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Tom's Weekly Rant
“Clark Kent Isn’t Real”
Ask me what my favorite comic book is right now (ask me what it’s been for the past 4 years) and the answer will come back – 100 Bullets. Ask me who my favorite superhero is and I’ll tell you that I’ve been a Superman fan for 14. Who’s the best writer in comics today you say? Well it has to be Brian Azzarello, hands down. Who’s art constantly blows everyone away? Hands down, Jim Lee. So if someone were to take all of my prior statements and try and come up with some sort of equation for it, they’d come up with something like this…
Brian Azzarello + Superman + Jim Lee = The most anticipated run by a writer and
artist on any title ever.
So as you can imagine I was over the moon when I read that starting with issue 204 of the current Superman series this would be the creative team. For a year, a whole year. I was ecstatic, I couldn’t contain myself. Now a lot of people gave Azzarello flack for his run on Batman saying that the dialogue was too stylized and reading the comics as single issues proved way too hard to follow. Well I say to them, too bad. Azzarello is one of the best writers in the industry for exactly this reason. Anyone who has read 100 Bullets can attest that the comic reads well in trade form, but the monthly cliffhangers have fans of the series typing away on their computers, discussing with fellow fans on message boards for 30 days a month. Azzarello’s dialogue is spot on and that is something I rate highly with writers. Jim Lee on the other hand was DC’s golden boy at the time that the series was announced. Just coming off a year long run of Batman, the man showed to all the naysayers that he was back to claim the title of best artist in the world. I defy someone to argue with this line; Jim Lee is the best comic book artist ever.
Well we are 9 issues into their planned 12 issue run and the critics have come out. Some have trashed the run saying the only reason that it is selling well and people are buying it is for the art. You know what I used to buy comics for the art…WHEN I WAS 9. But there are others who are praising the current run. Saying it has a vibe that has never been felt in a Superman comic, or if it has it’s been a very long time. This is the side of the fence that I sit on.
I’m sure most of you have seen the now famous (or infamous) speech by Bill (portrayed by David Carradine) at the end of Kill Bill Vol. 2. If you haven’t I’ll sum it up for you (SPOILER ALERT). Bill basically tells the Bride (Uma Thurman’s character) that although she left him to pursue a life without death and evil when she woke up in the morning she was always going to be one of his assassins and the life she led would be a lie, or a disguise if you will. He used the paragon of Superman to show her what he was talking about. And from that I believe that Quentin Tarantino gave the idea (or gave it back, depending on how you look at it) to many comic creators to return Superman to his roots. BTW if DC really wanted to gain some momentum in this whole war with Marvel they should approach Tarantino for a run on Superman, cause the boy can write…and if he turns it down? C’mon DC you guys are owned by Time Warner, bring him the money truck.
Besides the religious overtones in the book, Azzarello has managed to take the idea of Superman as the character and Clark Kent as the disguise and re-introduce it into the world of Big Blue. The moniker Big Boy Scout no longer applies to Superman. Just to take one example from the run, in issue 209 Superman is faced with task of bringing down the Elementals (a group of 4 forces of nature that consist of the elements: air, water, earth and fire). Playing his trump card Superman threatens them by telling them that they may proceed and kill all human life but he would still be there. And when they were down wiping everybody out he would raze the earth, dry the oceans, and burn away the air. Yes you are reading this properly, Superman threatens them by saying, “kill everyone but I will still be here”. Superman does not say things like this, yet there it was a plain as day. Now this is not your parents Superman, I can tell you that much.
Superman is a strange visitor to this land. He is not of the earth, and while he might have adopted its ways and traditions he is still an alien. Someone once asked me what I thought if Brian Bendis took over Superman and at first I thought that it was a killer idea, flush out the human side of Superman. But then I realized Bendis would never succeed in the eyes of many fans because he’d be writing Peter Parker with Superman’s powers. Superman isn’t human.
Tom.