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genmegusta's review
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
rbexsareads's review
More than just another story in the vast DC Universe, Legacies humanizes the often outrageous events from the Golden Age to the Crisis and beyond in the tradition of Alex Ross' Marvels. It also manages to mirror the history of comics themselves, most notably in the darker edge seen post-Killing Joke.
thecommonswings's review
3.0
Huh
Well it’s an admirable attempt to make the DC Universe a sort of coherent historical world, but there’s an inherent problem when Wein has his hero ageing as he goes along but loads of the superheroes and villains just stay resolutely at one age. The effect gets ever weirder once Wein starts understandably editorialising: as things get more absurd and miserable and “edgy”, his policeman everyman hero starts wanging on about how the universe was getting darker on almost every fifth page. And yeah, it really did and horribly so, but Wein can’t quite find a way to synthesise that with the whimsical stuff so when, for no apparent reason, his detectives start prefacing their every utterance with “Jesus” it really jars with his attempt to keep things light and instead just sounds like a way to articulate how Wein must have felt as he wrote passages of this: “Jesus Christ so Superman dies after being punched to death by a big monster man and then a cyborg, a kid, a robot and a weird bloke in some weird fucking costume all turn up and fight until the real one comes back all in black, with no cape and a stupid haircut. Jesus. Why did I take on this thankless task?”
I mean I kind of admire Wein for trying but the ludicrousness of nineties DC just ends up overwhelming the attempt. A nice effort but a somewhat ridiculous one
Well it’s an admirable attempt to make the DC Universe a sort of coherent historical world, but there’s an inherent problem when Wein has his hero ageing as he goes along but loads of the superheroes and villains just stay resolutely at one age. The effect gets ever weirder once Wein starts understandably editorialising: as things get more absurd and miserable and “edgy”, his policeman everyman hero starts wanging on about how the universe was getting darker on almost every fifth page. And yeah, it really did and horribly so, but Wein can’t quite find a way to synthesise that with the whimsical stuff so when, for no apparent reason, his detectives start prefacing their every utterance with “Jesus” it really jars with his attempt to keep things light and instead just sounds like a way to articulate how Wein must have felt as he wrote passages of this: “Jesus Christ so Superman dies after being punched to death by a big monster man and then a cyborg, a kid, a robot and a weird bloke in some weird fucking costume all turn up and fight until the real one comes back all in black, with no cape and a stupid haircut. Jesus. Why did I take on this thankless task?”
I mean I kind of admire Wein for trying but the ludicrousness of nineties DC just ends up overwhelming the attempt. A nice effort but a somewhat ridiculous one
jamiely's review
3.0
This book takes a walk through the history of the DC universe (at a course level) through the eyes of a retired Metropolis detective, and tracks the transition of tales from the Golden Age (when it was all fun and games) to the more recent grimy and dark stories and characters of the last several decades. The first couple books deal with the Golden Age, and the transition period to the more recent era. What I found interesting was the campiness of it all, from plot devices like revolving door incarcerations to strange villains like "The Fiddler".
The second half was more familiar for me, and we get to see huge DC events from the eyes of the common man such as the Final Night, Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Death and Return of Superman, Blackest Day/Brightest Night, Identity Crisis, and the Killing Joke. I enjoyed glimpses at some of these events I haven't read about, and will follow up with some of them.
Finally, the compilation ends with very short stories, almost vignettes. While I found some boring, others are interesting and feature characters I especially enjoy like Orion, Etrigan, and Black Adam.
The second half was more familiar for me, and we get to see huge DC events from the eyes of the common man such as the Final Night, Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Death and Return of Superman, Blackest Day/Brightest Night, Identity Crisis, and the Killing Joke. I enjoyed glimpses at some of these events I haven't read about, and will follow up with some of them.
Finally, the compilation ends with very short stories, almost vignettes. While I found some boring, others are interesting and feature characters I especially enjoy like Orion, Etrigan, and Black Adam.
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