Superboy

Year of Superman Week Ten: The Reign Begins

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Last week, I spent most of my Superman time reading the story of his death from 1992. This week we’re jumping ahead over that gap in publication to look into the story that brought him back. Get ready for “Reign of the Supermen,” friends! But first…

It’s gonna get CRAAAAAAAZYYYYYYY…

Wed., March 5

Comics: Adventures of Superman #500

Supposedly, you could peel off the top layer of this cover and remove Jonathan’s hand. I never tried it. I don’t know why the hell anybody would want to.

Notes: The return of Superman begins right where Superman #77 ended with Jonathan Kent lying in a hospital in cardiac arrest. I think back to 1993, when we had to wait about three months in the relative hours that passed between these issues. It truly seemed, at the time, that Jonathan had died of grief over the death of his son, and unlike Clark, we didn’t really feel certain that Jonathan would necessarily be coming back. I think that’s one of the things that still makes this issue so damned good.

Before I get too deep into this I need to make something clear – if you have never read the “Reign of the Supermen” story before, I’m going to be spoiling stuff left and right, beginning in this little recap of this issue. I’m assuming that anyone reading this blog is a hardcore Superman fan and already knows the story pretty well, but on the off-chance that you don’t, consider this your spoiler warning. I didn’t worry quite as much about spoilers when it came to the Death of Superman because…well, it’s right there in the title. But there are a few twists coming in the story of his return, so if you don’t know (for example) who the four people who stepped up to fill Superman’s shoes are, this is your warning to go read the entire story first before you come back here.

Okay, back to Adventures #500. The first half of the issue follows Jonathan into a near-death experience. In a strange realm somewhere between the living and the dead, Jonathan sees Clark being taken away by a contingent of Kryptonian spirits. He charges after his boy, uncovering the truth – the “Kryptonians” are minions of Clark’s old foe, the demon Blaze, and it’s up to Jonathan to convince “Kal-El” to turn around and come back to Earth.

I wonder if there was ever a temptation to have Superman fight this battle himself, do the sort of “power of will” ending that so many of his stories have had in the past. Certainly, it would have been adequate, but…this is better. Having him saved by Jonathan is just better. Showing the father risking everything to save his child is always something that’s going to tug on my heartstrings, and the fact that the child in question is Superman himself somehow makes it even better. “Oh, my son is the most powerful man in the world? Man of steel? Man of tomorrow? His symbol literally means ‘hope’? Shut up, hand me a shovel, and get out of my way.”

I love Jonathan in this book. 

The shovel, by the way, is a really nice callback to the last chapter of John Byrne’s Man of Steel, where Clark was mesmerized by a hologram of Jor-El and Jonathan broke him free by smashing it with a shovel. Here it’s not really Jor-El, but demon wearing his form, but the fact that Jonathan manages to summon a shovel out of the ether to save his boy just makes me want to jump up and cheer.

The main story ends with Lois and Inspector Henderson of the Metropolis PD going to Superman’s tomb to find that it empty, just in case the Christ allegory in the character wasn’t obvious enough. After that, though, we get into our first sightings of the four new characters who stepped up as the stars of the series for the next few months, and each of them has an introduction that is quite fitting for the person they would prove himself to be. John Henry Irons is first glimpsed pulling himself from rubble and proclaiming that he’s got to stop Doomsday – the hero inherent in him is already clear. The “Last Son of Krypton” first shows up dishing out a rather brutal brand of justice – the right intentions, but the wrong path. “The Kid” (who at this point had no name) is broken free from Cadmus by the Newsboy Legion and demonstrates the pigheadedness that defined his early years with a simple proclamation: “Don’t ever call me Superboy!” And finally, the Cyborg makes his first appearance in a wordless sequence in which he lands in front of the Daily Planet building and destroys the marker that designates the spot where Superman died, proclaiming simply “I’m back.” As the true villain of the piece, it’s a nice introduction. Would the real Superman necessarily destroy his memorial? Possibly…but a villain intent on destroying Superman’s good name would definitely do so.

I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this again, my friends. 

Thur., March 6

“One of these things is not like the others…”

Comics: Action Comics #687, Superman: The Man of Steel #22, Superman Vol. 2 #78, Adventures of Superman #501

Notes: The return storyline begins in earnest today. Like I said yesterday, I’m not going to bother to try to hide the reveals for these books, but at the same time, I’m also going to try to recreate the thought process we went through as readers when these books were still fresh, still coming out one week at a time (except for these first four issues, which were all released on the same day). The story begins with the “Last Son of Krypton,” who would eventually be revealed to be the Eradicator, being reconstituted in the Fortress of Solitude by the very robots that he built. Ever since he was supposedly destroyed back in Action Comics #667, the energy that made up his essence had been trapped in the walls of the Fortress, finally restored here. Roger Stern structures it in such a way, though, that it’s not immediately obvious that we’re looking at the Eradicator. It’s possible, or so it seemed at the time, that this energy-being who then went to retrieve Superman’s body, was actually Superman’s soul. He’s less compassionate than our Superman, less personal with Lois, but this too could have been an artifact of his encounter in the afterlife from Adventures #500. 

Man of Steel #22 gives us John Henry Irons’ first full appearance, and we first see him sitting on the stoop of an apartment building, telling kids the story of John Henry versus the machine. Again, subtlety was not a strong suit for these comics. Anyway, John – under the alias “Henry Johnson,” is horrified when a gang hit kills one of the neighborhood kids using a weapon he recognizes as a “Toastmaster,” something he designed in his previous life. He remembers how Superman once saved his life, and told him to “make it count,” inspiring him to make the Man of Steel armor to clean the streets of his weapons. I’ve made no secret of my love of John Henry, and how of the four Supermen, he was my favorite. I think it’s important to point out, though, that the idea of him being the “real” Superman wasn’t out of the question at the time. Although the other three all LOOKED like Superman, John Henry was the one who ACTED the most like Superman. What’s more, this first issue introduces us to John’s neighbor Rosie, the clairvoyant, who claims the Man of Steel is a “walk-in spirit,” the result of a soul whose body has been killed but who instead finds another body to inhabit. If that sounds ridiculous to you, keep in mind that this is part of a universe that includes Deadman and the Spectre. Although it didn’t turn out to be true, at the time the notion that Clark Kent’s spirit was somehow inside John Henry’s body was not something that we could safely rule out. 

In Superman #78, the Cyborg makes his big splash, breaking into Cadmus to take Doomsday’s body. In order to prevent Westfield from attempting to clone the creature, he brings it into space and chains it to an asteroid, drifting – seemingly – aimlessly. The Cyborg then encounters Lois, who insists he visit Professor Hamilton for study. To everyone’s shock, Hamilton’s tests reveal that the Cyborg’s metallic parts are indeed Kryptonian, and his body is genetically identical to Superman. He is, to all appearances, Superman brought bac to life. The truth is that Hank Henshaw, in a computer consciousness, stole the Kryptonian Matrix that brought Kal-El to Earth as an infant, giving him the material to build a convincing body. He was also clever in that the parts of his body that were replaced with metal corresponded pretty well to the areas that seemed to suffer the most damage during the battle with Doomsday. This was the Superman that I remember finding the most plausible in that first month, for the aforementioned reasons. There is, however, one other clue that convinced me pretty well that turned out to be a cheat: in his internal monologue, the Cyborg looks at Doomsday and thinks, “They didn’t bother to wash MY blood off you.” That particular possessive pronoun makes no sense for anybody to use except Superman, and was one of the strongest arguments – among readers – for the Cyborg’s claim to the throne. It still doesn’t make sense that the Cyborg would think that way. That’s a little bit of narrative cheating that bugs me to this day.

Last, we get Adventures of Superman #501, the introduction of the Metropolis Kid. The lad who would one day be Superboy comes to town saving joggers, fighting crime, and proving just how arrogant a super-powered 15-year-old would be. He’s upfront from the beginning, though, telling the world that he’s Superman’s clone, although this would later turn out to only be part of the story, and that story itself would change more than once before it settled on its current status quo. Of the four Supermen, this was the one that I never once thought could be “our” Superman brought back to life…however, that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t “real.” After all, if Rosie was right about John Henry’s body containing Superman’s soul, he would need somewhere to go, right? Some comic book science aging the Kid could have made a perfect vessel to contain it, had the story gone in that direction.

I’m remembering the fun of this storyline now. For the last 30 years, any time I’ve read these comics again it’s been with that perspective of knowing the ending. While I can’t throw that lens away, I’ve kinda rediscovered the way I looked at the stories at the time, trying to measure all the possibilities…and that’s a fun way to read these. 

Fri. March 7

The “telescope” is literally a giant horseshoe magnet. Trust me, this image is cooler.

Animated Short: The Magnetic Telescope (1942)

Notes: Unsure if I can get in any reading time today, I decided to squeeze in the next Fleischer short while I have a chance. In this one, a scientist (I’ll let you decide for yourself if there should be a “mad” in there) invents a telescope with an enormous magnet attached, with the intention of drawing celestial bodies closer to Earth for further examination. The problem with this, of course, is that he is DRAWING CELESTIAL BODIES CLOSER TO EARTH. It doesn’t help when the police shut down his machine, cutting off the power after he’s already pulled a comet towards Metropolis and robbing him of the ability to send it back. Superman, naturally, is going to have to get in there and save the day. The short is pretty standard, with the usual gorgeous animation and a story that is fairly predictable. The most interesting thing, I think, is the lack of common sense displayed not only by the scientist, but by Clark Kent, who is taking a TAXI to the observatory after Lois calls in to report the catastrophe. It isn’t until the cab gets stopped by falling meteor chunks that Clark decides to switch to his costume and fly there. Why is he wasting money on a cab in the first place? 

Sat. March 8

Comics: Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #2, Action Comics #688, Superman: The Man of Steel #23, Superman Vol. 2 #79, Adventures of Superman #502

It was the 90s, you see, there was nothing more important than “Edge.”

Notes: The tricky part of reading the “Reign of the Supermen” and related comics is going to be working in the annuals. As they don’t carry the “Triangle” numbers the way the regular issues do, I’m going to cycle them into the reading order as close as I can figure to when they were released, relative to the other comics, and that means I’ll be starting with Superman: The Man of Steel Annual #2. Now in 1993, DC’s summer annual event was a story called Bloodlines, in which a group of aliens came to Earth to feed on humans. Some of the humans they attacked, however, didn’t die, but instead had their metagene awakened, giving them superpowers. The result was that each annual this year introduced a new superhero or villain. Some of them were pretty cool, others were kind of lame, and the only one who had any real lasting impact was Hitman. Edge, for instance, the character that John Henry Irons meets in this issue, hasn’t made an appearance since 1995. It’s pretty tertiary to the ongoing story, with the biggest contribution being that it shows how the Man of Steel is becoming accepted in the neighborhood.

They’re fighting over who has the better hairstyle.

Moving back to the regular issues, we’d entered an interesting time. Although the Triangle Numbers and weekly serialization continued, each of the four would-be Supermen had their own plots and stories that lasted for the first couple of months of “Reign” before the Cyborg played his hand and tied the four titles together again for the rest of the run. In Action #688, for instance, we see a confrontation between the Eradicator and Guy Gardner. In a move that’s surprisingly touching, Gardner is outraged to see four people wearing Superman’s symbol, having gained a new respect for Superman following the Doomsday battle. Guy sets out to put a stop to them, but when he sees how brutal the Eradicator is with criminals, he decides that maybe this fellow IS the Superman Metropolis needs. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted. 

These two, on the other hand, are fighting over who has the goofier nickname on the cover.

Man of Steel #23 then gives us the first encounter between two of the would-be Supermen, Steel and Superboy. The kid makes a mistake that costs a Daily Planet helicopter pilot his life, and John Henry takes him to task for it, but considering that the weapon that dealt the killing blow was of his design, he grows into being more understanding. This is also the issue in which he meets Lois, who feels the same way about John as I always have – this is the only one of the pretenders who seems to have Clark’s spirit. In retrospect, I wonder if Lois’s endorsement was the reason I gravitated so strongly to John Henry, not only then, but in all the years since as well.

Schwarzenegger briefly considered copying this image for his Gubernatorial posters, but decided it was too low-key.

Superman #79 is told through a newspaper column written by Ron Troupe, who is trying to show himself worthy of replacing the (believed to be dead) Clark Kent at the Daily Planet. Perry White challenges him to bring in a story so big that he proves he deserves the job, and it’s hard to argue the SCALE of the story he brings in. Troupe lucks into being on the scene as the Cyborg thwarts a presidential assassination attempt, and in the process, uses a genetic scanner that seems to confirm that he is, in fact, the true Superman. There are two things about this issue that stick with me. First, although I don’t think I realized it at the time, it’s impressive how Dan Jurgens worked so hard to stay away from delving into the Cyborg’s life when he wasn’t in front of the public, and avoided giving us a glimpse into his thoughts (after that misstep in the previous issue). The other thing that stands out to me is that so many, so SO many comic book writers don’t have the slightest idea what a news article is supposed to read like. Even if I accept Ron’s writing as a column rather than a proper news article, the fact that he himself uses the genetic scanner on Superman makes the whole thing a gargantuan conflict of interests. I recognize the irony here, as Clark obviously made his career by writing about himself, but at least he tried to HIDE it. 

All we need is Krypto! (Actually, there’s a version of him in this issue.)

Rounding out month two of “Reign,” in Adventures of Superman #502, Lex Luthor tries to lure Superboy away from WGBS by having Supergirl prance around in front of him in a slinky dress. I wish I was making that part up. But the kid sticks with WGBS when Vinnie Edge presents him with a new manager who also happens to have a teenage daughter…all while the kid is crushing on WGBS reporter Tana Moon. It’s odd, when these books came out I was roughly the same age as the kid is mentally, and I don’t remember being bothered by just how openly he’s manipulated through sex appeal. I suppose it’s the perspective of maturity, or whatever the hell you call it when you apply that particular characteristic to me. This issue is also the first in the “Reign” era to end on a cliffhanger, as Edge hires a villain called Stinger to attack the kid, and winds up blowing up a bridge, leaving Superboy and Supergirl shocked and unable to do anything because they’re out of pages! Man, I hope they figure out a way out of this in Action #689.

Sun., March 9

Comics: Superman Annual #5, Action Comics #689, Superman: The Man of Steel #24

“Myriad!” is Latin for “character who has made one appearance in the last 30 years.”

Notes: We’ve got another Bloodlines crossover for you this time. Unusually for this particular crossover, though, it actually picks up on threads from the ongoing comic book. Back in issue Superman #77, Lex Luthor murdered his martial arts instructor, partially because she embarrassed him in training, but mostly to prove he could still get away with it now that Superman was dead. In Superman Annual #5, one of the aliens gobbling up people left and right finds her discarded body in a landfill and makes her into a quick snack, inadvertently activating her metagene and resurrecting her. She wakes up with no memory of her life, but soon finds she can absorb the memories and personality of anyone she comes into contact with, and even control them. She clashes with Luthor and the Cyborg (which I suppose is appropriate, as it was technically his book at the time) before absorbing the memory and personality of one of Luthor’s assassins and vanishes. Myriad’s future, after the Bloodlines crossover, wasn’t much better than Edge. She popped up in an issue of Action Comics a few months later, then – as far as I can tell – nothing until a surprise appearance in a Batman one-shot, Legends of Gotham, in 2023. But you know, I’ve often believed that even the least-interesting characters can be made fascinating if you give them to the right writer and put them into the right story. Who knows? Maybe Myriad could have a comeback some day. At the very least, the next two newbies we’re going to meet stuck around a little bit longer than the first two.

This is exactly the way my brother watches March Madness.

Action Comics #689 picks up immediately after Adventures #502, and this is the point where the four books begin to really intertwine again. As Superboy and Supergirl rescue the victims of the bridge collapse, in the Fortress of Solitude a man crawls from the machinery that has been recharging him. At the time, it was intended to appear as though this was the Last Son of Krypton (aka the Eradicator) having rested up, but in retrospect, this was the issue where the real Superman actually came back, although we wouldn’t know it for some time. The Eradicator had taken his body from the tomb and was using it as a sort of power source in the Fortress, but in so doing, the machinery resurrected him, a process which – at the end of the storyline – they made damn sure to insist would never work again. Except that they kinda did it again years later when Superboy died. Ah well, who’s counting? Anyway, also in this issue we see Steel face off with the Eradicator over the latter’s more lethal techniques, something Steel vehemently opposes, once more proving that if any of these four EVER had a claim to the S-shield, it was John Henry Irons. Oh yeah, and Mongul is guiding a vast warship through outer space on a trajectory to Earth in order to exact his revenge on Superman. That couldn’t possibly be bad, though, right? 

They were REALLY trying hard to make “Iron John” stick, weren’t they?

Man of Steel #24 follows this up as Steel and the Eradicator’s fight brings them to Coast City, California. Steel tries to convince the Kryptonian that his brutality is unbecoming of a Superman and, surprisingly, the Eradicator actually takes his words to heart. He promises to leave Metropolis to Steel, while he tackles injustice out on the west coast, a decision that would prove to be really, really unfortunate for an awful lot of people. The rest of the issue is concerned with John’s return to Metropolis and a battle with the White Rabbit, the source of the Toastmaster weapons plaguing the city and who also happens to be John’s ex. This issue – as well as most of the “Reign” issues – also briefly checks in with Lois, who is still struggling with Clark’s loss. As much as I like this storyline, I don’t care for how little of Lois we see. I get it – they need to tell the story of the four wannabes and, frankly, there isn’t too much to DO with Lois other than show her skepticism. Still, she’s as important to these books as Clark himself, and when she only shows up on two or three pages in an issue, I miss her. 

Mon., March 10

Comics: Action Comics Annual #5, Superman Vol. 2 #80, Adventures of Superman #503

Notes: I’m going to break with my effort to read the annuals in release order because I realized that, after this point, the Eradicator (at least in this form) doesn’t return to Metropolis for the remainder of the “Reign of the Supermen” storyline, however his Bloodlines annual is set in Metropolis, so even though it came out after, it must take place BEFORE the issues I’ve already read. Being a nerd is fun. 

Note: nothing even remotely like this happens in the issue.

Anyway, Action Comics Annual #5 introduces us to Loose Cannon. Eddie Walker is a former Metropolis Special Crimes Unit officer whose reckless behavior (they always called him a “Loose Cannon” – GET IT???) leaves him partially crippled in an encounter with a metahuman perp. Maggie Sawyer calls him back into service to investigate the murders that are being carried out by the alien visitors , and he winds up becoming their next victim. Now, by night, he turns into a seven foot tall bruiser with blue skin that changes to different colors depending on his mood, because they had to make him at least a LITTLE different than the Hulk. He and the Eradicator throw down with the aliens, but they escape because the crossover was only halfway finished at this point. Loose Cannon fared slightly better than previous two “new bloods” we’ve read about, getting his own miniseries and sporadic appearances in the years since, but he’s never gonna be an A-lister. Not that this really sets him apart from the rest of the Bloodlines characters. 

That Newstime ad I mentioned last week seems more prophetic now, doesn’t it?

Superman #80 is where “Reign” REALLY takes a turn. Mongul’s warship arrives on Earth and heads to Green Lantern’s home of Coast City, which is conveniently where the Last Son of Krypton is currently operating. The Cyborg sweeps in to “investigate,” and riiiiight up until this point, you might still be thinking he’s the real Superman. Right up until the page where he blasts the Eradicator in the back and tells him, “You’ll be blamed for the deaths of millions.”

Oh. So HE’S the bad guy. 

Three pages later, Mongul’s ship detonates 77,000 individual explosive devices, annihilating Coast City and murdering the seven million people who call it home.

I cannot stress this enough, the Cyborg really IS the bad guy.

The explosion reduces the Eradicator to his energy form and he retreats to the Fortress of Solitude, where again we get one of those fake-out scenes of “someone” piloting a Kryptonian mech, implied to be the Eradicator, but whom we who have read this story before know is our boy Clark. The issue ends with a wonderfully ominous page of Mongul kissing the Cyborg’s hand as he declares that Metropolis is his next target. 

This issue was probably a bigger shocker back in the day than the actual death of Superman was. I mean, we all knew that Superman was going to die. It was on the NEWS. But nobody leaked word that Coast City – home of Hal Jordan and one of the more established fictional cities in the DCU after Metropolis and Gotham – was going to be wiped off the map. This wasn’t just something huge for the Superman books, it was going to have radical consequences for Green Lantern, which in turn would have consequences for the Justice League titles, Guy Gardner’s book, Flash…it was the beginning of a domino chain that reverberated for years. Even now, looking at the current status quo of the Green Lantern corner of the DC Universe, where Parallax is an entity that powers the Yellow Lanterns and each color has its own such entity…this is the book that led to the stories that led to that particular status quo years later. You have to wonder if, in that Superman retreat where the writers were trying to figure out what to do since Warner Bros made them delay the wedding of Lois and Clark because of the Dean Cain/Teri Hatcher TV show, they had any inkling of just how big the consequences of someone joking “Let’s just kill him!” would be. 

Cyborg is really just envious of the leather jacket.

The Cyborg’s plot continues in Adventures of Superman #503. Having taken care of the Last Son of Krypton, he requests that Superboy be sent to the remains of Coast City to “assist” him, really planning to eliminate another of his rivals. He takes the Kid down fairly quickly, but not before making a grave mistake – talking about having powers like the Kid “when I was your age” on the WGBS news feed. Back in Metropolis, Lois hears this and knows for certain he’s an imposter – in this continuity, Clark’s powers hadn’t fully developed yet when he was 15. The real Superman, meanwhile, stumbles from the Fortress in his Kryptonian mech and begins the march back to civilization, and the Kid shows the first glimpse of the power that will later be called “tactile telekinesis,” further evidence that he is NOT – as Paul Westfield at Cadmus claimed – simply a clone of Superman. Without belaboring the point, because I don’t think it actually is clarified until after the “Reign” story ends, we eventually learn that Cadmus couldn’t totally crack Superman’s genetic code, so they manipulated a clone to LOOK like him and used what information they COULD get to give him similar – but different – powers. Years later Geoff Johns came in and further retconned the origins to its current status quo: Superboy is a clone whose DNA is a mix of Superman and Lex Luthor. But they co-parent like champs.  

Tues., March 11

TV Episode: Justice League Unlimited Season 2, Episode 3: “The Doomsday Sanction”

“Okay, tell me when this starts to hurt…”

Notes: I didn’t have any reading time today, guys, and by the time I finally had a chance to sit down I was kind of exhausted. As much as I love reading, sometimes your brain just isn’t in that place, you know? So instead, I decided to dip into the excellent Justice League Unlimited cartoon to check out an episode centering around our old pal Doomsday.

Written by the late, great Dwayne McDuffie, this episode starts with Batman popping into Amanda Waller’s shower in a hell of a power move, confronting her over her activities with Project: Cadmus, which in the DCAU is a project dedicated to creating weapons capable of defeating the Justice League, including clones. One of the Cadmus doctors, Dr. Milo, is told his research is going to be defunded. Angry at being cut off, he goes to the cell where Doomsday is being held and tells the creature that he is an altered clone of Superman who was trained to hate the Man of Steel by Waller and Emil Hamilton, and it’s the two of them who should be his REAL target. Doomsday doesn’t care WHY he hates Superman, though, just that he does, and after dispatching Dr. Milo, he sets out, confronting Superman on a volcanic island the League is trying to evacuate. As the battle rages, Cadmus’s General Eiling sends a missile with a Kryptonite warhead to destroy both Superman AND Doomsday, not caring what it will do to the inhabitants of the island where the battle takes place…an attack that even Waller realizes is going too far. Batman stops the missiles while still over open ocean and Superman stops Doomsday by chucking him into the volcano. The League takes Doomsday into custody, and Superman exiles him to the Phantom Zone. That action doesn’t sit right with the recovering Batman, though, causing him to fear that maybe Cadmus has a point.

This was such a fantastic series. McDuffie’s handling of the characters was amazing, and the way he and the other writers pieced together all the different nuggets of the different DC heroes into a cohesive whole that made sense for this universe is nothing short of astonishing. They never did a real “adaptation” of the Death of Superman storyline, but they found interesting uses for Doomsday nonetheless. It’s a very different TYPE of Doomsday, I must say. He’s not a mindless beast – he’s intelligent and at least relatively verbose, able to exchange taunts with Superman and tell him he’ll live to regret exiling him before they send him off to the Zone. He is also clearly far less powerful than the Doomsday from the comics. Superman’s fight with him wasn’t EASY, don’t get me wrong, but considering that the only way he could be stopped in the comics was by the two of them killing each other, the fact that a mere volcanic eruption seems a little less impressive. Even more so the fact that he is held prisoner – both by Cadmus and by the League – with relatively little difficulty…this is a different Doomsday than the one who kills Superman in the comics. But for this world, for this universe, for a Saturday morning Cartoon Network series that was ostensibly aimed at children, it’s not a bad fit at all. 

If there’s one thing I don’t like about this episode – this series as a whole, to be honest – it’s placing Emil Hamilton on the side of Waller’s Cadmus mad scientists. Hamilton is one of those characters from “my” Superman era – the good-hearted and sometimes absentminded scientist who, after making one mistake which Superman stopped before it could go TOO far, turned into one of Superman’s greatest allies. In the comics they eventually gave him a heel turn as well, and that’s something that has never sat right with me in all the years since. It’s been well over a decade since he’s made more than a token appearance anywhere, and honestly, I’m not even sure what his status even is anymore, vis-a-vis his relationship to Superman, after all the years of reboots both hard and soft. But they always say that comics are cyclical – it’s probably only a matter of time before somebody who loves Emil Hamilton the way I do steps into the shoes of writing Superman and finds a way to rehabilitate him and bring him back. At least, I sincerely hope so.

The Reign continues next time, friends!

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

Year of Superman Week Seven: Superman Vs. the Flash

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After the chaos of the last couple of weeks, I wanted to stabilize things a little bit, so it’s time for another theme week. He’s called the fastest man alive, but he’s often been forced to defend that title against the Man of Steel, so for the next seven days I’m going to put my attention on the competitions between Superman and the scarlet speedster himself. Yes, it’s Superman Vs. the Flash Week!

(Superman versus the) FLASH! (Bum bum bum bum bum) AAAH-AAAAAH!!!

Okay, I think I should make one thing clear here: in a straight-up foot race between Superman and the Flash, the Flash should win every time. Whether we’re talking about Barry Allen or Wally West, it doesn’t matter. The Flash’s entire job description is the fact that there’s nobody faster than him, and if you take that away it diminishes the character. Even Superman shouldn’t be allowed to do that.

That said, there have been many stories over the years that pit them against each other, and some of them are an awful lot of fun. 

Wed., Feb. 12

Comics: Superman #199, Flash #175

Literally, the starting line for this whole thing.

Notes: The first-ever Superman/Flash race, at least as far as I can tell, is Superman #199 from 1967. The United Nations recruit Superman and Flash to race for one another to raise funds for charity, a basic enough premise that reasonably pits the two of them against each other without some sort of contrived misunderstanding, which I greatly appreciate. Unfortunately, a pair of major crime syndicates also bet a fortune on the outcome of the race, one on Superman and one on the Flash, and so they both hatch schemes to make sure their chosen hero is the winner. After uncovering the schemes and beating the gangsters, Superman and Flash conspire to end the race in a precise tie so that neither crime syndicate can cash in on their winnings and, conveniently, so that DC Comics doesn’t have to definitively answer the question of which of the two men is the faster. 

What I find funny about this story is that, even though the story is contrived in such a way that the race ends in a tie, writer Jim Shooter almost seems to do so grudgingly. There are several times that we see the Flash doing things that seem to demonstrate that, as far as foot speed goes, he’s superior. As they race across the ocean, Flash is running on top of the water, whereas Superman has to swim at superspeed. Similarly, Supes has to burrow through sand dunes and climb over pyramids in the desert, while the Flash is simply vibrating right through them. At one point, Flash even employs a super-speed trick to rescue Superman from a random chunk of Kryptonite vomited up by a volcano without Superman even noticing. The only times Superman has an advantage is when his invulnerability or other non-speed powers give him an edge – in freezing cold, diving down a waterfall, or maintaining his balance across a frozen lake. Every task shows that the Flash’s super-speed tricks are superior, even if the story itself has to skirt the issue at the end. This would be a running theme through future competitions between Superman and Barry Allen.  

It’s covers like this, Superman. Covers like this are why some people call you a jerk.

Only a few months later, they got together for a rematch in Flash #175. It starts when the two heroes wind up muscling in on each other’s territory, each of them getting an emergency alert from the other on their Justice League signal devices that their teammate denies sending out. When the JLA assembles, it turns out the signal was sent by a pair of aliens Superman and Batman have encountered before. The aliens had placed a wager on the first race and, as it ended in a tie, insist on a rematch. Instead of lapping the Earth this time, though, they’re going to force the heroes to race across the Milky Way. Oh, and just in case they need a little added incentive, they promise to annihilate Central City if the Flash loses and Metropolis if Superman is the loser. So as sports commissioners, they’re still slightly less evil than Roger Goodell. 

The aliens throw lots of traps and obstacles in front of our heroes, each of whom independently finds evidence that the race isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. But it’s the Silver Age, so neither of them ever thinks to just TELL his teammate that the race is a fake, they make vague statements about things being “off” until they beat the aliens on the last two pages, with the race once again not having any definitive winner. 

As snarky as I sound, I actually did enjoy this issue. It was a pretty decent follow-up to the first race, and it gets bonus points for the last panel, where Flash and Superman look directly at the reader and invite them to go back to the finish line on Page 21 and decide for themselves who they think won. You can’t get away with stuff like that these days.

Thur., Feb. 13

Comics: World’s Finest Comics #198-199

“Okay, we’re ACTUALLY gonna declare a winner this time, right? No more cop-outs?

Notes: Three years after the first two races, DC decided to try it again. Although World’s Finest has, historically, been the Superman/Batman team-up book, there was a period in which it was a Superman team-up title, with Superman as the anchor and different guest-stars for each issue, so it was here that they staged the next installment in this saga. And THIS time, the cover of issue #198 proclaims, “There MUST be a winner!”

Race #3 has the wildest conceit yet – the Guardians of the Universe (the little blue guys who sponsor the Green Lantern Corps) have detected an incursion of “Arachronids,” faster-than-light lifeforms that are disrupting space and time. The only way to save the universe is for two people to race in a path opposite that of the Arachronids, and the only ones speedy enough to do the job are Superman and the Flash. (This is in the days before the “Flash Family,” of course, there was only Barry and Wally West as Kid Flash. If this were to happen today there are roughly a dozen speedsters more qualified than Superman to handle this deal.) Anyway, the Guardians provide the Flash with an amulet that will allow him to race in space and he suggests – since we never actually settled the question of who’s faster – why not make this another race? 

Things are going swimmingly until the Arachronids destroy a sun, knocking our heroes off-track on a planet where the sunlight keeps shifting from yellow to red, which negates Superman’s powers. Oh, and did I mention that the time-disruptions have chucked Jimmy Olsen back to ancient Rome, where he’s about to get executed by a firing squad of archers? 

Part two of the story reveals the truth: the Arachronids were created by General Zod and a group of Phantom Zone escapees, and they’ve got Superman and the Flash captured on a planet that straddles the line between dimensions. They wind up on a world where the red sun is draining Superman’s powers and the Flash has his swiftness curtailed when the baddies steal the amulet given to him by the Guardians, leaving them to crawl towards the device that’s causing all the chaos. WHO WILL MAKE IT FIRST?

This is the first time I’ve read this particular two-parter and, I’ve gotta say, I really enjoyed it. It’s a different angle on the Superman/Flash race, one that’s apart from the usual “racing for charity” conceit or the other various contrivances that have pit them against one another. No, this time it’s a totally original contrivance, and I appreciate that. I also appreciate the fact that they TECHNICALLY declare a winner of the race this time (it’s the Flash, spoiler alert), but they do so on a world where both heroes are virtually powerless and are literally crawling towards their destination, so the question as to who’s really faster when they’re at normal power is still left up in the air. I’m sure that was the mandate at the time. I’m glad that they eventually got over that mandate, though, as some of the later stories we’re going to get around to reading will demonstrate. 

Other Comics: Jenny Sparks #6 (Superman appearance), Black Lightning Vol. 4 #3 (Steel II appearance), The Question: All Along the Watchtower #3 (Superman Cameo), Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #10

Fri., Feb. 14

Comics: DC Comics Presents #1-2

“Barry? Clark. Hey, wanna be the first guest in my new team-up book? Noooo…not a race this time…I wouldn’t do that to you…”

Notes: Eventually, World’s Finest went back to being a Superman/Batman book, and while Batman had his own team-up series (The Brave and the Bold), Superman was given his own with DC Comics Presents. In the first two issues of this series, published in 1978, we got the next installment of the friendly rivalry between Superman and the Flash – and, in fact, I’m pretty sure this was the last such story before Barry’s death in Crisis on Infinite Earths. (If I’m wrong, by all means, correct me in the comments.) 

This time around, our heroes are captured by a pair of warring alien races, one of whom has sent an agent forward in time to go through the “cosmic curtain” that separates the end of the timeline to the beginning. (Time, you see, is evidently a giant loop, but their time machines only go FORWARD, so they have to take the long way around, as if they were flying across Europe and Asia to get to California from Florida. Flat-timers hate this issue.) Since the Flash “won” the previous race, they send him to help their agent in the future, with the consequence for failure being the destruction of Earth. The other aliens, though, force Superman’s hand by telling him that if their enemy succeeds in changing time, Krypton will explode SOONER than it was supposed to, and Superman will never exist. 

The major difference between this two-parter and the previous three races between Superman and the Flash is that the race is across time, rather than space, and it’s a significant enough change to really make this one stand out. Superman’s actions seem a bit out of character, of course – he’s risking the destruction of Earth to save his own life, a task even the VILLAINS are surprised to see him willingly take. Naturally, it turns out to all be part of the plan.

This one, unlike the other three races we’ve seen, doesn’t even really try to address the issue of who “wins.” Once Superman’s plan is unveiled, the heroes work together (as it should be) to thwart BOTH sects of warring aliens and fix all the timey-wimey chaos before anyone is killed, especially Jimmy Olsen. The conclusion, then, is satisfying, but leaves the central question essentially unanswered. In fact, the first time we get anything resembling a true answer, it would have to come from Barry’s protege, Wally West, another 12 years later.

Other Comics: Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #135, Justice League of America #16, Action Comics #372

Podcast: DC Studios Showcase Episode 1 (Discussion of documentary film Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story)

Valentine’s Day Stuff: Today is, in case you forgot, Valentine’s Day. (And if you DID forget, this isn’t going to be posted until February 19th, so you are SERIOUSLY out of luck.) But I couldn’t let the day pass without noting my darling wife, Erin, and how she indulged my quest for the Year of Superman today.

Pictured: Love. And personal hygiene products.

She got me the McFarlane Toys Super Powers Fleischer-style Superman, a figure I’ve been hunting for ever since I found out it existed, but have been resisting paying eBay prices. If I won the lottery, I would build an entire toy display room in my palatial mansion, and one full wall would be dedicated to a collection of Super Powers figures, Marvel Secret Wars figures, and figures from comparable toy lines like the Archie Mighty Crusaders and Defenders of the Earth series of my youth. She also got me a set of the new Superman-branded Old Spice body wash and deodorant, which I first saw in an ad a week or two ago where it was being promoted along with Batman-branded products, prompting me to ask her, “Who do you think smells better? Superman or Batman? I bet Batman sweats a lot.”

And yet, she’s been married to me for over 10 years now. Get you one who understands you like mine understands me, friends. 

Sat., Feb. 15

Comic Books: Adventures of Superman #463, Flash Vol. 2 #53

“On your marks! Get se–wait a second, haven’t we done this before?”

Notes: The next time the Man of Steel and the Scarlet Speedster would face off against one another wouldn’t come until 1990, at which point both of them had experienced some drastic changes. Superman had gone through the post-Crisis John Byrne reboot, whereas Barry Allen had died in Crisis on Infinite Earths and been replaced by his protege, former Kid Flash Wally West. Like a lot of Superman history, it’s unclear if any of the previous races with Barry were canon to Superman at this time, but the story makes it quite clear that it’s the first time he’s faced off against Wally, at least, and it’s a distinction that Superman takes pretty seriously.

This story involves our old pal from the Fifth Dimension, Mr. Mxyzptlk, who shows up on Earth this time restructuring Mount Rushmore to include his own face. The Flash happens to get there first and, when Mxy finds out that he’s supposedly the “fastest man alive,” he decides to put that claim to a test. If Superman can beat the Flash in a race around the world, he says, he’ll pop out of our dimension for the usual 90 days. Superman notes, rather dismissively, that Wally hasn’t been the Flash that long and strongly implies that beating KID Flash won’t be too difficult, and Wally does his best impression of Michael Jordan in that meme. The race is on. 

From here out, the story is actually pretty straightforward. Unlike most of the races we don’t have to deal with any shady stipulations, misdirects for the reader, or bad guys trying to fix the outcome of the race, except for your typical Mxy shenanigans. There is a nice little scene I’d forgotten about, where Mxyzptlk tries to offer Lex Luthor a hunk of red Kryptonite but Lex turns him down, which actually makes this story a stealth prequel to the Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite story we read last month. But as far as the actual RACE goes, it’s pretty cut and dried, with both heroes putting the pedal to the metal until, in the final stretch, Wally reaches out and beats Superman by a nose. 

Totally saving the day! As it turns out, Mxy had learned about deception from Lex in a previous visit and so he was trying it out. Although he SAID he was only going to leave Earth if Superman won, he had always REALLY planned to leave if the FLASH won. It never occurs to him to simply lie again, which is actually kind of a silly, charming hat to put on this dude in his silly, charming hat.

This was the first Superman/Flash race I ever read, and as such it’s always held a place of esteem in my personal pantheon of Superman stories, but I think it’s important to note which versions of the characters we’re looking at. Superman was only a few years post-Byrne, an era in which his power had been scaled down dramatically to make him less “godlike.” Over the years his powers would slowly creep up in strength again until today he’s more powerful than ever before, but as Supermen go, the one in this story was relatively slow. However, this was also early in Wally’s tenure as the Flash, a period during which he was much slower than Barry ever was. When Mark Waid took over Wally’s series a few years later he established that Wally had a subconscious fear of overshadowing his predecessor and had a self-imposed mental block limiting his speed. Once he got over that, he became the fastest Flash there ever was. The point is that if you took the current versions of either Superman OR the Flash and popped them into the race during this era, either of them could smoke the two characters we watched race today.

This time it’s a METAPHORICAL race! The greatest kind of race there is!

I also read issue #53 of Wally’s first solo title, a story which was NOT actually a race, despite what the cover promised. In this one, Jimmy Olsen has gotten himself captured by some South American warlord (because that’s what Jimmy Olsen DOES) and Superman decides to recruit the only person alive faster than him (as established in the previous race) to help find Jimmy before he’s unalived. This is a typical superhero team-up story: good, not special, but enjoyable. I think the most interesting thing about it, the thing that gives it a spot of interest in superhero history, is that this happens to be the issue in which Wally’s pal the Pied Piper (former villain, now reformed) comes out to him as gay. I don’t know if this is the FIRST openly gay character in mainstream comics, but he’s certainly ONE of the first, and while it’s no big deal in today’s comic book landscape, for 1991 it was a pretty surprising revelation. There ya go, ya learned something today. 

Sun., Feb. 16

Comic Book: DC First: Superman/Flash #1

Big Good Vs. Big Good.

Notes: I’ve got a sick kid to take care of this afternoon and, as a parent, that has to take precedence over pretty much everything. But in-between far too frequent trips to the bathroom and a larger-than-average number of baths, I made it a point to squeeze in the next story in the Superman/Flash pantheon. This time we leap ahead to 2002 for DC First: Superman/Flash. This was a series of one-shots DC did that showed the first meetings between various characters – but as Superman’s first races between Barry Allen and Wally West were already pretty well documented, for this special they did something a little different and very cool: they showed Superman’s first race with Jay Garrick, the original Golden Age Flash. 

This issue reads more as a special issue of the then-current Flash run. It’s written by Geoff Johns, who was writing that book at the time, and it deals with subplots involving Pied Piper and Jay’s wife, Joan, with Superman’s involvement coming in coincidentally. Wally and Jay head to Metropolis to a bookshop where they’ve sourced a rare book as a gift for Joan, only to run afoul of the old Flash rogue Abra Kadabra. The faux wizard of the 64th century casts a spell that begins causing Wally to age rapidly, then tells Superman and Jay they can save him if they can catch him in a race – with the caveat that whoever touches Wally first will take the curse upon themselves. What you’ve got, then, is perhaps the greatest conceit for a Superman/Flash race of them all. They aren’t racing for charity, they aren’t racing for ego, they aren’t even racing with the fate of the world at stake. They are literally racing one another for the RIGHT TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES TO SAVE WALLY. There is no better motivation for these two heroes.

I know I read this book when it first came out. It’s in my collection, and I was an avid reader of both the Superman comics (duh) and Flash, so I am 100 percent certain I read it. But it came out 23 years ago, and I didn’t really remember the story at all until I sat down to read it this afternoon, and it honestly blew me away. Even though it’s more of a Flash story than a Superman story, it really exemplifies the values of Superman in a way that a lot of these other races failed to do. It may be my favorite read for this week to date.  

Mon., Feb. 17

Comics: Flash: Rebirth #3, Superman #709

This issue, as far as I’m concerned, is the final word on the whole thing.

Notes: I actually struggled with whether to include this issue of Flash: Rebirth from 2009 in my Year of Superman reading. It’s the middle of a storyline, and Superman’s appearance is barely a cameo, but that one sequence in which he appears is significant enough that I felt it warranted inclusion. Barry Allen, having returned from the dead in the terribly inaccurately named Final Crisis event, is being transformed into a new Black Flash, essentially the spirit of death for speedsters such as himself. To protect Wally, his grandson Bart, and everyone else he loves, he decides he’s going to rush back into the Speed Force before the transformation can happen, and Superman takes off after him. At this point, the League had gone through its share of recent tragedies, and both Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter were dead (they got better), so Clark isn’t about to let Barry die again. 

This leads to one of my favorite pages that Geoff Johns ever wrote, as the two of them are racing each other up the Daily Planet building and Superman says, “I’ve raced you before, Barry. I even won some of those races.”*

Barry simply says, “Those were for charity, Clark.”

And then he leaves him in the dust.

Like I keep saying, the Flash SHOULD be faster than Superman. This issue is the best evidence of that ever.

(*By the way, despite what he says, I don’t actually recall Superman ever winning one of those races. There were a few ties, but every time a victor was declared it was the guy in red. I’m going to assume, from the way Clark talks, that there may have been other charity races off-panel that we didn’t get to watch. And now that I’ve said it, it’s going to manifest in the universe as a seven-part time-travel crossover event, coming this fall.) 

“You’re GROUNDED young man! That means no disrupting the time stream! Just do your homework and straight to bed!”

The final Superman/Flash face-off I could find in comics came in Superman #709 from 2011, part of J. Michael Straczynski’s “Grounded” storyline. In this arc, Superman decides he needs to reconnect with the ordinary people he is sworn to protect, so he commits himself to walk across the United States. It’s an interesting concept, to be certain, and Straczynski is an excellent writer, but the general consensus on this storyline is that it sort of fell flat. I think the problem is that it went on for far too long (who wants an entire year of Superman just…walking?) and even Straczynski himself seemed to lose interest in it, as evidenced by the fact that he bowed out before the story was over and it was completed by Chris Roberson. 

The “race” part of this issue is over fairly quickly. While walking through Boulder, Colorado, the entire town is suddenly transformed into a Kryptonian city. Superman soon figures out that the transformation is the work of the Flash, who has been overtaken by a Kryptonian artifact and he needs Superman to set him free. After he does so, they have a cup of coffee and talk about legacy. This is what I mean, by the way, when I say that the “Grounded” story went on too long. The story of this issue is perfectly fine, in and of itself, but when you read it in the context of the entire year-long storyline, it was too much of the same thing over and over: Superman walking somewhere, doubting himself, having a significant encounter with various characters (both new and previously established) and coming to a peaceful resolution. That’s great ONCE, but do you really want to read it twelve issues in a row?

The most interesting thing to me about this issue is that it happens concurrently with that month’s issue of Superboy, in which the Kid of Steel races KID Flash for the first time, and which Clark and Barry catch a glimpse of on a diner television. I’ll take a look at that issue tomorrow when I look at the few races I could find between members of the Superman and Flash families other than the patriarchs. 

TV Episode: Superman: The Animated Series, Season Two, Episode 4, “Speed Demons”

“Loved you on Wings, by the way.”

Notes: That’s all the comic book Superman/Flash races I could find, but there’s still this episode of Superman: The Animated Series, the first appearance of the Flash in the DC Animated Universe. In this episode he’s voiced by Charlie Schlatter, although Michael Rosenbaum would take over the character for the Justice League cartoons. (Tim Daly would be replaced as Superman by George Newburn too. I guess not everyone can be Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill.) In this episode, Superman and the Flash are pitted against each other in, as per their first-ever encounter, a charity race. This time the rules are a bit more sensible for the two of them: the winner will be the first to complete 100 laps around the globe. Of course, just like many of their races in the comics, there’s a catch – the arm bands they’re wearing to track their progress are, in truth, using them to build up ionic energy to power a plot by the Weather Wizard. (Weather Wizard, by the way, was voiced by the late Miguel Ferrer in a delightfully dastardly way.)

This episode never makes it clear which Flash we’re watching, Barry or Wally. In terms of attitude and personality, it’s definitely influenced by the early days of Wally’s solo title. He’s slick, he’s cocky, and he relentlessly flirts with Lois Lane, none of which are things you could ever imagine Barry doing. It takes plenty of cues from the classic comics, though, such as the race itself being derailed halfway through when Superman and the Flash catch wind (rimshot) of the Weather Wizard’s plan and call it off to get around to some good ol’ fashioned thwartin’. It’s easy to forget that the Batman cartoon almost never had guest-stars from outside the Batman family, so this was one of the first times we really started to see an animated universe begin to form in the Paul Dini/Bruce Timm era. It was a real delight to revisit this episode again. 

There is ONE other Superman/Flash race that I haven’t covered here, but for what I consider a good reason. It’s part of Tom King’s Superman: Up in the Sky series, which is a magnificent comic in its own right, and I intend to cover it in its entirety at some point this year. Plus, looking at the issue with the race on its own wouldn’t really make a ton of sense, absent of the context. I’m bringing it up here mainly so that nobody thinks I forgot about it.

Tues., Feb. 18

Comics: Superboy Vol. 4 #5, Supergirl: The Fastest Women Alive #1

“I don’t know why Barry and Clark always make such a big deal about this.”

Notes: I had one day left in “Superman Vs. The Flash Week,” but I had run out of actual Superman/Flash races, so I decided to close it out with a pair of comics featuring other members of the respective Super- and Flash-Families strapping on their jogging shoes to see who’s swiftest. First was Superboy Vol. 4 #5 from 2011, the first ever Superboy/Kid Flash race (this Kid Flash being Bart Allen, Barry’s grandson, who previously had gone by “Impulse” and since has retaken that name). In this era, Superboy was living in Smallville, and his presence had rocked the town with a few supervillain attacks that resulted in some pretty major damage. This time around, the race is scheduled to raise money to rebuild the town. As the two old friends zip across the globe, though, Bart can tell that Conner Kent’s mind is elsewhere.

This issue is part of Jeff Lemire’s run on the title, a tenure that was cut tragically short by the New 52 reboot later that year. Lemire was doing a great job at grounding Superboy in a way that this version of the character so rarely is, giving him a home and a family in Smallville to contend with, and making his adventures a mix of the cosmic and the mundane, something Lemire is exceptionally good at. (And if you don’t believe me, check out his series Black Hammer.) Despite the race being a backdrop, the mundane part is the focus of the issue, with nary a supervillain plot or alien invader to disrupt things. Instead, in the midst of a race across the globe, Conner just confides in his friend about his pain over his recent breakup with Wonder Girl.

The ending of the race is a cop-out, which we’ve all come to expect, but this may be the biggest one yet. (Spoiler: somehow, Krypto crosses the finish line first and everyone accepts it, even though it feels as legit as Harry Potter’s name being tossed in the Goblet of Fire.) Still, if you’re thinking of reading this book, the Lemire run is extremely worthy of your time – it’s just that this issue, by itself, may not be quite so satisfying without the context of the rest of the run.

Finally, we’ve got the bizarre little one-shot Supergirl: The Fastest Women Alive, a special comic from 2019 presented by Snickers. Very, very much by Snickers. There is Snickers branding on nearly every page, and even the captions that tell you where the racers are at the moment are branded in the Snickers logo font. The message, just in case you missed it, is: Snickers.

Did we mention it’s presented by Snickers?

For the first half of the issue, though, this is actually a decent enough race between Supergirl and Jesse Quick. It uses most of the tropes of the previous races, such as it being a charity race, Supergirl not being allowed to fly, and so forth. The turn comes halfway through, though, when the racers discover that the Parasite has attacked the arena where the race began and will end, and he’s already got Superman and the Flash on the ropes. The lightning ladies rush back to save the day, but how can they possibly get the energy they need to overload and defeat the energy-sucking Parasite?

HOW CAN THEY FIND THE NECESSARY ENERGY?

SNICKERS? GOT A SUGGESTION?

This story is a full-issue equivalent of the delightfully goofy old Hostess comic book ads, only way less subtle. 

I kinda love it.

And thus, friends, concludes Superman Vs. The Flash week. My feelings haven’t really changed, I must say. In any contest of speed between a Super of any stripe and a Flash by any name, the Flashes should always be the ones to come out on top. Sorry, Superman, but it’s their whole entire deal. You can’t really compete.

But this week has proven it’s fun to watch you try anyway.

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!