I KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING

I KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING

I’ve never really been in Mark Waid’s corner. When I was younger and stupider, I bought masses of Waid FLASH for the simple reason that when Messner-Loebs was writing the character it was good. Creator-not-character is one of the basic rules of comic buying, and it’s one DC has wilfully forgotten in their desperation to turn their heroes into ICONS with a HISTORY that SPANNETH THE AGES, aka Green Lantern used to be a guy taking a piss against a wall but now is YE BASTION of a LINEAGE of MIGHTY SPACE KNIGHTS etc etc. That’s a tale for another day.

The problem I always had with Waid was his monstrous schmaltz attacks, which seemingly struck without warning and could ruin perfectly good comics in the blink of a panel. Witness the yack-fest of Waid’s first post-Morrison JLA run, which started with the nifty premise of Batman’s secret anti-League plans (of Wizard fame) being nicked, built up to the destruction of all human language - and then petered out like a fart in a tropical downpour with a massive angst-match in a locked room, as the dull JLA folk discussed Batman’s dull fate. “How DARE you say that - about HAL!! You who are not fit to lick his murderous alkie bumhole!” “Do you think I don’t TORTURE MYSELF about that boring piece of retro-continuity that was thought up last year - EVERY SINGLE DAY????” “The final decision is YOURS Superman as per bloody usual. Why can’t Captain Comet have the final decision? Don’t ask me. Presumably it’s because of his communist leanings.”

Well that was then and this is NOW BABY NOW because SUPERMAN: BURTHRIGHT is officially ACE. It is dare-I-say-it done right. I just came into it with issue 5 and it’s totally not giving a toss about John Byrne and his wanky brie-and-rape fetish. Lex Luthor is slim, trim and the smartest man alive, not a fat git who looks at a huge brain-o-computer saying CLARK KENT = SUPERMAN and says it must be wrong because Superman is obviously a bald power-crazed man in a highly convincing wig. Superman should be groovy and groovy is what this is. HE SEES RADIO. It’s also seemingly reinvented along the Smallville mold, which is fair enough as it’s better that Supes and Luthes should be childhood buddies before getting into their undying enimty thang. Yes, Mr. Byrne, better! So stick some brie in your sleaze-hole and smoke it like it was Year One, you cheap shameless huckster.

Waid once more = God and Leinil Francis Yu (called F Yu on the cover, presumably in some sort of message to the DC men who wouldn’t allow Waid, Morrison, Millar and Peyer to create the Ultimate HyperSuperman of one billion billion AD) gives Supes = Kent the proper Christopher Reeve groove. I give this five stars for it has the buzz.

Doubtless when I catch up with all the hard-to-find backstory I’ll be just as thrilled. WE SHALL SEE. There might be some brie in it yet.