The Return of Superboy?

Superboy, pre-DC's New 52

As I've intimated probably way too much on this blog, I haven't been very happy with the Superboy in DC's New 52.  I think Conner Kent became one of DC's best creations (mostly thanks to Geoff Johns in his revival of the Teen Titans in 2003), killed him, resurrected him, and then retconned his entire existence.

With the most recent issue of the Teen Titans, the new Superboy is finally starting to look like himself.  Er, old self.  

He's no longer the scrawny guy who crawled out of a lab.  

from Superboy #1 (2011)

Or the guy wearing a rejected costume from the movie Tron.

Superboy (2012)

The boy has finally got some muscle.  He's also sporting a tank top and jeans. 

There's even a jacket now, reminiscent of his beginnings in the early 1990s after Superman's "death."  

Superboy #1 (1994)

Let's hope that DC is realizing their mistake and recreating the three-dimensional Superboy that once was. 

Better... Stronger... Faster.

As a child of the 70s, I loved the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman.  While superheroes seemed like fantasy, these two were normal, everyday people who received special abilities.  Like, of course, this could really happen with modern technology.  

I watched both TV shows (and their TV special reunions), and had all of the dolls (Steve Austin, Jaime Sommers, Oscar Goldman, and Bigfoot), and their accompanying playsets.  I never did get that Fembot doll, though -- dammit! -- which, I'm convinced, was the inspiration for Austin Powers' fembots (minus the gun nipples).  

Bionic Man #1

I was excited when Dynamite Comics started to release Kevin Smith's Bionic Man monthly comic book.  I was even more excited that it was released monthly, as scheduled.  Kevin Smith doesn't have the best track record with completing his assignments on time.  Dynamite probably knew that and that's why they took the basic story idea(s) from him and had someone else more reliable actually scribe it.  The series started out really good and then started to get a bit lackluster.  It lost its character edge and everyone seemed so generic and uninteresting in the latter single digit issues.  

Bionic Man #11

With issue #11 (the first one not bearing Kevin Smith's name across the top), character development was at its peak.  Steve's adventure-filled life comes to a slow crawl as he returns to his family's farm.  Here, we meet Steve's dying father, his strong-willed but tender mother, and his doting sister.  They all thought Steve was dead (because that's what the news reported) and are surprised and happy to see that he's still alive.  His secret soon comes out, though, and they realize that he's no longer just a man anymore. But while this story was the best in the series so far with character development, it also felt a bit weak at the same time.  The family doesn't seem truly overjoyed with the news that Steve is alive.  It was as if Steve just told his family that he got a small promotion of work and his mother replying, "That's nice, dear."  

The story does have some tender moments, though, and I'm glad that we, the readers, got to meet Steve's family.  Ironically, it made him more human than previous issues depicted.  

After reading issue #11, I can honestly now say that I'm looking forward to the next installment of the Bionic Man.  Why?  Toward the end of issue #11, we get a glimpse of something watching Steve from the woods.  It's no secret who/what it is, though, because they reveal the secret already in the "next issue" column: it's Bigfoot.  I love the image, too, because not only is it Bigfoot, Steve's nemesis from the old TV show, but Steve's wearing the red track suit (that the Steve Austin doll came with).  Euphoria washed over me seeing that nostalgic image.  

On a related note, like the TV show, Jaime Sommers was so popular in the Bionic Man series that Dynamite gave her her own monthly series in Spring 2012.  After two issues, though, the series was apparently abandoned.  I guess sales weren't as good as they had hoped, but I was really getting into the story...and I always did prefer Jaime Sommers over Steve Austin.  

I hope Dynamite continues producing a great monthly comic and that we one day will see the return of the Bionic Woman. 

Crossing Over

I remember when two crossover events in the 1980s really shook up and reshaped the comic industry's two biggest players.  DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths and Marvel's Secret Wars were two of the best series I'd ever read and really started the annual crossover boom.  I loved that they were both so different than each other, but both so engaging and so much fun.  Well, not fun for characters like the Flash and Supergirl, but they've been resurrected since then...several times.  Out of those came a shift from DC's multiple earths to one.  And, for Marvel, Spider-Man's black suit and The Thing manning his own series, staying on the Secret Wars planet.  Yes, they were indeed creative times. 

Sadly, following those two very successful limited series came a string of unimaginative "sequels" that played on the words "Crisis," "Infinite," "Secret," and "War." The best DC crossover since then has probably been Identity Crisis, wherein the members of the Justice League cross lines of morality.  With the exception of House of M, I haven't seen a decent Marvel crossover event story until now with Avengers Vs. X-Men (but don't get me started on the shortcut name AvX).  I tried reading Civil War, Siege, Fear Itself, Doomwar, etc.  All of them felt subpar.  And sometimes didn't even make any sense to me.  I was really looking forward to Secret Invasion because I thought the concept was fantastic.  Unfortunately, Marvel really let me down.  It was so poorly executed that I stopped reading several titles.  

Anyway, despite my initial lack of enthusiasm for Avengers vs. X-Men when hearing/reading about it, so far, I've really been enjoying it.  It feels fresh, and I don't feel like I have to read additional comics to understand what's going on.  Best of all, the Phoenix Force entity, although overused in the past, is being used in a manner that it different than previously.  It didn't bring back Jean Grey.  It didn't inhabit the body of a red-headed Jean Grey lookalike (yes, I'm talking to you, Madelyne Pryor, Rachel Grey/Summers, and Hope Summers).   Instead, it inhabited five X-Men, giving them immense powers to (so far) do good in the world, but altering their minds and personalities. 

 

While I'm on the subject, let's talk about Madelyne Pryor.  Bringing in this first Jean Grey lookalike was brilliant.  It complicated matters by confusing Scott Summers (Cyclops) and toying with his emotions.  At the same time, Madelyne had to deal with the fact that the man she loved only loved her because she looked like his one true love.  This was some amazing character development.  Unfortunately, Marvel ruined all of this by making Madelyne yet another villain.  Worse, a Phoenix knock-off and Jean Grey clone.  

Avengers Academy #32

With Avengers vs. X-Men, I can truly see why they'd be at war.   The X-Men still hold a grudge against the Scarlet Witch for what she did to their race in House of M.  Meanwhile, the Avengers are trying to stop the Phoenix Force by removing Hope Summers from the equation; the X-Men are just trying to protect their own.  With that many characters involved, though, it's difficult to actually illicit any sort of emotional response from the readers.  There is some decent character development, though mostly in related titles like Wolverine and the X-Men between Kitty Pryde and Colossus, and in Avengers Academy between Juston and his Sentinel.  

I'm looking forward to seeing where Marvel takes the remainder of this series and beyond.  However, I'm skeptical (again) about the new Marvel NOW (secret) plans that promise (threaten?) to reboot the Marvel Universe and restart with all #1 issues, much like DC's New 52 which, as you know from reading my blog postings, I'm not AT ALL happy with.