Another thing I love from comics…this final battle between Superman and Murdermek from the pages of DC Comics Presents #61 (September 1983) by Len Wein, George Perez, Pablo Marcos and Rick Hoberg:
So there’s the trailer for that Constantine TV series, based on that little-known Swamp Thing supporting character, and…it looks pretty good, I think. To be honest, I had no idea they were this far along in producing the show. I thought it was more along the lines of “well, yeah, someone got the rights from DC and we might see a pilot or something that may or may not be picked up in a year or two,” but nope, there it is, in living technicolor and lifelike stereo sound.
John Constantine certainly looks like John Constantine, the character seems to have the right tone in what little we see of his personality, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see how his name’s pronounced:
Employee Timmy wants to see Etrigan and Zatanna in the series, and I have to agree that would be amazing. But not as amazing as if they’d put this special Constantine moment into the show:
…but one of you did, taking to heart the subject line of this post and sending me my very own copy of the Superman Annual 1983 from the UK. Big thanks to longtime reader, the spectacularly-if-possibly-filthily-handled “Suckmaster Burstingfoam.” Here is a scan of the back cover of the very item he sent me, since you already know what the front looks like from the previous post on the topic:
Here are the endpapers:
And as expected, there was some slight editing required with the dropping of the flashback pages in this collected edition. In the original DC Comics Presents #29, the full-page flashback sequence in which Superman recounts the events of the previous two issues is followed by this panel at the top of the following page:
With the flashback page gone, the panel undergoes some minor editing:
It’s a nice item, and I’m very grateful to Mr. S.B. for sending it my way. Thank you!
So I was looking for something else on the eBay the other day (the Man of Steel prequel comic, if you’re wondering) when this particular item caught my eye:
I’ve only done one read-through, following a couple of different branches here and there when it was pretty obvious when a decision was going to lead to an unfortunate ending.
AN ASIDE just in case you don’t know about this kind of book…it presents a narrative in which you are asked at certain points to make a decision about where the narrative should go. You are then directed to another page in the book which continues the narrative until you either reach another branching decision point or an ending. The decisions are usually in the format of “If you decide to go into the dark, foreboding cave to investigate the growling sound, turn to page 57. If you decide to run the hell in the other direction like a sensible person, turn to page 99.”
In the narrative line I followed, Superman ends up going with Lex Luthor to fight it out on another planet with a red sun, nullifying Superman’s powers so that they can engage as physical equals. If he didn’t do so, the missiles Luthor has aimed at Metropolis would activate, destroying the city. At various points you are given options to knock out Luthor (which sets off the missiles, automatically activating when Luthor is disabled), or even to straight up let Luthor get killed (very unSupermanly, resulting in an appropriately bad ending for Supes).
As you can see on that cover, there are other villains that turn up along the way, such as the Toyman and the Phantom Zone villains (General Zod and Faora, of course, but also the fabulously-named Kru-El). The book helpfully includes a couple of pages of villain fact-files, which you are invited to turn to when the villain(s) first pop up in whatever narrative thread you’re following.
“FORTRESS FACT FILE #3 – FAORA HU-UL: This female Phantom Zone villainess is crazy! Her hatred of all mankind makes her the most dangerous of all the Phantom Zone foes! Do not approach Faora without a weapon, or you will have no chance of surviving!”
Well, sure, why not.
Hold on, only reading one line of narrative before writing this post doesn’t seem right. Let me go through again and see what happens. Be right back.
[TEMPUS FUGIT]
Okay, so this time Superman encounters a nine-foot-tall yellow monster wreaking havoc, and one thing leads to another, the monster tells Supes that he came to Earth to ask Superman for help, but the oxygen-rich atmosphere disoriented him and made him act all crazy ‘n’ such. He wants Superman to go back to his planet, but (turning to page 24) Superman decides to take him back to the Fortress of Solitude to run him through his super lie-detector to make sure it isn’t some kind of trap. Once there, the monster notices the Fortress Zoo and asks to see it. (Turning to page 34) Superman agrees, but while in the zoo, the dreaded Bravado Beast, who hates the color yellow, breaks free of its pen and charges at the monster, breaking cages and freeing other creatures in the process. The rampage continues into Superman’s Kryptonite storage room, which exposes some of the deadly rocks:
“‘Help me!” Superman shouts to the creature.
“‘I can’t!” the creature replies in terror. ‘The Bravado Beast has me in its clutches — and it won’t let go!”
“‘Then this,’ Superman gasps, ‘is…’
“THE END”
I’m a lousy Superman, it seems. Also, you can see the Bravado Beast itself in this article about Superman’s zoo.
One more point about this book…on the very first story page, Superman is referred to as “Earth’s Mightiest Mortal,” which I’m pretty sure was solely Captain Marvel’s tagline. That Superman, always horning in on Billy Batson’s action.
Perhaps you remember all the way back to Monday, when I was discussing the Superman Vs. Mongul trade paperback and its lamentable omission of the concluding chapter for a three-part Superman story from DC Comics Presents (which I confirmed, by the way, once I had the book in my hands on Tuesday while breaking down the latest Diamond shipment). Well, whilst perusing the Grand Comics Database to see if those stories had ever been reprinted under one cover (well, in color, anyway), I discovered the existence of this item:
There is a minor caveat, in that the reprintings of parts two and three omit the second page of each story, in that they were pages of exposition reminding readers what had occurred in the previous chapter(s). Here’s the second page of the third issue as an example:
But despite the loss of a couple of pages of Starlin art, it’s nice to know that the (mostly-)entire story from DC Comics Presents #27-#29 was collected together at some point in its own little package. But man, it would be worth owning for the cover alone. Just look at that thing.
EDIT 12/19: Bob has more to say about the production issues of this particular item in this post right here!
So I was asked, in response to my post on Monday in regards to DC’s 3D cover allocations, which title was the one I’m getting more copies than what I originally ordered. I probably should have noted it at the time, but, you know, how do you keep a blog reader in suspense? I’ll tell you Thursday: it was the Darkseid issue of Justice League, and I don’t entirely understand DC’s mix of numerology and voodoo in determining how many copies of each comic that each retailer gets in relation to the actual number of copies DC ordered, but apparently they thought Darkseid was going to be A Big One and set print runs accordingly.
I mean, I have no idea how true that is. DC’s allocation formula is apparently based on each retailer’s ordering history for the titles, or something like that, so maybe the comic publishing stars aligned in just the right way for my Darkseid orders to be increased rather than decreased. The mileage of other retailers may, as they say, vary. At least I’m getting all the copies I ordered of that Joker issue, which apparently means DC also anticipated demand and ordered a forest-leveling amount of them. Anyway, in conclusion: 3D covers! I’m looking forward to never talking about them again!
In other news, comic collections, like buses and taxis and Adam Sandler movies, seem to come all at once, and in the last week or three we ended up with about three collections of ’80s and ’90s indie comics, resulting in yet another copy of Yummy Fur #9 in our possession. As you may remember, that was one of the big missing links in my collection that, after a decades-long search, finally was acquired a few months ago. So now here’s another one, mocking me with its availability so soon after I finally found a copy. Sigh…it’s MacKenzie Queen #5 all over again. Please note my accurate prediction regarding current events in that post.
And in variant cover news: why, hello there awesome Jim Starlin variant for Superman Unchained #3:
UPDATE: Alas, the trip is postponed. The mandrills are safe…for now.
So pulled off the shelf from our stack of Superman Unchained #1 was a copy that had a translucent blue strip of tape that stretched around from the front of the cover, across the spine, and across the back:
Or someone at the distributor is exacting revenge upon me for some long-ago slight, randomly affixing pieces of tape neatly to comic covers prior to packing them into shipping boxes destined for our store. I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE, PHANTOM COVER-TAPER!
In somewhat related news…I had told myself I was going to drop all the Superman titles following the end of Grant Morrison’s entertaining run on Action, making that my first break from regularly reading those titles in over 30 years. But, well, you know how funnybook fans are, and I kept going despite myself…only to find that Superman has been improving, and Action managed to keep my interest after Morrison’s departure. Overall, I feel like the storytelling on the titles have been…loosening up, I guess? Less concerned with trying to establish the New 52 status quo for Superman, and more focused on having a little fun, I’d think. Yes, there’s the stuff with Superman’s relationship with Wonder Woman that nobody’s particularly happy about (and to be fair, they did provide some in-story evidence for this particular turn of events being a bad thing, forthcoming Superman/Wonder Woman ongoing series notwithstanding). And that new costume is still terrible.
In general, though…I’ve been liking the Superman books lately. The first issue of Batman/Superman wasn’t bad, and the first issue of Superman Unchained, taped cover or not, was definitely a Big, Fun and Loud Superman Adventure…your big-budget Superman movie on paper. I don’t really want a half-dozen ongoing Superman books…Scott Snyder and Jim Lee taking over Action Comics would have been just as good, but of course wouldn’t have received the attention and sales the Brand! New! First! Issue! did. But there are all those comics anyway, and at least they’ve been mostly readable, he damned with faint praise.
So anyway, have any of you folks noticed an upswing in the Superman titles lately? Not saying they’re perfect, or outstanding examples of the medium…they just seem…a bit improved. Is it just me?
Well, okay, it’s “Indra the Incredible,” not the Amazing James Randi, but, you know, we see what you’re doing there, E. Nelson Bridwell:
There is Doctor Thirteen as sort of your token DCU skeptic, but talk about your uphill battles. But perhaps there are some fringe groups who think superheroes are just some kind of overblown media hoax, despite all evidence otherwise, who are probably regarded on the same level we hold those folks who think lizard people are secretly running world governments. …I’m pretty sure in the DC Universe the lizard people proponents have government funding and support and are hailed as freedom-protecting heroes.
Here’s young Clark Kent relating some of theories he’s heard about himself on Coast to Coast AM:
Anyway, it all works out for Superboy, at least…word on his Kryptonian origin gets out, and most people are cool with it. Hope that’s not a spoiler.
…And that was my slightly-facetious reaction to the Man of Steel film I posted on the Twitter soon after getting home early Sunday morning (and referring to circumstances explained in the beginning of this Wikipedia article).
I do have to say, though, I now understand the reactions I was getting as described in this other Twitter post from Friday afternoon:
As for the other stuff…well, I’ll be getting into big ol’ SPOILERS here, so if haven’t seen the film, skip the text that immediately follows this shot of fiery-hot Henry Cavill, and continue reading after you see the pic of Supes and Lois holding hands:
That’s the “reviewing the movie I would have preferred” versus “the movie I got” trope, I realize, but, man, my Superman would have saved them all.
(Jeff Parker notes in his review that this amount of collateral damage is a “stock convention of superhero stories,” and that “if they want you to think a lot of people died, you see footage of dead people.” And, you know, fair enough. Seeing it in live action, in this amount of detail, as opposed to looking at it on a comics page, makes it a little more difficult to suspend the disbelief, but I can see Parker’s point.)
The other Big Troubling Moment in the film, one that was in fact spoiled for me by someone’s casual retweeting of someone else’s comment upon it — oh, the dangers of the social Internet — is, of course, the killing of General Zod by Superman. It did bring to my mind the last time Superman openly killed anyone, in this comic here where he executes Phantom Zone villains responsible for the deaths of billions, acting as Krypton’s last arbitrator of justice. That was bit of a controversial move at the time, but it was shortly after the mid-1980s reboot of the character and it was intended, as memory serves, as the impetus for Superman’s code against killing, a long-standing tradition for the character.
Again, I’ve seen the argument made that the event in the film is a formative moment for Superman, that this will lead to his unwillingness to take a life ever again, particularly given the anguish he expresses in the moments afterward. And in the larger “journey of the hero” context, like the destruction of Metropolis, I can understand and even, for the sake of the story, accept the choices made here, but the old fanboy in me wants the Superman who doesn’t want anybody to die, and won’t let anybody die.
In short, when someone asks me if I liked Man of Steel, I suspect will lead my answer with a pause. There’s a lot to think about here, not the least of which is the contrast between the Superman I picture in my head versus the Superman that works onscreen, that works for the vast majority of people who haven’t been reading Superman comics for the last few decades. The audience I saw this with applauded at the end of the film, so clearly they were happy with it, though I did notice some…ambivalence? shock? certainly some quiet whispering in reaction to Zod’s death. So, you know, it wasn’t just me.
A couple of other brief comments: I liked the brief glimpses we got of the evolution of young Clark’s friendship with Pete Ross, I enjoy the new dynamic in the Lois and Clark relationship (no “I wonder why I never see Clark and Superman together” here!), Laurence Fishburne makes a great Perry White, and holy cow, we get Faora (Horo-Kanu and all!) and Steve Lombard! And I do have to admit, Fanboy Mike very much appreciated the moment when the military stood down and realized that Superman was on their side. That was nice.
Plus, I think they probably should have animated a giant red arrow pointing from the stained glass window Jesus to Clark in that one shot, just in case no one got the symbolism.
But seriously, there is a lot to ponder in this film…it’s easy to dismiss as “not my Superman,” and I can understand that. There’s a part of me that even kinda sorta feel that way myself. There is still a lot here to appreciate, I think, as a valid reinterpretation of the character, and that there is so much discussion and debate over the film…that’s preferable to a forgettable film that inspires nothing.
However, you guys out there trying to convince us there are Aquaman references in Man of Steel? C’mon.
