My Worlds Collide: Big Bang Theory and Power Girl

There's a new comic out featuring the mostly obscure character of Power Girl.

PeeGee is about a female superhero with all the powers of Superman, with the added power of Super Curmudgeonliness.

In the next episode, it appears artist Amanda Conner has decided she should meet the cast of "The Big Bang Theory". BBT is on CBS and features former-high school drama chum, Jim Parsons.

Anyway, my worlds collide.

Here's the page.

Here's the full preview.

Thanks to Pop Candy for finding this and pointing it out.

Preview released for "Superman: Secret Origin"

It is most likely that my colleagues who grew up in the 1980's and knew much of comics take it as common knowledge that the reboot of Superman by Marv Wolfman and John Byrne is a superior and better imagined version of The Man of Steel. As with all kids, we looked upon the old with contempt and the new with a belief in its obvious superiority as the new that it may not always have earned.

Unfortunately, the attitudes we pick up as kids are often not reflected upon again in a way that perhaps older eyes might look upon a bit more kindly (and, well, maybe spending as much time as an adult as I pondering upon Superman is not something you do). In the 1980's re-boot, much was lost in regards to the 48 years of comics which had painted a vast history for the Man of Steel. No membership in The Legion of Super-Heroes left the concept of the super-teens of the future adrift. Smallville became an idyll oft referred to, but seemed to hollow out Lana Lang and reduce the point of Pete Ross immeasurably.

And, of course, the 1980's reboot greatly aged Lex Luthor and dropped any notion that Clark and Lex may have known one another in their formative years.

All of this will sound "wrong" to my fellow Gen-X'ers, and that's okay, I suppose. However, there's a kind of mythology the Superman comics began working with, especially beginning in the 1950's, that drove a thousand stories.

Almost as quickly as Wolfman and Byrne had launched their version, the comics began trying to rebuild the mythology, only with the trick of keeping the new rules in place (Lex was older, Superman was the only Kryptonian, etc...).

In 2006, the Superman comics were more or less re-touched once again, with elements of the old and new co-mingling very well. However, no definitive origin ever surfaced.

It was just as well. The origin, told before the creative team had made a few creative stabs one way or another, could have once again accidentally painted DC into a corner from which they could not be free to return to favored ideas, find new concepts, etc...

But three years on, there is a new mini-series coming, once again from one of DC's top-flight talents, and one with no small skill at reinterpreting DC Comics for a modern audience.

The team which brought you "Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes" and "Brainiac" of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank is soon bringing the re-telling of the first days of Superman's career with "Superman: Secret Origin".

Check out some preview pages here.

As much as I enjoyed "Superman: The Man of Steel" as the first Superman reading I ever took seriously, and Mark Waid and Yu's "Birthright", I'm glad that someone will have the opportunity to do what was unthinkable until three or four years ago and restore the classic mythology in a context which will work for today's reader. Just as I sincerely hope that in 20 years' time, the story will be told again for that generation of readers, returning to the bits that work, and making way for new ideas, tweaks to characterization, etc... which will make the story work for that generation of readers.

Super-hero comics are a unique medium, paralleled only by the soap opera, with an ongoing story that depends upon audience engagement to continue. But unlike soap operas, the origins of each character are as important as Arthur's pulling the sword from the stone, Robin returning from the Crusades to discover his land bespoiled, Hercules' parentage, Achilles' propensity to take a dip... Without those elements as moorings, the "why" of the character gets lost, and we wind up with the 2D cartoon cut-outs of geeks in tights that so often make up the public's idea of a superhero.

Superman could have disappeared into the folds of audience disinterest, but his alien origin, idealized Rockwellian childhood and move to the most modern of American cities is a simple enough story (and is often bandied about when the elbow-patch crowd describes Superman as the ultimate immigrant analog). And while those elements re-appear in no small measure in the pages of the monthly comics, its a good idea to return to those roots, to reach back and see the highlight reel.

And we're lucky enough that DC has put a crew of its most talented on the project.

Should be fun.

A Reminder (about Wednesdays and Comics)

Comics come out on Wednesdays. Sometimes I get distracted and forget to post.

Also, Action Comics, Superman Secret Files and Adventure Comics? All good.

Action was wall-to-wall Super goodness, Superman Secret Files was a good "let's check in, because we know this is complicated" moment. And, of course, Adventure Comics was both lovely and promising as an ongoing.

Off to read Blackest Night and GL stuff.

G4 fans will have a good laugh at this month's Booster Gold cover.

Keanu, Superboy, Superdogs

Randy Wants For You To See This.



Randy is wise.

Adventure Comics #1

Tomorrow sees the release of the relaunch of Adventure Comics. For decades, Adventure Comics was up there with Action, Superman, Detective and other National/ DC Comics. It carried a lot of stories, but became well known for the Super-Family and Legion stories. Somewhere along the line they ended Adventure Comics, and added the Super Family title and gave Legion its own title.

After several Legion relaunches in the past few years, I am hoping this stabilizes the futuristic "Legion of Super-Heroes", which is contained as a back-up feature.

The main feature will contain stories of the modern Superboy, Conner Kent. And Krypto, the Superdog. And for that, I am very glad.

Add to it, the writing of Geoff Johns and art of Francis Manapul, and this series has as much potential as any new series from DC in years.

Link here.

Also, it's been this sort of week:



Just, you know, with two dogs.

Here's some more Superman stuff, too.

Dog Days - Day 3

Scout is very smart.

We adore Lucy. She is a sweet and loving dog, and she tries very hard, but we've always known that maybe she wasn't going to be getting into dog-Harvard.

But Scout just decided this evening to know how to fetch. Just sort of watched Lucy and decided "well, I can do that". She is learning her name. She knows where we're trying to guide her. She's cluing into the hints of dwelling with the family.

And, knock on wood, she really seems potty-trained. She just stood at the door and waited for me a few minutes ago after sniffling at my hand for attention.

I know that in a week or two, she and Lucy will not be growling at each other. And we'll be able to introduce her to Cassidy soon enough (I need to do some reading on best practices there).

Day 2 with NuDawg

We are working out the dynamics of the pack.

Lucy and Scout are not really getting along as they jockey for dominance or something. Really, the issue is that Scout has certain ideas about personal space, etc... that Lucy completely does not have. Lucy is also a ball of relentless affection, and I sort of think she is confused by Scout's stand-offish, new-to-the-pack, let-me-get-comfortable stance on this whole thing.


For good or ill, this is how Lucy sleeps every night. Inverted.

Wins:
-Lucy is tired. That's something.
-Scout likes people pretty well so far. Jason sat with her this evening, and she was very calm and comfortable with him.
-The two dogs get along totally fine in the backyard. So its a "are you cornering me?" growl that we're getting. Lucy is cornering her, but Lucy corners everyone all the time by climbing onto the couch with you, sitting on you, etc...
-There have been no actual fights.
-Scout has this stuffed bunny we brought from the pound, and she likes it enough that we can use it to get her to follow us when she's otherwise anxious.
-Scout was pretty excited to see me this evening, so I'm taking that as a good sign.
-I'm probably hoping for too much, but it seems like Scout came pre-house-broken. Granted, we have stained concrete on the first floor, and she's been gated off the stairs, so who knows what will happen once she steps foot on carpet.
-And she totally ignores Jeff so far.


Scout enjoys a poolside flair to her bedding. And that's her bunny. She really loves Bun.

Anyway, its tiring. I'm tired. Both dogs conked out around 9:00. Jamie was clearly wiped out when we spoke as I was leaving work. And it's 10:10 and I'm calling it a night.

So there.

Have a good one, Leaguers.

Newest Leaguer: Scout

Leaguers, I would like for you to welcome the newest member of The League of Melbotis.

This, Leaguers, is Scout.


this pic stolen from Jamie's post

Scout came home with us today from the ASPCA. We don't know very much about her, but she's about 1.5 years old, and we understand she's from Bastrop. Taking a look at her makes me believe that she's got some Shepard in her, and most likely some yellow lab. And she seems to have a good, mellow disposition.

We need to be patient. She is a kennel dog, and often kennel dogs have funny backgrounds that you need to work with. I don't believe Scout had any kind of particularly tough go of it before she joined us, and it's still the first 24 hours. We've got some work to do with her so that she understands how she fits in here, particularly with Lucy.

I am more than optimistic, but I am trying to be realistic about the work that a new dog will take.

Our trip to the kennel was not terribly spontaneous. We've been discussing when we'd bring a new dog into our family for a while. We also had a lot of discussion about what sort of dog, how old, breed, etc...

Scout was, of course, not named "Scout" at the pound. She'd been called "Babette", but it was fairly clear that "Babette" wasn't a name she knew in any way. Jamie and I knew a name would be an issue, and so went back and forth for quite a while prior to actually picking up the dog. I am happy to say, I think we did okay in the end. We won't have a name that I see hitting the top 10 in popular dog names (this is something I find irritating when we take Lucy to the dog park. Do you know how many Lucy's there are? Answer: At least two more, everywhere you go.), and I don't find it to be too dainty.

I confess to a certain concern that somehow things won't work out. Sometimes these things do not. Jamie and I briefly tried to have a dog at one point, and it completely did not work out with our work schedules, lifestyle, and apartment dwelling at the time. And, of course, before Lucy we attempted to adopt, and were never able to bring the dog home because she developed a sudden, grave illness. In short, I really want for this to work, and I think it will. But we can't expect Scout to be Lucy or Mel overnight.

So here's to us and what will most likely be a reduction in sleep for a few days while we all get sorted out.

Of course, yes, we still miss Melbotis. He's still discussed around here almost every day. But we like being a two dog household, and we hope that Scout and Lucy will work things out quickly. And I still think about Melbotis every time we head to the spillover, the dog park, and when a hundred other things remind you of the guy.

We're looking forward to life with our new crew, and I am so happy to have Scout here with us.

Entire Run of Superman Animated Coming in one Package!

In the mid-90's, the Warner Bros. Animated department put their much-loved Batman series on ice and turned to Metropolis as their next port of call.

The cartoon became hugely influential on the comics, which had become mired in the John Byrne/ Marv Wolfman relaunch, quickly missing the forest for the trees. I believe at the time of the cartoon's debut, we had Mullet-Superman who the writers and artists had some kind of funny ideas about what made a Clark Kent for the 1990's. In many ways, its shocking that this era of Superman didn't make me go running from the character altogether.


The cartoon (in addition to my pre-Mullet-tude Superman* reading, the movies, and a few other sources) had as much of an influence on my descent into Super-fandom as anything else. Bruce Timm and crew created an interesting mix of modern-Super elements and classic. Many versions of the characters they created eventually became the standards in the comics (including a redesign of Supergirl which found its way into the comics, and led to the current design). A personal favorite of mine was the handling of Toyman, who they made from a sort of obnoxious mad scientist-type into a creepy little psycho in a plastic doll mask.

You can probably credit voice director Andrea Romano for the insanely good voice acting. Many Superfans consider the voice actors for the program as important to the Superman media world as their movie counter-parts. No doubt Tim Daly was a great mild-mannered Kent and earnest Superman, but the rest were of no small note. While its always sad not to be able actually see Dana Delany, her Lois is now iconic, just as Clancy Brown's baritone Lex Luthor exemplified arrogance and malevolence. I was also quite fond of David Kaufman as Jimmy Olsen, Corey Burton as Brainiac, Malcolm McDowell as Metallo... Anyway, this will get boring very quickly.

Bruce Timm imported the same blocky character design he had developed in the later seasons of Batman: The Animated Series. This worked terrifically well during cross-overs with Batman, btw (I highly recommend the "World's Finest" 3-episode run. Just great stuff.). Metropolis was imagined as an art-deco city of tomorrow, with freeways running between the skyscrapers and the ground often not in view, perhaps in homage to Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis".

I know many folks want to draw some parallels to the 1940's era Fleischer cartoons, and there are some similarities in aspects of the background design, but the 1990's Superman series borrows only loosely from those cartoons, mostly in how some of the action is choreographed and the occasional prop, such as giant airplane, etc...

The episodes tended to introduce villains as new and unique challenges for Superman, with recurring villain Lex Luthor at the center of Superman's world. However, DC Animated also brought The New Gods to television with the entire cast of cult characters and in a bit of inspired stunt casting, Ed Asner as Granny Goodness (and Michael Ironside as "Darkseid", but that's kind of a "well, who else are you going to cast as Darkseid?" option).

But the series also introduced Superman's rogues gallery, a group a lot less well-known than Batman's crew of villains. Toyman, The Parasite, Brainiac, Bizarro, Metallo, Mxyzptlk (perfectly cast with Gilbert Gottfried), Jax-Ur, etc... but also created at least one new villain with "Livewire", who has since made her way into the comics.

The show also introduced other DC heroes, including Steel, Kyle Rayner Green Lantern, The Flash, Aquaman and more.

Soon, you will be able to order/ rent/ etc... the Superman Animated series in its entirety. Here.

For those of you with Lil' Leaguers in tow, this might be a fine investment. While Superman doesn't have the pop-culture cache of Spider-Man or Batman, I think the cartoon series makes it pretty clear why Superman is a great character, and not the barrel chested cookie cutter superhero that most people assume.

What's often forgotten is that the series actually had a pretty neat line of toys, that found different gadgets, etc... with which to equip the Man of Steel. I have a small collection of the toys, myself, Bizarro being a personal favorite.

The series didn't last very long (less than 60 episodes, I think), and folded into the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons, both of which continued the same narrative started in Batman: The Animated series.

*I should point out that the hair wasn't so much the issue as the sort of dull, working-stiff take on Superman that seemed to permeate the post-Death of Superman era. Superman more or less just felt like a stand-in for any generic superhero, only surrounded by the trappings of the Super-verse.