I’m going to drop a spoiler for the current Avengers: Armageddon miniseries, as well as the upcoming Avengers comic book reboot by Chip Zdarsky, so if you’re behind on those and you don’t want to know that Pepper Potts is the new Spider-Man, you may want to skip this week’s column.
She’s the big red guy.
Just kidding about the Pepper Potts thing, but I’m not kidding about dropping a spoiler. Zdarsky’s miniseries has been building to his Avengers relaunch for a few months now, with a very different team being assembled in a world where the landscape has changed drastically. It seems as though the world is turning against the Avengers, and the reaction is an Avengers roster that is low on what we would think of as “Classic” Avengers. The team, as revealed in weeks past, will include Captain Marvel, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Daredevil. Not a one of the Avengers “Trinity” of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor is lining up. It also doesn’t include any of the characters we think of as being “traditional” Avengers, such as the Vision, the Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, or Hawkeye. The most stable of the new lineup is Captain Marvel, who has had an almost-constant presence on the team for the better part of the last two decades. And each of these characters has been an Avenger at least once before (if only briefly), but if you showed me this roster without benefit of telling me what it was I probably would have guessed a new iteration of the Defenders before the Avengers.
Or maybe, like Power Pack.
Some people are angry about this lineup, because EVERY announcement on the internet makes SOMEBODY angry. I could post that I found a dollar bill in the pocket of a jacket I haven’t worn since last year and I’d get twelve people pissed off about it. And to be fair, there are some legitimate concerns to be had here. I’ve never been one to be upset about new characters joining the Avengers. That’s been a constant on the team ever since Captain America joined about 800 issues ago. But to me, it never quite feels like the Avengers at all unless it has at least SOME of the mainstays, and I guess I’m old-fashioned enough that Captain Marvel doesn’t 100 percent satisfy that requirement by herself.
The other thing that bothers some people is that many of these characters are reflective of the somewhat divisive “New Avengers” era by Brian Michael Bendis that began in 2005. This is a concern I can sympathize with. I am not a fan of Bendis’s work in general, and if I thought this book was just going to be a rehash of that, I wouldn’t be interested. But having Chip Zdarsky on the book makes me feel more comfortable – I am a fan of his work, with solid runs on comics like Daredevil, Batman, and Captain America under his belt, to say nothing of his own creator-owned work like the fantastic Image comic Public Domain. So if nothing else, he’s earned a story arc out of me before I decide if I’ll keep reading the book.
However, in the run-up to this, Marvel has played it coy about a secret final member of the team. There would be a member, they promised, who has never been an Avenger before. At this point, the number of heroes in the Marvel Universe who have NOT been a member of SOME Avengers team is pretty slim: it was pretty much down to Leapfrog, US-1, or Aunt May. But this week (and here’s the real spoiler, kiddies) the news dropped that the new member is somebody who has never BEEN in the Marvel Universe before: Miracleman.
‘Sup?
People complain sometimes about comic book characters having confusing or convoluted histories. But let me tell you, friends, there ain’t an X-Man on the planet with a backstory as twisted and bizarre as the REAL story behind Miracleman, and it’s kinda DC Comics’ fault.
Back in the 1940s, Captain Marvel was one of the biggest names in comics. No, not that Captain Marvel, the other one. The guy published by Fawcett Comics who wore a red suit and these days is often called “Shazam.” But DC Comics sued Fawcett, claiming that Captain Marvel was too similar to their Superman. The court case dragged on for years until Fawcett eventually gave up the ship and quit publishing the Marvel Family comics – once superhero comics in general had declined in popularity, it should be noted. But this caused a problem for L. Miller & Son, the British publisher who reprinted the Fawcett Comics in the UK. With a hole in their publishing schedule, they hired cartoonist Mick Angelo to come up with a replacement. Angelo’s solution was “Marvelman,” a character who was…well, he was pretty much Captain Marvel. He was a kid who had a magic word that gave him super powers, teamed up with young friends who had the same powers, his arch-nemesis was a mad scientist…it was blatant. Angelo changed the costume, the magic word, and made Marvelman’s origin based on science (comic book science, at least) rather than sorcery, but other than that, it was pretty much Captain Marvel.
Look, kids! A familiar but legally-distinct intellectual property!
Marvelman lasted for about a decade and then faded away. Then in the 80s, Alan Moore came along and resurrected the character, making him a darker commentary on superhero comics in general. Most of the similarities to the old Captain Marvel evaporated, and the book was a hit. It was a precursor to the deconstruction of superheroes that Moore would become known for in books like Watchmen a few years later. Once he left the series, Neil Gaiman took over, but the book ended before Gaiman’s story could be finished. Before that happened, though, the series was popular enough to be transplanted to the United States by Eclipse Comics, who changed the name to Miracleman to avoid issues with Marvel Comics.
Here’s where it gets really complicated: there was a major legal dispute over who actually owned the rights to the character, with Gaiman, Eclipse Comics, and Mick Angelo all claiming pieces of (or in the case of Angelo, all of) it. Eventually, the courts decided that Angelo’s original copyright was still valid. Marvel Comics, whose editor-in-chief Joe Quesada had supported Gaiman in the dispute, stepped in and waved a lot of money at Angelo to acquire the character. They began reprinting the older comics, including the Moore and Gaiman runs, and had Gaiman continue the story he was never allowed to finish. The book was derailed again, though, when allegations of impropriety against Gaiman flared up a couple of years ago and, once again, the saga of Miracleman was left incomplete.
Now, though, it seems as if Miracleman’s future will not reside in his own story, but as part of the larger Marvel Universe. I haven’t read the new issue of Armageddon yet, so I don’t know if this is actually the Moore/Gaiman version of the character who has hopped over to the Marvel Universe or if it’s a multiversal variant showing up for the first time, but it doesn’t necessarily matter. A good writer can make either version work. The real question is whether anybody is going to CARE.
Bringing back older, obscure characters can be a tough sell. Any success Miracleman has had since coming to Marvel is largely because of older readers who wanted to finally get an ending to the saga that started back in the 1980s (and which it seems now will never actually end). Is taking that character, ANY version of him, and making him an Avenger going to win him any new fans? I’m not questioning Zdarsky’s story or his skill as a writer, I’m just saying I don’t know if it’ll be enough.
Comics, especially in the last couple of decades, are littered with the four-color corpses of older characters whose revivals fell flat. Marvel themselves have tried twice to bring back characters from the defunct CrossGen Comics (now owned by their corporate parent, Disney), but they failed to catch fire. Ever since the demise of the original Valiant Comics, those characters have been brought back time and again, only to fade back into obscurity with each attempt. Alien Books currently has the license to Zorro, a character who has changed hands among at least half a dozen publishers over the years, and they’re doing two series. One is a traditional series set in the old Spanish-occupied California. The other is a modern take, where a descendant of the original Zorro takes up the mantle in 2026. Both of them are really well done, but I don’t know if anybody on the PLANET is reading either of them except for me.
That’s not to say it’s IMPOSSIBLE for an older character to have a renaissance. The current Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers, is a perfect example of that. She’d fallen off the face of the Earth before Bendis brought her back for his Avengers (credit where credit is due) and now she’s one of the more recognizable characters in mainstream comics. Can Zdarsky pull off the same trick in bringing back Miracleman? I hope so. I like Zdarsky’s work and I like it when older characters come back. I would be happy to see this succeed, and I’d like to see the door open to other worthy characters that are sitting quietly on a shelf somewhere (coughULTRAVERSEcough).
But will it actually work?
A more cynical person would say it’d take a miracle.
But I’m saying it too, just because I like Dad jokes.
In this day and age, if you collect anything related to pop culture, it’s almost inevitable that you’re going to wind up with some Funko Pops in your collection. Some people like to be derisive about them, others call them “Millennial Beanie Babies,” but the simple truth is that if it’s not something that hurts anybody, then whining about it says more about the person doing the whining than anything else. What I like about Funko is the fact that they cover such an incredibly diverse array of properties and characters all in the same line. When I was a kid, I was the sort who liked to mix and mash his action figures and make my own crossovers, and it always kinda bugged me that so many of them were in such vastly different scales from one another. Sure, G.I. Joe could interact with the Star Wars characters easily enough, but having them meet He-Man made it seem like the “Power of Grayskull” was nothing more than a massive overdose of steroids. Super Friends was a little better, although it always bugged me that Robin was taller than Snake-Eyes. And working in the Thundercats? The stuff of nightmares.
With Funko, though, any character from any universe is in the same scale as any other, and I admit, that’s what made me a fan. In recent years I’ve pulled back on collecting them just because of the sheer volume, but I still try to get my hands on any Superman or Superman-related characters I can find. It’s going to take a few posts to get through them all, so I’m going to start today with some of the more standard Superman figures in my collection.These are just the Funko Pops I’ve got of your basic Superman. You wouldn’t think one would need too many of those. You would be wrong.
On this first row, we’re going to start with a sort of archetypical Superman. This was one of the first Superman Funkos ever produced, and I actually wound up with several of these in my possession when the TV show Krypton debuted. Prior to the beginning of the show there was a week-long trivia competition similar to the defunct HQ Trivia app with a cash prize each night and several runner-up prizes. I never won the top prize, but I got runner up multiple times, and each time I got the same package including a World of Krypton graphic novel, t-shirt that didn’t fit me, charging bank that looked like a Kryptonian crystal, and one of these Funko pops. I gave a couple to friends, one is in Eddie’s toys, and I kept one at home and one at work. Anyway, next to him is a figure labelled “Classic” Superman in our favorite “hands on hips” pose, and to the right is a “First Appearance” Superman, based on how the character was designed in Action Comics #1.
Speaking of Action Comics #1, that was also the subject of this Funko Pop Comic Cover figure. The s-shield is slightly different, as aficionados would be quick to point out. While I’m on the subject of oversized figures, there’s also this Clark Kent popping out of a phone booth, and the jumbo 12-inch Funko next to him. I believe there’s a variant of the jumbo figure with red eyes, like he’s using his heat vision, but I don’t have that one.
Here we have figures based on specific comics or scenes, starting with another Clark Kent in mid-transformation. That “Superman Pose” with the shirt being pulled open to reveal the S-shield is a classic for a reason. Next to him is a Superman based on Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. You can tell by the grimace. It’s not my favorite depiction of Superman, to be honest, but I do love having him on the shelf. I’m more enamored of the next one, Superman bursting chains in a tribute to the classic Neal Adams cover to Superman #233.
Some more story-specific figures here. We’ve got a Superman based on Mark Waid and Alex Ross’s Kingdom Come, which of course is one of the greatest Superman stories of all time. Next to him is the bearded, black suit Superman from the 2015 Lois and Clark miniseries by Dan Jurgens and Lee Weeks. I love this design, possibly because it’s just from such a great story, but I also think that the black suit and beard combo work well. And next I’ve got two versions of the holiday Superman: a full-size Funko and a miniature version that came from a DC Advent Calendar a few years back.
I call this next row the 90s Trilogy. In the middle we’ve got long-hair Superman, based on his appearance after the Death and Return of Superman. I’ve got him flanked by the versions of Superman from the story that came right after he finally got a haircut: Superman-Blue and Superman-Red. I just feel like these three all belong together, they’re so “of an era,” y’know?
I’ll close off this part of the tour with a few color variations. First up there’s a nice little Black and White Superman. This is not the only Black and White figure in the collection, but some of the others will appear best in other sets. Pink Superman was part of a line of figures released for breast cancer awareness, and on the other side is the Blackest Night version of Superman from that classic scene in which he, and other heroes who had died and been resurrected over the years, were transformed into Black Lanterns. If you’ve never read that series, why not? It’s great.
As I said, this is just the first of several Funko shelves. In future installments we’ll look at alternate versions of Superman, versions from other media, and of course, his friends and foes.
Blake M. Petitis a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure seriesOther People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon.Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in theYear of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!
Today’s reflection begins – as so do many things in my life – with me being utterly horrified by something my 12th-grade students consider a common practice. As the teacher who puts all of my geeky tendencies on display, students often ask me if I’ve played a new video game (I have not), watched a new TV show (sometimes), or seen the newest movie (not as often as I would like). And I enjoy discussing movies with them, but I am sometimes baffled when I realize they’ve seen new movies, first-run movies that are still in theaters, not IN a theater, but on their PHONE.
This is not the same thing. IT IS NOT THE SAME THING.
The legality of how this is accomplished aside, I get an absolute quiver down my spine when I think about watching a movie like Spider-Man: Brand New Day on a screen that can fit in the palm of my hand. Movies, especially movies heavy on action and special effects, are intended to be an immersive experience, something that draws you into that world, and I just can’t see how that’s possible when you’re looking at a telephone screen. It gets even worse, though, when the student tells me that they watch these movies not on an app designed for such a thing like Netflix or Disney+, but broken down into 90-second segments on TikTok.
They even watch it vertically.
Excuse me, I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Studios are aware of this practice, of course, and many of them are trying to make content specifically to appeal to this audience: short-form videos have become more popular, “vertical dramas” are now a thing. Even major studio releases seem to be feeling the impact. For instance, there’s a theory floating around concerning Disney’s upcoming animated feature Hexed. When the trailer dropped, the kind of people who spend way too much time thinking about movie trailers noted that a greater-than-normal percentage of the action seems to be focused on the center of the screen, suggesting that Disney made the film with the intent of having the sides chopped off and shown vertically. Disney has not confirmed these suspicions, and honestly, I don’t know that I believe them either, but the fact that the question is even being asked says a lot about how people consume media these days.
I know I am marking myself as an old person when I say things like this. I know that younger generations do things in different ways and they have the right to do so. And most of the time I try to employ a “live and let live” attitude when it comes to things the kids do that don’t affect me. But I’m sorry, boys and girls, this is a time when you’re just flat-out wrong. Our field of vision was designed to be experienced in widescreen, not tallscreen, as demonstrated by this highly-detailed and especially scientific diagram:
They wanted to pay me big bucks to put this in a science textbook but I told them, “No, my readers get it first.”
It’s incredible to me that we are now making content that defies the millions of years of evolution that placed our eyes side-by-side on our face instead of stacked one on top of the other because people are too lazy to turn their phones 90 degrees.
But that’s not even the point. The kids obviously still want to watch movies, as evidenced by the fact that they are watching them. But they’re not particularly interested in going to a theater, and that wounds me deeply, because they’re not getting the experience that was intended.
This weekend I’m going to the movie theater for the ninth time this year. For some people that seems like an exorbitant amount, but I need to remind you that in my younger days, the days before I had a child to consider, I would go to the movies two or three times a week. I love movies. I love the movie theater experience. And while that experience was curtailed greatly first by parenthood and then by the pandemic shutting theaters down for most of a year, I spent all that time pining away for seat D11 in Auditorium 2 like a person in a long distance relationship. Some people had a girlfriend who lives in Canada, I had the Palace Theater calling out to me from Elmwood.
My son Eddie is older now, and (thanks in no small part to my influence) he’s grown to enjoy going to the movies. He sees it as a special treat, and it’s been grand to have him reach a point where he specifically asks to see certain movies in a theater. This year we’ve taken him to see The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, Toy Story 5 and Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie, and every one of them was his pick. I would not necessarily have chosen all of these, but I love taking HIM, so I went regardless. We also brought him with us to see movies WE wanted to see that we thought he might enjoy: Supergirl, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and Coyote Vs. Acme. His mom and I even got a rare childless movie experience to see Project Hail Mary when his spring break ended a day before mine, and I think he was a little offended when he learned we went to a movie without him, because he still brings it up.
This weekend it’s going to be a little different. We’re going to see the first episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Rifftrax Experiments. This reboot of the classic franchise by some of the people who’ve been doing it for decades was announced earlier this year and, when they revealed that the first episode would be given a Fathom Events theatrical screening, I asked Eddie if he wanted to go. He’s grown up watching MST3K and Rifftrax with us, so I’m not surprised he was into it. Some of the jokes will go over his head, I know, but the jokes are so rapid-fire and diverse that EVERYBODY feels at least ONE of them whiz above their head. He will enjoy the robots and the guy in the monkey costume, and all will be right with the world.
Not since Dr. Frankenstein has such a chilling experiment come to the movie screen!
I think this is the way forward for movie theaters. The world has become so fragmented and content has become so diluted and spread out across so many platforms that there HAS to be something unique to convince a younger audience to go to a theater. Sure, lower ticket prices and lower concession prices would be great as well, but it’s also important to give people something they can’t get watching a movie even on a fancy home theater, let alone on a device that will interrupt the film every time Stacy sends a text asking if you saw the newest TikTok. In the case of The Rifftrax Experiments, the draw is getting to see the movie in a room full of like-minded fans, people who love the same thing that you do and who have come out to support it with you.
That’s a great feeling, but more can be done to get people into theaters. Selling theater-exclusive merchandise like popcorn buckets and doing giveaways of exclusive comic books has been a bit of a draw. So have screenings with exclusive content like interviews with the creators or making-of features, the kind of thing that we used to get as DVD content before the companies gave up on it. Next week there will be a 40th anniversary screening of the original Transformers: The Movie that will be accompanied by a new short featuring what sadly shall be the final performance of the late Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime. If you’ve ever wanted to see a theater full of nerds weeping over a robot, here’s your chance.
These kinds of retrospective screenings can be a lot of fun. A couple of years ago, Fathom Events did a special presentation of my favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie Rear Window, which my wife took me to as a birthday present. It’s a movie I’ve seen a half-dozen times, but never before on the big screen, and that made it worth getting a babysitter and heading out on a Sunday night. Family movies can do this too, of course. When I was growing up, Disney would routinely rerelease their classic movies like Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland to theaters, and as a result kids got to see movies that were decades older than them on the big screen. Rereleases still happen, but on a much smaller scale and for a more limited time. Perhaps it’s time to widen those releases again.
Making the screening itself an event is also something that’s shown success. There are special events where a live orchestra will play the score alongside movies like Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Home Alone – honestly, any movie scored by John Williams will work here. Theaters that serve full food menus beyond just popcorn and candy have had success by pairing up special dinners with movies, serving the same food as (or food inspired by) films like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or Ratatouille.
These are all fun, crowd-pleasing events, but I think we can go even farther. Holiday events, for example, could be really appealing. Every year TBS scores big with its “24 Hours of A Christmas Story.” Can you imagine doing that in a theater? Show the movie on a loop for 24 hours, let people wear pajamas and bring blankets, have a 20-minute intermission between each screening so people can get more food or go to the bathroom. You would sell out a theater in MINUTES. Or how about a screening of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with a full Thanksgiving dinner? What if there was an October screening of John Carpenter’s Halloween where each on-screen death was accompanied by someone in costume lumbering into the theater and “killing” an audience member? Granted, that last one might not be fun for a Paw Patrol audience, but the RIGHT audience would eat it up like the popcorn they’d spill when getting fake stabbed.
The point I’m getting at is that if we want audiences to come back to the theaters, the theaters are going to have to get creative. Earlier this year, Ryan Gosling got a lot of attention when he said to moviegoers “It’s not your job to keep [theaters] open, it’s our job to make things that make it worth you coming out.” He is absolutely right about that, and I think the phenomenal performance of certain movies this year prove that giving the audience what they want will pay off. But that’s only part of the equation. The other part is the theaters themselves giving the audience a reason to watch the movie in their auditoriums instead of on their phone. Because apparently the fact that watching it on the phone is a poor way to do it isn’t reason enough.
Back in June, just before the Supergirl movie dropped, I devoted a column to the first few issues of the longest-running series the girl of steel has had to date: Peter David’s 80-issue run from 1996 through 2003. At the time, I talked about the first five issues of the series, as well as the prologue short story from Showcase ‘96. Since then, I’ve been working issues of the series in my regular rotation of re-reads, and this week I wanted to check in on the series so far.
At this point, I’ve gotten through the first 24 issues of the series, along with its two annuals and the two issues of Resurrection Man that the title crossed over with in 1998. This is the first time I’ve read most of these issues since they first came out nearly 30 years ago, which is an appalling number that whoever is in charge of time should be immediately apologizing to me for. I find that, while I remember most of the broad strokes, it’s the little things that I’m really getting into this time around.
For example, the broad strokes in question include the fact that Peter David’s Supergirl is what’s called an “Earth-Bound Angel,” a sort of heavenly being that is created when someone who is utterly unselfish sacrifices themself to save the life of someone beyond redemption. In this case, the former is Supergirl (the Matrix version) and the latter is Leesburg resident Linda Danvers. The Earth-Bound Angel is created by fusing the two of them into a single being. Much of the story comes from Linda, whose past is far dirtier than you usually expect from a member of the Superman family, trying to navigate the fact that she’s now cast into the role of a hero, and attempting to reconcile two sets of memories that have become one.
This much I remember. The stuff I didn’t remember is where the book really shines: the conflict between Linda and her parents, particularly her mother, who struggles with the knowledge that her child has been irrevocably transformed, for example. Or the surprisingly large presence that Jonathan and Martha Kent have in these issues – surprising inasmuch as I didn’t remember them being in it quite so often, not surprising that they would want to take care of “Mae,” whom they raised as a daughter.
I’d forgotten a lot of the supporting cast as well. I remembered the demonic Buzz and the bizarre reboot of Comet (the Silver Age “Superhorse”), but I had forgotten characters like Linda’s struggling journalist pal Cutter, his ex-wife Andrea (who winds up with a crush on Linda), Linda’s best friend Mattie Harcourt, and the odd little boy named Wally who claims to be God and who, frankly, you struggle trying to argue with. Peter David had an uncanny knack for bringing in societal concepts and big ideas, concepts that were hot button topics at the time (and in some cases, still are today), and approaching them in a way that treats them as components of a story rather than an effort to make any sort of statement on the writer’s part. While one can probably figure out David’s political and spiritual beliefs with a deep enough reading of his work, that’s always subtext, and he never comes across as though he’s standing on a soapbox.
What’s more, David does all of this while dodging and navigating one DC “event” intruding into his story after another. Issue #3 was part of the Final Night crossover, then issue #14 was interrupted for Genesis (and believe me, that’s the kindest word to use for Genesis), and in issue #20 Supergirl had to leave town to help Superman deal with the Millennium Giants in his own titles. Some writers allow their book to be derailed entirely, while others give a crossover only the cursory acknowledgement and then ignore the fact that the sky has turned red. David is one of the few who really succeeded in striking a balance. In all of these issues, while Supergirl is dealing with the larger threats that are encompassing the DC Universe, we see the excellent supporting cast handling the trauma on their own, with lasting repercussions for the ongoing storyline that make these issues feel relevant and not just a bump in the road.
It’s also worth noting that original artist Gary Frank left the book less than a year into his run, making way for the man who partnered with David for most of the series, Leonard Kirk. And with all due respect to Frank, I think it was a change for the better. Gary Frank comes from a very highly detailed school of art, which is all well and good, but David uses a softer line and a more classic school of character design, without ever giving up the ability of the characters to emote or “act” on the page.
A little more than a quarter of the way through David’s run, and I’m enjoying it thoroughly. With the news that Sophie Campbell intends to bring back the Matrix Supergirl in the current run of the series, I can only hope she’s studied these issues intently, because there’s a lot of gold to be mined here. I’ll check in again later, maybe once I round issue #50.
Blake M. Petitis a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure seriesOther People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon.Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in theYear of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!
I am a big believer in cultural comfort food. There are certain TV shows and movies you turn to when you’re having a hard time, certain books you read to lift your spirits, certain songs or artists you listen to when you need a shot in the arm. They’re different for everybody, of course. I’ve mentioned before my love of things like The Princess Bride, Cheers, obviously Star Trek, and the works of the brilliant Don Rosa, particularly The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. I have others, of course, these aren’t the only ones, but they are things that I know I can consistently count on to make me feel at least a little better when I’m feeling down.
This is a good thing.
But some people take it WAY too far.
You don’t need me to explain to you how social media, the invention that was supposed to bring everybody together into a grand, unified human race, has instead caused problems of microdivision and tribalism unheard of in centuries past. A few decades ago, if you really liked watching Night Court, that just meant you really liked watching Night Court. These days, thanks to social media, you can create a unified front with people who also like Night Court and turn it into your entire personality, to the point where you’re convincing the tallest person in your friend group to shave his head and trying to decide who’s going to get kicked out and recast over the course of the first two or three seasons.
The most recent piece of media that I’ve seen taken by this frankly disturbing trend is the movie Project Hail Mary. And it wounds me to say that, because I love this movie. It is, in fact, my favorite movie of the year (so far, but looking at the slate of remaining releases I’m very skeptical that anything else will overtake it in my estimation). And as I dearly loved the film and mentioned it on Facebook multiple times, I wasn’t surprised when groups dedicated to it started being recommended to me. Looking forward to talking to other people who appreciated the remarkably sweet relationship between Grace and Rocky, the positive, optimistic outlook of the story, the beautiful special effects, or the triumphant package that was the film as a whole, I went ahead and joined such a group.
And man, I gotta tell you, that was a mistake.
These “superfans” of the movie are – there’s a clinical term incoming here, so be prepared to get out your medical dictionaries – “Goofy in their Goo-Goo Gibblets.” There are people who, and I am not exaggerating here, have absolutely no existence anymore beyond their passion for this film. There is an ongoing petition to have it re-released in movie theaters because they crave a fix like it was heroin. Just yesterday I saw a post from someone claiming that if you haven’t watched it at least five times you have no business calling yourself a fan. When the film was released digitally, someone noticed that the version on Prime Video was three or four minutes longer than the version she had purchased on another streaming service and was OUTRAGED that she was denied content, until somebody finally explained to her that the Prime Video runtime included the credits for the film’s assorted foreign language dubs at the end and the other one did not.
And these are the people on the LOW end of the Sanity Slippage Scale.
Look, there’s nothing wrong with loving a movie. If I thought there was, I wouldn’t have joined the group in the first place. But some of these people are straight-up unhinged.
There’s an ongoing war between fans of this film and Christopher Nolan’s movie The Odyssey (a war, I suspect, that Odyssey fans remain blissfully unaware of). Why? Because the PHM fans have worked themselves into a stupor believing that next year The Odyssey is going to walk away with all of the Academy Award wins that Project Hail Mary so rightfully deserves. This is remarkably stupid for two reasons. First, it’s the Oscars, so who gives a crap? Second, it’s idiotic to think that because you love one thing, you’re not allowed to love something else as well. It’s not a marriage, you can be a fan of two movies without breaking any Commandments. I am known far and wide throughout my school as “The Superman Guy” (with good reason), but I don’t think I’m cheating on Clark Kent when I read an issue of Fantastic Four.
Project Hail Mary fans are, of course, not the only group that fall into this category, a group that makes you start to be a little embarrassed to admit that you’re also a fan. Bob’s Burgers fans have a lot of this going on as well. I love the show. I love the adventures of the Belcher family. But I do not fathom the people who seem to have the show running on constant repeat on Disney+ 24 hours a day, who have a panic attack every time there’s a glitch on Hulu that skips to the end of an episode, or who stock up on gasoline, wine bottles, and greasy rags every September because Football Season is going to take away their Bob on Sunday nights. I’m only half-joking about that last one, by the way: their hatred of football borders on the pathological, because they seem to have somehow convinced themselves that were it not for the NFL the Fox Network would be producing a full 52 new episodes of the series each year instead of the 13 to 25 that particular season is actually contracted for. Football has never shortened a season of Bob’s Burgers, only delayed it for a while, but trying to explain that to a superfan is a good way to get your tires slashed.
“They like us, Bobby! Oh… Not THAT much.”
Then there’s Dungeon Crawler Carl, my most recent obsession. The adventures of Carl and Donut are already legendary, and the fan base is remarkably solid, especially considering that there’s no movie or TV show (yet – more on that in a second) and the legion of Crawlers is built entirely upon people who love BOOKS. That’s really a great thing.
But as always, there are some people who take it too far.
Once they announced that Dungeon Crawler Carl had been picked up by the Peacock streaming service for a TV series, the fan base quickly reached the brink of civil war. People arguing about who should be cast as which character drew up lines started painting protest signs. The announcement that Seth MacFarlane’s company was going to be producing the show, similarly, caused a schism between people who think he’s perfect for the job and people who think he’s the antichrist. And of course, when it was confirmed that the show is going to be live action and not animated, you could practically hear the shotguns being cocked and shells dropping into the barrel.
Can you imagine a group called the “Donut Holes” taking things too far?
And as much as fans were insulted when it first aired, that old Saturday Night Live sketch where William Shatner implored Star Trek fans to “get a life” is feeling more applicable than ever.
Guys, it’s okay to like something. It’s even okay to LOVE something. But ultimately it’s just a movie, just a TV show, just a book. If you are genuinely upset, to the point of dissolving friendships and threatening violence against people, something is seriously wrong with you.
If Project Hail Mary doesn’t win best picture (and it almost certainly won’t – the Academy’s bias against genre films is legendary), is that going to make the movie worse?
If you get the same number of episodes of Bob’s Burgers, does it matter so much if they’re run from September through May with huge gaps or from January to June with fewer gaps?
If the Dungeon Crawler Carl TV series turns out to be a catastrophe, is that going to hurt the book? Someone once asked Raymond Chandler how he felt about Hollywood “ruining” his books with film adaptations, to which he replied, “Hollywood hasn’t ruined my books. They’re right there on the shelf, perfectly safe.”
Being a fan should make you happy. It should give you joy, because in this world we all need a little of that. And being part of a community that loves what you love is great, provided that it is reflected in a positive way. If you feel like you’re not allowed to love Movie X because you’ve fully devoted your life to Movie Y, it’s time to reassess your priorities. If somebody tells you they prefer one TV show over your favorite and you decide that you can never speak to that person again, the problem is yours. And if you’re so scared of a TV show or movie “destroying” a book that you love, you need to just unplug your set and go outside for a little while.
You can take your book with you. It’s okay. Maybe you’ll find somebody else who likes it too. And maybe they’ll even convince you that it’s okay to like other things as well. Balance is important, guys. Try a little sometime.
It’s time once again for a healthy helpin’ of reviews. Here are most (if not all) of the Superman-related comics that hit the stands in August, including the first half of the epic crossover event Kingdom of Zod!
Absolute Superman #22 Title: Get Brainiac Part One: Metallo Writer: Jason Aaron Art: Juan Ferreyra Main Cover: Rafa Sandoval & Ulises Arreola
Don’t you just love how DC stamps “A New Story Stars Here!” on the cover any time a new story is starting in an Absolute book? It’s a grand practice and I wish they’d implement it across the line. And with a book like this one, it’s almost a necessity. Even someone who reads the book each month like me might be a tad confused without that label there, because the story leaps right into the action feet-first. As the story begins, Superman is in Argentina facing off against a brutal, powerful cyborg that we soon learn (in case you didn’t guess it from the title of this issue) is the Absolute Universe version of Metallo. But as befits the Absolute line, although Metallo is familiar in many ways, when Superman gets a peek beneath the helmet, the face underneath turns out to be a very unexpected one.
The Absolute books, in my opinion, always are at their most interesting when they take the formula of the regular DC Universe and give it a twist, rather than those parts where they go off and do their own thing entirely, kind of like how Ra’s Al Ghul has been an arch-foe for Superman instead of Batman. Metallo is somewhat similar in that respect. Although the basic concept of a man rebuilt into a cyborg and sent off to fight Superman is intact, the man beneath the mask is a surprise and puts a very different spin on the dynamic between him and our hero.
Jason Aaron and artist Juan Ferreyra give us other twists as well. The flashback scene where we see Brainiac breathing life into this Metallo, for example, plays less like a scene from a superhero comic book and more like a segment of a horror movie. The darkness in certain corners of this world is so severe that it makes Superman stand apart all the more whenever he lets his light shine through.
I like some of the ways Ferreyra plays with the layout in this issue as well. There’s a two-page spread, for instance, of Superman and Metallo clashing with one another in outline, the panels appearing in the shapes of their bodies to tell the story. It helps not only make the pages stand out, but improves the pacing as Superman tries (in true Superman fashion) to attempt a dialogue with Metallo before either of them winds up beating the other to death. The last couple of pages are a nice emotional capper on the episode, and leave you with all the questions you need about where the rest of this storyline is going to take us.
Adventures of Superman: Book of El #11 Title: The Garden of the Promethean Giants Writer: Phillip Kennedy Johnson Art & Main Cover: Scott Godlewski
As we spiral into the final battle between the forces of Kryx-Ul and the heroes of the House of El, Superman finds a new ally, and in the way only Superman can, he tries to reach out to his enemy before it’s too late.
The frustrating thing here is that, after 10 issues that I’ve felt were somewhat lackluster, this penultimate chapter is the first one that I’ve actually found engaging. Maybe it’s a Lord of the Rings thing, but I’ve always had an affinity for scenes of our heroes girding for the “final battle” (as is promised on the cover), getting ready to fight for their lives, preparing to face impossible odds. When it’s done well, I often find it to be the most inspiring part of the whole story, and it’s the kind of thing that really stirs up the emotions just when you want them stirred up the most.
I also like how Johnson brought the story back around to Otho and Osul-Ra, although I’m more worried than ever that if there’s to be any lasting repercussions from this series, it’s going to be to shunt those two off to comic book limbo. It would be a shame to take them off the table, but as Johnson is the one who brought them into the mythos in the first place, it seems like he’s being the one that’s gearing up to put them off to the side.
I do feel like I’ve been harsh on this series, and although I do my best to be fair in these reviews, I don’t know if I’ve entirely succeeded here. This is a series that almost certainly will read better in its collected form than it has one chapter at a time (not unlike Kennedy’s original run on Action Comics, with the Warworld story that preceded this one). After it’s all said and done, I do intend to take a little time off then come back and read it as a whole to see if that improves my attitude towards the series. And if it does, I promise I’ll tell you all about it.
If it doesn’t, I’ll just keep my mouth shut.
Supergirl: Survive #3 Writers: Ethan S. Parker & Griffin Sheridan Art &Main Cover: Rod Reis
Having escaped the destruction of Krypton, Kara and little Kal-El have been recovered by representatives of the Lantern Corps, a peacekeeping organization made up (in this universe) of agents of all the different colors of the emotional spectrum. When Kara learns that the Lanterns plan to take the two of them to a place called Oa, she and Kal-El escape again, taking with them the means to recreate their home.
There’s a lot of good in this issue. Kara’s attempt at protecting Kal-El is pretty clever, and very much in keeping with the sort of solution a teenage girl would come up with in these circumstances. That said, there are limitations inherent in her plan, and Parker and Sheridan do a nice job of addressing them. We also get introduced to a new player in this issue, a different take on a classic Superman character that seems primed to play a larger part in this story. The Guardians’ interest in the Els is also intriguing. There seems to be an obvious logic behind what they’ve got in mind, particularly considering that the Lanterns were ordered to keep them away from yellow suns, but there’s definitely room for the story to throw us a curve ball.
The timeline is slightly confusing here. There are a few pages of time skips and the narration doesn’t help with keeping track of it, despite there being captions telling us how much time has progressed since “K-Day.” To be fair, the problem isn’t that it’s hard to figure out what order things are happening in, but things clearly happen within those time skips that I feel should have been addressed more directly. I’m not the kind of reader who demands that every single detail be spelled out, and a little mystery could be fun, but the combination of the elements here makes this a bit more perplexing than they need to be.
Rod Reis’ artwork is really sublime. If you look at that cover there, of a Blue Lantern Kara surrounded by…well, you can read what she’s surrounded by yourself. But it looks phenomenal, and with a huge chunk of the issue taking place in this environment, it’s really impressive that the all-blue world feels dynamic and engaging rather than monotonous. Overall, this book has been highly enjoyable.
Superman: Father of Tomorrow #4 Title: Vexed Writer: Kenny Porter Art &Main Cover: Danny Earls & Nick Filardi
After an encounter with Batman and Robin in Gotham City, Superman (Jor-El in this continuity, remember) finds himself facing unexpected adversaries in the American government. Lex Luthor, meanwhile, continues to pillage this universe’s magic users, bringing him into conflict with John Constantine.
I continue to have a complicated relationship with this story. On the one hand, I really like the world-building. Kenny Porter has done an incredible job extrapolating an Earth that has access to Kryptonian technology, and the differences and variations on the familiar DC characters is well-done. I particularly like his characterization of Lex Luthor, drawing on magic in this world to fuel his battle against Superman. Considering that magic is one of Superman’s few recognized weaknesses, it’s actually pretty surprising that the mainstream Lex hasn’t tried this sort of thing.
The motivations still lack authenticity, though. It’s a little better this issue than last, where the world seemed to turn against Superman for no reason. Here, we at least see that Batman is skeptical of Jor-El’s “gifts” because he doesn’t believe that humankind is ready for the responsibility that having such advanced technology will bring to them, an idea that is punctuated by a clever tie-in to his origin. The villains, though – Sam Lane in particular – seem to fall into the old stale “Villain doesn’t trust aliens” plot, up to and including doctoring footage to make the hero seem like the bad guy. It’s a cliche that we’ve seen far too often, and without an interesting twist on it, I don’t really need to see it again. It doesn’t help that the narrative still doesn’t seem to have decided if we, the reader, are supposed to be on Jor-El’s side or not. Hopefully we’ll have an answer to that before this Elseworlds wraps up.
Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #54 Writer: Mark Waid Art: Bruno Frenda Main Cover: Dan Mora
It’s the kind of wild, wooly tale that only Mark Waid can tell, and of course, it begins with the threat of nuclear war. The two countries of Qurac and Bialya stand poised to annihilate one another, and the cries of the damned have grown so powerful that the demon Neron is empowered to act. Abducting a squad of DC’s finest heroes – including, of course, Superman, Batman, and Robin – Neron puts together perdition’s first ever game of baseball. It’s heroes versus demons, and if the heroes lose, the war will be allowed to grow and take over the entire world.
It’s an insane kind of story with a very silver age sort of flavor to it. But Mark Waid being Mark Waid, he takes this ludicrous premise and uses it to tell a nice little character story. Superman is dismayed to find a baseball player he’d idolized in his youth is among the denizens of hell, and he reaches out the way that only Superman can. Hell may be a nasty place, but Waid convincingly makes us believe that Superman can make it better, even there.
I do have some continuity questions, which I know is kind of silly all things considered, but it’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder just how much DC’s history has been juggled around. Neron’s first appearance was in the Underworld Unleashed miniseries, also written by Mark Waid. In that series, it was clearly Neron’s first encounter with DC’s heroes. In this story, which is clearly set before that crossover (as evidenced by the fact that Dick Grayson isn’t Nightwing yet), they’ve obviously encountered them before. Normally I’d be questioning why nobody is paying attention to that sort of little continuity snarl, but it’s Mark Waid. He literally rewrote DC’s history last year. If he’s decided that their first meeting with Neron was earlier than Underworld Unleashed, who am I to judge?
Supergirl #16 Title: Kingdom of Zod Part One Writer: Sophie Campbell Art: Joe Quinones & Paulo Villanelli Main Cover: Guillem March
Kingdom of Zod, the two-month Superman family crossover event, begins here. Picking up immediately from the prologue in last month’s Action Comics #1100, Lois has summoned the Superman family together to investigate the new regime that has taken over the Kryptonite-rich country of El Caldero. Things are off to a rough start, though: although Superboy-Prime has been going through a redemption arc (and succeeding quite well, I have to say), Conner Kent hasn’t forgotten the fact that Prime killed him once, and the two young Superboys butt heads at the worst possible time. The team to investigate El Caldero is assembled, and since some non-Kryptonian operatives are going to come in handy when it comes to infiltrating a country whose riches are based on a literal mountain of Kryptonite, Supergirl summons her pals in the Super Force to lend a hand.
Incorporating an ongoing series into any sort of crossover always requires something of a balancing act, and Campbell’s story deftly walks that tightrope. The story advances the various plots that have been percolating in the assorted Superman titles for months now, primarily the El Caldero storyline from Superman Unlimited, but Campbell hasn’t abandoned the stuff that has made Supergirl fun to read on its own. Incorporating the Super Force doesn’t feel tacked-on or superfluous here, but rather like Supergirl is bringing in her friends because they serve a legitimate purpose in the story. I also quite like the direction Kara’s character is taking. Although the readers know that the missing Superman was found in the aforementioned Action #1100, the Superman Family does NOT, and Kara feels the weight of having to step into her cousin’s boots as leader of this informal team. It’s a good look for her, and Campbell gives it the appropriate amount of emotional weight without tipping into angst the way some writers would take it.
I can’t say as many good things about the artwork, however. Joe Quinones, whose work I quite enjoy, splits the art chores with Paulo Villanelli, whose work I’m sorry to say I find somewhat lacking. Not only Villanelli’s pages not as sharp as Quinones’, but the styles clash in an unpleasant way. I’m sure that a lot of extra hands jumped in to complete this storyline sandwiched between the giant Action #1100 and the one-shot Kingdom of Zod Special from next month that will serve as the bookends for this storyline, but I wish the artwork in this opening salvo had been a bit more consistent.
Action Comics #1101 Title: Kingdom of Zod Part Two Writer: Mark Waid Art: Montos Main Cover: Guillem March
In part two of the big event, the time-tossed Justice League team of J’onn J’onzz, Mary Marvel, and Booster Gold have recovered Superman from the timestream with the help of a Superboy plucked from Clark Kent’s youth. They don’t even have time to catch their breath, though, before they return to a present-day where the Superman family is invading an El Caldero controlled by Zod. As Supergirl’s friends take to the fight, Zod tries to interrogate a captive Lois Lane, but her sheer determination proves that even without the powers she inadvertently took from him, she’s still got a lot of Superwoman in her.
The Zod/Lois scenes are hands-down the crown jewel of this issue. He’s flailing around in rage as she – even while bound and technically at his mercy – expertly prods and antagonizes him into spewing his whole supervillain plan without it coming across as an Incredibles-style monologue cliche. Honestly, how has there never been a story about Lois becoming a Green Lantern yet? Even an Elseworlds?
I would have thought that the mystery of Superman’s time traveling had ended with his return and last month’s exploration of where he’s been in this year’s Superman Annual, but it turns out there’s still more to consider here: namely, why doesn’t he remember this adventure from when HE was Superboy? Waid doesn’t answer the question, but shines enough of a light on it for the reader to be confident that we’re going to come back around to this, and it’s going to be important.
Like the Supergirl issue, the artwork here is the weak point. It’s a darker, less clean look than we’re used to with the Superman titles, and it’s a style that doesn’t particularly suit these characters. Looking ahead, it doesn’t appear as though the regular Superman art teams are playing a big part in this crossover, and that’s a disappointment, because the writing deserves better.
Superman Unlimited #16 Title: Kingdom of Zod Part Three Writer: Dan Slott Art: Rachael Stott Main Cover: Guillem March
Part Three finally gives me what I’ve been waiting for: Superman for real back in the game. Even as El Caldero is exploding with Kryptonite, and even while the Kryptonite Plague is beginning to affect his non-Kryptonian allies, Superman does what Superman does best and finds a way to fight back against Zod’s regime.
This issue isn’t entirely about Superman, though, showing that this is a conflict that’s grown to a global scale. Dan Slott allows us to check in on all of our heroes across the planet as we see what’s going on, including the first meeting between our time-lost Superboy Clark and his cousin Kara. It’s a lovely moment that really ratchets up the emotion here, as we see a teen Clark’s reaction to learning he ISN’T the last Kryptonian. Similarly, Superman’s reunion with Lois and Jon is a fantastic moment. It’s quick, and it’s funny, and it plays perfectly into the personalities of all three of them. Rather than wring it out for emotion the way we’ve seen (for example) when Superman came back from the dead, there’s a quick acknowledgement from each of them that they’re together again, with the underlying message being that not a one of the Kent family ever doubted that this moment was going to come.
I make have spoken too soon about the artwork in this crossover. Rachael Stott isn’t the regular artist on this title, but she’s good enough to be. This is the kind of clean, energetic artwork that the last two issues were lacking, with some wonderful “acting” on the faces of our characters that help to build on the foundation of the script, the way good artwork is supposed to do. Just fantastic. I look forward to seeing more from her.
Superman #41 Title: Kingdom of Zod Part Four Writer: Joshua Williamson Art: Eddy Barrows Main Cover: Guillem March
Superman #41 is the last chapter of the crossover for this month, and holy CRAP, does Joshua Williamson throw us some curveballs as we go into halftime! The first half of the issue is concerned with the fight between a depowered Superman and a fully-charged Zod, and it’s as rough and brutal a fight between the two of them. The back half returns to the B-plot about Zod trying to use the Krypytonian technology to resurrect his wife, Ursa, and…well, I don’t want to go any further, but there are at minimum three moments in this issue that made me go, “WHAT?” This chapter takes things into an entirely different and unexpected direction, and once more the pieces on the board have been tossed all over the place.
Eddy Barrows, who HAS worked on this title in the past, is back on board for the artwork, and it’s just as good as Stott’s was on Part Three. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the problems I had with the first two chapters are resolved when we loop back around to Supergirl and Action Comics in September.
What I really am enjoying about this crossover in general is that, even though it’s a Superman story, it’s more of an ensemble piece. Kara, Conner, Prime, Lois, Jon – every one of them is playing a major role here. Secondary characters like Steel, Lana Lang, and the time travelling Justice League trio may not be showing up on every page, but their contributions are significant. This is a remarkably well-balanced storyline, keeping everybody in play and giving everybody something important to do. I’m enjoying the hell out of it.
Fingers crossed I’ll be saying the same thing in next month’s recap.
Blake M. Petitis a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure seriesOther People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon.Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in theYear of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!
