Day 1500! Quite a landmark, and now getting to that point where I can't really conceive of what the amount of comics I've read looks like. 1500 is probably about 6 long boxes, which is a huge amount of comics. Can't wait to see what the next 1500 are like.
One thing we have to deal with in Superman comics from the early 90s to the early 2000s are the diamond numbers in the top corner. At some point in the 90s, after the strange experiment that was the weekly run of Action Comics, DC's Superman editors decided that they could tell larger stories if the 4 main Superman titles were interrelated. So yesterday's Adventures was diamond number 2001-11, meaning it was the 11th issue of Superman titles that year, and should be read in that order. You'll note that today's comic is 2001-14. Numbers 12 and 13, then, would have been issues of Action Comics and Superman: Man of Steel.
To me, it's a very odd system, and for a long while it kept me out of Superman comics. I resented the idea that I had to buy 4 series, plus assorted specials, in order to keep up with a single character I loved. There's no way I could afford to buy one Superman comic a week and try to keep up with my other favourites. So for a long time I didn't read any Superman comics unless I knew I wouldn't be required to get every other Superman comic in order to understand them. Of course, once my store came along, that ceased to be a problem. For a little while, at least.
Which brings us to today's comic, only a day into my Joe Casey Adventures read-through, and we're at the flagship title under the exceedingly capable hands of Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuiness. This is another run of 2000s Superman I might track down. McGuiness' art is phenomenal, and Loeb, I think, is at the top of his game with this run. That aside, we're going back to Krypton, or a strange version of the planet that exists inside the Phantom Zone. And Superman #167 is where the adventure starts.
There's a couple of moments where Lois talks about actually meeting one's parents when they were young, and the difference between hearing about it and seeing it. She notes that being able to meet these younger versions of our progenitors would likely save so many people so much therapy. She's not wrong. But even that moment (and I remember it with my own son) where a child learns that their parents are just people, just as screwed up as any other person, is vital and important, and signals a significant shift in such relationships. And with Superman's fantastical, and tragic, past, the shift in his personality, if such things were possible in comics really, should be marked. I guess we'll see over the next few weeks.
"Hey, I figure if you can get me to wear this outfit, the rest is cream cheese."
No comments:
Post a Comment