Covered 365: Day 101

“So, that’s Tony Dillon… Mmm, what a hunk of a man! I mean, what a Hulk of a face! Just like a particularly bad Don Heck panel! I don’t care how miserable they say he’ll make me…. Or how I’ll scream in terror when I open my eyes each morning… I’m going to marry him because… ‘Maybe he can get me off this sub-newsprint quality paper!'”

No complaints about today’s choice except the date stamp. Maybe in a hundred years when everybody has a food-o-matic and collecting vintage food packaging is the rage, the complaint will be, “If only it didn’t have that ugly ‘best by’ stamp.”

A number of nice #102 covers, but I don’t think we can avoid Incredible Hulk as the choice. I definitely don’t care for the earlier Severin choice, but if I had been old enough to buy #102 when it came out, I would have snapped it up. Talk about telling a story. And “Big Premiere Issue! (star) (star) (star)” is a perfect component, and notice how it is an underlay, furthering the 3D effect for that big fist. I have avoided buying this book because its so common, but the more I look at this cover, the more I want one.

I really like All Star Western, and I would call that my runner up. Other standouts are JLA (these picture frame JLAs are going to buried with me), Superman (very questionable, but I dig it), Silver Surfer (1987), X-Men.

Young Love gets the Deadline!!! award this time out – demonstrating how to draw a cover by drawing a third of a cover.

The Superman Hall of Shame is chock full of exhibits for day #102. Having been unsuccessful in getting the state to do the job on Lois, Superman takes care of it himself (“Featuring: When You’re Dead, You’re Dead!”). Jimmy Olsen gets off easy by only being fraudulently institutionalized (“Superman’s Greatest Doublecross!”).

I think why Superman is not working as a movie character is that his _true_ character is not being displayed. Standard TV and media depiction is of a bland do-gooder who at most is the “poor orphan” to Batman’s “vengeful orphan”. I think we need the Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen titles to really understand his character. He is a truly cruel and pathological personality, who has managed to find multiple codependent “friends” who are attracted to him by his seething power and total disregard for their feelings. His “heroics” are carried out only to maintain his self image of godlike superior being, not out of any concern for others, and the outlets for his disdain for those he saves are Lois and Jimmy (and various others). It’s fitting that he eventually marries Lois – their homelife then likely resembles something out of Hellraiser.

I know that this approach has been tried in fits and starts in the comic, but I think it would make for a far more successful movie franchise. Why is it not going to happen? Right now because the corporate office is in Dallas, not New York or L.A. At the highest levels DC is going to be hemmed in by a red state creative mentality (i.e. stick to the status quo) that at best will result in something like Shazam! Sorry Superman, corporate is going to continue to take your feats at face value, and your box office is going to suffer. At least you have the recompense of being able to continue your exploits with Lois and Jimmy on the down-low.