Just to be a stickler, the Fudd and Yosemite Sam books weren't part of the HB x-overs but the Looney Tunes x-overs. There's supposedly a second batch of those upcoming later this year too.

I trade waited on both sets (the HB and the Looney Tunes sets), and was tempted by this latest batch, but at $5 a pop I decided to trade wait on them too.


-M

The council wasn't just Guardians (only 1 was). The face on the left of the council was Sardath of Rann (fromthe Adam Strange mythos). I am not sure who the others were off the top of my head, but indications are that council is going to have a huge role in the reshaped DC cosmos moving forward and feature prominently in the first year of the Superman title.

As to the issue itself, I really dug it. Bendis had the voice for all the characters down pat, and the sheer charisma of Superman shone through, making it easy to understand how he could be the inspiration for all the other heroes (he shows it rather than just telling it as seems to be done in just about every major DC event story where we are told how much Superman means to everyone else but never feel it in the actual story and character interactions, here we feel it). It was a good set up. I liked the look and feel of Metropolis, I liked the way Bendis explored how the powers of Superman worked (super-hearing and x-ray vision), I like that the new villain seems to have a real motivation (rather than generic mustache twirling super-villain hackneyed tropes) but one that is flawed from his personal bias despite seeming (somewhat) noble.

The art by Reis (1st 20 pages) and Fabok (final 2 page epilogue) was very, very good. Two sequences really stood out to me that speak to Reis's ability as a storyteller using body language and expression to reveal character- first, the scene with Melody after Superman flies away and she is checking him out and realizes he can hear her comments-the expression and body language tell you all you need to now of the attraction and embarrassment she feels through the sequence, and second the sequence when the Mad Guardian Appa Ali Apsa visits Rogol Zaar to deliver the council's decision-you can see and feel first the disbelief, then the anger, then the abject despair form Zaar through the sequence via the visuals alone-the sidelong glance of disbelief as he listens to the Guardian deliver the decision, the rage in his face as he tries to understand and sputters out accusations the Kryptonians got to them and bribed them, the doubt as he satnds there alone as the Guardian disappears, and then in the full page splash the the crushing despair driving him to his knees. This is a visual sequence showing beyond doubt a man losing his faith in the system about to be driven to extremes. The weight of black on that final page also helps set the mood (the only thing ruining that sequence was the double page ad spread for the Hanna Barbera x-overs between the panel with the guardian leaving and the full page spread-it will read much better in a trade without ads or if an editor had arranged the pages differently or said something to Bendis/Reis to set up the pages differently to avoid the ad break in the middle of a poignant sequence like that).

I really thought this was a strong start for Bendis' run. Reminded me of the young Bendis doing Powers and Torso that got me into his stuff lo those many years ago rather than the mediocre Bendis stuff from his latter Marvel years. I haven't enjoyed a Superman book this much in decades.

If I had to rank it...9/10, with only a few nits to pick on page turn techniques and choices vis-a-vis page sequences and ad placements that interrupt flow of the story and should be accounted for by writers and/or editorial if periodical format is going to be used as your primary format for the story initially. If you are going to use the format, use it right and either shift the ads to the back a la Image or take into account where they are going to be when structuring your story and pacing your sequences. Other media that have commercial interruptions account for it, so if writing a big 2 comics that is filled with commercial interruptions for ads, they should take it into account as well and not let the ads affect the flow of the story and disrupt sequences and blunt their impact on the reading audience.

-M

Yeah, I smooshed the two in my head as well, still and all you were a hundred per cent right when you said these were better than they had any right to be Slam. When they announced these toon crossovers I thought it was just going to be a silly gimmick but the stories have really been worth reading.