Static Thoughts - Is CW Planning the Death of Superman?

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Edited By Robert Beach

There’s no denying that Supergirl season 1 is the biggest success story for the Superman brand since Smallville. It’s a knockout show that captivated audiences and embodied the spirit of the Superman mythos in a way we haven’t seen in live action since 1978’s Superman. The show embraces pure heroism and the fantasy of being able to make the world a better place, a pair of ideals both in tragically short supply these days (and lacking from the DC movie adaptation of Superman). I need to preface all of that because I’m about to suggest a very un-Supergirl thing about what we might expect from the upcoming season 2. It’s my suspicion that Supergirl is planning to kill off newly introduced Superman Tyler Hoechlin in the season 2 mid-season finale. 

10 Questions for Man of Steel 2

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Edited by Robert Beach

In the wake of Suicide Squad’s monster success at the August box office, Warner Bros. has officially announced a sequel to 2013’s Man of Steel. The sequel makes a certain amount of sense with the WB’s current approach to their superhero fare.  Pretty much from the word go WB has taken a very laissez-faire approach to their films, letting directorial demands fall as they are. And, at this point, accepting box office success as the only measure of quality they care about. 

After three high-profile culture flops, films that failed to make it into the collective psyche of pop culture, I’d be one to count my money as a victory too. I also speculated that this announcement might be more than just capitalizing on Suicide Squad’s moment, but actively trying to pivot from the general disinterest in their Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them.  We may never know for certain, but for now, here’s ten questions and speculations about Man of Steel 2.

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 Lois Lane Covers

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Earlier in the week the geek world lost a true legend when Noel Neill, the first Lois Lane, passed away at the age of 95.  I already wrote a whole other piece surrounding this issue and talking about the history of Lois Lane but this is still very much the story of the moment in the world of nerd media and frankly I’d rather write another Lois Lane article than another Captain America one.  As such, I’m going to be looking today at the comic Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane, one of the hottest selling comics of the 1960s. 

Seriously, this was one of DC’s biggest success stories for an entire decade and lest you get the wrong idea, that success was BECAUSE of the romantic elements rather than in spite of them.  The book plays like a blend of sci-fi weirdness and romcom wackiness, allowing it to skew very moderately older and appeal to young girls as well as boys. Seriously, this is one of the definitive comics of the ‘60s, right there alongside Fantastic Four and Spider-Man.  With that said, let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 15 Lois Lane covers. 

Panel Vision - History of Lois Lane

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Yesterday, Noel Neill tragically passed away at the age of 95.  Though Ms. Neill enjoyed a long and storied career, her most famous role was as the very first actor to play Lois Lane, appearing initially in a pair of serials and on the Superman radio program.  Later, Neill would continue her role on the first live action Superman television series The Adventures of Superman and cement her place as one of the most iconic figures in comic adaptations. 

Seriously, alongside Dana Delany on Superman the animated series and Margot Kidder in the 1978 film series Noel Neill is one of the three women who define Lois Lane as a character and helped shape her history in the comics and the public eye.  Given that, and the fact I haven’t seen The Adventures of Superman, I thought I’d focus in on that history and break down the strange evolution of Lois Lane from girl reporter to the wife of Superman. 

Panel Vision - Superman & The Legion of Superheroes

Edited by Robert Beach 

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As I currently write this, the political world is in something of a weird place. Honestly, “weird” feels like an understatement. American politics are blighted by vicious strains of white supremacy and xenophobia; the world is still gripped in the midst of a refugee crisis, and the UK is deciding whether or not it wants to drop out of the EU (Editor's Note: they did). It’s a tumultuous time, and the elements of racism, hatred, and general petty bigotry that inform the political climate are hard to ignore. 

While all of this is an issue to be dealt with through political action, it’s also a massively stressful and emotionally taxing ordeal to live with. The situation that fiction can exist to reflect and give us some semblance of ease through. And where some of the ugliest beliefs and ideologies of humanity can rear their head with pride and a legitimate chance at power, there’s no greater fictional reflection of our current state than Superman and the Legion of Superheroes.

Supergirl Adds Superman to Season 2

Edited by Robert Beach

One of the bigger problems with Supergirl season 1 was the presence, or rather lack of presence, of Superman. Due to copyright issues, the show was unable to show Superman on-screen as a fully realized character. Instead, they were forced to keep him always just off-camera and never speaking. That plot device ended up getting very taxing by the end of season 1 and left the show with a big problem to solve going into season 2.

I already proposed some ways they could solve it, but it seems CW, CBS, and WB have hammered out an arrangement to fix the big issue of Superman as an actual character on Supergirl.  This will mark the first time Superman has appeared on TV since the end of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman in 1997 (Smallville doesn’t count as Clark was never really Superman till the very last minute.)  So what does this mean for Supergirl going forward? Let’s find out. 

Cover Story - Top 25 Supergirl Covers

Edited by Robert Beach 

This Monday could mark the end of a brief, but amazing, era in geek culture. Supergirl season 1 is coming to an end. At time of writing, it’s unclear if Supergirl is getting renewed for a second season, which means this Monday could be the last time Kara Zor-El gets to grace our scenes for a good long while. It’d be a damn shame if that happened given Supergirl is really good and the best adaptation of the Superman mythos since Christopher Reeves’ Superman in 1978. 

With that level of awesomeness, I figured we’d give the show a proper send off if this really is the end for Supergirl 2015. So I’ve culled covers from across Supergirl’s massive history from early appearances in Action Comics, her cavalcade of ongoings and minis in the ‘70s, the metaphysical weirdness of the 2000s show, and even the New 52. Let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on Supergirl. 

Comics Rainbow - Lex Luthor

Well this has been a strange year for the Superman franchise.  On the one hand it enjoyed what has been easily the franchise’s best live action installment since Superman 2 in the form of CBS’ Supergirl.  On the other hand, it was struck a possible deathblow by the worst live action Superman entry of all time in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, a film so bad it killed any future plans for more Superman movies.  Given my maniacal obsession with topicality and the fact we’re still talking about Superman related things I figured I’d jump on board with a look at Superman’s greatest foe Lex Luthor. 

Lex Luthor is one of the most well-known and oldest super villains of all time, first being introduced in 1940 and working his way through numerous live action and animated adaptation.  In the 70 plus years of his time in the comics he’s gone through numerous changes and re-imaginings, some terrible, some brilliant, some meh and we’re going to dive in to get the full spectrum on all of them.  

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.

Static Thoughts - Superman: Fun and Games

So, Supergirl has resumed airing with a brand new episode that featured one of the more off-beat Superman villains: The Toy Man.  The episode was a solid entry and an interesting reworking of the Toy Man’s character, drawing from his original identity as an older toymaker criminal while also making him the deranged father of series supporting character Winslow Schott Jr.  It’s overall a very solid handling of an actually pretty troublesome character within the realms of Superman villains.  Most of Superman’s foes that are interesting enough to come back more than once are defined by their power and ability to go head-to-head with someone as strong as Superman but Toy Man has always been an outsider in this realm.

 He doesn’t have any powers or even a robo-suit like Lex Luthor, just his crazy toy based inventions.  Even the idea of him using toys as weapons is a little odd, something that sounds cut more from the realms of Batman or the Flash, to the point that Batman the animated series concocted their own toy collector villain.  Supergirl mostly handled these elements well by slotting Toy Man’s creepiness into a familial center, tying into the show’s overall themes of family conflict but there is one show that did the character even better: Superman the animated series. 

Panel Vision - Supergirl (1984)

So, it seems that CBS’ Supergirl has been a pretty major hit, scoring nearly 13 million viewers with its pilot episode making it the most watched superhero premiere of the modern era.  More than that the show has found a major following, gaining almost universally positive reviews from critics and a blossoming online fan base.  None of this is really shocking but it’s certainly a nice precedent to have and flies in the face of all conventional wisdom surrounding the superhero genre, the Superman franchise, and Supergirl in particular.  

For years now we’ve heard from the executives at DC and Marvel that people don’t want female superhero properties but now, we have Supergirl.  WB/DC have been shaking in their boots over Superman being too powerful or light to the point that they let Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan turn him into a drab and joyless husk to get beaten down by Batman in between murdering his enemies, but now we have Supergirl, light, super powered, optimistic, massively popular.  For nearly 30 years the very idea of Supergirl was considered to be a tainted and irredeemable brand, now; bigger than ever.  That last one though is a bit of an earned concern because, now having watched 1984’s Supergirl, I can tell you that it’s the worst superhero film ever made. 

Comics Rainbow - Supergirl

Edited by Robert Beach 

So, Supergirl has premiered, and I loved it. It’s a fun show that absolutely cuts to the heart of what makes Supergirl such a great character and proves how easy it is to actually get the Superman franchise right without descending into the same disappointing well as Smallville, Quest for Peace, Superman Returns, or Man of Steel.  It’s actually a pretty impressive feat given the fact that Supergirl has always had a decidedly checkered history in the comics. 

Like a lot of female heroes that emerged out of the comics code to support superhero families, Supergirl’s design, origin, and backstory have been through a plethora of alterations; none of which was helped by her sidelining in the mid-80s when DC wanted to revert Superman to the last Kryptonian survivor on Earth.  In honor of Supergirl’s triumphant debut on the TV landscape, this is your full spectrum look at Supergirl, all her shades, shames, and successes. 

Superman - Lois & Clark #1 Review

Superman - Lois & Clark is one of the strangest comics to come out of the DC You reboot, one that seems more like a living joke or a dare than an actual comic, full review of what I mean over here at Front Towards Gamer:

http://ftg.operationsupplydrop.org/2015/10/19/superman-lois-and-clark-1-review-comics/

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.

Grayson Annual #2 Review

I look at the incredibly excellent Grayson Annual #2 that stands tall as an example of everything the DC You could be, check it out over on Front Towards Gamer:

http://ftg.operationsupplydrop.org/2015/10/02/grayson-annual-2-review-comics/

Action Comics #43 Review

My look at the DC You continues with Action Comics #43 and how grounded the series is in real world events of police misconduct and xenophobia, check it out over on All-Comic:

http://all-comic.com/2015/action-comics-43/