Geek Punditry

Year of Superman Week 20: Super-Sponsor

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I’ve seen a few people online worry that, with only two months left until the debut of James Gunn’s Superman, there hasn’t been enough marketing yet. They’re worried that it shows a lack of confidence in the film. But to the contrary, I think we’re about to see Warner Bros repeat what they did two years ago with Barbie. Just like Superman, up until May there wasn’t an awful lot of official chatter yet. Then there was an AVALANCHE. New trailers, merch, a website where you could turn yourself into a Barbie meme. There was no escaping it and, in case you didn’t notice it, it turned out to be the highest grossing movie of the year. I think we’re at the beginning of that same push, and it started this week.

The debut of the new Superman trailer makes this the perfect week to kick off “Super-Sponsor,” a look at some commercials and comics that have featured the Man of Steel over the years. It’s always amused me, how fictional characters get pulled in to make a pitch for things like dog food, and I’m sure that this week is going to trigger some core memories for people. But first…

Wed., May 14

Official Superman Trailer

This guy is James Gunn’s self-insert for the entire DCU.

Notes: It’s funny, as the previous Superman trailer is what actually made me decide to start this whole “Year of Superman” blog in the first place, but now James Gunn is telling us that wasn’t a trailer at all. It was a “teaser,” he says, and the first real trailer is the one that hit today, May 14. What’s the difference between the two, you ask? I’m honestly not sure. If I were to guess, I would say that the first “teaser” just gave us glimpses, flavor. The trailer gives us a little more meat – in other words, the first real clue of what the story is gonna be. And of course, as it should, it starts with Lois Lane. In the trailer, Clark agrees to allow her to interview her as Superman about some recent actions that have apparently caused no small amount of controversy. Superman, he insists, has stopped a war. But Lois is questioning if that was the right thing, on the international level.

Oh, how I LOVED this. First of all, the interplay between David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan was spot-on. They are charming and affectionate, but at the same time, she’s a reporter, dammit, and she’s not going to blanch away from asking the hard questions. He went into a foreign country. He went without permission. “You seemingly acting as a representative of the United States–”

“I wasn’t representing anybody except for me!”  

The way the tension is sculpted here is flawless. Superman going in to save lives regardless of laws or treaties? Lois refusing to back down as he has to answer for it? This is who BOTH of these characters are. 

I know that some people have been concerned about the tone, afraid that Gunn (whose Guardians of the Galaxy films and The Suicide Squad both leaned heavily on comedy) would be too jokey, too flippant. This new trailer shows us a Superman who is good, decent, and pure, and struggling against a world that has difficulty accepting these things, and while it isn’t bereft of humor, it isn’t leaning on it the way those other films either. (And come on, people, even Guardians of the Galaxy mixed in the humor with real pathos. If you watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and didn’t shed a tear, I don’t know what I can even say to you.”  

We also see María Gabriela de Faría as the Engineer, working with Lex, storming the Fortress of Solitude. We hear a nice monologue from Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, explaining how he can’t handle this alien dominating the conversation around the world. (It almost sounds like Superman is still new in town, the way Lex is talking here. We know this movie won’t be an origin story, but it remains to be seen just how far removed from the origin we’re actually going to be.)

We see more of Mr. Terrific, Guy Gardner, and Hawkgirl. We see Krypto stealing the show a few more times.

We see a movie that promises to be about a hero trying to do the right thing and a world that doesn’t know how to handle it.

I’ve been optimistic about this movie from the beginning. As of the teaser back in December, I’ve been gung-ho. Now? Now I’m…

I don’t know. What’s the next level up from gung-ho?

I’m overjoyed, and I cannot wait for July 11. 

Commercial: Milk-Bone Dog Biscuits: “For Honor” 

I don’t even have a dog and this almost worked on me.

Notes: As I said, I think this is where the marketing avalanche begins, and after Krypto became the star of the first teaser trailer, I’m not surprised to see it begin with Milk-Bone. Aside from a little Krypto footage we’ve already seen from the teaser, the trailer, and the sneak peek, we also get a scene of Mr. Terrific playing with Krypto and giving him treats, which I believe is my wife’s favorite part, as she squealed adorably with glee. I don’t own a dog, so this isn’t going to make me purchase anything, but if I did…I gotta admit, this ad would work.

Comic: Superman: A Friendship Unleashed #1 

“Unleashed?” Oh, I get it. It’s a pun, right?

Notes: In addition to the Milk-Bone commercial, we also got a new digital comic book, also sponsored by Milk-Bone. It’s a pretty simple 10-page story by Ivan Cohen and Travis Mercer, starting with Superman and Krypto playing fetch and then winding up having to save a dog park from an out-of-control fire engine, then working together to stop a S.T.A.R. Labs disaster that the fire truck was racing to prevent. Also, there are prominent Milk-Bone logos whenever it was easy to sneak it into the artwork. Is it a great comic book? No. But it’s cute enough, and it gives Krypto a little bit of a spotlight. Historically, this is mostly notable as – except a brief prophetic vision in an episode of Creature Commandos – the first actual story appearance of David Corenswet’s Superman…well…anywhere. 

Thur., May 15

Comic: Superman Meets the Quik Bunny #1

Much better than when Superman arrested the Trix Rabbit for stalking kids.

Notes: Hailing from 1986, this one-shot brings Superman face-to-face with his greatest ally: a cartoon rabbit!

No, wait, they did that in Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew #1. I guess the big difference here is that Cap gets his power from eating irradiated carrots, whereas the Quik Bunny gets his from chocolate milk.

ANYHOO…In this comic, the Weather Wizard attacks Washington, D.C., and Superman leaps into action to stop him. Why Superman instead of, say, the Flash (Weather Wizard’s usual sparring partner) or Wonder Woman (who actually lived in D.C. at the time)? Because Quik paid for Superman, dammit. Superman is quickly (no pun intended) joined by the Bunny and his friends, the Quik Club – four genius kids who are there to problem-solve and catch the Weather Wizard.

It’s a ridiculous story, but there are a couple of things for which I really do give them credit. First of all, the product placement is surprisingly kept to a minimum. The Quik Bunny and the kids are introduced while drinking chocolate milk, then it isn’t mentioned again until the climax, where the Bunny is feeling down and the kids give him a jolt of Quik to get his head back in the game. There’s one last mention on the final page, when Superman joins the Bunny and the kids for a glass, but I can allow that. After all, once you’ve saved the nation’s capital from a bad guy with control over the fundamental elements of the climate, a cool glass of chocolate milk probably WOULD hit the spot.

The other thing I like about this comic is that it’s not JUST a comic. Every two or three pages, we get a little activity that ties into the story – mazes, word scrambles, connect-the-dots, and other such games that make the book a little more interactive. Granted, modern comic book nerds would find the notion of taking a pencil to the pages of a comic book to be horrifying, but comics like this weren’t made for people who were just planning to put ‘em in plastic, they were made to give away to KIDS (and entice them to beg their parents for Nestle Quik), and kids like that sort of thing. Or at least, they did back in the 80s. Maybe it wouldn’t work now, I don’t know, but as a kid of the 80s, I for one appreciated this silly little comic book. 

Fri. May 15

Comics: Superman: The Computers That Saved Metropolis

This is the worst Legion of Super-Heroes reboot ever.

Notes: Remember Radio Shack? That little store where you could buy all the computer and electronic components that you needed? My dad was an early adopter to computer technology, and I liked accompanying him to Radio Shack because sometimes – SOMETIMES – they had these free giveaway comic books. I didn’t care that they were kind of dumb, that the “Tandy Computer Whiz Kids” were ridiculous characters, and that every book they produced were blatant commercials for Radio Shack’s TRS-80 line of personal computing devices. You know what I cared about? FREE COMICS, that’s what.

By the time I was going to Radio Shack with Dad, the comics they were producing were mostly published by Archie and starred the Whiz Kids in their own adventures, but there were three comics from before I got into them that I had to hunt down later, because they featured Superman. The first was The Computers That Saved Metropolis from 1980. The story kicks off with Superman taking time out of his busy schedule to give a guest lesson to an elementary school class about the history of computers, because apparently there were no crimes, natural disasters, or multidimensional incursions that could be a better use of his time. He begins lecturing the kids – and the reader – on the history of the computer, with a kid named Alec acting as an audience surrogate in that he finds the lecture kind of boring, despite the fact that it’s being given by Superman. 

At the end of the lecture, the kids sit down to practice using the computers just as Superman is called away to stop a freak tornado that appeared out of nowhere in the middle of Metropolis. Rather than investigating this meteorological anomaly, Superman instead goes back to school where they have a little contest to see if the computer can complete math problems faster than he can. (Spoiler alert: It ends in a tie. The most ridiculous and improbable tie since the first time Superman raced the Flash.) A second test ends in Superman’s defeat, but only because (we learn) that freak tornado was the work of Major Disaster, who used it to release millions of microscopic Kryptonite fragments all over the city. The tiny crystals aren’t enough to take Superman out entirely, but they’re fogging his brain and making it hard to control his powers. With Superman operating on reduced efficiency, Disaster starts his REAL plan, screwing up the city’s computers. So Superman, of course, calls in the Justice League to take care of the situation.

HAHA! Just kidding! No, that would make sense. No, instead he burrows under the elementary school (it’s too dangerous for him to fly), bursts through the floor, and then has children use the two computers he brought in earlier that Disaster didn’t have a chance to monkey with to help guide him through averting Major Disaster’s major disasters. In the end, of course, Major Disaster is captured, the Kryptonite passes out of Superman’s system, and Alec and Shanna wind up on the news talking about how awesome computers are. 

We just saw the origin story of the Tandy Computer Whiz Kids, folks. And yeah, it’s silly, and it’s ridiculous, and it is utterly illogical that Superman would allow children to guide him in the control of his powers when hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake. But ask yourself this question: is it any less plausible than the fact that Adventure Bay has outsourced its entire first responder system to a child and his six dogs? Or that virtually every law enforcement organization in the world accepts the help of the gang in the Mystery Machine? The children are our future, people. Time we accepted that. 

Sat., May 17

Comics: Superman: Victory By Computer, Superman: The Computer Masters of Metropolis

This is becoming a habit.

Notes: Superman followed up his first adventure with the TRS-80 Whiz Kids a year later in another special, Victory By Computer. In this one, Superman and Supergirl both appear in Alec and Shanna’s classrooms, at which point the students are immediately disappointed because the all-powerful superheroes from another planet didn’t bring new computers with them. Man, and I thought MY students had attitude sometimes.

But it’s okay! Turns out that Superman and Supergirl DID bring computers – the brand-new TRS-80 POCKET computer, small enough to fit in the little pouches under their capes! As in the first special, we launch into an educational lesson, but instead of the history of computers, this time it’s about programming and modern technology. I give Radio Shack credit for at least not repeating themselves, and there is an amusing sequence where the kids are walking across a giant keyboard that looks like they got it out of the Batcave.

Oh yeah, and Lex Luthor is up to some shenanigans, this time summoning Supergirl and trapping her in a room with red sun lamps which – as we all know – negate Kryptonian powers. Fortunately, Alec and Shanna are there once again to lend a hand, aiding Superman in his cousin’s rescue with the help of an ancient and mystical creation known as…the MODEM. 

“Ah man, not THESE weiners again.” –Superman, probably.

In the third and final team-up with the TRS-80 kids, The Computer Masters of Metropolis, we get a new guest-star. This time, it’s Wonder Woman who shows up in Alec and Shanna’s classroom. (Meanwhile, across town at another elementary school, these visits from the fire department are seeming lamer and lamer.) After the lesson, it’s time for a surprise field trip – Wonder Woman is taking the kids down to the Metropolis World’s Fair to check out the computer exhibition. Their old pal Superman, meanwhile, is already at the fair, where he’s standing guard after Lex Luthor threatened to destroy the fair because they refused to showcase any of his scientific achievements. (Golly, I wonder why?)

There’s more Wonder Woman than Superman in this book, and she spends the first half of it giving the kids a tour of the fair, talking a little bit more about the history of computers, and impressing upon them just how integrated they have become in our daily lives. It’s actually pretty quaint to read this sort of thing – in 1982, computers were still a novelty. If they were to try to write a story today talking about how everybody uses computers, it would seem as ridiculous as telling them how important cars or, like, refrigerators are. After the kids go home, Wonder Woman sticks around in her Diana Prince identity, unaware that Luthor has tricked Superman into yet another Red Sun trap. The guy must keep the factory that makes those bulbs in business all by himself.

Superman is stuck in an auditorium bathed in the red bulbs, and Luthor has rigged the place with explosives to prevent him from escaping. But he’s made a mistake, as villains do – he forgot to remove the TELEPHONE. So Superman calls the Daily Planet and…gets a busy signal. So who does he call next? Batman? Supergirl? The Inferior Five ?Ambush Bug?

HE CALLS ALEC. THE SIXTH GRADER WITH A COMPUTER.

And Alec calls Shanna.

And Shanna calls the World’s Fair and has them page Wonder Woman, who saves Superman from the trap, and they capture Luthor.

These books are wild, guys.

Like I said when I wrote about the first of these three comics, they’re silly and quaint, and just as a nerd who loves both Superman and weird comics, I enjoy having these. But there’d never be any danger of them turning up in any collected edition of the Greatest Superman Stories ever told.

On the other hand, I wonder who actually owns the TRS-80 Whiz Kids now that Radio Shack doesn’t exist anymore. Is that valuable IP floating around somewhere? Could Alec and Shanna turn up in some gritty Black Label series, probably by Tom King? And if so, would they still be…the Computer Masters of Metropolis?

I’m just kidding, guys, this is never gonna happen. 

A quick note that has nothing to do with the Whiz Kids, guys, but that I thought was interesting. If you’ll recall, I started this week’s blog writing about the new Milk-Bone comic book, and at the time, I thought it was digital-only. Looks like I was wrong, though – there WAS a print run, and you could order it from Milk-Bone with a box of dog biscuits. Apparently this was ridiculously popular, so popular that the website had to be taken down and the print version of this book is now showing up on eBay for upwards of $80. It was absurd to me, and I couldn’t figure out why people were going so crazy for it – then it hit me.

Like I said then, TECHNICALLY, that Milk-Bone comic book is the first appearance of David Corenswet’s Superman. And I bet the speculators are pouncing on it for that reason.

I’ll check eBay again in six months. It’ll probably be more reasonable then. 

Sun. May 18

Commercials: “Superman Peanut Butter,” “Superman Vs. Nick O’Teen”

Notes: Over the years, Superman has occasionally turned up in commercials for products or services that didn’t really have any relevance to him personally. In fact, in one case, they even NAMED a product after him for truly astonishing reasons. Back in the early 80s, Sunnyland Refining Co. had a new brand of Peanut Butter it was planning to launch, and so of course they asked the obvious question: who is the obvious spokesman? Peter Pan was popular, of course, so maybe another flying hero. Condorman? Casper the Friendly Ghost? Tweety Bird? No. The obvious answer, of course, was Superman. 

Or something like that, I have no idea how Sunnyland wound up making Superman Peanut Butter, and Google has not been particularly helpful in my research, but I sure as hell REMEMBER Superman Peanut Butter. I remember it, I miss it, and I firmly believe that if we could bring it back today the world would be at least a little bit better for everybody except for people like my nephew who have nut allergies. (Sorry, Grant.)

“Lex? Could you — could you not make that face in front of the kids, please?”

There were a few commercials over the years for Superman Peanut Butter, but the one I remember most fondly was this one from 1983, in which Superman has been captured by Lex Luthor. Luthor, demonstrating the primary concern of most supervillains, wanted Superman to tell him the secret of why Superman Peanut Butter tastes so great: “So fresh roasted,” Lex intones, “So creamy!” As he berates the Man of Steel for his refusal to share his legume-spread secrets, a bunch of random kids peek in through a glassless window, drop a rope, and swing Lex’s Kryptonite to a lead box that has been left conveniently open, allowing Superman to burst out of his cell and capture him. I don’t know exactly which level of the DC Multiverse this commercial takes place in, but this is clearly not the smartest Lex Luthor we’ve got. On the other hand, this Superman was willing to die in order to protect his peanut butter secret, so maybe he isn’t the smartest Supes, either.

At any rate, this goofy commercial has stuck with me for all these years, and darn it, I DO still long for a slice of toast with a thick layer of Superman Brand Peanut butter. A few weeks ago, in the Comic Book Collecting Facebook Group I help moderate, someone asked the question of whether anyone ever REALLY bought Superman Peanut Butter just because of the association with the character. 

Yes, sir. I assure you. We did. 

The same year that Superman Peanut Butter launched, we also got a trio of anti-smoking ads starring the man of tomorrow. All three ads follow the same basic pattern. A bunch of kids are being approached by a hideous villain called Nick O’Teen who tries to entice them to try cigarettes. Superman shows up. Superman kind of brutalizes Nick. Then he crushes the cigarettes with his Kryptonian might and stares at the camera.

Not since Patty O’Furniture has a villain had such a stereotypical name.

That is not to suggest that the commercials are identical, of course. In one of them, Superman destroys the cigarettes in front of Nick’s face as he begs, pathetically, for a fix. In another, Nick is disguised as a wizard teaching the kids magic tricks with cigarettes before Superman stops him. And in one, Superman just gets so fed up that he hurls Nick O’Teen far enough away that – as my wife commented as she watched the commercial with me – “he straight-up murdered him.” 

Maybe, but who’s gonna cry for the guy trying to give cigarettes to kids?

To say that these ads are poorly made is an understatement. Superman is constantly off-model, and he doesn’t even seem to have a consistent voice in the three of them. In fact, in the first it almost sounds like someone was trying to do an impression of Arnold Schwarzenneger before he began to speak the flawless English he is known for today. But the question remains: were these commercials EFFECTIVE?

Well, the message we seem to take away from them is, “If you try cigarettes, you will be brutally killed by Superman.” And I gotta admit, that’s enough to make me never want to take a puff.

In 2004 we once again saw Superman grace American televisions to shill a product. This time, though, he wasn’t alone. Superman (voiced by Patrick Warburton) is joined by none other than Jerry Seinfeld in an ad called “A Uniform Used to Mean Something” by American Express. Although most of us saw the 30- or 60-second truncated versions of this ad campaign, there’s a full five minute short film on YouTube that you can – and should – watch right now. 

“And what’s the deal with the bottle city of Kandor?”

Seinfeld (who of course CLAIMS to be a huge Superman fan, but ask yourself, where’s HIS “Year of Superman” blog? Huh? HUH?) and Superman are going out to lunch. They engage in a series of conversations that would have fit in perfectly on his self-titled sitcom – complaining about the amount of mayonnaise on a sandwich, discussing how great the surround sound on Jerry’s new DVD player will be (“What do you care? You’ve got super-hearing.” “Yeah, but it’s not SURROUND SOUND.”) And then, as Superman is stuck reading the reviews for a new musical, a crook rushes past and steals Jerry’s DVD player right out from under him. Superman stops him, of course, but not before the criminal throws it at Superman and it breaks.

WHAT DO WE DO?

Superman’s suggestion, of course, is that he fly around the world so fast that he goes back in time and stops the DVD player from being damaged. Jerry has a simpler idea – his American Express card protects his purchases from theft, damage, or being bounced off a superhero’s chest for 90 days after purchase, and he easily gets a new one.

If somebody wanted to create a time capsule of pop culture in the early years of the 21st century, they would pretty much HAVE to include this ad. It was ridiculously ubiquitous back in 2004, it seemed like it was on the air every other commercial break…and what’s more, it also serves well as a bite-sized taste of the Seinfeld TV show, as well as the kind of stunts credit card companies used to use to draw in customers. 

Man, Super-Sponsor week is a ride, my friends. 

Mon., May 19

Short Film: Stamp Day For Superman (1954)

Superman, of course, doesn’t need stamps. He sends everything big AIR mail. Heh. Get it?

Notes: Remember those days in school when the teacher would pull out a filmstrip, the VCR, or the DVD player, depending on how old you are? (If you’re too young to remember the DVD player, I’m not even sure why you’re reading this blog.) Weren’t those days the best? Well, in 1954, the people behind the TV show The Adventures of Superman made an 18-minute short film to promote US Savings Bonds. Superman (George Reeves) and Lois Lane (Noel Neill) are on a stroll down the streets of Metropolis when they’re alerted to a robbery. Lois goes off to get the story, while Clark goes after the robbers. One of them gets away, but the other turns himself in to Superman, confessing that the only reason he turned to crime is because he’s never been able to save his money, which makes you wonder how somebody from 2025 made it to the 1950s. 

Back at the Daily Planet office, Jimmy Olsen (Jack Larson) shows off the brand-new typewriter he bought when some of the US Savings Bonds he bought back when he was a kid finally matured, because even in the 50s Jimmy was one wild and crazy guy. His glittering purchase gives Clark the idea of having Superman visit Jimmy’s old school to help promote “Stamp Day,” the day to buy savings bonds. As Clark and Jimmy go to the school to help set up for the promotion, Lois gets a phone call from an informant who confesses that he’s the missing robber – he knows he’s going to get caught, and he’ll only surrender to Lois Lane, alone. 

I want to offer a US Savings Bond to anybody who can guess what happens to Lois next, but I’m a public school teacher and there’s no way in hell I can afford that many.

Thaaaaat’s right – Lois gets caught and tied up, and it’s going to be up to Superman to get her out of yet another one. This time, though, he’s got the added difficulty of setting her free in time for Stamp Day!

I haven’t gotten around to talking about the Adventures of Superman show yet, although I fully intend to do so when I do the planned week where I watch the first episodes of all the assorted Superman TV shows. But I’m delighted that this goofy little short exists, giving me a chance to wax poetically about it here during “Super-Sponsor” week. Although the story is, naturally, a blatant propaganda film promoting the purchase of savings bonds (to the film’s credit, it never tries to claim otherwise), you still get to see Reeves and Neill at their best. Reeves is square-jawed and charming, and although his Clark and Superman have very little difference in how he plays the characters, he’s like a Wayne Boring Superman climbed right off the page and came to life. And while Noel Neill’s Lois frequently had to play the damsel in distress, I don’t remember a single episode where she lost her cool, pleaded with her captors, or hatched some hare-brained scheme to entrap Superman in marriage. No, even while she’s tied up by the dubiously-named robber “Blinky,” she’s clever and snarky. Honestly, she’s got the best traits of the era’s Lois Lane and none of her foibles. 

If you extract the scenes about Stamp Day (which honestly wouldn’t be difficult to do) you would have a pretty standard – albeit short – episode of the TV show. What’s more, because the movie was made for the federal government, it’s in the public domain. And yet somehow, I wasn’t aware of its existence until 2016, when it got goofed on as the finale of the RiffTrax Live: Mystery Science Theater 3000 Reunion Show. As I’m almost as big a fan of RiffTrax and MST3K as I am of Superman, watching this film with almost every MST3K host, bot, or mad throwing out their bon mots was just a delight. It’s not a bad episode on its own, but if I’m being honest, I enjoy it more with the riff treatment.

Comics: New Gods Vol. 5 #5 (Cameo)

Tues., May 20

Commercials: Ralph Nader Kryptonite Commercial, Superman for the US Air Force

Notes: Kids, once upon a time, there was a guy named Ralph Nader. Nader is a lawyer who kind of became a celebrity through advocating for consumer protection and environmental causes. In fact, a book he wrote in the 60s pushed public opinion to the point that the government began to enforce stronger safety regulations for the automobile industry, so hey, thanks Ralph. He also ran for president several times, although he never made it as a major party candidate, but he’s still kicking it at 91 years old, so there’s still time, right?

“I’m Ralph Nader, and I have no idea why I’m giving this message.”

“Blake, why the hell are you talking about Ralph Nader?” you may be asking. And for once, Presumptuous Disembodied Voice From the Back of the Auditorium, I am in complete agreement with you. Ralph Nader showing up here in my Year of Superman blog makes no sense. But neither does what I’m about to talk to you about. In the 1980s, Nader appeared in a one-minute television spot talking about the various colors of Kryptonite. Normally, when I link to something off my site, I just kind of drop the link in the middle of a paragraph and trust that you’re smart enough to click on it, but I’m not going to do that this time. No, I need to draw attention to it, because I think everybody needs to see this. Go ahead. Click the link below and watch this commercial with me.

Ralph Nader Kryptonite Commercial on YouTube

Back? Okay, let’s talk about what we all just shared. Ralph Nader – PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE RALPH NADER – spends 60 seconds telling you about the various versions of Kryptonite that exist, and warns you to be careful not to be scammed when purchasing your Kryptonite from some sort of sleazy backroom dealer. “Gold Kryptonite robs you of your powers! Green Krytonite makes you drowsy, inert, and eventually destroys you! Red Kryptonite…now that’s the unpredictable stuff.” Then he closes off the spot by telling you that if your Kryptonite is not properly and clearly labeled, you should take your business elsewhere.

This. Is. BONKERS.

And the thing that’s MOST bonkers about this is that I have NO IDEA WHY THIS COMMERCIAL EXISTS. There’s no tag on the end that points you to a product, a service, a movie. There are clips from the old Adventures of Superman TV show with George Reeves, but if the commercial is intended to promote reruns of that show, why don’t they tell us what time and channel to tune in? And what’s more, why show panels from the comic books, or footage of the Superman balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? Neither of those would promote the TV show at all. It’s almost like a Saturday Night Live bit, but there’s no audience laughter to indicate as such, and I can’t think of any other TV show of the era that would have made a spot like this…nor does it really go wacky enough to suggest that it was intended as a comedy sketch. So what IS it? WHY WAS THIS COMMERCIAL MADE? WHY DOES IT EXIST?

If you know, friends, please tell me before it drives me insane. 

The last commercial I’m going to talk about is a recruiting spot from 1974, in which baseball player and manager Dick Williams talks about how the Air Force is like a baseball team – all about people working together and learning skills.

He’d make a hell of a wingman though, right? Ha? Ha? Okay, I’m done with the puns. For now.

As he walks through a baseball stadium, he encounters Superman (or, rather, an actor wearing a rather shoddy Superman costume) pouting because they won’t let him play baseball with them. “They say I’m too good.”

“I know how you feel,” Williams said. “Why don’t you try the Air Force?”

I mean, let’s be honest here, if Superman WERE to join the military, the Air Force makes the most sense. 

While not as completely nonsensical as the Nader spot, this one is kind of depressing, seeing a schlumpy kind of guy in a Superman costume moping around a baseball diamond. He should have cheered up anyway – he was only six years away from getting consistently shown up by a pair of sixth graders using a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer.

Comics: Challengers of the Unknown Vol. 5 #5 (Guest Appearance)

Super-Sponsor week comes to a close, friends. This was a weird one. I would have had many more commercials to choose from if I’d used actual Superman products, like the action figures, and maybe I’ll come back and do that some other time. There are also a few other giveaway comics I managed to identify – such as one from the 90s or early 2000s in which Superman and Supergirl talk about energy conservation – but I don’t actually have a copy to review. (Yet. But as long as eBay exists, the possibility stands.) At any rate, this was a bizarre spin around the world of Superman, and next week I’ll be getting back to some more traditional stuff, with TWO new Superman-related titles making their debut this month to talk about. And since one of them stars Superman’s famous cousin, I think I’ll go ahead and declare next week SUPERGIRL WEEK.

See ya then. 

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. You can join in the Kryptonian Konversation every day in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!

Geek Punditry #124: Compact These!

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A little over a month ago, I talked to you guys about Compact Comics, DC Comics’ incredibly well-received new publishing initiative, in which some of their most popular and well-known graphic novels have been reprinted in smaller volumes, about the same size as a modern paperback novel, for the deliciously new reader-friendly price point of $9.99. The first ten books DC released in this format all sold out and went back for additional printings, and a second wave of titles has been announced for later this year. As with the first wave, the new titles are a mix of perennial bestsellers, books with current media tie-ins, and a few offbeat titles that aren’t their usual superhero fare, but may well snare readers who want something different.

I applaud this initiative. I’m up for anything that gets more people reading comic books, and based on the success of this series so far, it seems like it’s doing the trick. But that doesn’t mean that ONLY the smash hits deserve the Compact Comics treatment. DC’s got a history going back 90 years, and in those nine decades they’ve turned out a lot of books that may not be immediately recognizable, but at the same time, are fully deserving of finding a new audience. So DC – I know you’re listening to me, I can hear you breathing – this week in Geek Punditry I’m going to give you some suggestions for a few titles that I think are worthy of inclusion and should be given the utmost consideration when the time comes to select round three of Compact Comics.

The Kents

Look, everybody knows I’m going to have at least ONE Superman-related suggestion, so why don’t we just get it out of the way early, shall we? The Kents was a 12-issue miniseries from 1997 and 1998, written by John Ostrander with art by Tim Truman (issues #1-8) and Tom Mandrake (issues #9-12).  In this series, Jonathan Kent uncovers a series of diaries, letters, and artifacts from the mid 1800s and, sharing them with his son, the two of them piece together an epic story about the history of the family that would give Earth her greatest hero. 

“Ah, who cares about the Kent family, Blake?” some of you may say. Well…people who are into the likes of Unforgiven, perhaps. Or True Grit. Or John Ford’s Stagecoach. Because The Kents isn’t a superhero story at all – it’s an epic western. In three acts, the story tells the saga of the Kent family before, during, and after the Civil War. There’s a bitter, harrowing tale of brother against brother played out against the backdrop of the American west, and in this story we not only see the seeds of righteousness and nobility that would one day so profoundly inform who Clark Kent is, but also the struggles, heartache, and betrayals that the family had to endure to build that foundation. I’ve loved this series since it first came out, and although it’s been reprinted once or twice over the years, it doesn’t look like there’s been a new edition of this book since 2012. That’s entirely too long, and it’s time it got back in the spotlight.

Camelot 3000

Speaking of 12-issue miniseries that have been out of print for over a decade, let’s talk about Camelot 3000. This science fiction/fantasy series by Mike W. Barr and Brian Bolland came out from 1982 to 1984, and it tells the story of a future where King Arthur has returned to Great Britain, as the prophecy foretold. In this distant future of the year 3000, the world has been divided up into four gargantuan autocratic countries, all bickering and fighting amongst one another, and completely oblivious to a greater threat from beyond the Earth. Arthur, resurrected, has to find the reincarnations of his knights and prepare them for battle.

This is a fantastic book, showcasing Bolland’s pencils even before he sharpened them to the point where he became the artist behind Watchmen, and the story very neatly mirrors the original Arthurian legend. Barr supposedly got the inspiration for the story while taking a college course on Arthur, and the work he put into shaping this world is really remarkable. He doesn’t just re-tell the original story, but weaves in certain themes, showing just how timeless they are. The Lancelot/Guinevere story is still hanging over everyone’s heads, and the new take on Tristan and Isolde is way ahead of its time. It’s also an important book, historically speaking – DC’s first maxi-series created for the direct market only, their first time experimenting with a new format, and the first time future superstar Bolland would do full stories for an American publisher.

But most importantly, it’s just a good comic that modern audiences haven’t all had an opportunity to experience yet, and it’s an experience they frankly deserve.  

Batman: Robin Ascendant

This doesn’t actually exist. I mean, the stories exist, but this particular collection of them, to my knowledge, has not been made…but damn it, it should be. Batman, as you may have heard, has gone through a Robin or two in his time, and for a lot of us, the definitive Robin is Tim Drake. I love Dick Grayson as much as anybody, but he’s far more interesting as Nightwing than he ever was as Robin. Tim Drake, on the other hand, is probably the best Robin there’s been. Batman himself has acknowledged that Tim will be a better detective than he is some day, and he’s also the only one of the main Robins that has never particularly harbored a desire to become Batman. He stepped into the role after the death of Jason Todd (who, of course, got better), during a period where Batman was being consumed with self-doubt and anger, and it seemed like the Dark Knight was going to go far, far darker than ever before. Tim  deduced the original Robin’s identity, and from there, it was easy enough to determine that Batman was Bruce Wayne, so he arrived on Bruce’s doorstep not because he wanted to be a superhero, but because he knew that Batman is better with a Robin.

The story in which this is told was called “A Lonely Place of Dying,” by Marv Wolfman, George Perez, and Jim Aparo, and while it has been collected many times, it’s only five issues long. (Batman #440-442 and New Titans #60-61) One of the few legitimate complaints I’ve heard anyone have about any of the Compact Comics is that certain ones – specifically the ones that reprint original graphic novels like Joker or Wonder Woman: Earth One – are too short compared to the ones that squeeze in a hefty 12 issues worth of content. So in order to combat this volume having the same problem, I propose a bundle of sorts, combining this story with two shorter, subsequent ones. Bruce didn’t make Tim a Robin immediately, dedicating himself to training the boy so as not to repeat the mistakes of Jason Todd, and there were a few good Tim stories before he put on the costume again. In “Rite of Passage,” from Detective Comics #618-620 (by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle), Tim’s parents are kidnapped by a villain called the Obeah Man, leading to a tragedy that would shape Tim dramatically. I would include that, then cap off the book with “Identity Crisis” from Batman #455-457 (Grant and Breyfogle again). Here, Tim is grappling with the events of “Rite of Passage,” struggling with the legacy of the two previous Robins looming over him, and is grounded while Batman sets out to take on the Scarecrow. But Tim figures out that Batman is walking into a trap, and realizes that he’s the hero’s only hope. 

When you put these three stories together, you’ve got a nice chronology of Tim Drake, leading up to him officially taking the mantle on the final page. And you’d get 11 issues of content, which is perfectly in keeping with the size of the better-received Compact Comics.

Tales of the Green Lantern Corps

One of the first Green Lantern stories I ever read – thanks to some comics given to me by my Uncle Todd – was the three-issue Tales of the Green Lantern Corps miniseries from 1981 by Mike W. Barr, Len Wein, and Joe Staton. In this truly epic story, all 3600 members of the Corps are called together to face the most dire of threats – their ancient enemy Krona has returned. Krona, a twisted member of the same race that eventually became the Guardians of the Universe, has forged an alliance with Nekron, a god of Death, and is planning to rend a hole between the worlds of the living and the dead, beginning with the destruction of the Corps’ central power battery on Oa. The Corps only has one charge remaining – a mere 24 hours to save the universe.

This is an incredible storyline – wide-reaching and eventful, that showcases not only Hal Jordan, but so many other Lanterns. Classics like Katma Tui and Tomar-Re show up, little-known GLs like Charlie Vicker make an appearance, and we get the debut of Arisia, who would go on to be a major player in the series. Furthermore, elements from this story would be used decades later in Geoff Johns’s Blackest Night, another awesome story that should get the Compact Comics treatment.

The only problem is all of this universe-spanning action takes place in only three issues, and, like I said, that just ain’t enough to satisfy Compact Comics reader. Fortunately, DC has already provided us with a solution. Tales of the Green Lantern Corps was not only the title of this miniseries, but also the banner under which solo tales of Green Lanterns from beyond the Earth appeared as back-up stories in the main comic for years. There were also three annual specials using this title with the same concept: short stories of various GLs. Some of those were amazing, such as the introduction of the bizarre and delightful Rot Lop Fan from Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #3 (story by Alan Moore and Bill Willingham). Once you’ve included the three issue miniseries, it would be quite simple to cherry pick the best of the other Tales and build up enough of a collection to make a suitable Compact Comics volume.

Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga

The Legion of Super-Heroes is one of DC’s greatest properties, and yet somehow it gets less respect and love than so many. It deserves more, and showcasing one of its crowning achievements in The Great Darkness Saga would be a way to show them off to a new audience. In this one, the heroes of the 30th Century find themselves coming into conflict with bizarre, shadowed figures who turn out to be corrupt clones of heroes from the past. The race to discover the truth about these threats leads to a collision with the characters of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, finally bringing the Legion into conflict with the embodiment of evil in the DC Universe: Darkseid himself. The story was a smash hit when it was first published in the early 80s, and was credited with making Legion one of the best-selling comics in America for a while. It showcases virtually every character who was or had ever been a member of the Legion, as well as drawing in many of their allies like the Legion of Substitute Heroes and the Wanderers. If you’re looking for a showcase of everything the 30th Century had to offer, this is the book to read.

The main storyline is, again, somewhat short, running in Legion of Super-Heroes #290-294. However, there was a long buildup before the main story began, and previous collections have included material going back to issue #286 and their first annual, with an epilogue of sorts appearing in the third annual. And if you really want to link it to the greater DCU, years later there was another side-story that connected to it in issue #32 of Booster Gold, a series in which the time-travelling hero often found himself stumbling into classic DC storylines. There’s certainly enough to collect a full-size volume here.  

Ambush Bug

My final suggestion is probably my most off-the-wall, but I will defend it vigorously. For the last few years DC Comics has been trying to turn Harley Quinn into their answer to Deadpool, with the sort of fourth-wall breaking shenanigans he’s known for. With all due respect to the creators who have been involved in those stories, that’s a mistake. Harley became a hit character on her own merit, and changing who she is to fit some other character’s template is foolish, especially since they’ve already got a much better candidate: Ambush Bug.

Ambush Bug, created by Paul Kupperberg and Keith Giffen, is (supposedly) Irwin Schwab, a schlub who found an alien super suit that gave him the ability to teleport. Schwab is also ludicrously insane and a wholly unreliable narrator, making everything we know about him (including his real name, his origin, and his rivalry with the alien sock Argh!yle) suspect at best. Who or whatever Ambush Bug really is, he first showed up as an antagonist in DC Comics Presents #52, running afoul of Superman and the Doom Patrol. He came back a few issues later, causing problems for Superman and the Legion of Substitute Heroes, then decided to try becoming a hero after an encounter with Supergirl in her own comic. (He initially mistook Supergirl for her cousin. He’s that crazy.) Co-creator Keith Giffen and his writing partner Robert Loren Fleming soon started to run with the character, having him show up in three issues of Action Comics (where he quickly realized that Superman looked exactly like Clark Kent – he’s that crazy) before he got popular enough to get miniseries and specials all his own.

Ambush Bug was breaking the fourth wall before Harley, before Deadpool, even before John Byrne’s She-Hulk raised such a thing to an art form. He is fully aware of the fact that he’s a comic book character, and he was proficient in meta humor long before it became popular. His stories are bizarre, surrealistic, and utterly bonkers, and they’re a lot of fun because of that. Unfortunately, since the passing of Giffen, there really hasn’t been anybody else who has a great hold on the character and he doesn’t appear much these days. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before somebody tries to bring him back, and when that happens, I hope they find creators who have just the right blend of humor and irreverence to do him justice. 

In the meantime, though, we can grease the wheels for his return with the Compact Comics treatment. Ambush Bug Vol. 1 should include his early appearances in DC Comics Presents, Action Comics, and Supergirl, as well as his first four-issue miniseries from 1985, and the Ambush Bug Stocking Stuffer Christmas special. Once that first volume is a sales juggernaut (as all my suggestions clearly would be) they could follow it up with Vol. 2, collecting the Son of Ambush Bug five-issue miniseries from 1986, the Ambush Bug Nothing Special from 1992, and the six-issue revival miniseries Ambush Bug: Year None from 2008. 

There you go, DC. I know the books for Compact Comics series two have already been chosen, so consider these six suggestions the first half of a wave three. I’m sure you can figure out the rest of that wave yourselves. You guys are pretty good at this too. 

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 hopes you all appreciate the fact that he got to the end of this without talking about Captain Carrot. That wasn’t easy, people. 

Year of Superman Week 19: Superman Who?

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We’re here approaching the middle of May already, and for me that means the end of a school year. This week is the last week for my 12th graders, while my 11th graders are gearing up for their last two weeks. All of this boils down to less time for me, so I don’t think I’m going to work too hard to maintain any sort of theme this week. Let’s just take it as it comes and see what turns up.

Wed., May 7

Comics: Action Comics #558, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #138, Justice League of America #23

Ironically, this is what I feel like when I get an ice cream headache.

Notes: Here’s another one of those semi-random issues that turns up in my classic comic read-throughs, and it really illustrates something about the middle years of Superman. After the Silver Age silliness started to die down, there was a long period where it didn’t quite seem that the writers knew what to do with him. He only had a few great villains, like Luthor and Brainiac, and it’s not like he could face off against them twice every month, or they’d be overused. Attempts at creating new villains tended to turn out losers with little meat behind them, such as Terra-Man, or else random alien or mystical opponents who were only good for one story each. Other than that, they had him facing off against natural disasters or some sort of personal mishap that made Superman himself (temporarily) dangerous or otherwise imperiled without having an actual antagonist. 

As for his personal relationships – the perpetual Second Act of ongoing comic books is on no greater display than it was here. They didn’t want Clark to get married, they kept Lois as a hanger-on, they didn’t add any characters, they didn’t remove any, and that’s how things were for decades. They finally made a slight shift in the late 70s and early 80s: moving Clark to WGBS added a few characters to the cast, and bringing back an adult Lana Lang who was finally infatuated with Clark Kent rather than Superboy changed up the classic Superman/Lois/Clark love triangle. Ultimately, though, these changes were largely cosmetic, and the actual plots didn’t change all that much. When somebody calls Superman boring I disagree with them vehemently, but I have to assume that the majority of their exposure to the character probably comes from this era.

All of this is to say, “The All-Searing Eyes” from Action Comics #558 is another example of a Superman story that’s low on threat and doesn’t really have any reaching impact. Superman is brought into contact with a scientist attempting to solve the world’s energy problems, and he thinks he’s found the way to do it: Superman’s heat vision. He believes if he can discern how Superman’s heat vision works, he may potentially be able to harness that energy for the benefit of the people of the world. Superman, being Superman, agrees to have his heat vision tested, but he’s forced to end the experiment prematurely to avert a disaster, and as a result, he finds himself unable to turn the heat vision off.

Is there story potential here? Sure. A Superman unable to turn off his heat vision would be horribly dangerous, something that was actually addressed in a 90s storyline in which his powers went out of control for a while. But true to the time period, there wasn’t much room for real drama here. Superman realizes he’s in a pickle, he causes a small amount of trouble but no lasting damage, and at the end of 12 pages the scientist manages to get his heat vision back to normal. Ultimately this – like a lot of the comics of the era – feels pretty inconsequential. It has no lasting impact for any of our characters, and nothing that happens is ever referenced again. This isn’t to say that every single Superman story (or every story for any ongoing character, for that matter) HAS to have long-reaching consequences, but if they don’t, they should at least reveal something about the characters or, at bare minimum, be original and fun. This story, and many of them of the era, just don’t tick any of those boxes. In a modern age where it seems like comic books are rebooted every twenty minutes and it never matters anymore, you can look at books like this one – books that happened in the years before the first major reboot – and you can understand why DC felt like it was necessary. 

Thur., May 8

Comics: Superman #126, Blue Devil #3 (Guest Appearance), Action Comics #375, Infinity, Inc. #5 (Power Girl)

And this is what it takes to get RID of an ice cream headache.

Notes: As I’ve said before, on weeks when I’m not pursuing a particular theme, there’s little rhyme or reason to the choices I make as to which Superman content I’ll explore. For example, Superman #126? It’s on the docket for today solely because I was scrolling through the DC Universe Infinity app, the cover caught my eye, and I don’t think I’ve ever read this story before.

I should clarify: I’ve never read the story presented in this PARTICULAR issue before…but I have most CERTAINLY read stories about Superman with amnesia. They were strikingly common in the Silver Age, and even as late as the early 90s there was the “Blackout” five-parter, in which Superman’s memory was accidentally wiped by an experiment Emil Hamilton was working on and he wound up on a tropical island almost marrying a native princess. (Hmm. Should I read that one next? It’s been a while.)

But for now, I’m focusing on “Superman’s Hunt For Clark Kent.” While experimenting for a possible antidote to Kryptonite radiation at the Fortress of Solitude, an accident causes Superman to lose his memory…but fortunately not his powers, which he needs to fly down to Metropolis to start piecing together his missing life. He gets clothes from a British chap who is literally giving them away to the first person he sees who’ll fit them and who seems to have no idea who Superman is, then decides to adopt a “secret identity.” He disguises himself as a Brit, bleaches his hair blond, takes the name “Clarence Kelvin,” and applies for a job at the Daily Planet. 

You know, there’s an adage in writing that goes something like, “In real life, we expect coincidence. In fiction, we do not stand for it.” I imagine that adage was coined in response to stories like this one. Superman’s behavior is completely absurd and preposterous, and seems to happen only to keep him from telling literally anybody on the planet the predicament he’s in, at which point every scientist in the world (except for Lex Luthor) would be falling over themselves to try to cure his amnesia. But instead he…fights a whale. 

Eventually, he learns who he really is by flying into space far enough to overtake the rays of light coming from Earth and using his telescopic vision to watch himself, in the past, changing his clothes, making him realize he’s Clark Kent – and that may be the LEAST scientifically implausible thing about this story. At the end, everything goes back to normal, with Clark settling in at the Planet again…but something about this is bothering me. He discovers that he’s really Clark Kent. He resumes his life as Clark Kent. But at NO POINT does the story actually say that his MEMORY returns. Does that mean that Superman technically had amnesia for the rest of the Silver Age?

Where’s that grim and gritty follow-up?

As usual for this era, there are three stories in the issue. The second one isn’t particularly memorable, but the third one made me do a double-take. In “The Two Faces of Superman,” Lois deliberately makes herself unattractive to ward off a blind date and Clark, catching wind of this, decides to teach her a lesson. He decided to do that a LOT in the Silver Age, in and of itself there would be nothing noteworthy about this. But as Superman, he whisks her off on a date, at the end of which he “confesses” that he always wears a rubber mask as Superman and wants to finally show her his true face. And when he does…well…see for yourself.

“What, me Kryptonian?”

Yep. Superman decides to turn himself into the spitting image of Mad Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman. 

And this, it should be noted, was long BEFORE Mad was published by DC Comics. 

Anyway, to her credit, Lois is smart enough to figure out Superman’s ruse (after a few pages of angst and soul-searching) and calls his bluff by accepting a marriage proposal he never thought she would go for. In the end, both of them put their cards on the table and admit the truth, and Lois even concedes that it was wrong of her to blow off her blind date in such a way, then goes right back to dreaming about wanting to marry Superman – but NOT by tricking him. I guess that’s the sort of thing that passed for noble aspirations in 1959. 

Fri., May 9

Comic: Absolute Superman #7

This is what it felt like when I got an ant farm in 4th grade.

Notes: Only one new Superman-related comic hit the stands this week, although I did get the Dan Mora variant cover for the Action Comics #1 facsimile, because I’m a sucker. The one new book, Absolute Superman #7, is our introduction to the Brainiac of this dark universe. In fact, Superman doesn’t technically appear at all. Instead we spend the entire issue exploring this new incarnation of the villain and his obsession with the Superman that has somehow appeared on Earth. This version of Brainiac has a bit in common with Geoff Johns’ re-imagining of the character several years ago, but there’s a madness to him that I’ve never seen in a Brainiac before. It suits the grimmer universe that the Absolute titles occupy quite well, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes next.

Most interestingly, though, is the cover. I have to talk about my love for this cover, by Rafa Sandoval. It’s not just that it’s a good piece of art, although, it is, but look at it. Word balloons. How often do comic book covers have word balloons these days? It’s a lost art, and when it IS used, it’s usually used for comedic purposes. To see it done this way is both unexpected and exciting. Good on ya, DC. 

Sat., May 10

TV Episode: Superman and Lois, Season 2, Episode 8, “Into Oblivion”; Episode 9, “30 Days and 30 Nights.”

After I make it to work on a day like this I usually text my wife and say “Careful, the fog is crazy this morning.”

Notes: The assorted subplots that have defined this season continue in episode 8. Jonathan, expelled from school, is given permission to complete his coursework online and is forced to get a job. Jordan discovers that the reason his brother has refused to tell anyone about his sources for X-Kryptonite is because he’s trying to protect Candice, the girl he’s been seeing, who’s trying to support her family. John Henry is recovering from amnesia (more amnesia?) and has forgotten that he’s not married to Lois in this universe, and his recovery is triggering Natalie, who remembers how the Superman of her original universe murdered her mother. Lana’s husband Kyle – despite their estrangement – tries to help her prepare for her upcoming debate in the race for Mayor of Smallville, while Sarah tries to convince Jordan to become friends with the girl she hooked up with in summer camp. 

Sometimes the synopsis of these episodes make me long for the quiet subtlety of a Silver Age issue of Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane.

In episode 9, cult leader Ally Allston (the one who sucked Lucy Lane into her web) breaks DOD custody and manages to hop into a portal to another dimension. Superman goes after her and winds up trapped in that other dimension for…well, the name of the episode IS “30 Days and 30 Nights.” In that time, disasters go unchecked and lives are lost as the world cries out, “Where is Superman?” As John Henry sets out in his Steel armor to fill in the gaps, Jordan tries to use his super-senses to find his absent father. Ah yes – and the Smallville mayoral election happens, and lest we forget, Lana is on the ballot. 

As much as I want to enjoy this series, in episode 8 there’s just too much going on, and it’s not connecting with me as a result. I feel like I need a scorecard to keep track of all the storylines, and for somebody who navigated the entire Triangle Era of Superman comics with no issues, that’s saying something. That said, there are a few things that I liked here. Jonathan taking the fall for Candice, for example, feels like a very Kent thing to do. He’s protecting someone and taking the heat on his own, and while he’s doing it in a stupid way, he’s also a teenage boy and thus a certain level of stupidity is to be expected when girls are concerned. I also like the way that Clark tries to mend fences with Natalie, someone he has never wronged, but at the same time, someone who may be the only person on Earth with a legitimate reason to be traumatized by Superman. There are a few good scenes with the two of them, and I like the development of her character.

I’m not wild about the continued development with Lucy and the cult leader who sucked her in, and the end of the episode has Lucy taking a turn that not only marks her as a bit of a villain, but a way bigger idiot than even Jonathan. It does lead into Episode 9, though, which improves over 8 considerably. It starts with John Henry suiting up in his armor and trying to fill in the gaps left by Clark’s absence. There’s also a great bit where Kyle – a firefighter – is trapped in a burning building and Jordan has to use his powers to save him. Lois is outraged, but Jordan stands his ground and insists that he did the right thing. And damn it, Lois, you know he’s right. Finally – FINALLY – we get some of the stuff I’ve been wanting to see in this series. Jordan uses his powers to save somebody’s life. Lois argues that he should have let John Henry handle it, but Jordan points out that John wouldn’t have made it in time and Kyle would have died. Jordan is 100 percent right – he used his super powers to save somebody’s life, and that is ESPECIALLY important while his father is missing. On the other hand, Lois isn’t approaching this as someone who is desperate for a new superhero in the world. She looks at it from the perspective of a wife whose husband is missing and whose son just did something incredibly dangerous, sparking her fears of losing him too. Lois is totally in the wrong, and yet, her reaction is entirely understandable and in-character. And that, my friends, is what makes for a compelling conflict.

This episode also finally gives us a little forward momentum on the X-Kryptonite storyline, as Jonathan breaks down and tells his mother where to find the distributor, sending Lois, Sam Lane, and Jordan on a stakeout that goes bad. (There’s a cute bit here where Lois’s knowledge of the kind of knots used to keep them in check makes her father question just how many times his daughter has been tied up over the years.) Despite Lois’s protests, Jordan comes in to save his mother and grandfather, and maybe for the first time in this whole series, we see a glimpse of the Superboy he just may be destined to be. I love what they do with him in this episode, it’s the best we’ve seen from Jordan yet. 

Although Sarah dumping him at the end of the episode because he keeps disappearing and won’t tell her what’s going on is more of a Peter Parker consequence than a Clark Kent one. Ah well. He’s got the powers, best he learn what it takes to be a superhero now. 

It ends on a hell of a cliffhanger, and it’s probably the best episode of the season so far. And Superman isn’t even actually IN it. Go figure. 

Sun. May 11

Comics: World of Smallville #1-4

Notes: It’s Mother’s Day here in the US, and in the Year of Superman I thought I should devote my reading today to that mom of moms, Martha Kent. Let’s face it, Martha and Jonathan are probably the greatest parents in all fiction. They took a child with the power of the gods and raised him to a man who uses that power only to help people. That is A-plus parenting no matter how you slice it.

Nobody else even comes close. No disrespect to May Parker, but look at the little bundle of neuroses SHE raised. And sure, Susan Richards’s son is plenty powerful, but they actually put a mental block on him to prevent him from accessing his abilities. I mean, I get it – when Eddie was little we put a lock on our oven because it was too dangerous to allow him to open it at will. Same thing. But still, Martha had no such protections, and she STILL knocked it out of the park.

Problem is…there aren’t really a ton of great comic book stories ABOUT Martha. Sure, she appears a lot, especially since the Man of Steel reboot, but she’s almost always in a supportive capacity. There have been a few stories about Jonathan, but Martha almost always appears to impart a little wisdom like a midwestern Yoda, to fuss over her son like any other mom even if he IS Superman, or to bake.

So even though it’s really more about Jonathan and Martha as a couple, today I decided to read the World of Smallville miniseries from 1988. This was actually the middle part of a trilogy of miniseries written by John Byrne expanding upon Superman’s corner of the DC Universe after his reboot, preceded by World of Krypton and concluding with World of Metropolis. In this one, Clark comes home to Smallville to visit with his parents, but a slip of the tongue by Jonathan sends him probing into family secrets he never heard before.

You know how they tell you if you find an old videotape in your parents’ closet you shouldn’t watch it? Well, this is nothing at all like that, you sicko.

Although Jonathan Kent and Martha Clark were sweethearts from a young age, their lives were shattered he was missing and presumed dead in World War II (I assume that, were they to reference this story today, they’d update it, perhaps to the first Gulf War). By the time Jonathan was found alive, Martha had married Daniel Fordman, a member of Smallville’s wealthiest family, although she never stopped loving him. Jonathan comes home to find yet another shock – Dan is dying of cancer, and he wants Jonathan to take Martha from him. Jonathan is shocked at the idea and, despite his sister’s encouragement, is planning to reject Daniel’s proposal. It turns out to be a moot point, though, as when he arrives at the Fordman house to do so, he’s there just in time to see Daniel fighting with his sister – a fight that drives him to his death. Jonathan and Martha, we learn, were engaged six months later.

It’s not exactly Romeo and Juliet, but that’s a good thing, since those two both ended up dead.

After the first two issues, which tell that story and a re-telling of how the Kents learned they couldn’t conceive a child and then, miracle of miracles, found one in a rocket ship, issue three brings in Lana Lang to talk about a little of the trauma SHE was subjected to by John Byrne. To be fair, it wasn’t entirely his fault. At least part of the blame has to go to Steve Englehart, author of DC’s 1988 crossover event, Millennium. In that story we learned that the Manhunters – the failed android race that preceded the Green Lantern Corps as peacekeepers in the universe – had stationed agents all over Earth to spy on its burgeoning superhero population. The editorial edict was that each comic had to have someone revealed to be a Manhunter spying on their respective hero. Byrne went one better – in the Superman titles it turned out the Manhunter was Doctor Whitney, Smallville’s pediatrician, who was sent to watch the child from Krypton. Whitney implanted a device into the spinal column of every child he delivered for the next two decades, turning every kid in Smallville into a sleeper agent that was to be activated to report on the actions of Clark Kent. 

They got better after Millennium, fortunately. In fact, Lana was the only one who even remembered the ordeal. But these last two issues deal with what happened to her as a result. It’s a dark story, and the miniseries as a whole serves mostly to fill in blanks from Man of Steel and to connect the dots to the Millennium revelations. It’s good, and it’s worth including if you do a read of the Byrne era Superman. It’s a shame, though, that there just aren’t a lot of other great Martha stories out there.  

Mon., May 12

Comics: “Blackout,” from Adventures of Superman #484, Action Comics #671, Superman: The Man of Steel #6, Superman Vol. 2 #62, Adventures of Superman #485

Notes: Ever since I got that dose of Super-amnesia from the reading I did a few days ago, that concept has stayed with me, and I decided to go ahead and read the old “Blackout” storyline again. This was 1991, about a year before the Death of Superman, but after Lois and Clark got engaged and she learned about his double life, and this was deep into my formative years as a Superman reader. I was about two years into being a regular and any time I went to a comic shop or convention I scoured the back issue bins for everything post-1987 Superman that I could find. What’s more, when the new Man of Steel series launched, DC ran ads offering a discounted subscription rate for all four of the Superman titles for a year, and I asked my parents to buy me the subscription for my birthday, ensuring (in this era before I had a pull folder at a local comic shop) that I would never be in danger of missing an issue. It was a present they renewed for the next several years. It was a sweet time for me.

Something something ice cream headache.

“Blackout” begins in Adventures #484, when the mysterious Mr. Z reads in a newspaper about Superman’s friendship with Professor Emil Hamilton. Mr. Z was a villain Superman had faced a few times before (first in Superman #51, then during his jaunt into World War II during the “Time and Time Again” storyline I wrote about waaaaaaay back in Week Three) – seemingly immortal, with the ability to mesmerize others. When Superman visits Hamilton to test a remote apparatus he’s developing to help monitor the Antarctic Fortress of Solitude, he learns that Mr. Z hypnotized Emil, turning the viewing device into a trap. Z learns that the magic gem Superman confiscated from him during their previous encounter is being held in the Fortress, and commands Superman to bring him to it. Hamilton, freed from Z’s commands, tries to override the device remotely, but the enormous power drain not only plunges Metropolis into a blackout, but winds up wiping out both Superman AND Mr. Z’s memories.

In Part Two (Action Comics #671), Metropolis struggles to deal with the blackout. Gangbuster is doing his best to pick up the slack, and the chaos in the streets prompts Rose Forrest’s alternate personality, the Thorn, to come out of retirement. Then, in the midst of the blackout, a figure appears to try to bring the city some sense of normalcy: Lex Luthor II, “son” of the “late” industrialist. Meanwhile, after a brief stopover at an Antarctic research base, the mind-wiped Superman and Mr. Z wind up on an uncharted island full of prehistoric beasties. 

Fair warning, guys, telling your wife, “It wasn’t my fault I had amnesia” does NOT work. Don’t ask me how I know.

Man of Steel #6 gives us part three. Superman and Z discover that they’re not alone on the island with the dinosaurs – there’s a tribe of natives there as well. Most of them, it seems, are fairly neanderthal in appearance. The notable exception, naturally, is their princess, an exotic bombshell that immediately falls for Superman. The princess, Lola-La (BECAUSE OF COURSE THERE’S A DOUBLE-L) arranges for her marriage to Superman, but despite his amnesia, he resists her advances, a voice in the back of his head telling him that it’s not right. Back in Metropolis, Hamilton and Lois (source of the voice in his head we mentioned before) meet up with Guardian, who takes them out in the Whiz Wagon to look for the missing Superman.

Part Four: Superman #62! In addition to having a Lois Lane vs. Lola-La cover that no doubt inspired a LOT of fanfiction, there’s a story here as well. Lois, Hamilton, and Guardian find Superman JUST in time to stop the wedding. After a tussle with Lola-La, Lois sparks upon a method that juuuuuust might bring back Superman’s memory. Oh yeah – and in Metropolis, Agent Liberty shows up to help fight the rioting from the blackout.

Some anthropologists theorize the modern internet was invented just so people would write their own versions of how this scene played out.

The story wraps up in Adventures #485, which picks up where the previous part left off – with Lois trying to kiss Superman’s memories back. It doesn’t quite work, but Superman is convinced to return to Metropolis with her. They leave, Mr. Z staying behind, having found some peace in his tropical paradise. Guardian whips them back to Metropolis, arranging for Project: Cadmus’s resident telepath Dubbilex to help try to restore Superman’s memory. 

I’ve always enjoyed this storyline. There’s a degree of tonal whiplash going on here, but I think it’s justified. The scenes in Metropolis, with the blackout and the riots, are played seriously, but the stuff on the island is a straight-up comedy. There’s misunderstanding, coquettish flirtation, and lots of silly jokes (including a Gilligan’s Island gag) that make it a joy to read. There’s little that happens in this storyline of future relevance, though, except for the abandonment of the Mr. Z storyline. I don’t remember off the top of my head if he ever came back after this issue, it may well be that he’s still living a happy life out there on his tropical island, his memory of the atrocities he committed in the past completely wiped away. And it’s always pleasant to see Lois taking such a proactive role, leading the quest first to find Superman, then restore his memory. The final sequence, where Dubbilex leads Superman through his own mind, also has the added fun of making his mental “fortress” look like the classic Arctic Fortress of Solitude, which in this continuity had never existed, complete with the giant golden door and key. 

The Metropolis stuff, on the other hand, had pretty major significance for the next several years of the Superman titles. First, it’s the on-panel debut of Lex Luthor the Second. We (the readers) didn’t know it yet, but this would turn out to be the original Luthor, having faked his death and cloned a new body to pass off as his own son, and it was a substantial part of the Superman comics for quite some time. We also got the return of Rose and Thorn, a Bronze age vigilante who had the unique condition of being what at the time was called a multiple personality. Rose had no idea that a vigilante called Thorn took over her body to fight crime, spurred by the hatred of the mafia ties in her own family. Thorn became a semi-regular character in the Superman comics for a while, similar to Gangbuster and Guardian. Finally, this story gave us one of the earliest appearances of Agent Liberty, one of those government-sponsored superheroes that you hear about all the time. He, too, became a pretty big part of the supporting cast for a while, even joining the Justice League briefly after Superman’s death. 

Mostly, though, I just like this story. There’s enough meat to make it feel substantial and juuuuust enough silliness to keep the whole thing feeling like a lot of fun. And sometimes, that’s all you want. 

Tues., May 13

Comic: World’s Finest Comics #90

Notes: It’s been a day, guys. If you’ve had day where it’s just “a day,” you know what I mean, and with the end of the school year rapidly approaching, I feel like these “days” are going to be coming fast and furious over the next couple of weeks. And frankly, on “a day” I usually don’t want to do any more than find a hole to crawl into and hope that tomorrow is NOT – with apologies to Scarlett O’Hara – “another day.”

“If you think this is irritating, Bruce, wait’ll I tell you about the Alfred E. Neuman mask I had to use on Lois the other day…”

Still, I made a promise to myself that I was going to find some Superman every day this year, and that includes “days,” so I carved out enough time to read an oldie, World’s Finest Comics #90. Modern readers may forget this, but there actually was a Batwoman and Bat-Girl in the Silver Age, Kathy Kane and her niece Bette, respectively. Although the modern Batwoman kind of shares the original’s name (she goes by “Kate” these days), that’s pretty much where the resemblance ends – old school Batwoman was a socialite who embarked upon a crimefighting career specifically in the hopes of snaring Batman into marriage. It doesn’t say specifically, but I would guess she was a big fan of Lois Lane’s column. Anyway, for most of the stories in the era, that was Batwoman’s primary motivation. In this particular story, Batman had recently discovered her secret identity and forced her into retirement, reasoning that if he could figure out who she really was, so could the bad guys. But things get more complicated when a criminal escapes from prison boasting that he’s got a capsule that will give him Superman’s powers for 24 hours. Superman, hearing about this on the news, immediately recognizes this as a capsule invented by his father, Jor-El, back on Krypton, and reasons that the box must have crashed on Earth, so he zips over to Gotham City to lend a hand.

This set-up raises any number of questions. 

First of all, if Jor-El could give anyone super powers for 24 hours, why didn’t he use those pills to empower some people to maybe stop the planet from exploding? Or at the LEAST, to help with the evacuation?

Second, is there ANY piece of the destroyed planet Krypton that did NOT eventually make its way to the Earth? Was our planet just bombarded with their leftovers for decades? How is it more people weren’t killed by falling Kryptonite meteors? 

Third, how did the crook know that the capsule would give him super powers? Did Jor-El label the box? In English?

FOURTH, if you have a capsule like that in your possession, why would you HIDE it? 

And FINALLY, even if you have a good reason to hide it, why would you TELL EVERYBODY ABOUT IT?

Anyway, Batwoman disobeys Batman’s retirement order because he…needs her help… and beats the crook to the capsule, taking it and giving herself Superman’s powers for 24 hours. What would you do with Superman’s powers for a day, friends? Fight crime? Try to solve world hunger? Read every book in the library? Grab a sack of coal and just start turning out diamonds? 

Well, that’s because you’re not insane. But Batwoman apparently was, because when she gets powers the ONLY thing she wants to do with them is figure out Batman’s secret identity. Her first attempt – looking through his and Robin’s masks with X-Ray vision – fails, because as soon as Batman found out she had powers, he and Robin lined their masks with lead. Say what you will, but as the saying goes, you’re not paranoid if they really ARE out to get you.

As Batman and Superman try to hatch a plan to discourage Batwoman, she has plans of her own. She trails Batman and Robin back to the Batcave and, upon seeing whose house it’s under, is satisfied that she’s solved the riddle of their dual identities. Then she turns her attention to figuring out Superman’s identity because…reasons. Her plan is simple: just stick to him like glue until she sees him change his clothes. He tries to shake her by flying through a lightning storm, through Niagara Falls…nothing. That is, until he walks into an old decrepit house, which scares off a Batwoman with Kryptonian powers because – I swear to Christ I am not making this part up – THERE MIGHT BE MICE INSIDE.

But she keeps on following him, even to the Daily Planet, where Superman is pleasantly surprised to find Clark Kent waiting for him. It’s actually Batman in disguise, of course, helping a brother out. But as Batwoman’s powers fade away, she reveals she’s found Batman’s true identity: JOHN MARTIN!

Actually, the Batcave she saw him drive into was a fake that Superman carved. Helping a brother out. 

But in the end, Batman decides that Batwoman’s acts of stalking, childishness, and mice-fearing “showed such cleverness and courage that I can’t ask you to drop your career completely.”

My friends. Today is May 13th. As of this writing, I have read 377 separate comic books featuring Superman or a member of the Superman family. And that’s just in 2025. And that’s just the SUPERMAN comics I’ve read. And I can say with full sincerity and conviction that this issue contains the stupidest portrayal of an adult female human being I have yet to come across.

On the other hand, I guess it’s nice to know that Lois Lane isn’t the only woman the writers of the era mistreated ever so badly. 

I’m hoping that tomorrow will help break my recent chain of “a day”s. The first full trailer for the new Superman movie is supposed to drop (will already have dropped by the time you read this), and I’m sure I’ll have stuff to say about it. And in honor of both that new trailer and what appears to be the beginning of the movie merchandising blitz – starting with an ad for Milkbone dog biscuits – I’ve decided that next week will be the week of Superman: The Super-Sponsor! I’ll be looking at commercials and comic books where Superman is there to sell ya something. This should be fun. 

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. You can join in the Kryptonian Konversation every day in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!

Geek Punditry #123: TBR Terrors

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Warning: This week’s Geek Punditry might be disturbing for people who love books, because this week I’m going to be discussing the three most terrifying letters for a bibliophile: TBR.

Almost as scary as IRS.

TBR, if you aren’t a reader, stands for “To Be Read,” and it’s something that will chill the blood of anyone who actually enjoys reading, because the TBR is the most intimidating thing in the universe. Some of us have actual, physical piles of TBR books. For others, it’s just a list. Still more have a sizeable section of our e-reader’s memory taken up with books that they’re going to read, and I quote, “someday, I swear to God.” But no matter what form your TBR takes, the existence of the TBR is a constant reminder that there are more books deserving of our time than we can possibly devote that time to.

It’s so easy to make that TBR bigger. All it takes is for you to become aware of a book that sounds good. Your favorite author has a new release? It goes into the TBR. Your friend tells you about something great they read on a recent beach trip? TBR. You’re wandering through one of those bookstores that you somehow keep stumbling into when you’re supposed to be buying groceries or perhaps extinguishing a fire, and some book catches your eye? TBR. There’s a new cover on this one? T.B.R. 

A NEW FOREWORD? By HAROLD BLOOM?

Adding a book to your TBR is easy, almost effortless, especially if you just maintain a list. But getting them electronically is easy too – after all, ebooks are usually mostly text (unless you’re talking about graphic novels, but that is a different – albeit similar – conversation). Text files don’t take up nearly as much space on a storage disc as music, videos, or photographs, so you can store a LOT more books on your phone or tablet than anything else, and you can add more…and more…and more.

Then there are the physical book readers, those who have overflowing shelves of books they’ve read and three times as many shelves of books in the TBR. For some of us, we display books the way a hunter or a fisherman will have a prize kill mounted and placed on the wall.

“Here we are, Under the Dome by Stephen King. Hardcover, 1074 pages. I brought this bad boy down back in 2011.”

“Cool. Say, what are all these books on these shelves over here?”

“We’re not gonna talk about those.”

So yes, adding a book to the TBR is effortless. But removing it is a torture the likes of which should seriously have been studied by the Geneva Convention, because it requires you to actually READ the book.

Oh, what fresh Hell is THIS?

“But Blake,” you’re saying, “I thought you said that the whole TBR thing is only relevant to people who LIKE to read.”

Oh, you silly person. Just because you LIKE to read doesn’t mean you actually get to DO it. We live in a world of chaos and terror and reality television, and although reading is a pastime that we book lovers dearly enjoy engaging in, the universe frequently colludes to deny us the time to do it. What’s more, even if you find the time, the little things that chip away at you day in and day out may sometimes leave you too emotionally exhausted to actually do the thing that you do to relax. If you just like, for example, watching baseball, then when you get home you can turn on a baseball game and the extent of your intellectual engagement will be formulating your Facebook post explaining why the umpire is an idiot. But reading is, ipso facto, a more mentally demanding pastime than many of these others, and after a long day at work or with the kids or just dealing with the avalanche of depression that social media has somehow convinced us to plug directly into our veins, the idea of picking up that novel about the vampire apocalypse may start to seem a little daunting, no matter how good the writing is.

The point is, stuff is added to the TBR much, much faster than it can feasibly be removed unless you physically drag your bookshelf into a sterile room with no connection to the outside world. The closest thing many of us get to that sort of distraction-free environment is reading on an airplane, which is actually where I achieved some of my greatest TBR accomplishments before I started traveling with a child, at which point even that avenue was largely closed to me. 

“I don’t actually want to go to Taipei, but how else am I supposed to finish reading the new Hunger Games prequel?”

To make matters worse, although you CAN eventually get a book off the TBR by reading it, a lot of us also like to…this is insane, but listen to me here…we like to read books AGAIN. 

We’re crazy, I know. But there are legitimate reasons for doing so. Perhaps the next book in the series is about to come out, but it’s been 17 years since George R.R. Martin released the last one, so you need to read it again to refresh your memory. Perhaps the last time you read To Kill a Mockingbird was in high school and you have come to recognize that your perspective as an adult is vastly different than that of the 16-year-old who previously read the book and it may be worth re-evaluating it from this new point of view. Maybe it’s just a comfort book, and you feel the need to return to it every so often to sort of ground yourself and remind yourself of the things in the world that you actually like and make you happy as opposed to…well…everything else. No matter the reason, the practical result is that even a book once removed from the TBR can be returned to the TBR at any moment and without warning, and then once again, your only shot at removing it is to read it all over. 

People who don’t read books are listening to this and assuming that I’ve lost my mind, whereas book readers are nodding at me and trying to remember if To Kill a Mockingbird is already on their TBR and, if not, adding it. 

The sheer volume of books that exist doesn’t help. No matter how old you currently are, people were writing books thousands of years before you were born, and at least seven of them are worth reading. What’s worse, there are a bunch of assholes out there right now casually writing even more great books that deserve to be read, as if you didn’t already have enough on your plate, the inconsiderate jerks. There is a point where most book readers have to face the fact that yes, they own more books than they can ever hope to finish reading in their lifetime, but they’re still reluctant to get rid of any of them, because any of these books MIGHT be called up to the major league at any given moment. 

“Well, Blake,” you continue, having this dialogue despite the fact that I wrote this several days before it was posted online and your ability to speak back through the time-space continuum is uncanny, “At least if you’ve got a massive TBR, you never have to worry about what you’re going to read next, right?” Ha ha ha! What an idiot! No, having a TBR makes it even HARDER to choose your next read. Think of it this way, if you have lunch at Raising Cane’s, you really only have one choice to make: will you substitute your cole slaw with extra fries or extra toast? But if you go to, say, the Cheesecake Factory, they hand you a menu so thick that, at first glance, you may think it should be added to your TBR. So let me ask you, my friends, at which restaurant will you have an easier time making a decision? 

Exactly.

The last book I took off my TBR was The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix. It was a great book, about a group of survivors of slasher-type murderers (the characters are very thinly veiled homages to the final girls of movies like Friday the 13th, Scream, Silent Night Deadly Night, and many others) who have an therapy group they attend together until someone starts trying to kill them. This is the third of Hendrix’s books I have read and I’ve really become a fan of the way he blends plots right out of a scary movie with a dark and sharp sense of humor. Unfortunately for me, after three hits in a row from him, I’ve pretty much decided that every book he’s ever written deserves to be on my TBR. I’m looking at Horrorstör next, billed as “a haunted house story set in a furniture store.” It sounds ridiculous and amazing, and there’s no telling how long it will be on the TBR before I get to it.

“Look at me, Song of Achilles! Take in my glory, The Redemption of Time! THE TBR CAN BE ESCAPED!”

But the point is, I FINISHED Support Group, so I got to take it off the TBR. Great! Go me! So…what next? More horror? Do I want another horror story so quickly, or do I want to mix it up a little bit? A little comedy? There was definitely humor in Support Group, but it wasn’t a laugh riot, so something a little lighter might be welcome. I’ve got a ton of Star Trek novels I haven’t gotten around to yet…but it hasn’t been THAT long since I read one. Maybe I should go back and pick up one of the Ruth Plumly Thompson Oz books I haven’t gotten around to, except that I didn’t really care for the last one I read, Grampa in Oz, and while I intend to eventually read all of the Famous Forty, I’ve put her on probation for a while. I read the first book of that trilogy by Gwenda Bond a couple of months ago and I really liked that, so perhaps I should pick up book two. Or maybe…

And my mind goes around like this for hours at a time until a friend of mine on Facebook posts that she just started reading Hail Mary by Andy Weir which, of course, makes me think that it’s time to finally go back and read The Martian for a second time.

Not even joking, this is the most scientifically-accurate book I’ve read since my second year of college.

Again, non-readers are ready to send me to an asylum. Book lovers know EXACTLY what I’m going through. 

So my friends, be kind to those of us who love to read. We have chosen a recreational activity that frequently includes as much planning and careful mental preparation as getting another job, except that instead of getting paid for it, we just get more books to put on the TBR. It’s a curse.

A lovely, wonderful-smelling curse that none of us would give up even if we could. 

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 added six books to his TBR while writing this. Shut up. 

Year of Superman Week 18: Supermen of Other Worlds

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Over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself dipping into stories of Supermen of Other Worlds. Not just Elseworlds, although those certainly apply, but other stories of other Supermen as well…books that were published during the time that DC wasn’t using the Elseworlds imprint or special event comics such as Just Imagine or the Tangent universe. This week, I decided it would be fun to get in and explore some of those other worlds. So for Week 18 – with a slight detour coming on Saturday – we’re going to spend some time with these Other Supermen. 

I’ve kind of had the “other worlds” in my head since I read the first volume of Earth One a few weeks ago. Reading that sent me towards Origin Week, which was fun, but it didn’t quite scratch the itch I have in my mind right now. I want to dig into the stories of Supermen from different worlds, reimagined from the ground up. Some of them, naturally, will be similar to our own, but not all of them. 

Wed., April 30

Comics: Superman: Earth One Vol. 2-3, DC Comics Presents #71, Secret Six Vol. 5 #2, Batman/Superman: World’s Finest 2025 Annual

What the Snyderbros wish they could do with the David Corenswet costume.

Notes: Since Earth One is what started me on this little trek, I decided to begin the Supermen of Other Worlds week by finishing that particular trilogy. At the end of volume one, if you’ll recall, Superman had driven off an invasion by the same force responsible for the destruction of Krypton, and Clark Kent used his exclusive ties to the Man of Steel to write an interview that landed him his job at the Daily Planet. In Volume 2, Clark finds a new apartment with a particularly friendly neighbor named Lisa LaSalle (because it doesn’t matter where in the multiverse you are, Kal-El is a magnet for L.L. names). As she tries to cozy up to him, Lois begins a deep dive into the past of her mysterious new coworker, the military makes plans for how to deal with an invulnerable man, and the Parasite is on the rise.

Volume 3 continues these stories – Lisa and Clark get closer, the fallout of Superman’s geopolitical actions in Volume 2 begin to reverberate, the most unique version of Lex Luthor in the entire multiverse is developed, and…oh yeah. Zod.

Reading these two books in tandem, it really strikes me how J. Michael Straczynski structured the graphic novels the way you would a season of a TV show. That shouldn’t be surprising, of course. Straczynski has a long history in television, including creating and writing most of the episodes of one of my favorite science fiction series of all time, Babylon 5. And although he’d written a great number of comic books at this point and brought some of those storytelling habits over, this is his work that most clearly feels like television. Each volume has an A-plot (the invasion of Earth in Vol. 1, the Parasite in Vol. 2, Zod in Vol. 3). Also, just like a TV show, there are several running B-plots of a more personal nature, such as Clark’s relationship with Lisa and Lois’s pursuit of Clark’s past. Then there are the ongoing subplots that build and develop along with the A-plot, such as the way the world’s governments are trying to figure out the “Superman Problem.” In a seasonal TV show format, it’s these third types of plots that run concurrently which usually wind up comprising the main arc of the season, gaining in prominence until they become the primary focus of the last episode or two. And I feel like this is exactly what Straczysnki had planned, had this series continued past Vol. 3. 

That’s the tragedy of it, I think. I really enjoyed all three of these books. And each of them was satisfying in the way that a single episode of a television series is satisfying. But Strazynski’s TV-writing style is evocative of the current style of longer arcs and stories (in truth, he pioneered that style with Babylon 5). There’s so much left to explore in this universe. I genuinely want to see what becomes of Clark’s relationship with Lisa. I want to know what this universe’s Lex Luthor has up her sleeve (yes, that’s the correct pronoun). And – given the sort of world-building Straczynski has proven himself capable of time and time again, not just with Babylon 5, but with his comic book work like Rising Stars, I want to see just how far this particular corner of the DC Multiverse diverges from the worlds we’re all more familiar with.

After volume three of this book, Straczynski stepped away from comics for a while. He’s back now, and doing work for AWA and Marvel, and I hope that the prospects of him returning to this series are still there, because I fully believe there’s more story left to tell. 

In terms of new comics, hitting stores today, we have Batman/Superman: World’s Finest 2025 Annual, part three of the “We Are Yesterday” crossover with Justice League Unlimited. In this one, Grodd has gone back in time to gather up younger, purer versions of the Legion of Doom to help him combat the new unlimited Justice League of today, but winds up fighting the League in two different timelines. Mark Waid is the co-plotter of this issue, along with scripter Christopher Cantwell. Together, they progress the story well, leading up to a great cliffhanger ending. I’m really excited for the second part of this crossover, the first in DC’s “All In” era. 

Thur., May 1

Comics: Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating Superman #1, Superman #9, Supergirl Vol. 2 #23

“And he needs to have an alliterative name, too, like ‘Clark… Clark…’ dang it, what name starts with the same sound as ‘Clark’?”

Notes: Back in 2001, the comic book world was shocked by the news that Stan Lee, the public face and most effusive promoter of Marvel Comics, was going to do his first-ever work for their Distinguished Competition. Lee, along with co-writer Michael Uslan and a plethora of top-notch artists, produced 12 one shots under the Just Imagine banner. In each one-shot, Lee took a different DC property and – using the name as inspiration – did his own take on the concept. Some of the new versions weren’t all that different from the original, while others had nothing in common except for the title. Stan Lee’s Superman was kind of in the middle. 

In Lee’s Superman, with art by his long-time legendary collaborator John Buscema, we are introduced to an alien police officer named Salden. When Salden’s wife, Lyella, is murdered by an escape convict, Salden chases the killer onto a hijacked spacecraft. The two of them crash on Earth, and Salden realizes that the planet’s lesser gravity has given him great strength, speed, and endurance. Trying to blend in, he takes a job at a circus using names he pulled off an ice cream truck and street sign: “Clark Kent.” “Clark”’s circus act is such a hit that he’s approached by a talent agent, Lois Lane, who dubs him “Superman” and begins booking him gigs. With his spacecraft destroyed, Salden has no way off Earth, and decides to use his abilities to fight the injustices of the world that he sees as distractions from the pursuit of science, hoping that if he can bring about world peace, the world will advance to the point where it can invent a craft capable of bringing him home. 

Like I said, as far as the Just Imagine books go, this one is about halfway between the “fairly similar” books like Wonder Woman and those that are utterly unrecognizable, like Green Lantern. This new Superman carries over his human name, and a new version of Lois Lane comes with him. His powers are very similar to the earliest Golden Age Superman, diluted compared to the Superman we’re all familiar with, but incredible to a populace that would have never seen such a thing before. And he’s still an alien, although the name of his planet is never revealed (Grant Morrison would later declare it to be this universe’s version of Krypton in the Multiversity series). 

Other things, however, are quite different. His motivation, first of all, starts with the very Stan Lee-ish goal of avenging his dead wife. (And although the people of Salden’s world don’t seem to have surnames, it’s worth noting that even Lee couldn’t resist the lure of the multiple-L supporting characters with Lyella.) His motive to become a hero is because he can’t think of any other way to get home. And his dialogue and behavior is kind Ben Grimm-ish in presentation. If Ben had gotten the strength of the Thing without his orange, rocky exterior, I think he would have been very close to Salden’s Superman. 

The Just Imagine characters haven’t turned up as often as some of the others we’ll glimpse this week, although they turned up here and there in various multiverse stories. In fact, I think Salden and several of this world’s other inhabitants were killed in one of them – Death Metal, maybe? I’m honestly not sure, and considering that the multiverse has been jerked around a few times since then, it may not even be relevant anymore. I do know that all of these characters turned up once more after that, in a special tribute edition DC published after Stan Lee’s death. He’s not the most memorable version of Superman, to be fair, but if I was the kind of person who dealt in puns the way an artist deals in paint, I might say he is the most “Marvelous” of all Supermen in the multiverse.

Okay, I’m exactly that kind of person.

In addition to the “Year of Superman” reading I do for this blog, I’ve also got several old and new comic book series I’m reading through via the DC and Marvel apps. I mentioned them in the log here, if there’s a Superman-family character involved, but I don’t always write about them. Today brought me to Superman #9, a Golden Age issue which I’m only bringing up for one reason. In the final story in this issue, Lois is captured by criminals, but they don’t immediately recognize her for who she is? Why not? Because she’s wearing a pair of glasses.

Man, whoever wrote that issue got jokes. 

Fri., May 2

Comics: Tangent Comics: The Superman #1, New Adventures of Superboy #34, Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 2 #313, Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #13

RIP, Jackson “Butch” Guice”

Notes: I didn’t think about this before I began this whole “Year of Superman” project, but in retrospect, I suppose I should have. It seems inevitable that, over the course of an entire year, somebody that we all closely relate to Superman would leave us. It happened a few months ago with Gene Hackman, and it happened again on May 1 with Jackson “Butch” Guice. Guice was a great artist, with work for lots of publishers over the years. He co-created Resurrection Man for DC Comics, and was doing variant covers for the current miniseries featuring the character. To Superman fans, though, he’ll be remembered most warmly for his run on Action Comics in the 90s, a run that included the Death of Superman saga. 

Guice’s artwork was pretty unique among Superman artists. His work tended to have a more photographic quality to it – poses and angles that looked like they had been pulled from the walls of a gallery. His men – Superman in particular – had a hardness to them. It was as if John Buscema’s characters somehow came to life and were captured on camera. It was a darker, harsher style than many of the other artists of the day, and that turned out to be perfect for the book documenting the Last Son of Krypton, aka the Eradicator.

It’s something in the eyes, I think.

I’d already planned on reading this book for Supermen of Other Worlds Week, but when I found out that Guice had passed away, I thought that moving Tangent Comics: The Superman to the front of the line was appropriate. Tangent Comics was a DC event in 1997 and 1998, each wave producing a series of nine one-shots set in an alternate universe in which the names of the DC characters, places, and various hangers-on still existed, but virtually everything else was different. The Superman starred Harvey Dent, a cop who had been born in a secret facility built by the spy agency known as Nightwing. Part of an experiment, Dent’s mother died in childbirth and he grew up an orphan. He eventually became a cop and led a fairly ordinary life until the day he tried to stop a jumper named Carter Hall from taking a plunge off a skyscraper. Dent failed to save Hall and, in fact, was pulled off the building WITH him. Rather than dying on impact, though, crashing to the ground unlocked something in his mind. As he recovered, he found he was developing mental powers – telepathy, telekinesis, precognition, and an intelligence that, once normal, was now skyrocketing off the charts. As his powers grew stronger, Dent grew colder, divorcing himself more and more from the humanity of which he had once belonged.

The idea behind Tangent was that only the name would be the same, and damned if that doesn’t live up to the concept here. THE Superman is absolutely nothing like OUR Superman. He strikes me more as a sort of Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen – a man whose power sets him apart from humanity instead of making him learn to respect it. By the end, he’s still acting as a hero, but there’s a darkness to him. This would become clearer in the later Tangent: Superman’s Reign miniseries, in which the Tangent heroes and the main DCU characters would collide and The Superman became the main antagonist. In truth, the Superman he resembles most closely is the one from Jerry Siegel’s original short story, “Reign of the Superman,” about a villain with great mental powers, before he came back and gave the name to a hero.

Mark Millar wrote the issue (more with him in a few days), with art by Guice, and the team was perfect. The dark story played to both of their sensibilities, creating a Superman that doesn’t match with any other in the multiverse, but still makes for a compelling read. I may have to dip my toes back into Superman’s Reign at some point.

For now, though, RIP, Mr. Guice. 

Sat., May 3

Comics: Free Comic Book Day Specials: DC All In 2025 Special Edition, Superman’s Good Guy Gang

My production assistant and I hope you had a great Free Comic Book Day.

Notes: Today is one of my favorite days of the entire year, Free Comic Book Day. My local shop, BSI Comics, graciously hosts me along with several other local writers and artists. I sell a few books, I talk to fellow nerds, I’ve made a lot of friends at FCBD. It’s the best. And also – free comics! DC’s offerings this year include a pair of Superman-related comics, so why don’t we take a look at them?

How many covers do you think Superman has punched through over the years? Twelve? Gotta be at least twelve.

First up is the DC All In 2025 Special Edition, a flipbook that gives us a look at DC’s Absolute Universe on one side and a preview of the upcoming Superman Unlimited on the other. The Absolute story is a devilish tease, as we watch a mysterious figure observing the heroes of this new universe, specifically Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. There are cryptic comments about some major danger approaching, then we get one of those double-page spreads DC loves to do from time to time where we see lots of notes and scribbles that all seem to point towards future storylines. DC’s been doing this kind of thing at least as far back as the 52 series in 2007, and it’s always fun, but also kind of frustrating. I feel like they overreach with these, often teasing stories that wind up never happening. Time will tell if these play out for us, but the final panel is a great little surprise that promises an upcoming major story.

The other side of the book is the one I’m more excited about, the preview of Dan Slott and Rafael Albuquerque’s upcoming Superman Unlimited series. The story opens up with the news of a massive expansion of the Daily Planet. There’s a new boss over the company that owns it, and she’s planning to expand the Planet from a “great Metropolitan newspaper” into a massive global media enterprise. This happens every so often – has been happening as far back as the Bronze Age, really, when Clark began to split his time between reporting for the Planet and being a news anchor for WGBS. Newspapers have had to evolve constantly since Siegel and Shuster chose that profession for Clark Kent back in 1938, and every few years DC tries to modernize the concept while still keeping true to the core of who Clark Kent is. I’ve got no problem with them handling it the way they’re doing here, but that’s not what’s most interesting to me.

I’m really here for the middle part of this story, which is where we get a feel for Slott’s take on the character. And I have to say, I like it. We see several vignettes of Superman averting disasters, saving lives, and making people simply feel better. He captures a crook who stops to thank him for saving Star City from Titano because his aunt lives there. A pilot in a plane that’s falling out of the sky tells his passengers that everything is going to be okay, and all they need to do to know that is look out the window. Little things that show the pureness of the character and the effect he has on people. It’s sweet, and it’s a great start. The story ends with a cliffhanger that leads into the first issue of the new series coming later this month and, as if there was any doubt, I’m there for it. 

The haircut on Guy looks just as good on a 9-year-old as it does on an adult.

DC’s other offering this year, as usual, is a preview of one of their all-ages graphic novels. This time, it’s Rob Justus’s upcoming book Superman’s Good Guy Gang. In this one, child incarnations of Superman and Green Lantern (Guy Gardner) find a strange winged woman stealing puppies and swoop in to stop her, unaware that a much bigger problem is looming. It’s a super quick read (no pun intended), and full of silly moments like Superman and Guy arguing over what the name of their superhero team is going to be. It is absolutely no coincidence that the characters chosen for this book also happen to be the ones who are going to be in James Gunn’s Superman movie, but that’s fine. This is a book for  beginning readers, and it’s great that they’re doing it, but it would be foolish to ignore the characters that are going to be in their next huge media event. It’s a charming little read, and I’ll be happy to pick up the full version for my son when it comes out in July.

Sun., May 4

Comics: Superman: Red Son #1-3

“No, not Red SUN, Red SON. SON. S-O– It’s a PUN, David!”

Notes: I admittedly have a complicated relationship with the work of writer Mark Millar. When he does his own characters, with comics like Kick-Ass or Wanted, I find him hit or miss. When he works with established characters, I find that I rarely care for his stories. He often completely disregards characterization in favor of whatever story he’s planning to tell, and while that approach is okay when dealing with your own, original characters and you have the freedom to shape the characterization how you please, I am far less charitable when the work throws away decades of who a character is in favor of a plot point, the most egregious examples of which can be found in Marvel’s Civil War.

However, I find that he often does a good job with Superman. Early in his career he did a very entertaining run on Superman Adventures, the comic book based on Superman: The Animated Series. He wrote the aforementioned Tangent one-shot. And then there’s Superman: Red Son, perhaps the most acclaimed Superman Elseworlds series of all time. The supposition here is that the rocket that brought Superman to Earth landed not in the Kansas heartland, but somewhere in the Soviet Union. The child who would become Superman grew up indoctrinated with Socialist values, rather than American ones, and the world is rocked to its core as a result.

Millar does a lot of interesting things here. With Superman as a Soviet, the US government recruits its brightest mind – Dr. Lex Luthor, of course – to try to create some sort of countermeasure. With the U.S.S.R. completely ascendant, Princess Diana of Themiscyra makes contact with the outside world via the Russians rather than the Americans. And although we don’t know if there’s a little boy in America named Bruce Wayne, in Russia we see a tragedy that turns one of her citizens into this world’s version of the Batman.

The thing I find most fascinating is Millar’s take on who Superman is. In the prime DC Universe – and in most other iterations of the character – his personality boils down to someone who will always try to do what’s right, always stand up for injustice, and never turn his back on a cry for help. The Red Son Superman shares these traits, with the major difference being that his perspective on what is “right” is colored by socialist values rather than democratic ones. He’s still going to be there to save anyone – even an American – from a disaster like the falling globe from the top of the Daily Planet building, but when he sees the injustice of children standing in bread lines, he decides to use his power to put a stop to that by taking the control of the government that had been offered him after the death of Stalin, but that he had heretofore resisted. 

This whole thing is especially interesting to me from a sociological perspective. Superman at first rejects the notion of succeeding Stalin as the Soviet Premier because he knows people only want him because of his abilities, and the idea that his powers make him special goes against Socialist doctrine. But just like in the real world, he sees the inequities that have happened under Soviet rule and decides at the end of issue one to use his powers to fix them anyway. 

Book two takes the idea further. Superman has been in charge of the USSR for 20 years, and its influence has swallowed nearly the entire world. Only the USA and Chile remain holdouts, and both are hanging on by a thread. But there’s a mysterious Batman fighting against Superman’s rule, while back in the USA, Dr. Luthor is introduced to an alien power source that crashed on American soil decades before – a green one. While good-intentioned, Superman’s influence is beginning to atrophy human progress. People are growing careless, expecting their super-savior to take care of everything. Seatbelts go unused in cars, ships stop providing live preservers, all predicated on the idea that President Superman is going to take care of everything. When someone in his own government approaches Batman with an opportunity to take Superman down, Batman recognizes that the humans who would fill the void might be worse, but stopping him now may be the only way to prevent Super-rule that would last thousands or even millions of years.

There’s another time skip to book three. The Soviets have grown even more powerful and America is on the verge of collapse – until it elects Dr. Luthor President of the United States. Luthor’s unparalleled genius turns the country around overnight and Superman, who has been waiting for the US to finally collapse under its own weight and join their Soviet collective, realizes that it’s not going to happen. The climax of the story comes in a battle between Superman’s forces, Wonder Woman’s Amazons, and the American Green Lantern Corps, all of which coalesce in a turnaround for Superman that proves, even in this corner of the multiverse, he’s still the same man at his core. 

In a way, this entire story is a rebuttal to the whole “Nature versus Nurture” argument, demonstrating that BOTH aspects are of importance to the arc of a person’s life. And honestly, if that’s what Millar was trying to say here, it’s a sentiment I’ve always agreed with. Using Superman to put that idea forth works for me, and very well.

The end of the story is the real genius part of it though, and if you’ve never read Red Son, I don’t want to spoil it for you. Suffice it to say, it’s one of those conclusions that leaves you laughing ironically and calling the writer a magnificent bastard for coming up with such a thing. This isn’t my FAVORITE Superman of another world, but it’s hard to argue that it’s not, objectively speaking, one of the best stories of that sort that has been told. 

Mon., May 5

Comics: Superman: Secret Identity #1-4

Why DC based a comic on an obscure Jerry O’Connell TV show from the 1980s I’ll never know.

Notes: I’ve talked quite a bit in this blog about Mark Waid and how great a superhero writer he is, but although I eagerly place him at the top of the pyramid, he’s not there alone. Right up there, in my estimation, is Kurt Busiek. He’s the author of the phenomenal series Marvels and the creator of Astro City, which you’ll hear about again later when I do the week on heroes inspired by Superman. He also had a run on Superman’s regular title and he’s done work with the Justice League, most notably the JLA/Avengers crossover, in which Superman got to wield Thor’s hammer. Man, I should read that again before this year is out.

But his greatest work with Superman isn’t with “our” Superman at all, but rather the miniseries Superman: Secret Identity. An Elseworlds comic in all but name, this 2004 series was done with former Adventures of Superman artist Stuart Immonen, and was about a young man named Clark Kent from a small town in Kansas, but in a world where there are no superheroes and Superman is a fictional character. Whereas Waid is better than anybody at showing the wild, fun, grandeur of a superhero universe, Busiek’s greatest strength comes in humanizing superhero stories. Marvels was the history of the Marvel Universe through the perspective of a bystander. Astro City shows what it’s like to live in a superhero universe from a different perspective in every story. And Secret Identity is about being a hero in a world that doesn’t have them.

The concept is almost identical to the original version of Superboy-Prime, who showed up during Crisis on Infinite Earth as an inhabitant of Earth-Prime, which in the older DC Comics had ostensibly been the “real” world where the readers and creators of DC Comics live. This was before he changed to become a meta-commentary on toxic fandom, which I have to admit, was actually a pretty clever take. But Secret Identity takes the initial concept and keeps it contained, pure.

Clark Kent’s parents gave him the name because their last name was “Kent,” they lived in Kansas, and they thought it would be cute. Clark is not as enamored of his name as they are, having grown up being taunted for the famous name and spending every birthday getting laden with Superman-themed presents he couldn’t be less interested in. The boy grows up introverted, without any close friends and preferring to spend time alone. It’s on a solitary hiking trip that he suddenly, inexplicably begins to manifest the powers of his namesake. He begins using his powers to help people in secret, but it doesn’t take long before word of the flying “Superboy” begins to leak out. 

The four issues track Clark’s entire life story – growing into becoming a writer, although not a reporter, falling in love with a woman (naturally) named Lois, becoming a father. The government tries to track him early on, even capturing him at one point, before they settle into an uneasy alliance and “Superman” becomes a hidden force for good. Slowly, we watch how the world changes under his influence. More importantly, though, we see how HE changes over the course of a lifetime. 

This is a beautiful book. It’s almost not even accurate to call it a “superhero” comic. Yes, he has powers, and yes, he even wears the costume, but there are no supervillains, no world-threatening cataclysms…there’s not even really an antagonist. It’s a story about a life, with ups and downs and pitfalls and triumphs and success and tragedies. It’s a story about someone who is just like everybody else, with the obvious exception of being faster than a speeding bullet. It’s Busiek doing what Busiek does best. 

It’s also Immonen at his peak. I was always a fan of his work on the mainstream Superman, but this version is different. It’s still unmistakably his work, but there’s a softness to it that you don’t usually see when he’s drawing a mainstream story about Superman punching out Metallo or something. Looking at these panels, you see a different quality, a lighter touch. It looks almost like a fantasy world, which is rather fitting from the perspective of this Clark Kent, living what must seem to him to be a fantasy life. 

And unlike some of the other alternate Supermen we’ve looked at over the last few days, this is a Superman who hasn’t shown up again. In fact, I’m not even certain that this “world” has a specific designation in the current DC Multiverse the way the others we’ve looked at has. And if it doesn’t, that’s okay. There’s room for more stories of the Earth-One Superman, the Just Imagine Superman, or the Tangent Superman. But the Secret Identity Superman’s story is complete in these four volumes – complete and beautiful. This is one of my favorites. 

Tues., May 6

Animated Feature: Justice League: Gods and Monsters

Wait, which ones are the gods and which ones are the monsters?

Notes: Here’s a REALLY different Superman of another world. Bruce Timm, one of the architects of the DC Animated Universe that began with Batman: The Animated Series, returned to the characters with this film. It too was essentially an Elseworlds, even though it didn’t have the brand and wasn’t based on any pre-existing story. In this world, in the minutes before the destruction of Krypton, Jor-El and Lara are prevented from sending Kal-El into space by the sudden interruption of General Zod, who places his own son in the spacecraft bound to Earth. It is the Zod child, not Kal-El, who makes the journey across the stars, and the world becomes a very different place.

In this world, the Justice League is comprised of Zod’s son, now called Superman; Kirk Langstrom, a vampire Batman; and the New God Bekka, who has taken the name Wonder Woman. This Justice League is more brutal and far less forgiving than the League we’re accustomed to, and public opinion on the team is tearing the public down the middle. Things get worse when top scientists such as Victor Stone, John Henry Irons, Ray Palmer, and others are targeted by mysterious assassins with methods that seem to imitate those of the Justice League.

In a lot of ways, I’m surprised that this movie was even made. Granted, the whole “multiverse” concept has become mainstream now, but this is SUCH a different take on the concept that I feel relatively certain only Bruce Timm’s sway with Warner Bros Animation ever got this one off the ground. And it follows the classic Elseworlds pattern perfectly: it begins by showing what makes this world diverse from ours, it continues with an exploration of that world, and then it it follows a main plot that both tells a strong story and reveals corners of the world that are both similar to and very different from the one we’re accustomed to. 

Benjamin Bratt voices Superman in this one, with an edge that the Clark Kent versions of the character usually doesn’t have, but it works quite well in this one. We also get Tamara Taylor as Wonder Woman and, in what I have to assume was a meta joke in the casting department, we get Dexter star Michael C. Hall once again obsessed with blood as the vampire Batman. 

As this is the Year of Superman, though, rather than the Year of the Justice League, let’s focus on this movie’s version of our hero. Baby Zod lands in Latin America rather than Kansas, and is named Hector Guerra. As he grows up, he knows very little of his heritage on Krypton, unaware of where exactly he came from. And while he’s darker and more brutal than our Superman, he’s not his father either. Knowing more about his true parentage than he does, it’s natural for the viewer to expect some sort of face-heel turn, becoming the bad guy before the film ends. Well, spoiler alert – he doesn’t. He’s not OUR Superman, but he is A Superman, and like most of them, he’s there to protect people. It’s actually refreshing that he DOESN’T become the bad guy at any point.

The film ends on a hook that clearly leaves the door open to revisit this universe, but to date, it hasn’t happened yet. There were a few prequel comic books and a webseries that preceded it, but unless I missed something somewhere, we’ve yet to explore this world following the conclusion of the film. While I’m not exactly itching for more of the Gods and Monsters universe the way I am Earth-One, I wouldn’t be opposed to it either. It’s an interesting place, and there are more stories to tell. 

This was a fun week, looking at different, non-mainstream versions of our hero. And you know, there are an awful lot of other worlds out there in the multiverse. I may do this again before the year is up.

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. You can join in the Kryptonian Konversation every day in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!

Year of Superman Week 17: Lex, Batman, Power Girl, Batman, Elseworlds, Batman, and Spam

blakemp Year of Superman , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Another week, another round of the Year of Superman! It’s going to be another random week, a week where I’m not going to be adhering to any particular theme or category, and just reading or watching whatever catches my fancy. And there’s some fancy, fancy stuff coming down the pipe this week, from the big 25th issue of Joshua Williamson’s run on Superman to the completed three-part Last Days of Lex Luthor miniseries, and…well, I don’t even know what else will come up, because I’m writing this at the beginning of the week and I’ve got no idea where the solar winds of Rao will take me. Join me and let’s find out!

Wed., April 23

I feel like Perry is kinda burying the lede here…

Comic: Superman Vol. 6 #25

Notes: Since Williamson kicked off his run on the main Superman comic about two years ago, he’s been building up a pretty epic storyline involving Lex Luthor. It began after Lex was taken into custody, turning over his company to Superman and making it “SuperCorp.” As one of the few people on Earth whose memory of Superman’s double identity remained (it was because of him that it was wiped out anyway), he decided that if he couldn’t destroy Superman, he would force him to work WITH him, and it was a strategy that worked pretty well for some time. Along the way, though, Lex lost his memory, leaving him a man who wasn’t quite as brilliant as before, but who had a genuine benevolence to him, seeming to want to atone for the crimes of his former self. It was a change for the better for everyone – except for Mercy Graves.

In this climactic issue, Mercy has let loose one of Lex’s failed experiments, X-El, a Luthor/Kryptonian hybrid clone, that she’s hoping to have supplant the “new” Luthor, and it’s Superman, Superwoman, and Lex vs. X-El. I loved this issue – it feels like a real culmination of the story so far, with everything that’s been happening building up to an incredible fight that lasts for most of the extra-sized issue. What’s more, the usual penciler Jamal Campbell (who has been doing a bang-up job on this series) is joined by a murderer’s row of talent, including Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira, and Dan Mora. Campbell and Alejandro Sanchez are credited as colorists as well, and although you don’t often discuss the colorists when you’re talking about comic books, this is one issue where it really stand out to me. Every page has at least one panel that could be turned into a poster I’d expect to see in any comic shop. 

Although the issue is, like I said, kind of a culmination of the storyline in that it has brought everything together, it would be a mistake to imply that it’s the END of the story. In fact, this issue ends in a cliffhanger that’s really got me itching for issue #26. But man, I can’t say enough good things about this run and this creative team. 

Thur., April 24

I just wish that Bryan Hitch would have the guts to put a little symbolism into his artwork.

Comics: Superman: The Last Days of Lex Luthor #1-3

Notes: About a month ago, when the long-delayed second issue of this miniseries finally came out, I decided to wait to read it until I had the third and final issue in my hands. I don’t know if the story would have been less impactful had I not chosen to wait, but I DO know that it would have driven me crazy to have to wait for the final installment, because ultimately, this is one of the finest Superman stories I have ever read.

And if you haven’t noticed, I’ve read a LOT of them.

In the first issue (which, again, came out nearly two years ago, and that’s the last time I’ll reference the delay), Superman is attacked once again by his greatest enemy…but this time, Luthor’s goal is not the death of the man of steel. No, for once, he needs his HELP. Lex Luthor, it seems, is dying. Some strange, exotic radiation is attacking his cells, and he knows that Superman is the one being in the universe who will stop at nothing to find a cure, because Superman…well…Superman is the man who saves everybody.

I don’t want to say too much more about the story, because there are some incredible twists and surprises throughout this miniseries. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a LOT to say. The reason Luthor turns to Superman, again, is because he knows that Superman will absolutely refuse to quit as long as there is a life in jeopardy, and the fact that the life in question belongs to his greatest enemy makes no difference whatsoever. Luthor sees this as foolishness, as a weakness on Superman’s part, but throughout this story, Mark Waid demonstrates why this is actually his greatest strength. Superman is confronted by friends who cannot fathom why he would risk so much to help Luthor. The quest to save his enemy becomes public knowledge, making some of the public turn against him. His quest takes him to Kandor, Atlantis, Themiscyra, and even the 31st Century, before the final reveal of what’s really going on turns everything on its ear and seals the fate of the two characters.

It’s an odd choice, to make this a Black Label book. Black Label is ostensibly a “mature reader’s” imprint, but there’s nothing in this book that warrants that marker. It’s out of continuity, to be certain, and I wonder if this would have been listed as Elseworlds, had that label been resurrected when the first issue appeared. But no matter what imprint this story falls under, it’s a masterpiece. It’s Mark Waid’s dissertation on who Superman is and why he has to be who he is. We learn the same things about Lex Luthor, in fact, and the relationship between these two characters has never been laid out so bare, so stark, so clean as in this story.

This story is brilliant. This is one of the best Superman stories I’ve ever read. 

Fri., April 25

Comics: Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2 #6

Notes: The second part of “We are Yesterday” in Justice League Unlimited doesn’t have a ton of Super-action, but it’s a great issue nonetheless. In this issue, we see Grodd hatching his plan to infiltrate the past and collect purer versions of his former compatriots in the Legion of Doom to act as a countermeasure to the now-larger League. We also get a glimpse of the moment when Superman recruited Air Wave – who has become a surprisingly important character in this series – to join the League. Air Wave is an interesting character – a D-lister for years, and Waid has already found a way to make him compelling and sympathetic through a comparatively small number of pages in the first six issues of this title. I really hope that we get to see more of his story after this crossover with World’s Finest reaches its conclusion. 

Graphic Novel: Batman: Hush (Collects Batman #608-619, Superman appears in #611, 612, and 619)

“Say it, Bruce! SAY THAT GLASSES ARE A PERFECTLY ADEQUATE DISGUISE!”

Notes: With “Hush 2” currently running in the ongoing Batman comic book, I wanted to go back and re-read the original, as it’s been a while. I’m not going to dig into it too deeply, as this ain’t the “Year of Batman,” and Superman’s appearances are brief. But brief or not, they ARE impactful, and I wanted to point out a few things. 

First comes in Chapter 4 (issue #611 of the ongoing), in which Bruce Wayne visits Metropolis and, specifically, the offices of the Daily Planet. At this time, Bruce actually OWNED the Planet. I’m not sure if he still does or not. Hey, DC, give us a ruling. But regardless, in this issue he’s been finding himself growing more and more drawn to Catwoman, with whom he’s always had a “will they/won’t they” relationship. At the Planet office, he watches Lois and Clark together and marvels at how Clark has found someone with whom he’s willing to trust his greatest secret. A few chapters later (kinda spoilers, in case you’ve never read “Hush” before), Bruce reveals his own identity to Selina for the first time. It’s one of those rare status quo changes – like Lois and Clark getting married – that has stuck, and I find it very interesting that writer Jeph Loeb decided to use the Lois and Clark relationship as a way of sort of justifying that relationship upgrade for Selina and Bruce.

Superman has a bigger presence in Chapter 5 (issue #612), in which he’s being controlled by Poison Ivy and comes to blows with Batman in the sewers of Metropolis. (Side note: it’s VERY odd to see the way Catwoman fights both Ivy and Harley Quinn in this storyline, considering the way that the three of them would become the “Gotham City Sirens” just a few years later.) It’s a pretty good fight, all things considered. Bruce has his Kryptonite ring, and he’s counting on both that and the fact that he knows Superman is actively fighting against Ivy’s mind control to keep him alive. I think the most interesting thing about this fight, though, comes from a two-page spread in the middle, where Bruce’s inner narration makes a comment that the internet has elevated to meme status: “Deep down, Clark’s essentially a good person…and deep down, I’m not.” People love to use this quote, but I think a lot of them miss the point. The way I read it, this is something that Bruce sincerely believes…but he’s wrong. Not about Clark, of course, but about himself. And Clark would be the first one to tell him that.

Also, in this issue, Poison Ivy gets captured by Krypto, and that’s just adorable.

Superman then dips out of the rest of the story until the denouement in Chapter 12 (issue #619). The mysterious Hush has been defeated and Bruce turns once again to Superman…not just because he needs a friend, but also because he needs someone with X-Ray vision to make sure that Hush didn’t do anything inside of his head…and literally, not the way the Joker does it. The three appearances of Superman in this story really speak strongly towards the bond between these two heroes and the trust that they share. At the same time as this storyline was winding down, Loeb was launching the ongoing Superman/Batman series, and I don’t believe for a second that this was a coincidence. He writes both heroes well. He writes them TOGETHER excellently. 

Sat., April 26

Comic: Power Girl Vol. 4 #20

“Meet Kara who’s never had a home
From Argo City to the Phantom Zone
But PAIGE HAS MADE FRIENDS LEFT AND RIGHT
TO GO WITH HER KRYTPONIAN MIGHT!
Whaaaat a crazy pair…”

Notes: This volume of Power Girl ends with this issue and, much as I hate to say it, I’m not really upset to see it go. It had a promising start, but the series seemed to be all about trying to figure out who Power Girl is and…frankly…I’m tired of that. A lack of identity has been Power Girl’s defining characteristic for the past 40 years, and that’s at least 39 years too long for that to be interesting in any individual character. At first, it seemed as though this series was going to lock her in to a true identity, but as evidenced by the cover of this last issue, it never really felt like it gelled. The book built up her world, built up her supporting cast, but didn’t really build up HER. I get it. It’s difficult. The elevator pitch of the character is “older Supergirl from Earth-2,” and since we’ve already got the “Prime” Supergirl, that doesn’t seem to leave room for her. But if all you do with the character is point out that she seems superfluous without redefining her in a satisfying way…well, what have you actually done? I hope somebody else gets their hands on Power Girl soon. I don’t care if it’s as a supporting player in the Superman titles or if she rejoins the Justice Society or what, but I want somebody, ANYBODY to take Kara Zor-L and finally, after all these years, say “This is who she is and this is what makes her unique, and can we please stop having the same conversation?”

Is that so much to ask? 

Sun., April 27

Comics: Batman Vol. 3 #36-37

Part one: Bromance. Part two: Romance.

Notes: When I read Hush a few days ago, I noticed a scene in the chapter where Superman is controlled by Poison Ivy where Catwoman tries to break him out of it by threatening Lois Lane’s life. She didn’t mean it, of course, she did it because Batman told her that Superman was close to the people who worked at the Daily Planet and that endangering one of them would help him break from Ivy’s control. Nor did she know specifically that Lois was Clark’s wife – Bruce also told her that Jimmy Olsen and Perry White would have been suitable for this purpose. But the scene put me in mind of a more recent meeting between these four, and I wanted to read it today.

Tom King’s run on Batman is controversial for reasons I’m not going to get into here, but the two-part “Super Friends” story from Batman Vol. 3 #36 and 37 is one of the best stories about Superman and Batman I have ever read. Batman and Catwoman have recently become engaged, and in the first issue Bruce and Clark each have conversations with their respective significant others about the fact that they haven’t spoken to one another about the engagement yet. Clark is convinced that the fact that Bruce hasn’t called him is evidence that they’re not really that close, Bruce says he shouldn’t have to call Clark because his best friend is actually Jim Gordon (who doesn’t know his real name) or Alfred (who Selina points out is on his payroll, and therefore doesn’t count). The bulk of the issue is taken up with cutting back and forth between these two conversations, and the quick realization that Lois and Selina know Clark and Bruce far better than either of the world’s two greatest heroes know themselves. At the end of the first issue, the two couples come together in one of the most charming meet-cutes I’ve ever seen. You’ve probably seen the page on the internet even if you’ve never read the issue.

Yeah, that’s the stuff.

In part two, the foursome go on a double date to an amusement park which is celebrating “Superhero Night” – you have to have on a superhero costume to get in. Under the ladies’ suggestions, Bruce and Clark wear each other’s costumes and enter the park to enjoy an extremely rare night for themselves. 

Tom King’s depiction of this relationship is spot-on. They’re best friends, even though neither one of them really wants to admit it. Their differences are what make them work together, not something that drives them apart. And the scenes of Lois and Selina bonding with one another are absolutely joyous. We fans talk quite a bit about how difficult it must be for superheroes to hide the secret of their dual lives, but we don’t talk enough about the toll it might take on those who love them. Giving Lois a new friend in Selina really feels natural. I was, I admit, disappointed when the Batman/Catwoman wedding didn’t go through, because I thought that DC would finally have the guts to push Batman’s status quo in a new direction permanently. I still think that it would have been better if they’d remained together. But mostly, I miss the chance to have more issues like this one, with Clark and Lois and Selina and (however begrudgingly) Bruce just being friends.

Don’t we all need that? 

Mon., April 28

TV Episode: Superman and Lois, Season 2, Episode 7, “Anti-Hero”

Or the “Lana’s Trauma Conga Express.”

Notes: Superman has been taken into custody by the DOD, who are holding him under a red sun lamp to negate his powers. As Lois and Sam try to figure out a way to navigate his release, Jordan is still angry at his brother for lying about the source of his newfound powers, and Lana and Sarah are dealing with the fallout of Lana’s impending separation from her husband.

Did you notice how each plot point I recapped there got progressively less superhero-y and more soap opera-ish? To be fair, there has been overlap in the kind of storytelling done by superheroes and soap operas for a very long time. Even as far back as the Golden Age you had the occasional unrequited love runner that punctuated early superheroes. Then, once Stan Lee brought in the Marvel Age of comics, the greater emphasis of serialized storytelling made it virtually inevitable that elements like Spider-Man’s disastrous love life would become an ongoing story point. But at times, Superman and Lois feels far more like a teen drama than a superhero show. It’s not fair to criticize the show on that point – for what it’s doing, it seems to do it just fine. But it isn’t exactly what I’m looking for here.

Some of the soap opera stuff is done well. For instance, there’s a nice scene where Lois and Lana are bonding over their respective family struggles – Lana with the fact that her husband cheated on her, Lois with the fact that her son got caught with a backpack full of drugs. The odd thing is that they’re treating X-Kryptonite as if it was any other drug. Jonathan’s bag had 20 vials, each of which could turn a teenager into a walking weapon of mass destruction, but the conversation they have could have been ripped straight out of a 70s After School Special about a mom who caught her son with a joint. 

That’s not to say that there’s no superhero stuff going on, of course. The story of Clark in custody, held under the red lamps with his half-brother Morgan Edge, is exactly what I’m hoping to see. The DOD even weaponizes Superman’s compassion, threatening to harm Edge if he doesn’t give them information that they want, which he does despite the fact that his brother is also his enemy. I even like the way the two of them put their differences aside and work together. The CW has a tradition of villains slowly reforming and joining the heroes that goes back to when they were the WB network and it happened every season on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so if that turns out to be the long game with Morgan Edge’s character, I’m used to it. Once they meet up with the hologram of Lara and the Alternate-Superman (can we PLEASE just call him Bizarro?), there’s some good action stuff here. 

But none of that addresses the real problem I’ve been having with this show in season two. I love Hoechlin’s Superman, but the problem here is that they’ve isolated him. The show is stronger when he’s paired with Lois or where he’s working with his sons and their struggles with Jordan’s powers and Jonathan’s typical lack thereof. If you’re not doing that kind of thing, if you have him segregated from the rest of the main cast, you may as well be watching two entirely different shows. 

Clark, fortunately, returns to Lois at the end of the episode. But before that we get one more little scene I liked. Edge is still in custody, still the bad guy, but at the end of it Clark addresses him as “Brother.” This actually goes directly against something said earlier in the episode, when she tells Jonathan that his father would never forgive him for his involvement with X-K. But as the end of this episode shows you, Superman’s forgiveness is infinite. You mean to tell me, Lois, that you don’t think he would forgive his SON? Come on, you know him better than that.  

Then again, the episode ends with Clark tearing into Jonathan and not allowing him the opportunity to talk, so what do I know? 

Tues., April 28

Comic: Superman: Speeding Bullets #1, Action Comics #374

When the dry cleaner at the Hall of Justice mixes up the bags.

Notes: I’ve got a new writing project I’m working on today, so I needed something quick to slip in to the Year of Superman. The classic Elseworlds one-shot Superman: Speeding Bullets seemed like just the thing. Written by J.M. DeMatteis with art by Eduardo Barreto, this is about as close to the old Marvel What If? format as Elseworlds got, basically asking the question, “What if Kal-El was found by Thomas and Martha Wayne instead of Jonathan and Martha Kent?” Thomas and Martha – childless in this universe – find the rocket ship and adopt the child much like the Kents did, naming him Bruce and raising him as their own. Kal-El’s life in Gotham is pretty similar to the mainstream Bruce Wayne until the night of his parents’ murder, when – seeing the people he loved most in the world gunned down in front of him – his head vision activated and he roasted Joe Chill to death. In shock, Bruce developed a mental block about that night, forgetting his powers until – as a young adult – robbers break into Wayne Manor. His heat vision – and memories – come back, and he becomes a much more brutal version of Batman and the one in our universe.

When I say this was close to a What If?, I don’t just mean in premise, but also in execution. The classic What If? stories tended to end in one of two ways: either the universe attempts to “course correct,” resulting in a world as close to the original as possible, or things go so dark and bleak that it may as well be the apocalypse, at least for the characters involved, if not literally. Some of the ways we see that here are Bruce deciding to buy the Gotham Gazette and hiring Perry White and Lois Lane, falling in love with the latter, and Lex Luthor suffering an accident in a chemical plant, transforming him into this world’s version of the Joker. Since this is a world that can’t have both a Superman and a Batman, we watch Bruce Wayne transform from one to another. Lois’s influence cools his rage, getting him to pull back on his bloodlust, and eventually abandoning the Batman identity to become his world’s Superman. It’s an interesting book, and it works well as an Elseworlds. I have to admit, though, I’m surprised that this version of Bat/Superman hasn’t turned up the way other Elseworlds versions like Red Son or the Vampire Batman have once the Multiverse was opened up again. 

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. You can join in the Kryptonian Konversation every day in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!

Geek Punditry #121: Tune In, Drop Out

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If there’s one thing I hate, it’s when advertising works. But the truth is, we all know it does. Companies wouldn’t spend money playing the same commercial 187 times per episode of The Bachelor if they didn’t have statistical evidence that doing so increases sales. So all we can do, as viewers, is suck it up, move on with our lives, and remember to be on the lookout for the all-new PB&J Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups the next time we’re at the store.

On occasion, though, advertising can hit you from somewhere totally unexpected and really do a number on you, and that’s the reason I’m now a subscriber to Dropout TV.

Fortunately, my shame is mitigated by laughter.

It started on Facebook Reels where, in-between videos of people making hard candy or trying to identify LEGO kits from two or three pieces that viewers still had, I started to get these clips from what appeared to be a game show. But it wasn’t a normal game show – the rules seemed kind of absurd, and they didn’t always make sense. In fact, it didn’t seem like the players were even playing the same game from one clip to another. Then I finally realized that was the whole point. The show in question is called Game Changer, and the gimmick is that the game is different in every episode, and the players have no idea what they’re going to be playing until the game begins. It’s actually a great hook for a show, and as I watched more and more, I WANTED to watch more and more. 

It’s just like that Watson episode of Jeopardy.

Eventually, this led me to check out the source, Dropout TV, a streaming service that’s actually been around since 2018, but that I hadn’t heard about until these reels started coming across my screen. A spinoff of what used to be the College Humor website, Dropout specializes in unscripted comedy series, although it does have a few animated shows and stand-up comedy specials as well, and as a service that has been more or less consistently putting out content that isn’t available anywhere else for seven years now, there’s a cornucopia of comedy waiting there for me to watch. I’ve barely even scratched the surface so far, but I’ve become so quickly engrossed with their stuff that I wanted to talk about some of my favorites. 

First up is the aforementioned Game Changer. Hosted by Dropout owner Sam Reich, Game Changer is a different game every time, and the contestants have to figure out what the game is AS THEY PLAY. The contestants, by the way, are usually comedians and comedy writers employed by Dropout, and so you see the same faces come back over and over. It’s not long before you get a feel for their personalities and begin to pick your favorites. The first episode had Sam asking the players personal questions, followed by a light flashing either red or green to indicate if they were telling the truth or lying. The twist – which was revealed early to the audience but not to the players – is that their respective significant others were backstage controlling the lights. As the players lost their mind trying to figure out how the “light” could know certain things, the camera would cut backstage to show their girlfriends laughing hysterically. 

And that’s just the first episode. As I said, each episode is totally different. There’s one where the players have to hastily assemble bizarre orders from a conveyer belt, another where they have to guess what food to feed a giant mouth. My favorite episode so far, though, was the season two finale, “Yes or No.” In this one the three players are simply asked “Yes or no?” by Sam, over and over again, with points awarded seemingly at random. The method of asking the question grows more elaborate and hilarious as the game goes on, but it always boils down to “Yes or no?” As the frustration mounts on the players and they – and the audience – sloooowly come to realize what the ACTUAL rule of that episode’s game is, the whole thing builds to one of the most monumentally epic improvised comedic monologues I’ve ever seen. It’s a thing of beauty.

Although you’ll come to recognize this as the face of the Devil.

That’s just the one show, though. There are plenty more to choose from. Make Some Noise is a spinoff of one of the more popular Game Changer episodes, featuring the comedians improvising lines, reactions, and even entire sketches based on goofy prompts. (Fans of Whose Line is it Anyway? will enjoy this one.) I’ve also grown fond of Smartypants, in which the cast prepares seemingly-academic college-style lectures on such ridiculous topics as cryptids, hot dogs, the month of February, and the importance of assigning a “Food Captain” to your friend group. Um, Actually is another game show in which the contestants are given “facts” with an error in them, then have to ring in and do what people on the internet love to do more than anything: correct each other.

Although if I’m being honest, she didn’t have to work too hard to convince me.

Are you into cooking shows? You need to check out Gastronauts. This time the comedians aren’t the contestants, but the judges. Real chefs compete to comply with their outrageous prompts to invent a meal, such as making something that can be eaten from a horse’s feed bag or creating the HEAVIEST (but still tastiest) dish. And although I haven’t quite gotten there yet, there’s an entire subcategory of the site called Dimension 20, several shows that revolve – in one way or another – around the obsession certain members of the Dropout family have with Dungeons and Dragons.

The shows are usually quick. Without adhering to a broadcast TV schedule, I’ve seen episodes as short as 16 minutes, although they usually clock in around 20-25. The longest I’ve seen so far was the 63-minute season premiere of the current Game Changer season – an epic episode because Sam gave the contestants a set of 15 tasks, then gave them a YEAR to accomplish them all on their own. Their presentations on how they accomplished the tasks were hilarious and, occasionally, oddly heartwarming. I think one of the things that makes these shows enjoyable is that you get a real sense that the people involved LIKE playing together and are actually having FUN in front of the camera, and there’s always room for more fun in the world. 

You can tell just from the body language how much every person on this stage is enjoying themselves.

Like I said, you see a lot of the same faces over and over again, making it easy to become devoted to the players. In fact, virtually everybody who is a regular appears on multiple shows, and people who host one show become contestants on the others. But there are guests as well: Wayne Brady and Ben Schwartz have both shown up on Make Some Noise, and the pandemic-era episodes of Game Changer featured surprise appearances by people as diverse as Tony Hawk and Giancarlo Esposito. There’s also Josh Ruben, one of the regulars, but whom I had already begun to follow not as a comedian, but as the writer/director of some of my favorite recent horror-comedy hybrid films, such as this year’s movie Heart Eyes, the recent Werewolves Within, and the excellent Scare Me, in which he also stars. 

It should be noted that this is NOT a service to watch with your kids. Although the comedy is usually good-natured and there hasn’t been anything I’ve come across that I’ve found particularly offensive, they lapse into blue humor frequently and have absolutely no filter when it comes to dropping language that you most certainly would not say in front of your grandmother. But if you’re okay with that sort of thing and you’re looking for some quick, crazy stuff that will make you laugh, it’s worth checking out.

I need to talk to the Geek Punditry Image Acquisitions department — I specifically asked for something WEIRD.

And hell, you don’t even have to become a subscriber to get a taste. There are tons of clips on the Facebook and TikTok pages for Dropout TV and the individual pages of the assorted shows. It took two or three months of me watching those clips before I finally decided to take the plunge and subscribe to the service, but I’m glad I did. There’s not enough humor in the world, and it’s great to find a new source with so much to choose from.

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. Shoot, he didn’t even get around to Very Important People. Ah well, next time. 

Year of Superman Week 16: Origin Week

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It’s a big week for Superman fans – DC’s “Summer of Superman” initiative is kicking off this week with the Summer of Superman Special. Not only that, but April 18th is the anniversary of the release of Action Comics #1 back in 1938, and therefore DC has declared it “Superman Day.” It also happens to be the first day of my spring break, so I’m intending to put my son in his Superman t-shirt (matching my own) and going down to BSI Comics that day to celebrate.

And since this week marks the Man of Steel’s anniversary, it feels like a good time for another one of those themes that I had marked off at the beginning of the year: it’s gonna be Origins Week. Superman’s origin has been told many, many times over the years, and in many different continuities. Last week, for instance, I read the first Earth One graphic novel, which was such a take on Superman’s origin. But I’m going to focus on the ways his origin has been told in-continuity. DC’s continuity has been retold and rebooted a ridiculous number of times over the years, of course, but this week I’m going to plant my flag on stories that were considered the definitive origin of the “Prime Universe” Superman at the time of publication. And even then, I’ve got plenty to choose from.

Wed., April 16

Comics: Superman #53, Superman #146, Challengers of the Unknown Vol. 5 #4 (Guest Appearance)

Notes: I read Action Comics #1 back on January 1st, so I’m not going to include it again in Origins Week. Besides, there wasn’t a lot of detail in that first iteration of the origin anyway – so many of the details, including the name of his home planet, weren’t filled in until later. The origin presented in Superman #1 wasn’t much better, expanding to a whopping two pages before jumping into the issue’s first story. So I’m going to look instead at a couple of later issues that filled out the story, beginning with Superman #53 from 1948, a special “tenth anniversary” story. To be honest, I’m not 100 percent sure that this is the first time the origin was told in full, but the text on the first page DOES say “Now, at last, you’ll know all the answers,” so at the very least not all of this stuff was yet common knowledge.

Don’t you love how quaint the old blurbs were? “World Greatest Adventure Character!” The Fantastic Four was just waiting to jump in on the hyperbole bandwagon.

The story begins on Krypton, with Jor-El warning that the planet’s uranium core is breaking down, transforming the planet into an enormous atomic bomb. The planet’s rulers, of course, don’t believe his warnings, and Jor-El makes it home just as the final cataclysm begins. He has room in his prototype rocket for his wife and child, but Lara insists her place is with her husband, and thus they send their baby to Earth alone. His rocket lands in the American heartland, where he is found by an elderly couple who bring him to an orphanage. The super baby causes chaos in the orphanage, and when the older couple returns hoping to adopt the child, the orphanage rushes through the paperwork to get rid of him quickly. Bringing them home, he is named Clark Kent. He grows up, gradually discovering more and more powers, until as a young adult his foster mother dies, followed by his father, who urges Clark on his deathbed to use his powers for good. 

As you can see, the basic framework of Superman’s origin is all here, the skeleton which has provided the structure of his story for the past 87 years. But the story cuts off before he goes to Metropolis, joins the Daily Planet, first encounters Lois…in other words, a lot of the stuff that really helps make Superman who he is. There are also an awful lot of details that haven’t been filled in yet. Jor-El and Lara are both named, but their baby is not specifically called Kal-El in this story. The Kents’ first names aren’t mentioned until the scene where Clark stands by his graves, and then the names inscribed as “John” and “Mary,” before they were codified as Jonathan and Martha. And even though he clearly grows up in a small town, the location is not specified as Kansas, and the name “Smallville” is never mentioned.

You could honestly do this same experiment with any of the Golden Age heroes who have stood the test of time – go back and read their earliest stories and see which elements were missing, which pieces of their mythology that seem so critical to us now were in fact later additions. And “mythology” really is the appropriate word – you could do this same task with the stories of Thor, of Odysseus, of any character from classical mythology. Stories grow and build and evolve over time, and our modern stories are no different. It’s a process that honestly fascinates me, which is one of the reasons I’m approaching this week the way that I am. 

And they didn’t even put the kid into a five-point harness? Kypton deserved what it got.

We got a more complete version of the origin in Superman #146 from 1961. In “The Story of Superman’s Life,” a lot of those little details that hadn’t solidified yet in ‘48 had come into focus. Once again we see Jor-El warning the people of Krypton of the planet’s impending doom, but only his brother, Zor-El, believes him. In this version, he first uses Krypto as a test subject, sending him into space first before the final cataclysm that causes him and Lara to send Kal-El (now named) to the stars. This version also covers how the nuclear reaction transformed the fragments of the planet into Kryptonite, then shows Kal-El’s rocket landing in Smallville, where he is found by Jonathan and Martha Kent. This time, the Kents leave the baby on the orphanage doorstep, coming back to adopt him after a few days of superbaby hijinks. He grows up, gaining power as he does, and the Kents eventually discover that the blankets he was wrapped in when they found him are just as invulnerable as their son. 

As Clark gets older, Martha unravels the threads of the blankets (because they can’t be cut) and re-weaves them into his first Superboy costume. Clark adopts his glasses – made from glass from his rocket ship which is impervious to his head vision – to help protect his secret identity from the likes of his nosy next-door neighbor Lana Lang. In fact, he even builds his first robot duplicate in order to trick Lana. We get his reunion with Krypto  and how he uses the information he learns to determine his true origin, coming from Krypton, and how the Earth’s yellow sun and lower gravity give him his powers. His first interaction with Kryptonite is rather benign – Jonathan brings home a rock for his son’s mineral collection that instead makes him sick. The next stage of his life comes when his foster parents again die, with his father again urging him to use his powers for good before he’s gone, and Superboy decides to leave Smallville to come to Metropolis. 

Clearly, this is much more detailed than the previous version, including a lot of the bits and pieces that had become standard by then. However, because of this, the comic book doesn’t read so much as a story as a checklist ” here are the things that we know about Superman, so let’s make sure that we mark them off along the way. There are even a few elements that are covered in footnotes – such as how Zor-El (who would become Supergirl’s father) escaped Krypton’s destruction and how a pack of green Kryptonite meteors were transformed into red Kryptonite. And even though this story ends with Clark Kent working for the Planet, we don’t actually get the story of HOW that happened. 

It’s more detailed, but honestly, I like the story from issue #53 better.

That said, this story pretty much laid out the important details, and it would be 25 years before there was any serious revision again. That would be John Byrne’s Man of Steel, and that’s what I’ll tackle next. 

Thur., April 18

Comics: Man of Steel #1-6, Detective Comics #1095 (Guest Appearance), Justice League of America #21

TWO! TWO! TWO covers in one!

Notes: If I were to take a guess as to which Superman comic I’ve read more than any other…well, it would be impossible to say for sure, but I would wager that Man of Steel #1 is a close contender. I don’t remember exactly when I got this first issue or how, but I know that it was in my collection even before I became an adamant Superman reader a couple of years later. I read that issue many times, I liked that first issue quite a bit, and I know that I’ve returned to it over and over again in the years since. Man of Steel was DC (via writer/artist John Byrne) attempting to update Superman for the 80s, and on that note, it succeeded beyond all measure. Superman was reinvigorated, given new life. It made Clark Kent the character’s heart and Superman the mask, as opposed to the reverse dynamic which most older stories had employed. It crumbled up and threw away the lovelorn man-chasing Lois Lane once and for all, replacing her with a fearless reporter who was every bit the equal of the Man of Steel – a portrayal more than a little inspired by Margot Kidder’s performance. And perhaps the greatest change, at least in my opinion, was that unlike every version of Superman that had come before, in this version Jonathan and Martha Kent were still alive, still able to be family and confidants to the adult Superman, giving him something he had never had before.

This isn’t to say that I love everything about his version of Superman. My biggest beef is the enforced notion that Kal-El be the ONLY survivor of Krypton, which did away with such things as Krypto, Supergirl, the bottled city of Kandor, and so forth. These elements would drip back in over the years, fortunately. But for the most part, this is the origin of Superman that is most firmly etched in my brain, and when I think of the architecture of Krypton or the clothing that Jor-El and Lara wore, this is still the version that comes to mind most fervently.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

Man of Steel #1 begins on a Krypton that is dying. Millions are succumbing to a plague they are calling the “green death,” but only Jor-El has been able to uncover the truth. A chain reaction in the core of the planet is transmuting the entire world into a new, radioactive metal that is killing them all, and what’s worse, that same reaction is soon going to destroy the planet. Jor-El takes the gestation matrix carrying his unborn son and outfits it with a hyperdrive to send it to another world, which he does so mere moments before Krypton’s death. With his final breath, he expresses his love to Lara, something that on this Krypton – a cold world devoid of emotion and feeling – is strictly forbidden. 

Byrne skips ahead now to Clark Kent’s senior year of high school, where he wins the final football game of the season virtually singlehandedly. Slightly disappointed, Jonathan Kent reveals to his son that he is not their natural born child, but rather that he was found in a spacecraft 18 years prior. Clark decides to leave Smallville and begin using his gifts to help other people. Another time skip sends us ahead seven years, where Martha Kent has compiled a scrapbook of newspaper clippings of all manner of disasters that were averted – a puzzle solved when the newest headline reads “Mysterious Superman Saves Space Plane.” Clark comes home and tells his parents how he was forced to use his powers openly for the first time, preventing the crash of an experimental spacecraft that happened to include among its crew a reporter for the Daily Planet – one Lois Lane. Together, the Kents decide that in order to operate freely, Clark needs a new identity. They craft a costume, design a symbol, and Superman is born.

A few other things of note in this first issue: besides the dramatic change to Krypton, Byrne also canonizes the idea that Superman’s first public appearance is saving Lois Lane from an air disaster – in essence a much more dramatic version of the helicopter rescue from the first Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve movie – as well as that it is Lois who dubs him “Superman” in the press. There have been lots of revamps to Superman’s origin over the years, lots of versions that have bled into other media, but I always like it when they keep these two particular elements. It just feels right. It doesn’t quite work in versions where he was SuperBOY before he grew up, of course, but I’m willing to pick my battles.

This issue also set the tone for the rest of the five-issue miniseries that preceded Byrne’s runs on Superman and Action Comics. DC wanted a new Superman, but they didn’t want to have to tell an ongoing story where he’s still brand new and unknown to the world. So like this first issue, the rest of the miniseries skips ahead to high points in Superman’s career, important first encounters, that sort of thing, before finally catching up to a “modern day” at the end of issue six. This was, I think, probably the best way to handle it, and it left room for Byrne and future writers to fill in some blanks, which of course they did.

I’ve never thought about it before, but it must be hell for Lois Lane to get an insurance quote.

Issue two probably has the briefest time skip of the series, picking up shortly after Superman has gone public. As he makes his first appearances in uniform, Lois finds herself determined to get the story of this remarkable newcomer to Metropolis. She spends days following him from one encounter to another, always showing up just after he’s finished saving someone or thwarting a crime, but never getting close enough to talk to him. Lois decides to get his attention by driving her car off the pier, prompting him to swoop in and save her for the second time, and she manages to pressure him into an interview, although he isn’t too forthcoming. As he takes off, he casually asks her if she always drives around with an aqualung under the front seat of her car. Lois, clearly smitten, rushes the story of Superman, bringing it in to Perry White’s office, only to have all the wind blown out of her sails when Perry reveals that the Planet has already gotten the same story from their newest reporter: Clark Kent.

This issue nails the Lois Lane that I love – unflinching, brave, willing to do anything for her story. It also sets the gait for their relationship: Superman knowing full well that she was never in any danger but playing along anyway is just the perfect dynamic for the two of them. If anyone asks me who Lois Lane is, I can’t think of a better way to answer that question than to just show them this issue.

Man of Steel #3 reintroduces another of Superman’s most important relationships: that with Batman. But this isn’t the best friend he had in the Silver Age, or even the slightly strained friendship they enjoyed in the early 80s. Superman comes to Gotham City to round up the vigilante who has been making the news, only to be told by Batman that he’s rigged a device that will set off an explosion somewhere in Gotham City, killing an innocent person, if Superman touches him. With Superman temporarily helpless, Batman explains that Gotham requires a different approach – for example, he’s tracking down a thief and murderer called Magpie who has been terrorizing the city. Superman reluctantly goes along and helps capture Magpie, only to learn at the end that Batman’s “bomb” was in his utility belt the entire time – the “innocent” person in danger was himself. The two leave not as friends, but at least with a truce and the understanding that their different worlds require different methods.

This issue illustrates the other thing from this era of Superman that bothers me – the antagonistic relationship he had with Batman. Frank Miller loves to take credit for destroying their friendship (via The Dark Knight Returns), and DC ran with that dynamic for far too long. That’s not to say that this isn’t a good issue – Byrne does a fine job – but it set Superman and Batman at odds with one another for quite some time before the relationship finally began to soften, becoming allies again, and eventually the friends that they should be. 

Issue four brings Superman, for the first time, in conflict with his greatest enemy. Byrne’s revamp of Lex Luthor transformed him from the evil mad scientist of the old days into a ruthless, brilliant, corrupt businessman. Rather than operating out of a secret lair, he’s got a huge building shaped like his own initials, and he controls Metropolis fairly openly – until Superman shows up. He hires thugs to fake a terrorist attack on his cruise ship, horrifying Lois and seemingly “killing” Clark Kent. (Spoiler alert: Clark isn’t really dead.) Superman rounds up Lex and arrests him for the first time, setting the tone for their relationship from then on. LexCorp (sometimes “LuthorCorp”) would become a permanent addition to the Superman mythology, and the current iteration of Lex is somewhere between this one and the old version – still a ruthless businessman, but ALSO with the incredible scientific mind that Superman mourns whenever he uses it for evil. One other element added here is Lex’s pursuit of Lois Lane. This is a bit that’s come and gone over the years, but for this version of Lex, it works just fine. This was the perfect Lex for the time, but I think the gestalt version we have these days is probably the ultimate form of Lex Luthor.

I hate it when my imperfect duplicate shows up and punches me in the face.

The fifth issue gives us another time skip, and this time, the creation of a new Bizarro. This time around, an effort by Lex to clone Superman results in a duplicate that is slowly deteriorating. Meanwhile, Lois’s sister Lucy is dire straits, contemplating the futility of her life as the result of a terrorist attack that left her blind. This is a really odd way to reintroduce Lucy Lane into continuity, although I suppose it does somewhat continue the trend of Lucy being treated like the universe’s punching bag. This is perhaps the oddest of the six issues. The others all have a specific point or person in Superman’s life that they focus on: his origin, Lois Lane, Batman, Lex Luthor, and in the final issue we’ll see him learn about his heritage. The creation of a new Bizarro – particularly one that doesn’t even survive the issue – is an odd choice. It does show a bit more just how crafty Lex can be, but issue four already established that pretty handily. There’s nothing wrong with it, of course, but it’s always felt a bit out of place among the other five chapters. 

In the final issue of this miniseries, Superman returns to Smallville to visit his parents and comes face-to-face with Lana Lang. Lana had only been mentioned briefly back in issue one, so this is a pretty big deal – we learn that before Clark left Smallville, he told Lana about his powers. To him, he was confiding in a friend, but Lana – who had always harbored dreams of a future as Mrs. Clark Kent – saw it as the end of the future she had always imagined. This was a totally new dynamic for Clark and Lana, and it lasted for some years as Lana slowly evolved as a character. I like this as a chapter in her past, but I’m glad it’s behind her and she’s taken her place as one of Clark’s closest friends. In fact, she’s even – you know what? I’ll wait until tomorrow to talk more about what Lana is up to these days.

The other big thing about Clark’s return to Smallville is his interaction with the matrix that brought him to Earth. A hologram of Jor-El downloads the history of Krypton into Clark’s brain, telling him the truth of his origin for the first time. He knows the history of Krypton, can speak its languages, knows of its great literature…but in the end, decides that it isn’t important. He may be the last son of Krypton, but it is Earth that made him who he was.

Little bit louder for Quentin Tarantino and Max Landis.

Yeah, that’s pretty much my thesis on Superman too. Thanks for confirming, Mr. Byrne. 

Fri. April 18

Feature Film: Superman III (1983)

The recasting of Lois Lane was controversial at the time.

Notes: I decided to pause “Origin Week” just for today, Superman Day, so that I could celebrate it properly. I put a little video on TikTok explaining what’s so darn great about Superman. I put my son in his Superman T-shirt and I put on mine. (Well, I put on ONE of mine. I have…several.) We went out to our local comic shop, BSI Comics in Metairie, Louisiana, and we came home to watch a Superman movie. It may not be the most obvious choice for this most glorious of occasions, but I’ve already rewatched the first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies for this blog experiment, so I decided to continue on with the infamous Superman III. In this one, a man named Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) struggling to keep employment suddenly finds a talent for computer programming . His skills – and the use of those skills to defraud the company – brings him to the attention of his boss (Robert Vaughn) who, rather than throwing Gus in jail, decides to use his skills for the benefit of them both. Meanwhile, Clark Kent returns to Smallville for a high school reunion, bringing him back into the orbit of Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole), the girl he left behind.

I hate to admit it, but I do have something of a soft spot for this movie. It’s not great, of course. Lois Lane is reduced to a cameo, the villain quite clearly SHOULD have been Brainiac – but for some reason, wasn’t – and the attempts to make it into a comedy so as to justify Richard Pryor’s presence are…well…strained.

But despite that, there are things about this movie I enjoy. Richard Pryor was funny. Even when the material he was working with wasn’t great, he had a talent to elevate it and make it more entertaining, and it’s fun to watch him on screen. Then there’s Annette O’Toole, an absolutely radiant Lana Lang. She’s sweet and gentle, the polar opposite of everything Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane is, and while everyone knows that Lois and Clark is the endgame, watching O’Toole as Lana for a few minutes is enough to make you believe he could be reconsidering it. 

But the best thing about this movie comes after Gus hits Superman with a chunk of synthetic Kryptonite that slowly turns him bad. In what is honestly one of the best scenes in the entire Reeve Superman series, he splits into two people – an Evil Superman vs. a Good Clark Kent. The scene – a battle in a junkyard where Christopher Reeve battles himself – is well shot and has impressive effects, but it also really works thematically. Even in an era where “Clark” being the real guy and “Superman” the mask was perhaps a minority opinion, this movie kind of puts forth that thesis, and I love that about it.

Comics: Superman Day 2025: Jimmy Olsen’s Supercyclopedia Special Edition #1, DC X Sonic the Hedgehog #2, Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #38, Action Comics #1085, Summer of Superman Special #1

Notes: I also sat down this afternoon to read the last couple of weeks of Superman comics, so let’s run through those together, shall we? 

I love the high holidays.

There were several free Superman comics available today, but I already had most of them (All-Star Superman #1, Superman For All Seasons #1, and so forth), so I passed on those in the hopes that they would pass into the hands of people who haven’t read them a dozen times before. I did, however, get the preview edition of Gabe Soria and Sand Jarrell’s graphic novel Jimmy Olsen’s Supercyclopedia. The hook of this graphic novel, it seems, is that Jimmy Olsen is getting a little tired of living in Superman’s shadow. Not that he blames the big guy, but it’s easy to get lost when the world only thinks of you as “Superman’s pal.” Then someone shows up who seems interested in Jimmy himself, and that changes things. It’s an interesting concept, but I have to admit, it didn’t totally grab me. Although I could see myself reading the rest of the book via DC Universe Infinite, I don’t know that I’d buy it.

DC X Sonic the Hedgehog #2: The crossover event of the century continues with Sonic and the Flash chasing after Darkseid to try to wrest the Chaos Emerald from him. When he manages to escape, the Justice League and Team Sonic manage to chase him down to the Ragna Rock for a fateful confrontation – with a shocking ending. I don’t have a lot more to say about this book other than what I said about the first issue – it’s so much fun to see these characters together, and really refreshing to have a crossover that bypasses the requisite “heroes fighting heroes” tropes and just gets to the fun stuff. Once this series is over, the collected edition is going to be a perfect book to get for my son and my nephew. 

Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #38 begins the “We Are Yesterday” crossover in earnest. Clark Kent is covering the test flight of a Wayne Aeronautics jet plane – piloted by one Hal “Highball” Jordan – when the plane is destroyed and Jordan abducted by Gorilla Grodd. Superman, Batman, and the Flash take off to rescue Hal from the superintelligent simian, whose sights are higher than ever. This is the beginning of the time travel story Mark Waid is weaving between this series and Justice League Unlimited, with the modern-day Grodd interacting with his past self. It’s a great start to the story, full of superheroics, great artwork, and lots of monkeys. These are all good things.

Action Comics #1085 is the beginning of the two-part “Solitude” arc by G. Willow Wilson and Gavin Guidry (who previously did a great stint on the Superman ‘78 comic, and I’m happy to see him here). Clark is sent to the arctic to cover an experiment at a research station. Shortly after his arrival, though, the local wildlife takes undue interest in the station – they’re attacked by cyborg polar bears! And lemme tell ya, that sentence is as much fun to write as it is to read about. Anyway, it’s a good first half of the story, plus Guidry gets to design a new white and blue “polar” costume for Superman. It’s odd that Superman has so comparatively few variants, as opposed to Batman, but I have no doubt that we’ll be seeing this outfit in action figure or Funko Pop form sometime soon. 

Yet there’s no scene where anybody says, “Cool suit, Superman!” What a waste.

And of course, the big release this week was Summer of Superman Special #1, a one-shot that sets the stage for the next several months of Superman comics. The book is co-written by Joshua Williamson (regular writer on Superman), Mark Waid (who’s about to take over as the regular Action Comics writer), and Dan Slott (who will launch a third ongoing Superman title, Superman Unlimited, soon). “The Past, the Present, the Future,” begins in…well…the past. Validus, one of the foes of the Legion of Super-Heroes, is attacking Smallville, and Clark – as Superboy – and Krypto have to leap into action to stop him. There’s a really interesting bit here about how the Legion has placed a mental block to prevent Superboy from remembering things about his own future (this was well established in dozens of classic Legion stories, that’s not the clever bit), but nevertheless, he glimpses something that gives him a lingering memory that will change his entire life.

Summer, huh? (Glances at the title of the blog) Amateurs.

The story then jumps to the present day, and it’s a joyous day – it’s the wedding of Lana Lang and John Henry Irons. Lana is worried about some sort of super-chicanery messing things up, but that’s silly, right? RIGHT? Oh, no, Validus is back. This time, though, there’s a whole Superman family to take him on. The whole issue is great, and it’s highly successful at setting a tone for the upcoming storylines – especially the epilogue, which ties in to a story that started last year in the DC All-In Special and that we’ve been left dangling on for months now. The end of the issue also gives us the lowdown on several new books coming – not just Slott’s new title, but new books for Supergirl and Krypto, a treasury-sized one-shot by Dan Jurgens, and more. 

The summer of 2025 is already shaping up to be a great time to be a Superman fan. 

Sat., April 19

Comics: Superman: Birthright #1-12

When he flies in FRONT of Clark, you see, nobody suspects them of being the same dude.

Notes: By 2004, Superman had changed enough that DC decided it was time to revamp the origin again. That job went to the phenomenal writer Mark Waid, whom they paired off with a rising star named Leinil Francis Yu. The result, Superman: Birthright, is a solid Superman origin story that’s kind of been lost to time. A few years later, Geoff Johns would revamp the origin yet again (we’ll read his version in a couple of days), and then the New 52 hit and everything was upturned. But in these 12 issues, Waid did some really interesting things, a few of which have managed to stick.

The story begins – act surprised here – with the destruction of Krypton. This version is neither like the Silver Age version nor the cold, sterile world that John Byrne created. There’s a more modernistic sci-fi bent to it, and this time around it’s Lara who urges Jor-El to send their child to Earth when the latter begins to bend. Waid carries this theme forward after a time skip, when we see a Clark at age 25, covering news stories freelance in Africa and finding himself in a position to use his mysterious abilities to help people. Again, it’s Mom who turns out to be the impetus here – Martha pushes the creation of the Superman identity, while Jonathan is upset that Clark wants to hide his true name. Don’t worry, Jonathan comes around.

From there, from the point where Clark goes to Metropolis for the first time and saves Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane from a helicopter disaster (NEVER get into an aircraft of any sort with Lois Lane, you’re just asking for trouble), the story takes a turn. While the elements of the Daily Planet staff are still there and still important, from here on out the story becomes largely about Superman vs. Lex Luthor. Waid brings back the Silver Age conceit of the character, in which Superboy and Lex had been friends, but he modernizes it. Since there never was a Superboy in this continuity, Lex was friends with Clark Kent (I feel like this was a deliberate effort to echo the popular Smallville TV show, which isn’t a bad thing). Waid puts a different light on the unique friendship – although Lex’s arrogance existed even then, both young men carried with them an air of alienation that made them bond. Lex, of course, didn’t know what exactly made Clark different from everybody else, but it was Lex’s intelligence that set HIM apart. 

In the Silver Age, Lex had the worst supervillain motivation of all time – Superboy saved him from a failed experiment, but the fumes released made him lose his hair. So he decided to become a criminal mastermind. And that’s terrible. Waid brings back the basic idea of Lex’s villain turn coming from a disaster that involves Clark, but he does it in a much more believable way. The adult Lex in this story is the fusion of super scientist and super businessman that he still mostly is today, and he carries that brilliance and anger with him as he cracks the secret of Superman’s heritage – discovering that Superman is an alien from the distant planet Krypton, which even Clark doesn’t know yet. Lex decides to turn the world against its new hero by faking an invasion from Krypton to draw him out, culminating in a fantastic battle scene that includes, among other things, a fantastic moment where the S-shield becomes literally that.

“I dunno, Leinil, do you think anybody will get the symbolism here?”

Like I said, this origin has been largely pushed aside by DC, but there are a few elements that I think are worth mentioning, at least one of which has become a staunch part of canon. One is the explanation for Clark’s glasses. Waid clearly decided to address the old (tired) complaint that the glasses aren’t enough of a disguise by establishing that Clark’s eyes are a truly unearthly shade of blue, a color that no one not from Krypton would have seen before. Superman still has those eyes, but Clark’s glasses dull the color and make his eyes seem more mundane, helping with the disguise. I don’t know if that tidbit is still canon, but with Waid about to take over Action Comics, I hope he brings it back.

The other thing that we get here is – as far as I can tell – this is the story that first established the concept that the Superman symbol stands for hope. As Clark studies the holograms sent to Earth with him, he doesn’t understand the Kryptonian language, so he tries to unlock his past by watching the images and videos sent by his parents. The S-shield of the House of El is a persistent image, and it comes to represent hope to Clark, something he pushes forth when he adopts the symbol as Superman. The idea that it was literally the Kryptonian character for their word meaning “hope” isn’t there yet – that, I believe, came a few years later during DC’s 52 series (which Waid co-wrote), but I think that we’ve found the genesis of one of my favorite little details of Superman lore.

It’s a good story, and even if it isn’t canon anymore, it’s still an enjoyable read. 

Sun., April 20

Comics: Secret Origins Vol. 3 #1

Superman HATES green cars.

Notes: It’s Easter Sunday here, and Easter is a big family day for us, so I knew I would need something quick for today’s Origins Week installment. How handy, then, that back in 1985 DC Comics relaunched their old Secret Origins series, re-presenting the genesis of heroes from the Golden Age to the Bronze, and kicking it off with an issue dedicated to the Golden Age Superman. The series was the brainchild of Roy Thomas, who also wrote this issue, and frankly there couldn’t have been a better candidate. I don’t think there’s a human being on the planet with a greater love for Golden Age comics than Roy Thomas, as evidenced by his All-Star Squadron from DC, Invaders from Marvel, the Alter Ego miniseries he wrote for First Comics and the subsequent comic book magazine he produces that carries the same title. Mark Waid is kind of a spiritual successor to him, in that both men are walking encyclopedias of comic book history, and it shows through in their work.

This issue is a pretty straightforward adaptation of the “origin” story I mentioned from Superman #53 grafted together with the story of Superman’s first adventure from Action Comics #1. Thomas, along with classic Superman penciler Wayne Boring and inks by Jerry Orway, re-tells the story that we’re all intimately familiar with, and does so almost beat-for-beat. Even panel compositions and little tidbits like a ticking clock in the corner of the panel to count down to an innocent man’s execution are carried over from the original Siegel and Shuster panels to the new ones. As such, it’s a retelling of the original story, but not really an update. The oddest thing, though, is the fact that Thomas makes reference several times to the fact that this Superman and – in fact – his entire universe no longer even existed, following the events of the recently-concluded Crisis on Infinite Earths. It’s an odd take, to build a series built on what, at that point, had essentially been relegated to “imaginary” stories. Still, if you’re looking for an old-school origin of Superman with a slightly more modern bent, this issue is worth reading. The whole series is, actually. I was always a fan of Secret Origins, and it’s a shame that anthology books like this one just don’t seem to have legs in a modern market. 

Mon., April 21

Comics: Superman: Secret Origin #1-6

It’s like a Christmas card with an alien from another planet on it.

Notes: Six years after Birthright, and following another reset in Infinite Crisis, DC handed Geoff Johns the reigns to do his own take on Superman’s origin. Johns was one of DC’s top writers at the time, having taken both The Flash and Green Lantern and expanded their respective corners of the DC Universe exponentially, making them more exciting and (frankly) more significant than they had been in years, if not decades. Johns had also cut his teeth working as an assistant to Richard Donner, director of the first Christopher Reeve movie (and most of the second), and the two of them even wrote a run of Action Comics together. It’s not really a surprise, then, that Johns’ version of the origin borrows as much from the classic movie as it does from the classic comics, right down to artist Gary Frank drawing a Clark Kent that looks so much like Reeve you’d think he was doing a straight-up adaptation of the film. In the scene in issue #3 where he first arrives at the Daily Planet, it’s even more pronounced. Frank draws Clark with Reeve’s physical mannerisms and characteristics, the bumbling fake persona that he wore in his “disguise.” It’s so effective that every line you read goes through your head in Reeve’s own voice.

Johns merges a lot of elements from the various Superman eras and blends in some of his own. His version was, in fact, Superboy, and had been a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. His costume was made from his Kryptonian blankets, and Clark’s glasses were made from glass taken from the spacecraft to help him control his heat vision. To help reconcile some of the elements that work better with Superman making his debut as an adult, Johns has Clark keep “Superboy” a secret, operating as privately as possible and being considered little more than an urban legend in Smallville. That way he maintains the big moment of his public introduction later in Metropolis where he…oh, look at that. He saves Lois Lane from a helicopter accident.

NEVER. GO. NEAR. AN. AIRCRAFT. WITH. LOIS. LANE.

Unique to this version, Lana Lang knows about Clark’s powers since childhood, having been saved by him from a wheat thresher (a scene quite reminiscent of Superman saving Lana’s son from a similar fate in Superman III). Lex, once again, is from Smallville, and a few years older than Clark, but still friend-ish with him. I particularly like Lex’s introduction, where he asks Clark if he’s smart, reasoning that wearing glasses either means you’re genetically inferior or you read a lot. 

I’ve read this series more than once, but reading it all together creates some interesting juxtapositions. In issue #2, for instance, when Superboy first meets the Legion, I’m struck by how Johns writes Brainiac 5. His intelligence leads to incredible arrogance and condescension towards everyone around him…which seems pretty darn familiar if you flip back a few pages to a scene where Clark is talking to Lex in the school library. Johns writes Brainiac as Lex Luthor with a fundamentally good core – but “good” doesn’t necessarily mean “nice.” It’s pretty funny, and really spot-on in terms of characterization.

It’s not just the people whose characterization changes, though, it’s the whole city of Metropolis. When Clark first arrives it’s a cynical place, a place where nobody ever looks up, where everybody is out for themselves, where the Planet is on the brink of ruin, and where people line up for hours in the hopes of catching a few scraps from their oh-so-benevolent top citizen, Lex Luthor. The presence of Superman chances the whole town, making it a bolder, more optimistic place, a town where the potential for the future seems real and not just a pipe dream. Lex, naturally, hates it. I love it. 

Lois is Lois as Lois should be – smart unflinching. When given a chance, she goes for Lex’s throat without a second of hesitation. But what I really love is how she sees through Clark’s bumbling facade almost instantly. The same day he comes to work at the Planet, she sizes him up and calls him out on the false humility and ill-fitting clothes, declaring quite correctly that he obviously wants people to underestimate him. That insight is perfect for her…which actually makes it even funnier when she encounters Superman and fails to put two and two together. She continues being impressed by Clark throughout the miniseries, but even at the end she hasn’t dovetailed into the whole “is Clark really Superman?” bit from the Silver Age, and I’m glad for that.

In addition to Luthor, Johns brings in the Parasite, Metallo, and even Sam Lane as secondary antagonists, but when you get right down to it, this is a story about four characters: Superman, Lois, Luthor, and Metropolis herself. And Johns serves all four of them very, very well. 

Tues., April 22

Comics: Action Comics Vol. 2 #1-8

This is the one time where Superman and I could literally wear the same outfit.

Notes: I’m going to close off Origin Week with what I believe is the most recent revamp of Superman’s full origin, from the New 52 reboot of the entire DC Universe that happened in 2011. Ironically, despite being the most recent, it’s also one that was sponged from continuity most completely. Still, it’s written by Grant Morrison, and I’ve never read anything by Grant Morrison that didn’t have at least SOME reading value in it. Let’s see how the New 52 handled our boy Clark.

Morrison’s Action Comics begins six months after Superman’s public debut in Metropolis (thus robbing us of the opportunity to see him save Lois Lane from a helicopter crash), and the inspiration here is clearly the earliest Superman stories of Siegel and Shuster. He’s not as powerful as he would become, he’s not flying yet, and he shows bruises and abrasions from some of his tougher battles. He’s also doing the “fighting for the little guy” thing that we saw so much of in the earliest tales, going after corrupt businessmen and politicians…which has made him the target of corrupt businessmen the likes of Lex Luthor. He’s not even wearing a proper costume at this point, prancing around the city in trousers, a t-shirt, and a cape. It’s a wild look, and if Morrison’s intention was to show that this was a Superman starting from scratch, it worked. 

The story sees Superman being captured by Luthor and Sam Lane, fighting against them, and rescuing Metropolis from Brainiac. Along the way, we discover that – although Couluan – Brainiac had a presence on Krypton and has one here on Earth. Clark also gets his hands on the Kryptonian armor that became the uniform of the New 52 Superman, and by the end of the story, he’s made enough of a name for himself to take a job at the Daily Planet.

What also works is John Henry Irons – in a world where the Doomsday fight never happened (although this would be reversed, like most of the New 52 changes) they made John one of the scientists working on the project that studied Superman with Luthor, then had him show his heroic side by turning on Luthor and Sam Lane, building his suit of armor in the process. If there’s no “Death of Superman” in the continuity to contend with, this is a decent enough way to get a Steel. 

But the thing is, there isn’t much else that works for me here. I get that the idea here was a whole new Superman, a whole new universe, but as turned out to be the case with much of the New 52, they threw out the baby with the bathwater. This is an origin that doesn’t just update the classic elements that make Superman who he is, it throws out many of them. We see only glimpses of Krypton, and we get more of the Kents through some of the back-up stories written by Sholly Fisch than the main stories written by Morrison. We only get a few pages each with Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, and although the attitude Morrison crafts for Superman works for a young man trying to find himself, ultimately, it’s somewhat unsatisfying.

I hate to say this, because Morrison has done excellent work with the Man of Steel. I’ve always enjoyed DC One Million and the Final Crisis tie-in Superman Beyond, and let’s be honest here, All-Star Superman absolutely deserves a place on the Mount Rushmore of Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told. But the New 52 Action Comics origin just falls flat for me. It would be one thing if this were an alternate universe – an “Ultimate” or “Absolute” Superman – but as the origin for the Prime DC Universe Man of Steel, it just doesn’t click. Out of all the different iterations of Superman’s origins I’ve read this week, I’m afraid I saved my least favorite for last.

This all begs the question, of course, of what exactly Superman’s origin is today. Like I said, I doubt that many remnants of the New 52 version have stuck with us. The Superman we read about in 2025 is kiiiiinda the New 52 Superman mashed together with the Post-Crisis John Byrne Superman, but even that Superman has had no less than three different versions of his origins over the years. And since DC Rebirth gave us the current iteration of Superman beginning in 2016, they haven’t really done a retelling of the origin again. But maybe Mark Waid will tackle that in his upcoming New History of the DCU. If he does, I’ll be sure to share with you my thoughts on his newest take. 

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. You can join in the Kryptonian Konversation every day in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!

Geek Punditry #120: Fighting the Easter Special Deficit

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I’m just gonna come out and say it, friends: there are not enough great Easter specials. There are a billion Christmas TV specials, and a healthy number for Halloween, but other holidays often get the short end of the stick. Were it up to me, every single holiday – including Happy Honda Days– would come with at least two specials, one by Rankin and Bass and another starring the Peanuts gang. 

However, that doesn’t mean there are NO Easter Specials, and so this week’s Geek Punditry is going to take a look at some of the very few that are out there and worth your time…and believe it or not, the Christmas Kings at Rankin and Bass actually took not one, but THREE swings at Easter Specials.

“I’m Casey Kasem, here to count down America’s top five Easter specials…”

First up was Here Comes Peter Cottontail from 1971. In this special, narrated by Danny Kaye, Peter Cottontail (Casey Kasem) is tapped to become the new Easter Bunny when the incumbent is retiring. Before he takes the job, though, the Easter Bunny is approached by a bitter bunny named Irontail (Vincent FREAKING Price) who hates Easter. What’s more, he’s got a loophole to prevent Peter’s appointment to the top post – apparently the rules say that the Chief Easter Bunny will be whoever delivers the most eggs. He proposes a contest between himself and Peter, but roofies Peter’s rooster with magic bubblegum, preventing it from waking him up on the day of the big delivery competition. Ironheart has only to deliver a single egg to win the title of Chief Easter Bunny. 

As Irontail immediately sets out to ruin Easter, Peter runs into Danny Kaye’s character, an inventor named Seymour Sassafras. Seymour hooks up Peter with his time machine, piloted by a caterpillar with a French accent, and sends him back to try to win the contest. But Irontail manages to knock them off course, sending Peter on a trip through time, colliding with every major holiday in his quest to become the true Easter Bunny.

There’s a lot to unpack here.

Anybody who thought Barry Allen had a monopoly on screwing up the entire timeline because he tries to use time travel to fix his own screw-up needs to watch this special. It’s pretty bonkers, even considering this is the studio that had Rudolph similarly travel from one time island to another in order to find Baby New Year. But the best reason to watch this special is to listen to Vincent Price himself hamming it up as the villain of a kid’s Easter special. He’s deliciously evil, and somehow absolutely perfect. I wish we’d gotten more of him and a little less of the singing French caterpillar.

Let’s celebrate the holiday by DESTROYING EVERYTHING YOUR CHILD LOVES.

Rankin and Bass’s second Easter special came in 1976 with The First Easter Rabbit. This film is a loose adaptation of Margery Williams’s children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit, which I remember reading as a child and finding remarkably depressing. This version is considerably peppier. When a little girl contracts scarlet fever, all of her clothes and toys are tossed aside to be burned, including her beloved stuffed rabbit, Stuffy. A passing sprite named Calliope sees the bunny and takes pity on it, bringing it to life and whisking it off to the North Pole, where the now-living Stuffy meets Santa Claus. Santa convinces him to take on some of the responsibility for the Easter deliveries, but Stuffy winds up in battle with a sort of snow demon named Zero, because there were a LOT of those in the Rankin and Bass universe. The special has a happier ending than the book, if I recall correctly, but it’s still probably my least-favorite of Rankin and Bass’s Easter specials.

“You’ve gotta invite me in if you want me to give you some eggs, Jimmy.”

In-between the other two is the 1977 special The Easter Bunny is Comin’ to Town. In this one, Fred Astaire returns as S.D. Kluger, the mailman who told us Santa Claus’s origin story in Santa Claus is Coming’ to Town. He does it again, this time weaving the tale of an orphaned bunny rabbit named Sunny and how he grew in prominence to become THE one and only Easter Bunny, even overcoming the machinations of an evil bear named Gadzooks who hates ALL holidays. This one is almost a beat-by-beat knock-off of the earlier Santa Claus special. It’s not just the same idea, it’s almost the same PLOT. I suppose a little kid doesn’t notice, but as an adult who spends – I’m going to be honest here – entirely too much time analyzing the structure of children’s animated specials, it stands out like a fireworks display. But what I find amusing is that, despite this being the Easter special most directly copying one of the Rankin and Bass Christmas specials, it’s the ONLY one that doesn’t include an appearance by Santa Claus.

“Oh no, not THIS again…”

I’m more enamored with a non-Rankin and Bass special, one featuring the star of the recent cultural phenomenon The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie. I refer, of course, to the 1980 TV special Daffy Duck’s Easter Egg-Citement (or sometimes just The Daffy Duck Easter Special). In this era, there were several Looney Tunes compilation specials – a new cartoon frame story wrapped around classic cartoons from the Looney Tunes catalogue. I like this one mostly because it’s a sort of take on the greatest Daffy cartoon of all time, Duck Amuck. Not unlike that earlier masterpiece, in this special Daffy finds himself at odds with the animator of the cartoon itself. This time, he’s trying to get things suitably in the season for Easter, but stuff keeps happening. As with all of these compilation shorts, the best thing about this is revisiting the classic cartoons…but this isn’t bad.

Not pictured: Lucy, being SERIOUSLY pissed off.

Perhaps the most famous Easter special of them all, though, is the 1974 epic It’s the Easter Beagle Charlie Brown. With Easter approaching, the Peanuts gang is caught up in a series of semi-related storylines, kind of like a Robert Altman film. Peppermint Patty is determined to teach her sidekick Marcie the proper way to dye Easter Eggs, but one misunderstanding after another keeps throwing things into chaos. Snoopy is trying to help his buddy Woodstock build a new birdhouse. Lucy, meanwhile, is planning to win the big Easter Egg hunt by hiding the eggs herself, carefully documenting the location of each. As all of this is going on, Linus constantly tells everyone that they’re wasting their time, because the Easter Beagle is going to take care of everything. As usual, everyone dismisses him except for Sally, although even she’s somewhat skeptical, still remembering the fiasco that happened at Halloween.

There are a few things about this special I find particularly interesting. I’ve always thought it was funny that Linus – the wisest and most philosophical of Charles Schulz’s characters – has such a fundamental misunderstanding of not one, but TWO major holidays. I also like the callback to the Great Pumpkin special, one of the few such callbacks in the major Peanuts specials. Similar to Linus, Marcie is usually painted as the voice of reason whenever Peppermint Patty starts going overboard, so seeing her constantly screw up their efforts to do something as simple as preparing Easter Eggs is actually really funny. But perhaps the best gag in the whole cartoon comes when the gang goes down to the store to pick up some more eggs (following Marcie’s most recent debacle) only to find the whole place already decorated for Christmas.

As you can see, if you’re looking for a truly legendary Easter special to share with your kids…well, the pickins are a little slim. We need more. And I’m not even sure where to find most of these specials these days – I own most of them on DVD, but I don’t know if those DVDs are still available. You can possibly find some of them on YouTube, and the Charlie Brown specials have been in the nefarious domain of Apple TV for a few years now, but other than that, we’re really at quite a loss. So my special message, to the animation studios of the world, is to give us a few more great Easter specials next year. Let’s have the Addams Family grappling with a holiday so dedicated to pastels, let’s see Batman chasing down the White Rabbit on the streets of Gotham City…shoot, I’d even settle for something with Minecraft. I don’t really know much about Minecraft, but I’m led to believe there’s a chicken involved, which certainly implies the presence of eggs.

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. Sorry to cut this short, but he’s got his own eggs to dye. 

Year of Superman Week 15: Highs and Lois (Rimshot)

blakemp Year of Superman , , , , , , , , ,

It’s going to be another pretty random week in the blog, folks. Having put the finishing touches on Krypto Week, I don’t have a particular theme to adhere to for the next seven days – I’ll read or watch whatever strikes my fancy on the day.

Wed., March 12

Comics: Superman #285, Flash #158 (Cameo)

This guy went on to a promising career as a referee in the National Football League.

Notes: If you’re anything like me, you love going to comic book stores and conventions or scouring eBay for old comics. I dive into dollar bins, I get lots of old, random comics, because I love finding strange, unusual books, things that aren’t on the radar of the collectors. And, of course, I also snare any Superman-related content I can get my hands on. I get it faster than I read them, to be frank, so I have a substantial “To Read” pile at home. Today I’m going to randomly pull out a book from that pile to kick off the week.

The winner is Superman #285 from 1975. I haven’t ever read this one before, but it’s got the legendary team of Elliot S! Maggin and Curt Swan, so it’s at least got that much going for it. In the story, Superman is deeply engrossed in the mystery of the missing Roy Raymond, TV Detective. Raymond is an old DC character who, even by ‘75, had faded into obscurity, and sending Superman out to search for him is a decent story. There’s also a fun subplot regarding WBGS gossip maven Lola Barnett, a semi-regular of the supporting cast at the time (and let’s give the creators a hand for resisting the urge to make her one more of Superman’s legendary “Double-Ls”). When Lola is challenge to keep a big, juicy secret for an entire week, she selects one given to her by Clark Kent, a secret the reader can’t read the ending of: “I am not who I seem to be. I’m really…”

Obviously, nobody thought that Clark was going to out himself to a gossip columnist to win a bet, but the last-page reveal of what the secret actually WAS turned out to be fun. 

I don’t know if the intent behind this issue was to bring Roy Raymond back as an ongoing concern for the DC Universe, but if it was, it didn’t quite work. Ol’ Roy remains pretty obscure to this day. But kudos to Maggin and Swan for giving it a try. 

Thur., April 10

Comics: Action Comics #761, Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #170, New Adventures of Superboy #33, Titans Vol. 4 #19 (Cameo), Flash Vol. 6 #19 (Guest Appearance)

Well, not WITH Wonder Woman. That’s kinda the point of the story.

Notes: Joe Kelly is one of those writers who did a solid job on his tenure with Superman, and although I think few people would put him on their Mount Rushmore of Superman writers, he’s responsible for a couple of my favorite Superman stories of all time. The second one, Action Comics #775, will show up at some point this year when I pair it up with watching the movie that adapted it, Superman Vs. the Elite. But for today, I’m going to look at what I consider to be his second-best one-off story, a Superman/Wonder Woman story from Action #761. In a recent issue, a photographer caught a photograph of Superman in which he was clearly wearing a wedding band – Clark slipped up and forgot to take it off when switching identities – and the question of “Who is Mrs. Superman?” is dominating the celebrity news cycle. Lois and Clark are having a lazy morning, semi-joking about the situation, when Diana shows up and throws everything into turmoil.

Superman and Wonder Woman are whisked off to Asgard in this story, while Lois is stuck back on Earth, slightly smarting over the fact that her husband has been taken to another dimension with an Amazon princess. Clark and Diana are trapped in Asgard, helping the Aesir fight off an invasion of demons, for 1,000 years…their time. On Earth, only a day passes. 

So much is written about the friendship of Superman and Batman, and with reason. But the Superman/Wonder Woman relationship is more complicated and, in a lot of ways, more interesting. Over the years there have been several stories that flirted with a romance between them. They even made their couplehood canonical during the New 52 era, and shared an ongoing series for a couple of years. But that pairing has never really sat right with me. Part of it, I guess, is that Lois and Clark are the permanent pairing in my brain. Nothing has ever been able to chip away at that, they were literally made for one another, and I reject any efforts to keep them apart.

But there’s also the fact that pairing off Superman and Wonder Woman seems, to a degree, too obvious. There have been plenty of superhero universes that do their own versions of these characters and make them a couple, and none of them have ever been particularly satisfying to me. Superman already has the perfect romantic partner, but what he doesn’t have is somebody with whom he can share the burden of being someone of immense power in a world that could crumble under his grip if he allowed it to do so. He doesn’t have someone else who understands what it means to control yourself and resist the urge to make things the way you believe they should be simply because you have the ability to do so. Even with the other members of the Superman family, like Kara, Conner, Jonathan, and so forth, he has to take on a role that is – if not fully parental – at least that of the fraternal authority. He’s either Dad or big brother to every other Kryptonian in his orbit. 

Lois is his wife, and can be his confidante in many things. Batman is his partner in the neverending battle, and their friendship should be secure. But Wonder Woman is a peer that he needs. So the scene in this issue where, after a millennium of battle, Wonder Woman begins to crack and almost acts on her attraction to Superman, is one of my favorites ever written. Is the attraction mutual? Almost certainly. She’s Wonder Woman, for Zeus’s sake. But it cannot be acted on, for two very good reasons. First: even after 1,000 years apart, Clark’s devotion to Lois remains absolute. But second, and far more interesting, because he loves Diana so completely as – in his own words – “my best friend.”

There isn’t enough media out there that recognizes that friendship – genuine friendship – is possible between people, whether it’s members of opposite sex or any other compatible sexual orientation. It’s why slash fiction kind of gets on my nerves – it feels like a rejection of the notion that two people can be close without wanting to get down and dirty. These two characters seem awfully close – there MUST be something else going on, right? Or, “Oh, your wife’s friends with a dude? Obviously he’s trying to steal her from you.” Are there people like that? Sure. Even Lois feels a tinge of jealousy when Diana is around. But she needn’t, and that’s the point.

Friendship is real, and it’s important, and true friendship as an adult is something far too many people in this world live without. True love does not have to be romantic in nature to be true, and when I see a story that recognizes that fact, it always makes me want to celebrate it.

I tend to imagine Diana is giving Lois that speech you just read.

So yeah. I dig this issue very much. Reading it, in fact, put me in mind of another excellent Wonder Woman/Lois story, Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #170, which I wish I had read back in Lois Lane week. “A Day in the Life” was ALSO co-written by Joe Kelly, partnered here with magnificent Wonder Woman storyteller Phil Jimenez. In this one, Lois has requested an unexpected assignment from Perry White: a profile piece on Wonder Woman. After meeting up at the home of Steve Trevor and Etta Candy (married to one another in this continuity), Lois tags along with Diana over the course of a typical day. She goes to France where she gives a speech to a packed crowd of university students, zooms up to the Justice League Watchtower to check on an experiment, and zips down to Central City where Diana makes an appearance on the DC Universe equivalent of The View. She makes a stop with President Luthor in Washington, whisks away to disadvantaged areas all over the world, and visits with Donna Troy before making an appearance at the United Nations. 

The gem of this issue is the final scene, which is just Lois and Diana in a bar, shooting pool, and kind of having it out. Although Diana has been nothing but gracious to her, something about her still rubs Lois the wrong way. This is a fantastic scene about each of the two women, as well as their respective relationship to Superman. The reporter in Lois is always looking at perfection and trying to find the flaws in it, which is one of the things that makes the flawless Diana so damned frustrating. But there’s also the fact, she admits, that her husband’s best friend is an Amazonian goddess, and not even Lois Lane is so secure that she isn’t at least a little rattled by that. Diana lays her cards on the table as well, talking about how much she respects Lois and how amazing a woman SHE must be for Superman to have chosen her (even, she points out, after their 1,000-year adventure in Asgard, which apparently Clark neglected to tell Lois about). 

Relationships are a weird thing, and as a writer, you recognize that each person that becomes part of a relationship does not add to the complexity, it multiplies it. The Lois/Clark relationship is a thing, the Clark/Diana relationship is a thing, the Lois/Diana relationship is a thing. But this issue is about the gestalt of them all, the Lois/Clark/Diana relationship. It’s the best – and perhaps the only – comic I’ve ever read that is really about the THREE of them, and it’s really good.

And hell, Superman isn’t even IN it. 

Fri., April 11

Comics: Justice League of America #20, Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #12, World’s Finest Comics #305

Based on the rules of Silver Age comics, I half-expected that the story would be Superman just flying in place to screw with Lana’s head.

Notes: In the Silver Age, if Lois wasn’t busy trying to get Superman to marry her, she was spending the remainder of her time flirting with his teammates in the Justice League. In Lois Lane #12, it was Aquaman’s turn. When a freak accident crushes Lois’s legs and lungs, Aquaman brings her to a surgeon who determines the only way to save her life is to turn her into a mermaid. 

Yeah, you can read that sentence as many times as you want, it’s still crazy.

Lois attempts to adjust to her new undersea life while preventing Superman from finding out what has happened to her, although presumably if she’d known about his previous fling with Lori Lemaris she would know that “mermaid” apparently wasn’t a deal-breaker for Superman. While beneath the ocean, she starts to have feelings for Aquaman, but then rejects him, knowing that it’s truly Superman she loves in her heart. After a second freak accident again leaves her on the brink of death, Superman rushes to the hospital library, memorizes every medical book in existence, swiftly passes a series of examinations to prove his medical knowledge, and performs surgery to give Lois her legs and lungs back.

The questions, both ethical and existential, are enormous.

So Superman – Silver Age Superman, at least – has the medical knowledge to transform a mermaid into a human being. And a HUMAN doctor possesses the knowledge to turn a human into a mermaid in the first place. I am banging my head against the wall trying to wrap my brain around what I just read and I cannot make it work. It may be the single most insane story I’ve read yet in this entire “Year of Superman.” 

Five stars. 

In this issue’s second story, Lana Lang swipes a formula Lois is supposed to give to Superman that supposedly can give anyone super-strength and invulnerability. Lana is using it to try to steal Superman from Lois, and when Lois finds out, she hatches a devious scheme that winds up making both her and Lana look like absolutely horrible human beings, and I can only thank Rao that this isn’t canon anymore.

Finally, we have “Lois Lane Loves Clark Kent,” except that of course she doesn’t. She catches Clark surviving a fall and determines that she’s been right in all her years of suspecting he’s really Superman. This time, though, she decides to trap him by “falling in love” with Clark and not telling him she’s learned her secret until after the Honeymoon. Superman decides to teach her a lesson. Dickishness ensues. 

Sat., April 12

Animated Shorts: Electric Earthquake (1942), Volcano (1942)

Notes: It’s been a minute. How about another Fleischer short or two today? 

When I was a kid, all we had were wood-burning earthquakes.

In Electric Earthquake, a mad scientist has set up a device beneath Manhattan harbor that threatens to destroy the entire city with an earthquake. In and of itself, this shouldn’t be a huge surprise – from the cartoons I’ve watched so far it seems like at least 75 percent of the city’s population were mad scientists. But this particular scientist is a Native American, angry that the island was taken from his people and demanding it back. The cartoon leaves you with mixed feelings, honestly. On the one hand, it’s somewhat problematic to paint the Native American as the villain in this story. On the other hand, he’s oddly progressive in that he doesn’t wallow in any kind of stereotypes, and he’s obviously intelligent and crafty. If it weren’t for the whole “destroying the whole island and murdering everybody” thing, it would be one of the more positive portrayals of the time.

And as a Superman fan, I find it interesting that – at this point – it seems that the filmmakers at least still viewed Superman’s “Metropolis” as another name for New York, as the scientist quite clearly calls the island “Manhattan.” I wonder just when, exactly, they decided to definitively establish Metropolis as its own separate city.  

“Dammit, for the last time, I am NOT doing an R. Kelly joke.”

Volcano, thankfully, breaks us free of the necessity of yet another mad scientist, and sets the man of steel loose against the danger of an erupting volcano. With word of an impending eruption making global headlines, Perry White sends Lois and Clark off to cover the event. Lois sneaks Clark’s press pass, though, leaving him frozen out of the danger zone so she can get the story herself – a decision that she may come to regret when the volcano begins to erupt before the scientists can blast the side of the mountain and divert the lava flow to an uninhabited area. Naturally, this looks like a job for Superman.

I’ve talked a lot about just how beautifully animated the Fleischer shorts are, and from that perspective, this may be one of the absolute best. The flowing lava, flickering flames, the waves crashing in the ocean…it’s all absolutely gorgeous to look at, and the movements of the characters all feel very realistic and authentic. When you think about how awfully stilted some animation was at the time, it’s astonishing that they pulled this off. Hell, there are cartoons being turned out today that don’t look this good. Plus, the lack of a human antagonist (especially yet another “mad scientist”) makes this cartoon a nice refresher from the others of the line.  

Comics: Green Lantern Vol. 8 #20 (Guest Starring Superboy)

Sun., April 13

TV Episode: Superman and Lois Season 2, Episode 6, “Tried and True.”

“Golly, Blake, how nice of you to remember we exist.”

Notes: You see, this is why I never finished watching Superman and Lois when it was on the air. I start watching it, and I get into a pretty good rhythm for a few days, then I get distracted by something shiny and the next thing I know I haven’t watched an episode in two months. I’m not blaming anybody else, it’s my fault. I’ll try to do better.

Oh wow, this episode starts with creepy-ass Bizarro with his creepy-ass eyes fighting a bunch of DOD agents. It’s odd that this version of Bizarro is as surprising as it is. I mean, the concept of an imperfect Superman, with all of his power but an inverted sense of his morality, SHOULD be pretty frightening. But instead, the character is almost always played for laughs, with joke stories or full of silly misunderstandings. There have been attempts to make him a bit more serious over the years, but this “reverse Superman” from a parallel dimension is the most chilling incarnation of the character I’ve ever seen. 

We’ve also got the usual dose of Superman and Lois drama – Jordan and Jonathan dealing with the powers the latter got from his dose of X-Kryptonite, Sam having to play referee between Lois and Lucy, Lana’s marriage falling apart, and the mother of one of the DOD agents killed by “Inverted Superman” demanding justice. It’s probably because it’s been a little while since I watched an episode, but it feels like there’s just an enormous number of plots and subplots going on in here, and I’m kind of hoping that things are whittled down a bit. I’m seeing the reason a lot of people have called Tyler Hoechlin the best on-screen Superman ever (I don’t know that I’d necessarily agree, but he’s definitely very good). The show itself, though, at least at this point in season two, feels like standard CW fare. 

Mon., April 14

Comics: Superman: Earth One Vol. 1

It doesn’t matter the universe, this pose is a requirement.

Notes: Back in 2010, DC began this “Earth One” experiment, a series of original graphic novels re-imagining the characters from the ground up. It was similar to Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, with the big exception being the fact that the stories were being told in graphic novel format rather than monthly comics. It was interesting, and some of the books were very good, but the line petered off somewhat. I don’t think DC ever really established “Earth One” as a cohesive universe the way Marvel did with the Ultimate line. There was little – if any – cross-pollination between the graphic novels, and in fact, some of them didn’t feel like they belonged to the same universe as the others at all. It’s been quite some time since there were any new Earth One books, even though DC does keep them still in print, but as far as launching a whole new UNIVERSE, the current Absolute line seems to be doing the job much more successfully.

All that said, let’s look at the first of the Earth One graphic novels anyway. Written by J. Michael Straczynski with art by Shane Davis, this is a pretty solid way to recontextualize Superman in the early 21st century. We begin with young Clark Kent, fresh from Smallville Junior College, moving to Metropolis to find himself. The trouble is, he isn’t quite certain who he wants to be. He tries several different jobs, all of which he excels at, none of which he finds fulfilling…everything except for his attempt to get a job at the Daily Planet, where Perry White basically tells him he’s not good enough yet, but there’s a high turnover rate, so they may give him a call. The whole question may be moot, though, when an alien invasion force attacks Earth, searching for the last child of Kryton, whom they have been chasing across the stars for twenty years. They are the race responsible for Krypton’s destruction…and they are here to finish the job.

I don’t remember noticing it at the time, but I’m a little shocked at how similar the story here is to the movie Man of Steel, which of course came out three years later. It’s not exactly the same, of course – in the movie the antagonists are Kryptonians hoping to rebuild their planet, not a new race hoping to complete their extermination – but the aspect of the alien invasion drawing out Kal-El, but instead being a facade to hide their true intentions for Earth – is spot-on. It’s different tonally, and it ends things pointing in a very different direction than the film, but I am sorely tempted to go back into the credits for Man of Steel to see if Straczynksi and Davis were among the comic book creators given special “acknowledgements” in the film. (“Acknowledgements” is Hollywood talk for “we used ideas from these guys but we’re probably not going to pay them. Kind of like ChatGPT.)  

One of the things I like about this book is the way Straczynski addresses the fact that Superman doesn’t wear a mask. People with no imagination constantly harp on how the glasses are a bad disguise, but they’re missing the point. There’s a nice conversation where Martha tells Clark that he can’t wear a mask, that someone with that much power would be terrifying to people if they thought he had something to hide, and thus he has to allow them to trust him. We’ve seen echoes of this in countless Superman stories over the years. Dozens of antagonists, from Lex Luthor to Sam Lane, have all feared or hated Superman because they can’t conceive of a man with his kind of power using it for good. It’s the reason he wears bright colors, it’s the reason he operates in the light instead of the darkness. Supposedly David Corenswet himself, our new Superman (July 11th can’t come soon enough) lobbied hard to include the trunks for the costume because the trunks look like a circus performer, and he wants his Superman to be someone that nobody is afraid of. That’s PERFECT. That’s EXACTLY who Superman should be, and this graphic novel explains that pretty succinctly in a single page. 

I know I’ve read the second volume in this series, but I can’t quite recall if I ever got around to the third one. If the story of the death of Krypton and the mysterious force behind it was resolved before the Earth One line kind of faded away. But hey, this is the Year of Superman, and I’ve still got 36 whole weeks left to go – that’s plenty of time to dig into the last two books in this line. I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ll see of this particular version of Superman. 

Tues., April 15

Comics: Superman: For Tomorrow (From Superman Vol. 2 #204-215), Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #137

Do you think Jim Lee knew he was designing DC fans’ favorite bookends when he drew these covers?

Notes: Coming pretty quickly on the heels of Batman: Hush, superstar artist Jim Lee (who would go on to be one of the heads of DC Comics) partnered up with writer Brian Azzarello for another year-long run on DC’s other flagship superhero. Lee and Loeb had turned out to be a magic team on Batman, but I wasn’t a huge fan of Azzarello’s take on Superman at the time. In truth, I don’t think I’ve re-read this story since it was first published in 2004, though, and it’s possible that the perspective of time – as well as reading it all at once instead of doling it out a month at a time – will make me more charitable towards it. Let’s find out together, shall we?

For Tomorrow begins with Superman visiting a Catholic priest, Daniel Leone, in a discussion that is clearly about absolution without ever actually using the word. We’re coming in after a year-long time-skip, and in that time something has happened called “The Vanishing.” Eventually, we determine that a year ago one million people across the globe simply disappeared, among them Lois Lane, and Superman is carrying great guilt over this event. However, it doesn’t seem like his guilt is the normal “wanting to save everybody” thing Superman carries with him, but rather something more specific.

I’m reminded immediately of why I struggled with this story the first time around. The entire first chapter is hints and veiled innuendo, not actually getting to what the story is about until the last couple of pages. That’s certainly something that works better in the collected format, but which can be infuriating if you’re waiting a month between installments. What’s more, Azzarello – who at the time was known for more noir comic books like 100 Bullets – brings that sensibility to Superman. We get glimpses of what’s going on, people talking AROUND the issue instead of actually discussing it, and while that works well for the style of story he’s accustomed to, it doesn’t really feel like a good fit for Superman, not to me at least.

As the story continues, Superman starts to regularly visit Father Leone, unburdening himself with the story of how he became embroiled in a conflict in the Middle East (obviously even more topical in 2004 than it is today) and his battles with a cybernetic monster called Equus, and of course, how these things tied into the Vanishing. 

As the year goes on, Superman finds himself in conflict with the Justice League over the events that lead to the Vanishing, particularly Batman, in an exchange that I find particularly distasteful. This is in a period where tensions between DC’s Trinity were building up heavily, which eventually lead to Infinite Crisis, and while it fits in that context, that doesn’t make the scene where Superman says to Batman “You’re my friend, but I don’t like you” any more pleasant to read. Both heroes feel out of character here, Superman in particular. He even insists that Batman call him “Kal-El” instead of “Clark,” something that doesn’t feel natural or appropriate at all. 

“Look, Cla–Kal…just tell us what name to put on your locker in the Watchtower.”

It goes on in the next chapter, when Wonder Woman attacks him at the Fortress of Solitude because he’s trying to do something about the Vanishing, which she calls “suicide.” Even Superman lampshades the fact that her using a deadly weapon against him (in this case, a magical sword) to prevent him from doing something that could kill him doesn’t make any damned sense. But like in the first chapter, Azzarello keeps dancing around exactly what IS going on, dodging the question of what Superman’s plan is and why Bruce and Diana oppose it. If you want to create conflict between heroes, fine, but that conflict works better when everybody has clear motivation – otherwise it’s just a frustrating fight that doesn’t seem to have any purpose other than to showcase Jim Lee’s (admittedly masterful) artwork. 

But perhaps there’s no other moment so off the wall as the scene where Superman has a conversation with Clark Kent (for reasons) about retrieving Lois from whatever the Vanishing is. Clark tells Superman that Lois was “uncomfortable” seeing him because “I’m not the man she loves.”

The hell? 

Granted, this isn’t really Clark, it’s a robot, but there’s a subtext here that’s painful and uncomfortable. There was an awful lot of shoe leather spent in the first 50 issues of this very title built around the fact that Clark Kent is EXACTLY the man that Lois Lane loves, and both characters are better for it than they ever were before. Furthermore, the notion that Superman and Clark are two different “people” is a similarly outdated Silver Age idea. Superman and Clark work best when they’re the same man wearing different clothes. Change my mind.  

Azzarello delves heavily into musing about the nature of good and evil and what Superman’s place is in a world where these concepts are more concrete than abstract. In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with that. There are some great Superman stories that have been written about that very topic. However, the style is far more ponderous than most Superman stories, with lines like “To be in the presence of evil is to be both utterly offended and absolutely afraid.” A line like this would feel right in place in a Vertigo comic book, but in Superman it gives the impression of someone working very hard to be serious. That’s not to say that a serious Superman story isn’t possible – in fact, I’ve got a week planned for later this year where I intend a deep-dive into Superman’s darkest hours – but at the same time, this isn’t math class. Azzarello is showing his work too much, and that distracts the reader from the story. 

Once we finally get to the revelation of what the Vanishing was and why Superman is carrying around the responsibility for it…I’ll concede this much: it is a very Superman solution to a Superman problem. And it explains why the League was so antagonistic towards him. It doesn’t explain why Bruce and Diana were trying to prevent him from reversing it, though. And the truth is so massive that it should have left a stain on the character for years, but the story was rarely referenced after this, perhaps because of the way the world was reshaped relatively soon when Infinite Crisis kind of hit the reset button. 

I wanted to like this story. I hoped that the years would have changed my perspective, but in the end I still just can’t feel it. But I’m glad I made the effort – there’s some fine artwork here, and I know that my perspective on some stories changes over time. It’s worth trying again, even if in the end, I land in the same place that I started. 

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. You can join in the Kryptonian Konversation every day in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!