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!

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!"

Happy Birthday Carmine Infantino!

Carmine Infantino turns 86 today. One of the all-time greats, Infantino helped launch the Silver Age of comics with his work on a more sci-fi based Flash with Robert Kanigher at DC, but eventually drew for both Marvel and Warren as well. He's one of those guys it'd be easier to list the characters he didn't draw during his career. Wolverine. The end. Heck, Infantino probably drew Wolverine. I'm just clowning around here.

But I'm being very serious when I say that it's great to know Infantino's still around, and these days I'm really enjoying his work on the Marvel Star Wars series as reprinted by Dark Horse in their Star Wars Omnibus books. I also think his re-designed costume for the Flash is one of the most visually appealing costumes worn by any superhero. It's bold, bright, simple and conveys exactly what the character is all about-- he's fast as lightning.

Japanese superheroics in the tsunami zone

We all know there's no Superman who comes swooping down out the sky in times of natural disaster, putting out fires and blowing away raging waters with his mighty breath, then staunching the leak of deadly radiation and generally restoring things to normal-- including our sense of safety and security-- for us. No, human beings have to do that for themselves. And adults have to do these things for the small ones, the children.

Sometimes they do this by dressing like superheroes. This past week was Golden Week in Japan, and in the Tohoku region it was probably none too golden. And while the photo accompanying this story in the Japan Times seems to show kids more entranced by the commonplace news photographer taking care of business rather than the gaudily-clad "Sea Jetter Kaito" (who looks as though his batteries have run down), the carp flags do fly there. And heroism can consist of simply dressing up in a silly costume and making kids laugh again.

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!

Superman vs. Muhammad Ali Deluxe Edition: A Comic Review

Superman vs. Muhammad Ali Deluxe Edition
Publisher: DC
Script: Denny O’Neil
Pencils: Neal Adams
Inks: Dick Giordano and Terry Austin

This is the big one we were all waiting for! I remember seeing the tabloid-sized original at our mall's Waldenbooks way back in 1978 and, as a major fan of both Muhammad Ali and Superman, wanting desperately to buy it. But $2.50 was beyond my price range at the time and there was a question of just where to keep the damned thing. It was monstrous and wouldn't fit easily on any of our bookshelves. In time, I came to think I'd dreamed it all. Superman versus Muhammad Ali? Why would those two ever fight?

Here we are decades later and thanks to our perceived hunger for overblown hardcover "archival" reprints of beloved childhood stories, Superman once more floats like a butterfly while Muhammad Ali stings like a bee. Two pop culture icons take on aliens with the stupidest name—the Scrubb. From the planet Bodace. I was kind of hoping it would be the planet Bonaduce and the erstwhile Danny Partridge might make a guest appearance as Jimmy Olsen, but no such luck.

That disappointment aside, where else can you see Superman punch his mighty fists together to stop a tsunami caused by plasma missiles from outer space? Or Muhammad Ali explain the sweet science from jabs and uppercuts to rope-a-dope tactics to the Man of Steel, then use his famous psych-out pre-fight patter on a bunch of star warriors? Or Superman disguise himself as Bundini Brown before battling an entire armada of enemy starships?

This is an outlandish and at times extremely silly epic-- witness Superman sheepishly explaining to Muhammad Ali why the Fortress of Solitude is full of so much junk and Jimmy Olsen's laughable ringside commentary to a crowd that includes anthropomorphized chickens-- that breathlessly spans light years and features crowd scenes that would have blown Cecil B. DeMille’s mind and bankrupted George Lucas. Neal Adams dazzles with double-page layouts full of space freaks and bizarre interplanetary vistas, and his Muhammad Ali caricature is spot-on.

Preserved in his beautiful prime-- the book apparently was so late in hitting the stores Ali was actually slightly past it in reality-- and transformed into a comic book hero by Adams and inker Dick Giordano, Ali may be the only real life person who could go mano-a-mano with Superman (convenient red sun pocket universes or not); he was and remains that much a legend, a towering figure of the 20th century sports/pop culture scene along with Babe Ruth. I wouldn't be surprised to find this story somehow entering mythological status a couple of thousand years from now (when I'm very old) and Ali's become some sort of demi-god figure whose factual existence academics debate at good ol' Mars University's Classics Department. Okay, I'm stretching things, but not by much.

For his part, Denny O’Neil provides fevered captions with appropriately purplish prose and nails Ali’s distinctive speech patterns. Confronted by an armored green alien, Ali is definitely not nonplussed-- not that you'd expect him to be:

ALIEN: We intend to prove ourselves you superior by showing our standard-bearer is the greatest!
ALI: WHOA... Right there, Dog-face! I AM-- the Greatest! Man... They rank me with Joe Louis... Sugar Ray Robinson.. Ezzard Charles... Archie Moore... Rocky Marciano... Gene Tunney... Jack Dempsey! I ain't agreein' to fight... but if I did, I'd whup your man. I'd stomp him--

If you grew up with Ali on TV and at the movies, you can "hear" this dialogue in your head in the man's distinct cadence; Ali's working himself up and preparing to do some real ass whuppin'.



It seems to take place outside of regular DC continuity. There's no Justice League satellite to warn Superman of the alien armada; he has to fly up into space to look for himself. And while some sort of Athena being makes an appearance at the fight itself to observe (over at Marvel, Stan the Man would've given us the Watcher with appropriately lofty nonsense dialogue, no doubt), there's no sign of Batman or the Green Lantern Corps. It's almost as if Ali's powerful charisma crowded them right out of the universe. So if you're a hardcore geek who has to fit every story into some sort of overarching narrative-- well, you probably should seek psychological help. Here it helps to lighten up and enjoy the weird.

Why? Because there's a sense of the creative team just knocking themselves out (otherwise Ali might have done it for them) to produce something special, an event reminiscent of one of those “Battle of the Network Stars” specials or a Bob Hope holiday show with everyone in his Rolodex invited and then some. And because they manage to convey such a sense of fun, the book works both as a tribute to Ali and as a curious artifact of the 70s, the latter emphasized especially by the inclusion of Adams’s famous wraparound cover featuring such leisure suit era luminaries as Jimmy Carter, Pele, Sonny Bono, Johnny Carson, the entire Jackson 5 (man, they got some shitty seats!), a couple of Sweathogs from Welcome Back, Kotter and a young Ron Howard. If you look closely, you can make out a reunion of sorts for the Fab Four-- that's right; John, Paul, George and Ringo are there in the crowd. No sign of Linda or Yoko. You can also see a few famous faces with mustaches slapped on them because, as Jenette Kahn relates in her afterward, a few celebs balked at making a ringside appearance. And in what kind of world does George C. Scott turn down DC Comics only to be replaced by Kurt Vonnegut?

All this and a selection of Adams's surprisingly tight layout thumbnails. Just buy it and dig it, my babies.