Good news, everyone: If you’re reading this, it’s just passed midnight in American Samoa, so it’s no longer May 21st anywhere on the planet– which means that the Rapture didn’t happen (yet), society hasn’t crumbled (yet), and there’s still a readership for comic books (for now).
That said, as far as ends of the world go, the Rapture lacks a certain panache. Comic book readers have been used to the idea of worlds ending in cataclysm for a long time. Over a near-infinite number of crises, comic books have always made sure it ends with all bang, no whimper – even if, sometimes, that bang is more figurative than literal. Here’s a look at six of the best ends-of-the-world that comics has yet come up with.
Krypton
The birth of superhero comics started with the death of a planet. We’re willing to wager it’s the best-known origin story in all of comics: desperate scientist Jor-El and wife Lara shoot their only son Kal-El away from the doomed planet Krypton towards Earth, where he’s adopted by the kindly Kent family. And in most versions of the Superman story, what took out Krypton? A nuclear chain reaction triggered by a loss of stability Krypton’s radioactive core, which also creates the only element that can kill the most powerful man on Earth.
I’ve checked with my cadre of DC contributors, staffers and fans current and past. While it’s impossible to decide on an exact number, the consensus is that in the past ten years the teevee series Smallville painstakingly built a cohesive and linear universe of DC characters while, at the same time, DC Comics reinvented itself in whole or in substance approximately 14 thousand times. Guess which was more entertaining.
And now Smallville’s gone. Pushed out of the way for still another Superman movie that, like the comic books, gets to ignore everything that has gone before it. That’s not entirely bad: Superman Returns was so awful I was thinking of getting rid of the memories by electroshock therapy.
Instead, I watched Smallville. At first I was there out of professional and fanboy curiosity. It was good but not great, and I stuck with it because my wife enjoyed the show. In time, Michael Rosenbaum’s performance as Lex Luthor grabbed me, and when they introduced John Glover as his eviler father, the tension between the two was riveting. When they brought Green Arrow in (using the Grell costume) and started really building their version of the DC universe, I got absorbed.
Then they brought in Erica Durance as Lois Lane. I enjoyed her performance and her character so much I felt like I was betraying my own childhood. More DC characters were introduced, heroes and villains alike. As they moved away from the Kryptonite-villain of the week and developed Zod, Darkseid, and the first interesting Toyman ever, Smallville moved towards the top of my TiVo must-record list. After ten seasons the show had more storylines going on than Soap – but by the time that final episode aired last night, they had resolved or at least tied-up just about everything. It was remarkable; the fact that so many of the actors from earlier seasons returned was even more remarkable.
At its best, Smallville has been about the human drama, and its science-fiction environment rarely mitigated this. It is in this spirit that the two-hour finale was produced. Some might find this to be overbearing; respectfully, I think those people have missed the point. If you take this element out of the story, all you have left is a comic book – in the most clichéd and repellant sense of the term.
The production team also avoided the trap of giving each character their moment to shine. Whereas most had sufficient screen time, this last episode was all about Clark Kent, as it was, by and large, from the very beginning of the series.
This is not to say that there isn’t a kick-ass story here. Two of them, in fact, with enough villains to fill the Justice League’s dance card. Darkseid, Granny Goodness, Lionel Luthor, and of course, his son Lex.
The finale was not flawless. For one thing, everybody showed a lack of respect for how gravity works, not to mention security on Air Force One. The big scene between Lex and Clark was pretty much lifted from The Dark Knight; thankfully, both the characters and the performers make it their own. Technically, this show was at least as proficient as teevee gets. If it were a theatrical movie, it would have been in 3-D, and that would have screwed the pooch.
Teevee is teevee. It’s not comics, and shows come and go all the time. Smallville’s decade was a remarkable achievement, and it set the high-water mark for superhero television.
At the end of the ten-year day, you will believe a man should fly.
For a Marvel movie geek, three things were inevitable about Thor: 1) The Stan Lee cameo scene, 2) the post-end credits scene, and 3) nitpicking. Nitpicking is going to happen with any comic book related movie, and I’ve grudgingly accepted it as a necessary evil that certain sacrifices would need to be made in any translation of a story from one medium to another. Thus, certain things will have to be overlooked IF the end result is successful.
Marvel’s version of Thor in its many incarnations has tread a delicate balance of Norse mythology and something flashy thanks to Jack Kirby’s glorious art. In Kenneth Branagh’s movie adaptation of Thor, there are elements of the Prodigal Son, Arthurian mythology, and of course, grounding in Marvel history.
For his arrogance and defiance of his father Odin (Sir Anthony Hopkins), King of otherworldly Asgard, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is stripped of his considerable power and warhammer Mjolnir and banished to Earth. Making matters worse, his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is beginning to discover things about himself, and let’s say he starts some trouble, now that Odin is in a coma. While on earth, Thor is tricked into believing that his father is dead (and three guesses as to who tricked him).
There was the requisite love interest in Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), a scientist investigating atmospheric anomalies. As with recent Marvel movies, the shadowy government agency SHIELD was behind the scenes, and this being a Summer movie, there was the requisite amount of wholesale property damage.
While formulaic, Thor is refreshingly entertaining. Comic book movies rely heavily upon reverence for and adherence to the source material. The result must look and more importantly feel like the comic books. Kenneth Branagh’s Thor succeeds and entertains although the progression from arrogant bastard to superhero wasn’t deep enough, and I could have done without Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings), Dr. Jane Foster’s ultra-annoying assistant.
If you still have no idea what the movie’s about, here’s a brief featurette:
This week, [[[Thor]]] comes to theaters! With a director like Kenneth Branagh, stars such as Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, and Anthony Hopkins, and rave reviews happening from advanced screenings, many fans old and new can’t wait for this latest film from Marvel Studios and Paramount. It stars Thor, god of thunder, who in the Marvel Universe divides his time between living in Asgard, traveling through other dimensions, and acting as a superhero on Earth.
Over the years, Thor’s had some pretty epic adventures. So let’s take a look at six tales that any new Thor fan should check out.
“BUT DR. BLAKE CAN DIE!”
Thor vol. 1 #145-153
For his impudence, Thor is banished to Earth without his powers. As he continues to act as a superhero as best he can, Thor’s allies plead to Odin, the All-Father, to return his son’s full abilities. This story keeps building up the stakes as Thor’s sometimes lover and constant ally Sif inhabits the powerful Destroyer armor. Meanwhile, Loki arrives to make another bid for power and Ulik the troll shows up to cause more trouble. Elsewhere, Hela, goddess of death, watches and waits. An epic storyline that highlights both Thor and Don Blake as heroes and is a classic tale of the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby days.
This article may be apocryphal considering that the most expensive Broadway production is still in previews, and its start date has been held up by a litany of horrendous accidents, injuries, and plot elements that would make Scooby-Doo go “Aroo?”
As a die-hard comic book geek and as someone who loves a Costco-sized serving of schadenfreude, I have been following news about Julie Taymor’s musical fiasco, Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. I’m sure I’m not the only one who upon reading report after report of injury or “WTF” reviews would come to the conclusion “How the HELL can this continue?
In the event that it does continue, here’s a list of things that must happen altogether for me to see Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark:
Julie Taymor, Bono, & The Edge must issue a formal apology for the accidents, the ridiculous plot elements, uninspired songs, and a second act that makes about as much sense as Nick Nolte and Tom Waits on a bender.
There must be a permanent restraining order forbidding Julie Taymor, Bono, and The Edge from ever working together again. The restraining order must further stipulate that Bono and The Edge must never work in musical theater.
Get rid of the Greek Chorus of Geeks. It’s an interesting device, and a nod to fans, but it’s a bloated appendix: superfluous and in dire need of being excised immediately.
Get rid of Arachne. It’s one of the first things to screw with comic book canon. Ms. Taymor may think it’s adding a new dimension to the story, but the inclusion of the Greek mythological figure is little more than an elaborate, long-winded non sequitur.
Rewrite Uncle Ben’s death. In changing Ben Parker’s death, a huge part of Spider-Man’s impetus has been changed as well. Spider-Man is driven by guilt for not doing the right thing. In Julie Taymor’s version, the impetus is in less direct fashion that has no obvious bearing on Peter Parker and what he should have done. In ANY version of the established origin, Spider-Man is a better hero for having incorporated this guilt.
Remove all the superfluous villains in the second act including Swiss Miss. The inclusion of so many villains lessens the importance of any one of these famous bad guys. Carnage, Electro, The Lizard, and Kraven are no minor figures to Spider-Man. Grouping them altogether makes it seem like Spider-Man is Moe against a group of Shemps. And how the hell do you have a character like Carnage without first explaining who Eddie Brock was? It’s almost like Julie Taymor never heard about one of the most fundamental rules of superhero movies: NEVER load up a project with a buttload of villains. Then again, maybe she thought she could pull it off.
Marvel Comics is a couple months into their “Women of Marvel” promotion, and that raises an issue or two. The whole idea is fine – honor… well… promote the several hundred female characters that toil in the Marvel Universe. Remind the readers
that many are among Marvel’s best. After all, women-starring superhero comics generally don’t sell very well and women-starring superhero movies are, without fail, failures.
I realize there’s a reason why the movies flop. Most of them really suck. Supergirl, Elektra, and Catwoman deserved better. But they stunk up the box office so badly I doubt they’d make a Black Widow solo movie
right now even if Scarlett Johansson had a half-dozen nude scenes.
Well… I could be wrong about that last point.
But the fact is, these are just made-up characters. It is
not intrinsically harder to write, draw, direct and/or act as a woman superhero as it is a man. I understand avoiding crappy movies, but a lot of the women superhero comics are as good as anything on the racks. Given the growing percentage of women readers, you’d think there would be a chance here.
So kudos to Marvel for their promotion. And go to your friendly neighborhood comic book shop and take a super-heroine out to lunch.
ComicMix
editor-in-ChiefMike
Gold performs a weekly two-hour Weird
Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking music and blather radio show on The Point every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern,
replayed three times during the week (check the website for times). Likewise,
his Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind political
and culturalrants pop up each and
everyday atthesame venue. Thanks to Janis Joplin for the headline.
Tim Gunn from Project Runway concludes his discussion with us on superhero
fashion as we pass judgment on Superman, Superboy, the Hulk and
others! And what famous comic book character apparently stole one of
Tim’s suits? Find out on the latest installment of Crazy Sexy Geeks!
By Tony Isabella
Krause Publications, 272 pages. $29.99 retail.
I want to publicly thank Tony Isabella for taking on a task that is as courageous as it is, well, thankless. It’s hard to imagine a more difficult and a more controversial chore than recommending only 1000 comic
books you must read.
This shows you how clever Tony is. First of all, he recruited over 130 people to make suggestions, including me as well as a good chunk of the state of Ohio – past and present (Harlan Ellison and Maggie Thompson are and will always be honorary Ohioans). Second, instead of arranging them numerically, an act that would guarantee his assassination at the 2010 Mid-Ohio Con (although this would make for a good panel), he arranged everything by decade. Brilliant.
This book is, above and beyond everything else, great fun.
There are hundreds of books you’d expect, and even more that you might not. Of those, the ones you’ve read will make you go “oh, sure, of course.” Those you haven’t read – probably the awesome Jingle Jangle Comics, or Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein – you should. Don’t worry: the way stuff’s being reprinted, it’s just a matter of time.
Each choice is covered by the appropriate publishing and talent credits as well as a nice clean reproduction of the cover, along with Tony’s accompanying paragraph explaining what and why. To his overwhelming credit, Tony does not emphasize superheroes and heroic fantasy – Archie, Harvey, and Charlton get their due, and the various genres such as humor, children’s, and romance are well-covered.
The tome is well-designed and not the least bit pompous.
When Tony told me he had taking on this project, he headed me off by saying he was, obviously, crazy. Well, having poured over 1,000 Comic Books You Must Read, I’ve got to say “not so much, Tony. Maybe just a little bit.”
You’ll love it. It’ll make an excellent holiday present.
For any holiday. Go buy it.
Krypton
On this day, everybody thinks they’re Irish, but here are six superheroes that actually are– and a few of them may surprise you!
