All-Star Superman #2 & 3

I mentioned earlier that I have pretty strong feelings about Grant Morrison. He gets full credit for getting me to start reading comics again, and The Invisibles is pretty much the comic that thoroughly hits pretty much all of my interests from age 14-28 (e.g., Robert Anton Wilson, Philip K. Dick, The Wicker Man, britpop, Terrence McKenna). I've read just about everything he's ever written (even the issues of Zoids), and really liked about 90% of it. I went to see him speak last year in Los Angeles, and most of the talk was taken up with discussing his upcoming take on Superman. Most of what he said has been covered elsewhere (I think there's a Newsarama interview out there somewhere), but it was certainly enough to get me interested in reading All-Staras soon as it came out.

The first issue met my expectations pretty nicely (though I still take issue with Superman letting the suicide bomber blow himself up, given GM's repeated insistence that the central characterization of Superman is that he never kills - which seems like not much of a distinction when it comes to superheroes). The following issues have been a little off, though, and I'm having a hard time putting a finger on what, exactly, is wrong with them.

I think a lot of it is the pervading sense of melancholy that's crept in with Supe's impending death. Maybe I misunderstood the concept of the series, but I had gotten the impression that the goal was to do something relatively fun and in the spirit of the Silver Age Superman stories (particularly the ones that were thinly veiled iterations of the writers' therapy sessions). Using Superman's fear of death as the main narrative element seems a little heavy; it seems to sort of take some of the fun away from all the goofy faux-Silver Age elements being chucked in.

Also, I'm not sure Morrison has the right grasp of repression and seething rage to handle the Silver Age Lois/Clark dynamic. The central argument in #2 boils down to:

"You win. I am exactly as you have always claimed."

"I don't believe you. This is another one of your traps."

That's not really an argument that usually arises in a fun, dating relationship. That's an argument that comes up after 20 years of marriage, full of resentment, bitterness, and spite, when both sides really hate each other, but can't quite give up and admit failure now that they've invested so much time in the relationship. It's not really a dynamic Morrison seems to be good at capturing. Much as I like his work, interpersonal romantic relationships aren't his strong suit - he can handle lust/first love and regret/loss pretty well, but once you get into Tennessee Williams territory, he seems a little over his head.

All of which isn't to say I'm going to stop buying the title - it's just not as fantastic as I was hoping.

Blue Beetle #1

Apologies for the slight delay. The attempt to read Infinity Inc. was more than a little ill-advised, but more on that later.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this new Blue Beetle series. I'm still more than a little upset at losing Ted Kord, but, I suppose if we have to have a new Beetle, I'm glad Giffen is writing him. I know there are some people who resent the JLI recasting of Ted as more of a comedic relief character, but there's some pretty solid charactization thrown in there among the wacky schemes.

Still, I remain torn by this new series. On the one hand, it is a Giffen-written Blue Beetle series. Featuring a largely Latino cast. And it's a teenager-centric series that is reasonably well-written (I can't remember the last teenager-centric series DC put out that had remotely believable teenager-ish dialogue. Stars and STRIPE?). On the other hand, there's really no reason this needs to be the Blue Beetle. The scarab really has very little connection to Dan Garrett's scarab. And the title seems to be becoming space-oriented now (though still magical, acc'd to Guy? I'm a little confused)

Really, the whole series seems like a retelling of Tech Jacket. Short teenage kid with enormous, goofy best friend and shop-owning blue-collar father, finds a thing that crashes from the sky, starts talking to him, and gives him some sort of exoskeleton. I'm not sure if Giffen is just all excited about Kirkman's writing that he wanted to try his hand at that kind of story or if there was a corporate edict to get in on that, but it does feel quite a lot like an attempt to do something like Invincible.

Which I'm not entirely opposed to. Giffen seems to be able to pull off the same sort of tone and dialogue in the low-key talky parts, and hopefully the non-talky bits (like this issue's fight with Guy) will improve. Still, I'll give it a few more issues to see where it's going.