Secret Origins #1 Review

Ah, what to say about a book like this? A book retelling three stories we’ve already seen told and re-told, one of which is a re-telling of a re-telling and one of which nobody really liked in the first place. The book initially seems superfluous to say the least, but at least to some extent I’d say it actually manages to make itself worthwhile.

Superman by Greg Pak, Lee Weeks, Sandra Hope, Dave McCaig and John J. Hill

Greg Pak is currently one of my favorite writers at DC, easy, and it was a damn good decision to give him this book instead of one of the other Superman writers. I can see this being an idiotic, probably depressing mess in Scott Lobdell’s hands and just rather ho-hum in Charles Soule’s. But Pak gives it the same human feeling you get from his work on Action Comics. For the first time I can remember, Jor-El and Lara actually seem like real people, for instance. His affection for the mythos and unapologetically bright and optimistic portrayal of the character are all here, but that alone would have done little to separate it from, for instance, Mark Waid’s version of the origin from Superman: Birthright. Instead Pak does something incredibly obvious that should have been done ages ago; he simply tells the story from the perspective of Kal/Clark’s respective mothers as opposed to his fathers. The result is a version of the origin that feels much more intimate and loving than those we’ve seen in the past, and which makes a clear effort to distance itself from the self-absorbed bully in a red cape we saw in the first few years of the New 52 to the genuinely admirable, likable Superman Pak’s been writing. It’s a hard trick, to tell a story that is 100% re-hashed and yet still make it feel meaningful, but Pak actually manages to justify this story’s existence by successfully covering new territory. The art is less remarkable, mostly because there really isn’t anything new to draw here, but from an artistic perspective, blowing up a planet isn’t easy, and Weeks certainly sells that. The art team is particularly solid on the last few pages which feature a return to Jeans-and-a-T-Shirt Superboy, and for whatever reason the colors and expressions on that page are very endearing to me. It kind of feels reminiscent of the lightly sepia-toned Metropolis of Superman Returns, a film I loved largely for its visual elegance.

The Long Year by Kyle Higgins, Doug Mahnke, Keith Champagne & Christian Alamy, John Kalisz, and Carlos M. Mangual

Kyle Higgins, of course, has already written one version of this story in Nightwing #0, but given the new developments with Dick’s character (apparently he’s now going to become a gun wielding secret agent), I suppose it feels appropriate to get stories about Dick as we’ve known and loved him for the better part of a century while we still can. Instead of going on the rage-fueled rant about that choice I want to go on, though, we’ll just talk about this story.

Basically the changes Higgins has made from his first version of this story are

1) Dick doesn’t figure out who Batman is through some inexplicable ability to analyze body language, Batman just shows him.

2) Bruce isn’t a total prick

Higgins made the wise decision here of giving Bruce and Dick a decidedly friendly relationship. Frankly, I’m sick of seeing versions of this story where Bruce begrudgingly allows Dick to become Robin and is a jerk to him the whole way throughout. It’s one of the many crude ways in which writers have tried to “mature” this story and get over how absurd it is that Bruce would put a kid in mortal danger to help him fight crime, or, truthfully, just to try and make it seem less gay. On the other hand, Frank Miller decided to explain it by just making Batman a complete lunatic in general, which, in my opinion, had very mixed results. Nonetheless, I think it’s much more poetic when Bruce realizes that Dick needs to fight crime just like he does, and simply tries to help him channel his sadness and motivation in a positive way. This time around, Higgins has Bruce actually acting as the father figure he never had when he was figuring out how to do the whole crime fighting thing, and it’s really refreshing. I found most of his work on Nightwing to really be neither here nor there, but this story actually felt as if Higgins was trying to say something about the character, as opposed to the episodic “villain of the week” feel we got from Nightwing.

Doug Mahnke’s art is perfectly serviceable, but honestly it feels a bit phoned in for an artist of his caliber. The story feels like it would be no better or worse if somebody else drew it, though I did find myself spending a rather long time staring at a particular splash page.

I wish we could have an outlet for seeing more stories with Dick as Robin. Seeing them together in a comic always gives me a good feeling; it seems like a waste to always brush over those years, and it makes interactions between Bruce and Dick in the New 52 always feel a little empty because we haven’t seen the real bonding years of their friendship on a regular basis since the early ‘80s. Given that it’s kinda one of the most historic and interesting relationships in comic book history, it would be nice if they tried milking it a little bit.

Daughter of the House of El by Tony Bedard, Paulo Siqueria, Hi-Fi, and Travis Lanham

Boy, it must kind of suck to be told you’re slated to write Supergirl. When Kara Zor-El was introduced in Superman/Batman by Jeph Loeb and the late Michael Turner, I was a kid. I’m leery of any book that introduces a female character by having her wandering around a city naked, but I actually had a blast with it. Loeb (a writer I am definitely not always a fan of) managed to make Kara seem like a cool character. There were a few simple things that did it. One, instead of making her a needlessly emotionally conflicted character who’s just pissed off al the time and doesn’t actually like humanity very much, he made Kara excited to see the world humans lived in, and reading her put you in a good mood. Two, he didn’t bother with her origin and just started with her showing up on earth, because frankly, this is just a terrible origin. As a bonus, he made her mentor more Wonder Woman than Superman, which makes a lot of sense and was an easy way to get her out of Superman’s shadow a bit without having to mess with her characterization.

No matter how you do it, Supergirl is a supporting character. That’s just how it is. Such characters have a very hard time developing a sense of importance on their own. Dick Grayson pulled it off because his origin was simple and moving. Krypto pulled it off by being a super-powered dog in a cape, and that’s fucking awesome. Supergirl pulled it off by simply being what she is: a female version of Superman. Now I know that sounds shallow, and maybe in abstract it is, but let’s face it: if you read comics, the S stands for something, and all these attempts to deny it (making Superboy a homicidal maniac, washing out the colors of Superman’s costume so much it looks gray and purple, giving Scott Lobdell the Superman title) are doomed to fail because that S is fucking incorruptible and any attempt to try to make it look dark and brooding is going to look far sillier than, say, George Reeves protecting the Mole Men from xenophobic farmers.

That’s a roundabout way of saying that this story was really doomed to fail. Krypton is boring and Kara’s family life is thoroughly unmoving. Where Superman’s origin is simple, direct and powerfully symbolic, Kara’s requires a lot of explanation and, for absolutely no reason, a violent marital spat, I guess just to make it more edgy. Kara’s existential issues feel totally forced into the story to give it the illusion of depth. But nonetheless, I actually enjoy a lot of things about this, and as flawed as the concept is, Bedard does a decent job of making it work in the latter half. I can see why she feels as she does. Earth is a complicated place, unlike Krypton, where a superhero saving lives can start up an international incident. I can see why that would be frustrating, but where Superman is able to transcend those boundaries, Kara just kinda sputters. She’s going through culture shock, basically, and that’s a perfectly valid concept to use, but it seems to be about all they’ve got for this character to deal with.

Even though the writing and art are for the most part perfectly competent, as an introduction to the New 52 Supergirl, I still don’t care about her any more than I did when I picked up the book.

The only other thing I think is worth mentioning about this book is Lee Bermejo's cover. Lee Bermejo did it. That get the point across?