Perry White, Blood and Iron

Superman #124 (1958)

"The Super-Sword"

Written by Jerry Coleman

Art by Al Plastino

Let me start by saying Happy Holidays to all of you reading this mental breakdown of a comic blog. Today's issue is a silver age Superman, so I can assure you it will only get worse. Superman's encounter with the evil knight and his super sword is one for the ages.

Seriously though, this issue does encapsulate everything a great fifties Superman story should be about. There's a Julie Schwartz-style cover gimmick and twist, but the science fiction elements are a little pulpier. It begins as a pre-Michael Crichton tale of ancient dangers reborn through scientific anomaly and ends like a Bob Newhart sketch.

Perry White and Superman team up to pull a fast one on Lois, Jimmy, and a crime boss named "Bull" Matthews. Perry somehow stuffs himself into a suit of armor and with Superman's super-help conducts an elaborate hoax on the scientific community . . . and the mob, apparently. Superman pretends to be vulnerable to the knight's magic sword and Bull decides to jack the sword and try to do Superman in for good.

The gimmicky story and the Perry reveal at the end are what remind me the most of a classic silver age DC book. The gangsters and the lack of any space aliens, time travelers, or actual time-displaced medieval knights made felt more like a Siegel and Shuster era story.

The back-up story is pretty awful by today's standards. It's more like something that would appear in Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane. I'm more into Jimmy Olsen myself, or the lost DC gem Superman's Publisher, Perry White.

Alright, I made that last one up.

Thanks for reading! For anyone who may have heard the old Club of Heroes podcast back in 2013, let it be known that Evan Arnold and I are working on some new episodes. We'll most likely be talking about Star Wars, The Hateful Eight, and continuing our History of Marvel series. For more news about that follow @ChrisBComics on Twitter!

Too Terrific

JSA #42
Written by David Goyer and Geoff Johns
Pencils by Leonard Kirk
Inks by Keith Champagne

Love that cover. It popped out at me on the stands at my local Comics Plus several years ago and I still find it eye catching today. I didn't know who either of the Mister Terrifics were on the cover, but I immediately wanted to find out. In fact, I wasn't all that aware of the Justice Society as a concept, save for an appearance during Grant Morrison's "Crisis Times Five" arc over in JLA.

When I pitch my non-comic reading friends on the team, I usually like to describe them as a team of Captain Americas, a collection of WWII-era heroes displaced in time and doing their level best to adjust to the modern world as well as mentor younger heroes. By this point the JSA series was on its fourth year, continuing to draw in new and old fans alike with its mix of legit golden age heroes and their descendants. Throughout the work both Goyer and Johns did on the title (and James Robinson for one arc before them), there was a real effort to make the JSA into something the Justice League was not: a family.

Along with family values and a reverence for the past, the JSA also engaged in a lot of time travel. Issue #42 is smack dab in the middle of one of these affairs, with Hawkgirl, the current Mr. Terrific, and Captain Marvel lost in time after pursuing the tachyon-abusing criminal known as Black Barax. They find themselves in 1944, teaming up with the original Mr. Terrific as well as the Freedom Fighters.

The Freedom Fighters are a bit like the JSA in that they're a collection of golden age heroes that are meant to represent "the greatest generation". They embody everything we whipper-snappers will never understand. And their leader is a literal version of Uncle Sam with size-changing powers.

Aside from the fun cameos, this issue is all about the interaction between the two Terrifics. Terry Sloan, the golden age Terrific, is a masked vigilante who uses his physical prowess and guile to fight crime on the home front. He's an up-and-at-'em, two fisted man of action in the Doc Savage mold. The twenty-first century Mr. Terrific is Micheal Holt, a grim stoic driven by the death of his wife. Holt adopted Sloan's philosophy of "Fair Play" and took it to the streets, trying to reach urban youth by giving them someone in the white bread JSA they could identify with. Holt is a pretty cool evolution of a golden age concept dropped into modern times.

Stories like this one were what Goyer and John's JSA was all about. These generational heroes would meet in other arcs, and each time I walked away with a new appreciation for older comics. Heck, the JSA might have been my gateway to checking out DC's archive editions, which reprint actual comics from the period. I'd been an avid reader of Batman, Superman, and JLA, but titles like this and The Flash (which Johns was also writing at the time) turned me into a fan of the broader DC Universe.

Thanks for reading and follow on Twitter at @ChrisBComics

Aunt May: Assassin

Amazing Spider-Man #115

Written by Gerry Conway

Art by John Romita and Tony Mortellero

It's funny that this issue just happened to jump out at me when I was looking through old Marvel stuff to talk about on this blog. Loeb and Sale's Spider-Man: Blue must have been stuck in my craw, or maybe it's just a happy accident this issue fell into my hands for today's dive. This is from the Gerry Conway driven era of Spidey's past, when Gwen Stacy and a pre-Goblin Harry Osborn were still a part of Peter Parker's world.

There was a grim pall over this issue as I reread it. When Robbie Robertson pleads with Gwen to stay out of danger, a tingle ran up my spine reminding me that in her very near imaginary future the Green Goblin would rip her away forever. Readers at the time were outraged with what happened to Gwen, and after reading the issues leading up to her demise, I can see why.

As for issue #115, we get the conclusion of a three way tango between Spidey, Doc Ock, and Hammer head. Spidey has tracked down his missing Aunt May to Ock's safe house/mansion/laboratory, but she gets the jump on him and lays him out with a vase. Guess dear, old Aunt May doesn't trigger his spider sense . . .

The baddie Hammerhead and his goons are a fun bunch to throw in. They're throwbacks to the "glory days" of the mob, complete with the appropriate attire and speech patterns. Hammerhead himself lives up to the name by using his super-hard (and super-flat) head to smash through walls and whatnot. He's in that special class of villain with guys like the Stilt-Man and Big Wheel.

Spidey's also missing the eye pieces in his mask, which refers to a plot point I don't remember at all. That's what's charming about this little curio from Marvel's past: it's sooo entrenched in the continuity of the time and all the soap opera elements, it's makes me yearn for a Marvel universe that moved just a little slower, in the days before double shipping and countless spinoff titles. I still love the content in Marvel's books, it just feels like various arcs and status quos pass by so quickly that they never get to develop a following and by extension never seem to "count". I'm having a thought here I can't properly express; I apologize, dear reader.

A bit about the writing--Conway is a student of the Stan Lee tradition, but by this point the series had taken strides to be more of a dramatic serial rather than a collection of episodic morality tales like the very early Lee and Ditko stuff. Conway's advantage over Stan is that he was about the age Peter Parker is supposed to be when he was writing the series. This gives him the edge when trying to make Pete and relatable everyman who just wants to do good.

Romita's art is gorgeous throughout and he'll always be my favorite Spider-Man artist. I'm incapable of finding fault in his work, as any issue of his Spider-Man should be considered a "how to" to any comic artist who wants to learn about sequential storytelling. The cover with Aunt May pulling a piece on Spidey with a battered Doc Ock at her feet gives the reader a taste of the story in one image. These older covers dared you to pass them up. Drama oozed out of Marvel comics during this time. I miss that in a lot of covers today.

Spidey's dilemma with his aunt wanting to protect Ock (who she thinks is a misunderstood genius) puts him in one of those class "can't win" Spidey scenarios. A good Spider-Man story always ends with the wallcrawler barely breaking even, if he's victorious at all. THAT's the most endearing quality of Spider-Man after all. He always takes a lickin' and keeps on kickin'.

Not the greatest issue of Spidey from this issue, but still a quality read for your twenty cents. Conway would go on to break our hearts and push Spidey (as well as his friends) to the edge in later years, and would eventually be joined by the great Gil Kane to introduce The Punisher, IIRC. Thanks for reading and feel free to correct my oversights and scold me for being a bad fan at @ChrisBComics on Twitter.

Picnic on Warworld

Superman #171

Written by Jeph Loeb
Pencilled by Ed McGuinness
Inks by Cam Smith
Colors by Tanya & Richard Horie

Hmm . . . another DC comic? I need to shuffle the longbox up a bit, it seems. Anyway, let's get down to business. Today's pull is an issue of Superman by Loeb and McGuinness. These two had a nice run with the character, but I remember liking Joe Kelly's work on Action Comics more. Loeb is fine at plotting and setting a scene, but Kelly is the master of dialogue and snappy banter. However, I feel like Loeb's strengths as a writer are on display in this particular issue, which acts as a prologue to the "Our Worlds At War" event.

"Our Worlds At War" was a DC Universe-spanning epic that took over nearly the entire line back in 2001. Imperiex, a cosmic baddie in the Thanos or Anti-Monitor mold, wreaks havoc against puny Earthlings and super-folks alike, all while Brainiac schemes and President Luthor tries to keep his reputation (and planet) intact.

In this beginning chapter, Supes zips through space in search of the missing planet Pluto and stumbles onto an all-new Warworld instead. Warworld used to be a gladiator arena planet ruled over by the malicious space tyrant Mongul, but in this issue someone else has rebuilt and repurposed the weapon planet for their own purposes.

There's some continuity stuff from that time here that I had completely forgotten about. The biggest thing is Lex's deal with Brainiac 13. Apparently (and I may have these issues lying around if I look hard enough), Lex traded his infant daughter to Brainiac in exchange for control over Brainiac's B13 technology, allowing him to win public favor by giving Metropolis a high tech makeover and turning the place into a literal "city of tomorrow".

This was the era of Superman, both here and in the Dini/Timm animated shows, where I really started to dig Lex Luthor as a character. Prior to this, my main exposure to Luthor had been Challenge of the Super Friends and the red-headed clone Luthor from the early 90's. The saga of President Luthor captured my young imagination. This was just before my cynical teenage years when I determined that every president was, in fact, a supervillain of some sort.

Really wish I had one of those "Vote for Lex" buttons I've seen around at shows. Help a brother out . . ? (@ChrisBComics)

But yeah, Loeb writes a fun little action ditty here, with McGuinness's hulking, square-jawed Superman making his way through the new Warworld while guided by Professor Emil Hamilton via comm link back home. Obscure future baddies The Fatal Five also make an appearance in this issue as hard light constructs crafted by Brainiac to keep Superman distracted while he makes his real moves back on Earth.

I miss seeing McGuinness draw DC heroes. Aside from the Hulk, I never thought his art was a good "fit" for Marvel characters. Not sure why. Maybe it's the saturday morning cartoon quality he brings. And unless my taste buds are mistaken, is that a dash of manga I'm detecting? I dunno, somehow his art just works better for me in the DCU.

That's the dive for today! Thanks for reading and follow me on Twitter at @ChrisBComics if you'd like to help a struggling narcissist.

Chicks dig my baby hands

Avengers West Coast #51
Written and Pencilled by John Byrne
Inks by Mike Machlan

Hoo boy. Today I picked out a truly random back issue from a series I was never a huge fan of, Avengers West Coast. As a matter of fact, I can only think of two reasons I even have this issue and the next four or five following it: House of M.

Briefly after I got back into comic collecting, Marvel released an "event miniseries" entitled House of M. If you've been a Marvel reader in the last decade or two, chances are the events in this series were reflected in whatever Marvel title you happened to be reading at the time. The Scarlet WItch flips her lid and remakes the world in her father Magneto's image.

 Mutants are on top, dogs and cats are living together, etc.

In the conclusion to that story (written by Brian Bendis and drawn by Oliver Copiel if memory serves), the Witch utters the words, "No more mutants" and the X-Men corner of the Marvel universe is impacted forever. Even now the X-books exist in the wake of this story, never fully recovering even after other stories would attempt to negate her actions or change things back. This was much to the ire of fans, who felt Wanda's madness in this story (and in the Avengers Disassembled story just prior to this) was just a vessel for then-editor bossman Joe Quesada to undo the mutant baby boom, which was introduced and expanded upon in Grant Morrison's New X-Men run.

Boy, Marvel continuity can go all "rabbit hole" on ya real quick.

Anyway, House of M was a favorite of mine at the time, so I did some back issue hunting and rounded up as many of the key "Scarlet Witch goes batty" stories as I could find. The strangest by far has to be the Master Pandemonium saga, which begins in this issue of Avengers West Coast and would go on for a few issues until things get really weird later and Wanda turns evil and gives Wonder Man head against his will while the other heroes look on.

That really happened. Issue #56. She blows him in front of everybody.

This issue sets Wanda on the path to shortening her hair and going cackling mad, and it's easy to see why she might have a screw loose. I mean, her father is Magneto and her brother is Quicksilver. Her android lover the Vision has regressed to a more cold, robotic state after being kidnapped and reprogrammed by some baddies. AND her two infant children may or may not be real, since they tend to phase out of reality when she's not concentrating on them.

And if that's not enough to drive you bonkers, consider the West Coast roster at the time: USAgent, Hank Pym (who's dressed like Doc Savage for some reason), Wasp, the time-displaced android Human Torch, and Wonder Bread . . . I mean Wonder Man.

Oh yeah, Iron Man is there too. At least there's one A-lister hanging around. Although the team isn't certain if this Iron Man is Tony Stark or not because at that time Tony was believed to be dead or something.

What'd I tell ya? Rabbit hole.

Agatha Harkness shows up too, and Wanda mentions she was burned at the stake the last time they saw her. That's metal. As far as the plot, Wanda's children are targeted by the demonic douche Master Pandemonium so he can fill the void where his soul used to be or something. He attacks the West Coast mansion, then retreats into hell or somesuch and is pursued by the team. It's handled pretty well by Byrne, who was already a legend by this point. The dialogue is exactly like most "cape" books at the time, and Machlan inks Byrne well enough, but this IS NOT the sharp, crisp Byrne art you might be used to seeing in old X-Men or Iron Fist issues. Still, there's nothing too offensive here. It's a solid B+ team book.

The last page features Master Pandemonium with baby hands. Words cannot do this justice, so I'll shut up now.

Psychic gorillas and cosmic treadmills

The Flash #192
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Scott Kolins and Doug Hazelwood

I need to level with you, dear reader. I've been saving a lot of money on DC comics thanks to the CW. Both Arrow and The Flash give me that superhero fix I still need as an adult, and unlike the Marvel cinematic universe, do so on a weekly basis. Of the two, I've been more drawn to the Flash because it embraces its superhero roots while Arrow is still being dragged out of the grim and grittiness all vigilantes are drenched in post-Nolan Batman.

My love for the Flash character and excitement for the series stems from the Geoff Johns run on the comic. Johns did a solid couple of years on the book, bringing the Flash's rogues back to prominence and sorting out all the little continuity glitches and snafus (and creating new ones to be sure). His work in the world of the Flash got me into the character more than I'd ever been. Wally West showed up in Morrison's JLA, but prior to reading Johns' Flash, I'd never felt particularly compelled to check out Keystone City for myself.

That's right . . . Keystone City, not Central. And we're talking about Wally here, not Barry. I could go into the differences between "eras" of the Flash and who wore the mantle when and whatnot, but all you really need to know is that Wally was Barry's sidekick, Barry died saving the Earth, and Wally eased into the role of main protagonist. Heck, all you REALLY need to know is that the Flash is a dude who runs fast and occasionally he has to deal with a psychic gorilla warlord.

Like in this issue! Flash #192 is the start of the three-part Run Riot story, where Grodd psychically commands a group of armed gorillas to break into Iron Heights and set him free. Other inmates get loose, chaos ensues, and by the end of it one of Wally's allies (Hunter Zolomon) will have tragedy befall him. That last bit doesn't happen in this issue, but yeah, in case you're wondering, this is the arc where criminal profiler Hunter Zolomon is crippled and holds Wally responsible, leading to the birth of a new Reverse Flash.

This all involves the Cosmic Treadmill of course. Hmm . . . maybe I should revise my earlier statement . . .

Okay, all you REALLY REALLY need to know is the Flash is a guy who runs fast, occasionally fights a psychic gorilla, and has access to a treadmill that can travel in time if he runs on it fast enough. This would all sound pretty ridiculous, even just to type, if not for the fact that most of this has already been introduced on the Flash CW show.

Anyway, this issue is a pretty standard "part one of three" where Johns builds up to Grodd getting free from his cell. There are cameos by most of the then-relevant Rogues, the metahuman warden of Iron Heights named Wolfe, and Wally's wifey Linda.

They were expecting a child back then. Isn't that cute? Just try not to think about the Flash twins and the malarky that happened when Mark Waid made his return to the Flash after Johns finished his run. Those babies should've stayed in that womb. Linda could be perpetually pregnant, like Bonnie from Family Guy.

Not a bad grab, but after re-reading Johns DC stuff at the time recently, I'd say his stronger material would show up in books like Action Comics and JSA. Still, Johns built a rep at the time as Mr. Fix-It for convoluted characters, and you can see why. He breezes through character histories with dialogue that could be a lot more stilted. He makes it look easy, damn him.

Just like The Flash.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter at @ChrisBComics

Why am I blue?

Spider-Man: Blue #3

Written by Jeph Loeb

Art by Tim Sale

I've written in the past about the team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale. They're the guys who brought us great noir-infused Batman stories like The Long Halloween and Dark Victory. When the duo made the jump to Marvel to do a series of color-themed miniseries with the House of Idea's greatest creations, I was on board from the get-go. Daredevil: Yellow fleshed out a period in Matt Murdock's fictional life I'd never read much about, and I was pleased to learn Spider-Man: Blue would do the same for Peter Parker's college years.

I've since gone back and read this classic era of Spider thanks to Marvel's Essential reprints, but at the time, I'd never appreciated the complexity of the Peter Parker/Harry Osborn relationship. On the surface, this series looks like it’s about Peter's relationship with Gwen leading up to her death at the hands of the Green Goblin, but it really veers more into Mary Jane and Harry territory. Whenever Harry and Pete interact, Loeb and Sale like to emphasize a building sadness within Peter's friend, often confining him to the corner of a large, shadowy panel to stress his growing disconnect from the rest of humanity. The last page of this issue does this nicely, showcasing a Harry that is almost delusional in wanting to see his dream double date scenario (Pete ends up with Gwen, and Harry with M.J.) play out.

The framing device for this series is a built-in tearjerker, with Pete recording a message to his long-dead girlfriend Gwen. Even casual Spider-Fans know at this point that she will eventually be thrown to her death in front of Spidey and the ripples from that event still inform the character's decisions to this day.

Sale's character art rubs some folks the wrong way, but I always applaud his use of multiple body types and his old-school cartooning sensibilities. His characters aren't always "on model", but they're always expressive and unique from one another. He uses body language a great deal in this issue, particularly with the sultry Ms. Watson. The book springs to life in the way all colorful, costumed hero books should.

Loeb's dialogue is good but not great. The art evokes a certain period, mainly the time from which these stories first occurred and were published, but the dialogue is loose enough to make it a "timeless" affair. Not necessarily timeless in a good way: timelessness can also reflect the loss of identity. Spidey's quips feel like the classic banter we're used to from Stan Lee and Gerry Conway on first read, but this time the words just fell flat to me. The art side of things still holds up though. Loeb gets a head start with the drama here, since hinging everything on what we know will eventually happen with Gwen is the comic book equivalent of going for "cheap heat".

Our freak of the week for this issue is the classic Spidey rogue, Curt Conners a.k.a. The Lizard. Spidey's clash with the Lizard in this issue is an abbreviated affair, and serves only to give Spidey something to do while juggling his romantic entanglements.

This back issue dive has me wondering what happened with that Captain America: White project that was supposed to be the next in the Marvel color series from Loeb and Sale. Whatever became of that? Did it come out at some point and pass me by?

Anyhoo, thanks for reading!

Your new God now and forever

JLA #13

Written by Grant Morrison

Art by Howard Porter and John Dell

When it comes to team books, most older fans look to Claremont and Byrne on X-Men or Wolfman and Perez on Teen Titans as paragons of the genre. I got my start reading comics a little after the heyday of both of those franchises so when someone asks me what my favorite team book is, I have to point them in the direction of Grant Morrison's JLA run.

As a young reader, I found this series to be the best bang for your buck out there. It's the "big seven" version of the JLA (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter) combined with a slew of new and classic characters to create a modern day superhero version of Camelot. The threats this incarnation of the league dealt with were always larger than life, and stories often took place not only on Earth, but all over the galaxy, time, and even the multiverse. You'd never find yourself looking at the baddie in a Morrison JLA story and wonder why the whole team is needed. Big threats only, Royal Flush Gang need not apply.

This particular issue I retrieved from the longbox is smack-dab in the middle of what many consider to be the strongest arc in Morrison's whole run, the six-part "Rock of Ages" story line. Part four of six, to be precise. In this arc, The League throw down with Lex Luthor and his spiffy new Injustice Gang, only to be thrust into a much more interesting and life-threatening scenario involving the Philosopher's Stone, Apokolips, and mental time travel.

After getting kicked around time and space in the previous chapter, Aquaman comes to in an older version of the body he's familiar with, fifteen years after a key point in the JL/IG battle. Darkseid has turned Earth into what Batman refers to as a "global concentration camp" and a hundred different dystopian tropes fly at the reader at once, letting them know that this is the worst of all possible worlds.

Arthur (Aquaman) finds other memebers of the JLA fighting parademons and preparing a last hurrah against Darkseid's chief torturer Desaad. Some of the motley crew he assembles are other time displaced heroes from his time, like the Wally West Flash and the Kyle Rayner Green Lantern (who's stuck in the body of Parademon for some reason). They mount a rather complicated seek and destroy mission using the Atom as their "in". Once in Desaad's chamber, the lackey of Darkseid reveals himself to be none other than Batman in disguise and even his usual grim demeanor is no match for the black cloud that's approaching: Darkseid himself is returning to Earth to finish what he started. Even if the League wins the day, how will they get back and prevent the Philosopher's Stone from falling into the wrong hands? Morrison lines the adventures up like dominoes, and they way they tumble into one another over the next couple of issues is too good to spoil here.

Howard Porter is a comic name I used to see more often, it seems like. I loved his work on this run, particularly with John Dell's thick inks. They're blatantly attempting a Kirby-esque "in your face" vibe with the action scenes and even static characters tend to pop right off the page. It's not the best Kirby pastiche ever, but it works. Darkseid is rendered like an omega-level boss on the last page, and Morrison's caption boxes really make it sing. My absolute favorite bit is Glorious Godfrey announcing Darkseid's arrival:

"On your knees for the master! The hour has come! HE has come! Who is beyond Good and Evil? Who is the prophet of Anti-Life? Who is the Rock and the Chain and the Lightning? All Powerful! All Unforgiving! All Conquering! Who is your new God now and forever?"

Darkseid is.

Reliving that moment was quite a treat and I'm glad I plucked this one out of the box. I'd forgotten it was part of this story, what with the close up of Martian Manhunter on the cover and all. I think DC did that for all of their covers that month. Random close-ups, that is.

So, what are some team books that stick out in your mind as being really, really great?

Harley vs. Zombies. Duh.

As I peer into my crystal ball . . .

Rumor has it DC is looking for a creative team to replace Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo on Batman. Capullo is on hiatus from the book and working with Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar on a yet-unnamed project. Snyder said at this year's New York Comic-Con that he plans to stick around, but since he's moving on to head up DC's in-house writing department (sounds like WWE's NXT initiative) the Bat-ship may be losing its current captain. Time to dust off all my old Penguin fanfic and give Dan Didio a call.

The savage Negan has been immortalized as a Resin statue from McFarlane Toys. Now I can commemorate the moment Walking Dead jumped the shark and I quit reading with a grisly trophy to put on my bookcase. Meanwhile, original series artist Tony Moore is coming back to do a variant cover for the upcoming issue #150. Neato.

As far as what's going on in a comic I'm actually reading, Ultimates #2 presents a big twist involving Galactus and kinda-sorta spoils the end of the unfinished Secret Wars series. I won't give it away here, but let's just say the denizens of the Marvel Multiverse have a very different big purple guy to deal with after this issue.

Lastly, I leave you with this Harley Quinn fan film entitled, "Harley vs. Zombies". That's sure to hold you over until Suicide Squad comes out next year. Head to harleyquinnfilm.com for more!

That's what caught my eye today. Back issue reviews are on the way!

Scouring the 'net

What's going on in the world of comics and comic-related media today? Let's take a gander:

The first trailer for Bryan Singer's X-Men: Apocalypse drops tomorrow. In advance of that, we have an ominus teaser poster with a burning X-Emblem and the tagline, "Only the strong will survive." It's vague, but the last two X-Men films have been pretty good, half-abandoning the building continuity of the first three movie and half-embracing it. Aside from Mr. Sinister, Apocalypse is the pretty much the only big bad the X-Men have left to explore in movie form. Images seen so far from the movie have divided the fanbase, but the big litmus test will be the teaser tomorrow. Let's see how Purple Rain En Sabah Nur looks in motion. The release dat for X-Men: Apocalypse is May 27, 2016.

Horror trilogy and great date movie fodder The Human Centipede has inspired a manga. Centipede Human: Final Liberation by Ryuta Yoshinaga started its serialization in Nemesis magazine in Japan.

Dark Horse Comics will publish The Secret Loves of Geek Girls next October. The anthology features the work of Margaret Atwood, Marjorie Liu, and many more spotlighting love and life through a geek girl prism. The project ran a successful Kickstarter, earning over $100,000. Guess girls read comics too. Strange times.

DC All-Access talked to their current stable of big gun creators about the impact and influence of Frank Miller's seminal Dark Knight Returns today. Call it a puff piece, but I doubt anyone in the video is exaggerating about their respect for the series. I haven't gotten a chance to read issue one of the current continuation, The Master Race, but I may enjoy it strictly on a fanboy level. I don't know if even the killer creative team of Azzarello and Kubert can replicate what made that first series so special, but Miller himself is at the helm, so may he can sprinkle some of that cranky, old man magic on it.

Well that's what caught my eye while scouring for what looks good. More back issue reviews and other content to come!

When Bat-Harry met Super-Sally

Today's Back Issue:

Superman #76

"The Mightiest Team in the World"

Written by Edmond Hamilton

Art by Curt Swan

The latest trailer for 2016's Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice has taken the geek community by storm since it dropped a few days ago, and with good reason. There's a new Bruce Wayne in Ben Affleck and a new Lex Luthor in Jesse Eisenberg joining Cavill's Superman, with both portrayals sparking the usual debate on how "true to the character" they are. At the time of writing this, I can't come down too heavy on either side; I'd rather wait and see the finished product. However, just the idea that we're finally going to see a live action Superman and Batman come to blows (and eventually team up alongside Wonder Woman against a new version Doomsday) on the big screen has me giddy.

For me, Superman and Batman have always represented the alpha and omega of superhero characters, at least within the DC Universe. Superman is a sun god architype, while Bats is the dweller in darkness, both tied to a New Deal era philosophy of progress and justice for all. When I got back into the comic book hobby in the early 2000's, DC had just launched a Batman/Superman team-up title that quickly became my favorite monthly on the stands. Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuiness picked up where they left off just a year or so prior on the main Superman series, detailing the adventures of two fugitive heroes making their way in a world where Lex Luthor had become President (!) and filled his cabinet with other superheroes, some of whom were former allies of the World's Finest Duo. Fun times.

I would come to learn that the Batman/Superman series I was reading was a modern take on what used to be an old standby in the DC canon: a series called World's Finest Comics. This series began in the 50's and would hand around for several hundred issues. For most of its run it was an anthology type of book, each issue containing Bat-stories and Super-stories, but rarely did the heroes actually cross over into one another's adventures. Today, it's astonishing to think that the powers-that-be at DC never imagined pairing two of their top-selling characters together for nearly twelve years after their debut, but I guess it was just a different time. I've even heard tell that some executives and editors back then felt the audiences for the two characters were too different and wouldn't "mesh".

But even this team-up title wasn't the first time the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel crossed paths. To get to the source, to find out when Harry really met Sally so to speak, we need to dive a little deeper, to the summer of 1952 and a random issue of Superman that would go down in infamy. That issue is Superman #76, entitled "The Mightiest Team in the World".

In this story, Batman seeks a little rest and relaxation after a tough stint of crime-busting, while mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent tracks a lead to a cruise liner. What follows is a brief comedy of errors involving a costume change in the dark where an arsonist illuminates the cabin (they got double-booked) and both strapping bachelors catch each other in the act of changing into their alter egos. With that cat out of the bag, Bruce and Clark forge an alliance, save some folks, and put an asbestos-wearing madman behind bars.

It's a pretty quaint first meeting. Both characters by this point had begun to shift from their Golden Age incarnations to their Silver Age personas. Superman's barrel chest would soon contain the power to move planetoids, and the originally grim and murderous Batman was smiling a lot more. He isn't quite Adam West yet, but he isn't exactly The Shadow either. Call it an "awkward phase".

Of course Lois Lane is involved. And if there's one things impressionable young boys like me have learned from comics, it’s that women are trouble. She tries to make Supes jealous by fawning over Batman, but both heroes do their patriarchal duty and put Lois back in her place. Silly female characters. They should know better than to do anything other than die to instill righteous fury in the male protagonist. I kid, I kid . . . .

I'd love to maintain the illusion that I simply plucked this little gem from my collection, but in truth, the only reason I had the um . . . privilege of reading this issue is thanks to a handy trade paperback called "Superman & Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told", where it's reprinted. There are some other great World's Finest stories that are worth mentioning, but I'll save them for later. We're still half a year away from Dawn of Justice, so as the movie grows closer and my anticipation builds, I'll come back to this fun little tome a few times. Count on it.

I mean it, just wait till we get to Composite Superman.

Anyhoo, the first meeting between these characters is as fun and unassuming as any comic from that era. The use of bombast and hyperbole (even before Stan Lee's heyday) made every issue as equally exciting or unappealing than the last, depending on the age and maturity of the reader. I wonder if seeing these two interact in the story at the time was everything fans back then had hoped for, or if was a novelty encouraged by DC, hoping to gain a new monthly money-making title out of the union?

That's all the back issue diving for this time around, folks. Next, we'll be jumping back to Marvel for something a little more recent. There was another big superhero movie trailer released not too long ago that's inspired another post like this. It rhymes with 'swivel bore' . . .

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #4

Written by Ryan North
Art by Erica Henderson
Color Art by Rico Renzi
Galactus Trading Card Art by Chris Giarrusso

I just read a comic book that was so dang adorable it made me mad. Has that ever happened to you?
The funnybook in question is the fourth issue of Ryan North and Erica Henderson's The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, wherein the titular character comes face to face with none other than the devourer of worlds, Galactus. Fans of the Squirrel Girl character already know she has a penchant for throwing down with cosmic baddies and coming out on top. Just ask Thanos.

Or even Dr. Doom.

I should confess that I hadn't actually been reading Squirrel Girl up to this point. I'm more of a Howard the Duck guy. But everything I ever heard about the power of a cover proved true when I saw this on the "new releases" shelf at my LCS.

Mmm . . . takes me back to X-Men vs. Street Fighter. I bet S.G. has a totally cheap infinite combo.
In this issue, our plucky heroine and her furry sidekick Tippy Toes steal some Stark tech and head for the stars, but end up settling for the Moon. Galactus has arrived in a "stealth ship" of some sort, allowing him to sneak up on the unsuspecting planet Earth and get his munch on. His past attempts involved a herald (like Silver Surfer or the Frankie Raye Nova) coming to warn the planet ahead of time, which even Tippy Toes points out is a bad move, since Earth seems to be the home of most of the superhero population. Why would the big guy want to warn them ahead of time?
The first page, after an amusing Twitter exchange between Tony Stark and Doreen (Squrrel Girl) that acts as a recap page, is an image of a defeated Galactus lying on his back with S.G. and Tippy Toes taking a victory selfie. Then the "secret narrator" at the bottom of the page tells us the issue is over and it's onward to the letters page. The next two pages are the letters page, which not only follows through on the gag, but commands that the reader not take this stuff too seriously.

And I like that.

The "secret narrator" I mentioned chimes in at the bottom of each page, never letting up with the puns, fun facts, and words of encouragement for the protagonist. It's a fun device, but I could see it wearing thin if I were to continue on with the series or snatch up the previous three issues. But the print is tiny, if not invisible to some, and it's down at the bottom of each page, so you can ignore it if you want to, unlike the voices in your head.

You probably just have a squirrel or two trapped in your dome. Like Whiplash. Poor schlub.
S.G. deals with Galactus using her Marvel fangirl-powered ability to recognize patterns and detect tropes. She knows the only way to get Galactus to leave is to provide him with an alternative food source. To get the devourer off-world and keep him there, she sneaks aboard Big G's space laboratory thingy and finds a planet populated only by nut trees. As we all know, nuts are a great source of protein and lipids and whatnot, so their supposed "life energy" will be enough to tide the purple planet eater over for a while.

The dialogue here might irk the nerdiest of nerds, as Galactus isn't really presented as the force of nature longtime Marvel readers will know him to be. But what North and Henderson do so well here is take the piss out of it. Squirrel Girl knows how heroes, villains, and demigods operate in the Marvel universe, which allows her to dart past and dodge the same tired, old scenarios.
And for saving the world, she gets a trading card! It's not even a holofoil tho . . .

North's script is fun and funny, and features a pacing he honed during his time working on the Adventure Time comic book series. Erica Henderson makes Doreen, Tippy Toe, and everyone else involved as cute as can be. Like so cute  . . . it hurts me. Seriously. I'm getting some kind of weird sugar high just looking at this comic. I should put it down.

I want to rant about how this is "how comics should be" and everything else from Marvel is grim and gritty garbage, but I can't. Squirrel Girl isn't alone as a lighter, more fun to read superhero book. Marvel's making a real effort with this series, as well as Ms. Marvel, Howard the Duck, and even Nick Spencer's Ant-Man, which has been surprisingly bouncy.

Anyhoo, I enjoyed this read quite a bit, especially since I only picked it off the shelf for the Capcom fighting game homage cover. It's a dreary kind of day when you wake up wanting to be a bitchy neckbeard, and are pleasantly surprised. Can't I just be angry?

Gahhh . . . the cuteness . . . it burns! Okay, okay, I'll be happy!