Comics! American Alien #1!

Today’s selection of new comics – reached at my beloved Comicopia through a miserable pining chilly mist – was typically broad and had plenty of interesting-looking new titles, including quite a few ever-optimistic first issues. In one of those, The All-New, All-Different Avengers (as with so much in the new, trendy, app-y Marvel Comics line, that title contains an in-joke you have to be sixty years old to get), the eventual roster of the Earth’s Mightiest Super-Team is apparently going to include three teenagers, but the first issue had a pretty Alex Ross cover.

The day’s new issues also included the next issue of Marvel’s “Secret Wars” mini-series, the title that’s so good I always end up forgiving it for the brainless havoc it’s causing to a company and characters I’ve liked for decades. And there was the final issue of the “Secret Wars” spin-off mini-series Squadron Sinister, which featured fantastic artwork by Carlos Pacheco and a nifty little visual homage to an iconic DC Comics scene (this one from only thirty years ago … sigh …).

But the real standout for me this week will be fairly obvious to long-time readers of Stevereads: it was the first issue of a new DC mini-series called Superman: American Alien, written by Max Landis, who’ll be joined by a different artist every month.

One of the things I’ve always loved about the Superman mythos is the way it continually attracts re-envisionings like this. I think back to Superman: Birthright or Superman: Secret Identity or other mini-series that have brought me so much joy over the years by re-imagining the story of the Man of Steel according to each individual creator’s lights. Even when I don’t particularly like the re-imagining in question, I always, always like the passion.

And I loved this first issue, which focuses on the struggles young Clark Kent goes through in Smallville as his superpowers begin to manifest themselves. The boy is tormented by his desire to simply be normal, and his young parents are by turns terrified and exhilarated (“My baby can fly” Ma Kent says at one point, looking up in wonder), and it’s all done beautifully, both in Landis’ heartfelt script and the goofy, cartoonish artwork of Nick Dragotta. I came to the end of the issue with a bit smile on my face, eager to follow the next six installments.

The smile vanished the instant I saw the back-page author interview and made the connection with who this “Max Landis” is – son of schlock horror director Joe Landis, and more importantly, independently and in his own right a monstrously egotistical, narcissistic, condescending asshole. By the time I was done choking down the interview (in which he insults his interviewer no fewer than six times) and looking at his smug asshole face, I was glad I’d only seen the feature after I read and loved the issue – If I’d made the Max Landis connection prior to visiting Comicopia, I’m pretty sure I would have skipped the issue. So I guess I’ll chalk it up to a good reminder: you shouldn’t hate the creation just because you hate the creator.

Unless the creator is Ezra Pound, of course.