Superman vs. Muhammad Ali

I read recently that during a Superman-themed panel at the San Diego Comic Con, Grant Morrison was asked about what story in Superman’s history really stood out for him, and he answered, to everyone’s surprise, 1978’s Superman vs. Muhammad Ali by Neal Adams and Denny O’Neill.  By coincidence, I’ve just read this book.  DC published a couple of reprints of it, and almost on a whim when I was spending some store credit that I had from a comic shop, I decided to go for it.  In spite of how absurd a book about the meeting of a fictional superhero and a real life athlete in a boxing arena must be, it’s surprisingly awesome.

Real Steel

When I was watching the original advanced press for Real Steel in 2011, it was impossible not to think thoughts like, “This has got to be the worst movie ever made.”  Of course, this was before I’d seen either Battleship or Step Up Revolution, and found out what a bad movie really was.  Still, one does not go into a feel-good movie about robots boxing without a certain amount of disdain.  As the film got closer, though, I began to get that sinking feeling you get when you realize that something you’ve been very publicly dismissive of might turn out to be not that bad after all.