Monitoring the Set

So now I've actually read Countdown #1, erm, #51 and I'm just not sure I'm on for the ride, which seems to be the general consensus.

I mean, I liked 52. I like Paul Dini. The art's pretty good. So what's wrong?

I think the problem is the Monitors.

As a concept, I've never liked the Monitor. Not only did he have a name that might as well have been "Not-the-Watcher", but DC Comics already had an omniscient expositor, and he's got better fashion sense. Furthermore, while I like continuity, I don't like stories that are about continuity, and the Monitor was entirely about was protecting continuity (or, as he called it, "reality").

So I wasn't exactly thrilled to see that the new multi-verse comes with a complete set of Nu-Monitors.


Yes, as Diamondrock points out, the Monitors act as continuity cops, correcting confusing continuity errors... "with EXTREME PREJUDICE!" < wailing guitars > But they won't, as he hopes, reduce the "porousness" of the multi-verse since any story with the Monitors will feature someone jumping between worlds, if only to get shot. By their very existence, the Monitors will only increase the porousness. Similarly, stories with the Monitors will increase the number of stories that are about the existence of the multi-verse, rather than simply set in it.

And Countdown looks like it's going to follow the same pattern. Andrew Hickey, at his new Countdown Blog, points out that the characters featured in the first issue, and those slated to appear, are the stress points of DC continuity: characters that are "supposed" to be dead, like Jason Todd and those whose histories contradict "official" canon, like Duela Dent, which implies the story will be about their status as continuity question marks.

Which could not interest me less. Stories intended to solve continuity problems, turning editorial errors into story engines, also turn compelling characters into walking plot points. Donna Troy is not interesting because her origin got screwed up by constant re-writes. She's interesting in spite of it (if she's interesting at all). So centering a plot on how much her background doesn't make sense is like...

It's like seeing a play with an amazing, intricate set. Something truly spectacular to look at. But the play itself is just characters talking about the set, either how pretty it is or how bizarre or just detailing how each piece fits together. As a guy who built sets in college, sure, I might find it interesting to know how it was built, but I'm not sure I could stand the characters in the play just gabbing about it and nothing else for two hours, with a fifteen minute intermission.

And all the Monitors seem to do is walk onto sets, shout "That tree is made out of cardboard!" then shoot the first character who knocks down the 2-D tree.

Maybe it's too soon to make the call, and I will pick up the next issue (especially since it looks like it features Jimmy Olsen vs. Dini's take on the Joker). But I know that 52 wow'ed me AND set up its theme of change in its first issue; and Countdown just didn't. So before I can commit another $150 dollars and a year's time to this thing, I need to know it's about more than just cardboard cut-outs.

Is it 2008 yet?

Grant Morrison does an exit interview for 52 and lets a few cats out of the bag:

The same pitch also introduced two new Japanese pop-culture inspired superteams - the venerable monster-huntin' crew of Big Science Action and the Super Young Team (whose members include Most Excellent SuperBat, Big Atomic Lantern Boy and Shy Crazy Lolita Canary) - both of which will appear in my next big DCU project in 2008....

...Doc Magnus' Plutonium Man will probably turn up again in the forthcoming Metal Men series....

...If you miss Vic Sage as the Question, you should be able to follow the adventures of Vic's counterpart on the Charlton/Watchmen world of Earth 4...

That's right, the mother-f@#$ing WATCHMEN WORLD

There's also something about sex with a jellyfish. Oh just go read it.

A Question of Violence

Vic Sage, what makes you such a badass?


Really? I never would have guessed.

(For answers to more burning questions, check here!)

Tales of Earth-1

This post contains spoilers about 52 52, in case anyone cares anymore.

Anyway, the multiverse is back, as we all knew it would be since at least last November. A lot of folks are happy about the return of Earth 4, the Charlton Heroes, and Earth 5/S, the Captain Marvel-verse, Devon's excited about the Wildstorm books officially being incorporated as Earth-50, and Kalinara is excited about her proposed, gender-reversed Earth-25.

But the world I'm eager to see is Earth-1.

Rip Hunter explicitly states that there is "New Earth", the composite Earth most of the DC line are set in, and then there is "Earths 1-51". New Earth is the world we know; Earth-1 is something... else.

Presumably, it's the Silver-Age DC Earth. The world where the first superheroes were Batman and the Martian Manhunter. Where Hal Jordan was the first human called Green Lantern, and Jay Garrick is nothing but a beloved comic book character. It's a world where the Crisis on Infinite Earths never happened; where perhaps even Crisis on Two Earths never happened.

It would be a more stream-lined setting; almost entirely science fiction influenced, with most of its heroes receiving power from either lab accidents or alien sources. It would jettison a lot of confusing character history, so that Hawkman would finally MAKE SENSE! (also: Wonder Girl).

It wouldn't necessarily be a better place to set most of the stories. I prefer the crazy, mixed up jumble that is the Post Crisis universe, but Earth-1 would still be a fun place to visit, I think, for two main reasons:

1) Earth-1 would be far less shackled to the real world than even the normal DCU. This means you could explore how the world would be changed if an Atlantean, an Amazon, a Martian, a Space Cop, and a man who re-writes the laws of physics with every step have been policing the world since 1960.

and 2) It means that crazy, god-like bastard the Earth-1 Superman is still out there, playing tricks on his best friends to teach them lessons and winking at an audience that only he sees. I wonder what HE's been up to the last twenty years.

Uh Oh...

This post is only going to be relevant for the next 24 hours but it contains a heck of possible spoiler, so if you care, turn away now, otherwise join me after the jump:

Update: Well, that gets a big nevermind. It might still be relevant for a future storyline though, so I'm leaving it up.

Read more


Remember when Justice League of America #1 came out, and it was implied that Buddy "Animal Man" Baker didn't survive 52, and then he did die, and everyone was sad, and then he was brought back to life, and everyone was happy again?

Yeah about that...

This is a sketch of a deleted page from 52 #47:


Those are the Yellow Aliens who operate outside the DC Universe that gave Buddy his powers and saved his life, just after redirecting him through time and space to, basically, last week's issue. And at the bottom of the page one reassures the other by saying "Believe in Her"...

... which is the mantra of 52's new space tyrant, Lady Styx.

On the one hand, this is good. It elevates Lady Styx to the level of reality-threatening villain, putting her on par with Mr. Mind and the (surprisingly still) unnamed backer of Intergang. If she controls such Fourth Wall violating entities as the Yellow Aliens, then she could re-write the entire DC Universe. Hopefully that means 52 #52 will wrap up her storyline in a slightly more satisfying way than having Lobo chucking her into a Sun-Eater.

On the other hand, it also means Buddy got back to Earth where and when he did because Lady Styx wanted him to, which can't be good for him or any of the Bakers.

Now maybe I'm wrong, and maybe it was cut because it wasn't actually relevant, but the sketches revealed that Egg Fu was behind the missing scientists, so maybe I'm not.

I'm just saying, just because Buddy made it back to Earth, doesn't mean he necessarily gets a happy ending...


... then again, this is comics. No one gets an ending...

... One to Go

52 is coming to a close, so far it's been really satisfying. The pleasure of multiple plotlines is when they cross and merge, and with this week's revelations of what Evil Skeets is and what he wants, tying the Space Heroes to the Mad Scientists to Booster Gold, and with Renee Montoya, Will Magnus, and basically every superhero on Earth preventing Intergang's attempt to destroy the world in the last few issues, all the last issue has to do for me is explain what any of this has to do with Ralph Dibny's magical mystery tour or Lex Luthor's Everyman project.

Plotwise, that is. Thematically, I think I've got this egg cracked.

Over at the indispensable 52 Pickup, Douglas Wolk asks, "in a sentence, what's 52 about?"

And my answer is: "52 is about change, those that try to change the world, those that try to change themselves."

Thematically, global change vs. personal change is what ties the major plot threads together. Each plot features at least one character out to remake the world, whether it be Intergang with their Crime Bible, Lex Luthor and his mad dreams of Planet Lexor, Black Adam's "Freedom of Power" treaty, Lady Styx and her hunt for what the Space Heroes saw outside the universe, or Evil Skeets, whom I'll get to later. Even Ralph Dibny was trying to re-write the laws of the new age of magic to get his beloved wife back.

And they all failed. As they learned, real change can't be imposed from without. Anything that can be changed easily can just as easily be changed back, and difficult changes will be fought and rejected by the world itself. This is the pattern of DC's major crossover villains, from the Antimonitor to Parallax to Superboy Prime: they keep trying to destroy the universe in order to remake it as they want it to be, only to be beaten back by characters who refuse to go. (Ironically, it's always in storylines in which the writers and editors are specifically destroying the universe to remake it as they want it to be, only to see the changes they made undone with the next five years).

52 argues that change IS possible, though, but it has to come from within. Ralph can't bring back his wife, he can only become the hero he once was. Natasha has to build her own armor. Dr. Magnus rediscovers his inner mad scientist. And Vic Sage can't make Renee Montoya the new Question, she has to become The Question on her own.

It all comes back to transformation and the question "Who R U?"

Therefore... of course the caterpillar is the Big Bad of the series!

The villain of 52 had to be Mr. Mind, a character capable of making the personal change that Black Adam and Lex Luthor could not. Mr. Mind doesn't just change; he endures a literal metamorphosis! And it is only through metamorphosis that Mr. Mind can adapt to the new world (or worlds, I should say) before conquering it!

Doug Wolk worries that if you don't already know who Mr. Mind is, the reveal that he is Evil Skeets makes no sense. But I think it's a Fair Play Mystery. Mr. Mind's clearly seen in the very first issue, where Sivana talks about whether science or magic changes the world, and the image of his cocoon ominously ends both issue 3 and issue 10. Issue 39 even takes two panels out of the deployment of the Four Horsemen to introduce background info on Mr. Mind in a "We can't tell you why, right now, but this is important information" kind of way.

In a genre and medium famously criticized for the stagnancy of its characters and stories, it's nice to see a story devoted to the very idea of change, taking on new identities and new forms, growing from experience, or falling from grace. And in that context, a villain evolving before our eyes is the only kind of villain that makes sense!


Read More (spoilers)...

Salt Lick

Comments like this make me angry:

I bought WWIII because I thought it would give me some answers on what happened in OYL.

I bought all of Infinite Crisis, Identity Crisis, all of 52 so far, and will probably buy all WWIII garbage too.

Then my collection of how DC went into the toilet will be complete.

So let me get this straight, he bought World War III because he wanted to get answers to continuity questions, then complains that it's nothing but answers to continuity questions? And somehow that's DC's fault? It makes my head hurt!

First off, it's hard to say DC is "going down the toilet" the same week they release The Spirit, Manhunter, and The Brave and Bold, and a week after they put out All-Star Superman. They clearly can and do produce quality books. And one can't fault a company for releasing books like this when "fans" buy them no matter what; fans more interested in accumulating facts about fictional people's lives than in reading, y'know, good stories about characters.

If this disgruntled fan truly didn't approve of this material, why did he buy it? It seemed clear that WWIII was always going to be what Jog calls Gonzo Continuity Porn, moments of explanation without context, subtext, or meaning of any kind. That's why I didn't buy it, (and from what I've read, I'm glad I didn't. Thanks, BB!)

Continuity, to me, is the by-product of having ongoing characters in a shared universe setting turned into its own form of communication. Sure, continuity's great, if it enhances a story, but it's not a story in and of itself. It's like salt, a flavoring, and WWIII is a salt lick.

Fans like this guy are addicted to salt, asking for more and more until the original flavor of the story is buried under the same seasoning. Then they complain that everything tastes like salt and their blood pressure is too high. Yes, DC's going to keep giving you salt as long as you keep buying it, but they offer healthy alternatives. In fact, they really, really want you to try their healthy alternatives. So it's just not DC's fault when you have your heart attack!

Essentials

I'm curious about the recommended reading lists attached to the 2 page origins in the back of 52.

What criteria was used to determine "essential storylines"? Are these the stories you have read to understand these characters? Are these the best stories told using the character? Or are they just what's been collected into trade paperbacks, recommending the individual issues only as a last resort?

Take last week's recommended reading for Batman, for example. It's hard to argue with Batman: Year One on that list. It's not only THE definitive origin for Batman for the last twenty years, it's also a hell of a good story. But The Bat-Man in The Batman Chronicles is hardly the same character written now, and Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told isn't one coherent storyline at all (though I guess the individual issues collected could be considered essential).

But the real standout on the list is The Dark Knight Returns. It's the only storyline recommended so far that is absolutely out of continuity, a story set in the dark alternate future of 1986. Reading that book will NOT get anyone not familiar with Batman up to speed with the character currently starring in Detective Comics.

And yet...

No book* in the last 20 years has had such an effect on how Batman is written as Dark Knight Returns. Batman as obsessive, as fanatical, violent, asshole-ish, all comes from Frank Miller's depiction of what Batman would be like when he's old enough to have a late life crisis. So while reading the book won't give you the history of Bruce Wayne, you DO kind of HAVE TO read it to understand the history of Batman as a character.

But then ANY book could be Essential, if it has a profound effect on a character. Watchmen is essential reading for all the Charlton characters running around the DCU, especially the Question, Blue Beetle, or Captain Atom (hmmm....). All Star Superman will almost certainly become essential. And Kingdom Come, for good or ill, is absolutely necessary to read to understand why the DCU looks the way it does.

I guess it's just further proof that saying this story changes everything and this one changes nothing means nothing, and that any story could be the one that really takes characters to somewhere new. So why worry whether it lines up with other depictions. It's all Hypertime anyhow...


*arguably, Dini and Timm's Batman: The Animated Series is an even bigger influence, but the recommended list seems limited to books.

Anti-Neutral

In this post, I argued that in modern context, a character who is straight, white, and male is read as a blank slate, neutral, with no connotations attached to him. It's racist, sexist, and heteronormative, but it's true. Asked to describe the Spirit in issue one of Darwin Cooke's series, a character calls him a "big blue average with a distraction stuck on his face." He's not, of course. He's tall, well muscled, has brown hair. But he's straight, white, and male, and therefore "average."

A "big blue average with a distraction stuck on his face" is also a pretty good description of The Question. He has a mask that erases his face, takes away his features. His schtick is that he really could be anyone. That is, anyone who is a straight white man...

But that's not true anymore, is it? That Question, the Vic Sage question, died, and his replacement is, a ha ha, Renee Montoya.

A Gay Latin Woman.

A gay latin woman with no face.

Does that work? I'd be really happy if it did, because it'd mean that being gay or being a latina is NOT your identity or your definition. That the face, the individual, is what's important, and take that away and Montoya becomes nobody, could be anybody.

Could this be the new neutral?

Temptation Blocker

From Comic Book Resources: STUDIO TOURS: Mark Waid, while others were concerned with what inspired Mark Waid, this is what caught my eye:

Programs used on a regular basis: Microsoft Word, Firefox, Adobe Photoshop, Windows Media Player, and Temptation Blocker, a freeware program that locks me out of selected applications for a pre-set amount of time so my online porn addiction doesn't get in the way of my deadlines. As much.

Not that Mark Waid has a porn addiction (after all, The Internet is for Porn), but that he can shut it out for pre-set amounts of time. As a would-be comic book writer (but then, heh, aren't we all), a program that allows me to use my computer and check my e-mail but NOT read other peoples blogs or download funny Google videos (for Porn).

So thank you, Mark Waid, for giving me a way of keeping my new years resolution of writing that novel or two.

Oh, and for that thing in 52 yesterday. That was swell too.

(hmm... I can't seem to actually download it though, as the web-site Google points me to is down, and I'm not sure it's available for the Mac. So I'm not sure how helpful this will actually be, unless someone helps me out...)

Dear 52

I just wanted to say thanks.

You didn't have to do that, but you did anyway, and it was great. So, you know, I appreciate that.

And, and that other thing you did? Thanks for that too.

Sincerely,

Steven

Week after Week after Week...

From a superhero comics industry point of view, the story of 2006 is 52.

It's a huge hit, and it flies in the face of most of the trends of superheroes, In age where only name hero books sell, massive production delays, and "waiting for the trade," DC managed to put out a comic book, without missing a single ship date, starring third and fourth string characters, that managed to get over 100,000 fans to go into the shop EVERY WEEK to pick up the new issues as they come out. It's even managed to get some big outside attention for introducing new characters, bringing, hopefully, maybe a few new people into the comics shops.

But is it an aberration, a blip in the face of an adverse tide, or could it be a sign of things to come? That is, could the success of 52 be duplicated? I'm split:

No, it cannot:

1. 52 is a novelty act. A lot of the early attention to it was they fact that it was new. "FOUR all-star writers!" "Rotating artists!" "Real-time storytelling!" "A new issue, EVERY WEEK!" "Never before attempted! Can we do it? or will we CRASH AND BURN?" Well, now we know it CAN be done, and done reasonably well, so the morbid curiosity has worn off.

2. 52 is a limited series. Over 100,000 readers are willing to commit an extra $2.50 a month to watch the experiment in action, but I doubt they are willing to commit it indefinitely. But once enough people had invested in 16 or so issues (the standard 3 month trial period), people could justify sticking it out until the end. An ongoing would suffer a lot more reader attrition.

3. 52 has "importance." Coming directly out of Infinite Crisis and the One Year Later launch, 52 "lays the groundwork" for the "new" DC Universe. Any and every DC Comics fan feels a need to read 52 just to know what the future of their favorite sandbox is going to look like.

Yes, it can:

1. First off, 52 proved a weekly series CAN be done at all. Now that we know that it can be done, publishers can try refining the process down, actually improving it and taking full advantage of the new pacing possibilities allowed.

2. 52 starred non-name characters, and has MADE them important. Which shows the viability of characters that may not be able to support a title on their own, but can be combined to create new and interesting stories (and WITHOUT making them fight crime together on an arbitrarily defined super-team).

3. 52 is not really that much of a crossover. Thanks to the One Year Later launch, it takes place in its own little temporal world. Most of the DC U books have been able to put out nine issues since last March that didn't require ANY knowledge of 52 to understand. And 52 doesn't make you read any other books to understand the story. Any future weekly series could be exactly as isolated from the other books, or it could be even further tied into the larger universe!

I mean, let's face it; 52 is too big a success for DC (and Marvel) NOT to try to replicate its success. So the only real question is how could they improve on it (Ignoring generic suggestions like "better art" and "better writing")? What's the strength of a weekly series, and what production or editing decisions can be made to best take advantage of those strengths? What's the weakness, and how can it be shored up?

...Well?

52 Special Questions

Why is Adam Strange missing from this page? I know they did his origin...

And isn't this the cutest little Steve Wacker ever?

Kate Kane, Why Can't I Quit You?

The DC Comics Infinite Holiday Special is worth picking up, even if they did COMPLETELY blow the pun that made me want to buy it in the first place, for all the reasons Chris mentions, and for the first solo adventure of Kate Kane, the new Batwoman.

The plot is, unfortunately, not very good. Some obtuse silent panels near the end made me re-read the story three times to figure out what was going on, and once I did, I was kind of disappointed with the simple plot.

But as a character study, it's really good short story. We learn lot about Kate as a person, who celebrates holidays quietly with her father and would rather avoid confrontation with her step-mother entirely than make a scene at the big party, who visits an elderly friend with no family, who cares about tradition and family, while not particularly caring about "traditional families", and as Batwoman, has a Frank Miller-esque violence streak that I can't say I disapprove of. (oh, and yes, in fact, she IS Jewish).

Interestingly enough, as the character was first introduced to the general public as "a wealthy, buxom lipstick lesbian", none of those facts really come into play. Her money and her sexual orientation are only alluded to in passing, and her bust size barely affects the plot at all. Heck, even her own religion isn't as important as the religion of her friend, which is a nice way of adding a character wrinkle without making it the POINT of the story.

So, yeah, I'm happy with the results. While I'm not pushing for a Batwoman ongoing just yet, I'd buy a four issue Renee Montoya/Kate Kane miniseries (Rucka, Brubaker and Lark, in a dream world, but I'd accept Rucka and Bennett in the real one).

Here's the pitch: "She's an ex-cop from the barrios of Gotham. (and a lesbian). She's a Jewish socialite by day and high-healed vigilante by night. (and a lesbian). Together, they fight crime. (and beat the ever-loving shit out of James Dobson)".

I'd buy it.

More of Tomorrow's Comics: TODAY!

Word balloon I expect to see before the end of 52:

My name is Renee Montoya.
You killed my partner.
Prepare to die.

Hey Asians!

More offensive?

OR ?

Last Words (and Pictures)

Hey, I'm back. Miss me?

I want to talk about last pages. It's really the advantage of the singles over the trade. The shocking reveal. The nail-biting cliffhanger. The joke and freeze. Even the summation, moral, and coda. The great last page confirms "Yeah, you just read A Story, a real story, and don't it suck for you that you have to wait a whole 'nother month for what else we got in store." You lose that in the trade. Golden moments, like Superman and Lex Luthor plummeting to Earth in Up, Up, and Away, are frozen in time as you wait weeks for the next issue. In the trade, it's just another page in the middle of the book.

Yeah, it's arbitrary, a product of the medium rather than a creative choice, but good creators can make the boundaries work for them. I bought six comics last week* and all but one had BRILLIANT last pages. (The outlier was Boys #4, which is probably my new definition of "wait for the trade.")

Secret Six #5 employed the classic, reveal and cliffhanger one-two: forgotten character reappears, then immediately puts our heroes in mortal jeopardy. Now you have to read issue #6, the conclusion, to see how our "heroes" get out of this one. If they get out of this one.

52 #25 does the classic with a double twist. Not only does the mysterious mastermind behind the Island of Mad Scientists step forward to imperil Black Adam and Isis, his identity turns out to be a new twist on an old, buried character, and his particular threat references earlier clues in the series itself, drawing the disparate plots together.

Action Comics #844 has a reveal, but really the last page serves as a summation and conclusion. It ends the chapter being told. The story could conceivably just end on that last page, since it establishes a new but relatively stable status quo. Not that it will, because there's a "to be continued" hiding in the bottom right corner and the new status quo is too big a change to be confined to just one book.

Nextwave #9, plotwise, doesn't have that great a last page. Nothing's revealed. The heroes are in no more or less danger on the last page then they were six pages earlier. It certainly isn't the end of the story, or even the beginning of a new one. But it was a PERFECT last page. Because it contained a joke--a joke so powerful that I could not continue reading. That's right, Ellis and Immonen knew that anything read after that page would be lost in its massive wake, so they moved it to the end where it could do no harm to the rest of the story, while at the same time positioning the joke for maximum focus, making it more powerful than you can possibly imagine!

But of course, the comic of the week, my HANDS DOWN pick, is Seven Soldiers of Victory #1. And it had THREE great last pages. Sure it could have ended on page 37. With its narration directed at the reader and image and panels that recall the first page of the first issue of Seven Soldiers, it would have been a nice bookend. Or it could have ended with page 38, the twist ending. But like Nextwave before it, Seven Soldiers had a moment, an image so powerful that it FORCED itself to the last page. The moment certainly isn't the end of the story. It's not even a very important moment to the main plot.

But the image IS the story of Seven Soldiers. It's a monument to unending nature of comics, that every last page is an advertisement for the next issue, that every death and birth is there for later writers to undo and redo. It's an image that mixes the macabre with the sacred, the simple with the mysterious, the absolute mundane with the beyond fantastic. It's an image that says superheroes can do impossible things, and that's why we love them. It's a moment so great that there just can't be another page, even though it's a last page that SCREAMS "TO BE CONTINUED!!!" without saying a word. It has to be the last page, because after seeing that page, there's nothing left to say...

until next month...



*yeah, vacation doesn't stop the habit. Once, when traveling through Alaska, I made a stop at the world's most Northern Comic Book store to pick up Zero Hour #0, which was out that week.

Scatter-Thoughts

Going on vacation for a week, so new post for a bit.

In the meantime, I leave you with some random thoughts.

Hey, Robert Kirkman, if you want to read about "an inexperienced hero who would get beaten up constantly and probably die," check out this week's Robin. Or Birds of Prey. Or 52.


The only thing that would have made the page of new heroes shouting their stupid names better is if they had shouted them in Logo Font.


Speaking of, Red Tornado looked beyond the veil of universe and saw 52... what? My guess: 52 other universes (which, including the universe he was in at the time, would be a full pack plus a wild card). And they're coming.


If the conversation on superheroes and class is going to keep going, we might want to start defining our terms. I realize in my own arguments I'm getting thrown off my point a lot by confusing aristocracy, wealth, style, education, power, and morality. The original question was whether the superhero genre perpetuates the myth of aristocracy, that some people are just born to rule. That's shifted a bit into whether Batman fights social injustice and why aren't more superheroes classy, with claims of anti-intellectualism thrown in.


The anti-intellectualism claims really bother me, for some reason. There's this odd assumption that having an education, particularly a post graduate education, is synonymous with being upper class, an influential figure on the course of society, which just isn't true. Most of the academics I know toil in obscurity (and read this blog! Hey, Aaron, David, and Jeff)!. As Cole points out, Kal-El is not a lost prince of Krypton. He's the son of a smart but not highly respected scientist. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne (who we all agree runs Gotham, yes?) never even went to college. And back in the real world... well let's just say that being a total and complete moron doesn't stop you from getting elected President.


Casanova is a heck of good read. As is 100 Bullets, which has started barrelling towards its conclusion.


Has it really been a month since ANY issue of Superman's three ongoings have hit the shelves? And I have to wait till December for more All-Star goodness? C'mon! I'm starting to feel like a Green Lantern fan over here.


Speaking of, sort of, Morrison Batman run filled-in by The Spectre team of Ostrader and Mandrake? Yeah, I'll take that.


Yes, I heard about NextWave. No, I'm not surprised. No, I haven't rent my garments nor gnashed my teeth. Yes, that will be one less Marvel title I'm buying. Yes, I'll probably pick up whatever NextWave limited series come down the pike. No, I'm not buying Thunderbolts.

J.L.U.N.

Ahh, that's better. Now I feel like I have some room to breath. Certainly my posts with big images, like my recent post on the myth of aristocracy look a lot better now. And I followed through on my promise of adding a greatest hits section (based on hits and links).

Went to the store today. A slow week for me. The most enjoyable comic was 52, which enjoyably progresses a plotline or three. Nothing surprising, (except maybe the religion bit), but well executed, particularly the tan line. I mean, the line about the tan.

Whatever.

But the most interesting comic, the one that stuck, was JLA Classified #28. Howard Chaykin started from the same basic premise as Gail Simone's run (Justice League intervenes in international politics) and goes in a very different direction. There's a lot of smart writing going on there. The two fictional South American nations featured supposedly have radically different ideologies, one communist, one capitalist, but the rhetoric does little to disguise the fact that they are nearly identical dictatorships. (Though I should note the capitalist dictator welcomes "plutocrat" Bruce Wayne with open arms, while the communist opens up to, of course, that old leftist Clark Kent.) And even though it's clear they're both bad guys, it's not black & white whether the Justice League is doing more good than harm by intervening, which is nice. There's even a crack about the American comics industry that's both nicely done and awfully mean.

The art's good, not great. Tom Nguyen really does make every penciller's work look like Doug Mahnke, but weak Doug Mahnke. And it's a three or four issue story at most, unfortunately told over six issues. But it's a good solid Justice League story where Wonder Woman and Batman actually hit people instead of bitching at each other from across a table, so I'd recommend picking it up.

In other news, Earth Prime has in fact bled into the DC Universe, as Infinite Crisis the book shows up in Gotham book stores. And as before, what is fiction here becomes non-fiction there.

But if Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are missing, how did the writer learn what happened on the moon?

Damn it, Frey! Not again!

I Want That Shirt