When you teach the same subject for long enough, there are certain topics and certain lessons you start to look forward to. One of my favorite things to cover with my 12th grade English students, for example, is Hamlet, and I particularly look forward to the famous “To be or not to be” scene. I always start by telling the kids that this is the big one, the grande supreme enchilada, the most famous speech that Willie Shakes ever wrote which, by proxy, also makes it one of the most famous speeches ever written in the entire history of the English language. Then I look at the kid who has already volunteered to read the speech out loud and say, “No pressure.”
Here’s a level three nerd joke. Ahem: “Took him 900 years to get this part right.”
After we read and discuss the speech together, I show them clips of several different film versions of Hamlet. We talk about how different actors play the role, how the different settings change their interpretation of the scene, and fun English class stuff like that. The most entertaining version – to me, at least – is when we watch Ethan Hawke’s depiction of the scene from 2000. In this version, director Michael Almereyda has changed the setting to the modern day (or at least, what was modern in 2000) and has Hamlet deliver this speech wandering the Action Movies section of a Blockbuster Video store. But I’m showing this to contemporary high school students. Even the oldest of them wasn’t born until 2007, and the vast majority of them have no idea what they’re looking at. Popular guesses include a gas station, a convenience store, and a bookstore. The ones that DO recognize Blockbuster Video, I assume, do so because they’ve seen Captain Marvel.
The weird thing is, after updating the setting, they kept the headgear 100 percent historically accurate.
It’s funny to me, to see the cultural disconnect between the film and the modern audience. No doubt Almereyda intended to make the movie contemporary, but in choosing that particular setting, this film feels even more dated than a traditional version of Hamlet set in the 7th century. And the percentage of my students who know where Hawke is before I explain it gets smaller with each passing year. These are kids who have never – and WILL never – browse the video section of a store.
And as entertaining as the lesson usually is, the fact that this is an artifact of times gone by makes me a little sadder each year.
I grew up in the 80s. I was in high school and college in the 90s. The peak of Video Store Culture is intertwined with the most important developmental years of my life. I remember as a kid, my parents taking us down to the video store and letting us roam the aisles looking for movies to watch. My younger brother and sister would gravitate towards the kids’ movies, and while they would pour over the shelves trying to make their own decisions, I found myself drifting to sections of the store I knew my parents would NEVER allow us to rent from, especially the horror section. Ghoulish monsters, blood dripping down faces, whatever the hell was going on with the box art for The Stuff…I was mesmerized.
9-year-old me would have TRADED my brother to find out what was going on here.
VHS box art of the 1980s was a unique art form that has no peer in the history of pop culture, save perhaps for paperback book covers of the same era. Great box art could make even the lamest, cheesiest low-budget schlockfest seem tempting. But my folks weren’t the sort who would allow a 9-year-old kid to rent something like Creepshow no matter HOW enticing the box art was. So those movies found a home in my psyche only in poster form, which is how they remained until I was old enough to rent them and watch them myself. At which point – let’s be honest – I discovered that a great many of those movies were better as box art than they ever were as films. But that was okay.
As I got older and went to video stores myself, I would gravitate to all kinds of movies, devouring things that I’d been curious about for years but had never been able to indulge in before. Not just horror, but classic sci-fi, old comedies, or indie darlings I’d heard good things about like Magnolia. It didn’t hurt that around the time I graduated college, my best friend Jason became the manager – and eventually owner – of the video store I most often patronized, so I got to sample an awful lot of movies for free. And as culture shifted from VHS to DVD, I went from being simply a viewer to a collector. I would go to Best Buy, Circuit City, Borders, or Barnes and Noble and spend hours walking through the shelves, examining the DVD cases, trying to find old favorites to add to my shelf or new movies I’d never heard of that were worth a watch. I could do this alone, but it was more fun to do it with Jason or our other friends. Either way, though, there was a tangibility to holding those cases in my hands, reading the description on the back, studying the list of special features to see if there was a good making-of featurette or commentary track that would be worth listening to or – of course – admiring the cover art.
This is a pleasure that has largely been lost to us. Netflix slaughtered the video store in its sleep, and of those retail stores I mentioned the only one that both still exists and has a physical media section at all is Barnes and Noble, and it’s nowhere near what it used to be. And while I know that we always lose certain cultural elements as time passes and culture evolves, this is one of those changes that has hurt not only the people who make these movies, but the consumers who watch them as well.
It’s the streaming era I’m talking about, of course. That’s what killed the video store, that’s what has DVD and Blu-Ray sales on life support. (Thank God for horror movie fans, one of the last stalwart groups to demand physical media for their preferred art form. They’re the ones keeping the whole thing alive right now.) Sure, the convenience of streaming can’t be beat. I don’t need to go down to the video store anymore. I don’t need to HOPE that the movie I want to watch will be available. I don’t have to take the risk that I’ll get a disc with a scratch that has rendered it unplayable, and never again will I need to double-check that I’ve rewound a tape before I return it.
Was there anything worse than opening the DVD case at home and seeing THIS?
But this same convenience has made the entire movie-watching experience feel more disposable, like it doesn’t matter anymore. If I went down to Jason’s video store hoping to rent Scream 2 only to find that it had already been rented, that’s when I would look for something different and discover movies that I may otherwise have never watched, like Amelie. With streaming, you just have to hope that the movie you want is on a service you subscribe to, and if it is, there’s no need to roam.
But even if the movie you want ISN’T on your service, or even if you don’t know what you want to watch, the browsing experience isn’t the same. In a store, looking at a movie case, you had the opportunity to pick it up, read the back, gaze at that beautiful, beautiful cover art. Today, every movie is reduced not to art, but to a thumbnail. Most of the time it’s a still shot from the movie, probably a close-up of the biggest star in the film, with the title superimposed on top of it. It’s bland, lifeless. Just as the greatest box art could make me watch the worst movies, so can a cookie-cutter thumbnail cause me to scroll right past one of the best movies of the year, and I’ll never know.
We’ve lost the community aspect as well. For people like me, TALKING about the movie after I’ve watched it is just as vital a part of the experience as actually watching it. Discussing what we liked, what we didn’t like, what did we think the sequel would be like, should there even be a sequel at all? At the video store, you can chat with other customers. “What are you getting? Oh, I’ve seen that one, that’s great. Say, I really liked From Dusk ‘Till Dawn but I’m not sure what to watch next. Any suggestions?” Sure, the streaming services TRY to do this, but I would take the suggestion of a random film geek in a video store over the Netflix algorithm every second of my life, and it wouldn’t even be a struggle.
Netflix has “We think you’ll love these.” Your local video store had “Vinnie’s picks.” Nobody ever saw Vinnie. No one knew who he was. But Vinnie introduced you to Boondock Saints and you LOVED him for it.
And with this, the respect given to a movie by the audience is being cut down. I know a lot of people who’ll stop a movie if they aren’t engaged in the first five minutes. And sure, that’s your prerogative, but there’s something to be said for a slow burn. Some movies need to be given time to get into the story, and sometimes that’s what makes it effective. In the video rental days, once we made it home with a movie we WATCHED the damn thing, no matter how bad the first five minutes were, because that was our only option. And I think we were better for it. I don’t want to tell you that you should sit around watching something you don’t like, but the disposability of entertainment has caused us to forget how to give a story a fair chance. I can spend twice as long scrolling through the options on Hulu than I ever did looking at the DVDs at Borders, but I’ll end up far less satisfied.
Then there’s the way movies are presented today. TVs have, for the most part, gotten substantially larger than they were when I was a kid. You would think that would make the viewing experience better, but somehow the opposite has happened. My students, my nieces and nephews, are more likely to watch a movie on their Chomebook, their tablet, or – worst of all – their PHONE. Not to say I’m not guilty of this at times – when my sports fanatic son is bound and determined to watch a lacrosse match between two colleges I’ve never heard of with an announcer who has all the life and energy of the sloth from Zootopia, minus the personality, I’m certainly not above pulling up an episode of Star Trek on my laptop. But it’s not my preferred method of watching anything, and the idea of watching an entire motion picture on a phone screen is giving me a migraine. But to kids today it’s common. I’ve had students tell me they’ve watched entire movies chopped up into two-minute segments and posted (in portrait mode for the love of God) to TikTok, a practice which I’m pretty sure is directly responsible for the sharp rise in instances of bird flu in the United States.
I took this picture myself just to illustrate my point and it STILL makes me want to punch me in the face.
The only thing that mitigates the sting for me is that I know I’m not alone. I have many friends – both in real life and on social media – who join me in bemoaning the decline of video store culture, and while there may not be enough of us to bring that culture BACK, it helps to know that other people feel the same way as you do. Coincidentally, on the same day this week my students were confused by the Blockbuster store in Hamlet, I listened to an episode of the Movie Crypt podcast in which filmmaker Alex Ross Perry discussed his new documentary Videoheaven, a “video essay” (in his own words) about the rise, influence, and fall of the video store told through clips of movies and TV shows featuring video stores. The movie is almost three hours long, he says, and frankly, it sounds amazing. I am very excited about this film and very anxious to get a chance to watch it.
I’ve never met Mr. Ross Perry, but just based on this poster, I suspect he’d be my kinda people.
Ironically, I’ll probably have to wait until it comes to streaming.
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. Yes, he’s old. You wanna make somethin’ of it?
Week eight of my Year of Superman was another one that kind of went all over the place. I revisited a few classic stories, checked in on a couple of “imaginary” tales, and looked at some of the more recent releases as well…then there’s that Christmas podcast. Don’t worry, I make it make sense.
Wed., Feb. 19
Comics:Power Girl Vol. 3 #16-17
New costume! Ish!
Notes: After a busy day without much time to read, I went to my bag of recent comics that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet to see if there was any Superman-related content to include this week. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t much, but I found that I hadn’t yet read issues #16 and 17 of the current Power Girl series. This is a Superman family book, of course, but it comes to Superman via a sort of tangent. Power Girl (for those who may not know) was the Kara Zor-L of the old Earth-2, from the pre-Crisis DC Universe. She made her way to the current DCU, after various multiversal crises and reboots, and for years they’ve struggled a little to figure out exactly where she fits in. In essence, she’s an older version of Supergirl from an alternate reality – part of the family, but with trouble finding her identity.
Issue #16, the first of the two that I read, is the end of a recent storyline where Power Girl is facing someone called Ejecta. Ejecta, as a villain, hasn’t really grabbed me, but I do like the end of the fight where Power Girl takes her to the Fortress of Solitude and makes a point of what it takes for a Kryptonian like her to fight the good fight, that it’s actually harder NOT to kill their enemies. It’s a concept that makes so much logical sense, but doesn’t really come up all that often.
I like issue #17 better. It kicks off a new storyline, beginning with Power Girl and her best friend Lilith (aka Omen of the Titans) moving into a new place along with Natasha Irons, niece of my old buddy John Henry, who happens to share his Steel identity. Also on board is Streaky the Super-Cat and Power Girl’s boyfriend, Axel, who happens to be from Asgard. That would be a really weird sentence if I was writing about anything but a superhero universe, but there you go. While I’ve found this series to be somewhat uneven at points, I’ve enjoyed the way Leah Williams has assembled a solid supporting cast for Power Girl that feels pretty organic for the most part. I know why these characters are all together, and I like it.
The one thing I’m really NOT wild about is how Power Girl has abandoned her old identity of Karen Starr in favor of a new name, Paige Stetler, but call her Peej. Get it? “Peej?” P.G.? AAAAAH? I dunno, the book has never done a good job of convincing us that the switch was necessary or based on anything other than the internet not liking the name “Karen,” and the whole “P.G.” thing is just a bit too twee for my tastes.
Thur., Feb. 20
As birthday presents go, this is way better than a necktie.
Comic: Superman #411
Notes: Another busy day and another somewhat random choice, I decided to read the classic Superman #411 today. This is an odd little issue that I’ve always found rather charming. Perry White’s old friend, the incredible editor Julius Schwartz, is in trouble, and his only salvation may come from Earth-Prime.
Julie Schwartz was, of course, one of the most prominent comic book editors of all time, with runs on various books that lasted years and even decades, including a long tenure on the Superman comics. This comic was produced as a surprise for Schwartz on the occasion of his 70th birthday, created behind his back and released as a surprise, even splitting up a three-part storyline to do it. The story in and of itself is standard for the time, even if it was not – as promised – “The Last Earth-Prime” story, but I’ve always appreciated this comic for the backstory behind it.
Fri., Feb. 21
Comic: Action Comics #314, Superman #149
The most embarrassing dry cleaner mix-up in DC history.
Notes: When I was doing my research to prepare for “Superman Vs. the Flash” week, Action Comics #314 kept turning up in my searches. And although it didn’t really fit into the criteria of what I was looking for in that project, it was such a bizarre story that I kept it on my list of books to read when I’m looking for a random Superman comic, because it’s just so strange. And I LIKE strange.
First of all, despite the cover, this is NOT an issue about Superman ONLY becoming the Flash, but rather about alternate worlds in which he became five different members of the Justice League…sort of. While swimming around the bottom of the ocean – y’know, like you do – Aquaman uncovers a message for Superman sent to Earth from his father, Jor-El. On the recorded message (it’s interesting to note that the vastly advanced civilization of Krypton still used magnetic tape to record things) Jor-El tells his son that he originally considered several different worlds to send him to before choosing Earth, and presents him with a computer simulation of what his life would have been like on each of those five worlds. I’ll save you from the suspense: on these different worlds he would have grown up to be their versions of the Atom, Aquaman, Green Arrow, Batman, and finally, the Flash.
Each of these different lives has its charm, although I think my favorite has to be the first one, where he’s an Atom expy. In this version, Jor-El sent him to a planet of giants where he lived among them as what appears to be a three-inch visitor from another world. He’s still got powers, though, and he uses them to fight crime, wearing a mask. WEARING A MASK. SO THAT NO ONE WILL SUSPECT HE’S THE ONLY OTHER THREE-INCH PERSON ON THE PLANET. It’s such a hellaciously preposterous idea that it could only have worked in the Silver Age – and make no mistake, it worked. One person actually says, “He’s as small as Kal-El…but it can’t be Kal-El, for this one has terrific powers!”
For real.
This is a silly story, but a fun one. There was a point where DC did lots of stories like this, “what if X happened?”, with the conceit usually being that the heroes were told the stories of their other lives by computer simulations or some other means. (There was a whole series of stories about Dick Grayson growing up to become Batman II and taking Bruce Wayne Jr. as his Robin, which eventually turned out to be fanfiction written by Alfred.) Later these would become “imaginary” stories, and eventually the concept evolved into Elseworlds. If this story were told today, each of these different lives would be assigned a different number and said to take place somewhere in the DC Multiverse, and while I do like a good Multiverse story, there’s a charm about the old days, where the stories were a bit simpler. It does, however, give me a thirst to read more such tales. I think it’s safe to say that more Elseworlds and Imaginary Stories will be coming to the Year of Superman in the future.
The back-up story in this issue – as was usually the case at the time – starred Supergirl. Her Kryptonian parents, Zor-El and Allura, had been revealed at this point to be alive and sent to live in the bottled city of Kandor, but Allura is growing ill with heartbreak over the separation from her daughter. You’d think Kara could visit more often. Anyway, they send word of Allura’s condition to Kara, but she’s away on a mission and it is instead received by her foster parents, the Danvers, who decide that the only thing to do is make their adopted daughter decide to leave them and go back to her original parents in Kandor by acting like jerks.
WHY DIDN’T ANYBODY IN THE SILVER AGE JUST HAVE A CONVERSATION?
If you look at other stories from this time period, it’s not really that out of place. Watch virtually any comedy (and a good number of the dramas) from the 30s to the 50s and you see one cascade of misunderstandings after another, dozens of catastrophes that could have been averted and hearts that would have been left unbroken if only people were straightforward with one another instead of coming up with ridiculously convoluted schemes to manipulate their loved ones into doing things “for their own good.” I get WHY the stories were like this – a comic book where someone tells somebody the truth and the dilemma is resolved in a page and a half would be kind of boring. But I am very glad that – for the most part – we’ve moved beyond this kind of storytelling crutch. Ridiculous misunderstandings should remain the providence of Shakespeare and Fawlty Towers reruns. For anybody else, it’s just frustrating.
The story ends with Kara’s Earth parents and her Kryptonian parents swapping places, then a cliffhanger where we the readers are forced to question if this will be a permanent change. Once again, I’ll spare you the angst of wondering: it was not. Status quo was the king in comic books of the time, and permanent changes were as rare as diamond. Supergirl had already used hers up for the entire decade when she was adopted by the Danvers, putting an end to the stories of her life in Midvale Orphanage.
The weird thing is, this was covered by his insurance.
The main story, though, got me thinking about one of the two most famous “Imaginary” stories of all time…both of which, coincidentally, became “real” stories in the 90s (albeit in very different forms). Like I’ve said, I’ve pledged to read only two of the extended 90s storylines during this year, and the first of those is actually next on my list of 90s stories to revisit. So before I move on to the “real” Death of Superman, I thought today I would look back at the ORIGINAL Death of Superman, the “Imaginary Story” from Superman #149 in 1961.
The setup for this one is simplicity itself: prison inmate Lex Luthor discovers an element from outer space that allows him to invent a cure for cancer. Providing that cure to the world, he convinces everyone that he’s gone straight, including Superman. It’s all a ruse, though, and instead he sets up a trap for the Man of Steel. And for the first time, that trap succeeds, with Luthor slaying Superman with green kryptonite.
I’ve always liked this story and, revisiting it today, I’m struck by how unique it really is for Superman stories of the time. In an era where most stories were a bit silly and often overdramatic, this takes the opposite track. It still uses all the tropes of a Silver Age story, including misdirection and secrets kept when there’s really no reason to do so (Supergirl disguising herself as Superman for all of 12 seconds at the end, for example) but they’re put together in a somewhat bleak configuration. Unlike Marvel’s What If? comics, it was pretty rare for even DC’s imaginary stories to end in so dark a place. There’s no lie, no secret hidden from the audience, no last-minute reprieve that saves Superman: when this story ends he is most assuredly dead, and even though Luthor will spend the rest of eternity in the Phantom Zone for his crime, nothing is bringing him back. It’s unlike any other such story of the time, and that makes it remarkable.
Other Comics: World’s Finest Comics #304, Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 2 #312 (Clark as Superboy)
Notes: It’s been a few weeks since I made it into the comic shop to pick up my pulls, so today I’m hitting the new Superman comics that have come out since then. Absolute Superman #4 is more of a spotlight issue on Lois Lane, who in this new Absolute Universe is an agent of Lazarus rather than a reporter, although she’s still got her investigative skills, as in this issue we see her tracking down the elusive “Superman.” Good issue, and I’ve really enjoyed the Absolute stuff so far. Action Comics #1083 continues the Major Distaster/Atomic Skull storyline from last issue, which still isn’t a favorite of mine, but I do really like the scenes where Superman wakes up in the Batcave, where Bruce has brought him to recuperate after a fight with someone who could negate his powers knocks him for a loop. Mostly, though, I’m really looking forward to Mark Waid taking over this book full time this summer, as was recently announced.
Speaking of Waid, he also writes Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #36. It’s a grand story set in the past, including a team-up with Aquaman and Swamp Thing, plus Clark’s old girlfriend, Lori Lemaris. Lotta LL names in Superman’s life. I should go back and read her first story soon, it’s a good one.
Sun. Feb. 23
Frankly, I don’t think he looks anything like Tom Cruise.
Comic: Superman: War of the Worlds #1
Notes: Still searching for random comics to fill in the gaps before I begin the next BIG project next week, my recent reading of “The Death of Superman” gave me a taste for more Elseworlds, and that led me back to this gem from 1998. Written by Roy Thomas with art by Michael Lark, Superman: War of the Worlds is a mashup of the original Golden Age Superman with the alien invaders from H.G. Welles’s classic novel.
Roy Thomas is probably the greatest Golden Age comic book writer who didn’t actually work in the Golden Age. But through his long and illustrious career, he turned out one story after another that paid tribute to that era, including DC’s All-Star Squadron and Marvel’s Invaders, among countless other projects. This one-shot is not only a quintessential Elseworlds, it’s also quintessential Thomas. The story plays out pretty much exactly like the Golden Age Superman we all know and love right up until the day he arrives in Metropolis and tries to land himself a job at the Daily Star (where Clark Kent originally worked before the Daily Planet became the home of our favorite reporters). On that same day, though, what is believed to be a meteor strike unleashes an invasion of tripod-piloting aliens from the planet Mars, here to devastate and take over our world.
Thomas simply does a perfect job of blending the two stories. The characters feel absolutely true to their Golden Age incarnations, while reacting to the story that adheres as closely to the Welles original as is practical. Lois Lane, for instance, is introduced when Clark gets to the Star, furious that the editor is about to give this newcomer off the street a chance at a major story while she’s been stuck scribbling a “Miss Lonelyhearts” type of column just because she’s a woman. Even in the Golden Age, Lois was someone who would always stand up for herself and never tolerate that kind of nonsense, and Thomas plays her up perfectly. I also really like the way they depict Lex Luthor, initially just a scientist investigating the alien meteor strike, but then turning collaborator when it seems that the aliens’ victory is inevitable.
Thomas layers in World War II parallels that fit perfectly with both of the properties that he marries in this book, and the end – although heartbreaking – is compelling and appropriate for the story being told. When we talk about Elseworlds, everybody points to books like Kingdom Come and Superman: Red Son, and with good reason. Those books are classics. But there are a lot of other gems that were produced as a result of that line that we don’t remember nearly as well, and that’s a shame. I’m definitely going to pepper the rest of this Year of Superman with visits to some of the ones that we’ve forgotten about.
Mon., Feb. 24
He’s a guy who refuses to kill. She’s an alien queen who refuses to do anything else.
Comics: Superman Vs. Aliens #1-3
Notes: A few days ago at ComicsPro, it was announced that Marvel and DC Comics are planning two new crossover one-shots later this year, DC/Marvel and Marvel/DC. Stale naming conventions aside, I’m excited. There hasn’t been any crossover between the two publishers since JLA/Avengers twenty years ago, except for the collected omnibi that were released last year. I finished up reading the first one early in January, although I didn’t talk about them much here in the blog, and the knowledge that there’s more coming makes me want to hurry up and pencil in the second omnibus into my reading rotation soon.
But not today. Today I decided to look at a different Superman crossover, one with Dark Horse Comics, back when they had the Aliens license and were pairing them off with everybody and their cousin, like Ocean Spray finding new flavors to mix with cranberry. Superman Vs. Aliens was the first such story featuring our own Man of Steel, and written as it was by Dan Jurgens, it fit into the Superman comics of the time better than a lot of these crossovers do. This is the era when Lex Luthor isn’t running LexCorp anymore, when Lois and Clark are engaged but not married yet, and when Supergirl was not a Kryptonian, but rather the Matrix shapeshifter from an alternate Earth.
The story kicks off when an alien probe plummets to Earth, a craft with markings that Superman recognizes as being Kryptonian. The probe leads Superman to a distant city floating through space under a dome. Once there, the distance from a yellow sun causes his powers to begin to dwindle, even as he finds himself partnered with one of the city’s few remaining survivors, a girl named Kara, as they face the menace of the Xenomorphs. The story was so deliberately reminiscent of the original Supergirl that it was almost as if Dan Jurgens and DC were trolling us, and for years after this book was released there were rumors that Kara would return to the regular Superman titles, but it never happened. As it turned out in the end, this Argo wasn’t actually a Kryptonian city after all, but from another planet which suffered a similar fate as Krypton and learned about its language and culture from the Cleric, a character from the earlier Exile storyline.
Jurgens finds a few ways to really make the story an interesting character piece for Superman. First of all, they need to reduce his powers to actually make the Xenomorphs a threat. Second, he treats Kara like long-lost family, and in a time where there were no other surviving Kryptonians in the DC Universe, it’s an impactful event, even if it only lasted for three issues. We’ve also got Dr. Kimble on the LexCorp station doing a darn good impression of Paul Reiser’s character from Aliens, while Xenomorphs are running wild on the station and Lois is trying to hold them off.
But I think the best thing about this story, the thing that really shows the contrast between the two franchises, is how heavily Jurgens leans on Superman’s no-killing policy. It was a policy he broke exactly once, in the pocket universe that Matrix originally came from, and doing so nearly destroyed him. (I’ll have to look at that story before this year is over.) Having him face off against the Xenomorphs is fun – they are literally killing machines. They have no function other than death, and historically speaking, the only way to stop them is to kill them FIRST. But Superman refuses to do that. If there’s even a chance that these creatures may be sentient, he refuses to use lethal force. Some people would call that naive, but it’s a fundamental element of the character, and it’s the thing that makes this so different from so many other Aliens stories where the focus is to nuke them all from orbit. (It’s the only way to be sure.)
I remember when this story came out, how excited I was for it, and although the status quo of Superman’s universe has changed a lot over the years, I’m glad to see that it still holds up.
Notes: A few years ago, my brother introduced me to the Totally Rad Christmas podcast, a podcast that is – in the words of host Gerry D – “about all things Christmas in the 80s.” However, Gerry isn’t particularly strict about that requirement. They often have episodes about Christmas movies and specials from outside of the 80s, as well as other things that Gerry associates with Christmas and just feels like waxing nostalgic. For instance, Superman was released on Dec. 15, 1978, and that’s enough to get it on the show. This episode was released back in 2020, but I’d never listened to it before, so this seemed like a good excuse to dust it off. Gerry and his guest for the episode, Tim Babb, discuss the film itself and – as is common for this podcast – their personal memories surrounding the film from childhood. As someone who has watched this movie countless times and who lives, eats, and breathes Superman, it’s actually nice to listen to a couple of guys who are FANS, but perhaps not the fanatic that I can be in my more eager moments. I don’t know if I would hunt this episode down as a Superman fan if I weren’t already a listener of this podcast, but as someone who’s already a fan, the overlap on this particular Venn Diagram is pleasing to me.
Tues., Feb. 25
Wait, WHY is Superman in the forest with a couple of kids?
Comic: Superman #257
Notes: Sometimes you just choose by cover. You scroll through the DC app, looking at the issues available and, for one reason or another, something jumps out at you. This one, for instance – Superman in the woods with two children. He’s calming them down, assuring him that there’s nobody around to harm them, but in a cutaway view underground we see a guy in armor with green skin and what looks like some sort of science fiction bazooka about to blast the ground right out from underneath him. They say you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, and that’s probably true, but a good one is sure as hell more likely to get you to pick it up.
The story in question isn’t quite as engaging. An alien has come to Earth hoping to steal our nitrogen using the “bazooka” from the cover – which he calls a war-horn – to create a variety of effects. Superman fights him, as per usual, but the alien’s military code refuses to allow him to concede defeat unless killed in battle. Superman winds up tricking the war-horn into leaving the planet by attempting to strike a fatal blow, which it automatically avoids and retreats, which to me seems antithetical to the whole military code aforementioned.
The main story isn’t great, but the back-up in this issue IS. The story begins on the planet Oa, home of the Green Lantern Corps, where Lantern Tomar-Re is about to retire from active duty and join the Corps’ honor guard. Before he does so, though, the Guardians must reconcile the one failure on his record. Fans have long asked why the Green Lanterns didn’t do something to prevent the destruction of Krypton, and this issue answers that question: Krypton was in Tomar-Re’s sector, and the then-rookie GL failed to stop the planet’s doom. Tomar was tasked with collecting a rare element that would delay (but not stop) Krypton’s destruction, but a burst of yellow radiation left him blind and unable to save the world in time. His sight was restored just in time to witness Krypton’s explosion. The Guardians had been watching Krypton for some time, suspecting that the offspring of their scientist Jor-El and his wife Lara would create someone exceptional, a “titan among the stars.” Now, years later, the existence of Superman has proven their suspicion correct, and Tomar’s failure is forgiven.
Man, can you imagine being so important that they decide your existence is more important than your entire planet? That’d be a lot to live up to. Fortunately, Superman doesn’t have an ego about this sort of thing.
Okay, I’ve waited long enough. Tomorrow I’m going to start the big one, the saga that defined this character for so many. Be back next week for my thoughts on – at least the first stages of – The Death and Return of Superman.
With Captain America: Brave New World currently in movie theaters, eyes of Marvel fans are turning to the next film from the studio, coming out in May, Thunderbolts*. Yes, that asterisk is part of the title. No, as it turns out, it isn’t actually important. But we’ll get to that later. Although they’re not exactly the Avengers (more on that later, too) the Thunderbolts have been bouncing around the Marvel Universe in one form or another for nearly 30 years, having first appeared in 1997. Despite the pedigree of having been around for such a long time, a lot of people don’t seem to quite understand who the Thunderbolts are, and honestly, you can’t blame them. If you look at their publishing history, it seems as though Marvel doesn’t really know who they are either.
Pictured: Even we don’t the hell know.
Let’s go into the history, shall we? It started in 1996, when the Marvel Universe came under attack by a villain named Onslaught. Powerful and ravenous, he started off fighting the X-Men before taking on virtually every superhero in the world and, when he was finally defeated, both the Avengers and Fantastic Four were killed in the battle. Or so it appeared, anyway – as it turned out, Franklin Richards saved them at the last second by shoving them onto an Alternate Earth, because things like that just happen in comic book universes sometimes. But the world at large BELIEVED that they were dead, and that was enough to cause serious chaos. With the Avengers and Fantastic Four gone, it was open season for villains, who saw an opportunity with the biggest, boldest heroes in the universe unavailable to thwart them.
Then the Thunderbolts appeared.
I’m confused, which one of these guys is played by David Harbour?
A brand new team of brand new heroes, paragons of courage who had never been seen before, burst on the scene and began cleaning up the town. The gigantic Atlas! Armored hero MACH-1! The cosmic-powered Meteorite! High-flying Songbird! The scientific wizard Techno! And their sword-wielding leader, holder of a mantle of a forgotten World War II hero, Citizen V! After an appearance in Incredible Hulk, the Thunderbolts slid into their own series, written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by Mark Bagley. I was – and still am – a huge fan of both Busiek and Bagley, and so I naturally was eager to read the book, but it was a little confusing before we got there. Who were these new characters? Why should we care about them? Did they REALLY think they were worthy of replacing the Avengers?
And then, at the end of the first issue, Busiek hit us with a curveball that comic books have not been able to duplicate since. Citizen V traded his heroic mask for another one, a purple one…he was really Baron Helmut Zemo, arch-enemy of Captain America, and each of the Thunderbolts was a member of his Masters of Evil in disguise. When the Avengers and FF vanished, they decided to masquerade as heroes and win over the public trust as part of Zemo’s plan for world domination.
There will never be a reveal this awesome again, and I blame Mark Zuckerberg for that.
And we, the readers, were FLOORED.
It’s so hard to imagine, in today’s landscape, how such a reveal could have been pulled off. All of the press leading up to this issue just talked about these great new heroes and how awesome they were and how cool it was going to be to have new stars in the Marvel Universe. Honestly, it felt like standard comic book hype, and were it not for the fact that I enjoyed the creative team so much, I probably wouldn’t have read the comic at all, which would have been a huge mistake because it turned out to be phenomenal. But such a magic trick simply couldn’t happen in the current landscape. If Marvel tried to tell this story today, three days before the issue was published you would have a headline on the site formerly known as Comic Book Resources, shared on Facebook, announcing something like “Ending of Thunderbolts #1 will shock Avengers fans!” with a thumbnail image of Citizen V wearing Zemo’s mask just to make sure that everything was good and thoroughly ruined before it could be read.
The modern media is so, so stupid.
Anyway, the Avengers and Fantastic Four eventually returned to the main Marvel Earth, forcing Zemo to accelerate his plans for conquest, but in the time when they pretended to be heroes something funny happened to many of the members of the Thunderbolts. They began to realize that it wasn’t such a bad thing that they got to WIN a fight once in a while instead of getting beaten up. They started to enjoy the cheers and applause of the hero-starved citizens of New York. They actually found satisfaction in helping people instead of committing crimes. And when Zemo took action, the rest of the team rebelled against him, deciding that they’d rather remain heroes than go back to their old lives of villainy.
From there, the book underwent the first of what would be countless shifts in status quo. Instead of the adventures of villains pretending to be heroes, it was now a book about former villains seeking redemption, and this is the golden age of the franchise. They tried to make good. They even were joined by Hawkeye, who left the Avengers to help them out. Hawkeye himself had begun his career as an adversary for Iron Man, and he credited Captain America giving him a chance to join the Avengers for turning his life around. He saw leading the Thunderbolts as an opportunity to pay it forward. And so the book went on for some time – some of the members backsliding at times, new members joining, the roster shifting around, but for the entirety of Busiek’s run, then that of his successor Fabian Nicieza, it was one of my favorite books Marvel was publishing.
Then in issue #76, they inexplicably dumped the entire concept. Issue #75 ended the story of the Thunderbolts we knew and loved and the next month we got a whole new story with new characters in what could best be described as “Supervillain Fight Club.” It was baffling, it was awful, and it was Thunderbolts in name only. It also only lasted six issues before the book was cancelled. Not too long after that, they brought back the original team for a second run that lasted a few more years, and it was good, but once again they took a sharp turn. This time around the team was replaced by a new group of villains – not reformed ones this time – rounded up to do tasks for the government. It felt like a carbon copy of DC’s Suicide Squad at this point. And it didn’t get better.
Pictured: Your guess is as good as mine.
Since then, the team has been reinvented seemingly dozens of times. The Suicide Squad knock-off has been done more than once. At one point the team was re-christened “Dark Avengers” and made of villains pretending to be heroes (ESTABLISHED heroes this time, like the Scorpion pretending to be Spider-Man, Daken pretending to be Wolverine, and so forth) . One time it was made up of antiheroes like the Punisher, Deadpool, and Elektra. Another time it was villains trying to HUNT the Punisher. Once it was villains deputized by the Kingpin of Crime while he was mayor of New York, and another time it was a group of HEROES deputized by Luke Cage when HE was mayor of New York. And on occasion we’ve even got a group of super-spies like the Winter Soldier and the White Widow, which seems to be the version that the upcoming movie is based on.
Pictu–oh, whatever.
The problem, then, comes when somebody asks the question “Who are the Thunderbolts?” because you just read about 1300 words on that very subject, and we STILL don’t have a definitive answer. Ever since the original version of the Thunderbolts ended, Marvel has recycled the name over and over again but has never found any concept that STICKS. Even the super-spy incarnation of the team seems to have been willed into existence so that they have something to synergize with the movie.
And let’s talk about the movie, while we’re at it. Some time back, the title was slightly changed from Thunderbolts to Thunderbolts* with an asterisk. People asked Marvel if the asterisk was, in fact, part of the title, and they confirmed that it was. This led to mass speculation on the internet as to the significance of that asterisk. Why was it there? WHAT DID IT MEAN? It’s the kind of rabid online speculation that movie studios love because they don’t have to do very much to get the audience talking about the film. It did wonders back in the day for movies like The Blair Witch Project and The Matrix, which managed to get an enormous amount of word of mouth with relatively simple ad campaigns back in the early days of the internet. It’s a great strategy when you have a good payoff.
Spoiler alert: this time there was NOT a good payoff.
Like, not even the Great Lakes Avengers?
When the most recent round of posters for Thunderbolts* was released, we saw what the asterisk stood for, and the revelation was met with a resounding “Meh.” At the bottom of the poster, with the asterisk attached to indicate the footnote, was the tagline “The Avengers are not available.” It’s actually not a bad tagline. It seems to indicate the tone of the movie – slightly tongue-in-cheek, indicating that this is NOT a story about paladins like Captain America or knights in armor like Iron Man. If they had never made a big deal out of the asterisk and simply released that poster without comment, I would have thought it was a cute detail. But after the buildup it got, it may have been the biggest letdown in the MCU since everybody forgot there’s a giant hand sticking out of the Earth after the events of Eternals.
I obviously haven’t seen the movie yet, and I am not here to talk trash about it. I never want there to be a bad superhero movie. I want every one of them to knock my socks off, and I really hope that this one does too. But the trailers seem to have that same feeling of a wannabe Suicide Squad with a group of characters that seem assembled not because it makes sense but because these are the pieces Marvel has on hand and they don’t know what to do with them.
Which, frankly, is a pretty good description of what it’s been like to try reading Thunderbolts comics for the last two decades or so.
The Thunderbolts were at their best when it was a story about villains trying to make good. It was a compelling book then and it could still be one now. There are even seeds, I think, in recent comics, such as the recent Venom War tie-in miniseries Zombiotes. The old Spider-Man villain Shocker was on a quest to bring back his friend Boomerang from the dead, and wound up fighting alongside the heroes She-Hulk and Hellcat during an invasion of…let’s just say “monsters,” because I don’t want to spend another 1300 words explaining THAT one. But that story could easily be a germ for a new Thunderbolts team. And it’s a book that would allow for reinvention WITHOUT changing the concept, with characters rotating in and out – some of them succeeding in their heroic goal, others falling from grace. There’s drama to be mined there and SO MANY villains that could be used, if Marvel did it right.
No offense, Bucky, but I’d rather read this group.
Or, you know, we could spend another 20 years throwing Thunder spaghetti at the wall in the hopes that something, ANYTHING sticks.
I suppose the real test will be to see if anything sticks to the movie screen.
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. If Marvel is looking for a writer to try this obviously brilliant concept, they should know that Blake can be hired relatively cheap.
After the chaos of the last couple of weeks, I wanted to stabilize things a little bit, so it’s time for another theme week. He’s called the fastest man alive, but he’s often been forced to defend that title against the Man of Steel, so for the next seven days I’m going to put my attention on the competitions between Superman and the scarlet speedster himself. Yes, it’s Superman Vs. the Flash Week!
(Superman versus the) FLASH! (Bum bum bum bum bum) AAAH-AAAAAH!!!
Okay, I think I should make one thing clear here: in a straight-up foot race between Superman and the Flash, the Flash should win every time. Whether we’re talking about Barry Allen or Wally West, it doesn’t matter. The Flash’s entire job description is the fact that there’s nobody faster than him, and if you take that away it diminishes the character. Even Superman shouldn’t be allowed to do that.
That said, there have been many stories over the years that pit them against each other, and some of them are an awful lot of fun.
Wed., Feb. 12
Comics:Superman #199, Flash #175
Literally, the starting line for this whole thing.
Notes: The first-ever Superman/Flash race, at least as far as I can tell, is Superman #199 from 1967. The United Nations recruit Superman and Flash to race for one another to raise funds for charity, a basic enough premise that reasonably pits the two of them against each other without some sort of contrived misunderstanding, which I greatly appreciate. Unfortunately, a pair of major crime syndicates also bet a fortune on the outcome of the race, one on Superman and one on the Flash, and so they both hatch schemes to make sure their chosen hero is the winner. After uncovering the schemes and beating the gangsters, Superman and Flash conspire to end the race in a precise tie so that neither crime syndicate can cash in on their winnings and, conveniently, so that DC Comics doesn’t have to definitively answer the question of which of the two men is the faster.
What I find funny about this story is that, even though the story is contrived in such a way that the race ends in a tie, writer Jim Shooter almost seems to do so grudgingly. There are several times that we see the Flash doing things that seem to demonstrate that, as far as foot speed goes, he’s superior. As they race across the ocean, Flash is running on top of the water, whereas Superman has to swim at superspeed. Similarly, Supes has to burrow through sand dunes and climb over pyramids in the desert, while the Flash is simply vibrating right through them. At one point, Flash even employs a super-speed trick to rescue Superman from a random chunk of Kryptonite vomited up by a volcano without Superman even noticing. The only times Superman has an advantage is when his invulnerability or other non-speed powers give him an edge – in freezing cold, diving down a waterfall, or maintaining his balance across a frozen lake. Every task shows that the Flash’s super-speed tricks are superior, even if the story itself has to skirt the issue at the end. This would be a running theme through future competitions between Superman and Barry Allen.
It’s covers like this, Superman. Covers like this are why some people call you a jerk.
Only a few months later, they got together for a rematch in Flash #175. It starts when the two heroes wind up muscling in on each other’s territory, each of them getting an emergency alert from the other on their Justice League signal devices that their teammate denies sending out. When the JLA assembles, it turns out the signal was sent by a pair of aliens Superman and Batman have encountered before. The aliens had placed a wager on the first race and, as it ended in a tie, insist on a rematch. Instead of lapping the Earth this time, though, they’re going to force the heroes to race across the Milky Way. Oh, and just in case they need a little added incentive, they promise to annihilate Central City if the Flash loses and Metropolis if Superman is the loser. So as sports commissioners, they’re still slightly less evil than Roger Goodell.
The aliens throw lots of traps and obstacles in front of our heroes, each of whom independently finds evidence that the race isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But it’s the Silver Age, so neither of them ever thinks to just TELL his teammate that the race is a fake, they make vague statements about things being “off” until they beat the aliens on the last two pages, with the race once again not having any definitive winner.
As snarky as I sound, I actually did enjoy this issue. It was a pretty decent follow-up to the first race, and it gets bonus points for the last panel, where Flash and Superman look directly at the reader and invite them to go back to the finish line on Page 21 and decide for themselves who they think won. You can’t get away with stuff like that these days.
Thur., Feb. 13
Comics: World’s Finest Comics #198-199
“Okay, we’re ACTUALLY gonna declare a winner this time, right? No more cop-outs?
Notes: Three years after the first two races, DC decided to try it again. Although World’s Finest has, historically, been the Superman/Batman team-up book, there was a period in which it was a Superman team-up title, with Superman as the anchor and different guest-stars for each issue, so it was here that they staged the next installment in this saga. And THIS time, the cover of issue #198 proclaims, “There MUST be a winner!”
Race #3 has the wildest conceit yet – the Guardians of the Universe (the little blue guys who sponsor the Green Lantern Corps) have detected an incursion of “Arachronids,” faster-than-light lifeforms that are disrupting space and time. The only way to save the universe is for two people to race in a path opposite that of the Arachronids, and the only ones speedy enough to do the job are Superman and the Flash. (This is in the days before the “Flash Family,” of course, there was only Barry and Wally West as Kid Flash. If this were to happen today there are roughly a dozen speedsters more qualified than Superman to handle this deal.) Anyway, the Guardians provide the Flash with an amulet that will allow him to race in space and he suggests – since we never actually settled the question of who’s faster – why not make this another race?
Things are going swimmingly until the Arachronids destroy a sun, knocking our heroes off-track on a planet where the sunlight keeps shifting from yellow to red, which negates Superman’s powers. Oh, and did I mention that the time-disruptions have chucked Jimmy Olsen back to ancient Rome, where he’s about to get executed by a firing squad of archers?
Part two of the story reveals the truth: the Arachronids were created by General Zod and a group of Phantom Zone escapees, and they’ve got Superman and the Flash captured on a planet that straddles the line between dimensions. They wind up on a world where the red sun is draining Superman’s powers and the Flash has his swiftness curtailed when the baddies steal the amulet given to him by the Guardians, leaving them to crawl towards the device that’s causing all the chaos. WHO WILL MAKE IT FIRST?
This is the first time I’ve read this particular two-parter and, I’ve gotta say, I really enjoyed it. It’s a different angle on the Superman/Flash race, one that’s apart from the usual “racing for charity” conceit or the other various contrivances that have pit them against one another. No, this time it’s a totally original contrivance, and I appreciate that. I also appreciate the fact that they TECHNICALLY declare a winner of the race this time (it’s the Flash, spoiler alert), but they do so on a world where both heroes are virtually powerless and are literally crawling towards their destination, so the question as to who’s really faster when they’re at normal power is still left up in the air. I’m sure that was the mandate at the time. I’m glad that they eventually got over that mandate, though, as some of the later stories we’re going to get around to reading will demonstrate.
Other Comics:Jenny Sparks #6 (Superman appearance), Black Lightning Vol. 4 #3 (Steel II appearance), The Question: All Along the Watchtower #3 (Superman Cameo), Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #10
Fri., Feb. 14
Comics: DC Comics Presents #1-2
“Barry? Clark. Hey, wanna be the first guest in my new team-up book? Noooo…not a race this time…I wouldn’t do that to you…”
Notes: Eventually, World’s Finest went back to being a Superman/Batman book, and while Batman had his own team-up series (The Brave and the Bold), Superman was given his own with DC Comics Presents. In the first two issues of this series, published in 1978, we got the next installment of the friendly rivalry between Superman and the Flash – and, in fact, I’m pretty sure this was the last such story before Barry’s death in Crisis on Infinite Earths. (If I’m wrong, by all means, correct me in the comments.)
This time around, our heroes are captured by a pair of warring alien races, one of whom has sent an agent forward in time to go through the “cosmic curtain” that separates the end of the timeline to the beginning. (Time, you see, is evidently a giant loop, but their time machines only go FORWARD, so they have to take the long way around, as if they were flying across Europe and Asia to get to California from Florida. Flat-timers hate this issue.) Since the Flash “won” the previous race, they send him to help their agent in the future, with the consequence for failure being the destruction of Earth. The other aliens, though, force Superman’s hand by telling him that if their enemy succeeds in changing time, Krypton will explode SOONER than it was supposed to, and Superman will never exist.
The major difference between this two-parter and the previous three races between Superman and the Flash is that the race is across time, rather than space, and it’s a significant enough change to really make this one stand out. Superman’s actions seem a bit out of character, of course – he’s risking the destruction of Earth to save his own life, a task even the VILLAINS are surprised to see him willingly take. Naturally, it turns out to all be part of the plan.
This one, unlike the other three races we’ve seen, doesn’t even really try to address the issue of who “wins.” Once Superman’s plan is unveiled, the heroes work together (as it should be) to thwart BOTH sects of warring aliens and fix all the timey-wimey chaos before anyone is killed, especially Jimmy Olsen. The conclusion, then, is satisfying, but leaves the central question essentially unanswered. In fact, the first time we get anything resembling a true answer, it would have to come from Barry’s protege, Wally West, another 12 years later.
Other Comics:Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #135, Justice League of America #16, Action Comics #372
Podcast: DC Studios Showcase Episode 1 (Discussion of documentary film Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story)
Valentine’s Day Stuff: Today is, in case you forgot, Valentine’s Day. (And if you DID forget, this isn’t going to be posted until February 19th, so you are SERIOUSLY out of luck.) But I couldn’t let the day pass without noting my darling wife, Erin, and how she indulged my quest for the Year of Superman today.
Pictured: Love. And personal hygiene products.
She got me the McFarlane Toys Super Powers Fleischer-style Superman, a figure I’ve been hunting for ever since I found out it existed, but have been resisting paying eBay prices. If I won the lottery, I would build an entire toy display room in my palatial mansion, and one full wall would be dedicated to a collection of Super Powers figures, Marvel Secret Wars figures, and figures from comparable toy lines like the Archie Mighty Crusaders and Defenders of the Earth series of my youth. She also got me a set of the new Superman-branded Old Spice body wash and deodorant, which I first saw in an ad a week or two ago where it was being promoted along with Batman-branded products, prompting me to ask her, “Who do you think smells better? Superman or Batman? I bet Batman sweats a lot.”
And yet, she’s been married to me for over 10 years now. Get you one who understands you like mine understands me, friends.
Sat., Feb. 15
Comic Books: Adventures of Superman #463, Flash Vol. 2 #53
“On your marks! Get se–wait a second, haven’t we done this before?”
Notes: The next time the Man of Steel and the Scarlet Speedster would face off against one another wouldn’t come until 1990, at which point both of them had experienced some drastic changes. Superman had gone through the post-Crisis John Byrne reboot, whereas Barry Allen had died in Crisis on Infinite Earths and been replaced by his protege, former Kid Flash Wally West. Like a lot of Superman history, it’s unclear if any of the previous races with Barry were canon to Superman at this time, but the story makes it quite clear that it’s the first time he’s faced off against Wally, at least, and it’s a distinction that Superman takes pretty seriously.
This story involves our old pal from the Fifth Dimension, Mr. Mxyzptlk, who shows up on Earth this time restructuring Mount Rushmore to include his own face. The Flash happens to get there first and, when Mxy finds out that he’s supposedly the “fastest man alive,” he decides to put that claim to a test. If Superman can beat the Flash in a race around the world, he says, he’ll pop out of our dimension for the usual 90 days. Superman notes, rather dismissively, that Wally hasn’t been the Flash that long and strongly implies that beating KID Flash won’t be too difficult, and Wally does his best impression of Michael Jordan in that meme. The race is on.
From here out, the story is actually pretty straightforward. Unlike most of the races we don’t have to deal with any shady stipulations, misdirects for the reader, or bad guys trying to fix the outcome of the race, except for your typical Mxy shenanigans. There is a nice little scene I’d forgotten about, where Mxyzptlk tries to offer Lex Luthor a hunk of red Kryptonite but Lex turns him down, which actually makes this story a stealth prequel to the Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite story we read last month. But as far as the actual RACE goes, it’s pretty cut and dried, with both heroes putting the pedal to the metal until, in the final stretch, Wally reaches out and beats Superman by a nose.
Totally saving the day! As it turns out, Mxy had learned about deception from Lex in a previous visit and so he was trying it out. Although he SAID he was only going to leave Earth if Superman won, he had always REALLY planned to leave if the FLASH won. It never occurs to him to simply lie again, which is actually kind of a silly, charming hat to put on this dude in his silly, charming hat.
This was the first Superman/Flash race I ever read, and as such it’s always held a place of esteem in my personal pantheon of Superman stories, but I think it’s important to note which versions of the characters we’re looking at. Superman was only a few years post-Byrne, an era in which his power had been scaled down dramatically to make him less “godlike.” Over the years his powers would slowly creep up in strength again until today he’s more powerful than ever before, but as Supermen go, the one in this story was relatively slow. However, this was also early in Wally’s tenure as the Flash, a period during which he was much slower than Barry ever was. When Mark Waid took over Wally’s series a few years later he established that Wally had a subconscious fear of overshadowing his predecessor and had a self-imposed mental block limiting his speed. Once he got over that, he became the fastest Flash there ever was. The point is that if you took the current versions of either Superman OR the Flash and popped them into the race during this era, either of them could smoke the two characters we watched race today.
This time it’s a METAPHORICAL race! The greatest kind of race there is!
I also read issue #53 of Wally’s first solo title, a story which was NOT actually a race, despite what the cover promised. In this one, Jimmy Olsen has gotten himself captured by some South American warlord (because that’s what Jimmy Olsen DOES) and Superman decides to recruit the only person alive faster than him (as established in the previous race) to help find Jimmy before he’s unalived. This is a typical superhero team-up story: good, not special, but enjoyable. I think the most interesting thing about it, the thing that gives it a spot of interest in superhero history, is that this happens to be the issue in which Wally’s pal the Pied Piper (former villain, now reformed) comes out to him as gay. I don’t know if this is the FIRST openly gay character in mainstream comics, but he’s certainly ONE of the first, and while it’s no big deal in today’s comic book landscape, for 1991 it was a pretty surprising revelation. There ya go, ya learned something today.
Sun., Feb. 16
Comic Book:DC First: Superman/Flash #1
Big Good Vs. Big Good.
Notes: I’ve got a sick kid to take care of this afternoon and, as a parent, that has to take precedence over pretty much everything. But in-between far too frequent trips to the bathroom and a larger-than-average number of baths, I made it a point to squeeze in the next story in the Superman/Flash pantheon. This time we leap ahead to 2002 for DC First: Superman/Flash. This was a series of one-shots DC did that showed the first meetings between various characters – but as Superman’s first races between Barry Allen and Wally West were already pretty well documented, for this special they did something a little different and very cool: they showed Superman’s first race with Jay Garrick, the original Golden Age Flash.
This issue reads more as a special issue of the then-current Flash run. It’s written by Geoff Johns, who was writing that book at the time, and it deals with subplots involving Pied Piper and Jay’s wife, Joan, with Superman’s involvement coming in coincidentally. Wally and Jay head to Metropolis to a bookshop where they’ve sourced a rare book as a gift for Joan, only to run afoul of the old Flash rogue Abra Kadabra. The faux wizard of the 64th century casts a spell that begins causing Wally to age rapidly, then tells Superman and Jay they can save him if they can catch him in a race – with the caveat that whoever touches Wally first will take the curse upon themselves. What you’ve got, then, is perhaps the greatest conceit for a Superman/Flash race of them all. They aren’t racing for charity, they aren’t racing for ego, they aren’t even racing with the fate of the world at stake. They are literally racing one another for the RIGHT TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES TO SAVE WALLY. There is no better motivation for these two heroes.
I know I read this book when it first came out. It’s in my collection, and I was an avid reader of both the Superman comics (duh) and Flash, so I am 100 percent certain I read it. But it came out 23 years ago, and I didn’t really remember the story at all until I sat down to read it this afternoon, and it honestly blew me away. Even though it’s more of a Flash story than a Superman story, it really exemplifies the values of Superman in a way that a lot of these other races failed to do. It may be my favorite read for this week to date.
Mon., Feb. 17
Comics: Flash: Rebirth #3, Superman #709
This issue, as far as I’m concerned, is the final word on the whole thing.
Notes: I actually struggled with whether to include this issue of Flash: Rebirth from 2009 in my Year of Superman reading. It’s the middle of a storyline, and Superman’s appearance is barely a cameo, but that one sequence in which he appears is significant enough that I felt it warranted inclusion. Barry Allen, having returned from the dead in the terribly inaccurately named Final Crisis event, is being transformed into a new Black Flash, essentially the spirit of death for speedsters such as himself. To protect Wally, his grandson Bart, and everyone else he loves, he decides he’s going to rush back into the Speed Force before the transformation can happen, and Superman takes off after him. At this point, the League had gone through its share of recent tragedies, and both Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter were dead (they got better), so Clark isn’t about to let Barry die again.
This leads to one of my favorite pages that Geoff Johns ever wrote, as the two of them are racing each other up the Daily Planet building and Superman says, “I’ve raced you before, Barry. I even won some of those races.”*
Barry simply says, “Those were for charity, Clark.”
And then he leaves him in the dust.
Like I keep saying, the Flash SHOULD be faster than Superman. This issue is the best evidence of that ever.
(*By the way, despite what he says, I don’t actually recall Superman ever winning one of those races. There were a few ties, but every time a victor was declared it was the guy in red. I’m going to assume, from the way Clark talks, that there may have been other charity races off-panel that we didn’t get to watch. And now that I’ve said it, it’s going to manifest in the universe as a seven-part time-travel crossover event, coming this fall.)
“You’re GROUNDED young man! That means no disrupting the time stream! Just do your homework and straight to bed!”
The final Superman/Flash face-off I could find in comics came in Superman #709 from 2011, part of J. Michael Straczynski’s “Grounded” storyline. In this arc, Superman decides he needs to reconnect with the ordinary people he is sworn to protect, so he commits himself to walk across the United States. It’s an interesting concept, to be certain, and Straczynski is an excellent writer, but the general consensus on this storyline is that it sort of fell flat. I think the problem is that it went on for far too long (who wants an entire year of Superman just…walking?) and even Straczynski himself seemed to lose interest in it, as evidenced by the fact that he bowed out before the story was over and it was completed by Chris Roberson.
The “race” part of this issue is over fairly quickly. While walking through Boulder, Colorado, the entire town is suddenly transformed into a Kryptonian city. Superman soon figures out that the transformation is the work of the Flash, who has been overtaken by a Kryptonian artifact and he needs Superman to set him free. After he does so, they have a cup of coffee and talk about legacy. This is what I mean, by the way, when I say that the “Grounded” story went on too long. The story of this issue is perfectly fine, in and of itself, but when you read it in the context of the entire year-long storyline, it was too much of the same thing over and over: Superman walking somewhere, doubting himself, having a significant encounter with various characters (both new and previously established) and coming to a peaceful resolution. That’s great ONCE, but do you really want to read it twelve issues in a row?
The most interesting thing to me about this issue is that it happens concurrently with that month’s issue of Superboy, in which the Kid of Steel races KID Flash for the first time, and which Clark and Barry catch a glimpse of on a diner television. I’ll take a look at that issue tomorrow when I look at the few races I could find between members of the Superman and Flash families other than the patriarchs.
TV Episode: Superman: The Animated Series, Season Two, Episode 4, “Speed Demons”
“Loved you on Wings, by the way.”
Notes: That’s all the comic book Superman/Flash races I could find, but there’s still this episode of Superman: The Animated Series, the first appearance of the Flash in the DC Animated Universe. In this episode he’s voiced by Charlie Schlatter, although Michael Rosenbaum would take over the character for the Justice League cartoons. (Tim Daly would be replaced as Superman by George Newburn too. I guess not everyone can be Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill.) In this episode, Superman and the Flash are pitted against each other in, as per their first-ever encounter, a charity race. This time the rules are a bit more sensible for the two of them: the winner will be the first to complete 100 laps around the globe. Of course, just like many of their races in the comics, there’s a catch – the arm bands they’re wearing to track their progress are, in truth, using them to build up ionic energy to power a plot by the Weather Wizard. (Weather Wizard, by the way, was voiced by the late Miguel Ferrer in a delightfully dastardly way.)
This episode never makes it clear which Flash we’re watching, Barry or Wally. In terms of attitude and personality, it’s definitely influenced by the early days of Wally’s solo title. He’s slick, he’s cocky, and he relentlessly flirts with Lois Lane, none of which are things you could ever imagine Barry doing. It takes plenty of cues from the classic comics, though, such as the race itself being derailed halfway through when Superman and the Flash catch wind (rimshot) of the Weather Wizard’s plan and call it off to get around to some good ol’ fashioned thwartin’. It’s easy to forget that the Batman cartoon almost never had guest-stars from outside the Batman family, so this was one of the first times we really started to see an animated universe begin to form in the Paul Dini/Bruce Timm era. It was a real delight to revisit this episode again.
There is ONE other Superman/Flash race that I haven’t covered here, but for what I consider a good reason. It’s part of Tom King’s Superman: Up in the Sky series, which is a magnificent comic in its own right, and I intend to cover it in its entirety at some point this year. Plus, looking at the issue with the race on its own wouldn’t really make a ton of sense, absent of the context. I’m bringing it up here mainly so that nobody thinks I forgot about it.
Tues., Feb. 18
Comics:Superboy Vol. 4 #5, Supergirl: The Fastest Women Alive #1
“I don’t know why Barry and Clark always make such a big deal about this.”
Notes: I had one day left in “Superman Vs. The Flash Week,” but I had run out of actual Superman/Flash races, so I decided to close it out with a pair of comics featuring other members of the respective Super- and Flash-Families strapping on their jogging shoes to see who’s swiftest. First was Superboy Vol. 4 #5 from 2011, the first ever Superboy/Kid Flash race (this Kid Flash being Bart Allen, Barry’s grandson, who previously had gone by “Impulse” and since has retaken that name). In this era, Superboy was living in Smallville, and his presence had rocked the town with a few supervillain attacks that resulted in some pretty major damage. This time around, the race is scheduled to raise money to rebuild the town. As the two old friends zip across the globe, though, Bart can tell that Conner Kent’s mind is elsewhere.
This issue is part of Jeff Lemire’s run on the title, a tenure that was cut tragically short by the New 52 reboot later that year. Lemire was doing a great job at grounding Superboy in a way that this version of the character so rarely is, giving him a home and a family in Smallville to contend with, and making his adventures a mix of the cosmic and the mundane, something Lemire is exceptionally good at. (And if you don’t believe me, check out his series Black Hammer.) Despite the race being a backdrop, the mundane part is the focus of the issue, with nary a supervillain plot or alien invader to disrupt things. Instead, in the midst of a race across the globe, Conner just confides in his friend about his pain over his recent breakup with Wonder Girl.
The ending of the race is a cop-out, which we’ve all come to expect, but this may be the biggest one yet. (Spoiler: somehow, Krypto crosses the finish line first and everyone accepts it, even though it feels as legit as Harry Potter’s name being tossed in the Goblet of Fire.) Still, if you’re thinking of reading this book, the Lemire run is extremely worthy of your time – it’s just that this issue, by itself, may not be quite so satisfying without the context of the rest of the run.
Finally, we’ve got the bizarre little one-shot Supergirl: The Fastest Women Alive, a special comic from 2019 presented by Snickers. Very, very much by Snickers. There is Snickers branding on nearly every page, and even the captions that tell you where the racers are at the moment are branded in the Snickers logo font. The message, just in case you missed it, is: Snickers.
Did we mention it’s presented by Snickers?
For the first half of the issue, though, this is actually a decent enough race between Supergirl and Jesse Quick. It uses most of the tropes of the previous races, such as it being a charity race, Supergirl not being allowed to fly, and so forth. The turn comes halfway through, though, when the racers discover that the Parasite has attacked the arena where the race began and will end, and he’s already got Superman and the Flash on the ropes. The lightning ladies rush back to save the day, but how can they possibly get the energy they need to overload and defeat the energy-sucking Parasite?
HOW CAN THEY FIND THE NECESSARY ENERGY?
SNICKERS? GOT A SUGGESTION?
This story is a full-issue equivalent of the delightfully goofy old Hostess comic book ads, only way less subtle.
I kinda love it.
And thus, friends, concludes Superman Vs. The Flash week. My feelings haven’t really changed, I must say. In any contest of speed between a Super of any stripe and a Flash by any name, the Flashes should always be the ones to come out on top. Sorry, Superman, but it’s their whole entire deal. You can’t really compete.
But this week has proven it’s fun to watch you try anyway.
Ah, Valentine’s Day: the day to show your affection to the one you love, or perhaps the ones if you’re Nick Cannon or somebody. The day that we celebrate passion and romance. The day that everyone who is not, currently, in a relationship does their absolute best to ignore, because those of us who DO have cause to celebrate on this day can – admittedly – be absolutely sickening at times. And most importantly, it’s the day where we feature Part Two of “Playing Favorites With Love Stories.” Just like last week with Part One, I took to social media and asked my friends to throw out suggestions for love story categories to talk about, and this week I’m going to tackle a few more. Grab your sweetie and pull up a chair – there’s some heart-shaped excellence coming your way.
Superhero Love
Eric LeBlanc asked me for my “favorite superhero movies that are just love stories with violence.” That’s an interesting way to phrase it, particularly since a lot of traditional love stories are also “love stories with violence,” but I’m up for the challenge. I have, after all, watched a superhero movie or two in my time, and because of that I think I am uniquely qualified to declare that the best superhero love story ever to grace the silver screen is probably 1980’s Superman II.
Nothing says romance like fighting three evil prison escapees and crashing through a Coke sign.
Part of this, I concede, may be recency bias. I watched Superman II again only a few weeks ago as part of my ongoing Year of Superman project (with new posts every Wednesday – tell your friends!) so it’s still pretty fresh in my mind, but it’s perhaps my favorite depiction of the Superman/Lois Lane relationship on screen. The whole film hinges on the idea that Superman, upon having Lois finally prove his dual identity, decides that he wants to be with her and that the only way to do so is to give up his powers. As it turns out, though, super-timing was not one of his abilities. No sooner has he abdicated his super-ness than he gets his clock cleaned by a jerk in a diner and finds out – oh yeah – while he was off in the arctic circle becoming human again, General Zod and his cronies have escaped the Phantom Zone and are about to take over the world.
Much as I love the Zod stuff, the Superman and Lois relationship is the soul of this movie, and so much credit needs to go to Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder for making it work. Kidder’s fire and verve absolutely make it believable that this is a woman a man of steel would fall in love with, would be willing to sacrifice everything to be with, and that steers us into the tragedy of it all when he is forced to conclude that the world needs Superman more than Superman needs love. Your heart breaks for the both of them, even if the film kind of chickens out at the end and he uses the heretofore-unknown “super kiss” power to make her forget the whole thing. The super kiss is really the only part of the film that bothers me, but it’s not nearly enough to knock this excellent film from its perch at the top of the mountain.
Next is perhaps an odd choice, but I’ve always been fond of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, the musical that came about as a result of a 2008 writer’s strike. Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) is an aspiring supervillain trying to crack into the big leagues when he finds himself falling for a girl he meets doing laundry (played flawlessly by Felicia Day). Unfortunately for him, her life is saved by his arch-enemy, the superhero Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion), who – as heroes go – is way less Superman and way more Guy Gardner. Apropos, I know.
The supervillain musical Joker: Folie à Deux WISHES it could be.
I absolutely love this one. The songs are catchy, the three main actors are at the top of their form, and the conclusion is suitably heartbreaking. And it nicely meets Eric’s qualification of “a love story with violence.”
Not every superhero love story has to end sadly, though, although it seems like most of the really good movies do. But I don’t want to leave you utterly bereft of happy endings, so even though Eric specifically asked for movies, I’m going to throw out a comic book recommendation, one that I’ve been a fan of for many years: Thom Zahler’s delightful series Love and Capes.
Pictured: Love. Also pictured: Capes.
This story, described by Zahler as a romantic situation comedy, focuses on Abby Tennyson, a bookshop owner who is stunned, in the first issue, when she learns that her boyfriend Mark is actually the world’s most powerful superhero, the Crusader. Abby and Mark have one of the healthiest relationships in the entirety of superhero comics, and the way we watch their relationship grow and develop over the years – through dating, marriage, and parenthood – is the absolute rebuttal to any comic book writer who argues that there are no interesting stories to tell about a couple in a happy relationship. (Lookin’ – as always – as YOU, Spider-Man editorial office.) This series is a favorite of mine not only because it’s a great story (it is) but because it enjoys the rare honor of being one of the only comic books that I’ve ever discovered upon a recommendation from Erin, my own girlfriend (at the time, now wife). In fact, she and I were even guests at Mark and Abby’s wedding. No, really.
I was mostly there to check out the venue.
Platonic Love
Chance Simoncelli suggested the best “platonic” love stories. I really like this suggestion – it seems like much of the media is focused on romantic love, which is fine, but they zero in on it to the expense of every other type of relationship. It’s like the entertainment world doesn’t seem to grasp the concept that sometimes people are just friends, with no romantic connection, but that doesn’t mean their love isn’t deep and true and sincere. This is one of the reasons I hate fanfiction, if we’re being perfectly blunt.
But on rare occasions, they do manage to get it right, and share with us a deep, committed bond between two people that never indulge in any hanky-panky, and I think those stories should be celebrated. One of my favorites comes from the TV show Parks and Recreation. Nick Offerman’s Ron Swanson and Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope couldn’t possibly be more different. Leslie is a chipper, enthusiastic-to-a-fault government employee who sees working in public service as the highest calling there is, whereas Ron is a grouchy straw Libertarian who sees all government work as inherently useless and wants nothing more than for everybody to leave him alone. Somehow, they’re the best of friends. Their devotion to one another is so powerful that in the final season of the show, after a time jump, the two of them have a wedge driven between them and it’s as horrifying and shocking as it would have been had either of them broken up with their respective spouses. The episode where the two of them reconnect and reconcile their differences is one of the most beautiful and sweetest in the entire series, as their bonds are once again forged over a mutual affection, respect, and a love for breakfast foods.
On any given day, I am both of these people.
There’s also a great example from the show Friends. First of all, I think it’s time we all admit that, in terms of friendship, Joey Tribbiani was the MVP of that show. The whole thesis of the series is that these six people are one another’s found family, but the level of loyalty and devotion that Matt LeBlanc’s character shows to each of the other five at various points in the series is above and beyond, and I don’t know if he gets enough credit for that. The late-seasons dalliance with Rachel aside (we can all agree that was Friends’ worst plotline, right?), he is the staunchest of the group.
And the best such relationship, I think, is the one he has with Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe. With the other four pairing off and going through assorted romantic shenanigans of one sort or another for the entire run of the series, these two are simply friends through thick and thin. There were occasional episodes where we saw some flirtatious banter between them, and once in a while they would allude to the notion of them hooking up somewhere down the line, but at no point does it ever come across as a serious intention. Frankly, although they both enjoy playing the game with one another, I think Joey and Phoebe love each other TOO much to ever get physical, because they already know their relationship is perfect the way it is. In fact, she may be the one woman on the entire planet that Joey feels that way about, and if that’s not special I don’t know what is.
Somehow the womanizer and the former mugger were the wholesome, beating heart of the show.
I also need to give a little credit to Disney here. True, they have done as much to push romantic love as being the apex of a relationship as any studio on the planet, but there was one time they deliberately steered away from that and they nailed it, and I of course am talking about Frozen. It’s a Disney Princess movie from the outset and, as such, people expect it to follow the usual tropes of a Disney Princess movie, including the damsel in distress and the handsome prince. And for much of the film it does use these tropes, including Anna being afflicted by an errant piece of magic that threatens to turn her into ice if the spell is not broken by an act of true love.
I know it’s fashionable to hate on Frozen and call it overrated now, and I’ll be the first to admit that the hype train it rode for many years went a lot farther than it probably should, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the filmmakers were brilliant in how they subverted the expectations of a Princess movie. While Anna is looking for “true love” to cure her, her handsome prince reveals himself to be an opportunistic villain who was only planning to marry her to move himself into position to become king. If she dies, all the better for him. In the end, though, Anna IS saved by an act of true love: not by her false fiance Hans, nor even from the stout-hearted Kristoff, whose love for Anna IS pure. Anna is saved by her sister Elsa, stepping in to defeat Hans at the last second and breaking her own spell. The love between the two sisters is at the heart of the film, far more than Anna’s love triangle, and that makes it a unique and special film in the Disney canon. And I don’t care HOW sick you are of hearing “Let It Go,” it gets my respect for that.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” “Yes, those fanfiction writers are messed up.”
Finally, of course, we can’t forget the greatest platonic love story of all: a story not between man and woman, not between friends, not between family, but between the sole survivor of a dying world and his appetite.
Project ALF.
The true platonic love affair is between me and this joke.
Will They/Won’t They?
Finally, Duane Hower asks for the best “Will they/Won’t they?” in geek culture, “and why is it Buffy and Spike?” Ah yes, the “Will they/Won’t they?” It’s the trope that fuels a million stories and makes half of them frustrating. The truth is, any time they try a “Will they/Won’t they?” the storytellers are playing with fire. Setting up a WTWT is incredibly easy: get two characters, hint at a degree of attraction between them, and then make the audience shriek uncontrollably as you refuse to settle the question. But concluding that arc in a satisfying way is a lot harder than it seems on the surface. If you resolve it too quickly you give up fuel for future stories. If you play it out too long, the audience gets frustrated. If you resolve it at exactly the right time, half the audience will hate the outcome, no matter what the outcome happens to be. Duane mentions Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I concede that it’s a pretty good example, as far as WTWT go, but mostly because of how adroitly the storytellers managed the timing.
There are tons of classic examples: Pam and Jim from The Office, Sam and Diane (and later, Sam and Rebecca) from Cheers, Ted and Robin from How I Met Your Mother? and so forth, and while some of them navigated the minefield better than others, I think the relationship between Janine and Gregory in Abbott Elementary is one of the better examples. In the first episode, Gregory joins the Abbott Elementary faculty and we quickly see sparks between him and Janine, who happens to be in a long-term relationship. In truth, for the first few episodes Abbott adheres so closely to the format of The Office that it’s almost uncanny. But the relationship between the two of them changes and takes unexpected turns over the next few seasons. Relationships change, feelings change, and while the attraction between them remains undeniable, you’ve got a case here where you genuinely aren’t sure which way they’re going to take the characters. In fact, a late season three episode sets up things to put the kibosh on them once and for all just before the season finale changes everything. One of the reasons I think Abbott is the best comedy currently on television is because of its hilarious and shockingly realistic depiction of a school setting, but the Janine/Gregory relationship is a close second.
Fun fact: putting this much adorable in a single room is considered a health hazard in 29 states.
But perhaps the greatest example of a WTWT in the history of television comes from the brilliant, magnificent, legendary, and frankly underrated sitcom Newsradio. This 90s show about the staff of a New York radio station is one of the smartest and funniest television shows in the entire history of the medium, with whip-smart writing and a cast that performs their roles with such ease, grace, and humor that watching it can almost make you forget what a dumpster fire of a human being Andy Dick turned out to be. As the show was in development, though, the network (NBC) insisted that they include a WTWT among the cast. That was absurd, the writers said. That wasn’t the show they were doing! That wasn’t the story they were trying to tell! This was supposed to be a workplace comedy, not a romcom!
“Give us a WTWT,” NBC intoned deeply, whilst carefully counting their Seinfeld money.
“FIIIIIIIIIINE,” the Newsradio writers replied, tweaking the first episode to set up a WTWT between Dave Foley and Maura Tierney’s characters. “Happy now?”
“Delighted,” NBC said, lighting a cigar on fire with a $100-bill with Jason Alexander’s signature on it.
And then the Newsradio writers took their mandated WTWT and resolved it in the SECOND EPISODE by hooking up the two characters officially.
“Look, we’re not Mulder and Scully, let’s just get on with it.”
Newsradio is one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, but the way they thumbed their nose at the network may be their crowning achievement.
Thus concludes PLAYING FAVORITES WITH LOVE STORIES, friends. I hope you all have a fantastic Valentine’s Day. Spend it with someone you love, fire up some of these stories we’ve mentioned, and remember that Phil Hartman was a genius
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. Did you know that Jon and Liz the veterinarian finally hooked up in the Garfield comic strip? No really, it’s true. Just throwing that out there to remind you that there’s hope for everybody.
Last week, as I alluded to in that blog post, was a chaotic mess for me that left me a little bit of a wreck. I’m a little better as I write this, on the afternoon of Feb. 5, but the things that have been dragging me down since last Friday haven’t subsided entirely. As a result, I didn’t have time to really read or watch anything Superman-related today, and for a moment I was afraid my streak would end in only week six. But on the way home from work, an angel appeared in my podcatcher app in the form of good old Michael Bailey.
Wed., Feb. 5
Podcast:It All Comes Back to Superman Series 2, episode 8, “Moving Kryptonian Images Part One: Superman and the Mole Men”
Notes: Like myself, Michael’s got plans leading up to the release of the Gunn Superman movie, including an examination of 25 different feature films starring the Man of Steel, and he starts with this one. I’m not going to attempt any sort of recap when I listen to these episodes – in fact, in the future I may have no notes at all – but I really do enjoy them and I’m glad I’ve got him riding shotgun while I drive to keep my mind on the good things in this world…specifically those that come in the form of a strange visitor from another planet.
Thur., Feb. 6
I WISH they made these toys.
Comic: Super Powers Vol. 4 #1
Notes: It’s a busy week for me, so once again, I need something quick. The Super Bowl is coming to New Orleans this Sunday and my son is a ravenous football fan. While there’s no way we could possibly afford a trip to the Big Game, the NFL Fan Experience they’re hosting at the New Orleans Convention Center is considerably more affordable, and something Eddie will have fun with, so after school on Thursday we hustle him off to New Orleans for a few hours of gridiron fun. It’s a great time, but it does limit my Superman reading time to finding a quick comic on the DC Infinite app to read before bed. The winner is Super Powers #1from 2016. This comic is by the amazing team of Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani, and is set in the same world as some of their other kid-friendly comics Tiny Titans and Superman Family Adventures. In this first issue, Batman has mysteriously gone missing from Gotham City and it’s up to Superman and Wonder Woman to find him.
Art and Franco have a wonderful sense of humor and a delightfully free style that makes for some of the best comics for kids published in decades. And like most TRULY great works for children, it’s still fun for adults to read. The stories often have silly angles and even the occasional euphemism for some of the more adult concepts, but in a winking-at-the-camera way. This series was one of the few times they tried an extended storyline rather than a one-off or a series of shorts in a single issue, and I’m going to have to make it a point to finish the rest of the six-issue series this weekend.
Fri., Feb. 7
Comics:Super Powers Vol. 4 #2-6
Notes: Today I decided to finish up the Art Baltazar and Franco Aurelani miniseries I started yesterday. I read this comic when it was released back in 2016, but it turned out to have far more Superman relevance to it than I remembered. For instance, I’d forgotten that in this very kid-friendly continuity, Jor-El and Lara are alive and living in Kandor. And, in fact, in this series they give Superman a baby brother, Prym-El…who, as it turns out, also has plenty of connection to one of Jor-El’s other “children,” the computer intelligence Brainiac. The Brainiac story actually works really well. It’s presented in a format that is intended for children, obviously, but if you took the bare bones of the plot and re-told it for an adult audience it would work perfectly well. On the other hand, that would cause us to lose a lot of the tongue-in-cheek humor and delightful continuity gags intended for the older people who they knew were reading the books as well. After all, there aren’t a lot of elementary school kids who read this book and would have gotten the joke about “Superboy Prym.” (If you don’t get the joke either, “Prym” is pronounced with a long “y”.)
I really do love this creative team. They’ve done some of the funniest and most welcoming comics for young readers this century, and that’s something we can always use more of. They still dip their toes back into the DC Universe occasionally, although they spend more time these days doing their own thing or working on other properties, such as some of the recent graphic novels based on the works of Dr. Seuss, but I will always welcome their return to the Superman family.
Sat., Feb. 8
The worst part is that the Daily Planet’s health insurance defines this as a preexisting condition.
Comics:Superman #250, Superman #281.
Notes: Coming down from a stressful week, I decided to spend this afternoon finally reading the two new Superman comics I picked up at Fan Expo New Orleans back in Week Two. First up was the double-sized anniversary issue, Superman #250 from 1972. In this issue, Superman faces the Terra-Man, a villain that the narration has the audacity to refer to as “the most dangerous man in the world.” Although to be fair, he DOES almost manage to take out Superman with a device that causes the man of steel to get older every time he uses his powers. But still, Terra-Man has never quite made the upper echelon of Superman foes – the idea of a cowboy riding a flying horse and using high-tech weapons was maybe a wee bit too “high concept” to really catch on. And the end of the issue doesn’t really help. If you don’t mind spoilers for a 50 year old comic, here goes: Superman realizes that since using his powers makes him older, NOT using them will make him young again. This is an utterly ludicrous supposition and there’s no reason to assume that such a thing would be true, which makes it even more infuriating that it works. Even sillier is the notion that, once he’s young again, the mark that Terra-Man put on him to cause the aging just…vanishes. This is why you’re a D-list villain, Terra-Man. Stuff like this.
But if you really wanna talk silly, let’s look at Superman #281 from 1974. This is the first appearance of Vartox, a character who – like Terra-Man – never quite cracked the A-list, but also has had a bit of a lingering fan base, which I think is mostly attributable to his ludicrous costume, clearly inspired by the Sean Connery movie Zardoz, which came out earlier that year. HE’s not even a villain, actually. He’s a superhero from another planet, who comes to Earth when his wife mysteriously dies. Turns out her “bionic twin” – an exact doppleganger on Earth – was murdered, which somehow triggered her death as well. He comes to Earth to catch the man who killed the twin (and, consequently, Vartox’s wife), but he knows he’ll have to reckon with Superman.
He’s got to be a villain. No hero would wear that vest.
Why the hell doesn’t it ever occur to these aliens to just ask Superman for help instead of coming up with some goofy, ludicrous, Fawlty Towers-level scheme?
Still, silly as he is, there’s something fun about Vartox, and it’s nice that he hasn’t been totally forgotten.
Sun., Feb. 9
Graphic Novel: Superman: Panic in the Sky (Reprints Action Comics #674-676, Adventures of Superman #488-490, Superman Vol. 2 #65-67, & Superman: The Man of Steel #9-11)
Comic Book: Justice League Spectacular #1
Everyone’s invited to this party!
Notes: As I mentioned a few weeks, ago I became a regular reader of the Superman comics with the Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite storyline. That made Panic in the Sky, which came out a little more than a year later, my first “major” event story. It’s wild to look back at it now – eight issues, entirely self-contained in the Superman comics. If a story like this were attempted today, it would be its own miniseries with dozens of spinoffs and crossovers into every other DC title, but this compact little story was handled with ease. There was even room, in the most recent graphic novel edition, to add the next four issues of the weekly Superman books, which dealt with the fallout in various ways.
In this storyline, Brainiac has gained control of Warworld, as well as taken over the mind of the alternate universe refugee called Matrix, who also became this era’s Supergirl. Along with Draaga and Maxima (both of whom we last saw during the Krypton Man story), Brainiac set out to use Warworld to conquer the Earth. At the time, following the “Breakdowns” storyline, the Justice League was disbanded, so Superman put together a team of all the heroes of Earth (or at least the most popular ones they could get editorial permission to use over this two month period) to drive them off.
I have a deep affection for this story for several reasons. First of all, it was my first “big” storyline as a Superman reader, and it was also my first exposure to some of the lesser-known DC characters that would eventually grow to be favorites of mine. It was also pretty unique in that it brought Superman to the forefront of the superhero community, something that wasn’t being done much at the time. This was early 1992, and ever since John Byrne revamped Superman in 1987, he hadn’t been incorporated much into the greater DCU. He made appearances, especially in big crossover events, but he had never been a member of the Justice League and he didn’t have the close ties to Batman and Wonder Woman that are considered so fundamental to the character today.
This was a rare story, to see him step up and take command of so many heroes. It’s also odd that the first person he recruited to defend Earth was, of all people, Deathstroke. Deathstroke had mostly been a villain in the Teen Titans’ book, but he’d become popular enough to warrant his own title and, as happened to most villains who got their own book, there was a bit of an effort being made to rehabilitate him into more of an anti-hero. It worked to some extent, but eventually he broke bad again, and frankly, it works better for him.
Reading it again today, it feels a little off in some places. Some of the various characters don’t always sound quite like themselves, which was no doubt a consequence of the four writers playing Round Robin with them. Another such result was that it was hard to keep track of the minor characters – people like Valor, Starman, and Dr. Fate would appear in the invasion force on Warworld without having appeared previously or having been set up as part of the story at all. But damn, it was fun to see artist Jon Bogdanove do his best C.C. Beck impression whenever he got to draw Captain Marvel.
Then there’s this one…
The weirdest thing, though, is the Supergirl/Draaga relationship. In the first chapter, Draaga battles a Supergirl who is still wearing Superman’s form. As soon as she becomes herself again, Brainiac takes over her mind, and he maintains that hold for several issues. Then, once she’s free of Brainiac’s control, she’s apparently in love with Draaga. When did this happen? When did this relationship develop? And did they have to save the entire thing for the issue where Draaga makes a heroic sacrifice, giving his life to save her? I don’t mind the heroic sacrifice bit, it just feels like it comes out of nowhere. Although it does nicely set up how the naive Matrix was the sort to really fall into her emotions, which would become pretty important to her character in upcoming storylines involving Lex Luthor.
There are a few major components to this story that make it pretty significant, historically speaking. First, this was the story where Matrix/Supergirl finally came to Earth permanently and joined the Superman supporting cast, pretty much until Peter David launched her own ongoing title a few years later. Second, this is the story that broke the post-Crisis Superman of his “loner” status. Not long after this, he was part of the re-formed Justice League in the Justice League Spectacular one-shot (which I also read today, for funsies) where he’d stay until his battle with Doomsday.
There’s one last bit that’s not so much a significant fact as an amusing footnote. In the climactic battle, just before he’s defeated in Superman #66, Brainiac launches a device of some sort into Earth’s atmosphere. Several months later, when the Death of Superman storyline was announced, that issue got a temporary spike in popularity as speculators (they’re not a new phenomenon, folks) began to theorize that the probe was the point of origin for Doomsday, which no doubt would make that a super valuable book in the future. It wasn’t a bad theory, if not for the fact that anybody who read the VERY NEXT ISSUE (Superman #67) already knew EXACTLY what the probe was, a weapon to scourge a planet if Warworld was defeated, and that probe was beaten just 30 real-world days after it launched. It’s so important to read EVERYTHING, people.
As a storyline, Panic in the Sky has a few rough edges, but it’s an adventure I still think mostly holds up.
Mon., Feb. 10
Comics:DC Power: Rise of the Power Company #1 (Steel Cameo), Justice League America #61-64
Okay, I know I’ve seen this one before.
Notes: The world in general needs more John Henry Irons. He only has one quick scene in the DC Power special, but it seems that DC is planning to bring back the Power Company in a larger way. As this scene shows he’s got a relationship with Josiah Power, I’m hoping that when that “big way” hits, Steel has a big role to play in it.
I also continued reading Superman’s time in the Justice League in the 90s. That wasn’t originally on my bingo card, but reading the Justice League Spectacular issue yesterday made me want to continue. In these first four issues, Dan Jurgens decided to get classic, bringing in some old Justice League foes in the form of Weapons Master and Starbreaker. Jurgens, who was writing and drawing both this book and Superman at the time, faced an interesting challenge with this. You see, in this Post-Byrne universe, Superman had never been a member of the Justice League before, however, Jurgens was referenced old Justice League stories in which Superman had played an active part. He sidestepped it by having Superman refer to “one of the times I helped the old Justice League.” It’s not the worst way to avoid the issue, mind you. In the early days of the comic book, despite being full members, Superman and Batman didn’t always play an active part. They would be missing for an issue or most of an issue, giving space to the less-popular members, and occasionally pop in for a finale. In at least one issue that I’ve read this year, Superman shows up on the last page and the League starts to tell him about their latest adventure. So saying that he just “helped” the League a lot in the old days doesn’t really take a ton of mental gymnastics to accept.
On the other hand, both in Panic in the Sky and in these issues, a big deal is made out of the fact that Superman has always been a loner. He’s not a team player, they say, he’s someone who is most effective flying solo (excuse the pun). So how do you explain the fact that he was “helping” the Justice League every other month in the old days?
The character stuff in these issues is better once you manage to ignore the continuity snarls. There are a couple of major sources of conflict for Superman outside of the villains, both of which help form the shape of the book. Superman does not get along with Maxwell Lord, who seems like a smug opportunist even before the later Infinite Crisis turn the character would take. As Max is the one who first assembled this version of the League, he thinks that makes him in charge, a stance that Superman staunchly opposes. Similarly, he clashes with the League’s current Green Lantern, Guy Gardner. Part of the clash is because Guy, too, thinks he should be in charge, but even moreso, Guy is angry because his on-again off-again girlfriend Ice clearly has a crush on Superman. The Guy/Ice relationship was always an odd one. It only really makes sense in an “opposites attract” context, and works best in more of a humorous book, like the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League book was before Jurgens took over and it became more of a straight superhero series. After that, having Ice together with a boorish lout like Guy didn’t really click.
Not to say I dislike Guy. The character is entertaining as anything – he is the living embodiment of “He’s an asshole, but he’s OUR asshole,” and the way he clashes with Superman in these issues feels perfectly in character for both of them at the time. The fact that Guy is going to be in the James Gunn movie, where he’ll be played by Nathan Fillion and, evidently, drawn by Kevin Maguire. There’s been nothing to indicate that Ice will be in the movie, of course, but I wonder if this is the dynamic Gunn is planning between the two characters. It could be a lot of fun if it is.
TV Episode: Superman and Lois, Season Two, Ep. 5, “Girl…You’ll Be a Woman, Soon.”
Notes: Lana’s daughter (and Jordan’s girlfriend) Sarah has her quinceanera, which is majorly ruined when Sarah’s dad makes a confession. Jonathan is juicing. Bizarro kills a character who got her name from the comics, but not much else. This is another episode that feels more like a CW soap opera than – as so many of my friends have told me – the best Superman ever. To be fair, when they say that they’re talking about Tyler Hoechlin’s performance and not the show itself, and this episode is a little light on Hoechlin. I still feel like the series is in a sophomore slump. I’m not giving up though, guys. Promise.
Tues., Feb. 11
Comics: Justice League America #65-68
James Gunn, take note…
Notes: I try not to pay too much attention to criticism for the upcoming Superman movie, mostly because I find that anybody who spends that much criticizing something they haven’t even watched yet is a troll, but there’s one element in particular that comes to mind as I read these issues of Justice League America: people worried that the film is introducing too many superheroes too fast. We know for certain that at least four other characters (not counting the usual Superman supporting cast) appear in the movie: Mr. Terrific, Metamorpho, Hawkgirl, and Guy Gardner. Some people seem to think that the movie will spend a lot of time on them to the detriment of Superman himself.
Let me explain why that’s not a logical argument: are you equally worried about the fact that the cast includes Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, Cat Grant, and Steve Lombard?
The way I see it, our hero has two workplaces: as Clark Kent he works at the Daily Planet and as Superman he works with the Justice League, and while I don’t want any of those characters to be cardboard, none of them require an entire movie’s worth of development either. If Hawkgirl doesn’t have any more screen time than Jimmy, I don’t think that’s going to be a bad thing.
I bring this up because I get a similar feeling reading these issues of Justice League America. Dan Jurgens took over after the legendary Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis era of the book and made it more of a traditional superhero comic. The result is that Superman himself is mostly a side character. We spend a lot of time on the returning characters (Guy, Fire, Ice, Blue Beetle, and Booster Gold). A lot of the focus also falls on two of the new members of the League: the enigmatic Bloodwynd, whom Beetle becomes obsessed with investigating, and Superman’s former foe Maxima, who is trying to rehabilitate herself on Earth after the loss of her homeworld. Superman shows up, but for the most part he’s there to clash with Guy and Max and give Ice someone to moon over. He doesn’t even appear at all in issue #67, and when #68 begins the rest of the team is stomping around Metropolis on a kaiju-sized Guy Gardner ring construct trying to hunt him down because he never bothered to pick up his JLA signal device.
All of this makes it even more baffling when you realize the ten issues collected in the Superman and the Justice League America graphic novel (the Spectacular one-shot and issues #60-68) are pretty much his entire tenure with the team, because you know what happens in issue #69?
Doomsday happens.
I remember when these books came out. A huge deal was made of the fact that Jurgens was taking over the comic and that Superman was joining, so the fact that his tenure ended with his death about a year later is really bizarre. Jurgens himself didn’t stick with the book much longer after the Death of Superman storyline, and I have to wonder what the internal discussions were at the time. I can’t imagine the death had been mapped out at the time that the decision was made to add Superman to the JLA, so what happened when they realized he was going to be bumped from the book by virtue of not being alive?
Reading these issues like this, collected together for the first time in many years, it really feels like Jurgens was building up a lot of story points that he never got to resolve. I love the original Death and Return of Superman storyline. I think it’s an epic story and one of the most important touchstones in the character’s history. But I really wish I could get a VPN that lets me access the DC Universe Infinite app from an alternate universe where Superman wasn’t killed, the Jurgens Justice League run lasted longer, and these stories unspooled as originally intended.
Next week, it’s another theme! It’s time for Superman Vs. the Flash! I’m going to try to read and watch as many of the races between the Man of Steel and the Scarlet Speedster as I can find, and if there’s one in particular you want me to cover – either in comics or TV – make sure you let me know in the comments or in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!
It’s been a while, but it’s time once again for Playing Favorites! Yes, Playing Favorites, that Geek Punditry mini feature in which I throw out a category and my pals on social media suggest related topics wherein we pick some of the best of the best. With Valentine’s Day looming, this week I asked people to share ideas for love story topics. So grab that special someone and let’s get to it!
Bad Choices
Jeff Edwards asked for love stories where it’s clear that the people involved made the wrong choice. It’s a funny idea, because I’m sure we can all think of at least one movie where we’ve walked away saying something like, “What the hell did he SEE in her?” And as far as I’m concerned the absolute apex of this trope is from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
No, I didn’t expect to be writing about Lord of the Rings this week either, but here we are.
Now I love these movies. I think they are masterpieces, and I respect that Peter Jackson didn’t play all fast and loose with canon like SOME fantasy filmmakers I could mention. But if there’s one thing I simply will never understand, it’s why Aragorn would choose Arwen over Eowyn.
Seriously, why is this even a contest?
Sure, Liv Tyler is a classical beauty, but even 20 years ago I would have climbed over her and an entire briar patch to get to Miranda Otto. Nor is it just a matter of looks. Arwyn has that elvish grace and delicacy that makes you feel like you’re embracing a porcelain doll, and I don’t care for that. Eowyn is strong and brave, she killed the Witch King with the power of semantics, and I hear she’s doing her best to get better at making stew. She’s got it all.
In second place is a tie between every story ever written in which Archie Andrews chooses Veronica Lodge over Betty Cooper. I get it. Archie, Betty, and Veronica are the eternal love triangle, and we all know that there’s never going to be a TRUE resolution. They’ve had attempts over the years, but it never sticks. But there is a word that the French have for people who prefer Veronica over Betty: wrongo.
Frankly, they can both do better.
I don’t want this to sound like I hate Veronica, mind you. I think she gets a bit of a bad rap. There have been numerable stories that have shown that, underneath her rich girl veneer, she has a good heart. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s spoiled and selfish, and that Archie is dazzled by her beauty. Betty, on the other hand, is entirely loyal and devoted to him, and loves him without reservation, whereas Veronica on many occasions has been known to toss him aside at a moment’s notice. In fact, that’s probably WHY Archie goes for Veronica – because she’s less attainable.
What an incredibly stupid reason. What an incredibly realistic reason.
As if that weren’t enough, Archie ignores the very sensible advice of his friends. I’m not saying that if my friends hadn’t liked Erin when I starting dating her that I would have ended the relationship, but at the very least it would have made me question what was up. True friends, people who honestly have your back, should be listened to, and Jughead has made it ABUNDANTLY clear over the years that he’s Team Betty. Archie. Archibald. Listen to your bro.
It’s a little easier to justify when you remember that Archie and the gang are all, in fact, teenagers, and as such he is even more inclined to make incredibly stupid choices than we males of the biologically adult variety. The characters aren’t ever going to grow up, but if they DID, I would like to think that Archie’s better judgment would finally kick in and he would see that the girl next door is the way to go, hopefully before Betty finally comes to HER senses and dumps his ass for Adam Chisolm.
Yes, as a matter of fact, I DO feel ways about things.
Finally, although this is not a hill that I personally am prepared to die on, my wife wishes me to share her sincere belief that, in West Side Story, Tony was an absolute idiot for going after Maria when Anita was, like, RIGHT THERE. This is true of both the original and the remake. This is even true of the older Rita Moreno IN the remake. I, on the other hand, just want to point out that West Side Story is a multiversal variant of Romeo and Juliet, and as such, pretty much everybody in that story makes nothing but bad choices all day and all night.
Electric Love
My uncle Todd Petit asked for the best love story involving a robot or cyborg, which is extremely specific, but that’s cool with me! I was a little hesitant to pick this one, though, mostly because in the Facebook comments several people already went straight to what I think is probably the best robot love story of all time.
Project ALF.
Ah, I’ve missed this stupid, stupid joke.
No, wait, I’m thinking of the best alien/feline love stories. Obviously, the best love story involving robots comes from the Pixar masterpiece WALL-E. I love this movie, and I assume pretty much everybody who has a soul also loves it, and perhaps the main reason is the deep, perfect, sincere love that is expressed in this film. WALL-E is a garbage robot; his job for centuries has been just to collect trash and compact it. There’s no emotional component to this. But after all these hundreds of years of solitude, he finds himself growing a personality – likes, dislikes, hobbies. He begins saving select items from the trash that he finds interesting and grows a little collection. He makes friends with a cockroach. He is mesmerized by the movie Hello, Dolly!
He even gave her flowers.
And then he meets EVE, a robot that is searching the dead Earth for signs that life can return, and it’s instant sparks. It’s like watching a busted down Ford Pinto fall in love with a sleek new electric hybrid vehicle (coming this fall in Cars 4!) but it WORKS. At first, EVE isn’t particularly impressed by WALL-E, but his sweetness, kindness, and courage melt her electronic heart. And perhaps the most amazing thing about it is that their entire relationship is almost completely wordless. Neither of them have any dialogue other than occasionally saying their names, but that doesn’t matter. By the end of this movie you are crying and cheering and imagining a new Earth populated by a slendering human population and all of WALL-E and EVE’s little robot babies.
That said, good on Pixar for resisting the urge to name him ADD-M.
As for other great robot love stories…well, the one that comes most clearly to mind is actually one of the most tragic, and it’s from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Like most Star Trek shows in the pre-modern era, this show changed and evolved considerably over its first few seasons. Perhaps the most visible change (other than Riker’s beard) was the departure of Denise Crosby, who played security chief Tasha Yar in season one. Crosby asked to be written out of the show, frustrated over the lack of attention and development her character was getting, and honestly, you can’t blame her. Go back and watch that first season again and you’ll see most of the writing did her no favors at all. But there is ONE element of her abbreviated story that stuck with the characters for all time, and that was her relationship with the android Data. The idea of Data is that he is a Pinocchio, a robot that looks almost human and that wants to be a real boy, if only he knew what emotions were.
She had an AI boyfriend BEFORE it was cool.
Data is my favorite Next Generation character, and in my top three of all Star Trek characters, and the reason is because of his emotional journey. The conceit was that, as an android, he desired the emotions he did not have, but even in that description you can see the contradiction. DESIRE is an emotion. If you HAVE no emotions, how can you DESIRE them? My read on Data, the way I feel about the character, is that he truly DID have emotions from the very beginning – he simply didn’t understand them, know how to process them, know how to define them, and therefore he BELIEVED he had none. After Tasha Yar is killed off, Data returns to her in his thoughts many times. For six seasons, then again 30 years later in the final season of Star Trek: Picard, it is Data that recalls Tasha more than anybody else, Data who brings her up, Data who reveals in that Picard episode that his memories of her are a core component of his personality matrix. The great legacy of Tasha Yar is the fact that, for the rest of his existence, poor Data has been mourning a woman he didn’t really understand he was in love with.
Sitcom Love
Rachel Ricks asks what I think is the best romance from a sitcom. That’s such a tricky one. There are a lot of great sitcom COUPLES – Bob and Linda Belcher, Herman and Lily Munster, and so forth – but if it’s a pairing that was already together when the show begins, I don’t think I can count them. To count it as a romance, I think we need to see the relationship blossom INTO love.
I also don’t really count those stories that end poorly or where the characters don’t really belong together. Sam and Diane on Cheers may be one of the all-time legendary sitcom couples, but they were utterly toxic to one another and never belonged together. Not to say that a love story HAS to have a happy ending (see what I said about Data), but if it’s a sitcom, I want something a bit more lighthearted.
So I’m gonna stick to the Cheersiverse and say one of my favorite sitcom romances is Niles and Daphne from Frasier. And it’s odd, because it started off as a pretty poor depiction of a relationship – when they meet, Niles is already married (to an utterly reprehensible woman who browbeats and emasculates him at every turn) and pines for Daphne in secret for years. She, meanwhile, is completely oblivious to his affection and treats him with the same love and care that she does Eddie the dog. Eventually, though, his marriage to Maris ends and the two of them find one another. The arc where they’re both with other people but wind up boomeranging into each other’s arms is one of my favorites, and from that point onward the love and affection between them elevates both characters.
Pictured: Steam Heat
There’s a relatively early episode where they have to pretend to be a couple as one of the screwball schemes that happened in every other episode of Frasier, and they play the part so convincingly that Niles almost believes she shares his affection until she compliments him on how good an actor he is. The heartbreak David Hyde Pierce conveys is palpable, and you die a little for him. But it’s bought back years later, when they get together and revisit that scene again, bringing it all full circle. I just love watching those two.
I also simply adore the relationship between Eleanor and Chidi on The Good Place. This show, about a self-proclaimed “Arizona dirtbag” (played in an adorable way that only Kristen Bell could have pulled off) who goes to Heaven due to what amounts to a clerical error, is one of the smartest and most emotionally profound sitcoms of the past decade, if not of all time. The relationship that develops between Eleanor and Chidi (William Jackson Harper) is one of the core elements of what makes it such a magnificent show. Eleanor has spent her life being self-centered and scuzzy, whereas Chidi’s life has been one of anxiety and apprehension. Eleanor acts without thinking, Chidi overthinks EVERYTHING to the point of catastrophe. The way each of them makes the other a better person is beautiful and heartwarming.
If this screenshot doesn’t make you want to cry, you did NOT watch the last episode.
There’s a lot more to The Good Place than I revealed in that little recap, because if you’ve never seen the show I don’t want to spoil any of the incredible twists and surprises that it includes, but go and watch it and tell me you’re not rooting for Eleanor and Chidi every step of the way.
Okay, folks, I think that’s going to bring us to the end of part one of “Playing Favorites With Love Stories.” There are still several great suggestions for topics, though, so I’m not done yet. Come back next Friday, Valentine’s Day, for part two. And until then, hey, share this with someone you love.
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. He maintains that the purest love story on TV is Gomez and Morticia Addams, but nobody asked about that, so he’s gonna drop it here.
As I approach the end of January, having finished up my first theme week, I find myself in a bit of a pickle in regards to what Superman content I want to read today. I’m not ready to kick off another theme week yet, but as I look over my (prodigious) list, I find that most of the stuff I’m particularly excited for is all suited for one of the theme weeks I’ve got planned for later in the year. So what, then, should I read on this random Wednesday? Never let it be said that I make things easy on myself. After some brief deliberation, I just scroll through the offerings on DC Universe Infinite until I settle, fairly randomly, on my first read for the week.
Wed., Jan. 29
Comics:Legends of the DC Universe #39, Superman Vs. Meshi #1
Notes: DC once published a title called Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, which featured a different creative team on every story arc telling stories that were not necessarily constrained by any particular continuity. There were some amazing stories told in this series, and they eventually spun the idea off into Legends of the DC Universe, a series which not only switched out the creative team with every story, but also the main character. This issue, a one-off by Danny Fingeroth and Randy Green, is called “Sole Survivor of Earth.”
Which, let’s face it, sounds like a depressing idea even if you WERE that sole survivor.
The issue begins with a very familiar scene – a scientist and his wife concerned about an upcoming disaster that could mean the end of life on their planet, a fear made even more prescient due to their infant son. But we aren’t on Krypton this time – we’re in Washington state. Superman, meanwhile, is at the Fortress of Solitude, building a memorial to his Kryptonian parents, when he gets a notification of a disturbance at the Earth’s core. The scientist, Dr. Balboa, has been studying the tremors and trying to stabilize them, only to accidentally trigger a sequence that could destroy the Earth. In desperation, he and his wife drop their son into a spaceship and blast him to another inhabited system. Why not? It worked for the last guy.
Except in this case, the “last guy” manages to save the world, stopping the destruction Balboa’s experiments caused but sapping a lot of his power anyway. When he tracks down Dr. Balboa, he learns about the child in the rocket and sets off to space, despite his own power loss, to find him.
This is a good issue. It’s never going to make a boxed set of the Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told (that reminds me, I’ve got to find and read my copy of The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told), but it’s a fun story that nicely turns the traditional Superman origin story backwards. There’s not a lot of tension, to be honest, because the outcome is never in any doubt. Nobody thinks that Balboa is actually going to blow up the Earth, and there’s no such thing as an infant in danger once Superman finds out that they need help. Their survival is pretty much guaranteed. But that doesn’t make it any less fun to look at things from a different point of view once in a while.
I also, somewhat randomly, went back and read Superman Vs. Meshi #1. This manga series was a part of a line of books that DC co-produced with Kodansha Comics. Joker: One Operation Joker was another, and the third, Batman: Justice Buster is still running. I always considered this the most bizarre of the three, though, because…well… it’s about Superman eating at Japanese chain restaurants.
You will believe a man can fry…rice. I’m sorry, that was terrible.
No. Really. That’s what this entire series is about. And it ran for 23 issues.
In this first issue, having been turned down by Lois for a lunch date, Clark whips over to Japan to indulge at an all-you-can eat yakitori joint. (For people, like myself, who have no idea what yakitori is, I Googled it – chicken skewers.) There’s a brief fight scene – a flashback as he remembers the villain he fought who on the day he first discovered the restaurant, but the bulk of the story is him ordering various meat skewers and gushing over how delicious they are. The writer, Satoshi Miyagawa, lovingly describes the food in a way that makes you wonder whether you’re reading a superhero comic book or a restaurant review, and at one point he’s so “overwhelmed by flavor” that the food literally activates his heat vision. He even goes on about how well the yakitori pairs with the soda he ordered.
Perhaps the weirdest thing is that none of this ever feels out of character. Would Superman pop over to Japan just for lunch? Yeah, I think he would. Would he have a running inner monologue about how good the food is and how it all comes together? People forget that Clark Kent is a writer, and like most writers I know, he probably has an inner monologue that never shuts the hell up. The only difference is that this is a scene that they would almost never write in an American comic because it’s too important that we get to the scene where he has to beat the crap out of Terra-Man or something.
This book is so WEIRD. But for some reason, I like it.
Thur., Jan. 30
TV Episodes: Superman and Lois Season 2, Ep. 1, “What Lies Beneath”
The “V” season, apparently.
Notes: The second season starts off right where season one ended – the rescue of Natasha Irons from John Henry’s original universe…but in her universe, this Natasha is the daughter of Lois Lane, something that causes issues for the both of them. Meanwhile, both Jordan and Jonathan are facing issues with their respective girlfriends, and the teenagers acting like teenagers have Lois and Clark butting heads with each other.
In my notes on the season one finale, I mentioned that this show was cut from a different cloth than other CW shows. As season two begins, though, it feels a bit more CW than ever. The clash between Lois and Clark over Jonathan’s behavior feels really forced – Lois is taking her frustrations out on Clark and he’s not acting with the degree of empathy one would expect from Superman. I’m actually starting to feel a little vibe from the Lois Lane miniseries that I read last week, where Lois acted inexplicably angry towards everyone. Eventually, she explains this as anger over her own mother leaving her family when she was young, and thinking she’s like that because she doesn’t feel anything motherly for Natasha…who, we have to stress here, is NOT her daughter. It doesn’t really make that much sense.
Natasha, meanwhile, is behaving even more irrational, taking her frustrations out on her father and somehow blaming him for the fact that the people who were her friends in her home dimension don’t know her here. Huh? In her case, at least, the frustration is more understandable, but the show skips over showing us why Natasha can’t seem to fit in. There’s an undercurrent of rage to this episode that’s baffling me.
Superheroes? Oh yeah, there’s a little of that. Superman learns that Sam Lane’s replacement at the DOD is using the X-Kryptonite recovered in season one to create his own little army, complete with his shield, which Superman isn’t happy about. I sense this is going to be the undercurrent for this season.
Comics: Superman: Lex Luthor Special #1, DC’s Lex and the City #1
I mean, not so’s you would notice, Lex.
Notes: I also read a couple of this weeks’ new comics today, one of which is more relevant than the others. The Superman: Lex Luthor Special is continuing the ongoing storyline from the main Superman comic and, in fact, is written by regular writer Joshua Williamson. In last fall’s DC All In Special, Darkseid was (seemingly) killed, but a new, alternate universe was forged, infused by Darkseid’s negative energy, as opposed to the more hopeful environment of the main DCU. In this issue, Mr. Terrific is trying to crack the secret of this other world (which readers will know is the setting of DC’s Absolute Superman and other titles), but the inherent darkness is too much. There’s only one man brilliant enough to understand this but with a mind that won’t be corrupted by it…unfortunately, Lex Luthor has had amnesia for some time, and has been trying to live down the dark deeds of his previous self.
This is hardly the first time we’ve seen Lex try to be a good guy, but much like we’ve seen Lois become Superwoman before, this series has been handling it well. It’s such a tight balancing act with Lex, as we see there is a goodness in him, but it’s usually overshadowed by his darker, more selfish nature. This issue seems to promise that story is moving forward now, with a final revelation that’s going to change things. I’m more interested in the flashbacks to Lex’s childhood that help paint who he really is. Good issue.
This week also gave us DC’s annual Valentine’s Day special this year titled DC’s Lex and the City. Luthor is the star of the title story in this anthology, in which a gossip columnist gets tangled in his web. It seems a little farfetched that Lex would be smitten with this woman, to be honest, but despite that It’s an okay story. It’s an okay anthology, with some stories being better than others, as is usually the case. If you’re planning to read this, the Mr. Freeze story is the prize of the bunch. Really, though, the main reason I’m even taking any notes about it is to point out that whoever is giving titles to DC’s holiday specials deserves a raise. Lex and the City is hilarious, and it goes right up there with the Christmas special Grifter Got Run Over By a Reindeer and the Halloween haunt Are You Afraid of Darkseid?, among others. I love it.
Fri., Jan. 31st
Comics: Day of the Krypton Man from Superman Vol. 2 #41, Adventures of Superman #464, Action Comics #651, Superman Vol. 2 #42, Adventures of Superman #465, Action Comics #652; Return of the Krypton Man from Superman: The Man of Steel #1, Superman Vol. 2 #57, Adventures of Superman #480, Action Comics #667
It’s so embarrassing when they mix up your suits at the cleaners.
Notes: Today I (again, randomly) decided to read the two storylines that most contributed to the creation of the Eradicator, one of the best concepts of the late 80s before he got a little watered down (as happens to a lot of great villains, am I right Venom, Carnage, Sabretooth, the Joker, and Doomsday?) I considered starting with the storyline that where he first showed up, but the Exile arc is pretty long and I’ve already decided to restrict myself to only two long story arcs this year, lest I have no room for anything else. So here’s the short version: while exiled in space, Superman found a Kryptonian artifact called the Eradicator which he brought back to Earth, where it constructed a citadel in the antarctic, which eventually became this continuity’s version of the Fortress of Solitude. As Day of the Krypton Man begins Draaga, an alien Superman encountered during that arc, is coming to Earth to get his revenge on the big guy. At the same time, that cosmic bruiser Lobo is heading to Earth to prove how tough HE is by throwing down with Supes. Also, Maxima of Almerac is once again zipping to Metropolis to convince Superman to become her mate. And if that wasn’t enough, when they get to Earth they all find a Superman that is becoming cold and aloof, ignoring his family and friends and approaching his task as Earth’s protector with stark logic rather than his trademark compassion. He’s firing people from his new job as editor at Newstime magazine, forgetting Lana Lang’s birthday, and spurning Lois when she tries to ask him out. This is, simply, neither the Superman nor the Clark Kent any of us know.
The Eradicator’s doing, as it turns out. The device is manipulating Superman, transforming him both mentally and physically into the “ideal” Kryptonian. His encounters with the three alien menaces all end in ways that would be out of character for Superman when he’s in his right mind, the fight with Draaga even transporting the top half of the Statue of Liberty to the moon. (Professor Hamilton’s fault – he was trying to help, but if Superman was himself he’d never have allowed the fight to happen at such a popular tourist attraction in the first place.) Eventually he makes the decision to abandon both of his identities, Superman AND Clark Kent, and live merely as Kal-El, a Kryptonian trying to bring Krypton to Earth.
I love the ending of this one. What ultimately snaps him out of it and allows him to break free of the Eradicator’s influence is concern for his parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent. When the Eradicator endangers the two of them, his reprogramming of Clark’s brain starts to break down and the real Superman comes back. Over the nearly 90 years that this character has existed, the degree to which he identifies as a Kryptonian has always varied wildly from one incarnation to another. This is the way I see him: he’s a human, a resident of the planet Earth, who happens to have a Kryptonian heritage. And when the two clash, it’s Clark Kent that wins out over Kal-El.
At the end of this story, Superman balls up the Eradicator and chucks it into the sun, thinking that’ll be the end of it, but about 15 months (and one engagement) later, he shows up again in the appropriately-titled Return of the Krypton Man storyline. The Eradicator returns, this time in a humanoid form, having used his time in the sun to begin the process of transforming it into a red dwarf to mimic the sun of Krypton. The next step in his plan is to terraform Earth itself into a replica of his dead planet. I may have mentioned a few weeks ago how tired I am of the “Kryptonian villain tries to turn Earth into Krypton” trope…well, I first read this story when it was originally published, long BEFORE I got tired of it, so it doesn’t bother me quite as much.
“And take THAT!”
Although this one is four issues instead of six, each of those four issues was giant-sized, so the page count works out about the same. Despite that, this one feels like a much quicker read. This storyline started with Superman: The Man of Steel #1, the book which gave the “Triangle Era” of Superman four titles and essentially making his adventures a weekly rather than a bunch of semi-related monthlies. With this storyline the creative teams were slightly shuffled as well. The Superman/Eradicator fight is ongoing, beginning at the end of Man of Steel #1 and continuing more or less uninterrupted throughout the other three issues, while a number of subplots are established or developed throughout the four issues. Among them we’ve got Perry White, on leave from the Daily Planet, trying to save his marriage; his temporary replacement laying off 10 percent of the newspaper staff, including Jimmy Olsen; Cat Grant finding herself the target of harassment from her boss while Jose Delgado (aka Gangbuster) looks after her son; and a terrorist group called Cerberus making attacks across Metropolis. All of these stories play out and develop as Superman and the Eradicator fight on Earth, off in space, and back to Earth again.
Superman wins, of course, with the help of Emil Hamilton. This is a decent story that eventually turns out to be setup for the Death and Return of Superman story, which I’ll probably be getting to in just a couple of weeks. I do wonder, though, if they were already planning that when this storyline was put to press or if it was just one of those moments of serendipity.
Sat., Feb. 1
TV Episode: Superman and Lois Season 2, Ep. 2, “The Ties That Bind”, Ep. 3, “The Thing in the Mines”, Ep. 4, “The Inverse Method”
Notes: It’s been a rough 24 hours for me, and I have to confess, I wasn’t certain I’d get around to Superman today. But I’ve gone this far and I don’t want to break the streak so early in the year, so I’m jumping into the next few episodes of Superman and Lois.
There’s a LOT going on in these few episodes. Clark is being plagued by strange visions and emotional outbursts that are making him dangerous. Trying to figure out what’s going on, he discovers that his newly-found brother has somehow regained his powers. Lois is being targeted by a podcast host who’s getting sources of hers from an old story about a cult to recant their testimonies to her. Jonathan suspects a kid at school is taking some sort of super-steroid. Jordan finds out his girlfriend had a fling at camp. Lana decides to run for mayor. John Henry and Natasha try to settle in on the Kent farm. This is the Dagwood Sandwich of CW superhero shows.
Not to say that it’s bad. There’s a lot of stuff going on, but the show doesn’t really have difficulty keeping everything straight. And it’s likely that, before the season is over, everything will come together like an episode of Seinfeld. It’s just weird to have so many different plots running at the same time, moving in and out of each other as the focus switches around the various characters involved.
The Lois plot, involving the cult, is the one that’s bothering me at the moment, mostly because once again we see Lucy Lane turning up as a punching bag. I don’t think we’ve seen Lucy before in this continuity (someone correct me if I’m wrong) but I immediately think of all the stuff that’s happened to the character in the comics over the years. She was blind for a while, she was a villain for a while, she gets dumped by Jimmy Olsen, she marries Ron Troupe and has a baby, but if I’m being perfectly honest I haven’t got the foggiest notion if that kid even still exists in the current DC Universe. And here she is, a former cult member who seems to be disavowing the sister that tried to save her. This isn’t really a knock on the show, it’s just telling a story, but I really dislike the trope of making a character the universe’s punching bag. (I know I’ve said it before, but it’s the reason I don’t enjoy most modern Spider-Man comics anymore.) I guess I’m just saying that I wish Lucy would get a break. Everybody needs one once in a while.
Nice little surprise towards the end of episode three, though: Superman battles the “Thing in the Mines” from the title, a powerful enemy in a suit of armor. When Superman cracks the armor open, though, he finds a distorted version of his own face staring back at him. Is this their version of Bizarro? And have they found a way to do the character that actually makes him menacing? Unlike Lucy, Bizarro is a character I can take either way, either as the ultra-powerful menace OR as the misunderstood giant who’s not actually out to HURT anyone, but is dangerous just by virtue of his power. If he’s a pure bad guy this time around, I’m okay with that.
Last thing I’ll point out is the increased focus on Natasha. I like how she’s turning around. She felt kind of whiny in that first episode this season, but she’s come back and shows a lot of wit and intelligence in these. I’m willing to chalk that first appearance to growing pains as the writers tried to figure out the character. I’m already liking her much more.
Episode four (I’m writing this as I watch and not going back to edit, just for clarity) seems to prove that I’m right. The Mine Guy looks about as Bizarro as you could get in live-action without getting goofy.
Sun., Feb. 2
Comic: DC Speechless #3
Silent but delightful.
Notes:DC Speechless was a short digital-first series by Gustavo Duarte. Each issue placed a different character in a wordless, comedic adventure of some sort. In this issue, Superman is forced to face down a couple of giant bugs attacking not only Metropolis, but also his wardrobe.
These silent issues are always a neat challenge for storytellers. Getting everything across through pictures only is a mark of a great artist, and Duarte is really good at telling a funny story. I enjoyed this quickie for what it is – simple, a little silly, and beautifully drawn.
Mon., Feb. 3
Comic Book: Superman #123
A psychologist could have a field day with this.
Notes: It’s time for a little more Silver Age silliness. Before the first appearance of Kara Zor-El, the Supergirl we all know and love, there was a proto “Super-Girl” that first appeared in this comic. An archeologist gives Jimmy Olsen a souvenir – an ancient totem that can ostensibly grant three wishes once a century. Jimmy, having earlier overheard Superman tell Lois that he could only ever marry a “super girl” who wouldn’t be in danger from his lifestyle, decides to wish up a prospective wife for him. This, friends, is why he’s called “Superman’s pal.”
Of course, things go wrong as the girl keeps blundering into things and screwing them up, because that’s apparently what super powered women do, until she finally sacrifices herself to save Superman from some Kryptonite. The funniest part is the panel where Jimmy uses the totem to wish her away before she dies, where he chokes and says, “We’ll never forget you,” then everbody promptly proceeded to never mention her again, not even a few months later when Superman met his cousin from Krypton who looked virtually identical to the girl that his best friend conjured up or him to marry. Wild time.
Ah, but the fun wasn’t over. Jimmy got THREE wishes from the totem, remember, so this is a full-length three-parter! In the second part of the story some crooks read the Daily Planet story outlining how Jimmy used the totem to create Super-Girl, then break into his apartment to steal the magic artifact and use it to take away Superman’s powers. That’s it. Not for powers of their own. Not to, I dunno, kill Superman. Not even just for a mountain of money so that the criminals don’t have to crime anymore. The underworld of Metropolis was really short-sighted at the time, weren’t they? Anyway, Superman and Jimmy use some stunts to mimic his powers and make the crooks think the wish didn’t worry so they’ll retrieve the totem, at which point he shows up, captures them, and has Jimmy cancel the wish.
With just one wish left, Jimmy wants to make it a great one to make up for how the first two screwed up. (Jimmy, for heaven’s sake, just wish for a winning lottery ticket like a normal person.) This time he decides it’d be swell if he could send Superman back in time to meet his parents, but since he doesn’t want Superman to hear him MAKING his wish, he types it up. And apparently he’s as bad at spelling as Lois legendarily is, because he accidentally types “I wish for Superman to MATE his parents on Krypton.” Supes is whisked back in time to an era before his parents married. One might expect him to have to play Cupid here, based on how Jimmy’s typo was phrased, but Jor-El and Lara are already a couple. They just can’t get married yet because they’re accused of being part of a terrorist plot to overthrow the government and they wind up needing their son’s help to clear their names. This includes tricking a villain into accidentally creating Kryptonite, which seems kind of counter to the whole “no killing” thing, but I digress.
It’s another case of insane Silver Age storytelling – all three parts of this “novel” (which they loved to call these stories on the cover) are predicated on wild misunderstandings, incredible cases of jumping to conclusions, and just plain bafflingly stupid choices on the parts of the heroes and villains alike. I’m a teacher, and I’m constantly telling my students that it isn’t fair to use the standards of the modern day to judge the citizens of an earlier time, but stories like this make it pretty dang tempting sometimes.
Tues., Feb. 4
Short:The Bulleteers
Notes: After a very random and, frankly, pretty harsh week for me outside of the Superman blogosphere, I decided to close things off with another of the classic Fleischer shorts. Next up is The Bulleteers from 1942. In this one, the bad guys (you can tell they’re bad guys because they’re all wearing the same cowl with a point in the front but no mask) create a bullet-shaped rocket car they intend to use to rob the Metropolis treasury.
The very faces of evil.
I do not understand the motivations of villains like these. They want money? They have invented a flying car that turns into a giant bullet. They can afford to construct a secret base in the core of a mountain, complete with turning one side of that mountain into a hidden drawbridge-style door. I don’t know exactly what the overhead on any of this stuff is, but it seems to me that patents on this kind of technology alone have to be far more than the city of Metropolis could possibly be able to cough up.
Anyway, after the Bulleteers crash into the Treasury building, which conveniently seems to keep all of the money in the city in one enormous vault, Superman gets his hand on it and rips it apart in midair, saving the day. Good for him.
Tangent: This isn’t directly Superman-related, but I think it’s something worth addressing. Today, the trailer for the new Marvel movie Fantastic Four: First Steps was released. You may not know this, but my love for the Fantastic Four is almost – not quite, but ALMOST – up there with my love of Superman. The Thing is my second-favorite character in all of comics, and I firmly believe he’s the best thing Stan Lee and Jack Kirby ever did. I saw the trailer and I enjoyed it immensely. I even made an incredibly dorky TikTok video about it, in my own inimitable style.
The reason I’m bringing it up here, though, is because in some of the Superman groups I follow, I saw people posting the video and saying they don’t think it will be competition for James Gunn’s Superman. And I have to ask this question, guys.
Why does it NEED to be?
Seriously, where is it written that every film has to be a direct rival of every other? Or every studio? Is it because they come out in the same month, Superman on July 11th and Fantastic Four two weeks later on the 25th? Or is it just because Marvel and DC fans have some sort of deep-seated need in their very souls to somehow prove their dominance over the other?
It makes no sense to me. I am looking forward to Superman. Hell, I decided to devote this entire YEAR to how much I’m looking forward to it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to look forward to Fantastic Four. It doesn’t mean if I like one, I am not allowed to like the other. It’s said that a rising tide raises all ships, and I sincerely believe that – a great superhero movie will make people thirst for MORE great superhero movies, and hopefully the studios will learn the right lessons from one another about what MAKES a great superhero movie. Judging by the trailers from these two films, I feel as though they have.
And if there’s no other reason to ask why they have to be opposed to one another, just ask yourself this: would Superman want it that way? Would he want to be rivals? Or would he be in the front row of the cinema on July 25th, cheering for the adventures of Marvel’s first family with the rest of us.
I rather suspect that would be the case, don’t you?
Blake M. Petit 