SIB will KILL YOU TO DEATH.

Okay, i know I said no more, but I just saw this and had to comment some where:



You know, i like the idea of an Evil Superman out there. It's a classic device, the evil twin. But the road they've taken to make Superman Prime. Good lord. He will kill you. Kill you to death! Maybe the silly dialog is meant to emphasize that he's a boy in a man's body. To me all it emphasizes is the dumb. You all have a homework assginment:

I want I WILL KILL YOU TO DEATH! to be an internet thing. I want to see it popping up on message boards as a retarded catchphrase by the end of the weekend, people!

By the way, should any one want to just chat about Supes some time while this is laying cold and abandoned until I have more time for it, the you can use SIB's google account to get in touch any time you like through gmail or google talk; sayitbackwards@gmail.com

hey guys

I intended to keep SIB going, but I'm going to go ahead and rap it up. The old posts are staying up, and I'll probably come back to it eventually. I just have a lot going on right now and this little bit of silliness is one of the things being put on the back burner.

Thanks for being so nice, folks.

SIB Movie Reviews - Justice League: The New Frontier

You gotta tell yourself with these things, it's an adaptation, not a straight translation to another medium. "Hey, you turn nearly 400 pages into a 90 minute film and you're going to have to lose some things."

Unfortunately, just about everything not directly related to the main plot is gone, and it didn't even get a full 90 minutes. Much of the foreshadowing and subplots, and unfortunately very nearly all the subtlety of the original work is gone, which really weakens the piece. The strength of the comic was in the world Cooke had created and how these extraordinary people found their place in it as heroes, and unfortunately we just don't see that world here. That reduces it to a good sci-fi movie (with some dashes of noir here and there) that turns into a good action movie, but not something with even half the depth or nearly so engrossing as the comic.

The voice acting varies. It's a great cast, but unfortunately many of them seem to not be used to voice acting, uncomfortable with it, or just plain not so good at it. None of it is bad, it just feels a bit stiff from a lot of characters. J'Onn is the best performance, and Lois' (small part as it is) is quite good as well. Batman's is above average for this film; the performances for Superman, Faraday, Wonder Woman, Hal Jordan and Flash are all uneven. Oh, Carol Ferris is very good as well.

The look is interesting. It's not quite Cooke, but more like Cooke designs filtered and simplified through Timm's previous DC work. (That's likely not what happened, but that's what it looks like to me.) The colors are very clean; sharp and bright but flat, and that really makes it look like the Dini/Timm animated DCU. I was expecting much darker and much closer to the comic. The animation is gorgeous; the best we've seen yet from the WB on the DC properties.

I also want to mention the opening sequence, the prologue, it's just a beautiful piece of work.

On its own, not holding it to the book, it's quite good. Much, much better than Superman: Doomsday. I just made the mistake of watching right after reading the comic, so I kept seeing what wasn't there instead of being able to focus on what was. I really do recommend you check it out. I hope the next direct to video DC feature is as good.

Oh, and while I'm posting; do you guys want these kinds of serious reviews? Or would you rather stick to the ones like I did for Steel where I just make some lame comment?

Evil! Part four, Darkseid

A little back story here. The creators of the the Superman Animated series wanted to add someone truly powerful and threatening to Superman's rogues gallery, so they brought in Jack Kirby's New Gods and made Darkseid a recurring opponent for Superman. (Which makes a kind of sense, as Kirby used a Superman title to launch his New Gods stuff.) Now byt the time of this clip, Superman's encountered Darkseid a few times. Darkseid never quite came out on top in these meetings and in their one physical altercation, pretty much got his ass handed to him. Now lots of people love the big fight between Superman and Darkseid in the JLU finale, their third meeting, but my favorite moment* between them was their second bout:



It's definitely not the Superman I'd want to see all the time, but what makes it my favorite Darkseid moment is his steadfast refusal to admit that Superman's bettered him. This is the second time he's been physically beaten down by Superman, He's been forced to leave Superman's world by the New Gods, and just flat out embarrassed repeatedly when his minions have been defeated by Supes. In all their encounters, his one victory over Superman was brainwashing him, and that literally blew up in his face in the end. But to him, even while lying beaten near to death, Superman's the loser. That's some awesome arrogance there, big guy.

You should all go out and buy the Justice League DVDs, by the way. That show was just amazingly good.


*I do have one issue with this sequence. I hate when Batman calls Superman an idiot. Even when their relationship is a bit antagonistic, they should never flat out insult one another. It's just not the right dynamic for Batman and Superman.

Why you gotta go and break my heart?

If you've been reading SIB for a while, you know I love Kurt Busiek's run on Superman. It's ending with Superman #675. I can only assume he's leaving just to make me unhappy. Damn you Busiek! You guys can't see it, but I'm shaking my fist angrily.



SUPERMAN #675

Written by Kurt Busiek
Art and variant cover by Renato Guedes & Wilson Magalhaés
Cover by Alex Ross
It's an oversized spectacular blowout action anniversary issue, as Kurt Busiek, gearing up for his insanely huge next project, brings his Superman run to a close! A three-way battle between Superman, Paragon and the forces of Daxam! The Earth-shattering threat of the all-new Galactic Golem! This one's got it all, including a painted cover by new series cover artist Alex Ross and a variant by Renato Guedes.
Retailers please note: This issue will ship with two covers. For every 10 copies of the Standard Edition (with a cover by Alex Ross), retailers may order one copy of the Variant Edition (with a cover by Renato Guedes & Wilson Magalhaés). Please see the Previews Order Form for more information.
On sale April 16 • 48 pg, FC, $3.99 US

John Byrne loves me.

I got mentioned on John Byrne's Forum yesterday! Not by name. Well, not the name you folks know me by, but JB's pet name for me. Go here and scroll down to the post by Nicky DeVito about halfway down the page. It begins "Ok, in context."

That second story there? That's about me! Then Byrne replies a couple of posts down! Woo! I'm internet famous!

For those interested, my personal dealings with Byrne and thoughts on Byrne as a person (or at least his public persona) can be read here. If you want to see original exchange referenced above (Some one sent me screen grabs when the original posts disappeared, and they're still linked to on a forum I used to frequent. The internet is magic!), go clicky -

(large image number 1) (large image number 2)

I swear, over a year later all of this is still hilarious to me. I am so easily amused.

On an entirely different note, people have noticed the lack of updates. To be completely honest with you folks, things are not great for me right now, and I just haven't had it in me to work on the blog. I briefly considered keeping it going with a regular posts that link to other stuff just to keep this place in people's minds, but that seemed kind of cheap. I'm not sure what to say here. I'll try to keep it going, but I may lose internet access completely very soon, so I dunno what's going to happen.

Amazingly, people have expressed disappointment at the lack of updates. I'm sorry about that. Folks were actually reading this thing. That still astonishes me. Thanks for that. That makes me feel even more internet famous and stuff.