The Wrap-Up Show: Action Comics #5

Hello hello! Friday's post on Morrison and Kubert's Action Comics #5 got our critics typing furiously -- so furiously, in the case of Scott Cederlund, that he was so spent after writing his contribution that he forgot to actually send it to your humble editor. So, with no further ado, because as Stan always noted, we've run all out of ado -- here's Scott's take on Action Comics #5.

Grant Morrison has already done the near-perfect version Superman’s origin story in All-Star Superman #1:

“Doomed planet.

“Desperate Scientists.

“Last Hope.

“Kindly Couple”

For the story we’ve no doubt seen countless times, Morrison and Frank Quitely reduced it down to eight words and four pictures. It reminded us of everything we needed to know about Superman. It’s not tied into any particular continuity or story but it’s so simple that it’s about all Superman stories. In that way, it made All-Star Superman a universal story. Anyone who knows anything about Superman could pick up that book and not have to worry about whether they were reading the Golden Age Superman, John Byrne’s reboot, Waid’s version of the story or Geoff Johns’s most recent retelling. Morrison created the platonic ideal of a “baby is sent away from an exploding planet to be found and raised by a farming couple.” Action Comics #5 does in 28 pages what Morrison slyly did in four panels.

The problem is that those four panels are expanded to the story beats in Action Comics #5 and they don’t even come together as a story. Slotted-in between the main story in issues #4 and #7, Action Comics #5 has the stink of an old-fashioned fill-in issue, complete with a story that has tangential ties to the rest of the series and a different artist. Morrison shows us these moments on Krypton and on earth that we’ve seen countless times without adding anything substantial to it. The costumes and the rocket look different. The Kent’s child-bearing problems are a bit more realistic and emotional but in a sense they were always implied. And in the end, mysterious, shadowy characters show up to tease us about future plot points.

In his book Supergods, Morrison describes Siegel and Shuster’s Superman as a socialistic hero a man trying to bring down the corrupt businesses of the late 1930s. He’s a hero of the people who isn’t actually of the people himself. He’s the perpetual outsider who’s strongest wish is to have the American dream life everyone wishes for. In Action Comics, Morrison has tried to recreate that version of Superman. This isn’t the Silver Age hero that he paid homage to in All-Star Superman and this isn’t any Superman we’ve seen in the last 40 years. This is a Superman who is going to be an American hero because he’s going to fight for the American people.

That’s where Morrison’s story started. Not with Brainiac and cities being stolen. Not with exploding planets and doomed races. Action Comics #1 started with Superman trying to force a confession out of a corrupt businessman. That doesn’t sound very super but I think Morrison knows that his Clark Kent isn’t Superman yet. Anyone can wear a t-shirt with the S-shield on it. I do it all the time. Morrison’s Superman is a primitive proto-hero and that’s the story that Morrison should be telling. Everything he’s done in the last three issues feel like Superman stories we’ve read countless times by Mort Weisinger, Curt Swan, John Byrne and Dan Jurgens.

In this last few years of political, economic and social upheaval in the United States, I think Morrison is on the right track in trying to redefine Superman. The 21st Century started out with a Superman that somehow tried to renounce any American citizenship and even was proclaimed as standing for “truth, justice and all of that other stuff.” But like the times when Superman was created, the “American way” is either corny, an anachronism or a lie depending on your views of the country. And how does the country’s #1 adopted son respond to that? That’s the story that it felt like Morrison was trying to tell in the first two issues of Action. How does the ultimate boy scout live in an era where the Boy Scouts are eventually sent overseas to fight wars that no one understands while those who stay home get rich and fat?

After only a couple issues of a 21st century Superman, Morrison falls back on retelling the stories we already know with Krypton and Kansas and Lex Luthor and Brainiac. Maybe that’s the new DC, the illusion of change and progress as the stories end up recycling everything we’ve seen before. We expect more out of Morrison though, don’t we? We expect to see some reinvention of these stories and these concepts but any changes in Action Comics #5 to the familiar origin are purely cosmetic and don’t add anything to the story that he has been telling. DC has become the masters of illusion with this revamp but it’s a thin illusion. Maybe if Morrison had shown us something we hadn’t seen before this issue would feel more significant but like the rest of Morrison’s Action run so far, it’s full of ideas and concepts that feel like they want to find a story to be a part of.

Buy Action Comics Vol. 1: Superman and the Men of Steel from Amazon.com.

The Wrap-Up Show - Thoughts on FMF: Criminal: The Last of the Innocent

Hello hello! We're skipping a new Flashmob Fridays post this week due to the busy holiday season (Boxing Day really wiped us out), but Christopher Allen has a few thoughts on last week's featured title, Criminal: The Last of the Innocent. Chris, take it away:

In Ed Brubaker's best work, one finds the theme of man trying to escape the sins of his past. We see this in early work such as Lowlife and Deadenders, up through Sleeper, the Winter Soldier/Bucky saga in Captain America, and other Criminal stories. In The Last of the Innocent, we find Brubaker exploring this theme once again, with the ambition and reach we would expect from a serious artist.

We meet Riley Richards, a man who finds himself stuck in a life that crushes his soul, even as it affords him all the material comforts he could want. He is married to a rich bitch named Felicia, and working for her father. The father-in-law is cruel, while Felix (her nickname) has a bit more dimension, although it appears what was once love is now curdling into pity, and maybe even that is draining away, as Riley discovers she is sleeping with his old school rival, Teddy. Riley comes back to his hometown when his dad is hospitalized, and it is there that he's reminded of simpler times, and a possible escape from his current predicament. His first sweetheart, Lizzie, is still there, beautiful as ever and still pining for him, while his best pal, Freakout, has now been sober for a full year. Riley concocts a plan to rid himself of Felix, while establishing a solid alibi, a fall guy, and a way to keep Felix' money, in hopes of soon running away with Lizzie and starting life anew.


The plot itself, while almost bulletproof (there are a couple moments where Riley unnecessarily arouses or inflames suspicions), is just the engine for Brubaker to delve into one of his more complex characters. In fact, Riley is made more complex by the shades Brubaker gives the supporting cast. Felix's dad is a heel but his pursuit of Riley is justified not just by love and grief but by Riley's actual guilt. Felix isn't all bad, and there is some implication that her betrayal of Riley was set in motion by Riley's failure to become the man she hoped he would become. Riley doesn't appear to have been prevented from becoming a better man; the opportunity was there, but instead he gambled and caroused rather than pouring his energy into either work or saving his marriage. Freakout is that fun, bad influence that many Brubaker characters have to either abandon or destroy in order to start their new lives. Except Freakout is different; he actually knows Riley better than anyone, and he was well on his way towards his own personal redemption before Riley set him back on his self-destructive course.

Aided by his best partner, Sean Phillips, Brubaker accessorizes this seedy melodrama with a series of one-page gag strips drawn in a style reminiscent of Archie Comics. And indeed, the characters themselves are stand-ins for Archie Andrews (Riley), Veronica/Ronnie (Felicia/Felix), Betty (Lizzie), Reggie (Teddy), and Jughead (Freakout), as well as amusing but not distracting nods to Moose, Mr. Weatherbee, and Valerie of Josie and the Pussycats. Brubaker has Phillips draw the gags in this similar, brightly colored style to emphasize how much simpler Riley's life was as a teenager, but he cleverly counters this conceit with the gags always revolving around either pain or seedy activity. Darker parodies of all-ages comics fare have been with us since Tijuana Bibles, so it's fortunate that Brubaker exercises restraint in their use here, and in fact, confining each flashback to a one page gag tends to sharpen his focus. However, while the Archie motif will certainly grab the attention of most fans, even those with only vague knowledge of Archie, what stood out for me was how sharp Brubaker's narration and dialogue was throughout the story. There is hardly a line or observation from Riley that doesn't reverberate with pain or self-loathing. We feel for Riley, up to a point, but his actions are unforgivable, particularly towards the innocent fool, Freakout, and so it makes Brubaker's seemingly happy ending all the better, because by now we know that Riley is the type of person who will find a way towards misery again.

Buy Criminal Vol. 6: The Last of the Innocent from Amazon.com.

The Wrap-Up Show - Thoughts on FMF: Kevin Keller #2

Hello hello! Welcome to the [FMF] Wrap-Up Show, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Flashmob Fridays, with commentary from our group of writers on how this week's feature came together, and how it turned out.

Alan David Doane:

"In the behind-the-scenes discussion for this week's edition of Flashmob Fridays, I suggested that having a gay character in Riverdale and addressing very topical issues like gays in the military and gay marriage were inherently political. Upon further reflection, though, I think my biggest disappointment with this comic is that it is so profoundly apolitical. It doesn't seem to have anything to say about anything at all." -- Yan Basque

When I chose Kevin Keller #2 for our second Flashmob Fridays (you'll pardon the pun) outing, I'll admit as an editor I was attempting a zig-zag away from the expected; we started off with reviews of Mark Waid's generally-recognized-as-excellent Daredevil, and I suppose it would have been really, really easy to go from there to some well-regarded New 52 title from DC, assuming any of them rise to the level of well-regarded, which I'm not entirely convinced of. But with an openly gay writer onboard our FMF team, and another who is a regular reader/reviewer of Archie Comics, I knew I could count on at least a couple of really interesting takes on a fairly significant contemporary comic book, Kevin Keller.

In looking back on the published reviews, I think we all mainly agreed about the basic good of having a gay Archie character vs. the non-good (it's debatable whether it descends to the level of harmful or not) inherent in the toothlessness of it all. Yan Basque really honed right in on that aspect and conveyed perfectly the dilemma Archie's writers and artists have in trying to faithfully depict a true gay character in a universe of cheerfully sexless American icons. I don't mean to be condescending in saying I wanted the perspective of a gay writer in talking about this issue and this character -- I asked Yan to join us on FMF because I have admired his writing about comics for many months -- but I think he really brought some welcome depth and frankness to the subject. That said, I can't think of many more important issues facing the world today than diversity and acceptance of all kinds of people, and I am glad Archie is trying, but I, too, like Yan, and like most of the rest of the FMF team, wish the end result felt a little more real, a little more convincing, and a little more important to the ongoing dialogue.

Johnny Bacardi:

I didn't get anything together; I was deathly ill [the night of the deadline]. It's just as well; I couldn't really think of anything to say about it other than while it's good to have any sort of positive examples of gay people in comics, as a comic that's some weak sauce. Bland art, too concerned with staying on that Stan G./Al Hartley/DeCarlo model and doing so very stiffly and super-obvious and a super-careful script with a lead that is so carefully crafted to be NICE and LIKEABLE that he comes across as too good to be true.

I read my share of Archie comics growing up; in the '60s I really liked the Pureheart the Powerful stuff, but, like Gold Key and Harvey comics they were always second and third fiddle to the Marvel and DC stuff. Several years later my wife would buy the occasional digest at the grocery, which of course I would read, since, well, they were comics. Comics my wife bought! But overall, I've never been particularly interested or excited by Archie comics, and while I commend their forward thinking the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

Hey, that reads like a review, doesn't it?

Chris Allen:

I guess when all is said and done, Archie Comics deserves a bit of credit for introducing a gay character to squeaky clean, asexual Riverdale. Maybe it was a gimmick, maybe it was just the cold calculation of realizing there must be some sort of gay demographic they weren’t previously reaching, or maybe someone just recognized that Riverdale needed to reflect a bit of our reality, however sanitized and forced through the typical Archie filtering.

To start picking at Kevin Keller for not having a sexual life, or encountering real trauma and hatred for being openly gay, is to really just start pulling at the thread that holds all of Archie Comics together. None of these characters are meant to be real people. They’re stuck in high school, don’t have sex, don’t get in any kind of trouble with their parents, the law, or substance abuse. Moose is likely never going to have a career-ending football injury. The Lodges won’t lose their house due to poor investments. Archie won’t watch his mother die. Jughead won’t get diabetes. And Kevin Keller will probably not be seen with his tongue in another guy’s mouth.

For the record, I’m only rooting for that last example to happen. So I think we can take this one issue on its own as a well-intentioned effort that suffers from being too nice. It’s hard to appreciate the struggles of an openly gay teen like Kevin (whose father was also not around a lot when he was growing up) when those struggles are unrealistically soft, and overcome so easily. It’s a little like superhero comics when they try to tackle real world issues like war and hunger. There’s probably a way to do it that doesn’t seem pat, awkward or stupid, but it would take time and a great deal of sensitivity and talent. Likewise, I’m not sure Dan Parent is the writer, or Archie Comics the publisher, to explore anything close to a three dimensional gay character in their light, humorous escapist comics. On its own, there isn’t a lot to recommend the book. It’s inevitable that one sees it as a starting point towards something a little deeper, but expectations have to be pretty low that that will happen.

Buy Kevin Keller HC from Amazon.com.