Judging the New 52: June 2013, Part II: Batman

The Batman books are the powerhouse of DC's comic book publishing efforts, and that is nowhere more apparent than in Batman itself. Under the creative guidance of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo it has overtaken Justice League to become the effective flagship of the entire New 52. June 2013 saw the launch of its third major story arc, "Zero Year", and a corresponding 10% bump in sales compared to May's relatively self-contained issue. Batman shipped 9% more copies in June 2013 than in June 2012, which is an extraordinary feat in an industry where each issue generally sells less than the one before it.

Detective Comics, on the other hand, is still suffering from a fairly weak start by writer/artist Tony Daniel. I think that it's lost a lot of goodwill from readers, which is a shame because John Layman and Jason Fabok are doing some great work here. Sales are down 17% compared to May, where Layman and Fabok's first arc wound up: sadly it looks like about 8,000 readers were waiting for a chance to jump ship.

Judging the New 52: June 2013, Part I: Justice League

Let's have a look at how DC Comics' New 52 are going at the moment; more specifically, let's check out the June 2013 sales estimates to find out what's selling, what's failing and what maybe needs a bit of a shake-up to get readers interested again.

Just to clarify: these are the sales estimates for physical comic books shipped to comic shops via Diamond Distribution in the USA, Australia and other markets, and does not represent actual issues sold to customers. It also doesn't include digital comics sold via Comixology. All estimates have been sourced from John Jackson Miller's excellent Comichron.

To make things easier to break down, DC divided the New 52 into a series of ranges, so we can look at them in turn, starting with their Justice League books.

Marvel Superheroes: Secret Wars, Part 1 (1984)

Over the past year or so I've been subscribed to Hachette's partwork series The Marvel Graphic Novel Collection. It's brilliant: every four weeks I receive a pair of hardcover Marvel Comics collections in the mail at AUD$19.95 each. I've always been more of a DC fan than a Marvel reader, so this collection has given me the opportunity to read a whole pile of quite famous storylines and runs that I hadn't previously read.

A case in point: the first six issues of Marvel Superheroes: Secret Wars, widely considered the first of the big summer crossover epics that now seem to hit the Marvel Universe twice a year or so. We just finished Age of Ultron and Infinity is already getting started. In previous years we've had Seige, Secret Invasion, Civil War, Spider-Island, X-Men Schism, Avengers vs. X-Men and many, many more - and Secret Wars is widely seen as the forerunner to all of them.

Silent Japan V: Who is Mikio Naruse?

The first two Japanese silent films I have watched - Flunky, Word Hard and Apart from You - were both directed by Mikio Naruse, so as part of my exploration of early Japanese cinema it seemed a good idea to find out exactly who that guy is and what sort of films he made. What is his position in the history of Japanese film?

Naruse was born in Tokyo in 1905. He was by accounts a shy, reserved young man who scored a job at the newly formed Shockiku film studios as a property manager and then as an assistant director. After much begging for the chance, Naruse was finally granted the right to direct a film of his own in 1930 (aged 25). His first film was Mr and Mrs Swordplay (Chambara Fufu). Despite obvious skill and talent, Naruse's films were not commercially successful and he struggled to secure directorial assignments at Shockiku. He ultimately jumped studios to PCL (later named Toho), where he continued to direct up into the mid-1960s.

For Western audiences, the first exposure to Naruse's work was his critical hit Wife, Be Like a Rose, which was released in the USA in 1935. It was particularly liked by American critics but it was, however, the first Japanese 'talkie' to be screened internationally. Western audiences may have later embraced Mizoguchi, Ozu and Kurosawa, but they were exposed to Naruse first.

Who50: "The Girl in the Fireplace"

Who50 counts down to the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who by reviewing my favourite episodes and serials over the history of the programme, counting down from #50 to #1. Today, #17: "The Girl in the Fireplace", a 2006 episode written by Steven Moffat and directed by Euros Lyn.

The TARDIS arrives on a deserted spaceship somewhere in the 51st century - a spaceship inexplicably linked via a portal to the fireplace of an 18th century French palace, and the bedroom of famed mistress Madame de Pompadour.

"The Girl in the Fireplace" is an unexpected gem: it takes a premise that was previously unthinkable in Doctor Who (the Doctor has a romance) and not only pulls it off, but pulls it off in a way that feels natural, believable and as much a part of the fabric of Doctor Who as Daleks or Time Lords. Once again it's a Doctor Who pastiche - in this case cribbing liberally from Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife. Moffat would return to this book later on when he crafted the Doctor's romance with River Song.

Game of Thrones: "Garden of Bones"

I think pretty much anything else about "Garden of Bones" falls by the wayside in comparison to the jawdropping scene of Melisandre (Carice van Houten) giving birth to an enormous terrifying smoke monster. Game of Thrones keeps its fantastical elements quite close to its chest. We've seen white walkers twice, and of course Daenerys now has her dragons, but all told it's pretty low on fantasy. That kind of gets blown out of the water here, and by holding back so much on the supernatural for the series' first 14 episodes the production team manage to make a phenomenal impact here.

As always, let's go from plot thread to plot thread to see how the second season fares in its fourth week.

Under the Dome: "The Fire"

With Under the Dome's second episode, most of my suspicions - both positive and negative - seem to be getting proven correct. With the Chief of Police dead, Mayor "Big Jim" Rennie goes into overdrive to hide his secret drug manufacturing industry. This leads to a string of unintended consequences - chiefly the fire referred to in the episode's title.

This episode brings with it a fairly significant pedigree in that it's written by Rick Cleveland, who won an Emmy award in 2000 for his West Wing script "In Excelsis Deo" (co-written by Aaron Sorkin). Given the matter-of-fact and fairly perfunctory work done with the characters in this episode, you'd be forgiven for thinking that with "In Excelsis Deo" Sorkin may have done a lot of the heavy lifting. It's not a bad episode, but it's a superficial one. It pushes the plot forward and solidifies what each character's arc is likely to be, but it's pretty slack in giving anyone any kind of depth or nuance.

The Pull List: 3 July 2013

When DC Comics let Vertigo editor-in-chief Karen Berger go, many people - myself included - foresaw the impending end of the imprint. Sales were down, books were getting cancelled and the only continuing series Vertigo seemed to have left were Fables and The Unwritten. Maybe we were a little premature in calling that death. Long-term Vertigo editor Shelley Bond has taken the top seat and appears to be jumping in all guns blazing.

Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy's The Wake, a 10-part miniseries, launched with the highest sales of a Vertigo title in a decade. The Sandman Overture, a 6-part bimonthly prequel to Vertigo's biggest-ever hit, launches in October. In recent weeks a string of new miniseries and ongoings have been announced, including Ian Edginton's Hinterland, Peter Milligan's The Disciple and Toby Litt's The Dead Boy Detectives (a Sandman spin-off). Meanwhile the back catalogue is getting nicely brushed off and repackaged, with thicker, better-value collected editions getting released for Hellblazer, Lucifer, Preacher and (in early 2014) The Invisibles.

Vertigo used to be the best place to find mature-readers fantasy and horror comic books in the USA. Hopefully in 2014 this will be the case again.

Under the cut: reviews of Batman Incorporated, Batwing, Daredevil: Dark Nights, Detective Comics, 47 Ronin, Green Lantern, The Movement, Red She-Hulk, Stormwatch and X-Men Legacy.