This is the perfect DC book for the holidays. It’s sure to have at least one story for everyone, and, for me, it featured more than enough fun tales to get me to recommend this to any comic book fan. Read Full Review

And that's a wrap, with all but one story being excellent. That makes this an unqualified win and one of the best recent anthologies DC has put out. Read Full Review

New Year's Evil #1 is about casting off our doubts and redefining our perspectives. To free ourselves from judgment and allow ourselves to see the good hidden in the bad. Who knows, maybe if we, as readers, can suspend our disbelief and preconceived notions when it comes to comic books, it will have a trickle-down effect in our real lives as well. Read Full Review

So, at the end of the day, there are some decent stories in this book. You do have to wade through some of the weaker stories to get to them. But there have been better specials in the past. Still, the good stories are really good and make it worthwhile. Read Full Review

When all is said and done New Year's Evil #1is a fun compilation of stories. It presents different looks at the holiday season instead of just rehashing the same old tropes most holiday books trot out. Read Full Review

A small act of holiday kindness from Detective Montoya will send Harley Quinn on a mission to return the favor by bringing the detective some Christmas cheer. A fun story with some sweet sentiment, but not much else. Read Full Review

As far as holiday specials go, this is probably one of the best ones I've read from DC in a while. There's a range of tones and themes here " some heartfelt and others heartbreaking " that aren't necessarily what you would expect from a bunch of villains. There are multiple stories that are worth your time, and if you skipped this book on Wednesday " or just haven't given it a chance yet, I strongly encourage that you pick it up and give it a read. Read Full Review

This is a hard book to rate given the number of creators working on it but it's a decent book. The art is of good quality in each short and the writing does the job, even if some of the stories are cliched. It's worth reading. Read Full Review

Although a majority of the holiday stories were kind of boring. There were a few really good ones. My favorite being the Black Adam one. I would recommend this book for that story alone. It was great.

There were some good stories. The opening Joker story was phenomenal as was the closing Harley story, but everything in between was meh. Busiek’s Prankster story was a let down and I don’t like Jim Kreig’s Poison Ivy story. The Calendar Man story was solid but I think this comic would have been better if it was about Christmas, or even at least closer to New Year’s itself.

This wasn't the worst of these anthologies I've read. I'm not going to go through each and every story, but there was no story that I thought was outright bad. Instead, I'll just make a humorous observation - Eric Esquivel is listed as a writer in the online credits for this comic. I was surprised since, if you didn't know, he's been accused of being a sexual harasser. It got his Vertigo comic, Border Town, cancelled immediately (To everyone's benefit). But it turns out he doesn't have a story in this anthology. While relieved, because he's a bad writer, I wondered why. DC clearly doesn't care that much, they keep Scott Lobdell around, after all. But I think Christos Gage's story has the answer. In it, Calendar Man describes an ancient Aztec ritual that paints their culture in a negative light. That must have been it. In Border Town, Esquivel tried to the spin the line of bullshit that the Aztecs were almost Utopian. Gage made him quit, and we should all be thankful for that. more

Some of these stories are good others feel rather pointless. I liked the one with Ares& his former lover the most. Also the story with Chronos was interesting. Joker’s& Harleys stories were kinda boring. Ivy trying to help some D villains also felt out of place, but at least she was portrayed more like a villain again.

I like holiday specials - there's something... well, special, about them. Something that wants you to sit down with a cup of hot chocolate, wrapped in warm blankets, and just enjoy the read. And then, when you open the comic up, you realize it pretty much sucks, and you'd be better off reading something else. That basically summarizes my experiences reading DC's specials each year.

A portion of this book is genuinely good and heartwarming. I very much enjoyed Black Adam and Harley's stories. Yeah, you've heard me saying it, I enjoyed a story with Harley Quinn not written by Paul Dini or Sean Murphy. A bloody christmas miracle, ladies and gents! But seriously, her short is funny, sweet, and actually uses the main character's psychiatrist skills, which I haven't seen since... since... I have absolutely no clue, that' how long ago.
Sinestro's tale was also pretty decent, diving a bit into cult mentality and how religions form. And what' even more important, it shows that Sinestro, as awful as he may be, does care about his sector, although is a twisted, villanous way.

And then there's the rest... which I can't say I enjoyed. Ares' story is not bad, albeit dialogues could have been better, but its message makes you really depressed, which would be more than fine in a regular comic, but hey, it's holidays, and you know why ancient people came up with several celebrations during that time of the year? To have something positive, when everything outside is cold and dead. Today most of the populus don't know about christmas' pagan roots, but that's precisely its original purpose - to make you happier for a moment, unite with people close to you and enjoy your time.
Ivy's short felt very preachy and smug, looking down on people who have problems they can't solve on their own, as trivial as they could be to others. I hate this kind of moralizing crap.

Then again, everything's subjective, and special holiday issues feature different works from different writers, appealing to different audiences. My opinion doesn't have to match yours, which kinda is the point here. There's something for everyone. more