Reign 100 Contest Results: Who's Making That Guy Freak Out?

Well, I won't act like I got hundreds, or even, dozens of entries, but those who tried out did their very best to find all the Action Comics #1 homage covers they could. Of course, the homages featured in interiors rather than covers proved a little harder to find, especially #7 through 11 (though two of those had been shown in Reign).

Before I announce the winner, let's see the answers to the very meaningful question: Who's Making That Guy Freak Out?

1. Bizarro
Wait, shouldn't Bizarro Guy NOT freak out?

2. She-Hulk
John Byrne has always been enamored with Superman and homage covers, this intersects his interests (and mine) well.

3. Mr. Majestic
Jimmy Olsen can't believe it!

4. Buffy
Joss Whedon runs from his greatest creation.

5. Donald Duck
You wouldn't like Donald when he's angry.

6. Supergirl
Since Supergirl debuted in Action Comics decades ago, she definitely warranted a car-crashing homage at some point.

7. Superman - Last Son of Earth
The clue was in the Elseworlds uniform!

8. Stan Lee's Superman
As previously seen in Reign of the Supermen.

9. Alpha-One
The analog from The Mighty is sure to make an appearance here soon.

10. Savage Dragon
A pin-up from Superman's crossover with Erik Larsen's boyhood creation yielded this homage.

11. Superman Monster
As with Stan Lee's, this interior shot was pictured in Reign, for those who thought of scrolling back through the blog.

12. Prime
The actual cover was a blue hologram, but Breyfogle's art shines a lot more in the original art.

13. Superboy
Superboy scares girls!

14. Super-Goof
I accepted Super-Goofy or simply Goofy.

15. Super-Ape
Featured in the early days of Reign, his name isn't Super-Ape, but giving him any relationship to the JLApe storyline satisfied the contest rules.

16. Scorn
Or by his real name, Ceritak.

17. Rat-Man
Homage. Spoof. It's all the same.

18. Superman 2999
The three-eyed alien freak-out was pretty easy to attribute for all involved.

19. Madman
I wish we had the "Madman Comics" cover Madman is reading, but being a cover inside a cover explains why the quality of #19 wasn't up to snuff.

20. Modern Age Superman
Or just plain Superman. We end with a pretty straightforward homage.

And since there are a great deal more (I've got more than 70 in my folder), you can expect me to revisit this cover in the future! NOW, who's our winner? Well, with 17 out of 20 (and after a random draw between everyone with that score), it's frequent commenter and friend to this blog Jayunderscorezero! Congratulations! Jay also says his favorite Superman of the first 100 is #85, the Superman of 1890! I'll be in touch and start work on your one-of-a-kind, customized Reign iron-on decal which you'll be able to transfer to your favorite piece of fabric or look at in the mirror for days on end (your choice).

Reign of the Supermen #110: Kal-El, Green Arrow

Source: Action Comics #314 (1964)
Type: Alternate timelineFor the last time, Amalgamonday takes a look at Jor-El's forecasts. What if baby Kal-El was sent to a different planet and coincidentally became a carbon copy of a Justice Leaguer?

This week: Becoming Green Arrow
Landing site: Ntann, a "backward world whose civilization has made little progress" orbiting a red sun.
Adoptive parents: A kindly couple make good foster-parents, but Jor-El is a bit worried about their lack of scientific training.
A new life: Kal-El grows up to be the world's best archer, but it's not enough for him. Like his biological father, he is a gifted inventor and creates a plethora of trick arrows. However, when asked to use them in an attack against a neighboring village, he refuses, warns the village, and then exiles himself in the forest rather than see his work used for evil.
Final score: B

According to Jor-El, "no one from Krypton's great civilization would ever be happy there". Science Guild snob! I wonder what he would have thought of his boy growing up on a farm in Kansas...

This Week in Geek (31/01-6/02/11)

Buys

Picked up a couple of films on DVD: The Last King of Scotland and Robert Altman's Short Cuts.

"Accomplishments"

DVDs: Now done with Alias Season 3, the mystery of the lost 2 years and a nasty love triangle that brings Vaughn closer to Jack Bristow. Apparently there was pressure from "outside" to reveal the truth of the lost years sooner, and on a weekly schedule, I can see that makes sense. On DVD, it wraps up a bit early, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to do in the second half of the season. An action-packed season with lots of cool guest stars (Ricky Gervais?!), so it's really a continuation of the second half of Season 2 despite the time jump (which is relatively well used to shuffle some characters around). The DVD has commentaries on a few episodes, as usual, a stylish animated short about a mission from the lost years (I'd watch a full series of that thing), more than an hour's worth of making of featurettes, bloopers, deleted scenes, an awkwardly edited seminar talk, the Superbowl teaser and Michael Vartan hangin' with the Stanley Cup. A strong package as usual.

Ashes of Time Redux is a re-edit (necessary after the master was lost) of Wong Kar-Wai's first feature film, a star-filled historical epic extremely loosely adapted from a Louis Cha swordplay novel. I wasn't sure my KFF crew was ready for Wong Kar-Wai's artiness, and I'm still not sure. I love it though. The visual poetry is enough to sustain my interest at the very least. Ashes of Time has an elliptical structure based on the Chinese almanac, but I wouldn't call it a plot. It's more like a series of short stories intersecting the life of a mercenary swordsman or "fixer". Some are Buddhist fables, other end in excitingly (but unusually) filmed action sequences choreographed by Sammo Hung. Constant are the film's visual inventiveness and the high romance inherent to the characters. The DVD includes a making of mostly made up of interviews taken at Cannes. More interesting is an English-language 40-minute interview with the director (don't worry, the interviewer eventually shuts up).

Audios: Still enjoying the first season of 8th Doctor/Lucie Miller stories... Eddie Robson's Phobos has our wisecracking pair on the Martian moon Phobos, which has become a hotspot for extreme sports, in particular an anomaly that allows for both vertiginous jumps and scary interdimensional monsters. The location is new, but the plot isn't much different from standard Who (say, Horror of Glam Rock). Sheridan Smith is well used, I thought, with Lucie Miller exhibiting a certain degree of comic timing. Looking at credits, Robson becomes an important writer for both this range and other Big Finish audios, but between this and Memory Lane (the other of his I've heard), I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing yet. The two-part finale for this season will hopefully say which.

No More Lies by Paul Sutton gains some scope when it starts in the middle of things, aboard a timeship under attack from a chronovorous race in the vortex, but like a lot of the BB7 Doc8 output, it moves so fast, you sometimes struggle to understand what just happened. These quick one-episode stories don't reward daydreamers, let's just say. And yet, they can be consumed so quickly compared to most of Big Finish's output that the energy is often enough to satisfy me. So it's very much in the New Who style. Nigel Havers, who played Sarah Jane's beau in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith guest-stars. Oh, and the music is pretty good. It's just that the villains are beaten perhaps to quickly, quickly forgotten as Lucie's arc starts ramping up at the very end.

With Human Resources Part I, Eddie Robson manages a fun and witty office satire, as Lucie gets collected by the Headhunter and returned to a job that isn't what it seems. The Doctor gets some especially good lines in both parts of this "season finale", and though Part II's monsters are advertised right on the cover, even that isn't exactly what it seems. So in answer to my own query a couple of paragraphs back, I think the wide use of Robson at Big Finish will turn out to be a good thing. At this point, he seems to have that RTD penchant for satirizing the world of today (extreme sports in Phobos and cubicle culture here) and is good at dialog (which is a necessary skill in the audio format).

Part II throws the Cybermen into the mix, but they're only one of many threats faced by the Doctor and Lucie. The most important thing here that Lucie's witness protection arc is resolved. I think it's a little too soon, and the answers we get aren't quite the ones we've been expecting. Are they BAD answers? Not necessarily, though I do think they're a little anticlimatic in a way. It also leaves Lucie without an arc for the second season, which is what (unhappily) happened to Rose in her second season. Danger ahead? I'm going back to the numbered Doctor Who audios now, so I'm a ways from finding out, but for now, I'll say this new format for the 8th Doctor adventures is a winner, especially if you enjoy New Who. Fans of the more classic self-contained 4-parters may find the quick resolutions lacking.

Hyperion to a Satyr posts this week:
II.ii. The Fishmonger Scene - Branagh '96
II.ii. The Fishmonger Scene - Olivier '48
II.ii. The Fishmonger Scene - BBC '80

Reign of the Supermen #109: Atticus Kent

Source: Superman: A Nation Divided GN (1999)
Type: ElseworldsIf Superman had lived through the American Civil War, would he have changed the course of history? Well, let's see what this guy could do for the North. How about... throwing cannonballs bare-handed?
Making the Rebs' guns too hot to handle?
How about punching cannonballs out of the air?
Or force General Lee to surrender by dangling him from a height?
Or even... taking a bullet for President Lincoln?
Well YEAH, there are bound to be some changes to the timeline.

What happened after that? Well, hard to say. A sequel is hinted at though, with Atticus morphing his Kryptonian capsule into a literally silver horse and going cowboy.
I bet the West was tamed in about half a weekend.

What If... Wolverine Battled Conan the Barbarian?

Or more properly "What if Wolverine had lived during the age of Conan the barbarian?", which doesn't obligate them to fight each other. Of course, they WILL. This IS a Marvel comic after all. And a 90s Marvel comic at that. Ergo, Wolverine headlines.

What If vol.2 #16 (August 1990)
Based on: Uncanny X-Men #137
The true history: The Shi'ar are putting the X-Men on trial (they really are the galaxy's D.A.s, aren't they?) on the Moon for suffering Phoenix to live. While Phoenix goes Dark during their battle with the Imperial Guard, Wolverine gets lost in the Watcher's moonbase, gaining access to various "realities". The Watcher throws him out of there, putting him right where he can throw Colossus (Reverse Fastball Special!) at Phoenix, knocking Jean Gray back into alignment long enough for her to commit suicide.
Turning point: What if the Watcher had not kicked Wolverine out of his place?
Story type: Conan Crossover
Watcher's mood: Asymmetrically simian
Altered history: Uatu, realizing his base is full of Space Lawyers, chooses to follow the Watchers' non-intervention code to the letter, allows Wolverine to get lost among the various realities, landing the short-statured mutant in the ancient days of Conan. He's quick to adapt despite not knowing the language. Well, by adapt I mean steal clothes. He doesn't meet Conan right away though. He first comes across Red Sonja, though he first thinks she's Jean Gray.
I guess this proves all redheads in comics look exactly the same. It keeps Mary Jane Watson in the superhero movie business, anyway. Sonja is a sucker for anyone who can beat her, so they hit it off. Their first date is going well until Conan makes an appearance. They fight for the girl.
That's gotta hurt. Conan breaking a sword on your hide? Oh yeah, for sure. Conan leaves Logan for dead, but that night, the mutant rises, healed but for his mind which has regressed to savagery. He hunts down Conan who is in the middle of a negotiation for Sonja's soul with a dual-class magic-user/cleric and his pet demon. Wolverine's interference makes him open a portal back to standard continuity.
But in the ensuing demon-fighting, crap happens and Conan falls through the portal instead, and after Wolverine chops the spellcaster's head off, the whole dang temple falls on their heads. From then on, Logan takes Conan's place at Sonja's side and in the Hyborian legends.
But what of Conan and the X-Men? Well, the Cimmerian pops out on the Moon and fights the assembled aliens and mutants there. When he sees him attacking Sonja's lookalike, he knocks Cyclops out. And when Cyclops' psychic link to Phoenix is broken, and without Wolverine present to improbably pitch Colossus at Jean, she goes Dark for good and the Phoenix Force consumes the Earth. Yay!
Books canceled as a result: It's an Everybody Dies story disguised as a Conan Crossover! All of them except Wolverine books that replace Conan's. Marvel's output is reduced to Logan the Barbarian, King Wolverine, and the magazine-sized Savage Claws of Logan.
These things happen: The reverse happened when the Hyborian Age came to modern day New York, transforming it into a sword & sorcery version of itself. Though the X-Men fought the wizard Kulan Gath, they never met his archenemy Conan in that adventure (Uncanny X-Men #188-191).

Next week: What if Kraven the Hunter Had Killed Spider-Man?
My guess: Taxidermy gone wrong.

Reign of the Supermen #108: Dan Hipp's Superman

Source: Project: Rooftop (2010)
Type: RedesignFollow the link above to see professional comics artist Dan Hipp (Amazing Joy Buzzards, Gyakushu!)'s Justice League redesigns. How do you like his Superman?

Personally, I like his indie style and the image has a fun dynamic. Beyond that, it's not the cleanest look for Superman, but could do well for a low-powered, gritty Elseworlds project. (His Wonder Woman is particularly cool.)

Reign of the Supermen #107: Wundarr the Aquarian

Source: (1st) Adventure into Fear #17 (1973)
Type: AnalogThe second of Marvel's Superman analogs is Wundarr the Aquarian. Though he's never worn a classic superhero costume with cape and shield, nor even has Superman's powers, but it's not hard to figure out what writer Steve Gerber was up to when you look at his origin story (straight out of Wiki):

"On a distant planet called Dakkam [Daxam?], a scientist named Hektu comes to believe that the sun going nova would destroy his world [the danger to Krypton came from within, but it was just as distant and just as doomed]. In a last effort to save his family, he and his wife, Soja, have an infant son named Wundarr [Wundarr... Wonder... not far from Super], whom they plan to save from their world's destruction [a reference to Moses? NO! To Kal-El]. They place him aboard a ship that is able to maintain his life support as long as necessary [and not a second more!], and then launch him into outer space. Hektu and Soja later make flight and are captured and executed by the Internal Security Force to prevent them from alarming the populace [not as stoically brave as Jor-El and Lara, then]. It is later found out that Hektu's apocalyptic prediction is incorrect, and that he sent his son away for nothing [TWIST!!! Oh delicious irony!!!]

"In July, 1951, Wundarr's ship is caught by Earth's gravitational pull, and passes through a layer of cosmic rays [the Fantastic Four connection] before entering Earth's atmosphere and crashing in a Florida swamp [not quite Kansas, but a case could be made for it rurality]. An elderly couple known only as Maw and Paw [COME ON!!!!] observe the crash from their car. Paw considers checking out the crash site, but Maw insists that it might contain Martians or Communists and demands that he ignore it [a second twist!]; thus, Wundarr remains in his ship for a number of years, growing to physical maturity, though retaining the mind of a child [just about the worst idea ever... I've read (and reviewed) a number of Marvel Two-in-Ones in which Wundarr features as the Thing's sidekick, and the fact he's a moron is annoying in the highest degree]. Twenty years later, Wundarr is released, and the first creature he sees is Man-Thing, which he is convinced is his mother. He learns very quickly of his amazing strength and bests Man-Thing in battle. Man-Thing's continued attempts to be left alone result in Wundarr eventually deciding that Man-Thing is not his mother [SEE WHAT I MEAN?].

"With his great leaping ability [not unlike the Golden Age Superman's], he eventually reaches Hydro-Base, [...] Wundarr's leaps bring him down in New York City, where he encounters Ben Grimm walking home from a screening of Five Fingers of Death [AKA King Boxer WOO-HOO!]. [...]" And then it gets away from the Superman legend.

Well, unless you count his transformation into the Aquarian, a Jesus stand-in (see beard above) not unlike Superman's characterization in Superman Returns. But we don't like to talk about that...