The Big Three

No, not the car companies. DC's Big Three. Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman. Each of the three are going through some Big Events right now, because comics companies love Big Events, and for all their whining to the contrary, so do fans. Here's a rundown of what the stars of the DCU are going through right now.

Wonder Woman: Rise of the Olympian

Featuring in part the introduction of Genocide, a dark monster created by an alliance of Wonder Woman's enemies, Simone's Wonder Woman story deals with the gods of Olympus, fearing that their champion has failed and abandoned them, sending a new champion - the Olympian. Simone's greatest strengths are often in character moments, moreso than in action, and the same could be said of Lopresti, but if I have high hopes for this book despite the occasionally schizophrenic tone of the series, it's because it hasn't been hyped to oblivion and turned into a 17 part 4 book event. The first issue was solid-but-not-spectacular, and we'll see how it turns out in the end.

Batman: R.I.P., Last Rites and Battle for the Cowl

Batman: R.I.P. was a competent, enjoyable non-event that DC blew way out of proportion. As a capstone to Morrison's run on Batman, it was really quite good. A metatextual mystery playing on the expectations of fanboys and the conventions of the industry? Lots of fun. As a line-wide event, it sucked. The tie-ins were unimpressive and didn't actually 'tie in' to anything, and the upcoming Battle for the Cowl - an editorially mandate with a novice writer at the helm - doesn't look promising at all. That said, Batman & Son -> The Black Glove -> R.I.P. was an enjoyable run on Batman, and the current Last Rites storyline that follows it up features superstars like Grant Morrison, Denny O'Neil, and Neil Gaiman, so it should be pretty quality.

Superman: 100,000 Kryptonians

No, that art is not official and has nothing to do with the story. According to the board I found it on - You'll All Be Sorry @ CBR - it's some graffiti from Dusseldorf. I just think it's cool.

Anyway, 100K Kryptonians features the return of... can you guess?... 100,000 Kryptonians to Earth, and the subsequent shenanigans. Fan favorite writer Geoff Johns is helming the event from Action Comics, while a personal favorite of mine, James Robinson, is running things on Superman, and relative newcomer Sterling Gates is taking control of Supergirl. Those three books form the core of the title, but a few one-shots have already been released featuring such stars as Jimmy Olson and the Manhattan Guardian. Response hasn't been ridiculously positive to the series, but I've heard few complaints from those reading the arc.

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And that's that. But, I'd hate to leave our Marvel fans with no good news, so I shall point out that X-Men Noir #1 came out last week to impressive reviews and surprisingly good sales (we're sold out and back-ordered, curse the souls of everyone alive), and Spider-Man Noir #1 hits next week, with Incognito coming up soon as well, making this month an awesome month for Marvel, in my book.

Finally, my first semester of grad school is finished, and I have resolved the issues with my 'net provider, so I return you to your regularly scheduled programming!

Apologies, Apologies

Ah, see, just as I was getting into the habit of an update every other day, I am forced to break it. I must apologize to my loyal reader, and explain, briefly.

I have only recently started grad school, studying for my Master's in Library and Information Sciences. I've moved to a new city - where no one seems to play VS (yet), curse the souls of all around me - and have been looking for a job. More than that, though, is the mad-crazy amount of work expected of a graduate student that, to be frank, leaves me with far less free time than I might have otherwise hoped.

Still, fret not. I shan't abandon the you for long. While I don't think that I can keep up my recent update rate when I can't even find people to play the damn game with (yet), I shall definitely try and update regularly - if not every other day, then at least twice a week, thrice a week on a good week. And of course, as I settle in, find a job, get a schedule, and learn not to wait to the last moment to do the massive projects expected of me, I shall surely find more time to update.

In other news, All-Star Superman came to a heart-breaking ending yesterday with #12. It's a great series, and I once again implore any comic fan reading this to urge a local library to pick it up. Here are a few covers from the series...







And, finally, while Ed Brubaker is not working on the Marvel Noir project, as I had hoped he would be, he is starting up a new project. Described, apparently, as a meld between Sleeper (a book you will get a post on sooner or later) and Criminal, Incognito looks like a promising new book, well worth checking out. Brubaker is an extremely competent writer, and one of the relatively few who seems more interested in telling good stories than getting you to like his pet characters.

Superman

So, has there ever been a character you just really didn't like? I know that, for a lot of people, Superman is targeted as a cookie-cutter character, a cardboard cut-out, and numerous other unflattering titles, many of which begin with 'c'. It's a fair commentary - a character that's been around as long as he has, in this day in age, absolutely HAS to be 'safe' in every way possible. There's a certain amount of leeway with him, but he's just not allowed to change beyond a certain degree. Same goes for his cast. So, just how do you give personality to a 70 year old character, the icon of the stagnation of comic books? More importantly, how do you boil down 70 years worth of stories to a readable amount? And there's a lot of garbage in there - how do you know what you can safely skip?

All-Star Superman

A single recommendation. Rare for me, I know. Still, pay attention.

All-Star Superman takes place outside of the standard DC Continuity, meaning it can set its own rules, pick and choose what baggage it wants to deal with - and it doesn't have to leave the toys intact for the next writer. Saving the astronauts aboard a space shuttle attempting to 'map the sun' from a death engineered by Lex Luthor, Superman is fatally wounded. Slowly dying, Superman begins to tie up the loose ends of his life, everything from revealing his secret identity to Lois Lane to trying everything he can to finally save the Kryptonians trapped in the Bottle City of Kandor.

All-Star Superman is a love letter to the Silver Age of comics, a time of rampant insanity and bizarre ideas. It's also a wonderfully imaginative series with just a hint of sadness running throughout. Watching Superman confront his own mortality allows for some interesting facets of his personality to come to the forefront, and the series as a whole gets better and better at building Superman's cast and character. It also just happens to be a good book in general.

There's not much detail here. This isn't meant to be a long post, and it isn't meant to tell you everything about the book. It's to say, if you're interested in comics, if you've always hated Superman and are willing to be proven wrong, if you just want a good sci-fi adventure story, you owe it to yourself to read some All-Star Superman. If you don't enjoy it by "Funeral in Smallville" or even "The Gospel According to Lex Luthor", you probably won't enjoy it at all, but it's a cold-hearted bastard what can't appreciate this book.

Enjoy your weekends!

Interesting Superman News

http://blog.newsarama.com/2008/03/28/siegel-heirs-awarded-action-comics-1-copyright/

The essentials: due to a kind of wonky law, the heirs of Jerry Siegel now own the copyright to Action Comics #1. The costume, the idea, etc.... Now, I'm not going to go into a great deal of detail here - the information is provided above, for your viewing pleasure. This is important information, however - both for comics fans, and for fans of the VS System game. If you just go to www.newsarama.com, they also have on the front page a brief rundown of just what the ruling could mean.

So, I'm curious: what do you all think of this news? It's potentially enormous.

Personally? Well, it's hard to side with the big corporations, but I feel that their pretty much in the right, here. The people being awarded the copyright had nothing to do with the creation of the character - and, more importantly, the copyright was sold legitimately. DC has done all the work in the last 80 years, marketing the character, making him a recognizable figure all the world over. Would the Siegel heirs be willing to repay the 130$ DC bought Superman for, had the character been a flop? I think not. That's simplifying things, of course, but that's my gut reaction.

Obviously, I'll be following this pretty closely. If DC loses Superman, things will be bad for them - real bad. The potential for the Siegel heirs to market Superman out to other companies is also dangerous to the continuation of DC. Not to mention the fact that VS may find that it will have a far harder time making Superman or Team Superman cards...