A review by iffer
DC Comics: Zero Year by Van Jensen, Greg Pak, Chris Sprouse, Vic Drujiniu, Kyle Higgins, Vicente Cifuentes, Jimmy Palmiotti, Eduardo Pansica, Pat Olliffe, Juan Castro, Rob Lean, Christy Marx, Robert Venditti, Julio Ferreira, Marguerite Bennett, Jason Fabok, Scott Snyder, Art Thibert, Karl Story, Brian Buccellato, Jonathan Glapion, Fernando Pasarín, Scott McDaniel, Travis Moore, Marc Andreyko, Jorge Lucas, John Layman, Greg Capullo, Romano Molenaar, Justin Gray, Will Conrad, Ivan Fernandez, Keith Champagne, Denys Cowan, Francis Manapul, Allan Jefferson, James Tynion IV, Cliff Richards, Jeff Lemire, Jim Fern, Jeremy Haun, Aaron Kuder, Andrea Sorrentino, Daniel Sampere, Aaron Lopresti, Trevor McCarthy

3.0

Response to this collection is likely dependent on one's expectations and preconceived notions about the volume. For me, it's difficult to rate this book, because I knew little about it before reading it, and it's a collection of New 52 issues from several series. There are both gains and losses to compiling the stories in this format. On one hand, I enjoyed having the New 52 origin stories of many of DC's best known heroes all in one place, as well as a volume that establishes the way in which the characters relate to each other in the rebooted universe. On the other hand, while I enjoy variety as well as (or more, generally) than the next person, this "tasting menu"of DC heroes left me wanting more of certain stories, and slogging through others just to finish. Due to the fact that this is a collection of issues by many creative teams, the quality of storytelling and art were uneven, with some issues shining, while others' drabness was accentuated by proximity to much stronger issues. Although the stories are connected narratively and thematically (chaos and darkness bring out both the best and the worst of humanity, symbolism of Gotham City for the individual as well as government, greater society, etc) via the Gotham power outage and impending storm, the connection sometimes feels tenuous or contrived. It also frequently left me wanting a longer study arc rather than merely vignettes. This goes back to expectations and purpose for reading a collection like this one.

P.S. This definitely drummed up my interest in some New 52 characters that I hadn't been following.