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Scott Beatty, Superman: The Ultimate Guide to the Man of Steel: Honestly, Wikipedia is likely to do a lot better explaining the various aspects of the Superman mythos, but Wikipedia probably won't have all the illustrations of the Kryptonian solar system and the like. Big, pretty, and not very deep – I'll leave you to draw the analogies to the subject matter yourself.
Mark Millar et al., Superman: Red Son: Hey, what if Kal-El had come down in a field in Soviet Russia instead of the good old U.S. of A.? As it turns out, it's a lot like the punchline of that joke about Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and the gas station attendant. Somehow there's also a Batman in the USSR, as well as plenty of other familiar faces, from Lois Luthor to Hal Jordan. I liked this spin, because I do see Kal-El as someone who wants to believe and do the right thing; his idea of the right thing, however, can be influenced by context. Lex, relying on his wits and his tech in his numerous attempts on Superman, is old-school redhead/mad scientist in this. There is a twist at the end which will either be whimsical or painful (not in a good way), depending on your tolerance for comic book logic, and links Lex and Kal-El in an unusual way.
Matt Wagner, Mage: The Hero Defined, vols. 1-4: Mage was a big part of my comic-fangirlhood; I am a sucker for Hamlet quotes and I loved Kevin Matchstick's lightning T-shirt and the magic baseball bat, not to mention the ghoul-haunted hotel that was so much bigger on the inside than on the outside. Wagner claims that The Hero Defined is the middle of a trilogy, but I have no idea when or whether the final segment will appear. Maybe it suffered by comparison with my childhood idyll, but I found the story much less gripping this time. Wagner tried to generalize further from the Arthur story to make Kevin into the ur-Hero, representing all myths of individual kingship, and I felt it diluted things rather than making them more epic. Hey, Arthur is epic enough for me. Props for showing Kevin losing his hair, though – not too many balding superheroes around.
Kurt Busiek et al., Astro City: Family Album: Another series of stories from Astro City, city of superheroes. The opener, about a man who moves his children to town but immediately begins to reconsider when battles erupt around him, is pretty predictable – I wish they’d made the unexpected choice at the end, which would have been thought-provoking. But later stories get better. I really liked the superheroes’ kid whose first solo adventure is in the real world of the elementary-school playground, especially since her parents tear up the supervillain underworld in an attempt to find out who’s kidnapped her. Jack-in-the-Box confronts the basic tension between working for one’s family and working for the greater good, in the form of several possible sons visiting from the future. And a cartoon lion brought to comic life tells his story to a young ad-man; the sad-faced art makes the otherwise pedestrian story into something whimsical and sad.
In uncollected news, Supreme Power continues to impress me even as Squadron Supreme, The Boys exploits the sex and violence it hypocritically criticizes, and Cross-Bronx is just grim. I'm enjoying The Escapist, thinking of giving up on Jack of Fables, and really looking forward to the resolution of Y. What else should I be reading?
Mark Millar et al., Superman: Red Son: Hey, what if Kal-El had come down in a field in Soviet Russia instead of the good old U.S. of A.? As it turns out, it's a lot like the punchline of that joke about Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and the gas station attendant. Somehow there's also a Batman in the USSR, as well as plenty of other familiar faces, from Lois Luthor to Hal Jordan. I liked this spin, because I do see Kal-El as someone who wants to believe and do the right thing; his idea of the right thing, however, can be influenced by context. Lex, relying on his wits and his tech in his numerous attempts on Superman, is old-school redhead/mad scientist in this. There is a twist at the end which will either be whimsical or painful (not in a good way), depending on your tolerance for comic book logic, and links Lex and Kal-El in an unusual way.
Matt Wagner, Mage: The Hero Defined, vols. 1-4: Mage was a big part of my comic-fangirlhood; I am a sucker for Hamlet quotes and I loved Kevin Matchstick's lightning T-shirt and the magic baseball bat, not to mention the ghoul-haunted hotel that was so much bigger on the inside than on the outside. Wagner claims that The Hero Defined is the middle of a trilogy, but I have no idea when or whether the final segment will appear. Maybe it suffered by comparison with my childhood idyll, but I found the story much less gripping this time. Wagner tried to generalize further from the Arthur story to make Kevin into the ur-Hero, representing all myths of individual kingship, and I felt it diluted things rather than making them more epic. Hey, Arthur is epic enough for me. Props for showing Kevin losing his hair, though – not too many balding superheroes around.
Kurt Busiek et al., Astro City: Family Album: Another series of stories from Astro City, city of superheroes. The opener, about a man who moves his children to town but immediately begins to reconsider when battles erupt around him, is pretty predictable – I wish they’d made the unexpected choice at the end, which would have been thought-provoking. But later stories get better. I really liked the superheroes’ kid whose first solo adventure is in the real world of the elementary-school playground, especially since her parents tear up the supervillain underworld in an attempt to find out who’s kidnapped her. Jack-in-the-Box confronts the basic tension between working for one’s family and working for the greater good, in the form of several possible sons visiting from the future. And a cartoon lion brought to comic life tells his story to a young ad-man; the sad-faced art makes the otherwise pedestrian story into something whimsical and sad.
In uncollected news, Supreme Power continues to impress me even as Squadron Supreme, The Boys exploits the sex and violence it hypocritically criticizes, and Cross-Bronx is just grim. I'm enjoying The Escapist, thinking of giving up on Jack of Fables, and really looking forward to the resolution of Y. What else should I be reading?
Highly recommend
Re: Highly recommend
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Probably the best thing I've read recently is Warren Ellis's Iron Man re-envisioning: I wish he'd stayed on the title, as Stark and Ellis are made for each other. Cutting-edge SF tech, and an Iron Man for the Wired era.
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Did you read the original (1984-or-so) Squadron Supreme, written I think by Mark Gruenwald? I didn't know about the remake.
Also: Dave Cockrum obit, a big one, in today's NY Times. He created, among other things, Nightcrawler-- the look, if not the personality.
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I didn't read the original. I think it's been rereleased.