By Alex Boney
During the course of the last year, I’ve probably been
closer to the world of comics than I ever have before. As a
result, it’s easy to get swamped by the sheer number of
books being published every month—not just by the big two
(Marvel and DC), but also by increasingly reputable
independent and smaller publishers like Dark Horse, Image,
and Avatar. Like many other readers of periodical comic
books (the Wednesday crowd), I have several stacks of
unread books gathering and growing in my house. In an
attempt to reduce the piles, I decided to start getting
caught up over the holidays. When faced with a task that
enormous, it’s usually best to start at the beginning. For
a variety of reasons both historical and personal, that
beginning for me is Superman. 2008 marked the
70th
anniversary of the first
appearance of the first superhero. To celebrate, DC hailed
’08 as a reset year for the Man of Steel.
All-Star
Superman wrapped
up its dozen-issue run last year, Superman and Action Comics
were both headed by
high-profile creative teams, and Superman shared the
billing with other heroes in several other series and
miniseries. It was a good year to catch the pulse of the
heart of superhero comics.
All Star Superman
A
little over two years ago, I reviewed All Star Superman
for our November 2006 issue
of GutterGeek. At the time, the book was probably my
favorite ongoing comic series I’d read in several years. So
when I began catching up on last year’s Superman books, it
seemed like the logical place to start. Since I hadn’t read
a single issue of the book since August 2007’s issue #8, I
started back at the beginning and read the series straight
through. I’ve been reading superhero comics off and on for
most of my life, but few superhero comic books have ever
affected me the way All Star Superman
did. Comics readers
(especially those who have long been disillusioned with
superhero books) often scoff at the comparisons between
superhero mythology and religion. The differences are
obvious, and fervent insistence on a direct correlation
between the two comes across as radically shrill (not to
mention nerdy as hell). But many people who read superhero
comics as kids used those stories to build their moral
foundation. In All
Star Superman,
from the beginning of the series to the end, Grant Morrison
manages to pinpoint and flesh out the essential
cornerstones of that foundation: sacrifice, social
responsibility, moral clarity, and strength of character.
This book is a religious meditation on a secular world.
Many accolades have been lavished on All Star Superman
during the last couple years
(including the Eisner Award for best continuing series of
2007), so I won’t dwell too long on this. Morrison’s
writing is fun, smart, and profound. Quitely’s art manages
to be subtle even in widescreen-panoramic vision.
All Star
Superman #10, in
which Clark makes preparations for his death, is the best
single issue of any comic book I read last year. It’s the
issue that most clearly distills the absurdity of the
Silver Age, the advancement of modern science, the sobriety
of mortality, and the beauty of sequential narrative that
made this series a pleasure to read from beginning to end
Action Comics
Although Action Comics
is the longest-running title
in DC Comics’ stable—as well as the principal book of the
company’s flagship character—the title hasn’t always been
as strong as it should have been. Several very good writers
(including Joe Kelly and Gail Simone) have spent time
writing Action
Comics in recent
years, but few of these writers have achieved memorable
runs on the book. That changed when DC’s editorial staff
decided to hand the book to Geoff Johns. During the last
eight years, Johns has consistently rebuilt several of DC’s
top-tier characters and teams. The Justice Society, the
Flash, and Green Lantern are all much better and more
pertinent than they have been in decades, due largely to
Johns’ character-driven approach. Action and adventure will
always be important features of superhero comics, but much
of this action is irrelevant—even mundane—if the reader
doesn’t care much about the characters at the heart of it.
When Geoff Johns and Kurt Busiek reset Superman in their
eight-part 2006 story “Up, Up, and Away!”
(Action
Comics 837-840
and Superman #650-653), they told readers everything
they needed to know about Superman’s past and opened up new
avenues for exploring the significance of the character in
the future. Since that story, Action Comics
has been the one ongoing,
in-continuity book that has lived up to that promise.
Beginning with a story called “Last Son,” Johns and
co-writer Richard Donner (who directed the first two
Christopher Reeve Superman movies) established a new,
serious tone for the series. Johns uses humor and levity
effectively at times, but all of his best work is
underpinned with a darkness that gives his stories
consequence and (even in the case of Superman) gravity. In
“Last Son,” Adam Kubert’s dark, angular art underscored and
visualized this tone to great effect. When it appears that
a new Kryptonian—a young boy—has arrived on Earth, Clark
Kent and Lois Lane assume the role of adoptive parents. And
when the government tries to manipulate the boy, Clark
reveals a fiercely protective instinct that makes him more
human than he has been in years.
The humanity of Superman is, in fact, the primary subject
of John’s run on Action Comics. Many comic book readers I’ve talked to
over the years complain that Superman is boring because
he’s too powerful and too cardboard. We can’t hope to
become or relate to this character, so how could we
possibly see him as a source of inspiration? Johns
challenges this critique by making Clark Kent—not
Superman—the focal point of these stories. The connection
between Clark and his father in “Escape from Bizarro World”
(Action
Comics #855-857)
reveals a compassion and vulnerability that trumps the
backward insanity of the Bizarro world. Clark’s loss of
powers in “Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes”
(#858-863) shifts the focus to his inner strength, even
while his entire legacy is being twisted and deconstructed
by fanatics. And Clark’s struggle to save a part of a
home-world he never really knew makes the loss he
experiences at the end of “Brainiac” (#866-870) even more
painful and acute. These are all meaningful stories that
reinvest Superman with moral and modern relevance.
The biggest critique I have of Action Comics
over the last couple years is
the same problem that has plagued many of DC’s
highest-profile titles: an irregular publication schedule.
Johns has been both blessed and cursed by collaborative
artists (Adam Kubert, Gary Frank, and Eric Powell) who
provide incredible visual rendering at very different
paces. “Last Son,” the five-part story that was intended to
launch Johns’ run, unfolded in Action Comics
#844-846, 851, and
Action Comics
Annual #11. It
began in December 2006 and didn’t conclude until 2008. Even
if the delay was Kubert’s fault, the power of the story was
diminished because it was so broken up. Similarly, extended
delays between John’s stories led to single issues (written
by guest authors) that often felt like filler material that
could easily be skipped or ignored. If DC is trying to
force readers into following stories via trade collections,
rather than buying individual comic books month-to-month,
then Action
Comics’
publication schedule since 2006 has been quite persuasive.
Superman
While Action
Comics delivered
on the promise than was introduced in “Up, Up, and
Away!,” Superman unfortunately fell far short of
expectations. This book should have been as solid as
Action. One of the three best Superman stories
I’ve ever read is Secret
Identity, a
four-issue prestige-format miniseries penned by Kurt Busiek
in 2004. Because Secret Identity
wasn’t an in-continuity or
ongoing story, Busiek had the freedom to tell a focused,
imaginative story that distilled the essence of the
Superman myth and re-imagined it for an alternate reality
(in much the same way Grant Morrison did in
All Star
Superman). Add to
Busiek’s writing gifts the artistic talents of Carlos
Pacheco—one of the best renderers of anatomy in superhero
comics—and DC should have put together an instant-classic
run on one of its longest-running books. But ultimately,
Busiek’s stint on Superman seems like it was written by a writer
with ADHD for readers with ADHD. The book suffered from the
same publication schedule problems that hampered
Action
Comics, but the
payoff was not worth the wait.
The biggest extended story in Busiek’s stint is “Camelot
Falls,” in which an ancient sorcerer named Arion reveals an
apocalyptic future to Superman and claims that this is what
will come to pass if Superman continues to meddle in human
affairs. The story leads Superman to pine for over a year
about his purpose on Earth. While the existential question
is interesting at first, it quickly becomes whiney and
drags on for far too long. Even when “Camelot Falls”
finally concludes (with more of a whimper than a bang)
in Superman
Annual #11,
Superman’s guilt complex doesn’t end. The two follow-up
stories that rounded out Busiek’s tenure on
Superman, “The Third Kryptonian” and “The Insect
Queen,” are even more baffling than “Camelot Falls.” “The
Third Kryptonian” explores themes similar to Geoff Johns’
“Last Son” from Action Comics, but the flashbacks and dialogue in
Busiek’s story are far too forced and cartoonish to carry
the dramatic weight it’s trying to achieve. The less said
about “The Insect Queen,” the better. The story is as
absurd, boring, and painful as Secret Identity
is stirring and poignant. If
Busiek’s name hasn’t been listed in the credits, I would
have sworn this story had been written by someone who
hadn’t read—much less written—a superhero comic book since
1995.
As frustrating as it was to make my way through the
entirety of Busiek’s Superman run, his tenure was not without bright
spots. Several of his one-issue stories were actually quite
effective. Superman #659, in which an elderly woman (an urban
community activist) begins to see Superman as a literal
guardian angel after he rescues her several times, is
probably one of the best single-issue Superman stories I’ve
read in a decade. Busiek’s strongest extended work has come
from his creator-owned series Astro City, and Superman #659 read as though it was an
Astro City
story that happened to
feature Superman. That’s not a bad thing at all.
Busiek’s replacement on Superman has raised my hopes again, though I’m
still waiting for the book to warm up. James Robinson, who
made his name on such DC classics as The Golden Age
and Starman (in my opinion, the best superhero comic
book of the 1990s), began his stint as ongoing writer
of Superman with issue #677. His first story, “The
Coming of Atlas,” ran for four issues and set a very
different tone from that of Busiek. Robinson’s take on
Superman is far more focused, and the character moments are
more developed and rewarding than they have been for years.
As a bonus, Robinson has made Jimmy Olsen one of the
coolest and most interesting characters in the Superman
universe—a feat that even the weekly series
Countdown
couldn’t do last year. But
Robinson has been away from mainstream comics for about a
decade, and his scripting seems a bit rusty thus far. His
action scenes are overly drawn-out and not particularly
convincing or consequential, and many moments of dialogue
have made me wince. When the crowd cheered the loyalty and
battle prowess of Krypto at the end of issue #680, I rolled
my eyes and closed the book in disgust. Even as a kid, I
would have known how out-of-touch that was.
“New Krypton”
Everything that has occurred in the two
principal Superman books since “Up, Up, and Away!” led to a
ten-part epic called “New Krypton” that concluded just last
week. After the events of “Brainiac” in Action Comics, Kandor—the infamous lost Kryptonian
city that existed inside a bottle for years—is restored to
full size and planted in the northern Arctic regions of
Earth. The transplanting of 100,000 superpowered beings on
Earth is bound to create a bit of tension all around, and
“New Krypton” deals with how both humans and Kryptonians
react to having to share the same planet.
Because “New Krypton” is split up among three different
ongoing books and two single-issue specials with three
different creative teams (New Krypton Special
#1, Superman #681-683, Action Comics
#871-873, Supergirl #35-36, and Adventure Comics Special
#1), the overall narrative
comes across as disjointed and a bit clunky. Each of the
creative teams is doing interesting work individually, but
the pacing of the story is off when the ten parts are read
straight through. Although the fallout of “New Krypton”
will be interesting to read (I’m particularly interested in
seeing what Sterling Gates does with Supergirl), the story itself does not hold
together well as a coherent whole. As solid as Johns’ run
on Action has been for the last couple years, this
story is a disappointing climax.
“Kryptonite”
Because 2007 saw such a dramatic shift in the main titles
of Superman, one of the best stories of 2007-08 might have
been lost in the mix. In January 2007, DC launched
Superman
Confidential as a
new ongoing book that would feature different
out-of-continuity stories from different creative teams
(similar to the structure of the long-running
Legends of the Dark
Knight). The
first six-issue story arc, entitled “Kryptonite,” featured
writer Darwyn Cooke and artist Tim Sale—a dream-team that
rivaled that of Morrison and Quitely on All Star
Superman. Cooke
has been doing impressive work for DC Comics for several
years. He first made a name for himself as the artist on Ed
Brubaker’s Catwoman run, but he has since earned wider
recognition as the writer/artist on such high-profile
projects as New
Frontier and The Spirit. Tim Sale’s art has been gaining
attention for years, primarily because of his projects with
writer Jeph Loeb (Batman: The Long
Halloween,
Daredevil:
Yellow,
Hulk:
Gray,
Spider-Man:
Blue, and
Superman for All
Seasons). More
recently, Sale has served as the principal artist for the
NBC television show Heroes. The story turned in by Cooke and Sale
(when it was finally concluded) did not disappoint.
Cooke has a clear affinity for mid-20th century crime noir, and Sale’s art is
well-suited to this aesthetic. At times, their
collaboration is so tight that I forget Cooke is not also
supplying the art. While “Kryptonite” is set in a more
contemporary time, Cooke’s plot and Sale’s art convey a
sense of 40s-era style. The characters’ clothes and
vehicles—even sections of dialogue—are vintage, even though
much of the technology and architecture is modern. The
story itself is an engaging mystery that reveals a possible
origin of Superman’s greatest weakness. Each issue begins
with a couple pages of flashbacks that fill in gaps in the
larger narrative, and each issue ends with a jarring
revelation or cliffhanger. Cooke has carefully plotted out
the pacing of the series, and the result is a book that
actually reads as though it was written as a periodical,
serialized story and not for the eventual trade paperback
collection. This approach offers a distinctive, refreshing,
and much-appreciated departure from most serialized stories
in comics today.
Unfortunately, “Kryptonite” suffered from the same
scheduling difficulties that have hampered pretty much
every Superman book since 2006. While the first five issues
of the story came out on schedule as Superman Confidential
#1-5, the sixth and final
issue wasn’t released until nine months later (as
Superman
Confidential #11). In the interim, another complete
story was published in Superman
Confidential. If
a reader is buying the trade collection of the story, this
is not a big deal. But the publication issues of
“Kryptonite” probably doomed the ongoing series to failure
before it found a wide readership. I can’t imagine I was
the only reader who, after the fifth issue, lost faith in
the title and refused to buy another issue until
“Kryptonite” was complete. And there was probably no way
the title could recover from the drop-off in sales.
Superman/Supergirl:
Maelstrom
I
picked up the five-issue miniseries Superman/Supergirl:
Maelstrom on a
whim, partially because I have a fondness for Jack Kirby’s
Fouth World characters but largely because of the book’s
writing team. Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray have been
writing some of my favorite under-the-radar books
(Uncle Sam and the
Freedom Fighters and Jonah Hex) for a couple years now, and I wanted to
see how they would use top-tier characters like Superman
and Supergirl. What I found was a pleasant surprise.
Superman/Supergirl:
Maelstrom is not
a deeply reflective or terribly experimental. This
certainly isn’t the best Superman (or Supergirl) story I’ve
ever read. But it was extraordinarily fun, and that’s
something that I experience far too infrequently in
superhero comics lately.
Maelstrom begins with Supergirl botching a fight
against a warrior from the Fourth World planet of
Apocalypse named Maelstrom. After Supergirl screws up the
fight and Superman sends Maelstrom packing back to
Apocalypse, Superman decides to take Supergirl to a planet
in a solar system with a red sun so that she can learn to
fight without relying entirely on her super powers. These
things never go well, of course, and the Super cousins end
up having to fight their way off the planet. Meanwhile,
Maelstrom, who has developed a crush on Apocalypse’s
despotic dictator Darkseid, tries to win his affection by
fighting to get back to Earth and retrieve the head of his
greatest enemy (Superman).
This book could end up playing as a string of well-worn
clichés. Nothing here sounds terribly new, and the plot
description sounds pretty ridiculous now that I’ve written
it. But the series ended up being unexpectedly
entertaining. The verbal sparring between Kara and Clark on
the alien planet is loose, funny, and believable. This is a
book that requires a wide range of emotion, and the facial
expressions of artist Phil Noto convey the frustration,
admiration, and amusement of the characters well. Palmiotti
and Gray are very much in touch with contemporary verbal
slang and rhythms, and the character interplay opens up new
understandings (the characters’ understanding of themselves
and my understanding of the characters) that I hadn’t
considered before. The stories of Supergirl and Maelstrom
run parallel and offer interesting counterpoints to themes
such as love, guidance, and compassion. Honestly, I had a
hard time justifying the time and the money I spent on this
series, but I’m glad I broke down and read it. The series
is not profound, but it’s insightful. And I laughed a lot
along the way.
Final Note:
If you’ve been
away from mainstream superhero comics for a while and don’t
know where to begin with Superman, below are some
suggestions that might give you a good contemporary
understanding of the character:
• All Star
Superman, by
Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely.
• Superman for All
Seasons, by Jeph
Loeb and Tim Sale.
• It’s a
Bird, by Steven
T. Seagle and Teddy Kristiansen
• Secret
Identity, by Kurt
Busiek and Stuart Immonen.
• Up, Up, and
Away!, by Geoff
Johns, Kurt Busiek, et al.
• Superman: Red
Son, by Mark
Millar, Dave Johnson, and Kilian Plunkett
• Superman: Last
Son, by Geoff
Johns, Richard Donner, and Adam Kubert
• Superman:
Brainiac, by
Geoff Johns and Gary Frank