All-Star Superman - Page 2

Last issue's out. And now that it's over, I'd say there's no longer any doubt that Morrison's written the definitive Superman story.

Also, despite the fact that Morrison's been telling us that this is how the series would end for years, I was really surprised that he left things where he did.

MUST GET THIS ISSUE. I have no interest in any other series by the big two besides this ending.

I've been waiting since 1985/86 (Alan Moore's "For the Man Who Has Everything" and "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?") to read a great Superman story again. These 12 issues were the one I was waiting for, yep.

I agree with you guys, that was a great storyline. The finish was tops.

It's the best summation of the Silver Age ever.

Brandon Bird agrees with you guys. I trust in the Bird.

I haven't read a superhero* comic in well over 15 years, but now I think I'm going to have to go out TODAY and buy this. Sounds fantastic.

*Hellboy trades and Watchmen don't really count, do they?

brilliant.

I think Morrison's JLA stuff might beat this for that title.

All Star Superman renews my love for superhero comics. My unironic, pure love.

I think you're dead wrong.

No way. All Star Superman is on another level.

I just finished the entire run. I didn't get any of the Earth Q commentary. Some weird shit happened at that last issue.

Very interesting 10-part retrospective interview with Grant Morrison currently being published at Newsarama.

Here's a link to Part 8, which has links to the previous parts at the top.

Some highlights from what's been posted so far:

I like when a comic book makes me think there could be an afterlife.

The gorgeous cover for the Absolute edition, out in October:

http://dcu.blog.dccomics.com/files/2010/06/absoass2.jpg

Oh my god, that looks fantastic. I'm definitely picking this up.

I came late to All-Star Superman. I'm not really a fan of the character, but when I saw the first trade I figured I'd give it a shot since it's Morrison, one of my favorite comic writers. Am I glad I did. For my money, ASS #10 is the best superhero book ever written. It completely defined what a superhero should be and illustrated it perfectly. A wonderful, wonderful book.

Well, I just had to go and preorder that. I got most of it in its initial print run, but all the issues that I have have egregious printing errors, and the quality of the trades didn't look so hot. Here's hoping this edition measures up.

I love Superman so goddamn much. It's sad.

DC's last few Absolutes have been great. I've already gone through Rebirth three or four times in the past few weeks, and now I have to wait until October to get my grubby hands on this baby. I might also have to make that cover my background.

So DC is making an animated movie out of this. It's set for a spring 2011 release.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zPv6DiA_eM

Here's some good news for people who automatically dismissed it:

I hope Grant Morrison is right, because that trailer doesn't really reflect the spirit of the comic at all. Just like in trailers for movies that come out in the real theatre! That said, there's no way I won't give it a chance, and I'll hope for the best. I was kind of sad to see that the animation style doesn't really effectively mimic the Quitely style (I thought they did a good job aping McGuinness's work for Superma/Batman), but oh well.

In other news, Amazon just informed me that my pre-ordered copy of All-Star will come later than anticipated because the release date was shifted a to week later. I'm sure I'll be able to hold out that one week, but still...

Well if the story is that similar to the comic it should be great. But I'm still worried about the animation, because the DC animated titles have terrible animation, to the point where I don't even want to finish watching them.

My copy of Absolute All Star Superman finally arrived from Amazon yesterday. The back matter isn't that extensive, and very many of the notes are cribbed from that All Star Memories interview, but there are some nuggets detailing the back stories of some of the cameo characters (like Ultra-Sphinx, and the Superboy and Supergirl who arrive with the future Superman to give "our" Superman the golden rose to put on Pa Kent's grave) that are really cool, and it speaks to the quality of this series that these characters who pop up and are gone are in and of themselves great concepts that could carry a story. There also isn't really any new artwork, besides the cover, which is quite unfortunate, but not a deal breaker.

That said, having only read this series in floppy form, experiencing it in this format is pretty eye opening. New details are visible that weren't before, giving the story even more character, and everything feels appropriately big and epic in a way that it didn't in the floppy format. Reading it without ads for the first time is also quite the treat. The book falls open neatly, so that every bit of art on every page can easily be seen, which allays a fear that I had about this edition, that some of the art on the big double page spreads would not be visible. The print quality is also pristine.

Is it a must own? Depends on how much you like this story, and if you already own some of the previous trades or hardcovers. But, it is absolutely (no pun intended) worth taking the time to look at in some capacity, as the format really does a justice to Quitely's art that the floppies and trades never really could.

I cannot stress how much this presentation improves this particular story. It seems like a completely new experience compared to, say, Watchmen (the only other Absolute edition that I own).

Didn't know they were making a DTV movie out of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zPv6DiA_eM

Not really digging the style of the animation, having it look like Frank Quitely's was never going to be an option. Morrison apparently saw it and said it was pretty great, so there's that. I'll probably check it out.

Noticed something last night as I was flipping through the Absolute edition that I had never picked up on before: the message sent from the future warning Superman about Solaris in issue #10 was sent by one of the descendants of the girl who Superman prevents from committing suicide.

I thought that was a nice touch.

Superman symphony nominated for five Grammys

I heard this story on the way home from work last night, and it was interesting hearing the composer's take on his subject. He started composition in the 80s, and completed it in 1993, and is of the age that he would have read the silver age comics that All Star looks to for inspiration. I picked it up off of iTunes last night, but haven't really explored it yet, but so far it seems like it could really be of a piece with All Star, so fans may want to check it out.

Any thoughts on the movie?

 

I thought that it was okay, but still one of the better DC Animated features. It's just not as special as the source material, and lots of essential stuff didn't make the cut. So, about what I expected. The Blu Ray does have some decent features on it, though, which actually help make the disc a nice "supplemental" feature to the original comic.

I thought it was a mess. They tried to cram so much stuff into it that came out really weird and disjointed.

Yeah, 70 minutes just isn't enough time for this story. If it were longer and had some chapter screens or something else to embrace the episodic nature of the story a little more it may have been better. Some better voice actors would have helped, too. As it stands, I did enjoy seeing some of the scenes in motion, but viewing the movie on its own, it's not really a success. I guess I enjoyed it more as a special features disc to go along with my copy of the Absolute edition.

Not nearly as great as the comic, but I pretty much dug the shit outta this. I can forgive the episodic nature of the movie because the emotions are spot on. I know it isn't saying much, but this is my favorite Superman "film" so far.

I enjoyed it, but agree it needed more time, and the acting was a bit stiff (Stephen Blum was doing too many voices, and he frankly doesn't have the range to cover his distinctive voice). Would've been a neat mini-series or something. It's still a decent send-off for McDuffie. Still can't believe it came out the day he died.

I really didn't enjoy it.  The art work was very boring and the animation was stiff and lifeless, overall it wasn't a good experience.  The pacing also seemed completely off.

 

Check out this amazing Fan cartoon of superman, its a million times better than the DC crap.  One dude was able to create something with so much energy and vitality, its incredible.  These DC cartoons are all horrible if you ask me.  They need better ppl makin these.  Why don't they use Tartovsky(or whatever the Clone Wars dude name is)?

I can understand concerns with the pacing. I wish more from the books had been included, but to dismiss the animation and story wholesale seems, I dunno, a bit rash. The goal here was to bring Frank Quietley's art to life. I thought they did an excellent job of that. As far as the story goes, it is inherently disjointed. On one level that's no excuse. Movies are not comics. But the quality of the premise and embrace of everything Superman represents was very faithful to the book and the characters.

I didn't really see Frank Quietly in it.  Frankly, pardon the pun, it looked like the standard DC dtv art and animation. And the animation and art were equally uninspired.  It looked like it was a little on the low end compared to some of the other titles.  And yea the story is good.  But asides from some of the missing plot, it feels like theres a lot of dialogue thats been chopped off that didn't need to be.  It felt like the cartoon wasn't wordy enough, and the art work wasn't good enough to keep me interested.  Cartoon just doesn't do the comic justice.

 

Check this fan video out, just one dudes work. 

I thought they did their best to make it look like Quietly.  If you Listen to the commentary Timm mentions how Quietly draws things different in every frame which really doesn't lend itself to animation (and "frankly," Quietly's are is pretty ugly in its beauty.  His character work has always just looked strange.)  There was always going to be a problem trying to adapt this, because it is a very, very episodic story.  It barely has a through line.  So, it would be hard for them to do the Doomsday Jimmy story, because Superman is barely in it, and the Bizarro World story doesn't have any of the other characters but Superman in it, and the Smallville story doesn't take place in present day.  Still I would have much rather seen one of those than the stuff with Atlas and Hercules.  I believe they even mention the feats Superman has to perform, and then never does in this movie.

Knowing absolutely nothing about the source material, I found it REALLY disjointed and felt like it was made for the die-hard fans.  It played a lot more like the series finale to a long running show.  That said, I did enjoy certain moments as they happened and got involved in Superman preparing for the end.  But there were lots of moments when I was just going, "Huh?  Wow... I really don't know anything about Superman..."  And two of the major reveals (the betrayal of one of his robots, the big computer sun's double-cross) are handled so clumsily and then "expositioned" away.  A lot of sloppy stuff.  

 

I did like the character design for Superman though.  

 

Nabster, that fan animation was fantastic.

nooj, do yourself a favor and check out the book. It's just so much better in every possible way.

 

Disjointed is what I was getting at when I said the pacing was just off.  For some reason the narrative ebb and flow of the comic just did not translate well in this case.  As much as I liked the comic, I think adhering to it so strictly, for a short cartoon, didn't allow for it to have a proper narrative structure.  I don't know, maybe my reasons are wrong, but it did feel disjointed.

I think the feel is off because they tried to adapt the narrative into a more typical DC DTV movie style story line with one beginning, middle, and end. I think if they embraced the episodic nature of the story and had different title screens for each "chapter" or something, it may have actually felt more natural to the story being told.

Or if they hadn't tried to cram it into 80 minutes.

It's not a story that really has a cohesive whole story structure.  It's episodic.  It's not like its even the hero trying to find his way home to tie it together like the Odyssey.  Its just a lot of episodes that sometimes have to do with Superman struggling with his mortality.  Even if they made it 2 hours and 2 and a half and it had everything from the book, I don't think it would have made a very satisfying movie.