Superman: Red & Blue Announced

[The Frog Bros]

Cool article about how Ridley used the 1970s Worlds Finest issues.

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/john...hite-and-blue/

[BBally]

Didn't expect to see a Bronze Age story referenced in a modern Superman story. I've read the original story from World's Finest #192 and #193 that Ridely referenced in his story years ago. The story was called The Prison Of No Escape by Bob Haney, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, where both Superman and Batman become prisoners in a prison set in Lubania (which was also in the original story as a fictional Eastern European country).

[hairys]

We are at a nadir in comics history for quality of writing, for sure. The crazy thing is this issue is going to garner good reviews on review sites just for being an attempt at auteurship. The only thing worse than the state of writing in this industry is the state of reviews.

Read it - very quickly, to be fair - and didn't particularly enjoy any of them.

I don't want to sound too harsh because I understand and somehow appreciate the efforts behind the project, and the art is gorgeous, but I couldn't get rid of of a sensation of déjà vu. I thought about it a little, and I think that I have understood what bugs me.

All of the out-of-continuity, "auteur" Superman stories I can think of (I am thinking of Adventures of Superman, but there are way more examples) always look and sound the same. In most of the cases we have a classic Superman vs a monster tale in which the menace gets sidelined and the story focuses on some episode of everyday heroism, or on Superman inspiring someone else, or young Clark trying to fit in, or very few other variations on the theme. All in all what you get most of the time is a morality tale of some sort. It's as if they weren't able to write a Superman story without inserting some "moral" purpose in it.

I don't know. I mean, is there really an audience for this type of stories? Does any reader feel the need to read AGAIN about these topics, which have been proposed ad nauseam since the days of Peace on Earth and For All Seasons? To be fair, the problem isn't even the "moral" aspect per se, but the fact that the moral element in this type of works is always very simplistic - and it probably couldn't be otherwise. Maybe is it that this specific medium that doesn't allow for great, "deeper" content? Again, I don't know. But I cannot but think of other publishers - Image, classic Vertigo, etc - which provide better, more substantial content about "difficult" topics, and in general better entertainment.

Maybe it's the character which doesn't allow for better, more varied content. But again, I have some issues with this specific approach too. Either you focus on some episode everyday heroism - and Superman gets sidelined and looks ineffective - or you make Superman deal with some real-life problem - at risk of opening a can of worms because you clearly can't have modern-day Superman punch racist people or cure cancer or end world hunger without sounding simplistic or downright offensive.

Anyway, I find it incredible how hard it has become for any writer to even imagine a Superman story without being openly "moral", formulaic and generally unimaginative. Maybe DC should reread some sci-fi writer - I am not even thinking of contemporary writers such as Ted Chiang or complex guys like China Miéville or Frank Herbert: even older classics like Harlan Ellison or Fritz Leiber could work - and just understand that creating some good, imaginative sci-fi stuff can be more compelling, interesting and memorable than just writing for the umpteenth time about inspirational Superman or Superman dealing with real-world stuff without actually achieving anything.

[Gaius]

Hmm, I thought this was pretty enjoyable. Looking forward to the next issue.

[beetee]

So the CBR Superman Community didn't like/lukewarm towards Superman Red and Blue.... *shocked* ... Well we can always roll out more issues of Injustice....

[hairys]

So the CBR Superman Community didn't like/lukewarm towards Superman Red and Blue.... *shocked* ... Well we can always roll out more issues of Injustice....

Not sure what this means, as this issue wasn't exactly light-hearted fun. And for the record, I enjoyed Tomasi's cheerful take on Superman and his family, so I'm not a grimdark devotee. (I'm also not against it -- the question is always quality. Is it GOOD grimdark? Is it GOOD cheerfulness?)

[Vordan]

Cool article about how Ridley used the 1970s Worlds Finest issues.

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/john...hite-and-blue/

Really love how Ridley takes an “everything matters” approach to comic book writing, he referenced some New 52 Batwing stuff in his Next Batman: Second Son mini.

[Myskin]

Thinking about it, I can't understand why they didn't make this stuff a bit more similar to the original, wonderful BATMAN: BLACK and WHITE series, or even the phenomenal SOLO series, which - even if only a bunch of stories were about DCU characters - could be the highest example of narrative and visual experimentation I've ever seen from DC.

RED & BLUE literally pales in comparison to these works. It's as if even in out-of-continuity stories they weren't able to free the character from its comfort zone.

[Kuwagaton]

Finally got to read it. Ridley's story was pretty rough, Easton had a good idea that seemed hard to conclude.

Bennett has always been a good choice imo. I was so glad to see that being Superman was irrelevant to being Clark in a story that almost threatened to show otherwise. It reminded me of the Fisch back ups, for all the occasional vignettes we've gotten of little Clark. I'm also pretty big on Jill thompson's art even if everyone was obviously good in that regard.

The story about colors was also really fun. It's a good demonstration of the project in itself and I liked finally getting Lois in.

Hope for better from Howard and Panosian writing for themselves while Phillips and Brown give it a shot

Thinking about it, I can't understand why they didn't make this stuff a bit more similar to the original, wonderful BATMAN: BLACK and WHITE series, or even the phenomenal SOLO series, which - even if only a bunch of stories were about DCU characters - could be the highest example of narrative and visual experimentation I've ever seen from DC.

RED & BLUE literally pales in comparison to these works. It's as if even in out-of-continuity stories they weren't able to free the character from its comfort zone.

It's as if different writers were writing a different character on a different project though lol. I mean there have been several Black and White titles for Batman. There was recently something similar to those for Wolverine. Those are alike where this is different because we're not talking Goodwin or Dini on Batman, or Williams writing and drawing his own story, or the current X writer teaming up with a guy who's drawn Wolverine for like 30 years. Adventures of Superman was sort of in between those projects and this one.

This is a more experimental thing. Wasn't crazy about this first issue but it is good to see these new voices find a way to Superman and I think the vignette format is harder than it seems. Yeah it is rare to see something more than the most basic understanding of Superman in ten pages from the relatively inexperienced POV. You mentioned a name earlier that I used to see floating around for a while with DC in Mieville. I don't think people like that have it in them to make their way over for whatever reason, so I don't think it's it's fair to hold people who do to a standard of what maybe could have been but wasn't and seemingly won't be.

[Myskin]

This is a more experimental thing.

What is experimental about it? I mean, my main problem with this first issue is exactly that there isn't anything particularly experimental about it. I mean, it's stuff I have already seen thousands of times. Except for one story they didn't take advantage of the Red & Blue motif either. Most of the stories could have been fully colored and nothing would have changed.

I mentioned Miéville just because he is a very innovative sci-fi/fantasy writer which Superman writers may take inspiration from if they tried to do something innovative with Superman. I am not expecting him to write anything Superman-related anytime soon. The point is that Superman is a sci-fi character but the type of sci-fi we generally see in Superman stories - in-continuity or out-of-continuity ones, it's irrelevant - would seem dated and old even to a reader from the 1950s. I mean, in the latest months a more or less in-continuity story such as Future State - Superman Worlds of War was actually more innovative than any Superman Red and Blue story in the first issue.

But it's not even about sci-fi, as far as I am concerned they could also go with completely "realistic" Superman stories, as long as they give me something. Anything. Heck, I remember a Superman story in the Damion Scott issue of SOLO which wasn't even a story, just a series of pictures which were basically Superman street art, and it was actually way better than Superman: Red and Blue. The first issue was just a disappointing bunch of nothing with generally good art.

[Kuwagaton]

I think it depends on your expectation of "sci-fi" as it relates to Superman. He's never quite been that... he can be I guess, but the writers here are simply more interested in telling the human interest stories we've seen since Shuster and Siegel. not that that's experimental.

I just mean in the sense of newer voices and perspectives on the character. Only Watters and Dani made the color thing part of the plot but it's still an artistic challenge. Which... I don't know if they drew numbers or something, seeing Henry get Bellaire lol. But I can't look at Thompson's watercolors and say that it's not a testament to her abilities as an artist for example. I guess to me it's how much the art is a legitimate half of the entertainment and not a vehicle for the writer's ideas. I don't think the writing writing was nearly the best example of these very basic stories, but again these are people who haven't refined their ideas for the character just using a handful of pages.

I don't actually have Solo so I dunno the Damion Scott thing. I'm sure it's good but I don't see how "Damion Scott did it better" really says anything about these stories. Especially if the critique is that these are just art showcases with nothing (in writing) behind them and your example is art with no writing behind it.

[Myskin]

I don't actually have Solo so I dunno the Damion Scott thing. I'm sure it's good but I don't see how "Damion Scott did it better" really says anything about these stories. Especially if the critique is that these are just art showcases with nothing (in writing) behind them and your example is art with no writing behind it.

Well, it's better art. Or - better to say - more experimental art. The point is that if some artist wanted to go fully creative in terms of visual storytelling acknowledging just the basic elements of Superman, he or she could have done it better than what I have seen in this first issue.
But Damion Scott is just an example - SOLO also had Superman pieces by Tim Sale (two of them if I count the Supergirl story), crazy superhero pop stuff by Mike Allred etc..
Some of these pieces were more along the lines of "heartwarming Superman tales", other had a classic narration with Rockwell-esque art, other were fully pop in terms of art and storytelling. Most of these stories were just a bunches of pages long but they were simply wonderful. The problem is not going sci-fi or going realistic, or getting fully visual as opposed to having good scripts, I have quite an open mind whenever I approach stuff which is presented as out-of-continuity and it's not that I already know what to expect or there is a specific direction I want the story to go, I just want the project to interest me and possibly surprise me. In the case of this series, well... I'll probably check the next Red and Blue issue but so far it looks like a lost occasion to me.

[HsssH]

At the moment I'm reading Saga of the Super Sons and in first issue we have Superman creating a temporary duplicate city by causing a "super earthquake" that distorts time. It sure sounds crazy, but it made me think about this thread. Is it sci-fi? Is it fantasy? Is it just nonsense? Your guess is as good as mine, but at least it is something.

[superduperman]

Hopefully I'll have a chance to pick this up today.

[Vordan]

One cool thing that got pointed out on Twitter was Craig mimicking the way Quietly portrays the Clark/Superman divide