Superman: Year One – Exploring the Birth of the Man of Steel

The modern superhero was born with Superman and the release of Action Comics #1 in June of 1938 began the Golden Age of Comic Books.  None of the superhero comics, movies, TV shows, or video games we have today would exist as we know them if not for Superman.  He was the foundation on which everything else was built.  This new series nicks it’s title from Frank Miller’s seminal 1987 work Batman: Year One, in which Miller reimagines the origins of the Dark Knight in a darker, grittier fashion.  Retelling and reimagining superhero origins is something both DC and Marvel love to do.  But in this series I’m examining the actual first year of a superhero’s comic to get a sense for who they were when they first captured our cultural attention.  What feels familiar?  What feels different?  In the case of Superman in particular, it’s often observed that he’s “too powerful,” “too unrelatable,” “too morally pure to be interesting.”  That seems…unlikely to me.  How can any character with 85 years of stories across all pop culture mediums not resonate?  But let’s do our due diligence and see what Superman’s year one reveals about the character who birthed a genre.

Kara Zor-El (Supergirl) – Fiction’s Fearless Females

By Kathleen of Graphic Novelty²

Guess who’s back, back again?! #FFF is back, tell a friend! This time, I’m kicking off our annual series about your favorite fictional ladies of the fearless variety 😉 Joining Nancy and I are Michael of My Comic Relief, Jesse of the newly revived Green Onion, Kalie of Just Dread-full, and Jeff of The Imperial Talker. Please give them a follow to catch their posts (all have great content outside of #FFF), or look out for them here, throughout the month.

The BIG Question: Which Superpowers Would You Choose?

I think this has to be a question as old as human imagination.  Right?  Once we began thinking of mythic beings, demigods, and superheroes – beings imbued with fantastic abilities – the next logical step after imagining their daring exploits would be to wonder what it would be like if we had those powers ourselves.  And that ties to the question this little post will consider – If you could choose, what superhero’s power set would you pick for yourself?? 

What Would Superman Do?

Granted, I don’t write about DC often on this site.  Yet just because Marvel has always held my heart doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy DC’s characters in their own way.  Nor does it mean I don’t spend time thinking about them.  In fact, Superman is one of the heroes who most often rattles around in my head.  There is a story I’ve always wanted to see, a struggle that’s uniquely Superman’s.  And I think about it all the time.

Andrew’s DC Diary

By Andrew

It’s a strange time in the land of DC Rebirth. By now most of the titles have reached the end of their story arc and we have now entered an issue or two of downtime to catch our breath in advance of some new story arcs coming on stream.

Andrew’s DC Diary

Guest Writer: Andrew

The last time I wrote for My Comic Relief it was to do a brief assessment of the Rebirth process following the first 6 or 7 weeks of titles. So how are things shaping up since then? Well we’ve had some new titles, and in the main there has been a continuation of strong first issues for the new series. Here’s a further update, with a focus on new appearances to the comic shop shelves since my last post.