Year of Superman Week 35: A Spark of Change

September 3, 2025September 10, 2025 blakemp Year of Superman Back to the Bins, comic books, DC Comics, Final Night, Green Lantern, Justice League, Legion of Super-Heroes, Lois Lane, Superboy, Supergirl, superman, Year of Superman

When I started the Year of Superman back in January, I decided early on that I wasn’t going to spend the entire year reading stories from the “Triangle Era,” even though that is hands-down my favorite period of Superman comics. I did decide, though, that I would allow myself two indulgences. I would give myself a few weeks to delve into the epic and game-changing Death and Return of Superman storyline in the early part of the year. Then, later, I would allow myself to read the longer and more divisive saga of “Electric” Superman. The period where Superman’s powers and costume changed so radically was a major point of contention for a lot of readers at the time, although I feel that — like many stories of the era — it is looked back upon more fondly than it was initially received. But I have never gone back and read that era as a whole since it first came out.

I think it’s time.

That said, there’s a question that must be answered: exactly WHEN does this saga begin and end? It’s not as cut-and-dried as the Death of Superman, beginning with Doomsday’s appearance in Man of Steel #18. This story doesn’t begin in the issue where he gets the new costume. Superman’s power change is at least partially a result of an attempt to restore his powers after they are lost during the Final Night crossover. And after he is returned to “normal,” that issue ends with a cliffhanger that dovetails into a time-travel adventure against the villain Dominus that lasts several months before things are finally reset. Along the way he participates in more than one crossover event, is a regular member of the Justice League, and makes multiple guest appearances in lots of comics, including the Ultimate Access miniseries I read last week. All told, were I to read EVERY comic book with Electric Superman, it would be more than double (possibly triple) the number of issues in the Death and Return saga. That’s a LOT.

So here’s what I’ve decided:

I’m going to read all of the issues of the regular Superman titles from the beginning of Final Night to the end of the Dominus storyline. I’ll read the main issues of any crossover in which Electric Superman appears, as well as crossover chapters in which Superman or members of the family appear. I’ll also read the annuals with Electric Superman. I’m going to skip the JLA issues, because after all, it’s part of Grant Morrison’s run and that whole thing is really one massive story in and of itself. And I’m not going to get into every guest-appearance he makes just because I think it would be a pain to try to track them all down, but I reserve the right to sneak one in if I really want to.

Even shortened like this, it’s still going to be the single largest endeavor of the Year of Superman. And I’m kind of excited to get into it.

All of this is to say, buckle up. It’s time to get sparkly.

Wow, that was lame.

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

Wed., Aug. 27

Comics: Final Night #0-4, Power of Shazam! #20, Superman Vol. 2 #117, Adventures of Superman #540, Supergirl Vol. 4 #3, Action Comics #727, Superboy Vol. 3 #33, Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 4 #86, Superman: The Man of Steel #62, Green Lantern Vol. 3 #81

Notes: It was a weird time in DC Comics. Hal Jordan had gone mad after the destruction of Coast City and took on the villain name Parallax following Zero Hour. Kyle Rayner was Green Lantern. Half of the Legion of Super-Heroes was stranded in the 20th century. And Lois Lane had ended her engagement to Clark Kent. Then, as if things weren’t bad enough, some idiot turns out the lights.

In The Final Night, by Karl Kesel and Stuart Immonen, an alien identifying herself as Dusk crashes her ship into Metropolis, where she is confronted by Superman, the Special Crimes Unit, and the time-tossed Legion of Super-Heroes. Dusk warns that a Sun Eater is approaching Earth, and that she has rushed ahead of it from world to world, trying to save people from its devastation, but thus far she has always failed. Superman quickly rallies the world’s heroes (and even some of the villains – they’ve got just as much to lose if the sun is eaten as the heroes do) and they take to space to try to stop the Sun Eater, but despite their best efforts, at the end of the first issue, Earth’s sun is consumed and the world is plunged into darkness.

Issue two begins in rather dramatic fashion, when Lex Luthor – who has been in hiding – appears to offer his aid to the Justice League and Earth’s heroes in saving the world, including a powerful splash page of Superman and his worst enemy shaking hands in the face of a common threat. Meanwhile, the worlds’ heroes are in overdrive trying to protect people both from the drastic climate crisis as well as from each other. It soon becomes apparent, however, that with the sun gone, Superman’s powers are declining rapidly. Amidst all of this a new hero appears: a young man calling himself Ferro.

In issue three things go from bad to worse. Turns out the sun isn’t actually GONE, but cut off inside the Sun Eater, where it’s trying to heal itself, but Luthor and Brainiac 5 realize that they have less than 24 hours left before the sun goes hyper-nova, wiping out everything in the solar system. Dusk makes plans to leave Earth before the end, as she has so many times before, but the Phantom Stranger takes her on a whirlwind Ebenezer Scrooge-like tour of the Earth, allowing her to witness our heroes’ refusal to give up, even in what is literally the darkest of hours. And as everyone begins making preparations for the bitter end, Guy Gardner is surprised by the appearance of a bright, beautiful green.

Final Night #4 brings us to the brink. Luthor and Brainiac 5 have constructed a series of force-field bombs they believe will contain the nova and destroy the Sun Eater, but their chosen pilot, Green Lantern, disappears. Superman insists on going himself, and takes a moment to write a farewell letter to Lois, from whom he was estranged at the time. As he’s writing, through, Ferro steals the ship with the intention of making the suicide run on his own. As they try to stop him, Parallax arrives and offers to save the sun. Despite the reservations of some of the heroes (especially Batman), he does so – at the cost of his own life. Hal Jordan, once and future Green Lantern, falls as he dispels the darkness within.

The end of the story doesn’t quite hit the same now as it did in 1996, knowing as we all do that Hal would eventually return and become Green Lantern again. But as a way to end the arc he had been on since the Death of Superman it was fitting. Also fitting was the reaction of the other heroes: Superman chooses to believe that Hal Jordan found redemption in the end for the atrocities of Parallax, whereas Batman believes a moment of good at the end can never erase the slate. It says quite a bit about each of these heroes, and the book seems to recognize that. At the end of the issue, as Clark and Bruce debate Hal’s sacrifice, Karl Kesel writes a caption that has always stuck with me: “They are the world’s finest heroes, and all the rest follow the lead of one or the other.”

It’s an interesting perspective on the philosophy of the DC Universe, isn’t it?

Let’s talk for a moment about the assorted spin-off chapters. As I said, I didn’t read all of the assorted spin-offs, only those featuring Superman or a member of the family, but that still added an additional nine books to the five-issue main series. I’ll hit the high points in order, as dictated by the reading list on the DC Infinite app:

Power of Shazam! #20: As the weather begins deteriorating with the loss of the sun, Superman and the Marvels go into first responder mode while the wizards Shazam and Ibis try to find a magical solution to the problem. Superman’s presence here is minor, but there are interesting notes. First, this happens right after the sun is lost, so Superman’s powers are only beginning to wane. Second, there’s an amusing moment where Captain Marvel promises Superman “I won’t be distracted like when I faced that Thunder God,” a funny and oblique reference to the events of DC Vs. Marvel.

Superman #117: This one is a cheat. Despite the banner on the cover, it’s not really part of the crossover. The issue wraps up an ongoing story with Superman and Professor Hamilton in the Fortress of Solitude and advances a few subplots, but it only ties in to the Final Night on the last few pages, when Superman receives word that something is approaching Earth. If you’re doing a readthrough of the story, this is utterly skippable.

Adventures of Superman #540: Perry White fights valiantly to put out an edition of the Daily Planet, reasoning that failure to do so would be like giving up and admitting defeat. Emil, still in the Fortress of Solitude, starts transmitting his own research to S.T.A.R. Labs in an attempt to help. And in Metropolis, as Superman’s powers continue to dwindle, Ferro gets a rather heartbreaking origin. The Perry stuff is great, and the Ferro stuff sets the character up nicely for his future with the Legion.

Supergirl #3: Peter David’s epic run was interrupted pretty early by this crossover appearance. Supergirl (this is the Matrix version, remember), has very recently found herself bound to a mortal girl named Linda Danvers, and in her new home of Leesburg, people are beginning to fall apart as they beg for the return of the sun. The issue is mostly spent developing subplots for the series in the context of the crossover, and skippable if you just want to read Final Night, but it reminds me as always just how good David’s run on this character was. I may not be able to fit it in before the end of the year (it’s a total of 80 issues, plus assorted crossovers, annuals, and specials), but so, so worth reading.

Action Comics #727: A somewhat quiet, subdued issue. As Metropolis is blanketed with snow, a Superman whose powers are nearly gone struggles to keep the peace. Meanwhile, a desperate man finds new hope. Inconsequential to the main story, but this is actually one of those times where I really feel a crossover event works well, telling an emotional self-contained tale against the backdrop of the greater events.

Superboy #33: In Superboy’s home of Hawaii, people are gathering at the base of an active volcano for warmth. Roxy Leech, his manager’s daughter and Superboy’s best friend, decides that with the world ending in 24 hours there’s nothing left to lose and confesses her love for him, which is kind of awkward, as his girlfriend Tana Moon is on TV reporting on the crisis just as the volcano erupts. Turns out it’s a monster with the inventive name of Lava causing trouble. The ending here is particularly bittersweet, and surprisingly effective.

Legion of Super-Heroes Vol. 4 #86: Ferro proves his mettle (get it?) by offering to dive into the sun with an enormous bomb to get it going again. Luthor and Brainiac already have devised their plan to send Green Lantern instead, though, but when he mysteriously vanishes (whisked away by Parallax, as it happened), Superman steps up to do it instead…something that doesn’t sit too well with Ferro.

Superman: The Man of Steel #62: An interesting little side-trip. Almost de-powered, Superman tries to help a power plant stay functional to keep people from freezing in the dark. Meanwhile, Hamilton discovers that imminent destruction of the sun and sends word to the Daily Planet, while learning about the last days of Krypton and how eerily reminiscent they are of the current situation.

Green Lantern #81: An epilogue to the Final Night story featuring the funeral of Hal Jordan. Kyle Rayner is nervous, finding himself in the position of being asked to speak the death of a man he never met until he turned bad. Superman begins the ceremony, calling Hal a hero, before calling up other speakers who knew him best: Guy Gardner, John Stewart, Black Canary (speaking in the stead of the also dead-at-the-time Oliver Queen), the Flash, Carol Ferris, and finally Kyle. The heroes travel to the Coast City memorial, where Alan Scott turns the eternal flame green, and then Swamp Thing (making a rare non-Vertigo appearance for the time period) brings life back to the desolated landscape. In the end, even Batman finds it within himself to forgive.

A lovely story, although of course, it wouldn’t be the end at all. Nor is it the end for Superman because – as you may have noticed – I haven’t mentioned anything about his powers coming BACK yet. After the sun was restored, he – and everyone else – assumed his powers would go back to normal. But as we’re going to see soon, that isn’t what happened at all.

Thur., Aug 28

Comics: Superman Vol. 6 #29, Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2 #10, Justice League: Dark Tomorrow Special #1, Green Lantern Vol. 8 #25 (Superboy Guest Appearance)

Notes: Gonna take a quick pause from the burgeoning Electric storyline to read some of the new Superman comics that dropped this week. Superman #29 continues the “Legion of Darkseid” story as Superman plans a trip to the future to save the Legion of Super-Heroes with the most unexpected partner of all time.

It’s going to be hard to talk about this issue – I don’t really want to spoil anything, so can I just talk about vibes? As in, “I freaking love the vibes from this book”? Superman going into the future to save the Legion is exactly what I’ve been thirsting for. What’s more, writer Joshua Williamson is showing respect for EVERY incarnation of the Legion to date, weaving them all into this story (somehow) whilst still tying everything in to the ongoing “DC All In” saga. Again, without spoiling anything, if you haven’t read last year’s DC All-In Special or the Summer of Superman Special that came out in April, you’re missing out on the building blocks of this story. Superman even gets one of his trademark rousing speeches in which he espouses exactly what I’ve always felt is true: he may have been the inspiration for the Legion, but the Legion was every bit as much an inspiration to HIM.

Despite the darkness of this story, something about it is feeling…right. It rings true. And by the time the tale ends and the dust has settled, I feel like we just might finally have a true Legion again.

Justice League Unlimited #10 actually takes place before the “Darkseid’s Legion” storyline, and involves the League trying to protect the Doomsday Time Trapper, who feels the encroachment of Darkseid and his Legion. Meanwhile, the Trinity have a little heart-to-heart about what happened with Air Wave (the whole “tricked by Grodd” thing) and how they need to approach Justice League recruitment in the future. As always, Mark Waid proves just how well he knows these characters, placing Superman and Batman at odds with one another on this matter, with Wonder Woman as the mediator between the two. Clark also gets in a pretty sharp jab at Bruce, which I don’t think he gets to do quite often enough.

Also, Dan Mora drew both of these issues, and he’s phenomenal. Really, any time these days I read a comic book where I don’t feel the artwork is up to snuff, I wish that they could clone Mora and have him do all of it.

I also read the Justice League: Dark Tomorrow Special, which came out a few weeks ago but, somehow, I’d missed. I’m glad I grabbed it, though, because it feels pretty significant to this whole All In/Darkseid story that’s going on. Someone is hunting down and killing time travelers, which puts roughly half the Justice League at risk – especially those time-lost heroes from the “We Are Yesterday” crossover. A mysterious time-traveler calling himself “Legend” partners up with Air Wave and the lost heroes to try to save them. The issue is both an epilogue to “We Are Yesterday” and a prologue to future stories (including “Darkseid’s Legion” and the upcoming “DC KO”), and although the Super-family participation is minimal, it definitely feels significant, and if you’re following the ongoing saga of the DCU these days, you should pick it up.

Fri., Aug. 29

Comic Books: Superman Vol. 2 #118, Superman: The Wedding Album #1

Notes: I only briefly mentioned it when I read Final Night the other day, but at this point Lois and Clark were separated, she having called off their engagement and taken an assignment in Asia to get away from him. It was a bit of a delaying tactic – Warner Bros wanted corporate synergy and refused to allow DC Comics to have the two of them get married until they were also married on the then-running Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman TV show. It was actually that edict that led to the Death of Superman in the first place, when they had to scrap their plans to marry them off in 1992. Here, four years later, after one delaying tactic after another, they finally got married on the show, and DC had to quickly follow suit.

In Superman #118 we pick up on her, chasing down a heroin ring in the far East. Back in Metropolis, meanwhile, S.T.A.R. Labs is working on the fact that, despite the sun coming back, Superman’s powers are still gone. After a seemingly-pointless reiteration of his origin, Wonder Woman and Lori Lemaris convince Superman to try to get Lois back. Lois, meanwhile, encounters a young man who tells her a lesson he learned as a child from an American stranger. It’s pretty clear where this is going from the very beginning, but Lois is still taken by surprise when she learns who her new friend’s old friend happens to be, and she makes a decision to return to Metropolis. Short? Abrupt? Hell yeah. But DC wasn’t given a lot of time to get things back in order – they needed to have the wedding of the century align with the TV show.

And this brings us to Superman: The Wedding Album, an event nearly 60 years in the making. This 88-page whopper told a hefty tale written by the five writers of the Superman comics of the era (Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, David Michelinie, Louise Simonson, and Roger Stern), with art by the regular teams and several other artists who had worked with Superman over the years, including John Byrne, Gil Kane, Paul Ryan, Tom Grummett, and a flashback sequence using pages by the great Curt Swan. It’s a nicely fitting tribute to the characters, kicking off with Lois being Lois – pretending to want to marry the head of the drug trafficking ring as a way to both bust him, at the same time, hitch a ride on his private jet back to Metropolis. She storms into the Daily Planet office wearing a ragged and torn wedding dress, then has it out with Clark. He fills her in on what’s been going on in her absence: he’s acting as Managing Editor of the Planet while Perry recovers from chemotherapy, oh yeah, and his powers are gone. (There’s a particularly funny line here: “Remember when the sun went out a while ago, Lois?” As if that’s the sort of thing a person could just forget.) The sequence ends with the entire Planet staff crowding around, trying to peek through the door, and seeing the two of them in an embrace, back where they belong.

The bulk of the special, after that, is all about wedding preparations: Lois’s bridal shower, the happy couple picking out their dress and tux, and house-hunting. And while it’s all fairly normal, non-superhero stuff, the writers manage to really infuse it with character. Lois’s mom is desperate to control things while her father makes no effort to disguise his distaste at his daughter’s choice of partner. Clark’s parents, meanwhile, do their best to play mediator. A fight breaks out at the Ace O’Clubs during the bachelor party, and Clark gets a visit from a friend to tell him that Metropolis will be taken care of during his honeymoon. Oh yeah – and the apartment that Lois fell in love with but couldn’t get is now theirs, courtesy of the building’s owner, one Bruce Wayne.

I’m really glad that they avoided the typical superhero wedding episode, where the ceremony is disrupted by a villain causing havoc or some natural disaster. The closest thing we get is Mr. Mxyzptlk popping in right before the blessed occasion to tell Clark he’s looking forward to screwing around with Mr. and Mrs. Kent very soon. Then it all closes off with a nice, simple, uneventful wedding that is heartfelt, sincere, and lavishly illustrated (with several members of the creative team in attendance).

It’s a sweet issue, one that finally puts the will they/won’t they of six decades to rest and allows us to move on to something new.

Turns out they were saving the chaos for the honeymoon.

Sat., Aug. 30

Podcast: Back to the Bins Episode #685: Superman S.C.O.R.E. III

Notes: It’s finally here! Regular blog readers may recall a while back when I joined Paul Spataro to record an episode of his Back to the Bins podcast, each of us discussing comics about the relationship between Superman and Wonder Woman. The episode has finally dropped, so make sure you check it out. It’s available on the Two True Freaks Podcast Network page, or you can find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you download your podcasts. Join us for a chat about this unique super-couple.

Comics: Taste of Justice #6, Adventures of Superman #541, Action Comics #728, Superman: The Man of Steel #63

Notes: A quick peek at Taste of Justice #6 – a short but fun story in which Martha Kent is injured (mildly – this series seems to specialize in minor mishaps most of the time), leaving Clark and Jonathan to try their hand at making her famous rhubarb pie. Interestingly, whereas most chapters of this online serial comic have led up to a triumphant dish being prepared, this one takes a different tack – the resultant pie isn’t up to Martha’s usual standards, a fact which she clearly finds somewhat amusing. I didn’t see that coming.

That done, it’s a dive back to 1996, where we’re going to read the comics that make up Lois and Clark’s honeymoon. After a surprisingly low-key and uneventful wedding, their trip to Hawaii makes up for it. Adventures of Superman #541 picks up at the wedding reception, after which the happy couple whisks off to the island paradise, where their celebrations are interrupted by an explosion. With Superman still powerless, fortunately, they happen to be on Superboy’s home turf. The explosion was caused by a creature that claims to be an island spirit called a Menehune, and the happy couple wind up meeting up with Superboy and his own reporter girlfriend, Tana Moon. The story is okay – more like we’re seeing a “Lower Decks” style peek in an issue of Superboy really. But the side quest is derailed on the last page, when Clark is shot and kidnapped by men in a speedboat. Of course, these guys don’t seem to realize that they’ve just made the biggest mistake of their lives: they’ve pissed off Lois Lane.

Action Comics #728 picks up with Clark waking up in the custody of the brother of the very drug trafficker that Lois captured in the Wedding Album. Apparently Rajiv, as his name goes, holds something of a familial grudge. I have to admit, I found this issue kind of underwhelming. Clark spends most of the issue engrossed in a flashback to another time when his powers weren’t of any use, facing a terrorist armed with a chunk of Kryptonite. The flashback really adds nothing to the story, save for eventually reminding Clark that he has studied techniques to make it appear as though his heart has stopped beating – techniques that work just as well if he has powers or not. He uses his little trick to attempt an escape, only to learn that any such effort will be futile, as he’s being held captive on a submarine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Good reveal, but it leaves us with about two pages of plot progression for the whole issue.

Superman: The Man of Steel #63 picks up with Clark being brought to a private island belonging to Rajiv as Lois begins the task of doing what she does best: following leads. In this case, she’s trying to track down her missing husband, which takes her all of four pages before she begins a guerilla assault on Rajiv’s compound. (And they call Batman the world’s greatest detective.) As she attempts her rescue, Clark learns that Rajiv isn’t tracking her out of petty revenge: when she bested his brother, Lois made off with a knife that, unbeknownst to her, has hidden in its hilt computer codes capable of hacking satellite technology and bringing down aircraft at will. As Clark stalls for time, trying to convince Rajiv that Lois found and sold the codes, she breaks in and saves the day.

The honeymoon arc as a whole is okay. You all should know by now how much I love a story where Lois has a chance to kick some ass, and she most certainly does that in the Man of Steel issue. For all the times Clark has saved her over the years, it’s really great to see how capable she is when the need arises. My beef really comes with how quick the whole thing is, especially the sequence where Lois tracks down Rajiv’s island. It just comes far too easily, even for someone as smart and capable as Lois. Considering that she only appeared on one page of Action #728, that issue feels even more superfluous than it does at first blush. It would have been far more satisfying, in my opinion, to truncate the flashback sequence in that issue and devote those pages to showing Lois hunting down Clark. It would make the Action issue feel far more relevant and the Man of Steel issue feel less rushed. It’s all about the pacing, people.

Still, kudos to Lois and Clark for having a honeymoon they could never forget. But when their vacation to paradise ends, it’s going to be time to get down to the real issue at hand: finding a way to restore Superman’s missing powers.

Sun., Aug. 31

Comic Books: Superman Vol. 2 #119, Adventures of Superman #542, Action Comics #729, Superman: The Man of Steel #64

Notes: With the honeymoon over, it’s time to figure out what’s up with Clark’s powers. In Superman #119, Superman and the time-tossed Legion of Super-Heroes both arrive at LexCorp looking for help with their respective predicaments. They take a ship to the same orbital platform we saw back in the Superman/Aliens crossover (a rare instance of such a crossover being addressed as canon, helped no doubt by the fact that Dan Jurgens wrote both of them) and Brainiac 5 attempts to draw solar energy to jumpstart Clark’s powers…an effort met with failure. And in the midst of this Lex gets some surprising news: he’s going to be a daddy.

In Adventures #542, Superman heads to Project Cadmus for help but, again, finds himself stonewalled. Instead, he simply winds up on a brief psychedelic adventure with some of Jack Kirby’s stranger creations, the Hairies, before borrowing Guardian’s Whiz Wagon. He flies it down to Action Comics #729, where – en route to his Fortress in the Antarctic – he winds up at an energy research station where the crew has unwittingly unleashed a strange entity from the center of the Earth. Superman manages to best the creature even without his powers (paralleled with a subplot about Perry White going through chemotherapy) before finally making it to the Fortress where Emil Hamilton has been all this time. But even all his Kryptonian tech doesn’t restore his powers before Mr. Miracle and Big Barda pop in via Boom Tube, saying that the fate of the universe depends on Superman’s powers.

Finally, “Power Struggle” concludes in Man of Steel #64. The New Gods tell Superman that their world of New Genesis has somehow been destroyed, and the only hope of finding the truth is to retrieve the datacore in Metron’s suit…a datacore that can only be accessed by melting the suit in the heat of the sun itself. Metron assures Superman that their dive into the sun will recharge his powers quickly enough to pull them both out of the star before they’re killed…and miraculously, it works. Superman’s powers are restored, Metron is saved, and the data is retrieved. It all seems just so…neat and tidy. TOO neat and tidy, if you catch my drift.

Getting his powers back, as it would turn out, was just the beginning.

Bonus: Comics in the wild!

Notes: Some time ago, DC announced that they were going to start selling comics at Dollar Tree locations. The comics would all be reprints, of course: most of them either the first issue in a story that is available in graphic novel form or a standalone comic, including many aimed at kids. The program expanded to reach various convenience stores, grocery stores, and other outlets. But today was the first time I ever actually saw any in the wild. After my son’s birthday party, we stopped for gas and I saw the rack inside the station. I had to go through it, fascinated by some of the choices for their reprint specials. The first appearance of the modern Supergirl from Superman/Batman is in the mix, as well as at least two current issues of Mark Waid’s World’s Finest series (each the beginning of a storyline, of course), and the first issue of Christopher Priest’s Superman: Lost. They weren’t ALL Superman comics, of course – there was the expected assortment of Batman comics, Harley Quinn comics, and Scooby-Doo comics, some of them all at the same time – but the very existence of this rack out there, outside of comic book stores where they can be seen by anybody…it was heartwarming to me.

Of course I had to get a couple. I picked up the reprint of John Byrne’s Superman #1 from 1987, as well as the reprint of the first issue of Batman Adventures Vol. 2. Like the Compact Comics, I feel like it’s important we support these things, friends.

Mon., Sept. 1

Comics: Superman Vol. 2 #120, Adventures of Superman #543, Action Comics #730, Superman: The Man of Steel #65, Superman Vol. 2 #121, Adventures of Superman #544, Action Comics #731, Superman: The Man of Steel #66, Jon Kent: This Internship is My Kryptonite #6, Gotham City Sirens: Unfit For Orbit #5 (Power Girl guest appearance)

Notes: There was a bit of a lull in the Superman comics after he got his powers back but before they transformed. Let’s see what we can get through today. In Superman #120, Lex Luthor has a dream about his oncoming child idolizing Superman, a dream that chills him to the bone and opens up an issue of different characters talking about what they would do with Superman’s powers: Lex, Emil Hamilton, Jimmy Olsen, Cat Grant, Perry White, and a random kid who gets locked out of his house and needs Superman’s help. It’s a cute little breather of an issue, which was probably due at this point, although it had been entirely too long since we saw Lois. She hadn’t had a significant appearance since the honeymoon ended, and it’s time to really get into the adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Superman. There is one significant piece of foreshadowing, though: when Emil studies Superman to make sure that his powers are, indeed, back to normal, the scanner he’s using shorts out due to an unexpected electrical surge.

In the immortal words of C+C Music Factory, “Things That Make You Go Hmmmm…”

Adventures of Superman #543 shows us the newlyweds finally settling into their new apartment and Superman checking into a couple of escaped villains. Turns out the villains in question are being recruited for a new version of the good ol’ Superman Revenge Squad. A strange figure watching from the shadows has pulled together Anomaly, Barrage, Misa, Riot, and most troublingly, Maxima. When DC released this year’s Superman Treasury Edition I mentioned that I was disappointed to see Maxima reverting to her old villainous ways. I guess I’d forgotten that this wasn’t the first time she’d suffered from a bout of recidivism. The Squad makes its attack in Action Comics #730, but not before one of the very-frequent scenes of Superman flying over Metropolis pondering recent events to bring any casual readers up to speed. I never noticed until this read-through just how frequently that happened in the Triangle Era. I suppose they clung to the idea that any comic book could be somebody’s first, and they were doing their best to make sure that everyone knew what was going on. Admirable – but these days I’m very curious as to whether that old adage still bears any truth at all. Anyway, the fight goes poorly – the five villains, used to working on their own, wind up stumbling over each other and stabbing each other in the back, but by the last panel they manage to have Superman down, his head covered with a slime that Misa is using the block his powers. Geez, Misa, he JUST got them back.

Man of Steel #65 wraps the story up as the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit arrives on the scene and joins the fight. For a full-issue fight scene, it’s not bad. It’s really nice to see the SCU used to the top of their intelligence, being legitimately effective in a fight against superpowered villains instead of just coming across as the useless cops that so often populate superhero comics. As the Revenge Squad is rounded up, their mysterious benefactor watches and plans his next move. I’ll tell you what I REALLY like here – it’s been so long since I read these issues that I’ve completely forgotten who the mysterious bad guy is that pulled the Revenge Squad together. I don’t know when the reveal is going to come, but I hope it lands.

Superman #121 has writer Dan Jurgens once again pick up penciling duties (a rarity for this era) for a “very special issue” about Clark Kent befriending a ten-year-old girl who witnessed a gang shooting. When Superman tries to eliminate the guns from her housing project, thinking it will make it safe for her…well, let’s just say I’m kind of surprised that Jurgens would have written Superman as being so naive.

Adventures #544 starts off with what I’m comfortable calling a controversial moment: Clark Kent is gunned down in the middle of a busy streetcorner. If that’s not confusing enough, it gets weirder when Lois arrives on the scene at the same time as…another Clark. Turns out the doppelganger is tied into the return of Intergang, which no doubt is going to cause trouble later on. Action #731 features another return: Lois and Clark are trying to enjoy an evening at home together when word comes of an attack by an old foe of his Cauldron – but he’s different than before. While Clark holds him off, Lois helps unravel the mystery of who is controlling the cyborg villain this time.

Finally (for today) let’s look at Superman: The Man of Steel #66. Remember Rajiv, the creep who messed up Lois and Clark’s honeymoon trying to get his hands on codes that would allow him to take over a satellite defense network? Well, seems like he got the codes, because in this issue he starts raining fire all over the world, demanding a billion-dollar ransom to stop. The story cuts between Superman taking to space to stop him and scenes on the ground where various people, including Bibbo, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White’s family, try to help in their own way. It’s an interesting little experiment by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove, a story ostensibly about how the S-shield itself stands for something to people and the power it has even on its own. It would be another decade before the concept of the shield being the Kryptonian word for “Hope” came about, but this has some of that same feel to it, and I like it on that level.

It’s odd, in retrospect, how these stories feel so disconnected from what’s coming. Except for the electric spark in Superman #120, there’s really been no buildup to the power switch. The news had already come out that the story was coming, of course, people knew that Superman was about to get a new costume and new power set, but they didn’t expend a lot of shoe leather on the concept for the first two months after the wedding storyline ended.

That’ll change very soon.

Tues., Sept. 2

Comic Books: Superman Vol. 2 #122, Adventures of Superman #545, Action Comics #732, Superman: The Man of Steel #67, Superman Vol. 2 #123

Notes: The final month before the big switch begins in Superman #122. At this time, DC was still under the edict that Kal-El was to be the ONLY Kryptonian who survived the destruction of Krypton. That said, they had found ways around that with alternatives to the Kryptonian characters and concepts of the past: the Matrix Supergirl, an Earth dog Bibbo named “Krypto,” and most recently, a new version of the city of Kandor. In this continuity, Kandor was still a miniaturized city in a bottle that Superman was keeping safe in the Fortress of Solitude, but rather than a Kryptonian city, it was a town made of aliens from various worlds, all collected by an entity named Tolos before Superman saved them. In this issue, his powers start to go wild, causing electrical devices to explode and his body to phase in and out. Superman takes Lois to the Fortress to try to get to the bottom of it, wondering if the dimensional phase that had brought him to Kandor could be responsible, but inadvertently winds up releasing a blue-skinned, horned alien called Ceritak. In Adventures #545, things just get worse as Superman’s powers go out of control. He sparks uncontrollably, falling through walls and losing the ability to fly, all of which contribute to a power outage that goes across the city and frees the Atomic Skull from prison. The Skull, suffering from the delusion that he was the hero of an old movie serial and that Superman and everyone else were characters in the serial, winds up in battle against Superman, seeming to atomize him.

Action #732 continues the battle because, obviously, Superman isn’t really dead. His energy was somehow dissipated by the skull, and he finds himself reconstituting at that Antarctic energy research station he stopped by when he was powerless a few issues back. Lois plays along with the Skull’s delusion as a delaying tactic and, making his way back to Metropolis, Superman starts to learn some of the capabilities of his new powers. He isn’t strong anymore and can’t fly, but he can bound around like energy, control magnetic waves, and access computer systems by touch. Eventually, he manages to bring the Skull down, but he has no idea what’s happening to him.

Superman: The Man of Steel #67 is next, although the title has become highly inaccurate at this point. (This is a good opportunity to talk about how, were this story to be told today, it would reach this point and then DC would likely cancel all four series and re-start them with new first issues, including changing the title of this one. Man of Energy doesn’t really have the same ring, though. I don’t know what they’d call it.) As news of Superman’s mutating powers starts to leak out, Lois clashes with the Planet’s new sensationalist circulation manager over their coverage. Meanwhile, Ceritak has made his way to Metropolis, where he’s inadvertently sewing some chaos. In the midst of the battle between the two Superman’s powers go absolutely haywire, causing a citywide blackout.

A quick aside before I move on to the main event: Jon Bogdanove. He’s one of my favorite Superman artists, mostly because his style has a sort of classic, old-fashioned sensibility that meshes perfectly with Superman. He gives us a huge, barrel-chested, squared-jawed hero that not only fits, but practically DEFINES the classic Superman mold. As Superman shifts from his traditional status quo to the electrical version, you’d think it would clash with his style…but somehow it doesn’t. Along with fine art and color work by Denis Janke and Digital Chameleon, he makes a creature of pure energy still invoke the core of Superman. That, along with several well-placed and highly amusing visual gags in this issue, call to mind some of his best work on Marvel’s Power Pack. I don’t think Bogs gets enough credit in general, and I wanted to call out this issue in particular as being a high point.

Finally, after a week of reading, we come to the book that I started this journey for: Superman #123. As Superman fights with the confused Ceritak (who Bibbo accidentally renames “Scorn”), he winds up in Hamilton’s lab, unable to control his new energy-body. Hamilton is approached by Erica del Portenza, wife (at the time) of Lex Luthor, who has an experimental cyber-woven polymer that she believes may be of assistance. Loath as they are to accept help from Luthor, Hamilton sees no choice and uses the fabric to create a containment suit. In his new duds, Superman finds that he can control his power while in energy-form as well as shift back to a fully human (and powerless) Clark Kent. As he says on the last page, “there’s a new Superman in town.”

This is such a wild story so far. After a rather slow buildup, we’ve got a Superman now with a completely different power set and costume, and while I don’t think I believed even then that this change was intended to be permanent, DC did their best to pretend this new status quo was going to last. So looking ahead to reading more of this, I’m expecting to see the sort of subplots and side-stories that defined the Triangle Era while, at the same time, continuing the story of the electro-Superman, leading up to the era of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue.

And despite feeling a bit of scorn (no pun intended) for this storyline for a very long time now, I find myself kind of looking forward to it.

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. You can join in the Kryptonian Konversation every day in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!

Superman (2025): The Review

July 12, 2025July 12, 2025 blakemp Year of Superman Anthony Carrigan, David Corenswet, dc universe, Edi Gathegi, Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Isabela Merced, James Gunn, Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, Metamorpho, Movie Reviews, Movies, Nathan Fillion, Nicholas Hoult, Rachel Brosnahan, Skyler Gisando, superheroes, superman, Superman 2025, Wendell Pierce

I never had any real doubt that James Gunn would make a good movie. After three Guardians of the Galaxy films, plus the holiday special, The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, and even the little-remembered (but worth watching) film Super with Rainn Wilson, he’s proven he knows how to tell a superhero story. But the question, when it came to SuperMAN, is whether he truly understood the character and what we wanted from him.

James Gunn, I am thrilled to say, understood the assignment.

You might want to go get a snack before you read this review. We’re gonna be here a minute.

The launch film for the new DC Universe is everything I could have hoped for – exciting, thrilling, fun to watch, full of humor, full of heart, and – most importantly – carries its overt optimism like a torch leading the rest of the superhero universe in its direction. It’s like a calling card: superheroes can be fun and still mean something. And Superman, more than any other hero, should be the primary example of that.

This new DCU, we are told in the opening seconds of the film, is a world where metahumans have existed for three centuries. Superman has been active as a hero for about three years, and although he has garnered a great deal of goodwill in that time, a recent incursion into a hostile territory in Europe is causing international furor as some people question whether an alien should involve himself in human affairs. Lex Luthor, of course, leaps at the opportunity to use Superman’s actions to foment trouble, and it is the conflict between these two (who, at the beginning of the film, have yet to meet in person) that forms the core of the movie. It’s a solid foundation from which to explore the themes most important to Superman, specifically what it actually means to be human.

The main plot also leaves room for exploration in the relationships that Superman and Clark Kent enjoy – with Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, the three members of the “Justice Gang,” and of course, with Lex Luthor himself. Each of these characters has an important role to play in the movie, nobody feels superfluous and all of them feel like they’ve been served incredibly well by James Gunn’s script.

Krypto, of course, steals the show.

I want to talk in more detail about the characters and the actors who portray them, and I don’t know that I can do that without lapsing into spoiler territory, so consider this your warning. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, stop here, secure in the knowledge that I loved every moment of this movie and I can’t wait to see it again and again. This is the best Lois Lane we’ve ever had on screen. The best Jimmy Olsen. The best Lex Luthor. The best…

…damn, I love Christopher Reeve so much. Can I REALLY declare David Corenswet the best?

He’s definitely in the top two.

Spoilers begin after the graphic.

I’m going to go through this a character at a time, starting, of course, with David Corenswet as Clark Kent and Superman. Prior to this film, the only thing I’ve ever seen him in was Pearl, a violent slasher film in which he played a philandering movie projectionist – not exactly the sort of thing that automatically makes you think of Superman. (Thanks to Rachael Pearce for correcting me — I originally said Corenswet was in X, the film Pearl is a prequel to.) But from the first moment clips of this film started come out, he won me over. As Superman, he carries himself with strength and power, but not at the expense of his inherent humanity. He has moments as Superman where he feels weakened, and it never feels false. He expresses pain after being beaten by the Hammer of Boravia, moaning as his robots use solar rays to knit his broken bones. He crumbles in agony when exposed to Kryptonite. He takes punches during the climactic battle that you believe COULD kill him if they aren’t stopped. But far more importantly, he shows the kind of emotional vulnerability that we need in a role model. When public perception begins to go against him, his face shows the weight that comes with that. When Luthor murders an innocent man for the crime of believing in Superman, we see every ounce of the pain on Superman’s face.

And when he’s not doing that, he has a sweetness and a kindness to him. It’s no mistake that this movie goes out of its way to show us Superman saving lives even in the midst of chaos. When a kaiju is on a rampage, we see him protecting a little girl from a shockwave. He pauses in front of a series of shattered windows to make sure the people inside are okay. We even see him swoop down and rescue a squirrel – a moment that easily could have come across as silly, but in the context of the Superman we’re watching, feels perfectly in keeping with the kind of hero he is. His priority is life – all life – and he’ll not sacrifice a single one if he can help it.

Of the few faults I can find with this movie, most of them are in the category of wanting MORE. When it comes to Corenswet, I wish we had gotten a little more of him as Clark interacting with people who don’t know his dual identity. We get a few short scenes of him at the Planet office, scenes typically full of innuendo-laden conversation that only a fool would fail to pick up on (more on that later), but the rest of the time he’s either Superman or he’s around people who know his secret, such as Lois and his parents. In the few scenes where Corenswet puts on the glasses he’s so good at crafting his second identity that I wish we’d seen more of it.

The last journalist in America who remembers what integrity is.

I’d never watched anything with Rachel Brosnahan until I heard she’d been cast in this movie, at which point I decided to check out her TV series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. By the end of the first episode, I was sold. Miriam Maisel is a force to be reckoned with in a time and place when women weren’t necessarily welcome, and the grit she showed in that series was exactly what I wanted in a Lois Lane. When this movie started, she carried all of that fire with her.

Brosnahan’s Lois Lane is tough and fearless, never backing down from anything except, perhaps, the potential of a relationship she doesn’t believe she’s capable of having. The full version of the interview scene (the one from the trailer) is perhaps the single best scene of Lois as a reporter in the entire canon of live-action Superman media. Despite the fact that she’s interviewing her (kinda) boyfriend and, even more impressively, Superman, she doesn’t blink for a second. She hammers him with the kind of questions a reporter should use in a situation like this, and when the inevitable conflict between Lois and Clark comes up as a result, it doesn’t feel forced. Clark is upset because to him it is SO OBVIOUS that he’s done the right thing, and it frustrates him that others don’t see it that way. Lois has a reporter’s point of view – more nuanced, less black and white, thus the two of them come to a verbal sparring match that serves their relationship well. When they eventually reconcile, it comes about because he realizes she was doing her job correctly, but at the same time, Lois can appreciate the fact that sometimes right is simply right, and understands why Clark did what he did.

Jimmy Olsen, as a character, has rarely been served well – and I don’t just mean in movies. Nothing against Marc McClure, who did his best in the 70s and 80s, but how many stories actually give Jimmy something to DO? Even when he had his own long-running comic book series in the Silver Age, the stories often involved him needing Superman’s help or doing something ridiculous that happened to work out in the end. Skyler Gisondo’s Jimmy, on the other hand, is funny and capable. He’s a legitimate reporter, and while he may not have the gravitas around the Planet office that Lois and Clark have, he’s good at what he does. There’s also a great running gag about Jimmy being, inexplicably, kind of a ladies’ man. We see several moments of girls checking him out and his desk is ornamented with photographs of him with women who, let’s be honest here, seem way out of his league. (No offense, Skyler Gisondo.) This joke gets a tremendous payoff when we find out that Eve Teschmacher, Lex Luthor’s girlfriend, is actually Jimmy’s EX and she wants him back.

Honestly, I give them all the credit in the world for avoiding duckface in this poster.

Speaking of doing more with a character, let’s talk about Eve. Sara Sampaio plays Eve Teschmacher as a ditzy, selfie-obsessed product of a social media society. But the story completely redeems her when we learn that the avalanche of selfies she’s taken have been carefully done to capture evidence against Lex in the background – maps and charts that document his scheme and can be used to bring him down. The portrayal we get of the character fits well – she IS kind of ditzy and a little oblivious to the fact that Jimmy isn’t as into her as she is into him, but she is nowhere near as stupid as she pretends to be. That trope, of a character hiding their true intelligence until just the right moment, is one that I always enjoy, and Sampaio sells it hard.

Back to the Daily Planet for a minute – we also don’t get as much Perry White as I’d like, but from what we do see, Wendell Pierce nails the role. He’s got a sort of fatherly air to him, but also a dedication to doing his job. The best bit with him, though, comes right after the final battle, when Lois goes off to “interview” Superman. Perry just looks at Jimmy and asks “How long have they been hooking up?” I love the ambiguity of this scene and how it plays to the intelligence of the characters. Just before this, Perry was on a wild ride in the T-Craft with Lois and Jimmy, who broke the Luthor story. Then he brings along Cat Grant (the gossip columnist), Steve Lombard (the sports guy) and Ron Troupe (who I assume is a reporter but, as far as I can tell, never got an actual line in the movie). But at NO point does he look around and say “Where the hell is KENT?”

The only way this works is if you read that final scene the way I do: Jimmy and Perry not only know that Lois is hooking up with Superman, but they’ve figured out that Superman is Clark Kent. Hypno-glasses or not, they’re too smart not to have pieced it together. Plus, as we see elsewhere, this Clark is perhaps a little too loosey-goosey with guarding his secret – not only does he share it with Guy Gardner, of all people, but as I mentioned before, Lois and Clark keep having conversations that REALLY seem to hint at the fact that they’re hiding something. She may chastise him for not hiding his identity well enough, but if we’re being fair, she isn’t helping matters. If that is, in fact, what James Gunn intended, I love this shade for the characters. I love seeing them played to the height of their intelligence.

Let’s move on to the villain of the piece here: Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. We’ve seen a lot of Lexes over the years, from Gene Hackman’s long-suffering rogue surrounded by incompetents to Jesse Eisenberg’s thinly-disguised Mark Zuckerberg impression. But this is the first Lex we’ve ever seen that I thought felt truly UNHINGED. He’s obsessed with Superman, as Lex Luthors often are, but Hoult’s interpretation takes it to the next level. Hoult’s Luthor is as petty and bitter as he is brilliant, his entire motivation boiling down to the fact that he cannot stand the fact that the world prefers Superman to him. To his credit, he’s not unaware: he knows perfectly well that he’s obsessed and bitter, but that doesn’t change anything. When his rage actually boils over, as it so often does, he can be legitimately frightening. He is, in fact, the perfect foil for Superman. Where Superman represents all of the goodness and nobility inherent in the human race – and, in fact, has specifically chosen to do so – Luthor is a perfect representative of all of our negative qualities: fear, anger, envy. I can only imagine how hard James Gunn must have been laughing when he wrote the scene in which we find out that the trolls who have been slamming Superman on social media are literally monkeys being mind-controlled by Luthor. It’s such a perfect picture of the people who live only to dispense hate online that you have to wonder if it’s even a fantasy.

Then there are the other heroes in this film. Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific gets the most screen time, joining Lois in the rescue mission once Superman is caught in Luthor’s pocket dimension and fighting with Superman in Metropolis at the finale. He also comes across as the smartest (which is kind of his whole thing), most mature, and most responsible of the “Justice Gang.” He’s a leader and a man of conviction, although he does have a wry sense of humor and little patience for fools, which makes you wonder how he survives being on a team with Guy Gardner. Of all the gang, he’s the one I feel could most handily star in a movie of his own.

Speaking of Gardner, Nathan Fillion just KILLS it as our resident Green Lantern – funny, arrogant, and self-centered, but at the same time, absolutely fearless (which is one of the job requirements) and dedicated to doing what he thinks is right. It may not always be pretty, but Guy Gardner gets the job done. Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl has the least to do out of the three of them, but even she manages to make a name for herself, showing just how tough she is and getting some really good moments, especially at the end.

How could you not fall in love with that face?

Although not technically a member of the “Justice Gang” until the very end, I effusively loved Anthony Carrigan’s Metamorpho. Introduced in a sort of antagonistic role, with Lex having him make Kryptonite to torture Superman in his pocket dimension prison, it quickly becomes clear that he’s doing it against his will. Luthor has his son, and if bombarding the world’s greatest superhero with toxic radiation was the only way to keep MY kid safe from a psychopathic billionaire, I have to admit I’d probably do the same thing. But when Superman convinces him that there’s a way out, he turns very quickly and becomes a valuable ally. In the final fight on the Boravian front, he quickly proves his value and his worth, and becomes a character that you root for wholeheartedly.

Krypto?

Krypto is a very good boy.

The last thing I want to talk about is the world that Gunn is building. He is quite adamant that each DCU project be able to stand on its own, and this movie absolutely does that, but at the same time he’s laid enough seeds to have fans farming for months. For example, the opening narration tells us that in this universe, metahumans have been known to exist for 300 years. That’s a REALLY specific number. In most iterations of DC Comics, there have been larger-than-life figures throughout history: the Viking Prince, the Shining Knight, western heroes like Jonah Hex and so forth. But the modern metahuman usually doesn’t become a thing until roughly the World War II era. So why 300 years ago? Did something specific happen at that point that kicked off metahumans on the DCU Earth? Is it when the Starheart fell to Earth, does it have something to do with Nabu or the wizard Shazam? There isn’t nearly enough information to come up with an informed theory, but that’s not about to stop us from guessing.

We also get enough Easter Eggs to make me itch for the Blu-Ray release of this movie so I can pause it and peruse certain moments. The scene in the Hall of Justice, for example, has a mural of what appears to be the Justice Society of America in the background. I noticed Wildcat specifically, but I need to go back and see who else made the cut. I also feel like a careful examination of the people in the cells of Lex Luthor’s pocket prison will reveal certain things about who (or what) exists in this world.

The final scene has two wonderful moments – one is a quick cameo by Supergirl (Milly Alcock) which is a BLATANT set-up for her own movie, especially if you’ve read Woman of Tomorrow. The second part is a lovely character moment for Clark. Early in the movie, when his robots healed him, they showed him the recorded message from Jor-El and Lara to “soothe” him. In the end, having learned that his Kryptonian parents weren’t quite who he thought they were and understanding that he has chosen to be human, he instead is soothed by the memories of his life with Jonathan and Martha Kent.

The scene that made me most emotional in the entire film is the one where Pruitt Taylor Vance as Jonathan tells Clark that it’s his choices that make a person who he is, and then breaks down telling his son how proud he is of him. This hit me right in the Dad Place (that’d be the heart), and the fact that my own seven-year-old boy was sitting in the chair next to me no doubt was a contributing factor to how I had to scramble to see if there were any napkins left from the popcorn. People will want to pick apart this movie and apply their own messages and agenda to it, which is a stupid, tiresome pastime I never have any patience for. Here’s the message I took from it, and I don’t think this one requires any mental gymnastics to make it fit:

You are who you choose to be.

Superman is the best of us, not because of his powers and not because of what he CAN do. He’s the best because he chooses to do good. He’s a hero because he wants to help people. And this movie shows time and again how he inspires others to do the same, from the children raising flags on the battlefield to the way Guy and Hawkgirl change their minds and join in the final fight – and perhaps most importantly, in the form of a food truck vendor who spends his life trying to protect his hero. Superman raises up ordinary people, and if Lex could get out of his own damned head, he could do the same.

It’s a message we all could stand to remember.

You know, I’m worried I might have missed something. I think I need to see this movie again.

Year of Superman Week 27: Countdown

July 9, 2025July 9, 2025 blakemp Year of Superman Action Comics, Alan Moore, All-Star Superman, Andy Kubert, Brian Azzarello, Curt Swan, DC Comics, Doug Mahnke, Frank Quitely, Grant Morrison, Gregory Peck, Harper Lee, James Gunn, Jeph Loeb, Joe Kelly, Lana Lang, Lee Bermejo, Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, superman, Superman For All Seasons, Tim Sale, To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom King, Year of Superman

We’re getting down to it, friends. As I write this, on July 2nd, the new Superman movie is a mere nine days away, and in case you haven’t noticed over the last six months, I’m kind of excited about it. So how, in this Year of Superman blog, do I commemorate this upcoming momentous occasion? Here’s what I’ve done: I’ve made myself a list of the stories that James Gunn has confirmed were used as inspiration for the new film. I’ve added a few other stories that I personally think are especially significant to demonstrating what kind of man Clark Kent is. And I’ve got a couple of surprises. But from now until July 11th, there’s gonna be no filler. For the next nine days I’ll be reading and watching some of the most important building blocks in making the Man of Steel.

Feel free to read along.

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

Wed., July 2

Graphic Novel: Superman For All Seasons (Collects issues #1-4)

Notes: In 1998, hot off the heels of their character-defining maxi-series Batman: The Long Halloween, writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale were given four prestige format issues to tell their quintessential Superman story. For All Seasons isn’t exactly an origin story, it’s not exactly the story of Superman coming to Metropolis, it’s not exactly anything but what it is: a glimpse of the Man of Steel. Rather than crafting an intricate mystery as they did with The Long Halloween or a high-octane thrill ride like Loeb would later do on the Superman/Batman ongoing, For All Seasons is like looking through a viewfinder at scenes of Superman, each of them capturing in a perfect crystalline moment just who Earth’s greatest hero actually is.

The first issue, “Spring,” focuses on young Clark Kent in Smallville. He’s different from his friends and he knows it, and we see a sort of struggle to maintain the balance between the idyllic small-town life he lives (Loeb even cribs a moment from the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, just in case we didn’t get the message that Smallville is the perfect little town) and the amazing, world-changing things he can do. He overhears his parents discussing his powers, he confides them to Lana, and in the end, the small-town boy decides to go to Metropolis. One of the last pages in this first issue, in fact, has become an iconic Superman moment, just as much as Krypton exploding or Superman catching Lois Lane falling from a building. It’s one of the sweetest, most Superman things I’ve ever seen on a comic book page:

Issue two, “Summer,” is narrated by Lois Lane early in Superman’s career, and she asks the question that I think makes the character so compelling: “He can do anything he wants to, and he decides to do what? Be a hero? Why?” Whenever someone tells me that they think Superman is boring or unrealistic, my response boils down to this same question. What kind of person would actually choose to use this kind of power for good? It’s crazy. It’s absurd. It doesn’t make sense.

That is, until you meet Clark Kent. And when you see who he is, that’s when you get it.

Superman saves Lois from a terrorist (in a glorious moment where Lois, rather than begging Superman to save her, instead asks him to make the obnoxious guy with a gun to her head SHUT UP because he’s getting on her nerves), but in so doing leaves Lex Luthor feeling somewhat impotent, something that Lex just can’t stomach.

My favorite part of issue two, though, is a return to Smallville. Clark catches up with Pete Ross, is dismayed to learn that Lana Lang has left town, and spends time with his parents merely because he’s lonely. This is another reason I love Lois Lane’s character – the responsibility of being Superman seems so gargantuan…he needs – even deserves – to have someone who can help him shoulder it. We’re not there yet in this issue, but Lois’s infatuation with Superman is already clear.

Issue three is “Fall.” It begins with Lex Luthor being arrested for some unspecified crime (although if you want to try to put it in context, this issue slots neatly after issue #4 of John Byrne’s Man of Steel series). Luthor quickly uses his influence to free himself, but his ire has grown even more. The people of Metropolis – beginning with the staff of the Daily Planet – suddenly fall ill and collapse, the victims of some mysterious viral agent. Although Superman is certain Luthor is responsible, he turns to him and asks him to use his resources to help. Fortunately, Lex already has a solution – he’s taken Jenny Vaughn, a woman Superman saved in issue two, and used her biochemical expertise to create an antidote. All Superman has to do is take her into the skies to seed the clouds above the city. She does so, and the people of Metropolis begin to wake up. But Jenny suddenly collapses and dies in Superman’s arms – overexposure to the very disease she had cured. Clark, broken, returns to his parents in Smallville, uncertain if he’ll ever come back.

“Winter” ends the series beautifully. Still in Smallville, in hiding, Clark reconnects with Lana Lang. Lana and his parents can see the pain he’s carrying with him, but rather than feed it, they remind him of who he is, what kind of a man they’ve known all his life. And when a flood threatens Smallville, Clark finds himself ready to put his uniform back on again.

There are so many amazing things about this series. It shows very clearly that the soul of Superman is not the city of Metropolis, but Smallville, Kansas. It’s where he begins, it’s where he returns in every issue. It is his home, it is the place that grounds him. When Superman needs help, he returns to the farm where he grew up and the people who know him better than anyone. Luthor, meanwhile, is never technically “defeated.” His scheme is built on his ego, his compulsion to hurt Superman, and he does it far more effectively than he ever could with Kryptonite or a red sun projector – he strikes not at his Kryptonian power but at his all-too-human heart. But in the end, Superman triumphs simply by returning to Metropolis, by deciding to move on. The best way for Superman to defeat Lex Luthor is by continuing to be Superman.

There are a lot of great Superman stories. I’ve read many of them this year, and I’ve got several more of the best lined up for the next nine days. But if you’re looking for the simplest, truest, purest expression of who Superman is at his core, I think Superman For All Seasons may just be the greatest of them all.

Comics: Justice League Vs. Godzilla Vs. Kong 2 #2

Thur., July 3

Graphic Novel: All-Star Superman (Collects issues #1-12)

Notes: Next up on my tour of Superman’s greatest hits is this magnificent series from 2005 to 2008. DC announced their “All-Star” line as a chance for some of comics’ greatest creators to tell stories unhindered by continuity, their ideal versions of the character. To this day I don’t know what happened, really, but only two comics ever materialized from this effort, this one and All-Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder by Frank Miller and Jim Lee, and that series was never even finished.

But Morrison and Quitely finished their story, and in the years since it has become acclaimed as one of the greatest Superman stories of all time. In a nutshell: while saving a scientific expedition in distress on the surface of the sun, Superman’s cells become overcharged with energy. Although he suddenly finds himself more powerful than ever, it is only a temporary boost – his cells are dying, and all the science in the world can’t save him. Knowing that his days are numbered, Superman sets out on an Odyssey to save the world as much as he possibly can before time runs out. A time-traveler tells him of 12 impossible tasks he will accomplish before his death, and he sets out to do them – while all the while being watched by a Lex Luthor who is sitting on Death Row.

What Morrison and Quitely do with this book is nothing short of miraculous. Morrison mines Superman’s entire history to pull out characters and pieces to play with: a rivalry with Samson and Hercules for the hand of Lois Lane, the mysterious “Unknown Superman” of the future, and even characters from one of Morrison’s own epics, the DC One Million crossover. Over the course of twelve issues, Superman spends time with several people of great significance to him, with spotlight stories on Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Jonathan Kent, Bizarro, and Lex Luthor himself.

But the amazing thing is that none of these characters are exactly what this series is about. There are a great many good stories about what Superman means to other people. For All Seasons, for instance, had chapters narrated by Jonathan Kent, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and Lana Lang. We’ve seen how everyone feels about him, from Perry White to Batman to some random kid he pulled out of a school bus that was going over a bridge. But All-Star Superman is really about what SUPERMAN thinks it means to be Superman. And what that means is a relentless, unstoppable thirst to be better. Even when faced with his own certain death, Superman’s every breath is dedicated to making the world a better place, to bringing happiness to his friends, to saving as many people as he possibly can. There’s a famous single-page vignette – you likely have seen it online even if you haven’t read the comic book – of Superman talking someone out of jumping from a ledge. It’s a single page, removing it from the graphic novel would not impact the story in any way, but it is the perfect, crystalline embodiment of who Superman is.

At the end of the story (and here’s a spoiler, in case you haven’t read it), Luthor finds a way to temporarily give himself Superman’s powers. And Superman finds a way to weaponize that, manipulating Luthor’s enhanced senses to force him to perceive the fabric of the universe the way Superman does. Suddenly forced to change his perspective, Luthor has an absolute breakdown as he sees the connectedness of all things in a way that he’s never considered, making the most egotistical man on the planet realize the depths and futility of his own selfishness.

Despite such a dark premise, this story (like Superman himself) never falls to despair. It is quietly uplifting, awe-inspiring, and full of hope. It shows us how Superman sees himself, and how he wishes for the rest of us to see him as well. And if the movie is half as capable of depicting that feeling as the graphic novel, it will be magnificent.

Fri., July 4

Comic: Action Comics #775

Notes: It’s the Fourth of July and, of course, for those of us in the United States it’s our Independence Day. I’ll be spending most of the day at a family barbecue – it’s always been my favorite day of the summer, after all. But that doesn’t mean I can skip my Year of Superman obligations, and I can’t think of a better story to read today than Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke’s classic “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?”

In this legendary tale, Superman is stunned by a new team of heroes who prove to be anything but. Calling themselves “The Elite,” this new squad bursts onto the scene and dispatches those they see as villains quickly, violently, and terminally. Superman is horrified when public opinion starts to tilt in favor of the Elite and their leader, the telekinetic menace called Manchester Black. Children want to be the Elite, saying that Superman is played out, others wish that the Elite would take steps like killing the Joker…and all the while, Clark finds the changing tide shocking and disturbing.

After Black calls him out, Superman agrees to face the Elite in battle. They take the fight to the surface of Jupiter’s moon, Io, where the Elite proceeds to pound Superman seemingly into oblivion. With nothing left but his cape, they think victory is in their grasp – until they hear Superman’s voice coldly “thanking” them for showing him the way. In seconds, Superman seems to kill all of Black’s associates one by one, and when an enraged and hysterical Black tries to force a final confrontation, Superman uses his heat vision to cut out the part of his brain that gives Black his powers without the man even feeling it. Weeping in despair, Black says that Superman has proven them right, that he’s no better than they are.

Except that he is. Because he’s Superman. The Elite are alive – beaten, incapacitated, but none permanently injured. Even Black’s powers will return after he heals from the concussion Superman gave him. But Superman had to show WHY he never takes the steps the Elite have taken – that it would be too easy, too ugly, too terrifying to give in to the temptation to kill, and once that step is taken, there is no going back.

Black has spent the issue telling Superman that he’s naive, that his perspective on the world is just a dream, a worthless ideal that holds the world back from progress. On the last page, Superman gives his perfect rebuttal to that stance:

“Dreams save us,” he tells Black. “Dreams transform us. And on my soul, I swear…until my dream of a world where dignity, honor, and justice becomes the reality we all share, I’ll never stop fighting. Ever.”

How good is this comic? How many other single-issue comic book stories have been adapted into a feature-length film? And even fewer have done it well. This is the one-book response to everybody who claims that Superman should be dark, should use his powers to shape the world as he sees fit, should take care of his adversaries permanently. This is not the world that Superman sees, and thank God that it’s not. In the few pages where Superman cuts loose and makes it clear that he COULD kill the Elite with minimal effort, he becomes absolutely terrifying. So at the end, when he reverts back to type and you realize it’s all been a ruse, the relief is tangible.

Kelly reportedly wrote this story as a response to the popularity of Wildstorm Comics’ The Authority, in which thinly-veiled expies of the Justice League decide to use their power in just this way, taking on threats to the world in a violent and permanent manner. (There is an irony to the fact that the Authority is now part of the DC Universe and that one of its members, the Engineer, is going to be among the antagonists of the new movie I’ll be sitting down to watch with my family exactly one week from today.) Those stories are fine for the likes of the Authority because – although obviously created to imitate the Justice League – they are NOT the Justice League. Apollo is their version of Superman, but he’s NOT Superman. These are stories that work as a deconstruction of our heroes, but don’t work as stories of the heroes themselves. In less than 40 pages, Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke show us that the ideals that Superman stands for not only aren’t out of date, they’re more important than ever before.

What’s so funny about truth, justice, and the American way?

Nothing at all.

Sat., July 5

Movie: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Notes: Some of you are scratching your heads right now. Some of you have no idea why I would choose To Kill a Mockingbird as an entry in the Year of Superman, especially in THIS week, which is about the stories that most make Superman who he is. But there’s actually a very simple explanation, friends: To Kill a Mockingbird is Clark Kent’s favorite movie. In fact, it was even the key phrase that Superman used when he returned from the dead to convince Lois Lane that he was the genuine article and not yet another imposter.

In and of itself, though, that wouldn’t be enough for me to include the movie. If Clark’s favorite movie was something like Caddyshack, Godzilla, or Dude, Where’s My Car?, it wouldn’t make the cut. But I believe very staunchly that the things a person loves can tell us an awful lot about a person, and in this case, that’s particularly profound. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is a big fan of what he calls “really old” movies like Aliens and Empire Strikes Back. In his case, they chose those movies for two reasons: to make a joke about what people of different generations consider “old” and to demonstrate that this Peter Parker is a geek like us. And it works for that character. But in the case of Superman, when Dan Jurgens declared To Kill a Mockingbird to be Clark’s favorite movie (or whoever – I assume that it was Dan Jurgens because he wrote the comics where I first saw it referenced), he could have picked anything. He chose a movie with a compelling and powerful message about justice, and when the film ends, it’s easy to see Atticus Finch as a cinematic mentor for Clark Kent.

In case you’ve never watched it (or, even better, read the book), To Kill a Mockingbird is the tale of a family in Alabama during the height of the Great Depression. Gregory Peck plays Atticus Finch, an attorney appointed by the court to defend a black man named Tom Robinson who has been accused of beating and raping a white woman. Although Tom maintains his innocence, in this time and this place, the mere fact of the color of the accused and the accuser is enough to make most people in town declare his guilt without even the benefit of a trial. But despite the town turning against him, Atticus stands firm in his conviction to do the right thing and defend the innocent – no matter the personal cost that he will have to pay.

Come on, people, do I have to spell it out for you? That’s who Superman is every day. Defender of the defenseless, protector of the innocent, willing to give even his own life for somebody else, and refusing to back down in the face of what he knows is right, no matter what anybody else says.

The Tom Robinson plot is the main story, but there are also several subplots and side moments that you can easily view as contributing to the development of Clark Kent’s moral core. One of the biggest is Boo Radley, son of Atticus’s neighbor. Atticus’s children Jem and Scout (the latter of whom narrates the story) are afraid of the mysterious Boo, who never leaves the house, leading to a lesson about making assumptions about people. Another scene features Scout learning to understand how to treat the less fortunate during an awkward dinner. A few minutes later, Atticus is forced – despite having no desire to do so – to put down a rabid dog to protect his family, shocking his son Jem when he realizes his dad is a crack shot.

The lessons permeate the story itself, too. One night, Atticus gets wind that a mob is planning to storm the jail and lynch Tom, so he sits outside the jail to wait for them. Jem, Scout, and their friend Dill sneak out of the house and arrive just as the mob is about to turn on Atticus, and although he tells them to go back home, the children refuse. Instead, as Scout asks the men in the mob – neighbors she’s known her entire life – how they’re doing, the men are shamed into retreating. It’s a beautiful moment of heroism for the little girl, and you see how Atticus has shaped his children in a time where society was working against him.

The funny thing to me is that Superman was created in 1938. To Kill a Mockingbird came out in 1962, a full 24 years later, and the novel it was based on was released only two years earlier than that. It’s more than likely that Harper Lee (born in 1926) had read Superman comics when she was young before writing the book. In comic book time, it doesn’t matter. Even in 1992, when Jurgens first mentioned that it was Clark’s favorite movie, it would have been 30 years old and easily could have been a movie that Clark watched when it was released during his childhood. Today (and I’m just realizing that more time has passed since that comic was published than had elapsed between that comic and the movie’s release – somehow this stings more than Tom Holland calling Alien “really old”) it would be a movie he saw on cable. A few years from now he’ll mention having caught it as a kid on Netflix. But it doesn’t really matter how old the movie is or what era little Clark first would have watched it in – the meaning is timeless and has never lost its relevance. It is the perfect choice for a film that shaped a Superman.

In 2003, the American Film Institute conducted a survey of its members where they voted for the 100 greatest heroes and villains in cinematic history. Christopher Reeve’s Superman made the heroes list at #26. Gregory Peck’s Atticus Finch? He was number ONE.

And I doubt that Clark Kent would have any issue with that.

Comics: Secret Six Vol. 5 #4 (Super-Son), Justice League: The Atom Project #6 (Cameo)

Sun., July 6

Graphic Novel: Superman: Up in the Sky (Collects issues #1-6)

Notes: Tom King and Andy Kubert’s Up in the Sky was not – to my knowledge – specifically listed amongst James Gunn’s inspirations for the new movie. However, King is working with Gunn – he’s one of the executive producers for the Lanterns series that’s in the works and, of course, his Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is the inspiration for HER upcoming movie – so it’s reasonable to assume that Gunn has read this book. And if he hasn’t, he should, because it’s one of those stories that cuts right to the heart of who Superman is.

Batman summons Superman to Gotham where he’s told of the murder of a pair of foster parents by what seems to be an alien presence, and the abduction of one of their children. The girl is named Alice, he learns, and she loves Superman. Everyone is put on alert – even the entire Green Lantern Corps is looking for Alice, but as Hal Jordan tells Superman, “it’s a big universe.” Although he is reluctant to leave Earth, worried that something will require him in his absence, Superman cannot allow this child to remain lost, waiting for him to save her, and know he’s done nothing. He takes off into space, determined to find her.

This story was originally serialized in 12 parts, in the Superman Giant series that was released through Walmart several years ago. It was repackaged as a six-issue series through comic shops, and now the graphic novel format we enjoy today. In these 12 parts, we watch Superman go to the end of the universe to find Alice. Each chapter, although part of the quest, is relatively self-contained. Superman goes into a boxing match with an alien stronger than him, but who can give him a clue to Alice’s location. A time anomaly tosses him to meet Sgt. Rock in World War II. Another anomaly splits Superman and Clark Kent into two people on a frozen alien planet. So forth. One chapter is even a story from Alice’s perspective, as she narrates the story of the one Superman/Flash race that Superman legitimately won. Remember waaaay back in Superman Vs. the Flash week, when I mentioned there was one other race I skipped? This is the one. And the reason Superman wins that race is…well, it’s not because he’s faster than the Flash. It’s because someone needed him.

That’s what this story, this entire, amazing, incredible epic, boils down to. Everything Superman does – everything he EVER does – is because somebody needs him. Lost in time? He’s got to get back to save Alice. Stuck in a stupid, alien bureaucracy for hours trying to get a call back home to hear Lois’s voice? A brief pit stop, because Alice needs him. Making a deal with Darkseid to violate one of his own sacred vows? He has no choice – Alice is still out there. Even in the chapter where Superman and Clark are two different people, it seems at first that we’re going to get the standard dichotomy of the human Clark and the cold, stoic Superman, which we’ve seen so many times. But as the story goes on, we realize that – although Clark is, of course, the soul of Superman – even without Clark there he’s STILL Superman and, illogical as it may be, he cannot fly away when somebody needs him. And Alice needs him.

The final chapter of this story is one of the most emotional, beautiful pieces of Superman storytelling you’ll ever read. We see him backtrack, revisiting some of the dangers he faced along the way, and we get added context to certain things. Most importantly, we see how Alice sees Superman, and we see why her faith in him – her belief that he would save her – never wavered, no matter how foolish or hopeless his quest might have seemed. I can’t imagine anyone who loves Superman being capable of reading this book without feeling a stirring in their chest. Despite its galactic scale, this is one of the most deeply personal Superman stories I’ve ever read, a story about a man who is incapable of giving up when someone else needs help. It’s about a man for whom saving just one child matters just as much as saving the entire universe.

It’s about Superman in his truest, purest form. It’s about Superman.

Mon. July 7

Graphic Novel: Luthor (originally published as Lex Luthor: Man of Steel #1-5).

Notes: This isn’t the first time Brian Azzarello’s name has come up in the Year of Superman, but you may recall I didn’t particularly care for his collaboration with Jim Lee on For Tomorrow. However, his and Lee Bermejo’s Lex Luthor: Man of Steel miniseries from 2005 was a different matter entirely. In this story, we see a Lex Luthor who is motivated not purely by arrogance or a thirst for power, but also by fear. Luthor is afraid that Superman – an alien – will undermine humanity, and decides to fight back by creating his own superhero, a woman he dubs “Hope.” In his game of chess against Superman, though, is Hope a pawn, or a queen?

They say that, in real life, nobody thinks of themself as a villain. After all, a villain is a bad guy, and if you think something is genuinely bad, you don’t do it. So the villains in the real world have justifications, moral and ethical gymnastics that they use to convince themselves that what they’re doing isn’t bad – “I deserve what I’m taking,” “the world isn’t fair, so I don’t need to play fair,” “I have to get him before he can get me,” and maybe most sadly, “God told me to do it.” That’s why it never quite made sense that, in the early days of the X-Men, Magneto called his group the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. In Luthor’s case, he has convinced himself that Superman is a genuine threat against humankind, therefore anything he does – including murder – is justified in that his end goal is to save the world. Azzarello isn’t the first person to posit this characterization of Luthor, but he certainly is among the best to put it on the page.

The story is told exclusively through Luthor’s point of view. Although Superman is a constant presence in the tale, his appearances are brief and sparse, and he never speaks on-panel. (His one spoken line, a slap to the face of Luthor’s moralizing, comes at the very end, and is delivered from off-panel.) Instead, we have Lee Bermejo painting a Superman the way that Luthor sees him – cold, distant, with an anger in his eyes that an objective look at the Man of Steel would never show. In the end, we have a Luthor whose distrust and hatred of Superman is so great that he’s willing to cut out his own heart (metaphorically speaking) in the hopes of gaining the upper hand. It’s a harsh portrayal of the character and, although he is still brilliant and terrifying, you can’t help but feel pity for him.

Supposedly, this version of Lex Luthor was drawn on for Nicholas Hoult’s portrayal of the character in the movie, and I honestly can’t think of a better story to use to shape a Luthor that’s both chilling and entertaining. In the end, he’s the most dangerous kind of villain of all: the one convinced he’s right.

The story has been presented a few times: both under its original title of Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, and in a collected edition called simply Luthor, making it a sort of companion piece to Azzarello and Bermejo’s highly-acclaimed Joker original graphic novel that gives a similar portrayal to the Clown Prince of Crime. Both books are worth reading. But let’s be honest – you only need to read this one before Friday.

Special Presentation: Superman World Premiere

Notes: I’m breaking a lot of new ground here in the Year of Superman. Tonight I’m watching something I’ve never watched before: the livestream of a movie premiere. DC is streaming the world premiere of Superman on all the socials, so I’ve got it fired up on YouTube. I have also turned off the comments on YouTube, because good lord, people on the internet are morons.

The stream starts with clips from the various fan events that they’ve been holding over the last few weeks. I’ve already seen most of the footage on social media, but Eddie hasn’t, and he (being a child who loves logos) got particularly excited when he saw a group of fans standing in the shape of the Superman S-shield. Even now, after months of hyping it up, I’m get a little nervous about taking Eddie to see what is technically going to be his first “grown-up” movie in theaters (defined as “not a cartoon”). But his anticipation has been growing. He talks about going to the movie several times a day. And as the livestream begins, he plops down in front of the TV and watches in glee as we see clips of the fans in cosplay, the drone shows, the decorations, and the crowds that have come to celebrate the Man of Steel. He actually doesn’t turn away and go back to playing games on his tablet until we return to the two guys who are hosting the show as they try to vamp until someone shows up on the carpet. I can’t really blame him.

I can’t pretend the premiere event was particularly revelatory. Most of it was brief interviews with the cast who all said pretty much the same thing: “The movie is great, the cast is great, James Gunn is great, you’re all going to love it.” Gunn himself, I think, had the quote of the evening when he urged people to see the movie on the “biggest screen possible” so that they can catch all of the “Crazy-Clark-Kaiju-robot-flying-dog action you can get.” I mean, I was planning to do that anyway, but if I hadn’t been that would convince anyone.

I don’t begrudge them for sounding like hype men, of course – this is simply what you say and do during a red carpet event. Despite that, though, despite the repetitive nature of the conversation and the clips that we’ve already seen from the trailers 1000 times, I still had fun watching this. I guess I’m just that psyched – every little scrap of content pertaining to this movie is enough to energize me at this point. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Tues., July 8

Graphic Novel: Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (Collects Superman #423 and Action Comics #583).

Notes: Let’s talk again about the John Byrne Man of Steel reboot. You’ve heard of it, right? Well, with the knowledge that the Superman books were about to be restarted and given a clean slate, it was decided to end the current run with one last “Imaginary Story,” the Silver Age term for comics that were out of continuity. Written by Alan Moore with art by perhaps the most iconic Superman artist of the age, Curt Swan, this two-part story is the culmination of everything Superman was in the Silver and Bronze ages of comics. It begins in the future of 1997, where a retired Lois Elliott (née Lane) is being interviewed by a reporter for the Daily Planet about her experiences in the last days of Superman’s life. Lois recounts how, a decade prior, Superman’s enemies suddenly returned, much more violent and brutal than before. Bizarro goes on a killing spree before taking his own life with Blue Kryptonite, then the Toyman and Prankster torture and murdere Pete Ross, getting from him the secret of Superman’s dual identity. They are captured by Superman, but not before revealing that he is really Clark Kent to the entire world. Scared for the rest of his friends, Superman gathers those closest to him and takes them to the Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, unaware that Brainiac has taken the body of Lex Luthor as his own, and is marching towards the Fortress with deadly purpose.

I have a complicated relationship with the work of Alan Moore. Without question, he’s responsible for some of the greatest comic books in the history of the medium: Watchmen, Swamp Thing, this one…all masterpieces. But in recent years I feel like he’s sort of started to buy into his own hype and taken on a sort of self-absorbed attitude, showing public disdain for comics in general. And when the creator of Lost Girls has the audacity to complain about other people touching his characters, it kind of drains my respect.

But separating the art from the artist here: this book is a phenomenal capstone for the nearly 50 years of Superman continuity that existed at that point. Moore uses an intriguing blend of Silver and Bronze age elements. From the latter, Clark Kent is a TV reporter whose identity is exposed on-the air thanks to the Prankster and Toyman. Supergirl is dead in this timeline, following Crisis on Infinite Earths, so for her cameo she visits with the time-travelling Legion of Super-Heroes. Even Kristin Wells, the mostly forgotten Superwoman of the 80s, makes a brief appearance in this story. But a lot of the bits and pieces come from the Silver Age – Lana and Jimmy both evoke some of the sillier stories in which they got super powers, this time weaponizing them on Superman’s behalf. The Legion we see is drawn to resemble the earliest days of the characters – young, with their original uniforms – but they also quite clearly know that they’re in a time period in which their teammate Supergirl is already dead and in which Superman’s days are numbered.

There’s a lot of tying off the old loose ends that Superman accumulated over the years, especially in terms of the Superman/Lois/Lana love triangle. For years, it appeared in the comics as though Superman was unable to decide which of the women he loved the most. In this issue, Moore deftly reveals that he’s known the obvious choice along, but has a suitably self-torturing reason for never acting upon it. It’s the kind of motivation that fits in perfectly with a Silver Age mindset, but it works well in the context of this “final” story, helping to bring closure to elements that had been around for decades.

That said, there’s plenty of Alan Moore’s signature deconstruction going on in this story. The reveal of the true villain of the piece is exactly the sort of thing he’s known for – taking an element that may have seemed silly or childish when originally conceived, but finding a way to make it terrifying. Other moments are simply heartbreaking – Superman trying to avoid letting the time-travelling Supergirl know that she’s dead in this time period, for example. Then there are the three friends of Superman who try to step up and fight alongside him, each of them showing a core of courage and love that makes you want to weep. As Lana Lang tells Jimmy Olsen at one point, “We’re only second-stringers, Jimmy, but we’ll show ’em. Nobody loved him better than us.” You even feel pity for Lex Luthor in this one, as his body is manipulated by Brainiac. The implications of that, the idea of having someone else invade your physical form, using your muscles, controlling your vocal chords as you are forced to watch and do nothing…not even Lex Luthor deserves that.

Having Curt Swan illustrate this story was a perfect choice for two reasons. First, it was just a fitting tribute for one of the greatest and most influential Superman artists of all time. Second, his pencils evoke a simpler, brighter time period, which makes for a harsh juxtaposition with the extremely dark story.

But dark as it is, the story ends – as befits Superman – with a symbol of hope. Not an S-Shield this time, but rather, a wink. The story has aged somewhat. A lot of the things that Moore draws upon have been evolved or removed to the point that someone who is only familiar with the post-Crisis incarnations of Superman would feel very confused, if not terminally shut out of understanding what’s happening. But if you have a love for the Superman who existed before John Byrne’s era, this story feels like the perfect ending, the ultimate culmination of that Superman. It’s a grand farewell to this version of the character. There will never truly be a “last” Superman story – the character will live on no matter what. As an attempt to end the legend, this is a good one.

But I still think there’s one better.

I’ll get to that today, as you read this…but I guess you’ll get my thoughts on it next week.

Year of Superman Week 25: Superman-On-the-Go

June 25, 2025June 24, 2025 blakemp Year of Superman Batman, Bob Haney, Christopher Priest, Dan Jurgens, Darwyn Cooke, Jeph Loeb, Krypto, Lois Lane, Marv Wolfman, Peter J. Tomasi, Ryan North, Super Sons, Supergirl, superman, Superman '78, Superman Confidential, Superman Reborn, Superman Unchained, Superman: Lois and Clark, Superman: Red and Blue, Wonder Woman, Year of Superman

This will be a slightly odd week in the blog, at least for me. I’m loading up this morning (June 18th, as I write this) to take a trip with my wife and son to Pittsburgh to visit some family and friends, and it just so happens that our travel days (today through Tuesday the 24th) exactly match up with my Year of Superman weeks. In other words, for the next week I’m gonna be on the move.

So to make certain that I’m going to be able to keep up, I’ve gone to the DC Universe Infinite app and downloaded several Superman-related graphic novels. As I’ve said before, I’ve got a massive list of comics I’m interested in reading before this year is out, but for this trip I’ve downloaded full trade paperbacks, most of which comprise a single story or theme. I’ve also deliberately selected books that don’t necessarily fit into one of the theme weeks I’ve got planned. So while this week may seem a little random to you, it’s going to be less random for me.

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

Wed., June 18

Graphic Novels: Superman: Kryptonite (Collects Superman Confidential #1-5, 11); Superman Unchained (Collects issues #1-9)

Notes: The plan for this trip, especially on travel days like this one, is to read the graphic novels I’ve downloaded on the DC app, which theoretically I should be able to do even once airborne, even if I stubbornly refuse to pay eight bucks for a wi-fi connection on the one-hour flight from New Orleans to Nashville. My flawless plan lasts until approximately four minutes after takeoff, when I discover that the book I chose to begin with — Superman: Kryptonite by the sadly late creative team of Darwyn Cooke and Tim Sale — failed to download properly and I can’t finish reading it. I know from experience that the only way to deal with this particular problem is to delete the book and attempt to re-download it once I have wi-fi, presumably in the Nashville airport. However, the moment I delete the book, the entire app crashes. I try multiple times to restart it, clearing the cache, even restarting my tablet, but all efforts are met with failure. I know — also from experience — that it will be impossible to solve this problem in the air, so I surrender and return to the prose book I am currently reading, Teenagers From the Future, a collection of essays about the Legion of Super-Heroes edited by Timothy Callahan.

The DC app has existed, in some form or another, since 2018, and these kinds of technical problems have been constant. Through two phones and three tablets, I’ve never had a device for which this specific app wasn’t plagued by a morass of glitches and faulty downloads. I continue to subscribe because I love DC Comics and I love having access to the library, but I am BEGGING whoever is in charge of the tech side of this app, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.

In Nashville, we get to the gate with our connecting flight in just enough time for me to re-download Kryptonite, then check a few more of the downloaded books to make sure they’re downloaded properly. At some point, once I’m on hotel wi-fi, I’ll check them all, but as we lift off from the Music City I’m able to finish Cooke and Sale’s underrated gem. Both men are better remembered for other Superman or Superman-adjacent comics (New Frontier and Superman For All Seasons, respectively), and thus this book can be unfairly lost in the shuffle sometimes. Kryptonite is Cooke’s story of a young Superman, just months out from his public debut, who does not yet know his own origin. After having to break a date with Lois due to a volcanic eruption, she calls things off with him and begins dating Tony Gallo, a casino owner who turns out to have ties to organized crime. Gallo has something else as well: a ring with a green stone chipped from a much larger stone he has in his possession, composed of an unearthly mineral neither Superman nor anyone else has ever encountered. And it even has a surprise in the center, like an enormous, radioactive Kinder Egg.

I adore the Cooke/Sale perspective. This Superman isn’t just young, but also inexperienced in a way that few other stories have played with. He knows, for instance, that his powers make him resilient, but he hasn’t yet explored the limits of that invulnerability, so when he gets lost in a sea of molten lava he’s legitimately afraid he could die. Even more shocking, when he escapes relatively unharmed, Superman doesn’t rejoice in his power, but rather experiences an existential crisis, wondering what being indestructible means in terms of his humanity. When he finally encounters the Kryptonite and learns that there is something in the world capable of killing him, it actually triggers feelings of joy, as if he has regained a tether to the human race he was in danger of losing.

Although For All Seasons was written by Jeph Loeb, the continuity of Sale’s artwork and the themes therein really make this book a fine companion for that one. Sale’s work — both here and in many of his other works, such as he and Loeb’s storied Batman collaborations — is not truly timeless. Rather, it evokes times that don’t exist at all, with old art deco styles juxtaposed with modern technology. (The panel where Jimmy Olsen complains about the hassle of getting a new cell phone while dressed like a member of the cast of Newsies comes especially to mind.)

Compared to the other masterpieces its creators are associated with, this book doesn’t get the love it deserves. But I’m so, so glad I read it again today.

After the damn app let me download it, anyway.

The good news is that I am capable of reading much faster in the distraction-free environment of an airplane, so despite the download dilemma, I had time to knock out a second graphic novel before we landed in Pittsburgh. This time I chose the New 52 era story Superman Unchained by Scott Snyder and Jim Lee. A terrorist group called Ascension is planning a major strike that could destabilize the entire world, and if that weren’t bad enough, our old pal Lex Luthor has plans to piggyback on their attack with a strike of his own. Fortunately, Superman isn’t alone – Batman and Wonder Woman are there to lend a hand, as well as his new best frenemy, Wraith, an alien who has been in the employ of the United States government since the 1930s. Wraith is even more powerful than Superman, but he admires the Man of Steel – which makes it all the more tragic that he’s going to have to kill him.

If you’ve been reading this blog all along – as well you should – you may remember that I didn’t particularly care for Jim Lee’s previous work with Superman on the Brian Azzarello-written Superman: For Tomorrow. This nine-issue story proves quite conclusively that the problem was the writer, not the artist. Unchained is a great action movie in comic book form, with Superman leaping from one threat to another with nary a moment to catch his breath. This isn’t a story about deep characterization or quiet, personal moments with Clark Kent and his friends, it’s about Superman in an insane race to save the world from one threat to another.

The best characterization, in fact, comes in the person of Sam Lane. Sam is in charge of the Wraith project (of course) and there’s one moment where he takes Superman to task that I liked a lot. In most continuities where Sam is put in the antagonist role, his hatred of Superman is either a result of pure xenophobia or just the fact that he resents having someone that powerful around that he can’t control. This version is different. His work with Wraith (he says) proves that he doesn’t have a problem with aliens. His beef with Superman is that he considers him a coward for not using his powers to stop the real threats to the world. Superman usually stays out of politics and military conflicts, and Sam believes he should be using his powers to deal with THAT kind of threat, the way that he uses Wraith. Of course, there are countless stories that demonstrate why Superman doesn’t (and shouldn’t) use his powers that way, but Sam Lane doesn’t have the luxury of having read, for example, Mark Waid’s Irredeemable. In real life, if somebody says that Superman should use his powers this way, it just proves that they don’t understand Superman. But Sam legitimately DOESN’T understand Superman, which makes this a very clever way to motivate the character that’s a little out of the norm.

Wraith is an interesting character as well – a nice foil to Superman who has very similar powers, but has chosen to use them in a different way. This is the only story Wraith has appeared in, and I guess it’s probably for the best, but I feel like there’s more story potential out there for him. And Lee’s artwork was perfectly matched to this kind of high-octane, never-catch-your-breath story.

There isn’t anything particularly revelatory or world-changing for Superman in this graphic novel. It’s just, simply, a good Superman story. Perhaps the best of the New 52 Era, if I’m being honest.

Thur., June 19

Comic: Man and Superman 100-Page Super Spectacular #1

Notes: For a few years, DC had a nice run of 100-Page Super Spectaculars, usually specials that collected comics or storylines that were connected to a recent media tie in or a new event story, as an inexpensive way for readers to catch up. In 2019, they published this one, though, the anomalous Man and Superman 100-Page Super Spectacular, which collected four issues that had never been previously published. Legendary writer Marv Wolfman and artist Claudio Castellini had been commissioned, about a decade prior, to do a four-issue run on the Superman Confidential anthology series (the same series that gave us Superman: Kryptonite), but even though their story was finished, Confidential was cancelled before it was published, and Man and Superman sadly languished in limbo. Why they decided to publish it in this format instead of as a miniseries or an original graphic novel I don’t know, but I’m glad it finally made it out there. In his introduction, Wolfman says he thinks this is the best thing he’s ever written, and this is coming from the man behind Crisis on Infinite Earths and The New Teen Titans, so that’s a hell of a statement.

Having re-read the whole thing, do I think he’s right?

Well…calling it THE best may be a stretch. But it’s pretty damned good.

Wolfman’s story is his take on Superman coming to Metropolis for the first time. It is, of course, a story that has been told time and again. We looked at no less than seven different versions of that back in Origin Week, and honestly, I could have read this special back then and it would have fit. But this is Marv Wolfman’s take on it, and it’s good. Man and Superman is a character study, not an action movie. It’s about Clark Kent and who he was before he became Superman, about HOW he becomes Superman, and to a degree, it’s also about who Lois Lane is to him. As the story begins, Clark is moving to Metropolis for the first time, thirsty for a job as a reporter in a city that’s overcrowded with people trying to become reporters, desperate to find a way to make himself stand out. He and his parents have already made his uniform (insistent terminology in this book, too: it is a uniform, not a costume) but he isn’t quite ready to put it on yet. And thus Metropolis starts hearing reports of a mysterious “flying man.” Some people think he’s there to help, others are terrified of him, and Clark Kent is struggling to figure out how to be who he wants to be.

Lex Luthor is in the book too, because of course he is, but this is 100 percent Clark’s story. After two chapters of him trying to find his footing in a city that seems to be falling apart under the weight of a corrupt government and threats from a terrorist organization, Clark finally crosses paths with Lois Lane, and this is where the book really shines. Wolfman’s Lois is exactly who Lois is supposed to be – strong, brave, and dedicated to her craft as a journalist. When she meets Clark Kent, she doesn’t see him as either a mousey bookworm or a rival to be hated, as their early relationship is often depicted. Instead, Wolfman’s Lois relishes some healthy competition and is excited about the prospect of somebody else (FINALLY) showing up with the journalistic chops to present a real challenge to her. In Wolfman’s world, Clark Kent falls in love with Lois Lane not because she’s beautiful (although Castellini’s artwork makes it quite clear that she is), but because he finds in her the fire and inspiration he’s been lacking. She doesn’t know it, but it is the passion and courage of Lois Lane that gives Clark Kent the courage to put on his uniform and step out of the shadows.

Like so many of the stories I’ve read this year, Man and Superman is not part of current Superman continuity, and in fact, I don’t think it ever was. But increasingly, I find that doesn’t matter. Superman – all of the great heroes from the likes of DC and Marvel – are part of our modern mythology. And just like the stories of Odysseus, Hercules, and Thor take many different forms over the centuries, so do the stories of Superman, Batman, and Captain America in the nearly 90 years we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy them. That doesn’t make any of them more important than another, that doesn’t mean that they don’t matter. It just means that different people tell these stories in different ways, and all that really counts is whether or not it’s a good one.

This is most definitely a good one.

Fri., June 20

Graphic Novel: Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (Collects Superman/Batman #1-7)

Notes: Last week I watched the animated feature based on this graphic novel, so it felt like a good inclusion in my week of reading-on-the-go. I’m not going to get into a detailed recap, but here’s the quick one: a massive meteor made of Kryptonite is on a collision course for Earth, and President Lex Luthor is gaslighting the planet into thinking that Superman is responsible for it. Superman and Batman go on the run, chased by a squad of government-manipulated heroes led by Captain Atom, on a desperate chase to both clear Superman’s name and stop the meteor before it destroys all life on Earth.

The interesting thing, to me, is that while the movie did a pretty good job of adapting the overall plot including several bits where the dialogue was lifted straight from Jeph Loeb’s script, there was much more that was left OUT of the movie than I had remembered. For instance in the second chapter, while Superman is in the Batcave recovering from being shot by a Kryptonite bullet, he encounters and has a battle with a future version of himself. This older Superman has white at the temples and black in his costume – sort of an in-between step between his modern incarnation and the Superman people had come to embrace from Kingdom Come. (I have to remind myself that, at this period in DC history, Kingdom Come was still thought of as a possible future of the main DCU rather than a different world in the multiverse.) The movie also skips the sequence where the allies of the world’s finest attack the White House, believing Superman and Batman to be held hostage. I’m kind of disappointed they left that one out. There’s a good squad here: Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, Huntress, Superboy, Supergirl (the mostly-forgotten Cir-El version), Steel, and Krypto all taking the fight to Luthor makes for a good sequence, and really helps cement who these two characters are to the rest of the DC Universe.

Mostly, though, the thing I appreciate about this graphic novel is how well Loeb writes this team. I’ve mentioned it before, both when I covered Batman: Hush and The Supergirl From Krypton in this blog, but Loeb is very good with both of these characters. When it comes to writing them TOGETHER, though, he may well be the best. I hadn’t necessarily intended to read his entire Superman/Batman run for this blog project, but I’m kind of starting to feel inclined to do so. Between this one and the Supergirl story, I’m nearly halfway there anyway.

Sat. June 21

Graphic Novel: Superman/Batman: Saga of the Super-Sons (Collects World’s Finest Comics ##215-216, 221-222, 224, 228, 230, 231, 233, 238, 242, 263 and a story from Elseworlds 80-Page Giant #1)

Notes: Last week, during my discussion of Superman/Wonder Woman, I mentioned how often team-up comic book starring characters who have their own ongoing series can often feel somewhat irrelevant. World’s Finest Comics, during the later years when Superman and Batman’s individual comics became more episodic, definitely fell victim to that particular problem. Bob Haney found an interesting solution to that in 1972, when he started a serial in World’s Finest starring not Superman and Batman, but their sons, Clark Kent Jr. and Bruce Wayne Jr. This series ran through 12 (mostly non-consecutive) issues of World’s Finest, and right from the jump it’s a little hard to define this series. I suppose it’s an “imaginary tale,” as they were called at the time. There wasn’t really an effort to make the stories seem like a possible future, as the styles and slang felt very much of the late 60s and early 70s. Years later, it would even be established that this was yet another world in the DC Multiverse, although whether it’s a world that exists in the current multiverse or not, I’m honestly not sure.

The conceit is that both Superman and Batman marry and have sons who are virtually identical to them. When the Juniors reach adulthood, they decide to take up their fathers’ mantles as Superman Jr. and Batman Jr., despite Clark Jr. having only half of his father’s powers, as his mother is human. These adventures are, again, pretty of the time. There are a few issues where they roam the country like Green Lantern and Green Arrow, stumbling into different situations that need their help. In others they set out to solve a problem or a mystery, such as the issue where they wind up in alternate camps of a pair of sociologists trying to use a primitive tribe attempting to prove whether human nature is basically good (Clark’s perspective) or evil (Bruce’s). There’s even a particularly cruel issue in which Bruce Sr. is murdered, leading to a feud between Bruce Jr. and Dick Grayson over who deserves to take over as Batman, before ultimately revealing that Bruce Sr.’s death was a ruse to catch a criminal because of course it was, and he didn’t let anybody except for Superman Sr. know about it because of course he didn’t.

The weird thing to me about these stories is just HOW wild they get, HOW inconsistent they are, despite all being from writer Bob Haney. Depending on which issue you’re reading, Clark and Bruce Senior are either loving, devoted fathers or cookie cutter stereotypes in the “Parents just don’t understand” vein. Similarly, the boys bounce back and forth between showing respect and disdain for their fathers. Even their origins vary wildly: in the first issue, Bruce Jr. resents his father for hiding the fact that he was Batman from him while he was growing up, but only a few issues later he tells Clark he believes humans are inherently evil because of all the times in his childhood that he saw his dad come home after nearly getting killed by the bad guys Batman was trying to clean up.

It’s also pretty amusing to me how Haney (perhaps due to editorial edict) constantly steps around the question of who Clark and Bruce’s respective mothers are. Both Clark and Bruce Sr. are happily married to the mothers of their sons in this series, but they are never addressed by name, and whenever they appear on-panel it’s either with their back turned, their faces obscured in shadow, or (my favorite) wearing comically oversized hats to try to hide their features. Which is kind of funny, as Dick Dillin (the usual artist) draws virtually the same face for Clark Sr., Clark Jr., Bruce Sr., and Bruce Jr. The only discernible differences are the glasses the Clarks wear, Clark Jr.’s slightly longer hair, and Bruce Jr.’s sideburns. What I’m getting at here is that showing the faces of the moms likely would be of no help as to determining who they were. As it is, we DO see Clark’s mom with very dark, Lois Lane-shaded locks, whereas Bruce’s mom has brown hair that could be any number of women that Bruce Sr. had dalliances with over the years, but I personally choose to believe it was Selina Kyle.

The last two stories in this book are both bizarre and, in the case of the first one, almost insulting. Dennis O’Neil took over the writing chores for one last Super-Sons story nearly four years after Haney finished his run, claiming that the stories of the Super-Sons were just a simulation run on the computer in the Fortress of Solitude. Not sure why that was necessary, but okay… Then the simulated sons somehow are released from the computer and fight briefly alongside their super-dads before being made to disintegrate themselves for reasons. Haney did come back 20 years later for one final story in the Elseworlds 80-Page Giant, ignoring O’Neil’s story and substituting his own, in which Clark Sr. fakes HIS own death. This time, though, it’s not to catch a criminal, it’s for the much more reasonable and parental reason of teaching his son a dang lesson.

The book is a curiosity. It’s fun and nostalgic, which I certainly appreciate, but it’s not necessarily great comics. The best part of its legacy, really, is the fact that it kind of paved the way for the eventual Jon Kent/Damian Wayne series by Peter Tomasi, which was excellent, and which I intend to read again before this year is out.

Comic: Krypto: The Last Dog of Krypton #1

Notes: Whenever I travel, I like to hit local comic shops, and this week’s trip to Pittsburgh is no different. Although I already preordered Krypto #1 by Ryan North and Mike Norton at my local comic shop back home, BSI Comics, when we visited New Dimension Comics here in Pittsburgh I couldn’t resist picking up the variant cover by Dan Mora. I am not typically a variant guy, but I love Mora’s artwork and, as we get closer and closer to July 11th, my enthusiasm for the movie is reaching a fever pitch. So I picked up the comic and read it in the hotel room.

Damn it, Ryan North, you’re going to make me cry with every issue, aren’t you?

We all know the story of Krypto, of course: pet of Jor-El and Lara, sent to Earth in a prototype of the rocket that would eventually take Kal-El and make him Superman. North is telling that story from a different point of view – that of Krypto himself. This is not the super-smart Krypto of the Silver Age, with human-level intellect and thoughts. This is just Krypto, dog, who has no idea what kind of calamity his people are dealing with. North’s script takes us through the dying days of Krypton, as Jor-El and Lara make preparations to create the spacecraft they hope will allow them to escape Krypton’s destruction, ultimately leading to using Krypto as a test subject. Norton’s wonderful artwork, though, stays pretty much at dog-level, with the humans often talking above him. They even play a neat trick with the word bubbles – most of the dialogue is lowercase and faded, with only certain words showing up in typical comic book all caps and bold: words like Krypto’s name and other words the pup is likely to recognize. All this talk about the destabilization of the planet’s core, after all, is probably so much gibberish to even a very good boy like Krypto.

As much as Mora is my favorite artist in comics these days, Ryan North has been fighting his way to the top of my list of writers. His run on Fantastic Four has been incredible, his work on Star Trek: Lower Decks has been as funny and poignant as the show itself. I am not surprised at just how good, how MOVING this issue was. It’s a thing of beauty, and I can’t wait for the rest of the story.

Sun., June 22

Graphic Novels: Superman ‘78; Superman ‘78: The Metal Curtain (Each collecting six issues of the respective miniseries)

Notes: A few years ago, DC Comics finally did something that fans have wanted for a long time and officially established certain movie and TV properties of theirs as part of the DC Multiverse. In particular, the Christopher Reeve Superman and Michael Keaton Batman movies (the first two of each, anyway) were canonized as happening on the same world, designated Earth-789, And to inaugurate them properly, each of them got a miniseries, then a later follow-up. Today, I reread the two Superman books that continued the adventures of the Richard Donner Superman world.

The first Superman ‘78, written by Robert Venditti with art by Wilfredo Torres, shows us this very familiar world’s first face-off against Brainiac. The computer intelligence from Colu comes to Earth, surprised to find a Kryptonian there. Overwhelmed by this new threat, Superman turns to an unlikely ally – the recently-paroled from prison criminal mastermind Lex Luthor. But Superman winds up in Brainiac’s clutches, startled to learn that before Krypton was destroyed he miniaturized its capital city, Kandor, and all the people who lived there – including Superman’s parents, Jor-El and Lara.

The sequel was called Superman ‘78: The Metal Curtain, once again written by Venditti, with Gavin Guidry handling the artwork this time. A rain of Kryptonite meteors falls in the Soviet Union, spurring on the creation of a new armored “super man” of their own. Calling himself Metallo, the Soviet villain takes on Superman publicly in an effort to demonstrate Russian superiority.

Both of these books are fantastic. Venditti has a natural feel for the world of the Donner movies, capturing the characters and their voices perfectly. Luthor has a line, for instance, where he casually insults Superman by saying “all of your muscles are BELOW the neck” – a quick way to call his hated foe stupid (which, of course, is not true) that absolutely rings with the voice of the late Gene Hackman. Luthor, Perry White, Lois Lane, and especially Clark Kent feel absolutely true to the actors who performed the roles and the lines that were written for them.

The stories, too, feel very indicative of the time period, especially the second one. Venditti plays on Cold War fears in a way that feels very natural for the era, but ends it in a way that maintains optimism and positivity that is so inherent in Superman. In truth, considering how it plays on some of the same themes, it’s a far better way of dealing with the politics of the 80s than Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.

I also greatly appreciate the way these two miniseries expanded the world of the movies by bringing in other characters who hadn’t appeared. Brainiac and Metallo, of course, the two main villains fall into this category, but we also get the Superman ‘78 versions of Steve Lombard and Sam Lane, plus hints that indicate that this universe may not be without a Hawkman or a Green Lantern. The two Batman ‘89 miniseries (once they were finally over, after a series of egregious delays) did the same thing, adding new versions of the Scarecrow and Harley Quinn, plus versions of Robin, Two-Face, and Batgirl that fit better with this world than the versions from the Joel Schumaker films, which I think we can all be grateful to see excised from canon. Now that the second Batman ‘89 is FINALLY finished, I’m really hoping that DC will follow this up with an Earth-789 Justice League, bringing in the John Wesley Shipp version of the Flash and the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman (neither of which have been confirmed as taking place on Earth-789 yet, but there’s nothing saying that they DON’T take place on this Earth either).

Wilfredo Torres’ artwork is good, but the first Superman ‘78 was originally created as a digital comic before being collected in print, and for some reason DC at the time insisted on a digital format that basically makes each digital “page” a half-page of a print comic. It’s not too bothersome when you read it on a tablet, but reading it in print gives you a gutter cutting right through the center of every page, which eventually becomes very noticeable and distracting. Guidry had no such limitation for the second volume and the artwork is much stronger for it. Both artists do a good job of capturing the likenesses of the actors who played the characters, and largely escape the problem that some artists fall into by trying to make them SO photorealistic that the images feel static and lifeless. That’s never a problem here.

I’ll probably rewatch the other continuation of the Donner Universe, Superman Returns, some time in the next couple of weeks before the new movie drops. As much as I like that movie, though, these two books have totally supplanted it in my mind as the definitive continuation of the Reeve/Donner Superman, with all the wonder and glory that I’ve loved since I was a kid. I sincerely hope that we haven’t seen the last of this world.

Comic Book: New Gods Vol. 5 #6 (Guest Appearance)

Mon. June 23

Graphic Novel: Superman: Red and Blue (Collects issues #1-6)

Notes: Today we’re tackling Superman: Red and Blue. This series has its genesis way back in 1996, when DC did a Batman: Black and White anthology series, in which a wealth of different writers and artists did short Batman stories without color. The idea has been resurrected several times, as backup stories in other comics and in subsequent miniseries, but oddly enough it took until 2021 before it occurred to them to try it with a different character. In Superman: Red and Blue, assorted teams told bite-sized Superman stories in which red and blue are usually the only colors used (although a few stories broke that rule, usually with skin tones). That was followed up by Wonder Woman: Black and Gold, then Marvel got in the game with their assorted Black, White, and Blood series, which to me kind of miss the point, as the DC books all focus creators telling personal stories indicating what the character means to them, whereas the Marvel books are kind of just an excuse to ramp up the violence.

But I digress.

Red and Blue is an anthology, and like all anthologies, the quality of the stories therein can vary greatly. Some of them are good, some of them are adequate, some of them are darn near masterpieces. And it can turn on a dime from one page to another, and different readers will invariably find themselves attached to different stories. I’m not going to go through a recap of the dozens of stories in this book, but some of my personal favorites include:

“Human Colors,” written by Dan Watters with art by Dani. A 5th dimensional imp of the Mxyzptlk variety not only steals color from Earth, but erases the concept from the collective minds of the human race. The story is an interesting meditation on color and what color means, with plenty of that symbolism crap we English teachers like so much.
“Into the Ghost Zone” by Chuck Brown and Denys Cowan, a story of Val-Zod, the Superman of DC’s Earth-2 series. He’s a good character that doesn’t turn up too often these days, and I really should try to find some of his greatest hits to cover in this blog before the year runs out.
“My Best Friend Superman” by Stephanie Phillips and Marley Zarconne. A little girl comes to school for show-and-tell with a memento of an encounter she had with Superman…but kids are kids, and not everyone believes her.
“Deadline” by Jesse J. Holland and Lauren Braga, has Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince at lunch making a wager over whether Clark is going to join them on time or if, as always seems to be the case, something is going to come up.
“A Man Most Saved” by Brandon Thomas and Berat Pekmezci shows a man whose life has been saved by Superman a dozen times – and who finally has a chance to return the favor.
“Namrepus” by Mark Waid and Audrey Mok is a charming story about Superman turning the tables on Mxyzptlk.
“Prospect of Tomorrow” by Francis Manapul is a beautiful tale of Superman and Bizarro on the surface of Mars.
“Generations” by Daniel Warren Johnson, a quiet story about the love of a parent and how that love can save the world.
“Hissy Fit” by Sophie Campbell, who is now the writer/artist of the new Supergirl ongoing series. This wordless tale is a funny little yarn about Streaky.

And this is me trying to be abbreviated. I may have a problem.

The stories in this book cover pretty much every era of Superman. We have modern stories, stories of the Golden Age, stories of alternate continuities. (John Ridley kicks the series off with a sequel to a story from World’s Finest Comics from 1970.) And while the stories cover a lot of territory and a lot of perspectives, there are certain themes that turn up over and over again. Many writers choose to focus on Clark Kent’s early years – stories about his life in Smallville, or how Jonathan and Martha taught him valuable lessons. Other stories are about the relationships other characters have with him – Jimmy Olsen, Bizarro, various stories told from the perspective of people he’s saved. These stories, the best stories in this book, all seem to center around Superman as an ideal – a symbol of hope. But it’s not just a matter of seeing some far-off symbol in the sky and trusting that he’ll be there to stop Brainiac’s invasion or something. He’s there and present and a part of these people’s lives. He visits a little girl who’s being picked on because she believes in him. He has lunch with the guy whose life he’s saved over and over. Jimmy reveals that his favorite picture he’s ever taken of Superman isn’t one of the iconic shots of him in battle, but an accidental picture he took of the two of them together when he realized he’d forgotten to take the lens cap off his camera.

There are very few big action scenes in this book. The stories, for the most part, are small and personal. And that’s what makes them special. If you want a story of the adventures of Superman, those stories are plentiful and easy to find. But the stories that really explain what makes Superman such a powerful symbol aren’t always the ones that get the attention. This book puts those kinds of stories in the spotlight for once, and I love it for that.

Tues., June 24

Graphic Novels: Superman: Lost (Collects issues #1-10), Superman: Lois and Clark (Collects issues #1-8), Superman: The Final Days of Superman (Collects Superman Vol. 3 #51-52, Action Comics Vol. 2 #51-52, Batman/Superman #31-32, Superman/Wonder Woman #28-29), Superman Reborn (Collects Action Comics #973-976, Superman Vol. 4 #18-19)

Notes: My week of Superman-On-the-Go concludes today as the family hops a plane in Pittsburgh to wing our way back home to Louisiana. I’m writing this at the Atlanta airport during our layover, after having read two graphic novels on the flight from PA, with the intention of reading more on our final leg, assuming nothing goes wrong.

First was Superman: Lost, written by Christopher Priest with art by Carlo Pagulayan, (with a few pages assisted by others). In this story, Clark is called away from Lois for a routine mission with the Justice League, but when he returns home only a few hours later, he reveals that for him, twenty years have passed. Lois is shocked, of course, and her shock quickly turns to anger as she realizes how two decades in outer space have affected her husband.

The ten issues of this series bounce back and forth between Superman’s experiences during his twenty-year exile and how he deals with his return. After being pulled into a time anomaly, Superman finds himself in an unfamiliar galaxy on a world with a sun turning red and rapidly draining his powers. This part of the story is taken up with his efforts to get home, as well as his experiences on a world he calls “Newark,” and the people there he is forced to abandon. Back home, Superman struggles to cope with the trauma of his experiences in space, especially the notion that there is a world out there on the brink of destruction that he promised to help – and failed.

Priest loosely based this story on The Odyssey, with Superman in the role of the storm-tossed Odysseus and Lois playing one righteously angry Penelope. We also get a sort of Circe in the form of an alien woman whose name translates most closely to “Hope.” Hope has a Green Lantern ring, but no connection to the Corps or way to contact the Guardians, and it becomes clear early on that she would much rather keep Clark with her than help him find his way home.

For the most part, I really enjoy this story. Priest finds a way to prey on Superman’s greatest fear: that of being unable to help people. Every second he’s in space there are people on Earth he’s unable to save. Once he finds his way home, he is broken with the knowledge that he abandoned the people of Newark. The two desires cannot be reconciled, and while I’m no expert on the idea, the Earthbound side of this story (of which Lois is unabashedly the protagonist) comes across as an exploration of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Lois’s husband returned to her only hours after he left, but he isn’t her husband anymore, and the pain he’s going through takes its toll on her as well.

The book is great, but I have to be frank: I’m not really a fan of the ending. I feel like it’s kind of a cop-out, and I can’t explain why without spoiling it, so consider this your warning. If you don’t want to know how the story ends, skip the next two paragraphs.

Superman makes it home by finding a time warp in which he encounters an older version of himself. This older Superman, he is told, is one of several possible versions of himself who suffered from his Odyssey (sorry, but I couldn’t think of another word), but he eventually finds his way to the familiar planet Rann and returns to Earth with the help of Adam Strange. But after months of being unable to reacclimate to Earth, he returns to the time anomaly and realizes that the older version of himself he encountered before wasn’t a possible future, it was HIM in the future. He returns himself to Lois by altering the timestream and helping an earlier version of himself find his way home in just days rather than decades, then takes his place as the guardian of the anomaly.

In the end, Lois gets “her” Clark back, which is all well and good, but what this ultimately means is that the Superman we have at the end of the story didn’t experience any of the ordeals that we’ve read about. It’s not quite as bad as changing the timeline so that it never happened, but it’s CLOSE, and as an ending trope, I NEVER like that. It makes it feel as though everything we’ve just experienced is somehow inconsequential. I’m not saying I have a better way to restore the status quo, mind you – Priest is a great writer and I wouldn’t presume to tell him how to do his job. But it does leave me with a slightly sour taste in my mouth.

On the other hand, I had no problem enjoying the second book I read from beginning to end: Superman: Lois and Clark. The New 52 era, as I’ve mentioned before, erased Lois and Clark’s marriage from continuity. But in 2015, the Convergence event revealed that every version of the DCU still existed in the multiverse, including the pre-Flashpoint version I grew up reading and loving, and THAT Lois and Clark were still married and, moreover, had a child. At the end of Convergence, they wound up on the New 52 Earth, and decided to adopt new identities (Lois and Clark White) and raise their son Jonathan in privacy.

Of course, neither Lois nor Clark is content just sitting on the sidelines. Since the world already has a Superman, Clark goes out and averts disasters, saves lives, and captures villains in secret, even going so far as to build a new Fortress, complete with prison. Lois, meanwhile, using the not-at-all suspicious pseudonym “Author X,” resumes her career as an investigative journalist, and is on the verge of publishing a new book exposing Intergang to the world as the story begins in earnest.

Dan Jurgens, who writes this one, bounces back and forth between scenes from the lives of the “White” family and their current-day exploits, which include Clark fearing that this new universe’s version of Hank Henshaw is about to go down the path of the version he remembers, the one who became the horrific Cyborg Superman. Intergang, meanwhile, is trying to track down Author X, putting both Lois and Jon in danger – a danger that may only be survivable if a certain little boy finds the steel inside himself.

Although he was born during Convergence, this is the book that really established Jon Kent as a character, beginning my love for him that didn’t end until Bendis Bendised the character in a way that only Bendis can Bendis. But my goodness, it was glorious to see Lois and Clark as young parents, to watch Jonathan discover his father’s secret, and ESPECIALLY the scenes where Jon discovers his own powers. It’s no surprise that I enjoyed Dan Jurgens’ work so much – he’s been one of my favorite Superman creators for over 30 years now, and this was basically the Lois and Clark whose stories he guided for so long brought back to us. It’s a fun, exciting book that feels so authentic to the characters in a way that other books of the era did not. I loved it so much that when we sat down to wait for our flight in Atlanta, I hopped on the wifi and downloaded two more books that sort of complete a trilogy with this one, the stories that restored “my” Lois and Clark permanently: The Final Days of Superman and Superman Reborn, which I’ll read in the air between Atlanta and New Orleans.

Now I’m back home in Louisiana, finishing this write-up and feeling really satisfied with the whole thing. The Final Days of Superman is one of the reasons why. DC Comics decided to end the New 52 era in favor of Rebirth, which was more of a soft reboot than the previous one. There weren’t any massive, sweeping continuity changes (yet), but rather an attempt to reset parts of the DCU that had gotten away from them back to what had worked before. In the case of the Superman books, that meant clearing the slate. The New 52 version of Superman, at this point, had gone through a period of losing his powers, regaining his powers, and then having his identity go public. In this story, which ran through the last two issues of each of the New 52-era Superman titles (Superman, Action Comics, Superman/Wonder Woman and Batman/Superman), Clark finds out he’s dying due to a combination of various traumas he recently encountered. With no hope for a cure, he decides to make peace with his friends and try to prepare a new champion for Earth. He asks Batman to help him track down the missing Supergirl and reluctantly tells Wonder Woman – who he’s dating at this point, remember – that he’s dying. At the same time, a strange man with unfathomable energy powers begins to cut a swath through Metropolis, claiming to be Superman.

Without getting too much into the plot, this was a surprisingly good story, and it frankly had the deck stacked against it. Unlike the classic Death of Superman storyline, by the time this one started, DC Rebirth had already been announced. We all knew that the old-school Clark – the one from the Lois and Clark miniseries – was going to be the main Superman again. But that in no way stopped writer Peter J. Tomasi from giving the character a proper send-off. Superman is resigned to his fate, but doesn’t use that as an excuse to quit, fighting every step of the way. The fact that the story crossed over into the books he shared with Batman and Wonder Woman works in its favor as well, making them a major part of his “final days.” The climactic battle includes not only the two of them, but also Supergirl, Steel, Lois Lane, Lana Lang, and the pre-Flashpoint Superman, all of them at his side. And his death is quite surprising as well – not falling inert as Superman did after fighting Doomsday, but exploding into energy and turning into dust.

What was that all about?

We didn’t have to wait too long to find out.

Superman Reborn came almost a year into the Rebirth era, but concluded the mystery of New 52 Superman’s death. What had happened in the interim, to summarize: New 52 Lois Lane and Lana Lang both mysteriously gained Superwoman powers, but Lois burned out and died, with the pre-Flashpoint Lois stepping into her role at the Daily Planet. At the same time, everyone forgot Superman’s identity, and a new, totally-human Clark Kent appeared at the Planet offices. Reborn (by Tomasi and Jurgens, writers of the two previous books) ties it all up in a neat little bow as we discover that much of this was due to the machinations of our old friend Mr. Mxyzptlk. Mxy was, in fact, the human Clark, and had taken the role (even going so far as to erase his own memories) in order to “help out” after Superman died. He even wiped the knowledge of his dual identity from the world in a way that fit neatly.

The best thing, though, was the revelation that, despite what he’d been led to believe, this Earth was the one that Pre-Flashpoint Lois and Clark were from, and that a mysterious force had split them each into two. The New 52 Lois and Clark, both of whom are “dead,” are fused with the Pre-Flashpoint versions, reassembling their history and their place in the universe. Jurgens and Tomasi found a satisfying way to completely reinsert the old Lois and Clark without utterly dismissing what the creators of the New 52 era had done with the character. It was all “true,” it was all “real,” and it was really OUR Lois and Clark all along. It’s not often that you find a way to have your cake and eat it too, but they nailed it.

It was a long week, friends – not just for Superman, but also for me. But I’m home and happy now, and with our family trip for this summer behind me, there’s only one thing left on my radar. That’s right: the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future!

Nah, you know what I’m talking about. July 11th is right around the corner, and I’ve got so much more to watch and read and talk to you about before then.

Year of Superman Week 19: Superman Who?

May 14, 2025May 14, 2025 blakemp Year of Superman Absolute Superman, Alfred E. Neuman, Batman, Batwoman, Blackout, DC Comics, Lois Lane, Martha Kent, mother's day, Mr. Z, Smallville, superman, Superman and Lois, World's Finest Comics, Year of Superman

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

Wed., May 7

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thur., May 8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where’s that grim and gritty follow-up?

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

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

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

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

Fri., May 9

Comic: Absolute Superman #7

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

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

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

Sat., May 10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sun. May 11

Comics: World of Smallville #1-4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mon., May 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tues., May 13

Comic: World’s Finest Comics #90

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

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

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

This set-up raises any number of questions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

April 30, 2025April 29, 2025 blakemp Year of Superman Batman, Catwoman, DC Comics, Elseworlds, Justice League Unlimited, Last Days of Lex Luthor, Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, Mark Waid, Power Girl, superman, Superman and Lois, We Are Yesterday, Year of Superman

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

Wed., April 23

I feel like Perry is kinda burying the lede here…

Comic: Superman Vol. 6 #25

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

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

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

Thur., April 24

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fri., April 25

Comics: Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2 #6

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sat., April 26

Comic: Power Girl Vol. 4 #20

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

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

Is that so much to ask?

Sun., April 27

Comics: Batman Vol. 3 #36-37

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

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

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

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

Don’t we all need that?

Mon., April 28

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tues., April 28

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

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

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

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

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

April 16, 2025April 15, 2025 blakemp Year of Superman Aquaman, DC Comics, j. michael straczynski, Lois Lane, superman, Superman and Lois, Superman: Earth One, Superman: For Tomorrow, Wonder Woman, Year of Superman

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

Wed., March 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thur., April 10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And hell, Superman isn’t even IN it.

Fri., April 11

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

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

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

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

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

The questions, both ethical and existential, are enormous.

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

Five stars.

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

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

Sat., April 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sun., April 13

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

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

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

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

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

Mon., April 14

Comics: Superman: Earth One Vol. 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tues., April 15

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The hell?

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

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

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

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

Year of Superman Week 13: Superman By Request

April 2, 2025April 4, 2025 blakemp Year of Superman Alan Moore, April Fool's Day, Batman, Batman and the Outsiders, comic books, Dave Gibbons, DC Comics, DC Comics Presents, Hitman, Jimmy Olsen, Justice League, Lois Lane, Metal Men, Outsiders, Power Girl, superman, Year of Superman

It’s a new week and, for the first time in a month, I’m NOT going to be spending it with the Death of Superman storyline. As much as I love that story, I’m happy to move on to something else…but I’m also not really interested in doing anything “structured” this week. I kind of want to bounce around, hit all quarters, and read lots of different things. To that end, I asked folks on Social Media to suggest their favorite single-issue Superman stories. I already have my own list of these, but I wanted to do a little crowd sourcing and maybe find some stories that I wouldn’t have thought of, or maybe have never even read before. There are some interesting choices in here, so I’m going to spend a few days sifting through them. This week, it’s SUPERMAN BY REQUEST!

Wed., March 26

Comics: Justice League of America #194, Superman Annual #11

Notes: I’m starting off with this suggestion, an issue of the original Justice League run I’ve never read before. This one intrigued me, because although many of those old Justice League comics are great, there are few that I’ve seen that I would specifically mark off as a great SUPERMAN story. Let’s see what it is about this one that makes it stand out.

It starts at a carnival in Metropolis, where Lois Lane is racking up prizes on the midway and forcing Clark to carry them. Clark encounters a fortune teller who reveals his double identity, then casts some sort of spell rapidly turning him into an old man. Over the course of the issue we check in on other members of the League – Flash, Elongated Man, Green Lantern, Black Canary, and Zatanna – each of whom has an encounter with a different figure ripped from a deck of tarot cards before they all converge on the Justice League Satellite and track down the source of their woes: their old foe Amos Fortune.

This is kind of perplexing. It’s a perfectly good issue, and I enjoyed reading it. Gerry Conway had a decent run on Justice League and this story, with lovely art and an eye-popping cover by George Perez, comes from the high point of the era. But I specifically asked for great single-issue Superman stories, and he only really appears in the first few pages and the last few pages. Sure, he’s the one that takes down Fortune at the end, but this isn’t so much a “great single-issue Superman story” as it is a “good single-issue Justice League story featuring Superman.” But y’know, when I decided to crowdsource, I knew that I would be seeing different people’s takes on what makes for a good Superman story. I imagine the person who recommended this one did so because of Superman’s good standing at the end.

Worst birthday since that time I didn’t get the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier.

Having gone with one of the Internet’s suggestions, I’m going to move on to one of the issues that was on my own list, a comic that is frequently cited among the greatest Superman stories ever told (and was, in fact, included in the trade paperback anthology of that name): Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ “For the Man Who Has Everything” from Superman Annual #11. It’s Superman’s birthday, and Wonder Woman, Batman, and Robin (Jason Todd) are meeting him at the Fortress of Solitude for a little party. When they arrive, though, they find Superman tangled in the snares of the Black Mercy, an alien parasite that traps its host in a hallucination of their own deepest desires. As they try to free him, they are attacked by Mongul, who sent the creature in the first place, and their only chance to survive is to free the Man of Steel.

There are a lot of layers here to peel apart, starting with Superman’s hallucination. The Black Mercy shows him a world where Krypton was never destroyed, where he grew up there, married, and had children…however, in the decades since, a movement has arisen protesting the use of the Phantom Zone as a punishment for criminals. And since the Phantom Zone was discovered by Jor-El, the House of El is the target of their ire. It’s an intriguing sort of political debate, and it’s kind of sad to see that in his “deepest desire,” Superman still has to watch Krypton self-destruct, even if it’s metaphorical this time. This is, however, very much a product of its time. In the early 80s, it’s easy enough to imagine that Superman’s greatest dream would be a world where Krypton never was destroyed. In the post-Byrne era, he didn’t have that nostalgic love for Krypton (which makes more sense, since he has no memories of it), and even through all the changes that the character has undergone over the years, that aspect has never really come back, at least not to the degree it was in the Silver Age. Were this story to be told today, I think it’s more likely Clark’s dream would be a perfect Earth, free of crime and disaster, where a Superman was no longer needed.

I also love the interaction of Mongul with the others. Moore gets some great little witticisms, like asking Batman to make the “yellow creature” stop shuffling, or the point where he recognizes that human society makes distinctions based on age and gender and, therefore, asks them to tell him which one of them is the polite one for him to kill first. If this story had never happened, I think Mongul would have been just one of many would-be alien conquerors that litter the DC Universe. This is what made him stand out, made him memorable.

Once Superman is released, the fight is great too. The rage that Gibbons places in his eyes is both righteous and frightening. He really cuts loose, telling Mongul to “burn” as he blasts him with his heat vision – which was rare at the time. Heat vision was almost never used as an offensive weapon then, certainly not directly against the bad guy. It’s something that became more common later, and I think this is most likely where that came from.

This is a brilliant comic book, and deservedly considered one of the greatest Superman stories ever. It’s even the source for the ONLY adaptation of Alan Moore’s work that the man himself signs off on – an episode of Justice League Unlimited. I should watch that soon.

Thur., March 27

Comics: Superman Vol. 6 #26, Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2 #5, Power Girl Vol. 3 #19, Shazam! Vol. 4 #20

Those two fronts, oddly enough, are a Nor’easter and the facade at the entrance to the Magic Kingdom at Disney World.

Notes: It’s another recent recap day for me. There were three Superman-adjacent books that his the stands this week, and I’m ready to pick into them, beginning with Superman #26, which I loved. Lex Luthor’s memory is slowly returning (since the events of the Lex Luthor Special, specifically). While this is good, in that he may be regaining the knowledge of how to deal with the stasis field holding Doomsday and the Radiant, it also opens us up to the danger of the old Luthor returning. Meanwhile, Lois “Superwoman” Lane goes on her first Justice League mission and winds up finding out something shocking about Supercorp. Everything builds up to a last scene and especially a last PAGE reveal that knocks your socks off. It’s the kind of issue that makes you want to go back and re-read the issues beforehand to admire how well the writer, Josh Williamson, has set everything up. I won’t be doing that today, exactly, but it feels like it may be in the cards before the 25th issue finale next month.

Mark Waid and Dan Mora come back for Justice League Unlimited #5, continuing the saga of the mysterious terrorist group called Inferno. The super terrorists attack globally at once, not only targeting power plants, but somehow kidnapping the attendees of the annual G20 summit, including dozens of world leaders and several members of the Justice League. And among the missing, only Supergirl has a clue where they’ve been taken. This issue kicks off the crossover event between this title and Waid’s Batman/Superman: World’s Finest, and it’s a story I’ve been looking forward to. It’s got time travel, it’s got oodles and oodles of heroes, and it’s linking two of the three best DC Universe books being published right now (the third being Superman itself).

Finally, Power Girl #19 shows us the missing heroes coming home just in time for Power Girl to get a pretty major surprise on the news. This issue, frankly, feels rushed, and I suspect that’s at least in part because next month appears to be the end of the series. There’s a sense here that Leah Williams was told the book was ending at issue #20 when she had a lot more planned, and she’s trying to race towards a satisfying conclusion. If that’s the case, I can’t really hold her accountable for that – it’s happened to a lot of good books over the years, and sometimes the first casualty of that kind of thing is coherence. That seems to be the case here.

Fri., March 28

I just have answer keys from old tests in MY file cabinet.

Comics: Action Comics #399

Notes: Action Comics #399 is an old favorite of mine. It’s one of those books that has a cover that can’t help but grab you – Superman in a morgue next to a guy in a suspiciously short skirt, with drawers containing two dead and pickled Supermen, telling him that the third empty drawer is waiting for him. This is a cover that DEMANDS answers. Why are there two other Supermen? Why is ours called “Superman III?” Why are they in jars? Where’s Richard Pryor?

Sometimes, you get a cover like this and wind up disappointed in the story inside. That happened frequently in the silver age – there was a period where the editor (usually the great Julius Schwartz) would have the cover artist whip up the wildest image he could think of, frequently involving some sort of monkey or gorilla, and then task the poor writer with coming up with some kind of story to justify that image. I don’t know that this is the case here, but where it was the script or the cover that came first, this is one where Leo Dorfman’s story lives up to the artwork.

It begins with Superman rushing off to stop a power generator explosion, something so volatile that is has the potential to ignite Earth’s atmosphere. Before he can deal with it, though, he is suddenly kidnapped, whisked away by a mysterious force and finding himself in a strange room with men who appear to be George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and George Custer. Superman quickly realizes his fellow captives are not imposters, but that they – and he – have been transported through time. He escapes and confronts his abductors, who turn out to be historians that have taken each of them from a point in time immediately before their deaths for study. Superman is then given an even greater shock: he is, in fact, the third Superman. After Superman died battling a “space vampire,” he was cloned, with the duplicate having no memory of his death. The clone, then, met a similar fate, making our Superman, in fact, Superman III – but the cloning will no longer be stable if another copy is needed, thus Superman III will be the last, and he is destined to die stopping the power generator from destroying the world.

At first, Superman is reluctant to take the trip back, but concedes when he realizes that staying in the future would result in the destruction of the timeline and the deaths of billions…but he somehow survives the explosion. It is then that he discovers the truth – he was taken not only through time, but to an alternate universe, where his fate and those of his fellow captors was different than in our own world. He lives on, but somewhere in the multiverse, Superman III is lying in state.

Man, I still can’t get away from the death of Superman, can I?

Anyway, I read this story in Superman From the 30s to the 70s, a book that I used to check out from the library religiously as a child. A few years ago, I was lucky enough to find a copy at a used bookstore, and it’s a treasure to me now. It’s full of great stories like this one and, in fact, is probably responsible for the bulk of my exposure to Superman before I became a full-time reader in those nascent days just before the Triangle Era began. I haven’t read this story in years, but I find it just as entertaining now as I did back then – a great sci-fi concept with the expected twist (Superman wasn’t REALLY going to die, even as a child I knew that), but the twist is done in such a way that it still carries weight. A Superman died, just not our Superman.

Hmm. I wonder if that universe still exists out there somewhere in the oft-rebooted and rebuilt DC Multiverse? That would be a fun project – a story that looks in on some of these one-shot alternate worlds from the Silver and Bronze Ages. Who at DC do I pitch that idea to?

Sat., March 29

Comic: Hitman #34

They say you should never meet your heroes, but when your hero is Superman, I think it’s okay.

Notes: This is such an odd book, on the outside, to include in this project. Hitman is by far the most successful alumni of DC’s Bloodlines crossover, and he had an ongoing series that lasted quite a while and still has a large fan base. The thing is, Hitman was created – and his series was written – by Garth Ennis, creator of The Boys, who you may know has a pretty vocal and heated distaste for superheroes. He doesn’t like ‘em. He created The Boys specifically to tear them down. But the one exception to that rule seems to be Superman. And it’s obvious when you read this comic, because it’s as tender and effusive a love letter to the Man of Steel as any comic book I’ve ever read.

In this issue, Tommy Monaghan – the titular Hitman – is on a rooftop in Gotham City when suddenly, inexplicably, he comes across Superman, brooding into the night sky. Monaghan turns into a stumbling fanboy for a moment until he realizes that something is bothering Superman. He convinces the hero to open up and he tells a story about a mission in space, a tragic failure, and how it’s eating away at him.

And then the most improbable thing in comic book history happens: Tommy Monaghan helps Superman.

The vast majority of this issue is simply a conversation between the two men on the rooftop. Superman tells the story of a doomed space flight and he confesses how he struggles sometimes with living up to what people expect him to be. Then Monaghan turns it all around, explaining what the idea of Superman means to people and framing him as a metaphor for America itself. “You’re everything that’s great about this country an’ you don’t even know it,” he says, and then goes on to explain a pretty singular philosophy that is just as true today as it was when this issue came out in 1998. In the end, he’s shared what he thinks Superman – and America itself – is really about, and Earth’s greatest hero returns to the sky, his failure no longer weighing on him quite as heavily as it did a few moments before.

Then, because it’s still an issue of Hitman, Tommy murders somebody, but you don’t really mind so much.

People talk often about Superman For All Seasons and All Star Superman (specifically the issue where Superman talks the girl off the ledge) as some of the stories that most perfectly exemplify who and what Superman is, and they’re right. Those are amazing stories, brilliant stories, stories I fully intend to revisit before the movie hits screens this July. But if someone wants to know what there is to love about Superman, I can’t think of any single issue of any comic book more suited to the task than this one.

And the fact that the guy who understands Superman so incredibly well has such a deep hatred of every other superhero still makes me chuckle.

Sun., March 30

“I’m sorry…I can’t do that, Clark…”
(It’s a *2001* joke. Get some culture, people.)

Comic: Superman #300

Notes: Ah, another beloved classic. Once again it’s an “imaginary story,” as one can probably tell by the cover, and one that is particularly indicative of its time. In this alternate world, the destruction of Krypton happened much later, and baby Kal-El’s rocket came to Earth in the “present” of 1976. And rather than landing in a Kansas cornfield, it made a splashdown in the ocean as both American and Soviet vessels raced to snag it. The rocket – and the baby inside – was claimed by the Americans, and thus did the Cold War enter a new stage on this planet.

The story takes us through two more “acts.” In 1990, the teenage Kal-El (called “Skyboy” by the US military) is revealed to the world and tensions between nations almost precipitate World War III, sparking the young man to flee and go into hiding. Then in 2001, an imposter makes a move, claiming to be the star-child, and the boy – now a man – has to come out of hiding to save the world.

Whether you call them Elseworlds or Imaginary Stories or something else entirely, it’s always interesting to me how often these DC stories tweak things, then twist them around to make them fit the original universe. For instance, the “Skyboy” costume the military gives Kal-El is, of course, identical to the traditional “Superman” uniform, right down to the S-shield, even though in these days the symbol wasn’t a Kryptonian glyph that came to Earth with him like it’s usually portrayed these days. Nope, just a crazy coincidence. Second, when Kal-El goes into hiding, he decides to borrow the names of two of his father-figures, one Thomas Clark and Kent Garrett, making him…oh, come on, you can guess, right? And as this Clark Kent grows up…well whaddaya know…he becomes a reporter. It’s almost like the philosophy of these stories is that there are just some constants in the multiverse, and no matter what details are changed, the end result will be kind of the same. When you consider the thesis of more recent stories like Doomsday Clock (I’ll probably read that again at some point this year) it actually makes sense. Superman is, not only metaphorically, but literally, the center of the DC Universe. Everything revolves around him in one way or another, and it seems kind of fitting that the universe itself will take pains to make that path consistent.

Mon., March 31

Comics: DC Comics Presents #83, Superman #127

Seriously, you’re never gonna guess who they’re all grimacing at.

Notes: Let’s kick off Monday with another recommended comic, DC Comics Presents #83. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but DC Comics Presents was, essentially, the Superman team-up book of the era. Every issue had Superman pair off with a different guest star, and in this one, he’s joining up with Batman and the Outsiders. That team has an interesting pedigree as well – Batman has quit the Justice League over its refusal to get involved in an international incident, and winds up leading a new team of offbeat characters: Black Lightning, Geo-Force, Katana, Metamorpho, and Halo. As a result of his actions, tensions between Batman and Superman were rather high at this period, with the two best friends finding themselves at odds. This issue kicks off with the return of the ORIGINAL Outsider – Alfred Pennyworth. The Outsider was an evil and powerful alter-ego of his that apparently can be unleashed to wreak havoc on the world due to a simple bump on the head. Ah, it was a simpler time.

When the Outsider turns himself into a tornado (seriously, he was freakishly powerful) and attacks a farming community, Superman joins in the hunt. He winds up joining the OutsiderS to battle the OutsideR in the Batcave, while Batman himself chases down the issue’s real villain, his foe Ira “I.Q.” Quimby.

I’d have to check the timeline, but this issue appears to take place after Superman and Batman have buried the hatchet. There’s no trace of that earlier animosity over Batman quitting the League, and I recall that they specifically addressed it and came to terms in the book that starred both of them, World’s Finest Comics. So what you have here is a simple team-up. In fact, considering that it’s written by Batman and the Outsiders creator Mike W. Barr, it really feels more like an issue of that comic that guest-stars Superman than the other way around. It’s a good issue, and I find it interesting that someone out there declared it their favorite.

Jack Black played Superman in the 2005 version.

Let’s dive further back in time to Superman #127 from 1959. This issue kicks off with “When There Was NO Clark Kent!” In this one, Superman recalls a time when an accident led Lois to believe that Clark Kent had been killed in an explosion. Superman decides that his life will be less complicated if he just does away with being Clark and remains Superman full-time… then he asks Jimmy Olsen if he can be his roommate.

What the hell was going on in 1959?

Anyway, Superman’s new address gets leaked to the public by means of Jimmy Olsen being stupid enough to put Superman’s name on the buzzer in the apartment building, and he’s soon inundated with the demands of his adoring public 24/7, to say nothing of the demands of his Kryptonite-bearing enemies. By the end of the story, he finds a convoluted way to bring Clark back to life. This is a really funny story from a modern perspective, from years of reading a Superman who understands and even CRAVES the normality of Clark Kent’s life and who will do anything to preserve it. It’s so bizarre that back then he would have considered Clark so disposable.

“The Make-Believe Superman” is story #2 in this issue. In this one, a suburban dad – embarrassed at his pedestrian life – decides to tell his son’s class at school that he’s really Superman, because there is absolutely no flaw in this plan. Except, of course, when he gets caught up in a scheme by some robbers who have taken Clark Kent hostage and threaten to kill him unless “Superman” goes along with their scheme.

Hilarity ensues.

It’s really the third story in this issue that’s most significant, the first appearance of Titano the Super-Ape. A gentle ape named Toto is sent into outer space, where a burst of strange radiation turns him into a giant and gives him the power to shoot Kryptonite rays from his eyes. In true King Kong fashion, he falls in love with Lois Lane, who somehow has the presence of mind to re-named him “Titano” even as she’s afraid she’s going to get killed. That Lois, she gives new meaning to the term “clear-headed.” Titano would become a recurring foil for Superman, although most of the time he’s portrayed in much the way that his obvious cinematic inspiration is – a force of nature, an animal acting out his own nature, and not specifically evil. As far as the story itself goes, it’s cute.

Tues., April 1

Comic: Superman #145, DC Comics Presents #70

Remember that time Superman fought a Robert Frost poem?

Notes: It seemed appropriate to read this particular issue today, although the pertinent reason doesn’t turn up until three stories deep. The first story, “The Secret Identity of Superman,” deals once again with Lois’s turmoil over the fact that Superman won’t marry her. (Really, they did Lois SO dirty in these stories.) This time, she thinks it’s because he’s afraid she couldn’t keep his secret identity a secret if she ever knew about it, so Jimmy Olsen decides to “help” by telling her Superman’s secret: he’s really science fiction writer Rock Stirling! Actually, Jimmy is just testing Lois to see if she CAN keep the secret, thinking that knowing the answer one way or another will be a favor to both of them. People who were alive in the 1950s – did you really pull this kind of crap on your friends back then?

Anyway, Lois turns out to be so hilariously bad at keeping the secret that four pages later, she’s inadvertently announced that Stirling is Superman on national television, prompting the real Superman to race to his rescue when some crooks come after the writer with Kryptonite. Stirling actually saves Superman by throwing his lead typewriter over the meteor, allowing Superman to melt it and get his strength back long enough to stop the crooks. In the end, Jimmy tells Lois to cheer up – “Superman thinks a lot of you! Maybe he’ll marry you some day even if you CAN’T keep a secret.”

There’s a reason the comic wasn’t called Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane’s Pal Jimmy Olsen.

Story #2 features Superman in “The Interplanetary Circus.” An alien circus comes to Earth to put on a show, and Lois and Clark head out to the big top. Lois – and virtually everyone else – thinks that the “alien” bit is just a gimmick and the fabulous creatures they see are all robots (which raises the question of just how good they thought robots could be at the time, because this is WAY beyond Pirates of the Caribbean), but Clark’s super-senses indicate that it’s all real. In fact, when Superman has to prevent a disaster at the circus, the ringmaster offers him a job. When he declines, he tries to take Superman by force, which of course works out about as well as you expect.

The Silver Age was such an odd time for Superman. After spending the Golden Age beating dangerous criminals, going into war zones, and stopping domestic violence, we got about a 20-year period where his major concerns seemed to be things like convincing aliens to leave Earth and preventing Lois Lane from marrying him. Different sensibilities, I suppose. These stories do have charm, but there’s a limit.

It’s the final story in this issue that made me decide to read it today. In “The Night of March 31st,” Clark Kent writers in his diary that “Nothing exciting happened today – will patrol Metropolis, as usual, tomorrow. Supergirl isn’t ready yet to have her existence revealed to the world.” Then, after writing all this stuff in a paper diary in plain English where anybody could read it, Clark goes to sleep. In the morning, he’s awakened by an urgent call from Perry White asking him to get Superman to meet him at the Daily Planet, only to find that Perry has somehow been transformed to a Bizarro. From there things only get wilder – he rushes to an oceanic observatory only to find his old girlfriend Lori Lemaris, the mermaid, with legs and drowning. Then Supergirl — at the time still acting as Superman’s “secret weapon” — shows up to put out a fire in broad daylight, revealing her existence to the world. Krypto and Streaky burst in at the Planet offices to play with Jimmy and Lois, Mr. Mxyzptlk shows up to take Lois out to lunch…every panel is full of strange occurrences and even stranger sight gags. We see Superman with no cape, wearing slacks over his costume, wearing Clark’s glasses, with a backwards S-shield, and dozens of other little visual oddities. Nothing about the story seems to make any sense whatsoever, even up to the point where Lex Luthor, Bizarro, and Brainiac team up to save him from a Kryptonite-wielding Lana Lang.

Why is all of this crazy stuff happening, you ask? It’s simple – we began with Clark writing his March 31st entry, then going to sleep, so then what day is it when he wakes up?

I personally hate April Fool’s Day, at least the way it exists today. It should be a day for gentle, harmless jokes and pranks, but far too many people use it as an excuse to pull mean-spirited gags and then brush it off with “Can’t you take a joke?” Social media has made it even worse – it’s hard enough these days to sort the truth from the nonsense online, and April Fool’s Day annually bombards us with an avalanche of garbage that gullible people panic over because they think it’s real. It’s gotten so bad that when Marvel Studios announced Spider-Man: Brand New Day as the title for the next movie, I went to Google and started looking for other sources to corroborate that it wasn’t just a joke.

All that said, though, this is actually a fun story. It’s completely ridiculous, and there’s a lot of fun to be had in going through it a panel at a time and picking out all of the ridiculous things that the writers and artists work in – things like the Leaning Tower of Pisa being in Metropolis, Lois’s hair changing from panel to panel, and Clark changing to Superman in front of a pair of onlookers that give off a kind of vibe that…well, see for yourself, I guess.

I honestly can’t decide which joke to go with here, friends, write one yourself.

Anyway, the story is utterly ridiculous, but it’s harmless fun, and that’s what April Fool’s Day SHOULD be.

The only kind of AI I’ll allow on this blog.

DC Comics Presents #70 has no seasonal contribution to make but it does have a personal connection for me. The Metal Men are some of my favorite B-list (or, even C-list, if we’re being honest here) DC characters, and this is the first story featuring them I ever read. I always just loved the concept – a team of robots, each of which is comprised of a single metal (Gold, Tin, Mercury, Lead, Steel, and Platinum), with personalities and powers associated with that metal. I suppose it was that I was also a huge Isaac Asimov fan, and as such anything with robots was really entertaining to me.

In this story, the robot heroes are abducted by a mysterious enemy and put through a series of trials, some of them being “eliminated” and removed along the way. Mercury and Tin, for example, can’t make the cut in severe cold, and Lead is bounced when he starts to melt in great heat. As their trials go on, an image flashes on Clark Kent’s computer at the Daily Planet, alerting him to their plight, and it’s Superman to the rescue…but the heat melting Lead is being powered by red solar energy, reducing Superman’s powers and making it a real fight.

I haven’t read this issue in quite a while, but I’ve always enjoyed this sort of “And Then There Were None” tale, where characters get picked off one by one. The only real strike against it comes when the villain finally stands revealed – a sort of standard mad scientist who is doing these trials out of fear of some ill-defined apocalypse that would eliminate the human race, hoping to find a way to preserve life. Superman himself points out how stupid his plan is, and that’s gotta smart.

And thus ends the first “Superman By Request” week. I may do more later in the year, especially if I need another break from longer storylines or themes as I did this week. But you know, I think I’m ready for a new theme next week…so in honor of the goodest boy in the universe and the REAL star of James Gunn’s first Superman trailer, I hereby declare April 2-April 8 to be KRYPTO WEEK. See you next Wednesday!

Year of Superman Week 11: The End of the Return

March 19, 2025March 18, 2025 blakemp Year of Superman Cyborg Superman, Dan Jurgens, DC Comics, Eradicator, Green Lantern, Jerry Ordway, Jon Bogdanove, Karl Kesel, Krypton Companion, Lois Lane, Louise Simonson, Perry White, Reign of the Supermen, Return of Superman, Roger Stern, Steel, Superboy, superman, Tom Grummett, Year of Superman

This week we’ll reach the end of the “Reign of the Supermen” storyline (probably – I’m writing this on the afternoon of March 12 before I start reading any of them, so I suppose anything might happen). After that, I intend to touch upon some of the stories that follow and some of the ways that the Death and Return storyline were reflected in other media. Being such a fundamental part of the Superman mythology at this point, it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone to see that it’s been revisited many times. We won’t get to them all, but there’s plenty coming up.

Wed., March 12

Comics: Action Comics #690, Superman: The Man of Steel #25, Superman Vol. 2 #81, Adventures of Superman #504, Adventures of Superman Annual #5

Notes: Let’s start with Action Comics #690. The Last Son of Krypton, close to death, returns to the Fortress of Solitude only to learn that his “power source” is gone – he’d been using the real Superman’s body to generate the energy he needed. The process has helped to resurrect him, though, and now Superman is on his way to Metropolis, charging across the ocean floor in a Kryptonian mech. The Kryptonian, meanwhile, sends what amounts to a deep fake video to the Justice League, blaming Coast City’s destruction on the Eradicator and sending the League and their most powerful allies on a wild goose chase into outer space to track him down. After all, it won’t be great for his plans if Earth’s most powerful heroes are still on Earth.

Two things of note in this issue. First of all, the robots in the Fortress help repair the Eradicator’s damaged memory, revealing to him (and the reader) his true identity. It’s been a long time, but I’m pretty sure I figured this one out ahead of this issue. You see, at this time I voraciously re-read my favorite comics. I’d start with the Man of Steel miniseries, read every subsequent Superman comic in order (I had begun – but not completed – the process of filling in the gaps) until I reached the most recent, then go back and start from the beginning. So I’d read the Eradicator story maybe five or six times, it was pretty fresh in my memory, and Roger Stern dropped a LOT of clues (unlike Dan Jurgens, who was pretty good at holding the Cyborg’s true identity close to the vest). The other thing I want to point out concerns Superboy, captive of the Cyborg, struggling to get free and save Metropolis from being destroyed like Coast City. Up until this point, Superboy had been motivated largely by his thirst for fame and adoration. There were glimpses of the good core of Superman in him, but this is the point where it really starts to come out, when he REALLY starts to see the big picture and find himself willing to put himself on the line. It’s a good look for the Kid.

In Man of Steel #25 Superboy is still being held by the Cyborg in the enormous engine built over the ruins of Coast City, unable to figure out why his powers don’t work the way he expects them to. He manages to escape, rushing back to Metropolis just as Supergirl, Steel, Lex Luthor, and Lois all converge at the Metropolis airport, where the Kryptonian mech we’ve been following for a few issues now emerges from the ocean. After a brief fight, Lois holds the others back, recognizing the Kryptonian battlesuit. It cracks open and spills open its precious cargo: a black-clad Superman, ready to put his life on the line for Metropolis once again. There’s so much to love about this issue. We get Lois back, for one thing: after her creepy friend Jeb Friedman makes a move on her she has a moment of crisis and realizes she’s lost herself, then is determined to make her way to Coast City to blow the lid off the Cyborg. Superboy continues gaining more of an awareness of himself as well, and bringing all of our heroes (and Lex) together again leads up to a really inspiring last page. From here, it’s a roller coaster to the end of the story, and I’m there for it.

Lois: “Superman never wore black like some executioner.”
DC: But this will sell a LOT of action figures.
Lois: I withdraw my objection.

Superman #81 picks up right here, as the others face off against this newest guy wearing Superman’s face, with nobody sure what to make of him — especially since he has no powers. He’s saying the same thing as everyone else: Ms. Lane, you know me, you’re the one who gave me my name, so forth, and Lois is struggling until he pulls out To Kill a Mockingbird. The mention of Clark Kent’s favorite movie gives Lois pause – could this actually be the real deal? After a brief conversation, he borrows a pair of flight boots from one of Team Luthor and he, Superboy, and Steel take off for Coast City. Meanwhile, one of the Cyborg’s minions fills in another one of the truth about their master – the former Hank Henshaw, reduced to a computer intelligence, conquered Mongul and is using him to destroy Earth in Superman’s name. The wraparound sequences are best here, with Clark and Lois, all touching moments even now. The middle of the book, with the Cyborg’s origin, is less interesting once you already know the story. At the time, though, it was necessary – Henshaw had been a relatively obscure character who had only made a few prior appearances, and they were actually just before I became a regular Superman reader, so I had to go back and learn who he was after the fact. I wonder if I would have picked up on who Henshaw was earlier had I already read those comics. Probably not, if I’m being honest, but I’m still curious.

Does anyone else remember the action figure line that came out after this with the slogan “Don’t mess with the S”? Wasn’t that an AWFUL slogan?

In Adventures #504, the trio lands in Coast City, where the powerless Superman scavenges weapons from the Warworlders as they fight their way to the heart of the engine. Cyborg’s got another missile prepared, though, and Superman and Steel watch helplessly as it blasts off for Metropolis, realizing only after the launch that Superboy is clinging to the side. He rides the missile across the country, trying to take it apart, before deflecting it from Metropolis at the last second, arcing it into the air where it explodes…seemingly taking the Kid with it. Spoiler alert: Superboy survived, but man I love this issue. If the Kid was going to stick around (as he did) he really needed a Hero Moment in this story, something to show that he was worthy of wearing the shield. I would say saving Metropolis from total destruction, possibly at the cost of his own life, does the trick.

Fortunately Superboy’s sense of timing got better later.

Of course, this DOES take us to Adventures of Superman Annual #5, our final Bloodlines check-in. Superboy wakes up in the hospital, having just stopped the missile, and is approached by Maggie Sawyer for help in hunting down the alien serial killers from the previous three Superman (and a dozen other) annuals. Meanwhile we meet the improbably named Donna Carol “D.C.” Force, youngest of the Force family. Everyone in D.C.’s fam has the metagene, but hers hasn’t activated yet, and she comes to Metropolis with her Uncle Harry chasing rumors of the alien killers who are making new metahumans. She winds up getting attacked, of course, and a paramedic’s defibrillators seem to give her the final ingredient, activating her gene and giving her electrical powers. D.C. teams up with Superboy to fight the aliens as Sparx.

Sparx was easily the most successful of the four New Bloods that came from the Superman books, becoming a series regular in Superboy and the Ravers a few years later and having assorted appearances in the years since. I really like the concept of a kid who comes from a family of metas who just wants to be a superhero, too – it’s a nice, kind of sweet idea. The real issue with this book is TIMING. Superman and Steel are back in Engine City on the other side of the country trying to prevent the Cyborg from destroying the entire planet, and Superboy takes time out for a SIDE QUEST? You’ve gotta be kidding me.

Thur., March 13

Comics: Action Comics #691, Superman: The Man of Steel #26, Green Lantern Vol. 3 #46, Superman Vol. 2 #82

Dammit, Clark, stop breaking the covers. Do you have any idea how expensive these are?

Notes: As Superman and Steel fight their way to the heart of Engine City in Action Comics #691, we discover that Supergirl has been following them since leaving Metropolis, using her invisibility to act as Superman’s “secret weapon” (a nice little nod to the original status quo of the original Supergirl). In the Fortress of Solitude, the Eradicator drains the power from the Fortress’s devices, leaving both the systems and robots dead, in order to recharge himself enough to return to the fight. And in the heart of the Engine, Mongul finds himself planning to turn on the Cyborg, while revealing that the Engine is powered by a gargantuan piece of Kryptonite. Good stuff in here. The book leans heavily on “If Lois believes he’s really Superman, that’s good enough for me,” and the man in black’s actions back it up. By the end of this issue, Steel is fully convinced that it’s the real deal, and even Mongul recognizes that this new enemy has far greater honor than the Cyborg, whose version of events must be twisted.

Speaking of the “man in black,” I wanted to point out something regarding the covers for these issues. You notice how, although they had Superman in the black recovery suit (which has become a fan favorite alternate Superman look) they gave him his usual short hair instead of the long hair he came out of the Kryptonian mech with and would keep for the next few years? I’ve never quite understood that. I wonder if it was a case of the covers being drawn far enough ahead of time that the long hair hadn’t been decided upon yet when they were released. It’s an interesting little artifact though, isn’t it?

I would totally wear this cover on a T-shirt.

In Man of Steel #26, Mongul reveals his plan: since Superboy stopped the missile from turning Metropolis into a second engine, which would have made Earth into a new Warworld, he’s going to content himself with firing the existing engine and just, y’know, destroying the world. As a powerless Superman faces Mongul, Steel plunges into the heart of the engine. And in a moment that will change the DCU forever, Green Lantern returns from space to investigate what has happened to his city. There are two great bits in this issue for me. First of all, the Cyborg underestimating Steel’s ability to stop the engine. No way a mere human could possibly throw a wrench into his plans, right? But Mama Irons didn’t name him after the steel-drivin’ man for no reason. The allegory of John Henry vs the Machine may be a bit on-the-nose, but holy crap, is it a fantastic story beat. The other thing, which doesn’t really have a ton of significance but I’ve always thought was funny, was Lois’s scuzzy friend Jeb Friedman watching her concern over the battle in California and asking her if her late finance Clark Kent ever realized she was really in love with Superman.

That caption would prove to be far more prophetic than anybody would have guessed.

Green Lantern #46 is next. As Hal Jordan returns from space to see the wreckage of his home, he dives into the heart of the engine to do battle with Mongul. It’s a brutal fight, Hal hampered not only by Mongul’s yellow skin, but by the fact that if he really cuts loose he’ll unleash the Kryptonite powering the engine, but in the end there’s a hell of a beatdown. You don’t usually find this issue in the collected editions anymore, and for two reasons. One, the more important of the two, is because DC (and Marvel) are reluctant to reprint any of the work of this issue’s writer, who was convicted a few years back of some rather unsuperhero-like behavior. (I’m not going to elaborate – if you don’t already know, Google will tell you.) The other reason you don’t see it is a story reason – the issue runs concurrently with Superman #82, the end of the storyline, and reveals how the reign ends, which is kind of a problem if someone hasn’t read it yet.

And here we are, Superman #82, the grand finale of “Reign of the Supermen.” Superboy and the Eradicator return to Coast City to rejoin the battle, but the others are cut off by the Cyborg, leaving him to face Superman and the Eradicator alone. In the depths of the Engine, they battle the Cyborg to a standstill. In a last-ditch effort, the Cyborg unleashes the power of the Kryptonite engine, draining it entirely in a massive power-blast, but the Eradicator hurls himself in front of Superman. The Kryptonite kills the Eradicator, but as the radiation passes through his body it transforms, restoring Superman’s powers. The other heroes break into the engine room just in time to see him defeat the Cyborg, and the true Superman stands revealed once and for all.

This really is a fantastic end to this storyline. Sure, neither the Eradicator nor the Cyborg turned out to be truly dead, and even Superman says in this issue that he doesn’t think Henshaw really CAN die, but try to forget the 30 years of comic book history that have passed since then. It’s Dan Jurgens at his finest, writing and drawing a fight for the ages. Images like the Cyborg inhabiting Steel’s armor and turning it against him are striking, as is the sight of the jawless Cyborg staggering around in pain before the end. Even the Eradicator gets his hero moment, sacrificing himself to save Superman, having been transformed by their psychic bond and abandoning his previous goal of restoring Krypton in favor of restoring her last son. Even now, all these years later, having read this story a dozen times, it’s awesome.

But although this is the finale of “Reign of the Supermen,” it’s not the end of the Death and Life saga. The next few issues of the Superman books would all feature epilogues of one sort or another and there were several follow-up miniseries such as Superman/Doomsday: Hunter/Prey, which I’ll be tackling over the next several days. There’s still a lot of fun to come from our favorite hero biting the dust.

Fri., March 14

Comics: Adventures of Superman #505, Action Comics #692, Superman: The Man of Steel #27, Superman Vol. 2 #83, Adventures of Superman #506, Action Comics #693

Notes: Now for what I’m gonna call “epilogue month” (and a half). After the Cyborg was defeated and the Reign of the Supermen ended, there were a LOT of loose ends left to tie up. Adventures #505 starts with Superman returning to Lois Lane, who had at this point spent several days worried about what was happening in Coast City. After a happy reunion, they start brainstorming – after all, Superman’s resurrection is one thing, but how are they going to explain Clark Kent being found alive after all this time? The issue continues with several other happy reunions – with Jimmy and Perry, Maggie Sawyer, and best of all, with Bibbo. There’s a good bit of set-up here, mapping out how things are going to go for Clark and Superboy in the coming months, but mostly it’s kind of a down issue in terms of action. Even the supervillain who briefly shows up, “Loophole,” is disposed of quickly and in a rather comical way. It’s like the writers knew that – after the emotional roller coaster we’d been on since Doomsday first cracked open his shell – we needed a break.

“It’s weird, when Clark was missing the broom closet was never locked…”

But just a week later, Action Comics #692 picks up right from that point, with Superman clearing away more Doomsday rubble and finding…CLARK KENT? Well no – not really. Turns out, Supergirl has used her shapeshifter powers to help complete the masquerade that brings Clark back from the dead. Although for everybody who ever complains about Clark’s glasses being an inadequate disguise, you have to wonder how nobody ever mentioned the fact that both he and Superman got long hair at the same time or how they both got it cut a few years later (comic book time) when Clark and Lois finally got married.

We also get more loose end-tying. Here we learn that the Eradicator’s body has been taken to STAR Labs, where a heartbeat is detected, and Steel is expected to make a full recovery. There’s also a really cute moment where Lex Luthor confronts Superman about how absent Supergirl has been lately. When Superman deftly tells him off for acting as if he owns the girl, even Lex Luthor has to smile, realizing the real Superman is back. Sure, it’s just because that means he’s still got a chance to kill him himself, but it’s still oddly sweet.

The issue ends with an unexpected visit from lesser-known DC Comics mystic Dr. Occult, whom Superman had met before. Occult is there to tell them just how close Superman got to dying, and that only a combination of several factors (including the efforts to revive him on the scene, the Eradicator’s interference, and Jonathan stopping his spirit from crossing over to the other side) managed to successfully bring about his resurrection. The point of this sequence is obviously to add back a little more dramatic tension in the future – DC no doubt felt that they HAD to convince the readers that Superman wasn’t immortal, even though later comics would pretty much say, “No, actually, he kinda is.” The issue ends with Occult dropping Lois and Clark off in Smallville for a joyful reunion with the Kents.

Man of Steel #27 shows us Clark’s welcome return to the Daily Planet, while Jonathan and Martha Kent go on a bit of a health kick that will ultimately redefine and modernize the characters a bit. Martha, from the John Byrne days onward, had been drawn as kind of a plumper version of Peter Parker’s Aunt May, and the makeover she soon undergoes makes her more youthful and vibrant, which was a welcome change. But the whole subplot is worth it for the panel where Jon Bogdanove draws Jonathan Kent pouting over the changes, hands stuffed in his pockets like a disappointed child. It’s like Power Pack, the Golden Years here. We also get the first hint that John Henry is going to relocate to Washington, D.C., which would be the setting when he got his own spinoff series later that year. Oh, and in the main plot, Lex throws a “Welcome Back” party for Superman that gets caught in the battle between the Underworlders (and their new leader) and Project Cadmus. This is set-up for future storylines that we won’t be covering from this blog, but it shows you how forward-thinking the writers were in this era.

“Yeah, this way we don’t have to do another cover design.”

Superman #83 is the most literal epilogue to the saga (it even says it on the cover) as the heroes of the DCU gather to mourn the devastation of Coast City. I’m really glad they did this issue – with the joy over the return of Superman, it would have been really easy to forget that seven million (fictional) people died, but they didn’t pull away from it here. Obviously it would become a much, MUCH bigger plot point in Green Lantern, but it needed to be addressed in the Superman titles as well. The memorial gets disrupted when Lex Luthor shows up and the heroes nearly come to blows over what to do with the Engine: Green Lantern wants to let the atrocity crumble into the ocean, but Aquaman points out that such a thing would be toxic to the seas. Oh yeah, and a few of the Warworld stragglers are still there, causing trouble. The ensuing battle causes the Engine to crumble, but the Lanterns use their powers to sterilize the remnants and make them safe to settle in the ocean. In the end, Superman uses pieces of the engine to construct an eternal flame in memorial to those lost.

Although the ramifications of the death and return storyline would be felt in the Superman books for a very long time, at this point they started to become a little less prominent as new storylines moved in and took their place. It only makes sense, of course, if you’re doing an ongoing serial like the four Superman titles were at the time, you never really get to call anything “the end.” More stuff always has to come in, and the Death and Return was, at this point, giving way to the stories of the future. But there are two last bits I want to mention. Adventures #505 brings back Superboy, where he learns the truth about himself and his powers. They’re based on Superman’s “aura” that gives him his invulnerability, but this causes Superboy’s powers to differ from the man himself in some interesting ways. The Kid finally accepts the Superboy name, and just like Steel, elements are put in place for his spinoff series. Finally, Action #693 brings Superman to STAR Labs, where the Eradicator’s body is still alive, but there is no spark of consciousness within him. A terminally ill doctor named David Connor is in charge of examining the body, but somehow (through comic booky science) winds up transferring his consciousness into it, thus making David Conner the new Eradicator. At this point, the status quo is more or less established for the foreseeable future – all of the remaining “Supermen” have a new lease on life and the cleanup of his death is more or less complete.

Sat., March 15

Essay: “The Superman Mythology: A Mini-Tribute to Edmond Hamilton by Jack Williamson” from The Krypton Companion

Notes: I don’t think I realized today was going to be a hard day earlier in the week. It’s been a rough few weeks for me, guys, the kind of period where having things like this blog to complete are what keeps me interacting with the universe instead of curling up into a ball, but March 15 is different even than that. March 15th is my mother’s birthday. We lost her in 2017, just ten days before Erin and I found out we were going to be parents. My son never knew his grandmother, and she never knew he was going to be born. I miss her a lot, and when times are bad I miss her even more. The point of all this is to say that I just did not have it in me to continue on today with “Death of Superman” stuff, even the aftermath.

So instead, I turned to TwoMorrows’ excellent book of Superman minutia, The Krypton Companion and read a short piece about science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton and his connection to the Superman mythos. I’d heard of Hamilton before, but I’d never before connected him with our own Emil Hamilton, who Jerry Ordway confirmed was named for him. Emil was originally brought in as a one-off villain in Adventures of Superman, but Ordway pushed to rehabilitate him when John Byrne wanted a scientist-type friend for our hero. Ordway says he likes stories of bad guys being reformed. Me too – which is why it still ticks me off when they make Emil bad again.

Sorry I didn’t have more to say today, guys. I hope I’ll be in a better head space tomorrow.

March 16 & 17

Novel: The Death and Life of Superman by Roger Stern (Unfinished)

Notes: I’ve been riding the struggle bus lately. A few weeks ago I started having some car troubles and, frankly, the market ain’t great to replace it right now. This has had me under some greater-than-usual stress and, if I’m being honest, on those days when the stress gets particularly bad it’s been difficult to do even the things I want to do. One of the reasons behind “The Year of Superman” was to immerse myself in things that bring me joy, but when I’m in a bad headspace it’s hard to tackle that. All of that said, I haven’t missed a day of Superman content, I’ve just spent the last few days with Roger Stern’s novelization of The Death and Life of Superman, which was published back in 1993. I haven’t finished it yet – well, not this time around, anyway – but I’ve been enjoying it.

There are lots of novels based on comic book superheroes, but novels adapting specific storylines are a bit more rare. I guess once DC realized just how big an impact this storyline was having, they started looking for more ways to monetize it. So Stern wrote this novel, while Louise Simonson wrote a “Junior Novelization” called Superman: Doomsday and Beyond, which I’ve actually never found a copy of. This isn’t the first time I’ve read this book, of course. I got it when it first came out, and in fact, it was originally released on my birthday (a fact I remember because I still see the original ad for it when I look through comics of the time) so it’s likely I requested it as a birthday present that year. I remember enjoying it quite a bit at the time, and it must have sold pretty well because DC did another novelization the next year, this time Batman: Knightfall by Dennis O’Neil, which I also enjoyed. I’ve still got that hardback copy, but I also snagged a paperback last year in a used bookstore, having no notion at the time that I’d be using it for such a worthy cause as the Year of Superman. It’s my first time reading it in at least 20 years.

Totally not posting this just so that everyone knows when my birthday is.

Reading it concurrently with the comics has been a fun experience, and showcases just how closely Stern’s manuscript adheres to the originals. Much of the dialogue is left intact, and even minor scenes such as Lois seeing a man in a hat and mistakenly thinking it’s Clark back from the dead remain. The only large swaths Stern skips over (at least in the portion of the book I’ve read so far) are the subplots regarding the Underworlders and Keith from the Superman: The Man of Steel issues, which were great for ongoing readers of the books, but didn’t have any real impact on the story of Superman’s death, so their absence isn’t really felt.

Stern keeps the same Justice League lineup from the comics, even going into explanations of Superman’s history with the team (which, if you’ll recall, was relatively new at the time) and the backstory of Guy Gardner’s expulsion from the Green Lantern Corps. Most adaptations would gloss over these things, or change the team to a more “traditional” lineup (as was done in the Death of Superman animated film I watched not long ago), so there’s a sort of purity in this incarnation.

I also like how Stern brings in the backstory of the main cast – Superman, his relationship with Lois, and so forth. He plucks scenes from earlier comics, especially John Byrne’s Man of Steel miniseries, and uses them to fill in the world in which the story takes place. It’s really impressive how well the world is built up. Someone who has only a cursory knowledge of Superman can pick it up and pretty quickly get up-to-speed on everything they need to know about THIS incarnation of Superman. It’s pretty impressive, although I’m forced to wonder if anyone who isn’t familiar with the comics of the era would think it’s too much.

Like I said, I’m not quite done with the novel yet. I’ve got about a quarter of the book left to go, and I haven’t even gotten to the Cyborg’s big reveal yet, so I’ll have to come back when I get there to report on how well Stern sticks the landing. As of right now, I’m really quite happy with how good the adaptation has been.

Tues., March 18

Comic: Return of Superman 30th Anniversary Special

“Return” doesn’t look a day over 29, does it?

Notes: As they did with his death, in 2023 DC Comics came to us with an anniversary special for Superman’s return. And like that previous book, this one was a blend of then and now. The main story is set in the present, with Lois Lane adjusting to becoming the new editor of the Daily Planet, as Perry White was in a coma at the time. (Long story. It was Lex Luthor’s fault. Him and Brian Michael Bendis.) On the day of the frame story, Superman is occupied elsewhere, when the Cyborg Superman returns, once again attacking Metropolis. With the real deal out of the picture, Superboy, Steel, and the Eradicator return to clean up the pretender. Meanwhile, Lois and Ron Troupe go through Perry’s journals of the time when the would-be Supermen first appeared and reflect.

I really like the structure here. Perry White is, in my opinion, an underused character. We see Lois all the time, of course, and Jimmy had his own series that lasted a really long time, but I’ve always seen Perry as sort of a second (or third, depending on how you count) father figure to Clark and Lois both, and we don’t see his insights enough. Even though he was literally unconscious at the time of this story, using his journal for the frame to the flashback stories works really well to tap into his mindset.

The first of the four flashback sequences focuses on Steel and his effort to get the infamous Toastmaster guns off the streets of Metropolis. It’s a fine story, once again reuniting Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove to show off their character and what he came to mean to the less-affluent sections of Metropolis. In the Eradicator story, written and drawn by Jerry Ordway, Perry plays witness as he faces off against one of Ordway’s oft-used foes from his time on the Superman comics, mad scientist Thaddeus Killgrave. The story leaves Perry uncertain about the visored hero, and with good reason. Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett are together again for the Superboy story, and this may be my favorite of the bunch. The Kid is definitely playing the part he did back in 1993 – arrogant and thirsting for fame – but Perry is able to see the good in him. A sweet interlude at a skateboard park reveals the child inside, something few of the stories of the time bothered to do, and it works really well.

The last story, by Dan Jurgens, deals with Perry’s skepticism over the Cyborg Superman and how he tortured himself for publishing Ron Troupe’s story (from Superman #79) that indicated he was the real deal after the Cyborg’s true colors were shown. I love the angle we get here, how Perry never quite forgives himself for that mistake. He’s the editor of the Daily Planet, damn it, and his responsibility is to the truth. To have made such an egregious error eats at him. This is honestly pretty refreshing – the idea of a journalist in the modern day having the sort of integrity to take personal responsibility for what was an honest mistake…dang, when’s the last time you saw anything even close to that in the real world?

The special as a whole is fun. The thing that surprises me most of all is that, in the end, while it serves perfectly well as a spotlight on the four Supermen that rose up to take Clark’s place, it’s really kind of a celebration of Perry White.

Thus ends week 11. In week 12, I’ve still got some “Death of Superman” epilogues and odds and ends I intend to tackle, but I’m looking ahead to week 13. What I would like to do, friends, if you can help me, is try a sort of “Reader’s Choice” week. What are some of your favorite one-off stories about Superman? They can be from any time period, any continuity, and don’t even have to be from a Superman comic (maybe he makes a memorable guest appearance in Firestorm or something). I’d like to get a bunch of done-in-one stories to cover over a few days. Bonus points if the issue is available via the DC Universe app, but if it isn’t, that’s not necessarily a dealbreaker. I’ve got a pretty hefty collection, after all, and odds are that your favorites will be among mine as well. So head to the comments and hit me with your suggestions!

Year of Superman Week Four: Lois Lane Week

January 29, 2025January 29, 2025 blakemp Year of Superman Batman, Christopher Reeve, comic books, Dana Delaney, DC Comics, Gwenda Bond, Lois Lane, Margot Kidder, Movies, Showcase, superheroes, superman, Superman II, Superman: The Animated Series, Superwoman, Year of Superman

Today I’m going to start the first of the Theme Weeks I’m planning to do for this little project. It won’t be every week, nor will the content of those weeks be 100 percent dedicated to that theme. There’s still a lot of Superman and Lois to catch up on, after all. But on these theme weeks, I’m going to focus on a specific character, creator, or concept related to Superman. For this first week, I’m going to put the spotlight on the second-most important character in the entire Superman mythos, one of the best comic book characters ever created. Welcome, friends, to Lois Lane Week! Lois has been around since day one, appearing in Action Comics #1 along with Superman himself, and over the years has grown and evolved into one of the most complex and engaging characters in comics…when she’s written correctly. In the Golden Age, Lois was a tough-as-nails, courageous, crusading reporter. The modern incarnation has a lot of the same qualities. When written properly, Lois Lane is brilliant, fearless, and a force of nature. The only Lois I’m not crazy about, honestly, is the Silver Age Lois, a character who seemed more interested in marrying Superman or proving his secret identity (because somehow that would convince him to marry her). I’m going to try to look at all ages of Lois this week.

Wed., Jan. 22

Comics: Showcase #9

Notes: DC’s Showcase comic book, in the 50s, was essentially a try-out series. Every issue or two they would change the headliner, basically using the series to test the possibilities of a new character or new title, many of which eventually spun off into their own series. Most famously, this is the series that gave us the Barry Allen Flash and the Hal Jordan Green Lantern, but today we’re focusing on Showcase #9, the prototype for the series that would be called Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane.

If you swapped Lois with Chili and Superman with Bandit, this is any given episode of *Bluey.*

This Showcase issue is pretty indistinguishable from the early years of Lois’s solo title, with three stories each dedicated to Lois’s love life with Superman, while he treated her in a way that would have pretty much everybody on Reddit telling her to dump him, and frankly, I can’t blame them. The first story is “The Girl From Superman’s Past.” Lana Lang – Superboy’s old flame from Smallville – moves to Metropolis, and she and Lois immediately wind up sparring for the affection of the now-adult Superman, up to and including placing themselves in danger to see which one he was going choose to rescue. At the end of the story, of course, Superman has refrained from making a decision, probably because both of these women are behaving like lunatics.

“The New Lois Lane” is even more bonkers. When Superman learns that a group of crooks are on the verge of unveiling his secret identity, he creates a new alter-ego, “Allen Todd,” and counts on Lois’s trademark snooping to reveal Mr. Todd as being the real Superman. Unfortunately for him, Lois recently used a Weight and Fortune Telling Machine (no, really) that told her to change her strategy to help get the man she loves – so instead of trying to reveal his secret, she starts going behind his back to “help” him HIDE it. I tell you, some of these Silver Age Lois Lane stories are positively Shakespearean, in that they’re predicated on absurd coincidences and ridiculous misunderstandings that could easily be cleared up if either of the people involved were capable of having a simple adult conversation, for God’s sake.

Finally, there’s “Mrs. Superman,” in which Lois gets a head injury and has a coma dream about her fondest wish: marrying Superman. To get her out of it, Superman sits by her bedside and feeds her “false” information to try to snap her out of the fantasy – you know, horrible things like Superman’s real identity being Clark Kent, or that he’s cheating on her with a woman named Lulu, because every woman in Metropolis is legally required to have a name beginning with the letter “L.” I guess in this one Superman is at least trying to help Lois. Technically.

The idea, I suppose, was to make a comic book that fit in with the popular romance comics of the time, although these stories were even sillier and more convoluted than a lot of those. I guess it was popular, though, as this series lasted for 16 years and 137 issues before being merged with the Jimmy Olsen title as Superman Family. But sitting from where I am, where my Loises are all strong, independent, and smart as a whip, it’s bonkers to me that this incarnation of the character lasted as long as she did.

Articles: “A Fond Remembrance of Mort Weisinger By His Son” and “The Superman Mythos: Roots of the Superman Confluence,” both by Eddy Zeno, from The Krypton Companion

Thur., Jan. 23

Comics: DC Horror Presents… #3 (Cameo), Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #21, Action Comics #662, Superman Vol. 2 #53

Notes: Returning to the shockingly meager offerings on DC Universe Infinite for this series, I decided to check in on Lois Lane #21, featuring a pretty well-known cover with Lois and Lana somehow superpowered and slugging it out for Superman’s affections, but I don’t think I’ve ever read this one before. The first two stories in this issue, though, are a two-parter unrelated to the cover. In “Dolls of Doom” and “Trapped in Kandor,” Lois is tricked into posing for a Lois Lane doll by a gang of criminals planning to use her against Superman. This somehow winds up with her sent to the bottled city of Kandor where she falls in love with a Kandorian who is – shockingly – a dead ringer for Superman.

I’m sorry to not have a better synopsis for this story, but I refuse to take total blame for it, because the DC Universe app has the PAGES IN THE WRONG ORDER. The middle of chapter two appears in chapter one and vice-versa, and while it is theoretically possible to read the pages in the correct order by flipping back and forth in the app, by the time I realized what the problem was I was so angry about it that I stopped trying. Hey, DC Universe Infinite: FIX THIS CRAP.

After all, with the pages scrambled, some people may find this confusing.

The last story is the one I was really interested in anyway. “The Battle Between Super-Lois and Super-Lana” features Superman’s two favorite girls, now rival reporters, who stumble upon a magic lake that conveniently gives super powers to anyone who bathes in it. Realizing they now have all of Superman’s powers, they decide that this is the perfect time to make him choose between them by doing things like cooking giant food, finding and wearing priceless jewelry that has been lost to antiquity, and carving their own faces into mountainsides. The story ends, predictably, with the magic water wearing off and Superman once again getting out of having to make up his mind. The most important part of the legacy of this issue is that the “magic water” came back into play decades later in Alan Moore’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” (which of course you can be certain I’ll read before this Year of Superman is over.)

It’s unfathomable to me how the book lasted this long with stories that make the title character look like an obsessed stalker and make Superman look like an indecisive jackass. I think I need an palate cleanser, so I decide to read the issues I skipped between “Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite” and “Time and Time Again” – the story of how Clark Kent finally revealed his secret identity to Lois Lane.

It happened in Action Comics #662, and before I get into the story, can we talk about the cover for a minute? This is a classic by Kerry Gammill and Brett Breeding, and it’s wild to me that this hasn’t made the echelon of often-homaged covers like Action Comics #1, Superman #1, or even Superman Vol. 2 #75 (the Death of Superman issue). The angle, from Clark’s point-of-view, is perfect, and the look of total amazement on Lois’s face just kills me every time I look at it. I love this cover.

As for the story itself, the issue begins with Lois and Clark having a comics code-approved romantic evening at home, with Clark about to tell Lois the big secret just as they’re interrupted by the Silver Banshee. Her magic told her that Superman was in that apartment, but all she finds there is this tall drink of water in a pair of glasses, so she dashes out. Clark goes after her, leaving Lois somewhat confused. The middle part of the issue is pretty standard for the time period – Superman fighting the Banshee (who, I should mention, has one of the coolest designs for any Superman villain ever) while in a subplot, a LexCorp employee digs into the mystery of the company CEO’s death and his potential heir. The Lois story doesn’t come back until the last couple of pages, where Clark gives the big reveal on a full-page splash panel at the very end of the issue, leading into Superman Vol. 2 #53.

The first few pages of this issue are devoted to the Lois and Clark story, as she tells him that she thinks – on some level – she knew his secret for a long time, but had always dismissed it, then she (understandably) asks for a little time to process this major revelation. The rest of the issue deals with Superman being asked to help escort a political prisoner being brought from the Middle East back to the ol’ U.S. of A. It’s a perfectly fine issue, but it definitely illustrates the way the Superman comics were written in the 90s. Each issue had an A-plot (which may or may not continue next week) and several ongoing B-plots that were often specific to the individual titles and writers. Anything dealing with the Clark Kent side of his life was usually relegated to the B-plots, even something as monumental as this. If this story were being told today, the revelation would have been its own one-shot issue with a half-dozen miniseries spin-offs dealing with the fallout. In these two issues, it’s less than ten pages total.

All that said, I like how they dealt with Lois here. Rather than make her look or feel foolish for not having known Clark’s secret, she confesses to having had a gut feeling. In the Silver Age, that “gut feeling” was half of her reason for existence. This is a much smarter, more mature Lois Lane, and it’s a much better interpretation of the character.

Fri., Jan. 24

TV Episode: Superman: The Animated Series, Season 2, Episode 7, “Target”

Notes: Except for Margot Kidder, I think Dana Delaney may just be my favorite Lois Lane. Her wit and sarcasm feels so completely perfect for the character – I love the way she knows she’s the smartest one in the room, but doesn’t lord it over anybody unless they’re asking for it. It’s like if Bugs Bunny were a reporter. One of the things I particularly liked about Superman: The Animated Series is that they wrote Lois the way she SHOULD have been written in an era before she and Clark were allowed to be together. This is a Lois who, like the Lois of the Golden Age, finds Superman more fascinating than Clark. However, she doesn’t spend all her time mooning over him or trying to crack the secret of his identity. She’s someone with a thirst for truth and, along with that, a hefty appreciation of justice.

And if we’re being totally honest, there’s just something about a gal with purple eyes.

In this episode, Lois is sent a death threat just seconds before receiving a prestigious journalism award. After a quick rescue by Superman (as per usual) she embarks upon a quest to find out who’s gunning for her, with more and deadlier attempts following her as she seeks out the truth. Although both Clark and Superman appear and factor heavily into the plot, we never actually see the transition from one to the other, aiding the conceit that this is an episode told from Lois’s perspective. It’s a great episode for showing how smart and, ultimately, dangerous she can be to the wrong people (the “corrupt” that she mentions in her acceptance speech), and I like the fact that she refuses sensible precautions like staying under house arrest when there are super criminals gunning for her. It’s the kind of reckless that is 100 percent indicative of Lois Lane. And it’s great that she cracks the mystery on her own, without Superman’s help or without even hearing the clue that tells him where to find her at the end. If I have any complaint, though, it’s that she doesn’t show herself quite as capable as I’d like. Every deathtrap is escaped, narrowly, by Superman’s interference. Sure, it’s part of the usual schtick for these two, but it would have been nice if just ONCE she managed to get herself out of trouble by herself.

Comics: Superman Adventures #12, Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #35

This issue: Lois visits downtown Detroit!

Notes: Like the episodes of the cartoon, Superman Adventures #12 demonstrates ably who Lois Lane should be. Superman has been infected with a Kryptonian virus, and Lois and Professor Emil Hamilton are in the midst of a war zone trying to get an essential ingredient for an antidote. Once the cure for the man of steel is synthesized, it’s up to Lois to transport it back to Metropolis through battlefields, across oceans, and in the midst of an awful lot of criminal types who would be perfectly happy if the cure never makes it to its destination. The story, written by Scott McCloud, perfectly showcases the cartoon’s version of Lois. We see how strong and gutsy she is, every step of the way. The best thing is that she’s not doing it because she’s in LOVE with Superman, she’s doing it because the world NEEDS Superman. A+ Lois Laning in this issue, guys.

Sat. Jan. 25

Answering the question, “What if we write Lois Lane, but for the *Pretty Little Liars* demographic?”

Novel: Fallout (2015) by Gwenda Bond

Notes: This is part of a larger push to put the DC characters into young adult novels, a practice that I think is a good idea. Get ‘em while they’re young, get ‘em reading, get ‘em loving the characters. In this version, Lois is a teenager in the modern day – or at least in the modern day of 2015, when this was published, which cannot possibly be 10 years ago, so this is just more proof that math is a liar. Young Lois and her family have recently moved to Metropolis, the latest in a long line of homes as befits her army brat lifestyle, but the Lanes are hoping to put down roots this time. At a new school, Lois struggles making friends until she’s recruited for a special initiative of the Daily Planet to bring in high school students with an interest in journalism. As Lois tries to acclimate to her new passion, she finds that a group of bullies at the school may be more than they seem, and the principal may be part of a larger conspiracy.

This book, part of a trilogy by Gwenda Bond, gives me serious Nancy Drew vibes. This is not a criticism, mind you, I think that’s actually quite appropriate for a young Lois Lane. Although the story is structured to lead her towards her destiny as the world’s greatest reporter, for most of the plot she’s doing a detective’s job, trying to crack a mystery with the help of a few sometimes reluctant friends. In fact, the only one who’s totally on her side from the beginning is her online friend, who goes by the handle “SmallvilleGuy” and is shockingly hesitant to cough up details about himself.

I liked this book a lot more than I expected to, if I’m being honest. I’ve read a lot of novels based on comic book characters and too many of them are sort of bland, lifeless retellings of a story that would be better served as a comic book. But Gwenda Bond has a fine voice for Lois, and the way she builds up the sometimes antagonistic nature of her relationship with her father works well. Bond’s Sam Lane hits all of the right beats for that character – he’s tough, he’s strict, and he wants things to be done his way. At the same time, though, he’s not an ogre. He’s a father who wants what’s best for his children, and the conflict stems from the fact that what he thinks is best is not necessarily what Lois wants, not because he’s evil.

The interactions with “SmallvilleGuy” are fun, but maybe a little too much like the writer is winking at the camera. I don’t mind a little bit of that, but when you spin this whole mystery around a question that the audience already knows the answer to, it doesn’t necessarily hit right. It’s not like it makes Lois look stupid or anything (just because SmallvilleGuy’s in-game avatar is an alien is no reason Lois should suspect that he’s the real thing), but you do start to twirl your finger a little and say, “Okay, let’s get on with it.”

All that said, I did like this book. I did like this Lois. And while I don’t know if I’ll get around to them right away, I’m adding the other two books in this trilogy (Double Down and Triple Threat) to my massive to-be-read list. That’s not a promise that I’ll ever get to them, if I’m being 100 percent honest, but they’re definitely on the radar.

Comics: Superman Vol. 6 #22, Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2 #3

I hate every villain has the same tailor.

Notes: The current run of the main Superman comic has been really good. Written by Joshua Williamson with art by Dan Mora – who, in case I haven’t mentioned it recently, is far and away the best Superman artist of the modern era – our heroes find themselves in a very precarious position. Doomsday, the creature who killed Superman once, is the target of an alien invading force, forcing Superman to work with the instrument of his own destruction. He’s not alone, though – Lois is currently Superwoman. I have to say “currently” because you know that, sooner or later, the status quo will reassert itself, but giving her Kryptonian powers (however temporary) is making for an interesting twist to the dynamic. The entire Superman family has sort of become a team, defending Metropolis together, and Super-Lois has essentially been made co-leader along with her husband. This isn’t the first time that Lois has gotten powers, of course, but this is a way of portraying that relationship that I’m pretty sure we’ve never seen before. With this being my “Year of Superman,” with the movie coming out in July, and with DC giving the Man of Steel a much bigger push than they have in recent years, I couldn’t be happier that this monthly comic is really good right now.

Sun., Jan. 26

Comic Books: Lois Lane #1-2

Notes: The early 80s were a weird time for Lois Lane in the comics. After all those decades of chasing after him, she “broke up” with Superman, feeling as though the relationship wasn’t going anywhere (go figure). What’s more, Clark started dating Lana Lang, which was admittedly a nice change of pace, as she was now interested in Clark Kent rather than Superboy/man, and it changed things up for a while. But the problem was, then, what do you do with Lois?

The answer, it seems, is this miniseries: two double-sized issues of two chapters each which were clearly originally intended to be a four-issue miniseries, but they condensed it for some reason. Regardless, in this refreshingly Superman-free story, Lois is covering a police investigation that turns up the body of a child, a horrifying moment that sends her deep into the investigation of child abduction and trafficking. I would have been about nine years old when this miniseries was published, so I can tell you that the whole “stranger danger” scare was a big thing at the time, and this miniseries feels very much like an attempt to connect to the After School Special audience by telling a story with an important message. Not that the message isn’t important, of course – sadly, it’s possibly even more relevant today than it was almost 40 years ago. But the way they tell the story is a bit heavy-handed, as many of these “Very Special Episodes” tend to be.

On the other hand, it’s good to see a story where Lois is being Lois – doing reporter work, digging into a story and trying to uncover the truth. The sad thing is that Lois comes off as awfully antagonistic throughout the story: she clashes with her editor, she clashes with her sister Lucy…she clashes with everybody. And there’s a point where it feels less like frustration about her serious story not being taken seriously and a bit more like Lois has some sort of chip on her shoulder. (It may have helped if the story at any point recapped just why she and Lucy were at each other’s throats at this period.) As it is, though, we get none of that. We learn nothing about why Lois is behaving the way she is, save for general sensitivity over the subject matter. It’s a pretty dark topic , but it’s hard to conceive of a seasoned reporter like Lois Lane suddenly lashing out at everybody around her over something like this. Half the characters assume she’s upset over her breakup with Superman, and while that too would be completely out of character for her, at least it would be an explanation.

We DO get a shocking revelation about Lana Lang…a revelation that, to the best of my knowledge, was never referenced again, and certainly has been wiped out in the half dozen or so continuity reboots since then. And in the end, the story doesn’t really have a resolution. We just run out of threads to follow. That’s how stuff like this happens in reality, sadly. But this isn’t reality, it’s fiction, and as much as I enjoy seeing a spotlight on Lois Lane, this spotlight is given to a story that forever will seem incomplete.

Mon., Jan. 27

Comics: Superman Vol. 2 #59, Superman Vol. 2 #168, Detective Comics #756, Superman: Lois Lane #1

Enjoy it now, kids. Once Jon is born, even *this* won’t be far enough to get some peace and quiet.

Notes: So after getting engaged, finding out her fiancé was really Superman, losing him to time-travel shenanigans, and dealing with a dozen other problems that cropped up in the course of the four Superman comics of the era, in this issue Lois FINALLY has a chance to stop and talk to Clark about what it would mean for the two of them to be married. I’ve always enjoyed this issue.

The first half is a series of events where Lois keeps getting left behind as Clark rushes off to deal with one emergency or another – a sunken submarine, a homeless man who’s gotten his hands on a super-villain’s discarded weapons stash…you know, typical stuff. But in the second half, Clark bundles Lois up and takes her off to the top of Mt. Fuji, one place where he doubts that an emergency will call him away, for a conversation. The scene itself only takes a couple of pages, but it’s powerful. Lois asks why Clark, with all his power, would choose to be Superman, and he gives the most Superman answer imaginable: “Because no one else can.” They talk about their relationship and what they mean to one another, and by the time they return to Metropolis, it feels like a hurdle has been passed. After this, the relationship in the comics was usually rock-solid (except for that brief period where they broke up, but which eventually led directly into their wedding, and for the New 52 reboot, but we can dismiss that for timey-wimey reasons). I hate when writers throw a breakup/makeup dynamic onto their characters just because they can’t think of a way to tell compelling stories about a couple without threatening their relationship (lookin’ at you, Spider-Man writers). I’m really glad that this issue ended that era for Lois and Clark in a satisfying way.

Also of note: this issue is kind of an epilogue to the Time and Time Again storyline from last week as well. One of the Linear Men, Liri Lee, feels responsible for the months that Superman was lost in time, so she tries to make it up to him by pausing time for Lois and Clark (without their knowledge) and allowing them to discuss their relationship uninterrupted. It’s a nice little conceit and although I don’t think it was strictly necessary, it served the purpose of showing that the original Linear Man did not act alone (something that would become significant later) and perhaps gave a little more plausibility to the notion that Superman could go that long without picking up on a disaster somewhere that needed his attention.

Geez, how many Robins does that guy NEED?

Next up is a dandy two-parter from Superman Vol. 2 #168 and Detective Comics #756. This story comes from the era in which Lex Luthor had been elected President of the United States, and things kick off when Lois learns from her father (Lex’s secretary of state) that he’s somehow regained possession of the Kryptonite ring we last mentioned back in the Dark Knight Over Metropolis storyline. Superman, being Superman, is reluctant to break into the White House to get the ring, so Lois decides to enlist the help of somebody somewhat less reluctant: Batman.

This is a great story. I love seeing Lois being proactive and using her husband’s ties to the superhero community to right a wrong. I also love how Superman winds up in conflict with his wife and best friend in a way that doesn’t seem convoluted or out of character. Of course Superman would refuse to break into the White House, no matter who’s sitting in that chair or what the provocation, and of course Lois and Bruce wouldn’t give a damn about all that when it comes to getting that sort of a weapon out of Lex Luthor’s hands. It’s a dandy little character play from writers Jeph Loeb and Greg Rucka (respectively) and it’s only slightly undermined by the ending. I don’t mind at all that Clark and Bruce hatched a scheme of their own, but I’m admittedly a tad disappointed that they didn’t let Lois in on it. That said, it’s a fine story that shows, as the best stories do, just how proactive Lois Lane can be.

Just as grounded in reality as her ’86 miniseries.

I’ll wrap up today with Superman: Lois Lane, a one-shot from the New 52 era. I won’t get into the pros and cons of that time period at the moment – odds are at some point later this year I’ll get into it a little bit – but I will say one of my least favorite things about that period was the way DC erased pretty much every superhero marriage and returned to the old status quo of Lois not knowing Clark’s identity and, for most of the run, not having any sort of relationship with him either. In fact, Superman only makes a cameo in this issue, and Clark isn’t mentioned at all.

That said, if you just change the costume Superman wears in his cameo, this story could very easily be dropped into pretty much any continuity or any time period for Superman. It’s a self-contained story about Lois, starting with her sister Lucy showing up on her doorstep, injured, begging for help. Lucy’s roommate, Amanda, has been transformed into some sort of monster by a strange street drug, and she pleads with Lois to rescue her. Like a lot of the best Lois stories, this one showcases her detective skills, hunting down the origin of the drug that’s terrorizing Amanda and going to whatever lengths it takes to save her. It’s not a bad story, although it does showcase just how much Lucy Lane has become something of a punching bag over the years. That poor girl never seems to catch a break.

Tues., Jan. 28

Movie: Superman II

Notes: The first Superman film, with Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder, remains one of my favorite movies ever made, and by far my favorite superhero film. But ever since the release of the “Donner Cut” in 2006 I’ve harbored a belief that, had the film been completed as intended, Superman II would have surpassed it.

Not to say that the Superman II we have isn’t good. Quite to the contrary, it’s a great movie. Superman facing off against a trio of Kryptonian villains, Lex Luthor bouncing from enemy to ally to, at the end, a desperate attempt at becoming a frenemy before Superman deposits him with the police. And most importantly this week, this is the movie where I feel like Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane gets her best moments. In this film, Lois discovers the truth, that Clark Kent is Superman. They share a tender love story in which he decides to give up his powers, which his mother Lara (or rather, her approximation in a Kryptonian data crystal) tells him is the only way he can ever be with a human woman. But when Zod and company attack Earth, seeking the son of Jor-El, he has to find a way to restore himself and save the world. It’s a great superhero movie mixed up with a beautifully tragic love story. But there are two things about it I’ve never cared for. One is the end, where Superman erases Lois’s memory with a…well…a super-kiss. It’s a dumb power, one that we’ve never seen show up anywhere else except for a short gag in Scott Kurtz’s PVP comic strip, but the power itself isn’t the problem. It feels awfully cruel of Clark to do that to Lois, not unlike the stupid kinds of things that we saw from Superman throughout the Silver Age. Even if you couch it in the belief that Lois will be happier without knowing the truth, I don’t care for that.

The other problem is something that was much better in the Donner cut: the way that Lois discovers Clark’s secret. In the film, as completed, Lois hurls herself from Niagara Falls, expecting Superman to save her and finally prove her suspicion that he and Clark are one and the same. Clark manages to pull her out without divulging his identity, but only minutes later, he pointlessly trips and falls into a fireplace, allowing her to see that he isn’t harmed. It’s awful. Clark is way too experienced – not to mention way too smart – to give away the world’s greatest secret that way.

The Donner cut is SO. MUCH. BETTER. If you’ve never seen it, you can watch the pertinent scene on YouTube, and I urge you to do so if you haven’t. (I believe that the YouTube version was actually cobbled together from screen tests and was not intended for use in the final film, but that doesn’t matter.) If you don’t feel like watching it, allow me to explain what makes it so great.

As in the finished movie, Lois has failed in an attempt at proving Clark is Superman, and is discussing her suspicions with him. Suddenly, she pulls a gun. He goes into his usual blubbering Clark routine, trying to talk her out of doing something rash, but to his horror, she pulls the trigger. He starts for a moment, but then, realizing there’s no way out of this one, he stands up, straight as a board, glaring at her. He takes off his glasses, activating that Clark-to-Superman transformation that Christopher Reeve could pull off like nobody else, and says, “You realize, of course, if you’d been wrong Clark Kent would have been killed.” Lois raises the gun and says, “Well, they’re blank.” Clark’s head falls to his chest, realizing just how deftly he’s been outsmarted.

A face that says, “God help me, I love this infuriating woman so, so much.”

No Lois Lane has ever Lois Laned as hard as Margot Kidder Lois Laned in this scene.

Comics: Superwoman Special #1, DC Comics Presents #69, Supergirl Vol. 2 #21, Justice League of America #15, New Adventures of Superboy #31

She was always a woman of steel. She just has the jammies now.

Notes: I decided to close out “Lois Week” with a re-reading of Superwoman Special #1, which came out just over a month ago and is part of the current ongoing storyline in the Superman comics. A few months back, Lois suddenly started showing up in a Superwoman costume, displaying the same powers as her super-hubby and fighting alongside him, with no indication as to how this happened. This special finally gives us the skinny as Lois tells the other two super-women in Metropolis, Lana Lang and Kara, how she got her powers. In last fall’s Absolute Power crossover, Amanda Waller set out to steal the powers from the world’s heroes (and villains, but mostly the heroes). Waller was, of course, defeated, but when the powers were restored not everything went as planned. Some powers were altered and some went to the wrong people, including Lois suddenly having Kryptonian powers. An examination from Mr. Terrific and the Atom concludes that Lois does, indeed, have Kryptonian powers, but there seems to be a limit – every time she uses them, she is in danger of burning them out. Being Lois, she isn’t content to sit on the sidelines when people are in danger, hence the new Superwoman. The other thing the reader learns in this issue that the heroes don’t is where, exactly, her powers came from. She has inadvertently stolen the powers from one of Superman’s greatest enemies, General Zod, and it seems unlikely that he’s going to be happy when he finds out where his powers have gone.

This special is kind of a fill-in-the-blanks moment, revealing the backstory in the currently ongoing storyline, but there are a few moments I really like. The coffee klatch with Lois, Supergirl, and Lana Lang (who has also been a Superwoman for a few years now, if you haven’t kept up) works really well to help establish the relationship between these three women, arguably the most important ones in Clark’s life, except of course for Martha. Second, I love the scene where Lois reveals to Clark that she’s gained powers. There’s no moment of shock or disbelief – Clark has seen enough weird stuff that it doesn’t even phase him. They just decide to have a nice, romantic flight together before it’s time to get to the bottom of it all.

The last thing I really like is the one thing that I think may possibly be a permanent, or at least long-term change. Lois isn’t going to keep Zod’s powers forever, I don’t think anybody even remotely familiar with comic books thinks that’s going to happen. But her OTHER new job that is showcased in this issue MAY last for a good while. Perry White, in recent issues, stepped down as editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet to run for mayor of Metropolis, leaving Lois in charge. Once he won the election, her temporary position became less temporary. It’s actually been really fun to see Lois as the boss, particularly those moments where her journalistic integrity clashes with her knowledge as Superman’s wife. (There was a story in one of the other titles recently where she took Clark off of any Superman-related stories as they were a conflict of interest, even if the two of them are the only ones who know it.) I really love having Lois in charge, and as great a character as Perry White is, this new dynamic is one that I think has a lot of storytelling mileage in it, and I hope they don’t revert to status quo on this one any time soon.