I did a nice big post yesterday, and I dealt with various minor personal issues for most of tonight. I figure to take today off by simply posting links to the covers of tomorrow's Brightest Day #0. The Dave Finch cover ran in the back of Blackest Night #8, but this is a big scan measuring 1,987px × 3,056px. A second cover by Ivan Reis was unfamiliar to me, so in case you missed it, there you go.
Tomorrow night, we'll look at the last piece of commissioned art from Comicpalooza 2010 I currently have in my possession, involving a disfigured member of the Martian Manhunter rogues gallery...
19 comments:
Hey...J'onn's back in shorts in that Reis cover. What gives? And dost my eyes deceive me, but is there a symbol inside the cabachon?! Gasp! Ivan Reis got my letter!
It looks like a funky little "M." This is how I'm going to sign my name from now on.
I noticed the blue shorts on that cover right away, too. As I mentioned elsewhere, I'm wondering if it's the colorist's mistake and not Reis'. I'm not wild about the coloring on that--everything looks too muted and washed out, I don't like Firestorm's "flame hair" and Aquaman just looks weird. Again, I'm thinking this cover would look great as a b&w pencil sketch, but not with these colors.
Pants, Schmantz.
I had to fight hard the urge to buy this today, but I already have it on order to arrive in early April. I welcome spoilers.
From my toss through, I saw the J'Onn is still wearing pants, and dig his gemstone out of the sands of Mars. He was hanging out with Green Lanterns Jordan & Gardner, eating Chocos, and promising to restore life on Mars.
I also noticed Mera wasn't wearing pant, or anything else for that matter, this pleases me.
Star City? Whatever.
From what I saw, this was more a sequel to Countdown to Infinite Crisis than anything else.
"and promising to restore life on Mars." Oh, great. This means soon the writers are going to ship him off to Mars and out of the picture like they did in the Bronze Age, doesn't it?
I'd still like to see a Mars/saturn/new krypton Solar system with some real interplay. Space in reality is so vast, our nearby alien neighbors should be used way more than any winged assholes or Yellow Dot headed so and so's.
Unlike Blackest night, I'm not sure where this is going. Still, J'onn's interplay with the GL's and his superpowered corp-of-engineering are pretty cool in my book.
12 apostles....Meh.
Liss, maybe it'll go the other way, and we'll get some Bronze Age Martians back on Earth?
M.C., I figure this is 52-by-half. It took a few issues to call aspects of that, while there were still a reasonable number of surprises toward the end. I expect this will be the same, but faster (hopefully) and with better characters. BTW, did Jemm ever show up again? I thought that would pay off down the line...
m.c., it would be nice to see some more of the planets in our own solar system. I still haven't figured out how J'onn gets to Mars in less than eight months or so.
The whole "rebuilding Mars" scares me, though. How is he going to do this? I'm having visions of him building people out of his severed hands or something and eating Martian dirt and mitosising again. I better not be right about that.
Frank, if Martians show up on Earth, I'll only be happy if it's an old-school White Martian Commander Blanx-led cabal. Having Green Martians suddenly show up on Earth reminds me of the '06 miniseries. And no more Morrision White Martians...too heavy-handed. Maybe he'll just bring random humans to Mars or something. Whatever it is, I've got a bad feeling about this. And I don't want to wait a whole year to find out. Just have him go back to shepherding the JLA and eating Oreos, with an occasional solo detective adventure.
Liss, what about Bel Juz, B'rett, the Marshal, J'en, Re's Eda, etc. etc? As for trips to Mars, there's always a way (teleportation via robot brain/Z'onn Z'orr tech comes to mind.)
Bel Juz and the Marshall would be interesting. But do you really think a modern incarnation would do any of those characters justice? The concept of "alien" and "Martian" has evolved since then to something I really don't find appealing, and I'm not sure it can work in modern times. Or maybe it's that recent miniseries that is just making me so pessimistic.
Liss, it's just like anything else-- coming down to good writing. Unfortunately, you're probably correct in thinking that if either Johns or Tomasi use those characters, they'll go dark with them. Still, at heart they're pretty unpleasant characters anyway. I'd rather they went that way than remain footnotes, and I prefer they be "updated" instead of Zook, Prof. Hugo, and others best left to their essential conception as harmless Silver Agers. Just please, no claws/fangs/tentacles/etc.
I think a modern incarnation of B'rett, Bel Juz and the other Martian characters could really work if J'onn revitalizes Mars. The danger, I think, is appearing like a retread of New Krypton and General Zod's new prominent position.
Nope, no more Jemm yet, just that one issue of WONK. I finally tracked down the series though, so I'll be up on Jemm finally.
That's a really good point, Ryan. The last thing J'onn needs is yet one more parallel to Superman...
I finally got around to picking up and reading Brightest Day #0. The pages with J'onn are terrific, although now that we get a good full-body glimpse, his boots look a little ridiculous with the pants.
The creative team gave a lot of detail to Mars itself, in terms of colorful geography and geology. I think that portends its renewed significance in the DCU. Whether or not J'onn brings his people back--and that does indeed seem to be his goal--but he's certainly fleshing out his old homestead.
M.C., I hope you like the Jemm mini-series. The prose is rather purple, but its heart is in the right place. I need to get back to it.
Ryan, I'm sorry to admit this, but I only just now after all these years made the connection between General Zod and Commander Blanx. Still, they're ultimately two very different characters only created about eight years apart, so I don't feel there needs to be any overlap. Commander Blanx is motivated by boundless greed and a complete disregard for all life. Zod is motivated by power, prestige, self-righteousness and a warped sense of honor.
Further, Kryptonians and Martians are very different. Martians are usually the underdogs: technologically unimpressive, impoverished, desperate, and acting through stealth. Kryptonians are haughty, overt, and superior in most material aspects to every society they might choose to keep under their thumbs. Put in political terms, Martians act like militants/warlords in the third world, where Kryptonians are a former superpower in serious decline. That would make Zod Vladimir Putin to Blanx's Omar al-Bashir.
And yes, blue cavalier boots with blue pights are a tough sale. He's kind of got a fancy pirate thing going on.
Oh I wasn't suggesting any overlap in culture or characteristics between Martians and Kryptonians, only the plot of resurrecting an all-but-extinct species in close proximity to Earth. Superman, the last son of Krypton, now not the only Kryptonian; J'onn, the last survivor of Mars, maybe not for long--neither of these changes necessarily diminish the characters, they're just interesting parallels.
"Commander Blanx is motivated by boundless greed and a complete disregard for all life."
Old school. :D
True, but I take solace in the fact that for once, it's the Superman Family ripping off J'Onn J'Onzz. Mars was here first, and New Mars predated New Krypton by thirty-two years (although they changed positions, as the former inhabitants of our nearest neighbor moved so far from Earth Martian Manhunter could only visit every few years.) Comparisons can't be helped though, since J'Onn jumped into the "last living souls of a dead world" boat forty years back, then plagiarized the "last son" angle twenty years later. At least for a while J'Onn carried the unfathomable loneliness of the Silver Age Kal-El dumped by John Byrne, which was very endearing. We've had White Martians running around for a while now though, so it would be nice to line up some familiar Greens as well.
Man, if Blanx did come back, I would hope they'd keep him pure unadulterated evil. Going the anti-hero/sympathetic villain route usually works out alright, but Blanx was such a total scumbag, I'd hate to see him comparatively wussed out. That's one character Tomasi could go all Mongul Jr. on. He's a puppy-kicker of the lowest order!
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