Category: Superman

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Superman Chronicles volume 8


By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, Leo Nowak, Paul Cassidy, Ed Dobrotka, John Sikela & Fred Ray (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2647-3

The American comicbook industry – if it existed at all today – would be an utterly unrecognisable thing without Superman. His unprecedented invention and adoption by a desperate and joy-starved generation gave birth to an entire genre if not an actual art form.

The ebullient, effervescent, spectacular Man of Tomorrow spawned an inconceivable army of imitators and, within three years of his 1938 debut, his intoxicating blend of action and social wish-fulfilment had grown to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East finally involved America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant excess and explosively dashing derring-do.

Re-presented in this eighth pulp-revering Superman Chronicles edition, collecting the breathtaking yarns from Action Comics #44-47 and Superman #14-15 (January-April 1942) in chronological publishing order – and in as near-as-dammit recapturing the texture, smell and colour of the original newsprint – are the crude, rough, cathartically exuberant exploits of a righteous and superior man dealing out summary justice equally to social malcontents, exploitative capitalists, thugs and ne’er-do-wells that initially won the imagination of a generation.

Superman‘s rise was meteoric and inexorable. He was the indisputable star of Action, World’s Finest Comics and his own dedicated title whilst a daily newspaper strip had begun on 16th January 1939, with a separate Sunday strip following from November 5th that year, which garnered millions of new fans.

A thrice-weekly radio serial launched on February 12th 1940 and, with a movie cartoon series, games, toys, apparel and a growing international media presence, Superman was swiftly becoming everybody’s hero…

Although the gaudy burlesque of monsters and super-villains still lay years ahead of our hero, these captivating tales of villainy, criminality, corruption and disaster are just as engrossing and speak powerfully of the tenor of the times. The perilous parade of rip-roaring action, hoods, masterminds, plagues, disasters, lost kids and distressed damsels are all dealt with in a direct and captivating manner by our relentlessly entertaining champion in summarily swift and decisive fashion.

No “to be continueds” here!

This epochal run of raw, unpolished but viscerally vibrant stories by Jerry Siegel and the burgeoning Superman Studio (Joe Shuster spending most of his time and declining eyesight on the newspaper strip) continued to set the funnybook world on fire, and are accompanied throughout by the eye-popping covers of Fred Ray, whose creative genius was responsible for some of the most unforgettable iconic images and patriotic graphics on the genre…

As most of these early tales were untitled, for everyone’s convenience – especially your reviewer’s – the tales here have been given descriptive appellations by the editors and we begin here with ‘The Caveman Criminal’ from Action #44, illustrated by Leo Nowak & Ed Dobrotka, wherein crooks capitalised on a frozen “Dawn Man” who thawed out and went wild in the crime-ridden Metropolis, after which Superman #14 (January/February 1942 and again primarily a Nowak art affair) opened with ‘Concerts of Doom!’

Here a master pianist discovered just how mesmerising his recitals were and joined forces with unpatriotic thieves and dastardly saboteurs, after which the tireless Man of Tomorrow was hard-pressed to cope with the reign of diabolical destruction caused by ‘The Invention Thief’.

John Sikela inked Nowak’s pencils in a frantic high fantasy romp resulting from the Man of Steel’s discovery of a friendly mermaid and malevolent fishmen living in ‘The Undersea City’ before more high-tension and catastrophic graphic destruction signalled Superman’s epic clash with sinister electrical savant ‘The Lightning Master’.

Action Comics #45 by Nowak & Ed Dobrotka saw ‘Superman’s Ark’ girdle the globe to repopulate a decrepit and nigh-derelict city zoo, whilst Action #46 featured ‘The Devil’s Playground’ (credited here to Paul Cassidy) wherein masked murderer The Domino stalked an amusement park wreaking havoc and instilling terror.

In the bimonthly Superman #15 ‘The Cop Who was Ruined’ (Nowak) found the Metropolis Marvel clearing the name of framed detective Bob Branigan – a man who even believed himself guilty – whilst scurvy Orientals menaced the nation’s Pacific fleet in ‘Saboteurs from Napkan’ with Sikela again lending his pens and brushes to Nowak’s pencil art.

Thinly veiled fascist oppression and expansion was spectacularly nipped in the bud in ‘Superman in Oxnalia’ – an all-Sikela art job, but Nowak was back on pencils for a concluding science fiction thriller ‘The Evolution King’ wherein a malignant mastermind artificially aged his wealthy, prominent victims until the invulnerable Man of Steel stormed in…

This splendid compilation concludes with a blockbusting, no-holds-barred battle which was only the opening skirmish in a bigger campaign. Action #47 (Sikela) revealed how Lex Luthor gained incredible abilities after acquiring the incredible ‘Powerstone’, making the mad scientist temporarily Superman’s physical equal – if not mental – match…

As fresh and thrilling now as they ever were, the endlessly re-readable epics are perfectly housed in these glorious paperback collections where the savage intensity and sly wit still shine through in Siegel’s stories – which literally defined what being a Super Hero means – whilst Shuster’s shadows continued to create the basic iconography of superhero comics for all others to follow.

Such Golden Age tales are priceless enjoyment at an absurdly affordable price and in a durable, comfortingly approachable format. What dedicated comics fan could possibly resist them?

As well as cheap price and no-nonsense design and presentation, and notwithstanding the historical significance of the material presented within, the most important bonus for any one who hasn’t read some or all of these tales before is that they are all astonishingly well-told and engrossing mini-epics that cannot fail to grip the reader.

Once read you’ll understand why today’s creators keep returning to this material every time they need to revamp the big guy. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.
© 1942, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman: Phantom Zone


By Steve Gerber, Gene Colan, Rick Veitch, Tony DeZuniga & Bob Smith (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4051-6

For fans and comics creators alike continuity can be a harsh mistress. These days, when maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds we inhabit is paramount, the greatest casualty of the semi-regular sweeping changes, rationalisations and reboots is the terrific tales which suddenly “never happened”.

The most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale binning of the entire charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1986.

Thankfully DC is not as slavishly wedded to continuity as its readership and understands that a good story is worth cherishing. This slim, trim spectral selection gathers the superb 4-issue miniseries The Phantom Zone from January-April 1982 and the very last pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Zone yarn from DC Comics Presents #97 (September 1986), whilst simultaneously celebrating the stylish and enthralling scripting of unique comics voice Steve Gerber.

The riotous recapitulation of all that lost Man of Tomorrow mythology begins in ‘The Haunting of Charlie Kweskill!’ when the eponymous Daily Planet paste-up artist collapses at work. The solitary little dweeb has been sleeping badly, plagued by nightmares of a life on the long-gone world of Krypton.

His dreams reveal how brilliant scientist Jor-El devised a non-lethal way to deal with Krypton’s most incorrigible criminals: human monsters such as Jax-Ur, Professor Va-Kox, Dr. Xadu, sadistic psycho-killer Faora Hu-Ul, potential dictator General Dru-Zod and even Jor’s own crazy cousin Kru-El…

Many lesser menaces such as psionic aberrants Az-Rel and Nadira were also banished to the twilight realm, as well as stranger outcasts like callous biological experimenter Nam-Ek, but the one who most catches Charlie’s attention is convicted fraudster Quex-Ul; a Kryptonian who was Charlie’s doppelganger…

The dreams are all true, telepathic broadcasts beamed at Charlie by the Zone inmates from within the plane of timeless intangibility. Quex-Ul had been one of them, surviving long after Krypton died, but was innocent of his crimes. He had been framed and mind-controlled by a mastermind who had deservedly perished when the Red Sun world detonated.

After Superman corrected the injustice and released the poor dupe, Qwex-Ul had saved the Man of Steel from a Gold Kryptonite trap, losing all his inherent Kryptonian abilities and memory in the process. The grateful, heartsick Action Ace had found the amnesiac a job at the Planet and almost forgot his alien origins in the years since. Charlie’s former fellows had not…

Their telepathic onslaught has turned Kweskill into a somnambulistic slave, unknowingly spending his nights breaking into labs and stealing high-tech components. Superman, slowly putting the puzzle pieces together, is just too late to thwart the stealthy scheme and as he bursts into Charlie’s apartment a hastily cobbled together Phantom Zone device hurls him and the hapless mind-slave into the ghostly region, whilst simultaneously freeing a legion of the cruellest criminals in existence…

The saga continues with ‘Earth Under Siege!’ as Superman and Charlie helplessly watch Zod, Jax-Ur, Va-Kox, Faora and Kru-El immediately take off to undertake the next stage of their plan, leaving passively nihilistic Az-Rel and Nadira to negligently torture monstrous Nam-Ek with their psychic talents and mock the ranting liturgies of religious zealot Jer-Em, whose manic bigotry and fundamentalist isolationism caused the death of every person in Argo City…

Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El had been born on the city-sized fragment of Krypton, hurled intact into space when the planet detonated. Eventually Argo turned to Green Kryptonite like most of the detonated world’s debris, and her dying parents, observing Earth through their scopes, sent their daughter to safety as they perished.

On Earth, the teenager met the Man of Steel who created for her the identities of Linda Lee and Supergirl, concealing her from the world whilst she learned about her new home and how to use her astounding new abilities in secrecy and safety.

As the emotionally disconnected, disaffected and doubly alienated youths laconically saunter through Metropolis; casually slaughtering cops and citizens, Zod’s far more motivated cronies have reached Superman’s Fortress of Solitude and destroyed the only means of returning them to their extra-dimensional dungeon.

The next move is to attack the Justice League satellite, hurling it and occupants Flash, Zatanna, Red Tornado, Black Canary, Elongated Man, Firestorm and Aquaman on a non-stop trajectory out of the Solar System. When the rampant Kryptonians destroy all Earth’s communications satellites and trigger a mass launch of nuclear missiles, Wonder Woman and Supergirl narrowly avert atomic Armageddon whilst the frantic Man of Tomorrow can only watch in horror…

Not every Zone inhabitant is a criminal. For instance the Daxamite Mon-El was exposed to common lead in ‘Superboy’s Big Brother’ (by Robert Bernstein & Papp from Superboy #89, June 1961) and his lingering, inexorable death was only forestalled by depositing the dying alien in the Zone until a cure could be found…

Now, as Green Lantern confronts the Zod Squad on Earth only to be soundly beaten and have his Power Battery stolen, Mon-El informs Charlie and Superman of a possible back way out of the realm of hellish nullity…

On Earth, as Wonder Woman subdues Nam-Ek, Supergirl checks in with Batman, desperately trying to ascertain where her cousin Superman has gone. As the Dark Knight heads to Metropolis to investigate, Kara returns to the Fortress only to be ambushed by the Kryptonian escapees and beaten near to death…

With no other choice, Charlie and Superman reluctantly pass through a dimensional portal even the obsessed villains were too scared to risk and encounter surreal madness in ‘The Terror Beyond Twilight!’…

Back in the physical world of touch and time, Supergirl saves herself from ghastly atomic disintegration as Charlie and Superman pass through stormy turbulence and a tedious waiting-room-realm before arriving on a peculiar plane where they are confronted by luscious sirens with impossible riddles and exploding heads.

Their narrow escape from the Priestesses of the Crimson Sun only leads them to Kryptonian wizard Thul-Kar who magicked himself into the Zone in ages past and now slavishly serves an erratic and malevolent sentient universe named Aethyr.

It wants to consume Charlie and Superman but only by passing through it can they reach the physical world again…

On Earth, chaos reigns. Batman is utterly unable to pacify the extremist Jer-Em, who deems the planet impure, unclean and unholy. He would rather die than soil his Kryptonian purity here.

…And high above the planet, the other freed villains have their own plan to fix the situation: a gigantic Phantom Zone Cannon which will inexorably and eternally banish Earth into the twilight dimension in the course of one full rotation…

The drama comes to a tragic conclusion in ‘The Phantom Planet!’ as Az-Rel and Nadira, having found kindred spirits amongst Metropolis’ disenfranchised Punk Rock counter culture – and killed them – encounter Jer-Em in martyr mode. The now suicidal cleric is quite keen on taking the rest of the apostate Kryptonians with him…

As the world turns into intangibility, in France Faora has briefly resumed her passion for murdering males – before they’re all gone – whilst in Aethyr’s universe an appalling sacrifice enables Superman to return to physicality in time to lead a last desperate charge, saving the day and putting  the villains back where they belong… those still alive, that is…

The remainder of the fantastic chronicle recounts the tying up of all those intriguing concepts and loose ends in a spectacular sidebar to the end of DC’s original universe.

In 1986 the company celebrated its fiftieth year with the groundbreaking Crisis on Infinite Earths: radically overhauling its convoluted multiversal continuity and starting afresh. All the Superman titles were cancelled or suspended pending this back-to-basics reboot courtesy of John Byrne, allowing the opportunity for a number of very special farewells to the old mythology.

One of the most intriguing and challenging came in the last issue of DC Comics Presents(#97) wherein ‘Phantom Zone: the Final Chapter’ by Gerber, Rick Veitch & Bob Smith offered a creepy adieu to a number of Superman’s greatest foes…

Tracing Jor-El’s discovery of the Phantom Zone through to the imminent end of the multiverse, this dark yarn built on Gerber’s landmark miniseries and revealed that the dread region of nothingness was in fact the sentient echo of a dead universe which had always regarded the creatures deposited within it as irritants and agonising intruders.

Now as cosmic carnage reigned Aethyr, still served by Kryptonian mage Thul-Kar, caused the destruction of the Bizarro World and the deification and corruption of Fifth Dimensional pest Mr. Mxyzptlk as well as the subsequent crashing of Argo City on Metropolis.

As a result Zod and his fellow immaterial inmates were freed to wreak havoc upon Earth – but only until the now-crystalline pocket dimension merged with and absorbed the felons before implausibly abandoning Superman to face his uncertain future as the very Last Son of Krypton…

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence and these timeless tales of charm, joy and wholesome wit are more necessary than ever: not just as a reminder of great tales of the past but as an all-ages primer of the wonders still to come…
© 1982, 1986, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman vs. Zod


By Robert Bernstein, Cary Bates, Steve Gerber, Geoff Johns, Richard Donner, George Papp, Curt Swan, Alex Saviuk, Rick Veitch, Rags Morales & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3849-0

Superman is comics’ champion crusader: the hero who effectively started a whole genre and, in the decades since his spectacular launch in June 1938, one who has survived every kind of menace imaginable. With this in mind it’s tempting and very rewarding to gather up whole swathes of his prodigious back-catalogue and re-present them in specifically-themed collections, such as this fun but far from comprehensive chronicling of his Kryptonian antithesis: a monstrous militaristic madman with the same abilities but far more sinister values and motivations.

For fans and comics creators alike continuity can be a harsh mistress. These days, when maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds we inhabit is paramount, the greatest casualty of the semi-regular sweeping changes, rationalisations and reboots is the terrific tales which suddenly “never happened”.

The most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale loss of the entire charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1986.

We Silver Age readers buying Superman, Action Comics, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, World’s Finest Comics and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (not forgetting Superboy and Adventure Comics)would delight every time some fascinating snippet of information leaked out. We spent our rainy days filling in the incredible blanks about the lost world through the delightful and thrilling tales from those halcyon publications.

Thankfully DC is not as slavishly wedded to continuity as its readership and understands that a good story is worth cherishing. This captivating compilation (gathering material from Adventure Comics #283, Action Comics #473, 548-549, DC Comics Presents #97 and Action Comics Annual #10; spanning 1961-2007) re-presents appearances both landmark and rare, current and notionally non-canonical featuring Kryptonian warlord and arch-nemesis General Dru-Zod, crafted by the many brilliant writers and artists who have contributed to the mythology of the Man of Tomorrow over the years.

Naturally this terrific tome begins with the first appearance – brief and incidental though it was – of the warrior who tried to conquer Krypton with an army of Bizarro-like clonal “inorganisms” in ‘The Phantom Superboy’ by Robert Bernstein & George Papp.

The lead feature in Adventure Comics #283 (April, 1961) described how a mysterious alien vault smashes to Earth and the Smallville Sensation finds sealed within three incredible super-weapons built by his long-dead dad Jor-El.

There’s a disintegrator gun, a monster-making de-evolutioniser and a strange projector that opens a window into an eerie, timelessly dolorous dimension of stultifying intangibility.

However as Superboy reads the history of the projector – used to incarcerate Krypton’s criminals such as Dr. Xadu and the traitorous General – a terrible accident traps him inside the Phantom Zone and only by the greatest exercise of his mighty intellect does he narrowly escape…

Although there were plenty more appearances of the Red Sun Rebel, we jump here to ‘The Great Phantom Peril’ from Action Comics #473 (July 1977, by Cary Bates, Curt Swan & Tex Blaisdell) for the concluding chapter in a three part tale introducing sadistic psycho-killer Faora Hu-Ul.

In this instalment the male-hating escapee engineers the freedom of all her ghostly companions, leaving the criminal Kryptonians to run riot on Earth. Thankfully the foresighted Superman had contrived to place all humanity in the Phantom Zone even as the prisoners explosively exited it…

Again no more than a bit-player, Zod was left to shout empty threats and wreck property until the ingenious Man of Steel turned the tables on his foes and banished them all back behind intangible bars once again…

He played a far more important role in the next epic. ‘Escape from the Phantom Zone!’ (Action Comics #548 October 1983) was the first part of a two-issue yarn by Bates, Alex Saviuk, Vince Colletta & Pablo Marcos: an engaging if improbable saga of cosmic vengeance as a race of primordial plunderers discovered the dead remains of Argo City and realised that there was at least one Kryptonian left in the cosmos…

Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El had been born on a city-sized fragment of Krypton, hurled intact into space when the planet exploded. Eventually Argo turned to Kryptonite like the rest of the detonated world’s debris and her dying parents, observing Earth through their scopes, sent their daughter to safety as they perished.

On Earth, the teenager met the Man of Steel who created for her the identities of Linda Lee and Supergirl, concealing her from the world whilst she learned about her new home and how to use her astounding new abilities in secrecy and safety.

The alien marauders were Vrangs – savage slavers who had conquered Krypton in eons past – and brutally using the primitive populace to mine minerals too toxic for the aliens to handle. The planet’s greatest hero was Val-Lor who died instigating the rebellion which drove the Vrangs from Krypton and prompted the rise of the super-scientific civilisation.

All Kryptonians developed an inbred hatred of the Vrangs, and when Phantom Zone prisoners Jax-Ur, Professor Va-Kox, Faora and General Dru-Zod observed their ancestral oppressors from the stark and silent realm of nullity that had been their drearily, unchanging, timeless jail since before Krypton perished, they swore to destroy them.

If their holy mission also allowed the Kryptonian outcasts to kill the hated son of the discoverer of the eerie dimension of stultifying intangibility, then so much the better…

Using the psycho-active properties of Jewel Kryptonite – a post-cataclysm isotope of the very element poisonous to Vrangs – a quartet of Zoners break-out and head to Earth for vengeance… but upon whom?

Soon after, Clark Kent, still blithely unaware of his peril, investigates a citizens’ defence group that has sprung up in Metropolis in response to a city-wide rash of petty crimes.

In ‘Superman Meets the Zod Squad’ (Action Comics #549) as Zod, Faora, Tyb-Ol and Murkk infiltrate human society and bide their time, the Man of Steel and Lois Lane are most concerned with how the White Wildcats can afford to police neighbourhoods with jet-packs and martial arts skills unknown on Earth…

Uncovering militarist maniac Zod behind the scheme, Superman is astounded when the Kryptonians surrender, offering a truce until their ancient mutual enemies are defeated.

…And that’s when the Vrangs teleport the Man of Steel into their ship, exultant that they now possess the mightiest slave in existence.

Moreover, there are four more potentially priceless victims hurtling up to attack them, utterly unaware in their blind rage and hatred that the Vrangs have a weapon even Kryptonians cannot survive…

This clever, compulsive thriller of cross, double- and even triple-cross is a fabulously intoxicating, tension-drenched treat blending human foibles with notions of honour, and shows that even the most reprehensible villains may understand the value of sacrifice and the principle of something worth dying for…

In 1986 DC celebrated its fiftieth year with the groundbreaking, Earth-shattering Crisis on Infinite Earths by radically overhauling its convoluted multiversal continuity and starting afresh. All the Superman titles were cancelled or suspended pending this back-to-basics reboot courtesy of John Byrne, allowing the opportunity for a number of very special farewells to the old mythology.

One of the most intriguing and challenging came in the last issue of team-up title DC Comics Presents:specifically#97 (September 1986) wherein ‘Phantom Zone: the Final Chapter’ by Steve Gerber, Rick Veitch & Bob Smith offered a creepy adieu to a number of Superman’s greatest foes and concepts…

Tracing Jor-El’s discovery of the Phantom Zone through to the impending end of the multiverse, this tale revealed that the dread region of nullity was in fact sentient and always regarded the creatures deposited within as intruders.

Now as cosmic chaos ensued Aethyr, served by Kryptonian mage Thul-Kar, caused the destruction of the Bizarro World and the deification and corruption of Fifth Dimensional pest Mr. Mxyzptlk as well as the subsequent crashing of green-glowing Argo City on Metropolis.

As a result Zod and his fellow immaterial inmates were freed to wreak havoc upon Earth until the now-crystalline pocket dimension merged with and absorbed the felons before implausibly abandoning Superman to face his uncertain future as the very Last Son of Krypton…

This compilation concludes with a thoroughly modern reinterpretation of General Zod

by Geoff Johns, Richard Donner, Rags Morales & Mark Farmer from Action Comics Annual #10 in 2007.

Blending elements of the 1978 filmic Superman franchise (and starring Zod, Ursa and Non as seen in Superman: the Movie and Superman II) ‘The Criminals of Krypton’ reveals that Krypton was no paradise in its final days and how the Science Council silenced Jor-El’s mentor Non by operating on his brain to keep word of the impending planetary explosion quiet.

Although pacifistic Jor-El chose to argue his position from within the strictures of the Council, his impatient converts Zod and Ursa tried to seize control of the government to save the unwary citizens, forcing the head of the House of El to exile (or perhaps save?) them from the cataclysm to come…

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence, and with the character again undergoing another radical overhaul, these timeless tales of charm and joy and wholesome wit (accompanied by the classic covers by Papp, Swan, Neal Adams, Gil Kane, Veitch & Smith) are more necessary than ever: not just as a reminder of great tales of the past but as an all-ages primer of the wonders still to come…
© 1961, 1977, 1983, 1986, 2007, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents DC Comics Presents Superman Team-up volume 2


By Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Martin Pasko, Roy Thomas, Paul Levitz, Jim Starlin, Curt Swan, José Luis García-López, Rick Buckler, Irv Novick, Kurt Schaffenberger, Joe Staton & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4048-6

From the moment a kid first sees his second superhero the only thing he/she wants is to see how the new gaudy gladiator stacks up against the first. From the earliest days of the funnybook industry (and, according to DC Comics Presents editor Julie Schwartz, it was the same with the pulps and dime novels that preceded it) we’ve wanted our entertainment idols to meet, associate, battle together – and, if you follow the Timely/Marvel model, that means against each other – far more than we want to see them trounce their archenemies together…

The concept of team-up books – an established star pairing or fighting (usually both) with less well-selling company characters – was far from new when DC awarded their then biggest gun (it was the publicity-drenched weeks before the release of Superman: the Movie, and Tim Burton’s Batman was over a decade away) a regular arena to have adventures with other stars of their firmament, just as Batman had been doing since the middle of the 1960s in The Brave and the Bold.

Actually the Man of Steel had already embraced the regular sharing experience at the beginning of the decade when World’s Finest Comics briefly ejected the Caped Crusader and Superman battled beside a coterie of heroes including Flash, Robin, Martian Manhunter, Teen Titans, Dr. Fate and others (WF #198-214, November 1970 to October/November 1972) before the immortal status quo was re-established.

This second stout and superbly economical monochrome collection re-presents DC Comics Presents #27-50 and the first Annual (spanning November 1980 to October 1982) of the star-studded monthly, and opens the show with a trilogy of interlinked thrillers.

Unlike The Brave and the Bold, which boasted a regular artist for most of its Batman-starring team-up run, a veritable merry-go-round of creative talent contributed to DCCP and #27 proved the value of such tactics when Len Wein, Jim Starlin, Dick Giordano & Frank McLaughlin collaboratively changed the shape of Superman mythology by introducing alien marauder Mongul in ‘The Key that Unlocked Chaos!’

The deposed despot of a far away planet kidnapped Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Steve Lombard to force Superman to attack former JLA member J’onn J’onzz. This was because the Martian Manhunter had successfully driven off the rapacious fiend when he attacked New Mars in search of an artefact that would grant the possessor control of the universe’s most terrible weapon…

Now Mongul wanted the Man of Steel to get it for him and, although the resulting planet-shaking clash between old allies did result in the salvation of his friends, Superman subsequently failed to keep the crystal key out of the villain’s gigantic hands…

The tale continued in #28 as Supergirl joined her Kryptonian cousin in scouring the cosmos for the vanished tyrant and ancient doom weapon ‘Warworld!’ (Wein, Starlin & Romeo Tanghal).

Unfortunately, once they found it, Mongul unleashed all its resources to destroy his annoying adversaries and in the resultant cataclysm the mobile gun-planet was demolished. The resultant detonation blasted Kara Zor-El out of existence…

The triptych concluded a month later as The Spectre intervened to stop the heartsick Man of Tomorrow following his cousin ‘Where No Superman Has Gone Before!’ Happily after the customary clash of egos and flexing of muscles the nigh-omnipotent Ghostly Guardian set things right and restored the lost girl to the land of the living…

Courtesy of Gerry Conway, Curt Swan & Vince Colletta, DC Comics Presents #30 saw Black Canary plagued by nightmares starring her deceased husband, but upon closer investigation Superman showed that the diabolical Dr. Destiny was behind ‘A Dream of Demons!’, whilst in ‘The Deadliest Show on Earth!’ (Conway, José Luis García-López & Giordano) Man of Steel and original Robin, the Teen Wonder Dick Grayson conclusively crushed a perfidious psychic vampire predating the performers at the troubled Sterling Circus…

Wonder Woman spurned amorous godling Eros in #32’s ‘The Super-Prisoners of Love’ (Conway, Kurt Schaffenberger & Colletta) leading to the frustrated brat using his arrows to make her and Superman fall passionately in lust. It took the intervention of goddess Aphrodite and a quest into the realms of myth to set their head and hearts aright again…

Conway, Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler & Giordano then began a 2-part epic in DCCP #33 as ‘Man and Supermarvel!’ found the Action Ace and Captain Marvel helplessly swapping powers, costumes and Earths, thanks to the mirthless machinations of Fifth dimensional imp Mr. Mxyzptlk and malevolent alien worm Mr. Mind.

Despite the intervention of Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Junior in the next issue the villains’ sinister manipulations allowed antediluvian revenant King Kull to become ‘The Beast-Man that Shouted “Hate” at the Heart of the U.N.!’ (Thomas, Buckler & Giordano). The consequent battle across myriad dimensions only went the heroes’ way after they stumbled upon the garish homeworld of Lepine Avenger Hoppy the Captain Marvel Bunny…

Some semblance of sanity returned in #35 as Superman and Man-Bat hunted for ‘The Metamorphosis Machine!’ (Martin Pasko, Swan & Colletta) which might save Chiropterist Kirk Langstrom‘s baby daughter from death. All they had to do was beat murderous maniac Atomic Skull and his minions to the device…

Paul Levitz & Starlin then revealed ‘Whatever Happened to Starman?’ as Mongul turned his nefarious attention to Gavyn, ruler of a distant alien empire and a stellar powered crusader. After snatching the monarch’s beloved Merria, Mongul tried to take over the masked hero’s interplanetary empire but was thwarted again by the timely arrival of the Man of Steel and the vengeful fury of the Starman…

Hawkgirl got a rare chance at some solo action in #37 as ‘The Stars Like Moths…’ (Thomas & Starlin) saw the Thanagarian cop-turned-archaeologist uncover an ancient Kryptonian vault, solve a baffling mystery that had vexed the House of El for generations and save its last son from the dimensional doom which killed Superman’s great-grandfather…

DC Comics Presents #38 united the Man of Steel and The Flash as an extra-dimensional tyrant attempted to foment a high velocity war between Earth’s fastest heroes in ‘Stop the World – I Want to Get Off Go Home!’ (Pasko & Don Heck), after which #39 catapulted Superman into the weirdest case of his career as he and Plastic Man trailed ‘The Thing That Goes Woof in the Night!’ (Pasko, Joe Staton & Bob Smith) to a Toymakers Convention where third-rate super-villains Fliptop and Dollface were trying to rob freshly reformed, barely recovering maniac Toyman…

In DCCP #40 Metamorpho the Element Man seemed to be the logical culprit for uncanny disasters occurring on ‘The Day the Elements Went Wild!’ (Conway, Irv Novick & McLaughlin), but when Superman tried to bring him in the real menace proved to be the least likely person possible…

In #41, ‘The Terrible Tinseltown Treasure-Trap Treachery!’ (Pasko, García-López & McLaughlin) proved that the Man of Tomorrow’s powers were no match for the lethal Hollywood hi-jinks perpetrated by The Joker and Prankster as they callously duelled for the props and effects of a dead comedy legend…

Immortal espionage ace and unsung war hero The Unknown Soldier haunted the shadows of issue #42, subtly guiding Superman towards saving Earth from imminent nuclear Armageddon in ‘The Specter of War!’ by Levitz, Novick & McLaughlin, whilst The Legion of Super-Heroes joined the Metropolis Marvel ‘In Final Battle’ against remorseless Mongul and his captive Sun-Eater in an all-action exploit by Levitz, Swan & Dave Hunt from DCCP #43.

Bob Rozakis, E. Nelson Bridwell, Novick & McLaughlin added to the ongoing mystery of New England town Fairfax, when Clark Kent was assigned to discover why so many heroes, villains and monsters appeared there. What Superman found was teenagers Chris King and Vicki Grant (who used mysterious artefacts to Dial “H” for Hero and transform into most of the Fairfax freak and champion community) under attack by ‘The Man Who Created Villains!’

Firestorm the Nuclear Man stole the show in #45 as Conway, Buckler & Smith teamed him and the Man of Steel against terrorist Kriss-Kross who took over the nation’s electronic military defences to implement ‘The Chaos Network’, after which international heroes united as The Global Guardians at the command of enigmatic Doctor Mist to defeat a coalition of magic foes and prevent the resurrection of ‘The Wizard Who Wouldn’t Stay Dead!’ (Bridwell, Alex Saviuk & Pablo Marcos).

A franchising bonanza occurred in DC Comics Presents #47 as Superman met the toy/cartoon sensations of Masters of the Universe: travelling to another dimension and aiding He-Man and his comrades against wicked Skeletor in the exceedingly kid-friendly yarn ‘From Eternia – with Death!’ by Paul Kupperberg, Swan & Mike DeCarlo.

Aquaman resurfaced in #48 seeking the Man of Tomorrow’s aid against a mysterious plague of sub-sea mutations, only to discover an alien wielding ‘Eight Arms of Conquest!’ (Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn, Novick & McLaughlin), after which ‘Superman and Shazam!’ (Thomas, Kupperberg, Buckler & John Calnan) saw the immortal wizard enlist the Action Ace’s assistance to create a Captain Marvel for Earth -1.

When it didn’t work out the original had to step in from his own world to stop the depredations of devil-hearted Black Adam…

DC Comics Presents Annual #1 then reintroduced the world where good and evil are transposed as ‘Crisis on Three Earths!’ by Marv Wolfman, Buckler & Hunt saw the Supermen of Earth-1 and Earth-2 again thrash their respective nemeses Lex and/or Alexei Luthor only to have the villains flee to another universe…

In Case You Were Wondering: soon after the Silver Age brought back an army of costumed heroes, ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ (Flash #123 September 1961) introduced alternate Earths to the continuity which resulted in the multiversal structure of the DCU, Crisis on Infinite Earths and all succeeding cosmos-shaking crossover sagas since.

During a benefit gig Flash (police scientist Barry Allen) accidentally slipped into another dimension where he discovered the 1940s comicbook hero upon whom he’d based his own superhero identity actually existed.

Every adventure he’d avidly absorbed as an eager child was grim reality to Jay Garrick and his mystery-men comrades on the controversially named Earth-2. Locating his idol, Barry convinced the elder to come out of retirement just as three vintage villains Shade, Thinker and the Fiddler made their own wicked comeback…

The story generated an avalanche of popular and critical approval (big sales figures, too) so after a few more trans-dimensional test runs the ultimate team-up was delivered to slavering fans. ‘Crisis on Earth-One’ (Justice League of America #21, August 1963) and ‘Crisis on Earth-Two’ (in #22) became one of the most important stories in DC history and arguably one of the most important tales in American comics.

When ‘Flash of Two Worlds’ introduced the concept of Infinite Earths and multiple heroes to the public, pressure had begun almost instantly to bring back the actual heroes of the “Golden Age”. Editorial powers-that-be were hesitant, though, fearing too many heroes would be silly and unmanageable, or worse yet put readers off. If they could see us now…

Most importantly there was no reason to stop at two Earths.

Justice League of America #29-30 featured Crisis on Earth-Three’ and ‘The Most Dangerous Earth of All!’ which reprised the team-up of Justice League and Justice Society of America, when the super-beings of yet another alternate Earth discovered the secret of multiversal travel.

Unfortunately Ultraman, Owlman, Superwoman, Johnny Quick and Power Ring were super-criminals on a world without heroes and they saw the costumed champions of the JLA and JSA as living practise dummies to sharpen their evil skills upon.

With this cracking two-part thriller the annual summer team-up became solidly entrenched in heroic lore, giving fans endless joys for years to come and making the approaching end of school holidays less gloomy than they could have been…

Back at the DCCP annual, the vanished Luthors reappeared on Earth-3 and began trans-dimensional attacks on their arch enemies: even tentatively affiliating with Ultraman of the Crime Syndicate of Amerika, whilst treacherously planning to destroy all three Earths…

This potential cosmic catastrophe prompted the brilliant and noble Alex Luthor of Earth-3 to abandon his laboratory, turn himself into his world’s very first superhero and join the hard-pressed Supermen in saving humanity three times over…

This power-packed black and white compilation concludes with the anniversary DC Comics Presents Annual #50 wherein ‘When You Wish Upon a Planetoid!’ (Mishkin, Cohn, Swan & Schaffenberger) saw a cosmic calamity split Superman and Clark Kent into separate entities…

Designed as introductions to lesser known DC stars, these tales are wonderfully accessible to newcomers and readers unfamiliar with the minutia of burdensome continuity and provide an ideal jumping on point for anybody who just wants a few moments of easy comicbook fun and thrills.

These short, pithy adventures are a perfect shop window for DC’s fascinating catalogue of characters and creators; delivering a breadth and variety of self-contained, exciting and satisfying entertainments ranging from the merely excellent all the way to utterly indispensable, making this book the perfect introduction to the DC Universe for every kid of any age and another delightful slice of ideal Costumed Dramas from simpler, more inviting times…
© 1980, 1981, 1982, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman volume 1: No Limits!


By Jeph Loeb, Mark Schultz, Joe Kelly, Stuart Immonen, Mark Millar, Mike McKone, Dough Mahnke, German Garcia, Joe Phillips, Marlo Alquiza, Tom Nguyen, Joe Rubinstein, Rich Farber & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-699-0

The Man of Tomorrow has proven to be all things to most people over more than three quarters of a century of drama and adventure, with Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s iconic Superman now practically unrecognisable to most fans after the latest radical shake-up. Nevertheless, every refit and reboot has resulted in appalled fans and new devotees in pretty much equal proportion, so perhaps the Action Ace’s greatest ability is the power to survive change…

Although largely out of favour these days as all the myriad decades of accrued mythology are inexorably re-assimilated into an overarching, all-inclusive multi-media dominant, film-favoured continuity, the grittily stripped-down, post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Man of Steel (as re-imagined by John Byrne and superbly built upon by a succession of immensely talented comics craftsmen) resulted in some stunning high points.

As soon as the Byrne restart had demolished much of the mythology and iconography which had grown up around the “Strange Visitor from Another World” over fifty glorious years, successive creators began spending a great deal of time and ingenuity putting much of it back, albeit in terms more accessible to a cynical and well-informed audience far more sophisticated than their grandparents ever were.

Even so, by the mid-1990’s Byrne’s baby was beginning to look a little tired and the sales kick generated by the Death of and Return of Superman was fading fast, so the decision was made to give the big guy a bit of a tweak for the fast-approaching new millennium: bringing in new writers and artists and gradually moving the stories into more bombastic, hyper-powered territory.

The fresh tone was augmented by a new sequence and style of trade paperback editions and this initial (not strictly chronological) collection gathers material from Superman #151-153, Superman: Man of Steel # 95-97, Action Comics #760-761 and The Adventures of Superman #574, covering December 1999-March 2000.

It spectacularly opens with ‘We’re Back!’ by Jeph Loeb, Mike McKone & Marlo Alquiza from Superman #151, which sees the Daily Planet restored, rebuilt and returned to glory after a dark period under the ownership of Lex Luthor, allowing Lois Lane-Kent plenty of opportunities for reflection, remembrance and handy recapping before the sinister son of alien marauder Mongul explosively crashes to earth…

Mark Schultz, Doug Mahnke & Tom Nguyen then reveal that ‘Krypton Lives’ (Superman: Man of Steel # 95) as a Superman robot malfunctions in the Antarctic allowing humans to enter the Fortress of Solitude, triggering the escape of a bizarre string of ancient yet impossibly alive Kryptonian artefacts and creatures.

Forced to destroy the last vestiges of his alien heritage, Kal-El returns to Lois thinking that a precious chapter of his life is over, but he couldn’t be more wrong…

‘Deadline U.S.A.’ (Superman #152, Loeb, McKone & Alquiza) resumes the interrupted battle with Mongul Jr., but all conflict ceases when the mammoth monster finally gets the Man of Steel to stop hitting and listen…

The beast has come to warn of a vast, universe-ending threat and, in conjunction with Luthor, is offering to train Superman to beat it…

There are more pedestrian but no less distracting problems in store. During his sparring with Mongul, Jimmy Olsen took a photo of Superman’s hand sporting a wedding ring. Now the picture has leaked, driving the media into a frenzy…

‘Something Borrowed, Something Blue’ (by Stuart Immonen, Mark Millar, Joe Phillips & Rich Faber from Adventures of Superman #574) follows that strand as old foe and potential bunny-boiler Obsession resurfaces in a Superwoman outfit, claiming to be the much-sought Mrs. Superman. However her deranged tantrum leads to nothing but tragedy and disaster…

Action Comics #760 by Joe Kelly, German Garcia & Joe Rubinstein then focuses on ‘…Never-Ending Battle…’ as a small army of minor menaces and misfits lead the Man of Tomorrow to Latina sorceress La Encantadora who makes magic and sells slivers of Kryptonite to thugs trying to lay our hero low.

Even when the elusive enchantress is finally corralled, she delivers one last surprise which will make much mischief for the Last Son of Krypton…

Returning ‘Home’ (Schultz, Mahnke & Nguyen; Superman: Man of Steel # 96) Clark Kent finds his Metropolis apartment has been transformed into a terrifying outpost of his destroyed birthworld, courtesy of renegade miracle machine The Eradicator. In the resultant clash Superman looks doomed to destruction until Lois takes decisive action…

Her valiant nature is truly tested in Action Comics #761 as Kelly, Garcia & Rubinstein show Lois abandoned when Wonder Woman asks the Man of Tomorrow to join her in a battle beside gods against devils.

For the feisty journalist it’s mere days until Clark returns, but she’s blissfully unaware that her husband and the perfect warrior woman have been comrades – and more – ‘For a Thousand Years…’

The last Christmas of the 20th century ends as ‘Say Goodbye’ (Superman #153, Loeb, McKone & Alquiza) at last sees the Action Ace head for space with Mongul to battle Imperiex, Destroyer of Galaxies who has targeted the Milky Way for destruction…

When the pair implausibly triumph, Mongul instantly betrays his erstwhile pupil and only a violent intervention by bounty hunter Lobo prevents a travesty…

What nobody knows is that the Imperiex so recently exploded is nothing more than a fractional drone of the real cosmic obliterator and the real deal is now really ticked off…

This initial chronicle then closes with Schultz, Mahnke & Nguyen’s ‘Bridge the Past and Future’ (Superman: Man of Steel # 97) wherein John Henry Irons – AKA Steel – and his niece Natasha, hi-tech armourers to the City’s police force, join Superman in battling the possessed personification of the Eradicator, still hell-bent on making Earth an outpost of lost Krypton but now afflicted by an all-too human consciousness …

With covers by Phil Jimenez, Dwayne Turner & Danny Miki, Ian Churchill & Norm Rapmund, Bryan Hitch & Paul Neary, this blistering collection features less of a re-imagination and more of a reorientation for the greatest of all superheroes, but the scale, spectacle and human drama of these tales will still delight all fans of pure untrammelled Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction.
© 1999, 2000 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman: – The Silver Age Dailies 1959-1961


By Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan, Wayne Boring &Stan Kaye with Otto Binder, Robert Bernstein & Jerry Coleman (IDW Publishing Library of American Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-6137-7666-7

It’s indisputable that the American comicbook industry – if it existed at all – would have been an utterly unrecognisable thing without Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s Superman. Their unprecedented invention was fervidly adopted by a desperate and joy-starved generation and quite literally gave birth to a genre if not an actual art form.

Spawning an impossible army of imitators and variations within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and wish-fulfilment which epitomised the early Man of Steel grew to encompass cops-and-robbers crime-busting, socially reforming dramas, science fiction, fantasy, whimsical comedy and, once the war in Europe and the East sucked in America, patriotic relevance for a host of gods, heroes and monsters, all dedicated to profit through exuberant, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

In comicbook terms Superman was master of the world. Moreover, whilst transforming the shape of the fledgling funnybook industry, the Man of tomorrow relentlessly expanded into all areas of the entertainment media.

Although we all think of Cleveland boys’ iconic creation as the epitome and acme of comicbook creation, the truth is that very soon after his debut in Action Comics #1 Superman became a fictional multimedia monolith in the same league as Popeye, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and Mickey Mouse.

We parochial and possessive comics fans too often regard our purest and most powerful icons in purely graphic narrative terms, but the likes of Batman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, X-Men, Avengers and Superman long ago outgrew their four-colour origins and are now fully mythologized modern media creatures instantly familiar in mass markets, platforms and age ranges…

Far more people have seen or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read his comicbooks. The globally syndicated newspaper strips alone reached untold millions. By the time his 20th anniversary rolled around at the very start of what we know as the Silver Age of Comics, he had been a thrice-weekly radio serial regular, starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons, two films and a novel by George Lowther.

He was a perennial success for toy, game, puzzle and apparel manufacturers and had just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were three more shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a stage musical, a franchise of blockbuster movies and an almost seamless succession of games, bubblegum cards and TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since.

Even superdog Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

Although pretty much a spent force these days, for the majority of the last century the newspaper comic strip was the Holy Grail that all American cartoonists and graphic narrative storytellers hungered for. Syndicated across the country – and perhaps the planet – with millions, if not billions, of readers and generally accepted as a more mature and sophisticated form of literature than comic-books, it also paid better.

And rightly so: some of the most enduring and entertaining characters and concepts of all time were created to lure readers from one particular paper to another and many of them grew to be part of a global culture.

Mutt and Jeff, Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, Buck Rogers, Charlie Brown and so many more escaped their humble tawdry newsprint origins to become meta-real: existing in the minds of earthlings from Albuquerque to Zanzibar.

Most still do…

So it was always something of a risky double-edged sword when a comic-book character became so popular that it swam against the tide (after all weren’t the funny-books invented just to reprint the strips in cheap accessible form?) to became a genuinely mass-entertainment syndicated serial strip.

Superman was the first original comicbook character to make that leap – almost as soon as he was created – but only a few have ever successfully followed. Wonder Woman, Batman (eventually) and groundbreaking teen icon Archie made the jump in the 1940s and only a handful like Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian have done so since.

The daily Superman newspaper comic strip launched on 16th January 1939 and was supplemented by a full-colour Sunday page from November 5th of that year. Originally crafted by such luminaries as Siegel & Shuster and their studio (Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowak, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, Ed Dobrotka, Paul J. Lauretta & Wayne Boring) the mammoth task soon reqired the additional talents of Jack Burnley and writers like Whitney Ellsworth, Jack Schiff & Alvin Schwartz.

The McClure Syndicate feature ran continuously until May 1966, appearing at its peak in more than 300 daily and 90 Sunday newspapers, boasting a combined readership of more than 20 million. Eventually artists Win Mortimer and Curt Swan joined the unfailing Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye whilst Bill Finger and Seigel provided the stories, telling serial tales largely separate and divorced from comicbook continuity throughout years when superheroes were scarcely seen.

In 1956 Julie Schwartz opened the Silver Age with a new Flash in Showcase #4. Soon cosumed crusaders began returning en masse to thrill a new generation. As the trend grew, many companies began to experiment with the mystery man tradition and the Superman newspaper strip began to slowly adapt: drawing closer to the revolution on the comicbook pages.

As the Jet age gave way to the Space-Age, the Last Son of Krypton was a vibrant yet comfortably familiar icon of domestic modern America: particularly in the constantly evolving, ever-more dramatic and imaginative comicbook stories which had received such a terrific creative boost as super heroes gradually began to proliferate once more. Since 1954 the franchise had been cautiously expanding and in 1959 the Caped Kryptonian could be seen not only in Golden Age survivors Action Comics, Superman, Adventure Comics, World’s Finest Comics and Superboy but now also in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane and soon Justice League of America.

Such increased attention naturally filtered through to the far more widely seen newspaper strip and resulted in a rather strange and commercially sound evolution…

After author and educator Tom De Haven’s impassioned Foreword, Sidney Friedfertig’s Introduction explains how and why Jerry Siegel was tasked with turning recently published comicbook tales into daily 3-and-4 panel continuities for the apparently more sophisticated and discerning newspaper audiences. This meant major rewrites, frequently plot and tone changes and, in some cases, merging two stories into one.

If you’re a fan, don’t be fooled: these stories are not mere rehashes, but variations on an idea for an audience perceived as completely separate from kids’ funnybooks.

Even if you are familiar with the comicbook source material, the adventures gathered here will read as brand new, especially as they are gloriously illustrated by Curt Swan and latterly Wayne Boring at the very peak of their artistic powers.

As an added bonus the covers of the issues those adapted stories came from have been added as a full nostalgia-inducing colour gallery…

The astounding everyday entertainment commences with Episode #107 from April 6th to July 11th 1959.

‘Earth’s Super-Idiot!’ by Siegel, Swan & Stan Kaye is a mostly original story which borrows heavily from the author’s own ‘The Trio of Steel’ (Superman #135, February 1960, where it was drawn by Al Plastino) detailing the tricks of an unscrupulous super-scientific telepathic alien producer of “Realies” who blackmailed Superman into making a fool and villain of himself for extraterrestrial viewers.

If the hero didn’t comply – acting the goat, performing spectacular stunts and torturing his friends – Earth would suffer the consequences….

After eventually getting the better of the UFO sleaze-bag, our hero returned to Earth with a bump and encountered ‘The Ugly Superman’ (July 13th–September 5th, first seen in Lois Lane #8 April 1959, written by Robert Bernstein and illustrated by Kurt Schaffenberger).

Here, the eternally on-the-shelf Lois agreed to marry a brutish wrestler, and the Man of Tomorrow, for the most spurious of reasons, acted to foil her plans…

Episode #109 ran from September 7th to October 28th 1959 and saw Superman reluctantly agree to try and make a dying billionaire laugh in return for the miserable misanthrope signing over his entire fortune to charity.

Some of the apparently odd timing discrepancies in publication dates can be explained by the fact that submitted comicbook stories often appeared months after they were completed, so the comicbook version of Siegel’s ‘The Super-Clown of Metropolis’ didn’t get published until Superman #136 (April 1960) where Al Plastino took the art in completely different directions…

‘Captive of the Amazons’ – October 29th 1959 to February 6th 1960 – combined two funnybook adventures both originally limned by Boring & Kaye. The eponymous equivalent from Action #266 (Jul 1960) was augmented by Bernstein’s tale ‘When Superman Lost His Powers’ (Action Comics #262) detailing how super-powered alien queen Jena came to Earth intent on making Superman her husband. When he refused she removed his Kryptonian abilities, subsequently trapping now merely mortal Clark with other Daily Planet staff in a lost valley of monsters where Lois’ suspicions were again aroused…

Episode #111 ran from 8th February – 6th April. ‘The Superman of the Future’ originated in Action #256 (September 1959, by Otto Binder, Swan & Kaye) and both versions seemingly saw Superman swap places with a hyper-evolved descendent intent on preventing four catastrophic historical disasters, but the incredible events were actually part of a devious hoax…

Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane #10 (July 1959 by Siegel & Schaffenberger) offered up a comedy interlude as ‘The Cry-Baby of Metropolis’ (April 7th to May 28th) found Lois – terrified of losing her looks – exposing herself to a youth ray and rapidly regenerating into an infant, much to the amusement of arch-rival Lana Lang and Superman…

Episode #113 May 30th – July 2nd featured ‘The Super-Servant of Crime’ (by Bernstein, from Superman #130, July 1959) which saw the hero outsmarting a petty crook who had bamboozled the Action Ace into granting him five wishes, after which ‘The Super-Sword’ (4th July to August 13th and originally by Jerry Coleman & Plastino for Superman #124, September 1958) pitted the Kryptonian Crimebuster against a ancient knight with a magic blade which could penetrate his invulnerable skin. Once more, however, all was not as it seemed…

Siegel, Boring & Kaye’s epic ‘Superman’s Return to Krypton’ from Superman #141, November 1960) was first seen in daily instalments from August 15th to November 12th 1960, telling a subtly different tale of epic love lost as an accident marooned the adoptive Earth hero in the past on his doomed home-world. Reconciled to dying there with his people, Kal-El befriended his own parents and found love with his ideal soul-mate Lyla Lerrol, only to be torn from her side and returned to Earth against his will in a cruel twist of fate.

The strip version here is one of Swan’s most beautiful art jobs ever and, although the bold comicbook saga was a fan favourite for decades thereafter, the restoration of this more mature interpretation might have some rethinking their decision…

Wayne Boring once more became the premiere Superman strip illustrator with Episode #116 (November 14th – December 31st), reprising his and Siegel’s work on ‘The Lady and the Lion’ from Action #243 August 1958, wherein the Man of Steel was transformed into an inhuman  beast by a Kryptonian émigré the ancients knew as Circe…

Siegel then adapted Bernstein’s ‘The Great Superman Hoax’ and Boring & Kaye redrew their artwork for the Episode (January 2nd – February 4th 1961) which appeared in Superman #143, February 1961, and saw a cunning criminal try to convince Lois and Clark that he was actually the Man of Might, blissfully unaware of who he was failing to fool.

Then February 6th to March 4th had Superman using brains as well as brawn to thwart an alien invasion in ‘The Duel for Earth’ which originally appeared as a Superboy story in Adventure Comics #277 (October 1960) by Siegel & George Papp.

Superman #114 (July 1957) and scripter Otto Binder provided Siegel with the raw material for a deliciously wry and topical tax-time tale ‘Superman’s Billion-Dollar Debt’ – March 6th to April 8th – wherein an ambitious IRS agent presented the Man of Steel with an bill for unpaid back-taxes, whilst Episode #120 (April 10th – May 13th) introduced ‘The Great Mento’ (from Bernstein & Plastino’s yarn in Superman #147, August 1961): a tawdry showbiz masked mind-reader who blackmailed the hero by threatening to expose his precious secret identity…  

The final two stories in this premiere collection both come from Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane – issues #24, April and #26, July respectively – and both were originally crafted by Bernstein & Schaffenberger.

In ‘The Perfect Husband’ (15th May to July 1st), begun and ended by Boring but with Swan pinch-hitting for 2 weeks in the middle, Lois’ sister Lucy tricks the journalist into going on a TV dating show where she meets her ideal man, a millionaire sportsman and war hero who looks just like Clark Kent.

Then ‘The Mad Woman of Metropolis’ finds Lois driven to the edge of sanity by a vengeance-hungry killer, a rare chance to see the girl-reporter and shameless butt of so many male gags show her true mettle by solving the case without the Man of Tomorrow’s avuncular, often patronising assistance…

Superman: – The Silver Age Dailies 1959-1961 is the first in a series of huge (305 x 236mm), lavish, high-end hardback collections starring the Man of Steel and a welcome addition to the superb commemorative series of Library of American Comics which has preserved and re-presented in luxurious splendour such landmark strips as Li’l Abner, Tarzan, Little Orphan Annie, Terry and the Pirates, Bringing Up Father, Rip Kirby, Polly and her Pals and many of the abovementioned cartoon icons.

If you love the era, these stories are great comics reading, and this is a book you simply must have.
Superman ™ and © 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman: the Man of Steel volume 7


By John Byrne, Jerry Ordway, Karl Kesel, John Beatty, Keith Williams & Leonard Starr (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012- 3820-9

Although largely out of favour these days as the myriad decades of Superman mythology are relentlessly assimilated into one overarching, all-inclusive multi-media DC franchise, the stripped-down, gritty, post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Action Ace as re-imagined by John Byrne and marvellously built upon by a stunning succession of gifted comics craftsmen produced some genuine comics classics.

Controversial at the start, Byrne’s reboot of the world’s first superhero was rapidly acknowledged as a solid hit and the collaborative teams who complemented and followed him maintained the high quality, ensuring continued success.

That vast, interlocking saga has been collected – far too slowly – over recent years in a more-or-less chronologically combined format as the fabulously economical trade paperback series Superman: The Man of Steel and this seventh volume (revisiting Superman #13-15, Action Comics #596-597 and Adventures of Superman #436-438 from January – March 1988) features the Kryptonian corner of DC’s third annual inter-company mega-crossover event.

After Crisis on Infinite Earths and Legends came Millennium, which saw writer Steve Englehart expand on an iconic tale from his  Justice League of America run (#140-141) as well as his tenure on the Green Lantern Corps.

Billions of years ago the robotic peacekeepers known as Manhunters had rebelled against their creators. The Guardians of the Universe were immortal and desired a rational, emotionless cosmos – a view not shared by their own women. The Zamarons abandoned the Guardians on Oa at the inception of their grand scheme but recently, after billions of years, the two factions had reconciled and left our Reality together.

Now they had returned with a plan to midwife a new race of immortals on Earth, but the Manhunters – who had since infiltrated all aspects of every society throughout the universe – were determined to thwart the plan, whether by seduction, connivance or just plain brute force.

The heroes of Earth were summoned by the reunited immortals and subsequently gathered to see the project to completion but were continually confronted by Manhunters in their own private lives… and their own comics.

DC Comics third braided mega-series was a bold effort intended to touch all corners of their universe, introduce new characters, tie-in many titles and moreover to do so on a weekly, not monthly, schedule. In addition to the 8 weekly issues of the miniseries itself, Millennium spread across 21 titles for two months – another 37 issues – for a grand total of 44 comicbooks, and those Superman-related episodes make up the majority of this titanic tome.

The crossover craziness begins here with ‘Toys in the Attic!’ from Superman #13, courtesy of Byrne & Karl Kesel, wherein elderly British craftsman Winslow Percival Schott opens a campaign of murder and wanton destruction targeting billionaire Lex Luthor, the Yank who ruined his little company and forced him to become the murderous Toyman.

No sooner had the Man of Tomorrow intervened in that fracas than he was drawn back to sleepy hometown Smallville in ‘Junk’ (Adventures of Superman #436, scripted by Byrne, illustrated by Jerry Ordway & John Beatty) to discover trusted confidant Lana Lang was an agent of the Manhunters.

In truth the insidious mechanoids had been watching the Last Son of Krypton since before that world had died, but botched capturing the baby when he first arrived on Earth. As a back-up plan, the Manhunters then replaced local practitioner Doc Whitney who subsequently turned every child born since into a mind-controlled sleeper agent.

Now with ClarkKent a key factor in the Millennium, Whitney rallied his forces to capture Superman but utterly underestimated the power and resourcefulness of the Man of Steel…

Although victorious, Superman’s triumph was tainted by tragedy. In defeat all Whitney’s unwitting agents – two generations of Smallville’s young folk – keeled over dead…

The story continued in ‘Hell is Where the Heart Is…’ (Byrne & Keith Williams from Action Comics #596) as Ghostly Guardian The Spectre is drawn to the catastrophe and facilitates Superman’s odyssey to the Spiritual Realms to rescue all the recently deceased…

Superman #14 features an action-packed team-up with Green Lantern Hal Jordan wherein Emerald Gladiator and Man of Tomorrow chase colossal super-Manhunter Highmaster through uncanny dimensions as the mechanical maniac seeks to attack the sequestered and enervated Guardians and Zamarons in ‘Last Stand!’ by Byrne & Kesel, after which events take a far more moody turn in Adventures of Superman #437, a twinned tale by Byrne, Ordway & Beatty.

‘Point of View’ simultaneously reveals how Luthor attempts to seduce one of the Millennium candidates to his evil side even as Lois Lane helplessly watches the brutally crippling struggle of merely mortal vigilante Jose “Gangbuster” Delgado against Lex’s hyper-augmented cyborg warrior Combattor…

The repercussions of that clash are examined in ‘Visitor’ – Action Comics #597- wherein Byrne, Leonard Starr & Williams impishly referenced the Silver Age catfights between Lois Lane and Lana Lang, whilst the story itself established the false premise that Superman had been raised as Clark’s adopted brother to throw off Lois’ growing suspicions…

With the Millennium complete, Superman #15 returned to regular wonderment and Superman was asked to find Metropolis Police Captain Maggie Sawyer‘s missing daughter Jamie just as the city was hit with a rash of flying bandit children. ‘Wings’ (by Byrne & Kesel) introduced repulsive monster Skyhook – a horrific bat-winged Fagin who beguiled and mutated runaways whilst concealing even greater ghastly secrets…

This stunning selection of Fights ‘n’ Tights fun concludes with Adventures of Superman #438 and Byrne, Ordway & Beatty’s re-imagination of ‘…The Amazing Brainiac’.

A trip to the circus disastrously coincides with drunken mentalist Milton Fine developing uncanny psionic abilities and going wild. Despite the mental assaults being particularly effective against the Man of Steel, Superman eventually overcomes the furiously frantic performer, but was the beaten man simply deranged by his own latent abilities, or are his ravings about being possessed by an alien named Vril Dox of Colu somehow impossibly true…?

The back-to-basics approach lured many readers to – and crucially back to – the Superman franchise at a time when interest in the character had slumped to perilous levels, but it was the sheer quality of the stories and art which convinced them to stay.

Such cracking superhero tales are a high point in the Man of Tomorrow’s nearly eight decades of existence and these astoundingly readable collections are certainly the easiest way to enjoy a stand-out reinvention of the ultimate comic-book icon.
© 1988, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman/Batman: Supergirl

New Revised Review

By Jeph Loeb, Michael Turner & Peter Steigerwald (DC Comics)
ISBN: 1-4012-0347-7

In a shock of sheer horror, I realised over Christmas that I’ve been doing this for over 20 years: firstly in magazines like Comics Forum and books like Slings and Arrows, then as an online critic for the Comics Creators Guild website, before starting the independent Now Read This! in 2007.
Moreover many of those early efforts weren’t particularly fair or good – a side-effect of being literally bombarded non-stop with volumes one wouldn’t generally pick to read.
Thus in a probably futile effort to be less judgemental I’ve been going over older reviews, rethinking some previous pronouncements and will be making amends over the months to come.
What’s really worrying is how many I haven’t changed my mind about…

For many years Superman and Batman worked together as the “World’s Finest” team. They were best friends and the pairing made perfect financial sense as National/DC’s most popular heroes could cross-sell their combined readerships.

When the characters were redefined for the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths 1980s, they were remade as cautious but respectful co-workers who did the same job whilst deploring each other’s methods. They preferred to avoid contact whenever possible – except when they were in the Justice League – but then, the character continuity of team titles has always been largely at odds with heroes at home in their own titles…

After a few years of this new status quo the irresistible lure of Cape & Cowl Capers inexorably brought them together again with modern emotional intensity derived from their incontestably differing methods and characters.

For decades DC really couldn’t make up their minds over Supergirl. I’ve actually lost count of the number of different versions that have cropped up over the years, and I’ve never been able to shake the queasy feeling that above all else she’s a concept that was cynically shifted from being a way to get girls reading comics to one calculated to ease young male readers over that bumpy patch between sporadic chin-hair outbreaks, voices breaking and that nervous period of hiding things under your mattress where your mum never, never ever looks…

After a few intriguing test-runs she debuted as a future star of the ever-expanding Superman pocket universe in Action Comics #252 (May 1959). Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El had been born on a city-sized fragment of Krypton, hurled intact into space when the planet exploded. Eventually Argo City turned to Kryptonite like the rest of the detonated world’s debris and her dying parents, observing Earth through their vision-scopes, sent their daughter to safety as they apparently perished.

Landing on Earth, she met Superman who created the identity of Linda Lee and hid her in an orphanage whilst she learned of her new world and powers in secrecy and safety.

Her popularity waxed and waned over the years until she was earmarked for destruction as part of the clearout of attention-grabbing deaths during the aforementioned Crisis on Infinite Earths.

However as detailed in scripter Jeph Loeb’s introduction ‘On the Roller Coaster or, How Supergirl Returned to the DCU for the First Time’, after John Byrne successfully rebooted the Man of Steel, non-Kryptonian iterations began to appear – each with their own fans – until early in the 21st century the company Powers-that-Be decided the real Girl of Steel should come back… sort of…

Thus this visually intoxicating version (reprinting Superman/Batman #8-13, May-October 2004) resets to the original concept and has a naked blonde chick arrive on a Kryptonite meteor, claiming to be Superman’s cousin…

Written by Loeb with captivating art by Michael Turner & Peter Steigerwald, the action commences in the aftermath of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies wherein a Green Kryptonite asteroid crashed to Earth. Now in ‘Alone’, as a quarantined Superman chafes at enforced detention, the Dark Knight explores a section of the meteor submerged in Gotham Bay.

The JLA have all been active, clearing away the deadly fragments, but this last one is most disturbing. As Batman quickly grasps, it’s a ship but its single passenger is missing…

Soon the Gotham Guardian is tracking a wave of destruction caused by a seemingly confused teenaged girl with incredible powers and only Superman’s unwise early intervention stops the mounting carnage. Their subsequent investigations reveal the comely captive to have all the Man of Tomorrow’s abilities and she claims – in fluent Kryptonian – to be the daughter of his long-dead uncle Zor-El…

The mystery further unfolds in ‘Visitor’ as a deeply suspicious Batman and ecstatic Superman continue their researches, arguing their corners as the most powerful girl on Earth becomes increasingly impatient. Fuelling the Dark Knight’s concern is superdog Krypto‘s clear and savage hostility to the newcomer and Kara‘s claims that she has amnesia…

Then as Clark Kent endeavours to acclimatise his cousin to life on Earth, on the hellish world of Apokolips vile Granny Goodness and her Female Furies are ordered by ultimate evil space-god Darkseid to acquire the pliable naive newcomer…

Before they can strike, however, an attack comes from an unexpected source, as former ally Harbinger, ruthless hunter Artemis and beloved ally Wonder Woman ambush the Kryptonians. …

Princess Diana has acted arbitrarily nut from necessity: kidnapping Kara and bringing her to the island home of the Amazons to be trained in the use of her powers as a ‘Warrior’. Superman’s growing obsession has rendered him unable to see her potential for destruction, despite a cryptic message on her space ship from Zor-El, and Wonder Woman decided to strike first and ask later…

With tempers barely cooled, Dark Knight and Man of Steel are invited to observe Kara’s progress weeks later, just as the tropical Paradise is assaulted by an army of artificial Doomsdays manufactured on Apokolips…

The wave of slaughter is a feint, but by the time the horrors are all destroyed, the Female Furies have done their work, slaughtering Kara’s only friend and stealing her away…

In ‘Prisoner’, DC’s superheroic high trinity enlist the aid of Apokolyptian émigré Big Barda and stage a devastating rescue mission to Darkseid’s homeworld, but not before the Lord of evil apparently twists the innocent Girl of Steel into his tool: a ‘Traitor’ to the living…

The Master of Apokolips has never faced a foe as adamant as Batman and the quartet are unexpectedly victorious, but after returning Kara to Earth and announcing her as the new Supergirl, the heroes discover that they are not safe or secure, and in ‘Hero’ Darkseid horrifyingly returns to exact his ultimate revenge…

This hardcover collection also includes a covers-&-variant gallery by Turner, Steigerwald, Jim Lee & Scott Williams, assorted roughs and a wealth of production Sketches, and a nifty 2-page translation key for the Kryptonian Alphabet.

For me, the most intriguing aspect of this sometimes overly-sentimental tale is Batman’s utter distrust and suspicion of Kara as she is hidden from the world while she assimilates, but there’s plenty of beautifully rendered action (plus oodles of lovingly rendered girl-flesh and titillating fetish outfits jostling for attention amidst the lavish fight-scenes and interminable guest-cameos) and enough sheer spectacle to satisfy any Fights ‘n’ Tights fans.
© 2004, 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman/Batman: Night and Day


By Michael Green, Mike Johnson, Scott Kolins, Francis Manapul, Rafael Albuquerque & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2808-8

For decades Superman and Batman were quintessential superhero partners: the “World’s Finest team”. The affable champions were best buddies as well as mutually respectful colleagues, and their pairing made sound financial sense since DC’s top heroes could happily cross-pollinate and cross-sell their combined readerships.

In darker post-Crisis on Infinite Earth Times, the champions were retconned into grudging colleagues, at odds with each other over their methods and attitudes: as different as night and day, but with the passage of time the relationship was revitalised and renewed and the World’s Finest Heroes were fully restored to their bizarrely apt pre-eminence, regaining respect and friendship even though they were still in most ways polar opposites.

Finally, after a few tentative miniseries forays, in 2003 the World’s Finest Superheroes bowed to the inevitable and officially reunited in a new team-up series entitled Superman/Batman: an angsty, edgy, post-modern take on a relationship almost as old as the industry itself.

Reformed as firm friends for the style-over-content 21st century, their new stories were all big blockbuster events by major creators, designed to be repackaged as graphic novels. Eventually however the momentum slowed and shallow spectacle gave way to some genuinely interesting and different stories…

This volume contains Superman/Batman #60-63 and #65-67 (from 2009 and 2010), offering just such intriguing glimpses at other, lesser seen aspects of the mythology surrounding the Cape and Cowl Crusaders.

‘Mash-Up’ (by Michael Greene & Mike Johnson with art by Francis Manapul from Superman/Batman #60-61 from July & August 2009) apparently finds the Dark Knight and Man of Steel side-slipped into yet another alternate Earth where old and familiar faces take on new and disturbing forms. However, as they join the heroes of the valiant Justice Titans in battle against Lex Joker and Doomstroke, the razor sharp intellect and obsessive suspicions of Batman slowly determine a far more logical cause for their current situation; something only one of their old foes could possibly be behind…

There’s a far darker tone to ‘Sidekicked’ (Greene, Johnson and illustrated by Raphael Albuquerque from #62) as Tim (Robin III) Drake and Linda Lang AKA Supergirl meet for lunch and reminisce about their first meeting.

Left alone after their respective mentors were called away to a JLA emergency, the kids had to respond when a riot broke out at Arkham Asylum, but although Robin was worried that the sheltered ingénue from Krypton might not be prepared for crazed killers such as Joker, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Clayface, Mad Hatter, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy and Mr. Zsasz, it was his own sanity that nearly sundered before the kids finally triumphed…

‘Night & Day’ – Greene, Johnson & Albuquerque – from Superman/Batman #63 – finds Batman the last person free on an Earth dominated by super-gorilla Grodd. With Superman trapped off-world by a planetary Green Kryptonite force screen, the Dark Knight is forced to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his world – but once again, nothing is as it seems…

This volume omits #64, but resumes with more mindgames as ‘Sweet Dreams’ (#65 by Johnson, Matt Cherniss and artists Brian Stelfreeze, Brian Haberlin, Kelly Jones, Joe Quinones & Federico Dallocchio) depicts Superman’s greatest failures and Batman’s final breakdown – or at least that’s how the Scarecrow prefers to remember it…

The macabre madness of Blackest Night features in the concluding 2-parter by Scott Kolins from Superman/Batman #65-67 (January-February 2010) , as undead muck-monster Solomon Grundy is possessed by a Black Lantern ring and goes hunting for life to extinguish.

With every hero dead or preoccupied, tragic Man-Bat Kirk Langstrom and debased Superman clone Bizarro become unlikely defenders of humanity, with only the ferocious Mr. and Mrs. Frankenstein of Super-Human Advanced Defense Executive to assist them. And ultimately at stake on the ‘Night of the Cure’ is salvation and peace for each of the ghastly travesties of life…

With a stunning gallery of covers by Manapul, Brian Buccellato, Albuquerque, Dustin Nguyen, Scott Kolins & Michael Atiyeh, this book delivers a superb series of short and sweet sharp shocks that no lover of Fights ‘n’ Tights fiction could resist.
© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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World’s Finest


By Sterling Gates, Julian Lopez, Ramon F. Bachs, Jamal Igle, Phil Noto & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2797-5

For decades the Man of Tomorrow and Caped Crusader were quintessential superhero partners: the “World’s Finest team”. The affable champions were best buddies as well as mutually respectful colleagues and their pairing made sound financial sense since DC’s top heroes could happily cross-pollinate and cross-sell their combined readerships.

During the 1950s most superheroes of the American Golden Age faded away leaving only headliners Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman (plus whoever they could carry in the back of their assorted titles) to carry on a rather genteel campaign against a variety of thugs, monsters and aliens.

With economics and rising costs also dictating a reduction in average page counts, the once-sumptuous anthology World’s Finest Comics (originally 96 pages per issue), which had featured solo adventures of DC’s flagship heroes plus a wealth of other features, simply combined the twin stars into a single lead story every issue, beginning with #71, July-August 1954.

And so they proceeded until 1970 when another drop in superhero fortunes saw WFC become a Superman team-up book with rotating guest partners. However, after a couple of years, the original relationship was rekindled and renewed and, with the World’s Finest Heroes fully restored to their bizarrely apt pre-eminence, enjoyed another lengthy run until the title was cancelled during Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985-1986.

The maxi-series rewrote the DC universe, and everything was further shaken up by John Byrne’s subsequent retooling The Man of Steel which re-examined all the Caped Kryptonian’s close relationships in a darker, more cynical light.

When the characters were redefined for the post-Crisis era, they were recast as suspiciously respectful co-workers who did the same job but deplored each other’s methods and preferred to avoid contact whenever possible – except when they were in the Justice League of America (but for the sake of your sanity, don’t fret that right now!).

Over the following few years of this new status quo the irresistible lure of Cape & Cowl Capers inexorably brought them together again, but now with added modern emotional intensity derived from their incontestable differences.

Moreover, sentimental fools that we comics fans are, the sheer emotional cachet (and perhaps copyright value of the brand) ensured that every so often a new iteration of the singular title was released to keep all interested parties happy…

Thus this moody, cleverly post-modern 21st century spin on the irresistible combination of heroic dynasties which gathers World’s Finest volume 4, #1-4 from December 2009-March 2010, set during the period of the recent overarching Superman publishing event “World of New Krypton/World Without Superman”, wherein 100,000 Kryptonians who have escaped imprisonment in the Bottle City of Kandor gain superpowers under Sol’s light, and build themselves a planet in our solar system…

The book also contains supplementary material from Action Comics #865, 2008 and DC Comics Presents #31, 1981.

With the Man of Steel’s arch-nemesis General Zod prominent and pre-eminent in the newly re-established society of New Krypton, and most of Earth crazy-paranoid about a world full of belligerent supermen flying around in their backyard, Kal-El has abandoned his adopted homeworld to keep an eye on the system’s newest immigrants…

Earth is not completely defenceless, however. As well as the JLA and Superman’s hand-picked replacement Mon-El of Daxam, Supergirl and a mysterious “Superwoman” still fly the skies and top-secret, sinister paramilitary, anti-alien task force Project 7734 is watching, certain that there are other ET insurgents just waiting in hiding…

Against such a backdrop this quartet of interlinked team-ups written by Sterling Gates charts a heroic procession which begins with ‘Nightwing and Red Robin’ (illustrated by Julian Lopez and Bit) and finds the latest Kryptonian to use the appellative seek out the third Boy Wonder’s aid in rescuing his partner Flamebird from the insidious criminal broker The Penguin…

In Case You Weren’t Paying Attention: “The Dynamic Duo of Kandor” were first created by pulp author Edmond Hamilton with artists Curt Swan & George Klein for Superman #158 (January 1963, ‘Superman in Kandor!’) which saw raiders from the Kryptonian enclave attacking the Man of Steel and painting him as a traitor to his people.

The baffled Superman then infiltrated the BottleCity with Jimmy Olsen where they created Batman and Robin-inspired masked identities Nightwing and Flamebird to ferret out an answer.

Over intervening decades the roles were reprised by a number of others in Kandor and on Earth, before eventually being appropriated for Bat-characters when Dick Grayson became Nightwing and original Batgirl Bette Kane re-branded herself as Flamebird.

The latest heroes to use the names are Kryptonians masquerading as human heroes during this time of xenophobic hysteria: failed soldier and former priest Thara Ak-Var and Lor-Zod, a boy born in the Phantom Zone and briefly adopted by Lois and Clark Kent (for further details check out Superman: Nightwing and Flamebird volume 1).

With Thara captive, the former Christopher Kent has tracked down Tim Drake, whom he had previously met. They unite to rescue Flamebird, consequently uncovering an insidious, wide-ranging plan involving many members of their respective crime-busting clans as well as villains Kryptonite Man and the robotic Toyman…

With mission accomplished the heroes are replaced in #2 by ‘Guardian and Robin’ (art by Ramon F. Bachs & Rodney Ramos) as the clone of 1940s mystery man Jim Harper tries to fill the Man of Steel’s shoes in Metropolis, battling human Xerox machine Riot, only to run into the latest iteration of Robin (Damien Wayne, son of Bruce and Talia Al Ghul).

The acerbic, abrasive, assassin-trained 10-year old is tracking stolen Waynetech gear and won’t let super creeps like Mr. Freeze or the life-leeching Parasite stand in his way – even if it means having to work with sanctimonious old fogeys like the Golden Guardian. Sadly neither generation of hero is aware that Toyman will intercept their prisoners as soon as they hand them over to the cops…

In another part of Metropolis, cyber-crusader Oracle contacts the undercover Girl of Steel for a mission. The enigmatic data-wrangler has tracked Freeze and Kryptonite Man to Gotham but her usual operatives have been captured by the mystery mastermind behind the plot. Flying to the rescue, Kara Zor-El effects their rescue but chooses not to work with the morally-ambiguous Catwoman. She has no problems pairing with the junior partner, however…

‘Supergirl & Batgirl’ (illustrated by Jamal Igle, Jon Sibal & Jack Purcell) finds the Kryptonian bonding with Stephanie Brown (daughter of C-list bad-guy Cluemaster, and previously known as The Spoiler and fourth Robin) tracking the nefarious trio of nogoodniks and uncovering the truth behind the far-reaching plot.

The original aged paranoid inventor Toyman wants to remove forever the threat of the aliens above him. To that end he has constructed a monolithic Superman/Batman Robot, stuffed it with lethal Green -K ordinance (courtesy of reluctant hostage Kryptonite Man) and sent it hurtling towards New Krypton.

At least he would have if those interfering kids hadn’t become involved and set the monstrous K-droid rampaging through downtown GothamCity…

Everything pulls together for the climactic ‘Superman & Batman’ – with art from Phil Noto – as replacement Dark Knight Dick Grayson convinces the original Man of tomorrow to temporarily abandon his clandestine assignment on New Krypton to join him in stopping the rioting robot.

The new Daring Duo are as much hampered as assisted by Robin and Batgirl, and things go from bad to worse when the manic mechanoid finally launches for space with Supergirl and Batman still aboard…

Despite a lot of potentially confusing backstory to navigate, this is a tremendously engaging Fights ‘n’ Tights romp, packed with rollercoaster pace and drenched with light-hearted action: even finding room for a portentous teaser of more sinister games in play. As such it should amply reward fans of either or both franchises, but this tome also includes even more comics thrills, chills and spills.

It starts with an introduction from Sterling Gates dealing with how star scribe Geoff Johns married a myriad different and conflicting versions of one of Superman’s oldest foes into a viable and thoroughly competent revival, revealing the life-secrets and horrific motivations of ‘The Terrible Toyman’ (Action Comics #865, July 2008, illustrated by Jesus Merino) to doomed hostage Jimmy Olsen and, of course, us…

Dick Grayson also gets a another shot sharing the limelight with the Man of Steel as ‘The Deadliest Show on Earth’ (by Gerry Conway, José Luis García-López & Dick Giordano from DC Comics Presents #31, March 1981) concisely describes the odd couple’s pre-Crisis battle against a psychic vampire predating the performers at the troubled Sterling Circus…

With covers and variants by Noto, Kevin Maguire, Brad Anderson, Ross Andru & Giordano, this is a surprisingly satisfying superhero treat for all fans of Costumed Dramas and raucous rowdy adventure.
© 1981, 2008, 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.