sdelmonte | Recent Comics

- Superman: Secret Origin 1 A few online commentators have been talking about how there are a lot of DC and Marvel comics that are perfectly competent, written and drawn at an acceptable level of skill, but otherwise not really good. This comic fits that bill. Geoff Johns does what he sets out to do: revisit Clark Kent when he was a teen, and fill in the blanks of Superman's origin (as reset following Infinite Crisis). Gary Frank does what he sets out to do: draw reasonably realistic teens and small town people, and also make Clark look like a young Chris Reeve. Too bad there is nothing at all innovative, exciting, or moving about almost the entire issue.

I suppose that if you are setting out to retell a story that has been seen in countless comics and adaptations, it's hard break new ground. But John Byrne did a much better job back with the 1986 reboot, and even Mark Waid was more successful in his rather underwhelming Birthright miniseries. Those writers were not content to just rehash old ideas, or to mix and match elements from other versions of the origin. That's all Johns does, and he does it in a very perfunctory and bland way.

Never mind that DC has forever jettisoned Byrne's version of the origin in favor of going back to the Silver Age, with some small tweaks. I was not that enamored of what Byrne did at first, but as time has passed and as many writers took his vision of Krypton, of Smallville, and of Clark Kent as inspiration for a vast number of great stories, I came to appreciate that Byrne much more. He tried to reinvent rather than to retell, and gave us something that was new and occasionally original. While Johns clearly loves Superman and has written a few really good Superman stories, he isn't bringing anything new to the table the way he did with Wally West or even Hal Jordan. Of course, that isn't the mandate now, either. But in any case, the version of the Superman mythos I liked so much is gone, and in its place is something about as exciting as oatmeal.

Tiny Titans I'd been hearing for months about how good this comics for kids was. It takes the Teen Titans - all of them, with the exception of Kon-El - and makes them grade school age or younger. And then it does funny things with them in elementary school, funny things that adults as well as kids will like. Or so I was told. I didn't find much here funny. And a lot of the humor depends on knowing the backstory for many of the real not-so-tiny Titans. So I have to wonder how entertaining an eight year old will find this. Maybe the cute images of cute kids in costumes acting like kids is enough to please a kid. But I just cannot see the big deal here. Better to give a kid a Calvin & Hobbes or Peanuts collection.

Astro City Astra character special Fans of Kurt Busiek's Astro City might recall Astra, the youngest member of the First Family, who appeared in a two-parter back in 1998. Well, time has passed, and Astra is now graduating college, and trying to move to the next stage of life. The fact that KBAC is an anthology series allows Busiek to actually age his characters if he wants, and that certainly gives him a freedom he will never have in his work for Marvel or DC. Too bad that the story here is a just a little bland. Not bad, and certainly more lively than Superman: Secret Origin. Just not as good as the story of Astra as a kid, or a lot of his work in KBAC. The good news is that it's only part one of two, and that Busiek and Brent Anderson plan to restart the monthly comic again as soon as they finish with the (rather downbeat) Dark Ages stories. Busiek has done the bulk of best work in Astro City, and if this is a warmup for returning to the present on a monthly basis, it's not a bad start.