Continuing on from last week, I’m still making my way through all of the different Superman adaptations I haven’t touched upon so far. Of course, Thanksgiving is this week as well, and as always, life is bound to throw a few curve balls into my plans, because life enjoys doing that to me. But I’ve got a bare minimum of seven movies and TV shows I’m going to try to hit this week. Can I do it in seven days? Your guess is as good as mine.
And as always, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman Archive!
Wed., Nov. 28
TV Episode: Superboy Season 1, Episode 1, “The Jewel of the Techacal.”
Notes: The same year as the Ruby-Spears Superman animated series I wrote about last week, the Salkinds (producers of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies) gave us a new live-action TV series starring John Haymes Newton as a college-age Superboy. Newton was replaced after one season with Gerard Christopher, whom I remember liking in the role a lot more, but I haven’t watched any of these episodes in years. I should, in all fairness, watch at least Christopher’s first episode as well for the sake of comparison, but I’ve only got the first season of the show on DVD and it does not appear to be on HBO Max because – and I cannot stress this enough – Warner Bros. does not know what the hell it’s doing. I’ve still got the whole month of December, though, so if I manage to locate any of the Christopher episodes, I’ll try to squeeze one in for the sake of completion. For now, though, we’re going to look at the first episode of the series, “The Jewel of the Techacal.”
Newton was joined by Stacy Haiduk as Lana Lang, and in a nice nod to comic book continuity, the episode begins with her archaeologist father, who is apparently nervous to see his daughter again after some time as he comes to town with a set of Mayan artifacts. Lana and Clark are both students at Shuster College (cute), along with T.J. White (son of Perry, of course), and a young Lex Luthor who gives neither “mad scientist” nor “insidious businessman” vibes, but rather came out of central casting in the search for a villain in an 80s movie about a ski resort whose wacky staff has to show up some snobbish guests. Anyway, as the episode opens, Professor Lang’s plane is having some trouble, its landing gear refusing to go down, so Superboy zips into the sky to make a quick repair. Lana is overjoyed that her father doesn’t – y’know – die, but is despondent only minutes later when he quickly blows her off to tend to his artifacts. The tension gets worse when Professor Lang suddenly and inexplicably collapses, a malady his assistant attributes to a curse that came with the artifacts they found. While he’s out, Lex and his goon plot to steal the artifacts, but Superboy arrives to stop it, only to find himself susceptible to the curse as well. He collapses while Lex makes off with an ancient chest containing…well, the curse, I guess. Superboy recovers and catches Lex, turning him over to the cops with most of the artifacts – all except for the cursed chest, which he brings back to…well, presumably to Techacal. We only SEE him flying into the clouds, because shooting in South America would have been entirely too expensive. Returning the chest breaks the curse, though, and Professor Lang recovers, giving him and Lana another chance.
The next time I want to crack jokes about the teen soap opera aspects of Superman and Lois, I’m going to stop myself and remember this show, because holy CRAP was this stuff overwrought. Is it understandable that Lana is upset to have her father lying in a hospital bed dying, apparently, of nothing? Absolutely. Should she be behaving like a character in a telenovela? Absolutely not. On the other hand, that’s better than the utter lack of emotion that we get from Scott Wells as Lex Luthor. (Lex only appeared in four episodes of season one and he, too, was recast for the second season.) As for Newton himself…he’s okay, but he’s a little stiff. The show doesn’t do much to justify why this is Superboy instead of Superman either, save for the fact that he’s in college and not yet in Metropolis. All things considered, it’s kind of a miracle that the show lasted as long as it did.
The really shocking thing, though, is that through 1988 there hasn’t been a single Superman-related TV series that has a proper status quo-establishing pilot. I guess that sort of requirement is more recent than I had realized.
Comics: DC K.O. #2, Superman Vol. 6 #32, Justice League Unlimited Vol. 2 #13
Notes: I popped by the comic shop today as well, grabbing this week’s books, and I’m going to take a little time this afternoon to catch up on DC’s current crossover event, DC K.O., the second issue of which is sitting in my hot little hands right now. In order to claim the Omega Energy before Darkseid – and with it, the power to reshape the entire universe – 32 heroes and villains have made it through the first stage of the gauntlet. In issue two, 16 items have been scattered across the battlefield. The rules are simple: if you’re holding one of the items when time runs out you advance to the next round. If you aren’t, you die. Lex Luthor (showing far more cunning than his counterpart in the Superboy TV show) makes right for a collection of Lantern power rings, while Superman tries not only to outrace Luthor, but stop the other villains at the same time.
This issue is where I feel like we’re really going to see exactly what DC K.O. is. The conceit is that the eventual winner of this tournament will be able to reset the universe as they see fit, so the consequences here are kind of minimal – heroes and villains alike can be broken, maimed, even die, and you know that when that reset button is hit it’s all going to go away. Normally I would consider the existence of that sort of reset to be a negative, but K.O. has two major things going for it. First, the writers are using the lack of consequences as an opportunity to really cut loose, pushing the battles to extremes that they normally would never approach. Even Superman has an opportunity to be more brutal without violating his ethos, and this issue shows us just how scary that would be. The other thing is that although there IS a reset button included, that button will be used at the whim of whoever eventually wins the tournament, and I have a suspicion that it’s not going to be a simple square one reset. Whoever wins is probably going to have the opportunity to change some things when they rebuild the universe (for example, should a member of the Bat-family come out on top, it seems like this would be a prime opportunity to bring back a certain faithful butler whose presence has been sorely missed for quite some time), and I’m very curious to see what shape that will take.
Superman #32 fills in a blank and continues the side-story at the same time. Half the issue is used to explain where Lex and the rest of the villains came from in DC K.O. #1 when they suddenly joined the tournament. The other half picks up the story of Lois and Superboy-Prime versus Darkseid’s Legion at the Fortress of Solitude. The Lex stuff is nice to explain something that I’m sure a lot of of were curious about, but I’m more satisfied with the Lois/ Prime storyline. Prime’s characterization has shifted since the days of Infinite Crisis, sliding from a bitter ex-fanboy to a kid who leans on the fourth wall in a way that almost feels Deadpool-like. Considering his origins, it makes sense, and it never goes so far as to have him addressing the reader; instead, it’s more like he’s got awareness of the medium he’s in and he’s using it. I didn’t have it on my bingo card for the Year of Superman, but the redemption of Superboy-Prime is shaping up to be a great story.
And in Justice League Unlimited #13, we get part two of “The Terrific Ten.” Mr. Terrific leads his team of time-tossed Justice Leaguers (including the Electric Blue Superman and a young Power Girl) into Hell itself to confront the demon Neron, who has chosen a devil of a time to juice up some of Earth’s villains again. Meanwhile, the very Omega Energy that the heroes in the main book are trying to claim is simultaneously rendering Earth uninhabitable, and the remaining Justice Leaguers are trying to help the Titans coordinate the evacuation of the entire planet. At the same time, they’re trying to round up the amped-up villains that Neron has set loose. I have to say this for K.O. – I’ve read most of the tie-ins so far, and none of them feel the same as the others. What’s happening in Superman and Justice League are totally different than Titans and Flash. And while some of them feel more immediately relevant to the main storyline, none of them feel wasted or irrelevant to the titles that they’re reaching into. You can’t say that about every crossover, and the DC creators deserve a lot of credit for making it work so well thus far.
Thur., Nov. 27
Comic: New Adventures of Superboy #38, JSA #54 (Guest Appearance)
Notes: Happy Thanksgiving! Well, it’s Thanksgiving as I write this. By the time you read this, it’ll be December 3, and I’m sure you’ll all be watching the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, and if you aren’t, what even are you doing with your holidays? But at the time I write this I just took the dessert I made out of the oven, my wife is in the kitchen making her cornbread casserole, and Eddie and I are on the couch watching the Macy’s parade. Since they don’t have a Superman balloon for some insane reason, I need to work in something else to maintain my streak. Fortunately, the DC Universe app has me covered with New Adventures of Superboy #38, one of the terribly rare Thanksgiving comics out there.
The story begins with Superboy paying a visit to the Soames Reformatory, where he pitches in with Thanksgiving dinner by cooking the turkeys with his X-Ray vision. There’s one resident of the reform school who isn’t impressed, though: young Lex Luthor. Lex pitches a fit and Superboy leaves, upset that for all his genius, he fears that Lex will never mend his ways. (Prescient kid, that Superboy.) But there’s no time to bemoan Lex’s fate – he’s gotta bounce to the future for the monthly meeting with the Legion of Super-Heroes. At the same time (somehow), 13 years in the future, an adult Superman is making a visit BACK in time. Superboy collides with his grown-up self in the timestream, and the two of them are hurled back to their respective time periods, but with their minds switched. Superman – in Superboy’s body – winds up back in the 60s, while Superboy in Superman’s body goes to 1982.
Superman wakes up in Superboy’s body, believing that something has made him younger, and decides to go hide out in the empty Kent house in Smallville until he can figure out what’s going on, shocked to find his parents there, alive. Stunned, he puts on teen Clark’s clothes and sits down for a Thanksgiving dinner with his family and teenage friends. The next day, Lex manages to sneak out of the reformatory. Superman/boy, meanwhile, suddenly finds himself in a Groundhog’s Day Loop of reliving Thanksgiving, the result of some sort of device Luthor planted on him the day before. He tries to break the loop by, instead of travelling to the future to see the Legion switching it up and going to the past. Somehow, this works, because Albert Einstein said if he went far enough back he would loop around to where he started from. Superman catches Lex, but his rage at what his former friend will one day become nearly pushes him to destroy him in anger.
The story continues in Superman #380, where we see the other half of the story…presumably. That issue isn’t on the DC Infinity app. I cannot stress this enough, they have GOT to get their act together with this app. The story’s also kind of light on Thanksgiving cheer, so I’m going to call that an appetizer, with the main course being an unabashedly holiday story from JSA #54.
It’s Thanksgiving at the Justice Society brownstone in Manhattan, and they’ve invited the Justice League to join them. We get a series of vignettes to begin the story – Batman and Mr. Terrific talking shop, Wonder Woman and Wildcat having the required awkward political disagreement, Impulse and Jakeem Thunder bonding over a mutual hatred of school, and so forth. We get an amusing bit where Stargirl is upset about being placed at the kids’ table while Captain Marvel (whose secret identity she knows, but not everybody else does) gets to sit with the adults. Everything is going great…until Kulak the Sorcerer and the Warlock of Ys appear. Kulak is out for revenge against the JSA, the Warlock hates the JLA, but NEITHER of them really counted on just how many heroes’ dinner they just ruined. Their resistance…doesn’t last long. In the end, the two teams order a tower of pizzas and celebrate the holiday the way Batman always predicted they would.
Is it heavy on Superman content? No. But he gets a few nice moments, such as catching Wildcat flying out the window after Wonder Woman “disagrees” with him and another where he and Alan Scott crack their knuckles before wiping the floor with the bad guys. But it’s a funny, heartfelt story by Geoff Johns and Don Kramer, which is only slightly overshadowed by the absolute masterpiece that the Christmas story in the next issue would be. There’s no Super-family characters in that one so I probably won’t be reading it, but if you’re looking for Christmas comics to read over the next month, make sure you add it to your list.
Fri., Nov. 28
Movie Serial: Superman (1948), Episodes 1-15
Notes: I’ve been holding off on this one until I had a day with a big chunk of time where I could watch it, as the 15 episodes of the original Superman movie serial make up a whopping four hours and change combined, but there was no way I could consider this project complete without including the work of Kirk Alyn, the first actor to portray Superman in live action.
(Before anybody comes in the comments trying to correct me, I know that Alyn wasn’t the first actor to wear a Superman costume. Ray Middleton dressed as Superman during the 1939 World’s Fair. But to the best of my knowledge, there was no footage of Middleton and, if there is, it doesn’t seem to exist anywhere. We’ve got a few still photos. Alyn’s is the earliest actual performance we can WATCH.)
Anyway, I’m not going to try to do a total recap of the movie serial the way I do for a lot of the things I watch. It’s too long, frankly, and like a lot of movie serials there’s a lot of repetition that would make it kind of tedious to read about. But here’s what’s important: the serial tells the story of the destruction of Krypton and baby Kal-El coming to Earth, being raised by the Kents, and then making up his mind to become a hero in the city of Metropolis all in the first 20-minute episode. After that, we see Superman at odds with assorted criminals and natural disasters before finally coming into conflict with the main villain of the serial: the Spider Lady, who is using her “Reducing Ray” to hold the world hostage.
The storyline is very much in keeping with a lot of the adventure serials of the era: goofy sci-fi weapons of dubious practicality, a femme fatale villain with a sort of bland identity, and tons and tons of goons that came straight out of the Goon Casting Academy. It’s the fact that the hero of this one is Superman rather than “Commando Cody” or something that makes it interesting. And the Superman we get here is very well done. Kirk Alyn is a great Superman for the era: he’s strong, but also somewhat joyful. He’s having FUN with his powers, and that’s something that you can’t always say. He also is quite clearly taking his cues from Bud Collyer’s portrayal of the character on the radio and in the Fleischer shorts, duplicating the way Collyer would start off his catch phrase as Clark Kent (“This looks like a job…”) and then drop his voice an octave (“…for SUPERMAN!”) to signal that he’s going into action. Even the credits for the serial indicate that it is “adapted from the Superman Radio Program,” so there’s no pretending it’s a coincidence.
Noel Neill, as I mentioned last week, is our Lois Lane, a role she would reprise when Phyllis Coates left The Adventures of Superman a few years later…and I LOVE Neill’s Lois. She’s slick, clever, and occasionally even devious. She’s miffed at Clark for scooping her on the story that got him his job at the Daily Planet (a story beat that John Byrne would duplicate for his Man of Steel series four decades later) and isn’t above pulling some sneaky tricks to get him out of the way so she can beat him to the story. She’s feisty and ferocious, and I’m there for it.
Special effects being what they were in 1948, the serial makes frequent use of animation. The destruction of Krypton, the rocketship to Earth, any time Superman flies, and various super-feats that would be too difficult to portray in live action are all done through animation. It’s not – I must concede – particularly CONVINCING animation. It looks like the scenes in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? where the toons and live-action characters coexist. But for the time, it was innovative, and the animation is good, fluid, and impressive.
Kirk Alyn’s name is overlooked far too often when we’re talking about the actors who have portrayed the Man of Steel. This serial and his performance are both great fun, and worthy of inclusion…it wouldn’t have been a Year of Superman without him.
Sat., Nov. 29
TV Episode: Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman Season 1, Episodes 1-2, “Pilot,” Superman and Lois Season 3, Episode 6, “Of Sound Mind.”
Notes: In 1993 it was time for TV to take another swing at the Man of Steel. But as it WAS the 90s, this time out the focus was more 90s as well. For a superhero show, the emphasis was on the relationship and burgeoning romance between Lois Lane (Teri Hatcher) and Clark Kent (Dean Cain). In fact, they even gave Lois top billing in the title, as if to emphasize the fact that this wasn’t like the OLD adventures of Superman at all. The series doesn’t even begin with Clark, it begins with Lois returning to the Daily Planet office stripping off a disguise she used to go undercover to land a big story. As they’re celebrating her scoop, a young man steps off the bus outside, carrying a suitcase with the initials “C.K.” The young Clark Kent meets with Perry White (the great Lane Smith, perhaps my favorite Perry White of all time), who rejects him due to his lack of experience. He retreats to the rundown apartment he’s renting and, as a lightbulb above his head begins flickering, he casually floats to the ceiling and fixes it. Because, y’know, super powers. Lois, meanwhile, retreats to the apartment she shares with her sister Lucy, who berates her for the way she constantly drives away all the men in her life for being too weak, then sobs while watching a sappy movie. Because yeah, it’s a superhero TV show, but it’s also a romantic comedy.
The next day, Clark tracks down an aging actress in an abandoned theater, poaching a human interest story he heard Lois reject in Perry’s office, and brings it to the Planet, where his initiative impresses Perry enough to give him the job. Just seconds later, the TV in the office shows a disaster at a space launch. Lois is determined to follow leads that point to a conspiracy in the space program, and over her objections, Perry assigns her to partner with the newcomer Clark. She’s not thrilled about it, and she’s less thrilled when her scheduled date for a gala thrown by Lex Luthor drops out, forcing her to ask Clark to accompany her if she wants any chance at landing the first one-on-one interview Luthor has ever given.
Before the Gala he flies home to Smallville (under his own power, naturally) to have dinner with his parents (Eddie Jones and Jonathan and K Callan as Martha), where he bemoans the fact that he has to hide his powers instead of openly helping people. Jonathan, always the wise one, tells him he’ll find a way. At the Gala, Clark has his socks knocked off when he sees Lois dressed to the nines, but she’s preoccupied dancing with businessman Lex Luthor (John Shea). Luthor turns out to be charming, showing off his tower and saying how he loves the fact that everyone in Metropolis has to look up to see him. He uses the ball as an opportunity to announce his newest initiative: the creation of a space station bearing his name. He’s outraged, though, when the Congress of Nations rejects his proposal to continue their own plans.
Over the next few days Lois – despite herself – finds that she’s warming up to Clark, who has a charm she can’t deny, and is full of surprises, like the ability to read Chinese (which he demonstrates after bringing her Chinese food – unbeknownst to her – from China). He also comforts her when they find a source who has been feeding her information about the space sabotage dead, an apparent suicide, although Lois and Clark aren’t buying it. After a few close calls of nearly being caught helping people, Clark asks his mom to help him make an “outfit” to use.
Lois continues to pursue the story, finally getting herself and Jimmy captured. Clark manages to find her trapped in an empty warehouse, but has to allow himself to get caught in order to protect his secret. As Lois berates him for bumbling in without a plan, he casually frees himself from the shackles, but allows Lois to continue with her raving as it transmogrifies into a bit of a self-therapy session, then he frees them both. He gets Lois – and the unconscious Jimmy – out of the warehouse just before it’s blown up. The evidence she has saves the space launch, and Clark goes back to Smallville to help finish his disguise. After a montage, he settles on something…iconic: blue tights, with red boots, trunks, and a cape. Something is missing, thought and Martha digs into a chest to pull out the blanket Clark was wrapped in as a baby, complete with a familiar crest.
Jonathan, meanwhile, is watching the space launch on TV, not knowing that Lois has 1) stowed away on the rocket and 2) discovered a bomb. She tries to disarm the bomb, but instead causes a mechanical error that ends the countdown. Sensing something is wrong, Clark takes to the air and arrives just in time to reach the bomb and EAT the explosive, saving the rocket, its crew, and Lois. The crew – planning to be long-term colonists on the space station – fear the mission will end as their window is about to close, but Superman gets beneath the rocket and flies it into orbit himself, docking it with the station and saving the mission. In the final scene, the newly-dubbed Superman arrives at Lex Luthor’s tower to confront him over the bomb: he knows that Luthor was behind the sabotage to promote his own station. And although he can’t prove any of it, he’s going to have his eyes on Luthor from now on. As he takes off, he tells Luthor “If you ever need to find me, all you have to do is look up.”
If you remember the personal timeline of my experience with Superman, you may remember that I first became a big fan of the character in the early 90s, and this show was one of the elements that paralleled that. By the time it came out in 1993, I was already big into the comics, but the show helped fuel that fandom for a few years, helping to bolster Superman’s status as an icon (recently reignited thanks to his “death”) and carrying it forward. And it was, sincerely, the perfect show for the era. It’s VERY 90s, and the different take on Superman works for the time period. Teri Hatcher’s Lois is confident (good) bordering on arrogant (bad), but it soon becomes clear that it’s a mask for her rather deep loneliness (awwwww). Clark, meanwhile, isn’t the pushover that we had in the Christopher Reeve era. His background from “Smallville” leads to people (Lois, for instance) underestimating him, but he proves to be shrewd and clever, in addition to just being competent at reporting. This show also has to get credit for one of my favorite Superman lines, one that people (myself included) often misattribute to Superman For All Seasons: when a kid tells Superman she likes his costume, he replies, “Thanks, my mother made it for me.”
The supporting cast is aces as well. I mentioned already how much I love Lane Smith as Perry White, with a sort of drawl that makes his character sound like he’s handing out homespun wisdom. Jones and Callan as the Kents make for a perfect sounding board for Clark, demonstrating yet again how wise it was of John Byrne to let them live to Clark’s adulthood rather than forcing him to spend his life UTTERLY alone. And John Shea’s Lex Luthor probably wouldn’t have worked if they were going for the “mad scientist” interpretation of the character, but as the ruthless businessman, he’s perfectly suited for the role. Tracy Skoggins’ predatory Cat Grant is very much a reflection of the earliest versions of the character, and although he would be replaced in favor of a younger actor later in the series, I rather liked Michael Landes’ Jimmy Olsen.
One thing I’ve noticed is just how well the various live-action incarnations of Superman act as a sort of capsule of the time. While the broad strokes remain the same, the details in each incarnation of the character give you a good idea of where culture was at that point. 90s television was the era of the relationship drama, and this show reflects the Superman version of that perfectly.
Sun., Nov. 30
Novel: The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson
Notes: I’ve been reading this novel off and on for about two weeks, and I finished it up today. If there’s one thing I wish I had squeezed more of into this Year of Superman, it’s prose fiction…but the truth is there isn’t all THAT much to choose from, and some of the best — specifically as the novels of Elliot S! Maggin — were books I read just last year, not long before I decided to do this project, and I didn’t quite have the impetus for a re-read just yet. But this book by frequent Star Wars writer Kevin J. Anderson went a long way towards scratching that itch.
As the title implies, this book tells us the story of the final days (final years, actually, but that’s not as catchy a title) of the planet Krypton before its ultimate destruction. Jor-El is the protagonist of the book, a scientist whose work has been suppressed by Krypton’s staunchly unbending ruling council, even as he finds sign after sign that the planet is in imminent danger. One of the few people who takes him seriously is Councilor Dru-Zod, who has an eye on conquest and forges a bond with Jor-El in the hopes of using him towards his own ends. Over the course of the book, Jor-El falls in love with an artist, Lara Lor-Van, and colludes with his scientist brother Zor-El (mayor of Argo City) to help save the planet from itself.
Spoiler warning: It doesn’t quite work out.
That’s the tricky thing with prequels: so much of what’s going to happen is a foregone conclusion. Anybody with even a passing knowledge of Superman’s history knows that Jor-El’s efforts to save the planet will fail and that he and Lara will perish after sending their infant son Kal-El into space. People who have a slightly deeper – but still not encyclopedic – knowledge of the lore will also know that before the end of the story Zod will be in the Phantom Zone, allowing him to survive the planet’s destruction. And the real ones, of course, will know that Zor-El will save Argo City from Krypton’s destruction only to suffer its own doom some years later. So since all of these things are locked into canon before you even crack open the book, where’s the tension? Where’s the drama?
Miraculously, it’s there.
Anderson does a fine job of weaving a story that’s still compelling despite the fact that we know more or less how it’s all going to go. The relationship between Zod and Jor-El has shades of Shakespearean tragedy, of a friendship gone wrong, although the degree to which Zod ever actually considered Jor-El a friend is debatable. He also does a fine job of fleshing out Lara and Zor-El, characters who have never been quite as well-developed in the comics as Jor-El or Zod, imbuing them with distinct personalities that fit cleanly into the story and both serve as support for Jor-El in different ways.
Most impressive to me, though, is how Anderson plunders decades of Superman continuity for the details that populate this story. Stories from the comics like the ancient Kryptonian despot Jax-Ur, the abduction of Kandor by Brainiac, or the question of just why Argo City was beneath a dome in the first place all factor into the storyline. But Anderson avoids the trap that so many prequels fall into of feeling like the writers are just connecting the dots, trying to piece together the information we already have, and instead incorporates these different elements organically and sometimes in such a subtle way that you don’t quite realize the significance of certain things until they come to the forefront.
The story paints Krypton’s destruction as imminent, and finds fault with multiple characters – even, to a degree, Jor-El himself. It builds to the tragedy, this notion that the death of Krypton’s civilization may have been avoidable, but was propelled by hubris. The book is a little vague on just how inevitable the end of the planet was – there are several elements that make it seem like Krypton was doomed no matter what anybody did – but there are definitely actions by certain people that accelerate its death, and if not for the pigheadedness of those in charge, the people of Krypton may have found a way to save themselves, even if the planet as a whole was doomed.
Anderson isn’t beholden to any particular continuity. As I said, many of the elements are drawn from different eras of the comic books, but it’s not married to any of them. (It would fit fairly well with the Silver Age, for example, but doesn’t fit at all with the Man of Steel era.) Other things, like Jor-El’s physical description of white hair and shimmering white robes, seem to come more from the movies. Ultimately, though, it serves as a sort of platonic example of the final days of a grand civilization and a backdrop of the tragedy that ultimately would give birth to Earth’s greatest hero.
Mon. Dec. 1.
Comics: Batman: Wayne Family Adventures #47 (Jonathan and Martha Kent Guest appearance), Action Comics #1092
Notes: I have a child. Children have things like choir rehearsal and basketball practice. Dad has no time to do stuff. This is the circle of life. Anyway, without the time to watch anything today, I’m squeezing in some comics.
I don’t often write about the quick read “DC Go” comics, but every so often I get one that’s so delightful I need to draw attention to it. Batman: Wayne Family Adventures is a bit of a reimagining of the Batman characters as a sort of family dramedy. The focus is on Bruce and his multitude of adopted children, and although they are superheroes, the comic strip is really about them functioning as a family, with most actual adventures happening off-panel. Episode #47 is a spotlight on Alfred, having what appears to be a fairly regular dinner with his friends, Jonathan and Martha Kent. The story is sweet and simple, a portrait of the adopted parents of Earth’s two greatest heroes spending time together and relating to one another in a way that nobody else in the world possibly could. We’ve seen elements of this in the main continuity from time to time, but this short story really is a treat.
On to Action Comics #1092, which is sort of a breather issue. The Captain Comet storyline wrapped up last issue, so this month we see young Clark Kent bemoaning the fact that Lana Lang is interested in Superboy instead of “him,” Pete Ross wonder why he best friend is so distant lately, and Sam Lane roll into town to try to do something about this super powered teenager that’s been running around lately. There’s a lot of good character stuff here for Superboy – Mark Waid is dipping his toes into the struggles of Clark trying not to draw attention to himself, and seems to be leaning in towards the old Silver Age status quo of Pete Ross figuring out that Clark is Superboy but keeping that information private. The scene with Sam Lane is especially good, demonstrating the relationship that Superboy has forged with the people of Smallville in a relatively short time. On the other hand, Waid has a teenage Clark make reference to the Star Wars prequels, a comment that makes me feel egregiously old and for which I may never forgive him.
Tues., Dec. 2
Comic: Adventure Comics #423
Notes: I had intended, this week, to try to wrap up at least the most important “Superman Through the Ages” that I hadn’t gotten to yet – things like the pilot episode of Smallville and Supergirl, or to finally talk about Henry Cavill’s Superman movies. But it’s that time of year, guys. Holidays, family events, work, and a kid who is into both choir and basketball are eating up my time. I’ve got the last few weeks of this project planned a little – holiday tales for the week before Christmas and some all-star stuff, including “endings” for that week before the new year. In the two weeks between now and then, I’m not going to make myself beholden to any theme and I’m going to read whatever I want on the day, but I’m also going to do my best to scratch off as many of the remaining movies and TV shows from my list as possible.
Today, though, that isn’t going to happen, because of the aforementioned work and basketball and whatnot. So instead, let’s look at Adventure Comics #423, a story from the time that Supergirl was the headliner of the series, but which has her in conflict with Superman, who – as you see from the cover – she’s calling a traitor. In “Treachery,” written by E. Nelson Bridwell and Steve Skeates with art by Mike Sekowsky and Bob Oskner, Linda Danvers is shopping one day when she tries on a pair of sunglasses that she cannot remove from her face. The glasses are the creation of aliens who have been observing her from space and who plan to control her via messages embedded in the glasses. The aliens force Linda to go to Metropolis to visit her cousin Clark (you may have heard of him), and secretly switch his glasses for a pair sent by the aliens. They force Superman and Supergirl to visit their spacecraft, hidden beneath the waters of the bay, and collect glasses to use on the rest of Earth’s superheroes. As they enter, the heroes immediately begin mopping the floor up with the aliens before their leader Gur realizes his crony ordered them to enter the craft, but gave no commands preventing them from fighting back. He orders them to cease all action and executes the flunky responsible. Superman is ordered to trick the rest of the Justice League into putting on the glasses, but without specific orders of her own, Supergirl again rebels against the aliens and, again, is stopped by Gur. Gur’s brother, however, however, opposed to Gur’s plans for conquest, gives Supergirl an order to use her heat vision, which melts the glasses off her face and sets her free. She makes short work of the aliens and rushes to the Justice League satellite, where Superman is trying to con his teammates into wearing the glasses. (There’s a particularly funny panel where he’s grabbing the Atom like a doll and trying to force the glasses onto his face.) Supergirl tells Green Lantern to blast the glasses off Superman’s face and set him free. Meanwhile, the alien ship is sinking and Gur and his brother fight, with the two of them eventually going down with the ship as the rest of their crew escapes. Superman and Supergirl build a craft to send the rest of the aliens home, hoping that Gur was one-of-a-kind.
I’ve never read this story before, and I was surprised by just how much I liked it. The hero-versus-hero trope is kind of tired, as is the “mind controlled hero,” but it actually works here because there’s a reasonable explanation. “Here, try on these sunglasses.” It’s a simple enough way to kick things off, and it’s completely believable that even a Supergirl would be off guard and fall into that trap. From that point, it’s easy enough to accept her swapping Clark’s glasses and pulling him in as well. The only weak point was Superman utterly failing to convince the rest of the JLA to put the glasses on – he’s just not that good at deception. Speaking of which, it’s a good thing that nobody else seemed to see Superman flying around wearing the alien spectacles, because the ol’ Clark Kent disguise would have gone out the window REALLY quickly if they had.
We’re going into the last month of the year, friends, and my goal at this point is just to knock off as many things remaining on my list as possible. So expect the next two weeks to be kind of eclectic – movies, TV shows, comics, and whatever else I haven’t gotten around to yet. Thanks for sticking around this long – I hope you’ll find the last month of this little project to be as much fun as the first 11.
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!
Blake M. Petit 