I still have trouble getting used to how cute Snoopy used to be

November 7, 1953 Peanuts strip by Charles Schulz, scanned from Fantagraphics' The Complete Peanuts 1953-1954.

As far as battle cries go...

...I think I like the sound of "Imperius Rex!" better.



(Panel from The Marvels Project by Steve Epting and Ed Brubaker)

Another trade I waited for: The Marvels Project

I rather enjoyed reading through the trade collection of Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting’s eight-part series The Marvels Project, although the farther I got into it, the less and less it seemed like a story so much as a summary of other stories.

I suppose there was a degree of inevitably to that aspect of the series, as it is a summary of other stories, with Brubaker and Epting retelling scenes from various Golden Age classics, checking in on various Golden Age characters big and small and contextualizing some historical events within the Marvel Universe. It’s more an exercise in connecting various dots and giving a consistent viewpoint to those connections than a proper story. As such, it’s very interesting, if never quite compelling.

The framing sequence is kind of oblique, with Marvel Western hero The Two-Gun Kid, who was shunted from his own era into the modern Marvel Universe, dying back in the period between the World Wars—apparently, when he got old, he was sent back to die close to the time he would actually die? Brubaker sort of assumes some basic knowledge on the part of his readers regarding this complicated nonsense—lucky for me I read Dan Slott’s She-Hulk or I woulda been lost right out of the gate (If you click on that link, don’t look the horse in the eye, or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life).

Conceptually, the idea is showing the passing of the torch from one sort of hero—the cowboys of the Wild West—to a new kind of hero, guys in capes and masks like The Angel, our point-of-view character for the story of how the Marvel Universe first became populated with Marvels.

The Angel is a vigilante hero of the normal-guy-who-dresses-weird-and-punches-bad-guys-really-hard and, as a New Yorker, he’s around to witness the birth and evolution of the android Human Torch (Marvel’s first “Marvel”), the emergence of Namor (there’s a pretty weirdly affective scene early on, wherein Nazis are shown depth charging the sea and collecting the Atlantean corpses that float to the service) and his conflicts with the Torch and the surface world, the emerging crop of heroes like those who starred in The Twelve and those awesome 70th anniversary specials Marvel was publishing in 2009 (Did they ever trade-collect those? I bought ‘em all, but they were among the comics stolen when my last apartment was burgularized), and, eventually, the appearance of Captain America.

Brubaker imagines a sort of superhero-arms race between America and the Nazis, which ties a lot of the various plot-points together, and eventually unites heroes as diverse as Namor, The Torch and Captain America against the Nazis. It also allows The Angel and some smaller characters (The Ferret, The Phantom Bullet, etc.) to get involved in a more direct way.

The plot works, and it all hangs together quite well, but because of the huge span of time being covered—it opens in 1938 and ends in 1941, with an epilogue set in the present—and because of the fact that The Angel is telling the story (often resorting to saying things like, “I didn’t know this at the time, of course, but…”), far too much of it feels like being told a story about a story, instead of a story.

Epting is a hell of an artist, and he pencils and inks here, with Dave Stewart handling the colors. I don’t care for this style of art at all, as the coloring (or perhaps the way Epting produced the art) gives it the comic book equivalent of soft, soap opera-like lighting. The blacks and lines just don’t look like they were drawn with ink pens or brushes, so it all looks several degrees removed from drawing.

Within this style, which is pretty much Marvel’s house style at this point, and obviously more popular with more folks, it’s nice art, but my eyes slid over it without ever really appreciating it—the photos-as-reference, computers-used-somehow approach is a lot less lifeless and annoying in a historical setting, however. Like, having New York skylines plopped in as background isn’t quite as lazy-looking when it’s the New York of the late-30s and early-40s than that of the early 21st century.

You know what’s really weird, though? The climax of the book features the big heroes of the period splitting up to deal with a two-pronged Axis attack on the allies—Cap, Bucky and Namor intervene to protect President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill from Nazi super-soldier U-Man and an evil Atlantean assassination squad, while The Human Torch and Toro head off the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. I was kind of confused by the latter, as it implies foreknowledge of the attack within the U.S. government—if Roosevelt and Captain America knew the attack was coming, why didn’t they warn the folks at Pearl Harobor, who could have at least defended themselves better? And why did they just send The Human Torch and Toro, instead of rallying a conventional military counterattack?

It implies a complicity among the Roosevelt administration, a realization of the conspiracy theory that he let Pearl Harbor happen in order to provide political cover to the U.S. entry into the war. Which, I don’t know, is that what happened? I haven’t read much about it in a long, long time, and assume Brubaker’s more up on this stuff than I am.

Or did it go down differently in the Marvel Universe? (Well, even more different than two flying, flaming dudes throwing fireballs at Japanese Zeros?) Did Roosevelt, Cap, Torch and others know ahead of time that the Japanese were about to attack Peak Harbor in past Marvel stories about the era, or is that an original idea of Brubaker’s?

I don’t know.

The narrator, The Angel, implies that the Japanese force was much, much larger than the one we know about, and that the Torches greatly reduced the damage that would have been done, but, I don't know, it seems like getting the word out and responding militarily might have staved off the attack complete.

"They saved many lives, stopped many of the Japanese bombs and blew up many more of their fighters... But they couldn't hold back the storm no matter how hard they tried."

It's made clear that the Cap and company vs. U-Man fight was kept secret, although I'm not sure if the Torches activities were or not: "That fight would remain secret," Angel says of that battle, "because Captain America didn't want to diminish the sacrifice of the men at Pearl Harbor, he told me later. They were the real heroes...the soldiers who bled and died. The ones who didn't have science on their side like he did."

************************

Speaking of things I don't know about, there's a character wandering around Europe that the Nazi scientists kept in some sort of stasis named Private John Steele. He's apparently invulnerable, super-strong and was caught during the first World War. He awakens and starts wandering around killing Nazis in Europe, hooking up with Nick Fury for a while.

I have no idea who he is or where he came from, but he's presented as someone I should know.

************************

I haven’t played a Marvel-related video game since…a Street Fighter vs. Marvel heroes arcade came before turn of the century, maybe? But I’d play the hell out of a game that was basically 1942 where you played The Human Torch instead of a plane…

Meanwhile, in Las Vegas...

Yeah, what Sparkle said!

Just FYI, I have a brief review of the second volume of Ross Campbell's Shadoweyes series, Shadoweyes In Love, in this week's issue of Las Vegas Weekly. You can read it here.

I went on a little too long, as I tend to do, so here's the bit that got cut off at the end for space: "In a moribund genre that tends towards uniformity, Shadoweyes sticks out like a gorgeous but gnarled sore thumb."

That moribund genre is, of course, the superhero genre, and I think anyone who likes that genre and thinks an awful lot about it will find some pretty compelling questions in this series, and this volume in particular, especially on the question of violence and vigilantes executing their enemies as opposed to beating them up or leaving them for the police. Like, if you've ever offered an opinion about whether Batman should kill the Joker or Spider-Man the Green Goblin, for example, there's some scenes in here that might call those opinions into question.

It's remarkably strong stuff. And, you know, it's also awesome in the way you'd expect a Ross Campbell superhero comic to be.

Plus, more Pony Master:

Meanwhile, at Robot 6...

I'm diversifying from writing reviews of comic books to writing about books that are about comics, today reviewing Marc DiPaolo's textbook War, Politics and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and Film, which is a pretty fascinating read if you're interested in superheroes and/or politics (Check your local library, and if they don't have it, ask 'em to order it for you).

If you have a very, very good memory, you may recall that I had previously mentioned it on EDILW, discussing DiPaolo's reading of Wonder Woman's costume in a post a post about DC's recent attempts to re-package Wonder Woman as someone who wears pants. plan to post about another reading of DC's Wonder Woman character in the near future.

In the mean time, go check out my review on Robot 6, and feel free to discuss important issues like whether or not Kyle Rayner is a metrosexual or whether the Watchmen movie was a masterpiece in the comments section here or there.

DC's October previews reviewed

October will, of course, be the second month of DC’s relaunched DCU, so there should be at least 52 #2s following September's 52 new #1s, plus anything new DC has decided to roll out. It turns out they are expanding beyond the original 52 new DCU books, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the franchise they’re starting their expansion with is the perennially most popular one.

I counted six new comics set in the DCU, for a grand total of 58. These six new ones are mostly miniseries. I think only one of them is actually an ongoing. Three of the minis are, of course, Batman-related, including the return of Neal Adams' Batman limited series, The Odyssey. Come September, there will be eleven monthly Bat-Family books. In October, there will be three miniseries to add to that count, making for 14 Bat-books that month.

That said, let's take our monthly closer look at the solicitations, even though it's the eve of the San Diego Comic-Con and nobody cares, shall we? You can see the full solicitations at Newsa--Er, actually, since I have new paymasters, I guess I should link to the full solicitations at Comic Book Resources, huh?


Well, so far Travel Forman’s gross covers for the new volume of Animal Man aren’t living up to Brian Bolland’s covers for the previous volume.

I guess they are serving to distance this volume from the previous one, though.


BATMAN #2
Written by SCOTT SNYDER
Art and cover by GREG CAPULLO and JONATHAN GLAPION
Cover by GREG CAPULLO
Variant cover by JIM LEE
…
On sale OCTOBER 19 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Bruce Wayne is back in the cowl, hunting a new and deadly killer in Gotham City – a killer with a vendetta against Bruce Wayne! But who is this mysterious killer in an owl skull mask? And is he the key to unlocking one of Gotham’s oldest and most terrifying secrets? Be there for their first brutal encounter!

I have absolutely no idea what an owl skull looks like, or how I’d know what it looks like compared to other bird skulls.

Wait. Let me try Google Images…

Oh. So that’s what it looks like. While there’s nothing in the solicit that sounds particularly new or interesting, that bit jumped out at me.

I’m still pretty unsure about this book, and will have to probably wait until I read a trade of Snyder’s TEC run and see what Capullo’s work looks like before I decide if this is something for me. Still, the solicit looks a lot better with the words “owl skull mask” in it than it would without those words there.


I really love Patrick Gleason’s cover for this issue, particularly Batman and Robin and their poses and expressions.

I’m not crazy about the grill of that new Batmobile though…from afar, it looks like a Batman version of Peter Porker, Spider-Ham. It would have looked better with a big Batman face or triangle or almond-shaped headlight eyes.

Still:


BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #2
Written by DAVID FINCH and PAUL JENKINS
Art by DAVID FINCH and RICHARD FRIEND with JAY FABOK
Cover by DAVID FINCH and RICHARD FRIEND
On sale OCTOBER 26 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Something sinister surges through Arkham Asylum, and Batman finds himself bombarded by his greatest foes in this second sensational issue from superstar creator David Finch! Bigger, meaner, and more powerful than ever before, the inmates of Arkham Asylum run rampant as the entire Bat Family struggles to keep the walls from falling down, unleashing Gotham City’s worst criminals on the unsuspecting population. And you won’t believe the jaw-dropping final page! Just keep repeating, “It’s only a comic book. It’s only a comic book…”

Graeme McMillan was the first to catch this funny (or is it sad...?) fact: Batman: The Dark Knight, the comic book originally launched and sold as the “David Finch writes and draws Batman!” book, is, in its second month after getting a second chance, is now a book that Finch does with some other creators.

The first volume went wildly off-schedule almost immediately, only shipping three issues since December of 2010. Surprisingly, despite its trouble keeping anything close to a schedule, it was one of the books the publisher decided to keep around as part of its line during the September relaunch.

And, of course, the relaunched book will also go off schedule, immediately, the only thing getting issues #2 on shelves a month after issue #1 is Finch getting a co-writer and two co-artists for the “David Finch writes and draws Batman!” book.

Weird.

And that’s before we even get into that crazy cover, with a Hulk-ed out Two-Facce with fists as big as Batman’s forearms.


Man, I love the way Guillem March draws Gotham gargoyles…


DC COMICS PRESENTS: CATWOMAN – GUARDIAN OF GOTHAM #1
Written by DOUG MOENCH • Art by JIM BALENT and KIM DeMULDER
Cover by JIM BALENT
On sale OCTOBER 26 • 96 pg, FC, $7.99 US
In this tale, originally a 2-part miniseries, Catwoman is the protector of a darker than ever Gotham City – and she must protect the city’s criminals from the murderous vigilante called the Bat-Man!

This is a pretty crazy Elseworlds story most notable for Moench's typically crazy writing and Balent's insanely over-the-top costume design and top-heavy ladies. This being an Elseworlds, non-canonical tale, Balent even ramps up the exploitive nature of his artwork. Those are two great flavors of late nineties Batman craziness that didn't go together all that often (Moench's late nineties Batman work was usually done with artist Kelley Jones, while Balent worked more often with Chuck Dixon and even Devin Grayson than with Moench, I believe).

Anyway, I pulled this one out mostly to note that it doesn't look like DC is abandoning the DC Comics Presents program after all. Instead it looks like they just took September off, and are publishing two months worth of DCCP books in October.

In addition to above, they're also releasing Alan Davis and Mark Farmer's Superboy's Legion, Batman—The Demon Laughs by Dixon, Jim Aparo and John Cebollero, JLA—The Age of Wonder by Adisakdi Tantimedh, Galen Showman and P. Craig Russell, Batman—Blinke by Dwayne McDuffie, Val Semeiks, Dan Green and Renato Guedes and Superman—Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen.

I haven't read all of those, but I liked the ones I did (Demon Laughs, Secret Identity) and want to read all of the ones I haven't...well, except maybe that Legion one. I like Farmer on Davis, but still, the Legion...


DC UNIVERSE ONLINE LEGENDS VOL. 1 TP
Written by MARV WOLFMAN and TONY BEDARD
Art by HOWARD PORTER, ADRIANA MELO, LIVESAY and NORMAN LEE
Cover by ED BENES
On sale NOVEMBER 9 • 192 pg, FC, $19.99 US
Based on the hit DC Universe Online game from Sony!
As this epic adventure begins, Lex Luthor’s obsession with destroying Superman reaches fever pitch when he cuts the ultimate Devil’s deal with Brainiac – but with the shake of a hand, has Luthor consigned humanity to extinction? Collecting issues #0-7!

Whatever you do, don't buy this. You won't like it. At all. I promise.

On the subject of DC Universe Online Legends, the bi-weekly series will return from its (badly needed) hiatus in October.


I like the idea of Tony Daniel’s cover, but something still looks a bit off. I think it’s the lack of seat belt, and how weird the controls in what I assume is supposed to be some sort of Bat-plane look.


DEMON KNIGHTS #2
Written by PAUL CORNELL
Art by DIOGENES NEVES and OCLAIR ALBERT
Cover by TONY S. DANIEL
On sale OCTOBER 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
The siege that will reverberate through history to the present-day DCU begins as the Demon Etrigan and his unlikely lover, Madame Xanadu, face the Horde! What five (mostly) noble souls would be crazy enough to join them? The cover gives but a hint, and the point could well be moot by the time this issue’s done. For the Horde is armed with the magic of Mordru – including some decidedly different dragons!

Hmmm…joining Etrigan, I recognize the 21st century version of the Seven Soldiers’ Shining Knight, and the dude with the axe might be Vandal Savage and, um, that’s it. The lady in the far right corner isn’t supposed to be Hippolyta or an Amazon, is it? Because that would be kind of weird.


FRANKENSTEIN, AGENT OF S.H.A.D.E. #2
Written by JEFF LEMIRE
Art by ALBERTO PONTICELLI
Cover by J.G. JONES
On sale OCTOBER 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
It’s all-out war as Frankenstein and his new field team, The Creature Commandos, uncover an age-old conspiracy at the heart of Bone Lake – one that will see them suit up as the world’s first “Necronauts,” traveling between worlds and through “dead space,” toward the mysterious Monster Planet. Meanwhile, the horrifying origins of the Commandos are revealed – and the S.O.M.B.I.E. makes its first appearance!

The first issue of Lemire’s Flashpoint: Frankenstein and the Creatures of The Unknown was very, very, very dull, and not very Flashpointy, so hearing that the Creature Commandos are going to be part of the cast for this book makes it seem even less appealing to me.

Kinda neat cover from Jones though; especially if the animal guy on the far right is supposed to be a black bear man, but I imagine it’s actually just a weird-looking wolfman…


Wow, the Green Arrow on artist Dave Wilkins’s cover for the second issue of Green Arrow looks like a completely different character than the Green Arrow on artist Brett Booth's cover for the first Issue of Green Arrow.

This one looks very Smallville, save with some 19th century facial hair.


GREEN LANTERN #2
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art and cover by DOUG MAHNKE and CHRISTIAN ALAMY
…
On sale OCTOBER 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Renegade Green Lantern Sinestro sets a course for Korugar with one purpose: To free his homeworld from the scourge of… The Sinestro Corps?!

Hey, Green Lantern might be vastly improved after the September relaunch. It looks like the book will have the same great creative team, but now the lead character is going to actually be one with some charisma! Huzzah!


Oh wow, check it out—Star Sapphire’s costume has been redesigned to look much less completely insane than it currently does!

If you forgot, this is what it currently looks like:Could it be that DC actually listened to some Internet criticism, and acted upon it?

Or it could it simply be that they’ve already achieved their true goal with that last Star Sapphire costume, having someone cosplay in it (as I theorized here)... ...so it was okay to switch back to something slightly less insanely skimpy?


THE HUNTRESS #1
Written by PAUL LEVITZ
Art by MARCUS TO and JOHN DELL
Cover by GUILLEM MARCH
On sale OCTOBER 5 • 1 of 6, 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Look out! By the end of this hot new miniseries, the Huntress will have the largest price on her head in DC Universe history. What will the Huntress do that warrants such a death mark? And who puts it there? The jaw-dropping events will be revealed as the Huntress heads home to Italy and embarks on a mission that defines her life. Don’t miss out, because this story will tie in to upcoming events in BIRDS OF PREY!

Absent from the first round of solicitations, including the one for Birds of Prey, a book she used to co-star in, it looks like The Huntress still exists in the new DCU after all (Originally a Crisis On Infinite Earths import from parallel Earth-2, Huntress was from the same source as Power Girl and some of the JSA characters who were MIA in the solicitations).

It looks like this new six-issue mini will be written by Paul Levitz, who started writing the character…let’s see…the year I was born (Insert snarky comment about DC wanting to appeal to a new, younger audience instead of hanging on to their current, graying one).

The artist, Marcus To, has been drawing the now-canceled Red Robin book for DC. So here’s another “new” book by two of the same creators who were working on the “old” DC books.

From what we can see of the costume, it looks pretty familiar, and is a huge improvement over the last time Jim Lee redesigned her costume.

It doesn’t sound like another origin story, which is good news, given that DC published a wholly unnecessary origin story in 2008, following a perfectly serviceable Huntress origin story from 2000.


iZOMBIE #18
Written by CHRIS ROBERSON
Guest art by JAY STEPHENS
Cover by MICHAEL ALLRED
On sale OCTOBER 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
MATURE READERS
Nominated for a 2011 Eisner Award for Best New Series!
Readers of iZOMBIE know Diogenes as the grizzled monster hunter who has seen it all and done it all. But he wasn’t always so experienced, and everyone has to start somewhere. So join us as we turn back the clock and witness Diogenes’ very first mission, when he journeyed to South America in search of the Vampire Queen of the Amazon – and you won’t want to miss learning his secret connection to Zombie Gwen’s “boyfriend,” Horatio! This issue is illustrated by guest artist Jay Stephens!

JAY STEPHENS ALERT!!!!


JUSTICE LEAGUE #2
Written by GEOFF JOHNS
Art and cover by JIM LEE and SCOTT WILLIAMS
...
On sale OCTOBER 19 • 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
...
What happens when the World’s Greatest Detective takes on the world’s most powerful alien? You’ll find out when Batman and Superman throw down. Batman will need all his intellect, cunning and physical prowess to take on The Man of Steel.

A strange side effect of making the DCU more accessible, and/or rebooting things a bit so that the characters are younger or inexperienced, and/or setting certain storylines in the distant past (like this one?) is that some of these storylines sound overly familiar. For example, Superman vs. Batman sounds like something I've read several hundred times already, and don't really need to read again, not even by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee.

This is a book I was assuming I was going to buy ever since it was rumored (years ago), but I don't know, this looks and sounds extremely dull.

That said, I suppose if a decades-long reader like me isn't interested in a new direction, then that might be a good indication that it's the right new direction (That is, it' s probably not supposed to appeal to guys like me, but to new readers). If those new readers show up after all, then it's worth losing guys like me, I guess. I have a lot of doubts that this is actually going to draw in new readers to the direct market though, instead of just shifting, say, some Marvel readers to some DC books to replace the DC readers who are leaving.


MY GREATEST ADVENTURE #1
Written by AARON LOPRESTI, KEVIN MAGUIRE and MATT KINDT
Art by AARON LOPRESTI, KEVIN MAGUIRE, MATT RYAN and SCOTT KOLINS
Cover by AARON LOPRESTI
On sale OCTOBER 12 • 1 of 6, 40 pg, FC, $3.99 US • RATED T
The adventures of Garbage Man and Tanga from WEIRD WORLDS continue – and now, these offbeat heroes are joined by the Robotman, who has a disturbing knack for self-destruction!

Now this is a big surprise.

It’s surprising to see that DC’s continuing Weird Worlds in some form, as that was a three-story anthology featuring new characters Garbage Man and Tanga and, like most superhero anthologies, didn’t exactly set the sales charts on fire (The fifth issue placed a few hundred units lower than the canceled Doom Patrol and about 1,400 unites more than the also canceled Freedom Fighters, in The Beat’s analysis of May sales figures.

The main difference is that they’ve replaced the old third feature, Lobo, with a new third feature—Robotman. This is presumably the Silver Age Robotman of the Doom Patrol and not the Golden Age Robotman, as the former would justify the use of that title.

Which is another surprise—DC is reusing the My Greatest Adventure title, which seems less marketable and grabby than Weird Worlds (Of course, perhaps the plan is to keep relaunching Garbage Man and Tanga in new anthologies that will cycle through all the old, un-used DC-owned titles in order to keep their trademarks on them…?)

My Greatest Adventure was originally used to cover a weird, anthology series that launched in 1955 with cover stories like “I Tracked the Beast of Montrouge Forest!” and “We Fought the Giant of Island X!” The Doom Patrol took over the title in 1963, and eventually the book was retitled Doom Patrol (although it kept the original numbering; back then, low numbers like “1” were a bad thing for comics sales). My Greatest Adventure, by the way, had some pretty awesome covers; as I’ve noted previously, I’d love to see a MGA collection in the Showcase Presents format.

The other surprise? The name “Matt Kindt” among the creators. I suppose he’s writing the Robotman comic? That’s kind of cool, and he joins Jeff Lemire in the “Wait, How Did DC Get These Guys To Work For Them?” camp, and also the “I’d Rather See That Guy Write And Draw Superhero Comics For DC, Not Just Write Them” camp. (At the very least they should have Kindt on covers!)

Now, please join me in a silent prayer that the big yellow mechanical character on the cover with Garbage Man and Tanga is not actually the new design for Robotman…


Oh boy does that look awful…

Also, because I am a child, I feel compelled to point out that ha ha, Jason Todd's is bigger...


PENGUIN: PAIN AND PREJUDICE #1
Written by GREGG HURWITZ
Art and cover by SZYMON KUDRANSKI
On sale OCTOBER 5 • 1 of 5, 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
In this exciting new miniseries from novelist Gregg Hurwitz (You’re Next) and rising star artist Szymon Kudranksi (Spawn), the painful and dark past of one of Batman’s most devious foes is examined. How did young Oswald Cobblepot go from being the apple of his mother’s eye to the leader of underworld gangs and adversary of The Caped Crusader? Find out in PENGUIN: PAIN AND PREJUDICE!

Given the enduring popularity of fiction riffing on Jane Austen books especially her Pride and Prejudice (The day I typed this up, for example, I skimmed the new fiction shelf at my library and saw Mr. Darcy, Vampire, Mr. Darcy and the Secret of Being a Gentleman and Wickham's Diary), I think it would have been even cooler if DC started publishing Elseworlds like What if Mr. Darcy was really Batman or, in this case, just sticking the Penguin into Pride and Prejudice…Pride and Peng-judice…?

Ah well. This is another Penguin origin story. I suppose it will be interesting to see what direction Hurwitz decides to go with the character, who has had several equally valid but quite various interpretations over the years (I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed the status-obsessed, action-oriented version from The Batman cartoon, for example).

I’m not familiar with the work of the artist, who has a couple of DC credits to his name, but the past credit that DC highlighted in the solicit was his work on Spawn. With Capullo on TEC, that’s at least two Spawn vets doing Bat-books for DC this fall.


Woah, did that orange lady in the pasties whom I guess is supposed to be Starfire blow that guy’s face off? That seems like a sort of…weird thing for her to do. Of course, so does hanging out with that guy who is always trying to kill her ex-fiancee…

Since this image was first released, the Internet seems to have focused on the size of the bulge in Red Hood's pants, and how big it is. Looks okay to me; certainly looks less weird than Nightwing's Michelangelo's David's junk.


RED LANTERNS #2
Written by PETER MILLIGAN
Art and cover by ED BENES and ROB HUNTER
On sale OCTOBER 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+
On a war-torn world where invading forces fight insurgent forces, the innocent always suffer the most. When a child screams with red-hot rage at the madness around her, she is answered by her weapon of retribution: Atrocitus.

Hmm, is it just me, or does this look and sound, really, really dull? I wonder if this will improbably be one of the earlier books to be axed…? Nah, probably not. But still—seems pretty boring.


RESURRECTION MAN #2
Written by DAN ABNETT and ANDY LANNING
Art by FERNANDO DAGNINO
Cover by IVAN REIS and JOE PRADO
On sale OCTOBER 12 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+
Mitch Shelley’s past remains a mystery. So when he goes looking for answers, will he find them? Not likely, when he has to contend with the bounty hunter femme fatales known as The Body Doubles.

Hey, that’s a pretty good cover, with all the near-missing bullets. I wonder to what degree this particular franchise has been rebooted; are Abnett ad Lanning doing a do-over of their series, or picking up where it left off? Because Shelley’s mysterious past was the major focus of the that previous volume.


THE SHADE #1
Written by JAMES ROBINSON
Art by CULLY HAMNER
Cover by TONY HARRIS
...
On sale OCTOBER 12 • 1 of 12, 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T+
...
James Robinson returns to the world of his acclaimed STARMAN series with a new 12-issue series starring the antihero known as The Shade! An attack at the Starman museum kicks off a globe-hopping, centuries spanning quest that will irrevocably change The Shade’s life, and ultimately shed light on his true origin! Artist extraordinaire Cully Hamner (RED) kicks off the series, and upcoming issues will feature art by such luminaries as Darwyn Cooke, Javier Pulido, Jill Thompson, Frazer Irving and Gene Ha!

Wow, that's quite a list of "luminaries" contributing to this series. I'd be on the fence of it was just Hamner or Ha, but Cooke? Thompson? On mainstream DCU super-comics, even if only for an issue somewhere down the line? That's something to check out.


So I guess the idea with the new Harley Quinn costume is to allow for nip slip variant covers?


SUPERNATURAL #1
Written by BRIAN WOOD
Art by GRANT BOND
Cover by DUSTIN NGUYEN
On sale OCTOBER 5 • 1 of 6, 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
Acclaimed writer Brian Wood pens the latest comics epic based on the hit CW TV series Supernatural!
On an academic break while at Stanford, Sam Winchester visits the United Kingdom on what is meant to be a sleepy trip...but on his first day he meets the alluring “Emma of the isles,” and his visit gets a thousand percent less boring! “Caledonia” will be an unparalleled adventure in the SUPERNATURAL saga as the Winchesters travel to Scotland!


Wood? Bond? Nguyen? Seems like a lot of talent to waste on a tie-in to some goofy CW TV show. Aren't some of the producers from this goofy CW show writing Supergirl now...?


...

I...

...

Huh. I don't even know what to say to that. It's just.... Hm.


TINY TITANS #45
Written by ART BALTAZAR and FRANCO
Art and cover by ART BALTAZAR
On sale OCTOBER 19 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED E
You are invited to a special Batgirl issue featuring Cassandra, Stephanie, Flamebird and, of course, Barbara. Find out what happens to The Batcave when the girls take over! Bonus: Coach Lobo’s Secret Soccer team versus...The Birds of Prey?! GO-O-O-A-A-AL!

Still bummed that DC has decided to do away with current Batgirl Stephanie Brown and previous Batgirl Cassandra Cain in order to revert Oracle into Batgirl, like she was in the 60's, 70's and early '80s? As always, Art Baltazar, Franco and the Tiny Titans are there to apply balm to the hurt that DCU inflicts upon its fans.

This issue boasts a "Batgirl Inc." cover, and promises a whole bunch of Batgirls. I don't remember seeing a Stephanie Batgirl or Tiny Spoiler in the Tiny Titans-iverse before; I think she appeared as a Robin in the All-Robin issue, though. That's how little I care for the character, I guess—I don't even remember her appearances in my favorite comic book. I'm really excited to see more of Tiny Cassandra, though. She's one of my favorite Tiny Titans.


WONDER WOMAN #2
Written by BRIAN AZZARELLO
Art and cover by CLIFF CHIANG
On sale OCTOBER 19 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
Hera, Queen of the Gods, does not take her vengeance lightly – and if Wonder Woman is so foolish as to stand in the way of her whim, then Wonder Woman is her enemy. But it’s Hera’s daughter Diana should truly fear – the goddess of discord is coming to Paradise Island, and murder always follows in her wake!

So, the solicitation refers to the goddess of discord coming to Paradise Island, and that murder always follows her. And the cover shows a bunch of dead Amazons in a pond of blood.

That should be a dramatic scene, right?

And yet the Amazon people have been slaughtered in such great numbers on so many different occasions—generally once a run, it seems—that I've honestly lost count of how many times I've seen them being slain en masse.

I imagine—hope—the cover isn't meant to be literal at all though, because I'd really hate to see this promising creative team doing the same old stories the last half-dozen did.


DC will continue to reprint the very best Wonder Woman run of all time in their Chronicles reprint program, meanwhile.

I can't wait to see the upcoming Captain America movie

Especially the the snowboarding scene, which the existence of this toy seems to promise is in the film. And the toy comes with a rocket launcher! Is World War II-era Captain America going to shoot a rocket launcher while snowboarding in the European Theater?!

If so, Captain America: First Avenger is going to be a much more extremely extreme movie than I could have imagined.

*********************

And on the subject of toys based on this year's superhero movies, for the few readers of EDILW who also buy me Christmas presents, either of the below would make lovely gifts:

Comic shop comics: June 29-July 6

Empowered Special #2 (Dark Horse Comics) This comic book special, featuring a story entitled “Ten Questions for the Maidman,” spins out of Adam Warren’s series of original graphic novels, presumably simply to remind the market that Empowered still exists and is one of the best superhero comics existant, while we await the release of the seventh volume (And it’s gonna be a bit of a wait yet; according to an ad in the back of this special, it’s not due to drop until spring of next year.)

Adam Warren writes the whole shebang, but only draws one of the two narrative threads. He handles the bits featuring Emp, in her ongoing efforts to exploit the feared name of Maidman (Who is essentially just Batman, if Batman dressed as a sexy French maid instead of as a giant bat), while the coincidentally surnamed artist Emily Warren draws the bits during which Maidman grants a television interview to Blitzcraig of the Superstrong Words show (These are in color).

Adam Warren’s plotting is as clever and fun as always, and this is a rather effective way to tell an Empowered story that relates to the main character without seeming completely integral to her ongoing developments or conflicts. That is, it’ s more of a Maidman story than an Empowered one, although of course his story instersects with hers.

While the story serves as both an incredibly well-made expression of superhero comedy, action and genre and a parody of the conventions of the genre, I suspect it will resonate most strongly with a certain type of fan…the fan who tends to think about superheroes and superhero comics a lot, and reads and writes about them on the Internet.

Warren’s dialogue echoes all sorts of Internet discussions, from the rather obscure (Whether the word “Janissary” has positive or negative connoatations, which came up regarding this “Planet DC” character) to more fundamental questions, about the non-traditional sexual questions heroes like Batman suggest or why characters like Power Girl and Supergirl are always showing so much skin when they’re supposed to be fighting crime (It’s actually pretty amazing how Warren can take something Power Girl might say in her book and then stick it in Maidman’s dialogue bubble, and completely change the meaning of it, simply by him being a man who’s always flashing his panties from beneath his super-short skirt.

Here's a pretty typical exchange: Batman: One step removed from being a furry.

Oh, it may also be worth noting that this comic is a little shorter than most—it's only nine-inches high instead of ten-inches high. It doesn’t effect the story in any negative way, as Warren’s Empowered ogns share those dimensions, but it looks a lot smaller in a stack with a bunch of DCs and Marvels. Reading through it, I wondered how the market would react if the Big Two switched to this format as a possible money-saving move (if a few inches less paper equals more savings in printing costs).

Certainly some comics need bigger vistas, but, say, any of those boring people talking for 14-20 pages books that Marvel likes to publish, usually with Bendis’ name attached. Those would read about the same in this format, and I don’t think anyone would miss that extra inch of background-less black space behind the talking heads, you know?


15-Love #2 (Marvel Entertainment) I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that I was one of only 15 people in North America who purachsed this issue from a comic shop. It’s…fine, but the major incentive for reading it—curiousity—was sated by the first issue. Still the best teen tennis melodrama in mighty Marvel manner on the stands but, um, you know how many teen tennis melodram’s Marvel publishes in their mighty manner….


Flashpoint #3 (DC Comics*) This is quite well-drawn and has an action-packed plot with lots of color, familiar characters—it’s pretty much what you want from your average superhero comic, and the fact that it stands out as particularly good probably says more about the story state of modern superhero comics than it does about it’s quality.

A few random points, if you’ll indulge me.

1.) First, this issue, like the first two, is $3.99. It has 26 story pages in it. The previous issue had only 22 story pages, and the first issue was pages. That’s kind of strange, isn’t it? Not that I’m complaining that this issue is longer than the last one, of course.

2.) This issue opens with a scene that didn’t really make sense to me. The President of the United States of America, who Kubert draws to resemble Barck Obama instead of whatever generic made-up guy is currently president of the DCU’s USA, “relieving Cyborg of duty” because he failed to get Batman and the other superheroes on board to beat up Evil Aquaman and Evil Wonder Woman.

When Cyborg points out that the regular U.S. military guys won’t stand a chance against the evil superheroes, Obama’s like, “Yeah, well, we gotta try. Thanks anyway Cyborg.”

Can’t Cyborg fight with the regular old U.S. troops…?

Beyond the headstratching logic, what really stood out in this scene for me was what the accidental politics of it might be. Did you guys see Colin “Too Busy Thinking About My Comics” Smith’s post about gender and race in Flashpoint and Fear Itself last week? (Both Blog@Newsarama and Robot 6 linked to it, so I’m assuming there’s a pretty good chance you did).

Smith points out that while Cyborg seemingly has a plum role in the world of Flashpoint, as its Superman, the story is constructe to constantlyr emind us that the world is a fallen one, where things are wrong, and the thrust of the series is that the heroes must put the world back together so that it’s the way it should be, again, the right way.

That is, so that Cyborg’s back to being a B- or C-Lister who’s best days are behind him, and who is usually relegated to babysitting the new generation of Teen Titans, if doing anything at all. (I know that Geoff Johns himself doesn’t think that, based on the many times he’s written the character, and the many different ways he’s tried to cram him in whenever possible, due to what seems like genuine affection, but that’s what the story he’s currently writing suggests).

Anyway, given the reading of Flashpoint as a fallen world, what does that say about the fact that Obama is president in the Flashpoint DCU, but not the “real” DCU…?

3.) Can you you think of a single test pilot in the real world? No, me neither. How about a pilot of any kind? The guy who landed the plane in the Hudson maybe? What was it? Sullivan? Sully?

Anyway, weird to see Hal Jordan getting that kind of ink in a newspaper, and the editors of that paper to trust their readers to know who “controversial test pilot is” by his designation as such, and maybe his photo.

Also, look at the size of that headline! It sure looks and sounds like a puff piece business feature, but it’s above the fold, on the front page, part of a two-article, two-photo package!

Also weird that he's so well known that this Batman, who isn't friends with Hal Jordan the way that the "real" Batman was friends with Hal Jordan in the normal DCU, knows him so well he knows his nickname.

4.) I like the fact that Flashpoint Batman purrs.

5.) There are four pages of sketches in the back of this issue, which reveal the names of a few characters who appear in a single panel of the comic, but aren’t otherwise introduced. That’s kind of weird.

One of them is apparently “Mrs. Hyde,” and she dresses an awful lot like Marvel’s Mr. Hyde.

6.) Look, in the world of Flashpoint, The Planet building has a little moon around its planet!


Flashpoint: Batman Knight of Vengeance #2 (DC) The good Flashpoint miniseries continues to be good. In this issue we get to see the Oracle, the Selina Kyle, the Harvey Bullock and the Renee Montoya of the world of Flashpoint, and both Gordon and Batman close in on The Joker.

Props to Azzarello or Geoff Johns or whoever came up with the identity of The Joker—it was indeed a shocking surprise, and not the shocking surprise I expected (which, in retrospect, was probably too obvious). And props to both Azzarello and Eduardo Risso for not exactly hiding the character’s identity; there’s at least one good hint in the first issue, and a few solid ones in this issue before that crazy last page.

Joker’s trick on Gordon was exceedingly cruel and soul-crushing, but it was so close to one the movie Joker pulled in Dark Knight, that it made me feel uncomfortable. That is, in-story it seems fiendishly clever, but, from outside the comic, it seems like this Joker got the idea from watching Dark Knight, you know?


Flashpoint: The Canterbury Cricket #1 (DC) This was one of the Flashpoint tie-ins I was most looking forward to, in large part because of the presence of one of my personal favorite artists, Rags Morales, but also because of the sheer odness of the endeavor—the character is really, really weird looking, and the place-theme and insect-theme marriage is appealingly off-beat.

Writer Mike Carlin, Morales and inker Rick Bryant have the title character intervene to rescue Godiva, Etrigan and new characters Mrs. Hyde and Wicked Jenny Greenteeth from a band of Amazons (Woah, woah, woah, wait—is the Flashpoint Etrigan a big sissy or something? Because the DCU Etrigan should be able to handle most of the population of Paradise Island all by himself; it was really weird seeing him running away from a dozen ladies with machine guns and armor.)

They happen to be on the road to Cantebury, so the Cricket proposes they tell one another stories to pass the time (Like in Cantebury Tales, get it?). He relates his origin story, and then the book ends, because it’s only a one-shot.

So this is basically an origin story told in flashback between two fight scenes.

Carlin (or whoever actually created the character) sort of piles on the Canebury-ness and the cricket-ness—he can jump like a cricket, make sonic attacks, play music with his legs, is lucky and his origin involves Saint Swithin and the Cantebury Catherdal—but if it’s at all sloppy, it’s sloppy in a charming, excessive sort of way that recalls superhero comics at their random, rushed, inspired best.

His bizarre appearance is particularly so, given the Man-Thing-sized trunk he has. There’s an actual cricket present during his origin, and it looks like the regular, trunk-less cricket faces your probably familiar with from every cricket or picture of one you’ve seen. I even spent some time googling crickets, and I can’t find any images of close-ups with faces like that.

Not that it matters much, of course, I’m just curious about where that face came from.

As far as Morales’ art is concerned, this is hardly his best work, and either because of Ryant’s winks or Nei Ruffino’s colors or the night-time, mostly fire-lit scenes, a lot of it seemed dark and difficult to read. It’s still good art, but not his best.

I’m not sure what happens at the end of Flashpoint, but given what we know about what happens after the conclusion, I have to assume that when Barry Allen and his companions restore the state of the DCU, they end up putting together a DCU that is close enough, but has many, many changes.

I’m assuming, of course, that Flashpoint provides an in-story reason for the latest continuitiversal reboot, as all the previous reboots have had, which will at least give a fig-leaf of continuity between the old DCU and the new DCU, since the changing of it is itself part of continuity.

That’s just a guess, of course, but there definitely seem to be hints of what will follow in some of these Flashpoint stories, including Frankensteins teaming up with the Creature Commandos, or Cyborg being an A-List hero, or Shade The Changing Man leading a team of super-magicians and so on.

Hopefully one of those changes will be that The Canterbury Cricket survives in the new DCU that’s coming.


Flashpoint: Lois Lane and The Resistance #1 (DC) Well this sure turned out a lot worse than I could have guessed.

In theory, Lois Lane is one of the most potentially interesting characters in DC’s massive library, and that cover looks pretty bad-ass. The writing team of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have been MIA from the DCU for a while, but they’re consummate professionals and know their stuff. Pencil artist Eddie Nunez is a new name, but as I mentioned previously, the still images on his DeviantArt page all seemed pretty good.

I think Tucker Stone, who I’m linking to for the first of two times in this single column, effectively illustrates much of what’s wrong with the book by simply scanning and sharing a terrible two-page sequence from it, but I’m going to go through the motions here anyway.

In the world of Flashpoint, Lois Lane is kind of where she was in the Silver Age, wanting to be a serious reporter covering serious reporter shit, but stuck doing “girl’ stuff like covering fashion week.

On the very first page, we see a woman with ridiouslously large breasts and a linebacker back talking about Fashion Week, and because she’s a brunette, she could easily be Lois Lane, and when I saw that panel I honest-to-God said, “Oh please don’t be Lois Lane…!”

Well, it’s not, but Losis’ breasts are just as gigantic and her dress just as hideous!This is what they’re wearing at Fashion Week in the Flashpoint-ed DCU? Jeez, Reverse-Flash sure did a number on the DCU, then.

Lois gets caught in the middle of the Aquaman/Wonder Woman war that destroys much of Europe, and, because she’s a woman, she gets abducted and forced into Amazonhood. While there, she’s secretly spying for Cyborg.

Abnett and Lanning decided to tell most of the story of this first issue during a montage narrated by clips from her reports to Cyborg, which is a pretty strange way to go about telling the first issue of a three-part miniseries. The entire middle section reads like a summary of a few issues that Abnett and Lanning would have written if this were an eight-issue series.

I kind of like Nunez’s character design and figure drawing, although the clothing and fashion throughout is sadly wanting, something that’s only underscored by the fact that it’s set in part during Fashion Week, and the strange giant breast, hips and thighs anatomy of his female characters that looks fine in pin-ups looks bizarre here, where every woman looks the same, and the story is at least in part about militant warrior women and their all-female, man-hating society.

Oh, and none of the characters from the cover, save Lois Lane herself, are actually in the book, so the mystery of who that bug-guy on the cover is—Canterbury Cricket? Hellgramite?—remains.


Flashpoint: Project Superman #1 (DC) I really rather regret this purchase, which I made on the strength of the creative team—co-plot by American Vampire’s Scott Snyder, scripting from a guy who wrote one of those cool Mouse Guard short stories, art by Gene Ha.

This week’s Project Superman book gave us a pretty good look at the Project, but this entire issue seems set mostly before anything that occurred there, and the lead character isn’t the Flashpoint Superman, but someone named Sinclair, who I kept wondering if I was supposed to recognize or not.

He narrates his 30-year path from an army ranger volunteering for a super-soldier program to getting a bunch of super-powers to becoming divorced from humanity and becoming a sort of wicked, omnipotent Superman of the sort you’ve probably read about in a dozen or so other comics (Most recently for me was the far superior A God Somewhere).

It ends with Superman’s rocket and an attendant meteor shower crashing into Metropolis.


Flashpoint: Secret Seven #2 (DC) Well, that’s kind of wrong.

This issue was solicited as the work of writer Peter Milligan and artist George Perez, a fact that dccomics.com was still saying as late as 9 p.m. on Saturday, July 16th:

Written by PETER MILLIGAN; Art by GEORGE PEREZ and SCOTT KOBLISH; Cover by GEORGE PEREZ
FLASH QUESTION: Who killed the first Seven? And can Amethyst stop them from killing the new Secret Seven?

Perez’s art isn’t the whole reason I pre-ordered the issue through my local comic shop, but it sure was a big part of the reason, and it was certainly the thing I enjoyed most about the first issue.

Well, this issue is Perez-less, after the cover—Fernando Blanco provides lay-outs, and Scott Koblish provides finishes, and it looks pretty bad, like one artist attempt to imitate the work of another. It looks even wors if you were expecting Perez.

The story is about Shade The Changing Man using his powers to summon Amethyst, who is here a blond lady with huge breasts, to join him and his new lover, June Moon, a blonde lady with huge breasts. The Flahspoint versions of Raven and Zatanna cameo, and we get a few scenes featuring Flashpoint’s Abra Kadabra, who that is on the cover.

I repeat that is not Extrano, but simply Flash villain Abra Kadabra, on the cover.

Dissapointment #2, for this issue.

Dccomics.com is saying that the third and final issue of the series will be drawn by Blanco and Koblish, so, I don’t know, maybe there won’t be any art at all next issue…?


Reed Gunther #1 (Image Comics) Shane and Chris Houghton’s title character is a cowboy, with one important difference from other cowboys—instead of riding a horse, he rides a grizzly bear.

That’s pretty cool, right?

So’s this comic. A done-in-one, all-ages adventure, it finds Reed and his mount/partner Sterling stumbling across a pretty rancher with a problem—her cattle refuse to move under any circumstances, and they are constantly being gobbled up by a giant rattle snake.

So, to recape: This is a comic book about a cowboy, a grizzly bear and a rancher fighting a giant rattlesnake.

Artist Chris Houghton’s work is charming, boasting a nice balance between representational and cartoonish, and he gets a lot of emotion out of the faces of the various animal characters. There’s also a great pin-up from Guy Davis, that manages to kinda sorta retell the whole story in a single image.

I’d definitely recommend this to anyone look for a fun, funny comical book.


Superman #712 (DC) This is the semi-famous “lost issue” from Kurt Busiek’s run on the Super- titles, a very good run on the books which seems even better in retrospect, given what has followed (flirtation with a return to triangle numbeirng and Superman-less Superman books, with James Robinson doing the heavy lifting, and J. Michael Straczynki’s controversial Superman walking direction, which the writer himself abandoned).

Because DC scuttled the issue—a solicited but never released story abour Krypto the Super-Dog dealing with the loss of Superboy during 2006’s Infinite Crisis—it was popularly assumed to be too controversial to print, with the most common reading from observers being that it had something to do with the lawsuit regarding ownership of various aspects of the Superman franchise.

Because of all that, and because DC sat on it for several years, I think it built up a set of expectations that would inevitably not be met—particularly if it wasn’t in the least bit controversial.

And it isn’t. Having now read it, if I had to guess why DC decided not to release it when it was originally solicited, I would guess that it was a fairly mundane reason, along the lines of someone in the hierarchy thought no one would be interested in reading a book starring Krypto or that the story is apparently set during the “One Year Later” gap, and would have been a story set in the recent past flashing back further into the past, and they felt it lacked immediacy and import. Or maybe they thought it would be better to make sure Superman is in every issue of a book entitled Superman. (Now, how any of these guesses square with the fact that they solicited the book, and, years later decided to go ahead and release it, or their decisions later to publish a whole line of Superman-less Superman books, I don’t know; DC makes a lot of weird decisions that don’t always seem consistent with the the decisions that precede or follow them).

As to why DC decided to dust this off and print it now, years later, when any of their reservations about printint it originally are only greatly compounded, well, naturally they didn’t say. Comics Alliance’s Chris Sims discussed that question at great length, and while the answers he comes up with are pretty depressing, they make the most sense of anything offered by anyone anywhere else. (Update: Here's more from Sims on that)

Personally, I hope that Tucker Stone’s theory is what actually happened, although it kind of makes you wonder where that grown-up was for the last, I don’t know, ten years…?

At any rate, I’m glad I finally got to see this issue, as I was one of the (perhaps few) people really looking forward to an issue of Superman starring Krypto the Super-Dog.

Unfortunately, it’s not very good, which I actually feel sort of bad saying, as I really like the work of the writer, I really like the work of the artists and I really like Krypto the Super-Dog. (Hell, I smile every time I type out “Krypto the Super-Dog”).

The major problem is simply the timing. This is a comic set around events in other comics from five years ago, and while I read those comics, a lot of them weren’t really all that good the first time around, some of them were confusing and not terribly memorable. (That, or I have a bad memory, I suppose). Also, this is told from Krypto’s perspective, so there are no words involved with the scenes flashed back to; the past events are presented as purely visual to the reader.

It doesn’t help either that the emotional, dramatic thrust of the story—that Krypto misses his master and playmate Superboy, who has died—is sort of undercut by the fact that the reader is well aware of the fact that Superboy has been returned to life, and reunited with Krypto, years ago.

The story open with Superboy and Krypto playing Frisbee, and text box containing the following “Editor’s Note”:

Sorry for the “Grounded” delay, but in the meantime, please enjoy this lost classic, set shortly after Superboy died in Infinite Crisis and Superman went missing.”

Soon we see Krypto laying on the porch of the Kent farmhouse for days, refusing to move or even eat. At this point, I was anticipating a superhero version of the Hachiko story, but in short order Krypto sniffs the air, and flies off on Superboy’s trail.

He pauses at various points of Superboy’s then-recent life to sniff, and, when he does, the reader is shown a black and white image of the scene Krypto’s smelling—Superboy and Wonder Girl doing it in the hay loft, Superboy and Nightwing journeying to the climax of Infinite Crisis, et cetera. When he finally smells the dired blood at the spot Conner died, he lets loose a five-page howl and goes looking for Superman. Unable to find him—I guess Superman’s smell changed when he lost his powers at the end of IC—Krypto leaves Earth.

Published sometime closer to 52 or the “One Year Later” jump, it would no doubt have been a more enjoyable story. Now it just seems sort of weird and perplexing.

Leonardi’s artwork, penciled by Janthan Sibal, is effective, although his take on Krypto is a longer, thinner, bigger one than we usually see. It was nevertheless neat to see scene originally drawn by Phil Jimenez and other artists reinterpreted in Leonardi’s style—at least fun in a different-people-drawing-the-same-thing way, which is something I always enjoy seeing.



*For those hanging on my every word, you may recall my asking if I should refer to DC as “DC Comics” or “DC Entertainment” in certain contexts when discussing that retailer FAQ “The New 52 and You.” The language in that FAQ was pretty forceful in its assertion that DC Comics was the old company, and DC Entertainment is the new DC Comics. But the fine print in these things still reads “DC Comics” repeatedly, so I’m gonna stick with that until they change their masthead and fine print.