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All-Star Superman

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Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

20:39 / 15.04.07

Lamb: I don't think that's a moon.

I still think it's the Noom, based on the sketchy detail work to its surface. However, I'm fully in support of the idea that it's generating its own red light rather than reflecting it (or filtering light down, perhaps, from the aboverse).

Cowboy Scientist

22:13 / 15.04.07

Heat Vision, that would make sense, though: Zibarro's made a Superman costume out of Clark's clothes.

Yeah, that's what I thought, the guy must spend all day in his secret identity wearing tights, then he changes into a superhero that wears real clothes.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

22:25 / 15.04.07

Yeah, that's what I thought, the guy must spend all day in his secret identity wearing tights, then he changes into a superhero that wears real clothes.

That's always seemed to me to be the farcical tragedy of Htrae and the Bizarro Lifestyle; imperfect duplicates in an imperfectly duplicated world, they could only go through the motions, emulating Earth lifestyles in a superficial, confused, and of course reversed manner. What if Zibarro has to sit through his day in tights, pretending to be as ridiculously reversed as the rest of them?

While I seem to remember that Bizarro Jor-El was mentioned in the pre-#1 hype, part of me wants it to turn out that the Bizarro Jor-El guy on #8's cover is actually Bizarro Lex Luthor, hellbent on saving the Man of Steel. But Jor-El would be (just as much if not) more fun.

New S-Shields for the list this issue -

Bizarro "Reversed-S" shield - Lends credence to the theory that the normal-S'd Bizarro figure in #2 was simply the result of a pre-made costume rather than an artistic error, while this Bizarro is specifically generated when in contact with Superman - he's just one more faceless Bizarro drone until he makes contact with Clark out in space.

Bizarro Bizarro Zibarro's Z-shield - Gold outlining & figure with blue inlaid shapes. Because of the nature of Zibarro's pulled-up blue gym shorts, we can't be certain that Zibarro's shield is a pentagon like Superman's, or if it's actually an elongated hexagon.

Cowboy Scientist

23:55 / 15.04.07

What if Zibarro has to sit through his day in tights, pretending to be as ridiculously reversed as the rest of them?

Then, Zibarro is the only Clark Kent in a world of Bizarro Supermen (hinted by his clothes), in the same (but opposite) way as Kal is the only Superman in a world of Clark Kents (regular people).

00:30 / 16.04.07

Strangely, that makes a lot of sense.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

00:41 / 16.04.07

Zibarro sitting alone in one of those brightly-lit "Depressed Escher"-style apartments, wearing his costume, trying to keep track of whether or not Green Meant Go, or Red did. Imagine: having to walk around five million people, trying to parse out their sentences even though you share the same language, every single phrase having to be filtered for meaning...

08:36 / 16.04.07

Regarding the dummy Bizarro on chessboard cape 'S' - in the rush to get that issue out the door it appeared as is. Has been ch-ch-changed (flipped mirror imaged) for the hard back. There's nothing deep about it - just a production error.

The Natural Way

11:03 / 16.04.07

I just want to stress that some of us knew that already.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

14:15 / 16.04.07

*shrug* I think it works both ways, actually.

The Natural Way

14:48 / 16.04.07

Death to the author!

I really enjoy some of the ASS analysis, and I'm sure it only adds to the pleasure for you lot, but I think treating the book like a detective story, poring over all the minutiae, can cause one to miss some of the really skill stuff. For instance, was no-one else here moved by Supes releasing his pet into the wild, tenderly removing himself from it's grasp like it was a child on its first day at school? The lonely journey through space afterwards? Doesn't anyone else here think the that Frank's Metropolis is just too cool what with its zeppelins and it's retro-future cars? And what about the horror: the first bizzaro lurching out of the lift; its nauseating transformation into a mockery of Abby as the victim in question's face melts; "Am Bizzaro! Me no want be your friend!"? Arrrgh! No! Yuck!

I don't know, there's so much right there on the page that's great, it just seems weird that we always have to conjure stuff that may or not be there to justify loving this book.

15:20 / 16.04.07

It could be that all the great stuff is going unsaid because it is unquestionably great. But, yes, sometimes it's worth hearing someone say how lovely a sunny sky is.

Good points. I was re-reading this last night and releasing the Sun Eater was so beautiful, Superman trying to go 'no, no, on your way now' twice, as it grasps his leg. All without words.

The bizzarchitecture of Htrae as kind of Fisher-Price Outer Church creeped me out.

Oh, and something I can't believe no-one's mentioned (as far as I've noticed). When Supes is rocketing towards Htrae, the fucking HUMAN LADDER OF BIZZAROS stretching towards Earth. Fucking class!

BrianFitzgerald

15:25 / 16.04.07

That single panel of Bizarro Superman floating above the earth, jaw skewed, a bizarro tooth drifting away into space, "Bizarro like." We don't actually see Supes punching him after the little boy runs to safety at the library, but it's clear that's what happened.

Brilliant.

Cowboy Scientist

16:02 / 16.04.07

Strangely, that makes a lot of sense.

It makes Bizarro sense.

16:19 / 16.04.07

marryapige, I like what you're saying.

Out of the whole issue, what got me the most was that single panel where Superman kisses Lois on the forehead and says "Merry Christmas". I mean, it's all in the acting--this sweet, sad, tense 'goodbye'--eyes closed, a brief moment of respite from the madness, snow drifting down around them. That was just a perfect moment for me.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

16:59 / 16.04.07

Death of the Artist, marryapige, in this case, surely?

But, honestly, for all the minging and mooging and S-Shield-splitting? We still talk a lot about the good stuff on this thread, we bask; we just like to quibble over random details that seem more important to some readers than others, or snag us in our reading and bring us out of the narrative, et cetera. This thread would get ridiculously boring if we sat around going on and on about good things without arguing or flagging possibly questionable moments. But we're just joyful about the comic.

Best bits for me?

The first five pages in the Underverse & Outer Space, which seemed like a Bizarro 2001- A Space Odyssey with moments of both calm, sweet affection (The Sun-Eater) and creeping horror (Sure, the full majesty of Htrae on the splash page bowls me over, but Superman being attacked in absolute silence in a thin panel with a very cubic shadow being thrown across Mars...brr...)

Jimmy Olsen squeeing over Superman totally digging his proposed super-plan! I love that Superman has the power to take any ridiculous thrown-out-of-ass idea and make it feasible and realistic. Superman is all about asserting dream-logic over mundanely inconceivable problems.

The "credits page." I've actually noticed that my favourite pages are often the credits pages -- Calvin Elder's psychopath silhouette in #6, Clark Kent feigning indigestion on the way to the Island Prison...the sharp shots, Quintum's Last Stand, and Lois looking in shocked horror at the reader - Where has my Man of Steel gone, you bastards? - mint.

Final three pages on Htrae. Bizarro waving a black flag & being Bizarro Dylan Thomas, Superman's crunchy failure to fly, Superman being super enough to switch from beating up Bizarro to telling him they need to join forces (without it seeming like a stupid team-up), FQ's equal-but-opposite Bizarro Metropolis, and ZIBARRO!

That said, as sweet as his kiss was, there wasn't a lot of Lois this issue and I'm craving more attention paid to their relationship. I really feel the benchmark of their relationship was #2-3, particularly #2. But then, this is the Bizarro story, so Lois doesn't have to be so central.

18:47 / 16.04.07

I still think it's the Noom, based on the sketchy detail work to its surface...

Hmm, actually, you're probably right, looking at the image of next issues' cover again, that map showing the passage between Htrae to Earth also shows Earth's moon, so it would make sense if the sketch was showing the planets' respective moons (or indeed nooms).

As to generating it's own light, that could be feasible, since it's just a planet eater trying to look like a planet with a moon.

19:13 / 16.04.07

Pige, thanks for the thread steer. While I love the way some of you guys pick up on all the little details I might've missed, it's nice to get away from minutiae and the micro speculation for a minute or thirty.

I'm sure Trips is right though: sometimes the best stuff gets ignored because, hey, it's the ground beneath yer feet.

20:31 / 16.04.07

>>>>but I think treating the book like a detective story, poring over all the minutiae, can cause one to miss some of the really skill stuff.

I have to agree. Despite most of my own (REALLY) far out "findings", I think the best ones are those who are just one stepped off from what's on the solid page.

BUT the reason this thread is supercool, I think, is that beyond the common notes that you'd usually see on another forum ("that was super cool/touching" on certain moments and details, which usually we put a lot here on the time the comic just went out -- and it's not like we don't always sprinkle theories with "and oh I just love the______"), you can actually see how was one's basic reading of the things ON page ("the ground beneath each one's feet") through their own exposed ideas.

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I love it how so far space is treated as soundless. Not so much for it's realism, but for the different approach, context and feeling each specific time we see it has. I remember Samson's throw on that satellite being this pertinent soundless anti-climatic gesture to contrast to his bam!-wishing brawl in my first reading. And Bizarro's attack in my mind went like Dave Bowman's friend from 2001 awkward-accelerated desperation against the black canvas; each time the silence in it has a new beautiful approach (without even mentioning Lois on Moon, Krypto, Sun Eater etc)

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

22:10 / 16.04.07

I love it how so far space is treated as soundless. Not so much for it's realism, but for the different approach, context and feeling each specific time we see it has.

's one of the reasons I liked Firefly so much -- I think it adds a lot to the sense of vastness that FQ's really punching into the series in general (his very 3d imagery) and I think that's part of the reason the opening to #7 is so frigging 2001.

The human/bizarro ladder was actually a detail I missed altogether -- I think in my initial readthrough I thought it was some weird debris column, part of the Bizarro terrain.

I like that while Zibarro appears to express himself through Hamlet-esque soliquoy, Clark's kept most of his traumas and emotional underpinning rather internal - the most "obvious" one being his navel-gazing in the Truth-Mirror at the Fortress. It occasionally bubbles up to the surface ("I'm only one man, Lois.") but only in brief dribbles. It's a subtler Bizarro/Normal reversal. Bizarro is all the goopy magma-breath and reversed speech patterns but Zibarro is a refined antithesis.

09:02 / 17.04.07

Great point about the soundlessness of space, guys.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

20:50 / 17.04.07

Jamie, I'd like to just point out that one of the greatest details of the series is the very understated swish of red and blue that accompanies Superman accelerating out of a panel at super-speed. It's a very beautiful effect.

Thinking on the soundlessness of space, guys, I'm just looking at that page in #4 where Black K Superman is leaving PROJECT and fighting clones, while Agatha goes through their options with Jimmy. Her voice-over floating on top of the space panel, even with the longer frame to give a sense of space really distances me from what's going on; the 2001 sequence in #7 feels extremely immediate, but the #4 page gives me the distinct impression that we're seeing it second hand -- the space panels are on screen or in Agatha's holo-display for Jimmy, we're watching what's happening with them.

The 2001 sequence does have dialogue in the first bit, the Underspace bit, but the quality of the sound is more jagged with the kzzt radio speech bubbles -- it's secondhand sound on top of soundlessness as the opposite of #4's page.

Not necessarily a criticism, but I'm really into figuring out the synaesthesia that Quitely (and Jamie!)'s working and how he does it. #4's sequences has a particular effect that I hadn't considered on earlier readings.

21:51 / 17.04.07

Well, also remember the first piece of dialogue in the series is a scream in space ("in space... no one, ahem, I mean... in space only Superman can hear you scream!!!").

Although the whole thing "starts" with an understated ("slow-mo?") and silenced (no words, no captions, in space, chest's "S" in shadows) "Super + Man" (while we were accompanying a sequence of "adjective" + "subject"; it's almost the 2001's "bone cut"). It says a lot in a splash conceptually, mostly in my mind reminding me to balance the importance on storytelling of the visual nature of a (Superman) comic.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

22:59 / 17.04.07

Well, also remember the first piece of dialogue in the series is a scream in space ("in space... no one, ahem, I mean... in space only Superman can hear you scream!!!")

Looking at that particular sequence again, it makes me think of a Saturday morning cartoon - "We're falling into a sunspot the size of South America!" - with the voice-over drifting along in the sun-sea. It also punches a sense of drama and tension into it (along the dribbling panels running down the side of the page). I like that. I like that we're being given completely different ways of approaching space scenes.

I also love the gigantic Agatha giving her monologue on the state of the Ray Bradbury's crew on the next page, safely in the aquamarine light of P.R.O.J.E.C.T. headquarters on the Moon.

00:46 / 18.04.07

>>>>Looking at that particular sequence again, it makes me think of a Saturday morning cartoon

Yeah exactly, it's a very old-comics style of exposition, urgency and SHOUT/BOLD LETTERS...

And the falling rotating panels on the Fantastic Four inside the ship (rotating-falling) is just too good storytelling (Heh, "DEATH" is ben "GRIMM", he-he).

14:18 / 18.04.07

I still want to tackle the Steve Lombard question.

Is that the same one in my head Papers? Was it steriods or viagra in his bloodstream?

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

14:32 / 18.04.07

Yup. GM's made him very interesting in a fading-into-the-background way. All his bluster about being a real American he-man but I'm beginning to wonder if he's just another eyebrow plucker like the rest of them.

16:25 / 18.04.07

Seems to be more likely that it's Viagra as opposed to steroids, given Lombardo's macho sexyman vibe. I doubt he's out to break any baseball homerun records.

18:41 / 18.04.07

Well if it was viagra maybe one wouldn't need x-ray vision (and the cramped blimp would be far more funny and embarrassing). I don't know why I assumed it was steroids -- maybe 'cause he's the only non-super human who's really buffed, and other "funnier" outcomes of that which seemed in character with him.

I didn't liked (but it wasn't something that distracted me much from the enjoyment) the "demeaning Steve" scene (although I bet we'll be seeing those panels soon at "Superdickery: Seduction of the Innocent" section). Seemed out of character for Sups-in-my-head, and too much "Peter Parker Complex".

I found him more interesting in the sense that he carries now in his head the guilt for Allie's death, when there's a possibility that Bizarro Allie ended herself, since it's the (ironical) opposite of what we've seen of her so far. I even thought it was weird him going "these were people".

10:10 / 19.04.07

ALL*STAR SUPER SIGNING

This Saturday (21st April) at Deadhead Comics, 27 Candlemaker Row, Edinburgh, Scotland. From 2ish to early evening. Confirmed are Frank Quitely and myself. Grant attending if time and circumstances avail. See you there!

14:57 / 19.04.07

All-Star Superman's nominated for another Eisner. "Best Continuing Series" this time.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

15:27 / 19.04.07

I didn't liked (but it wasn't something that distracted me much from the enjoyment) the "demeaning Steve" scene (although I bet we'll be seeing those panels soon at "Superdickery: Seduction of the Innocent" section). Seemed out of character for Sups-in-my-head, and too much "Peter Parker Complex".

Oddly, I'm finding GM's Clark is a lot more human than some versions of him, even in his Super-Daddy sense; Steve Lombard was traditionally a very macho character who spent much of his time demeaning Clark, so it doesn't seem much of a stretch to me. Plus, I find the line more of a snarky moment (born out of the same frustration as the "I'm only one man, Lois") and simply stating "fact." The pills Steve takes aren't helpful on a large enough scale although as a cheap Bizarro repellent...if anything, he's saving face for Steve by keeping it nebulous as to what he's talking about.

01:17 / 20.04.07

Something I only noticed just now on re-reading #7 - not only is Htrae cubic, but in the big double page splash, the oceans and landmasses have been swapped, so that the oceans are the shape of Earth's continents (backwards) and vice versa.

I love details like that.

06:37 / 20.04.07

What's that weird object made of blocks in the beginning. it seems to have a person stuffed inside it.

The Natural Way

12:50 / 20.04.07

I think you'll find that's a bizzaro technician infected block of under-matter.

I think.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

14:40 / 20.04.07

The technician and what I presumed was part of the crane apparatus that went down with him. I presume all the super-pressure and gravity of the Underverse was compressing him and it together.

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