This review should have gone in last week’s October roundup, I suppose, but there was a mixup at my comic shop (by which I mean I think I forgot to order it) and I didn’t get my copy until a few days ago. So it gets a feature all its own. Lucky little comic book.
When DC did their Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special a few years ago, followed by one for Return of Superman, I rather thought this would be more of a regular thing: an oversized anniversary one-shot reuniting the original creative teams (as best as possible) to tell new stories either set in the timeframe of the original story or focusing on its legacy. It’s a pretty good idea. But the anniversaries of books like Knightfall came and went without fanfare. To the best of my knowledge, the only other such book they’ve done is a Zero Hour anniversary special. I wonder if they only want to do it when Dan Jurgens is involved.
Anyhoo, let’s take a look.
Superman: The Wedding Album 30th Anniversary Special Chapter 1: Rainbow Rowell (Script), Cian Tormey (Art), Romulo Fajardo Jr. (Colors) Chapter 2: Louise Simonson (Script), Jon Bogdanove (Art) Chapter 3: Karl Kesel (Script), Tom Grummett (Pencils), Denis Rodier (Inks) Chapter 4: Dan Jurgens (Script and Breakdowns), Jerry Ordway (Finishes) Main Cover: Dan Jurgens & Jerry Ordway
Like the previous anniversary specials, this one kicks off in the modern day with Jon Kent. This time around, Jon realizes that his parents, being perhaps the two busiest people in the entire DC Universe, have never had a proper wedding anniversary celebration, and he sets out to arrange one as a surprise. But there’s someone who is still salty about not being invited to their wedding in the first place, so he’s planning a little celebration of his own. That’s right, Mr. Mxyzptlk is back in town.
Mxy is used really well here. As a character who’s always kind of straddled the line between menace and nuisance, here we see an incarnation that I prefer – someone who torments Superman because he genuinely likes him and wants to have a little fun with somebody he considers a friend. (I have no evidence, but I’ve always suspected that the relationship between Captain Picard and Q on Star Trek was based on this dynamic, at least later in the run.) While Jon is running all over Metropolis, trying to recruit his parents’ friends in his plans to give them the celebration they deserve, Mxy is tagging along trying to “help” as only he can.
Although the book is obviously set in the modern-day DCU (Lois is Editor-In-Chief of the Planet, Jon is Tomorrow Man, we’ve got the current Justice League lineup, and so forth), the creators did a fantastic job imbuing it with the flavor of the Triangle Era books of the 1990s. We spent a lot of time with characters who were more prominent in that era, like my old pal Bibbo Bibbowski, as well as a surprisingly heavy focus on Lois’s sister Lucy. At the time of the wedding, Lucy was either dating or married to Ron Troupe (I honestly don’t remember). And while I knew that they weren’t together in current continuity, with reboot after reboot I’d quite lost track of whether they were ever married in the first place. This issue confirms that they were, and that their son does in fact exist. If this were a book in the actual Triangle Era, it would feel as if they were moving Lucy into place for a larger story arc. The fact that none of the people working on this special are currently working on the regular titles makes me doubt that’s the case, but I wouldn’t mind being wrong about that.
This issue isn’t going to win any awards, but it’s a charming look back at one of my favorite eras of the Superman comics, celebrating the stories that were told at the time and righting a minor – albeit understandable – injustice that goes back to the guest list from 30 years ago. It’s always a treat to see Bogdanove, Grummett, and Ordway drawing these characters again, and the writing feels like I’m visiting with an old friend. I’m so happy that I managed to get a copy of this one, even if it was a little late.
Fingers crossed – will next year bring us a Superman Red/Superman Blue 30th Anniversary Special? We can only hope.
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!
A few months ago, my friend Adam Santino suggested that I try building a presence on Substack, a suggestion for which I have largely forgiven him. Although it didn’t exactly begin that way, Substack has grown nicely into a social media platform that is tailor made for authors, journalists, essayists, writers, and readers of all kinds. People post articles on the most niche topics you can imagine. Others serialize their fiction. There’s one guy on there whose entire presence seems to be dissecting every possible nuance and detail of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, and that ain’t even CLOSE to the nerdiest person I follow. There’s an awful lot going on there, is what I’m saying.
It’s like Facebook, except it has smart people.
But even the most wholesome social media platforms (which, at present, this seems to be) will occasionally erupt into controversy. The current one is surrounding – and I apologize to anybody whose political sensibilities may be offended by this at this difficult, divisive time in our country – how many books it’s possible to read in a year. There is a strict divide forming among people who claim to have read large quantities of books over the first 10 months of 2026, and other people who claim that the first people, to put it colloquially, are liar liars with their pants on fire.
For some reason, the number that seems to have stuck as the tipping point is 30. Some claim that reading 30 books in 10 months is absolutely impossible. Others claim that it’s a breezy Sunday afternoon. So just out of curiosity, I decided to take a look at the list of books I’ve read so far this year (of COURSE I have a list of the books I’ve read) to see what number I, personally, am up to. And to my surprise I realized that the book I finished most recently, Cold Storage by David Koepp, turned out to be – drumroll please – number 30.
Liam Neeson was in the movie, but I think Koepp considers his mention in this article a higher accomplishment.
This number, I should mention, does not include comic books or graphic novels, nor does it include audiobooks (I have no objection to including audiobooks towards your count, but the only ones I’ve listened to this year are the audiobooks of some of the Dungeon Crawler Carl novels, which I didn’t start listening to until after I read the books and I didn’t want to count the same book twice). That number, for what it’s worth, includes 24 novels, three anthologies, two nonfiction books, and one memoir.
Now, why does any of this matter, you may ask? If you’re a sane person, it doesn’t. But according to the internet (an organization that has been semifunctional for at least six weeks, according to various credible sources), reading so many books in such a period is virtually impossible. Three books in a month? A book roughly every ten days? What kind of psychopath is capable of such a feat?
And the answer to that question is: pretty much anybody who actually wants to do it.
I make it a point to read every day. That doesn’t mean I read the same amount every day. Sometimes I get in a good 20 to 30 minutes before bed. Sometimes I’m utterly exhausted and I give in after two or three pages. Sometimes – most often when I’m approaching the end of a really ripping story – I’ll try to stay up late and finish the book on my kindle app, and sometimes that effort is derailed when my wife tells me to go to sleep because I’m losing consciousness and the sound of my phone hitting the floor has woken her up three times now.
“That’s fine for YOU, Blake,” you say, “but I just don’t have the TIME to read.”
Yes you do.
“I’ve got kids!”
I have a nine-year-old.
“I’ve got a job!”
I’m a high school teacher.
“I have other responsibilities!”
I’m currently writing a novel. (More information about that on my aforementioned Substack, by the way.)
If you don’t want to read, go ahead and own it. Lots of people – particularly celebrities, for some reason – are pretty vocal about the fact that the last book they read cover to cover featured both a cat and a hat, and therefore it should count for two. But if you’re claiming that there simply isn’t any TIME to read, I’m calling shenanigans.
I know exactly two things about Alix Earle: she says she’s never read a book, and something something makeup.
Besides reading before I go to bed, which of course is the natural habitat of any great reader, I steal time at assorted other points during the day. While I’m waiting in the parent pick-up line to get my son from school. While I’m sitting in the stands during my son’s basketball practice. While I’m in the waiting room while my son does his speech therapy. Have you noticed a theme here? Waiting. I don’t care who you are or how important you think your schedule is, to all of us there come moments in our lives where there is nothing to do except…wait. And it is in those moments that cracking open the latest LitRPG, an old familiar friend by Stephen King, or a classic by Mary Shelley is the absolute best way to pass the time.
In fact, for those of you who poo-poo audiobooks (you should really reconsider your diet if that’s happening by the way), those are PERFECT for people who are busy all the time. Listen to them while you’re driving, while you’re washing dishes, while you’re mowing the laundry, while you’re folding the grass. There are few positions I find stupider than people who say “audiobooks aren’t reading.” It’s true, listening engages the brain in different ways than reading words on a page, but you’re still taking in and processing information. And some people simply are better auditory learners than visual learners. If it works for you, it works.
Just maybe have a different book to switch to once you pick up the kids from school.
I know it sounds like I’m telling you that you should be reading all the time, but that’s only because I am. Reading is a skill and your brain is a muscle, and exercising both of those things is the only way to keep them sharp. Now if you’re even reading this column in the first place, odds are you’re not in the category of people who have to be convinced that reading has value, but you may have fallen off. It’s okay. It happens to all of us. I had some fallow years a while back where I was lucky to make it through one or two books in a year, because I simply didn’t have the motivation. Eventually I found it again.
I say this to my students a lot, especially when ACT season rolls around and they want to know how to get better at the reading portion of the test. They hate when I say it, but the test measures reading skill and comprehension, and the only way to get better at that is to practice. To read. Preferably every day. And I don’t care WHAT you read – a book, a magazine, a newspaper, a comic book – as long as you read it with focus and without distraction. Even 15 minutes a day will help, and you’ll start to see improvement.
True, most of you reading this are probably past the stage in your lives where college admission essays are a significant concern. But that doesn’t mean that reading has ceased being worthwhile. In fact, without the impetus of school pushing it on you, it’s probably more important than ever. You’ve reached the point where you can read what you want instead of what your teachers told you to read, after all. That means you can choose your own material. It also means that there’s no one making you do it now, so just like any other form of exercise, you’ve got to convince yourself to do it on your own.
By the way, I know that a lot of those books you read in school seemed boring at the time, but may I suggest that you go back and give some of them another chance now that you’re a little older and wiser? Most of those books were required reading for a reason, after all.
The Penguin worked really hard to write this, the least you can do is read it.
Anyway, the points that I’m trying to get here are, as in descending order of importance:
Reading is important, and everybody should do it.
You may not think that you have time to read, but trust me, you’re wrong.
All reading is valid – fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, and yeah, even audiobooks. Everything except AI “summaries.” That’s bullshit.
You should totally subscribe to my free Substack, and I promise, that’s the last time I’ll mention it until you get to that italicized portion down there at the end.
Reading is education. It’s entertainment. It’s exercise. It matters. And if it’s been a while, consider this your invitation to start again. Okay, maybe you’ll never hit 30 books a year. But if you’re not reading already, ANYTHING is better than the nothing you’re reading right now.
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 September, including the second half of Kingdom of Zod, a few journeys to alternate universes, the “Weirdest” co-star Superman and Batman have ever seen, and the newest incarnation of Superman’s ORIGINAL Super Friends.
Supergirl #17 Title: Kingdom of Zod Part Five Writer: Sophie Campbell Art: Bruno Frenda & Joe Quinones Main Cover: Lucas Meyer & Guiliano Peratelli
The second half of Kingdom of Zod kicks off with Supergirl and Superboy (the time-tossed Clark Kent from his teen years) getting caught in a time bubble with Ursa, who’s travelling to the past in an apparent attempt to save Krypton from discussion. The issue checks in briefly with the rest of our cast, including Lana and the Steels dealing with the Krytonite zombies, Superboy (Conner) and Superboy-Prime trying to help an injured Superman, and Lois doing the same with Jonathan. But each of these story threads is given no more than a page or two, with the bulk of the issue focusing on Kara and Clark’s adventures on Krypton.
There’s always a delicate balancing act with intra-family crossover events like this one. In the books where the “lead” character of the franchise (in this case, Superman) is the same as the lead of that title, there’s no real issue. When you have a chapter in an issue of a spinoff character – which Supergirl is, let’s be honest – you have to struggle between maintaining the focus on the person that the regular readers buy the book for and continuing the overall event that may have brought in new readers. Campbell accomplishes this really well. We spend most of the issue with Kara trying to teach a young, inexperienced Clark about the dangers of time travel while at the same time trying to prevent Ursa from making things worse. The interaction between the two of them is really entertaining, with Kara taking on the big sisterly role she thought she would have before she woke up on Earth that first time and discovered that her baby cousin was now older than her. I know that once this is all over Clark is going back to his own time, but I would love to see this dynamic played with more often.
More importantly, the time-travel arc doesn’t feel like a superfluous side-story here, but part of the large whole, and that’s what you really want most of all when you’re reading a story like this one. It needs to feel consequential, or the readers will feel cheated. I don’t think that’s going to happen with anybody here.
Action Comics #1102 Title: Kingdom of Zod Part Six Writer: Mark Waid Art: Montos Main Cover: Lucas Meyer & Guilano Peratelli
Like the Supergirl chapter, Action Comics this month focuses mostly on young Clark and Kara on Krypton, although the side-stories progress a little bit further. Of course, they progress to a point where it just seems like it can’t get any worse. The adult Superman and his group finally reunite with Lois and Jon, but the one person who may be able to protect them from the growing Kryptonite radiation that’s engulfing Earth may not be of help after all.
But back in the past, back on Krypton, young Clark is separated from his cousin as Kara and present-day Ursa are taken into custody by past-Zod. Man, time travel makes these recaps harder to write. The gist of it is this: in this issue we see the teenage Clark that’s been the star of this title since Mark Waid took over have to make some of the choices and learn some of the maturity that’s going to characterize him when he gets older and becomes a true Superman, and that’s a great thing. If you read the classic Superboy stories of the Golden and Silver Ages, there’s not a lot of difference between the character as a teenager and as an adult. He’s the stalwart, confident paragon that we want him to be right from the jump, and while that’s a good thing for a mature Superman, it doesn’t make as much sense when you see him as a kid. Waid’s Superboy is someone who is still learning, still capable of making mistakes, but with a core of purity and decency that you can see developing into the all-loving hero that Superman is. This issue makes for a nice focus on that, a great examination of who Clark was and who he’s going to become, all mixed up in the larger storyline. It’s deftly played.
Superman Unlimited #17 Title: Kingdom of Zod Part Seven Writer: Dan Slott Art: Rachael Stott and Montos Main Cover: Lucas Meyer & Guiliano Peratelli
Part Seven of Kingdom of Zod flips the formula from the last two issues – a quick check-in with Clark and company back on Krypton, with most of the issue in the present, and the wave of El Caldero Kryptonite radiation that’s threatening the entire Earth. But here’s the thing: early in the run of this series, Dan Slott gave Superman a little boost that just may be the thing to save the day.
This is one of those issues where somebody with super-speed does a whole lot of stuff really fast, where things zip along in much less time than it takes to tell the story. I like issues like that, because a good writer can use them to give us quick glimpses at the hero being the hero. As Superman is racing to save the world from the Kryptonite, we see him take moments with friend and enemy alike that remind us of just what kind of a man our hero is. Not that we necessarily NEED that reminder, of course, but seeing Superman in action doing what Superman does is always a treat, and Slott really nails it here. In the midst of this huge storyline, it’s the small moments for Superman that really make this issue worth reading.
Superman #42 Title: Kingdom of Zod Part Eight Writer: Joshua Williams Pencils: Eddy Barrows & Eduardo Pansica Inks: Eber Ferreira & Julio Ferreira Main Cover: Lucas Meyer & Guiliano Peratelli
The penultimate chapter of “Kingdom of Zod” FINALLY brings all of our heroes together. Recovering from the Golden Mode adventure that cancelled out all of the El Calderan Kryptonite on Earth, Superman and his allies come together and learn (courtesy of Booster Gold) that Ursa stole his time-bubble, with Supergirl and young Clark going after her. This issue, they come back, along with a young Zod.
And all hell breaks loose.
Williamson, whose work on this title has made him one of my favorite Superman writers since the Triangle Era, is really showing how adept he is with these characters. Superboy-Prime meets up with Superman again for the first time since his self-proclaimed (and highly effective) Redemption Arc during the “Reign of the Superboys” storyline, and the moments where those two connect are really well-done. On the other hand, Conner Kent seems to be somewhat bitter about the whole thing, and I find myself desperately hoping that Prime’s redemption isn’t going to incorporate a heel turn for the other Superboy. I keep telling myself that Williamson is too good a writer for that. I am telling myself that very, very hard.
The huge cast that shows up in this issue comes together well, with good moments for Lois and Jon, Lena Luthor, and Superboy’s time-travel pals Mary Marvel and Martian Manhunter. Others are somewhat sidelined (I could always do with more Steel in this or any comic book), but that’s kind of the nature of the beast. The more characters there are in a story, the more likely some of them are going to ride the bench. And that’s especially true when you remember that, c’mon now, it IS Superman’s comic book.
Superman: Kingdom of Zod Special Title: Kingdom of Zod Part Nine Writer: Joshua Williamson Art: Paolo Villanelli Main Cover: Dan Mora Supergirl Epilogue By: Sophie Campbell, Tamra Bonvillain & Josh Reed Action Comics Epilogue By: Mark Waid, David Messina, Ivan Plascensia & Josh Reed Superman Unlimited Epilogue By: Dan Slott, Rachael Stott, Giuliano Peratelli & Josh Reed Superman Epilogue By: Joshua Williamson, Bruno Frenda, Luis Guerra & Josh Reed
It’s hard to get too much into this without delving into spoilers. There’s a great fight scene, but it’s actually not the main focus of the book. A lot of the threads of this story have been tied off already in the previous chapters, so all that’s really left here is for Superman and his family to deal with the time-lost Zod who came back from the era before Krypton’s destruction. As they do so, our various heroes are each given something different to deal with: Supergirl gets an artifact of the past that seems poised to set up her future. Tomorrow Man and his dad have a heart-to-heart about Jon’s new direction. The time-travelling Superboy has to deal with the knowledge of his future that he’s picked up along the way. And the other two Superboys – Prime and Conner Kent – each have decisions about their own future to make.
The Conner stuff is, as I mentioned in one of the previous chapters, one of the few parts of this story that gives me concern. We’re seeing a bitterness in the character that doesn’t really suit him. At the same time, it’s understandable: with both Jon and Prime around, he feels like he’s been shunted aside, and honestly, that’s a fairly accurate metaphor for the way fans of his have felt all the way going back to the New 52 reboot. People have been in agreement for quite some time that Conner Kent is a character in need of a new direction, and it seems that Williamson is preparing to finally tackle that story. I’m trusting that he’s too good a writer to make that new direction follow the cliched path of turning him into a villain.
The actual confrontation with Zod is good, but over with surprisingly quickly. The bulk of this issue is concentrated more on putting pieces into place for the future. The creative teams of each of the four respective Superman-family titles each get an epilogue sequence focusing on their own core cast and giving a taste of what we presume will be the next story arc in each. I don’t mind them doing that, but I do feel a little as though it came at the expense of the conclusion of the actual Zod storyline.
As a whole, I’ve enjoyed Kingdom of Zod. Having a new chapter coming out every week made it feel just a little like the glory days of the Triangle Era again, and I miss that period greatly. The ending could have been a bit stronger, but I’m excited to see what comes next.
Absolute Superman #23 Title: The Toyman (Get Brainiac Part Two) Writer: Jason Aaron Art: Juan Ferreyra Main Cover: Rafa Sandoval
As the Toyman rears his head again, Kal flashes back to a harrowing childhood experience back on Krypton. And of course, Brainiac lingers in the background.
The A-plot here is about Superman seeking the Toyman, whose murderous playthings have been enhanced thanks to a collaboration with Brainiac. That’s all well and good, but honestly, it’s not the part of this book that I’m particularly interested in. It’s the flashback scenes that really get my attention this month. It’s easy to forget just how different this Kal-El is from the one we knew. He lived a whole childhood on Krypton before it was destroyed, he has memories of his birth parents (both good and bad) and an awareness of the culture of his home planet that the main timeline Superman lacks. And this is a very different Krypton than the one we know, a fact accentuated by the awful thing that young Kal-El stumbles upon and the explanation for it he receives from his mother. The main Superman comics have had so many stories and miniseries that explore life on pre-cataclysm Krypton that it’s practically become a cliche. This is one situation where I think an exploration of the world that was would actually be warranted. Come on, DC – Absolute Jor-El and Lara? Guaranteed seller.
Adventures of Superman: Book of El #12 Title: Finale Writer: Philip Kennedy Johnson Art: Scott Godlewski Main Cover: Scott Godlewski
The House of El makes its final stand against Kryl-Ux, and with a Kryptonian carrying the power of a god, even an entire super-family has its work cut out.
I…don’t even know anymore. This series from the outset has felt so divorced, so removed from everything that engages me about the Superman mythos. Pulling him into the distant future, setting up a whole mystery that is predicated on him never coming home…it’s been hard to take it seriously. And the finale of the storyline doesn’t help with that. Ultimately, it still feels somewhat inconsequential.
I’ll give it credit for a few things. The heart of this series is definitely in the right place. Johnson gives the story a focus on all the good things about Superman: compassion, redemption, a belief in the best of us. Those elements are at the heart of all the best Superman stories, and we’ve got that here too. Also, I appreciate the fact that the book didn’t have as hard a reset as I came to expect, and that it wasn’t just an excuse to wipe Otho and Osul off the map. In the end, their story is still there and available. It does raise the question, of course, of where the hell they’ve been in the main Superman comics as of late. There’s an answer available in this issue, but it’s something they’re going to have to address sooner or later.
The best thing I can really say about this series, in the end, is that I’m quite certain it will read better as a whole instead of in chapters the way it’s been parcelled out over the past year. It’s certainly happened before. I was kind of underwhelmed at Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow as a monthly series because of the slow burn, but when it was over and I read it as a single book I was deeply moved and impressed. I hope that will be the case here as well. I’m not going to do it anytime soon – I need a little time away from it to clean the slate – but perhaps some time next year I’ll go back and try to read it as one unified story. If I do, I’ll be sure to tell you what I think about it on the second go-around.
Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #55 Title: Extinction Event Part One Writer: Mark Waid Art: Adrian Gutierrez Main Cover: Dan Mora
With most of the Justice League off-planet, Ra’s Al Ghul assembles a group of villains who share his cause to exterminate most of human life. With his new harbingers of the apocalypse, he unleashes a devastating attack that begins spreading illness across the globe. Superman and Batman are among Earth’s remaining defenders, but when the sickness strikes too close to home, even the Dark Knight may be compromised.
One of the many things that makes Mark Waid’s run on this book is how well he straddles the line between huge storylines of global significance and small, character-focused stories. This issue, for instance, as if Queen Bee’s swarm of alien insects threatening an apocalypse wasn’t bad enough, one of the early victims is somebody that we – and the other heroes – care deeply about. It hurts a little that this book is set in the past and, as the stricken character is someone who is alive and well today, there’s not really a question of IF the heroes will succeed, but rather HOW. On the other hand, it’s still Batman and Superman we’re talking about here, so is there really any question as to whether they’re going to beat the bad guys in the first place?
Getting past that, Waid really explores the way these events affect our heroes. Batman is already approaching the story from a place of conflicted emotion, considering that his primary informant is Ra’s Al Ghul’s daughter Talia. This seems to be the first time Superman learns about the whole Batman/Talia thing as well, which puts him in a bit of a pickle. Bruce is his best friend, of course, but can he be counted on to be at his best? It’s a great way to get into the relationship between the two, with a degree of mutual trust that’s impaired just because Batman himself is too emotionally invested in the whole thing.
It’s another excellent issue. I’ve come to expect nothing less.
Batman/Superman/Weird Al: World’s Weirdest #1 Writers: Mark Waid & Tyrone Finch Vibes: “Weird Al” Yankovic Art: Dan Schoening & Fico Osso Main Cover: Dan Schoening
At last! My two favorite heroes in an adventure together with Batman!
In this deliciously absurd one-shot, Mr. Mxyzptlk’s cosy home in the Fifth Dimension is unsettled when everything strange in his world starts to become…normal. Terrified, he goes to Earth to find Superman for help, only to find the plague is striking there as well Mxy, Superman, and Batman quickly discover the key may be the one person who seems to be immune to the “Mundanity Wave” striking both worlds: “Weird Al” Yankovic.
This story is silly, absurd, totally inconsequential, and has no reason whatsoever to exist. I loved it. Look, I’m an easy sell. Obviously I read anything that has Superman in it, and “Weird Al” is perhaps the last remaining celebrity on Earth that everybody likes (now that we’ve lost Dolly Parton), so it wasn’t really an uphill battle to get me on-board for this one. But that doesn’t mean it’s not still a fun read. Seeing how different DC characters become “normal” when hit with the Mundanity Wave is as weird as anything that’s being turned mundane. (Somehow the Joker in a normal suit and with a normal skin tone is more unsettling than the psychotic clown we all know and love.)
The villain reveal is a great one, too. It’s not somebody that we see all that often, a relatively obscure villain to anyone but fans of the series that birthed him, but he’s absolutely perfect for this book. Mark Waid’s knowledge of the DCU remains unparalleled, even as he’s able to take a quick dig at himself at one meta-moment.
I haven’t seen a lot of Dan Schoening’s work since IDW’s Ghostbusters series wrapped up, but he’s a good choice for this book. After years of chronicling adventures of characters that looked almost, but not QUITE, like Bill Murray and the boys, he’s got a good eye for near-caricature that suits his depiction of Al very nicely. He also has a light touch with his line, crafting a book that looks almost like a cartoon, which is entirely appropriate.
Bizarro: Year None #3 Title: How Do I Look? Writers: Eric Carrasco & Kevin Smith Art: Nick Pitarra Main Cover: Nick Pitarra
Jimmy Olsen spends a day with Bizarro on his Bizarro world, and the two of them each begin to realize just how different from Superman he actually is. In the meantime, Bizarro Lois and the others on her world began making their moves to change things about the planet they’re essentially trapped on.
You know, when they said “Kevin Smith is writing a Bizarro origin story,” I bet a lot of us were expecting a sort of goofy, silly exploration of a character that more often than not is played for a joke. We were wrong. Moments of humor in this issue have become few and far between, and the exploration of Bizarro has never been less amusing. It’s like we’ve delved into an exploration of the Bizarro from the first few scenes in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, a deeply troubling creature that’s every bit as strong as Superman but possesses none of his kindness or humanity. It’s actually a bit frightening.
The really baffling thing about the book is where it belongs, in a publishing respect. The solicits for this series have referred to it as the “official” origin of Bizarro, but those same solicits are written in Bizarro-speak, also calling the series “terrible.” So it’s not official, we got that. It’s also not labeled as an Elseworlds, although it could be. But honestly, as dark as this story has gotten, I’m wondering why the heck it’s NOT marked as a Black Label comic. It would fit there much more than most of the Superman books that have carried that particular sticker.
Supergirl: Survive #4 Writers: Ethan S. Parker & Griffin Sheridan Art & Main Cover: Rod Reis
Finally having reached a planet with a yellow sun, Kara and Kal-El are beginning to taste the power that being a Kryptonian truly brings with it. But despite their power they’re still stranded, with no way to get to the distant planet Earth that is their destination…until they encounter another visitor to this world who may be able to help them.
As they did with the Lantern Corps and Lobo in previous issues, this month Parker and Sheridan bring in another DC character to build out this other universe. This time, it’s one who has links to the Superman family to begin with, and he falls into his role quite naturally. As an Elseworlds, one is forced to wonder whether his gregarious nature is going to turn out to be a long con and he’s really up for some supervillainy, but so far there doesn’t seem to be any overt indication of that, and I’m glad. It would be a pretty tired trope for this character to go bad, and it’s about time poor Kara got a break.
Another couple of time skips in this issue and we’re watching as Kal-El grows from baby to child, with a personality beginning to develop. So far, he’s coming across as a fairly typical kid, albeit one with remarkable powers. He gets frustrated, he gets scared, and he turns to Kara – his protector, his only family – when that happens. Like this month’s guest star, Kal-El could go in many directions, but we’re definitely getting the sense that Kara is doing the best she can to steer him, which can’t be easy with a super kid.
Once more, I’m really impressed with this book, and I want to see this iteration of the DC Universe explored more and more.
Superman: Father of Tomorrow #5 Title: Strife Writer: Kenny Porter Art & Main Cover: Danny Earls
One issue from the end, Father of Tomorrow takes another step in the right direction. As the sorcerer Lex Luthor makes his move on Metropolis, Jor-El confesses the events that led to his exile on Earth and why he came alone. Luthor, meanwhile, faces off against Lois Lane’s father Sam, who has become this world’s Captain Atom.
My favorite thing about this whole series has to be Luthor playing with magic. It’s intriguing to see him push his genius in this direction rather than science, but he avoids coming off as just a Dr. Doom clone. This is still Luthor through and through, with all the pettiness and ego that implies. He points out of the hypocrisy of Sam Lane’s anti-superhuman stance now that he’s turned himself into one of the world’s powerhouses. He is faced with an extremely real threat and shrugs it off because, you know, he’s LEX LUTHOR, so what could possibly touch him? It’s a great new angle for a classic villain.
The reveal about Jor-El’s past works well, and it gives his position on Earth a little added flavor of tragedy, although I feel like it’s something that could have come earlier in the series. It does explain his urge to “fix” things in a way that’s suitable. My big problem with this series to date has been people opposed to Jor-El “fixing” Earth without actually providing much evidence that there’s any downside to his changes. We still don’t get any of that this issue, but we don’t dwell on the idea that his changes are bad either, so on that front I’m gonna call this issue a draw and look forward to next month’s finale.
Superman: The Stranger #1 Writer, Artist, and Main Cover: Wes Craig
The newest “Black Label” series featuring the Man of Steel dives back to the Golden Age. In a Metropolis where people are struggling to get by, young Clark Kent is desperately trying to get a job as a reporter while, at the same time, using the bizarre powers he has to patrol the city at night as Superman, defender of the defenseless. But a chance encounter in an alleyway sends him questioning where the real villains may lie.
I’m very much on the fence about this book. First of all, the vagary of the Black Label imprint continues to be an issue. Ostensibly a line of “mature” comics featuring the DC heroes, the Superman books in this series have very rarely had any content that would mark them as such. The “17+” rating on the back cover in tiny little letters doesn’t seem appropriate, and I can’t find anything that makes me think this shouldn’t be an Elseworlds, since that imprint has returned from the dead.
That’s more of a fault of editorial than the comic itself, but the comic itself leaves me with concerns. Frankly, it feels like we’re just exploring some well-worn territory. A Golden Age Superman? Seen it numerous times since the Golden Age. Superman versus corporate greed and corruption (as embodied, of course, by Lex Luthor)? It’s so familiar you could draw it in your sleep. I need something more original to justify the $5 price point of this book.
That’s not to say there’s nothing promising. Clark, honestly, seems to have more to distinguish him from other incarnations of the character than Superman himself. His thirst to work at the Daily Planet has him settling for a job at the very bottom of the pole, and I’m not talking editorial. And despite the fact that his name is, as usual, “Clark Kent,” there are some ruminations in this book that call me to question whether he was actually raised by the Kents or if his Earthly origins are different than what we’re used to. That question remains dangling at the end of this issue, which is fair enough, but I’m hoping that we return to it in the future, because so far there’s little to set The Stranger apart.
Legion of Super-Heroes #1 Title: Who Killed the Future? Writer: Joshua Williamson Art & Main Cover: Hayden Sherman
I wasn’t necessarily planning to write a review of this book. After all, this column is “Superman Stuff,” not “Superman’s Friends Stuff.” But the Legion is, in many ways, as much a Superman spinoff as Supergirl, Steel, or Krypto, and I don’t hesitate to write about those. Plus, even though Superman doesn’t actually appear in this issue…well, he’s all over it.
I am on the record as saying we do not need yet another reboot of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and I am standing by that statement. But if you’re gonna do it, Joshua Williamson has found a good way in. The book begins with the murder of R.J. Brande, a name familiar to Legion fans, whose death is being investigated by the unlikely duo of Brainiac 5 and Tenzil Kem. As they search for the facts behind Brande’s death we are introduced to this version of the future: how super-heroes are outlawed, how anybody who develops super powers is required to register them with a peacekeeping force called the Persuaders, and how many people don’t believe the legendary “Superboy” ever even existed. From there, we glimpse at the lives of three very familiar super powered young people, and the shape of this story begins to come into focus.
What’s making this story work for me, along with a healthy dollop of faith in Williamson as a writer, is Garth Ranzz. We see a Lightning Lad here with a thirst to be a hero, a craving for justice, and a locker whose contents could very well have been my own. A one-page glimpse into the legend of Superboy at the beginning serves to frame his desire for a different, better world, and even in one issue that craving feels infectious. It’s going to be rough on him when this issue’s last-page revelation hits home, but I feel like he’s going to be resilient.
And that drive, that thirst seems infectious. Imra and Rokk both appear here as well, and although none of our proto-Legionnaires interact in this first issue, we get the sensation that they’re already linked, and that the threads that link them and that will draw them together go back 1000 years to the age of heroes.
I liked this first issue very much, and I’m anxious to see how Williamson is planning to tie it into the revelations from this summer’s Superman Annual. But I don’t know if I’m planning to review every issue of this book. It’s not a Superman comic, after all. Except for in all the ways that matter.
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’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.
It’s about two weeks into the new school year, and that’s enough time for relationships to begin forming. Routines are being established. If you’re lucky, a highly effective teacher may have learned as many as 47 percent of their students’ names by now. And in my class, this is the time in which the kids get comfortable enough about my blatant nerdity to begin interrogating me about it.
“Mr. Petit!” one of them asks. “Who’s your favorite superhero?”
I look at the four shelves worth of assorted Superman paraphernalia behind my desk while I try to decide if he’s asking the question ironically.
You’re kidding me with that question right?
“Mr. Petit!” another shouts. “What’s your favorite movie out of those?”
I’ve got a 1980s decorating theme going on in my room this year, which includes posters of some of the classics. I look to where Ghostbusters and Back to the Future are hanging next to each other and I say, “It’s between these two. Ghostbusters always gets bonus points the closer we are to Halloween.”
“Mr. Petit!” a third cries, hoping that if they ask enough questions I’ll forget that they’re supposed to be working on the rough draft of their “Story of an Hour” essay, “Marvel or DC?”
There it is.
This question never fails to turn up these days. It’s funny – when I was a kid I was one of maybe three kids in school who even knew that those two entities were a thing, and now it’s as heated a debate as something like the Yankees or the Dodgers. It goes to show you two things. First of all, the geeks really are taking over the world. Second, that’s not always a positive.
“I hate that question,” I say. “I like them both. I like the characters. I like the stories. They share a lot of the same writers and artists, so–”
“Marvel or DC?” he asks again, and I know that he won’t drop this until I give some sort of an answer.
“More of my favorite characters are DC,” I finally concede.
“So you hate Marvel?”
THIS is why I hate that question.
This kind of tribalism, this insistence that liking one thing means that you have to dislike something else, is the kind of debate that you find on the internet, and is remarkably stupid. (But as I always tell my students, you shouldn’t be redundant.) There isn’t the slightest reason that expressing your fondness for one character, one publisher, or one studio should automatically be construed as a distaste for another. I don’t want to draw lines and choose sides – I want to like DC AND I want to like Marvel AND I want to like Star Trek AND I want to like Star Wars AND I want to like Bluey AND I want to like Peppa – I WANT TO LIKE BLUEY.
Five out of six ain’t bad.
“Batman or the Flash?” one kid asks me, and I sigh. “Are you asking me who I think would win in a fight, or which one I PREFER?” I ask. Because to me, those are different questions, but I find that my kids often conflate the two. Another kid asks me who my favorite Spider-Man actor is, and after confirming that we’re both fans of Tom Holland, he goes on to explain that he’s pretty sure that Holland’s Spider-Man could beat Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in a fight, which is a criteria that couldn’t possibly have less relevance to me.
That’s another method of analysis that I don’t really care about. The answer to who would win in a fight between any two fictional characters is always the same: whoever the writer WANTS to win. It doesn’t matter how lopsided the match-up is, if the writer wants Aunt May to punch out Galactus, the writer will find some way for Aunt May to punch out Galactus. Squirrel Girl’s whole appeal was built on this fact, that the writers thought it was funny for such a patently ridiculous (if adorable) character to keep beating Marvel’s biggest villains over and over again.
Never forget, this is canon.
I like good characters and I like good stories. I don’t care who publishes them or who made the movie. I don’t care which of them has an atomic punch or which one gets “15 hours of prep time.” I just want to enjoy the lore. By way of demonstration: only slightly less known than my love of Superman is my love of Benjamin J. Grimm, the Fantastic Four’s ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing. And when I say that to somebody who evaluates things by “feats,” they roll their eyes and tell me that the Hulk is stronger. As if that fact has somehow escaped me in my four decades of reading comic books.
I don’t care if the Hulk is stronger. I’m not judging an arm-wrestling contest. I am a fan of Ben Grimm’s character. Think about what he’s gone through in his life: his best friend persuades him to commit a crime and steal a rocket ship. (In the earliest versions of the story, that persuasion is helped along by Susan implying a lack of manliness on his part, but I don’t think that’s canon anymore.) He rides into space with three other people and each one of them wins the super-power lottery, gaining incredible abilities that transform them entirely. But the other three can turn their powers OFF and continue having relatively normal human lives, while Ben is trapped in a form made of orange rock, permanently cut off from sensation and true human contact. And for years he carries around an anger that defines the character – even in those moments when he is at the forefront of battle, he holds on to a resentment for what his best friend did to him.
But here’s what makes Ben Grimm a great character: eventually (many years and many writers later) he learns to let go of his resentment. He finds peace with who he is and he becomes not only a hero, but an icon. He takes a place in his community, helping the neighborhood where he grew up to become a better place. He finally stops hating himself long enough to accept the love of a woman who has never once judged him by his appearance. They have a family together now. Whereas in the early days Ben called himself the “idol of millions” ironically, in this day and age, in the Marvel universe, it’s the truth. In ongoing, mainstream comics there’s something called the “illusion of change” – the idea is that any sweeping changes that a writer makes will ultimately be swept back off the table by future writers who reset the character to who they were previously. But that hasn’t happened to Ben. He has grown and evolved and embraced the world, and I think that if you look at his life from Fantastic Four #1 in 1961 all the way to the current Ryan North run on the title, you will see a portrait of a man that any one of us would be a better person to emulate.
But more than anything, it’s the dimple.
And if you read all that and started to say, “Well yeah, but the HULK–” let me stop you right there, because you’ve missed the whole damned point. I never said that the Hulk isn’t a good character. I never said that the Hulk isn’t compelling. I said that my favorite Marvel character is the Thing, and one statement does not in any way dispute the other.
“Mr. Petit! Top five books!”
I don’t like ranking things either. For one thing, it’s just a subset of the tribal mindset that I mentioned before, and many people tend to take offense if your ranking deviates too far from their own. I’m also not good at it, because I find that any rankings I can come up with will shift from day to day, from mood to mood. I mentioned before that whether I prefer Back to the Future to Ghostbusters depends largely on when you ask me. I often watch Back to the Future in the summer, whereas Ghostbusters is more likely to run in the fall or winter (because, lest we forget, Ghostbusters II is a New Year’s movie). The same goes for any other category or ranking you can ask for. Am I CAPABLE of coming up with a top five list? Sure. But if you ask me to come up with the same top five tomorrow, it will almost certainly be different.
“Who’s your favorite writer, Mr. Petit?”
Ugh, stop. I’ve probably read more books by Stephen King than anybody else, but does that make him my FAVORITE? I think Mark Twain is probably the greatest author in American history, but does that preclude me from ENJOYING Isaac Asimov just a little bit more? “Favorite” is a term that, in my experience, inevitably becomes tainted by recency bias. I’ve read It more recently than Foundation, and at the moment I have more thoughts and feelings about It because of that. Does that mean that I PREFER it? I’m not even sure. If it were possible to read two books at the same time (I know a lot of people who have like six books with bookmarks on their nightstand right now, and I don’t know how the hell they do THAT, either) would that give me any sort of definitive, official ranking that I could tell people to satisfy their bizarre thirst for quantifying how much you enjoy things?
Even when it comes to ranking installments within a series, I struggle sometimes. It’s not as hard if the installments have hard separations. For instance, I can say with confidence that Star Trek VI is my favorite of the movies featuring the original crew, whereas Star Trek V is the worst Trek movie of them all, or at least it was until Section 31. But if you ask me to rank where I would place the books in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, I might stare blankly, because in my head it’s all one big story, and harder to differentiate. (After much contemplation, it’s still a tie between The Butcher’s Masquerade and This Inevitable Ruin.)
And the thing that confuses me the most when people come around asking these questions is, why do you care? What difference does it make to you if I like the Flash more than Batman, or if I think Revenge of the Sith is a better movie than Attack of the Clones? Most of the time, the person asking the question is doing so to spark debate. And to be fair, sometimes their intention is a good-natured debate, a debate in good faith, and I don’t begrudge them that. But I’m not looking for a debate. I don’t want to argue over what’s better than something else. I just want to talk about the things that I love.
So if a student asks me what I think about a specific movie, book, character, or performance, I have no problem telling them. I will cheerfully tell them that I thought Spider-Man: Brand New Day was fantastic. I will let them know that Jaws is one of the few movies that I think is better than the book it was based on. And when they ask me why I haven’t seen any of the Avatar sequels, I will even inform them politely that I saw the first one, and that was enough for me.
But playing “can Robert Pattinson’s Batman beat Michael Keaton’s Batman in a fight?” It’s a fool’s game, and I don’t have time enough in my life to waste it playing fool’s games.
Especially not when I have all these Kate Chopin essays to grade.
This week, the internet broke YET AGAIN – seriously, you would think they would have found a way to stabilize the darn thing by now – when Marvel Comics announced the upcoming crossover event Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles. This five-issue miniseries, beginning in January, will not only be the first crossover between two of the biggest franchises in the world, but one of less than a handful of Star Wars crossovers EVER.
That’s not your back cracking, it’s Duck Duck Go.
Marvel, of course, is no stranger to the crossover game. Over the years their characters have met the superheroes of the DC, Image, and Valiant universes, battled Godzilla, boarded the starship Enterprise, crossed swords with Conan and Red Sonja, turned Phineas and Ferb’s pal Baljeet into a Hulk, absorbed the Ultraverse, encountered Archie Andrews, fought the Predator and the Alien Xenomorphs, teamed up with the Autobots, time-traveled to the Planet of the Apes, partnered with Disney’s Gargoyles, attacked on Titan, recently encountered Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob, and next month are scheduled to raise the curtain with the Muppets. And that’s just off the top of my head. Star Wars, on the other hand, has always been far, far more selective in terms of who they were going to meet up with. In the entire history of the franchise, I am only aware of a handful crossovers of any kind. One was a short story in the non-canonical Star Wars Tales comic anthology in which the Millennium Falcon crashes on a primitive Earth, with the wreckage found a century later by a very familiar “Professor Jones.” The second is the Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars special from 2014, which was as delightful as everything else Phineas and Ferb but also went out of its way to remind the viewers with a tongue-in-cheek disclaimer that the story wasn’t canon to either franchise, so they should really just relax. In the 70s, an episode of The Muppet Show was hosted by Mark Hamill and featured his “cousin” Luke Skywalker. Finally, there was a line of Star Wars Transformers that allowed vehicles like the Falcon and Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter to turn into robot versions of the characters, but there was never a movie, cartoon, or comic book attached to the toy line.
Whaddaya MEAN “This isn’t canon?”
So this is a big deal, is what I’m saying. Of course, there are skeptics asking why they’re publishing this comic, the answer to which should be obvious: because it will make several dump trucks full of money. The REAL question, in my mind, is why they’re only getting around to it NOW. Marvel and Star Wars have been corporate siblings ever since Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012. At the time, Dark Horse Comics had the rights to publish Star Wars, but as soon as that contract expired in 2015, Disney yoinked it away and gave it to Marvel. (Dark Horse, oddly, has recently regained the rights to publish certain Star Wars comics, but the bulk of the line remains with Marvel.)
The point I’m getting at is that, honestly, I’m surprised we didn’t get a Marvel/Star Wars crossover a decade ago. They’ve had lots of fun playing with other Disney properties: there have been lots of variant covers with Marvel heroes in Tron or Pirates of the Carribean-inspired designs, for example. Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox didn’t happen until 2019, but we’ve been inundated since then with comics like Alien Vs. Captain America, Predator Vs. Wolverine, and Planet of the Apes Vs. Fantastic Four. And although the classic Disney characters have never interacted with the Marvel Universe directly, they’ve appeared on countless variant covers for different Marvel comics and starred in a series of What If? specials in which the Disney characters BECOME the Marvel heroes (Donald Duck as Wolverine, Goofy as Spider-Man, Minnie Mouse as Captain Marvel, etc.)
So why are we just getting around to Star Wars/Marvel NOW?
Seriously, how the crap did THIS happen before Marvel/StarWars?
The skeptic in me wants to say it’s because both franchises need a little bit of polish. Recent movie and television projects for both Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios – justified or not – have largely fallen flat with audiences (with the obvious exception of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which in the two weeks since its release has made roughly enough money to buy the moon if only they could figure out who to make the check out to). Finally mashing the two universes together is going to draw some much-needed attention to both of them. There’s no doubt that people who haven’t read comics in years – and perhaps never read them at all – will line up to see what happens when Darth Vader teams up with Dr. Doom or Chewbacca pals around with the Thing.
But again, that’s the skeptical way to look at it. Perhaps it’s just taken them that long to find the right idea. The series is written by the aforementioned Kevin Smith, which is an interesting choice to say the least. I’m going to assume that Marvel has already got all five scripts for the series in hand to avoid Smith’s infamous tardiness, because anything else would be insanity. If that’s the case, then you have to wonder why Kevin Smith. Sure, he’s written lots of Marvel characters over the years, but to the best of my knowledge the closest he’s ever gotten to dabbling in the Star Wars universe is the scene in Clerks when Dante and Randall have a debate about the culpability of the independent contractors who got killed when Lando Calrissian blew up the second Death Star.
I think people give Kevin Smith a bad rap these days. They assume all he’s capable of is blue humor and nerd references, and that’s simply not fair. Even his early movies – which, to be fair, contain an abundance of blue humor and nerd references – have a lot of heart to them, with strong character moments and plenty of memorable dialogue. He would later go on to give us truly phenomenal runs on comics like Daredevil and Green Arrow, mainstream comics to which he brought some wildly inventive new stories that helped redefine the characters. Now all of those examples are relatively old, I know, but allow me to point you towards his 2024 film The 4:30 Movie, which is as heartfelt a devotion to the moviegoing experience and the tightrope walking act involved in young love as anybody has ever done. What I’m saying is that, yes, he DOES do sex jokes and geek comedy, but he doesn’t JUST do sex jokes and geek comedy. If you’d asked me to write a top ten list of writers who should handle this crossover I don’t know if he would have made the cut, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense.
I know you haven’t seen this. Honestly, you SHOULD.
That said, it almost doesn’t matter WHO’S going to write this comic book. The golden goose that is a Star Wars/Marvel mashup is such a guaranteed moneymaker that they could have recruited the worst writer on FanFiction.biz and still sold enough copies to fill the hole left in my heart ever since they discontinued the Coca-Cola with coffee I used to drink every morning. Literally anybody could get a bestseller with this premise. I’m glad it’s going to be someone who has a genuine love for both properties, but Marvel is looking for dollar signs here.
When the news was released, the comic book group I’m in started to debate various aspects of it – for example, how many variant covers are there going to be? The general consensus is that, in addition to the main cover, Marvel should release 65 variants, thereby allowing the completists to go to their local comic shop and declare, “Order 66!” Yes, it’s a terrible joke, and that’s why I love it.
But I think 66 is kind of lowballing it, to be honest. I’m not the biggest fan of variant covers, in general, but I also recognize the fact that the number of variants on an average comic seems to be INCREASING, not DECREASING. Most comics from Marvel have at least four or five covers. First issues and “key” appearances can reach the double-digits. And sometimes it’s TRULY absurd – there were almost 150 covers for Absolute Batman #20, the first appearance of that universe’s iteration of Robin. No, my finger didn’t slip when I was typing that – there are ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX covers currently listed at the League of Comic Geeks database.
And let’s face it, Star Wars/Marvel is not gonna be an average comic by any available metric. With a January release I’m not comfortable declaring that it’s going to be the best-selling comic of 2027, because there’s no way of predicting what might come later (I’m holding out hope for Absolute Captain Carrot shattering all records), but if it ain’t in the top five I’ll eat my lightsaber. There’s no way Marvel is going to let a book like that come out without milking it for all it’s worth. There will be a dozen different “standard” covers, at bare minimum. Many of those will probably have “virgin” covers (no logo or trade dress, just the artwork), “sketch” covers (black-and-white artwork before the coloring is added), hologram or foil covers, virgin sketch hologram foil covers, and so on. I also fully anticipate a slew of “homage” covers, featuring the Star Wars characters re-creating classic Marvel covers like Fantastic Four #1, Avengers #4, or Amazing Spider-Man #300, and possibly covers with the Marvel characters re-creating the Star Wars movie posters. Skottie Young will do a “baby” variant. J. Scott Campbell will do a cheesecake variant. There will be at least three different blank versions (of different colors) for artists to draw their own covers. Then there’s the “Punisher Kills Jar-Jar” variant. I could do this all day.
And let’s not forget the action figure variants! When Marvel got the license for Star Wars back in 2015, they started a specific genre of variant cover: covers that imitate an action figure blister pack. The trend expanded beyond Star Wars to the Marvel universe covers, to some of the Disney comics Marvel published, and on to other publishers doing their own “action figure” covers for toys both real and imagined. (My favorites of these have been DC’s “Super Powers” variants, by the way.) I fully expect each issue of this miniseries to have at LEAST one action figure cover each with a two-pack of characters from the respective universes: Dr. Doom and Darth Vader, Han Solo and Wolverine, Baby Yoda and the Kingpin – you know, the obvious pairings.
Imagine that you see this, you think it’s a rad toy, then you realize somebody wants you to read a BOOK.
And lest we forget, this is going to be a FIVE ISSUE series. They’re not just going to blow the wad with a one-shot. They’re going to have a monthly grab at that brass ring from January until May.
In fact, the potential leads me to my next little bit of mindless speculation: what if it’s not just the miniseries that we know about? Marvel has a tendency to accompany any “event” with spinoffs. Kevin Smith is writing the five issues of Hope Assembles, but I honestly would not be surprised if, a month from now, Marvel announces an additional line of one-shot comics by different writers and artists focusing on a single pair from each of the two worlds. Boba Fett gets hired to collect the bounty on Venom. C-3PO and R2-D2 compare notes with H.E.R.B.I.E. the Robot. Deadpool meets – actually, I don’t even care who Deadpool meets as long as he’s allowed to cut loose and break down every fourth wall in the entire Star Wars universe at the hands of a skilled comedic writer. I nominate Gail Simone.
Anyway, the point is, if you’re the kind of collector who needs every cover of any respective comic book to feel like they’ve made themselves whole, I feel very, very bad for you.
But don’t feel bad for Marvel. This is the closest thing to a license to print money they’ve had in quite some time. This book will sell very, very well.
A few months ago, I blogged about the goofy fan theories that certain TV shows aren’t really over when their last episode airs, that the studios might be holding back a “secret” final episode. This was – and is – an idiotic supposition, because the world of entertainment in the modern age is utterly averse to surprising their audience in any conceivable way. Movie trailers guard no secrets, casting announcements clue us in to what could have been surprise character reveals YEARS before a TV show is released…it’s irritating as hell. But this week gave me a nice reminder that there is, thankfully, one exception to that rule, and his name is Robert Kirkman. This week, Kirkman did something vile, insidious, and totally cruel to his fans…and we love him for it.
The face of Evil.
Here’s a crash course for anybody who doesn’t know the name. Robert Kirkman is a comic book writer who came to mainstream prominence when his two most successful comic books were made into television shows, those being the hit zombie series The Walking Dead and the animated superhero show Invincible. Kirkman has since blown up from being a mere writer to being a serious player in the entertainment world, with those two properties still making waves and lots of other things in the works. He still writes comics, but he also manages his own studio, Skybound Entertainment, which produces (through Image Comics) not only his own work, but works of other creators and a host of licensed comics as well.
Kirkman is one of the few people left in the world of entertainment who actually seems to value surprising his audience, as he has done several times. When issue 193 of The Walking Dead comic book came out, fans were stunned to realize that – unannounced – it was an extra-length issue. We were even MORE surprised when we reached the end and found the announcement that it was the LAST issue. Unlike most comics (or TV shows, for that matter) that make a big deal out of their finale, announcing it well ahead of time to build up hype, Kirkman floored all of us by not telling us the biggest thing in comics was ending. He even had released fake solicitations and covers for issues 194 and 195, knowing perfectly well that those issues would never be published, just to throw us off the scent. It was a zombie story, after all, and just like in a zombie story anyone can die at any time, the same was true for the series.
“Oboy, I hope this sets up another epic, long-lasting story arc for one of my favorite comic books.” –Me in 2019, about to get a shock
This wouldn’t be the last time Kirkman did something like this. In 2020, while everybody was having an existential crisis in the midst of the pandemic, Kirkman decided he was going to have a little fun. Without warning he dropped issue 17 of a comic book called Solid Blood. This was surprising for a few reasons. Not only was it totally unannounced, but the previous 16 issues of the series did not exist. This was a reimagining of the character who eventually became Michonne of The Walking Dead, played up as if she’d been in a science fiction series that had been running for a few years. It was weird and wild, and it came at a time when weird and wild was particularly appreciated.
In 2023, Kirkman pulled off perhaps his biggest surprise coup when he announced a new ongoing science fiction series called Void Rivals. Even though I hadn’t ordered it, when the first issue dropped the manager at my local comic shop (BSI Comics in Metairie, Louisiana, and they deserve the shout out) reserved one for me because he knew I’d want it when the big secret of the book became public, which is another reason it’s important to find a good comic shop with a great staff. Void Rivals was a sort of space opera, with two protagonists from warring races trying to overcome the biases of their respective cultures. Interesting, but nothing world-changing.
Until the last few pages, when the two of them suddenly stumbled upon an enormous robot with a very familiar red symbol on his chest: it was Jetfire the Autobot. It was a Transformer. And Void Rivals, the text at the end of the comic book announced, was actually the beginning of a new publishing initiative Kirkman was calling the Energon Universe. It was part of a shared universe with rebooted versions of the Transformers and G.I. Joe, both of which launched new ongoing comics within the next year. The three titles (and assorted miniseries and one-shots) share a universe, and although each can be read on their own, reading all of them paints a more satisfying, complete picture of the universe. This wasn’t the first time that Hasbro, the toy company that owns the two franchises, had attempted to create a shared universe among their properties, but it has by far been the most successful. The Energon titles have become a sales juggernaut and are driving people into comics shops who haven’t read comics in years, decades, or in some cases, EVER. And plans are in the works for an animated series based on this universe, which will presumably incorporate all three titles, and more.
Only a true imp would dream of this.
Yes, more, because Transformers and G.I. Joe are not the only two toy lines Hasbro owns, and speculation began running rampant about which other Hasbro properties could potentially become part of the Energon Universe. And Kirkman did what Kirkman does better than anybody: he lied. He told us that there were no plans to add any of the other Hasbro lines. But then some of the books, specifically G.I. Joe, began to incorporate characters from Hasbro’s M.A.S.K. series. This wasn’t a huge surprise – M.A.S.K. (although never AS popular as G.I. Joe or the Transformers) has a pretty large following, and there have even been efforts in the past to reboot the Mobile Armored Strike Kommand as a subgroup of the G.I. Joe team, so nobody was TOO shocked when it was announced that M.A.S.K. would join the Energon Universe in June as the fourth series.
Or “Muh-Muh-Muh-M.A.S.K.”, as it’s pronounced in the original French.
This Wednesday, M.A.S.K. #1 came out, and it took part in a current comic book practice that, frankly, I kinda hate. They released it “Blind Bagged,” in sealed plastic, so that you don’t know which cover of the book you’re getting until you open it up. I’m not a huge fan of variant covers in the first place, so I just asked the friendly folks at BSI to put aside the standard, non-bagged cover for me. Alas, do I kind of regret that now. Because the Blind Bags, in addition to having M.A.S.K. #1, ALSO have one of three randomly-inserted BONUS comics in them. Some comics come with an early printing of M.A.S.K. #2. No big deal – I can wait for that issue to come out, since I’ve already got it ordered. Others came with a one-off book called M.A.S.K. Origins, which apparently collects all of the M.A.S.K.-related scenes from the previous Energon titles, for those who like to keep score. Neat, but I’ve already read all of those books, so it’s not really necessary.
But the third book. Oh, the third book. Robert Kirkman, you magnificent son of a bitch.
The third book you might randomly pull in a blind bag is ROM #1.
People who grew up reading this comic are too old to be shocked this way, Kirkman.
ROM is – like G.I. Joe and the Transformers – a toy line that was fleshed out in the 80s by a Marvel comic book series. UNlike G.I. Joe and the Transformers, the ROM toy line kind of fell flat and ended rather quickly. The comic book, however, was a smash hit, outlasting the toys by several years and still being a favorite of a lot of readers today. Unlike M.A.S.K., there had been no indication that ROM would be added to the Energon Universe, making this issue the biggest surprise since Jetfire showed up in Void Rivals #1.
Now, this is not to say I’m thrilled about how this came about. Making the book a blind bag exclusive is certainly going to drive up sales – but odds are most comic shops are ALREADY sold out of these by the time you read this. Copies of the issue are going for $50 on eBay and, much as I would like it, I have absolutely no intention of buying it for that price. (And if my wife is reading this thinking about Father’s Day, I am begging her NOT to spend that much money on this particular book.) If you’re the sort of person who, like me, just wants to READ all of the books in the Energon Universe, it’s somewhat frustrating to know this one is floating out there somewhat out of reach. As of this writing, Kirkman hasn’t announced any plans to reprint the book for a wider audience (although one would think it’d be foolish not to), nor has he said if there will be further issues of ROM, although he says that the character’s story is going to continue in the pages of Void Rivals.
I’m hoping that there WILL be SOME edition of this book that I can get at a reasonable price sooner rather than later.
But even if there isn’t, I find I have to admire Kirkman’s desire to use surprise to create an event. He could have told people ahead of time that ROM was coming back. He could even have teased that it would be found ONLY in Blind Bagged copies of M.A.S.K. #1. But doing it the way he did got people talking in a way that no other announcement could have done.
So now the question is, what’s next for the Energon Universe? There are still plenty of other Hasbro properties that could potentially show up. Another less-remembered toy line, Visionaries, has had its home planet of Prysmos name-dropped in an Energon book – is that a hint that those characters may turn up next? How about the fan-favorite Micronauts (like ROM, a well-regarded series better remembered for its comic book than the toy line), or the U.K.’s G.I. Joe-equivalent Action Man, both of which were part of previous efforts at a Hasbro universe? Honestly, at this point ANY toy line owned by Hasbro feels like it could potentially show up, from Battle Beasts to Jem and the Holograms. (And the only reason I’m not including My Little Pony or Dungeons and Dragons as possibilities is because, at the moment, both of those are licensed to other comic book publishers.)
And it’s not like Energon is the only trick Kirkman has up his sleeve, either. He’s publishing a pair of Invincible spin-offs right now and has a new superhero comic book called Terminal dropping in a few months. What surprises could await us there? Furthermore, his Skybound Entertainment also publishes licensed comics with properties as diverse as Creepshow, LEGO, and the Universal Monsters, and at this point I don’t know what to expect next from ANY of them.
This is why I admire Kirkman. Not because he’s a good writer, although he is that. Not because he’s a good businessman, although he has proven himself quite adept there as well. But because he actually has cultivated an environment in which even someone like me, who reads most of the stuff he produces, can be surprised at ANY MOMENT. That’s exciting. That’s thrilling. That’s the sort of thing that’s got me wondering if I should call up BSI and tell them to put aside a Blind Bag of Terminal #1, if they’re going to do that this time.
Because I don’t know what’s coming next.
And in a world where every movie trailer gives away the whole plot and comic book publishers are announcing the aftermath of their major crossover events before the major crossover event even begins (lookin’ at YOU, Marvel, with your Avengers: Armageddon series), the idea that there’s SOMEBODY out there who finds value in keeping his audience on their toes is actually pretty joyful.
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. Seriously, Erin, get off eBay. $50 is too much.
Thaaaat’s right, once again, it’s time to take a look at some of the recent Superman-related comics that DC has turned out for us. Including another heapin’ helpin’ of Mark Waid, a dash of dandy Dan Mora, more-a of those Superboys reignin’, and Superman’s return to Elseworlds!
Action Comics #1098 Title: Future Shock Part Two (A Reign of the Superboys tie-in) Writer: Mark Waid Artists: Skylar Patridge and Patricia Delpeche Main Cover: Ryan Sook
The time-tossed team of Martian Manhunter, Booster Gold, and Mary Marvel are in Smallville with Clark Kent early in his career as Superboy, and it’s not looking good when they learn that the villain they chased into the past, Epoch, has stolen the rocket that brought baby Kal-El to Earth in the first place. There’s a fight and a face-off, which of course is to be expected in a superhero comic book, but none of that is where this issue really shines. The heart of the book comes in the middle section, as Jonathan and Martha recount the story of how they found the baby to the time-travelers. Waid, of course, recently cleaned up DC’s timeline with his New History of the DC Universe series, so if there’s anybody we can consider an expert on what’s currently canon and what isn’t, it’s probably him. Seeing the current version of Superman’s origin presented answers a few questions and clarifies things, and leads to a surprisingly sweet moment between J’onn and the Kents.
As with last issue, though, I’m absolutely loving the Mary/Clark dynamic. I really like the characterization of Mary as the older sibling of the Marvel family, and she carries that over here to her interactions with Clark, leading to a delightful scene where she decides to play wingwoman for him in his relationship with Lana. It’s a highly entertaining moment, although I do very much wonder if we’ll ever see a scene after Superman returns in the present timeline where the two of them talk about this.
Strong artwork by Skylar Patridge and Patricia Delpeche give the issue a sort of finishing touch. With issue #1100 coming up, it seems as though the time-missing Superman storyline is about to come to an end, but I hope that doesn’t mean an end to Waid’s time in Smallville, because these stories have been a lot of fun.
Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #51 Title: Warlords Part One Writer: Mark Waid Artist: Adrian Gutierrez Main Cover: Dan Mora
Over in World’s Finest, which is ALSO set in the past (early in the partnership of Superman, Batman, and the Dick Grayson Robin), it’s time for a trip to the Arctic. Our heroes are tracking the flight path of a missing Air Force pilot, one who vanished on the same trajectory as another missing pilot, one Travis Morgan. Of course, the world’s finest get zapped to the out-of-time world of Skartaris and find themselves fighting alongside Morgan, the Warlord, in battle against the mysterious Tyrant Rex. Robin, of course, is wild about the dinosaurs. Superman is less wild about the magic flying around this little corner of the DC Universe.
I’ve never gotten super into Warlord. Its heyday was before my time as a comic book reader, and the various attempts to bring him back over the years have never quite landed. That said, I do enjoy watching Waid play with all the toys available in the DC Universe, and this is no exception. He used the time differential between the “normal” world and Skartaris to good effect here, changing things up for our heroes almost immediately upon entering the lost land, and Batman and Robin are thrust into rescue mode fairly early.
Gutierrez draws some wildly fun dinosaurs, and he really sells the “acting” with the characters’ faces, particularly Robin, whom we are reminded time and again is pretty young in this series. He behaves like a younger version of the Dick Grayson we know – a little more impulsive, a little less confident, but still with the same solid heart.
This remains one of my favorite series that DC is putting out.
Superman Unlimited #13 Title: Primal Fears (A Reign of the Superboys tie-in Writer: Dan Slott Artist: Lucas Meyer Main Cover: Taurin Clarke
This issue starts with the greatest character in comics, Bibbo Bibbowski, taking care of the monkey he found last issue. Some goons from the lab the monkey escaped show up trying to get him back, and things get much rougher than they expected. The time-tossed younger version of Jon Kent, meanwhile, is having nightmares about the torture he endured at the hands of Ultraman, while the older Jon – now calling himself Tomorrow Man – finds that a masked hero in Metropolis doesn’t necessarily enjoy the same kind of trust from the public that he may be used to. The two Jons are called into action when the super-monkey starts tearing it up.
I’m not going to keep playing coy here – the story works great as a reintroduction of Beppo the Super-Monkey into the DC Universe, although the origin that Slott chooses for him here has a lot of 90s flavor to it, bringing back the long-missing Dabney Donovan character. I also like the dynamic he’s playing with the two Jons and Lois, who is far too smart not to figure out what the deal is with Tomorrow Man, and Slott seems to be leaning into that. I really don’t know what the endgame of this particular storyline is going to be, and that’s a nice feeling in a day and age where everything gets spoiled yesterday. It’s a longshot, but I think that if things shook out with young Jon/Superboy and old Jon/Tomorrow Man coexisted in the DCU long-term, I’d be okay with it.
Of course, Jon is still wearing the “S” over in New Titans, so that’s probably not going to happen.
Supergirl #13 Title: Hero of Kandor Part Three (A Reign of the Superboys tie-in) Writer, Artist, & Main Cover: Sophie Campbell
Kara’s adventure in Kandor continues. With Black Flame causing chaos, Supergirl – now stuck with some cyborg parts, in case you missed last issue – tracks down Lesla-Lar to try to get her help. Lesla, meanwhile, has something very, very important to show our heroine, and it might just change things for Kara Zor-El for good.
It really feels like Campbell has been building up to this story since issue #1, and that’s a great thing. All of the stuff with Lesla and Lena and Kara showing her constant compassion and trust in people who were once her enemies is paying off in really interesting and unexpected ways. Ultimately, we still aren’t 100 percent sure what side Lesla is going to land on once all of this is over, and Campbell has set it up in such a way that either choice would be conceivably in-character. That’s quite a trick, and it’s pulled off impressively.
If there’s anything to complain about, it’s that the whole “Reign of the Superboys” tie-in feels more tacked on than ever. Conner finally makes it into Kandor in this issue, but he’s only around for a couple of frankly unnecessary pages before the story moves back to Kara. It really feels as though Campbell had the story planned and in the works when editorial put out an edict that Conner Kent had to feature into these post-DC KO issues somehow, then she just kind of crowbarred him in where she could while causing minimal disruption to the narrative. If that’s the case, then it’s a failure on editorial’s part, not Campbell’s, and the pages without Conner at all work just fine at telling an interesting, gripping story that only really could be told with Kara Zor-El.
Superman #38 Title: Prime Time Part Three (A Reign of the Superboys tie-in) Writer: Joshua Williamson Artist and Main Cover: Dan Mora
I didn’t have a Superboy-Prime/Witchfire pairing on my 2026 wish list, but here we are. Witchfire, a magic user from Kurt Busiek’s fun and forgotten series Power Company, is looking for an innocent soul to use in a spell she needs. Unfortunately, she has TOTALLY misread the aura of that cute guy at the comic shop. All is not lost, though – Superboy-Prime IS in the midst of a redemption arc, after all, and this seems like just the way to do it.
Williamson is clearly having fun with this. He leans more into the meta nature of Prime in this issue, and the last act of the book dives into it headfirst, with the return of this arc’s true villain and Prime being thrust into what is possibly his own worst nightmare. But the amazing, encouraging thing here is that we never feel like his attempts at redemption are fake or forced or cheap. Williamson has successfully convinced us that Prime sincerely wants to reform and become a hero like he always wanted, and despite the horrific crimes he committed in the past (some of which we are specifically reminded of in this issue), the reader finds themselves rooting for him. It’s an odd feeling, to look at someone who once casually slaughtered Teen Titans like they were nothing and find yourself pulling for him. But the whole thing kind of plays into a personal philosophy of redemption that I subscribe to. I’ve got to believe – hell, for the good of the WORLD I’ve got to believe – that redemption is possible. And that if someone truly wants to become a better person today than they were yesterday, at the very least they deserve the opportunity to TRY.
Admittedly, applying that philosophy to a murderer is totally on the extreme end, but just ask yourself how many bad guys joined the heroes on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and tell me if what’s going on with Prime here is really all that different.
Dan Mora’s artwork, as usual, is wonderful. I’ve talked before about how some artists are good at “acting” with their characters, and this issue is a fantastic example of that – the sweet, nervous flirtation between C.K. and Rebecca is written not only on their faces, but in their body language as well. It’s such a small thing, but it adds so much to the story. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I almost don’t want the real Superman to come back to this title just yet, because I’m not ready for this story to end.
Justice League Unlimited #19 Title: Amnesty Part One Writer: Mark Waid Artist and Main Cover Dan Mora
Speaking of redemption, why don’t we peek in on what the Justice League is doing, shall we? Lex Luthor went public with the League’s plan to offer amnesty to certain super villains as part of their larger plan to fortify the defenses against the darkness they know is coming (that’s what DC All In is all about, Charlie Brown), and as you might have expected, public perception is NOT what the League may have hoped for. Meanwhile, Guy Gardner’s team is en route to Oa to hide the Power Bank with backups of the Leaguers’ respective super-powers, and Superboy (Conner) and Steel (Natasha) get a nasty surprise when they’re hanging out with Air Wave.
I mentioned this last issue, but I love the way that Mark Waid is juggling so many storylines at once. The “main” story, the one with Lex Luthor working with the League’s big guns and (in this issue, at least) rounding up villains who are falsely claiming amnesty, is really fascinating. Luthor, as a character, is the sort who always has something up his sleeve and you can never actually trust him, but considering what he and the other participants in the KO tournament know about the future, this is a case where it’s possible that he really is being genuine, even his motives are ultimately selfish. The fun here is trying to figure out just exactly HOW much is self-interest and self-preservation.
The other storylines are looked at quickly, but progress as well. Guy Gardner and the Justice Gang (if you’re gonna use the characters from the movie I’m gonna use the name from the movie) naturally run into some problems in the course of their mission, and just when you thought poor Air Wave’s troubles were over, they get worse. I’m looking forward to seeing them take the forefront next issue.
Dan Mora – have I mentioned that Dan Mora is really, really freaking good at what he does? And he’s doing it TWICE A MONTH. Plus about a billion covers. Dude is a machine.
Superman: Father of Tomorrow #1 Title: Planetfall Writer: Kenny Porter Artist and Main Cover: Danny Earl
I’ve been waiting for this ever since DC announced they were bringing back the Elseworlds imprint. While alternate versions of Superman have featured in some of the books like Dark Knights of Steel or the Gotham By Gaslight sequels, this is the first of the new Elseworlds to explicitly be a Superman comic.
Not Kal-El, mind you, but I’ll take what I can get.
In Father of Tomorrow, the catch is that rather than Kal-El, it was JOR-El who escaped Krypton’s destruction and came to Earth, Similarly to what happened to his son in the main universe, he crashes to Earth in Smallville, Kansas, and is taken in by the Kents, who pass him off as Jonathan’s younger brother, Jordan. Jordan lives with the Kents, hiding the truth of his alien ancestry for years, until something happens that spurs him to come out of hiding and use his power and advanced Kryptonian technology to make the Earth a better place.
This first issue is intriguing. Porter uses a lot of familiar Superman elements, characters, and even standard plot points from various versions of Superman’s origin to put together this story, but the fact that it’s about an adult Jor-El instead of baby Kal-El twists things in curious ways. Jor-El is well-meaning, to be certain, but by the end of the first issue we start to get an ominous feeling that perhaps his good intentions are going to lead him down a dark path.
I don’t want this to be yet another “evil Superman” story by the end of it, but let’s be honest here. It’s an Elseworlds, and an awful lot of the classic Elseworlds stories had tragic endings. It wouldn’t be out of character for that to happen here.
I like Danny Earls’ artwork. His designs for Jor-El’s costume and the Kryptonian technology are unique and exciting, and contrast the idyllic small-town feel of Smallville in just the right way.
So far so good, folks. Let’s see if you can keep it going.
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!
Recently, on the advice of – and this is a rough estimate so please forgive me if I leave somebody off this list – everybody, I picked up Matt Dinniman’s LitRPG novel Dungeon Crawler Carl. I’ve never read a LitRPG before, but a lot of people whose options I highly value told me over and over again what a great book this was and that I needed to check it out or watch my Geek Cred stats rapidly plummet. And I must concede, that first book really grabbed me.
My friends just know how wild I go over “crawling” fiction.
From what I can tell, LitRPG is a subgenre of sci-fi and fantasy in which the story emulates traits of a typical roleplaying game, including having the characters’ stats and levels prominently featured and even included in the plot. In the case of Dungeon Crawler Carl, these stats and levels come as Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, are forced to risk their lives over and over again in a massive global dungeon with the entirety of the human race – at least those who are still alive – hanging in the balance. If that doesn’t sound like a riot, I should remind you all that Douglas Adams chose to begin his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by blowing up Earth, so an apocalyptic comedy is by no means unexplored territory. And Dinniman handles it extremely well. I admit, when I started reading the book I expected the conclusion of the Dungeon Crawler story to come by the end of the first volume, and I wondered what the follow-up would be that would extend the series to seven installments (so far, at least – the latest word is that the series will wrap up in volume ten). I was quite surprised, then, as I progressed through the novel and realized, at the pace we were going, there was no way in hell the story would be finished in one book, and Carl’s singular quest through the dungeons would, so it appears, be the entire series.
After reading some massive doorstoppers early this year, I was pleasantly surprised not only by how entertaining the adventures of Carl and Donut turned out to be, but also by just how quickly I whipped through the first novel. After spending the better part of a month on Stephen King’s It, I finished the first Carl book in less than a week. I informed some of my friends who recommended it to me in a group chat the day after I finished reading book one, and one of them told me that book eight is scheduled for release next month, May.
“I doubt I’ll make it through seven books by May,” I said.
“Yeah, you will,” he replied.
And damned if it’s not possible. When I picked up the second volume this week, I got through roughly a quarter of it in the first day, an almost unheard of chunk of novel in a modern era in which my valuable reading time is often stolen by such frivolous things as going to work, driving a car, and parenting. But I quickly noticed something unusual about the second book, Carl’s Doomsday Scenario. Most of the time, when you get to the second installment of a series, there’s a bit of an effort to restack the world for the audience – reminding them of things that happened in part one, re-explaining the rules of the world, and otherwise attempting to bring them up to speed in case there’s anybody just joining in for the first time. This is pretty common in fiction of all types. TV shows with serialized storylines will frequently begin with a “Previously on…” segment. Movie sequels will usually have some brief lip service where the characters recap the events of the first film, even if doing so makes little sense in context. Comic books make frequent use of flashbacks.
The idea here is that there’s always the chance that there’s someone joining the audience NOW – somebody who has not seen the earlier episodes or read the earlier books, and therefore needs a little help so they don’t get lost. There was a point in the 80s when Jim Shooter, then Editor-In-Chief of Marvel Comics, issued a company-wide rule that every character be referred to by name when they first appeared in each issue, just to make sure a theoretical new reader could tell who’s who. The spirit of the policy made sense, but in terms of writing, this would often result in clunky panels with inorganic dialogue. This was never demonstrated better than the infamous “Mouseketeer Roll Call” Shooter himself wrote in the pages of Marvel’s first major crossover event, Secret Wars, when dozens of heroes and villains who had just been kidnapped and brought to the other end of the universe by a cosmic deity stopped the action, stood in a line, and identified themselves.
The Wasp and the Thing are at opposite ends, both of the panel, and in terms of the spectrum of humility.
Dinniman, however, makes absolutely zero attempt to recap the story for new readers. Although Carl’s Doomsday Scenario begins with a new Chapter One, it may as well have just continued the numbering from the previous book, because it picks up just seconds later and makes every presumption that the reader is up-to-date. It doesn’t recap part one, doesn’t explain the logic of this universe, and pretty much just goes on as if Dinniman is quite confident that anybody who is reading Doomsday Scenario will also have read Dungeon Crawler Carl, so why bother? It was temporarily jarring even for me, somebody who had just finished book one a week earlier, when Carl started getting messages from somebody named “Brandon” that had not been mentioned before in this book and I had to go back and remind myself who he was.
I defy anybody to find evidence in this image that this book is a sequel. You can’t, can you? Because you’re too busy looking at the cat in the tiara, that’s why.
The style of storytelling in which a recap is expected…in some ways, it’s kind of a relic of a bygone era. It made a lot of sense in the days when a TV series aired one episode a week and if you missed it, you just missed it and hoped you could catch a rerun over the summer. In these days of binge-watching, when you can start a series from episode one no matter how many episodes have been made, and when the streaming service will roll right into the next episode after you finish it, it’s not nearly as important as it used to be. It’s still a little more necessary in other forms of storytelling, but not always. In movies like those in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – particularly the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday – we should expect a certain amount of recap because it’s unreasonable to presume every audience member will be intimately familiar with the details of the past three decades of Marvel movies and television, especially since the former Fox X-Men universe is being folded into the multiverse of the MCU. But James Gunn’s Superman launched a whole universe in the middle of a story and figured – correctly – that there was no need to go over Superman’s origin yet again because everybody should be familiar with it at this point. A few title cards at the very beginning told us everything we could possibly need to know.
But what about episodic storytelling like comic books? Shooter’s rule – even when it was executed poorly – made a lot of sense in an era where it was presumed that every issue was potentially somebody’s FIRST issue. Comic books aren’t really written that way anymore. Most series – even so-called “ongoing” series – are given a certain number of issues to tell a story (although this exact number is often undisclosed to the reader it is typically low – maybe five or six issues at a time). If the series sells well enough, it will be renewed for another number of issues, then another, until either it becomes unprofitable or the creative team finishes all of the stories they had planned. With this structure, even as comic book sales are on the rise, it’s reasonable to assume that the number of people jumping into a series on issue #8 is relatively slim. But we WANT new readers, so there has to be a way to make it accessible without alienating the existing audience.
And there is, and it’s a simple way. Marvel Comics have long had a policy of including a “previously” page at the beginning of each issue, recapping the story to date and showing headshots of the major characters. It serves the same purpose as Shooter’s old rule, but it’s not intrusive into the story itself. Somebody who hasn’t been reading along can use the page to get into the saddle, but faithful readers can easily skip it if they wish. It’s a sensible policy, and other publishers (DC included) have slowly gotten into the habit of incorporating similar pages in their own comic books, although I wish it would become more standard.
I mean, without this page how would you ever know the Scarlet Witch is a witch?
With prose books, we’ve got an interesting sort of mix of possible readers. On the one hand, if somebody is an ebook reader, it would make little sense to begin in the middle of a series. If you’re browsing the Kindle store and a book sounds interesting, it’s usually labelled as something like “Book 2 in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series,” with a handy link to look at all the books in the series at once so you can get them all and start from the beginning. But for a print reader who gets these books browsing a brick-and-mortar store, it’s not always as clear. Not every series is clearly labeled as such on the cover, and even if it is, there can’t always be a 100 percent guarantee that the store will have the earlier volumes in stock on the day you pick up volume three while you’re casually browsing.
Many of us have fallen victim to this at some point or another. Back in middle school I was poking through the shelves at our Scholastic Book Fair (if you’re someone that just got a little thrill of excitement at those words, you are my kinda people) when I saw a book with the fascinating title The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I picked it up and I read the back cover, and it sounded interesting. So I bought the book, brought it home, devoured it, loved it…and THEN I discovered that it was actually the sequel to a novel called Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Had I noticed that parts of it were a little confusing the first time I read it? Sure. But my seventh-grade self already was aware that there were jokes and references I didn’t quite understand (I did not have an encyclopedic knowledge of British politics and popular culture circa 1980, believe it or not), so when there seemed to be something missing I assumed that gaps in my knowledge could be attributed to that, rather than the fact that I’d skipped an entire book.
And even if I DID notice, based on this cover, I would have thought the book I missed was Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
In Dinniman’s case, the lack of recap makes more sense when you learn that the series originated on the online platform Royal Road, which allows writers to serialize their fiction. The Carl series was not originally written in book form, but in this more episodic format, and when the decision was made to publish it as a book series Dinniman basically chose where to end each volume based on a point where a logical pause happened rather than necessarily having it planned out as a ten-volume series. That kind of planning seems to have crept in later, as the book went from a popular online fic to a publishing juggernaut, but it wasn’t baked in from the beginning, and the book version reflects this.
(Personal side-note: I’d never heard of Royal Road before I began digging into the backstory of Dungeon Crawler Carl and I feel the need to look deeper into this system. I’ve been thinking about looking for a new way to serialize my own work ever since the demise of Kindle Vella, and this seems like a far more stable outlet.)
The recap thing is a trope in storytelling, and although I can understand why it may be frustrating for people who are devoted followers of a particular series, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It serves a purpose, and if it allows a story to be opened up to a larger potential audience, that’s a net positive. It just needs to be done in an unobtrusive way. “Previously” pages in comics or even in novels are a good way to do it, and although lacking one doesn’t hurt anyone’s enjoyment of the series at all, I’m surprised that Dinniman didn’t include one in Doomsday Scenario.
At the very least, publishers, make it damn clear on the cover or spine of a book if it’s part of a series. Numbers are your friends.
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. Seriously, go read the first part of Little Stars, because he’s working on polishing part two. He needs people to stare at him and ask him when it will be finished.
Yesterday, January 1st, was the first day since 2024 that I didn’t read, watch, or listen to anything related to Superman.
And I missed doing it.
Unless you’ve been living under a Kryptonite rock, you know that at the end of 2024, enthused for the then-upcoming James Gunn movie, I declared that 2025 would be my Year of Superman, and for the next 365 days I adhered to that. Every day for a solid year I read comics, watched movies and TV shows, listened to podcasts, and otherwise spent time with stories featuring my favorite superhero and his extended family. 52 blog posts later (all of which are archived right here, by the way) it’s time for me to look back and think about what it all means to me.
Nailed it.
To begin with, I don’t do this very often, but I’ve got to congratulate myself for actually accomplishing the goal. In that original column when I announced the project, I said that I would give myself grace, fully expecting that at some point in the year I would slip up and miss a day. And let me tell you, there were days in 2025 in which I didn’t want to read or watch anything. Bad days came and I didn’t want to do much more than retreat to my own Fortress of Solitude. But I didn’t. I made it without missing a single day. Let’s talk about what that means by the numbers. Over the course of 2025, the media I consumed included:
1 TV special (the Superman 50th Anniversary special)
And finally – are you ready for this? 1206 individual comic book issues that featured at least one story in which a member of the Superman family appeared.
That’s – and keep in mind that I’m referring to myself here – batshit insane. I don’t know if David Corenswet spent as much time in 2025 thinking about Superman as I did. So after all that…what does it mean? What have I learned about him?
The truth is, I find that the things I already believed were mostly affirmed. Superman has been around for nearly 90 years now, and in that time there have been many stories told about him and many different interpretations of the character. And that’s all fine. But let me tell you about MY Superman, what I get from the character, why he matters so damned much to ME.
In Man of Steel, Henry Cavill popularized to the mainstream something that had been part of the comics for a few years at that point, that the S-shield Superman wears, the emblem of the House of El (at least going back to the 1978 Christopher Reeve movie) was a Kryptonian symbol for hope. But what exactly does that mean? Is it just because Superman is so powerful? Is it because when you see that symbol, you know that the danger you’re in is only temporary, that somebody will be there to save you? Is that “S” just for “Superman,” or does it also mean “Savior?”
Yeah. That guy. Any of him.
Superman’s story has a lot of allusions to Christianity, with Marlon Brando’s Jor-El even referring to Kal-El as “my only son,” but Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were Jewish and the story perhaps fits the concept of Moses even better. If you’ll forgive a brief moment of spirituality, Jesus was sent as the Savior of the human race in a direct way, and we get that whenever Superman saves someone falling from a burning building, leaps in front of a speeding bullet, or stops a locomotive to save the kid stuck on the tracks. Moses, on the other hand, was a less direct kind of savior, a leader, someone who GUIDES his people to a better world. And it is in this capacity that the parallels to Superman are stronger. Sure, Superman will save you from a flood, but more importantly, he’s there to show you that there’s a better way.
Let’s say it one more time: It’s not subtle.
It’s almost a cliche to say it at this point, but Superman’s greatest power is not his strength, his speed, his ability to fly or see through walls. His greatest power is his compassion, his unflinching belief in the goodness of people, and his ability to help others see things that way as well. Superman is the man who will never give up on you: no matter who you are or what you’ve done, he will always have faith in your ability to be better.
If you’re going to wear that shield, Kenan, you need to remember this.
In the climax of the new movie, David Corenswet tells Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor that his greatest strength is his humanity, and that he hopes for the good of the world that some day Luthor will realize the same thing about himself. From anybody else, that line would sound trite, pat, and cloying. From Superman, you believe it. The tragedy of Lex Luthor is not that he’s a criminal or a killer or anything else. That makes him a villain. What makes him a tragic figure, what Superman laments every time he faces him, is that he has a mind that could make the world a better place, but chooses to use it selfishly. And every time he faces Luthor, Superman hopes that this will be the time that Luthor sees the light. It’s even happened in the comics a few times, where Lex has turned good. It’s always been temporary, of course, except for in self-contained continuities like All-Star Superman, but we’ve seen time and again that even Lex Luthor has within him a seed of redemption. We’ve seen time and again that Superman is right. And if he’s right – if even LEX LUTHOR has the potential to be a better person tomorrow than he is today – then what does that mean for the rest of us?
Superman believes the best of you. And he inspires you to believe the best in others. In the final episode of Superman and Lois we see him in flight with his extended family of heroes, and we learn that he and Lois manage to change their world for the better. In Final Night, we are reminded that half the superheroes in the world look to him as inspiration (the other half, naturally, look to Batman). The whole point of The Iron Giant is that the Giant himself – an alien weapon – looks to the example of Superman and sees that he can make himself better.
The Giant gets it better than anybody on BlueSky.
We cannot bend steel in our bare hands. We cannot leap tall buildings in a single bound. We cannot change the course of mighty rivers, or freeze those rivers with our breath. We cannot fly through space unaided, travel through time, or crush a lump of coal into a diamond. Those things are beyond us.
But we can believe in the best of each other. And maybe, if we do enough of that, those others will actually begin to earn that trust. And maybe, if we do enough of that, we can learn to believe in the best of ourselves.
We should believe the best of ourselves.
Because Superman would.
Remind yourself, in those times where you’re dangling off the edge of that cliff and you think you’ll never make it, that Superman would believe in you.
And who are you to tell Superman that he’s wrong?
And don’t you forget it.
So now what?
Some people, after spending an entire year dwelling on a single character, would get tired of it. I…I’m not. I want more Superman. And there’s so much more to come. There’s the Supergirl movie coming out later this year, of course. And a new season of My Adventures of Superman is also scheduled to drop some time in 2026. Next year we’ll get Man of Tomorrow. DC Comics has announced some really interesting things for the ongoing Superman comics after the current DC KO event wraps up that I’m certainly going to want to talk about. They’ve also teased the return of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and come on, if Superman’s not involved with that in some way, what are we even doing? And let’s not forget that in March, after decades apart, Superman is finally going to meet Marvel’s friendly neighborhood webslinger again in a new Superman/Spider-Man crossover.
We’re back, baby!
Then there’s all the stuff on my list that I just didn’t get around to this year: John Ostrander’s amazing miniseries The Kents, Grant Morrison’s DC One Million event (which – let’s be honest – is a Superman story at its core), or the “world without Superman” Elseworlds series Justice League: The Nail. There are still several animated films I didn’t get to watch. I had hoped to do an entire week on fanfilms, but ran out of time. And I had stories picked out for weeks focusing on Jimmy Olsen, Lex Luthor, Kong Kenan, and other characters that didn’t get scratched off the list.
The truth is, I don’t want to stop reading, watching, or writing about Superman. I just don’t want to HAVE to do it EVERY DAY.
So consider this my official announcement. Starting in 2026 and going on…well, as long as I wanna do it, I’ll be bringing you SUPERMAN STUFF right here on the blog. Sometimes it’ll be new comics, new movies, new TV shows. Sometimes it’ll be classic stuff that I haven’t talked about before. I’ll still endeavor to have at least one blog post a week, but they won’t be as long as they were in 2025 (you’re welcome) and they may not necessarily always be on a Wednesday.
The world of Superman is vast, and despite the mountain of stuff that I mentioned in the list above, there’s plenty more to dig into. The regular Geek Punditry blog here on Fridays won’t change. But I’m going to continue to devote real estate here to talking about the characters and stories that I love.
Because there’s something to be learned here. And it’s a lesson we can all use.
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. To all the people who sent him messages urging him to make 2026 “The Year of Captain Underpants,” he considered it. A little.
