Action Comics: Superman and the Men of Steel (comics)

Writer: Grant Morrison
Artists: Rags Morales, Andy Kubert
Collects: Action Comics (vol. 2) #1-8

Supermans origin has been redone so many times it's safe to say we probably don't need to see it again for a long time. But if you are going to sell me on it, you could do far worse than bringing in Grant Morrison. Even better, Morrison had a great idea that no origin had touched on in decades.

Morrison finally brought the character full circle. Superman started out, way back at his inception, as a social crusader who cared more for justice than what people thought of him. He did the right thing, whether the law agreed or not. Kind of interesting that the Man of Steel has been made to be very relevant again simply by going deep into his past. With corporate recklessness at a high and people deciding the way to fight back is to occupy the streets, isn't this the sort of hero the world needs right now?

Something I appreciated is that Morrison gives ample page time to Krypton without it dominating the character. One of the things that sometimes bothers me is when Supermans Kryptonian heritage is made to be a part of who he is. Morrison never forgets that, no matter what might have happened on Krypton, growing up on Earth is what shaped Superman into the person he is. His mother and father were the Kents and they gave him the life lessons and morals that shaped him into the hero we know.

One scene in particular that I enjoyed is a flashback, when young Clark is discussing where he came from with Johnathan Kent. He remarks that he doesn't even know what the S on his blanket meant. His father tells him that it doesn't matter; what matters is that Clark himself can make that S mean something through his actions, by reminding humanity of the best parts of us. That's what I mean; Krypton can be relatively important and interesting, but it should not inform his character too much. Earth is his home.

By the end of these eight issues, we've recieved a pretty good primer on Superman and the world he inhabits. A plus is that they saw fit to correct the reading order for the trade. One of the edicts of the New 52 was that the monthly books would ship on time*. Thus, when Action Comics fell a bit behind schedule, Morrison, along with Andy Kubert, slipped in a two issue story obviously meant to take place after the arc it popped up in the middle of. The trade places it after the main arc has concluded.

All the backup strips are included as backmatter; they're by a different writer, but add some welcome depth to the world. A couple of them are dedicated to Steel - who is now inspired by Superman far earlier in his career and joins the Man of Steel in the fight - showing what he was up to while Superman went to confront the threat in space. Another, my personal favorite, shows the life of the Kents and the hardships they endured leading up to finally getting their wish of a family in Clark. They're also well worth the read.

Oh, and all the variant covers are collected in a gallery at the back, along with some behind the scenes tidbits with the creators.

I was initially apprehensive when I heard Rags Morales was going to be the artist of the series. The main work I knew him by is Identity Crisis, where he opted for heavy realism to the point of basing the look of the different characters after famous actors. It was always pretty weird and I always kind of equated him with that book. Thankfully, he does well for himself here, showing off a range and versatility I didn't expect from him. His work is not perfect. Hell, it's downright rough in spots, particularly an odd, odd style change for the closing pages of the initial arc. But it works better than I expected.

Andy Kubert does that aforementioned two issue arc. As always, his work is a delight. It's a real shame that he's not a faster artist, because I'd love to have seen him work with Grant Morrison more often**.

All together, Superman and the Men of Steel is some pretty great comics and well worth the purchase.

My Opinion: Buy It

I've finally come across the first homerun of the New 52. Superman and the Men of Steel is everything I wanted and more. It has action, drama and most of all it has heart. I couldn't stop smiling while reading it.

* For the unaware, DC had a nasty problem with late issues prior to the New 52. In some cases, this is forgivable; a story is often so much better when a consistent artistic voice is applied and a lot of the delays were on the art end. On the other, even in the case of stories that benefited from the wait, it could get kind of ridiculous. Geoff Johns "Last Son" arc of Superman was delayed for so long - I think it took over a year for it to finally reach a conclusion - that almost the entire run of Kurt Busiek on Superman happened between the issues of that story. I kind of wish there were a bit more leeway given rather than the hardline stance they take now, but no one will question things needed to tighten up really bad.

** The only other thing I'm immediately aware of his his run on early issues of Grants Batman run. Unfortunately, it seemed he couldn't keep up and had to bow out after about seven issues. A real shame, even if Tony Daniel did a fair job following him. I'd kill for a miniseries by Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert that allowed the two to do what they wanted without schedules to worry about.

Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? (comics)

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artist: Andy Kubert
Collects: Batman #685, Detective Comics #852 plus Gaiman penned stories from Secret Origins #36, Secret Origins Special #1 and Batman: Black and White #2

I imagine that if there's one thing comic fans - myself included - never thought they'd see, it's a counterpart to Alan Moore's Superman story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow". Love it or hate it, that work is considered one of the seminal Superman stories, so that's a tough pedigree to live up to and you'd think it would scare off most writers. But here it is; and I guess if you could get anyone to do such a story short of Alan Moore himself - which, you know, would never happen at this point - Neil Gaiman would be a pretty safe bet.

Batman is dead. To the surprise of few. Now his closest allies and fiercest villains gather at his funeral to swap stories of how the Caped Crusader died while the spirit of the man himself watches.

Gaiman isn't quite content to just ape Alan Moore. While Moore's story was something of a capstone to the Silver Age Superman - his last story, as it were - Gaiman takes a bit more timeless an approach. Everything is presented as the base ideals or concepts. It's not the literal death of the character, but the death and funeral of an iteration of Batman. It's every death of Batman in one. There isn't just one version of any character attending either; in some pages, you might spot two Jokers. All there to tell a story about the death of a Batman.

Gaiman himself notes in the foreword that this is his final Batman story, or how he would end it if this were truly to be the last Batman story. But the message of Gaimans "last Batman story" is clear. There is no final Batman story, because Batman lives forever.

It's fitting, not just because that's a point Grant Morrison had been hammering home in the regular stories at the time, but also because there's never really an end to characters like Batman. Someone always picks up the pen and tells a new tale. Even histories great characters no longer under corporate ownership - where they're sometimes brought back if only to keep copyright going - find their way into new adventures. See Dracula, for an example. One way or another, the characters are reborn, or see new life. Batman can stand among these characters, these larger than life rich fictional myths, so it feels right that the final Batman story is that there is no final Batman story.

There's still some interpretation left to the reader, though. Is the tale also an allegory for the cycles of rebirth and reinterpretation the character has gone through? In some ways, is it a musing on the nature of stories in general? A commentary on how every person has a way of telling a story, writ large? Or are we simply thinking too much about it and it's just a loving homage to a character that's lasted well over seventy years of continuous publication? It could be any of those things, or maybe not.

So overall, what Neil Gaimans written is a story that has a timeless feel. Perhaps one of an instant classic, maybe? When it's all said and done, the story doesn't vastly change how you'll look at the character or rock your world. But it feels enduring, like something that will stand the test of time. So perhaps naming it after the Alan Moore story wasn't a folly after all. It feels like something that will hold up in a similar way, relevance be damned.

If I have a problem with the story at all, it's that I felt it would have been nice to see more of the tales told of Batmans death, but that strikes me as nitpicking.

While I've given all this praise to Neil Gaiman, I have to talk some about Andy Kubert. I have my reservations. Even here, a couple panels feel a little too iffy for my liking, usually whenever we're zoomed out from a group of characters, which is a problem that cropped up in Batman & Son as well. But I am a fan of his Batman work. Aside from that problem, it feels like he's on another level here, beyond what he had already been doing.

Within, he actively apes the styles of classic Batman artists from the past, such as Jerry Robinson, Dick Sprang and Neal Adams to great effect. He doesn't quite achieve the chameleon effect of certain other top shelf artists, but his linework does a respectable job of it. To me, Andy Kubert fits with Batman like a glove and it makes me hope to see more of his work on the character in the future. It just works for me.

Some extra's round out the package, because the actual story was only two issues long and someone in the collected editions department clearly recognized that they needed a hell of a lot more than that to put out a hardcover or trade. These include pretty much every story Gaiman did with the Batman mythos, mostly concerning the villains. They're good reads - not sure if the Poison Ivy one or the Riddler one is my favorite of them - but not essential reading. That and I really don't think the art is the greatest for two of the three. Add some Andy Kubert sketches, stir briskly and viola.

The Score: 8.5 out of 10

Overall, this is a great read. I kind of wish it were a bit longer, but the short length works well for it. While not perfect, it's a fine package and well worth a purchase.

Batman & Son (comics)

Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Andy Kubert
Collects: Batman #655-658 and 663-666

My god, I love Grant Morrison comics. I love the imagination, the complete insanity and the layers of themes to his work. You can easily call me an International Smug Elitist and I'd agree with you a hundred percent. But as a reviewer, I have to be fair.

Thankfully, Grant makes it easy; Batman & Son quickly wormed it's way into my heart as a Batman volume.

The title story - Batman & Son - isn't so much an outlandish idea as it is an update on a classic one. An old story from the 80's called Son of the Demon first introduced Batman and Talia son. It's wavered in and out of continuity since that time, however; aside from the Elseworld Kingdom Come, few stories really even reference that particular story. But now, Batman's son - an insufferable little prick named Damian - has reemerged in continuity.

To my surprise, I love the little bastard.

Batman & Son feels like a mainstream Batman story in that it feels more like something you might expect out of mainstream Batman work than something from Grant Morrison. This isn't the first time the man has worked with the character, as you may know, and those earlier stories felt more like a Morrison story than this did. Arkham Asylum - very loosely adapted in a hit video game you might have heard of bearing the same name - was a trippy journey into the psyche of both Batman and his rogues gallery; an almost nightmarish story. Gothic dealt with supernatural elements as well. In contrast, Batman & Son feels a bit more straightforward.

But what I found the title arc to be is fun; and despite the lessening of Morrisons trademark craziness, there are elements that just smack of his influence. Ninja Man-bats, the Bat rocket, the battle between Batman and said man-bats in a pop art museum. In what I suspect is going to be a theme throughout his run, Morrison blends some of the old fashioned Silver Age zaniness in small doses to modern Batman. The remarkable thing is that it works.

The story is basically Batman finding out he has a son, whom is dropped on him by his one time fiance Talia Al Ghul. The boy was trained by the League of Assassins and has a serious sense of entitlement, not to mention a temper. He is also a spoiled little kid. But he's not completely insufferable. At certain points within the story you could see parts of this kid that are truly good. In many ways he's not so unlike a miniature version of Bruce Wayne. The brooding, the temper and darkness he exhibits isn't all that removed from his old man. He really is his fathers son in more ways than one; he carries a deep respect for the father he never knew and points in the story show that this little boy may also carry his fathers innate purity. It's going to be fun to see where he goes from here and I hope Damian sticks around.

Batman #663 - dubber here as an interlude - is a strange beast. This story, titled The Clown at Midnight, is not a typical comic. It's more of a prose story, with overwrought descriptions and metaphors piling on gobs of atmosphere. It's also so much more of a Joker story than one of Batman. Picking up on an element from the first moments of Grants first issue - where Joker was shot in the face by an imposter Batman - we watch as the Joker changes. Changes in a fascinating new element to the character that I hope stays forever more.

The gist is that every so often Joker reinvents himself completely, in something not all that dissimilar from the idea from Arkham Asylum that states Joker reinvents himself each day to cope with modern life. This singlehandedly explains not only the different versions of the Joker that have come and gone, but the different Jokers of different writers; this makes every interpretation valid, because The Joker changes rapidly, shedding his skin for a new one, as it were. It's a brilliant concept that also adds to Jokers insanity in a frightening way.

The story also gives us a new version of Joker unlike any one before. The Harlequin of Hell is a straight up, bust your skull in, freaky, insane Joker unlike anything we've ever seen. This Joker truly is chaos; in some ways, this is the sort of Joker "The Dark Knight" gave us, only far deadlier and before that film had even shown it's first still.

This story is more a product of writing than anything else. It's very overwrought, but I felt that really helped it. In an age where storylines are drug out across four to six issues of a comic, this bucks the trend. This issue is a compression of a story instead of a decompression. What would have taken around three or four issues if done in a standard comic style is done in one. It's not for everyone - I suspect as many love this daring mood as there are who hate it - but I thought it was a genius way to do this and it offered up a nice change of pace from the more typical comics.

The next two parter feels like something closer to what may have been expected of Morrison when he came on. Dubbed "The Three Ghosts of Batman", the two parter deals with the thread of imposter Batmen introduced in the opening moments of Batman & Son. The second is almost a reflection of Bane, which interestingly brings fear out of the stoic Dark Knight. If anything, it shows that even to this day, Knightfall left scars on The Dark Knight. You get the sense as this short story ends that it's only the beginning of the story; there's one more "Ghost" we've yet to meet when it closes and it's here that the sense that bigger things are on the way first comes to the forefront.

This arc adds another element I'm very fond of in introducing to us the concept of "The Black Casebook". Basically, anything Batman and Dick encountered in their early years that the rational, scientific mind of Batman could not explain, he wrote down in detail. In effect, this brings old stories from the fifties back in continuity; cases that effect the Dark Knight with their outlandishness. This is a fantastic way to bring elements of the old days back in continuity at will and it really feels like a Morrison idea. It also feels like one that needs to stay; like Damian, The Black Casebook just feels like something that has the potential to be truly special and potent.

The final story - Batman #666 - is easily my favorite of the bunch. We get a one issue glimpse at the future - one possible future - where Bruce Wayne is gone and Damian has long since assumed his fathers role as Batman. This issue takes it's issue number very, very seriously; the anti-christ allusions are thick all throughout the story as Damian actively works against the apocalypse. In one issue, we get a feel for this futures Damian as Batman; and he's definitely of a different variety. It's a dark future that can possibly come to pass; a glimpse into a future that must be avoided. But it's one where, no matter what, Batman lives on in some way to fight evil.

The art of everything in this volume save The Clown at Midnight - which was a prose story with only a few CGish illustrations by John Van Fleet - is done by Andy Kubert. While I absolutely adore the stories Grant Morrison is putting forward here, the art is something I'm a bit iffier on. Most of the time, it absolutely pops, with fantastic linework and great flow. But sometimes, we come across panels that feel rushed. With the detail that Andy puts into his work in this volume, one panel with less detail comes off as a striking contrast and is a real detachment from the story. The slow work of the Kubert brothers is particularly well known by now, but it's these panels that it really shows; one gets the sense that Andy may have been pressed for time and figured it was alright to spend less time on a panel where the characters are further in the background and such.

Still, I'm not sure I would trade Andy for anyone else in this volume. He really runs with some scenes; the fight in the pop art museum in particular is something he truly shines with. Despite having a few of the aforementioned panels in it, I wouldn't have traded Andy for #666 either. He really drives home the feeling of the apocalypse nigh on this future Gotham.

This is all to say nothing of the coloring. Something like that isn't normally what you'd see time devoted to, but I have to mention it. The coloring was fantastic. Batman has been awash in dark colors for far too long. While it suits him, it feels so grim sometimes. But the coloring throughout this volume washes this story in bright colors, neons and glows that simply pop off the goddamn page. It's gorgeous. This colorist needs to stay with the title forever. Seriously.

The Score: 8 out of 10

I truly get the feeling that this is the start of something special. It's probably not going to shatter internets or the Earths crust, but it's a lot more fun than most modern Batman stories. It feels like it's really going somewhere as well, even if you already know the path things take in future work. It comes with my recommendation; I personally loved this volume and it sticks on my bookshelf proudly alongside the classics of Batmans long history.