{"id":26979,"date":"2022-11-14T09:00:19","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T09:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=26979"},"modified":"2022-11-11T18:07:29","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T18:07:29","slug":"superman-strange-attractors-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2022\/11\/14\/superman-strange-attractors-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Superman: Strange Attractors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Gail Simone<\/strong>, Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning<\/strong>, John Byrne<\/strong> & Nelson <\/strong>(DC Comics)
\nISBN 978-1-4012-0917-9 (TPB)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a Superman<\/strong> collection tailored to the fight fan, as the mighty Man of Steel takes on a bevy of baddies in terse tales designed as an antidote to an over-abundance of multi-chapter epics. I\u2019m focussing on it here primarily because it\u2019s also a complication- and continuity-light compendium featuring movie Man of the Moment Black Adam<\/strong>\u2026<\/p>\n

Created by Otto Binder & C.C. Beck, Black Adam<\/strong>\/Teth Adam<\/em> debuted in The Marvel Family<\/strong> #1, cover-dated December 1945. There he was revealed as the power-corrupted predecessor of current magical superhero (the Original\u2026) Captain Marvel<\/strong>. The Egyptian relic\u2019s reign of evil ended with his death at the end of the story\u2026<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t keep a good villain down though, and when the Golden Age Marvel was revived in the 1970s as Shazam!<\/strong>, the ancient antithesis eventually returned to bedevil the heroes. He even survived the continuity changing chaos of Crisis on Infinite Earths<\/strong> and numerous subsequent reboots.<\/p>\n

For present purposes, the following is the backstory new readers should access\u2026<\/p>\n

Once upon a time Billy Batson<\/em> was a little boy living on the streets of Fawcett City<\/em>. His archaeologist parents had left him with an uncle when they went on a dig to Egypt. They never returned, his little sister vanished and Billy was thrown out so his guardian could steal his inheritance.<\/p>\n

Sleeping in a storm drain and selling newspapers for cash, the indomitable lad grew street-smart and resilient, but when a shadowy stranger bade him follow into an eerie subway, the boy somehow knew it was all okay. Soon after, he met the wizard Shazam<\/em>, who bestowed upon him the powers of six ancient Gods and Heroes.<\/p>\n

Thus began an astounding career as wholesome powerhouse hero Captain Marvel<\/em>. Billy eventually found lost sister Mary<\/em> and shared his nigh-infinite power with her, as they both subsequently did with disabled friend Freddy Freeman<\/em>.<\/p>\n

They fought and eventually reached an accommodation with militant progenitor Black Adam<\/em>, who was the wizard\u2019s first superhuman champion, reborn in the body of Theo Adam<\/em> – a distant descendant who had murdered the Batson\u2019s parents. When a succession of crises arose, everything changed.<\/p>\n

Immortal Shazam was murdered, Billy was exiled to the transcendent Rock of Eternity <\/em>as his replacement and Freddy became a new Captain Marvel; his mighty gifts supplied by a completely different pantheon of patrons.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Black Adam had found peace and redemption in the love of ascendant nature goddess Isis<\/em> \u2026until she was cruelly taken from him. The worst tragedies befell poor Mary. Deprived of her intoxicating powers she became an addict without a fix\u2026 until soul-sick Adam shared his dark energies with her. His corrupted spirit fatally tainted the once-vibrant innocent\u2026<\/p>\n

During his lost phase, the Egyptian warrior vacillated between hard-line hero and outright menace: joining the Justice Society of America<\/strong> but also arbitrarily administering his old testament brand of judgement whenever he felt the need\u2026<\/p>\n

This selection of Superman stories comes from Action Comics<\/strong> #827-828, and #830-835 (spanning July 2005 through March 2006). The run of was originally interrupted for the \u201cSacrifice<\/strong>\u201d storyline (and collected as a graphic novel of the same name), so the volume reconvenes with the episode after\u2026<\/p>\n

First up is eponymous 2-part saga \u2018Strange Attractors\u2019<\/em> and Strange Attractors part 2 \u2013 Positive Reinforcement\u2019<\/em>: a battle against the incredibly bad and quite mad Master of Magnetism Dr Polaris<\/em>, aided, if not abetted, by the resurrected reprobate Black Adam, currently holding a high position in supervillain army The Society<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

Following the aforementioned Sacrifice<\/strong> pause, we reconvene with #830\u2019s \u2018The Great Society\u2019<\/em> as the Man of Tomorrow tackles Dr. Psycho<\/em>. The old Wonder Woman<\/strong> villain is a physically stunted, sadistic psychologist with the power to control minds. When he arrives in Metropolis intent on mischief, Superman finds that every citizen is a foe and hostage at the same time.<\/p>\n

Once again, Black Adam is on hand to render ambivalent assistance as \u2018Black & Blue\u2019<\/em> (a Villains United<\/strong> tie-in) sees Adam reassess his role before it all devolves into the obligatory fist fight.<\/p>\n

Scripted by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning \u2018Old Ghosts\u2019<\/em> sees Devil-surrogate Lord Satanus<\/em> and the Spectre<\/strong> use the city as a phantasmal Ground Zero next, and, after refereeing that little cataclysm, Superman finds himself the target of a psychic and spiritual assault from old JLA<\/strong> foe The Queen of Fables<\/em> in \u2018Depths\u2019<\/em> and \u2018Awake in the Dark\u2019 <\/em>– with Norm Rapmund, Larry Stucker, Marc Campos, & Oclair Albert joining Nelson in applying inks to John Byrne\u2019s pencils..<\/p>\n

The furious ferocious fun concludes in a duel with Livewire<\/em>, that perky punkette with absolute control of all things electrical who contracts \u2018A Contagion of Madness\u2019<\/em> with Gail Simone, John Byrne and inker Nelson delivering potent, punchy and self-contained mini-classics.<\/p>\n

Not overly complicated, concentrating on exhilaration and excitement, but still managing to sustain some tense sub-plots involving Lois Lane-Kent<\/em> and the rest of the venerable supporting cast, these stories are just plain fun. It\u2019s a shame that the experiment doesn\u2019t seem to have caught on \u2026
\n\u00a9 2005, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gail Simone, Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, John Byrne & Nelson (DC Comics) ISBN 978-1-4012-0917-9 (TPB) Here\u2019s a Superman collection tailored to the fight fan, as the mighty Man of Steel takes on a bevy of baddies in terse tales designed as an antidote to an over-abundance of multi-chapter epics. I\u2019m focussing on it … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Superman: Strange Attractors”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[306,76,9,11,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-black-adam","category-dc-superhero","category-superman","category-teen-titans","category-wonder-woman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-719","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26981,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26979\/revisions\/26981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}