Grady Hendrix’s novel How to Sell a Haunted House has been optioned for a motion picture. This is not new information, by the way – the deal was signed with Sam Raimi’s Ghost House studio about two years ago, but today is the first time I’ve heard about it, and it’s got me very interested. I like Hendrix’s work quite a bit. I’ve only read three of his books so far (the aforementioned Haunted House, Final Girls Support Group, and the very cool nonfiction book Paperbacks From Hell, about the history of horror novels and cover art in the 70s and 80s), but every one of them has encouraged me to read more. I don’t know if it’s fair to classify myself as a “fan,” having only really dipped my toes into his work thus far, but perhaps “fan-in-training” would be accurate. Regardless, having read How to Sell a Haunted House, I am immediately struck by the cinematic possibilities of the story, while at the same time, left very curious about exactly what tone they’re going to strike with a horror movie where the villains are – drumroll please – puppets.
You don’t even want to know what going through escrow is like.
I apologize if that feels like a spoiler to anyone, but it’s part of the synopsis of the book and, when the movie is made, it most likely will be in the trailer, so I don’t feel TOO bad. It’s kinda like if you hear that there’s a new slasher movie coming out and someone tells you that the killer wears a mask. In the novel, single mom Louise Joyner has to go back to her home town after her parents are killed in a car crash. Once home, she’s forced to go about the task of closing up her childhood home for sale with the help of her estranged brother. As they go through the house, they find that there may be more to their mother’s massive collection of puppets and dolls than they ever suspected.
Once the movie is completed, How to Sell a Haunted House will join the echelon of horror flicks that I like to think of as “Teeny Tiny Terrors.” Horror, as a genre, has dozens (if not hundreds) of categories and subcategories, most of which can overlap at some intersection or another. How to Sell a Haunted House will fit into a few categories – haunted house movies, obviously, but also the narrower but quite popular category of killer toys, home of such classic films as Child’s Play, Puppet Master, and the last segment in Trilogy of Terror. The Joyner puppets will join a pretty fabulous collection of creatures.
Sorry if that gives you nightmares.
Not all Teeny Tiny Terrors are toys, of course. I’d also place things like Leprechaun, Gremlins, Ghoulies, Munchies, Critters, Hobgoblins, and even Sam from Trick ‘r Treat into this category: all monsters or aliens or some sort of supernatural threat that are embodied in what is – to an adult human, of course – a package that seems small and harmless until the teeth are bared. Because of this, almost all Teeny Tiny Terrors fall into one of my OTHER favorite horror subcategories: horror comedies. I wrote about this extensively last year, specifically about how common it is for horror to have elements of comedy, and how some lean harder on the funny parts and others lean harder on the terror. I even described a spectrum with varying levels of horror/comedies depending on which side they lean towards (a Type 1 is the lightest, funniest of the group, while 5 is the scariest). Almost any Teeny Tiny Terror will land on the spectrum somewhere. The first Child’s Play movie, I think, was a solid 4, although as is often the case the series lightened up with subsequent installments to 3s and even occasionally to 2s.
With a Teeny Tiny Terror of any type, at least part of the humor is going to come from the concept of something that’s supposed to be innocent and harmless suddenly turning psychotic. The idea of the dolls in Puppet Master turning out to be possessed by the spirits of dead Nazis, for example, is so patently absurd that it’s hard to take it too seriously even as the likes of the Tunneler doll are drilling into somebody’s skull. There’s a macabre comedy to this. It’s similar to the psychotic clown craze from a few years back, although not exactly the same. With killer toys, you’ve got something that’s supposed to be harmless turning bad.
Teeny Tiny Terrors are nothing new. They showed up in John Christopher’s baffling 1966 novel The Little People, were used to disturbing effect in Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks, and have showed up in folklore about as far back as you can imagine. Today we’re even retroactively applying it to full-grown terrors. Just a few days ago I got an email from Spirit Halloween announcing their new line of Horror Movie Babies, figures and decorations starring infantilized versions of Michael Myers, Chucky, Ghostface, the Frankenstein Monster and others. And even THAT is a spinoff of their long-running Zombie Babies line. There aren’t enough Teeny Tiny Terrors already, now we’re taking full-grown terrors and giving them the Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies treatment!
Remember that episode where Leatherface gutted Camilla like a fish?
There are other subcategories related to the Teeny Tiny Terrors in different ways, such as the aforementioned Killer Klowns. Like deadly toys, the reason clowns can be scary is that you’re taking something that’s supposed to be innocent and perverting it. Dolls are inanimate, though, and supposed to be used to fuel a child’s imagination, but have no agency of their own. They exist only as a reflection of a child’s innocence. Clowns, on the other hand, are people, and we know that (unlike a doll) a person can easily hide their true nature. They commit their atrocities beneath makeup that was originally intended to induce laughter only amplifies the terror. Whether we’re talking about Pennywise, Art the Clown, or the Joker, killer clowns can be a hell of a lot scarier than killer toys.
There’s also the related category of Creepy Kids, like we see in films such as Children of the Corn or Village of the Damned. Again, here’s something that should be innocent that’s turned bad, but in this case it’s far less likely to be funny. A demonic child is something of a perversion of innocence, it’s taking a human being in the period of their life where they are supposed to have the least darkness and transforming them into something ghastly. There are SOME Creepy Kids on the horror/comedy spectrum, but I think they’re far less likely to go there than Teeny Tiny Terror or Killer Klowns.
The good news is that modern cameras don’t create redeye, so there’s no chance of remaking this one.
But back to Grady Hendrix: I’m not surprised that an adaptation of his work would go into the horror/comedy territory, because pretty much everything of his that I’ve read seems tailor-made for it. Aside from Haunted House, he gave us Final Girl Support Group, a novel about women who survived attacks from slasher-type killers (most of whom are obvious copyright-friendly substitutes for the likes of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers) and what happens when an unknown threat starts gunning for them. Hendrix plays with meta humor here, digging into the tropes and expectations of the slasher genre in a way that’s reminiscent of Wes Craven’s Scream movies (and, in fact, one of the Final Girls is a clear replacement for Sidney Prescott). Even his nonfiction book, Paperbacks From Hell, shows a deep love and understanding of all the tropes of horror fiction. Writers like that often enjoy playing with those tropes in an amusing way.
Art.
Assuming the movie adapts the tone of the book faithfully, I think it would also land in type 4. It’s not a laugh riot, and in fact, some of the stuff at the end could be downright grotesque depending on how the director chooses to film it. But as I said, the very concept of Teeny Tiny Terrors has an inherent humor to it that, even in the darkest moments, lends itself well to tongue-in-cheek references and black comedy. Hendrix is one of the modern greats in that regard. I hope that the movie does it justice.
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. Despite what you may have expected, “Teeny Tiny Terrors” does not refer to what happens when your son realizes we’re out of cheese sticks.
Last week, I wrote about some of Superman’s strangest team-ups. This week I’ve decided to focus on some of his more conventional crossovers, meetings where Superman has encountered the heroes (and villains) of other worlds. I’ve already written about a couple of them, most notably the first Superman/Aliens miniseries from Dark Horse, but this week I’ve got a list of times he met with characters from Marvel Comics, Image Comics, other Dark Horse heroes, and more. It actually may wind up being more than one week, honestly, it’s a long list. But I’m going to begin at the beginning.
Notes: This special from 1976 was the first official meeting between characters from the Marvel and DC Universes. Gerry Conway, who had written both characters, teamed up with penciller Ross Andru and inker Dick Giordano for this one, a pretty substantial endeavor at the time. 96 pages, a hefty $2 price point, and an oversized book demanded a story that was worth it…and Conway delivered. The book opens up with a pair of extended prologues where Superman and Spider-Man face off against and capture their respective arch-foes, Lex Luthor and Dr. Octopus. Either of these prologues, by the way, could have easily served as the first half of a story in the heroes’ individual comics, with a standard set-up and nothing that indicates that these two formerly separate universes had begun to bleed together. That doesn’t come until Prologue 3, when Lex is marched into his new prison cell in a maximum security facility in New Mexico, only to find that Otto Octavius is right down the hall. Luthor asks Octavius if he’d be interested in a team-up before revealing he’d hidden a set of tools beneath a layer of fake skin that allowed for a prison break.
Finally, a third of the way into this mammoth comic book, we reach “Chapter One,” in which Peter Parker and Clark Kent finally encounter one another for the first time at a science conference. Both newsmen are having a rough time – Peter finally quits the Daily Bugle in a fit of rage at ol’ J. Jonah Jameson’s frequent abuse, and Clark learns that he’s having a major story ripped out from under him at WGBS because the network wants a “bigger name” reporter. They’re each licking their respective wounds when Superman – or rather, someone who looks like him – swoops in and kidnaps Lois Lane and Mary Jane Watson by zapping them with rays that make them disappear. The heroes both duck out and change clothes, only to encounter one another on the roof. Spider-Man thinks Superman was behind the kidnapping, whereas Spidey’s reputation (thanks to the aforementioned J.J.J.) makes Superman suspect he’s involved, and we get the requisite fight scene. Luthor and Doc Ock are nearby and decide to make things more fun by zapping Spidey with a ray that temporarily enhances his powers, making him strong enough to hold his own against the Man of Steel. After throwing enough punches to satisfy the readers, they calm down, compare notes, and decide to team up to get to the bottom of things.
From there, the story goes largely as you expect – they track down the villains who are holding the girls hostage, they’re sent on a few wild goose chases, and ultimately, the day is saved. But it’s really great to see how well the two of them work together. Honestly, the fight scene is the weakest part of the book, because it requires you to believe that both of these veteran heroes are going to go in spoiling for a fight. It MAY be justifiable if they were totally unfamiliar with one another, but in this iteration where the DC and Marvel heroes co-exist, they know each other by reputation. Superman MAY think Spidey is sketchy thanks to his bad press, but there’s no way Spider-Man would go in swinging against Superman.
Once you get past that, it’s much more satisfying to see them working together, fighting the bad guys, and rescuing Lois and MJ. Conway cleverly aligns things so that each hero gets a moment at the end that gives them a win that they couldn’t have done without the other. Luthor’s schemes wind up cooking up a tsunami Spider-Man could never stop it on his own, but Superman can…only the bad guys would escape were he to do so…if not for Spider-Man. Neat little trick that allows them each to have their moment in the sun.
It took time, but this was the pebble that eventually led to an avalanche of crossovers in the 90s, to the point that it started to feel less special. The sad thing is that familiarity – plus a bit of bad blood – led to the publishers doing nothing together for close to two decades. Next month’s Deadpool/Batman is finally bringing it back, and I couldn’t be happier about that. I love a good crossover, a good combination of characters that don’t usually appear together.
Thur., Aug. 7
Comics: Superman/Madman Hullabalo #1-3
A crisis of philosophical proportions!
Notes: Next up on my tour of Superman Crossovers Past is this little gem from 1997, Mike Allred’s Superman/Madman Hullabaloo. I discovered Allred’s Madman in college (which I believe is scientifically proven to be the best way to discover the character) and I quite quickly became a fan. Madman is markedly different from most other superhero characters. He is — or was, at this point — an enigmatic creature, a corpse brought back to life with no memory of his past except for a fleeting vision he believes to be the Hand of God. Taking the name Frank Einstein (there is no reason to be subtle in comic books) he becomes a sort of science hero, having adventures in the face of the strangest things imaginable.
In this story, Frank and Superman — in their respective universes — are each working on an experiment that causes them to collide. Their bodies remain in place, but their minds swap places and universes, leaving each hero wearing a mashup of their uniforms and possessing a fragment of Superman’s powers. As Superman is found by Frank’s team, Lois Lane finds Frank and brings him to Emil Hamilton. On two different worlds the heroes look for a solution.
Superman and Frank’s team manage to snap over to Metropolis where they meet up with Lois, Hamilton, and Frank. They quickly manage to restore the heroes to their proper bodies, but fragments of Superman’s powers have been absorbed by various people in both dimensions, leading to the heroes teaming up and hunting them down to restore Superman to full power. In their search, they discover that Mr. Myzptlyk is behind their difficulties, leading Frank to challenge the imp to a contest to give up the game…the greatest contest of them all. It’s Mxy versus the Madman in a game of…(drumroll please)… TWISTER.
It’s really impressive to me just how easily Superman mixes in with Allred’s universe. He looks fantastic in Allred’s art style, and I love the two mashup designs for the blended heroes. Even more than that, though, Superman works so well with the Madman tone. Madman is perhaps the most philosophical ongoing superhero comic book of all time, after all, just as prone to quietly contemplating the meaning of existence as he is to getting into fisticuffs. In fact, one of the first things he does after he and Clark are separated and get to have a real conversation is ask the Man of Steel if he believes in God. How often does that sort of thing turn up in mainstream comics?
Allred also easily evades the trap of having the heroes fight each other for no real reason before the team up begins. As Superman himself points out, he and Frank were literally parts of one another for a while there — if he can’t trust him, who can he trust? They work together very well. If they appeared in the same world on a regular basis, in fact, I could truly believe the two of them are friends. It’s a lovely, quiet, unorthodox little crossover, and I love it.
I don’t think Superman always gets enough credit — from fans or writers — for his intelligence. I don’t mean the whole “Super scientist who builds robot duplicates of himself” either, I mean his emotional intelligence. He’s shown himself often of being so capable of connecting with people on a deep, real level. And in a way, that’s kind of what Madman is all about — connection, trying to find out how the universe is all tied together. Frank is literally a walking corpse, but he’s found love. He’s found a home. He has friends and people who care about him. I’m gonna put on my English teacher hat here for a moment and posit that the reason that Victor Frankenstein is “the monster” in Mary Shelley’s novel isn’t necessarily because he “played God.” Doctors do that every day. But where Victor failed — and where those surrounding Frank Einstein succeed — is that he didn’t give any love to the creature he willed into existence. Jo and Dr. Flem may not be the creators of our ginchy hero, but they give him what Frankenstein didn’t. Earlier in this year we examined Superman as the Frankenstein monster in an Elseworlds tale, and I think the combination of these two heroes would be an interesting place to explore that further.
Allred worked on Superman again just a couple of years ago, in the “Not an Elseworlds Because We Weren’t Using That Label At the Time” miniseries Superman: Space Age where he was teamed with writer Mark Russell. And it was good. But I would love to see Frank Einstein and Clark Kent cross paths again.
Fri., Aug. 8
Comics: Superman/Gen 13 #1-3
Nope, Kara didn’t get a dye job…
Notes: When Image Comics was founded in the early 90s, Jim Lee’s Wildstorm Studios was one of the major players, with hits like WildC.A.T.S., Stormwatch, and Gen 13. And I think all of us were pretty surprised when, in 1998, he signed on at DC Comics, selling his studio and characters to DC and becoming one of their executives. Since then he’s only risen higher in the ranks, now serving as co-publisher. But in those early days of the marriage of DC and Wildstorm, when the two universes were still separate, this crossover was a nice little event.
Written by Adam Hughes with art by later Lex Luthor: Man of Steel artist Lee Bermejo, it begins with the Gen 13 kids – super-powered fugitives running from the government project that gave them their powers – taking a trip to Metropolis. Their leader, Caitlin Fairchild, is an unabashed Superman fan, and is ecstatic when they almost immediately run across a battle between Superman and Titano. Caitlin is knocked out in the chaos, and Superman puts his cape over her for protection as he goes off to tussle with the super-ape. When Caitlin wakes up she has lost her memory. She wanders into traffic and is hit by a fire truck, but survives without a scratch, and looking down at the cape that was draped over her when she woke up she comes to the obvious conclusion: she must be Supergirl.
Superman promises the Gen 13 kids to help them track down Caitlin, and they wind up at the Daily Planet, where Lois immediately figures out that they’re super-powered, because she’s smarter than the entire team put together. Meanwhile, Caitlin has acquired a store-bought Supergirl costume and makes her “debut” thwarting a bank robbery. Trying to embark upon a superhero career, Caitlin’s natural clumsiness comes out, causing one disaster after another as Superman and her teammates are always stuck one step behind her, cleaning up the messes that she’s made. And it all gets even worse when the real Supergirl gets wind of the chaos being done in her name.
As you’ve probably noticed by now, I have a preference for crossovers that don’t do the standard “meet, fight, team-up” formula that we’ve seen so many times, and this particular series has the most clever sidestep for that I’ve ever seen. Not only do the respective heroes never get into a physical fight, there’s not really even a traditional antagonist. Oh sure, there are a couple of bad guys that need to be thwarted, but they’re all pretty incidental and interchangeable. The real story here is about Caitlin going missing and the ideological struggle between Superman and the rest of the Gen 13 kids. With the exception of Caitlin, the rest of the team is stuck in the mindset of Superman being a boring stiff, with Grunge at one point even expressing this to Clark Kent’s face, unaware of who he’s really talking to. We even get to see a nice conversation with Lois and Clark in which he does his best not to show how deeply hurt he actually is by the way the kids perceive him. As the story goes on, one by one, they slowly come around to realizing his true worth…although this kind of has the side effect of making them seem childish sometimes. From a character standpoint, it may be acceptable that a group of 90s teenagers would think of Superman as lame, but to have three of them making fun of the fourth for cooperating when Superman is actively trying to find their missing friend makes them all seem…well, not “lame,” but a much harsher word for it.
It’s a very nice workaround that tells a very different kind of crossover story. I don’t even mind the cliched depiction of amnesia here – nothing realistic about it, but you’ve got to allow for a certain suspension of disbelief. This one is just fun.
Sat., Aug 9
Comics: Superman & Savage Dragon: Chicago #1 &Superman & Savage Dragon: Metropolis #1
When you draw the whole Superman crossover but you only have time for roughs of the cover, who do you get to finish it? Alex Ross.
Notes: I’ve never been a Savage Dragon reader, but I get anything with Superman in it, so I’ve had these two books in my collection since they were first released. That was over 20 years ago, though, and I don’t think I’ve read either of them since. I had to check the League of Comic Geeks website to even remind myself which one came out first, and as it turned out, that was a mistake. I got a few pages into Metropolis when Superman and Dragon first encounter each other and start talking like old friends, which got me confused. Metropolis came out in 1999, according to the website, whereas Chicago wasn’t released until the beginning of 2002. But I picked up Chicago instead and saw that I was getting the story of Superman and the Dragon’s first meeting. I wasn’t sure why they were published this way, although I have to wonder if Erik Larsen’s Chicago book was intended to come first but wound up suffering from the kind of delays that frequently plagued Image Comics at the time. When I got to the point where Lois Lane mentions that she’s engaged – an engagement that had ended in marriage several years earlier at that point – I figured that must be the case. The point of this paragraph is that if you happen to have both of these books, read Chicago first.
In Chicago, with story and art by Larsen, some of Superman’s foes are cropping up in the Windy City, having joined forces with the Dragon’s enemies in a crime organization called the Vicious Circle. Superman is called in to help with the menace, something that doesn’t sit well with Officer Dragon of the CPD. The two of them partner up, although the Dragon deeply resents this intruder into his city. Eventually, they manage to mend fences and beat the bad guy. And hey, at least they didn’t actually come to blows with each other.
Larsen has always kind of been hit or miss with me. I like some of his work, but the few times I’ve tried Savage Dragon I haven’t really found it to be to my taste. I can say that he doesn’t mind making his own character look like the jerk in this book, something that a lot of creators would refuse to do, and I appreciate that he writes a pretty solid Superman. Perhaps the best bit, though, is when Lois gets the Dragon to admit that at least part of his animosity against Big Blue is just because of simple jealousy.
Note: this scene does not appear in this book. But isn’t Bogdanove’s artwork nifty?
I was a bigger fan of Superman & Savage Dragon: Metropolis, written by Karl Kesel with art by one of my favorite Superman artists, “Triangle Era” mainstay Jon Bogdanove. Superman and the Dragon’s second meeting (although the first published) begins with Superman crashing to Earth in a burning field in a scene highly reminiscent of how the Dragon was found in his own very first issue. When he wakes up, Superman has no memory of the last few days, and the Dragon is called in to help him piece together the mystery of what happened to him and how it’s linked to a series of strange murders in the city’s homeless population. Their investigation brings them across Killroy, son of Steppenwolf, and into battle with Darkseid and the forces of Apokalips.
As I said, I prefer this book to the other one. It’s more steeped in the Superman world, which is of course more engaging to me, and Kesel has some fun with it. When Superman and the Dragon visit the Daily Planet office to look into what Clark Kent had been working on before Superman’s disappearance, for instance, there’s a funny scene where Superman and Lois have a strained discussion over what Clark’s password is on the computer system: Superman insists that “Clark” told him that he had changed it, whereas Lois insists that “he” would have told her so. Yeah, they’re married at this point, and the scene, played out in front of Jimmy and the Dragon, is highly amusing. We also get to visit with Bibbo in Suicide Slum, who declares that the Dragon is okay because any pal of Superman’s is a pal of his too. The fun here is seeing how the Dragon responds to the way that the people of Metropolis treat their hero, as opposed to the treatment he’s used to.
The one knock on this book is that the Dragon himself is kind of secondary. The other book plays off of the differences between the two of them more, with Dragon’s animosity grinding Superman and vice versa. In this one, the hatchet has been buried and they’re friends, which means you could swap out the Dragon with pretty much any other character that has super strength and the changes to the plot would be negligible. It does end on a really cute note, though. Feeling bad about Lois being worried about him during his disappearance, Superman asks the Dragon to cover for him in Metropolis so he could have a night off from fighting crime. His buddy the Dragon agrees, which leads to a last page that is just the kind of winking-at-the-camera nonsense that a reader like me digs.
Comics: Superman/Fantastic Four #1, Jon Kent: This Internship Is My Kryptonite #2
When you draw the whole Superman crossover but you only have time for roughs of the cover, who do you get to finish it? ALEX ROSS.
Notes: For the first time since this project started, I’m going back to re-read something. At the beginning of the year, I was finishing up the mammoth DC/Marvel Omnibus that came out last fall, and I read a few books at the tail end of that, but I didn’t write about them in detail. But this week, when I’m talking about great Superman crossovers, I felt like I really should address that time Superman met the team that he’s sharing cinemas with this summer in Dan Jurgens’ oversized Superman/Fantastic Four one-shot from 1999.
In this one, Superman finds a message from his late father, Jor-El, who tells him that he wants his son to avenge the destruction of Krypton, which he now claims was destroyed by the world-devourer, Galactus. But in this book, which came out post-DC Vs. Marvel (which I’m planning to read soon), Superman is aware that Galactus is a cosmic force that has been encountered by the heroes of the “Other” Earth (aka, the Marvel Universe), and decides to seek out the world-hopping metahuman from that crossover, Access, to help him traverse the universes. (Access is name-dropped but, like “Sir Not Appearing in This Picture” from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, he is mysteriously absent.)In the Marvel Universe, meanwhile, Franklin Richards is playing with the action figure of his favorite cartoon character, Superman, who is apparently a fictional hero on Earth-616. No one is more delighted than Frank when the real deal shows up at Four Freedoms Plaza asking for their help. But Superman winds up having to fight for the Four when their defense systems turn on them, having been hijacked somehow by the Cyborg Superman. Things get worse – much worse – when Galactus shows up and decides he wants Superman for his new herald.
You know how I keep talking about how I dislike crossovers where the heroes fight each other for no reason? Well thank Rao, this story actually gives us a reason. Superman being transformed into a Herald of Galactus is a more than legit reason for him to face off against the FF, but even then, the conflict is brief and has more of a feeling of a rescue mission than actual combat. The FF know that Superman is a hero, and they’re trying to free him from Galactus’s control rather than actually take him down.
I also like the fact that this crossover – as well as a few others from this time period – recognized the fact that DC Vs. Marvel happened and used that as part of the fabric of the story. It allows this story to fit into the continuity of both sets of characters, which the early crossovers like his encounter with Spider-Man simply can’t do. Unfortunately, by the time JLA/Avengers rolled around a few years later, that angle was dropped. The heroes were still from separate universes, but there was no recognition of the fact that any of them had met in the past. I can’t help but wonder what the plans are for Deadpool/Batman and the assorted back-up crossovers that are going to come in those two books.
Finally, although this isn’t really about Superman, this issue makes me wish Dan Jurgens had done a run on Fantastic Four at some point. He has the voices for the characters down very well, and I love his rendition of the Thing (my #2 all-time favorite character), but peeking at his credits I only see a handful of FF-related comics, and none on any of their regular titles. There’s still time, Marvel. I love what Ryan North is doing these days, but how about hitting Jurgens up for a miniseries or something?
Mon., Aug. 11
Comics: Superman/Tarzan: Sons of the Jungle #1-3
And yet we still haven’t seen the John Carter/J’onn J’onzz crossover.
Notes: I love a good crossover. I love a good Elseworlds story. To the best of my knowledge, the two have only collided twice. The first was John Byrne’s excellent World War II romp, Batman and Captain America. The other was this three-issue miniseries by Chuck Dixon and artist Carlos Meglia. In this one, the mutiny that leads to the abandonment of Lord Greystoke and his wife is thwarted when a star streaks through the sky. Taking it as a sign from God, the mutineers retreat from their plan and the family makes its way back to England. That streak, however, lands in the thick of the jungle, where a familiar ape tribe finds what appears to be a human baby in the wreckage. When the child demonstrates remarkable strength, they adopt him and name him “Argo-Zan,” meaning “Fire-skin.” The Greystokes have their child, named John, and the two babies grow into very different men. In the jungle Argo-Zan finds the wreckage of the craft that brought him to the apes, along with a holographic vision of his true parents. As he learns of the legacy of Krypton and adopts his true name, Kal-El, in England John Greystoke advances through school – a brilliant scholar, but somehow lost and empty, as though there is some hole in his life he cannot account for.
After some struggles, Kal-El finds himself able to bond with a human tribe, but an enemy ape has an eye out for a mysterious glowing rock that seems to plague his rival. Greystoke, meanwhile, has been wandering the world trying to find himself, finally planning an expedition to Africa. Along with him is a correspondent for the Daily Planet, Lois Lane, as well as Lois’s aide, Jane Porter. Their dirigible is brought down by a hostile tribe but, believing the aircraft is from Krypton, Kal-El leaps to their defense. In the ensuing battle, both men find themselves and their purpose. Kal-El returns to civilization with Lois, while John Clayton chooses to remain in Africa with Jane Porter, adopting the name the friendly tribes have given him: Tarzan.
As I said, I’m a big fan of crossovers. I am not, however, particularly steeped in Tarzan lore. I’ve seen a few of the movies, read a few of the comics, but I’ve never dove into the original Edgar Rice Burroughs novels (I’m more of a John Carter of Mars fan) so I can’t really say how closely this comic traces any of the original lore. I’m not even sure which characters (aside from Lois, Clark, Tarzan, and Jane) are Burroughs characters and which are original creations of Dixon and Meglia. That said, there’s a lot I like here. We’ve got the classic Elseworlds concept of taking the hero and switching his origin with somebody else, as we saw when Kal-El became Bruce Wayne in Superman:Speeding Bullets or when Bruce Wayne became Green Lantern in Batman: In Darkest Knight. And although the book ends in the old “What If”/“Elseworlds” format of bringing the heroes as close to the “real” status quo as possible, it does so without giving us obvious analogues for Lex Luthor or any of Superman’s main villains, which is a nice change of pace.
As a crossover, it’s pretty unique. Not only do Superman and Tarzan not fight each other in this one, but Kal-El and John Clayton never even interact until the last few pages of the three-issue story. In some ways it’s more like a crossover of worlds than of characters. The book ends (as these often do) as soon as a new status quo is established, something ALMOST the same as the “real” universe, and we don’t really get to see any of the aftermath. Sometimes that can be a good thing, but in this case, I actually wish there were more. It feels like we’ve read one act of a story. I’m left wanting to see how the ape-raised Kal-El adapts to a society that he doesn’t truly understand, especially with the power at his disposal. I’m curious as to what kind of man Tarzan is when raised by his human parents instead of an ape tribe. And I really want to see the two of them interact a bit more. And you know, leaving the audience wanting more is typically considered a good thing. The problem is when that desire is because it feels as though the story is unfinished, and to a small degree, that’s kind of how I feel here.
It’s not unusual in comics for a different artist to do the covers than the interior artwork, but in this case I think you’ll forgive me for not realizing that happened until I double checked the credits to write this. Carlos Meglia’s style is reminiscent of an adventure cartoon, with the kind of big eyes and oversized feet that bring to mind Japanese manga, so you can understand that I didn’t notice Humberto Ramos ONLY did the covers for this series. Their styles are very similar at first glance, and should Mr. Meglia ever somehow read this, I hope he knows I mean that as a compliment.
This is a unique crossover, and one I enjoyed. It would be nice to see more Elseworlds crossovers. And now that DC has brought that imprint back from the dead, it doesn’t feel impossible.
Tue., Aug 12
Comics: The Darkness/Superman #1-2
Wait — why does the mobster get top billing?
Notes: I’m going to close off this week of Superman crossovers with the two-issue team-up between Top Cow and DC from 2005, The Darkness/Superman, written by Ron Marz with art by Tyler Kirkham. I know even less about The Darkness than I do Tarzan. I know it’s a Witchblade spin-off, and I believe that the main character is the son of a mafia kingpin or something, but that’s pretty much it. Did that stop me from getting the crossover when it dropped? Absolutely not. Seriously, it’s been 32 weeks, you’d think you would know me better than that by now.
Fortunately for me, the book gives me a quick rundown on who the character is – Jackie Estacado, mafia hitman who becomes the controller of a mysterious demonic power called “The Darkness” on his 21st birthday. After he killed the guy who killed his girlfriend, he became…I dunno, not a hero. He’s still a mobster – the book even starts off with him meeting up with Metallo in Metropolis to flex his muscles and show he’s the man to take over their organized crime rackets. The Daily Planet gets word that Estacado is in town and Perry sends his top people out to find out what they can, which leads to Superman stumbling on an encounter between Estacado and Metropolis’s Grasso crime family. Estacado tries to convince Superman that he’s the better crime lord for Metropolis – that he would run a smooth organization that doesn’t let innocent people get caught in the crossfire, unlike the current regime. But the meeting is interrupted when Metallo shows up again, brandishing his Kryptonite heart as usual, and takes Lois Lane hostage, because it was like already February 3rd and Lois had only been held hostage four times so far that year.
When Metallo escapes with Lois, Estacado offers to help Superman get her back, recognizing that the Kryptonite keeps the Man of Steel at bay and that Lois is, and I quote, “More than just a cute reporter to you.” Superman reluctantly takes him up on his offer and is forced to watch from a distance as Estacado invades the Grasso’s hideout in an effort to save her. Once Lois is safe, he returns to Superman and reiterates his plan to move into Metropolis…but Superman stands his ground. The two of them come to blows before Superman defeats him because…the sun comes up? That seems to be what happens. I guess Jackie Estacado’s powers go away in daylight? At any rate, once that happens he gives up and promises to stay out of Metropolis. Superman lets him go out of gratitude for saving Lois. The two part neither as allies nor as friends, but at least not as enemies.
At least this time the requisite crossover fight makes sense. This isn’t Superman teaming up with a hero, he’s forging an uneasy alliance with an anti-villain. Jackie even tells him at one point, “I’m a bad guy, but I’m not a BAD GUY.” (This was seven years before Wreck-It Ralph used almost exactly the same line, so good for you, writer Ron Marz.) And I concede, that’s the vibe I’m getting here. Jackie isn’t really a pure villain, but there’s definite Michael Corleone energy here. And to be fair, he works pretty well as that kind of character. I’ve enjoyed Marz’s work for a long time, so I’m not surprised that he made this work for me as well.
That said, there are a few things that don’t quite gel. Superman sitting on the side while someone else fights Metallo for him, first of all. Sure, Metallo has the whole Kryptonite thing going on, but when has that ever stopped Superman from going in for the fight? And although I suppose Jackie was written in-character (I assume, since Marz was the writer for The Darkness’s ongoing series at the time, that he knew how he would behave), but it still seems a little bit of a stretch to think he’d really believe Superman would turn a blind eye to his operations just because he’s the lesser of two evils. Superman isn’t going to settle for ANY evils if he’s got anything to say about it.
It was a fun week, poking around at more Superman crossovers, and there are still more that I haven’t looked at yet, including the epic DC Vs. Marvel event and its several spin-offs, such as the Amalgam Comics line. I’m looking at the big, gorgeous omnibus edition that DC published of that series last year, just waiting to be read, and I think I’ll get around to that pretty soon. Maybe even next week.
A few weeks ago, San Diego Comic-Con happened once again and…well, once again, I wasn’t there. It’s kind of a little tradition of mine. Comic-Con happens and I stay at home. Like many storied, time-honored traditions, it kinda sucks. So I instead spent that weekend waiting for the news to trickle out online. There wasn’t anything major this year, nothing that knocked my socks off, no “Robert Downey Jr. is Doctor Doom” moments. There were, however, trailers. I love a good trailer, those little short films that give us a taste of an upcoming movie or TV show. They’re becoming a dying art, really, with so many trailers either failing to give you any excitement or – much worse – giving away half the thrill and excitement of the movie itself too early. If you haven’t seen the trailer for Project Hail Mary, for example, then I beg you in the name of all that is good and holy DON’T watch it. It gives away one of the best reveals in the book.
Specifically, the fact that Ryan Gosling copies Guy Gardner’s haircut.
But the trailer that I’ve seen the most online chatter about had nothing to do with plot reveals, special effects, or the performances of the actors involved. No, the most talked-about trailer this year seems to have been the teaser for the upcoming Star Trek: Starfleet Academy series on Paramount+. Here’s all you need to know: Starfleet Academy takes place further along in the timeline than most of the Trek shows and movies that we’ve grown to love over the past six decades. In this time period, the Federation almost collapsed due to certain catastrophic events and it’s now in a rebuilding stage. This series is about the rebirth of the Academy, and the scene that has everybody talking is one in which we catch a glimpse of what appears to be some sort of Wall of Honor, adorned with the names of legendary Starfleet personnel. Ambassador Spock. Admiral Jean-Luc Picard. Lieutenant Nog. There are names on this wall from virtually every iteration of Star Trek to date. This one scene has had people freeze-framing it more than any single scene since Fast Times at Ridgemont High, trying to read all the names on the board to see who amongst our favorite Star Trek characters made the cut. I seriously doubt that this wall will have any great significance to the plot of the series, but it’s a fun Easter Egg for those of us who have loved Trek for so many years.
Barclay better be on that wall or we riot.
In one of the (many) online discussions I’ve seen about this scene, though, there was one dissenting voice that I found perplexing. This person, whom I am paraphrasing, basically expressed irritation that all of the characters that we’ve watched over the years turned out to be so remarkable. Statistically, they seem to think, not EVERY character should turn out to be some kind of legendary figure.
This person has got it completely backwards.
My reply was simply this: “It’s not that every character we watch has turned out to be remarkable. It’s that we are only watching them in the first place BECAUSE they are remarkable.”
This is one of those times where I engage in a discussion online over something that I always thought was blindingly obvious, only to learn that not everybody sees it my way (also known as the correct way). There are hundreds, maybe thousands of ships in Starfleet. Of course not EVERY ship and EVERY crew is going to turn out to be the one that makes it into the history books. But doesn’t it stand to reason that those boring, mundane crews are simply not the ones that we get to hear the stories about? In other words, the histories of the Enterprises, Voyager, or station Deep Space Nine aren’t remarkable because those are the crews we follow. We follow them because they ARE the remarkable crews.
This is the case with fiction across the board. We aren’t tuning in to a movie or a TV show to watch the adventures of some average, everyday schlub. There are exceptions, of course – “slice of life” dramas and comedies do just this, and sometimes they do it very well. But in the case of an adventure series like Star Trek, you’re following the exploits of the characters that make history. They even tried to subvert this expectation with the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks. The idea behind it was that we were going to FINALLY follow the adventures of an unimportant crew on an unimportant ship. And what happened? It turned out that they weren’t all that unimportant after all, and if anything, Lower Decks winds up reading as the origin story for the next one of these legendary crews.
Suspension of disbelief is an important aspect of enjoying fiction. There has to be a willingness, as a member of the audience, to accept certain things that you are aware may defy reality. In the case of speculative fiction – sci-fi, fantasy, and certain types of horror – that means that you have to maybe ignore certain laws of physics. Yeah, Einstein said that we can’t go faster than light, but if we didn’t find a way to do it then there would be no Star Trek, so I’m gonna let that one slide. Quantum mechanics says that the way time travel works in Back to the Future is utterly impossible, but until quantum mechanics can give me something as awesome as Alan Silvestri’s score, quantum mechanics can bite me. Is there really such a thing as a creature that can hide inside your dreams and attack you? Probably not, but A Nightmare on Elm Street wouldn’t be nearly as scary without him.
Those are the big things, though, and when it comes to suspension of disbelief, people are oddly MORE accepting of the big things. What about the little things? There’s an old saying that in real life we expect the unexpected, but in fiction we don’t stand for it. Major, life-changing events have to be the REASON for a story, not something that simply happens IN the story. Think of it this way: if a character in a movie wins the lottery, that usually happens at the beginning of the movie, and the rest of the story is about what happens to them as a result. But if a character in a movie is in some sort of desperate situation – maybe he’s spent half the movie running from the mob because he owes them a fortune and they’re gonna break his kneecaps – and THEN he wins the lottery, the audience considers it a cheat. The suspension of disbelief breaks down here, even though the odds of a person winning the lottery are – mathematically speaking – exactly the same at the beginning of a story as they would be at any other point. I’ll accept a lottery win as the inciting incident, but if a random lottery win is what saves the day, that’s a modern deus ex machina, the “god in the machine.” It comes from those times in Greek drama where a character would be rescued by – literally – one of the gods intervening to get them out of a jam, and even back then it pissed off the ancient Greeks so much that they invented machinery just so they would have a term to use to complain about it.
It doesn’t have to just be good things either – tragedy can break your suspension of disbelief too. There are a lot of tearjerkers about somebody battling an incurable disease, and we’re okay with that, because that’s what the story is about. On the other hand, if somebody spontaneously develops such a disease in the middle of a story without any prior warning, audiences will consider it cop-out. Why? In real life, people can get sick at any time, so why NOT when it’s convenient for the plot?
Because “convenient” is enough to break the reality of the fiction.
Pictured: Convenience
The rule is basically this: major life-changing events (either good or bad) either have to happen at the beginning of the story or be the consequences of the actions in the story, but they cannot happen randomly in the middle or end of the story or the audience won’t stand for it.
The one exception here – and even this one is iffy sometimes – is when you’ve got a long-running serialized story like a television or comic book series. When you’re following characters for years at a time, eventually a random event will occur, and the audience will be a bit more accepting of it. For example, the death of Marshall’s father in the series How I Met Your Mother came out of nowhere, but that episode is considered one of the most powerful, emotionally-resonant moments of the entire series. It’s something that hits the audience hard, forcing us to process the grief and pain of the character along with him. (The story goes that actor Jason Siegel didn’t know what the end of that episode was going to be until they filmed it, so when Allyson Hannigan delivers her line, telling him that his father died, his response is entirely genuine and his final line was a perfect ad-lib: “I’m not ready for this.)
People cried just as hard for the finale, but for…different reasons.
In a comedy, suspension of disbelief is allowed to go even farther. In a farce like The Naked Gun, for example, things routinely happen that make it feel more like you’re watching a cartoon than a live-action film, and the audience is perfectly satisfied. Nobody complained in the end of Mel Brooks’s Blazing Saddles when Hedley Lamarr bought a ticket to a movie theater showing…Blazing Saddles. And Mystery Science Theater 3000 even wove the concept of Suspension of Disbelief into its THEME SONG: “If you’re wondering how he eats and breathes and other science facts, just repeat to yourself, ‘It’s just a show, I should really just relax’.”
Lalala
On the other hand, if that disbelief is suspended too long, there’s a temptation to try to work things into the story to justify the extraordinary. For instance, for decades there was a running commentary about how Clark Kent’s glasses wouldn’t fool anybody and that everyone would quickly realize he’s Superman. Eventually, the writers felt that it needed to be addressed to maintain the suspension of disbelief. Some writers said that he slouches as “Clark,” or changes his voice and mannerisms. Sometimes they actually have him attend acting classes specifically to learn how to do this. Sometimes the lenses are made out of special glass (usually from the ship that brought him from Krypton) that either changes the color of his eyes or – in the most extreme case – has a hypnotic effect on the people who look at him, making them see a different face. James Gunn even alluded to that in his movie, although a lot of people thought it was just a typical Gunnian joke, not realizing it was a legitimate piece of comic book lore.
I love it when intergalactic spacecraft crashes to Earth and the shattered remains of the windshield have two pieces that perfectly correspond to my frames.
We don’t read or watch fiction – for the most part – looking for ordinary things. We want to follow the adventures of extraordinary people or, at the very least, ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Stephen King fans (this is me raising my hand in the back of the room) will tell you that’s his great strength: the ability to create a realistic character and then show how they respond to circumstances that no realistic character could possibly have prepared themself for. And to be fair, a certain amount of analysis and nit-picking is acceptable when you’re discussing great works of fiction (or even awful works of fiction).
But eventually, when somebody online says something like, “Why don’t people in Gotham City ever realize that Bruce Wayne is the only one with the money to be Batman?” The proper response is simply, “Because the story wouldn’t work otherwise, so just get over it.”
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, too, would like to wear hypno-glasses, but in his case he would just use it to make his students see him as Yoda.
After taking last week relatively easy, and after the kind of floperoo that Parody Week turned out to be, I decided I wanted to do something a little more fun this week. So I looked through my list of potential topics and decided it was time for SUPERMAN’S STRANGEST TEAM-UPS. You’re not gonna see him partnering with Batman or the Justice League here, guys. I’m not even counting inter-company crossovers like when he met the Fantastic Four or the Savage Dragon. No, this week we’re going to focus on a few team-ups Superman has had with characters (and sometimes real people, as you’ll see) that an outside observer would think is totally bizarre. And the fun part is, they would be right to think so.
Shame he didn’t team up with SuperGIRL. I can see it now: “Hey, nice Kryptonian LAAAA-DYYYY!”
Notes: I’ll kick this off with a comic I bought on eBay a few months ago specifically to use for this week, a book I’ve wanted an excuse to get for years: The Adventures of Jerry Lewis #105. Believe it or not kids, there was a time when being a famous comedian could get you your own comic book, and sometimes those books would last for YEARS. Bob Hope had one, as did Jackie Gleason, Abbott and Costello, and sitcoms like I Love Lucy had long-running comics through publishers like Dell and Charlton. This series specifically began in 1952 as The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, but dropped Deano from the book in 1957 after the comedy duo broke up. Jerry held solo reign over the title for over a decade before it finally ended in 1971.
Anyway, in this issue Jerry is watching TV with his nephew Renfrew and their friend Witch Kraft (it was the 60s, I dunno) where they see a report of Superman fighting a giant space monster – a fight that has been dragging on for THREE DAYS. Superman finally defeats the beast, which turns out to be a robot. What he doesn’t know is that the robot was built by his old pal Lex Luthor, and when it was destroyed, it saturated Superman’s costume with a low level of Kryptonite dust that immediately begins to neutralize his powers. Back at the Daily Planet, Clark gets a new assignment – a feature on the danger of certain young people, and he’s sent to investigate one Renfrew Lewis. At the Lewis house, Clark gets progressively weaker, succumbing to various pranks of Renfrew that would normally be no problem. Finally, he gets soaked with water, prompting him to borrow an ill-fitting outfit from Jerry while his own clothes dry off. Luthor, meanwhile, tracks his Kryptonite to Jerry’s house, where Jerry has just discovered Clark’s Superman costume in the laundry and puts it on because…well, I guess because that’s what happens on the cover.
The story is completely absurd, of course. Jerry Lewis was a comedy legend, but he had a very specific persona. Especially in the early part of his career, he would always play a naive young man whose good nature couldn’t overcome his dimwittedness, spiraling him into one ridiculous situation after another. His comic book persona clearly borrowed that characterization, as that’s exactly what happens to him not only in this issue, but in probably every issue of this title that lasted, in its two incarnations, nearly twenty years. And honestly the fact that Jerry (the character) is both dim and nice is probably the only reason that Superman’s secret identity is maintained in this absurd comic. Although none of that explains why Luthor – who would certainly proclaim himself to be Earth’s smartest man – isn’t smart enough to put two and two together when he encounters Clark Kent and Jerry Lewis, the latter of whom is wearing Superman’s ill-fitting costume – only minutes before the real Superman shows up to put him away.
As silly as this story is, I really did enjoy it. It’s got the same sort of bizarre brand of comedy as certain strains of Archie Comics, or some of DC’s own Silver Age titles like Stanley and His Monster. I haven’t got the slightest idea who owns the rights to books like this anymore (is it the Jerry Lewis estate? The copyright information in the indicia only indicates National Periodical Publications), but I would love it if they could put together some collections of comics like this or their Bob Hope series, or even make them available digitally. I’d love to read more without having to pay eBay prices to track them down one at a time.
Thur., July 31
Comics: Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #1, DC X Sonic the Hedgehog #5
If I hadn’t included him in Super-Sponsor week, the Kwik Bunny would have followed this issue.
Notes: I’m not gonna lie, half the reason I decided to do this particular theme week was to have an easy excuse to sneak this comic book in. Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew is one of my favorite DC Comics of all time, a comedic (but not silly) comic about superhero animals set in a world that feels like it fell out of a cartoon. At this time, DC had a “bonus book” program, where once a month a random title would include a 16-page comic in the center, often used to launch new series. Such was the case with New Teen Titans #16, which featured the first appearance of Captain Carrot. In that bonus book, by Zoo Crew co-creators Roy Thomas and Scott Shaw! (that exclamation point is part of his name, friends), Superman ran across several residents of Metropolis behaving like their primate ancestors. He tracked the disturbance to a strange meteor out near Pluto, but when he tried to stop it, both he and the meteor were punted into a different universe, designated Earth-C, in which the Earth was populated by “funny animals.” Chunks of the meteor fell to Earth, giving powers to several different animals. One of them irradiated a batch of carrots growing in a garden box belonging to cartoonist Roger Rabbit (he later began going by his middle name, Rodney, perhaps due to confusion with a certain OTHER lupine character), who gained incredible power upon munching on the carrot.
The first issue of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew picks up right where the bonus book left off, with Superman and the newly-minted Captain Carrot seeking out the meteor fragments and trying to find a way to Pluto to check it out through some sort of cosmic barrier. As they do so, just as happened back in Metropolis, various people begin reverting to a primitive state, acting not like the civilized animals they are but instead like their beastly ancestors. When Superman is captured, Captain Carrot picks up other animals who were altered by the meteors: the powerful Pig-Iron, mistress of magic Alley-Kat-Abra, turtle speedster Fastback, pliable poultry Rubberduck, and the star-spangled Yankee Poodle. Together they seek out Superman, bound by Kryptonite on Pluto, in the clutches of Starro the Conqueror. Eventually, of course, Starro is conquered and the Zoo Crew decides to stay together to fight the forces of evil on Earth-C.
After striking a somewhat familiar pose.
Superman’s appearance here is almost incidental. The Zoo Crew does most of the heavy lifting, and replacing Superman with Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, or any number of other heroes would have had negligible impact on the plot. But it’s fitting, in a way, that Superman was the first contact between the two worlds. He was still DC’s flagship character at the time (although Batman would soon overtake him, and Batman just wouldn’t have worked in this setting), and Captain Carrot was clearly his universe’s version of Superman. This would be codified years later during one of DC’s many crisis events (Final Crisis, I think) where it was revealed that EVERY world had an “official” Superman analogue, and in this world it was Captain Carrot.
I’ve written many times before about Roy Thomas and his love for comic book history, with his work on titles such as All-Star Squadron, Young All-Stars, Secret Origins, and the Elseworlds comic Superman: War of the Worlds. This one is a little off the beaten path for him, but even here, he couldn’t resist bringing in some DC lore. The first Zoo Crew recruit, Pig-Iron, is secretly Peter Porkchops, once the star of a series of DC’s funny animal comics from the 40s and 50s. Thomas and Shaw would go on to establish that Earth-C was actually the location of all of DC’s old funny animal comics, bringing in characters like the Dodo and the Frog, the Three Mousekteers, and their superhero turtle the Terrific Whatzit from the Golden Age, who turned out to be Fastback’s uncle.
The series lasted for 20 issues, with a three-issue miniseries in which the Zoo Crew travelled to Oz and Wonderland, then they went into limbo for a few decades. They’re back now, appearing periodically, and Captain Carrot specifically is a member of the multiversal Justice League Incarnate. But I’ll never stop pushing for a full-on revival of this delightfully offbeat comic.
“In yo’ heeeeead! In Darkseid’s heeeee-eee-eeaaaad!”
Speaking of strange team-ups, this week also brings us the last issue of DC X Sonic the Hedgehog. With the two teams reunited on the DC Earth, they’ve got to assemble to chaos emeralds to take the fight to Darkseid. I’m not going to claim there’s anything truly shocking in this issue. The story plays out pretty much exactly as one would expect, right up to the last page sequel hook which may or may not ever be picked up on, probably based on how well this miniseries sells. But it was still a fun little excursion. It was genuinely hopeful and upbeat, without any of the usual nonsense of the heroes of two worlds fighting each other just because that’s what’s supposed to happen in crossover events. (As much as I’m looking forward to Deadpool/Batman in a couple of months, you know that’s exactly what’s going to happen.) This was just…fun.
And it’s okay to just be fun sometimes.
Fri., Aug. 1
TV Episode: I Love Lucy Season 6, Episode 13, “Lucy and Superman”
“Lucy, you REALLY got some ‘splainin’ to do!”
Notes: Regular readers of my blog know about my deep, abiding love for I Love Lucy. I think it’s one of the greatest sitcoms in the history of the medium and that Lucille Ball was a comedy genius the likes of which we have not seen since. And if you know I Love Lucy, then it’s probably no surprise that one of my favorite episodes was the sixth season episode in which Lucy meets Superman.
The episode begins with Lucy’s husband Ricky and their son, Little Ricky, watching The Adventures of Superman on TV. Little Ricky, with the innocence of a child who doesn’t actually have to pay for anything, asks if Superman can come to his birthday party that Saturday. Although Lucy lets him down easily, when they find out later that their frenemies the Applebys are planning to have their son’s party on the same day, the parents enter a cold war over throwing a party that will lure the childrens’ shared friend group to one party over the other. Lucy plies Ricky to try to get Superman – who he met in Hollywood – to come to Ricky’s party after all, quickly luring away all of the children, even little Stevie Appleby. As usually happens with Lucy’s schemes, though, things go awry. Ricky tells him Superman can’t make it, leading to Lucy donning a Superman costume and trying to get into the apartment from the ledge, only to get stuck outside in the rain when Superman shows up after all.
The Lucy writers played a neat little trick in this episode. Although the show frequently had celebrity guest stars appearing as themselves (everyone from John Wayne to Harpo Marx), they never ONCE refer to Superman as “George Reeves.” He’s just Superman. Although from an adult perspective, it seems a little odd that they never say his real name, even when the kids aren’t in the room, from a meta point of view it’s obvious that the entire episode is constructed in such a way to preserve the mystique of Superman for any children who happen to be watching. Reeves never appears as “himself,” only on TV as Superman and then again in the last scene in-costume, where he does his trademark leap through the window (in this case, the one that separates the Ricardos’ kitchen and living room) to make his glorious entrance. When Lucy gets stuck on the ledge, Superman is the one who climbs out to rescue her. Even the classic last line of the episode has the same sort of wit and charm that Reeves always brought to his performance: when out on the ledge, Ricky comments on the 15 years of crazy stunts Lucy has pulled. Reeves says, “You mean to say that you’ve been married to her for 15 years?” When Ricky replies in the affirmative, Reeves shoots back, “And they call me Superman!”
It’s a wonderful, charming episode of a charming show, and one that can be enjoyed on two levels. If you want, then you can consider this just your average episode of I Love Lucy with a famous guest. But if you’d prefer, you can accept the episode on face value and decide that Lucy takes place in the same universe as The Adventures of Superman TV show, and it wasn’t Reeves at all, but the real Man of Steel.
That doesn’t quite explain why he’s got his own TV show in-universe, but do I have to figure out everything myself?
Sat. Aug. 2
Comic Books: Multiversus: Collision Detected #1-6
“Jinkies!”
Notes: While not a Superman starring vehicle like most of my other choices this week, he played a big part in this fun six-issue miniseries based on the short-lived video game, which combined characters from dozens of Warner Bros IPs including the DC Universe, Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Cartoon Network, The Matrix, The Wizard of Oz, Game of Thrones, The Neverending Story, and probably others I’m forgetting. I don’t play video games, friends. It’s not a judgment thing, I’m not trying to claim some sort of moral high ground or anything, I’d just rather spend my time with a movie, TV show, or book. I do, however, enjoy a good crossover, so when the miniseries based on the game was announced I knew I was going to read it, despite knowing absolutely nothing about the game.
The story begins with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman each having dreams that culminate in the vision of strange hieroglyphs: a rabbit, a witch, and a child bearing a star. Their investigation leads them to Avia Free, daughter of Mr. Miracle and Big Barda. When they arrive, though, the find that Avia already has another visitor: Bugs Bunny. After a particularly hilarious sequence of Batman trying – and failing – to interrogate Bugs, Avia shows them a video game system she modified to investigate some strange readings from behind the Source Wall just as a portal appears, spilling inhabitants of other dimensions into our own. The Flash, for instance, encounters Scooby-Doo and Shaggy having thwarted Condiment King’s effort to rob a Big Belly Burger and taking their reward in a mountain of food. Wonder Woman is attacked by an army of Winged Gorillas under the control of Grodd who, himself, has fallen under control of the Wicked Witch of the West. Superman finds Steven Universe and Garnet fighting Livewire and the Parasite in Metropolis, just as a Skullship appears in the sky – not a Brainiac ship, but one in the spitting image of Rick Sanchez, loaded with robotic simulacrum of Finn the Human, Jake, and Tom and Jerry.
As the Justice League begins containing the incursions from other universes – hero and villain alike – Batman manages to track down the truth. An entity called the Devoid, under duress from an even more powerful force called the Nothing, is forcing the multiversal travellers to fight in a tournament to protect their respective home universes. (I assume this is, in broad strokes, the story behind the video game.) Batman hatches a plan to return the fight to the Devoid, saving all of the endangered universes simultaneously, but there’s a little problem. To do this, he needs to find the final lost fighter – the Reindog – who is currently being coddled by Harley Quinn and targeted by her nasty ex, the Joker. They collect him from Gotham City, but Steven is wounded in battle. When Reindog heals him, it sends out a signal that leads the Devoid to Earth, where it takes over Avia and attacks. In exchange for freeing Avia, the assembled heroes agree to allow Devoid to take them to fight in the tournament. After they are swept away, though, the heroes reappear, revealing that Steven invented a device that would pluck tiny pieces of each of the heroes from throughout the multiverse and assemble them into a new version to join the tournament.
I love stories like this. It reminds me of being a kid, when you would throw all your different toys together in one box and act out some epic battle despite the fact that these characters don’t really have any business being together. I also like the way Bryan Q. Miller handles the Super-characters. It’s not his first go-round: he’s written, among other things, the Smallville sequel comics, and he has a nice handle on Lois and Clark. There’s a nice bit towards the beginning where she casually teases him for doing things the hard way when the age of technology should make it a little harder to track down the glyph from his dreams. And bonus points go to artist Jon Sommariva and colorist Matt Herms for dressing her in her signature outfit from Superman: The Animated Series, even though this isn’t “that” Lois. Miller also uses the differences in the respective universes to his advantage. For example, there’s a funny bit where Bugs, Scooby, Shaggy, and Steven Universe are shocked by the foul mouth (censored as it is) of the Rick-infected Brainiac.
It’s interesting, by the way, that although it is very obviously Rick Sanchez who’s riding in Brainiac’s skull, he is never mentioned by name in the story, and only appears in his “true” form in a few shots on Brainiac’s monitors. I assume that was a limitation imposed by the fact that Oni Press, not DC Comics, has the rights to the Rick and Morty comics, but it’s still kind of funny.
The story ends, as comics like this one often do, with a bit of a sequel hook, but considering that the game flopped and has been discontinued, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever get to see what happens next. I content myself in the knowledge that the comic is essentially a prequel to the game and that, if you beat the Devoid and the Nothing in the game itself, you can consider it the canonical ending of the story. And I hope that we see Miller writing more comics like this. He’s got a flair for it.
Sun. Aug. 3
Comic Book: Action Comics #421
“I yam what I yam…a legally-distinct creation that is not subject to a copyright infringement suit by King Features Syndicate!”
Notes: Today we’re going to take a look at one of my favorite lesser-known Superman team-ups, the time he met Popeye.
Kinda.
In Action Comics #421, Superman’s pal Billy Anders (a semi-recurring character from the period) tells him about his recent encounter with Captain Horatio Strong. Strong is a salty sailor who has found a mysterious seaweed that, upon consumption, gives him incredible strength. When Billy tells Superman that Strong is one of his biggest fans, he agrees to arrange a meet-up. Meanwhile, A food corporation tries to buy the rights to Strong’s seaweed, “Sauncha,” but he refuses. He willingly gives a sample over to his idol, Superman, when Billy arranges a visit, but quickly realizes his visitor is a disguised spy for the food corporation wearing one of those remarkably lifelike rubber masks that were so ubiquitous in comics at the time. Superman and Captain Strong wind up duking it out when Strong vows to destroy the crooked company that tried to cheat him, and when he runs out of Sauncha, Superman tracks him to a spot in the ocean where he harvests it. When the Sauncha power runs out, Strong is nearly killed, but Superman whisks him to the hospital. As he recovers, he is ashamed of his actions, but Superman kindly tells him that it wasn’t his fault – he was under the influence of the plant, which Superman has identified as an alien species that must have fallen to Earth. Captain Strong promises to stick to good old Earth food from now on.
I first read this story in Best of DC Digest #48, in an issue that reprinted assorted Superman team-ups, and it’s long been a favorite of mine. Even as a kid, I immediately picked up on the fact that they were trying to emulate Popeye, and when Strong’s wife and best friend (obvious dopplegangers for Olive Oyl and Wimpy) showed up in later issues, it was like confirmation. What I didn’t realize as a kid was that Cary Bates had whipped up a Popeye expy to tell a story that was a metaphor for drug addiction. I guess it did the trick – I’ve never done any drugs, nor had any desire to. So Cary Bates and Captain Strong, thanks for teaching me the important lesson that using illicit substances will cause me to throw telephone booths and people and start fights with those I admire the most.
Seriously, I always thought Captain Strong was a fun character, and it’s a shame that he made only a handful of appearances over the next decade before fading into obscurity. He came back in 2015, gently being mocked (as was everything else) in Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner’s Harley Quinn series. I guess I understand – there’s not much call in modern comics for a character whose only reason to exist is to poke a little fun at Popeye. But I still have a warm place in my heart for Captain Horatio Strong. And although the similarities are superficial, I’ve always wondered if Strong was used as a bit of inspiration for one of my favorite characters of the Triangle Era, loveable lout “Bibbo” Bibbowski.
Mon. Aug. 4
Comic Books: Superman and Bugs Bunny #1-4
“What’s up, Clark?”
Notes: When I started this little project, I didn’t expect the Looney Tunes to turn up quite as often as they have, but between this and parody week, I’ve actually seen quite a bit of them lately. But let’s look at the 2000 miniseries by Mark Evanier, Joe Staton, Tom Palmer, and Mike DeCarlo. Even though Superman’s name is in the title of this one, like Multiversus, it’s more of an ensemble piece, featuring the entire Justice League. The chaos begins when Superman gets a visit from his old pal Mr. Mxyzptlk and, as usual, has to trick him into saying his name backward to send him home. At the same time, in another world, Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd encounter the Do-Do, an early and mostly forgotten Looney Tunes character from another world called Wackyland. Bugs deliberately borrows a trick from the pages of his favorite comic book publisher and tricks the Do-Do into saying Od-Od, banishing him at the same time that Myxyzptlk vanishes from Earth. The two cosmic tricksters collide in the place between worlds and decide to join forces and cause a little chaos by sending the Looney Tunes to Earth.
On the moon, Green Lantern finds Marvin the Martian planning to destroy the Earth (again). Flash races Speedy Gonzales through the desert, Plastic Man disguises himself as a cat only to fall afoul of the affection of Pepe LePew, and in Gotham City, Batman finds a very different Penguin than the one he expected. Myzptylk amps up the chaos by giving Elmer Fudd Superman’s powers (and costume), and poor Green Arrow is stuck with a singing, dancing Michigan J. Frog that doesn’t seem to want to perform for anybody else.
Mxy and the Do-Do find their relationship strained, the machine they’re using to toy with the heroes destroyed and forcing them all together. The Tunes are made honorary member of the Justice League (because why not?) just as the Do-Do turns on his partner, bringing about a – ya gotta say it – “Cwisis on Infinite Earths!”
Mark Evanier was absolutely the best choice to write this bizarre little crossover. As a writer in both comic books (perhaps best known as co-writer of Sergio Aragones’ Groo the Wanderer) and in animation (such as the original and excellent Garfield and Friends cartoon), he had the right sensibility to bring these two worlds together. It’s interesting that he chose to have both the Justice League and the Looney Tunes be fictional characters in the others’ universe. Bugs and Foghorn Leghorn read Action Comics, and every member of the League recognizes their cartoon co-stars the second they see them. It nicely sidesteps the usual introductions, although if the Leaguers have all watched the Looney Tunes (as well they should have) it should kind of make you question their judgment when they include the likes of Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd into the ranks of the honorary Leaguers.
I also give Evanier credit for diving into the archives of the Looney Tunes for this. He didn’t just bring out the A-listers like Bugs and Daffy – we get appearances by everyone from Pete Puma to the Goofy Gophers Mac and Tosh, and he keeps them all in character. He’s not quite as adept with the Justice League, writing them more like they would have been in the Silver Age than when this book was published in 2000. Things like Green Arrow’s panic over nobody believing his story about a singing frog don’t quite fit (especially since, as it should be noted, this was the less-emotive Connor Hawke version of Green Arrow rather than Oliver Queen). But you can accept these things are being part of the overlap with the land of the Looney.
Joe Staton’s layouts keep everything consistent, and using finishing team of Tom Palmer (handling the DC Universe and characters) and Mike DeCarlo (on the Looney Tunes) makes it all look nice, clean, and like these characters fit in a world together.
I’ve always liked this miniseries. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s fun. And it helped inspire a series of DC one-shots a few years ago in which they met Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera characters, although those were part of a line that reimagined the cartoon characters in a more “serious” vein. Some of those specials worked better than others. I particularly liked seeing the Super-Sons meet Blue Falcon and Dynomut, and having Booster Gold encounter the Flintstones was a treat. Pretty much everyone agrees that the gem of those books was the Batman/Elmer Fudd special. But the shocking thing? No books featuring Superman.
What a waste of potential. At least we’ve got the OG.
Tues., Aug. 5
Comic Books: All-New Collectors’ Edition #56 (aka Superman Vs. Muhammed Ali)
Float like a Kryptonian, sting like heat vision!
Notes: The year was 1978. Jimmy Carter was elected president, Christopher Reeve was wearing the Superman costume, and we were still 26 years from the birth of America’s sweetheart Justin Bieber. And this was the year that brought us one of Superman’s most legendary and unexpected crossover events: a giant-sized special that saw him face off against “the Greatest,” Muhammad Ali.
Lois, Clark, and Jimmy are walking through Metropolis when they happen to stumble upon Muhammad Ali playing pick-up basketball with a group of school kids. As Lois approaches him for an interview, they are interrupted by the sudden appearance of an alien (you know, like you do) who summarily shoves Lois aside. Ali leaps to her defense as Clark ducks off to change his clothes, then follows the alien’s trail to an orbiting armada of spacecraft that…frankly…even in 1978 it’s kind of hard to believe nobody noticed them before. The alien identifies his race as the Scrubb, a warlike society who has come to Earth to pit our greatest champion against their own. Amusingly, Superman and Ali each presume the alien is talking about himself, and after a demonstration of their power, the Scrubb declares that the role of Earth’s champion will be decided in a match between the two of them, with Superman’s powers removed to make it fair – and if they refuse, the Scrubb promise to destroy the Earth itself.
Superman takes Ali to his Fortress of Solitude, where he creates a special ring to train: a time disruptor that can stretch their 24 hours to about two months, and a red sun lamp to remove Superman’s powers, giving the Greatest of All Time the time he needs to teach Superman how to box. The Scrubb catch wise, though, and disrupt the training after only two relative weeks, taking Superman and Ali into space where their bout will be broadcast across the universe. The fight is brutal, and Superman’s unfinished training makes him no match for his opponent…but still, the Man of Steel may be beaten and bloody, but refuses to fall down until the judges call the fight for Ali. As he is returned to Earth so the yellow sun may heal him, Ali prepares for his battle against the Scrubb’s champion, a gigantic brute called Hun’ya. To everyone’s shock (maybe even the writer, it’s so random) an angelic being appears in the ring demanding to act as moderator of the contest. The being appears differently to each species – to the humans she is the Greek Goddess of Wisdom, Pallas Athene. As the match begins, Ali’s cornerman Bundini Brown infiltrates the Scrubb command center, revealing himself as Superman in disguise. Impersonating the Scrubb Emperor, Superman orders the armada away from Earth, then catches a ride back to the yellow sun system to take it out as Ali defeats Hun’ya. The Emperor plans to turn back to destroy Earth anyway, but Hun’ya himself – disgusted by his lack of honor – defeats the Emperor.
The epic team of Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams are the ones who put this special together, and honestly, nobody else could have done it. Adams did a note-perfect version of Ali in this book, creating a character who is immediately recognizable as the boxer while, at the same time, still looking like he belongs in this DC Universe. It helps that Adams’ natural style lends itself to more realistic visuals than a lot of other artists of the era, making the combinations seamless. The story is kind of wild, and really over the top, but what else would you want? There are some odd moments, of course – the deity that calls itself Athene lends absolutely nothing to the plot, and the book ends with Ali revealing to Superman that he’s figured out he’s really Clark Kent due to a slip of the tongue Superman had made much earlier in the story. Is there any particular reason for that? Absolutely not. But it also doesn’t hurt the story, and it feels like the kind of thing that Muhammad Ali would have insisted upon, so I can deal with it.
The funny thing about this one, I think, is that the story itself (wild as it may be) probably isn’t as well known as Adams’ incredible cover. It’s one of those covers that has become a classic, frequently targeted for swipes by other artists, and you can’t blame them. It’s so rich and detailed as to defy belief, with dozens of DC characters and real-world figures alike appearing in the audience to watch the Superman Vs. Ali fight. It’s so in-depth that the deluxe edition of the book includes a guide to help you identify everybody who appears on the cover. It’s the kind of attention to detail that the likes of Alex Ross grew up on and decided to emulate in his own career.
This is, frankly, an insane book. And it’s a classic for a reason.
Here we are, friends, August 1, and according to everybody on the Internet that means one thing: it’s Halloween.
Here we go, the perfect August.
Granted, October 31st is a full three months away, but it only takes a brief glance at social media to see that people have already begun preparing for it. Plans are being made, movie marathons are being scheduled, decorations are going up, and Spirit Halloween Stores are about to open their doors for the year. I’m not exactly sure when it happened, but a large percentage of the online space has decided August 1 is the date at which this sort of activity becomes acceptable.
It drives some people crazy. It’s part of “holiday creep.” It’s bad enough, they will cry, that stores start pushing Christmas in October – is Halloween in August really necessary? And the answer, strictly speaking, is probably “no.” We’re talking about entertainment, after all, and entertainment is virtually never “necessary.” But here’s the thing guys: it may not be necessary, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t welcomed or desired. When I say it’s not “necessary” to put out Halloween decorations in August, what I mean is that the decorations SPECIFICALLY are not necessary…but they do meet a need. They fill something in the person who is doing it, they make them smile a little bit, make them feel better. It is, as much as I hate the term, a form of “self-care,” to immerse yourself in those things that make you feel good. And while it could theoretically be something else other than hanging that scarecrow wreath on your front door, why is it bad if it IS?
The same, of course, goes for starting Christmas in early November or people in the New Orleans area who are ready to put out Mardi Gras decorations on Dec. 26. It seems early if it’s not something you’re into, sure, but for those people who want these kinds of things, it’s not early at all. In fact, if you really love a certain holiday, there’s often no such thing as too early.
It worked for Tim Burton.
Let’s talk about August Halloween specifically. Why has this become the thing that people are latching on to? Well, to be blunt, August kind of sucks. It’s ridiculously hot outside. School is starting up again, which students of course equate with a loss of freedom. The best summer movies have already come out, so there’s not much reason to get hyped for the box office (although this year, the new Naked Gun reboot looks surprisingly good). And there aren’t even any holidays coming up soon to get excited about. That’s one of the best things about major holidays, after all, the anticipation. Buying gifts for Christmas, planning the meal on Thanksgiving, and watching scary movies in the run-up to Halloween are all primary seasonal activities that cannot be restricted to a single day. And for the people who love these holidays, we wouldn’t WANT them to be.
August, however, has nothing like that to offer. Once the Fourth of July has passed, the next holiday doesn’t come until Labor Day in September, and even then it’s not the kind of holiday that eats up an entire season. For most people it’s just a three-day weekend – we’ll take it, but it’s not something that will keep us going for months. I’ve tried to solve this problem, friends. More than once I’ve offered up my birthday (August 25) to members of Congress for use as a national holiday to help break up the seasonal doldrums by starting new traditions like eating pizza while watching Star Trek and making charitable donations in the form of purchasing hundreds of copies of my books to give to libraries, schools, hospitals, or your loved ones. But apparently this plan is – in the words of a certain Congresswoman from the southwest who shall remain nameless – “ridiculous” and “grounds for an FBI investigation if you keep calling my private number, how did you get it anyway?” So until they get their act together, I think early Halloween is our best bet.
There is an irony, I think, in that many of the people who love early Halloween are also the people who reject early Christmas. Some of the REALLY hardcore Halloween fans – the ones who enjoy “extreme” haunted houses and particularly dark horror movies – are likely not the type who are also into elves, reindeer, or (oddly enough) pumpkin spice lattes. I think there’s more overlap among the people who prefer their Halloween to be family-friendly. If your decorations include stuff from Disney’s Haunted Mansion or a Minion dressed up like Dracula, you’re more likely to be the sort who switches to a Santa inflatable on November 1.
There are two kinds of people.
Regardless of which type of Halloween fan someone might be, though, there’s something important that detractors need to remember: it doesn’t hurt you, so let people be. It always amazes me how many people need to be reminded of this simple principle. Look, I get it – “Spooky Season” being extended to the middle of (meteorological) summer has been elevated to a kind of meme status, and like any meme, if it’s overused it can get kind of annoying. But nobody is forcing you to participate. You don’t have to put out a Jack O’Lantern if you don’t want to, and nobody will think less of you if you keep that banner with the sun with a smiley face basking down over the beach until September. But by the same token, it doesn’t do YOU any harm when the guy next door is out on his lawn in 105 degree heat trying to figure out how best to position his 12-foot skeleton from Home Depot.
At this price, it’s irresponsible NOT to buy one.
For me, it all goes back to the idea of having something to look forward to. Day to day life, even if you’re the type of person who has a job they love to go to in the morning or one of those weirdos who actually enjoys spending time with their family, can get monotonous. There’s an important psychological need that is fulfilled by having something to look forward to, and things like holidays are a good way to scratch that itch. It gives you a reason to get excited, even if that reason is something as silly as deciding when to add “Monster Mash” to your Spotify playlist.
For example, my son informed his mother and I a few weeks ago that this year he intends to be Superman for Halloween. I don’t need to tell you that this is something I – as a parent – have been hoping to hear my child say from the day Erin informed me that she was pregnant. I am already imagining helping Eddie pick out his costume, dressing him up, taking so many pictures that I may need to purchase a new external hard drive for my computer, and maybe even putting on the Superman long pajamas he and Erin gave me for Father’s Day to accompany them. In fact, the only reason I haven’t ordered him a costume already is because the kid grows faster than a Chia Pet and I’m afraid of him outgrowing any costume if I buy it too early. Something tells me, though, that once we get closer to the date, such costumes will not be in short supply.
The new face of Halloween.
We all cope with the world in different ways, and as long as doing so doesn’t harm anybody else, there’s nothing wrong with that. And no, “forcing” you to see somebody’s Casper the Friendly Ghost cutout before Labor Day doesn’t count. For those of you who aren’t into it, just relax. Spooky Season will be over far too soon for a lot of us.
For those of us who DO celebrate, buckle up. We’ve only got until the end of October, so let’s dig in and have some freaky fun while we can.
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’s already made a chart of which movies he’s going to watch this year. He knows he won’t make it through half of them.
As I sit down to write this, a little after 7 pm on the evening of July 23rd, I’m exhausted. My wife got three days off work in a row and so we decided to take a quick trip to Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi. We visited the beach, took in a Biloxi Shuckers baseball game, visited the excellent Mississippi Aquarium, and I even managed to squeeze in a visit to 3 Alarm Comics, one of the shops in the area. Now, Wednesday evening, I haven’t read anything Superman-related yet today, so I’m going to dig into the pile and pick something pretty much at random to pontificate about. I suspect the rest of this week will be kind of random too. Hope that’s okay with everybody out there.
Notes: Off the top of my head, I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned Ambush Bug here in the Year of Superman before. I know I wrote about him a couple of months ago, when I suggested that DC collect his early appearances in their new Compact Comics line, but that’s a whole different animal, even if it is on the same website. Ambush Bug was a co-creation of Paul Kupperberg and Keith Giffen. Originally a villain, he was really more of an annoyance than a threat to Superman, and he got even MORE annoying when he decided to go straight and become a hero. Ambush Bug also beat Deadpool to the fourth wall breaking schtick by well over a decade (maybe more – I don’t know exactly when Deadpool started doing that bit). He’s fully aware that he’s a comic book character and had frequent conversations with his creators in the later issues in which he appeared.
Although he gets the cover of this issue of Action, Ambugh Bug doesn’t actually show up until the second story. The first one, “Meet John Doe” by Kupperberg and artist Alex Saviuk, features Superman facing off a villain calling himself…well…John Doe. The story kicks off with Doe escaping prison, then deciding to take out his frustration on the various institutions that kept him incarcerated for over two decades. When Superman encounters him he starts suffering from bizarre bouts of amnesia, temporarily forgetting things like his dual identity or some of his powers, and Doe gleefully takes credit for his sudden selective memory loss.
It’s a pretty standard early-80s Superman story, taking down a villain with a little bit of misdirection. Doe also isn’t even a memorable villain (although I suppose that’s appropriate enough), and I don’t believe he ever showed up again. The most interesting thing about this story is that Doe appears to be sponsored by a mysterious figure in a satellite calling himself the Monitor. The DC Universe, at this point in 1984, was already trying to put together the pieces for what would eventually be Crisis on Infinite Earths, but some of these early Monitor appearances really don’t make much sense in the context of who the character would eventually become.
Giffen flies solo on the Ambush Bug back-up story. In “Police Blotter,” the recently “reformed” Ambush Bug has moved to Metropolis and set up a private detective agency. Getting word of this, Clark Kent decides to investigate the investigator, only for Ambush Bug to suss out his secret identity before they even reach the bottom of the second page. From there, the rest of the pages are less of a cohesive story and more like assorted glimpses of Ambush Bug making his way through Metropolis by doing things like arresting a car with an expired parking meter and dragging it to the steps of the police station, then popping into the Daily Planet offices to pay his best pal Superman a visit.
I’ve read this story before. It was one of the earliest Superman stories I read as a child (I would have been six or seven when it was published and, while I don’t think I read it quite that young, I don’t think I was much older than that), and it was certainly my first exposure to what we now call meta humor. (Yes, meta humor was a thing back then. Meta humor has been a thing for hundreds — maybe thousands — of years, it’s only recently that we started to CLASSIFY it.) I know I didn’t get the joke about Ambush Bug not doing something particularly gruesome because Giffen had drawn him behind an office door – I don’t think I even knew who Giffen was at the time. I knew, vaguely, that somebody had to write and draw comic books, but I wasn’t particularly paying attention to the credits yet to see who those people were. Now, as an adult, I love this kind of stuff, and Giffen was one of the greats. The story is really funny, highly bizarre, and just the kind of thing that makes me want to read more Ambush Bug. The character still pops up from time to time, but nobody has really had a great handle on him since Giffen’s last go-round. I know that the way comics work he won’t remain in limbo forever, but I hope that someone who’s half as good as Giffen was gets their hands on Irwin Schwab someday.
Thur., June 24
Comics: Superman #327
And you thought your family reunion was rough.
Notes: You know how you can get home from a trip and then the next day you feel like you’re in over your head? Even though our Mississippi sojourn was only three days, that’s what today has been like for me, catching up on a dozen different things and not realizing I still had to clock in the Year of Superman entry for today until late afternoon. But it’s been 205 days since I started this whole thing, and I haven’t missed a day yet. Being busy sure as hell isn’t going to do it to me. So I did the same thing I did yesterday, digging into my unread pile and choosing a fairly random book, in this case, Superman #327 from 1978. I picked this one, I don’t mind admitting, based on the cover. Kobra has captured Jonathan and Martha Kent! Superman has to do his bidding or they’re doomed! I was so surprised to see this cover, in which Kobra has clearly learned Superman’s secret identity, that I totally forgot that the pre-Crisis Ma and Pa Kent were actually already dead by the time Clark became Superman.
Anyway, the story begins with Clark Kent returning home to his apartment only to be attacked by Kobra and some of his stooges. Superman has never faced Kobra before (although some of his fellow Justice Leaguers have), but he has in his possession one of Kobra’s weapons, a teleportation gun, with a homing beacon that Kobra followed to Clark’s apartment, revealing his secret identity, which actually automatically puts him in the top 0.3 percent of every villain Superman had ever battled in terms of awareness. Kobra escapes, but later kicks up a sandstorm to draw Superman out. There he reveals that he’s plucked the late Jonathan and Martha Kent from the timestream about a week before their deaths, and if Superman doesn’t obey his every whim, he’ll…kill them!
It’s kind of a strange plan, isn’t it? Superman’s reaction is that he has to save the Kents because if they were to die it would change his personal history. And…I mean…it WOULD, but would having them die one week sooner really made that much of a difference? Don’t get me wrong, Superman should save them regardless, but the logic doesn’t necessarily track. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Kobra, since he apparently can do this sort of thing, to pull the Kents out of time when Clark was a baby? Or when THEY were babies? The consequences would be much more profound, I think.
Anyway, Superman beats Kobra because Superman beats Kobra, but Kobra gets away and, at the end of the story, still knows Superman is Clark Kent. I really wonder where I have to follow this story to see how the cat got back in the bag.
The back-up story in this issue is a tale of “Mr. and Mrs. Superman,” the Lois and Clark of Earth-2, who periodically showed up in tales of their life as a married couple at this time. The newlyweds are moving into a new apartment when they’re nearly crushed by their own couch. Clark, naturally, saves the day, but it soon becomes apparent that their brush with death was no accident – Clark is being targeted by members of a criminal organization called the Colonel Future Gang for a series of expose’s he’s been writing, and they’re trying to take him out for good.
I’m gonna keep my lips shut on how this one ends because it’s actually really good. But what I WILL say is that it’s actually Lois and her razor-sharp brain that solves the problem this time around, and you guys all know how much I love it when Lois is played to the top of her intelligence. It wasn’t always the default back in the era when this story was written, and it was even rarer for the Golden Age Lois, who this story stars. It’s great to see her outsmarting the bad guys here, and I’m really pleased with this story. I don’t think these “Mr. and Mrs. Superman” stories have ever been collected anywhere, and DC should do something about that.
There’s actually a lot of stuff from this era that has been kind of lost. I suppose it’s a consequence of the fact that DC’s stories weren’t always on fire then. This was the period when Marvel was making moves with new characters that pushed the limits like Ghost Rider, Dracula, Power Man and Iron Fist, and the like. DC, on the other hand, was kind of coasting on the same characters they’d brought in during the Silver Age, with only Firestorm being notable as a new addition to the lineup in this period. And except for some of the Batman stories of the age, a lot of it has been forgotten. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t stories from the 70s and 80s worth reading.
Fri., July 25
Comics: Jon Kent: This Internship is My Kryptonite #1, Green Lantern Vol. 8 #24
Hot take: don’t read this book.
Notes: Late last year, DC Comics kicked off their “DC Go!” program on the app. It’s basically the same thing as the Infinity Comics Marvel has been publishing online for some years now. The idea here is that rather than breaking the comic book story into traditional panels, the story flows straight down from one panel to another in an “infinite” scroll. It’s something that’s been tossed around and done for years, but the Big Two are fairly new in the game. I’m lukewarm on the format, if I’m being honest. It’s an interesting idea, but it’s rare that the creators actually use it to its utmost potential. Every so often you have an artist do something interesting or innovative with the format, or at the very least use it to do an extended panel (most often somebody falling or climbing down a great distance). For the most part, though, it’s just a less-convenient way to read a story. The worst is when they take a comic that was traditionally published and chop it up to rearrange it in the Infinity format. It’s like colorizing a movie – you take something that was perfectly good in the first place and make it worse.
That said, even when they don’t use the format to its greatest potential, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some really good stories told in the format.
However, This Internship is My Kryptonite is not one of them. The story here is that Jon Kent is getting an internship at the Daily Planet, and in this first issue, he meets his coworkers.
That’s…that’s it. That’s pretty much all that happens. And the thing is that those coworkers, and pretty much everybody else in the comic for that matter, are all the most annoying human beings ever put on a comic book page. Seriously, there is nobody likable in this comic book. Even Clark Kent, showing up briefly in a cameo, is just there for an “embarassing dad” joke.
Look, I give them credit for at least TRYING to do something with Jon. The character has been aimless for too long. But this is a poor fit. What they’re doing here is conceptually no different than a dozen other “young Superman” stories that were done with Clark. Furthermore, it doesn’t even appear to be canon, as in this story Lois Lane is NOT in charge of the Planet, as she is in the comics these days. So even if this WERE a good story (which, I must reiterate, it is not), it wouldn’t actually fix any of the problems we’re having with mainstream Jon Kent.
I don’t mind a little experimentation with comic book formats, but this particular experiment didn’t even make me want to read the second issue.
Sat. July 26
It truly was a Superfantastic July.
I just got back from taking my family to see Fantastic Four: First Steps. As I’ve made abundantly clear, my love for the Fantastic Four is second only to my devotion to Superman, and I’ve been waiting even longer for a good FF movie than I have for the rebirth of the Man of Steel. I also think it’s profoundly stupid, the way some people want to pit these movies against one another. There is room for both and I think that the success of one will only feed the other.
I don’t want to spend too much time talking about First Steps, as this isn’t the “Year of the Fantastic Four.” But I’ll definitely say this much: it is currently possible to go down to your local cinema and treat yourself to a double-feature of a great Superman movie followed by a great Fantastic Four movie. I never thought I’d see the day.
Comic Books:Superman Vol. 6 #28, Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2 #9, New History of the DC Universe #2.
Notes: After the movie, we rolled by the comic shop to pick up this week’s Superman-related titles. First up is Superman #28, the beginning of the “Darkseid’s Legion” story arc. Last year, in the DC All-In Special, we got a glimpse of a universe corrupted by Darkseid’s energy (the universe we’re seeing in the “Absolute” comics) and populated by a horrifying Legion of Super-Heroes. This issue promises to begin unravelling the mystery.
You know when you meet up with old friends that you haven’t seen in a while and they’ve all been transformed into acolytes of Darkseid?
The story, by Joshua Williamson and Dan Mora, picks up after the Validus attack from the Summer of Superman special. Worried about his friends in the future, Superman returns to Smallville to retrieve his Legion flight ring before he sets out to visit them. Before he can depart from Smallville, though, he finds himself face-to-face with a Saturn Girl who – much like the Absolute Universe – has been inspired not by Superman, but by Darkseid himself.
The issue is a hell of a start to this storyline, with an insidious version of the Legion acting as the bad guys even as Clark reflects on the REAL Legion, what it means to him, and how it pains him that the future is always somehow in flux. Perhaps DC is finally planning to address the ways they keep warping this history of the Legion? It would be nice to settle it once and for all.
Justice League Unlimited continues with its ninth issue, an epilogue to the recent “We Are Yesterday” storyline. The League is trying to cope with the dual problems of restoring the time-lost heroes to their respective proper eras and, in a storyline that mostly follows Mr. Terrific, trying to find and rescue the lost and duped Air Wave, who the heroes now know was conned into turning against them in the battle with Grodd. It’s more Mark Waid goodness, with the League finding mistakes it’s made and the heroes trying to compensate. We’re also starting to draw together a few different threads here, with the appearance of the Doomsday/Time Trapper hybrid that’s been popping up in Superman and the return of the World Forger, a Justice League frenemy from a couple of relaunches back who is responsible for the creation of our specific world in the multiverse.
Waid has so much on his plate right now – this title, World’s Finest, Action Comics, Batman and Robin: Year One, and the miniseries I’m going to talk about next. With all of these pieces combined it really feels as though he has become the primary architect of the modern DCU. At the very least, it seems that everybody else has to run their respective pieces by him to make sure they all fit.
MY history textbook had a picture of a bunch of bison on it. What a rip-off.
That other Waid project is New History of the DC Universe, the second issue of which hit this week. This issue starts with Kal-El’s spacecraft landing in Smallville and goes straight through to the original Crisis on Infinite Earths. Without spending hours recapping the specifics, it’s really impressive how Waid has managed to piece together the different continuities in ways that make sense. For example, he establishes that Victor Stone (aka Cyborg) WAS part of the team that fought back Darkseid and eventually became the Justice League, as seen in the New 52 version of the Justice League’s origin, but his injuries were so great that he had to be placed in suspended animation to heal. When he awoke years later, he joined the Teen Titans, as in his original origin. It’s a neat little workaround that manages to keep both of Cyborg’s “origins” mostly intact. The real test is going to come next issue, though. At the end of this one, Waid gives us the Great Crisis, including the death of both Barry Allen (who is narrating the series) and Supergirl. Explaining Barry will be simple enough – his resurrection story was part of the terribly inaccurately-named Final Crisis, but Supergirl? She never GOT a resurrection story. She died in Crisis, then the Man of Steel reboot happened and she never existed at all, then she came back in an updated version of her original origin. So I’m very eager to see what kind of slight-of-hand Waid intends to use to bring her back from the dead.
Sun. July 27
It’s back to Krypton today, folks!
Essays: “The Kryptonian Alphabet: A Real-World Historical Tale” (2006) by Al Turniansky, “Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes” (2006) by Mark Waid, “The Superman Mythology: Animal Planet-Legion of Super-Pets” (2006), “Al Plastino Interview” (2003) by Glen Cadigan, “The Superman Mythology: Krypton Meets Camelot” (2006), all from The Krypton Companion.
Notes: It is a busy and scorching Sunday here in southern Louisiana. Early this afternoon, my family and I went to see a performance of Willy Wonka Kids, a half-hour reduction of the stage play that happened to star my niece, Maggie, in her stage debut (as Grandma Josephina, an Oompa Loompa, and the best squirrel I’ve seen since the Superman movie). Afterwords, we went out for lunch and did some grocery shopping before we came home and I filmed my LitReel for the week. I then took my usual hour to edit all the takes down to a tight three and a half minutes and set it to upload. FINALLY, I had time to sit back and pull out the DC Universe app to look for a Superman comic to read today.
Naturally, that’s when the internet went out.
It’s still out as I write this. My reel still hasn’t uploaded. It’s irritating as hell.
So I had a few options here. I could wait for the internet to come back – which isn’t really an option, as when this happens (and it happens far too often) there’s really no way of telling how long it will take to come back on. Could be 30 seconds, could be Tuesday. I could try to read a comic on my phone, but I hate reading comics on my phone. The screen is too small. I could dip into my stack of unread comics, as I’ve already done twice in this pretty random week in the Year of Superman, but like I said, I already did that twice this week and I didn’t really want to do it again.
So I went with option four and I pulled out The Krypton Companion again, the excellent book of essays and interviews about the history of the Superman mythology. I’ve read essays from this book before this year but it’s been a few months, so let’s dig in again.
Al Turniansky gives us “The Kryptonian Alphabet,” an interesting little story about the creation of…well, it’s right there in the title. Back in the 50s, he said, they would frequently receive letters from readers (kids, usually) trying to submit their own Kryptonian alphabet, which usually just consisted of 26 different “squiggles” that corresponded exactly to the standard English alphabet, much like modern Interlac as has been used in DC Comics for quite some time. In an effort to put a rest to that practice, editor E. Nelson Bridwell replied in a letter column that the Kryptonian alphabet actually had 118 characters, thinking that this would stop the kids from trying to come up with them. E. Nelson Bridwell clearly did not understand the fanaticism of the average comic book fan.
Mark Waid himself chimes in with an essay regarding Superman’s history with the Legion of Super-Heroes. There’s nothing particularly revelatory in this piece, it’s mostly just a discussion of how the Legion contributes to the Superman mythos itself, but it’s nice to hear some of the details from such an expert. This essay, in fact, was actually originally published in 2006, when Waid was the writer of Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes, so he’s pretty much THE expert.
I also read through a nice short piece on the Legion of Super-Pets and an interview with classic artist Al Plastino, but the best thing I read today was “Krypton Meets Camelot,” a discussion of the famous story in which Superman works with President John F. Kennedy to promote his physical fitness program. Although it was written while Kennedy was still alive and scheduled for publication for Superman #168, it was promptly shelved upon Kennedy’s assassination. It didn’t actually see print until #170, at the request of the Johnson administration. The essay also briefly discusses some of the other appearances of Kennedy and other presidents (especially Abraham Lincoln) in comics. This reminds me that I haven’t actually re-read that Kennedy story for the Year of Superman, and I probably should.
I would check right now to see if it’s available on the DC Universe Infinite App but…well, you know. No internet.
But with summer coming to an end entirely too soon – I return to work to begin preparing for this new school year on Friday, August 1 – I suspect I may be turning to the Kryptonian Companion a bit more often when I’ve got a day where I’m short on time and I need a quick dose of Superman to keep my streak alive.
Mon. July 28
Friday is getting closer whether I like it or not. Today, the last Monday of my summer, my wife and I took Eddie down to the school where they helped me start putting my classroom together for the new school year. Rearranging furniture, unpacking and re-shelving books, putting up decorations, and most of all, getting together my Geek Corner. I think everybody needs something like my Geek Corner. It’s the little section of my classroom by my desk where I surround myself by my own nerdy stuff. Erin always puts together a collage of pictures – mostly comic book characters – that I’ve clipped out of Previews and other assorted catalogs and magazines over the past year. Then, on the bookshelf behind my desk, I put up a worthy collection of Superman stuff.
A collection so worthy it could lift Mjolnir.
There are, it’s safe to say, a couple of dozen Funko Pops of various sizes, other figures, figurines, and statues, a plush doll, some Hot Wheels and Corgi Cars, and probably other things that I’ve forgotten about but that you can enjoy in the pictures I’m sharing here. The prize addition to the collection this year, though, is the Daily Planet popcorn “bucket” I picked up the day we saw Superman in theaters. I’d hoped to squeeze in a second viewing of the film before school starts up, but it seems pretty unlikely that will happen, with our schedule for the next few days being what it is. But I hope the rest of you guys keep seeing it again and again, and you can be assured I’ll be preordering the Blu-Ray as soon as it’s available.
Getting home from school in the mid-afternoon, it’s time to find some Superman stuff to read today.
Comic Book: Superman #170
And you thought your family reunion was — wait, I already did that joke this week?
Notes: Still thinking about the essay I read yesterday regarding the Superman/Kennedy comic, I thought it would be interesting to go back and read that one again. The story, frankly, is kind of dull. Superman saves a group of international hikers trapped by an avalanche, upon which Lana Lang realizes the European survivors are peppy and ready to move, whereas the Americans are slow and sluggish. Superman meets with Kennedy about helping to promote the President’s physical fitness program, which turns into Perry White forcing the staff of the Daily Planet to join him in assorted exercise activities, which causes Clark to constantly have to find ways to fake feeling more exhausted than he actually does. The ultimate comes when the crew is caught by a cave-in. When Perry, Lois, and Jimmy see Clark lifting the boulder effortlessly, they realize he’s been fooling them for years and is, of course, secretly Superman.
Haha! Just kidding. No, Perry immediately assumes that his noodle-armed schlep of an employee has been so beefed up by the new Daily Planet fitness regimen that he has – in just a few days of exercise – gained the ability to heft an enormous chunk of rock. That is one hell of a program, Perry. Just…astonishing.
The story is of greater interest as a historical footnote than as an actual story, to be honest. The back-up story is a bit more entertaining: “If Lex Luthor Were Superman’s Father.” In this story Luthor comes up with what I think we can all agree is the greatest evil scheme in the history of evil schemes. Settle down, this one is a doozy:
Step One: Escape from jail.
Step Two: Travel back in time and journey to the planet Krypton BEFORE Jor-El and Lara get married.
Step Three: Pretend to be a hero, “Luthor the Noble.”
Step Four: Make Jor-El look bad and make Lara fall in love with and marry HIM instead.
Step Five: Sire Kal-El (why he would be named -El if Jor-El isn’t his father is beyond me) and then wait a few years for Krypton to blow up.
Step Six: Return to his own time where Superman, being a dutiful son, cannot arrest his own father, allowing Luthor free reign to commit crimes.
The wildest thing is that this plan almost WORKS. He makes it all the way up to Step Five and has Lara on the altar (which apparently was a giant wedding jewel on Krypton) before a special device he’s wearing to protect him from Krypton’s greater gravity suddenly runs out of power, pinning him to the floor. Before he can be rescued, he confesses that he’s actually from Earth. He manages to hop into his time machine and escape back to Earth before he can be thrown into the Phantom Zone, only to immediately be picked up by Superman and returned to jail.
This is a truly insane plan, even by Silver Age standards. And despite the fact that the cover calls it an “imaginary story,” the way it ends (with Jor-El and Lara reconciling) it still quite easily fits into the actual canon of the Silver Age comics. And if I may be a little crude, it’s ridiculous how funny it is that Luthor’s ultimate plot to render Superman ineffective forever boils down to being able to say “Hey, Kal-El, I banged your mom!”
Tues., July 29
It is a million and twelve degrees outside and I’ve got two days left before I go back to school. My drive, if I’m being perfectly honest, is absolutely drained. I want to read Superman, but I don’t want to dig into anything that’s going to take me all day either, because I’ve got to bring my son to the library and to a therapy appointment and then, right after that, I’m taking my wife out for one last dose of summer fun – a Weird Al Yankovic concert that we bought tickets to nearly a year ago. So I’m going to find something quick today. Ah – here we go!
Comic Book: Superman Vol. 2 #1
The first day is always rough, isn’t it Clark?
Notes: I, of course, wrote about John Byrne’s Man of Steel reboot back during “Origins Week,” and some of his other Superman stories have peppered the blog, but I have not, previously, taken the time to look at his first issue as the regular, ongoing Superman writer and artist. And as it’s a mostly self-contained story, and the fact that it’s got “First Issue” stamped on the cover in big, red letters, it feels like this would be a good quickie to dig into today.
Whereas Man of Steel took long gaps in-between issues, skipping years to get to the “present day” of the DC Universe, Byrne’s first issue of Superman picked up only weeks after the final issue of his miniseries. Superman has only recently discovered the truth of his Kryptonian heritage, and now he’s seeking the rocket that brought him to Earth, which was stolen from the Kent farm. He eventually tracks it down to an empty warehouse, where its sole inhabitant has been dead for weeks.
Later, as Clark meets Lois for a jogging date, they literally run into a bank robbery being committed by a towering bull of a man who introduces himself as Metallo, the man who will kill Superman thanks to his Kryptonite heart. Metallo, it turns out, was built by the dead man Superman had tracked down earlier and was powered by a chunk of Kryptonite that had hitched a ride on Kal-El’s rocket (which you can see strike the rocket on–panel in Man of Steel #1 – give Byrne credit for planning ahead). Metallo has Superman on the ropes before he’s picked up by a strange craft. Superman survives the encounter but is more nervous than ever about his unknown rescuer…as well he should be, as the readers are aware that Metallo has been taken by Lex Luthor, who has the attitude that nobody is allowed to kill Superman but him.
I’m reminding myself, as I read this, that this was the first issue of Superman following the relaunch, and there’s a fair possibility that a lot of people who picked it up hadn’t read the miniseries. So what if this was somebody’s first exposure to Superman? If that’s the case, there are some VERY interesting choices in here. First of all, let’s talk about Lois and Clark’s relationship. Lois is still bitter about Clark scooping her on the day Superman first arrived in Metropolis, but his persistence seems to have worn her down. She as much as admits she finds him attractive, but pushes back against his advances. Clark, to his credit, is adamant that he wants to win Lois’s heart, but he wants to do it as HIMSELF, not as Superman. If all you knew about Superman before reading this was Silver Age stories or the dynamic from the Christopher Reeve movies, you get a sharp change in what is expected. This is a dynamic that I greatly prefer, and Byrne is building up these two characters really nicely.
Metallo’s re-imagining is handled well. He’s constructed specifically to take out Superman, built by a man who has convinced himself that Superman is an alien invader. It’s the standard excuse for anti-Superman villains, of course, but I don’t think it was quite as overused in 1987 when this was published, so I won’t take points off for that. Even if it were cliched, it’s still a huge step up from Metallo’s original Silver Age origin, in which he was made into a cyborg by a well-meaning scientist who just happened to let it slip that Kryptonite was an element that could power his heart. Oh, and that Metallo himself was one of those ridiculously convenient dopplegangers of the era, somebody who just HAPPENED to look almost exactly like Superman. That happened inexcusably often in that period, and it frankly irritates the hell out of me every time I see that trope turn up.
The fight scene is really unexpected, if you think of it from a historical perspective. Once Metallo turns up the juice on his Kryptonite, it’s a curb-stomp battle, and it doesn’t look like Superman stands a chance. Byrne! What were you doing? It was Superman’s first issue and you had him get his ass handed to him by Metallo, only to be saved by LEX LUTHOR! It’s ridiculous! And impossible! Isn’t Superman ALWAYS supposed to be completely infallible and indestructible? He’s NEVER been hurt in nearly 90 years of his recorded history! He has absolutely NO vulnerabilities!
At least, that’s what those three guys still whining about the James Gunn movie would lead me to believe.
No, it IS surprising that Byrne starts off his series with an inarguable loss, but it fits into the arc he’s telling, which began in Man of Steel and continues on into the next issue. I considered reading issue #2 today as well, but I’m actually planning a Lex Luthor week at some point, and it’s just too good an issue not to include when that happens.
“Singin’ byyyye, byyyye Miss Kryptonian pie…”
I also returned to the DC app this week to read the first issue of another of the DC Go! comics, Taste of Justice. In this one, set in the early days of Lois and Clark’s relationship, it’s Clark Kent’s birthday (and they’re sticking with the Feb. 29 date, as in Alan Moore’s work), so Lois Lane decides she wants to do something special and cook his favorite meal, Beef Bourguignon. The only problem is, for all the things she’s great at, Lois Lane can’t cook, so she calls in Perry White to help her out.
This is a cute story. In large part, it’s about how to cook the specific dish, and I assume that’s going to be the format of this series: each issue showcasing a DC character cooking something for some reason. It’s a weird format, but it makes as much sense as the Superman Vs. Meshi manga series where he literally spends every issue talking about his favorite food at different Japanese chain restaurants. Anyway, while I wouldn’t necessarily try to cook the dish based on the instructions in this comic (Perry frequently neglects to mention things like the quantity of ingredients or cook times), I can definitely see myself looking up real recipes for foods I read about here. The story itself has a sweetness to it, with Lois trying to do something nice for the guy she’s falling in love with and being willing to reach out for help from someone she trusts when she needs help. There’s a vulnerability there that she doesn’t usually show, and it makes sense that Perry White is the one who would get to see it.
It was a low-key week, guys, but honestly, I kind of feel like that’s what I needed. I hope you enjoyed it anyway, and here’s hoping I’ve got something more exciting next Wednesday.
I’m sitting here two weeks after the debut of James Gunn’s Superman movie and I’m quite happy. As of the time I write this, it’s sitting at almost $260 million domestically and nearly $433 million worldwide, which in this post-COVID era is nothing to sneeze at. It’s already the top-grossing superhero movie of the year so far, and most importantly, it’s been embraced by the public. The critics love it, the fans love it, and people are still talking about it two weeks later, something you can’t really say for some of the other summer movies like Jurassic World: Rebirth. Lines like “Maybe being kind is the real punk rock” have achieved meme status, and not in a mocking way like that CEO at the Coldplay concert. Most importantly, it has gotten people reenergized. Sure, there are some people who don’t like it, and it’s fair to not like something, but if the REASON you don’t like something is because Superman believes in goodness, has a sense of humor, or wants to protect the life of even the smallest creature, then I’ll be frank: your opinion does not matter to me.
My face when I think about the bit with the squirrel.
With this movie doing well, eyes are now turning to the rest of James Gunn’s new DC Universe. When he and producer Peter Safran took over as co-heads of DC Studios a few years ago, they announced a slew of projects, but Gunn has also been very clear that he’s not going to move forward with anything until the script is ready, so several of those projects are on the back burner. The ones that are definitely on the schedule are – in order of release – season two of the Peacemaker TV series next month, the Lanterns series for early next year, the new Supergirl movie next summer, and a Clayface movie next fall. (Clayface, by the way, is the most indicative of the fact that Gunn is not married to a roadmap – it was not part of the initial announcement and Gunn said the character wasn’t even on the radar for a solo film, but writer Mike Flanagan pitched him a story that was so good they put it on the fast track.)
The hero we didn’t know we needed.
Movies in the works but not yet on the schedule are a Brave and the Bold movie (featuring Batman and the Damian Wayne Robin), The Authority, Swamp Thing, and Sgt. Rock. On TV, they’re working on live-action shows including Paradise Island, Waller, and Booster Gold, and in animation, they’re working on Blue Beetle, Mr. Miracle, and a second season of Creature Commandos. Other things have been tossed around, including a movie featuring Bane and Deathstroke, and Supergirl screenwriter Ana Nogueira has reportedly turned in a script for a Teen Titans movie AND has been hired to do a script for Wonder Woman. Following the success of Superman, rumors are flying about shows starring Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific and Skyler Gisando as Jimmy Olsen. There are other series and films in the works as well, but the ones I haven’t mentioned thus far (such as the sequel to Matt Reeves’ The Batman or an animated Starfire series for children) are mostly intended to be part of DC Studios’ “Elseworlds” imprint and not part of the DCU proper.
So obviously, there’s a LOT to look forward to in the next several years. But what is it I always say about fans? What do fans want above all else?
That’s right. Fans want MORE.
So today I want to talk about my Three Wishes for the new DCU. What are three projects that I would love to see? If I had a chance to sit down with James Gunn and convince him to add three of my dream projects to the schedule, what would they be? Let’s do one live-action series, one animated series, and one movie, just to cover all the bases that this DCU is touching. I’m also going to try to incorporate some themes or genres that the other projects haven’t gotten around to yet.
Live action series: Legion of Super-Heroes
Call the casting department and tell them to put a pot of coffee on.
My love for the Legion of Super-Heroes is no secret. I think it’s one of DC’s greatest franchises: the heroes of the 31st century, who have modeled themselves after the greatest heroes of our time. Dozens of heroes from different worlds, cultures, and species, allowing for any number of different characters and character dynamics. The series presents an opportunity to do science fiction and superheroes at the same time, and as Gunn has made it clear that he wants the different DC projects to each have a different feeling, this would fill a niche that isn’t there yet. (Okay, technically I suppose the Lanterns TV series will have a science fiction element to it, but from all the descriptions it seems like that show is going to be more of a military mystery/drama. That’s great, but I want a real space opera.)
But this would have to be a TV series. The Legion of Super-Heroes is, frankly, just too big for a movie. There are literally dozens of characters in the group, and even if you were to narrow down the focus to a core group of, say, seven or eight, you need time to explore who each of them are and how they relate to one another. You couldn’t do justice to the Legion in two hours.
The next thing is that I believe that the Legion is strongest as a spin-off of Superman. It’s how the characters were first introduced back in 1958, as kids who loved the legend of Clark Kent and travelled back in time to recruit him to join their club when he was just a teenager. It creates something of a stable time loop: the Legion models itself after Superman, but the Legion also taught Clark Kent to be a superhero in the first place. So I would use the early 2000s Legion of Super-Heroes animated series as my inspiration, casting someone to play a teenage Clark Kent and having him as a regular member of the cast. This would also open the door to have David Corenswet do a cameo as adult Clark at some point, probably in the last episode.
I don’t know if Corenswet is a jewelry guy, but I think this ring would look pretty good on him.
What’s more, although the Legion is set 1000 years in the future, that doesn’t mean that it can’t still be used to establish things for the contemporary stories. Alien races like the Khund or the Dominators, who could easily show up in other DC projects, could be introduced there. And the series could be used to give sneak peaks as to what will happen in the other movies and shows. (“Hey, why does the woman in this old photo have a golden lasso?” “Don’t worry, Clark, you’ll find out soon enough.”)
Is the reason I’m suggesting this series just because I love the Legion and I want other people to love it too? I’m not gonna lie, that’s probably at least 75 percent of my reasoning here. But that doesn’t make it a bad idea. I think this show could be great.
Animated Series: Deadman
With Clayface playing in the realm of body horror (it has been compared, tonally, to David Cronenberg’s The Fly), the supernatural corner of the DC Universe is waiting for some exploration. Deadman is the answer. If you’re unfamiliar with the character, Boston Brand was a circus performer who was murdered in the middle of his act. Rather than going to the great beyond, though, he was sent back to Earth as a ghost to solve his own murder. With the ability to possess the bodies of other people, Deadman has had a long and bizarre career as a superhero that most people (even in the DC Universe) don’t even know exists.
And you thought YOUR Monday sucked.
By the very nature of who the character is, Deadman has been used plenty of times to delve into the world of horror stories. He is, of course, a literal ghost, so haunted houses and poltergeists and all manner of demonic foes are par for the course for him. And he also regularly runs across other DC characters who are mired in this world of magic and the supernatural, like the Spectre, the Phantom Stranger, and Zatanna, giving a series of this nature an opportunity to open up the world even further.
As for why it would be best as an animated project – there’s a certain creative freedom in animation. It allows you to do things that would stretch credulity in live action, even with the best special effects. Have you ever noticed that the animated Star Trek series are far more likely to bring in characters who are not, strictly, humanoid? Creatures with three arms or body types that you could never fit a human actor into? That’s because in animation you don’t have to pay for huge animatronics, make actors spend days in the makeup chair applying heavy or even painful prosthetics, or worry about sketchy CGI that just doesn’t mesh against the human actors standing in front of a green screen. Animation would give them the freedom to really explore the afterlife, plunge into the depths of Hell, or put Deadman through extreme transformations like the nearly-skeletal Kelley Jones version of the character without having to torture the performers.
Very few actresses would be willing to have their torso removed to do this scene justice.
It could be groundbreaking in another sense as well. Animation is finally starting to crack free from the decades-old bias that it’s only intended for children, but it’s still rare to see adult-oriented animated projects that aren’t comedies. Even Creature Commandos, which was basically an action movie with monsters, leaned heavily on dark humor. Any humor in Deadman would likely come from Boston himself cracking wise, as the situations he plunges into would be deadly serious…no pun intended.
Movie: Firestorm
With page-rippin’ power!
Firestorm is one of DC’s perennial B-listers. The character inspires incredible amounts of devotion from his fans, but the NUMBER of fans just isn’t big enough to crack him into the mainstream. This could finally be a chance to fix that. Although several characters over the years have shared the name and the powers, the crux is usually that two people (originally scientist Martin Stein and high school student Ronnie Raymond) are fused into a single super-powerful being as the result of a nuclear accident. One of the two – Stein in the original – is dormant in the fused Firestorm persona, only able to offer advice to the one who’s steering the ship. This allows for a sort of “odd couple” dynamic, putting together two characters who don’t necessarily belong together and forcing them to literally work as one for the greater good.
Writer Gerry Conway, who co-created the character, had done a long run on Marvel’s Spider-Man and was attempting to recreate the dynamic of a younger hero, which DC didn’t really have at the time. Their heroes were all older, the younger ones were all sidekicks, so putting a teenager in the driver’s seat was different for them, and the character quickly became beloved, even becoming the youngest person to ever join the Justice League (at the time at least). But after 100 issues of his solo series, the doors were shuttered way back in 1990 and, despite several strong attempts to give him a resurgence, he’s struggled to really become big again ever since.
For the movie, I would make Martin Stein sort of the “man in the chair,” the person inadvertently responsible for Firestorm, but not part of Firestorm himself. I’d keep the part of Ronnie’s origin where he gets suckered into joining a group of “protestors” to impress a girl, only to find out that they’re actually eco-terrorists. But when the accident happens, rather than fuse with Stein, I’d have him fuse with the second Firestorm, Jason Rusch, who I would make Stein’s lab assistant.
“Fusion Confusion” was my nickname when I worked at that restaurant making sushi burritos.
The dynamic we’d have here would be Jason believing Ronnie’s a dumb jock while Ronnie sees Jason as a stuck-up egghead, and the two would slowly and begrudgingly learn to respect each other – the old “together we are more than the sum of our parts” routine. The eco-terrorists would be linked to a bigger bad, of course, who is targeting different scientific institutions in the DCU such as S.T.A.R.Labs, and giving us an opportunity to include other science-based heroes such as Captain Atom, Hourman, Stargirl, or the Flash – who has been oddly absent from all official conversation about the current DCU. There’d even be a clear opportunity to bring in Edi Gathegi as Mr. Terrific again, because when you have a science problem, who better to call than the smartest man in the world? I kind of like the idea of Stein being one of Mr. Terrific’s former professors who now finds himself running to his old student for help.
Okay, James Gunn, the ball is in your court now. You’re doing a great job so far, don’t get me wrong, but there’s always room to bring in even more goodness. Here are my suggestions.
Now I’ve got to get back to finishing up season one of Peacemaker before season two drops.
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. Come back to him in a month, he’ll probably have three totally different suggestions.
With the movie (you know which one) so fresh in my mind, I thought quite a bit about what to do this week. I don’t know what Superman stories would be best to follow it. Certainly, anything that would be capable of TOPPING it is likely something I’ve already read. So rather than any of that, I decided to go in the opposite direction: parody. Parody is a classic format for stories, something that’s been around almost as long as storytelling itself. I’m pretty sure that after the first caveman, Ug, finished regaling his tribe with the story of how he singlehandedly took down a wooly mammoth, when he walked away his buddy Og stood up and started doing a mocking impression of Ug getting impaled by a tusk.
In the nearly 90 years of his existence, Superman has been parodied many times, and we’re going to look at those this week. We’ll look at his parodies from comics and magazines like Mad and Cracked, check out spoofs from shows like Saturday Night Live, and even delve into the times that the Looney Tunes did their own take on the Man of Steel. So this week, friends, let’s laugh.
Notes: Everybody has heard of Mad Magazine, but if you’re not a hardcore comic book nerd like myself you may not know that Mad actually started out as a comic, published by EC Comics, the same company responsible for classics like Tales From the Crypt and Weird Science. When the anti-comic furor of the 50s led to the creation of the Comics Code of America, an organization that at times seemed intended solely to crush EC out of existence, they pivoted and made Mad a magazine instead, because evidently making the page size larger and switching to black-and-white was enough to exempt it from the Code. I didn’t say it made sense, people.
But anyway, the fourth issue of Mad (the comic book) brought us one of the first Superman parodies in print: “Superduperman” by Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood. Here we meet Clark Bent, assistant copy boy at the Daily Dirt, a pathetic creature who has spent the last ten years saving up his meager salary (seventy-five cents and a good bus token) in the hopes of buying a pearl necklace for “girl reporter” Lois Pain. The city of Cosmopolis is being plagued by an “Unknown Monster,” and Clark dives into a phone booth (then a second because the first was occupied) to change into Superduperman. To his shock, he discovers that the “Monster” is, in fact, Captain Marbles, who has gone rogue and decided he’s just in it for the money.
A few interesting things here: Mad #4 was published in 1953, just a few months before Fawcett Comics would throw in the towel in their years-long court battle against National Comics over their claim that Captain Marvel infringed on their Superman copyright. So there’s a meta level to having Superduperman slug it out with Captain Marbles that I find pretty amusing, but I have to wonder if the average kid in 1953 would have gotten that joke. The depiction of “Clark Bent” is pretty striking here, taking the “meek, mild” Clark Kent that we all know and love and making him even more pathetic, making Lois a cold, cruel harpy, and making Superduperman kind of a dunce.
I think the biggest draw is Wally Wood’s artwork. He was one of the greatest comedic artists of the time, probably of ALL time, and the level of energy and fun he puts on every page is outstanding. The man was a giant and I’m so glad I included this story in the Year of Superman.
In 1988, Marvel Comics decided to get back into the parody game with What The–?!, the Marvel Mag of Mirth and Mayhem. I was 10 years old when this series started, and it was pretty much tailor-made for me. The second issue, though, was something that was actually more special than I realized at the time: Superbman versus the Fantastical Four in “My Badguy, My Enemy!” by none other than John Byrne.
In 1988, Byrne was wrapping up his time on Superman for DC and returning to Marvel, where had previously done a legendary run on Fantastic Four, so I suppose the idea of having him parody his two greatest achievements in comics to date was a natural match. Byrne wrote and drew this story (with inks by another Superman laureate, Jerry Ordway), which has reporters Park Bench and Nosy Dame travel to New York from their home in Metropopolopolis to report on the newest bankruptcy of the Fantastical Four. When the Human Scorch carelessly causes Nosey’s hairdo to wilt, Superbman jumps into action.
I loved this incredibly goofy story as a kid and, as an adult, I appreciate it on an entirely different level. Byrne was doing something that I admire the hell out of: making fun of himself and having a grand time doing it. The story makes several references to the way Superman was changed in Byrne’s own reboot, including comments about how he’s not as powerful as he was previously, how he’s not as square as he used to be, and how his cape is no longer indestructible. The last one led to a joke that 10-year-old me thought was the funniest thing he’d ever read and, if I’m being honest, adult me still thinks is pretty hilarious:
Even a parody of Ben Grimm still sounds like Ben Grimm, and I think that’s beautiful.
But as the fight between our heroes rages, off to the side there’s a battle of wits between Doctor Bloom, sworn enemy of the Fantastical Four, and Rex Ruthless, sworn enemy of Superbman (the Keeper of the Comics Code actually has to step in at one point to tell them to cut down on the swearing). The two super-geniuses begin arguing over their plots, with Bloom revealing that he faked the FF’s bankruptcy to lure Park Bent to report on it, having deduced that Bent was Superbman. Ruthless finds this HILARIOUS, in a page that I now recognize as being the real pearl of this story. He gives Bloom a lecture on how impossible that would be, a page where Byrne is parodying his own treatment of Lex Luthor from Superman (Vol. 2) #2, in which Luthor rejected the same line of logic connecting Clark and Superman. Byrne even gets into making jokes about his own predilections in panel layout here, stuff that as a kid I didn’t catch on to at all. (I wasn’t reading Superman comics yet at that point, and even if I had been I don’t know if I would have caught on to all the nuances.)
But perhaps the greatest inside joke in the comic is the way Byrne draws Superbman’s s-shield. I remember reading an introduction Byrne once wrote for Man of Steel in which he discussed his history with Superman and how, as a child, he didn’t realize the symbol was supposed to be an “s.” To him, he said, the shapes looked like a pair of fish swimming at one another. So when he got the chance to do a parody, that’s what he drew. That’s a joke that I bet almost NOBODY got – I certainly didn’t get it at the time – but it’s one of my favorites now.
I wish Byrne had done more comedy comics like this one. He had a real flair for it.
Thur. July 17
Magazines: Mad #208, Cracked #160
Notes: When I was younger I read Mad and Cracked pretty regularly, although I drifted away as I got older. This happened with a lot of stuff, but unlike other things I dropped as being “for kids” like Disney and Archie comics, I never really went back to Mad on a regular basis. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I think my sense of humor just grew in a different direction than those publications specialize in. Still, I’ve got a lot of them from when I was younger and I’ve tracked down others over the years that either featured or reprinted specific Superman comics – plus there are some available (you know where this is going) on the DC Universe Infinite app. So during Parody Week, I’m going to try to go through some of the ones that I’ve got in roughly the order of publication.
First up is Mad #208, which recycled the title “Superduperman” for its parody of the first Christopher Reeve movie. I can’t find a writer credit, oddly enough, but Mort Drucker’s signature appears on the first page and – let’s be frank – it would be pretty clear it was his art even without it. Drucker was a phenomenal caricaturist, the characters in his Mad parodies immediately recognizable as the celebrities he was spoofing, even when exaggerating or mocking their features. He even nails the design of Glenn Ford and Phillis Thaxter as Jonathan and Martha Kent in their brief appearance.
I’m not going to bother to recap the story here, because as a parody it’s a fairly by-the-beat retelling of the story of the movie. How well, then, does it succeed as a comedy?
Eeeeeeeh.
I think this is why I never quite got back to Mad once I got older. The comedy in many of these stories is dependent on straw man jokes and easy targets: a crack about how improbable it is that Lois can afford such an opulent apartment on a reporter’s salary, gags about how outrageously out-of-proportion Marlon Brando’s paycheck for this movie was, and of course, a joke about the glasses. Probably the best joke in the entire parody comes at the very end, after Superduperman spins time back to save “Lotus Lain.” As in the movie, Supes gets a vision of his father reminding him he’s not supposed to interfere with human history. In this version, though, there’s a second voice telling him to do it – it turns out to be the executives at Warner Bros. recognizing that they need Lotus alive for Superduperman II.
The same month that Mad’s parody came out, rival magazine Cracked gave us “Suped-Upman: The Satire.” Once again, there’s no credited creative team, but the artwork to me looks a hell of a lot like the great John Severin, who did stories for Cracked for decades.
The Cracked story isn’t specifically parodying the movie, but rather just giving us a goofy look at a Superman-type character, and honestly, I think it’s better for it. Freed from trying to draw the actors, Severin’s characters have a life and expressiveness where other parodies sometimes fall short. Cluck Clone doesn’t leave his parents’ farm to become a reporter, but rather gets a job at a delicatessen called the Deli Planet where he meets a lovely girl named Lewis Paine – whose safety takes top priority over gunshot victims when Suped-Upman goes into action a few pages later.
After reading just these two parodies, I feel like I’m already starting to gel a sort of theory of satire, at least how I see it. Of the two, the Cracked story is honestly much funnier and a lot of fun to read, and I think the reason for that is because whoever wrote it wasn’t simply retelling the story of the movie. He took the broad strokes of the Superman legend, tweaked them in a humorous way, and then told his own story rather than just filling in the blanks of the existing plotline like a complicated Mad Lib. Cracked is doing its own thing, and it’s a better story for it.
And you know, the same is true for all the great satires out there. Compare something like Mel Brooks’s Spaceballs to a Friedberg/Seltzer movie such as Epic Movie. Brooks simply uses the CONCEPTS of science fiction (especially, but not exclusively Star Wars) to tell a funny story, whereas Friedberg and Seltzer rip out chunks of existing stories and patch them together like some horrific Frankenquilt that seems to think that simply REFERRING to another movie is enough to qualify as a joke. All of this is building my brain up to what I think I’m going to refer to as Petit’s Law of Satire: Satire is funnier in broad strokes than in specifics. The two stories I read yesterday, from Mad #4 and What The–?! #2, were both really funny, and neither of them was parodying a specific story. The Cracked satire is funnier than the Mad by-the-beat parody.
I think I’m on to something here.
Let’s see if it holds up over the next few days.
Comic Books: New Gods Vol. 5 #7 (Guest Appearance), Green Lantern Vol. 8 #23 (Guest Appearance, Conner Kent)
Fri., July 18
Short Films: Super-Rabbit (1943), Stupor Duck (1956), Superior Duck (1996)
Notes: Today I decided to peek in on the second greatest collection of characters in the Warner Bros. catalogue, after the DC superheroes. I’m talking, of course, of the Looney Tunes. I have a deep, abiding love of the likes of Bugs and Daffy, and as each of those stalwarts took their turns poking fun at Superman, I wanted to include them here in Parody Week, starting with Bugs Bunny in Super-Rabbit.
Directed by Chuck Jones, this cartoon starts off with a spoof of the Flesicher shorts, parodying the old “faster than a speeding bullet” intro before bringing us to Super-Rabbit’s origin. Bugs Bunny is a lab animal in this one, given some super-powered carrots that give him incredible powers. He decides the best way to use these powers is to head to Texas and take on a hunter called Cottontail Smith who has dedicated himself to wiping out all rabbits. Bugs does his usual number on Smith and his horse until a midair mishap causes him to lose his power carrots, which Smith and the horse gobble them up. Just before he’s about to be pummeled, Bugs declares, “This looks like a job for a REAL Superman!” Then, in a bit of standard-for-the-time patriotism, he ducks into a phone booth, joins the army, and marches off in the direction of a road sign that inexplicably points to both Berlin AND Tokyo.
The superhero stuff in this cartoon is almost incidental. The opening sequence is where most of the tropes come in, with the Fleischer-specific parody, but once Bugs gets to Texas and comes to loggerheads with Smith the antics he pulls off are pretty standard for him. Could catching a cannonball and using it to play an impromptu game of basketball count as a feat of super-strength? Sure, but this is also BUGS BUNNY we’re talking about, a cosmic trickster with the ability to warp reality in any manner he deems the most amusing at the time, so I’m not convinced that the magic carrots are strictly necessary here. The only parts of the cartoon that seem specifically dedicated to a Superman parody, other than Bugs’s outfit, are the bits where he’s flying. That does, of course, give us the best joke in the entire short, as Bugs flies into the stratosphere and whips past a horse who is astonished to see a rabbit flying at 30,000 feet.
Think about that for a minute.
Anyway, it’s a good cartoon. Perhaps not the greatest parody in history, but it IS the cartoon that led to the awesome Super-Rabbit figure that adorns one of my Superman shelves, and it’s worth it for that alone.
Next up, in 1956 Robert McKimson drafted Daffy Duck for another poke at the man of steel in Stupor Duck. This one is a much more direct parody of Superman than Super-Rabbit, beginning with Daffy in disguise as “mild-mannered reporter Cluck Trent.” Daffy overhears his editor watching TV but, true to form, mistakes the broadcast for the braggadocio of a supervillain and sets out to thwart him, only to get thwarted himself over and over.
Bugs is a classic character, but in terms of parody, I think Daffy is actually more effective. A lot of the humor in this short comes from Daffy making a fool of himself in ways that just wouldn’t happen to Bugs. He saves a building from collapsing, for example, only to wind up getting punched out by the head of the demolition crew that was TRYING to demolish it. He saves a “sinking” ship and gets blasted by the cannon of the submarine he just pulled out of the water. It’s great, goofy stuff that is perfectly in keeping with Daffy Duck, but wouldn’t have worked with Bugs. I think I have to conclude, oddly enough, that although Super-Rabbit is a funnier cartoon, Stupor Duck is a better parody.
Director Chuck Jones would take one more swing at superheroes more than five decades after Super-Rabbit, teaming up with Daffy for the 1996 short Superior Duck. This time out, Daffy is a sort of mashup between Superman and Duck Dodgers, setting out to save the day only to be constantly thwarted by…his narrator.
Seriously, that’s the entire cartoon. Daffy is out to do some superheroics, but the narrator (voiced by the immortal Thurl Ravenscroft) cannot get his lines right, forcing Daffy into one increasingly-preposterous situation after another. It’s a less direct Superman parody than some of the others, but they make up for it with a last-act cameo that left me in stitches.
With Mel Blanc having left us by this point, we’re left with different voice actors, some of which work and others don’t. Frank Gorshin, TV’s Riddler, absolutely knocks it out of the park as Daffy and Foghorn Leghorn. Eric Goldberg does a good Porky and Marvin the Martian, but his Tweety left something to be desired. But this still feels like the same Chuck Jones who gave us the likes of Duck Amuck and One Froggy Evening. It’s a hoot.
TV Episode: The Looney Tunes Show, Season 2, Episode 26: “SuperRabbit.”
Notes: But we’re not done yet! In 2011, the Cartoon Network brought us the highly-underrated cartoon The Looney Tunes Show. I loved this show – rather than simply aping the classic Looney Tunes shorts, they merged those sensibilities with a TV sitcom, casting Bugs and Daffy as roommates in a kind of Odd Couple situation, with Bugs playing the more sensible, straightlaced one to Daffy’s aimless vagabond. If I had heard the show described as such before I watched it, I probably would have dismissed it outright, but I really grew to love the series and to this day wish it had lasted longer than two seasons.
The episode I’m focusing on was the season two finale (which, sadly, turned out to be the series finale as well), “SuperRabbit.” In this one, as Daffy starts scrounging through Bugs’s belongings looking for stuff to sell (did I mention he was a vagabond?) he comes across a strange crystal carrot. Bugs tries to divert Daffy’s attention from the carrot with a tale of his “true” origins. He isn’t REALLY Bugs Bunny, he claims, but an alien from the planet Crypton. (With a “C.” Because Daffy is WAAAAY too smart to fall for Bugs ripping off Superman’s origin by spelling it with a “K”.”) From there, we actually get an adventure of Bugs as SuperRabbit facing off against some of his greatest enemies: Brainiac (aka Marvin the Martian)! Lex Luthor! (Elmer Fudd, naturally)! And General Zod (Daffy himself)!
I hate to say it, but this was actually one of the weaker episodes of The Looney Tunes Show. The strength of the cartoon came from putting Bugs and Daffy into very sitcom-esque tropes and then spinning them wildly out of control. This episode mostly avoids that, electing instead to do a full-episode parody of what could have been a fairly standard Superman story with a few added jokes (such as Elmer’s Lex Luthor telling people “I’m hunting SuperWabbits”). It’s an okay parody, but it’s nowhere near the level of entertainment that this show was usually capable of, and it makes me sad that the show ended on this note.
Sat. July 19
Magazines: Mad #225, Cracked #183
Notes: Mad returned to the world of “Superduperman” with a parody of Superman II, with Mort Drucker once again providing artwork and Frank Jacobs writing it. For all I know, Jacobs wrote the first one as well, but as I said a couple of days ago, I couldn’t find a credit for that one. It certainly reads like it was written by the same author. Like the first one, “Superduperman II” is, in essence, a beat-for-beat retelling of the plot of the movie with added puns. Some of them, of course, land better than others. We have a very standard formula for a Mad parody: Jacobs and Drucker essentially break the movie down into single-panel moments; in each panel, the characters make wry observations about the situation they are currently in; and it ends with a punchline. Once you get used to it, the humor comes across as very staccato, with a rhythm that’s predictable, but not in a soothing way, so it’s not surprising that the funniest moments in the story are all things that are original to the comic. There’s a funny bit at the beginning, for example, where they mock the movie for opening up with flashbacks to the first film. Later, during the fight with the Phantom Zone criminals, Rocky Balboa randomly shows up for a panel to punch the Non parody, telling Superduperman that he’s there to get in shape for his own upcoming sequel. The funniest wholly original gag comes in a couplet where Superduperman is rushing off to Paris to save Lotus Lain, only to have to whip around because he forgot France is eastward.
Really effective comedy is based on surprise, and I think that’s pretty indicative of why I fell out of love with Mad parodies as I got older – they’re all pretty much the same, pretty predictable. Even at this point, in 1981, the good parts of the magazine were the things that didn’t parody a specific story, like Don Martin’s strips, Sergio Aragones’ marginals, and of course, “Spy Vs. Spy.”
Cracked, meanwhile, again chose not to do a direct parody of Superman II, instead choosing to run a three-page gag piece called “What Christopher Reeve (That Super Man) Will Be Like When He Gets Old.” The joke here is that, with Superman II being a huge hit, they assumed that they would go on to make dozens and dozens of sequels for decades to come, and the comic jokes about what an “old” Superman would be like: his powers being less impressive, using his strength to break a pound of spaghetti rather than bend steel, for example. The jokes were fair for the time – this was the era where movie sequels were just starting to get out of hand, and once popular movie franchise hit a certain point, there was an assumption that it would go on forever. (Remember the bit in Back to the Future Part II where Marty cringes from the holographic shark advertising Jaws 19, or the quick joke in Spaceballs in which a movie reviewer is about to talk about Rocky 5,000?) The problem here is obvious, and not at all the fault of anybody who worked on this comic: no matter how good the jokes may have seemed at the time, given what happened to Christopher Reeve, they’re just not funny anymore.
I want to note, briefly, that I’m going to try to cover as many Superman parodies as I can before this week is up, but that number is dependent on what’s actually available to me in my personal collection or the DC app, and also on my ability to locate them. I’ve scrouged up quite a few, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve identified them all. I bring that up because if Cracked did parodies of movies past Superman II, I either don’t have them or can’t find them. From here on out, the remaining print parodies on my list are all Mad.
Mad #243, for example, teamed Drucker with writer Stan Hart for “Stuporman ZZZ.” Changing up the writer didn’t change up the formula, though – it’s still your average beat-for-beat Mad parody. Each panel has that same ol’ rhythm, the same ol’ cadence, the same ol’ delivery. And once again, the funniest part is the stuff that’s NOT directly taken from the film: this time around, it’s a sequence after the “Kraptonite” makes Stuporman go bad, where he demonstrates this by using a joy buzzer to shake the Pope’s hand, giving a whoopee cushion to the UN Secretary-General, and mooning Ronald and Nancy Reagan at the White House. Reading these stories actually makes me feel sorry for Mort Drucker – he’s such a fantastic cartoonist and caricaturist, and I wish he’d been given better material to illustrate. Even the two-page “Don Martin’s Superman III Outtakes” strip is funnier than the main story.
I’m starting to get a little burned out on the Mad formula now, to the point where I’m looking forward to the point where I get to the parodies that came out after I fell off as a reader. Hopefully by that point, they’ll have discovered a second way to tell a joke.
Comics: Superman Unlimited #3, Krypto: The Last Dog of Krypton #2, Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #41
Notes: It ain’t all parodies, though, friends. There are still new Superman comics this week, and I’m getting into those today too, starting with Dan Slott and Rafael Albuqueque’s Superman Unlimited #3. Told largely through Krypto’s eyes, in this issue we see our best boy catch some bad guys, get taken for a walk by Jon, and then catch scent of an old foe of Superman’s that he decides to track down.
At first, the story seems like a charming but inconsequential chapter of the Unlimited storyline. The first two issues largely dealt with the enormous Kryptonite meteor that fell to Earth and the havoc it’s wreaking everywhere, but that plotline doesn’t show up here for quite some time. The Krypto story is lovely, and there’s a great scene where Lois and Clark ask Jon what exactly he’s doing with himself these days (a question a lot of the readers are asking too – the character has been painfully aimless for entirely too long, and I’m not shy about laying the blame for that on the stupid age-up foisted on him during the Bendis run). In the last third of the book, though, there’s a nice reveal where we come to understand how the Krypto story is fitting in. Some new wrinkles to the Kryptonite story are added and a new player is added to the game, and that makes this book – which was already fun to read – feel much more significant.
Ryan North and Mike Norton are back for Krypto: The Last Dog of Krypton #2. I have no doubt that this miniseries owes its existence to the fact that Krypto has such a big role in the movie, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if DC didn’t even have any intention of publishing a Krypto series until after he showed up in the trailer last December and got such a huge response. If that’s true, then that trailer has given us one of the best comics of the year.
In this second issue, Krypto has been taken in by – of all people – a young Lex Luthor. Having left his original home of Smallville, Lex is living with relatives he clearly despises and for some reason, decides to take in this stray dog he’s found. The ambition that will mark the adult Lex Luthor is already there, but in this early incarnation, he’s struggling with his morality. This would be a fascinating book even if it weren’t for Krypto. We’re seeing the kind of internal conflict that kind of determines who a character will eventually be – if given the chance for greatness at the expense of having to do something horrific, will they do it? Adult Lex, we know, wouldn’t hesitate, but seeing him at a young enough developmental stage where there’s still a last lingering shred of conscience is fascinating.
People who pick up this comic expecting to see the bounding, joyful Krypto of the movie might be a little put off, but if that’s not all you’re looking for, this comic is really phenomenal.
Finally, in Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #41, we start with Batman, Robin, and Superman inexplicably transported to Bizarro World. Bizarro World is actually kind of an appropriate element to bring in here in Parody Week, because bad Bizarro stories are kind of like a bad Mad satire: by-the-book tellings of an oaf doing things backwards. The good ones find new twists to put on it, and this one is pretty good. We start off with Robin as the point of view character, which is nice, as he’s never been to Bizarro World before and the sheer panic he goes through uses a normally unflappable character to show just how crazy it is. Then we get to the twist – there’s some sort of pandemic going through the Bizarros that warps their brains and makes them the worst thing a Bizarro can be: normal. Waid finds some fun ways to play with the Bizarro’s backwards nature in this issue, promising a fun story arc.
Sun. July 20
Comedy Sketches: “Bicycle Repairman” from Monty Python’s Flying Circus Season One, Episode Three, Assorted Saturday Night Live sketches
Notes: Okay, so we’ve taken a look at Superman parodies in comics and cartoons, but what about live action? These, I think, can give us a broader view of how pop culture views the Man of Steel, at least at the time each parody was made. We’ll start off with Monty Python’s “Bicycle Repairman” sketch from 1969. In this bit, we peek in on an inverted world in which everyone is Superman. At least, everyone wears a Superman costume and has padded muscles – we never actually witness any of these Supermen doing anything super. But when trouble happens, in the form of Terry Jones Superman falling off his bicycle, another Superman (Michael Palin) makes a quick change and rushes to save the day as…BICYCLE REPAIRMAN!
The Pythons, of course, were masters of surreal comedy. It doesn’t matter if the sketch makes no logical sense, it’s about the gags and about the underlying subversion that they’re sneaking in. And while this particular sketch doesn’t make any grand political statements, it IS interesting in what it shows us about how superheroes were viewed in 1969. First of all, there’s no particular reason for this sketch to be about Superman. They could have put virtually any superhero costume on the cast and the joke would have been exactly the same. But in 1969, Superman was viewed as the default superhero among most people. It’s who you automatically thought of when you said the word, and so that’s what they went with.
The sketch is also intriguing in how it reflects on one other non-Superman element. In the bit where Bicycle Repairman is (spoiler) repairing the bicycle, we get treated to nonsensical “sound effects” such as “Clink!”, “Inflate!” and “Alter Saddle!” They’re done in the style of the “Bow! Bam!” shots from the 1966 Batman TV show. Between these two things, I think it gives us a fairly accurate depiction of just how the general public viewed superheroes at the end of the 60s.
The rest of the sketches I’ve found all come from Saturday Night Live, although thankfully, they’re sometimes decades apart, so I think that gives us an interesting overview of the topic. We’re starting with the “Superhero Party” sketch from 1979, starring Margot Kidder herself as Lois Lane and Bill Murray as Superman, hosting their first party together.
We get an all-star roundup of comedians playing comic book characters in this one: Dan Akroyd as the Flash, John Belushi as the Hulk (who rotates being Grand Marshall of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade with Green Lantern) and Jane Curtain popping in as a delightfully catty Lana Lang who tries to convince Lois that Clark Kent is secretly the Flash (apparently Superman still hasn’t told her his secret identity, despite having been married for some time). Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, and the Thing all show up in off-the-rack costumes that conceal the presumed extras wearing them. The gem here is Garrett Morris as Ant-Man, a character who, at the time, was as D-list as you could get. I’m sure most of the audience watching this when it aired in 1979 assumed it was a fake character the SNL writers made up. Murray ducks out at one point and returns as “Clark Kent,” where Lois starts confiding to her old pal that life with Superman has become stiflingly dull. What really crushes his spirit, though, is finding out that Lois used to date the Hulk.
This sketch is full of hilarious, little moments. Murray prances around, “flying” from one spot in the room to another. Lois briefly admonishes him to allow her to open a housewarming gift because “not all of us have X-Ray vision,” and so forth. Unlike the Monty Python example, which just uses a surface level awareness of Superman, the writers of this sketch pull some deep cuts that I’m sure would zip past a lot of people, especially the Ant-Man reference (which nonetheless was so memorable that it got Morris a cameo in the first Ant-Man movie). The ending of the sketch, I confess, is a little weak, but at least it HAS an ending, which is more than you can say for most SNL segments of the past 20 years or so.
In 1985, Christopher Reeve hosted the show. Rather than actually parody Superman himself, though, they took the clever approach of telling the story of the “Superman Auditions.” Jim Belushi plays Richard Donner, auditioning the last three potential actors for the role of his Superman movie, including (of course) Christopher Reeve as himself. The three of them read sides opposite Donner’s assistant (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss). When they run the scene where Clark stops a mugger, Belushi suddenly fires a gun at Reeve. He’s angry when the bullet, rather than bouncing off his chest harmlessly, keeps bouncing off his chin and teeth and breaking windows. Reeve turns out to be at a serious disadvantage compared to the other two auditioners, one of whom catches the bullet in his teeth and the other of which is promptly shot dead.
The concept is so utterly absurd that it’s actually kind of delightful, and while nothing about it makes the slightest bit of sense, I keep laughing every time I see it. In terms of mannerisms, Reeve plays his Superman lines just the way he always does, but he keeps bumbling the use of his authentic super powers in a way that seems appropriate for his Clark Kent. And this time the punchline at the end of the sketch lands nicely.
The next sketch is VERY much of its time, “Superman’s Funeral” from 1992. As I mentioned waaaay back when I did my reread of the Death of Superman for this blog, it was big news – so big that it even inspired an SNL sketch. You have to understand, the “Superhero Party” and “Superman Auditions” sketches were 100 percent done just because they had Kidder and Reeve hosting the show, and when that happens, they tend to play off of some of the actor’s best-known characters. But that doesn’t apply to “Superman’s Funeral.” They did this bit just because it was such an enormous part of the cultural zeitgeist at just that moment. (Also in the zeitgeist: that episode’s host, comedian Sinbad.)
Superman, as you may expect, doesn’t actually appear in this bit. We instead have Rob Schneider as Jimmy Olsen acting as host for Superman’s funeral. He talks to the other heroes as they arrive: Aquaman (David Spade), Adam Sandler (the Flash), Tim Meadows (Green Lantern). Dana Carvey’s Batman breaks down in tears during the eulogy, leading to Robin (Chris Rock) trying to comfort him on the dais. Lex Luthor (Al Franken) ultimately has to confess that he’s actually pretty happy about the whole thing. Perry White (the immortal Phil Hartman) gives a speech where he can do little more than burble “Great Caesar’s Ghost!” over and over again. Chris Farley as the Hulk (some people from Marvel Comics came by to pay their respects) hilariously switches from incoherent Hulk-speech to being an erudite speaker when he switches to his notecards. And then at the end, Jimmy rushes in and reports that the Legion of Doom is attacking the Metropolis Arena. Batman quickly mobilizes the rest of the heroes to rush off and thwart them. The surprisingly touching moment (“Let’s do it for Superman!”) is slightly undercut – in traditional SNL style – by showing Black Lightning (Sinbad) swiping food from the catering table.
Again, I’m impressed by some of the details in this bit. Tim Meadows, for instance, wears a costume that’s actually accurate to what John Stewart was wearing in the comics at the time, as opposed to the standard GL uniform. And Sinbad’s Black Lightning is incensed at the fact that nobody at the funeral seems to know who he is. (This was funnier in 1992, before the character had his own television series.)
On the other hand, they weren’t married to modern continuity either. Lois Lane (Julia Sweeney) is confused that Clark Kent hasn’t shown up for the funeral. Given that most of the public, at this point, probably weren’t aware that Lois was in on the secret by now or that she and Clark were engaged, it’s a forgivable omission. I love this sketch. I remember watching it when it originally aired, being dumbfounded by the fact that stuff from comic books – from my comics, that I was reading – were actually being spoofed by SNL. And to be frank, this is what I consider their Golden Age, the era of Hartman, Carvey, Mike Myers and so forth. Once those guys left, the show fell off, and I’ve honestly never found it to be consistently funny ever since then. Does that make me sound like a grumpy old man? Well, what can I say? When you’re right, you’re right.
Future Black Adam Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson took on the Man of Steel in 2000 in a sketch called “Clark Kent.” (Oddly enough, unlike the other sketches, this one doesn’t appear to be available on YouTube. We’ll have to content ourselves with a random TikTok capture of it.) In this one, after Superman zips away from the Daily Planet, the newspaper staff (featuring Molly Shannon as Lois Lane, Jimmy Fallon as Jimmy Olsen, and Chris Parnell as Perry White) begrudgingly wait for Johnson’s Clark Kent to appear, like he always does. As he walks onto the scene, his Superman costume ridiculously poking out from beneath his suit, the others all crack up over how his pathetic attempts to conceal his secret identity.
That’s the whole joke in this sketch – the rest of the Planet staffers are painfully aware that Superman and Clark are the same person and constantly mock him behind his back. It’s a funny bit, too – while I think people don’t give the character enough credit for how he pulls off the masquerade (shown most effectively by Christopher Reeve and in the All Star Superman series), the joke is actually kind of funny at first. It does lapse into being a little mean-spirited as the three of them delight in screwing with him, not to mention some seriously dated jokes where they try to rile “Clark” by claiming “Superman” might be gay. This whole sketch is kind of endemic of SNL, though – a premise that has some potential, but that quickly spirals into jokes that tend to be more nasty than funny, then falling short at the end.
Finally, late last year, SNL dropped a sketch on YouTube that had apparently been cut for time earlier in the season, John Mulaney and Sarah Sherman as Superman and Lois, in an “alternate version” of the famous interview from the 1978 film. The bit starts off the same as the scene from the film, with Superman arriving at Lois’s apartment in the hopes of answering some of the questions the public may have about him, only to be interrupted by the sudden appearance of Lois’s heretofore unmentioned roommate Glenn (Chloe Fineman). Fineman shows up wearing an awful wig and an oversized bikini t-shirt, then stumbles into mispronouncing “Superman” as though it were a last name. From there Fineman just gets more and more debauched and inappropriate as Superman and Lois desperately attempt to conduct the interview.
I’m a big fan of John Mulaney. He’s one of the best stand-up performers in the public eye these days, he’s a GREAT voice actor (I loved him as Spider-Ham in Into the Spider-Verse), and if you’ve never seen his routine about the fun he and a friend had with a jukebox when they were kids, stop right now and watch it on YouTube. But the sketch just doesn’t work. The joke – the ONLY joke – is that Lois’s roommate is a debaucherous idiot. Not a FUNNY idiot, just an idiot. The only thing resembling humor comes towards the end when Superman tries to fly Lois away and is surprised to find her heavier than he expected. (It’s funny, you see, because she’s seen him lift a tank with his little finger.) The rest of it…John Mulaney deserves better. Hell, everyone in this sketch deserves better. I don’t know who wrote this sketch or who approved it, but the only person at SNL who was doing their job that week is the person who decided to cut it for time.
Animated Short: She-Sick Sailors (1944)
Notes: There’s one more cartoon I forgot to cover the other day, and as I doubt I’ll have a chance before this week ends, I’m gonna squeeze it in now. Seymour Kneitel, who directed several of the Fleischer Superman shorts, had one more shot at the character in 1944, in the Popeye cartoon She-Sick Sailors. When Popeye discovers that Olive Oyl is enamored of the Superman comic books (delightfully, complete with the Fleischer Superman anthem), Bluto decides to cut in on Popeye’s action by putting on a Superman costume, shaving his beard off, and impersonating the Man of Steel. From there, we get your average Popeye short, with the sailor and Bluto sparring over Olive’s affections, but with an added Superman element.
I love this short. It’s a perfect Popeye cartoon, using the formula to a tee, but at the same time it still manages to crack jokes about Superman himself and the expectations of the character, largely informed by the cartoons that the same studio had recently finished making. And it’s all worth it all just to hear Popeye deliver the line “Listen here, Stupidman! Ya still has ta proves ta ME that you’re a better man than I am!”
Mon., July 21
Magazines: Mad #415, Mad #468, #524
Notes: I’m jumping ahead now to 2002, and a Mad parody of a piece of Superman lore we’ve only briefly touched upon here so far: Smallville. Their “Smellville” parody (with art, once more, by the great Mort Drucker, written by Dick Debartolo), starts with the usual Mad Magazine double-page spread where we get a Mousketeer Roll Call of the cast, each giving us a brief description of who they are, their function on the show, and the only joke that the magazine seems to think the character is capable of providing.
It’s funny to notice some of the assumptions that this parody made about the show, which was still very early in its run when it was published. That opening double-paged spread, for instance, features caricatures of Margot Kidder and Teri Hatcher, each claiming they’re planning to be Lois Lane when they graduate. It feels like the writer is leaning on a prediction that Lois would eventually be revealed to be a Smallville High Student, but that of course didn’t happen. On the other hand, wondering what the impetus was behind that specific gag is more satisfying than reading the “satire” actually is.
The parody is only five pages long and utterly bereft of story. We get assorted vignettes that show bits and pieces of scenes from the show’s first season, a running gag about “weird stuff” happening in Smellville on Tuesday nights between 9 and 10 pm (which admittedly is amusing the first time they do it, but less funny each subsequent time), and then the whole thing ends abruptly with the iconic scene of Clark lashed to a scarecrow. This reads like a parody written by someone who hasn’t watched any of Smallville except for the commercials, taking a wild shot at what probably happens. This is arguably the weakest Mad parody we’ve seen yet.
Mad took a swipe at Superman Returns in 2006. Dick Debartolo returns for this one, with art by Tom Richmond. Here we have “Spider-Sham” recruited to narrate “Stuporman Returns,” the joke being that Mad wanted a hero who actually had a movie come out in this century to get people’s attention. (I’ll concede, that’s actually pretty funny.) From there, we get a quick recap of the original Superman (or at least the parts of it that were pertinent to Superman Returns), then we land on the joke the magazine has settled on for this one: Returns is just a retread of elements from the original movie. Which honestly is pretty fair for a satire of Superman Returns, but also pretty goddamn hypocritical for Mad Magazine, which from what I can tell abandoned its quest to develop a second joke somewhere around 1987.
There are good things to say. This one, unlike Smellville, actually has a story to it, although it is buoyed by the fact that it simply has to do the cut-and-paste, beat-by-beat recreation of the movie, so actually having a plot is no mean feat. Richmond’s art is pretty good as well, showing skills at caricature that match Drucker’s. Also, apparently Mad switched from black and white to full color some time between 2002 and 2006, which is earlier than I thought, and the color actually looks very good.
The last two panels are probably the funniest in the comic. There’s a good joke about the show House (which was a hit at the time), and a final panel playing on the weird ambiguity of Lois’s son, complete with a visual reference to Action Comics #1, which I’m sure will make certain collectors I know scramble to find a copy of this issue once they realize it.
It’s not great. It’s not particularly funny. But at least it’s better than “Smellville.”
The last issue of Mad I’m going to subject myself to before their reboot is their Man of Steel parody from issue #524 in 2013. In “Man of Veal” (because puns don’t actually have to be funny, they just have to rhyme), we get the by-the-book recap of the feature film that it’s satirizing, as is to be expected. However, I’ve got something surprising to say:
Some of the jokes in this one are actually pretty good.
However, not enough to make up for the ones that are absolutely horrific.
For example, there are some truly tasteless, vulgar jokes in here about Taylor Swift (and I don’t even care if you’re making fun of Taylor Swift, I care that the joke ISN’T FUNNY). Another panel about the sexual proclivities of Kryptonians (Kraptonians? Oh, who cares?) that isn’t even close to amusing enough to justify how gross it is. Digs at comic book readers that come out of nowhere. And when their Lois Lane shows up (I can’t even be bothered to flip back to see what pseudonym they used), she’s a painful straw feminist stereotype, prancing around and talking about femininity in terms that feel like they could have come from one of the Spice Girls at their most annoying. Is that what they thought Amy Adams was doing? It boggles the mind.
Despite the enthusiasm I had for Parody Week when I started, subjecting myself to one painful Mad garbagefest after another has made me start to regret the whole thing.
Tues. July 22
Magazines: Mad Magazine Vol. 2 #15, #44
Notes: At some point in their long history, the parent company of Mad Magazine was sold to Warner Bros, which of course also owns DC Comics, and the stewardship of Mad was handed over to them. In 2018, they decided to relaunch the magazine with a new first issue, because somehow there are still people who think that’s a positive thing. I’ve actually never read an issue of the “new” Mad before today, but as I started to look for entries for Parody Week, I discovered that the current state of the magazine seems to be a mixture of classic features and reprints, which I find surprisingly sad. Maybe because I don’t have a ton of faith in the reprints they have to choose from. But after some sifting around, I managed to find a couple of issues of the current Mad on the DC appthat have Superman-centric spoofs.
And may Rao have mercy on my soul.
Mad Vol. 2 #15, from 2020, has several superhero-centric reprints, including spoofs of the X-Men, Spider-Man, and others. There are a few Superman shorts in here, including a Sergio Aragones classic where Superman proves, to his chagrin, that he is in fact more powerful than a locomotive. The highlight of the issue, without question, is Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood’s “Bat Boy and Rubin” parody from 1953 – the same era and creative team that gave us the original “Superduperman” (which is also included as a “digital extra” in this issue). Then, just last month, issue #44 of the magazine gave us a mostly-Superman issue, with reprints of their parodies of the original Superman, Superman Returns, and Supergirl (which I didn’t read before). There are also a few new Superman strips, the best of which is “The Further Adventures of That Guy From the Cover of Action Comics #1.” The gag there is simply photoshopping “that guy” into various other comic book covers, but it’s actually pretty inventive. Or maybe I’ve just been desensitized.
This last issue that I’m going to cover this week makes a few things very clear, though. “Petit’s Law of Satire: Satire is funnier in broad strokes than in specifics,” is absolutely true. The funniest strips and shorts are invariably the ones that aren’t trying to zero in on a retelling of a specific story, but just use the tropes and concepts of what they’re mocking to do something original.
Look at the greats: Mel Brooks and the Zuckers did their greatest work parodying an entire genre like sci-fi (Spaceballs), westerns (Blazing Saddles) and disaster movies (Airplane). Even Young Frankenstein wasn’t a retelling of the original story, but a new one that built upon it. The same holds true in literature. Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy parodies sci-fi, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld uses fantasy tropes as a launchpad to parody any number of topics. If Adams had just tried to do a retelling of Star Trek or Pratchett had tried to copy Lord of the Rings, I doubt we’d still be reading either of their works today. Does anyone remember Star Wreck, a series of very Trek-specific parody books that came out in the 80s and 90s? No, just me? Thought so.
What’s more, I think that something else that’s pretty true has become evident to me: parody is also funnier if it’s loving. (Satire does NOT have to be loving, but parody and satire aren’t exactly the same thing.) The funniest things I’ve read this week were “Superduperman” and John Byrne’s “Superbman Vs. the Fantastical Four,” neither of which gave me the impression that they were being made by someone who disliked their target. They loved them enough, in fact, to have a deeper understanding of them that made the humor ring true. The worst of the Mad parodies, on the other hand, are nasty, mean-spirited hit pieces that seem to have been written by somebody who resents the original material for the crime of existing. Similarly, the best SNL sketches are the earlier ones. The ones with Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve both show some affection, and the “Superman’s Funeral” bit feels like there’s actual love behind it.
I’m sorry, folks – of all the theme weeks I planned out for this year, I was terribly unprepared how much of a dud this one would turn out to be. There have to be better Superman parodies out there that I’m not aware of. If you know of any, please let me know. I’d be happy to return to this topic in the future, as soon as we stumble across some parodies that are actually…you know…funny.
A local swimming pool in my area allows its members to host movie nights during the summer – special events after the sun goes down where you can choose a movie and watch it while you splash around and swat at mosquitos because, let’s be honest, we’re still in Louisiana. But it sounds like a fun time, and recently my brother and sister’s respective families – both of which are members – decided to co-host a movie night. The stipulations were simple: pick a movie rated PG-13 or lower, preferably one that you have on physical media because the streaming capabilities at the pool aren’t exactly state-of-the-art, and Jaws is already taken. Because of course it is.
Even scary in chlorinated water.
If you’re scheduling an outdoor summer movie, Jaws is probably the most obvious choice there is. It is – as I’m sure you’ve heard me mention before – a virtually flawless movie, and with it being the 50th anniversary this year, interest is at maximum. The story is also a summertime classic – a shark attacks the beaches of Amity Island in the peak of the summer tourism season. After several attacks, including one that ruins the Fourth of July even worse than your cousin who can’t stop talking about politics, the chief of police teams up with an oceanographer and a sailor to hunt down the murderous beast. There’s not a wasted frame in this movie, the music is perfect, and it is absolutely scandalous that Robert Shaw didn’t get a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
But some other family had already taken it. Since that wasn’t an option, my family started to toss around alternatives. My brother was stuck between Goonies and The Sandlot, both of which are classic films, but they ultimately went with the latter. I get it. As much as I love Goonies, if you’re going for a movie with a summer feel it’s pretty hard to argue against The Sandlot. It’s your timeless coming-of-age story about a new kid in town who finds friends with a ragtag bunch who spends their days playing baseball in a local…well…sandlot. Again, it’s a movie that’s perfectly in keeping with the theme and gives you a summertime feel like few other movies can accomplish. Perfect – they texted the pool’s organizer to tell him they’d settled on their movie and my sister jumped on Oriental Trading and started ordering baseball-themed decorations for the event.
I think one of these kids grew up to be the ambassador to Uganda or something.
Right after she got her shipping notification, the organizer texted back to tell them that some other family had already chosen The Sandlot for THEIR movie night.
And so it was back to the drawing board. Goonies was briefly reconsidered, then someone suggested doing a “Christmas in July” theme and showing National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation or Home Alone, both of which I thought would be a really fun idea. Christmas Vacation was ultimately vetoed due to that one moment of profanity Chevy Chase drops during his legendary meltdown scene at the end of the film, which I can respect. There are gonna be a lot of kids in the pool, after all, and you don’t want to have to cover their ears lest you be forced to explain who Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye were. Other ideas rattled around until finally, they decided to go with a recent hit that was freshly available on Blu-Ray: The Minecraft Movie.
I’ve never played Minecraft myself, nor have I seen the movie. I don’t really know anything about it, other than it apparently has something to do with a chicken wearing jockeys, but it made a ton of money and I’m sure it’s going to be a big success with the families at the pool. But is it really a summer movie?
As so often happens when I think about stuff like this, I started to compile a list. If I was scheduling an outdoor summer movie film festival, what are some of the movies I would program? What are movies that both capture the feel of summertime in various ways AND are family-friendly enough that I could put them on a big screen in the out of doors and not have to answer uncomfortable questions from pearl-clutching parents? (Obviously, the other Vacation movies are automatically disqualified.) So here is how I’d program a summer film triple feature that’s fun for everyone. I want three movies that encapsulate three of the most iconic summertime activities: a road trip, summer camp, and going to the beach. Each activity gets one film.
First up, for the earliest movie you need something for the kids that’s also fun for the adults. When I hear someone dismiss a terrible movie because “it’s just for kids,” that feels like a slap in the face to the likes of Up, Wall-E, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, or hundreds of other great movies that are aimed at children but still have the kind of depth and heart that endears grown-ups to them. If you think it’s okay to make an awful movie just because you think only kids are going to watch it, I’m telling you right now, you’ve got to do better.
The greatest comedic mind of his era in his first feature-length movie!
So I’m going to kick it off with a road trip movie that kids and parents alike love: A Goofy Movie from 1995. Goofy’s son Max is out of school for the summer, and Goofy decides to take his son on the ultimate fishing trip. But unbeknownst to him, Max has bragged to a girl he’s got a crush on that he’s going to a rock concert, and he has to devise a way to get his dad to change his plans.
This is one of those movies that you can watch as a kid and enjoy it on one level, then as an adult, get an entirely different message. As a kid, this is the story of Max trying to have the greatest summer of his life and win the girl of his dreams. You get that. You understand it. And you absolutely understand how his father – literally Goofy – can be somewhat embarrassing for an adolescent, especially when genetics seem to have determined that you’re doomed to follow in his footsteps and become a Goof in your own right.
As an adult, you see this movie as the story of a father whose son is on the verge of growing up and who is desperately attempting to forge memories together before it’s too late. As an adult, you know that the stuff that Max is worried about is teenage stuff, stuff that quickly loses its relevance when you’re out of high school, but Goofy’s desires are all about a life long bond that he’s afraid of losing, something that hits the gut of any parent.
Plus, the music slaps.
It’s not part of the “Disney Animated Canon,” as it wasn’t produced by the Walt Disney Animation Studios arm of the many-tentacled monster that is Disney, but I think it rates up there with Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Aladdin as one of the finest, most heartfelt films of the Disney Renaissance era. And it’s funnier than any of them.
For the second film in my summer film fest, I’m going to step back a decade from the adventures of the Goof clan and bring in the late, great Jim Varney in Ernest Goes to Camp. Here’s a movie that’s maybe a bit more for the adults who grew up with Ernest, but the kids will love it too. Summer amp is such a traditional activity that it absolutely HAS to be included in our triple feature. And since we’re going for a family-friendly festival, we have to automatically disqualify any summer camp movie which features counselors being brutally murdered. Which is about 95 percent of them.
But that’s cool! Because Ernest Goes to Camp is actually better than any of those. American Hero Jim Varney plays the kindhearted (but dimwitted) Ernest P. Worrel, handyman at Kamp Kikakee, who has aspirations of one day becoming a camp counselor. He gets a shot at his dream when a group of boys from a reform school are sent to him as part of the camp’s “Second Chance” program and Ernest is put in charge. The kids turn out to be rougher than Ernest expected, and things get even worse when he’s conned into getting the owner of the camp to sign the land over to a developer.
From there, as always, it’s Ernest to the rescue.
Jim Varney’s Ernest is one of those things that I’ve never hidden my love for, and it actually feels great to see how kindly he’s regarded now. There was a heart and a warmth to the Ernest movies, a sincerity to them, a…dare I pun? An earnestness to the character that few others have matched. Ernest is the kind of hero who succeeds because he’s too simple to understand that victory is impossible. Honestly, I think if more of us had that kind of simplicity in our hearts, the world would be a better place.
Then comes movie #3. Now for the third chapter of a triple feature, you’re allowed to be a little less kid-friendly, since a lot of the parents with littles will have taken them home by now, leaving mostly grown-ups and older kids left in the audience. I’m going to close things off, then with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates. Sandler has made some stinkers, I won’t lie, but I’ve always enjoyed the sweetness of this movie.
If nothing else, you’ve got to respect this movie for not being Little Nicky.
Set in Hawaii, so there’s a constant beach backdrop, Sandler plays Henry Roth, an employee at a Sea World-style park who meets and immediately falls in love with an art teacher named Lucy. After an amazing first date, he tries to see her again, only to learn that she has no idea who she is. Lucy, it seems, suffered brain damage in a car accident and has lost the ability to make long-term memories – every day she wakes up and has forgotten everything that has happened since the day of the accident. If Henry wants to be with the girl of his dreams, he has to make her fall in love with him all over again. Every. Single. Day.
Sandler’s movies, especially from this era, could often rely on gross-out or prurient humor that doesn’t work for me. And to be fair, there’s a little of that in 50 First Dates. But there’s also a heart to this film that a lot of Sandler’s movies don’t have. A lot of guys in Henry’s situation would bail out, but the notion that he cares enough about Lucy to go through with starting over day after day after day is pretty wholesome and encouraging.
There you have it, friends – a summertime triple feature that I think would make for a fine night out at the movies. Go ahead and inflate your portable screens, fire up the grill, and set up the lawn chairs. You can have this one for free.
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’ll be back with a perfect Halloween campfire triple feature in October if he remembers, which he almost certainly won’t.
We’re almost here, friends. With the time remaining until I’m in the theater watching Superman measured in hours, excitement is at a fever pitch. Just this morning (July 9th), my son told me just how excited he is to watch the movie, then he asked me if Batman is gonna be in it. Like I said, FEVER PITCH.
I don’t even know what I’ll be reading or watching AFTER I see the movie, but until then, let’s hit the last book on James Gunn’s list of inspirations for Superman.
Graphic Novel:Kingdom Come (Collects issues 1-4, plus a new epilogue)
He’s not mad at you, Magog. He’s just disappointed.
Notes: I may have read this single graphic novel more than any other in my life. Kingdom Come, by Mark Waid and Alex Ross, is perhaps the zenith of DC’s Elseworlds imprint. A story that was out of continuity, but at the same time, still felt so accurate and so perfectly attuned to the characters within that for years afterwards, DC would have their various titles make small hints or pushes in the direction of this book, suggesting that this Elseworlds might – just might – wind up being the “real” future of the DC Universe. Eventually they dropped this (wisely, I think) and established it as Earth-22, one of the many worlds in DC’s multiverse, but that in no way diminishes the power or impact of this most incredible story.
The story begins in the future with the death of Wesley Dodds, the Sandman. On his deathbed, he plagues his pastor – a quiet little man named Norman McCay – with visions of the apocalypse, which he swears is imminent. The world they live in, you see, has become overrun with superhumans. The children (some literal, some metaphorical) of the heroes of our era have lost their way, turning their battles on one another with no regard for the lives of the innocent. And Superman, of course, isn’t there to stop it. No one has seen him in ten years. Shortly after Wesley’s death, a cataclysm happens: a superhuman battle in Kansas causes Captain Atom to explode, irradiating the entire state and killing a million people. Furthermore, the destruction of America’s farmland sends the entire globe into an economic spiral. Chaos is reigning and Norman finds his faith in God weakening…and then an angel appears. It is the being we once knew as the Spectre, the Spirit of God’s Vengeance, and he has come to take Norman on an important journey. Armageddon is close at hand, and he will need Norman’s guidance to pass judgment.
Over the course of these three issues, we learn that Superman retreated from humanity after the Joker murdered the entire staff of the Daily Planet (obviously including you-know-who). But that wasn’t what sends him away. Instead of being made to pay for his crimes, Joker was murdered by one of the new superhumans, Magog, and it was the way people accepted Magog acting as judge, jury, and executions that broke the Man of Steel. With Kansas gone, Wonder Woman brings him out of hiding and together they begin to reassemble the Justice League. Their old allies offer the new breed of superhumans a choice: join them and accept their ways or get thrown in a superhuman gulag. Not everyone is happy about this, of course, least of all Batman and his team – members of the old guard who are afraid of what Superman is doing. As the tension builds, old friends become enemies, old enemies become uneasy allies, and ultimately, the line between god and man must be defined before it’s too late.
This book is magnificent. Waid, as I’ve said many times, has a love and an understanding of these characters that is unparalleled among contemporary comic book creators, and he brings every bit of it to the page here. He manages to craft a story that makes us believe that, yes, Superman WOULD give up in these circumstances. That he and Batman WOULD wind up at odds with one another without any sort of stupid misunderstanding or plot contrivance. He explores the relationship between Wonder Woman and Superman in a way that feels more real and natural than most others. There is a love that develops between the two, but unlike most of the stories that try to shoehorn them into a relationship (such as the Superman/Wonder Woman book of the New 52 era) this isn’t a story about two hot, powerful people who are mushed together by virtue of them being hot and powerful. This is a different kind of love, a more mature kind of love. It’s the kind of thing that happens when people who have loved and trusted one another for their entire lives grow older and cling to one another to alleviate the loneliness of their loss. I don’t want that to sound like I’m diminishing it, mind you – this is a kind of love that is very real and very comforting to a lot of people. And as such it’s the most believable Superman/Wonder Woman pairing I’ve ever read.
Alex Ross was coming off his star-making work on Marvels, in which he and Kurt Busiek explored the early days of Marvel Comics from the perspective of an outsider. This book is kind of the inverse of that – a story of the end of the DC mythology. Once again, it’s from an outsider’s perspective, but in this case that outsider is forced within. Whereas Phil Sheldon (protagonist of Marvels) spends his entire life at arm’s length from the heroes he photographs, Norman McCay is thrust into the lives of the Justice League at their most personal, their most vulnerable, seeing corners of their souls that even they themselves aren’t privy to.
And even if it weren’t for the fact that this is one of the greatest stories ever written in comic book form, it would be worth it just for the artwork alone. Ross, creates fully painted artwork for every page of the story, and those pages are absolutely loaded. His Superman is strong and powerful, but has a humanity to his face that makes it easy to relate to him. Wonder Woman, similarly, is beautiful, but in a sort of unattainable, almost unearthly way that befits a goddess. Norman McCay, who was based on Ross’s own father, comes across as a very ordinary man who has been forced to shoulder the weight of the entire world, and your heart breaks for him.
And then there’s the FUN behind it. Ross fills nearly every page of this book with Easter Eggs and cameos – obscure characters who appear in only a panel or two, celebrities and comic book creators popping in just for a moment…even Phil Sheldon himself makes a cameo appearance if you look hard enough. And it’s not just the faces that give us surprises, but the books on a shelf, the artifacts in the Planet Krypton restaurant…there is SO MUCH going on in this book that some editions of the graphic novel even come with a section of annotations almost as long as the story itself to help you find them all.
Gunn’s Superman will be young, of course – not the elder statesman of Kingdom Come, and I’ll be very interested in seeing how this particular story influenced him. Besides the obvious, of course.
They both hired the same graphic designer, is what I mean.
Thur. July 10
Eddie is excited.
I need you to understand just HOW excited my son is. When he woke up this morning, the first thing he said was “Tomorrow we are going to see Superman.” He asked me to pull up our tickets on the AMC Theaters app so he could see what theater and what seats we were in. He asked if it was going to be in IMAX. He asked if we were going to get a regular popcorn bucket or a Superman bucket. He asked what Superman shirts he, his mom, and I are going to wear.
He’s almost as excited to see this movie as I am to take him to it.
The next 24 hours are going to CRAWL.
Junior Novel: Welcome to Metropolis by David Lewton
Look…somewhere else.
Notes: On the last day before we finally see the movie, I thought it would be appropriate to read the “Junior Prequel Novel” to the film, Welcome to Metropolis. Gunn has quite famously reminded us all that the movie will NOT be yet another origin story (thank goodness), and that by the time it begins Superman has been active for about three years. This novel steps back and shows us Clark Kent’s arrival in Metropolis, his attempt to get hired at the Daily Planet, and his first encounters with the other metahumans in town.
And it is, sadly, painfully skippable.
It’s not that it’s unnecessary (although it is – if it weren’t, then the information in this book would have been included in the movie), it’s that it’s not even pieced together well. In many iterations we see Superman have a huge, public debut – saving the space shuttle, catching the helicopter falling from the roof of the Planet building, and so forth. In this book, he bursts on the scene stopping a heist at a toy factory, something which barely anybody sees, although it does get Clark Kent hired at the Planet in a truly unfathomable amount of time.
Speaking of time, the timeframe of this book is confusing. The way it’s written, it feels as though everything happens in a matter of days. In fact, if not for a brief scene in Smallville, I would assume it was a narrative of Clark’s first week in Metropolis. When he visits his parents, though, they talk about subscribing to the Planet and how they read all his articles, as though he’s been there for at least several weeks.
Everyone in this book also talks as though they assume everybody else is an idiot. Mr. Terrific gives Superman a lecture on what a robot is, for example. Is there anybody who doesn’t know what a robot is? And is it necessary to get into the etymology of the word? Although this isn’t quite as egregious as the scene where a waitress instructs Clark Kent on how to tip for a cup of coffee. Even the narration gets in on it, introducing one of the other characters as “Green Lantern, whose real name was Guy Gardner.” It’s a clunky, poorly-phrased piece of exposition that could have been worked in more organically.
Look, I get that this is a book for children, and I don’t expect it to be on the level of an Andy Weir hyper-detailed sci-fi thriller. But I’m a teacher and a dad and – I’ll be honest here – a nerd. I’ve read an awful lot of young adult fiction, and if there’s one thing I firmly believe it’s that kids are smarter than most adults give them credit for. They know when they’re being condescended to, and this whole book feels like that…someone talking down to a kid who may not instinctively grasp why they’re getting irritated, but they feel that way nonetheless.
I hate to end the countdown to the film on such a sour note, but that’s how this book left me feeling. I think I’ll need something else today to help perk me up.
Movie: Superman (1978)
What the heck, one more spin ain’t gonna hurt anybody.
Notes: “Hold on a second,” you may be saying. “Didn’t you watch that already? In fact, wasn’t that the first movie you watched in 2025, all the way back in January?” Why yes, yes I did. But as Eddie’s enthusiasm for the new movie grows by leaps and bounds, today he said to me that sentence that every father hopes to hear at some point in his life:
“Daddy, can we watch the 1978 Superman movie today?”
YOU’RE DARN RIGHT WE CAN.
I need you to understand, it’s not like I’ve hidden this movie from Eddie. I’ve watched it several times since he was born, and always with him in the room. He’s never truly been engrossed in it, though, his mind (as the minds of kids often are) focused on other things. But this time, for the first time, he’s ASKED for it. And he’s actually paying ATTENTION. And as such, his beautiful neurospicy brain is full of questions.
“Is that Superbaby?”
“Sure.”
“Can Superbaby fly?”
“Well, he’s still on Krypton, so no, not yet.”
“Can SuperBOY fly?”
“Yes, Superboy can fly.”
“Only big kids can fly.”
“I love the connections your mind makes.”
That said, he’s still seven and still an active little sort, and as such he’s not as interested in some of my favorite parts of the movie. Specifically, the Smallville scenes – the slow burn as Clark grows up and discovers himself doesn’t really hold much interest to Eddie. In fact, he stops and asks me “Do we see Superman yet?” just before we get to the scene where Clark runs alongside the train. I point it out and something clicks inside of him. “That’s SuperBOY,” he says, gleefully.
I’m not going to argue.
He gets distracted again, although he’s fascinated by the construction of the Fortress of Solitude, but he doesn’t really jump up until the end of the sequence where Jor-El mentors his son. The music starts and we see, from a distance, Christopher Reeve in costume for the first time.
“He’s Superman!” Eddie shouts.
He lifts off the ground and moves towards the camera.
“HE’S FLYING!” Eddie shouts.
47 years later and Chris Reeve is still making people believe.
His attention wavers back and forth, seemingly in direct proportion to whether Christopher Reeve is wearing the costume at the moment. He is delighted when he saves Lois Lane and the falling helicopter, but he has no patience for the two of them conducting the most innuendo-laden interview this side of Monty Python. He LOVES the scene where Lex Luthor holds up a Navy convoy on a bridge because, well, he loves bridges.
He’s all in for the final scene, though, once Luthor’s bomb causes an earthquake. “Why is the gas station blowing up? It damaged San Francisco! SUPERMAN HAS TO SAVE THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE!!!”
(I told you he loves bridges.)
“What’s happening?” he asks, excitedly.
“The earthquake is making the Hoover Dam break!”
“What’s a (whisperwhisper)?”
“What?”
“What’s a (whisperwhisper)?”
“WHAT?”
“What’s a water station?”
Oh. “Eddie, it’s okay to say THAT kind of ‘dam’.”
In the end, I think he enjoyed it, even if his favorite part was when – and I quote – “the Golden Gate bridge got demolished!”
I can’t wait for tomorrow.
Comics: Trinity: Daughter of Wonder Woman #1 (Jon Kent appearance), LEGO DC Superheroes Save the Day (Superman appearance)
Notes: Before he goes to bed, we read a book with Eddie every night. Today he picks one he checked out from the library earlier this week, LEGO DC Superheroes Save the Day. It’s a short graphic novel that mostly focuses on LEGO Batman and Robin, but Superman shows up at the end to help save the day. I hold him and help him with the tougher words, and he’s perfectly content to be reading a Superman story in preparation. I love being his dad.
Fri., July 11
Movie: Superman (2025)
It’s time.
Notes: Eddie woke up at 6:43 in the morning. I know this, because he immediately rushed to me and made sure I was awake because he wasn’t about to miss our movie at 11:30 am.
I may have created a monster.
But it’s impossible to get mad at the boy – he’s pumped. We get him dressed in his special Superman shirt with his own cape. I put on my t-shirt with the new logo, then top it with my RSVLTS “Pup Pup and Away” button-down. Erin has ordered her own Lois Lane t-shirt specifically for this occasion. He spends the entire morning asking when the movie starts, what auditorium we’re going to be in, how long the commercials before the movie will be – by the time we actually arrive at the movie theater, he’s ready to combust.
It’s not just a movie, guys.
We get our snacks and I am unable to resist the siren call of the Daily Planet “popcorn bucket.” (Movies and theme parks have taken ridiculous liberties with what they deem a “bucket.” Basically, any kind of tchotchke in which there’s room for a cavity that could theoretically contain some small quantity of popcorn qualifies.) I look at the newspaper box, thinking about where I’ll put it in the Superman corner of my classroom once school starts next month.
We sit down in the theater. Eddie is anxious, barely able to keep still, to the point where I’m starting to get nervous. But when the trailers end and the opening narration begins, he finally sits still.
And over the next two hours and nine minutes, we watch the Superman movie I’ve been waiting for ever since Eddie was born.
I’ve written a full review that I posted last Saturday. You can read it here, and I won’t reiterate what I’ve already discussed, but in case you’re not interested in the details about how I felt watching the movie that literally inspired this entire Year of Superman project in the first place, I’ll give you the short version right now:
Back in December, I was having a crappy day when the first trailer for this movie hit. And I mean HIT. I was knocked right out my socks and my whole attitude changed. Since then, I’ve been living Superman every day, examining his best stories, his previous movies, his appearances in animation and toys and anything else I could find. And the point of it all has been to crystalize, in my mind, just who Superman is so that I would know, when I watched the movie, if James Gunn pulled off what I want Superman to be.
My friends. It’s been worth every second.
Sat., July 12
Comics: Superman Treasury 2025: Hero For All #1, Supergirl Vol. 8 #3, Action Comics #1088
Bruno Redondo captured how I felt after seeing the movie.
Notes: Still a-tingle from the movie (and from having written the gargantuan review I linked to above) I’m finally ready to settle down with this week’s new Superman comics. In the 70s and 80s, Marvel and DC both put out several giant-sized “Treasury Edition” comics – pages nearly twice the size of a standard comic book, usually with longer stories. The very first crossovers (Superman and Spider-Man, Superman and Muhammed Ali, Batman and the Hulk) were printed in this format. Eventually, it went away. But with the current popularity of facsimile comic books, reprinting older comics in their original form, original ads, letter columns, everything, DC did a few facsimile treasury editions. Those were popular, and that’s led to more and more treasuries, finally leading up to the Superman Treasury 2025, which I believe is the first of the current crop to feature all-new material.
In Hero For All, by Dan Jurgens and Bruno Redondo, Maxima has grown outraged upon learning that Superman (whom she once had sought as a mate) has had a child with a human woman. She takes the Cyborg Superman as her consort and together they attack Metropolis, capturing Superman in a strange virtual version of his life that took a very different path, while his allies in the Justice League and beyond do their best to fight off the invasion.
This is a good book and a great use of the format. Jurgens has always done wonderful stories about the pre-aged Jon Kent, and this is another one that fits in well with his Lois and Clark stories, with the kid being a key element to the story. The world that Superman is trapped in is particularly bizarre – a world where Jonathan Kent (Pa, not son) died when Clark was young, but his friendship with Lex Luthor continued until adulthood, and in which Lex winds up marrying Lois Lane. Eventually, this last bit is what stretches credulity too much for Superman to accept the fantasy, but it’s really odd to think that Maxima’s people would think that’s a world that would keep Superman placated.
I’m not crazy about spinning Maxima back into a villain. She went through her reformation arc, was a member of Jurgens’ iteration of the Justice League, and fought with him against Doomsday. To see her revert back to the callous creature she was when she first appeared and then to align with the Cyborg, of all people, is kind of bothersome to me. Recidivism may be sadly realistic, but it’s not something I particularly care for in superhero stories – I prefer a world with a bit of hope behind it.
Bruno Redondo, whose run with Tom Taylor on Nightwing is going to go down as one of the all-time great comic book collaborations, kills it with this story. I love his Superman, his Metropolis, his Justice League. I wouldn’t mind at all seeing him do an extended run on Superman.
I enjoyed this treasury for the most part, and I always like seeing Jon as a kid, where he worked the best. It will be interesting to see where DC goes with the format after this.
I HATE when my crazy stalker from a miniaturized city tries to turn me into my own demonic counterpart.
Sophie Campbell’s Supergirl #3 continues the story of Lesla-Lar, who is outraged that even though the people of Midvale have bought into her lies about Kara (even calling her “Phoneygirl”), they STILL prefer Kara to her. There’s some meta commentary in there, I think, that works well with this character, whose compassion is her greatest power. We see that a few times in the issue, such as with her interactions with Lena Luthor – still a friend despite who her dad is – and even with Lesla herself. The last scene in the comic is a great example of Supergirl’s capacity for forgiveness, something that I think runs through the best stories with her.
This is what happens when you forget your gym clothes.
Mark Waid’s Superboy tales continue in Action Comics #1088. With his career as Superboy slowly taking off, Clark Kent is meanwhile forced to face the greatest challenge of all: high school. The Smallville school district has recently built a new, larger school that consolidated three high schools in the area, and so the hierarchy of high school life is totally upended, with Clark struggling to find his place in it. It’s a nice trick by Waid, allowing him to play with the tropes of making Clark the “new kid” without having to fabricate some excuse for him to have recently moved to town, something that wouldn’t really make sense in any incarnation of the character. The final page is a nice little surprise, and something that’s got me very curious as to where, exactly, Waid intends to take this story. But I’m certainly excited to see where it goes.
TV Episode: The Adventures of Superman Season 3, Episode 3, “The Lucky Cat.”
Notes: MeTV has started airing old episodes of The Adventures of Superman on Saturday nights after Star Trek. I have nothing to say about this, except that it makes me very happy.
Sun. July 13
Comic: Absolute Superman #9
Remember, kids, always put on your Omega Men helmet before you get on your scooter.
Notes: This was the last of this week’s new Superman books, and it’s becoming kind of an oddity. In this issue we have Kal-El, wounded from the Kryptonite bullets last issue, taken in by the Omega Men in an effort to save his life. The battle to do so, though, turns not into merely a life-or-death situation for Kal-El, but a symbol of the legacy of Krypton itself. After the opening scenes, we see Kal-El bonding with Jimmy Olsen, aka Agent Alpha of the Omega Men, who fills us in on what it’s like living day-to-day in what TV Tropes would call a Crapsack World like the Absolute Universe.
I’m trying to wrap my brain around how, exactly, the Absolute Universe works. It’s still less than a year old, and the six titles have not directly crossed over yet, which is probably a good thing. With an endeavor of this nature, it’s best that each title stand on its own before they lean too heavily into the interconnectedness of it all. But as a friend of mine recently pointed out to me, it doesn’t really feel like ANY of the Absolute titles take place on the same Earth. The giant alien dome from Absolute Green Lantern feels like it should have at least been MENTIONED somewhere else. Same with the enormous monsters Wonder Woman is fighting in her book. And while the Gotham of Absolute Batman is very dark, it’s not necessarily the same flavor of dark as we’re getting here or in Absolute Flash. And Absolute Martian Manhunter feels more like a psychedelic trip that’s spinning from Deniz Camp’s mind than anything else – if they had just called it something else and made it a Black Label book, I don’t think anyone would have noticed the difference.
The Absolute comics seems to be doing well, and that’s a good thing. I’m just a bit concerned that I can’t get a feeling for where this universe is going.
Mon. July 14
Short Films: Eleventh Hour (1942), Destruction, Inc. (1942), The Mummy Strikes (1943), Jungle Drums (1943), The Underground World (1943), The Secret Agent (1943)
Notes: With the main event behind me, I decide to spend this Monday getting in some more of the classic Flesicher shorts. I kick off the mini-marathon with Eleventh Hour, another of the World War II-era shorts. Oddly, this one does something that we haven’t seen since the very first of the shorts: a recap of Superman’s origin. It’s oddly out of place, and I can’t imagine it was really necessary even in 1942, not after the shorts had become so popular. I honestly wonder if they popped it back in because the film ran short.
Here we go again…
This is another one with Lois and Superman running afoul of the Japanese army. As Superman works to take down some of their operations, they capture Lois and post warnings that if he continues his attacks, they’ll execute her. Superman doesn’t see the notices until he wrecks a battleship that’s still under construction, and he winds up having to swoop in and save Lois from a firing squad.
It was World War II. The depictions of the Japanese soldiers are, to put it mildly, somewhat insensitive. But in the context of the time, it’s still got the amazing animation that you look for from Fleischer, and an interesting bit where Superman is temporarily caught under an avalanche of steel beams, something that his later power levels would make nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
Wartime worries remain in Destruction, Inc. This time out, the night watchman at a Metropolis munitions plant is found murdered. Lois goes undercover in the plant to investigate, where she quickly runs afoul of spies trying to undermine the American war effort. She’s captured and placed inside a dummy torpedo that’s about to be fired in a demonstration. Superman has to race through the water to catch the torpedo before it can collide with a derelict ship with Lois inside! With Lois safe, it’s time for Superman to turn his attention to the saboteurs.
There’s a nice change of pace here, dropping the Japanese angle while still telling a distinct wartime story. We also see how clever Lois can be, seeing right through a disguise Clark is wearing to hide in the plant himself (although still being unable to see past the glasses.) I think my favorite bit in this one is a short comedy routine where Clark encounters “Lewis,” a character that looks like he rolled out of a Looney Tunes short who gets momentarily offended when he think Clark calls him “Lois.” It’s an utterly ridiculous moment that adds nothing to the short except for a few seconds of levity, but honestly, what’s wrong with that?
I’m confused — do we need Superman or Brendan Fraser?
Hallelujah, war is over! Or at least on pause, for 1943’s The Mummy Strikes. Clark is called to the Metropolis museum to investigate the death of a recently-murdered archaeologist. Lois, not buying Clark’s excuse of going to see “the doctor,” follows him to the museum where the curator tells Clark the story of the oath taken by the guards of a child prince in Ancient Egypt. When the child died of illness, his guards killed themselves so that they may guard him in the valley of the dead. The late Dr. Jordan, it seems, had violated an ancient warning against opening the pharaoh’s tomb. When Clark and the curator accidentally do the same, his mummified guards come to life and attack!
I love this short. It’s so great to see Superman have to fight a real supernatural menace after so many shorts focusing on the war, and the mummies themselves (a more classical case, not the sort that we think of as being terminally wrapped in bandages and decaying) are legitimately creepy as they swarm in on Lois and the curator. My only real disappointment is that the final battle is so short. The buildup is great, with Clark learning about the history of the pharaoh, but when the battle finally happens it’s over almost before it’s begun.
Sadly, the war is back on in Jungle Drums. Once again, it starts with the recap of his origin before the story starts. In this one, Lois is aboard an army plane that’s shot down in the jungle by a hidden Nazi base. Entrusted with important papers, she’s captured by natives in the shadows and brought to the Nazis, who threaten her with torture to get the papers. When she refuses, they turn her back over to the natives. When Clark happens to fly by in the next plane, they see the wreck of Lois’s aircraft. Clark’s “Lois sense” alerts him to the fact that she’s gotten herself into even more trouble, and Clark jumps out of the plane so that Superman can save the day.
Credit to Lois here: even in the face of what seems to be certain death, she sticks to her guns and refuses to betray her country. She shouts insults at the bad guy leader as she’s about to be burned at the stake. She even manages to free herself and radio for help even before Superman intervenes. If all you’re looking at is the treatment of Lois Lane, this is a FANTASTIC cartoon. But as is to be expected for a cartoon from 1943, the depiction of the jungle natives makes the treatment of the Japanese seem reasoned and sensitive by comparison. As always, I hate to judge a work from the past by modern standards, but sometimes it just makes you prickle to watch.
“Iiiiiiiiiiiiiis THIS your card?”
The Underground World is loosely based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs’ story “At the Earth’s Core,” which is fun for me. There’s something about these “hidden civilization at the center of the Earth” stories that I usually enjoy, so tossing Superman into one is like a visual Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup for me. Lois joins an archaeologist (lots of those in Metropolis) on an excursion deep into the Earth, where they find a civilization of winged hawk men (not to be confused with Hawkman). Clark, meanwhile, goes down of his own accord, no doubt expecting that Lois is going to get up to her neck in trouble again. He manages to save them just before the hawks dunk them like an Oreo in a pool of molten lava. I seem to be using a lot of snack food metaphors in this writeup. That’s what I get for watching these cartoons right before lunch. In the end, the worst part is that the editor praises Lois’s story, then burns it, saying no one will ever believe it. Considering some of the other stuff they publish in the Daily Planet, that seems kind of capricious.
And finally, sadly, comes the last of the Fleischer Superman shorts, Secret Agent. In a nice change of pace, a group of Nazi agents with a leader who, based on his appearance, was probably named “Schmadolf Schmitler,” captures Clark Kent instead of Lois! In fact, Lois doesn’t even APPEAR in this cartoon, just an American agent who looks and sounds exactly like her, except for having blond hair. The funny thing is, as with most of these cartoons, Clark doesn’t go into action as Superman until the last few minutes, with the rest of it being setup. However, with Lois absent and Clark tied up, if only watched the middle section of this, there’s not even anything that would identify it as being a Superman cartoon. I suppose it would have strained credulity a bit to have Lois undercover for six months, but it does lead to an odd feeling that Superman was an afterthought.
And thus, we end our adventure in the world of Fleischer Studios. These cartoons were outrageously expensive for the time, but aside from those episodes that include unfortunate racial depictions, they’re still pretty glorious today. The animation is on point, the voice acting is delightful…this is the Superman for that generation, and for quite a few after it, and deservedly so.
Comics: JSA Vol. 2 #7 (Superman, Power Girl Appearances), Four Star Spectacular #6 (Superboy and Krypto)
Tues. July 15
TV Episode: Superman and Lois Season 3, Episode 1, “Closer”
“Hide the new Jonathan under Lois’s chin, nobody will even notice.”
Notes: We pick up about a month after the previous season ended, with Lana settling in as mayor of Smallville, Kyle and John Henry each settling into homes of their own, Sam Lane shutting down the X-Kryptonite mines, and Clark and Lois sharing the new Fortress of Solitude with their boys, including the new actor playing Jonathan. Clark has gotten a job at the Smallville Gazette alongside his wife, and Lois sets out to investigate Intergang leader Bruno Mannheim in Metropolis, starting by pretending to need a doctor’s appointment to try to talk to the sister of this universe’s John Henry, one of Mannheim’s likely victims.
Coming off of seeing Superman just a few days ago, I find myself comparing Bitsie Tulloch’s Lois to Rachel Brosnahan, and it’s not really a fair comparison. Tulloch is good at the part, and she’s the perfect Lois for this show, but she’s playing the part of a reporter as opposed to actually behaving like one. Lying about who she is to talk to a potential source is the kind of thing that TV writers think reporters do, but is sort of frowned on in real life. It feels less like real behavior on her part and more of an excuse to get her into a doctor’s office so they can drop this episode’s big bombshell: that Lois may be pregnant.
Both John Henry and Lana figure out that Lois may be pregnant within minutes of talking to Clark and Lois (respectively), which makes you wonder exactly how they’ve held the biggest secret on the planet under their belts for the last twenty years. But the character moments here are good. Each of them gets a scene to process the news, each of them coming to embrace it on their own, which in TV terms feels like a damn guarantee that either she’s not pregnant after all or that Lois is going to lose the baby. (At the end of the episode, it turns out to be the former.)
We also see some nice scenes of the Kent parents tutoring their kids – Lois teaching Jonathan to drive while Clark gives Jordan some flying lessons, which get out of hand when Jordan nearly reveals himself in Malaysia. This does lead to an odd question, of course: is Jordan not going for his driver’s license? Okay, he’s the Boy Who Can Fly, but most people don’t know that. Did nobody think it was odd that one of a pair of twins with the same birthday is going for his license but not the other? Especially since the second half of the episode is centered around their shared 16th birthday barbecue?
The oddest relationship development we see here comes when Sam Lane, recognizing that his counterpart on John Henry’s Earth was Natalie’s grandfather, starts trying to bond with the girl. They’re not wrong about their relationship, of course, but to date most of the exploration of that particular quirk of this series has come from Nat lamenting the fact that our Lois isn’t her mother and that her real mother is gone. Seeing Sam step into that grandfather role is kind of surprising, but oddly charming. It’s a bit undermined a few scenes later when Sam tries to convince Natalie to enroll in the DOD Academy. Natalie is put off by it, of course, feeling like Sam’s attempt at closeness was just a ruse, but I like the way they play his character. While it’s true that he wants Natalie to go to the Academy, you also get the impression that his interest and concern for her is genuine, that he sincerely means it when he tells her how much he respects her intelligence and wants to see her using it for the better good. I can easily picture him behaving exactly the same way were she “really” his granddaughter, which is pretty close to him doing his best to be a good grandpa in these scenes.
I remember hearing when Jordan Elsass (as Jonathan) left the show and was replaced by Michael Bishop, but I don’t remember the circumstances behind the replacement. I wasn’t paying attention to the show at that point, as I was desperately behind on viewing it. I’m not sure if I’m sold on the new guy, though. Elsass had a kind of classic jock look to him, and occasionally exhibited the same behavior when the episode called for it. Bishop’s Jonathan has less of an edge, coming off as more laid-back and less athletic. I have a difficult time picturing him in football pads, which wouldn’t be a problem if not for the fact that he’s ostensibly the same Jonathan that’s been jocking all over the series for two seasons now, or that the comedy in his driving test scene comes from him sharing the car with his former football coach (who, of course, has never had a scene with this actor before).
The relationship between Sarah and Jordan gets its own pair of scenes and, I’ve gotta be honest, I’m getting less and less on Sarah’s side as this series continues. She breaks up with Jordan (that’s fair, but let’s not pretend that their relationship issues didn’t start when SHE cheated on HIM), then at his birthday party she asks why he’s been ignoring her, because she doesn’t want it to be “awkward.” Jordan has the surprisingly insightful reply of “it IS awkward; I want to be with you but you don’t want to be with me.” To which she replies, “I just need some space.”
HE WAS GIVING YOU SPACE, SARAH, BUT YOU GOT MAD BECAUSE YOU THOUGHT HE WAS IGNORING YOU.
Between TV shows like this one and my job as a high school teacher, I spend an awful lot of my time thanking God that I’m never going to be a teenager again.
We don’t get any real Superman action – or even a hint as to what the story behind this season will be – until the last 15 minutes or so, When Clark is called away from the twins’ birthday to face off against a new metahuman in Metropolis who turns out to be a crook he’s caught before that seems to have been juiced up. Opening up a little mystery is a good thing, hopefully it’ll pay off as the season progresses.
The movie is out, but the year isn’t nearly over yet. With five and a half months left you can expect more theme weeks, more discussion of the movies and TV shows I haven’t watched yet, a few outside-the-box choices, and an absolute mountain of comics coming your way. The Year of Superman continues in seven days!
Blake M. Petit 