Superman: For Tomorrow

I went to see Superman Returns for a second time last night, and it inspired me to re-read the For Tomorrow series in the Superman comics. 12 of the best-looking Superman comics you'll ever read.
Brian Azzarello, Jim Lee, Scott Williams and Alex Sinclair. This was the line-up that got me back into buying Superman every month.

The story, which I am hoping everyone has read, has a whole lot going for it. A lot of my personal Superman turn-ons. Thanks to the miracle of scanners, I can illustrate those turn-ons.

Turn-On #1: Superman talking about his problems.

The main argument against Superman as a character is that he is boring. Virtually nothing can hurt him, and he can do pretty much anything, so there is no suspense. He can easily get out of any bad situation he gets himself into. Good writers get that the struggle for Superman comes from within. Superman Returns had this going for it as well.

For Tomorrow has a very introspective Superman. Lois is missing, along with hundreds of thousands of others, after a mysterious 'vanishing.' They are presumed dead. Superman is having a rotten time coping with this belief. He forms a friendship with a young priest who is dying of cancer. The priest listens to Superman's problems and questions, which he has a lot of. I think my favourite conversation is when Superman is asking if he even loves Lois, or if he is even capable of love. He wonders if he only feels what he believes to be love, because he's not even sure if he really has emotions that humans can understand. Stuff like that just really gets to me.

The relationship with the priest is really brilliant. And the church scenes really let Alex Sinclair give us some really nice lighting effects, too.

I love at the end of this page how Superman looks downright insulted that the priest suggested that he can't keep track of how many times he has flown over the church. He never even follows up that 'no' with a correction. Just, "No. I know how to count, ass."

Turn-On #2: Superman fighting with Batman

Oh, Batman. You keep trying to fight Superman, but it's just so pointless. And I love it when Superman points that out.

I love the dialogue between Batman and Superman. It's tense. They respect each other, they hate each other, they love each other. It's all there. Always good reading when those two are hanging out.

Sub-turn-on: I like it when Superman wants people to call him Kal-El. And I like it when people call him Kal-El to be mean and make him remember that he's an alien.

In both of the above pages, Superman maintains the 'don't even' face that I love.

Turn-On #3: Superman fighting with Wonder Woman

I'm not a Superman/Wonder Woman shipper, so I like watching them wail on each other. It's always exciting. They both have to use some creative moves. But this is crazy:

Wonder Woman cuts Superman with a magic blade. Superman takes a drop of his own blood and throws it at Wonder Woman!!! Sweet hell. That's awesome.

And check out this wicked backhand Superman gives her:

Ha! I love the look on his face. "Knife, eh? We'll just see about that."

Turn-On #4: Superman showing (or threatening to show) just how powerful he really is.

This requires a little set-up, but basically Superman is having a showdown against Earth itself, represented by four giants made up of each of the major elements. Whatever. 'Earth' is threatening to destroy all life on the planet so it can start over. Superman responds by making a crazy, crazy threat:

What do the giants do? They shut up and leave, that's what. Shit, dude. Superman could actually demolish the planet if he wanted. That's intense.

Turn-On #5: Sexy Superman


Hot damn! And once again, Superman makes my boyfriend look like a giant pile of crap.

What I am saying is, For Tomorrow is awesome and you should read it.

Review of Superman as husband, by Johnathan.

Granted, this is a dream sequence - Supes' cousin Supergirl is hell-bent on finding der Man of Steel a wife (and incidentally causing untold damage to the space-time continuum and my suspension of disbelief in the process) and so visions of marital servitude are naturally enough dancing in her head.

All that aside, though: Superman is a terrible better half, just terrible. Here are some reasons:

a) Superman is a master roboticist/ virtual demigod, yet poor Mrs. Kent still apparently spends her days puttering around their horribly-decorated split-level bungalow, while her so-called better half has exciting adventures in exotic lands. She apparently has so little to do that she has become the greatest cook in all of creation, when really she should be spending her days in a Martian pleasure-palace, waited on hand and foot by automatons and subjugated supervillians.

b) This alien guy. I've read plenty of Sixties Superman comics, and I gotta say: 75-90% of the time, anyone that the Big Blue befriends turns out to have a heart full of betrayal and a secret stash of kryptonite. If he keeps bringing home every 'friend' that he makes once he's outside the ionosphere, sooner or later ol' wifey's going to get fragged. And her with nary a robot in sight to protect her...
Even assuming that Superman never accidentally brings home his new pal the Predator or something, this is a troubling little scene. Why? Three words: explosive allergic reaction. I get the impression that the Two Space Amigos have just dropped in unannounced, and Super-housefrau has pulled the latest in the endless series of meals that she cooks just to ease the bitter loneliness of her existence off of the stove and served it up. Further, I'm betting that even the Universe's Greatest Cook doesn't constantly have a series of different meals on the go, each tailored to a different alien biochemistry, and that one day an unexpected extraterrestrial dinner guest is going to end up as a thin film spattered liberally throughout the dining room. Come to think of it... maybe it's already happened, and that's why the walls are such a terrible shade of yellow.

NOT APPROVED

As a final aside: at the end of the story, Superman described his ideal bride, and it turned out to be someone just like Supergirl, but not his cousin. Uk.

NOT APPROVED

Superman: Time and Time Again

There is nothing more disappointing than seeing a character as timeless as Superman saying or doing something utterly trendy. I don't want to see Superman wearing Crocs, I don't want him to do the Macarena, and I certainly don't want to see what's in this panel.

Oh, Superman. No you didn't. That song was never cool enough to make this ok.

I don't even want Superman acknowledging that Crocs or the Macarena exist. I like my Superman to be completely oblivious to pop culture. That's the way he should be. He shouldn't have a favourite song or a favourite movie. You start messing with that shit and you get Smallville's Lifehouse-loving tool of a hero.

This panel is taken from 1994's Superman: Time and Time Again. It took three writers (Dan Jurgens, Roger Stern and Jerry Ordway) to bring us this time-traveling adventure (originally published as Action Comics 663-665, Adventures of Superman 476-478, and Superman 54, 55, 61 and 73). Despite the jarring embarrassment of Superman walking the dinosaur, this trade is actually a pretty good read. It's certainly very 90s, which only makes it into my top ten favourite decades for comics out of necessity, but it's entertaining. You get Booster Gold, who is having a little come-back now in 52. You get Superman being trapped in the old west/WWII/prehistoric times/the future. He joins the circus (in which he is an obvious smash hit).

And, you get Superman shaving himself and sitting, depressed, on a toilet.

In prehistoric times, Supes just gives up on shaving all together. Thus the mighty beard you see in the unfortunate dinosaur panel.

Lois has red hair in this book, which is certainly not ok. At least she's not blonde.

I give this book a thumbs up overall. You really do feel Superman's angst when he realizes how difficult, or potentially impossible, it will be to get back to red-headed Lois. Although the fact that all it takes to move from one time period to the next is a large or medium explosion makes the plot a little weak. It certainly eliminates a lot of the suspense. (How will he get out of World War II? Oh.).

Another problem is that one of the time periods he finds himself in is...Camelot. I'll buy traveling through time, but I will not buy traveling through fiction. That's just crazy.

Superman always keeps his cool, no matter how ridiculous the situation (see above where he turns being trapped in the Jurassic period into a playful musical romp). That's something I always admire about him. It may not technically be one of his superpowers, but no one can prove that it isn't.

Review of this tiny version of Photoshop that I got, by Johnathan

So I had some picture that I needed to edit, but I've rapidly been filling up my computer with comic books - space is at a premium, yo. The solution, an incredibly small version of Photoshop. Seriously, you can run it off of a usb storage device. It's really wee, is what I'm saying, which leaves more room for comics, and more room for comics means that I'm going to find more stuff like this:

Superman doing a Flavor Flav bit in the 60s. This guy has always been ahead of the game.

Tiny Photoshop: JOHN APPROVED.

Super Flav: JOHN APPROVED.