Supergirl

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!

Year of Superman Week Five: Like Throwing Darts at a Board

blakemp Year of Superman , , , , , , , ,

As I approach the end of January, having finished up my first theme week, I find myself in a bit of a pickle in regards to what Superman content I want to read today. I’m not ready to kick off another theme week yet, but as I look over my (prodigious) list, I find that most of the stuff I’m particularly excited for is all suited for one of the theme weeks I’ve got planned for later in the year. So what, then, should I read on this random Wednesday? Never let it be said that I make things easy on myself. After some brief deliberation, I just scroll through the offerings on DC Universe Infinite until I settle, fairly randomly, on my first read for the week.

Wed., Jan. 29

Comics: Legends of the DC Universe #39, Superman Vs. Meshi #1

Notes: DC once published a title called Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, which featured a different creative team on every story arc telling stories that were not necessarily constrained by any particular continuity. There were some amazing stories told in this series, and they eventually spun the idea off into Legends of the DC Universe, a series which not only switched out the creative team with every story, but also the main character. This issue, a one-off by Danny Fingeroth and Randy Green, is called “Sole Survivor of Earth.”

Which, let’s face it, sounds like a depressing idea even if you WERE that sole survivor.

The issue begins with a very familiar scene – a scientist and his wife concerned about an upcoming disaster that could mean the end of life on their planet, a fear made even more prescient due to their infant son. But we aren’t on Krypton this time – we’re in Washington state. Superman, meanwhile, is at the Fortress of Solitude, building a memorial to his Kryptonian parents, when he gets a notification of a disturbance at the Earth’s core. The scientist, Dr. Balboa, has been studying the tremors and trying to stabilize them, only to accidentally trigger a sequence that could destroy the Earth. In desperation, he and his wife drop their son into a spaceship and blast him to another inhabited system. Why not? It worked for the last guy.

Except in this case, the “last guy” manages to save the world, stopping the destruction Balboa’s experiments caused but sapping a lot of his power anyway. When he tracks down Dr. Balboa, he learns about the child in the rocket and sets off to space, despite his own power loss, to find him.

This is a good issue. It’s never going to make a boxed set of the Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told (that reminds me, I’ve got to find and read my copy of The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told), but it’s a fun story that nicely turns the traditional Superman origin story backwards. There’s not a lot of tension, to be honest, because the outcome is never in any doubt. Nobody thinks that Balboa is actually going to blow up the Earth, and there’s no such thing as an infant in danger once Superman finds out that they need help. Their survival is pretty much guaranteed. But that doesn’t make it any less fun to look at things from a different point of view once in a while.  

I also, somewhat randomly, went back and read Superman Vs. Meshi #1. This manga series was a part of a line of books that DC co-produced with Kodansha Comics. Joker: One Operation Joker was another, and the third, Batman: Justice Buster is still running. I always considered this the most bizarre of the three, though, because…well… it’s about Superman eating at Japanese chain restaurants. 

You will believe a man can fry…rice. I’m sorry, that was terrible.

No. Really. That’s what this entire series is about. And it ran for 23 issues.

In this first issue, having been turned down by Lois for a lunch date, Clark whips over to Japan to indulge at an all-you-can eat yakitori joint. (For people, like myself, who have no idea what yakitori is, I Googled it – chicken skewers.) There’s a brief fight scene – a flashback as he remembers the villain he fought who on the day he first discovered the restaurant, but the bulk of the story is him ordering various meat skewers and gushing over how delicious they are. The writer, Satoshi Miyagawa, lovingly describes the food in a way that makes you wonder whether you’re reading a superhero comic book or a restaurant review, and at one point he’s so “overwhelmed by flavor” that the food literally activates his heat vision. He even goes on about how well the yakitori pairs with the soda he ordered. 

Perhaps the weirdest thing is that none of this ever feels out of character. Would Superman pop over to Japan just for lunch? Yeah, I think he would. Would he have a running inner monologue about how good the food is and how it all comes together? People forget that Clark Kent is a writer, and like most writers I know, he probably has an inner monologue that never shuts the hell up. The only difference is that this is a scene that they would almost never write in an American comic because it’s too important that we get to the scene where he has to beat the crap out of Terra-Man or something. 

This book is so WEIRD. But for some reason, I like it. 

Thur., Jan. 30

TV Episodes: Superman and Lois Season 2, Ep. 1, “What Lies Beneath”

The “V” season, apparently.

Notes: The second season starts off right where season one ended – the rescue of Natasha Irons from John Henry’s original universe…but in her universe, this Natasha is the daughter of Lois Lane, something that causes issues for the both of them. Meanwhile, both Jordan and Jonathan are facing issues with their respective girlfriends, and the teenagers acting like teenagers have Lois and Clark butting heads with each other.

In my notes on the season one finale, I mentioned that this show was cut from a different cloth than other CW shows. As season two begins, though, it feels a bit more CW than ever. The clash between Lois and Clark over Jonathan’s behavior feels really forced – Lois is taking her frustrations out on Clark and he’s not acting with the degree of empathy one would expect from Superman. I’m actually starting to feel a little vibe from the Lois Lane miniseries that I read last week, where Lois acted inexplicably angry towards everyone. Eventually, she explains this as anger over her own mother leaving her family when she was young, and thinking she’s like that because she doesn’t feel anything motherly for Natasha…who, we have to stress here, is NOT her daughter. It doesn’t really make that much sense.

Natasha, meanwhile, is behaving even more irrational, taking her frustrations out on her father and somehow blaming him for the fact that the people who were her friends in her home dimension don’t know her here. Huh? In her case, at least, the frustration is more understandable, but the show skips over showing us why Natasha can’t seem to fit in. There’s an undercurrent of rage to this episode that’s baffling me. 

Superheroes? Oh yeah, there’s a little of that. Superman learns that Sam Lane’s replacement at the DOD is using the X-Kryptonite recovered in season one to create his own little army, complete with his shield, which Superman isn’t happy about. I sense this is going to be the undercurrent for this season. 

Comics: Superman: Lex Luthor Special #1, DC’s Lex and the City #1

I mean, not so’s you would notice, Lex.

Notes: I also read a couple of this weeks’ new comics today, one of which is more relevant than the others. The Superman: Lex Luthor Special is continuing the ongoing storyline from the main Superman comic and, in fact, is written by regular writer Joshua Williamson. In last fall’s DC All In Special, Darkseid was (seemingly) killed, but a new, alternate universe was forged, infused by Darkseid’s negative energy, as opposed to the more hopeful environment of the main DCU. In this issue, Mr. Terrific is trying to crack the secret of this other world (which readers will know is the setting of DC’s Absolute Superman and other titles), but the inherent darkness is too much. There’s only one man brilliant enough to understand this but with a mind that won’t be corrupted by it…unfortunately, Lex Luthor has had amnesia for some time, and has been trying to live down the dark deeds of his previous self. 

This is hardly the first time we’ve seen Lex try to be a good guy, but much like we’ve seen Lois become Superwoman before, this series has been handling it well. It’s such a tight balancing act with Lex, as we see there is a goodness in him, but it’s usually overshadowed by his darker, more selfish nature. This issue seems to promise that story is moving forward now, with a final revelation that’s going to change things. I’m more interested in the flashbacks to Lex’s childhood that help paint who he really is. Good issue.

This week also gave us DC’s annual Valentine’s Day special this year titled DC’s Lex and the City. Luthor is the star of the title story in this anthology, in which a gossip columnist gets tangled in his web. It seems a little farfetched that Lex would be smitten with this woman, to be honest, but despite that It’s an okay story. It’s an okay anthology, with some stories being better than others, as is usually the case. If you’re planning to read this, the Mr. Freeze story is the prize of the bunch. Really, though, the main reason I’m even taking any notes about it is to point out that whoever is giving titles to DC’s holiday specials deserves a raise. Lex and the City is hilarious, and it goes right up there with the Christmas special Grifter Got Run Over By a Reindeer and the Halloween haunt Are You Afraid of Darkseid?, among others. I love it. 

Fri., Jan. 31st

Comics: Day of the Krypton Man from Superman Vol. 2 #41, Adventures of Superman #464, Action Comics #651, Superman Vol. 2 #42, Adventures of Superman #465, Action Comics #652; Return of the Krypton Man from Superman: The Man of Steel #1, Superman Vol. 2 #57, Adventures of Superman #480, Action Comics #667

It’s so embarrassing when they mix up your suits at the cleaners.

Notes: Today I (again, randomly) decided to read the two storylines that most contributed to the creation of the Eradicator, one of the best concepts of the late 80s before he got a little watered down (as happens to a lot of great villains, am I right Venom, Carnage, Sabretooth, the Joker, and Doomsday?) I considered starting with the storyline that where he first showed up, but the Exile arc is pretty long and I’ve already decided to restrict myself to only two long story arcs this year, lest I have no room for anything else. So here’s the short version: while exiled in space, Superman found a Kryptonian artifact called the Eradicator which he brought back to Earth, where it constructed a citadel in the antarctic, which eventually became this continuity’s version of the Fortress of Solitude. As Day of the Krypton Man begins Draaga, an alien Superman encountered during that arc, is coming to Earth to get his revenge on the big guy. At the same time, that cosmic bruiser Lobo is heading to Earth to prove how tough HE is by throwing down with Supes. Also, Maxima of Almerac is once again zipping to Metropolis to convince Superman to become her mate. And if that wasn’t enough, when they get to Earth they all find a Superman that is becoming cold and aloof, ignoring his family and friends and approaching his task as Earth’s protector with stark logic rather than his trademark compassion. He’s firing people from his new job as editor at Newstime magazine, forgetting Lana Lang’s birthday, and spurning Lois when she tries to ask him out. This is, simply, neither the Superman nor the Clark Kent any of us know. 

The Eradicator’s doing, as it turns out. The device is manipulating Superman, transforming him both mentally and physically into the “ideal” Kryptonian. His encounters with the three alien menaces all end in ways that would be out of character for Superman when he’s in his right mind, the fight with Draaga even transporting the top half of the Statue of Liberty to the moon. (Professor Hamilton’s fault – he was trying to help, but if Superman was himself he’d never have allowed the fight to happen at such a popular tourist attraction in the first place.) Eventually he makes the decision to abandon both of his identities, Superman AND Clark Kent, and live merely as Kal-El, a Kryptonian trying to bring Krypton to Earth.

I love the ending of this one. What ultimately snaps him out of it and allows him to break free of the Eradicator’s influence is concern for his parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent. When the Eradicator endangers the two of them, his reprogramming of Clark’s brain starts to break down and the real Superman comes back. Over the nearly 90 years that this character has existed, the degree to which he identifies as a Kryptonian has always varied wildly from one incarnation to another. This is the way I see him: he’s a human, a resident of the planet Earth, who happens to have a Kryptonian heritage. And when the two clash, it’s Clark Kent that wins out over Kal-El.

At the end of this story, Superman balls up the Eradicator and chucks it into the sun, thinking that’ll be the end of it, but about 15 months (and one engagement) later, he shows up again in the appropriately-titled Return of the Krypton Man storyline. The Eradicator returns, this time in a humanoid form, having used his time in the sun to begin the process of transforming it into a red dwarf to mimic the sun of Krypton. The next step in his plan is to terraform Earth itself into a replica of his dead planet. I may have mentioned a few weeks ago how tired I am of the “Kryptonian villain tries to turn Earth into Krypton” trope…well, I first read this story when it was originally published, long BEFORE I got tired of it, so it doesn’t bother me quite as much.

“And take THAT!”

Although this one is four issues instead of six, each of those four issues was giant-sized, so the page count works out about the same. Despite that, this one feels like a much quicker read. This storyline started with Superman: The Man of Steel #1, the book which gave the “Triangle Era” of Superman four titles and essentially making his adventures a weekly rather than a bunch of semi-related monthlies. With this storyline the creative teams were slightly shuffled as well. The Superman/Eradicator fight is ongoing, beginning at the end of Man of Steel #1 and continuing more or less uninterrupted throughout the other three issues, while a number of subplots are established or developed throughout the four issues. Among them we’ve got Perry White, on leave from the Daily Planet, trying to save his marriage; his temporary replacement laying off 10 percent of the newspaper staff, including Jimmy Olsen; Cat Grant finding herself the target of harassment from her boss while Jose Delgado (aka Gangbuster) looks after her son; and a terrorist group called Cerberus making attacks across Metropolis. All of these stories play out and develop as Superman and the Eradicator fight on Earth, off in space, and back to Earth again. 

Superman wins, of course, with the help of Emil Hamilton. This is a decent story that eventually turns out to be setup for the Death and Return of Superman story, which I’ll probably be getting to in just a couple of weeks. I do wonder, though, if they were already planning that when this storyline was put to press or if it was just one of those moments of serendipity.

Sat., Feb. 1

TV Episode: Superman and Lois Season 2, Ep. 2, “The Ties That Bind”, Ep. 3, “The Thing in the Mines”, Ep. 4, “The Inverse Method”

Notes: It’s been a rough 24 hours for me, and I have to confess, I wasn’t certain I’d get around to Superman today. But I’ve gone this far and I don’t want to break the streak so early in the year, so I’m jumping into the next few episodes of Superman and Lois.  

There’s a LOT going on in these few episodes. Clark is being plagued by strange visions and emotional outbursts that are making him dangerous. Trying to figure out what’s going on, he discovers that his newly-found brother has somehow regained his powers. Lois is being targeted by a podcast host who’s getting sources of hers from an old story about a cult to recant their testimonies to her. Jonathan suspects a kid at school is taking some sort of super-steroid. Jordan finds out his girlfriend had a fling at camp. Lana decides to run for mayor. John Henry and Natasha try to settle in on the Kent farm. This is the Dagwood Sandwich of CW superhero shows.

Not to say that it’s bad. There’s a lot of stuff going on, but the show doesn’t really have difficulty keeping everything straight. And it’s likely that, before the season is over, everything will come together like an episode of Seinfeld. It’s just weird to have so many different plots running at the same time, moving in and out of each other as the focus switches around the various characters involved. 

The Lois plot, involving the cult, is the one that’s bothering me at the moment, mostly because once again we see Lucy Lane turning up as a punching bag. I don’t think we’ve seen Lucy before in this continuity (someone correct me if I’m wrong) but I immediately think of all the stuff that’s happened to the character in the comics over the years. She was blind for a while, she was a villain for a while, she gets dumped by Jimmy Olsen, she marries Ron Troupe and has a baby, but if I’m being perfectly honest I haven’t got the foggiest notion if that kid even still exists in the current DC Universe. And here she is, a former cult member who seems to be disavowing the sister that tried to save her. This isn’t really a knock on the show, it’s just telling a story, but I really dislike the trope of making a character the universe’s punching bag. (I know I’ve said it before, but it’s the reason I don’t enjoy most modern Spider-Man comics anymore.) I guess I’m just saying that I wish Lucy would get a break. Everybody needs one once in a while. 

Nice little surprise towards the end of episode three, though: Superman battles the “Thing in the Mines” from the title, a powerful enemy in a suit of armor. When Superman cracks the armor open, though, he finds a distorted version of his own face staring back at him. Is this their version of Bizarro? And have they found a way to do the character that actually makes him menacing? Unlike Lucy, Bizarro is a character I can take either way, either as the ultra-powerful menace OR as the misunderstood giant who’s not actually out to HURT anyone, but is dangerous just by virtue of his power. If he’s a pure bad guy this time around, I’m okay with that.

Last thing I’ll point out is the increased focus on Natasha. I like how she’s turning around. She felt kind of whiny in that first episode this season, but she’s come back and shows a lot of wit and intelligence in these. I’m willing to chalk that first appearance to growing pains as the writers tried to figure out the character. I’m already liking her much more. 

Episode four (I’m writing this as I watch and not going back to edit, just for clarity) seems to prove that I’m right. The Mine Guy looks about as Bizarro as you could get in live-action without getting goofy.

Sun., Feb. 2

Comic: DC Speechless #3

Silent but delightful.

Notes: DC Speechless was a short digital-first series by Gustavo Duarte. Each issue placed a different character in a wordless, comedic adventure of some sort. In this issue, Superman is forced to face down a couple of giant bugs attacking not only Metropolis, but also his wardrobe. 

These silent issues are always a neat challenge for storytellers. Getting everything across through pictures only is a mark of a great artist, and Duarte is really good at telling a funny story. I enjoyed this quickie for what it is – simple, a little silly, and beautifully drawn.

Mon., Feb. 3

Comic Book: Superman #123

A psychologist could have a field day with this.

Notes: It’s time for a little more Silver Age silliness. Before the first appearance of Kara Zor-El, the Supergirl we all know and love, there was a proto “Super-Girl” that first appeared in this comic. An archeologist gives Jimmy Olsen a souvenir – an ancient totem that can ostensibly grant three wishes once a century. Jimmy, having earlier overheard Superman tell Lois that he could only ever marry a “super girl” who wouldn’t be in danger from his lifestyle, decides to wish up a prospective wife for him. This, friends, is why he’s called “Superman’s pal.”

Of course, things go wrong as the girl keeps blundering into things and screwing them up, because that’s apparently what super powered women do, until she finally sacrifices herself to save Superman from some Kryptonite. The funniest part is the panel where Jimmy uses the totem to wish her away before she dies, where he chokes and says, “We’ll never forget you,” then everbody promptly proceeded to never mention her again, not even a few months later when Superman met his cousin from Krypton who looked virtually identical to the girl that his best friend conjured up or him to marry. Wild time.

Ah, but the fun wasn’t over. Jimmy got THREE wishes from the totem, remember, so this is a full-length three-parter! In the second part of the story some crooks read the Daily Planet story outlining how Jimmy used the totem to create Super-Girl, then break into his apartment to steal the magic artifact and use it to take away Superman’s powers. That’s it. Not for powers of their own. Not to, I dunno, kill Superman. Not even just for a mountain of money so that the criminals don’t have to crime anymore. The underworld of Metropolis was really short-sighted at the time, weren’t they? Anyway, Superman and Jimmy use some stunts to mimic his powers and make the crooks think the wish didn’t worry so they’ll retrieve the totem, at which point he shows up, captures them, and has Jimmy cancel the wish.

With just one wish left, Jimmy wants to make it a great one to make up for how the first two screwed up. (Jimmy, for heaven’s sake, just wish for a winning lottery ticket like a normal person.) This time he decides it’d be swell if he could send Superman back in time to meet his parents, but since he doesn’t want Superman to hear him MAKING his wish, he types it up. And apparently he’s as bad at spelling as Lois legendarily is, because he accidentally types “I wish for Superman to MATE his parents on Krypton.” Supes is whisked back in time to an era before his parents married. One might expect him to have to play Cupid here, based on how Jimmy’s typo was phrased, but Jor-El and Lara are already a couple. They just can’t get married yet because they’re accused of being part of a terrorist plot to overthrow the government and they wind up needing their son’s help to clear their names. This includes tricking a villain into accidentally creating Kryptonite, which seems kind of counter to the whole “no killing” thing, but I digress.

It’s another case of insane Silver Age storytelling – all three parts of this “novel” (which they loved to call these stories on the cover) are predicated on wild misunderstandings, incredible cases of jumping to conclusions, and just plain bafflingly stupid choices on the parts of the heroes and villains alike. I’m a teacher, and I’m constantly telling my students that it isn’t fair to use the standards of the modern day to judge the citizens of an earlier time, but stories like this make it pretty dang tempting sometimes. 

Tues., Feb. 4

Short: The Bulleteers

Notes: After a very random and, frankly, pretty harsh week for me outside of the Superman blogosphere, I decided to close things off with another of the classic Fleischer shorts. Next up is The Bulleteers from 1942. In this one, the bad guys (you can tell they’re bad guys because they’re all wearing the same cowl with a point in the front but no mask) create a bullet-shaped rocket car they intend to use to rob the Metropolis treasury.

The very faces of evil.

I do not understand the motivations of villains like these. They want money? They have invented a flying car that turns into a giant bullet. They can afford to construct a secret base in the core of a mountain, complete with turning one side of that mountain into a hidden drawbridge-style door. I don’t know exactly what the overhead on any of this stuff is, but it seems to me that patents on this kind of technology alone have to be far more than the city of Metropolis could possibly be able to cough up.

Anyway, after the Bulleteers crash into the Treasury building, which conveniently seems to keep all of the money in the city in one enormous vault, Superman gets his hand on it and rips it apart in midair, saving the day. Good for him.

Tangent: This isn’t directly Superman-related, but I think it’s something worth addressing. Today, the trailer for the new Marvel movie Fantastic Four: First Steps was released. You may not know this, but my love for the Fantastic Four is almost – not quite, but ALMOST – up there with my love of Superman. The Thing is my second-favorite character in all of comics, and I firmly believe he’s the best thing Stan Lee and Jack Kirby ever did. I saw the trailer and I enjoyed it immensely. I even made an incredibly dorky TikTok video about it, in my own inimitable style.  

The reason I’m bringing it up here, though, is because in some of the Superman groups I follow, I saw people posting the video and saying they don’t think it will be competition for James Gunn’s Superman. And I have to ask this question, guys.

Why does it NEED to be?

Seriously, where is it written that every film has to be a direct rival of every other? Or every studio? Is it because they come out in the same month, Superman on July 11th and Fantastic Four two weeks later on the 25th? Or is it just because Marvel and DC fans have some sort of deep-seated need in their very souls to somehow prove their dominance over the other?

It makes no sense to me. I am looking forward to Superman. Hell, I decided to devote this entire YEAR to how much I’m looking forward to it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to look forward to Fantastic Four. It doesn’t mean if I like one, I am not allowed to like the other. It’s said that a rising tide raises all ships, and I sincerely believe that – a great superhero movie will make people thirst for MORE great superhero movies, and hopefully the studios will learn the right lessons from one another about what MAKES a great superhero movie. Judging by the trailers from these two films, I feel as though they have.

And if there’s no other reason to ask why they have to be opposed to one another, just ask yourself this: would Superman want it that way? Would he want to be rivals? Or would he be in the front row of the cinema on July 25th, cheering for the adventures of Marvel’s first family with the rest of us.

I rather suspect that would be the case, don’t you?

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!

Geek Punditry #61: Playing Favorites With Superheroes Part One

blakemp Geek Punditry, Playing Favorites , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s time once again for PLAYING FAVORITES! It’s that semi-regular Geek Punditry mini-column in which I throw out a topic to you, my friends in the world of social media, and ask you to suggest different categories in which I discuss what I consider to be the best of the best. This time around, the topic is superheroes. Born in the pages of American comic books, but with roots in pulp magazines, myth, and thousands of other sources, the superhero is considered to be the modern mythology, with pantheons not only in comics, but in movies, TV, video games, and pretty much every other media you can name. And I am, it cannot be understated, a fan of the superhero. So what, then, are some of my favorites?

Legacy Heroes

Sandy Brophy is going to kick things off for us by asking for my favorite legacy heroes. A “legacy” hero, for those of you who may not have been reading comic books since you were six years old, is the term used when a superhero’s name and identity is passed on from one person to another. For example, in the early days of comics, the Flash was a college student by the name of Jay Garrick. After superheroes fell out of favor and stopped being published for a while, they were resurrected in the 1950’s with the creation of a brand-new Flash, this time a police scientist named Barry Allen. Barry was the Flash for a long time before dying in Crisis on Infinite Earths (it took longer than usual, but eventually he got better), and his nephew/sidekick Wally West, aka Kid Flash, took over as the new Flash.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

This also, by the way, is my answer to Sandy’s question. The Flash is undoubtedly my favorite legacy hero in comics. By the time I started reading comics Wally was the main Flash, and even decades later he’s still the one I feel is most compelling. He was young when he became the Flash, and thanks to the magic of comic book time I eventually caught up with him at the same time he was being written by Mark Waid, who turned him into a fully fleshed-out and wonderfully realized character in his own right. He got married, had kids, and he grew and matured. He was also – as Waid said – the first sidekick to “fulfill the promise,” in other words, to take over for his mentor. He’s also still, to the best of my recollection, the ONLY one to do so on a permanent basis. It’s true that Dick Grayson (the original Robin) became Batman for a while, and Captain America’s sidekick Bucky took up the shield when Steve Rogers was temporarily dead, but both of them reverted back to their other adult IDs (Nightwing and the Winter Soldier, respectively) when the original came back. Not so Wally. Barry returned and Wally stuck around, and although there’s been a lot of timey-wimey nonsense and attempts to sort of push him to the side, he’s bounced back. Wally is, again, the primary Flash, even in a world where Jay and Barry exist, and the nominal head of the Flash family. And he’s just the best.

There are other good legacy heroes, don’t get me wrong. I enjoy the Jaime Reyes version of the Blue Beetle (although my heart will always belong to Ted Kord, himself the second Blue Beetle following Dan Garrett), and there are few who will argue that Kamala Khan hasn’t done more with the Ms. Marvel title than either of her predecessors, but Wally West is the ultimate legacy hero in my book.

Superhero Logos

My buddy Owen Marshall wants to know what some of my favorite superhero LOGOS are – those titles that splash across the cover of a comic book to (hopefully) let you know what you’re about to read. I’ll talk about what I think makes a good logo in general, then get into specifics. I think a great logo is something that stands out in a way that evokes the hero in question. The Superman logo, for instance, is relatively simple – his name, slightly curved, with drop letters that give it a sense of weight, of solidity. Any time you see that logo you think that somebody could just grab it off the cover – and, in fact, there have been many covers where that very thing has happened.

You can’t beat a classic.

Spider-Man’s original logo is great for similar reasons. It’s solid, but it’s also easy to partner up with a web in the background to help get across the idea that you’re dealing with a wallcrawler. And, like Superman, it’s a short enough logo that it’s very easy to add an adjective to the title (as in the AMAZING Spider-Man, the SPECTACULAR Spider-Man), but just as easy to drop a subtitle underneath (Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows). There have been many attempts over the years to create a new Spider-Man logo, but frankly, there’s never been one I like as much as the original, and it seems it’s never anything but a matter of time before they return to it.

Yeah, that’s the stuff.

The Avengers also have a fantastic logo. They’ve had several, of course, but I’m specifically talking about the most famous version, the one that Marvel Studios used for the basis of its movie design. It’s clean and bold, and the arrow in the letter “A” gives it a sense of forward motion that sort of plants the idea that these are heroes who are about to go out and DO something.

The arrow is in case you forget and try reading it right-to-left.

Green Lantern has had a great many logos over the years, many of which actually include a lantern, but my favorite doesn’t. I like the logo that premiered in 2005 with Green Lantern: Rebirth and which remained the primary version of the logo until just a few years ago. This version has that tilt to one side and a cool roundness to it that…okay, just hear me out on this…it makes me think of classic cars from the 50s. Smooth, sleek, fast…and those are words that apply to Green Lantern, especially the Hal Jordan version. 

And it’s all spacey and stuff.

I could probably spend an entire month just going through different logos, but I’m just going to cap it off here by saying that there are hundreds of awesome logos and if you want to read more about them I highly recommend the blog of comic book letterer and designer Todd Klein, who frequently makes posts where he discusses the design and history of comic’s greatest (and worst) logos, which is like drinking mother’s milk to a nerd like me. 

Superhero TV (pre-2000)

My old friend Patrick Slagle wants to know my favorite superhero live action TV shows. Well that’s easy! There have been SO many to choose from – Stargirl was great, and I was deeply enamored of Legends of Tomorrow, and then there was–

Oh, wait.

He specified shows from BEFORE the year 2000. Well. That makes it a lot more difficult. We’ve been in a superhero renaissance in the last decade or so, guys, with such an abundance of shows that even I haven’t gotten around to watching them all yet. (Peacemaker, for example, is still warming my “to-watch” list.) But if I’m going to restrict myself to the cultural wasteland that was 1999 and earlier, I guess there’s only the obvious choice.

Project: ALF.

If I don’t do this at least once in every Playing Favorites column the Don said he was gonna break my thumbs.

The superhero shows of my formative years…let’s be honest guys, they weren’t that great. The two most fundamental ones are probably the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk and Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman. And while those are both good shows, neither of them were series I would watch on repeat, the sort of thing that makes a TV series worm its way into my psyche and become a part of the vast tapestry that is your friendly neighborhood Geek Pundit. And the truth is, a lot of the other shows of that era don’t hold up. Look at the 70s Amazing Spider-Man or Shazam! shows and try to convince me that these are fundamental pieces of Americana. The Greatest American Hero is a show I know I used to watch, plus it’s got the most earwormy theme song in superhero history, but I couldn’t relate the plot of a single episode after the pilot. It got better later, with the surprisingly decent Superboy TV series (mostly after Gerard Christopher took over the role from John Newton) and the “fun but fluffy” era of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

There are some wild swings in quality happening in this picture.

If I have to pick (and I do, it’s my damn game), I guess I’m going to have to give props to the two shows that I think launched the genre on TV: George Reeves in The Adventures of Superman and the Adam West/Burt Ward Batman show from 1966. I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the West/Ward era. When I hit those peak teenage years of arrogance and knowitallitude that most of us go through, I began to actively dislike that show, blaming it for people treating comic books as childish and infantile for decades after it was off the air and tarnishing the reputation of the caped crusader. Fortunately as I got older, I got over myself, thus disqualifying myself from ever running for elected office, but at the same time getting a sense of perspective. Sure, it wasn’t MY Batman, but I learned to appreciate it for what it was. I’ve softened to the show now. I even watch the reruns on MeTV Saturday nights between Svengoolie and Star Trek.

There’s no school like the old school.

George Reeves, though, I’ve always appreciated. He was the Curt Swan Superman come to life – square-jawed, barrel-chested, friend to all the innocent. But at the same time, he had a wicked sense of humor, showing clear joy whenever he got to take down a bad guy and taking a sly sort of pleasure any time he thwarted Lois Lane’s attempts to one-up him. I love the Reeves Superman and I don’t think he gets the respect he deserves. DC has launched a series of comics featuring the Christopher Reeve Superman as Superman ‘78, and that’s great. I love ‘em. But am I really the only person who would pick up a comic book called The Adventures of Superman ‘52?

Superhero Animals

I really like Marvel’s Scarlet Witch. She’s had several costumes over the years, but the best is the one George Perez whipped up for her for the Heroes Return era. It was red, naturally, which helps you identify her via color-coding, but the design also drew on the character’s Romani heritage, with a rare long skirt and robes that make you think of a fortune teller. All of that builds together and links her to her mystical roots. I’m fairly certain that if I didn’t know who the Avengers were and someone asked me which one I thought was the Scarlet Witch, I’d say, “Well, gotta be the woman in red, and not the tiger girl in the bikini.”

Jim MacQuarrie asked for my favorite Super-Animal, while Lew Beitz wants to know my favorite Super-PET. These two categories are close enough that I’ll talk about them together. They’re not EXACTLY the same, but there’s plenty of overlap. The way I look at it, we can divide super-animals into two categories: the ones that serves as an animal sidekick to the main hero, such as Krypto the Superdog, and those that are distinct heroes in their own right, like Hoppy the Marvel Bunny. The former are characters in established universes, while the latter usually exist in a Disney-esque universe where there are no humans at all, but instead races of anthropomorphic animals running the show.

As far as super-pets go, the Superman family has the deepest – and weirdest – bench to draw from. Krypto the Superdog and Beppo the Supermonkey are both animals from Krypton who made their way to Earth and gained powers like Superman and Supergirl. Supergirl also has a cat named Streaky who gains and loses his powers on a rotating basis thanks to exposure to something called X-Kryptonite (it was the 50s, it was safe to give something a name like that because there was no internet). Then there was Supergirl’s horse, Comet, who was actually a centaur from ancient Greece named Biron that was cursed and trapped in the form of a full horse. He hung around for a couple of thousand years before he met Supergirl and started to assist her on her missions, fell in love with her, and learned he could briefly become human when an actual comet passed close to Earth, allowing him to date Supergirl without telling her who he really –

Stop looking at me like that, I’m not making this up.

Superman is surprisingly indiscriminate about who he gives a cape to.

Anyway, Krypto is kind of the gold standard of super-pets, but there are a few others outside of the Super-Family worth mentioning. Wonder Woman’s kangaroo, Kanga, for instance. Ace the Bat-Hound, who Batman gives a mask to cover the bat-shaped patch of fur on his face and thus protect his secret identity. Chameleon Boy’s pet Proty who, like Chameleon Boy, is a shapeshifter, and fully sapient, and who can and did occasionally impersonate full grown adults, which makes you ask where the hell the Legion of Super-Heroes gets off treating him like a pet. And of course Damian Wayne, the current Robin, has Bat-Cow.

The only superhero who’s a source of 50 percent of the food groups.

Then there are the other types of Super-Animals: anthropomorphic heroes in their own right. Everyone who has heard me talk for five minutes will know that my favorite of these is Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew. Created by Roy Thomas and Scott Shaw!, this 80s phenomenon was about a group of superhero animals who got powers from meteors that fell to (their version of) Earth. After meeting a dimension-hopping Superman, they were inspired to become heroes in their own right. The art is cartoony and the premise is silly, but what I’ve always loved about Captain Carrot and company is that their stories – at least in the 80s – weren’t played like cartoons. The plots were straight out of the pages of Golden and Silver Age comics, facing giant monsters and villains with cold-rays and all kinds of classic tropes. They were funny, sure, but not at the expense of the characters, as many of the modern writers who have tried to use Captain Carrot have forgotten. When I say I want a revival of the old-school Captain Carrot, I say it unironically and with love.

By contrast, there’s perhaps the most famous super-animal of the day, thanks to his starring role in an Academy Award-winning motion picture. I refer, of course, to Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham. Spider-Ham’s comic hit JUST when I stared reading comics in earnest, and I devoured it. In this hilarious take on the Spider-Man story, Peter was the pet spider of mad scientist May Porker, who accidentally irradiated herself and bit him. The spider turned into a pig while maintaining his spider-powers. When May recovered from the radiation, her memory was erased and she thought she was just a kindly old lady and Peter was her nephew.

Move over, “The Boys,” the REAL heroes are back in town.

I’m not making this up either, but I wish I could take credit for it. The early Spider-Ham comics were a lot of fun, then he disappeared for decades before experiencing a renaissance in recent years. Like Captain Carrot, his modern adventures are sillier and more “cartoony” than the earlier ones, but UNlike Captain Carrot, the cartoony interpretation fits better, and has made him a better character.

My favorite Spider-Ham story, though, is not from the comics and not from the cartoons, but from the mouth of his creator, Tom DeFalco, when I met him at a convention a few years ago. He was signing reprints of the first appearance of Spider-Ham and his other great Spider character, Spider-Girl. I bought them both and told him how much I loved Spider-Ham when I was a kid, and he told how surprised he was when Marvel Comics sent him an invitation to the premiere of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. He didn’t understand why he was getting an invitation, and someone said, “It’s probably because Spider-Ham is in it.” And DeFalco, shocked, exclaimed, “SPIDER-HAM is in a MOVIE?”

Timeless. 

Favorite Superhero Costumes

My wife Erin, who always cuts the line because nobody else who submits questions has ever made lasagna for me, wants to know what my favorite superhero costumes are, both male and female. I think it was Alex Ross who said that the test of a good superhero costume is whether you could identify the character based just on the name, even if you knew nothing about them. Batman, for example. Green Lantern. Captain America. The 90s was an era where this consistently failed, especially in the X-Men comics and those later characters created by former X-artists. If you showed someone who knows nothing about comics pictures of Gambit, Cable, Maverick, Shatterstar, and Deadpool, then asked them to match the names to the pictures, any correct answers would happen purely because of the law of averages.

But anyway, when I read Ross’s definition, he also used that definition to argue that the greatest superhero costume of all time belongs to Spider-Man. It’s hard to argue with him. Nobody who saw a lineup of the Marvel Comics all-stars would have any difficulty telling that this guy is Spider-Man and not, for example, Wonder Man. And while that’s true of MOST of Spider-Man’s assorted costumes over the years, the original is still my favorite. The black costume is cool-looking, but the ol’ red-and-blues have a brighter, more optimistic tone that suits Spider-Man better. Spider-Man is a hard luck hero, to be sure, but he should never be a depressing, brooding character like Daredevil. (Are you listening, current Marvel editorial?) He’s the guy who should never give up and always finds it in himself to do the right thing, and the red and blue color scheme says that better than any of his other assorted looks. 

I don’t even blame him for admiring his own reflection.

Using the same metric, I also think the Rocketeer has a phenomenal costume. He is literally a human rocket, with a rocket pack strapped to his back and a helmet that evokes the speed and energy of the burgeoning space age. The rest of the outfit, though, with the brown bomber jacket and the jodhpur pants brings in the idea of his aviator background and grounds him in the World War II era where he belongs. 

This picture makes me want to make swooshy noises.

Honorable mention goes to the Flash, Green Lantern (Hal Jordan costume, although I have a soft spot for the one John Stewart wore in the Justice League cartoon) and Marvel’s Nova.

Erin also asked about my favorite female costumes, which I find is a little harder to do going by Alex Ross’s metric. Too many female costumes are designed more for titillation rather than actually identifying the character. And even those that DO clearly identify them often do so via a logo or symbol that marks them, such as Wonder Woman.

I think “Morgan” was the screenwriter of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.

Harley Quinn is another one that is pretty obvious, at least in her original costume. The red-and-black color scheme, white makeup, and bangled headpiece brings up the notion of a Harlequin, which of course is the inspiration for the character. She’s changed her look several times over the past few years, and while some of her looks have been pretty good, none of them draw their inspiration from her roots the way her first look does. On the other hand, they’ve come up with a pretty solid justification for her changing her look – once she got over the Joker and dumped his homicidal ass, she doesn’t want to wear the costume that identifies her as his sidekick anymore.

Let’s face it, I could have posted a picture of a random duck here and you still could have pictured Harley’s get-up.

Then there’s Supergirl. She’s had a lot of costumes, the most iconic look being the basic Superman outfit, only with bare legs and a skirt. That’s not her best look, though. For me, my favorite Supergirl costume came from the 1970s, when she wore a loose blouse with a small S-shield over her heart rather than the full-size shield most superfolks wear. I love that look – it still clearly marks her as a member of the Super-family, but it’s very different from anything any of the others wear. Being loose instead of skintight like most superhero costumes, it’s got a freeing quality that speaks to a lighter version of the character in a period where she was working to get out of her more famous cousin’s shadow. It’s such a great look and I never stop wishing they would bring it back.

What can I say? She’s got the look.

That’s about it for this week, guys, but there are plenty of other questions I haven’t gotten to yet. So be sure to come by next week for Playing Favorites With Superheroes Part Two, and if you have a suggestion that I haven’t covered, go ahead and drop in in the comments. Up, up, and away!

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, now complete on Amazon’s Kindle Vella platform. He realizes he talks about the Superman family a lot whenever he gets on to a superhero discussion, but let’s be honest, people. It’s either gonna be this or Star Trek.