Cover Story - Top 10 Black Lightning Covers

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Another week another CW show to pay close attention to.  Seriously, as much as I love the expanding CWniverse I’m going to have start dedicating this entire blog to following their vast exploits now they’ve added a 5^th show to the lineup.  If you’re unfamiliar with the new series it’s called Black Lightning and revolves around Jefferson Pierce, a teacher, and father with electrical powers and a tendency to take on the establishment.  

Jefferson’s had a long and storied carrier in the comics from early solo comics to being a core part of the Batman team The Outsiders to his role as Secretary of Education for President Luthor all the way to being a member of the Justice League of America.  Given that lengthy time I’ve decided to celebrate his new series with a bit of a cross-section of Black Lightning’s work with a look back at the top 10 comic covers, he’s starred in.

1st Pics of Tyler Hoechlin as Superman on the Set of Supergirl

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Edited by Robert Beach

With the summer almost done, the time has come for the major networks and studios to start ramping up for their big fall premieres.  For me as a geek blogger, that means we’ll be seeing a lot of news and reveals about superhero TV, which itself just means revelations are coming from the CW and a handful of flailing competitors who aren’t nearly as good. However, even though CW has managed to expand its dominance in superhero TV to dizzying levels they do still face a major challenge this coming fall, and her name is Supergirl.

After a respectable but not mind blowing season 1 on CBS, Supergirl has migrated to the CW where the demands for high ratings are reduced but so is the budget.  Supergirl already crossed over with CW’s The Flash in season 1 and the same folks who invented the CWniverse produce her show, but her high profile nature and difficulty with ratings make her a serious challenge for the powers that be at CW.  

The show has decided to show Superman, presumably cutting through the abyss of copyright regulation about who can show Superman on TV.  Tyler Hoechlin is stepping into the role of the man of steel and this weekend we got our first good look at him.

 

Cover Story - Top 15 Batman/Superman Covers

Edited by Robert Beach

So, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice comes out today, or at least, I assume it did. I’m actually writing this the Tuesday before its release, so it’s completely possible some random calamity befell the intended release date. Somehow I kind of doubt it. By the time this goes up, I’ll most likely have already seen it. For now, I’m eagerly awaiting its release like the rest of us, so let’s talk about comic books instead, specifically some Batman and Superman comics. 

Because Batman and Superman were DC’s biggest success stories for decades and decades, the two eventually ended up in a long-running comic together entitled World’s Finest. World’s Finest was a weird amalgam of elements owing mainly to the fact that it originally began in the late Golden Age and then continuing through to the early Bronze Age of comics. As such, we’ve got some really crazy comic covers to get through. Now it's time to dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on World’s Finest.

Cover Story - Top 17 Bizarro Covers

This week marks the live action debut of Bizarro on CBS’ Supergirl.  Granted this is Bizarro Supergirl as opposed to the standard Bizarro Number One of the comics but it’s still a pretty big deal all things considered.  I’m a massive Bizarro fan so this is a pretty big deal for me and I’ve chosen to celebrate by taking you through the best Bizarro covers I could dig up from across the characters very long history.  

This is going to be one of those Cover Stories where the cover collection doubles as an excuse to talk about Bizarro’s exceedingly weird history so in case you ever wanted to know what the deal was with the chalk white rocky Frankenstein Superman that is Bizarro, here we go.

Panel Vision - Top 25 Super-Jerk Covers

Edited by Robert Beach

Earlier this week, Frank Miller released one of his first illustrations in a long time. Miller’s suffered a great loss of physical mobility in recent years, so the fact that he’s recovered enough to draw again should be a pretty major event. Unfortunately, his newest piece of art was 1. Linked to the upcoming Dark Knight: Master Race and 2. Kind of terrible. It’s a picture of the Atom getting punched into Space by the ugliest Superman you’ve ever seen complete with comically massive fists and a visibly outlined dick. 

At this point, “Frank Miller does kind of awful thing” is hardly news, but in the midst of the Internet all having a good laugh about #SuperJunk, Kurt Busiek raised the interesting point that Superman’s ugliness on the cover was intentional. It was an interesting argument, and even though I don’t fully agree or think the intentionality of the image makes up for the hilariously poor artwork, it did get people talking and thinking. Specifically, it go me thinking about all the great covers of Superman being an asshole…so that’s what we’re doing today.

Gotham, Batman v. Superman, & Flash Casting News

So, there’s been a lot of talk recently about supporting cast in superhero adaptations.  In case you haven’t heard we’ve seen some major announcements about recasting, members dropping out, and new actors across mainly DC Comics adaptations, in particular The Flash, Batman v. Superman, and Gotham.  On Gotham the series is dropping Victoria Cartagena, who played Renee Montoya, and Andrew Stewart-Jones, who played Crispus Allen, from their position as main character.  While they’ll still be on the show they won’t appear as frequently or take up visibility in promotional material.  Meanwhile Batman v. Superman has reportedly cast Scoot McNairy as Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, replacing Rebecca Buller who played the gender-swapped version of the character Jenny Olsen in Man of Steel.  The rumor is that McNairy’s Jimmy Olsen will be handicapped after injuries he sustained during the battle of Metropolis in Man of Steel.  Finally CW’s The Flash has cast Keiynan Lonsdale as Wally West, the Kid Flash, for their second season.  The whole thing is a pretty convoluted rigmarole but it’s got me thinking about the importance of diversity and representation in supporting cast.