“Look up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!!!! Yes its Superman, strange visitor from another planet who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Superman; who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel with his bare hands, and who, disguised as Clark Kent mild-mannered reporter for a great Metropolitan newspaper fights for Truth, Justice and the American Way.”
Let me hear you say “Look! Up in the Sky!, It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman!!!!
Well it all begins here my comic loving friends, because back in June of 1938, some seventy five years ago, the first issue of “Action Comics” was published and one of the stories featured a being whose powers and abilities were far beyond those of mortal men. Yes I am speaking of the one and only and now very legendary Superman. Since I’ve been doing a lot of comic book overview or release blasting blog posts here on the musings I felt it would be a nice idea to continue on with the occasional offering up of a toast to the Comic Book Milestone’s of note. There is probably not a bigger event for this medium and the super-hero mythology in general than the introduction of the Man of Steel. Kal-El was the creation of Jerry Simon and Joe Schuster, a creative team who not only initially had trouble selling their character to the masses, but a pair whose original creation was hardly a benevolent force for the greater good and was instead a raving madman with his sights set on world domination. Can you even imagine that? Lucky for all of us, the premise of Superman was reworked before being submitted to DC Comics and it would begin the engine of comic book heroism that was nothing less than extraordinary. “Action Comics” was a title that had a series of stories in it and not just a full on Superman appearance issue. We also had Zatara (a magician whose daughter is a favorite of Female Cosplayers everywhere in Zatanna) and also a western tale. Superman will grace these pages for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of issues before its reworking as a title in 1988 when it returned to an Anthology format and came out each week. These issues would not feature Superman at all until it returned to a regular monthly at #643.
Continue reading Action Comics #1 & Superman Celebrate 75 Years (1938-2013)
I’ve not been quiet about my enjoyment of the crop of Marvel Cinematic Universe films over the last couple of years on our official blog for PiercingMetal and now its time to give some attention over to what we will find coming out next year from the DC Comics side. The next film for their characters will be a reboot of the Superman franchise entitled “Man Of Steel” and will give us his origin, discovery of powers and a battle with an evil Kryptonian named General Zod. You might perhaps remember that Superman fought Zod and some other criminals from his home world in “Superman II” if you are of a certain age and if you don’t I still highly recommend those two films.
Clearly this is a darker and more brooding take on the hero than I expected so I hope it works out for them and the future of the franchise. The important thing to remember is that Superman is NOT Batman and hence not dark in his motivations for heroism. Superman is supposed to be as good and as positive as all get out and is pretty much unbeatable based on his powers. Batman on the other hand is just a whole lot of whoop ass that leaves villains wishing they stayed home.
The Cast: Henry Cavill (Clark Kent/Superman), Amy Adams (Lois Lane), Michael Shannon (General Zod), Kevin Costner (Jonathan Ken), Diane Lane (Martha Kent), Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe (as Jor-El).
Before my words get taken wrong, you should know I love Superman and want an exciting, heroic film for the character. I did not enjoy Green Lantern all that much and I felt that Dark Knight Rises needed a little more Batman in it so I am going to be a bit skeptical until I walk out of the theater next year. To my knowledge there will be no intermingling of characters in this new film which is a shame since after Marvel’s “The Avengers”, a “Justice League” movie would be a very interesting project to see develop. What are your hopes for this film and the future of Superman in cinema? I have left the comments open to discuss a little bit.
Official Film Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Steel_(film)
As previously blogged about in the PiercingMetal Musings; DC Comics recently re-launched a number of titles and started them off from issue #1 under the branding of “The New 52”. The initiative’s prime objective being to up the number of titles available each month and to offer new readers an easier chance to jump on board with their characters. New costumes and beginnings are par for the course with the reboot but a number of the company’s most historic moments shall remain unaffected. The New 52 appears to have segmented the titles into a number of different groups based on the relation of the character – for instance there is a Superman and Batman grouping to enjoy and each title relates directly to the character. From these segments I have opted to share my thoughts on the first issues for your reading pleasure. In similar fashion to the Green Lantern titles, Superman also gets four new titles which find half directly aimed at him and the remaining two at the other most known super beings. The titles are Action Comics, Superman, Superboy and Supergirl. Here are my thoughts on the first issues. Continue reading DC Comics “The New 52” First Issues: “Superman” Titles
