Comic Book Resources

That was one of the best things about All-Star Superman, to me. Quitely really made it believable that people would not recognize Superman as Clark Kent, because he projected such a completely different image. Quitely’s Clark Kent posture is golden.

I liked this article this week. I saw the cable picture in CBLR #201, and though I’m not a Deathstroke fan, I own the issue before the one pictured #39. It featured Baron Winters. (And I think had Green Arrow on the cover, though I don’t remember the story clearly enough.)

I’m on the wrong side of the continent to go to the con, but I hope everyone has a good time.

Cheers,

B

Another great piece, Greg, but i do have one issue. Clearly, Clark Kent is just too well built to be any sort of mild mannered. You look at the way comics are drawn now, and as Clark Kent and Superman obviously have the same body, Clark cant be an unassuming weed. Christopher Reeves pulled it off, but in the modern comic book, I just don’t think it works visually. Theorhetically, Supes shouldd then be built like the Flash.

Thinking about it now, the only mild mannered but big guy I can think of (unless you go to an Of Mice and Men style man-child) is Morrisey. Man, I’d love it if DC played Clark as Morrisey. Keep Superman the same, but have Clark all meloncolic and quoting Oscar Wilde. (I’ve maybe gone a little off topic here)

“If you keep books you don’t reread, you’re an idiot.”

I am SUCH an idiot. I have 15 or so boxes full o’ comics and I don’t know what to do with them. The only comics I kind of want are the ones that are good that have virtually no chance of being collected. The rest I’d rather read from the library if they have them. It just feels like WORK to deal with any of it (I have to find a buyer, I have to decide on a fair price, I have to decide what I should keep, etc.) even though in my mind a tremendous weight would be lifted from my shoulders if I got rid of most of my comics.

Although I actually liked Byrne’s version of Clark Kent and actually think it makes more logical sense than the traditional depiction of Clark Kent, I respect your sacred cow and how important it is to you and many other Superman fans.

As for my comic related sacred cow, it involves Batman and it goes something like this: Batman does not kill and will not fire a gun for any reason. Yes, I know he used a gun in the early days before Bob Kane stole his origin from one of his writers and I know a Batman who kills might make more sense and is perfectly acceptable to the public, but for me, Batman is and always will the the grim avenger who protects without killing and without firearms.

As for your second sacred cow, right at this very moment I am trying to downsize an enormous comic collection that is filled with a lot of dreck that I bought due to inertia and have held on to due to memories and some insane notion of completion. I’m trying to get my collection down to just stuff I love and will actually read, not that I once read or that completes the collection. It’s tough, I have such memories of all this stuff, but my wife finally relented to my having a room in our house for my stuff and in trying to organize it, I realized I actually want a smaller collection with stuff I have read, will read again, and can be proud of, not the masses of boxes with stuff I haven’t read or would never read again. So I’m on my way–

For what it’s worth, I have a complete run of Deathstroke that I am having a hard time getting rid of because it will break up my Titans collection and I just got rid of all those Liefield X-Forces. I haven’t read either since publication in the 90′s and don’t particularly like either, so it’s not just you.

On the “body type” thing, Waid did a great job in explaining it away – always have Clark in bulky clothing, have him slouched over a bit. That, plus the glasses, plus the “he doesn’t wear a mask, ergo he’s Superman all the time” mistaken logic that I think gets credited to Byrne, is more than enough.

The nerdy Clark isn’t as important to me because I really like the idea that Clark grew into his powers instead of being able to juggle tractors while still in Pampers, and the logical fallout from that change means the nerdy Clark isn’t as sustainable since, well, everyone he’s been around for years knows he’s not really like that.

Frank Quitely actually made Clark Kent look convincing by having Superman change his posture entirely when in his civilian identity. That way, it would have been easy to look at the slumping, paunchy klutz reporter without thinking of Superman. If only other Superman artists had such incomparable storytelling skills, this wouldn’t be a problem.

Just realised that read weird – the logic that since Superman doesn’t wear a mask means he doesn’t have a secret ID is the false logic, not Byrne (or whomever) slotting the idea into the books.

If you keep books you don’t reread, you’re an idiot.

It took me decades to convince myself of this. My worst bout of idiocy in this regard involved the original run of Alpha Flight. I picked up that title for years after I had stopped enjoyed reading it. My reasoning went somewhere along the lines of ‘this book is so horrible, it’s gotta be up for cancellation shortly, so I might as well stick with it so I have the complete run’.

I gave up on the book around issue 80 or so. Marvel’s willingness to publish a truly crap book outlasted even my idiocy.

Thanks for this, Greg. I just completed a move too (and my fiance’s name is Julie…weeeeeird) and did some serious purging myself, with more to come. Two things I learned: (1) look at Robot 6′s “Show Us Your Shelf Porn” posts to generally feel not so alone in your fanboy-ish obsessive compulsion and (2) it’s really hard to get rid of comics. I don’t even mean selling them, which for much of what I got rid of would have been next to impossible. I had a hard time getting people to take them. Libraries, schools, prisons – all turned me down. Crazy, but true. I’m always open to anyone’s feedback on what to do with old floppies…

I don’t think I have a sacred cow any more, but this is a good one. I second Apodaca’s point – anyone who thinks you can’t make Clark look like a schlub needs to look at what Quitely did in ASS. Even his size can be used as part of the character, which really has to sell Not-Superman.

My geek sacred cow: I will defend Dark Knight Strikes Again and All-star Batman and Robin to the death. The Death I tell you. Nothing you say will ever change my mind on the artistic merits of those Frank Miller works.

I resisted this meme the first two times, but I can resist no more:

1. The Hulk never killed anyone.
2. Wolverine isn’t an Avenger.
3. The Joker is a mixed-up psychopath, but not a sadist.

As you can tell, it hasn’t been a good decade for Ole Matt.

[...] Alert Nerd: Our Scott and Jeans Phoning It In: “Trust Me!” Geeked: My Scott and Jean The Book Smugglers: That’s Our Scott and Jean Fantastic Fangirls: Q & A 22 – What is your “Scott and Jean”? Faust’s Fantastically Fantasmagoric Forum: My “Scott & Jean”: You Can’t Spell “Dark Knight Detective” Without “Dark” and “Detective” Love Dat Joker: Mad Love: My Scott and Jean Bill Wendel: My Scott and Jean: Stan Lee The ISS: My “Scott and Jean”: Waid and Wieringo’s Magic Dr. Doom Confessions of a Retconned Fangirl: My Scott & Jean: Or Leave My Hawks Alone! The Discriminating Fangirl: What’s Your Geek Sacred Cow? Ashley Awesome: newsflash: you are an idiot david brothers @ 4thletter!: My Scott & Jean: Knowing When To Let Go Jeff Lester @ The Savage Critics: My Scott, Your Jean: Jeff Takes A Quick Look at His Sacred Cows. Written World: Sir Gawain: Great Knight, or Greatest Knight? Those are your only choices. The Fount of Useless Information: Geek Apologetics: “My Scott and Jean” Nothing Challenging or Specific: Are you f*@$ing kidding me, Brett Ratner? My geek sacred cow… Suicide Aint’ a Viable Career Option: The Geek Sacred Cow aka my Scott and Jean aka Incoherent Ramblings Reporting on Marvels and Legends: My Scott and Jean The Secret of the Wednesday’s Haul: I’ll stick with you baby for a thousand years Comic Overload: Barry Allen is F’ING DEAD – DEAL WITH IT Clay Harrison: My Scott and Jean Comic By Comic: No Scott & Jean for me Gaming Angels: Made of Awesome: Dr. Strange Thunderdog: My “Scott and Jean” Issue: Magneto’s Un-Death The Nut and the Feisty Weasel: My Scott & Jean: Wasted Story Potential, Part I Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources (Brian Cronin): My Scott and Jean Once Upon a Geek: What’s Your Geek Sacred Cow But Before I Kill You: My Scott and Jean: Aquaman Is Awesome Whether You Like It Or Not Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources (Greg Hatcher): Friday with Scott and Jean and other s… [...]

I’ll take your sacred cow, and eat it on a bun with your milkshake too.

I despise wimpy Clark.

Was it non crazy Miller? Pre-jerk Byrne? who observed that whereas Bruce Wayne is the costume Bruce Wayne wears when he’s not fighting crime, Superman is the costume that Clark Kent wears.

The reason he’s the paragon of heroes is the “MAN”, not the “SUPER” (DC’s insistence that he be TEH BESTEST EVAH! not only wrecks other characters but Clark/Superman himself). He doesn’t need to be faster than the Flash, smarter than the Atom, more powerful than Martian Manhunter. It’s who he is, not what he does that makes him special.

Clark as wimp means that who he was raised to be isn’t important. That the Kents don’t matter, only the El’s. What a horrible story line that is..

Why don’t the people of Metropolis think that Clark Kent is Superman? Because Metropolis is a city of several million people. And he’s a journalist. How many journalists in your town do you know what they look like?

In that great photo montage, it took me until second glance to differentiate Brandon Routh and Christopher Reeve. It’s just creepy.

I’m only mostly with you about Clark. There’ve been some stories I really liked with Clark Kent, intrepid investigative journalist, from _Under a Yellow Sun_ to “Lois & Clark.” Clark shouldn’t seem physically tough. The Steve Lombards and Sam Lanes of the world should think they can push him around. If Clark goes around punching out Lexcorp’s security goons, then there’s not enough point to the secret identity. Sure, let him be clumsy and a bit of a dork. Let him be mild-mannered enough that he gets overshadowed as a personality in a room of alpha dogs like Perry White and Lois Lane. He shouldn’t be dominant.

But when I look back at the Lois-getting-mugged scene in Superman: The Movie, I find that I don’t miss *that* Clark. Clark should still be a good man, someone friends could admire for his integrity and for a kind of ordinary-human courage– because that’s the kind of son Jonathan and Martha Kent raised. A Clark who actually inspires contempt from those who should be his friends has gone beyond “mild-mannered,” and beyond what I think is necessary or appropriate for the character.

Agree with what people have been saying about Quitely, but more specifically, I think the brilliant thing is just coming up with the very idea of what I call “Fat Clark.”
Artists in the past either had him act timid & wimpy in spite of his size, or cheated by drawing Clark to look slighter, or went the Byrne route of “he’s clearly to fit for this ‘frail’ act.” I’m surprised it took so long for someone to hit on the idea that the only way to make someone that size look less than perfectly fit is to make them look fat.

Sure, let him be clumsy and a bit of a dork. Let him be mild-mannered enough that he gets overshadowed as a personality in a room of alpha dogs like Perry White and Lois Lane. He shouldn’t be dominant.

That actually would satisfy me. I don’t think we need to return to milquetoast Clark of the Siegel and Shuster era; those shots were just too funny not to use. Really, Rucka’s Clark from Adventures, or the guy Waid gave us in Birthright, would do.

Sorry, but I don’t feel that Brubaker did “make us all eat crow”. I don’t like the Winter Soldier, and I find the fundamental concept of bringing Bucky back to be so irritating and silly that every time he shows up, it’s like biting down on tinfoil. All of Brubaker’s attempts to convince me that he must be a real, serious bad-ass because he can take down the Red Skull, HYDRA, et cetera just make me believe that the Red Skull and HYDRA must have gotten a lot more pathetic lately because they just got beat up by Bucky.

Every time I see the character, I just stop. My suspension of disbelief just hits a brick wall, because Ed Brubaker has just asked me to believe that Grim-’N-Gritty-Cyborg-Assassin Bucky is a good idea that belongs in a well-written comic book. Honestly, I think in twenty years we’re all going to be looking back on this with faint embarrassment that we ever thought he was cool. (You know, like the way we feel about Rob Liefeld’s X-Force now. )

I’ve slowly been getting rid of comics I don’t want. Gave a bunch away at the “swap Shed” at the city dump, gave many to the library, gave some to my brother, and there is STILL a long box of books that I just want no part of, but I’m slowly getting there. There’s still a ton of other books I feel I need to keep because they’re too good not to, although I rarely get a chance to re-read them (i.e. the entire run of Alias, Deadpool/Agent X, many issues of Ultimate Spider-Man, some Optic Nerve issues, etc).

@ s1rude — If you’re looking to give away your comics and you live in a relatively large city, you might want to offer them on Freecycle. You can check freecycle.org to see if there’s a group in your area. Essentially, you make an offer of free stuff and then people e-mail you and you arrange for them to pick your stuff up. And of course there’s Craigslist.

“Honestly, I think in twenty years we’re all going to be looking back on this with faint embarrassment that we ever thought he was cool. (You know, like the way we feel about Rob Liefeld’s X-Force now. )”

No. I disagree with everything you say about the Winter Soldier makes me disagree with you on a molecular level, but that’s opinion; I think you are wrong a factual level to think anyone, at all, ever, will look back on anything Ed Brubaker’s ever done with the same level of embrassment as anything Liefeld has. That said, your tastes make you anti-me, so I’m used to it by now.

And good on the people who mentioned Quitely’s rendering of Clark. That issue where he interviews Luthor was especially great.

If there was anyone even remotely interested in a complete run of Brigade, don’t you think I would have dumped it on them by now?

I agree that Clark needs to be mild-mannered. That doesn’t neccessarily mean that he should be a total wuss, though. Mark Evanier had a great quote about the Byrne-era Clark (who was a successful journalist, novelist and had beautiful women throwing themselves at him) that was basically, “Why do I want to read about someone I feel inferior to in BOTH of his identities?” Smart guy, that Evanier.

And MAN, is there a lot of truth in only keeping the stuff you reread. I didn’t pare my comics & books down enough the last time I moved 6 years ago, and I’m paying the price for it now. Maybe I should just pretend I’m moving…

I’m trying to think of what my comic book sacred cows are. Here’s what I’m coming up with:

- Batman doesn’t kill. Neither does Catwoman.
- Selina Kyle was never a prostitute.
- Hal Jordan is not a drunk driver or a mass murderer (Kudos to Geoff Johns for fixing that!)
- Jean Grey, Elektra, the Green Goblin, Terra, Uncle Ben and Thomas & Martha Wayne are all DEAD.
- Wolverine’s past beyond Weapon X has not been revealed. Nor will it be.
- Magneto & Black Adam should be bad guys.
- Gwen Stacy never slept with Norman Osborn.

I’m sure I have others, but those are the ones I’ve got at the moment.

@John Seavey
Thank you! I can’t really comment on the quality of resurrected Bucky myself as I simply refuse to read the stories (so I guess Bucky being dead and Steve Rogers being the ONLY Captain America are sacred cows for me), but Brubaker’s X-Men work certainly left me unimpressed.

I was going to comment that Clark should be mild mannered but not a contemptible wuss but Jacob Levy said it better so I’ll leave at that. I was thinking though about the twist on the whole Superman-Clark thing that was done on Lois and Clark: it’s Superman who’s the act (it’s as Supes that he slicks his hair back ) while Clark is the more natural persona (he wears his hair more natural). Of course, Dean Cain was not Chris Reeve and Clark had more to do than Superman so this approach made sense within a weekly TV show. But in that series, Clark was friendly, affable..one might say mild mannered but still a man who would take action to help his friends or a person in need. (I also loved it when Clark, trying on the Superman outfit for the first time, comments that he should be wearing a mask, he’s worried about having his face out there, Martha says, “In the outfit, nobody’s going to be looking at your face.”)

And both “Bucky Barnes AND Jason Todd should stay dead” were two sacred cows that both got upended. One was done very well: Ed Brubaker built a solid foundation on which to bring back Bucky. And there was no body and the death was only in flashback presented in a way that we assume Bucky had to be dead. And good thing Bucky’s back cause now Steve Rogers is dead and Bucky’s there to fill his shoes.

And the other? Not so good: Superboy punch?! Really? That’s why Jason Todd is back? And his death occurred as part of a story (not a flashback) and Batman’s holding a dead body. And what purpose has Jason served since being brought back from the dead other than be a whiny SOB who’s hard on crime. (He could become Batman in June but there are others–Dick Grayson at the top of the list–who can step up to that role whereas there was a dearth of Cap replacements before Bucky’s return.)

Honestly, I think in twenty years we’re all going to be looking back on this with faint embarrassment that we ever thought he was cool.

Maybe. But I think the sales and the Eisner nominations for the Winter Soldier stuff still qualify as ‘fans eating crow’ considering it’s all based on an idea that would have gotten hooted out of the room in years past. I’m not one of those that thinks it’s THE BEST CAP EVAR!!! but I do think it’s pretty good, I think he made the idea work.

At any rate, I don’t think anyone ever suggested Rob Liefeld was Eisner material, not even at the height of his popularity.

@Dave Lane
“And good thing Bucky’s back cause now Steve Rogers is dead and Bucky’s there to fill his shoes.”

Isn’t that mixing up cause and effect? Looks to me that because because Brubaker wanted Bucky to fill Steve’s shoes the latter was killed off.

I only read the first year of Brubaker’s Cap and I kept wondering why he consistently wrote Steve as a clueless buffoon who couldn’t do anything right, while Soviet-cyborg-assassin-Bucky was always hyper-competent. ‘Why is he trying so hard to undercut his main character?’, I wondered. Now we know. I never cared whether or not they brought Bucky back, but I suppose my sacred cow would be “Captain America should not be a gun-toting Soviet-cyborg-assassin”. Is that now an extremist point of view?

well said Dave Lane re: Lois & Clark’s version of Supes/Clark. I too liked Martha’s explanation that no one will be looking at his face

I don’t really have any in story sacred cows as several previously held ones like Bucky beding dead have proved that if done right can be great.

I wholly agree about not keeping comics you don’t plan to read again. Ironically it sounds like my choices are almost the opposite of some people’s — I’ve been discovering how much more I enjoy the 90s comics, including 90s X-Men, especially when compared with the current present-day 616 continuity stuff (since mid-2004, basically). I love things like Wolverine: First Class and various alternate realities, but I don’t care for the mainstream Marvel books at all, for the most part. Even with all the foil covers and goofy “edgy” 90s costumes and sometimes awful character names, at least the characters in those 90s books were still basically heroes, and they hadn’t had all kinds of nihilistic garbage retconned into their backstories like Illuminati, Legacy, Wolverine Origins and such. So I’ve been developing a fondness for the 90s stuff at which, at the time, I turned up my nose, but now I see I didn’t know how good we had it then…

I’ll happily take some of that stuff off people’s hands if they have no other place to bestow it.

David

A Clark who actually inspires contempt from those who should be his friends has gone beyond “mild-mannered,” and beyond what I think is necessary or appropriate for the character.

I think that Clark the uber-nerd is a bit like mad scientist Lex in that nostalgia has colored the view a problematic concept. Siegel and Shuster drew a nerd-jock dichotomy and I personally love those early Superman stories. That said, even the earliest adaptations of Superman started softening the divide between the two identities. The Fleisher cartoons paint Superman as a jock, while Clark is more of a mensch than anything. George Reeves played Superman like he was your Dad and Clark Kent he was your aunt’s boyfriend. Chris Reeve played Clark like a nerd and Superman like a movie star. Byrne returned Superman to jock mode and wrote Clark, frankly, like a bit of a jackass. Dean Cain flipped the script played Clark like a jock and Superman like a Mormon missionary.

What I am trying to say is that over the years there have all kinds of different takes on what the two sides of the Man of Steel are. Some have worked for me and others haven’t, but it is not the fidelity to the jock-nerd divide settles it. Rather, it is the manner and quality of the characterization of Lois Lane. The key is believing she would find this take on Superman so appealing and this take on Clark so unappealing that she cannot imagine they are the same guy.

After all, most of Metropolis has no idea who Clark Kent is. That is the point. Clark is guy very much like literally hundreds of others you walk by every day in a big city, or a big company. It isn’t that he has lame disguise, it is that he blends in and people don’t really look at him. There are only a tiny handful of people who know him well at work that also know Superman: Lois, Jimmy and Perry. Of those, only Lois is truly important. John Hamilton always played it like Perry White basically knew that Clark was Superman, but chose not to make an issue out of it. That worked fine. Nearly everyone who has ever played Jimmy Olsen has chosen to depict him as not the sharpest crayola in the carton. That works fine as well.

I’ve got to say, I agree with the don’t keep what you don’t read thing, but I really don’t think the clone saga was as bad as everyone else makes it out to be. To be fair, living in the UK, I got it in reprint mags which printed it ll as one continuous story, in the right order (like they also did it with Maximum Carnage), but compared to all the other dross Marvel were putting out in the 90s (hem LIEFIELD hem), it was actually quite enjoyable (fantastically written? no, but the art was good and it was a reasonably fun idea, even if it did last a little too long).

[...] Greg Hatcher had a recent entry in the Comics Should Be Good blog here at CBR on the topic of his pe… [...]

Whatever happened to holding on to the things that matter to us? Comics have been a part of my life ever since I was nine, and an integral part of my upbringing. Carrying my boxes of comics with me remind me of a time and a mindset when anything was possible, and that all you had to do was believe something was true for it to be true. Comics remind me of that mentality, which is hard to hold on to in a generation full of cynical know-it-alls and a newer generation of “whatevers.” My comics stay, and to the gentlemen writing a tirade on carrying boxes…you’re getting old. Time to hit the gym and get that back in shape, and stop dumping on comics, and face the fact your inability to “keep up” is your problem and not the industry’s.