Super-Powered Comics: Diamond Destinations June 2010 (for August)

Not the cover to Guardians of the Globe

p. 68: Superman Earth One HC: First announced around New Years, DC finally brings one of its two Earth One books to fruition. This hardcover by the team of J. Michael Straczynski (also the regular Superman writer) and Shane Davis promises to recreate the origins of the Man of Steel for the twenty-first century. I don’t know quite what to expect here. We have had at least three different origins of Superman in the last twenty-five years, and that’s not counting Smallville. But we will see how this “Ultimate” Superman takes off in the long run.

p. 87: Superman: The Last Family of Krypton #1 (of 3): Outside of surprise to see Elseworlds back at DC, I am excited to see more Cary Bates comic writing. The classic Superman scribe and more recent writer of Marvel’s excellent True Believers has shown that he has really stepped up his A-game in recent years. it will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

p. 145: Dungeons & Dragons #0: IDW has picked up the D&D license now and I have no idea how good or bad it will be. But I do know one of the two universes they are debuting is a new Dark Sun book (to tie in to the re-release of the setting this year). Dark Sun is easily the most original (and over-powered) D&D setting ever and I am excited to see it in comic form for the very first time.

p. 168: Guardians of the Globe #1 (of 6): Robert Kirkman finally gives Invincible’s super-team a brand spanking new book of their own. With co-writer Benito Cereno and artist Ransom Getty, I trust these characters are in good hands. Now if we can just get an ongoing....

p. 172: Morning Glories #1: Nick Spencer really impressed me with his recent series Forgetless and this series about a private academy with hidden secrets and the six troubled kids that must unlock them looks to be one of the most promising new comics of the year.

p. M34: Avengers & The Infinity Gauntlet #1 (of 4): Normally a retelling of the Infinity Gauntlet as an all ages title would probably not appeal to me. But when written by Brian Cevinger (Atomic Robo) and drawn by The Anchor’s Brian Churilla, my interest rises. And unlike most Marvel limiteds, this one still runs only $3, so I’ll be sure to pick it up.

p. M44: Shadowland: Power Man #1 (of 4): I know nothing about this new Power Man, though his costume reminds me a little too much of Rocket Racer for my taste. Still the creative team of Fred Van Lente and Dynamo 5’s Mahmud Asrar has potential. Unfortunately for my budget, the book runs $4.

p. M71: Namor: The First Mutant #1: I have been a big Namor fan ever since I discovered John Byrne’s book in 1990, followed shortly by back issues of Invaders. Normally, I would be all fired up for a new book starring the character. But his new X-universe book written by Stuart Moore, a solid but as yet unimpressive writer to this reader, and drawn by Ariel Olivetti, an artist whose current style I am less than fond, dampens my mood a little bit. The $4 price tag doesn’t help much either.

p. 252: Dracula: The Company of Monsters #1: Boom continues its attempts to expand its marketshare with this series developed and plotted by Kurt Busiek. The high concept is that it’s Dracula vs an evil corporation. If actually scripted by Busiek, I would almost certainly give this one a try despite the somewhat tired concept. Instead I’ll probably be giving this 4 buck book a once over at the store first.

p. 264: The Last Phantom #1: Dynamite’s take on Lee Falk’s Phantom debuts this month. And outside a lackluster cover by Alex Ross(!), I see very little to sell me on this book. I’m honestly a little disappointed to see the company let this book’s debut go so unheralded.

My costume is blood! I'm so 90's!

p. 298: Airfighters #2: Just when I was afraid we had seen the last of this great anthology book, Moonstone gives me issue two. Let’s hope it is 72 pages of awesome just like issue one.

p. 360: “Multiple Mang” t-shirt: Is this the first time Madrox has had a t-shirt, at least in this design, the same as the characters regular t-shirt. If so, isn’t that really strange?

p. 436: DC Adventures RPG: Hero’s Handbook: DC returns to table-top RPGs and it does so with the Mutants & Masterminds game system. I still am known to play the occassional game of the classic DC Heroes game from Mayfair, so I am more than interested in this combination of my two favorite super-hero RPGs.

p. 437: Smallville RPG Core Rulebook: And the same month the DCU gets a new RPG, the CW series based on the Superman mythos gets its own game as well... from a completely different publisher. Margaret Weis Productions brings this game to the market. They are known for high production values, and it should be interesting to see how they play out the show’s combination of superheroes and normal mortals.

Pulp-Powered Comics: Airfighters #1

After a so-so revival of Airboy early last year, Moonstone finally presented the follow-up, their anthology Airfighters. The book clocks in at sixty-two pages of black and white classic flying action with revivals of eight different flying heroes of the thirties and forties. Well worth the $5.99 cover price in this author’s opinion.

Chuck Dixon continues his return to Airboy in “Iron Rain”.The twelve page story proves to be a rather disappointed done-in-one adventure of the hero fighting Nazis. But the greatest oversight is the lack of Valkyrie in the story despite her appearance on the great cover by Tom Grindberg.

Tom DeFalco’s Flying Fool takes a novel look at the genre, but tales of the Flying Dutchman and Iron Ace prove a little more lackluster.

The Bald Eagle tale’s conclusion clearly takes the character in a direction never used before, but only subsequent stories really will tell us how good the new Bald Eagle might be.

Ver Curtiss provides some stunning art to Martin Powell’s Black Angel, which gives us a slightly more heart warming story of beating back the Nazis.

Sky Wolf takes the biggest departure from the original character, or at least the version of that character I know from Eclipse’s Airboy series. The art by Oscar Celestini is unique, but quite solid. Unfortunately the character and his story seem rather flat in comparison to the exploits of the aforementioned Airboy-backup star.

The book concludes with what is clearly the best tale: Captain Midnight by Christopher Mills (Femme Noir) and Rick Burchett (Batman Adventures). While by no means an Eisner contender, the short takes the classic radio hero and shows just how exciting his swashbuckling adventures can be, even in eight pages. He drops in to the Aztec jungle, stops the Nazi plot, and swings out in the company of a beautiful damsel in distress. The series works on an adventure serial level to absolute perfection while avoiding the typical European setting of far too many Nazi stories.

All in all, I rate Airfighters #1 as a great package. Hopefully we will see another one from Moonstone Books soon. Recommended.

Random web super-heroics

So I have not been posting, mostly do to being far too busy with the baby and need of sleep. But I figured I would throw up a few links to other quality superhero bits and pieces over the last few days:

Matthew Killorin’s Capes on Film is running his Must Haves For Any Cape Movie.

nurgh has been posting Valkyrie pin-ups here, here, and here. One day I will go in to my love of the eighties Airboy book.

The Invincible Super-Blog is currently covering/mocking Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose. Even more fun than puzzling out an issue yourself!

Finally, Swanshadow gives us an amazing Steve Rude pin-up featuring Thor and Isis