Superman

Thanks to a college student complaining about reading Y: The Last Man and Perseopolis when he thought he’d be reading innocent comics like Batman, people have been collecting inappropriate Batman panels - mostly from the Golden and Silver Ages. So, here’s a weekly feature that’ll go from now until I run out of images. Tanks

Thanks to a college student complaining about reading Y: The Last Man and Perseopolis when he thought he’d be reading innocent comics like Batman, people have been collecting inappropriate Batman panels - mostly from the Golden and Silver Ages. So, here’s a weekly feature that’ll go from now until I run out of images. Should we join in?

The introduction to Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow says that Alan Moore had a once in a lifetime chance. We can chuckle at that from our vantage point in the New 52 world. Frankly, I’m surprised that DC didn’t do another of these right before the reboot, but then again their misleading statements (intentional or not - and I think they were intentional) about it not being a reboot would have been undermined if they had undertaken a project like this one. When the story came out in Superman#423 and Action Comics#583 there had been stories in which Superman had died or gone missing. But this was the first time it all happened in continuity. Because the 1986 reboot was getting rid of all the previous canon, this story marked the first (and last) time that a comic book company was OK with doing away with a marquee hero canonically with finality. After all, it wouldn’t be canon just a month or two later. I think what is most interesting about the story is how I believe it might have gone differently in 2011.

Superman has been the subject of countless papers and books exploring what is so compelling about this alien super hero. Interestingly, as comics have become more sophisticated, it’s become harder and harder to write a good Superman story that encompasses all that makes him great. Oh, I’d argue it’s not much harder to write a compelling origin story. Mark Waid’s Superman: Birthright, which I wrote about here, is a pretty good indication of what Superman’s appearance in our world might look like. Grant Morrison’s run on Action Comics Vol 2 also gave us a good look at how Superman might work to use his working man convictions to do as Superman what the justice system was failing to do. But I think what makes Superman so hard to grow as a character is his ability to maintain his “blue boyscout” ethics in the face of all he deals with. It’s an accusation that would be easy to levy on Batman except that his writers have had a succession of boy (and girl) wonders in the Robin role to evolve Batman emotionally. (Even if it took until Batman and Robin Vol 2 for him to stop grieving his parents and start celebrating their legacy) In a nutshell, there’s no reason why Superman’s time growing up in Smallville should make him perpetually maintain those values. There are tons of people who move from the countryside to the big city. Very few of them maintain their small town views. Everything is changed, even just a little. We often use platitudes like Superman seeing the best in humanity and, therefore, being above the pettiness, but I find no reason why this should be the case. So what might it be like if Superman actually existed in the real world? Well, two different authors have explored that in two very different ways.

I’m just going to jump out in front of this and call it a rant. It’s inspired by Kari’s entry last week: So What’s With Batwoman?: Why This Is Important . I’d passively read about the Batwoman controversy and shook my head. Batwoman was the subject of a few early articles here at Comic POW! ( Dan’s 2012 DC Runner Up, vs Wolverine and the X-Men, and vs SHIELD) and we’ve always praised the art and the storytelling that set it apart from the rest of the Bat Family. However, being apart from the Bat Family was a double-edged sword. When financial constraints hit, Batwoman hit the chomping block for me. I always intended to collect it as an omnibus trade but I didn’t bother supporting it monthly since it didn’t fit in with the other comics I was reading. Since I didn’t read it monthly, I only followed the departure of JH Williams III from the periphery. At first I thought it was an anti-gay stance which I thought was weird after the whole Alan Scott thing. But when Kari brought word that it was an anti-marriage stance coming from Dan Didio himself, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. ...

Rather than just copy it, I’ll provide a link. Enjoy.

Does violence need violence as an answer? When my wife and I were thinking about daycare for our daughter we visited a lot of centers and got their welcome packets. One of them mentioned that kids were not allowed to have back packs, lunch boxes, or t-shirts with characters from shows in which characters primarily used violence to solve their problems. Examples given included Power Rangers, Batman, and other super heroes. It’s funny - I’d read comics off and on since I was in elementary school and I’d spent a lot of time watching super hero cartoons and movies. But I never consciously realized that the characters primarily used violence to solve their problems. It’s pretty noble that any heroes who aren’t anti-heroes never kill in the course of their actions, but they’re still pretty violent. What message does this send? ...

Man of Steel has its US theatre release today. It claims to be a fresh look at Superman as well as an origin story of sorts. In honor of this, today I’m looking at a Superman origin story from the comics. Eric talked about Superman: Birthright a couple of months ago, so I’m going to take a look at Superman For All Seasons, a retelling of Superman’s origin that was published in 1998. ...

[caption id=“attachment_68” align=“alignleft” width=“193” caption=“Justice League #1”] [/caption] The dust has settled on DC’s new 52 and the second month’s worth of comics have been released. The first month was obviously great for sales. Many of the titles went into third or fourth printings. But what effect did it have on my comic selection? I’ve always been more of a Marvel guy although I’ve enjoyed Batman cartoons and movies. Before the new 52 I’d started collecting Detective Comics, Batman and Robin, and Gotham City Sirens. The new 52 piqued my interest since the books were supposed to written for new readers, like me, to be able to just jump right in. So I added Justice League, Justice League International, Catwoman, Batman, Batman: The Dark Knight, Suicide Squad, Nightwing, Teen Titans, Red hood and the Outlaws, Birds of Prey, Batwoman, Supergirl, Superboy, Action Comics, and Superman to my pull list. So in the first month they definitely got what they wanted: people trying out books they’d never considered before. I know I’d found myself bored whenever I’d looked through a Superman book. ...