Thursday, April 16, 2020

DC Rebirth Holiday Special #1 (2016) Review



Harley Got Shafted This Holiday


Written By: Paul Dini, Tim Seeley, Eric Esquivel, Heath Corson, Gustavo Duarte, Mariko Tamaki, James Tynion IV, Gene Luen Yang, K. Perkins, James Asmus, Bill Freiberger, Steve Orlando, Vita Ayala
Art By: Elsa Charretier, Hi-Fi, Josh Reed, Ian Churchill, Alex Solazzo, Carlos M. Mangual, Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund, Gustavo Duarte, Marcelo Maiolo, Matias Bergara, J. Nanjan, Robbie Rodriguez, Alejandro Sanchez, Andrea Mutti, Ben Hunzeker, Paolo Pantalena, Arif Prianto, Reilly Brown, Scott Hanna, Tony Avina, Thomas Pitilli, V. Ken Marion, Mick Gray
Cover Price: $9.99
Release Date: December 14, 2016

Where over the past year or two we've seen Harley Quinn representing Holiday Specials left and right, I'm thinking that DC wants to hang back with her this holiday season so that they can push the Rebirth brand a little more and even though it's weird not seeing the name Harley on something holiday related, I think this was a smart move because anybody who's anybody wants to get their meat hooks on anything Rebirth these days.  So yeah, that's about it.  It's the holiday season and DC wants your money.......... if there's anything left after shopping for friends and relatives, but who doesn't keep a little left over so that they can get themselves something?  Bunch of selfish oafs!  Nah, I do the same thing so let's jump into this review and find out if this over-sized DC Rebirth Holiday Special should be in your stocking.  Let's check it out.



If you read the Batman Annual from a couple of weeks ago, then you'll pretty much know what to expect going into this book because besides for Harley Quinn being the sort of host of this celebration, that goes from all the heroes and villains of DC Comics getting together to share in the spirit to what seems like some sort of variety show type interludes, we get a bunch of short stories featuring some of the best titles to come from Rebirth.


Yeah, like any anthology type special that you'll get, there are some great installments and some duds, but overall, if you're looking for a little extra reading material over this holiday season and want to drop an extra ten dollars at the shop to help you get into the season, then by all means pick this book up because we get some excellent stories and art featuring the Superman Family and Batman Family, Titans, Flash, Batgirl and even a story featuring Detective Chimp of all characters and while none of these stories really matter to what's going on........... Hell, even though everything seems to be in our current continuity, I doubt that we'll get any callbacks from this special, but even with these stories not mattering overall, there were a bunch that were fun and actually got me a bit excited for Christmas........... and I hate Christmas.


Overall, it's a hefty price tag for this type of comic, but with the amount of talent that DC pulled out for this thing, they had to mark this bitch up to make some sort of profit I guess.  I'd like to say that the Superman/Batman, Superboy/Robin story and the Flash story are enough reason for getting this book, but ten dollars is pretty damn steep so hopefully you'll also get some enjoyment out of the Green Lanterns, Constantine/Wonder Woman and New Super-Man stories as well because while it seems that there's something for everyone in this special with some great art making up the majority of this book, I don't know if I can recommend it since we've already got a ton of books coming out this week with stories that we're already invested in.  It's not a bad special though, it's just not necessary.


Bits and Pieces:

While there are some really great holiday stories featuring our heroes in this special, I don't know if the great art that accompanies them can really justify spending ten extra dollars on a week where a bunch of big books are already coming out.  If you want some holiday cheer with your favorite heroes, don't mind anthologies and have a little extra money this week then by all means go for it, but overall this special just feels unnecessary, but there's still a lot to enjoy about it.

7/10

1 comment:

  1. I think if this was a couple of dollars less expensive, I'd be very enthusiastic about it. As it is, I'm still moderately positive about it because of the Flash story, the GLs story, the Titans tale and the excellent Batman/Damien/Superman/Jon story. I've got to be honest, I quite liked the Wonder Woman/Constantine story - I think a special like this is precisely the place for odd pairings like that and this one worked pretty well. All told, a pretty good issue - it's just a shame about that price...

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