In case you missed all the crazy Warner Bros/DC restructuring last week, there’s this new entity called DC Entertainment. The head behind it is Diane Nelson. And apparently she has no plans to push through a Superman movie at the moment:

Via Slashfilm:

We’ve obviously done a lot of great things behind the property in our history, and it’s a key part of the family, but we don’t have current plans behind Superman.

So we have a Green Lantern movie in development staring fucking Van Wilder, but no one is working on a Superman movie? Something about this doesn’t compute. If I was Diane Nelson, I’d do two things. First, I’d get Mark Millar back into the DC Universe. I’d give him the keys to Superman. Because if anyone can make Clark Kent one-thousand percent awesome, it’s him. And then I’d make sure that there was a Superman movie put into production that doesn’t just use two-hours of film to slob on the knob of Christopher Reeves.

It’s simple: Make a film where Superman deals with the usual existential crisis, while getting to punch the crap out of something. Like Metallo, I don’t care. And someone please make Lex Luthor imposing. We have flying, relate-able internal strife, a machavelian villain, and a dude fighting a robot. Seriously, c’mon. Easy. It’ll make a zillion bucks. But uh, good luck with Green Lantern And the Emerald Dongs.

If you haven’t been reading DC’s Wednesday Comics then you’re either stupid or crazy. Provided you’re not both, go to your local comic shop right now buy as many of them as you can. Yes, they’re that good.

Those of you who have been picking up this weekly treat have probably already decided which strips are worthwhile and which aren’t. To me, the only real toss-away strips are Metal Men (apparently DiDio writes an interesting story about as well as he edits), Teen Titans, and (until last week, anyways) Caldwell’s Wonder Woman. Other than that, we’re talking straight-up comic-book masterpieces.

One of these masterpieces is Superman. The story is simple enough — Superman is having some sort of existential crisis and he travels about while trying to figure out what it all means. The execution, however, is perfect. Arcudi’s writing and Bermejo’s pencils depict Kal-El as both iconic and humanly relatable. Kudos to them.

But what I find most breathtaking about this comic are the colors. When I fold open the newspaper-style strip, my eyes explode and nearly knock the lenses out of my glasses. I don’t even know what to write…the colors of this Superman strip are just perfect. Vibrant, warm, welcoming, heavenly.

So once I realized that I was in love with the colors, I decided to contact the woman responsible: Barbara Ciardo.

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Whenever I wander around Warren Ellis’ Whitechapel Forums (which is pretty much everyday) it doesn’t take long before I find something worthwhile. Some days, it’s a new book to read or an 8tracks mixtape or some scientific article I can barely wrap my head around. In other words, Whitechapel is a failsafe source of discovery.

Today was no exception. Browsing the Splash Page Art Challenge Thread, I was struck by the work of George Zapata (who posts as ‘gzapata’). His submission (as seen below) wonderfully depicts the differences between Batman & Superman. And while this interplay between light/dark, cheerful/brooding, inspiring/frightening has been explored ad nauseam, Zapata’s effort is much more refreshing and playful.

From Superman’s ridiculous hair-curl to Batman’s scowl, Zapata helps the reader remember that these are cartoons — they don’t always have to be  complicated characters of  socio-cultural critiques. Sometimes, believe it or not, comic books can just be fun – and that’s exactly what these two pages prove.

I made my way to Zapata’s website to discover that he is a former student of the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art and is trying to cut his teeth in the comic book world. I emailed George and asked for permission to post these images and he has yet to respond. With that being said, I’m going to assume he’s cool with it.

Go to his  blog. Check out his sick art. Let him know what you think. Help out the small guys.

With the news trickling out that Warner Brothers is losing the rights to key ingredients of the Superman formula, I began contemplating what exactly comprises Superman. I was taking this into consideration alongside the recent developments where protégés began donning the mantle of their fallen Jedi Masters and shit. You have Dick Grayson traipsing about as Batman. And at least for a new months, you got Bucky running around as Captain America.

So I got to thinking. It was bothering me. On the toilet. In bed. In the shower. I asked myself, what is the essence of Superman? Does he exist outside of the tenants of his history? Is the soul of Superman tied into Krypton, into the Lois Lane/Clark/Superman love triangle? Can you have a Superman that isn’t from Krypton? What defines Superman as Superman, and furthermore, does it even matter? Can the term stand for multiple things, for different creators?

I don’t have any answers, but I think it’s a worthy examination.

Let’s kick it by taking on Dick Grayson and Bucky Barnes. When DC was contemplating killing off Batman, the general shtick was this: Batman was more than a man, he was a symbol. Even if an Uber Alien Bullet vaporized Bruce Wayne, Grayson could continue to carry on what he stood for. Same thing goes for Bucky. Maybe Captain America got his ass seriously capped on some court steps. But he had someone else to pick up the job. Albeit with a sweet metallic arm, but still, there was someone else to pick up the job.

However, both instances were circumstances different than what is currently going on with good ole’ Clark Kent. How so? Well for starters, we’re talking about a world without Clark Kent. Warner Brothers, if I am understanding correctly, is losing the rights to that very name.

Let’s call Bucky and Dick “The Replacements” throughout the rest of this article for ease of statement.

When The Replacements stepped into the costumes, they were inheriting mantles. Bucky wasn’t redefining a symbol. Rather, he was reinterpreting it.   The Replacements ran parallel to the fallen dudes they were replacing. All of their experiences in assuming the roles were predicated on the conscious fact that they were replacing someone, and what their predecessor stood for.

How many times did something along the lines of this came up:

Oh well Bruce/Steve wouldn’t have wanted me to do this, blah blah.

The idea that Captain America is a symbol, at least currently in the Marvel universe, stems from the fact that there was someone to define this symbol prior to Bucky.

There was these two parallel constructions: What Batman/Captain America stood for, and what The Replacements did by assuming this symbol. Not by defining it.

So I began to ask, what if you removed the initial construction, the defining of the symbol prior to the assumption of the mantle?

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There was a time when Superman and Batman were good ‘ole chums. I’m sure they’d play racket ball and discuss how their weeks were going. They would sit beer in hand, and stare out at the sunset talking about how it was a shame that Superman would outlive anyone he ever loved. Clark shedding those Super-tears. Bruce patting him gently on the head and telling him it’d be okay.

All that changed in 1986. A lot of things were going on in 1986. I was happily pooping my pants and playing Super Mario brothers. (It’s a tradition I carry on to this day.) The Red Sox were losing big games as usual, prompting diehards to scream “We AH CURSED!” But the most important thing for the comic book world was the release of The Dark Knight Returns.

The Dark Knight Returns, a four issue mini-series, was written by Frank Miller, one of the fathers of the modern comic book landscape. In four issues, The Dark Knight Returns took the characters of Superman and Batman, deconstructed them, and replaced them with the characters we know today.

Batman as a semi-crazed fascist, hell-bent on cleaning up the world? That’s Miller’s work. Superman as the ultimate boy scout? You can chalk that up to Miller as well. In four-issues Miller rewrote the psychic mythos of both characters. Miller saw Batman as the maniac who crosses every line but murder to clean up the streets. He became a fascist who does everything but murder. And it makes sense that this sort of character would need a foil. And that’s how you get Superman — the good farm boy with a heart of sugary mush. Miller just couldn’t see the two of them getting along.

Setting up Batman and Superman are the most epic of foils has given rise to one of the debates of my generation. In between “Yankees or Red Sox?” “Pepsi or Coke?”, and “Atheism or Divinity” comes “Are you a Superman fan, or a Batman fan?” It’s a deal-breaker. I’ve seen married couples come to physical blows over this disagreement.

Shouting “I would never raise my child a Kent sympathizer!” women have dragged their belongings out of the house as their confused children hugged their legs. I’ve seen this scene unfold a thousand times, each one as painful as the last.

There is no middle-ground in this war.

Until you get to me.

I don’t know why I have appointed myself the defense attorney for a fictional character’s reputation. It’s just a calling for me. Like those who go off to live in a monastery.

Let’s be real with each other: any guy who drives a tank and knows Kung-Fu is a unanimous inductee into the Bad Ass Hall of Fame. The problem for me starts when jazzed-up Batman fanatics spit their hurtful rhetoric about Superman, “Fuck Superman, man! He can’t be hurt! He’s invincible man! I just can’t relate to that shit!”

I heard it all over the place this past summer. It was a steamy July night when the midnight showing of The Dark Knight went down. And after the masses poured out of the building and into the damp night, the masturbating began.

“Oh man, Batman! It was sick!”
“Yeah dude, the Joker man! Amazing!”
“Holy shit when the Batmobile turns into the Batpod!!!!”

If exclamation points at the ends of sentences were actual physical objects, people would have been falling over in that parking lot from missing eyes. I stood there with my friends and I joined in with the orgy of praise. I loved the movie. But then I made the mistake of lobbing a criticism.

“The dude needs a psychiatrist.”

At once they were on me.

“What do you mean?”

And I retorted.

“I’m just saying a lot of people have their parents killed. And most of them are able to move on. He needs to see a psychiatrist, not don latex and beat people up.”

I knew I was trying to be pain in the ass. In a group of friends that love playfully pissing one another off, my behavior wasn’t out of the norm. My friends scoffed at me, and we went back to doing everything short of starting a cult dedicated to Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale.

But however much I was joking, my point was genuine. Batman zealots often make the argument that Superman is a character you can’t relate to. “I can’t relate to an alien who can’t get hurt.” And yet, somehow people can relate to Batman.

Maybe I’m missing something here. Let me recap my understanding of Batman.

Batman is billionaire Bruce Wayne. When he was young, his parents were murdered. He seems to know every single form of martial arts ever. He is a genius detective. He bangs roughly fourteen trillion women a year. And he his psyche has scars so deep they make Manson look sane. And to work all of this out he wields tanks and swords and Batarangs and hangs out secret laboratories.

Actually, never mind. He’s relatable. I always forget that all the Batman fans out there are billionaires with murdered parents who seek justice by donning garbs. And then there’s Superman. I’m going to piss off all you Batman fanatics and tell you a secret. I relate much more to Superman than I do to Batman. Why? Let me break it down for you.

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