Tales From the 50 Cent Bin! - Action Comics #595

Next up for the month is one of Superman’s lesser known villains: Silver Banshee. Superman only has a few female villains and she’s one of them. Banshee, aka Sibhohan McDougal, was part of an old Gaelic clan. When she had once delved into the world of dark magic, her soul was dragged to the Underworld. When she was sent back, she caused a lot of damage and some of that was in today’s issue. She’s only made a few appearances in the comics since then, though. She did make it to other DC properties like Justice League Unlimited and Smallville. The place where she’s probably remembered best is on Supergirl where she and Livewire took on both Supergirl and the Flash.

She was actually one of John Byrne’s creations, first appearing in today’s book, Action Comics #595. At this time, Action Comics had pretty much became “Superman Team-Up” since a hero would guest star in the book. Today’s hero is my favorite dude, “Name Withheld.” The issue was written and drawn by John Byrne who was also working on the main Superman book at this time. Inks were done by Keith Williams.

Action Comics #595

Writer/Pencils: John Byrne

Inks: Keith Williams

Colors: Tom Ziuko

Letters: John Constanza

Editor: Mike Carlin

TV Talk - Supergirl Season 1

Next up for this month is something I wasn’t expecting. While I was looking on Netflix for something to watch, I suddenly noticed this in the “New” section. Since it is September and Supergirl is related to the subject of the month, I decided to watch the first season of the show. I had watched a couple of episodes during the season’s run and I did keep up with it online. I just didn’t watch it all until now, so I finally have something to say on this show. For those who may not know, Supergirl first aired on CBS on the 2015-2016 schedule. It’s now on the CW which is a better fit for the show since it had “the attractive yet non-threatening, racially diverse cast of a CW show.” It was also a nice fit since most of the creative force for the show is also behind Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow.

As the title suggests, the show is about Kara Zor-El aka Kara Danvers, Superman’s cousin. She was launched along with Kal-El as a teenager and was ordered to take care of him. Unfortunately, her ship fell into the Phantom Zone where it remained for 24 years. When she made to Earth, she was still young and Kal-El had grown up to be Superman. Since she had to acclimate to Earth, Clark let her be adopted by the Danvers. 12 years pass and we find Kara living a normal life in National City as Cat Grant’s assistant. When a plane almost crashes, she comes out as a super-powered person. After the people in her life give her some help, she comes onto the scene as Supergirl and works for the DEO.

Crisis Time! - Final Crisis #1 and Final Crisis: Requiem

It seems like this is the year of Grant Morrison, isn’t it? I looked at most of his run on Batman, All-Star Superman, and some of his stuff from Action Comics. Well, it’s time to dip back in the weirdness as I jump into the event known as Final Crisis. I’d be correct in saying that this was a weird event. It didn’t tie into a lot of books like events of the time did. It had a prelude (Countdown to Final Crisis), but that 52-issue weekly series is rarely mentioned in the event itself. There’s also the fact that Countdown apparently sucked. Just look at Linkara’s review of the series. “52 done right?” I don’t think so.

I remember some of the tie-ins sort of tied into the event while others really didn’t. Why did Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds (something I’ll look at in the future) get included with that anyway? It really didn’t tie into that story. Anyway, I did get the first issue to Final Crisis when it was released, but that was it for me since I was on a college budget (food, clothes, and gas).  I kept up with the event via Internet. I actually ended up reading the whole event (main series and a couple of tie-ins) through a hardcover at the library in Pulaski. I acquired the paperback a while back on Amazon.

My plan is to go through each issue and some tie-ins this month. Today’s issues are Final Crisis #1 and Final Crisis: Requiem. Grant Morrison is the writer the first issue as well as the whole event. J.G. Jones does the art for #1 and for most of the event. He has mostly done covers and some interior work. He’s most known for Wanted, a Mark Millar penned series. For Requiem, Peter J. Tomasi writes the issue. Doug Mahnke pencils the issue and Christian Almany inks the issue. The covers for Final Crisis #1 were both done by Jones. While the one with Green Lantern is okay, the variant is actually the better of the two.