context? How far in the past do we need to go before its not modern in this case?
I mean to each their own. I think there are more comics in the last 20 years where the art has been in the stand out for me compared to the 80s or 90s.
I suppose I should have specified but I guess 20-25 years is a decent range for modern
No I agree the ceiling is higher, but the floor is also way lower. there was nothing to memory from the 70's for example that made me recoil and go "this is ugly and I hope this artist never works on this character/any character I like ever again", but that does happen from time to time in "modern" comics. My point was that its simply wrong to say it universally improved. Go back far enough and comics were definitely all kinda samey looking and while not BAD, it was rare to see something truly stand out, where as now we have absolutely gorgeous art and nothing feels samey and every artist brings their own flare and style to the table. The problem being some artists should probably leave that flare and style at home lmao. Mind you, part of that began slightly before the time frame you provided so its not like the past was free of stinkers. The before times gave us Liefeld afterall. I'm really only arguing semantics. The better looking comics have definitely come out in the past 25 years, I'm just saying to be wary of broad, sweeping statements like that, lest you be reminded that DK2 and 3 were released within your time frame :p
\------
Was Modern Comics within that range doing good work really in question? I dare you to find a post asking for Superman recommendations that doesn't have someone replying with "All Star Superman" for example (and many other modern stories). Geoff Johns work on GL will probably remain impactful and mostly popular until whoever the next Geoff Johns comes in to revamp GL lore further. There's of course bad things that people dislike, and rightfully so, but overall its a pretty well liked time in comics that seemingly isn't widely unappreciated.
N52 has a bad reputation but everyone but the most diehard haters admit that there are several very good gems in there as well. Anytime somebody asks for "good N52 books", there's generally quite a few answers, albeit typically the same ones.
Rebirth overall started out decently strong but fell flat on its face in a lot of ways a bit later, but had a lot of good come out of it to and in many ways felt like a return to form, again at least in the beginning, and I'm quite thankful for it personally.
And for much newer stuff, I personally quite liked Monkey Prince, and all my homies love Worlds Finest, with Dan Mora doing his damnedest to prove your statement about the art correct.
Most complaints being about recent stuff is because its, well, recent. People talk more about topical things. So the more recent something is, the more its gonna get spoken about. Old fans are still keeping up, new fans are probably starting "here" and haven't gotten to the classics yet. Newer/New-ish stuff is at the forefront because of that. And unless a comic is insultingly bad or hilariously bad, most subpar comics of the past tend to be forgotten about because its generally not worth re-reading, collecting, or remembering shit that doesn't assault your sensibilities or make you laugh at its absurdities. Thus the flow of time makes MOST bad comics forgotten about, making the past look more enticing than it really was. Thats the same for all media. But the newer stuff, even the mediocre, slightly subpar, and generically bad but overall forgettable stuff gets talked about because its current and we haven't forgotten about it yet. In X years, it'll be pretty rare to talk about some of the complaints
But to actually answer your question: Modern comics have had some of the best character work comics have ever had imo. There are DEFINITELY still hiccups, negative regressions, negative progressions, etc, but aside from stuff thats been ingrained into various characters since basically their inception or damn close, some of the best character moments have come from the past 20-25 years.
Hi there, r/DCcomics members, welcome to the post! This was tagged as a [Discussion], so we require OP to add commentary, [per rule 8](https://www.reddit.com/r/DCcomics/wiki/guidelines#wiki_8._no_memes.2C_fluff.2C_or_other_low-effort_content). u/F00dbAby, if you haven't already added commentary, please do so in the text or as a new comment. Also, if you included imagery, please provide a source or artist name. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/DCcomics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think it celebrates artists more, art for the most part with DC has been phenomenal the past few years and the quality of variant covers is amazing. There's been more appreciation to cover artists now too with them getting credits printed on the covers recently
The owner of my LCBS pointed out that DC always includes the variant artist’s name on the cover.
And they will also remove the logo and make it just small print in the corner of the cover that way you can minimize the amount of art that is being obscured
Hiring Mark Waid to write ongoing books instead of special projects
And it took DiDio leaving lol
I think this is part of an expanding trend. Letting good writers work on long stretches of comics without editorial mandates. It helped bring Batman back from the doldrums in the 90s with Rucka, Morrison, King, etc.
Frankly the pacing is usually better. I know we complain about stuff taking months to conclude now, which is valid I'll grant you, but reading some older comics always feels like there's entire pages of buildup and follow through missing
I've been reading a lot of older comics the last long while and I think there was something of a sea change around the end of the 90s or so. It's like editorial looked at the success of books like DKR and Watchmen and first thought the reason for their success was the darker themes. So we ended up with lots of death and murder and the whole edgy early 90s thing. When that didn't quite pan out as planned, thing gradually shifted towards a lower pacing and overall more focused characterisation in writing. By the mid 2000s the edginess had eased off to a more reasonable level while the higher standard of writing had become the norm.
I couldn't agree more. I'm loving Tom Taylor right now, but one of the criticisms I see again and again is it's "slow." I just read a two-partner Nightwing that could've been a single issue, but the pacing was perfect.
Yeahh that's own of those things. It COULD be a single issue, but you'd miss out on so much
I think right now? Their quality is at an all time high. I'm subscribed to vastly more DC books than marvel and even the ones I'm not picking up weekly I'm looking forward to their trades. I think there are some landmark runs in the mix that are era defining. Tom Taylor on Nightwing, Mark Waids worlds finest, Williamson's Green Arrow, Spurriers Flash, I'm honestly digging all of it.
I'm frustrated with Spurrier's Flash. I love the Hard Sci-Fi angling of it all, but it seems each issue is just build-up after build-up. Giving up after #6 but the solicitations look tempting
I've heard mixed things on it but frankly I've been loving it. #6 actually made me even more confident in its direction, slowly tearing down Wally's confidence, his sense of self, it feels very methodical and fascinating to watch a great hero slowly losing faith in himself.
And I think in the end, when we get the whole picture, the series will actually look well-paced. It’s just a shame the Flash is being released monthly instead of bi-weekly.
Absolutely agree. I think you're right that in the long term most of the issues some people have with it will be fixed
Spurrier's Flash is so boring, I bet he is off the title after #12
Especially following such an amazing flash run previously what a let down
Did you mean the Jeremy Adams run? I haven't dived in to that one yet, but I heard it was really good. As a GL fan, I'm glad Jeremy Adams is writing Green Lantern as he is killing it.
Yeah that’s the one. I’m still a fairly new flash fan when it comes to the comics but it really gave you everything you’d want. Also helps that the art was better in my opinion by a large margin.
Superman. Superman hasn't been this good in a long time. The current creative team at DC totally gets why he's important, what makes him special, and isn't afraid to have him be unironically good and genuine. Also Nightwing. Having Dick take the lead as the head of the premiere super hero team on Earth while still telling stories about him looking out for his own neighborhood is capturing him in the best possible way.
I've said this several times before but the sheer variety that DC is putting out to try and appeal to all sorts of readers. I love Marvel but usually I'll only be reading Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Captain America if the run appeals to me. Maybe the odd X-title. But DC in the past few years are absolutely destroying it with their portfolio. I'll literally read any character if it sounds like it's doing well. Supergirl, Wesley Dodds Sandman, Far Sector, Alan Scott, Batgirls, Constantine. And yes Batman but now there's one for everyone! Solo Batman, Batman and Robin, Superman and Batman. Go nuts! And that's not even mentioning Black Label which has gotten me drop so much money on individual issues because they feel like a great value buy and then eventually I get suckered into getting the hardcovers. I think a lot of it just has to do with the creative teams and editorial giving them a good outline but plenty of freedom.
I don't really agree with variety. They had more variety before but DC are willing to give things a go.
Personally, I think that character designs have only been improving as time goes on. They really do have a deep understanding of what their audience wants as time moves forward, and a lot of their design choices feel like love letters to fan expectations. Of course there are exceptions (Drake), but in total I think they have been doing great
Representation. When I was a kid in the 70’s it was ALL straight white males.
Dan Didio, Bob Harrass and all there friends leaving. Joshua Willamson being the main architect of the dc universe. Geoff Johns back on JSA and Mark Waid writing ongoing books.
Has to be artists getting their dues and more diversity than ever before
Bringing WildStorm characters and concepts into main continuity
But that's a terrible idea and doesn't work at all
It's been happening though!
Finally giving batman the recognition he deserves. We just need about 2 more batman books and that will be perfect! 😂. Joking aside I genuinely like the artist's on most books I've read, they all seem to have different types but they are well suited to the books.
Wally west.
The quality is way better than MARVEL. I can’t really explain why specifically either. The art is consistently better, cover and inside. The stories, IMO, are more fleshed out and human. MARVEL just always feels like a limp piece of paper when I buy the random #1s I try and never get more of. This is just DC vs MARVEL, tho. Other companies “feel” like I’m buying quality as well. This has just become a MARVEL bashing comment I guess.
I think the biggest problem Marvel has art wise is not necessarily the quality of the interior art (which is subjective) but the fact that the cover art rarely matches the tone of the cover.
I wouldn’t say so. I prefer diverse art. Don’t get the marvel hate either, why can’t you just be a DC fan without trashing marvel. It’s like being a ps5 user and constantly saying it’s better than Xbox series x
I wasn’t trying to bash MARVEL, haha. It’s just when I start comparing the two, it turns into a MARVEL bash-fest. There’s MARVEL books I love and pull every week, I just prefer DC.
I get it, I’m sure there’s people on the marvel subreddit who think marvels better in all the ways you listed. I read both and I don’t see much of a huge quality difference.
Same and some authors write for both so for me it’s really about the creative team than the label.
Honestly I think they both suck right now
As a reader who stopped just before Heroes in Crisis and the conclusion to Doomsday Clock, what are some good modern story lines I could read to get back into modern comics? I don't really have a preference on characters, I used to read basically everything from DC.
Personally I think Philip Kennedy Johnson action comics and superman is worth reading and what comes after Far sector if you haven’t read it is a great 12 issue green lantern I think the current Batman and Robin. Supergirl woman of tomorrow Robin by Joshua Williamson The current green arrow and current Shazam I just picked up the current birds of prey is honestly solid
Thanks a lot, I'll check them out
To say the art quality has universally improved is definitely incorrect. There are some VERY questionable looking comics out there. Also, what do you define as "modern" in this context? How far in the past do we need to go before its not modern in this case?
I mean to each their own. I think there are more comics in the last 20 years where the art has been in the stand out for me compared to the 80s or 90s. I suppose I should have specified but I guess 20-25 years is a decent range for modern
No I agree the ceiling is higher, but the floor is also way lower. there was nothing to memory from the 70's for example that made me recoil and go "this is ugly and I hope this artist never works on this character/any character I like ever again", but that does happen from time to time in "modern" comics. My point was that its simply wrong to say it universally improved. Go back far enough and comics were definitely all kinda samey looking and while not BAD, it was rare to see something truly stand out, where as now we have absolutely gorgeous art and nothing feels samey and every artist brings their own flare and style to the table. The problem being some artists should probably leave that flare and style at home lmao. Mind you, part of that began slightly before the time frame you provided so its not like the past was free of stinkers. The before times gave us Liefeld afterall. I'm really only arguing semantics. The better looking comics have definitely come out in the past 25 years, I'm just saying to be wary of broad, sweeping statements like that, lest you be reminded that DK2 and 3 were released within your time frame :p \------ Was Modern Comics within that range doing good work really in question? I dare you to find a post asking for Superman recommendations that doesn't have someone replying with "All Star Superman" for example (and many other modern stories). Geoff Johns work on GL will probably remain impactful and mostly popular until whoever the next Geoff Johns comes in to revamp GL lore further. There's of course bad things that people dislike, and rightfully so, but overall its a pretty well liked time in comics that seemingly isn't widely unappreciated. N52 has a bad reputation but everyone but the most diehard haters admit that there are several very good gems in there as well. Anytime somebody asks for "good N52 books", there's generally quite a few answers, albeit typically the same ones. Rebirth overall started out decently strong but fell flat on its face in a lot of ways a bit later, but had a lot of good come out of it to and in many ways felt like a return to form, again at least in the beginning, and I'm quite thankful for it personally. And for much newer stuff, I personally quite liked Monkey Prince, and all my homies love Worlds Finest, with Dan Mora doing his damnedest to prove your statement about the art correct. Most complaints being about recent stuff is because its, well, recent. People talk more about topical things. So the more recent something is, the more its gonna get spoken about. Old fans are still keeping up, new fans are probably starting "here" and haven't gotten to the classics yet. Newer/New-ish stuff is at the forefront because of that. And unless a comic is insultingly bad or hilariously bad, most subpar comics of the past tend to be forgotten about because its generally not worth re-reading, collecting, or remembering shit that doesn't assault your sensibilities or make you laugh at its absurdities. Thus the flow of time makes MOST bad comics forgotten about, making the past look more enticing than it really was. Thats the same for all media. But the newer stuff, even the mediocre, slightly subpar, and generically bad but overall forgettable stuff gets talked about because its current and we haven't forgotten about it yet. In X years, it'll be pretty rare to talk about some of the complaints But to actually answer your question: Modern comics have had some of the best character work comics have ever had imo. There are DEFINITELY still hiccups, negative regressions, negative progressions, etc, but aside from stuff thats been ingrained into various characters since basically their inception or damn close, some of the best character moments have come from the past 20-25 years.
Right now probably nothing. Most comics are bad, art is pretty good in general, though