PHILADELPHIA — Seven decades after it was cut by DC Comics, the check sent to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for their creation of Superman is up for auction.

Made out to the duo for $412, the check includes a line item for $130 showing that DC paid for full ownership and rights to the man from Krypton and paved the way for comic books, TV, radio and films. But, a legal dispute over creator’s rights to the character is still far from settled.

Stephen Fishler, CEO of ComicConnect.com and Metropolis Collectibles, said the check went up for auction Monday through April 16. By late Monday night, bidding had jumped from $1 to $20,500.

He said the check is a touchstone for the comic book industry because it represents the launching of the Golden Age of superheroes.

“It is an important historic document … related to comic books,” he said. “There is a quality to it that talks about the American dream, to create something and be successful. Obviously, in this case, there are two parties, both feeling that they are right.”

Siegel and Shuster created Superman together while teenagers in Cleveland, Ohio, in the early 1930s. The character’s first appearance was in “Action Comics” No. 1 in April 1938.

The check was saved by a staffer at DC Comics in the 1970s whose heirs consigned it to ComicConnect, Fishler said, adding that it sat undisturbed in a drawer for 38 years.

“That $130 check essentially created a billion dollar industry,” said Vincent Zurzolo, who co-owns ComicConnect with Fishler. “Without this check being written out by DC Comics, there would be no Superman, and thereby no Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, X-Men, or any of the other characters that came into existence after the concept of the superhero was born with Superman.”

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Follow Matt Moore at www.twitter.com/mattmooreap

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Online:

http://bit.ly/GSNYCt

From: http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20120328/BIZ/703289865/1005/BIZ

Seven decades after it was cut by DC Comics, the check sent to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for their creation of Superman is up for auction.

Made out to the duo for $412, the check includes a line item for $130 showing that DC paid for full ownership and rights to the man from Krypton and paved the way for comic books, TV, radio and films. But, a legal dispute over creator’s rights to the character is still far from settled.

Stephen Fishler, CEO of ComicConnect.com and Metropolis Collectibles, said the check went up for auction Monday through April 16. In its first few hours, bidding jumped from $1 to more than $12,500.

He said the check is a touchstone for the comic book industry because it represents the launching of the Golden Age of superheroes.

“It is an important historic document … related to comic books,” he said. “There is a quality to it that talks about the American dream, to create something and be successful. Obviously, in this case, there are two parties, both feeling that they are right.”

Siegel and Shuster created Superman together while teenagers in Cleveland, Ohio, in the early 1930s. The character’s first appearance was in “Action Comics” No. 1 in April 1938.

The check was saved by a staffer at DC Comics in the 1970s whose heirs consigned it to ComicConnect, Fishler said, adding that it sat undisturbed in a drawer for 38 years.

“That $130 check essentially created a billion dollar industry,” said Vincent Zurzolo, who co-owns ComicConnect with Fishler. “Without this check being written out by DC Comics, there would be no Superman, and thereby no Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, X-Men, or any of the other characters that came into existence after the concept of the superhero was born with Superman.”

———

Follow Matt Moore at www.twitter.com/mattmooreap

———

Online:

http://bit.ly/GSNYCt

From: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/dc-check-paying-superman-auction-16006579

Accepting the Superhero Genre

By Erin Elizabeth Fraser
March 26, 2012

Recently, Chronicle screenwriter Max Landis unleashed a Youtube parody of the 1992 blockbuster DC event The Death and Return of Superman. Seen here, the video hilariously reenacts the events of the multi-issue arc and speculates on the editorial meetings that brought it about. Through analyzing the storyline, Landis touches on many aspects of mainstream superhero comics and fandom. But his main thesis is that “The Death and Return of Superman” fundamentally broke the concept and implementation of death in superhero comics.

To prove his point, he cites a multitude of DC and Marvel characters that have died and been subsequently resurrected in the past decade. However, Landis never addresses the fact that death and revival was already an accepted narrative convention in superhero comics Alfred Pennyworth, Jean Grey, Elektra and even Lex Luthor had died and been resurrected. Nor does Landis consider that Superman’s resurrection was inevitable given the character’s mythic makeup.

While the video is compelling and its jokes about superheroes and fandom ring true to those that follow comics, it never probes deeper in to the nature of death in the superhero genre, or in turn, the nature of superheroes themselves. By again focusing on Superman, we can come to an understanding of the genre he created as well as his inherent immortality.

Being the first superhero, Superman established the conventions of the genre and the storytelling structure.

In his 1962 essay, “The Myth of Superman,” Umberto Eco explores the nature of the character and the unique narrative formula that develops to maintain him. As the title suggests, Eco describes Superman as mythic. He writes that he “is a myth on condition of being a creature immersed in everyday life, in the present, apparently tied to our own conditions of life and death, even if endowed with superior faculties.” Superman’s mortality is crucial to his relevance, for if he were immortal, and a god, the reader would no longer be able to identify with him.

It is noteworthy that Eco addresses Superman’s mortality 30 years before his eventual death and resurrection. He understands that the character must be considered as mortal, but any permanent change on his characterization is null and void. Ultimately, Eco places Superman in between the classical heroes of myth and novelistic characters: he must both remain fixed signifier and be open for development. As the strongest man alive, he “finds himself in the worrisome situation of bring a hero without an adversary and therefore without the possibility of any development.” Eco concludes that Superman “gives serious problems to his script writers,” because he is “aesthetically and commercially deprived of the possibility of narrative development.” Thus, “little by little, varying formulae are offered to provoke and justify a contrast.”

Eco cites most notably the introduction of Kryptonite to the mythos, which gives Superman a weakness that his enemies can exploit. But it’s a weakness that Superman can easily overcome by using his superior intellect to evade or escape villainous traps that bring him in contact with it. Decades later, when creators decide to kill Superman, they construct a similar obstacle with the villain Doomsday. He is an adversary literally invented for the sole purpose of bringing down our hero, and fashioned as his equal in strength for narrative plausibility. Thus the writers create dramatic tension, without taking away from the superiority of Superman. The Kryptonian “sleeping coma” is similarly a narrative construction which serves to maintain the status quo and bringing our hero back.

So why must we accept this? Landis clearly wants the death of Superman to mean something, and for him that would have meant permanency or at least a death that lasted longer than eight months. When we read a superhero comic, we inherently buy in to the genre and the conventions that govern the genre. Whether Landis likes it or not, it isn’t within the genre to maintain enduring change.

The superhero genre has developed a complex story structure that allows it to tell new stories without effecting change. Eco writes that Superman’s adventures take place “in a kind of oneiric climate;” he “happens to live in an imaginary universe in which, as opposed to ours, casual chains are not open (A provokes B, B provokes C, C provokes D, and so on, ad infinitum), but closed (A provokes B, B provokes C, C provokes D, and D provokes A), and it no longer makes sense to talk about temporal progression on the basis of which we usually describe the happenings of the macrocosm.”

Ultimately Eco surmises that “Superman comes off as a myth only if the reader loses control of the temporal relationships and renounces the need to reason on their basis, thereby giving himself up to the uncontrollable flux of the stories accessible to him [or her] and, at the same time, holding on to the illusion of the continuous present.”

There is a certain degree of suspension of disbelief that comes with buying in to the Superman narrative, and in turn all superhero narratives. Whether knowingly or not, we accept that the world does not function as our own and that these characters are not bound by the same laws of nature. They are fiction, and the power that they carry is ultimately that with which we impart to them in the process of suspending our disbelief.

Unlike myths, which are fixed and established, the DC and Marvel narratives are continuously in a state of creation. The story is continuing before our very eyes on our weekly visits to the comic book store for monthly installments. Creators are free to find the fictional universe at various points in its history, and to tell the various stories that come out of these characters. Despite contradictions, all of these things exist within simultaneity of one another. The large scale fictional universe is in a state of continuous flux, as creators experiment, invent and reinvent storylines and characters; but also continuously double back on themselves, and revert to the status quo in order to find new storytelling possibilities and stories to tell.

During his spotlight panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2010, Grant Morrison said that the death of a superhero is always meaningful if it is well-written. I believe this holds true, though I would add that is also needs to be well-drawn, because it is the alchemy between words and pictures that produces comics magic. The point is, it is all the execution; a good comic is a good comic.

The Death and Return of Superman wasn’t a particularly good run of comic books. It was, however, extremely successful, gaining widespread media attention and selling out practically overnight. Its success lead to further story stunts, which spun in to further large scale event crossovers, which has lead to the current publishing climate and event fatigue. The concept of death isn’t broken in comics; but comics fans have adjusted to instability in the DC and Marvel universes, and as a result grand gestures no longer carry much weight for readers.

Despite criticism, these market strategies continue to top sales charts and produce quality books from time to time. Some will find this instability unsatisfying and manipulative, as Landis suggests, but it doesn’t need to be the case. In essence, by following contemporary superhero comics readers are required to adjust to these grand and variable changes, and it can be a fun and crazy ride for those willing to go along with it.

The Death and Return of Superman ? Max Landis’ Hilarious Parody Video

From: http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=2201

HERSHEY, Pa. — One comic illustrates a medical student’s losing battle with sleep while holding a surgical instrument in one position for hours in a quiet operating room, as a tiny Mr. Sandman circles her head.

Another medical student’s comic strip chronicles the harvesting of a patient’s organs, and how her initial excitement over a cool surgical case morphs into the realization that the patient has died in the process.

“We hit the off switches,” the student wrote, near her illustrations of a patient’s body that had been emptied of its vital organs. “Pangs of grief hit me.”

Another student chronicled her efforts to connect with a pip of a pediatric patient named Tina, “one of the meanest 8-year-olds that I had ever encountered.”

Medical students at the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey are taking an unusual course titled “Graphic Storytelling and Medical Narratives,” where they read graphic novels and comics written about medical experiences and then create their own comics for the class.

“It provides an outlet for students to reflect on their experiences, to write about it, to think about it and to share it with others,” said Dr. Michael Green, a professor in the Department of Humanities and Internal Medicine at the college.

Green just finished his fourth year teaching the class, likely the only one of its kind in the country.

He also has helped to organize international symposiums on the topic, including one this summer in Toronto that so far has attracted 100 people.

Penn State’s medical school is well-known for its long-running humanities department and its attention to teaching the human side of healing through courses incorporating jazz, meditation, poetry, film and literature.

Sara Farag, a fourth-year medical student, just finished the class, drawing a cartoon titled the “The Game of Life — Medical Student Edition,” chronicling how she chose obstetrics/gynecology as her specialty.

“When you put your story into cartoons as well as writing it, it makes you realize what happened at the moment, what were people’s emotions, what people around you were thinking, what you were thinking,” she said.

Green got the idea for the class after he read the graphic novel “Maus,” by Art Spiegelman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book about Spiegelman’s father’s experiences in a World War II concentration camp.

“It was the first time I realized that comics, as a medium, could be used to address serious issues,” said Green, who read Superman, Batman and other superhero comic books as a kid. “I was really blown away.”

Comics or graphic novels are powerful because they allow writers to communicate through images and words, said Green, who discovered there is a whole genre of medically themed graphic novels, including “Cancer Vixen” and “Stitches.”

“They are engaging and they are beautiful to look at, and they explore themes and issues that are important for doctors and medical students to understand,” he said.

Green decided to teach a course on the topic but could find no one else who had done so. So he created his own class.

The need for empathy also was at the heart of Jeff Monk’s “Christmas Carol”-inspired cartoon about a dismissive Scrooge-like doctor who callously sends away a patient who is having chest pains and hurting in other ways.

A longtime fan of comics such as Superman, Monk plans to go into pediatrics and would love to create a cartoon for his future small patients, saying that would be an ideal way to explain a problem such as asthma to a child.

From: http://www.stargazette.com/article/20120324/NEWS01/203240338/Comics-used-teach-central-Pa-medical-students?odyssey=nav%7Chead

“Superman Versus The Elite” adapts Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke’s “Action Comics” story to animation

During WonderCon 2012, CBR News spoke with director Michael Chang, writer Joe Kelly and actor Robin Atkin Downes about the upcoming Warner Home Video direct-to-video release, “Superman vs. The Elite,” looking at the challenges of bringing the acclaimed story to the screen, giving characters the right voice and pitting Superman against extra-violent opponents.

The film, which marks the fourteenth entry in the DC Animated Original Movie line, is based on the “Action Comics” #775 story, “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way?” It sees Superman face an extreme superhero team known as The Elite and explores the concept of true heroism. As writer Joe Kelly explained while talking with reporters, it was a response to the then-popular “The Authority” being published though DC Comics’ WildStorm imprint.

At the turn of the century, many comic book heroes were caught up in a wave of darkness where their methods were questionable and titles like Wildstorm’s “The Authority” showcased a sort of superhero fascism. “There was a general vibe [at the time],” recalled Kelly, who readily admits he is a fan of that material. However, there was a particular “Authority” issue that did not sit right with him. “I felt that it wasn’t just about an antihero. It was sort of like, ‘If you believe in any of this superhero garbage, you’re stupid,’” he explained. “That was the way I took it, whether or not that was the intent.” With the “Action Comics” anniversary issue, he felt it was time to have another voice in the conversation. “[The voice] coming from Superman seemed appropriate.”

The film version marks the first instance of a comic writer adapting his own work for the line of animated films; an opportunity that came about because Kelly was already working at Warner Bros. Animation. “I was very honored not just to get my story translated, but to write it was huge,” he said. “[That story] is a real touchstone in my career, so I wanted to make sure I did it justice.”

Kelly believes he benefited from having nearly a decade’s distance from the original story. “It wasn’t precious to me anymore; I could sort of tear it apart and break it down,” he said, crediting longtime DC Animated Universe story editor Alan Burnett in guiding his writing process. “I was totally geeking out anytime he called me,” Kelly beamed. “I have such respect for his work.”

In translating the story for animation, the key challenge came from what the writer referred to as the “inside baseball” element of “Action” #775. “It really is about comics and antiheroes in comics, and you have to have a little bit of a background to wholly appreciate that story,” he explained. In taking that element out, Kelly discovered he had to find a new context in which to question the Superman style of heroism for an audience that might not have read the original story. “I think they’re really nice companion pieces,” he said. “None of us wanted to do a straight adaptation anyway. You just don’t want to animate what’s already there.”

Animating the script was director Michael Chang, a veteran of “Batman: The Brave and The Bold,” “Teen Titans” and “Young Justice.” Chang came onto the project as long-time DC Animated movie director Lauren Montgomery opted out of it in order to move on to other opportunities. With much of the design work in place when he took over, Chang focused on storyboarding the film. “During the process, I got to know the script really well,” he said. “The more I read it, the more I liked it.”

While utilizing Doug Manhke’s art style from the original story would have been difficult, he said they “tried to catch the spirit of the characters.”

Currently working on a new “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” show at Nickelodeon, Chang reflected fondly on his time at Warner Bros. “You just have such a wealth of talent and creative input. You have Bruce [Timm], James Tucker, Alan Burnett; all this information at the tip of your hands,” he said. “It’s classic characters that you grew up with — it’s like a dream come true.”

Kelly was surprised at the level of violence allowed in the animated movie

Returning to thoughts of the film, one element that surprised the director was the amount of violence in the finished project. “It’s kind of pushing the envelope for Superman,” Chang said, laughing. “We earned our PG-13,” agreed Kelly.

In expanding the story, Kelly introduced a global conflict between nations. “At the same time, we inserted a more specific superhero conflict to illustrate Superman’s track record of putting someone away, but then they’re out again,” he said. “Those things helped flesh out the story and really embody the conflicts.” Lois’ role has also been also expanded with the ace reporter investigating The Elite. After so many years away from the comic’s publication, Kelly was shocked to realize much of the original story featured fights referenced in dialogue as opposed to being shown. “We had a chance to expand on some of those battles,” he said.

“Some of those scenes really helped the story along,” Chang added.

Robin Atkin Downes, who plays Elite leader Manchester Black in the film, was also surprised by the movie’s level of violence, saying, “This one is a lot grittier than some of the other Superman movies I’ve seen.” The actor, originally from England, adopted a modified accent for the role. “There was a fine line with the accent ,because if you do a real, thick Manchester accent, a lot of the American audience isn’t going to be able to understand it,” he explained, mentioning that plenty of regional slang still made it into the final product.

A veteran of sci-fi shows like “Babylon 5″ and video games like “Uncharted 3,” Downes appreciated the more realistic tone of the acting required for the part. “The movies are not very ‘cartoony’ at all, and with Manchester, they didn’t want to play him too big,” he said. The actor was also struck by Manchester’s vision of justice, saying, “He wants it his way. [He believes] throwing criminals in prison does not work. Manchester just wants to wipe them out and be done with them.”

Asked if it surprised him how contemporary the story felt even though it was originally published over a decade ago, Downes responded, “It did feel like we were plucking from the headlines. Questions of abuse of power [and] if you can find hope and goodness in human beings … that’s really relevant.” According to Kelly, the key to Superman is not his perfection — indeed, he has plenty of flaws — but his belief in mankind. “Superman is that beacon of hope because he believes.”

With his first DC Animated project now under his belt, the writer admits to having a few other characters he would love to tackle. “I’ve always been a fan of The Spectre,” he said. “I think we like more mature animation as adult fans, and we don’t get the chance to do it that much. Anytime we get a chance to crack that nut and show an adult audience that animation can do some really cool stuff with mature themes, I’m up for it.”

He added that he liked the “DC Showcase” Spectre short from a few years back and even wrote a short script for the series that was never produced.

Other characters he would enjoy working with include Captain Marvel and Batman. “I’ve written Batman in things, but I’ve never written a Batman story,” said Kelly.

It was a sentiment shared by Downes. “I’ve been up for Batman a couple of times … maybe someday.”

“Superman vs. The Elite” arrives in stores and via digital download on June 12.

Discuss this story in CBR’s TV/Film forum.
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Tags:  warner home video, dc entertainment, superman vs the elite, superman, joe casey, doug mahnke, robin atkin downes, michael chang

From: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=37740

Top 10 Lists

Comic Book Movies

The New 52 DC Comics

The Walking Dead TV Show

From: http://comicbook.com/blog/2012/03/22/top-ten-superman-artists-of-all-time/

HERSHEY, Pa. (WTW) — One comic illustrates a medical student’s losing battle with sleep while holding a surgical instrument in one position for hours in a quiet operating room, as a tiny Mr. Sandman circles her head.

Another medical student’s comic strip chronicles the harvesting of a patient’s organs, and how her initial excitement over a cool surgical case morphs into the realization that the patient has died in the process. “We hit the off switches,” the student wrote, near her illustrations of a patient’s body that had been emptied of its vital organs. “Pangs of grief hit me.”

Another student chronicled her efforts to connect with a pip of a pediatric patient named Tina, “one of the meanest 8-year-olds that I had ever encountered.”

Medical students at the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey are taking an unusual course titled “Graphic Storytelling and Medical Narratives,” where they read graphic novels and comics written about medical experiences and then create their own comics for the class.

“It provides an outlet for students to reflect on their experiences, to write about it, to think about it and to share it with others,” said Dr. Michael Green, a professor in the Department of Humanities and Internal Medicine at the college.

Green just finished his fourth year teaching the class, likely the only one of its kind in the country. He also has helped to organize international symposiums on the topic, including one this summer in Toronto that so far has attracted 100 people.

Penn State’s medical school is well-known for its long-running humanities department and its attention to teaching the human side of healing through courses incorporating jazz, meditation, poetry, film and literature.

Sara Farag, a fourth-year medical student, just finished the class, drawing a cartoon titled the “The Game of Life — Medical Student Edition,” chronicling how she chose obstetrics/gynecology as her specialty.

“When you put your story into cartoons as well as writing it, it makes you realize what happened at the moment, what were people’s emotions, what people around you were thinking, what you were thinking,” she said.

Green got the idea for the class after he read the graphic novel “Maus,” by Art Spiegelman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book about Spiegelman’s father’s experiences in a World War II concentration camp.

“It was the first time I realized that comics, as a medium, could be used to address serious issues,” said Green, who read Superman, Batman and other superhero comic books as a kid. “I was really blown away.”

Comics or graphic novels are powerful because they allow writers to communicate through images and words, said Green, who discovered there is a whole genre of medically themed graphic novels, including “Cancer Vixen” and “Stitches.”

“I thought, ‘This is really interesting, I love reading these,’” he said. “They are engaging and they are beautiful to look at, and they explore themes and issues that are important for doctors and medical students to understand.”

Green decided to teach a course on the topic but could find no one else who had done so. So he created his own class, choosing graphic novels for the students to read before directing them to create their own comics.

SaraMarian Seibert, a fourth-year medical student, created a comic she titled “How a GREEN CHILE CHEESBURGER almost killed Aunt Cindy,” detailing her aunt’s experience with gallstones and gallbladder surgery.

In the comic, Seibert draws herself as a knight in medical armor walking into her aunt’s room. It shows her efforts to provide her aunt with insider medical student information.

At the end, she drew a picture of herself, holding her aunt’s hand, and wrote, “Sometimes, the best medical advice I can give my family is to be there to support, not judge, their medical decisions, hold their hand, and bring the occasional apple juice.”

She picked the experience, she said, because it deeply personalized what it’s like to have a harrowing medical problem hit a family member, and how important empathy is at that time.

“It’s someone’s aunt, or someone’s daughter or sister, and you need to treat them as a person and not just a disease process that you’re learning about,” she said.

The need for empathy also was at the heart of Jeff Monk’s “Christmas Carol”-inspired cartoon about a dismissive Scrooge-like doctor who callously sends away a patient who is having chest pains and hurting in other ways.

A longtime fan of comics such as Superman, Monk plans to go into pediatrics and would love to create a cartoon for his future small patients, saying that would be an ideal way to explain a problem such as asthma to a child.

That’s just the kind of lesson Green hopes his students will take from the class into the world.

“I think comics can help them with their communication skills, their diagnostic skills, their empathy skills,” he said. “Students have said, ‘This is going to make me a better doctor.’”

___

Online:

http://bit.ly/GE6YP5

___

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

From: http://www.coshoctontribune.com/usatoday/article/38856651?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFrontpage%7Cp

<!–See more photos in the gallery–>

By Henry Hanks

(CNN) — There are reboots, and then there are reboots.

With Wednesday’s release of “Justice League” #7, the character known since 1941 as Captain Marvel will officially go by the name “Shazam” — a name which many of the uninitiated might have thought was his name for decades.

According to DC Comics’ Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, who had a big hand in the recent relaunch of DC Comics characters with “The New 52,”, told the New York Post that the name change made sense for a number of reasons, including that, “Shazam is the word most associated with the character.” (DC Comics is owned by Time Warner, which also owns CNN.)

Gone also is the white collar on his cape, which is now more of a cowl, and the famous lightning bolt on his chest now glows.

“His place in the world will be far more rooted in fantasy and magic than it ever was before,” Johns told the Post.

“This will be a complete revamping of the character, all the way back to his origins with new powers, and what I’m sure will be changes to his family of supporting characters,” said John Barringer of A Comic Book Blog. “This could potentially be one of the biggest changes for a character as a result of the New 52.”

The change in Shazam’s appearance is potentially significant, as it makes him look a good deal less like Superman than before. In one of the most legendary court cases in comic book history, DC successfully won a lawsuit in 1953 with Captain Marvel’s creator, Fawcett Comics, due to those similarities with one of their most popular characters. (At one point in the 1940s, Captain Marvel comics were outselling Superman).

“Captain Marvel was the first character that really refined the superhero formula,” said Chris Sims, a senior writer for Comics Alliance. “He’s the ultimate wish-fulfillment character. Every kid wants to be a grown-up and be big and strong and have the ability to get whatever they want, and Billy Batson is exactly that. He says a magic word and he doesn’t just get super-powers, he turns into an adult that can fly around having all the adventures that kids want to have. And that’s what made him a hit.”

DC bought Captain Marvel back in the 1970s, but legally could not title any comic books “Captain Marvel,” instead calling them “Shazam!” (named after the word young Billy would say to transform into Captain Marvel, as well as the wizard who first gave him his powers). Even the two Saturday morning TV series from that era were called “Shazam.”

(Marvel Comics, on the other hand, is under no such restriction, and, for its part, DC’s rival company announced the relaunch of their own version of a character named “Captain Marvel” – originally introduced in 1967 – this past weekend at Wondercon.)

DC once again relaunched the character several times from the 1990s until recent years, to varying levels of success.

So, why is this reboot raising eyebrows among some comic book fans?

“He’s a sort of comic book relic, who’s eroded less through the years than others and keeps a part of that simpler time intact,” said Barringer. “So as you can imagine, any adjustments to the character are carefully watched.”

Sims said he has seen a very mixed reaction to this reboot from fans. “I’ve seen people calling Geoff Johns out for changing the name because he’s ‘not a true fan,’” he said, adding that there may be “some truth” to the idea that it’s a way of DC getting around the legality of using “Captain Marvel.”

“Other people are pretty optimistic about it, having Captain Marvel back in such a high-profile book.”

Sims said he thinks critics are more upset about the costume change than about the name: “Captain Marvel was originally styled as a big, fun character that was as much a sort of Looney Tunes-style cartoon as he was a superhero,” he said.

“There’s a great story where his arch-enemy Dr. Sivana tries to blow him up with ‘a billion tons of dynamite’ and he just sort of flies up in the air like Wile E. Coyote. But since mainstream super-hero comics, and DC in particular, have spent the last 30 years trying to move away from that sense of fun and towards more ‘serious’ adventures, that doesn’t really fit. So from the looks at least, he seems like he’s been slightly redesigned to be more menacing.”

Barringer believes, despite any uproar over the name and costume changes, that most fans are excited by a character getting reinvented, even if they won’t admit it. “Shazam has all the characteristics of being a great classic superhero and his close ties to magic and supporting characters that make up the ‘Marvel Family’ open the spectrum even wider for all sorts of possibilities. I think the biggest concern is that comics seem to lose a bit of the original characters with every revision they go through, and it’d be a shame to see such a classy and classical character like Shazam deteriorate, even if a little.”

Despite any misgivings, the fact that Geoff Johns has breathed new life into Green Lantern and, more recently, Aquaman, means that hardcore comic book readers will likely pick up “Justice League” out of curiosity to see what he has done with Shazam.

“Johns is one of the top creators in comics, if not the top writer, and ‘Justice League’ is the best-selling comic on the stands right now, and it’s the one DC’s pushing to get into the hands of the people who weren’t necessarily reading comics before,” said Sims. “His involvement means that this is a high-profile story, and that for a lot of readers it’s going to be the first time they’ve seen Captain Marvel/Shazam in a long time, and for some it’ll be their first exposure to the character. For them, this will be their definitive version of him, at least until the next big change.”

As Barringer put it, “[Johns] has a clever way of combing a character’s history over into a fresh take, adapting new ideas out of old ones. I’d imagine there is no holds barred for his vision. We’ll have to wait and see if lighting strikes again though.”

From: http://fox8.com/2012/03/20/superhero-original-gets-major-makeover-name-change/

Diamond Comics has released the list of comic books and other items on sale this week. Here are the Superman related items in that list…

Available This Week: March 21, 2012.

The following products are expected to ship to comic book specialty stores this week, with all comics also available for digital download. Note that this list is tentative and subject to change. Please check with your retailer for availability.

Click on the magnifying glass icon () next to a comic’s title to view a sneak peek at the pages within.

From: http://www.supermanhomepage.com/news.php?readmore=11092

We got to see a special screening at WonderCon for DC’s new animated movie Superman vs The Elite. The film is based on the story “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way”, in the 2001 issue of DC’s “Action Comics” #775, written by Joe Kelly, illustrated by Doug Mahnke and Lee Bermejo.

The film starts with a mysterious man in a Union Jack shirt watching a network of video screens that display trouble around the world. In one of the screens Superman stops a explosion but other horrors occur at the same time where the Man of Steel can’t be. The man watching the screens is Manchester Black, leader of The Elite. The Elite is a team of super-powered anti-heroes, who gained worldwide popularity for killing their enemies.

Despite the acclaim and approval The Elite have received by the world for killing terrorists, Superman doesn’t believe in their way, continually defying The Elite even after they save him and the city.

The differences of methods and morals taking place to kill or have mercy will sway you. Both philosophies are gripping and tense and you start to think the unthinkable…Superman could be wrong. Why let a mass murderer live another day so he can kill again another day? When villains so brutal why should anyone show compassion for these destructive time bombs? The beauty of this film wrestles with just that and you’ll have your doubts about what the right thing to do is.

The film shows Superman in a new light, one where you feel sympathetic for him as if he were a dinosaur. Is Superman irrelevant to what the world needs today?

Tensions between Superman and The Elite culminate in a final showdown on one of Jupiter’s moons. The finale’s battle is worthy of a comparison to the Superman II movie! You won’t regret watching the best animated film from DC to date.

There was also a bonus for those watching a advanced screening of Superman vs The Elite at the end of the panel. The next animated film to be released is The Dark Knight Returns from Frank Mille’s 1985 graphic novel!

Special sneak preview trailer for The Dark Knight Returns!

Superman vs The Elite will be released on June 12, 2012.

From: http://mightyaction.com/2012/03/18/wondercon-superman-elite-advanced-screening-review/