Last September, DC Comics relaunched their entire line of comics. Calling it the New 52, the DC universe has undergone a soft reboot that keeps certain events from their storied past while altering and updating many of their familiar characters and concepts for modern audiences and new readers alike.

Well, it has been six months so we now have a good read on what titles are the best, worst and perhaps most criminally overlooked of each of the fifty two new titles. We here at Level Up Entertainment have sat down, discussed, argued and ended friendships putting these lists together. May they entertain you and potentially serve as a guide for the new DC Comics. Remember, the trade paperback collections will be right around the corner in case you missed out on all the fun this last year. Here are our top ten overlooked New 52 comics!

DC took a bold move making this one of the new 52. Anthology books are always a hard sell, even under the best of circumstances.

But this is a great place to showcase some of their less well known characters and some aspects of the new continuity that there just isn't time for in the other ongoings.

With a rotating cast of characters and creative teams it can be a gamble on whether or not you'll always like what's currently going on within it's pages, but the chance that the next great story is always on the horizon is extremely appealing.

If you haven't checked this out yet, You're never too far away from a ood jumping on point either.

OMAC is a corny superhero book and it revels in it.

OMAC feels like a comic straight out of the seventies, with corny dialog and concepts. But it knows what it is and keep it's tongue firmly planted in cheek, giving it a very light-hearted tone.

Unfortunately, the book is getting canned after issue eight. The character however will live on in Justice League International.

This concept has been around for a long time. A group of death row inmates are forced to do something suicidal, be it a mission for the government or some gladiator style death match/race, and they will either come together as a group or rip each other apart. In fact this is at fourth volume of The Suicide Squad Dc has published.

The spin here however is that you make the team composed of various D-list super villains from around the DC universe. The current members here are Harley Quinn, Deadshot, King Shark, El Diablo, Voltaic and Black Spider.

This book will be enjoyed by those who like their action with a tinge of insanity, similar to Tank Girl or Dead Leaves. It's fast, violent and unapologetic.



This book could have very easily gone horribly wrong. It stars a beautiful stripper who is actually a shape changing alien, possibly leading the way for a massive invasion.

It handles the mature subject manner in an adult way (unlike many others in the relaunch) while weaving an interesting sci-fi mystery plot. It also has ties to several other new 52 titles like Green Lantern, Superman and Stormwatch.

It takes it's time to develop characters and relationships without ever feeling slow paced. This may change however since there is a new creative team coming on, but the first few issues are worth checking out.



Batwing? Who the hell is Batwing?

Well Batwing is a part of the Batman Inc. initiative Batman has launched last year. It's goal is to put a Batman in every country and a criminal in every cell. Batwing is an African Batman who is working to keep the peace in war torn Congo.

The book does a great job of elevating what is essentially the RC Cola of Batman to a strong pretty interesting character. We get to see how a vigilante like Batman would have to be in an extremely chaotic and dangerous environment. It's also nice to see a minority lead title that doesn't have to rely on stereotypes and broad generalizations.

DC seems to have noticed this and are bringing Batwing more to the main stream by having him join Justice League International and giving him a part in the upcoming Court of Owls event.



In many ways this is the DC answer to Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. If you Monsters engaging in paranormal activity than this is the place to look.

We have the monster of few words, Frankenstein, leading a new group of creature commandos in order to protect humanity from the tings that go bump in the night. Their first mission: Stop a planet full of monsters from taking over the Earth while they also have to save the Ex-Wife of Frankenstein.

This is high concept fun, with super science, magic and psychics bandying about. We see Frankenstein is a bad ass without us being forcibly told it. There are also a lot of great ties to the greater DC universe has a whole. The Vampire of the group's powers were synthesized from Man-Bat's formula, there has been a crossover with OMAC and mentioned in Stormwatch. Even Ray Palmer, the Atom, is a support character which is great because they focus on him providing scientific aid rather than super heroic aid.

If you Like stories like the ones you'd find in Hellboy and the Perhapanauts you'd like this.



Due to the inexplicable proliferation of the Twilight series, vampires have saturated every form of media. Why should you pay any attention to yet more of them?

Because, despite what it may seem like a first glance, I, Vampire brings the suckers back to their horrifying and monstrous roots.

The story follows a vampire named Andrew Bennett as he and a group of vampire hunters try to stop his former lover, Mary, from unleashing an ancient vampiric evil and destroying the world.

This is the title most firmly in the horror genre of the new 52. While Swamp Thing, Animal Man and Justice League Dark have roots in the horror genre none are quite as gruesome as I, Vampire.



All Star Western is another anthology book, but unlike DC Presents it focuses on Jonah Hex. Each issue is split into two parts, an ongoing Hex story with back ups featureing some of the various other players in the wild west.

Set in the 1880's, Jonah Hex arrives in early Gotham City following up on a bounty. He gets wrapped up however with various nefarious plots like tracking down a serial killer and a ring of child slavers. Along the way he begrudgingly gets a sidekick in the form of Dr. Amadeus Arkham, the psychologist who wants to one day open a mental asylum.

Being in Gotham there are many references to things that will one day plague the batman. We see the origin of the Cult of Crime, there are references to the Court of Owls, we get to see Bruce Wayne's ancestors and the mayor is a Cobblepot.

This book is fast paced. Each story lasts no longer than three issues each and uses it's shorter length to great effect. There is no filler, every scene is necessary and you never feel like your time is wasted. The action is intense and brutal while any comedy found is amusing.

If you like westerns, especially those lead by Clint Eastwood, you finally have a comic that you must read.



It's amazing that a character as prolific as Wonder Woman has to be on an underrated list of comics.

Wonder Woman's world has really been shaken up. She has been discovering terrible things about her mother's past and her amazonian sisters.

While on a quest to protect the unborn child of the recently deceased Zeus, we get introduced to the Greek pantheon in the new 52. Acting more in line with their mythological counterparts, powerful and petty, they wage in never ending sniping and undermining of one anther. They also now are look luck like animals or at least have animalistic attributes. For example Hermes has avian features such as birdlike eyes and talons instead of feet while Posieden is a huge whale like creature. It's honestly a very cool look and it's refreshing to see a different take on these gods.

This book has a much more dark fantasy feel to it than superhero than one would expect. In fact it would wrong to classify it as a super hero book. If you want to see Diana in a new light definitely pick this up.



Speaking of fantasy books, Demon Knights!

If you have ever played a role playing game like Dungeons and Dragons the set up will be very similar. Many different characters wind up in a tavern in a little town and destiny forces them to fight against a common foe.

The characters in question may seem odd choices at first but they make perfect sense together. First you Jason Blood who Merlin bound the titular demon Etrigan to, and his girlfriend Madame Xanadu (Who also leads the Justice League Dark in the present day). They are joined by the immortal villain Vandal Savage, the chromosomally confused warrior on a quest Shining Knight, the exiled amazon Exoristos, the Arabic inventor Al Jabr and the paraplegic Horsewoman.

Circumstance forces them to combat the Questing Queen and her monstrous horde, which consists of barbaric warriors, dinosaurs and robot-like dragons just to name a few.

Many of the characters date back to Arthurian legend, Merlin trained Xanadu and bound Etrigan to Jason Blood, Shining Knight is on a quest to find the Holy Grail and one of the Questing Queen's generals is Mordru who tormented Arthur on more than one occasion.

Like all good fantasy books there is plenty of foreshadowing and prophecy that leads us to think there are even bigger things ahead for this title. It's even shown that Stormwatch is aware of their activities and may even have been started by them.

This book so far has been a supremely satisfying read and gets our highest recommendation if you're looking for a bloody, good time.