Your Moment of Funny

OK, just two more

Pick the Best Caption

Oh Boy - Oh DC

Alright, one quick post on current matters:

1) A while back, Tom wanted me to comment on Doom Patrol's cancellation. In light of recent news, that may not be such an issue. And I'm sorry Tom, but I've never really gotten into the Patrol, so I probably couldn't do the subject justice.

2) Hey Kids! Comics! (Seriously, NSFW or good taste)- I debated making a poster of this, but I decided that I'd rather not have to explain why I made something this bad to anyone I knew. Read into that what you will.

3) OK, the DC reboot/relaunch/revamp thing. This actually breaks down into several smaller issues to me:

a) Retconning/eliminating the Lois and Clark Marriage - Most of you whom have been here before can guess that I wasn't too thrilled. I've never understood the appeal of the Wonder Woman/Superman ship - it's always seemed demeaning to both characters, and I care even less about Lana Lang (Smallville put a spike in that one for all time, thanks), or Lori Lemaris or the rest. That said, the possible upshot of all this is that unlike that...other retcon, this one isn't backed by an ironclad promise to never undo it - so I can see a possible "reimagining" of the Lois/Clark romance in a couple years, including a possible story arc for her discovering his dual identity in a way that doesn't make her seem a bit clueless. So long as it's not played for "Silver Age Laffs", because who wants that? I'm willing to wait a bit.

b) Digital stuff - I do not own an Ipad or Iphone or have access to any of these newfangled formats, so I'm not qualified to speak on the issue - I hope it works out as a way to promote a larger comics readership, because that's necessary at this point. But I'm a print guy who wants to buy trades, and I'll stay that way for the immediate future. I do fear for many retailers who will get hurt by this, but unfortunately, the retailers couldn't find a way to collectively change the market, so the companies are trying this.

c) Nothing will change if nothing changes - putting up a bunch of new #1s and putting it all digitally won't mean anything if you're still paying $18 over 6-8 months for a single story, especially the way storytelling trends at DC have been for the past few years. New titles are nice, but using new opportunities to tell better stories is what's key here - branding can only take you so far.

So, do I think it'll work? No clue. It really depends on whether or not this is a genuine attempt to broaden their horizons or a new coat of paint along with crossing off some of the bullpen's wishlist. However, I'm extremely skeptical.

Smallville Finale review Part 4 - OK, I'm done now

Just a couple of final images to leave you on.

Smallville Finale review Part 3 - Observations

Just a few things that bear further consideration:





1) With The Cape, No Ordinary Family, Heroes, etc all cast to the wind, seems like there's going to be a niche to be filled for superhero genre TV. It'll will be interesting to see what springs up there. The fact that Smallville had the longest lifespan of any superhero genre TV says something about the market for the Superman Icongraphy.

2) In fact, if you lump in cartoons, Superman has spent a lot of time on TV the last quarter century:

Superman (Animated Series, 1988)

Superboy (TV series, 1988-1992)

Lois & Clark: the New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997)
Superman: the Animated Series (1996-2000) which lead into the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited Animated Series (2000-2006).

Superman and the Legion of Superheroes (2006-2008)

Smallville (2001-2011)


While Batman's probably going to edge him out (strictly in animation though), that's a long time for any franchise to consistently be on TV that isn't Law & Order.

3) One of the things I'm glad that most modern retellings of the Superman Mythos is doing away with is the idea of the Superman/Lois/Clark false triangle thing. It's probably one of the biggest holdbacks of the franchise, as seen in things like Superman Returns. Maybe it's time to face the fact that while a secret identity can work for Superman, the idea that he hides it from the person he cares about most is far less palatable to the general audience. It'll be interesting to see if this lesson is incorporated into any other Superman projects.

Smallville Finale review Part 2 - Fandom Clash

Perhaps the most interesting thing I've found about the Smallville finale is the reactions I've seen online, and the intersection and interactions between comics fandom and Smallville fandom.


Comics fandom, in general, was pretty dismissive of the finale, and Smallville in general. While neither the worst nor best of these types of fan reactions, I think the Smallvillains series by Chris Sims and David Uzumeri is a pretty typical benchmark for these types of things. And I have a couple things to say about what I saw both in the review and the comments.

First, a few commenters responded to reviews with "Well, you should review past seasons to get the whole context."

Where have we heard that before?

Congrats "Smallville" fans - you are now using a long-held fan-complaint normally used by science fiction, comic and fantasy fans.

And to Comics fans - do you see how poorly that argument works when you're the ones judging it? Think about that for a while.

And from comic fans, the complaint is some variation of "It's sad that Smallville is what people are going to think think of when they think of Superman in a modern context."

Do yourself a quick favor, do a google image search on "Crying Superman" see roughly what percentage of those image are from the era of 2001-2011.

Yeah.

The modern era of Superman comics (All-Star Superman notwithstanding) has been extremely uneven at best, and prone to many of the same problems comics fans complain about the show for.

So, currently, we've got Chris Roberson working incredibly hard to redeem J. Michael Stracyznski's "Grounded" story arc. He's doing a decent job, but he's also filling it to the brim with in-jokes and nods to a lot of heavy continuity to get that geek buzz going. Paul Cornell is fairing slightly better, if for no other reason he's mostly sticking to his own story, not filling in on someone else's notes. However, the accessibility problem is much the same, particularly if you don't care about who Vandal Savage and Secret Six and other "guest stars" are. But at least it's adaptable to other media.

Before this, there was "New Krypton", which will probably go down as the Superman equivalent of "the Clone Saga" in terms of creative failure. I found it funny at the time, because this was taking place at roughly the same time as Smallville Season 9 was also dealing with Kandorians on Earth. I feel confident in my opinion that Smallville did a better job.

Before that you had Johns on Action Comics, doing a bunch of "cinematic" story arcs, with Brainiac, the Legion of Superheroes, etc. These were entertaining comics, and probably some of the best (and most restrained) work Johns has ever done, but hardly world breaking. Pleasantly competent. And again, I have a hard time imagining most of Johns' work adapting to other media (Brainiac, perhaps, or the Legion as an animated DVD). On the other side, you had Kurt Busiek's aborted run. I'm actually not going to judge that too harshly, because you can tell that Kurt Busiek was gearing up for a multi-year long series of arcs, and we only ever really saw the first act of it. It might have even been great, but unfortunately, someone at DC Editorial felt otherwise. Busiek and Johns got things off to a really good start with the "One Year Later" story they did together - that was surprisingly competent and accessible.


Which they kind of had to do given the long brutal slog of terrible, godawful Superman comics that came out during the years leading up to "Infinite Crisis". Anyone remember Ruin? The Brian Azzarello/Jim Lee arc? Chuck Austen? Seagle's story arc in Superman? Outside of Gail Simone, it was a dark, dark time.

And before that, you had the era of Jeph Loeb; master of the dumb but occasionally fun story. His books didn't make a lot of sense, but they were popcorn when they wanted to be.

In conclusion, if comic fans want good Superman stories, maybe we should all focus on making sure there are good ones in the comics worth adapting? Just a thought.

Smallville Finale review Part 1 - In short

Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this, it's been a long time coming, but Real Life concerns took me away from serious blogging. Also, I wanted to make quite a few posters, and to break up my commentary, so expect more in the coming days.

And away we go.

(NOTE: I apologize but several of the videos I could not embed, so you will have to click on the links).

My thoughts in brief on the finale: While not nearly as awesome as this

It's not nearly as bad as THIS

So overall, it's about the same as THIS. Which is to say, the bog standard for Superman TV. Which was about what I was expecting, and what just about anyone should have expected out of this franchise.

More on this next post

What If we lived in a comic book universe? Part 105

Your Moment of Funny

Ah, good old reliable Deadpool.....

Rare Non-Comics Post!

Newest poster and linkblogging

Check out Johanna Draper Carlson's latest Marvel reviews if you want to see how the "big name comic companies" are shedding their readership. It's quite something to behold really. I've always seen Johanna as one of the most even-handed reviewers out there, and if she's this...well, this brutal in her takedowns, then people, you should pay attention.

Also, you should really check out The Hero Business. It's a smart little webcomic I'm following these days and I recommend it. The latest strip, dealing with the "rebranding" of a classic-style hero, also does it's fair share of pointing out the shortcomings of the modern superhero comic genre.

Random bits

Just to keep you interested for now. More is coming, I promise. Been working on some new batches of posters just for you!

What If we lived in a comic book universe? Part 104

Wow. It's been a month. Sorry about that. Getting a few things sorted out, should have some real posts soon.

In the meantime, enjoy these.

And of course, if you have any requests, put them in the comments.

What If we lived in a comic book universe? Part 103

Your Moment of Funny

Smallville - Oy

OK, so before Smallville starts up again for the last time, I think it's only fair that I put up some posters and beat "Smallvillians" to the punch on these jokes: Yeah, not that introducing the glasses is a bad idea, it's just that it should have been done about, oh, 5 years earlier. It's also going to require some effort to distinguish between the two identities, which quite frankly, may be well beyond Welling's range here.

I utterly despise this jacket. Nevermind that I have no idea where the blue blazes Clark got it from (or he put it together himself...somehow), but it looks ...well, silly. How silly? I think the Black get-up is better.

OK, this? This actually looks like a really faithful version of Booster Gold's costume, and actually manages to highlight what makes the character unique.

I just think this is a funny punchline. Sue me.

Not that I don't think you can come up with a good Blue Beetle costume, but I don't think you can do it on Smallville's budget. I submit this evidence as proof.

You know I speak the truth here.

Pick the best caption!

Going to be low content until May. Sorry about that. Enjoy the pretty pictures until then.

The April Gamer post