Category: DC Superhero

By various

(DC Comics)  ISBN 1-84576-390-4

This volume reprints Superman #9-11, Action Comics #592-593 and Adventures of Superman #432-435 from 1987 when the post-Crisis revamp was in full swing and a fine team of comics creators was going all-out to prove a dubious public wrong in their belief that nothing could make the Caped Kryptonian exciting again.

John Byrne and Marv Wolfman were responsible for writing these tales and the former was also half the drawing team. In To Laugh and Die in Metropolis Superman meets the Joker for the first time in a murderous battle of wits, before moving on to tackle a Gangwar, courtesy of Wolfman and artists Jerry Ordway and P. Craig Russell.

Byrne, with inks by Keith Williams, then teams the Man of Steel with Big Barda and Mr. Miracle in A Walk on the Darkside and The Suicide Snare and has him battle Luthor again in The Super Menace of Metropolis, aided by the inking of Karl Kesel. Bob Smith joins Ordway on art duties for A Tragedy in Five Acts the second part of Gangwar, and Byrne and Kesel reintroduce the fifth dimensional prankster Mr. Mxyzptlk in The Name Game.

Wolfman, Ordway and José Marzan complete this edition with Shambles and The Circle Turns, two slower tales that build on the strong continuity and character interactions that typified this incarnation of the Man of Tomorrow. Seeing these stories collected in this way illustrates just how much planning went into the three Superman titles. These volumes read much more like books than collections and with the quality of writing and art improving from “chapter” to “chapter” this is a series you should seriously consider seeking out.

© 1987 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

 

By various

(DC Comics) ISBN 1-84576-282-7

This movie tie-in volume reprints the comic adaptation of Superman Returns and pads out with an eclectic collection of tales from the more recent portion of the Man of Steel‘s nigh seven decades of fun and thrills.

The Origin of Superman comes courtesy of The Amazing World of Superman Treasury Edition from 1973. The much-told tale gets another outing via E. Nelson Bridwell, Carmine Infantino, Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson, whilst the Luthor, Lois, Superman dynamic is re-examined by Stuart Immonen, Mark Millar and Yanick Paquette in A Night at the Opera originally seen in Adventures of Superman #575 (2000).

Geoff Johns, Brent Anderson and Ray Snyder show a lighter side in The Second Landing from Superman #185 (2002), Action Comics #810 (2004) provides a Christmas and New year’s fable by Joe Kelly and a fistful of guest artists, and the book ends with the delightful tale of Lois Lane’s fight to break the story of that brand new hero Superman, in Lois and the Big One from Superman Secret Files and Origins (2005) by Jami Bernard, Renato Guedes and Nick J. Napolitano.

© 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By Mike Kennedy & Carlos Meglia

(DC Comics) ISBN 1-84576-176-6

This original graphic novel is a sadly lightweight piece of fluff that sees investigative reporters Mr and Mrs Kent tracking down the source of a devastating super-gun, only to be sucked into a strange time-warped dimension. There they become embroiled in a civil war between greedy, slimy, power hungry industrialist Jesden Tyme (yes – oh, ha ha – indeed) and the robotic Mayor, who just happens to be a download of the consciousness of Superman’s father, Jor-El.

Lavishly illustrated in the manner of an animated feature film, the stylizations of Carlos Meglia may not be to everyone’s taste. The plot from Mike Kennedy (Lone Wolf 2100, Star Wars: Underworld and the sadly under-appreciated Ghost/Batgirl, among others) lacks any punch or originality of its own, relying on the clichéd and oft-rehashed. However, as is often the case in these days of sound-bite culture, the dialogue is sharp and effective, and some of the interplay between Lois and Clark is delightful. Perhaps the comic book powers-that-be have returned to an old philosophy, feeling that readers aren’t consumers for life but only read funny-books for a brief time before graduating to DVDs and computer games or regressing to those old fashioned book thingies.

Still, a new graphic novel is a rare enough investment in these days of translated Manga and album editions of almost anything that reaches 6 issues in its own monthly comic, so perhaps we should just shut up and support the gesture.

© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.