This is a tribute to the Legion of Superheroes movie. Solomon Grundy is powerful but lets keep it 100%. He stands absolutely no chance against a serious Supergirl. She’s on a completely different level in both speed and power. Grundy may have the durability to take hits for a while but he has no way to catch her. She would definitely be coming out on top here and showing why the Kryptonians are not to be underestimated. Supergirl wins.
It’s always good to see the Legion of Superheroes getting some screen time. The 2 season cartoon was short lived but it was a blast and since then you only see these guys occasionally in movies and shows. Well with a full movie to themselves this is another winner even if you will probably end up missing most of the big legionnaires. For plot reasons we’re mainly stuck with the B team.
The story starts with showing us Supergirl’s origin story of Krypton blowing up and after that she was taken to Earth where she has had a really difficult time fitting in. Unlike Superman who arrived here as a baby, she was fully grown which meant that it was a much steeper adjustment period. Batman wants her gone and so Superman comes up with a strategy to train her. He’ll drop her off in the future with the legion and she agrees although the tricky thing is that we don’t see a way for her to get back until Superman decides to check in. Although based on the final scene we can assume she has a communicator. The future is fun enough but Supergirl is still having a hard time fitting in and a mysterious cult is around to make things more complicated.
First up on the positives, Supergirl makes for a good main character as always. I like how aggressive she is and how she’s always ready to fight at a moment’s notice. That’s what you always want to see from the main character. Additionally she trusts her own judgement and doesn’t just follow the crowd. She may not be as good at fighting yet as you would expect but that should come in time. So far I tend to enjoy each portrayal of Supergirl and this one’s no exception.
The animation is also pretty smooth here. Only thing I’m not a big fan of is the style almost uses a bit of a blush effect on the characters which you don’t really see much of outside of some anime. For the most part this style has been good though. Not as good as the New 52 style but it works well enough for the fight scenes and everything. On the whole it’s still good here as well.
The film’s pacing is quick and so the movie goes by very fast. It’s a fairly basic kind of adventure even with some twists thrown in but the writing is strong enough where this will have a lot of replay value. I can definitely watch it at any time. The battles are also good and the film even has a very hype ending to lead off into the next adventure. I’m always game for a film ending on a complete to be continued note since those endings definitely build up the most suspense. I was definitely not expecting the movie to end the way that it did.
Now the film does have some power level issues. For starters one of the villains in this film has abilities comparable to Supergirl’s. I would say they are still decisively weaker so it’s not like you’re wondering who would win but they are still on that level to the extent to which most other characters would lose instantly. Yet there is a scene near the end of the film where the villain is confronted by a group of the weakest Legionnaires in existence and instead of turning them all to paste with a quick speed blitz, he orders a retreat. If you’re being charitable then you can say that he was doing it to protect his foot soldiers but I kind of doubt that.
Part of the problem with having a villain this powerful is that you then have to be careful for scenes like this. The villain won’t have any trouble with the side characters so you can’t have a teamwork message delivered in that way. There are ways to pull it off but they will need a good plan and some prep time. It’s the only way to handle a character like this. You could also just buff the side characters a bit with cooler powers and that would have done the trick too.
This villain looks laughably bad in the intelligence department after all like when he is so busy monologuing that he doesn’t notice someone being freed right in front of him. Trust me that’s a really bad look. He also gets really whiny as the film ends to the point where you can’t take him seriously. Ultimately I don’t think this character was handled well and I would have done something different for the villain because it’s definitely more shock value than anything. I find it hard to believe that things would play out this way but I guess that’s why they call it a twist.
Brainiac 5 gets a pretty big role here as he’s trying to prove himself since the other Brainiacs have always been so evil. I definitely has to be rough growing up with your entire family being famously evil so nobody trusts you. It’s no wonder that he is so standoffish in the present since he doesn’t want to give anyone a chance to knock him down. He has some really good tech but while he looks super impressive in the first fight, I feel like he never quite matches up to that again. If he could have delivered with offensive weapons on the level of his barrier then he really would have been totally unstoppable. Instead he doesn’t always seem ready for the fights.
The film does have some romance but that’s definitely one of the weaker parts of the film here. Supergirl and Brainiac 5 barely even know each other after all. It may be a tribute to the TV show which may have been a tribute to the comics if that was ever a thing but this just doesn’t work out. Personally I could have kept them as rivals because their banter in those moments were so good. They made for really good rivals all the way through and you could have built upon that for several more films with a lot of great burns on both sides. Perhaps in a slightly more friendly way as per character development but don’t just get rid of it.
The Circle is actually an interesting group. They basically go through time and terrorize multiple place at once. The idea of a terrorist group that can chase you across time is absolutely terrifying because how do you even stop a group like that? They also mean business as they murder someone early on in the film to set the tone. Characters definitely do die in this movie so there is a real body count. I’d be up for the Circle returning at some point.
If we do get another Legion film at some point hopefully we do get to finally see the main legion members get some action this time. Particularly Lightning Lad has always been a lot of fun. He may be a founding member but he’s still a bit of a hotshot so you can count on him to have some hype moments. Nothing against Bouncing Boy and Arm-Fall off Boy (Name was something like that) since they’re okay…but they’re not starters for a reason. The film shows off what they can do and how every ability can be useful but I can also totally understand why they would not be on the front lines since their powers aren’t super strong. Go up against the wrong opponent and that would totally be game over. Since a lot of these characters still seem like teenagers or young adults at best, it’s a lot of risk.
Overall, This was a pretty fun film. It really breezes by and the future makes for a good backdrop. The fights are on point and while the power levels may not all work, you won’t be taken out of the movie. The mystery is also good with a whole lot of suspense at all times. I will admit that at times I was more engaged with the current day plot with Batman and Superman but it’s hard to turn those plots down. Honestly if the whole film focused on Batman doing his detective work I’d be all for it but of course it would defeat the purpose of the future plot. I’m sure we’ll see more Batman moments before long so in the meantime definitely check this one out.
Overall 7/10
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It’s time for the next volume in the Superman Adventures series! The last one was pretty great and this volume continues to operate on that high level. It’s hard to say which volume is actually better. This one may claim a slight edge but it’s pretty much neck and neck. I’m gonna miss these Superman stories, but coming up I’ll be reviewing some Batman comics so those should also be pretty cool. The DCAU lives on!
The first story has Jimmy show a new intern around as he tries to get a story. Unfortunately, this kid isn’t very good at anything so he holds Jimmy back the entire time and even embarrasses him in front of Superman. I thought the story was a little mean spirited towards Jimmy. I didn’t like the new kid at all and he was a little over the top with how quiet he was and how he constantly kept getting in Jimmy’s way. There was a twist at the end which you could probably have guessed from the start, but it couldn’t save him. Not a bad story, but probably the weakest of the batch since Superman didn’t really get to appear much.
Another story has Bruce Wayne get kidnapped by the Mad Hatter. He won’t be released unless Batman shows up but the problem is that Bruce Wayne actually is Batman! Superman decides to lend a helping hand and teams up with Batgirl to find him. This leads to Superman showing her how he deals with criminals in Metropolis like buying them a coffee. It was a pretty interesting scene and reminds you that above all else, Superman’s always a stand up guy. Batman even had to thank him in the end. It was a fun crossover story and probably one of the only times we’ll see Superman and Batgirl team up.
Next up we have a Clark Kent story. He’s been spending so much time as Superman that he has been neglecting his reporter duties. It’s hardly his fault as he can’t let someone get mugged just because he wanted to write an article. Still, Clark’s in hot water so he has to find a way out of this predicament. He learns of a suspicious rail road and decides to crack the case. The issue lightly deals with the classic topic of whether or not he should really be Clark Kent. The comic can’t get into that much as it’s way too deep of a topic for a single issue, but it’s always an interesting question. If he were to become Superman 24/7, where would it stop? He could eventually become a dictator or society would start to rely on him too much. I do think it would be for the best if he wasn’t Clark Kent much at all, but I suppose if he never took time to relax he’d go crazy. It’s a tough call for sure.
The Parasite comic is more of a standard Superman action story. It’s one of the only comics in this batch where Superman could fight an opponent at his level so I was certainly all for that. Superman does fall for his tricks a little too easily and I think his power shouldn’t leave quite so quickly but that’s what makes Parasite such a dangerous opponent. His fight with Superman is fun and I’m glad that Superman decided to get in on the action so quickly. Letting the cops try to deal with Parasite seemed like a reeeeally bad idea from the start. No offense to Metropolis’ finest, but they’re not ready for this. I always liked Parasite quite a bit as well. He just has a really cool design and great powers.
The action got dialed up further in the Supergirl adventure though. With Superman busy on a Justice League mission, it’s up to Supergirl to protect Metropolis. It won’t be easy though as General Zod and two other Kryptonians escape from the Phantom Zone. Taking on all 3 of them is pretty difficult even for Supergirl. What helps is that she’s immune to kryptonite but so is General Zod. This was pretty interesting and it goes against Justice League Unlimited, but I suppose they couldn’t have known there would be an episode like that. I don’t really see why Supergirl would be immune to Kryptonite and didn’t quite buy into the explanation. Still, it is an incredibly useful ability to have without a doubt. She’ll always have the edge as long as she carried a chunk around with her. It would have been fun to see Superman show up so it’d be 2 against 3, but Supergirl really did a nice job of out thinking the villains.
Brainiac returned in another comic as he started messing with everyone’s electronics. Professor Hamilton is around so he’s as annoying as ever, but Superman has to do all of the hard work. While Hamilton is busy destroying Superman’s precious memories, Superman stands up to Brainiac. The intellectual villain has always been one of Superman’s iconic foes and it’s nice to see him here. I think Superman’s massive speed advantage makes it so that he should always win the fight with ease, but we shouldn’t discount a genius intellect too quickly eh?
One unique story had a group of kids decide to outwit Superman. They got a prototype suit from Lex that could teleport so they’d use it to steal sneakers and other such stuff. They would each take turns in the suit which made them all act really differently. This made it difficult for Superman to actually pinpoint a motive or track them at all. He would need science for this mission and even then he had to find a way to apprehend the kids without actually hurting them. Fortunately, the suit is a prototype so it’s not completely perfect yet. It wasn’t my favorite story in the batch but it was all right.
A much better story involves an assasination attempt. Someone is after the President’s life so Superman decides to act as a bodyguard until an important meeting is over. The Assassin shows up and is strangely confident despite Superman being around. It’s a pretty tense issue and the villain was pretty fun. You may not feel too much of a threat since it’s a guy with a gun trying to get past Superman, but he is resourceful I’ll give him that. It’s also nice to see the President and the army teaming up with Superman. It always makes for a pretty fun dynamic.
As always, the art is pretty good. It captures that nice DCAU feel the whole time. Sometimes the artist will even have a lot of fun and make Superman look serious all of a sudden. A good example is when he broke into the White House. There’s a twist about that of course, but it made for a pretty intense moment. The fight scenes are all on point as well. It’s certainly not the streamlined masterpiece that you see from today’s comics, but it has that retro hand drawn feel to it. I’d personally say that it works quite well.
What really helps these issues shine is the high writing quality. Superman always acts like himself, a peerless hero who always makes the right calls. He doesn’t waver in the line of good and evil or doubt himself, he just makes the hero calls. The supporting cast is very fun. They all have personality and aren’t portrayed as caricatures of themselves. The stories balance humor and being serious with great results. There are really no negatives with the comic once again and you’ll find yourself reading it cover to cover in one sitting. It’s not too short either so don’t worry about that. The collection has 9 issues I believe.
Overall, Superman continues to have a lot of great stories. The actual series had over 60 issues, but for some reason this is the last main graphic novel collection. After this they started reprinting the comics or throwing random ones into a collection. I hope the rest of them are nearly packed at some point because I want to check out the rest. It’d be a shame to see them just end like that. I highly recommend checking out this collection. As a Superman fan you’ll definitely appreciate it and you’ll certainly enjoy it even if you just like comics in general. It’s a must buy!
Overall 8/10
I got to read one of the novels for the SuperHero Girls series so I’m finally a little more familiar with it than I used to be. It’s a fun concept and a good way to get more people to read comics. I can certainly get behind the series. It’s also impressive how it expanded so far in such a short amount of time. It appears to be going strong.
Well, the comic starts off with Wonder Woman and her pals dealing with a pair of rhyming villains. They had a lot of good burns even if they naturally lost to the Amazon warrior. After that, Wonder Woman is invited to spend the summer with her father Zeus, but is a little intimidated at this prospect. Fortunately, she is allowed to bring her friends. Nobody wants to go so Wonder Woman ends up settling for Bumble Bee. Upon her arrival, a gust of air assaults the heroes and Wonder Woman wonders if this was really a good idea!
There’s not a whole lot of action of course, but it’s a fun read that you’ll be able to blast through. It’s also very interesting whenever you see a villain since most of the characters who are usually villains in the mainstream comics are now heroes. I wonder how the writers decide which villains to keep as villains. Originally I would have thought that every character would be a hero, but I suppose that wouldn’t make sense and would take away any sense of danger.
The story isn’t quite as engaging as the one from last year’s event, but it’s still pretty fun. The friends all came across as rather unsympathetic to Wonder Woman’s plight and I’d call them mean spirited if I didn’t realize that it wasn’t intentional. They just already had plans. The artwork looks pretty solid. It’s not absolutely top of the line the way that a lot of DC comics look. It is going after the My Little Pony/Strawberry Shortcake crowd with brighter colors and more abstract designs. Maybe “simple” is a better way to describe it. It’s not all that intricate or detailed, but it makes it easier to read. All of the character models look right so I’m definitely on board with this.
Overall, SuperHero Girls continues to be a fun comic series to follow. It even had Supergirl catch the villain instead of Wonder Woman which lightly hints that Supergirl is still the faster heroine. It’s always a fun matchup to think about. The Zeus arc should be pretty fun, especially since it seems as if at least one god is against Wonder Woman. My money’s on Ares personally, that guy always did have a bit of a grudge.
Overall 7/10
It’s time for one of the newer Green Lantern volumes. Hal’s had a rough time, but the last volume saw him taking over the Corps. He definitely didn’t really want this to happen, but now that it has, he might as well make the best of it! His decision to limit the use of the Power Rings really heats things up here and the villain groups aren’t afraid to use this to their advantage!
The main plot of this graphic novel involves a group of shapeshifters who infiltrate Mogo. They manage to knock Hal Jordan out and go on Galaxy TV to declare (While posing as Hal) that the Green Lanterns will hunt down anyone who uses the Lantern energy as it all comes from a supply at the end of the universe and if it runs out, everyone dies. (At least their emotions will) Technically, this story is true aside from the Green Lanterns all being extremists, but the universe quickly panics. The Lanterns must die now! Just about every planet turns against the Green Lanterns and this seems like it could be the status quo for quite a while. It’ll be hard to get people to forget this.
The shapeshifter problem isn’t over yet either. There lies a planet very much like Krypton in the universe and its citizens gain incredible amounts of super strength and speed when exposed to the sun. The shape shifters want to copy their forms and then bathe in this legendary sun liquid on a planet that will complete the transformation. These shapeshifters are really hard to detect because the transformation is just about 100% authentic. Hal needs to figure it out quickly though because having a lot of Evil Supermen in the universe would definitely not be a good idea.
Shapeshifting plots are always interesting because it’s very hard to stop those guys without plot hax or a lot of specific scenarios. Let’s just say that the heroes are not successful here and the shape shifter has her way for quite a while and even gains the Superman abilities, which was interesting to see. The Green Lanterns are powerful, but they are out of their league against someone like this. The group had a pretty good plan for dealing with the villain though and while I think they probably should have gotten owned, it didn’t feel to plot hax’d and their plan was a good one. I didn’t care for the villains aside from the one that got the cool super powers, but it’s always intriguing to see more alien species. I currently know of more Marvel kinds than DC ones so this helps to even the odds.
Another plot during this collection involved the Red Lanterns as the Green Lanterns find an enraged Supergirl while in space. Since when is she a Red Lantern? Well, in the comics it felt like that happened for a while, but to the characters it probably seemed random. Even worse is the fact that nobody knew who she was. Man, Hal Jordan’s seriously out of the loop right now and it just shows that he needs to get back on Earth. Too bad he’s effectively banned from going there since it’s Red Lantern territory now. Yeah…long story. It was great to see the Kryptonians get so much hype here though. Hal implies that Superman would completely wreck the Green Lantern core if something happened to Supergirl and he’s right. As it stands, I could easily see Superman decimating all of the Green and Red Lanterns teaming up. They’re simply not ready to fight him just yet.
The Red Lanterns got their own issue in this collection since it dealt with the Supergirl situation. It was interesting to see an issue from their series. I don’t think it’ll be nearly as good as Green Lantern since the cast isn’t quite as good and aside from Guy Gardner (Who’s not exactly the greatest main character) I can’t think of any real notable players. The fight against the Shadow Thief was neat, but Red Lantern abilities never look as good as Green ones. Seriously, those guys are always coughing. Atrocitus is coming closer to Guy’s faction though so it’ll be interesting when they fight again. That guy was always a big threat so having him return would definitely up the stakes.
Hal Jordan is still my favorite Green Lantern and he does a good job of keeping everyone in check in this volume. You can tell that he’s more experienced and in control than he was in the old comics. Let’s ignore the Justice League issues in the New 52 since he lost all of his development and the whole thing is one big plot hole anyway. Hal realizes that he needs to listen to other opinions now that he’s the leader and he does that ASAP. He’s no longer the space flirt that he used to be and he’s only worried about Carol, not even to get back together with her, but because Kyle died so right now things are rough for her. I’m expecting them to fight though since the Star Sapphires are antagonistic towards the Greens. (For good reasons, since the Green Lanterns want to control the universe’s levels of light) We even get to see some of Hal’s family like his brother and nephews. They’re neat and it’s always good to see that a hero has someone that he can talk too.
For a while Spider Man had Aunt May and Superman typically has Lois. With his family around, Hal can spitball ideas and also get a grounded perspective. I definitely haven’t heard of his bro or nephews before, but they seemed pretty decent even if they were pretty mean to Simon Baz. Poor Baz, he never quite hit it off in the comics, but I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of him. He is the last Green Lantern on Earth after all. John Stewart was also around and he’ll be having his own subplot for future issues as he needs to find someone who was replaced by the Shapeshifter a while back. The whole thing is super embarrassing for Stewart and it’s why I say you should always be careful where romance is involved. Still, what’s done is done and hopefully he’s able to find her quickly since the universe is a big place.
There’s a fairly big cliffhanger at the end here as the New Gods are finally making a move. They want the Anti Life Equation and they seem pretty shady so for the Darkseid War I wouldn’t be surprised if both sides end up being villains. It’ll be fun seeing the Green Lanterns take these guys on and I’m assuming that it’ll tie into why Green Lantern headed for Earth in one of the Justice League volumes that I read. Is it time to call in the Calvary? The Justice League can certainly tip the scales of any fight after all.
As always, the art is very good for this graphic novel. The fights are very eye catching and I never tire of the beam wars. I’m hoping that Hal completely forgets about trying to conceal light since that would mean the fight scenes can’t be as grand. He’s already starting to move away from that idea, which is definitely a good start. It’s always very easy to read through the comics since the art is so exceptional. It was also neat to see Batman on a few of the covers even if he didn’t actually get to appear in the issues. Ah well, I suppose that will have to do for now.
Finally, I’ve also got to note that it was impressive as always to see Hal hold his own in a fist fight against an opponent who by all accounts is stronger and faster. Note that this is without the Power Ring. Hal’s always had the most will power out of any Green Lantern and he always looks very skilled in his comic series. It’s one of the reasons why the Green Lantern franchise is one of the best parts of DC. Hal makes for a consistent main character and the plots are always interesting. This current plot about how everyone is dealing with the concept of limited energy is a good one and the universe is so big that there are so many plots to keep up with. We thought that Earth was a big place, but when you compare that to a universe, it makes sense that there are so many things happening. The Lanterns just have to tackle one problem at a time. Next problem on the list? Saint Walker. His refusal to help the others out is coming dangerously close to forfeiting innocent lives and that’s where you’ve got to draw the line between a cautious fighter and a bad character.
Overall, This is another solid Green Lantern comic. There’s a lot of action and the plot is very interesting. There are really no big negatives to speak of here. Hal Jordan definitely shouldn’t get one shotted from any blunt weapon and I still consider him to be one of DC’s power houses so that was a moment of plot hax, but it was a rare one. For the most part, Hal takes care of business and beats up anyone who gets in his way. I’m also glad that he keeps on springing into action instead of staying at the base like a leader is supposed too. That kind of thing has hurt many good characters and I don’t want to see that happen to Hal. An active main character is a good one! I’ll be reading the next volume very soon so stay tuned!
Overall 8/10
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