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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 3:36 pm 
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Hanzo gave me some comic-books. Now he thinks he is entitled to hear my opinion of them, just because he was kind enough to give me several pounds worth of reading entertainment entirely for free, and even paid the shipping costs. What a greedy asshole.

Anyway, here is the thread where I will post my thoughts.

First up:

NEW FRONTIER
First of all: These TPBs do not contain the sweet bonus content that the new collection contains. What a gyp. Once again, Hanzo has ripped me off.

I had never read the "New Frontier," the premise of which is to put the Silver Age of the DC Universe back into the context of the actual era, the late 1950s, but with the perspective of hindsight. As Levitz says in the intro, the perspective of time allows Darwyn Cooke to align the DCU with the reality of 1950s America in a more deliberate, unified way that wouldn't have been possible at the time. The 1950s didn't "mean" the same thing when it was the present. It was just reality. Now there are a lot of big ideas about America that are bound up in that time period, and that's what Cooke is able to highlight.

Now let's not ignore the elephant in the room: Cooke clearly wrote this comic for Li'l Jay, with his talk about the space-age/space-race stuff lining up with the emergence of Silver Age heroes, and all that zeitgeisty stuff. Hal Jordan's Green Lantern looms large in Jay's theory, being both a Silver Age superhero, a space-age pilot, and an all-around American hero. Not at all coincidentally, Hal Jordan is a major figure in this story that follows all the major DC heroes around. I'm not sure any one other hero gets more screen-time than Hal, and Hal is the only one whose origin-story is a major part of the narrative. (With the other heroes, the origins either have already happened or they happen off-panel.) I had a hard time not thinking about Li'l Jay while reading this, which of course severely hindered my enjoyment of it.

Even though it's an "Elseworlds," I thought this was one of the best "Universe" crossovers I've ever read, from either of the Big Two. Usually these kind of "every single superhero teams up" type of crossovers are bloated and unwieldy, but "New Frontier" is very tight and streamlined. Granted, part of it is that he just assumes we all know who everybody is and doesn't waste much time on explanations (except at the very start, when he's laying out some exposition about the end of the Golden Age). Granted, the lack of background info makes this not the greatest series for someone unfamiliar with the DCU. I know a decent amount, but there were definitely some characters that didn't make an impression because I wasn't quite clear on who they were. I don't know a Blackhawk from a Challenger of the Unknown to save my life, and I am happy to keep it that way, frankly.

So despite the clean, clear storytelling that Cooke does so perfectly, the book is not exactly entry-level. It's better to already know who the Flash and Iris West are; who John Jones is; etc. But as long as you've got a decent grounding in it all, this is certainly a great use of the DCU in all its glory.

It's funny that DC has had so many failed reboots and misfiring origin stories across all media, and here is a ten-year-old graphic novel that lays out a template for how to do all that stuff right. It's "All-Star Justice League" basically. I realize that the period aspects of the comic are a big part of what makes it work thematically, but just the basic plotline is canny enough that you could re-set it in the present and you'd have a perfectly decent plot-line for a modern-day "Justice League" film, one that is better than what we all know is coming down the pike from the Snyderverse.

It's too bad that Rafael doesn't believe in ever doing period superhero stories, because if he did he would probably like this comic.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 3:56 pm 
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Next up: MAN OF STEEL #1

I thought about waiting until I'd read all six issues, but ... I read the first issue between calls at work, and now I am on lunchbreak, so I might as well take the time to type up my thoughts.

Remember when John Byrne did an Elseworlds comic in which Superman and Batman debuted in the actual 1930s when they really debuted in real life, and then he followed them up through the "generations"? It was called "Generations." And then remember when DC cancelled "Generations" after two sequels because it sucked, and then later they announced the premise for Darwyn Cooke's "New Frontier," which had all the Silver Age DC heroes debuting in the actual 1950s, and Byrne said, "Oh, I thought they weren't doing Elseworlds stories anymore," and also said that the premise was "Generations Lite," because he is both bitter and also intellectually stunted in some way, and also no doubt suffers from an undiagnosed personality disorder?

Anyway, point is, "Man of Steel" is not Generations, but since Byrne decided to jokingly compare New Frontier to Generations and then jokingly imply that Generations was way, way better ... I just wanted to mention that when you read MAN OF STEEL #1 right after reading NEW FRONTIER ... wow, does Byrne's comic suffer in comparison. As the vibrancy and clarity and charm of writer/artist Darwyn Cooke circa 2004 gives way to the stilted exposition of writer/artist John Byrne circa 1986, at least one truth becomes clear: The old stuff definitely is not better.

Byrne also once ripped Peter David for the latter's Spider-Man 2099, the first issue of which didn't feature the lead character in costume. Peter David pointed out that in fact, the character is in costume for the first 7 pages of a 22-page story, but Byrne said that was not enough for him as he skimmed the issue in the store. I guess it's far preferable to go the MAN OF STEEL #1 route, in which Superman only appears in costume once in 32 pages ... the very last page. (And it's a great last page, to be fair.)

Leading up to that great final moment is 31 pages of illustrated exposition. It's rather amazing. I guess we can forgive the first 8 pages set on Krypton, as Byrne's stated intention was to re-cast Krypton as a sterile, loveless place that "deserved to be blown up." He succeeds there, and I like the way he explains the "origin of Kryptonite." I don't even mind the "birthing matrix" idea. It is weird, but it does fit in with the whole "sterile, loveless Krypton" idea.

From there we jump to 18-year-old football hero Clark, and pages upon pages of exposition from Pa Kent on how he and Martha found the ship, how they explained where Clark came from (they claim he is their biological child), what it's been like raising him for the past 18 years, etc. It is very ... expository. (Clark actually says at one point: "Why are you telling me all this now, pa? Most of it I already know.") I like that after Pa tells Clark about episodes from Clark's childhood ("then you befriended Lana Lang," "then you discovered you had super-strength," "then you discovered you can fly"), Byrne also feels the need to exposit for the reader that Clark indeed already knows about these things that happened to him, because he was there, in fact it was HIM that the things happened to!

Then 18-year-old Clark goes off to help the world anonymously. He does this for seven years, the last three of which he spends mostly in Metropolis, using that city as his "home base." One day, an impending plane crash forces Clark to be not-so-anonymous during his rescue. When the rescue is completed, Clark gets swarmed by people who "all want a piece of him." So Clark comes back to Smallville and wonders what to do.

This is when he and his parents concoct the "dual identity Clark/Superman" idea. More exposition ensues. More and more and more exposition ...

And at the core of this is a question I have: When Clark is swarmed by people after he rescues the plane, he is in civilian clothes, kind of a jumpsuit dealio. So he has this question of "How can I keep on saving people without getting swarmed by throngs of people" who all want something? His solution: A red, blue and yellow skintight suit. Errr ... huh? Why will a more ostentatious form of dress deter people from swarming him when he is out in the crowd? Isn't he asking for even MORE attention?

Somehow in 31 pages of explaining, Byrne fails to explain the largest question that he raises.

Oh well. I liked the artwork at least.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 4:01 pm 
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My favorite book of the bible?

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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 5:18 pm 
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Ocean Doot wrote:
Next up: MAN OF STEEL #1

Then 18-year-old Clark goes off to help the world anonymously. He does this for seven years, the last three of which he spends mostly in Metropolis, using that city as his "home base." One day, an impending plane crash forces Clark to be not-so-anonymous during his rescue. When the rescue is completed, Clark gets swarmed by people who "all want a piece of him." So Clark comes back to Smallville and wonders what to do.

If this were the cinematic MOS, Ma and Pa Kent would have told Clark, "Fuck 'em. You don't owe them anything."

Oh wait, they did.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 7:16 pm 
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Hanzo the Razor wrote:
My favorite book of the bible?

DOOTERONOMY

#amerite?

More than Hanzosis? Or even...Matthews?

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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 7:17 pm 
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Ocean Doot wrote:
Hanzo gave me some comic-books. Now he thinks he is entitled to hear my opinion of them, just because he was kind enough to give me several pounds worth of reading entertainment entirely for free, and even paid the shipping costs. What a greedy asshole.

Anyway, here is the thread where I will post my thoughts.

First up:

NEW FRONTIER
First of all: These TPBs do not contain the sweet bonus content that the new collection contains. What a gyp. Once again, Hanzo has ripped me off.

I had never read the "New Frontier," the premise of which is to put the Silver Age of the DC Universe back into the context of the actual era, the late 1950s, but with the perspective of hindsight. As Levitz says in the intro, the perspective of time allows Darwyn Cooke to align the DCU with the reality of 1950s America in a more deliberate, unified way that wouldn't have been possible at the time. The 1950s didn't "mean" the same thing when it was the present. It was just reality. Now there are a lot of big ideas about America that are bound up in that time period, and that's what Cooke is able to highlight.

Now let's not ignore the elephant in the room: Cooke clearly wrote this comic for Li'l Jay, with his talk about the space-age/space-race stuff lining up with the emergence of Silver Age heroes, and all that zeitgeisty stuff. Hal Jordan's Green Lantern looms large in Jay's theory, being both a Silver Age superhero, a space-age pilot, and an all-around American hero. Not at all coincidentally, Hal Jordan is a major figure in this story that follows all the major DC heroes around. I'm not sure any one other hero gets more screen-time than Hal, and Hal is the only one whose origin-story is a major part of the narrative. (With the other heroes, the origins either have already happened or they happen off-panel.) I had a hard time not thinking about Li'l Jay while reading this, which of course severely hindered my enjoyment of it.

Even though it's an "Elseworlds," I thought this was one of the best "Universe" crossovers I've ever read, from either of the Big Two. Usually these kind of "every single superhero teams up" type of crossovers are bloated and unwieldy, but "New Frontier" is very tight and streamlined. Granted, part of it is that he just assumes we all know who everybody is and doesn't waste much time on explanations (except at the very start, when he's laying out some exposition about the end of the Golden Age). Granted, the lack of background info makes this not the greatest series for someone unfamiliar with the DCU. I know a decent amount, but there were definitely some characters that didn't make an impression because I wasn't quite clear on who they were. I don't know a Blackhawk from a Challenger of the Unknown to save my life, and I am happy to keep it that way, frankly.

So despite the clean, clear storytelling that Cooke does so perfectly, the book is not exactly entry-level. It's better to already know who the Flash and Iris West are; who John Jones is; etc. But as long as you've got a decent grounding in it all, this is certainly a great use of the DCU in all its glory.

It's funny that DC has had so many failed reboots and misfiring origin stories across all media, and here is a ten-year-old graphic novel that lays out a template for how to do all that stuff right. It's "All-Star Justice League" basically. I realize that the period aspects of the comic are a big part of what makes it work thematically, but just the basic plotline is canny enough that you could re-set it in the present and you'd have a perfectly decent plot-line for a modern-day "Justice League" film, one that is better than what we all know is coming down the pike from the Snyderverse.

It's too bad that Rafael doesn't believe in ever doing period superhero stories, because if he did he would probably like this comic.

Not stories, just movies.

Did you get the chapter where Cooke does Batman v Superman RIGHT?

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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 7:23 pm 
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That wasn't in the TPBs.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2016 10:40 pm 
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Rub it in, assholes.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 12:14 am 
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This is much better than the Smallville thread.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 8:35 am 
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Rub it in my asshole.

No.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 10:57 am 
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Please? You already do so little for me.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 10:21 pm 
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MAN OF STEEL #2
I want to say, even though Byrne's dialogue sucks, I like a lot of his "revisionist" ideas for the origin. He's taken a lot of the iconic things and thought them through, and ends up delivering what might be the most relentlessly logical version of the origin that ever existed. Is that fair to say?

It's just that Man of Steel #1 is just 31 pages of "Look how clever and logical I have been in my approach to Superman's origin," and it's almost all showing and no telling.

I think Man of Steel #2 improves on this a bit. Byrne is a little more playful in this one, following the story of Lois Lane chasing down the "Superman exclusive." I imagine that with the Reeve movie having become so instantly iconic, the little twist at the end of this one -- that Clark scoops her -- was a nice surprise. I like it. And this is Byrne's "origin" for Lois kind of being cold towards Clark Kent, a bit of professional envy after he scooped her on what could have been her biggest story ever (at least in her mind).

I also like Byrne's unabashedly boy-scout-ish Superman, turning down the girl's boombox after he trusses up her mugger, because the music is a bit loud. Cute.

This is a Byrne I can get on board with.

MAN OF STEEL #3
And now we're back to annoying Byrne. His dialogue style more or less works for Superman, at least usually, but when he applies is style to Batman, he gives us one of the most irritating versions of the Dark Knight ever to grace the page. Adam West at his campiest never sounded as dorky as Byrne's Batman.

Also, the Magpie villain is silly, but I guess a lot of her trappings -- corny as they are -- fit with the usual "Batman villain" M.O. It's just that Batman's villains are mostly really awesome, and Magpie is kind of desperately lame. Somewhat deliberately so, I guess, but still. Was this the first post-Crisis team-up of Batman and Superman? I assume it must have been, as they are "meet" here. And who is the bad-ass villain that motivates the Caped Crusader to join forces with the Man of Steel? F*cking Magpie? Yeesh.

I guess the twist with Batman's bomb was clever though.

MAN OF STEEL #4
I wish Byrne had adopted first-person narrative captions for Superman in his reboot, instead of putting all this ridiculous exposition into thought bubbles. This is the issue that has that ridiculous shaving sequence, with Superman just thinking to himself, "And now to begin the rather elaborate process which I'm forced to undergo every time I need to shave," and also this grandeur-filled gem: "And just as a normal human's face is toughened by the use of a razor blade, my face is also getting more and more burn-resistant thanks to my daily application of heat-vision." (Or whatever it is. I dont have the comic in front of me, but it's pretty much that.)

The spoken dialogue is not too much better than the thought balloons. At Lex Luthor's soiree later in the issue, when Lex tells Lois that he wishes Perry White had joined her for the party, Lois says, "Perry hates you, Lex. You know that. And he'd *never* attend a party thrown by you, not even in his professional capacity as managing editor of the Daily Planet."

Wow.

Anyway, this issue is the first meeting between Superman and Lex Luthor, and I think the plot is entirely successful. I like it a lot, actually, and the artwork is fabulous. (Actually I love a lot of this artwork. Byrne's designs for that Krypton sequence in Issue 1 are really fantastic.) If only Byrne had gotten someone else to pen the dialogue. (Perhaps a certain Christopher S. Claremont, Esquire?)

MAN OF STEEL #5
Another one where Byrne seems to unclench a bit, and has a bit of fun rather than just getting all anal-retentively explainy for page after page. There's still some painful exposition, mainly around the whole "Lucy Lane is blind" thread, but the "Bizarre/Ohhhh!!!" thing is a fun update. It seems weird that Lex's scientist (Dr. Teng, a version of whom appears in Smallville Season 3) can build a machine that not only clones people but also clones their memories, all remotely without any kind of hardwire hookup. Fortunately it fails to work on Superman because it only works on human DNA, therefore the Bizarre/Oh! clone's "memories" seem a little damaged. Also the clone can't speak, so he can't spill any of Superman's secrets.

The whole idea of the clone sacrificing his life to cure Lucy's blindness is kind of sweet even though I don't think Byrne *quite* pulls it off. But it's a nice idea.

And Byrne actually seems to let loose and make some jokes -- or at least some winky references, like the cameo of Lex Luthor's green power-suit, and Superman's paraphrasing the Stan Lee flub from that old Silver-Age Captain America story, the classic "Only one of us is going to survive this fight ... and it won't be me!!!"

I enjoyed this one too.

MAN OF STEEL #6
Wow. THIS is how Byrne concludes his Superman origin? This is god-awful. It's back to pages upon pages of exposition, and it's just dreadful. Lana Lang sees Superman for the first time in years and after ten seconds immediately unloads on him about how he ruined her life when he left Smallville at the age of 18. When Superman is apologetic and wants to make it up, Lana says, it's okay, I made my peace with it, and I have found happiness. Oh, have you, Lana? Well then why did you unload that story on him in the first place, if you're "happy"? I know when I'm happy, the first thing I do when reunited with an old friend is not tell them how happy I am, but to unload upon that friend about how my life was ruined and it's their fault.

Man, I never thought I could hate another iteration of Lana Lang as much as I do ... THAT iteration. (We all know of whom I speak.)

Anyway, then Clark has a whole metric crap-ton of info about Krypton downloaded into his brain by some mechanism that came with fetus-Clark on the spaceship. This is how Byrne's Superman learns that he's an alien from a distant, now-destroyed planet. This leads to pages upon pages of thought balloons that would again work better as first-person narration, with Superman expositing about how he now knows everything there is to know about Krypton. He is now (the thought balloons tell us) familiar with all their literature, fluent in all their languages, conversant in their religion and mythology). Then he has more thought balloons about how he doesn't give a sh*t, because Earth and America and Humanity and the Kents are what raised him, and those are the things that made him who he is, not a bunch of dead aliens.

The whole thing is phenomenally callous. It's obvious what Byrne is trying to do, but this is "telling, not showing" in the first degree. Bad Writing 101, as Byrne likes to say. We've seen nothing of how the Kents raised him, we've seen nothing of Clark becoming inspired by American history, about his country's ideals, nothing of Superman having been shaped by his knowledge of the various accomplishments of humanity throughout history. As far as this comic-book series' context goes, the things Clark claims to care about are cyphers. Byrne only summarizes the Kryptonian stuff in thought balloons because he wants to make it clear that that stuff isn't important to this version of Superman ... but then Superman summarizes all the good, important stuff too, giving it shrift as short as what he gives the Kryptonian info.

And in the big sixth issue (the cover touts it as "the epic conclusion"), with Clark reaffirming what has shaped him into a "hero," we see Clark do NOTHING heroic. All we see is Lana Lang do a summary of how Clark ruined her life by making her feel small and insignificant, when he showed her his super powers. HEROISM

Also I like that in this six-issue miniseries, the first issue teased this mysterious figure following Clark around, and then in the next five issues it's never spoke of again. That is one Chekhovian gun that goes unfired for the duration of this story.

I'm also a little confused by the timeline of this series, despite Byrne's anal-retentive constant reminders of how much time has passed in between issues: Clark is 18 when he leaves Smallville, and then spends the next seven years doing anonymous good works. Then he makes his public debut at the age of 25, where he saves Lois and the two meet each other, and writes the first article about him and names him "Superman." Then in issue five, Lois says she's been fantasizing about Superman kissing her for "five years" meaning that it's been at least five years since they met. So Superman is now 30?

But in the final issue, issue 6, Byrne hammers home the fact that it has been ten years since Clark left Smallville at the age of 18. So he's only 28. Does Issue 6 take place before issue 5? But in issue 5, Clark thinks thought balloons about the feelings "he is developing for Lois," and in issue 6, Clark is to the point where he very nearly tells Lois how he feels, after keeping silent about those feelings for such a long time. I'm pretty sure this is a gaffe.

Final analysis:
Artwork = A-
I think this is Byrne at his pretty much his best, but I give him a minus for not being him and Austin on X-Men, which is the ultimate. But he looks great inked by Giordiano, and his storytelling is perfectly on point, and his design work for Krypton in the first issue is fan-bloody-tastic.

Concept = A-
I know some of Byrne's ideas in the Superman reboot were a little too fussy, but I think a lot of that came later, in the "Superman" series that followed Man of Steel. For the most part, Man of Steel succeeds in doing what Byrne was trying to do, which was to create a logical, internally consistent, coherent "Grand Unified" version of the Superman mythos, making sound scientific (or science-fictic at least) sense of every little aspect of it. Whether that in itself is a worthwhile endeavor is perhaps another question, but it's what Byrne set out to do, and he achieves it, I'd say.

Story = B
Issue 6, touted as the big climax, is just an epic whiff, and Issue 1 is all exposition with no story ... but the middle four chapters are all solid 1980s superheroics, with all of them but the Batman team-up being great little self-contained Superman adventures. The epic-awesome 90s cartoon drew from a lot of elements of these issues (especially the Bizarro) one, which helps to make me more kindly disposed to those issues.

Dialogue = D minus
Issue 2 had some great "boy-scout Superman characterization," and issue 5 had some playful little winks. Credit to Byrne where it's due ... but for the most part, good GOD is he bad at dialogue. Possibly the worst ever? I'm trying to think of other superhero comics with dialogue this bad ... who else is in Byrne's league? Maybe Tom DeFalco ... D.G. Chichester ... I don't know. Byrne is bottom tier for sure, even if he's not the very worst.

FINAL ANALYSIS
Definitely glad I read these. I love the artwork, and it's really interesting to finally read the Byrne reboot miniseries start to finish, because it was the foundation for the character for a long time afterward, and it also influenced both the 90s cartoon and Smallville, my two favorite takes on the mythos. As far as comic-book Superman origins go ... Hard to rank, because I haven't read that many. But I'd put this one below "Secret Origin" by Johns and Frank (still my favorite), and below "Birthright" as well, despite the problems I have with "Birthright." Hmmm ... I guess that makes it the worst version of the origin that I have read in a comic book? Harsh but true.

My thanks to Hanzo for allowing me to read these.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 10:51 pm 
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SUPERMAN #2, by Byrne and Austin
I should have said, one thing I DO like about Man of Steel is that each chapter is a self-contained story. Self-contained stories were certainly NOT the norm in 1986 ... the long-form epic was very much du jour. And particularly something billed as a six-issue miniseries, one expects a six-chapter graphic novel, published serially. Byrne was very much going against the grain, something that -- for all of Byrne's pretensions and false proclamations about his own material -- he did fairly often in the 1980s (like making Alpha Flight a series of solo adventures rather than a team-book).

It's neat that Byrne then goes on to do the "complete in one issue!" format for the ongoing. It's also nice for me, since this batch is incomplete, but I don't have to worry about reading a Part One but then missing Part Two of the story.

So! SUPERMAN #2, by Byrne and Austin. Man, the magic is gone, visually. Byrne and Austin don't mesh nearly as well in 1986 as they did in 1978-80. That's a shame.

As for the story ... well. Yikes. This is one of those ideas that kind of seems good, and the big "punchline" is delivered with enough verve that I can almost buy the twist ... but then one immediately starts to see all the holes in the idea, and it just all falls apart.

We all know this story, right? Lex Luthor has deduced that there is a connection between Clark Kent and Superman, and employs what seems to be a vast network of thugs, assassins, scientists ... all in order to deduce what this connection might be. After information has been gathered, the Kent farm raided for clues, and Lana Lang BEATEN AND TORTURED FOR INFO (more on this later) everything gets fed into a computer by super-genius computer scientist Amanda ... and the computer proclaims "Clark Kent is Superman." Amanda says, "That never would have occurred to me!" (which is cute), and then says, "But yes, it all makes perfect sense!" Luthor replies, "It makes sense to a computer, an unfeeling machine, sure." But not to Lex, who knows that power is to be "constantly used and exploited," and no one with the power of Superman would spend half his life pretending to be normal.

Lex Luthor then fires Amanda becomes there is no place in his organization "for someone who can't see the obvious!" (Again, very cute.) That ending line is a good zinger, especially by Byrne-dialogue standards, so it's easy to close the comic with a smile at the li'l irony. But then ... then it starts to fade through. Lex Luthor doesn't believe the computer's deduction ... but Amanda does. She could sell that info to any of a dozen bidders, surely. And why does Lex seem to abandon the entire project here, as far as exploring the connection between Kent and Superman? Even if he doesn't believe the computer's theory, he still believes there IS a connection, right? Wouldn't he continue to probe? And what about all these thugs who ALSO know of a connection, because Lex hired them to explore it? There's now a dozen people all curious about the Kent/Superman connection. Surely this is a problematic state of affairs. Is any of this ever addressed?

And what's up with the scene when Lex and Superman are alone in Lex's office and Lex has Superman at his mercy when he busts out his new Kryptonite ring? "I could kill you right now, but I won't ... that's not how I want this little game to end." Um ... it's not? The guy who just beat and tortured Lana Lang because he was desperate for information about Superman ... but beating up Superman himself is what, too subtle? WHY does Lex want to know the connection between Clark and Supes? Presumably it's because that connection might yield some sort of weakness of Supes that Lex can exploit, right? But he's already found a bitchin' weakness that makes Superman so weak that Lex could just kill him. What more does he want? Why didn't he beat up Superman with the Kryptonite ring in order to make Superman give up the secret Clark connection? For that matter, why not try to have Clark kidnapped, since as far as he knows Clark is a normal dude?

And what the hell is with Byrne's treatment of Lana Lang? After telling us in MOS#6 that her life was utterly destroyed when she found out her boyfriend had super-powers, Byrne wants to put her through the ringer AGAIN, two issues later, this time -- while not depicting the beating itself -- showing us the brutal aftermath, and reveling in reminding us on page after page about how she was tortured for days, just on Lex's whim. This is Byrne at his most grotesque and hypocritical, bemoaning the cynicism of superhero comics in the wake of Watchmen, slamming "The Killing Joke" for the way Moore capriciously brutalizes the red-headed female in the story to no useful narrative purpose (and having the bastard who did the brutalizing get away scot free) ... and yet here is Byrne, giving us the bright and shiny new rebooted adventures of Superman ... featuring Lex Luthor beating the sh*t out of the red-headed female in the story to no useful narrative purpose and then letting Lex get away scot free.

Man oh man.

Oh man.

I really don't think this works. I like the idea of Lex Luthor as the ruthless billionaire whom Superman can't quite "beat" because Lex kind of has the system rigged. He "owns half of Metropolis." Well, that's the animated series version. In Byrne's version, I think he owns all of it. Anyway, it allows Lex to be the archenemy of the series without making it a "he goes to jail, he breaks out, he goes to jail, he breaks out" cycle. This new version of Luthor strikes me as being pretty novel, even if it is a little bit pinched from the Kingpin.

The problem is that you have to keep Lex's schemes being evil without being horrifying, otherwise it makes it seem pathetic that Superman doesn't put him away. Giant robots, evil plots involving kryptonite, mad science gone awry and leading to "Bizarre/Oh!" clones ... nefarious indeed and the stuff that great supervillains are made of. And the audience doesn't mind that Lex never gets put behind bars despite his sinisterness, because the sinisterness is kind of fun. It's "Superman" after all! Bright, primary colored adventure.

But if Lex's scheme involve cold-blooded murder; beatings; torture of innocent women ... and at the end of every issue he gets away with it ... no. This is not a fun Superman comic to read. It's horrifying, and Superman is a loser, and pathetic for letting it continue when he has more than enough power to stop it.

That's my immediate takeaway, anyway. Maybe it's too much, but it just seems like Byrne has no idea how to strike a proper tone with this kind of thing. He wants to make it "Silver Age but with a modern edge," hence the retention of silly stuff like "Here's how Superman uses heat vision to shave!" but then he wants to get edgy by having Lana Lang get tortured for days on end. And he can't reconcile it all. He's just not a good enough writer.

But that's just one fan's opinion.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 11:15 pm 
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Pretty much agree with everything you wrote. The art and ideas always swung me to loving this series, overcoming the truly awful dialogue Byrne is so "good" at. Even now, it's my second favorite Superman origin, behind Secret Origin.

That Bizarro bit where he cures Lucy's blindness by disintegrating himself is lifted directly from the original Bizarro story in Superboy back in the 50s, except it's not Lucy Lane but a different blonde girl in Smallville. I liked the Batman/Superman interaction in their meet up story, but have found it interesting in retrospect (I didn't know Byrne's idiosyncrasies back then) how he's basically writing the psycho Batman he always rails against.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 11:33 pm 
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Ocean Doot wrote:
The problem is that you have to keep Lex's schemes being evil without being horrifying, otherwise it makes it seem pathetic that Superman doesn't put him away. Giant robots, evil plots involving kryptonite, mad science gone awry and leading to "Bizarre/Oh!" clones ... nefarious indeed and the stuff that great supervillains are made of. And the audience doesn't mind that Lex never gets put behind bars despite his sinisterness, because the sinisterness is kind of fun. It's "Superman" after all! Bright, primary colored adventure.

But if Lex's scheme involve cold-blooded murder; beatings; torture of innocent women ... and at the end of every issue he gets away with it ... no. This is not a fun Superman comic to read. It's horrifying, and Superman is a loser, and pathetic for letting it continue when he has more than enough power to stop it.


This sums up the problem Byrne has as a writer, in my view. He's got all sorts of great ideas but doesn't have the writing chops to make them work, or draw them into a cohesive whole within the context of the story. He also uses women being brutally beaten as a stand-by narrative device and I find that weird and disquieting.

My 'in a nutshell' opinion is that he's definitely an artist who (sort of) writes, rather than a writer who draws (to paraphrase Byrne himself).


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2016 3:22 am 
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Wait, I thought It was a re-reading.

If I could send you Morrison's Action Comics. That would complete the list of Superman reboots of the past 30 years.

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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2016 4:10 am 
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Jeff wrote:
That Bizarro bit where he cures Lucy's blindness by disintegrating himself is lifted directly from the original Bizarro story in Superboy back in the 50s, except it's not Lucy Lane but a different blonde girl in Smallville.

Ah! I didna realize. That explains why it's the most charming of the issues, I suppose. Byrne had to steal the heart and warmth from the Silver Age.

Jeff wrote:
I liked the Batman/Superman interaction in their meet up story, but have found it interesting in retrospect (I didn't know Byrne's idiosyncrasies back then) how he's basically writing the psycho Batman he always rails against.

I was more bothered by the way his dialogue makes Batman seem like a mincing dandy. There's a part where Batman opens the trunk of the Batmobile and unfolds this big super-computer to do some analysis, and it's like, oh, that's sort of fun and comic-booky and cool. And then he has Batman say something like, "As you can see, I keep a very sophisticated computer here, in the back of my automobile." It's so unbearably tone-deaf.

Also, this is a Byrne-ism I've never seen anyone talk about (here, on IMWAN), even though we've said everything we could possibly say about Byrne. It's the "This little" factor.

It's his favorite way for a character to flash attitude, and act superior and/or condescending (to be Byrne, essentially). It's all over the place.

"I could kill you right now, Superman, but that's not how I want this little game of ours to end."
"Thanks for the dress, Lex. This little frock must have set you back quite a bit."
"I think it's time for this little adventure to come to an end."

It's all over the place. And once you notice it, man, it's just grinding.

But I shall continue reading. For the Hanzo. (And for the artwork. I'm looking forward to reading some Byrne/Kesel issues.)


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2016 4:12 am 
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Rafael wrote:
Wait, I thought It was a re-reading.

If I could send you Morrison's Action Comics. That would complete the list of Superman reboots of the past 30 years.


I would read them. I think I already read the first issue, but I don't remember it too well.

Also, while it's not really a canonical reboot, there is also the "Earth One" graphic novel. (By JMS?) But I'm not touching that.

And no, almost everything Hanzo sent to me is something I've never read before, at least not in its entirety.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2016 6:12 am 
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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2016 7:03 am 
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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2016 9:16 am 
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Ocean Doot wrote:
Jeff wrote:
I liked the Batman/Superman interaction in their meet up story, but have found it interesting in retrospect (I didn't know Byrne's idiosyncrasies back then) how he's basically writing the psycho Batman he always rails against.

I was more bothered by the way his dialogue makes Batman seem like a mincing dandy. There's a part where Batman opens the trunk of the Batmobile and unfolds this big super-computer to do some analysis, and it's like, oh, that's sort of fun and comic-booky and cool. And then he has Batman say something like, "As you can see, I keep a very sophisticated computer here, in the back of my automobile." It's so unbearably tone-deaf.

Also, this is a Byrne-ism I've never seen anyone talk about (here, on IMWAN), even though we've said everything we could possibly say about Byrne. It's the "This little" factor.

It's his favorite way for a character to flash attitude, and act superior and/or condescending (to be Byrne, essentially). It's all over the place.

"I could kill you right now, Superman, but that's not how I want this little game of ours to end."
"Thanks for the dress, Lex. This little frock must have set you back quite a bit."
"I think it's time for this little adventure to come to an end."

It's all over the place. And once you notice it, man, it's just grinding.

But I shall continue reading. For the Hanzo. (And for the artwork. I'm looking forward to reading some Byrne/Kesel issues.)

Yes, all of his dialogue is atrocious, often repetitive, and absolutely overbearing in exposition, and the Batman story is no exception. By far the worst, though, are the "World of..." mini-series books. All of the captions are a person telling another person about what that first person experienced, in excruciating detail. If you think the dialogue in these books is bad, it looks like something Alan Moore wrote in comparison to those things. All of his work, without exception, would be better with a writer, even if they were just scripting his plot. He has some really great ideas, even up to the modern days, which he just fails to execute.


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 Post subject: Ol' Hanzo Shares Some Comics With Ol' Dooterino
PostPosted: Sat Aug 06, 2016 9:31 am 
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Doot, someone else thought about the Amanda character from Superman #2 as you did, she gets her own little subplot after Byrne leaves the book as she hunts for a way to prove what she knows.


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