Day: April 18, 2008

Today I purchased two more issues from the Bronze Age, which is good.  I hadn’t really planned on focusing on the my Superman want list but after starting this blog t just kind of worked out that way.

BTW- My Superman want list is made up of my current Superman collecting goal, which is to have every issue of Superman, Action Comics, World’s Finest, Superboy and the Legion of Super Heroes, Supergirl, Superman Family, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen from 1971 until today.  I’m even throwing in Justice League of America for good measure.  It may seem a little insane, but I have a near complete run from 1976 until today so it is achievable and if I’m smart about it and stretch it out over time I can achieve my goal and once I’m done I’m sure that I’ll be satisfied.

Or I’ll start with every Superman book from 1960 until now.  It’s a fifty/fifty shot really.

Today I picked up two books which if I had paid the sticker price would have set me back thirty-two bucks but the shop owner knocked it down to an even twenty.  First up is Superman Vol. 1 #235.

I like this cover and I really don’t know why.  Maybe because it is different than a lot of the other covers of the era.  Usually there would be one dynamic image and here is a series of images, almost like an interior page.  It does draw attention, though, which important for a good cover.  Next up is Superman Vol. 1 #236. 

Now that’s a creepy cover.  I mean seriously.  Images of Hell aren’t ones I normally associate with Superman, which is why this particular cover works so well. 

I wonder if this issue scared little kids back in the seventies.  That would be pretty cool.

So two more to cross off the want list, which is very satisfying.

More to follow…

I’m a big fan of Power Girl.

I like her.  I like her a lot actually.  Despite the rather two-dimensional quality to her personality when she was first introduced Power Girl was still the cousin to the Earth-2 Superman and was very different from her Earth-1 counterpart.  This Last Daughter of Krypton would not be secondary to her cousin.  She would be her own woman, her own character.

Yeah, she was and is stacked like the library of congress, but that wasn’t the draw for me.

No really.  It wasn’t.

I swear.

There are certain characters that exist in the DC Universe (I spent nineteen years calling it that and still haven’t broken the habit) that have gotten what I consider a seriously raw deal.  Whether it is gross mismanagement or poor decision making on the part of the creative staff or myopic ideas that capcise the character into a sea of crap there are some heroes and villains that just get screwed over on a regular basis.  Power Girl is one of those characters.  After the Crisis on Infinite Earths it seemed that DC just didn’t know what to do with her.  So they made her the granddaughter of Arion and then stuck her in two of the ugliest costumes ever and then she had a baby and then the baby ages rapidly and on and on and on.  The only bright spot came when she joined the Justice Society in JSA.  Things started to get back on track.  The character was being treated with the respect she deserved.  Then came the news that Geoff Johns and the very talented Amanda Conner were going to write a Power Girl story for a new title called JSA Classified and that her origin was finally going to be revealed. 

And what was the real history of Power Girl?

That she was the cousin to the Earth-2 Superman and the Last Daughter of that Krypton.

Brilliant.  Simply brilliant.

So you would think that after that arc and Infinite Crisis things would turn around and to a certain extent they have.  Geoff Johns has continued to do great things with the character in Justice Society of America up to and hopefully including the upcoming Justice Society of America Annual that looks to be all about some awesome. 

And then they announce that she’s getting her own series, which is good.

And in the same announcement they tell us that the writers on the book are going to be Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, to which I say this.

I am not the biggest fan of Palmiotti and Gray.

In fact I think they’re pretty terrible.

And now these two supposed writers are going to be in charge of Power Girl.

Sigh.

First they (DC, not Palmiotti and Gray) completely screw up Supergirl and now they’re going to do the same to the other Kara.

Oh well, Amanda Conner is doing the art, which is fantastic.  And it could be good, but I am not counting on it.

More to follow…