superman – PopCult Reviews

Comic Book Review – Superman by Geoff Johns Part Two

Superman: Escape from Bizarro World (2008)
Reprints Action Comics #855-857, Superman #140, DC Comics Presents #71, and The Man of Steel #5
Written by Geoff Johns, Richard Donner, Otto Binder, E. Nelson Bridwell, and John Byrne
Art by Eric Powell, Wayne Boring, Curt Swan, John Byrne, and Dick Giordano

Superman: Secret Origin (2009)
Reprints Superman: Secret Origin #1-6
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank

Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes (2008)
Reprints Action Comics #858-863
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank

It was Escape from Bizarro World where I started to think Richard Donner wasn’t as involved in Geoff Johns’s Action Comics run as suggested. Something about the story beyond Eric Powell’s art makes me believe The Goon creator had more of a hand plotting the story. It makes sense because his tone to Bizarro’s cube-shaped version of Earth feels very similar to his cult-hit comic book series. The Donner involvement was likely little more than he and Johns talking on the phone over coffee about plots, which generally served as a good marketing tool to bring readers to Action Comics at the time.

Comic Book Review – Superman by Geoff Johns

Superman: Up, Up, and Away (2006)
Reprints Superman #650-653 and Action Comics #837-840
Written by Geoff Johns and Kurt Busiek
Art by Pete Woods and Renato Guedes

Superman: Last Son of Krypton (2013)
Reprints Action Comics #844-846, 851, 866-870; Action Comics Annual #11; and Superman: New Krypton Special #1
Written by Geoff Johns (with Richard Donner)
Art by Adam Kubert, Gary Frank, and Jon Sibal

Geoff Johns had his plate full in 2006. He was the top writer at DC Comics, having just penned Infinite Crisis and writing one of the best Flash runs ever, and was helming Green Lantern. He was also writing Teen Titans, having led a reboot to introduce a new generation to the book. Toss in 52, which he co-wrote with three others and other event books, and Johns was quite busy. Amid this, he picked up Action Comics and worked on a soft reboot of Superman that sought to fold back in elements from the Silver Age that had been removed following 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Comic Book Review – Dark Knights of Steel

Dark Knights of Steel (2023)
Reprints Dark Knights of Steel #1-12
Written by Tom Taylor
Art by Yasmine Putri, Bengal, and Nathan Gooden

DC Comics has always loved a “What If?” story. The Silver Age, from the late 1950s to the end of the 1960s, was rife with covers that teased variations on your iconic superheroes. That trend revived itself in the Elseworlds imprint in the 1990s. The Silver Age stories often gave us alternate histories, while Elseworlds placed the heroes in new situations from space and time. Red Son saw Superman’s rocket landing in the USSR instead of Kansas. In Darkest Knight, Bruce Wayne receives the Power Ring instead of Hal Jordan. Batman: Red Rain showcased a world where Batman and many of his allies & enemies became vampires. With the big push for the new Multiverse, DC has recently rolled out more of these Elseworlds-type stories. There is DC vs. Vampires, which I previously reviewed, Jurassic League with humanoid dinosaurs, and this medieval set mini-series.

Comic Book Review – DC vs. Vampires

DC vs. Vampires Volume One (2022)
Reprints DC vs. Vampires #1-6
Written by James Tynion IV and Matthew Rosenberg
Art by Otto Schmidt, Simone Di Meo, and Daniele Di Meo

DC vs. Vampires Volume Two (2023)
Reprints DC vs. Vampires #7-12
Written by James Tynion IV and Matthew Rosenberg
Art by Otto Schmidt, Francesco Mortarino, and Daniele Di Nuculo

Try as I might, I have never really enjoyed vampires as a horror concept. I’ve watched many vampire films of varying quality; some I have liked, but the vampire aspect isn’t scary. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a wonderfully made film, and Dracula is certainly creepy at moments, but I never felt scared of him. Vampires typically seemed to be used to explore ideas of titillating sexuality, which is fine if you’re into that. I don’t really think most of the classic monsters are all that scary, to be honest. Overexposure has demystified them to the point where they are cartoon characters. So when I picked up this Elseworlds comic series, my expectations were relatively low despite the creative talent behind it.

Comic Book Review – Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come

Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come Part One (2008)
Reprints Justice Society of America #7-12
Written by Geoff Johns & Alex Ross
Art by Dale Eaglesham, Fernando Pasarin, and Alex Ross

Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come Part Two (2008)
Reprints Justice Society of America #13-18, Annual #1
Written by Geoff Johns & Alex Ross
Art by Dale Eaglesham, Fernando Pasarin, and Jerry Ordway

Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come Part Three (2009)
Reprints Justice Society of America #19-22, Justice Society of America Kingdom Come Special: Superman, Justice Society of America Kingdom Come Special: Magog, Justice Society of America Kingdom Come Special: The Kingdom
Written by Geoff Johns, Alex Ross, and Peter Tomasi
Art by Dale Eaglesham, Nathan Massengill, Jerry Ordway, Bob Wiacek, Alex Ross, Fernando Pasarin, and Mick Gray

Geoff Johns has always reached deep into continuity for his work at DC Comics. It’s why he was such an excellent fit for the JSA, able to draw on decades of stories & characters and build upon them. When the Justice Society had a revival post-Infinite Crisis, I was among many people hyped to see the writer continue with these characters. However, the longer this new book went on, the more it felt like Johns was stretching out a small number of storylines for two years. The most egregious example of this is Thy Kingdom Come. It’s one of a few sequels written to the prestige 1996 mini-series Kingdom Come.

Comic Book Review – All-Star Superman

All-Star Superman (2011)
Reprints All-Star Superman #1-12
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Frank Quitely

I’m not sure what I think of Superman these days. For anyone claiming to believe there is a single definitive version of him, it shows they don’t actually know the character’s history. The Superman who appeared in the pages of Action Comics #1 wasn’t even Siegel & Shuster’s first attempt to create a character with that name. Over the nearly 90 years that Superman has existed in the culture, he has undergone numerous reboots and minor tweaks. The Golden Age Superman is a different person from the Silver Age version who, in turn, is not the same as John Byrne’s rebooted Man of Steel. Even that iteration from 1985 was changed significantly by the end of the 20th century. In All-Star Superman, writer Grant Morrison is focused purely on the Superman of their youth. This was the Superman of the 1960s, a fatherly figure whose powers bordered on god-like, new ones manifesting as writers needed them. Morrison has chosen what is ironically the least human of Superman’s faces to tell a story about life & death, a Herculean postmodern myth.

Comic Book Review – Superman: Space Age

Superman: Space Age (2023)
Reprints Superman: Space Age #1-3
Written by Mark Russell
Art by Mike Allred

In 2019, there was a lot of buzz around DC Comics’ next planned reboot. It would have been the fourth (Infinite Crisis, Flashpoint/New 52, Rebirth, and this one) during editor-in-chief Dan Didio’s tenure at the company and proved to be an idea that didn’t come to fruition. The comics website Bleeding Cool has a series on the plans we are aware of and how dramatically they would have shaken up the DC Universe. The concept was to make Wonder Woman the first official superhero in the timeline, inspiring the mystery men & women of the Golden Age. Superman would have come along during the Kennedy administration, as would Batman. Eventually, Warner Bros. was bought out, and leadership at DC was drastically altered, leaving DiDio without a job. 5G was scrapped though pieces of it have been used in small projects like Future State, Superman & the Authority, and this Black Label mini-series.

Comic Book Review – Superman: The Exile and Other Stories

Superman: The Exile and Other Stories Omnibus (2018)
Reprints Adventures of Superman #445-460, Superman v2 #23-37, Action Comics #643-646, and Action Comics Annual #2
Written by Jerry Ordway, George Pérez, Roger Stern, Dan Jurgens, Tom Peyer, and Keith Giffen
Art by Jerry Ordway, Mike Mignola, Kerry Gammill, Dan Jurgens, Paris Cullins, Curt Swan, George Pérez, Keith Giffen, Dennis Janke, P. Craig Russell, John Beatty, Brett Breeding, John Statema, Art Thibert, Klaus Janson, Tim Gula, and Andy Kubert

I have reached that age. You know it. The age where a guy with graying hair on his head and beard says things like, “I liked [insert] character here better when I was a kid.” I see this and acknowledge the silliness of it. A character like Superman has never been a static thing, but exists in a never-ending flow state where tweaks are happening to the narrative and mythos with every new issue that comes out. Superman couldn’t fly for his first few appearances, and things like Smallville were rectons. There is no ultimate version of Superman and the one you like is probably the one you first encountered. I was always a Christopher Reeve fan because that was my first Superman and when it came to comics the post-John Byrne era was when I joined in.

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 – Superman and Justice League America Volume 2

Superman and Justice League America Volume 2 (2016)
Reprints Justice League America #69-77, Annual #6
Written by Dan Jurgens (with Dan Mishkin)
Art by Dan Jurgens (with Dave Cockrum)

For a collection with Superman in the title, he is gone from the book two issues in. This collection presents stories told just at and after the infamous Death of Superman storyline. We get a tie-in with the League attempting to fight and getting obliterated by Doomsday. That’s followed by a Funeral for a Friend crossover as the League, and other DC superheroes come together to mourn the passing of the great hero. From there, we have Wonder Woman coming onboard, and Dan Jurgens begins to wind down his relatively short-lived run on the book. Jurgens’s departure feels abrupt as he barely slides into home base to finish off the Bloodwyn arc, and then it’s over. There’s a strong sense of a lack of closure for characters that were personal additions like Maxima and Agent Liberty.