Weekly Geeky Question #38: Saddest Comic Books

Every week in 2018, the plan is that my friend Rod is going to ask me some geeky question that will answer in a post. This week is Week #38, and this week, Rod’s question allows us to reflect on some of my favorite comic books:

What are the saddest or most poignant comic stories I’ve ever read?

Weekly Geeky Question #7: An Epic Comic-Book Movie Adaptation

Every week in 2018, the plan is that my friend Rod is going to ask me some geeky question that will answer in a post. This week is Week #7, and the question has to do with the grand-daddy of all comic book line-wide crossovers:  Crisis on Infinite Earths

What would the plot be of a live action film adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earths?

Re-Reading Crisis on Infinite Earths #12

And we’re at the conclusion of the massive 1985 maxi-series, Crisis on Infinite Earths, written by Marv Wolfman and penciled by George Perez.   We last ended with the Anti-Monitor taking the newly reformed earth (the one that existed when the universe was never split into the multiverse) to his anti-matter universe, and proclaiming all sorts of evil villainy…

Issue 12 – Final Crisis

Re-Reading Crisis on Infinite Earths #10 & 11

And we’re now heading into the home stretch of the massive 1985 maxi-series, Crisis on Infinite Earths, written by Marv Wolfman and penciled by George Perez.   We last ended with the villains of five universes teaming up under the leadership of Brainiac and Luthor to take over the remaining earths in the multiverse, as everyone believes for the most part that the Anti-Monitor is no longer a threat.  Of course that’ll turn out not to be true!

In the final moments of the last issue, Brainiac was suddenly destroyed by Psimon, who wanted to take over this villainous cabal for himself…

Re-reading Crisis on Infinite Earths #2 & #3

And so we continue a retread through the classic magnum opus miniseries of 1985-1986, Crisis on Infinite Earths, by writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Perez (which we began last time here).  Today, we start with Issue #2, but there’s not as much to say beyond general plot summaries, so we’ll cover #3 as well.

Issue 2 – Time and Time Again

Re-reading Crisis on Infinite Earths #1

Following on from my previous post about confusing comic-book epics, I’ve started reading Crisis on Infinite Earths, by Marv Wolfman and George Perez,  to my daughters.  Or two of them, anyway.

It’s been 31 years since this book came out (or started to come out), and it’s funny to see it with the hindsight of history.  At the time, it was a BIG DEAL.  It was one of the first giant cross-over epics series that any comic company had produced, it introduced major changes to the DC landscape that as far as we knew were going to be permanent.  These included killing off a bunch of characters, introducing some new ones, and bringing into the fold yet others who had been acquired from other companies, but who had never yet made a DC debut.

Man of Steel (the comic, not the movie)

In lists of great Superman stories (a common thing these days with both a new movie out and the 75^th anniversary of the character), you often see John Byrne’s miniseries Man of Steel showing up somewhere.  This always strikes me as a bit strange, because in some ways, Man of Steel isn’t really a story.  In spite of some connecting narrative elements, it’s a more of a succession of episodes that give us an overview of the newly revised origin and background of Superman and his universe.  So it makes a great series, even if it is only six issues long.  Now in a lot of ways, this is actually better than a story.  Especially at the time, it served as a kind of promise of what was to come.