Click Here to Order from Amazon.comSky High (2005) Written by Paul Hernandez, Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle Directed by Mike Mitchell Runtime 100 min. 4 out of 5
Will Stronghold’s parents are the world’s greatest superheroes—the Commander and Jetstream—and his folks are hoping that by him enlisting in the super high school, Sky High, he’ll achieve his full potential and become a great hero himself. Unfortunately, Will doesn’t have any superpowers and must try and make his way out from under his parents’ super shadows and through the trials and tortures of a super high school. When one of the Commander’s old enemies, Royal Pain, surfaces, Will must find it in himself to be the man he was destined to be, and not just become a hero, but a superhero.
Seriously, Kurt Russell as a superhero? Yes. That is a good idea and I’m dead serious. He’s got the looks, the charm and the coolness factor to pull it off. Turning him into a Superman rip-off makes it even more perfect so I’m totally down with Kurt Russell as the Commander. Throw in Kelly Preston as his wife and fellow super crime fighter Jetstream and you’ve got a match made in super Heaven.
This movie is a love letter to the genre, featuring all the things that make superheroes great. As said, you got the Superman-type hero in the Commander, the beautiful heroine ala Wonder Woman in Jetstream, and loads of students at Sky High exhibiting all the classic powers throughout the movie, everything from flight to heat vision, to freezing people to superstrength, to shape shifting to superspeed—the list just keeps going. Tell the story from the point-of-view of the Commander and Jetstream’s son, Will (Michael Angarano), and you have the excuse to be on the outside looking in while also taking part in the adventure yourself.
It’s a simple story, but a good story and, as said, was a love letter to the genre and the tale used to share that letter with viewers was a good one to do it with.
I’ve also made it no secret in my other reviews that I’m a fan of superhero comedies. Usually, they’re done pretty well and Sky High is no exception. By making these superhero comedies and pulling it off, it goes to show how versatile the superhero genre really is. People generally view superheroes as so one-dimensional—sometimes two-dimensional—and that’s about it. Doing an assortment of super flicks breaks that perception and as a diehard fan of the genre, I’m happy these other variations on men and women in tights are created.
This movie has fantastic cameos by the likes of Lynda Carter (TV’s Wonder Woman), Bruce Campbell (Evil’s Dead’s Ash—who is kind of a superhero on his own, in a way; I mean, Ash has a chainsaw hand for crying out loud!)—Patrick Warburton as the voice of Royal Pain (Patrick was TV’s the Tick) and a bunch of other familiar faces. Nice.
Sky High is complete family fun, kid-friendly and is highly recommended for those looking to expand their superhero-movies-I’ve-watched repertoire.
Go see it. Buy it, borrow it, rent it—just see it. It’s good times.
Click Here to Order from Amazon.comMan of Steel (2013) Written by David S. Goyer Directed by Zack Snyder Runtime 143 min. 5 out of 5
A sole survivor of the doomed planet Krypton grows up on Earth and discovers he has abilities far beyond those of mortal men. Once grown, he sets off to find out who he is and where he comes from. The answer is discovered in a spaceship in the arctic and Krypton’s Last Son, Kal-El—Clark Kent—meets a hologram of his long-dead father, Jor-El, who reveals to him his destiny: to be a beacon of hope for humanity, and also someone who could one day restore the doomed Kryptonian race.
Enter Zod, a harsh general and one who has fought his whole life to protect Krypton and its people. During an altercation with Jor-El prior to Krypton’s explosion, he finds out that Jor-El has sent his newborn son off-world and, along with the child, plans for Krypton’s future. A battle ensues and Zod is sent off-planet, too, him and his cohorts banished to the Phantom Zone for rehabilitation. When Krypton explodes, the containment units holding Zod and his followers release them and he spends the next thirty-three years combing the stars, searching for Jor-El’s son.
Locating Kal-El on Earth, Zod sends an ultimatum to the planet, forcing Kal-El to reveal himself to the humans and to stop Zod from using Earth as ground zero for a new Krypton. Zod, like Kal-El, is now powered by the Earth’s yellow sun and is empowered with superabilities. An enormous battle ensues between Krypton’s general and Kal-El, the fate of the Earth hanging in the balance.
What can I say? This movie is mind blowing! It’s epic, it’s incredible. So much was riding on this film to deliver a Superman movie that would captivate audiences and restore the Man of Steel to his rightful place as king of the superheroes. Man of Steel does just that and then some, bringing with it the awesome sci-fi factors of Star Wars to the dense storytelling of The Dark Knight Trilogy.
There has never, ever been a superhero movie like this before. Henry Cavill as Superman nailed the part. He’s a nice guy, a caring guy, but he’s dead serious about doing the right thing and exudes the confidence that only one who has sold himself out for the good of all can portray. He did something that was never done before by any other Superman actor: showing Clark Kent before he was Superman or even the bumbling reporter of the Daily Planet. (I’m referring to the movies, not Smallville). In fact, he’s this version of Clark Kent for nearly the whole movie. You see him making the big decisions, weighing his upbringing against this new task of saving the world that was suddenly dropped on his lap. You journey along with him as he wrestles with his being different and how those differences apply not just to his life, but to the lives of others.
As Superman, he’s the Superman. I never thought Christopher Reeve’s performance could be outdone, but Henry Cavill matches, if not exceeds, what Mr. Reeve brought to the character. Cavill’s Superman is one hundred percent devoted to staying true to who he is, his abilities, his upbringing, his quest for truth and justice, and for putting his foot down both with men and rebel Kryptonians when needed. I can’t really comment on his reporter Clark persona because that’s not a big role in this movie. I hope, however, it will be in the sequel and we’ll see plenty of Lois and Clark interaction in the next one, especially after the way the Lois and Clark relationship is portrayed in this movie. You’ll have to see for yourself for what I mean.
Michael Shannon as Zod was crazy good. The guy can act and his Zod is much different than Terrence Stamp’s. Yes, both are ruthless, but whereas Stamp’s Zod was more about power grabbing and his desire to rule, Shannon’s is about giving his all to restore the former glory of Krypton at any cost, even if that means eradicating all of Earth’s population to do it. The best villain is always the villain you accidently find yourself rooting for, and that happened to me throughout this movie. Every so often I felt for Zod and understood what he was trying to accomplish. It made sense and made me consider that maybe if I was in his shoes I would’ve done the same thing or something similar.
Amy Adams as Lois Lane was a good choice. I wasn’t sure at first, as I know Amy Adams as more of the happy-go-lucky girl from other movies far removed from the superhero genre—though she was in one episode of Smallville during its first season—but she sold me on the part and she reminded me of the Lois Lanes from the old cartoons: warm, but cut and dry; funny, but serious about what she does and her desire to go the distance to get a story.
The action in this movie was crazy huge. The bar has been set so high in terms of superhero cinema in recent years and Man of Steel makes every superhero movie that’s come before it look like a puppet show by comparison. The wide-scale destruction wrought by Superman and Zod—never mind Zod’s right-hand-woman Faora and the other rebel Kryptonians—is what you’d expect if people with god-like powers let loose in an all-out brawl across a city. And the speed, man, the speed! Normally superspeed is shown as either a big blur or done in slo-mo, with the superspeedsters moving quickly while everyone else is frozen. In this one, you see Superman et al. zipping around, pausing, breaking sound barriers, and bringing the viewer along as if we’re in his boots the whole time and experiencing the thrill of superspeed ourselves.
The way Superman flies in this is unlike any other portrayal before, and while I loved how he flies in the other movies and TV shows, in this one he seems to hurl himself through the air at times, while at others flies with precision and care. The heat vision effect in this was stellar, too. The glow beneath the skin around the eyes and to see the veins beneath its surface made it all the more menacing. The superhearing and X-ray vision were familiar territory to those who’ve watched Smallville, but there was no all-out X-ray vision where everything was dark blue and white.
The fighting between Superman and Zod was serious business and was truly a portrayal of two warriors going toe-to-toe and not just wrestling or tapping each other out. It was one crazy hard blow after another, some slow, some rapid, even some in the sky! Insane! So many times I was blown away and just going “Wow, wow, wow!” Zod fought with the skill of a trained warrior, whereas Superman fought with brute force.
Man of Steel is a crazy good movie with a strong story, an incredible cast, and superhero action that has now become the benchmark for anything to follow. To be honest, I don’t know if it can be followed. Hopefully in Man of Steel 2.
Click Here to Order from Amazon.comLook, Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman (2006) Written by James Grant Golding and Steven Smith Directed by Kevin Burns Runtime 115 min. 5 out of 5
Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no, it’s SUPERMAN!
Sixty-eight years ago this world turned a corner. In 1938, two young boys created a hero that would inspire an entire planet and someone whom this world would adopt as its own son. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster gave us Superman, the world’s first superpowered hero.
Produced by Bryan Singer (Superman Returns, X-Men), Look, Up in the Sky! The Amazing Story of Superman is an in-depth look at the Man of Steel’s history, going way back to before Siegel and Shuster created him, what led up to it, and what happened once they put pen to paper.
This is a remarkable documentary. It covers the comic books, all TV series, the movies, cartoons, even a hokey Superman musical.
Interviews with Stan Lee, Gene Simmons, Mark Hamill, Adam West, Annette O’Toole, Bryan Singer, Brandon Routh, Jack Larson and a host of others are peppered throughout, with the whole documentary narrated by Kevin Spacey.
Click Here to Order from Amazon.comLEGO Batman: The Movie – DC Superheroes Unite! (2013) Written by David A. Goodman Directed by Jon Burton Runtime 71 min. 4.5 out of 5
It’s time for the Man of the Year Awards in Gotham City. The contenders? Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor. The winner? Well, you guessed it: Bruce Wayne. When the Joker crashes the party, Lex sees a potential ally in his fight not only against Superman, but against all superheroes. They forge an uneasy alliance and Lex uses Joker’s expertise in chemistry to create not only a gas that would make everyone vote for him in the upcoming Presidential election, but also Kryptonite. In exchange, Lex would provide Joker with a special brick dismantling device that is able to take apart shiny black objects, something Joker’s all too familiar with thanks to the Dark Knight.
Meanwhile, Batman and Robin have their hands full with a breakout from Arkham Asylum. Superman shows up to help and eventually the Dynamic Duo and the Man of Steel discover Lex’s and Joker’s partnership. However, team ups aren’t Batman’s strong suit but after a little coaxing from Robin, he learns that sometimes you need outside help to come to victory.
Just when Batman and Superman think they’ve got Joker and Lex right where they want them, the sinister duo unleash a powerful force that will take the entire Justice League of America to stop.
If you’ve played LEGO Batman 2, then you’re familiar with this story. This movie even uses clips from the game, but then fills in the gaps with fresh animation. So while it’s kind of a rehash, it’s a well-done rehash and, hey, it’s LEGO. LEGO animated movies are few and far between and I hope LEGO Batman: The Movie – DC Superheroes Unite is the first in a move to bring more and more brick superheroes to the small screen. Perhaps even to the big one one day.
The animation is crisp, flawless, and well-thought out. The graphics are amazing and convey a plausible world made of LEGO, every detail somehow made from LEGO bricks. No small feat from a design standpoint, creating something so believable yet so . . . LEGO-y.
With a solid story filled with the right amount of action and humor, I’m glad I added LEGO Batman: The Movie to my superhero movie collection. Besides, the exclusive Clark-Kent-changing-into-Superman LEGO minifigure that comes with it is not too shabby either. Glad to have him as part of my Superman figure collection.
LEGO Batman: The Movie – DC Superheroes Unite is recommended for all ages. I loved watching it with my kids and I know you will, too. And if you don’t have kids, then it’s still worth checking out. Again, LEGO? Batman? Superman? DC superheroes? Yes, please!
Click Here to Order from Amazon.comJustice League: The New Frontier (2008) Written by Stan Berkowitz Directed by Dave Bullock Runtime 75 min. 4 out of 5
In the fifties, the world doesn’t know what to make of superheroes. Some of them are accepted and beloved, others not so much. When a mysterious entity known as The Center rises to thwart the planet, the core Justice Leaguers—Superman, Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter—must unite for the first time to stop what is seemingly an unstoppable threat.
Based on the best-selling graphic novel by Darwyn Cooke, Justice League: The New Frontier is unlike any Justice League movie out there. For starters, it’s a period piece. Nothing modern day here, with the story taking place between 1953 and 1960. Even more so, it’s art direction is based on Cooke’s art from the graphic novel, where each character was drawn in a very forties-style way: simple, with minimal muscle and heavy lines for eyes. No bodybuilding superheroes in this flick. And, of course, all the backgrounds, supporting cast and tech in the film were all time-appropriate as well. Even the “advanced tech” in the film was old school in its presentation and style.
The story was good—very much an origin story for the Justice League, with the overarching origin story being that of Green Lantern—and each character was faithful to their source material. The pacing was a bit slow at times, with lots of talking—there were a few moments where I was, like, “Get on with it!”—but at the same time, it being a period piece, TV and movies back then had lots of talking, too.
Not that talking is a bad thing. Just wished for a few more fast-paced sequences—not necessarily violence or fighting—to move things along.
Warner Bros. and DC Comics are amazing at their direct-to-market animated features, each one meant to stand on its own instead of where one story feeds off another. By doing that, they pick and choose the best graphic novels to adapt and don’t have to worry about the baggage of continuity as a result. Doing Justice League: The New Frontier afforded them an opportunity to do something wholly original and deliver something that modern day audiences haven’t seen in recent years: a superhero story that takes place in the past. After watching this, I wish someone in Hollywood would do a live action version of Superman or Flash or whoever, but set it in the past. You can still be true to the characters, as this story has shown, but give something fresh at the same time and, from a marketing and creative standpoint, give something original as a result.
Justice League: The New Frontier is a fantastic movie, and for those who want more of their favorite heroes but sometimes wish something new was done with them, then this is the flick for you.
Click Here to Order from Amazon.comJustice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (2013) Written by Jim Krieg Directed by Jay Oliva Runtime 81 min. 5 out of 5
When the Flash cranks up the superspeed and travels back in time to right a painful wrong, the timeline is drastically altered and he wakes up in a present that’s not the one he knows. There’s a war raging between the Atlanteans and Amazons, Batman uses guns, Cyborg works for the government and Superman is nowhere to be found. Worse, the Flash no longer has his superpowers thus cannot travel back in time to repair the damage and restore the timeline to the one he knew.
Powerless and with no Justice League to turn to, the Flash must decide how he’s going to change the course of history and if he’s willing to lose someone he loves—again—in the effort to save the lives of many.
This flick is the ultimate fanboy trip for Flash lovers. He’s the main character and this is the first time in DC animated movie history that he gets the focus. You got superspeed, time travel, alternate timelines, the Speedforce and more. Way cool and, frankly, it’s about time DC took a break from Superman and Batman as the go-to guys for movies, even in the context of a JLA movie. With a new Flash TV series in production as of this review, I’m thinking this was DC’s way of priming the pump, so to speak, to get audiences ready for more adventures with the Scarlet Speedster.
This movie’s strength lies in two areas: the Flash, and time travel.
On the Flash: you got a quick recap of his origin, a real sense for what drives Barry Allen, multiple amazing displays of superspeed (especially that running sequence at the end), and a hero to root for from start to finish. I loved it. As a DC guy, I like the Flash, but this film really made me appreciate him and care for him all the more as it gave a strong face to his mythology and character.
On time travel: I love time travel stories. The more scientifically accurate and plausible the better, but I’ll take just about any story that deals with time travel, parallel universes and butterfly effects. I write about that stuff in my own fiction, for crying out loud. Here, DC went to great lengths to explain the time travel in a plausible way and apply what we know of its possibility as realistically as they could in the context of the movie. Nice. The DVD extras that go further into this are an added bonus for us time travel enthusiasts and are much appreciated.
Storywise, I loved this movie and the twists and turns it took made me go, “Man, that’s awesome,” more than once. When I found out the history behind the Batman of the alternate timeline I went nuts. So cool and so utterly tragic. Perfect for Batman. And Superman’s portrayal in the alternate timeline? Crazy! Putting all that against a backdrop of an Atlantean vs Amazon war added a breath of fresh air to DC’s animated movies because, like I said, it was relieving to stay away from putting the spotlight on Superman or Batman. (Granted, Batman plays a big part in this movie, but in such a way that it’s not our Batman but another, which makes it fresh.)
The animated style chosen for this flick I wasn’t crazy about at first, to be honest. The small heads and wider bodies looked weird. It grows on you, though, and eventually you get used to it. The color scheme and bleak tone throughout added to the overall feel of what was a heavy story, thus sucking you in further.
This is not a movie for kids, though. There’s a lot of violence and gore, adult themes and some language. While I appreciate “grownup” superhero movies, I wish these elements would be scaled back a bit so I could show my kids these flicks and go on super adventures with them instead of having to shelve the DVD until they’re older so they can watch it.
From a superhero fan’s standpoint, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox is a stellar movie adapted from the graphic novel by Geoff Johns and Andy Kubert.
Click Here to Order from Amazon.comJustice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010) Written by Dwayne McDuffie Directed by Lauren Montgomery and Sam Liu Runtime 75 min. 5 out of 5
The superhero known as Lex Luthor travels from a parallel Earth to ours and summons the help of the Justice League to take on the Crime Syndicate, an evil version of the JLA from his own Earth. Agreeing to help him, the Justice League travels to Luthor’s Earth and takes on the Crime Syndicate, pitting the likes of Superman against Ultraman, Wonder Woman against Superwoman, the Flash against Johnny Quick, Green Lantern against Power Ring, Martian Manhunter against J’edd J’arkus, Hawkgirl against Angelique, and, soon enough, Batman against Owlman.
In a true case of looking in a mirror darkly, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths is a super heroic and super villained thrill ride that gives you two Justice Leagues for the price of one!
Such a simple premise but such a cool story. Why not have the JLA face themselves from an alternate reality? Who would win? If you’re fighting someone every bit as powerful as you are, would someone come out on top? What if they thought like you? Talk about playing with one’s shadow.
There’s superpowers galore in this movie as each hero gets to take on their counterpart and show what they are fully capable of. More so, you get to see what our beloved JLA would be like had they taken other paths in life as the similarities and differences between them and the Crime Syndicate are explored.
A bunch of other heroes make an appearance in this flick as well, guys like Aquaman, Black Canary, Red Tornado (a personal favorite), Firestorm (another favorite), and more. Kind of a throwback to Justice League Unlimited in that way.
Don’t be fooled, though, as this movie is more than just a superhero/supervillain slugfest. It gets into the deeper issues, the big one being about choice. In the context of the movie, if every choice we make spawns an alternate reality where the alternate choice(s) was also made, do any of the choices we make ultimately matter?
This movie is smart, interesting, and grabs you from the get-go. The action is top notch, the animation is ultra sweet, and if these direct-to-video DC Universe movies have proven anything, it’s that they know how to make a good Justice League flick. I can’t wait until they transfer that same know-how to a live action Justice League movie. Can you imagine how awesome that’ll be?
Anyway, back to this one. This is such a good movie and is a must-have on any superhero fan’s movie shelf. You not only get DC Universe’s all-stars, but the all-stars of a parallel universe as well. Like I said above, definitely a two-for-one ticket and definitely worth checking out.
Click Here to Order from Amazon.comAll-Star Superman (2011) Written by Dwayne McDuffie Directed by Sam Liu Runtime 76 min. 5 out of 5
The Man of Steel is dying after receiving an extreme dose of solar radiation. Trying to live out his last days and wrap up all loose ends, he spends it with Lois and gives her a special serum that grants her superpowers for twenty-four hours. When unexpected twists and turns arise, the two must save Metropolis together. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor has plans of his own and when he gets his hands on the serum that granted Lois superpowers, he becomes as powerful as Superman.
Can the Last Son of Krypton stop his arch nemesis while also saving the Earth from a damaged sun before he perishes?
When I think of classic Superman, I think of this story. The reason is because this story involves all of the classic elements of Superman lore, everything from the basics like Lois Lane and Lex Luthor, all the way to the Fortress of Solitude, the bottle city of Kandor, a full array of superpowers—and in the case of this story, some new ones, which reminds me of the “bonus” powers portrayed in Superman IV (though they’re not silly in this one like they were in that flick)—the Phantom Zone, Superman using not only his super brawn but also his super brains, Lois having superpowers (which has happened quite a lot in Supes’s history—she’s got a cool costume in this, by the way), and a ton more.
Based on the graphic novel by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, this flick asks the hard questions about Superman’s mortality, if such a thing is possible, and if it is possible, then how would that possibly play out? Unlike Superman’s death when the Man of Steel went up against Doomsday, this story isn’t about a giant slugfest, but about a slow death caused by the very thing that gives Superman his powers: the sun. It’s about him coming to terms with his own mortality and setting things in order before his final moment arrives.
One of the great things about these direct-to-DVD super flicks from DC is they’re all stand-alone features based on a graphic novel and by being so, they also carry with it the same art style from the book. In this case, it’s Frank Quitely’s art animated. I admit it took a while for his art to grow on me. Perhaps because it’s so simple and clean, yet by being that way, he’s able to create some pretty realistic-looking superheroes. Seeing it animated like we do in this flick brings Superman et al. to life and makes this comic book fan very happy.
Out of all the Superman adaptations done thus far, All-Star Superman is one of the greats and gets high props for being an awesome animated flick with a great cast, great art direction, a great story and, most importantly, having the greatest hero of them all, one who’s definitely an all-star: Superman.
Note: This post was originally published on Jeffrey Allen Davis’s blog
The Axiom-man Saga at the C4 Comic Con 2013
The Axiom-man Origin and Why I Write Superhero Fiction by A.P. Fuchs
The Axiom-man Saga is an old story. A couple decades, in fact, as it was around then that I started to daydream about a similar hero while walking my paper route each morning. I’d get so lost in this story about a hero caught in a cosmic war between Good and Evil that I’d be done my route before I knew it and would often run house-to-house to double check and make sure I delivered the paper to the right places.
In that fantasy, of course, I played the hero. As the story grew and I got older, I ended up transferring the honor of being that character to someone else, a fictitious someone else who would one day go by the name of Gabriel Garrison.
Axiom-man began to take shape in concept throughout all my years of delivering the paper—and went by a different name, which was featured in my novel, April, written as Peter Fox (for that secret name, you’ll just have to read the book to find out). In 1995, Axiom-man received his new costume, the one he wears today. At the time, Axiom-man—originally called Trinity—and this concept character of mine were two different people. Trinity was more of a supernatural hero ala Spawn and fought demons, whereas my other hero was more down-to-Earth in nature and had very Superman-like powers. Yes, I know: Superman isn’t very down-to-Earth, but he does deal with things on this plane of existence 9 times out of 10. Anyway, as time went on, Trinity became Axiom—who was yet another character at the time—and as even more time went on and after being inspired by the likes of Frank Dirscherl and his Wraith character—who back in 2005 had one novel, a comic and a movie in the works—I decided it was time to put my long-thought-about superhero to paper. I merged my paper route fantasy character with Axiom because I always had an affinity for him, and after doing a quick web search on the Axiom name and finding a company out there with the same name, I went and made it my own by adding “man” to the end of it, hyphenated, of course, because that’s who Axiom-man really is: a self-evident truth embodied in a single person, in his case the self-evident truth of being one to do good rather than evil. From there it was an issue of scaling his powers waaaay back and settling upon three of them: strength, flight and eye beams. And when I say I scaled his powers way back, I mean way, way back. When Axiom-man debuted, he could only lift around 1000 pounds, could fly at about 60 kilometers an hour, and his energy beams only carried so much force. I didn’t want to make him too powerful thus making him always the winner and, because of his great strength, have no choice but to always pit him against ultra powerful foes. My story was to take place in our world under the idea of, “If this happened in our reality tomorrow, how would it most likely play out?” Making him with that kind of power set helped keep him grounded in reality and gave me plenty of options for enemies he could fight to sometimes win and sometimes lose against.
His backstory and mythology were left unaltered and kept the same as the character I thought about growing up, still the product of a nameless messenger having visited him and granting him his abilities without explanation. As the story goes on, Axiom-man finds out why he received his powers and how he is caught in a cosmic war that has raged since time immemorial.
The reason Axiom-man made his debut in books rather than comics was because, at the time I brought him to market, I knew of superhero fiction but didn’t think to do it independently. Frank Dirscherl’s The Wraith and Knight Seeker by Eric Cooper showed me otherwise. Axiom-man was originally a comic book character and I even drew a 21- or 22-page comic with him when he was called Trinity back in high school. I still have it somewhere and might publish it one day as a kind of behind-the-scenes thing. Anyway . . .
By doing superheroes in prose, I was able to work alone, could tell the story exactly how I wanted it, and because I was already self-publishing other fiction at the time, had the system in place to get Axiom-man out there.
You know, even though Axiom-man was my first official superhero release, I look over my fiction and every book I’ve written is a superhero novel in some way. Take A Red Dark Night, for example. It’s about a summer camp under siege by blood creatures. One of the protagonists, Tarek, is superheroic in nature, wears an otherworldly outfit complete with a cape, and shoots blue fire from a gauntlet on his forearm.
My epic fantasy book, some quarter million words long, called The Way of the Fog, is about a group of people who get superpowers in a medieval/fantasy-style setting.
My zombie trilogy, Undead World, deals with the supernatural, time travel, and each character is superheroic in how they act, even archetypical in some cases, with comic book-like good vs evil action.
Zombie Fight Night—aside from an aged Axiom-man making an appearance in there, is full of comic book characters monster-wise, everything from werewolves to vampires; to robots to pirates; to ninjas to samurai; and beyond, all battling the undead.
The Metahumans vs anthology series is, obviously, about Metahumans aka superheroes fighting a themed foe throughout each book.
As mentioned, my love story, April, is about a comic book writer who’s fallen in love, and what does he write? Superhero comics.
I think it’s only fitting that superhero fiction in its truest form—an actual superhero storyline—became a part of my repertoire. It seemed inevitable considering my love for the genre. Ever since I knew what a superhero was—at three years old, I think—I’ve been hooked, and not a day in my life has gone by where I haven’t thought about them, theorized about them, fantasized about them, pretended to be them and more. I even wear Superman and Batman onesies to bed for crying out loud!
Calling me a geek is an understatement, but I don’t care. Geeks make the world go round and fanboys are the ones providing people with entertainment. Superhero fiction just happens to be my main venue for doing so.
And where is Axiom-man going from here? Well, thus far, 7 prose books have been released along with a few comics and short stories. The whole saga is planned to be 50 books long, so I’m coming up on being 20 percent finished. The good part is the story is pretty much all mentally written. I had 9 years or so of delivering papers to get the story right, after all.
What I’m enjoying about the superhero fiction format is I’m able to do things with my characters that comic books don’t allow, at least, current superhero comics don’t allow. I’ve long advocated—and still do—that the comic book is the greatest storytelling medium to ever come down the pike, with books being a close second. Why? Because it’s the one-two punch of pictures combined with narration, whereas prose is a text-only medium. I still believe that, but being that at this stage in my career I’m primarily a writer versus a writer/artist, I’m sticking to books and the book medium is capable of telling superhero stories in a way comics haven’t as yet, namely getting inside a character’s head. Very few comic writers have succeeded in that in the past. Superhero comics are far too picture-heavy these days, with flashy computer coloring jobs, flimsy stories and scant dialogue. I miss the old days where there were almost equal amounts of text and pictures. At least with The Axiom-man Saga as it stands now, I can bring the reader dense characters where every thought and feeling is brought to the fore and, hopefully, pull the reader into the characters’ shoes in a way that superhero comics don’t. That’s my main goal with this: bring the reader in so that they feel they are experiencing my fiction versus just reading it. I’ve yet to read a superhero comic where this has happened. I have, however, read superhero books where this has occurred, Batman: Knightfall by Dennis O’Neil being a major favorite of mine and my first foray into the superhero fiction world.
What also sets The Axiom-man Saga apart from any of the current superhero offerings is that it’s a cross-medium superhero story that encompasses books, comics and short stories, all part of the same continuity. This has never been done before, and putting new spins on old things is one of the things I’ve always striven for in my fiction, especially in this industry where things are pretty copycat and cookie-cutter (we all know of certain authors that seem to turn out the same book over and over again just under a different title, right?).
Whether Axiom-man becomes this wild success or remains under the radar, for me it’s about writing the superhero story I always wanted to read, the one I’ve always thought about, and the one that, when my time on Earth is done, is the one I’ll be remembered by. It’s meant to be a career piece, a giant story with a beginning, middle and end, the story of a superhero, his life, and what that means to the world around us.
I invite you to come along for the ride.
Hope you enjoyed this little insight into the Axiom-man origin.
