The Doomino Effect for the week of August 29, 2007

In honor of comics being delayed a day thanks to Labor Day, so too is the Doomino Effect a day later than usual. No one can accuse Jim Doom of not being sentimental.

And speaking of sentimental, that leads me to Action Comics #855, which continues Geoff Johns’ best attempt at enabling Richard Donner to relive his period of relevance. Beginning the “Escape from Bizarro World” storyline, the duo is joined by Goon creator Eric Powell, who has lately been so bad on his own title that he probably needed two writers to make him readable.

So Bizarro has stolen away Pa Kent and taken him to Bizarro World, a cubic planet orbiting around a blue sun (since, of course, cubes are the opposite of spheres and blue is the opposite of red…or is it yellow?) populated by Bizarro People.

I remember back in grade school, our little milk cartons had arrows on them designating which end of the carton was supposed to be peeled open. It was, however, an unwritten rule of the cafeteria that whomever your arrow pointed to was the person you liked. Soon it was learned that occasionally it was opposite day, so you actually disliked whoever you were pointed to.

To further complicate matters, it was hard to tell when it was opposite day – saying “It’s not opposite day” could either mean that it truthfully wasn’t opposite day, or it could mean that it was actually opposite day, but the opposite nature of the day meant that the opposite statement was made. Then if someone said “It is opposite day,” that would have been like some cafeteria koan that would’ve made our heads explode.

So I can’t help but be reminded of those early elementary years when reading Bizarro stories. In this issue, for instance, Superman arrives on Bizarro World to be greeted by an angry horde of Bizarrans. They mistake him for Bizarro – or do they? Maybe since Bizarro is the opposite of Superman, they actually meant Superman..? Anyway, they say they’re angry to see him, which should actually mean they are happy to see him. But then they still try to kill him.

That confused me a bit – do Bizarrans say the opposite of what they mean, but then do they opposite of what the true, decoded meaning of their words suggests? If so, that’s pretty stupid, because it basically makes them walking double-negatives and completely removes any mystery of what they mean because it would make their statements completely true. Such as, “We am so angry to see you,” and then trying to kill him.

Because then right after that, Bizarro Lois says “Me love you” and still attacks him. So does that mean she actually hates him? Because for one group to say they hate him and for another to say she loves him but both to respond to these opposing statements with attacks means that somebody on Bizarro world isn’t following the rules! Either that or Johns and Donner didn’t think it out that well, but it’s Geoff Johns we’re talking about, so it’s more realistic to think that the Bizarrans are real and don’t know what they’re doing.

So anyway, Superman finally confronts Bizarro about Pa Kent (“Father dead,” says Bizarro) and asks if that means he’s not really dead (“No,” Bizarro clarifies). We eventually find out Pa isn’t dead, but he’s some kind of prisoner that Bizarro is keeping as part of his plan to destroy Bizarro World.

Okay. Well, I feel like this is kind of a big effort to center a story around a character whose usefulness doesn’t extend too far beyond Saturday morning. The story seems like maybe it’s trying to get us to see Bizarro as something more than a one-dimensional cartoon character, which could be interesting, except they’ve got Eric Powell on the art. Any effort to make this transcend its cartoonishness was immediately crippled when that decision was made.

Powell can make some beautiful pictures – as the writing on the Goon has plummeted into unforeseen depths, the art has always stayed fantastic – but his style is undeniably abstracted in the direction of cuteness. And I was surprised to see how much he really struggled with parts of it. That said, it is kind of fun to see this style applied to (sort of) straightforward superhero comics. A story set on a distorted, cartoonish planet seems like it was pretty much a custom-made gateway for Powell on Superman.

Speaking of other-worldliness, well, and I guess speaking of Superman for that matter, that leads me to the only other comic I bought last week that wasn’t already covered in our Countdown and Book of Doom reviews, and that book didn’t even come out last week! I somehow missed Superman #666 the week it came out, so I snatched it up last week since it was otherwise pretty slow for me.

I love that in this age of heightened religious sensitivity and condemnation, when religious groups battle for airtime to declare that Harry Potter is converting millions of children to Satan worship and witchcraft, that DC looks at the potential to upset fanatics, weighs it against the fact that it takes a whole lot of years to get to issue #666, and says “Hot dog, let’s celebrate Satan!”

First it was Batman #666 a few months ago, and now it’s Superman’s turn to dabble with downstairs. Whereas I had mixed feelings with Batman, I loved this.

I was laughing out loud as I read the characterization of Jerk Superman, convinced he’s in a dream and just telling everyone off like he’d love to without his small-town manners. This must’ve been a joy for Kurt Busiek to write. Lines like Superman explaining, “Super friction, Brainiac…super friction creates static electricity…super static electricity creates… SHAKKABOOM!” to which Brainiac resonds “That…that makes no scientific sense whatsoever.” “My dream, my rules, you clockwork moron.”

Telling Zatanna her name is stupid…making Jimmy Olsen’s head explode with a super-whistle…it was all brilliantly and darkly hilarious thanks to Walt Simonson’s expressive lines that just seem to vibrate with movement. “No mark!” is not in itself a good line, but seeing “NO MARK! come out of the distorted, gaping Monster Green Lantern head was just fantastically primal.

It was a fun dip into another side of Superman’s mind and Superman’s place in his world, and I’m glad that they were able to contextualize it a bit with Clark’s moment of self-doubt at the end. I have no problem with publishers taking a moment to step out of their ongoing arcs if they’re going to take advantage of the opportunity. Telling this story for issue #666 is one such opportunity.

Bravo to DC celebrating their Mark-of-the-Beast Milestones. If only Marvel hadn’t gone and cancelled all their long-running series for the quick buck of new number-one issues, maybe they could’ve had this kind of fun too. But then again, they’re the publisher that doesn’t even want people smoking, so I don’t see that happening.