Captain America #233

From the Random Box of Unread Comics.

Title: Captain America
Issue: 233
Date: May, 1979
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: Roger McKenzie
Artist: Sal Buscema, Don Perlin
Colorist: Nel Yomtov
Letterer: Rick Parker
Editor: Roger Stern

Steve Rogers is caught between Harlem mobsters and a gang of white supremacists wielding high-tech weaponry. To make matters worse, a mind-controlled Sharon Carter is leading the charge for the National Force.

The story quickly moves away from its political implications as the mind control aspect takes center stage and a villain gets a big reveal, followed by an extra bit of a twist to end things.

Steve shows some good emotion as he grapples with the possible fate of Sharon, but the use of generic villain tropes  (and traps!) detracts a bit in terms of keeping my interest.

Rating: 5.5/10

Action Comics #687

From the box of random unread comics.

Title: Action Comics
Issue: #687
Date: June, 1993
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Roger Stern
Art: Jackson Guice, Denis Rodier
Colorist: Glenn Whitmore
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Editor: Mike Carlin, Jennifer Frank

Reign of the Supermen! This is one of the four issues introducing the new "Supermen" following Superman's death at the hands of Doomsday. These issues (complete with gimmicky cutout covers) each featured a "pretender" to the role of Superman, based on phrases associated with the character: "Man of Steel", "Man of Tomorrow", "Metropolis Kid", and in the case of this issue, "Last Son of Krypton".

The actual character in this case is the Eradicator (no, not Rhea Ripley). The story is written so that it is possible to believe that Eradicator is actually some sort of reincarnation of Superman, who has gone full-on Kryptonian at the loss of his humanity.

In the background, we see lots of details of the ripple effect of Superman's death. This is one of those stories that felt like a gimmick at the time. After all, no one believed for a minute that Superman was actually dead. He was simply spending some time "dead in the DC Universe", as one does. But looking at this story years later, the fact that the Superman's death turned out to be as temporary as everyone knew it would be seems less important, and the story itself is quite good.

Writer Roger Stern juggles a ton of little details and character interactions and does a nice job of introducing Eradicator-Superman while adding to the overall mystery. While I wasn't buying that Eradicator really was Superman, and I knew that we were getting the real Superman back eventually, I was left intrigued to find out how we get there and what other plot twists lie ahead.

Nice piece of an epic story that still holds up pretty well.

Rating: 7/10

John Carter, Warlord of Mars #28

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Title: John Carter, Warlord of Mars
Issue: 28
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: 1979
Writer: Peter Gillis
Artist: Larry Hama, Ricardo Villamonte
Colorist: Bob Sharen
Letterer: Diana Albers
Editor: Roger Stern

John Carter, on a surveying mission over unexplored areas of Barsoom with his friends Sasoom Thil and Kantos, discover an abandoned city, and are soon faced with a series of unexplained phenomena.

This was the final issue of this run, and this story was a self-contained tale that left a fair amount unanswered, with plenty of potential for further exploration. Because of the lack of follow-up, the ending was a bit unsatisfying, although it worked in a missed-connection sort of way.

Typical for its time, this was wordy compared to how the same story might be told today, and while some of the excess of text was useful in filling in details about the comicbook version of John Carter's Barsoom, a lot of it felt like it could have been cut.

It's too bad that the character introduced at the end of this story didn't get the chance to appear in further books in this series, and I wonder of some version of her has been brought back in the various reboots of John Carter that have some up since this was published.

Rating: 5.5/10

Superman: The Man of Steel #57

Hi... Um... Long time, no see.

So, this has been interesting. I did a pretty good job of keeping this review blog "daily" right up until the time is should have gotten easy: summer vacation from school. All that free time, and my frequency of updates just fell off the proverbial cliff.

And then school started back up, and my schedule got filled up pretty intensely.

And then Nanowrimo happened. And I wrote 50,489 words of a totally ridiculous and awesome young adult dieselpunk novel with the working title "Airship Girls and the Land Beyond the Mist". And I wrote zero words of comic reviews.

So here we are in December, and I took the 1st of December off to recover from Nano, and I thought about just bagging this whole thing until it turned into a 2013 New Years resolution.

But that, of course, is exactly the problem. There is not reason I CAN'T re-start the reviews now, other than the fact that January 1 makes a nice arbitrary day for fresh starts.

You know what? December 2 makes a nice arbitrary day for fresh starts too.

Here's a comic that came in a two-comic (and a Power Rangers trading card!) grab bag that I got at the dollar store.

Title: Superman: The Man of Steel
Issue: 57
Date: June 1996
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Roger Stern
Penciler: Roger Robinson
Inker: Dennis Janke
Colorist: Glenn Whitmore
Letterer: Ken Lopez, Albert De Guzman
Editor: Mike McAvennie, KC Carlson

Oddly, the credits on the cover list Louise Simonson as the writer. Stern and Robinson are both given "guest" status in the interior credits.

Considering the seemingly temporary nature of the creative team and the fact that the only villain is bad weather,  there is a surprising amount of plot development here.

The plot essentially sticks Superman (and special guest the Jay Garrick version of the Flash; you know, the one with the silly tin hat) into the film Twister, and they get to try to stop a simultaneous outbreak of multiple tornadoes that threaten Smallville.

Sometimes it's nice to just see Superman doing what Superman is supposed to do. You know, saving people and and being the ultimate good guy. The interplay between Superman and Flash is great too, as they work together really well, but with just the tiniest hint of some competitive tension.

Underlying all of this is the theme of balancing superhero career and personal life. Lois Lane has just broken off her engagement with Clark Kent, and Jay Garrick provides inspiration the Clark as a superhero with a successful marriage.

Juggling a career and a relationship is metaphorically related to chasing down a series of tornadoes in a way that works better than I am making it sound.

There are a couple of other subplots that get some attention in this issue, which make for intriguing scenes, but which are mostly setup for future storylines.

I will also point out that this is a rare instance with appearances by FOUR "L.L." characters in the same issue, with Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lex Luthor, and Lori Lemaris (!) all showing up at different points. It would be interesting to figure out how many issues all four have appeared in throughout the history of Superman. I would guess it's a small number that probably gets even smaller if you remove retrospective and anniversary issues.

For me, as silly as the whole flying in circles to stop a tornado stuff was (in spite of having a meteorologist listed in the credits as a consultant!), this is the kind of Superman story I like, with the emphasis on Clark's sense of duty and compassion, and his intelligent use of his powers.

Rating: 8.5/10