The Fortress of Soliloquy

Before Watchmen

2012-02-01T21:48:00.001-06:00

I doubt that I even need to link to the news that DC is officially doing prequels to "Watchmen," with a list of some of the hottest stars in comics talent, and also J. Michael Straczynski. A few years ago, I might have been incensed. I had choice words a few times over the "Watchmen" film when it came out, but my opinion on the book--and on Alan Moore--has somewhat mellowed in the intervening time. It's a great comic, to be sure, but literature didn't stop producing masterpieces after Moby Dick, to borrow Mr. Moore's example, and I kind of wish we could get past "Watchmen" as the be-all, end-all of comics storytelling.

In terms of the project, they've certainly done their best to pack it full of great creators, but I can't even feign interest in it. It's a huge amount of single issues for a story that, as far as I can tell, has already been completely told. I'm glad it's not a sequel--that would have been even more pointless--but I have absolutely no desire to read any more about these characters. I can't say that about other great comics, either; I'd read more "Sandman" in a heartbeat. But "Watchmen" has a sense of completeness about it, and I just can't really see the room for any other interesting stories in there. I suppose I could easily be wrong, and I'm sure there's a market for it--I spent much of my childhood reading the bizarre minutiae of why every weird alien was in Mos Eisley Cantina or Jabba's Palace--but that market no longer includes me.

What I'd really like to see is for the comics industry to get to a place where it's possible to take a gamble on a satirical pastiche of politics and society and comics again, rather than continuing to re-hash ones that still involve Ronald Reagan. I wanted to criticize this project for its irrelevance, but as Chris Sims aptly noted, there are parts of "Watchmen" that are even more relevant to comics now than they were in 1986. I don't know how or if comics will ever get back to that point--at least, conventional comics--and I don't see "Watchmen"-level satire happening over at The Gutters.

I can't fault DC for doing this project (though I can wonder why they'd do it now and not three years ago as a movie tie-in). It's going to make money, and that's what business is about--especially in a shrinking market that does not reward experimentation, innovation, or anything better than rote recitation of the old and familiar. I just hope the project is successful enough to allow DC to take some chances in other places. It would be a stroke of brilliance--and a boon to the entire industry, if "Before Watchmen" bankrolled the comic that takes the place of "Watchmen" in the comics discussion lexicon.

Newslets

2012-01-15T22:02:00.001-06:00

Some other bits of big DC news recently:

]"Justice League" is getting the widely-anticipated delay suggested ever since Jim Lee was announced as the penciller. Hopefully the book can quickly get back on track, even if it means bringing some fill-in artists in, but it doesn't bode well for the flagship title to slip a week.
Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy is getting a graphic novel adaptation at Vertigo. I had no interest in the series, but I watched the American version of the film, and it was entertaining enough (except, unsurprisingly, the extended and graphic rape scene). I'd actually be much more inclined to read the graphic version, though I doubt that I'd want to pay for the full price of two graphic novels to get one story that I'm kind of lukewarm on. Maybe I'll look into the digital pricing when it comes around.
Rumor has it that CW is developing a Green Arrow series as a follow-up to "Smallville" it's definitely an odd choice (though not too odd, given that GA was basically "Smallville"'s Batman), but maybe it'll lead to the wheels turning on that old "Supermax" movie project. The idea of Green Arrow (or almost any other superhero, really) going undercover in a supervillain prison would make a great, original superhero movie. Or a terrible one, but hopefully the former.
Rob Liefeld is joining the creative teams for three more titles, what with the cancellation of "Hawk & Dove." I...I don't understand this at all. Okay, sure, keep the guy working, his name is still a draw for some folks. But his name is also synonymous with lateness, and he wasn't enough of a draw to keep his last book afloat sales-wise. It might actually be interesting to see a title that he's writing but not drawing, because the interview makes him sound like an excitable child talking about the storylines he's concocted with his action figures. And that's...kind of awesome, that after all the hate and jokes, this is a guy who still loves the hell out of comics and gets super-excited about the things he's working on. I wonder what a book written by Rob Liefeld and drawn by Ethan Nicolle would be like.
With the revelation that "Huntress" is following Earth-2's character, I'm wondering what other glimpses of Earth-2 we've gotten already. "The Shade" almost has to be an Earth-2 title, because it's the only way that the long Starman history makes sense. I'm willing to bet, though, that "The Ray" is on Earth-2 as well, if not a modern Earth-X. There's the casual and oblique references to an earlier hero using "The Ray" as an alias before, but also the specific reference to Happy Terrill's ballooning origin story. Plus, this world is apparently quite used to superheroes zipping about in the sky, something that really can't be said for the "heroes showed up five years ago" fear and distrust in the New 52 Earth.
Which brings up a point that I talked about with my retailer: the Earth-2 Earth is probably going to look a lot more like the pre-Flashpoint DCU we're used to. That could mean good things for people who miss the fun/whimsy of a world saturated with superheroics, and the legacies that are missing from the New-52 Earth, and could provide a story outlet for folks who want that material. It, of course, means making the universe potentially so confusing that it needs a major reboot in 20 years, but that's the way these things go anyway.

The New New 52

2012-01-14T18:00:00.000-06:00

By now you've all heard that six DC titles are getting cancelled, and six new ones are starting. I'd like to say that this will result in me buying fewer titles, but it really doesn't look like that's the case. Some thoughts, first on the outgoing books:

O.M.A.C.: The only book on the list that I'm actually sorry to see go. I kind of wonder how this title would have done if Dan Didio's name weren't attached. It's a shame, but I think the low expectations that set at the start helped keep the book from ever finding a footing, despite widespread acclaim from the Kirbyphiles of the Internets. It was crazy fun, and I'm sad to see it go. Hopefully, though, we'll see Cadmus and Co. popping up in Giffen's run on Superman--because honestly, Cadmus ought to be closer to Jimmy Olsen anyway.
Men of War: I thought this might not have been long for this world when they didn't announce a creative team beyond issue #6. This title ended up being kind of a mess, without a consistent tone or concept; it might have done better if that early backup hadn't been so...bad. The later ones--with mech-battlesuits and something like the Sea Devils--were a step up, but the main story was kind of incomprehensible.
Mister Terrific and Static Shock: Both books I wanted to like, both books that just didn't do it for me. It makes me fairly uneasy that DC's cancelling two titles featuring minority characters, especially when none of the new books (apparently, so far) have minority leads. I wouldn't be surprised to see Static popping up soon, but I'd like to see DC do a real push with some of the other Milestone properties. Innaworld where superheroes are mistrusted and feared, a book about superhuman gangs like "Blood Syndicate" seems like it'd be a really good fit. In fact, I'd love to see a "Steel" book where he became the primary superhero in a city where ostracized metahuman teens found acceptance (and too often, violence) in meta-gangs. Wrap Intergang around it as the reason for the explosion in meta-gene activations and a recruitment agency/old-mob rival to the rising Blood Syndicate of meta-gangs, and you've got the recipe for a pretty good superhero crime comic.
Hawk and Dove and Blackhawks never made my pull list, so I can't say I'm sad to see them go. It's probably for the best for "Hawk and Dove," because past history suggests that "Rob Liefeld scripting and drawing a monthly comic" is not a sustainable situation.

And for the newcomers:

Batman, Incorporated is no surprise, although I didn't expect to be getting it quite so soon. I should probably finally read the "Leviathan Strikes" book.
Earth 2 is the other previously-announced title, James Robinson and Nicola Scott's Justice Society book. I'll be interested in seeing how this title works out; I've been pretty cold on Robinson in recent years, but I'm enjoying "The Shade" well enough, and he helped put the Justice Society back on the map in their last big relaunch, so maybe the return to more familiar environs than the Justice League will result in a marked improvement. I'll at least be checking this one out, and I'm cautiously optimistic. At the very least, though, it'll be pretty.
Worlds' Finest seems like a pleasant surprise. Based on various interviews and some dot-connecting, it looks like Huntress, Power Girl, and possibly Black Canary are stranded on Earth-New-52, which makes BC's whole relationship with Starling and Barbara interestingly wrinkled. It also makes me wonder just what Helena's connection is to Italy, without the mob background, but it's not as if there's no reason for a Wayne-kid Bat-family member to go globetrotting.
G.I. Combat sounds like it's poised to succeed where "Men of War" failed, with a little more well-defined focus and a better distribution of interest between the main and backup stories. I kind of wish it were called "Weird War Tales," given its stated focus of Haunted Tank and War that Time Forgot stories, but I suppose that leaves it open to more Sgt. Rock or other stories--and there's not necessarily a "Weird" element to the Unknown Soldier. I'll definitely give this one a shot.
Dial H: As a big "Dial H for Hero" fan, I'm excited to see the concept making a comeback, and with a nice Brian Bolland cover to boot. This is probably the book that most excites me from this announcement.
The Ravagers: And this is the one that least interests me. I'll re-evaluate once we see who the characters are (no doubt Rose Wilson, spinning out of "Superboy"), but I have no desire to read "Teen Titans," Howard Mackie and Ian Churchill aren't exactly a draw, and I'm barely even interested in the "Superboy" title, despite being more inclined toward reading it. The "Young Justice" line of the New 52 is the one that least holds my interest at this point, which is a shame, because you'd think it would be a focal point to draw in new readers. Then again, I'm not exactly a new reader.

A resolution

2012-01-01T00:01:00.000-06:00

I've decided to resolve to be a bit more positive and less reactionary in 2012. I started this blog, after all, way back when I was a young'un of 21, and any time I look back to some of those old posts, I feel pretty embarrassed. So I'm going to do something I never thought I would: I'm going to prune away some of those negative nelly posts that I wrote in the rage of an angry, nerd-entitled youth. If you've got favorites in the archives where I've done a bit of petty namecalling, I recommend looking at them soon, because they're not long for this world.

2012 is the year that I write a little more professionally...if nor more regularly.

New 52 Year-End Review

2011-12-31T18:16:00.000-06:00

As we enter month five of DC's New 52 initiative, I figured I'd take a look at my own stack of DC comics, and explore the state of things in the Internet's favorite format, the bulleted list.

Action Comics: I love it. In fact, the only things I don't love about it are the rushed-looking fill-in art, and the two-issue break from the main story. Hopefully the latter helps Rags Morales catch up on the former. I'm also not thrilled with the jump ahead to the present, and I hope this isn't the last we're seeing of young firebrand Superman.
All-Star Western: One of the best titles of the New 52. There's very little to not like about Jonah Hex fighting the Crime Religion in Gotham City.
Animal Man: Possibly the best book of the line. Lemire is knocking it out of the park with this mix of pitch-perfect family characterization and creepy superhuman horror, and Travel Foreman's art handles both with aplomb. I'm looking forward to the inevitable collision between this book and Swamp Thing.
Aquaman: Probably the most surprisingly enjoyable book of the New 52. I've hypothesized before that Geoff Johns does best when he's writing fewer books, and it became clear toward the end of the old DCU that he was spread too thin and treading water on various characters. Aquaman marks a nice change of scenery for him, and I think that's part of why this book is so much fun. It also seems like Johns is taking a more intentionally upbeat approach to this comic, and so there's a lot less death and gore and limb-removal than you might expect from a Johns book of late. I'll stick with this one, at least for the time being.
Batgirl: I've liked this first arc well enough, but I'm pretty lukewarm on the title as a whole. I like Barbara Gordon, but so far there's not a lot to her character. Simone's doing a slow burn, setting up Barbara's recovery as a mystery and building a small supporting cast, but there just isn't a lot of momentum here. It doesn't help that Barbara's defining characteristic right now appears to be "damaged and out of practice." I'd like to see a character that integrates who she was as Batgirl and as Oracle, but that's not the case yet.
Batman: Oh man, Batman is probably the best straight-superhero book DC is publishing right now. Intrigue, action, secret societies and Batman out of his element? It's fantastic. It's not surprising, given how good Snyder's "The Black Mirror" arc was. Capullo's art is something of a surprise; I didn't know a lot about him going in, but his fluid, somewhat animated style is generally great. There are some talking head scenes that look a little funny, but I think that's just a matter of not being used to his particular style quirks. There are few comics I look forward to each month as much as this one.
Batman & Robin: A theme that seems to be running through the Batman titles I'm reading is that Bruce is doing some much-needed growing up. In Batman, he's learning that he's not indestructible and moving beyond his parents' death. Some of that is explicitly happening here, too, as he also tries to become a father to the son he never knew. I'm not entirely thrilled with yet another new villain from Bruce's past who knows his identity, though so far NoBody is better than Hush by leaps and bounds. I'll stick with this one at least until the NoBody story ends, and we'll see after that.
Batman: The Dark Knight: I wasn't reading this pre-Flashpoint, and I didn't pick it up afterward. So far, I haven't heard anything to make me change my mind.
Batwing: Another surprisingly good comic, if only because it skirts, so far, Winick's various plot quirks. I like how David is clearly distinguishable from Batman, and I like that Winick is building a global superhero community, fleshing out the younger New 52 world quite a bit. The only thing that I dislike is that there's yet another black superhero with electrical powers. I don't quite get why that trope is so common.
Batwoman: I've finally been catching up on Rucka's Detective Comics run, so hopefully I'll have an opinion on this book soon. But I don't expect to have any actual problems with it.
Birds of Prey: Another surprising hit book. Birds of Prey is fresh and fun and action-packed, and it's a shame that so much of the press on female-centered DC books has been spent on Catwoman and Voodoo. Swierczynski and Saiz are turning in an excellent comic full of interesting characters, and consequently Birds of Prey is really better than it's been in awhile.
Blackhawks: Never quite cared enough to pick it up. How is it?
Blue Beetle: I really, really want to like Blue Beetle, and maybe once it's done with this retread of the origin story, I will. Right now, though, Tony Bedard and Ig Guara feel like a pale shade of Keith Giffen, John Rogers, and Cully Hamner, and the book's focus on pain and violence over characterization doesn't help that. I'll give this book a little more time, but I really hope it takes a turn for the better soon.
Captain Atom: Another surprising comic for me; I didn't intend on picking it up at first, but I've quite enjoyed it since. I've especially liked Captain Atom's more godlike presence as a hero, and how he's trying to deal with that. It's a nice mesh of the classic Captain Atom with Dr. Manhattan, in a way that doesn't feel entirely derivative or repetitive.
Catwoman: If I wanted hentai, I'd buy hentai.
DC Universe Presents: This Deadman story probably didn't need as many issues as it's taking up, but it's a fun ride. I'm interested in seeing the Challengers of the Unknown in a couple of months, but I'd really like to see this series become less of a TPB farm and more of an anthology title. Why doesn't this book have a second feature?
Deathstroke: I've heard surprisingly good things about this title, but it just doesn't appeal to me.
Demon Knights: Easily the better of Paul Cornell's two books, and one of the most entertaining titles of the New 52. If it feels like any previous title, it's Secret Six, with a quirky mix of characters and over-the-top threats and settings. I hope it goes forever.
Detective Comics: I know some people who like this, but everything I've heard suggests that I picked the Batman titles that are right for me.
Flash: This book is amazing, and would be even if only because the last Flash title was so underwhelming. Manapul and Buccellato are not just turning in the best Flash book in years, but they're doing it by taking a fresh approach to the character's powers, and playing with the medium in ways that you usually only expect from a J.H. Williams III. It's a beautiful, excellent title, and possibly the biggest turnaround from pre- to post-Flashpoint.
Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E.: There's a nice Morrisonian feel to this book, with crazy concepts stuck on top of crazy concepts, and given only enough explanation to get you through the action. I love the pacing and characters, and I can't wait to see the big O.M.A.C. crossover.
Fury of Firestorm: I'm on the fence about this book, and I suspect that I'll be dropping it when Gail Simone does. I like the characters well enough, even if the tension between Ronnie and Jason is kind of grating by this point, but there's just not enough meat on the bones.
Green Lantern: Who would have thought a buddy-cop book starring Sinestro and Hal Jordan would be so enjoyable? It's not my favorite title, by any stretch, but it's a good-looking and entertaining superhero book, and I think the change of status quo has really refreshed Johns' writing.
Green Lantern Corps: Another one I'm kind of on the fence about; it seems like all the Johnsian dismemberment and over-the-top violence has been shunted to this title. I'll keep reading through the beginning of the next arc, I think, but I'm not sure after that.
Green Lantern: New Guardians: Dropped after the first issue. There just wasn't enough there for me.
Grifter: Dropped after that disappointing and dull first issue.
Hawk & Dove: Yeah, right. No remorse for not picking up this one.
Huntress: This book feels like one that's been sitting in a drawer somewhere, waiting to be published. I like Levitz, I like Huntress, and I like that this story is more globe-trotting action-thriller than superhero book. It's "The Bourne Supremacy" or "Quantum of Solace" with tights and crossbows, and that's just fine with me.
I, Vampire: I wasn't planning on checking this one out, but I liked Fialkov's "Superman/Batman" story, so I gave it a shot. It's the kind of book that I might revisit in trade, but not something I felt like sticking with on a month-to-month basis. The most recent cover, with Constantine as a vampire-hunter, was intriguing enough that I'll almost certainly pick up that first volume.
Justice League: Hoo boy, Justice League. It's easily both Geoff Johns' weakest and most uneven title. I've described it as a big dumb Michael Bay action movie, and that continuously seems to fit, down to the unnecessarily complicated character designs. Seriously, Darkseid could probably have done with an update to the skirt, but that redesign is a lesson in excess. This book is problematic on several levels, and is a pretty good example of why, for instance, the original Justice League of America introduction wasn't an origin story. This would be better as a prequel, and it'd be way better if it didn't feel the need to form the League (and Cyborg) in the middle of the largest possible threat. Where do they go from here? Fighting the Key?

But the biggest problem is consistently the one-note characterization. I understand that ensemble books sometimes need those shortcuts and shorthand methods of developing character, but the problem is that this is the flagship title, literally the book that was meant to introduce us to these characters. So far, the characters with any depth at all, surprise surprise, are the ones whose solo titles Geoff Johns is writing (or has recently written, in the case of Flash). That, plus the book's weird place between eras of the New 52, makes this a frustrating book. Hopefully it might get better? But I kind of doubt it.
Justice League Dark: Didn't pick it up, despite some good press.
Justice League International: Yeah, I'm pretty well done with this book when the first arc is over. It's way, way too uneven in terms of tone, plot, and characterization.
Legion Lost: Dropped after that jam-packed (and not in a good way) first issue.
Legion of Super-Heroes: I'm lukewarm on this title. I guess when it comes to the Legion, I really prefer a teenage version, and I don't feel like I know enough about the Legion Academy kids to really care about them. There's nothing really wrong with this book, though it often feels pretty densely-packed, but there's nothing that really stands out enough for me to want to keep buying it either.
Legion: Secret Origin: I'm not a fan of the behind-the-scenes machinations that are framing this series, but it scratches my teenage Legion itch. The one thing I don't understand is whether or not this is a limited series. The other minis that DC's publishing all have "# of #" on the cover, but Secret Origin doesn't.
Men of War: I still really want to like this comic, but every issue feels like some key pages fell out. The last page of the main story of the first two issues basically negated everything that happened up 'til that point, and issue #3 referenced none of it. I'm all for comics not holding the reader's hand and trusting in their reading comprehension abilities. But there's a difference between that and making no damn sense. I understood "Final Crisis," I didn't understand "Men of War." I dropped it, but there's a chance--based on a stronger #4--that I may pick it up again, especially with the changing creative team.
Mister Terrific: Probably the title that most disappointed me. I really wanted to like the science genius hero title, but the bad science and bad stereotypes were just too much for me to handle.
Nightwing: Not a book that I anticipated buying, but one that I'm pretty happy with. Higgins was largely unknown to me at the beginning of this, and I wasn't a fan of Barrows' art, but I think the only things I've disliked about Nightwing are the red in his costume, the "adopted at 16" origin, and the '90s-style villain Saiko. The actual plot and art? I'm in for a while, at least.
O.M.A.C.: I keep saying this, but this is totally the most surprising book of the New 52. Sure, Keith Giffen is usually good for good comics, but Dan Didio's not known for being a great writer. So surprisingly enough, O.M.A.C. turns out to be among the best titles of the New 52 in terms of all-out crazy fun, and it's the best Kirby-esque comic I've read since Tom Grummett did Kamandi with Superboy. I wouldn't mind this book going weekly.
Penguin: Pain and Prejudice: The Penguin is not my favorite Bat-villain, and I can't say I was super-familiar with this creative team going into the title, but I've been on a big Batman kick, and I thought I'd give it a chance. I haven't had any problems with this book, and I like the idea of the Cobblepots as one of the major cornerstones of Gotham, but it doesn't really stand out either.
The Ray: That first issue had a lot of infodump narration, but it was pretty fun, and it's nice to see a book whose entire core cast is all people of color. It's also nice to see a character whose power set is kind of reminiscent of Superman Blue. I'm interested in seeing where this title's going.
Red Hood & the Outlaws: DC cares so little about this book that they can't even remember the title. Don't see why I should care either. Avoided.
Red Lanterns: Of the rainbow corps introduced over the last few years, I find the Red Lanterns the least interesting. I haven't heard a word about this title since issue #1 came out, and that suggests that it's not really anything to crow about.
Resurrection Man: I feel like this series is moving a little too slowly, but I'm sticking with it. The creative team and premise is too promising not to. And I like the crazy cosmic aspect as well.
Savage Hawkman: How's this one? I never bothered.
The Shade: Cully Hamner is one of the best artists in the field, and this is Robinson returning to characters he wrote quite well. I wish this series made sense in light of the New 52, but that's a small price to pay for great globetrotting adventures with the immortal Shade.
Static Shock: Another book I wanted to like, but despite the Batman Beyond feel and the Milestone connection, it just wasn't doing anything for me. McDaniel's art wasn't helping that, and the fact that Rozum's leaving doesn't fill me with confidence for the future of the title.
Stormwatch: This book has never felt like it found its footing, and while it was filled to brimming with crazy ideas, it was equally filled with characters who spent most of the time explaining who they were and how their powers worked, like a Chris Claremont book. I'm looking forward to the creative team, and I hope Paul Cornell's next project is a little more stable.
Suicide Squad: By all accounts, this book is an exercise in scraping deeper into the barrel with each issue. Could it be a meta-plot to cause readers to commit suicide? Only time will tell.
Superboy: I'm kind of tired of the "I have to learn why I should be a hero" plot, and it sucks that the New 52 has made all the Superman Family characters into fish-out-of-water types. If it's got an S-shield on it, though, chances are I'm buying it, and there's nothing actually wrong with the writing or the gorgeous art here. I just want to see the Superman Family go in some new directions.
Supergirl: I'm enjoying Supergirl a lot more than Superboy, if only because this feels like the introduction the character should have gotten under Loeb and Turner. I guess that's the curse of being such a Super-fan...I can't look at things outside of the context of the last twenty-odd years of Superman family stories. Where Superboy already went through this kind of development and whatnot, Supergirl spent years without a consistent characterization, background, or creative team. This is a much more reasonable take.

One thing I do like is how they're differentiating the powers of the Superman family, which should be good for making them distinct characters in the future.
Superman: I'm sad to see Pérez going, especially since I've generally enjoyed the old-school feel of this book. Giffen and Jurgens will probably keep that sort of thing up, and I hope Giffen's presence means we'll get a little higher quality than Jurgens' usual workmanlike scripting. Jurgens isn't bad by any means, but he's rarely great on his own. Giffen has a midas touch, though, and I'm excited to see that play out.

That being said, I kind of wish we'd get a smart--perhaps even super-smart--Superman. He's not a lout or anything in this book currently, but he's also not the super sci-fi genius I'd kind of like to see after 30 years of a more down-to-Earth version.
Swamp Thing: I've been really enjoying this take on Swamp Thing, and I kind of hope we see the protagonist keeping his Alec Holland form...at least as an option. I don't know, I like that there's this tension and reluctance in him to become the monster again, and I'd like to see it play out like something other than a Ben Grimm story. That said, the overall mythology of the Rot and the Arcanes is fantastic, and makes for some great body horror.
Teen Titans: One Lobdell too many. I just have no interest in this book at all, and even the crossovering with Superboy isn't really making me reconsider.
Voodoo: I think I might just have to start avoiding books where the solicits and descriptions say "sexy" more than any other adjective. If I were buying periodicals based on sexiness, I wouldn't be shopping at a comic store. Dropped.
Wonder Woman: Quite enjoyable, even if I'm not thrilled with the change of Diana's parentage--or the recent "all the Amazons are gone again" cliffhanger. But this is the best take on the Olympian gods since Rucka left, and I'm excited to see where it's all going.

Overall, it's been pretty good. I'm buying more DC titles than I was before, and I'm pretty excited about most of the ones I'm buying. I'm also buying more Marvel books than ever, which generally means I spend way too much money on comics--and that may come to a breaking point in 2012 sometime. I'm neither made of money nor longbox space. But right now it's a pretty cool time to be reading good comics. Some things I'm anticipating for the New 52 in 2012 and beyond:

New old characters: There are a lot of MIA characters in the New 52 DCU, and I suspect that, in addition to the Atom and JSA, 2012 will bring us the Fifth World, maybe a new Doom Patrol, WildC.A.T.s, and of course some variety of others. I'd really like to see a book with Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown, but who knows about that.
Retcons: There are some things that just cannot hold. I suspect that the first non-Palmiotti-and-Gray team to get their hands on The Ray will forget about his constant nudity. The iconic image (and thematic resonance) of a young Robin will eventually win out over the silliness that Bruce adopted Dick as an older teenager. In fact, the whole "five year history" thing will be expanded before you know it--if it hasn't already. We've already seen how well the absolutes and edicts of a line-wide reboot hold, and when it comes to the things that people really recognize and enjoy, the momentum of history will bowl right over arbitrary ultimatums.
Renumbering: I still fully expect to see Detective Comics #900 in early 2013.
Superman Family: The new Baltazar and Franco title focusing on the Superman crew? Count me in. I hope there's a Lois Lane feature!

And that's it for now. See you in 2012!

In other news, water = wet, Pope = Catholic

2011-12-10T22:22:00.001-06:00

I hate linking this, but here you go. Short story: J. Michael Straczynski posted a graph that shows the declining sales of "Amazing Spider-Man," implying that it was due to his departure and (by extension) the current creative team/direction failing to live up to his prodigious skill.

Naturally, the people who actually work on the comics--namely, Steve Wacker--responded in kind. Now, maybe it's just goodwill from "52," or maybe it's that I'm enjoying the current Amazing Spider-Man series a lot more than I enjoyed JMS's after a couple of arcs, but I'm willing to take Wacker at his word that the graph is, at best, misleading. After all, the economy's in a pretty nasty downturn since JMS left the title back in 2007 or so, and I imagine you could find a similar graph for most of the industry.

But I did a little quick Googling, and while it looks like JMS's Amazing sure was a pretty good seller (especially around the end, with the One More Day hype), even a partial picture of the sales show a more complicated picture, with sales of ASM just a year earlier in the 80,000 range--only a fairly small amount higher than where the graph puts Slott's ASM now. Taking into account the economic downturn--and the availability of digital comics (whose sales don't appear to be reflected in the graph), and the switch to a bimonthly release schedule, that doesn't seem like a huge drop. Also, the graph shows no comparison with JMS's run at all, and strangely omits the first two issues of Slott's run for some reason, which add to its shadiness. Just sayin'.

And I wonder what a similar graph would look like for Superman or Wonder Woman. Especially if we casually omitted the fact that the rising New 52 tide raised all boats. Heck, I wonder if the inflated sales for One More Day were just casual observers tuning in to see the landmark event of J. Michael Straczynski actually finishing something. Just sayin'.

But I agree with Mark Waid (who also had the best comment): this was a dick move. I just don't know why anyone was surprised.

Bitter sniping from the guy who jabbed at the originality of DC in the pages of "Amazing Spider-Man," during a story where he created Molten Man II? Unprofessionalism from the guy whose history in comics is littered with chronic lateness and unfinished projects? Who could have foreseen it?

Just sayin'.

2011-11-24T17:10:00.001-06:00

Mark Millar has some qualms with digital comics, and I can understand his sympathies for the retailers. It doesn't look, from the bit quoted on Comics Alliance, like he understands the effect that piracy has on our small industry (and those same retailers) or how opening up cheap, legal, and easily-accessible channels to obtaining comics is a way to mitigate some of those effects.

But that's largely beside the point, which is that Millar's concern seems to be wrapped in an advertisement for the next issue of Kick-Ass. As I said, I understand his sympathy for the retailer, but I also have sympathy for people who read comics and other creators. To that end, I corrected some issues with Millar's simple ad:

Much better.

My Arkham City Wishlist

2011-11-19T18:10:00.001-06:00

As I think I've mentioned, I've been playing a lot of "Batman: Arkham City." I've completed the main story and all Batman's side missions, gathered all of the regular Riddler trophies, and I'm mostly done with Catwoman's stuff as well. I figure I'll probably make sure I get some medals in most of the Challenge maps before I go on to the New Game Plus content. I know there's still the costume DLC in December, last I heard, but I kind of hope that's not the last hurrah for new content. What with the holidays coming up, I figured I'd put together my dream list of Arkham City DLC, in hopes that maybe some of it will come true:

New Challenge Map Characters: Playing as Nightwing and Robin and Catwoman is great--often more entertaining than playing as Batman. It makes me think that it'd be great to have some other character options. Ideally, Batwoman would be first up, but I'd be happy with Batgirl too--the difficulty being that I can imagine the alt-costumes for the latter (Cass's, Babs's, Steph's, maybe animated), but can't imagine them sharing the same voice when they're such different characters, and when Barbara is Oracle in the "Arkham" timeline. Again, ideally it'd be Steph, with Spoiler and the Cass-suit as alt-costumes, but I'm not sure how likely that all is. I'd also like to see Joker return as a playable challenge map character (especially since, as an XBox owner, I never got to play his maps the last time around), and I wouldn't mind playing as Talia or Ra's. In any case, some new characters for the challenge maps seems like the most likely route for DLC.

New Challenge Maps: This seems like the second most likely route (barring "new costumes"). I haven't played through everything yet, but it seems like that Wayne Manor map is screaming for some more action. I'd love to see maps that featured other characters as well. Black Mask is great (and ought to be involved in more than just the one map that I've seen him in--in fact, another map/campaign featuring Black Mask would be a natural fit for a Batgirl download pack), but I'd love to have that battle alongside Bane as a challenge brawl--especially if it ended with having to beat the brute who broke the Bat.

New In-World Side Quests: I've loved all the missions and side quests and so forth that the game has already offered, so I'd love to see more of the same. There's still plenty of potential material to mine, with saving hostages, fighting street-level villains, and so forth. Just upgrading some of the thugs around town would be fine, but I wouldn't mind the occasional encounter with the League of Assassins outside of Wonder City, or Clayface offshoots, or Titan goons, or Bane or Killer Croc or Poison Ivy. Heck, I'd even be interested in chasing down Zsasz or...ugh, Hush again. When you swap characters, Batman says there's still work to be done in Arkham City--let's see some of it.

And, of course, my offer of lots of dollars still stands for some Music Meister DLC.

DLC Characters Playable in Free-Roam Mode: This would be my holy grail, and sadly probably won't happen until the inevitable third game in the series. But man, I'd love to zip across the city as Nightwing or Robin, knocking heads with thugs and so forth. Every time I try to imagine that this would be difficult, though, I return to the fact that Catwoman gets by pretty well for not being able to access all the same places that Batman can, and the Predator maps seem to suggest that they could move around pretty easily on their own. I don't think this is likely, but boy would it be nice.

Top 1 Wrongest Wrongs in Wrongville

2011-11-19T12:56:00.001-06:00

I was perusing Newsarama today, as I am wont to do, and took a look at their list of the "10 Greatest Batman Villains of All Time!" Now, Batman's got a great rogues gallery--quite possibly the best in comics (and if not, only second to Spider-Man's), so such a list should be beyond easy. In no particular order, Joker (of course), Two-Face, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Hugo Strange, Riddler, Ra's al Ghul, Scarecrow, Mr. Freeze, organized crime (e.g., the Falcones, the Maronis, Rupert Thorne). Honorable Mentions: Penguin, Harley Quinn, Clayface, Joe Chill, Darkseid.

I didn't read past number 10. What's a clear indicator that your top ten list of Batman villains is utterly wrong and full of it?

That'll do it.

Some Bat-thoughts

2011-10-30T19:43:00.001-05:00

If I were writing Batman, I'd bring Chief O'Hara into the New 52 continuity. There ought to be another clean cop in Gotham who isn't Harvey Bullock. Gordon's always had a few loyal/clean cops under him, and I think I'd style O'Hara as the field leader of Gordon's team, a squeaky-clean, tough-as-nails fourth-generation Irish cop who trusts Gordon implicitly and admires Batman explicitly. Bullock is great as the detective who seems like he'd be dirty but isn't, and Montoya hasn't been a factor in Gotham for awhile. It'd be nice to see the GCPD getting some development again, and I think O'Hara should be the first step.

I would pay quite a lot of money to see an Arkham City expansion DLC with the Music Meister.

While playing Arkham City, I found myself wondering if they ever thought to take Nora Fries to the Lazarus Pit. As it turns out, they had, and it sounds terrible. Lazara? Fire powers? Internalizing the Lazarus Pit's abilities? That's...that's terrible. The latter-day Batman: TAS solution, where Nora was cured but Victor had been consumed by his condition, was a much better idea.

In other "this would be a good idea oh wait it's already been done" news, I thought it'd be interesting to see Jonah Hex against Ra's al Ghul in "All-Star Western," until I remembered that the Animated Series did that once already. Still, hey, it's not a bad idea.

One thing I've recently realized is how little Batman I've actually read. Sure, I've done the big famous stories, like DKR and Year One and all the Loeb books, but I've missed out on most of the month-to-month stuff, the Greg Rucka and Chuck Dixon and Alan Grant and so forth. With the Batman mood I'm in, what are some books I should check out? What are the best Batman stories I've never read? I saw the post-No Man's Land "Evolution" trade today and thought it looked intriguing, but didn't want to gamble on it--especially having never read NML.

Speaking of Batman books I haven't read, how is this year's 80-page giant? I've passed on buying it twice now, but really considered it both times.

Still several leaps away

2011-10-30T11:26:00.002-05:00

I upgraded to the new iPhone a couple of days ago, and I've played a little with the new Siri feature. I guess I'm just a little unimpressed:

Sigh.

Missed opportunity

2011-10-27T21:37:00.001-05:00

Recent sales figures state that Batman: Arkham City shipped 4.6 million copies.

To my knowledge, exactly zero of those copies came packaged with download codes for free digital comics. Zero came with minidiscs or USB drives pre-loaded with digital Batman, Robin, Catwoman, Nightwing, and Gotham Central comics.

My copy, and so I assume about 4,599,999 other copies, came with a catalog advertising a wide variety of Batman merchandise, including toys, clothes, and posters. Comics and graphic novels are mentioned on exactly two pages. The last two.

DC/Warner Bros. has enough awareness and marketing savvy to release the new Batman DVD movie on the same day as the eagerly-awaited video game, but for some reason continues to miss these easy opportunities to introduce new people to comics, thereby increasing their chances of selling more comics. This one game reached, what 20 times the audience of the most recent Batman comics? Why didn't it come with comics?

This isn't exactly rocket science, DC.

Mr. Freeze and humility

2011-10-23T15:15:00.001-05:00

I've been playing a lot of Arkham City when I've had a little free time here and there, and it's reminded me of a bit of weirdness surrounding one of my favorite Bat-villains, Mr. Freeze. Why "Mister"? Freeze legitimately has a doctorate. Intellectual supervillains are typically more than happy to lord their advanced degrees over society and its protectors--Doctor Octopus, Doctor Light, Doctor Double X, Doctor Sivana, Doctor Phosphorus--even when they don't actually have those degrees (I'm looking at you, dropout Doom). Looking through Wikipedia's list of fictional doctors, the only other villain who does the same is Marvel's Mister Hyde, and he took his name from a story.

Is Victor Fries the most humble supervillain in the DCU? Is this just another part of his tragic life story? Was his doctorate revoked? If so, why is Doctor Light allowed to keep his?

Curioser and curioser, the politics of comic book academia.

Retronomicon

2011-10-20T19:52:00.001-05:00

I saw Alan Moore's Neonomicon trade at the comic shop today. On one hand, I'd be happy spending this post making more digs at Moore dredging up another author's ideas to put new spins on them. That might be a sign of creative bankruptcy if you do it while the authors are still alive and the works are still protected by copyright, but hoo boy, you let those authors die and those properties lapse into the public domain, and suddenly your script for Lovecraft fans monthly or your 19th Century children's novel heroine slash fiction is a worthy pursuit for a legitimate literary genius. I can't wait for a hundred and fifty years after Joss Whedon kicks it, so my Buffy/Inara slash fic can be published and recognized as the seminal, game-changing graphic novel monument that it's meant to be.

Sorry, where was I? Oh right, Neonomicon. I take my shots at Alan Moore, but I dig Lovecraftian stuff. So I'm curious: is it any good? I've heard that the most recent League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books haven't been so hot, but maybe the alternate setting allows for something different. I'm not enamored enough with Moore these days to check it out sight unseen, but if it's an interesting take, I'd be up for checking it out.

Deadman and the Doctor

2011-10-18T19:25:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of content recently. I've been swamped at work; I haven't even been able to read most of my books from this past week, let alone write anything for Nerdy Nothings or this site. But I'm watching a bit of "Batman: Brave and the Bold" as I work on some other stuff, and I caught a fun little in-joke in "Dawn of the Deadman." During a séance, "Thomas Baker" is being contacted by his nephew, "Colin."

That Whovian shout-out, and the Wilhelm scream earlier in the episode, makes me wonder if some of the "Middleman" crew weren't involved in this series.

New 52 Reviews: Lightning Round!

2011-10-08T14:52:00.001-05:00

After writing several thousand words for Nerdy Nothings, I figured I might as well talk about the other books I picked up over the last month. The other DC ones, anyway; I'm way behind on Spider-Island. So here goes:

Action Comics: Loved it. But you already knew that. I've got some things to say about #2 at some point, too.
All-Star Western: I joked in my Firestorm review about how a comic called "All-Star Western" took place on the East coast, but it's really a very good comic. I'm not entirely sure how it lines up with Amadeus Arkham's story as seen in Arkham Asylum, but it's an interesting pairing nonetheless. It's a little like Red Dead Redemption by way of Edgar Allen Poe, with a bit of Jack the Ripper flair. I can understand people's complaints about Gotham being an almost preternaturally evil place, but that complaint lost quite a bit of traction when fans accepted as the city's second-most-recognizable location a building whose name comes from H.P. Lovecraft. In a post-Return of Bruce Wayne world, we know that Gotham City is a machine, the product of centuries of manipulations by Darkseid and Bruce Wayne, ultimately designed to produce a weapon called Batman. It's not surprising that it would produce its share of psychopaths before Batman's rogues gallery shows up.
Animal Man: Straight-up great. The art is suitably creepy, and with all the unwritten marriages and newly-dead parents in the New DCU, it's nice to see a hero who's still a family man whose wife is worried about him tracking mud in the house. As someone who's only really read Animal Man's adventures in the Grant Morrison issues, I felt like this was a direct continuation, paying the right kind of homage to it without being beholden to it for continuity. The story is intriguing, and the art is suitably creepy, so I'm excited to see where this all goes.
Aquaman: Frankly, this was a little too self-aware for my tastes. I understand the presumed need to counter all the jokes about Aquaman and deal with them head-on, but the scene in the diner and the interaction with the blogger are a little too close to the first issue of J. Michael Straczynski's "Grounded" storyline for my taste. Thankfully, Aquaman isn't a smug dick about it, but Geoff Johns' love of characters who stand in for Internet fanboys wears thinner the more he falls back on the same old tricks for his writing. Plus, you know, Aquaman's a head of state, and superhero or not, I can't imagine, say, Jacques Chirac getting that kind of abuse when he visits America, despite France being the Aquaman of the United Nations. All that aside, this was a pretty fun issue, and showcased some of the things that make Aquaman such an actually cool character, exploring his necessary powers in ways that Morrison and Waid have done in the past. I hope that this issue got all the jokes out of the way, and future stories move beyond them.
Batgirl: See here. The more I think about the issue, the more I feel like I was a little softer on it than I should have been.
Batman: One of the best of the New 52 books, and a fantastic introduction to Batman for people who might have been away for awhile. I'm sad to say that a lot of these #1s really haven't felt like #1 issues, but Batman felt like a comic you could give to anyone, and it would still be entertaining and understandable.
Batman & Robin: See here.
Batwing: See here.
Batwoman: I'm ashamed to say that I've never gotten around to finishing Rucka's original Batwoman run in Detective, so I haven't read it yet. I'm finally caught up on Snyder's Batman oeuvre, so Batwoman is next on the list.
Birds of Prey: One of the more pleasant surprises.
Blue Beetle: Clicky.
Captain Atom: My New 52 resolution has been to try new things, and apparently that even amounts to actually reading a J.T. Krul comic. I've frankly never seen anyone ever refer to the strong nuclear force (or just "strong force" or "strong interaction") as the "S.N.F.," including Stephen Hawking, who Dr. Megala is clearly kind of an ersatz version of. Other than that, though, this was a decent issue, and it's interesting to see that every other sciencey comic has done the science hero thing better than Mister Terrific. I'll check out the next issue, though I wish Captain Atom weren't so similar in powers now to Firestorm. I'd like to see Captain Atom as a character whose power is to manipulate quantum effects, to manifest them at a macroscopic level, which has long been implied by his abilities. Making him another hero who can absorb and shoot energy bolts and transmute matter--especially now that we have two Firestorms--seems redundant. Also, this is a very pretty book.
DC Universe Presents: See here.
Demon Knights: I'd be hard-pressed to find something to dislike about this book. It's very pretty, even the lettering, and its take on the DCU's medieval heroes (and particularly its immortals) is fresh and interesting. I'm not sure how I feel about painting such a good quintessential villain as Vandal Savage in an apparently heroic role, but I'm willing to go along with it if for no other reason than that it's really fun. The return of Sir Ystin the Shining Night is more than welcome, and I'm curious to see more of Al Jabr and Exoristos, who appear to be new characters. Of course, the only thing I should have to say to get people to buy this is "there's a castle riding a brontosaurus and dagger-wielding dragons." And that is awesome.
The Flash: This way!
Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E.: What a way to start an issue--not just the big hideous monsters and the skinned dog, mind you, but the reaction: "It's--it's finally happening...isn't it?" Not exactly the response you'd expect from a normal person in that circumstance, and the incongruity of it really serves to underscore the weird horror of the scene. The rest of the issue has a great combination of good story momentum and absolutely bizarre ideas, in a sort of Kirby/Morrison style. I wish the end had been just a little more strange--though it was certainly another turning-the-tables on our expectations--but I'm excited to see the next issue.
The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men: See here
Green Lantern: Easily the best GL book I've read from Johns in awhile, which might be damning with faint praise. There's a real sitcom vibe to this issue, with a heavy emphasis on humor (however clichéd it might be) and the promise of an odd couple setup at the end. I'm frankly getting a little tired of the Guardians of the Universe being a bunch of sinister plotters, but I get that this is still building on Johns' huge Green Lantern arc, and I can tolerate it. Looks like Ganthet got his hand back, though. The art's the kind of great stuff you typically expect from Doug Mahnke, and I'll admit to even liking Sinestro's relcutant return to the Green Lanterns more than I expected.
Green Lantern Corps: See here
Green Lantern: The New Guardians: I'd already decided that I probably wasn't going to buy three Green Lantern books, and New Guardians was the one that got chopped. For one, I just don't really care for the named rainbow Corps members as characters, and the story that we got just didn't do anything for me. It seems like it stripped away most of what was interesting about Kyle's origin to begin with, and did so in a confusing and cursory manner--and then gave him a bunch of rings for no apparent reason. I could see some of this premise working, but the first issue was just a mess, and it didn't give me any reason to think I'd like it better if I came back.
Grifter: See here. I'm not sure why both of the Wildstorm solo titles seem to be taking their plot cues from John Carpenter movies, but it hasn't worked out real well for them.
I, Vampire: Not a book I'd originally planned on buying, but I followed my New 52 resolution--and my enjoyment of Fialkov's Superman/Batman arc--to give this a chance. The entirety of my exposure to the I, Vampire character is from Doctor 13: Architecture and Morality, and it's clear that this is a fairly different version. The art is nice and moody, a little like Ben Templesmith with more clarity, although it is sometimes hard to follow what's going on. The dialogue is fairly well-written, if a little over-the-top, but there are a few places that just sound awkward, particularly Mary's letter. I do like the more traditional vampires, shape-shifting into wolves and bats and so forth, although there's still a little "our vampires are different" going on. I'm curious to see the vampires-vs.-superheroes match-up hinted in this issue, but I think I'll wait for the trade.
Justice League International: Here you go.
Legion Lost: Um...so. How could this book go wrong? Fabian Nicieza is a good writer, especially when working with teams of teenage heroes, and Pete Woods is one of my favorite artists in the industry. Plus, I'm a Legion fan going way back, and I'd been kicking myself for dropping Legion and Adventure earlier in the currentish incarnation. And yet this book was...pretty bad. I think the biggest misstep was leaving out those helpful character description captions that Legion books so often have; even I had trouble keeping track of who was who, and I've read all of Who's Who. This book was a confusing mess, and it makes a decent case for the utility of decompression. It also doesn't help that the issue relies pretty heavily on knowing who the Legion is already, when this should have been new readers' gateway book into the concept. It also doesn't help that the "Legionnaires back in time to stop a deadly disease" was a plot point in Countdown. Ugh.
Legion of Super-Heroes: Right this way.
Men of War: Here 'tis.
Mister Terrific: Probably my biggest disappointment of the bunch.
Nightwing: Another book that I wasn't planning to buy, but I like Dick Grayson as a character, and I liked Gates of Gotham. The story is interesting, and it handles Dick's transition from Batman to Nightwing in a fairly believable manner. The mystery posed here is nice, and as someone who hasn't spent a lot of time reading Nightwing comics before, Dick returning to Haly's Circus is a fairly new story for me. I'll stick with this one, at least for awhile.
OMAC: This wasn't one of the books I'd initially planned on picking up. I like Keith Giffen a lot, but I've never read a Dan Didio-penned comic that I thought was better than mediocre. But there was some positive buzz about it after Wednesday, and I'm a big enough fan of the Kirby DNA Project/Evil Factory stuff that shows up here that I was willing to give it a shot. Now, I've said for years that if you want Kirby's characters done well, the writer to turn to is Karl Kesel, but I'll happily add Keith Giffen to that list as well. I'm surprised to see Mokkari back; despite his background in Kirby's "Jimmy Olsen" work, I always thought he was Apokoliptian, and thus somewhat off-limits until Grant Morrison finished his Fifth World stuff. I'm not exactly complaining, and it's not like Mokkari is Orion or Desaad or anything, but I'm still a little surprised. Overall, this was a really fun romp, with very Kirbyesque art and sensibilities, and the kind of over-the-top insane action one should expect from an OMAC book. After "Superboy," I never thought I'd be subscribing to a Dan Didio book, but here we are.
Resurrection Man: It's like Resurrection Man is back without missing a step. I haven't read the entire original series, but I've liked what I have read, and even the art in this issue feels like it's in the same vein, like Fernando Dagnino is some kind of reincarnation of the (yes, still living) Jackson Guice. The apparently-angels hunting Mitch Shelley are a nice touch, and feel like a tie-in to Zauriel and Peter David's Earth-born Angel stuff, even if it really isn't. I'm really excited to be in on the ground level for this incarnation of this book, and I hope it's immensely successful. So successful that DC considers launching some of the other brilliant-but-cancelled books from the last decade or two (Chase, Manhunter, H-E-R-O) under the new banner.
Static Shock: I feel kind of bad dropping Static Shock, but it's just not distinctive enough for me. Static has never been my favorite Milestone character, and Hardware seems to have lost some of his edge, but really there's nothing wrong with this book. It gets the 'science hero' thing better than Mister Terrific, and the family dynamic is great--almost like Blue Beetle is known for. It's just, it didn't hook me. I don't know if it's just because it feels like Spider-Man with electricity or what, but it just didn't pull me in. It doesn't help that I don't think the art was even as good as McDaniel's usually is, and I can't imagine the book will get better after Rozum leaves.
Stormwatch: What a sadly underwhelming book. I like the high concepts involved, and the ties to Demon Knights and the rest of the DCU, but it seems like Paul Cornell went to the Chris Claremont school of writing for this book. Everyone narrates their powers and provides clunky exposition, and I think this is a book that would really benefit from rolling out the crazy high concepts with a little less explanation. let the reader figure a little out for themselves--or leave some mystery for issue #2. I'll be sticking for at least the first arc, but I sure hope it gets better at distinguishing and juggling its characters.
Superboy: Here you go.
Supergirl: A better introduction than Supergirl's had in quite some time. It's clear that Green and Johnson have put a good deal of thought into Supergirl's character, drawing from some of the work that's been done in the last few years with the character--namely that she remembers her life on Krypton, her friends and family and such. Her costume is pretty terrible, at least with the crotch-shield. I understand the thinking that, if Kryptonians wear form-fitting armor, it doesn't make sense for her to have a skirt, but it also doesn't make sense for her to have bare legs. I liked her thinking she was in a dream, though, and I'm interested to see where all this goes.
Superman: Right here.
Swamp Thing: I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Alec Holland as a sort of David Banner character, but there's certainly interesting ground to mine in the character's history. It may be a little confusing to new readers, and probably would benefit from at least an editorial box touting the in-print hardcover describing the referenced events, but it's otherwise a nice superhero horror-type book that promises a return to the Alan Moore roots that have defined the character for so long.
Voodoo: Let the record show that I was actually quite optimistic about Voodoo. My optimism was misplaced.
Wonder Woman: I'm not totally sure about Wonder Woman as a horror character, but damn if this book wasn't good and entertaining. I'm excited to see where this is going, and it's easily the best take on the Greek gods since Rucka's run. I'm fine with Wonder Woman as a warrior and the heroine of her own Greek mythology, and it's a nice contrast with Batman and Superman.

An Unproductive Response

2011-09-30T20:03:00.000-05:00

Lots of people are talking about sexism in comics, and the often negative and stereotypical portrayal of women in superhero stories. When this type of topic comes up, invariably some version of this discussion will happen:

Person 1: I don't like how GENRE X depicts THING A.
Person 2: While you're complaining about GENRE X, GENRE Y has been depicting THING A in a respectful way for years. Why don't you read GENRE Y?

This is not a productive conversation. Seriously, can you imagine this conversation:

Person 1: I don't like how action movies depict women.
Person 2: While you're complaining about action movies, independent romance comedies have been depicting women in a respectful way for years. Why don't you watch independent romance comedies?

Put in those terms, the response should be obvious: because you don't watch action movies for the same reasons you watch independent romance comedies. They don't fill the same role. They're different things almost entirely. Plus, you know, maybe some people just don't like independent romance comedies.

And yet, some people use this exact same argument with respect to comics: "If you don't like Catwoman, then why don't you read Love and Rockets?" Responding to the silly and strange question with something like "because I want to read superhero comics" is met with scorn and derision, as when Image publisher Eric Stephenson called superhero comics a "security blanket."

There are a few reasons for this, but the main one seems to be a confusion of genre and medium. "Superhero" is a genre. "Comic books" are a medium. For a long time, the superhero genre dominated the medium of comics, but they are not the same thing. There have been novels and movies and television shows in the superhero genre, just as comics often explore romance and realism and autobiography.

I would be more likely to read Catwoman than Love and Rockets not because I'm unaware of the latter, nor because I buy comics out of some sense of habit or childish need for security. I would be more likely to buy Catwoman because I like the superhero genre, the same reason I'm more likely to go to the theater and watch Green Lantern than 50/50, or tune my TV to Batman: Brave and the Bold rather than Toddlers and Tiaras. I like superheroes as a genre, and comic books are one (in fact, the main) avenue for stories in that genre.

I also like science fiction, and so I read sci-fi novels and watch sci-fi TV shows and buy sci-fi comics. I like murder mysteries, so I watch murder mystery TV shows and read murder mystery novels and go to see murder mystery movies. But if I say "I don't like how atheists are portrayed in courtroom dramas," it does me absolutely no good to say "well, atheists are portrayed very well in steampunk adventure." If I wanted to read steampunk adventure, I would be. I don't pick the genres I read or watch because of how well they portray issues and minorities to which I am sympathetic, I pick the genres I read or watch based on the kinds of stories I like to experience.

I understand some of the plight of people who do non-superhero comics, because it often is difficult for them to gain notice. If I say "I don't like the way young people's relationships are portrayed in superhero comics. I sure do wish I could read an autobiographical story about a young man's coming of age and attempts to cope with a crisis of faith," then yes, it might be relevant to point me to Blankets.

But that's not what people are saying here. They aren't saying "I don't like how women are portrayed in superhero comics, I wish I could read other comics that would portray women realistically and respectfully," a statement which would reasonably be followed by "Well, have you heard of Love & Rockets?" They're saying "I don't like how women are portrayed in superhero comics. I wish superhero comics would portray women better." The point being that people who enjoy superhero comics want to continue to enjoy superhero comics without having to endure negative portrayals of women. Suggesting that they give up on an entire genre is not just counterproductive, it's ridiculous. I don't know anyone who reads or watches a genre based on one aspect of how they portray some group or issue, who doesn't actually have any attachment to the other tropes and features of the genre. I suppose it's possible that someone reads Amish romance novels solely because they treat carriage-drivers with the proper amount of respect and verisimilitude, but I somehow doubt it.

There is another, more subtle aspect to this, which results from a different level of "what I like." I like action movies, but I really like the character of John McClane. Consequently, I would be more likely to see a new Die Hard movie than some generic cop action flick. I like James Bond, and so I'm more likely to see the next James Bond sequel than some random non-Bond spy thriller. And yes, I like Superman, and so I'm more inclined to read Superman comics than other generic superhero comics. If someone's complaining about the portrayal of women or marriage or relationships in Superman, then it might be reasonable to direct them to Astro City or Love and Capes or something in the same genre with similar characters that provides that missing aspect.

But it's also reasonable for someone to want to read about Superman (or Catwoman, or Power Girl, or Black Panther, or Amadeus Cho, or whoever), and not "character who is like Superman in some ways but is not actually Superman." It's reasonable for you to like various traits of a character based on other stories with that character, and to want stories featuring that character to be better. And it should be trivially obvious that, if I want my superhero comic book about a woman who dresses like a cat and steals things to feature a strong, independent, often-clothed protagonist, it's not particularly useful to suggest that I read Invincible. It's not unreasonable to like particular characters for whatever reason--you like the concept, something about them resonates with you, they have a cool costume, you read or saw a great story with them in the past--and following from that, it's not unreasonable to want those characters to be in good stories. Every character is someone's favorite, and there's no accounting for personal taste.

Which is why it's so unreasonable to suggest another genre or a completely different kind of book or character as the solution to the complaint of "I don't like how THING A is portrayed in GENRE X." The complaint is not meant to imply "I want to experience some story, any story, that portrays THING A well," but "I enjoy various things about GENRE X and wish that their treatment of THING A didn't so negatively affect what I'd like to enjoy."

Or, to put it in more pithy terms, the "why not try GENRE B instead?" response is borne out of a simplistic, black-and-white understanding of things. It treats a complaint about a detail as a condemnation of the whole thing--and indeed, if that were the case, then it sure would seem silly for people to keep buying it. Its' comics' (and really, genre fandom in general) "love it or leave it," a media-centered version of "if you hate the country so much, why don't you move to Canada?" It ignores the existence of a vast middle ground between "like" and "dislike," labeled "room for improvement," and it treats caring about something, having a sense of investment in the things you like and wanting them to be better, as a defect. And it does so in a crass, myopic, self-centered attempt to get people to care about what the responder likes instead.

This attitude is asinine, petulant, and wrong to the point of being entirely backwards. And it really needs to stop popping up with such predictable frequency.

Redheads in their Natural Habitat

2011-09-28T22:15:00.002-05:00

DC's been taking some lumps over the past week for the Starfire controversy, alleging that the character's portrayal in "Red Hood and the Outlaws" was somehow demeaning or stereotypical or sexist cheesecake pandering. But I think one commenter on Robot 6 is clearly saying what we're all thinking on the subject. Obviously women aren't unduly objectified in comics. After all, men are just as objectified--I mean just look at them! No guys ever look like Superman, or wear tights like...well, okay, no one in DC's wearing tights anymore. But you get the idea. It's totally equal, and all the complaints are clearly coming from overly sensitive feminazis who just hate sex and want men to be castrated or something.

Besides, what everyone's missing here is that Starfire's status as an amnesiac nymphomaniac is just because in the New 52, she's taking the place of one-time Teen Titans hanger-on and fellow redhead Terry Long!

Creepy male fantasy wish fulfillment?

Check.

Indiscriminate about his sexual urges, to the point of forgetting about current and former sex partners?

Check.

Inappropriate swimwear?

CHECK CHECK CHECK!

Heck, even that oft-reposted image of Starfire whipping her hair out of the water?

Obviously a homage to this tasteful sketch:

Terry Long: Genuine Class.

Welp, looks like I'm playing an MMO.

2011-09-19T18:06:00.000-05:00

DC Universe Online is going free to play in October. I've been watching some of the news about the game with increasingly ineffective inhibitions toward playing it, and now it's going to be free. I literally have nothing to lose.

Except hours and hours of my entirely limited free time. Almost makes me want to dust off my Kingdom of Loathing account in the meantime.

Super-Scroll

2011-09-18T23:50:00.001-05:00

Awhile back I wrote about losing an excellent Ed McGuinness Superman wall scroll, and put out an (ultimately fruitless) alert to see if I could track down a replacement.

Happily, this weekend it turned up in my parents' garage. It's a little dirty, but the wife's pretty confident it's nothing a little soap and water won't help. Now I just need to find a place to hang it.

I'm planning on having my mini-reviews of the past two weeks' New 52 books up by Tuesday night. In the meantime, I've been doing a bit o' guest blogging at Nerdy Nothings and I'm happy to announce that it's no longer a guest thing. It doesn't mean less frequent posting here (how could I post less frequently?); it just means that I've got to figure out something in the realm of a regular feature for over there. Any suggestions?

Should've gone to the Gennero family reunion instead

2011-09-11T12:00:00.000-05:00

I just saw a Humana Insurance commercial featuring the "McClain Family Reunion." I can't help but think it'd be more interesting--and more germane to health and life insurance concerns--to show the McClane family reunion. Can't you just imagine it? Burgers on the grill, cold beer in plastic cups (not glasses--don't want to chance breaking them all over the place), inexplicable explosions. The kids run around playing cowboys and German terrorists (or to change it up, cops and German terrorists), John saying "No, I don't want to play tetherball, I have a really bad headache!"

And by the end, there'd be no one left at the nearby Gruber family reunion.

"Action Comics" (vol. 2) #1

2011-09-07T20:59:00.000-05:00

It's probably no surprise for me to say that I loved it. It's also probably no surprise to say that I feel the best current expression of my love is through rambling on at length and gushing at the Morrison/Morales altar for a bit. Spoilers ahead.

Rather than start with the beginning, I think it's better to start with the impression I had after finishing. It reminded me of nothing so much as the DCAU Superman Animated Series. That series had a similarly casual Superman (at least in terms of language and attitude and often righteous anger), with a similarly nonchalant, collected Lex Luthor, and similar ties back to the Fleischer shorts. Both are clearly attempts to distill the essence of Superman into a concentrated, purified form.

That's what this feels like: the distilled essence of the Golden Age Superman, or better yet, the distilled essence of how we think of the Golden Age Superman, seen through the lens of everything that's come after. This is what the original "Action Comics" #1 might have read like if all the pieces of the Superman mythos that developed later had been in-place from the start.

So the story begins with Superman invading a penthouse, where he's attacked by armed thugs as he pursues a corrupt businessman named Glenmorgan--"Mr. Metropolis," the cops call him. Glenmorgan gives us such a great glimpse into the thesis behind this series, shouting "Somebody! Save me!" as he's being held by the Man of Steel. I don't know if the phrasing is intentionally meant to recall Remy Zero's "Smallville" theme song, but the irony is great--that someone would need to be saved from Superman. Glenmorgan's next line is no less important: "In the name of God! You people [the police] are supposed to protect me!"

And, of course, that's exactly the problem. The police protect high-class white collar villains like Glenmorgan, but there's no one to protect the people he exploits--or at least there wasn't anyone, until Superman showed up. Now, the Man of Steel exists to protect the people--by attacking the real villains, the ones who hide in penthouses instead of secret lairs.

Ever since the preview pages leaked, I've seen people complaining that by jumping off the roof with Glenmorgan in order to scare him into talking, Superman is 'taking a page from Batman's book.' I'd recommend that those people head on back to "Action Comics" #1 (or more likely, a reasonably-priced reprint) and find the very scene that Morrison and Morales are paying homage to here. Then, it was a corrupt lobbyist, but the purpose and effect are the same.

We get, in this initial scene, a good look at the young Superman's philosophy as well: "Nobody's so big they can't be taken down a peg or two" not only prefigures his treatment of Green Lantern in "Justice League" #1, but also underscores his proactive fight against moral crime, no matter the perpetrators. This is a Superman who uses his power to help the powerless against those who would use power for evil, and that's an aspect of Superman that's not only foundational, but too often forgotten or overlooked.

But the statement also betrays Superman's hubris, foreshadowing his own fall at the end of the issue.

The tenement battle--and specifically Superman's struggle against the electrified net--was what really reminded me of the Fleischer shorts, and it's another nice nod by Morrison and Morales to the particular era they're trying to evoke. The moment when the people stand up to protect him seems to be the validation of his whole mission--and a reference to the guiding philosophy that anyone can be a Superman, and that Superman's greatest power is his ability to inspire. For all that the word "cynical" has been bandied about with this version of Superman, it's actually amazingly optimistic. It's not cynicism to note that power corrupts, it's cynicism to accept that, to refrain from doing anything about it, to admit defeat. And as I've said before, the whole idea of Superman is that there's one person that power didn't corrupt, that power never will corrupt, who uses that power to better others and help the weak. That's what Superman is, and that's how anyone can be a Superman.

We see a nice change too in the reason for Clark Kent's chosen career; in the '30s, he became a reporter to stay near the news, so he'd always be the first one to arrive at trouble. Sadly, that's worn quite thin as a justification in the intervening decades, but positioning Clark Kent as a way for Superman to expose more injustice, to inspire more people, and to generally continue the same work he does as Superman is brilliant. Morrison's not the first to do it, of course, but here we see it as a reason rather than a justification. That Clark lives a meager existence, foregoing luxuries even as simple as television, only adds to the selfless do-gooder image.

Clark, Jimmy, and Lois have an interesting relationship here; it's established fairly early that the Daily Planet is still known for the Superman stories (and that Lois gave him the name, a nice carry-over from the Byrne era), but Clark works for George Taylor at the Daily Star, just as he did in the Golden Age. This doesn't just set up a nice rivalry (with Jimmy as the neutral party), but it also sets up a distinction between the sensational, possibly more hard-news Daily Planet, and the more opinionated, crusading Daily Star.

Luthor's motives at this point are unclear, but I like that this Luthor skews somewhere between the Animated/Byrne-era genius businessman, and the Maggin-style criminal mastermind. That he can pin Superman's defeat down to the second sets him up as an excellent foil, and I can't wait to see where this all goes.

Speaking of Maggin, the "invasive species" angle on Superman's presence is a great one, and something of an update to the "Must there be a Superman" argument.

After all this, there's plenty of detail left to praise. I'm curious what more there is going on with Glenmorgan and his Dr. Psycho-esque partner. I hope the purple-clad, white-haired landlady with no traditional vowels in her name pans out the way one might expect. I liked the reference to Clark's friends--"two men and a woman--a blonde, very nice, very good-looking"--which pretty firmly establishes that for all his down-to-Earth, powers-developing, man-of-the-people nature, this is still a guy who spent his teenage years with superheroes from the future. I like Jimmy Olsen's ringtone. I like the callback to Superman's encounter with a wife-beater, which was a great detail in "Action Comics" (vol. 1) #1, and was expanded into one of my favorite stories of the post-Crisis era. I like that we get to see Superman being faster than a speeding bullet and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but not quite more powerful than a locomotive.

I've been clamoring for a Superman book set in the '30s with the old rough-and-tumble protector-of-the-oppressed Superman for years. This isn't exactly that--it's not a period piece, and it's not drawn by Jon Bogdanove--but it definitely scratches that itch. I don't know if this is "Superman for people who don't like Superman," but it's definitely Superman.

And I can't wait for the next issue.

By the way, I (and a bunch of more talented people) will be writing reviews this week and for the rest of the month, covering DC's New 52 #1s for Nerdy Nothings. Be sure to check them out!

A Study in Justice

2011-09-05T20:31:00.000-05:00

I have...things I'd like to say about "Flashpoint" #5, but that can wait. After all, it arrived alongside the brand new "Justice League" #1, our introduction to the New 52 DCU for you.

And I was underwhelmed.

But I'll get there. See, I got this crazy idea about what an introductory story to the Justice League should include, but then realized that it's been an awfully long time since I read any introductory story to the Justice League. But I have a veritable mountain of comics around me, including the first volume of "Showcase Presents: Justice League of America," "JLA: Year One," "Justice League International" Volume 1, "Justice League: A Midsummer's Nightmare," "JLA: New World Order," and "Justice League of America (vol. 2) #0-1. So I figured I'd take a look through the first issues of each series before ultimately offering my thoughts on the new hotness, to put things in context. Check it out below the fold!

"The Brave and the Bold" #28
Creative Team: Gardner Fox & Mike Sekowski.
Story Pages: 25 (including splash)
Capsule: I suspect you've already read this one, but here goes: when Aquaman learns of the threat posed by an interstellar conquering starfish, he rallies Earth's greatest heroes to combat the menace.
Thoughts: Well, the first point is that this isn't an origin story for the Justice League, despite being their first appearance. Aquaman sends out a Justice League signal on page one, alerting the League of the threat. What's more, the League spends most of the issue split up--Superman and Batman appear, but are busy with other threats, and the rest of the League divides itself to fight Starro's minions. Consequently, we have a chapter where Aquaman summons the team and each of the members is briefly introduced, a chapter where Green Lantern fights solo, a chapter where Martian Manhunter teams with Wonder Woman, a chapter where the Flash fights alone (and meets Snapper Carr), and a final chapter where the strike team (GL, J'onn, Wonder Woman, and Flash--Aquaman is ostensibly there, but essentially disappears) defeats Starro. Overall, it's actually kind of a terrible introduction to the Justice League, unless the intended takeaway is that teamwork is important, but not particularly vital if you've got other things to do. On the other hand, it does three things that I think are really important: it introduces the whole team, including details like Steve Trevor and Hal Jordan's test pilot career; it showcases everyone's abilities, which is related to the previous item--even Superman and Batman's brief appearances show you what they're all about; and it presented a threat that required a team to take it down. The only reason Starro is defeated is because the team was alerted to his presence ahead of time (thanks to Aquaman's abilities), able to split up to take on his minions, and had a range of expertise that put the creature down for good. That seems like a bare minimum expectation for an introductory League story.

"Justice League of America" (vol. 1) #9
Creative Team: Gardner Fox & Mike Sekowski
Story Pages: 26
Capsule: The League's origin--where individual members independently encountered and defeated a set of alien invaders, which ultimately brought them all together--is relayed to Snapper Carr and Green Arrow.
Thoughts: It's another story where the League is mostly working separately, as each Leaguer in turn combats and defeats an elemental alien being. Each Leaguer's story ends with them arriving in North Carolina, where one of the aliens had yet to emerge from its meteor. As each Leaguer lands, they are turned into living wood by the creature's strange radiation. That said, it does something that any team's origin story ought to do: provide a reason for the characters to work together. They were all alerted to the problem separately and defeated their enemies almost simultaneously, leading them to be in the same place at the same time. Except Superman and Batman, who were working together as the pre-existiing World's Finest team, which was frankly a nice touch. It relied a bit less on each Leaguer's particular skills, I think, than the first story, but still managed to make use of just about everyone's powers (and Superman and J'onn's weaknesses), in addition to getting the team to work together to get themselves out of some dire circumstances. It's incredibly contrived, but it's also the kind of story that modern comics would drag out for six months to make it seem less contrived, so there are trade-offs.

"Justice League" (vol. 1) #1
Creative Team: Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, & Kevin Maguire
Story Pages: 24
Capsule: After the ignominious end of the Detroit League, a new Justice League comes together, somewhat manipulated into forming by Max Lord.
Thoughts: This is definitely a very different League origin, with far more focus on character--and character conflicts. Leaguers unite at the old headquarters, where we're introduced to a brash and arrogant Guy Gardner, Mr. Miracle and his glory-hound agent Oberon, no-nonsense Black Canary, wholesome Captain Marvel, insecure Blue Beetle, brooding J'onn J'onzz, enigmatic Dr. Fate, and Batman. The Leaguers clearly don't get along, and while Batman's presence, authority, and adherence to League tradition is able to keep them in line, they're less the best of the best and more a bunch of unruly children. Despite Batman's reluctance, the team is forced into action when terrorists take the United Nations hostage--and Dr. Light happens to be in the middle of the hostage situation, after receiving a League communicator from a mysterious benefactor. The League takes down the threat--despite Gardner's attitude and Dr. Fate's disappearance--though it turns out that there wasn't much threat at all. What I like about this introduction is how it not only focused on the characters--something the previous two stories only did in the broadest of strokes--but on the characters' relationships and conflicts. There's no reason that so many different people with different priorities and personalities would work together as a seamless team on their first outing, and it shows. Moreover, there's some attention paid to internal conflicts as well--Beetle's desire for the spotlight and Dr. Light's sympathy for the villains especially. It promises a more nuanced, character-driven Justice League--while also setting up long-term conflicts that can drive plot and character development, and giving us a nice action set-piece. At the end of this issue, even though the characters aren't all icons, you know at least a little about who each member is, what they can do, and what their motivation is. That's pretty impressive.

"JLA: Year One" #1
Creative Team: Mark Waid, Brian Augustyn, & Barry Kitson
Story Pages: 41
Capsule: After their first public outing (a slightly altered version of the events in "Justice League of America" #9), the Leaguers struggle with the decision to make the team official.
Thoughts: It's worth noting that "JLA: Year One" was a maxi-series, and thus had a somewhat different set of needs and priorities compared to the issues that kicked off new series. "JLA: Year One" #1 could tell a more compressed story, not having to carry an ongoing series on its back. On the other hand, this issue is particularly significant because of its status as a reboot origin for the League, made necessary after "Crisis" turned Wonder Woman into a newcomer and "Zero Hour" made Batman an urban legend--obviously they couldn't have been involved with the original League, then. In terms of structure, the story falls somewhere between the Giffen/DeMatteis opener and the original origin--mostly solo spotlight stories, but with a particular focus on characterization, relationships, and conflicts. Waid and Augustyn do a great job of showing how inexperienced this team is, while also giving them reasons to stick together--as well as tying it all together with an overarching mystery. By the end of the first issue, we've seen the reasons each character would want to be in the team, we've seen their general motivations and flaws, we've seen how their inexperience hurts their effectiveness, and we've seen that they still make a pretty good team. It's a larger space than the other issues have had, but it's used very efficiently.

"Justice League: A Midsummer's Nightmare" #1
Creative Team: Mark Waid, Fabian Nicieza, Jeff Johnson, & Darick Robertson
Story Pages: 38
Capsule: In a world where everyone seems to be developing superpowers, the more familiar characters are instead living out mundane lives without costumes or abilities.
Thoughts: This miniseries seems to have served as a kind of test-run for what would become Grant Morrison's epic JLA re-launch the following year, bringing together a team of the "big seven" for the first time in quite awhile. It's a fun story, the old "heroes dreams finally come true--but at what cost?" with a conflict that partially echoes the then-recent "Kingdom Come," but as an introduction to the Justice League, it's pretty terrible. You'd have to have a pretty thorough grasp of the heroes' backgrounds to understand just what's wrong with the world--sure, the fact that Clark Kent doesn't have powers and that Bruce Wayne's parents are still alive would be a tip-off to anyone in this culture that's saturated with their mythologies, but the significance of Arthur Curry working for a tuna manufacturer or Kyle Rayner drawing the "Green Lantern" comic might otherwise be lost. Otherwise, it follows the same general pattern of most of these stories: show the characters coping with some menace alone, eventually bringing them together for the teamwork. Of course, the actual everyone-comes-together bit doesn't happen in this issue; it ends on the World's Finest reuniting, as Batman and Superman are the first to realize that the world's gone wrong. As such, we don't really get to see much of the League in action. I suppose that's acceptable for a three-issue miniseries in an established universe, but it doesn't exactly make for the greatest first issue.

"JLA" #1
Creative Team: Grant Morrison & Howard Porter
Story Pages: 22
Capsule: The old League is moving out, the new League is moving in, and a team of alien superheroes has arrived to make them all obsolete.
Thoughts: This issue is packed, and that's both a good and bad thing. On one hand, it's not much more new-reader-friendly than "Midsummer's Nightmare." Everything that happens with the old JLA (represented here by Metamorpho, Obsidian, Nuklon, and Icemaiden) relies on some background knowledge of those characters and what their deal is. The new Leaguers make out a bit better, but the reader is definitely thrown in toward the deep end of the pool. The plot itself is a bit more straightforward, and it does not let up. The Hyperclan show up, renovate the Sahara, execute some criminals, win the public's trust, and find time to destroy the Justice League satellite, and still more goes on. In doing so, it also reveals some of the philosophy behind the League--specifically tackling the "proactive vs. reactive" models of superheroics (and quite a while before either "The Authority" or "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, and The American Way?" I might add) and showing the caliber of situation that the League is designed to handle. As a story, as a first issue, it's great about drawing in the reader with action and adventure, and it's decent about developing the characters' relationships and giving almost everyone a chance to shine--even the lame duck League, it's just not particularly new-reader-friendly. Oh, and Aquaman--who's on the cover--doesn't appear at all, which seems like a pretty big knock against it.

"Justice League of America" (vol. 2) #0
Creative Team: Brad Meltzer & "an all-star cast of artists"
Story Pages: 24
Capsule: A series of brief vignettes traces Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman's relationship since the start of the League.
Thoughts: On one hand, this isn't a story about the Justice League; besides the Trinity, the League only appears in brief cameos. On the other hand, this is a story about the League from the perspective of people key to its formation, and more specifically, what the League means to them and what it's become. I don't know that I've read this since it came out, and I honestly thought that it was a really good, really touching book. I think Meltzer had a great handle on what made the Trinity tick, what sorts of tensions would affect their relationship, and the general dynamics of friends forming an organization that ultimately becomes larger than its original founders. The quirks that made Meltzer's writing grate in other places--characters referring to each other only by first names, focusing on character drama and relationships above all else--simply work in this context. It's a shame that the rest of Meltzer's run couldn't be as good as this issue. As an introduction to the Justice League, it's not very good--it requires a whole lot of background knowledge, and as I said, doesn't much involved the Leaguers at all. At least, however, all the characters on the cover appear in the issue, even if the qustion it poses ("Who's In?") isn't answered.

"Justice League of America" (vol. 2) #1
Creative Team: Brad Meltzer and Ed Benes
Story Pages: 38
Capsule: While the Trinity talks about putting the Justice League back together, other heroes find themselves in situations where being alone is a liability.
Thoughts: Aaaaand here's where Meltzer's quirks start grating. Everyone refers to everyone else by first names or unfortunate nicknames ("Reddy"), and if you don't happen to be familiar with all these characters and their relationships to each other and other people, then you could pretty easily get lost. It's a shame, because there's a lot going on here, and some of it is quite ballsy: changing up Red Tornado's status quo, using Black Lightning's ties to Lex Luthor to make him an underworld mole, graduating Roy Harper up to A-level status, introducing Dr. Impossible, and so forth. It's actually a pretty good comic, and it does a good job of exploring the League's family ties, both literal (Roy and Lian, Red Tornado's family) and figurative (Roy's relationship to Black Canary and Green Lantern, the Trinity's relationship to each other and the other heroes). As an introduction to the Justice League, however, all those ties, all that heart, is more than a bit confusing. If you didn't already know Deadman's schtick, or who Felix Faust was, or have memorized key parts of "Who's Who," then you'd be lost. The regular cover for this issue sidesteps the whole "every hero on the cover appears in the issue" expectation I'd have for most Justice League introductions by making it a huge panorama of DC heroes who couldn't possibly all fit on one team (outside of a Justice League Unlimited status quo). The "actual team" cover features characters who showed up in one form or another, except Hawkgirl, who doesn't appear at all, though several of them only appear out-of-costume on the interior. As a kind of summary, it's interesting that this is the most self-conscious of these Justice League introductions, one where people are actively trying to assemble the best team, while the heroes who will eventually make up that team have solo adventures around the sidelines. There's no "heroes' travails bring them together as a team" aspect to this first issue, the way there largely has been for the last ones. There's also no real action set piece, which is unfortunate, though there's plenty of foreshadowing and architecture laid down for a long-term plot. It's not a bad Justice League story, aside from those previously-mentioned quirks and the lack of any action, but it's a really awful introductory issue.

"Justice League" (vol. 2) #1
Creative Team: Geoff Johns & Jim Lee
Story Pages: 24
Capsule: In an age when superhumans are feared and mistrusted by the general public, Batman and Green Lantern cross paths for the first time while fighting an alien menace.
Thoughts: And now, the latest installment, and the issue that launched a new universe. Everyone's been saying that it would have been impossible for this comic to meet the expectations set by all the enormous hype surrounding it, and that may be true. On the other hand, I've read quite a lot of very good Geoff Johns comics, and if this is something he's been working on for months, I would kind of expect it to fall on the high quality end of the Johns storytelling bell curve. I'm not saying it doesn't, but it certainly makes some missteps that could easily have been avoided. I've identified the basic items I would expect in any introduction to the Justice League: it introduces the characters, giving some indication of their abilities and personalities; it brings the whole team together or at least everyone who shows up on the cover, it introduces a conflict, preferably with some action; and it gives the team a reason to get together; the best of these have also explored the relationships between the Leaguers, but that also falls into a couple of the other categories.

So, our story largely centers on Batman chasing a Parademon (apparently) through Gotham while also trying to avoid cops who can't--or don't care to--tell the difference between the two, between any superhumans. There are nice parallels between Batman largely ignoring the "idiot" cops and seeing them as a hindrance to his goals, and then treating the idiot space-cop the same way. On the other hand, it's also nice to see Batman--though he wouldn't admit it--in over his head. I never thought I'd say this about a Geoff Johns comic again, but there's some subtlety at play here. Batman's trying the usual Batman methods on the Parademon--yelling at it, threatening it--but it doesn't work. On my first read, it seemed stupid for the World's Greatest Detective to go along with thoughtless GL's free-association of the Parademon with Superman, but another time through it looks like Batman goes along because he's out of his depth--something that Meltzer explored in "Justice League of America" #0.

I'm also surprised and somewhat impressed with Johns' take on a younger, brasher Green Lantern. I've been reading Johns' Hal Jordan since "Rebirth," and even when he's acting like an ass, it's always seemed like he's supposed to be a likable rogue, the movie-screen rebel who doesn't play by the rules but is clearly the hero. Here, he comes across as a thick-headed arrogant jackass, a trumped-up frat-boy with a magic ring, and it's glorious. It's so nice to see Hal Jordan as something other than the golden boy, something other than the greatest Green Lantern of them all, including the Guardians themselves. Is it subtle? Not in the least--up to and including GL referring to himself in the third person and misusing the phrase "Note to self," and generally acting like he's trying to impress Batman. But it's entertaining nonetheless.

In the midst of that, we get a brief interlude courtesy of an After-School Special about the true meaning of family. Seriously, the Vic Stone pre-Cyborg interlude is Geoff Johns at his worst in terms of dialogue excesses. "There's nothing Vic Stone loves more than football," proclaims a dialogue caption said by no one in particular, over a panel of a seat reserved, clearly, for Stone's absentee father. Dad didn't come to his football game, he's too busy with his clichés. The whole scene is clunky, played-out, and probably the most predictable thing ever, and it has absolutely no connection to the larger story until the very end, when we see Green Lantern fly overhead. It's a bad scene, and it's worse once you consider the implications. First, it contradicts statements made by others that the Wolfman/Pérez Teen Titans still occurred in some capacity, since Cyborg--a key component of those adventures--didn't exist yet. Second, we have the Justice League, forming around this sequence, prior to Stone's transformation into Cyborg. This means that the League will consist of six powerhouses who have been active for varying amount of times, and one completely green rookie high school student. Stone won't even have the edge that Kyle Rayner did as the rookie member of Morrison's JLA, that his inexperience is balanced by his possession of the most powerful weapon in the universe and the skills to use it. Cyborg is strong, but "super-strength" is a power for over half the League. Anything Cyborg could do with his tech as weapons could be accomplished equally by Green Lantern's ring. Vic won't even get to be the smartest or fastest member of a team with Flash and Batman. By making Cyborg's origin a part of the JLA's origin story, Geoff Johns has set up the team's only black member to be their Green Arrow, to be the character who clearly adds nothing to the team. That would be a bad enough move with any character, but with Cyborg it sets up calls of "Justice League Affirmative Action." It's tone-deaf, and for a "bold new direction," it's tone-deaf in the exact same way that DC has been tone-deaf before.

Much has been made of Superman's appearance at the end, with charges that it's out of character. If we were talking about old-DCU Superman, I'd totally agree. But New 52 Superman is already established as a guy who speaks truth to power and takes the arrogantly powerful down a peg or two. This issue has been all about Green Lantern shooting his mouth off and ending up with egg on his face as a result, and it subtly (there's that word again!) shows that Batman and Superman aren't all that different. Is it the introduction I'd like to see for a new era of Superman? No. But being able to make a joke and take someone down a peg or two shouldn't be banned from Superman's repertoire. This is still "five years ago," so I can accept a Superman who's a little more flippant, a little more...smirky.

But boy, that costume is stupid. It's further stupid that he's apparently been wearing it for five years. Can you see the classic Clark-ripping-his-shirt-open scene happen with this suit? How would he wear that armor under his work clothes? Batman's is no better; I have a hard time imagining how long it would take Bruce to respond to a Bat-Signal when he's got to put on that much armor with that many pieces. These new designs are still, to a one, terrible, heaping unnecessary changes that appear to exist only for the sake of change.

You know what I'm surprised this issue didn't have? The "Coming This Year" page that kicked off Johns' "Justice Society of America," among other comics he's done. It would have been a good way to build interest in the coming issues, even if the first issue wasn't a full story, and I think it would have done quite a bit to assuage readers that no, this reboot was not done spur-of-the-moment, seat-of-the-pants style. Maybe there's a reason for that.

So, back to the categories I set up, how does "Justice League" (vol. 2) #1 stack up? It introduces a conflict of suitable size for the Justice League to unite--Darkseid, namely. It's a sight or two better than the Apellaxian aliens, while also having the same "alien invasion" flavor. It doesn't introduce the whole League--only three and a half members--but it does spend some time characterizing the ones who do appear, though some in broader strokes than others. It's better than some, not as good as others. It's just a shame that it could easily have been "Brave and the Bold featuring Batman and Green Lantern" #1. This is supposed to be a window into the new DCU, both for new readers and old, and to have only a partial story, with only a partial League, seems like a misstep. And much as I enjoyed Green Lantern's portrayal, it was a further misstep to make him the buttmonkey of the first issue (and the team) by having both Batman and Superman demonstrate their badassery by taking him down effortlessly.

It's not a bad issue, and not the worst introduction the League has ever had, but I can't help but think that making this issue double-sized and putting at least the full "League gets together" part of the story into it, would have been a better kickoff.

Was it obvious?

2011-08-31T20:54:00.001-05:00

Or should I start thinking I'm clairvoyant? I mean, I haven't been to the comic shop yet, but I've read the preview pages, and it seems like I called the issue-five twist way back in May:

I suppose the biggest twist left is that we'll learn how Barry caused all this himself by going back in time and saving his mother's life...

Back then, and largely since then, I thought the story was paint-by-numbers autopilot plotting. Given my generally terrible record at comic book prognostication, this doesn't exactly change that impression.

"Well, one thing's for sure: nobody's going to be looking at your face."

2011-08-31T20:31:00.000-05:00

As is becoming a theme, new pictures have leaked from the set of "Man of Steel," giving us our first really clear look at the new Superman costume. Some key shots (stolen shamelessly from Superman Homepage and ComicVine) here:

Well, one thing's for sure: Ma Kent didn't sew that one. I'll just tackle things the way I did when the first pictures hit. Set your browsers to 'bulleted list'!

The Hair: Nary an S-curl in sight in these shots. It's a really minor detail, but something about his hair in these shots looks funny, like the part is off, in a way that allowing some of it to hang down on his forehead might alleviate. But it also seems to be the middle of a battle scene, so who knows?
The Cape: Shots with and without the cape. I'm glad it's there and it's fabric (and in at least one shot, it's clearly quite large), but I wouldn't be surprised if it were added with CGI in some of the scenes. I also wouldn't be surprised if, in the hot, humid weather we've been having in these parts, Cavill just wants to have it off as much as possible. It's a little disappointing that it doesn't have a gold shield on it, but it's hardly the first version of the Superman costume to be missing that little detail.
The Boots: Not much new detail on the boots. They look to have the same texture as the rest of the suit, which is okay. They're definitely better than the roboto-boots that New 52 Superman is rocking.
The S-Shield: It's different, in the way that the only official image suggested, looking a lot like some of the variations we saw in the Golden Age, which were eventually adapted into the Earth-2 Superman emblem. I actually like it a lot; it evokes what Morrison and Quitely originally set out to do in All-Star Superman and boil the S-shield down to simpler, more basic elements, and I think it does that job better. The clean curves and size variations make it look somewhat alien, without making it unrecognizable as the Superman symbol. I'll enjoy seeing this on all the licensed goods a lot more than I enjoyed the beveled "Superman Returns" version.
The Belt: Not really a belt, as it turns out, but texturing that suggests a belt. This is, frankly, what I hoped they'd be doing when they removed the briefs from the design: adding some other elements that compensate. It'd be nice to have a bit more color variation to separate things, and the converging lines do seem to draw attention toward Kal's lowercase El, but I think it generally works. The shapes remind me a little of Cosmic Boy's Waid-era costume.
The Texture: I could do without it, but it doesn't really distract from things. It's a little weird that it's uniform over the S-shield, but broken up by the plasticky design elements.
Additional Design Elements: I'll be interested to see what the harder plastic-looking bits do in the final product. Previous shots demonstrated that they're glossier than the rest of the costume, and that might very well be purposeful, to make these lines shine or glow in various sorts of ways under studio lights or in post-production. It could be taken to a ridiculous extreme, of course, but it might be another way to make the costume look otherworldly and break up the blue field. Of course, that's largely speculation. As they are, again, I wish they provided a little more contrast, but they don't really detract.
The Briefs: No briefs, which I still generally think is a bad thing for this costume. The other elements compensate, but still don't quite cover the fact that between the shield and the boots is almost nothing but blue, and there's nothing to tie the main costume in with the cape--which is what the briefs do, for better or worse.
The Colors: I'm still not thrilled with the more muted palette, which I'd hoped we'd get away from after "Superman Returns." But I've seen enough of "Watchmen" and "300" that I know 'bright shiny colors' just aren't Snyder's thing. It's not unexpected, but it would be awfully nice to have a new Superman movie that's as vibrant and colorful as "Captain America: The First Avenger."
Overall: I actually like it, and the more I see of it, the more I like it. There are definitely things I'd change or do differently, but I'm excited to see it in action. And remember, it could be much, much worse.

Boldly Going

2011-08-30T21:07:00.000-05:00

I finally picked up some of the Batman: Brave and the Bold DVDs, and while I'm waiting for the first season to arrive, I popped one of the second-season discs into the DVD player for background. I've watched the show off and on enough to know it's awesome, but "A Bat Divided" is just a special kind of great. It's not just the interesting new twist on Firestorm--which I hope carries over somewhat into the New 52 where the status quo seems similar--nor is it the huge number of cameos--Killer Moth! The Eraser! The Ten-Eyed Man!--it's Dr. Double X, who is just a sensational character rediscovery.

Characters like Dr. Double X are the reason why I wish I knew more about the zanier eras of Batman, since the zany tide of the Silver Age crazied all boats. I just wish I'd known about him when I was doing Walking with Superman. I can already imagine the plot...

Flooded

2011-08-26T20:59:00.000-05:00

I picked up the first trade of the most recent "Batgirl" series over the summer, and enjoyed it enough to pick up the second trade as my last online purchase before Borders announced its forthcoming closure. Unfortunately, with time and so forth, it's sat unread on my nightstand since then. I finally plowed through it today, and it was just fantastic. Miller was clearly crafting a great cast around Stephanie, and it's sad to know that it's all over.

If you haven't checked out the series yet, I highly recommend it. And I'm looking forward to the next trade(s?).

Don't You Hate Pants?

2011-08-25T12:00:00.001-05:00

"Pants," in this case, used in the British sense of the word. A less-posed image of the Henry Cavill Superman costume has come about, which reveals some of what was hidden about Superman's costume:

I snagged that shot from Cosmic Book News, which has a couple of different angles and a look at the black-caped Faora. Zod's costume, apparently, will be added in digitally later. It'll be interesting to see what that's like; a part of me hopes that it looks as alien and futuristic now as the weird glowy Kryptonian clothes looked in "Superman."

As for the Man himself, it's clear that he's lost the trunks. As I mentioned in the last post on the subject, losing the trunks for the film could be a good thing, depending on what they do with other aspects of the design. The other shot of Superman at CBN shows a distinct shininess to his cuffs and flanks, which was suggested by the difference in texture those showed in the promotional image. If that stands out enough, it might break up the costume in the way it needs for the trunks to be gone. It's not clear if he's rocking a full belt with this, or just a buckle of some sort, but there's at least some ornamentation there.

I'm on record as generally thinking that the trunks are an important and necessary part of the Superman costume design, and I do think this looks like a lot of uninterrupted blue. It's a lot of a slightly peculiar blue, too, a different shade than we usually see on Superman (although I like the color of the cape--and lighting/digital color correction is everything). I'm not thrilled with the change, but I'm interested to see what's done with it.

It's at least one step better than his DCnU armor.

Some more snippets

2011-08-24T21:44:00.002-05:00

New Doctor Who starts this coming weekend! I'm excited, even if Torchwood has been doing a decent job of filling the Doctor-shaped hole in my life. I've caught some of BBC America's lead-up specials, doing the VH1-style talking heads thing. It's a little disappointing that these "Best of" showcases are limited to the last two seasons, because I kind of doubt that "the Siren who turned out to be a holographic nurse with terrible bedside manner" would show up on anyone's "best Doctor Who monsters" list. But it also has Natalie Morales and Mark Sheppard and Paul F. Tompkins, so there's that.

One thing that's become clear from these clip shows is how long Steven Moffat has been laying in the "Doctor is his own worst enemy" theme. I thought the twist of the mid-season finale, that the Doctor's "I'm super-badass and you all should be afraid of me" speeches have finally come back to bit him in the ass, was particularly inspired. But now I see that Moffat laid the same twist into "The Pandorica Opens," where the Doctor is seen to be the greatest threat in the universe, but we still side with him because the ones who think he's dangerous are his enemies. "Amy's Choice" gave us the Doctor's self-loathing made manifest, threatening his companions; meanwhile, "The Doctor's Wife" showed just what kind of danger the Doctor has put those companions into just by bringing them into his massive, insane time machine. Even "The Lodger" has what appears to be the Silence putting the world in danger by trying to imitate the TARDIS.

It'll be nice if this means that the series scales back a little; ending every season with the destruction of everything is going to get really tedious after awhile, if it hasn't already. I would love to see another "Black Orchid," for instance.

I finally got a Wii. It's not something I've been exactly itching to buy, but there are definitely some games I'd like to play on it--not the least of which are on the Virtual Console. I downloaded Super Mario World and Chrono Trigger--the latter of which I missed out on years ago--and I'm excited to get into those. The newest Mario Kart proved to be as entertaining and frustrating as previous iterations for me, and I got WiiFit because I'm really trying to get into shape.

But the reason I mention it here is Batman: Brave and the Bold, which I picked up the day I bought the system. I'd heard good things about the game, and the show is fantastic, so it was kind of a no-brainer. I haven't played much, and it's certainly no "Arkham Asylum," but it's a damn fun game. It's old-school action platforming similar to "Scott Pilgrim," which is still a great game, but Batman: Brave and the Bold goes one better by including Batman. So far, it's everything that I've loved about River City Ransom, the "Brave and the Bold" TV show, and the Animated Batman game for the Genesis/SNES era. The controls, animations, and collision detection are sometimes a little clunky, but otherwise I'm having a blast.

Siskoid's recent Superman post has me thinking about Super Friends again. The show was just a little before my time (an ad for the then-forthcoming series appeared in one of my Mom's comics that I read growing up), but I watched several episodes when it was on Cartoon Network while I was in high school. It's one of the few media incarnations of Superman that I haven't really looked into, and the relative dirt-cheapness of the DVD sets on Amazon has me thinking about giving it a shot.

There is one teensy problem, which is that there are an awful lot of DVD releases, with no really clear order--not surprising, for a show that ran for thirteen years in various iterations. That, and from my own experience and proclivities, I know I've liked the Wonder Twins and New Gods years than some of the others. Then again, I've more recently been getting more partial to the Silver/Bronze Age mentality that has been on-display in some of the episodes I've seen, so maybe the Wendy-and-Marvin years are where I should start.

So I put the question to my legions of knowledgeable readers: if I want to start watching Super-Friends, where do I begin?

Where is my Super-Suit?

2011-08-11T22:03:00.000-05:00

Oh hey, I forgot, while I was gone at GenCon, they unveiled the new movie Superman costume. Or at least, they unveiled it as much as they could while also leaving it partially veiled by shadow. If you haven't already seen the image, here it is, courtesy of the Superman Homepage.

I hate to say much of anything about it without a better shot, but there are a few things worth mentioning even now.

The Hair: Set reports and other pictures suggest that Cavill will be rocking the spit curl, and not this Dean Cain-esque style. I certainly don't mind it as it is, but it'd be nice to see that.
The Cape: I like the way you can see how it attaches to the costume. I further like that it's not tucked into the tight collar, the way Brandon Routh's was. Reeve could get away with it, largely because of the wider neckline.
The Boots: The classic shape, though the element that in comics typically looks like some kind of embellishment or seam has shrunk on these to a bit of top-of-the-boot piping. These are higher than Routh's, but look to be a bit shorter than Reeve's. No complaints.
The S-Shield: Hey, it's an Earth-2 Superman movie! Seriously, every screen version of the S-shield has been a bit different, and this is only about as big a departure from the trademarked version as Routh's was. It looks a lot like the shield Superman wore back in the early '40s (see here or here, for example). It'll be interesting to see it in a more head-on shot.
The Belt: The buckle looks pretty traditional. No extra S-shields there.
The Texture: Hoo boy. Superman looks like he's wearing snakeskin or something. I frankly miss the simple cloth, and Superman's the character who should be able to do that, what with being invulnerable and all. This textured vinyl just looks uncomfortable. The resolution's not good enough to see if it's going the "Superman Returns" route of having a texture that's repeated S-shield shapes. But then, it didn't distract from "Superman Returns," and I suspect it'll be a minor issue.
Additional Design Elements: Here's where I part ways a bit with the costume designer. From the cuffs, the visible leg, and the spot above the belt, it looks like there are parts of the costume with a different color and a smoother texture. It's similar to what Shane Davis did in "Superman: Earth One," and I think it's generally pretty unnecessary. You don't need to add stuff to Superman's costume; you don't need to make it busier.
The Briefs: What briefs? It's impossible to tell whether or not they're a part of this costume. If they aren't, and the costume is taking a hint from the "Earth One" costume, then that might be a good thing. One of the biggest problems of that design was that the briefs interrupted those fields of color, and the fields were reversed after the interruption, making it look like a coloring error. Leaving the briefs out, but breaking up the color in other ways, is actually a design compromise I can handle.
The Colors: It's hard to tell, since the image is washed-out in a style that Snyder's done before. I hope the suit is bright and bold and pretty primary-colored, rather than the darker, more subdued tones we saw on Brandon Routh. It's definitely too early to tell, and what's more, it's going to depend a lot on how they filter and color-correct the movie.
Overall: Damn, Cavill has the look. Seriously, he's the first live-action Superman--except perhaps Dean Cain--who looks like he really has the Superman size down.
Any excuse to make a bulleted list these days. Sheesh.

What's the Flashpoint?

2011-08-10T18:50:00.000-05:00

I know that's not an original title, but it's a fitting one. After a GenCon-caused delay, I made it to the comic shop this week and bought most of two weeks' worth of comics. Naturally, though I'm not entirely sure why at this point, that included "Flashpoint" #4. Reading through it, and through some Flashpoint tie-ins of varying quality, really solidified some of the series' problems in my mind.

First, and most trivially, there's the usual-by-this-point problem of editing.

I'm sure the New 52 has everyone working overtime to make things run smoothly, but when you have a panel where a whole bunch of difficult-to-distinguish characters are talking, it might be a good idea to make sure the word bubbles are pointing at the right people. Especially when those word bubbles are being used for relatively important (to the issue) characterization. And especially in the tentpole frigging crossover title you're using to launch your whole new initiative. This is the most high-profile book I've seen this kind of editing error on (unless you count "Superman: Earth One"), but it seems like every week, I pull out a new DC comic with some kind of crazy mistake. The last one I remember was, as I recall, one of the Kid Flash tie-ins, where the art credits were printed twice, on the same page, but in one case clearly accidentally over the art. It's becoming a trend.

That being said, this issue suffers from more of the same kind of thing that Chris Sims rightly noted in the last three: namely, that there doesn't seem to be anything even approaching a plan. Issue #1: Barry tries to cope with new world, regain his powers, recruit Batman to set things right. Issue #2: Barry tries to convince Batman to help him regain his powers so he can set things right. Issue #3: Barry regains his powers and tries to recruit Superman, who will help set things right. Issue #4: Superman runs away, Barry decides that setting things right is too hard and instead wants to help people.

Seriously.

I just don't know where to begin. Issue 3 turned out to be utterly unnecessary; the only worthwhile thing it seems to have done was bring Cyborg into the superheroes-changing-the-world fold, but that could easily have been accomplished in issue #1 or 2 as well. The first section of #3 was dedicated to doing what they'd already done in #2, and the Superman plot ended with things in exactly the same position they'd been before. Now, a sizable part of this issue was spent complaining that the heroes didn't get together when they got together in issue #1, and subsequently getting those heroes--or at least some of them--together. I appreciated the moments of characterization for the Shazam Squad, but there's not enough space for them to have any more depth than they did back in #1, and dedicating that space to "war affects people and is bad" seems like a waste.

But hey, we got a full-page splash introducing Element Woman! I guess Geoff Johns slept through the day in creative writing when they explained what a cheat and a bad idea it is to introduce key characters in the fourth act.

But there's the bigger problem of Barry Allen, who wants to set things right, who has Batman on his side because he wants to set things right, who gets the Captain Thunder Kids Club on his side because he wants to set things right, and who has a ticking clock in his head that, if he doesn't beat it, will prevent him from setting things right. And he decides that it would be too hard to set things right, so instead they should go stop the war that wouldn't be happening if they set things right.

"Boy, the Emperor sure is intimidating. You know what? I think I'll go back to Toshi Station after all."

"Gee, I never expected Mount Doom to be so awfully hot, and this ring's not so bad. Come on, Sam, let's head back to the Shire."

"Holy Hannah, it sure is hard to destroy these horcruxes. That's what, like, four of them? Screw this, I'm going back to my cupboard."

Barry Allen, the Fastest Man Alive, has spent the last three issues spinning his wheels, and decides in this one to just head off in a completely different, irrelevant, unnecessary direction. This is the hero who inspired a legacy? This is the steadfast beacon of hope who outshone even the Man of Steel? This is a man who raced back from death itself to save the world that he sacrificed his life to save once before?

The worst part is his rationalization: "Trying to figure out what events he altered will be like trying to find the right grain of sand in the ocean." Well, sure, I guess, except that if you go back in time to stop him, you should actually see him altering those events. You know, catch him in the act. Altering them. And I suppose it would be hard to find the right grain of sand in the ocean. If only you had the ability to travel through time, thus allowing for a near-infinite amount of it, and some kind of super-speed ability that would make examining a large number of things possible in a short amount of time. Of course, it would help if the person with those abilities also had expertise in a branch of science that went to places and pieced together what had occurred after the fact, some kind of forensic science. But where on Earth would we find a character with super-speed, time-travel abilities, and forensic science expertise?

Look, if the point of the whole series up 'til now is Barry learning that, in this new world, he can't just do things the way he used to do them--round up the heroes, get to work, etc.--then it's been awfully obtuse. Especially since "rounding up the heroes and getting to work" has worked about 50% of the time. But honestly, I can't see another point. Meanwhile, I keep feeling like we're missing out on a much more interesting story, replaced with these repeats and retreads of what we've already seen, and plot elements that either go or come out of nowhere.

So I suspect that August 31st will give us Barry and Zoom's inevitable confrontation, the return of Superman, and Barry finally setting things right...but not quite everything and not quite right, because of his swiss-cheesed memory. And then it'll all be even mooter than it is right now, because we'll have the New 52 to contend with.

But if "Flashpoint" is meant to be our gateway into the New 52, then it seems like we've got a lot of repetition, disjointed storytelling, bad editing, and repetition to look forward to.

Low-Content Mode

2011-08-03T12:15:00.000-05:00

In about forty-five minutes, I'll be heading down to Gen Con Indy for five-ish days of science education and geeky indulgence. As a result, things will probably be pretty quiet around here. If you're in Indianapolis, feel free to drop by our panels; I think you'll be glad you did.

And in the meantime, since I'm missing out on comics this week, try not to break the Internet or spoil "Superman" #714 too badly.

More Science!

2011-08-01T11:36:00.000-05:00

If you'd like a taste of what we're offering at Gen Con, my good friend Don has posted videos from last year. If you enjoy them, then you're sure to love our presentations this year! If you don't enjoy them, then make sure to come by this year and see how much we've improved! Hope to see you there!

For Science!

2011-07-30T09:00:00.001-05:00

Looks like the last time I mentioned Gen Con Indy on this blog was back in 2008, which is almost a shame. After all, I post more here, I have more readers here, and the folks over here are more likely to head out to a gaming convention for its stated purpose.

So here's the scoop: At that trip in 2008, my group went to a panel put on by some Indiana Ghost Hunters. Being of a scientific, skeptical mindset, we figured "hey, we can do that," and put on a panel of our own the next year (which I was only peripherally involved with, owing to the fact that I triple-booked that weekend with weddings). Last year, I returned to Gen Con as part of the Skeptical Gamers, and we put on a pretty successful series of talks about science and skepticism. We also raised $800 for the Indiana Vaccination Coalition, doing some real, tangible good for a state that needs it (not that all states don't need better vaccination rates). I wrote all about it here if you want more detail.

This year, the Skeptical Gamers are back, and while there have been some unfortunate snafus, we're hoping to have just as much fun and success this year. I'll be speaking in various panels over the weekend on Conspiracy Theories, Cargo Cult Science, Cryptozoology, and General Skepticism, and I'm pretty proud of the presentations I've helped put together for the first and last of those. If you're anywhere near Indianapolis next weekend, I highly recommend stopping by and saying hello.

Oh, and the schedule of panels and talks is right here. Hope to see you there!

It's a Derp!

2011-07-29T15:04:00.000-05:00

So that "It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman" musical soundtrack I posted about yesterday? I opened it up this morning to rip the tracks so I could listen to it on my iPhone. There was just one problem: it didn't fit onto the little CD-holder spinny bit in my laptop's disc tray.

Looking at the CD, it appeared that the hole was just too small, that there was a little semi-cut circle around that center hole, which was supposed to have been punched out, but wasn't. "Okay," I said, contacting my inner Tim Taylor. "I can fix this. I just need to cut out that center plastic."

So I sat down with a cutting board and a bright lamp and an X-Acto knife, and I went to work. I did pretty well with my CD surgery, cutting out a little chunk of the plastic, figuring I could work on the rest from there. At about that time, I broke the tip off my X-Acto knife and decided to take a break.

I approached my wife, ever the voice of reason, to pitch the next phase of my plan at her (of course, I have more than one X-Acto knife). "I think I know a way to make this go faster, but it will also be more dangerous. I could heat up the blade."

She responded by telling me that this was a bad idea, and that I should just buy a new CD.

I was somewhat dismayed by this turn of affairs, but happy that I had permission to just replace the semi-mutilated disc. Whereupon we went to lunch and ran some errands.

My mind mulled over this problem in the background over the course of the early afternoon, and hit upon something I should have noticed earlier (but in my zeal to do some manly tool-work-cutting, I missed): if the hole in the center was too small, how would it fit on the little plastic CD-holding-bit in the jewel case?

Returning home, I decided to test this new notion, and tried the CD in the disc tray again. It fit. I was just apparently uncoordinated and stupid before.

So now I have a slightly-mutilated Superman musical soundtrack CD, and it's a good thing that I don't listen to the actual physical discs very often anymore. And I feel like precisely the idiot that I am. But at least it ripped!

If yesterday was Mark Waid day, then today was Superman day. The rest of my online Borders order arrived, including things that I wasn't aware had shipped yet. So now I have Superman Chronicles Vol. 5 and 6 on my shelf, as well as Michael Eury's "The Krypton Companion" and the Neal Adams/Denny O'Neil "Superman vs. Muhammad Ali" hardcover reprint, which I've never actually read. So that's exciting.

And as long as today is Superman Day, I might as well mention something I've been meaning to talk about in the last couple of posts. I'm reading Elliot S! Maggin's second Superman novel, "Miracle Monday," and it's quite enjoyable, but one bit has really stuck out. Kristin Wells, the time-traveling historian who would later become Superwoman, writes a journal entry about halfway through the book, shortly after she'd been possessed or otherwise influenced by the book's villain, the demonic C.W. Saturn. It's some of the best subtle, psychological horror I've read in a superhero story. I feel like it's damning with faint praise to say it reminded me of Stephen King's short story "1408," but it's the same kind of slow-burn madness evidenced by things just being slightly off, and it's accomplished in a fairly small space. You can read it here, though I suspect it won't have the same impact if you haven't read the rest of the book up to it. So you could start here then.

Laura Hudson wrote essay on female creators at DC, why it's important, and why Dan Didio's dismissive, defensive answers to the problem are a problem. It's worth reading if you haven't, and I agree with it on pretty much every count.

More Miscellany

2011-07-28T19:28:00.000-05:00

I just read the new original story in "DC Retroactive: JLA - The '70s," and it stands out as one of the best straight-up old-school comic stories I've read in awhile. I know the pendulum has swung and the media has progressed, but I really would like to see more of this kind of thing. Which is part of why I'm glad I asked my shop to pull all the Retro-Active specials, painful though it may be to my wallet. It also makes me really excited to sit down and read the Superman one later tonight, in all likelihood.

Apparently today was Mark Waid day, because another trip to the sadly terminal Borders saw me walking out with the latest two volumes of "Irredeemable" and "Captain America: Man Out Of Time." After seeing the film of the latter, I've been in the mood for some more good Cap stories (and if I'd been paid anytime recently, I would have picked up Brubaker's "Red Menace" trade too), and I've never heard a bad word associated with Mark Waid's Captain America. I've got an "Operation: Rebirth" trade around here someplace that I've never managed to read, so there's a good chance I'll be hitting that soon as well.

My other attempts to locate good Captain America stories have been somewhat mixed. I picked up the first (or 620th) issue of "Captain America & Bucky," and enjoyed it well enough. It's WWII-era, which I like to see, but I would have liked a little more Captain America and Bucky in it. I'll stick around for the first arc or so, but I'm not sure after that. I've liked every bit of Brubaker's Cap comics that I've read, but I've never gone the extra step of continuing with the series. It's partially the way Marvel organizes their trades without a clear progression from one to the next; I understand the reasons for doing that, and I saw in "Red Menace" today that there was a handy guide on the inside cover, but it does make things slightly less impulse-buy-friendly for the story continuity-minded among us. It's also part of why I've bought so little in the way of Brand New Day-era Spider-Man trades; a lack of numbers and a plethora of trades makes it unclear where I should go next without additional research that I'd rather not do.

Which, I suppose, makes me lazy. Or cheap. Or searching for an excuse. I can handle all that, I guess.

I tried to find "The Adventures of Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty" at my local shop, since I'd heard good things about it and since I'm always up for Kevin Maguire art, but there seems to be no trade, and my LCS only had the first issue. It works out okay for me; I didn't really have the money for it anyway, but it's definitely something I'll be looking into down the line.

Back to Mark Waid, it occurs to me that, when people talk about deconstructionist writers in the superhero genre, Mark Waid doesn't get mentioned often enough. Aside from turning out solid, straightforward superhero comics in a variety of places and styles, he's done quite a bit of work in the deconstruction mode. "Kingdom Come" is an allegory about approaches to superhero storytelling, "Empire" is about what happens when the villain wins, and "Irredeemable" and "Incorruptible" are all about taking common tropes--the ultimate hero, the dastardly villain, the fall from grace, the heel face turn--and applying them in fairly original, extreme ways. It's not his only approach, like it might be for someone like Alan Moore, and I think that's why he might not be as closely identified with the process, but I think he deserves the same kind of consideration.

So, I have this now:

So, yeah. Don't be surprised if I end up talking about it soon.

Some thoughts on recent comics-related stuff

2011-07-27T18:52:00.000-05:00

I finally caught up on Green Lantern, which meant reading 2/3 of "War of the Green Lanterns" (I didn't subscribe to "Emerald Warriors"). Not entirely surprisingly, I was able to follow the story just fine. Overall, I thought it was pretty decent, and as crossovers go I'd much prefer these small, relatively confined ones (see also: "Reign of Doomsday(s)") than sweeping universe-wide ones.

As to the status quo changes for the GLs, it was nice to see some acknowledgement of John Stewart's architecture background (brief though it may have been) and generally compassionate nature (even if the cover was completely at odds with that). I'm curious to see how this all shakes out in September, but I can't say I'm terribly interested in Sinestro-as-GL, especially since the solicits say that he's the GL for sector 2814, which makes no sense, and Geoff Johns' chapters in the crossover were generally the weakest (largely because his response to decreased page count has apparently been to increase the number of unnecessary two-page spreads). "Green Lantern" is one of those on-the-cusp titles for me, and since I'm quite happy only buying two GL comics each month, it's entirely possible that the flagship book will be the one to get the axe in October.

Speaking of crossovers, how about "Flashpoint"? Issue #3 was the first one that felt like anything happened in, and that might just be because of my well-known Superman bias. I'm kind of disappointed that Johns didn't decide to go in the more interesting direction I speculated after issue two, with Batman working to re-create a better world that he never knew and would never see, but I can't say I was surprised that Geoff Johns did something conventional and cliché.

And I hate saying that, because Johns used to be one of my favorite writers in comics, but I think a combination of being stretched-too-thin and having no one to check and/or balance him has turned him into a bucket of clichés.

In short, I generally agree with what Chris Sims had to say about things. Flashpoint has been largely pointless, and where it has had any point or plot, it's been exactly what you'd expect, and nothing that you haven't seen before.

That "more interesting direction" keeps popping into my head, and it really has me interested in writing that series. We've all seen the alternate timeline stories where one lone hero knows the way the world is supposed to be and will stop at nothing to set things right. In a lot of those stories, the characters of the alternate universe just go along with the protagonist, either because her world sounds so much better than the current one, or because she just seems so sincere.

And yet, I have to imagine that if someone came to me and said the world was all wrong, and he needed to set things right so that the world as I knew it never actually happened...I'd think that person was nuts. If I were a superhero, I might hear that person out (weirder things happen in superheroes' lives, after all), but it seems like skepticism would be awfully warranted. Moreover, what's to say that this hero isn't actually a villain in disguise, trying to create--or recreate--a world where he's in charge?

It makes me think that there'd be a lot of traction in a decent "Triumph" series. Triumph's whole schtick was that he was lost in time after a time-altering event that wiped him from his rightful place in the timestream, but as far as I know, he didn't do a whole lot of the "I must set things right" plot, more the "I must adapt to this strange new world" plot. A series where he was working to put things "right," but the other heroes either saw him as a self-aggrandizing egotist who can't stand to be out of the spotlight, or a giant kook with enough power to make him dangerous, would be worth a read, I think.

I am however enjoying some of the miniseries, which is not entirely surprising. "Batman: Knight of Vengeance" and "Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown" are the best of the bunch, also not entirely surprising. I generally like that they aren't tied too closely to the main plot of Flashpoint, but are instead exploring the rest of the alternate universe--which is really what alternate timeline stories are good for anyway.

The other tie-ins I'm buying are "Kid Flash Lost," "Lois Lane and the Resistance," "Project Superman," "Wonder Woman and the Furies," and "Deathstroke and the Curse of the Ravager." The latter two started mostly as impulse buys--Abnett and Lanning are good enough for me to check out regardless, and Deathstroke as a pirate was a crazy enough high concept for me to check it out. They're all decent enough, but I suspect one or two of them might end up on eBay in September.

The last time I subscribed to a "Daredevil" comic, he was wearing armor and calling himself "Jack Batlin." It's not that I don't like Daredevil, I just let the subscription lapse (as this was in those olden days when I was getting my regular comics through the mail). I've obviously heard good things about "Daredevil" comics since then, but I've never really gotten around to checking them out. But last week I decided to give Mark Waid's new, lighter-toned Daredevil a shot, and it was fantastic. The buzz the book has been getting is totally deserved, and it made a Daredevil subscriber out of me for the first time since 1993. Check it out

You know what I enjoyed? That Joe Johnston-directed superhero movie set in the WWII era, where the Nazi-fighting protagonist is outfitted with advanced technology by a billionaire pilot-slash-inventor named Howard.

Seriously, though, I watched both "Rocketeer" and "Captain America: The First Avenger" in the last few days, and quite enjoyed them both. I hadn't seen the former since at least the era of VHS, and while the story and action is the sort of excellent swashbuckling action-adventure fun that I've been craving lately, it would probably benefit from some more modern special effects. "Captain America" was great through and through, except with the opposite problem that there was just a little too much obvious CGI in the "Cap and the Howling Commandos bust up a bunch of Hydra bases" montage sequence.

One of the things I most appreciated about the film was the color palette. They did a good job with soft beiges and sepia tones in the training and bunker scenes, but once Cap was really on the scene, it started looking more and more like technicolor. The colors really popped, something I noticed especially when the Red Skull was standing in front of his flying-wing airplane. It was a very welcome change from the teal and orange palette of so many modern movies.

I would love to see more "Captain America"-style superhero movies, and I hope that "Man of Steel" is that good.

That'll do for now. Keeps the blog from getting too dusty. More to come later. Hurm.

Walking with Superman: Finale

2011-07-22T12:00:00.001-05:00

That's it.

I'm probably just as surprised as you are that I managed to get through the whole series. Sure, there were three or four times when I forgot to finish the post before midnight, and Blogger's issues with scheduling posts meant that, more often than not, they didn't go up at 12:00--though that's an arbitrary time I set later in the run anyway. But aside from the occasional snafu, I got everything written and reasonably on-time. Even over my wedding and honeymoon.

Three hundred and sixty-five Superman story pitches. And there were even ideas I didn't get to use, like Superman visiting Vanity City to get involved with the selection/training of the new Aztek, or facing corrupt politics in Chicago, or teaming up with Klarion in Salem. I'm particularly kicking myself over that last one, frankly.

I also never dipped into my back-pocket pitches, because there's still a part of me that would love to write Superman for reals down the line, and I wouldn't want to give away everything. So that's 365 story ideas on top of the arcs I've been planning and plotting and refining for years.

I'll admit, some plans fell through. Obviously there was the first contest, and I was hoping to do a "guest week" somewhere in there, but never got the time to put it together. After the three-page script I did for Day 100, I wanted to do longer scripts for 200 and 300, with a full issue for #365, but that turned out to be insane, at least with my current schedule.

I'm not quite done with the "Walking with Superman" tag. I'll have a wrap-up version of the by the numbers post, and a little post about my process through this whole thing. I find it interesting, anyway. Eventually, I'll have the list of links and titles up as well. It'll all be trickling out over the next week or two.

I want to thank all the people who commented, who entered the contest, who read along and offered kind words throughout this process. I know it's just fanfic, but it's nice to know that people were reading and enjoying it at least as much as I was enjoying putting it all together. I want to give specific shout-outs to Steve Younis of the Superman Homepage and Rebel Rikki and Davin Loh of Nerdy Nothings for promoting the project and giving me my first podcasting experience.

As to the future: at the request of my wife, I'm done with the self-imposed daily blogging obligation. I'm not done blogging, but I suspect things will be a little lighter here for a little while. After that? Well, it's been an awfully long time since I did a Superman Sunday post...

Mope, mope, mope

2011-07-21T16:00:00.000-05:00

ComicsAlliance has a couple of preview pages from September's "Superman" (vol. 3) #1, specifically dealing with Lois Lane's new non-Clark relationship. I'm just going to tackle the pros and cons, really, because there are both:

Pro: New digs for the Daily Planet, and what appears (briefly) to be a fleshed-out supporting cast there.
Con: We're only getting a piece of the story here, and it looks like it's after the action, so it's hard to tell exactly what's going on. Looks like the old Planet building might have burned down, maybe?
Pro: The art looks great. Simply fantastic.
Con: De-aging Perry seems to have also given him black hair. He looks like Sarge Steel.
Pro: Morgan Edge is involved. Lois appears to be a TV reporter, which is a nice flip-flop from the way things were in the late '70s-early '80s, where Clark was the WGBS anchorman and Lois still wrote for the Planet. These are good shake-ups that could reasonably cause interesting drama.
Con: As David Brothers pointed out on Twitter, "that lois lane's new boyfriend thing is written like the worst, laziest sitcom drama i've ever seen in my entire life." Moreover, it's more of the '90s-style thinking (Look up Jeb Friedman, the informant and union organizer who fell for Lois and acted as a foil during their engagement and brief breakup) that's going into this relaunch. This reads like a scene out of "Lois and Clark," and even as a fan of "Lois and Clark," it smacks of the same kind of sitcom cliché.
Pro: Jonathan Carroll's name reminds Clark of his (now-deceased) father. It's not exactly subtle, but it's at least a nice bit of characterization.
Con: Jonathan Carroll seems like either a himbo or a jerk, which is really the easy way out. Criticize "Superman Returns" all you want, but one of the things it did really well was make Lois's new love interest (James Marsden's Richard White) a nice, likable, decent guy. Having a rounded character--and a good person--in the "love triangle foil" position may be difficult for the writer, but it allows for a lot more nuanced conflict within the readers, who want (based on the circumstances) to dislike the character, but can't find anything wrong with him beyond "he's not the protagonist." It also went a long way toward showing that Lois's type was "kind, caring, compassionate, and moral," not "big muscly beefcake."
Pro: I was thinking that they could be daring and introduce some progressive details into the story by having Lois date someone who wasn't caucasian. I then realized that the racial politics of such a story would be "Lois is dating a non-caucasian man, but she's supposed to be with the protagonist, who looks like the paragon of caucasian manhood." It would be, at the very least, uncomfortable in the same way that Ray Palmer and Ronnie Raymond taking over their respective superhero roles from non-caucasian successors (with the subtext that they're the "true" versions of those characters) was. So it's good that they avoided that.
Con: Clark Kent is mopey. His powers make him hear things that make him more mopey. Mopey mope mope. I am so tired of mopey Clark Kent, and yet, that appears to be the entire point of this new status quo.
Con: Which is, of course, exactly what I expected. Lois is with the wrong guy. She has to be with the wrong guy because it explains why she isn't with the right guy. Because we know that Clark is the right guy, the dramatic tension is all around when Lois will leave the wrong guy and get with the right guy. Casting Jonathan Carroll as (it appears) a one-note beefcake only underscores his status as the wrong guy and gives us no tension or conflict toward that assessment. If Lois were with someone who was a nice person and made her happy without putting her in danger or leaving frequently, then the readers--and Clark!--would be forced to wonder if maybe she wasn't better off not being Superman's girlfriend. That might be a source of some mopey drama, but it would at least be a more interesting sort of drama than this "Three's Company" BS.

Thoughts?

Walking with Superman: Day 365

2011-07-21T12:00:00.000-05:00

Superman's year-long journey has come to an end on the outskirts of Metropolis, DE. They say you can't go home again--and in this case, they're right! Metropolis is closed off to its hometown hero, with a force-field designed specifically to keep Kryptonians out. Superman may have taken a year-long sabbatical, but Lex Luthor was hard at work back home, and once Superman breaks through the shield, he'll find that every inch of the Big Apricot has been turned into an anti-Superman deathtrap! If that weren't enough, Luthor has scoured the globe to form a new Superman Revenge Squad, a veritable vanguard of vengeful villains who would stop at nothing to slay Superman! The Man of Tomorrow calls out to his allies from across the United States, and together they'll fight to save Metropolis from this army of supervillains! But for all the heroes and villains, eventually it'll come down to Superman and Lex Luthor...and only one will walk away!

Walking with Superman: Day 364

2011-07-20T12:00:00.003-05:00

"The story of Clark Kent is by now well-known, though my access to his psychological records give me perhaps greater insight than the newspaper stories might allow. Mr. Kent has spent the better part of the last year bouncing around the country from facility to facility, but I have high hopes that San Haven Asylum will be the end of his journey. The relative remoteness (Dunseith, ND, is the closest town, still some miles away) is why I requested his transfer to this facility. Isolating Kent from the subjects of his delusions and his enablers may be the change he needs to finally cure this disorder.

"Even with his case files, the genesis of Mr. Kent's psychosis is unclear. He is certainly a paranoid schizophrenic, but the narrative that underscores his delusions developed in his childhood, well before any likely onset of schizophrenia. Then again, if one listens to Mr. Kent, he is a very unlikely individual.

"The core of his personal narrative is a grandiose delusion, specifically that he possesses special powers and abilities beyond those of mere mortals, that he is an exalted character called "Super-Man." This originated in Kent's childhood, first with stories about feats of strength or speed that his parents dismissed as normal pretend play. Some of Kent's previous therapists would put the onset of hallucinations in the same period; Kent's parents recall that he claimed to be able to hear voices and sounds with "super-hearing" and see through solid objects with "X-Ray Vision." It was not long afterward that he began telling stories about imaginary friends (again, initially dismissed as normal play by his parents), children from the "future" who also had special abilities and thought of young Kent as a great hero.

"Sometime in late adolescence or early adulthood, Kent's grandiose delusion grew more detailed, and other symptoms began to develop. Not only was he a veritable god among men and a predestined hero, but he was the sole survivor of an advanced alien race, secretly adopted by his "foster" parents, to protect him from the government and from alien "man-hunters" who would have exploited or dissected him. This seems to be the earliest of Kent's persecutory delusions. The details here are clearly less developed than other aspects of the narrative: sometimes he came to Earth as an infant, other times as an embryo in a technological womb; sometimes his alien parents chose Earth intentionally, other times his survival was a lucky shot in the dark. The inconsistencies suggest that this is a later part of the delusion, one that he has not thoroughly considered.

"It is at this time that Mr. Kent began to incorporate real-world figures into his delusion, claiming at various points that he knew and befriended billionaire Lex Luthor. This relationship eventually soured in some way (another inconsistency in Kent's stories), leading Luthor to become Kent's--or rather, "Super-Man's"--"arch-enemy." This remains Kent's strongest and most prominent persecutory delusion, but he would incorporate other figures into the narrative in various ways, usually by suggesting that they lead double-lives. For instance, he claims that wealthy philanthropists Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen (along with scores of others, from police officers to test pilots) are actually costumed vigilantes.

"Kent moved to Metropolis sometime after graduating high school; though his delusions were well-developed by this point, his paranoid tendency toward secrecy prevented them from impacting his social skills too severely. The move away from home, however, seems to have been the breaking point. Kent's delusions consumed more and more of his life, driving him into solitude--with one exception. In Metropolis, Kent became aware of Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane, who became the subject of his primary erotomanic delusion. Kent stalked Lane, going so far as to put her in dangerous situations so that he could "rescue" her. This is what led to his infamy, as Lane published the entire debacle in her column.

"And that, of course, was what finally led to Kent's institutionalization. But his unique needs, his refusal to take medication, and his penchant for violent outbursts and escape attempts led to his frequent transfers.

But San Haven will be his last stop; I will see to that much. If I can't break Clark Kent of his dangerous delusions, then I will make sure that he remains locked up here for the rest of his life."

--From the notes of Hugo Strange, MD.

Walking with Superman: Day 363

2011-07-19T12:00:00.000-05:00

Superman's in Plano, IL, but he'd never know that just by looking. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble to make Plano look exactly like Smallville, even to Superman's super-senses! What could possibly be gained by making a rural Illinois town into a replica of a rural Kansas town? And why are the actual, genuine-article Martha Kent, Lana Lang, and Pete Ross tied up in the fake Smallville High? Superman fears that he's up against an enemy he thought long dead, against the archnemesis of Clark Kent! Be careful Superman, because you might not survive--the return of Conduit!

Walking with Superman: Day 362

2011-07-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

When Superman visited the site of the world's largest time capsule in Seward, Nebraska, he expected to admire the monuments and the kitschy accomplishment--he wasn't even going to peek with his X-Ray vision! So the last thing he anticipated was waking up in 2025, trapped inside the time capsule as it's finally opened! How did the Man of Steel end up inside a monument to the Polyester Age--and how has the world changed in the decade-plus since he disappeared? Finally, and most importantly, is there any way for him to get back, or will Superman's long walk have lasted fourteen years longer than it was supposed to?

Wow, Nothing About This Sounds Good

2011-07-18T11:38:00.000-05:00

The news has broken on post-Flashpoint Superman's status quo, and it's really taking a toll on my positivity. Let's just go point by point:
Clark Kent and Lois Lane [...] were never married in the first place: Okay, I saw this coming. It's a terrible idea, because that's a (wedding) bell you really only get to ring once. For fifty-eight years, their relationship was based around the "will they/won't they" question--a question that gets really frigging old quite quickly (see also: Scrubs, Bones, and every other show that has ever done it)--but once the knot was tied, any future untying puts them into the even less tenable "when will they" situation. There's a reason that the Spider-Man comics of late have basically written MJ out of Peter's life (again), and it's because her presence forces the question of when they will get back together. Once you've established two characters as true-love-meant-for-each-other, you really can't un-establish that in the minds of the audience.

Its presence post-Flashpoint underscores the other problem with this kind of retcon. We've seen stories over and over where [HERO] loses [TRUE LOVE] and moves Heaven and Earth to get [TRUE LOVE] back. It's what heroes do, from Orpheus to Dante to Wally West. "Flashpoint" as a series is exactly the same kind of story, where the world has gone wrong and Barry Allen is moving Heaven and Earth to put it back. So when those kinds of stories are used to rewrite history, we're left with the dangling question of why no one tries to set things exactly right, why the heroes are satisfied with "good enough." At least "One More Day" forced the hero to make an impossible decision; the post-Flashpoint DCU requires the heroes to not act. It's almost hilarious that the brunt of that inaction will be felt by the star of Action Comics.

But at least I understand the (superficial and wrong) reasoning behind this decision: Splitting up Clark and Lois allows for new stories to be told, new conflicts to be had, and removes the restraint of the marriage. It bothers the ever-living hell out of me that comic relationships still revolve around romantic fantasy notions of true love, but seem to abhor marriage. It's like there's no one in comics who's happily married and sees that marriage is a source of new conflicts and story opportunities.

Lois will have a new boyfriend, one whose identity is yet to be revealed but is said to be a Daily Planet colleague: Oh good, "Jimmy Olsen's Blues" is going to be canon.

Actually, it's more likely to be someone like Steve Lombard or Ron Troupe or Lex Luthor or something. That's not really a concern, just a distraction.

Superman's alien origins will be emphasized in a big way, with the character described as "more Kal-El from the planet Krypton than Clark Kent from Kansas": Because there aren't any other semi-detached aliens who are the last survivors of their homeworlds in the DCU. I know that this is basically the sticking point around which all debates about Superman's character hinge, and I hope that it's mostly just a clumsy statement of the "Superman 2000"/"All-Star Superman" notion of a Superman whose powers just put him beyond human comprehension.

Superman's deep connection to his Kryptonian heritage also explains his new costume, as seen on the cover of Superman #1. It's "ceremonial armor" from his home planet, with the traditional red trunks abandoned: Because Superman needs armor. Hopefully its "ceremonial" nature allows for its eventual shelving, much like Wonder Woman's "Kingdom Come" armor.

Jonathan and Martha Kent are both dead in DC's post-Flashpoint continuity: Ugh. What is it with DC and living parents? What is it with DC and happy, normal human relationships? What is it with DC and the past?

Action Comics, which focuses on Superman's early superhero career, depicts a "younger, more brooding" Man of Steel: Yay! More brooding Superman! It's good to see that DC is listening to the critics and fans, because we haven't seen nearly enough of Superman brooding in recent years!

His powers are still in development at this point, as he "can leap tall buildings but can't fly in space": At least they're undoing the power-creep, the steady pushing-back of Superman's power development since 1986. Of course, this also means that "Superman: Secret Origin" is largely, if not wholly, undone. Is 13 months a new record for "shortest canonical Superman origin story"?

Kal-El's present will be told in Superman, with a "new status quo at the Daily Planet" and a new gig at the paper for Lois Lane: I sincerely hope this means that the Daily Planet is no longer (just) a newspaper. Print media is having some serious troubles, and it'd be nice to see the Daily Planet get a 21st-century upgrade. Frankly, I wouldn't mind seeing Clark back as anchor of WGBS news.

I've heard rumors that Lois's new "gig" is Editor-in-Chief, which would be a very interesting change and source of conflict. It would give her a whole new interest into Clark's sudden disappearances and dodgy ethics, and would make her appear like less of a stalker for trying to investigate those concerns.

The series [...] will show that "there's a price to pay for being Superman": Why? I mean, I hope this is a conceptual/philosophical "I can't get close to people or they'll be in danger" thing, not a "Superman's powers have brand new drawbacks" forced-drama idiocy.

Debut a brand-new villain, one said to be more powerful than the Man of Steel: New villains = good. Superman needs an expanded Rogue's Gallery, and if they're going "One More Day"/"Brand New Day" in some part, then I'd really like to see them take this lesson from Slott & Co. Retire the old rogues for awhile, until you can do new and fresh things with them. Let Lex scheme behind the scenes and play master orchestrator. Leave the Phantom Zone alone.

As for "more powerful than the Man of Steel," well, that's solicit braggadocio.

Finally: I'm not a fan of the new cover. With this historic relaunch, you'd think DC would put more effort into making these covers--particularly Action and Detective--more iconic, the sorts of things that people might look to imitate in the future. The first Rags Morales teaser had a lot more of that than this one does.

I'll be interested in seeing how this all shakes out in September (and, in all likelihood, later today), but boy, this first volley of news is depressing.

Walking with Superman: Day 361

2011-07-17T12:00:00.002-05:00

Hill City, South Dakota, has strong ties to the past. Not only is it the oldest remaining city in the area, but human history in the region goes back over nine thousand years, and high-profile fossil discoveries nearby speak to even more ancient times--and that long history is suddenly becoming a lot more tangible! The first sign of trouble came a few days ago, when the bandits in a wild west reenactment show injured tourists by firing live rounds from their six-shooters instead of blanks! Today, as Superman comes into town, he finds that the effect is spreading. Those actor bandits have become a real gang of rustlers, terrorizing the citizenry, and even some of the buildings and technology have transformed into a more 19th-century state. What could be causing this Rushmore State rewind--and will the Man of Steel be able to fix it before it affects him as well?

Walking with Superman: Day 360

2011-07-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

While passing through Little Axe, OK, Superman meets Katie Idlewild, a unique young girl with a unique problem--someone has stolen her time machine! The middle schooler built the incredible device (her father helped with some of the power tools) in her basement, but generally left it in the front yard, since she was the only one able to enter and operate it--or so she thought. Now the teenage genius needs Superman's help to find the device before it's used for some nefarious scheme, and the Man of Steel's long walk will take a sudden detour throughout time and space!

Walking with Superman: Day 359

2011-07-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

The final installment of a popular fantasy film series is in theaters today, and the Museum in Shelburne, VT, is helping fans celebrate in style. Timothy Hunter and the Ruby of Life: Part 2 closes out the saga of the teenage wizard, and visitors to the museum's special Tim Hunter exhibit are leaving with toy wands and glass jewels for their wizarding costumes. There's just one small problem: when the excited moviegoers leave the theater, they find that their fake artifacts actually work! Now, hundreds of area kids and teenagers are armed with a host of magic spells and powerful relics, and Superman's left to handle the chaos! But any fan of the Timothy Hunter films can tell you about the power of teamwork, so the Man of Steel has called a pair of sorcerers to help. Enter Princess Amethyst and Sargon the Sorcerer, who will hopefully be able to unravel these strange circumstances!

Walking with Superman: Day 358

2011-07-14T12:00:00.000-05:00

When electronic traffic signs around Danville, VT, began broadcasting complaints about the traffic and warnings of zombie invasion, authorities chalk it up to harmless-but-annoying vandals. When random text messages with similarly irreverent and strange content go out to random area residents, the police blamed it on pranksters. But when every electronic device in the area, from car GPS units to 911 dispatch computers, starts displaying nonsense messages instead of information, residents rightly begin worrying! Superman puts his skills to the task of tracking down the heinous hackers, but the truth will shock even him!

Because Sometimes You Just Need to See Curt Swan Draw Richard Pryor

2011-07-13T15:58:00.001-05:00

From The Superman Movie Special #1, 1983.

I love Curt Swan and all, but I've always noticed a certain...Steve Dillon quality to his faces. Not all the images of Gus Gorman are quite this...off-model in the book, but there's really only one that looks accurate. Kind of a far cry from, say, Bryan Hitch or the other photorealists of today, where actors often "play" characters in the art.

Walking with Superman: Day 357

2011-07-13T12:00:00.000-05:00

A tragic death during a routine National Guard parachuting exercise was the first indication that something was wrong at Montana's Fort Harrison. By the time Superman arrives, there's no chance that such an accident could happen again, because none of the planes can get off the ground. In fact, nothing can get off the ground! The local gravitational pull has become unbearable, and it'll soon become unbearable for the rest of the planet if Superman can't find a way to stop it! But while the Man of Steel evacuates the soldiers and staff, gravity bends sunlight, dilates time, and strains Superman's mighty muscles more and more. If Superman doesn't hurry, then this will soon become his most crushing defeat!

Just when I thought I was out...

2011-07-13T00:18:00.000-05:00

Today's newly-released solicitation for Stormwatch #2:

STORMWATCH #2
Written by PAUL CORNELL
Art by MIGUEL SEPULVEDA and AL BARRIONUEVO
Art and cover by MIGUEL SEPULVEDA
On sale OCTOBER 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+
The moon is alive! Following the events of SUPERMAN #1 where [TEXT REDACTED], the covert team of sci-fi Super Heroes known as Stormwatch must not only battle the Earth’s moon, but find a way to hide its monstrous metamorphosis from the rest of the Earth! How? Uh, they’re working on it. Meanwhile, the recruitment of Midnighter goes poorly, and we learn why the Martian Manhunter is a member of the team. Written by Paul Cornell (Doctor Who)!

Superheroes battling the moon because it's going through a monstrous metamorphosis? That is crazy. Like, precisely the kind of crazy that I want to read about.

Okay DC, you got me on this one. "Stormwatch" it is.

In other news, the second issue of the Red Hood book shows that it was possible to design a costume skimpier than Star Sapphire's. Meanwhile, Jason Todd joins Citizen Steel and that guy from "All-New Atom" in having his spandex-clad junk apparently displayed on a cover. Somehow I imagine this image will change before October. Because obviously that, and not Starfire's impossible costume, is the offensive and unacceptably sexual part of the image.

The announcements of miniseries for Huntress and the Penguin, and a maxi-series for the Shade, demonstrates that DC's going beyond the New 52 in coming months, which gives me hope for some characters (and perhaps more importantly, creators) that we haven't seen yet. Still no more women in the writing or art credits, though.

I want to spend another minute on that "Penguin: Pain and Prejudice" miniseries. It purports to be an origin story for the Penguin, which seems kind of odd. Why would they be releasing this now? I can't help but see parallels to the Scarecrow, Ra's al-Ghul, Joker, and Two-Face miniseries and trades and specials that cropped up before "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" respectively, and the timing (the fifth issue of the mini, if on-time, would ship in February, meaning a trade could be out by May, easily in time for "The Dark Knight Rises") seems right. Is the Penguin an as-yet-unannounced villain (or just supporting character) in the next Batman film? I'll be interested to find out.

Walking with Superman: Day 356

2011-07-12T12:00:00.001-05:00

As the exiled Menehune and the reawakened god-child Keiki Makua'ole make their way southward through the Pacific Ocean, Superman races ahead to ready Hawai'i for their assault! Speeding into the heart of Kilauea, Superman warns Pele of the vengeful visitors, and the fiery goddess calls out to her defenders. The Menehune's timeless nemesis, the owl-god Paupueo, awakens from his diurnal slumber! Kekona and the other still-loyal Menehune stand ready to defend the isles from their disgraced bretheren! The displaced Nawao giants return to Hawai'i's shores to fight the forces that drove them away! But while a divine war brews, Superman races around the archipelago to ensure that it won't be destroyed in the crossfire!

Walking with Superman: Day 355

2011-07-11T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Menehune are an ancient race of builders, descended from the Hawaiian volcano goddess Pele--so what are they doing in Alaska's Aleutian Islands? Superman last encountered a member of the diminutive construction crew during his Hawaiian honeymoon, so he's as surprised as anyone to find a tribe of them working their way through a lava vent into the Akutan volcano, one of the most active volcanoes in the region. The Man of Steel drops down to learn what's brought them so far from home, but he doesn't receive the most welcoming response. Turns out these Menehune have been exiled from their homeland, and so they seek Keiki Makua'ole, the lost scion of Pele, who has been imprisoned in Akutan since time immemorial! With the power of Keiki Makua'ole, they will have their revenge on the goddess who spurned them--and Superman may be powerless to stop them!

Power Fantasies

2011-07-10T20:48:00.000-05:00

So, superhero comics are often characterized as stemming from adolescent male power fantasies. At the bottom, it's the average, powerless person actually (and secretly) having the power to do the things they dream of doing. I suspect Spider-Man is probably the most purely distilled version of this--a bullied, powerless geek is secretly the hero that his bully idolizes.

So, I'm curious: what's an example of an adolescent female power fantasy? If it's basically the same, then why do we gender the characterization?

I think the example that gets thrown around most is similar in the "secret princess" archetype, the "I'm not who I appear to be, I'm actually someone famous/powerful/magical" story that underlies "Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld" and other stories.

But is that it? Is that even accurate? It seems like there's considerable overlap there...like, "Matilda" fits the male power fantasy model, but "Harry Potter" falls into the female one, suggesting more to do with the author's gender than the protagonist's, which makes sense.

I'll probably do some additional looking around on this, but it's been awhile since I wrote something literary here, and I figured I'd put the call out for input.

Walking with Superman: Day 354

2011-07-10T12:00:00.002-05:00

Pocantico Correctional Center, located just north of Middletown, DE, used to be one of the most overworked prison facilities in the nation. This was mostly due to the proximity of Metropolis--just sixty miles southward--and in particular, the early crimes of one Lex Luthor. But the construction of Stryker's Island Penitentiary in Metropolis Bay, with its state-of-the-art supercriminal and metahuman detention technologies, has eased Pocantico's workload considerably. Although, as the high mental health insurance premiums for a host of former guards, wardens, and other staff members can attest, the greatest criminal mind of our age still has an impact on the prison--especially today, when an unsuspecting inmate stumbles upon one of the hidden devices that Luthor left behind! When Superman arrives to avert the inevitable mayhem, he triggers a chain reaction of failsafes, booby traps, and doomsday devices, all designed to give Superman the death penalty!

Walking with Superman: Day 353

2011-07-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

Superman, Batgirl, and Robin have been captured by the sinister forces of Lady Shiva and the League of Assassins, and where the League goes, the Demon's Head is never far behind! The trio has been taken to the League's compound near Thermopolis, Wyoming. Rā's al Ghūl has commandeered a hot spring, which the League's pludered chemicals will transform into a new Lazarus Pit. But as long as he has access to his grandson and a healthy young Kryptonian, the ageless eco-terrorist has a plan to extend his lifespan--and his power--even more. As Rā's conducts his foul experiment, it falls to Batgirl to escape her bonds and save the day--but can Stephanie succeed where Superman failed?

Walking with Superman: Day 352

2011-07-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

A series of thefts at major chemical companies have led Superman to hold a stakeout at the Sunderland Chemical Company's headquarters in Wilmington, DE. The Man of Steel isn't the only one following felonies in the First State tonight--Batgirl and Robin are on the case as well! But while the Bat and Boy Wonder are bickering, a team of ninja burglars works their way toward the building's secret vault! Can Superman rally the discordant duo before the thieves complete their caper--and will this titanic trio triumph over the martial arts mastery of Lady Shiva?

Walking with Superman: Day 351

2011-07-07T12:00:00.000-05:00

The police in Lincoln, NE, are at their wit's end. There's been a gruesome death in a locked motel room, and they are completely at a loss to explain it--so they've brought Superman in to hopefully succeed where a team of expert crime scene investigators have failed. The Man of Steel is shocked and sickened by the sight of the room's walls and floor, covered in blood and shreds of fabric like someone exploded right in the center of it! Was it a murder, a terrible accident, or something far stranger? It's up to Superman to find out--before it happens again!

Women in Elevators

2011-07-06T21:29:00.000-05:00

I've got feet in two big online communities. Obviously, there are the comic fans, but I'm also pretty active in the science/skepticism blogohedron. Recently, there was a flare-up--one of a series, frankly--that exposed some ugly misogyny, some unfortunately unrecognized privilege, and what the hay, touched on everyone's favorite third rail, the issue of "tone"--or, "I don't disagree with anything you said, but did you have to say it that way?"

The inciting incident was a facepalmingly common one--some dude at a conference played the creep. More specifically, awesome Skepchick Rebecca Watson announced her decision to go to bed at 4 AM, and was followed into the elevator by some guy, who proceeded to proposition her. Bottom line, it was creepy, and that's about the extent of Rebecca's initial comment on the subject, which set the whole blogosphere a-gnashin' about feminism and privilege and misogyny and so forth.

On the whole, I think the conversation has been worthwhile. There have been some truly clueless comments by some otherwise intelligent people, and I hear the comment threads are just brimming with misogyny, but it seems like several good things have come out of this incident: first, a line in the sand has been drawn, saying that prominent women in the community will no longer take this sort of treatment silently. A sizable and vocal block of feminist skeptics has formed, slamming their collective staff on the stone ground and telling the Balrog of misogyny that it shall no longer pass. Second, it's shown that no one is necessarily above privilege, and thus no one is above criticism. Finally, and most importantly, I think there's been a lot done in this situation to educate some of the thicker people who might not have gotten it any of the other times this has gone around (and I count myself somewhat among those thick-headed people). Richard Dawkins aside, I think we can all recall times when confronted with creepy people engaging in behaviors that most folks would recognize as socially unacceptable. Not all such situations have such connotations of sex and rape and objectification, but I would hope that we all know what it's like to meet someone who's a total creeper, and to apply that awkward pressure on them in hopes that they will be less creepy.

If you haven't had such experiences, then I suspect that people around you might have.

I think that's easier for most men to understand. Men might not get why women don't like being ogled and cat-called--even my brain clicks to "gee, it'd be nice if someone ogled me once in a while"¹--but they get what it's like for someone to stand too close to you in the elevator, to take the urinal next to yours when there's one open on the other side of the restroom, to strike up a conversation from the next stall over...to violate any of a bajillion understood-but-unspoken rules of social conduct and trigger that weirded-out feeling.

I realize, of course, that there's a lot more to it for women, but men have fur, and I think this is something that gets through it a little. Which is why I think that this is a great example: most people see why it's a skeevy thing to do, regardless of their privilege, and not just in the intellectual, detached, "women don't necessarily like being hit on" way that's the case with most of these situations. And that's why I think this incident might actually make a difference to the (thick-headed men in the) community in a way that previous incidents haven't.

Boy, I'm rambling here. So, why am I rambling on this blog instead of the other one that would generally be more suited to this sort of thing? Mainly because I really would like to see that kind of difference happen in the nerd community at large. Ragnell linked to this post describing a strangely similar incident from a comic convention several years back. There were notable differences--Karen Healey wasn't directly propositioned, she was wearing a costume, there were multiple men--but the situation is remarkably similar: woman in an elevator receives unwanted and unwarranted advances from strange men. Strange men who apparently saw no problem with making advances toward a strange woman in an elevator.

Karen mentioned in passing another strange situation in that post:

This and like incidents have happened to me, like many women, time and time again: strange men telling me to “smile!”; strange men shouting “Show us your tits!” as they drive past; strange men groping my breasts and ass in crowded train carriages.

It's disturbing, for two reasons. One, it resonates with another such incident I encountered on the skeptical side of the blogosphere. Two, it lays bear the assumption (I think) that's going on here: women's bodies are public. Remember the open source boob project? It's the same kind of thing, but without even the token advances toward consent. A man can expect to have a bubble of personal space, violation of which results in, at the very least, that "weirded out" feeling. Women can expect the same, but must also expect to have that space violated by others (read: men) who view women's bodies as some sort of public resource, subject to public oversight.

I realize that this is a larger problem than the geek community, and my conversation with Ragnell and MadMarvelGirl on Twitter suggests that geek conventions may be better than my experience would suggest. All I know is that at GenCon or Wizard World or C2E2, I encountered my fair share of people with no apparent capacity for self-awareness or self-assessment, people ignorant of basic social mores and courtesies, people with no regard for personal space--you know, creepers. Moreover, I think geek culture shields creepy people, and largely justifies, defends, or validates creepy, socially-awkward behavior.

Yes, I realize that people are different, and I'm not one to say that all social rules, standards, or mores are good or justified or reasonable. I also realize that there are actual conditions (like Asperger's) that may impact someone's social intelligence. That's really beside the point, which is that the important social rules--the ones whose violation will set people off as "creepy" and elicit that weirded-out (or threatened) feeling--exist as a result of people's basic social expectations. Violating someone's personal space or ogling them in an elevator violates the basic social contract, the basic principle that people deserve to be treated as individual persons whose desires should be respected and taken into account.

The point, to reiterate, is that people--regardless of gender or dress or attractiveness or whatever--deserve to be treated like people at all times, deserve to have their wishes taken into account at all times. Cornering someone in an elevator when they're trying to go to bed, and asking them to have sex with you, is a violation of that principle. Telling someone that they should be smiling, as if you own stock in their face, is a violation of that principle.

And people should be able to bring this kind of subject up on comic blogs and forums without being shouted down by misogynists and the clueless-and-defensive.

1. My brother likes to eat Ramen noodles. He makes enough money that eating Ramen noodles is one option out of many. I suspect, if he had no choice but to eat Ramen noodles all the time, he'd like it a lot less. There's a difference between wanting a thing, and that thing happening whether you want it to or not.

Walking with Superman: Day 350

2011-07-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

Superman attends a science fiction convention in Mobile, AL, where he's been asked to join a panel discussion about aliens living on Earth. After the presentation, he mingles with some of the other convention guests, including an author and science enthusiast who once wrote some candidly humorous, if somewhat embarrassing, speculation about Superman's intimate life and the relative improbability of a natural Kryptonian-human hybrid. But just as the Man of Steel draws the writer into a conversation, the convention hall roof splits open, and a race of asymmetrical aliens have come for Superman's new companion! Now, Superman must rescue the abducted author--and he's going to need the help of the Omega Men to do it!

Walking with Superman: Day 349

2011-07-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

Superman finds himself in the Seven Banners: New Orleans Amusement Park, which has been closed and abandoned since sustaining heavy damage in Hurricane Katrina. But as the Man of Steel walks the desolate avenues between moldy, vandalized buildings, his keen super-senses reveal that he's not alone! Creeping along the shadows, foraging in the debris, are strange figures with matted fur and faded, tattered clothing. The mascots--anthropomorphic animals and fantastic fictional people--continue to eke out a strange living in the dank solitude of the dead park. But are these sad creatures people left behind, still wearing the costumes they inhabited when the waters rose, or are they something far more bizarre?

Walking with Superman: Day 348

2011-07-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

It's Independence Day, and Superman's celebrating with a quiet tour of George Washington's home Mount Vernon, near Alexandria, VA. But all along the tour, the Man of Steel can't help but notice that certain things seem off, and little flickering changes keep happening around the edges of his vision--up until the whole estate vanishes around him! It doesn't take long for Superman to realize that someone is tampering with history, and he soon discovers that a group of Congressional Representatives are plucking the Founding Fathers from the timeline to use for their own political gain--regardless of the consequences to the timestream! Can the Man of Tomorrow set right these changes to our collective yesterdays, or will the only fireworks tonight be the death-throes of time itself?

Scroll Call

2011-07-03T20:00:00.000-05:00

So, some time ago, I bought this truly awesome Superman wall scroll at Tim's Corner in Rock Island, IL. It hung happily above my desk in various places for years, until disappearing sometime around when I moved out of my Grad School apartment. Now, I'm not exactly hurting for Superman art to hang on my walls--in addition to the movie posters for "Superman: The Movie" and "Superman Returns" and the huge Pérez/Ross Crisis on Infinite Earths poster, I've got three other Superman movie posters and a print, all waiting for display. But it's a sweet piece of art, and Ed McGuinness is one of the best of the modern Superman artists.

So my point: if you happen to see this wall scroll on sale someplace, and you don't plan on picking it up for yourself, maybe give me a heads up? I've searched around the Internet once or twice for it, but it seems most places that might have had it have long since sold out. Doesn't mean it won't pop up in some storeroom someplace.

Thanks!

An Editorial Mistake I Can Forgive

2011-07-03T18:00:00.005-05:00

I've been catching up on "Booster Gold" for the last couple of days, it being one of several comic series that I buy but haven't actually read in months, and along the way I came across an interesting editorial error to add to the list. No, it wasn't how Booster cryptically referred to the Perforated Man as "PF" in one word bubble, suggesting an abbreviation in the script that should have been changed for the finished page (or a typo, though when he later calls the guy "P.M.," it seems like it would have been a hell of a typo), it was this bit of signage:

From the context and the following panels, it's clear that this is meant to be the 30th Century version of Sundollar, DC's clever ersatz Starbucks. But if you're the sort of sad, strange person who can kind of, sort of read Interlac (like me), you might notice something strange about this sign. You might have the sneaking suspicion that "sundollar" would be rendered thusly:

Assuming, of course, that we ignore the differences between capital and lowercase letters. Either way, if the bottom image correctly renders "sundollar," then what does the top image say?

"Sunflower." Which means, I suspect, that letterer John J. Hill could have the nerdiest entry to Damn You, Auto Correct ever.

On one hand, this is forgivable. It's a small error in a made-up foreign language with almost no bearing on the plot or issue. On the other hand, I would hope that the foreign language bits are the places where editors are keeping the closest watch, since they would make it easy for all manner of errors, slurs, and blue placeholder text, to slip through.

The backwards cover preview on the letters page--which would be totally unnoticable if not for the moderately recognizable S-shield on the left--is less forgivable.

Just this once, everybody wins!

2011-07-03T13:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, I know, it's been a month. And a half. But it's been a busy month (and a half), full of excuses. Either way, it's time to (finally) announce the winners of the Walking with Superman Contest! You might recall that I set up prizes for the top two places, and what do you know: two people entered! So everyone's a winner.

And isn't that how Superman would have wanted it? I think it is.

First, our runner-up, who will be receiving a not-too-shabby-if-I-do-say-so-myself care package of Action Comics #775 (shut up, it is not overrated), the sadly and strangely as-yet-uncollected Dark Knight Over Metropolis three-parter, Invincible Iron Man Annual #1 (one of last year's best comics), and the two-volume Jimmy Olsen: Adventures by Jack Kirby set, David Lawrence, who turned in this excellent-and-hilarious take on Walking with Superman: Day 91, one of my personal favorites.

No lie: I would write Superman and Frankenstein solving mysteries Scooby-Doo style in a heartbeat.

And without further ado (there's been forty-odd too many days of ado already), our winner--of Freakazoid Season 1 and Look! Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman on DVD, The Physics of Superheroes, 2nd Edition, and of course, The Walking Dead Vol. 1 and All-Star Superman Volumes 1 & 2 in TPB form!--it's Maestro Drake's cover to Walking with Superman: Day 155.

His description:

Skyman and the Squadron are dressed in Secret Service attire walking through downtown while an interloper ensues.
It appears Lois Lane is after the President but she may have a different motive.

Okay, that's finally over. Now I just have to send out the care packages, which I can't do until I have some physical addresses. So gentlemen, if you will, send 'em along to doubtingtom83 [at] gmail [dot] com, and I'll get those in the mail. And I promise it won't take me a month.

Oh, and one more thing...it's not an entry, but I feel I ought to spotlight this fun Paint-ing by my good friend Jess:

Sadly, I don't think that'll happen before August. But come August...

Walking with Superman: Day 347

2011-07-03T12:00:00.002-05:00

Over the years, Superman has been the subject of various documentaries and films, re-enacting various aspects of his life and adventures. The humble Man of Steel isn't exactly thrilled with this state of affairs, but he has gotten used to it, and it helps that use of his likeness requires a portion of proceeds be donated to worthwhile charities. A side-effect of all this is that he is occasionally interviewed or shadowed by actors, looking to portray him with some degree of verisimilitude. One such actor was Brandon Routh, a young man from Norwalk, IA, who portrayed Superman in a film chronicling his self-imposed exile from Earth and subsequent return, some years ago. So when the real Superman heard that his celluloid doppelganger had returned to his hometown to rally his community for a day of service and charity, he decided to lend an indestructible hand--after all, two Supermen are better than one!

Walking with Superman: Day 346

2011-07-02T12:00:00.000-05:00

Lois Lane is accompanying her hard-traveling husband as they walk along the Enchanted Highway, north of Regent, North Dakota. The attraction is home to a unique collection of scrap-metal structures, said to be the largest in the world, depicting everything from nature scenes to former President Teddy Roosevelt. And about halfway down the road, between some enormous pheasants and the original Rough Rider, stood an eccentric little shop. The Kents stop inside, browsing its dusty collection of knick-knacks and tchotchkes and chatting with the friendly (if ancient) clerk, while Clark tries to shake the funny tingling sensation and buzzing in his head that seemed to start when he stepped inside. But when the curious curios begin to change the couple--and reality around them--in bizarre ways, it becomes clear that this is no normal shop, and the shopkeeper's smile may hide a more insidious intent!

Walking with Superman: Day 345

2011-07-01T12:00:00.001-05:00

Clark Kent visits the Berman Museum of World History in Anniston, AL, famous for its collection of rare World War II memorabilia and its assortment of strange and unconventional spy weaponry. While Clark isn't thrilled to see the array of death-dealing devices, his super-scientific mind can't help but admire some of the ingenuity and creativity that went into their design and construction. But it seems that the Museum's latest acquisition has drawn some attention from the cloak-and-dagger set, and suddenly Clark Kent finds himself caught in a web of espionage and intrigue between Nemesis, King Faraday, and Katarina Armstrong, the Spy Smasher! But why are they all after the same device...and who got to it first?

Walking with Superman: Day 344

2011-06-30T12:00:00.000-05:00

Over the course of his career, Superman has built, befriended, and battled countless robots. But when the Amherst, NH Police asked Superman to assist with an emergency at the ActivMedia Robotics headquarters, the last thing he expected to see was an assembly of all those robots, ready to destroy the factory--and the Man of Steel! From Kelex to Ned the Superman Robot to the Kryptonian battlesuit, Superman finds himself up against an automated army--and behind them, Dr. Cyber and the Cyborg! Can Superman stop this android avalanche, or will New Hampshire be ground zero for cybernetic armageddon?

Walking with Superman: Day 343

2011-06-29T12:00:00.000-05:00

Clark Kent is on a tour of Wright, Wyoming's Black Thunder Coal Mine, one of the largest such mines in the world. It's a fairly standard and informative trip, until a coal silo is suddenly buried beneath a mountain of stone and dust! Now Clark and the rest of the tour group are trapped inside with a limited amount of air, and perhaps even less time before the ceiling collapses on top of them! Even if Clark can find a way to rescue the trapped tourists without revealing his secret identity, he still has to discover what caused the accident--if it was an accident--and prevent it from happening again!

Walking with Superman: Day 342

2011-06-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

When Jim and Andrea Spellman moved into their new home in Rexburg, Idaho, they were elated. Three bedrooms, two baths, a finished basement, and an absolute steal at the price they paid. And while every house has problems, the last thing the Spellmans expected to find was an abandoned Kobra Hibernaculair in the sub-basement! Now the D.E.O. has cordoned off the property, and Superman's assisting with the investigation. Even the Man of Steel must tread lightly around the weapons, doomsday devices, and booby traps. But though the lair has been abandoned for some time, it seems there was something left behind, perhaps the result of genetic engineering experiments or dimensional exploration or even arcane magic. Whatever its origins, it's alive, it's angry, and the whole ground appears to be slithering...

Walking with Superman: Day 341

2011-06-27T12:00:00.002-05:00

A young girl was kidnapped from her home in Walpole, NH, and Clark Kent is on the case--and once he submits the story, Superman will be too! But mere moments after sending the piece to his editor, Kent heard a knock on his hotel door. The pugilistic private eye Slam Bradley is also on the hunt for the abducted girl, and he wants Kent's assistance. Clark reluctantly agrees, knowing that he could be doing more in the sky than on foot, but Slam Bradley isn't the sort of person who takes "no" for an answer! The longer they work together, the closer Bradley comes to unraveling Clark's secret, but the detective has secrets of his own. What is he doing in Cheshire County New Hampshire? Who hired him for this case? And what is his hidden connection to the missing girl, Helena Bastian?

Walking with Superman: Day 340

2011-06-26T12:00:00.000-05:00

All it took was one sick day. Ray Jensen spent the day in bed, rather than coming into Hardwick, Vermont's Electric Department, and as a result, his entire life has come crashing down around him. A notice about a suspicious unsigned check led to the revelation that Jensen embezzled over a million dollars over the last several years. What's stranger, it seems he's also been skimming electricity, apparently draining it directly from the generators! Visiting reporter Clark Kent helped break the story, but the bizarre energy theft looks like the sort of case that would interest Superman. He tracks down the fugitive Jensen, but finds a far more familiar face than he would have expected! "Ray Jensen" is but an alias, a concocted identity developed by one Dr. Torval Freeman, formerly part of that violet villain, the Parasite! Freeman is sick, hungry, and has nothing left to lose--meaning Superman is in for the fight of his life!

Walking with Superman: Day 339

2011-06-25T12:00:00.000-05:00

It's Super Saturday at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, as Superman makes a special visit to talk about the science behind his powers and show off some of the specimens from his alien zoo. Children have arrived in throngs, dressed as the Man of Steel and their other favorite superheroes, as part of the day-long celebration. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones wearing that S-shield today, and when the sinister Cyborg Superman shows up to incapacitate the Action Ace, it'll fall to the crowd of normal kids, teachers, and museum staff to save the day!

Walking with Superman: Day 338

2011-06-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

The small town of Modale, IA, has been almost completely evacuated, in anticipation of severe flooding from the overflowing Missouri River. The visiting Man of Tomorrow even stood ready to change the course of the mighty river, if it would prevent damage and destruction. But the flood never came. In fact, as the sun beats down in the cloudless sky, the river is running a lot shallower than usual. Wells and water tanks are running dry, and even the bottles on the grocery store shelves are going dry. The Thirst has come to Iowa, and it won't be satisfied until the entire country is a desert--unless Superman can stop it!

Come September

2011-06-23T20:00:00.000-05:00

You've probably already seen my thoughts on the DC relaunch over at Nerdy Nothings, but I thought I'd do a little wrap-up, to see just how much things are likely to change for me in September, based on the solicitations as they stand and my current pull list. So first, I made a quick list of all the main DCU titles that I've been consistently buying. I included a few books that have recently ended and omitted miniseries, Vertigo, and Johnny DC titles. Here's the current list:

Action Comics
Batman, Inc.
Birds of Prey
Booster Gold
Detective Comics
Doom Patrol
Flash
Freedom Fighters
Green Lantern
Green Lantern Corps
Justice League: Generation Lost
Power Girl
Secret Six
Superboy
Supergirl
Superman
Wonder Woman
Zatanna

Eighteen regular titles. Now, here's what things will look like in September. New titles in bold, "Batman, Inc." omitted due to hiatus:

Action Comics
All-Star Western
Animal Man
Batgirl
Batman
Batman & Robin
Batwing
Batwoman
Birds of Prey
Blue Beetle
DC Universe Presents
Demon Knights
Flash
Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.
The Fury of Firestorm
Green Lantern
Green Lantern Corps
Green Lantern: The New Guardians
Grifter
Justice League
Justice League International
Legion Lost
Legion of Superheroes
Mister Terrific
Resurrection Man
Sgt. Rock & the Men of War
Superboy
Supergirl
Superman
Swamp Thing
Voodoo
Wonder Woman

From 18 titles up to 31. If DC's goal was to get me to buy more comics, they definitely succeeded. Some of this is lateral motion; "Justice League: Generation Lost" becomes "Justice League International," "Batman" replaces "Detective Comics." "Doom Patrol" and "Freedom Fighters" have already been cancelled; "Secret Six," "Zatanna," "Booster Gold," and "Power Girl" are being left in the pre-relaunch DCU. "DC Universe Presents" is going to replace "Superman/Batman" as "the anthology-style book that I'll buy whenever the creative team or spotlight character appeals to me."

And there are some books that are very much not new to the pull list; I bought "Blue Beetle" and "Firestorm" in their last incarnations, and I've bought "Jonah Hex" (giving way to "All-Star Western"), "Batman & Robin," and "Legion of Superheroes" at various times in the past; the latter are both fairly recent drops from my pile, as is the second Legion title, "Adventure Comics."

A good number of these are provisional; this list assumes that I'm wowed by every single book I pull in September. "Batwing," "Grifter," "Voodoo," "Firestorm," "New Guardians," "Batgirl," "Birds of Prey," "Sgt. Rock," "Mr. Terrific," "Batman & Robin," "Flash," and surprisingly "Superboy," and "Supergirl," are all on the cusp, judging by solicits and past history. If this relaunch goes really poorly, I could be back to eighteen or fewer titles come October. I don't anticipate that, and it's entirely possible that some book not on the list (like "I, Vampire," "Static Shock," "Suicide Squad," or "Teen Titans") might drum up enough buzz that I'll pick it up the following week.

Overall, I'm generally pretty excited. I think reboots are generally a bad idea, but if we must have them, then I'm at least glad to have so many options and so many choices. I just hope that the next few months provide new solicits for new titles featuring new creators, above and beyond the relatively few that are mentioned here.

Walking with Superman: Day 337

2011-06-23T12:00:00.000-05:00

The battle was going poorly for Per Degaton. Capturing the valkyrie in the distant past was easy enough, but he hadn't counted on such opposition. The Vikings--who should have been on his verdammt side!--were led by a prince who seemed to have a personal connection with the horsewoman. With his advanced weaponry, he might have been able to turn them back completely, were it not for the savages, some of whom had powers like the mystery men of his own time. If he wanted to ensure a Nazi victory in the war--and thus, ensure his own world conquest--then he would need reinforcements. The enchanted coin, the one that would seek out the Übermensch, was his only hope. He tossed it into the timestream, charged with chronal energy, so that the Übermensch would be transported to this moment in time as soon as he made contact.

And this moment, just after Superman touched the coin back in Decorah, IA, is exactly when he arrived! Unfortunately for Degaton, his ploy didn't produce an ally, and now the Man of Steel stands with Prince Jon and Wakiya-Cante against Degaton's forces. But when the battle spills back into modern-day Iowa, Superman must find a way to put everything and everyone back where they belong!

Rocking the Casbah of Solitude

2011-06-22T22:40:00.000-05:00

So, as you probably know by now, the story solicited for "Superman" #712 has been replaced with the story originally solicited for "Superman" #659, which itself was replaced by the story originally solicited for "Superman" #660, which was replaced with a story about the Prankster.

We'll leave aside the potentially uncomfortable implications of replacing a story about a Muslim hero with a story about an animal that at least some Muslims might consider unclean. That's just the usual sort of forehead-smacking ignorant, probably unintentional insensitivity that DC's excelled at recently.

Instead, I want to make a couple of comments. First: I think Chris Sims is probably right, as is often the case. In what was probably a dumb attempt to avoid controversy (because heaven knows the last thing we want is non-comic-readers talking about comics), DC switched the story at the last minute, causing at least some amount of controversy anyway.

This does mean that I think someone is taking the piss or having the piss taken from them with the kitten alternative, which is prima facie ridiculous. The logic that DC would scrap an entire finished book because of a two-page kitten-saving sequence, completely in-line with Superman's character, and replace it with a story about Superman's super-powered pet dog mourning the since-undone death of its cloned teenage caretaker, is cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face stupid. Of course, DC's official line, that the story about a character being inspired by Superman to do good and act heroically, as written (and pencilled, inked, lettered, and colored) didn't fit with "Grounded"--which of late has been all about Superman inspiring other characters to do good and act heroically--and which has been all over the map in terms of tone, so it was replaced with an "Infinite Crisis" epilogue from five years ago, is pretty absurd as well.

But let's explore the implications for a moment. I don't want to read about a Superman who won't stop to save a kitten from a tree. In fact, I just (re-)watched a movie about such a Superman. "Superman/Doomsday" has a scene specifically where the (SPOILER ALERT) Luthor-cloned Superman saves a cat from a tree, but then threateningly berates its owner for allowing it outside in the first place and diverting his attention from more important things. The scene is specifically designed to demonstrate that this Superman is a bad guy, and the thought of DC adopting something closer to that as the official Superman sounds...well, it sounds like more of the '90s again, except Superman largely escaped that idiocy in the '90s.

Except, you know, when he conquered the world. But even then, it wasn't a matter of certain tasks being beneath him, it was that he was trying to do too much, to the point that he tried preventing Pa Kent from doing basic yardwork due to the danger.

In any case, I think the kitten explanation is too dumb to be true, even if the actual reasons are similarly dumb.

Back to the originally solicited issue, we have the matter of Muslim superhero Sharif. Chris Roberson has been pretty clear that Sharif isn't a new character, but is a revamp of Davood "Sinbad" Nasoor, a force-field-wielding metahuman who debuted in Superman (v2) #48 as the subject of a three-part story by William Messner-Loebs and Curt Swan. The story appeared a few years before I was actively reading Superman comics, but Sinbad was still one of the first Superman-supporting superheroes I got to know as a young comics reader, because of his brief appearance in "The Legacy of Superman."

"Legacy" came out shortly after Superman's death, and thus, shortly after I subscribed to the four monthly Superman titles. I was surprised when it came in the mail, not being a regular issue, but I read it over and over. I knew Rose and Thorn from some of my Mom's comics, and Guardian and Gangbuster had both had brief appearances in other post-Death comics, but the other characters--newly-created Auron, Sinbad, Waverider, etc.--were largely unknown to me. As such, I also had no idea how important or unimportant they were to Superman's cast. As far as I knew, Sinbad was just as important as any of the other characters. And I thought his force field power was pretty cool, reminiscent of a backup story I'd enjoyed in "Spider-Man" #26 a few months prior.

So color me excited to see Chris Roberson catching us up on Davood Nassur, for the first real time in eighteen years. Except that he didn't, for whatever reason.

Since you probably don't have "Superman" #48, "Adventures of Superman" #471, or "Action Comics" #658 in front of you, let me give you a quick run-down of Davood's story. Please stop me if any of this sounds familiar.

A year or so before, Superman invaded Qurac, which he called a "terrorist nation," as a response to terrorist attacks on American soil (specifically Metropolis). Though conflicted about interfering in international politics, the Man of Steel took violent action, blowing up tanks, stopping missiles, and confronting the military dictator about the attacks. His actions were viewed as an act of warlike aggression by the Quraci people, who consequently came to see Superman as both an enemy and an agent of American imperialism. Fast-forward past the Invasion, where gene-bombs activated meta-genes in many members of the population, including Davood Nassur. Davood, a Quraci-American immigrant living with his family in the Little Qurac neighborhood of Metropolis, had limited telekinetic-style powers--until he and his sister Soraya (a LexCorp secretary) accidentally ended up in the middle of one of Lex's nefarious schemes, and obtained a special belt that would enhance Davood's abilities. He used his newfound power to fight crime and toyed with calling himself Sinbad, which Luthor used to his advantage, staging terrorist acts across the city by costumed criminals claiming to work for Sinbad, in an attempt to retrieve his power belt.

Superman naturally got involved in various places here, and his interactions with Davood--in fact, with any Quraci--were marked by violence and distrust. Superman's brash actions in Qurac the year before had made him a pariah among Quracis, a dangerous villain to be feared and loathed. Eventually, he and Davood made peace (Superman saved Soraya's life), just in time to prevent the destruction of Metropolis by a giant spaceship-bomb directed by Luthor. In the process, Davood's belt shorted out, leaving him with the unamplified powers he had at the beginning of the process, and both Clark and Superman had made inroads with at least one Quraci family.

By the time of Superman's death, Davood's power had increased to the level that it had been with the amplifier belt, and he took an active role as Sinbad once more, with mixed results.

It's not a great parallel, but similar elements are there--a terrorist attack on American soil, Superman's actions in a foreign nation being perceived as an American act of war, a Muslim superhero dealing with common prejudice, ultimately trying to live up to Superman's example.

What does it say about DC, about the United States as a country, that they were brave enough to publish that story in 1990, but not in 2011?

Walking with Superman: Day 336

2011-06-22T12:00:00.001-05:00

Superman comes to Decorah, IA, where the staff of the staff of the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum hope that his incredible super-senses will help them unlock the mystery surrounding an artifact recovered from an ancient Viking settlement. The object--a coin strung on a leather cord, discovered in modern-day Newfoundland--gives off strange energy traces that the museum's scientists have been unable to identify, and they're hoping that Superman's enhanced senses and experience with advanced science and eldritch energies can shed some light on the subject. The Man of Steel sees both chroniton particles and magical energies swirling about the coin, but when he touches it, the energy starts swirling around him instead! When he looks up again, he's been transported into the middle of a battle between the forces of time-traveling despot Per Degaton and a Viking colony, led by Prince Jon and Thor's half-Sioux son, Wakiya-Cante, for the fate of a captured Valkyrie!

Walking with Superman: Day 335

2011-06-21T12:00:00.001-05:00

It's the Summer Solstice, and in Fairbanks, AK, that means nearly 22 hours of continuous sunlight. For a solar-powered Superman, that should be a little slice of Heaven, except Luminus's special filter has turned the sun red! With the Man of Steel's strength sapped, there's nothing to stop the photonic felon from trapping him in a hard-light labyrinth filled with holographic horrors! Can a powerless Superman survive and escape the sinister maze, destroy the orbital filter, and stop Luminus before he executes his malicious master plan, or will this be lights out for the Last Son of Krypton?

Walking with Superman: Day 334

2011-06-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

When the power went out for many residents in Helena, Montana, they suspected it was due to a lightning strike from the thunderstorm that's been raging for the past few days. Imagine the surprise of the Northwestern Energy workers who discovered an electrocuted dragon caught up in the power lines! A rift in time and space has opened in Helena, allowing creatures and warriors of myth and legend to escape to our time from a distant medieval age. Superman fights against knights, wizards, and terrible beasts to close the gateway, but he won't be able to win this fight alone. Thankfully, he receives a helping hand--and sword!--from the Silent Knight!

Walking with Superman: Day 333

2011-06-19T12:00:00.000-05:00

What would you do if you had just one more day? Superman has come to the city of Paterson, NJ, and he's not the only Smallvillian visiting today. Jonathan Kent has also come to the Silk City, resurrected by cosmic forces to spend 24 final hours with his son! Clark and his Pa walk around the city, catching up on life and exploring the Historical District, doing the typical father-son activities that Clark has missed so much. But while the Kents enjoy this taste of restored normalcy, Superman plans to move heaven and Earth to ensure that this isn't his last Father's Day. Can the Man of Steel conquer even death, or is it finally time for him to let go?

Walking with Superman: Day 332

2011-06-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

Superman visits Lawrence, KS, eager to take in the local flavor and visit the Natural History Museum--but there's a more personal matter to attend to first. When he was young, before the days of capes and tights, Clark Kent spent quite a bit of time in Lawrence, visiting relatives from Pa's side of the family. Today, Clark Kent visits his cousin Harry, for the first time in years. Unfortunately, the visit is anything but joyous; Harry's infant daughter Lucy is battling a rare form of brain cancer, and her odds don't look good. Clark was only meant to be there to provide moral support, perhaps lend his celebrity to an article, raising awareness or funds for treatment. But when he examines the child with his incredible Kryptonian eyesight, he sees a glimmer of hope. The resources of Clark Kent might be able draw some attention to Lucy Kent's tragic death, but can the resources of Superman prevent it from happening at all?

Walking with Superman: Day 331

2011-06-17T12:00:00.000-05:00

Superman visits Dummerston, VT, where local superheroine Tavi gives him the grand tour. The Kipling-inspired vigilante shows the Man of Steel around the author's one-time hometown including the house where the he lived while writing some of his most famous works. What neither hero is expecting on their sightseeing trip is an attack from the criminal terrorist organization Kobra! Superman and Tavi are trapped in Kipling's house, surrounded by Kobra's forces as Black Python advances. Can the heroes stop the fanged fanatics and prevent the destruction of a historic monument, or will they be caught forever in the corrupting coils of Kobra?!

Walking with Superman: Day 330

2011-06-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

A pair of very unusual grizzlies have been apprehended by the police of New Town, North Dakota. These were no feral beasts, but intelligent creatures, claiming to represent a secret ursine society living beneath the nearby bluffs! Townsfolk are understandably worried about the revelation, and tensions throughout New Town are high surrounding the captured bear-people. Meanwhile, the more warlike of the bears are rallying a rescue party for their imprisoned ambassadors. Can Superman prevent violence from breaking out and help these two communities to live in harmony?

Walking with Superman: Day 329

2011-06-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

Delaware has the highest proportion of Ph.D.s of any state in the union, and just by chance, that also means they have the highest proportion of mad scientists! The number's inflated this week, as MadCon draws the most promising criminal minds from around the world to Wilmington for an extended weekend of plotting, trading inventions, and pooling their skills toward a single goal. This year's theme: Kill Superman! When the Man of Steel is transported to the dais at the center of the convention hall, he's caught in the most devious deathtrap ever devised, specifically designed for his own destruction! Can Superman outsmart Earth's most brilliant villains, or will his demise be simply another data point?

Walking with Superman: Day 328

2011-06-14T12:00:00.000-05:00

For every popular fad, there's someone who finds a way to make money off of it, and superheroes are no exception. Where others saw colorful vigilantes working to fight crime, Sam Tanner saw opportunity. He marshaled all the resources of the United Broadcasting Company's multimedia empire toward developing the world's first wholly-owned corporate superhero. Thus was born Blackrock, the first superhero invented by committee and tested by focus groups, the first superhero with his own Twitter feed and a live-streaming camera in his cowl, giving fans a first-person perspective of a superhero's life. Armed with a powersuit that draws energy from the ambient microwaves and radio waves that power modern technology, Blackrock was an overnight sensation. His mask's communication system allowed him to be the first at every bank robbery or minor supervillain attack, and a team of scriptwriters ensured that his banter was the wittiest, his battle cries the most macho. But if he wanted to stay on top, if he wanted his ratings to continue like this, he'd need to raise the stakes. The producers decided that a team-up with Superman was in order, one where Blackrock could appear to be at least as great a hero as the Man of Steel. The script was perfect, hinging on Superman's upcoming visit to the aptly named Black Rock, AR. The Action Ace would fall into a carefully-set but totally reversible trap, and Blackrock would be the one to rescue him. The last thing the multimedia marvel expected was for the trap to turn Superman into a woman!

Blackrock fumbled briefly until the scriptwriters could come up with a solution, and he tussled with the distaff Kryptonian. Quickly they cleared up the confusion, and Blackrock tried to move the plot toward a new angle--superhuman romance! He would woo the Woman of Steel, despite her talk of "returning to her own world." Better yet, he'd easily come out to be the better man!

That is, until now--Superman reappears over the skies of Black Rock, AR, alongside his allies from Earth-11's Legion of Super-Heroines. The truth is quickly revealed, and suddenly Blackrock finds himself up against the combined strength of Superman and Superwoman! Is this Blackrock's series finale?

Walking with Superman: Day 327

2011-06-13T12:00:00.000-05:00

Superman is stranded at the mouth of the Eleven Point River in Arkansas, but he's never been farther from home! The Man of Steel has traded places with his Earth-11 counterpart, and the Justice League is none too happy about Superwoman's disappearance! But even if Superman can convince Batwoman, Wonder Warrior, and their colleagues, they have no way of getting him back to his world--not without some help from the 31st Century! Bouncing Betty, Duo Dude, Brainia 5, Lightning Lass, and Light Lad of the Legion of Super-Heroines have come back to bridge the gap between worlds and rescue their lost Legionnaire. Meanwhile, Superwoman and her mysterious new ally work to find a way back to her Earth, but his ulterior motives may mean the end for both Kryptonians!

I wrote Nothing this weekend!

2011-06-13T09:56:00.000-05:00

I feel a little like Polyphemus saying stuff like that, but whatever. The fine folks at Nerdy Nothings asked me to join them in talking about September's DC relaunch. The articles will be going up over the next couple of days, so if you're interested in seeing my expanded thoughts on the subject, head on over. The first post is here, and I'll update the blog here as they go up.

Walking with Superman: Day 326

2011-06-12T22:27:00.001-05:00

Superman's walking along the Eleven Point River near Black Rock, AR, when he's divebombed by a familiar figure in a purple-and-green battlesuit! The Man of Steel braces himself for the next flyby, but when he gets a good look at his enemy, he's shocked to see that Lex Luthor has apparently become a woman! Somehow, Superman has been transported to an alternate Earth, and while Leslie Luthor doesn't pose much of a threat, the missing Superwoman's allies in the Justice League may not be so forgiving! Meanwhile on our world, a bewildered Superwoman finds herself face-to-face with the sinister force who orchestrated this dimension-swap--but will the mysterious villain prove too strong for the Woman of Steel?

Walking with Superman: Day 325

2011-06-11T12:00:00.000-05:00

A rash of tornadoes and terrible storms have carved swaths of destruction around the country, and while Superman was able to avert some of the damage, even he could not be everywhere. So when he heard that a Nashua, NH, hair salon would be donating proceeds to tornado relief efforts, he decided to stop by and lend a hand, maybe even get a trim in the process. After a long day of publicity and super-barbering, Clark Kent went to bed...and woke up the next morning with long, luxurious locks of steel! It seems like everyone who visited that salon is now sporting the Rapunzel look, and these are some killer hairstyles--literally! In order to get to the bottom of this bizarre mystery, Superman must contend with his own murderous mane, and the hair-raising power of the calamitous Coiffure Queen! Will the Action Ace succeed, or will he finally meet his (split) end?

Walking with Superman: Day 324

2011-06-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

An escaped cow in Pelham, NH, would not normally make the national news. Even the fact that the animal shrugged off police officers' attempts to taser it might be totally unremarkable, if a little odd. It was when the bewildered bovine casually flipped over a police car, shrugged off bullets, and flew into the sky to escape that people began calling the media. All around Pelham, livestock are developing amazing superpowers, and Clark Kent is just the reporter to investigate it. But when Superman learns that the source of their powers is also granting these animals human-level intelligence, the dilemma of the domesticated demigods becomes even more troubling!

Walking with Superman: Day 323

2011-06-09T12:00:00.000-05:00

Memphis, TN, has been restored, but not everyone is willing to let the ancient times go. One group wants to restore Egypt with a capital E--for Elvis! The King and his Kings of Rock are determined to make their dreams of conquest come true, and the only thing they see between them and world domination is red and yellow and blue! Superman may have beaten them twice before, but this time they're armed with the mystical power of the True Book of the Dead! Will the Man of steel triumph over these evil Egyptian Elvises, or will he find himself bound and chained, afraid, and alone against the might of the Pharaoh's power?

Walking with Superman: Day 322

2011-06-08T12:00:00.000-05:00

It's the final battle over Memphis, TN--and as goes Memphis, so goes the world! Superman and Metamorpho lead a team of heroes with Egyptian ties against Imentet and her rogue war-gods! But now the deities reveal their own champion: the black sheep of the Marvel family, Black Adam! Will Isis stand against her husband? Can the heroes force the gods back to their own time? Or will the world fall beneath the fist of a new pharaoh?

Stuck in the '90s again

2011-06-07T23:18:00.000-05:00

Chris Roberson, Kevin Maguire, and Jimmy Palmiotti have all tweeted that they don't have any upcoming work in the New DCU. Brian Wood and Brian Clevenger both were apparently booted from titles. James Robinson, Paul Dini, Phil Hester, J.M. DeMatteis, and Keith Giffen's names have all been conspicuously absent from any announcements.

Meanwhile, JT Krul is writing two titles, and a whole bunch of artists and people whose names you last heard circa 1995 are moving up to writing duties for the "bold new DCU." It's not even "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." It's "meet the new boss, who has even less variety than the old boss." It's ridiculous to be trying to promote a bold new direction with the same writers you had for the old direction, but to also jettison your promising, up-and-coming new writers--including people whose most prominent work thus far has been to clean up other writers' messes--in favor of untested quantities like artists who have never scripted before, that seems like shooting yourself in the foot. With a green willpower-plasma gatling gun.

I just don't understand why you would take people who are good writers on somewhat popular books and leave them out in the cold. Unless the "bold new direction" you have is "toward failure."

Every new day of reveals for this new DCU fills me with a couple of glimmers of hope, and a whole lot of DC playing the role of cargo cultists, hoping that if they act like it's the '90s again, then the sales figures and comic book boom of the 1990s will come back and everyone will prosper once more.

Walking with Superman: Day 321

2011-06-07T12:00:00.000-05:00

Southwest Tennessee is beginning to look a lot like Lower Egypt, as Imentet and her war-god cohorts seek to establish a new dynasty in the new world! They've blocked off Memphis to outsiders with an arcane shield, leaving Superman as the only hero on the inside. The Man of Steel has a plan, and while he battles through the mummified hordes toward the portal to Egypt, a strike force of heroes who might not be affected by the force field is responding to his call. Dr. Fate! Blue Beetle! Ibis the Invincible! Hawkman and Hawkwoman! The mighty Isis! Together they may be able to stop the conquest of Earth by these ancient deities.

And on the other side of the portal, Metamorpho fights to rescue the lost Egyptologists from their servitude under...the Ultrasphinx!

Walking with Superman: Day 320

2011-06-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

A recently-acquired sarcophagus has been revealing a very different Memphis, TN--one straight out of ancient Egypt! For weeks now, Egyptologists have been disappearing from the Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology, so Institute donor Simon Stagg sent adventurer Rex Mason--aka Metamorpho, the Element Man--in to investigate! But when Rex fell through the sarcophagus into ancient Egypt, he opened the cosmic floodgates. Now, desert sands, shambling mummies, and a phalanx of Egyptian war-gods are pouring into the River City, and Superman stands alone against their progress. The Action Ace must stop their invasion if he hopes to prevent the destruction of modern Memphis and further conquest, but destroying the portal would strand Metamorpho and a dozen innocent Egyptologists in a hostile ancient land!

Walking with Superman: Day 319

2011-06-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

Egyptology students keep disappearing from the Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology at the University of Memphis in TN. Superman steps in to investigate the newest artifacts, prepared for any mystical mishap from mummies to sphinxes. The last thing he expects is a neanderthal--specifically Java, the brutish manservant of billionaire industrialist Simon Stagg! Stagg's cronies have the Institute shut down tight, and not even the Man of Steel is allowed inside. Strange doings are afoot in Memphis, with Simon Stagg at the center, and investigative reporter Clark Kent won't stop until he finds out the truth!

Walking with Superman: Day 318

2011-06-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

All around the country, Superman has met people and families struggling to get by. Many have found themselves suddenly homeless, and the people who have the least seem to be hit the hardest. Credit card companies drain the poor with hidden fees, and banks charge exorbitant amounts for miniscule overdrafts and withdrawals. But the family whose house was foreclosed due to a bank error was the last straw. The Man of Steel is in Charlotte, NC, at the headquarters of one of the largest banks in the country, and he's doing a little foreclosing of his own. There's a right and wrong in this world, and Superman is tired of seeing the people we trust with basic necessities constantly choosing the latter. So he's shut down the bank's headquarters, and he won't be letting anyone inside until some changes are made. But has Superman finally gone too far, or is the banking industry the one enemy more powerful than the Man of Steel?

Don't Call it a Reboot (We've Done This for Years)

2011-06-03T20:01:00.002-05:00

People give DC a lot of flak for being the company that does these periodic mass continuity reboots. To some degree, it's true, but it's also overblown. I've seen commentators talk about DC "completely rewriting" or "rebooting" their universe repeatedly, and I have to wonder what these people are talking about. Even "Crisis on Infinite Earths"--the rebootiest reboot that's ever hit the proper DCU--didn't rewrite everything. Not even close. Most of what happened "pre-Crisis" was still meant to have happened; the things that changed were the line-up of the JSA and its place in history, the integration of the Charlton, Quality, and Fawcett characters into the DCU proper, and the histories of a few key characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Jason Todd. All the key events of the pre-Crisis DCU happened, but may have happened in a slightly different fashion than we originally saw. Even the Crisis itself was remembered by the heroes (after all, how else do you explain the death of Barry Allen and Wally West's ascension to the Flash mantle?), only as a big battle where the Anti-Monitor tried to destroy the positive-matter universe.

After that, what are the actual reboots? "Zero Hour," obviously, but that was less a reboot and more a tinkering. The only things that really changed due to Zero Hour were Batman's urban legend status, Hawkman's confusing complexity, and what the Legion of Super-Heroes was like.

"The Kingdom" is the next one that deserves mention. It didn't reboot or retcon anything; it just made the multiverse a thing again through the magic of Hypertime. Now, every story that DC published took place in a variety of divergent universes. Which was kind of already the case, "The Kingdom" just canonized it.

"Infinite Crisis" was the next "reboot" (commentators tend to lump "Identity Crisis" here because it has the word "Crisis" in the title, despite not doing anything to the timeline), making a few cosmetic changes the same way that "CoIE" did, but more becoming the scapegoat for the sorts of changes that occur naturally in a century-spanning serialized shared universe. And we'll get to that again below. The biggest impact "Identity Crisis" had on continuity was through restoring the multiple Earths-style multiverse, paring the number down from ∞ to 52. These weren't the old Earths restored (as JSofA would go to show) but new Earths that, in some cases, bore resemblance to some of the numbered Earths from the pre-Crisis era. And in most other cases, bore resemblance to various Elseworlds titles like "Gotham by Gaslight" and "Red Son." We saw some tweaked origins and such post-IC (notably in the "Look, Up in the Sky" Superman arc), but nothing particularly major.

Post-Infinite Crisis, there really hasn't been another attempt at rebooting or mass-retconning. People point, again, to "Final Crisis," because of the "Crisis" title, but despite the story's heavy involvement with the multiverse, there's nothing there to really rewrite existing DC history.

Which isn't to say that such rewrites haven't occurred. The "Secret Origin" titles--running through "Green Lantern" and the Superman miniseries--have both made tweaks, both major and minor, to those franchises, but without a universe-spanning justification ("Superman: Birthright" did the same, ten years back). This is certainly cause for some confusion among the long-time fans (did Ron Troupe and Lucy Lane have a son or not? If the 'new recruits don't have Lantern badges' was a thing when Hal joined the Corps, then why did they bother introducing it as a new idea in "GLC: Recharge"?), but they've generally been matters of nitpick-level importance, not serious detractions.

And as comic fans, we should be used to that sort of thing by now, because they happen all the time. As I mentioned above, Marvel gets a free pass on the "universal rewrite" thing, but not because the details never get rewritten. Instead, Marvel is in a constant state of flux with respect to those details, such that Tony Stark was originally a POW in Vietnam, then the Gulf War, now Afghanistan. Reed Richards and Ben Grimm no longer met in World War II, and were no longer racing against the Russians to be the first on the Moon. The details get smoothed out, ignored, and rewritten periodically at Marvel, such that the "starting point" of the Marvel heroes is a sliding scale, always creeping toward the present, always kept a constant-but-unclear distance in the past.

Which is not to say that they haven't had harder reboots too; "Heroes Reborn" was a specific attempt at just that, as was "Spider-Man: Chapter One." "One More Day" sits somewhere in-between on the Sleep Number scale of superhero reboots.

Of course, Marvel has had one hard universe-wide reboot, though they tried to have their cake and eat it too: the Ultimate Universe. It's frankly a harder reboot than anything that DC has done since "Showcase" #4, but they just shunted it all to a side universe. And I think the Ultimate universe (along with other hard-reboot examples like "Man of Steel" and "Spider-Man: Chapter One") shows some of the pitfalls and problems with hard, line-wide reboots on the whole:

The Best Laid Plans: Generally, the stated goal of a hard reboot is to jettison the decades of confusing history and continuity that might make the title a daunting read for the casual fan or new customer. The logic is that this confusing history piled up over a long period of time with no overarching plan, so an overarching plan will prevent the new history from being so confusing. Contradictions and continuity errors and tangles will generally fail to exist, because everything is planned in advance.
But even the best plans don't account for everything. For the "Man of Steel" reboot, for instance, the biggest problem was first addressed in "Superman" (vol. 2) #8: if Superboy never existed, then who inspired the Legion? The consequence of a hard reboot in one corner of the shared universe meant that a different corner was suddenly far more complicated, as it required a tangled mess of pocket universes and counterparts and so forth.

For the Ultimate Universe, the problem came in "Ultimate Marvel Team-Up," which introduced a bunch of characters who would later be reintroduced...and totally different. So some of "UMTU" became canon, other bits didn't, and continuity tangles were born.
Historical Inertia: Characters, one way or another, develop, despite the best efforts of the status quo. A hard reboot, setting everything back to the beginning, thus comes with a lot of the baggage it was trying to jettison: mainly, how these familiar characters will grow and develop. Some developments are necessary and obvious: doesn't matter how much characterization or how many ponytails you give Uncle Ben, we all know he's going to die. That's his purpose as a character.

But that sort of thing carries further. Take a Robin reboot for instance. Let's say DC resets things all the way back to the original Dynamic Duo. There will always be that tension hanging over Dick Grayson, about whether or not he's going to leave and what his eventual grown-up trajectory will be. Readers will always be waiting for Nightwing, and writers will always be acknowledging Nightwing in some fashion--either by trying to set it up as an eventuality or trying specifically to avoid it. Either way, Nightwing--and now, Batman--will be the shadow hanging over any young Dick Grayson story.

And frankly, it'll probably take them less time to get there. The first time around, it took 45 years or so for Robin to become Nightwing, and if we had to do it all again, I doubt it would take more than ten. "Nightwing" is seen as the trajectory of Dick Grayson's story, and everyone from fans to writers is going to be expecting it to happen.

As a less hypothetical example, consider Supergirl. It took 21 years after Superman's debut for them to create a Supergirl; after the reboot, however, even given a "no more Kryptonians" edict, it only took two. Consider that the Ultimate Universe has existed for about eleven years, but has already had everything from the Death of Gwen Stacy to Venom and Carnage to the Clone Saga, compressing some forty years of significant Spider-events into a quarter of the time.

Sure, they aren't exactly the same stories. This time, Supergirl is a superpowered protoplasmic clone of Lana Lang from a pocket universe, this time one of the Spider-Clones is a girl. But the changes are mostly cosmetic, mostly detail-based. The same basic story is happening again, either because it's seen as inevitable (the death of Gwen Stacy), because it introduces useful or popular bits of the discarded continuity (Supergirl's return) or because the new writer wants to pay homage to an old story, or "do it right this time" (Clone Saga). Which brings us to the next point:
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss: Continuity reboots are not a way to tell new stories. You don't need an excuse to tell new stories, and new stories are perfectly possible within the confines of an established continuity. Want to tell a story that ignores or contradicts some inconvenient continuity point? Do what people have done since time immemorial: ignore or contradict it. That's what No-Prizes are for. Or find a way around it--make the story a flashback, set it in the past or the future, add a little "This story takes place before events in" caption. There are plenty of ways to tell stories that aren't hampered by the long history and shared universe even when you're in a shared universe with a long history, and various writers have been very successful in recent times by treating those long histories as smorgasbords built to pick and choose the best bits from.

Of course, there are ways that continuity hampers what stories can be told. Writer wants Character A to team up with Character B against Character C, but Character B died before Character C debuted, or something. There may be editorial red tape preventing Character B from being resurrected, and the story has to be reconsidered somehow. I don't necessarily see that as an argument against continuity; it's more an argument against killing characters. Killing useful, interesting characters is like breaking the toys in the toy box; it reduces the number of games you can play, until someone takes the time and effort to fix or replace the broken toys.

The only real counter-example I can think of is Neil Gaiman's "Legend of the Green Flame," a story that was famously filed away because part of it hinged on Superman and Green Lantern knowing each other's secret identities, which wasn't the case post-Crisis. I'm sure other stories have fallen into the file like this one, for similar reasons, but it's hard to catalog stories that were never told. The problem with using "Legend of the Green Flame" as an example of how continuity can limit what stories can be told is that it was eventually published anyway, outside of continuity (though it didn't matter by that point), and that the problem which prevented its publication wasn't continuity, but a continuity reboot. The story would have been completely fine just a few years earlier or later; rebooting continuity was what caused the problem.

No, the biggest reason for doing a reboot is to retell familiar stories again. Those retellings are, of course, going to be different in various ways, but "the origin of Firestorm" is going to have similar attributes whether it's about Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein in college or Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch in high school. And eventually, one way or another, historical inertia is going to carry those rebooted characters to familiar ground, whether or not it's in new and slightly different ways. The baggage isn't lost, it's just shoved to the back of the closet.
Worst of Both Worlds: That's the biggest problem with reboots: you lose the smorgasbord of past stories to pull interesting and fun details from and you leave that historical sword of Damocles hanging above every writer's head. The best writers will use the history as a guide or inspiration, using the unwritten history to inform the story one way or another. The worst writers will use it as a crutch, a way to tell the same stories that have already been told, but with minor cosmetic changes to make them fit the new status quo.

Which is not to say that there's no innovation, but I think it represents a step backward. Consider the Superman/Lois dynamic. We had fifty-eight years exploring every aspect of their classic two-person love triangle, which also formed the basis for every superhero relationship that followed (and that's ignoring all the flashback stories, out-of-continuity stories, and everything else since the marriage in 1996). Conversely, their actual marriage remains largely unmined for story opportunities. Undoing it would have the unfortunate result of leaving everyone with the (reasonable) assumption that they'll eventually get back together, and leaving the writers and readers in very well-explored territory. The focus of the tension will have shifted; in the Silver Age, it was "will she ever figure out his secret?" "will Superman ever settle down?" "will Superman choose between Lois and Lana?" Post-reboot, the tension is "when will they finally get back together?" "when will she learn his secret?" The former is the kind of tension around which you can build satisfying stories and conflict. The latter is the kind of tension around which you can build "Moonlighting."

It looks like DC is going for a kind of soft reboot here, continuing some stories unchanged, changing others dramatically, and giving everyone new costumes with high collars and unnecessary stripes. Despite the above rambling, I'm cautiously optimistic. Already some titles look really good, some titles look really bad, and some titles look like they're worth a look--basically the same as things are now. But with more stripes. I have no doubt that good writers and good artists will do the best they can with what they're given, whether or not Superman has red briefs or Batman is Dick Grayson.

I just think that this whole kerfuffle is missing the forest for the trees. It might be true that comics are inaccessible to new readers, but wiping out all history--or worse, wiping out some histories and not others--doesn't make things any more accessible. What makes comics accessible to new readers is getting them out of the comic shops. Unless someone is already interested in comics, they're unlikely to enter a comic shop. Unless their comic shop is one of the really good ones, it's unlikely that the comic shop will have a welcoming atmosphere to new readers, or accommodating to the kinds of questions that new readers have. The future of comics lies in bookstores and the Internet and other places where new readers are more likely to be than insular comic shop clubhouses. The future of comics lies in attracting new writers and new artists with new ideas.

That should be obvious, from the success of "Superman: Earth One" in the mass market, and from the basic facts of most current comics fans. Think back, folks: where'd you get your first comics? I bet it wasn't at a comic shop. I got mine from newsstands and grocery stores and He-Man toys and my mom's yellowing collection. That led me to the weird assortments they sold in Sears Christmas Catalogs and grab bags at toy stores, and only after getting hooked on all that did I get to a comic shop.

Instead, DC's lesson from "Earth One" seems to have been that people want to read about younger characters and origin stories. And some of that may be true, but there's only so many ways and so many times you can tell an origin story. And it looks like we'll be seeing more such stories come September. I just hope the plan is bigger and better than it seems at the moment.

And I really hope Green Arrow's not in the Smallville costume for very long.

By the way, I'm totally aware of how many sentences in this start with "and" or "which isn't to say." Consider it a stylistic choice. As in, I stylistically chose not to do any editing on this meandering post.