Tuesday 4 October 2011

My Thoughts on DC Comics' New 52

If Blogger's stats are anything to go by, this blog is viewed daily by a wide and varied bunch of readers and most of you were brought here by Googling 'Supergirl porn'. Given your interest in naked drawings of a fictional teenage alien I'm going to skip the preamble, assume you're familiar with DC Comics' New 52 and plough straight ahead with my thoughts on the New 52.

Action Comics: Superman has gone back to his roots, for the first time!

"Back to his roots" is a phrase that's been bandied around a lot where Batman is concerned. Over the years many talented people have set out to return Batman to the basic core concept seen in his very first appearance in Detective Comics #27 (1939), a dark and brooding creature of the night. Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams did it in the Seventies and then in the Eighties Frank Miller did it again. The Eighties also saw Tim Burton return the Batman of the big screen to his dark roots, and after Joel Schumacher undid all his good work in the Nineties with Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, it fell to Christopher Nolan to pay the most recent visit to those roots with Batman Begins and Dark Knight. Returning to Batman's roots is an idea that has been tried so often, with such consistently good results, it amazes me that it's only now that someone has thought to try the same thing with Superman.

Action Comics #14 (1939) & Action Comics #1 (2011)

And that's exactly what Action Comics #1 is, a return to Superman's roots. Previously when writers have tried to present Superman to a new audience, for example John Byrne's Man of Steel, Geoff Johns' Secret Origin or Bryan Singer's Superman Returns, they generally seemed to have used Richard Donner's 1978 Superman movie as a template. Grant Morrison has previously presented us with his take on the quintessential Superman story, All Star Superman and he mostly uses the Silver Age of comics for his inspiration. With Action Comics #1 however, Morrison gives us a Superman that draws heavily on the "Champion of the Oppressed" originally conceived by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and shown in Superman's first appearance in the first Action Comics #1 (1938). Seeing this take on Superman presented in a modern setting, I feel like comics readers must have felt in the early seventies while reading an O' Neil/Adams Batman story. It really is a breath of fresh air, and exactly what Superman needed. For this reason, and many others, Action Comics #1 is my favourite of the New 52.

Aquaman: Great stuff but we've seen it before.

Aquaman #1 is a perfect first issue. Writer Geoff Johns tells us what we need to know about the character but hints at more information further down the line. He shows us exactly what the character can do in an interesting way and introduces us to brand new scary-looking villains. The art by Ivan Reis is beautiful stuff, this is the best Aquaman has looked in years.


Aquaman has been the butt of many jokes over the years and Johns chooses to confront and counter practically every jibe in this issue, often in a humorous and witty fashion. While I have to agree that this approach has worked, I do wonder why many reviewers are talking like Johns is the first writer to have used it. In Aquaman #63 (2000) writer Dan Jurgens has Aquaman encounter a smart-arsed chat show host who goes through the usual repertoire of "talking-to-fish" jokes until Aquaman changes the man's tune by punching through the floor of the TV studio to stop a bomb from exploding. Further back in Aquaman #3 (1994) Peter David has Aquaman confronting Superboy's jibes by walloping him with a giant tidal wave!


Aquaman #1  was fantastic, but there's a lot of fantastic Aquaman stories out there, people just haven't heard of them!

Superman: George Perez, you get back here this instant!

Superman #1 was by no means the best of the New 52. It's biggest flaw was a completely needless narration that came in the form of an article Clark Kent had written about the issue's events. These captions explained stuff that we could plainly see happening already and served only to clutter up the panels and distract from the art. Also, Superman fought a fire monster. I always think that if Superman is going to fight a random monster then it should be a beast with a bit of  imagination and fun to it. Something like Titano the Super-Ape, Solaris the Tyrant Sun or even Kryptococcus the Omni-Germ. Anything is better than Big Generic Fire Guy.


Having said that, on the whole I really enjoyed the issue, mainly for the focus on the supporting characters, something that's been sorely lacking for years in the Super-books. Lois Lane in particular has a great moment where she shows her boss Morgan Edge why she's one of the best journalists in the business. The characterisation of Clark Kent is consistent with Action Comics #1; he's portrayed here as an idealist with an angry sense of justice. Despite it's flaws this is a book that I would be happy to get month after month.

Unfortunately DC has revealed that writer/artist George Perez will be leaving after issue 7! He'll be replaced by Keith Giffen and Dan Jurgens, both of whom are very good, but there's no indication of how long they'll stay. I'm really disappointed by this news. I really like Giffen and Jurgens but these new titles need consistency. DC need to find someone who's going to stick with this title for the long haul. For years the quality of Superman stories has fluctuated up and down, from the great (Superman and the Legion of the Super-Heroes) to the mediocre (most of New Krypton) to the just plain daft (J. Michael Straczynski's Grounded). The Super-books desperately need consistency! Hopefully Morrison will stay on Action Comics for a good long while.

Legion of Super-Heroes: Did no one tell Paul Levitz about the New 52?

As a Legion fan who's been following the past year's worth of Legion stories, I just about understood what was going on in Legion of Super-Heroes #1 and I enjoyed the issue, although it didn't blow me away. But that's not a good thing! I should have been blown away! This is the New 52! When Paul Levitz last wrote a first issue of Legion he blew up Titan and gave a Green Lantern ring to a baddie! That's the kind of the thing that needed to happen here. Instead we got an average issue that felt like issue #17 rather than issue #1. A friend of mine, who's a DC fan but not a Legion fan read it and said it was "impenetrable". Levitz has made no effort to tell new readers who these characters are and why we should care about them. I'm not saying Levitz should have ignored everything he's been doing for the last year, or indeed spent the whole issue catching everyone up. But, considering the whole point of the New 52 is to pull in new readers, you'd think Levitz would have at least indicated at some point that he was aware that this issue was supposed to be a jumping on point.

The new Legion spin-off, Legion Lost was even worse. This a comic about a group of Legionnaires who are trapped in the present day. A completely new staus quo, familiar to us but alien to them! What a perfect way to present these characters to a new audience! Sadly, writer Fabian Nicieza spends too much of the issue showing us a generic monster on the rampage and not enough telling us who the heroes are. A wasted opportunity!


Both Legion comics had okay stories. I'm not dropping them yet. For a Legion fan like me they were good enough. But this is the New 52, and 'good enough' just isn't good enough!

The Flash: Who needs Wally West?

Over the past two decades Wally West, The Flash has built up quite a loyal and dedicated following, thanks mostly to two long and celebrated runs by writers Mark Waid and Geoff Johns respectively. These two runs were superb, establishing Wally West has a fully rounded character and a worthy successor to his predecessor, Barry Allen. In light of this, DC's decisions to make a resurrected Barry the focus of their Flash title and to seemingly erase Wally from existence, seem absurd. Why alienate a fan base that it took twenty years to build?

But, I would argue that Flash #1 demonstrates exactly why DC have made the right decision. The process of making Wally a likeable and worthy successor to Barry depended upon a lot of harking back to the good ol' days of Barry. Wally was constantly comparing and contrasting himself with Barry, it was part of his journey, part of his character development and part of why the Waid and Johns years were so good. It also meant that nostalgia was always a big part of The Flash.  


Not so these days! Flash #1 was fast paced, fun and forward looking. We knew everything we needed to know about the character within a few panels and then we were off, straight into the story with a new tone and direction. In fact The Flash hasn't felt this fresh and new since 1987, when Mike Baron wrote Wally West's first faltering steps in the role of the Flash. Those early Wally stories really felt different in style and tone to every Flash comic that came before it, and so does this new Flash #1. How's that for irony!?

Red Hood and the Outlaws and Catwoman: The Big, Pervy Elephants in the Room!

I couldn't let this list end without mentioning two of DC Comics' biggest missteps from last month, Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 and Catwoman #1. These issues and their many, many flaws have been discussed a lot all over the internet already so there's no point in me chipping in my tuppence worth too. I will however direct you to two articles, one by ComicsAlliance's Laura Hudson and the other by comics legend Jim Shooter. They sum up my feelings on these issues quite nicely.

So was this big, huge, much publicized relaunch a success?

I purchased eleven comics out of fifty two.
  • Action Comics
  • Aquaman
  • Batman
  • Green Lantern
  • Justice League
  • Legion Lost
  • Legion of Superheroes
  • Supergirl
  • Superman
  • The Flash
  • Swamp Thing
I enjoyed them all (although some were better than others) and I'm coming back for issue #2 of all them with the exception of Swamp Thing. I told a friend who didn't get comics regularly about the New 52, and he checked out a few, including Justice League, Batman, Detective Comics, Action Comics and The Flash.  I'm pleased to say he's going to be checking out plenty of issue #2s! Also, my girlfriend, who also doesn't read comics regularly, picked up Wonder Woman and enjoyed it!

So, from my own point of view at least, the New 52 was a success, and frankly that's good enough for me!

Thursday 15 September 2011

How Wonder Woman Should Have Been Rebooted

Cliff Chiang

Next week, on the 21st of September Wonder Woman #1 will be released.  Brian Azzarello will become the latest in a long line of talented writers to attempt to reinvent Wonder Woman and make her accessible to a wider audience.  Over the years many gifted writers, including Robert Kanigher, Denny O' Neil, George Perez, Len Wein, William Messner-Loebs, Greg Rucka, Allan Heinberg and Gail Simone have all presented us with their vision of Wonder Woman, and each writer has had their own unique take on her.  Azzarello apparently intends the book to be a horror thriller!  Sadly these many different interpretations often seem less a result of the versatility of the character and more due to the difficulty writers seem to have in pinning down the true core of Wonder Woman. She's simultaneously a feminist icon and fetishistic fantasy, a fierce warrior and an ambassador for peace, a noble and serious figure who fights giant eggs with invisible jets, a global hero dressed in the Stars and Stripes.  She's a walking bundle of contradictions and this makes her both fascinating and alienating to the average reader.  No doubt about it, she's a bloody difficult character.

Many have argued that the character is riddled with unavoidable flaws and a list of some of these perceived flaws can be found here on Topless Robot.  Likewise a strong case can be made for the many strengths inherent in Wonder Woman.  For example a rebuttal to the Topless Robot article can be found here on The New Wonder Woman.

With an arrogance that can only be displayed by comic fans, fellow blogger and best pal Gareth Madeley and I have decided that we know better than seventy years worth of DC Comics writers!  We have decided we can fix Wonder Woman once and for all.  We now present to you our take on the character, the definitive take on the Amazing Amazon!

BEHOLD THE TIMELINE OF THE NEW WONDER WOMAN.....

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The Past - Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, prays to the Greek gods for a daughter.  She creates a baby out of clay and the child is granted life by the gods!  Princess Diana grows to womanhood on Paradise Island.  She has been granted amazing powers by the gods however these powers have yet to develop. These magical gifts must be earned!


1941 - Steve Trevor crash lands his plane on Paradise Island. He tells the Amazons that he is a pilot in the U.S Airforce and explains that his country is currently battling the Axis threat .  The Amazons recognise the potential threat and great evil of Hitler and agree to send an Amazon to man's world with Trevor to aid the Allies in their War.  A contest is held to determine who will accompany Trevor. Diana is forbidden by her mother to take part but she dons a mask and does so anyway.  Of course, she wins.  It is important to remember that at this point Diana has no special powers and therefore has no particular advantage over her fellow Amazons.  She wins by skill, courage and determination.  Hippolyta is angry and rashly tells Diana that she may accompany Trevor, but is banished from the Island for all time.  Hippolyta swiftly regrets her hasty words but the damage is done and Diana is gone.


World War Two - Diana is taken to the U.S. Government by Trevor.  She is given a costume with the colours of the flag to better serve as a propaganda tool.  The government agents who design Diana's classic bathing suit uniform are leering perverts who intend to make her a figure of titillation, but Diana wears the costume anyway and on her it becomes a symbol of empowerment and nobility.  While her existence is never officially acknowledged by the U.S, Diana becomes a legend of the War. To the people of the Allied countries she is a character from propaganda posters, comic books and movie serials.  To the enemy soldiers she becomes a myth of the battlefield.  Wounded, rambling, shell shocked Nazis describe a fearsome female warrior racing towards them on horseback, leading American soldiers up the beach, deflecting machine gun bullets with her bracelets and cutting down their fellow soldiers with her sword.  Diana is particularly active in the Mediterranean theatre of War, that is after all her part of the world.


The End of The War - Throughout the War, Trevor is by Diana's side. This version of Steve Trevor is a much more thoughtful, intelligent and serious man than we've seen in the past. Diana and Steve fall in love and begin to make plans for after the War. Then, tragedy strikes! Trevor is killed in one of the final battles of the War.  Shortly afterwards the bomb is dropped on Hiroshima.  Diana sees the death and suffering of the innocent women and children of Hiroshima and the War ceases to be black and white for her. Shades of grey enter her view of man's world for the first time and she is disillusioned.  She leaves the United States. Her costume, invisible jet, magic lasso, purple ray gun and various weapons and gadgets are consigned to Area 51.  Diana does not know that Hippolyta regrets her decision and so she proceeds to roam the Earth.


1950s-1960s (The Lost Years) -  Diana cuts through the 20th Century like a hot knife through butter, leaving her mark everywhere.  Along the way she finds friends, enemies and lovers, many of whom will later come back into her life at inopportune times.  She steers clear of the United States but keeps meeting and getting involved with various family members and descendants of Steve Trevor, almost as if her fate and the fate of Trevor's lineage had been linked by the gods!  As the years pass Diana notices she is becoming stronger, faster and more resistant to injury.  She does not age.

Late 1960s-1970s - Diana returns to the States with her new-found companion and mentor, I Ching.  She opens a fashion boutique and has many groovy, Kung-Fu based adventures.  Eventually I Ching dies of old age and Diana is once again alone.


1980s-1990s - Diana's fashion boutique has grown into a vast business empire.  Diana is still combating evil, but this time as a corporate raider, taking over and gutting corrupt businesses and using their resources for good.  She opens a string of women's shelters.  During the '90s she feels her latest role as business leader has left her out of touch with the rest of the world and she feels more alone than she ever has before.  She leaves her company in what she believes are safe hands and resumes her wandering.  Years later she will find that her company has fallen into the hands of the ruthless and evil Veronica Cale!  Diana's long life leaves a lot of room for villains to be faces from her past seeking vengeance.  It also leaves room for Donna Troy.  Is Donna a young girl that Diana rescued and adopted during the nineties? Is she a girl created by Hippolyta to replace Diana?  Either way, there's plenty of room for her to be slotted easily into continuity.


NOW! - By the time we reach the modern day Diana has gradually become so powerful that she is now invulnerable, she can fly and she has super speed and strength.  Diana meets the latest of Steve Trevor's descendants (Steve Howard perhaps?).  Howard and his female friend (Etta Candy? Cassie Sandsmark? Vanessa Kapatelis?) become Diana's firm friends.  They are like Xander and Willow to her Buffy.  There might even be a potential for some sort of Buffy-esque love triangle here. Her new friends help her to set up a new secret identity as Diana Prince.  Although this is a name she has used occasionally throughout her life (particularly during her boutique/business days) this is the first time the name has been anything more than something to sign on documents.  Diana is now trying to discover who is Diana Prince?  Through her new friends Diana rediscovers her humanity and with their help and encouragement she finds a new role for herself in the modern world.  A SUPER-HERO!  Before she can do this of course Diana and her friends must break into Area 51 to get her stuff!  She makes a new costume (the silver lined reboot costume), and eventually joins the Justice League as WONDER WOMAN!


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So there we have it.  Our take on Wonder Woman.  What do you think?  A work of genius that DC Comics simply must make happen or the usual wrong-headed ravings of deluded fanboys?  Drop us a comment and let us know!

Friday 2 September 2011

Justice League #1, it could have been worse!

I absolutely loved Geoff Johns and Jim Lee's Justice League #1.  I love that it was fast paced and that Johns focused on the interactions of two of DC's most currently prominent heroes to establish the status quo, rather than rely on lengthy exposition.  And Jim Lee's art was superb, some of his best work ever.  However a common criticism of the issue has been it's dialogue.  Many of my comic loving pals have found lines such as "How else are we going to get there? Talk in a deep voice" and "I don't handle easy" somewhat laughable.  All I can say is, it could have been worse.......


Now check out what one fan thinks Superman should have said.

Wednesday 31 August 2011

Why I love John Byrne's Superman: Man of Steel

Next week sees the release of Action Comics #1 by Grant Morrison and Rags Morales.  Action Comics #1 is the start of a complete reboot of the Superman mythos. DC Comics aim to present a fresh new take on Superman in order to bring in a new generation of fans.  Will it work?  Who knows? All I can say is that it's worked before, and I'm living proof.  As a child I grew up reading reprints of old Silver and Bronze Age Superman stories, as well as my dad's old DC Comics from when he was a child.  I always enjoyed reading about Superman but never really connected with the character in the same way I did with Batman or Spider-Man.  That is until I read John Byrne's Man of Steel.


Man of Steel (1986) was a six part mini-series that had exactly the same purpose as next week's Action Comics #1; to reboot Superman and pull in new readers.  I first read Man of Steel when I was eleven years old and it blew me away.  Everything about the character that I had previously found dull and predictable seemed to have changed.  Let's take a look at some of those changes.

Check out this panel from Flash #203 (1971).

Art by Irv Norick and Murphy Anderson

Let's face it, Superman's acting like a complete knob-head here. Flash would have been well within his rights to give Superman the finger and leave the miserable git to do monitor duty by himself.  Unfortunately this scene wasn't an isolated incident.  To me, Superman always seemed to be banging on about how awesome Krypton was and as a child from good ol' Planet Earth I couldn't help but feel somewhat slighted by this. After all, Superman had spent most of his life on Earth, his adopted parents raised him here, his job and his friends were here, all his stuff was here.  Would he really be pining after Krypton so much that he'd be prepared to get all up in Flash's face just for pointing out how pretty the Earth looked?

Byrne decided not to depict Superman as a lonely alien, longing for a dead world and instead decided to put the emphasis on the human side of a character who had been raised on Earth.  In Man of Steel, what Clark Kent had gained from his upbringing by the Kents was a much more important part of what made him Superman than his Kryptonian heritage.  Indeed, unlike with previous versions of the character, Ma and Pa Kent were still alive and still an active influence in Superman's life.  Superman was now an Earthman first and a Kryptonian second.  As Superman himself put it in Man of Steel #6 "It was Krypton that made me Superman, but it is the Earth that makes me Human!"


Byrne's motivation in depicting Superman in this way came from his own experience as an immigrant.  As Byrne put it in his typically blunt (and offensive) manner;
I was born in England, and I am proud of my English heritage (I was also quite a lot older than Kal-El when I left “home,” so my connections would be stronger) but I grew up in Canada and I have lived for the last 25 years in the US, and I don’t ever, ever, feel like a “displaced Englishman.”
Clark would be proud, too, of his Kryptonian heritage, but later portrayals of him have tried to shoehorn in too much of the pychobabble of adopted children longing for and seeking out their biological parents. Excuse my French, but to me, they fall under the heading of “ungrateful little shits.”
Clark grew up as human, thinks as a human, reacts as a human. He lives and loves as a human. And that is what really defines him.
I certainly do not agree with Byrne's assertion that adopted children who seek out their biological parents are "ungrateful little shits" but I can't argue that at the age of eleven the depiction of Superman as a lonely alien put me off the character a great deal.  Byrne's more 'human' version was a breath of fresh air to me and was one of the many factors that drew me into Man of Steel.

A more human Superman didn't just mean a Superman that didn't bang on about Krypton quite as much.  Byrne figured that, since Superman didn't wear a mask, no one would even consider that he had a secret identity.  Now that Clark Kent was free of the need to hide his true self behind a bumbling facade he became an outgoing, confident individual who proudly displayed his high school football trophies in his apartment.  Clark became the 'real' persona and Superman became the facade.

To emphasize the importance of Earth in Clark's development, Byrne also gave us a very different take on the Planet Krypton.  Byrne took the idea of Krypton as a scientific Utopia to the extreme and portrayed the planet as a cold, sterile place, where physical contact was banned, robots did all the dirty work and nobody had any eyebrows.  Jor-El was portrayed as the only man on Krypton who realised the importance of the humanity that his society had sacrificed for comfort and a longer life.  For the first time ever Earth started to look pretty damn good next to Krypton.

"Face it Lara, Krypton sucks!"

Man of Steel is packed with many other such changes to the Superman mythos.  For example, Lex Luthor is a corrupt businessman who sees himself as the most powerful man in Metropolis.  When Superman comes along Luthor is knocked off the top spot and he doesn't take it very well.  By the time Man of Steel came out Luthor had become a credible physical threat to Superman.  He was physically in peak condition and usually clad in huge, green battle armour.  Byrne decided that it wasn't necessary for Luthor to be able to engage Superman physically. Luthor could be Superman's arch-nemesis merely by being everything that Superman wasn't.  Petty, greedy, spiteful, ruthless, cunning and completely evil.  Byrne drew Luthor as a physically powerful man who had began to feel the effects of age.  This made Luthor's hatred of Superman all the more understandable.  Luthor was strong and powerful but he was gradually losing it all as he got older, his hair loss a physical manifestation of this process.  And now he was confronted by Superman, a man more powerful than he would ever be, a man who would never lose that power unless Luthor took it from him.  All this is apparent just in the way Byrne draws Luthor.  Sadly many of the artists who followed Byrne (even the great Jerry Ordway) never seemed to grasp this and often drew Luthor as a fat slob.



There are however, a few flaws to be found in Man of Steel. Byrne's problems with women have been well documented.  Many of his female characters are victims, or thinly veiled sexual fantasies or at the very least, completely disagreeable mega-bitches. There's an undeniable streak of misogyny that runs through much of his work and Man of Steel is unfortunately no exception. Lara disapproves of her husband's decision to send Kal-El to Earth and swoons at the sight of a shirtless Earthman like the wealthy dowager in The Simpsons who's always exclaiming "Well I never!"  Batman and Superman fight Magpie, a psychotic kleptomaniac with a weakness for shiny things.  Lana Lang is re-imagined as a lonely, empty person, who has nothing better to do than follow Superman around for ten years.

Despite this, Byrne's depiction of Lois Lane in Man of Steel is spot on. Byrne's Lois comes across as passionate, independent, and honest but also irrational, petty, and mean (particularly when dealing with Clark Kent), and it works. Lois Lane isn't meant to be some perfect example of womanhood. Lois is meant to be human.  She is a decent but flawed individual, as guilty of human failings as we all are.  This is one of the things that makes Superman's love for her so wonderful.  He loves Lois like he loves the human race, warts and all.

Byrne changed many other things about the Superman mythos.  He made Bizarro more of a mindless monster and he made Batman and Superman's relationship much less cosy and much more antagonistic.  These changes drew in my eleven year old self and began a life long love affair with the character.  But over the years I've come to realise two very important things about Man of Steel and Superman;

1) I now find many of the things I initially found boring about the character really, really cool!

For example these days I have a much better understanding of the interpretation of Superman as a lonely alien.  In Wales we use the word 'hiraeth', a word that is uniquely Welsh and has no direct English translation.  It roughly translates as a feeling of nostalgic homesickness tinged with loss and longing.  I now believe that the depiction of Superman as a man who feels deep 'hiraeth' for his lost world is not only a valid interpretation but also an extremely interesting and compelling one.  If the freshness of the more 'human' Superman in Man of Steel hadn't grabbed my attention, then maybe I wouldn't have come to understand and love the many other versions of the character.  Byrne broke down that initial barrier and drew me into the character long enough to appreciate Superman's many other incarnations.

2) Byrne's 'changes' weren't really changes at all!


Pa Kent's death, pre-Byrne

I realise now that Byrne didn't really change anything, he just looked at aspects of the character that were already there from a different angle!  Superman's human side had always been an important factor.  One of the oldest, most classic and iconic Superman images is that of Clark standing by Pa Kent's deathbed as his father reminds him never to forget the lessons he had learnt from his upbringing.  Superman's human side was there all along, Byrne just brought it to the forefront.  And look at Lois! Lois Lane was giving Clark a hard time right from the start, back in the days of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.  Byrne just brought Lois back to her roots, changing her back from the ditzy, marriage obsessed airhead that she had become in the intervening years.  Also, take a look at Krypton.  Krypton may be cold and sterile but it's still scientifically advanced, and Jor-El is still a visionary.


I realise today that this is what makes Man of Steel so special.  Byrne wrote and drew a story that managed to seem fresh and new to an eleven year old boy, but he did it without throwing the super-baby out with the bath water.  Byrne's Superman is still recognisably Superman, everything that makes him Superman is still there, just turned on its head or seen from a different angle.

So even though a more relatable and human character sucked me into the wonderful world of Superman comics, do I think that Superman has to always be like this to succeed?  Do I think that this the approach Grant Morrison should be taking next week?  The answer is NO!  Byrne didn't give us the ideal, definitive Superman, he just made us look at Superman differently.  He drew me in by emphasizing aspects of the character that had not been emphasized before, but had always been there.  Once I was in I was hooked, and the wider world of Superman and his many incarnations was mine to discover and rediscover.  This is what Morrison needs to do with Action Comics #1.  It's a feat worthy of Superman himself.  Can he do it?  I hope so.

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This article is part of a "blog crossover" with Duy Tano's Comics Cube. I've told you why I love Man of Steel, now head on over to The Cube and check out why Duy can't stand it!

Monday 15 August 2011

Why I think Barry Allen is Awesome

In 1985 DC Comics killed off Barry Allen, otherwise known as The Flash, Fastest Man Alive.  It wasn't long before his sidekick, Wally West took over his deceased uncle's heroic mantle.  Over the course of over two decades Mike Baron, William Messner-Loebs, Mark Waid, Geoff Johns and many other talented writers took Wally on a journey that gradually transformed him from an arrogant, slightly selfish young womanizer to a hero, a family man and a worthy successor to the Flash legacy.  Now all of a sudden Barry is back from the dead and is once again the main Flash of the DC Universe.   Meanwhile Wally has been benched and DC have confirmed there are "no plans for Wally West in the new Flash series.”  As a result a lot of fans are pissed off.  This is a perfectly understandable reaction.  For a whole generation of Flash-fans Wally was their Flash.  Some of these fans weren't even alive when Barry was the Flash and now he's back and the hero that they've followed for so long has been sidelined.  I was born four years before Barry's death and so I'm part of 'Generation Wally'.  Despite this I'm more than happy to see Barry's return and while I miss Wally I'm not that bothered about seeing him take a back seat for a while.

I've written before on this blog about why I feel the time is right for Barry to take over from Wally as DC's main Flash.  Check it out, comment on it, Tweet it, share it with your friends!  During the course of that post I discuss at great length the reasons behind my love of Wally as a character but I never really explain my love for Barry.  Many fans have accused Barry of being a boring, dated character, undeserving of the prominence that DC has now thrust upon him.    Personally I believe that he's just as good as Wally, and just as worthy of being the the most prominent Flash in the DC Universe.  My love of Barry Allen can be traced back to just one comic, the first Flash comic I ever read.  Flash Vol. 1 #206 (1971) a comic that contains a story called '24 Hours of Immortality'!


In '24 Hours of Immortality' two ordinary people are rescued from death by two super advanced aliens who offer them an extra 24 hours of life in order to tie up their loose ends.  For that 24 hours they are completely indestructible!  High Five Comic has summed up the story pretty accurately and hilariously.  That particular blogger describes the story as "completely fucking absurd" and it's difficult to argue with that assessment.  '24 Hours of Immortality' is goofy, even for a classic Flash story, but it's also immensely enjoyable and it has two things going for it that transformed the young me into a lifelong Flash fan.

Firstly, I love the cover. This issue has one of the most striking covers I've ever seen, but then what do you expect? It's a Neal Adams cover!  It would have been so easy for Adams to draw the indestructible lady landing gracefully on her feet but instead he has her smashing into the ground CHIN FIRST! This cover is so striking that I remember actually being scared of it as a child, but it definitely made me want to read the story inside.

The second brilliant thing about this comic is the story's ending.  The two people who were granted the aforementioned 24 hours of immortality are resigned to their fate and ready to offer themselves up to the aliens once their day has ended.  Flash on the other hand isn't giving up without a fight.  He tells the aliens that they'll have to kill him first, and they do indeed try to do just that.  Flash uses his speed to counter everything they throw at him and eventually they acknowledge that the human race isn't quite as crappy as they first thought and promptly bugger off.  Reading the story today it's apparent that Flash uses his usual tricks (vibrating his molecules etc) to outwit some pretty unnecessarily convoluted death traps.  But when I first read the story as a child I saw a hero who hadn't just whizzed up and tried to punch the baddie in the face.  The Flash hadn't just beaten the villains, he had impressed them with his courage and his brains!  Obviously I wouldn't have expressed this at the time, I just thought Flash was cool, I didn't consider why I thought this.  But it was definitely Barry's cleverness that left an impression on little Paul, combined of course with the amazing Adams cover.  As I grew up I sought out more and more of Barry's adventures and I realized that that the two things that initially drew me to Barry, cleverness and cool covers, are what The Flash is all about!

Art by Irv Norick and Murphy Anderson

This then, is why I love Barry Allen just as much as I love Wally West, and why I'm happy to see him back as The Flash.  I grant you, it's not the best reason in the world.  '24 Hours of Immortality' isn't the best Flash story in the world, it's not even the best Barry story in the world.  But it was my first. And I read it so much that the cover fell off.  And it introduced me to a character who remains, not only the Fastest Man Alive, but one of the greatest super-heroes of all time. 


Saturday 9 July 2011

The Guardian exposes scandal at the Daily Planet!


The Guardian has done a great job exposing the corrupt practices of the scummier side of British journalism. As a result of their investigations the News of the World has closed.  But why should they stop there?  There's plenty of corruption going on in newspapers all over the world, for example a certain great, metropolitan newspaper over in the States.....

Saturday 11 June 2011

Paul's Pick of the DC Comics Relaunch

All of the 52 new DC titles launching in September have been announced!  A complete list of them can be found here.  Like every fan with an internet connection, I have an opinion about the list and I'm compelled to share it, even though no one asked me!  There are many on the list that look perfectly good but I just haven't got the money to check them out, or they're just not characters I click with.  What's left can be divided into four categories;

  1. What the Hell? What are they thinking?!
  2. Looks good, I'll get the trade if I hear good things.
  3. I'm gonna get the first couple of issues and may keep on getting it if it's good.
  4. This is on the Pull List without a doubt!

Let's get the moaning out of the way first.

1. What the Hell? What are they thinking?!

Hawk And Dove #1 by Sterling Gates and Rob Liefeld

"I can't be arsed to draw anything in the background, I'll just draw their faces again. That'll do."

Based on his Supergirl run Sterling Gates is a fantastic writer and Hawk and Dove are interesting enough characters.  I probably would have checked this out if it wasn't for one thing.  Rob Liefeld's art.  I remain absolutely baffled as to why people like Liefeld's work.  He seems to have no clue how to draw basic human anatomy and to be honest he's not that great at drawing anything else.  To be fair he does seem to know this and usually keeps the backgrounds of his panels to a bare minimum.  It's not even as if he's a particularly imaginative artist.  Just check out his recent web-comic, Zombie Jesus.  Biblical zombies should be an opportunity for an artist to have a field day drawing undead rabbis, PhariseesRoman soldiers etc.  Surely part of the appeal of zombie movies and comics is that tragic glimpse we get of the zombies former lives? Liefeld chooses to draw them as vague,muddy looking things that don't even look like zombies due to their trademark Liefeld biceps and pecs.  Those zombies have been working out.  

Suffice to say, Liefeld's presence has made this series one for me to avoid.

Teen Titans #1 by Scott Lobdell, Brett Booth and Norm Rapmund 


Apparently that thing on Superboy's back is supposed to be a sign left by Kid Flash. Er..ok? 

It's the art once again that's putting me off this title.  I'm not a massive fan of Brett Booth's style but it's the costume designs that are spoiling this for me more than anything else.  Kid Flash and Red Robin's costumes look messy and jumbled and Superboy looks like a random street punk in a bad '90s film.  In fact the whole thing looks dated and none of the characters look the least bit iconic.  They look less like the Titans and more like a '90s Image Comic featuring characters ripped off from the Titans.

On the other hand writer Scott Lobdell has a proven track record with teen super-teams.  I remember his run on Generation X being very enjoyable, so maybe this title will work.  I hope so.

2. Looks good, I'll get the trade if I hear good things.


Swamp Thing #1 by Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette




Scott Snyder has done an absolutely amazing job with his recent run on Detective Comics and I've heard nothing but good things about his American Vampire series.  Yanick Paquette's recent work on Batman Inc has been equally amazing, so I'm sure this series will work.  Unfortunately I share the opinion of my fellow blogger Duy Tano on the character of Swamp Thing.  On his blog, The Comics Cube, he wrote
Alan Moore's SWAMP THING is one of my favorite comics of all time, and it had such a beautiful ending that I can't take any Swamp Thing story that comes after it seriously. I'm even a big fan of Rick Veitch and I still can't read his run. I just can't bring myself to do it.
That pretty much sums it up for me too.  If I hear really great things about this series I might check out the trade but I just can't put it on the Pull List.

3. I'm gonna get the first couple of issues and may keep on getting it if it's good.


Fury Of Firestorm #1 by Gail Simone, Ethan Van Sciver and Yildiray Cinar




I like Gail Simone's writing and, based on his work on Legion of Superheroes Yildiray Cinar is a good artist.  I've never experienced Ethan Van Sciver's writing before but with Simone alongside him I'm sure it'll be fine.  Having said that I've never read much of Firestorm's solo adventures before, my experience of him has mostly been through appearances in Justice League comics.  I'm not sure my interest in the character is enough to keep me regularly following his title.  There are however, two main reasons why I'm considering getting Fury of Firestorm.  Firstly, Firestorm's story thread in Brightest Day was among my favourite parts of the series.  Secondly, I love the new staus quo of high school nerd Jason Rusch merging with high school jock Ronnie Raymond to form Firestorm.  I loved the dynamic between the two in Brightest Day and I think the idea of a nerd and a jock combining to make a super-hero is a simple but clever hook that could make this book a lot of fun.  I'm definitely checking out the first issue.


Flash #1 by Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul




I really, really want to get this series as I'm a massive Flash fan and have been since I was a kid.  I love both Barry Allen and Wally West equally, so it doesn't matter to me who's the star of the book.  It's the writers I'm unsure of. While I love Manapul's art I've never read any of his or Buccellato's writing before.  Normally I wouldn't be so nervous but the memory of 2006's dreadful Flash relaunch by writers Danny Wilson and Paul  De Meo is still fresh in my mind.  These were two TV writer/producers who were new to comics and their run on Flash: The Fastest Man Alive was tedious, predictable and showed a complete lack of understanding of the character they were writing.  It's totally unfair of me to pre-judge Buccellato and Manapul based on a previous Flash-related disappointment involving two writers whose work I was unfamiliar with.  But I can't help it, I love the Flash and I'm nervous.  I'm still going to give the series a chance however and hopefully it will remain a permanent fixture on my Pull List.


4. This is on the Pull List without a doubt!


Green Lantern #1 by Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy




Johns and Mahnke are sticking with the title and so am I.  While the title seemed to drag a little bit after Blackest Night, it's picked up again with the latest storyline, War of The Green Lanterns and even during its slight post-Blackest Night dip it was still one of my favourite regulars.  I currently get Green Lantern regularly and for cash flow reasons I only dip into the other Lantern titles during crossovers.  As long as Johns and Mahnke are staying I see no reason to change that routine.


Aquaman #1 by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis




I love Geoff Johns' writing, I love Ivan Reis' art and I looooooovee Aquaman! This is a no-brainer. I am getting this! 'Nuff said!


Justice League #1 by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee




Okay, the Jim Lee costume re-designs are a bit '90s to say the least, all seams and chin guards.  At least there's hardly any pouches.  But I've been waiting for Geoff Johns to write an ongoing Justice League book for years and I'll be damned if a bunch of v-neck collars are going to stop me from finally reading it!


Batman And Robin #1 by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason





I quite like Peter Tomasi's writing and I really like Patrick Gleason's art.  I liked his work on Aquaman years ago and his work seems to have grown tighter and more detailed since then.  But the main reason I'll be getting this book is Damien"Robin" Wayne.  He's the cocky little psychopath with the heart of gold and I love him.  His relationship with Dick Grayson is one of the main reasons Batman and Robin has been so good up until now and I can't wait to see how he gets on with Bruce Wayne as Batman.


Batman #1 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo




Snyder on Batman?  That's all I need to know. His handling of Dick Grayson and Jim Gordon in Detective Comics has been absolutely fascinating.  We've seen Dick struggling to wrap his head around Gotham City's craziness and Gordon dealing with a psychopathic son who may or may not be a murderer.  I can't wait to see what he does with Bruce Wayne.


Legion Lost #1 by Fabian Nicieza and Pete Woods/ Legion of Superheroes by Paul Levitz and Francis Portela





I've been really enjoying what Levitz has been doing with the Legion for the past year and I'm relieved to see it's not getting thrown out of the window with another unnecessary reboot.  The idea of a group of Legionnaires trapped in the present sounds like loads of fun and I'm really glad Pete Woods is involved as I loved his recent Action Comics work. My only concern is that any changes that may be made to Superman will mean that Levitz will once again have to fiddle with the Legion's origins in order to remove Superboy. And the last thing the Legion needs is any more origin fiddling.


Superman #1 by George PĂ©rez and Jesus Merino
Action Comics #1 by Grant Morrison and Rags Morales




While I'm slightly disappointed that Perez isn't drawing as well as writing Superman it's a very small complaint as Jesus Merino is a perfectly good Superman artist and everything else regarding the relaunching of these two titles is perfect.  Perez has already had experience of revamping one of DC's major characters with his work on Wonder Woman in the '80s and Grant Morrison has already written one of the greatest Superman stories ever, All Star Superman.  Morrison has already proven that he has a lot of love and respect for Superman but more importantly he has proven time and time again that he is a writer who is overflowing with imagination, and that is one thing that has been missing from the Superman titles for a good long while. 



Yes, it's a shame that Action Comics has been re-set to issue one after all these years and yes, the new costume looks dodgy, and yesif Superman's origin is tweaked again that'll be his third origin reboot in under ten years (fourth if you count Earth One). But if what Morrison has planned is even half as good as All Star Superman or his Batman run, then it'll all be worth it.


So there we have it.  At the moment my Pull List from September onwards will include,
  1. Justice League
  2. Batman and Robin 
  3. Batman
  4. Green Lantern 
  5. Aquaman
  6. Superman
  7. Action Comics
  8. Legion of Superheroes
  9. Legion Lost
  10. Flash (hopefully)
  11. Fury of Firestorm (maybe)
They'll be joined by my regular Marvel titles, FF, Invincible Iron Man and Amazing Spider-Man, and next year I'll add Grant Morrison's relaunched Batman Inc. 


What do you think?  Am I leaving out something that could be really good?  Have I included something that could be really bad?  What will your September Pull List look like?  Let me know. 

Monday 6 June 2011

George Perez on Superman!

Today BleedingCool.com ran a story that states "according to good comic book industry sources,  (George) PĂ©rez is scheduled to write and draw the new Superman #1".  


Let's just take a minute to reflect on why that is the most awesome thing ever....


















And we've barely scraped the surface of how awesome Perez is at drawing Superman.  As for his writing, well I'm not a big Wonder Woman fan but his '80s relaunch of the character is probably my favourite interpretation of her to date.  In the same decade he also co-plotted and drew a little thing called New Teen Titans!

Suffice to say, I'm not going to relax until DC officially confirm this.  This could be brilliant!


UPDATE: DC Comics have just confirmed that while Perez will be writing Superman #1 and drawing the covers, Jesus Merino will actually be on art duties.  It's a shame but I guess Perez would never have hit the deadlines with the level of detail he puts into his work.  That's not a complaint mind you, it's one of the reasons I love Perez' stuff.  Also, Merino's art isn't exactly hard on the eye so I'm still a happy bunny.


It's cool, Merino draws a really good Superman!