Let’s go ALL IN with DC … Weeks 33 and 34!

I was busy last week, so I didn’t get to the one ALL IN book that shipped, but that’s ok, because it wasn’t that impressive anyway. But this week, there’s another one, so let’s take a look at both of them!

Superman Unlimited #1 (“In the Blink of an Eye”) by Dan Slott, Rafael Albuquerque, Marcelo Maiolo, and Dave Sharpe. $4.99, 32 pgs.

I never understand issues like this, which set up a big storyline — which is fine — but waste a lot of time (and Albuquerque on art) to do so. This is 32 pages long, and yet the story it tells takes up exactly half of the issue (if I’m feeling generous, and sure, why not?), while 16 of the 32 pages are filler. Some of it is decent filler — Superman doing mundane hero stuff that writers like to throw in to show that he hasn’t lost touch with the commoners, and he tells a lonely girl playing a guitar in a park that he likes her song, which is … about Superman (bit egotistical, aren’t we, Kal?), but a big chunk of the issue is Slott giving us the history of Superman, which, after almost 90 years, do we really need anymore? Who does DC think is buying this? Random people in Kampala who might not know the history of Superman? It’s ridiculous, because Slott doesn’t do anything with said history, just has Supes recite it for the audience. It’s dull, and while Albuquerque makes it look pretty, couldn’t we give him, you know, more to do?

Perhaps Slott does it because the actual story, while not bad, is kind of slight. A big ol’ meteor is heading straight for the Big Blue Marble, and it’s too late to do anything about it except send the Man o’ Steel, because it appears to be made out of inertron, which is a tough thing to detect when it’s flying through space. It’s also obviously a set-up, as Superman notes that inertron won’t be useful to anyone before the Legion days, so it’s a thousand years too early. Also, the meteor isn’t actually inertron, it’s just covered by a very thin sheet of inertron, which, when Superman breaks through it, reveals that the meteor is really made out of Kryptonite. Oh dear! Now, I know time is of the essence here, but doesn’t Superman have X-ray vision? He just goes to smash the meteor, which seems silly, as it would break up into a bunch of pieces, some of which might be big enough to still wreck the planet and will make his job harder because he has to deal with more pieces instead of one big piece. Couldn’t he, I don’t know, try to divert the meteor so it misses the Earth? Slott doesn’t spend any time on this conundrum, as apparently he has pages and pages of Super-recap to get to, so Superman smashes through the inertron, revealing the deadly substance beneath!!!! He manages to save the world, but when he wakes up three months later, things have changed. Superboy and Supergirl are a bit beat up, because green Kryptonite is so prevalent that everyone can get it. There’s an island nation near Brazil that has become fabulously wealthy because it possesses most of the world’s supply of Kryptonite. And Superman glows. With gold light. It’s, apparently, how he survived, but of course it’s the big reveal, so we don’t know anything about it yet. But it’s a reveal, all right!

This isn’t a bad teaser, but it still annoys me because of the length, the wasted pages, and the price. DC is charging 5 bucks for a teaser that could have been done in half the pages, and it’s annoying. I mean, I know why they did it — everything is in service to the all-mighty dollar — but it’s still annoying. Slott does what he can, but I can’t believe he wanted to put all this “secret-and-not-so-secret origin of Superman!” in this comic. The thing with Gold Superman and, I guess, Clark’s new boss (Imani Edge, ex-wife of Morgan Edge) is the point, and Slott gets to that in perfectly fine fashion (J’onn J’onzz has been posing as Clark Kent for three months, and I would love a story about how he’s a better reporter than Clark is and Edge doesn’t know why the real Clark sucks so much), but … damn, the filler. Come on, DC — this is the second time you’ve done a dull special setting up the “Summer of Superman”! Couldn’t you have combined the two?!?!?

So, you can go ALL IN with this story, or just get the regular Superman books and figure it out as you go along. Knowing writers these days, the next Superman issue that deals with Gold Superman will provide a recap of this issue, because DC and Marvel are just an ouroboros these days. Still, the art is nice!

Rating: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

One totally Airwolf panel:

Mr. Terrific: Year One #1 (“Back to the Beginning”) by Al Letson, Valentine de Landro, Edwin Galmon, Marissa Louise, and Lucas Gattoni. $3.99, 20 pgs.

It’s another origin story, as DC decides that Mister Terrific, of all people, needs to get a spotlight on his life. Seriously, DC? You can do this but won’t let me write a 100-issue Looker series? Sheesh.

Anyway, this is an oddly-structured issue, although it’s not bad. We get three pages of Mr. Terrific (DC really ought to use the original meaning of the word, as in “causing terror,” because that would be fun) narrating about his superhero career and what happened when Darkseid showed up at the Justice League Big-Ass Satellite back in the instant classic ALL IN Special. Ok, fine. We never find out who he’s talking to, which is a bit odd, but ok. He says that Darkseid’s “death” left behind “netherlight radiation,” which he’s seen before, presumably in Gateway City, where he heads off to. So, that’s the first three pages, which are drawn by Galmon in that highly-rendered, uninked, kind-of-bland-but-inoffensive style that so many artists working for the Big Two employ these days. Then we get the “Year One” part, for which De Landro channels Tommy Lee Edwards a bit, which is odd. It’s better art, which is nice, and it’s nice to see spot blacks and thicker lines. Michael and his best bud, Dre, are chatting about the death of Holt’s wife two years earlier, which sent Holt into a depression spiral. When it happened, Michael sold his company to a woman named Athena Prescott, who’s obviously the villain here, as her new source of energy is making poor people sick but the city’s politicians don’t really give a shit. Oh dear. Dre and some of his dudes break into the Prescott building to get proof of her nefariousness (Dre uses an invention of Holt’s, which will presumably get Holt in trouble when its provenance comes to light), but Athena turns the engine on, which jacks them up something fierce. Dre escapes, calls Michael, and after Michael picks him up, Athena orders a sniper to shoot Dre. Is Dre dead? I don’t know — the issue ended!!!!

It’s a perfectly fine issue, although it is a bit disjointed. The beginning is weird, because Holt is clearly talking to someone, and I guess it’s in the present, and then the part where he discovers the “netherlight radiation” is in the recent past, but then he goes back to Gateway City, and instead of following that thread, we’re thrown back to the more distant past, and presumably we’ll find out about the first time he discovered “netherlight radiation,” but I assume we’re going to find out what he’s doing in Gateway City in the recent past as well? It’s just structured a bit strangely. The “year one” section is fine, although it goes through the motions in a bit of a perfunctory manner. Holt is in mourning for two years? They didn’t mourn that long in medieval Europe, where the mourning period was dictated by the king, for crying out loud! I get that he sold his company as quickly as possible and he wasn’t really thinking straight, but selling it to a super-villain (even if he didn’t know she was a super-villain) seems a bit odd. The problem is, I guess, is that Letson is trying so hard to make Holt both a decent guy and dissolute so that his hero’s journey feels worthy but we’re never not on his side. It’s a tough needle to thread, and Letson doesn’t succeed as well as we would like. Michael isn’t completely a jerk, which is fine, but his mourning doesn’t feel as real as it should, so his blind spot when it comes to Athena Prescott doesn’t feel as real. I also don’t love the use of Gateway City, although I guess it’s been established that Mister Terrific does, in fact, live there (although, it should be noted, it appears that Terry Sloane lived there, not Michael Holt, who was clearly a New Yorker when James Robinson invented him back in the 1990s). But it’s fine. The problem I have with it is that Absolute Wonder Woman takes place in Gateway City (or, at least, the first issue did), and I can’t help thinking that this mini-series is leading up to the “Regular DCU/Absolute Universe” crossover that I know is coming. Sigh. Anyway, it’s not the worst story, just a bit … off.

If you want to go ALL IN with Mr. Terrific: Year One, I guess I can’t stop you. I’m going to be over here holding my breath until DC approves my Lia Briggs epic. Michael Holt can’t be that much more popular than she is, can he?!?!?

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

All righty-o! I don’t know what’s coming down the pike in the ALL IN initiative, but I guess I’ll find out? ALL IN Ambush Bug? Absolute Count Vertigo? THE RETURN OF XENOBROOD?!?!?!? Nothing is off the table!!!!!