Rocket Trips #1: Action Comics (vol. 1) #1 - 1938

Well, we had to start somewhere. Action Comics (vol. 1) #1 contains the first (canonical, comic book) appearance of Superman and starts with a one-page opening sequence that remains a marvel of condensed storytelling. I covered it in some detail way back when.

Creative Team: Jerome Siegel & Joe Shuster.

All-Star Summary: Doomed planet. Desperate scientist. Passing motorist. Remarkable orphan.

Key Elements: A distant world is dying. A scientist places his infant son in a "hastily-devised space-ship" and launches it toward Earth. The baby is discovered by a passing motorist and taken to an orphanage. The child has superhuman strength, and his powers of strength, speed, and invulnerability grow as he reaches maturity. He uses his powers to "benefit mankind" and becomes Superman, the champion of the oppressed.

Interesting Deviations: This is the first origin, so it can't really deviate from anything, but eighty-two years of hindsight allow us to see how much is missing, and what's included instead. There's no mention of Superman's birth mother, no mention of Ma & Pa Kent, no names for any of the sci-fi elements at all. Instead of the Kents, there's a passing motorist and an orphanage. Superman's powers are credited to an advanced physical structure and likened to the abilities of ants and grasshoppers. His powers are said to grow when he gets older, which sticks around a little in the Golden Age but then disappears until the Byrne reboot. 

Additional Commentary: Can we trade out "Man of Tomorrow" for "Champion of the Oppressed" as a moniker for Superman? That's one that really needs to make a comeback.

The Rocket: Not much to look at, really. Just your average bright-red Amazing Stories sci-fi rocket.

I give this rocket two out of five exploding Kryptons. 

Rocket Trips #0: Origin Stories

Once upon a time, just a little over nine years ago, I started a little series examining the different versions of Superman's origin story, in publication order, on this blog. That series petered out after nine entries, halfway through George Lowther's 1942 novel, The Adventures of Superman. There's half of an entry finishing off that novel's origin story in my drafts from...*cough* 2011. 

Since then, we've had a bunch more Superman origin stories, including flashback sequences in "Man of Steel (vol. 2)" and the current "Superman: Year One." And I'd like to dive back into the Superman origin waters. 

But I'm older and wiser now, and I realize that I made some avoidable mistakes. Chief among them being that I tried to stick to the origins in chronological order. I think there's value to that, in seeing how the myth evolved over time, but it also means spending a lot of time tracking down hard-to-find Golden Age and Silver Age sources. I really dig Golden and Silver Age comics, but I also know there were versions of Superman's origin told in the gap between 1961 and 1978 in that old master list, and I haven't found any clear indication of where they were. 

So I'm going to play hopscotch through the decades, covering Superman origins as I encounter them, and focusing on the key elements that carry over from version to version, as well as the interesting deviations. I can't promise a regular schedule or fascinating writing, but I'm going to try. Blogging may be a dying art, but I'm not ready to close the Fortress door just yet, and this is an easy way to have some consistent content that I can't just dump in the whirlpool of social media. 

Besides, I made a logo:

I hope you enjoy coming on this journey with me! The first installment will post later today!

Larry DiTillio: 1948-2019

Larry DiTillio was a prolific writer of television shows, books, and RPGs. He was responsible for some of the most memorable parts of the He-Man mythos, like the dragon Granamyr and the Lovecraftian Shokoti, not to mention being a co-creator of She-Ra. He was one of the showrunners for Babylon 5 early on, and Beast Wars throughout its groundbreaking run. 

In 1999, he had an AOL e-mail address. 

So did I. I was a sophomore in high school, and I'd been assigned to interview someone for my speech class. Being the giant cartoon dork that I am, and at the time still very heavily enmeshed in my He-Man fandom phase (I showed that same speech teacher some of my fanfic because of course I did), I reached out to Mr. DiTillio, who graciously agreed to answer my dumb, dorky questions. 

I sent him my questions. In my memory, I'm pretty sure there were some back-and-forths over e-mail, and I sent follow-up questions, but AOL lost everything from that time, so I have no way of going back to check. What I do remember is that the deadline was approaching, and I didn't have what I needed to put my speech together. I was pretty nervous about public speaking to begin with (my previous speech, an informational presentation on '80s music, had umm-ed and ahh-ed its way to being four times longer in reality than it was when I practiced), so I was naturally pretty bummed out about it. My parents convinced me to interview my aunt as a backup.

I don't know what happened behind the scenes. I think my dad e-mailed him, though I don't know what he said. I also think Mr. DiTillio was recovering from an illness at the time. I'm not sure how I pieced that together; I think Mr. DiTillio made a comment that my Dad really cared about me, or something along those lines, somewhere in the exchange. Regardless, he answered my questions in time for me to put together the speech, which I kicked off with a little video montage of TV theme show openings from He-Man and Beast Wars and Captain Power that I put together with a couple of VCRs. 

It was the first time I ever interacted with a professional writer. It meant a great deal to me then, as an aspiring writer, even if I couldn't accept his advice against fanfic at the time. 

I'm finding that it still means a great deal to me, as a still-aspiring writer. I can't remember ever being this emotional while writing a post on this blog throughout its long, punctuated history. 

Ever since then, I've always felt a little thrill when I saw "Larry DiTillio" pop up in the credits of a show I'm watching. Part of it came from that brief interaction, and part from my confidence that I was in for a treat. The man was a hell of a writer no matter what he was writing for. 

You can read my interview with him here, though years of site redesigns have proliferated some errors into the text. But to close, I asked him what advice he'd give to aspiring writers, to me: 

Simple. You need 4 things to be a writer - TALENT, DESIRE, PERSISTENCE and LUCK. With those 4 things you can go wherever you want.

BUT, there is something else. Don't look to trends or fads or "what is selling now" to tell you what to write about. Your heart and your head are what informs your work.

You must write the movie/TV show/book/cartoon/play etc., that YOU want to see and your characters must come out of your own experience and sensibility. That is all any aspiring writer brings to the table- human experience and reflection on same. Stories are always about human hearts in conflict, so look for what makes you and those around you human.

And good luck.

I always hoped I'd get a chance to meet him, to have him sign a toy or a video or a copy of his book Shotguns vs. Cthulhu which I think I'm finally going to get around to reading. I always hoped I'd get a chance to thank him for taking the time to make a fifteen-year-old nerd feel special. I didn't, and I guess I won't get to. 

But thanks all the same, Mr. DiTillio. 

On Marriage and Metafiction

Bat-Spoilers Ahead...

How Could You Stoop Solo?

So, lo: A Star Wars Story.

Spoilers Ahead!

"Both Grunting": A Detailed Look at "Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice"

In preparation for my viewing of Justice League, I decided to revisit Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I've been dithering with this post on and off for a month, and while I don't think it's gotten any shorter, at least I feel like it says all I'm going to need to say on the subject. Also, I added some pictures.

Anyway, you may recall that I did not care for the movie the first time around. I'm approaching this like I did with my Man of Steel rewatch that I did in preparation for that viewing: trying to focus on the positive, to find the movie that I've seen fans posting gifs of on Tumblr for a year and a half. To that end, I'm watching the Ultimate Edition, which I've heard is better than the theatrical cut.

Without further ado...

Justice is Done

I saw "Justice League" last night, and...it was fine. 

Spoilers ahead.

It Disappoints

My experience with "It" has been a bit of a roller coaster. My dad's a big Stephen King fan, and I know the book was around the house when I was a kid, but I didn't see the TV miniseries until sometime in the last couple of years (and perhaps consequently, never had a fear of clowns). I only started digging into King's novels with 'Salem's Lot a year or two ago, so my knowledge of the story was limited to that miniseries and a lot of jokes about a child orgy scene.

So I went into the audiobook expecting that I wouldn't really like it, and I was pleasantly surprised. Meanwhile, I went into the new film with high hopes and high expectations—a far cry from where I was a week or two before. I mentioned on Twitter that I thought the new version of Pennywise fell into the same trap that so much modern horror falls into, making every monster scary in and of itself, rather than having the horror come from placing this common thing in a scary context. In short, it looked a bit like Rob Zombie's Pennywise, and I thought that was an emblematic error.

But reviews have been largely positive, and from people I generally respect with regard to horror movies, so I figured I was wrong. I went into "It" expecting to be wowed.

I wasn't. Or, well, I guess I was, but only at the breadth and depth of wasted opportunities.

Spoilers ahead for "It" (2017), and "It" (1990) and It (1986), I suppose, as well.