As I write this, it’s Oct. 29 and I am still very much in the Halloween mood. I know, however, that this isn’t going to be posted until Nov. 5, and I respect the fact that you guys have probably shifted gears by now. So I’m going to do another random week for you, bouncing from one story to another at will and not beholden to anything in particular. You may still see a vampire or two, I make no promises. 

Well, except for the promise that you’ll see a picture of my kid in his Halloween costume when we get to Friday. I can absolutely promise you THAT. 

And as always, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman Archive!

Wed., Oct. 29

Comics: Superman #410, 412, 413, Jon Kent: This Internship is My Kryptonite #16

Notes: With the end of the year looming, I’m going to try to tick off some of the more random comics on my list that I haven’t gotten around to, books that don’t fit into any particular theme or week, but that I want to read for one reason or another. And I’m going to start in 1985 with a three-part Lex Luthor story that has become a minor classic.

Superman #410 starts normally enough, with Superman saving Honolulu from a plunging satellite. With Hawaii safe, Clark returns to the Daily Planet office and dutifully types out the story, turning it over to Perry White to put on the front page of the paper. As the evening edition hits the streets, though, Morgan Edge comes to Perry with horrifying news – the satellite Superman supposedly stopped is still in orbit, making the story he “told” Clark Kent seem fake. Superman zips to space to investigate and finds the satellite he clearly remembers catching floating in orbit where it belongs. Superman is faced with a horrible choice – tell Edge the truth and have people believe Superman is losing his grip on reality, or allow him to think Clark falsified the story. Given a choice between shattering peoples’ trust in Superman or in Clark Kent, he allows Edge to think Clark was at fault. Edge and Perry immediately fire Clark from both the Planet and WGBS news. As Clark tries to find the truth about what happened, we see Lex Luthor in a secluded island hideaway, boasting to his minions how he has found a way to broadcast false memories into Superman’s mind. 

The trilogy skips issue #411, the legendary tribute to Julius Schwartz issue, and resumes in Superman #412, which begins with a humiliated Clark Kent on the unemployment line. He’s called away just as he’s about to be served, as Superman is needed to prevent a nearby construction disaster. Meanwhile, as Perry, Lois, Jimmy, and Lana agonize over Clark’s dismissal, Luthor is gloating over how Superman “allowed” his old pal Clark to take the fall for his own false memories. Lana, in fact, tears into Superman the next time she sees him for the same reason. Clark turns to his old friend Steve Lombard – who now owns a sporting goods store – for work. They’re hanging out when Luthor arrives in Metropolis, planting a series of “Scrambler Rods” around the city and nearly impaling Steve in the process. As he catches up to Luthor, an enraged Superman drives his fist into Luthor’s chest, killing him. When he withdraws his hand, Luthor’s armor explodes in an atomic wave that destroys the entire city of Metropolis!

For, like, a panel, before Superman finds himself clinging to the top of a skyscraper, having hallucinated the entire encounter. Luthor, meanwhile, has finished planting his rods, ready for the final phase of his “Ultimate Revenge” plan. 

The final chapter picks up just seconds later, Superman still at the top of the building, having lost all faith in his own grip on reality. Even though he’s certain that Luthor is behind all of his current troubles, he no longer trusts his own senses, destroying his effectiveness as Superman. He stumbles back to Steve’s store, where Steve receives a phone call from Lois with a plan of her own. She has Steve invite Clark to a “charity bash” that evening, to which he reluctantly agrees. As he ponders his future, another hallucination hits – Steve’s store seems to vanish, then the entire city block, then the entire city, including his friends. Clark is missing, then, when the “charity bash” begins – actually a dinner in honor of Clark thrown by the people who still believe in him. While his friends give testimonies in Clark’s honor, Superman watches in horror as Luthor makes him believe he is obliterating the entire planet Earth. While Luthor has Superman captive, suffering from his hallucinations, Clark’s friends are growing worried, searching for him, wondering where he’s gone. When Superman’s hearing picks up on their fervent pleas, it breaks through Luthor’s spell. He goes after Luthor, but a strange vortex plucks Luthor from his clutches before he can bring him to justice. Superman joins Clark’s “other” friends at the dinner, claiming the whole thing was part of a plan of his to smoke Luthor out, thanks Clark for going along with it, and says he’s SURE Clark is looking forward to getting back to work.

I’ve said several times that the late 70s and early 80s were kind of a pallid era for the Superman comics. The villains and stories felt recycled and pointless, and although there were attempts at change (Lois “breaking up” with Superman, Clark dating Lana, etc.) none of it felt particularly important or consequential. But in the last year or so before the John Byrne reboot, they took some chances, and this story is one of the better ones. Although the conclusion still puts everything back in its neat little box, the journey to get there is an interesting one and I like the whole concept of everybody coming out in support not of Superman, but of Clark Kent. This was a time when Clark was usually still written as the disguise and Superman as the real personality, so having people in Clark’s corner for once was fresh and satisfying. Luthor’s getaway is a little irritating, but the knowledge that the vortex was sucking him up to participate in Crisis on Infinite Earths helps a bit. I almost wish they hadn’t given Clark his job back at the end – with the reboot on the horizon it wouldn’t have really made much of a difference, but may have made this story even more memorable. 

Thur. Oct. 30

Podcast: Totally Rad Christmas, Episode, “Superboy-Young Dracula (w/CM Chuck)”

Notes: It’s the day before Halloween, so I decided to take a break from my usual Star Trek podcast on the way to work and see if the Totally Rad Christmas podcast had dropped any Halloween episodes this year. To my delight, I found that Gerry D and CM Chuck had gotten together to review an episode of the 1988 Superboy series in which young Clark faced off against…well, Young Dracula. I haven’t really gone back and watched this series in a long time, and I’m not sure at the moment where to find it. I own the first season on DVD, but not the subsequent ones, and although I know at one point it was available on DC Universe, that before it was merged with HBO Max and before Warner Bros. lost their collective minds and started throwing their IP to the four winds in the hopes of finding somebody desperate enough to buy them. The whole situation is ridiculous.

But anyway, the podcast. I don’t really remember the episode they’re discussing, and I wish I had it readily available to watch, as I’ve still got so many other Superman/vampire encounters fresh in my mind. I was glad to see that Gerry did enough research to unearth Superman #180, which I talked about last week, and how it demonstrated that a vampire biting a solar-powered Kryptonian wasn’t the best idea for the vampire. But that was a side conversation, not about the show itself, and the scattershot nature of this particular podcast does a nice job of emulating a conversation hanging around the comic shop, but isn’t exactly comprehensive in its coverage of the topic at hand. I’ll have to find this episode on my own somehow. 

Comics: Superman: Silver Banshee #1-2, Cheetah and Cheshire Rob the Justice League #3 (Cameo), Saga of the Swamp Thing #24 (Guest Appearance), Justice League of America #36 (Team Member), Flash Vol. 6 #26 (Guest Appearance), Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2 #12 (Team Member)

Notes: In the comments to last week’s blog, Ben Herman asked if I’d ever read Dan Brereton’s two-issue Superman: Silver Banshee miniseries from 1998. And I know I have, I bought it when it came out and it’s still in my collection, but I probably haven’t read it SINCE the original publication. And as it, too, is a Halloween story (which I had forgotten, or I would have included it last week), this seems like an excellent opportunity to revisit it. 

On Halloween Eve, Lois Lane gets a tip that will help her uncover a notorious gang of art thieves called the “Trickertreaters.” At the same time, in the Netherworld, Silver Banshee learns that there is one remaining descendant of the MacDougal clan, the clan responsible for her curse, and that she will never be free until the last MacDougal has perished. On Halloween, though, there are other options – she can go to Earth again, and if she uses the power of “good works,” the final MacDougal can lift the curse freely, without need for further death. Lacy MacElwain, her target, now lives in Metropolis (because of course she does) and the Banshee sets out to find her, but instead is snared by a summoning spell cast by the devil queen Hecate. Hecate – as it happens – is the one who lured Lois Lane with the promise of catching the Trickertreaters, whose newest member happens to be…oh come on, you can guess…yep. Lacy MacElwain herself.

Funny how things work out sometimes.

Anyway, Hecate’s stooge Thorpe knocks out Lois and ties her up as the art thieves arrive with their newest acquisition, an amulet that has no apparent monetary value, but that Hecate needs so she can do evil witch stuff. She tries to dismiss them without payment, but they take offense to that and wind up battling Thorpe, who turns out to be some kind of were-demon-thing. That’s an industry term, peeps. Lacy manages to get her hands on the amulet, which she brings to the mystic web where the Silver Banshee is held captive. The two of them are transported away from Hecate’s lair, and the Banshee tells Lacy that she will be freed of her curse if Lacy destroys the amulet, but it turns out to be fairly powerful. Thorpe tracks them down, but Superman (who got a little concerned when he found a dead body in the church where his wife was supposed to be meeting an informant) has caught up to them and saves her. As he confronts Hecate, Lacy flees for home, but the Banshee follows her, demanding she destroy the amulet. Unfortunately for Lacy, Hecate’s demons – including the transformed Trickertreaters – have trailed her as well. 

In issue two, the Banshee tries to defend Lacy from the attack, but is forced to merge the two of them into a single body to prevent her death. In their shared form, the Banshee promises Lacy that destroying the amulet will set them both free. Unfortunately, Thorpe has his hands on it now. Superman, meanwhile is trapped by Hecate’s magic, and she plans to use Superman and Lois in her scheme. She gets the amulet back from a reluctant Thorpe, and the Banshee/Lacy hybrid attacks. The Banshee’s wail is surprisingly effective against Hecate, but she can’t free Superman or Thorpe from the Puppeteer demon that is holding them. In the battle, Lacy is killed, and the Banshee is freed from her curse, but unwilling to allow Lacy to sacrifice herself, she follows her into the afterlife, where the two of them are consumed by light. When the light fades, Superman, Lois, and a back-from-the-dead Lacy are all that remain. Lacy goes home, only to find that in saving her, the Banshee is now bound to her…no longer merged, but more of a regular haunt. 

I’m really glad that Ben suggested I read this one again. The Silver Banshee has always been an interesting sort of anti-villain – she does bad things (murdering people, y’know) but she doesn’t do them out of actual malice or evil, merely out of a desire to free herself from a torturous curse. Once that curse is lifted, you can take the character in different directions, and this two-issue story is a nice sort of capstone to the status quo John Byrne first established for the character. She’s been used periodically ever since, sometimes as a villain, sometimes almost as a hero. I don’t recall offhand how long Lacy stuck around, but I don’t think she’s currently a factor when the Banshee shows up. Still, if there can be THREE ongoing series starring Batman bad girls who keep straddling the line between villain and kinda-sorta-hero, I think it’s well past time the Silver Banshee got at least another miniseries or something to give her the spotlight. 

Fri., Oct. 31

Comics: Supergirl Vol. 5 Annual #2, Superman/Batman #65, Impulse #44 (Superboy Cameo)

Notes: I don’t have a ton of time to read, though, because there’s trick-or-treatin’ to do, so I pulled the 2010 Supergirl annual, in which Kara is accidentally bounced 1000 years into the future and encounters the Legion – but NOT the Legion SHE knew. This is her cousin Kal-El’s Legion (recently restored in Action Comics) when they were teenagers. Brainiac 5 wants to find a way send her back immediately, worried about her disrupting the timestream the way he always worries when Superboy shows up, but it’s not that simple. She’s there for a month, joining the team and lending a hand, and learning – tragically – the circumstances of her own death. When a horned villain calling herself “Satan Girl” attacks, Kara and Brainy bounce four days into the future to see that Satan Girl has destroyed Metropolis, possessed the Legion, and taken over the world. It gets worse when she realizes that Brainy himself summoned her, but is arrogantly dismissing his own part in it. 

An epic battle ensues between Satan Girl and the possessed Legion, with Kara, Brainy, and an army of animatronic Jimmy Olsens on the other (it makes sense in context). In the end, Brainy manages to send them back and prevent himself from summoning Satan Girl in the first place, then brings Kara home. In the process, they erase her memory of the future, including that of her own death, but Brainiac swears to do something to save her.

I like this story for a lot of reasons. Don’t ask me to explain why, but the various versions of the Legion that have flirted with a Supergirl/Brainiac 5 romance over the years have always appealed to me, and this one plays with that element as well. I hate it when people get into “shipping wars” over their preferred pairings, but I have to admit that I have a few of my own, and this is one of them. It works for the characters as they were at the time, and I hope that when the dust settles around the whole All In/DC KO thingamabob and we have a new, proper Legion again, this is an element that will be touched upon.

That said, I’m a little bummed because the reason I chose this particular issue is that the DC Universe app describes it as a Halloween story and…it ain’t. I mean, it was released in October and there’s the whole “Satan Girl” thing, but there’s no mention of Halloween in the story whatsoever. I assume that most of the listings on the DC app are copies of the original solicitations for the comics, especially for something as relatively recent as this, but that gets me a little grumpy that I skipped over a chance for some prime Halloween content.

There are greener – relatively speaking – pastures with the Halloween story from Superman/Batman #65. The story begins with Superman trying to save a falling plane as he’s done thousands of times. And this one, of course, has Lois Lane on it, as it has thousands of times. But it also has Perry White, his parents, Jimmy Olsen – and Superman watches in confusion as the plane goes down, killing everyone he loves. The scene shifts and we see that Superman is actually unconscious, as are Batman, the Joker, and Lex Luthor, all of whom had been engaged in a battle, then all taken down by an outside force. We watch the Joker live through his worst nightmare – a place where people actually treat his terrors as a joke. Lex Luthor’s worst nightmare, it turns out, is living out the bland, boring life of a subservient, specifically Jimmy Olsen. And Batman has a nightmare of a family – married to Selina Kyle, a son named Richard, his parents alive — and then watching them all gunned down by Alfred so he can bring things back to “the way it has to be.” The dream is nightmarish enough for Batman to wake up and realize all of them have been captured by – and are about to be buried alive by – the Scarecrow. Superman comes to next, stopping Batman from going too far in his revenge, and in the end we see a glimpse of the Scarecrow’s own worst nightmare – a land where he’s just an ordinary man of straw, one without a brain. It’s a cute story, and definitely one that feels more seasonally appropriate than the Supergirl one. But I think that’ll do it for Halloween in this blog. Until next time, anyway. 

Halloween Bonus: I know you won’t believe me when I say this, but I had no influence on my son’s choice of Halloween costume this year. Well, not directly anyway. Obviously, his sphere of reference is influenced by proximity to me, and I wasn’t exactly subtle when I told him how happy it made me to bring him to watch the new James Gunn movie back in July. But at no point did I deliberately try to influence or manipulate him when the time came for him to select a Halloween costume.

“Eddie,” I asked him during one of our 27 trips to the various Spirit Halloween locations in our area, “What do you want to be for Halloween this year?”

“SUPERMAN!” he announced.

“Nobody is ever gonna believe I had nothing to do with this,” I said. 

We wound up getting his costume at Walmart rather than Spirit, since they somehow got an exclusive on costumes from the movie. But we got the black hair color spray from Spirit, and I finally got a chance to wear the Superman pajamas he and his mom got me for Father’s Day back in June.

And I may be a little biased, but amongst all the arguing about Reeves and Cavill and Corenswet…well, with all due respect to those gentlemen, I may have a new favorite Superman.

Sat., Nov. 1

Comics: Superman: Red and Blue 2025 Special

Notes: This summer, during my family’s annual trip to Pittsburgh, I used the time to read over a lot of collected editions of various Superman books that didn’t quite fit in anywhere else. One of those was the collection of the delightful anthology series Superman: Red and Blue. I was quite happy when DC announced that they were bringing the concept back this year for a one-shot special with four new stories. 

First up is “Priceless,” written by Paul Dini with art by Mirka Andolfo. Dini’s story features Superman on a mission to collect a rare mineral he needs to bail Supergirl out of an alien prison. It looks as though Dini is maintaining the characterization of Supergirl from the movie – a sort of hard-partying girl who gets into a little trouble with her dog. The story is funny and the art is wonderful, but there’s a nice little turn at the end that shows us that things weren’t exactly what Superman had assumed – and, in fact, family is everything.

“All the Time in the World” by Michael Walsh is a pretty simple story, a day in the life of Superman set in the era when Jonathan was still a toddler and Clark is desperately trying to find the time to be a husband and a father in a world where the demands for Superman’s gifts are neverending. This one…hits. I mean, there’s nothing world-changing or anything going on here, but it’s a theme that is particularly significant to me, right now, at this moment, where I’m looking at a schedule and trying to figure out how to fit in my son’s choir rehearsal and his basketball practice and his speech therapy and my own job and my wife’s job and if it is even possible, in the entire totality of the universe, to carve out even a single afternoon where I’m not going to be pulled into yet another thing that I don’t even know is going to happen now but it going to turn out to be of universe-altering consequence approximately 30 minutes before it has to happen. I may not have any literal fires to put out or people to catch as they fall off a building, but this is real. I know nothing about Michael Walsh, but I have to assume he’s a parent, because how the hell else could he understand this so well?

Next is Dan Abnett and Caitlin Yarsky’s “Out of the Ordinary.” When Superman saves a small town in Canada from a giant robot – you know, like you do – he is approached by a reporter for the tiny local paper who sheepishly asks for an interview. And to the surprise of absolutely nobody who understands Superman, he graciously agrees to one. The bulk of the story is just a quiet conversation between Superman and this young woman in a small-town diner, about what it’s like to be him and what it means to be “ordinary.” It’s a lovely story that really does nail the character, and in fact it functions very nicely as a (Clark Kent-ian polite) kind of rebuttal to Quentin Tarantino and anybody else who thinks that Superman is the “real” identity and Clark is a mask.

Last is “Red-Letter Days” by Rainbow Rowell and Cian Tomey. On Lois and Clark’s anniversary, Superman is summoned away by one of those regular world-threatening crisis type events. By the time he gets back, Lois has gotten a tip on an enormous story that deserves front-page coverage, but it’s going to take her and her husband staying up all night to get the sources and get the news straight. This isn’t a Superman story, it’s a Lois and Clark story, and I love it for that. We see the two of them doing what they do best (when Clark isn’t wearing a cape, that is) and in a way that isn’t interrupted by supervillains, alien invaders, time travel, or any of the other thousands of things that screw up a superhero’s life on a daily basis. It’s a story of a loving couple that struggles a little sometimes to find time for each other, and it’s delightful.

Superman’s the greatest hero there is, I think I’ve fairly well established my position on that by now. But for all the stories where he saves the world or the universe or a cat in a tree, there aren’t enough stories like the ones in this anthology. Four stories that lean on the man part of his name rather than the Super. There aren’t enough of these, and I hope that the Red and Blue anthology comes back again and again.

Sun., Nov. 2

Comic: Brave and the Bold Vol. 3 #16

Notes: Sundays aren’t days of rest for teachers. We’ve gotta get ready for the week, and I’ve got a ton of stuff on my plate today, so I decided to look for a one-off story I could read without sacrificing a huge chunk of time. I decided on this issue from the 2007 reboot of DC’s Brave and the Bold, which in this incarnation was a team-up title without a specific anchor character – there was never any telling which two characters would wind up with each other on any given issue. And as you can tell from the look on Superman’s face, this team-up with Catwoman surprised him as much as anybody.

Written by our old pal Mark Waid with art by Scott Kolins, the story begins with Superman responding to a bat-signal, telling Gordon that Batman asked him to cover for him while he was out of town. Gordon asks him to look into a rumored underworld auction, and Superman’s hearing picks up a burglary nearby. He finds Catwoman stealing an enormous jeweled egg, and Catwoman – a little smitten with the Man of Steel – tells him she needed it to get into the same crime auction. The evening’s prize is allegedly a map that leads to a certain hidden cave outside of Gotham City. Superman reluctantly agrees to work with Catwoman to stop the map from falling into the wrong hands. Selina dresses the two of them up to go undercover at the auction and a comedy of errors follows, most of them based on Superman’s attempts to sidestep actually giving any sort of aid to the criminal element around them. In the end they manage to prevent the contents of the cave from being used for nefarious purposes, and their encounter ends in a bit of a stalemate…but one that leaves Catwoman smiling.

I really enjoyed this issue. Batman never makes an appearance, but the story is essentially about him – specifically about how Superman and Catwoman, respectively, each feel about the Dark Knight and how that common ground allows them to put aside their differences and work together. And while you don’t get the impression that Catwoman’s flirting with Superman is entirely serious, it doesn’t seem as though she’s entirely joking either. After spending her life playing with the bad boys, a “date” with the ultimate good guy seems to be a refreshing change of pace for her, and even when Superman gets a little bit of an upper hand on her in the last few panels, she doesn’t seem to mind all that much. It’s just a simple, charming little story, the likes of which we could certainly use more of.

Mon., Nov. 3

Animated Feature: The Batman/Superman Movie: World’s Finest (1997)

Notes: When I woke up this morning at around 2:30 with a rumbling in my stomach I had every intention of going to work. However, as the rumbling continued to have pointed conversations with me for the next several hours, I eventually resigned myself to a day on the couch. And since getting off the couch to find something to read didn’t seem like a fun time, I decided that today’s Superman fare would consist of something I could access via my remote control. Bizarrely, The Batman/Superman Movie: World’s Finest doesn’t appear to currently be streaming anywhere, not even on HBO Max. Although I could theoretically have watched the individual episodes of Superman: The Animated Series that were cut together to make the film, I once again am grateful for my adherence to physical media and how I’ve used that to meticulously populate my own Plex server. 

Younger people reading this blog (and of course, we all know how popular it is with the kids) may not realize just what a big deal this movie was. Today, when everybody and their brother is trying to create a cinematic shared universe, it seems like a film of this nature would be a no-brainer. But in 1997, despite the fact that these characters were all owned by the same companies and their shows were worked on by the same people, there was still relatively little crossover. Batman: The Animated Series was a smash hit, and when the same creators put their work into a Superman series this is exactly what everybody was hoping for, but it was far from a foregone conclusion that we would GET it, at least not until it got gotten. 

The movie starts off with the Joker and Harley Quinn stealing a jade dragon from a shop in Gotham City. Batman’s examination of the crime scene sets off some alarm bells, and he makes plans to head to Metropolis. In Superman’s town, the Joker and Harley rather forcibly coerce Lex Luthor into a partnership, presenting him with the “jade” dragon, which is actually made of Kryptonite. Lois and Clark are on-hand when Bruce Wayne flies into Metropolis for a business summit with Luthor, and feeling like she’d made a fool of herself in front of Superman earlier, Lois finds herself smitten with Bruce, who invites her out to dinner to discuss his plans in Metropolis. Although Bruce and Luthor have a business deal in place, Bruce pulls back from parts of it that are intended to create militarized robots, something that burns Lex. 

That evening, as Batman roughs up some hoodlums in a bar to find information about the Joker’s whereabouts, Superman bursts in to stop his “vigilantism.” He’s shocked when he uses his X-Ray vision to peer through Batman’s cowl to see Bruce Wayne’s face, and Batman warns him about the Joker’s Kryptonite by taking out a shard to hold him back, allowing him to escape. When Clark returns to his apartment, he gets two surprises: a phone call from Lois informing him that she’ll be having breakfast with Bruce tomorrow, and a bat-shaped tracking device on his cape that alerts him to the fact that he was followed, and that Batman is watching him from a nearby building, his own identity revealed. 

The next day, as Bruce arrives at the Planet to pick up Lois, he and Clark briefly compare notes on the Joker’s schemes. Clark is also a bit concerned about Bruce’s burgeoning relationship with Lois, to which Bruce replies, “It seems to me you had your chance.” At their date that night, though, the Joker swoops in and kidnaps her, despite Bruce’s efforts to keep her safe. The heroes go to her rescue, but despite knowing they’re walking into a trap, the Joker manages to get the upper hand and nearly kills them all before escaping. 

Lois’s relationship with Bruce gets more and more serious, with her even requesting a transfer to the Planet’s Gotham office, but when she discovers he’s Batman (during an uncharacteristic moment in which his mask is yanked away) the brakes are put on. The heroes naturally team up to stop the Joker and Luthor, complete with his army of murderbots, and ultimately have to save both Luthor AND Metropolis from the Joker’s lunacy. Lois breaks up with Bruce, with the supreme irony of her not wanting to be in a relationship with a man with a dual identity, and Bruce and Clark part perhaps not as friends, but at least with respect and cooperation. 

At the time this movie was released, the comics were still in a kind of nebulous state for Superman and Batman. The antagonistic relationship they had in the early years of the post-Crisis reboot had largely vanished and they were teammates in the Justice League again, but they had not yet re-forged the friendship that they’d enjoyed in years past. The movie does a quick job of fast-forwarding through that relationship to get them to a more stable place: when Batman and Superman first encounter one another in costume, they’re antagonists. The next day, each of them having learned the others’ identity, they immediately begin working together, if grudgingly.  The cast is top-notch, of course. Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy ARE Superman and Batman for so many of us, but perhaps even better than the two of them together are the interactions between Mark Hamill’s Joker and Clancy Brown’s Luthor, perhaps the two greatest villain voices in animation history. I loved this movie when it first came out, and I still have fun watching it today.

Now if you’ll excuse me, my stomach is doing that thing again. 

Tues., Nov. 4

Comic: Batman Adventures #25, Batman: Wayne Family Adventures #29 (Superboy Guest Appearance), Jon Kent: This Internship is My Kryptonite #17

Notes: I went back to work today, although I’m still not really at 100 percent. But I’m a teacher, and if you ask any teacher they’ll tell you that it’s sometimes easier to go to work feeling like garbage than it is to prepare for a class without you in it. At any rate, after the classing is done, I still need to work in something Superman, and I want it to be something quick. Continuing the theme from yesterday, with the World’s Finest movie, I decided to take a peek at Batman Adventures #25 from 1994, the first team-up between the animated Batman and Superman. Well, kinda, anyway. This comic came out before there was a Superman: The Animated Series, and the Superman that appears is based more on Superman as he appeared in comics at the time, long hair and all. Still, writer Kelley Puckett did an admirable job, and the artwork by the brilliant (and gone far too soon) Mike Parobeck make this issue a delight to revisit. 

The story opens with Bruce Wayne at a party, unaware that there are crooks planting a bomb in the kitchen. Among the people he schmoozes with at the time is a Lex Luthor with long, red locks and a beard (befitting his “Lex Luthor Jr.” persona from the books) and a ponytailed Clark Kent. LexCorp and WayneTech are competing for a military bid, but the discussion is lost when Clark’s superhearing picks up the ticking bomb under a table. Bruce also notices something amiss and the two of them dismiss themselves, Superman appearing moments later to dispose of the bomb. While he takes it into space, Batman apprehends the crooks who planted the bomb in the first place. Superman comes down to help finish mopping up, and the two icons meet for the first time. 

Maxie Zeus sends Commissioner Gordon a video taking credit for the attack and promising to blow up Gotham City if he doesn’t get the “proper tribute” by midnight, and although Zeus is clearly insane (demanding such ransom as “five hundred head of oxen” and “two hundred vestal virgins”), Gordon is clear that he doesn’t bluff. As the heroes search for Zeus’s explosives, Luthor offers his military hunter robots to aid in the search. Superman and Batman find Zeus’s lair, along with the controls of the bomb, just as Luthor’s robots crash in and attack everyone, including Superman, which he tries to explain away as saying the robots “mistook him for an enemy” – but shoot, isn’t it impressive that their weapons can slow him down? They defeat Zeus, but Batman soon deduces that the whole thing was staged by Luthor to secure the military bid. He confronts Luthor with the evidence, telling him to withdraw his bid or he’ll present the evidence to the military. In the end, he and Superman part on terms a bit friendlier than they did in the later movie.

It’s fun to go back and look at this sort of embryonic animated Superman here. Setting the story in Gotham gets them out of having to deal with elements like Lois, Perry, or the Daily Planet, with only Superman himself and Lex standing out as being from that world. And truly, visuals aside, they’re not that far off. Give each of them a haircut (and a shave, in Lex’s case) and tweak the dialogue a little so that this no longer comes across as their first meeting; you could quite easily make this canonical to the animated series. The relationship is slightly warmer, without the initial antagonism we saw in the movie, and is a little more in line with who they would become once they joined the Justice League together. The story works nicely as a little bit of a time capsule, looking at the world of Batman: The Animated Series before that world had a Superman in it and kind of guessing how he would fit in. The later Adventures in the DC Universe series would do the same thing with lots of characters, which made the whole thing kind of out of sorts when those same characters eventually appeared in different forms in the cartoon…but it was no less fun. 

It was a nice week off from themes, folks, but we’re running out of 2025 and I’ve still got several themes left that I intend to tackle. So next week, I’m going to mirror something I did in October with “Superman gone bad.” Starting tomorrow, I’m going to spend seven days exploring the Supermen of Other Worlds – and I’m not just talkin’ Elseworlds, my friends. See you in seven!

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!