Before we get into our discussion about Action Comics #894, I figure some background information is probably necessary. Pretty much two years worth of spoilers lie ahead… You’ve been warned.

The Superman books have had a weird few years.  What with him not appearing in any of his ongoing titles during the New Krypton storyline, and now with superstar writer J. Michael Straczynski taking over Superman and deciding that the perfect follow up to that storyline is to have Superman walk across America as if he were Forest Gump or something. Of course if you’re going to have Superman just walk for however long that garbage is going to go on, you certainly don’t need multiple books chronicling it. As a result, Superman remains absent from his original flagship title Action Comics, and that book now stars Lex Luthor.

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Those of us who have enjoyed reading comics for most of our life have been blessed with a decade of comic book movies. By the end of next year, with the exception of a few DC headliners,  every major comic book character will have been turned into a major motion picture and licensing opportunity. We’re blessed… Except almost every one of those movies is cringe-inducing. (I’m 99 percent sure PTB doesn’t agree with this assessment, but bear with me.)

I’m not saying there aren’t nice moments in almost all of those films. I’m not saying I don’t line up to see most of them. It’s fantastic to see Superman stop a crashing airplane, but yet another Lex Luthor real estate scam? It’s moving to see the X-Men battle intolerance, but the wacky battle atop the Statue of Liberty to stop Magneto from turning everyone into a mutant? I digress… Comics don’t translate well into films largely because one of the major appeals of comic books is their serial nature. Three X-Men or Spider-Man films in a decade (1.5 watchable ones of each) cannot recreate that serial experience, but it’s been clear to me for years that a television series probably could. The problem is that the only example we’ve had to test this theory during last decade or so is Smallville…

At least until last night’s debut of The Walking Dead.

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Welcome back for our ongoing discussion of DC Comics‘ Brightest Day series. As these posts have begun to pile up, we’ve created a new hub to access previous issues and even some of the things we had to say about Blackest Night. Brightest Day #12 is all-Martian all the time, which proves you can’t judge a book by its cover (unless it’s the variant cover).

Spoilers to follow.

PTB: I’m not so crazy about the cover this time around. It has nothing to do with the art, it’s more about the use of text. “DEATHSTROM RETURNS!” From where? He’s been in nearly every issue including the last one.

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Welcome back again for our semi-bi-weekly discussion of DC Comics‘ Brightest Day series. Issue 11 focuses on Aquaman and Firestorm with a few pages dedicated to the Martian Manhunter. We also manage to bring DC’s Earth One graphic novel series, a Doctor Who episode from 1975 and Death herself into the mix.

Spoilers will follow…

PTB: I guess the cover lets us know that the Black Lantern Firestorm isn’t unique to the story. While we’re talking about him, what do you think of his new name “Deathstorm”?

KevinMLD: I’m not a fan yet. It just reminds me of this terrible Dick Grayson-from-the-future storyline that ran in Titans in the ’90s. I don’t know what all the details ended up being, but basically this guy who claimed to be the future Nightwing was evil and called himself Deathwing. It was horrendous. Here’s a picture of his extreme costume courtesy of the seriously amazing TitansTower.com website. If you’re at all curious about the Titans, you can spend hours there.

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This year’s New York Comic Con came and went this weekend (10/8/10-10/10/10), and this is a tough one to write up. In a word, it was overwhelming. I want to say I had a good time, but I don’t know that I came away from it with the experience that I was looking for. Thankfully, that wasn’t true for everyone here at MLD, and I did come back with a lot to write about.

The Show

Saturday was impossibly crowded. Reports indicate that 97,000 people attended the show throughout the weekend and it felt like every one of them was in the same aisle (Evan Dorkin sums it up well here). Attendees reported waiting up to an hour to get into the building and even to get into some of the panels. Both Saturday and Sunday were reported as “sold out,” but I’m not sure that point reflects a reasonable number for that space. Combining the show with the Anime Festival may have just been too much.

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