“The story of a *child* rocketed to Earth from a doomed planet…”

“In brightest day, in darkest night, no evil shall escape our sight…”

Yeah? Prove it.

“Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot, so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible…”

“Flash Fact.”

Just writing these phrases gave me chills. As I sit here, eating my 7-11 banana, my mind boggles at the wealth of powerful story material that DC Comics has to work with and play with. Truly iconic figures and an army of beloved (and lovingly behated) supporting characters, all with strong character traits and flaws, are available to work with and mingle across the entire DC Universe.

So why, I ask you, are comic fans getting stuck with a dead Batman that we have already been assured will come back with nary a scratch, two simultaneous summer events that have nothing to do with each other, one of which is essentially a serialized Elseworld, and story lines that, when set side by side, contradict each other without validation or explanation?

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Every now and again, I have my fits of nostalgia.  I reflect back upon graphic novels from yesteryear and even the not-so-distant-past. I know all of you have felt that way more times than you can count.  Everything I’ve written thus far has been of graphic novels of the past – partly because I’m still catching up, and partly because there are so many fruitful ideas emanating from them.  Reflecting back upon past events and how they lead up to the most current events is, I believe, crucial to understanding most aspects of a universe as a whole.  However, deciding where to start reading is not an easy task.

With an ever-growing series of comics being published, finding a place to call home is overwhelming, intimidating and unnerving.  When I was very young, I started becoming interested in comics and quickly fell into my niche with the comic, Bone.  But afterwards, I found it extremely hard to get into anything else, because Bone was a standalone.  After finishing the 1000+ page graphic novel, I was completely lost.

Sure, I was reading manga at that time, but that was different.  It just wasn’t epic enough for me, I guess.  I didn’t know what epic meant until I got my hands on Crisis on Infinite Earths – luckily, I found this gem in my high school library, and it changed everything.

**Forgive me for the spoilers**

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Comics superstar turned director Frank Miller is bringing The Spirit to movie theaters this December.  My initial impression was that Frank Miller based the film, The Spirit on his graphic novel – later did I realize it was being adapted from a graphic novel by Will Eisner.  After leafing through the deceased writers work, I was baffled to see it be stripped down so carelessly in the upcoming film.  Miller has taken Eisner’s boy in blue and revamped him into something of a superhero, which he most definitely isn’t.  The masked vigilante detective is just a regular tough guy with a sense of justice and one hell of a lucky streak.  Luckily for Miller, he has a near free-reign on The Spirit adaptation.

By the looks of the movie clip on Mike’s post, the film’s action sequence seems to take on the humor of the originals, but the official movie trailers seem otherwise.  They’re so similar to Sin City (a no-brainer considering Frank Miller directed this film as well), and though visually stunning, they are alien to the originals.  I can’t imagine this adaptation will do the comics justice.  Will Eisner must be turning in his grave as we speak.

Though not all is dark and dismal in Central City…

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