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Review: Action Comics #42

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ac042With the Truth segment of this Superman crossover finished after one month, the story now moves on to Justice, a change of some sort which is not immediately evident to the reader.   The move to deconstruct Superman to show that he is super beyond his powers is an intriguing venture, but thus far there has been very little of a unified approach as to how he is being portrayed.  The somewhat directionless approach has spilled over into four different series, but with each one set in a different time and place with different stakes on the line, and so it makes what is going on a bit hard to grasp.

The heart of the story line can be likely tied to Action Comics.  Superman-Wonder Woman and Superman-Batman looked at his relationship with those two heroes, and the main Superman book seemed a bit hesitant to get into the new Superman, Action Comics has thus far been responsible for the setup and delivery of most of the differences.  AS was previously shown, Superman returns to Metropolis, mostly powerless and faces against a police force that is tired of cleaning up after him, and yet also a group of citizens who stand by him for all that he has done.  As a shadow beast attacked the neighborhood, he was forced to intervene, and the two groups, both pro- and anti- faced off.  This is the followup to the first issue of this arc, where Superman attacks the shadow beast, and where the citizens face off against the police.  The battle with the shadow beast is fun enough, especially as Superman realizes that he can’t do everything that he used to, but the protests of the citizens come up a bit empty.  In a story with a superpowered alien fighting a shadow beast, it is the protest which comes off as the most unlikely part of the story.

Stories from the big two comic publishers often have a problem of avoiding controversy.  Four years ago the Occupy Wall Street movement took off and caused some people to reconsider what they took for granted as the system in place in North America for economics, and now finally DC has gotten around to its own demonstration, though this one is seemingly self-aware.  It should be said that the plot point of superheroes getting sued is one which should probably never be breached in comics.  Just like their fantastical powers which defy most of what we know of science, it is a state of being in the superhero world that superheroes are not responsible for their damage, otherwise most superhero books would turn into one lawsuit after another.  While the action here did a decent job of living up to the name of the titular series, the setup does not, nor does it really do justice to any comics.  This new direction for Superman is still trying to change the boundaries of what defines the hero, it is just not really clear if it is going about it the right way.

Story: Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder Art: Aaron Kuder
Story: 7.0 Art: 7.0 Overall: 7.0 Recommendation: Pass

Friday Five: Best DC Comics Movies

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Today, I’m going to take a look at the Top 5 DC Comics Movies. Coming up with the top list of DC Comics-related movies that are of high quality is a lot easier task than it was for Marvel movies.  It’s not that there is a drastic number more Marvel movies, it’s that so few of the DC movies are any good.  Most of them are Superman or Batman sequels and most of the sequels, if fun, aren’t great movies. Very few other DC characters have ever gotten the big screen treatment and when they do, it’s often nonsense like Steel, starring Shaquille O’Neal.  That being said, there are some good movies here, and, in particular, if you can separate them from the source material and view them on their own merits, there are some really great movies here.

Honorable Mention: Superman Returns (2006)

5. Watchmen (2009): I know that the die-hard fans of Alan Moore’s comic don’t like this movie, but I think this is the key example of a movie that is quite good when taken on its own merits.  Sure, it is inferior to the comic by any standard, but if you put that aside, this movie looks great, it has good acting, the story is compelling and Jackie Earle Haley is near-perfect as Rorschach — it’ll be hard for any comic book movie tough guy to ever top this performance.  Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian is also notably good and most of the other acting is more than adequate.  This may not be a great movie or and it may not belong on the list of “best comic book movies,” but it is a fun and entertaining movie, nonetheless.

4. Batman Begins (2005): I think Christopher Nolan was still really kind of perfecting what he was doing with this one and it kind of comes apart at the seems a bit at the end, but Christian Bale instantly became the best Batman/Bruce Wayne combo in movie history, Cillian Murphy made one of the weaker Batman villains, the Scarecrow, spooky and Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Tom Wilkinson and Morgan Freeman give very good performances as well.

3. Batman (1989): I think maybe Tim Burton’s take on Batman is a bit overrated and I think the sequel to this movie is pretty mediocre, but Burton managed to hit all the right notes with this first film.  There was controversy at the time over Michael Keaton getting the role, but the skeptics, myself included, turned out to be wrong and this movie was, I think, the start of Keaton getting the respect he deserves as one of his generation’s better actors.  Jack Nicholson’s Joker was probably the iconic movie supervillain from the movie’s debut up through 2008.  The rest of the cast, the sets and costumes, the Prince soundtrack, the story and the action all work here.

2. Superman (1978):  As a pure film, Burton’s Batman is probably better than Superman, but in terms of comic book films, Superman is the landmark film.  It proved that comic books weren’t just for kids.  It proved that you could make a man fly and not have it look horrible.  It proved that you could not only cast an unknown for a major part, that in the right type of movie it was preferable to cast an unknown.  Every comic book movie that came afterwards owes a debt of gratitude to Superman and Christopher Reeve.  On top of that, it’s a pretty damned good movie in and of itself and it holds up well enough that you can watch it today and get the same level of enjoyment out of it as you did back then.

1. The Dark Knight (2008): It’s rare for a movie to have so many other movies that it not only will be compared with, but also that it has to surpass if it’s to be taken seriously.  The Burton Batman was long seen as the gold standard and Nicholson’s Joker was untouchable in terms of quality.  Batman Begins successfully rebooted the franchise, but would a sequel fall into the same trap that Batman Returns did for Burton?  Not only that, Marvel movies were beginning to flood the market in terms of both dollars and critical acclaim.  How would Nolan deal with all that?  By making the best damned superhero movie ever made.  How would Heath Ledger live up to Nicholson’s legacy?  By surpassing it and setting a new standard.  And this movie works on any level and by any standard.  It’s a great comic book movie.  It’s a great action movie.  It’s a great drama.  It’s got great effects, sets and costumes.  It’s got a great cast.  It’s got incredibly great acting.  It’s got a compelling story that works both on a literal level and as an allegory.  It is relevant to current events and timeless at the same time.  This is a great movie.