Supergod #1 Cover

So as many of you long time readers of DTC (and you fellow writers) know, it’s been a long time since I’ve done a review. A really long time. Honestly, I’ve been busy, but I’m sorry. I wasn’t really even planning on writing a review today. But then I read this issue. About 4 pages into this issue, I had made the decision that I had to write a review of this soon. By the end, I knew that I had to stop reading comics tonight and push this thing out NOW. And by the end of the review, you’ll hopefully know why.

So, I’m a pretty big Warren Ellis fan. I pick up pretty much every Avatar title that he writes (and there are a lot). Most of them are pretty good. Some are really excellent. So naturally, I picked up Supergod #1. I didn’t really know what to expect from this book, but when I went to the comic book shop today, the owner, Kirby, specifically said “oh, this is really good”. Now, a little back story on Kirby. He’s a great comic book shop owner and a good guy, but I’m pretty sure he has never told me that he liked a comic. Actually, up until today, I wasn’t even sure if he still read current comics. So I immediately knew that this book had to be at the top of my read stack this week. And boy, was he right about it being really good.

I’ll go into depth about why it is so good after the break.

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Hello, all. I’ve been away for some time, both due to an influx of schoolwork and just being to damn poor to support a budding comics habit. But I have been keeping up with my comic book adaptations, which in many ways is more unfortunate than suffering from a broken economy. Many Americans have flocked to the cineplexes in these hard times, as they always do, looking for a bit of escape from a harsh world. Yet when I sat through Watchmen at a midnight screening in March, I was suddenly reminded of how good I have it. Not because of the stark dystopia and the amoral wasteland it depicted, but because it so thoroughly missed the point that I was looking forward to getting back to my world of scraping together money to try to stay in school, pay the rent and feed myself, all while trying to land some sort of job. Synder’s screwed-pooch enraged me so much that, after I wrote a review for my school paper and came here to make my triumphant return with a more fleshed-out (papers have word limits, you know) takedown of why the film so completely let me down. Suffice to say: it knew the steps but not the rhythm, and so it lurched about like a wino with an inner ear infection, occasionally careening into the right tone but too often gazing at the inside of its navel by shoving its head up its ass (to mix metaphors poorly). But never mind that dismal failure, because I’m here to discuss the latest comic book extravaganza, the summer-starting X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
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Watchmen Movie Poster

As the fates would have it, I was fortunate enough to get some advance screening passes to see Watchmen from my LCS (thanks, Tardy’s, I love you guys!). So, myself, Mike Rapin and some friends went off to view the movie with all the hype surrounding it. Personally, I went in with some pretty low expectations. Yeah, I was really excited for it. How could you not anticipate seeing one of the greatest graphic novels of all time come to life? Yet, I was skeptical that it would really work, like most fans. Despite my low expectations, I really wanted to love it. I really wanted it to be amazing. Oddly enough, when I left the theater, I wanted really badly to hate it. There was so much wrong with it. Yet, my overall reaction was that it was a great film. That said, this is going to be a full review, so I’ll break down the good, the bad and tell you why despite my love, this movie is going to have a lot of trouble finding an audience.

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No Hero #1 Cover

There are many creators in comics today that you can call truly great in the medium. Brian Michael Bendis, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Robert Kirkman and Geoff Johns all come to mind of the top of my head. But as far as creativity goes and really pushing the boundaries of story telling, I really put Warren Ellis at the top of this list. Not only is his work on mainstream books like Astonishing X-Men great, but he puts out a lot of really amazing creator-owned stuff, too. And his new book, No Hero, is no exception to his greatness.

As many comics are doing lately, No Hero is one of those stories of what superheroes would be like in real life. A subject that probably began, or at least was popularized, but Alan Moore in Watchmen, is represented favorably in No Hero. To put his own twist on the subject, Ellis brings us the tale of a man who wants to be part of a group of vigilantes in a world where the cops just can’t (or won’t) stop crime.

There’s more to come after the break, including, most importantly, my review.

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The first Mark Millar-penned story I completely read was Civil War, which I was critical of even though it was decent enough. However, even as I was reading that I was gaining a deep admiration and love of the author, mainly thanks to my concurrent reading of this story. A lot of friends recommended this book to me, but I knew I had to have it when I spotted it on the shelves, turned it over, and saw a blurb from none other than Kevin Smith. I have a shameless man-crush on Smith, so his ringing endorsement was all the incentive I needed, and I can assure you it was worth it.

Red Son is an Elseworlds tale that poses a question so crystalline, focused, and simple that I can’t fathom how it took so long for it to be asked: what if Superman had been raised in the Soviet Union? Have you stopped reading yet and run to your LCS or bookstore to get a coy of this? Cause if not, you should. Playing almost more like an Elseworlds take on Watchmen than of the Man of Steel, Red Son is easily the finest Superman story I’ve yet read (which, granted, isn’t saying much).

**minor spoilers and more after the break**

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Time and time again, I find myself lured into another goddamn Crisis.  As I explained in a previous post, Crisis on Infinite Earths was released in the mid-80s while it’s successor, Infinite Crisis was released but a few years ago.  Critics begged for another ten years before another Crisis would ensue, but the minds behind DC had other plans.  But why bother holding it against DC when another Crisis would inevitably come?  Ten years, one year – it’s all the same.

This does, however, remind me of my Watchmen essay concerning symmetry some weeks back.  Here, I talk about the vicious circle:

“Reconstruction and deconstruction are terms that could very well be used when referring to the unification at the end of Watchmen.   Though the World began to prosper, questions rose as to whether this unification would last.  How could it when the only way to unify was/is to create fear?  Inevitably, deconstruction would once again occur and a dystopia would form.  Upon this disaster, another unification (most likely another catastrophe) would have to occur for reconstruction – known as a vicious circle.”

I feel that with each Crisis, the reconstruction/deconstruction theory becomes more and more relevant, not specifically Watchmen.  (Yes, I find the theory completely relevant when concerning much of comics as a whole, but I’m focusing on DC right now).

In the wake of Infinite Crisis, Superman is left powerless after subduing Superboy-Prime, Batman leaves Gotham to rediscover his motivations and refine his skills and Wonder Woman takes some time to do some soul-searching of her own.  The world is without it’s three greatest champions, but it’s not a world without heroes.

**Minor spoilers below**

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As someone fairly new to comics, I’ve been mainly sticking to picking up the classics first and only venturing into modern fare to read Buffy Season 8 and Angel: After the Fall, but that is of course out of fanboy love for Joss Whedon’s seminal TV shows. But one comic is being routinely mentioned in the same breath as established classics, appearing on lists alongside Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns as a must have. Well, I’m 5 trades in, and I gotta say, people are right about Y: The Last Man.

Y: The Last Man reads like a film, and it’s the best and most thoughtful piece of science fiction since perhaps Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Brian K. Vaughan wastes no time crafting a surprisingly personal science fiction story seemingly effortlessly: he uses the plague to highlight the jarring gender gap in major positions (spouting out figures like 95% of all American plots were male, almost all local and federal government officials, etc.) but also has a lot of humor strewn about (converting the a phallic monument into a memorial for the men lost made me laugh for minutes on end).

**more after the jump**

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The mid 80s were a good time to be a geek. In the music world, metal was revolting against its glam stars and producing a host of thrashers who put out the best stuff since Sabbath; Master of Puppets, Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?, and Reign in Blood were sure to be spinning in the record players and tape decks of every acne-scarred social outcast in the country.

And what do social outcasts read? Comic books, that’s exactly right. We’re a hated and mocked breed, but anyone who read them in this era was about to have their reading material finally “legitimatized.” A new breed of writers was revolutionizing the medium, removing the redundant and intelligence-insulting wordiness that plagued comics at the point and replacing it with more concise and more adult language as well letting the art tell the story. And chief among them were two men, each from one side of the Atlantic: Alan Moore and Frank Miller.

**spoilers after the jump**
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Zack Snyder, the man behind 300 and the Dawn of the Dead remake has without a doubt wooed audiences with his cinematic prowess, truly a director worth watching.  However, when ambition overrides common sense in the world of film, it can only lead to disaster and humiliation.  The film in mind is none other than Alan Moore’s groundbreaking graphic novel, Watchmen.  First images of Snyder’s ‘vision’ appeared online late last year and captivated Watchmen devotees everywhere – even so, disapproval was not uncommon, and rightfully so.

Then this past month came the trailer of the film, that’s when things started to get interesting…

I’ll admit, initial views of the trailer were orgasmic – at the time, I had only read bits and pieces of the graphic novel, in itself, a bad way to go.  I had reveled over movie scenes mimicking unforgettable splash panels, actors identical to their graphic novel counterparts, and visuals that fail to displease the eyes – the adaptation to end all adaptations.

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