Month: June 2008

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Action Comics #865

Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Jesus Merino
32 pages, color
Published by DC Comics

One thing I’ve noticed that happens on a pretty regular basis in super-hero comics is a periodic retooling of a supporting character. More often than not, it’s a villain, one that a writer often seems to feel was handled in a way that should be fixed, or at least changed. Sometimes it’s generally viewed as successful, like Geoff Johns’s handling of the Flash’s Rogues Gallery during his time on the book. Other times, it’s a change that seems to anger most readers, like Doctor Light in Infinite Crisis. With the new Action Comics, Johns is clearly hoping for the former as he tackles a character with one of the stupider names in comics—Toyman.

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At a Crossroads: Between a Rock and My Parents’ Place

By Kate T. Williamson
144 pages, color
Published by Princeton Architectural Press

One of the biggest potential stumbling blocks for an autobiographical work is the fact that most of us don’t necessarily live the most exciting of lives. I’ve often heard the genre referred to as "naval-gazing works" and it’s hard to deny that I haven’t read my share of those over the years. With all that in mind, though, I think what really grabbed me about Kate T. Williamson’s At a Crossroads: Between a Rock and My Parents’ Place was that she lives an absolutely ordinary (and in other hands, even dull) life, but the way she tells it made me enthralled from start to finish.

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Showcase Presents: Metamorpho

Written by Bob Haney, with Gardner Fox
Penciled by Ramona Fradon, Joe Orlando, Sal Tripani, Jack Sparling, and Mike Sekowsky
Inked by Charles Paris, Jack Sparling, Mike Esposito, and Bernard Sachs
560 pages, black and white
Published by DC Comics

One of the great things about the Showcase Presents line is that it brings back into print comics that many of us almost certainly would have never encountered. For me, that would have definitely been the case with Showcase Presents: Metamorpho, collecting all 17 issues of the titular character’s comic from the mid-60s, as well as a handful of other appearances. And reading the book, it’s easy to see both why he was chosen to be plucked out of obscurity years later, and also perhaps why the book was cancelled in the first place.

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