Rare copy of first Superman comic book fetches $3.2 mil at auction

Rare copy of first Superman comic book fetches $3.2 mil at auction

Yeah, that's a lot of money.  I guess.  I've always daydreamed about finding a mint copy of Action Comics #1 in the attic or basement.  Actually, where I find it is the least important part of the daydream.  The having it is the main thing.  Comic book dealers Stephen Fishler and Vincent Zurzolo found their copy in an eBay auction, but they had to pay for it.  Paying for it was never part of my daydreams.  Before the auction, the comic resided comfortably in a cedar chest in West Virginia where it was protected from wear, tear, sunlight and moths.  Comic book-eating moths.  Some of the $3.2 million goes to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which adds a further bit of niceness to this tale.

We're not yet certain how Fishler and Zurzolo will handle their joint ownership.  Early reports suggest Fishler will have the comic Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, while Zurzolo will have it Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.  For Sundays, possession will be determined by a random number generator.  Zurzolo will take digits 1 through 5 and Fishler will take 6 through 10.  In the unlikely event of a zero, possession will be determined by a rock, paper, scissors competition, best three out of five.

Curt Swan: Even his name is cool...

I miss Curt Swan.  Diversions of the Groovy Kind has a look at The Amazing World of DC Comics #7 (July 1975), with a Curt Swan interview and lots of sweet Swan artwork.  I was seven years old when that came out, and I never read it.  I'm trying to remember who my Superman artist of record was in those days.

Oh yeah, it was Curt Swan!

Curt Swan was THE Superman artist for me, the way I thought Walt Disney drew all those movie cartoons.  Sorry, Joe Shuster.  I know you were the original, so it should have been you, but you were long gone by the time I started reading.  And when I started reading, as far as I was concerned, you couldn't have a Superman unless he was drawn by Swan.  Later I got into Superman reprint books and discovered Wayne Boring, Al Plastino and Neal Adams, and while I liked and still do like their versions of Superman-- there's something really appealing about the beefy, barrel-torsoed Boring Supes-- practically every new Superman or Action Comics I bought had the familiar-looking Swan Superman.  So Swan Superman simply WAS Superman for me.

Swan had a way of drawing facial expressions that impressed younger me.  Like Superman eating the defunct kryptonite, or posing as Clark Kent doing his day job and making one of Steve Lombard's pranks backfire, startling and humiliating the would-be bully into making a really amusing facial expression, which Swan and whatever inker was handling the book that month rendered in characteristically clean, readable linework.

And I don't know if Swan took a lot of artistic shortcuts, because I don't know much-- if anything-- about his drawing methods.  I have a feeling he didn't, because his characters inhabited a solid, believable world.  Sure, it was generally neater and more squared-away than our own, but if Superman or Lois Lane happened to be tackling pollution as a social issue in that story, Swan would make that pollution look like the loveliest pollution you ever did see.  Municipalities across the land would be proud to fester in Swan-rendered pollution.  The Daily Planet offices, the Metropolis skyline, the studios of Galaxy Broadcasting, some alien spaceship-- whatever it was, Swan gave it all a solidity and reality.  He simply drew the hell out of it, without a lot of fuss and muss and fidgety crap and visual noise.  Swan didn't have to hide anything with flash because he could just flat-out draw, man, draw.

In the DC Comics interview, Swan says, "As the Superman character evolved, Mort [Weisenger] felt, at the time, that we should get a little more humanistic qualities into him.  We wanted people to relate to him better."  Swan was certainly successful at that.  From those facial expressions, to the body language, to the backgrounds, to the stories themselves, he worked on a Superman who had a down-to-earth quality about him.  Like a real dude, with real feelings, despite his godlike abilities.  When pro writers (and fans) say things about Superman being unrelatable because he's all-powerful, or boring because he can't be challenged, I get the feeling they never read a Superman story drawn by Curt Swan.

Also, it's pretty cool to watch the Swan Superman evolve from the early 60s into the 70s.  First he has that tall forehead, the slightly receding hairline of an older guy.  Even Superboy looks like he needs a little Minoxodil, or soon will.  By the time Clark Kent is anchoring the nightly news at Galaxy, his spit-curl has become a more full-bodied wave and his hair is creeping down over his ears.  But what doesn't change in all that time is the basic appeal of Curt Swan's art.  If you can look at it and not feel uplifted, then you are reading the wrong blog.

Well, you might be doing that anyway.  Go read Diversions of the Groovy Kind, you nut!

Superman versus the Thing (in color)

There!  Yet another ridiculous image I've had in my head for a while.  I imagine after Superman and the Thing settle their difference, they'll go have a meal or share a drink or something and become really good friends.

Superman versus the Thing and Spider-Man takes a swing! A couple of "in progress" drawings

Two of my favorite characters come into conflict with each other.  I'm pretty sure Superman could take the Thing.  The Superman figure is largely complete.  I need to fix his hands, right calf muscle and the cape, and I may adjust the line weights a bit.  Poor Ben Grimm needs a lot of work, though.  Not happy with the arm shadow.  It needs to be wider and extend down his chest a bit.  And all those rocky facets!

 

Here's Spider-Man acting more like the Spider-Man we all know and love:

The color scheme for this one is going to be more John Romita/Gil Kane era Spidey than Steve Ditko.  I have to fix the perspective (look at the wonky windows on the building under Spider-Man's right foot, just to point out something that's pretty obvious), finish the webbing on his costume (and he needs his chest emblem!) and adjust the left leg. The muscle on the outside edge near the knee isn't working for me and the foot is angled wrong. The pose itself is lacking in dynamics. I've got a rough sketch of a more exciting (I hope) one I'm going to start inking today.

These are penciled in Manga Studio 5 and inked in Adobe Illustrator.  I'm considering another work flow, though, where I print out the pencils and hand-ink them on vellum or using a lightbox or something along those lines.  Digital inking is no panacea, although it's nice for fidgety, shaky-handed fools like me.  I like being able to fiddle around with the lines and get them "just so," but the results are lacking in humanity.  I am a machine.

Other works in progress include Supergirl versus Darkseid and, for one of my other blogs, a couple of Cassandra Cain Batgirl images, one where she goes up against Wolverine and another where she takes on the Joker.

Part One: The Epic Rhythm of Kirby by Gary Chapin (a guest essay!)

Note: This is a guest essay by Gary Chapin, and I am honored to run it here.  I think after you read it, you'll be as excited about Gary's ideas as I am! And here... we... go...

Part One: The Epic Rhythm of Kirby

I picked up Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus after reading Joel’s write-ups about the Kamandi sets. I would like to be able to say I was revisiting old favorites, but the truth was I had never cottoned to Kirby during my developmental collecting days. I had preferred the clean lines of Byrne and the baroque richness of Perez and Jim Starlin. The expressionistic outbursts of Kirby (and Carmine Infantino and Steve Ditko) were wasted on the feckless youth that I was.

So, lame though it was, at the age of forty-five I finally found my way into Kirby via this set collecting The New Gods, The Forever People, Mister Miracle, and Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen. I’ve read through volumes one and two and part of volume three. My mind is blown.

Jack Kirby, words and pencils/Vince Coletta, inks (New Gods #2, April-May 1971)

Something different is happening here. Part of it is timeless. We call things “epic” all the time these days. If something is loud, long, and spectacular it’s an epic. The Fourth World Omnibus is intentionally and genuinely epic – sharing traits with the first epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey.

The characters are extraordinarily broad. Orion is war. Scott Free, like Odysseus, is cleverness. They have no inner life. There is no psychology going on here, no soap opera. That may seem like a criticism – “The characters have no inner life?” – but within this context, the stories and characters ring absolutely true. Just as the ancients were entranced by their own epics, these stories are completely engaging. Like, I’m falling asleep reading them because I can’t intentionally put them down to go to sleep. I haven’t liked a comic that much in years.

Other similarities to the epics? There is a complete absence of irony in Kirby’s work. It’s playful, absolutely. There’s plenty of humor. But there’s no knowing sarcasm, world-weary snarking, or irony. Also, the geography of these books is mythologically general. We find out at some point that the New Gods stories are taking place in Metropolis, but throughout, it’s simply referred to as “the city.” Which city? I don’t know, reader, could it be your city.

The Jimmy Olsen stories take place in a cavern underneath Metropolis that is so large that it has a number of distinct regions (the Wild Area, the Habitat), and a highway (the Zoomway) so lengthy that an RV the size of an apartment block can drive the highway perpetually. That sounds like something out of Paul Bunyon stories. The writers of the epics knew about the rule of cool, and so did Kirby.

Jack Kirby, words and pencils/Vince Coletta, inks (Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #136, March 1971)

But they weren’t writers; they were singers, and here’s where I’m going to go out on a limb about Jack Kirby. His work has rhythm. His lines, more than any artist I know, create the illusion of motion, and that motion – within a panel, from panel to panel, page to page – drags you along like a great dance tune, or an extravagant opera, or an epic being sung by a blind poet – a blind, maybe heavy metal poet.

And it is the lines that carry the rhythm for Kirby. It isn’t the events of the story, or the pace of his plots. It’s the drawings themselves. The Fourth World stories, really, are relentlessly violent. Kirby loves his fight scenes, and so do we. His characters are a troupe executing a very distinct choreography.

You can witness the truth of it when the rhythms of his lines are interrupted. In the Jimmy Olsen stories, DC had another artist re-draw the face of Superman over Kirby’s pencils so that this Superman would match the “typical” DC-brand Superman. It throws off the entire panel! It inserts a bland and lifeless and boring (in a Kirby work!) element into something wild and spectacular; a dollop of oatmeal in the middle of a bowl of kick-ass curry. Look at the un-inked pages, included as an appendix in volume 2. The Superman panels take on a new life. The Superman content suddenly makes sense in the Kirby context.

Jack Kirby, words and pencils/Vince Coletta, inks (Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133, October 1970)

Kirby’s epic rhythm became even more vibrant when Mike Royer took over inks from the indifferent Vince Colletta. Is this akin, maybe, to production value? As I move through the third volume I am drawn further and further into this story in which, when the Gods finally come to Earth, it’s a complete disaster. I’m drawn by the events, by the writing, the characters, the amazing well-spring of ideas – something new every issue – but I’m mostly drawn in by Kirby’s lines and their rhythm.

Part Two is here!

Gary Chapin usually blogs about French accordion music over at www.accordeonaire.blogspot.com.

Superman? More like Superkiller!

Superman never kills, right?  That's what we've been led to believe. Let's see if Siegel and Shuster agree by reading Action Comics #23 (April 1940), featuring the first appearance of Lex Luthor-- although the story refers to him as simply "Luthor" and he flashes a full head of red hair.

 It starts in the far-flung nation of Galonia, where we find Clark Kent and Lois Lane working as war correspondants for the Daily Planet (finally!). There, on the streets of the war-torn border city of Belgaria, we watch as a Toranian (these names have a Hayao Miyazaki flavor!) artillery unit lobs shells on helpless civilians, and injure Lane. Surely Superman will use his super-speed and strength to disable the cannon without injuries to anyone else--

Nope.  Superman blows four ordinary soldiers-- possibly guilty of war crimes, but human beings nevertheless-- straight to hell.  Later, he finds Galonian General Lupo conspiring with an unknown intelligence via what can only be described as a hologram to stop the two countries from making peace.  This turns out to be our first glimpse of Luthor, but for now let's just see how paragon of fair play Superman handles a being by far his physical inferior...

Strangely enough, Superman doesn't kill Lupo.  Something even worse than having his brains dashed out happens to the poor guy, but not at Superman's hands.  Leaving Lupo's corpse in the cave, Superman spots a bomber stream on its way to attack a neutral nation and bring them into the conflict—neutrality and being drawn into wars a major 1930s/40s concern for Americans.  In the interests of peace, he uses his mighty breath to blow up such a headwind the pilots turn back.  Catastrophe averted through non-violent means!

Not really.  What Superman actually does is leap onto the lead bomber and throw its machine gunner out.  This guy gets off easy compared to what happens to the rest.  After all, he’s at least wearing a parachute.  Superman turns the machine gun on the other planes and mercilessly blows them from the sky.  A few airmen float down under silk canopies, but you have to imagine others are shredded by Superman’s flying lead.  Read Masters of the Air by Donald L. Miller for a taste  of the carnage the Man of Steel deals to these guys who don’t share his invulnerable Kryptonian physiology.  There’s no place to hide inside a bomber.

And as if shooting them to death wasn’t enough, when he runs out of ammo, Superman then smashes two bombers together in the air, no doubt killing both aircrews at once.  After that, it's a simple matter of ramming the final bomber with the one he's hijacked and by now Superman's kill-tally must be dozens-- if not hundreds-- of men.

He's not finished.  Because here Luthor makes the first of what will eventually be many, many mistakes in dealing with Superman-- he has Lois Lane abducted.  It's supposed to prevent reporter Clark Kent from investigating further, but all it does is amount to suicide by super-being.  Having wet his hands with blood for days now, Superman immediately sets out to confront the villain.

This early version of Lex Luthor possesses various powers than can only be described as magical.  He can hypnotize people—in fact, almost all of his personal army are under his mental control—and he projected that three-dimensional image of himself onto a screen hidden in a cave despite being miles away.  A far cry from the ruthless scientist or amoral business tycoon of later characterizations.  But one thing this proto-Luthor shares with the more familiar modern-day Luthor is the desire for power and a knack for manipulation from behind the scenes.

Plus a primitive green laser (premonitions of Kryptonite to come) capable of draining Superman’s powers.  Mistake number two-- Luthor stupidly sets the damned thing on low, which gives Superman time to smash it before it can incapacitate or even kill him.  

It's at this point our already emotionally over-taxed Superman goes completely ape.  He juggles halpless normals (how many of these men soiled themselves from sheer terror?)-- apparently smirking all the while-- and shreds dirigible’s inner workings, which sends untold numbers of Luthor’s hypnotized followers to their deaths.  And Luthor himself, as Superman callously observes, using some kind of casual inflection or drawl to emphasize to Lois Lane just how little he cares.

Well, you may not be scared, Ms. Lane, but I certainly am!  We won't argue whether or not Superman's aims are good.  After all, he's trying to stop a war and save many more lives than the number he takes.  But how could we stop this costumed mass killer should he decide the human species is too destructive to be allowed to continue?  What if he takes a cue from Luthor and tries to conquer the world?  It's almost as if Superman were one of those morally gray anti-heroes from DC's Vertigo line of adult comics.  But that's silly...

Lois Lane is tough and smart... and completely amoral

We've talked about what a gutsy woman reporter Lois Lane is.  She takes no guff but freely gives it because she's hardcore.  She's also incredibly intelligent, able to see through complex ruses like a Sherlock Holmes in a luscious, backless red evening dress.  Where can we find a prime example of just how brainy a person she is?  Why, look no further than Action Comics #6 (November 1938), a fast-paced tale by Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster along with inker Leo O'Mealia.

It all starts one day at the Daily Star (yes, the Star, not the Planet-- and the nameless editor is definitely not his graying eminence Perry White, but a much younger brown-haired man), where Clark Kent, the "meek ace" reporter meets Nick Williams, who bills himself as Superman's personal manager.  This comes as a shock to Kent, because he's secretly Superman.  Then Kent receives another shock-- Williams is using Superman's good name to make money!  Suddenly there's a Superman radio show, a Superman brand gasoline and even a Superman automobile, plus.any number of other shoddy products bearing the familiar S-logo, all illegally licensed by Williams.  Most alarmingly, Williams openly threatens the world with what he claims is a deal for comic book appearances (and movies based on them, no doubt).  Kent quickly arranges a meeting with Williams's client Superman, but he doesn't count on Lois Lane, who soon finds out about it and makes a plan of her own.

The first step involves allowing Kent to take her on a date to what we're told is a "famous night spot," so hoity-toity Kent has to wear a top hat.  It's in the rarefied atmosphere of big city nightlife among the elite they witness this spectacle:

The second step involves this:

Yes, you just witnessed Lois Lane slip Clark Kent a mickey finn.  She doesn't even know his body weight or what other medications he might be taking (both Marilyn Monroe and Anna Nichole Smith had chloral hydrate, the traditional "knock out" drug, among others in their systems when they died and it was a component of the lethal Kool-Aid at Jonestown; Lane would have been familiar with chloral hydrate from her police reportage even in the 1930s), so there's a small but very real chance she's killed him with an accidental overdose.

Of course Superman is just pretending.  The drug doesn't work on his alien physiology (not that Lois knows this-- she's completely unconcerned she might succeed in her plan and still wind up facing a murder rap).  While Superman's understandably miffed at having been drugged, that's no excuse for his sexist generalization.  Unless in the 1930s all newspaper women actually did go around drugging their dates for reasons of professional gain and personal curiosity.  If so, this was a dark era in American journalism.

Once she meets Williams and his ersatz Superman, it takes Lois Lane about two seconds to see through their lies.  This woman is not only scary, she's scary-smart.

As unscrupulous as Lois is, Williams outdoes her with his willingness to commit outright murder.  She lacks morals, he's actively immoral.  Not for him Lois Lane's involuntary manslaughter.  She threatens his finances, so out the window she goes.  Well, we all know how this ends.  Not with Lois Lane pulped on the sidewalk, but with her safely enfolded in Superman's mighty arms.  And he treats her sneeringly.

Hmm.  I'm starting to believe it's not just Lois.  Despite its bright primary and secondary colors, Superman's world is in fact a noirish cesspool full of desperate, hateful people who would be right at home among the compromised denizens of James Ellroy's behaviorally miasmic Los Angeles.  It seems no one is to be trusted and everyone possesses suspect motives and moral relativism.  But that can't be true, right?  These are adults.  What of the young?  Can we look to them to restore our belief in humanity's basic goodness?  Let's go back to the story's beginning and find out.

Office boy Jimmy Olsen!*  You eavesdropping imp!  Behavior no doubt learned from his elders.  But these are reporters and con artists, society's lowest echelon, of like kind right down there with pirates and mimes.  What of its highest, our legal authorities?  Surely writer Siegel will portray them in a positive light and balance out all these depressingly sordid people.  As paragons of virtue, protectors of our mores and the angels of our better nature.  This was the Golden Age, a time where we placed unwavering trust in a government that so recently assured us the only thing we had to fear was fear itself and our adventure comics told simplistic tales of the stark dichotomy between good and evil...

*Comixology and a few other sources list Action Comics #6 as Olsen's first appearance, but as far as I can tell this little spying bastard is as nameless as the paper's editor.  Factor in his blonde hair, and he's more like Jammy Olson or Jackie Olaff than the more familiar cub reporter of Superman legend.  This punk isn't even wearing a checked jacket.  And he has a disturbingly infantile face.  I conclude this isn't Jimmy Olsen at all, just a prototype character used to get Lois into the story, then discarded.

I just bought some old Superman comics for .99 each

Yeah, digital at Comixology.  They're running a Superman sale which I'm sure has a lot to do with a certain Time-Warner flick that's coming out this summer.  Or has already come out; I'm in Japan and our release schedule is different here.  For whatever reason-- call me foolish, call me irresponsible-- but it occurs to me I bought nothing but Action Comics.  Action Comics #1 (I'm relieved I didn't have to pay $175,000 for it, although I could have afforded it quite easily) plus one by Curt Swan and several by John Byrne.

It's fashionable these days to mock Byrne, but I won't hear a bad word said against Curt Swan.  And once I get some time to read these comics, I'm going to spend a little time exploring them here while giving Byrne a fair shake.  I don't mean the kind of shake a shark gives its prey.  I mean a truly fair reading of the four comics I bought, although that's surely too small a sample size to make any kind of accurate assessment of what he accomplished.

I may clown around a lot here but this is a pro-Superman blog.  I've got an incredibly expensive Hot Toys figure of Christopher Reeve back home to prove it.  Superman and Babe Ruth.  That's all I ever think about.

$175,000 buys you a soiled Action Comics #1

If you're the person or people who bid on it, that is.  That Action Comics #1 we talked about a few weeks ago-- the one found in wall insulation-- sold for a nice $175,000.  Not too shabby.  Who wouldn't love to come across one of these key comics in a trunk in an attic or inside a the stomach tiger shark you're cutting open hoping to find the Kintner kid so you can reopen the beaches and salvage the summer?

My mom was born a couple of years before Action Comics #1 hit the newsstands of a grateful nation in need of distraction from the bad news in Europe and the economic travails of the Great Depression.  Keep in mind they didn't have Facebook and Twitter for the endless self-aggrandizement of incredibly boring idiots.  There were no Kardashians.  Even Amanda Bynes had yet to walk the earth.  So what did people do back then besides listen to Little Orphan Annie on the radio or sit around waiting for the Kardasians and Amanda Bynes to arrive?

Well, I don't know.  But it probably had something to do with Action Comics #1 because even banged-up copies sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.  That's how important they are.

Anyway, my mom grew up in a world where Superman existed (when my dad was born in 1929, there was no such thing-- imagine that!), but she wasn't much into comic books.  She read real books from an early age.  A precocious reader of real prose, mostly involving the Bobbsey Twins.  Her best friend, however, did read comics and she kept them all.  On one of our visits to her hometown (Kings Mountain, NC), my mom told me about her friend's collection.  They had been born too late to have the first issues of Action or Detective Comics, but there was a small chance she'd owned Batman #1, which came out in 1940 when they were both four years old.  A very small chance.  In my mind, this morphed into a vivid image of all the most desirable issues in early comics history lined up on a shelf in a sunlit room, each book in mint condition.

I may have drooled a little at the thought.  I tell you this because I definitely am right now as I picture it again.

Action Comics #1: When Superman was tough

Joe Shuster, Action Comics #1 (June 1938)

Yeah, Superman was a pugnacious dude when he first appeared in Action Comics #1 (June 1938).  While artist Joe Shuster gave him a mature, beefy look even in his circus tights, writer Jerry Siegel provided the Man of Steel with an aggressive, roughneck personality.  Superman is a good guy, but he isn't playing around.  He manhandles butlers and wife-beaters with equal aplomb.  But you know who else is tough in Action Comics #1?

Joe Shuster, Action Comics #1 (June 1938)

Lois Lane!  The Daily Star's star reporter takes no guff from anyone, gangsters included.

Identifying with Batman and Spider-Man makes you feel good about yourself...

What do you think of this report?  Apparently, some men who identify with Batman or Spider-Man feel better about their bodies when they look at pictures of their heroes, but if they're indifferent, the pictures make them feel worse.  A previous study found a similar effect in women who viewed celebrity photos.

I love this stuff.  I'm a psychology buff, and I know just enough about it to use its jargon to make bizarre, counter-factual claims and asinine pronouncements that can't withstand close scrutiny with facts.  To me, this report actually raises more questions than provides answers.  Here are a few.

1) What if you identify with Dani Moonstar or Cassandra Cain?  What effect does looking at drawings of Spider-Man and Batman have on your self-confidence?

2) What if you identify with Buddy Bradley?

3) Or the Crypt-Keeper?

4) Have they done this study specifically with female comic book fans?

5) Would doing the above study produce similar results?  Or, given the sexualized or fetishistic nature of how many female characters are presented, would they be opposite?  I'd be very interested in seeing how this plays out, because while their numbers aren't as great as with male fans, female comic fans are incredibly passionate about their favorite characters.

6) What is the nature of identification with characters involving female comic book fans?  Is it the same or different than with male fans?

7) What about fans with other gender identities?

8) Related to number one, how much cross-gender identification is there?  Is this common, or isolated?

9) In the study of women and celebrities, what kind of photos were used?  Were they candid shots, photos from public events or sexualized photo-spreads from men's magazines?  And would any of those affect the results?

10) Is identification with characters-- in effect, the reader "masking" himself or herself with certain characters-- important to creating a fan base or readership?

BONUS 11) What about fans who identify with villains?

I'm seriously interested in someone doing a study on these, and some in-depth surveying of women who read superhero comics.  Isn't it a fairly common belief male characters are idealized and more inviting of identification while female characters are objectified and more involving the reader in the male gazed based on an assumption that the readership is almost exclusively male?  And yet women who are into superhero comics really latch onto these characters and they're extremely vocal with their opinions.  Well, maybe that's just part of being a superhero comic fan.  But you know... Stephanie Brown.  Oracle.  Huntress.  Lois Lane. You dismiss or degrade these characters at your peril.

I'm also keenly interested in the gender dynamics.  As someone who easily identifies with female characters-- I have my entire life and probably pretended to be Wonder Woman, the Bionic Woman or any one of Charlie's Angels and even Cindy Lee from The Secrets of Isis as often as I portrayed Superman, the Incredible Hulk, Sgt. Rock, Batman or Spider-Man as a child, and Dani Moonstar quickly became my masking character of choice in New Mutants-- and responds strongly to their positive and negative portrayals, I'm guessing I fall somewhere outside the control group or whatever the heck they used here.  So I also want to know how other fans who view gender and sexuality in ways that aren't traditionally accepted.

And, strangely enough, I also identify quite a bit with characters with ambiguous morality-- in fictional, comic book dichotomous terms, not real life.  I find we have to go outside the mainstream to find these kinds of richly drawn, troublesome characters.  When I read Nexus, I tend to mask myself with Horatio Hellpop, but I find myself drawn to Ursula X.X. Imada whenever she appears on the scene.  Outside of genre fiction, I find Hopey Glass and Terry Downe from Love and Rockets have always fascinated me more than Maggie, the star.  And I have much more in common with Buddy Bradley from Peter Bagge's Hate than I'm comfortable admitting.

When I see drawings of them, how do I feel about myself?  Pretty good, I guess.

Luthor, you poisonous snake!

If you think wrapping my hand in a plastic baggie is going to stop me from mopping up the floor with you and your henchmen then soaring into space and causing the Earth to rotate backwards, thereby reversing time and allowing me to stop your warped real estate scheme and save Lois Lane, you're sadly mistaken!

The Hot Toys Superman figure is the most fun thing ever created.  Well, one of the most fun things.  Okay, so it isn't quite up to the level of amusement parks or family vacations to amusement parks or kissing your partner on the ferris wheel at an amusement park, but it does have its charms.

I wish I had a Muhammad Ali action figure to go with him to recreate the classic Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali cover, minus all the other celebrities.  I know there's a statue, but I already have half the equation.  Acceptable alternatives include figures of Gene Hackman and Ned Beatty as Lex Luthor and Otis, respectively, or an Adam West Batman.  The various Christian Bale Batman and the Michael Keaton Batman figures from Hot Toys are impressive as well.  You know, a Tobey Maguire Spider-Man wouldn't be half bad, either.  And a Lynda Carter Wonder Woman.  Lemme think about this and get back to you.

What a super weekend!

I watched Superman the Movie, the 1978 big screen epic starring Christopher Reeve as Superman and also received a couple of fun little items.  One is the trade paperback collection Superman: the Greatest Stories Ever Told and the other is the Hot Toys Superman the Movie 1/6th scale Christopher Reeve as Superman action figure.

The book has a nice Alex Ross cover featuring his version of Superman looking stern and appropriately heroic, spit curl, narrowed eyes, lantern jaw, big red and yellow emblem on his chest.  The stories inside feature a wide array of writers and artists, but a more appropriate title is Superman: Some Pretty Good Stories.  Alongside the origin story from Superman #1 (June 1939) and the John Byrne revamp "The Man of Steel" from The Man of Steel #1 (June 1986) there are some curiosities like the 1940 short story "What If Superman Ended the War?" written and drawn by Superman creators Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster for  Look Magazine and an otherworldly pin-up by none other than Moebius himself.  It's amusing to see the rudimentary yet compelling storytelling of Simon and Shuster as they pit Superman against the real world menace of both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.  All it takes is a quick trip to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and Superman deposits both dictators in Geneva, Switzerland where they're judged for crimes against humanity and the world enters a utopian age of peace and scientific progress...

"Must There Be a Superman?" by Elliot S. Maggin explains why such a scenario probably wouldn't have occurred.  In this story, reprinted from Superman #247 (January 1972), the Guardians of the Universe save Superman's life in deep space then perform a kind of brain washing on him to make him question his stunting effect on human evolution.  This story comes closest to being "great," an interesting attempt at answering a question the question posed in its title.  Should Superman solve everyone's problems?  And if so, would that set back our advancement?  It's illustrated by the legendary art team of Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson and it's a marvel of old school storytelling-- heroic anatomy that isn't overly exaggerated, easy to follow layouts and migrant workers shouting, "VIVA SUPERMAN!" as he rebuilds their shacks like a one man slightly-slower-than-lightspeed Habitat for Humanity.

My second favorite is Byrne's story borrows a few bits from classic Superman comic book lore, a little from the first movie and presents a sci-fi reworking of the planet Krypton into a barren world that looks like Monument Valley painted a sickly green, where its completely hairless population live without concepts such as love and react with shock at the sight of raw, shirtless Kansas farmhands via some kind of holography device.  Always one of comics' keenest minds for explaining away the ludicrous, Byrne invents a Clark Kent who didn't come into his powers all at once-- lest he rip his adopted parents apart and perform who knows what other horrors a la Rick Veitch's The Maximortal-- and uses body language and actor's tricks to convince people he isn't his charismatic alter ego.  Byrne's artwork looks like he's doing his best Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez impression-- very DC merchandising style, but with the characteristic Byrne cross-hatching and keen story sense.  There's a poignant moment where Clark, having performed his first miracle, broods in the dark of his boyhood bedroom after finding the resultant media scrutiny terrifying.  Byrne locates both the god and the man inside the superhero, but the story suffers from too much condensing.  We'd like to linger a bit, but Byrne disposes of entire reams of Superman legend in just a few pages-- and a lot of this stuff would be ripped off later in Lois & Clark:  The New Adventures of Superman and Superman Returns.  Not too shabby, Mr. Byrne.

I wasn't all that impressed with "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way," though.  The late, unlamented Wizard Magazine declared it the greatest Superman story ever, but apart from its central conceit-- quaint ol' Superman versus the British Invasion of smart but cynical and thoroughly dark characters, and by extension, the whole aesthetic of their writers-- but it's too choppy and fragmented.  The Elite just come out of nowhere with little build up and as a result, there's no rising suspense before the final confrontation.  Even the manner in which Superman defeats the Elite is left a little unclear, as if writer Kelly glossed over it because he was so entranced with the philosophical confrontation he never got around to working out the actual plot points.  In fact, he's way too oblique throughout most of the story and sacrifices impact.  He's not helped by some incredibly ugly art.  Some contrast between a Curt Swan-type Superman and some Frank Quitely/Steve Dillon-style enemies would have reiterated and reinforced the story's theme, but no such luck.  The pages look murky and unfinished.  You can't even tell what's happening half the time.  Someone apparently explodes at one point, but it's so awkwardly composed with the person's head partially cropped by another panel-- I suppose to direct our attention to the characters commenting on it in an oblique, nonsensical fashion who, for some reason, the artist has relegated to the background-- you wish it had just happened off panel and we'd only seen the reaction shots with a bit more explicit dialogue.  Speaking of which, Superman's final speech to a blubbering Manchester Black doesn't deliver the goods.  Sorry.

To be fair, I didn't read this story when it first came out in Action Comics #775 way back in 2001 and in the years since we've had rapes and murders, Identity Crisis making the regular rank-and-file of DC's caped marvels almost as nasty as the Elite are supposed to be and Wonder Dog devouring Wendy, so maybe I'm just jaded, so beaten down by the banality of all this caped decadence I can no longer feel Kelly's intended impact.  You really want a Superman who's a beacon of restraint and decency, and Kelly attempts to give that to us while scoring points off guys like Warren Ellis-- who's actually a damn fine writer-- and even DC's own Vertigo line, but when you turn all your heroes morally ambiguous and then pat yourself on the back for it, ironically it turns out Superman won the battle but lost the war.  This Superman doesn't even exist anymore.

There are some Silver Age amusements to be had, with Al Plastino well represented but Wayne Boring unfortunately absent.  And where's Bizarro?  They couldn't find an excuse to include even one single Bizarro story? Well, I guess one shouldn't complain too much when Jim Steranko and Mike Mignola make appearances.

Even at their best, none of these stories approach the magic of Superman the Movie, a relic of time when movie makers told stories.  The Hot Toys Superman is every bit as fun as the movie itself.  It doesn't scream "I'm from the 70s!" at you, though.  They've accurately reproduced Christopher Reeve from the movie and managed to create a timeless image of the first and still greatest of all the super-people.

But it's a little scary, too.  I showed it to my girlfriend via Skype and she freaked out over the eyes.  Too intense, too real.  The Reeve likeness is as close to perfect as you're likely to get, but it's got the same uncanny valley feel you'd expect to encounter in a Hollywood wax museum.  The uniform is spot on, a tiny reproduction of what was already an iconic visual-- the classic blue suit with red cape, undies and yellow highlights.  I paid a ridiculous amount of money for this figure but I had to have it.  I've been looking for the best representation of Superman in toy form for the past few years.  This is it.  By Jor-El's shade, this is it!  I also believe Reeve's performance as Superman to be the most perfect iteration of the character in any medium and this figure is a triumphant celebration of the role.  Part of the proceeds go to Reeeve's charitable organization, the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, and the interior box lid features a poignant dedication to Reeve.

Last Son of Krypton: the paperback that wasn't a novelization

Marlon Brando gratefully and
humbly accepts his
Academy Award for playing
Superman's dad.

Remember the first Superman movie, titled Superman the Movie so we wouldn't confuse it with Superman the Comic Book, Superman the Restaurant Chain, Superman the Performing Stunt Dog, Superman the Automobile and Mr. F.G. Superman?  Of course you don't! Few bother so why should you? And yet Christopher Reeve made the perfect Superman and somehow or other the producers talked Marlon Brando into wearing a Charlie Rich wig and a dress made of aluminum foil to play Jor-El.  They couldn't convince Gene Hackman to shave his head, but they did stick a bald cap on him for a scene near the end.

Well, I remember the movie even if it wasn't much of an earner and soon lapsed into obscurity, remaining a mere midnight cult oddity for assorted weirdos who like to dress in blue tights and red capes while shouting back at the actors on the screen and riffing on the movie's absurd dialogue and situations. I also recall using my allowance to buy Elliot S. Maggin's paperback Last Son of Krypton. I read the first chapter and almost threw it away. What the heck was this thing? It was nothing like the movie, which was confusing and infuriating because there was Christopher Reeve right there on the cover! I mean I  had already read the novelizations of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, respectively.  Who knew those two were such fantastic writers?  Plus they stuck fairly close to the movies, which wasn't surprising considering they also directed them.  But what was this Maggin character trying to pull with his non-movie story?



A few months later I actually read the entire book during consecutive dinnertimes and decided I liked it.  The sequence near the beginning with Albert Einstein taking an incognito trip to Smallville left me confused, though.

 Not because it's poorly written. It's not. Revisiting that chapter today, I found Last Son of Krypton positively Vonnegutian, minus the melancholic humor.  What makes me think of Vonnegut is Maggin's economy of language in explaining characters and action.  In fact, as I read the first few chapters, I kept thinking about Breakfast of Champions.   Einstein plays the role of Maggin's Kilgore Trout.  In Breakfast, Trout inadvertently sends another character off on a violent spree, while Einstein chooses to help midwife a heroic legend.  I suppose Vonnegut would ultimately reject guys like Superman and even Maggin isn't above poking a little fun at the Man of Steel himself-- Martha Kent pointedly refuses to expose her adopted son to Tom Sawyer prematurely, favoring the Bible and Horatio Alger.  Vonnegut might have poked the Kents with a sharper stick, but Maggin's approach is a bit more affectionate.

His prolific, mostly comical alien races also anticipate Douglas Adams's epic Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series with a sequence in which Superman and Lex Luthor team up, travel to an a distant world and meet various bizarre alien species-- some of which happen to be biologically predisposed to careers as clerks.  At times, Superman's story gets lost in all the cosmic digressions, but they do tend to make you feel it's all taking place in a densely populated universe teeming with goofy beings.

No, the writing quality is more than adequate for what at first glance appears to be a cheapie movie tie-in.  I only failed to comprehend what was going on because I was only 10 or 11 when I originally read it. Yeah, yeah, I knew who Albert Einstein was; I just didn't understand his purpose in taking another name or walking around Smallville borrowing money, dealing in secondhand tractors and eating ice cream.  I remember thinking to myself, Why didn't he just use Einstein?  Oh, because he did, ya dummy!

Albert Einstein.  Did you know he and Leo Szilard once tried to invent a safer refrigerator for home use?  Instead of a nice metal box to keep our veggies and and sandwich meats fresh and our Sunny D cold without poisoning us with chemicals, they managed to help us create the means for the mass extinction of all life on earth with radiation.  Szilard later turned against nuclear weapons proliferation.  Einstein did other things, too.  In Last Son, it turns out the greatest mind of the 20th century wasn't simply spending his last years making sure Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins met cute and had genius sex, Hollywood-style. He also took a break from his work on the Unified Field theory to ensure the Kents were in the right place at the right time for a little sci-fi stork delivery.

Pretty clever, but the bit about the philtrum is what most impressed me as a kid and continued to linger in my mind even after I'd completely forgotten the book's plot.  Apparently there are only two places outside a certain part of the galaxy where the intergalactic tourist will find them and only those who have them are capable of smiling.  Is this true?  I used to quote it to friends and acquaintances as if it were, so I kind of have an interest in finding out after all these years.

Anyway, the book's online if anyone cares.  It's one of the better Superman stories and really deserves a wider audience.  I've been secretly reading it at work today!

The Henry Cavill-Zack Snyder Superman Suit

Well, there they are, at last. Some clearer-- though not better-- photos of Henry Cavill cavorting in character as Superman, the first and greatest superhero of them all. I haven't checked out everyone else's opinions on the Superman suit for the upcoming Man of Steel movie because I don't want mine diluted or influenced in any way. Here we go!

I don't hate it. In fact, I like it better than the one Superman's going to be sporting in the funnybooks from now on. But I can't really say I'm in love with it, either.

The photo from the MTV Splash Page site where Cavill is walking towards a couple of other actors portraying what I assume are villains makes him look fairly ridiculous, probably because crew members are standing around him in civilian duds and the scene appears to be staged in a strip mall parking lot where one of the stores is being renovated. Not very heroic or godlike. Just a dude in a rubber suit, possibly going to grab a pack of smokes out of his Ford Fiesta while entertaining at a children's party in a Chuck E. Cheese.

Then there's the capeless one, the one where Cavill is air-punching. It affords a better look at some of the suit's detailing. The little markings around his hips. What are they supposed to be? Kryptonian athletic wear branding? Kal-Adidas? K-Nike? I kind of like it without the cape, though. If you're going to change the traditional look, why not go all the way and really change it? I have the feeling he'll be wearing the cape for filming, though. No point in wearing it during blocking or all the other between-scenes stuff they have to do for huge movies. And small ones, as well.

These photos really don't do it justice. They look so crappy, so poorly light-balanced and composed, I might have taken them. We haven't seen the suit in motion, we haven't seen how Zack Snyder is going to frame these shots, or how they'll light them and we haven't seen how Cavill is going to carry himself as Superman. The body language and film photography will go a long way towards determining whether or not this suit helps Superman fly, or becomes his kryptonite necklace.

There you have it. The great traditionalist doesn't hate the new suit and suggests they could have taken it further. Surprised? I know I am. I'm going to be interested to read a few blogs about the suit now. It will be a while before I can catch up with you guys, though. The Snyder factor more than likely means I'll be giving this flick a miss in the theaters and catching it on cable a couple of years. And then I'll update you on whether or not this suit really works.

I have to leave you now. No hard feelings. We all have our little faults. Mine's in California. Oh, but before I go...

The Daily Mail site has some shots where someone-- possibly connected to these "MDCU" people-- has used a little Adobe Photoshop to add color and a badly rendered cape to these photos, plus the red pants. It amazes me how obsessed with Superman's red pants these sites are. Superman goes commando. Superman's underwear. Superman's Junk Protection (as if he needs any). What's wrong with these people? Why no love for the spit-curl? That's missing, too!

Let's all look at Henry Cavill as Superman why don't we?

There it is, the picture you've all already seen! It's the first image of Henry Cavill as Superman from the upcoming Zack Snyder movie Man of Steel. Or is it Superman: Man of Steel? It's all about Superman, I take it. As a Superman fan and a loudmouthed jerk with a stupid blog about comic books, I feel I have to add my opinion to the hoopla and hullabaloo no doubt going on right this minute.

Cavill looks the part. As for the costume, the movie is still two years away, and I haven't seen Cavill-Superman in action. That will be the real test. If he can project Superman's power and charisma and basic likability and the special effects people give some weight to his landings so he seems like a superhero and not a featherweight CGI homunculus, it will work. From what I've read the movie is still in pre-production so this might not even be the final version. If everyone screams loudly and long enough, they might change it. I'm not in love with it-- I don't like my Superman looking as though he's just come from a Kryptonian funeral-- but I don't hate it, either. In fact, I prefer it to the suit Superman will wear in the new DC reboo-- er-- relaunch. Those ugly boots really kill that one for me.

This photo is the perfect Zack Snyder image, though. Dark, artificial, polished to the point of looking like the inside of a particle accelerator and projecting almost as much warmth, ultimately jumbled and confusing, a shallow exercise in a certain aesthetic over substance. I've seen two Snyder movies, 300 and Watchmen, and neither of them appealed to me. Actually, 300 made me physically ill. I don't think I was in its target audience demographic and it played mostly as the opposite of everything I like in a movie-- I tend to prefer story over plot, characters over types and conversation as opposed to screaming out bombastic nonsense. On the other hand, Man of Steel has an unimpeachable cast. And with Snyder at the helm, it's not likely to be a snoozefest like Superman Returns.

Still, the first thing I thought of when I saw how shiny the new Superman costume was:


Snyder and company might want to do everything they can to avoid coming any closer to this.

Superman Family circa 1971

Here's how DC handled reboots/relaunches back when I was a toddler. Everything a reader needed to know about Superman and his allies could be found in this old DC house ad that ran in their comics in 1970 or 1971. For that matter, this is almost everything an imaginative writer really needs to know to craft exciting stories about Superman. A reference drawing of Lois Lane, one of the Daily Planet, that old bit about his being "rocketed to earth from the doomed planet Krypton" and adopted by a farm couple and you're off and running. Give Superman a new personality, invent crazy situations and relationships we haven't seen before. Give flight to your wildest imaginings about what this near-god with a human soul might experience and do.

You don't need a 12-issue crossover series with some prologue and epilogue miniseries bookeending it or a lot of press conferences. You just run a house ad: "Superman was like this; now he's like this. Have fun!"

Let's look at the relaunched Superman and discuss him why don't we already?

Sorry about that headline. I've been watching a lot of Futurama lately so I'm in a Dr. Zoidberg frame of mind. The DC relaunch may wind up being a sales failure, but from one perspective it's already a success-- people are talking about DC comics. Everywhere I go people ask me, "You're an idiot. What do you think about DC's crazy new relaunch plans?" And I'm all too happy to tell them the random assemblage of observations that pass for my opinion about things.

Like Superman. Do you remember how in Pulp Fiction how Mia Wallace tells Vincent Vega about "Elvis people" and "Beatles people" then doesn't ask him which he prefers because he's "definitely an Elvis man?" No, you don't. It was a deleted scene. Are you a Pulp Fiction fan? Oh, then I'm sorry, you've seen it. Of course you remember it.

I'm a Beatles person. But there are also "Superman people" and "Batman people." I'm a Cassandra Cain person, but I'm also mostly a Superman person. Superman represents humanity at its finest, even if he's not-- strictly speaking-- a human being. Superman is symbolic of our optimism. Batman represents humanity having its worst day. He's the personification of our pessimism. I choose optimism over pessimism every time. Almost every time. To be honest, DC makes it very difficult sometimes. But just as Vincent Vega is trying to listen, I'm trying to see the upside to DC's relaunch.

They've already impressed me with the new Katana costume, enough so I'm going to sample Birds of Prey to see if her characterization matches it. Let's see if DC's biggest, brightest, most important character will have a similar effect. Here's my take on these initial images of the costume redesigns for Superman and his Super-Family. First up-- Rags Morales.

Morales will be illustrating Grant Morrison's scripts for the new Action Comics #1. DC's The Source blog says, "Superman defends a world that doesn’t trust their first Super Hero."

And I can see why. This Superman looks like a brute, reminiscent of the more primal Superman from his earliest appearances in Action Comics when he seemed a little wild and dangerous. I'm not sure what to make of a hairy-armed Superman wearing an officially licensed crewneck Superman t-shirt and a towel for a cape a la Marvin of Superfriends fame. Something has happened to him and his distressed jeans from American Eagle and it's pissed him off enough he's going to totally destroy that giant rock.

Dramatic artwork. Don't you want to know why he's killing that rock and why it's angered him so much his eyes have turned a glowing heat-vision red? As much as I hate, hate, HATE Identity Crisis and think it's a poorly conceived and plotted piece of crap, it's still a gorgeously rendered piece of crap. But then I've always liked Rags Morales's art, going all the way back to his work on Black Condor and Turok. The cape is a silly touch here given Superman's hipster street clothes, but Morales has nailed the character's strength and powerful presence.

Let's see what legendary artist George Perez is up to. I admire Morales, but I love me some George Perez!

Oh. How unfortunate.

Perez will write Superman: The Man of Tomorrow, Today #1, with art by Jesus Merino. Perez gives us a Superman in full-on "I hate my job at the Daily Planet" mode and sticks him in a super-lame costume. Maybe Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen mocked his new super-suit so hard, the Man of Steel finally snapped. The cybernetic lines in Superman's top make it look like clothing rather than the traditional man-with his-torso-and-legs-painted-blue look. That part is fine.

But the belt with square studs and those armored boots/greaves? Totally unnecessary and quite ugly. Perez's art is every bit as dynamic and cleanly detailed as ever-- he's one of those rare artists who's managed to maintain a peak well past all expectations, and he was pretty solid even early in his career-- but this revamped costume needs to be revamped already. Keep the shirt, rework the belt, loose those horrible, horrible boots that would've embarrassed even the beefcakey cast of an old Italian gladiator movie! Mr. Perez, with all due respect, if you're attempting to give Superman's footwear a high-tech look to match the rest of his leotards, go check out some athletic shoes or ski boots or something, anything; don't dig out one of your old jobs for Marvel back in the 70s. It looks like Superman stole them off some second-string Iron Man villain.

On second thought, there's such a mismatch between Superman's top and bottoms, maybe someone-- was it you, Dan Didio?-- used the old Mighty Men & Monster Maker toy to design this and forced it on Perez.

Let's look away from this accident scene to Mahmud Asrar's pleasant surprise.

Way to go, DC! For too long the bare middrift has been the visual cliche signifying "this is a teenaged girl" character. Aybar's Supergirl drawing gives her an otherworldly, dignified appearance. What? No navel ring or lower back tattoo? The new Supergirl costume with its long sleeves, shawl/cape arrangement and stylish over-the-knee boots actually covers more girl than I'm used to in my DC comics. I can't get over a Supergirl wearing more clothing than an Olympic gymnast and not looking like Lindsay Lohan in the middle of a 2-week coke and booze binge.

I applaud the attempt at updating the Superman logo, but this design isn't working. It needs to be tweaked ever so slightly because it looks like someone stuck the shield-shape around some tiger-stripes. Resolve the "S" inside and you'll have it. And speaking of the shield, echoing it that closely in front in that yellow accent piece is overkill. That would work better as an oval reminiscent of her cousin's old belt buckle or even a rectangle. One of Supergirl's lesser known powers is making impossible boots work without the help of spray-on adhesive. The open knee look is an interesting but ultimately unwieldy and distracting attempt to build visual interest.

It may sound as though I just ripped it apart, but this is far more successful than the new Superman costume and it's a massive improvement over Supergirl's previous look. I might have some nits to pick with its detailing, but I love the overall concept.

I'm just not sure how Supergirl will be portrayed by writers Michael Green and Mike Johnson in their Supergirl #1, but DC promises, "Supergirl’s got the unpredictable behavior of a teenager, the same powers as Superman and none of his affection for the people of Earth." Well, many teenagers are cheerful and hard-working, DC, with a passion for learning and volunteering. But I suppose that kind of Supergirl won't appeal to today's edgy comic fan obsessed with all things Twilight, Gossip Girl, Hellcats and MTV's Skins. Come on, I'm just teasing.

Everyone knows all teenagers hate to be helpful and cheerful. It's angst or GTFO! All I ask is that the new writers refrain from using any variation of the phrase "trying to find her place in the world" when giving interviews. Thanking you in advance, sirs.

What's next? Oh yeah, this guy.

This is the first image from one of DC's more surprising experiments-- Superboy in the Shell: Fly Alone Complex by Japanese comics master Masamune Shirow. In this wild departure, Superboy is actually a bit of sentient code inside a computer matrix in some far-flung cyber-future where the traditional DC superheroes may or may not have existed. And there's nudity, lots and lots of it. Plus violence as Superboy passes between his virtual world and what may or may not be the real one to battle international terrorists and code-hackers. Shirow explores themes of technology gone amok and transhumanism, as well as more personal issues such as sexuality, identity, friendship, trust and what's for lunch.

This is the one Superman character I really couldn't care less about. Superboy? Is this the clone of Superman again? Bleeccccchhh. I have no idea who drew this, but Superboy #1 will be written by Scott Lobdell with art by R.B. Silva and Rob Lean with apparently some Shirow-ian influences. It's a cool image, and definitely a departure but this is one book I could only get interested in if it were actually by Shirow. Sorry, fellas. Hope plenty of fans feel differently!

Steve Rude wants to return to comics and work for DC, DC is less than enchanted with this idea

Steve Rude has decided to make his return to comics. That's right. According to his latest "Daily Diatribe," Rude's less than happy with the current state of superhero storytelling and feels he can improve things by making a direct contribution. Plus, there's a certain economic necessity. Whatever the reasons, the Dude thought it over, discussed it with his wife and decided to contact the company that most appealed to him, to see if he could do something "high profile" with certain characters.

That company would be DC Comics. The characters-- in order of preference-- are Supergirl, Superman, Big Barda and her Female Furies and OMAC. Rude contacted an editor, got no response. Talked to some executives and another editor. One response. Rude characterizes it as a "polite turn down." I can't imagine why DC would turn down an artist of Steve Rude's caliber. Maybe his proposals didn't fit with their ongoing plans or business model. Maybe his kind of traditional technique-heavy aesthetic is too far out of fashion with the "edgy" crowd-- if the books I bought this past week are any indication, the fans seem to like scratchy-looking artwork. Markets change. I do know he was hoping to do some work on another Wednesday Comics series, but that hasn't panned out so far either. I just think it's sad the Dude-- of all artists-- didn't get so much as a peep of interest from DC about working on characters he seems born to draw.

Here's what I offered: Just a thought-- this past week, I picked up IDW's new The Rocketeer book with art by Mike Allred, John Cassaday and Mike Kaluta. Unfortunately, it's a 4-issue mini so I'm guessing all the art and stories are already in the can. The Dude would've rocked on that. But they must have some upcoming projects where the Dude can make a big splash. Maybe not as big as on Superman or Supergirl-- and a Big Barda story would be too perfect-- but they do seem to be a company that's putting out some intriguing books with some artists Rude's kind of simpatico with as far as aesthetics go.

In another comment I mentioned Dark Horse, but I'm not sure they're in a financial position to do anything with Rude. Plus, he's been there before and the Nexus books he and Mike Baron did for them in the 1990s were more a critical than a sales success. Maybe Dark Horse is more comfortable with the Nexus archives books these days. After all, they've put out a ton of Rude's classic sequential work in that series. Still-- Steve Rude on a Star Wars book? A Hellboy one-shot with Mike Mignola? The new Creepy book (if it's still being published)?

So there you have it. I'm holding out hope some editor at Dark Horse, IDW or even Image-- which seem to be companies that let creators do what they do best without a whole lot of multimedia corporate narrative flak and bother-- will give Rude a call and see what happens. Of course, if he's determined his return to comics is contingent only on his being able to work for DC on these particular characters and no one else, then my suggestions are useless. But if he's just fishing to see what's biting, then someone has to make this happen. The guy is a legend, for the love of Kirby!

Let's go nuts for the Superfriends!

From the sublime-- Steve Rude, Syd Shores and Jack Kirby-- back to the ridiculous again. Here's Hanna-Barbera Batman trying to stop an awkwardly drawn animation-style Superman from... talking to/inhaling/talking to a scribble he holds in his palm.

The scribble came first (pen test), then I decided I'd have Superman holding it. And when he came out looking vaguely like Superfriends Superman (much to my surprise), I decided to swipe a Toth Batman head and stick it on a totally original body to produce this awkward scene. Drawing time: less than 5 minutes. Coloring time: all freakin' afternoon, baby!