DC New 52: Every Line Ranked From Worst To Best

On August 31st of last year, DC Comics released Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1. With those two comics, the New 52 was launched. It has been one year since then and a lot has changed for DC. They got a new logo, cancelled a few titles and replaced those titles. But it is now time to take a look back at the the DC New 52 year one and rank those comics. Enjoy!

57. The Savage Hawkman

My only prior exposure to Hawkman was his appearances on Smallville. He seems like an awesome character with a dense and convoluted history. In recent years, DC has tried to retcon all of his past versions into one. The Savage Hawkman starts with Carter Hall trying to destroy the Nth metal armor that make him Hawkman. But something goes wrong and the Nth metal becomes part of him and can appear whenever he needs it. That is the best part of the entire series. It is a cool update to the character. But I have never read Hawkman before so this may have happened before. The rest of the series is Hawkman fighting random villains and being utterly boring. Bad writing and confusing art makes this the worst book of the New 52.

56. The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men

My introduction to Firestorm came in Blackest Night. In that story, Black Lantern Ronnie Raymond joins Jason Rusch to form Firestorm and he turns Jason's girlfriend into table salt. It was dark. I like dark. So when this title was announced for the New 52, I was excited to see the character(s) from the beginning. They made major changes to the origin. There are several Firestorms across the globe and they all have different powers. The Firestorm Protocol has created a new arms race. High school jock Ronnie Raymond and science geek Jason Rusch both get exposed to the Firestorm Protocol and gain superpowers. Together, they can combine to create Fury, a creature more powerful than either of them, but also more dangerous. Firestorm is not completely terrible. It has a few good moments like a terrorist attack during a concert that really affects the teens and it has good art throughout, but it just feels like a chore to read.

55. Mister Terrific

The DC New 52 has given me the opportunity to read a lot of characters that I have never read or even heard of. Mister Terrific is the third-smartest man alive and owns a major science and technology company. And he feels like a cheap knockoff of Reed Richards or Tony Stark. He even has his own version of the negative zone that acts as his headquarters. He doesn't have any real superpowers. Instead, he has T-Spheres that he uses to fly, hack into computers, shoot lasers and do pretty much anything that the plot requires. Karen Starr guest stars in a couple issues and the end of this series actually ties into Earth 2 and Worlds' Finest. Both are better titles than this one. There was just not enough to keep me interested.

54. Blackhawks

The Blackhawks are a top secret government organization that deals with extraterrestrial weapons and technology on Earth. They also have a secret base in the side of a mountain that gets attacked like three times in eight issues. The characters were somewhat interesting and definitely had unique personalities. My favorite was a woman named Kunoichi who becomes infected with nanocites that give her superpowers including the ability to interface with and control computers. That's pretty cool. This was one of the titles cancelled to make room for the second wave of the New 52, but the team leader named Lincoln does show back up in Voodoo. Still no sighting of the rest of the team though. It's an okay book.

53. Green Arrow

Much like Hawkman, my only real knowledge of Green Arrow came from Smallville. Justin Hartley's Oliver Queen was awesome. The DC New 52 Green Arrow is mediocre at best. In fact, his guest appearances in Justice League and Grifter were almost better than anything that the series has offered up. I feel like Green Arrow may be better in small doses. One thing that I do like is Oliver's support team. He has a separate division of Queen Industries called Q-Core that deals with technology and Green Arrow gadgets. His team has some great interactions with Ollie and give the book some much needed levity. I really enjoyed the three issue arc that runs through issues seven, eight and nine. It involves a set of beautiful blonde triplets who come and cause some chaos for Oliver.