He did not, in fact, have this. Funeral arrangements are being made.
Will Lill Comics Free Comic Book Day
Will Lill Comics (May, 2025)
COVER ART: Steven A. Wilcox
BACK COVER ART: Ron Stewart
COVER COLORIST: Montgomery
Four comics sampled from the rather small Will Lill library. Or at least small at Drive Thru Comics, which the comic itself keeps pointing to in order to get the comics. A recent updated version also points to their website, which from the ad seems to be using Ko-Fi to get them. I didn’t know you could use that service for that. I thought it was a sort of donation thing, like Patreon without the monthly subscription and perks.
I should note before starting this that I’m not a huge follower of super sentai or its fanbase. It’s just been a slow news cycle when Avengers reports are a few trailers I don’t care about and trying to convince us they totally have a script despite no evidence of it as it enters post-production, the comics aren’t any more interesting with DC’s Contest Of Champions knockoff and “we can totally make this even more dark and depressing by blaming Darkseid” and I totally gave up on Marvel a long time ago outside of watching it self-destruct. Hollywood’s current stupidity is politics focused and video games is simply watching AAA games fall apart as corporate media ruins everything because they don’t know what they’re doing and keep hiring people for projects they don’t care about and only matters to an audience they look down upon. I’m going for a deadline here, but it’s still an interesting topic. Just realize this is an outsider’s perspective.
That all said, you’ve probably heard by now that Toei is dropping their decades long “super sentai” series. The super task force was a long running superhero franchise dating back to 1975. The short version is that some evil organization, usually from space or the underworld, wants to conquer/destroy the planet and five young people (later six) are charged with stopping them. They have similar outfits of different colors, gain superpowers in those costumes, and protect humanity. I tried watching Jetman but I couldn’t get into the series. However, other sentai shows look interesting and I’m hoping to look into the whole thing in the future.
Most American audiences would know them better as Power Rangers. Haim Saban had tried for years to get super sentai brought over to the US either dubbed or replacing the Japanese actors with American ones. His first success was a parody dub of Dynaman but this kids show only had two episodes on Nickelodeon. Instead USA Network added it to their late night “Night Flight” anthology, including a comedic parody of where are they now reunion shows that also interview fans. It wasn’t until Fox Kids picked up what became Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that Saban’s dream came true. The franchise did gangbusters in the Western world, but in recent years it looks like interest is waning. The same may be true of Sentai. So is that why it’s going away? And is it going away for good? History shows…maybe not.
I don’t like the modern Paranoid Batman. You know, the guy who doesn’t trust anybody despite being on at least three teams at any one time. One of them is the “Batman Family”, which keeps getting messed up because some writer comes along assuming Batman has to be a broody loner because of his trauma. Trauma has ruined the DC Universe, or rather how poorly it’s used to make formerly great characters weak or rage machines. I went over that with Billy Batson and Kara recently. One of the things that made me a DC fan over a Marvel fan was how well the heroes got along. I mean…my introduction had them calling themselves Superfriends, and then I see comics with even Batman and Superman getting along when they first met, unlike more recent versions at least as far back as The New Batman Superman Adventures if not earlier. It just frustrates me to no end as someone who is practically an isolated loner and yet I have friends.
In an attempt to “justify” his paranoia we have Batman stumbling upon certain Justice League members, catching them brainwashing a villain because he raped Elongated Man’s wife, and them wiping his mind. That’s the kind of garbage that started with you-know-who and continues now that he’s gone because many of the same writers he brought in are still there, still destroying the characters. When his memory came back in a story that had nothing to do with these events narratively and was just there to grimdark the DC Universe, he goes nuts and creates Brother Eye, formerly an example of “Big Brother” in another reality, which goes nuts and tries to destroy the world. Originally it was supposed to keep heroes in check, an extension of his growing paranoia. I hate this, too.
You know what I don’t hate? Batman having contingency plans for the heroes.
That also gets treated as part of his broody loner paranoid act, but when you think about it that’s not accurate. The “Tower Of Babel” storyline, in which Ra’s Al Ghul (Vandal Savage for some reason in the animated adaptation, not that Ra’s is known for caring about anyone in the Justice League besides Batman) learns of Batman’s plans, gives them a lethal twist, and tries to bump off the League. If that’s what you’re focused on then you really aren’t getting how important having such plans are to crimefighting, especially in a world where heroes have fallen (alternate continuities aside), villains share those powers, and mind control–and sometimes just body control are totally things that happen. It’s not that the plans exist, it’s that it’s done so poorly.
“And I can’t wait to meet all your friends and fight evil with you.” “Um…about that…”
Action Comics #252 (Facsimile Edition)
DC Comics (May, 1959; reprint version: December, 2025)
The Silver Age doesn’t have as many stories per issue as the Golden Age, but we are still at multiple stories per issue. Superman began in the first Action Comics and slowly took the comic over, but we still have that bad comedy page I always ignore in my Golden Age reviews and three stories. It’s just two of them feature Superman. The third has Congo Bill, a character that never reached the heights of Superman but still did better than most of the characters Superman debuted with.
Of course, this comic is known best for the first appearance of Kara Zor-El. While Supergirls and Superwomen were one-shotters in previous comics, Kara would go on to become one of DC’s more well know heroines, though she hasn’t gotten as much exposure as her cousin. She didn’t even break out comics until the 1980s live-action movie as the Salkinds tried to see what else they could exploit in the Metropolis group. She wouldn’t get another post-comic appearance again until the DCAU that I’m aware of, with a few live-action cameos after that until she got her own series on CBS, later moved to the CW. Even Hawkgirl got a couple of Superfriends appearances.
However, the first story features another Superman character, one of his villains, making his debut as well, and that’s where we start.
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