Friday Night Fights: OPP - round 12

You know what? Call it lazy, call it 'phoning it in'. I don't care. I've won TWO OPP fights, boyo! If I want to showcase something ho-hum like a middle aged Batman kicking Superman in the jaw, well then, by golly, I'll do it!

Spacebooger has more fights from the other guys...but none of them won twice!

Dark Knight Returns by Miller, Janson and Varley

Friday Night Fights: OPP - round 10

Then there was the time Thor introduced himself to Superman the only way a Nordic god of thunder knows how. Funnily enough, that's how Spacebooger introduces himself to strangers as well.

From JLA/AVENGERS trade papeback by Busiek & Perez.

All-Star Superman vol. 2 (DC, 2009)

I've said all I can say about Morrison's and Quitely's take on Superman over here. So I'm not going to say anything else for the second volume except: It is frickin' awesome. That is all.



Lois' eye-roll is just perfect.

Superman & Batman vs Vampires

So there's gonna be a mini series featuring Batman & Superman fighting werewolves and vampires. John Byrne already did that in 1987. Well okay, it was just Superman and Batman versus one vampire and no werewolves but it only took him 38 pages to do it which is just about the right number of pages for a vampire story.

Batman is referring to his apparent death few pages earlier when he dives into quicksand and sinks. Sinking into quicksand equals death, right? Makes sense. Not necessarily, says Batman:


No you can't swim in quicksand like you do in water! The hell, Bruce? Or is he so well prepared and such a badass that he can bend the law of physics to his will? In which case...cool!

From Action Comics Annual #1 collected in Superman: The Man of Steel 6 by Byrne, Adams & Giordano

Superman: Last Son HC (DC, 2008)

This book is one reason why I wait for the collected editions of comics so I can read the entire story in one go. Last Son was so beset with delays, mostly from artist Adam Kubert, that DC had to put it on hiatus for four issues while Kubert got his groove back. In the end the story had to be wrapped up in an Annual.

Geoff Johns and his old Hollywood boss Richard Donner were probably thinking, "Hey, Hollywood! This is how you give Superman a "son"!" when they wrote Last Son. They decided to bring General Zod, Ursa and Non from the Christopher Reeve Superman movie into Superman comic continuity when Superman finds a shuttle with a young boy in it and is shocked to discover that he's a Kryptonian. Before Clark and Lois can pass the boy off as a relative, the boy's real parents arrive on Earth: He is actually the spawn of Zod and Ursa but unlike his parents, he's not a megalomaniac bent on world domination. Yet.

Superman has to team up with Luthor to defeat the escapees from the Phantom Zone and downtown Metropolis gets destroyed yet again in the ensuing battle. Oh, multi-coloured Kryptonites are also introduced here. Or is that re-introduced? I'm not up to par with my Superman mythos, sorry.

One of the issues collected here (the Phantom Zone issue) is in 3D and glasses are provided. My first experience with 3D in comics was a Batman graphic novel back in the 80s and the effect in Last Son is the same as it was for me when I read that 3D Batman book: bloody annoying. Oh sure, it looks nice with all the "special effects" but ultimately pointless.

I honestly thought the story would end with Lois and Clark adopting "Christopher" so the poignant ending...so not expected. I'm one of those people who hates it when a junior version of a superhero is introduced in my pop culture but Last Son works mainly because it did not end happily ever after. But I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing Christopher Kent again in the not too distant future*.

Good job by Johns, Donner and Adam Kubert.

*Or then again, maybe not.

World's Finest (DC, 1990)

It was only by chance, while surfing the 'net, that I discovered DC had just released a "Deluxe" edition of the 1990 3-part mini series, World's Finest by Dave Gibbons, Steve Rude, Karl Kesel and colourist Steve Oliff. Either there wasn't much publicity done by DC or I was just looking at the wrong places for this book to go under my radar. Probably the latter. Anyway, I remembered that I have this mini series so I dug it out and read it again for nostalgia's sake and maybe write a few words about it here.

After I turned the last page of Book Three, I figured either it hasn't aged well or my memories are playing tricks on me. Because I remember loving it the the first time it came out. What's not to love? Two of DC's biggest icons teaming up to fight their respective arch enemies, Joker and Lex Luthor. But I was surprised to find that after reading it again, 18 years later, the book did not satisfy. The older me is much more harder to please it appears. I blame Dave Gibbons' writing.

World's Finest plot requires too much explanation. There's a mystery about a Fagin-like character who used to employ orphans as his well trained thieves but he's dead now. No, he's not. Yes, he is. No, wait...somebody's dead but we're not sure who. Then for some reason, Lex Luthor wants to spread his empire to other cities so he buys up property in Gotham. At the same time, Joker wants to see the sights in Metropolis. So the two villains cut a deal and trade bases of operations for a month. Also for some strange reason, Superman and Batman feel that they too need to trade cities to pursue their respective enemies. Why? Why couldn't Batman stay in Gotham and chase Luthor while Superman remain in Metropolis and take care of the Joker? The pretext given so that Dave Gibbons could put the heroes in each other's cities is that Superman was humiliated by his first encounter with the Joker and Batman too felt played by Luthor. So they figured better to move to an unfamiliar city chasing the villain they know instead of staying home and be humiliated by the villain they don't. Sorry but I just could not buy that.

There were missed opportunities, I feel, when Gibbons failed to portray the differences in style between the two heroes and even between the two bad guys. What we get instead are caricatures of the villains. Joker the grinning maniac and Lex Luthor the cold, calculating businessman. Yawn inducing? You betcha!

The only good thing about World's Finest is Steve Rude's art. You can't go wrong with "The Dude" and the alliteratively named Karl Kesel inking. But pretty pictures cannot save a book if the story is boring as this one is.

Not recommended, sadly.

All-Star Superman vol. 1

This hardcover collection includes the first six issues of the Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (the alter-ego of Glasgow-based artist, Vincent Deighan) Superman series. Not bound to any continuity, Morrison has a free hand to tell any Superman stories that he wants and what he wants to tell are the Silver Age-type stuff. No angst and with just a dash of silliness (but the good kind of silly...like arm wrestling Atlas and Samson so they will leave Lois alone). It would be wrong to call All Star Superman campy. Rather, it is a Superman title where anything can happen, giving it a both modern and retro feeling to it.

For someone like me who is not a huge Superman fan, this book is wonderful because the absence of any continuity baggage means I can just enjoy the book without worrying what is what, though there is the prerequisite origin story on the very first page. Just one page, though.

Basically my love for All-Star Superman comes from the pretentious-free intelligence of the book. Frank Quitely's beautiful art may look plain to some but it is actually quite subtle. Sometimes you don’t even notice little things that Superman has done or fixed, because Superman’s that fast and that good. Luckily, we have a single panel that freezes it in time, and if we take the time to delve, Quitely rewards us. Jamie Grant's digital colouring should share credit as well. It is simply stunning. The book also treats its characters with respect and lets them talk like people, instead of walking exposition/plot devices. The Jimmy Olsen spotlight issue, for example, finally gave me a clear idea as to just why Superman would be best friends with a kid like Jimmy.

All Star Superman is a fun comic book about a powerful man who chooses to do good because he can and wants to. Now, who doesn't want to read that?

They Came, They Saw, They Left

How did you, dear reader, manage to find this blog? How did you know this blog exists? Via Bahlactus perhaps? Or maybe a link from another comics blog like Every.Issue.Ever or Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep or Great Caesar's Post?

Well, here are some words and phrases people have used while 'Googling' and they stumbled upon this blog as a result:

"naked cartoon superheroes" - please be specific. Do you want naked Spider-Man or naked Green Lantern? Aw, who am I kidding? You wanted to see Wonder Woman and She-Hulk doing the nasty, didn't you? Sorry for the disappointment.

"naked cartoon dc characters" - well, at least now you're a bit specific. You just want characters from a particular company. I admire your taste. DC does have them some lovely cheesecake.

"naked batman cartoon" - I don't swing that way, man. [SEINFELD]Not that there's anything wrong with THAT![/SEINFELD]

"naked daddy comic" - Eeww. Let's not go there.

"Superman Big Barda Porn Movie" - Uhm, yeeeeaahhh. I really, really hope this guy was looking for Action Comics #593 where Byrne wrote that great story which I featured here. Because, you know, if he was looking for an actual porn starring Superman and Big Barda.......

"lady fights on friday night smackdown" - I really owe a HUGE thanks to the great Bahlactus for this. I get increased traffic every weekend because of that guy.

"angelina ass shots" - Yes, I have (so far) a couple of entries entitled " gratuitous ass shots" and yes, they were written so that Google would direct horny guys to my blog and be disappointed.

"hulk dice" - Is this some gaming accessory I never knew existed?

"Superheroine catfights" - Nope. Not yet, fella. Maybe in '08 I'll feature some. Oh wait! I have that Ms. Marvel Civil War trade, don't I? One superheroine catfight coming up....soon...ish.

"Baroness Cobra Torture" - Which linked you to that G.I. JOE annual I wrote about. Did you like it? Huh, did you? Yeah, Baroness was only mentioned briefly and I focused on the ninjas instead. It's G.I. Joe, ya freak!

"Shenna the She-Devil naked 2005" - because God forbid we want to see her naked now.

"Old Wonder Woman naked" - I think this person has a Grandma-complex. And again...Ewwwwwww.


And that's it for this year. I'm gonna take the next 4-5 days off from writing anything here and I'll see you again in 2008. Ciao!

Great Moments In Comics History No. 3: Superman Does Porn

Hi! I'm back from the holidays and it's time to dust off the cobwebs from this here blog. So let's go with the third instalment of Great Moments of Comics History (the first is here and here's the second).

This time, it's Action Comics #593 by John Byrne and in this issue Superman and Big Barda starred in a porn movie. Mr.Miracle was a bit upset when he found out.

"Scott! That's your wife! She's dancing provocatively in a sewer!"

However, it appears that Big Barda was actually under the psionic control of Sleez, one of Darkseid's minions who was exiled to Earth after Darkseid thought Sleez's actions were getting too depraved even by Apokolips standards. That's like Hitler telling Himmler to chill out and stop gassing all those prisoners. Anyway....

If Yoda ever joined the Dark Side and became a pimp, he would so totally look like Sleez. So it appears that Sleez went into the superhero porn business (a lucrative but risky venture) in order to make oodles of money to form an army. It was never explained why he needed an army, though. Perhaps he wanted to go back to Apokolips but really, when you can control the minds of others including superheroes and force them to star in porn movies and make mucho dollars, why do you need an army? He's not very smart, this Sleez.


But before we get to see any hot action, Mr. Miracle crashes in to save his wife's honour and maybe Superman's

I like the looks Superman and Barda are giving each other. We were doing something, weren't we? It was weird but kinda fun, wasn't it? I don't remember much, Barda, but I have such a hard on. And Mr. Miracle's face? Priceless. He's wearing a mask and we can still see a pouty face.

"Until we meet again, Superman....(after I've made sure my wife is in another dimension)".

Superman Is Cruel To Animals

G.I JOE: A REAL AMERICAN HERO week is taking a break today. No reason, I'm just taking a break from the Joes. It's just for one day. It's not like I'm getting paid to do this thing. Let's look at how Superman treats animals instead....

Awww, the poor kitty. Look at Leo the Lion's face there. You can feel his pain. You know what he's thinking? He's thinking, "But Superman! Why?...." as his last breath is choked out of his larynx. And what's Superman planning to do with his right hand there? A super-karate chop? Have you no pity, sir? Haven't you?

Aw, Superman! No, please no! Mama Bear was just trying to protect her cubs. It's natural. What's with the choke hold? It's that stupid bint you should be choking. Is that Lois? What was she thinking going around petting bear cubs?

Again with the choke hold. And now you're trying to de-fang the tiger as well. Nice....NOT! Dude, just super tickle the sabretooth or something.

All your base are belong to us! You tell him, Supergirl. Me love you long time. And head-butt him good, Super-Horse! Mercy is for the weak. That'll show him. What a dick.