Andy's Blog

"Smallville Season 11" Superman I flipped through Smallville Season 11 #1 this week (it was free on Comixology, like your first hit from the dealer) and was struck by the Superman costume (pictured right). It's very similar to the classic, but with a red belt and darker patches down the sides, beginning under the arms and continuing down the sides of the legs, flattering the torso like a rugby top. It has a few lines on and around it, seams like it was actually sewn together by somebody, but nothing overly elaborate. Some detailing on the boots. Enough to make it look distinct from the comics. Most significantly, no red shorts. And I'm looking at it, and I'm thinking, well, this is actually fine. It looks like Superman. Huh. "New 52" Superman See, I'm not overly fond of the "New 52" Superman outfit (left). I enjoyed Grant Morrison's run on Action (see  earlier article ), and am satisfied with his reason for wearing it -...

I've been suckered in by - I mean taking advantage of - a lot of Comixology sales lately, and this week I picked up Grant Morrison's run on Action Comics. 99¢/69p an issue, you can't pick up the trade paperbacks for that, even on Comixology. It was ... Ugh, argh, rrmmmm. Hah. Ouch. Don't get me wrong. It was good. There's no denying it was good. Morrison has fantastic ideas. Brilliant. He knows the magic of words and worlds, every panel on every page is a work of genius. The problem is not that he's not good. The problem is that he's so far past good that it's just awful. So brilliant that it hurts to look directly at it. It's less evident earlier on, where things are more coherent, but even there there are digressions, non-sequiturs that don't pay off for nearly a year, and usually that's a great thing, the mark of a solid writer who's planned ahead. The first line of the dialogue in the first panel of the first page gives away ...