Reading Comics 237 "My third Forbidden Geek mystery box"

My third shipment from Forbidden Geek included a Lobo statue, Snyder & Capullo’s Batman Vol. 1 The Court of Owls, and the following comics:

Astro City #25 (Vertigo)

Kurt Busiek’s familiar act continues for another issue.  It’s the kind of storytelling that perhaps feels more impressive if you catch it when you’re younger, but begins to seem regressive the more experience you have.  Interestingly, the only time readers have really revolted was when Busiek was telling an extended Dark Age tale that was the only time he was building on the Marvels method that inspired the whole thing, the sequel he never got to write, which to my mind was perhaps the best Astro City ever got.  Perhaps most recommended to unsophisticated budding comic book writers who have no idea how character storytelling works.

Detective Comics #14 (DC)

The John Layman (Chew) era, little celebrated at the time but an excellent Batman experience all the same (I get that Snyder’s was sensational, but it wasn’t the only or even best example of the New 52), with Poison Ivy in the spotlight.  Layman’s Batman is the analytical mind you’d expect in a title called Detective Comics, and he’s constantly challenged by familiar foes in interesting ways.  Perhaps best represented by the “Gothtopia” arc that went unobserved as a crossover.  Also features early but typically sensational Jason Fabok art, before he got the plush Justice League assignment.

Blue Beetle #1 (DC)

From the Rebirth era, which until now I’d never read.  In fact I skipped the New 52 series, too, and in both cases it’s entirely down to simply not having the funds.  When the New 52 launched I’d just lost my job of five years and went unemployed the rest of that year (then got a terrible job and then got a slightly less terrible job that compensated for that slight increase by paying far less and giving me far fewer hours…).  Anyway, both series were based on an excellent pre-Flashpoint series I did read enthusiastically, spinning out of Infinite Crisis, in which the legacy is passed on to Jaime Reyes in the form of a magical alien scarab with a fairly unexplored link to the Green Lantern Corps.  In this Rebirth relaunch Jaime’s friends from the first series are still present with the same witty banter, but Ted Kord gets to be part of the narrative this time (remember: Ted famously was murdered by Max Lord just prior to Infinite Crisis; the best thing about the current Snyder act is the recent Dark Multiverse one-shot that posits a scenario where Ted shot Max instead).  At some point I’ll really have to catch up with all this Blue Beetle material.

Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #6 (DC)

Another series I was sorry to have to skip in the early New 52 was this one, as it, too, was a follow-up to an excellent pre-Flashpoint series I enjoyed immensely.  So of course I enjoyed this issue.  Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch apparently each have their own Firestorm bodies (one of the familiar gimmicks of the concept is that Firestorm combines two people, with one providing the body and the other becoming a mental sidekick).  In this tale they’re confronted by the Russian Firestorm, Pozhar.  I’m still pretty convinced that if handled correctly, Firestorm could handle a Geoff Johns level renaissance.

The Flash #19 (DC)

Featuring the tease for the debut of the New 52 Reverse-Flash.  The issue features pretty much the bare minimum input from Francis Manapul, who was responsible (with Brian Buccellato) for the best Flash New 52 material, which itself also influenced much of the current TV series.

Green Arrow #31 (DC)

From the Rebirth era, in which DC finally figured out that Ollie ought to be allowed to be awesome again, aligning more with what he was best known for, including associations with Black Canary, Hal Jordan, and the Justice League, all of whom prominently appear in the issue.  I just don’t get how the much-influential TV series never seemed to convince the company, previously, that they should pay a little attention to the comic, help it shine when not written by Jeff Lemire, misguidedly believing instead that Green Arrow should be a younger punk.  This is a character defined by being world weary!  One of the main beneficiaries of Rebirth.

Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #35 (DC)

The Robert Venditti era continued in Rebirth with this series, which because I became disinterested in his New 52 comics I never really made an attempt to get into.  This issue is mainly Venditti deciding that Hal, John, Kyle & Guy are the Green Lantern equivalent of wrestling’s Four Horsemen.  For…reasons.  Although it ends on a pretty amusing note, as Ganthet taunts the Controllers, by pointing out they want to, well, control these Lanterns, which, certainly with Hal, has famously been pretty impossible.  The main difference between Venditti and Geoff Johns, whom he succeeded, is that while Johns tossed in a lot of bold new concepts, he did so in a manner that built on existing ones.  He seemed like a fan.  Venditti never really seemed to understand any of it.  He tossed in a lot of bold new concepts, too, but without ever really seeming to understand that there were existing ones.  He never felt like he connected with the material.  It’s just incredibly bizarre.  Now you’ve got Grant Morrison writing Green Lantern, and he admitted he was reluctant to do so because he never understood the concept, and yet to read the results is to see that he got past that.  A lot of readers are confused, they see nothing but 2001 AD, but I see storytelling that comes alive with possibility, grounded in tradition.  Charles Soule, when he was writing Guy in Red Lanterns, was much the same, and so too Ron Marz in the uncomfortable position of writing Kyle ostensibly when the tradition had been exploded.  Maybe not everyone will see it, but when you do see it, it’s hard to look past.  That’s me and Venditti’s Green Lantern in a nutshell.  Ironically readers rejected the New 52 era because that’s what they thought they saw everywhere.  As far as I’m concerned, Venditti was ground zero, if nothing else, of the perceived phenomenon.

Infinite Inc. #27 (DC)

Ah!  Irony!  This is a whole issue dedicated to the Crisis on Infinite Earths effect, helpfully further spelled out in the letters column, in which a reader bemoans the cruel dismantling of continuity in the form of Huntress being “murdered” because she couldn’t exist outside of her context (Batman and Catwoman being her parents ‘n’ all, on Earth 2).  And this was a whole series about the offspring of the Justice Society.  So eventually, Brainwave Jr. removes Fury’s memories of her parents (y’know, Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor).  Ironically, the reconciliation of canon effectively obliterated the Infinity Inc. concept, and Fury ended up a curious footnote, never to be revisited (at least as of now!), a curious appearance or two in the pages of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman that feel the more elegiac the more you’re aware of her publishing history.  A version of Huntress did return, eventually, an independent one with no background ties to Batman or Catwoman, although in the short-lived Birds of Prey TV series, she did.  Even better, this issue features a pre-Spider-Man, pre-Spawn Todd McFarlane, whose work is totally unrecognizable, if anything familiar to the Sandman style (just imagine!) with a few panels emphasizing shadow on facial features but otherwise looking fairly generic…

Red Hood and the Outlaws #11 (DC)

The Rebirth era, featuring Artemis & Bizarro, with the spotlight on Artemis (the Azrael of Wonder Woman lore) as she squares off with an Amazon of a spin-off tribe.  Lobdell’s Red Hood comics are another I want to catch up on at some point.

Suicide Squad #45 (DC)

From Rebirth, this issue features an apparent attempt to revisit the exact concept behind the team, as famously featured in the apparent infamous movie, villains being recruited by Amanda Waller for missions where their lawful participation will be disavowed, and if they go rogue the bomb in their heads goes boom.  So I guess if you need a random issue to remind you of all that, this one’s a good one to catch.

Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey #2 (DC)

The second of three issues, the prestige format follow-up to the more famous death-and-return saga, Dan Jurgens goes bold, explaining Doomsday’s origin!  I’m glad this was the random issue I got, because I’d never officially read any of it, but had heard of the origin concept.  In hindsight it’s somewhat convoluted.  A better version would be something like Wolverine, a monster with a healing factor who constantly evolves from the horrible deaths it endures, reviving on its own rather than being constantly cloned.  I mean, how would a clone adapt to whatever happened to the previous body?  It’s new material.  Bad science, Dan.  But typical Dan Jurgens art, which sadly lost pretty much all of its impact and appeal after the sensational work of Superman #75, famously depicted entirely in splash pages.  No comic could ever justify that format again, and Jurgens himself really had nowhere to go but down.  This issue also saddles us with Cyborg Superman, who didn’t die in Superman #82, and so he just keeps coming back.  Geoff Johns later used him, too, but I’ve never been convinced that it’s a concept worth revisiting.  If he’s no longer pretending to be Superman, what’s the point? 

Watching the Walmart Giants 3 "October 2019"

Now, the title of this feature is obviously becoming an anachronism (and it was from the moment I decided on it), since these giants are going to begin appearing in the direct market (comic book shops), but I will continue to pick them up at Walmart.  October's releases were late in my local store, and I guess the release schedule has changed, with apparently a bimonthly scheduled in effect, which means three titles I didn't see last month finally appeared this month, and the final installment of Superman Giant, and King & Kubert's arc.

So here's what I'm talking about:

Aquaman Giant #1

• Original story from Steve Orlando & Daniel Sampere featuring Aquaman battling Black Manta.  Somewhat standard material here, though Orlando introduces the "tether of Amphitrite," and possibly the concept of the mermazons, which alone was worth reading.
• Original story from Marv Wolfman & Pop Mhan featuring Aquaman battling an organization called Scorpio (unrelated to the pseudo Bond villain from The Simpsons, probably, and thus featuring far fewer hammocks).
• Prologue to "Throne of Atlantis" from Aquaman #14 by Geoff Johns.
• Mera: Queen of Atlantis #1.
• Teen Titans #14, featuring the new Aqualad.

DC Super Hero Girls Giant #1

• Original story from Amanda Deibert & Erich Owen.
• Original story from Amy Wolfram & Agnes Garbowska.
• Excerpts from Hits and Myths, Summer Olympus, and Past Times at Super Hero High.

I originally wasn't going to get this one, but I figured I could later give it to my niece. 

Superman Giant #16

• "Up in the Sky, Part 12" from Tom King and Andy Kubert, the conclusion, featuring Superman and the little girl on their eventual journey home, depicted as a conversation they have along the way.  It may not be the flashiest installment of the epic tale (which, as I think I've emphasized previously, has become another of King's many, many highlights for me), but it's a nice way to ground the Man of Steel, as the story has done all along, in his more human qualities, even as he's constantly asked to use his superhuman skills.  This is a far trickier task than it seems, and King has just provided a master class.
• Superman/Batman #50, featuring the improbably team-up of Jor-El and Thomas Wayne (it works, although I wish more of the story focused on them and less on the present-day and extraneous Justice League activities).
• A Superboy tale from Superman80-Page Giant 2011.
• The Terrifics Annual #1, featauring a Tom Strong tale but more importantly a Java flashback written by Mark Russell.  You may remember me talking about Russell's work in the September giants.  He seems to have effortlessly refuted me in advance, because this one's a wonderful narrative that somewhat knowingly takes a note from Russell's own Flintstones but imbues real poignancy in its observations.  It's the best thing I've read from him, personally, since my original impressions of him in Prez. 

This was also the final issue. 

Teen Titans Go! Giant #1

• Original story from Sholly Fish & Marcelo DiChiara featuring Tamaranian hiccups.
• Original story from Ivan Cohen & Sarah Leuver.
• Reprints from Teen Titans Go! and Teen Titans Go! Digital, featuring far more art from Jorge Corona (whom I previously encountered in the pages of We Are Robin) than I expected.

Reading Comics 236 "Marvel Comics #1000, The Vigilant Legacy"

Marvel Comics #1000 (Marvel)
(Review copied from Goodreads)

I'm not a Marvel guy. I'm a DC guy. Generally speaking, I think Marvel is what fans in general think of when they think of superhero comics, what they expect. DC tends to be where the more interesting things actually happen. I think it's true of the movies, too, by the way. But I'm not averse to enjoying Marvel when there's something really worth enjoying. Marvel Comics #1000 is one of those things.

Strictly speaking, this is a gimmick book that's playing off the legitimate, historic thousandth issues of Action Comics (last year) and Detective Comics (earlier this year). Marvel likes the do that sort of thing, sort of fake a milestone just because it's been good business at the competition. But this one is not just a gimmick. Marvel put real effort into it, and it's probably somewhat instantly one of the best things it ever did.

The main writer is Al Ewing, part of the more or less uncelebrated modern creative generation at Marvel. He weaves a sporadic narrative introducing the concept of the Eternity Mask, which goes all the way back to the beginning, linked to the debut of the original Human Torch (who along with Namor established Marvel's superhero credentials). Marvel's periodically mined its early years for new material, most famously when Captain America was defrosted in the '60s to help assemble the Avengers, but more recently in the underrated Twelve that was sort of half Captain America and half Watchmen. But this time I think the trick was really nailed in an ingenious way. Ewing weaves a secret history while bringing up a series of forgotten heroes, all while discussing the idea that it's the rebels who've forged American history, free from the tyranny of kings.

Every page revisits a milestone for all eighty years of Marvel lore, and each is a master class in creativity, from a host of famous writers and showcasing the stellar art the company is still capable of even in an era that has more often been derided on that score than celebrated (seriously; known and unknown artists alike combine to fill every page with works of technical achievement).

Since there are so many creators, each working a single page (with a few exceptions, including Ewing), I don't want to bog down the review referencing individual talent (though there are some surprises, such as Patrick Gleason, who until this celebration has long been associated with DC). Suffice to say, you won't be disappointed with the turnout.

The whole thing is a playful examination of the mounting legacy of the company, without leaning heavily on anything (which is something Marvel, or its fans, often can be guilty of), letting the characters speak for themselves. Maybe it's that very element that's lets a DC guy appreciate a Marvel comic, since as far as I'm concerned, Marvel doesn't stop and smell the roses nearly often enough, too busy throwing itself into another wild adventure to let things sink in a little, or conversely, taking itself too seriously (as I noted above; that's part of why I never got into Marvels and instead admired that other Alex Ross-painted epic, Kingdom Come).

This is a comic that'll be very easy to revisit in years to come, regardless of how significant the Eternity Mask thing becomes. It's also something that would be very easy to recommend to fans who really only know Marvel from the movies. Not only will they get an idea or two about what could come next to the big screen, they'll see just how much there has always been, and will be for a long time to come.

That's the end of the review as previously written.  Here I'll mention that I loved seeing Stuart Immonen (with wife Kathryn) showing up for one of the spotlights.  Jeff Lemire was another welcome sight (a full-blown Cable project would be fun; although I almost would want to see Matt Kindt's interpretation even more).  Loved Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale reprising their act in a lighthearted entry.

Also read:

The Vigilant Legacy #2 (Rebellion)
Simon Furman, although more specifically the various house ads concerning reprint material, leans pretty heavily on how this is a legacy comic, too, revisiting various British superheroes who are virtually unknown across the pond, creating a kind of integrated landscape and, eventually, a team, that reads like Valiant's best comics from recent years.  Glad I stumbled across it during a recent trip to Barnes & Noble, where it was the lone actual comic in the magazine section, nestled in with the genre stuff (the bookstore chain quit selling individual issues of comics, in general, several years back).  In today's age it can sometimes seem impossible to showcase new characters, or at least ones that can be presented as such, but it's things like this that prove what nonsense that really is.  All you need are competent creators willing to work with them, and each other, to pull it off.

Reading Comics 235 "Second Forbidden Geek Mystery Box"

I got my second Forbidden Geek mystery box, including a Supergirl statue, a copy of Justice League Vol. 2: The Villain's Journey (which was a very pleasant surprise; eventually I'll have the complete Johns collection), and the following comics:

All Star Batman #3 (DC)
Snyder once again in his nutshell, blowing everything up into possibly misguided epic proportions.  This time it's how Batman and Two-Face were actually childhood friends.  But, also features the KGBeast!  Alas, without his '90s Russian accent.

Captain Atom #7 (DC)
This is what I love about Forbidden Geek's mystery boxes, getting stuff I've always wanted to read but for whatever reason haven't gotten around to yet.  Captain Atom was one of those short-lived New 52 titles at launch.  I never had a clue what the series was like.  Now I finally do!  J.T. Krul, one of the dependable writers of that era who kind of disappeared without good reason, depicts his version of the character as Captain Atom has ever since DC gave in and acknowledged that Doctor Manhattan was based on him.  I first became acquainted with the character (whose main claim to fame is being but not really being the secret origin of Monarch in Armageddon 2001) in the pages of Justice League America and Extreme Justice, where he was depicted as more a Superman type, but a more aggressive version (just not to the degree that the original version of Supreme was, before Alan Moore made him a Silver Age Superman pastiche).  The art is from Freddie Williams II, who in recent years has come to be defined by the improbable Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics.  I've got plenty of experience with his work, which I often find too cartoonish but not cartoonish enough to be accepted as such.  Here he's got better line work, though he apparently has no idea what riding a bike looks like (the legs, particularly).  I would absolutely love to read a collected edition of this material.

Constantine #5 (DC)
The New 52 attempt to mainstream John Constantine (a concept begun in Brightest Day) may have been somewhat misguided (at any rate, DC has yet to figure it out) works pretty well in this issue, with John temporarily stealing Shazam's powers (for his own good!), thereby setting a template other tales would do well to follow.  You can't really have the guy (even if he pops up in other books and/or teams) attempting to replicate his Vertigo experiences without recontextualizing him properly.  Ideally, he needs a central story, the way Zatanna is forever associated with her father's career, which increasingly is itself irrelevant but nonetheless provides a springboard to ground her.  The writer, of course, is Ray Fawkes, another great writer in that era who somehow failed to garner due respect.

Deathstroke #20 (DC)
A late New 52 series still running in the early Rebirth era (one of several, including Earth 2: Society and Doctor Fate, given a chance to wind down naturally), Slade (the youthful Slade, sans white hair!) blows up a partnership with Ra's al Ghul to reclaim his children. 

Hinterkind #10 (Vertigo)
A vampire series.  That is all.

Justice League #18 (DC)
A trademark of League comics is the membership drive (something Snyder ignored in pushing a huge lineup with multiple titles right from the start, so that everyone and their mother is instantly included).  That's what happens this issue.  Some new characters (Goldrush is sort of a revision of Bulleteer; sadly neither character has had much of a shelf life to date) and even a tease for the Crime Syndicate saga called Forever Evil makes this a fine character piece in a series with far more character work than you'd think.

Justice League #32 (DC)
Element Woman (a riff on Metamorpho), also featured in the membership drive, and the Doom Patrol(with a vicious Chief whose rival is Lex Luthor), try to tackle Jessica Cruz in the aftermath of her obtaining the power ring of, ah, Power Ring, the Crime Syndicate's Green Lantern.  Cruz later flattened into a character who sort of hid away in her room for...reasons, but it seems Johns originally had a deeper portrait in mind. 

Legion of Super-Heroes #283 (DC)
The token Older Issue in the box, this is an early '80s Legion comic featuring the secret origin of Wildfire.  I actually became more interested in the potential of at least one of the recruits he was testing.  Did anything ever end up happening with Lamprey?   Some quick research says no.  If I ever do get to write comics, I will include her in my Legion!

The New 52: Futures End #39 (DC)
This and Batman Eternal seem destined to show up in mystery selections.  At least I don't seem to get duplicate copies of this one. 

Richard Dragon #12 (DC)
The Chuck Dixon/Scott McDaniel series that reprised their Nightwing act.  Somewhat handily, the final issue.  God, I still want to know why McDaniel ended up blackballed from any significant work following Static Shock.  The dude was a staple at DC for a decade in high profile projects, and then criminally overlooked material like The Great Ten.  He's a treasure.  I doubt he was that awful to handle creatively when given a chance to write as well as draw.  He still shows up randomly here and there.  But, someone, anyone, give him a significant new project.

Superman #5 (DC)
The Tomasi/Gleason Rebirth series (seriously; McDaniel is like Gleason before Gleason was finally recognized), featuring the Eradicator targeting Jon Kent as a human/Kryptonian "abomination."  I don't think Tomasi/Gleason quite nailed Superman the way they did Batman and Robin.  I just saw Gleason popped up in Marvel Comics #1000 (which I'll be reading this week and have thoughts on next weekend).  Give these two a new project together before either considers really jumping ship.

Reading Comics 234 "Mark Russell's Giants"

Reading through the rest of the September Walmart giants this morning, I reached the Mark Russell material from Swamp Thing Giant #1 and Villains Giant #1, and...

Look, I loved discovering Russell in the pages of Prez.  Prez was a wicked political satire.  Russell slowly developed a favorable reputation among fans thanks to his Flintstones, which was less about the classic cartoon and more social satire.  He scored again with Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles.  I've still yet to read any of Snagglepuss Chronicles.  Despite my increased misgivings about being a full-on fan of Russell, I'd still like to.  Recently he's begun branching more into the mainstream, although noting he's the writer of the first-ever Wonder Twins comic may not seem to help make that case.

At any rate, I initially viewed discovering him in the latest round of Walmart giants as another sign of DC's increasing trust in his career.  You don't have to have a career trending upward to get into these pages, but I figured Russell was this round's version of including Brian Michael Bendis and Tom King in the last round. 

And maybe that's still the case, but unlike what I thought of Bendis and King's work, I wasn't overly thrilled with Russell's.

In Swamp Thing Giant #1, Russell writes one of several new features with Swamp Thing himself (a perennial favorite of DC's when considering TV adaptations, although I guess the most recent one was cancelled after a single season; I think the idea would work much better as a movie).  His involves Swamp Thing agonizing over his place in the world, and periodically purging all his negative thoughts into a kind of "beet" he discards.  Then along comes an evil agricultural conglomerate that's been choking the environment in the name of profit.  Swamp Thing turns to an old friend to find answers about what's happening.  The old friend turns out to have betrayed him.  But the joke ends up on her, because she unwittingly eats one of his poison "beets" and ends up paralyzed and buried alive.  The company gets ahold of the poison "beets," too.  And Swamp Thing is basically none the wiser about what's happened.

In Villains Giant #1, Russell writes a Joker story in which he uses viral marketing to trick people into performing outrageous stunts in order to win free money to cover healthcare costs because although Gotham has finally been cleaned up, the budget has to cut healthcare in order to fund the expanded prison system.  And then the solution the city reaches to end Joker's latest reign of terror, ingeniously free of any overt criminal intent, is to reinstate the healthcare budget...this time at the cost of funds intended for higher education.

My problem with both stories is Russell's cynical conclusions, and asking the reader to accept them with characters of higher and higher profile.  Imagine him writing Batman directly with this approach.  It would become less about the character and more about Russell's conclusions, and that's the problem.  This sort of thing works when you're handling minor or obscure characters, but less so when the reader theoretically actually cares about the ones being used.  And it exposes Russell's narrative limitations.  He doesn't really tell stories at all, it can sometimes seem, but a threadbare account of what you read on social media. 

Infamously or not, but Russell's attempted launch for the last wave of Vertigo comics, Second Coming, was cancelled by DC before it ever saw print.  I can begin to understand the company's trepidation.  (It was later picked up by another publisher.)  Russell made his name lampooning the Bible in God Is Disappointed In You and Apocrypha Now, neither of which is actually well-known even now.  The idea that nothing is sacred to Russell is hardly a new phenomenon, then, but he might have finally found territory he couldn't, or couldn't any longer, cross, at least with a major publisher with an increased profile. 

(It's sort of what Alan Moore discovered, too, but that's a different story.)

I have no idea what Russell's future with DC looks like.  Does he eventually get a truly significant assignment?  Does he learn how to really tell a story?  Time will tell...

Reading Comics 233 "Superman Giant #15"

Having now read Superman Giant #15, I actually ended up getting another copy so I can hopefully include it among the stuff I'm bringing to my sister's wedding in December, which will hopefully include most of my family (I already know my oldest brother won't be able to make it), including my two nephews based in Maine.  I had already planned on giving them duplicate copies of other Walmart giants I'd gotten, but this one's an opportunity to give them something truly special.

The penultimate (eleventh) installment of Tom King and Andy Kubert's "Up in the Sky" is yet another excellent example from the pair of Superman's unwillingness to give up (as is the whole story) despite unrelenting odds.  In a lot of ways, this is the conclusion of the story (he even finally finds the girl he went into space to save).

Among the other material is a reprint of a Lex Luthor story from 2018's Beach Blanket Bad Guys Special.  Without having read it, I initially thought it would be a throwaway story, but it's actually really excellent, from writer Jeff Loveness and David Williams.  In it, Lex's car has broken down on the side of the road (this version of the character seems inspired by Elon Musk), and a kindly stranger stops to help.  (No, it's not Superman.)  Lex of course rants about Superman in his traditional fashion, as the embodiment of everything that prevents someone from reaching their full potential.  The kindly stranger, though, gives Lex a different impression, of Superman's selfless heroism, and even a portrait of just another guy with regular problems, who'll stop and share s chat and even a burrito with you. 

You'd probably expect at this point for Loveness to have Lex at least consider changing his tune about Superman, but the great thing he does is pivot away from Lex, and just let regular joe, and Superman, end the story.  We glimpse Lex, but he's no longer really relevant.  It's a great bit of storytelling.

Between them, King's and Loveness's takes on what being Superman means encompass not only his abilities but his humanity.  They're a perfect way to explain the character.  Which makes the comic itself a great way to introduce the character. 

I really hope my nephews can make it.  I know I want to see them again, but it would also be nice to be able to give them some interesting gifts.

Reading Comics 232 "Titans Season One"

I finally caught up with the first season of Titans from late last year.  It was pretty great.  Titans is one of those online streaming series, in this instance available via DC Universe.  This release method probably explains why the "f" word is spoken roughly every other line of dialogue (I wasn't overly bothered by it).

Eleven episodes explain how Dick Grayson (Robin), Rachel Roth (Raven), Kory Anders (Starfire) and Gar Logan (Beast Boy) end up becoming a team.  The arc is similar to the first season of Heroes, following each character as their journeys converge, with a central problem being Rachel's powers and where they come from (her dad, the demon Trigan), and Kory's mysterious past, not to mention her powers.  Most of it, though, is following Dick as he reconciles life post-Batman.  He's become concerned about his increasingly violent tendencies, believing that he's become too much like the Dark Knight, so he's gone off on his own.  We meet him as a detective in Detroit, where he meets Rachel after she's been brought in following the mysterious death of the woman who turns out to be her foster mother.  She's being hunted by agents of a shadowy conspiracy, and Dick turns out to be her best option for safety and sympathy, though at first Dick is reluctant to commit.  Kory has amnesia, but feels she's better than the circumstances in which she finds herself, and eventually she joins up with Dick and Rachel, and is the first person who really seems to understand the latter.  They find shelter with Gar's family, the Doom Patrol, but then strike out on their own, hoping to find Rachel's birth mother, who turns out to be secretly in cahoots with Trigon.  Then Kory gets her memory back and briefly tries to kill Rachel, but eventually realizes that Trigon's the real problem.  The season actually ends on a cliffhanger, Trigon left undefeated.

Part of the journey also incorporates tangents with Hawk & Dove, who in this iteration have no superpowers but are rather vigilantes inspired by Batman and Robin.  Dove was an old flame of Dick's, but now is committed to Hawk, and both are anticipating retiring from the superhero game.  Dick also reunites with Donna Troy, who likewise has stepped away from her role as Wonder Girl, and unexpectedly meets Jason Todd, who has inherited the role of Robin since Dick left Gotham.  Honestly, this is probably the best material of the season, with Donna Troy and Dove providing standout performances from Conor Leslie (Donna Troy) and Minka Kelly (Dove).  Alan Ritchson's Hawk is likewise inspired acting.

The show's depiction of Batman (never seen directly) is significantly less sympathetic than other depictions, which makes things all the more interesting.  The focus on Robin, meanwhile, is the character's biggest live action spotlight ever, putting the focus almost totally on him even in a team setting (the season's final episode depicts Trigon's efforts to traumatize him by giving him a perfect life and then viciously taking it away), which trumps his appearances in the later Burton/Schumacher films, in which he has prominent roles.  This version effectively exists on his own and is not reliant on Batman to explain his significance. 

The second season has already gotten underway, so I look forward to catching it later (likely on home video, like I did with this one).