Reviewing Crisis on Infinite Earths 10 and DC Comics Presents 89 despite the scant Superman material in both, and then responding to your feedback!
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SiC 33 — With Our Powers Combined…! (10:03:1985)
3 replies on “SiC 33 — With Our Powers Combined…! (10:03:1985)”
Well, Crisis #10 was a lot of “action” without a great deal of plot movement. I feel as if someone in the DC offices said, “This is going to be a 12 issue EVENT, darn it, and I don’t care what you do to fill this issue!” I guess there was some movement, but not a whole lot.
I enjoyed DC Comics Presents #89, if only for its tribute to Wayne Boring. He’s never been my favorite artists, but he certainly had a major part in Superman’s history, and “attention must be paid!” I had noted in a comment on Russell Bragg’s coverage of this same issue on his DC Comics Presents Show podcast, that the shapeshifter, in this issue, was “reliving” the original story of “The Thing from 40,000 A.D.” from 1954 (“A few years ago”, as Superman calls it. I guess over three decades is “a few years” to Superman.), putting himself in the place of Superman, and the Omega Men in the places of other characters from that story. That was a nice bit of writing, I think.
Hey, Jon. Since I didn’t find time to comment on the last episode, let me start my comment on this one by saying congratulations on your new relationship. You sound very happy, and I hope things continue to go well for the two of you.
I kind of agree with Dave’s comment above, about this issue of Crisis not having that much happening. This is something that I’ve thought about occasionally, the problem of writing a story in a long form where the length is predetermined. Unlike writing, say, a novel, which can be as long or short as it needs to be, if you’re writing a 12-issue comic book series, you have a particular number of pages you have to fill. You can’t go too long, but you also can’t go too short. I’m sure that it’s a challenge to do that kind of writing. Don’t have enough material, and you have to add padding. Have too much material, and you have to cram stuff in at the risk of confusing the readers. Just makes me think about how talented some of these comic books folks are, that they (usually) manage to pace their series successfully.
Yay for the news that you’ll be doing a Babylon 5 podcast, but boo for the news that it won’t start until 2024! I loved B5 when it was on. When it really hit its stride, it was one of those shows where I could hardly stand the wait for the next episode, so I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. I did a complete rewatch of the show a few years ago, and it mostly holds up. The special effects look rather dated these days, but I get the impression that you’re not the sort of guy who’ll be bothered by something like that. Can’t wait to see this project come around!
Best wishes, and I’ll see you next episode.
Hi, Jon! Not sure what your recording schedule is like for feedback, so I’m either getting this in just in time or slightly too late for the new episode. October is rough in the teaching field, am I right?
Even though Crisis #10 didn’t feature a lot of Superman, I think the scene between the Golden Age Superman and Lois you mentioned makes up for it. What a powerful scene. The story this time really ups the epicness with traveling to 2 different time periods and the insertion of the Spectre into events. I know as I was reading this in real time, I absolutely loved seeing all the heroes and villains teaming up and was intrigued by those I didn’t yet know after 5 years or so of reading DC.
The DCCP story was so slight and suffered even more in comparison to Crisis. We could have gotten some good space opera with his pairing, but nope. There was some implied off-panel sex between Tigorr and Harpis, which was about the most exciting thing that happened.
A Babylon 5 podcast sounds like fun. I’m slowly rewatching the series and have made it to the end of Season 2. More Jon content to look forward to in 2024!