Superman: Red & Blue Announced

[Quinlan58]

Good to see Kara in this book, Campbell's story about Streaky looks charming, that brand of mundane-made-big Morrison spoke about. "The Scoop" has to include Lois in some way, right? Or at least Clark as a reporter. We know "The Special" has some Clois in it, and while I'm not as much of a fan of King's take on Superman as other people, he does come up with interesting things more often than not. "Son of Farmers" sounds like yet again another story about the Kents' influence on Clark (surely what this anthology was lacking on, right?). "Ally"... that could be about so many characters, up to and including Clark himself as the ally of humanity.

[superduperman]

Streaky looks like a cross between a cat and a rabbit. OMG! Superman doesn't come from the same planet as Tenchi, does he?

[Quinlan58]

Final issue, and it was among the better ones in the series. Up there with issue 3 for me.

- Hissy Fit: Charming and fun, in that "mundane life made big" way people often speak of Superman. I don't think the part where streaky broke apart a ship fit, though; I understand it's a stand-in for "cat breaks things when angry", but the sudden inclusion of actual danger to human lives (even if of course Kal and Kara dealt with that immediately) turned the overall impression from "hey, look, superpowered cat!" to "oh god, that thing's going to kill people".
- The Scoop: Always great to see Clark Kent the Reporter get focus, and it was a very good story at that. The way they framed Lois' and Clark's respective journalistic work felt awkward after Superman & Lois had them in the opposite roles, though. Still the most prominent Lois has been in one of these stories, and with fun characterization and role at that, too, so I'll take it. The ending with Clark preparing an expose of himself that won't be seen until years from now was as good an organic inclusion of the Superman identity reveal into the core of who Clark is as a person as could have been done.
- The Special: Probably the best of these "Superman interacting with a normal person" stories, going through individual moments in Clark's life and how he and those around him change, but the relationship between these two remains the same. One of the best uses of the color gimmick in the series.
- Son of Farmers: Turns out it's not a Pa and Ma Kent story. It's entirely a Clark Kent/Superman story, and all the better for it. Still think the parallels between his farm life and his current life where kind of forced, but the moment where he stares at his hands in fear that he'll hurt the man going through cardiac arrest if he tries to save him (and then foes it anyway, clearly forcing himself to be careful every single second) is one of the absolute best uses of the "world of cardboard" theme for Superman I've ever seen.
- "Ally": On paper I can see where this is going, I can see the parallels between Superman revealing his identity and coming out, I certainly appreciate the way this counters "Superman can't do anything about the real issues" with "stories can inspire us"... but it comes across more as just "hey, look, our recent status quo change of making Superman reveal his identity is important and saving people's lives!"

Will make a post later about the kind of stories these anthology gave us and how much each member of the supporting cast was used.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

I didn't know this was the final issue. That's a shame because this series was really starting to build up some steam. The batting average for the stories was really good the past few issues.

[Vordan]

Hissy Fit - This was cute, great art but little to no plot beyond Streaky freaking out at the idea of being put in a cage
The Scoop - Really enjoyed this! Nice story about Clark being irritated that his super heroics overshadow his investigative reporting, ultimately deciding he should put his story down himself for future posterity.
The Special - Yeah King is definitely climbing the ranks of my favorite Superman writers. A series of snapshots of Clark’s life as seen through a waitress at a diner, I thought this was a sweet story.
Son of Farmers - Fine little story about Clark applying life lessons from Ma and Pa, great art
Ally - Hey someone used a story to tie in to the Bendis Truth story! I liked it.

Overall I think I’ll give this anthology a 7/10. There weren’t any real bad stories, but at the same time I don’t think it lived up to its full potential. Too many writers telling repetitive stories (The Kents teach life lessons, Clark gets saved by the real heroes, etc). Not enough writers really pushed themselves to step outside the cliches or at least put a new twist on them like King did. The editors also should’ve rejected more pitches that weren’t different enough from what they had already published.

[BBally]

Matt Wagner writing Golden Age Superman in this issue was simply perfect.

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I like to see Wagner write some more Superman stories.

[Robanker]

I'm far behind on my reading so I'm thinking of starting again from issue one and torturing you all with my thoughts as I get to the end of issue #6. You're all warned, block me now if you haven't already.

Hopefully we get another batch of these later down the line. This sort of format is awesome.

[Vordan]

I'm far behind on my reading so I'm thinking of starting again from issue one and torturing you all with my thoughts as I get to the end of issue #6. You're all warned, block me now if you haven't already.

Hopefully we get another batch of these later down the line. This sort of format is awesome.

Go for it, I’d be interested to see how someone would feel reading all the stories one after another.

[The Frog Bros]

Hissy Fit - Solid story, solid art. I love it when simple art ends up being exceedingly more expressive than initially thought. Plus, I’m a sucker for pets so this was a good one. I also like stories that are told effectively without words, that’s always cool.

Scoop - Cool throwback story, I like the focus on Clark the reporter. And bonus points for robots!

The Special - I’m also a sucker for a good juxtaposition story and this nailed it for me. Plus, it used the color theme to pretty nice effect making it stand out in that regard among the series on the whole. The one color panel with the elder diner lady got to me. Really enjoyed this story, probably among my faves of the entire series. And more robots!

Son of Farmers - Art was incredible, but I thought the art was better than the story itself.

Ally - One of the Bendis things I did actually like was Clark’s outing, if only for the potential of what other writers could make use of it to take stories in new directions. So I was glad to see the parallel here.

Overall, not necessarily my fave issue of the series, but it def has some memorable stories.

As far as uniquely using the color theme in the series on the whole, the standouts for me were the Watters/Dani one where Superman brings color back to the world after having been stolen by an imp, the one with Lex using Red kryptonite in various malicious ways, and The Special from this issue.

Its true that some of the stories were a bit redundant throughout the series, but overall I enjoyed it. Somewhere between 7/8 out of 10 for me.

[Ra-El]

Finally read all of the Red and Blue comics. I liked most of it, but looking back at it, it just kind of bland together in my mind.

A lot of those stories, with a few exceptions, just felt the same to me. Every issue had the same type of stories in it: one of Superman inspiring someone, one about someone inspiring Superman, one about Superman saving some random civilian, one about some random civilian saving Superman, etc. They were all kind of cute, and that's it.

I only read a couple of Batman Black & White, but I do remember it have a more diverse type of tales, some are purely action, some more mysterious, others more heroic, etc. I know Batman is easier to put in different situation, but recently I saw a post on Instagram about some type of spy story in Wonder Woman Black & Gold, and WW is on the same power level as Superman.

This, I believe is one of the character biggest problems currently, he is stuck in the same type of stories, and maybe it's because editorial only greenlit this kind or maybe is because the people interested in working on the character only wants to tell this type of stories, but the problem, imo, is still the same: not even in anthologies without any attachment to continuity, Superman is allowed to step a little out of the box fans and creators have put him.

[Vordan]

It’s definitely on the editors for failing to curate the book correctly. How many wholesome Pa or Ma stories do we really need? Or civilians being inspired by/inspiring Superman. But it’s also a lack of imagination on the part of creators, a lot of them are clearly trying to evoke some kind of wholesome ness and it comes across as fake or artificial a lot of time.

[superduperman]

HISSY FIT: "Flying cat nearly kills a bunch of people! How fun!" This could have been kind of cute if not for the whole "nearly killing people" thing.

THE SCOOP: I loves me some Matt Wagner. And this feels like the sort of in between segments for the Fleischer cartoons. Seeing Clark feel conflicted about how his SI gets in the way of his stories is an interesting take and it kind of reminded me of that S&L episode where they flashback to when he and Lois first met. Both because of his costume and because that's kind of the premise of that episode. Superman is just secondary to the larger story.

THE SPECIAL: Whoever this artist is needs to be put on a regular book now! This is perfect for a classic Superman story. He has a very Curt Swan look which is perfect for this kind of story. I know Tom King gets a lot of crap for his dark stories, and I don't read a lot of Batman so I'm not that familiar with him, but this was very good. Probably my favorite of the entire book.

SON OF FARMERS: Another artist that needs a regular book. This is a great story. One of the best of the bunch. Him helping the old man alongside how his presence saved people's lives makes the world better.

ALLY: Love this. This is one of those "man on the street" type stories that's really good. How Superman inspires others to be true to themselves and face their fears.

[Ra-El]

It’s definitely on the editors for failing to curate the book correctly. How many wholesome Pa or Ma stories do we really need? Or civilians being inspired by/inspiring Superman. But it’s also a lack of imagination on the part of creators, a lot of them are clearly trying to evoke some kind of wholesome ness and it comes across as fake or artificial a lot of time.

I think most of it is the editors too, they should work so we don't feel like we are rereading the same stuff every month.

But you are right about the creators too, like, they have one chance of telling a Superman story, and they all came up with the same type of Donner-wannabe stuff? The worst part is, we should just be happy they didn't push any evil Superman story.

[superduperman]

I think this kind of series works best by letting one team have a full issue instead of eight pages or whatever. That way they have more freedom to come up with something more of a complete story.

[Vordan]

I think most of it is the editors too, they should work so we don't feel like we are rereading the same stuff every month.

But you are right about the creators too, like, they have one chance of telling a Superman story, and they all came up with the same type of Donner-wannabe stuff? The worst part is, we should just be happy they didn't push any evil Superman story.

More creators need to read Astro City and apply the ideas from that series to Superman. That’s my takeaway.