GRAPHIC NOVEL and TRADE PAPERBACK (TPB) REVIEWS

"Rocketed as a baby from the exploding planet Krypton, Kal-El grew to manhood on earth -- whose yellow sun and lighter gravity gave him fantastic super-powers..."

Superman published by DC Comics
 

All-Star Superman, vol. 1 2007 (HC) 132 pages

Written by Grant Morrison. Illustrated by Frank Quitely. Inks/colours by Jamie Grant.
Letters: Phil Balsman. Editor: Bob Schreck.

Reprinting: All-Star Superman #1-6 (2006-2007)

Rating: * * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 2

It's funny how mainstream comics seem to have forked off into two diametrically opposed directions. On one hand, they've become obsessed with continuity. Sure, there was always the idea of the common reality -- the "DC Universe", the "Marvel Universe". But it just seems to have got more and more obsessive -- DC supposedly claimed that the intent behind its Crisis on Infinite Earths maxi-series was largely to streamline its various series into one indisputable reality. The result is that a lot of modern comics can be hard to follow, because even if you read every issue of, say, Green Lantern, or Spider-Man, events in other comics will still have an impact on the story. And of course, there's the continual barrage of crossover sagas -- Infinite Crisis, Civil War, etc.

On the flip side, Marvel and DC both have begun series featuring their main heroes unconnected to regular continuity, often because temporarily "hot" creators demand creative "freedom". Which just confuses continuity more! Case in point is DC's various "All-Star" series. (Man, bet you thought I'd never start this review, eh?)

All-Star Superman reunites the popular team of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely to present their take on Superman -- it's a series that borrows ideas from both pre-Crisis and post-Crisis continuity, plus with a few new twists of its own. And part of the point seems clearly to evoke an older, Silver Age sense of wonder, peopling the issues with bizarre, outlandish ideas and a dose of whimsy that was bled out of a lot of the regular Superman stories over the last couple of decades. It might seem like a strange project for Morrison and Quitely, often more associated with edgy, gritty comics. But clearly Morrison is feeling nostalgic for the kind of comics he, himself, once rebelled against.

And for older fans, the series has been getting a lot of praise, people seeing it as a welcome breath of fresh air. It's even won some awards.

I wish I could share the enthusiasm Not that I dislike All-Star Superman, not at all. And I'm precisely the sort of person who should be most excited by it, having developed a heartfelt appreciation for the Superman of yesteryear, for Curt Swan's art, and the clever, quirky plotting of Bates and Maggin, Conway and Pasko, where plot and problem solving took precedence over ten page fight scenes.

And maybe that's the problem. Like a lot of modern comics writers, in trying to emulate the comics of yesterday...Morrison is actually coming up short in comparison.

There's a sort of story arc introduced in the first issue, in which Superman seems to be infected wiuth a deadly disease -- I say, sort of, because it's only occasionally even alluded to in later issues. Perhaps it's meant to give us a Superman who's putting his house in order before the end (such as revealing his identity to Lois Lane in issue #2) but often he's not even doing that. One wonders if Morrison just wanted to write a series of episodic stories, but thought that in this day and age, he needed some sort of sub-plot to pretend it's an epic saga, so he tossed in the disease idea without really having any interest in it. And dpoing a bunch of self-contained stories would e fine, except they kind of beg a greatyer sense of continuity threads. As mentioned, this borrows from previous Superman mythos, while not adhering to them. As such, characters like Lois and Jimmy will crop, then vanish just as readily. Issue #4's "Superman-Olsen War" is entertaining, playing up on the "Jimmy, Superman's Pal" idea...but in the context of All-Star Superman, Jimmy barely appears in any other issue in this collection!

Overall, the plots are kind of...thin, even vapid. Some issues you'd guess Morrison plotted and wrote them over a single cup of coffee they seem so thin. Yes there is whimsy and imagination, but too often it's not really tethered to a compelling plot. And characterization is actually even less developed, of Supes and his supporting cast. If Morrison is using as his inspiration comics written in the 1950s -- those stories were often only 10 or 12 pages long, not 22!

There's also the added problem that in trying to write stories that maybe are intended as homage to an older type of comic -- well, Morrison can't quite shake his punk sensibilities. There remains a lingering...ugliness to some of the scenes. Gags that are black humoured, violence that seems over-the-top. In one issue, Clark Kent is visiting Lex Luthor in prison when the Parasite breaks loose -- the Parasite looking particularly inhuman and freakish (remember, this isn't meant to adhere strictly to any previous Superman mythos). And Luthor starts stomping a swollen Parasite, bursting him, and purple goo spurts over the walls. And I think it's meant to be kind of goofy fun! Not exactly a kinder gentler Superman tale, is it?

Granted such lapses are not common, but help to undermine what, I think, was Morrison's intent with the comic -- to refute the "dark n' gritty" movement that he helped instigate years ago. In fact, a recurring idea in the series is P.R.O.J.E.C.T. -- a hyper advanced moon base that is engaged in all sorts of scientific endeavors. Clearly P.R.O.J.E.C.T. is meant to eptiomize Morrison's whimsical imagination (to the point where one almost wonders if Morrison would rather be writing about it and its eccentric director, rather than Superman) -- but it's actually a kind of coldly creepy place, peopled by genetically programmed people and the like.

Still, it's hard to assess the series, because I do like aspects. Not the least of which is Quitely's beautiful, open art work, which carefully walks the line between gradiose iconism and togue-in-cheek whimsy. The colours too are bold and striking. And the stories are sort of fun, the whimsy and imagination something to applaude. And there is something alluring about the project. I had read the first three issues, and decided I'd probably give the rest a pass. I didn't hate it, but didn't find it compelling enough. But after a few months, I found myself seeing the next few issues and picked them up. But too often I find myself finishing an issue and going..."uh, that's it?" Maybe it's because, in a way, Morrison seems to be doing the same thing fellow "edgy" writer Alan Moore seems to do -- that in trying to recapture the whimsy and imagination of the comics of yesteryear, he forgets that, first and foremost, there still has to be a human factor, characters we still want to believe in and care about. But too often, Superman, Jimmy, Lois, etc. fail to make that leap.

Head and shoulders the best of the first six issues is the sixth -- "Funeral in Smallville" -- in which we are treated to a flashback to a college age Superman, back in Smallville, and encountering some mysterious hired farm hands. It has a better developed plot, questions that intrigue you to find out the solution, and a true emotional element at its heart. It also has a clever variation on an old Superman staple involving those mysterious hired hands. If every issue was like it, I'd probably have fewer reservations about the series. Although, even then, there's a certain aloofness to the story, perhaps a result of Morrison's lack of thought balloons, and Quitely's tendency to draw kind of impassive faces.

For a detailed review I did of one of the issues, go here.

Ultimately, it's not that I dislike All-Star Superman, but it's so far not entirely exciting me. And I find that if I'm feeling nostalgic for Old School Superman, I can get an equal -- or better -- bang for my buck just by raiding the back issues bins!

This is a review of the stories as they were serialized in the comics.

Cover price: ___

The Death of Superman  1993 (SC TPB) 148 pages

Written by Dan Jurgens, Louise Simonson, Jerry Ordway, Roger Stern. Pencils by Dan Jurgens, Jon Bogdanove, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice. Inks by various.
Colours/letters/editors: various.

Reprinting: Superman: The Man of Steel #18, 19, Justice League America #69, Superman (2nd series) #74, 75, The Adventures of Superman #497, Action Comics #684 - (1992) with covers reproduced on back.

Rating: * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1

Collecting the infamous story wherein Superman battles Doomsday...literally to the death. The Death of Superman should be mandatory reading for any sociology or media studies students. This was the "event" DC Comics came up with back in 1992 in which their flagship character, Superman, bites the big one. It was supposedly intended to be no more than just that year's epic "must read" story. But then the mainstream media got wind of it. Suddenly it was headline stuff, editorialists devoting whole columns to the impending demise of the Man of Steel -- many seeming rather gleeful about the death of the big blue schoolboy, his old fashioned virtue an affront to their modern "sophisticated" tastes that ran to Paul Verhoven and Arnold Schwarzenegger films. Would-be collectors grabbed up the comics that were sure to be rare collectibles in a few years. After all, this was the end of Superman...the media said so.

It didn't matter that all an intrepid reporter had to do was ask his eight year old niece or mosey into a local comic shop to discover that no one who actually read comics was under any illusion that death would be anything but temporary. Heck, I had stopped reading comics at the time and even I knew he wasn't gonna stay dead.

So if the news media could be so easily fooled when DC Comics wasn't even trying to fool them (reportedly DC editors, though grateful for the temporary boost in circulation, were nonetheless embarrassed by the misleading coverage) it makes you wonder how easily they can be bamboozled by people who are trying to con them. And that's why this should be mandatory reading for anyone studying the way the media works.

Whether a comics fan might want to check it out is another matter.

This chronicles how an unstoppable, motiveless, monster dubbed Doomsday wreaks a trail of death and destruction, battling both Superman and the Justice League America (comprised of Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Bloodwynd, Ice, Fire, Guy Gardner and Maxima -- not quite the A-list membership one associates with the team). And battling them, and battling, and battling. He trounces the JLA, then he and Superman hit each other for a few more issues until they both drop dead.

I shouldn't be so facetious, but that sums it up pretty well. The first chapter wraps up a storyline involving some mutants who live beneath Metropolis -- Underworlders -- and there's a sequence involving a kid with a chip on his shoulder and his single mom (that never really goes anywhere) and some snippets of characterization involving the JLAers, but mainly it's just hitting and smashing and smashing and hitting. There isn't even much cleverness to the action scenes. At one point Supes trys imprisoning Doomsday in silt at the bottom of a lake, figuring without traction, he'd be temporarily trapped, but that's about it as far as anything approaching a plan goes. The rest of the time it's just hitting and zapping.

For a couple of issues it's mildly diverting, even entertaining, but after a while the repetition gets a little tedious. Considering this was intended to be such a milestone, couldn't they have come up with something more closely resembling a plot? Something with twists and turns?

It doesn't even generate the visceral tension it should. Superman, other than looking a bit bruised, never quite seems like a man on his last legs. At one point he thinks he has to stop Doomsday "Even if it kills me...", but that seems more like bravado than Supes actually contemplating his own mortality. But surely that would've been dramatic -- a man realizing he will die if he conntinues pursuing a certain course of action, perhaps even feeling an element of fear, of indecision, before commiting himself to that action, regardless of the personal consequences? In an early scene Superman comments that there are times when he has known fear...but that concept is forgotten by the end.

The art is good, as pictures, as drawings of people. But like the narrative itself, doesn't quite realize the visceral elements of the stories. Dramatic moments aren't always highlighted, and fight scenes are laid out with a workmanlike professionalism. Normally that'd be fine, but not when 90 percent of the story is fight scenes. Doomsday is supposed to be so fast, even Superman can be taken by surprise, but though there are myriad techniques the artists could employ to capture the sense of superfast movement, they choose not to. We understand that Doomsday is fast...we just don't feel it.

There are technical problems, like how come Doomsday can tear down whole overpasses, but only seems to bust a few ribs of the less powerful JLAers? And a collection like this could use some editorializing to explain for modern readers who Lex Luthor Jr. is or why Supegirl is fawning over him or who that grey head is that materializes in a later chapter.

I expected to like this more than I did. I hadn't read it previously, but I had read the novelization, The Death of Superman by Roger Stern, that adapted this and the subsequent two volumes (World Without Superman and The Return of Superman, which saw Superman returned to life), and enjoyed that book much more than these original issues.

If you want, collect it 'cause its notorious. Collect it 'cause the next two books in the trilogy (World Without a Superman and The Return of Superman) are reportedly better. Just don't expect much from this on its own.

Original cover price: $6.50 CDN./ $4.95 USA.

The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told 1987 (TPB) 336 pgs

Reprinting: Look Magazine (filler), Action Comics #241, Superboy #68, Forever People #1, Superman #4, 13, 30, 53, 123, 125, 129, 132, 145, 149, 162, 247, Annual #11, Superman (vol. 2) #2

Featuring: "Superman vs. Luthor" (untitled), "Superman vs. the Archer" (untitled), "What if Superman Ended the War?" (untitled), "The Mysterious Mr. Mxyztplk", "The Origin of Superman", "The Three Wishes (a.k.a. the Girl of Steel)", "Clark Kent's College Days", "The Super Key to Fort Superman", "The Battle With Bizarro", "The Girl from Superman's Past", "Superman's Other Life", "The Night of March 31st", "Lex Luthor, Hero (a.k.a. the Death of Superman)", "The Amazing Story of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue", "In Search of a Dream", "Must There be a Superman?", "The Man Who Has Everything", "The Secret Revealed"

By (variously): Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, John Sikela, Wayne Boring, Otto Binder, Dick Sprang & Stan Kaye, Al Plastino, George Papp, Bill Finger, Curt Swan (inks Sheldon Moldoff, George Klein), Leo Dorfman; and Jack Kirby; Elliott Maggin/Curt Swan/Murphy Anderson; Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons; John Byrne.

Rating: * * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1 (some stories more)

With the exception of "Superman's Other Life" (1959), about Superman seeing what his life would have been like if he had grown up on Krypton -- a story I read as a kid, and so may be biased about (I'm not that old...it belonged to an older sibling) -- none of the stories here quite struck me as "The Greatest" of Superman's long career. Conversely, only the first appearance of that little imp, "The Mysterious Mr. Mxyztplk" (1948), struck me as actually bad.

Perhaps the most noteworthy of the collection are "Must There Be a Superman?" an oft cited tale from '72 that marked scripter Elliot S! Maggin's first Superman story, and "For the Man Who Has Everything", an almost hallowed 1985 story by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Neither lived up to the hype, but you couldn't have done this collection without them. And, as a kind of experiment, I've given each its own review.

"Superman vs. The Archer" by Supes creators Siegel & Shuster is a surprisingly atmospheric story, with character bits (I didn't know they had that back then) and some moodily effective (albeit simplistic) art. "The Night of March 31st" is an odd novelty piece, of contemporary interest as it may have inspired an episode of the TV series, "The Drew Carey Show". Interestingly, one of the better entries is Jack Kirby's Forever People...in which Supes is a guest star!

There's a Superman-as-Superboy story but minus the Smallville supporting cast, and Supergirl crops up a couple of times, there are visits to the Fortress of Solitude, a few encounters with Lex Luthor, and some "imaginary tales" that were popular from the '60s. But the collection still feels like it's missing huge aspects of the character's mythos. For example, all 3 stories from the (early) '60s are "imaginary" -- meaning there's no sense of what a "normal" Superman story was like at that time (nor are they as good as some of the late-'60s imaginary stories).

I (and others, I think) would argue that comics can be divided into two eras, with those prior to the mid-'60s being (generally) juvenile, enjoyable for an adult mainly on a "cute"-level, while those from the mid-'60s on are a little more adult-friendly. Which is a problem, because only four stories here, and less than a third of the pages, are from the mid-'60s onward.

I can't emphasize enough the problem with the gap from the mid-'60s to the mid- '80s; only two stories are used to epitomize that period -- and no Steve Lombard or WGBS or anything -- in fact, the whole Clark Kent-private life aspect of the mythos is largely absent from the final stories (Lois Lane doesn't appear at all!). And the omission of anything written by Cary Bates, perhaps one of the longest serving Superman writers, is, frankly, suspicious. I would also put in a plug for Gerry Conway as one of the all-time great Superman scribes and, likewise, nothing by Conway is included.

Premier Superman artist, the incomparable Curt Swan, pencils four stories...and even then it could be argued he's under-represented (again, that '70s gap, when Swan really came into his own).

The last two stories are selected from just prior to this collection's release, smacking a little of the Oscars joke (how the American film academy has such a short attention span that it always nominates films released at the end of the year). The final story, "The Secret Revealed", isn't even much of a Superman story; it's essentially a Lex Luthor story, and though the ending is cute, overall it's pretty blah.

This collection shows the comic's evolution: in the early stories Superman is a bit cocky, and not all that reverential of life, he evolves into a more pious, almost Christ-like figure by the '70s, then Moore and Byrne up the violence and turn Supes into a snarling, epithet-hurling, bruiser. I can't say I like the change. Both "The Man Who Has Everything" and "The Secret Revealed" are more violent than I'm used to with a Superman story, and the female characters seem to suffer the brunt of it. While Lex Luthor, who used to have at least some scruples, is here a far nastier, far less fun, villain, sexually molesting his employees, torturing people, murdering them...and getting away with it. This new Luthor seems to be proving that, though crime may not pay, it can at least break even.

And both Superman and Luthor, one-time scientific geniuses, have been dumbed-down for the '80s and '90s. Superman was often required to think his way out of a problem...not so in the hands of Alan Moore and John Byrne.

In compiling this, the editors acknowledge nostalgia played a part, selecting stories they read as kids (explaining the clumping of comics from narrow periods) which might make my criticisms merely reflecting my own, "they ain't the comics I read when I was a boy"-attitude. Except...recently I happened to pick up a ratty copy of Superman #348 by Conway/Swan/Chiramonte -- a comic I'd never read before and, thherefore, could have no sentimental bias towards. It wasn't "epochal", nor a "classic" by any means, but as a simple story, I thought it was actually better than many of the stories contained herein!

Some "they might've included..." nominees? "Make Way for Captain Thunder" (Superman #276, by Maggin/Swan/Oksner), with Superman battling a Captain Marvel-like character. The story, with Supes battling a brainwashed Captain Thunder, would serve as the blueprint for later Superman-Captain Marvel battles, most recently in Kingdom Come. Or how about the two-part "Dying Day of Lois and Lana" (Superman #362-363, by Bates/Swan/Chiramonte), which proves that the best Superman stories don't even need a bad guy. Or "When Lightning Strikes, Thunder Kills" (Superman #303, by Conway/Swan/Oksner), a story that, for some reason, strikes me as almost perfectly epitomizing a Superman story -- I don't know why. There are others, of course.

The book also features some editorials, including a lengthy look at Supe's history by the (re)inventor of the modern-age Superman, John Byrne. The editorial is informative, allowing some insight into Byrne's take on the character, as he reveals that the alterations he made in the mythos (some I consider highly ill-conceived) weren't just happenstance, but conscious decisions to "correct" things Byrne clearly had problems with. In a way, the editorial becomes a self-justification for the things Byrne (and DC) has done.

Overall, this is a decent collection...just misnamed.

Cover price: $19.95 CDN./$15.95 USA.

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