This past week I have been revisiting some older Superman comics. I may or may not write about them at some point in time. Don't hold your breath.
What JUST occurred to me though is that Superman died in January of 1993. This is the 20th anniversary of one of comicdom's biggest events and I haven't really seen anybody talk about it. Maybe everyone thinks the final word on the Death of Superman was done in a popular internet video by screenwriter Max Landis(1). It was a pretty entertaining video but not facturate. Here, I'll link to it.
LINK TO DEATH AND RETURN OF SUPERMAN ON YOUTUBE
Like I said, it's not really a straight on retelling of the event and its conclusions are somewhat false but it'll give you the idea.
I'm not really interested in talking about the story, rather I just wanted to go through some of my thoughts about the event.
I remember at the time I was not actively collecting comics. I had no job and was full-time in university so I pretty much just read my friends' comics. This story was inescapable though. It was covered, and widely covered, in the mainstream media.
It was an important story.
It was important enough that my parents, in a VERY uncharacteristic move, bought me not only the issue he died in (a third printing because it sold out and sold out and sold out) but also the immediately released trade paperback collection of the whole storyline. And they must have also bought me the faux-in-universe commemorative magazine because I own it and like I said, no job or money.
So, important. To comic readers and fans. To the general populace.
Of course, Superman came back later in the year, after two big intermediary storylines: Funeral For A Friend (2) and Reign of the Supermen (3). The former I actually think is REALLY good and I will write about later. The latter I am in the midst of rereading and all I can say is it has some story hooks that were enjoyably followed up on with some long term ramifications.(4)
A comic fan who says they were surprised by Superman's relatively immediate return is a liar. This is one of the points were Landis goes awry in his video. He says that the Death of Superman was the Death of Death in comics. Not so. People died and came back by miraculous last minute saves or convoluted plot device routinely. One of the first American comics I bought as a collector promised the death of the X-Men. Newsflash: No one really died. I guess I can remember people liking the status quo of the post-Death DC Universe and regretted it did not last longer, but really NO ONE in comics was too taken aback to see the new 90s-mullet haired Superman headlining the Superman series before 1993 was over.
Having just reread the story, I am left wondering how it would be told differently now. It's common nowadays to refer to Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman that DC's Big Trinity, but there is no evidence that this was the case back then. Bats and Wondy barely rate in the story(5). In 2013, Superman is dating Wonder Woman and Batman is, if not his best friend a la the Silver Age, at least a very close confidante and certainly would be concerned about the events going on in Metropolis. There was no such thing as an "iconic" Justice League back then either, leading to a League featuring characters called Maxima and Bloodwynd(6) being the best DC had to offer.
I'm meandering here.
The point I am trying to make is that this was a story that mattered to people, even people who might never read it. One rainy winter day 20 years ago, a grey, silent monster beat Superman to death and it led to many fun stories so in the end it was all worth it. I was thinking about what the DC Universe would have been ike without Superman, if he hadn't come back and really there are so many superheroes there that I don't think it would be that different.
That makes me sad for comics and excited about them all at the same time.
(1) Max Landis wrote the found footage "superhero" movie Chronicle, which I have heard is good and want to see, but haven't seen yet. Aside from that, the video he made about the Death of Superman is about all he is known for.
(2)Funeral For A Friend covers the time from immediately after Supes dies, through the attempts to resuscitate him to the fight over his surely valuable remains to the funeral and burial. A solid 8 issues of comics.
(3)Reign of the Supermen kiiinda went down just like in the video, except it was like 5 months after Superman died, not the next week.Four "Supermen" appeared and readers were left wondering which, if any, might be the real Superman! Answer: None of them.
(4)Actually the character most affected by Superman's death was Green Lantern Hal Jordan. His hometown got blown up, he went evil, and the Green Lantern comics TO THIS DAY are rooted in that one event.
(5) In fact, instead of the world's greatest detective, Batman, investigating the mysterious appearance of the 4 replacement Supermen in Reign of the Supermen it was former Green Lantern Guy Gardner who looks into it. Batman was all "Four Supermen? Don't give a shit."
(6)I think Bloodwynd turned out to secretly be League founding memeber J'Onn J'Onzz, the Martian Manhunter. I thought he was going to be Red Tornado.
Monday, 21 January 2013
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
Geoffrey vs. SUPERBOY AND THE RAVERS
Since I can't keep up with doing a weekly thing about the new comics, instead I will do an irregular thing about comics which are not new at all. And I will start with DC Comics seminal 1990s series SUPERBOY AND THE RAVERS.
This series ran 19 issues, monthly from September 1996. I collected it for 12 issues, much to the derision of my fellow comic readers. It was written by Karl Kesel, one of the mainstays of DC Comics writing in the 90s.
It's a silly concept. Superboy, who was reimagined after the Death of Superman into a teen-aged clone of Superman, falls in with a group of other teenage superheroes who in common that they all go to this intergalactic non-stop party, the "rave" after which they take their team name. The other characters are:
Sparx, a teenage Canadian girl-next-door from a family of superbeings who can turn into living electricity.
Aura, an Asian girl who is a bitch and can control magnetism.
Hero Cruz, a Latino/Black guy with a force field vest which later gets replaced by the DC Comics artifact the H-Dial which allows him to turn into a different superhero with different powers each time it is used. Also, in a time when it was rare, he was a gay superhero.
Kaliber, an alien guy from an anti-matter universe where evil is good and good is evil (comics!) who can shrink or grow himself or others. He's good, so in his universe he is a dangerous terrorist.
Rex the Wonder Dog, a dog with enhanced dog-like dog powers, like the Captain America of dogs, who also served in WW2 and fought Nazis. Starred in his own comic in the 50s. No lie.
Half-Life, a rebellious youth from the 50s who was abducted by aliens and turned into a half-James Dean half-green ooze skeleton dude in a leather jacket (once more, comics!).
Other regular characters included Kindred Marx, an orange skinned alien who looked like an elf in a suit and ran the rave. Bouncer, the rave's bouncer, a big alien who didn't speak English. DJ, the rave's DJ who was a hot-girl robot.
This sounds pretty stupid as I type it all out.
I remember when I was buying this monthly that one friend really grilled me on why. My reason really kinda sums up what I love about superhero comics, the sense that any bizarre thing can happen. I told him that, out of all the comics being published, Superboy and the Ravers was the only one in which there seemed to be a reasonable chance that the team might have to at some point save the world by beating Nazis in a game of baseball and that clearly if that storyline took place it was one I HAD to read.
Basically, it was fun.
Over the years this comic, when it is thought of at all, really is kind of a punchline at times about the excesses of 90s comics trying to appeal to the hip, urban youth of the day. Not as blatantly about nothing as some Image comics were, but still, a series about teens at a party that never ends...as I said a paragraph ago, it sounds kinda stupid.
Well I reread the 12 issues I have and I have to say, it's not. It was and still is fun. A fun, easy read with pleasant characterizations, a few interesting concepts and some nice art by Paul Pelletier and Aaron Lopresti.
The art is so nice that I was wondering where Paul Pelletier might have gone only to discover that same night while reading the much more recent Marvel Comics cosmic crossover War of Kings that he was still drawing and was still really good.
HIGHS:
Hero Cruz getting the H-Dial. This was I think the first big use of that object post-Crisis and it was a fun callback in a time when Silver Age stuff was kind of swept under the rug. All round Hero was a cool character. If we weren't under the tyranny of DC's New 52 regime, I would hope for a Hero Cruz return.
Half-Life. I liked this guy. It's a neat concept: the delinquent form the 50s with strange, alien granted abilites after a UFO abduction. While aliens are rife in comic worlds, UFO type stuff is rare. He was different and again, were it not for the Nu52, I would hope for more Half-Life some day.
LOWS:
The over-arching plot/mystery of the party itself was kinda of weak. I wish the story had been even more focused on just having these crazy adventures.
Tying into the above, Kindred Marx was a boring character and, while this won't make sense to anyone reading comics now, at the time he really looked A LOT like a character in another DC series. His resemblance to Stealth, a female character appearing in the comic L.E.G.I.O.N. was uncanny and if the internet had been as big back then everyone would have derided the fact that it turned out Marx had no connection at all to Stealth and wasn't even the same species.
ALL IN ALL:
Fun comics. I do wish they'd had that baseball game.
This series ran 19 issues, monthly from September 1996. I collected it for 12 issues, much to the derision of my fellow comic readers. It was written by Karl Kesel, one of the mainstays of DC Comics writing in the 90s.
It's a silly concept. Superboy, who was reimagined after the Death of Superman into a teen-aged clone of Superman, falls in with a group of other teenage superheroes who in common that they all go to this intergalactic non-stop party, the "rave" after which they take their team name. The other characters are:
Sparx, a teenage Canadian girl-next-door from a family of superbeings who can turn into living electricity.
Aura, an Asian girl who is a bitch and can control magnetism.
Hero Cruz, a Latino/Black guy with a force field vest which later gets replaced by the DC Comics artifact the H-Dial which allows him to turn into a different superhero with different powers each time it is used. Also, in a time when it was rare, he was a gay superhero.
Kaliber, an alien guy from an anti-matter universe where evil is good and good is evil (comics!) who can shrink or grow himself or others. He's good, so in his universe he is a dangerous terrorist.
Rex the Wonder Dog, a dog with enhanced dog-like dog powers, like the Captain America of dogs, who also served in WW2 and fought Nazis. Starred in his own comic in the 50s. No lie.
Half-Life, a rebellious youth from the 50s who was abducted by aliens and turned into a half-James Dean half-green ooze skeleton dude in a leather jacket (once more, comics!).
Other regular characters included Kindred Marx, an orange skinned alien who looked like an elf in a suit and ran the rave. Bouncer, the rave's bouncer, a big alien who didn't speak English. DJ, the rave's DJ who was a hot-girl robot.
This sounds pretty stupid as I type it all out.
I remember when I was buying this monthly that one friend really grilled me on why. My reason really kinda sums up what I love about superhero comics, the sense that any bizarre thing can happen. I told him that, out of all the comics being published, Superboy and the Ravers was the only one in which there seemed to be a reasonable chance that the team might have to at some point save the world by beating Nazis in a game of baseball and that clearly if that storyline took place it was one I HAD to read.
Basically, it was fun.
Over the years this comic, when it is thought of at all, really is kind of a punchline at times about the excesses of 90s comics trying to appeal to the hip, urban youth of the day. Not as blatantly about nothing as some Image comics were, but still, a series about teens at a party that never ends...as I said a paragraph ago, it sounds kinda stupid.
Well I reread the 12 issues I have and I have to say, it's not. It was and still is fun. A fun, easy read with pleasant characterizations, a few interesting concepts and some nice art by Paul Pelletier and Aaron Lopresti.
The art is so nice that I was wondering where Paul Pelletier might have gone only to discover that same night while reading the much more recent Marvel Comics cosmic crossover War of Kings that he was still drawing and was still really good.
HIGHS:
Hero Cruz getting the H-Dial. This was I think the first big use of that object post-Crisis and it was a fun callback in a time when Silver Age stuff was kind of swept under the rug. All round Hero was a cool character. If we weren't under the tyranny of DC's New 52 regime, I would hope for a Hero Cruz return.
Half-Life. I liked this guy. It's a neat concept: the delinquent form the 50s with strange, alien granted abilites after a UFO abduction. While aliens are rife in comic worlds, UFO type stuff is rare. He was different and again, were it not for the Nu52, I would hope for more Half-Life some day.
LOWS:
The over-arching plot/mystery of the party itself was kinda of weak. I wish the story had been even more focused on just having these crazy adventures.
Tying into the above, Kindred Marx was a boring character and, while this won't make sense to anyone reading comics now, at the time he really looked A LOT like a character in another DC series. His resemblance to Stealth, a female character appearing in the comic L.E.G.I.O.N. was uncanny and if the internet had been as big back then everyone would have derided the fact that it turned out Marx had no connection at all to Stealth and wasn't even the same species.
ALL IN ALL:
Fun comics. I do wish they'd had that baseball game.
Tuesday, 7 August 2012
New 52, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
I was out. Out of comics. Done. I don't remember the last one I bought. Sometime in 2007. I didn't leave for lack of interest (I was loving Grant Morrison's beginnings on Batman, frex) but for financial reasons. These little, colourful beasts were getting mighty pricey every month and I had a new fiance and debt to be paid and so many other number-crunching reasons that I had to leave my spandex clad amigos behind.
I am a geek though so I kept in touch. Comics would write and I would smile at their postcard. "Hey Geoff, this Bendis Avengers stuff is actually pretty fun. Wish you were here!" and "A new Fables trade just came out and it is faaantastic. Love to the wife and kid!" Stuff like that. So I heard about the end of the DCU and its rebirth after Flashpoint. I heard about it and I thought maybe this would be a good time to jump back in.
Having been away, I was really looking for some new thrills when I returned. Old stuff revisited and made new as well as twisted in a new way. I got most of the number 1s of the new 52. By month 4 I was down to maybe 10. By month 6, it was 6 (And this was the month I dropped Justice League, which as you may surmise from this blog's title is somewhat of a signature series in my comiclife.) As it stands now I am hovering at 4 new 52 titles. Grant Morrison's sublime Action Comics, Green Lantern, Red Lanterns, and Aquaman.
Really, what it boils down to is that the New 52 isn't really that new. It seems a lot like the old DCU except that...it isn't. The changes seem arbitrary. The characters sometimes are the same in motivation and personality and sometimes aren't. Huge, universe affecting details pop up at random (Really, Tim Drake was never Robin? Really? Really?) and there has been no expectation that there will be any real resolution.
A lot of this may have worked if the old DCU had actually ended. Which it didn't. It just stopped. The New 52 may be a wild ride, but I kinda wish I was back on the other roller coaster. The one where the comic universe is allowed to grow and change and reflect the new and the old.
Kind of like what Marvel is doing in spades.
I am a geek though so I kept in touch. Comics would write and I would smile at their postcard. "Hey Geoff, this Bendis Avengers stuff is actually pretty fun. Wish you were here!" and "A new Fables trade just came out and it is faaantastic. Love to the wife and kid!" Stuff like that. So I heard about the end of the DCU and its rebirth after Flashpoint. I heard about it and I thought maybe this would be a good time to jump back in.
Having been away, I was really looking for some new thrills when I returned. Old stuff revisited and made new as well as twisted in a new way. I got most of the number 1s of the new 52. By month 4 I was down to maybe 10. By month 6, it was 6 (And this was the month I dropped Justice League, which as you may surmise from this blog's title is somewhat of a signature series in my comiclife.) As it stands now I am hovering at 4 new 52 titles. Grant Morrison's sublime Action Comics, Green Lantern, Red Lanterns, and Aquaman.
Really, what it boils down to is that the New 52 isn't really that new. It seems a lot like the old DCU except that...it isn't. The changes seem arbitrary. The characters sometimes are the same in motivation and personality and sometimes aren't. Huge, universe affecting details pop up at random (Really, Tim Drake was never Robin? Really? Really?) and there has been no expectation that there will be any real resolution.
A lot of this may have worked if the old DCU had actually ended. Which it didn't. It just stopped. The New 52 may be a wild ride, but I kinda wish I was back on the other roller coaster. The one where the comic universe is allowed to grow and change and reflect the new and the old.
Kind of like what Marvel is doing in spades.
Friday, 20 July 2012
Getting ready to move.
I have so many comics,man. Compared to some maybe not an insane amount but 9 long boxes worth seems like a lot to me.
The weirdest part is going through them and finding things I've completely forgotten about. I apparently have a couple years' worth of X-men from the late 90s. Before Grant Morrison's run. I had no idea.
Other finds include an early Ed Brubaker comic from 1995, the Vertigo one-shot Smells Like Teen President. One of my faves from back in the day. I'm going to read it again and see if I still love it.
This is I guess my first blog entry on a blog I set up a year ago to.review the New 52 DC comics which brought me back in to the world of comicdom. Neat. Maybe I will soon get to that story and how the New 52 would eventually come to Make Mine Marvel.
The weirdest part is going through them and finding things I've completely forgotten about. I apparently have a couple years' worth of X-men from the late 90s. Before Grant Morrison's run. I had no idea.
Other finds include an early Ed Brubaker comic from 1995, the Vertigo one-shot Smells Like Teen President. One of my faves from back in the day. I'm going to read it again and see if I still love it.
This is I guess my first blog entry on a blog I set up a year ago to.review the New 52 DC comics which brought me back in to the world of comicdom. Neat. Maybe I will soon get to that story and how the New 52 would eventually come to Make Mine Marvel.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)