Crisis Over Chicago - Supergirl will finally battle it out with her arch nemesis Bi-Curious Girl!
"It's as though she can read my mind!" marvels Supergirl!
And just how exactly is Supergirl supposed to match wits with the Maid of Steel and her high school science teacher word-play? Though I do like it how in comic books they use punches to the face as exclamation points for their comments.
"Supergirl -- Yank me out!"
Ha! I had something inappropriate here but I used discretion and it feels so weird!
I'm so glad I remembered to start lurking here again. This is awesome.
You're right, we all know lots of famous first issues (to coin a phrase) while second issues get short shrift. It surprises me how much I have nostalgia for the older stuff and how cool I think the *really* old stuff is but how little I care about the newer stuff at all. I'm getting old.
This was one heck of a thing to put together just to cheer yourself up. I look forward to your Comicologist site and I hope things aren't too bad.
I'm sure I've seen Superman #2 before — the first one; I know I've seen Vol. II #2 plenty of times — but it's so fresh and so neat to see a piece of history that, if anything, is probably rarer than #1 on display. What a great idea for a gallery.
Although I love talking movies, TV, and general pop-culture stuff with you, as well as reading your articulate thoughts on it all here, if (or when) you go all comics commentary all the time it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm also just tremendously impressed with how you've gotten this blog to look using the basic tools, because almost all the Blogger blogs I've seen trolling the 'Net range from bland at best to the factory-setting equivalent of "we didn't know how to get the picture that came in the frame out but it's up on the mantle anyway".
You're welcome for the memory jog on DCCP, by the way, but I see you still didn't include Superman/Batman #2.
Covers have always been meant to be attention-grabbers, but I find it really interesting how they've changed over the years from generic scenes to being flush with dialogue and promotional copy back to silent poses or action scenes again.
I also find it curious that on basically all of the "fight" covers here it's the superheroes that are getting clobbered. Supergirl gets double-fisted (okay, that sounds wrong), Superman and Flash are caught behind the alien's net, Superboy is on fire, Superman is held by a machine, Superboy is getting shot, Superman is (protecting a kid, granted) getting barfed on, Superboy is getting walloped into his logo, Superman is on his knees with his cape held by Alpha Centurion, Supergirl is having fire blown up her skirt by a giant demon cat, Superman is getting stunned by Metallo's kryptonite ray, Superboy is lying prone and dazed by Poison Ivy (who's taken his shirt), Superman is knocked for a loop (by, well, Supergirl, and it is her book, so okay), and Superman is pounded into a wall.
PS: I want 'Perry White As a Hobo!' for my new band name.
I see that you've changed back to the standalone page since my comment on the previous post.
Joan: Supergirl will finally battle it out with her arch nemesis Bi-Curious Girl!
That's hilarious.
Joan: And just how exactly is Supergirl supposed to match wits with the Maid of Steel
I know it's hard to read the caption above that pic, but Supergirl actually is the Maid of Steel. (Really, though: "Girl of Steel" is fine, and I'm used to hearing "Maid of Might". "Maid of Steel" makes me think of Rosie on The Jetsons, though, or Irona from Richie Rich.)
As for "Supergirl -- Yank me out!"... You're a woman after my own heart, Mrs. Crawford.
Wally: It surprises me how much I have nostalgia for the older stuff and how cool I think the *really* old stuff is but how little I care about the newer stuff at all.
You're not alone; I almost said much the same thing but I was already getting long-winded and decided to read the other comments.
How many times have you seen the above cover to the original Superman #2 from August 1939?
Clearly, not many, as that doesn't seem familiar to me at all.
t first presenting a new story for just one of the three characters each issue, backed by reprints and filler material
I really, really wish comics still did that.
In one of the moves that many at DC came to regret
I first read that sentence as "in one of the many moves that DC came to regret", which is both a commentary on MY thoughts regarding all of DC's continuity reshufflings, but also possibly an accurate statement in and of itself. :)
I've always like the rebooted Superman #2. The whole "Lex discovers Superman's identity, but doesn't believe it" bit is both kind of dumb when you think about it in real world terms (why not test the theory?), but is also insanely clever at the same time.
And it features that great back-up story in which Lex messes with a waitresses head just because he can.
and then in a comic book nominally set in the continuity of that series
I never knew there was a series based on that show.
No week was without a solo Superman series once the quarterly Superman: The Man of Tomorrow debuted in 1995
Wow. How sad is it that I never, until just now, realized that the dearth of quarterly series in the 90s, like MoT, X-Men Unlimited and Spider-Unlimited were all designed to the fill that "fifth week" for characters that otherwise had a new issue out every week?
Joan: Supergirl will finally battle it out with her arch nemesis Bi-Curious Girl!
...
Joan: Ha! I had something inappropriate here but I used discretion and it feels so weird!
For her next new experience, Joan will resist the urge to knock ice cream out of a child's hands.
Wally: I'm so glad I remembered to start lurking here again.
Me too!
Wally: It surprises me how much I have nostalgia for the older stuff and how cool I think the *really* old stuff is but how little I care about the newer stuff at all. I'm getting old.
Like Arben, I know exactly what you mean.
Wally: This was one heck of a thing to put together just to cheer yourself up.
I actually cannibalized it from one of the posts planned for next year's big Superman anniversary by way of another series of Cover Albums that I'll hopefully get to do soon. So I didn't just go off on a therapeutic writing binge, although that's been known to happen (less these days than it used to).
Arben: Covers have always been meant to be attention-grabbers, but I find it really interesting how they've changed over the years from generic scenes to being flush with dialogue and promotional copy back to silent poses or action scenes again.
I was struck by much the same thing. Likewise with the direction of the violence being perpetrated — although I wonder (in surprise that I've never thought about it before) if a survey of superhero covers in general would find good guys and bad guys locked in pre- or mid-battle stalemate and/or have the good guys at a slight disadvantage, to create the sensation that you must buy this issue to find out how they escape. The situation couldn't be too dire in the early days of the Comics Code, when one of the stipulations was literally that right must always triumph over evil, but there still had to be (the illusion of) suspense.
Your compliments are very thoughtful, as always, buddy. 'Nuff said!
Me: How many times have you seen the above cover to the original Superman #2 from August 1939?
Teebore: Clearly, not many, as that doesn't seem familiar to me at all.
While the Superman figure is familiar from the last panel in the 2-page origin in #1 and more recently the cover of the second Superman Chronicles reprint TPB (among other clip-art usages, surely), the specific version of it redrawn here and the rest of the trade dress didn't ring any particular bells. I've seen it in passing, I know, but not purposely until putting together the original version of this post.
Teebore: I first read that sentence as "in one of the many moves that DC came to regret", which is both a commentary on MY thoughts regarding all of DC's continuity reshufflings, but also possibly an accurate statement in and of itself. :)
Hey, I wrote the sentence and I read it back that way while proofing, to the point where I almost changed it but decided not too in part because what you say is equally true. As much as I missed the parallel Earths and certain nostalgic aspects of the old continuity when Crisis happened, I really enjoyed both the idea of the new blank slate and much although certainly not all of the execution, but the transition was clearly fumbled in many ways, the situation was not taken full advantage of, and it remained a new spin on things rather than "my" DC Universe. Which makes the new new (new) DC Universe (Infinite Crisis only counts in a fractional sense) so far removed from anything that I can relate to or care about as to be sad in more than one respect.
I agree with your conflicted assessment of the post-Crisis Superman #2. Folks not assuming that Superman would have a civilian identity, even moreso than Lex Luthor's own ego not allowing him to consider that a being like Superman would disguise himself as Clark Kent, is genius. Where things really went off the rails was the Kents' cover-up story to visiting Lois Lane that they raised Superman and Clark Kent.
I love that back-up, too, but it's actually in Superman #9.
Teebore: I never knew there was a series based on that show.
Yup. While I haven't read it in maybe 15 years, I recall it as being uneven with some really interesting takes melding the series' continuity, old Earth-One stuff, and post-Crisis stuff, with a rather odd meta ending in a one-shot epilogue that I shan't give away right now.
Teebore: How sad is it that I never, until just now, realized that the dearth of quarterly series in the 90s, like MoT, X-Men Unlimited and Spider-Unlimited were all designed to the fill that "fifth week" for characters that otherwise had a new issue out every week?
I'm guessing that's rhetorical, so I plead the... um... fifth. Although I should also point out that I was heavily reading and writing for the trade press at that time, plus had worked in a comics shop for a few years, so all the marketing machinations were rather front-and-center to me. Even stranger, I thought, was DC in particular promoting things like Underworld Unleashed or The Kingdom as "skip-week events" when I was pretty sure that lots of folks reading their in-store giveaways and such didn't know what the heck a "skip week" was. And just to make it clear for the more civilian readers here, I'll explain that monthly titles were of course actually on a schedule of twelve issues a year, rather than literally coming out the same day of the month each month, because new issues arrived on Wednesdays; this meant that on the occasional weeks with a fifth Wednesday of the month — 4 weeks a year out of 52 — no regular new issues were scheduled (although between lateness and special issues there was usually something in the stores those weeks).
I love that back-up, too, but it's actually in Superman #9.
D'oh! I really need to start cross checking my memory. It ain't what it used to be!
Which makes the new new (new) DC Universe (Infinite Crisis only counts in a fractional sense) so far removed from anything that I can relate to or care about as to be sad in more than one respect.
Definitely. What's odd for me is that, growing up a primarily Marvel guy with most of my interactions with DC characters coming via licensed products/media, I didn't start reading any DC comics until well after Crisis was firmly a thing of the past (and the onslaught of subsequent retoolings loomed on the horizon) and yet, thanks to back issues and whatnot, I have a great deal of affection for both pre- and immediate post-Crisis stories, such that, the most recent retooling especially, I've been left as cold by a lot of DC's recent moves as the life long DC fans that have been reading for decades.
There's a handful of nuDC titles I'm reading and enjoying, but for the most part, I'm enjoying them on their own merits, and not as continuing narratives of characters I've known and loved for years. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing (I am still enjoying them on some level), but certainly ain't like it used to be.
Even stranger, I thought, was DC in particular promoting things like Underworld Unleashed or The Kingdom as "skip-week events" when I was pretty sure that lots of folks reading their in-store giveaways and such didn't know what the heck a "skip week" was.
For whatever reason, the skip week thing I figured out pretty quickly as a reader, yet the marketing machinations behind those quarterly titles remained elusive... :)
Blam: a new story for just one of the three characters each issue, backed by reprints and filler material
Teebore: I really, really wish comics still did that.
You and me both, brother.
Blam: I wonder ... if a survey of superhero covers in general would find good guys and bad guys locked in pre- or mid-battle stalemate and/or have the good guys at a slight disadvantage, to create the sensation that you must buy this issue to find out how they escape.
Ooh! Good point!
Blam: Which makes the new new (new) DC Universe (Infinite Crisis only counts in a fractional sense) so far removed from anything that I can relate to or care about as to be sad in more than one respect.
You and me both, brother. ; )
Blam: the Kents' cover-up story to visiting Lois Lane that they raised Superman and Clark Kent
Don't remind me... I think that's in the issue with the Leonard Starr inks over Byrne, though, and the cover homage to Schaffenberger, which was neat.
Teebore: for the most part, I'm enjoying them on their own merits, and not as continuing narratives of characters I've known and loved for years.
I feel the same way, and where that really rubs me wrong is that except for reprint projects, obviously, these are now the standard versions of the characters and not some Ultimate / All-Star variation. Even the multiverse they're bringing in looks updated. Hell, Smallville Season 11 #1 is solicited in the latest Previewswith the New 52 costume, which still isn't as big a burn as it being used in Baltazar & Franco's new Superman Family Adventures.
So much fantastic stuff here!
ReplyDeleteCrisis Over Chicago - Supergirl will finally battle it out with her arch nemesis Bi-Curious Girl!
"It's as though she can read my mind!" marvels Supergirl!
And just how exactly is Supergirl supposed to match wits with the Maid of Steel and her high school science teacher word-play? Though I do like it how in comic books they use punches to the face as exclamation points for their comments.
"Supergirl -- Yank me out!"
Ha! I had something inappropriate here but I used discretion and it feels so weird!
I had something inappropriate here but I used discretion and it feels so weird!
ReplyDeleteBe true to yourself, Joan.
I'm so glad I remembered to start lurking here again. This is awesome.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, we all know lots of famous first issues (to coin a phrase) while second issues get short shrift. It surprises me how much I have nostalgia for the older stuff and how cool I think the *really* old stuff is but how little I care about the newer stuff at all. I'm getting old.
This was one heck of a thing to put together just to cheer yourself up. I look forward to your Comicologist site and I hope things aren't too bad.
I'm sure I've seen Superman #2 before — the first one; I know I've seen Vol. II #2 plenty of times — but it's so fresh and so neat to see a piece of history that, if anything, is probably rarer than #1 on display. What a great idea for a gallery.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I love talking movies, TV, and general pop-culture stuff with you, as well as reading your articulate thoughts on it all here, if (or when) you go all comics commentary all the time it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm also just tremendously impressed with how you've gotten this blog to look using the basic tools, because almost all the Blogger blogs I've seen trolling the 'Net range from bland at best to the factory-setting equivalent of "we didn't know how to get the picture that came in the frame out but it's up on the mantle anyway".
You're welcome for the memory jog on DCCP, by the way, but I see you still didn't include Superman/Batman #2.
Covers have always been meant to be attention-grabbers, but I find it really interesting how they've changed over the years from generic scenes to being flush with dialogue and promotional copy back to silent poses or action scenes again.
I also find it curious that on basically all of the "fight" covers here it's the superheroes that are getting clobbered. Supergirl gets double-fisted (okay, that sounds wrong), Superman and Flash are caught behind the alien's net, Superboy is on fire, Superman is held by a machine, Superboy is getting shot, Superman is (protecting a kid, granted) getting barfed on, Superboy is getting walloped into his logo, Superman is on his knees with his cape held by Alpha Centurion, Supergirl is having fire blown up her skirt by a giant demon cat, Superman is getting stunned by Metallo's kryptonite ray, Superboy is lying prone and dazed by Poison Ivy (who's taken his shirt), Superman is knocked for a loop (by, well, Supergirl, and it is her book, so okay), and Superman is pounded into a wall.
PS: I want 'Perry White As a Hobo!' for my new band name.
I see that you've changed back to the standalone page since my comment on the previous post.
ReplyDeleteJoan: Supergirl will finally battle it out with her arch nemesis Bi-Curious Girl!
That's hilarious.
Joan: And just how exactly is Supergirl supposed to match wits with the Maid of Steel
I know it's hard to read the caption above that pic, but Supergirl actually is the Maid of Steel. (Really, though: "Girl of Steel" is fine, and I'm used to hearing "Maid of Might". "Maid of Steel" makes me think of Rosie on The Jetsons, though, or Irona from Richie Rich.)
As for "Supergirl -- Yank me out!"... You're a woman after my own heart, Mrs. Crawford.
Wally: It surprises me how much I have nostalgia for the older stuff and how cool I think the *really* old stuff is but how little I care about the newer stuff at all.
You're not alone; I almost said much the same thing but I was already getting long-winded and decided to read the other comments.
Um... Is Trapeze-Artist Jimmy wearing a skirt?
ReplyDeleteExcellent post!
ReplyDeleteHow many times have you seen the above cover to the original Superman #2 from August 1939?
Clearly, not many, as that doesn't seem familiar to me at all.
t first presenting a new story for just one of the three characters each issue, backed by reprints and filler material
I really, really wish comics still did that.
In one of the moves that many at DC came to regret
I first read that sentence as "in one of the many moves that DC came to regret", which is both a commentary on MY thoughts regarding all of DC's continuity reshufflings, but also possibly an accurate statement in and of itself. :)
I've always like the rebooted Superman #2. The whole "Lex discovers Superman's identity, but doesn't believe it" bit is both kind of dumb when you think about it in real world terms (why not test the theory?), but is also insanely clever at the same time.
And it features that great back-up story in which Lex messes with a waitresses head just because he can.
and then in a comic book nominally set in the continuity of that series
I never knew there was a series based on that show.
No week was without a solo Superman series once the quarterly Superman: The Man of Tomorrow debuted in 1995
Wow. How sad is it that I never, until just now, realized that the dearth of quarterly series in the 90s, like MoT, X-Men Unlimited and Spider-Unlimited were all designed to the fill that "fifth week" for characters that otherwise had a new issue out every week?
I'll talk about that some other time.
Heh. I hope so. :)
I'm glad you liked it, everyone.
ReplyDeleteJoan: Supergirl will finally battle it out with her arch nemesis Bi-Curious Girl!
...
Joan: Ha! I had something inappropriate here but I used discretion and it feels so weird!
For her next new experience, Joan will resist the urge to knock ice cream out of a child's hands.
Wally: I'm so glad I remembered to start lurking here again.
Me too!
Wally: It surprises me how much I have nostalgia for the older stuff and how cool I think the *really* old stuff is but how little I care about the newer stuff at all. I'm getting old.
Like Arben, I know exactly what you mean.
Wally: This was one heck of a thing to put together just to cheer yourself up.
I actually cannibalized it from one of the posts planned for next year's big Superman anniversary by way of another series of Cover Albums that I'll hopefully get to do soon. So I didn't just go off on a therapeutic writing binge, although that's been known to happen (less these days than it used to).
Arben: Covers have always been meant to be attention-grabbers, but I find it really interesting how they've changed over the years from generic scenes to being flush with dialogue and promotional copy back to silent poses or action scenes again.
ReplyDeleteI was struck by much the same thing. Likewise with the direction of the violence being perpetrated — although I wonder (in surprise that I've never thought about it before) if a survey of superhero covers in general would find good guys and bad guys locked in pre- or mid-battle stalemate and/or have the good guys at a slight disadvantage, to create the sensation that you must buy this issue to find out how they escape. The situation couldn't be too dire in the early days of the Comics Code, when one of the stipulations was literally that right must always triumph over evil, but there still had to be (the illusion of) suspense.
Your compliments are very thoughtful, as always, buddy. 'Nuff said!
Me: How many times have you seen the above cover to the original Superman #2 from August 1939?
ReplyDeleteTeebore: Clearly, not many, as that doesn't seem familiar to me at all.
While the Superman figure is familiar from the last panel in the 2-page origin in #1 and more recently the cover of the second Superman Chronicles reprint TPB (among other clip-art usages, surely), the specific version of it redrawn here and the rest of the trade dress didn't ring any particular bells. I've seen it in passing, I know, but not purposely until putting together the original version of this post.
Teebore: I first read that sentence as "in one of the many moves that DC came to regret", which is both a commentary on MY thoughts regarding all of DC's continuity reshufflings, but also possibly an accurate statement in and of itself. :)
Hey, I wrote the sentence and I read it back that way while proofing, to the point where I almost changed it but decided not too in part because what you say is equally true. As much as I missed the parallel Earths and certain nostalgic aspects of the old continuity when Crisis happened, I really enjoyed both the idea of the new blank slate and much although certainly not all of the execution, but the transition was clearly fumbled in many ways, the situation was not taken full advantage of, and it remained a new spin on things rather than "my" DC Universe. Which makes the new new (new) DC Universe (Infinite Crisis only counts in a fractional sense) so far removed from anything that I can relate to or care about as to be sad in more than one respect.
I agree with your conflicted assessment of the post-Crisis Superman #2. Folks not assuming that Superman would have a civilian identity, even moreso than Lex Luthor's own ego not allowing him to consider that a being like Superman would disguise himself as Clark Kent, is genius. Where things really went off the rails was the Kents' cover-up story to visiting Lois Lane that they raised Superman and Clark Kent.
I love that back-up, too, but it's actually in Superman #9.
Teebore: I never knew there was a series based on that show.
Yup. While I haven't read it in maybe 15 years, I recall it as being uneven with some really interesting takes melding the series' continuity, old Earth-One stuff, and post-Crisis stuff, with a rather odd meta ending in a one-shot epilogue that I shan't give away right now.
Teebore: How sad is it that I never, until just now, realized that the dearth of quarterly series in the 90s, like MoT, X-Men Unlimited and Spider-Unlimited were all designed to the fill that "fifth week" for characters that otherwise had a new issue out every week?
I'm guessing that's rhetorical, so I plead the... um... fifth. Although I should also point out that I was heavily reading and writing for the trade press at that time, plus had worked in a comics shop for a few years, so all the marketing machinations were rather front-and-center to me. Even stranger, I thought, was DC in particular promoting things like Underworld Unleashed or The Kingdom as "skip-week events" when I was pretty sure that lots of folks reading their in-store giveaways and such didn't know what the heck a "skip week" was. And just to make it clear for the more civilian readers here, I'll explain that monthly titles were of course actually on a schedule of twelve issues a year, rather than literally coming out the same day of the month each month, because new issues arrived on Wednesdays; this meant that on the occasional weeks with a fifth Wednesday of the month — 4 weeks a year out of 52 — no regular new issues were scheduled (although between lateness and special issues there was usually something in the stores those weeks).
ReplyDeleteI love that back-up, too, but it's actually in Superman #9.
D'oh! I really need to start cross checking my memory. It ain't what it used to be!
Which makes the new new (new) DC Universe (Infinite Crisis only counts in a fractional sense) so far removed from anything that I can relate to or care about as to be sad in more than one respect.
Definitely. What's odd for me is that, growing up a primarily Marvel guy with most of my interactions with DC characters coming via licensed products/media, I didn't start reading any DC comics until well after Crisis was firmly a thing of the past (and the onslaught of subsequent retoolings loomed on the horizon) and yet, thanks to back issues and whatnot, I have a great deal of affection for both pre- and immediate post-Crisis stories, such that, the most recent retooling especially, I've been left as cold by a lot of DC's recent moves as the life long DC fans that have been reading for decades.
There's a handful of nuDC titles I'm reading and enjoying, but for the most part, I'm enjoying them on their own merits, and not as continuing narratives of characters I've known and loved for years. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing (I am still enjoying them on some level), but certainly ain't like it used to be.
Even stranger, I thought, was DC in particular promoting things like Underworld Unleashed or The Kingdom as "skip-week events" when I was pretty sure that lots of folks reading their in-store giveaways and such didn't know what the heck a "skip week" was.
For whatever reason, the skip week thing I figured out pretty quickly as a reader, yet the marketing machinations behind those quarterly titles remained elusive... :)
Blam: a new story for just one of the three characters each issue, backed by reprints and filler material
ReplyDeleteTeebore: I really, really wish comics still did that.
You and me both, brother.
Blam: I wonder ... if a survey of superhero covers in general would find good guys and bad guys locked in pre- or mid-battle stalemate and/or have the good guys at a slight disadvantage, to create the sensation that you must buy this issue to find out how they escape.
Ooh! Good point!
Blam: Which makes the new new (new) DC Universe (Infinite Crisis only counts in a fractional sense) so far removed from anything that I can relate to or care about as to be sad in more than one respect.
You and me both, brother. ; )
Blam: the Kents' cover-up story to visiting Lois Lane that they raised Superman and Clark Kent
Don't remind me... I think that's in the issue with the Leonard Starr inks over Byrne, though, and the cover homage to Schaffenberger, which was neat.
Teebore: for the most part, I'm enjoying them on their own merits, and not as continuing narratives of characters I've known and loved for years.
I feel the same way, and where that really rubs me wrong is that except for reprint projects, obviously, these are now the standard versions of the characters and not some Ultimate / All-Star variation. Even the multiverse they're bringing in looks updated. Hell, Smallville Season 11 #1 is solicited in the latest Previewswith the New 52 costume, which still isn't as big a burn as it being used in Baltazar & Franco's new Superman Family Adventures.