Tales from the $3.99 Bin! - Superman: The Final Days of Superman

Next up for the month is trip to the 2010’s. These years have been weird to the Man of Steel, haven’t they? His origin’s been revamped at least twice in the comics, he’s had his identity outed, he’s shacked up with “Amazonian Hotness”, and he died… again. Yes, that actually happened. Right before DC Rebirth started, it was decided to put the New 52 Superman “out to pasture.” In other words, the dude gotta go since we got this older, wiser, more-Supermany Superman over here to use now. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of what was done with Superman in the New 52, I gotta say that I was a little sad to see him go. Then I read Peter Tomasi’s and Dan Jurgens’ run on the Superbooks and I kinda forgot about that dude.

“The Final Days of Superman” crossed over all the Superman related books except for Supergirl (Action Comics #51-52, Superman #51-52, Batman/Superman #31-32, and Superman/Wonder Woman #28-29). Peter J. Tomasi was brought into write this 8-issue crossover. As for the artists, they varied a lot. We had dudes like Mikel Janin, Ed Benes, Jorge Jimenez, Doug Manhke, Paul Pelletier, and Dale Eaglesham on pencils. I’ll just list the inkers below since this going to take a while. So, what happens when someone decides tries to mix “The Sandman Saga” with All-Star Superman?

Movie Talk - The Death of Superman/Reign of the Supermen

Next up for the month is a return to DC’s Animated Movie Universe. While I’ve seen a few of them like the Batman ones and a couple of the Justice League ones, they haven’t been on my radar much. I don’t know if it’s the changes to the animation or the fact that they were heavily inspired by the New 52. While I did like that era of comics, it wasn’t all good. One thing that definitely piqued my interest was that they were going to do the Death and Return of Superman once again. Now, DC had tried this before, but Superman: Doomsday was just okay as a whole. It would’ve been nice if it felt like a true adaptation, though.

The WB released The Death of Superman in 2018 and it’s sequel, Reign of the Supermen, in 2019. The voice cast is more or less the same it’s been for this DC animated universe. We got Jerry O’Connell as Superman, Rosario Dawson as Wonder Woman, Jason O’Mara as Batman, and Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern.  There are some new voices too. Lois Lane is voiced by Rebecca Romijn, Jerry O’Connell’s wife. Lex Luthor is voiced by Rainn Wilson, Superboy is voiced by Cameron Mohonagan (Joker from Gotham), Steel (John Henry Irons) is voiced by Cress Williams (Black Lightning), and Patrick Fabian is Hank Henshaw.

Trade Tales! - Superman: Godfall

Next up for the month, I decided to skip ahead to the 2000’s. I’ll get to the 90’s later. The early 2000’s is one era I really haven’t gotten to yet. Heck, I haven’t even re-read the Death/Return stuff yet. There’s always something else to do and read. Other than some things like Greg Rucka’s run, For Tomorrow,  and Birthright, this era is mostly a blank. So, I decided to jump right into this one with Joe Kelley’s last stint with Superman. Joe Kelley had been writing Superman since 2000. He was the one who wrote Action Comics #775 which featured one of the best Superman stories.

Since Kelley was leaving, he wanted to go out with style. He teamed up with Aspen Comics  which was headed by the late Michael Turner. Basically, Kelley wanted to see Clark on a bike like he was Kanenda from Akira… seems cool, don’t it? The arc, “Godfall,”  was contained in Action Comics #812-813, Adventures of Superman #625-626, and Superman #202-203.  Kelley and Turner handled the story. Talent Caldwell, who’s known for his work on Fantom, did the pencils. Jason Gorder did the inks. Peter Steigerwald and a couple of others handled the colors. Turner also did the awesome covers.

TV Talk - Krypton

Next up for the month is a bit of a review on the now-cancelled show, Krypton.  It aired from 2018 to 2019. When I first heard that Syfy (formerly known as the Sci-fi Channel) was going to make a Krypton show, I have to say that I wasn’t that interested. It was mostly because I didn’t have Syfy at the time. At least I was thinking that it was finally time that Syfy started to air sci-fi shows again. Let’s all forget the fact that NBC thought the channel should be a place for the WWF… more like WTF on that decision.

When I heard that David S. Goyer and Geoff Johns were involved, I got a little interested. Since Goyer was involved, I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to tie into the DCEU or not. I know some fans on Twitter were happy and then saddened when it was revealed that the show wasn’t mentioning the movies. I think that worked out in the end, though I don’t know if that was even going to happen. The only stars I knew of were Colin Salmon (who looks like the peeved version of my uncle Andre), Ann Ongbono (Wonder Woman). Everyone else is a blank to me, but for some reason, I thought I saw Zoe Kravitz in the trailer. I then realized it was someone else (Georgina Campbell).

When the show was put on DC Universe, I made plans to watch it there. I only watched the first episode and then got sidetracked with other things. When I realized that the first season was being marathoned on Syfy, I DVR’d the whole season and was able to watch it and the second season there. So, what happened on this possibly (fingers crossed) short-lived show?

Tales from the 50 Cent Bin! - Superman: The Secret Years

Next up for the month is a trip to the 80’s… sort of. We’re still in the Bronze Age, but this story came out right as Crisis on Infinite Earths was ramping up. I guess one could consider this a farewell to a certain pre-Crisis feature of the Superman mythos: Superboy. Superman’s early adventures were still a thing even in the 80’s. Either he was getting into trouble in Smallville or hanging out with the Legion of Superheroes. I don’t know if there were any that talked about his college exploits. I know that there’s was a back up in Superman called “Superman: The In-Between Years.” Then, there’s this four issue story.

Superman: The Secret Years ran from February 1985 to May 1985. Bob Rozakis, the writer of the other college Superman backups, wrote this story. On pencils, we got Curt Swan, the face of Superman throughout the Bronze Age. On inks, we got Kurt Schaffenberger. Schaffenberger used to do inks for Superboy stories. Then, we got the covers drawn by Frank Miller… yeah, that Frank Miller! So, what happened during Clark Kent’s last years in college? Ohyeah, here’s a little mood music…