By Abby Chandler | Follow on Twitter

With the advent of mega event Flash Point DC Comic’s pulled a move that is not uncommon in comics, certainly not uncommon for DC and financially as viable as a bet on Wesley Snipes taking out terrorists on a Boeing 747. Starting September 2011 DC relaunched their entire continuity from #1, leaving various big pieces intact, amalgamating partner company Wildstorm and rebooting all of their big name characters and titles into sometimes different, more modern versions of themselves.

Initial sales indicated that this was a seriously smart move from DC with Justice League #1 the top selling book of 2011 and a general domination of Diamond Comics Distributors sales charts through the first few months of publication. Diamonds figures may not have been water tight (returns etc. we’re excluded) but it would be April with Avengers Vs X-Men before Marvel clawed back a lead, and the critical reception of the New 52 relaunch has on the whole been reasonably positive, if not without it’s controversies.

It’s now been a year since DC’s New 52 first launched, rebooting many characters, keeping some basically the same and dropping other characters altogether. It’s been a mixed bag, and generated more online chatter than any comic book news of recent years (well, except Before Watchmen…)

In Part #1 of the Abby Chandler/BAD MAN collaboration we take a positive look at the New 52, and see which comics, characters and creators came out on top:

WINNERS:

AQUAMAN

He was in the top 10 comic sales and briefly outsold all of Marvel’s output. I repeat, Aquaman outsold Marvel. Geoff Johns and Ivan Reiss may have done the impossible and made the butt of countless superhero jokes a bit of a bad ass.

ACTION COMICS

Grant Morrison has brought us arguably some of the best Superman tales ever told in recent years (All Star Superman, JLA) and his unique style applied to a fresh origin for the Man Of Steel is exactly the sort of shake up the 70 year old character needed. Action Comic’s has come out with renewed relevance in the New 52 and reintroduced Supes as a less encumbered, more dangerous hero for the People in the socialist mold of Siegel and Shuster’s 1938 prototype. And we love it!