Hopping on the Bandwagon

I'll ask the important question:

When's John Byrne buying his copy?

I mean, this one's a character he actually likes.

(Someday, somone's going to inform me that image is edited and not his real studio, thereby ruining it for me. Until then, I'll believe what I want.)

The Other Spider-Clones

I've never been much of a Spider-Man fan. When I was a kid, I remember excitedly playing the Game Boy game and pouring through the random issue here and there, hungrily learning about his world, but I was just a kid then. At that age, if it involved superheroes, I automatically loved it, and Spider-Man was conveniently available, ubiquitous as he was and is.

Since then, however, my interest in the character has been outstripped by my interest in others. In a sense, it's waned. These days, I have no particular interest in the guy. Whatever interest I do have comes stems solely my love for superheroes in general.

And I think I've figured out why. And it's sorta ironic. In the comics, Spider-Man's plagued by unpopularity, but I think in the real world he's a victim of his popularity.

Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's idea of an everyman superhero who struggles with relateable problems was such a good one that it's been copied. And copied and copied and copied. These days, relateable superheroes who are like you and me are the norm, not the exception.

The problem is, that was Spider-Man's defining trait, his schtick. But it can't he his schtick if everyone else is doing it, too. And while all those characters who follow in his footsteps having something else going for them as well ("S/he's an everyman AND s/he has this or that gimmick..."), Spider-Man wasn't designed that way. He didn't need to be because at the time the relateability thing was unique. But now it's commonplace, making him just some generic superhero. Forget the Clone Saga, these imitators are the clones that really hurt the character.

Or at least that's my perspective, as someone who admittedly hasn't read too many Spider-Man comics.

Then again, I've heard people use the same argument for why Superman is uninteresting. Supposedly, having been the first superhero, he's just a superhero, while everyone else takes the superhero concept and adds something on top of it. Yet, I like Superman just fine. So who knows?

Flipping Through Superman 662

Oh god, this issue... wow! This comic's back to being my favorite current superhero title. It lost its spot during the small spate of issues between this one and the end of Book 1 of Camelot Falls, but it's back in full swing as of this Wednesday. (Those issues weren't bad by any means, just not up to the same standards as the rest of the current run.) And that's something that makes me happy because this title at the top of its game is very, very enjoyable indeed.

The cover for this issue is very fitting, as this is a "Superman contemplates" issue. In fact, there's only a little action or danger in it. Not that I'm complaining, though, because Busiek handles Superman's inner thoughts very well. The Man of Steel comes off as thoughtful and human.

And this is a dense read too, in a good way. While there's not a lot of forward movement on the plots, at least as defined by "stuff" and events happening to the characters, there's still a lot going on. Looking back, I'm surprised how short (in page count) many of the scenes were because so much story is packed in them.

1: I like how the first caption has a corner shaped like the S-shield, even if it was a little weird, given that not only is it not Superman's thoughts, Superman's nowhere in the scene. Who cares, though; it looked cool.

I think ALL STAR SUPERMAN did something similar on the first caption of its first issue (not that it uses many captions), but it wasn't as prettily designed.

2: Subjekt-17 is looking more white than when we last saw him. I wonder if it's just an art thing or if all his coloration was supposed to be bruising and other injuries from his years of being experimented on, injuries that he's now completely healed of.

I'm curious as to what direction this character is going in. When we last saw him, he wanted to kill humanity because of how much it hurt him; what will he want now?

In addition to updating us on Subjekt's status, this scene also dovetails with the rest of the issue. The way even these isolated Tibetans love Superman ties in with how, as Lois Lane brings up, he's so much a part of the life and culture of DC Earth.

3: I like Power Girl's costume better without the lateral seams.

As far as I can tell with the help of an online Kryptonese alphabet key, the writing on Superman's screens on this page and the next aren't actual words but just there to look cool. Maybe I'm wrong.

The Auctioneer's appraisers didn't have those crystals sticking out of them, did they? That's a nice touch, implying that Superman incorporated sunstone tech into it when he salvaged it so that his computers could remotely control it or whatever.

Interesting that it's just "The Weight of the World," not "Camelot Falls, Part X: The Weight of the World." Up, Up, and Away and Back in Action prefaced the individual issue titles with the arc names.

I suppose this way suits this storyline better. "Camelot Falls" isn't an arc in the same way those stories were. It's not so much the A-plot but the B-plot in the background while Superman is dealing with various A-plots. Regular serial storytelling rather than the more specific arc storytelling.

4: I like that Krypto has a regular doggie bowl, and it even has his name on it in English. Not Kryptonese but English. Even here at the alien Fortress, he carries Clark Kent inside him.

5: I wonder if this Prankster panel was written as a reference to the Prankster spotlight issue, or if this was written first and the Prankster story shaped to include this scene.

6 & 7: When I saw this, I thought for a moment that we were about to get more story taking place in the future Arion showed. The prospect excited me; it was an interesting future.

9: "Dice-K blanks Monarchs 4-0." Ah, a sports reference, something that would leave me helpless but for the grace of Google. Wikipedia tells me he's a Red Sox pitcher. I still don't know what "blanks" means, of course, though I can guess from context.

It was mentioned in an issue of "Up, Up, and Away" that the Metropolis Monarchs are terrible, too.

11: I like Superman's acknowledgment of Jimmy's unwavering support of him. I like small depth-adding details like that.

12: Zatanna's wardrobe choice here is just awkward. I mean, she has a guest over. I think it's from the whole SEVEN SOLDIERS mega-miniseries.

I notice that her hair is solid black rather than the black with grey/blue highlights that Pacheco normally uses for black hair. Did Ryan Sook draw it that way in SEVEN SOLDIERS: ZATANNA?

13: Hey, it's the ARROWMSMITH font! Or something close to it. In Zatanna's backwards spell. In that mini-series (also by Busiek and Pacheco), a similar balloon and lettering was used when spells were verbally cast.

According to Zatanna's 52 bio, Arion is her ancestor. It's a little odd that she doesn't bring that up. Then again, when a man's that old, who isn't his descendant?

15: I'm not clear on whether Sirocco stopped the bullets with that wind-wall thing of his or if he literally caught them à la the Flash.

17: Most people who've heard the phrase "Al-Dabaran" probably know it as the star by that name. What's less well-known is that it's also the name of a seasonal wind that blows through Iraq. Sirocco's usage was probably more of a reference to the second.

18: I liked how Sirocco had a spiel for his fabricated origin all worked out, fancy phrasing and all. "An ifrit of air and might." C'mon Sirocco, people don't just make up phrases like that off the top of their head in the middle of a sentence!

Also, his fake origin is cool enough that part of me wishes it were true.

20: I notice that it's not just Superman's cape that's drifting freely in the water, his hair is as well. Nice touch.

I really like scenes like this, where a superhero's just casually being super. There's a real sense of wonder about that kind of juxtaposition.

Why wouldn't he take a walk at the bottom of the ocean, after all? Shades of SUPERMAN: SECRET IDENTITY.

21: I wonder if the lines Lois is reading are from an actual Three Nitwits story. I know they were scientific inventors in some of their stories.

I think this scene squarely places this issue after the Last Son arc in ACTION COMICS. I'm not reading that book, but I flipped through the newest issue of the arc and think there was a scene where Superman learns Chris's origin. He knows that Chris is from the Zone here, so this takes place after that. And since multiple Zone criminals are loose on Earth by the end of that issue, and they clearly aren't so here...

Oh, and I guess the Jupiter reference means Chris still has his powers. Or does it? Would a Kryptonian kid need naps? It's not impossible.


One of these days, I'll muster the ambition to figure out how to perform the lofty, awe-inspiring task of making a text cut so that these long entries won't hog the screen.