ComicsAlliance » Ask Chris

Ask Chris #333: The Three Faces Of Superboy

Chris Sims — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 20:00:05 +0000

Q: Is Superboy conceptually better as adolescent Clark, a cloned Superman, or Superman's son? — @chan_180 A: Here's the thing about Superboy: he's one of those characters who had to happen. It's like the Royal Flush Gang, or the Wrecking Crew. Sooner or later, someone was bound to put pencil to paper to come up with a bunch of playing-card themed villains or evil construction workers who tear everything up with crowbars and wrecking balls, and if Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster hadn't sat down to answer the question of what their most famous character was like when he was a kid, someone else would've had to. It's right there. And I think there's evidence of that in the fact that over the past 72 years, we've gotten three completely different versions that actually all work. So let's see if we can't figure out which one works best. Continue reading…

Ask Chris #332: The Masterpiece That Is Matt Wagner's 'Mage'

Chris Sims — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 19:00:01 +0000

Q: On a scale of 1 to 10, how excited are you about Matt Wagner announcing that he's going to finish Mage? — @SuperSentaiBros

A: Like, 26? Maybe 27, but I don’t want to oversell things too much.

But yes: The most exciting piece of news to come out of Emerald City Comic-Con this year by a long shot was Matt Wagner announcing Mage: The Hero Denied, the third and final installment of a creator-owned series that dates back to the black-and-white boom of the '80s, and stands to this day as the single greatest comic book about magic baseball bats ever printed.

Ask Chris #331: The Imaginary Story Cake Brunch That Sadly Never Happened

Chris Sims — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 21:00:40 +0000

Q: Can you please explain this picture? — @settlechaos

A: I actually can! But I'll warn you right now, friend, the actual answer does not involve a bunch of superheroes hanging out on a patio eating chocolate cake while ignoring Jimmy Olsen's cries for mercy in the background.

Ask Chris #330: Batman v Superman v World-Building

Chris Sims — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 17:00:12 +0000

Q: Given the premise of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and the studio's intent to launch Justice League from it, was the movie doomed from the start? — @CrookedKnight

A: That movie has Some Problems, friends.

Ask Chris #329: The Official Handbook Of Extremely Obscure Batman Villains

Chris Sims — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 18:00:33 +0000

Q: Hey, so in The Lego Batman Movie, there's a character called The Mime. What's the deal with that? — @comicsfan4life

A: That signal, shining in the sky --- someone needs me to explain an extremely obscure Batman villain to them! I have been training for this day my entire life.

It might come as a surprise, but I actually haven't seen The Lego Batman Movie yet --- although I definitely want to. As I understand it, though, the Mime is only one of several c- to z-list Batman foes who show up and somehow also manage to get toys out of the deal. So my question is, why stop with the Mime?

Ask Chris #328: The WildStorm Blues

Chris Sims — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 21:00:22 +0000

Q: Why aren't the Wildstorm characters a comfortable fit in the modern, edgier DC Universe? — @jdkrach

A: With Warren Ellis and Jon Davis Hunt reviving it in the pages of The Wild Storm --- and with characters like Midnighter and Apollo experiencing some of their best stories ever in the core DC Universe right now --- it seems like the WildStorm characters have been on everyone's mind lately. And Real talk? I kinda love the WildStorm Universe.

It's a universe built on an interesting twist on what it means to be a superhero, shaped by creators like Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Ed Brubaker, and Adam Warren, a roster of world-builders that somehow came together beautifully to make it all work. But the flipside to that is that a lot of what I love about it comes from the nature of the universe itself, and when you remove them from that kind of thematic setting, it makes it a lot harder for them to fit anywhere else.

Ask Chris #327: The Thin Line Between Love And Hate

Chris Sims — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 21:00:06 +0000

Q: Is it possible that Lex Luthor is actually in love with Superman? Is it the reason for his obsession and jealousy? — @RedEarth18 A: No. Don't get me wrong: As much as it's been overused and misapplied over the years, the trope of a villain who's lashing out at a hero through some twisted kind of love isn't exactly one that I'm opposed to. It can be the source of some genuinely great storytelling, like Noelle Stevenson's Nimona, and it adds a lot of layers to villains that you don't often see in straightforward adventure stories where someone wants to punch someone else because they robbed the Crossword Puzzle Museum. I just don't think it works for Lex. Continue reading…

Ask Chris #326: Solaris The Tyrant Sun

Chris Sims — Fri, 03 Feb 2017 21:00:53 +0000

Q: I’m going to fall for it: Why would Solaris make a much better movie villain than Darkseid? — @robotfrom1984

A: In case anyone out there missed it, I made an off-hand reference in last week's column to my feeling that Solaris the Tyrant Sun would be a better villain for a Justice League movie than Darkseid, and as is usually the case, readers picked up on the fact that I'm obviously fishing --- er, seeding future columns, I mean --- and decided to follow up. Honestly, though, it's not really that complicated.

It basically just comes down to the fact that Solaris is a giant evil bad guy from space that you can beat by punching.

Ask Chris #325: Operation Justice Incarnate

Chris Sims — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 20:00:31 +0000

Q: Superman just reintroduced Justice Incarnate. Can this team make sense outside of The Multiversity? — @EfremOshinsky A: One of the great things about superhero comics is that over the past eight decades, it's been twisted into so many different forms that there aren't a lot of concepts that don't at least do something interesting when you remove them from their original contexts. That's half the fun of the genre, right? The idea that you can take a character like Batman and make him work in gritty street-level crime stories or cosmic Justice League sagas and have it all work with the same core ideas. That said, I'll agree that Justice Incarnate --- aka Operation Justice Incarnate, aka Justice League Incarnate, a pretty confusing string of names for a team that's only ever appeared in three issues --- is a bit of a special case. Continue reading…

Ask Chris #324: Strong As Iron, Homely As Sin

Chris Sims — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 18:00:05 +0000

Q: I've always felt like Metamorpho could be a much bigger star, but he's just too ugly. And not like The Thing, who's ugly in universe; Metamorpho is a truly awful design. Are there characters who you think could be better if they didn't look horrendous? — @EvilKeaton A: Whoa whoa whoa, my dude. It's all well and good to ask a question about good ideas for characters that were held back by bad designs, but you can't just roll up in here and disrespect Rex Mason like this! It's certainly true that he's never quite caught on the way he probably should've for how good his original appearances were, and there are plenty of reasons for that, but to chalk it up to a "truly awful design?" I have to disagree. It might not be the best design to ever hit the comics page, but that affable ugliness is only part of what makes it work --- not just for the character, but as a visual signifier of one of the most interesting eras in comics. Continue reading…