Oy vey... I won't weigh you readers down with the bloody details of this week, but let's just say from Wednesday to Friday, I've probably given myself enough mental and physical stress from work than I probably have these past 6-ish months of unemployment. I suppose in these cases, you can't win for losing, even if it does result in a paycheck. Oh well... As my lady keeps telling me, it's just an episode in my life, and I should be able to move on to something "better". It's kind of funny, because I COULD have written an entry this past Tuesday, since I was scheduled to have that day off. But I was having a difficult-enough time to schedule my topics for the weekend, alone. And I should apologize in advance if today's entry, in particular, proves to be "muddled" in execution, since I'm writing this on about 5 hours of sleep, due to an uneasy stomach, trying to ease out my physical aches from the work week, and mental stress from bad dreams. BUT I will tackle this blog entry, because maybe it will settle my nerves to a degree. And I hope you all will still enjoy the results!
Today I intend to return to the world of the "New 52" DC Universe. This graphic novel/story arc was a library book I checked out on the very day I was granted my new job. I tackled the progression of the story during weekend periods with my girlfriend, whenever she was out to work, or when she was busy with something else. The "New 52", as I somewhat discussed in my 3-year anniversary entry, has been a mixed bag for long-established characters. Some, like Batman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman, were beneficiaries of GREAT creative fortunes in their individual books. The forefather of the DC Universe... the character that turned 75 years old, as of last year... outside of Grand Morrison's touch on "Action Comics", and supposedly the new Geoff Johns/John Romita Jr. "Action Comics" run, Superman has been rudderless in his creative direction. It felt like the "Superman" title, itself, was the creative whipping-boy of the DC publishing line. George Perez... THE George Perez... walked off the title, due to creative differences. Dan Jurgens... one of the KEY elements of Superman's 90's popularity wave... was poorly utilized as a fill-in creator. Yes, it felt like DC Comics executive decisions were more deadly to Kal-El than Kryptonite could EVER be. BUT a crossover event between "Superman", "Supergirl", and "Superboy" sought to give the Kryptonian family circle a 75th birthday bash! Did... it succeed?
Here's the basic "elevator pitch" for the event. Superman manages to battle a creature in Metropolis, which ticks Supergirl off REAL bad. Turns out the creature is Kryptonian in origin. What occurs next, after some investigation into the creature, is that Superman and Supergirl happen upon Superboy... who is given a MASSIVE whammy by a being claiming to be another Krypton explosion survivor called H'el. H'el's story... as he tells it... is that he was personally selected by Jor-El to inaugurate space explorations to find a world for Krypton's population to settle on after the impending planetary explosion. Superman doesn't like the cut of H'el's jib, nor the fact that he evicts Superman from his OWN Fortress of Solitude, or even the fact that apparently H'el is piecing together a device that drains energy from our planet's sun for the purpose of traveling back in time to pull Krypton into Earth's spot. Humanity? Gone as the result! So what about the other Super-Family members? Superboy has to wear Superman's armored suit, because H'el separated his very genetic clone structure, so that unless he's not protected by the suits defenses, Kon-El's very body will unravel itself. Supergirl gets MASSIVE fan-girl crushing on the misshapen... but noble... H'el, and couple that with the fact that she's been MISERABLE with her stay on Earth ever since she first arrived, she sees no issue in helping H'el out with his plan. (They also make time to "suck face", occasionally. Yeah... That image is not really helping my uneasy tummy at the moment...) We also spice this mixture up with the threat of an alien herald in the Arctic region that has sounded a horn to alert Galactus... er, I mean "Oracle"... to Earth to judge the entire planet, due to H'el's threat.
Now, let's talk about how each individual title manages to hold up its end of the storytelling. We begin with "Superman".
"Superman's" end of the crossover was almost the definition of "middle of the road". On the one hand, Kenneth Rocafort's artwork was EXCELLENT. He has a great stylistic touch, and I would have been curious how he approached a pre "new 52" version of Superman. He even gets the bulk of handling other elements to the story, such as depicting the Justice League, and he even gets the ONE major issue where the Clark Kent identity gets an actually great character moment. So I give a huge thumbs-up for Rocafort's contributions. As for Scott Lobdell... Y'know, he's an old hand at crossovers. He was part of the X-Men team during the crossover CRAZY period for the "Merry Mutants" in the 90's. But the difference between that period, and this event, was that there was FAR better interconnectivity at Marvel than there seemed to have been at DC. I'm not saying Lobdell did a bad job with his piece of creativity for "H'el on Earth", but you get the feeling he was left trying to piece together hot messes from one SPECIFIC title, in particular, and the effort shows. But again, I give Lobdell credit for providing us readers with an EXCELLENT Clark Kent moment, an appearance by Lex Luthor that could be seen as a "Hannibal Lecter" riff, but it works, and provides the character of Superman the sense of leadership in this event that he really NEEDED to be effective.
Next up, we're gonna tackle... EASILY... the weak link in the event chain, "Superboy".
I enjoyed Tom DeFalco's Marvel material. He gave us some EXCELLENT years in "Mighty Thor", and if it weren't for him, "Spider-Girl" wouldn't have even been a "thing" for anyone to follow! And you get the impression he was brought onto this book to attempt to save a sinking ship. Because the "Superboy" end of the crossover is pretty AWFUL. This book was launched by the other side of Scott Lobdell... the one that took a soup of BAD 90's clichés, and scooped it into the genetic mix that created the whiny Kryptonian clone that resulted in Kon-El. Gone are the glory days of Conner Kent, the character that launched from the original "Reign of the Supermen". DeFalco is also not helped by the really... REALLY... sub-par artwork by R.B. Silva. I don't knock on the man, but I cannot help but note that Silva's artwork is... pretty lackluster compared to the "Superman" and "Supergirl" sides of the crossover. And the character of Superboy is such a drag to read about, that I couldn't care less about his actual fate for the story. Although I did enjoy the development of his traditional "tactile telekinesis" powers, his entries in the event felt the MOST disconnected of the storyline. It also didn't help matters that his title featured one Annual crossover issue. Calling it a "chapter" of the storyline is like calling the author's acknowledgements of an average novel an integral part to the story. That "Superboy Annual #1" felt like a WHOLE lot of nothing in connection to "H'el on Earth". Maybe copies of copies really DO turn out faded, after all.
Finally, we have the final book of the crossover event, "Supergirl".
The former writing team of Michael Green and Mike Johnson worked MAGIC from the very start of "Supergirl". It was amazing that they were able to take a character that would be deemed, in other hands, as supremely unlikable, and made Kara Zor-El sympathetic and EXCITING to read about. And Mahmud Asrar is a SUPREMELY talented artist, able to tell a story effectively and energetically. Supergirl's side of the story nails the longing Kara has for the return of Krypton, and the manipulations that H'el lays on her... or is it GENUINE concern for his plans... are engaging. Plus, Supergirl gets some of the BEST action beats of the crossover, with fun showdowns against the Flash and Wonder Woman. If you notice my notes aren't as extensive on this end of the crossover, it's because it's hard to keep repeating how GREAT Supergirl as a title has been, up and down. I suppose I could just write an entire paragraph containing the word "Great", over and over again.
In summation, this event ends up as a VERY uneven mixture. You can see it's a chowder of one EXCELLENT element, one foundation element that does generally hold, and one piece of bland tofu as another element. What also doesn't help the story are these key barriers:
- The character of H'el brings me to mind of a generic Japanese role-playing game villain. He's supposed to be a "sympathetic villain", who is also massively cruel and callous. His ending is ALSO very JRPG in tone, if you people have spent countless hours on "Final Fantasy", and can catch my drift.
- Why, why, WHY, was the element of Oracle brought up in the story? Notice I didn't talk about Oracle all that much in ANY of my writings? That's because that story element DOES NOT MATTER. Even with the galactic stakes associated, Oracle just is a complete non-factor.
- The story DOES NOT HAVE AN ENDING! SERIOUSLY!!! We get a kinda-ending, but the event actually lead into a sequel event, "Return to Krypton". I've not read that one yet, because of two reasons. 1. As far as I know, it has not been traded as of yet. 2. Do I REALLY want to revisit the ramifications of this event?
All in all, for people that were VIOLENTLY opposed to Zach Snyder's "Man of Steel", I feel even they could concede that that film made for a better birthday gift for Superman than "H'el on Earth" turned out to be. My recommendation? Read from the library, as I did, and judge for yourself. But I would NOT recommend you rush out to buy the single issues or graphic novel collection. Fer cripes' sake, that money could go to a nice dinner!
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