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New Escapist Column! On “The Sandman” and the Art of Adaptation…

Posted on August 9, 2022 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist yesterday. It’s a big weekend for media releases, and one of those new releases was The Sandman from Netflix, an adaptation of the comic book series from Neil Gaiman.

The Sandman is a remarkably faithful adaptation of the source material, often lifting images and dialogue directly from the comic. However, it’s also an interesting illustration of the art of adaptation as it purtains to ten-episode seasons of streaming television shows. It’s interesting to see how the source material is tweaked and altered to make it fit that familiar template, and what the adaptational choices say about what the streaming service and the production studio want from the show.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: adaptation, Comics, dc, dc universe, neil gaiman, netflix, streaming, the sandman, warners | Leave a comment »

Justice League: The Nail (Review)

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of The Man of Steel this month, we’re going Superman mad. Check back daily for Superman-related reviews.

What would comics look like without Superman? The character is so iconic and influential and omnipresent that it’s a fun thought experiment to take him out of the DC universe and watch the narrative threads unravel. Alan Davis is a pretty incredible artist. He’s done great work with writers like Mike W. Barr (on an underrated Detective Comics run) and Chris Claremont (on Excalibur). However, he may not have been the best choice to write this three-part Justice League of America Elseworld. It’s a great concept, but the execution leaves a little to be desired.

Is somebody missing?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Alan Davis, batman, Bridge, dark knight returns, dc comics, dc universe, grant morrison, hal jordan, Jimmy Olsen, justice league, man of steel, mark millar, metropolis, Mike W. Barr, Rob Liefeld, robin, Steel, superman, tony daniel, United States, Warner Bros, wonder woman, zack snyder | Leave a comment »

Absolute Superman: For Tomorrow (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Man of Steel this month, we’re going Superman mad. Check back daily for Superman-related reviews.

As a Superman story, For Tomorrow leaves a lot to be desired. It’s a disjointed narrative that rapidly shifts through a variety of scenarios, while characters drift in and out (and back in again) in a way that feels convenient at best. There’s hardly the most logical of progressions here, as we move from one story into another. For Tomorrow feels like it has the ingredients for at least three Superman stories that would be quite interesting on their own, instead of being forced to fit together as one plot.

On the other hand, as a meditation on some of the themes and implications and characteristics of Superman as a character, For Tomorrow becomes something far more fascinating. Writer Brian Azzarello would hardly be my first choice to write a Superman story (indeed, he’s almost too cynical to write Batman), but he very clearly has some fascinating ideas about the character and his world. Truth be told, For Tomorrow is often more intriguing than satisfying, which makes it hard to recommend, but is still worth a look for those willing to excuse a somewhat hazy plot to get to some meaty ideas about Superman.

The doves are a nice touch…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: aquaman, Azzarello, batman, brian azzarello, dc comics, dc universe, Disorders, Dissociative, Fortress of Solitude, general zod, Health, jim lee, jor-el, justice league, Lara, lois lane, man of steel, Mental Health, Middle East, Religion and Spirituality, superman, United States, wonder woman | 1 Comment »

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 2 (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Darren

Join us the December as we take a dive into the weird and wonderful Will Eisner Spirit Archives, the DC collections of the comic strip that helped define the medium.

With this second collection of six months worth of strips, we can see Eisner’s vision of The Spirit really cement itself, as well as the true beginnings of the more experimental work that the writer and artist would do with the newspaper strip. While a lot of people would argue that Eisner truly hit his stride in the postwar era of The Spirit, I think we can see him beginning to truly hone his craft here, and can get a sense of an artist slowly testing the horizons of an eight-page newspaper comic strip. It might not be his best work on the title, but it’s still fascinating stuff.

Accept no substitutes…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: arts, batman, catwoman, clark kent, comic, comic strip, crime, dc comics, dc universe, Eisner, Ellen, Ellen Dolan, Homer, New York City, Raven, Spirit, Statue of Liberty, The Spirit Archives: Volume 12, The Spirit Archives: Volume 2, Will Eisner, world war ii | Leave a comment »

Infinite Crisis (Review/Retrospective)

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Darren

This month I’m taking a look at DC’s massive “Infinite Crisis” Event. Although it was all published in one massive omnibus, I’ll be breaking down the lead-in to the series to tackle each thread individually, culminating in a review of the event itself. Check back for more.

Infinite Crisis is a fantastic concept with a somewhat muddled execution. The idea of reflecting on the way the DC Universe has evolved since Crisis on Infinite Earths is a fascinating hook for an event miniseries, and writer Geoff Johns does an effective job of exploring how times have changed. However, the original Crisis on Infinite Earths had a tendency to seem too vast and too all-encompassing for its own good, randomly jumping between a cast of hundreds lost in a maelstrom. Given that Marv Wolfman had twelve issues to tell that story, and still occasionally ended up a little confused, it seems a little unfair for Geoff Johns to attempt a similar effort in only seven issues.

There are times when Infinite Crisis feels less like one cohesive story and more like a series of vignettes based around a theme. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of interesting stuff going on here – or that Johns doesn’t have something compelling to say about modern superhero comics – it just means that Infinite Crisis is a bit of a mess. A bold and ambitious mess, but a mess nevertheless.

A smashing success?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, batman, Blue Beetle, Bruce, crisis on infinite earths, DarkKnight Rises, dc universe, dick grayson, Geoff John, gotham city, infinite crisis, joker, maxwell lord, power girl, superboy prime, superman, wonder woman | 6 Comments »

Infinite Crisis: Rann-Thanagar War (Review)

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Darren

I’ve always been a fan of the “hokey science-fiction” corner of the DC Universe. Adam Strange is perhaps my second-favourite Silver Age DC hero (behind the Flash). I loved Alan Moore’s trip to the stars during his Swamp Thing run. While many thought that Stars my Destination, the penultimate mega-arc of James Robinson’s Starman, went on far too long, I loved every page. Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern is one of my favourite modern comic book runs. I confess all this so that my bias is upfront, when I admit that Rann-Thanagar War is one of my favourite Infinite Crisis tie-ins, even though it’s one of those least directly connected to the event itself.

All the Strange, Strange heroes…

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: Adam Strange, avengers, batman, Blue Beetle, Dark Knight Rises, dc comics, dc universe, gotham central, green lantern, greg rucka, Hawkgirl, history, infinite crisis, Kyle Rayner, Rann, Rann-Thanagar War, wonder woman | Leave a comment »

Infinite Crisis: Day of Vengeance (Review)

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Darren

It seems like, within the last decade or so, DC has had a great deal of difficulty organising its “magic and mystic” books. DC generally provided a nice home for books like Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing or John Ostrander’s Spectre, but it seemed like there wasn’t really an abundance of successful magic-themed books in the early part of the new millennium. DC would consciously attempt to remedy this with their “dark” line as part of the “new 52” relaunch, but Day of Vengeance feels like something of an awkward earlier attempt to streamline that corner of the shared universe and to prepare it for some sort of creative relaunch.

One for sorrow, two for joy… What for a few dozen?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, avengers, batman, Bill Willingham, Crispus Allen, dark knight returns, Dark Knight Rises, dc comics, dc universe, Detective Chimp, Enchantress, gotham central, greg rucka, infinite crisis, Ragman, Rann-Thanagar War, spectre, sue dibny, Vengeance, wonder woman | Leave a comment »

Infinite Crisis: The Adventures of Superman – Lightning Strikes Twice (Review)

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Darren

I think it’s quite nice that DC went to the effort to collect the vast majority of tie-ins to Infinite Crisis inside this gigantic omnibus, even when the book didn’t necessarily get its own miniseries like Villains United or The O.M.A.C. Project. Like Sacrifice, Lightning Strikes Twice was a crossover between the Superman books leading into the events of one of the lead-in miniseries. In this case, writer Judd Winick was setting up the events of Day of Vengeance, the magic-themed crossover designed to tidy up and reenergise the mystical side of the DC Universe.

Super-punch!

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: avengers, batman, captain marvel, dc comics, dc universe, Eclipso, gotham central, greg rucka, Ian Churchill, infinite crisis, Jean Loring, judd winick, lois lane, marvel, superman, Villains United, wonder woman | Leave a comment »

Infinite Crisis: The OMAC Project (Review)

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Darren

Infinite Crisis was certainly an ambitious project in scope. With the bulk of the major tie-ins collected in a gigantic 1,500-page omnibus, you really get a sense of just how expansive this gigantic crossover was. It’s remarkable how thematically consistent (and yet tonally distinct) so many of these tie-ins were, but The O.M.A.C. Project makes for a suitably grand opening to this gigantic epic crisis crossover, perfectly encapsulating a lot of the core themes that DC seem to have been striving for, while setting up an interesting central conflict.

What do you call a Corps of One-Man-Army-Corps?

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: alan moore, alfred, alfred pennyworth, batman, Blue Beetle, dc comics, dc universe, infinite crisis, justice league, Justice League International, Martian Manhunter, maxwell lord, sue dibny, watchmen | Leave a comment »

Geoff Johns’ (and Jim Lee’s) Run on Justice League – Origin (Review)

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Darren

It has been a year since DC revamped their whole line, cancelling all their on-goings and launching 52 new series each with a shiny new “#1.” Okay, technically the first in the line, Justice League #1, was published at the end of August, but I figure it’s appropriate to look back on DC’s flagship book and reflect on that first six-issue arc that served to launch the new DC universe (which is being affectionately referred to as the “DCnU”). Putting Geoff Johns and Jim Lee on the Justice League title just seems like common sense.

Johns has, after all, written pretty much all the characters already, and Jim Lee is respected as one of the greatest artists of his generation. However, Origins is far from the perfect reintroduction to DC’s iconic superheroes. While both writer and artist are doing solid work, there’s a sense that these first six issues are simply trying to do too much.