Random Thoughts On... Grant Morrison's Action Comics Run

So, I’m at the end of another Superman Month. I’ve read/seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. When I mean ugly, I kind of mean “For Tomorrow” since that story just… let's just say I’m not a fan. I rather watch Steel again than read that. I thought I’d end the month on a bit of a high note by talking about Grant Morrison’s run on Action Comics.

Now looking on it in the Rebirth era of DC, Superman got the short of the stick with the New 52. I’m not saying that weren’t good stories (there were), but some of them weren’t the best. Luckily, it did start out well with Grant Morrison’s Action Comics. Unfortunately, I can’t comment on the Superman book that much. I know what came afterwards with Scott Lobdell was… okay? Maybe I’ll find out one day when I read more of what he did post “H’El On Earth.” I heard Greg Pak’s stuff was good and I even have his part of the recent “Truth” arc.

Morrison stayed with Action Comics from #1-#18 with a #0 thrown in for Zero Month. The artists varied throughout but the main one was Rags Morales. Others were Brad Walker, Gene Ha, Brent Anderson, Ben Oliver, Andy Kubert, Travel Foreman, and CAFU. Starting with Action Comics #4, there were also 8-page back-up stories and that lasted for Morrison’s run. Those were written by Sholly Fisch. He also did the annual for this series. The artists also varied with Brad Walker, Chris Sprouse, CAFU, and others contributing.

The idea, at first, was to show Superman at the beginning. As I’ve said before this month, it’s the thing to do with the character these days. What Morrison and Morales did was throw a lot of the Golden Age into Superman’s new beginning. He wasn’t the nice guy we’ve known for years. Well, he was nice to everyone else but criminals which is something I really liked. If you’ve read those old Golden Age comics, Superman was a rough guy. He even killed some criminals or he at least left some to die. This new Superman also had the same power set he had in the Golden Age, so he couldn’t fly yet. His parents were back to being dead and died when he was in high school.

Nothing to say here. Just Superman doing the impossible.

Tales From The $3.99 Bin! - Action Comics #14-#18

Next up in this final week of Superman Month, I thought I might as well finish off Grant Morrison's Action Comics run. I’ve more or less talked about every aspect of that run here except for #0 from Zero Month. Morrison’s run was pretty good and I will do another post about the run as a whole. The ones I'm talking about today are Action Comics #14-#18.

When we last left off, Clark Kent had died… kind of. Basically, Superman had to let “Clark Kent” die when an accident happened. Anyway, Superman tried on a new identity but he missed being Clark Kent. Mrs. Nyxly revealed herself to be from the 5^th Dimension and basically wished Clark Kent back to life. Yeah, it gets weird and it’s going to get much weirder. This is Grant Morrison, after all.

Grant Morrison handled all of the main stories while Sholly Fisch handled the back-ups. The artwork gets varied up a lot in this one. Rag Morales and Brad Walker handle the pencils for the main stories while Chris Sprouse handles the pencils for the backups.

Action Comics #14-#18

Writers: Grant Morrison and Sholly Fisch (back-ups)

Pencils: Rags Morales (main), Brad Walker (main), and Chris Sprouse (backups)

Inks: Mark Prospt and Andrew Hennessy (main); Karl Story (backups)

Colors: Brad Anderson (main); Jordie Bellaire (backup)

Letters: Steve Wands, Carlos M. Mangual, and Taylor Esposito

Editor: Matt Idelson and Wil Moss

Movie Talk - Supergirl (1984) and Steel

Well, I knew it had to come to this. I’ve looked at all the modern live-action Superman movies, but there are two “spin-offs” that got to be mentioned. While the new Supergirl show is going well for the most part, there are other live-action things that might have missed the mark. I know they missed the mark with critics and most fans. Did they do that with me as well? You shall see when I talk about the 1984 Supergirl movie and 1997’s Steel. Yes, you read that right. They made a Steel movie and it starred “The Diesel” himself, Shaquille O’Neal.

Supergirl was made to cash in on the popularity of the Superman movies at the time. It was supposed to be released in 1983, the same year Superman 3 was released. For whatever reason (probably the poor reception of Superman 3), it got released in 1984 instead. It came out and was pretty much panned from the beginning. Helen Slater did get nominated for a Saturn Award, so it has that at least. I ended up seeing it on TV when I was younger but I don’t think I ever rented it.

As for Steel, it was released in 1997 which was pretty much a bad year for comic book movies in general. It too got panned when it was released. For those who don’t know, John Henry Irons was a supporting character in the Superman books at the time. He was one of the Superman clones who appeared during the Death and Return of Superman storyline from the 90’s. He even had his own series at the time the movie was released. I ended up seeing the movie on VHS and I even read (and still own) the junior novelization of the movie.

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.

Random Thoughts On… Superman: American Alien

I thought I’d change it up a little for this post. Next up for the month is a pretty recent miniseries called Superman: American Alien. The book is more or less a look at the early days of Clark Kent before he became The Man of Steel. If that sounds familiar to you, then join the club. As I said before, it seems like the thing to do with Superman now is to look at his early days. Secret Origin, Birthright, the Earth One universe, and the movies have done it. Heck, there was a hit TV show that centered on them! It’s gotten to the point where I might as well pull out my notebook and do an origin for the guy.

So, here comes Max Landis with his own version what made Clark Kent into… Clark Kent? Well, that’s what he said in an interview about the miniseries. For those who don’t know, Max Landis is a writer in Hollywood. He’s well known for writing the script for Chronicle, a found-footage movie with superpowers. It’s sitting in my collection unseen but I've heard good things about it. He’s also known for a short film/parody where he talks about The Death and Return of Superman. Some Superman fans were peeved about that film. I saw it myself, laughed little, and thought his message was a little flawed. Landis then made his way into comics by writing a few stories for the character. He’s even been online talking about the character, so I see why DC decided to let him do his own take on Superman’s myth.

With the way some folk are, I can see this happening.