Comics! A Tale of Two Heroes!

This week concludes the initial spread of DC Comics' "New 52" relaunch, and I guess the idea was to finish things off with a bang: the new first issue of "Superman," written and drawn by comics-demigod George Perez. But the issue itself only underscores everything that's wrong with the "New 52" - not only is it a disappointment, it's the single worst  issue of the month. The besetting worry about this whole reboot was fairly straightforward: fans were concerned that the whole thing hadn't really been thought out carefully (this concern wasn't exactly allayed by DC writers telling everybody that the whole reboot came about by chance, while they were at a story conference riffing ideas about a possible love-triangle involving Superman ... "So who should he fall in love with? I don't know (*pauses to chug Red Bull*)... what if we just scrapped everything?"). These are some of the most iconic comics characters in the world, after all - and Superman and Batman are two of the very rare comics characters that have become cultural icons even outside the comics world. Revamping such icons should be the careful work of long preparation, not a quick gimmick done to goose sales for a month. DC editors have been assuring worried fans for months now that they're perfectly aware of the importance of what they're doing, and that they and all the creators involved are completely dedicated to making this relaunch one for the ages. So regarding the first issue of the new "Superman" title, the relaunch of the flagship character not only of the company but of the industry, I have one question:

Why does it stink?

I could handle it being simply different from what I myself would have wanted (in fact, since DC has decided to change Superman's costume, I was resigned to it being different from what I myself would have wanted), but this isn't that. This is a bad comic book, in every detail. Not only are fans handed the mother of all insults the minute they open the thing (George Perez does the scripting and the ... breakdowns? His work is finished and inked by somebody else? So Perez had a more pressing commitment than Superman #1?), but nothing improves from there on out. There's a ridiculous "newsprint is dying" plot, there's an amorphous fireball-villain, there's Justin Bieber (calling himself Jimmy Olsen), and there's the new Superman in his new supervillain costume - he looks exactly like some alternate-universe evil-Superman John Byrne would design in about fifteen minutes after too many jagermeisters. This new Superman spends most of the issue pouting, and when he does try to pull off a fairly simple helicopter rescue, he fails - Superman fails, in the middle of his very first issue.

The whole issue fails. It's cluttered, murky (the whole thing is set at night, for Rao's sake), talky, and completely undramatic. Its Superman is a bragging, ineffectual prick, and it's Clark Kent is even worse - a sanctimonious, unlikeable loser who mopes because he isn't sleeping with Lois Lane (that's another huge twist in continuity - no more married Kents; instead, we're back to the days of Lois saying, "Hey, where was Clark the whole time?" - because those days never got repetitive or, you know, insulting). DC's most conspicuous character is its most conspicuous "new 52" failure - so I have to do without Superman in my diet until this whole idiot mess gets re-revamped a few years down the line.

The failure of "Superman" #1 is only further underscored by the stunning success of "Aquaman" #1, also released this week. The issue is written by fan favorite Geoff Johns and drawn sumptuously by Ivan Reis, and the whole thing is exactly what a relaunch first issue should be (nevermind that it's received way more attention than it deserves - Johns is unhealthily fascinated with this Golden Age gold-and-green version of Aquaman; he masterminded an entire company-wide mini-series solely in order to resurrect the character from the dead and make him iconic again, and now there's this series, the end result of a decade of obsession)(I'm not complaining, mind you - Aquaman's a neat character who's always deserved and almost never received first-class treatment - but I could wish all this energy were being expended on making Wonder Woman the character she should be): it's fast-paced, it introduces us to the main character (something "Superman" #1 is both arrogant enough and stupid enough to think it doesn't need to do), and it sets the first plot in motion. It's all addictively good.

There are changes here too, of course - but they're for the better: this version of Aquaman is physically more powerful than any previous version we've seen, and that's good - and something I've been advocating for years (including many times right here on Stevereads). This Aquaman is super-strong, super-resilient (Reis re-uses a panel sequence from that resurrection mini-series, showing our hero get shot in the head by machine-gun fire and suffer no more than a cut and some irritation), super-fast ... and Johns writes him with a curious mixture of innocence and vulnerability that certainly sets him apart from all the other strutting, posturing "New 52" heroes. This series will be a pleasure to follow, unlike virtually all of the other "New 52" attempts I've seen this month. The two "Legion" titles were merely acceptable; "Justice League" was a pandering mess; "Wonder Woman" suffered yet another complete overhaul; "Superboy" has been ret-conned out of all personality; "Teen Titans" became "X-Men," fully half the first issues felt like completely unsustainable fill-in stuff, and worst of all, my favorite DC character, Superman, has been transformed into a Mattel-costumed Doctor Manhattan rip-off nobody in their right mind would ever cheer as he flew past. Out of the whole misbegotten mess, only a few bright spots: the Batman-family of books fared remarkably well, Green Lantern & co came out without a scratch ... and we have a new Aquaman to follow with interest.

In the meantime, I think I'll post about good ol' Marvel Comics for a while now ...

 

Comics! New 52 - Week 3!

This was the first week I actually found myself enjoying "the New 52," DC Comics' month-long barrage of first issues designed to relaunch its entire line of comics and re-invent its 80-year-old continuity for the 21st century. And I can't be precisely sure of the reason why this week sat so much better with me than the previous two did, although I can hazard a few guesses.

Guess number one would be personal investment - as in 'lack of.' Virtually all the titles re-launching this week (with one enormous exception we'll get to shortly) star characters who've never really triggered that much interest for me - standard, sometimes iconic DC characters, yes, but still: nothing I really care about, and so nothing whose desecration would bother me all that much. There have always been such characters for me at DC - one-note superheroes like the Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, etc - and one of those characters has always been (and this amazes me too) Batman. Don't get me wrong: I love it when the character is done right and hate it when the character is done wrong - but neither the central guy nor any of his multitude of spin-off characters has ever really spoken to me on the particular carrier-hum accessible only to true fans. I realize this puts me in a tiny minority, since the entire breadth of the known universe considers Batman to be the coolest super-hero of them all. But there it is.

This week's re-launches feature a large swath of the Bat-line of comics - there's the first issue of "Batman" itself, the first issue of "Nightwing" (about Dick Grayson, Batman's first Robin, all grown up and fighting crime on his own), and the first issue of "Catwoman" (this week DC launched its three marquee-recognition female characters - Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and Catwoman, and good for them - marquee-recognition female characters are mighty rare in the comics world, and all three of these characters deserve their own titles). This is comforting: DC's out-of-control slapdash creators could do pretty much anything to these characters and I wouldn't have that lump in my throat of caring too much. Which brings me to:

Guess #2 why this week pleased me so much revolves around the aforementioned new continuity - probably one of the reasons I found this week so enjoyable was because it was also recognizable: as far as I can tell, DC has tinkered almost not at all with the general currents of Batman continuity from pre-52. Bruce Wayne is still Batman. Dick Grayson was still his first Robin, Tim Drake his second, and Damian his third and current. Batman still has an quasi-amorous danger-fascination with Catwoman. Dick Grayson still spent a year filling Batman's cape and cowl while Bruce Wayne was otherwise occupied. These three titles (and "Detective" and "Batman and Robin" before them) read like nothing so much as high-octane straight-up continuations of the storylines that were percolating all summer long in the Bat-books. And that 'high-octane' brings me to:

Guess #3: These as fantastic productions. Judd Winick writes "Catwoman" with a novelist's assurance, and Guillem March's artwork is unabashedly sensuous (the, er, climax of this first issue made me hope there was one specific item in Batman's utility belt that I've never before actually hoped was there). Kyle Higgins' main character in "Nightwing" is a perfect combination of boyish and battle-hardened, and Eddy Barrows' artwork (and great cover) is absorbing. And what to say about "Batman"? The superb writing is by Scott Snyder, and the incredible artwork is by Greg Capullo, here excelling even his customary high standards. The Bat-titles have always attracted top-notch talent, but these three issues stand out even by those measurements. I was hugely entertained, even while I was acknowledging that it didn't make a whole lot of difference - these titles, these characters, have just never moved me, no matter how well-done they are. As marvellous as these issues are, the real acid-test is always how you feel about that particular character or title that feels personal to you. Which brings me to:

Guess #4 why this week's "new 52" crop pleased me: this is the week "The Legion of Super-Heroes" debuts at #1, and I read it, and it was sigh-of-relief good. I ordinarily wouldn't have doubted that, since writer Paul Levitz is a Legion legend in his own right and can be counted upon to do everything right (and artist Francis Portela is no slouch himself - this is some fine pencilling on a pretty tough book to draw) - but how was I to know what kinds of pressures had been brought to bear on him by the DC Powers that Be? How was I to know he hadn't been ordered to create another Juvenile Delinquent Legion? (Legion fans will catch the reference to the team's darkest, dumbest hour, now hopefully comprising the only fragment of Legion history we've all agreed to forget)

Fortunately, such is not the case - like the Bat-titles, this issue makes several references to the summer's story-lines and shows a clear line of development from them - the footprint of the "new 52" reboot (hee - pun only belatedly discovered) is soft here, this is more or less the huge, noble, squabbling Legion I know and love, with classic Levitz moments of perfectly in-character barbs and reflections. This week, at least, I can breathe a huge sigh of relief: one of my favorite comics was left virtually unchanged by this company-wide revamp.

The relief can't last, however. "Superman" #1 comes out next week.

Comics! History in the Making!

I wasn't blogging back in the late 1930s when the first "Action Comics #1" made its appearance, so reacting to DC Comics' publication this week of its 'New 52' first issue of what was once its flagship title is all terra incognita to me. That original 1938 issue introduced to an unsuspecting world the character of Superman, a thickset white guy who wore a bright red cape and had superhuman strength and durability. Those original pages, written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Joe Shuster, contained no real hint of the phenomenon that the character would become - in the beginning, the god of comic books was just a really strong guy with a smart mouth: he fought mobsters, intervened in domestic disputes, dismantled minor mob violence ... exactly the kinds of things later held up as examples of stuff Superman doesn't bother with. As difficult as it might be for later generations of fans to believe, the original Superman was a brusque vigilante who took the law into his own hands and wasn't particularly liked for it by the local police. He was Batman, only bullet-proof.

As some of you have been reading here, DC Comics has decided to re-invent all of their core characters for the 21st century, most certainly including venerable old "Action Comics," which begins this week with, would you look at that, #1. "Action Comics #1."

It's written by fan-favorite Grant Morrison and drawn by fan-favorite Rags Morales, and the first thing long-time Superman fans will notice is the homage these creators pay to that original Seigel/Shuster production. When we meet this new Superman for the first time, he's violently breaking up a meeting of corrupt financiers, and he's being hunted by the Metropolis police (and we're told he threw an abusive husband out a window). And the resemblance to that original 1930s conception don't end there: this Superman doesn't work for the Daily Planet yet, hasn't met Lois Lane yet, and most importantly, doesn't have Superman-style powers yet - he can't fly, he's hurt by artillery fire, and he's only a tiny bit more powerful than a locomotive. We're given to believe he's only been in the public eye for six months (and, tellingly, that he's been getting more and more powerful that whole time), and he's already hated by the Army and a snivelling, conniving Lex Luthor (who's given an anti-alien riff that could become a promising nexus of motivation for the character, if Morrison bothers to do anything with it - of all comic book super-villains, Luthor has always had the worst reasons for actually being a super-villain, so virtually anything would be an improvement).

Despite Morales' always-enjoyable artwork, it's a pretty boring first issue, and it neatly serves to underscore a point fans don't often make these days: that original 1938 first issue of "Action Comics" was also pretty boring. This is re-invention as groundwork: this issue doesn't have the "Five Years Ago" opening tag that last week's "Justice League" did, but it badly needs one. This is obviously Morrison's vision of this new Superman's rough introduction to the world, who knows how many years before he becomes the suited and respected hero already starting to crop up elsewhere in the "new 52" universe.

In fact, that inconsistent sloppiness is my main complaint about all of the "new 52" I've seen so far. DC released a dozen first issues this week (after releasing just one last week), and despite the fact that DC moguls have been assuring fans for months that this whole re-boot was carefully and exhaustively planned, the entire thing feels hastily cobbled together. In four of those dozen issues this week, both Superman and the Justice League are referred to as established, respected things (Batman and Guy Gardner chat like old colleagues, and the Martian Manhunter is described as a Justice League member and describes himself that way), in a separate four, no mention is made of any existing superheroes at all, and in the remainder all our iconic DC heroes are just beginning to appear and learn about each other.



So is "Action Comics" going to spend its first story-arc depicting the years-ago public debut of Superman and then abruptly shift years forward to start giving us 'contemporary' adventures? In four issues when Morrison leaves this title, will subsequent writers be allowed to delve back into this early period for more stories (or even re-do Morrison's incredible dramatic blunder and actually show us something of those initial six months)? No idea.

In this issue, Superman wears boots, jeans, and a home-made red cape - all very obviously ideas that struck Morrison on his way to the bathroom one day and stayed in the final version because there only ever was one version. I myself think a re-launch of the greatest superhero of all time deserves a bit more deliberation than that, but I'm willing to wait a few more issues in the hopes that something worthy of the character starts happening. I'll keep you posted.