Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery
Panels and Pages… Art and Artists… Creators and Conventions… Musings and Memories…
Action Comics # 855, October 2007
Geoff Johns, Richard Donner and Eric Powell creating a multi-part Bizarro story?
Sign me up.
Spoiler alert: It’s absolutely terrific — fun and affectionate — start to finish. Powell knocks the art out of the park. Many mainstream superhero readers tracked down Powell’s Goon series after they saw this.
You can bet the farm — Kent’s or otherwise — on that.
One final time — Happy Halloween, 2024!
Batman / Superman / Wonder Woman: Trinity #2, September 2003
Batman / Superman / Wonder Woman: Trinity #2, 2003
Here’s a great Matt Wagner splash featuring Wonder Woman doing her best to rein in Bizarro. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t go all that well.
Wagner delivers page after page of visual dynamics and terrific storytelling in this underrated series featuring DC’s “Big Three.”
The only thing I don’t like: The “official” book title, which is a bit long and definitely not obvious. (Publishers occasionally forget that readers have to be able easily find the title at retail. Trust me on this.)
Happy Halloween —all month long!
Superman #87, March 1994
Stuart Immonen — guest penciling in Dan Jurgen’s regular slot — has some fun with Bizarro, and the rest of the Superman cast in this two-part story from 1994.
This is only the second appearance of Bizarro in the “modern” superman era. John Byrne used the character in the Man of Steel mini-series (#5) and promptly destroyed him.
Spoiler alert: Lex Luthor resurrects the Superman cloning idea in this issue, and things don’t go much better. (Although I guess Bizarro lasts two issues instead of just one this time around, so there’s that.)
I definitely dig Immonen’s art — but if you thought Jurgens drew Mr. Kent with a big mane of hair, definitely check out Stuart’s version. Superman’s hair starts big in issue #87 and might even be fuller and longer by #88.
Definitely ready for a time-travel trip to the Hyborian age.
Happy Halloween —all month long!
Bizarro Comics, August 2001
Concluding our 70th celebration of Superman and Batman (Robin, too) teaming up for the first time.
Why so serious?
Why, indeed.
DC has typically been afraid of too much humor in its traditional superhero storytelling. Frightening flashbacks to Batman ’66, in all likelihood.
But somehow, management green lit this great “Bizarro” graphic novel anthology, lovingly edited by my longtime* pal Joey Cavalieri, and featuring alternative interpretations of the world’s greatest superheroes.
I considered it a home run, and obviously others did as well because it’s an Eisner and Harvey winner, and an acknowledged classic. (They had me at the Matt Groening cover.)
Evan Dorkin (Milk and Cheese) wrote a few of the stories, and drew this one as well. I smile every time I look at it.
*Fun Fact: I’ve know Joey 50 years. And if tell you I KNEW he would be a star in the comics and/or animation field way back then, well, you can trust me on this.
Action Comics #857, December 2007
Our ode to Halloween and the creatures that often inhabit the comic book pages continues…
Bizarro Doomsday, at the bidding of Bizarro Lex Luthor, destroys the newly created members of the Bizarro Justice League.
Huh?
Trust me, it’s a wild ride. You just have to read it for yourself. Written by Geoff Johns and Richard Donner (Yes, that Richard Donner), the three-part story unravels (er, unfolds) in graphite, ink and wash-tone in perfect fashion by Eric Powell.
Donuts not included.
