May 2nd Comic RoundUp

posted by JediSheltie @ 8:05 PM

Welcome to the multiverse, where everybody has a number, not some dumb letters or any of that 'Prime' crap...

52 – All of It

Think of this as the review of the upcoming trade...

After the column where I complained about Wonder Woman going bi-monthly and sucking down column space, you've probably figured out why I haven't been doing 52. I've been reading it from the start, and I enjoyed it quite a lot, but with a weekly, you're going to have your ups and downs. Tracking every single one of them kind of misses the point. The point is that, despite a few downs over the year, the endeavor as whole was well worth your time each week.

52 started with a number of reasonably daring premises, not the least of which was putting out an issue weekly at a time when the industry as a whole was well known for suffering common delay on high profile titles. That fact didn't change over the past year, and only worsened in some cases. But 52 was there, every week. An impressive feat, one that some are keen to blame for the delays on other titles, in fact. True or not, I'm not qualified to say. Perhaps it was one element of many that lent itself to delay, that and some major miscalculations on high-profile creators.

The other more daring aspect of the series was using lesser known characters as tent poles to the story. The tag line was “A year with Superman, Batman, & Wonder Woman”, so there went your 'major draws' right at the start. It certainly delivered on that promise, as only Clark Kent made any significant contributions to the story. Even his role faded out as the series went on, though Newsarama interviews indicated this, like a lot of other things, wasn't exactly planned.

Enough about what was missed. 52 wove five different stories through the last year. Each ebbed and flowed, appeared for a while then sunk to the background for a time. The four writers on 52 steadfastly refused to acknowledge who wrote what, but interviews over time have nailed down who was largely responsible for each individual story arc story.

Of the characters, John Henry Irons and Booster Gold were perhaps the best known. Booster's story covered the entire year, despite his "demise" early in the piece which kicked up a wave of rather premature protest from all those JLI fans out there. He ended up saving not only the Universe, but the new Multiverse. John Henry Irons as Steel stood in for the absent Superman in opposing Lex Luthor's plan to grant superpowers to anyone who afford them.

Black Adam's arc provided the penultimate climax of the piece, as he moved from anti-hero, to hero, to villain over the course of the year, dutifully remaining self-righteous at all of these intervals. The creation and destruction of the Black Adam family was one of the more compelling aspects of 52. After watching them come together over the course of the year, it was somewhat easier to understand Adam's pain at their death. Still, his subsequent bloody, world-wide temper tantrum qualifies either one of the largest overreactions in history or the signs of serious impulse control problem.

A lesser known import from Paul Dini's Batman: The Animated Series, Rene Montoya rose from a background player in Batman's Gotham to assume the mantle of The Question, meeting up with former girlfriend and current Batwoman Kate Kane along the way. Rene's story was the most personal, and, in replacing an elder character, one of the more controversial. My previous familiarity with Montoya was from the cartoon, where her future sexual preference was probably not scripted. I had no special affection for the "previous" Question, so this transfer did not particularly concern me. The story of the transition gave me an appreciation for both characters.

Finally there was the story of Buddy Baker, Animal Man, and his rather long trip home from the depths of space, where in he, Lobo, Starfire (Note to Editor -who is the only person who'll get this- not my dead dog, nor was my dog named after her), and Adam Strange manage to head off an interstellar invasion force that bore a passing resemblance to the bad guys from The Chronicles of Riddick. If that was the inspiration, they were probably pretty safe in choosing that as a source, considering how many people actually saw that movie. Buddy is another "much beloved" figure from years ago- years I wasn't reading comics.

It was the power of these characters and stories that took the project away from it's creators, who had planned from the start to devote time to explaining all that stuff they were putting out with "One Year Later" after Infinite Crisis. The loss of those explanatory elements necessitated the World War III event, which wasn't exceptionally well executed. Its certainly a testament to the power of the story that it took the writers with it, and not the other way around. I know the feeling from back when I indulged in fiction.

Too bad I generally sucked at it.

All these stories were told by four guys and a slew of artists. Thus art was all over the board. They generally managed to maintain in-issue continuity, but you could certainly count on seeing a new style virtually every week. Considering the circumstance, it was unavoidable, and the strength of the story was such that it didn't distract much at all. The artistic variance will probably be somewhat more noticeable when the trades start hitting, which I'm betting will be soon. I'd like to see the entire thing bound up in one book with notes, etc. Even though there is quite a bit in there, one of the great elements of the story is that, unlike Infinite Crisis, you don't really have to be DC historian to enjoy it.

In choosing characters that were not "banner" and have 50 year histories, they could craft a story that kept you in the moment, without worrying about the 80 issues or so of a comic you never read before. Anyone should be able to pick up a trade and, with a short forward, enjoy the story from start to finish. For a comic spanning 52 real-time issues, that's yet another major accomplishment.

Superman 662

The scheduling problems with Action are being felt again in the namesake title. After a couple "one-shot" issues that dealt with Prankster and a guest shot from Wonder Woman, we return to the plot we left back in 659 with Arion's warning about Superman's effect on the world. But things are a little cloudier now. Since, well, whatever was going to happen in Action basically, "hasn't" at the moment, we find Clark considering the advice of the sorcerer while checking up on the world and investigating a little untied thread from the “Back In Action” arc featuring the Auctioneer..

It was a thread your's truly pointed out at the time, in fact. "3" Kryptonians. Clark, Kara, and whom? Power Girl was too easy, and, in an-all-to-brief cameo, eliminated as a suspect in the first few pages of this latest issue of Superman. Krypto, who apparently has some story waiting in the wings for... something... is also written off as being "missing". Finally, as I pointed out, the Auctioneer made his statement prior to... the kid... being shot into this world.

Did I mention the kid is in the issue? With Lois, in their condo, in some kind of domestic bliss? I've been accepting this whole arc in Action on the vague promise that the status quo will be returned when its over. Now, it's not over, and doesn't look to be until some Annual, so now we're stuck with the kid until it's finished? This also introduces continuity issues. It didn't really seem like a lot time passed in Action between the kid's arrival, adoption by the younger Kents, and the appearance of Zod. This story has to happen during that period before Zod and company arrived. The kid is there, but there sure aren't a few thousand Phantom Zone villains flying around.

No, Clark is considering his role in the world, whether he will eventually cause a cataclysm by holding back disaster too long. Perry White fills in for Lex Luthor by weighing in that Superman could be bad for humanity, in that he could be holding us back from pulling ourselves up by our proverbial boot straps and reaching our true potential. Or we could just be extinct, right Perry? Jimmy defends Superman, of course. He's gonna die, soon, right?

Beyond the possible continuity issues and the moments of thought, nothing really happens here. It's a setup to the next issue, basically. I like the issues raised here, but I think this one went a little too deep on the philosophy side, and I say that as someone with a degree in it. There could been a bit more action. Art chores were handled by Carlos Pacheco, who did a good job. Nice clean, reasonably detailed lines. Nothing like Adam Kubert, but then again, you really need to wait for that kind of work, apparently.

Busick is doing good work, it's just annoying to see his efforts being hamstrung a bit by the problems with Action. It will be interesting to see how all this is sorted out before the next Johns / Donner arc returns to Action, if at all. We were promised some huge "changes" after their first arc, and now it seems like the lack of those changes is on the way to upsetting the ole apple cart.