It’s Memorial Day. Hope everyone has had a great holiday weekend. In honor of this day that honors our armed forces, here are some awesomely vintage, patriotic comic book covers featuring our favorite heroes during wartime. See our heroes doing their part to give Hitler a sock in the jaw!
I found many of these covers on Comic Browser.
This is it. We have reached our 25th episode. Thanks to all of the fans that listen who made this happen. So, how do we celebrate our 25th episode? We invited one of the members of the Atomic Geeks, our sister podcast, to join us. In the fourth chair for this rodeo is Michael Digiovanni. And our topic this week? We steal a franchise topic from the Geeks. Yes, this week, we do a Redo.
And we are redoing the WB/CW show Smallville. It’s an interesting discussion because three of us are comic book guys and one of us isn’t. Plus, for the most part, we are all divided on how we feel about the show as a whole. So listen to us take apart this show and examine what was done right, what was done wrong and how the four of us would have fixed it and made it better.
Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner. And yes, we are still on the Zune Marketplace.
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 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 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.
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.
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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Cavalcade of Awesome 