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REVIEWS: Amazing Spider-Man #606, Archie #601, Superman: Secret Origin #1
By Ade Magnaye
Visited 1329 times, 11 so far today
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Hey guys, the reviews are back. I’m taking a break from my “pleasuring Comicgasm’s secret harem of hot and willing women” duties to take some time to actually read some comics and write a review.
By the way, if you haven’t heard yet, Comicgasm is a finalist in the 2009 Philippine Blog Awards! We’d like to thank our readers (both of you) and our mothers for constantly visiting this blog. And because we’re going to party like it’s 1993 after this review, I’m going to put on my YAY! face.
This is my YAY! face
Amazing Spider-Man #606
As usual, Peter Parker’s problems pile up and he’s all mister whiney mcdouche again. But it doesn’t mean we can’t sit back and enjoy and say “whew, am I ever so glad that shit isn’t happening to me.”
You see, Spider-Man’s problems involve three hot women fighting over him. In the morning.
Add Black Cat and we’d have FOUR women wanting his attention. Wait, I WANT to have that problem. What the hell Spidey, stop whining.
Oh yeah, art is good, the bit with the purse-snatcher made me laugh until tears rolled down my face, and this is the most enjoyable ASM book I’ve read post-BND.
Archie #601
Archie’s still an idiot, Betty’s bitter, Moose still hasn’t used his brain cells, Reggie is unemployed, Jughead amazingly uses his brain for once and comes up with one of the best lines I’ve read in an Archie Comic, and Veronica’s pregnant.
Also, the priest must be some important guy in Archie’s publication history, but I can’t be bothered to look it up on Wikipedia.
All is well because we’d all know it’ll be retconned away by the end of the arc.
Superman: Secret Origin #1
Before I start off with reviewing Secret Origin, let me tell you something. John Byrne’s Man of Steel was one of the first Superman comics I’ve read, and I grew up thinking that his version of Superman is the only version. I’m totally unlike other people who are familiar with the Silver Age Superman, thanks to the movies.
I only learned of the difference between the Silver Age and Modern Age Superman around the time I discovered Wikipedia, and seeing how much effort Byrne made to distance his Superman from the Silver Age version shocked me to no end. But still, to me, his version of Superman is the Superman. Heck, I practically revere Byrne’s Superman.
I’ve always thought of the Silver Age version as campy bullshit made up by writers who are more interested in making far-out implausible stories than tales that’ll make you think and stand up to the test of time.
Well, I recently realized that it was the whole point of the Silver Age, so I mentally kicked myself for being a pretentious snob all those years.
Which brings us to Superman: Secret Origin. Superman is not the sort of character you mess around with the origin. Byrne changed a lot back then, and he got a lot of flack for that, despite the fact that he wrote some of the best Superman stories ever.
Which is why I love Secret Origin. It takes all the best bits from Superman’s various incarnations and mashes it up (wait, that sounded kinky) in a way that works. I know people are saying that Superman’s origin is already told and retold so many times that doing it again seems unnecessary. Well, here’s the weird thing: if Superman’s origin is the most-known of all origin stories, how come we don’t have a definitive version?
It’s too early to see if Secret Origin will be THE definitve origin, but with the way Geoff Johns has done issue #1, I can’t see how it’ll go any other way. We still don’t know how much they retconned (i.e. we don’t know yet if Superman or Clark Kent is the dominant personality – any Superman geek worth his salt knows that Silver Age Superman has Clark Kent as the disguise and Modern Age Clark Kent runs around disguised as Superman) but what struck me the most was the characterization.
I’ve never read a Superman comic where I actually felt for Superman. In Secret Origin, you know that he’s just starting to get his powers and that he’s stronger than steel, but at the same time he’s scared and emotionally vulnerable. And who else loved the parts where Clark Kent talks to his parents? Or the part where he tries to hide the fact that he and Lana were kissing? Or when he was embarassed to wear the Superboy costume the first time? He sounds like any other teenager out there.
Okay, I’m still iffy about bringing the Superboy period of his origin back (issue #2, please convince me), and it feels like an attempt to align Superman’s origin with the Smallville version, but as a comic that stands on its own, Secret Origin #1 is a great issue.
Okaaay, I think I wrote up a storm. I kinda overdid myself on that one. I gotta go.
Related posts:
- REVIEWS: Batman #692, Detective Comics #858, Superman: Secret Origin #2
- Reviews: Captain America Reborn #2, Amazing Spider-Man #601, Justice League: Cry For Justice #2
- Reviews: Amazing Spider-Man #603, Archie #600, Daredevil #500, X-Factor #47, Wolverine: Weapon X #4. Also, Haikus!
- REVIEWS: Amazing Spider-Man #610, Azrael #1, Captain America Reborn #4
- REVIEWS: Amazing Spider-Man #611, Batman #693, Batman and Robin #6, Green Lantern Corps #42
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2 Comments
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, September 25, 2009:
Good thing I put off reading your review until after I read Superman: Secret Origin. It was…refreshing. It reminded me of the early seasons of Smallville.
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, September 26, 2009:
Nicholas Cage as Superman-classic!! thank god the movie didn’t push through! What the heck? Archie and Ronnie are getting married? Its probably just a dream sequence or something.
[Reply]
