Here’s the thing about Halloween, guys – it seems to happen every year. Funny at that. But despite the proliferation of Halloween comics out there, it’s harder to single out Superman-specific comics that focus on the holiday, especially since I covered a lot of the big ones last year during the original Year of Superman. This week, I decided to take a slight detour, then, to a Super Friends comic, in which the unlikely partnership of Jimmy Olsen and the Wonder Twins save Halloween!
Super Friends #28 Title: Masquerade of Madness Writer: E. Nelson Bridwell Art and Cover: Ramona Fradon Inks: Vince Colletta
It’s a wild Halloween party in Gotham City, and Zan and Jayna – the Wonder Twins – are enjoying watching their friends have fun with the premise. As they walk around having used their powers to turn into an abominable snowman and a black cat (respectively), Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are having a little fun with their dates by dressing as Batman and Robin, and Jimmy Olsen has used the ol’ magic potion he’s used in the past to turn himself into a real werewolf for the party, with the promise from Jayna that she’ll kiss him after the party and end the curse. But when the clock strikes midnight and everyone is supposed to unmask, they find themselves trapped in the forms of their costumes, courtesy of the evil sorcerer Felix Faust.
Apparently, Bruce Wayne and several of the other guests each own ancient gems containing immense power that Faust wants to unlock, and he refuses to release the partygoers from their monstrous forms unless they surrender the gems to him. As most of the guests try fruitlessly to attack Faust, Jimmy lures the Wonder Twins away. Using the kind of logic that really only makes sense in cartoons like Super Friends, Jimmy explains that Faust’s magic only affected people wearing costumes – and since he’s a REAL werewolf, the spell didn’t work on him. The twins realize that the same spell prevents them from returning to their human forms, but they can affect SOME transformations, so Jayna turns into a cat-bat to fly off and find Wonder Woman and Aquaman while Jimmy summons Superman with his signal watch.
As the assembled heroes go on the attack, Faust forces the enchanted partygoers (dressed as Solomon Grundy, Bizarro, Swamp Thing, Man-Bat, and the Demon) to fight them back, raising some serious questions as to what kind of costumes you can find at Spirit Halloween in Gotham City. Like, is there a Joker costume? Would that be like a mass-produced outfit that lets you dress up like Charles Manson or something? The implication here is the creepiest thing about the issue. But anyway, what follows is several pages of the Justice League fighting Faust’s captives, in some amusing face-offs. Superman, naturally, fights “Bizarro,” Aquaman tackles “Swamp Thing” (whom he’s heard is pretty powerful), Batman fights “Grundy,” Robin takes “Man-Bat” and Wonder Woman lassos the “Demon.” You get the usual stuff about the heroes not wanting to actually hurt them, since they’re innocent people who have been transformed by magic, but the captives have all the powers of their costumes and none of the usual compunctions. In the end, though, it’s Jimmy and the Twins who finally get the drop on Faust, with Zan turning into an ice skeleton and freaking the villain out with a Grim Reaper routine long enough for Jimmy to get in and deliver a knockout punch.
I’m always amused by these old Super Friends comics. At the time these were being published, continuity was a fast and loose game, and even though DC Comics had pioneered the concept of a multiverse, it wasn’t something they used as vigorously as they do today. The result were Super Friends stories that tried to pretend they were part of the mainstream DC Universe with various references and callbacks that were probably wasted on the younger readers that the comic was aimed at. For instance, when the League is trying to come up with a plan to fight Faust, Superman suggests calling up the only Justice League member with magical powers, Zatanna, but unfortunately she’s busy on her own case. Jimmy’s werewolfism, as well as the cure (a kiss from a pretty girl) is a callback to one of the classic Silver Age Jimmy Olsen comics (in fact, I’m pretty sure I wrote about that one LAST Halloween), and there’s even a casual reference to the fact that Jimmy learned Batman’s secret identity on a previous adventure, which is a story I’ve never read or even heard of before, so I GOTTA find that one.
At the same time, the stories are light and simplistic, even compared to the DC Comics of the 1970s. They’re not making this comic for older kids, they’re trying to hook the younger ones. Those links are a neat way to do it, although a few footnotes indicating which issues they’re referencing would be nice.
As was often the case with Super Friends, the ending comes pretty abruptly and without much fanfare. Zan scares Faust, Jimmy punches his lights out, and as soon as he hits the floor the spell is broken and the people trapped in their costumes are set free. There’s also a quick beat at the end where the (unnamed) girls who came to the party with Bruce and Dick ask where they heck they’ve gotten to and the “real” Batman casually tells them that their dates have been placed out of harm’s way. It’s astonishing how often people in old comic books fell for that excuse.
It’s a fun little story, though, and I enjoyed reading it. With one Wednesday left until Halloween, though, I want to find something spookier. Hit me in the comments, guys – what’s the scariest Superman story you know?
Blake M. Petitis a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure seriesOther People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon.Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in theYear of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!
This week’s “Superman Stuff” is going to be a little different – a review, yes, but also a bit of a personal reflection. This week we’re going to look at one of DC’s young reader graphic novels, and how awesome it was not just as a book, but as an experience for my family.
Supergirl’s Zoo-Per Heroes: Krypto’s Big Break Writer & Artist: Rob Justus
This young reader’s graphic novel starts with Supergirl and Krypto playing on the Justice League Satellite. Krypto is, of course, a good boy, but even good boys get into trouble sometimes, and his antics cause the Satellite to accidentally dump the Justice League’s laundry into space. Cosmic comic book physics happen on the way down and, when the costumes fall on some zoo animals, the animals find themselves possessing the powers of the hero whose costume they’re wearing. With the rest of the JLA trapped on the Satellite in their underwear, it’s up to Supergirl and Krypto to get their uniforms back.
It’s a silly story, with logic that wouldn’t even hold up in the goofiest of silver age comic books, and frankly, that’s kind of why I love it. The physics don’t make the slightest bit of sense, and the villain of the piece is a ridiculous caricature. There’s also a running gag about the fact that Krypto and the other animals can speak to each other, but the human characters don’t understand them, which makes Supergirl’s attempts to speak “animal” to them hilarious as they get exasperated with her gibberish barking. Justus’s characters have a simplicity that is absolutely charming, and there’s a sense of humor that appeals to the kids while winking at the parents who are reading along.
It’s that last part that makes this book particularly special to me. I didn’t read this book just for myself; I read it with my son, Eddie. Eddie is an ADHD kid, and while he’s capable of reading anything you put in front of him, he often doesn’t have the patience to do so for more than a page or two. My wife and I often try to get him to read with us, but it can be a struggle, as he’d rather be playing or watching football. But despite that, every other week I take him to the library and we check out a few books. Sometimes he reads them, sometimes he doesn’t. Picking up this one, though, turned out to be a great choice.
I sat with him and opened up the book last night (as I write this), and made a deal with him. “How about you read what Krypto is saying, and I’ll read the other characters, okay?”
And he did. He did it with zeal. He did it with APLOMB. Eddie jumped right into his role, barking and woofing when that’s what Kryto was doing, reading the lines in English when that was the case. He did it with vigour, acting out like everyone’s favorite hyperactive Kryptonian puppy, no doubt because he feels in our beloved Superdog something of a kindred spirit. As we sat together reading the book, he announced his parts gleefully to his mother, who was watching the whole thing with amusement.
I’ve been reading to my son since he was an infant. Getting him to read back to me has sometimes become a chore. But he LOVED this book.
It ended on a cliffhanger, and I’m eagerly awaiting book two. I also intend to try to track down some of Justus’s other work, including the two volumes of Superman’s Good Guy Gang, and share those with Eddie as well. It wasn’t just reading, it was sharing, and that made it all worthwhile.
Blake M. Petitis a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure seriesOther People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon.Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in theYear of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!
Comic book announcements seem to come in fits and starts. Fans may go weeks without hearing any news that’s of particular interest, then all of a sudden somebody makes a big announcement and it seems like everybody else has to make a bunch of their own just to keep up. This week came several announcements from different publishers about upcoming projects, many of which have me very excited, and one of which…well, you’ll see. But before we even start I’m going to say that this is not a COMPREHENSIVE list of projects. These are just some of the things that were announced that interest ME, and that make me feel ways about things. Sorry, “release date for Midnight Marvel” – ya didn’t quite make the cut.
Marvel DID have one thing announced on Monday that I find pretty interesting, a one-shot special coming out this fall in which the Marvel superheroes will – for the first time – team up with some of my favorite corporate siblings of theirs. This fall, we’re going to get the crossover we never knew we needed: The Muppets Take the Marvel Universe.
The Muppets have appeared in comics before, even published by Marvel a few times. There have even been a few Marvel variant covers featuring the Muppets. But this will mark the first time that the Muppets and the Marvel heroes will actually meet in a story, and I’ve got to tell you, I couldn’t be more excited for it. In the main story, by Chip Zdarsky and Pete Woods, the X-Men’s old foe Mojo apparently kidnaps Rowlf the Dog, bringing Kermit the Frog and company in cahoots with some of Marvel’s all-stars in order to rescue him.
This is actually such a perfect set-up. Mojo is an interdimensional parody of a corporate media executive, obsessed with ratings and viewership. That’s what makes Rowlf the perfect central character for this story. As opposed to Fozzie’s cringe comedy or Gonzo’s stunts that are guaranteed to go wrong, Rowlf is simply a gifted piano player, one of the few Muppets that is unabashedly GOOD at what he’s trying to do, and thus he’s exactly the kind of character that would be on Mojo’s radar. Crossovers like this will be inherently silly, and that’s welcome, but they’re at their best when they play to the characters’ strengths this way.
There will be back-up features in the book as well, similar to the recent Marvel/DC crossover comics. Hank Pym and Bruce Banner will visit Bunsen and Beaker at Muppet Labs, and Dr. Strange will star in a bizarre team-up with the Swedish Chef. As Disney proper struggles with what to do with the Muppets (despite the fact that the Muppet Show special earlier this year was both a critical and streaming smash hit, and any idiot would have greenlit a revival series by now) at least SOMEBODY out there has the wherewithal to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Muppet Show the way it deserves.
A few hours after Marvel’s big announcement, IDW came in with a project of their own that seems to have been aligned perfectly to intersect the venn diagrams of my personal obsessions. IDW has held the Godzilla comic book license for many years now, and for the last few years they’ve published miniseries and one-shots under the banner Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theater. The first miniseries was a crossover mash-up in which Godzilla encountered public domain characters such as Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, the time traveller from H.G. Welles’ The Time Machine, and – most perplexingly – Jay Gatsby. Follow up one-shots have dropped him in Verona during the events of Romeo and Juliet and ancient Greece to further complicate Odysseus’s journey home during The Odyssey. But this September we’re getting a book that excites me like no other: The Kaiju of Oz.
I am, as people who’ve read this blog for a long time know, an unabashed fan of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, as well as many of the expanded universe books, movies, and comics that have been published in the decades since Oz entered the public domain. And Oz crossovers aren’t a new thing – we’ve seen lots of stories about Dorothy and Alice (from Wonderland, obviously), stories where the characters interact with the DC Multiverse, the characters join the fairy tale kitchen sink of ABC’s Once Upon a Time, and plenty of other incarnations and crossovers. IDW, for their part, has also produced a series of one-shots in which Godzilla stomps on various American cities like New York, Boston, and Los Angeles. (Hey, IDW, if you ever want to go Godzilla Vs. New Orleans, give me a call. I’ve got a story for you.) Having Godzilla march in to crush the Emerald City sounds like a hell of a lot of fun. Hopefully the creative team of Mike Costa and Ryan Browne are familiar enough with the Oz mythology to use the characters to their true potential. I don’t care how good his brain is – the Scarecrow isn’t going to be much of a match for Godzilla. But if Glinda, Ozma, Professor Wogglebug and some of the other Oz luminaries step up to the plate, it could be a pretty exciting showdown.
DC Comics, meanwhile, announced the latest expansion of their excellent Compact Comics graphic novels line, the series of smaller-sized paperbacks with a smaller price point that have taken the comics world by storm. They STILL haven’t taken any of MY suggestions (philistines), but what they announced this week is perhaps the next best thing. Recognizing what a great series this is for introducing new readers to comics, DC announced four “Compact Comics Adventures” books for younger readers, specifically collections of the comics based on some of their most popular cartoons: Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, and Teen Titans. DC has a pretty deep bench of comics for young readers that they could draw from, but a lot of them wouldn’t quite be long enough to justify the Compact Comics format. These series are a nice compromise, with comics appropriate for young readers but that will appeal to the nostalgia factor of people who grew up with the cartoons.
A lot of these comics have been out of print for decades, and some have never been collected at all, so this will be a great collection. Best of all, these will be even MORE bargain-priced than the main line, with each book collecting six issues for $7.99 (as opposed to $9.99 for the other books). My sister is always asking me for graphic novel suggestions for her 12-year-old son, and as soon as I heard about these, I texted her.
The next announcement is the one that I’ve got a little trepidation about. Earlier this year DC began a new line of titles called “Next Level,” bringing back characters that haven’t had a big spotlight in some time for new titles that – although part of the DC Universe – are largely self-contained. New books starring the likes of Batwoman, Lobo, Deathstroke, and Barbara Gordon (not as Batgirl or Oracle, but in an intriguing book where she’s going to prison as part of an undercover sting operation) have been well-received, and I’ve been especially impressed by the new takes on Firestorm and Deadman. This week DC announced three team books joining the Next Level lineup: Doom Patrol, Teen Titans, and most pertinently, Legion of Super-Heroes.
I am, of course, a Legion superfan. I’ve been itching for YEARS for DC to come back and give us a solid Legion series again. And the fact that it’s being written by Joshua Williamson, an excellent writer that’s just been killing it on Superman for the last few years, was very welcome news. But then I kept reading and…well, let me just give you the synopsis of the first issue that DC released:
One thousand years after the Last Son of Krypton’s rocket crashed on the Kent Farm comes a new future inspired by the Man of Tomorrow! But this new future is in danger! Superheroes are outlawed! Deadly enforcers known as the Persuaders keep the populace of the United Planets in check! Worlds are at war! And this dark tomorrow’s last glimmer of hope, R.J. Brande, has been brutally murdered. Can the mysterious Brainiac 1 of 5 solve Brande’s murder? To restore hope to the universe, he must assemble a legion of gifted young rebels from across the cosmos!
…yeah. It’s another freaking reboot.
This will be, by my count, the SIXTH incarnation of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and as much as I enjoy Williamson’s writing, that has SERIOUSLY diminished my enthusiasm. We’ve seen the Legion assembled countless times. There’s a reason James Gunn didn’t start his Superman movie with an origin – because nobody needs it anymore. What’s more, each reboot version of the Legion has proven to have a shorter lifespan than the one before it. The most recent one, by Brian Michael Bendis, lasted a mere 19 issues plus a two-issue prequel and a six-issue miniseries where they faced the Justice League. If this keeps up, the next Legion after Williamson’s will be a one-shot.
Mr. Williamson, should you be reading this, please don’t take my lack of enthusiasm personally. I like your work very much. I was VERY excited to hear that you were writing this team. But no matter how great the creative team is, it’s going to be an uphill battle to make me invested in Iteration Six when my heart still belongs mostly to One. (And, in large part, to Two.)
You know, I can’t end this on a down note. How about one more super-cool DC announcement? For a few years now Dan Mora – one of my favorite working comic artists – has been doing a series of variant covers of the World’s Finest comic with Superman and Batman meeting various celebrities like William Shatner and Nicolas Cage. Earlier this year DC released two at once, one with Weird Al Yankovic and then another, on a Bizzaro comic, where they encountered Al’s imperfect counterpart “Normal Al Yankovic.” As it turned out, that was just the beginning. Coming this fall World’s Finest writer Mark Waid is going to give us a one-shot where DC’s top heroes are going to encounter the universe’s greatest musical genius, Batman/Superman/Weird Al: World’s Weirdest. I haven’t read anything about the story, I don’t know what it’s going to be about. It doesn’t matter. This is going to be the greatest comic since…
…well, since Spider-Man met the Muppets.
So call up your local comic shop and place your orders, friends. There’s lots of cool stuff coming soon.
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. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. He means it, IDW. Think about Godzilla biting into a certain trademarked New Orleans beignet shop and then coming up with powdered sugar covering his enormous muzzle. That’s just the start.
Thaaaat’s right, once again, it’s time to take a look at some of the recent Superman-related comics that DC has turned out for us. Including another heapin’ helpin’ of Mark Waid, a dash of dandy Dan Mora, more-a of those Superboys reignin’, and Superman’s return to Elseworlds!
Action Comics #1098 Title: Future Shock Part Two (A Reign of the Superboys tie-in) Writer: Mark Waid Artists: Skylar Patridge and Patricia Delpeche Main Cover: Ryan Sook
The time-tossed team of Martian Manhunter, Booster Gold, and Mary Marvel are in Smallville with Clark Kent early in his career as Superboy, and it’s not looking good when they learn that the villain they chased into the past, Epoch, has stolen the rocket that brought baby Kal-El to Earth in the first place. There’s a fight and a face-off, which of course is to be expected in a superhero comic book, but none of that is where this issue really shines. The heart of the book comes in the middle section, as Jonathan and Martha recount the story of how they found the baby to the time-travelers. Waid, of course, recently cleaned up DC’s timeline with his New History of the DC Universe series, so if there’s anybody we can consider an expert on what’s currently canon and what isn’t, it’s probably him. Seeing the current version of Superman’s origin presented answers a few questions and clarifies things, and leads to a surprisingly sweet moment between J’onn and the Kents.
As with last issue, though, I’m absolutely loving the Mary/Clark dynamic. I really like the characterization of Mary as the older sibling of the Marvel family, and she carries that over here to her interactions with Clark, leading to a delightful scene where she decides to play wingwoman for him in his relationship with Lana. It’s a highly entertaining moment, although I do very much wonder if we’ll ever see a scene after Superman returns in the present timeline where the two of them talk about this.
Strong artwork by Skylar Patridge and Patricia Delpeche give the issue a sort of finishing touch. With issue #1100 coming up, it seems as though the time-missing Superman storyline is about to come to an end, but I hope that doesn’t mean an end to Waid’s time in Smallville, because these stories have been a lot of fun.
Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #51 Title: Warlords Part One Writer: Mark Waid Artist: Adrian Gutierrez Main Cover: Dan Mora
Over in World’s Finest, which is ALSO set in the past (early in the partnership of Superman, Batman, and the Dick Grayson Robin), it’s time for a trip to the Arctic. Our heroes are tracking the flight path of a missing Air Force pilot, one who vanished on the same trajectory as another missing pilot, one Travis Morgan. Of course, the world’s finest get zapped to the out-of-time world of Skartaris and find themselves fighting alongside Morgan, the Warlord, in battle against the mysterious Tyrant Rex. Robin, of course, is wild about the dinosaurs. Superman is less wild about the magic flying around this little corner of the DC Universe.
I’ve never gotten super into Warlord. Its heyday was before my time as a comic book reader, and the various attempts to bring him back over the years have never quite landed. That said, I do enjoy watching Waid play with all the toys available in the DC Universe, and this is no exception. He used the time differential between the “normal” world and Skartaris to good effect here, changing things up for our heroes almost immediately upon entering the lost land, and Batman and Robin are thrust into rescue mode fairly early.
Gutierrez draws some wildly fun dinosaurs, and he really sells the “acting” with the characters’ faces, particularly Robin, whom we are reminded time and again is pretty young in this series. He behaves like a younger version of the Dick Grayson we know – a little more impulsive, a little less confident, but still with the same solid heart.
This remains one of my favorite series that DC is putting out.
Superman Unlimited #13 Title: Primal Fears (A Reign of the Superboys tie-in Writer: Dan Slott Artist: Lucas Meyer Main Cover: Taurin Clarke
This issue starts with the greatest character in comics, Bibbo Bibbowski, taking care of the monkey he found last issue. Some goons from the lab the monkey escaped show up trying to get him back, and things get much rougher than they expected. The time-tossed younger version of Jon Kent, meanwhile, is having nightmares about the torture he endured at the hands of Ultraman, while the older Jon – now calling himself Tomorrow Man – finds that a masked hero in Metropolis doesn’t necessarily enjoy the same kind of trust from the public that he may be used to. The two Jons are called into action when the super-monkey starts tearing it up.
I’m not going to keep playing coy here – the story works great as a reintroduction of Beppo the Super-Monkey into the DC Universe, although the origin that Slott chooses for him here has a lot of 90s flavor to it, bringing back the long-missing Dabney Donovan character. I also like the dynamic he’s playing with the two Jons and Lois, who is far too smart not to figure out what the deal is with Tomorrow Man, and Slott seems to be leaning into that. I really don’t know what the endgame of this particular storyline is going to be, and that’s a nice feeling in a day and age where everything gets spoiled yesterday. It’s a longshot, but I think that if things shook out with young Jon/Superboy and old Jon/Tomorrow Man coexisted in the DCU long-term, I’d be okay with it.
Of course, Jon is still wearing the “S” over in New Titans, so that’s probably not going to happen.
Supergirl #13 Title: Hero of Kandor Part Three (A Reign of the Superboys tie-in) Writer, Artist, & Main Cover: Sophie Campbell
Kara’s adventure in Kandor continues. With Black Flame causing chaos, Supergirl – now stuck with some cyborg parts, in case you missed last issue – tracks down Lesla-Lar to try to get her help. Lesla, meanwhile, has something very, very important to show our heroine, and it might just change things for Kara Zor-El for good.
It really feels like Campbell has been building up to this story since issue #1, and that’s a great thing. All of the stuff with Lesla and Lena and Kara showing her constant compassion and trust in people who were once her enemies is paying off in really interesting and unexpected ways. Ultimately, we still aren’t 100 percent sure what side Lesla is going to land on once all of this is over, and Campbell has set it up in such a way that either choice would be conceivably in-character. That’s quite a trick, and it’s pulled off impressively.
If there’s anything to complain about, it’s that the whole “Reign of the Superboys” tie-in feels more tacked on than ever. Conner finally makes it into Kandor in this issue, but he’s only around for a couple of frankly unnecessary pages before the story moves back to Kara. It really feels as though Campbell had the story planned and in the works when editorial put out an edict that Conner Kent had to feature into these post-DC KO issues somehow, then she just kind of crowbarred him in where she could while causing minimal disruption to the narrative. If that’s the case, then it’s a failure on editorial’s part, not Campbell’s, and the pages without Conner at all work just fine at telling an interesting, gripping story that only really could be told with Kara Zor-El.
Superman #38 Title: Prime Time Part Three (A Reign of the Superboys tie-in) Writer: Joshua Williamson Artist and Main Cover: Dan Mora
I didn’t have a Superboy-Prime/Witchfire pairing on my 2026 wish list, but here we are. Witchfire, a magic user from Kurt Busiek’s fun and forgotten series Power Company, is looking for an innocent soul to use in a spell she needs. Unfortunately, she has TOTALLY misread the aura of that cute guy at the comic shop. All is not lost, though – Superboy-Prime IS in the midst of a redemption arc, after all, and this seems like just the way to do it.
Williamson is clearly having fun with this. He leans more into the meta nature of Prime in this issue, and the last act of the book dives into it headfirst, with the return of this arc’s true villain and Prime being thrust into what is possibly his own worst nightmare. But the amazing, encouraging thing here is that we never feel like his attempts at redemption are fake or forced or cheap. Williamson has successfully convinced us that Prime sincerely wants to reform and become a hero like he always wanted, and despite the horrific crimes he committed in the past (some of which we are specifically reminded of in this issue), the reader finds themselves rooting for him. It’s an odd feeling, to look at someone who once casually slaughtered Teen Titans like they were nothing and find yourself pulling for him. But the whole thing kind of plays into a personal philosophy of redemption that I subscribe to. I’ve got to believe – hell, for the good of the WORLD I’ve got to believe – that redemption is possible. And that if someone truly wants to become a better person today than they were yesterday, at the very least they deserve the opportunity to TRY.
Admittedly, applying that philosophy to a murderer is totally on the extreme end, but just ask yourself how many bad guys joined the heroes on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and tell me if what’s going on with Prime here is really all that different.
Dan Mora’s artwork, as usual, is wonderful. I’ve talked before about how some artists are good at “acting” with their characters, and this issue is a fantastic example of that – the sweet, nervous flirtation between C.K. and Rebecca is written not only on their faces, but in their body language as well. It’s such a small thing, but it adds so much to the story. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I almost don’t want the real Superman to come back to this title just yet, because I’m not ready for this story to end.
Justice League Unlimited #19 Title: Amnesty Part One Writer: Mark Waid Artist and Main Cover Dan Mora
Speaking of redemption, why don’t we peek in on what the Justice League is doing, shall we? Lex Luthor went public with the League’s plan to offer amnesty to certain super villains as part of their larger plan to fortify the defenses against the darkness they know is coming (that’s what DC All In is all about, Charlie Brown), and as you might have expected, public perception is NOT what the League may have hoped for. Meanwhile, Guy Gardner’s team is en route to Oa to hide the Power Bank with backups of the Leaguers’ respective super-powers, and Superboy (Conner) and Steel (Natasha) get a nasty surprise when they’re hanging out with Air Wave.
I mentioned this last issue, but I love the way that Mark Waid is juggling so many storylines at once. The “main” story, the one with Lex Luthor working with the League’s big guns and (in this issue, at least) rounding up villains who are falsely claiming amnesty, is really fascinating. Luthor, as a character, is the sort who always has something up his sleeve and you can never actually trust him, but considering what he and the other participants in the KO tournament know about the future, this is a case where it’s possible that he really is being genuine, even his motives are ultimately selfish. The fun here is trying to figure out just exactly HOW much is self-interest and self-preservation.
The other storylines are looked at quickly, but progress as well. Guy Gardner and the Justice Gang (if you’re gonna use the characters from the movie I’m gonna use the name from the movie) naturally run into some problems in the course of their mission, and just when you thought poor Air Wave’s troubles were over, they get worse. I’m looking forward to seeing them take the forefront next issue.
Dan Mora – have I mentioned that Dan Mora is really, really freaking good at what he does? And he’s doing it TWICE A MONTH. Plus about a billion covers. Dude is a machine.
Superman: Father of Tomorrow #1 Title: Planetfall Writer: Kenny Porter Artist and Main Cover: Danny Earl
I’ve been waiting for this ever since DC announced they were bringing back the Elseworlds imprint. While alternate versions of Superman have featured in some of the books like Dark Knights of Steel or the Gotham By Gaslight sequels, this is the first of the new Elseworlds to explicitly be a Superman comic.
Not Kal-El, mind you, but I’ll take what I can get.
In Father of Tomorrow, the catch is that rather than Kal-El, it was JOR-El who escaped Krypton’s destruction and came to Earth, Similarly to what happened to his son in the main universe, he crashes to Earth in Smallville, Kansas, and is taken in by the Kents, who pass him off as Jonathan’s younger brother, Jordan. Jordan lives with the Kents, hiding the truth of his alien ancestry for years, until something happens that spurs him to come out of hiding and use his power and advanced Kryptonian technology to make the Earth a better place.
This first issue is intriguing. Porter uses a lot of familiar Superman elements, characters, and even standard plot points from various versions of Superman’s origin to put together this story, but the fact that it’s about an adult Jor-El instead of baby Kal-El twists things in curious ways. Jor-El is well-meaning, to be certain, but by the end of the first issue we start to get an ominous feeling that perhaps his good intentions are going to lead him down a dark path.
I don’t want this to be yet another “evil Superman” story by the end of it, but let’s be honest here. It’s an Elseworlds, and an awful lot of the classic Elseworlds stories had tragic endings. It wouldn’t be out of character for that to happen here.
I like Danny Earls’ artwork. His designs for Jor-El’s costume and the Kryptonian technology are unique and exciting, and contrast the idyllic small-town feel of Smallville in just the right way.
So far so good, folks. Let’s see if you can keep it going.
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. Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!
Another roundup of reviews, starting with some of the comics that were dropped on Superman Day back on April 18. I didn’t bother reviewing the reprint books (many of which I’ve covered before during the Year of Superman), but there are a couple with new material that I wanted to showcase, both featuring Supergirl. Let’s dig in!
Supergirl: The World (Superman Day Special Edition) Title: (Story 1) Supergirl Y La Maliciosa, (Story 2) The Extraction Writer/Artist: (Story 1) Aneke Writer: (Story 2) Yann Krehl Artist: (Story 2) Marie Sann Main Cover: Joelle Jones
DC’s line of The World anthologies is an interesting concept. Round up comic book creators from different parts of…well…it’s the title. And then have them do a story about that book’s star set in their home country. The first three featured Batman, the Joker, and Superman (which I reviewed last year), and this summer it’s going to be Kara’s turn. This Superman Day special previews two of the stories from that book.
In the first story, by Aneke, Supergirl visits an art museum in Spain and overhears a conversation about a mountain featured in one of the paintings, one that is supposedly the home of a witch. Curious, she sets out to visit the mountain, “La Maliciosa,” and finds a climber with a bit of a secret. It’s a simple story that kind of has a Bronze Age feel to it, echoing the kind of things that we’d get from the Supergirl comics of the era. The art is really quite lovely. Whether it was intentional or not, Aneke invokes the same feel as Bilquis Evely’s work on Woman of Tomorrow, which is nicely appropriate. The second story is “The Extraction,” by Yann Krehl and Marie Sann. In this one, after the Justice League liberates a group of aliens that were being held captive and subject to experiments in Germany, Supergirl is sent undercover to try to locate one lost extraterrestrial that managed to escape before its comrades were freed. It’s a fun story, with gorgeous art by Sann preventing it from feeling as dark as the premise would suggest. The pages look like art from a modern Disney movie more than your average superhero comic, and that works exceptionally well.
No doubt when the full anthology drops on June 2, there will be a mixture of hits and misses. These two are a nice appetizer, and I’m looking forward to reading the book.
Supergirl’s Zoo-Per Heroes: Krypto’s Big Break (Superman Day Special Edition) Writer, Artist, AND Cover: Rob Justus
Last year cartoonist Rob Justus brought us the early reader’s graphic novel Superman’s Good Guy Gang, featuring Hawkgirl and Guy Gardner, who you may have heard were in a movie with Big Blue last summer. This year he comes back with a new book that also seems poised to whet the appetite of the kiddies anticipating this year’s cinematic adventure. An accident somehow transfers the powers of the Justice League to a group of zoo animals, and it’s up to Supergirl and Krypto to fix things. The book also includes a preview of the sequel to Good Guy Gang, Follow the Leader, in which the one character who was bafflingly missing from last year’s book joins the fun. I like Justus’s sensibility a lot. It reminds me of Art Baltazar and Franco’s Tiny Titans, albeit lighter on the inside jokes for longtime readers. But these two previews promise a pair of silly, fun books that seem like they’ll be perfect for the superhero fan who’s just learning to read.
Superman Unlimited #12 Title: Besides Myself (a Reign of the Superboys tie-in) Writer: Dan Slott Artist: Lucas Meyer Main Cover: Taurin Clarke
Last issue Jon Kent met Master Txyn, a more malevolent imp than our usual pal Mxyzptlk, whose taunting of the young Kryptonian prompted him to take on a new identity, Tomorrow Man. But before the sewing needle on his costume had time to cool Jon found a whole new complication dropping in his lap: a time-displaced version of himself from one of the most traumatic parts of his past.
This issue, he decides to take young Jon to Lois, who just happens to be getting a visit from Batman and Robin (checking in on her in Superman’s continued absence). Adult-Jon decide to keep his own identity a secret, although Slott at least lampshades the fact that he’s got an uphill battle trying to keep a secret in a room that includes the world’s greatest detective, the world’s greatest investigative journalist, and his own best friend. Meanwhile, the El Cadero storyline moves along a little big as well, with the Kryptonite-rich nation announcing plans to use it as an energy source. However, more nefarious purposes seem to be in the works as well, and an escapee of an experiment makes a new friend.
Part of me almost wishes that this book was setting up a new status quo for the Superman titles. I’ve never liked the fact that we lost the child Jonathan in lieu of a teenage version (you may have heard me mention this once or twice), and the idea of having Young Jon living with Lois and Clark again while still having Grown-Up Jon doing his thing wouldn’t be the worst compromise. However, the Jon we have in this issue isn’t the one that I miss. This is a kid who has already undergone some horrific stuff, and grappling to deal with it looks like it’s going to be part of the character arc here.
Slott has a little fun with the other characters here as well. Damian Wayne’s highly paranoid nature comes right into play, as it probably should, and one of my favorite supporting characters in the whole Superman family shows up in the B-plot, making for a delightfully absurd exchange right out of a Looney Tunes short.
I’m really not sure where Slott is going with this story, but I’m interested in it, which hopefully comes across as the compliment that it’s intended as.
Superman #37 Title: Prime Time Part Two (a Reign of the Superboys tie-in) Writer: Joshua Williamson Artist: Dan Mora Main Cover: Dan Mora
The Superboy-Prime saga continues this issue. Having settled in to his new life in Metropolis, Prime seems to be doing okay. He’s helping people, beating villains, and despite his tardiness he’s even making ground at his new job at the comic book store. But his past hangs over his head, with the Justice League tracking him down when he goes for a simple dinner with the Kents in Smallville. An encounter in Gotham City doesn’t go much better. What’s a reformed mass murderer with fourth wall awareness to do?
I’m really quite surprised to see this issue pull back from the “main” storyline for what is mostly 20 pages of character building…surprised, but not at all disappointed. Williamson’s re-casting of Prime into someone trying to atone for his past is working surprisingly well. What’s more, he’s even carving out a fairly unique place for the character but putting together bits and pieces of various other characters. Sure, he’s got Superman’s powers, but he’s got an awareness of his comic book origins that’s playing with in a different way than characters like Deadpool or She-Hulk. And now it seems like Williamson is adding on a healthy dollop of what can only be termed “the ol’ Parker luck.” Somehow, all of this is coming together to make for a really entertaining character.
Dan Mora’s work is as phenomenal as ever, and he’s got a LOT going on in this issue. Despite the fact that the action is relatively low, he still manages to deliver a great (if brief) fight scene in the sewers of Gotham and some really excellent “acting” on the faces of the characters, particularly Jonathan and Martha Kent. All of the Superman books are solid right now, but I would never have believed a year ago that a title starring Superboy-Prime would be the gem of the line.
Absolute Superman #19 Title: Red Steel in the Hour of Chaos (Reign of the Superman Part Two) Writer: Jason Aaron Artist: Rafa Sandoval Main Cover: Rafa Sandoval
Last issue Superman, Lois, and a newcomer with a hammer named John Henry Irons broke into Lazarus only to find a captive who’s been off the board for millennia: Teth-Adam, alias King Shazam. This issue is a lot of fight and a little backstory, filling in some of the history of this Absolute Universe. It’s a good reminder that this isn’t just a “What If?” scenario, where there’s a single point of divergence that separates this universe from the DCU that we know, but rather a universe that was shaped in the image of Darkseid from its very inception.
To me, to a guy whose favorite Superman side-character is Steel, I’m really happy to see their version of him show up. Like the mainstream version, we’re presented with a man blessed with a great mind and great compassion, cursed to live in a world where it seems like neither of those things are valued. Like Superman himself, he seems to be the kind of person that’s clinging to hope in this world where such a thing is more of a liability than an asset.
Sandoval’s artwork is sharp as heck. Any time you pit a Kryptonian against somebody with the power of Shazam, you’re going to have to be ready to bring the scale that such a face-off demands, and Sandoval does a great job really selling this as a conflict that reaches a global scale.
Every time I think I can’t find enough good things to say about this series, I find more.
Adventures of Superman: House of El #8 Title: The Wizard and the Queen Writer: Phillip Kennedy Johnson Artist: Cian Tormey Main Cover: Scott Godlewski
As Superman heads to Tamaran, he finds yet another descendant (because apparently in this future the sentient population of the universe is roughly 57 percent House of El) coming under fire. Meanwhile, Ronan and Rowan Kent face off against Pyrrhos the Red and learn the shocking (yawn) truth about his origins.
I’d hoped that the return of Rowan Kent would help this series pick up, as she’s been the element that I’ve been most interested in so far, but alas. We don’t explore her corner of the universe, but rather delve back into all of the Els that are running around, apparently reproducing like Kardashians on a bad day. Johnson just keeps throwing more and more things at the reader, and it’s not sticking. The story is trying to be Dune and it’s trying to be Game of Thrones and there’s a healthy chunk taken from Arthurian Legend, and when you put it all together you’ve got something that’s just not working for me.
There are a thousand characters running around here and, despite the fact that it seems like they’re all related to Superman, I don’t care enough about any of them to keep track of who they are. When this series is over, I’m going to have to go back and try reading the whole thing in one go. I’m just not getting into it, and I don’t know if that’s because there’s not enough to keep my interest alive from one month to the next or if it’s really just as big a mess as it feels like.
DC X Sonic the Hedgehog: Metal Legion #1 Title: Metal Legion Part One Writer: Ian Flynn Artist: Adam Bryce Thomas Main Cover: Pablo M. Collar
The first DC/Sonic crossover last year was a lot of silly fun, so I wasn’t surprised when this sequel was announced. I was a little surprised, though, when the book jumps right into a massive status quo change: portals have appeared all over the globe, seemingly stable portals that connect the Justice League’s Earth to Sonic’s world. With travel between the two worlds now simple and safe, the heroes of both universes reconnect with their old friends. Of course, the more paranoid amongst them (Batman and Shadow, obviously) are in the business of investigating the portals, finding clues that point to some old foes.
Most of this issue is just showing the heroes bouncing back and forth between worlds and partnering up with the friends they made last time: Flash and Sonic having a race, Amy joining Wonder Woman and the rest of the Amazons in battle against Hades, and Knuckles and Superman introducing Supergirl and Krypto to someone they know will get along with them famously. I like the fact that the story seems to be expanding in scope this time as well. Besides Supergirl and Krypto, it seems like this time the Titans are joining in on the fun, and the last page promises to bring in more of the DC’s less savory elements as well. This is one of those first issues that feels more prologue than actual beginning, with only the scene in Gotham and the last few pages where we meet our villains actually seeming to progress the plot. That doesn’t bother me much, but it does suggest that this is a story that’s been paced for the inevitable collected edition.
New Titans #34 Title: The Future is Tomorrow Part Two Writer: Tate Brombal Artist: Sami Basri Main Cover: Taurin Clarke
I gave the first issue for this new direction of Titans a lot of grace, because it was a new writer that was just beginning to set up a new path for the team. This issue we’re starting to see the shape a little bit, and while there are things that I like, others have me skeptical.
Part One of this story showed up the classic Titans line-up trapped in some sort of time bubble, bouncing around to different parts of their history and seemingly unaware of what was going on. It wasn’t until the last-page incursion of a new group of younger heroes (including Jonathan Kent, which is why I’m including it in “Superman Stuff”) that the spell started to crack. This issue we learn more: the pocket reality the Titans have been existing in was created by an aftermath of what happened in the whole DC KO extravaganza, and the newbies are apparently young heroes the Titans have had their eyes on as potential recruits.
All of that is perfectly fine. What’s bothering me here is more the way these new Titans are introduced. We get a few pages of narration explaining that these folks were selected because they’re the FUTURE and they’re gonna be SO AWESOME and dear GOD, do I hate that. The old writing adage of “show, don’t tell” isn’t always true – sometimes, you’ve GOTTA tell to get the point across. But when it comes to convincing the reader how great a character is, telling is perhaps the worst thing you can do. If a writer starts expounding upon how wonderful a character is without actually doing the work of crafting a story that allows them to demonstrate their awesomeness, that’s an immediate turn-off to me. And often, it’s a black mark against the character that takes some writing rehab to escape.
That said, it’s a relatively short sequence in this issue that bothers me. If it was just a one-off thing and the rest of the story works, I can be forgiving of it. It’ll all come down to what else Brombal does in this arc, I think, as to whether this newest iteration of the Titans is going to be able to stand on its own.
Justice League Unlimited #18 Title: Aftermath Part Two Writer: Mark Waid Artist: Clayton Henry Main Cover: Dan Mora
Superman is still missing, and does not appear in this issue. In fact, as far as actual members of the family go, only Supergirl makes a (one-panel) appearance. But the thumbprint of our boy blue is all over this issue, so I really want to talk about it, and it’s my blog, so nyeah.
In the aftermath (hence the title) of DC KO, the participants were each given a glimpse of the future, including a dire warning about an upcoming battle that will make their struggle against Darkseid pale in comparison. In recognition of the threat, something that goes beyond normal concepts of “good” and “evil,” the Justice League is implementing an amnesty program, inviting supervillains who promise to be on their best behavior to join them – including Lex Luthor. Lex being Lex, of course, he’s got his own agenda, but at the very least it doesn’t seem to run COUNTER to the whole “saving the entirety of creation” thing the Justice League has going on, so we’re gonna cross our fingers for the moment.
It’s not the first time, by any means, that we’ve seen the toy with Lex playing hero, but they’ve always found different ways to go about it, which I rather enjoy. Waid also has done good work selecting which characters to feature here (Giganta is another one who joins the amnesty program, and one for whom rehabilitation seems far more possible than, say, the Joker). And they even get to show us what failsafes they’ve put in place to make sure the bad guys trying to break good remain on their best behavior. In fact, Waid is really embracing the “unlimited” part of the title here, expanding the cast even beyond its already-impressive roster and running multiple storylines that all weave in and out of each other. In addition to the Lex Luthor story, we also get to see a mission to Oa comprised of Guy Gardner, Mr. Terrific, Hawkgirl, and Metamorpho (wait…where have I seen THAT group together before?), as well as the beginning of the time-travel mission starring J’onn J’onzz, Mary Marvel, and Booster Gold that Waid is exploring over in the pages of Action Comics.
While the larger “All In” storyline is playing out across the DC Universe, this title really feels like the core of the whole thing, and I certainly hope anybody who’s following this is paying attention.
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. Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!
As I write this it’s December 17, one scant week until Christmas Eve. And I don’t mind telling you guys, we need a little Christmas right this very minute. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna quote the entire song. I will, however, spend the next several days reading some of my favorite classic Superman stories set around the holidays. I’ll also tackle this year’s DC Christmas special, which I’ve been sitting on in anticipation of this week, and I’ll take a look at the third Krypto short, Package Pandemonium.
Comic:DC Comics Presents #67, DC Go! Holiday Special #7 (Bizarro), DC Go! Holiday Special #8 (Sunshine Superman)
Notes: I’m starting this week with one of my all-time favorites, a comic book I’ve loved since I was a kid and I go back and re-read pretty much every year at this time. DC Comics Presents was, of course, the Superman team-up book for much of the 80s, and in issue #67 Superman teamed up with the greatest hero of them all: Santa Claus.
In “‘Twas the Fright Before Christmas” (a title which I feel has probably been used and reused hundreds of times over the years), Superman happens to pass by a kid using a toy gun to try to hold up a sidewalk Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Superman determines that the toy gun actually has a device that’s controlling the boy’s mind, and he whisks him off to the Fortress of Solitude to investigate. Superman breaks the mind control and the boy, “Timmy Dickens” (because Len Wein and E. Nelson Bridwell were not subtle writers) tells him how he found some of his Christmas presents early. Superman deduces that it’s the work of his old foe the Toyman, and bundles up Tim to bring him home. Just moments after he takes to the Arctic air, Timmy’s other toy blasts him with a ray that sends him crashing to the ground, unconscious. As Tim pleads with him to wake up, a group of tiny men with pointy ears appear as if from nowhere and take them both to safety.
Back in Metropolis, we see the Toyman monologing about how he found a chunk of white dwarf matter that he used to create heavy gravity, cancelling Superman’s powers, and believes him to be dead…but JUST in case (the Toyman may be crazy, but he’s not an idiot) he starts preparing a few other weapons. Superman, meanwhile, wakes up surrounded by his rescuers. When he asks where he is, his eyes clear and he sees Santa Claus standing over him, welcoming him to his top-secret workshop. He gives Superman a tour of the workshop, triggering memories in Superman of a holo-projector he played with as a baby, a gift from Jor-El that was lost when Krypton exploded. With Superman still weak from the gravity beam, Santa offers to give him and Timmy a lift back to Metropolis in his sleigh. They stop at Toyman’s hideout and Superman bursts in to stop his old foe, but between the earlier blast and Toyman’s Kryptonite-armed toys, the pushover of a villain turns out to be far more dangerous than usual. Santa drops down the chimney and lets some of his own toys out, and the tiny warriors help the Man of Steel defeat the Toyman in an epic battle. After the Toyman is taken away, Santa gives Superman safe toys to replace all of Toyman’s tainted gifts. As he finishes his rounds he’s about to take Tim home, but Tim’s toy blasts him again, knocking him out. He wakes up back in the arctic snow, Tim standing over him, and he believes the events of the evening to be a dream. But after he brings Timmy home, he returns to Clark Kent’s apartment to find a special gift in his cape pouch – the holo-toy his father made for him.
Usually, I despise the whole “It’s all a dream…or WAS it?” trope, but this is one of the few stories where I give it a pass. Part of it, I suppose, is the nostalgia behind it. I was probably ten or eleven years old the first time I read this story, and it’s as dear a holiday yarn to me as the likes of Rudolph and Frosty. There’s so much charm to it, and I just love Curt Swan’s depiction of Santa Claus. As much as he is one of the iconic Superman artists of all time, sometimes I wish he had gotten to do a Santa miniseries or something, just because his style lends itself so well to the character.
The story also plays on nostalgia as well, with Superman remembering the toy from Jor-El and thinking fondly of Christmases past. And while Superman’s initial skepticism about Santa DOES seem a little silly, considering all of the other outlandish things in the DC Universe that he knows are real (lest we forget, he has previously visited an alternate dimension occupied entirely by funny animals), they at least justify it by him saying that he would have seen Santa’s workshop at the North Pole if it existed and Santa casually telling him that nobody sees the workshop unless he WANTS them to. That whole “magic vulnerability” again, y’know?
This story, along with several other classics, was reprinted in 1988 in the first of two Christmas With the Super-Heroes specials. It was my first exposure to not only this story, but other classics like the Teen Titans “Swingin’ Christmas Carol” and “Silent Night of the Batman.” Both this issue and the entire special are – for once – available on the DC Infinity app, and if you want a little holiday cheer, it’s worth the read.
Dec. 18
Comics: Superman Vol. 2 #64, Adventures of Superman #487, DC Go! Holiday Special #12 (Super-Pets), DC Go! Holiday Special #13 (Bizarro)
Notes: This was probably the first Superman Christmas story I remember reading as an ongoing fan of the comic, surprisingly enough. I’d only come on-board 14 issues prior, during the Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite, and there wasn’t a Christmas story the previous year. This one made up for it, though, with “Metropolis Mailbag” written by Dan Jurgens with art by the late Butch Guice. This story established something that we’ve come back to in the Superman titles a few times over the years: people send letters to him all the time and they pile up in the Metropolis post office, as he doesn’t actually have an address. Then, a few days before Christmas, he comes by and reads and responds to as many of them as he actually can.
The task of reading the mail is arduous for Superman, the hero who wants to help everybody and sees the mountains of letters as a visual representation of all the desperate people beyond his help. This year, at least, he has a little company, as Lois is joining him in reading the letters so she can write a story about Superman’s tradition for the Daily Planet. After sifting through fan letters and get-rich-quick schemes, he starts to sift out the people he can actually help, such as an Auschwitz survivor who has discovered that the sister whom she thought died in the war is still alive, but she has no means to get to Germany to see her. The triumph of their reunion is quickly dulled, however, when he finds another letter from a boy whose father is dying from a brain tumor. Superman visits the child in the hospital, arriving just minutes after Terry Baldwin Sr. passes away. Although Mrs. Baldwin is grateful that he came, Terry Jr. – who wrote the letter – is outraged. Superman sits with the boy and tries to explain himself, but he’s not having it.
“But you’re SUPERman!” Terry shouts.
“No. I’m SuperMAN. And there are many, many things I just cannot do.”
After a few weepy panels (both for the characters and the reader), the doctors come by to ask Mrs. Baldwin if her husband was an organ donor. Superman, sensing an opportunity to take some good from this tragedy, tells her about a letter he received earlier from another woman in desperate need of a heart transplant. In what can only be categorized as a Christmas miracle, Baldwin’s heart is a perfect match, and Superman swiftly delivers it.
One last letter comes from a charity for disadvantaged kids that can’t afford Christmas presents or a Santa Claus this year, asking Superman to make an appearance to distract them from the lack of toys. As always, Superman does it one better with the help of his friends. Emil Hamilton whips up a sleigh and plays Santa, delivering a load of toys donated by one Mr. Bruce Wayne. Superman flies the sleigh down to visit the kids, incognito, and slips away before any of them suspect that they’ve witnessed anything other than Christmas magic.
This issue has been a favorite of mine for decades now. It’s a sweet, simple extrapolation of who Superman is and what would likely happen in a world where he existed – a mountain of pleas for his attention, of course, and the way he tries to handle as many of them as possible.
The story also humanizes Superman in ways that few other stories do. It’s natural enough to see him in pain over all the people he simply cannot help – that’s just part and parcel for who a Superman should be. But the panel where he’s arriving at the hospital, unable to save Terry Sr., cuts right into the gut. Jurgens has him pause for a moment on the hospital roof before going inside, thinking about the boy whose world he’s about to shatter, thinking, “I hope he understands. I hope he won’t hate me.” You read this panel, Guice drawing Superman’s face in shadow, and you’re not hearing the voice of the world’s greatest hero. You’re hearing a very human man who loves people, who desires connection, and allows a very relatable moment of despair at the thought that he’ll be blamed for something beyond his control. It’s one of those single panels that encapsulates the character just beautifully.
The story worked so well that it was revisited a few times, most notably one year later when Superman was “dead” after his battle with Doomsday and the rest of Earth’s heroes picked up his mail and dealt with it in his honor. But this original did it best. It’s a perennial read for me, a work of art, and it is as Superman as Superman gets.
Fri., Dec. 19
Comics: New Adventures of Superboy #39, DC Go! Holiday Special #19, 20
Notes: It’s the last work day of the year for me, and honestly, I’m ready for it. I need some time to decompress, although I fear terribly that those circumstances I keep talking about are going to do their best to prevent such decompression in the home stretch of the Year of Superman. Still, I spent Thanksgiving with Superboy, so I’m bringing him back for one last go today in “A World Without Christmas” by Paul Kupperberg and Kurt Schaffenberger.
It’s Christmas Eve in Smallville, but Clark’s classmate Bash isn’t feeling it. Bash – whose parents had to go out of town unexpectedly, leaving him alone – rants against the commercialization of Christmas and storms out of the Kents’ Christmas party. Clark heads after him, approaching him as Superboy, figuring that Bash would be more receptive to him that way. It doesn’t work – Bash continues to rail against the world. Playing a little Dickens, Superboy whisks Bash to an alternate reality where there is no Christmas, and Smallville is a dilapidated dump. Bash encounters that world’s Clark Kent, who runs away from him in fear, summoning an angry mob that’s out for blood, wanting to drive out the “costumed stranger” and the “Bashford Punk” from town. The two are separated, and Superboy is found by that world’s Jonathan Kent, one of the few decent people left. He takes Superboy to an underground hideout where, to Superboy’s shock, he finds Bash teaching Jonathan’s friends to sing “Silent Night.” Superboy takes Bash back home, his Christmas spirit renewed, neither of them ever learning that the leader of Jonathan’s resistance is that world’s Bash Bashford.
It’s a different kind of Christmas story, that’s for sure – kind of bleak and melancholy. Although I suppose the ultimate message is that good can be found anywhere, which is appropriate enough for the Christmas season. I’ll allow it.
Sat., Dec. 20
Short Film: Krypto Saves the Day: Package Pandemonium
Notes: It’s the third of the four Krypto shorts, this time giving us a warm, fuzzy tale of absolute chaos that feels delightfully appropriate for the holiday season. It’s Christmastime in Metropolis, and while Clark is sending out his Christmas cards, Krypto’s X-Ray vision happens to spot a postal worker carrying a package with a mouthwatering t-bone steak. Hunger overwhelms Krypto’s urge to be a good boy, and calamity ensues.
Okay, three cartoons in and I think it’s safe to say that this is the pattern for the Krypto shorts: he gets the urge to chase something for some reason, he causes lots of wacky shenanigans in his pursuit, and in the end he realizes he’s made a mistake and does his best to fix all the stuff that he’s wrecked. Yeah, it’s formulaic, but is it really any more of a formula than the classic Coyote and Roadrunner or Tom and Jerry shorts? They’ve all got their patterns, the real question is whether the filmmakers can find a little variety and a little fun while staying within the bounds of the formula. And I think this one does. The chaos is funny and Krypto’s remorse at the end feels genuine. Plus I’m still chuckling over the fact that Metropolis has a store literally named “Oversized Ornaments Outlet.”
Sun., Dec. 21
Comic:DC Special Series #21
Notes: Today I’m grabbing another old favorite from DC Special Series #21, aka the Super-Star Holiday Special. This book from 1979 featured several stories starring Jonah Hex, Batman, Sgt. Rock, and the House of Mystery. The one I’m reading this for, though, is Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes in “Star Light, Star Bright…Farthest Star I See Tonight!”
Superboy is bouncing forward in time for one of his regular visits to the Legion just in time for Christmas. His friends show him some of the futuristic holiday celebrations, and Superboy is left feeling nostalgic for a simple, old-fashioned Christmas. Then, to make all the Legion’s futuristic technology worthwhile, he proposes a little adventure: using their tech to try to track down the Star of Bethlehem. With Wildfire, Lightning Lad, Saturn Girl, and Phantom Girl joining him, the Legion sets out to look for the star. When they arrive where it should be, though, they find a planet in dire straights. The planet is entering an ice age, causing its three intelligent species problems. An aquatic race is dying because the plankton they feed upon is freezing. A land-dwelling mammalian race is so desperate for warmth that they’re setting fire to their own crops. Finally, ice storms are battering the nests of an avian race, threatening the eggs that hold their young. The Legionnaires help each of the tribes but know their aid is only temporary, until Superboy comes up with a plan. Together, the Legion uses their powers to carve out an underground catacomb where the three races can shelter from the storm and coexist with one another, sharing resources and warmth until the United Planets can find a way to safely evacuate them to a more suitable world. Although Wildfire remains characteristically skeptical, Superboy is happy to credit his quest for the Christmas star for saving an entire world that Christmas Eve.
The first time I ever read this story, like the DC Comics Presents story from a few days ago, was when it was reprinted in Christmas With the Super-Heroes from 1988. Dang – maybe I should have just read that book this year. But regardless, I really like the message here. The story is a bit light on traditional Christmas elements: no Santa Claus, no Angels, no carols or candy canes. Despite that, though, writer Paul Levitz leans on the spiritual aspects of the holiday even 1,000 years in the future, set against the backdrop of a story that feels like it could have come out of an episode of Star Trek. It’s not something that many writers would do today…in fact, more recent Legion stories have mashed all of the Earth’s winter festivals into a bland, homogenized “Holiday” (which is actually what it’s called), whereas Levitz recognizes and celebrates different traditions: while the story is explicitly a Christmas tale, we see other alien cultures, as well as other Earth festivals like Chanukkah, which is celebrated by Colossal Boy (whose Judaism isn’t frequently referenced, but it’s not ignored either).
I particularly like how Superboy has this sort of childlike wonder to him. He’s never got a hint of doubt that their quest will bear fruit, and although he doesn’t exactly find what he expected, the fact that his curiosity helped save three intelligent civilizations is evidence that he was right all along.
Although only the final story in this special is Superman related, the others have a lot going for them as well. The Jonah Hex story cracks open Jonah’s childhood to show the horrible cycle he’s trying to escape, the Batman story has some early Frank Miller art, and the House of Mystery is a wild little romp where most (if not all) of DC’s horror hosts of the era get into a little contest to see who can tell the best Christmas story. The special is available on the DC Universe Infinity app, and it’s worth cycling into your yuletide reading.
Mon. Dec. 22
Comic:Superman Vol. 2 #165, DC Go! Holiday Special #26, 29
Notes: I don’t talk about cover art often enough in these write-ups, but let’s take just a moment to appreciate this lovely little scene by Ed McGuinness: Superman and Lois looking down at a box of ornaments as Superman ponders that most inscrutable of holiday questions: what do you get the JLA for Christmas?
The story within, unfortunately, is somewhat less effusive with the holiday cheer. Written by Jeph Loeb, this story takes place in the aftermath of the election of Lex Luthor as President, with Superman struggling to wrap his head around the fact that such a thing could have happened. The issue is a series of vignettes, each by a different artist, in which he visits a member of the League, has largely the same conversation over and over again, and then gives them a token Christmas present. Some of them, like Green Lantern’s gift, are a bit of a gag, while others like Wonder Woman’s belie a deeper meaning.
I get the intent behind this issue. The President Luthor story was a big one, and it makes sense for Superman to struggle with it, even to the point of a mild existential crisis But in practice, this issue comes off as very repetitive, with each Leaguer’s respective stance being highly predictable. The rotating artists thing doesn’t work great either. Some of the scenes are sublime – having the late Mike Wieringo illustrate an outer space game of Satellite Baseball between Superman and Kyle Rayner is just lovely. Others are less so, but I suppose that Loeb was a big enough name at the time to want to work with his friends, and I can’t in good faith begrudge him that.
All said, despite the premise of this issue being that Superman is delivering Christmas presents to his teammates in the Justice League, this is probably the least Christmasy story I’ve read this week.
But again, that cover is a banger.
I had more fun with the DC Go! Holiday Special #29. This digital series has mostly taken short stories from the assorted DC holiday anthologies of the past and re-presented them one at a time in their “Infinite” format, so they aren’t new stories, but I honestly don’t remember where most of them were originally presented. In this case, we’ve got “A Lex-Tacular Christmas Carol” by Ethan Sacks with art by Soo Lee. It’s one of a thousand takes on the ol’ Dickens chestnut, but it’s an entertaining one. After sending an employee (named Bob, naturally) off to spend his Christmas Eve working instead of spending time with his family, Lex sets out to have a good night’s sleep, only to find himself visited by a variety of familiar spirits. Just when you think you’ve seen every iteration of A Christmas Carol that you could think of, you get hit with something like this. Whereas most of our Scrooge stand-ins go through the requisite character arc, Lex is utterly nonplussed about the ghosts. Even his own father as the stand-in for Jacob Marley doesn’t make Lex bat an eye, merely comparing his current appearance to what he looked like when Lex – y’know – murdered him. Sacks DOES give in to tradition just a hair at the end, but all in all, Lex makes for them the most delightfully unrepentant Ebenezer Scrooge you could possibly imagine.
Tues., Dec. 23
Comic:Batman and the Outsiders #19, DC’s I Saw Ma Hunkel Kissing Santa Claus #1, Titans Vol. 4 #30 (Guest Star Jon Kent)
Notes: I like it when Superman pops up as a guest star alongside other, younger heroes. It’s a good way to see just how he’s perceived by the hero community at large, and this Christmas story from Batman and the Outsiders #19 serves that purpose well. On Christmas Eve, Geo-Force (arguably the most powerful member of Batman’s mid-80s team) is with the young Halo when gets a phone call from a friend who has swallowed a bottle of pills. After getting the young woman, Denise, to medical attention, Geo-Force discovers that she was driven to this desperate situation after being sexually coerced by one of her college professors. Geo-Force sets out to kill the professor and Halo rushes off to Batman for help. Recognizing that he can’t possibly stop Geo-Force on his own, Batman makes a call to Metropolis. As Superman and Halo seek out Geo-Force, hoping to stop him before he does something he can’t take back, Batman uses his own skills to attack the lecherous professor in his own way.
Several things worth mentioning in this one. First, when Batman quit the Justice League and founded the Outsiders (a whole 19 issues ago) it caused a rift between himself and Superman that all of their assorted titles dealt with for months, particularly the title they co-starred in, World’s Finest Comics. The fact that Bruce immediately calls Clark for help when he realizes what Geo-Force is up to is a wonderful way to demonstrate that the rift has largely been healed at this point. It’s also cute to see Halo mooning over Superman when she meets him for the first time. The “young heroine gets a crush on Superman” trope wasn’t new even when this book was published in 1984, and often it gets tiresome. It works quite well with Halo, though – she’s a teenage girl who is struggling with assorted identity issues of her own while, at the same time, still dedicated to being a hero. She’s also the kind of person whose heroism shows brightly, cheerfully – she may be a member of Batman’s team, but she’s not the kind of hero who sulks in the shadows.
The Geo-Force fight is the really interesting part of this story, though. It’s often tempting to enact what TV Tropes calls “the Worf Effect” in stories like this one – having a character who should theoretically be much more powerful than his opponent suddenly become weak or ineffective. It’s an annoying trope, and when you hear “Superman Vs. Geo-Force” (who’s very much a rookie at this point) it doesn’t seem like it should be a contest. But Geo-Force not only holds his own, but writer Mike W. Barr sells you on its plausibility. Superman’s powers are, after all, due in part to the lower gravity of the Earth, and since part of Geo-Force’s powerset is the manipulation of gravity, it allows him to balance the playing field considerably, making for a more tense battle scene.
Despite the dark undercurrent of this story, the presentation at the end feels hopeful and bright, which is just what you want in a Christmas story, isn’t it?
Also on the docket today is this year’s DC Comics Christmas special, I Saw Ma Hunkel Kissing Santa Claus. (Again, and I cannot emphasize this enough, whoever it is in the DC marketing department that’s coming up with the titles for these holiday anthologies deserves a raise.) There are eight stories this time out, and I particularly liked the opening story starring Ma Hunkel herself, as well as the tales with Billy Batson, Animal Man, and Dr. Light. But I’m here to talk about the Supergirl story, “Holiday Woes” by Ash Padilla with art by Anthony Marques. Kara is spending Christmas in Smallville with Lois and Clark – her first since declaring herself the protector of National City, and she’s nervous that if she takes time away from her tasks as a superhero, people in her town will go undefended. But Clark wants her to loosen her up, and sets her up on a blind date at the Smallville Winter Festival. As is to be expected from a blind date in a comic book, things don’t go exactly as planned.
I’ll knock out the thing I didn’t care for: the retcon of Pete Ross’s son. As recently as the Summer of Superman special early this year, we saw that Pete and Lana’s son Clark Ross is still in continuity and still a child. A teenage son named Jonathan Ross doesn’t fit in anywhere here. Now it’s easy enough to dismiss the story as just being out of continuity, as the stories in these holiday specials rarely turn out to have any ongoing relevance. But in this case, darn it, I WANT this story to turn up again. The truth about Kara’s date is really sweet, and the kind of thing that appeals to an old-school fan like myself. (And truth be told, I’d like to see Dr. Light team up with the Atom again the way they do in this issue. What can I say? Like Clark Kent in this story, I love love.)
Notes: I’m going to wrap up this festive week with some Golden Age Goodies, beginning with what I have to assume is the first ever Superman Christmas one-shot, Superman’s Christmas Adventure from 1940. Lois and Clark convince their editor to begin a campaign to collect and refurbish used toys to give to needy children for Christmas. News of this campaign makes it all the way to the North Pole, where Santa is pleased to see that Lois and Clark are acting as his helpers this year. But a pair of villains who hate Christmas – Dr. Grouch and Mr. Meany – have sent a ship to the Pole where they try to convince Santa to convert his workshop to a commercial enterprise. Failing, they attack the Planet’s toy drive, setting the workshop on fire, with it only being spared thanks to Clark’s super-breath. Foiled again, they decide to attack Santa’s workshop directly, only to be driven back by his army of toy soldiers. Lois has stowed away on their ship (because of course she has) so they strap her to a rocket and blast her into the sky, where Superman rescues her. The villains split up, with one of them kidnapping Lois (again) and the other stealing Santa’s reindeer – a crime that statistically is far greater than stealing forty cakes. Santa radios Superman for help, and although he saves the reindeer, Grouch and Meany manage to gas them to sleep, rendering them unable to pull Santa’s sleigh. Superman, of course, steps up to help the big guy make his rounds.
This 16-page comic, originally published as a department store giveaway, is absolutely wild. It ends when Santa gives the bad guys Christmas presents, despite the fact that they quite clearly belong on the naughty list, and this makes them instantly reform and give up evil. Really, that’s all it takes. And I didn’t even mention the two-page sequence where Superman takes a spoiled rich kid on a tour of the less fortunate children of Metropolis to make him appreciate what he’s got and teach him the spirit of giving. That has NOTHING to do with the main plot. This story is wild, unfocused, a plot seemingly assembled by shotgun. And I of course loved every panel. Here’s hoping that Tom King is working on the gritty reboot of Grouch and Meany for next Christmas.
Action Comics #93 brings us “Christmas Around the World.” It’s 1945, and in the aftermath of World War II, Lois and Clark find an abundance of refugee children separated from their families during the war. Superman, of course, loads them up in a glider and begins a world tour, delivering food and supplies to impoverished areas while, at the same time, reuniting the children with their families, and spreading Christmas spirit along the way. It’s an odd little story. There’s no villain. There’s not even really any conflict. The closest we have is one boy who lies about wanting to go with Superman to be reunited with his father, but who only didn’t want to make his friends (whose fathers died in the war) feel bad. It’s just a little picture postcard of a world healing itself after its darkest hour.
I’m going to wrap up this week of yuletide joy with Action Comics #105, a comic so stuffed with holiday cheer that I am currently wearing a t-shirt with the cover on it. Millionaire Jasper Rasper is a mean man who hates Christmas. He sneaks off to the North Pole and tempts Santa with some candy that is specially formulated to make fatty tissue multiply at an alarming rate. When Superman gets wind of the scheme, he rushes to the Pole to find that Santa is now too plump to make it down the chimneys on Christmas Eve. Superman begins whisking Santa around the world on an exercise tour, slimming him back down. As he’s about to head out, though, they find that Rasper ALSO drugged Santa’s reindeer (Santa needs to step up his security detail), so Superman agrees to pull that ol’ sleigh again. As they’re making their way south, they see that Rasper’s helicopter crashed on an iceberg. Superman saves him and the villain, just like our pals Grouch and Meany, has a miraculous change of heart.
Just when you think you’ve seen every Christmas story possible, we get a gem like “Villain makes Santa Claus too fat, so Superman becomes his fitness instructor.” It’s a magical time.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this week of holiday adventures friends, and I hope you and yours have the merriest of Christmases. And I hope to see you all next week, on New Year’s Day, when I’ll present the grand finale of my Year of Superman.
Early in 2024, when DC and Marvel Comics announced that they were overcoming years of – let’s be frank – hostility with one another to release a pair of omnibus editions of their various crossovers from years past, I was excited. Not only that, but I was hopeful that this would lead to further collaborations between the two of them. Earlier this year, that hope was justified when the publishers released their first new crossover in almost 20 years, a pair of books teaming up Batman and Deadpool. Not only that, but each of those books would have several back-up stories featuring other team-ups, such as Green Lantern/Rocket Raccoon, Captain America/Wonder Woman, and Krypto the Superdog/Jeff the Land Shark. And it was nice.
Nice.
And then stuff started happening.
At first, it was stuff that wasn’t too difficult to see as an expansion of this new era of cooperation. Both Marvel and DC have been in the business of publishing “facsimile editions” of classic comics for a few years now – key issues reprinted in their entirety, including the original advertisements, letter columns, and other features that we don’t usually see when a story is reprinted elsewhere. In this spirit, they announced facsimile editions of the original Spider-Boy one-shot from the classic Amalgam Comics event, with a character that mashed up Spider-Man and Superboy (the Conner Kent version) into one hero. This is going to be followed by a facsimile edition of the first-ever meeting between Marvel and DC characters, 1976’s Superman Vs. the Amazing Spider-Man. And then the big magilla – although still not technically anything shocking – they announced that the two Batman/Deadpool comics would be followed some time in 2026 with two new Superman/Spider-Man events.
Awesome sauce, right?
But it didn’t end there, either.
Last week, totally out of the blue, subscribers to the Marvel Universe app (such as myself) got an email announcing a brand-new digital-only comic book…a crossover between Thor and Shazam! Not only that, but it was written by Al Ewing, who has been helming major books for both Marvel and DC for the past few years, including Thor’s ongoing series and DC’s Absolute Green Lantern, among others. Only minutes later, subscribers to the DC Infinity app (such as myself) ALSO got an e-mail, this time announcing a surprise digital crossover starring the Flash and the Fantastic Four, written by former Flash and current Green Lantern and Aquaman writer Jeremy Adams. Both of them were fun reads, totally unexpected, and available for free even if you didn’t have a subscription to the app.
It was like Christmas in November! Or, like every store in North America calls it, “Late Christmas.”
“What a nice surprise,” I thought to myself. It’s really rare that a comic book publisher these days would even change the color of Spider-Gwen’s shoelaces without putting out a press release about it, so a pair of totally unexpected crossovers was a delightful treat.
Then it really started to get weird.
Because the day after the crossovers dropped, Marvel and DC each sent out ANOTHER email. Marvel’s was a code for their subscribers to get a free 30-day trial of DC Infinity. And DC’s email? You guessed it – a code for 30 free days of Hello Fresh.
No, just kidding. Of course, it was a code for a free trial of the Marvel app. And at this point, I started to get uneasy. You see, Marvel and DC have historically been the two biggest competitors in the comic book game. And while there have always been creators who moved freely between the companies, working for one and then the other or even (such as is the case with Ewing) working for them both at the same time, the higher-ups have had a kind of bitter antagonism for the past few decades. Both Marvel and DC have undergone regime changes since the harshest days of the feud, though, and even the Omnibus editions were evidence that the temperature between them has cooled. Even so, seeing them shamelessly promoting each other is…unsettling. Imagine, for example, that you grew up in a household where your parents were fighting all of the time, and then suddenly without warning, the fighting just STOPPED. In some ways, the quiet would be even more disturbing than the fight.
That’s where comic book fans are at the moment. We’ve gone from “Isn’t it nice that Mom and Dad are being friendly again?” all the way around to “What in the HELL is going on?”
Because maybe it’s just me and the basic state of paranoia that exists hardwired right into my brain, but it feels like there’s more happening behind the scenes than the fans are being made aware of. And sure, it could just be more crossovers like Batman/Deadpool or Superman/Spider-Man. Maybe it will become a new annual event. Maybe even more than annual.
Or maybe it’s something else.
This is the only reasonable reaction.
The good thing is that I talk to a lot of comic nerds (shout out to my homies in the best Comic Book Collecting group on Facebook) so I know I’m not the ONLY one who feels this way. A few people have speculated that one of the publishers, or their parent companies, is considering buying the other one. I don’t really think this is the case, and I sincerely HOPE it isn’t, and for a few reasons. First, I think competition is healthy – putting the two biggest brands under a single umbrella would undercut that dramatically. Also, the odds of Warner Bros purchasing Marvel from Disney – one of Disney’s major cash cows, in a time when Warner Bros itself is on the market for a new owner – is virtually nonexistent. The possibility of the WB selling DC to Disney, on the other hand, feels more plausible, but that would be bad because…I’m going to be frank here…DC is crushing it right now. The comic book line’s sales and critical response are up and the movie and TV production is firing on all cylinders, despite what that one jackass who writes for “Cosmic Book News” is desperately trying to convince people. Handing that brand over to Disney and Marvel – whose works, let’s face it, have kind of been declining the last few years – would not be optimal for anybody.
Seriously, compared to “Cosmic Book News,” this thing is the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Another possibility, one that I would be far more open to, would be some sort of distribution partnership. Much has been made about the chaos behind the scenes of the comic book world with the slow death of Diamond Distribution this year, and seeing Marvel and DC cooperate on a new distribution venture would be not be out of the question and, frankly, would probably be a net benefit for the comic shops, although smaller publishers would justifiably be concerned about the two juggernauts creating a new distribution juggernaut before we’ve even buried the ashes of the old one. There’s also the possibility of the Marvel and DC apps perhaps being offered in a subscription bundle, not unlike many TV and movie streamers these days. As someone who has subscribed to both for quite some time, I wouldn’t hate that.
But what if it’s something else? What if the big thing they’re working on isn’t anything behind-the-scenes, but in the content? DC Studios boss James Gunn – whose rise to prominence came from helming the Guardians of the Galaxy movies for Marvel – has spoken more than once about liking the idea of some sort of crossover movie between the two, and Marvel head Kevin Feige has shown effusive support for Gunn himself.
You might even call this photo the smoking GUNN. Get it? GET IT?
And with both studios embracing the multiverse concept, it wouldn’t be that difficult from a story perspective. Can you imagine David Corenswet and Tom Holland in a Superman/Spider-Man movie? They would sell so many tickets that they’d have to bring in a third crossover character, such as the Count from Sesame Street, to keep track of them all.
BUT – and I hate to put a damper on things – Gunn’s DC Universe consists of exactly one movie and two seasons of television so far. There’s more on the horizon, of course – the Lanterns TV series and the Supergirl and Clayface movies are all on the schedule for 2026 – but I feel like Gunn probably needs more time to really establish his DCU before any sort of crossover becomes a real possibility.
The comics, on the other hand, are already well established. And they’ve played the crossover game many times before. But what if this time it was more than just this guy meets that guy? There have been larger crossovers in the past. DC Vs. Marvel not only pitted their entire universes against each other, but also included the Amalgam mashups. JLA/Avengers, famously, featured every character who had ever been a member of either team (at the time – if they did that these days the ways the rosters have expanded they would need another 16 issues). But these crossovers have almost NEVER been addressed in-canon. There have been only two exceptions that I’m aware of, both from DC. First was a random issue of Green Lantern that had a cameo by Access – a character introduced in DC Vs. Marvel with the power to move between the two universes – which happened to be written by Access’s co-creator Ro Marz. Second, an “egg” holding an embryonic universe that was created in JLA/Avengers later became a McGuffin in a JLA storyline written by that crossover’s writer, Kurt Busiek. References to the “other” universe have always been oblique outside of the crossovers themselves, which is understandable due to things like copyright and reprint considerations.
But what if they could get past all that and tell a story that REALLY impacts the two worlds?
They’ve wanted to do it for some time. In the 80s and 90s, there were infrequent appearances in the Marvel universe of a guy in a suit and glasses named “Clark,” always just for a panel or two, but a definite wink at the camera. Other Marvel multiverse storylines have often made vague references to the DC characters as well. DC has also played that game. In his Hawkman series, Robert Venditti heavily explored the fact that Hawkman is a character who has been reincarnated for thousands of years, not only on Earth but on other worlds such as Krypton. But he also dropped hints that some of Hawkman’s reincarnates may have included certain Marvel characters with “Hawk” in their name, such as Starhawk of the original Guardians of the Galaxy.
This is from an issue of Thor. Can you believe he’s using GLASSES as a disguise? What a dork.
Then there’s the big enchilada, Geoff Johns and Gary Frank’s Doomsday Clock, the series which brought the world of Watchmen into direct conflict with the DC Universe. In that story Dr. Manhattan, who lives outside of linear time and can see the past, present, and future as if it’s all happening now, looked ahead to an event he called the “Secret Crisis” happening in 2030. In that crisis, he foresaw Superman fighting Thor (as a character from Norse mythology, anyone is allowed to use the name “Thor” without a copyright issue, so long as they don’t have a picture of the Marvel version of the character), as well as a “green behemoth” who would sacrifice his own life to save Superman, a clear reference to the Hulk. By the way, the Hulk’s comic book, at the moment, is written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, who is currently writing a miniseries at DC Comics about a character bouncing around in time…dang it, who is that again? Oh yeah…it’s Superman. In fact, the book is called Adventures of Superman: House of El, and it’s tying off plot threads leftover from Johnson’s run on the main Superman comics from a few years ago.
It’s prophecy, people!
Now Dr. M told us that the Secret Crisis would happen in 2030 and I don’t know that they would be making plans today for an event that wouldn’t see publication for another five years, but one of the major reveals of Doomsday Clock was an explanation of the elastic nature of time in the DC Universe, so skirting the exact date wouldn’t really be a problem. And both Marvel and DC are currently playing with the multiverse in various stories. So…y’know.
All of this, of course, is circumstantial evidence. None of it would hold up in court. But as far as pure speculation goes, I find it all AWFULLY interesting. Would it be possible, in this new spirit of cooperation between the two publishers, for them to go forth with a story that actually brings the two universes together in a way that is indisputably canonical? To tell a story that has actual weight and impact on the heroes of two worlds going forward? Would they actually kill the Hulk to save Superman? (I know they won’t kill the Hulk PERMANENTLY, this is comic book spiritualism, where Heaven is easier to escape than a prison in New Orleans. But that’s not the point.)
Ongoing comic books, especially the “Big Two,” exist in a state of what some writers call a “perpetual second act.” What that means is that although there are ongoing stories and things can change, at some point or another there’ll be another reset, because corporate characters like Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, or the X-Men are too valuable to ever take off the table. If the characters were allowed to truly have a “third act,” that would be the END of their story, and nobody REALLY wants that. With that mindset, is there any reason that the next “second act” couldn’t be a story that involves the two largest mythologies in American culture coming together for an event that would have lasting repercussions for them both? It’s worth noting that the original plans for DC Vs. Marvel included having She-Hulk and the Martian Manhunter stranded in each other’s universe for about a year after the crossover ended, but the lawyers at the time told them not to do it. A character swap right now sounds somewhat less impossible.
Is this what Marvel and DC are planning? Are they doing it right under our noses? Is the call coming from inside the house?
Maybe not.
But it’s sure a lot of fun to think about.
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. His own “permanent second act” involves a constant reset of where his son hid the remote control after watching YouTube.
As the chill finally returns to the air down here in southern Louisiana, I can feel the end of the year approaching. The last three months are always my favorite time of the year, although in this case they’re a little bittersweet. Spending this year with Superman has been fun for me, giving me something to look forward to…and while I have to admit I’m looking forward to finishing off the daily requirement, I also know I’m going to miss it. I’m thinking of ways to continue this blog without the daily stipulation into 2026 – no decisions yet, but there are things in my head.
At any rate, there are still a handful of themes I’ve got left that I want to do, but those are all anchored to specific times in one way or another, and none of them are this week. So get ready for another seven random days in the Year of Superman blog.
Notes: We’re going to start this week by looking at my list of stories that I wanted to hit this year at one point or another, but that didn’t fit into any particular theme. And if you’re not wise to the behind-the-scenes chaos that led to the writing of Superman #276, it seems as random as they come. Most comic book fans know the story behind the original Captain Marvel: originally published by Fawcett Comics, he was a smash hit and outsold pretty much every comic on the stands, including Superman at times. National Publications (the company that would later rebrand as DC) sued Fawcett, claiming Captain Marvel infringed on the Superman copyright due to the similarity in their appearance and powers. The case dragged on in court for years, until the post-World War II-era, in which superhero comics fell out of favor. Eventually, Fawcett settled the case, no longer making enough profit from the comics to continue to fight. Years later, DC would eventually license, then outright buy the characters from the Fawcett catalogue and bring them back to comics.
In 1974, DC Comics had been publishing Shazam! for over a year. His own title was set on “Earth-S,” home to the original Fawcett heroes, and although the multiverse was already very much in play at DC, for some reason editorial was wary of having him actually interact with the heroes of the DC Universe. Writer Elliot S! Maggin’s solution was this issue, “Make Way For Captain Thunder!” Using an early, rejected name for Captain Marvel, Maggin has Superman encounter a young boy – Willy Fawcett – who appears in the streets of Metropolis one day. Willie seems out of time, with a haircut that was popular 20 years earlier and expecting to pay a nickel for 35-cent bus fare. And the big clue that something isn’t kosher: he’s never heard of Superman before. Willie sees a helicopter about to rob an armored car, so he rubs his “magic belt buckle” and says the magic word “Thunder!” With a bolt of lightning (and the amusing sound effect “sha-boom!”) he transforms into…well, not Captain Marvel, but somebody who looks a hell of a lot like him.
As Captain Thunder swoops in to stop the robbery, something takes hold of his mind and, instead, he aids the crooks in stealing not only the contents, but the entire armored car. Superman comes in to save the car and Thunder turns back into Willie, who cannot remember anything that happened since his transformation. He decides to turn to Superman for help, and looks up his most famous “friend,” Clark Kent. (The notion that even a child from an alternate dimension can learn that Clark and Superman are pals within a few hours is perhaps the greatest strain on the credulity of Superman’s secret identity, by the way.) Willie tells Clark his origin – how, on a campout with his orphanage, he was summoned by an owl to follow it to a cave in the woods. There he encountered an ancient Native American medicine man, who bestowed on him the magic belt that would give him seven spiritual abilities: the power of a Tornado, the speed of a Hare, the bravery of Uncas, the wisdom of Nature, the toughness of Diamond, the flight of an Eagle, and the tenacity of a Ram!
Note to Maggin: If the editor needs to drop in a footnote explaining that Uncas was a warrior chief, you know that you’ve maybe stretched this bit to its limits.
Anyhoo, Willie became Captain Thunder, and – in my favorite page in the book – recounts his final battle with the Monster League of Evil, which was made of up, I kid you not, the Universal Monsters. The battle took place in a series of other dimensions (1953 of them, to be exact), but evidently, when Willie tried to get home he wound up on the wrong Earth, where he comes to understand that the League did something to Captain Thunder, making him turn evil when he transforms. Clark – an alien from another planet who hangs out with an Amazonian goddess and a guy from Mars and who routinely fights cyborgs and has traveled through time on countless occasions and more than once met an exact duplicate of himself from a world he calls Earth-2 – comes to the obvious conclusion that Willie is delusional.
Somehow THIS is the part that strained credulity.
Clarks recruit Lois to help him bring Willie to the police station for help, but another robbery summons his attention. He ducks away and becomes Superman, as Willie turns into his own alter-ego. But once again, as if he’s forgotten that he’ll turn evil, Captain Thunder turns evil. The crooks escape as Superman and Thunder battle it out in the skies over Metropolis. Superman manages to trick Thunder into turning back into Willie, because somehow he suddenly believes his story, and then holds him in a wrestling grip and tells Willie to change back, where he’ll somehow force Thunder to use his wisdom to overcome the Monster League’s brainwashing. There is absolutely no reason that this should work, but somehow it does, and Thunder furthermore figures out how to use his magic to return to his native dimension.
This is one of those stories that I like not in spite of how ridiculous it is, but BECAUSE of it. Details aside, there’s virtually no difference between Billy/Captain Marvel and Willie/Captain Thunder. If someone were to redraw his costume and the origin pages, it would fit perfectly as the first meeting between Big Blue and the Big Red Cheese. The incongruities also have a weird charm to it. The notion that Clark questions Willie’s story is laughable, the idea that he comes around so easily is absurd. The fight is…well, it’s an awful lot of fun. And I won’t lie, I would love to see the history of Captain Thunder’s battles against the likes of Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Lon Chaney Jr.
There were so many different one-off universes that peppered DC Comics in the years before the original Crisis. I kinda wish we could visit some of them again.
Thur., Nov. 13
Comics: Superman Vs. Lobo #1-3, Jon Kent: This Internship is My Kryptonite #19, Justice League of America #40
Notes: Today I’ve selected the three-issue Superman Vs. Lobo miniseries from 2021, written by Tim Seely and Sarah Beattie with art by Mirka Andolfo. Why? Because just like when they published this miniseries, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
That sounds snarkier than I intended. This isn’t a bad series, not at all, but it’s part of the ill-defined “Black Label” imprint at DC. When it was first announced, “Black Label” was supposed to be a more “mature readers’” imprint featuring the DC characters. Then it started to publish comics that were creator-owned and had nothing to do with the DCU Universe. Then they folded the Vertigo imprint and made those properties Black Label books. Then they brought BACK the Vertigo Imprint and moved some of the Black Label originals over there. And all the while, they were reprinting some books under Black Label that didn’t make any sense at all – such as Kingdom Come – while also publishing a few new properties that didn’t really have any content that marked them as “mature readers,” such The Last Days of Lex Luthor, which would probably be best as an Elseworlds. Then they brought back Elseworlds. What I’m getting at is, I’m not entirely certain what Black Label is supposed to be and, based on all available evidence, neither is DC Comics.
None of that, however, is the fault of the creative team of this miniseries, nor does that make it a bad story. The story kicks off with the Martian Manhunter sending Superman out into space to check on a space station that’s been damaged near the orbit of Jupiter, with astronauts in grave peril. As he’s saving them, everyone’s favorite Main Man Lobo has a vacation ruined when the resort planet he’s on is attacked by a kaiju-sized monster that turns out to be a microscopic tardigrade which has somehow been blown up to gargantuan proportions. He also meets “biologist and wildlife photography” Dr. Semedea Flik, who is an expert on single survivors of extinct species, and therefore is delighted to meet Lobo, who famously murdered his entire planet of Czarnia. Lobo, of course, doesn’t care about the destruction his fight with the tardigrade is causing, but Superman happens to be passing by in space and dives in to save both the creature and the people endangered by its rampage. Lobo, of course, sees Superman as a killjoy, ruining the fun of his fight, but Flik is thrilled to meet TWO “sole survivors” in one day. (Unless you count Supergirl or the Kandorians or Lobo’s daughter or…) When the news coverage of the fight starts painting Superman as a hero, Lobo is furious and decides to “ruin” him.
Lobo comes to Earth and gets on LexTube to begin slandering Superman. Lois (with a little help from Batman) begins a counter-offensive against Lobo online, and the vitriol online begins to fuel an army of robots that the Toyman created to prove that social media is toxic. (I guess even Winslow Schott can’t be wrong all the time.) Superman combats it by urging people to get online and post positive things and – this is far less realistic than the tardigrade kaiju – they actually start to do it. Speaking of the tardigrade, it comes to Earth, only much smaller and now demonstrating extreme intelligence. Its name, it says, is Numen, and like Superman and Lobo is the last survivor of his homeworld. Flik is THRILLED. Feeling a kinship to the two of them, Numen decides to use his vast power to give them a gift: restore and send them back to their homeworlds, but he makes a little boo-boo. On the last page, Superman finds himself on Czarnia and Lobo on Krypton.
Issue two kicks off with the Justice League searching for the missing Superman, with J’onn discovering that Krypton has somehow been restored and Green Lantern learning that Czarnia’s extinct population has come back. Numen, in a scene as funny as it is creepy, has learned that people on Earth communicate via “tweeting,” so it makes all the birds in the world explain to people that he sent Superman and Lobo back to their home planets. Of course, he’s wrong. On Czarnia, Superman – whose powers are dying under the planet’s red-tinted sun – learns that most of the population seems kind and pleasant, and Lobo was an anomaly. On Krypton, Lobo is frustrated at how “lame” the place is, but changes his tune when he realizes that there’s a sect of Kryptonians who blame their cold, sterile ways for the planet’s destruction and have decided to revert to a culture of hedonism and debauchery, his two favorite things. Flik has technology that allows her to bounce between worlds, viewing a civil war slowly brewing on Krypton between Lobo’s wild friends and the traditionalists, while Superman starts to find evidence that the Czarnians aren’t actually as nice as they pretend to be, with a deep paranoia and distrust underlying their apparent sweetness.
Lobo’s Kryptonian pals decide to expand the influence of Krypton into space, and begin by cloning an army of Lobos and sending it to Czarnia to start the genocide all over again. Superman, meanwhile, discovers that the kindly woman he’s been staying with has been leeching his blood and his powers, and manages to reverse the cell drain after she’s killed by one of the clones. As Lobo returns to Czarnia to kill his clones – and everybody else all over again – only to learn that the resurrection has turned many of them as bloodthirsty as he is. Superman makes it to Krypton and finds his parents, but is horrified to learn that Jor-El planted a killer parasite into the Lobo clones, which are still living beings. Flick finds Numen and convinces him that he’s screwed up by bringing back the dead worlds, and Numen collapses in self-pity. He removes the two worlds, but not before Jor-El tells his son how proud he is that he became a man of compassion, even for those who despise him. Flik then tells Superman and Lobo that she’s studied Numen and discovered that there are people seeking out Numen, whose birth destroyed their entire universe…Union! Zealot! Maul! Helspont! And the almost-Superman himself, Mr. Majestic! Some of the most powerful characters from the Wildstorm Universe!
Not that they CALLED it “the Wildstorm Universe” in the text, mind you, but it was still a hell of a surprise. Also a nice reminder that most Black Label comics are non-canonical. The Wildstorm heroes had been firmly integrated into the DCU at this point, so I guess that means we’re looking at two different worlds in the vast multiverse right now. I’m okay with that.
In the third issue, Flik tells us Numen’s origin. He’s part of a species that feeds on the fundamental forces of reality. When one of them is born, they consume an entire universe in order to survive. Flik begs Superman and Lobo to help her protect Numen from the “Revenge Squad” that’s after him. Superman agrees because he’s Superman, Lobo agrees because Flik agrees to pay him, and the fighting starts. While Lobo tears through half the team, Majestic and Zealot team up against Superman. In the heat of battle, Superman concedes that Majestic is more powerful than he is, but that’s not going to stop him from fighting to defend Numen with his last breath. Proving that he is, perhaps, more like Superman than he thought, Majestic is moved to put down his arms and talk. Lobo double-crosses Flik, though, setting up Numen to be killed and taking her technology and Numen’s energy to create a new universe where he’s the hero and Superman went mad after the murder of Jimmy Olsen. Lois, though, in a wonderful bit of meta-commentary, quickly figures out that the new universe they’re in is full of bad stereotypes and tropes, like so many “evil Superman” stories we’ve read, and concludes that they’re trapped in a “badly written story authored by an edgelord.” Lobo takes that personally and a battle ensues, but to everyone’s shock, he breaks down with the realization that he’s wasted the power he stole to rewrite the universe just so people would love him instead of thinking, “Maybe…I shoulda just not been a giant piece of $#*.” He expends the energy restoring the universe and integrating the orphaned Wildstorm heroes into it (so maybe it IS canonical?).
The series works on a few levels. It’s satirical, but pointedly so. First of all, it’s a bit of a deconstruction of Lobo himself. Created in the 80s as a PARODY of over-the-top, violent characters like the Punisher, his runaway popularity instead made him the poster boy, despite the fact that he exists only to exhibit all of their worst characteristics. This comic doesn’t flinch from that, reminding us over and over again that he’s a scuzzball who does not deserve admiration. The best line in the series, for example, is Superman calling Lobo “the worst person I’ve ever met, and I regularly have to spend time with Lex Luthor.” The second best, though, is directed at Lobo himself: “You think everyone is as terrible as you, and that makes you the loneliest man I’ve ever met.” Yes, Superman pities even Lobo. And all of this helps build towards a mild sort of redemption for the character in the end. He doesn’t ATONE for his awfulness, but at the very least he grows enough that he can recognize it and admit it, which – considering the place that he starts from – is not inconsiderable.
The other element of satire is pointed at the media and social media, how it tries to manipulate the narrative and how we’ve taken a piece of technology that should have brought everybody together and created greater understanding of us all and instead have decided to use it to be nasty to each other and create little echo chambers where we can sit in a virtual room and pretend that everybody who isn’t in the chamber with us is stupid and evil. It may sound a little hypocritical of me to talk this way about social media – I obviously use it all the time – but in my defense I do my best to keep my interactions online positive. I talk about the things I love, I try to steer clear of railing against things that I hate, because seriously, who needs to hear that? Even this whole “year of Superman” project is dedicated to that purpose, to me devoting 365 days to something that means something powerful and wonderful to me.
I’m not saying that everyone should use social media exactly the way that I do, I’m just saying that the world might not seem quite as terrible if they did.
Lobo included.
Fri., Nov. 14
Comic: Superman Vol. 4 #12-13,Aquaman Vol. 5 #53 (Guest appearance), Justice League of America #41-42, Adventure Comics #267
Notes: Although it wasn’t my original intention, after two days of comics that amounted to “Superman Vs. another hero,” it seems as though the universe has chosen a theme for this week for me. Who am I to argue? So today I decided to seek out another such story, landing on the two-part “Super Monster” from the Rebirth era, written by Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason with art by Doug Mahnke. In this, Superman faces off against Frankenstein. Not the kind we saw in Halloween week, though, but the actual Frankenstein’s monster, who in the modern DC Universe has taken the name “Eric Frankenstein” and joined the supernatural spy agency S.H.A.D.E. The story starts with Lois meeting a friend of hers named Candice, editor of the Hamilton Horn newspaper, who is trying to lure her away from the Planet (she had recently returned at this point – long story) only for Frankenstein to interrupt the interview and attack the editor, claiming he’s been chasing her for some time. Lois blasts Frankenstein with a weapon she’d recently “borrowed” from Batman and she and Candice flee. Superman, naturally, arrives to defend his wife, and he and Frankenstein get into it. The creature manages to get his hands on Candice and rips her face off, revealing an alien beneath.
In the second issue, Frankenstein explains that “Candice” is really a war criminal named Kroog who has been fleeing justice from several planets. Superman is glad to have captured a criminal, but admonishes Frankenstein for going after him in a way that caused destruction and potential injury to innocent people. Before they can take Kroog away, though, Frankenstein’s estranged Bride shows up. No longer with S.H.A.D.E., the Bride is now a bounty hunter and has come to take Kroog and collect the money for his head. In the scuffle over who’s going to bring Kroog in, the alien escapes. Superman has to break up the squabbling exes and together they track the alien down to bring him to justice.
The real meat of this two-parter comes towards the end of the second part. After Frankenstein and the Bride fight each other, there’s a short sequence where Lois asks the Bride about what happened to drive them apart. The answer is horrific – they had a son who became a monster (like, spiritually) and the Bride was forced to kill him to save the lives of innocents. From here we start to extrapolate that their divide is not actually based on hatred or even a lack of love between the two of them, but on the pain of their loss. As this was the era where Jon Kent was still a child, and still a relatively new addition to the Superman mythos, the story hits both Lois and the reader hard. The story ends with a quiet, wordless few pages of Lois and Clark returning home, tucking their son into bed, and giving him a goodnight kiss.
If you’re a parent, you get why this hits so hard. If you’re not, I’m not sure if I can explain it to you.
Notes: Once I realized I had accidentally stumbled into a theme, I got on the DC Universe app and just starting randomly seeking out different stories about Superman – for whatever convoluted reason – coming to blows with other heroes, because why not? That reminded me of these early comics in which Superman faces off against his future JLA teammate Booster Gold. In Booster Gold #7 from 1986, Dan Jurgens had his time-travelling hero encounter the man of steel for the first time. A year later, John Byrne and Jurgens collaborated on a two-part story that crossed over with Action Comics.
Booster Gold #7 begins with Booster, Superman, and a few hangers-on having just been abducted by an alien warlord called Galeb who is accusing them of treason, despite the fact that they don’t even know who he is. Galeb accuses them of conspiring with Ranzee, an alien who claimed to be marooned on Earth. They try to fight their way out, but Galeb’s wife – a self-proclaimed mystic – sends out a burst of mental energy that knocks all of them out, even Superman, because magic. They awaken in prison, and Ranzee tells them of how Galeb has ruled his people as a tyrant for years, leading him to steal a spaceship and go to Earth to ask the legendary Superman for help after Galeb personally tortured and murdered his wife and child. Booster wants to jump right in and take Galeb out, but the more experienced Superman cautions him about jumping into a political situation without all of the information. Galeb comes to their cell and says that he is willing to release everyone but Ranzee, who is to be executed. When Booster tries to attack, Superman steps in to stop him and the two come to blows. Superman holds back, hoping to cool Booster off, but Booster just keeps going. Eventually, Skeets shorts out Booster’s suit to stop the fight. Skeets has been investigating and learned that Ranzee lied to them – he is actually Galeb’s stepbrother and has been attempting to overthrow Galeb for years. Superman takes Booster back to Earth with his tail between his legs, arriving home at the same time as Lois Lane, who came by to interview Metropolis’s newest hero. Superman flies off, not at all impressed at his new rival.
This story, it should be noted, was published in the midst of Crisis on Infinite Earths and technically features the pre-Crisis Superman, although there is little to differentiate him from the character that would soon appear in the Byrne reboot. But it’s really interesting to me just how much Superman dislikes Booster in their first meeting. Of course, this early in his career, Booster didn’t really give him much to like. He’s cocky, hard-headed, and impulsive, and those qualities would have caused disaster had Superman not been there to get in his way. The way the character grew and evolved over the years is really remarkable, and he’s become one of my favorite DC characters.
John Byrne did one of his cover swipes (a lot of artists do cover swipes, but Byrne got the bug earlier than many – the man draws a Fantastic Four #1 swipe more often than I change my socks) to show Superman and Booster’s next encounter. Mayor Berkowitz has declared it to be Superman Day in Metropolis. The festivities are upset, though, when Booster Gold blows up the Superman statue that was supposed to be dedicated that day. He then calls a press conference where he accuses Superman of crimes against humanity for his recent incursion in the terrorist state of Qurac. Booster calls Superman down for taking political action that way, which comes off as particularly hypocritical if you just read Booster Gold #7, in which Superman stopped him from doing exactly that. Booster then decides to lure Superman into a fight by abducting the mayor’s daughter. Hearing her call for help, Superman zips in and Booster hits him way harder than Superman expected. Booster begins to pummel Superman, beating him with relative ease. With Superman on the ropes, though, a SECOND Booster appears, calling the first an imposter.
The story concludes in Booster Gold #23, once again by Dan Jurgens. A flashback informs us that this fake Booster has been in action for several days, smearing Superman, as Booster was in mourning over the recent loss of his sister and wasn’t even aware of his doppelganger. In the present, Booster manages to shred the fake’s outer covering, revealing a robot underneath. When Booster destroys it, a chunk of Kryptonite falls out, explaining how he was beating Superman. The reader learns that – surprise, surprise – the robot was sent by Lex Luthor, who was using it to gather as much data as possible on Superman for Luthor reasons. He sends a second armored operative – human this time – to attack Superman and retrieve the Kryptonite, and although his drone gets away with Luthor’s glowing rock, Superman easily captures the goon. He knows it’s Luthor’s handiwork, but the guy inside the armor claims to work for Booster Gold, is carrying Booster Gold International ID, and even the components of his armor were made by Booster’s company. Superman doesn’t buy the frame-up for a second. Booster gets the best of Luthor that night, but the epilogue brings in a new challenge for Booster that looks pretty bleak. But this ain’t the “Year of Booster Gold,” no matter how much he might wish it was, so I’m going to let you look all that up for yourself.
The antagonism between Superman and Booster continues here, although by this time Booster has become somewhat more integrated in life in Metropolis. There are even references to previous interviews with Lois, despite Booster and Superman not having encountered one another in the interim. It’s also funny to read these books by Dan Jurgens, who would of course eventually go on to be one of the most significant Superman creators of the post-Crisis era, before he was actually writing or drawing Superman on a regular basis. The character (especially in issue #7) doesn’t quite look like Jurgens’ Superman, it’s more like he was still trying to figure out how to draw him. He got Superman’s personality right away, though, with the character feeling like himself right out of the gate.
Sun. Nov. 16
Comic Books: Firestorm, the Nuclear Man #2, Justice League of America #179-180
Notes: Early in his career – in his second issue, in fact – Firestorm bumped into Superman. Makes sense, really, when you consider just how powerful “the nuclear man” actually is, Superman and the Justice League would clearly want to keep tabs on him. Let’s see how that turned out, shall we?
After a little showboating and reflecting on his origin, because back in the day a superhero was required to recap his origin once an issue, teenage superhero Ronnie Raymond goes about his day. His crush Doreen seems to be into his secret identity (nice), but his father isn’t impressed, nervous about that kind of power in the hands of an individual. And Ronnie can’t even ask his other half Professor Martin Stein for help, because in these early days of the character, Stein didn’t remember anything that happened when he and Ronnie were merged as Firestorm. (I’ve never tracked down the story where that particular tidbit was overturned. If anyone knows when it happened, let me know, would you?) Clark Kent, meanwhile, reporting on the new hero for WGBS, decides that this is exactly the sort of thing that Superman should be keeping an eye on. As he flies to New York to check in on the kid, Stein is attacked in his lab by Multiplex, the Duplicate Menace. (The much better “Multiple Man” was obviously already taken.) Fortunately for Stein, Ronnie discovers the atomic bond he shares with the older man allows him to feel it when Stein is hit and know when he’s in danger. He also discovers that they don’t need to be physically next to one another to trigger their transformation, and Firestorm arrives to take on Multiplex. As Firestorm and Multiplex trade blows, Superman arrives just in time to see the young hero get pummeled, dampening his notions of inviting Firestorm into the Justice League. Superman saves him, and despite a moment of being star-struck, Firestorm zips off in search of Multiplex. Superman follows him and watches as Firestorm captures Multiplex, promising the young hero that he may be Justice League material after all.
Okay, so it was 1978, but that last part feels WILDLY presumptuous on Superman’s part. Suggesting Justice League membership to somebody he literally has just met, who he saw fight ONE supervillain? Because he’s got drive and wants to prove himself? It would make a little more sense today, in this era of Justice League Unlimited, where pretty much everybody with a mask gets a card and a ticket to the Watchtower, but wow.
Just for funsies, I decided to follow this up with Justice League of America #179 and 180, the issues where Firestorm actually DOES join the League, published less than two (real-time) years later, a membership that I’m sure in NO way was influenced by the fact that Firestorm’s creator Gerry Conway was writing the JLA title at the time. Anyway, true to his word, Superman sponsors Firestorm’s membership in this issue, saying that the rookie hero’s “youthful exuberance” will be an asset to the team. Then once he zones out when Batman starts explaining the procedural stuff involved in being a JLA member, Ronnie gives the reader another recap of his origin (I told you, it was required). After a hearty congratulations from Superman, Firestorm returns to Earth and splits up. Ronnie sends Martin Stein (still unaware of his double life) home in a cab, then he meets his friends to check out the hot new disco in town. Seriously, disco. Who says comics from 1980 aren’t timeless? Anyway, it turns out that one of Ronnie’s friends who was supposed to meet him at the club is missing, supposedly in the clutches of a woman called “the Satin Satan.” Ronnie calls Stein back – again, and Firestorm confronts the witchlike woman, feeling her power overtake him just in time to hit his brand-new JLA signal device.
In the next issue, the League arrives in the penthouse where Firestorm was abducted, only to find the place wrecked and empty. A few minutes later, Ronnie Raymond’s friends arrive with a security guard, looking for him. Zatanna’s magic powers manage to track down Satin Satan and Firestorm, helping him get free. Together, the League fights off Satin’s demons and apparently free her from the demonic influence that’s gripping her, then everybody except Green Arrow congratulates Firestorm on a great first case.
Look.
Gerry Conway is a comic book legend, we can all agree on that, right? And Firestorm is a great character – he was really bold and unique when he was created, and he’s been someone I’ve always thought deserves to be a constant presence in the DCU in one form or another, even during the periods in which he lies fallow.
All that said, NOTHING in these three issues suggests that Firestorm is Justice League material. Sure, he comes through in the end, but he makes mistake after mistake, fumbles into traps, and generally acts like a rank amateur. I can see why Superman would want to keep an eye on somebody so powerful, and making him a member of the League in order to train him and help him get better would make a lot of sense. But it’s not framed that way, it all comes across as the League – Superman especially – getting starry-eyed at this new kid and all the neat toys he’s got and wanting him to stick around so they can play together. It comes across a little bit like Conway’s pet.
I also realize that these issues don’t QUITE fit into the “Superman Vs.” theme I’ve kinda been going for this week, but as I didn’t even really intend to do a theme this week at all, I’m not going to feel bad about that. Maybe I’ll call this week “Superman And…” instead.
The weirdest thing, though, is that the issue ends with the clear implication that Satin Satan hasn’t REALLY been set free of her demonic possession – that there is an impending danger that will come back to plague the Justice League again. But a quick check online seems to suggest that these two issues are the ONLY ONES in which she EVER APPEARED. Really? With an ending like THAT? Nobody has picked up on it and tried to do something with the MODEL-GORGEOUS DEMONIC VILLAIN in the past FOUR AND A HALF DECADES?
I’ve now read over 1,000 individual comic book issues for this Year of Superman project, and that may be the wildest thing I’ve discovered yet.
TV Episode: Superman and Lois Season 3, Ep. 3, “In Cold Blood”
Mon, Nov. 17
Comic: Captain Atom #46, Action Comics #587, Batman: Wayne Family Adventures #38 (Guest Appearance)
Notes: Like the first Firestorm comic I covered yesterday, I picked this one more or less because Superman was on the cover and I hadn’t read it before. Captain Atom wakes up on the moon, trapped in a crystalline crucifix along with several other heroes and villains, Superman included. He manages to free himself and Superman, and the two of them investigate their abduction, which turns out to be the work of a crystal alien called Kylstar (say it out loud). After a brief scuffle with their abductor, Kylstar’s translating droid tells them that his planet is ruled by an evil dictator, and he has been seeking sentient weapons – super-beings, in other words – to help him free his planet. He releases the other captives, one of whom is an alien who confirms his story (which is more than we had in the issue of Booster Gold the other day that had a lot of these same beats). Kylstar offers to return anyone who doesn’t want to go with him to their homeworld, but both Atom and Superman decide to return to Earth. After they’re gone, Kylstar casually reveals to Major Force – who agreed to accompany him – that he’s going to have to go ahead and conquer the entire galaxy to have a strong enough army to take on his enemy. Force is all about that. In the end, Superman does Cap a solid, helping him find his estranged daughter Peggy.
It’s an okay issue, and I wonder if the Kylstar storyline was picked up later on in the run. Major Force obviously made it back to Earth at some point, because he was available a few years later to commit the act that led to the “fridging” becoming a comic book-specific verb. But my appetite for a hero vs. hero fight hasn’t been satisfied. So I’ll go back to scratch that itch with another comic from John Byrne’s Action Comics team-up era, issue #587, featuring the Etrigan the Demon.
To be fair, it’s a little tricky to decide if this even counts as “hero vs. hero,” as Demon’s status is kind of flexible. Depending on the writer, he’s either a demon who tries to do good or an evil spirit FORCED to do go via his association with Jason Blood. Byrne writes Etrigran more on the good side, though, without any internal quandaries over wanting to do bad and just doing the good, so it’ll fit nicely.
The story starts with Jason Blood and his friend Glenda Mark in an antique shop in Gotham City, where she accidentally activates an old piece that suddenly captures her in a metallic column. The column expands, capturing the others in the shop as if it were trying to create a miniature city, and Jason only barely manages to summon the Demon in time to avoid being taken himself. Superman is returning to Earth from space when he spots the metal city growing and completely overtaking Gotham. He comes in and tries to wreck the expanding columns, but Etrigan attacks, telling Superman he must not harm the towers. The two of them fight for a few pages before Etrigan shows Superman that every time they break one of the columns it bleeds human blood. Etrigan explains that each column is a human who has been transformed, and the only way to stop them from dying is to do so before they are cursed, and he casts a spell to send Superman back in time. As Etrigan existed in that time, he couldn’t go with Superman (this was an old time travel rule in DC Comics that doesn’t seem to apply anymore) but he gives Superman one hour before the spell wears off and returns him to his own time, and tells him to seek out Jason Blood. Superman finds 12th Century Jason, and together they track down Morgaine le Fay in the process of creating the very artifact that started the mess. Superman dives in despite the magic and disrupts the spell, resetting the timeline. An epilogue replays the scene in the Gotham antique shop, bereft of the artifact, and all is well.
The fight between Superman and Etrigan is short, but really effective. And it’s actually nice to see one of these scuffles where Superman – however well-meaning – is in the wrong. It’s a good change of pace. This issue also has several elements that I always enjoy: time travel, doses of Arthurian legend, and John Byrne artwork. Overall, it’s a fun read.
TV Episode: Superman and Lois Season 3, Episode 4, “Too Close to Home.”
I’ve been trying to squeeze in episodes of this show again because I still want to try to finish it by the end of the year. I haven’t been writing about all of them, though, because I kind of feel like I’ve run out of things to say. I like Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch. I love Wolé Parks as John Henry Irons. But the series as a whole hasn’t gripped me as much as I wanted it to. However, the scene in this episode of Clark – Clark, not Superman – in the diner, facing off against Emmitt Pergande? That’s absolute poetry.
Tues., Nov. 18
Comics: Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder #1-4
Notes: I started this inadvertent “Versus” week with Superman fighting the faux Captain Marvel, so it seems only appropriate that I end it with an early encounter with the real thing. And again, this isn’t actually a fight – Superman and Captain Marvel are never opposed to each other in this miniseries. But you know what? I don’t care. It’s still a good comic.
Published in 2005, this miniseries by Judd Winick and Josh Middleton was a contemporary take on the first meeting between Big Blue and Big Red. It begins with the wizard Shazam at the Rock of Eternity, early in “the second age of heroes,” observing the nascent members of the Justice League in action, then gives us a quick time skip to the rookie Captain Marvel averting a plane crash in Fawcett City. (It is amazing how often planes in comic book universes ALMOST crash. If it was as frequent in real life as it is in a comic book world, nobody would ever board an airplane ever again.) Meanwhile in Metropolis, Superman investigates a break-in at the Museum of Natural History that brings him into battle with a big, blue creature – a sign of that singular bane of his, magic. We also see Billy Batson homeless and refusing to go to yet another foster home, living in abandoned subway tunnels with some help from his friend, a kid named Scott. Looking at a recent newspaper, Billy sees a story about the museum robbery in Metropolis and decides to keep an eye on the Fawcett City museum. Sure enough, that night, there’s a break-in – the same crooks as in Metropolis, still trying to steal Russian artifacts. Once again, the crooks summon monsters and they hurl Captain Marvel out of the museum, where Superman is waiting to lend a hand.
In issue two, we start “one week ago,” with a summit between Dr. Thaddeus Sivana and Lex Luthor, where the two evil geniuses – despite their mutual dislike of one another – agree to cooperate, with Luthor giving Sivana use of an operative named Spec to trail Captain Marvel. Spec, we find out, managed to trail Marvel and witnessed his transformation into a child. Back in the “present,” Superman and Captain Marvel meet outside the museum for the first time and team up to fight the monsters summoned by the robbers. After fighting them off, Marvel asks Superman if they can “talk,” and the two of them have a casual conversation on the top of Mt. Everest, discussing their powers and what it’s like to be heroes. Their talk is disrupted when Superman hears a pair of dual threats coming from Fawcett – Sivana has summoned the demonic villain Sabbac via a spell which also creates a solar eclipse, and wouldn’t you know it? Dr. Bruce Gordon has once again been taken over by the spirit of Eclipso.
Yeah, he’s in this too.
Issue three kicks off with Spec finding his way to the homeless enclave where Billy Batson has been living, looking for information about “a little boy, about eleven years old, black hair,” and offering to pay handsomely. While Spec hunts Billy, Superman and Marvel take on Sabbac in Fawcett City. At the same time, Eclipso makes his move, using a satellite network to transform the people of Fawcett into – goodie! – more Eclipsos! Superman dismantles Eclipso’s machine, but still has to deal with a legion of innocent people who have been eclipsed and go on the attack, while Marvel is left to face Sabbac alone. Superman escapes and disrupts the coven that caused the Eclipse, breaking Eclipso’s hold on everyone, including Bruce Gordon, and Marvel tricks Sabbac into saying his own name, causing him to turn off his powers just like Billy uses the word “Shazam!” Superman and Marvel part as friends, but that night as Billy is reading about his own exploits in the newspaper, Sivanna (using Spec’s intel) sends an army of thugs to kidnap him.
In the final issue, Billy switches to Captain Marvel just before Sivanna’s goons open fire. He defeats them easily, but in the gunfire his friend Scott is mortally wounded. Marvel brings him to the hospital, but Scott succumbs to his injuries. Marvel bursts into the police station where Sivanna’s thugs have been taken and begins to brutalize one of them, demanding to know who hired him. Moments later, he’s ripped apart Sivanna’s corporate headquarters and has Sivanna’s throat in his hand. He chokes him, almost to death, but relents before Sivanna is killed and flees the scene. In Metropolis, Clark hears about the incident and finds Marvel again at Mt. Everest, where he plans to have him answer for attacking a police station, assaulting a prisoner, and destroying the top floor of the Sivana building…until he sees Marvel weeping. Superman is confused by Marvel’s sobbing about getting “his best friend killed,” until he says his magic word and becomes Billy Batson again. Superman demands that Billy take him to the Wizard Shazam, where he rips into him for putting a child in danger. “He’s just a boy,” he declares. Shazam replies, “He is. A boy who could use guidance.” In the last few pages, Clark Kent finds Billy in the abandoned building where he’s living now. He removes his glasses, unbuttons his shirt to reveal the “S,” and sits down to have a talk.
This is such a great story, all building up to the last few scenes, which are immensely powerful. At first, Superman sees Marvel as a contemporary, an equal, somebody who maybe can understand the burden of power that he carries because he shares it. When he discovers the truth about Billy Batson, the righteous anger that fills him is perfectly in keeping, although you have to wonder if he ever had a similar discussion with Batman about any of the Robins. In any case, this is such a great dynamic for the two of them. In a world where Superman and Billy Batson co-exist, Clark Kent would be a perfect mentor for the boy. Unfortunately, in all the reboots that have happened in the past 20 years, I’m fairly certain this story is no longer canon, and that’s a shame.
One other amusing thing I need to point out – Marvel defeats Sabbac by tricking him into saying his own name, which also happens to be the magic word that triggers his transformation. At this point, people had mistakenly been calling Captain Marvel “Shazam” for decades, since DC was using that word to secure the trademark. But Sabbac having a name that he can’t say is ridiculous, a problem Captain Marvel Jr. had since the beginning, and a problem that was exacerbated in the New 52 reboot when “Shazam” became Billy’s hero name. These days, in-universe, Billy’s alter ego is just “The Captain,” which sidesteps the problem, but it’s kind of lame as a superhero name. I dunno, maybe they should have just stuck with “Captain Thunder” in the first place.
Radio Program: The Adventures of Superman serial “The Clan of the Fiery Cross” episodes 1 and 2.
It’s the last full week before Halloween, and I’m going whole hog on the spooky content, friends. This week we’re going to find ourselves encountering some of the creepiest crawlies there are. Vampires, werewolves, mummies, and Dr. Frankenstein’s bouncing baby boy are all coming your way week, along with a few Halloween specials. We’re gonna wrap up October in classic Abbott and Costello fashion with Superman Meets the Monsters!
Comics:Superman: The Man of Steel #14, Superman Vol. 2 #70, Young Justice #3, Wonder Woman Vol. 6 #25 (Cameo)
Notes: We’re going to kick off this week with a two-part story from 1992 in which Tim Drake – at time the newly-minted Robin – pays a visit after news that an odd “blood plague” has jumped from Gotham City to Metropolis. Tim suspects that the victims, drained of blood and left to die, were the targets of a vampire, and he’s determined to hunt them down. Tim, being the smartest member of the Batman family, is absolutely right: we see the vampire appear in the home of the ill Lucy Lane whose boyfriend (at the time) Jimmy Olsen is at her bedside when he appears. The vampire pulls Lucy from her window to feast, his appearance constantly changing and cycling through various famous movie vampires, before Jimmy drives him off with the flashbulb of his camera. The next day he shows Lois the photo he took of Lucy hovering in the air, proof of the attack because vampires can’t be photographed. Dozens of people start disappearing, including Jimmy’s friend Babe (I didn’t name her, folks), a rocker girl who hired him for a photo shoot.
Since Superman is out of town dealing with a series of disasters and calamities, it’s up to the rest of our cast to do something about the situation. The next night, Jimmy, Lois, and Ella Lane (Lucy and Lois’s mom) treat her room with garlic and prepare to look out for her. Jimmy, meanwhile, goes full-out Monster Hunter with a kind of ridiculous getup that I can’t believe never made it into an action figure. Jimmy and Robin encounter each other on a rooftop (their first meeting) as they both track their suspect, the mysterious “Dr. Ruthven.” (Ruthven, by the way, I believe is an old Bulgarian name which means “Obviously I’m a vampire in disguise, I mean, come ON.”) But when Ruthven turns out to be more they can handle, Jimmy activates his signal watch, summoning Superman to his side. He manages to grab Ruthven as the sun is rising, and they watch him disintegrate. Their victory is short-lived, though, as they hear Ruthven laughing, mocking them, saying that sunlight can’t kill a “modern” vampire.
The story continues in Superman #70, with Superman and Robin patrolling the city and Robin trying to convince Superman that vampires are undead, and the usual no-killing rules therefore do not apply. Superman, meanwhile, isn’t convinced that driving a wooden stake through someone is the way to go. Jimmy, hospitalized from his own injuries fighting Ruthven, implores Superman to save Lucy. As he seeks her out, Jimmy and Robin begin making plans. That night, Superman is distracted by a subplot just long enough for Ruthven to return to Lucy’s apartment and take her away, but Jimmy and Robin trace him to an old cemetery where he’s gathered dozens of people he’s infected, including Lucy. Lucy is about to bite Superman (and, as her vampire powers are magical, it would probably work), and Jimmy tackles Robin to prevent him from staking her.
As all this is going on, the situation is being observed by the demon Blaze, an old foe of Superman’s who is concerned that there are certain dead people whose souls were marked for her, but are still in the land of the living, trapped in their undead forms. Blaze floods the cemetery with light that burns the vampire virus out of the victims. Ruthven falls onto a statue of a soldier with a bayonet, essentially staking himself. All seems to be well until the final panel, when we see a face in Babe’s eye that reveals she is not as free of the vampire influence as we would have hoped.
The Babe situation would become a running subplot for quite some time, not resolving itself until some time after Superman’s death and resurrection, so it clearly wasn’t the end of this particular storyline. But that’s how it was during the Triangle Era – this little two-parter set up lots of pieces that would pay off later. The Babe story was one of them, the Blaze storyline would flare up just a month later, and there were even seeds for the two-part “Crisis at Hand” story we read here a couple of weeks ago. It’s fun to see Jimmy hanging out with Robin as well, although there’s never any real explanation as to why Batman would have sent him to Metropolis to deal with a friggin’ vampire without any backup. This was during the period where Tim was enjoying a few miniseries before graduating to his own solo title, and the red-hot popularity of the character explains his appearance in a meta sense, but not in a story sense.
As we’ve seen before, though, it bothers me that the heroes didn’t actually win this one. Without Blaze’s intervention, Superman may well have been bitten and turned into a vampire. Ultimately, it’s hard to call this one a victory for the good guys, no matter how much fun the story actually was.
For a bonus bit of Halloween fun, let’s look at Young Justice #3 by the late Peter David with art by Todd Nauck. Tim’s back again, this time with his pals Superboy and Impulse, having fun at a Halloween party with their brand-new superhero team. Unfortunately, a cult nearby has – in an attempt to summon a demon – accidentally plucked a teenage Mr. Mxyzlptlk from back in time. He encounters the kids and, hearing about his future shenanigans from Superboy, resolves never to use his powers frivolously. Unfortunately, it’s one of those “would you kill Hitler as a baby?” scenarios – it may sound like a good idea, but the ripples through time turn out to be disastrous. Young Justice is then tasked with teaching Mxy HOW to be a prankster in order to save the world.
David’s run on Young Justice was simply a delight. It was a series that had plenty of humor and laughs, but at the same time, never once skimped on characterization. Early in this issue, for example, there’s a scene where Superboy defends Robin from a jerk at the party, not because he doesn’t think Robin can handle himself, but because as someone who hangs out WITH Robin, he’s afraid that if Robin comes off as a wimp it’ll make him look bad. There was a lot of character growth done in this series, and by the end of it Tim and Conner were fast friends, but that bond didn’t exist yet here. There’s also a subplot with Red Tornado, who was acting as a sort of senior advisor to the team, reconnecting with his daughter as she goes trick-or-treating. These little character moments were a trademark of David’s writing, and whether he was writing a cosmic epic or a goofy story about a Halloween party, either way it elevated his work and helped make it more than the sum of its parts. It’s only been a couple of months, but I miss his stuff already.
Notes: Today I’m going to tackle a couple of comics that only a Mummy could love, starting with Superboy #123, “The Curse of the Superboy Mummy.” The story begins in ancient Egypt, when an oracle sees a vision of the future with Superboy demonstrating his amazing powers. The oracle tells the royal magician how to create a potion that will turn his son Seth into a super-boy, even crafting a costume to match that in the vision. Neferti, daughter of the pharaoh, takes an interest in Seth, but he spurns her as he had no interest in her before he gained his powers. She turns to a rival magician for a charm to make Seth love her. He gives her a jade scarab, but the magician tricks her and the scarab strikes Seth down, causing both he and Neferti to drown in the sea. The two are mummified and buried together. In sorrow, Seth’s father carves a warning inscription into his son’s tomb about a calamity the oracle predicted, but he is driven out before it can be finished.
5,000 years later, Lana Lang and Clark Kent are digging up a pyramid in modern Egypt (this isn’t quite as random as it sounds – Lana’s father was an archaeology professor) and happen to unearth the mummies of Neferti and Seth who – wouldn’t you know – happen to EXACTLY resemble Lana and Superboy, whose costume Seth is still wearing. Lana doesn’t know what the inscription on the tomb says, but Clark knows ALL ancient languages, because when you’ve got super-speed you need to find some way to pass the time. It reads “Mighty Superboy! Behold Seth, the super-youth of our day, and Neferti, who slew him by mishap. Heed the warning of the magic shield which predicts that you, too, will be killed by the maid, Lana, of your time, unless you first destroy her…” The mummies crumble into dust, and Clark dismisses the prophecy. Upon returning to Smallville, Superboy gets a sudden chest pain when he picks up Lana the next day. It happens again every time he gets near Lana, which is frequent, as she seems even more trouble-prone than Silver Age Lois Lane. Together they crack the mystery – Lana foudn and has been wearing Neferti’s scarab, which is affecting Superboy much like Kryptonite. The inscription, which was never finished, was supposed to say “unless you first destroy her SCARAB.”
This is why it’s always important not to bury the lede, guys.
It’s a fun story, though, and although it has a lot of the sillier tropes of the era, it presents them in a fun, more unique way than a lot of the comics of the time. Superboy doesn’t actually FIGHT a mummy, I guess, but he’s almost killed by one, and that feels like it fits in with Halloween to me.
Clark would encounter a mummy again in the John Byrne era, in Superman #5, “The Mummy Strikes!” Clark comes in to work where Perry White shows him a video that Lois sent covering an archeological dig in South America. The video cut out, and Perry orders Clark on the next flight down there to find out what happened – of course, the fastest flight happens to be Air Superman. When he arrives he finds he camp safe, allows Lois to think Superman dropped him off (it’s not TECHNICALLY a lie) and discovers what’s going on. The archaeologists have uncovered a metal cylinder that seems to have been made by advanced technology, but is at least 6000 years old. What’s more, the pyramid they are excavating was built over a technological structure that predates human civilization. As they search the caverns, a gigantic creature wrapped like a mummy bursts through the walls and attacks them. Clark manages to “get separated” from the group so he can use his powers against the mummy, but it knocks him out. Lois finds him and the creature, whose trappings have fallen away to reveal an enormous robot. The story continues in issue #6, where Clark wakes up to find Lois holding up his Superman uniform. She tells him that he has been unconscious for “two solar days” and refers to Clark as a “handsome stranger.” Clark realizes that Lois, and the rest of the camp, have had their bodies taken over by alien forces. He learns that these creatures belong to a race that existed on Earth before humans, but who abandoned the planet when struck by a plague. About 500 of them chose to stay and placed their minds in the body of their robot, which would awaken when the race that replaced them reached a sufficient level of development, then take their planet back. Superman battles the robot, which still has the minds of most of the lost civilization, and forces it to release Lois and the rest of the team, who conveniently have no memory of their captivity. He tricks the robot into trying to download its consciousness into his Kryptonian body, which short-circuits the transfer sequence, causing the robot to explode. Superman gives Lois the story this time, “Clark” having been returned to Metropolis already.
I enjoyed this little John Byrne two-parter with its appropriate seasonal goodness. The first half, with the mummy, has some classic monster movie tropes, although the science fiction underpinnings show through the seams from the very beginning. The second half does away with those trappings (literally and figuratively), but the notion of a pre-human civilization trying to wipe out humanity is another classic trope that you could find in the sci-fi invasion films of the 50s, giving the entire thing a nice, old-school feel that’s wildly apropos for the season. There’s also a funny little runner about Clark having neglected to shave and trying not to let Lois notice that he and Superman are sporting the same five o’clock shadow. I know I usually defend Lois in the old days for not figuring out that Superman and Clark were the same person, but I have to admit, stories like this one make that tough sometimes.
I’ll close off today with the curious little book that is DC Comics Presents #53. Presents, as you may recall, was the Superman team-up book, with Superman partnering up with a different guest star in each issue. In this one, his guest star is House of Mystery, an odd choice in that it’s not exactly a CHARACTER. House of Mystery and its sister title, House of Secrets, were a pair of horror anthology comics hosted by the brothers, Cain and Abel, similar in concept to classic comics like Tales From the Crypt, but not quite as intense. In this issue, Mystery’s host Cain pops in to present to us the Superman story “The Haunting Dooms of Halloween.” The story starts with a kid – little Ricky (who probably not coincidentally looks like Ricky from Superman III,which had been released earlier that year) trick-or-treating in a Superman costume when suddenly, without warning, he turns into Superman himself. He rushes to Metropolis and bursts into Lois Lane’s Halloween party, where he abducts Lois. At the same time, Jimmy transforms into Thor – the costume HE was wearing – and tries to save her by…making it rain. Clark, wearing a Green Lantern costume, pretends that whatever magic is affecting Jimmy has struck him as well and uses his “power ring” to fly after the fake Superman.
Back at the House of Mystery, Cain is settling in to tell another story to a group of children when he gets a visitor – Mr. Mxyzptlk (Mxy seems to just LOVE Halloween), who brings in the fake Superman and Lois. He restores Ricky to normal, then starts zapping the other kids to become the monsters and ghosts they’re dressed as. The real Superman (in his own costume now) tracks them down and enters the House, and a voice warns him that he must find Lois by midnight or she’ll be lost forever. He stumbles through the house, facing not only his own fears, but assorted monsters that he’s reluctant to hurt when he realizes that they’re transformed children. As the clock strikes midnight, Superman stands in stark horror at his failure…until Mxy reveals himself, and he starts to laugh. Cain is confused until Superman explains – the whole thing is obviously a joke. Mxy may be a pest, but he wouldn’t actually HURT anyone. This is a WILD swing, by the way, as there are plenty of Mxyzptlk stories where he DOES hurt people, but in this case it seems to be right – Lois is freed from her own prank (being stuck in a room full of comic book artists chained to their drawing boards and begging her to set them free), and Mxy begins to plot his next Halloween stunt. He’s foiled not by Superman, but by little Ricky, who feeds Cain a clue to trick Mxy into banishing himself for another 90 days.
This is a really silly story, far more lighthearted than your typical House of Mystery fare, and Cain plays a more active role than he usually does. It’s very much in keeping with the Superman stories of the era, though, and a joy to read as part of my Halloween windup. I didn’t anticipate having two Mxyzptlk stories in two days, however. I suppose Halloween WOULD be his favorite time of the year, though. Hey, DC, if you’re listening, I’ve got an idea for NEXT year’s anthology theme…
Fri., Oct. 24
Comics: Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #44, 52
Notes: If there’s one thing you can say about Jimmy Olsen, it’s that his life is NEVER boring. Whether he’s getting elastic powers or turning into a giant turtle, some sort of nonsense is ALWAYS happening to him. Today I’m going to take a peek into a couple of his hairiest adventures, beginning with Jimmy Olsen #44, “The Wolf-Man of Metropolis.” Superman, who has apparently learned nothing from all the times Jimmy has turned himself into a turtle, drops off a box of ancient bottles and jars that he recently uncovered, including one that purports to contain a potion that can turn someone into a “wolf-man.” When Lois asks Jimmy if it’s real, he decides to prove it’s just a superstition by drinking the contents of the bottle. (Side note: whether werewolves are real or not, is it really the best idea to drink from a bottle that’s been underground for centuries? This is why Jimmy is still a junior reporter after 85 years.) That night, the potion kicks in and turns him into a werewolf just before he’s supposed to take Lucy on a date to a masquerade party. He avoids admitting he’s a werewolf by getting her a Red Riding Hood costume, and they even win the costume contest. Over the next few nights, though, he keeps changing into a wolf and having to find increasingly unlikely explanations for why he’s still wearing the makeup. Lois immediately catches on to what happened and tells her sister, but Jimmy keeps evading the question instead of just fessing up and asking her to break the curse for him, as the bottle says it will end if he gets a kiss from a pretty girl. Jimmy gets desperate, even attempting to pay random women in the park to kiss him (had this story happened today it would be all over social media and Jimmy would be cancelled FOREVER) before Superman brings Jimmy into a dark room and gets his cousin, Supergirl, to give him a smooch and put him out of his misery.
This story makes Jimmy look so remarkably stupid that you can’t help but love it. From drinking the potion to refusing to admit it even after Lois has told Lucy about the boneheaded thing he did this time, Jimmy doesn’t make a single correct decision throughout the entirety of the tale. He doesn’t even know, at the end, that Supergirl is the one who saves him, because this is during that period when her existence was still being kept a secret, which is why Superman asks her to kiss him in the dark. I would love to have listened in when Superman called her to help with this one: “Hey, Linda, it’s Clark. My idiot friend drank a potion that – yes, AGAIN – a potion that turned him into a werewolf. Will you kiss him for me?”
Incidentally, in the backup story in this issue, Mr. Mxyzptlk disguises himself as a leprechaun. It may not be a Halloween story, but if this keeps up I may have to re-name this “Mr. Mxyzptlk” week.
Jimmy’s monstrous problems weren’t over, though. Just eight issues later, MYXYZPTLK COMES BACK! I am UTTERLY DELIGHTED. Mxy, dodging taking his own girlfriend out for a birthday date, comes to Metropolis and falls head over heels in love with Lucy Lane. Trying to find a way to sabotage Jimmy, he sees the b0ttle of wolf-man potion in Jimmy’s trophy collection and makes him drink it, but further uses his magic to turn the potion into water. It doesn’t affect Jimmy, but he doesn’t know that. Instead, Mxy places his own curse on Jimmy, one that is immune to the kiss of a beautiful girl. When the sun comes down, Jimmy becomes a wolf-man again. Once more, Superman summons Supergirl to make out with Jimmy in the dark, but it doesn’t work and he’s still stuck as a wolf. The next night, he’s working late at the Planet office when the sun goes down and he once again wolfs out. Lois takes pity on him and gives him a kiss, but once again, nothing happens. On Night Three, Lucy insists on Jimmy taking her to the zoo at night, because that’s apparently something girls did in the 1950s. Jimmy changes again, and this time Lucy kisses him (with her eyes closed, trying to pretend he’s somebody else), but again, no avail. It keeps going – Lori Lemaris, Lana Lang, nobody’s kiss saves him! Until a veiled girl on the street rushes up to him and gives him a smooch that turns him normal again. She whips off her veil to reveal the less-than-gorgeous face of Miss Gzptlsnz, Mxy’s spurned girlfriend, who enchanted her own lipstick to break Mxy’s magic. She tricks Mxy into going home and follows him, then he goes back to Lucy to tell her he’s normal again, but this time she spurns him because he’s kissed too many girls this week.
I have no notes. This story is perfect and, although I haven’t actually looked it up, I assume it won the Nobel Prize for literature.
Sat., Oct. 25
Comics: Superman #143, Action Comics #531, Green Lantern Vol. 8 #27 (Superboy Guest Appearance), Green Lantern Corps Vol. 4 (Superboy Guest Appearance), Green Lantern Vol. 8 #28 (Superboy Guest Appearance), Action Comics #1091, Superman Unlimited #6, Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #44
Notes: Today we’re going to spend a little time with Superman and his encounters with my favorite creature of them all – the Frankenstein monster. The creature has been in the public domain since the dawn of comics, and he’s showed up everywhere. In modern times, the DC version has even become a secret agent and adopted the name “Eric Frankenstein.” But we’re going to look at earlier versions this time out, starting with Superman #143: “Bizarro Meets Frankenstein!”
On Bizarro World, the Bizarro kids love Earth movies – terrifying monsters like Charlie Chaplin and comedies starring the likes of the Wolfman and Mummy. But Bizarro #1 is outraged when he sees a commercial advertising a new Frankenstein movie as starring “the world’s scariest monster.” Determined to prove that he, Bizarro, is scarier than Frankenstein, he zips to Earth, scaring the crap out of a Yeti just to prove that he can before he makes his way to Metropolis. First, he finds the actor wearing the monster makeup and chucks him out of the window, then makes his way to the movie set. To his shock, though, instead of being terrified of him, everyone laughs and the actresses even line up to give him kisses. Unbeknownst to him, the director saw Superman on set earlier and told the girls that he must have put on Bizarro makeup to stir up publicity to his Frankenstein movie. I assume this story must take place on an alternate Earth where that kind of logic makes sense.
Bizarro’s attempts to generate terror continue to fail. A few actors on a western set shoot at him to make him dance (having accidentally chewed a loco weed that’s growing on the movie lot) and a couple of kids don’t fear him, but treat him like Santa Claus (Bizarro doesn’t know that the kids’ parents are part of a circus freakshow, so ain’t nothin’ gonna creep them out). Finally, he gets back to the Frankenstein set, where he starts tearing stuff up, but once again, there’s no fear on anyone’s faces. Superman finally drives Bizarro off by playing a recording to make Bizarro think someone is screaming in terror and a static electricity machine to make the actors’ hair stand on end. Back on Bizarro World, Bizarro decides to celebrate Halloween (Dec. 24, of course) with his kids with a marionette of the scariest monster on Earth – Superman.
My goodness, what a delightfully absurd story. Perhaps the funniest thing is that Bizarro himself isn’t the one acting backwards this time. His goal of proving that he’s the scariest monster of them all is actually pretty straightforward, and in truth, is more logical than most of his stories often are. But even for the Silver Age, the set of contrived coincidences that keep people from fearing him over and over again just stack up to a point of utter absurdity. I love this story for what it is, though: ridiculous, cheesy fun.
Action Comics #531gives us “The Devil and the Daily Planet!” Morgan Edge is making preparations to sell the Daily Planet to a sleazy tabloid publisher named Mort Waxman, a decision that has Clark and his colleagues quite upset. As he’s being shown around the building, Waxman is attacked Scooby-Doo style by a ghost who tells him to get out. The staff begins searching the building, and Lois and Clark run afoul of a Frankenstein-type monster dead set on getting Waxman, whom he calls his “creator,” and Jimmy and Perry wind up fighting a horde of demons that attack a mysterious woman in the printing room. The whole thing turns out to be the work of the ghost of the Planet’s original printer’s assistant, who loves the newspaper and refuses to see it destroyed by Waxman. In the end, Edge is convinced that the paper is too important to turn over to a profiteering scum merchant like Waxman, marking one of the few instances in comic book history of Morgan Edge demonstrating something like integrity.
Marv Wolfman and Joe Staton are responsible for this one, and it’s pretty good. This is from 1982, that era when the Superman comics as a whole were kind of stale, but this was a different sort of story. Superman wasn’t quite the hero in this one, facing a supernatural threat where he was confused as anybody else, but the story holds up the ideals of the character very well. I also really like Staton’s Frankenstein Monster – it’s a nice design that is more evocative of the original Mary Shelley novel than the more popular movie rendition, and it really works well for the character here.
In addition to the creepy content, I’m also going to read some of the recent Superman comics today – it’s been a couple of weeks, and I’ve got several of them built up. Action Comics #1091 continues Mark Waid’s Superboy story with Sam Lane trying to capture young Clark. He escapes easily, but the realization that the military is after him leaves Clark rattled, especially since he was sent there by Captain Comet. When he confronts him, Comet tells Clark he knew that Lane would try to catch him and he wanted to see how Superboy would handle a problem he couldn’t simply punch. Clark soon realizes there’s more going on than Adam Blake is telling him. I said an issue or two ago that I hoped Mark Waid wasn’t taking the route of turning Captain Comet, one of DC’s longest running heroes (maybe never an A-list hero, but still a hero) into a villain. The reveal in this issue is really well-planned, and the final pages between Superboy and Captain Comet are magnificent. It’s perfectly in character for both of them, and it’s wonderful to see a story where a Clark this young starts learning the lessons that will make him the greatest hero of them all.
Dan Slott and Rafael Albuquerque (with Mike Norton this time) continue their story in Superman Unlimited #6. A visit to the Kryptonite-rich country of El Cadero to retrieve a Kryptonian sunstone runs into some problems as Clark’s lead suit is ripped open, exposing him to the incredible amount of Kryptonite radiation permeating the country. At that moment, of course, the Kobra operatives choose to take action. This is the sixth issue, the half-year mark of the title, which is traditionally where the first trade paperback collection will end. That makes it a decent time to take stock of where the series as a whole is going. Slott has set up a really interesting status quo, with a potentially hostile nation having control of the largest Kryptonite stockpile on the planet, Superman discovering a new power, and of course, the return of the Supermobile. The last page also is extremely promising, setting up future storylines for a couple of characters who have been underutilized lately. I’m hoping the second half of this title’s first year is as good as its first, because it’s been a strong addition to the Superman family of titles.
Waid is back for Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #44. Superman and Batman decide to send Robin (Dick Grayson – remember, this series is set in the past) to investigate a company that may have ties to LexCorp. Concerned about his safety, though, they ask Supergirl – who hasn’t held the highest opinion of Robin since their disastrous and hilarious date back in issue #12 of this series, to keep an eye on him from a distance. When the facility they’re in turns out to be experimenting with a synthetic Kryptonite, the fight gets a lot harder, and funnier. I absolutely love the antagonistic attraction Waid laces into the interactions of these two characters. It’s a funny dynamic to play up that’s pretty unique in pairings between the Superman and Batman families. I hope, at some point, we get to see Waid write a contemporary story with the two of them to see how the grown-up Nightwing and Supergirl get along these days.
Sun., Oct. 26
Comics: Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #142-143, Krypto: The Last Dog of Krypton #5, Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum #3, Supergirl Vol. 8 #6, Justice League Red #3, New History of the DC Universe #4
Notes: More monsterly fun begins today with Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #142, part of Jack Kirby’s run, in which Jimmy and Supes meet “The Man From Transilvane!” A vampire called Dragorin casts his spell on Laura Conway, secretary of Jimmy and Clark’s boss, Morgan Edge. When she passes out in the office, they quickly discover her vampiric affliction, and Dragorin appears to interrogate her about her previous employer, Dabney Donovan. Jimmy and Clark go to investigate Donovan’s old lab, where they face off with a werewolf, causing Clark to duck out and Superman to take his place. Together, they figure out that Dragorin is seeking information about a cemetery called Bloodmoor. They track Dragolin to Bloodmoor, where they find his secret – the miniature planet Transilvane, buried beneath his mausoleum! The story continues in issue #143, where we learn that Donovan created the entire planet, complete with its monster-like inhabitants, as one of his experiments. They find Dragorin in what looks like a coffin, but Superman realizes they’re more like decompression chambers, helping them make the transition from Transilvane to Earth. The monsters put Superman in a torture device, hoping to force him to reveal Donovan’s whereabouts. Unfortunately for them, Superman doesn’t know, and also, he’s Superman, so the torture device isn’t all that effective. Donovan’s machines are about to unleash a “Genocide Spray,” cleansing Transilvane’s surface of all life to prepare it for new experiments. Superman manages to stop the spray and send the Transilvanians back home. Together, he and Jimmy figure out that the beings from Transilvane were “copiers” – creatures of a fluid atomic base that transformed into monstrous forms because Donovan flooded their planet with images from horror movies. Superman decides to give them a more peaceful world, and they switch the movie in Donovan’s machine to Oklahoma.
There’s a reason they called Jack Kirby the King of Comics, and I suppose that reason is that no other man on Earth could have gotten away with starting a story by showing a vampire attacking a secretary and ending it by having Superman convert the entire population of a miniature planet into devotees of musical theatre. Kirby had no hesitation to take wild swings, and the more I read of his Jimmy Olsen run, the more convinced I am that this series showcased that better than anything else. Still, for all the fun I’ve had so far this week, I’ve seen relatively few legitimate monsters. There was a robot wrapped up like a mummy, an actor in Frankenstein makeup, kids turned into monsters by Mxy-magic, Jimmy turned into a wolfman without losing his inherent Jimmytude…and now this alien that’s kinda like a vampire. I feel the need for REAL monsters. Fortunately, I’ve got a few more comics lined up that may understand the assignment a little better.
Halfway through the Saints/Buccaneers football game, I decided that if I was going to cry this afternoon it should be for a GOOD reason, so I picked up Krypto: The Last Dog of Krypton #5. The final issue of Ryan North and Mike Norton’s miniseries is just as flawless as the first four issues as Krypto, still wandering, stumbles upon a family in trouble. Remembering some of the hardships he’s endured since coming to Earth, he comes to their rescue, and then something miraculous happens.
This is, simply put, a beautiful comic book. North has a pipeline right to the heart of the reader, tapping into emotion that greatly outstrips any other comic on the market right now. His Krypto never says a word, but nevertheless proves over and over again what kind of hero he truly is. Norton, meanwhile, is putting forth his A-game in every panel, filling Krypto’s canine face with courage and emotion.
This is the best miniseries of 2025. I’m putting it out there right now. It’s perfect.
Of course, Superman: The Kryptonite Spectrum may be a close second. The third issue of W. Maxwell Prince and Martin Morazzo’s Black Label series starts with a Superman who has been reduced to a teenager after exposure to a new kind of Cobalt Kryptonite, so the Justice League places him in the custody of one of the few people who can relate to what he’s going through: Billy Batson. As Batman tries to seek a cure to the Cobalt K’s effects, he stumbles upon a surprising revelation about the Rainbow Kryptonite in his possession. Billy and Clark, meanwhile, decide to visit a local amusement park that turns out to be a trap set by their respective foes, Dr. Sivana and the Toyman. Hilarity ensues.
Well, not “hilarity,” actually, but “existential drama ensues” doesn’t have the same ring to it. Prince layers his story with the same kind of deep questions and introspective moments that have made Ice Cream Man such a hit, but at the same time, respecting the characters and crafting a tone that feels kind of like the Silver Age taken a bit more seriously. It’s All Star Superman played for drama. And all of that is a good thing.
Sophie Campbell’s Supergirl #6 give us a brand-new Halloween tale. Kara is being plagued by bad dreams about her own past: her time as a Red Lantern, the time she was manipulated by Darkseid, and her own death in Crisis on Infinite Earths. As her friends try to figure out what’s wrong with her, Supergirl faces a demonic being called Nightflame who claims to be a facet of Kara’s own personality. It’s a quick, self-contained story, but there’s a lot to like about it. Campbell reflects a lot of elements of Supergirl’s past that seem to be intended to help differentiate which of her stories and versions are still in continuity these days (in addition to the previous stories I mentioned, her father’s tenure as a Cyborg Superman and the epic events of Woman of Tomorrow are both referenced). I have to wonder if DC disseminated Mark Waid’s notes for The New History of the DC Universe to its writers as they were coming in, because Campbell works hard to reflect the reality that miniseries has given us. But it doesn’t just show us the tough times in Supergirl’s past – it’s a story about a girl who has confronted her own demons and is working past them. For the most part, this series has been pretty lighthearted, but Supergirl is a character who has endured an awful lot of trauma (arguably much more than her cousin) and Campbell isn’t shying away from showing that.
Nightflame, by the way, is yet another Character from Supergirl’s past, and the cover is even an homage to her prior appearance from Adventure Comics #421. You’ve gotta appreciate the attention to detail.
The mystery deepens in Justice League Red #3. As Cyborg and Green Lantern try to save Red Canary from the Church of Blood, Power Girl confronts Red Tornado over the “gift” he offered her at the end of last issue. Red Tornado is starting to come apart – he’s afraid he’s losing his humanity and, at the same time, using his algorithm to try to predict future catastrophic events that his newly-assembled strike force is intended to prevent. But there’s one future – one REALLY bad future – that he’s got his eye on, and this issue he tells us what he’s going to need the team to do. I like the premise here, of Red Tornado putting together a red ops – um, black ops – team that does jobs he can’t divulge to the rest of the Justice League. I just hope writer Saladin Ahmed can pull it off without permanent damage to the character. I suppose it’ll all come down to how the rest of this miniseries shakes out.
Mark Waid finishes up his romp through the multiverse with New History of the DC Universe #4, with Barry Allen bringing us from the events of Blackest Night right up to the most recent events in the DCU. I’m a little surprised that he didn’t try to touch upon the Legion of Super-Heroes more, but I suppose that’s being saved for the regular comics. I did like how the notes at the end touch upon virtually all of the many potential futures of the DC Universe. There are a lot of great characters out there, and it would be kind of a shame to decanonize any of them. The book works well in terms of trying to explain the reason behind the assorted contradictions of DC history, if not explaining the contradictions themselves. By the end of it all, I feel like we have a solid foundation and understanding of just what stories matter, with a real pathway to the future. I’m going to have to go back at some point and read these four issues (and the extensive notes in the end) in one fell swoop.
Notes: There was more blood-sucking goodness to be had in Superman #344 from 1980, “The Monsters Among Us” by Paul Levitz and Curt Swan. Lois and Clark are sent to cover a seance at an old castle that is intended to summon the spirit of mystic Roland Randall on the 50th anniversary of his death. The medium, a blind woman named Cassandra Craft, tells Clark that she senses an “inner strength” to him, something he quickly denies. When the seance begins, Cassandra cries out and faints, waking up to say that Randall’s spirit is terrified of something. Clark spots two figures in the storm raging outside and ducks away so Superman can investigate. The two shapes burst into the room, appearing as Dracula and the Frankenstein monster, and they’re after Cassandra. After a quick battle with Superman the monsters escape, vowing to return. The next day, after a bizarre vignette where the Frankenstein monster steals some cakes from a bakery truck and briefly tousles with Superman, they return to the castle seeking Cassandra. He manages to fight them off, setting the creature on fire and creating a miniature sun with a hydrogen balloon to cripple Dracula. With the monsters out for the count, the Phantom Stranger appears out of nowhere and spirits them away.
No, really, that’s how it ends. No explanation, no rationalization, not even a “to be continued.” Dracula, at least, says something like “Not again!” but that doesn’t actually tell us ANYTHING. On the one hand, I’m glad that Superman actually had the monsters beaten already by the time the deus ex machina showed up, but on the other hand, what the hell, Paul Levitz? A good story with a very frustrating finale.
In Action Comics #577 by Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming, Superman faces off with “Caitiff, the first vampire!” The Metropolis Center for Disease Control reports a number of “suspicious deaths.” Seeing a news report promising footage of what’s going on, a creature named Caitiff decides to stop it from airing again on the evening news, which means he’s going to target the WGBS anchor, Clark Kent. Clark, meanwhile, is reluctant to show the footage, which he believes to be the work of a vampire. (Isn’t it refreshing, by the way, that in most of these stories Clark doesn’t waste any time with the whole “vampires aren’t real” nonsense? The man is an alien, his best friend is an Amazon goddess, he frequently does battle with a pint-sized wizard from the fifth dimension – vampire skepticism would be absolutely absurd in the DC Universe.) Caitiff attacks Clark on the air but, as a vampire, his image doesn’t transmit over the broadcast, so he’s visible to the people in the studio. He vanishes into mist and Clark – as Superman – takes after him, further exacerbating the indigestion his frequent disappearances cause his director, Josh Coyne. Superman inhales the mist that makes up the vampire, but Caitiff attacks him psychically, stirring up feelings of immense loneliness and causing Superman to black out long enough for him to escape. He tracks the vampire to a subterranean lair full of desiccated skeletons. At first Superman is horrified, believing them to be Caitiff’s victims, but Caitiff reveals that these are the remains of his own family, his own people, who were exterminated by humans over the years, Catiff is the last of them. He slips away and Superman is left to pity the creature who, like Superman, is the last of his kind.
This is a dark tale, and really genuinely sad. It evokes the feeling of some of the great monster movies like The Wolfman or the original Frankenstein, where the creature comes across less as a demon and more like a victim of circumstance. Caitiff seems to have no true malice within him, only a well-justified fear of humans and their actions towards his kind. The panel where he talks about how human scientists dissected his own child is particularly chilling. This works very well as a sad meditation on humanity, which is something you often get out of good monster stories.
Superman faced a Lord of Darkness yet again in 2002, in Superman #180 by Jeph Loeb, Geoff Johns, and Ian Churchill. Lois, Clark, and Jimmy visit the home of the mysterious Count Rominoff “somewhere in eastern Europe.” Rominoff, an admirer of Lois’s work, has invited them to his castle where he promises a rare interview in light of the recent annexation of a nearby country by General Zod. That night, Lois is roused from her slumber and she roams the grounds, where Superman appears just in time to save her from a werewolf attack, then the appearance of a vampire. She passes out and wakes up in the morning with no memory of the late night excursion, which has Clark understandably worried. That night, as Rominoff’s thrall Elizabeth goes after Jimmy, Rominoff is revealed to be Dracula himself and clashes with Superman over Lois. Dracula reveals that he invited Lois specifically because he wanted to lure Superman to his castle. He uses his magic to hypnotize Superman and bites him, only to find himself suddenly in agonizing pain.
Remember what a vampire’s main weakness is? That’s right, the sun.
Remember Superman’s power source? That’s right. THE SUN.
Biting Superman turns out to be like biting into a solar battery. Dracula howls in pain and disintegrates, and Superman snaps out of it none the worse for the experience. Jimmy, meanwhile, has just managed to escape Elizabeth, but as the Planet staff goes home, we see that Elizabeth has found a new home of her own amongst the Creature Commandos.
The interesting thing about this is that, despite feeling like a mostly one-off story, it’s highly intertwined with plots that were running through the books at the time. The Zod thing is the most obvious part, but we also see that Lois is still bitter at Clark for choosing to save Wonder Woman’s life over that of Lois’s father during the recent Our Worlds at War crossover, and that friction between them persists throughout the issue. On the other hand, even though Superman doesn’t actually “beat” Dracula through his own agency, I absolutely LOVE the way Loeb wraps up the conflict. Connecting Superman’s solar cells to Dracula’s fatal weakness is the sort of little bit of cleverness that makes a story far more enjoyable to me. I’m sure that, in the 23 years since this story was written, Superman MUST have faced another vampire, but I’m not sure if this has come up again. I know it didn’t during the DC Vs. Vampires series, but that’s an Elseworlds. I want to believe this is a canon vampire immunity for the main line.
One last Super-family/Dracula clash came interestingly, in Batgirl #14 from 2010. This issue was part of Bryan Q. Miller’s excellent, underrated Batgirl run, which starred Stephanie Brown and was derailed by the New 52 reboot the following year. But one of the running subplots he had was a friendship between Stephanie and Supergirl. I really enjoyed that, and it’s a shame that they haven’t touched upon it again since Stephanie came back from comic book oblivion a few years ago. In “Terror in the 3rd Dimension,” Kara drops by Gotham City to have a girls’ night with Stephanie. Kara, who was still written as being new to Earth at the time, is in love with Stephanie’s relatively “normal” life, living with her mom and attending college, and she’s hoping to share in some of those experiences. They wind up deciding to take in a 3-D revival of a vampire movie. As they’re watching the film, an experiment at the campus super collider (of COURSE they have a super collider on a college campus in Gotham City) causes several Bela Lugosi-style Draculas to leap from the screen and terrorize the crowd. Batgirl and Supergirl find that the lab’s experiments in “hard light” force fields lasted one second, creating 24 Draculas – one for each frame of the film that played during that second. One of the science students who was behind the experiments gives them a set of control rods that will destabilize them if they, y’know, stake the Draculas through the heart.
It’s the sort of premise that’s so ridiculous that only works if the story KNOWS it’s ridiculous and refuses to take itself seriously. Fortunately, that’s a perfect description of Miller’s run on this book. Sure, it’s a Batman-family book, and sometimes it got dark, but Stephanie herself was kind of the antidote to that. It came out of the time when Bruce Wayne was believed to be dead and Dick Grayson took over as Batman, and the books as a whole were consumed with darkness. This title specifically, and her friendship with Supergirl in particular, made this feel like a light in that darkness. You’ve probably seen Mike Maihack’s delightful Supergirl/Batgirl comics online (how DC has yet to commission this man to do a graphic novel is beyond me). Although that’s the Barbara Gordon Batgirl instead of Stephanie, it’s got a similar tone to this book, and the relationship between our two heroines is lovely. Somebody pass this issue over to Sophie Campbell – I want this dynamic back.
DC’s latest crossover event has also begun, and it’s time to play a little catch-up on DC KO. The time-tossed heroes from the Omega Act special have come with dire news. Darkseid has placed a “Heart of Apokalips” at the center of Earth, something that will overrun the planet with Omega Energy and give Darkseid the power to reshape reality as he wishes. The only hope is for one of the Justice League to take it first – and the only way to get through it is through personal combat with one another, for reasons that writer Scott Snyder explains much better than I can here. Is it a comic book-y type of excuse to have a bunch of heroes fight each other? Heck no! Because the bad guys find out about it and sneak their way into the tournament, so it’s a comic book-y type of excuse to have a bunch of heroes AND villains fight each other!
That’s snarky, I know, because it’s all a little convoluted, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. Snyder does a really good job of selling the stakes and having the heroes prepare to do battle with each other without it seeming out of character. There are even some nice surprises in this one, including one character who doesn’t make it into the first round of the contest, something that’s going to surprise everyone. So far so good.
The spin-offs are hitting as well. In Titans #28, the Titans are tasked with evacuating Earth, assisted by Jonathan Kent. Superman #31, meanwhile, is not only tying into the crossover, but seriously paying off the assorted storylines that have been going on in this title since DC All-In started. Before leaving for the KO tournament, Superman consults the simulation of Jor-El at the Fortress of Solitude for any knowledge Krypton may have had about Darkseid and the Omega Energy. Failing that, he helps coordinate LexCorp’s resources – along with Brainiac’s miniaturization tech – to help facilitate the evacuation of Earth. After he leaves, Lois isn’t satisfied and makes her way to the Fortress to interview Jor-El herself. Her conversation with the Kryptonian archives brings unexpected fruit, and a surprise visitor to the Fortress turns everything on its head. It’s always nice, during these crossover events, when it feels as though the story has been planned out. Ever since the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, events have been plagued by “red skies” crossovers – issues with the event labelling but nothing to do with the story except the color of the sky to indicate something big is happening elsewhere. This feels like the opposite of that – a comic that has told its own story very well, but at the same time, contributes to the overall crossover AND uses it to extend its own storylines. It’s great stuff.
Tues., Oct. 28
Comics: DC’s Zatannic Panic (Cameo), DCU Halloween Special #1 (2008), Taste of Justice #15 (Starring Jimmy Olsen)
Notes: Let’s close off this week with some seasonal stuff, starting with the annual DC Halloween special. This year, the marketing people who come up with the titles for these things continue to earn their paycheck with Zatannic Panic, which – shockingly – has no stories starring anyone from the Superman family. Superman DOES make a brief appearance in the delightful Ambush Bug story that serves as a nice meta-commentary on the Halloween special as a whole, but that ain’t enough for me. So I dipped back into the DC Infinity archives and pulled out the 2008 DCU Halloween Special, a title that would last for three years, then fade away before the annual specials returned in the Rebirth era with a different wild title each year. (My favorite, by the way, is still the 2021 special, Are You Afraid of Darkseid?)
The 2008 special – hosted Cryptkeeper-style by the late Ralph and Sue Dibney – starts off with a Superman story. In “Deadline: Halloween” by Mike Johnson and Tony Shasteen, Clark is working late after the Daily Planet Halloween party, where Perry warns Clark to take it easy before he ends up like “Old Man McCampbell,” an old reporter who died before finishing his last story. Clark hears some odd noises, and when he investigates, he finds himself facing what appear to be ghosts of some of his greatest enemies. After getting knocked around a little, a ghostly Lex Luthor pulls him into a framed newspaper, which changes to a picture of Clark with the headline “Reporter Missing.” With him tapped in the paper, the ghost of McCampbell appears and commandeers Clark’s computer to finally finish his last story. Clark awakens at his computer, believing he finished his story in his sleep, then goes home where he greets a trio of trick-or-treaters dressed like Batman who mock Clark’s fake-looking Superman costume.
The nature of these specials sometimes works against the stories being told. I feel like there’s a good story here, something that would have worked well in a longer tale, but in seven pages there’s not enough buildup, not enough development of the McCampbell ghost to really feel like we’ve got a satisfying payoff. Looks like I will, yet again, have to seek some Super Halloween content elsewhere.
Animated Short: Krypto Saves the Day: Halloween Havoc
Notes: The second of the new DC Studios Krypto shorts just happens to be Halloween-themed, and even though it dropped a few weeks ago, I held off on watching it until this week so I could include it as a seasonally-appropriate addition to the blog. Halloween Havoc, written and directed by David Gemmill, in this one Clark Kent (dressed as Frankenstein) realizes he’s running low on Halloween candy and leaves Krypto in charge while he goes out to get more. This turns out to be a drastic mistake as Krypto is almost immediately distracted by a black cat and goes, once again, on a citywide chase trying to get his quarry, causing havoc (hey, I bet THAT’S where the title comes from!) and potentially ruining Halloween for children everywhere in the process.
Like the first short, “School Bus Scuffle,” this one is really cute and clever. The gags land and there are even a couple of Easter Eggs for DC Comics fans who are paying attention. The final punchline is perfect, and even helped to answer a concern I found myself thinking about as the short went on. And special mention has to go to musical composer Paul Fraser, who I imagine was given the instructions “Make it sound like The Munsters, but not enough to get sued.”
After two chase scene shorts, though, I’m very curious about the other two that haven’t dropped yet. Will they go in a different direction next time, or is Krypto going to be DC Studios’ answer to Tom and Jerry, every episode being a chaotic and futile effort to get his quarry before realizing the error of his ways and proving himself to be a good boy at the very end?
Hope you’ve enjoyed “Superman Meets the Monsters” week, friends. There are still three days left in October as I write this, but the next blog isn’t scheduled to be posted until Nov. 5, so I’m not going to do any more Halloween focus – although you may still get bits and pieces. Hope you all have a fun, safe, and (dare I say it?) SUPER Halloween!
“Evil Superman” has become a popular trope. In movies, video games, and – of course – comic books, people love to pick into the greatest hero in fiction and postulate what would happen in a world where he WASN’T a hero. I suppose it’s an extension of the Lex Luthor mindset, really – some people simply cannot fathom the notion that somebody with Superman’s powers would REALLY use them to do good. As such, they instead rewrite the world so that the hero is the bad guy. When done poorly, it’s tiresome and stale. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done well. This week, we’re going to take a look at some of the stories that have turned Superman bad and others where we see a faux Superman that goes down the wrong path.
TV Episodes: Justice League Season 2, Episodes 11-12, “A Better World” Parts 1 and 2.
Notes: In this classic two-parter, we begin with the Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman assaulting the White House where President Lex Luthor is in control. After battling his way to Oval Office, Superman hesitates as Luthor mocks him, telling him that he’s never had the guts to stop him the only way that could work for sure. Downstairs, Batman and Wonder Woman catch a whiff of something burning. When they find Superman in the slag of Luthor’s office, the president dead, Superman smiles and says he feels “great.”
We realize quickly that this isn’t OUR League, but we watch this group – the Justice Lords – as they take over their world and impose a strict, fascistic regime without the time for luxuries like elections. As they impose their will, their Batman finds a portal to other dimensions, glimpsing our world, where they’re surprised to see that the Flash is still alive, unlike in their universe. They decide to “help” the other world by extending their regime, and cut into our universe to capture our Justice League, leaving their Batman behind to keep things in line. With our League taken out of the picture, the Justice Lords begin to impose their own version of justice on a second world.
Our League manages to escape on the Lords’ world and begins looking for a way home, which finally comes when our Batman convinces theirs to turn. Their Batman concedes that the death of their Flash was a turning point, and that losing their group’s conscience sent them the wrong way. The League returns to their own world, engaging their counterparts in battle. As the League and the Lords battle, the evil Superman hesitates when he’s confronted by the Flash. Although he’s ready to kill this remnant of his conscience, he’s stopped when our Superman arrives with the concession he decided to make rather than lethal force – he’s brought his Lex Luthor along with a power disruptor that allows them to stop the Lords and send them home. The kicker is that, in exchange for his help, Luthor has been given a full pardon for his crimes. At the end of the episode, he announces that he’s given thought to trying his hand as politics.
This is an excellent two-parter, and it really does have Superman at the core of it. The Justice Lords version of the character is cold and bitter, but at the same time you get the sense that he was once not that different from the Superman that we know. That’s the trick that a lot of the “evil Superman” stories miss – they start out with a character so removed from the real Superman that any commentary they’re attempting to make falls flat. Although we don’t actually see the Flash’s death in their world, it’s easy enough to imagine that moment of darkness (in a universe that is otherwise relatively bright, Batman: The Animated Series notwithstanding) would be a breaking point for a Justice League that had been forced to endure too much. We wouldn’t ever accept a “real” Superman behaving this way, but the story is structured such that we buy it from the “other” Superman.
There are other nice moments in here as well. I’d forgotten that this was the episode that specifically pointed Lex Luthor down the road to his presidential run in this version of the DC Universe. It’s also kind of fun, I have to admit, to watch the Justice Lords facing off against the likes of Doomsday. The glimpses of the villains of the other world – a Joker and Poison Ivy who seem to have been essentially lobotomized – are really chilling when you compare them to the versions of the characters we know. It’s the old morality debate here – this brainwashed Joker is inarguably less dangerous than the one we usually see, but is it worth the price of a hero’s soul to make it happen? (This two-parter, it should be mentioned, originally aired in 2003 – one year before the main DC Universe would grapple with this same question in-continuity in the Identity Crisis storyline.)
But I think the gold star for this episode has to go to – you know it – the second-greatest character in the whole Superman mythology. Even before people realize that the Justice League has been replaced by their evil counterparts, Lois Lane sniffs out that something is wrong and, bold as brass, gives Justice Lord Superman a verbal cutdown that shows what she’s really made of. I’d like to think that even Justice Lord Superman admired her a little bit for that.
All that said…despite the fact that he’s a Superman gone wrong, I have to admit that Justice Lord Superman’s black-and-white costume is actually pretty sharp.
Comics:Aquaman Vol. 9 #9 (Guest-Star)
Thur., Oct. 16
Comics: Injustice: Gods Among Us #1-6
Notes: In 2013 we got the video game Injustice: Gods Among Us, and while it would be kind of neat to include a video game playthrough here in the Year of Superman, I’m not really a gamer. I don’t own a console and I wouldn’t even know where to look for this game 12 years later. But I read the tie-in comic written by Tom Taylor, which turned out to be way better than it really had any right being.
I don’t have time to read the entire five years’ worth of the comic for this project, so I’m going to stick to the six issues (or 18 of the digital comic, where it actually premiered) collected in the first trade paperback. It’s worth noting, though, that the entire first year of the series is available in DC’s handy-dandy Compact Comics edition, and it’s worth checking out.
The story begins as tragically as you can possibly imagine. On the night that Superman tells Batman that Lois Lane is pregnant, she is abducted (while working on a case, of course) by the Joker and Harley Quinn. They also murder Jimmy Olsen, but people forget that part. Batman mobilizes the League to try to track them down and Superman finds them on a submarine, where somehow they’ve managed to corral Doomsday. As Superman battles his foe, the rest of the League arrives and Batman unlocks the Joker’s real scheme: he’s blended some of the Scarecrow’s fear toxin with Kryptonite, making Superman susceptible. Superman believes he’s bringing Doomsday into orbit, but it’s really his own wife. The icing on the cake is that the Joker rigged a nuclear device in Metropolis to Lois’s heart. When she dies in outer space, Superman’s entire city is engulfed in a mushroom cloud.
This is, arguably, the nastiest Joker of any world in the Multiverse. And it just gets worse from there.
In issue two, Superman gives Lois’s body to Diana and takes off to Gotham, where Batman has taken the Joker. The rage has overtaken Superman, and he rips the Joker’s heart out in front of the Dark Knight. Green Arrow, meanwhile, finds Harley and takes her captive in his Arrowcave. Superman, consumed with grief and guilt, decides to never allow any tragedy to happen again. He starts in the country of Bialya, stopping a war and bringing its president to the United Nations, where he reveals his “Earth name” WAS Clark Kent, and that he’s going to stop all hostilities everywhere in the world, whether the world likes it or not.
Issue three shows us the government response: worried about Superman overreaching, they recruit Mirror Master to abduct Jonathan and Martha Kent. Rather than keeping Superman in check, though, the League mobilizes behind him in a rescue attempt. In Quaraq, meanwhile, one of the few places that has ignored Superman’s call for a cease-fire, Ares makes himself known in battle against Wonder Woman, a battle that does not go well for the God of War. Issue four is where things really start to go wrong – as Superman confronts Batman over the years he let the Joker live, a Japanese whaling fleet is attacked by forces of Atlantis. The League faces off against Aquaman, who intends to resist what he calls Superman’s coming reign, but Superman replies by having the League uproot Atlantis and drop it in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Aquaman buckles, and Superman has Batman’s Justice League communicator disconnected. The message is clear.
Issue five has the League put down a protest in Australia in a way that leaves the Flash shaken to his core, then decide it’s time to get rid of the Arkham inmates for the good of the world. When they arrive, Batman and Nightwing stand against them, but Robin decides to join Superman’s cause. As the two sides face off, Batman activates a virus he implanted in Cyborg years ago to immobilize him and reduce the League’s advantage. At the same time, Green Arrow has decided to bring Harley back to Arkham, but she takes advantage of the chaos to break out and start a prison riot. Robin, lashing out in the midst of the riot, accidentally killing Nightwing. This is, in many ways, the point of no return. Up until now, there was still the possibility of a peaceful resolution, but Dick Grayson’s death causes a schism that cannot be bridged. Superman and his Justice League – including Robin – begin consolidating power across the world, while Batman and Catwoman begin gathering a resistance movement against him.
Tom Taylor is a pretty big name in comics now, having a legendary run writing Nightwing under his belt, amongst his other triumphs. But I think it was his work on this series that really got him the attention he deserved. This story shares a lot of DNA with Kingdom Come, having virtually the same inciting incident, only amplified. But whereas Mark Waid and Alex Ross’s story showed a Superman who retreated from the world, Taylor’s version (the video game version, to be clear) decides to push his agenda forwards. That’s how “bad Superman” stories usually go, of course. They take what Lex Luthor claims is his greatest fear about Superman and make it fact, showing him imposing his will on a world that is helpless to resist.
What makes Taylor’s story better than most of those is the nuance. His Injustice is a remarkably slow burn, beginning five years before the events of the video game and showing everything that leads up to it. What’s more, Superman (at least at this point) is still a sympathetic character. Like Magneto and Dr. Doom, one of the things that makes him a compelling antagonist is the fact that the reader can understand his motivations, even if they can’t condone his actions. And as Superman’s humanity is slowly chipped away, we get moments where he keeps trying to bring it back. For example, after Nightwing’s death, Superman is the one who goes to Catwoman and urges her to go to Batman, knowing that he’ll need someone. It’s subtext, but the story feels like Superman is trying to get her to save Bruce before he loses his own humanity the way that Clark Kent has. Batman, on the flipside, isn’t painted as flawless – he makes his own errors in judgment — such as the virus he uses against Cyborg — which may not contribute to the tragedy directly, but at the very least hastenes it.
Of all the “dark Superman” stories that have been told, this is one of the smartest, most intelligent ones, one of the ones that goes down the dark path without utterly betraying the character. And if you’re the kind of person who wants to sit down for a long read, there’s plenty here – a full five years of comics, plus assorted annuals, spin-offs, and a sequel that went with the second video game. I haven’t even finished them all, but re-reading this first volume has put them back on my radar to get to the end of the story. Because despite preferring my Superman in the light, this story is honestly very good.
Fri. Oct. 17
Movie: Brightburn (2019)
Notes: Today we’re going to get to one of the first Superman “analogues” I’m going to be covering this week. While DC can – and obviously has – told their own stories of a Superman gone wrong, that hasn’t stopped other storytellers from putting their own spin on the concept with characters that aren’t REALLY Superman, but come on, let’s be honest here. One such character is Brandon Breyer, the main character of director David Yaroevsky’s 2019 film Brightburn. The story starts out in a VERY familiar way: a farm couple in Brightburn, Kansas, Kyle and Tori Breyer (David Denman and Elizabeth Banks), find a baby that seems to have fallen from the stars, and as they’ve been unable to conceive a child of their own, they take him in as their own. When Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) is about 12 years old, though, he begins acting oddly – mumbling in strange tongues as he struggles to open a door in the floor of the cellar, then waking up with no memory of what he was doing. Later, as he struggles with the motor of a stubborn lawnmower, Brandon finds himself strong enough to hurl it across the pasture and suffers no injury when he places his hand in the spinning blade.
The first real sign of trouble is when his aunt and uncle give him a rifle for his birthday. When his father takes the gift away, insisting that he doesn’t want him to have a gun at that age, Brandon pounds the table, disrupting the entire restaurant, and they bring him home. Later, after finding some disquieting literature under his mattress, Kyle tries to have “the talk” with him. It doesn’t go well. Brandon begins using his powers to stalk and harass a girl from school, later breaking her hand, and the chickens on the farm are found mutilated, although Tori insists it must be the work of a wolf. Although Tori continues to defend him, Kyle is growing increasingly terrified of his son, who has never been hurt, but now seems to be hurting others.
Finding a spacecraft in the cellar, Brandon insists Tori tell him the truth about where he came from, and she tells him a story that could have come word-for-word from Martha Kent. But rather than accepting his truth with the usual grace we’ve come to expect from Clark, Brandon lashes out, outraged at his parents for lying to him for his entire life. A message from the spacecraft echoes in Brandon’s head until he finally translates it into English: “Take the world.”
This moment happens a little less than halfway into the film, and from there, it’s a straight slide into darkness. Brandon uses his powers to begin taking his revenge on those he views as having wronged him, wearing a hand-stitched hood and cape he designed himself, but which makes him look more like a horror movie icon than a superhero. And this, to me, is where it really gets interesting. The film takes the familiar superhero tropes and approaches them from a completely different angle. Just how terrifying WOULD it be if someone – especially a petulant child – had Clark Kent’s powers but not Clark Kent’s ETHICS? The result is a movie that takes the elements of a superhero origin and instead applies them to a story that plays out like a slasher movie instead. Nobody is safe, not even Brandon’s parents. The whole package is suitably and appropriately chilling, and it leaves you coming away with an appreciation for the character we actually have. I’ve often said that the luckiest thing that ever happened in the DC Universe is that Kal-El’s rocket was found by Jonathan and Martha Kent instead of somebody else. This movie really drives that point home.
This movie has a very interesting pedigree, but only in retrospect. It’s written by Mark and Brian Gunn, cousin and brother (respectively) of one James Gunn, who also produced this movie several years before he got the job of running DC Studios and making what is perhaps the brightest, most optimistic Superman movie of all time. The film also includes a lot of James Gunn’s usual staple of actors – he’d worked with Elizabeth Banks and Michael Rooker before in Slither, Denman and Rooker appeared in season two of Peacemaker, Stephen Blackehart and Terence Rosemore played some of Lex Luthor’s entourage in Superman, and future Peacemaker regulars Steve Agee and Jennifer Holland (who married James Gunn a few years later) both have small roles in this one. As a fan of Gunn’s work in general, I always enjoy seeing members of his entourage turn up.
The first part of the film clings pretty close to the Superman pattern. If you filmed the scenes with less ominous lighting or more upbeat music, you could use the same dialogue in a Superman origin movie. What’s more, they take pains to show that the Breyers aren’t bad people. They’re parents trying to do the best they can in what turn out to be truly unprecedented circumstances. Tori even talks about how her own parents neglected her, and how she’s determined not to let her own child feel that way. But the child they’re trying to raise is unlike any other, and once his powers begin to develop, it quickly spins out of their control. The Breyers, from what we could see, weren’t BAD parents, although once Kyle starts realizing how bad things are, he starts to freak out and make some…let’s say “questionable” decisions. But the Kents were EXCEPTIONAL parents, capable of taking a godling and making him a force for good. There also seems to be an element of Bad Seed-ism in here as well. Although the psychic influence of his spacecraft was certainly a factor, the film gives us the impression that Brandon was fated for darkness no matter what.
Ultimately, the difference between Brandon Breyer and Clark Kent is that Brandon views himself as “special,” and in his mind, that places him above everybody else. Clark, on the other hand, views himself as human first, and doesn’t consider himself above ANYBODY, which makes the things he’s capable of all the more miraculous and amazing.
The film ends with a bit of a sequel hook, implying that this universe also plays home to dark, twisted versions of Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and possibly others. It’s a little surprising that it hasn’t been followed up anywhere. I suppose the notion of a superhuman serial killing child is a bit of a non-starter for a major franchise, which is probably why most of these dark Supermen wait until adulthood to break bad. It seems unlikely that James Gunn would touch this world again any time soon – he’s a little too busy shepherding the real DC Universe to spend much time on its evil mirror counterpart. But if someone were to come back to this world, I enjoyed this movie enough to want to see where it would go next.
Comics: Jon Kent: This Internship is My Kryptonite #15, Action Comics #3, Justice League of America #32, DC Comics Presents #72
Sat., Oct. 18
Comics: The Boys #19-22
Notes: Garth Ennis is kind of an odd duck. An acclaimed comic book writer, he also has a very vocal and open disdain for superheroes. In fact, most of his superhero work has been intended to deconstruct and mock the genre. Despite this, though, he DOES have an affection for a very small number of characters, among them, Superman. Early this year, in fact, I covered an issue of his DC series Hitman, which was as tender and effusive a love letter to Superman as you could ever want to read.
However, his series The Boys is as brutal a condemnation of the superhero genre as one could ever want to read. Both the comic and the hit Amazon Prime franchise based on it are about a group of super-powered “heroes” that are as petty, cruel, and evil as any villain you can name, and the titular outsider group that is dedicated to destroying them is only barely better. Many of the “heroes” in the book are clear parodies of DC or Marvel characters, including the leader, an obvious Evil Superman type called Homelander. Due to the popularity of the TV show, Homelander is probably the best-known of all the bad Supermen out there, and I felt like I had to include him, but it’s not easy to distil exactly what makes him such a miserable excuse for a human being into one comic or story – to get the full picture of what a bastard he is you really need to read the entire series. But for the sake of discussion, I decided to go with the four-part “I Tell You No Lie, G.I.” from The Boys #19-22.
In this four-parter Hughie – the newest member of the Boys and the point of view character for most of the series – is told the history of superpowers in their universe. Without getting too deep into the lore of a series you may not have read, here’s the short version. Although the public is told stories of standard superhero origin stories, the truth is that Homelander and the rest of his team, the Seven, are powered by a substance called Compound V developed by their corporate sponsor, Vought-American. Rather than using their powers to rule the world, though, Vought is smart enough to use them for corporate supremacy – more money and less resistance. But the plan is angling towards weaponizing supers for the military, which we’re told is related to one of the big questions of the series to date – the reason there’s no more Brooklyn Bridge. In this universe, the events of Sept. 11, 2001 went somewhat differently. While some of the planes that were on their murderous trajectory were shot down, the Seven were sent in to divert one of them – and that turned out to be a disaster.
Homelander and Queen Maeve (this world’s answer to Wonder Woman) go into one plane to stop the terrorists, and instead just prove how utterly incompetent they are. Homelander, spewing racist slurs, pulverizes the terrorists in the cockpit into paste, but realizes too late that nobody there knows how to land an airplane. What’s more, attempts to catch the plane don’t work because the world of The Boys adheres at least somewhat more closely to actual physics than your usual comic book universe. And while things like saving the spaceplane in John Byrne’s Man of Steel or Brandon Routh’s rescue of the plane in Superman Returns make for great stories, the truth is that a real airplane would completely fall apart if someone tried to “catch” it the way that superheroes do so frequently. As the passengers on the plane plead for help, Homelander abandons them to their fate of spiraling into the doomed bridge.
The history lesson is intercut with scenes in the present day of the series, where Homelander is having a bit of a summit with Butcher, leader of the Boys, over some of the recent hostilities between the two groups and how their peace accords have been breached. In the course of this, Homelander is trying to find out why Butcher seems to hate him so much – not supers in general, but him SPECIFICALLY. Turns out that Homelander had a history with Butcher’s wife, something that ended poorly to say the least and gave him the fuel for Butcher’s hatred of Supes that was one of the building blocks of the entire series.
Although I don’t typically agree with Ennis’s pessimistic, nihilist stories, that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the fact that he’s good at what he does. The Boys is a well-crafted, brilliantly-scripted takedown of the superhero concept in general. Homelander specifically, though, doesn’t feel like Ennis is attacking Superman. Sure, in the world of the comic (and TV show) the public looks at him the same way that the people of Metropolis look up to Superman, but the character himself shares little with our hero except for a powerset. He never had a real childhood, as he’s just a product of Vought-American. Despite his power, he never really had much agency of his own, never really had a chance at heroism. He was only what his corporate masters made out of him. While Brightburn showed us how a Superman could go bad, Homelander is more of an amplification of what nihilistic people THINK Superman would be in the real world, as opposed to who he really is. Fans love to debate what would happen if Superman and Homelander ever got into a fight. The answer is really simple: Superman would stop Homelander from doing whatever it is that needs to be stopped, the entire time consumed with disappointment that somebody with such incredible gifts would waste them on being so selfish.
Sun., Oct. 19
Comic Book:Batman: The Devastator #1
Notes: In 2017 DC had one of Its frequent crisis events. This one, Dark Knights: Metal, revealed the existence of a “dark multiverse,” in which the different worlds played host to alternate versions of our DC heroes, but these were versions that specifically went “wrong.” I always found that concept sort of funny– there are plenty of worlds in the “bright” multiverse that aren’t exactly a basket full of kittens, after all. But this series gave DC a chance to take some wild swings. This included a series of one-shots starring Batman (because that’s where the money is) “merging” with different characters in some way or another, and those mergers had some gut-wrenching consequences. The Devastator was the book that gave us a dark knight that influenced by a man of steel (sort of) to disastrous results.
In the world featured in this issue (Earth Minus One), Superman went bad. Nobody ever found out how or why, which the Batman playing narrator tells us is the most frightening thing of all, but he went on a murderous rampage, slaughtering not only his world’s heroes, but even his own wife, that world’s Lois Lane. This, Batman tells us, is the point where hope was lost, and Batman decided the only way to stop Superman was to transform himself into the only one who’d ever beaten him: Doomsday. His plan succeeds – he kills the evil, rampaging Superman. But the transformation leeches any vestiges of hope and compassion from him, leaving a creature who – like Doomsday – sees reality purely in terms of threats that need to be eliminated. It gets worse when he’s approached by the Batman Who Laughs, another dark multiversal denizen who is a hideous amalgamation of Bruce Wayne and the Joker. He asks the Devastator Batman if he would like a shot at a world where people still think Superman is a hero, someone to admire…our world.
The Devastator comes to Earth-0 and, pretending to be our Bruce Wayne, infects our Lois with the same Doomsday virus that he used to transform himself. As she struggles against her transformation, she throws her son Jon (still ten years old at this point) into a Kryptonian-proof panic room she and Clark had built in preparation for the worst. The Devastator, meanwhile, goes to war against Supergirl, Superwoman (Lana Lang) and other heroes, while our Superman remains missing.
This story is only a fragment of the Dark Knights: Metal storyline, and honestly, the whole thing is far too detailed and intricate for me to really get into here. I’m more interested in the Superman angle anyway, after all. I find it interesting that the writers decided to avoid the question of WHAT made this Superman go bad. And for the purposes of the story, it makes sense. Their focus is on what happens to Earth Minus One’s Bruce Wayne, so the exact circumstances of their Superman’s corruption aren’t necessarily pertinent. I’ve got a different agenda, though, and it’s hard for me to conceive of a Superman so like our own going so totally, irrevocably bad, especially to the point of murdering Lois. It’s simply not any Superman that I can conceive. On the other hand, that’s probably the point. At any rate, the reaction to this evil Superman is suitable, I suppose. One of the hallmarks of a modern Batman is the way he’s so ridiculously overprepared for any given circumstance, so the idea that he would have devised a way to transform himself into Doomsday for just such an occasion isn’t farfetched at all. The idea of a Superman so evil that such a transformation would be necessary is the chilling part, the kind of thing that will keep you up at night.
Geez, maybe it’s for the best that we don’t know what exactly happened here.
Mon, Oct. 20
Comics: Irredeemable #1, Justice League of America #33
Notes: If you’ve been following this blog with the religious fervor it so richly deserves, you already know of my love and appreciation of the work of Mark Waid. Waid is currently shepherding Superman in three separate ongoing DC titles – Action Comics, Batman/Superman: World’s Finest, and Justice League Unlimited. He’s also literally rewriting history with the New History of the DC Universe miniseries, doing the best job anybody could hope to do of making some sense out of the past nine decades of continuity. Back in 2009, though, during a time when he was estranged from the current editorial leaders at DC Comics, he did his own take on the “evil Superman” trope with his masterful Boom! Studios comic book, Irredeemable. The series is 37 issues long, along with a spinoff series called Incorruptible. Both are excellent reads and well worth diving into – but as with The Boys, I just don’t have time to do the whole thing justice. So today I’m going to read the first issue of Irredeemable again, then discuss in broad strokes the series as a whole.
The story begins with the Plutonian – the bright, bold, caped hero that everyone knows and loves, engaged in an act of stalking and murder. He sweeps into the home of a hero called the Hornet (kind of this universe’s answer to Batman) and kills Hornet’s wife and infant child. Hornet and his older daughter flee to the cave beneath the house, but Plutonian finds them quickly. Although Hornet begs for his daughter’s life, Plutonian makes quick work of him, then turns to the daughter and says to her, “Do you know who I am, Sarah? I’m a super-hero.” The page turns and we see him flying away from the home, which has been reduced to cinders.
A quick time jump takes us to a week later, when the world’s remaining heroes are interrogating the Plutonian’s partner, Samsara, trying to figure out what could have gone wrong. Sam struggles with his memories, recalling a few times when Plutonian started to seem off, like he was going to unravel, but the pain of trying to access the memories proves to be too great. The camera pulls back to reveal that Sam is in his grave, dead, murdered by the Plutonian, who also seems to have carved out parts of Sam’s brain that access the memories of what made him go bad. One of the other heroes managed to briefly reanimate Sam for the interrogation, but as they realize it’s fruitless, they allow him to return to peace. As they begin to debate their next course of action, Plutonian finds them and attacks. They flee into a set of portals, but Plutonian smiles as they escape, and a comic book fan’s favorite words scroll across the bottom of the page: “To Be Continued…”
There’s so much to unpack in this series that it’s hard to know exactly where to begin. Let’s start, I guess, with a brief comparison to The Boys. Although both series have a similar conceit – heroes gone wrong – they approach it from very different angles. Garth Ennis’s series is a takedown of superheroes as a concept, a disdain for the very idea. Mark Waid, on the contrary, clearly loves superheroes (one need only read a few issues of his runs on comics like The Flash, Captain America, or JLA to fully embrace that supposition). Irredeemable, then, is less of a condemnation of superheroes and more of an examination of some of the darker possibilities.
As the series goes on we learn more and more about the Plutonian and what made him go wrong, and Waid plays up the parallels to Superman FAR more than Ennis does. Plutonian, like Superman, is not from Earth. He’s got a “human” secret identity and a human “girlfriend” that both factor into the story. And like Superman, he was considered by most to be the apex of what a hero should be. But there’s an incompleteness in Plutonian, a hole in him that doesn’t exist in the Man of Steel. And whereas Superman doesn’t do what he does for applause or accolades, we come to realize that Plutonian’s “Start of Darkness” is triggered by a growing realization (thanks to hearing and vision powers similar to Superman’s) that not EVERYBODY loves and cherishes him. He hears these mere humans talking about him behind his back, and those that are less than complimentary start to wear on him. How dare they – how DARE these pathetic mortal creatures show him anything less than pure adoration?
To be fair, this is by no means the ONLY factor in what makes the Plutonian turn bad, but I think it’s the one that shows most clearly just what makes him distinct from Superman. There have been plenty of stories over the years where public opinion has turned on Superman, but never once (at least not in an in-continuity story) has there been one where he’s considered breaking bad over it. It bothers him sometimes, but in a very human way. Rereading this comic now, it actually makes me think of the interview scene in James Gunn’s Superman, where Lois jibes Clark just a little about the way the trolls on the internet talk about him. It bothers Clark, even though he pretends it doesn’t, but there’s never a point where you’re afraid that he’s going to go out and turn his heat vision on the Justice Gang.
I find that each of these “dark Supermen” – the ones that aren’t Kal-El, at least – succeed in revealing some of the things that make Superman who he is. In Brightburn, Brandon’s initial flaw is embracing the idea that his powers make him better than other people. Plutonian’s need to be worshipped causes his undoing. Homelander is, in many ways, a soulless homunculus given Superman-like powers but without any of his humanity. Each of them proves something that I’ve always believed wholeheartedly, and that Superman detractors just can’t seem to accept. The powers do not make the hero. Kryptonian strength, heat vision, flight…these aren’t the things that gave us Superman. It’s the soul of Clark Kent, the child reared by Jonathan and Martha to be completely selfless and giving, that is the foundation of Superman. Every single Superman gone wrong is fueled by the absence of at least PART of that, and the consequences are disastrous. This week, for me at least, has proven that more than ever.
Irredeemable really is a great series, and I recommend reading it in concert with its spinoff. Incorruptible is its opposite – one of the Plutonian’s most bitter enemies sees what the hero has become and decides to try to balance out the scales by becoming a hero, only he doesn’t exactly know how to do it. The two books tell different stories, but interact nicely. And when you reach the end of it all, in the final issue of Irredeemable, there can be no doubt that this was written not as a condemnation of Superman, but as a tribute to who and what Superman actually is. It’s a love letter composed by Superman’s biggest fan.
Tues., Oct. 21
Graphic Novel: JLA: Earth 2, Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes #314 (Supergirl, Team Member), Justice League of America #34 (Team Member)
Notes: For a week all about Superman gone bad, it wouldn’t seem right not to include perhaps the first such character, Ultraman. In the original DC Multiverse, Ultraman was a member of the Crime Syndicate of Earth-3, a world where the heroes of our world were reimagined as villains. Superman’s counterpart was Ultraman, Batman was Owlman, Wonder Woman was Superwoman, and so on. The tricky part is that there aren’t really any great stories ABOUT Ultraman. He, and most of the Crime Syndicate, rarely appear outside of their ensemble. And in the early days of the characters, when they appeared as occasional antagonists in the annual Justice League/Justice Society storylines, they weren’t exactly fleshed out and well developed.
So to get a solid look at what makes this evil Superman cook, I decided to go with Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s 1999 graphic novel JLA: Earth 2. Years before this creative team would bring us the remarkable All Star Superman, Morrison wrote this one-shot graphic novel as a spinoff of the main JLA comic. This was still during the period where DC’s “official” policy was that the multiverse no longer existed, except of course for when they wanted it to, so the “Earth 2” moniker was both a nod to the past and a reflection of the fact that no other worlds had TECHNICALLY been discovered in this continuity. In fact, in the story the title is only dropped as the name the Luthor from another universe uses to classify OURS. Nice reversal. Let’s get into the book, shall we?
After a pair of vignettes – one at a Watchtower that’s not quite like our own and a second where a ship crashes into a cornfield only to crack open to reveal a battle suit-wearing Lex Luthor – the story begins with the Justice League trying to avert a plane crash. Despite their best efforts, they find that everyone on the plane is already dead. Even more strange, several things on the plane don’t make sense – they carry money where George Washington’s picture has been replaced by Benedict Arnold, for example, and a cursory examination shows that their hearts are all on the wrong sides of their bodies. Perhaps most startling, when Aquaman recovers the tail of the plane from the ocean, he finds an insignia of a burning cross.
The League visits Lex Luthor for information, but he’s engaged in some – for him at least – unusual activity, such as diverting funding from his arms division to charities and giving his employees gargantuan raises. A quick interrogation reveals that this is NOT the Lex Luthor they know, but Alexander Luthor of another universe, a world he says is the reverse of our own – the sun orbits in the other directions, seasons are reversed, and the heroes of one world are the villains of the other. Ultraman, he reveals, was the first superhuman in his world: a human astronaut whose ship was damaged in hyperspace. An alien force rebuilt him with a superhuman body, but he returned to Earth with a horrific, twisted perspective that he used to raise up his Crime Syndicate to take over his world. Alexander is here to ask the League to return with him and overthrow the Crime Syndicate, but the League is divided. Batman feels that they need to focus on their own world, but Alexander promises that his plan will take only 48 hours to change his entire world.
Back on that world, the CSA have discovered that Luthor escaped to another universe, which they see as another world to conquer. The CSA isn’t the united front that the JLA is, though. Their Flash analogue, Johnny Quick, is essentially a drug addict, hooked on the compound that gives him his speed. Green Lantern’s counterpart Power Ring is a cowardly sleaze that’s possessed by the spirit called Volthoom that powers him. And Owlman and Superwoman are carrying out an affair behind Ultraman’s back. The League, meanwhile, is horrified by conditions on this world and quickly prepare their assault. They trap the CSA in their space station, and Wonder Woman goes on TV to announce that they have arrived to free the people of this earth from the tyranny of the Crime Syndicate: disarming hostile nations, providing food for the hungry, and in Gotham City, helping Commissioner Thomas Wayne Sr. finally try to clean up the streets.
In captivity, though, Owlman is cool and collected, having figured out that the plane crash we saw at the beginning was actually a swap between the two universes. The universes HAVE to balance themselves, and 24 hours after the JLA arrived on their world, the CSA vanishes and is sent to ours. Aquaman and J’onn J’onzz, who stayed behind, are toeing the line against the entire CSA as they attack Washington, DC. Both teams come to the same conclusion – the “good” characters cannot sustain a victory in the “evil” universe, and vice versa. Meanwhile, with Ultraman gone, his stooge Brainiac escapes – a computer conscience, he lies beyond the concepts of “Good” and “Evil,” and is poised to destroy both worlds by making them collide. The only way to win finally comes in the most unlikely gambit of all.
Ultraman is still part of an ensemble here as opposed to a solo star, but Morrison gives much greater depth and detail to this iteration of the Crime Syndicate than any previous version. We get a long look at this world and how diseased it is: “Boss” Gordon being the mafia lord of Gotham City, for example, or the horrific way that Lois Lane – aka Superwoman – treats her Jimmy Olsen. The conceit is unusual too, the idea that the JLA is incapable of victory in the CSA’s world just as the CSA can’t win in our own. Morrison treats “good” and “evil” not as abstract concepts here, but as something tangible. Morality almost has agency and is treated as though it were a law of physics rather than a philosophy. This is actually pretty in-keeping with a lot of Morrison’s work, and it’s executed well. In a way – and I know this is an odd comparison to make – it almost makes me think of the Final Destination films, where Death is not a physical being but an inexorable, invisible force that one way or another will have its due.
Hope you enjoyed “Superman Gone Wrong” week, friends. Next week is the last one before Halloween, and I’m going to have fun with it. Be back in seven days for “Superman Meets the Monsters!”
