Weekly Comic Book Discussion 5/10/2006

[Fenris]

Heh--I'm only off work for another week, so as much fun as starting these are, I probably shouldn't get used to it.

Only read two of the books so far.

Superman: In the past, even in JLA/Avengers, Kurt Busiek has had problems hitting the right note with DC characters. Not that his books have been bad or anything, just that his DC books haven't had the magic his Marvel titles (or Astro City) has had. That's clearly over. This is the best Superman in years. I love his Lois, Perry, Jimmy and he's REALLY playing Superman/Clark correctly. I really like his revamps of the classic (yet, let's be honest, heretofore lame) Superman badguys.

Speaking of bad-guys, I really hope that his set-up from like 4 weeks ago holds up and Luthor is no longer Kingpin-lite. We had that for 20 years and it never really worked for me. Plus, c'mon. How many times is the public gonna buy "No, it wasn't me, it was my clone." or "No, it wasn't me, it was the son of my parallel dimension counterpart disguised as me."? After the "President Luthor" storyline, there's no believable way for him to return to his "Just a humble businessman..a dealer in spices and such" type personna. I'm glad they're acknowledging that.

The biggie this week is 52 and while it's all set-up, it's damned good set-up.

SPOILER:

First, when did John Henry Irons (Steel) stop being dead? I though he'd died? I'm very, VERY glad he's back (there are too few heroes who have "Because it's the right thing to do, dammit" as their motivation as opposed to vengance, guilt or whatever), but is he back because of a S-Prime retpunch or what? Also, what's super-hero name of his (aargh...) niece? daugher? I'm putting this into spoiler-space just in case his "un-death" event is new.

Second, there's a fan-theory/rumor I read on rec.arts.comics.dc-universe that I like and there may a bit of evidence towards it. Remember how everyone looked at the end of Identity Crisis and said "Wait...what?! That doesn't make any sense." The fan theory/rumor is "Yeah. Guess what. It didn't and the heroes were so shocked that they didn't notice. They were just happy to have wrapped it up" The theory goes that Elongated Man will realize that Jean was a red-herring and will find Sue's real killer. (I hope so)

Third, I've been guessing for months (since the demise of Gotham Central) that Montoya would be a new Bat-Character. Looks like I might be right.

I love that Silvania's a mad scientist again, I love that Mr. Mind is no longer a bunch of mind-controlling worms but a caterpillar with a voice-box, I'll be very, VERY disappointed if Skeets is dead.

Again, overall, nothing much happened but set-up but damn...it's good set-up.

What I'm really enjoying about DC at the moment is that it seems like a large group of very talented writers (Grant Morrison, Mark Waid, Geoff Jones, Kurt Busiek, Paul Dini, Greg Rucka) are coordinating what they're doing really tightly. And it seems as though (from everything I've read) they're doing it from a "bottom-up" perspective, not a "top-down, the editor is MAKING us do it" way. This obviously can't last forever but while it's going, I'm enjoying the obvious enthusiasm of the writers and the energy they're bringing to the books.

In the past, crossovers have ALWAYS been top-down. "The editor says you GOTTA do this." Peter David actually quit...was it X-Factor during his first run on the series and/or Hulk? some book (or books) because he was being forced to constantly interrupt his ongoing storylines with endless crossovers. This "bottom-up" method really seems to have (for me, at least) brought a huge sense of excitement back to DC.

More later