Comics! Superboy's Legion!

Given my strong disappointment with most of DC Comics' "New 52" re-launch, I'm mighty happy the company seems intent on continuing their "DC Comics Presents" line of reprints. As I've mentioned before here, these reprints take little issue-runs or noteworthy special issues from DC's recent past and reprints them in square-bound 'mini-graphic novels' for $8 (as opposed to the glossier, thicker actual paperback graphic novels that cost twice or three times as much). It's a nifty and inexpensive way to re-visit some great stuff from the last two decades, and in many cases it's giving a new format - and new exposure - to stuff that very much deserves it. I was worried DC would discontinue these things for the obvious reason: they highlight a continuity the company has very publicly abandoned. There's something vaguely fascistic about the "New 52" (the military-style costume redesigns don't help), and these "DC Comics Presents" reprints certainly don't play ball - but happily, they appear to have been spared the axe. So those of us who don't particularly like 99 % of the new continuity (I'm allowing for the possibility that some of these new titles might grow on me - both the new "Legion of Super-Heroes" and "Legion Lost" aren't actively bad, after all, and although "Justice League" might just be the worst treatment of the team since the Age of Vibe, "Batman" is already phenomenal) might still have these lovingly-chosen reprints to remind us of the enormous heritage DC has abandoned for some quick cash.

A perfect case-in-point would be this week's reprint of the Paul Farmer/Alan Davis "Elseworlds" two-parter from 2001, "Superboy's Legion" - and it's an ironic choice, since "Elseworlds" was an imprint DC designed specifically for 'what if' type re-thinkings of their core characters. If the "new 52" titles were being marketed as "Elseworld" concepts, I'd have no problem with them at all - in "Elseworld" stories, the whole fun of the enterprise comes from the fact that no damage is being done to the standard continuity I've known and loved.

Farmer and Davis are old hands at this sort of 'what if' story, and hoo boy, there's scarcely any Legion detail they don't tinker with in the course of this story (the editors of this edition have done exactly the right thing: they've gone back to those original two issues and seamlessly melded them into one continuous book - this is the enormous, continuous adventure that original two-parter was meant to be)! Here, little baby Kal-El of Krypton gets discovered in his gestation-chamber not in the 20th century but in the 30th - by R. J. Brande, the richest man in the galaxy, who raises the boy as his own son. By the time Superboy reaches his early teens, he's an impetuous, happy-go-lucky kid with the power of a demigod (Farmer unapologetically harks back to pre-Crisis levels of power for the character - one of many retro touches that will tug at the heartstrings of long-time DC fans). His adoptive father doesn't quite know what to do with him, and Earth's Science Police are convinced he's a juvenile super-delinquent.

This Superboy yearns to form a team of teens as special as he is, a team featuring ample nods to the classic Curt Swan era of the Legion but with the numerous tweaks Farmer seems to love (Lightning Lad and Light Lass being effete aristocrats, for instance, or Brainiac 5 being from the 'near-mythical' race of Coluans). Davis' artwork is vivid and kinetic (he's responsible for the second-best Legion cover of all time, after all), and because this whole thing was an "Elseworlds" title, he was able to draw things the DC brass would never allow in normal continuity. One of the many guilty pleasures of "Elseworlds" stories was writers indulging in the freedom to kill, cross-breed, or maim any of the main characters without fear of fan uproar. As a result, when this story features the team's first confrontation with the Fatal Five, Farmer is able to generate not only extra tension but an actual body-count.

The whole story works to give readers an imaginary reworking of one of DC's most obsessively beloved (and oft-reworked) creations - a graphic novel that offers a fun, thought-provoking revamp of a classic, a revamp no more yielding but a dream. No company fortunes are hanging on the proceedings, and we're all better off because of it.

Comics! A Grand Old Time!

As the new year begins, the dust settles in the company continuities of both Marvel and DC, and the editors of their super-hero comics evidently decide (or were ordered by their masters, now newly sensitized to the lure of Hollywood money?) to put away the dark backdrops of the past few years and embrace a somewhat simpler, somewhat brighter outlook.

Of course this will appeal to me, although I'm the first to admit some good stories came out of all that darkness. At DC, there were several back-to-back 'dark' events - most recently the "Darkest Night" mini-series that started with lots of superheroes getting violently killed but ended with lots of superheroes getting brought back to life. And at Marvel, the storyline in which villainous Norman Osborn gained political ascendancy in America and drove all the heroes into hiding (or into maximum security prison cells) led to some fantastic comics; I griped about it at the time, but the fact is, having evil win a big round led to a lot of great stories and great moments - and of course the ultimate pay-off, the story in which Osborn finally gets his comeuppance.

Both those story-arcs are over now (well, "Blackest Night" continues to limp forward as "Brightest Day," but although it's better than it seems, its ultimate worth remains to be seen - right now, its main purpose seems to be to re-introduce DC readers to the 'classic' Aquaman and invent a supporting cast of friends and enemies for him, perhaps as prelude to giving him a comic of his own again), and both companies are free to return to straight-up superhero stories, which is fine by me. A major beneficiary at Marvel is Spider-Man, whose comic is at a high point it hasn't reached in years.

But like I said, I'm also a beneficiary! For instance, I'm back in time 50 years, back to getting Adventure Comics and Superboy every month. True, things have changed - the Legion of Super-Heroes I'm reading in Adventure Comics is now a group of adults, not perky teens, but writer Paul Levitz and artist Geraldo Borges are making it all great anyway (and DC's got another Legion title for stories from the group's youth, so I really can't complain); and the Superboy I'm reading about isn't Clark Kent when he was a teenager, it's Connor Kent, a dreamy hunk-clone of Superman (with a little of Lex Luthor spliced in - yes, this Superboy has two daddies) - but I confess, despite the weird artwork (everybody has such eeensy-weeensy facial features)(but alas, Humberto Ramos can't draw everything), this title is growing on me.

And DC is at least partially acknowledging their bright new day with a series of  covers designed to highlight the iconic nature of their characters, which is neat. Superboy's cover features him flying straight at the reader, followed by his faithful companion Krypto the super-dog, and the cover of Adventure features the Legion logo (which bears a very encouraging resemblance to the logo of a certain literary magazine...) and five grim, anorexic stick-figures who, I guess, are supposed to represent several of the sexy women of the Legion. I mostly concentrated on that wonderful logo.

Over at Marvel, there's considerably more darkness to overcome. It's not just the year-long power-grab of Norman Osborn - that power-grab was only made possible by the events of Marvel's 'Civil War,' in which Tony Stark/Iron Man spearheaded a government initiative to register every super-hero, pay them a government wage, and dictate what they do with their super-powers. Captain America died at the climax of that story, which is about as dark as dark gets, and eventually Osborn chased Tony Stark from power and took over himself - so once the 'big three' of Marvel's super-team the Avengers, Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man - were reunited, you'd expect lots of hard feelings all around.

Writer Brian Michael Bendis obviously decided the big three needed a private adventure in which they could heal their fractured relationship, and in the five-part mini-series "Avengers Prime" he cooked up a doozy, an epic story in which our heroes are suddenly transported to the mystic realm formerly occupied by Asgard, a mystic realm now in chaos and being taken over by Hela, the goddess of death. Our heroes are separated, and much sound and fury ensues, and eventually they come together and face off against the forces of Hela - artist Alan Davis has never done better work than in this series, and in this final issue he presents us with a truly wonderful two-page spread of what death's army might look like if it were run through a Wagner-filter:



I admit, I pay much more attention to visuals than to writing in comics, but even so, this issue also has a perfect little moment of character-work. It comes at the end, when an abashed Tony Stark is trying to apologize to Captain America for everything - the superhero registration business, the 'Civil War,' all of it: "All of those things ... all the things I said, and did ...I'm ... I'm so, so sorry. I know that's not enough, but I hope you will allow me the chance to earn your friendship  back. I don't deserve it ... I just hope you let me. I'm not half as good at ... at anything as I am when I'm doing it next to you." It's trite, but somehow it works - a line that effectively summarizes Bendis' entire writing career.

And if the events of the "Civil War" cast a dark shadow on the future of Marvel Comics, that's nothing compared to the events that sprang from the mini-series "House of M" (which I praised here despite the objections of Kevin the Noted Comic Book Snob!), in which the tormented hero Scarlet Witch used her reality-altering powers to wipe out nine-tenths of all the mutants in the Marvel Universe. In her agony to make everything simpler, she speaks three fateful words, "No more mutants" - and suddenly the Marvel continuity contains just a handful of mutants struggling to survive as a species. That was years ago, and again, many very good stories have come out of that premise - but there was always going to come some kind of reckoning, and it's looking like Marvel's fantastic mini-series "Children's Crusade" will be that reckoning.

The series is written with acute sensitivity by Allan Heinberg and drawn with eye-popping virtuosity by the great Jim Cheung (in a perfect Steve-world, he would be drawing the teenaged-Legion every month, but I'll take what I can get), and it tells the story of what would happen if two young heroes named Wiccan and Speed - a shy (and gay) sorcerer and a brash young super-speedster - became convinced that a) somehow the Scarlet Witch was their mother, and b) that she was alive somewhere and they should find her. This naturally aligns forces against them - mainly the Avengers, who don't want these kids to blunder into a cataclysm - and forces in their favor, mainly their fellow teen allies on the Young Avengers, but also joined by Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch's brother, and Magneto, the father of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Their search eventually takes them to Latveria and a confrontation with none other than Doctor Doom - a confrontation that prompts Cheung to give us a wonderful double-page spread of his own:



In this issue, part 4 of a 9-part story, this series finally comes into its own as the premiere slam-bang event of the entire Marvel line in 2011. The Scarlet Witch has no memory of the terrible things she did in her previous life - she believes she's simple Latverian gypsy girl Wanda Maximoff, and Heinberg has added the perfect Stan Lee-style twist: Doctor Doom, the monarch of Latveria, has fallen in love with her ("Given my history," he wryly tells Wiccan, "even I find it difficult to believe"). He thinks its sheer lunacy for Wiccan to want to revive her memories - and with them her devastating powers - but the decision might be taken out of his hands anyway, since shortly after Wiccan shows up to 'rescue' his 'mother,' both the Young Avengers (with Quicksilver and Magneto) show up and the Avengers, who are determined to prevent another 'House of M' style catastrophe.

This issue is full of great moments, but for my money, the best of them is the confrontation between Wolverine (who is, for reasons known only to the Marvel Accounting Department, now an Avenger) and poor befuddled Wanda. Wolverine has always had only one simple solution in mind for the whole problem of what the Scarlet Witch did to her fellow mutants: kill her before she can do anything worse - and in the longshot hope that her death will restore the reality she changed - and for one more reason: out of simple revenge for a nearly-successful genocide. Wiccan can't understand such a mentality:

"What is wrong with you? You're supposed to be one of the good guys."

"So was she. Until she slaughtered her friends and wiped out an entire species with three little words ... 'no more mutants,' right Wanda? Well, you got your wish, sweetheart. Thanks to you, there's only a few of us left. And now, thanks to me, there's about to be one less."

Needless to say, he's stopped from killing her, and the issue provides a cliffhanger ending, and the story keeps barreling along. I know I shouldn't be allowing myself to enjoy it as much as I am - probably issue #9 will take a year to ship - but I can't help it! If this series continues as it's going, it'll be the best thing Marvel's done in years. I'll keep you posted.

Comics! Superman #700!

Well, I could hardly let this one go, could I?

This week in comics, Superman turns a whopping 700, numbered with pretty much nebulous continuity since the title premiered around A.D. 645, and DC Comics gave the occasion an oddly appealing low-key commemoration.

It’s odd: Batman turned 700 last week with an issue that couldn’t have been more generic and scatterbrained if it wanted to – an incredible milestone (what American comics ever reach 700, for the love of Mike?) treated almost entirely negligently. In Batman’s case, the cause was easy enough to see: missed deadlines and work delays (read: pampered, spoiled writers and artists) made it impossible for Bruce Wayne to show up for his own mega-anniversary: he’s still trapped back in time, struggling to endure his way back to the cape and cowl in the 21st century. The perfect culmination of that story line would have been for it to move right into issue 700, starting things fresh for the post-700 future. But instead, Bruce Wayne won’t return to his own comic until probably issue 704 or 705 – an odd anticlimax, that.

The same thing very nearly happens in Superman 700 – the whole thing feels like a string of epilogues, because that’s exactly what it is. In the recent big Superman story line, the lost Kryptonian city of Kandor was found and restored to health and well-being – along with its thousands and thousands of Kryptonian inhabitants, who all instantly gained Superman-level powers. Kandor and all its Supermen-in-waiting was one of the dumbest ideas legendary Superman editor Mort Weisinger ever had; it pretty much totally undercuts the point, drama, and interest of Superman himself. When the Superman mythos underwent its drastic pruning back in the 1980s, I was glad to see the whole idea get quietly dropped (the loss of Superboy, a dreamy Midwestern team flying around in skintight lycra? Not so much. The loss of Krypto, the Super-Dog? Let’s not even talk about it)(fortunately, as you can see on this issue’s cover, Krypto is back)(and as you can tell from this recent cover of Adventure Comics, Superboy is back in the continuity of Superman’s past … and, shall we say, dramatically improved). I don’t know what possessed the current DC editorial board to resurrect it.

But they did, and suddenly the DC universe was flooded with superpowered Kryptonians, not all of whom were as altruistic as Superman. Tensions arose, naturally, since Earth would be pretty much defenseless against even a small fraction of such a population turned bad (and the current DC lineup of super-heroes features exactly six characters who can go toe-to-toe with even one such rogue Kryptonian, let alone hundreds of them). A new planet was found on which the Kandorians could settle, and Superman decided to go with them and help them do that – with the result that Superman himself has been missing from his regular comic titles. Superman 700 marks his big return.

So I guess I was expecting more high drama. Instead, Superman saves Lois Lane from the Parasite and the Prankster (although note to this issue’s many writers: Superman punching the Parasite, even in a triumphant 700th issue, should only make the villain stronger … the whole ‘absorbs superpowers’ thing, remember? Hence the guy’s name?), takes her home and pretty much immediately beds her, then complains for the rest of the issue about how hard the conflicts were that he had with his fellow Kryptonians. The issue featured a very pretty full-page panel of Superman hovering over Metropolis with Lois Lane in his arms, a very nice Ulysses-home-at-last feel to it. But there was no sense of introduction, no attempt to plant the character squarely center stage, and certainly no feeling of optimism for the next 700 issues. Don’t let the issue’s cover fool you: Superman spends most of the issue moping (and what’s with that cover, anyway? Why does artist Gary Frank have the two of them doing the Mashed Potato? Or is it the Shurg?).



I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the upcoming third mega-milestone in DC’s summer, Wonder Woman 600. Hope she doesn’t cry in her Amazon beer the whole issue.

Comics! Adventure Comics #1!

Well naturally, I read DC Comics' new relaunch of Adventure Comics - how could I not? After all, Adventure Comics and I go back a long way, and the two DC creations here - Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes - well, I go back a long way with them too.

Once again, Superboy is the star of Adventure Comics - only it isn't young super-powered Clark Kent, sole survivor of the planet Krypton ... it's a vat-grown clone created in a lab using DNA from both Superman and Lex Luthor, a clone now called Conner Kent, since he's been quasi-adopted by saintly Ma Kent in Smallville, Clark Kent's rural hometown. This character already has a long and eventful history in DC Comics (had Stevereads existed back when he had his first series, with fantastic artwork by Tom Grummett, I'd have praised it then), including dying in some mega-crisis or other.

He's back now, and this first issue has the languid pacing and extensive backgrounding that's actually a canny way to kick off a series obviously meant to re-introduce the character to readers. In this issue, he respects Ma Kent, plays with Krypto the super-dog, has a long heart-to-heart with Superman, and secretly agonizes over the fact that one of his two daddies is the most evil man in the world. Geoff Johns does a good job drawing readers into what feels like a longer, more careful story than the usual first issue these days, and the coloring job Brian Buccellato does over Francis Manapul's oddly stiff artwork is nothing less than breathtaking.


And it was tough for me to notice those things, because the issue's back-up feature, "Long Live the Legion" (also by Johns, with artwork by Clayton Henry), is why I paid attention in the first place. Here were all the marbles in one inertron basket: the dust had settled from the Legion of Three Worlds, a couple of weeks had passed, and all I wanted was the answer to one question: is the Legion, the real Legion, back at last?

It is indeed. Right there on page 23, I get literally everything I've wanted from Legion creators for what? About six or seven years now? I'll quote:

It all began when Jor-el and Lara sent their only son to Earth to escape the destruction of the planet Krypton. Kal-el became the first documented alien immigrant to Earth [picture here of Clark Kent flying, where his Superboy costume]. A thousand years later, Kal-el's legend paved the way for extraterrestrials from across the universe to venture to Earth. That included three teenagers who saved the life of the 31st century's greatest entrepreneur, R. J. Brande, from a mysterious assassin. Inspired by their unity, Brande funded the Legion of Super-Heroes - an organization made up of representatives from across the universe. Eventually, the three founding Legionaires even traveled back in time and recruited their inspiration, Kal-el, a.ka. Superboy. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So there it is, and thank you, DC Comics. Just leave it like that and tell stories, and I'll stay happy.

Well, almost. This issue contained an embarrassing little mistake in the two-page spread of the adult Legion. The spread was meant to be impressive (although Henry hasn't yet fully crafted his own sense of what the Legionaires look like ... I trust that'll come with time), but no geekoid Legion fan is going to notice that, since right there on the left hand side, the identifying boxes for Shadow Lass and Night Night Girl have been transposed (these things are moved around the finished art by computer? Are such things possible?). The blue-skinned young lady in the black bikini is actually Shadow Lass, Tasmia Mallor, the planetary champion of Talok VIII, who can generate vast fields of impenetrable darkness. The beehive-haired young woman in the black leotards is actually Night Girl of Kathoon, whose father - in the time-honored tradition of comics - experimented on her to give her super-powers. Just to head off the geeks who'll no doubt be talking of little else for the next week.


I liked this relaunch of Adventure Comics, despite my slightly wistful tone here. The format itself - a comic split between a main story and a Legion back-up story - has never worked, not once in the entire long history of its use at DC or Marvel; one of the two features always, always ends up being the readers' clamored-for favorite and taking over the title. I'm betting the winner here will be Superboy, and that the Legion will have to do more wandering in the desert of book-less creations before getting a nice new #1 of its own.

I'm just hoping when that nice new #1 comes, it won't contain a retooled origin story! Let's just make that sweet, perfect template on page 23 THE origin of the Legion, shall we?

The Last Days of Krypton

Our book today is The Last Days of Krypton by prolific science fiction hack Kevin Anderson, and of course it's not referring to the periodic table. No, this is the planet Krypton, the homeworld of little Kal-el, better known to the movie-going public as Superman. In the character's hum-dinger of an origin story (created by Joel Shuster and Jerry Siegel, but really given flesh and bone by long-time DC Comics editor Julie Schwartz), the planet Krypton is doomed, and only visionary scientist Jor-el sees the end coming. His valiant wife Lara believes him, but virtually nobody else does, certainly not Krypton's ruling council, who scoff at Jor-el's repeated pleas that they build a fleet of space-arks to ferry the planet's populace to safety. It seems Krypton frowns upon the very idea of space travel, so if Jor-el wants to save his family, he must construct a private space ship on his own time.

Everybody is familiar with the rest of the story: the planet explodes, and that one-person spaceship takes the tiny baby Kal-el, like Moses in the bullrushes, through the wilds of space to the planet Earth - Kansas specifically, where the baby comes to be adopted by Ma and Pa Kent and raised in the bosom of the wholesome American Midwest until he's ready to put on bright pajamas and fight crime as Superman (nowadays, anyway - before DC simplified the story back in the 1980s, Kal-el first fought crime as Super-baby, then as a dreamy Superboy).

Ma and Pa Kent, Superboy and his super-dog Krypto (who was not a basset hound, otherwise he'd have been called Farto) and youthful crime-busting are all outside of Anderson's scope for this book. Here, he's dealing just with Krypton in its final days, and thanks to the ever-expanding Superman mythos of the 1950s and '60s, he's got a lot of stuff to cover. The alien mastermind Brainiac comes to Krypton and abducts the entire city of Kandor, for instance, shrinking it and all its populace and putting them in a bottle for sadistic display. Jor-el's brother Zor-el (father of Supergirl), taking precautions just in case his brother is right, takes steps to encase his own Argo City in a protective shield. And what would such a story be without a villain? In this case it's the military madman General Zod.

Zod (so immortally captured by Terence Stamp in Superman II) seems to get Anderson's creative juices flowing; he's one of the only characters whose depiction page to page is actually interesting (Lara also has her moments). Jor-el is pretty much a pious scientific cipher throughout, although Anderson does have him watch some pretty scenery:

Even though he viewed the world in terms of mathematics and science, the raw beauty of Kandor took Jor-el's breath away. With its temples to Rao, the shining pyramids, and the great Council ziggurat, Krypton's capital city was the pinnacle of civilization. Some exotic buildings had been grown from active crystals; other edifices were hewn from lustrous white veinrock or speckled granite polished to a sheen that reflected the red sunlight.

The rest of the book is much of a piece with that excerpt: it's competently if never beautifully written, and it entirely lacks the verve that so wonderfully filled Elliott Maggin's Superman, the Last Son of Krypton (to say nothing of all the great Superman-writing that's happened in his various comic books in the last ten years). It's better than most comic-book novels (we'll try not to think of the various X-Men novels that have been perpetrated in the last ten years), but of course that's not saying much.

Comics fans will find all the bases covered here. Anderson has read up on all the various Krypton-stories DC has published ever since the Superman mythos was streamlined. And with the aid of all those previous writers, he manages to tell a fairly interesting story - of General Zod vying to take over the entire planet and various resistance-fighters trying to stop him, all of them (except Jor-el, of course) ignorant of the much greater crisis building all around them. When Zod is defeated, Anderson does a good job of showing the relief the planet's populace feel, thinking the worst is behind them.

And while that relief is spreading, a drama familiar to comics readers and movie-goers is playing out at the home estate of Jor-el, where he and Lara are saying good-bye to their little baby:

"It's time," he said to Lara, who clung protectively to their baby. "We can't wait any longer." Tears ran down her face, and Jor-el realized that he was weeping, too.

Lara wrapped their son tenderly in the blankets of their great house, the finest blue and red fabric emblazoned with the prominent symbol of Jor-el's family. "Kal-el, you have to go, or you'll die with us." She trembled, then straightened. This was their only hope.

Lara gave her infant son a final kiss, brushing her lips against the delicate skin of his forehead. Her voice hitched as she said, "I wish you well on your new planet, Kal-el. I hope you find your way among the people of Earth. I hope you manage to be happy."

The final line of Anderson's story of Jor-el and Lara (though not the final line of his book - he follows the little rocketing baby tantalizingly close to Earth) is simple and almost elegant: "They closed their eyes, and the world ended around them."

Anderson's projected next book is a version of the first meeting between Batman and Superman, and at this point in its genesis, it seems to be set in the 1950s, in what will, as far as DC is concerned, be an "imaginary story" - i.e. not part of their official continuity. If that ends up being true, it's possible Anderson's creative impulses (which are on display throughout The Last Days of Krypton) will have more freedom. DC might well have been monitoring him closely during the crafting of this present book, making sure he didn't deviate more than a fraction from received doctrine. At least, that's the story we'll go with.