Reading Comics 189 "DC Rebirth Week Two, Empress, Superman: American Alien"

Aquaman: Rebirth #1 (DC)
The big push Dan Abnett takes in this Rebirth reintroduction issue is poking fun at all the people who make fun of Aquaman, the superhero who "talks to fish."  As Abnett points out in the captions, "This is untrue.  He has a telepathic gift that allows him to compel marine life, but fish do not possess enough intelligence to conduct meaningful dialogue."  But such subtleties are hardly likely to convince people who like their reactions pithy and pointless...

Empress #3 (Icon)
The adventures of the escaping queen continue in this Mark Millar/Stuart Immonen comic rife with breakneck adventure.  Look, I read Saga for years, but after a while, it kind of seems like a soap opera, like The Walking Dead, where the thrust of the story is lost in just kind of keeping it going.  Empress is punchy, even while at its heart it kind of is a soap opera.  Millar is far too impatient for full-on soap opera, though, so there's not a chance of Empress becoming another Saga.

The Flash: Rebirth #1 (DC)
I was kind of shocked that DC allowed this property to all but go to complete waste in the New 52 era, after reviving Barry Allen with Geoff Johns at the helm just before it.  The New 52 Flash was one long attempt at struggling to catch up with better material that had come before it.  Josh Williamson, previously best known for Image comics like Nailbiter, seems to have been chosen precisely because he's both capable and willing to reverse this trend.  And thank god, because as the issue fans will be reading post-DC Universe Rebirth to see what happens next, we don't need another post-Flashpoint disappointment.  A story that makes Flash look like one of DC's most important characters needs a decent follow-up.  This time that's exactly what happens.

Superman: American Alien #7 (DC)
The finale of this mini-series sees Max Landis brilliantly reimagine, essentially, the scenario J. Michael Straczynski featured in his first volume of Superman: Earth One, wherein an alien comes to Earth, causes a lot of trouble, and helps Superman find out where he came from.  Where Straczynski settled for a surprisingly dull new creation, Landis chooses Lobo, as fans recognize him from pre-New 52 continuity (the good ol' bounty hunter bastiche with the bike and everything).  It's brilliant, as everything has been about American Alien.  Lobo is here to send a message to Hawkman (alluded to, which is even better), and ends up provoking Superman into his first big brawl.  I know I tend to sound fairly dismissive of Straczynski's creative output, but in this instance, a clear parallel can be found, and I think Landis does it better.  However, I'd still recommend Straczynski's Superman: Earth One work for those interested in less complicated Superman continuity.

Action Comics #957 (DC)
Interestingly, Lex Luthor is the star of this title, but the Convergence (and new Rebirth) Superman is a co-star, too, so Dan Jurgens gets to continue his recent storytelling along with Tomasi & Gleason's Superman, which I hadn't really anticipated.  The rivalry between Luthor and Superman has kind of been turned on its head, which is brilliant.  There's also Clark Kent running around (how? this continuity's Superman is dead, right?), and the threat of Doomsday once again.  After "Doomed," is it too early?  Who cares!  This is Jurgens' (ugly, ugly) baby.  It's about time he gets to revisit him again...

Wonder Woman: Rebirth #1 (DC)
It's interesting that so many Wonder Woman stories, from about Jodi Picoult onward, have dealt with a fairly insular world, and that once again, her origin (kind of like Donna Troy, actually) is causing all sorts of continued drama.  That's what Greg Rucka, returning after too many years to follow-up on his brilliant Infinite Crisis-era work, will be dealing with, all over again.  I trust he'll have some interesting stuff to say about all of this.

Superman: American Alien #6 (DC)

With the exception of Tom De Haven's It's Superman!, which was a novel, few writers have been able to explore Superman in as thoroughly human a way as Max Landis has within the pages of Superman: American Alien.  Part of its charm is that each issue features a specific period, a moment of identity crisis, in the formative development of Superman.  Each issue has an artist to fit that moment.

This issue has Jonathan Case.  I've been following his work in various exceptional graphic novels (Dear Creature, The New Deal), so I've been looking forward to the issue since the start of the mini-series.  What he brings to this particular moment is a feel for all those comic books geared toward people who don't particularly care for superheroes, the graphic novels frequently trotted out so that the public will take this medium seriously.  Since Case, to this point, has literally made that his home (although, especially with Dear Creature, in as imaginative fashion as he could), he's ideally suited to Clark Kent arguing with his old Smallville friends that becoming Superman wasn't a horrible mistake.

So often, we take Clark Kent's transformation into Superman for granted.  Once you get the origin out of the way, once he becomes Superman, the idea of Clark Kent becomes entirely subject to the Superman identity.  Clark fades into the background, fodder for the Lois Lane romance and little more.  He essentially ceases to be. 

Landis doesn't allow that to happen.  The Smallville TV series made a big point of keeping Superman entirely out of the picture, for as long as possible, and so it helped pave the way for storytelling like this.  Landis, however, takes it to an entirely new level.  It helps, I think, because this is literally his first regular comic book work.  He made his name with Chronicle, the movie that recast the superhero genre into the teenage angst genre (which director Josh Trank then attempted to translate back with the Fantastic Four reboot, to critical and popular derision).  It was all about creating a fresh perspective, and that's exactly what he brought to Superman: American Alien, too.

It may just be the best Superman origin ever.  The story continues in each issue, and every now and again, you're reminded of that fact, but the decision to base each issue on a given moment in Superman's young life is a true creative triumph, that has seen rewards each issue.  Loeb and Sale's Superman: For All Seasons did much the same thing, as did John Byrne's Man of Steel, but in Landis' hands, it feels different.  He never shies away from exploring the full impact of these moments.  They're not just impressions, or Landis attempting to hit all the familiar marks.  He's blazing new territory each issue, which for a character three quarters of a century old, is truly remarkable.

Reading Comics 184 "Darkseid War, Superman: America Alien, Omega Men, Web-Warriors"

Justice League #47, 48, Special #1 (DC)
Okay, so the word ought to be ought by this point that Justice League #50 will finally give a definitive answer as to who is the Joker.  Because that's going to happen.  So I dove back into Darkseid War.  The original plan was to eventually read the whole thing in trade collection, because this is one of the biggest stories Geoff Johns has ever done (which is saying something), building on just about everything he's done in this series, including Forever Evil, and arguably telling a definitive New Gods tale in the process.  With various members having taken over various New Gods facets in the wake of Darkseid's death, they come to the realization that the Crime Syndicate (as Lex Luthor realized immediately) will probably have to play a role in this, and by the end have actually decided to team up with their doppelgangers.  (It's worth noting that the animated Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is actually pretty good.)  In the Special, Johns gets to write a Jessica Cruz (Power Ring) tale, more or less riffing on what he's already done in the series proper, but still fun for fans of his Green Lantern to see (it's also worth noting that his two creations, Cruz and Simon Baz, finally helm their first ongoing series, thanks to the upcoming Rebirth era, in Green Lanterns).  But more importantly, and also slightly riffing on earlier material, Special also puts the spotlight on Grail, and as such is another essential issue for those who realized that Johns has been using Justice League as his first run with Wonder Woman.  And may he have another...

Omega Men #3 (DC)
And thusly now do I have physical copies for all extant issues of this series.  In this one, Tom King explores Princess Kalista's motivations, which at the time seemed all the more crucial because she had the most immediate relationship with Kyle Rayner, and this was the first time the series delved into a team member's back story, but certainly not the last.  The William James quote?  "The 'sentimental fallacy' is to shed tears over abstract justice and generosity, beauty, etc., and never to know these qualities when you meet them in the street, because the circumstances make them vulgar."  Again, I love these quotes in the series.  Clearly Kalista was used to win Kyle over, because she's a romantic figure, enough to make him begin to care, when the rampant chaos of the Vega System itself was never enough.  I hope comics fans eventually come around and realize how significant King's work in this series really is...

Web-Warriors #5 (Marvel)
I had to read at least one issue of this series, right?  It's a de facto continuation of Mike Costa's work from the Secret Wars Spider-verse mini-series, which is to say, more with all those Spider-Man variations running amok together.  What strikes me, in reading this, is that Costa is completely at home in this chaos. I guess it took a while for me to reconcile this version of his writing with the more sober work I know best, but if it gets him more fans and maybe even regular work, then I can support that.  Maybe not read it regularly myself, but clearly there are readers for this sort of thing, so I can't complain.  Happy for the guy...

Superman: American Alien #2, 4, 5 (DC)
I read the first issue digitally, and I was impressed with this latest variation on Superman's origins.  Every issue spotlights a different period of Clark Kent's formative development.  The second issue, for instance, features Max Landis' take on the period featured in Smallville, the teenage Clark figuring out what to do with his powers.  Each issue features a different artist.  This one has Tommy Lee Edwards, in a style you'd not typically associate with Superman, more like Ed Brubaker's crime comics, say.  The fourth issue features budding journalism, with Clark, and Lois, covering the media coverage of emerging moguls Oliver Queen (post-island), Lex Luthor, and the elusive Bruce Wayne (who was previously featured in the third issue).  This is my favorite issue so far, and not just because of the typically lush Jae Lee art.  Here's a quote from Luthor:

"There's a fatalism that's been going around, and I think it's toxic -- self-fulfilling.  I think fatalism is hip and pragmatism has gotten boring.  I think dark futures are paradoxically easier to see than bright ones.  Everyone talks about the problems of tomorrow, the apocalypse of next week, but whatever happened to the man of tomorrow?  Why are we so convinced there aren't those among us who could maybe solve these problems that seem so insurmountable to the pseudo-intellectuals who pose them? We scared to even talk about a hopeful future, because we're terrified it won't come to light."

Anyway, Landis has some big, brainy thoughts in mind, perfectly in-character, too, and his work speaks to the enduring strength of revisiting familiar stories, no matter how familiar we think they are, or how familiar we think we are with the players.  Young Luthor is always as fascinating as Mature Luthor, and in the hands of someone like Landis, Young Clark is arguably more fascinating than his mature counterpart.  His first encounter with Batman, in this version, inspires him to become Superman.  And so the fifth issue is all about his first, unsure attempt at being a superhero, like the Landis version of Frank Miller's famous Batman: Year One.  And it's fantastic.  The whole Blur thing from Smallville always seemed half-considered to me, a placeholder.  As depicted by Francis Manapul, in arguably his best work to date, the Landis version seems like it always existed.  Well, now it always will...