Tag: DC

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow Deluxe Edition for DCUI Ultra (2025)

Sorry for that mouthful in the title, but this week I received a special reprint of the 2021 miniseries. It was one of the first things I read completely on my tablet, so it’s funny that I now have a print copy. DC sends out a premium gift each year to its yearly subscribers to the Ultra tier, and this book was this year’s new title.

Word has it that James Gunn is relying heavily on this for inspiration for the Supergirl movie, so if you care about source material it’s worth reading just for that.  I find that most books that Tom King has written are worth reading.  The art by Bilquis Evely shows a powerful Kara Zor-El without resorting to the boobs-n-butt that so many male artists will, um, accentuate.

The story’s a good one, a bildungsroman for the girl that Kara befriends.  This retelling of Krypton and Argo City for Kara is an insight into her character that I can see James Gunn attaching himself to.

The special edition has an exclusive cover (pictured with this post) and welcome material on the inside cover, but otherwise has the features of the “regular” deluxe edition. I enjoy seeing variant covers; generally the art sketches or pencil reproductions don’t do much for me and the reproductions here are very small. If you are a budding artist, though, it is probably a great insight into how a story like this is made.  I appreciated the rejected script for issue #6 as that kind of thing is rarely reprinted.

This story has been frequently cited on “best of” lists and with the movie coming you’ll probably see a lot more about it. Check it out from your local library. If there’s a teen girl that’s looking for something ‘meaty’ in the world of the fantastic this is a perfect thing to pass along.

Batman Deadpool (DC/Marvel, 2025)

There’s been a great collaboration between the two American superhero comics powerhouses since March 1976 and Superman vs.  the Amazing Spider-Man. Every few years something would crop up, and these stories are fun because they are never “canon” for either comics universe.

The latest of these are the two issues Deadpool Batman and Batman Deadpool.  There are no multi-part stories and it’s not just the title characters but about fourteen stories of varying lengths featuring team-ups like Captain America and Wonder Woman, etc. Even a new Amalgam character called Logo (Lobo and Wolverine ‘Logan’)!

I ventured into my local comics shop to pick these up as I had read they weren’t going to be issued in digital format (turns out that was wrong). There were even two digital-only books (Flash/Fantastic Four and Thor/Shazam!).  The latter is notable because in the book the Fawcett/D.C. hero is actually called Captain Marvel, which hasn’t been done since the 80s when D.C. lost the trademark lawsuit to Marvel!  Here’s hoping that this is one thing that carries over into D.C. canon so they can stop calling him just “the Captain,” which makes no sense at all.

These books were a nice way to start off my holiday season.  I chose the cover variant pictured because I recognized Ryan Sook’s homage to the classic Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 cover by George Perez.

Superman (2025, HBOMax)

I’d been putting off my first “home watch” of the Superman reboot and the right time came up yesterday.  After reading all of the “Easter Egg” site posts, it turns out that the major thing that I missed (the mural of heroes in the Hall of Justice)  is a background detail that you can’t focus on without screen grabs anyway!

It’s been three months since the big-screen release and on this rewatch, David Corenswet’s Supes and Clark Kent hold up. Ditto Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane.  More props to Skyler Gisando as the best Jimmy Olsen since Jack Larson.

Bringing in the minor characters of Otis and Miss Teschmacher from the Donner Superman (1978) was a nice nod to the fan base, but having so much screen time devoted to evil genius Lex Luthor as a bingo caller  (B2! I16! G12! G12!) seemed to cheapen the rest of the plotting to discredit and kill Supes.

My personal jury is still out on James Gunn’s take on the DCU. He’s doing many good things, but with the Gunnsian florishes that border on grating with me. The obscure punk music accompanying a slo-mo battle won’t ALWAYS work.  He’s getting the overall tone right, though, so I guess you have to allow a guy his tells.

Speaking of Guy–Nathan Fillion is doing a good job as Green Lantern, but I finally figured out what’s bothering me. NOT the haircut, but that he should be a redhead.  The character of Hawkgirl feels like a token female superhero; she hasn’t had much to do.  Mr. Terrific seems a little too “street” for the third-smartest man in the world–the performance goes back and forth for me.

They took a major “liberty” with Metamorpho’s powerset to further the plot. (He’s supposed to be able to make the elements that occur within the human body, so kryptonite shouldn’t be one of them.)  It was such a relief not to have origin stories for heroes OR villains in this movie that James Gunn gets slack from me for not sticking to 100% fanboy approval here.

July 11, 2025 Shared with Your friends

Spent some time tonight rereading some of the ‘new classic’ Superman stories. A tiny bit in the movie is from All-Star Superman; didn’t see anything directly cribbed from Superman for All Seasons. But Gunn took the feel from so much overall. Couldn’t absorb all the ‘thanks’ at the end but a lot of creators I respect were named. Go see it…. You will believe a man can fly.

New note: After having seen Peacemaker S2 credits, it looks like a standard of DC Studios content is going to be to thank all of the creators of the characters in the comics.  It was great to see Mart Nodell (creator of Green Lantern) and Ramona Fradon (creator of Metamorpho) listed in there beside a veritable host of amazing talent from DC’s history.