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5 Reasons why the 1987 John Byrne Superman kicked ass

Posted in 80s, comic books, nostalgia, pop culture, Superman with tags comic books, DC Comics, nostalgia, pop culture, Superman on January 11, 2012 by Paxton

Last year I talked about the 25th anniversary of the John Byrne mini-series Man of Steel. That 1986 mini-series was a post-Crisis on Infinite Earths reboot of Superman which updated his origin and character and served to make him a little less powerful and thus, more interesting.

The reboot led to a revamp of Action Comics, a renaming of the old Superman book to The Adventures of Superman as well as the launch of a brand new Superman book. The new Superman book as well as Action Comics would be written and drawn by John Byrne. The Adventures of Superman would be written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Jerry Ordway. And this month, the post Crisis Superman reboot celebrates its 25th anniversary.

Here is a DC in-house ad advertising the launch of the new Superman titles.

The three issues that started the reboot and featured in this ad are Superman #1, The Adventures of Superman #424 (previously titled Superman) and Action Comics #584. This reboot was a pretty big event and DC advertised it to the hilt.

For the most part, I wasn’t a fan of the Marv Wolfman Adventure issues, but I was a HUGE fan of the Byrne Superman and Action Comics titles. His art and action packed writing style made Superman fun to read. I still have many of the original issues.

Anyway, in celebration of the 25th anniversary, here are 5 reasons why the John Byrne Superman titles kicked so much ass.

Superman vs Legion

Superman got into fights with EVERYONE - Under John Byrne, Action Comics essentially became a free-for-all. It turned into a team up book starring Superman and another character (a la Brave & the Bold for Batman). Within the majority of those issues, Superman wound up getting into a fight with his co-stars, usually over some misunderstanding. But Byrne drew the fights with awesome jaw cracking detail. The regular Superman title was the same way with Supes fighting the Legion, Metallo, Supergirl and a giant mutant ape.

Superman fights 1 Superman fights 2 Superman fights 8

Superman fights 6 Superman fights 7 Superman fights 5

Superman fights 9

Superman didn’t always win his fights (Bizarro, Metallo, Superboy, Rampage, Supergirl) – So, as I said, Superman fought a lot. And surprisingly, he actually got his ass kicked…a lot. At least every other issue featured a panel of Superman getting either smacked in the face or being hit so hard he flies through the air. Check out the myriad of comic panels above showing the Man of Steel on the receiving end of a Bronx haymaker.

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Review of DC’s The New 52 – Justice League #1

Posted in Batman, comic books, reviews, Superman with tags Batman, comic books, DC Comics, pop culture, reviews, Superman on August 31, 2011 by Paxton

Well, for those that don’t know, I’m off to Vegas tomorrow. My wife and I are renewing our vows for our 10th anniversary and there’s no better way to do it than to do it in Vegas by Elvis. So that’s happening for me this weekend.

I wanted to jump in today with a quick comic review. The first of DC’s “New 52″ came out and I got my hands on it. It was Justice League #1.

Written by Geoff Johns and drawn by the awesome Jim Lee, this comic begins DC’s journey into Rebootville. I wasn’t for sure what to expect going into this. I was a little excited, a little apprehensive. I just wanted a good start to this whole thing. Plus, I didn’t know where they would begin. Will we see the origin of the JLA, or will everything begin further back and we’ll eventually get the full-fledged JLA. Let’s see.

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7 Got Milk? ads featuring movie versions of comic book super heroes

Posted in advertising, Batman, comic books, movies, pop culture, Superman, Superman Returns with tags advertising, Batman, comic books, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, pop culture, Superman, Superman Returns on August 25, 2011 by Paxton

I love the various advertising campaigns for milk. From as far back as the 80s, they’ve had some of the more consistently entertaining commercial and print ads ever. There’s just something about them I enjoy.

Everyone remembers Michael Bay’s “Aaron Burr”. Or the fun “Milk it Does a Body Good” commercials. Or the ubiquitous “Got Milk?” print ads. Classic advertising. I especially like the ones I’m going to show you today. They are all print ads for the “Got Milk?” or “Body by Milk” campaigns and they all feature movie versions of comic book super heroes. I love explosions of pop geeky culture like this. I found many of these while thumbing through old magazines I had in my garage.

Please to enjoy.

Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) – Two of the greatest Batman movies we probably will ever see. The Dark Knight is great, however, for re-watchability, I pick Batman Begins every time. I love the sequel, I really do, but when I want to watch a Batman movie I put on Batman Begins.

Superman Returns (2006) - I love Brandon Routh. However, this movie sucked. One giant missed opportunity. The lead was great and the effects were awesome. But everything else was wrong.

Green Lantern (2010) - This movie ended up exactly like Superman Returns. The lead was great and the effects were awesome, but everything else was a fumbled missed opportunity. Kudos for a great looking ad, though.

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25th Anniversary Review of John Byrne’s Man of Steel Part II

Posted in 80s, comic books, pop culture, Superman with tags anniversary, comic books, pop culture, Superman on July 7, 2011 by Paxton

John Byrne’s historic six issue mini series, The Man of Steel, just turned 25 years old. The series would (re)introduce Superman after the Crisis on Infinite Earths mega event which finished up early Summer 1986. I am reviewing the series for it’s 25th anniversary. On Wednesday, I reviewed issues #1 – 3. Today, I’m going to review issues #4-6. For more information about Crisis on Infinite Earths, see my article on Strange Kid’s Club here.

Issue 4 gives us a full introduction to the new Lex Luthor. Instead of the bald mad scientist we all know, Lex has been re-imagined into more of a business mogul, a la Donald Trump. And I think it works much better. In the beginning of this issue, Clark and Lois are going to a party thrown by Lex, so Lois shows up at Clark’s apartment to pick him up. We see several awesome panels of Clark shaving with his heat vision and Lois discovering Clark’s barbells which he keeps to explain why he is in such great shape. But Lois comments they are too light for Clark to keep such a great figure and Clark has to mentally remind himself to get heavier weights (he can’t judge very well because he has super strength). Clark and Lois then head to the event on Luthor’s yacht and it is besieged by terrorists during the party. Superman saves the day, takes down the terrorists, and then Luthor tries to hire him into his payroll all while explaining that he knew the terrorists were going to hijack the boat but he did nothing so he could see Superman in action. The mayor was in attendance and justifiably angry that Lex put all of his party goers in danger, so he has Superman arrest Luthor. Luthor’s lawyers have him out in less than two hours but afterwards he confronts Superman and literally threatens to kill him in front of everyone in the city in the near future. And boasts that he’ll never be arrested for it. It’s intense.

In issue 5, Byrne starts things off with a clever inside joke. There is a great shot of Superman holding up Luthor’s green battle armor from the Kenner Super Powers toy line. A sly little reference that illustrates why I love Byrne’s writing. Anyway, this issue introduces Bizarro although he’s never really called that within the story. In the beginning, we see Superman holding the aforementioned green armor in front of Luthor accusing him of a bunch of things having to do with that armor. Luthor, of course, feigns ignorance and lists out all the reasons why Superman can’t prove Luthor had anything to with the armor. Realizing he has no proof, Superman leaves while proclaiming that he will someday make Luthor pay for all of his crimes. While he was in the office, Luthor scanned Superman’s cellular structure with the intent of creating a super duplicate. The results are immediately fed into a cloning tank (instead of waiting to properly analyze the data) that seemingly successfully creates a duplicate of Superman. However, the duplication process was built on the assumption Superman was a mutated human being and the discrepancy caused the duplicate to fail and collapse (which, as I said, could have been avoided by properly analyzing the data first). Luthor, now armed with the knowledge that Superman is an alien, orders the duplicate destroyed. Next, we meet Lois’ blind sister Lucy. She is so distraught by her recent loss of sight that she attempts to jump off the balcony of her sister’s apartment. Bizarro saves her (we have to assume he escaped because we aren’t told), but she’s blind so she thinks it’s Superman. Superman runs into Bizarro, who has disguised himself as a Bizarro-Clark, and immediately gets into a fistfight with him (sort of a hallmark of Byrne’s Superman). They battle each other for the rest of the issue throughout downtown Metropolis. Finally, Bizarro and Superman collide in a spectacular mid-air collision that reduces Bizarro to a fine dust that falls over Lucy Lane and cures her blindness. We are led to believe that the creature somehow knew its sacrifice would cure Lucy’s blindness.

25th Anniversary Review of John Byrne’s Man of Steel Part I

Posted in 80s, Batman, comic books, pop culture, Superman with tags anniversaries, Batman, comic books, DC Comics, pop culture, reviews, Superman on July 6, 2011 by Paxton

John Byrne’s historic six issue mini series, The Man of Steel, just turned 25 years old. It was released during the Summer of 1986 to “clean up” the ever increasing super powers and ever more complicated back story of DC’s flagship super hero. For years, this series was the official origin of the post-Crisis Superman. What’s “post-Crisis”? Glad you asked.

Twenty six years ago (Apr 1985), DC released their multiverse changing event Crisis on Infinite Earths. I discussed the genesis of that historical mini-series over on Strange Kid’s Club in a very special installment of Forgotten Favorites. That megaseries changed the landscape of the DC Universe. It ushered in a time of change. Heroes died. Heroes lived. But after all was said and done, everyone had to pick up the pieces and move on.

DC was using the event to update and modernize their heroes. After the event was over, George Perez would relaunch the post-Crisis Wonder Woman. Batman’s origin would be expanded and revamped in Frank Miller’s famous Batman: Year One. And it also was time for DC to give Superman a new start. In the years leading up to Crisis, Superman had become entirely too powerful. I talked about some of his more ridiculous “super powers” earlier this week. The time of Superman igniting suns with his heat vision and juggling planets had come to an end. Crisis writer Marv Wolfman pitched DC on a Superman reboot that would eliminate the super pets, the surprisingly large number of Kryptonian survivors and power down the Man of Steel to more “normal” levels. Wolfman even wanted to eliminate Superman’s adventures as Superboy. Surprisingly, Wolfman made a similar pitch to DC back in the 70s but they rejected it. Now DC was all ears.

Wolfman decided to hire popular writer/artist John Byrne (who had just left Marvel) to help him flesh out the details of the story. Wolfman and Byrne sequestered themselves away and came up with a multi-year plan for the new Man of Steel. A month or so after the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths, John Byrne would kick off Superman’s triumphant return with a 6 issue mini-series (re)introducing the new post-Crisis Superman to comic readers. At the end of that series, Byrne would take over writing and drawing Action Comics and the new Superman title and Marv Wolfman would take over writing Adventures of Superman with Jerry Ordway drawing.

Each issue of Byrne’s 6 issue series would re-introduce aspects of the Superman mythos back into the DC Universe. I’ll take a quick look at the first 3 issues today, then I’ll look at the final three issues tomorrow. I haven’t read this series since the mid ’90s, so it’ll be interesting to see if it’s still any good or if it’s totally dated.

Let’s find out.

Issue 1′s prologue begins on Krypton and we learn that this new Krypton is very similar to the Richard Donner version from the movies. It’s very scientific, the landscape is antiseptic and the people are detached from each other. However, despite being highly evolved, their planet is dying. Jor-El is making preparations to rocket his son to Earth. He explains to Lara that he chose Earth because the yellow sun would super charge his Kryptonian cells, making him a “super” man and superior to humans so he can one day rule the planet. The rocket takes off, we see the planet explode and then the prologue ends. We pick up with Clark in high school. He’s a football star. A jock. And kind of a douche. And he’s unaware that he’s an alien. Pa Kent shows him the crash site and explains how he was found in the fields after crashing to Earth. Clark must come to terms with not being human and learning to deal with his burgeoning powers. In the epilogue we see Clark, with help from Ma and Pa Kent, create his super suit and the disguise for Clark Kent. The suit is normal fabric. We learn that Clark emits a force field around his body that protects things close to him, like his clothes. Things outside the field, like his cape, can be torn up or destroyed.