^ 9 Comments...

1. Nia
   April 9th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

   I love how Hulk just materializes out of the black. VERY cool effect.

2. Marshall
   April 9th, 2008 at 7:49 pm

   Hulk with unlimited strength vs wussed down Superman with tactile telekinesis. Wait a minute, I forgot about that, his strength and invulnerability are mental powers now, why didn’t prof. X simply turn them off? After that even night wing could have spanked him, though wonder woman is really the one made for that. Then again, she could have lassoed him when he wasn’t looking and made him do her bidding, which if memory serves he kept the special vulnerability to magic, making him more susceptible to her lasso than normal folks. Come to think of it, why isn’t wonder woman behaving like the dominatrix she was originally based off of? If Batman is gonna be an almost pedo…

3. Pete
   April 9th, 2008 at 10:00 pm

   Mental powers? Since when are Supes’ abilities mental in nature?

4. Marshall
   April 9th, 2008 at 10:42 pm

   When he got written by someone who hated Superman in every way imaginable. I believe just after the death of superman, when he came back it was “revealed” that his strength and invulnerability was “tactile telekinesis” and significantly diminished in ability. Alegidly, it was to add challenge, since Supes could physically do anything. Apparently, nobody told that asshole that was the point. The idea behind superman was “what would you do if you could do anything?” and the answer was always “What your morals would let you do.” That’s what made him a hero, not the powers and the saving lives thing.

   Course, if that dark stain on the story line has been mercifully ret-conned, I’m not gonna complain.

5. Pete
   April 9th, 2008 at 11:28 pm

   Yeah, he turned electrical, then turned back. He’s the original Superman now.

   That was some inspired fanboyism there, Marshall.

6. Marshall
   April 10th, 2008 at 9:57 am

   Actually, I almost never read the comic. I had friends that did though, and I got an earful on that one when it happened.

7. Pete
   April 10th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

   I tend not to get too worked up about story changes–to be sure, there are a great many that I disagree with, but at the same time, I know none of them are permanent. Simply put, the writers HAVE to change things in order to keep from telling the same old stories over and over again. And in the case of Superman, you can only have him fight off invading alien armies or global-scale threats so many times before it just gets old. They’ve killed him once, so that’s one dramatic story arc they can’t use again (at least, not without it coming off hackneyed, something DC has proven they’re not above doing), they’ve resurrected him powerless, they made him electrical, then polarized him, then restored the original Superman via the well-told Superman Forever book (featuring one of my favorite pieces of lenticular art ever on the cover, by the way). Lately, via the movie, they’ve made him an illegitimate father, via the Smallville series, they’ve powered him down (or regressed his age to where all of his powers aren’t fully developed), dosed him up with teen angst, etc.

   It’s the same with other heroes; I’m not a fan of the One More Day/Brand New Day arc with Spidey lately, but it’s not the first time they’ve regressed his age/social status to bring him closer to his origins. They have to keep trying new things, and not all of those things are going to work. The writers don’t hate the characters; they do what they do on a mandate from the Editors. When an idea doesn’t work, they can’t always just drop it/suddenly retcon it–everything would be even more confusing than it currently is. They have to let the story gradually flow back to an accepted status quo; even if that means working through some unpleasant plot threads in the process.

8. Poe
   April 11th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

   Dude…the position of Sentry’s head in all those panels is just wrong.

9. Pete
   April 11th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

   Is it? Or is it juuuuust right?

) Your Reply...