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Supervillain Spotlight – The Penguin

Few Batman’s Rogues Gallery members have seen as many radical changes as The Penguin. He first appeared in Detective Comics #58, co-created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Like many new villains of the time, he had no secret identity and was simply The Penguin. Creators would come up with concepts for adversaries for their title heroes without any real plan for them to come back. They would merely gauge how the audience felt through letters or how the creators themselves felt after the fact. While most villains had an apparent gimmick (The Joker uses deadly pranks, The Riddler leaves riddles, Catwoman is a cat burglar, etc.), The Penguin was a bit of an odd duck (no pun intended). His crimes were often bird-themed, but he was also known for using gimmicky umbrellas…you know, like a penguin.

Comic Book Review – Suicide Squad Volumes Seven and Eight

Suicide Squad: The Dragon’s Hoard (2017)
Reprints Suicide Squad #50-58
Written by John Ostrander and Kim Yale
Art by Robert Campanella, Jim Fern, Geof Isherwood, Karl Kesel, Tom Mandrake, Luke McDonnell, and Grant Miehm

Suicide Squad: The Final Mission (2019)
Reprints Suicide Squad #59-68
Written by John Ostrander and Kim Yale
Art by Geof Isherwood, Robert Campanella, and Andrew Pepoy

The opening chapter of The Dragon’s Hoard sees Amanda Waller’s Suicide Squad fully operating as mercenaries for hire, breaking most ties with the US government. It was the 50th issue of the series. It’s an oversized affair that interweaves the history of Task Force X with a fight against the undead. Rick Flag is revealed to have a son that the Squad never knew about, and the child is in danger. Waller feels compelled to honor her fallen friend and protect his child. That means putting together a crew of mainstays from the run. The team ends up facing zombie-fied versions of foes they’ve encountered along the way.

Comic Book Review – Suicide Squad Volumes Five and Six

Suicide Squad: Apokolips Now (2016)
Reprints Suicide Squad v1 #31-39
Written by John Ostrander, Kim Yale, and Robert Greenberger
Art by John K. Snyder III, Luke McDonnell, Grant Miehm, and Geof Isherwood

Suicide Squad: The Phoenix Gambit (2017)
Reprints Suicide Squad v1 #40-49
Written by John Ostrander, Kim Yale, and David M. DeVries
Art by Geof Isherwood, Luke McDonnell, and Mark Badger

Suicide Squad had an interesting conceit that allowed it to shift the narrative focus every few issues. It was also easy to drop new characters into the book and toss them out when needed, as they were primarily supervillains going through Belle Reve’s revolving door or getting killed on the missions. For the first two and half years of the title, that was how things were, but in the wake of The Janus Directive, it appeared John Ostrander was interested in dramatically shifting what the Suicide Squad would be. Before he can head off in a new direction, though, he has to wrap up loose ends from previous years.

Comic Book Review – Suicide Squad Volumes Three & Four

Suicide Squad: Rogues (2016)
Reprints Suicide Squad v1 #17-25, Annual #1
Written by John Ostrander (with Kim Yale and Larry Ganem)
Art by Luke McDonnell, Graham Nolan, Peter Krause, Keith Giffen, and Grant Miehm

Suicide Squad: The Janus Directive (2016)
Reprints Suicide Squad v1 #26-30, Checkmate #15-18, Manhunter #14, Firestorm #86, and Captain Atom #30
Written by John Ostrander (with Paul Kupperberg, Kim Yale, Cary Bates, and Greg Weisman)
Art by Grant Miehm, Steve Erwin, Rick Hoberg, John K. Snyder III, Pablo Marcos, Doug Rice, Tom Mandrake, and Rafael Kayanan

The first year and a half of Suicide Squad had writer John Ostrander figuring out what the book would be. This means several cast members rotate in and out, never having clear arcs. By this point, the core members of the group were established. Amanda Waller. Rick Flag. Bronze Tiger. Deadshot. Nightshade. Captain Boomerang. There were recurring team members like Nemesis, Shade, Duchess, and others, but they didn’t quite reach the level of development seen in these characters. “The Nightshade Odyssey” brought some science fiction dimension-hopping to the book, but Ostrander pulled back on that quite a bit and decided to center his stories in the global political sphere.

Comic Book Review – The Flash by Geoff Johns Omnibus Volume 3

The Flash by Geoff Johns Omnibus Volume 3 (2022)
Reprints Final Crisis: Rogues’ Revenge #1-3, Blackest Night: The Flash #1-3, Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps #1, The Flash: Rebirth #1-6, The Flash Secret Files and Origins 2010, The Flash v3 #1-12, Flashpoint #1-5
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Scott Kolins, Ethan Van Sciver, Francis Manapul, Andy Kubert

I’m not sure what has happened to Geoff Johns in the last few years. It’s been a disheartening turn of events between some weighty accusations lobbed at him by Justice League star Ray Fisher and some egregious delays on books like Shazam. Recently, artist Bryan Hitch shared that plans for a Justice Society revival book with Johns had been scrapped even after promotional art was shown off in 2021. Johns has become a writer whose work I prefer to wait to be collected than deal with the chronic delays. This definitive collection of his Flash work marks the point where things really went off the rails for the writer and DC Comics for about a decade. Looking at these stories, we can see how the previous consistently high-quality stories being told by Johns about the Flash lost some luster.

Comic Book Review – Superman: The Man of Steel Volume 4

Superman: The Man of Steel Volume 4 (2022)
Reprints Superman #16-22, Adventures of Superman #439-444, Action Comics #598-600, Superman Annual #2
Written by John Byrne, Paul Kupperberg, Jerry Ordway, Roger Stern
Art by John Byrne, Ty Templeton, Karl Kesel, Jerry Ordway, Ross Andru, Curt Swan, Mike Mignola, John Statema, Ron Frenz

So it seems this will be the last volume in The Man of Steel collections which makes sense. These issues mark John Byrne’s final contributions to the Post-Crisis Superman, and the series title comes from his mini-series that rebooted the origins and supporting cast of the character. Volume Four manages to reintroduce some more elements from Superman’s mythos, updated for the 1980s. On reflection, this does not seem like a radical reimagining as it may have when the issues were first published. It’s very evident that Byrne is a fan of the Silver Age Superman but also wants to modernize the icon per his directive from DC Comics. This is also the first volume of reprints where Marv Wolfman was gone from Adventures of Superman, and thus Byrne was writing all three Superman titles monthly, plus penciling two of them.

Comic Book Review – Black Hammer ’45/Black Hammer-Justice League

Black Hammer ’45 (2019)
Written by Jeff Lemire and Ray Fawkes
Art by Matt Kindt

Black Hammer/Justice League: Hammer of Justice (2020)
Written by Jeff Lemire
Art by Michael Walsh

Black Hammer has been a fascinating experiment in superhero fiction, helmed by the immensely talented Jeff Lemire. Starting in 2016, he created a narrative about superheroes trapped in a small town who have to hide their powers. From there, he expanded and created a larger universe that serves as his personal commentary on all sorts of subgenres and archetypes within American comics. There have been some comparisons to Watchmen, but I don’t really think there are many similarities other than one writer’s voice at the center. Lemire has much more reverence for the medium than Alan Moore did or does. With both of these mini-series, Lemire can play around with tropes and, in one instance, DC’s superhero stable of characters.

Comic Book Review – Strange Adventures

Strange Adventures (2021)
Reprints Strange Adventures #1-12
Written by Tom King
Art by Mitch Gerards and Doc Shaner

Tom King’s work is such a perfect distillation of the current state of mythic media in America today. On the surface, it looks incredible; he has some of the best artistic collaborators out there right now. Mitch Gerards delivered some gorgeously dynamic work in Mister Miracle and continues here. Alongside Gerards, handling flashbacks is MVP Doc Shaner. In an interview, King stated that Shaner draws comics the way people imagine they should look. He is definitely right on that one; it’s a beautiful combination of classical forms and sparks of more modern comics art. You will love each page of this series as it presents some gorgeous visuals. Yet, King himself is a troubling figure. He’s become a punching bag for the eye-willingly ignorant comicsgate right-wing morons. They are right to not like him, but they do so for all the wrong reasons.

Comic Book Review – Rorschach

Rorschach (2021)
Reprints Rorschach #1-12
Written by Tom King
Art by Jorge Fornes

I approached this with some trepidation, not because I’m in the camp that thinks Watchmen should be left untouched, but because it’s always hard to see how someone will be able to live up to the original. I also believe Damon Lindeloff’s Watchmen sequel series on HBO has been the best continuation of the material we’ve ever had, and with that being so recent, it felt odd to go back to the well so soon. Yet, Tom King, despite his flubs (see Heroes in Crisis), is still an intriguing comic book writer, and I knew he’d give readers an unexpected twist on something they likely thought they could predict. This isn’t about Rorschach, the character from the original Watchmen comic, but about people trying to further the ideology of someone like him. It’s a dark political story that remains enigmatic even after concluding.

Comic Book Review – The Terrifics Part 2

The Terrifics Part 2
Reviewing The Terrifics #15-30
Written by Gene Luen Yang (with Mark Russell & James Asmus)
Art by Stephen Segovia, Joe Bennett, Doc Shaner, Jose Luis, Dexter Vines, Ray McCarthy, Matt Santorelli, Scott Hanna, Richard Friend, Jordi Tarragona, Sergio Davila, Max Raynor, Dan Mora, Vincente Cifuentes, and Brent Peeple

The Terrifics’ second half builds on its first without a hitch, despite onboarding a new writer. Gene Luen Yang is a comics writer I don’t know too much about. He penned a run on Superman that was part of the curtain call for the New 52 reboot. I have enjoyed what I’ve read of his run on the follow-up The New Superman, a series where a Chinese citizen is imbued with the power of the Man of Steel. I wasn’t sure what Yang’s interpretation of The Terrifics would be, whether he would lean into the Fantastic Four pastiche or try to carve out something unique. But, it’s clear, that once word came that the series would be canceled, Yang decided to pull out all the stops and have fun with the whole thing.