Review of Absolute Dark Victory

**merrick97** · 05-29-2012, 04:26 PM

Absolute Victory can be summed up in the shortest way possible:

Underwhelming.

Why?

There are very few extras. The paper doesn't do the artwork justice. Seriously, the printing quality is not great. Many colors are washed out, the blacks are too light. Poor production quality all the way around. $100 price tag is way overpriced.

I have always felt that Dark Victory was slightly underrated as a story in that I felt that it was a worthy follow up to Long Halloween, but DC really screwed the fans over who were waiting for this in Absolute Form.

Don't waste your money. This MIGHT have been worth it with a $75 cover price and getting it on sale at $45 or less, but with its being what it cost, not worth it.

**merrick97** · 05-29-2012, 04:28 PM

**ER Prest** · 05-29-2012, 04:56 PM

you should head over to the dc absolute/omnibus thread http://bit.ly/KUvNae

And do you mind pictures of the actual binding? Also, you say no extras like it's a bad thing...haven't you said before you didn't care for extras?

**merrick97** · 05-29-2012, 05:17 PM

Originally Posted by GarbageMan

you should head over to the dc absolute/omnibus thread http://bit.ly/KUvNae

And do you mind pictures of the actual binding? Also, you say no extras like it's a bad thing...haven't you said before you didn't care for extras?

I don't view an Absolute the same way I view an omnibus. An omnibus is about giving you a lot of comic book material and a lot of stories. In that regard I don't care too much about extras.

An Absolute is about taking a few issues and giving it the absolute (no pun intended) best possible presentation and having all sorts of behind the scenes info.

Absolute Dark Knight and Absolute Sandman are the perfect ways to do an Absolute with high quality paper, binding, presentation and nice extras. Absolute Dark Victory has little of that.

Plus, I was commenting more on the extras because such a thing WILL matter to other people if not so much for me.

**ER Prest** · 05-29-2012, 05:35 PM

Originally Posted by merrick97

I don't view an Absolute the same way I view an omnibus. An omnibus is about giving you a lot of comic book material and a lot of stories. In that regard I don't care too much about extras.

An Absolute is about taking a few issues and giving it the absolute (no pun intended) best possible presentation and having all sorts of behind the scenes info.

Absolute Dark Knight and Absolute Sandman are the perfect ways to do an Absolute with high quality paper, binding, presentation and nice extras. Absolute Dark Victory has none of that.
I dare say that Absolute Dark Victory has tarnished the Absolute name.

Plus, I was commenting more on the extras because such a thing WILL matter to other people if not so much for me.

Gotcha. You gotta remember though, DC's stiffed us absolutes before with extras, or lack thereof and whatnot. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen The Black Dossier was the tpb, but bigger. That's like 200 pages, if that, for 100 bucks.

I'm just really interested in the glued binding you speak of, I think it would be the first absolute with glued binding, which would be really weird

**MartinNL** · 05-29-2012, 10:38 PM

Could you show a pic of the actual binding merrick. Glued binding on an absolute would be a first... The paper looks like matte paper, similar to TLH, which is perfect imo for Sale's art. Definitely hope you're wrong about the binding.

**merrick97** · 05-30-2012, 02:04 AM

Originally Posted by GarbageMan

Gotcha. You gotta remember though, DC's stiffed us absolutes before with extras, or lack thereof and whatnot. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen The Black Dossier was the tpb, but bigger. That's like 200 pages, if that, for 100 bucks.

I'm just really interested in the glued binding you speak of, I think it would be the first absolute with glued binding, which would be really weird

Originally Posted by MartinNL

Could you show a pic of the actual binding merrick. Glued binding on an absolute would be a first... The paper looks like matte paper, similar to TLH, which is perfect imo for Sale's art. Definitely hope you're wrong about the binding.

I looked more closely at the binding and it is indeed sewn binding. There was glue there to provide additional support.

I disagree strongly with the paper they use because I feel that it doesn't work for Sale's art. The Dark Victory TPB and current Long Halloween TPB capture his art in far greater depth than the paper of Dark Victory Absolute can. The Long Halloween Absolute artwork on the matte came out just fine, but in Dark Victory it just seems cheap. I dunno/.

**merrick97** · 05-30-2012, 02:08 AM

I have rewritten my "review" of Dark Victory Absolute.

Its not as bad as I originally thought.

Nevertheless, the pics should be adequate to determine if it is something you want.

**wyokid** · 05-30-2012, 02:16 AM

I got mine for $75 at my LCBS. I have no complaints.

**IntellectualAl** · 05-30-2012, 02:19 AM

I already have the trade. Are the extras worth $75?

**merrick97** · 05-30-2012, 06:13 AM

Originally Posted by IntelectualAl

I already have the trade. Are the extras worth $75?

Did you not read my first post?

I answer this question explicitly.

That is why this thread exists.

**Bruce_M** · 05-30-2012, 06:33 AM

Originally Posted by merrick97

I looked more closely at the binding and it is indeed sewn binding. There was glue there to provide additional support.

I have the Absolute V For Vendetta and it's exactly that way: it's a sewn binding indeed, but it's glued to the spine of the book to give it more support, and therefore the book doesn't open wide enough as a regular sewn binding one would.