"We are each other's shelter from the storm."
SUPERMAN/WONDER WOMAN #6

One day I walked into a library and my eyes fell on a book called Kingdom Come. I picked it up and to my surprise it was a comic book...or rather as I later learned, a graphic novel. But I saw beautifully painted panels and heroes that I recognized from my childhood who seemed ...well, grown up. I borrowed that book and I was moved and fascinated by, not only the story of men and women who are great heroes, but by they way they showed their humanity. They suddenly were not two dimensional people who just fought bad guys. They were deeply complex. I love books and reading on the whole and I guess getting into the comic genre as an adult woman was a case of serendipity. It led me to finding DC comics and the heroes I grew up with on TV and saw in movies and newsprint. It led me to finding Clark Kent or as he is known by his other name, Kal-El, and Princess Diana. I fell in love with them and am obsessed with all things Amazonian and Kryptonian now. I love their relationship. I love what they stand for. I love the contrasts of the princess/farmer's son; reporter/ambassador; pragmatic warrior/idealistic protector and empathetic teacher/enforcer of justice. A girl born of the earth and a boy who fell from the sky. The first daughter of Themyscira and last son of Krypton. And it surprised me to find that there were many fans like me, who adore them too.

DC rebooted their universe in 2011 and my favorite pairing is now canon!!! Yay.



Disclaimer : Superman and Wonder Woman are the property of DC comics.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Silver Age JLA

by

LaraW

New Images

New images have been added to the Superman, Wonder Woman and Lasso pages!

Marcio Abreu's Superman and Wonder Woman

colors by Sebra

Superman # 6 Review

 

This whole arc has been a total waste of my time. There is absolutely nothing in this whole story to make me even care one iota for this new Superman and his cast. We spend pages going over the same exact way of writing and plotting.What a boring,lackluster way to set up modern new 52 Superman.

This time we have imposter Superman and Supergirl fight. And he's beating her while the city looks on in horror.


Lois screeches as usual over her phone. Seems the dullard can't hear his little cousin being battered because it has to take Lois to scream Clark! Again. Tell me these pages are not redundant?


General Lane sees a great opportunity to get rid of the alien and is going to send in the good, old airstrike. Lois is one the phone again. (rolls eyes)


When it seems like it is too late real Superman wakes up and swoops in and takes on the imposter. The city and Lois sighs in relief. Superman fights the imposter who turns out to be some nanite bug that sneaked into his suit five years ago. Yeah, that is our villain and that is why Clark/Superman was acting like a pining fool. So we had issues with a fake Superman and now suddenly must cheer when the "real" one comes in for a few pages.


I frankly do not like Superman's tone and his manner of speech and he sure is talking a lot, isn't he? So, we've given up the narrative boxes for him to jabber at us. Seriously, enough with the retroactive Superman already! This whole book makes me feel DC has cheated me and we have gone right back to the preaching Superman. Nothing about this guy makes me believe this could be the awesome one from Action Comics and he has a nerve to even infer he was somehow not a good person when he first came into the world and he had baggage and he is somehow better now. Ugh.


And here we have the Heather plot thrown out before it could get off the ground. What was the point of her again? And Lois has changed from the upbeat woman in issue one, who was happy and confident, to one who is pining and almost cyber stalking Clark/Superman. She is the one for him apparently.

I rate the whole story and arc 2 out of 5 stars. I frankly don't care to read this arc again. I hope the new team, Giffen and Jurgens, try to do much better than this. Get some consistency and clarity on how you see new 52 Superman. Write him modern too if you can. That means stop making him speak as if he is stuck in time twenty/thirty years ago. This a a job for Superman???Oh for crying out loud. And please, no moping, love sick Clark. No other A list character has lame cliches to set up the tone for their books. The only characters who remotely were of any interest were Morgan Edge and Sam Lane. Go figure.

Merino's art trumps Nicola Scott's easily. Scott has this very soft way of drawing and Superman looks better and sharper and tougher under Merino's pencils.

Art when Merino drew it was an easy 4 out of 5 stars.

Scott I will give 3 out of 5. She is not consistent.

Best Panel:None.

Justice League # 6 Review



Geoff Johns wraps this arc in this issue which was really about exploring a new origin for the Justice League in the new 52 reboot. I must say, I think he and Jim Lee and the rest of the creative team did well and accomplished what they set out to do. It was a fun, action packed, accessible and beautiful comic.

We continue in this issue with our heroes catching up with Darkseid and trying to take him down. While they struggle, Batman follows Superman to Apokolips and finds him being tortured by Desaad and Steppenwolf. We have new designs for these flunkies of Darkseid. And it is interesting to note Darkseid seemed to be looking for his daughter. Hmm, now who could that be?


Wonder Woman gets time to shine in this issue. We see the brave, feisty and confident warrior. She's a bit of a swashbuckler type is our new, younger Diana. There is no blood lust here. She simply, as a trained warrior, enjoys the exhilaration of a fight and when she triumphs she shows it. She also shows some of what drives her while she fights a tyrant like Darkseid and demands to know where Superman is.


Geoff gives us one of our best moments of the book where Diana follows though with her suggestion from the last issue. Yes! She blinds him!


Aquaman follows up with a trident in the other eye and still the lord of Apokolips will not fall. Cyborg suggests that they could try to send him home. Back through the boomtubes. He attempts to connect with the mother boxes. This creates a diversion as boomtubes blast open even where Superman is being tortured. Batman tries to get the Man of Steel, who is badly injured after being tortured mentally and physically, to get up.


Superman sees Wonder Woman on the ground at Darkseid's feet and he summons the energy to go for him. We get the best panel of the book here which I will show last. But suffice to say, while Superman stops him momentarily, they still are struggling as a team to take the New God down. It is left to Cyborg now and Batman urges him to try.


Cyborg manages to fry every mother box and send Darkseid home. Of course he promises that this is not the end. He will return. The city is a mess and the group are suddenly seen as heroes by the public. Which is something they did not expect.


The group assemble sometime in the future, (after they clean up, I assume) and are rewarded for their heroism by the President. The world now sees them as a team. They are not quite sure what they are. Some of them are keen to work for the greater good, others are not too eager. But it's clear to us, these are going to become the world's greatest superheroes.

The back-up story featured the new lady, Pandora, and the Phantom Stranger. What their roles are in this new 52, I have no clue. But as seen in Flashpoint, Pandora was responsible for the change to the world. Was this DC's back door to try to weasel back to old continuity if the reboot did not work? Who knows. The fact of the matter is the reboot was a success and I for one have no desire to go back to the old verse.

This whole story has been very entertaining. It is perfect for new readers and you can safely give this to anyone from ten years old and up, who have no knowledge of DC and I am sure they would enjoy and understand it. On the whole everyone had good moments and worked to their strenghts. That has been very refreshing when we are so used to Batgod moments and Batman hogging the spotlight. Superman and Wonder Woman were treated well. Superman, I think, got some beautiful and strong panels and sequences and Diana herself had some memorable moments. So I am fairly happy with this first arc.

Story this issue and overall, I give 4 out of 5 stars.

Art this issue and overall 5 out of 5 stars.

Best panel: Superman as he ploughs into Darkseid.