The Twelve **SPOILERS**

[Jan]

I picked up #1 of The Twelve yesterday and liked it better than I'd expected to. I was afraid that there'd be too many characters acting too anachronistic for me to follow comfortably but if this first issue is an indication, I should be fine. Yeah, there were a lot of characters but most of them seem enough different that I won't have much trouble keeping track of who's who.

It looks like JMS's habit of showing us where we're going from the start is in play here. Even though we end up with the Phantom Reporter standing over Blue Blade with his gun drawn, I don't see any wound.

Nothing to do with the story, but I also found the answers on the 'Questions that Need Answers' page interesting, particularly Peter David and JMS's fathers telling them that they'd never make a living from SF/comics.

Jan

[Lunan]

i was quite happy with that first story, already developing the personalities of some of these guys. you can see where some of them will be able to adapt ok, and some are gonna go totally bonkers.
i have to say i really an looking forward to the next one, there is so much that joe can do here, including having some of the "tourists" go looking for ways to have powers in the modern marvel world

[Jan]

Thanks to a mention on Colleen Doran's A Distant Soil blog, I just found an interview with JMS about The Twelve on Newsarama.

Jan

[Lunan]

well book 2 was um, interesting. black widow, rockman are shown somemore. black widows story should prove a good read, rockman, not so sure, will wait and see. mastermind excello, now there is some stuff to talk about or more to the point read about.
p.r. is a little grating on me i'm not so sure how much i like him as the narrator
dynamic man, well racism was gonna show up of course i just think it could have been handled a little more subtly the way it was shown seemed overly pushed

what did you guys think?

[Joe Nazzaro]

Just read it a few hours ago and enjoyed it even more than the first issue. JMS wisely went with the decision to focus on a smaller group of characters, giving them more room to develop. I particularly enjoyed- if that's the right word to use here- the notion of an all-American superhero who still carries the racist feelings of half a century ago, to the point where he suddenly becomes more selective about who he chooses to help.

Any guesses about who ends up 'inhabiting' the robot? My pick is the Phantom Reporter, only because he's trying to come to grips with his lack of super-powers.

[Jan]

I agree, Joe. The first issue was a good introduction but it's better to give us closer looks at fewer of the characters now. I like the art better in this one, too, for some reason.

dynamic man, well racism was gonna show up of course i just think it could have been handled a little more subtly the way it was shown seemed overly pushed

Actually is was almost realistic. What was missing to make it completely realistic (well, insofar as you've got a guy in tights fighting crime ) would be for Dynamic Man to have called the wife a choice name. Because that's the way things were back then if a white woman married a Negro.

I don't have a feel yet for who might take over Electro yet but I can see how it could be the Phantom Reporter.

Jan

[Lunan]

I don't have a feel yet for who might take over Electro yet but I can see how it could be the Phantom Reporter.

Jan

i get the feeling that electro has something to do with whatever the "big bad" is gonna be, that could just be from the way the robot was oriented and shown in the first book, always kinda looking up at it. just the way its drawn makes me think something nasty is gonna come of it