Comic Review: Justice Society of America, Vol. 1: The Next Age

Published: June 24th, 2014
Written by: Geoff Johns
Art by: Dale Eaglesham

DC Comics, 128 Pages

Review:

After watching the first season of Stargirl on HBO Max, I figured that I’d give some of her more notable comics a read. Being that I really like Justice Society stuff and hadn’t read any in quite awhile, I figured I’d start with this.

The story starts with old Justice Society members trying to recruit new heroes, most of whom are descendants of previous members and have inherited their powers.

Because of that, Vandal Savage is using a team of Nazi supervillains to kill superheroes and their families in an effort to snuff out these bloodlines. However, he doesn’t see the bigger picture, which reveals itself by the end of this short story arc.

I’m a fan of Geoff Johns and dig so much of his DC Comics work. His Green Lantern run brought me back to comics on the DC side after a hiatus of about a decade, back in the mid-’00s.

Keeping with Johns’ style, this was a hell of a lot of fun to read and he once again showed that he’s really good at balancing a large ensemble of characters and letting them all develop and grow, despite having limited time to focus on each one.

This was an energetic and cool comic.

Frankly, I liked it enough to buy the next three volumes to read in the very near future.

Rating: 8/10

Comic Review: Superman: Doomsday

Published: April 5th, 2016
Written by: Dan Jurgens
Art by: Brett Breeding, Dan Jurgens, Norm Rapmund

DC Comics, 332 Pages

Review:

Well, Superman is already alive and we’ve reached the fifth and final part of the Death/Return of Superman saga. With that, this story takes care of the last thing that needs to be dealt with and that’s Superman finally defeating Doomsday without dying and thus, restoring balance the the DC universe.

Generally, I like Dan Jurgens writing but overall, I wasn’t blown away by this saga. However, I did find this to be better than all the big DC Comics Crisis events, which always read like overloaded, convoluted messes to me.

While these stories had a lot of characters in them, Superman was always really the focus and for the most part, this stayed on that thread, even if there were some distractions with new “Supermen” and with checking in on individuals after Superman’s death.

I felt like the art, here, was a bit more fine-tuned and better than the rest of the chapters in this massive saga.

Additionally, the writing felt tighter and more focused, as Jurgens pretty much handled it all and the work wasn’t spread out over a handful of people.

The highlights of this are that Superman is definitely back, we get to see Darkseid mix it up with Doomsday, Cyborg Superman cements his place as a major villain, and Doomsday finally gets some receipts cashed in on his ass.

In the end, I’m glad that I finally experienced this saga in its entirety. It was long but by the end, the total body of work made all of the smaller parts come together, giving them deeper meaning and relevance to the overall DC universe. 

Rating: 7/10

Comic Review: The Return of Superman

Published: April 5th, 2016
Written by: Gerard Jones, Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern
Art by: Jon Bogdanove, M.D. Bright, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice

DC Comics, 464 Pages

Review:

Well, this is a step up from the previous two volumes in the larger The Death/Return of Superman saga. This is also the fourth of the five big chapters but now that Superman is back, we can stop spending time on mediocre replacements and get back to business.

The four replacements are still here, however, but now they have to find their place in the world with Superman reclaiming his mantle.

Two of these replacements remain heroes and two let their villain flags finally fly for all to see. Where these characters would end up wasn’t a surprise, though.

I think that the most impactful thing about this story isn’t simply Superman’s return, as much as it was seeing him return to Lois after all she had been through in the previous three chapters of this multi-year saga.

Once Superman actually returns, you’re not totally sure it’s him but as a reader, you hope it is and it’s really a breath of fresh air, as the replacements just didn’t cut it. I also think that DC Comics knew this and brought the famed hero back earlier than they probably wanted to.

Regardless, it’s good that he did return, as it was like a shot in the arm to this story, which I found myself losing interest in. Had I been buying these and reading them back when they were current, I know that I would’ve stopped before we even got to the return.

In the end, I’m not super keen on these books, beyond the pretty emotional battle that ended with Superman’s death. Although, this did make up for some of the lower points a bit and it sets up the next showdown between Supes and Doomsday, the jerk that killed him.

Rating: 6.5/10

Comic Review: Reign of the Supermen

Published: April 5th, 2016
Written by: Dan Jurgens, Gerard Jones, Karl Kesel, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern
Art by: Jon Bogdanove, M.D. Bright, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice

DC Comics, 325 Pages

Review:

I’m not going to lie, even though I slept on this big event back in the early ’90s, I went into this with some real enthusiasm, hoping it would be interesting and have a real purpose.

Sadly, this started out kind of neat but quickly devolved into a clusterfuck without any real sort of cohesive narrative trajectory.

With Superman dead, four new figures pop-up and try to fill the void. Three of the four believe themselves to be Superman while the fourth was simply inspired by him.

As we know now, years later, two of these Supermen would go on to be villains: Cyborg Superman and Eradicator. As for the other two, Steel would just continue to be Steel and Superboy would just stay Superboy and go on to be a really popular character in his own right.

Ultimately, I just didn’t care about any of this and even though I can see how some of the new characters may have resonated with some people, none of them have ever really grabbed me.

I guess, in the end, I can say that I’ve now actually experienced this once important major comic book event. But honestly, fuck these characters. I can see why they brought Superman back almost immediately after this experiment.

Rating: 5.25/10

Vids I Dig 827: Razörfist: Superman: The ‘Mo of Steel

Comic Review: Superman: Funeral for a Friend

Published: April 5th, 2016
Written by: Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern
Art by: Jon Bogdanove, Brett Breeding, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice, Doug Hazlewood

DC Comics, 366 Pages

Review:

There are five acts to the death and rebirth of Superman. This is the second act, which follows The Death of Superman and sets up the third act, Reign of the Supermen.

Funeral for a Friend is definitely emotional in spots and it does show how great of an impact that Superman had on the DC Comics universe. However, even with every major hero coming out and paying their respects, this collection is bogged down by some smaller, side stories that don’t really need to be there.

This reads more like an anthology, as opposed to one coherent narrative and that hurts the overall flow of this chapter in the larger saga.

I did like the parts that dealt with the fallout of Superman’s death in regards to those who were actually closest to him from Lois Lane, the Kents, Jimmy Olsen and even Lana Lang. I also liked seeing how his former friends and allies in the Justice Leagues of the past and present came together to honor him and reminisce.

Overall, this isn’t bad, it’s just somewhat of a mess that tries to wedge in short stories of D-level characters that don’t need to be there.

Rating: 6/10

Comic Review: The Death of Superman (2016 Edition)

Published: April 5th, 2016
Written by: Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern
Art by: Jon Bogdanove, Brett Breeding, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice, Dan Jurgens

DC Comics, 212 Pages

Review:

I have read the Death of Superman issue several times over the years. However, I have never read the full story with everything leading up to that iconic issue, which took the world by storm at the end of 1992.

The story is pretty good, even if it’s really just several issues of the weakest Justice League lineup in history trying to stop Doomsday until Superman shows up. Every issue is action-packed as this entire story is just one massive fight between several heroes and one, seemingly unstoppable enemy.

And that’s certainly not a bad thing, as this did a superb job of telling an action-filled story and keeping each chapter interesting and new. It also adds in some subplots around the larger story, so that it can be broken up a bit.

Some subplots creep in, though, where I didn’t know what was really going on, like the stuff with Lex Luthor II and Supergirl. I wasn’t reading Superman in this era, so I was at first confused as to why Supergirl was with him and why Lex had ginger hair and a beard.

I thought that the art in this was good and the pacing of the story was pretty superb.

All in all, this was a pretty good read, better than I thought it’d be, and it features one of the greatest Superman throwdowns in the history of the character. And it was a hell of an introduction to Doomsday. 

Rating: 8/10

Comic Review: Nightwing, Vol. 4: Love and Bullets

Published: April 26th, 2016
Written by: Chuck Dixon
Art by: Scott McDaniel, Karl Story

DC Comics, 295 Pages

Review:

While this was pretty good, I feel like the series needs to get somewhere. This is more of the same and the Blockbuster arc has now been stretched over four volumes and it’s still not wrapped up with this one.

Now I don’t mind long arcs and these volumes are full of other smaller arcs but we’ve had Blockbuster as the big bad in the background for what totals about 1200 pages of comics now. That’s a lot.

I get it, though. Blockbuster is Nightwing’s top baddie; essentially his Kingpin. But their conflict needs to come to a head.

This also gets right back into the relationship between Nightwing and the Huntress and for the pair, things turn sour, as Nightwing doesn’t feel as if their methods are as compatible as he had hoped.

Other than that, this is just more of Nightwing and the Huntress fighting street level bad guys and a myriad of weird, wacky villains with interesting gimmicks that give this an even grittier feel than most Batman comics.

Rating: 7.75/10
Pairs well with: other ’90s Nightwing and Batman comics.

Comic Review: Green Arrow by Kevin Smith

Published: July 26th, 2016
Written by: Kevin Smith
Art by: Phil Hester, Ande Parks

DC Comics, 367 Pages

Review:

I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this as much as I remembered liking it back when it was new. However, it was pretty good and I found it to be much better than my opinion of Kevin Smith’s Daredevil run, which people seem to hold in higher regard.

This story starts with Green Arrow being alive after he had died years earlier. The thing is, he doesn’t know he died and in his mind, no time has passed and the world he finds himself in is now strange and foreign. In fact, at first, he is a bit crazy and looks like a barbaric hobo playing Robin Hood.

As the story progresses, we learn that he’s being cared for by a nice old guy. We also learn about what happened to Oliver Queen and the DC universe in his absence. If you hadn’t read the Green Arrow stories where his son took over for awhile, this does a good job of filling in that void. We also see Oliver discover the truth about himself and his best friend Hal Jordan, a Green Lantern who ended up falling to the darkside pretty hard.

Towards the end of this lengthy collection of issues, we learn the sinister secrets of the nice old man who has taken Oliver in and we also get to see a young girl step up to the plate in an effort to become Green Arrow’s new sidekick, a female version of Speedy.

I wasn’t a massive fan of the art in this run, though. It’s not bad but I don’t feel like it was up to the quality of what was common at the time. Coming out of the ’90s, mainstream comic book art was evolving pretty quickly but this looks more like an early-to-mid ’90s book. I feel like they really could’ve paired Kevin Smith up with one of the top artists and turned this into a massive hit.

The art doesn’t wreck the story but I think this would’ve had more oomph had it looked more realistic and less cartoony.

In the end, I feel like this was a much better effort by Smith than his Daredevil run and maybe that’s because he learned from his missteps on that one or he simply had more mileage by the time he picked up his pen for DC.

Rating: 7.25/10
Pairs well with: the ongoing Green Arrow stories that followed Smith’s run, as well as his work on Daredevil for Marvel.

Vids I Dig 669: Filmento: ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’: How to Succeed at ‘Batman v Superman’