I’ll be sharing an overdue post on Star Trek here in the next few months, phasers crossed.
Meantime, I have this. I was moved to file it away three years ago while reading a
bunch of DC’s supernatural anthologies, and now I guess I know why. Yes, Strange New Worlds had already launched, but — although not exactly ripped from the screen — the panel didn’t quite seem to resonate with anything until this past week’s episode, “The Griffin Incident”. I won’t explain since that feels unnecessary if you’ve seen it and obnoxious if you haven’t yet and want to. Spoilers are fine in the comments, however, as I would love someone to at least headcanon away the pink dress.
Panel from “The Mask of Medusa” in The Unexpected #218 © 1981 DC Comics. Script:
Robert Kanigher. Pencils, Inks: Vic Catan. Colors: Jerry Serpe. Letters: Unknown.
Related: Mr. Pope Hail • Arch-Ray Vision • Ozy Ozy Ozy
Mere weeks after rewatching 1941’s The Adventures of Captain Marvel as part
of the personal film festival I’d assembled for my 50th birthday, which I’ve neglected to dig into here for literal ages now, I was surprised and delighted to see its Billy Batson pop up on a 1974 episode of Shazam!
The CBS show was a staple of Saturday mornings during my childhood, as I noted in April of this year (and long before that). I’m hoping to write about the Republic serial at greater length the near future, but I first checked it out in high school — on a set of VHS tapes from West Coast Video — having read praise for it in Comics Buyer’s Guide; on both viewings, it lived up to its reputation as one of the finest of its kind. Even if Frank Coghlan Jr.’s Billy and Tom Tyler’s Captain Marvel don’t perfectly mirror their comic-book inspiration any more than do their Filmation counterparts — the serial gives us sparks and smoke in place of magic lightning, although it does have the ancient wizard himself rather than six Immortal Elders — we get some genuinely thrilling superheroics for the era.
With an infinite multiverse I guess it’d be inevitable that somewhere out there (Earth-F, perhaps?) Quentin Tarantino is Superman.
I’m among those who saw the early trailer for and the new extended look at James Gunn’s upcoming Superman and wondered just why so much time was spent on a bloodied, battered Man of Steel.
Of course, I thrilled at the brief glimpses of him being heroic — flying with purpose
and protecting a child. And I get wanting to showcase Krypto; I do have concerns about the film, but not that shaggy fella beyond my perennial problem buying even the most impressive CGI.
I’ve mentioned before on the blog — 15 years ago, granted — how much I loved Shazam!, Filmation’s live-action series based on the original Captain Marvel that aired Saturday mornings on CBS in the mid ’70s.
Not very long ago it was incorporated into a dream of mine. An immortal Elder from the show appeared to me but (a) he looked more like Batman foe Maxie Zeus as drawn by the great Don Newton than Zeus himself or any of the other legendary figures making up the acronym that is Billy Batson’s magic word — yet still in the style used to illustrate those figures in the ethereal vision sequences in which they appeared, unmoving — and (2) he freaked me out by lifting his arms up instead of remaining static. I think he was giving me a mission that had something to do with cats.
Unlike most dreams, I could trace the components of this one quite clearly to stuff
from my waking life. It came as Matt Re’s look at the stretch of Batman and Detective Comics written by Gerry Conway, which ran throughout 2024 on his blog Not a Hoax! Not a Dream!, was drawing to a close; a fair number of those stories were penciled by Newton. And more germanely to the post I’m writing now, I’d begun playing the intro to Shazam! in an act of self-soothing on an almost daily basis to center myself before getting down to this or that task amidst my latest health crises and the general insanity of life.
I was talking with a friend recently and this happened.
DC Comics announced in June that its Vertigo imprint would be winding down
come the new year. Graeme McMillan wrote up the basics at The Hollywood Reporter.
Cover to Death: The High Cost of Living #1 © 1993 DC Comics.
Art: Dave McKean. Typography, Design: McKean; Richard Bruning.
There’s no way for me to do this subject justice but, despite the lateness, it doesn’t
feel right to let it pass without mention here.
Panel from “Once Upon a Time...” in Detective Comics #500 © 1981 DC Comics. [enlarge]
Len Wein, who died at 69 on Sept. 10th, provided me and an untold number of
other readers with countless moments of wonder. On top of that, Len was very much
a mensch. I saw him indulge fans at conventions with anecdotes many creators would surely have long since tired of telling, and he graciously spoke to me at length for a Comicology article celebrating the 25th anniversary of the “new” X-Men at a time — shortly before the release of the 2000 film — when dozens of journalists were likely ringing him up.
A photo of The Flash as he’ll appear in Zack Snyder’s upcoming Justice League has been released. Right away I, well, flashed on the classic cover you can see next to it below.
I quite like how the CW TV incarnation turned out, especially with a white background having replaced the red on his chest insignia, despite the first promo shots featuring him in an extremely awkward position. We have a much clearer head-on look here than we did there, however. My big question, as Snyder and his associates were probably not meaning to homage this delightfully ridiculous old tale, is why and how Barry forged that grungy armor out of candied apples.
Cover of The Flash #133 © 1962 DC Comics. Pencils: Carmine Infantino. Inks:
Murphy Anderson. Letters: Ira Schnapp. Colors, Script: Unknown. [enlarge]
Related: No Small Parts • Kind of Blue • Stars and Gripes
The Flash: Can he outrun Superman — or Supergirl? We may get an answer in
the Mar. 28th episode of the latter’s CBS series.
Page 1 of The Brave and the Bold #197 © 1983 and characters TM/® DC
Comics. Script: Alan Brennert. Pencils: Joe Staton. Inks: George
Freeman. Letters: John Costanza. Colors: Adrienne Roy.
This post is currently down for maintenance.
Tony Isabella noted on his blog earlier tonight that DC is finally soliciting a trade paperback collecting the original ’70s run of Black Lightning in the current Diamond Previews catalog for April release.
I’m thrilled to hear this. Like so many who’ve met him and so many others who only know him through his writing or interactions online, I adore Tony — in part because of how he wears his considerably sized heart on his sleeve, yeah, but also because he’s made some excellent comics.
Tony was the first comics pro I ever interviewed, nearly 25 years ago now, followed
in very short order (at the same Mid-Ohio convention) by his good friend Bob Ingersoll and his new collaborator Eddy Newell. Eddy was the artist on a fresh, long-awaited Black Lightning series written by Tony, his creator, that wouldn’t debut for more than
a year. It proved to be a powerful take on humanity within the superhero genre that ended unhappily (to way understate the case) both for readers and for Jefferson Pierce’s real-world dad.
I’d say that a funny thing happened on my way back from a long-overdue visit to
family in California, but it involves the Transportation Security Administration and wasn’t really funny — except insofar as it was Batman’s fault.
At the Bay Area fixture Cost Plus World Market, I picked up a figure like the one
shown here.
Teddy Sears as Jay Garrick in The Flash Ep. 2.01 “Flash of Two Worlds” © 2015
CW Network. Photo: Cate Cameron. Character TM/® DC Comics.
I didn’t see Tuesday’s Flash episode until after midnight — so it ended up a birthday present. And it was a gift to all the fans who’ve loved DC’s multiverse for decades. I’m honestly not able to put my reaction into words, because it basically involved giving
the astral projection of my 6-year-old self a high-five.
We got a new trailer for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice last month to coincide with the sprawling media crush of San Diego’s Comic-Con International.
I’ll admit that the movie looks impressive on its own terms. While Man of Steel had potential as a riff on the superhero genre with a heavy sci-fi bent, however, it was a terribly misguided Superman film. Based on the footage and conversations regarding its sequel, Zack Snyder continues to be at least as far off target in translating DC’s oldest, greatest icons from page to screen as he was in adapting Watchmen a half-dozen years back. (Read my non-spoiler post or my longer review of Man of Steel, and my detailed review of Watchmen, for more.)
Snyder et al. have jumped right to Frank Miller’s Dark Knight — a possible future extrapolating from the comics of the time in which a weathered Batman comes out of retirement and tangles with a godlike Superman whom he views as too powerful and too simplistic in the embrace of justice and the American Way — by setting up that dichotomy in the characters’ first meeting absent the weight of their history together. Huh?
One tiny spoiler for Ant-Man coming up after this odd image…
At this week’s TV “upfronts” we got trailers for CBS’ new Supergirl, to air Mondays at
8 p.m. ET come November, and the CW Arrow/Flash spinoff DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, which bows at midseason. [bad links]
Ra's al Ghul is practically a millennial next to the immortal Vandal Savage, who’s mentioned in the latter. I’d love to find out that he or some continuity-altering character from the comics (say, Glorith or the Time Trapper) has prevented Kal-El from becoming Superman on the current “Earth-CW”. Perhaps once Rip Hunter’s motley crew properly resets history the Arrow/Flash universe could merge with that of Supergirl or otherwise establish Superman and Batman as existing in that universe — and Man of Steel as but a glimpse into a sad, twisted parallel reality.
Promo image © 2015 Warner Bros. Entertainment.
Related: Kind of Blue • When Barry Met Ollie • Live-Action Comics
