Tag Archives: Wade Williams

Superman: Unbound (2013)

Better watch out: I've got my Evil Eyes on you two...don't fuck this up.
Better watch out: I’ve got my Evil Eyes on you two…don’t fuck this up.

Immediately, you should ask yourself, What the fuck is up with that title? Are we going after that Quentin Tarantino demographic, Warner Brothers? Because if you are, you missed your chance when you fucked up Superman/Doomsday, back in 2007.

So you look this up on IMDB, because you’re a lazy hack who made the mistake of getting a “real” job back in 2008 instead of reading comic books, which would’ve been more fulfilling anyway, both spiritually and financially. That’s when you find this is based on an Action Comics arc by now-designated wunderkind Geoff Johns. And your heart sinks at the sight of his name. Or it should. Mine certainly does, because Johns is a mixed bag of a comic book writer if ever there was one.

My more conservative colleagues (the ones who still recoil in horror whenever Precious Bodily Fluids appear in comic books – after all, The Children might be watching, and these people can’t go a day without patronizing The Children – all of them, everywhere, including you; yes, you, because you are A Child if you don’t immediately agree with them and submit to their preferred proto-fascist Strong Father archetype) like to criticize his lack of restraint and habit of killing or sidelining characters he doesn’t like. Every writer does this to some degree, but Johns captured himself a fan base by deliberately doing it in the name of “fixing” certain excesses of the 1990s. Especially when it came to Green Lantern. Continue reading Superman: Unbound (2013)

Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)

Was a time, in the mid-90s, when I never thought I'd see this image in anything other than trade paperback collections. Progress?
Was a time, in the mid-90s, when I never thought I’d see this image in anything other than trade paperback collections.

Robin, the Boy Wonder, is one of the most controversial characters in superhero comics. First debuting in 1940 as a transparent attempt to (what else?) attract new readers, he immediately became a popular and enduring staple of the Batman mythos despite inspiring decade’s worth of Gay Panic, humorous or otherwise. The general populous conceives Robin as an eternal twelve year-old, jumping around rooftops when he should be doing his homework. But who can concentrate on algebra when Killer Croc’s out killing mobsters in a bid to take over Gotham City’s underworld? What kid wouldn’t want to live over the Batcave?

Thankfully, comic book Robin’s been allowed to grow up. By the late 70s, his civilian identity, Dick Grayson, had graduated high school and moved off to college. As Robin, he’d assumed command of the Justice League’s youth brigade, the Teen Titans, and helped save the world on numerous occasions. By 1983, he’d all but disappeared from Gotham, necessitating a new youngster fill his little green boots.

Enter Jason “Oh my God” Todd. As in “Oh my God, Bruce, I can not believe you took this kid under your wing.” First conceived as a transparent replacement for Dick Grayson (how transparent? Well, Jason was also a second generation circus acrobat whose parents also happened to catch their death from Crime), Jason suffered a lot in the great continuity rewrite of 1986, Crisis on Infinite Earths. When the multiverse finally stabilized, Jason was reborn as a street urchin, orphaned by Crime and taken in by Batman after Bruce caught him trying to steal tires…off the Batmobile…yeah… Continue reading Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)