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

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.