As you may know if you read my other blogs and watch my videos, I love Halloween. I love the last three months of the year, really, it’s the best part of the year and sometimes just waiting for it to happen is what makes me happy. And even here in the Year of Superman, I’ve got plans for October that will allow me to dip into the darkness, starting today with VILLAIN DEBUT WEEK. For the next seven days, I’ll be looking at the first appearances of some of Superman’s greatest – or at least most memorable – foes. And I gotta tell you, putting this together wasn’t as easy as you might think. As great a hero as Superman is, his rogues’ gallery doesn’t have as deep a bench as Batman, Spider-Man, or the Flash. What’s more, I’ve already covered the first appearances of several of his villains this year – Darkseid, Metallo, Doomsday, and the Cyborg Superman have all had their origins show up already. Others, like Conduit, had a long, protracted first storyline that I didn’t want to devote that much time to this week. Still more, also like Conduit, flamed brightly, but briefly, and then faded to obscurity. That said, I’ve picked what I think are enough memorable baddies to fill out the week, and I’m going to cover them in chronological order of first appearance.

And as always, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman Archive!

Wed., Oct. 1

Comics: Action Comics #13 & 14, 23

Notes: I’m gonna start off Villains Origin Week with the first supervillain Superman ever fought, followed by the character who is now revered as his greatest enemy. We’ll begin in Action Comics #13 from 1939 – the first appearance of the Ultra-Humanite. 

The story starts pretty simply – Clark Kent is taking a cab to work at the Daily Star when he gets rammed by another taxi. He discovers that there’s a cab company exercising a protection racket against the other cabbies in town, trying to force them to sign up. After Superman busts Reynolds, the guy in charge of the racket, Reynolds is freed from a police transport. Superman takes off after him, chasing him to a cabin in the woods where his balding boss awaits. He introduces himself as the Ultra-Humanite and declares that a scientific experiment has given him the “most agile brain” on Earth, which he intends to use for world domination.

World domination, as we all know, frequently begins by muscling cab drivers for a percentage of their fare. 

The Ultra-Humanite jolts Superman into unconsciousness with enough electricity to kill “five hundred men.” The waylaid hero is strapped to a board and driven into a circular saw, but the blade splinters on Superman’s skull and sends shrapnel around the room, one of the fragments piercing Reynold’s throat and killing him instantly (a pretty rare death indirectly caused by Superman). When Superman regains consciousness, the Ultra-Humanite flees in an airplane. Superman leaps into the air and smashes the plane’s propeller, sending it plummeting to the ground. When Superman examines the wreckage, there is no trace of the villain. 

Wow, what a different story than the Superman we see today.

Not only is Superman far more cavalier about things like Reynolds’ death (even if it isn’t Superman’s fault), but he’s far more reckless when he causes the plane to crash. As for the Ultra-Humanite himself, he’s a far cry from the villain he would become. His schtick these days is his ability to leapfrog his mind from one body to another, with readers being most familiar with the albino gorilla body he uses most of the time these days. Not only is there no trace of his mental abilities, even his claim of having the “most agile” brain in the world doesn’t really hold up to much scrutiny here, as he doesn’t appear to have any greater intelligence than any other villain Superman had faced up to that point. He returns in issue #14, having escaped his death and once again nearly getting Superman in a deathtrap, but Superman got away again. I don’t know if Jerry Siegel – who wrote these stories – was deliberately trying to position the Ultra-Humanite as Superman’s greatest foe, but a lot of the elements inherent in this version of the character would soon be swapped with another, far more memorable villain.

Because Action Comics #23 gave us the first appearance of Lex Luthor. 

In a story that definitely feels like it inspired James Gunn at least a lil’ bit, Superman discovers evidence that a war between two nations is being spurred on by the machinations of a mysterious profiteer named Luthor. When Clark Kent goes public with this knowledge, Luthor goes on the attack. Although not as drastic as the change between the embryonic Ultra-Humanite and his later form, this early Luthor is much different than the one we would grow to know and love to hate. His first name is never mentioned, and he comes across as more of a war criminal than the mad scientist or ruthless businessman he would later evolve into. He also has his famous red hair in this one. The story goes that when Luthor was brought back in a later story, the artist looked at this original for reference and mixed up Lex with his bald-headed flunky, changing the course of comic book history. It’s amazing, though, how time changes all these characters. Looking back at this original story, one could hardly believe this character would grow into one of the greatest supervillains of all time. 

Thur., Oct. 2

Comics: Action Comics #51, 64, Superman #30, Taste of Justice #13

Notes: When I made my list of which villains I intended to include in this Villains Origins week, I decided I would go through that list chronologically. Upon doing so, though, I noticed an interesting pattern. The villains in Superman’s life – obviously unintentionally – seem to have been introduced in themed phases. Yesterday, Luthor and the Ultra-Humanite gave us the evil genius era. Today, in the early 1940s, we’re going to visit a trio of villains that all happen to fall under the category of what I’d call “pests” rather than legitimate threats. These are crooks who all are more of a nuisance than actually evil, out to have a little fun and sow a little chaos – although that doesn’t mean that, in later (and darker) eras of comics they weren’t used for more malicious purposes. I’m talking, of course, about the Prankster, the Toyman, and everybody’s favorite fifth dimensional imp, Mr. Mxyzptlk. 

Prankster turns up first, in Action #51 from 1942. The story begins with Superman foiling an old-fashioned bank robbery, but the crooks narrowly escape to meet up with their boss – a goofy, big-eared, buck-toothed crook in a bad suit that calls himself the Prankster. He embarks upon another robbery loaded with the kind of jokes that kids think are funny – a handkerchief that stains your face with black ink, guns that shoot corks or water instead of bullets, and so forth. He even leaves a ticking bag at the scene of a crime, a bomb that the police are terrified to approach. Of course, Lois Lane has no such fear, marching right past Metropolis’s finest to open up the bag and cause a harmless noise-making explosion in a bag full of money. The Prankster’s goons are baffled by why their boss is leaving money BEHIND at the scene of their crimes, but keep going along with it. At the scene of their third crime Superman rounds up the gang and the cops charge Prankster with robbery and assault with a deadly weapon – both charges which are swiftly dropped when the Prankster reveals that his gun only shoots toy parachutes and that, far from stealing from his victim, he has GIVEN him $30,000. 

I have to admit, I’ve never wanted so badly to be a crime victim as I have while reading this story.

Prankster keeps going with his bizarre scheme, giving away thousands of dollars time and again, before finally showing up at the Metropolis National Bank. The bank manager, thinking he’s in for a windfall of his own, opens up the vault for the Prankster, who proceeds to relieve him of millions of dollars in currency and jewels, far more than he’s given away. Superman goes after him, saving Lois (because of course she got herself kidnapped) and fighting a variety of traps before the Prankster himself is seemingly killed in a cave-in. Superman was a hell of a lot less curious about the apparent deaths of his foes in those days. But to the credit of the writer, this time they don’t even PRETEND the villain is really dead – in the last two panels we see the Prankster hiding in his cave and planning his next scheme.

Of the three nuisance villains we’re reading about today, I have to admit, I’ve always found the Prankster the least interesting. He’s like the Riddler without the smarts or the Joker without the charisma. That said, I’ve never read his first appearance before, and I’m surprised. His scheme is actually pretty clever, and he also comes across more menacing than I expected, killing one of his own goons in a trap because the man dared question him. He became less and less interesting over time, I guess, but for a Golden Age villain origin, this is solid. 

About a year after the Prankster’s debut, the Toyman showed up for the first time in Action #64. Lois and Clark are walking through the park when an automated Superman doll runs past them. Clark catches it and returns it to the creator, a goofy looking dude in a Little Lord Fauntleroy getup calling himself the Toyman. Impressed at his work, Lois asks if she could write an article about him and his shop. Lois doesn’t know, of course, that not all of his toys are so benign. Toyman sends a troop of toy soldiers into a bank (never trust your money in a Metropolis bank) where they expel knockout gas, allowing him to loot the cash drawers, getting away on a flying pogo stick. For his next trick, Toyman uses a toy fire truck to start a fire at an expensive apartment building, leaving him free to rob the penthouse at the top as Superman is busy rescuing people from the flames. He even sends a letter to the Daily Planet to brag about his third crime, using a toy truck to blow up a bridge while his men in scuba gear empty a real armored car that fell into the water. Superman catches the divers, but Lois is caught (OF COURSE SHE IS) by the Toyman and his toy battleship. Superman ultimately tracks him to his hideout using his super-senses, and Clark shows up to untie Lois – but not before he beats her to writing up the story of the Toyman for the newspaper. 

I really like the last bit, where Clark gets the better of Lois for once. As for Toyman himself, this is a character who’s been reinvented many times. At least three different characters (one of them a hero) have used the name, and the original Winslow Schott has been at turns a child-hating creep, a child-loving creep, and a third stage that made him – in the 90s – one of the darkest foes Superman ever fought. We’ll get to that story later this month.

In 1944, Superman #30 gave us the debut of the character we would come to know as Mr. Mxyzptlk, although it’s spelled “Mxyztplk” here, and the spelling changed later. I wanted to make sure I was clear about that – I’d hate for anybody to get confused. It all begins when a little man wearing a derby hat walks in front of a speeding truck and is seemingly killed. The paramedics can’t budge him, though, and he shocks the hell out of them by sitting up and encouraging them to try harder before stealing their ambulance, driving it straight up the side of the building, and making it explode. He next appears in a museum, loudly interrupting the unveiling of a new sculpture by howling for his friend “McGurk.” After disrupting the show, the sculpture is unveiled and comes to life, following the imp away. Superman finally chases down the little goober, but he vanishes. He continues to pop up in and around Metropolis causing chaos for several pages before slowing down long enough to tell Superman that he’s from another dimension and he thought using his powers in ours would be fun for a little while once he learned the magic words that could transport him back and forth. Superman deftly tricks him into saying the word that sends him home (“Klptzyxm,” natch) and he vanishes, but not before one last prank. Clark comes back to the Daily Planet to find that, rather than Clark’s story about Mxy’s pranks, he published a story mocking Lois Lane’s new hat.

This is a funny story, with great visuals and sight gags that click with this embryonic Mxyzptlk. There are even lots of little background jokes to populate the pages, like a kid telling his mom he wants to grow up to be like Superman only to be admonished that he has to eat his vegetables. It’s a great intro and no wonder that the imp was brought back time and again. He’s gone through a lot of incarnations as well. Sometimes he’s more malevolent, sometimes he’s more childlike, occasionally he even comes across as wanting to be Superman’s friend. Whatever the case, though, having him around is always amusing. 

Fri. Oct. 3

Comics: Action Comics #242, Superboy #68

Notes: By the 50s, the era of the super-nuisance seemed to have passed, and the next batch of memorable villains to join Superman’s rogues gallery were of a more sci-fi bent: the alien Brainiac, the quasi-clone Bizarro and the cyborg Metallo. Metallo, coincidentally, made his first appearance in Action Comics #252, which I covered here several months ago, as it happens to be the same issue as the first appearance of Supergirl. But today I’ll look at Brainiac and Bizarro.

In Action #242, Brainiac comes to Earth to shrink its greatest cities and steal them to repopulate his own home planet, which was wiped out by a plague. After getting Paris and New York, Superman waits in Metropolis for his home town to be stolen as a way onto Brainiac’s ship. On board, the tiny Superman another city that was stolen: a city from his homeworld of Krypton – but upon entering the bottle, he loses his powers under the stimulated Kryptonian environment. He seeks help from a scientist named Kimda who happens to be his father Jor-El’s college roommate (I know that sounds like a joke, but I swear to God, that’s exactly what happened). Outside the bottle, Brainiac goes into suspended animation for his trip back home and Superman manages to escape the bottle. Using Kimda’s findings, Superman restores the cities of Earth, but then discovers that ray has only enough charge left for one more enlargement – either Superman or the Kryptonian city. Although he plans to restore the city, Kimda intervenes and turns the ray on, making Superman grow so that Earth would not be deprived of its greatest hero. Brainiac’s ship continues on its way while Superman brings the city to his Fortress of Solitude with a vow to find some way to restore it someday.

This is such a weird story to me. Brainiac has changed so much over the years that you almost wouldn’t recognize him – he’s usually painted as far more menacing and malevolent these days, and later incarnations would identify him as an artificial intelligence that occasionally uses flesh and blood bodies. Kandor itself would get massive development over the years – in fact, until I started to write this recap I didn’t even notice that the city was never identified by name in the original story, it was just “a Kryptonian city.” It’s really weird and fascinating to look back on these things, elements of Superman’s lore that would go on to become so important, and see how humbly they began. 

Bizarro first showed up in Superboy #58 later that same year. When one of Smallville’s seemingly infinite number of scientists asks Superboy to help him test a new “duplicator ray” he’s invented, he accidentally strikes Superboy with the beam and creates a “non-living” duplicate with a strange faceted skin and a feeble mind, but all of Superboy’s powers. Dubbed “Bizarro” the creature stumbles around Smallville for a while trying and failing to fit in, finally making friends with a young woman named Melissa who isn’t terrified of his appearance. The dim Bizarro, however, doesn’t realize that the girl is blind. When Bizarro decides to seek her out at Smallville High, Clark is forced to do some secretive super-feats to prevent the creature’s bumbling from accidentally killing half the class.

Superboy finds a chunk of Kryptonite and tries to use it to stop Bizarro, but it has no effect. He uses a marionette of Melissa to lure Bizarro to a military range, where the army fails to destroy the creature with heavy artillery. (Really, Clark, the creature obviously has all your powers, what were you thinking?) Bizarro returns to the real Melissa, where he discovers that she’s blind, and only his friend because she can’t see his real face. At the same time, Superboy learns that the irradiated pieces of the original duplicator ray have a Kryptonite-like effect on Bizarro. He approaches the creature with a piece of the metal and Bizarro hurls himself into it, exploding into a rain of dust. Somehow, the vibrations of his explosion trigger Melissa’s optic nerve and restore her sight, leaving her to wish she had seen the “kind face” of the creature who sacrificed himself for her.

This story goes to great lengths to remind us that Bizarro isn’t alive, over and over again, despite all evidence to the contrary. Doesn’t matter that he moves and thinks and has feelings and willingly sacrifices himself for the betterment of his only friend. None of those things are evidence of LIFE. After all, if he WERE alive, that would make Superboy a murderer, which probably would have been frowned upon. But alive or not, this Bizarro already carries a lot of the elements that the character would embody later, including his backwards thinking and speaking. He was brought back a year later, when the experiment that created Bizarro was duplicated on the adult Superman, creating a second Bizarro. This one would ironically go on to dub himself “Bizarro #1” when he created a whole planet of duplicates of himself and the Bizarro culture became fleshed out. John Byrne would also bring back the idea of Bizarro sacrificing himself to restore sight to a blind girl – this time Lucy Lane – when he rebooted the character in Man of Steel. The blueprint was there from the beginning, but it’s been greatly expanded over time. 

Sat., Oct. 4

Comics: Superboy #83, Adventure Comics #283, Justice League: The Omega Act Special #1, Absolute Evil #1

Notes: The next point we reached with the introduction of memorable villains seems to have brought us to an era of threats from home – specifically, Krypton. Superboy #83 brought us the debut of the Kryptonite Kid, who first appears to Superboy in a dream. The Kid, with a body (and a dog) made of Kryptonite vexes the sleeping Superboy. Even more baffling, Superboy soon figures out that Krypto is having the same dreams as he is. The dreams come true when they encounter the Kid at a playground. The Kid chases Superboy, demonstrating his ability to transform things into Kryptonite with a touch – a playground slide first, then the lead culvert Superboy tries to use for cover. The Kid warns Superboy and Krypto that they have to leave Earth or he’ll kill them, then flees the scene. After a few more encounters, one of which winds up with Smallville High School itself turning into Kryptonite, the Kid reveals his secret origin. Turns out he was an inmate at a prison in space who volunteered for an experiment in exchange for the commuting of his sentence. He wound up with the ability to turn things into Kryptonite and decided to use it to attack Superboy. (Projecting himself into Krypto and Clark’s dreams are evidently a natural ability of his alien race.) Just when it seems that Superboy’s down for the count, the Kid is zapped away by – of all people – the young imp Mxyzptlk. After all if Superboy dies, there’ll be no one left for him to play with.

What a bizarre story. The origin is pretty generic, and in the end Superboy has no hand in saving himself – the only reason he survives is because Mxy didn’t want him to die. It’s also interesting to note that, by this point, things had been retconned so that Clark first encountered Mxyzptlk as a kid in Smallville rather than an adult in Metropolis. Kryptonite Kid wasn’t the most memorable of villains, but he did pop in to vex Superboy several more times, and at least once after they were adults. But there would be other villains who picked up the name Kryptonite Man later and made it more fearsome. 

Clark was also Superboy in Adventure Comics, where he met perhaps the second greatest enemy he’d ever have, after Luthor himself: General Zod. It begins when a box falls to Earth in Smallville with Kryptonese writing on it. Superboy reads the inscription to learn that the box contains several weapons that were deemed too dangerous to leave lying around Krypton, so they shot them into space on a trajectory that would eventually cause them to fall onto a far less developed planet, because for all their scientific advancement and planetary harmony, the Kryptonians were kinda dumb. Among these devices, which Superboy learns were created by his own father, Jor-El (there were approximately seven people on Krypton when it exploded and they all were connected to the Els), is the infamous Phantom Zone projector. Superboy learns the history of the device, including how General Zod was banished into the Zone when he tried to stage a revolt on Krypton with an army of Bizarro-like duplicates of himself. The device is activated when a lizard steps on the button and turns Superboy into a Phantom, because — and I cannot reiterate this enough — Kryptonians were kinda dumb. The Phantom Superboy is forced to zip around Smallville – invisible and intangible – trying to find some way to get somebody to turn the device on and restore him. He finally gets a message to Jonathan Kent, using his super-brain to transmit a message to an electric typewriter. This works because earlier in the issue Lana Lang theorized it would. That’s the only reason.

Zod’s appearance in this issue is minimal, appearing only in the flashback that shows how the Phantom Zone projector works. Both he and the Phantom Zone would come back and become much more defined, although Zod himself was fairly unimpressive until the late Terrence Stamp played him in the first two Superman movies, elevating him to the A-list of Superman villains. Most versions of Zod in the comics since then have been based on the Stamp version of the character. The Phantom Zone, too, would be dramatically changed from merely turning the victim into a phantom into being a portal to a literal other dimension. There was a lot of refinement to this concept before it became what it is today. 

I also grabbed this week’s new Superman comics today, including a pair of one-shots that are connected to the larger story of the DC Universe. The prelude to DC KO is presented in Justice League: The Omega Act Special. Superman has brought the lost Booster Gold back to the League, but he and the Doomsday/Time Trapper – along with the Flash – take a quick trip through time to discover what really happened when Darkseid died in the DC All-In Special. The upcoming conflict with the Absolute Universe is about to change everything, but Booster has been changed as well. And in addition to Booster, we get flashbacks to Krypton’s past when Lara (Superman’s mother) and Ursa (Zod’s wife) made a discovery that might change everything we know about a certain member of our cast. I’m really excited to see where this story is going.  

Absolute Evil #1 is the a one-shot special celebrating the first anniversary of DC’s Absolute line, focusing (naturally) on the villains. Hector Hammond is summoned to a summit that includes Veronica Cale, Ra’s Al Ghul, and the humorless creature this universe calls Joker. Cale reveals how – in this universe – certain forces have operated to prevent the rise of costumed heroes, either through violence or temptation. We’re given glimpses of the would-be heroes of this world’s Golden Age and what happened to them, as well as an understanding of what these terribly powerful people have planned now that things have changed and superhumans are beginning to appear that are beyond their ability to control. The issue has a pretty decent recap of the broad strokes of the Absolute Universe to date, for those who maybe want to play catch-up, and there’s a pretty startling final page that leaves me scratching my chin and wondering where they’re planning to go with all this. 

Sun., Oct. 5

Comics: Absolute Superman #12, Adventures of Superman: Book of El #2

Notes: I had a lot on my plate on this Sunday, so I’m going to hop in real quick and read the other two new Superman comics from this week, starting with Absolute Superman #12. “The Battle of Kansas” begins as Kal-El retreats to the one place on Earth he’s ever felt safe: Smallville. Lois and Jimmy have the same idea, seeking refuge in a diner where a face the readers will recognize immediately confronts them about their association with Lazarus. We also get some flashbacks to fill in a bit of Kal-El’s time on Earth, even as Ra’s Al Ghul prepares his revenge on the alien who dared to defy him. This may be my favorite issue of this series to date, with a real look at character and a bit of the flavor of hope we expect from a Superman story. The whole thesis of the Absolute universe is that “hope” is the underdog, and the whole world runs on darkness and conflict as befits a world spawned by the power of Darkseid. But even in a world this dark, this issue shows us how the light of this character shines through, and it feels really good. 

I feel less good about Book of El #2. Superman is in the distant future with his descendant, Ronan Kent, seeking a way home. Meanwhile, the world has been taken over by one of his greatest foes. This issue explores that a little bit, but in a way that I frankly find irritating. Some science fiction writers have people in the future talk exactly like people do today, even though logically we know that’s not right. Language changes and evolves, and people from 1000 from now won’t talk exactly as we do any more than we talk like people from 1000 years ago. So other writers conjure up a “future speak” to address the issue. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t it can come across as REALLY annoying. Realistic or not, sometimes it’s better to just keep the language simple.

Oct. 6

Comics: Action Comics #340, Superman #323, 324, DC Comics Presents #27, 28

Notes: Back to Villains Week. The Parasite was the next significant Superman villain to show up, in Action Comics #340 from 1966. Like many of the villains we’ve talked about this week, he’s gone through a lot of changes over the years, and several people have used the name (although the powers haven’t changed significantly). Let’s see what kind of tomfoolery the original got up to. 

The story, by the late Jim Shooter, kicks off hard, with the opening narration declaring that the Parasite was “the most powerful foe Superman has ever faced!” And in this pre-Darkseid, pre-Doomsday world, that may not be hyperbole. The story starts with Superman helping out in a government science lab, conducting experiments with radioactive elements that would kill an ordinary person. When the facility’s janitor Jensen, is tapped to dispose of the waste from the experiment, he remembers a rumor he heard that sometimes labs ship their payroll inside of containers marked “radioactive waste” to fool criminals. Instead, he proves that criminals are fools by opening up the container and exposing himself to the toxic material. Jensen’s skin turns purple and deformed and he collapses, as if all his energy has been spent. When one of the scientists finds him, Jensen finds himself absorbing not only the man’s energy, but also his scientific knowledge. He fights his way to freedom, absorbing the strength and minds of everyone he comes across. Although the energy he absorbs doesn’t last long, he begins to plan a new life as a human Parasite.

He later picks up a little of Superman’s energy as the Man of Steel flies past his hideout, and he gets the idea to hunt him down. When he feels an enormous surge of energy coming from Clark Kent, the Parasite figures out a secret that Luthor and Brainiac had been struggling with for decades. When Superman tries to stop him from robbing a bank, the Parasite defeats him with his own power and threatens to expose his secret identity if Superman refuses to fight him to the finish. He’s shocked that, no matter how much power he drains from Superman, he still keeps getting up and he keeps absorbing more and more until finally his mortal body is overloaded by Superman’s power and he explodes.

We’ve talked before about how unimaginative people complain that Superman’s powers make him “boring,” but it IS true that it’s hard to come up with a suitable physical threat for him. Like Kryptonite Kid, this was an effort to do so. But like Kryptonite Kid, in the end, Superman’s victory is a passive one. He survives not because of anything he DOES, but because the Parasite simply bites off more than he can chew. The Parasite would become a recurring foe for Superman over the decades, and although he remained dangerous, they also started to play up the fact that he wasn’t all that smart, and subsequent victories gave Superman a bit more agency. Still, it’s kind of disappointing that their first tete-a-tete ended the way it did. 

Next we jump ahead to 1978 and the first appearance of the Atomic Skull in Superman #323. Although the Skull has never quite cracked into the ranks of Superman’s A-list villains, he’s a B- (or, if I’m being honest, maybe C)-lister that I’ve always had a fondness for. Of course, I remember him better in his vastly different post-Crisis version that showed up in early issues of Superman: The Man of Steel. The original Skull appears in “The Man With the Self-Destruct Mind” by Martin Pasko and Curt Swan, and shows up on page one destroying a Superman statue and vowing to kill the real thing. Superman, meanwhile, is in space – he’s wearing a suit of lead armor trying to investigate a sudden preponderance of Kryptonite that’s been falling to Earth lately and coming into the possession of a group called the Skull Crime Organization. He soon discovers that “Krypton-Two,” a planet he once made out of chunks of Kryptonite, has somehow been destroyed and is showering Earth with Green K once again. The Skulls, meanwhile, kidnap a STAR Laps scientist and reveal that their craft is powered by their leader, the Atomic Skull, whose brain is creating miniature nuclear reactions. Furthermore, he is unmasked as former STAR Labs scientist Albert Michaels. (Michaels, it turns out, had made previous appearances as the leader of the Skulls – this is his first appearance with his new powers and costume.) As it turns out, Michaels has a rare nervous disorder that short-circuits his brain’s electrical impulses. A treatment for his condition only made it worse – not only does he still have seizures, but they are accompanied by energy bursts that are killing him, and he hates Superman because he’s jailed the only scientists (mad, I presume) who could have saved him. His plan involves loading up a rocket with the Kryptonite that’s falling to Earth and detonating it in the atmosphere, blanketing the planet with enough Kryptonite particles to remove Superman’s powers no matter where he is on the globe. And on the last page he plays his trump card – holding Superman at bay with the powers of Titano, the Super-Ape as he sends the rocket to blow up.

Part two of the story picks up in Superman #324, as Titano hits Superman with the rays of his Kryptonite vision. Superman manages to neutralize the ape by wrapping lead around its eyes, then takes out the Atomic Skull by redirecting one of his own energy-bursts. This leaves him with the problem of what to do with the Kryptonite missile, which he can’t approach to stop without exposing himself to fatal doses of Kryptonite. Titano comes after him again and, with his X-Ray vision, Superman determines that the Skull is controlling the ape via a device implanted in his brain. He manages to corral the ape and then use the Supermobile (God, I love the stupid, ridiculous Supermobile) to vacuum up the Kryptonite from the atmosphere. 

I appreciate that they were trying to up the ante for the villains at Superman at this point. The late 70s and early 80s are really, for me, one of the dullest periods in the character’s history, with few memorable stories or characters appearing. The Skull is an exception. He’s a little generic – the mad scientist with atomic powers – but the idea that the powers are slowly killing him gives it a little more weight. I don’t think they did that much with the idea, though, and it’s been largely dropped from future versions of the character. Now, especially, where his head is encased in atomic fire, people write him off as a Ghost Rider knock-off. There’s more to it there, and I think the right writer could really make him into a top-level threat. 

In 1980, Len Wein and Jim Starlin gave us DC Comics Presents #27. This issue of the Superman team-up book paired him off with the Martian Manhunter and gave us the first appearance of the world-conquering Mongul. Superman is alone in Clark’s apartment when he receives a message from outer space – a yellow-skinned alien who reveals that he has kidnapped three of Clark’s colleagues – Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, and Steve Lombard – and threatens them if Superman refuses to retrieve for him a crystal key that is being held on the fifth planet in the Cygnus system. At this period, the Martian Manhunter has left Earth, establishing a “new Mars” on Cygnus’s FOURTH planet, and when Superman approaches the crypt where the key is being kept, J’onn shows up and tells him that the world is off-limits. J’onn tells Superman that the key must remain where it is or countless worlds will be in jeopardy. The key is the only thing that will allow someone to get past the defenses of an ancient and incredibly powerful satellite called Warworld, and thus it may be the most dangerous object in the universe. Although Superman sympathizes, the two friends come to blows. Each of them attacks the other with their weakness (Kryptonite for Superman, fire for J’onn), and ultimately Superman retrieves the key. When Mongul arrives, though, he refuses to turn it over. J’onn saves the hostages, but Mongul manages to get the key and escapes.

There’s good and bad in this issue. On the plus side, Mongul is a great villain. He’s the most fully-formed of all the villains I’ve read about this week, the one who is most like who he becomes from the very beginning. He’s cold, manipulative, and ambitious, all qualities that make him one of the greats. On the other hand, I really dislike the way Wein paints Superman and J’onn. The two of them have been friends forever at this point – the fact that they went straight to fighting instead of trying to work together to find a way out of this dilemma does a disservice to them both. 

The story continued in the next issue, when Superman recruits Supergirl to help him track Mongul to Warworld. (Why J’onn didn’t come along, considering how important he considered the key to be, is a mystery.) They find the planet and are dazzled by the enormity of it, but Superman manages to defeat Mongul by outlasting him – he reasons that the aliens that created the satellite died one by one because the control helmet was too much for them and that it would eventually wear Mongul out, and he’s right. It does make one wonder, though, why the hell the aliens would make their entire weapon fueled by a device that would not only cause their own extinction, but do so in what seems to be a matter of minutes. Who the hell ever thought THAT was a good idea? Even in the real world, it takes us much longer to destroy ourselves. 

Tues., Oct. 7

Comics: Action Comics #595, 645, Justice League of America #31

Notes: You may have noticed something about the villains I’ve covered so far this week. I know my wife certainly has. They’ve all been men. I refuse to take the blame for this. It’s not my fault that for five decades, the writers of Superman never seemed to come up with an interesting continuing female villain. I think part of it is the idea that you can’t have Superman punch out a lady – it’s not a good look for the strongest man in the world to punch out a woman. In fact, go back and look at any early Justice League issue where the team fights a villain GROUP – there’s always one female villain so that Wonder Woman has somebody to fight.

But eventually, it seems, people decided to address that, and in my chronological journey through Superman’s rogues’ gallery, the last three significant villains I’m going to talk about all happen to be female.. We’re going to start with Action Comics #595 and the first appearance of the Silver Banshee. This was part of the John Byrne era, coming out in 1987 during the period when Action Comics was the Superman team-up book. This particular issue, though, didn’t divulge who Superman’s guest-star was on the cover, leaving a string of question marks where the second hero’s name usually went. It’s a striking cover nonetheless – a stark black-and-white villain with a skeletal face standing over Superman’s dead body while his spirit comes at her from behind. That’s a book that’ll get your attention. 

The story starts with the Banshee walking through Metropolis, invading bookstores where she casually touches bystanders, drains their life force, and leaves them dead. And when Superman arrives, she does the same to him. The world is stunned by the hero’s sudden loss and he’s placed in state in a glass casket for a memorial as the Banshee escapes. At the funeral, though, everyone witnesses Superman’s ghost rise from his body and take off after the Banshee. Jimmy, meanwhile, has tracked her down to yet another bookstore. She’s about to touch him when Superman’s ghost appears and engages her, shocking her when she realizes she can’t hurt him anymore. The Banshee unleashes her scream, trying to destroy Superman, but winds up exploding. (Superman villains used to explode a LOT.) Jimmy is pulled from the debris by a LIVING Superman, and watches in astonishment as the ghost Superman transforms into J’onn J’onzz, making his second appearance in Villains Week! Give the man a box of Chockos! On the last page we get an explanation for everything – the Banshee’s ability to kill was based on her knowing her victim’s identity (because magic), so she was helpless against the shapeshifter. Jimmy also figured out that she was targeting bookstores that had recently received a shipment of books from a certain castle in Ireland. That, of course, is the sort of thing that comes back later.

The Silver Banshee has always been one of the most memorable new villains from this period. She’s got a phenomenal look, first of all – a really unique appearance that’s totally unlike any of Superman’s other villains. Also, considering how everyone remembers his vulnerability to magic, it’s surprising that he doesn’t have more enemies for whom magic is their usual shtick. Later stories would flesh out the character more, revealing a tragic backstory and making her more sympathetic. In recent years she’s wavered between villain and antihero, and she’s even (in her human form) dated Jimmy Olsen. In fact, I think she still is – Jimmy’s been a little out of focus in the comics lately, they really should address that. Anyway, the point is, she’s a good character.

Maxima, the warrior queen from the planet Almerac, made her first appearance in Action Comics #645 by Roger Stern and George Perez. I’ve written about Maxima in the Year of Superman many times, of course. She was a member of the Justice League during the Doomsday storyline, broke bad again in the electric era, and she’s had a smattering of other appearances over the last ten months. Today, though, we’re going to see where she came from in the first place.

The story begins with a stunning redhead strutting the streets of Metropolis and being accosted by a few gang members, one of whom quickly (and fatally) learns that pulling a knife on her isn’t a good idea. Maxima, along with an attendant named Sazu, is looking for Superman, and winds up at the Daily Planet office after being told he has connections there. Superman isn’t in attendance, though, and after leaving the entire staff in a trance, she leaves. Clark shows up, fresh from a fight with the Parasite in Starman’s comic (Stern was writing both books and liked to tie them together), shows up and snaps them out of it. They tell him about their attacker and he finds her pretty easily, as she’s now at City Hall holding the mayor hostage. When he arrives, she puts him under mental assault as a means of testing him. She’s testing Superman’s “worthiness” and finds him acceptable, but Sazu revolts. She claims that Superman is “unworthy” and unleashes her own mental powers against Maxima, who…explodes.

No, really.

Sazu is taken into custody and Superman is left confused, but the last page clues the reader in to the fact that the Maxima who blew up was just a simulacrum. The real Maxima is in outer space and now, dang it, she’s gonna have to come to Earth herself to make Superman hers.

And she did show up again, and several times after that, as her motivation was revealed: she was seeking a consort of superior bloodline with which to procreate and extend the line of the Royal Family of Almerac. As villain motivations go, it’s a lot more flattering than wanting to destroy him because he thinks it’s Superman’s fault that he went bald. It’s also interesting how the gender roles are inverted here. When you consider the revelation about Kal-El’s parents in James Gunn’s movie, it’s not all that different, but it’s definitely more controversial. Part of that, of course, is because Jor-El is usually portrayed more benevolently, but even were it a brand new character I think people would have found it more insidious than they did when Maxima shows up wanting pretty much the same thing. There’s probably a whole dissertation that could be written about the differences here, but that’s somewhat above my pay grade. At any rate, it makes Maxima one of the more memorable villains of the era, and she’s had the kind of longevity that it wouldn’t be surprising at all to see her show up in a new movie or TV show. There’s something interesting about this character that’s fun in a cheesy sci-fi sort of way.

TV Episode: Superman: The Animated Series Season 2, Episode 5, “Livewire”

Notes: The last villain we’re going to discuss on this avenue of animosity did not make her first appearance in comics, but rather on TV. No doubt trying to duplicate the smash hit they had when they created Harley Quinn on Batman: The Animated Series, the producers of the Superman cartoon introduced this new female foe in 1997, an electrical harpy called Livewire. Although she hasn’t QUITE had the degree of cultural penetration that Harley has (and to be fair, who HAS?), she, too, made the leap to comic books and has crossed swords with Superman occasionally ever since.

In “Livewire” we’re introduced to Leslie Willis (voiced by Lori Petty), a radio shock jock who’s riding a ratings high she’s getting off of trash-talking Superman. She goes through with her show’s anniversary celebration in Centennial Park despite a thunderstorm pouring down on them, and suffers the consequences when lightning overloads her equipment. Superman tries to shield her, but Leslie is bombarded by electricity, bleaching her skin white and her hair blue. When she wakes up in the hospital, she discovers she’s developed electrical powers, including the ability to control electronic devices, and attempts to hold the city of Metropolis hostage. She attacks the city’s hydroelectric plant, where Superman comes in to hold her off. After a pitched battle, Livewire blasts a hole in the dam and is washed over with water, causing her to EXPLODE!!!

Just kidding.

No, she stays in one piece, but the water DOES short-circuit her powers, allowing Superman to repair the damage to the power plant and bring her in. When we last see her, a radio voiceover tells us that Lex Luthor has volunteered (through the goodness of his heart, of course) to pay for her treatments, but the image we have of her strapped into a chair with wires all over her seem to indicate that she isn’t receiving the best of care. 

I like Livewire, not just because Superman could use more female villains, but because she’s got a unique attitude. She’s not jealous of Superman’s popularity. She’s not out to prove that she’s more powerful than he is. She doesn’t want to outsmart him or outthink him, and she CERTAINLY doesn’t want to have his babies. Nope, Livewire is just a jerk, a loudmouthed radio asshole like Howard Stern, only more lifelike, and that’s an entertaining dynamic to play.

This first week of October was a fun one, but it’s just the beginning. Like I said, I intend to spend this month peering into the dark side (not to be confused with the Darkseid) of the Man of Steel, and I mean it. Come back next week for my discussion of Superman’s Darkest Hours. 

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