Gigantism -- you're getting it!

Rachelle Goguen at Living Between Wednesdays gives us a look inside WORLD'S FINEST 238, featuring a tale of the Super-Sons of Superman and Batman. They look EXACTLY like their dads, but they jive-talk and, um, ride tandem bikes.



Check out her blog for a rundown of the entire issue -- it's worth it. And, in the holy name of Kal-El, pre-order your copy of Superman/Batman: Saga of the Super-Sons today. Amazon says it's due in September.

Why the X-Men will always win ...

(From an Engine thread on the greatest panels in comics.)

Review - Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus, vol. 1

JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS, Vol. 1
By Jack Kirby
Inks by Vince Colletta
Published by DC Comics, July 2007. $49.99



“This kid doesn’t get it. The Kirby tradition is to create a new comic.”

I always think it’s such a great idea at first, to by yet another collection of Silver Age comics, something big and prestige (or cheap and black and white), but usually I get an issue or two in, and I’m ready to return to the latest given issue of any old thing at all. Even the beautiful weirdness of SUPERMAN IN THE FIFTIES wasn’t enough to sustain my attention through the entire volume.

JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS was another San Diego purchase, and I was wonderfully surprised by how quickly I read through the sixteen comics reprinted therein. The volume contains seven issues of SUPERMAN’S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN and three issues each of THE FOREVER PEOPLE, NEW GODS and MISTER MIRACLE, the titles handled by Jack Kirby upon his defection from Marvel to DC in 1970, presented in chronological order. While they can occasionally stray into absurdity -- Don Rickles and his look-alike Goody Rickles show up in the last issue of JIMMY OLSEN reprinted -- those moments are easily outweighed by the creepiness of Mantis emerging from his energy cocoon, Granny Goodness seeking to return Scott Free back to her orphanage, and Darkseid’s goon Desaad hooking up all sorts of Kirby machines to his own flesh.

The Fourth World, as Mark Evanier puts it in his afterword, is Kirby at his most Kirby. He had an epic in mind, but he was making it up as he went along. Not willing (or, um, able) to rest on the success of, you know, creating the Marvel Universe, Kirby was playing with themes he’d return to again and again -- gods doing battle on Earth among humans, and mankind meeting the cosmic face to face. A book like GODLAND is fun and all, but see the quote up above -- if Kirby were alive today and still making comics, they wouldn’t look like that. They wouldn’t look like any Kirby comic we’d ever seen before.

Grant Morrison’s SEVEN SOLDIERS is probably the most Fourth World-like project the comics world has seen in recent years, and while that was executed with a beginning and an end, it still was born from the creations of those who had come before. Heck, most of them were actual Kirby creations. To see the pure comic book manic energy SOLDIERS sprang from -- and to understand the debt all of comics, and much of pop culture, owes to Jack Kirby -- the FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS is a great place to start. It’s the first of four volumes, with the second due to arrive later this month.

(Marvel’s DEVIL DINOSAUR OMNIBUS is also new to the shelves, along with Image’s reprint of THE SILVER STAR, a late-80’s Topp’s-published “Kirbyverse” effort. I dunno about SILVER STAR, but DEVIL DINOSAUR is more weird fun -- I think there’s an ETERNALS OMNIBUS out that collects that entire run, as well. I’ve had my eyes on DC’s KAMANDI ARCHIVES for a long time too … look, long story short? Go read some Kirby comics.)

Tell me more: Jack Kirby, Fourth World wiki.

Review - All-Star Superman 8

ALL-STAR SUPERMAN 8
By Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely & Jamie Grant
Letters by Phil Balsman
Published by DC Comics, July 2007. $2.99

No am tempted to yell preview in perfect English.



This issue of ALL-STAR continues Superman’s adventures on Bizarro-Earth, a square planet slowly sinking into the Underverse. He has to escape the planet or die under the influence of the Underverse’s red sun, and to help him he has only a bunch of Bizarros, a superslow Bizarro-Flash, and one singular Zibarro, the Bizarro-Bizarro. Also, Solaris, the Tyrant Sun makes a cameo.

I tell you this -- every issue of ALL-STAR SUPERMAN is packed full of more sheer dynamism and superhero excitement than anything else Marvel or DC will publish in a year. It’s not about fistfights and power grudges -- it’s about Superman and the people he loves. Grant Morrison is crafting the Superman stories Jimmy Olsen’s grandkids are going to hear about. He’s taking the myths and characters we know -- Clark & Lois, Lex Luthor, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen -- and infusing them with a new sense of wonder and love.

Penciller Frank Quitely is, for my money, one of the finest comics draftsmen I’ve ever seen. His layouts are simple but graceful, and the subtle difference in body language twixt Superman and Zibarro speaks more to their differences than any fistfight might. Digital inks and colors by Jamie Grant bring a unique atmosphere to every setting, from the red glare of the Bizarro World to the bright green of Mr. Quintum’s moon laboratory.

The only downside to getting chapter-chunks of ALL-STAR SUPERMAN is that the ads for other DC books look either disappointingly flat or deceptively exciting -- after living in the ALL-STAR world for 20-odd pages, I’d really love to believe that DC COUNTDOWN is as fulfilling a superheroic tale, but I just know it’s not true. Pick up ALL-STAR SUPERMAN in individual issues, read them, and pass them on to someone you like. Get the collected edition to keep and reread whenever you forget how super Superman can be.

Tell me more: Grant Morrison talks ALL-STAR SUPERMAN, Get the book, already.

Review - Captain America 27

CAPTAIN AMERICA 27
By Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting & Mike Perkins
Colors by Frank D’Armata, Letters by VC’s Joe Caramagna
Published by Marvel Comics, June 2007. $2.99



I’m not really a Captain America guy, and I don’t know what it means that this issue is part of “The Initiative,” which seems to be a post-Marvel Civil War non-crossover event, but what I do know is this: two issues ago Captain America died, and the result seems to be the best CAPTAIN AMERICA comics since the last time they got rid of the guy, when Ronald Reagan was revealed as…



…“The Deadliest Snake of All!”

Okay, so that was an imposter posing as Ronald Reagan. But it was still a pretty awesome comic book to nine-year-old-me.

These days CAPTAIN AMERICA is an ensemble piece, following Cap’s old partners the Falcon, Sharon Carter, and the Winter Soldier (a newly alive and bionic Bucky, Cap’s WWII-era teen sidekick) as they deal with his death. Also part of the supporting cast is Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, who many feel is directly responsible for Cap’s death following said Civil War. Oh, and Sharon Carter sees Dr. Faustus (the Marvel one, not the German one) in the mirror, taunting her over the post-hypnotic suggestion that a) caused her to murder her boyfriend Captain America, and b) keeps her from telling anyone about it, even though she’s tortured over what she’s done. Also Arnim Zola is in it. Arnim Zola’s head is in his chest:



If it sounds like superheroic soap operatics, it certainly is. And the Brubaker/Epting/Perkins team are doing a great job of it, too. Issue 27 also features the Black Widow, former Soviet spy and former lover of the Winter Soldier, who, for reasons unclear to me but probably clear to folks who read THE AVENGERS, the Winter Soldier thinks should be “an old woman by now.” But she’s young, hot, and dressed in leather instead! It’s actually a pretty neat moment when the Widow and the Soldier fight in the street over the possession of Captain America’s shield (the Widow is working for that dastardly Tony Stark, you see), and the ex-Bucky wishes that he could go back to the old days where his memory would be wiped after every mission. I don’t really know what that means, but if you’re used to having your memory wiped, and now all of a sudden it won’t be, and you’re fighting your ex-girlfriend over your dead best friend’s favorite shield ... well, I can understand a little pining for the good old days.

In summary: the current run of CAPTAIN AMERICA? Future superhero classic. Get it while it’s hot!

Tell me more: Marvel Comics, Captain America.