Smallville #3 – Review

By: Bryan Q. Miller (story), Pere Perez (art), Chris Beckett (colors)

The Story: Lois’ dad grills her boyfriend—with machine gunnery.

The Review: Ever since comic book writers got the idea of bringing “relevant” topics to their work, they’ve gotten into the habit of placing their protagonists into moral quandaries no amount of superpowers can solve.  The one which continues to plague capes to this day goes something like this: if you have the power to accomplish almost anything good thing you can think of, which ones do you choose?  More importantly, what makes one choice worthier than the other?

I could be wrong, but I’d guess no superhero has had to confront these questions more often than Superman.  In fact, every year or so there’s one story arc where Superman has to deal with the guilt over not being able to save everyone.  Let me start off by promising I won’t go all dirtbag legal-eagle and say, “Well, legally, no one has an actual duty to rescue-blah-de-blah-de-blah…” While that’s a practical sentiment which I understand, I really think it’s a crummy way to see things.  It’d be almost criminal to have the power to save so many lives and not use it.

Smallville #2 – Review

By: Bryan Q. Miller (story), Pere Perez (art), Chris Beckett (colors)

The Story: In which the 1% find that you can’t occupy a building if it’s in space.

The Review: I feel very safe in saying that Smallville (the TV series) disappointed nearly every one of its devoted fans when it ended without a single, concrete image of Tom Welling in the cape and tights.  After all the time invested in the show, the only appropriate reward would’ve been seeing Clark take on the heroic guise he was destined to take.  No wonder this title sported a big, splashy cover with a photo-realistic Welling in complete blue get-up on its debut.

In the same way, while Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor had some strong storylines—and make no mistake, he was consistently one of the best things to come out of that show—he never got the chance to engage in those grandiose plots his incarnation in the comics became famous for.  Here, Miller cleverly uses the show’s continuity to bring Luthor to that next level of ambition, where he becomes, in his father’s words, “extraordinary.”

Smallville #1 – Review

By: Bryan Q. Miller (story), Pere Pérez (art), Randy Mayor & Chris Beckett (colors)

The Story: Somebody save me…I don’t care how you do it…Just save…save…Come on…I’ve been waiting for you.

The Review: Smallville was one of those oddball, hybrid shows the WB tends to produce: a bit too weird and geeky to get mainstream appeal, yet not radically weird enough to achieve cult status with actual geeks.  It was a show centered around Superman mythology, and yet a lot of the times, what went on in the show had little to do with Superman.  Though I watched and enjoyed it at times, I can’t say I ever got invested in it.

Still, it didn’t surprise me when DC decided to go the Buffy/Angel route and spawn off a comic-book spin-off for the longest running Superman live-action series on television.  I probably never would’ve looked at it twice if Miller’s name wasn’t attached to the project.  I greatly enjoyed his lively, irreverent style of writing when he did Batgirl (featuring the unsinkable Stephanie Brown, whom I still miss every day), and since none of DC’s new 52 offer quite that same flavor of story, I decided to eat the sword and check out what Miller could do with the Smallville gang.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #2 – Review

By: Nick Spencer (writer), Wes Craig & Jerry Ordway (artist), Hi-Fi & Chris Beckett (colorists)

The Story: All I’m saying is if Demo grows a tiny mustache on his upper lip, I’m outta here.

The Review: Spencer is an interesting beast of a writer.  From his work on Morning Glories and Supergirl, you know he can weave some of the more engrossing, layered plots this side of modern comics.  He can also go wholeheartedly for the silly and heartfelt, as we’ve seen in his tremendous Jimmy Olsen.  Both of those sides of his writing character seem to come together in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, which can be totally sophisticated with the most outlandish material.

And you don’t get much more outlandish than “underground green-skinned nomads, who hid from the surface population for the better part of a millennium.”  It’s these kinds of concepts that made the Silver Age such a wonderfully bizarre period, a perfect feeding ground for comics.  But Spencer not only works such concepts into his story as an homage to earlier times; he gives them fresh spins to make them feel not only up-to-date, but relevant.

Consider his portrayal of the Subterraneans, who retain most of their goony appearance, yet now have a very overt political bent to them.  It’s no coincidence that at a time when the stability of Middle Eastern nations is in flux due to uprisings both nobly and criminally motivated, Spencer chooses to write the Subterraneans as a downtrodden, fragmented people (whose attraction to the more “civilized” people is their natural resources) searching for a leader, any leader, to speak out and take charge of their many grievances.

You can’t really say Demo is the best man for the job, however.  With his talent for rhetoric (“I have heard your mothers’ wailing as their children are forced to work in the mines, filling up the coffers of our oppressors!”) and his clear derangement, he brings back echoes of the Third Reich and the French Revolution, an egomaniac who feeds upon the unhappiness of the people he claims to represents to feed his own ambitions.  So, yeah, not exactly the ideal man of the people.

Demo does, however, make an intriguing villain, possessing the necessary intellect to know exactly how to take advantage of the two Agents he already has at his disposal—and I do mean that in the most basic meaning of the word.  He also has one other thing to his advantage, one which may connect directly to the last big twist from the former T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents ongoing: Iron Maiden’s claim to Colleen that, “I know he’s still alive.”  “He” being the original Dynamo.

Superman 80-Page Giant 2011 – Review

By: Too many to list—you’re better off reading the review.

The Story: Jor-El does Mission Impossible; Perry White takes a shot with Wildcat; the many lives of Jimmy Olsen; the inconsistent grammar of Bizarro World; Supergirl’s ten-second boyfriend; Lois Lane’s good deed; and Superboy, the Werewolf Slayer!

The Review: Annuals may be a grab bag of mixed features, they’ve got nothing on these “giants” DC likes to put out now and then.  You can’t always take them too seriously, but they’re often a surprisingly good showcase of unknown or rising talent in DC’s ranks.

Jor-El’s adventure into Krypton’s core starts off strong and has some great thrills, but his stream-of-consciousness narration drags the pace down.  Had Bud Tidwell more page-time, all his Krypton continuity might have paid bigger dividends, but mostly they’re distracting.  Still, you can’t go wrong with Cafu on art duties; from Jor-El’s expression of relief on his successful escape to Krypton’s skyline at night, everything’s just beautiful to look at.  And let’s just agree Bit’s inks and Santiago Arcas’ colors should accompany Cafu’s lines at all times.

Most Daily Planet stories revolve around Lois and Jimmy, the paper’s point men.  But Neil Kleid shows that they’re continuing a journalistic spirit begun by their boss.  Perry White’s boyhood tale of a run-in with Wildcat and the Guardian not only pays tribute to DC’s Golden Age stories, but speaks sentimentally to the bonds between fathers and sons.  Dean Haspiel gives a great retro look to the script that’s appropriate and lively, but also respects the emotional scenes.

In a strange twist, Abhay Khosla and Andy MacDonald’s Jimmy Olsen feature ends up the moodiest story in the issue, sort of discussing the philosophical implications of Jimmy’s multitude of wacky adventures.  It’s narrated and drawn well, and even has some good moments of humor, but lacks grounding.  It feels very Twilight Zone—you sense there’s an important point being made, but the execution is so weird you just wonder how it’s intended to affect or say something about the character.

I have nothing to say about the Bizarro story except it makes little sense—which is fitting, I suppose.  Dan McDaid’s cartoony art is perfect for fun Bizarro hijinks (though the yellowish cast over everything gets nauseating after a while), but Steve Horton doesn’t really offer much in the way of a coherent script, much less one with appreciable humor.

Joe Caramagna gets the right voice for Supergirl—curious, a bit self-conflicted, but hopeful—but it can’t be said he gives her appealing characters to bounce off of.  They seem like they’re just thrown in to give her people to talk to and some easy conflicts.  Sure, there are some clueless guys out there, but these dudes take the cake (“‘Karalinda.’  Asian, huh?”  Seriously?  She’s totally white and blonde!).  Trevor McCarthy draws it fantastically though—his lines are kinetic and youthful, though colored a bit too darkly by Andre Szymanowicz.