SUPERMAN/SHAZAM!

THE RETURN OF BLACK ADAM ANCHORS DC SHOWCASE Original Shorts COLLECTION

THE SPECTRE, JONAH HEX, GREEN ARROW INCLUDED ON COMPILATION DUE NOV. 9 FROM warner home video

- For your own safety!

Ah, comics. Just when I think I’m done with you, something comes along and reminds me why I’m not.

And it’s usually Goddamn Lois Lane.

…I received a press release from Warner Bros touting the online availability of their movies and cartoons and, well, it came with a link to a little montage so I figured why not?

The DC 75th Anniversary Continues…Warner Bros. Digital Distribution invites you to join in on the Celebration!

Celebrate 75 years of DC Comics with films and TV series inspired by some of the most popular SUPER HEROES including BATMAN, SUPERMAN and other iconic DC Comics characters. To celebrate this milestone, Warner Bros. Digital Distribution is highlighting dozens of movies and shows that are available For Download on iTunes , WBshop.com and more; and via (cable) On Demand on Comcast, Time Warner Cable and others.

With On Demand and Download fans can watch their DC favorites virtually anytime, anywhere. Highlights include the blockbuster film THE DARK KNIGHT with Extras on iTunes, all SUPERMAN movies, and full length DC Universe animated original movies including GREEN LANTERN: FIRST FLIGHT, BATMAN UNDER THE RED HOOD (7/27), SUPERMAN DOOMSDAY and more. Individual episodes and complete seasons of fan favorite DC inspired TV series are also available for download in HD including the complete series of SMALLVILLE, HUMAN TARGET and BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD.

Why not?

In addition you can win DC prizes next week by following the Warner Bros. Entertainment Twitter account: http://twitter.com/WB_Home_Ent

…wasn’t the one in Superman’s face in the JMS-penned prelude to his upcoming run on the character.

No, it was the one in the face of longtime Superman readers when he penned such a weak set-up to his new run, starting properly in next month’s Superman #701.

Why is it weak, you ask? It’s weak because of the reason that the nameless woman in question is angry at Superman, the reason that is supposed to haunt Superman and send him on his trek across America. That reason?

Her husband died from an inoperable brain tumor.

That’s tragic. It happens in reality, and it’s tragic. But to inject it into a comic book – and specifically a comic centered around an alien who looks human, but can fly, move planets and leap tall buildings in a single bound – that’s not tragic. That’s manipulative. It’s crass. And it pushes the boundaries of the suspension of disbelief that comics universes operate under.

Why?

In the real world, if Reed Richards or Tony Stark or Lex Luthor existed, they would have cured cancer by now. We’d be living in a high-tech utopia that Steve Jobs only dreams of. But, of course, we don’t take that logical step in the fictional worlds of Marvel and DC because it would distance their world from our world too much.

The thing is, bringing our world into the superhero world doesn’t work either – because it makes it seem like the heroes in question are selfish for not focusing on real world problems in favor of whaling on the villain of the week.

An additional question is when, exactly, did this woman get the impression that Superman was a doctor? That he routinely went round eliminating brain tumors with his heat vision? I must have missed that.

And aw, look at Superman’s sad face.

Bad enough that we get the motivation for Superman’s walk across America from a nameless person in this manner when it would have made much more sense in the DCU for the man’s death to be from a rampage by the Atomic Skull, or the Prankster or whoever while Superman was off planet – but additionally, we’re driven further along this path by the fact that Superman was nowhere when this man’s death happened; he wasn’t on Earth where he was needed.

Which I guess means he wasn’t needed to try to prevent the war with New Krypton instigated by Sam Lane. Well, I guess we didn’t need the past couple years worth of stories then, did we?

Additionally, let’s just assume that Superman doesn’t have the strength of character to recognize that hoary old Star Trek line that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one’ is actually true. That he doesn’t have the moral fibre to say to the woman, “I’m sorry your husband died, but millions more would have died too if I had been here to operate on him – which is something I don’t do anyway. Sometimes, people just die.”

More irritating to me as well – and I know at this point that I’m just pissed off with the entire storyline that is only just starting – is the fact that Superman’s finally moved into setting off on his big walk by a memory of Pa Kent’s words of wisdom.

That Pa Kent, he was certainly wasted as a farmer wasn’t he? The man could have made a fortune on the self-help lecture circuit.

Using Pa’s sage advice as an instigator for Superman’s actions feels like something Bad Jeph Loeb would do (that’s the Jeph Loeb of, say, Superman/Batman as opposed to the Good Jeph Loeb of…well, any collaboration with Tim Sale).

Finally, the preview ends with Superman starting his walk, and a watching child saying he must be doing ‘something important’.

Lord knows it must be ‘something important’ because we’ve been hammered over the head with that phrase ad nauseum in this story – because clearly, ‘something important’ is happening in the upcoming story, and ‘something important’ hasn’t been happening in all those regular old supehero comics we silly people buy.

I think Straczynski is a good writer – but I don’t think he plays well with other people’s toys in a shared sandbox. There’s a quote from his interview on Newsarama that I find particularly interesting.

The iconic elements of the character — Metropolis, the Daily Planet, Lois, Jim — are there for a reason: They work. But a little time away will make all of that more vital and freshen it up.

This is true. It would be even more true if we hadn’t just spent over a year with the Planet staff – and especially Lois – consigned to the background, if they were visible at all. My problem here is that JMS doesn’t seem to want to write a Superman story; he wants to write a story that happens to have Superman in it.

That’s fine – but from what I’ve seen, from what I’ve read, that’s not something I want to read.

I want to read about a Superman that works at the Daily Planet. A Superman that’s more comfortable as Clark Kent than he is as Superman sometimes. A Superman that’s married to the smartest, ballsiest reporter in the room. A Superman always somehow stymied by the schemes of Lex Luthor. A Superman that has the confidence in himself and his abilities to know that while he won’t always win, he will always do his best. A Superman that has people point up in the sky and ask that immortal question – “Is it a bird? Is it a plane?” – and then have Jimmy Olsen tell them not to be silly – it’s Superman.

I hope that JMS’s run sells well – I just won’t be buying it. And, after all this ranting (and yes, I know it’s ranting) if you still don’t see where I’m coming from, I suppose you can boil it down to one simple, sarcastic reason:

When Superman: The Movie was advertised, it wasn’t with the tag line ‘You will believe a man can walk’.

No, Superman doesn’t have a subconscious ‘thing’ for Wonder Woman (or her identical younger twin sister) at all, does he?

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I’ve been dropping a lot of books from my monthly pull list recently, but two of the books I was sure I was going to carry on picking up were Superman and Action Comics.

I’ve dropped both before, more than once. I first started picking DCs up regularly round about the time INVASION! came out, back when Superman was suffering a psychotic break and running around as Gangbuster in his spare time. I left the books a few months later after Superman returned to Earth from his space exile when I dropped all DC books.

I checked in on Superman from time to time, picking up the Death of, World Without A, and Return of trades before coming back to DC proper with Zero Hour which, for all its flaws I still love unreservedly. After that, I stuck with the mulleted Superman through the Battle and Fall of Metropolis, Dead Again, the Death of Clark Kent before finally giving up again just prior to the Trial of Superman – only to be lured back again by the also excellent-and-grossly underrated Final Night (and just why the HELL isn’t that collection in print?) and I’ve stayed ever since.

Even through the ElectroSuperman/Superman Blue/Superman Red stuff.

But…I think I’m done as of next month.

It’s not that I don’t want to read JMS’ take on Superman, it’s that I have an inkling of where he might be going from various interviews, rumors and solicits and I’m not that interested in it. I know that JMS can do epic and mythic, and I know that he can do alternate takes on Superman, and I know that he’s a talented writer; and I’m looking forward to reading his Thor once it’s all collected, even if I’ve heard it ends badly.

However, if there’s one thing I’ve decided about JMS, it’s that he doesn’t play well in the sandbox with others. Put him on an out-of-continuity Superman or team-up book and I’m there. But put him on the main book and I can’t help but think he’ll (a) ditch the supporting cast (much like he did on Amazing Spider-Man run); (b) introduce elements to the character that I either find unnecessary or just plain don’t like (*cough*spidertotem*cough*); and (c) have him functioning away from the mainstream DCU somewhat.

My first assumption – regarding the supporting cast – is somewhat borne out by that fact that Paul Cornell’s Action Comics run starring Lex Luthor is going to include Lois Lane as, and I’m quoting him here, ‘his girlfriend’. Now obviously Lois isn’t going to be Lex’s actual girlfriend. Rather I suspect that she’s going to be traveling with him on his quest for power (as he now seems to be pardoned and back in charge of Lex Luthor) to document it and, probably, scupper it on the sly. But her being there at all means that she’s unlikely to be in JMS’ Superman run – where, if rumors are to be believed – Superman may be trying to reacquaint himself with America.

As a rule of thumb, a writer should only attempt that kind of mythic America thing with Superman if they’re partnered with Tim Sale – and that’s already been done perfectly.

I could be completely off-base; I hope I am; but I have too many bad memories of For Tomorrow floating around my head to make me want to risk JMS’ work on Superman on a monthly basis, so I’m done for now.

Similarly, as much as I like Paul Cornell’s work and Lex Luthor – not to mention my favorite DC character, Lois Lane – I’m going to pass on that too, I think, at least until reviews are in; then I may pick up the trade.

So that leaves Red Robin, Batgirl and Supergirl as monthly pulls from DC for me. And honestly, I’m tempted to let them slide to trade too.

Yesterday DC Comics released their solicits for June 2010 – and for the first time since jumping back onto the DC bandwagon around 1994, I’m down to less than a dozen ongoing comics.

In fact I’m down to just FIVE titles – Action Comics, Superman, Supergirl, Batgirl and Red Robin – with another one a possibility (the one being Teen Titans which, despite not being very good, I just can’t seem to quit).

Beyond that, there’s only one mini on there – and that’s the final issue of the Rise of Arsenal, the first issue of which comes out this week.

Everything else is either off my pull list completely, or I intend to pick it up in trades at some point. Of course, because of DC’s terrible trades policies I may not even do that, having forgotten them by the time they came out.

This isn’t exactly unexpected for me, as I’ve been making an effort to purge my pull list over the past several months with varying degrees of success, but this is a huge step down.

The end of Blackest Night is really the final nail in the Green Lantern books for me – I intend to pick them up in trades, but the Blackest Night/Brightest Day demarcation line is a pretty clear one for me. It’s a jumping off point for their monthly adventures. Yes, even Guy’s when his book launches.

As far as Batman goes, I weaned my self off the core books (Batman, Batman and Robin and Detective) a few months into the Reborn arc, along with ancillary titles like Streets of Gotham and Gotham City Sirens which I simply wasn’t enjoying that much. The intention is to pick up the main books in trades but, well, again I guess it depends on when those trades come out.

I’ll continue following Wonder Woman and Secret Six in trades, and I intend to for the Justice Society books, the new Green Arrow and the Justice League too – but again it’s the same old song: depends when they come out.

I quit The Outsiders not because I don’t like the team (or the creative team either, although I’m not a fan of Tan and I’ve heard Dan Didio may have his detractors) but because no matter what direction the team has taken in the past few years, it hasn’t felt right to me. I like the characters, I like the name. I just don’t feel that either have been done justice.

The Flash and Legion relaunches (in both their own book and Adventure Comics) I have no interest in. Barry Allen isn’t my Flash; these aren’t my Legion. My Legion is the post-Zero Hour Legion. I gave the Waid/Kitson relaunch a chance but it never quite felt like a good fit and I’ll be damned if I’m doing that again here. Maybe in trades, but probably not.

Of the more recent launches, R.E.B.E.L.S was the only one I really started picking up but something just wasn’t clicking for me with it, so I dropped that a few months back too.

The two biweekly books, Brightest Day and Generation Lost, both have a lot of appeal to me but honestly the older I get the more I’d rather have trades on the bookshelf to reread than comics stored in a longbox somewhere. Same with Booster Gold, as that book looks to be tying in with Generation Lost somewhat.

And I think that’s what it comes down to – the five books I’m definitely getting contain my favorite DC characters – Superman, Lois, Supergirl, Tim and Stephanie – and I want to support them.

The rest I can take or leave on a weekly basis (and honestly, depending on how I find JMS and Guggenheim, the same may happen with the Superman books) and if and when I do catch up with the trade paperbacks, I’ll be paying less for them and storing them easier.

I wonder what Marvel’s June solicits will hold for me?

1. FlashForward - co-created by Goyer based on Robert Sawyer’s excellent high-concept novel, FlashForward should have been the best show of the past year. Instead you have meandering storylines with no sense of urgency, poor casting, dull scripts and a show that doesn’t play with the consequences of changing the future half as much as it should do. Take poor Agent Gough – he commits suicide to avert the future he sees where he killed someone by accident, and nobody sees this as a sign that the future can be changed.

2. The Blade movie trilogy – while I enjoyed all three movies when they first came out, they haven’t aged well. In fact when revisiting them I can’t help but notice that they weren’t that good to start off with. Plot holes, poor writing, pedestrian direction.

3. The Blade TV series – well, I liked the pilot, at least. I have to give it that.

4. Ghost Rider – no excuses; if your name’s attached to this, even as executive producer, you’re taking a share of the blame and need a good kicking.

5. Batman Begins/The Dark Knight – both admittedly great movies with some story issues, the second is better than the first. It’s also the second where Goyer contributed to the story and not the screenplay, coincidentally.

6. Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD TV movie – it’s bad. Really bad. When David Hasselhoff’s take on Fury is the only redeeming feature of a movie you know you’re in trouble.

Although in fairness, having Death Warrant and Dark City on the resume does earn some breathing room…

Posted via web from Comic By Comic’s Wonderous Posterous!

Last week’s DC books ran an ad revealing the JLA line up for the upcoming James Robinson/ Mark Bagley run on the book which, apparently, spins out of Robinson’s unintentionally amusing Justice League: Cry for Justice mini.

For those that can’t make out the tiny pic the full line-up is made up of four basic groups:

Stand-in Trinity: Batman (Dick Grayson), Mon-El, Donna Troy – I actually quite like this set of heroes but I wonder if they’ll be sticking around once Bruce and Clark make their inevitable return. I’m a bit behind on Wonder Woman so I’m not really sure why Donna’s here, but again, I like her so I can’t complain.

Cry for Justice refugees: Congorilla, Hal Jordan , Green Arrow, the Atom – Oh good, more angst. While I like most of these characters – with the exception of Congorilla, who I don’t really know – I don’t like how Robinson’s writing them in his mini. Hal’s really out of character, Ollie lacks the humor and snark that he normally has, and having Ray resort to torturing someone in pretty much the same way that his ex-wife killed Sue Dibny is outright wrong. I think I’d rather see Ryan Choi in the book, actually.

Titans refugees: Cyborg and Starfire (not to mention Donna and Dick) – It’s funny, but the non-marquee names on the Titans bore the shit out of me. Cyborg, Starfire and Beast Boy are just plain dull. I should probably thank my lucky star’s Gar’s not in the book.

Superman refugees: Guardian and Dr Light – both are appearing in Robinson’s Superman book, even if Light’s only shown up to swoon at Guardian a bit. Guardian’s past makes for an interesting angle, and his relationship with Mon-El should carry over here – although I’m not sure how he’ll play with the others.

It’s an odd line up, and not one that I think can work for very long; it kind of reminds me of the Avengers #300 line-up for some reason; old standbys, members of another team and some random character thrown in.

Which, I guess, makes Congorilla Gilgamesh.

I’m also wondering how Titans will operate as a book. It looks like Gar might be shifting over to Teen Titans which will really only leave Raven (also boring) and Wally (who I assume will be in Flash in some role) not on the JLA; so is Titans going to be canceled again? It might be a blessing…

Sanctuary‘s Emilie Ullerup has apparently been cast as Cat Grant in the upcoming season of Smallville.

She’s pretty.

The role appears to be for one episode only at the moment, so hopefully this version of the future Daily Planet gossip columnist can avoid the pitfalls her comic equivalent fell into; ie, poor choice in men, a murdered son, and huge breast implants.

Ullerup’s not the first to play Cat Grant – Tracy Scoggins played her in the first season of Lois and Clark, before being dropped by the network when they decided to concentrate more on the superhero aspect of the show and less on the romantic aspect of it.

There’s a pretty interesting brief history of the show here, including what happened when Disney bought ABC and decided they didn’t like it.

Not that that’s relevant or anything…

Don’t worry, I’m not going to do an in-depth posting on last night’s Smallville finale like I did with Fringe and Lost (here, here and here), mainly because I’m nowhere near qualified to.

I haven’t watched any of this season apart from the first episode, I only saw two of the previous season and I’m currently playing catch up on DVD on season six. I have to say though, I like the dynamic of Tom Welling and Erica Durance playing reporters in the Daily Planet.

But last night’s ep was a whole lot of fun. Granted, it suffered the usual Smallville faults of throwing too much into the mix, having fights be over too quickly, and generally suffering from a lack of decent editing, but it was still fun, with some unexpected (to me) events.

The Clark-Doomsday throwdown I knew about from all the ads I’d seen this year, so no surprise there – although it was far too brief.

Lois being zapped into the 30th Century should be fun next season while it lasts – presumably Saturn Girl will just wipe her memory and drop her off when all’s said and done. Also I guess Lois’ scenes confirm that my crush on Erica Durance is still alive and well. Sigh.

But killing Jimmy Olsen? I didn’t see that coming! And just after he learned Clark’s secret to boot (something that I thought should have happened years ago in the comics). Still, at least they left the way open for Jimmy II, cub reporter in the 19th season, with Jimmy’s younger brother getting his camera and wearing a bowtie.

And I guess from the end that Zod – the real Zod – is back in town, and without residing in a baldy surrogate body this time?

Cool. Maybe I’ll try and catch up on the past three years by the time Smallville returns for its’ ninth season – after all, they can’t leave Clark out of the tights forever, can they?

I’m sure I’ve seen that ‘Clark Kent is dead’ stuff somewhere before though…

You probably don’t want to read this if you haven’t read Legion of Three Worlds #4.

Or if you didn’t click on the Source’s preview of Adventure Comics #1, by Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul.

But damn, that’s a nice piece of artwork:

I enjoyed Manapul’s stuff on Legion of Super-heroes, but he looks like he’s stepped up his game here.

And Kon El’s back? As Superboy?

Oh hell yes.

…from Superman: World of New Krypton #5.

I was looking back over the one word reviews I’ve been posting lately and it occurred to me that, well, it doesn’t look like I enjoy about half the comics I read.

My first reaction was ‘that’s not true!’ but the more I think of it, the more I get the nagging feeling that it might be.

Take Batman and Superman. I’m back to picking up the majority of the Batman books, and I’m enjoying Battle for the Cowl in a big, blockbuster kind of way but the last time I was really enthusiastic about Batman – and I mean in the ‘looking-forward-to-every-single-issue’ kind of way – was probably around the time of No Man’s Land.

And that, I’m surprised to see, was about nine years ago.

As for Superman – he’s probably my second favorite superhero character after Spider-Man (obviously both fall way behind Lois Lane, but that’s another story) – I’m a little unsure when the last time I felt that way was. Probably around the same time, during the 1999 soft relaunch of the books when they had Joe Kelly, Jeph Loeb (back when he could construct an almost coherent story), Stuart Immonen, Mark Millar and Mark Schultz were handling the writing. Of course, that all went to hell shortly thereafter with the godawful Our World At War storyline but hey, they can’t all be winners.

But was it really nine years since I enjoyed either of DC’s flagship characters consistently? I’m not saying I haven’t enjoyed them since then – but that’s honestly the last time that I think I looked forward to every issue of their main books.

It’s not as though there aren’t highlights at the moment; I’m enjoying pretty much everything about Amazing Spider-Man right now, Captain America continues to be fantastic, R.E.B.E.L.S is great fun, I’m enjoying John Byrne’s work on Angel: Blood and Trenches, Rick Remender’s Punisher this week was good enough to guarantee that it’s staying on my pull list for the next arc too, the main War of Kings series is awesome, I’m looking forward to Blackest Night in spite of the stupidity of the Rainbow Corps…

I guess the point is that I’m not as enthusiastic as I want to be about a lot of books these days – I may have singled out Batman and Superman but they and DC are not the only culprits. While I think that the Dark Reign status quo at Marvel is interesting, I don’t think every book needs to reflect the darkening of the MU.

A little levity would be welcome at the moment. Maybe that’s it.

Re: your new look…

First, I think I liked your old one better.

Second, Starlord called and he wants his costume back.

Also, why did you look older in your first appearances in the New Krypton arc than you do at the start of your new headlining role in Action Comics?

And why was your hair a different color?

And why did you have tactile telekinesis then?

Honestly, anyone get the impression that Kon-El got switched out on the fly? It’s like that whole Dick Grayson/Jason Todd post-Infinite Crisis Nightwing thing all over again.

Maybe it’s something about the name…

You know, once in a while even Clark Kent suffers a crisis of conscience (sounds like a DC crossover, eh?):

Hmmm…how does that disguise work exactly? Slouch a little, change your voice, act clumsy? Nah, there has to be more to it than that.

Hypnotic glasses perhaps?

Perhaps not. Maybe Superman distracts from his true mild-mannerdness by being an ass?

But no, eventually even Clark Kent must realize…

…”it’s the dumbest disguise I’ve ever seen!”

Hey, they kept the outfit!

I’m sure that’s nothing to do with the fact that she looks good in it.

Hey, where is Paul Dini’s Zatanna book anyway?

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