Braving the gauntlet of Big Two events, prestige format risk-takers, off-the-radar indie releases, and a non-stop avalanche of floppies is DoomRocket’s HOT PRESS. With so much media out there screaming for your eyeballs, HOT PRESS is here with short-burst news and reviews of the latest stuff you should be paying attention to. This week: What you should know about DoomRocket, the new Superman direction, and the latest from our Bloodlines read-through.
by Jarrod Jones. Hey, team. It’s been a minute. In fact, there’s been little to no new DoomRocket content since August! (You might have caught our YEAR IN REVIEW, or at least, I hope you did.) It’s a fact that has been rough on me; I found myself retreating from freelance writing to work a more secure day job and losing myself in that for the latter half of 2022. The money was nice, but the itch to write was beginning to gnaw at my innards something awful. So, I’m back, freelancing and hustling like mad, and I’ve made sure that with this new schedule, I have all the time I need to put DoomRocket back where I want it to be. Hopefully, life works with me instead of not doing that for the foreseeable future.
So, a DoomRocket Update. First, I’m looking at new newsletter/subscription options, as the last one we used via Feedburner is kaput, just to show you how often I stay on the bleeding edge of things. As for the DR team, right now my crew is running a bit light since our big hiatus two years ago (we are three at the moment, I’m pretty sure), so I’ll be seeking out new and interesting writers in the year ahead, if for no other reason than because I have all these nifty graphics I built for DR features and such, and I rarely get to use them. Also, DoomRocket is so much better when there’s more than just me wandering around looking for things to gripe about.
As for CASUAL WEDNESDAYS, our fan-favorite podcast (we actually have fans!), it is still on hiatus, sadly; MJ & I have conflicting schedules a lot of the time, and finding space to produce, record, and edit a 40-minute podcast every week is damn near impossible with everything else we have going on. We hope to get something new for all you patient listeners out there sometime soon, and if worse comes to worst and I have to ditch the podcast entirely, you’ll know first. Watch this space.
That’s my New Year’s resolution: new DoomRocket stuff for you to read and enjoy. Will we be better than ever? Who can say. But I’m committed to making it the best it can be in the coming year. Now, stuff!
– I lucked into a lot of Savage Dragon comics recently, a complete stretch of issues from Erik Larsen’s initial dotty miniseries to the decidedly raucous ongoing, all the way up to issue #26, and I’ve been having a blast reading through them. Almost without exception, those early Image superhero books from that first 1993 wave are a bit dodgy in terms of storytelling and consistency of vision. Dragon (and, I’d say with some charity, Spawn) being the rare exception.
Larsen had seemingly tapped into a “no guts, no glory” mindset with his book, which would explain the viscerally high-octane, easily read super-people fist fights on his pages, not to mention his full-throated determination to make sure every issue had all a reader could possibly want from an action comic: big, brawny battles, soapy character drama, a propulsive arc, and all the back matter goodies that could fit in that stapled, floppy format. (Pin-ups by insanely good artists! Back-up stories featuring new super-types to get you hyped about the then-upcoming team-up book Freak Force! Letters columns with generous responses from Larsen! Etc.!) It’s that kind of energy I miss from the primary-colored cape comics from the Big Two today, which read awfully soft and strangely aloof in strict comparison. But then, what wouldn’t be, compared to the gnarly exploits of The Dragon?
– That brings me to the latest adventures of Superman. Or Supermen. Or whatever we’re supposed to be calling this cadre of capes crowding the pages of the latest issue of Action Comics:
Yes, I know most of them ain’t wearing capes. It’s a figure of speech. (Sidebar: Supergirl is cooler with a cape.)
So, after a year or so bopping around Warworld, Superman is back on Earth and primed to continue his Neverending Battle. Action Comics #1051 is loads of set-up for the next year or so worth of Superman books and also a part of whatever “Dawn of DC” is supposed to mean. (Maybe a Rebirth 2.0? Considering how quickly this company can burn out following major events/reboots, it probably doesn’t even matter.) One thing’s for sure: this issue is meant as a jumping-on point for “new and lapsed” readers, and I’m decidedly in the latter category when it comes to new adventures featuring the Man of Steel, at least since I invested a ton of time and money in the Bendis reboot and the Legion of Superheroes revival that amounted to not much at all. I’m getting old! I can only watch things slowly implode so many times before I just turn my back on the whole thing, even if that “whole thing” is Superman.
Because here’s the rub about Action #1051, and this is where I get confused/frustrated with contemporary DC cape books: while Superman has returned, he never really left; you see, Jon Kent, who’s all grown up and a very serious superhero in his own right (evidently), took on the name and the responsibilities of his old man during his pop’s sudden exile in space. So there are two Supermen now, and DC has been differentiating them on comic covers by referring to actual Superman as “Kal-El,” Superman’s creepy alien name (as seen during the clumsily titled “Kal-El Returns” arc), while Jon Kent gets another spin-off series coming soon titled Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent. (Where he’ll be getting electric blue powers, apparently. I’m so tired.)
Yes, like Robin: Tim Drake or Batgirls, we’re continuing DC’s “have cake and eat it” approach to legacy characters, this time in the pages of the Superman line. So, like Batman, Superman now has a full complement of annoying kids brandishing his standard to back him up in future events to come, with a few of them sharing hero names because perish forbid we cook up new monikers for all these kids who are currently horning in on Superman’s action.
For example: Kong Kenan has been the New Super-Man of China for a minute now, but Jon Kent is technically the “new” Superman, so if they fight in battles together, what are they calling each other? (The book has everyone calling each other by their first names, like we’re reading a Real World: Metropolis and not some cool superhero book.) Also: Superboy, the Clone Superboy we used to love so well and who is still around for no serious reason other than people like yours truly can’t shut up about him on social media, shouldn’t be confused with Jon Kent, who up to a year or so ago was also called Superboy. Also-also: John Henry Irons and his niece Nat are both going by Steel when Nat had a perfectly good codename from the 52 event: Starlight. Why is it this way???
What material reason is there for all these Supers flying around? (And, someone help me, why are there two super-babies now? Not “they’re from Warworld and they’re refugees,” I mean an actual answer.) Isn’t Superman more powerful than he’s ever been? Isn’t his secret identity back under wraps? Feels like a surplus of distracting family housekeeping when there’s ample opportunity to get back to telling meat and potatoes Superman comics to me. And while I’ve always enjoyed the line’s robust supporting characters, Lois, Jimmy, Perry, Cat, Bibbo, etc. were more interesting to me because they weren’t superpowered folks allied in Superman’s pursuit of truth and justice. They were just people living that Metropolis life; they made Clark Kent feel like a normal guy and kept Superman functioning on a human level when he wasn’t busy being super.
It sure feels like the continued and growing presence of even more super-kids (rather than, say, Supergirl, Superboy, and Steel off doing their own thing in the world and maybe popping in on Supes from time to time) is diluting the potency of Superman himself. Look at what we have here: all this new Super-support is eating up precious page time and most of them can do whatever Superman can, anyways; and since all (or most) of them come packing a cartoonish yen to ape his sense of goodliness (or righteousness, depending on who’s writing them), they can (and will) coat on the “hope” aspect of the character with thicker, more obvious coats than Clark Kent typically did in prior iterations. So, what’s the point of Superman, anyway, other than serving as an elder cheerleader for the new kids on the block?
I mean.
Not a lot of guts to any of this. Just speeches and platitudes and squishiness. Collecting legacy characters under one banner and saying “everybody counts!” is just action figure accumulation. Tumblr fan pap. It’s playing things far too safe, and safe is boring. Not to mention, as far as this issue of Action is concerned, crowded.
Yet, there’s stuff to appreciate in this new issue. It comes with two backup stories, more bang for your buck, and one of them features artwork by Lee Weeks. It’s another “Kid Kent” throwback yarn, for readers who are still salty about Brian Bendis aging Jon Kent up so quickly (though I can’t help but feel DC’s “guiding hand” as far as that odious decision went) but still! Then there’s a new Power Girl strip featuring Marguerite Sauvage art, which looks neat in its own way but boasts PG’s really boring new costume. (All these new Super-costumes grate the eyes, far as I’m concerned, but whatever, this stuff ain’t for me. I am, however, wondering who all this stuff is for. And if it’s for you, enjoy it; your place at the feast is center dias, and I’m just jealous.) A lot of New Superman stuff feels like it’s kicking dirt over the energy and changes brought about by the Bendis era, which is strange to me as a reader who thought the Bendis Super-line was as good as these books had been since the bonkers Loeb/McGuinness days. Anyway.
I’m spending far too much time complaining about Superman. So I’ll just say that, even from this distance, these Super-books have been coming up short for me, and definitely aren’t packing the punch I’m looking for. Even when they’re trying to:
I will, however, admit that this bit from Action #1050 rocked me a bit. More of this energy and less squishy family junk, I beg you.
– I dunno who noticed or would possibly care, but I nuked my personal Twitter account a couple of months ago. It’s been great, I cannot tell a lie; the only terrible opinions I am now inundated with are my own. DoomRocket still lives over on Twitter, so you can RT all the upcoming DR content to your heart’s, um, content. I have an Instagram account, but it’s basically a place where I post music tracks I like and whatever I’ve been writing over on Letterboxd. The only social arena on the internet I still enjoy, what I’m trying to say, is Letterboxd.
Note: For part one of this series, where I reviewed Lobo Annual #1 for RETROGRADING, click this. For part two, where Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #2 gets a look-see, click this.
THE ISSUE: Batman: Shadow of the Bat Annual #1, “Joe Public” (Outbreak, Part Three.)
THE TEAM: Alan Grant (writer), Trevor Von Eeden (pencils), Dick Giordano (inks), Adrienne Roy (colors), Tim Harkins (letters). Published by DC.
THE GIST: Diminutive drug dealer Happy Jack has been selling E to kids and a local phys ed teacher has had enough. Joe Public, Gotham’s newest and greenest vigilante, has chosen to begin his wayward campaign against criminality just as a lobster-shelled alien beast has descended on the city for nefarious, spine-draining purposes. Also joining the fray is Pagan, now no longer the most superfluous crimefighter in Gotham City thanks to Joe, here to team up with Batman to smash aliens and possibly maim a sex offender or two.
NEW BLOOD: As far as New Blood goes, Joe Public feels at odds with himself. Conceptually, he looks like a jingoistic “this man’s been pushed too far by a permissive society” type who almost relishes punishing the criminals he felt wronged his community. Only, he ain’t. He’s just a concerned citizen with good health and a willingness to do some justice for his fallen students. He seems like a pretty mellow dude in the issue, all things considered, which conflicts with his boisterous, “whatcha gonna do about it?” eagle-crested outfit.
And as far as that’s concerned, Joe Public visually evokes another crimefighter who thrived under the pen of Alan Grant, Judge Dredd, if not in temperament than certainly in attire. (An added rah-rah-Americah flourish from British Alan Grant: Joe P. can hurl the stars on his outfit like shurikens.) By the end of the issue, shaken by the new powers given to him by a particularly gruesome encounter with the event’s chief xenomorphic heavy Angon (see BEST BIT), Joe’s called it quits. Judge Joseph would never.
Yet fate would give Joe Public another chance at stardom before he shuffled off into superhero irrelevance. He made a few appearances beyond Bloodlines, chiefly in Shadow of the Bat #25, where he’d run up against Jean-Paul Valley’s maniac Batman during a brush with The Corrosive Man; said battle resulted in the third incarnation of Valley’s Bat-Armor (before “KnightsEnd” would reveal his fourth and final demonic form). Joe even got to truck with the Martian Manhunter in an issue of Justice League Task Force—though near as I can tell, his nightmare cameo in Shadow of the Bat #50 is his last on-page appearance. Beyond a fleeting mention in Shadow‘s prelude chapter in 1996’s “Legacy” crossover, it seemed the only real fan of Mr. Public in the DC offices was Alan Grant.
BEST BIT: After the first two fairly boisterous chapters of Bloodlines, this issue felt almost lifeless. In fact, the only time my eyebrows jumped up was when Angon got his claws wrapped around Joe Public for a quick pre-battle snack. It’s a moment where, as the panels below will show you, Bloodlines is reminding us of how edgy this event is nudging the otherwise stodgy DCU. They’re with the times, y’see? Nineties!
So, yeah: Angon’s murderous delights eventually get cut short by another winged creature of the night, though one of more earthly origins.
WORST BIT: The events of the entire issue are held together by loose string; Grant and Von Eeden want to show off their New Blood (the credits in the issue tell us that Grant co-created Joe Public with Norm Breyfogle), but they also want to make room for Pagan and her whole deal plus all that comes with this mounting Bloodlines event. Yet, with so much going on, very little actually happens from page to page—and the issue comes to an abrupt halt—though perhaps the most egregious waste of panel work had to be the bit where Batman decides he trusts Pagan enough to work with her, only to ditch her nine pages later for completely bonehead reasons. He does make a rather bitchin’ exit, though:
FUN FACTS: This isn’t Pagan’s first run-in with the Batman, that would be in 1992’s Batman #479; like Joe Public, Pagan was co-created by Alan Grant (though instead of Breyfogle, Tom Mandrake has co-creator claim for her character); Lobo Annual #1 artist Christian Alamy did a worthy pass on the cover for this issue but Brian Stelfreeze’s glorious work is what made it to print; that unused Alamy cover, by the way, is available as back matter in this issue, so pick up a copy and check it out; Joe Public’s new superpowers, which I should have mentioned earlier because they’re really funny, are to sap the energy out of everyone in close proximity to him (Joe must be a riot at parties).
DOES IT RIP? It doesn’t. Shadow of the Bat Annual #2 ain’t my favorite issue of Shadow, and it ain’t even my favorite Shadow annual in general, though the bits where Angon stalks Gotham looking like Firestorm dressed as Vlad the Impaler were pretty cool to gawk at. Also: Trevor Von Eeden drew a mean early-90s Batmobile, which couldn’t have been easy. (I mean, look at it!)
NEXT UP: The Flash Annual #6, wherein the “Return of Barry Allen” story arc takes a powder so Mark Waid (and Phil Hester!) can pit Wally West against the Bloodlines brutes, Linda Park works a scoop concerning a mobster who isn’t what he seems, and Keystone City gets some new blood in the form of the man named Argus!
That’s all I got for this week. Read any good comics lately? Drop them in the comments or write me: ja****@do********.com.
More HOT PRESS:
HOT PRESS 8/11/22: The Netflix-Sandman is here, and Bloodlines bleeds once more
HOT PRESS 7/7/22: Thor thoughts, Amazing Spider-Man praise, and mild Bat-doubts
HOT PRESS 6/30/22: Getting back on track, Shelly Bond’s Filth & Grammar, and other fun stuff
