This Week's Comic Books 6-24-09

Yes, I've had them since Wednesday, which is the usual day new comic books are in the stores. So it's almost next week, not this week. I'm an occasional procrastinator, or I would've posted this sooner. I intend to make this a weekly feature, listing the books I bought that week with a short review of each. Nothing really in-depth -- unless you follow this stuff you're not going to really understand many of the stories and characters going on. Plus, I don't quite take it all as seriously as some others, analyzing the artwork and plots and past continuity and so on, but it doesn't mean I don't have an opinion. First, a little history...

For me, it started one day at Tower Records, when I saw a book on the shelf: The Death of Superman. Of course, I knew they had killed him off recently and that there were reports of huge sales. I didn't think much more of it beyond the general incredulity: how can Superman be dead after all these years? So when I saw the "trade paperback," or compilation of the entire set of comics which told of the demise of the Man of Steel, I made an impulse purchase.

I had bought some comics as a kid, and always was a Superman fan (the George Reeves TV series, the Saturday morning cartoons, and eventually the Christopher Reeve movies), but I never got into collecting them regularly. A very short time later, I was at Franklin Mills Mall and walked into a now-closed comic book store, and saw this:


This book led into a resumption of the various Super-books, four monthly at the time, each starring a different character purported to be the newly-returned Superman. I bought them all, and was hooked. (Naturally, it turned out that not one of them was the real deal, and the tale ended up with the one true Superman alive and well, but with long hair like Fabio. Eeek.)

My regular purchases now are the DC comics that Superman stars in, plus a few that are Superman-related, along with Simpson Comics and a couple of other titles from Bongo Comics, co-founded by Simpsons creator Matt Groening. (Oddly, Bongo Comics doesn't seem to have a website.) I do pick up some other DC titles now and then, particularly if it's one of their "events" -- various crises that nearly bring about the end of the world, or the universe, or at least the end of life as we know it. And some others are, like the trade paperback that started it all, impulse buys.

At long last, here's this week's haul:

Superman 689: Basically what is going on in the Super-books right now is this: Superman is nowhere to be seen. He's taken up residence on "New Krypton," which is revolving around the sun in the same orbit as Earth, but on the opposite side, with 100,000 or so Kryptonians, all now with his powers. That story is being told in a 12-issue miniseries. So here, we are stuck with his "replacement," a hero named Mon-El who is not Kryptonian but has pretty much the same powers, along with some other supporting characters. Most of the book revolves around Mon-El playing Earth tourist, seeing various landmarks, artworks, etc. and helping stop crimes in each country. There are some other subplots that are more interesting, but with Superman gone, Mon-El is supposed to be the star of the book and he's kind of boring.

Detective Comics 854: This is one of the Batman books, which I normally don't buy. It has something in common with the Superman books: Batman's not the star of the book right now. As a result of the most recent of those universe-shattering crises, this one labeled "Final Crisis" (yeah, right), Batman -- the Bruce Wayne Batman, that is -- may or may not be dead. This book has a cameo by the current Batman, Dick Grayson, who was the first Robin and then became Nightwing, but it stars Batwoman. There was a Batwoman in the past, but she's long gone. This one was introduced a couple of years ago, and quickly became newsworthy. Why? Because the writers made her a lesbian. Anyway, I like the character and the story they're telling, and I'll probably keep buying this for a while.

Gotham City Sirens 1: This is a brand new series tied into Batman, but with no Bat in sight. It stars three of the women in his life -- well, sort of in his life: Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. Since it's written by Paul Dini, who produced and/or wrote many of the Warner Bros. cartoon series in recent years (including recent Batman, Superman and Justice League series as well as Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs), I figured it would be fun, and it is. I'll probably be buying this for a while as well.

Bart Simpson Comics 48: I normally don't buy this series because I picked up the first one and it seemed like it was a little more geared to kids. However, like every other comic book company, Bongo is doing a crossover story with this and two other books (last week's Simpson Comics 155 and next week's Simpsons Super Spectacular 9). It's "The Best Radioactive Man Event Ever!" The new publisher of Radioactive Man comics is none other than Krusty the Clown. He won it in a poker game. In an effort to increase sales (because you know Krusty is all about making money) he announced that there would be changes to Radioactive Man, but didn't say what they would be. It helps if you like the Simpsons to begin with, and if you're familiar with comic-book cliches, but it's really fun. They're taking aim at every facet of the comic book "event" -- the end-of-the-world crises, character changes, new costumes, deaths and rebirths of heroes...which brings us full circle back to what started me buying comics.