Metropolis 90210

Smallville ended it’s eleven-year run earlier this year, although if you’re anything like we at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are, it ended for you a couple or three years earlier when you realized that you could no longer watch any of the episodes that weren’t the one a year written by Geoff Johns if you were even remotely sober. I mean seriously: Doomsday is a paramedic who makes a pass at Chloe Sullivan, who was originally supposed to be Lois Lane before Lois Lane showed up and who became super-intelligent after being kidnapped by Brainiac who looked like Spike from Buffy, and just typing that made me want a double Jack Daniels.

The point is: Smallville is over. I tuned in to watch it finally roll over and die. So I win, right?

Right?

The Man of Tomorrow, Tomorrow: Action Comics #3 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, it’s Superman! Strange visitor from another planet! With spoilers and ruined story notes far beyond those of mortal men!

I was initially skeptical about Grant Morrison’s take on the new early days of Superman in Action Comics – the only attractive thing about an urban hipster blogger with a mad-on for corporations and a Justin Beiber haircut is that when he’s also Superman you won’t do any time if you hit him in his John Lennon glasses with a fucking pipe.

And truthfully, the concept of a Superman who takes on slumlords and capitalists is a wonderful idea, provided it’s 1939 and nobody’s invented Brainiac yet. Even a partially-depowered Superman against, say, a CEO is like deploying a fuel-air bomb against Cookie Monster. As a power fantasy for the unemployed it might be fun, but from a storytelling standpoint, it presents the same problems as a 12 to 2 Red Sox / Brewers blowout: fun, but sure as hell not exciting. Particularly when you stop for a second and realize that you can kill your average American CEO by putting a plate of prime rib at the top of a flight of stairs.

It turns out that Morrison seems to realize this, so in just a couple of issues, we’ve transitioned from Superman as hippie anarchist to Superman as fuckup.

A Boy And His (Dead) Dog – Possible Krypto Teaser in Action Comics #3

So, as pointed out by Bleeding Cool, one of the opening volleys of writer and confirmed cat person Grant Morrison’s Action Comics run in the DCnU would appear to be the death of Krypto. The beloved pet of young Superboy and faithful companion to the Man of Steel over the decades, beginning with Action Comics #210 all the way back in 1955, was sent to the great Farm-Upstate-In-The-Sky by Jor-El, before the storied relationship between boy and dog ever began.

And, by great Farm-Upstate-In-The-Sky, I mean the Phantom Zone.

Hey, Kids! Sausage! or: (One Hundred) Thirty Pieces of Silver

It’s almost Halloween, comics fans! So you want to see something really scary?

That’s the check. The check that Jack Liebowitz , publisher of National Allied Publications, doing business as Detective Comics, Inc., cut to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, for the rights to Superman. Forever. In perpetuity.

For a hundred and thirty clams. Or about two grand in today’s dollars. Which means that in Manhattan prices, they were paid about a case of beer, a carton of cigarettes and a week at the YMCA. In exchange for fucking Superman.

What’s Wrong With This Picture – Splitting Hairs On The Man Of Steel Movie

First we had hipster Superman. Now we have…hippy?

Left: Russell Crowe as Jor-El. Right: Henry Cavill as Homeless Moe

Both Topless Robot and Newsarama are carrying first looks at the new Man of Steel movie, to be directed by Zack Snyder. Gotta say, Kal-El and his dad are looking a little…scruffy. I supposed Jor-El has an excuse. Who has time to shave when your planet is falling down all around you? But, Superman? This movie supposedly has a budget of around $175 million. You prop people can’t spring for some glasses for the man when he’s disguised as Clark Kent? Really? Or some hair dye for Amy Adams (Lois Lane):

LOL, what?

I think casting got confused when they heard the word “Lois”:

We're now going to throw this to our Asian reporter, Trisha Takanawa, who we've decided to cast as a Sioux midget.

Holy Last Regular Season Game… What’s Your Name Again?

As with every other Wednesday since this site’s launch, we must now end our broadcast day. Not just because of the comics, of which we have plenty…

…but because the Boston Red Sox are battling for a berth in the post-season against the Orioles, who are battling for a berth for being the douchebags who kept the Sox out of the playoffs.

But look at those books: the last of the New 52 including Geoff Johns’ Aquaman, All-Star Western, Superman, and Justice League Dark, which Amanda is just ITCHING for.

Plus, Yep: That’s Frank Miller’s Holy Terror, which we paid 30 dollars American (or for our overseas readers: 927,539 Euros) for what appears to be a Dr. Seuss-length treatise on How To Kick Mohammed’s Chosen In The Taint. And we WILL be reviewing it. Once Ortiz’s at-bat is over.

See you tomorrow, suckers!

Flying Man is Flying

Next week is the final 13-issue drop of first issues in DC Comics’ New 52, and they’re ending it in the last week in exactly the way they started it the first week: firmly in second place behind Marvel Comics, with women everywhere screaming that they’re nothing but a gaggle of adolescent, sexist pigs. They will also be releasing a Superman comic.

Whereas week one’s Action Comics #1 focused on Grant Morrison’s take on Superman’s first year as a superhero, the main Superman title, written by legendary penciller George Perez with breakdowns by Perez and finished pencils by Jesus Merino (Who did some issues of Justice Society of America a couple years ago), is gonna focus on Superman in the current DC continuity, including his new, underpantsless costume. By which I mean it has no underpants on the outside. I assume he wears underpants underneath his spandex pants, otherwise we will be learning the disturbing way whether or not Kryptonians are Jewish. But I digress.

Comic Book Resources has a five-page preview of Superman #1; go check it out then swing back…

Wow. Those pages sure are pretty, and I want to withhold final judgment until I read the entire book, but based on that sample, I’m guessing that in the new DC continuity, Superman’s fatal weakness is exposition.

GD Fundamentalists

There’s a panel in Action Comics #1 where Superman is shot by a tank, and he utters, well… he utters this:

Which is not the worst thing I’ve seen in a comic book this week – that would be The Big Lie by Rick Veitch, which makes Hawk & Dove look like Great Expectations, and which I’ll probably rant about tomorrow – but apparently it made the owner of The Comics Conspiracy, a comic store in North Carolina, go apeshit ballistic based on their Facebook page:

As of today’s release of Action Comics #1 by Grant Morrison, The Comic Conspiracy, will until further notice, be boycotting all future Grant Morrison books. If you want Action Comics, you will have to buy it elsewhere…

Christian comic book readers and shop owners. Join us in the Grant Morrison Boycott. Action Comics #1 is a slap in the face to Superman, Christians and Superman creators Siegel and Shuster!!

…It grieves me to see a liberal Scottish schmuck like Grant Morrison take these liberties. I’m sorry, Superman would NEVER take God’s name in vain. In the words of the late Jim Croce, “You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.

The dude’s blowup got a lot of play in the comics press, including Bleeding Cool, Geeks of Doom, and about a million other sites including Reddit. And I’m guessing that DC Comics, who’re in the middle of the New 52 press juggernaut, didn’t want to alienate the huge Christian fundamentalist market segment, who are well known for their love for comic books and other genre fiction, because they trotted Action Comics writer Grant Morrison out onto the DC Source blog:

Action Comics #1: Look At This Fucking Super Hipster

EDITOR’S NOTE: There might be spoilers here. I will try to keep them out, but I am writing this hung over, so I guarantee nothing.

Okay, I will never rule out the possibility that I am a complete moron, but I’ve read Action Comics #1 three times now, and to save my soul, I CANNOT figure out how Superman knew about the bomb on the platform. Oh wait… this book was written by Grant Morrison. That explains everything.

Morrison has a habit going back at least to his JLA run where he seems to like to jump right into a sequence without any explanation as to the events that let up to that sequence. Unlike any other writer I can think of, he seems willing to say, “Look: this is a comic book. Does it really matter how Superman found out about the bomb? Why spend time showing him investigating and wandering around asking questions or seeing clues or any other explanation? You just want to see him try to STOP the bomb, right? RIGHT… okay, maybe I just don’t feel like writing the explanation. Write it, don’t write it, the check cashes just as easy.”

Brain Bleach – Argh, I Can’t Unsee What I Have Seen

Things I’ve learned wandering around the intertrons today:

• 

  That's right. Make it rain for Mommy!

  Voodoo, one of the DC new 52 relaunch titles, will follow the heart warming tale of a stripper who discovers she’s a monster. That’ll put a dent in those tips.

I’ll probably read this. I’m currently working through The Essential Dazzler. I have no moral high ground.