By Zack Quaintance — Hoo boy, once I started thinking of things I like and don’t like, the floodgates really opened up, giving us seven items on this week’s list, an all-time high! With that in mind, I’ll stop rambling here and get right to the comics things I liked and didn’t like this week.

I hope you, um, like them!

THE Suit

I don’t talk about superhero movies much. I certainly don’t invite the conversations, and I sometimes even avoid them. I have a good reason. Superhero movies, like much of our society these days, are charged with a combativeness. They are too often just another frivolous arena (mostly online) for people to attack each other, to assert their own worth as they grasp at odd validation of their choices, tastes and sometimes even personalities. Once something that is supposed to be a hobby or pastime becomes combative, I’m out. There’s enough fighting in more serious arenas these days.

So, I don’t like that. But you know what I do like? The Batman suit. Yes yes, I know what I just wrote all self-righteously above, but the one superhero movie conversation I’ve been down for in the past 24 hours is what do you think of the suit? You know what? I like it. I like Robert Pattinson as Batman, and while I maybe raised an eyebrow at still photos of THE suit, once I saw the actual footage with the music (composer Michael Giacchino is the MVP of that clip) and movement...I got what they were going for, and I felt unpredictability within that, which is something I like a lot. 

Heathen is Coming Back

Heathen — which is the viking comic that first brought of my favorite publishers, Vault, to my attention — is coming back for a third arc at the end of this month. Heathen is a wonderfully-told story about a young girl’s journey through mythology and sexology, and I like it that it’s coming back.

A Couple of Great Creative Teams Do More Work Together

This week saw the announcement of Batman: The Smile Killer by writer Jeff Lemire and artist Andrea Sorrentino, which is an epilouge to their current DC Black Label comic, Joker: The Smile Killer. They are also currently putting out Gideon Falls (one of the best creator-owned horror comics in a crowded field), and they have previously teamed on great runs of Green Arrow and Old Man Logan. A comics thing I like is great collaborations repeating.

Along those lines, IDW Publishing last week also announced that the same creative team from the very underrated Road of Bones — writer Rich Douek and artist Alex Cormack — are teaming again on a historical horror mini-series called Sea of Sorrows. This is something I also like.

DC’s Most Underrated Artist

I really liked artist Fernando Pasarin’s work on the now-ended Deathstroke title...and so one thing I liked this week was seeing him pop-up again as the artist on Hawkman #21, which was the first time I’ve liked that comic in almost a year. Here’s hoping Pasarin continues, or finds an even more prominent landing place (not a hawk pun) at DC.

The New X-Factor Designs

I really liked this book when it was announced a while back, but my excitement elevated quite a bit when Marvel shared designs for the new team by series artist David Baldeon. Another thing I continue to like is the Dawn of X relaunch of the X-Men comics, but that’s a whole other post for another day. Anyway, check out these uniforms...great, right?

DC Moving Forward Again

This week, DC Comics announced a set of five monthly one-shots related to the timeline that the publisher unveiled at New York Comic Con, which is what originally also led to leaks from the publisher about 5G, the next major superhero initiative for them. I’ve done a lot of reporting about DC 5G for ComicsBeat, and so I’ve known something huge is coming. As a result, the past several months of DC Comics announcements have felt a bit stale, like treading water. Well, with the announcement of those one-shots, no more! Each one of them will flesh out one of the 5 Gs (generations) that make up DC 5G and the timeline. 

You can read all about it here. And while I agree that five white guys writing these one-shots is a bad look, I have heard rumors that when the next generation of DC Comics launches in earnest within the next year or so, the creators behind them will be much more diverse. The net result of all of this is that it finally felt this week like DC was vibrant and moving ahead again with its monthly stuff, and I like that a lot.

Pop Culture and Comics Reporting

Finally, this week saw some comics controversy around the new Birds of Prey movie, mainly that a long line of pop culture websites lined up to misconstrue things comics writer Gail Simone (she of a famous Birds of Prey run) said about it. This is a strong piece about that individual controversy, but this speaks to a bigger issue — that the reporting on pop culture in this country has really hit a nadir. It’s all about getting clicks, moreso than other reporting, and the conversation in the pop culture sphere is all the worse for it. I don’t like that, I don’t like that at all. I’m biased as a trained journalist, but I think going to actual J-Schools, really engaging with the craft, and taking it more seriously (reporters but especially editors/publishers) is the key.

Read this week’s comic book reviews here!

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.