Looking at comics today, it really all started with Superman. From the moment he smashed that coupe on the cover of Action Comics #1, comics, one of the two truly American art forms, came into its own. Everything, from the rise of indie webcomics to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, owes it to the Big Blue Boy Scout. So, of course, the one-thousandth issue of Action Comics, arriving today from DC, is a special occasion, in more ways than one.
The book features a huge number of Superman legends and DC stars, among them Dan Jurgens, Curt Swan, Paul Levitz, Neal Adams, Geoff Johns, Richard Donner, Louise Simonson, Jerry Ordway, Paul Dini, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, as well as the much-hyped arrival of Brian Michael Bendis. All of them contribute stories ranging from Superman being awkward at an event in his honor to a musing on what family means to a man who can never die.
The underlying theme, though, is that Superman isn’t a pair of fists, but a heart. It’s easy to write Superman off as too simplistic a character, but these stories all, in ways large and small, underscore that why we love Superman because he leads by example. If he can solve a problem by talking or thinking, he will. He cares about everyone, because he’s just that decent. In its own way, Action Comics #1000 is united by the theme that none of us reading can lift cars or stop trains with our bare hands, but we can learn, listen, think and care. And that’s the most important way we can be like Superman.
Ms. Marvel #29, Marvel
After some heavy drama, G. Willow Wilson and Nico Leon bring Kamala and her friends back to normal. The only problem is that this is “teenage” normal, so everybody gets the wrong idea about everything, everybody kisses the wrong person, everybody crushes on the worst people, and, oh yeah, the new mean girl is a lot scarier than she seems. Joking aside, this issue is something of a breather after the heavier arcs Kamala has been dealing with, but it doesn’t set aside the emotional baggage Kamala has racked up, and it underscores Wilson and Leon’s skill at brisk, witty storytelling.
Black Hammer: Age Of Doom #1, Dark Horse
Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston return to their deconstruction/affectionate parody of superhero comics by jumping to a new era. Before, Black Hammer was satirizing the Silver Age while also looking at the real human effects of being jerked around through time, watching your friends die, and ultimately winding up stranded on a farm with no escape. Now, with the new Black Hammer accidentally escaping the farm our former superheroes are trapped on, Lemire and Ormston tackle the gritty comics of the ’80s and ’90s. Some of this is cuttingly funny; Ormston in particular has a dry sense of humor about this era. But it’s also an interrogation of why we love dark stories so much, and reminds us why we missed this book even when it was only gone for a short while.
Her Infernal Descent #1, Aftershock Comics
Lonnie Nadler, Zac Thompson and Kyle Charles take an old idea, retelling Dante’s Inferno, and give it a fresh twist. It’s not some quailing academic or punk walking through hell with a poet guide, but a woman who’s lost her family, suddenly, painfully, and just wants to say goodbye again. There’s a lot here that’s fun if you’re into Dante’s classic poem, not least the note-perfect stand-in for Virgil, but wisely Nadler and Thompson, center the tale on our heroine. This is as much a story about grief as it is about hell, and Charles’ version of metal album hell pales next to the opening pages of a trashed house littered with half-full boxes, sympathy cards, and an atmosphere of grief.
Mad Magazine #1
The beloved satire magazine gets relaunched with a fairly bold reinvention of what it means to be a satire rag in a world where a game show host is President and a movie you were ripping on back in the ’70s is up to its eighth sequel. The transition feels not entirely voluntarily; it’s easy to forget “the usual gang of idiots” are all decades-long institutions. And in some ways, this is very much the Mad you remember: It opens with a movie parody, there’s a fold-in, and so on. But also it’s not: Some of the magazine’s angrier comedy, which it’s largely kept to social media, jumps to the page here. And like any swing for the fences, there are hits and misses, but when it hits, it hits hard, and more than ever, we need Mad, if only to remind us of the absurdity of the world.
Skyward #1, Image Comics: Joe Henderson and Lee Garbett execute a premise that’s oddly delightful: What if the world lost all its gravity? How would society change?
Fence #5, BOOM! Studios: C.S. Pacat and Johanna The Mad have pulled off the seemingly impossible: They’ve translated all the joys and drama of a good sports movie to the page.
James Bond: The Body #4, Dynamite: Ales Kot and Eoin Marron explore the human, emotional side of Bond in what’s been a rich and often brilliant take on the spy, as he bonds with a woman while waiting for an assassin to come after him.
Mister Miracle #8, DC Comics: Tom King and Mitch Gerads explore what work/life balance means when you have a baby at home and a job far away. That the job is a seemingly endless war of the gods, it turns out, is almost beside the point.
X-Men Gold #26, Marvel: Marc Guggenheim and David Marquez start the ball rolling on Kitty Pryde and Colossus’ wedding, and needless to say, things go wrong amusingly fast.
This Week’s Best Collections
Cyanide And Happiness: A Guide To Parenting By Three Guys With No Kids, BOOM! Studios ($10, Softcover): In case you were wondering if three guys who wrote a book called Punching Zoo might ever make good parents the answer is no, no, they won’t. But they can write tasteless comedy like nobody else.
The American Way: Those Above And Those Below, DC Comics ($17, Softcover): John Ridley’s exploration of the civil rights struggle via superheroes has a sequel that sets aside the broad metaphors for a more emotionally complex, but not less thrilling, take on American racism, past and present.
Fight Club 2, Dark Horse ($20, Softcover): Chuck Palahniuk brings Cameron Stewart along for a sequel to his beloved novel that both stays in the absurd spirit of the original while offering some commentary on just what pop culture has turned Tyler Durden into.