Gonna fly now

You may have heard that J. Michael Straczynski is more or less leaving "Superman" and "Wonder Woman" to focus on the next "Superman: Earth One" book. Meanwhile, Chris Roberson of "iZombie" fame and Phil Hester of "Green Arrow" and "The Darkness" will be taking over writing duties on those two titles.

You probably know how I feel about all this.

I like JMS, I really do. I've enjoyed his work on everything from "Real Ghostbusters" to "Babylon 5" to "Amazing Spider-Man" to "Thor." There have often been things I disliked, even strongly (cf. "The Other"), but in general, I've enjoyed his writing. His work on "Superman," however, has been awful. And while I didn't much care for "Superman: Earth One," it was a whole lot better than "Grounded." I'd even be willing to pick up the sequel to "Earth One," to see where the story goes, and in the hope that it would be a less redundant story than "Superman's origin, take fifty-seven."

I've been buying "iZombie," but after the first issue (due to that whole comic shop closing dealie) it kind of ended up on my "to be read" pile, and I haven't caught up. But given the excitement over his work by people I generally trust, I'm pretty excited to see him taking over "Superman." Sure, he's using Straczynski's story notes, but I'll be the first to admit that there's some potential in the conceit of "Grounded." The main problems with the story have all been with the characterization and other details, not so much with the basic plots.

Regarding "Wonder Woman," I've never actually read anything that Phil Hester has written, and frankly, it's unlikely that I'll be resubscribing to WW for the remainder of JMS's new-status-quo story. Somewhere under six issues of "iZombie" on my "to be read" pile is the first issue of JMS's "Wonder Woman," which I have never quite gotten around to reading, and which doesn't really excite me enough to seek it out. Depending on how it looks and what I hear, though, Hester's involvement may be enough to get me to check it out in trade, and I certainly hope it does well and he gets the chance to stay on the title beyond the fill-in work.

By the way, the best take on this news is right here.

As for me, I'm going to keep chronicling my own version of Superman's trek across the country. I'm almost a third of the way through; how could I stop now?