ASS, JLA
ASS, JLA
May 27Or, random thoughts on two random comic book collections I recently read.
All-Star Superman holds up incredibly well when read collected, in a single slab, in a single sitting. In fact, it reads BETTER than the individual issues taken one at a time, and that’s pretty amazing considering that the single issues are still pretty damn good, and that they actually each stand up alone as satisfying one-off nuggets of story.
This is a gorgeous, whimsical, romantic, bittersweet, almost ELEGAIC take on the Man of Steel. It gets praised to the high heavens, but it still doesn’t get praised ENOUGH. Re-reading it in hardcover form made crazy thoughts like “greatest superhero comic book ever” float thru my brain.
Here, Superman is all-powerful…but he’s dying. Lois Lane is head over heels for Superman…but still pissed that he hid his “secret identity” for so long. Jimmy Olsen is a goofball AND far cooler than his “real” DCU counterpart will ever be.
There are contradictions here, people. Complexity. The waning days of a wondrous Metropolis where there are many problems, each more flamboyant than the last, but one constant solution: The Man of Steel. And through it all, Grant Morrison tosses off brilliant whacked-out ideas like pennies in a fountain, and Frank Quitely marries Curt Swan to Jack Kirby, and somehow, it works beyond working.
It is such good shit.
JLA: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, on the other hand, is just a chilling little look into the mind of Dan Didio. I’ve been interested in picking up these collections on the cheap because I’m a sucker for these kind of tribute-esque books. But this trade reads more like a “primer to the rape of Sue Dibny and the murder of the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League” than anything else. (And I say this as someone who overall LIKES DC’s current direction, minus the raping and murder, of course.)
Seriously. They should have just called it “Brad Meltzer’s Essential JLA Reading Collection” and been done with it. They’re not BAD stories, per se, but the choices are so transparent that it’s enough to drive a reader batty.
