Neal Adams was one of the greatest artists in the history of the comic book medium. But as a writer he was average on his best day. The Coming of the Supermen showcases the great, the good, and the blah that comes with an Adams written project. Now admittedly some of my confusion might be that I don't read the DC Universe with any regularity and so the changes made to the status of characters might be a little more confusing because of that, but not this much.
We quickly learn that it involves Jack Kirby's Fourth World creations. The Supermen are battling Kalibak and his Parademons. The focus seems to be to capture a boy and his dog. Superman, both as Clark Kent and as the "Man of Tomorrow" takes the boy named Rafi in. Then it turns out that Lex Luthor is involved.
The blood of these Supermen is seen as resource and Luthor is eager to harvest a tiny bit of it. Superman puts an end to that. And then Darkseid shows up. I'm not crazy about how Adams portrays Darkseid, as he seems enraged most of the time and not cold and calculating with little regard for anyone else. This is what made him scary. It's not that he can fire off an Infinity Beam out of his eyes to obliterate you that is the scariest part, it's that your existence or nonexistence means nothing to him.
With Darkseid comes pretty much the whole gang from New Genesis and Apokolips. Orion plays a big role in the story and both Mister Miracle and Big Barda are on hand for some key moments. Metron is around but seems quite different from how I normally see him. In addition to Kalibak, both Granny Goodness and Steppenwolf are around, though I don't think the latter is every fully namechecked in the story. It's always fun to see the Fourth World gang, and Adams draws them well. He even makes a classic Kirby faux pax and renders Orion's mask wrong on one page.
If you were to ask me what this saga is about, I'd be hard pressed to answer. It has something to do with New Krypton and creating a red sun so that Darkseid can gain a foothold. This series was published in 2016 and so anything in the continuity then is likely not the status quo today, so it matters little in regard. It's fun to see Darkseid and Luthor matching wits and each one trying to backstab the other.
I found the finale clever, but a bit bloodless. In the end, it's hard to care too deeply about a story which is rather confusing though drawn with vigor and power. It proves what I knew already -- Adams was not a very good writer, but he was a damn good artist. That is unless I'm missing something. If so, please tell and I'll tackle this one again.
Rip Off
All I can remember about this one is that it failed to make much of an impression on me. As regards the art, I didn't think it was up to his usual standard. I said so in a post on my blog and someone submitted a comment (which I didn't publish) saying 'Could you do any better?' My answer would've been 'No - but Adams could.'
ReplyDeleteI admire Neal Adams and his work immensely but his writing was suspect. I know you and I have gone around more than a few times about the writing of Jack Kirby, but as offbeat and strange as it stories could get, they ran rings around those of Adams.
DeleteJack certainly had many great story ideas and I don't necessarily object to offbeat and strange, but my main criticism of his scripting was usually how it compared to his collaborations with Stan. Lee had an ear for dialogue, Kirby simply had a 'tin' ear. I don't recall Adams' scripting abilities and am loath to re-read The Coming Of The Supermen to remind me of it.
DeleteAs a general rule any comics written by Neal I buy as "eye candy" only. Some of his stories just go right over my head and this series was no exception. Still it had some very nice art indeed Adams and Superman were a great combo.
ReplyDeleteNeal Adams made some of the finest eye candy the comic book industry has ever seen. But his writing is downright enigmatic.
DeleteI have not read this particular item, but I did read one or two of Adams' works from the 2010s, and I found them just as incoherent. They, and all of the Continuity comics Adams oversaw during that earlier period, made me think of some joke at the expense of extreme sports-jocks: that everything they did had to be TO THE EXTREME! There are rarely any quiet moments or philosophical asides; everything must be dialed up to the eleven every moment.
ReplyDeleteYour notion that he might have been influenced by DC's habit of introducing wild ideas barely given logical justification is very apt. I can't picture Adams reading Mort Weisinger stories for their logic, but he could have read them to assimilate DC's penchant for selling product through "all sizzle and no steak" covers.
The funny thing about this comparison is that Adams' collaborations with Denny O'Neil were at the time viewed as a reaction AGAINST the earlier paradigm. Their work on BATMAN and GREEN LANTERN was hyperbolic, but it usually didn't depend on stuff like "why is Batman wearing a rainbow version of his regular costume?" And O'Neil's scripts featured lots of quiet moments and philosophical thoughts. But it appears that Adams, though he could draw things like that from someone else's script, had no desire to write that sort of thing.
Great analysis. The lack of "quiet moments" is very true, the chance for a reader to gather themselves for a brief moment before the next shocker is critical or that shocker is wasted. It's like modern horror movies that can show you stuff constantly and not build tension -- they aren't scary. It's just good storytelling.
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