Here are a few DC characters (and a Marvel character) done in the Batman/Superman/Justice League animated style. The Swamp Thing seems a little light on the details (which is realistic, if it were to actually be animated), and the very existence of an animated-style King Mob hurts my head. The other pages on this site have some nice convention sketches as well. Look for the Swamp Thing sketch by Mark Millar!
Pa Kent isn’t the most observant person in the world.
(Alternate title: “Pa Kent is as dumb as a load of bricks.”)
from Adventure Comics #311 (August 1963) by Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan and George Klein
Okay, so Pa Kent looks up at the flying baby, the one that looks pretty much like baby Clark, wearing the same blue and red clothes that Superbaby is always wearing, the very same clothes made out of the Kryptonian cloth that Ma Kent had to get baby Clark to use his heat vision to cut, and he’s not 100% sure that the flying baby is really his son or not…presumably because of the green cake frosting. Because, you know, the sky above Smallville was so filled with flying babies that you never knew whose kid was whose.
On the other hand, Pa Kent not being able to recognize his son through the frosting does establish the precedent that people in the Superman universe are easily bamboozled by really stupid disguises – like, oh, say, a pair of glasses or something.
While we’re sorta on the subject, now that the Smallville TV series has established in its most recent episode that time travel is theoretically possible in its particular milieu, we are now one step closer to getting this on a future show:
from Adventure Comics #321 (June 1964) by Edmond Hamilton, John Forte, and Sheldon Moldoff
Just a couple o’links.
1. Here’s a brief note from cartoonist Steve Purcell regarding Lucasart’s recent cancellation of a new Sam and Max computer game. (via pal Andy)
2. According to this site, September 25th is National Comic Book Day. Um, did I miss something?
Addendum.
I never want to type the words “Batman” or “Joker” ever again.
Thinking too much about The Killing Joke
Am I the only person who reads the end of Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke as the death of the Joker?
Why do I think this?
1. The constant assertions by Batman during the story that either he and the Joker will most likely die by the other’s hands.
2. The focus of the story is the Joker believing “all it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy,” and his unsuccessful attempts to prove this with Commissioner Gordon. “Maybe ordinary people don’t always crack” asserts Batman to the Joker – “maybe it was just you all this time.” Despite Batman’s attempt to differentiate himself from the Joker, constantly stating that he wants to do things the right way, he very obviously did crack…otherwise he wouldn’t be, as the Joker says, “dress[ing] up like a flying rat.”
3. When Batman releases Gordon prior to going after the Joker, Gordon insists to Batman that Joker be “brought in by the book” – showing that Gordon has not cracked under the pressure applied to him. Batman’s response? A mostly noncommittal “I’ll do my best” – not exactly an ironclad promise.
4. Batman tells the Joker at the end of the story that “maybe this is our last chance to sort this bloody mess out…if you don’t take it, then we’re locked onto a suicide course.” The Joker doesn’t take the chance…he resigns himself to the fact he can’t escape the “suicide course” the two men find themselves on, that “it’s far too late for that.”
5. The last page of actual story, where the two characters are sharing their laugh over Joker’s “two lunatics in an asylum” joke (the joke obviously referring to Batman and the Joker themselves, thus reinforcing their similarities)…between panels six and seven, the loud laughter that had been present in the previous panels suddenly stops, though we can still hear the siren from the approaching police car (which doesn’t appear to be any louder, or enough to drown out the laughter, given this page’s sound effects convention that “bigger = louder”).
It’s at that point, between panels 6 and 7, that I believe Batman kills the Joker. It’s even possible, given the “suicide course” talk, that they kill each other. We don’t see them in the final panels, leaving their fates vague.
Or I could just be reading too much into the story. Besides, the point is completely moot since we’ve obviously had more Batman and Joker stories than we can stand since this was published…Good Lord, 16 years ago? Oy. Also, given events in the most recent issue of Batman: Gotham Knights, the Joker’s family backstory from The Killing Joke (heavily implied to be the actual “origin” though Moore gives the possible out of the Joker remembering multiple pasts) is now officially part of DC Universe continuity. So there you go.
Another observation made by pal Dorian, flipping through The Killing Joke…”how many of these Joker panels have since been…’borrowed’ by other artists?”
(post updated 8/2016)
There *was* an Alan Moore interview there, I swear.
Alan David Doane has posted a big ol’ Alan Moore interview. Read and enjoy, won’t you?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Comic Book Heaven is ending with issue #10!
Somehow the links still work.
1. I hope you all enjoyed International Read A Comic Book Naked Day today. Alas, I tried to celebrate my own variation, Manage A Comic Book Store Naked Day, but you can probably imagine how the customers felt about that.
2. In case you haven’t seen it before: the legendary “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” essay by Larry Niven.
3. (SPOILER for Superman: Birthright #8) – so, what, Lex Luthor has Dr. Doom’s origin now?
A mini post.
Mark Evanier has a short article about those Marvel Mini-Books that were published in the mid-60s. I actually had my hands on a couple of those not too long ago…they were in very nice condition, which meant that they’d never been read, because to actually try to read one of these things meant certain death for the mini-book’s spine. I did peek inside the Nick Fury one (being very careful not to break the darn thing) and noticed that there was a character named “Roy Thomas” in the story.
No real point to this post…just thought it was worth mentioning.
"NOW do you believe I’m Clark Kent?"
Superman #330 (Dec. 1978) by Martin Pasko, Curt Swan & Frank Chiaramonte
cover by Ross Andru & Dick Giordano
The story begins with Superman waking from a dream where his Daily Pla…excuse me, WGBS coworkers apparently know he and Clark are one and the same. This leads to a rare occurrence from 1970s Superman comics…Superman acting like a rational adult:
Well, then there’s some nonsense about a super-villain with hypnotic powers which really doesn’t matter, except it leads to revelations about the true nature of Superman’s dual identity. Superman is forced to use his own power of “super-hypnosis” (God bless the Silver Age) to protect the good citizens of Metropolis from the villain’s powers…specifically, he commands them to “resist all hypnotic influences!”
Later, Supes begins to get a clue that something’s up when Lana Lang catches him in the act of changing:
When Superman tells Lana that he’s disguising himself as Clark Kent, Lana dismisses the notion, saying that Superman looks nothing like Clark.
Later, after the villain has been dispatched, Clark gets some sketches made of himself in both his identities…only to find that while the Superman sketch is dead-on…
Clark determines that it is his own power of super-hypnosis that is convincing everyone that Clark looks so much different from Superman…and that the pieces of glass from the Kryptonian rocket ship that brought him to earth that were used to create his glasses* enhance that effect:
His eyes are always apparently emitting some low level hypnotic power, but when passing through the Kryptonian glass, his subconscious desire to separate his Clark and Superman identities is made manifest. A comment is made about camera’s reproducing the effect perfectly, which is why photos of Clark don’t seem to reveal his true appearance to anyone.
So, when Superman commanded everyone to resist hypnotic suggestions, he unwittingly undid his own hypnotic hoodoo, which is why Lana didn’t see Superman as Clark, even when wearing Clark’s get-up.
Anyway, there are holes in this story you can fly Krypto through, but the upshot is that Superman used super-hypnosis to make himself look different as Clark Kent, the idea was suggested by a reader of the comic (a then-prolific letterhack), and after this issue was published, it was very wisely ignored. Except by me.
* You see, the Kryptonian glass is as indestructible as Superman is, so Supes can use his heat vision while wearing the glasses without melting them. Yeah, I know….