superman

Year of Superman Week One: Early Versions and Meetings With a Dark Knight

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Welcome to the first week of my grand “Year of Superman” experiment. Over the next 12 months, I’m going to do my best to read, watch, or listen to at least one piece of Superman-related media every day. As I go along, I’ll keep a journal of each day’s entries as well as thoughts on some of the stories I’ve read or watched, then I’ll try to share them here with you on Wednesdays. Please keep in mind that my thoughts on these pieces of Superman history are likely to contain spoilers, so if there’s anything you’re trying to remain spoiler-free on, you may want to skip that specific entry. 

As the year began, I wanted to focus a bit on the earliest days of Superman. I read the first Superman story as it appeared in the first two issues of Action Comics (and thank goodness for the DC Universe Infinity app for making that possible). I also read Gladiator, the 1930 novel that many people believe was a direct influence on Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster when they created Superman. And I re-watched the movie that started my love affair with Superman, the first Christopher Reeve movie from 1978, directed by Richard Donner. Here, then, are my thoughts on Week 1 of the Year of Superman.

Wed., Jan. 1

Comics: Action Comics #1, 2, 1079

Notes: (On Action #1, 2) The embryonic Superman is so different from who he eventually becomes. He’s snarkier than usual, and much more ruthless, doing things like throwing an abusive husband against a wall, carrying a man along electrical poles, and forcing a munitions manufacturer to join the army and put his own life at stake. But even here, with methods that would seem very out of place in today’s stories, the moral core is there — a steadfast belief that, as Mark Waid wrote sixty years later in Kingdom Come, “There is a right and a wrong in the universe, and that distinction is not difficult to make.” The real world, of course, is infinitely more complicated than that, and there are a great many times when it IS difficult to figure out the right thing to do for mere mortals like you and me, but Superman doesn’t — and shouldn’t — have that problem. 

Thur., Jan. 2

Movie: Superman (1978)

Notes: The 1978 film with Christopher Reeve will always be the gold standard, won’t it? The tagline was “You’ll believe a man can fly,” but that’s hardly the most impressive thing about the movie. In his performance, Reeve created a Superman that was warm, compassionate, and kind, all of which are things that we need even more today than when this movie was first made. This movie still has one of my single favorite moments in film history: the part where Lois falls from a helicopter. Superman reveals himself to Metropolis for the first time, gliding into the air and catching her in one hand and the helicopter in the other. He places them both on the roof of the Daily Planet building and Lois, in her shock, asks him, “Who are you?” 

His reply is simple, elegant, and perfect: “A friend.”

And although my steadfast belief is and will remain that Clark Kent is the real person, that Superman is just another name that he uses and that the reason he is the greatest hero in the world is because of the upbringing of Jonathan and Martha Kent…despite that, there is a moment in this movie that shows Jor-El knew who his son was destined to be as well. The line in the Fortress of Solitude, during the tutelage montage: “They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They lack only the light to show them the way.”  

That’s who Superman is. They knew it in 1978. And if nothing else with this little experiment, I hope to remind people of that today. 

Comics: Black Canary: Best of the Best #1 (Lois, Clark, and Krypto cameo), Superman/Fantastic Four, Absolute Superman #3, Incredible Hulk Vs. Superman

Notes: (On Absolute Superman #3) Young Kal-El refuses to use generative AI to write. Further evidence that he’s the greatest hero there is.

Fri., Jan. 3

Omnibus: DC Versus Marvel Omnibus

Comics: Detective Comics #1091 (Guest appearance), Action Comics #1080

Notes: (On Detective #1091) A surprisingly Superman-relevant guest spot in this issue. Batman has been offered an experimental medical treatment with the potential to greatly increase his lifespan, so he does something he very rarely does: he turns to Superman for advice. Assorted comics over the years have established that Superman ages very slowly and is, compared to the humans around him, functionally immortal, but it’s not something they talk about much in the mainstream comics. Writer Tom Taylor brings that to the forefront with a lovely speech about how Clark carries that knowledge, with an emphasis on the fact that he trusts Bruce Wayne to find a way to use this gift for the greatest good. Frank Miller was wrong. The world is better when Superman and Batman are friends. 

Movie: Music by John Williams (Documentary, includes segment on Superman ’78)

Sat. Jan. 4

Novel: Gladiator (1930) by Philip Wylie

Notes: In the late 19th century, a reclusive scientist develops a treatment that gives incredible power to his unborn son. As the child, Hugo Danner, grows to manhood, he develops remarkable strength and speed, finds himself impervious to injury, and must then go out into the world to discover what place – if any – he will have in it.

This is the first time I’ve read this book, although I’ve long heard it cited as being a likely inspiration for Superman. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster – to my knowledge – never confirmed that this book was on their minds when they were conceiving the character, but the similarities are too striking to ignore. Hugo Danner’s powers are virtually the same as those of Superman in the early days, before he developed flight or super-senses or some of the more outlandish abilities he has today. What’s more, the sort of ethical struggles he faces are virtual mirrors of those that later writers would apply to the man of steel. Hugo is a one-of-a-kind human being, Clark Kent is a last-of-his-kind alien. Hugo has to learn lessons about the danger of his powers, if they go unchecked, which is a lesson that we frequently see in Superman origin stories. Hugo has to deal with the fact that, despite all of his power, there are some things in the world he simply cannot change, which of course is a typical theme in Superman’s stories.

What really sets things apart is how the two characters deal with the circumstances of their lives. In many ways, the way Wylie develops Hugo Danner is the opposite of what happens with Superman. As Clark learns to believe in and have faith in humanity, Hugo finds himself growing increasingly cynical and bitter as the story goes on. Clark transforms himself into a hero, but Hugo has thoughts of anger and rage that, at times, tread the line of outright villainy. We’ve seen so many stories with “evil” versions of Superman in recent years – things like The Boys or Irredeemable, which show the consequences of a character with Superman-like power but without the Superman ethos. The odd thing about Gladiator is that it feels very much like it could have served as an origin story for Homelander or Plutonian, rather than our own Superman.

I’m impressed by the writing style in some ways. Wylie is sharper and snappier, less consumed with fluff than other writers of his time, and the book is a very easy read. That said, “easy” doesn’t always mean “pleasant.” The book is a novel only in the technical definition of the term. There’s no singular antagonist, save perhaps for Hugo’s powers themselves, and there’s not a singular plot, either. Rather, we get the story of Hugo’s life, from his childhood, to his college years, to his exploits during World War I, and then beyond. We don’t get cohesion, except for a throughline of seeing how the world wears him down to the point of turning against humanity as a whole. The end of the book is particularly unsatisfying – it seems as though Wylie felt like he’d said everything he had to say and then found a quick (and, frankly, unbelievable) way to end things without actually having to resolve the ethical questions he’d addressed in the book.

It’s interesting, particularly from a historical standpoint, to see this prototypical Superman, but I’m very glad that the writers who helped turn Clark Kent into the hero he is didn’t draw quite as much from this early version as they might have.

Comic: DC Vs. Vampires: World War V #5 (Supergirl appearance)

Article: “Superman’s Editor Mort Weisinger” by Will Murray, essay in The Krypton Companion

Sun, Jan. 5 

Graphic Novel: Superman: Dark Knight Over Metropolis. (Collects Action Comics Annual #1, Adventures of Superman #466, Action Comics #653, Superman Vol. 2 #44, Adventures of Superman #467, Action Comics #654.)

Notes: Having read the scene in Detective Comics #1091 a few days ago, today I decided to go back to one of the early encounters between Superman and Batman in the post-Crisis continuity. The 90s was the era when I got into Superman comics big-time, the era that I still feel represents some of the best storytelling the character has ever had, and it’s always fun to revisit it. Oddly, one of the few things I’m NOT crazy about is the somewhat antagonistic relationship between Superman and Batman at the time. In this story, a former employee of Lex Luthor who has found evidence that Clark Kent is Superman confronts him with the knowledge, as well as Luthor’s Kryptonite ring. She flees and is murdered, and the ring makes its way to Gotham City and Batman, who comes to Metropolis to unravel the mystery.

The story is solid – Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, and Roger Stern were the writers of the three Superman books at the time and they had already seamlessly forged the flow that would come to define what we now call the “Triangle Era” of Superman, with the story moving from one title and creative team to another seamlessly. It still jars me to see a Superman and Batman that don’t quite get along and constantly question one another’s methods. On the other hand, this book DOES start to forge a respect between the two of them. The two of them recognize that their respective methods work for their respective cities. Most importantly, at the end of the story Clark visits Bruce in Gotham, giving him the Kryptonite ring with the reasoning that he’s worried that someday someone may take control of him and turn him against humankind, and if that ever happens he wants the only sure way to stop him to be in the hands of someone he trusts. It would be some time before Superman and Batman regained the Super BFF status that they enjoyed in the Silver and Bronze ages, but I feel like it began here.

Also of note, the issues collected in this graphic novel include a bit of a relationship upgrade for Lois and Clark, who had flirted (literally and figuratively) with being a couple for some time. In these issues, Clark pushes to make it official. One of the many things I love about the 90s Superman is what they did with the relationship between these two. Lois Lane, when written properly, is a powerful and dynamic character in her own right, and it suits the couple much more to have this version, where she falls in love with Clark Kent BEFORE she knows he’s Superman. It’s far, far preferable to the stories of the 50s, where she’s out to trick the Man of Steel into marrying her or – failing that – revealing his secret identity. This is the genesis of MY Lois and Clark, and it’s the pairing that we still see in the comics today.

Mon., Jan. 6

Short Story: “Lucifer Over Lancaster” by Elizabeth Hand & Paul Witcover (from the 1993 anthology The Further Adventures of Superman)

Notes: It’s been ages since I read this book, full of short stories about Superman, many of them by writers you don’t usually associate with the character. This one, for example, is about a doctor who experiments with a strange alien creature that residents of his home in Lancaster begin to suspect of being the Devil himself. I have to admit, I’m not wild about this one. The story has a long diatribe about how Superman and Clark Kent are both disguises and Kal-El is the “real” personality, associating himself more with Krypton than Earth. I don’t get this take on the character at all. Granted, he’s the last son of Krypton, but in virtually every incarnation of the character, he’s sent to Earth as a baby. It just doesn’t make sense that he would identify that strongly with his alien heritage to the point of considering his other two identities secondary. The character is a little cold in this story, too, speaking to a clearly remorseful Dr. Rule with what feels like unnecessary aggression. I’ve set myself up for a long journey this year, and I suppose it’s inevitable that I’ll run across versions of Superman that don’t quite jive with me. I guess this is the first. 

TV Episode: Superman and Lois Season 1, Episode 7, “Man of Steel”

Notes: I know it’s going to shock people, but I totally missed out on Superman and Lois when it was on the air. It wasn’t deliberate. I watched the first two episodes and I enjoyed it, but then other things started to steal my attention and I just got further and further behind, always intending to come back and give it a chance. I finally made it back a few months ago, when every other Superman fan I knew was talking about how amazing the series finale was. Well, I figured, if the show is over, what better time to start binging the entire thing? I made it through the first six episodes before the end of 2024, and now that the Year of Superman is upon me, I’m getting back in with the intention of getting through the rest of the show this year.

Anyway, in this episode we see Lois and Clark’s son Jordan struggling to control his newfound hearing powers, while Lois tries to unravel the mystery of this mysterious visitor called “Captain Luthor,” who seems to hail from another universe in which he and Lois were a couple and where Superman turned bad. I know a lot of people have gotten burned out on the multiverse concept in the last few years, but I’ve always been a fan of it when it’s done well. This one is pretty interesting – as Lois and Clark are certain that this stranger is an alternate version of Clark’s arch-nemesis, but as we see flashbacks to this stranger building a suit of daughter with his and Lois’s daughter “Nat,” it becomes increasingly clear (long before Lois finds his actual name) that this is REALLY an alternate of one of Clark’s greatest ALLIES, Steel.

The DC Universe Steel, John Henry Irons, has been one of my favorite Superman spinoff characters ever since his debut back in 1993 during the “Death of Superman” arc. Steel in the comics is a good man with a great mind who uses Superman as an inspiration to redeem a mistake. This John is different – just as smart, and with what seem to be good intentions, but his experience with an evil Superman has turned him into an antagonist. It’s a pretty surprising take on a character I love, but I’m not upset at all. John is opposed to Superman here, but there’s a long way to go in this series, and I feel like this character, somehow, is going to lead to a version of the John Henry Irons that I’m such a fan of.

Nobody tell me if I’m right or not. I’m looking forward to finding out for myself.  

It’s particularly nice to see Clark’s sons, especially the powerless Jonathan, get to play the cavalry in this episode. The relationship between Clark and Jonathan Kent in the comics is the best addition to the Superman mythos since he and Lois finally got married back in the 90s. This show adds a second son and changes the dynamic between the two considerably, but I’m really enjoying seeing where they go with it. 

Tue. Jan. 7

Comic: Superman #76

Notes: Having read Dark Knight Over Metropolis a few days ago, I got the idea to go back to the first story showing Superman and Batman discovering one another’s identities. Although they had been shown as partners in stories prior to 1952’s Superman #76, this is the story that showed HOW they discovered one another’s identities and…well, it’s baffling that this is the sort of storytelling they got away with in that time period. Having basically eradicated crime in Gotham City, Batman decides to take a vacation, booking a spot on a cruise ship. Meanwhile, Clark Kent is booked on that same ship because…well, because he had accrued time off. In one of those wacky coincidences, Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent are assigned one another as roommates. In an even wackier coincidence, an emergency breaks out on the ship and they both decide to change into their superhero uniforms after turning off the lights. And then, wackiest coincidence, a light shines through the porthole, revealing their true identities to one another.

It’s the most ridiculous secret identity reveal of all time, and I read Marvel’s Civil War.

The rest of the story is pretty standard 50s fodder. The two of them team up to thwart a criminal on the ship, Lois Lane happens to be along for the ride, and Superman – I swear to you, they did this kind of stuff all the time in the 1950s – convinces Batman to flirt with her as a distraction so she wouldn’t try to solve the crime herself and put herself into danger. I don’t know what’s crazier, that Superman would come up with a plan so bafflingly stupid or that the world’s greatest detective went along with it.

But I do have a soft spot for this story. I first read it when I was a kid, when I feverishly checked out the book Superman: From the 30s to the 70s from my local library over and over again, and I remember this story fondly. Does it hold up? No. But I can forgive that, as a relic of the time.

Speaking of relics, the way they depicted Lois Lane back then is mad. This is just one of many stories from the era where Superman straight-up gaslights her either to “protect her from harm” or to prevent her from getting too close to him, even though they were publicly dating. (Lois and Superman, that is, not Lois and Clark.) In fact, the last story in this issue is another Lois Lane Lovetrap, where SHE comes up with the brilliant plan to get Clark Kent to marry her friend Lorraine because…that…will make Superman…marry Lois? I know it doesn’t make any sense. I read the story two minutes ago and I can’t make it make sense. All I can say is, thank God for Margot Kidder, because she really was the blueprint for how Lois has been depicted from the 80s on, and the world is so much better for it. 

Thus ends Week One of the Year of Superman. I wanted to tell you that, although I have a list of stories I plan to revisit, it’s not nearly extensive enough to last a whole year. So I’m open for requests! Do you have a specific Superman comic book, story, or TV episode you’d like me to weigh in on? Go ahead and drop your requests in the comments!

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. 

Geek Punditry #105: 2025-My Year of Superman

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They say the holidays can bring people down. In my experience, though, it’s not the holiday itself that causes depression, it’s that other things that would upset you regardless seem even worse when they happen in the Christmas season. I was having a lousy December. My computer died unexpectedly and needed to be replaced, I had issues with other electronics, and dozens of other small things all seemed to erupt at the same time. None of them, in and of themselves, were that bad, but when bad luck stacks up it feels like multiplication, not addition. And when these things happen during that holiday stretch, the time when you’re supposed to be happy and joyous, it seems massively unfair and that makes everything that much worse. I was having a lousy December, is what I’m getting at.

Until Dec. 19.

On the second-to-last day of the school year I was having a hard time feeling anything happy or gleeful. It barely felt like Christmas was coming. Then the news came: the trailer was about to hit. THE trailer, the one I had been eagerly awaiting for…well, definitely over a year. It came out around 8 a.m. my time, which meant I couldn’t watch it because, of course, I had classes to teach. Somehow this didn’t seem to be an issue for my students. Over the next few hours kids kept coming up to me – knowing just how much I was looking forward to it – and asking me if I’d seen the trailer yet. No, I said, I haven’t. Ask me after lunch. No, I’m talking about complex sentences right now, ask me after lunch. Guys, I’ve had thirty of you in my room at all times, there has been no opportunity to watch a 2 ½ minute movie trailer, ask me after lunch.

Finally, when my lunch break started and my room was empty of students, I pulled up YouTube on the big Promethean board in the front of class. I did a search, but it wasn’t hard – it was already close to 12 million views at that point. I hit play and I stepped back.

Pictured: My classroom at 12:02 PM, Dec. 19, 2024.

And over an ice-covered waste, I heard an electric guitar begin to strum a beautifully triumphant melody.

And somehow, things were…better.

Superman matters.

Fiction matters, if I’m being completely clear. It’s stupid and dismissive to say that something is “just” a story, because stories are our entire culture. They’re our history, they’re our religions, they’re where our heroes are built, whether those heroes are sports figures or survivalists or children sent to our planet from a dying world. And it doesn’t take too long for anyone who meets me to discover that, of these stories, Superman is my favorite. I waited for ages for the first glimpse of James Gunn’s new vision of the Man of Steel, and that trailer hit every fiber of my heart just when I needed it most. Somehow, after watching it, I looked at my problems with greater perspective. The darkness surrounding me was lifting. I felt – as cheesy as it may seem – I felt hope. There had been so much talk of whether the guy who made Guardians of the Galaxy could possibly touch the right chords for Superman, but…this trailer eradicated any fears I may have had.

I think it’s the trunks. Corenswet insisted on the trunks, did you know that?

A lot of people are dismissive of Superman. “He’s too powerful,” they say. “He’s boring.” But you see, it’s not the fact of his power that makes him interesting. Superman has the power to rule the world, but instead chooses to use it to SAVE the world. That’s what makes him a fascinating character. What kind of man, if given the opportunity that Clark Kent was given, would use it altruistically? How do you make that character believable or relatable?

“He’s too old-fashioned,” the detractors say. “He’s too corny.” But again, isn’t that sort of the point? Superman is a relic of a time when people believed in one another and had faith that, in the end, good wins out. It’s true that this is a sentiment that much of the world has turned against, but that just means that we need a Superman now more than ever. 

It’s heartening to me to know that I’m not alone in this opinion. Within 48 hours of the trailer’s release on YouTube it had become the fourth most-watched trailer ever, and is currently the most-watched trailer in Warner Bros. history…and it’s worth noting that the three trailers ahead of it are the last two Avengers movies and Spider-Man: No Way Home, each of which has been gathering views for at least half a decade now. And IMBD announced this week that, according to its user survey, Superman is the most-anticipated movie of 2025. I don’t know if it’s because everyone, like me, was charged up by this trailer or if it’s just the goodwill carrying over from James Gunn’s previous movies, but I don’t care. People want to see this movie. And watching the trailer for the 37th time, as I did while writing this, it’s not hard to see why.

The trailer shows a Superman broken and beaten, calling for help…and when that help arrives, it comes in the form of his dog, Krypto. James Gunn has the guts to pull out the old “man’s best friend” trope for this movie. There’s an inherent goodness in that idea – even people who have completely given up on the human race will usually admit that dogs are, on the whole, a lot of Very Good Boys. How can you dislike anyone whose dog loves him that much? 

Tell me that’s not the face of a Good Boy.

We also see, in the trailer, Superman shielding a little girl from a monster’s attack. He is a protector. We see a child in what appears to be a warzone raise a flag bearing the S-shield and whispering Superman’s name – because he believes. 

This kid believes in Superman. EVERYBODY should believe in Superman, because SUPERMAN WOULD BELIEVE IN YOU.

This is the important thing about Superman, the thing that the people who call him boring and old-fashioned will never understand. The question, remember, is what kind of person would use the power of a god only to HELP people, and the answer to that question is “someone who BELIEVES in people.” That’s who Superman is, more than anything else: he’s someone who believes the absolute best of EVERYBODY.

And the wild thing is, HE MEANS IT.

He believes that even his worst enemy is never beyond redemption, that there is a spark of good even in the darkest soul, if only it can be fanned into a flame. When Superman fights Lex Luthor, he doesn’t react out of anger at his enemy, but instead he mourns the fact that such a brilliant mind has chosen to waste its potential on evil. He hopes every single time that someday Lex will see the light – and on more than one occasion Lex Luthor, however reluctantly, has shown that Superman is right about him. There IS good in there, buried deep. Lex has, in desperate times, used his intellect to save the world, and even if that good is just because he wants to prove that he’s better than Superman, he still has done it, and that keeps Superman’s hope alive.

I’m sure, of course, that people who choose to look hard enough can find stories that contradict my view of the character. Quentin Tarantino sure did. But that’s kind of symptomatic of having a character that has been continually published for 87 years. Of COURSE there will be different interpretations, and not all of them will be good. I’m talking about MY Superman, though, the versions of the character that mean something to ME, the ones that I turn to when I have those days where it feels like nothing will go right and the universe itself is conspiring against me and I need to remind itself that it’s not.

And so, thanks to James Gunn, I’ve decided that I’m going to make 2025 my Year of Superman.

What does that mean? Glad you asked – here’s what’s going to happen. 

For the next year, I’m going to make an effort to read, watch, or listen to something Superman-related every single day. I might not make it – I know how I get, and there are some days where I might slip up or forget, but should that happen I resolve not to beat myself up about it, because I know that Superman wouldn’t. But I’m going to TRY.

What exactly does that entail, though? Well, obviously that means comic books, movies, or TV shows featuring Superman. Either his own stories, stories where he makes a guest-appearance, stories where he serves as a member of the Justice League or Legion of Super-Heroes – any of those will count. I read the new Superman comics as they are published, and I’m going to go back this year and revisit some of my favorite stories of the past, including (but by no means limited to) things like “For the Man Who Has Everything,” “Time and Time Again,” “Panic in the Sky,” and the Death and Return of Superman saga. I’ll go back and revisit the stories that reportedly influenced James Gunn’s version of Superman, such as the graphic novels All-Star Superman and Superman For All Seasons. I will also include comics and graphic novels featuring other members of the Superman family, such as Superboy, Supergirl, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Steel. And although it’s looking forward an entire year, I’m planning to close 2025 by reading what I consider to be the perfect “final” Superman story, Mark Waid and Alex Ross’s seminal graphic novel Kingdom Come.

This is a good start.

I’m going to watch Superman movies and TV shows. The Christopher Reeve movies, of course, but I’ll also watch the Brandon Routh film, the Henry Cavill movies, the Fleischer animated shorts, and the DC animated films. I’ll go back to the original movie serial starring Kirk Alyn, the first ever Superman on film. And I’ll try to visit all of the TV versions of Superman as well – George Reeves, Gerard Christopher & John Newton’s Superboy series, Dean Cain, Tom Welling, and Tyler Hoechlin. I certainly won’t have time to binge all of those shows, but I’ll try to watch at least a little of each – and I WILL spend this year finally finishing the Superman and Lois series.

I feel like this picture needs more spit-curls.

And books, of course. There are novels about Superman, some written by comic luminaries like Elliot S. Maggin and Roger Stern, others written by writers who would be less-familiar to comic book readers. I’ll work as many of them into my reading rotation as possible.

But that’s not all. I’m not only going to explore media starring Superman. I’ll also delve into things ABOUT Superman: books like Superman and Philosophy, Grant Morrison’s Supergods, or the recent Christopher Reeve documentary. I’ll listen to podcasts about Superman, such as my pal Michael Bailey’s “It All Comes Back to Superman.” I’ll read about Superman’s history and influence.

And I’m going one step further: I’ll also include those stories that are influences ON Superman. For example, I’ve already begun reading Philip Wylie’s 1930 novel Gladiator, about a young man whose scientist father experiments on him, giving him remarkable strength and speed and then urging the boy to use his powers for good. Is there any wonder that many people believe Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had this in mind when they created the man of steel? And in the comics, Clark Kent has told Lois Lane that his favorite movie is To Kill a Mockingbird, so I’m going to throw that movie into my Year of Superman rotation, as well as the original novel, to see where the DNA of Harper Lee’s work has intertwined with that of Siegel and Shuster. I’ll look for more such examples as the year goes on, and I’ll certainly welcome suggestions. 

You put these two together and you basically get Superman.

I’ll keep a daily journal of what Superman media I enjoyed that day, and each week I’ll write a quick wrap-up of that week in my Year of Superman, telling you what I read or watched and what some of the best “Superman moments” in that week were. Don’t worry, I’ll make that a separate post from the usual Geek Punditry, so those of you who aren’t interested will still have other, non-Super babbling from me as well. It’ll probably be on Wednesdays, since that’s when the year began this time around. Each week I’ll tell you what I watched or read, with whatever notes or thoughts feel appropriate.

Thoughts like, “I KNOW I have two dozen Superman shirts, but I don’t have THAT one.”

And of course, the centerpiece of this whole experiment will come on July 11th, when the new Superman movie comes out. I’m excited to see it, of course. I think that much is abundantly clear. But perhaps even more importantly, I want to take my son Eddie to see the movie with me. I want him to understand how much this means to me. And while I don’t want to ever force him to be into the things I’m into, I still want to share them with him. But he’s seven, he’s on the spectrum, and he’s never sat still for a “grownup” movie before. I don’t know for sure if he’ll even want to see it.

On Dec. 19, after I picked him up from school, I brought him home and we sat together and watched the trailer on YouTube, then I looked at him and said, “Do you want to see that movie next summer?” He said, “Yes,” but he says “yes” to virtually everything. Sometimes I think he does it just because he thinks if he agrees we’ll leave him alone and he can go back to watching videos of failed field goal attempts, which is his most recent obsession.

But then, a few days after Christmas, my wife and I brought him to the movies to watch Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Until now, all of the movies he’s seen in the theater have been pure cartoons, and while there’s still an awful lot of animated content in Sonic, this is still the first time he watched anything in a theater with a significant amount of live-action. I considered this a test run. The lights dimmed and the trailers started. And after trailers for Dog Man and other such kiddie fare, the screen shifted to an empty arctic landscape that looked remarkably familiar. And I heard those strums of an electric guitar.

And then there was a little hand grabbing my arm. Eddie looked up at me, a huge smile on his face and excitement in his eyes, and he whispered, “Superman.”

The year is off to a pretty good start.  

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. He believes that this experiment will ultimately be far more successful than the previously-suggested “Year of the Toxic Avenger.”

Geek Punditry #104: The 2024 Pundy Awards

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It’s the final Friday of the year, and that means it’s time once again to sit back and talk about all of my favorite things from this year. It’s time for the 2024 Pundy Awards!

Yes, just like I did in 2023, I’m going to wrap up the second year of my little column by talking about some of my favorite pieces of pop culture to come down the pipe this year. There is no rhyme or reason to this, the categories will be decided purely based on what I feel like talking about as I write this. I’m going to tell you my favorites in movies, TV, and comics from the past twelve months, and I’m gonna tell you why I dig them and why you should check them out if you haven’t already. Also in order to avoid repeating myself, I’m going to skip over shows and comic book series that I “awarded” last year. Please be aware that I’m still a fan of Abbott Elementary, Batman/Superman: World’s Finest, Fantastic Four, Skybound’s Energon Universe, and ESPECIALLY the final season of Star Trek: Lower Decks, and they’re all worth your time.

But today, I want to talk about things I haven’t talked about before. At least…stuff that I haven’t talked about as much. Let’s get on with it!

Not the only movie this year that made me feel seen.

Blake’s Favorite Animated Movie: Inside Out 2. 

Back in June, I wrote a piece about how the shine had fallen off the once-immaculate reputation of Pixar Animation studio. After a series of duds, I wondered if the sequel to Pixar’s Inside Out was going to have what it took to bring back some of the studio’s former glory. I was so, so happy to see that it did. The first Inside Out was a great look at how the mind of a child develops and learns to process emotions, anthropomorphizing the process but doing so in a way that was both entertaining and easy to understand. Inside Out 2 continued this trend, with the character of Riley getting a bit older and the emotions she experiences becoming more complicated. Adding in the likes of Envy, Ennui, Embarrassment, and especially Anxiety into the mix has changed the game, making for a movie that perfectly encapsulates the personal journey a person goes through when they grow up. The finale of the movie was absolutely remarkable, with a scene that so perfectly demonstrates the experience of an anxiety attack that I nearly broke down in the movie theater. My son, Eddie, has since declared Inside Out 2 his favorite movie, and I’m not about to argue with him.

“Another movie about hanging around outside a convenience store, Kev?”
“Nah, this time it’s a movie theater.”

Blake’s Favorite Comedy: The 4:30 Movie.

I’ve been a fan of Kevin Smith for a very long time, and I’ve found it fascinating how his films have changed over the years. His early movies like Clerks and Mallrats were a reflection of the aimless feeling of being a young adult and trying to figure out what life is actually supposed to be. His more recent films, particularly Jay and Silent Bob Reboot and Clerks III, demonstrate a growing maturity and a sense of grappling with a life that didn’t turn out to be what you expected. Although he hasn’t let go of the filthy humor and goofy characters that made his name, he’s a subtler, more sophisticated storyteller than he used to be, and I appreciate that. The 4:30 Movie doesn’t connect to his “View Askewniverse” at all, instead telling the story of a young man in the 80s trying to find the guts to make a play for the girl he’s in love with, all set around a day going to the movies. Are there dirty jokes? Absolutely. But the film is wonderfully heartfelt, and even though neither Kevin Smith nor his alter-ego Silent Bob make an appearance on screen, you can tell that this movie was intensely personal. The final scene hammers that in especially, giving you a feeling that Kevin Smith has, in a way, told his own origin story. It’s a great movie.

Tagline: “You will believe a grown man can cry.”

Blake’s Favorite Documentary: Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. 

This should not be a surprise to anybody, but the documentary about the actor who brought Superman to life for my generation was incredibly moving. Everybody knows the basics of Christopher Reeve’s story – how he played Superman, how a horseback riding accident left him paralyzed from the neck down, and how he became a crusader for the disabled in the years before his untimely death. This movie delves into his history in a deeper way, told mostly through the reflections of his now-adult children, as well as further commentary and anecdotes from other family and friends. The movie bounces back and forth between his life story prior to his accident and the way his life changed afterwards. Having his children tell the story, I think, is one of the things that really helps sell the tale. The film feels so much more intimate and personal, coming from the point of view of the people who knew and loved him the best. One thing I didn’t expect, though, was the heavy focus on Reeve’s friendship with the late Robin Williams. Again, this is something fans of the actor knew about, but the way they intertwined the tragedy of Williams’s own life with that of Christopher Reeve just made it all the more powerful. Have your tissues ready when you watch this one.

Okay, if I’m gonna be honest here, Super-Man is not the only thing in this list that made me cry.

Blake’s Favorite Family TV Series: Bluey

I know, this is another one of those “no duh” moments. I have written extensively about my love for Bluey before, in particular this spring’s season finale episode, “The Sign.” But there was simply no other TV show this year that had as deep and profound an impact on me. In the final episode of this season, we saw the Heelers preparing both for a family wedding and a move to another city, two life-changing events that the titular Bluey was having a tough time dealing with. Bandit, the dad that every father on the planet is striving to become, is trying to do the best thing for his family, even as it becomes increasingly clear to the viewer that the rest of the family doesn’t actually want to leave. It’s a beautiful story and still amazingly funny, and the final song (by cast member Meg Washington) is absolutely sublime. It comes across as a meditation on being a parent and having a child, and it’s the kind of thing that absolutely overwhelms your heart if you’ve got children of your own. I couldn’t be happier with the news that the long-talked about Bluey movie has been officially announced, and I only wish we weren’t going to have to wait until 2027 for it to hit theaters. 

Remember when science fiction was SMART? It’s finally back.

Blake’s Favorite Science Fiction Series (That Isn’t Star Trek: Lower Decks): The Three-Body Problem

This Netflix series, based on the globally popular trilogy by Cixin Liu, launched this year and grabbed me immediately. Like the novel, the first season of this show focuses on several groups of people around the world trying to uncover a mystery. The show follows scientists, police, and people from other walks of life as they slowly uncover evidence of an impending alien invasion. The novels are amazing – an incredible portrait of this sort of singular event and how it would completely reshape the entire world. So far, the first season of the show is doing the same thing, but in different ways than the book. The novels, by a Chinese author, have a cast that is mostly Chinese as well, while the TV series is more international. Characters are omitted, others are combined with one another, new characters are added – the TV show uses the framework of the novel, but takes the story in different directions to reflect the difference in cast and the different cultures of the characters. As a result, while fans of the book can still enjoy it, there’s still room to be surprised. I loved the novels, and I loved the show too, but for different reasons and in different ways. That’s one of the best things you can hope for in an adaptation.

This is the best an ongoing Spider-Man comic has been in 20 years, and it’s not even close.

Blake’s Favorite Ongoing Marvel Comic (That Isn’t Fantastic Four): Ultimate Spider-Man

Last year, Marvel announced a relaunch of its once-prominent “Ultimate” brand, which reimagined the Marvel heroes as new characters in the modern day. That version of the Ultimate Universe eventually gave birth to Miles Morales, but other than him, the rest of the line has been mostly jettisoned. The only other survivor is the Maker, an evil version of the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards, who has created a NEW Ultimate Universe, and it’s the flagship book of THAT line that has captured my heart this year. In the new Ultimate Universe, the Maker deliberately prevented most of the world’s superheroes from having their respective origin incidents, until their Tony Stark uncovered the truth and decided to put things right. (This is a HIGHLY condensed version of the Ultimate Invasion miniseries, by the way, which is also worth reading.) In the new Ultimate Spider-Man, we open with an adult Peter Parker who is powerless, married to Mary Jane Watson, and the father of two children when he is approached with the news that he’s supposed to be one of the world’s greatest heroes, and there’s a way to make it happen. For years, Marvel Comics has turned the mainstream Peter Parker into a punching bag, submitting him to one mindless torture and humiliation after another, to the point where stretches of his comics are unbearably depressing. Ultimate Spider-Man is the antidote to that, proving that you can tell stories about a married couple, about parents, that are entertaining and emotionally engaging without sacrificing the superheroes. This Ultimate Universe is even further removed from the main Marvel U than the original Ultimate Universe was, but this comic has been fantastic so far.

“So EVERYBODY is in the Justice League now? Ghost-Maker? Robotman? Clownhunter?”
“Okay, let’s not get carried away.”

Blake’s Favorite Ongoing DC Comic: Justice League Unlimited.

This may be a tiny bit of a cheat, as there’s only been one issue of JSU so far, but it was preceded by the excellent Absolute Power miniseries, which set the story up and was by the same magnificent writer/artist team of Mark Waid and Dan Mora, so I’m counting that towards the series. After an absence of the Justice League from the DCU for a few years, it’s time for a most triumphant return in a way that has never been done in comics before. Rather than a team of seven to ten heroes protecting the whole dang world, Waid is embracing the “Unlimited” part of the title. The Justice League – as in the classic animated series of the same name – is now a massive force, with virtually every hero on the planet Earth recruited as a member. Everyone who has ever been in the League, every Titan, everyone who wears the S-shield, Bat-symbol, or bracelets of an Amazon, is now part of the League. Waid kicks things off with a first issue showing a longtime – but fairly obscure – hero called Air Wave being taken up to the Watchtower and joining in on his first mission as a member of the Justice League. The story was great, with an engaging and entertaining point of view that is set to save Air Wave from the ranks of the D-listers, and a twist that promises great things for the series. What’s more – I’m gonna sound like a broken record here – Dan Mora is probably the best superhero artist working in American comic books right now. His characters are bold, powerful, but still wonderfully human. This book hit every box for me in the first issue and I can’t wait to see where it goes next.

“What if we replace the spinach with boba?”
“No.”

Surprise of the Year: Eye Lie Popeye

It’s been a good year for reboots of old-school characters, including Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, Thundercats, and the Universal Monsters. But the one that surprised me the most, in a delightful way, is Massive Publishing’s new series Eye Lie Popeye, by writer/artist Marcus Williams. When the series was announced, I didn’t think it would be my thing – a new version of Popeye is fine, but the artwork showed a distinct Manga flavor to it. I’ve got no issue with people who enjoy Manga, it’s just not usually the sort of thing I’m interested in, and I planned to pass on the series. Then came Free Comic Book Day, and they released a preview of the first issue. Guys, this is why Free Comic Book Day works, because it did exactly what it is intended to do: show me a glimpse of something that I hadn’t planned on reading, but that I found incredibly entertaining. Williams shows a deep knowledge of Popeye and his enormous cast of characters, and while the book DOES have that Manga influence, I was startled by just how well all of it managed to fit together. The style works for the characters, the storyline feels like the kind of thing that used to be done in the classic comic strips (which are quite different from the seven-minute slugfests that people who only know Popeye from his animated shorts might expect). Overall, I never would have thought it, but this was one of my favorite comic book finds of the year.

And that’s it for this year, friends – some, but not all, of my favorite movies, TV shows, and comics of 2024. Feel free to share your own favorites in the comments, and here’s to coming back here in a short 52 weeks to do it all over 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. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. And yeah, he barely mentioned it, but Lower Decks was amazing. Go read it. Go read it now. 

Geek Punditry #103: Blake’s Five Favorite Santa Claus Stories

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Once again, it’s time for Five Favorites, that semi-regular feature here in Geek Punditry where I give you my five favorite examples of something. “Favorite,” of course, is a relative term, and is actually pretty fluid for me. I may think of something tomorrow that would supplant one of the choices on this list if I were to write this again. But for here, for today, I want to talk about five of my all-time favorite Santa Claus stories.

With Christmas only days away, the big guy is up north checking out his list, loading up the sleigh, and slopping the reindeer, so it only seems fair to me that I talk about some of the stories that have made him such a beloved icon to the young and the young at heart for centuries now. Let’s talk about the tales that make St. Nicholas so great.

The Autobiography of Santa Claus as told to Jeff Guinn. 

This book, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, has long been a favorite of mine. You see, when Santa decided it was time to tell the truth about his life story, he recruited journalist Jeff Guinn to help him compose the book, a deep dive into the life of the man who was once known as Nicholas, Bishop of Myra. 

If you’ve been reading my stuff for a while you’ve probably heard me talk about this book before, because it’s one I return to every few years. Guinn’s book mines actual history, including the true life of Nicholas, and combines it with a sort of subtle, beautiful magic. People expecting a superhero-style origin story for Santa Claus will be disappointed, because the truth is that Nicholas was just sort of “chosen” by unexplained forces, and to this day still doesn’t know why…but he knows that his mission is to give the world the gift of hope. 

The story is lovely, and I love the way he mixes real history with fantasy. In fact, the history doesn’t stop with Nicholas’s life, but goes on to show Santa’s interaction with things like the composition of the song “Silent Night,” his influence on Charles Dickens and Clement Clarke Moore, and the lives of some of the very unusual and unexpected helpers he’s accrued in his many centuries on this Earth. 

The book has two sequels. How Mrs. Claus Saves Christmas gives us a dive into Oliver Cromwell and his war on Christmas, and how Santa’s wife saved the holiday. The Great Santa Search rounds out the trilogy with a story set in the modern day, in which Santa finds himself competing on a TV reality show to prove who is, in fact, the true Santa Claus. All of the books are great, but the first one is my favorite.

Santa Claus: The Movie

If it’s a superhero origin that you’re looking for, though, this 1985 movie is for you. It was produced by Alexander and Ilya Salkind, riding the success of their Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve. And in fact, this movie is pretty much a straight rip of the structure of the first Superman movie: it begins with the character’s origin story (Santa and his wife are saved from freezing to death by the elves, who are there to recruit him), spends about half the film showing the hero’s development, and then introduces the villain at about the halfway point. From there we get to the real story, Santa fighting for relevance in a modern world where a corrupt toymaker is stealing his thunder.

I was eight years old when this movie came out, and that was apparently the perfect time to fall in love with it. I still love it. And David Huddleston – aka the Big Lebowski himself – is still my Santa Claus. When I close my eyes and picture St. Nicholas, it’s the David Huddleston version – his smile, his charm, his warm laugh are indelible parts of the Santa Claus archetype in my head. John Lithgow fills in Gene Hackman’s role as the villain, playing a cost-cutting toy executive named B.Z. who sees Christmas as nothing more than a profit margin. Dudley Moore is also along for the ride as Patch, one of the elves who finds himself in a bit of a crisis of faith. 

It’s a shame that this movie never got any sequels, because it was set up in such a way that there were many more stories to tell, but it underperformed and apparently did major damage to Dudley Moore’s career. Before this he was a rising comedy icon, and afterwards he fell off the A-list. I still think it’s a fantastic movie, though, and I have to admit that when I watch it, I wonder what would have happened if John Lithgow had ever had a turn playing Lex Luthor.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum

For a different take on Santa’s origin, let’s wind the clock back to 1902. L. Frank Baum is riding the high of his hit children’s book The Wizard of Oz and he’s looking for a new project. Rather than return to Oz, though, he goes in a different direction and a different fairy tale – that of a young child abandoned in the woods and raised by fairies to become the most giving man in the world.

This is a very different take on Santa than most modern versions. It’s light on the fancy and heavy on the fantasy, with Santa being forced to do battle with monsters and creatures that are out to stop his quest to bring toys to children, and a conclusion that feels like it could have fallen out of the likes of Tolkien or C.S. Lewis. It’s hard to remember sometimes that the way we think about Santa Claus today was sort of codified by lots of little things over the early part of the 20th century – influences from poems, books, songs, and even the original AI-free Coca-Cola Santa Claus ads. But Baum’s book was before most of those things, and although his Santa doesn’t exactly jive with the Santa we know and love (no North Pole workshop, ten reindeer instead of eight, different fairy creatures instead of elves, and so forth), it’s still a fascinating read. It’s especially interesting if you’re a fan of the Oz books, as I am. This was two years before Baum would go back to his most famous creation and transform Oz from a single novel into a franchise, but it feels like it belongs in that “universe.” In fact, in later books Baum would link many of his unrelated books to the world of Oz through the connections of characters, other fairylands, and creatures that would grow in prominence. If you want to consider this the origin of Santa Claus in the universe of Oz, it’s not hard.

The Year Without a Santa Claus

Let’s get away from origin stories, though. We all love the Rankin/Bass classics, and their Christmas specials are legendary. In the top two specials, namely Rudolph and Frosty, Santa is just a supporting character. But they did give Santa a few specials of his own, and this second one is my favorite. In this 1974 Animagic classic, Mickey Rooney voices a Santa Claus that’s down with a nasty cold. This, coupled with a feeling of apathy from the children of the world about his annual visit, brings him to the conclusion that he’s going to skip a year. As the world faces the prospect of a Year Without a Santa Claus, it’s up to Mrs. Claus and a couple of helper elves to convince the big guy to pop a Zyrtec and get his act together.

This is the best of Rankin/Bass’s Santa-centric specials, although the most memorable thing about this cartoon isn’t Santa itself. We have this special to thank for the introduction of the Heatmiser and Coldmiser, battling brothers and sons of Mother Earth. They’re the best original Rankin/Bass characters by far, they have the best original song from any Rankin/Bass special by far, and even now you see them showing up in merch and decorations every year. It’s not easy for a new character to break into the pantheon of Christmas icons, but the Miser Brothers made the cut thanks to this awesome special and the fantastic musical arrangement of Maury Laws. The boys are a delight.

DC Comics Presents #67: Twas the Fright Before Christmas

Let’s wrap things up with this comic book from 1984. DC Comics Presents was a series in which Superman would team up with a different guest-star in each issue. Usually it was his fellow superheroes like the Flash, Batgirl, or the Metal Men. On occasion he’d have to partner up with a villain like the Joker. On more than one occasion he had to pair off with different versions of himself like Superboy, Clark Kent, or his counterpart from Earth-2. And on one memorable occasion he met up with He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, characters who were still on the rise.

But my favorite issue of the book is this one. Written by Len Wein with art by the most iconic Superman artist of the era, Curt Swan, in this issue Superman stumbles upon a little boy who tries to hold up a sidewalk Santa with a toy gun. Superman whisks the child off to his Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole where he determines that the child was hypnotized by a device in the toy, made by his old foe the Toyman. Leaving the Fortress, the boy’s toy zaps Superman with a burst of “white dwarf energy” which knocks him from the sky and leaves them stranded in the Arctic Circle. Luckily, they’re saved by some of the pole’s other residents. Superman and Santa then team up to save Christmas from the machinations of the sinister Toyman.

It’s a pretty silly story, but silly in a fun way. This is towards the end of the era in which Superman was allowed to be a little goofy, just two years before John Byrne would reimagine the character in his classic Man of Steel miniseries. And although that depiction of Superman has largely informed the character in the years since, it’s nice to see that modern writers aren’t afraid to bring back the kinds of things that made this story so memorable every once in a while. It ends with one of my LEAST favorite tropes, especially in a Christmas story (the whole “It was all just a dream…OR WAS IT?” nonsense), but that doesn’t diminish my love for it at all. I tend to go back and read this comic again every Christmas

Once again, guys, ask me tomorrow and there’s a good chance I would pick five totally different stories to populate this list, but as I write it here on December 20th, these are five of my favorite Santa Claus stories of all time. But I’m always open for new ones – what are yours?

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. Honorable mention goes to a story John Byrne did for Marvel’s What The?! comic where Santa twists his ankle delivering to Latveria and Dr. Doom has to take over and finish his route for him. 

Geek Punditry #100: If I Were King of Comics

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Here we are, my friends, 100 Fridays later. In the first week of January 2023, I was thinking of how much I missed the days of writing for Comixtreme and recording my podcast, and I wanted to find a regular way to get my voice back out there in the world. How could I do it? I asked myself. How can I reach out and gift humanity with my invaluable thoughts, insights,and trademark witticisms, in this era where the world clearly needs me more than ever before?

Then I remembered I had a blog that I was barely using, and maybe it would be a nice little challenge for me to find something – once a week, just find SOMETHING – that I liked enough to write a few paragraphs about. 

And of course, it has become the global phenomenon and world-altering sensation you see before you today. 

As I approached the 100th installment of the column hundreds of voracious readers have called “on the internet somewhere,” I tried really hard to decide what to write about. What, in the enormous global marketplace of popular culture that I had made my home, was worthy of dedicating the landmark 100th column to? Star Trek? Stephen King? Superman? Bluey? I feel like I’ve kind of talked about those various topics…well, “extensively” seems in some ways to be too mild a term, but we’ll roll with that right now. No, I needed something a little bit different.

Then I remembered an idea I’d had some time ago, but that I had pushed aside. Something I thought needed to percolate a little more. Something that the world would HAVE to sit up and take notice of. And it seemed perfect. So this week, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to explain to you what exactly I would do if I were in charge of comic books.

You all know I’m a comic book geek, and I have been since I was a small child. Not to discount my love of movies, TV, or novels…I’m a fan of storytelling in general. But comics are in many ways my medium of choice. I’m a regular Wednesday visitor at my local comic shop, I know all the members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and I can tell you – in order – every publisher that has ever had the Star Trek license. (Gold Key, Marvel, DC, Malibu but only Deep Space Nine, back to Marvel, Wildstorm – which was by then a DC imprint – and currently IDW. Sorry, ladies. I’m taken.)

As much as I love comic books, though, there are certain practices in the industry that I’m not a fan of, certain things that I think could be done better. In this era, where there’s so much competition for the attention of an audience coming from virtually every region of our culture, it’s imperative that comic book publishers find ways to draw in new readers and retain existing ones. Ways to make the sometimes complex mythologies of American comic books a little less of a roadblock, and make the space a little more welcoming. For the 100th Geek Punditry, guys, here are some rules that would be implemented if I were King of Comics.

Numbering

As most people know, comic book series are numbered, and for many decades the numbering convention was simple. You started with issue #1, proceeded to #2, and so forth. You just put the numbers in order. Seemed like a simple idea. But at some point things started to get a little more convoluted. After World War II, many of the existing superhero comics had been cancelled. But in the 50s, looking for a new hit after public favor turned against things like horror comics, DC decided to bring back some of their defunct characters with a new incarnation. A new Flash was created – Barry Allen – and after a few tryout issues in the pages of Showcase, they gave him his own title. Barry took over the numbering of the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, and his first issue was #104. Here’s where it gets confusing: they then did they same thing with Green Lantern. But in this case the new guy – Hal Jordan – did NOT pick up from Alan Scott’s title with issue #39, but instead got his own first issue, Green Lantern Vol. 2 #1.

Make it make sense.

It would not be the last time this happened. In the 80s they gave new first issues to Superman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash, and in those cases, the lapse in publishing between the previous volume and the new was not nearly as long as it had been in the silver age. Then in the 90s, Marvel did it with four of their flagship titles at once – Avengers, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and Captain America – as part of a new initiative where the titles were essentially farmed out to Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld and set in a different world than the “regular” Marvel Universe. When the books were brought back to the “regular” Universe a year later, they were given a THIRD first issue…and then all hell broke loose.

Since then, virtually every comic book published by Marvel or DC Comics has been canceled and relaunched with a new first issue, most of them multiple times. Batman, at last count, is on its conservative third volume. Superman is at six. Punisher – if I’m counting correctly – has recently concluded volume FOURTEEN. The longest running comic book at either publisher that has not been restarted at least ONCE? Looney Tunes, which recently celebrated issue #281. (It should be noted, though, that even this is the fourth volume of Looney Tunes, having been published by various other companies before Warner Bros. wholly absorbed DC Comics.)

Winner of the gold medal in “not starting over for no reason.”

The conventional wisdom seems to be that a new first issue will bring in higher sales numbers than issue #482, and that might be true. But increasingly, it has proven that a tenth issue #7 does NOT have appreciably more readers than issue #489 would have. In other words, the restarting game gives a short-term sales bump, but does nothing to retain readers, which is what the goal should be.

Anyway, to appease fans (such as myself) who prefer maintaining the original numbering rather than the constant restarts, Marvel and DC have begun featuring “legacy numbers” on the covers of their books – in other words, what issue would this be had the book never been restarted? Which is why the recent Superman Vol. 6 #20 also bears a little symbol indicating that the “Legacy Number” of this issue is #863.

Only long-time Superman fans will understand what I mean when I say “at least it’s in a triangle.”

Confused yet?

Making it even more confusing is the way that many series have changed titles over the years, and trying to figure out which is which. Thor started as Journey Into Mystery, one of Marvel’s assorted sci-fi titles. But after he made his debut, Thor quickly took over the comic book, and the title was changed from Journey into Mystery to The Mighty Thor with issue #126 When calculating the Thor legacy numbers, the original JIM numbers seem to count, but JIM itself has been re-started several times over the years. Journey Into Mystery Vol. 2 does NOT count, apparently, as it ran concurrently with Mighty Thor. And let’s not forget that the current series carrying the Legacy Number is actually called Immortal Thor, which has the same legacy numbers as did previous volumes like Mighty Thor, King Thor, Thor: God of Thunder, or the (at last count) six different series that have just been called Thor. 

According to the legacy numbers, these are all issues of the same title.

Then there’s the fact that it’s inconsistently applied, especially at DC. Superman (on Volume 6), Batman (Volume 3), Flash (Volume 6), and Green Arrow (Volume 7) all have Legacy Numbers on their covers. Nightwing (Volume 4), Harley Quinn (Volume 4), and Titans (Volume 4) do not, and I can see no particular reason why. 

It’s an absolute mess. True story: when the Captain Marvel movie came out in 2018 my wife – who is a geek but not as big a geek as I am – was interested in reading some of the comics to learn more about the character, but after several attempts to figure out which volume to start with, she gave up. If the plan here is to get MORE readers, it’s failing miserably.

So how do we fix this problem? 

Here’s what I would make the standard rule: first of all, the Legacy Numbers should be mandatory for any series that continues the title or star of a previous series. The editors would need to get together right away, decide which books count towards the “legacy” and then stick with it from then on. 

Second, I would have them stop with the constant relaunches. If a character is returning after ten years away…okay, a new first issue might be justified. If we’re going back to issue #1 because there’s a new inker, it’s not. It’s become a common practice to start over with a new first issue any time there’s a change of creative team, especially when there’s a new writer. It’s too much. So here’s the rule: there must be a minimum of three years since the previous volume before a new first issue is justified. If the final issue of Captain Dudeman was #47 and it came out eighteen months ago, then you either have to start with Captain Dudeman #48 or you have to change the title. 

That second stipulation, I think, would start to get used very frequently. One of the reasons that the renumbering has gotten so rampant is that every time a new writer is brought onto a series they want to make their own mark – which is fair. But in so doing, they often want a clean slate, a sort of “back-to-basics” approach for the character, which has resulted in several books in the last few years where the first issue shows the heroes in a wholly different situation than they were in when the previous volume ended, and then it’s not until several issues later that the reasons for the change are actually explained. Sometimes it works (Fantastic Four and Daredevil both did this effectively in their most recent relaunches) and sometimes it doesn’t (the current run of Amazing Spider-Man should be studied by scholars as a cautionary example of what NEVER to do).

I don’t want to take away a writer’s ability to tell the stories they way they see fit, that’s not what this is about. But if the plan is to tell a totally different story, changing the title of the series is a good way to reduce confusion. Telling somebody “You have to read Green Lantern – but not that one, or that one, or that one…” is a recipe for the kind of bafflement that drove my wife away. But saying “Green Lantern: Emerald Champions is a great series” is a HELL of a lot easier for the casual reader to comprehend. You can keep the legacy numbers that way, but having a subtitle or supertitle (that’s when you preface the main title with something else, such as Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man) makes it a lot easier to differentiate one run from another. 

What this really boils down to is that I never again want to see a comic book called Fantastic Four #1. When I was a kid, owning that book would have been a gold mine. Now I’ve got six different books called that, and it’s ridiculous. 

Cover Confusion

The way the comics industry handles its covers is also an issue, and there are two primary problems I want to tackle. First, let’s talk about pin-up covers. This isn’t as bad as it once was, but for a while there in the 00s and 10s, there was an awful trend of comic books having generic pictures of the main character or characters on the cover, something that may be a fabulous piece of art but doesn’t tell the reader anything about the story between the pages. The argument at the time, I believe, was that they wanted every issue to be an accessible first issue for a new reader. While that may be a noble goal, that doesn’t make a damned bit of sense. Anybody who picks up a comic because they like the picture of Spider-Man on the cover is going to have a hard time keeping up if they open up the comic and run into “Revenge of the Return of the Colonoscopy of the Sinister Six: Part Five of Seventeen.” Congratulations – you sold that one issue…but they aren’t coming back. 

“Wow, great cover!”
“Thanks!”
“What’s the story about?”
“What the hell is a story?”

Pin-up art is fine, but a great comic book cover should tell a story. Think about some of the all-time most memorable covers: Amazing Spider-Man #129 features the webspinner dangling in front of the faces of his friends, agonizing over which of them was going to die in that issue. Green Lantern (Vol. 3) #49 shows a power-mad Hal Jordan brandishing a set of rings stolen from his fallen comrades, a look of pure chaos in his eyes. Wolverine: Blood Hunt #2 shows the ol’ Canucklehead on a motorcycle with a French vampire babe being chased by a mob of vampire stormtroopers while fleeing an explosion that is also being escaped by an overhead passenger jet.

If just that description isn’t enough to make you pick up the book and look inside, I don’t think you actually like comic books.

Now THAT’S art.

These days it’s better, although many variant covers still have what I call the Pinup Problem. So here’s going to be the rule for this one: cover art MUST be relevant to the story inside. That doesn’t mean it has to be a depiction of an actual SCENE from the story. Thematic covers, like the above Amazing Spider-Man #129, are fine. Covers promising a twist or a mystery, anything like that is just dandy, provided it has SOMETHING to do with the story. The only exceptions, the only time a simple pin-up is acceptable, are when it’s the first issue of a series (and presumably a good jumping-on point anyway), if it’s the introduction of a new character, or for certain milestone issues, such as an issue number that ends in a double zero.  

Now that we’ve cleaned THAT little problem up, let’s talk about the REAL issue: variant covers. 

There’s debate over when, exactly, variant covers became a thing, although most people seem to agree that the first mainstream example of printing copies of the same book with two different covers was probably Man of Steel #1 in 1986, the John Byrne relaunch of the entire Superman mythos. That was an instance where it was novel and interesting and fun. People made an effort to buy both covers to make their collection “complete.” It was really cool.

You could get with this, or — alternatively — hear me out on this one…you could get with THAT.

But like so many good things, it got overdone. It didn’t happen overnight, mind you. It was quite some time before having two covers became a regular practice, and even longer before it reached the heights it has today. Even as late as ten years ago, having multiple covers was still more of an exception than a rule. But the rules have changed and HOW. 

If you pick up any random issue of a new comic from a mainstream publisher today, odds are that you will have between two and five covers to choose from. First issues are frequently more. For the first issue of this summer’s Uncanny X-Men relaunch, League of Comic Geeks (the website I use to track my own collection) lists 32 separate cover variants. And even THAT is chump change compared to the most recent relaunch of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from IDW Publishing, which currently stands at – 

Are you sitting down? Are you sitting down in the sewer?

ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SEVEN DIFFERENT COVERS.

If you are the sort of person who feels the need to get every available cover and you’re a Ninja Turtles fan, I hope you can still afford your insulin.

I’M SAYING IT’S KIND OF A LOT.

The reason they do this, of course, is because people continue to BUY them. And when there are stories every other day about some comic shop or another closing down or a publisher being unable to pay its creators, I can’t fault them for looking for ways to increase revenue. But the problem is that this simply bleeds money out of the existing fans until they get fed up and walk away entirely. And like the renumbering problem, this doesn’t do anything to actually get NEW fans into reading, which is what the long-term goal should be.

This is not to say that I hate variants in their entirety. I rather like them when they do something CLEVER with them, such as what I call “theme” months, where all the variants have a different trend. For instance, DC recently did a run of variants covers that were mock-ups of the packaging of the old Super Powers action figures. (I should point out that other publishers, including Marvel, have been doing action figure variants for a long time, but this was the first time I recall them being used as a monthly theme.) In October, there were a series of variants by artist Kelley Jones showing the DC heroes as kids in Halloween costumes. Marvel did a series not long ago of variant “homage” covers based on some of their old vampire comics, and another run that showed their characters facing off against Godzilla. That kind of stuff doesn’t really bother me, except for the fact that they add to the preposterous number of variants on the shelf.

I don’t know art, but I know what I hate. And I don’t hate this.

I also really like the “sketch” covers that have become popular in recent years. These are blank covers printed on a different cardstock that fans can use to draw their own artwork or have an artist draw something for them. They’re popular for commissions at comic book conventions and events like Free Comic Book Day, and I don’t think the blanks really cause a lot of confusion on the racks compared to the 30-plus X-Men covers. 

The worst part, I think, is that so many of these “variants” are barely worthy of being considered a separate cover. You commission a piece of art from an artist and you’ve got a cover. Print it with no logo or trade dress and it’s a “virgin” variant. Print it without colors and it’s a “sketch” variant. Print it with metallic ink and it’s a “foil” variant. You can crank out a dozen different covers with one sketch and people will continue to buy them. It’s insane.

I recognize that there are a lot of people who LIKE these variants, even if they aren’t MY thing. So in my capacity as the benevolent overlord of comic books, I don’t want to ban them entirely. Here are the restrictions I’ll put in place:

  • A standard issue of a comic book shall have no more than three covers: the “main” cover, a variant cover, and a “theme” variant for that month. 
  • First issues will be limited to five covers, including the theme cover.
  • Milestone issues, such as anniversaries, will be allowed extra variants consisting of no more than one-tenth of the number of issues the book has run. For instance, the 50th issue will be allowed 5 variants, the 100th issue will be allowed 10 variants, and so on. 
  • Retailer-exclusive variants will not count against the total. These are covers commissioned by – and only available from – specific retailers, such as an individual comic shop, store chain, or online retailer.
  • There will be no restrictions on “sketch” covers, nor will they count against the number of variants allowed. 

See? I can be as flexible as the next guy, provided the next guy isn’t Plastic Man.

Anyway, there we have it, guys. Comic books are fixed!

Well…okay, maybe not. There are still plenty of other things in the world of my favorite medium that need to be addressed. Other problems to solve, other fires to put out…but I’ve already gone on for nearly 3500 words, which is pretty massive for one of these Geek Punditry columns. So I think it’s time to put this topic aside, at least for now.

But that’s okay. After all, I’ve got to save something to write about when Geek Punditry #200 rolls around.

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. His goal to take over all of social media after it has started to slide towards irrelevance continues. 

Geek Punditry #98: Playing in the Kitchen Sink

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I’ve never been much of a video gamer. Oh sure, I’ve played SOME, but the last time I owned a console was when my parents gave my brother, sister, and me a Sega Genesis for Christmas one year, to give you an idea of how long it’s been since I had regular access to any platforms. Still, I live in the year 2024, so even though I don’t PLAY video games, I get constantly bombarded with the advertising for them and have a basic knowledge of what at least the most popular ones are. Because of that basic awareness, there was a moment not that long ago where I felt a bit of an urge to get into a new game: when I heard about Multiversus. This is a video game that draws characters from dozens of properties owned by Warner Bros, including characters from Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo, Rick and Morty, Steven Universe, Adventure Time, Game of Thrones, and of course, the DC Universe. A fighting game in and of itself doesn’t really appeal to me, but…a game where I can pit Superman against Bugs Bunny or Tom and Jerry? Where the Powerpuff Girls can take on Jason Voorhees or Beetlejuice? Where Gizmo from Gremlins can face off against Agent Smith from The Matrix? 

It’s like being a kid again.

And did I mention the Iron Giant? Did I mention the Iron Freaking Giant?

I didn’t play a ton of video games as a kid, but I DID have a lot of action figures, and while some kids are meticulous about keeping the different lines of figures separate, I always mashed mine together. I saw no contradiction in having my G.I. Joes interact with the Masters of the Universe even though, relative to Duke and Snake-Eyes, He-Man and his crew were giants with a serious thyroid problem. And although there was no way Lion-O from Thundercats could actually fit inside and ride Optimus Prime, that didn’t stop me from PRETENDING he could as they rushed off to tackle Darth Vader and his army of B-level DC and Marvel villains culled from the Super Powers and Secret Wars lines. (Side note: a personal dream of mine would be to begin a collection of those superhero figures from my youth. I don’t need them in the packaging or in mint condition, but I at least need them to have all the limbs and, when appropriate, capes. There was also a short-lived line based on Archie Comics’ Mighty Crusaders that I would like to include. Christmas is coming up, people.)

In a way, I think this is even why I like certain modern toy lines. Things like Funko Pops take characters from virtually any franchise you can imagine and recreate them in the same style and the same scale, something I would have been all over as a child. Even LEGO has appeal for that same reason, although LEGO’s appeal obviously goes much further.

Anyway, Multiversus seems to run with this idea in the same way that I would have when I was a kid, and although I still haven’t (and probably will not) play the game, I AM reading the comic book miniseries based on it, Multiversus: Collision Detected, written by Bryan Q. Miller with art by Jon Sommariva and covers by Dan Mora, who is perhaps my favorite artist working in comics today. The comic is fun and wild, with the characters from the different universes all spilling into the DCU as the Justice League tries to make sense of what’s going on. It gets really crazy when the bad guys show up, including the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz and, wildest of all, The Nothing from The Neverending Story. Obviously there was never a “Nothing” action figure back in the day, but you better believe this is the kind of story I would weave on the living room floor with mountains of figures from every conceivable IP of the 80s battling it out with one another.

“Yeah, a collision of FUN!”
“For the last time, Stuart, stop pitching taglines.”

There is a certain thrill that comes with combining characters that we don’t normally see together. Comic books do it all the time, with crossovers between different publishers and different universes. Marvel and DC just last month released the first of two giant omnibus hardcovers collecting most of their crossovers to date, a hefty volume that’s a testament to the fact that geeks like me love stuff like this. How would these characters who should never meet react to one another? Would they fight? Would they get along? Would they team up? Would they fall in love?

Considering the love lives of their respective mentors, only having an impermeable dimensional barrier between them is practically a win.

For some reason that last one is often a sticking point in crossovers. There’s a certain segment of the population that thinks that the best love story Tim Drake (the third Robin) ever had happened in the pages of the DC Vs. Marvel crossover, when he and the X-Men’s junior member Jubilee fell for each other in a tragically doomed romance that had to end when their universes were separated again. In the 90s, Valiant Comics and Image Comics based their Deathmate crossover on the fact that their nigh-omnipotent characters Solar and Void met and came together, causing their universes to merge. 

Other crossovers are based on how ridiculous the idea may be. Archie Meets the Punisher is a real comic that happened because their respective publishers recognized that the two properties couldn’t be more different from one another, but somehow turned into a story that was not only entertaining, but respectful of BOTH very diverse universes. Then there was the Star Trek/X-Men crossover, a story that you will NEVER convince me wasn’t conceived entirely around the page where Nurse Chapel calls for “Dr. McCoy” and both Leonard “Bones” McCoy of the USS Enterprise and Henry “Beast” McCoy of the X-Men answer at the same time, then look at one another incredulously.

“My work here is done.”
“Lobdell, we need 47 more pages.”
“I already wrote the only one that matters.”

I think this mashup madness is the main reason I’m still playing one of the few mobile games I play, Disney Magic Kingdoms. It’s an idle game, where you build up your theme park by adding rides and concession stands and the like, but the real appeal to me is the ability to “collect” characters from various Disney-owned properties, including not only the classic Disney characters and the films of the Disney animated canon, but also the characters from Pixar, the Muppets, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars. Earlier this year they started adding properties from the franchises they acquired in their absorption of 20th Century Fox as well, beginning with the heroes of the Ice Age movies. While I don’t expect them to add EVERY IP in their catalog (it’s hard to imagine the Xenomorph from Aliens running around outside Dumbo’s Flying Elephants), I’m really surprised that they have not yet started including Marvel characters, but I also suspect it’s only a matter of time.

Marvel is slowly starting to take advantage of their corporate parentage as well. They’ve done crossovers where the Predator has fought Wolverine and Black Panther, and another where the Avengers deal with Aliens. Less likely but more fun, we’ve had a series of one-shots casting the Disney heroes as the Marvel superheroes. So far we’ve gotten Donald Duck as Wolverine and Thor, and upcoming specials will give us Minnie Mouse as Captain Marvel and the Fab Four (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy) as Marvel’s Fantastic Four. They’ve also taken their popular “What If?” comic book and released an Aliens miniseries based on an alternate universe where Carter Burke, Paul Reiser’s character from Aliens, survived. And as a curious note, the comic book is co-written by Paul Reiser himself. No further miniseries have been announced yet, but I thought the Aliens comic was really entertaining, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing more “What If?”s based on Marvel’s corporate siblings like Predator, Planet of the Apes, or Star Wars either. 

Got my fingers crossed for “What if Goofy Became the Punisher.”

(That joke is WAY darker when you realize it has to be Goofy because, canonically, he’s the only father in the group.)

We don’t get these sort of “everything but the kitchen sink” crossovers much on TV or in the movies, though. Oh sure, we get the occasional crossover like Godzilla Vs. Kong, Freddy Vs. Jason, or Kramer Vs. Kramer, but real multi-universe mashups are kind of rare. I think it’s part of the reason that we all loved Who Framed Roger Rabbit? so much. Yeah, it’s a great movie, but it’s also the only place, canonically, where we’ve ever seen Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny together, or Donald Duck face off against Daffy Duck. The film also included Droopy Dog, Betty Boop, Woody Woodpecker, and a real Who’s Who of cartoon stars of the 30s and 40s – and as those are still the greatest cartoon stars of all time, we loved it. Wreck-It Ralph would do the same thing with video game characters, and the Toy Story films did a lot of that with the classic playthings of our youth, and yeah, we love them for it.

Eat your heart out, “DeNiro and Pacino in Heat.”

And of course, let’s not forget the greatest crossover event of all time, 1990’s Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, which combined the forces of the Smurfs, the Muppet Babies, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Garfield, Winnie-the-Pooh, Alf, the Looney Tunes, Slimer from The Real Ghostbusters, and Huey, Dewey, and Louie from Ducktales in a half-hour anti-drug special that’s so bizarre you have to imagine that they were actually ON drugs while making it. (This is a real special, people. Don’t take my word for it, you can watch it on YouTube.)

And yet, even THAT has a certain weird charm to it. 

It’s important to remember that the people who make cartoons, movies, comic books, and video games, were once children as well – at least, until they are all replaced by AI – and as such they enjoyed throwing their toys together just as much as we did. That’s why I’m digging the Multiversus comic, why I’m reading the “What If” specials in which the Disney stars become Marvel heroes. It’s not because I’m looking for something huge, something life-changing, something of great profundity.

It’s just fun.

And honestly, guys, shouldn’t that be enough?

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. If you’ve played Multiversus, he’s got a question for you: have they overpowered Shaggy in deference to his status as a meme? Because honestly, that would be kinda cool. 

Geek Punditry #88: Blake’s Five Favorite Superhero Movie Scenes

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It’s time for a new Geek Punditry feature: Blake’s Five Favorites! In Five Favorites, I’m just going to talk about something that’s been on my mind and discuss my…well…my five favorite examples of that thing. Now keep in mind that this list is inherently subjective and not at all comprehensive. You may disagree with my choices, and that’s fine. And there may be other examples out there that I’d like even better, but I haven’t seen them yet. And if we’re being totally honest, if you asked me again tomorrow, my list may be totally different. I’m funny that way. But for now, as of the time I’m writing this, I want to tell you about my five favorite scenes from superhero movies. This is NOT a list of my five favorite superhero movies (although there would definitely be overlap), but a list of the five individual scenes in the history of superhero cinema that make me feel the happiest, proudest, most excited, or most touched. And obviously, these are going to be FULL of spoilers, so if you haven’t seen these movies by now, you may want to skip. Let’s see if any of your favorites make the list.

#5: James Gordon Lives (The Dark Knight, 2008)

Very few superheroes can really do their job alone, and those that try usually wind up learning early on that attempting to do so is a mistake. And for all his talk about being a lone wolf, decades of storytelling have built up a sizable contingent of heroes surrounding Batman. He’s got sons (biological, adopted, AND surrogate), daughter-figures, father-figures, friends, allies, lovers, and even frenemies. And of all the characters that have taken up arms with the Batman during the years of his crusade, my favorite is police commissioner James Gordon. There’s something inspiring about the one good cop trying to clean up a filthy, corrupt department and forging an alliance with an agent outside of the law to do it. I don’t really care for any version of Batman that casts Gordon as an incompetent, which is perhaps the most unforgivable of the many sins in the Joel Schumaker movies. 

Of all the actors who have played Gordon, Gary Oldman in the Dark Knight trilogy is hands-down my favorite. He really sells Gordon as a good man who recognizes that things are out of control and takes the necessary steps to set things right, and I absolutely LOVED how this film showed the pact between Gordon, Batman, and Harvey Dent that worked so well for all characters in The Long Halloween.

“I believe in Crystal Lig–I mean, Harvey Dent.”

So I was pretty darn startled when, partway through the film, Gordon is killed. I was shocked. I was stunned. And although the large part of me didn’t believe it could be true, I also recognized that director Chris Nolan had already taken some liberties with canon and I couldn’t be TOTALLY sure that he wouldn’t make that big of a turn. A while later, Batman and Dent hatch a plan to trick the Joker into attacking a convoy. The plan works, the Joker winds up on the ground with a gun to his head, and the cop holding that gun whips off his mask to reveal Gordon, alive, his faked death revealed to be all part of the plan.

Gordon: I’ve got you, you son of a bitch.
Me, in the back of the theater, screaming: YEEEAAH, YOU DO!!!

It is a testament to the love of my girlfriend at the time that, after I jumped and CHEERED in that movie theater, she still agreed to marry me. Someday I hope our son gets as thrilled at this scene as I am every time I watch it.

#4: You Are Who You Choose to Be (The Iron Giant, 1999)

Let’s get this out of the way before we go any further: Hell YES, The Iron Giant is a superhero movie. A childlike creature of immense power comes to Earth from outer space and chooses to use his powers to help people. There is no adequate definition of the term “superhero” that can justifiably exclude Brad Bird’s gargantuan guardian. As if that weren’t enough, the Giant befriends a young boy, Hogarth, who teaches him about being human using what is arguably the greatest possible source material: Superman comic books. (The argument, by the way, is whether or not these are a better source than Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, but the movie is set in 1957 and Schulz’s greatest philosophical work was still ahead of him.)

Plus, this looks a lot better than painting a zigzag stripe around his midsection.

Lost on Earth and with no memories, the giant goes through the usual sort of mishaps that ETs usually get into, only with fewer Reese’s Pieces, while the military picks up on his trail and tries to chase him down. Late in the film, the Giant’s true nature is revealed: he was created by some distant alien civilization as a weapon. As he struggles against his own programming, a panicked government agent orders a nuclear attack on the robot, one that will destroy not only the Giant, but an entire town of innocent people. The Giant, however, overcomes his programming and remembers something Hogarth told him earlier in the film: “You are who you choose to be.”

The Giant makes his choice. He is not a weapon. He is not a gun.

He blasts into the sky to intercept the missile, choosing to sacrifice himself to save the town full of innocents, and in the last second before impact, he whispers the name that he has chosen.

“Superman…”

If you can watch this scene without tears, I don’t know if I want to talk to you.

You can’t tell me that Clark wouldn’t be proud to see this guy wearing his shield.

In this scene the Giant proves he understands sacrifice, he understands selflessness, he understands choosing to believe in the fundamental goodness of humanity. He understands what being a hero actually is.

He understands Superman.

A hell of a lot better than most other people, I would argue.

#3: Peter One, Peter Two, Peter Three (Spider-Man: No Way Home, 2021)

Tom Holland, as I’ve often said, is my favorite of the actors who have played Spider-Man on the big screen. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have a fondness for the other two, Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield. And it was immensely satisfying to me to see the three of them share the stage together in the final act of Spider-Man: No Way Home. In this film, the MCU version of Spider-Man has screwed up badly, breaking a spell Dr. Strange was trying to cast to wipe memory of his secret identity from the public, and drawing in people from alternate realities, destabilizing the very fabric of the multiverse back before people were doing that every other week. The whole thing builds to a battle against the nastiest rogue any live-action Spider-Man has ever faced, Willem DaFoe’s Green Goblin, who ups the ante in this film by (last time I’m warning you against spoilers) murdering Peter’s Aunt May. 

While the MCU never showed us Holland getting bitten by a radioactive spider or the death of Ben Parker, they found a different way to demonstrate Peter’s character development by spreading it across three films. Homecoming was about him learning how to be a hero. Far From Home was about him learning to be his OWN kind of hero, separate from Tony Stark. This film is about learning the COST of being a hero. It’s May’s death, not Ben’s, that really hammers that home for us all. 

But Holland doesn’t have to learn this lesson alone, because the multiversal rift hasn’t only brought in villains. Holland’s Peter finds himself allied with his previous incarnations, Maguire and Garfield, each of whom has some baggage to bring to the table, and each of whom is essential to the full development of Holland’s character.

“Wait, you’re the youngest, why are YOU Peter One? This is worse than when Barry Allen called Jay Garrick’s universe ‘Earth-2’.”

While Holland wrestles with his own failures, he sees Maguire, who is implied to have found a sort of stability and love with his version of Mary Jane Watson. In Maguire, Holland sees that there is hope for the future, even in the wake of seemingly unsurmountable tragedy. Garfield, meanwhile, has tortured himself over the death of Gwen Stacy ever since the end of Amazing Spider-Man 2 and become a darker, more broken Spider-Man because of it. But in perhaps the greatest moment of this movie, Garfield saves the MCU version of MJ from suffering the same fate. The look of simultaneous anguish and relief on Garfield’s face is tectonic: he has atoned for his failure. He hasn’t failed again. In him, Holland sees the hope for redemption.

We should all have a moment where we can find that kind of peace.

When the girl who just FELL OFF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY has to ask if YOU’RE okay, it’s an emotional moment.

Seeing what the other two have gone through and how they came out the other side is perhaps the most important part of Tom Holland’s journey in this movie, guiding him to the new life he has to lead at the end with no family and no friends who remember his existence. He’s striking out on his own – lonely, yes, but with the knowledge that hope and redemption are real and possible. And no matter what movie he shows up in next or who directs it, if Tom Holland swings again, that’s the Spider-Man I want to see…the one shaped by the lessons of his multiversal brothers. 

#2: Avengers…Assemble (Avengers: Endgame, 2019)

You want to know what makes Avengers: Endgame so great? You know what it does that so many other attempts at a “cinematic universe” (and even much of the MCU in the years since then) have failed at? Payoff. What’s the point in a cinematic universe if not to introduce long-term story threads that eventually are brought together in a satisfying way? Endgame pulled together the threads of eleven years of storytelling and almost two dozen movies to put together a finale that served as a powerful conclusion for every part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, provided you pretended that there weren’t any TV shows that were related to it.

And the best part of that film, for me, was the final battle scene, probably the most thrilling such scene in the history of superhero movies. The Hulk has undone the “snap” from the end of the previous film, bringing back all of the people Thanos killed five years ago, and as he launches his attack on the broken Avengers, their friends start to filter in. 

It starts with “On your left.”

We remember this signal from the Falcon – one of the lost – and the rest of the heroes begin to arrive. The Avengers who were dusted in Wakanda. The Guardians of the Galaxy, along with Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, brought back from the far reaches of space. The armies of Wakanda, the acolytes from Wong’s temple. The battlefield is populated with more heroes than we’ve ever seen in a superhero movie before, and Captain America kicks it off with the words that fans have been waiting a DECADE to hear: 

Me, squeezing my wife’s arm: He’s gonna say it, HE’S GONNA SAY IT…

“Avengers…assemble.”

But even that wasn’t the greatest part of the scene, wasn’t? Oh, no, as fantastic as that was, there’s still one more bit of payoff to come, when Thor and Thanos grapple on the battlefield and suddenly the mad Titan is struck by Thor’s hammer Mjolnir, scavenged from the past along with the Infinity Stones. The hammer smashes into Thanos’s face, flying through the air, hurtling back to the hand that threw it…but if not Thor, whose hand is guiding it?

It returns to the hand of Captain America, and the movie theater EXPLODED. At least, the theater where I was sitting did. In all my life, I have NEVER heard such an outpouring of cheers and excitement from a movie audience as I did in that moment, and I seriously doubt I ever will again. This, my friends, this was payoff for the entirety of the franchise. As we all know, Mjolnir is enchanted, and can only be lifted by someone who is “worthy.”

“I KNEW IT!!!” Thor shouts.

We all did, Thor. We all did.

I mean, this scene was amazing, but you know the Iron Giant could lift the hammer too, right?

#1: You’ve Got Me? Who’s Got You? (Superman, 1978)

But my favorite scene, guys…my single favorite scene in superhero movie history, the scene I would ask to have playing on the screen if they were strapping me down on one of those tables from Soylent Green, comes from the first Richard Donner Superman movie. We’ve spent half the film watching baby Kal-El become Clark Kent, watching him grow up into Christopher Reeve, watching him shape the persona he’s going to wear as a mild-mannered reporter, but we have not yet seen HIM. We have not yet seen more than a glimpse of the title character. Until Lois Lane – of course – is involved in a helicopter accident. The whirlybird falls and Lois falls OUT of it, and it’s curtains for the Daily Planet’s star reporter.

Until she falls harmlessly into a pair of waiting arms.

This strange visitor, this proud figure in red and blue, lifts Lois in one hand and catches the helicopter in the other, and he reassures her that everything will be fine by simply saying, “I’ve got you.”

And Lois, flabbergasted, shouts, “You’ve got me? Who’s got YOU?”

How anybody can call Romeo and Juliet a love story while this scene exists in the universe is beyond me.

I think we take for granted, in superhero stories, the miraculous things that these characters are supposed to be capable of. We’ve seen so many movies, read so many comic books with people who can fly and shoot lasers from their eyes and walk through walls that we forget how astonishing these things would be in the real world. But Superman was the first movie to attempt such a thing on this scale, and in-universe, it’s something that has never existed before. Up until this point, the world of this film is ostensibly our own. The astonishment that Margot Kidder brings to that moment is absolutely perfect, as is Christopher Reeve’s reaction. He gently places her (and the helicopter) back on the roof, but before he can leave, Lois asks him who he is.

And he gives the only answer that matters:

“A friend.”

There are two things, I think, essential to the character of Superman. One is the protector, the defender, the man who will stop at nothing to save the lives of everyone around him. The Iron Giant showed us that side of Superman. The other side, though, is the man of infinite compassion and kindness, a belief in the better angels of human nature if only there is someone to guide them. Superman is the hero who never gives up on anyone, even his bitterest enemy, because somewhere inside of them he KNOWS there is a flicker of good waiting to be fanned into a flame. Batman tries to strike fear into the hearts of criminals. Superman is there to show us all that there is a better way. 

And when he looks at you like this, can’t you actually BELIEVE it?

I’ve got high hopes for James Gunn and David Corenswet, but it’s hard to believe that anything they can do could ever capture that essence as simply and perfectly as the two words, “a friend.”

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. Next time: his five favorite McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches! (Spoiler alert: steak, egg, and cheese bagel.)

Geek Punditry #86: This is How We Do It Presents…Absolute Power

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Hello, everybody, and welcome to This is How We Do It, the latest Geek Punditry feature-within-a-feature. In This is How We Do It, which I intend to be a recurring segment here, I’m just going to showcase a piece of storytelling that I think is being done exceptionally well and talk about why I think it’s so great. It is the antidote to Internet negativity. And the subject of the inaugural This is How We Do It is going to be the currently-ongoing DC Comics crossover event, Absolute Power. Fair warning, it’s not going to be possible to talk about why this is so great without spoiling some things, so this will be a spoilerful discussion. If you’re not up to date on reading this fantastic series, you may want to hold off on reading this at least until you get to issue #2 of the main title, because that’s the most recent issue as I write this.

Get ready, because this one ROCKS.

Comic crossovers are by no means a new thing, and I’ve talked before at length about them but I feel like I need to give a brief overview of what I mean here. In these “event” storylines, there is usually a main narrative that brings together the various characters of a publisher’s shared universe (in this case, DC Comics), while assorted spin-offs and special issues of the series that star the individual characters tell other angles of the story. The earliest such event I can find that followed this format is DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths from 1985-86. (It’s true that Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars came out first, guys, but there were no spin-offs of that book, which to me makes it more of an embryonic version of the crossover as it exists today.) DC has done dozens of them, as has Marvel. In fact, pretty much every publisher that has a shared universe (or even Multiverse) has dipped their toes in the format at one time or another – Image Comics, Valiant Comics, IDW, Dynamite, even Archie Comics has had crossover events. 

So what makes Absolute Power so good? In a word: construction. Some events seem to come out of nowhere and have little ongoing impact – last year’s DC summer event Knight Terrors, for instance, has made relatively few ripples after it was over. Others will sometimes take existing heroes and force them to behave wildly out of character for the purposes of the narrative (lookin’ at YOU, Marvel’s Civil War). And sometimes, they’re just so overblown and complicated that it’s impossible to keep track of what’s actually going on. Absolute Power suffers from exactly zero percent of these problems.

Mark Millar knows what he did.

A good crossover really needs to start with a good antagonist, and this story has one of the best: Amanda Waller, who has decided that superheroes are the biggest threat to the planet. Waller is an established character, best known for her role as being in charge of the various incarnations of the Suicide Squad (a group of supervillains that she forces to do jobs for the government in exchange for reduced sentences – with the caveat that if they step out of line she’ll set off an explosive device she had implanted in their NECK). Waller has always tread the line of what makes an anti-hero, usually using underhanded methods to accomplish goals that are more or less positive…ish. However, that placed her perfectly for her role of the villain in this story, being a natural extrapolation of who she has always been as a character. In fact, Waller is the BEST kind of villain – the sort that, in her own mind, is 100 percent justified in her actions. Waller COMPLETELY believes that what she’s doing is the right, moral, ethical thing to do, and that makes her both more interesting and more dangerous than any bad guy who’s just in it for the Evulz. 

What do you MEAN, she doesn’t look like a good guy?

The next thing that makes a crossover work, in my opinion, is setup. Before the original Crisis on Infinite Earths happened, there were months of stories from DC where a mysterious, shadowy figure was shown to be monitoring the heroes of Earth. (As it turned out, he wasn’t the bad guy, but you could certainly be forgiven for thinking he was.) Absolute Power has a more obvious setup, but a very effective one. Waller has taken the villains from two recent storylines – Queen Braniac from the House of Brainiac Superman story, and Failsafe, a robotic duplicate of Batman with all of his tactical genius and none of his morals and ethics. She has combined their respective tech with the work of the old Justice League villain Professor Ivo to create a set of androids who can steal superpowers, and sent them out to attack, depower, and capture both superheroes and villains alike. In the first issue of Absolute Power, dozens of heroes have their powers stolen and most of them are taken prisoner by Waller. By the time the second issue rolls around, those heroes who remain at large have begun assembling at Superman’s Fortress of Solitude to plan a counter-offensive.

Imagine how nasty a character Amanda has to be that THESE two are her MINIONS.

Another important element is that the characters be true to themselves, and here I’ve got to give it up to writer Mark Waid. Waid was a mainstay of DC Comics in the 90s and early 00s, with a legendary run on The Flash and turning out the best of DC’s Elseworlds line with Kingdom Come. After a long exile, he’s returned to DC and is crushing it with books like Batman/Superman: World’s Finest. In short, there are few people in comics who know the characters as well as Mark Waid, and he’s proving it again here. Aside from using Waller to her logical extreme, he’s showing perfectly who the various DC heroes are, such as a depowered but still dauntless Superman. When Batman and Mr. Terrific get into a squabble over who should be the leader of this little resistance group, it’s Nightwing who steps up, gives a rousing speech that would make Jean-Luc Picard stand and applaud, and takes command. The best part, though, is Batman’s reaction: watching Dick Grayson, the original Robin, take his place as the natural rallying point for a group of shattered, broken, and frightened heroes, Batman simply gives us a sly smile and says, “That’s my boy.”

For Batman, this is an almost shamefully embarrassing display of pride.

And I haven’t even talked about the artwork by Dan Mora, who is probably my favorite artist working at DC right now. It’s phenomenal, with real emotion and characterization displayed on the characters’ faces and mannerisms. A good artist can always make or break a book, and Mora – as he’s done with Waid on Batman/Superman – is doing an incredible job.

The next aspect that makes a crossover work is what happens in the spin-off books. In the original Crisis, the main story was supplemented by chapters in the various ongoing comics showing what was happening to those heroes during the Crisis itself, and that was the template for crossovers for a long time. Somewhere along the line, though, it became less likely for an individual series to be interrupted by a crossover and we’d get several – sometimes DOZENS – of spin-off one-shots and miniseries doing the job instead. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this shift in how crossovers were told corresponded with the point where the comic book WRITERS became the stars of the show, their prominence somewhat overtaking the artists. If the guy writing, for example, Uncanny X-Men at the time didn’t want his X-Men storyline interrupted because of World War Hulk, then the main title would remain unmolested and a World War Hulk: X-Men miniseries would take its place. The far extreme of this policy was what DC did last year with Knight Terrors, where EVERY ongoing DC comic was replaced for two months with a two-part miniseries showing that character’s interaction with the event, and many of them were never touched upon again.

For the most part, I’m in favor of a writer getting to tell the story the way they want, but speaking as a READER, I prefer when the crossovers touch the regular title. To me, that gives them greater weight, makes them feel more “important” than putting them into a spin-off miniseries. Absolute Power has returned to form on this. The ongoing titles are picking up the story threads started in the main series and running with them. After Nightwing gives the heroes various assignments in Absolute Power #2, we see them start to carry out their missions in the pages of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and other titles. In other books, like Green Lantern, we get side stories of some of the heroes who have been captured or are still on the run. And then there’s Green Arrow, which deals with the most shocking development of the story to date: longtime Justice League member Green Arrow has inexplicably turned tables and joined Amanda Waller, fighting his friends! Obviously, anything this incredible has to be covered in the main Absolute Power title, so what’s going on in his book right now? We see how his supporting cast – his son Connor, various former sidekicks and so on – are reacting to the fact that their patriarch seems to have broken bad. 

Crossover chapters that are actually RELEVANT? Is that ALLOWED?

There are, I should concede, two spin-off miniseries for Absolute Power, but both are a bit more justified. Absolute Power: Origins is a deep dive into Amanda Waller’s backstory, showing how she went from a grieving mother who lost family members to violence (and how many heroes have had that same motivation?) to the magnificent bastard she is today. Absolute Power: Task Force VII, on the other hand, tells stories focusing on Waller’s seven power-stealing androids and their interactions with the heroes. Neither may be absolutely NECESSARY to the story, but I feel as though they both add something that otherwise we wouldn’t have, which is what a good spin-off should do. 

The last thing that I think makes for a solid crossover is the impact of the story after it ends. I hate to keep picking on Knight Terrors, because I don’t really think it was a bad story, but the overall impact on the DC Universe since then has been negligible. The only significant thread I can think of was increasing Waller’s paranoia, but she already had that in spades and, what’s more, the Beast World event that FOLLOWED Knight Terrors did that same job, but better. Obviously, it’s impossible to tell right now just how Absolute Power will shape the DCU going forward, but there are hints in the solicitations for upcoming comics. After the series ends we’re going to be treated to a new initiative called “DC All-In,” which will start with a one-shot before branching out. This isn’t going to be a continuity reboot as DC has done in the past, but it will launch several new titles and some of the existing books will get new creative teams and new directions. The one that I’m most excited for will be the newly-announced Justice League Unlimited, done by the Absolute Power team of Waid and Mora. Although they’re playing details close to the vest until the end of Absolute Power, preliminary artwork and buzz indicate that this comic will be taking its cue from the cartoon series of the same name, in which the League expanded to include virtually every hero in the DC Universe, with different ones called up as needed. This is honestly the way I’ve thought they should have run the League for the past twenty years, since the cartoon was launched, and the fact that it’s finally happening makes me giddy. The fact that it’s Waid and Mora taking the reigns makes me ECSTATIC. 

Holy crap, guys, Santa got my letter.

So even now, only halfway through the event, I feel as though Absolute Power has all the earmarks of one of the DC Universe’s classic storylines. All the pieces are in place and the right creative team is there. I haven’t enjoyed a book of this nature this much in years, and the fact that I’m equally excited for the stuff promised to come next makes it even better. So for the next creative team – from any publisher – who’s looking to do a multi-character, multi-title crossover epic event series, I can offer no better advice than to look to Mark Waid, Dan Mora, and Absolute Power.

Because THIS is how we do it.

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. Now if only the next event series were to bring back Captain Carrot to his deserved place of prominence in the DC Universe. 

Geek Punditry #82: I’m Going to Go Back There Someday

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It’s that time again, friends. Every year, as July races to a close, kids sharpen pencils for school, and teachers spend an inordinate amount of time and money getting their classrooms suitable to post on Instagram, the geeks of the world converge on San Diego, California for the annual bacchanalia officially known as Comic-Con International. And every year I sit here in Louisiana, gazing to the west, and wishing I could be there with ‘em.

Goals.

It’s a bucket list thing for me, guys. Some day, at least ONCE, I want to go to San Diego Comic-Con. I’ve got a lot of friends who have been – heck, with the pals I have who work in comics, I’ve got a lot of friends who go pretty much every year. I see the posts and I gaze at the photos shared on social media and I think about what it would be like to be there, even though I know it’s not going to happen any time soon. It’s expensive, first of all. Admission to the convention aside, I think about the costs of airfare, food, car rental or Ubers to get around, and hotel rooms (some reportedly going for over $1000 a night on this particular weekend) and I know there’s no way this can be swung on a teacher’s salary in the current economy. Then there’s the kiddo – making this trip would either require my wife to take time off work to stay home with our son or her take off work so all three of us could go together. Going together is my preference, but not really feasible at the moment. So it stays on that bucket list, unchecked, right next to “Play Benjamin Franklin in a production of 1776.”

Also goals.

“Ah, it’s okay Blake,” say some of my friends. “Comic-Con isn’t what it used to be anyway.” And that, at least, is true. It’s been a really long time since Comic-Con was actually about comic books. The media empires have taken it over – movie and TV studios are the stars of the really big panels, and video game companies flock there to shill their upcoming games. And while I don’t begrudge any of them, comics are my real jam, and are what I’d really want to see. I’d rather go to a DC Comics panel than a Warner Bros. panel most days…although if it were James Gunn and company talking about the upcoming Superman movie, it’d be a heck of an internal battle. 

Still wanna go, though.

It also doesn’t seem to be quite as big in terms of making news as it used to be. For years in these waning days of July, I would refresh my web browser all day long, waiting for news reports coming from San Diego to tell me what was going to happen over the next year in the world of entertainment. Marvel would unveil whole slates of films there back when such a thing seemed like a wise thing to do, and fans like myself would teeter on the edge of Firefox to see what was coming next. I don’t feel like that happens as much anymore. Studios are so desperate to stay relevant that they squeeze out announcements all year long, often prematurely, very often promising things that wind up never happening. It’s frustrating, to be sure. But in terms of what it does to Comic-Con it’s even worse, as so many of the “big” panels have changed. There’s no longer an opportunity to blow our minds with announcements of what’s to come, but rather just a recap of the announcements that have been made since the last time they recapped their announcements. 

Yet I still wish I was there.

It’s not like I’ve never been to a convention, of course. When I was young, I went with my Uncle Todd to a few Star Trek conventions (these don’t really exist anymore, as Comic-Con and its many imitators have become a catch-all for pop culture and cons specific to a single franchise have become much rarer). When the Chicago Comic-Con was still a big deal I did a road trip with my buddies Mike and James. I’ve been to Philly and Houston, and many Wizard World-turned-Fan Expo shows here in New Orleans. And I’ve been to dozens of smaller shows, which are honestly better when it comes to the comic book side of things. Back in April, Erin and I took Eddie to a small show in Covington (right across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans) and it was honestly the BEST show I’ve been to in YEARS when it comes to the number of vendors selling comic books and comic paraphernalia, as opposed to thousands of headshots you could get signed by whatever actors are in attendance. I loved that little show, and I’m looking forward to the next one.

Observe the Native North American Geek in his natural habitat.

But I still feel that COMPULSION to go to the BIG one.

Why?

Because in a weird way it feels like home.

I don’t know if younger readers will get this, because the stigma about being into “nerdy” stuff seems to have largely gone away. With Marvel and Star Wars being so mainstream and things like Game of Thrones and The Boys becoming media juggernauts, things that we used to consider niche entertainment have become dominant parts of the cultural zeitgeist. But when I was in high school in the 90s, I was always made to feel like I didn’t belong because I read comics and watched cartoons. I clung to the things I loved, but often felt the need to hide them, lest I become even more of an outcast than I already was. I’d even quit Disney and Archie comics not because I didn’t like them anymore, but because I let people put it in my head that if I was in high school and reading Uncle Scrooge something must have been wrong with me. If I was seen with a Star Trek novel or an X-Men t-shirt, the reaction quite clearly elicited the same response every time: you do not belong here. High school was a bitch of a place, guys.

I’ve got a core memory of a time in 1993 when Superman: The Man of Steel #22 came out. This was during the whole “Death and Return of Superman” storyline, and John Henry Irons IMMEDIATELY became my favorite of the four potential heirs to the throne. I brought the comic to school with me and, on a break outside, I sat on a bench to read it. And within seconds, a jerk from my PE class yanked it out of my hands because I was such a “nerd,” threw dirt into the die-cut cover, and stomped away laughing.

I can’t help but feel that John Henry would have known how to deal with it.

I don’t remember the guy’s name. I couldn’t pick his face out of a lineup. But I’ll never forget what he did, because you CAN’T forget anything that makes you feel that small.

I look at my own students, and I don’t see that anymore. Oh sure, there are still cliques and groups, there will ALWAYS be cliques and groups, but they aren’t really based on things like what kind of pop culture a kid is into anymore. I see a lot of kids who read Manga (not enough into western comics, but that’s a separate issue), but I never see anyone get bullied for that. You want to pick on a kid for playing video games? Dude, that’s a club whose membership is EVERYBODY. Things have changed and, in this respect at least, have very much changed for the better.

But I come from a time BEFORE those changes, when I only knew two or three other kids in my school who were openly comic book fans, and most of them wound up moving away before we graduated. It was a lonely time.

The first time I walked into a comic book convention, it was like I had finally found my tribe. There were people here who not only wouldn’t MOCK me for reading Superman, but would join me in a spirited debate over the credentials of the Man of Steel, Cyborg, Superboy, and Eradicator, and which of them (if any) were the real deal. There were people here who could ALSO explain why some crew members on the Enterprise wore red while others wore gold or blue. There were people who not only wouldn’t mock me for loving Uncle Scrooge comics, but they would join me in line to get a print and comics signed by Don Rosa, perhaps the greatest artist ever to draw the Laird of the Clan McDuck. (Yeah, I love Carl Barks too, but I said what I said.)

If my house caught on fire I would save my son, and then this. My wife is faster than me, she’s already outside at this point, that’s why I didn’t mention her.

Nobody should ever have to feel the way I felt on that day back in 1993, certainly not because of what they like to read or watch. But I wish that EVERYBODY could have that experience of walking into a room and suddenly feeling like that’s where you’ve belonged all along.

I still get that when I walk into my local comic shop (BSI Comics in Metairie, Louisiana – and I’ll never be shy about giving them the shout-out). I feel that way on Free Comic Book Day, when hundreds of like-minded folks come together to see what’s new. And I feel that way when I attend a show full of people selling, drawing, reading, and talking about comics and movies and TV shows. And even the people who aren’t into the same comics and movies and TV shows as I am are still part of the same tribe, because we know that even if I’m into Star Trek and you’re into Star Wars, we’re still more alike than we are different.

Not like that Stargate weirdo.

So why would I possibly want to go to the big, bloated, past-its-glory-days Comic-Con International in San Diego? 

Because in a way that I don’t know if you can understand if you’re lucky enough to never have felt like an outcast, it’s where I feel like I belong. With my people. With my tribe. Just because I’ve never been doesn’t mean it doesn’t call to me like home.

Ah well. Maybe next year.

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. He believes the Great Gonzo said it best when he sang, “I’ve never been there, but I know the way,” and a tip of the hat to Steve J. Rogers for putting that bug in his ear. 

Geek Punditry #71: Gimmie a Gimmick

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As you may have heard me mention once or twice, last weekend was the annual Nerd Bacchanalia known as Free Comic Book Day, one of my favorite days of the entire calendar year. And on this day, as they always do, my friends at BSI Comics were kind enough to allow me to set up a table and sell a few copies of my new book (which you should have ordered by now). From the vantage point of my table, I was facing a wall that displayed several back issues from those halcyon days of the 1990s, which were among the most formative years of my comic book consuming lifetime. The wall was adorned with lots of those flashy “Enhanced” covers that were so popular at the time – holofoil covers, embossed covers, chromium covers, glow-in-the-dark covers…you name a goofy gimmick, comic book publishers from the 1990s slapped it on the cover of a book. And as I spent hours there looking at those books, an odd realization slowly came over me.

I kinda miss those days.

I stared at these covers for eight hours on Saturday. It does things to a man.

It’s weird. During that time gimmick covers became a glut. They seemed to be coming at an ever-faster pace with ever-weirder gimmicks, and at the time I remember getting sick and tired of them. These days, however, they have become scarce. They’re not extinct, but you don’t see them nearly as much. Instead, modern publishers have decided to go with the business model of publishing 37 different variant covers for every issue. Some of them still slip in an enhanced cover in the mix, usually holofoil or “metallic” covers (for instance, DC recently did a run of metallic covers for various books with artwork featuring only the character’s symbol on a solid background). But they are not the exception, not the rule. 

I’m not going to try to get into a comprehensive history of the gimmick cover, but I’m going to tell you a little bit about my personal experiences with them. The first cover enhancement I remember seeing was back in 1991 when DC Comics released their second Robin miniseries, Robin II: The Joker’s Wild, each issue of which had covers with holographic images. Holograms themselves weren’t anything new, of course – I even remember making them in my high school chemistry class – but this was the first time I saw one on the cover of a comic book. It was cool! It was new! It was fun! And it was – if I recall – only fifty cents more than the regular cover! SWEET!

The next time someone tells you they faked the moon landing, remind them that this was considered high tech in 1991.

Not to be outdone, the next year Marvel gave each of the four Spider-Man titles at the time a cover with a hologram to celebrate Spider-Man’s 30th anniversary. (If you, too, remember when these comics were published, don’t do the math. It’ll make you realize that Spider-Man is now in his 60s and make us all feel like that scene at the end of Saving Private Ryan.) The holograms were more elaborate than DC’s, and each issue was a giant-sized extravaganza back in the days when such a thing actually meant something, so while they were more expensive than the issues of Robin, they were inarguably awesome. 

THIS technology, on the other hand, could have taken us to Mars.

Not long after that, there was another set of four Spider-Man covers with “holofoil” enhancements – the background of the artwork was metallic and shiny and you know how much we like shiny objects, so those were also a huge hit. And thus the floodgates were opened. Actual holograms became less common (as, if I remember from my chemistry class, they were more complicated to produce), but holofoil became a popular choice. Then other enhancements started to arrive. Die-cut covers, which had long been a popular choice in the paperback book market, started to show up. It made sense, too – have Wolverine’s claws slash through the cover of the comic book and you’ve got an obvious thematic connection. Similarly, embossed covers with artwork raised and stamped into the cardstock in a 3-D fashion made the transition from horror and sci-fi novels to comic books. Glow-in-the-dark, another mainstay of other marketing strategies, became used both for spooky books like DC’s The Spectre and goofy books like the Bongo Comics Simpsons spin-off Radioactive Man. 

Valiant Comics launched Bloodshot with what I believe was the first “Chromium” cover: artwork printed on a metallic backing with some sort of plastic covering. The first two books with this process had a chromium panel embedded in cardstock, then DC upped the ante with a full chromium front cover on Superman #82 (the book that concluded the Death and Return of Superman cycle). Eventually, somebody realized that it was easier to do an entire chromium cover – front and back- – instead of just parts of one, and most chromium covers after that became full wraparound covers, with art that extended from the front to the back in one large image that was no doubt easier to produce than a chromium front and a traditional back which then somehow had to be affixed.

Most people agreed that Image Comics’ “Enriched Uranium” covers went too far.

There were a couple of really weird enhancements, too. DC’s 1992 crossover event Eclipso: The Darkness Within focused on a demonic villain that possesses people infected by a magical black diamond. To kick things off, DC published a special with a cover featuring Eclipso holding up the diamond – which was an actual plastic diamond glued to the cover. Kind of cool, until the time comes to put the comic book in a bag and store it without splitting the mylar or putting divots in the back of whatever book it’s stored next to.

My personal favorite from this era, in terms of sheer weirdness, comes from Malibu Comics. Malibu was a hot publisher at the time, and their comic Protectors kicked off a new shared universe with revamps of several Golden Age characters that had fallen into the public domain. In the fifth issue of that series, the character Night Mask was killed in an effort to show early on that being a superhero would be a dangerous path and that the untrained or inexperienced would be in grave danger. Malibu chose to communicate this message with cover art that featured a bullet hole in the character’s chest that was punched through not only the cover, but the entire comic book. I’ve often wondered if this was a last minute decision, as the hole punched straight through the art on every page, in some cases even taking out a small piece of a word balloon and making you try to guess what the dialogue was supposed to be. It’s such a weird little thing, though, that even people who barely remember that the Protectors ever existed will likely remember the comic with the hole through it. (A few years later Malibu would launch their Ultraverse line, overshadowing the Protectors universe. The publisher was later purchased by Marvel, and all of their properties would fade into obscurity except for a little IP called Men in Black.)

Historians have determined that this is the point when the Comics Code just threw up their hands and surrendered.

As tends to happen, of course, good things went too far. Whereas these sort of enhanced covers started off being used for special events – first issues, anniversaries, major storylines and so forth – they quickly became overused. Instead of a holofoil cover for a 100th issue, we were getting foil covers because it was Wednesday. An issue of Fantastic Four in which the Human Torch lost control of his flame was printed with an entirely white cover, the artwork embossed into the cardstock and almost impossible to see. They’d repeat this trick with metallic Avengers covers and, of course, other publishers would soon follow suit.

With this oversaturation, fans eventually got turned off and stopped buying them, which no doubt at least partially contributed to the late 90s collapse of the comic book speculator market, and the flow of gimmicks was reduced to a trickle. Instead, as I said before, the focus for most publishers has shifted to producing variants – the same book with lots of different covers. And these have gotten ridiculous as well: while some variants have completely different artwork, others just change the color or remove the logo and trade dress or print the uncolored artwork as a “sketch” variant. For a relaunch of Justice League of America, DC put out over fifty covers with the same artwork featuring the team raising the American flag in an Iwo Jima-like pose.  For the variants, they switched out the US flag to that of each individual state and, I think, a few territories. Easiest way to sell one guy fifty copies of the same book EVER. Marvel did something similar with a series called U.S. Avengers, putting out a different cover for each state with a different Avenger, proclaiming them the official Avenger of that state. (Some of these made perfect sense: as Monica Rambeau is the only Avenger FROM Louisiana, she is the natural choice to be the Avenger OF Louisiana. But I’m still waiting for someone to tell me why She-Hulk is the official Avenger of Idaho, with an explanation other than “Well, SOMEBODY’S gotta be.”) 

And don’t even get me started on the fact that Spider-Man, the most New York hero in any multiverse, is the Avenger of New Hampshire.

Whatever the case, the result with the variant wave is the same: they’re counting on completists to buy every cover variant of the book they can get their hands on. Which I suppose helps them sell comics, but it also burns out regular readers and does absolutely NOTHING to attract a NEW readership, which is where American comics are having such a difficult time right now. I’m sure it costs less to print a traditional cover than one with a hologram on it, but I’m really not a fan of the business model that says “convince one customer to buy the same book two dozen times” instead of the business model that says “make a comic book good enough that two dozen people will want to buy it instead of one.” 

These days you still see holofoil and metallic covers, usually when a smaller publisher does a run with 75 different variants and then doubles it by making holofoil versions of each. Marvel and DC have also each done runs of lenticular covers (an image where the artwork changes if you tilt the page or look at it from a different angle) in the last decade or so. But there hasn’t been much else. When Superman married Lois Lane in 1996, there was a special edition cover embossed and designed to resemble a wedding invitation. When the Thing from the Fantastic Four finally married his longtime girlfriend Alicia Masters in 2019, we got a bunch of covers showing the couple from every conceivable angle, but not the slightest hint of foil, nothing that glowed in the dark, and certainly nothing that could be scratched and, subsequently, sniffed. 

I don’t care what anybody says, Stan Lee’s epitaph does NOT count as a cover enhancement.

I know that if the enhancements came back they would quickly become overdone all over again. I know that after three months of Green Lantern covers where one glows and the next has a lantern shape cut out and the third glows AND has a lantern shape cut out I would probably start to get irritated because they’re charging an extra buck for each cover. But they’re doing that for a lot of the variants NOW, and while I am not someone who usually buys variants, I admit that I would be more inclined to do so if there was a little bit of an enhancement to sweeten the pot. 

The hard part is not doing covers like these, it’s doing them in such a way that people don’t get sick of them. Reserve them for important occasions. First issues are acceptable. Anniversary issues are acceptable. The beginning or end of a major storyline is acceptable. 

“Wednesday” is not.

I know that my yearning for these covers is tainted by nostalgia, but that’s not always a bad thing. Nostalgia is the only reason X-Men ‘97 exists on Disney+, and people seem to be pretty darn satisfied with it. (I haven’t watched it yet, so no spoilers.) 

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m just shouting into the wind and when you guys read this week’s column you’ll all think I’m crazy for feeling this way. Heck, even I think I’m a little crazy for feeling this way. All I know is this: when I go into BSI Comics to pick up some new books, I almost never want the variants…but once in a while, I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on an enhancement or two. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. If you go on eBay looking for some of these comics he’s talking about, don’t be fooled. The “coffee stains on page 17” variant is NOT an enhancement, no matter what the seller is telling you.