Meanwhile... Back at the Comic Book Blog

Superman: Adventures of the Man of Steel
Writers: Scott McCloud and Paul Dini
Artists: Rick Burchett, Bret Blevins, Terry Austin

I’m not a big Superman fan. In fact I generally think Superman is pretty stupid. I haven’t read that many Superman comics, but his villains seem kind of stupid (Toymaster?) and generally the character doesn’t hold much interest for me. I picked this up anyway though.
It’s based on the Superman: The Animated Series cartoon, and generally has the same look as that show artwise (though I like Blevins art more then Burchett’s). The stories are ok. They seem to rely on people having actually seen the Superman cartoon though, characters are reintroduced who we’re supposed to know already. Okay, so I know who Lex Luthor is, but some of the other characters I have no idea.
The last two issues collected here (there are six in total) are the best in the collection. In issue five, Superman fights Livewire, who in revenge for centuries of male oppression has decided to oppress males for once, using her powers to prevent any males from appearing on television or the radio, only females can. The ending is kind of creepy though, with Superman fighting Livewire until Lex Luthor zaps her into a coma. Um, yeah…
The last issue has Superman fighting some terrorists and then suddenly standing amid the wreckage of Metropolis. Mr. Mxyzptlk (yes, I had to look that up to spell it) appears and time starts travelling backwards. Superman is in the future somehow and Mxyzptlk has given him a chance to save Metropolis. Superman has to see how one event is caused by another and saves Metropolis by catching a baseball. Yay.

JLA: A League of One
Writer/Artist: Christopher Moeller

I’m not sure, but I think I might like Batman (and perhaps the other superheroes in the JLA) more in the JLA then in their own books. In the JLA there can’t really be much character development or anything. It’s just “horrible crisis!” and then they save the day, with Batman being brutally calculating and intelligent but also totally badass
This graphic novel features really nice painted artwork by Moeller and has Wonder Woman hearing a prophecy that the JLA will die while killing a dragon. Wonder Woman must then incapacitate the rest of the JLA so that she can sacrifice herself and kill the dragon. You sort of know that she’s not going to die (ie. There isn’t a big Elseworlds logo on the cover), but the lead up is still good.
Moeller’s depiction of the dragon is pretty cool to begin with, but what I think are awesome are his depictions of the many gnomes and their underground caverns that appear. The gnomes themselves are pretty neat, but the draconomes (gnomes infected with dragon’s breath) look excellent.
It seems odd that I wrote more about a graphic novel I didn’t like that much (the Superman one), but I’m pretty much done reviewing this one…

Labels: comics