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some casual reading When I pulled myself up from the couch this afternoon, I walked over to the patio window and peered between the blinds. A soft gentle snow was coming down and I was happy to be awake to see it. ... I feel compelled to post a small warning in front of the remainder of this entry. Most of today was spent reading comics and I just have to comment on some of what I read. I have a feeling that for most people this will seem completely boring if not overly self indulgent, but twenty-two pages of escapist fiction can really make me happy and I want to talk about it. This concludes my warning. Marvel might be making movies and getting more public exposure, but DC is putting out better comic books in my opinion. The latest two issues of Superman / Batman were amazing. Once I reached the final page of issue sixteen, I actually spoke out loud because I was so impressed even though there was no one else around to hear me. When a story can get that kind of reaction out of me then I know that it is good. Jeph Loeb and Carlos Pacheco hit some major chords with the first two segments of a story arc called Absolute Power. The story starts with dual narration with one of the voices belonging to Superman and the other one to Batman. The two of them are telling the very familiar origin stories of each other, but with slightly different endings to them. Both stories end with some new figures in the scene taking the young boys away from their parents. Suddenly Jonathan and Martha Kent no longer raised baby Kal-El and named him Clark. Nor did Alfred raise a young Bruce Wayne after Bruce saw his parents killed. Instead of these somewhat more traditional families, both of the boys were raised by Saturn Woman, Lightning Lord and the Cosmic King and given less than ideal moral codes. Yes, all these of those names sound very dated if not silly, but what the three of them do to shape Bruce and Clark is fantastic. Without any real sense of right or wrong, the two of them end up as rulers of the Earth. In many ways having Superman and Batman as rulers of the world makes sense. Why should someone with the amount of power and skill that they have at their disposal work for the good of others? Is human nature really that pure? Most people would probably say no. Now this isn't a new idea by any standard and has been seen before in various forms, but Loeb and Pacheco still make it work for me. Seeing Wonder Woman kill Batman by stabbing him in the chest with a sword is an image that I will not forget any time soon. Superman strangling Wonder Woman with her own magic lasso on the following pages was just as powerful. Now I suspect that many people would see this as completely mindless and not something that should be found inside a comic book, but I disagree. Comic books have long grown beyond the audience of children and the creators of these books know that this is true. Besides in the end we the reader are told that this was one possible outcome and not the final one. An older version of Superman is seen standing next to Metron discussing what they just saw happen. Superman is not happy and is going to travel back in time to correct the problem. |