A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans
What do you get for the man who has everything?
A simple question that speaks to preconceived notions of Superman. That he’s perfect. That he has no human needs. That he’s elevated to a degree both morally and physically as to be completely unrelatable to the common reader.
That’s all, of course, not true. But it’s a question that lies at the center of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ 1985 story, “For the Man Who Has Everything,” originally published in Superman Annual #11
There’s a golden age in every run where every comics reader has hope for a new direction of storytelling. Then there’s a period of time where they see that direction struggle and realize that maybe this run won’t be everything they hoped it would be. Superman: The One Who Fell by Phillip Kennedy Johnson is a mediocre set of two different stories: “The Golden Age” and “The One Who Fell,” which is convoluted and confusing. Together, Phillip Kennedy Johnson has called them “a personal letter to his son.” But in focusing on that personal letter, Johnson often struggles to make the main story similarly compelling and enjoyable.
Written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson
Pencils by Phil Hester (“Golden Age”) and Scott Godlewski (“The One Who Fell”)
Inks by Eric Gapstur (“Golden Age”)
Colors by Hi-Fi (“Golden Age”) and Gabe Eltaeb (“The One Who Fell”)
Collects: “Golden Age”: Superman #29 and Action Comics #1029 and “The One Who Fell”: Superman #30-32 [Read more…] about Infinite Frontier: Superman – The One Who Fell Review!
For their first DC publication – Superman Official 1986 Annual – Grant Morrison wrote Osgood Peabody’s Big Green Dream Machine, a prose story with illustrations by Barry Kitson and Jeff Anderson, where a gang of criminals attempt to discern Superman’s vulnerabilities by peering into his dreams. Seeing fields of bones and assuming they represent a fear of death on the part of the invincible man, the crooks attempt to intimidate him, only to learn they had been tricked and were instead picking up the super-brainwaves of Krypto the Superdog. “And as Superman led Osgood and the others away, the air rang with the sound of his laughter.” The notion of Superman exposed to decay, to time, to failure? A punchline.
35 years later, the extended admission to the contrary that is Superman and The Authority
[Content/Trigger Warning: Suicide]
At the tender age of 16, I was deeply depressed.
My childhood, from about age 8, had been a stressful mess full of fear, anxiety, sobbing, and obsessive worrying. And by my teens, I’d found that I had managed to somehow keep on, if not necessarily ‘cope’ with the circumstances that never seemed to go away. There was a ‘numbness’ as I call it, which helped me take, accept and endure all the rubbish life seemed intent on throwing in my face.
It was tiresome, but it was also, as I came to understand it, life. I’d never known any other beyond it. I could scarcely imagine beyond it. Any alternative I had heard was in stories- hearing others speak, or in fiction. I’d hear it all and feel a deep sense of envy.
Ah. Normal.
I wish I had that. [Read more…] about All-Star Superman: The Man Of Action
Comic books are a medium defined by constant evolution, by stories that are told and retold over the decades for new generations of readers. But how does a writer build on a story after it grows so popular, it becomes mythic? How do you redefine an icon?
To many, Superman is the face of American comic books, a character so timeless and iconic that his legacy can be felt through a single page. The character has undergone plenty of changes in his 83-year history, moving from a champion of the people to a wholesome all-ages hero to a conflicted but ultimately incorruptible figure. But by the early 2000’s, DC Comics was looking to redefine the character again, replacing the origin told in John Byrne’s classic Man of Steel
You can watch the full video retrospective on the series here: [Read more…] about SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT – The Man of Steel, Redefined