World's Greatest Super-Heroes Holiday Special
The second holiday special, after the Halloween one, is Christmas-centric. The lead, original story is from Scott Lobdell and features the Flash and his Rogues. The real highlight of this particular giant is, however, is a reprint from two years ago, "Good Boy," a Batman Annual #1 reprint written by Tom King, his origin of Ace the Bathound, who starts out as a dog used by the Joker. Batman brings him home, not knowing what else to do, and Alfred spends the next four months taming him, exhibiting his infinite Pennyworth patience. The sequence, of course, ends on Christmas, with Batman noting wryly that Alfred didn't get him anything this year. One of King's great characterizations has been Alfred; it'd be great for an extended look at some point, although if this is the closest we get it'll still rank among the highlights of the run.
The other highlight is from Superman #64, originally published in 1991, as you can tell a little less than a year before "Doomsday." The writer is Dan Jurgens, but the artist is Butch Guice (as he was later known; here he's still known as Jackson Guice), who was later one of the key "triangle era" artists, best known for his Action Comics Eradicator "Reign of the Supermen" arc. The Guice in this issue is wonderfully moody (even if the inking could be updated to freshen it up), full of shadows, a marked contrast to his later work and not the kind of art you typically associate with Superman.
There's also a Supergirl tale that's similar to Jurgens' tale about answering mail and humanity; a Harley Quinn; and a Green Lanterns, Rebirth era tale featuring Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz. Honestly, when that run began I was hugely excited for Baz and Cruz to step into the spotlight, but over time I've grown tired of the storytelling that leaned so heavily on their core insecurities, which of course this tale does, too.
Batman 100-Page Comic Giant #5
The lead is the third installment of Brian Michael Bendis and Nick Derington's all-new tale, which this issue finally reveals as featuring Vandal Savage as the big bad, after spotlighting an atypically muddled Riddler as Batman and eventually Green Arrow, too, trying to figure out his latest scheme. Bendis is clearly having a ball (a lot of DC fans expected him to jump into writing Batman, not Superman, when his jump from Marvel was first announced), while Derington has helped keep things lively, too. I was trying to remember where I knew Derington from, and figured out it was the Young Animal Doom Patrol, famously much-delayed in recent issues. Hopefully his collaborating with Bendis means Derington is gaining DC's confidence as one of its elite artists.
As has appeared in previous issues, the three reprint comics that round out the Batman giants are the "Hush" arc, plus the New 52 Nightwing and Harley Quinn. I was initially a fan of Kyle Higgins' Nightwing, but I find myself glossing over the material in the giants, and I have no real interest in Harley Quinn. "Hush" remains brilliant, although in hindsight it certainly seems obvious that Jeph Loeb's fixation on the previously-nonexistent childhood pal of Bruce Wayne, Tommy Elliot, is a dead giveaway that he was the mystery villain all along. The Jim Lee art equally remains spectacular. Honestly I think Lee's DC work will become his lasting legacy.
But I'm really here to once again gush over Tom King. Like Bendis, he's now on the third installment of his giants tale, which features Superman's search for a little girl, and the increasingly desperate lengths he will go to in order to find her.
This issue features his most desperate moment so far in the tale. It's a kind of update on the classic Superman/Muhammad Ali boxing match from the '70s, only this time it's not Ali he's fighting, but an alien named Mighto. That cover image is from artist Andy Kubert, who unlike his brother Adam has stuck with DC since they jumped, like Bendis, unexpectedly from Marvel, ten years back. Until now Andy had mostly been associated with Batman material, but he's proving equally adept, and perhaps, ideally suited, to Superman, and this issue, as it for King's tale, might be the highlight of his DC work to date. It's really something you ought to go out of your way to track down and read for yourself.
As really only the classic "Doomsday" arc had done previously, the story is all about Superman's incredible endurance, his ability to absorb punishment. This is superhero comics storytelling usually reserved for Spider-Man (which always seemed fairly beside the point to me, other than Marvel's penchant for tortured characters), and seems counterintuitive for someone like Superman, who's usually thought of as overpowered to the point where an artificial weakness (kryptonite) had to be invented along the way. But Superman is best understood not by his powers but by his force of will, his humanity, and as such, King has rightly illustrated what putting him in a fight ought to look like. He takes an incredible pounding, apparently past his ability to endure, and yet he refuses to stay down.
When you think of DC going out on a limb with something like these Walmart giants, you don't really expect them to throw away exceptional material like this, much less have talent the caliber and prestige of Tom King, Brian Bendis or Andy Kubert. And yet these are bold decisions that are truly paying off, as these guys are massively delivering, and this installment proves beyond any doubt that truly great material is making its way into the giants.
Reprints include Green Lantern (the original Geoff Johns series), Superman/Batman (someone at DC no doubt finds it deliciously amusing to look back at President Luthor in the Trump era), and The Terrifics, which continues to prove, well, terrific. I hope Jeff Lemire can keep it going for a long time. It's at long last, perhaps, his DC breakthrough, and quite possibly Mister Terrific himself in his breakthrough moment.
Teen Titans 100-Page Comic Giant #5
Dan Jurgens, at his most generic, is about the level of what you'd expect from the idea of Walmart-exclusive storytelling. This is not to say that Jurgens can't rise well above that perception, but he seems uninterested in what I've read, and why I haven't read all of the Teen Titans giants.
But the reprint material is well worth the price of admission. Johns' Teen Titans is being serialized (last issue included the classic moment where Bart Allen officially reinvented himself as Kid Flash). I'd never really read it before; this introductory arc is kind of funny in hindsight, as Johns is clearly presenting a version of his later Reverse-Flash as a villain merely attempting to make the hero better, an idea that reached its zenith in Flashpoint. There's also Super Sons, which I likewise haven't previously had a lot of experience actually reading. I think Pete Tomasi is better suited to writing this than he was Superman. And then there's Sideways, which on a superficial level was always interpreted as the New Age of Heroes DC version of Spider-Man, but honestly, like the New 52 Doctor Fate before it is kind of more the DC version of the Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel. And in two more issues I'll finally get to read the first appearance of the Seven Soldiers of Victory in the series. But I'll probably have to track down the annual separately to enjoy Morrison playing in that sandbox again...
King is great though I'm still annoyed about "the wedding" cop-out.
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