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.

Read more of this article »

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.

Read more of this article »