The Weekly Panel of Steel #2

My apologies for being a little late with the Weekly Panel of Steel feature, as I was away in Indianapolis on business with no easy access to a scanner. Of course it's only the second installment, so as far as anyone knows its only schedule is an erratic one.

We'll see if I can't maintain a Thursday schedule in the future, but in the meantime let's see what this week had to offer.

There were some flashback scenes in Justice League of America #54 that featured Superman, but Brett Booth has never been my cup of tea, so we'll keep looking.

I thought for sure that when I saw that he was going to be showing up in Green Lantern #62, as drawn by Doug Mahnke, that we'd have our winner. Alas, standing around in the Watchtower does not make for the most stunning of visuals, especially with Batman getting all of the best lines.

Luckily, we also had Superman/Batman #81 released this week. This title has actually been quite good for a couple of months now, so I was pleased to see that new creative team was able to keep things going strong. Cullen Bunn and Chriscross did such a good job, that they gave us our Weekly Panel of Steel!


In an issue filled with dragons, demons, and medieval versions of the World's Finest, it was this simple panel of Superman's eyes that steal the show.

You'd think that stare would be enough to let you know that you just crossed the line with Superman, but him being Superman, he's still going to give you a chance to bow out before he beats you senseless.

Script by Cullen Bunn
Pencils by Chriscross
Inks by Marc Deering
Colors by Brad Anderson
Letters by Swands

Superman/Batman #81
Sorcerer Kings Part One
April 2011
Copyright (c) DC Comics

The Weekly Panel of Steel #1

I realize that I'm only three posts into this whole endeavor, but it's already time to debut the first of one of our (soon to be plentiful, I hope) regular features.

Every Thursday we'll take a quick gander through the new books that got released that week and find the best Superman pic of the bunch...and it shall be crowned the Weekly Panel of Steel!

There was only one "official" Superman book this week, and that was Superman 80-Page Giant 2011, with a kick-ass cover by Dustin Nguyen. I had all intentions of making his cover the winner this week, as I haven't been too thrilled with the recent spate of 80 pagers and actually wasn't planning on picking this up at all. Boy, was I misinformed. There were easily three or four awesome contenders, but the win goes to this one...


It's from the Jimmy Olsen story where Jimmy and Superman have to round up the 100 Jimmy Olsen clones that have been let loose in Metropolis. With each successive clone they find, the predicaments that they got themselves into just get weirder and weirder.

I love the composition on this panel, with the burned out clone strewn across the alley handcuffed to a demon's claw, to the silhouettes of Superman and Jimmy with just their iconic symbols colored. Fantastic stuff.

This particular story was written by Abhay Khosla and drawn by Andy MacDonald, and while I have never come across their names before, they're definitely on my radar now.

Story by Abhay Khosla
Artwork by Andy MacDonald
Colors by Chris Beckett
Letters by Sal Cipriano

Superman 80-Page Giant 2011 #1
Quarter-Life Crisis of Infinite Jimmy Olsens
April 2011
Copyright (c) DC Comics