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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 13, 2015 9:28:26 GMT -5
You know what would be awesome? They should make the digit first out-of-continuity titles (Adventures of Superman in this case), and just follow up all the dropped silver age loose ends like that...they can even make some money on it... offer the old issue they reference digitally for .99 or something when you by the 'sequel'.
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Post by lexrules on Mar 13, 2015 11:35:29 GMT -5
Ahh
I'm finally home.
So happy to see a board dedicated to all the truly great Superman stories.
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Mar 13, 2015 23:57:35 GMT -5
Ahh I'm finally home. So happy to see a board dedicated to all the truly great Superman stories. Welcome aboard. Always good to have someone actually read this nonsense I'm writing. |
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Post by Crimebuster on Mar 13, 2015 23:59:40 GMT -5
One detail I forgot to mention in my last batch of reviews: Action #464 featured a brief cameo from Melba. You know... Melba. The black reporter lady added to the cast of Lois Lane right before that title got cancelled. So she apparently still exists - and is also still more interesting and relevant than Lucy Lane.
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Post by Crimebuster on Mar 15, 2015 23:45:29 GMT -5
August 1976
Superman #305: Out of nowhere, the most shocking thing of all: An issue of Superman that's actually a halfway decent superhero comic book story! I did not expect that. Here's the scoop. One day, as the reformed original Toyman is setting up his toys at a local museum, the museum is suddenly destroyed by Superman! Toyman feels betrayed, as Supes suggested he put all his toys int he museum to begin with. Flying into a murderous rage, he goes on a mad spree which includes a couple of fairly creepy murders - one victim of which is the new Toyman from a little while back. Superman finally tracks down Toyman and tries to explain that someone else must have done it, but Toyman doesn't buy it... right up until Bizarro comes out of nowhere and flattens Superman! Bizarro then uses his indestructible cape to tie up Superman, and Toyman orders Bizarro to kill Superman! TO BE CONTINUED!!! My Grade: B+. Gosh, when did Marvel start publishing Superman?! Much more on this issue below.
Action #464: Last issue, we got an interesting setup that I was sure would fall on its face. Well, in this issue, it turns out Lex Luthor is behind the scheme, young-Flash tries to prove to Superman that's he's the deal deal by boxing with a trained bear, and Clark covers for his own reverse-aging by releasing an airborne youth serum into the air that turns the Daily Planet staff into teenagers. So what was I worried about, right? Anyway, Luthor's plan is to reverse-age Superman so Superman doesn't have the edge his long experience as a crime fighter has given him. That doesn't make any sense at all, but we'll find out if it works next issue. Great. TO BE CONTINUED! Meanwhile, in the backup, instead of the Private Life of Clark Kent, we get... The Sporting Life of Steve Lombard! Okay, that's at least kind of funny. The story is halfway decent too, as we finally get a look inside Steve's head as he reminisces about his footballing days and how he's treated like a hero even though he's really kind of a coward. But now he wants to change. Will he? Well, I wouldn't hold my breath, but maybe this Marvelization will lead somewhere after all. My Grade: C+. The plot details sound almost Haney-ish, but trust me, they don't have that kind of verve.
Superman Family #180: Supergirl is enslaved by a magic urn. Luckily, the guy who controls the urn uses it for good - though why he doesn't just let Supergirl be a superhero without his superfluous commands is beyond me. Unfortunately, he has an evil twin who uses the urn to command Supergirl to do evil. Supergirl finally figures this all out and manages to break the urn. Who cares. My Grade: C-. Only saved from a worse grade by Supergirl's cool male secretary.
Notes: This issue of Superman feels very modern. Even though it's by the old school team of Marty Pasko and Curt Swan, the storytelling is much more Marvel-like than what has gone before. We have the pretty surprising murder of the new Toyman as well as the surprise appearance by Bizarro, but more, this is a full-length story that is continued into the next issue, which is a pretty rare thing. The whole issue really feels much more like a Marvel book than a DC book. When Conway first came over, I wondered if the Marvelization going on was due to his presence, but I think now that it's the other way around -- his presence is because editorial wants to move towards Marvel-style storytelling. And by editorial, I don't mean Julie Schwartz, I mean Jenette Kahn.
This idea is backed up by a comment in the lettercolumn from assistant editor E. Nelson Bridwell. Someone writes in to compliment them on the modernization of the title with the additions of Conway, Lopez and the shout-outs to Siegel and Shuster, and Bridwell says that they have no plans to stop doing this stuff, because "we're having the time of our lives!" I read that as a backhanded swipe at Infantino and his retrograde policies.
Of course, I did still have a bit of a logic issue with the story. Toyman is upset because he thinks Superman smashes all his stuff. Who else could it be, right? Yet, at the end, Toyman is working with Bizarro - who quite obviously was behind the museum being smashed. So why is Toyman still ticked at Superman when it was clearly a misunderstanding? Well, hopefully this will be addressed next issue.
Also, I'm jumping ahead of myself, but if my memory serves, in Superman #423 - the infamous/classic "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" story from Alan Moore that ended the Pre-Crisis Superman series - the story begins with Toyman killing Pete Ross. Superman responds by saying something like "But why? Toyman was always harmless, not a murderer!" Except, jeez, the very first thing he does in #305 upon resuming his career as a villain is gruesomely murder two people! So...?
And a couple final notes on Superman #305: For no apparent reason, Pasko mentions that this story starts on Friday the 13th, which through a strange coincidence, happens to the day I read the story. It's also a bit of very clever calendar usage - not only was August 13th, 1976 a Friday, but it was the day after this issue came out! Which I know for certain because my copy has a beautiful full date stamp on it from AUG 12, 1976. Cool stuff.
Finally, both Superman and Superman Family this month feature covers where the heroes are smashing giant statues of themselves.
Speaking of covers, there's a design note: This month we finally drop that big banner across the top of the comic that DC would fill will as much cluttered tiny text as possible. Thank god. Jenette and company are still slouching towards a better design, but they are certainly getting closer at this point.
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Post by Crimebuster on Mar 16, 2015 0:44:01 GMT -5
September 1976
Superman #306: Superman and Bizarro duke it out. Bizarro mistakenly thinks that his homeworld is destroyed, so he's come to Earth to use a duplicator ray to create a Bizarro version of Lois so he can have some company. This is a callback to the first time adult Bizarro fought adult Superman, way back in Action Comics #254-255. Superman swaps Lois out for a robot, and then whisks Bizarro off into space and proves that the Bizarro world is just fine. Superman returns to Earth to find that Toyman feels really, really sorry for flipping out when it was obviously Bizarro all along. Toyman allows himself to be arrested and hauled off. THE END! My Grade: B-. Not nearly as entertaining and satisfying as the setup, but it was competent anyway. DC still needs to work on sticking the landing, though.
Action Comics #466: Speaking of sticking the landing. it's time for part 3 of the epic Babymaker Saga! Superman has regressed to childhood. Lex beats the crap out of him, but then lets him go, because he wants Superman to suffer. Of course, all this means is that he then attacks him a couple hours later to kill him. Well... how about just do it when you have the chance? Instead, Lex sets up a thing where Superman gets boy-Batman and boy-Flash to team up with him, only for Luthor to fly in with an F-16 and kill them both. Then Lex tries to kill Superman, but Superman suddenly realizes all of this crap is due to some kind of hypnotic suggestion, so he wills himself back to adulthood and clobbers Lex. Um. Where's my facepalm emoticon? My Grade: C.
World's Finest #242: Batman Jr. and Superman Jr. stumble into a ghost town, stuck inside a force field, stuck inside a time warp. Seems this forcefield trapped all the inhabitants inside, and then a posse of murderers came into town and killed everyone. But inside the force field, they remain immortal, waiting for more victims to stumble into the dead zone.
Sadly for the Super-Sons, the forcefield also robbed Superman Jr. of his powers. Luckily. that don't mean squat to Batman Jr. so he and Superman Jr. clobber the three bad guys. Unfortunately, the innocent girl they are trapped with turns out to be a fourth killer in disguise. But then there's a new twist: When Superman Jr. stands on a certain grave, filled with soil from back east shipped in by the rich inhabitant of the grave, he gets his powers back. Handy! So he kicks her ass and then flies them all out of the area, with their destination the nearest jail.
One problem - as soon as they take the bad guys out of the force field, time catches up with them and they all die horribly. WHOOPS! Oh well. No biggee. THE END! My Grade: H-. Solid, but you can do better, Bob!
Notes: Ever get so frustrated with DC's terrible cover design from this time period that you almost want to punch a baby? Well, apparently Neal Adams felt the same way, because that's exactly what we get on the cover of Action #466! Welcome back, Neal? It's also the return of Neal's patented "action lines," which we'll see again next month on his cover for Superman #307. It's amazing how much more modern Neal's covers look than everyone else's at this point. Ernie Chan's cover for Superman this month looks like amateur hour compared to Adams.
Anyway.
This month's Action story was doofy, but there was one panel where Lois says she's stopped believing Clark is actually Superman because now she "knows better." And she looks a little smug about it. Is this supposed to be suggesting that she's been sleeping with Clark? It kind of reads that way, but maybe I am just reading way too much into it. I don't get what else she could be meaning though - she seems to be implying that she now knows Clark well enough to know his secrets, or... something. I dunno.
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Post by Crimebuster on Mar 17, 2015 0:13:11 GMT -5
October 1976Superman #307: Superman flips out over pollution and tries to shut down some big factories, but a dude named The Protector battles him to a standstill. We learn that a) Superman is enraged because his adopted home is destroying itself just as his original home planet did and b) The Protector is a mutant whose powers are fueled by pollution, so he wants things to get as polluted as possible. All of this gets thrown a massive curveball when Supergirl shows up and suddenly reveals that the whole "Krypton" thing is actually a delusion Superman is suffering - he's really a human mutant, just like The Protector. At the end of the issue, Superman is totally confused. TO BE CONTINUED!! My Grade: B-. A lot to talk about with this one below. Action Comics #467: Superman interferes with foreign affairs by smashing up the air force of a communist country, then flies home. On the way, some evil scientists zap him with a ray that steals his sonic boom. They use this to cause a giant tidal wave they want to blackmail Earth with Superman figures it out and stops them. THE END!! In the backlup, Mr. Mxyztplk shows up to torment Metropolis, but Krypto is on the case. Krypto chases him all over town and finally corners him. Worried he'll get bitten and develop 5th dimensional rabies, Mxyztplk says his own name backwards to get away from Krypto. Hey, it was that or just drop a rock on his head. My Grade: C. Gosh, what a boring, retrograde story the lead was this month. Good thing Krypto was around to lighten things up a little. Superman Family #181: Lois is touring Europe when she's shanghaied into a pocket kingdom ruled by a malevolent hunchback and his pet wizard. Their plan: Force Lois to marry the hunchback king! Meanwhile, Superman follows Lois and tries to rescue her, but is whammied by magic. Then, a powerful illusion causes everyone to see the king as handsome, and Superman as a freakish gnome. Lois is again given a choice: Good looking guy, or creepy Supergnome. Lois doesn't hesitate and picks Superman, so obviously, this isn't an issue from the 1950's or 1960's. The king feels bad about all this and decides to let them go, but the wizard wigs out, so Lois clobbers him with a rock and they get away. THE END!! My Grade: C+. Finally, someone else read Superman #299 and learned the "hit 'em with a rock" tactic! Notes: Okay, where to start with this issue of Superman. Well, Conway is back, and he brings with him the most Marvelesque character work yet, in service of a really interesting idea, namely that all the Krypton stuff is a delusion and Superman is actually an Earthling. The character stuff, though, is pretty problematical and shows some of the down side of trying to do Marvel style writing with DC characters like Superman who have long been stuck in specific character ruts. The whole story hinges on Superman feeling upset that his adopted home world is destroying itself. This in turn leads to Superman doing some stuff that's pretty out of character, such as going on a rampage to destroy perfectly legal businesses and factories that are polluting the environment. But Superman's initial feelings on this subject are even more out of character, and come completely from out of nowhere. Clark is being hounded by a groupie who is into Clark Kent instead of Superman, which causes Lois to become jealous since she's now into Clark as well. But this situation leads to this thought balloon from Superman: "You call me a man -- but I'm really a native of a planet called Krypton -- and much as I like you, we can never be anything to each other -- and more than I am to Lois! I'm an alien -- an outcast -- a loner -- and that's the way it must remain!" This is some broody angst worthy of Peter Parker himself. But it's completely contrary to everything we've ever seen from Superman. Since when is he an outcast, a loner, or the kind of guy who thinks he can never love a human woman because he's an alien misfit? It's flat out weird, and to me just highlights the dangers of trying to graft Marvel-style character stuff onto established DC characters. It's possible this bit will be handwaved away next issue, which is traditionally how Julie and company deal with any troubling story points, but given that his actions in the story only make sense in the context of these bizarre feelings, it makes the whole story hard to swallow. WHich is too bad, because the whole delusion plot is really interesting. In this month's Action, Clark's newscast announces the debut of Black Lightning, who is described as battling the flunkies from The 100. Gosh, haven't seen The 100 around in years! Good to see someone remembers them. Superman Family has an announcement - namely, the next issue will be the first of DC's new "dollar book" line, and will have all new stories instead of dirty reprints! Yay! Or... mostly yay, but that's going to be a hell of a lot more reading for me. By the way, here's the cover of Superman Family #181, showing that for all the modernization going on, the title has pretty much still managed to regress to pre-1970 reboot status: 
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Post by chadwilliam on Mar 17, 2015 10:41:32 GMT -5
What I like about this period is the return of so many of Superman's classic foes in the Superman title. I hadn't realized until recently that a lot of these guys had just been forgotten about. 305 marks not only Bizarro's first appearance in nearly 10 years but features Winslow Schott who had only showed up about three or four times between here and the 1950's, Metallo's about to return after appearing as a ghost in Superman 214 in 1969 in 310, even Amalak who made a couple of significant appearances during the Silver Age will be showing up in due course. |
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Post by Crimebuster on Mar 17, 2015 19:40:57 GMT -5
November 1976Superman #308: Superman wrestles with what his true identity is. Meanwhile, The Protector goes off and finds a powerful ally in Radion, a psycho with radiation powers. They try to blow up a nuclear power plant. Superman stops them, then clobbers them both. But he's decided that Supergirl must have been telling the truth: He's human, not Kryptonian. WHich is too bad, because just then, a big alien fleet is en route to Earth and is going to blow everything up, and unfortunately. Superman is too busy being human to notice. TO BE CONTINUED!! My Grade: B-. A full-length three-parter? Action Comics #468: Terra Man shows up and publicly announces he's going to be doing his own TV show. He then forces everyone in Metropolis to watch it, while lassoing Superman into co-starring as his enemy. They battle for a bit and then the story ends mid-fight. Um, okay. TO BE CONTINUED I GUESS? In the backup story, we get a spotlight on Morgan Edge! I like that they are highlighting the supporting cast in these backups. Anyway, Morgan's mother shows up and we learn that his real name is Morrie Edelstein! But he's remade himself as "Morgan Edge" and doesn't want anyone to know about his past, so much that he runs his mother off before anyone finds out that she's a cleaning lady. Later, though, he feels bad and brings her to an award ceremony and gives a speech honoring his mother and revealing his true identity. He also explains in the process that he got his start winning a big poker match where the guy he beat directed some anti-Semetic comments at him, which led him to change his name later. But now he's proud of his heritage. THE END!! My Grade: B+. The lead was pretty useless again, but the backup was great! More like this. In fact, let's just dump the fighting crap and get two "Private Life" type stories every issue! World's Finest #243: Batman and Robin are trying to save from ancient statues from being lost to a new dam under construction in Egypt. They ask Superman for help in moving them, but Superman acts like a complete and utter jerk and spends a whole page explaining that he can't answer every stupid plea for help, and as far as he's concerned those statues can just get destroyed, because who gives a crap? Wow, Superman is a colossal tool. Anyway, Batman and Robin are like, fine, we'll do it ourselves. And they do. Then the statues get moved back into place overnight. Superman shows up to try and prove he's not a jerk (hint: he fails at that) and they learn that aliens are behind it! Long story short, there's a group of aliens living in an asteroid and they need those statues to stay where they are because, reasons. Superman's like, oh. Okay, we'll just leave them there then, because clearly, Superman could not care less about those statues anyway. Despite this, though, the aliens threaten to murder Robin if anyone thinks about moving the statues! Even Superman thinks that's a bridge too far, so he starts fighting to save Robin. Robin, meanwhile, deduces that the aliens were originally from Earth and that all their problems would be solved if they just returned to Earth. But the aliens are afraid of air. So after Supes sends a message to Batman, Batman smashes the alien breathing units - revealing to the aliens that, yep, air is fine. The aliens all relocate to Earth and everyone is happy again. THE END!! My Grade: H. Notes: Conway continues with brooding Superman here. At one point, Superman thinks to himself that he's never allowed himself to get serious with Lois because he's an alien loner and thus cannot be with a human woman. That's complete poppycock, though it still makes more sense than the standard reason of "she'll be in danger if we get together." The upshot is that now that Clark thinks he's human, he thinks it's fine to get it on with Lois. So... he ends up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, because the setup is total nonsense, but they should have been together all along. I guess I'll take it. They imply even more strongly here that Clark and Lois spend the night together. And it's even spilling over to Action Comics, where we get this bit of interplay: Jimmy: My pal can handle anything. Lois: How well I know it! Wink, wink. Neal Adams does the covers for both Superman and Action this month. They are really putting him to use now that he's suddenly back on board. World's Finest, on the other hand, has a cover by Rich Buckler, who apparently is another refugee from Marvel. Also, this month's Action Comics had a fairly prominent cameo from Greg Reed, the actor who impersonates Superman from time to time. He's been hanging around a long time now, having first appeared way back in #414. I have to assume he's going to play a major role in the outcome of this story next issue; you don't just randomly plant an exact double of Superman in a story unless you're going somewhere with it. Speaking of Action, the Morgan Edge stuff came completely out of nowhere. We've come a long way from the days when he was a stooge of Darksied and the other creators had to make up a whole clone story off the top of their heads to explain why he's not really evil. He's been around for, what, 6 years now? And this is the first time since his initial Darksied storyline he's felt like a real character and an important supporting cast member in his own right rather than just a handy plot contrivance. Meanwhile, in World's Finest - the whole thing about moving the ancient statues to keep them from being ruined by a manmade lake is a reference to the Egyption temple of Philae, which was undisturbed for thousands of years before the Aswan Dam was built in 1902, completely submerging the site and destroying numerous ancient frescoes and other paintings. In the 1960's, the buildings were painstakingly moved out of the lake and reconstructed on dry land. Finally, this month has a key design development - the debut of the classic DC Comics bullet logo. To me, this is still the iconic DC logo: 
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Post by Rob Allen on Mar 18, 2015 11:12:42 GMT -5
The situation in the story is closer to Abu Simbel than Philae, and the relocation of Abu Simbel was better known to the American public in the 70s. The temples there were moved before the dam was built, as in the story. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Simbel_templesAlso, I think the name Greg Reed is meant to remind people of George Reeves. |
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Post by JKCarrier on Mar 18, 2015 17:34:51 GMT -5
Also, I think the name Greg Reed is meant to remind people of George Reeves. Considering how many "Superman Meets [real life celebrity]" stories they did in the '50s, I'm surprised they never did one with George Reeves back in the day. |
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Post by Calamas on Mar 19, 2015 11:05:12 GMT -5
The situation in the story is closer to Abu Simbel than Philae, and the relocation of Abu Simbel was better known to the American public in the 70s. The temples there were moved before the dam was built, as in the story. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Simbel_templesAlso, I think the name Greg Reed is meant to remind people of George Reeves.Almost certainly. DC did a lot of Earth-One analogues in those days. Like the Midnight Show Starring Johnny Nevada (Tonight Show/Johnny Carson) or Impossible...But True! (Ripley’s Believe It or Not). |
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Post by Rob Allen on Mar 19, 2015 11:20:22 GMT -5
Also, I think the name Greg Reed is meant to remind people of George Reeves. Almost certainly. DC did a lot of Earth-One analogues in those days. Like the Midnight Show Starring Johnny Nevada (Tonight Show/Johnny Carson) or Impossible...But True! (Ripley’s Believe It or Not). And Lola Barnett (Rona Barrett). |
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Mar 22, 2015 0:47:18 GMT -5
December 1976Superman #309: After taking out some members of the Skull gang, Superman is hanging around thinking about his newfound status as an Earthman when Supergirl shows up and asks him to help with an alien attack. He tells her to go pound sand; what does he care about the fate of aliens any more? She tells him off, collects Krypto as backup instead, and flies off to fight aliens. Superman spies on them and sees they are losing, so he ditches Lois mid-date and goes to space to help out. Superman beats the aliens, then reveals that he knows Kara was lying to him about Krypton being fake. Turns out it was all a really, really idiotic plan by the Kandorians to keep Superman from interfering with Earth politics or something. How about instead of trying to emotionally manipulate and brainwash him you just, you know, talk to him about your concerns instead? What a bunch of maroons. My Grade: C. Action Comics #469: Superman and Terra Man's TV showdown continues - for the entire issue. They fight, everyone in Metropolis is forced to watch, and some people start thinking Superman is in on it, which, again: Idiotic. It seems like every other issue they decide Superman is a bad guy, then have a change of heart. Anyway, at the end, Superman is seemingly killed. Cliffhanger! Also, Greg the Superman impersonator still features prominently even though he hasn't done anything in the story yet. So you know that is still coming. TO BE CONTINUED!! In the backup story, Clark gets really depressed on Christmas because his parents are dead and he has nobody to spend the holidays with. Then he finds an orphanage and decides to play Saint Nick, using his powers to bring them a crapton of presents. He feels better after that. THE END! My Grade: C+. All these multi-parters in Action seem at least one issue too long. Superman Family #182: Oh my god. This is what I get for complaining about reprints: seven thousand pages of new material featuring Superbaby. Talk about being careful what you wish for because you might get it - this monster has not one, but two new Jimmy Olsen stories. Does anyone really want that?! I'm going to keep these synopses as short as possible, for everyone's sake. Jimmy Olsen 1: Jimmy overhears some crooks trying to bribe a hockey player to throw a game. He ends up getting Superman to disguise himself as a goalie to flush out the crooks. THE END!! Superbaby: Superbaby finds an alien that he wants to keep for a pet, but Pa Kent deduces the "pet" is really an intelligent starship pilot stranded on Earth. Superbaby helps him fix his ship and leave. THE END!! Lois Lane: Some crooks from Skull are trying to fix wrestling matches. I guess that sort of thing is going around. Lois puts the kibosh on it. THE END!! World of Krypton: Clark tells some kids a story about a Kryptonian analogue of Jesus. The only thing worse than having to listen to crap about the true meaning of Christmas is having to listen to crap about the true meaning of Kryptonian Christmas. Blargh. THE END!! Supergirl: The Viking probe finds Kyrptonite on Mars. Lex Luthor manages to build a spaceship out of spare parts while in prison (!), but when he gets to Mars, he discovers the Kryptonite is a fake planted by Supergirl to find out where his secret rocket is. WTF. THE END!! Krypto: Krypto foils a bank robbery, but it gets him in trouble with a regular dog. Who cares. THE END!! Jimmy Olsen 2: Jimmy accidentally steals a psychic's mind reading power, then uses that power to save the psychic from kidnappers. THE END!! What a colossal bore this comic was. My Grade: C-. Much, much more on this below. Way too much, really.
Notes: Both Superman and Superman Family have references to the Skull organized crime group. I guess this is the latest version to replace Intergang and The 100 in these stories. Not sure why we need a new, third group, but there it is. This issue of Superman had a note in the lettercolumn mentioning that Julie Schwartz, Lois and Clark all appeared recently in X-Men #98. E. Nelson Bridwell suggests that they should add Stan Lee and Peter Parker to an issue of Teen Titans in response. I like that they are able to have these conversations now after a decade of pretending the other company didn't even exist. No doubt a positive benefit of their crossover specials like Superman vs. Spider-man. This issue of Superman also seems to spell an end to the Lois-Clark romance, as Lois flips out when Clark ditches her mid date. I knew they wouldn't keep that going. It made too much sense. Now to the meat of it: I'm officially declaring the Superman Family experiment dead. This new relaunch issue, featuring 80 giant pages of all new stories, should be a triumph. But the quality is so low on all the stories that it makes me extremely sad, frustrated and, of course, mostly bored. Before being combined into Superman Family, the three titles - Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Supergirl - were consistently more entertaining and quirky than the main titles. Now, though, in order to churn out this much content, they seem to have handed off the assignments to newcomers and second stringers. The result is an uneven mess. The art in particular looks haphazard and thrown together pretty much across the board, with the exception, of course, of Kurt Schaffenberger on Jimmy Olsen. The rest, though looks rushed and crude, even though some of the artists would later go on to better things (like Marshall Rogers). Even Jose Delbo, who, while not very itneresting is at least usually competent, looks hurried and distracted. And the stories, ay yi yi. The less said about them the better. The Supergirl story was the best of the bunch, right up until it completely fell apart at the end. Lex actually asks in the story why Supergirl bothered to do all this crap when they already had him stuck in prison to begin with. That's the writer trying to paper over his major plot hole by having the characters address it, but it doesn't work. It's still head and shoulders above the Krypto story, though, which barely makes any sense at all on any level. And the Superbaby story makes me want to punch a superbaby, even though I'd break my hand in the process. And sweet lord, the terrible Kryptonian Christmas story - that would be enough to turn me into an atheist if I wasn't one already. About the only thing this issue has going for it beyond the Curt Swan / Neal Adams cover (which looks much more like Adams than Swan) is the fact that it has a bunch of random references in it. Beyond continuity stuff like the Skull appearance and Jon Ross making yet another appearance, here are some that jumped out at me: - The whole Supergirl story is an extended riff on the Viking probes to Mars, with numerous specific references to events from the Viking program
- In the same story, the mission control group at NASA consists of Jenette Kahn, Jack Adler and another guy who I am certain is a DC editorial figure, but I don't recognize him
- The psychic in the second Jimmy Olsen story is named Nicky Heller, which seems to be a reference to Uri Geller
- In the second Jimmy Olsen story, Superman tracks some crooks because they are driving a new 1976 model car, so by law it has a catalytic converter installed to reduce pollution, which earlier models did not have, allowing him to track the car via sulfur fumes. This law was actually implemented in 1975, so apparently only crooks had new model cars in Metropolis during the mid 1970's
I'm very much hoping the quality improves, but I doubt it will. In an interview with Back Issue, Jenette Kahn called this the "ill-fated Dollar Comics" experiment, and lamented that she didn't think fans were getting their money worth, specifically because the demands of putting out so much material meant the quality dropped. Can't say she's wrong.
I want my crazy Lois stories back!
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Post by JKCarrier on Mar 22, 2015 10:16:55 GMT -5
I'm officially declaring the Superman Family experiment dead. This new relaunch issue, featuring 80 giant pages of all new stories, should be a triumph. But the quality is so low on all the stories that it makes me extremely sad, frustrated and, of course, mostly bored. Before being combined into Superman Family, the three titles - Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Supergirl - were consistently more entertaining and quirky than the main titles. Now, though, in order to churn out this much content, they seem to have handed off the assignments to newcomers and second stringers. I have a lot of nostalgic fondness for Bronze Age Superman, but I have to admit that you're right about Superman Family -- once they went all-new, the quality really sank. Not all the Dollar Comics were stinkers, though...Batman Family and World's Finest had a lot of good stuff in them. |
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