Superman: Son of Superman (comic)

Writer: Peter Tomasi, Patrick Gleason
Artists: Patrick Gleason, Doug Mahnke, Jorge Jimenez
Collects: Superman Rebirth #1, Superman (2016) #1-6

Of the trinity, Superman fared the worst in the New 52. The side books were a wash, but Batman itself was in the midst of another blockbuster run. Wonder Woman was divisive the whole way through, but even if they didn't like the tone or direction of the Azzarello run, most seem like they'll at least admit it was well put together. Superman had a year and a half with Grant Morrison on Action Comics and that was it. Nothing else really measured up*.

Worse still, for a majority of the time, the New 52 version did not really feel like Superman. It was like DC consciously decided to take a different tack with him. In some regards, it worked - Morrisons run starts off with a Superman that is more moral crusader for justice, both social and societal - but in others, it felt like we'd diverged too much from what made the character work to begin with. There's a real feeling, both in and out of his books, that the New 52 is a lot more concerned with his alien origins and feeling like an outsider than he typically is. It's the entire reason he hooks up with Wonder Woman - they both feel alone on an alien world, literal and metaphorical - which is just one part of why that felt like an awful idea from the moment they kissed. I feel like they realized they screwed up and were correcting course by the end, but it came late in the game.

I mean, I'd rather deal with that version than something closer to the Superman from the Zack Snyder films, for example, but it still feels like they missed the point of the character.

That's why the Rebirth Superman title was the one I anticipated reading the most. Just prior to Rebirth, the New 52 version died - if I'm being brutally honest, he died because he was a moron - and the classic version of Superman stepped in to take his place. With him came his wife, Lois Lane, and young son Jonathan Kent. Superman the family man is a status quo that just sounds right the first time you hear it, so the idea naturally agreed with me.

We start off with the Rebirth special, which is admittedly a mis-step. It's entirely about dealing with the fallout of the New 52 versions death and coming to terms with it. It does address an elephant in the room; Superman died once before, so of course he'd think the New 52 version could come back and would go looking for the same means he used to do it. It doesn't change the fact that we're leading off a new era dealing directly with the one we just left behind, one a reader coming back after an absence probably doesn't want to deal with anymore anyway. I know new readers are also mystical unicorns, but part of the reason why is we always see stuff like this, where before you recommend something you have to give a disclaimer or primer because of things that are, to a non comic reader, confusing stereotypical comic junk. That stuffs fine when you're deep in the numbers, but why would you ever lead off with it?

It should have been about a light recap of the life and times of the new-old Superman that glossed over some of the "from a parallel universe" stuff. Unfortunately, that's not what we got, so here we are. Admittedly, there's something sweet about Superman teaming with Lana Lang to retrieve his counterparts remains, then, upon realizing there's no bringing him back, burying him with his parents and carving a memorial to him in the Fortress of Solitude.

After that, we reach the first arc of the series, Son of Superman, and it's off at the races. Much like Tomasi and Gleasons Batman & Robin, this book is very much about the relationship between father and son. Jons powers are only just starting to manifest and he doesn't necessarily know how to control or properly use them. His start is a bit like his fathers in that regard. But unlike Clarks upbringing, he has the benefit of a father who has been through this before and is patient and understanding in dealing with it.

Which is not to say that Lois is a background character. She's just as important to the dynamic and brings her usual headstrong attitude to things. When things start going down, she even manages to get her licks in on the villain in a way I won't spoil, but calls back to the aforementioned Batman & Robin run.

Eventually, the Eradicator shows up. In case you're unfamiliar with him, he was one of the replacement Supermen in the 90's**, during the brief period after Death of Superman where the hole needed to be filled. Essentially a cyborg who thought he actually was Superman for a brief time, he stuck around in one form or another after that. This is a new version, whose history starts as a part of a small force that traps Kryptonian lawbreakers for General Zod. Now, having witnessed the death of Krypton and finding a living Kryptonian, his goal is the rebirth of the race. Unfortunately, he's none too fond of Jons human half and wants to wipe it out.

Naturally, Superman tells him to go screw and the fight begins.

Son of Superman is a fun start for the Rebirth era. We get to see both halves of Supermans life, the domestic and the heroic, how they intersect and how they're all a big part of his life. But we also get to see some scenes that are just downright cool. When the action spills into Metropolis and threatens to put innocent lives in danger, Superman retreats with his family to the friggin Moon, where the climax of the book takes place. Turns out Batman has a special cave there, because Batman, which comes in handy. It all leads to a page that feels like a classic Superman shot, where he rights the American flag and lunar module we left on the Moon and strikes a heroic pose for the cameras to see, to reassure the world that Superman is back and he's there to stay.

The book is full of bright Superman imagery. The way he's drawn by Patrick Gleason, he often comes off as a fatherly presence, larger than life without feeling out of reach. He smiles, shoots his son thumbs up, takes time out to receive keys to the city and proudly introduces his son to his colleagues in superheroics. It's hard to articulate the difference, but it comes down to the way the character carries himself compared to the one he's replaced. The body language feels as important in making him feel like the old school Superman as the dialogue and any of his actions.

There's a bit of fill-in art, unfortunately, but it's not too bad. Jorge Jimenez fits in well enough that I actually didn't even know what he'd drawn until I looked through the credits before writing this review. Doug Mahnke is the one that sticks out. He pencils the Rebirth issue - which is fine, as it's separate - as well as an issue late in the book. Doug Mahnke is a great artist, but his work is just different enough from Gleasons expressive, clean style that you'll notice the issue he illustrated. It's not helped by the fact that Mahnkes issue also uses a different inker and colorist; had he used Mick Gray and John Kalisz I imagine it would have helped smooth over the edges. But I don't know if that decision was in his hands or not. Regardless, Mahnke's a top flight talent and ably handles the material he's given.

Only a few things stuck out to me as a negative. The Rebirth issue being a sort of coda to the New 52 version being one, as I previously mentioned. Another is Supermans prickliness toward his new neighbor. Granted, Cobb kind of brushed off Clarks insistence that they had it under control, but it felt off to see Superman give him a stern look while he repeated himself. Perhaps he knows something we don't? I assume it will be addressed. Tomasi and Gleason seem to be setting Cobb and his granddaughter as recurring characters.

We also didn't need to see Jon accidentally fry the family cat in panic as he tries to save it from a hawk. It's appropriately heartbreaking, because of course the poor kid didn't mean to do it, much less understand how to even use this brand new power he's never had before, and ends up showing how supportive his family is, so it has its use. Superman knows immediately, but doesn't let on as such, instead taking his son with him on a distress call, using it as a teachable moment, helping Jon get control of his heat vision and gently encouraging his son to do the right thing and come clean. That said, did we really need to do that to get to this point? It's the one moment that felt a little bit too much like the kind of dumb, dark moments you'd get in that ugly post-Infinite Crisis period, but it doesn't hurt the book much and probably won't bother anyone else as much as it did me.

It could just be that I'm a cat person. Who knows.

Overall, Superman starts the Rebirth era off strong with the best material I've seen with the character in years. It's good enough that I'm optimistic about the future of the book. I'd go so far as to say it's the best of the Rebirth roll-out that I've read so far. Highly recommended.

My Opinion: Read It

* I say this as I have, at the time of this writing, not read Superman Unchained, which seems like the only thing left to try with a shot at being good to great.

** Eradicator isn't even the only callback to the 90's in here. I didn't expect to ever see Bibbo Bibowski again, but here we are. It's a nice surprise. Superman should have a recognizable fan or two we see from time to time.

Batman and Robin: Dark Knight vs White Knight (comics)

Writers: Paul Cornell, Peter J. Tomasi, Judd Winick
Artists: Scott McDaniel, Patrick Gleason, Greg Tocchini
Collects: Batman and Robin #17-25

This, my friends, is what we call a holding pattern.

Grant Morrison had just finished up on this title - its part to play in his ongoing Batman Epic over - and despite the insistence it should be by armchair analysts who feel they know it all, it wasn't cancelled. In fact, they had a pretty exciting team lined up to take over. Peter J Tomasi and Patrick Gleason.

Well, turns out Flashpoint was just around the corner, so there's some time to kill; might as well get an arc out of the two with the old status quo, rotate some other teams in and start their actual run in earnest with the relaunch.

That's not to say Dark Knight vs White Knight is without merit. Of the three arcs collected, two are decent to good, with only one dropping to mediocre. Paul Cornell's story has an old flame of Bruce Waynes come back to haunt his sons, seemingly for Bruces negligence. Tomasi's arc concerns a new villain, the titular "White Knight"; the name is lame, but he has an interesting hook in that he aims to kill off the family lines of everyone in Arkham to stop the spread of their "evil".

Only Judd Winicks arc really falls below par. It concerns Jason Todd - a character Winick knows well - and while that's enough to get your interest it never really goes anywhere. It seems to exist mainly to undo the position Todd had been put in at the end of the second arc of Morrisons run on the title. Why? I don't know. The relaunch was right around the corner. I mean, we don't even find out the motives of the group that's after him; they're just there, seemingly for no other reason than to give the three sons of Batman someone to fight. It's competantly written and has a few fun scenes, but once you get to the end and nothing feels truly resolved, the whole thing feels like stalling.

For some reason I can't fathom, the last issue of Batman and Robin - issue #26 - is absent. Why? I haven't a damn clue. the trade was already nine issues. There's no good reason not to slip the last issue of the volume in, especially considering there is nowhere else it would fit and as such it went uncollected. No, it's fine, it's not like it was the issue I wanted to read the most out of the ten.

The art is, for the most part, pretty damn good. I'm not always the biggest fan of Scott McDaniels art, but there's no question it works for Batman. Patrick Gleason is just excellent and rightly goes on to be a steady hand in the Bat books from here on out. But it's the last arc that stumbles. The first issue of the three is a half and half job between Guillem March and Andre Bressan. That's not so bad; Bressan does a good enough job aping Marchs style. No, where things go sour is when we switch to Tocchini for the last two issues.

Now, I like Tocchini's artwork - his style reminds me a bit of Frazier Irving, though part of it comes down to the coloring - but stylistically it's the most jarring shift you could ever ask for mid-arc. Why? Hell if I know.

But hey. Two out of three ain't bad, right? Aside from the missing issue, which probably annoys me a hell of a lot more than it would you, this is a fairly solid volume. Not something you just gotta have, but for something coming out sandwiched between two long, acclaimed runs, you could do a lot worse.

My Opinion: Try It

Brightest Day vol. 3 (comic)

Writers: Geoff Johns, Peter Tomasi
Artists: Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Joe Prado, Ardian Syaf, Scott Clark
Collects: Brightest Day #17-24

Well, the fourth time is clearly the charm, because DC finally got the weekly* series they were aiming for all this time, just in time for not a god damn lick of it to be followed up on.

Brightest Day, while rough in spots, holds together much, much better as the "spine" of the DCU. A lot of that is because - as is made crystal clear over the course of this volume - it was clearly well thought out in advance. Everything that has happened thus far links up for the finale in a way none of the previous series pulled off**. Even the tie-ins starring the characters the core maxiseries didn't focus on, while not essential, clearly had their own role to play in the endgame.

Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi clearly knew what they were doing all along.

The endgame is done pretty well. This is where the individual plotlines reach critical mass, each reaching some measure of conclusion. The problem each hero faces is cleverly tied to their purpose, meaning the reason they were brought back to life. Each task was clearly meant to ready them for their role in the climax and the puzzle pieces slotting into place is fairly satisfying to read. While a thing or two got the short shrift - the final battle between the Dark Avatar and the Light Avatar could have stood to have more page space devoted to it - everyone got their moment to shine and most of them walked out of the series with an interesting status quo to explore. Which is the problem.

Brightest Day was almost immediately followed with the announcement that DC was relaunching the DC Universe. Some characters, like Batman or Green Lantern, kept the vast majority of their history. Others were rebooted entirely. Sadly, most of the star characters this series intended to breathe new life into - and succeeded, at that - were given a total reboot.

Obviously, this isn't a big problem for a guy like Hawkman, who's a general bore to read anytime he's not beating dinosaurs into submission with a mace. But for a guy like Firestorm, this is a travesty, as their new status quo coming out of Brightest Day was arguably the most interesting of the setups we got. It wasn't followed up on at all. Not even a six issue miniseries just to see the idea through.

Figures, right?

Despite that issue, I'd be willing to call Brightest Day a success. Most of the competition wasn't exactly stiff - everyone is still trying to forget Countdown exists while everyone forgot about Trinity halfway through - but it's still one of DC's best weeklies and may even be somewhere near 52. To be honest, with a few alterations and a couple removed pages, it could have even been made to be sort of a "happy ending" for the old DCU prior to the New 52. Shame they didn't go with that, because while it's not an all time classic, it's not a bad note to go out on.

You could have worse in your collection of DC trades. Hell, you probably do.

My Opinion: Read It

Taken as its own thing - maybe even as the logical ending of the Blackest Night saga - Brightest Day is still a pretty entertaining story. High art it is not - and the whole thing could easily have done without the uber violence Johns has become oddly attached to - but it's a fun, universe-wide romp that would have revitalized some of DC's most storied characters, had the relaunch never happened. The Hawks still suck though, but to be fair, I'm not sure even Grant Morrison himself could make them cool.

* Well, sort of. It was actually bi-weekly. It alternated weeks with JLI: Generation Lost for a year. JLI had ties to Brightest Day but was mostly its own thing, functioning as a sort of "lets get the band back together" for the Justice League International characters to fight a world altering threat.

** 52 is well regarded by fans as an overall story, but it ended up resembling more of an anthology that happened to have each plot end around the same time. Countdown was such a bizzare mess no one can figure out if it had a point, mess less if it all tied together in the end; if Countdown was the spine of the DCU, then the DCU must be a hunchback. Trinity put everyone to sleep in the middle third, so no one really knows if it concluded or if it was all a fever dream.

Brightest Day vol. 2 (comics)

Writers: Geoff Johns, Peter Tomasi
Artists: Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason, Ardian Syaf and several others
Collects: Brightest Day #8-16

Time for the second volume of Brightest Day; one half of DC's most recent weekly experiment. Is it as enjoyable as the first volume? Or does the book see a drop in quality?

First thing to note - since I complained about it at length last time - is the slight drop in unnecessary ultra-violence. This is not to say it isn't there - Martian Manhunters plot is sadly the go to when Geoff wants to show beheadings - but we're thankfully spared the slaughter of entire families and people being skinned. Not quite as much improvement as I'd like, but after last volume I'll take what I can get.

All five of our major plotlines continue along without a noticeable drop in quality. The best are still great, the decent are still pretty good and the Hawks still suck. All of it continues to be fairly accessible, even as the Firestorm plot has started to veer off into territory tying back to Blackest Night. It's easy enough to figure out though; Black Lanterns are back and want to extinguish life because they're dicks like that. Simple.

They're making a bit of a shift in structure though. A given plot will now be take up almost a full issue, with the character taking center stage next issue given a page or two at the end. While this occasionally means dealing with close to a full issue of Hawk related nonsense, it has the benefit of giving focus to the various plots; previously there were times when it felt like the stories moved at a snails pace.

Of the five plots, I'm a fan of four of them; pretty good ratio, if you ask me. I already liked the Martian Manhunter, but thus far this series has managed to make me care about Aquaman, Firestorm and even Deadman. That's pretty damn good considering I didn't give a crap about any of them prior to this. If the intent here was to make people invested in these characters, thus far it's been a success.

Except with Hawkman. On the surface, it sounds like their plot has the right ingredients, but the Hawks suck the life out of just about anything they come into contact with. They're plot vampires. Hell, they even look kind of dumb. At some point you'd think DC would have to just accept that the Hawks don't work and stop bothering. Of course, then you realize they tried reviving the Doom Patrol about five million times when that concept hasn't worked since Grant Morrison had it. For some reason, DC refuses to give up on anything.

The art is varied, of course. Each plotline has its own artist. Ivan Reis and Patrick Gleason are the standouts. Whoever does the Firestorm plot isn't. Still, no one puts in work I'd classify as outright bad. Overall, I'm pretty happy that Ivan Reis is going to be on board the New 52 Aquaman book with Geoff; the Aquaman plotline of Brightest Day has quickly become one of my favorites and the art is at least part of why.

The Score: 8 out of 10

Thus far, Brightest Day has been a strong read. I'm interested in seeing where everything goes, so I'll definitely be back for the third volume. So far this has been worth the pickup even if you didn't bother with Blackest Night. Time - and volume three - will tell if it's a resounding success. Even stories with the best buildup can end on a sour note.

Brightest Day vol. 1 (comics)

Writers: Geoff Johns, Peter Tomasi
Artists: Ivan Reis, Patrick Gleason
Collects: Brightest Day #0-7

You know, I'm a Geoff Johns fan. I'm not afraid to admit that, despite how much he's derided by certain sects of the comic fandom these days. Even when he screws up, his pre-One Year Later Teen Titans run - of which I'm an unabashed fan, despite generally not caring for the Young Justice four save Bart - earned enough goodwill for me to give him some leeway. But at some point, enough is enough with some of the crap he pulls in his comics.

The hyper-violence is a large part of what annoyed the piss out of me this time. I generally cut him more slack for Infinite Crisis than most of the internet, because it wasn't something he did a lot at the time. But by this point, it's beyond moronic. Is there any damn reason to show senseless slaughter in this comic?

No, there isn't. But we get at least three separate scenes of gratuitous violence, all three pretty much crossing the line of good taste. There is no reason whatsoever for Black Manta to just suddenly slaughter everyone around him because Aquamans back. The plot is not served one bit by a family being butchered to reveal the new villain. There is absolutely nothing gained by a couple being beheaded and their skin ripped off. What the hell is this Geoff?

Then there's the namedrop midway through the prologue issue. To quote WWE superstar The Miz, really? Really?

Then there are the times where I'm reminded just why I like his work so much, points where he and Tomasi seem to touch magic. The Martian Manhunter has a scene in a middle issue that is just touching and quickly reminds me just why he's a great character. Ronnie Raymond - despite being hit with a bit of character regression - has a short bout of believable self destruction over Black Lantern Firestorms actions. Aquaman is, for the first time I've ever seen, an interesting character to watch, especially in conjunction with his now equally interesting wife, Mera.

I never in my life thought I'd want to see more Aquaman aside from badass Aquaman with the hook, but there you go.

Most of this book takes place in the immediate aftermath of Blackest Night. All the main characters were resurrected at the end of that event. Naturally, there's some acclimating to be done, especially for someone like Deadman, who's been away a long, long time. Some characters are farmed out to have their stories post resurrection told in the ongoings, but about six stick around here to be renovated by these two writers.

You may as well call this DC Third Stringers: Rebirth, because that's what they accomplish here. Most folks have a couple plotlines they like from this series, some they're alright with and some they hate. Other than the Hawks - who, lets face it, will probably never be interesting short of Grant Morrison writing their ongoing - I actually liked just about every running story in this book. If there's any problem here, it's that things don't seem to really kick into gear until the end, where we start getting hints of where the overall story will go.

Better still, I've yet to actually read Blackest Night and I don't feel penalized for it.

Both Ivan Reis and Pat Gleason are great artists in their own right and both make this a good looking book. I honestly don't expect that from weeklies - or even, in this case, bi weeklies - so it's a pleasant surprise that not only did they keep up the pace thus far, but they put out some pretty respectable work. Both are going on books in the DCnU I'm interested in, so I look forward to more of their work in the future.

Oh, one last thing; the colors in this are great. Wish the vast majority of books looked like this. Just vibrant work; there's a panel late in the book of a clean, restored beach that just looks gorgeous with the coloring.

The Score: 8 out of 10

This is by no means perfect - and Geoffs trend towards heavy amounts of violence is starting to piss me off - but I'm actually invested in characters I never gave two craps about before and I'm looking forward to reading volume 2. I think it says something when only one plotline out of about six really lost me. Hopefully this holds at this level; if it does, it may actually manage to match 52, which actually had an iffier ratio of interesting plots to dull ones.

Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps

Writers: Geoff Johns, Peter Tomasi, Sterling Gates
Artists: Rags Morales, Gene Ha, Eddy Barrows, Jerry Ordway
Collects: Tales of the Corps #1-3, Adventure Comics #4-5, six pages from Green Lantern #49, Book of the Black

We're still in tie-in land here, but unlike last time, this ones actually got some measure of worth to it.

I kind of get the impression that a lot of what's collected here are odds and ends that didn't fit in any other collection put together in it's own trade. Obviously, the Tales from the Corps mini needed to go somewhere and I imagine the two Adventure Comics issues weren't exactly easy to place in a trade. Slapped together with six pages from Green Lantern #49 - which is clearly there only to give a chapter to the Black Lanterns - and the "Book of the Black" segments and you have quite the odd collection. The end result is a trade that feels like an anthology, which really isn't a bad thing.

It's fairly enjoyable and really serves as something of a primer to the Green Lantern franchise as it exists now. The bulk of what's collected are origin stories for various characters across the seven Lantern Corps, giving insight into some key supporting players in the franchise. If you ever wanted to see Killowog as a Lantern recruit or, say, Monguls history, this is the volume to go to. All of them are fairly enjoyable little stories - well, except for the Indigo Lanterns piece, which shows us that they're supposed to represent compassion and then tells us nothing else about the mysterious group - though the nature of the exercise keeps all of them at a short length. To be honest, despite the clear Blackest Night branding, the Tales of the Corps issues really have more to do with the "War of Light" amongst the different corps.

The latter half of the book is the one that justifies the tie-in banner. Six pages of Green Lantern #49 provide a Black Lanterns chapter for the book, rounding out the book with at least one story for each corps. It's presented as an origin story, but it isn't. It's the only story of the volume that doesn't work on it's own, because frankly it reads like what it is; six pages of a Green Lantern issue in the middle of the event. There's also a small prose section detailing the thoughts of Black Hand which was fairly interesting and perhaps even a bit creepy.

The last part collected is a two issue tie-in centered on Superboy Prime. Look, I like Superboy Prime. I'm not going to apologize for it. Ever since Infinite Crisis - and hell, even during it - he's become a gigantic indictment of comic fanboys, which I suspect is primarily why a lot of them hate him. I mean, he prowls on the DCMB for chrissakes. He's also good for a lot of metatextual stuff, since he supposedly lives on "our" Earth, or real life.

This tie-in seems to signal the character being set aside for a while. It's probably a good thing, as while I hope he comes back after a couple years, he probably needed a break, since doing the same joke without a pause tends to wear it out. Still, it's an enjoyable, goofy story in that Superboy Prime way, seeing him trash the DC offices and demanding they leave him alone to fighting Black Lanterns of all the heroes that he killed in Infinite Crisis. Well, all of them save Pantha; I guess Geoff Johns didn't want to piss off the four people who actually give a goddamn about the character again.

The art's held down by a bunch of pencillers that are particularly good at their craft, which is the long way of saying the art's pretty rad. They don't always get much to work with - these are short vignettes that typically clock in at six pages and never exceed twelve - but they make the most of it. Even Eddy Barrows turns in some good art - as you'll note my previous experience with his work was not positive - and how the hell can you go wrong with art from guys like Gene Ha, Tom Mandrake, Jerry Ordway and Chris Samnee? That's right, you can't.

The Score: 7 out of 10

It's ties to the event may be tenuous and it's probably the least necessary of all the Blackest Night tie-in volumes, but what the hell. I enjoyed what I read and to me that means a lot. If you want to read some origins, are in the mood for some quick stories or are looking for decent Blackest Night tie-in volumes, you could do worse.