Tag: dc comics

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Golden Age Superman Volume One

This is a review of Superman The Golden Age Volume One. I have a confession to make – I thought these comics would be awful. They aren’t. I enjoyed this graphic novel, warts and all, and liked seeing how Superman has changed over the years.

Superman is Clark Kent, milksop reporter. In reality, he’s a space alien rocketed to earth after his home planet explodes. Superman’s power set has evolved from his origins, where he jumps – just like The Incredible Hulk, minus the torn purple pants – instead of flying. He’s also super strong and invulnerable, although not quite as invulnerable as today.

What about Superman’s cast? At the moment, it’s just Lois Lane. Lois wears red a lot, which I’m guessing is a conscious choice on the part of the creators. She’s not very nice to Clark Kent (Superman’s alter ego). In Lois’ defense, Clark hits on her – well, all the time. My theory is that Lois stopped being cordial after rebuffing the first hundred attempts. No human resources departments back then, looks like.

The creators tend to use Lois as a hostage/rescue object, although nobody alive can beat Wonder Woman in that department. In one episode, Lois is thrown out a window and rescued by Superman. Apparently she’s in love with the big fella, because who wouldn’t love a space alien that can leap like an enormous grasshopper?

The basic template of a Superman story goes like this. Superman sees a bully kicking sand in someone’s face; Superman kicks the crap out of the bully. Sometimes the stories can get overly complex or weird, as when Superman kidnaps a college football player by jabbing him with a hypodermic needle and then poses as said youth, in order to teach the coach of the opposing team a lesson.

These stories are glorified power fantasies, which is fine, but they blend. They also overlook basic realities of human nature. In one issue, Superman kidnaps the generals of two opposing forces and tells them to fight. When they realize they’re not mad at each other, the generals end the war. Yeeeeeah.

There’s not a whole lot of suspense in these comics. The writers hadn’t invented kryptonite yet, so in the first year of stories Superman is invincible. It takes the introduction of the Ultra Humanite, whose claim to fame is managing to briefly knock Superman out a few times, to add an element of danger to the series.

I will leave you with this. There’s a fine line between fighting a bully and being a bully yourself. Superman might be the strongest man in the planet, but that doesn’t make him tough. He didn’t have to work for it.

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Swamp Thing Bronze Age Volume 3

This is a review of Swamp Thing Bronze Age Volume 3. Yes, there is a Swamp Thing Vol. 2, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. Give me a break, huh? I started with Volume 3 because I read many of these comics as a kid. They are B.A.M. – Before Alan Moore, the writer who remade Swamp Thing in his godlike image. I wanted to see how good these comics were, because my recollections were mixed. So far I’ve read fifteen issues. What’s the verdict?

This version of Swamp Thing has no trouble finding its legs and comes roaring out of the gate. This is a horror comic, with a certain look and written in a certain style. I’d say these comics are for older readers than the Swamp Thing issues from the early 70’s, but I think it’s more that the country aged – and not in a good way. People may not know it, but the late 70’s, early 80’s were a pretty nihilistic time period. You had to be there.

The plot: Swamp Thing rescues a little blonde girl from her father, who is about to shoot her. The girl might look like Carol Anne from Poltergeist, but it turns out she’s more Rhoda Penmark from the Bad Seed. FYI, this graphic novel also has a cameo by a Rondo Hatton lookalike. But the Swampster has other problems. The Sunderland Corporation is after him, because reasons, and he’s slowly dying. 

This leads to another Swamp Thing road trip, ala the original series. There’s the vampire colony in Illinois started by nihilistic teenagers. The cruise ship shanghaied by a mutant tentacle monster, which turns out to be a mutated herpes virus instead of a Lovecraftian monster. The island populated by disaffected Vietnam vets with reality-bending powers.

Soon the Swamp Thing’s young friend begins to manifest psychic abilities. Turns out she’s the herald of the Antichrist. This is the point when this series jumps the shark, and I got lost in a sea of plot points. The densely plotted issues are interesting, because I wouldn’t call plot one of the writers’ strong points (this is not meant as an insult), but whatever.

There are parts of this graphic novel that are in poor taste, but effective horror often is in bad taste. Case in point: there is a story based on the Atlanta child murders, which occurred between 1979 and 1981. In the story the killer is possessed by a demon,  which delivers a bizarre monologue on why it prefers to kill non-white children.

The truth is far worse, because the monster is a human being. The worst monsters are always human beings. The graphic novel dances around this truth, but it does grapples with more grown-up issues and is way more realistic than the earlier issues of horror comics I’ve read, most of which feature classic monsters divorced from present-day reality. This graphic novel is firmly rooted in the early Reagan years in America.

Recommended for fans of Swamp Thing and horror comics.

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Batmanga Vol. 1

This is a review of Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga Vol. 1. Did you know there used to be a Batman manga? I know because of Chip Kidd’s Bat-Manga, which chronicles a number of Batman’s Japanese adventures. This is not a review of Bat-Manga, as Mr. Kidd did not write or draw any of the stories featured in his book. The creator of the Batmanga stories is Jiro Kuwata.

Now that we’re clear on that, how’s the first volume? Pretty good! Batman – along with youthful sidekick Robin, the Batmobile, and his trusty batarang – keeps Gotham City safe from villains. Speaking of those villains…Mr. Kuwata makes the bold choice to add new figures to Batman’s rogue gallery, including Lord Death Man, Professor Gorilla, and The Human Ball!

This was the 60’s, when Batman comics were still goofy and you had a live-action TV show starring Adam West and Burt Ward. So if you are looking for hardboiled action, uh, I don’t know what to tell you. A fun, offbeat read that I liked.

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Sandman Deluxe Edition Book One

This is a review of The Sandman Deluxe Edition: Book One. I picked up the first two dozen issues of this title 30+ years ago, and then took a hiatus from reading comics. That was an interesting time in my life. But hey, who gives a shit, how’s the book?

WARNING: SPOILERS!

Pretty great, actually. Writing these fun reviews, I talk a lot about titles finding their legs. The Sandman comes flying out of the gate. The plot: Sandman, aka Morpheus, aka Dream, is captured in 1916 by a bunch of weirdo cultists who want to trap his sister Death. Dream is  imprisoned in a bubble for seventy years, and when he gets out his realm is a mess and he’s powerless.

The first story arc has Dream regain his objects of power, helmet, ruby, bag of sand. This involves John Constantine, a jaunt to Hell, and a duel with a demon. Dream meets a former lover in Hell – and it turns out he’s the one who sent her there. High quality stuff.

The Doctor Destiny (Dee) storyline is when things go off the rails. As a supervillain, Doctor Dee is nothing special. He uses Dream’s ruby to manifest nightmares. Here, Doctor Dee escapes from Arkham Asylum, picks up a woman at gunpoint, and has her drive him to the storage facility where his (Dream’s) ruby is stored. Dee and the woman talk on the way; they seem to bond. Thus, when he kills her it comes as a nasty surprise.

The next issue is even worse – or even better, depending on whether you’re a horror fan. The plot screeches to a halt as Doctor Dee torments and kills six people in a diner, a grindhouse of horror. The creative team rubs our faces in it, and then in the next issue the plot resumes and Dream gets his powers back. Consider this a warning…Sandman is a fantasy comic, but it is also horror – and many of these issues contain strong content that might be tough to read. I like horror, and I almost dropped Sandman from my pull list after the diner issue.

The second storyline involves Dream tracking down four stragglers from his realm, a serial killer convention, and a girl called Rose, who is something called a Dream Vortex. Rose is looking for her little brother, who is chained up in a basement by a pair of nasty customers. The focus of the story is more on Rose than Dream, a good choice. Honestly, Dream has no idea what makes mortals tick, which doesn’t make him the most relatable of characters. It also helps lead to his ultimate downfall, so nice foreshadowing there! The first storyline is tied to the DC Universe, the second becomes unmoored – not entirely, but this is when Dream and the DC Universe begin to part ways.

Anyway: you should read this.

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Flash: Savage Velocity

Ah, the 1980’s. MTV, Ronald Reagan, Rocky Balboa, The Terminator, Freddy Krueger, buddy cop movies, Pee Wee Herman, Jason Voorhees, Ollie North, contras. Sting, singing Russians. I could go on but I won’t, because boy oh boy the 80’s sucked but the decade did produce some great comics. Thus, when Comixology held their annual end of the year sale, I picked up a copy of this book. I read some – not all – of the issues back in the day, and wanted a complete collection. The writer, Mike Baron, produced a bunch of comics in the 80’s – Nexus, Badger, The Punisher – and of course The Flash.

First things first: this is a very different Flash. Barry Allen, temporarily dead, is replaced by his youthful sidekick Wally West. Wally has been depowered– he can’t break the sound barrier, has to eat two or three times the amount of a normal person, and passes out after he uses his super speed.

Wally himself is written like a 20-year old. An immensely privileged, stupid lucky 20-year old. He buys a lottery ticket and becomes a multi-millionaire. His mom moves in with him and he can’t bring himself to throw her out. His girlfriend is a decade older than him. She’s also married, and when her husband finds out he injects himself with a steroid that gives him super strength and speed and tries to kill Wally. As happens in superhero comics.

Other standout villains in this volume include Vandal Savage, a caveman who dresses like a French lord and designs a highly addictive drug that grants its users super speed. The Chunk is a human event singularity who must consume 47x his weight or implode. The people Chunk consumes are transported to an apocalyptic hellhole. Despite this, Chunk isn’t exactly Doctor Doom, and is written more as a misguided soul than a villain.

This is a nice run by Mike Baron, who only stuck around for 14 issues plus an annual. The issues move fast, pun intended, and there’s an endearing weirdness to the stories, most of which are inspired by the 1980’s – Max Headroom, drug epidemics, the Cold War, ‘roid rage.

Wally himself isn’t portrayed in a very heroic light, whether he’s having an affair with a married woman, puttering around his Long Island mansion, or going to parties hosted by Mafia Dons. He’s written as a materialistic man incapable of saying no to any woman. Unsurprisingly, most of his relationships are shallow and dysfunctional. This was all part of DC’s grand experiment of giving their heroes personalities. It didn’t go on long, but it sure was interesting while it lasted.

I recommend this graphic novel. The first comic book I ever bought was an issue of The Flash, back in 1978 when Barry Allen wore the scarlet tights. I’ve read a lot of Flash since then, and I am here to say that Wally is a more interesting character than Barry Allen ever was. The powers that be might have brought Barry back, but Wally will always be my Flash.

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Flash: Savage Velocity

Ah, the 1980’s. MTV, Ronald Reagan, Rocky Balboa, The Terminator, Freddy Krueger, buddy cop movies, Pee Wee Herman, Jason Voorhees, Ollie North, contras. Sting, singing Russians. I could go on but I won’t, because boy the 80’s sucked but the decade did produce some great comics. Thus, when Comixology had their annual end of the year sale, I picked up a copy of this book. I read some – not all – of the issues back in the day, and wanted a complete collection. The writer, Mike Baron, wrote a number of quality comics in the 80’s – Nexus, Badger, The Punisher – and of course The Flash.

First things first: this is a very different Flash. Barry Allen, temporarily dead, is replaced by his youthful sidekick Wally West. Wally has been depowered– he can’t break the sound barrier, has to eat two or three times the amount of a normal person, and passes out after he uses his super speed.

Wally himself is written like a 20-year old. An immensely privileged, stupid lucky 20-year old. He buys a lottery ticket and becomes a multi-millionaire. His mom moves in with him and he can’t bring himself to throw her out. His girlfriend is a decade older than him. She’s also married, and when her husband finds out he injects himself with a steroid that gives him super strength and speed and tries to kill Wally. As happens in superhero comics.

Other standout villains in this volume include Vandal Savage, a caveman who dresses like a French lord and designs a highly addictive drug that grants its users super speed. The Chunk is a human event singularity who must consume 47x his weight or implode. The people Chunk consumes are transported to an apocalyptic hellhole. Despite this, Chunk isn’t exactly Doctor Doom, and is written more as a misguided soul than a villain.

This is a nice run by Mike Baron, who only stuck around for 14 issues plus an annual. The issues move fast, pun intended, and there’s an endearing weirdness to the stories, most of which are inspired by the 1980’s – Max Headroom, drug epidemics, the Cold War, ‘roid rage. Wally himself isn’t portrayed in a very heroic light, whether he’s having an affair with a married woman, puttering around his Long Island mansion, or going to parties hosted by Mafia Dons. He’s written as materialistic and horny, a man incapable of saying no to any woman. Unsurprisingly, most of his relationships are shallow and dysfunctional. This was all part of DC’s grand experiment of giving their heroes personalities. It didn’t go on long, but it sure was interesting while it lasted.

I recommend this graphic novel. The first comic book I ever bought was an issue of The Flash, back in 1978 when Barry Allen wore the scarlet tights. I’ve read a lot of Flash since then, and I am here to say that Wally is a more interesting character than Barry Allen ever was. The powers that be might have brought Barry back, but Wally will always be my Flash.