superman

Geek Punditry #180: Coming Comics

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Comic book announcements seem to come in fits and starts. Fans may go weeks without hearing any news that’s of particular interest, then all of a sudden somebody makes a big announcement and it seems like everybody else has to make a bunch of their own just to keep up. This week came several announcements from different publishers about upcoming projects, many of which have me very excited, and one of which…well, you’ll see. But before we even start I’m going to say that this is not a COMPREHENSIVE list of projects. These are just some of the things that were announced that interest ME, and that make me feel ways about things. Sorry, “release date for Midnight Marvel” – ya didn’t quite make the cut.

Marvel DID have one thing announced on Monday that I find pretty interesting, a one-shot special coming out this fall in which the Marvel superheroes will – for the first time – team up with some of my favorite corporate siblings of theirs. This fall, we’re going to get the crossover we never knew we needed: The Muppets Take the Marvel Universe.

The Muppets have appeared in comics before, even published by Marvel a few times. There have even been a few Marvel variant covers featuring the Muppets. But this will mark the first time that the Muppets and the Marvel heroes will actually meet in a story, and I’ve got to tell you, I couldn’t be more excited for it. In the main story, by Chip Zdarsky and Pete Woods, the X-Men’s old foe Mojo apparently kidnaps Rowlf the Dog, bringing Kermit the Frog and company in cahoots with some of Marvel’s all-stars in order to rescue him.

This is actually such a perfect set-up. Mojo is an interdimensional parody of a corporate media executive, obsessed with ratings and viewership. That’s what makes Rowlf the perfect central character for this story. As opposed to Fozzie’s cringe comedy or Gonzo’s stunts that are guaranteed to go wrong, Rowlf is simply a gifted piano player, one of the few Muppets that is unabashedly GOOD at what he’s trying to do, and thus he’s exactly the kind of character that would be on Mojo’s radar. Crossovers like this will be inherently silly, and that’s welcome, but they’re at their best when they play to the characters’ strengths this way. 

There will be back-up features in the book as well, similar to the recent Marvel/DC crossover comics. Hank Pym and Bruce Banner will visit Bunsen and Beaker at Muppet Labs, and Dr. Strange will star in a bizarre team-up with the Swedish Chef. As Disney proper struggles with what to do with the Muppets (despite the fact that the Muppet Show special earlier this year was both a critical and streaming smash hit, and any idiot would have greenlit a revival series by now) at least SOMEBODY out there has the wherewithal to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Muppet Show the way it deserves. 

A few hours after Marvel’s big announcement, IDW came in with a project of their own that seems to have been aligned perfectly to intersect the venn diagrams of my personal obsessions. IDW has held the Godzilla comic book license for many years now, and for the last few years they’ve published miniseries and one-shots under the banner Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theater. The first miniseries was a crossover mash-up in which Godzilla encountered public domain characters such as Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, the time traveller from H.G. Welles’ The Time Machine, and – most perplexingly – Jay Gatsby. Follow up one-shots have dropped him in Verona during the events of Romeo and Juliet and ancient Greece to further complicate Odysseus’s journey home during The Odyssey. But this September we’re getting a book that excites me like no other: The Kaiju of Oz.

I am, as people who’ve read this blog for a long time know, an unabashed fan of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, as well as many of the expanded universe books, movies, and comics that have been published in the decades since Oz entered the public domain. And Oz crossovers aren’t a new thing – we’ve seen lots of stories about Dorothy and Alice (from Wonderland, obviously), stories where the characters interact with the DC Multiverse, the characters join the fairy tale kitchen sink of ABC’s Once Upon a Time, and plenty of other incarnations and crossovers. IDW, for their part, has also produced a series of one-shots in which Godzilla stomps on various American cities like New York, Boston, and Los Angeles. (Hey, IDW, if you ever want to go Godzilla Vs. New Orleans, give me a call. I’ve got a story for you.) Having Godzilla march in to crush the Emerald City sounds like a hell of a lot of fun. Hopefully the creative team of Mike Costa and Ryan Browne are familiar enough with the Oz mythology to use the characters to their true potential. I don’t care how good his brain is – the Scarecrow isn’t going to be much of a match for Godzilla. But if Glinda, Ozma, Professor Wogglebug and some of the other Oz luminaries step up to the plate, it could be a pretty exciting showdown.

DC Comics, meanwhile, announced the latest expansion of their excellent Compact Comics graphic novels line, the series of smaller-sized paperbacks with a smaller price point that have taken the comics world by storm. They STILL haven’t taken any of MY suggestions (philistines), but what they announced this week is perhaps the next best thing. Recognizing what a great series this is for introducing new readers to comics, DC announced four “Compact Comics Adventures” books for younger readers, specifically collections of the comics based on some of their most popular cartoons: Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, and Teen Titans. DC has a pretty deep bench of comics for young readers that they could draw from, but a lot of them wouldn’t quite be long enough to justify the Compact Comics format. These series are a nice compromise, with comics appropriate for young readers but that will appeal to the nostalgia factor of people who grew up with the cartoons. 

A lot of these comics have been out of print for decades, and some have never been collected at all, so this will be a great collection. Best of all, these will be even MORE bargain-priced than the main line, with each book collecting six issues for $7.99 (as opposed to $9.99 for the other books). My sister is always asking me for graphic novel suggestions for her 12-year-old son, and as soon as I heard about these, I texted her.

The next announcement is the one that I’ve got a little trepidation about. Earlier this year DC began a new line of titles called “Next Level,” bringing back characters that haven’t had a big spotlight in some time for new titles that – although part of the DC Universe – are largely self-contained. New books starring the likes of Batwoman, Lobo, Deathstroke, and Barbara Gordon (not as Batgirl or Oracle, but in an intriguing book where she’s going to prison as part of an undercover sting operation) have been well-received, and I’ve been especially impressed by the new takes on Firestorm and Deadman. This week DC announced three team books joining the Next Level lineup: Doom Patrol, Teen Titans, and most pertinently, Legion of Super-Heroes.

I am, of course, a Legion superfan. I’ve been itching for YEARS for DC to come back and give us a solid Legion series again. And the fact that it’s being written by Joshua Williamson, an excellent writer that’s just been killing it on Superman for the last few years, was very welcome news. But then I kept reading and…well, let me just give you the synopsis of the first issue that DC released:

One thousand years after the Last Son of Krypton’s rocket crashed on the Kent Farm comes a new future inspired by the Man of Tomorrow! But this new future is in danger! Superheroes are outlawed! Deadly enforcers known as the Persuaders keep the populace of the United Planets in check! Worlds are at war! And this dark tomorrow’s last glimmer of hope, R.J. Brande, has been brutally murdered. Can the mysterious Brainiac 1 of 5 solve Brande’s murder? To restore hope to the universe, he must assemble a legion of gifted young rebels from across the cosmos! 

…yeah. It’s another freaking reboot. 

This will be, by my count, the SIXTH incarnation of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and as much as I enjoy Williamson’s writing, that has SERIOUSLY diminished my enthusiasm. We’ve seen the Legion assembled countless times. There’s a reason James Gunn didn’t start his Superman movie with an origin – because nobody needs it anymore. What’s more, each reboot version of the Legion has proven to have a shorter lifespan than the one before it. The most recent one, by Brian Michael Bendis, lasted a mere 19 issues plus a two-issue prequel and a six-issue miniseries where they faced the Justice League. If this keeps up, the next Legion after Williamson’s will be a one-shot.

Mr. Williamson, should you be reading this, please don’t take my lack of enthusiasm personally. I like your work very much. I was VERY excited to hear that you were writing this team. But no matter how great the creative team is, it’s going to be an uphill battle to make me invested in Iteration Six when my heart still belongs mostly to One. (And, in large part, to Two.)

You know, I can’t end this on a down note. How about one more super-cool DC announcement? For a few years now Dan Mora – one of my favorite working comic artists – has been doing a series of variant covers of the World’s Finest comic with Superman and Batman meeting various celebrities like William Shatner and Nicolas Cage. Earlier this year DC released two at once, one with Weird Al Yankovic and then another, on a Bizzaro comic, where they encountered Al’s imperfect counterpart “Normal Al Yankovic.” As it turned out, that was just the beginning. Coming this fall World’s Finest writer Mark Waid is going to give us a one-shot where DC’s top heroes are going to encounter the universe’s greatest musical genius, Batman/Superman/Weird Al: World’s Weirdest. I haven’t read anything about the story, I don’t know what it’s going to be about. It doesn’t matter. This is going to be the greatest comic since…

…well, since Spider-Man met the Muppets. 

So call up your local comic shop and place your orders, friends. There’s lots of cool stuff coming soon.  

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. He means it, IDW. Think about Godzilla biting into a certain trademarked New Orleans beignet shop and then coming up with powdered sugar covering his enormous muzzle. That’s just the start. 

Superman Stuff #24: My Adventures With Superman is back for Season Three

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The Adult Swim animated series My Adventures With Superman is back for its third season, so this week I wanted to take a look at the season premiere. I only touched on this series briefly during the Year of Superman, so before I get into it, I wanted to talk about some of my overall feelings. These will include spoilers for the first two seasons, so if you haven’t watched it, you may want to skip this week.

It took me some time to get into this show, I admit. The characters are very young – Clark and Jimmy are straight out of college getting jobs at the Daily Planet, where Lois Lane is already employed. I didn’t mind the characters being young, but there’s an energy to this show (more prominent in the earlier episodes) that I can only describe as “anime-esque.” That is intentional, no doubt. The character designs evoke anime and there are bits where they zip around and have quick anime-style non sequiturs. This isn’t to say that it wasn’t done well, it’s just…I’m not much of an anime fan. If you are, hey, that’s cool. But not everything is for everybody and, with rare exceptions, I’ve found that anime is not for me. The good news is that sort of stuff has been downplayed after the first half of the first season, making the whole thing more palatable to me. 

That said, it took me a few episodes to really get into the show, and I think the exact moment it happened was the episode (episode four, I think, but I don’t remember for certain) where Lois figured out that Clark was Superman. There are a lot of continuities now where Lois is in on Clark’s secret, but in most of them either he revealed the truth to her or (such as in Man of Steel) she knew him before he “became” Superman and thus there was never any secret between them in the first place. I really like Lois solving the mystery on her own, though. She’s supposed to be the most brilliant investigative reporter in the world, after all – let her investigate this in a brilliant way. Once we hit that point, I grew an appreciation for the show and their portrayal of the characters and I enjoyed it much more. And the voice cast is wonderful too, particularly Jack Quaid as a young, inexperienced Superman.

If there’s one thing I’m NOT wild about, it’s the costume. They tweaked it in season two and it looks like it’s been tweaked again in season three, with more piping and unnecessary details. I’m a purist, I guess, the simpler the costume the better, but if that’s the biggest complaint about this show, I can live with it. 

The premiere of Season Three, “Into the New World,” begins with Superman taking Supergirl to the newly-upgraded Fortress of Solitude, where she’s interring the captured Brainiac module from last season, and Clark gets warnings from the Fortresses’s new robots about the many, many crises he’s going to face soon. I’m sure none of those are going to come back and be significant in the rest of the season. Back in Kansas, it’s Halloween, and the group heads to the Kent Farm to help set up the corn maze and hand out candy. While Jimmy and Kara bounce around their awkwardness surrounding their mutual attraction, Lois freaks out as she realizes that Clark is thinking about their future WAY more than she is. She escapes the uncomfortable conversation when her father gives her a tip about a nearby abandoned biotech facility. The group investigates and finds a project dedicated to cloning Kryptonians, including an entire arboretum full of Kryptonian plant life, several genetic monsters, robot guards, and a strange young man who seems to have lived his entire life there. 

I’m really glad that they’ve upgraded Kara to the main cast this season, adding her to the opening credits and integrating her into the (former) trio. She brings a different energy to the group – as bold and fearless as Lois, but with an added naivete stemming from her ignorance of Earth, and just a TINY air of superior arrogance that’s amusing. It’s a new angle to the dynamic that I really like.

If you’ve paid any attention to the casting announcements or pre-season buzz, you already know who the boy they find in the lab is destined to be, but even if you haven’t, it’s probably not too hard to figure out where they’re going with him. That said, I like the way they’re bringing in elements of the Superman mythos in different ways. This is a new version of Superboy, one who has elements of the Conner Kent version from the comics, but who isn’t EXACTLY the same. The same can be said for most of the main characters, both heroes and villains (including the villain teased in the final scene) – they’re familiar enough that you have the flavor of who they are, but different enough that the show feels like its own thing. It’s less an adaptation of the classic stories and more a new mythology that’s built on the DNA of the older one.

It’s a little thing, but the show does the usual comic book trope of dropping in references to the larger stories that inspired them – references to lesser-known characters, name-dropping Supergirl’s creator, and sneaking in Superman’s old-fashioned catch phrase. And I may be reading too much into it, but you can’t convince me that the guy wearing a Star Trek uniform in the middle of a Halloween crowd isn’t a tongue-in-cheek reference to Jack Quaid’s role on the best Trek series of the modern era, Lower Decks. 

Like most shows these days, My Adventures With Superman is episodic. The first episode of a season is less of a story on its own and more of the first chapter in a season-long arc. As such it’s successful, setting a lot of elements into play, introducing two new major characters, and establishing what appear to be the emotional arcs for our main characters for the next nine episodes. I enjoyed it, I’m glad the show is back, and I’m quite excited to see how they’re planning to set up Jessica Cruz for the My Adventures With Green Lantern spinoff before the end of the season. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!

Superman Stuff #23: Peter David’s Supergirl

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With the Girl of Steel scheduled to make her return to the Screen of Silver in a couple of weeks, I wanted to go back to one of the items I most regret never getting around to during the original Year of Superman project: Peter David’s excellent Supergirl series. David launched this series in 1996, taking the “Matrix” version of Supergirl and pulling her out of Metropolis. He dropped her not only in the seemingly nondescript town of Leesburg, but also into a metaphysical conflict that was very different from most superhero comics at the time – or for that matter, even since then. 

The real question is where to READ the book in this day and age, if you weren’t lucky enough to have bought them month-to-month as they came out like I did. David’s run lasted 80 issues, along with a handful of annuals and spinoffs, and a few mini-crossovers with other books like Resurrection Man and Young Justice. A few years ago they started series of omnibus editions that went for four volumes, collecting roughly the first half of the series, which we can all agree isn’t enough. Last year, though, when the DC’s Finest line of paperbacks was launched, they included two hefty volumes that made it almost as deep into the run as the four omnibus editions combined. One could only hope that they’re selling well enough to justify collecting the rest of the run in that series.

That said, this week I had time to read the first five issues, as well as the prologue story that was published in Showcase ‘96 #8, so that’s what I’m going to focus on today. The prologue, written by David with art by Terry Dodson, is connected to the main series more thematically than in a story fashion. Supergirl – the shapeshifting protoplasmic Matrix that Superman first encountered in the pocket universe where he was forced to kill General Zod and his cronies – is called upon to help with a hurricane causing terrible destruction. In the midst of the storm, she desperately tries to save a pregnant woman who has gone into labor, and the chaos around her forces her to think about concepts of mortality – both the beginning and end of life – that she as an artificial life form has never really had to contend with before. 

In its own right, this would be a perfectly good short story, a sort of character piece in which a superhero wrestles with a very human existential crisis. However, knowing what David was going to do with this series in the years to come, it really does feel like a glimpse at the future. Is it necessary for understanding the main series? No. But it sure as hell gives you the flavor.

The series proper, with art by Gary Frank, begins not with Supergirl, but with Linda Danvers. Linda – at this point a total blank slate to the audience – is introduced to us in the shower, covered in minor injuries and washing off blood. When she gets out of the tub, there’s also an odd accumulation of pink sludge…and a glance in the mirror makes her realize that her injuries are mysteriously gone. She can’t remember what’s happened to her or how she was hurt, but she’s also got memories that don’t quite seem to be hers.

The first two issues introduce us to Linda and her world: her highly contentious relationship with her parents, a journalist and strange admirer named Cutter, and a demonic acquaintance of hers called Buzz among others. We also learn that Linda’s relationship with the people of Leesburg seems to be full of friction. A lot of them were under the impression that she was dead. OH YEAH – and when she was missing, Supergirl had tried to find her, and somehow the two of them became fused into a single being, one that has more limited versions of Supergirl’s powers and a memory that’s been Swiss Cheesed like Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap. Issues three and four push the book into a crossover with DC’s Final Night (which I wrote about last year) in which Grodd invades her little town and tries to make people embrace their bestial side while faced with the possibility of the death of the sun, and in issue five, Supergirl has a face off with Superman’s old enemy Chemo. 

The supervillain stuff is fine – Peter David was an excellent writer and handled that as well as anybody. But what really made this run (and his work in general for that matter) stand out from the pack was the way he handled characters. Forget the Pre-Crisis Linda Danvers you may remember – this Linda is by no means the paragon of virtue that one would assume to be that Supergirl’s secret identity. 90s Linda is a girl with a past that these first five issues only begin to dig into. Her parents start off as stereotypes: her cop father is an overbearing authority figure and her fundamentalist mother is…well…a fundamentalist mother. But as the series progresses, all three of the Danvers grow into fuller, rounder characters, moving past who you would assume them to be at the beginning. Cutter is an intriguing character as well, and while Buzz…there’s a lot to say about Buzz.

Buzz is a sort of portal for this story into the supernatural, something that Superman-family stories tend to shy away from most of the time. But over the course of this series (particularly the first half) David deals with a lot of metaphysical questions, battles between good and evil on a scale that’s more existential than physical, and questions about mortality and the afterlife. To put it bluntly, it’s a much deeper book than you would expect. 

I’m definitely going to continue reading this series again now that I’ve started. I won’t necessarily write about every issue, but I’ll probably come back with new blogs whenever I hit the high points. In the meantime, if you’ve never read the series, the whole thing is currently available on DC Universe Infinite and, as I mentioned, the two DC’s Finest paperbacks are in stores now. And with the news that Sophie Campbell is planning to bring Matrix back in the current Supergirl comic book, there’s no better time to move in and enjoy one of the most intriguing and most underrated parts of Superman lore. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!

Geek Punditry #178: Compact These II-The Compactening

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Last year (in Geek Punditry #119) I told you guys about DC Comics’ new “Compact Comics” format – a line of bargain-priced paperback editions that collect seminal and popular DC Comics storylines in a smaller format. At $9.99 a pop, these books were quickly recognized as being some of the best deals in comic books, and to date they’ve released or announced no less than 45 volumes in this series. It’s become so popular that everybody else is copying them – Oni Press is doing their own “Compact Comics” in the same size and price point (as mentioned in Geek Punditry #164) and Marvel, Boom! Studios, and IDW have all launched lines of books only slightly larger and slightly more expensive ($14.99 instead of $9.99) which are clearly intended to appeal to the same market. 

With the books being so popular, I gave DC some helpful suggestions last year (in GP #124) of other comics and storylines that I thought were deserving of the Compact Comics treatment. To date, they have run with exactly zero of my suggestions. But that’s okay, I know they’re just playing hard to get.

With everybody else getting in on the fun, this year I’m going to offer more suggestions, but not just for DC. I’m going to throw out a suggestion or two for each of the five publishers (so far) that have gotten into this particular game. And as we know they’re all reading this, I assume you can expect to see these books on store shelves by next Tuesday. Obviously, I won’t suggest anything that’s already in the works, but if you’re interested in seeing what’s available, I’ve compiled a list of everything that’s been announced so far over at my League of Comic Geeks page.

DC Comics: Earth-789

A few years ago, during one of those periodic restructurings of the DC Multiverse, DC announced that the first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies and the Michael Keaton Batman films were canonically part of the same world in their multiverse, which they declared Earth-789. They followed this up with two miniseries under the banners Superman ‘78 and Batman ‘89. (The release years of the movies, obviously – get where the multiverse designation came from now?)

Although the Batman miniseries were egregiously delayed for reasons that were never adequately explained, they weren’t bad. And the two Superman miniseries were GREAT. For their Compact Comics volumes, I would include both miniseries (12 issues total) in one book. But I wouldn’t stop there. All of the movies in these series also received comic book adaptations, so I would begin the Superman volume with the DC adaptations of Superman: The Movie and Superman II, and the Batman book with their adaptations of Batman and Batman Returns.

The other two films in each series aren’t considered canon to Earth-798, but once these two books prove to be the sales colossus we all know they would be, there could be further collections that include the adaptations of those, as well as other ancillary books like the Supergirl adaptation, the Superman Returns prequels, or the spin-off books focusing on the villains from Batman and Robin. There are also sporadic comics set in the worlds of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and the Snyderverse that could theoretically be included somewhere in there, but honestly, I’m most interested in the Earth-789 stuff. Not just because it’s good, but because DC seems to have cooled on the idea of doing more stories set in this universe, and that’s a dang shame. There’s so much potential to be had there, and I would love to see them bring those characters together officially for the first time along with the John Wesley Shipp Flash, Lynda Carter Wonder Woman, and Helen Slater Supergirl to create a Justice League for that universe. They even included Hal Jordan in the second Superman ‘78 miniseries (artist Gavin Guidry modeled him on Kurt Russell as a nice little bit of “casting”), giving them a chance to expand. 

Marvel Comics: Avengers Under Siege

Although most of the Marvel Premier Editions have focused on more recent storylines (by which I mean comics that were published in this century, as opposed to stuff from the era in which I grew up), there’s an Avengers storyline that has always been one of my favorites and deserves the deluxe treatment. In 1986, writer Roger Stern and artist John Buscema wove a nearly year-long story in which the Avengers were infiltrated in their own home, the Avengers mansion, by Baron Zemo’s Masters of Evil. Although the villains had fought – and been bested by – the Avengers time and time again, this attack on their home was a new level of evil, and was one of the first mainstream comics I ever read that showed true, harsh consequences to being a superhero. (It should be noted that I was nine years old when this came out and hadn’t read stuff like the Death of Gwen Stacy yet.)

The story ran through Avengers #270-277, beginning with a subplot in the first few issues as the Avengers went about other business. But things really hit a boiling point in issue #273 when the villains actually broke into the mansion and beat Jarvis, the Avengers’ butler, within an inch of his life. This wasn’t a case of a hero being wounded in battle (although that would happen later in the arc with Hercules), but one of their ancillary characters almost dying because of their proximity to the heroes. Stern used Jarvis to really raise the stakes, wiping away any confidence the reader might have that the Avengers would waltz in and have an easy victory. Over the next four issues, the villains completely destroyed the mansion and nearly killed several Avengers before the heroes finally came out on top, but at no point did their victory feel like a foregone conclusion. That’s a hard trick to pull off in a mainstream comic book, a legitimate feeling of MENACE, but Stern did it.

This story has been collected twice before, in a 1998 trade paperback and a 2010 hardcover, but neither is in print anymore. It’s a great story that should find a new audience. And a Premier edition book would give them a chance to correct an oversight they made with the first two collections, both of which omitted issue #280. This was a sort of epilogue featuring a hospital-laden Jarvis thinking about his years with the Avengers and pondering his future. It belongs in the collection too, folks. 

The three remaining companies that have gotten into this game – Oni Press, IDW, and Boom! Studios – each give me a bit of a quandary. You see, in all three cases, these are publishers that are built on a combination of licensed properties (things like Rick and Morty, Godzilla, or Power Rangers) and books that are owned or co-owned by their creators, rather than being the property of the publisher. There’s no “Oni Universe” like there is at Marvel or DC, and with licensing being what it is, it can sometimes be difficult to determine exactly what comics these publishers currently own the rights to, unless it’s something that’s been published recently. Let’s take them one at a time.

Oni Press

So far, Oni has published or scheduled six of their own “Compact Comics,” all of them connected to either their licenses for the cartoons Rick and Morty or Adventure Time. Earlier this year, however, they announced an upcoming partnership with Archie Comics, and they’re going to publish some of Archie’s “New Riverdale” era in the compact format as well. (This came up in the aforementioned Geek Punditry #164). So besides extending these existing licenses, which Oni comics are deserving of the Compact treatment?

EC Comics. In recent years, Oni has become the new home of the classic publisher EC Comics, the company that gave us the likes of Tales From the Crypt and Weird Science. Oddly, though, rather than continuing those brands (I don’t know why — I would guess some sort of licensing kerfuffle), Oni is using the EC label and style for new, original titles such as Cruel Universe, Catacomb of Torment, and Blood Type. These books – horror comics or a horror/sci-fi blend – have been in production long enough to have built a decent-sized back catalogue, and it would do well to release those in compact form. And if possible, I would also love to see them reprint the classic EC stuff as well, especially the original Tales From the Crypt and its sister comics Vault of Terror and Haunt of Fear.

Since Oni is going to be handling the Archie compacts as well, here’s a bonus suggestion for them: besides just reprinting the “new Riverdale” stuff, and beyond giving us reprints of the Archie classics, I’d like to see them use this format for some of the weirder books in Archie’s catalogue. Their various versions of the Red Circle/Mighty Crusaders superheroes over the years, for example. Or even better, let’s look at the 90s – that was an era when Archie experimented with a lot of new titles with weird hooks. Veronica. Jughead’s Time Police. Dilton’s Strange Science. Jughead’s Pal Hot Dog. Archie’s R/C Racers. Jughead’s Diner. There was a lot of Jughead in these books. And while sadly none of these lasted more than a year (except for Veronica, which started as a book about her travelling to a different country in each issue, then dropped that hook and just became a straightforward Veronica comic), I think they were ahead of their time. There were a lot of stories in those books that I remember fondly, and I’d love to see a Compact Comics edition of some of these. 

IDW Publishing

Of these three latecomers, IDW has already done the most with their line, with a book each for licensed properties Godzilla and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, two volumes of The Rocketeer, and a whopping five collections of their various Star Trek series. They’ve also got one book each for their original series The October Faction and D4VE, and two volumes of what is arguably their flagship original property, Joe Hill’s horror/fantasy epic Locke and Key. Assuming that these series will continue (as they should), let’s dip into their existing catalogue to see what could be added.

Before Locke and Key, the most famous original title published by IDW was probably Steve Niles’ vampire saga 30 Days of Night. The comic – about a town in Alaska where the sun sets for a solid month, making it a virtual buffet for a clan of hungry vampires – was really big in its day, spawning countless sequels, spin-offs, and a movie franchise. The Compact Com–I’m sorry, the “IDW Classic Collection” treatment would be a perfect place for the series to come back and find a whole new audience of readers that came up since the original series was in its heyday.

IDW is also home for the more recent hit Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees, a surrealistic serial killer saga by Patrick Horvath. The story, about a psychotic teddy bear whose careful cover is threatened when a second serial killer begins to strike victims in her home town, has garnered a legion of fans and there are most certainly more volumes in the works. A Classic Collection of the first two series seems like a no-brainer. 

As far as IDW’s many licensed properties, some of the ones that helped build the company in the early 00s and 10s have moved on to other publishers (things like G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Ghostbusters), so those are off the table. However, IDW snatched Sonic the Hedgehog from Archie almost 10 years ago and have had a very successful run, with the main title closing in on 100 issues and plenty of spin-offs to go around. A Classic Collection of that series would do very well. 

IDW was also the most recent publisher of Sam Kieth’s surrealistic superhero The Maxx. Kieth’s comic was originally published by Image, but a few years ago IDW published a remastered series (Maxximized, they called it) with more modern coloring. The book was lovely, and with Kieth sadly passing away a few months ago, I think a Classics Collection – three volumes should be enough for the entire main series – would be a good tribute to his work, much like their Rocketeer books stand sentinel for the late Dave Stevens.

Boom! Studios

The newest kid on the mini-comic block is Boom! Studios. None of their Compact Comics have even been released yet, with the first scheduled for September. Of those that have been announced, there are two volumes of their popular Mighty Morphin Power Rangers license and a one-volume collection of Victor LaVelle and Jo Mi-Gyeong’s post-apocalyptic fable Eve.

I would suggest for Boom! (and to be fair, odds are that SOMEBODY there has already brought this up) that they continue the line with James Tynion’s mega-hit Something is Killing the Children and its spin-off title House of Slaughter. SIKTC is about a small town where children are disappearing. Most aren’t found, and those that DO come back do so with tales of horrors beyond imagining. A stranger named Erica Slaughter appears in town, preparing to fight against the evil that’s engulfing it. The book is scheduled to hit its 50th issue later this year, so there’s plenty of story to share. House of Slaughter, meanwhile, is about the mysterious organization that turned Erica into a monster-hunter. This one lasted for 30 issues, with a new follow-up series, Fall of the House of Slaughter, currently in publication. This is probably Boom!’s crown jewel these days, and they’d be well-advised to Compact ‘em.

As far as their licensed properties go, Boom! has a similar problem as IDW, as many of the licenses they were built on have ended. However, they have a long-standing license to produce comics starring Jim Davis’ legendary fat cat Garfield, with a series that lasted for 36 issues and dozens of spin-off one-shots and miniseries, including a tie-in to last year’s movie and a Baby Garfield miniseries currently on the stands. There’s more than enough content for four or five Garfield collections. And let’s face it, Jim Davis has never met a licensing opportunity he didn’t like. Similarly to Garfield, Boom! also had a long run of comics based on Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts, including an ongoing, a few mini-series, and several original graphic novels. I’d love to have these collected as well, but the most recent Peanuts book from Boom! came out in 2021, and I’m not certain if they still own the license or not. If they do, they should get on it.

There you have it, folks, five publishers and tons of suggestions for books they should add to their rapidly-growing library of smaller-scale comic book collections. I obviously love this format, and I welcome any and all books that can be added to it, but these are some of the ones that I think are really deserving of the treatment.

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. He’s going to go over there on the bench now and stare hard at Image, Dark Horse, and Dynamite Entertainment until they start doing their own Compact lines to go along with everybody else. 

Superman Stuff #22: The 1982 Superman Spectacular

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During the Year of Superman, I devoted about an entire month to the epic 90s saga of Superman Red and Superman Blue. After that, I went back and read the original one-off “imaginary story” that partially inspired it. A few months ago, though, I learned of the existence the 1982 Superman Spectacular, a treasury-sized one-shot reprinting a story originally published in Europe by the Egmont Group (the same company responsible for some of the greatest Disney comics of the post-Gold Key era), which was also a different take on that classic story. Had I known about this book last year, I would have tried to hunt it down and include it then. But since I didn’t, it gets a showcase this week in Superman Stuff. 

Superman Spectacular #1
Title: The Startling Saga of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue!
Plot: Bob Rozakis
Script: Paul Kupperberg
Pencils: Adrian Gonzales
Inks: Vince Colletta
Cover: Adrian Gonzales

Our titanic tale begins when Lex Luthor – this is in his fun and feisty Bronze Age mad scientist era – sends a hologram to a Daily Planet staff meeting to boast that he’s going to pull a heist at S.T.A.R. Labs in an hour. When Superman heads out to thwart him, Luthor attacks with synthetic magic energy (I know, I thought the same thing) generated by a S.T.A.R. experiment. Superman takes precautions, expecting a trap, and defeats Luthor, who turns out to be yet another duplicate – a robot this time.

In space, the real Luthor is approached by Terra-Man, a now-obscure villain that they were REALLY trying to push into the A-list at the time. The Pre-Crisis Terra-Man was literally a child abducted from the old west and raised by aliens. He grew up, killed the aliens, tamed another alien that resembled a pegasus, and came back to Earth in the modern day to be a supervillain for some reason. Why they were trying so hard to make him one of the big guns is beyond me. But having found a chunk of the one substance deadly to Superman, Terra-Man and Luthor decide to partner up and destroy him together. Terra is smart enough not to trust Lex, though, and only speaks to him via an 80s sci-fi Zoom meeting, which turns out to cause a problem, as we shall soon see.

Terra-Man attacks Metropolis with a meteor shower, interrupting a date between Superman and Lois (RIGHT before she was about to say the big L-word to him too), and the Man of Steel jumps into action only to fall right into their Kryptonite trap…but instead of killing him, the Kryptonite wave splits him into two, a red and a blue Superman. Lex and Terra-Man hadn’t met in PERSON to discuss their plans, you see, and on his black-and-white monitor, Lex didn’t realize that Terra-Man had a chunk of RED Kryptonite, not the fatal green variety. If you’re not up on your DCU science, red Kryptonite doesn’t kill a Kryptonian but rather has a different, random effect on them every time they’re exposed to it. (You may have seen classic covers with Superman having an ant head or turning into a giant or something – these were usually red K tales.) Anyway, as the Supermen stop the meteors, although one of them is briefly perplexed when his super-breath temporarily stops working as they’re trying to blow the meteors away. The villains escape and Luthor proceeds to activate his next plan, opening up a magical portal to another dimension, because that’s the kind of thing mad scientists do. 

The twin Supermen stumble over one another at the Planet offices, then discover that some of their powers seem to cut in and out whenever they go into action. Despite that, they charge into battle against the two villains. As Blue battles Terra-Man in space and Red fights Luthor on Earth, Blue finally cracks the secret that the reader figured out 20 pages earlier – the two of them are sharing their powers, and only one of them can use any given power at a time. The realization is a bit too late for Red – on Earth, Lex’s sudden magical expertise has him on the ropes. Fortunately for him, the red Kryptonite wears off at just that second and he fades away, re-fusing with Blue in space. The fully restored Superman makes short work of Terra-Man, but returns to Earth to find that Lex’s magical prowess has intensified. In the ensuing battle, Lois Lane is hurled into a wall and nearly killed. Superman rushes to her side and tries to think of a scientific way to save her, a magical way to save her…but ultimately he discards both of those choices and brings her back with…

Okay, I’m just gonna quote the book here.

“Superman knows…of a force mightier than science and magic…mightier even than himself! And though the world would likely go on anyway, he calls upon this greatest of powers – the deity the people of Krypton called Rao! We know that force by other names on Earth – across the dimensions, in every universe, it is also known…it is love.”

Yeah, Superman saves Lois from the brink of death with the Power of Love. Which is also evidently what the Kryptonian sun-god Rao is. I wonder if Huey Lewis had any idea when he wrote that song.

What an odd little book. So strange, so utterly Bronze Age Superman. There are a lot of fun ideas and some nice moments when Red and Blue butt heads a little bit, although unlike the later version of the story it’s because they’re TOO MUCH alike rather than too different from one another. Maybe it comes from growing up in an era where a story like this would have lasted at least three or four issues, but the whole thing feels somewhat rushed to me. It’s like the storytellers had the basic idea, then once they figured they’d gotten all the mileage they could out of the split Superman concept, they wrapped it up as quickly as possible. But it’s fun to read, despite all of that. I’m honestly quite surprised we haven’t seen it reprinted for over 40 years, and I wonder if Egmont technically owns it. I can’t think of any other reason it’s sitting in obscurity when so many other books show up again and again. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!

Superman Stuff #21: Review Roundup for May 13 through 27

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Thaaaat’s right, once again, it’s time to take a look at some of the recent Superman-related comics that DC has turned out for us. Including another heapin’ helpin’ of Mark Waid, a dash of dandy Dan Mora, more-a of those Superboys reignin’, and Superman’s return to Elseworlds!

Action Comics #1098
Title: Future Shock Part Two (A Reign of the Superboys tie-in)
Writer: Mark Waid
Artists: Skylar Patridge and Patricia Delpeche
Main Cover: Ryan Sook

The time-tossed team of Martian Manhunter, Booster Gold, and Mary Marvel are in Smallville with Clark Kent early in his career as Superboy, and it’s not looking good when they learn that the villain they chased into the past, Epoch, has stolen the rocket that brought baby Kal-El to Earth in the first place. There’s a fight and a face-off, which of course is to be expected in a superhero comic book, but none of that is where this issue really shines. The heart of the book comes in the middle section, as Jonathan and Martha recount the story of how they found the baby to the time-travelers. Waid, of course, recently cleaned up DC’s timeline with his New History of the DC Universe series, so if there’s anybody we can consider an expert on what’s currently canon and what isn’t, it’s probably him. Seeing the current version of Superman’s origin presented answers a few questions and clarifies things, and leads to a surprisingly sweet moment between J’onn and the Kents. 

As with last issue, though, I’m absolutely loving the Mary/Clark dynamic. I really like the characterization of Mary as the older sibling of the Marvel family, and she carries that over here to her interactions with Clark, leading to a delightful scene where she decides to play wingwoman for him in his relationship with Lana. It’s a highly entertaining moment, although I do very much wonder if we’ll ever see a scene after Superman returns in the present timeline where the two of them talk about this.

Strong artwork by Skylar Patridge and Patricia Delpeche give the issue a sort of finishing touch. With issue #1100 coming up, it seems as though the time-missing Superman storyline is about to come to an end, but I hope that doesn’t mean an end to Waid’s time in Smallville, because these stories have been a lot of fun. 

Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #51
Title: Warlords Part One
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Adrian Gutierrez
Main Cover: Dan Mora

Over in World’s Finest, which is ALSO set in the past (early in the partnership of Superman, Batman, and the Dick Grayson Robin), it’s time for a trip to the Arctic. Our heroes are tracking the flight path of a missing Air Force pilot, one who vanished on the same trajectory as another missing pilot, one Travis Morgan. Of course, the world’s finest get zapped to the out-of-time world of Skartaris and find themselves fighting alongside Morgan, the Warlord, in battle against the mysterious Tyrant Rex. Robin, of course, is wild about the dinosaurs. Superman is less wild about the magic flying around this little corner of the DC Universe.

I’ve never gotten super into Warlord. Its heyday was before my time as a comic book reader, and the various attempts to bring him back over the years have never quite landed. That said, I do enjoy watching Waid play with all the toys available in the DC Universe, and this is no exception. He used the time differential between the “normal” world and Skartaris to good effect here, changing things up for our heroes almost immediately upon entering the lost land, and Batman and Robin are thrust into rescue mode fairly early. 

Gutierrez draws some wildly fun dinosaurs, and he really sells the “acting” with the characters’ faces, particularly Robin, whom we are reminded time and again is pretty young in this series. He behaves like a younger version of the Dick Grayson we know – a little more impulsive, a little less confident, but still with the same solid heart.

This remains one of my favorite series that DC is putting out. 

Superman Unlimited #13
Title: Primal Fears (A Reign of the Superboys tie-in
Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Lucas Meyer
Main Cover: Taurin Clarke

This issue starts with the greatest character in comics, Bibbo Bibbowski, taking care of the monkey he found last issue. Some goons from the lab the monkey escaped show up trying to get him back, and things get much rougher than they expected. The time-tossed younger version of Jon Kent, meanwhile, is having nightmares about the torture he endured at the hands of Ultraman, while the older Jon – now calling himself Tomorrow Man – finds that a masked hero in Metropolis doesn’t necessarily enjoy the same kind of trust from the public that he may be used to. The two Jons are called into action when the super-monkey starts tearing it up. 

I’m not going to keep playing coy here – the story works great as a reintroduction of Beppo the Super-Monkey into the DC Universe, although the origin that Slott chooses for him here has a lot of 90s flavor to it, bringing back the long-missing Dabney Donovan character. I also like the dynamic he’s playing with the two Jons and Lois, who is far too smart not to figure out what the deal is with Tomorrow Man, and Slott seems to be leaning into that. I really don’t know what the endgame of this particular storyline is going to be, and that’s a nice feeling in a day and age where everything gets spoiled yesterday. It’s a longshot, but I think that if things shook out with young Jon/Superboy and old Jon/Tomorrow Man coexisted in the DCU long-term, I’d be okay with it.

Of course, Jon is still wearing the “S” over in New Titans, so that’s probably not going to happen.

Supergirl #13
Title: Hero of Kandor Part Three (A Reign of the Superboys tie-in)
Writer, Artist, & Main Cover: Sophie Campbell

Kara’s adventure in Kandor continues. With Black Flame causing chaos, Supergirl – now stuck with some cyborg parts, in case you missed last issue – tracks down Lesla-Lar to try to get her help. Lesla, meanwhile, has something very, very important to show our heroine, and it might just change things for Kara Zor-El for good.

It really feels like Campbell has been building up to this story since issue #1, and that’s a great thing. All of the stuff with Lesla and Lena and Kara showing her constant compassion and trust in people who were once her enemies is paying off in really interesting and unexpected ways. Ultimately, we still aren’t 100 percent sure what side Lesla is going to land on once all of this is over, and Campbell has set it up in such a way that either choice would be conceivably in-character. That’s quite a trick, and it’s pulled off impressively. 

If there’s anything to complain about, it’s that the whole “Reign of the Superboys” tie-in feels more tacked on than ever. Conner finally makes it into Kandor in this issue, but he’s only around for a couple of frankly unnecessary pages before the story moves back to Kara. It really feels as though Campbell had the story planned and in the works when editorial put out an edict that Conner Kent had to feature into these post-DC KO issues somehow, then she just kind of crowbarred him in where she could while causing minimal disruption to the narrative. If that’s the case, then it’s a failure on editorial’s part, not Campbell’s, and the pages without Conner at all work just fine at telling an interesting, gripping story that only really could be told with Kara Zor-El. 

Superman #38
Title: Prime Time Part Three (A Reign of the Superboys tie-in)
Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artist and Main Cover: Dan Mora

I didn’t have a Superboy-Prime/Witchfire pairing on my 2026 wish list, but here we are. Witchfire, a magic user from Kurt Busiek’s fun and forgotten series Power Company, is looking for an innocent soul to use in a spell she needs. Unfortunately, she has TOTALLY misread the aura of that cute guy at the comic shop. All is not lost, though – Superboy-Prime IS in the midst of a redemption arc, after all, and this seems like just the way to do it.

Williamson is clearly having fun with this. He leans more into the meta nature of Prime in this issue, and the last act of the book dives into it headfirst, with the return of this arc’s true villain and Prime being thrust into what is possibly his own worst nightmare. But the amazing, encouraging thing here is that we never feel like his attempts at redemption are fake or forced or cheap. Williamson has successfully convinced us that Prime sincerely wants to reform and become a hero like he always wanted, and despite the horrific crimes he committed in the past (some of which we are specifically reminded of in this issue), the reader finds themselves rooting for him. It’s an odd feeling, to look at someone who once casually slaughtered Teen Titans like they were nothing and find yourself pulling for him. But the whole thing kind of plays into a personal philosophy of redemption that I subscribe to. I’ve got to believe – hell, for the good of the WORLD I’ve got to believe – that redemption is possible. And that if someone truly wants to become a better person today than they were yesterday, at the very least they deserve the opportunity to TRY.

Admittedly, applying that philosophy to a murderer is totally on the extreme end, but just ask yourself how many bad guys joined the heroes on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and tell me if what’s going on with Prime here is really all that different.

Dan Mora’s artwork, as usual, is wonderful. I’ve talked before about how some artists are good at “acting” with their characters, and this issue is a fantastic example of that – the sweet, nervous flirtation between C.K. and Rebecca is written not only on their faces, but in their body language as well. It’s such a small thing, but it adds so much to the story. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I almost don’t want the real Superman to come back to this title just yet, because I’m not ready for this story to end. 

Justice League Unlimited #19
Title: Amnesty Part One
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist and Main Cover Dan Mora

Speaking of redemption, why don’t we peek in on what the Justice League is doing, shall we? Lex Luthor went public with the League’s plan to offer amnesty to certain super villains as part of their larger plan to fortify the defenses against the darkness they know is coming (that’s what DC All In is all about, Charlie Brown), and as you might have expected, public perception is NOT what the League may have hoped for. Meanwhile, Guy Gardner’s team is en route to Oa to hide the Power Bank with backups of the Leaguers’ respective super-powers, and Superboy (Conner) and Steel (Natasha) get a nasty surprise when they’re hanging out with Air Wave.

I mentioned this last issue, but I love the way that Mark Waid is juggling so many storylines at once. The “main” story, the one with Lex Luthor working with the League’s big guns and (in this issue, at least) rounding up villains who are falsely claiming amnesty, is really fascinating. Luthor, as a character, is the sort who always has something up his sleeve and you can never actually trust him, but considering what he and the other participants in the KO tournament know about the future, this is a case where it’s possible that he really is being genuine, even his motives are ultimately selfish. The fun here is trying to figure out just exactly HOW much is self-interest and self-preservation.

The other storylines are looked at quickly, but progress as well. Guy Gardner and the Justice Gang (if you’re gonna use the characters from the movie I’m gonna use the name from the movie) naturally run into some problems in the course of their mission, and just when you thought poor Air Wave’s troubles were over, they get worse. I’m looking forward to seeing them take the forefront next issue.

Dan Mora – have I mentioned that Dan Mora is really, really freaking good at what he does? And he’s doing it TWICE A MONTH. Plus about a billion covers. Dude is a machine. 

Superman: Father of Tomorrow #1
Title: Planetfall
Writer: Kenny Porter
Artist and Main Cover: Danny Earl

I’ve been waiting for this ever since DC announced they were bringing back the Elseworlds imprint. While alternate versions of Superman have featured in some of the books like Dark Knights of Steel or the Gotham By Gaslight sequels, this is the first of the new Elseworlds to explicitly be a Superman comic.

Not Kal-El, mind you, but I’ll take what I can get.

In Father of Tomorrow, the catch is that rather than Kal-El, it was JOR-El who escaped Krypton’s destruction and came to Earth, Similarly to what happened to his son in the main universe, he crashes to Earth in Smallville, Kansas, and is taken in by the Kents, who pass him off as Jonathan’s younger brother, Jordan. Jordan lives with the Kents, hiding the truth of his alien ancestry for years, until something happens that spurs him to come out of hiding and use his power and advanced Kryptonian technology to make the Earth a better place.

This first issue is intriguing. Porter uses a lot of familiar Superman elements, characters, and even standard plot points from various versions of Superman’s origin to put together this story, but the fact that it’s about an adult Jor-El instead of baby Kal-El twists things in curious ways. Jor-El is well-meaning, to be certain, but by the end of the first issue we start to get an ominous feeling that perhaps his good intentions are going to lead him down a dark path.

I don’t want this to be yet another “evil Superman” story by the end of it, but let’s be honest here. It’s an Elseworlds, and an awful lot of the classic Elseworlds stories had tragic endings. It wouldn’t be out of character for that to happen here.

I like Danny Earls’ artwork. His designs for Jor-El’s costume and the Kryptonian technology are unique and exciting, and contrast the idyllic small-town feel of Smallville in just the right way.

So far so good, folks. Let’s see if you can keep it going. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!

Superman Stuff #20: Blake’s Superman Shelves, LEGO Edition

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As you may have heard, I’m a bit of a nerd. And also a bit of a collector. I like toys and figures and knicknacks. I like cool stuff. And of course, I also like Superman. These are a pair of passions that, as you can imagine, collide frequently. 

At some point I decided to build a little spot in my classroom where I’d showcase my love of the Man of Steel. The Superman Shelves have grown over the years, and every year at about this time when I’m packing up the classroom for the summer I start to ponder things like whether I should cut back on what I have on display or just buy more shelves for the fall. This year, though, as I started to put things away, I decided to do a little visual documentation of the various and sundry Superman-related items I had on the shelves. Then, because I am in fact that kind of nerd, I decided to do the same with the various and sundry Superman-related items I have at home. 

And then, because it’s 2026 and nothing is real unless it’s preserved on the internet, I decided to share some of the collection with you. 

There are frankly ENTIRELY too many of these things for me to share them all in one blog entry, so I’m going to break them up into many different ones. Or maybe it’ll just be this first post and it’ll turn out to be a dud so I never try something like this again. That’s the fun of the thing – not to know.

I’m going to start our journey through Blake’s Superman Shelves with the LEGO section. Among the many things I’m nerdy about is LEGO. I love LEGO. I love building, because it’s a kind of nice mental break – the fun of creation without the stress of doing it from whole cloth. I love collecting the figures, because I love the idea of mixing and matching characters from different worlds all in the same style. I’m even enough of a dork that I insist on capitalizing all of the letters in LEGO just like you’re officially supposed to do, and I know that LEGO is the name of the system, whereas the individual pieces are NOT called “Legos” but, more appropriately, LEGO bricks. If anybody is still reading after all that, you’re my kinda people.

Some of the figures I’m about to show you are from actual, official LEGO sets. Others are figures that I bought from customizers, people who print on blank figures to create characters or versions of characters that don’t have an official release. You can find these guys at most conventions, and I always check out their selection when I see them. It’s an awesome way to build out your world. 

In this first collage, we see the figures of Superman himself that I’ve got on display. At the top left is a Superman from the sadly-defunct LEGO Dimensions video game. I’m not a gamer, but when I heard about this game that allowed you to mix and match characters from dozens of different universes in LEGO form, I was sorely tempted. I never took the plunge, though. This figure was actually given to me by a student, and it came with the base that I used to take the pictures with the rest of these figures. Next to him you’ve got a DC Rebirth-era Superman and a Superman from the 2025 movie, which inexplicably had no LEGO sets.

In the next row you’ve got another fairly standard Superman, although this one has a rubber cape, a black suit Superman from Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and Superman in his Santa Claus outfit along with a sack of toys, unless he’s going to Lex Luthor’s house, in which case it is undoubtedly coal. 

The next collage are members of the Superman family or Superman-adjacent characters. At the top we’ve got two versions of Supergirl, one from the Melissa Benoist TV show and one of Supergirl going to the same Christmas party as her cousin. On the bottom row is a 2025 Krypto, who I got at the same convention where I got the 2025 Superman. Next to him is Lex Luthor in his Superman armor, which was an official LEGO release that came in a minibag by itself. And on the end is Sloth from Goonies, another LEGO Dimensions figure, who I include among the Superman shelves because…I mean, come on.

The last image is a couple of extras that don’t go with the other figures on their usual board. Superman in his mech suit came from a release that came out many years ago, which also had a Lex Luthor and Wonder Woman figure. Next to him is a Superman keychain with a flashlight in his foot – this guy was a gift from my wife’s best friend (and maid of honor at our wedding) Natalie, who also gave Erin a similar Harley Quinn figure at the same time.

There we are, guys, the first glimpse at Blake’s Superman Shelves. I’ve got a LOT more where this came from, so if you enjoyed this peek and want to see more, let me know!

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!

Geek Punditry #175: Something For the Kids

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It’s the end of the school year, and as a teacher, that means that I’m hip-deep in data and swimming in a pool of number crunching, which wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that I teach English specifically to avoid math. But as such, I’ve got my hands full, so let’s have just a quick chat in this week’s Geek Punditry, shall we?

Earlier this week, I was sent an invitation to participate in a survey regarding DC Comics’ Absolute Universe. It seems a little silly to make that the focus of any serious scrutiny, as they’re currently selling comics faster than Taylor Swift could sell out a 75-seat Black Box theater, but I’m always happy to share my two cents. It’s actually the last question in the survey that got me thinking today: they asked the ever-classic, open-ended, “Is there anything else about DC Comics or the Absolute Universe you would like us to know?”

Seriously, does this seem like a program that requires notes of any kind?

Now, I have no illusions that my words will actually make it to the ears of the people who have the power to do anything. I honestly would be surprised if they make it to human ears at all – I’ve got a horrible suspicion that these surveys are crunched by some AI algorithm that summarizes the responses and hallucinates an added suggestion that Superman’s mermaid ex-girlfriend Lori Lemaris should start dating Detective Chimp, which I’m pretty sure would be illegal in at least 17 states. But I thought about it anyway, and I told ‘em what I think is the biggest problem I have at the moment with DC – a company that is currently on a wild upswing that I’ve been enjoying very much.

Where’s the DC Universe stuff for the kids?

People who don’t read comic books regularly may find this question surprising. After all, aren’t superheroes inherently for kids? And the answer is, no, they’re not, especially since 1985. Sure, since in the early days of the genre, children have been attracted to superhero comics, but although there have been certain specific titles geared towards them, the genre as a whole has largely targeted a broader audience. Then, as that audience aged, so did the genre’s target. The result is that the DC Universe doesn’t currently have any regular comics that are appropriate for a younger audience. 

Okay, I guess there’s ONE.

This problem isn’t exclusive to DC by any means – Marvel, Image, none of the major players really have a ton of stuff in their main line that’s child-friendly. And that’s not to say that there are no DC Comics for younger readers. There’s a robust line of Young Adult graphic novels, and other books geared towards children. If my 8-year-old son came up and asked me to read a Superman comic book, I could get Rob Justus’s charming Superman’s Good Guy Gang and give it to him. And my oldest niece, who was just at the right age to get into the DC Super Hero Girls when they first hit about a decade ago, is also at the right age for the upcoming DC Super Hero Girls Class Reunion graphic novel they’re about to drop, as well as dozens of other solid books. There’s stuff out there.

But the vast majority of them are not part of the DC Universe proper. Books like these aren’t part of the tapestry of the story that’s been unravelling across the pages of the monthly Superman, Justice League, Green Lantern, Flash, Batman, and Wonder Woman titles for the past couple of years now. These graphic novels are good introductions to the characters, but it’s not quite as easy for these young readers to find a way into the world, because by and large the main DC books aren’t being written for them. That may seem insignificant, but I think it matters. Readers may pick up an original graphic novel, but that attachment to the larger narrative makes it feel like books have consequence. Even the Absolute Universe probably wouldn’t be as popular if the titles were all self-contained, but they are specifically earmarked as their own universe, which is interacting (slowly but surely) with the main DCU through their multiverse. That matters.

Even the comics about younger characters don’t feel like they’re being aimed at younger readers. The current New Titans run is only two issues deep, but it’s full of time travel and mind manipulation and other things that would confuse the heck out of a younger kid trying to read it. Firestorm is one of DC’s younger heroes (in terms of the characters’ age in-universe, although he’s been around since the late 70s), and while his new series started off with a bang, it’s the kind of bang that makes it clear this is a series that’s going to delve into deep psychological issues regarding power and trauma, and that’s not what I’m looking for here.

Nuclear holocausts make for great playground reading.

Marvel has the same trouble, but the way. If you pick up recent issues of Miles Morales: Spider-Man (probably the youngest character with his own title) you’d get a lot of dense stories and characters that would push away a newcomer. Even Gail Simone’s excellent Uncanny X-Men, which features Rogue leading a team of veteran X-Men as they try to shepherd a group of new teenage mutants just coming into their powers, is a great book for an audience of teens and above. But there’s nothing “below” that comes from the main Marvel Universe any more than DC.

And look, none of this is to complain about any of the books that I’ve mentioned. I certainly don’t think Gail Simone should shift her focus to make a book that’s appropriate for 8-year-olds, and doing such a thing with the Absolute Universe would be like finding a machine that dispenses unlimited chicken nuggets and then kicking it to pieces because it doesn’t also give you french fries. I need to stop writing these columns before lunch. I’m just saying that I wish there were more comics in addition to those that I could share with the likes of my son, my nieces and nephews, or students. 

FOR EXAMPLE…

In the 80s, one of Marvel’s most acclaimed (if not best-selling) comics was Power Pack by Louise Simonson and June Brigman, then later Jon Bogdanove. It was a book about a group of four brothers and sisters – actual children, I think the oldest was around 12 when the series started – who were given powers by a dying alien to help save Earth from an invader. Once the job was done, they kept the powers and became superheroes. This book hit almost EXACTLY at the same time that I started reading comic books, and it quickly became a favorite of mine. It still is, honestly, because Simonson had an astonishing talent for writing characters who felt, behaved, and talked like actual children, while at the same time, demonstrating true courage and heroism. And it was firmly entrenched in the Marvel Universe, with the kids frequently running into the likes of Spider-Man and the X-Men, even inviting Wolverine and Kitty Pryde to their house for Thanksgiving. Later in the run, the kids added Franklin Richards – son of Reed and Sue of the Fantastic Four – as an official member of the team. They even participated in crossover events like Secret Wars II and occasionally guest star in other titles, just like real superheroes do.

And I think it’s important to note that Power Pack was about children, but it wasn’t exclusively FOR children. Even at the time, adult readers enjoyed it quite a bit, with it being nominated for awards and placed on lots of “best of the year” lists for the first few years of the run. But that acclaim didn’t come at the expense of telling a story that kids COULD enjoy.

It’s been a very long time since there was a comic book series that fit that description that was set in one of the mainstream shared comic book universes. 

And with comics on an upswing – a wonderful, glorious upswing – wouldn’t this be a great time to put out some stuff that opens doors at the beginning of the reading spectrum instead of just having stuff for those of us who have been reading for a while?

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. Something something Captain Carrot. 

Superman Stuff #19: Review Roundup-April 18 Through May 6

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Another roundup of reviews, starting with some of the comics that were dropped on Superman Day back on April 18. I didn’t bother reviewing the reprint books (many of which I’ve covered before during the Year of Superman), but there are a couple with new material that I wanted to showcase, both featuring Supergirl. Let’s dig in!

Supergirl: The World (Superman Day Special Edition)
Title: (Story 1) Supergirl Y La Maliciosa, (Story 2) The Extraction
Writer/Artist: (Story 1) Aneke
Writer: (Story 2) Yann Krehl
Artist: (Story 2) Marie Sann
Main Cover: Joelle Jones

DC’s line of The World anthologies is an interesting concept. Round up comic book creators from different parts of…well…it’s the title. And then have them do a story about that book’s star set in their home country. The first three featured Batman, the Joker, and Superman (which I reviewed last year), and this summer it’s going to be Kara’s turn. This Superman Day special previews two of the stories from that book.

In the first story, by Aneke, Supergirl visits an art museum in Spain and overhears a conversation about a mountain featured in one of the paintings, one that is supposedly the home of a witch. Curious, she sets out to visit the mountain, “La Maliciosa,” and finds a climber with a bit of a secret. It’s a simple story that kind of has a Bronze Age feel to it, echoing the kind of things that we’d get from the Supergirl comics of the era. The art is really quite lovely. Whether it was intentional or not, Aneke invokes the same feel as Bilquis Evely’s work on Woman of Tomorrow, which is nicely appropriate. The second story is “The Extraction,” by Yann Krehl and Marie Sann. In this one, after the Justice League liberates a group of aliens that were being held captive and subject to experiments in Germany, Supergirl is sent undercover to try to locate one lost extraterrestrial that managed to escape before its comrades were freed. It’s a fun story, with gorgeous art by Sann preventing it from feeling as dark as the premise would suggest. The pages look like art from a modern Disney movie more than your average superhero comic, and that works exceptionally well.

No doubt when the full anthology drops on June 2, there will be a mixture of hits and misses. These two are a nice appetizer, and I’m looking forward to reading the book.

Supergirl’s Zoo-Per Heroes: Krypto’s Big Break (Superman Day Special Edition)
Writer, Artist, AND Cover: Rob Justus

Last year cartoonist Rob Justus brought us the early reader’s graphic novel Superman’s Good Guy Gang, featuring Hawkgirl and Guy Gardner, who you may have heard were in a movie with Big Blue last summer. This year he comes back with a new book that also seems poised to whet the appetite of the kiddies anticipating this year’s cinematic adventure. An accident somehow transfers the powers of the Justice League to a group of zoo animals, and it’s up to Supergirl and Krypto to fix things. The book also includes a preview of the sequel to Good Guy Gang, Follow the Leader, in which the one character who was bafflingly missing from last year’s book joins the fun. I like Justus’s sensibility a lot. It reminds me of Art Baltazar and Franco’s Tiny Titans, albeit lighter on the inside jokes for longtime readers. But these two previews promise a pair of silly, fun books that seem like they’ll be perfect for the superhero fan who’s just learning to read. 

Superman Unlimited #12
Title: Besides Myself (a Reign of the Superboys tie-in)
Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Lucas Meyer
Main Cover: Taurin Clarke

Last issue Jon Kent met Master Txyn, a more malevolent imp than our usual pal Mxyzptlk, whose taunting of the young Kryptonian prompted him to take on a new identity, Tomorrow Man. But before the sewing needle on his costume had time to cool Jon found a whole new complication dropping in his lap: a time-displaced version of himself from one of the most traumatic parts of his past. 

This issue, he decides to take young Jon to Lois, who just happens to be getting a visit from Batman and Robin (checking in on her in Superman’s continued absence). Adult-Jon decide to keep his own identity a secret, although Slott at least lampshades the fact that he’s got an uphill battle trying to keep a secret in a room that includes the world’s greatest detective, the world’s greatest investigative journalist, and his own best friend. Meanwhile, the El Cadero storyline moves along a little big as well, with the Kryptonite-rich nation announcing plans to use it as an energy source. However, more nefarious purposes seem to be in the works as well, and an escapee of an experiment makes a new friend.

Part of me almost wishes that this book was setting up a new status quo for the Superman titles. I’ve never liked the fact that we lost the child Jonathan in lieu of a teenage version (you may have heard me mention this once or twice), and the idea of having Young Jon living with Lois and Clark again while still having Grown-Up Jon doing his thing wouldn’t be the worst compromise. However, the Jon we have in this issue isn’t the one that I miss. This is a kid who has already undergone some horrific stuff, and grappling to deal with it looks like it’s going to be part of the character arc here. 

Slott has a little fun with the other characters here as well. Damian Wayne’s highly paranoid nature comes right into play, as it probably should, and one of my favorite supporting characters in the whole Superman family shows up in the B-plot, making for a delightfully absurd exchange right out of a Looney Tunes short.

I’m really not sure where Slott is going with this story, but I’m interested in it, which hopefully comes across as the compliment that it’s intended as. 

Superman #37
Title: Prime Time Part Two (a Reign of the Superboys tie-in)
Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artist: Dan Mora
Main Cover: Dan Mora

The Superboy-Prime saga continues this issue. Having settled in to his new life in Metropolis, Prime seems to be doing okay. He’s helping people, beating villains, and despite his tardiness he’s even making ground at his new job at the comic book store. But his past hangs over his head, with the Justice League tracking him down when he goes for a simple dinner with the Kents in Smallville. An encounter in Gotham City doesn’t go much better. What’s a reformed mass murderer with fourth wall awareness to do?

I’m really quite surprised to see this issue pull back from the “main” storyline for what is mostly 20 pages of character building…surprised, but not at all disappointed. Williamson’s re-casting of Prime into someone trying to atone for his past is working surprisingly well. What’s more, he’s even carving out a fairly unique place for the character but putting together bits and pieces of various other characters. Sure, he’s got Superman’s powers, but he’s got an awareness of his comic book origins that’s playing with in a different way than characters like Deadpool or She-Hulk. And now it seems like Williamson is adding on a healthy dollop of what can only be termed “the ol’ Parker luck.” Somehow, all of this is coming together to make for a really entertaining character. 

Dan Mora’s work is as phenomenal as ever, and he’s got a LOT going on in this issue. Despite the fact that the action is relatively low, he still manages to deliver a great (if brief) fight scene in the sewers of Gotham and some really excellent “acting” on the faces of the characters, particularly Jonathan and Martha Kent. All of the Superman books are solid right now, but I would never have believed a year ago that a title starring Superboy-Prime would be the gem of the line.

Absolute Superman #19
Title: Red Steel in the Hour of Chaos (Reign of the Superman Part Two)
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Rafa Sandoval
Main Cover: Rafa Sandoval

Last issue Superman, Lois, and a newcomer with a hammer named John Henry Irons broke into Lazarus only to find a captive who’s been off the board for millennia: Teth-Adam, alias King Shazam. This issue is a lot of fight and a little backstory, filling in some of the history of this Absolute Universe. It’s a good reminder that this isn’t just a “What If?” scenario, where there’s a single point of divergence that separates this universe from the DCU that we know, but rather a universe that was shaped in the image of Darkseid from its very inception.

To me, to a guy whose favorite Superman side-character is Steel, I’m really happy to see their version of him show up. Like the mainstream version, we’re presented with a man blessed with a great mind and great compassion, cursed to live in a world where it seems like neither of those things are valued. Like Superman himself, he seems to be the kind of person that’s clinging to hope in this world where such a thing is more of a liability than an asset.

Sandoval’s artwork is sharp as heck. Any time you pit a Kryptonian against somebody with the power of Shazam, you’re going to have to be ready to bring the scale that such a face-off demands, and Sandoval does a great job really selling this as a conflict that reaches a global scale.

Every time I think I can’t find enough good things to say about this series, I find more.

Adventures of Superman: House of El #8
Title: The Wizard and the Queen
Writer: Phillip Kennedy Johnson
Artist: Cian Tormey
Main Cover: Scott Godlewski

As Superman heads to Tamaran, he finds yet another descendant (because apparently in this future the sentient population of the universe is roughly 57 percent House of El) coming under fire. Meanwhile, Ronan and Rowan Kent face off against Pyrrhos the Red and learn the shocking (yawn) truth about his origins.

I’d hoped that the return of Rowan Kent would help this series pick up, as she’s been the element that I’ve been most interested in so far, but alas. We don’t explore her corner of the universe, but rather delve back into all of the Els that are running around, apparently reproducing like Kardashians on a bad day. Johnson just keeps throwing more and more things at the reader, and it’s not sticking. The story is trying to be Dune and it’s trying to be Game of Thrones and there’s a healthy chunk taken from Arthurian Legend, and when you put it all together you’ve got something that’s just not working for me.

There are a thousand characters running around here and, despite the fact that it seems like they’re all related to Superman, I don’t care enough about any of them to keep track of who they are. When this series is over, I’m going to have to go back and try reading the whole thing in one go. I’m just not getting into it, and I don’t know if that’s because there’s not enough to keep my interest alive from one month to the next or if it’s really just as big a mess as it feels like.

DC X Sonic the Hedgehog: Metal Legion #1
Title: Metal Legion Part One
Writer: Ian Flynn
Artist: Adam Bryce Thomas
Main Cover: Pablo M. Collar

The first DC/Sonic crossover last year was a lot of silly fun, so I wasn’t surprised when this sequel was announced. I was a little surprised, though, when the book jumps right into a massive status quo change: portals have appeared all over the globe, seemingly stable portals that connect the Justice League’s Earth to Sonic’s world. With travel between the two worlds now simple and safe, the heroes of both universes reconnect with their old friends. Of course, the more paranoid amongst them (Batman and Shadow, obviously) are in the business of investigating the portals, finding clues that point to some old foes.

Most of this issue is just showing the heroes bouncing back and forth between worlds and partnering up with the friends they made last time: Flash and Sonic having a race, Amy joining Wonder Woman and the rest of the Amazons in battle against Hades, and Knuckles and Superman introducing Supergirl and Krypto to someone they know will get along with them famously. I like the fact that the story seems to be expanding in scope this time as well. Besides Supergirl and Krypto, it seems like this time the Titans are joining in on the fun, and the last page promises to bring in more of the DC’s less savory elements as well. This is one of those first issues that feels more prologue than actual beginning, with only the scene in Gotham and the last few pages where we meet our villains actually seeming to progress the plot. That doesn’t bother me much, but it does suggest that this is a story that’s been paced for the inevitable collected edition.

New Titans #34
Title: The Future is Tomorrow Part Two
Writer: Tate Brombal
Artist: Sami Basri
Main Cover: Taurin Clarke

I gave the first issue for this new direction of Titans a lot of grace, because it was a new writer that was just beginning to set up a new path for the team. This issue we’re starting to see the shape a little bit, and while there are things that I like, others have me skeptical.

Part One of this story showed up the classic Titans line-up trapped in some sort of time bubble, bouncing around to different parts of their history and seemingly unaware of what was going on. It wasn’t until the last-page incursion of a new group of younger heroes (including Jonathan Kent, which is why I’m including it in “Superman Stuff”) that the spell started to crack. This issue we learn more: the pocket reality the Titans have been existing in was created by an aftermath of what happened in the whole DC KO extravaganza, and the newbies are apparently young heroes the Titans have had their eyes on as potential recruits.

All of that is perfectly fine. What’s bothering me here is more the way these new Titans are introduced. We get a few pages of narration explaining that these folks were selected because they’re the FUTURE and they’re gonna be SO AWESOME and dear GOD, do I hate that. The old writing adage of “show, don’t tell” isn’t always true – sometimes, you’ve GOTTA tell to get the point across. But when it comes to convincing the reader how great a character is, telling is perhaps the worst thing you can do. If a writer starts expounding upon how wonderful a character is without actually doing the work of crafting a story that allows them to demonstrate their awesomeness, that’s an immediate turn-off to me. And often, it’s a black mark against the character that takes some writing rehab to escape.

That said, it’s a relatively short sequence in this issue that bothers me. If it was just a one-off thing and the rest of the story works, I can be forgiving of it. It’ll all come down to what else Brombal does in this arc, I think, as to whether this newest iteration of the Titans is going to be able to stand on its own.

Justice League Unlimited #18
Title: Aftermath Part Two
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Clayton Henry
Main Cover: Dan Mora

Superman is still missing, and does not appear in this issue. In fact, as far as actual members of the family go, only Supergirl makes a (one-panel) appearance. But the thumbprint of our boy blue is all over this issue, so I really want to talk about it, and it’s my blog, so nyeah.

In the aftermath (hence the title) of DC KO, the participants were each given a glimpse of the future, including a dire warning about an upcoming battle that will make their struggle against Darkseid pale in comparison. In recognition of the threat, something that goes beyond normal concepts of “good” and “evil,” the Justice League is implementing an amnesty program, inviting supervillains who promise to be on their best behavior to join them – including Lex Luthor. Lex being Lex, of course, he’s got his own agenda, but at the very least it doesn’t seem to run COUNTER to the whole “saving the entirety of creation” thing the Justice League has going on, so we’re gonna cross our fingers for the moment.

It’s not the first time, by any means, that we’ve seen the toy with Lex playing hero, but they’ve always found different ways to go about it, which I rather enjoy. Waid also has done good work selecting which characters to feature here (Giganta is another one who joins the amnesty program, and one for whom rehabilitation seems far more possible than, say, the Joker). And they even get to show us what failsafes they’ve put in place to make sure the bad guys trying to break good remain on their best behavior. In fact, Waid is really embracing the “unlimited” part of the title here, expanding the cast even beyond its already-impressive roster and running multiple storylines that all weave in and out of each other. In addition to the Lex Luthor story, we also get to see a mission to Oa comprised of Guy Gardner, Mr. Terrific, Hawkgirl, and Metamorpho (wait…where have I seen THAT group together before?), as well as the beginning of the time-travel mission starring J’onn J’onzz, Mary Marvel, and Booster Gold that Waid is exploring over in the pages of Action Comics.

While the larger “All In” storyline is playing out across the DC Universe, this title really feels like the core of the whole thing, and I certainly hope anybody who’s following this is paying attention.

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!

Superman Stuff #18: Superboy #1

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The end of the school year is approaching. Tomorrow is the last day for my 12th grade students, and my 10th graders will be wrapping it all up in about two weeks. So I’ve been busy tying up all the loose ends that come with being a teacher in May. That in mind, looking for something to read, I kind of drifted to stories of the younger heroes, and I decided this week to check in on the first issue of Superboy from 1949. 

In the first story, “The Man Who Could See Tomorrow” (written by Don C. Cameron with art by John Sikela), Superboy encounters Brandar the Great, a mystic whose jewel stolen from an idol gives him the power to peer into the future. The story actually begins, though, in Metropolis, with an adult Clark Kent ducking out on Lois Lane after a movie date to check in on nearby gunfire. Superman finds an injured police officer and rushes him to a hospital where he encounters a nurse, Margo Griffiths, whom he knew when they were kids in Smallville. His mind drifts back to the day they each gave a report on what they wanted to be when they grew up (Margo and Clark each got their wishes, by the way), a day that ended with a party at Margo’s house. There they saw the mystic Brandar, who predicted that some day Clark Kent would be world famous (and you can’t tell him that he was wrong), but that Margo would “cease to exist” on her 21st birthday. 

Of course, these distant predictions wouldn’t prove much, so Brandar uses his magic jewel to make three predictions for the next day: “1. Dr. Jekyll will turn into Mr. Hyde! 2. The first lady of the town will lose her crown! 3. East will meet west at sundown!” Clark brushes it off until the next day, when the newspaper reports that the mayor, whom everyone had thought was an honest man, had stolen funds from the town and fled. Worried about the rest of the predictions, Superboy checks in on a ship called the Queen Felice, also known as the “first lady” of the town. The crooked mayor nearly crushes the ship with a drawbridge in an effort to escape, but Superboy saves the Queen Felice and brings the mayor to justice. 

With one prediction fulfilled and the second thwarted only by Superboy’s intervention, he seeks out Brandar to find the secret of his jewel. Brandar confesses that he stole the jewel and was given a prediction that he would meet an untimely death because of it. In fear, he leaves the jewel and runs into the street, where he’s promptly hit by a car and killed. That’s the thing about predictions, friends, if you try to prevent them from coming true you usually cause their fulfillment. Dude should have read MacBeth.

Superboy, meanwhile, finds his third prediction about to come true – an eastbound and westbound train on a collision course! He knocks down enough of a forest to build a second track and diverts one of them just in time. Then, returning Brandar’s jewel to its point of origin, the flashback ends. In the “present,” Superman reflects on the final prediction that hasn’t been fulfilled – that Margo would “cease to exist” when she turns 21, and she must be almost that age. He, of course, helps her figure that one out as well, giving her a happy ending. It begs the question, though – if Clark and Margo were in the same class, does that mean that the Superman of 1949 was only 20 or 21 years old? That seems awfully young for him to be an established reporter at the Daily Planet, much less have such an established career as Superman.

Of course, continuity wasn’t that big a deal back in the day, and people got out in the world younger than they do now. Still, it feels so odd that the writer would lock him in to such a tender age when all it would have taken to make it more plausible is to set the prediction for the day Margo turned THIRTY-one. Even a later year in her mid-twenties would have made more sense.

The second story, “The Boy Vandals” (written by Edmond Hamilton with art by Ed Dobrotka), abandons the flashback framing sequence and just takes us to times past to view a quick and unremarkable story about Superboy teaching a young gang the consequences of vandalism. The interesting thing here is that this is the story where I realized, at this point, they hadn’t actually established Superboy’s home town as Smallville yet. In fact, this story seems to imply that young Clark Kent was a student in a school in Metropolis. It always interests me when we see these older stories playing fast and loose with details that seem concrete to us, but that wouldn’t be codified until much later. 

This issue also gives us “Superboy Meets Mighty Boy,” a William Woolfolk/George Roussos joint, in which our favorite boy of tomorrow seems to meet his match. A farmboy named Reuben is recruited for a scientific experiment to try to transform him into the strongest boy in the world. Reluctant at first, he goes along with it at the urging of his parents, whose farm is suffering and who could use the windfall if it works. The experiment is a success, granting Reuben remarkable power, and the recruiters challenge Superboy to a contest. At the circus, the two of them compete in various feats of strength, and as impressive as Superboy’s powers are, Mighty Boy outclasses him time and again. Returning to his tent, Mighty Boy overhears the promoters saying that the experiment was a fake and that they rigged all of the feats of strength to make it seem as though he had powers, fooling even Mighty Boy himself, as part of a criminal scheme. Superboy saves him just in time and together, they put the crooks under glass. Superboy brings Reuben back home and helps his family get their farm back on its feet, because that’s just what Superboy does. This was my favorite of the three stories in this one.

I haven’t read a lot of Super-stories from this particular era, that Post World War II time before the silliness of the Silver Age really kicked into gear. I enjoyed these stories, though, showing an interesting kind of prototype of the original Superboy that I’m far more familiar with. I’ll need to look out more stories from this period in the future. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!