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.
In last week’s column, a work of foundational literary greatness which has already replaced things like the Magna Carta in terms of historical significance, we discussed the collapse of Diamond Distribution and the way its disintegration has disrupted things for the comic book world in North America. But that’s only part of the story. Like traditional books, the digital market for comic books has become a significant player. True, comic fans (even more so than readers of regular books) have a strong collector’s mindset and will probably never outgrow the desire for physical copies. But for comic readers, the convenience of digital is appealing to many.
REMEMBER. REMEMBER WHAT THEY TOOK FROM US.
Once upon a time, there was a great little app called Comixology. It wasn’t the only game in digital comics, but it quickly became the dominant one because it cut deals with virtually every major publisher and almost every minor one you could name. It had a gargantuan catalogue to choose from. There were a mountain of comics available for free as well – lots of first issues and special one-shots in addition to simple previews – enough to let you try almost anything before you started to think about whether you wanted to buy anything or not. There were sales every week, where tons of comics were reduced in price and others were made freebies temporarily. One time, Marvel had an event in which the first issue of EVERY MARVEL TITLE was free for a few days, and the response from people “purchasing” the digital comics was so great that the app crashed and they had to issue rain checks. They even had a program in which independent comic book creators – those making comics on their own without the benefit of a publisher – could submit their work to Comixology and make it available for sale on the biggest digital comic book platform in existence.
It was popular, is what I’m saying.
“Sounds great, Blake,” you’re saying. “What happened to it?”
Amazon bought it, of course.
Don’t you smile at me like you don’t know what you did.
Look, I’m not going to get into the various reasons that people hate Amazon. I’m not going to get into politics or the abusive nature of how they treat their workforce. I’m certainly not going to point out the fact that Jeff Bezos really, really looks like Lex Luthor. I’m going to focus on what’s actually pertinent to this column, namely the fact that when Amazon purchased Comixology, they turned it from a fun, easy app to use to read and collect digital comics into a system that – and here I am directly quoting St. Francis of Assissi – “sucks.”
Like many things Amazon buys, nothing changed…at first. But they slowly began to integrate Comixology’s functions with their own. They married your Comixology library with the library from the Amazon Kindle store, their own digital platform, and eventually they did away with the simple, easy-to-use, easy-to navigate Comixology website. By forcing you to access the digital comics via Amazon’s own website, they absolutely crippled its usefulness.
On Comixology, it was easy to track comics in various ways – title, publisher, creators. One could simply click on a single title – Amazing Spider-Man, for example – and add each issue that you wanted to your cart, then buy them. Amazon’s interface does NOT make this simple. When you do a search on Amazon your results are determined by algorithm, a word I am beginning to despise in much the same way I despise words like “smallpox” or “cauliflower crust pizza.” So instead of simply searching for Spider-Man and finding the various series of Spider-Man comics, now when I search for Spider-Man I get a dozen “sponsored” results, a couple hundred Funko pops and t-shirts, some movies and TV shows, and EVENTUALLY I’ll find individual comic books that have no logical sequence or arrangement that can be detected by the human brain. It’s an utter mess and nearly impossible to keep track of what you already own or to find what you’re looking for.
Even worse, Amazon eventually abandoned the Comixology app as well, fusing it with the Kindle Reader. The Kindle Reader is adequate for books, but as a platform for keeping track of thousands of individual comic books amongst hundreds of series, it is an absolute nightmare. I still have my “collection,” but it’s so rare now that I get a digital comic from Amazon that if they shut down the entire system tomorrow, it would be weeks before I would even notice. I DO use the Kindle Reader frequently, mind you, but I have to “hide” the comic books to prevent the app from crushing under the weight loading the ridiculous number of comics I accumulated during the years of Comixology’s existence. When Amazon killed Comixology, they abandoned one good app and made an adequate app less easy to use even when I’m not reading comics.
This is not to say that I’ve stopped reading comics digitally. Far from it – in any given week I probably read more comics on my tablet than I do on paper (especially with the whole Year of Superman thing I’ve been doing since January). It’s just that I’ve found other ways to do it. And in many ways, these alternatives are far preferable if your ultimate goal is not just to have a paper copy of every conceivable comic in the universe sealed in plastic. There are so many X-Men titles, for example, that trying to collect them all could bankrupt the average American. But with an affordable subscription to Marvel’s digital app, you can read as many of the books as you want if you’re willing to wait a few months.
Marvel and DC both have similar apps with a subscription that lets you read their massive back catalogue, but I think they’re the only two individual publishers that have such a thing. And that makes sense, honestly. The other players in the comic book game are either too small to have a bench deep enough to justify the subscription model (you could potentially read every comic Abstract Studios has ever produced in a couple of months, for example, and then why would you maintain the subscription?) or they are heavily reliant on comics that are owned by their creators (such as Image Comics) and IPs licensed from TV, movies, toys, and so forth (Dark Horse, Dynamite, IDW, and many other publishers have a long list of these). Having so many books owned by different copyright holders makes arranging a digital subscription service difficult and subject to having huge swaths of their catalogues suddenly vanish if their deal with the owner of the IP is not renewed.
Tunnel, meet light.
There are alternatives, however. GlobalComix, for example, is a service that has a lot of comics – including new comics – available for purchase, as well as a subscription service that gives you access to their entire library for $6.99 a month or $69 for a yearly pass. Their catalogue includes publishers including (but not limited to) Dark Horse, Image, Mad Cave Studios, IDW, anime publisher Kodasha, TONS of small publishers, and even selections from DC and (beginning on Oct. 15) Marvel. It’s not immune to the problems I mentioned before, of course. If a deal with a certain publisher or rightsholder expires and isn’t renewed, then the readers’ access will be cut off. But in this case, GlobalComix has deals with enough different publishers that the loss of any one specific publisher isn’t likely to cause the whole system to collapse.
You can purchase individual comics to read if you don’t want the subscription, similar to how we all once built up our huge Comixology libraries, but the notion of a digital “collection” seems weird when a subscription is available. If it would cost more to buy two new comics this month than it would cost to buy an unlimited monthly subscription, why the hell buy the two comics? It’s not like you actually “own” them. As we’ve learned with things like licensed movies and music, you never really “own” digital content unless you’ve got it on a hard drive somewhere. All you “own” is a license to read it, and that can be revoked. I guess the only kind of digital exception to that would be something like an NFT, but the whole concept of NFTs is – and once again I’m going to quote St. Francis – “as stupid as a pig touring the Hormel plant.”
That said, there does seem to be a small niche appearing for digital “collectibles” of a sort, and that’s the concept of personalization. This summer, comic publisher DSTLRY announced that they were launching a new digital comics platform called Neon Ichiban. DSTLRY, it should be noted, was founded by David Steinberger and Chip Mosher, the guys who founded Comixology in the first place before selling it to Amazon in 2014. I guess after their decade-long non-compete clause expired, they decided that something had to be done about the mess that was made of their baby.
“We got out of our beds stuffed with Amazon money because SOMEBODY has gotta fix this mess.” — Steinberg and Mosher, probably.
The program is still in beta at the moment, but I’ve signed up for it and some of the things I’ve seen have been pretty promising. It’s not hard to find what you’re looking for on the site, or to add it to your collection. Technically, I should say, I haven’t actually purchased anything from Neon Ichiban yet. I’m a little reluctant to do so while it’s still in beta, even though I’m sure they intend to roll any beta purchases over into the finished version of the site. I have, however, “bought” several of the free comics available in order to test out the functionality, and it’s not bad.
There are definitely things that need to be improved, primarily the fact that they need to roll out a dedicated app for the service. At present there is no app, and customers have to read their comics through the Neon Ichiban website. The interface is okay, but not nearly as convenient as having an app will be, especially when reading on mobile (which is preferable – to me, at least – to reading on a computer screen). The service is also still fairly new, the Beta only launching in August, so they’re working on building up their back catalogue. I’m impressed by some of the publishers they’ve already partnered with, though, including the juggernauts of Marvel and DC, as well Dark Horse, Vault Comics, Kodansha, and others, with the promise of more to come in the near future. Each week since the Beta has launched they’ve added that week’s new comics from the participating publishers to the service, and they’ve all been slowly adding older books to the library as well. The last time I checked Marvel (not surprisingly) had the largest back catalogue on the site, and although it’s not nearly the number of comics available on Marvel’s own app, it’s not inconsiderable either.
Still, all of this is similar enough to GlobalComix that it would be hard to recommend one service over the other, at least as far as purchasing individual comics goes. And for those who don’t care about “owning” a digital copy, Global’s subscription model gives them the edge. But Neon Ichiban has something that I haven’t heard of before that will probably get people’s attention: some of the comics in their catalogue are labeled “Remarque-able.” Spelling aside, I dug around trying to figure out what the hell that actually means, and from what I can tell, it’s an interesting idea. It seems that “Remarque-able” books will be available to be digitally altered, adding things like digital autographs or commissioned sketches to the comic, similar to the way you can get an artist to sketch on a blank comic book cover now. The idea of a digital autograph seems a little silly to me, to be honest, but if I could commission – for example – Dan Jurgens to draw a one-of-a-kind sketch of Superman on a digital copy of Action Comics #1000…well, I’m not saying I would do it OFTEN, but I admit I understand how such a thing would be appealing to a portion of the audience. There is the question of what – if any – restrictions are in place. If I pay an artist to draw Batman on the cover of a blank Spider-Man, most of them would do it (even if such a request seems odd). Would the same thing apply to a Remarque-able comic, or would they have tighter restrictions on what could be drawn there? Would there be limitations regarding graphic or adult content? And if so, what would they be? I don’t know yet, and those questions need to be answered. Whether I ever did it myself would depend entirely on what artists and books are available and how much it would cost, but it’s something I would at least consider.
So while people in the real world are falling over each other trying to figure out how to get comic books in stores again, there are fortunately already systems in place to keep the digital flow going, and many of them are far superior to what we’re seeing from Amazon. That is, of course, an extremely low bar, but it’s a bar that’s being hurtled nonetheless.
The future of comics is in flux, I can’t deny that, but I’m not one of those people who think the future is fading either. Comics aren’t going away. They’re evolving in several areas, but people are doing things to get them to the readers, which is where they belong. And like in the physical distribution front, I think having a few different competing digital services is probably a good idea. As much as I liked Comixology, had there been any serious competitors at the time, it wouldn’t have been such a disaster when Amazon ruined it. I haven’t gone all-in on either GlobalComix or Neon Ichiban yet, but knowing that they’re both out there is honestly pretty comforting.
At the moment, though, I’ve still got 90 years of Superman comics to get through first.
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. Now he’s thinking of commissioning Scott Shaw! to draw a Spider-Ham/Captain Carrot mashup. Really, people, the time has come.
When I started the Year of Superman back in January, I decided early on that I wasn’t going to spend the entire year reading stories from the “Triangle Era,” even though that is hands-down my favorite period of Superman comics. I did decide, though, that I would allow myself two indulgences. I would give myself a few weeks to delve into the epic and game-changing Death and Return of Superman storyline in the early part of the year. Then, later, I would allow myself to read the longer and more divisive saga of “Electric” Superman. The period where Superman’s powers and costume changed so radically was a major point of contention for a lot of readers at the time, although I feel that — like many stories of the era — it is looked back upon more fondly than it was initially received. But I have never gone back and read that era as a whole since it first came out.
I think it’s time.
That said, there’s a question that must be answered: exactly WHEN does this saga begin and end? It’s not as cut-and-dried as the Death of Superman, beginning with Doomsday’s appearance in Man of Steel #18. This story doesn’t begin in the issue where he gets the new costume. Superman’s power change is at least partially a result of an attempt to restore his powers after they are lost during the Final Night crossover. And after he is returned to “normal,” that issue ends with a cliffhanger that dovetails into a time-travel adventure against the villain Dominus that lasts several months before things are finally reset. Along the way he participates in more than one crossover event, is a regular member of the Justice League, and makes multiple guest appearances in lots of comics, including the Ultimate Access miniseries I read last week. All told, were I to read EVERY comic book with Electric Superman, it would be more than double (possibly triple) the number of issues in the Death and Return saga. That’s a LOT.
So here’s what I’ve decided:
I’m going to read all of the issues of the regular Superman titles from the beginning of Final Night to the end of the Dominus storyline. I’ll read the main issues of any crossover in which Electric Superman appears, as well as crossover chapters in which Superman or members of the family appear. I’ll also read the annuals with Electric Superman. I’m going to skip the JLA issues, because after all, it’s part of Grant Morrison’s run and that whole thing is really one massive story in and of itself. And I’m not going to get into every guest-appearance he makes just because I think it would be a pain to try to track them all down, but I reserve the right to sneak one in if I really want to.
Even shortened like this, it’s still going to be the single largest endeavor of the Year of Superman. And I’m kind of excited to get into it.
All of this is to say, buckle up. It’s time to get sparkly.
Comics:Final Night #0-4, Power of Shazam! #20, Superman Vol. 2 #117, Adventures of Superman #540, Supergirl Vol. 4 #3, Action Comics #727, Superboy Vol. 3 #33, Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 4 #86, Superman: The Man of Steel #62, Green Lantern Vol. 3 #81
Notes: It was a weird time in DC Comics. Hal Jordan had gone mad after the destruction of Coast City and took on the villain name Parallax following Zero Hour. Kyle Rayner was Green Lantern. Half of the Legion of Super-Heroes was stranded in the 20th century. And Lois Lane had ended her engagement to Clark Kent. Then, as if things weren’t bad enough, some idiot turns out the lights.
In The Final Night, by Karl Kesel and Stuart Immonen, an alien identifying herself as Dusk crashes her ship into Metropolis, where she is confronted by Superman, the Special Crimes Unit, and the time-tossed Legion of Super-Heroes. Dusk warns that a Sun Eater is approaching Earth, and that she has rushed ahead of it from world to world, trying to save people from its devastation, but thus far she has always failed. Superman quickly rallies the world’s heroes (and even some of the villains – they’ve got just as much to lose if the sun is eaten as the heroes do) and they take to space to try to stop the Sun Eater, but despite their best efforts, at the end of the first issue, Earth’s sun is consumed and the world is plunged into darkness.
Issue two begins in rather dramatic fashion, when Lex Luthor – who has been in hiding – appears to offer his aid to the Justice League and Earth’s heroes in saving the world, including a powerful splash page of Superman and his worst enemy shaking hands in the face of a common threat. Meanwhile, the worlds’ heroes are in overdrive trying to protect people both from the drastic climate crisis as well as from each other. It soon becomes apparent, however, that with the sun gone, Superman’s powers are declining rapidly. Amidst all of this a new hero appears: a young man calling himself Ferro.
In issue three things go from bad to worse. Turns out the sun isn’t actually GONE, but cut off inside the Sun Eater, where it’s trying to heal itself, but Luthor and Brainiac 5 realize that they have less than 24 hours left before the sun goes hyper-nova, wiping out everything in the solar system. Dusk makes plans to leave Earth before the end, as she has so many times before, but the Phantom Stranger takes her on a whirlwind Ebenezer Scrooge-like tour of the Earth, allowing her to witness our heroes’ refusal to give up, even in what is literally the darkest of hours. And as everyone begins making preparations for the bitter end, Guy Gardner is surprised by the appearance of a bright, beautiful green.
Final Night #4 brings us to the brink. Luthor and Brainiac 5 have constructed a series of force-field bombs they believe will contain the nova and destroy the Sun Eater, but their chosen pilot, Green Lantern, disappears. Superman insists on going himself, and takes a moment to write a farewell letter to Lois, from whom he was estranged at the time. As he’s writing, through, Ferro steals the ship with the intention of making the suicide run on his own. As they try to stop him, Parallax arrives and offers to save the sun. Despite the reservations of some of the heroes (especially Batman), he does so – at the cost of his own life. Hal Jordan, once and future Green Lantern, falls as he dispels the darkness within.
The end of the story doesn’t quite hit the same now as it did in 1996, knowing as we all do that Hal would eventually return and become Green Lantern again. But as a way to end the arc he had been on since the Death of Superman it was fitting. Also fitting was the reaction of the other heroes: Superman chooses to believe that Hal Jordan found redemption in the end for the atrocities of Parallax, whereas Batman believes a moment of good at the end can never erase the slate. It says quite a bit about each of these heroes, and the book seems to recognize that. At the end of the issue, as Clark and Bruce debate Hal’s sacrifice, Karl Kesel writes a caption that has always stuck with me: “They are the world’s finest heroes, and all the rest follow the lead of one or the other.”
It’s an interesting perspective on the philosophy of the DC Universe, isn’t it?
Let’s talk for a moment about the assorted spin-off chapters. As I said, I didn’t read all of the assorted spin-offs, only those featuring Superman or a member of the family, but that still added an additional nine books to the five-issue main series. I’ll hit the high points in order, as dictated by the reading list on the DC Infinite app:
Power of Shazam! #20: As the weather begins deteriorating with the loss of the sun, Superman and the Marvels go into first responder mode while the wizards Shazam and Ibis try to find a magical solution to the problem. Superman’s presence here is minor, but there are interesting notes. First, this happens right after the sun is lost, so Superman’s powers are only beginning to wane. Second, there’s an amusing moment where Captain Marvel promises Superman “I won’t be distracted like when I faced that Thunder God,” a funny and oblique reference to the events of DC Vs. Marvel.
Superman #117: This one is a cheat. Despite the banner on the cover, it’s not really part of the crossover. The issue wraps up an ongoing story with Superman and Professor Hamilton in the Fortress of Solitude and advances a few subplots, but it only ties in to the Final Night on the last few pages, when Superman receives word that something is approaching Earth. If you’re doing a readthrough of the story, this is utterly skippable.
Adventures of Superman #540: Perry White fights valiantly to put out an edition of the Daily Planet, reasoning that failure to do so would be like giving up and admitting defeat. Emil, still in the Fortress of Solitude, starts transmitting his own research to S.T.A.R. Labs in an attempt to help. And in Metropolis, as Superman’s powers continue to dwindle, Ferro gets a rather heartbreaking origin. The Perry stuff is great, and the Ferro stuff sets the character up nicely for his future with the Legion.
Supergirl #3: Peter David’s epic run was interrupted pretty early by this crossover appearance. Supergirl (this is the Matrix version, remember), has very recently found herself bound to a mortal girl named Linda Danvers, and in her new home of Leesburg, people are beginning to fall apart as they beg for the return of the sun. The issue is mostly spent developing subplots for the series in the context of the crossover, and skippable if you just want to read Final Night, but it reminds me as always just how good David’s run on this character was. I may not be able to fit it in before the end of the year (it’s a total of 80 issues, plus assorted crossovers, annuals, and specials), but so, so worth reading.
Action Comics #727: A somewhat quiet, subdued issue. As Metropolis is blanketed with snow, a Superman whose powers are nearly gone struggles to keep the peace. Meanwhile, a desperate man finds new hope. Inconsequential to the main story, but this is actually one of those times where I really feel a crossover event works well, telling an emotional self-contained tale against the backdrop of the greater events.
Superboy #33: In Superboy’s home of Hawaii, people are gathering at the base of an active volcano for warmth. Roxy Leech, his manager’s daughter and Superboy’s best friend, decides that with the world ending in 24 hours there’s nothing left to lose and confesses her love for him, which is kind of awkward, as his girlfriend Tana Moon is on TV reporting on the crisis just as the volcano erupts. Turns out it’s a monster with the inventive name of Lava causing trouble. The ending here is particularly bittersweet, and surprisingly effective.
Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 4 #86: Ferro proves his mettle (get it?) by offering to dive into the sun with an enormous bomb to get it going again. Luthor and Brainiac already have devised their plan to send Green Lantern instead, though, but when he mysteriously vanishes (whisked away by Parallax, as it happened), Superman steps up to do it instead…something that doesn’t sit too well with Ferro.
Superman: The Man of Steel #62: An interesting little side-trip. Almost de-powered, Superman tries to help a power plant stay functional to keep people from freezing in the dark. Meanwhile, Hamilton discovers that imminent destruction of the sun and sends word to the Daily Planet, while learning about the last days of Krypton and how eerily reminiscent they are of the current situation.
Green Lantern #81: An epilogue to the Final Night story featuring the funeral of Hal Jordan. Kyle Rayner is nervous, finding himself in the position of being asked to speak the death of a man he never met until he turned bad. Superman begins the ceremony, calling Hal a hero, before calling up other speakers who knew him best: Guy Gardner, John Stewart, Black Canary (speaking in the stead of the also dead-at-the-time Oliver Queen), the Flash, Carol Ferris, and finally Kyle. The heroes travel to the Coast City memorial, where Alan Scott turns the eternal flame green, and then Swamp Thing (making a rare non-Vertigo appearance for the time period) brings life back to the desolated landscape. In the end, even Batman finds it within himself to forgive.
A lovely story, although of course, it wouldn’t be the end at all. Nor is it the end for Superman because – as you may have noticed – I haven’t mentioned anything about his powers coming BACK yet. After the sun was restored, he – and everyone else – assumed his powers would go back to normal. But as we’re going to see soon, that isn’t what happened at all.
Thur., Aug 28
Comics: Superman Vol. 6 #29, Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2 #10, Justice League: Dark Tomorrow Special #1, Green Lantern Vol. 8 #25 (Superboy Guest Appearance)
Notes: Gonna take a quick pause from the burgeoning Electric storyline to read some of the new Superman comics that dropped this week. Superman #29 continues the “Legion of Darkseid” story as Superman plans a trip to the future to save the Legion of Super-Heroes with the most unexpected partner of all time.
It’s going to be hard to talk about this issue – I don’t really want to spoil anything, so can I just talk about vibes? As in, “I freaking love the vibes from this book”? Superman going into the future to save the Legion is exactly what I’ve been thirsting for. What’s more, writer Joshua Williamson is showing respect for EVERY incarnation of the Legion to date, weaving them all into this story (somehow) whilst still tying everything in to the ongoing “DC All In” saga. Again, without spoiling anything, if you haven’t read last year’s DC All-In Special or the Summer of Superman Specialthat came out in April, you’re missing out on the building blocks of this story. Superman even gets one of his trademark rousing speeches in which he espouses exactly what I’ve always felt is true: he may have been the inspiration for the Legion, but the Legion was every bit as much an inspiration to HIM.
Despite the darkness of this story, something about it is feeling…right. It rings true. And by the time the tale ends and the dust has settled, I feel like we just might finally have a true Legion again.
Justice League Unlimited #10 actually takes place before the “Darkseid’s Legion” storyline, and involves the League trying to protect the Doomsday Time Trapper, who feels the encroachment of Darkseid and his Legion. Meanwhile, the Trinity have a little heart-to-heart about what happened with Air Wave (the whole “tricked by Grodd” thing) and how they need to approach Justice League recruitment in the future. As always, Mark Waid proves just how well he knows these characters, placing Superman and Batman at odds with one another on this matter, with Wonder Woman as the mediator between the two. Clark also gets in a pretty sharp jab at Bruce, which I don’t think he gets to do quite often enough.
Also, Dan Mora drew both of these issues, and he’s phenomenal. Really, any time these days I read a comic book where I don’t feel the artwork is up to snuff, I wish that they could clone Mora and have him do all of it.
I also read the Justice League: Dark Tomorrow Special, which came out a few weeks ago but, somehow, I’d missed. I’m glad I grabbed it, though, because it feels pretty significant to this whole All In/Darkseid story that’s going on. Someone is hunting down and killing time travelers, which puts roughly half the Justice League at risk – especially those time-lost heroes from the “We Are Yesterday” crossover. A mysterious time-traveler calling himself “Legend” partners up with Air Wave and the lost heroes to try to save them. The issue is both an epilogue to “We Are Yesterday” and a prologue to future stories (including “Darkseid’s Legion” and the upcoming “DC KO”), and although the Super-family participation is minimal, it definitely feels significant, and if you’re following the ongoing saga of the DCU these days, you should pick it up.
Fri., Aug. 29
Comic Books: Superman Vol. 2 #118, Superman: The Wedding Album #1
Notes: I only briefly mentioned it when I read Final Night the other day, but at this point Lois and Clark were separated, she having called off their engagement and taken an assignment in Asia to get away from him. It was a bit of a delaying tactic – Warner Bros wanted corporate synergy and refused to allow DC Comics to have the two of them get married until they were also married on the then-running Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman TV show. It was actually that edict that led to the Death of Superman in the first place, when they had to scrap their plans to marry them off in 1992. Here, four years later, after one delaying tactic after another, they finally got married on the show, and DC had to quickly follow suit.
In Superman #118 we pick up on her, chasing down a heroin ring in the far East. Back in Metropolis, meanwhile, S.T.A.R. Labs is working on the fact that, despite the sun coming back, Superman’s powers are still gone. After a seemingly-pointless reiteration of his origin, Wonder Woman and Lori Lemaris convince Superman to try to get Lois back. Lois, meanwhile, encounters a young man who tells her a lesson he learned as a child from an American stranger. It’s pretty clear where this is going from the very beginning, but Lois is still taken by surprise when she learns who her new friend’s old friend happens to be, and she makes a decision to return to Metropolis. Short? Abrupt? Hell yeah. But DC wasn’t given a lot of time to get things back in order – they needed to have the wedding of the century align with the TV show.
And this brings us to Superman: The Wedding Album, an event nearly 60 years in the making. This 88-page whopper told a hefty tale written by the five writers of the Superman comics of the era (Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, David Michelinie, Louise Simonson, and Roger Stern), with art by the regular teams and several other artists who had worked with Superman over the years, including John Byrne, Gil Kane, Paul Ryan, Tom Grummett, and a flashback sequence using pages by the great Curt Swan. It’s a nicely fitting tribute to the characters, kicking off with Lois being Lois – pretending to want to marry the head of the drug trafficking ring as a way to both bust him, at the same time, hitch a ride on his private jet back to Metropolis. She storms into the Daily Planet office wearing a ragged and torn wedding dress, then has it out with Clark. He fills her in on what’s been going on in her absence: he’s acting as Managing Editor of the Planet while Perry recovers from chemotherapy, oh yeah, and his powers are gone. (There’s a particularly funny line here: “Remember when the sun went out a while ago, Lois?” As if that’s the sort of thing a person could just forget.) The sequence ends with the entire Planet staff crowding around, trying to peek through the door, and seeing the two of them in an embrace, back where they belong.
The bulk of the special, after that, is all about wedding preparations: Lois’s bridal shower, the happy couple picking out their dress and tux, and house-hunting. And while it’s all fairly normal, non-superhero stuff, the writers manage to really infuse it with character. Lois’s mom is desperate to control things while her father makes no effort to disguise his distaste at his daughter’s choice of partner. Clark’s parents, meanwhile, do their best to play mediator. A fight breaks out at the Ace O’Clubs during the bachelor party, and Clark gets a visit from a friend to tell him that Metropolis will be taken care of during his honeymoon. Oh yeah – and the apartment that Lois fell in love with but couldn’t get is now theirs, courtesy of the building’s owner, one Bruce Wayne.
I’m really glad that they avoided the typical superhero wedding episode, where the ceremony is disrupted by a villain causing havoc or some natural disaster. The closest thing we get is Mr. Mxyzptlk popping in right before the blessed occasion to tell Clark he’s looking forward to screwing around with Mr. and Mrs. Kent very soon. Then it all closes off with a nice, simple, uneventful wedding that is heartfelt, sincere, and lavishly illustrated (with several members of the creative team in attendance).
It’s a sweet issue, one that finally puts the will they/won’t they of six decades to rest and allows us to move on to something new.
Turns out they were saving the chaos for the honeymoon.
Sat., Aug. 30
Podcast: Back to the Bins Episode #685: Superman S.C.O.R.E. III
Notes: It’s finally here! Regular blog readers may recall a while back when I joined Paul Spataro to record an episode of his Back to the Bins podcast, each of us discussing comics about the relationship between Superman and Wonder Woman. The episode has finally dropped, so make sure you check it out. It’s available on the Two True Freaks Podcast Network page, or you can find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you download your podcasts. Join us for a chat about this unique super-couple.
Comics: Taste of Justice #6, Adventures of Superman #541, Action Comics #728, Superman: The Man of Steel #63
Notes: A quick peek at Taste of Justice #6 – a short but fun story in which Martha Kent is injured (mildly – this series seems to specialize in minor mishaps most of the time), leaving Clark and Jonathan to try their hand at making her famous rhubarb pie. Interestingly, whereas most chapters of this online serial comic have led up to a triumphant dish being prepared, this one takes a different tack – the resultant pie isn’t up to Martha’s usual standards, a fact which she clearly finds somewhat amusing. I didn’t see that coming.
That done, it’s a dive back to 1996, where we’re going to read the comics that make up Lois and Clark’s honeymoon. After a surprisingly low-key and uneventful wedding, their trip to Hawaii makes up for it. Adventures of Superman #541 picks up at the wedding reception, after which the happy couple whisks off to the island paradise, where their celebrations are interrupted by an explosion. With Superman still powerless, fortunately, they happen to be on Superboy’s home turf. The explosion was caused by a creature that claims to be an island spirit called a Menehune, and the happy couple wind up meeting up with Superboy and his own reporter girlfriend, Tana Moon. The story is okay – more like we’re seeing a “Lower Decks” style peek in an issue of Superboy really. But the side quest is derailed on the last page, when Clark is shot and kidnapped by men in a speedboat. Of course, these guys don’t seem to realize that they’ve just made the biggest mistake of their lives: they’ve pissed off Lois Lane.
Action Comics #728 picks up with Clark waking up in the custody of the brother of the very drug trafficker that Lois captured in the Wedding Album. Apparently Rajiv, as his name goes, holds something of a familial grudge. I have to admit, I found this issue kind of underwhelming. Clark spends most of the issue engrossed in a flashback to another time when his powers weren’t of any use, facing a terrorist armed with a chunk of Kryptonite. The flashback really adds nothing to the story, save for eventually reminding Clark that he has studied techniques to make it appear as though his heart has stopped beating – techniques that work just as well if he has powers or not. He uses his little trick to attempt an escape, only to learn that any such effort will be futile, as he’s being held captive on a submarine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Good reveal, but it leaves us with about two pages of plot progression for the whole issue.
Superman: The Man of Steel #63 picks up with Clark being brought to a private island belonging to Rajiv as Lois begins the task of doing what she does best: following leads. In this case, she’s trying to track down her missing husband, which takes her all of four pages before she begins a guerilla assault on Rajiv’s compound. (And they call Batman the world’s greatest detective.) As she attempts her rescue, Clark learns that Rajiv isn’t tracking her out of petty revenge: when she bested his brother, Lois made off with a knife that, unbeknownst to her, has hidden in its hilt computer codes capable of hacking satellite technology and bringing down aircraft at will. As Clark stalls for time, trying to convince Rajiv that Lois found and sold the codes, she breaks in and saves the day.
The honeymoon arc as a whole is okay. You all should know by now how much I love a story where Lois has a chance to kick some ass, and she most certainly does that in the Man of Steel issue. For all the times Clark has saved her over the years, it’s really great to see how capable she is when the need arises. My beef really comes with how quick the whole thing is, especially the sequence where Lois tracks down Rajiv’s island. It just comes far too easily, even for someone as smart and capable as Lois. Considering that she only appeared on one page of Action #728, that issue feels even more superfluous than it does at first blush. It would have been far more satisfying, in my opinion, to truncate the flashback sequence in that issue and devote those pages to showing Lois hunting down Clark. It would make the Action issue feel far more relevant and the Man of Steel issue feel less rushed. It’s all about the pacing, people.
Still, kudos to Lois and Clark for having a honeymoon they could never forget. But when their vacation to paradise ends, it’s going to be time to get down to the real issue at hand: finding a way to restore Superman’s missing powers.
Sun., Aug. 31
Comic Books: Superman Vol. 2 #119, Adventures of Superman #542, Action Comics #729, Superman: The Man of Steel #64
Notes: With the honeymoon over, it’s time to figure out what’s up with Clark’s powers. In Superman #119, Superman and the time-tossed Legion of Super-Heroes both arrive at LexCorp looking for help with their respective predicaments. They take a ship to the same orbital platform we saw back in the Superman/Aliens crossover (a rare instance of such a crossover being addressed as canon, helped no doubt by the fact that Dan Jurgens wrote both of them) and Brainiac 5 attempts to draw solar energy to jumpstart Clark’s powers…an effort met with failure. And in the midst of this Lex gets some surprising news: he’s going to be a daddy.
In Adventures #542, Superman heads to Project Cadmus for help but, again, finds himself stonewalled. Instead, he simply winds up on a brief psychedelic adventure with some of Jack Kirby’s stranger creations, the Hairies, before borrowing Guardian’s Whiz Wagon. He flies it down to Action Comics #729, where – en route to his Fortress in the Antarctic – he winds up at an energy research station where the crew has unwittingly unleashed a strange entity from the center of the Earth. Superman manages to best the creature even without his powers (paralleled with a subplot about Perry White going through chemotherapy) before finally making it to the Fortress where Emil Hamilton has been all this time. But even all his Kryptonian tech doesn’t restore his powers before Mr. Miracle and Big Barda pop in via Boom Tube, saying that the fate of the universe depends on Superman’s powers.
Finally, “Power Struggle” concludes in Man of Steel #64. The New Gods tell Superman that their world of New Genesis has somehow been destroyed, and the only hope of finding the truth is to retrieve the datacore in Metron’s suit…a datacore that can only be accessed by melting the suit in the heat of the sun itself. Metron assures Superman that their dive into the sun will recharge his powers quickly enough to pull them both out of the star before they’re killed…and miraculously, it works. Superman’s powers are restored, Metron is saved, and the data is retrieved. It all seems just so…neat and tidy. TOO neat and tidy, if you catch my drift.
Getting his powers back, as it would turn out, was just the beginning.
Bonus: Comics in the wild!
Notes: Some time ago, DC announced that they were going to start selling comics at Dollar Tree locations. The comics would all be reprints, of course: most of them either the first issue in a story that is available in graphic novel form or a standalone comic, including many aimed at kids. The program expanded to reach various convenience stores, grocery stores, and other outlets. But today was the first time I ever actually saw any in the wild. After my son’s birthday party, we stopped for gas and I saw the rack inside the station. I had to go through it, fascinated by some of the choices for their reprint specials. The first appearance of the modern Supergirl from Superman/Batman is in the mix, as well as at least two current issues of Mark Waid’s World’s Finest series (each the beginning of a storyline, of course), and the first issue of Christopher Priest’s Superman: Lost. They weren’t ALL Superman comics, of course – there was the expected assortment of Batman comics, Harley Quinn comics, and Scooby-Doo comics, some of them all at the same time – but the very existence of this rack out there, outside of comic book stores where they can be seen by anybody…it was heartwarming to me.
Of course I had to get a couple. I picked up the reprint of John Byrne’s Superman #1 from 1987, as well as the reprint of the first issue of Batman Adventures Vol. 2. Like the Compact Comics, I feel like it’s important we support these things, friends.
Mon., Sept. 1
Comics: Superman Vol. 2#120,Adventures of Superman #543, Action Comics #730, Superman: The Man of Steel #65, Superman Vol. 2 #121,Adventures of Superman #544, Action Comics #731, Superman: The Man of Steel #66, Jon Kent: This Internship is My Kryptonite #6, Gotham City Sirens: Unfit For Orbit #5 (Power Girl guest appearance)
Notes: There was a bit of a lull in the Superman comics after he got his powers back but before they transformed. Let’s see what we can get through today. In Superman #120, Lex Luthor has a dream about his oncoming child idolizing Superman, a dream that chills him to the bone and opens up an issue of different characters talking about what they would do with Superman’s powers: Lex, Emil Hamilton, Jimmy Olsen, Cat Grant, Perry White, and a random kid who gets locked out of his house and needs Superman’s help. It’s a cute little breather of an issue, which was probably due at this point, although it had been entirely too long since we saw Lois. She hadn’t had a significant appearance since the honeymoon ended, and it’s time to really get into the adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Superman. There is one significant piece of foreshadowing, though: when Emil studies Superman to make sure that his powers are, indeed, back to normal, the scanner he’s using shorts out due to an unexpected electrical surge.
In the immortal words of C+C Music Factory, “Things That Make You Go Hmmmm…”
Adventures of Superman #543 shows us the newlyweds finally settling into their new apartment and Superman checking into a couple of escaped villains. Turns out the villains in question are being recruited for a new version of the good ol’ Superman Revenge Squad. A strange figure watching from the shadows has pulled together Anomaly, Barrage, Misa, Riot, and most troublingly, Maxima. When DC released this year’s Superman Treasury Edition I mentioned that I was disappointed to see Maxima reverting to her old villainous ways. I guess I’d forgotten that this wasn’t the first time she’d suffered from a bout of recidivism. The Squad makes its attack in Action Comics #730, but not before one of the very-frequent scenes of Superman flying over Metropolis pondering recent events to bring any casual readers up to speed. I never noticed until this read-through just how frequently that happened in the Triangle Era. I suppose they clung to the idea that any comic book could be somebody’s first, and they were doing their best to make sure that everyone knew what was going on. Admirable – but these days I’m very curious as to whether that old adage still bears any truth at all. Anyway, the fight goes poorly – the five villains, used to working on their own, wind up stumbling over each other and stabbing each other in the back, but by the last panel they manage to have Superman down, his head covered with a slime that Misa is using the block his powers. Geez, Misa, he JUST got them back.
Man of Steel #65 wraps the story up as the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit arrives on the scene and joins the fight. For a full-issue fight scene, it’s not bad. It’s really nice to see the SCU used to the top of their intelligence, being legitimately effective in a fight against superpowered villains instead of just coming across as the useless cops that so often populate superhero comics. As the Revenge Squad is rounded up, their mysterious benefactor watches and plans his next move. I’ll tell you what I REALLY like here – it’s been so long since I read these issues that I’ve completely forgotten who the mysterious bad guy is that pulled the Revenge Squad together. I don’t know when the reveal is going to come, but I hope it lands.
Superman #121 has writer Dan Jurgens once again pick up penciling duties (a rarity for this era) for a “very special issue” about Clark Kent befriending a ten-year-old girl who witnessed a gang shooting. When Superman tries to eliminate the guns from her housing project, thinking it will make it safe for her…well, let’s just say I’m kind of surprised that Jurgens would have written Superman as being so naive.
Adventures #544 starts off with what I’m comfortable calling a controversial moment: Clark Kent is gunned down in the middle of a busy streetcorner. If that’s not confusing enough, it gets weirder when Lois arrives on the scene at the same time as…another Clark. Turns out the doppelganger is tied into the return of Intergang, which no doubt is going to cause trouble later on. Action #731 features another return: Lois and Clark are trying to enjoy an evening at home together when word comes of an attack by an old foe of his Cauldron – but he’s different than before. While Clark holds him off, Lois helps unravel the mystery of who is controlling the cyborg villain this time.
Finally (for today) let’s look at Superman: The Man of Steel #66. Remember Rajiv, the creep who messed up Lois and Clark’s honeymoon trying to get his hands on codes that would allow him to take over a satellite defense network? Well, seems like he got the codes, because in this issue he starts raining fire all over the world, demanding a billion-dollar ransom to stop. The story cuts between Superman taking to space to stop him and scenes on the ground where various people, including Bibbo, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White’s family, try to help in their own way. It’s an interesting little experiment by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove, a story ostensibly about how the S-shield itself stands for something to people and the power it has even on its own. It would be another decade before the concept of the shield being the Kryptonian word for “Hope” came about, but this has some of that same feel to it, and I like it on that level.
It’s odd, in retrospect, how these stories feel so disconnected from what’s coming. Except for the electric spark in Superman #120, there’s really been no buildup to the power switch. The news had already come out that the story was coming, of course, people knew that Superman was about to get a new costume and new power set, but they didn’t expend a lot of shoe leather on the concept for the first two months after the wedding storyline ended.
That’ll change very soon.
Tues., Sept. 2
Comic Books: Superman Vol. 2 #122, Adventures of Superman #545, Action Comics #732, Superman: The Man of Steel #67, Superman Vol. 2 #123
Notes: The final month before the big switch begins in Superman #122. At this time, DC was still under the edict that Kal-El was to be the ONLY Kryptonian who survived the destruction of Krypton. That said, they had found ways around that with alternatives to the Kryptonian characters and concepts of the past: the Matrix Supergirl, an Earth dog Bibbo named “Krypto,” and most recently, a new version of the city of Kandor. In this continuity, Kandor was still a miniaturized city in a bottle that Superman was keeping safe in the Fortress of Solitude, but rather than a Kryptonian city, it was a town made of aliens from various worlds, all collected by an entity named Tolos before Superman saved them. In this issue, his powers start to go wild, causing electrical devices to explode and his body to phase in and out. Superman takes Lois to the Fortress to try to get to the bottom of it, wondering if the dimensional phase that had brought him to Kandor could be responsible, but inadvertently winds up releasing a blue-skinned, horned alien called Ceritak. In Adventures #545, things just get worse as Superman’s powers go out of control. He sparks uncontrollably, falling through walls and losing the ability to fly, all of which contribute to a power outage that goes across the city and frees the Atomic Skull from prison. The Skull, suffering from the delusion that he was the hero of an old movie serial and that Superman and everyone else were characters in the serial, winds up in battle against Superman, seeming to atomize him.
Action #732 continues the battle because, obviously, Superman isn’t really dead. His energy was somehow dissipated by the skull, and he finds himself reconstituting at that Antarctic energy research station he stopped by when he was powerless a few issues back. Lois plays along with the Skull’s delusion as a delaying tactic and, making his way back to Metropolis, Superman starts to learn some of the capabilities of his new powers. He isn’t strong anymore and can’t fly, but he can bound around like energy, control magnetic waves, and access computer systems by touch. Eventually, he manages to bring the Skull down, but he has no idea what’s happening to him.
Superman: The Man of Steel #67 is next, although the title has become highly inaccurate at this point. (This is a good opportunity to talk about how, were this story to be told today, it would reach this point and then DC would likely cancel all four series and re-start them with new first issues, including changing the title of this one. Man of Energy doesn’t really have the same ring, though. I don’t know what they’d call it.) As news of Superman’s mutating powers starts to leak out, Lois clashes with the Planet’s new sensationalist circulation manager over their coverage. Meanwhile, Ceritak has made his way to Metropolis, where he’s inadvertently sewing some chaos. In the midst of the battle between the two Superman’s powers go absolutely haywire, causing a citywide blackout.
A quick aside before I move on to the main event: Jon Bogdanove. He’s one of my favorite Superman artists, mostly because his style has a sort of classic, old-fashioned sensibility that meshes perfectly with Superman. He gives us a huge, barrel-chested, squared-jawed hero that not only fits, but practically DEFINES the classic Superman mold. As Superman shifts from his traditional status quo to the electrical version, you’d think it would clash with his style…but somehow it doesn’t. Along with fine art and color work by Denis Janke and Digital Chameleon, he makes a creature of pure energy still invoke the core of Superman. That, along with several well-placed and highly amusing visual gags in this issue, call to mind some of his best work on Marvel’s Power Pack. I don’t think Bogs gets enough credit in general, and I wanted to call out this issue in particular as being a high point.
Finally, after a week of reading, we come to the book that I started this journey for: Superman #123. As Superman fights with the confused Ceritak (who Bibbo accidentally renames “Scorn”), he winds up in Hamilton’s lab, unable to control his new energy-body. Hamilton is approached by Erica del Portenza, wife (at the time) of Lex Luthor, who has an experimental cyber-woven polymer that she believes may be of assistance. Loath as they are to accept help from Luthor, Hamilton sees no choice and uses the fabric to create a containment suit. In his new duds, Superman finds that he can control his power while in energy-form as well as shift back to a fully human (and powerless) Clark Kent. As he says on the last page, “there’s a new Superman in town.”
This is such a wild story so far. After a rather slow buildup, we’ve got a Superman now with a completely different power set and costume, and while I don’t think I believed even then that this change was intended to be permanent, DC did their best to pretend this new status quo was going to last. So looking ahead to reading more of this, I’m expecting to see the sort of subplots and side-stories that defined the Triangle Era while, at the same time, continuing the story of the electro-Superman, leading up to the era of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue.
And despite feeling a bit of scorn (no pun intended) for this storyline for a very long time now, I find myself kind of looking forward to it.
Well, my friends, once again the powers that be in the world of entertainment have proven that they turn to us here at Geek Punditry for their ideas. Last year, DC and Marvel Comics announced that they were going to be reprinting their classic crossovers of the past (stuff like Superman meeting Spider-Man, Batman fighting the Hulk, and the two universes actually merging as Amalgam Comics) in two hefty hardcover omnibus editions after two decades of the companies holding off on any kind of collaboration. At the time, I suggested that this project could potentially be a precursor for NEW crossovers to finally appear, and sure enough, earlier this year they announced a two-part event in which DC’s perennial cash cow Batman will meet Marvel’s insanely popular Merc with a Mouth, Deadpool. As this is clearly an idea that nobody else could have come up with had I not proposed it here on my blog, I am comfortable taking full credit for this world-changing news.
I expect Deadpool to thank me personally.
The fun will start in September, when Marvel’s Deadpool/Batman will arrive, written by Zeb Wells with art by Greg Capullo. In November it’ll be DC’s turn: Batman/Deadpool by Grant Morrison and Dan Mora. While this particular pairing wouldn’t have been my first choice for the new era of crossovers, I can’t pretend I don’t understand the reasoning behind it. You’re combining two of the most popular (and profitable) characters in comic books, and honestly, a fourth-wall breaking character like Deadpool is liable to be a laugh riot no matter who you partner him up with, so I’m looking forward to these two books.
But the fun doesn’t end with Deadpool and Batman! Recently, Marvel announced that their half of the crossover – in addition to the Deadpool/Batman meeting – will include three back-up stories with other pairings. Chip Zdarsky and Terry Dodson will team up Captain America and Wonder Woman, Kelly Thompson and Gurihiru will bring us an encounter between Jeff the Land Shark and Krypto the Superdog, and perhaps most excitingly, Adam Kubert will draw a meeting between Daredevil and Green Arrow written by someone who had magnificent runs on both of those characters in the past, filmmaker and Geek Emeritus Kevin Smith.
In many ways, I’m actually more excited for the back-ups. Not to say I don’t think that there’s fun to be had with Deadpool and Batman, but Captain America and Wonder Woman is such a natural matchup that it’s shocking it never happened in the past. Thompson and Gurihiru’s comics starring Jeff are delightful all-ages fare, and I think adding Krypto to the mix will be a blast. And again, having Smith return to the two characters with whom he arguably has done his best comics work is pretty darned exciting to me.
But let’s remember, these backups are coming in Marvel’s half of the event. DC’s book comes out two months later, so the solicitation information that tells us about the DC backups, if any, likely won’t be available until August. Considering the way these crossovers usually work, with the two publishers wanting equity for their characters, I think it’s almost certain that the DC book will give us three additional backup stories of their own. The question, then, becomes obvious: who will be the stars?
As we have already established that the two dominant publishers in the American comic book space are mining my little-known blog for their ideas (guys, just put me on the payroll, I work cheap), I’m going to take this opportunity to dust off my “Three Wishes” format, in which I throw out three things I would like to see. If it were up to me, these are the backups you would see in Batman/Deadpool come November, with an added bonus of which creators I would have handle the stories.
Booster Gold/TVA
If you didn’t watch Loki on Disney+, I should explain that the Time Variance Authority, or TVA, is an entity in the Marvel Multiverse which is tasked with protecting the integrity of the timestream. In older stories, the TVA was literally made up of a legion of faceless bureaucrats and was a nice satire on corporate politics. The Loki TV series, though, fleshed out the concept quite a bit and made it an engine that could actually support stories of its own rather than just react to things happening in other comic books. They even got their own miniseries earlier this year, in which they built a task force of multiversal heroes including Spider-Gwen, Captain Carter, and an alternate dimension version of Gambit, among others.
So for an organization dedicated to defending the timestream, who better to have them cross paths with than DC’s Booster Gold? Michael Jon Carter, a disgraced football star from the future, decided he would be better off in another time, so he stole various pieces of technology he knew would essentially make him a superhero and travelled back in time to our present day. Booster, as a character, started off very self-centered and egotistical, but as time went on, he grew and developed greatly, eventually accepting a role of defending the timestream, even though most other heroes (except Batman, who knows the truth) picture him as a jerk and a screw-up.
The conflict would be that Booster and the TVA basically have the same job description, but from their perspective, the TVA would view Booster as one of the time anomalies they’re dedicated to preventing. There’s room for some great storytelling here, as this would be a far more believable misunderstanding than the usual hero vs. hero battle. As for who should tell this tale, I’d recruit Ryan North – a writer with a sharp sense of humor who has done work with the TVA in the past – and Booster’s creator Dan Jurgens as co-writer and artist.
Captain Carrot/Spider-Ham
This would build off of the Krypto/Jeff story from the first volume – something that’s a little sillier. Both Marvel and DC have a world in their multiverse that’s basically full of living cartoon animals, so matching up those characters would be natural. DC’s Captain Carrot – a character longtime readers know I’ve loved since childhood – is the leader of his Zoo Crew, the primary heroes of his Earth. Spider-Ham, on the other hand, was originally a little spider named Peter who was bitten by a radioactive pig and transformed into a pig with the powers of a spider. It’s a ridiculous reversal of Spider-Man’s origin, and that’s what I love about it.
I’m not really sure what story I would tell with these two, to be perfectly honest, but it would be enough for me just to see them share a page together. You know who I think would be able to tell a good story with them, though? Comic scribe Gail Simone, who has not only a fantastic flair for comedy, but also tells some of the best character-driven stories in comics. As for the artist, it would have to be somebody who’s shown a proclivity towards more “cartoony” comic books in their artwork. Captain Carrot’s co-creator Scott Shaw wouldn’t be a bad choice, but I think he’s retired, so instead I’d hire somebody like Roger Langridge, who did a beautiful job on the Muppet comics several years ago and recently has done a little work on Dynamite’s Darkwing Duck – another comic about a cartoon animal superhero.
Superman/Fantastic Four
Now I know what you’re thinking. “Blake, they already DID a Superman/Fantastic Four” crossover back in 1999. Dan Jurgens wrote AND drew it. You’ve been reading and watching Superman stuff every day this year, do you mean to tell us you didn’t KNOW that?”
Of course I knew that, you dork. I’m not talking about THAT Superman or Fantastic Four. I mean the ones from the movies.
As you may have heard, this summer’s two big superhero movies are going to be Superman and Fantastic Four: First Steps. Both of these are relaunching the respective properties for their new cinematic universes. And both of them look absolutely wonderful. As a teacher, I usually don’t look forward to July – it’s like one big month-long Sunday afternoon before I have to go back to work. But this year, these two movies have me excited and thrilled for July to come.
Some people, however, have to turn everything into a competition. Marvel fans who reflexively hate anything with the DC stamp on it, Superman fans who talk as though Clark is going to swoop in and beat up the FF…and all of that is ridiculous. The idea of the movies being in competition with each other is largely manufactured by loony fans rather than rationality. Marvel and DC have shared creators for decades in comic books, and even in the current cinematic landscape it’s still happening. (Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that James Gunn directed Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy or that Reed Richards himself, Pedro Pascal, was in Wonder Woman 1984.) There is literally no reason not to root for BOTH of these films to be huge, massive, entertaining success stories. And what’s more, the characters themselves would feel that way as well.
So that’s the story I would tell. I’d have a story where an entity from each universe – let’s say, for example, Marvel’s Grandmaster and DC’s Superboy Prime– would encounter each other in the Multiverse and get into a debate about their respective heroes, then try to pit Superman and the FF against each other…but SPECIFICALLY, the David Corenswet Superman and the MCU version of the Fantastic Four. They would meet and be told to do battle, then the Grandmaster and Prime would be utterly BAFFLED when they refuse to fight each other, citing that there’s no reason to do so, and then teaming up to defeat their captors.
The meta commentary would make the more bloodthirsty “fan’s” heads EXPLODE. So worth it.
The creative team? Well, if they don’t let me write this one myself, I think it would be a nice project for Mark Waid, who knows and loves these characters better than just about anybody. As the artist, I would get somebody old-school, such as Jerry Ordway, to put his spin on it.
There you go, friends – three epic crossover stories that are coming soon to a comic book near you…or at least, they would be if I had my way. But these are just MY picks. What about yours? Feel free to share your own “three wishes” for potential Marvel/DC crossovers in the comments!
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. This is usually where he’d make a joke about how much he loves Captain Carrot, but he already put that in the main article, so frankly, he doesn’t know how to end this. Hey, is that a rabbit over there? [Scurries away.]
Here at Geek Punditry Global Headquarters and Communications Hub and Lawn Care Emporium, we have five separate but equally important departments: the Department of Movie Stuff, the the Department of TV Stuff, the Department of Book Stuff, the Department of Comic Stuff, and the Jimmy John’s down on the third floor. And we try our best to balance those departments out, spending a little bit of time on each and not overwhelming our legion of adoring readers with any one topic above any other. But even though last week’s topic was about comic books, and I feel we’ve gotten a little comic book heavy lately, we’re going back to DC Comics again this week. There are two important reasons for this:
The topic we’re going to discuss is of great significance and, if studied properly, has the potential to turn into a great boon not only for DC Comics, but for the entire comic book landscape.
I couldn’t think of anything else to write about.
Last year, our friends at DC kicked off a publishing initiative called “Compact Comics.” This new line of paperback editions, all bearing a distinctive trade dress, collects some of DC’s most popular and important storylines in volumes smaller than the usual trade paperback design. At 8.5 by 5.5 inches, these full-color editions are almost exactly the size of a current fiction paperback that you might buy at any bookstore. They sell for $9.99, and have become a hit in both comic shops and in other retail outlets. And frankly, it couldn’t have come at a better time.
“You see, we call them COMPACT because they’re SMALL.” –Guy who paid $250,000 for his marketing degree.
Comics are in a bit of a crisis, although to be honest, there’s nothing new about that. I’ve been reading comic books for 40 years and I can’t remember a time when people didn’t fear that the industry was in the midst of some crisis or another. But we’re in a time where the distribution model is in absolute turmoil, with so many publishers abandoning Diamond Distribution (which had a monopoly on the comic book distribution market for decades) that the company had to declare bankruptcy earlier this year. As Diamond scrambled for a new owner to right the ship, all of the comic book publishers were flailing about, trying to make sure that they could still get their product into the hands of readers.
What does this have to do with Compact Comics? Nothing – at least not directly. DC abandoned Diamond some time ago, and they’re one of the few publishers big enough to weather this particular storm without any real chaos. But the issue here is how to get readers to pick up the comics, and what DC has done is found a format that is inherently appealing to those readers, something that will draw people in and get them not only to read one volume, but to go back to the shop and pick up another one. And that’s exactly what everybody in comic books should be trying to do.
I didn’t have a banana for scale so, as per FDA guidelines, I used Dean Koontz instead.
First of all, the size is important, and don’t let anybody tell you differently. Traditional graphic novels in the larger trade paperback format have been fine for a long time, but they’re not as portable as the Compact Comics. They’re good as archival editions, whereas Compact Comics are the sort of thing that will appeal to a casual reader – someone who is browsing the stacks at an airport bookstore or shuffling through the available volumes at Barnes & Noble looking for their next great read. It’s not a coincidence that the Compact Comics size is very similar to that of Japanese Manga, which is enormously popular. (The day I realized that Manga now had a section three times as large as the traditional graphic novel shelves at Barnes & Noble, I died a little inside.) Some may see this as an attempt by DC to court the Manga reader, and I think there’s at least a little truth to that. But I think it’s even more true that they simply recognized that the portability is one of the things that contributes to the success of Manga, so they decided to run with it.
This isn’t new, of course. Manga has been growing in popularity for decades, so why has it taken American comics so long to catch up to this smaller format? Honestly, I think it’s the printing technology. Most Manga is in black-and-white, and therefore easier and cheaper to print. Most American comics, on the other hand, are in color, making them not only more expensive, but more difficult to reduce in size to the smaller format without muddying the colors or losing detail in the artwork. But printing technology has improved, and anyone glancing through a Compact Comic will be able to tell you that the artwork looks just as good now as it did in the original printing – in the cases of some of the older stories that have been remastered, even better.
“He’s big! He’s blue! He’s right in front of you!”
The next thing, and this cannot be understated, is the price. TEN BUCKS for a complete graphic novel? These days, that’s the deal of the century. A full-size graphic novel of comparable length will usually go in the $25 to $30 range. In fact, most individual comic books these days sell for $3.99 or $4.99. That means that for the same price as two issues of Action Comics, I can get all twelve issues of Watchmen and have a complete story. It’s an incredible bargain, especially for somebody dipping their toes into comic books for the first time. Imagine a potential reader who, for example, is excited about James Gunn’s upcoming Superman movie and is interested in reading some of the comic books that inspired it. They may look at the trade paperback or hardcover editions of some of those books retailing for anywhere from $25 to $50 (depending on how fancy the edition is) and rightly blanch. Even four bucks for a 22-page comic book story is an awful lot. But over 250 pages of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman for $9.99? That, my friends, is the sweet spot. With everything in the universe getting more and more expensive, seeing such a low price point is absolutely going to get a reader’s attention.
And I think it’s also important to note which stories DC selected to include in the first wave of Compact Comics. Aside from the aforementioned All-Star Superman and Watchmen, both bona fide classics, DC also included two of the more successful Batman stories from the past couple of decades, The Court of Owls and Hush. They populated the line with stories featuring their most popular (and – let’s be honest – cinematic) characters, including Wonder Woman: Earth One, Harley Quinn and the Gotham City Sirens, Catwoman: Trail of the Catwoman, and Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo’s chilling Joker graphic novel. Then they tossed in a recent hit, the Green Lantern science fiction murder mystery Far Sector. And as the coup de grace (which is Latin for “a cooper full of grass”) they gave us the first volume of Scott Snyder’s horror series American Vampire. Why is that so significant? Well, Snyder had a co-writer for the backup stories in the first six issues of this excellent series, a little fella by the name of Stephen King.
And in case you didn’t know, King’s name on the cover of a book is the closest thing in the publishing world to a license to print money. For once, DC knew what they were doing.
Admittedly, his name is usually a bit larger.
The line was so popular that a second wave of Compact Comics will be hitting shops this over the course of this year, this time including Kingdom Come, Static Season One, DCeased, Batwoman: Elegy, Superman: Birthright, The Authority: Book One, Superman/Batman: Book One, DC: The New Frontier, Wonder Woman: Blood and Guts, Harley Quinn: Wild at Heart, Batman: The Long Halloween, Y: The Last Man Book One, V For Vendetta, and We3. As with the first wave, we have a good mix of perennial classics, more recent favorites, properties that are linked to upcoming DC Studios releases, and a few really strong comics from outside the DC Universe itself that have proven popular to folks who don’t read superheroes.
And of course, as the initiative has proven successful, it’s being imitated. A few months after it was clear that Compact Comics was a hit, Marvel Comics announced its own new “Premier Collection,” a similar-sized set of graphic novels (9 by 6 inches, just a half-inch larger per side) with a $14.99 price point (a bit higher than the Compact Comics, but still more palpable than a traditional graphic novel to a new reader). This line kicked off in February with a new edition of Daredevil: Born Again, which – what a co-inky-dink! – just happens to have the same title as the recent hit show on Disney+. Isn’t it nice how stuff like that just works out sometimes?
“Kevin? C.B. What’s the slate for 2025 again?”
But DC (and anyone who copies them) has to play it smart. So far they have, but it’s imperative that they make sure that the books they’re putting out fulfill the needs of the reader. For standalone books like We3 or The New Frontier, the task is done. Put out the book and keep it in print. Maybe throw out a new cover or a new afterword for an anniversary edition, but there’s not much else to think about. But go back and look at that list of titles again. Did you notice how many of them include the words “Book One?” And even several of them that don’t have “Book One” in the name have follow-ups (Batman: The Long Halloween was followed by Batman: Dark Victory, and Jeph Loeb is currently finishing his trilogy with The Last Halloween) or were originally released as part of an ongoing series that readers would like to continue reading (Wonder Woman: Blood and Guts was part of Brian Azzarello’s 2011 run on the character).
If the intent on DC’s part is that the readers will be drawn into the Compact Comics and then drift over to the standard-sized graphic novels for the rest of the series, that would be a huge mistake. Readers may like convenience, but we also like consistency. And if you don’t believe me, ask any book reader how they feel about a series of fantasy novels that doesn’t put the publisher’s logo, author’s name, or volume number in the same PLACE on the spine of every volume. Have a bucket handy when you do so, though, because just the thought of that may cause some bibliophiles to throw up.
No, if a reader STARTS reading Y: The Last Man in Compact Comics format, they’re going to want to CONTINUE reading Y: The Last Man in Compact Comics format. Yes, DC, that means selling all TEN volumes in this new size when it’s time to do a new printing. I concede, it wouldn’t have made sense to put out all ten volumes at once when the format was still new and untested. But once the format has demonstrated it has legs, you’ve got to stick with it. Will each individual volume make less money than the larger editions? Yes, it will. But I honestly think that what you gain in the number of sales will more than make up for any shortfall in the single unit profits.
“No, seriously, this thing is enormous. Where’s the real Volume 2?”
So what comes next for Compact Comics? Assuming the new wave (which will begin in May with Kingdom Come) is as successful as the first, I think we could see these books on the market for a very long time. In fact, outside of hardcore comic book collectors, I could see the compact size becoming the format of choice for the casual reader. I don’t have any trouble at all foreseeing a future where this becomes the standard way that people read collected editions and original graphic novels. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. In truth, I think ANYTHING that makes comics easier to get in the hands of people who don’t have them there already is a good thing.
And so, so nice to look at.
I’ve got a few of the Compact Comics myself, and I couldn’t be happier with the format. They look good, they read great, and they look oh-so pretty on a shelf. If I had the money and space, I’d put up an entire bookcase with each of the ten that have been printed so far, leaving room for the next wave, Marvel’s Premier Editions, and anybody else who wants to play along. I sincerely believe that this is a great thing for comic books, and I hope that every publisher out there is paying attention to how well this line is doing. Because if you’re thinking about the future of comics, this just may be where we find it.
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. Yeah, he’s the kind of nerd who can write 2,000 words about a printing format, but YOU’RE the kind of nerd who READ 2,000 words about a printing format, so let’s not pretend we’re so different, all right?
Blake M. Petit 