Category: Superman

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Showcase Presents Superman Family volume 3


By Otto Binder, Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, Bill Finger, Curt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger, Wayne Boring, Al Plastino, Dick Sprang & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-84576-812-6

When the groundbreaking Man of Steel debuted in Action Comics #1 (June 1938) he was instantly the centre of attention, but even then the need for a solid supporting cast was apparent and wisely tailored for. Glamorous daredevil girl reporter Lois Lane premiered beside Clark Kent and was a constant companion and foil from the outset.

Although unnamed, a plucky red-headed, be-freckled kid started working for Clark and Lois from Action Comics #6 (November 1938) onwards. His first name was disclosed in Superman #13 (November-December 1941), having already been revealed as Jimmy Olsen when he had become a major player in The Adventures of Superman radio show from its debut on April 15th 1940.

As somebody the same age as the target audience for the hero to explain stuff to (all for the listeners’ benefit), he was the closest thing to a sidekick the Action Ace ever needed…

When a similarly titled television show launched in the autumn of 1952 it was another immediate sensation and National Periodicals began cautiously expanding their revitalised franchise with new characters and titles.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, being different in America was a Bad Thing. Conformity was sacrosanct, even in comicbooks, and everybody and thing was meant to keep to its assigned and intended role: for the Superman family and cast, that meant a highly strictured code of conduct and parameters.

Daily Planet Editor Perry White was a stern, shouty elder statesman with a heart of gold, Cub Reporter Jimmy was a brave and impulsive, unseasoned fool – with a heart of gold – and plucky News-hen Lois was brash, nosy, impetuous and unscrupulous in her obsession to marry Superman although she too was – deep down – another possessor of an Auric aorta.

Moreover, although burly Clark Kent was a Man in a Man’s World, his hidden alter ego meant that he must never act like one…

Yet somehow even with these mandates in place the talented writers and artists assigned to produce their wholesomely uncanny exploits managed to craft tales both beguiling and breathtakingly memorable – and usually as funny as they were exciting.

First to fill a solo title were the gloriously charming, light-hearted escapades of that rash, capable but callow photographer and “cub reporter”.  Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #1 launched in 1954 with a September-October cover date, the first spin-off star of the Caped Kryptonian’s rapidly expanding multi-media entourage.

As the decade progressed the oh-so-cautious Editors tentatively extended the franchise in 1957 just as the Silver Age of Comics was getting underway and it seemed that there might be a fresh and sustainable appetite for costumed heroes and their unique brand of spectacular shenanigans.

Try-out title Showcase, which had already launched The Flash (#4) and Challengers of the Unknown (#6), followed up with a brace of issues entitled Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane in #9 and 10 before swiftly awarding the “plucky News-hen” a series of her own – in actuality her second, since for a brief while in the mid-1940s she had held a regular solo-spot in Superman.

At this time Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane was one of precious few titles with a female lead and, in the context of today, one that gives many 21st century fans a few uncontrollable qualms of conscience. Within the confines of her series the valiant capable working woman careered crazily from man-hungry, unscrupulous bitch through ditzy simpleton to indomitable and brilliant heroine – often all in the same issue – as the exigencies of entertaining children under the strictures of the Comics Code all too often played up the period’s astonishingly misogynistic attitudes.

The comic was clearly intended to appeal to the family demographic that made I Love Lucy a national phenomenon and Doris Day a ditzy latter day saint, so many stories were played for laughs in that same patriarchal, parochial manner; a “gosh, aren’t women funny?” tone that appals me today – but not as much as the fact that I still love them to bits.

It helps that they’re mostly illustrated by the wonderfully whimsical Kurt Schaffenberger.

Jimmy fared little better: a bright, brave but naïve kid making his own way in the world, he was often the butt of cruel jokes and impossible circumstances; undervalued and humiliatingly tasked in a variety of slapstick adventures and strange transformations.

This third cunningly conjoined chronologically complete compendium collects the affable, all-ages tales from Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #35-44, March 1959-April 1960 and Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #8-16, April 1959-April 1960, and commences with the Man of Steel’s Go-To Guy in three tales drawn as (almost) always by the wonderful Curt Swan.

Jimmy’s comic was popular for more than two decades, blending action, adventure, broad, wacky comedy, fantasy and science fiction in the gently addictive, self-deprecating manner scripter Otto Binder had perfected a decade previously at Fawcett Comics on the magnificent original Captain Marvel.

As the feature progressed, one of the most popular plot-themes (and most fondly remembered and referenced today by most Baby-Boomer fans) was the unlucky lad’s appalling talent for being warped, mutated and physically manipulated by fate, aliens and even his friends…

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #35 (March 1959) opens with ‘The Menace of Superman’s Fan Mail!’, by Binder & Swan with inks by Stan Kaye, wherein the cub reporter undertook to answer the mountain of missives for the Man of Steel and inadvertently supplied a crook with an almost foolproof method of murdering the Metropolis Marvel.

The remaining tales are inked by Ray Burnley and begins with a rather disingenuous yarn which saw the lad repeatedly get into trouble wearing a futuristic suit of mechanised super-armour which only made him look like ‘The Robot Jimmy Olsen!’, whilst in ‘Superman’s Enemy!’ the devoted kid overnight turned into a despicable, hero-hating wretch. However as a veritable plague of altered behaviour afflicted ClarkKent’s friends, the baffled Action Ace began to discern a pattern…

Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #8 (April 1959) opened with ‘The Superwoman of Metropolis’, by Alvin Schwartz & Kurt Schaffenberger, heavy-handedly turning the tables on our heroine when she developed incredible abilities and took on a costumed identity, and was instantly plagued by a suspicious Clark determined to expose her secret.

‘The Ugly Superman!’ dealt with a costumed wrestler who fell for Lois, giving the Caped Kryptonian another chance for some pretty unpleasant Super-teasing. . It was written by the veteran Robert Bernstein, who unlike me can use the tenor of the times as his excuse, and pleasingly ameliorated by Schaffenberger delivering another hilarious dose of OTT comedic drama illustration.

Following is a far less disturbing fantasy romp: ‘Queen for a Day!’ (Bernstein, Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye) found Lois and Clark shipwrecked on an island of Amazons with the plucky lady mistaken for their long-prophesied royal saviour…

Jimmy Olsen #36 began with Binder, Swan & Burnley’s ‘Super-Senor’s Pal!’, which found the boy South of the Border in the banana republic of Peccador helping a local rebel fight the dictators by masquerading as a Latino Man of Steel.

Stan Kaye inked the momentous debut of ‘Lois Lane’s Sister!’, which introduced perky air-hostess Lucy as romantic foil and regularly unattainable inamorata for the kid, in a smart, funny tale of hapless puppy love whilst the final tale (Burnley inks) described the cub reporter’s accidental time-trip to Krypton and ‘How Jimmy Olsen First met Superman!’

Although we all think of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s iconic creation as the epitome of comicbook creation, the truth is that very soon after his launch Superman became a multimedia star and far more people have seen or heard the Man of Steel than have ever read him – and yes, that does include the globally syndicated newspaper strip which ran from 1939 to 1966.

By the time his 20th anniversary rolled around he had been a regular on radio, starred in a series of astounding animated cartoons and two movies, and just ended his first smash live-action television serial. In his future were three more (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a stage musical, a franchise of stellar movies and an almost seamless succession of TV cartoons beginning with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966 and continuing ever since. Even Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

It’s no wonder then that the tales from this Silver Age period should be so draped in the gaudily wholesome trappings of Tinseltown – even more so than most of celebrity-obsessed America. It didn’t hurt that editor Whitney Ellsworth was a part-time screenwriter, script editor and producer as well as National/DC’s Hollywood point man.

The Man of Tomorrow’s TV presence influenced much of Lois Lane #9: a celebrity-soaked issue scripted by Bernstein which began with artists Dick Sprang & John Forte detailing how performer Pat Boone (who coincidentally had his own licensed DC comic at that time) almost exposed Earth’s greatest secret with ‘Superman’s Mystery Song!’

The Silver Screen connection continued in the Schaffenberger-illustrated ‘The Most Hated Girl in Metropolis’ wherein Lois was framed for exposing that self-same super-secret as a ruse to get her to Hollywood for her own unsuspected This is Your Life special. The issue ended with return to fantasy/comedy as Schaffenberger introduced a lost valley of leftover dinosaurs and puny caveman Blog – ‘Lois Lane’s Stone-Age Suitor’…

In JO #37 Bill Finger, Swan & John Forte revealed the incredible truth about multi-powered Mysterio in the case of ‘Superman’s Super-Rival’, whilst Binder, Swan & Kaye exposed the difficulties of frivolous Lucy Lane having ‘The Jimmy Olsen Signal Watch!’: a timepiece/communicator which kept the boy on a constant electronic leash…

This issue ended with a cunning caper which saw resident crackpot genius Professor Phineas Potter concoct a serum which allowed Jimmy to reprise his many malleable antics and tangled troublemaking as ‘The Elastic Lad of Metropolis’ (Binder, Swan & George Klein) – almost exposing Superman’s secret identity into the bargain.

Records from the period are sadly incomplete but Bernstein probably wrote each tale in Lois Lane #10, beginning with Schaffenberger-limned classic ‘The Cry-Baby of Metropolis’, wherein Lois – terrified of losing her looks – exposed herself to a youth ray and temporarily turned into a baby, much to the good-natured amusement of Superman and arch rival Lana Lang…

Schaffenberger also illustrated ‘Lois Lane’s Romeo’ as the constantly spurned reporter finally gave up on her extraterrestrial beau and was romanced by a slick, romantic European. Of course he was also a conniving, crooked conman…

She stormed back in formidable crime-busting form for ‘Lois Lane’s Super-Séance!’ (Boring & Kaye), apparently graced with psychic sight, but actually pulling the wool over the eyes of superstitious crooks.

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #38 also tapped the TV connection as the lad became ‘The MC of the Midnight Scare Theatre’ (Bernstein, Swan & Forte), uncovering an incredible mystery as his hoary, hokey act apparently scared four viewers to death…

Although by the same creators, the broad humour of ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Wedding’ to Lucy had a far less ingenious explanation, but ‘Olsen’s Super-Supper!’ (Bernstein, Swan & John Giunta) ended things on a high as the impecunious kid entered an eating contest and allowed shady operators to try an experimental appetite-increasing ray on him. Of course the mad scientists had an ulterior, criminal motive…

A plane crash and head wound transformed Lois into a fur-bikinied wild woman in #11 of her own magazine but, even after being rescued by Superman, ‘The Leopard Girl of the Jungle!’ (Bill Finger & Schaffenberger) still had one last task to valiantly undertake, after which the anonymously authored ‘The Tricks of Lois Lane!’ found the restored reporter up to her old schemes to expose Clark as Superman, whilst ‘Lois Lane’s Super-Perfume!’ (possibly Bernstein?) seemed able to turn any man into a love-slave – until the Man of Steel exposed the criminal scammers behind it…

Binder, Swan & Forte crafted all of Jimmy Olsen #39 which began with the lad stuck on another world where he quickly became ‘The Super-Lad of Space!’, after which, back in Metropolis, his ill-considered antics lost and won and lost him a fortune in ‘The Million Dollar Mistakes!’ before ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Super-Signals!’ saw him misplace his Superman-summoning watch and forced to spectacularly improvise every time he got into trouble…

Bernstein handled LL #12 beginning with two Schaffenberger specials: ‘The Mermaid of Metropolis’ in which an accident doomed Lois to life underwater beside Sea King Aquaman, until Superman found a cure for her piscoid condition, whilst in ‘The Girl Atlas!’ Lana sneakily turned herself into a super-powerhouse to corral the Man of Steel and learned what sneaky meant when her rival struck back…

Al Plastino illustrated ‘Lois Lane Loves Clark Kent!’ wherein Lois, believing she had incontrovertible proof of Superman’s secret, started a campaign to entrap the unknowing journalist in wedlock…

Swan & Forte illustrated all of JO #40, beginning with ‘The Invisible Life of Jimmy Olsen’ (scripted by Binder) as the hapless lad was enmired in all manner of mischief after a gift from his best pal unexpectedly rendered him unseen but not trouble-free, after which ‘Jimmy Olsen, Supergirl’s Pal!’ saw the reporter temporarily struck blind just as a crook with a grudge tried to kill him.

With Superman out of touch, the hero’s secret weapon Supergirl (a hidden trainee no one except cousin Kal-El knew of) rushed to the rescue, only to have the feisty lad disbelieve and dispute her very existence.

Bernstein then exposed ‘Jimmy Olsen, Juvenile Delinquent!’ as the kid went undercover to break up a prototypical street gang and discovered Perry White’s own son was a member…

Bernstein & Schaffenberger led in the 13th issue of the news-hen’s series, hilariously ‘Introducing… Lois Lane’s Parents!’

Superman had offered the lady reporter a lift home to the farm of Sam and Ella Lane for a family reunion, but thanks to a concatenation of circumstances, local gossip and super-politeness, the Man of Steel quickly found himself press-ganged into a wedding.

Fair Warning: this tale also contains Lois’ first nude scene when proud father Sam got out the baby album…

By the same creative team, and in a brilliant pastiche of My Fair Lady, ‘Alias Lois Lane!’ found the indomitable inquirer undercover as floozie Sadie Blodgett to snap candid shots of a movie star and hired by thugs to impersonate Superman’s girlfriend in an assassination plot bound to fail…

Then, Finger, Boring & Kaye disclosed ‘The Shocking Secret of Lois Lane!’ following a tragically implausible incident which forced the reporter to cover her disfigured head in a lead-lined steel box. Thankfully the Action Ace was around to deduce what was really going on…

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #41 opened with Bernstein, Swan & Forte’s ‘The Human Octopus!’, which highlighted the lad’s negligent idiocy when he impetuously ate alien fruit and apparently grew six more arms. The true effect of the space spud was far more devious…

Binder and Kaye joined Swan for ‘The Robot Reporter!’, as Jimmy used an automaton provided by Superman to do his job whilst he recuperated from a damaged ankle and managed to get into trouble from the comfort of his apartment. Thanks to some stupid showing off the kid was then mistaken for a master fencer and catapulted into a Ruritanian adventure as ‘Jimmy Olsen, the Boy Swordsman!’ (by Binder, Swan & Forte).

Lois Lane #14 led with ‘Three Nights in the Fortress of Solitude!’ (Binder & Schaffenberger) as the conniving journalist contrived to isolate herself with Superman long enough to prove how much he needed a woman in his life, only to suffer one disaster after another whilst the Bernstein scripted ‘Lois Lane’s Soldier Sweetheart!’ alternatively showed her warm and generous side as she helped a lonely GI attain his greatest desire.

Jerry Siegel then returned to the character he created using the still-secret Supergirl to catastrophically play cupid in ‘Lois Lane’s Secret Romance!’

Jimmy Olsen #42 started with the uncredited story of ‘The Big Superman Movie!’ (art by Swan & Forte), wherein the star-struck kid consulted on a major motion picture but would far rather have played himself, much to Lucy’s amusement. Nevertheless the sharp apprentice journalist had the last word – and laugh…

Bernstein scripted ‘Perry White, Cub Reporter!’ which saw the Editor and junior trade places, with power only apparently going straight to Olsen’s head, after which ‘Jimmy the Genie!’ saw the something similar occur when boy reporter and magical sprite exchanged roles in a clever thriller by illustrated by Swan & Giunta.

Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #15 featured a landmark mystery tale in ‘The Super-Family of Steel!’ (Binder & Schaffenberger) which seemingly saw Lois attain her every dream. She and her Kryptonian Crimebuster first became ‘Super-Husband and Wife’, with ‘The Bride Gets Super-Powers’ as a consequence, and they even had a brace of super-kids before the astounding ‘Secret of the Super-Family’ was revealed to a shocked audience…

In Superman’s Pal… #43 TV show 77 Sunset Strip got a name-check as ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Four Fads!’ (Swan & Kaye) found the kid attempting to create a teen trend to impress Lucy, whilst as ‘Phantom Fingers Olsen!’ (Boring & Kaye) he infiltrated a gang of murderous thieves, and was later adopted by ‘Jimmy Olsen’s Private Monster!’ (Siegel, Swan & Forte).

After causing no end of embarrassment in Metropolis, the bizarre beast took Jim to his home dimension where even greater shocks awaited…

The final Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane in this collection is #16 from April 1960 and opens with ‘Lois Lane’s Signal-Watch’ with Schaffenberger art over (possibly) a Siegel script, as the Man of Steel learned to regret ever giving a woman who clearly had no idea what “emergency” meant a device which would summon him at any moment of day or night…

That slice of scurrilous 1950s propaganda is inexplicably balanced by a brilliant murder thriller which showed off all Lois’ resilience and fortitude as she infiltrated and solved ‘The Mystery of Skull Island’, (Bernstein) whilst Siegel authored another cruel dark tragedy wherein Superman tried to cure Lois’ nosy impulses by tricking his own girlfriend into believing she had a death stare in ‘The Kryptonite Girl!’. (Of course, as all married couples know, such a power develops naturally not long after the honeymoon…)

I love these stories, but sometime words just fail me…

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #44 ends this third monochrome monolith, starting with ‘The Wolf-Man of Metropolis!’ (Binder, Swan & Kaye), which blended horror, mystery and heart-warming charm in a mini-classic which saw the boy cursed to hairy moon madness and desperately seeking a willing maiden to cure him with a kiss…

That’s followed by Siegel, Swan & Forte’s ‘Jimmy’s Leprechaun Pal!’, a magical imp who made life hell for the cub until human ingenuity outwitted magical pranksterism, after which Bernstein, Swan & Kaye crafted possibly the strangest and most disturbing yarn in this compilation as the boy went undercover as a sexy showgirl to get close to gangster Big Monte in ‘Miss Jimmy Olsen!’

As well as containing some of the most delightful episodes of the pre angst-drenched, cosmically catastrophic DC, these fun, thrilling, deeply peculiar and yes, often potentially offensive stories also perfectly capture the changing tone and tastes which reshaped comics from the safe 1950s to the seditious, rebellious 1970s, all the while keeping to the prime directive of the industry – “keep them entertained and keep them wanting more”.

Despite my good-natured cavils from my high horse here in the 21st century, I think these stories have a huge amount to offer funnybook fun-seekers. I strongly urge you to check them out.
© 1959, 1960, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman: Nightwing and Flamebird volume 1


By Greg Rucka, Eddy Barrows, Sidney Teles, Diego Olmos, Pere Pérez & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2639-8

“The Dynamic Duo of Kandor” were first envisioned by pulp author Edmond Hamilton and artists Curt Swan & George Klein in Superman #158 (January 1963, ‘Superman in Kandor!’) which saw raiders from the preserved Kryptonian enclave attacking the Man of Steel and describing him as a traitor to his people.

Back then, the baffled Superman infiltrated the Bottle City with Jimmy Olsen where they created the Batman and Robin-inspired masked identities of Nightwing and Flamebird to ferret out the answer…

Over intervening decades the roles have been played by a number of others in Kandor and elsewhere, before eventually being appropriated for regular Earthbound characters when the original Robin became Nightwing and first Batgirl Bette Kane re-branded herself as Flamebird.

In this iteration, part of the recent overarching Superman publishing event “World of New Krypton/World Without Superman”, the 100,000 preserved Kandorians have escaped imprisonment in the Bottle City and, gaining superpowers under Sol’s light, built themselves a planet in our solar system.

With the Man of Steel’s arch-nemesis General Zod prominent and pre-eminent in the newly re-established society and most of Earth crazy-scared 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 Justice League and Superman’s hand-picked replacement Mon-El of Daxam, Supergirl and a mysterious “Superwoman” still fly our 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…

Collecting Action Comics #875-879, Action Comics Annual #12 (from May to September 2009) and excerpts from Superman Secret Files 2009, this tense suspense thriller introduces a brace of apparently familiar new players to the cosmic drama of World Without Superman…

Written throughout by Greg Rucka, 5-part saga ‘The Sleepers’ (illustrated by Eddy Barrows, Ruy José & Julio Ferreira) begins in Australia with a masked and armoured duo attacking a media mogul and revealing that he is in fact Kryptonian agent Tor-An; placed in deep cover by Zod to infiltrate Earth’s echelons of power prior to invasion.

His cover spectacularly blown by Nightwing and Flamebird – Kryptonians masquerading as earthling heroes during these times of xenophobic hysteria – the alien infiltrator battles manically but is soon overcome and transported to Superman’s vacant Fortress of Solitude as, in Metropolis, Lois Lane ponders the implications of the televised battle.

Also considering the state of affairs is the fanatical leader of Project 7734. General Sam Lane is Lois’ father and a global war hero thought long-perished in service of humanity. However the severely off-reservation zealot is actually running his own covert agenda of rendition and murder under the noses of family and government, secure in his conviction that only he knows what’s best for Earth.

What he doesn’t know is who these newcomers are – although he does have some suspicions…

On New Krypton military martinet – and Zod’s former lover – Ursa is investigating the disappearance of security officer Thara Ak-Var, unaware as yet that the young woman is AWOL on Earth, hunting down six Kryptonian sleepers the General and Ursa so assiduously trained. The twisted, sadistic soldier-fanatic has no idea how closely the mysterious Flamebird is to one she thought lost forever…

And in the Fortress Thara, having locked up Tor-An, is horrified to see her teenaged companion Lor-Zod age ten years in agonising seconds…

Part 2 (with additional pencils from Sidney Teles) opens with the distraught pair ambushed and overwhelmed by the deranged, unstoppable Ursa, who seems to know all the bewildered boy-man’s secrets. So she should: Ursa is his mother…

Unfortunately, bringing him into the world doesn’t prevent the Kryptonian killer savagely beating Nightwing to the brink of death and stabbing Flamebird with a lethal Kryptonite knife. Only a desperate rally and sheer luck allows the tormented young man to fend her off and escape the Fortress with his dying partner.

In Metropolis some time later, Lois Lane looks out her window and sees the son she thought lost forever floating in mid-air with a dead woman in his arms……

Part 3 (illustrated by Teles & Sandro Ribeiro) opens with a furious and frustrated Ursa discovering the Fortress empty except for the incarcerated failure Tor-An as, in distant America, Lois is reunited with the strangely altered boy who was briefly adopted by her and husband Clark Kent…

It all began when Superman intercepted a spaceship crashing to Earth. Catching the blazing capsule he discovered a young boy within, apparently from Krypton…

Claimed by the US government, the boy nearly disappeared into the nebulous miasma of US covert agencies until the Man of Tomorrow rescued him. Determined the boy should have a normal childhood he then closeted him with his own foster parents. Jonathan and Martha Kent were the only humans with any experience of raising super-kids…

Thereafter the Action Ace decided to keep the authorities involved but at arms length, even after Lex Luthor sent the unstable juggernaut Bizarro to steal the boy, but was eventually forced to admit that only total anonymity could save the youngster from becoming somebody’s ultimate weapon.

He and Lois adopted the boy, naming him Christopher, just as three Kryptonian villains smashed free of the Phantom Zone (a stark and silent realm of nullity; formless and intangible, it was a time-proof, timeless prison for the worst villains of lost planet Krypton) and attacked Earth.

Challenging the Man of Steel, they claimed to know the boy’s true origins. Christopher – nee Lor-Zod – had been born in an aberrant, solid sector of the ghostly plane; impossible fruit of a union between disgraced Zod and psychotic killer Ursa. Subjected to constant torture and abuse at the hands of the twisted prison population the unearthly child finally escaped, but his uncanny genesis had made him a creature of disruptive potential.

His mere presence on Earth threatened to break down the walls to the Phantom Zone, and Lois last saw her adopted son when the brave little boy voluntarily returned to his birth dimension to save the world from invasion by an army of Kryptonian convicts…

Now only months later he is back, full grown and carrying a wounded woman he clearly loved deeply. Possibly the greatest human expert on Kryptonians, Lois promptly calls on Justice Leaguer Kimiyo Hoshi who – as Dr. Light – bombards Thara with yellow solar radiation to kickstart super-healing.

Unfortunately the spectacular radiance is picked up by covert 7734 surveillance. General Lane turns his paranoid attentions upon his daughter and discovers “Enemy Hostile” Thara Ak-Var sunbathing on his little girl’s roof…

Christopher, assured that Thara is on the mend, returns to the Fortress. Once there though, he only finds Tor-An’s corpse and his own maniac birth-mother alternatively itching for another fight and beseeching him to come home.

Disgusted and distracted Nightwing flees but is ambushed over the icy wastes by Lane’s souped-up drone planes.

Now, in Nevada, a young Kryptonian couple begin a lethal rampage: hot, horny and obsessed with becoming the new Bonnie and Clyde in their own gory remake of “Badlands”…

Part 4 (art by Diego Olmos) finds former sleeper agents Az-Rel and Nadira in New Mexico, having gouged a bloody swathe through the Southwest, completely rejecting Zod’s schemes, preferring a life of murderous, sex-fuelled self-indulgence…

Chris had been wounded in 7734’s attack and DNA has been gathered and processed by the covert xenophobes. The results confirm General Lane’s theory that Nightwing is the same child Superman prevented the US Government from confiscating and it also proves his own daughter is a traitor to humanity, consorting with and giving comfort to aliens…

Nightwing returns to Metropolis just as the recuperating Thara finishes telling Lois how she and the boy first hooked up, but no sooner are they all reunited than news of the spree-killers catapults the heroes into amother battle…

The furious fight against power-drunk Az-Rel and Nadira in Part 5 (Olmos art) is only interrupted when 7734’s top agent and an army of bizarre monsters join the melee.

Codename: Assassin is a powerful telepathic fanatic more concerned with capturing Nightwing and Flamebird than saving lives and his interference allows the Kryptonian thrill-killers opportunity to escape. Nightwing pursues, but the telepath remains, preferring to extract all the enigmatic crusaders’ secrets from Thara’s mind.

With Nightwing obliviously chasing the fugitive sleepers, all Flamebird’s memories are being sampled by the rapacious Assassin until he inadvertently triggers a terrifying explosive transformation and his captive manifests as a chaotic creature of blazing destructive energy…

In the aftermath Az-Rel and Nadira elude Chris and the shaken but restored Thara (but not 7734’s other metahuman assets) whilst at a distant grave Mon-El confirms Lois’ worst suspicions: her driven, duplicitous, obsessive father is still alive…

Action Comics Annual #12 then provides ‘The Origin of Nightwing and Flamebird’ (illustrated by Pere Pérez); disclosing how Kandor’s abduction by Brainiac set in motion a series of tragic events which orphaned Thara and led to her becoming a security officer in Kandor, protecting the parents of the girl who would one day become Supergirl.

We also learn how her life was further changed when, moved by an irresistible inpulse, she joined the city’s Spiritual Guild and somehow, impossibly, connected with a little boy lost in the Phantom Zone and constantly tortured by his own parents and all the ghostly inmates of the penal plane.

And then one day, prompted by urgings from a mythical deity, Thara broke into the Zone and spectacularly rescued Lor-Zod, battling demons in human form to bring them both into the light…

To Be Continued…

With a cover gallery by Andrew Robinson and Renato Guedes and including full fact file pages on both Nightwing and Flamebird, this slim exotic tome is fast paced, action-packed, pretty and engaging but as an opening shot in only a sidebar sequence to a major story arc, probably offers more bewilderment than wonderment to any reader not intimately aware with the ever-changing minutiae of the continuity.

Definitely worth a look, but perhaps only after reading the main event first…
© 2009, 2010 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Man of Steel – Inside the Legendary World of Superman


By Daniel Wallace with photographs by Clay Enos (Insight Studios/Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-178116-817-2

Always foremost amongst the fascinating publishing add-ons to accompany major fantasy motion picture releases are the “Art of…” compendiums, and the terrific oversized (286 x 240 x 22mm) hardcover tome which supports the new Man of Steel film is both gloriously enticing and genuinely informative.

Author Daniel Wallace has compiled an eye-popping mix of production art, panoramic stills, pre-production designs and concept paintings gleaned from the various art departments and combined them with behind-the-scenes interviews, commentary and colour to produce a celebratory coffee-table art-book that is absolutely breathtaking.

After a Foreword by producer Christopher Nolan and Introduction from director Zack Snyder, ‘Modern Day Mythmaking’ reveals how the project came about with ‘Making it Happen’ and ‘Making it Real’, further disclosing the secrets of ‘The Suit’ before closing with the film’s philosophical mission statement in ‘Superman Vérité’.

The all-important ‘Casting Man of Steel’ explores and examines the actors, roles and thinking of the vast and stellar cast over nearly thirty electrifying pages, paying great attention to the costumes and designs of a scenario and society such as Superman fans have never seen before.

That imagination overload continues into ‘Welcome to Krypton’, highlighting ‘Kandor’ and ‘The Kryptonian Chamber’ before digressing onto a page dedicated to ‘Speaking Kryptonian’ (in my day it was “Kryptonese” but that’s my own personal digression-lite), after which the visual secrets of ‘The Ruling Council’, ‘Crafted Technology’ and ‘Automated Helpmates’ bring the planet’s robotic excesses to astounding life.

Now a ravaged, worn-torn world, Krypton’s martial advances are spotlighted in ‘Armed for Battle’ whilst ‘The House of El’, ‘Flora and Fauna’ and ‘The Genesis Chamber’ readily inform and expand on the unworldly realities of the lost planet and Superman’s history.

Further visualisations and revelations depict ‘Last Hope’, the awesomely appalling ‘Black Zero’, ‘The Dead Colonies’ long-abandoned by Krypton, and explain how the film designers attempted ‘Communicating with Contours’ before concluding with views of the pivotal ‘Scout Ship’ that changed Clark Kent’s life forever…

Locations and sets star in ‘Welcome to Earth’, with specific attention paid to the hero-in-waiting’s ‘Northern Journeys’, ‘Smallville’, Earth’s military bastion ‘U.S. Northcom’ and of course, ‘Metropolis’ before the epic exploration ends with a heartfelt appreciation of ‘The Heart of the Legend’…

Admittedly Inside the Legendary World of Superman was released to cash-in on the long-awaited movie, but this utterly engrossing picture-treat is such a superb slice of sheer imaginative indulgence no fan of film or funnybooks will want to miss out on such a marvellously magical experience.
© 2013 DC Comics. MAN OF STEEL, SUPERMAN and all related characters and elements ™ and © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Man of Steel – the Official Movie Novelization


By Greg Cox (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78116-599-7                  E-book edition ISBN: 978-1-78116-600-0

As you might have noticed, there’s another Superman movie hitting big screens at the moment and, as is the norm, the movie blockbuster comes with all the usual attendant extras.

Released a week after the premiere of Man of Steel, the Official Movie Novelization recapitulates that tale in an absorbing 320 page paperback – sadly sans any illustrations – for fans of a literary bent, duly expanding the breathtaking visual experience in the adroit, incisive way specialist author Greg Cox has made his own.

Don’t take my word for it: check his adaptations of films such as the Underworld trilogy, Daredevil, Ghost Rider or The Dark Knight Rises, comics series such as Infinite Crisis, Countdown, Final Crisis amongst others, as well as his legion of cult media tie-ins and comics-related books…

Spoiler Alert: since almost everybody alive knows the mythos of Superman by now and the whole point of this latest movie is to reinterpret, reinvigorate and reinstate that legend, I’m going to manfully restrain myself from outlining the plot of this engaging prose package in anything but the vaguest detail, in case you haven’t seen the stunning visual tour de force yet.

Krypton dies and scientific rebels Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van send their newborn son to another world to escape its destruction. However a goodly portion of film and book concentrate on the fabulous, uncanny and war-torn planet where Jor-El struggles with former friend and desperate terrorist General Zod as each strives to preserve Krypton in their diametrically opposed ways, so you won’t be reading about the child of two worlds until chapter seven…

A ship lands in Kansas, years pass and strange, anonymous miracles occur…

A young reporter begins to chart these odd occurrences.

Another star-craft is found, buried millennia-deep in polar ice…

And one day a ghastly extraterrestrial war-craft comes to Earth, full of deadly super-beings hunting someone called Kal-El…

Full of sly in-joke nods to previous comics, film and TV iterations and littered with those arcane snippets of lore beloved by seasoned fans, this engaging yarn, based on the original screenplay by David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan, adds some depth to the frantic on-screen spectacle and will delight every Superman that loves to curl up with a good book.

© 2013 DC Comics. MAN OF STEEL and all related characters and elements ™ and © DC Comics.

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Superman: Transformed!


By Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, David Michelinie, Louise Simonson, Jon Bogdanove, Scott Eaton, Ron Frenz, Tom Grummett, Ron Lim, Paul Ryan, Dennis Janke, José Marzán Jr, Denis Rodier & Josef Rubinstein (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56389-406-0

The Man of Steel has proven to be all things to most fans during his 75-year existence so, with the character currently undertaking his latest radical shake-up, what better time to spotlight one of the strangest and most controversial refits of Superman ever conceived?  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 film-favoured continuity, the stripped-down, gritty post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Man of Tomorrow as re-imagined by John Byrne, and marvellously built upon by a succession of immensely talented comics craftsmen, resulted in some stunning highs and lows.

The fan in me loathed this “stunt” at the time, but the seemingly desperate attempt to keep reader attention high at all costs now reads rather well and offers genuine moments of sheer Fight’s ‘n’ Tights magic – especially in the stunning combat sequences….

Almost as soon as the Byrne restart had stripped away much of the mythology and iconography which had grown up around the Strange Visitor from Another World over fifty glorious years, successive creative teams spent 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.

Thus as a notional tip of the hat to the legendary imaginary story ‘The Amazing Story of Superman–Red and Superman–Blue’! from Superman volume 1, #162, July 1963 this strange transformation occurred…

Collecting Superman volume 2, #119, 122-123, Adventures of Superman #542, 545, Action Comics #729, 732 and Superman: Man of Steel # 64 and 67 (from January and April 1997) this hyper-charged thriller reads best if taken in conjunction with a working knowledge of the characters, but newcomers can soon get up to speed by paying attention to the carefully administered snatches of expository dialogue and the handy “Previously” prose page…

When an inter-cosmic Sun Eater devoured our life-giving star, Earth was plunged into a sudden and catastrophic Big Freeze. The ultimate sacrifice by a hero-turned-villain ended the “Final Night” by reigniting Sol, but not before Superman, unceasingly battling to the limits of his strength, utterly exhausted his body’s solar-charged power and became no more than merely mortal…

Now as ‘Sunburned!’ (Superman #119 by Dan Jurgens, Ron Frenz & Joe Rubenstein) opens, the all-too human Clark Kent at last admits that his abilities are not returning, even as a squad of time-displaced teenagers from a millennium away also struggle to find their proper place…

Man of Tomorrow and Legion of Super-Heroes stumble over each other whilst breaking into Lex Luthor‘s citadel of science and, with the cautious consequence-drenched assistance of the Wickedest Man in the World, borrow a spaceship to take Superman to the Sun and – hopefully – a massive solar booster shot.

The attempt fails and the Metropolis Marvel, forced to fight crime as a powerless mortal, is compelled to take even more drastic measures in Adventures of Superman #542. ‘Power Trip!’ (Karl Kesel, Paul Ryan & José Marzán Jr.) has him turn his secret problem over to the scientists of clandestine Genetic Research Project Cadmus. Unfortunately their facility is in trouble too as spoiled, fun-loving, bratty metahuman genius Misa has infiltrated the factory of wonders with her incredible gadgets, looking to make a little mean-spirited mischief…

After the Project barely survives her devastating pranks, all Security supremo Guardian can do is offer Superman transport to the Antarctic Fortress of Solitude where the former Man of Steel has stored many super-scientific devices from shattered Krypton…

Action Comics #729 follows that voyage to its disastrous conclusion as a massive electrical disturbance brings Superman crashing into the polar vastness far short of his goal. ‘Generator X!’ by David Michelinie, Tom Grummett & Denis Rodier, sees him rescued by research scientists who expected help with their own dilemma – a real job for Superman…

Whilst probing the Earth’s mantle they had unleashed a semi-sentient energy force which was periodically ravaging their base, and even though powerless, Kal-El valiantly led the battle to get rid of it. Tragically the only thing that could hold the ephemeral entity was Superman’s depleted Kryptonian body…

After eventually expelling the energy-beast into space, Superman arrived at his Fortress and rendezvoused with friend and technical advisor Professor Emil Hamilton, but even alien science was unable to fix his power-problems. Moreover, odd electrical anomalies kept occurring. Appliances short-circuited and even the trans-dimensional barrier around the Bottle City of Kandor flickered in un-Superman’s presence…

Suddenly the despondent defender was urgently summoned by New Gods Mister Miracle and Big Barda with a crisis of cosmic proportions that only Superman could handle…

‘Into the Fire!’ (by Louise Simonson, Ron Lim & Dennis Janke from Superman: Man of Steel #64) saw Kal-El help to investigate an uncanny mystery which had smashed the antithetical worlds of Apokolips and New Genesis together and stolen the memories of Metron, God of Knowledge. The incredible solution involved a deadly trip into the heart of our sun which inexplicably restored Superman’s full powers.

Those odd electrical events kept happening though…

The second section of this collection features tales from a few months later – most of the intervening events having been separately collected in Superman vs. The Revenge Squad! – as the annoying sparks and short circuits around the Man of Steel slowly intensify…

Superman #122 revealed ‘The Kandor Connection’ (Jurgens, Frenz & Rubenstein) wherein hyper-powered rebel Ceritak agonises and acts out against his imprisonment. This version of Kandor was an enclave of thousands of alien captives, enslaved by a marauding tyrant named Tolos and penned in a pocket-dimension. Although Superman had liberated Kandor from the intergalactic body-snatcher, he was unable to restore the inhabitants and, after establishing the container in his Fortress, left them alone to forge their own multi-species society in enforced isolation…

Now however as Ceritak’s petulant rages become a menace to everybody, in the outer universe Superman and Lois have come to the Fortress to assess the Man of Steel’s latest symptoms. During a fight against thugs in Metropolis, Superman became intangible and a bystander was wounded by a bullet that passed through, rather than bounced off him…

When it happens again in the Fortress, Superman phases through the impenetrable dimensional walls of Kandor, and Ceritak – seizing a chance in billion – latches on to his energy wake as the hero struggles back to Earth…

Oblivious to the fact, Lois and Clark return to America only to discover something is terribly wrong: Superman is turning into an explosive, out of control generator of deadly lightning…

The calamity continues in ‘Power Crisis!’ (Adventures of Superman #545 by Kesel, Scot Eaton & Marzán Jr.) with the horrified hero blinking in and about of existence, emitting shattering blasts of radiation, materialising all over Earth and agonisingly bombarded by new senses, perceptions and sensations.

Barely able to move without causing disasters, Clark is helpless when delusional maniac Atomic Skull kidnaps Lois. The embattled hero then suffers another terrifying transfiguration – into a blazing being of blue white energy.

Battling the nuclear madman in this state, Superman loses and is apparently dispersed into nothingness…

He recondenses in Antarctica in Action Comics #732, gaining enough control to teleport back to Metropolis in time to team-up with his former adversary and prevent a radioactive catastrophe in ‘The Saving Skull’ (Michelinie, Grummett & Rodier).

Meanwhile the blockbusting Ceritak slowly makes his way towards the city and an inevitable showdown…

The clash came in Superman: Man of Steel #67 and ‘Say Goodbye to That Costume…’ (Simonson, Jon Bogdanove & Janke) as the ferocious fight pits Ceritak – dubbed Scorn by the uncomprehending journalists on the scene – against a blazing energy avatar that used to be Superman.

The monster’s immense strength and speed are easily the equal of the bizarre battery of new abilities exhibited by the mutated Man of Power – electrical blasts, intangibility, magnetic bursts and much more. The pointless, futile fight ultimately leaves Scorn crushed and the Metropolis Marvel on the edge of a final, fatal dispersal…

In Superman #123, with her husband on the verge of extinction, Lois rallies friends and foes alike for a last-ditch attempt to save the valiant voltaic hero. In a desperate race against time and with only Clark’s indomitable willpower holding him together, Hamilton and S.T.A.R. Labs’ chief Kitty Faulkner – suspiciously assisted by Lex Luthor – build a suit to contain and channel those volatile forces.

This allows a ‘Superman… Reborn!’ Jurgens, Frenz & Rubenstein) to begin a new phase in his “Never-ending Struggle” and begin a year of astounding adventures the likes of which fans had never seen.

Clever drama, spectacular action and rollercoaster pace, coupled with the usual high standard of character interplay, all underscore this much-maligned but hugely enjoyable diversion in the amazing life of Superman and this saga is truly deserving of a second look and honest reappraisal.

A British Titan Books edition is also readily available from on-line sellers.
© 1997, 1998 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman Spectacular No. 2


By Cary Bates, Alex Saviuk & Vince Colletta (DC/London Editions)
ISBN: 0-86173-042-9

The Superman album clearly made some impact in Britain (or at least the editors thought it would) and a second volume – also sporting a lushly airbrushed Alan Craddock cover – was produced. Also celebrating the sharp, plot-driven costumed dramas which predominated in the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC universe, this cosmic mystery revenge saga ideally shows how old stories could and should be reinvigorated rather than overwritten…

‘Superman Meets the Zod Squad’ was created by cobbling together Action Comics #548-549 (October and November 1983) into one improbable saga of cosmic vengeance as a race of primordial reivers discovered the 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 City 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. Landing on Earth, she met the Man of Steel who created for her the identities of Linda Lee and Supergirl, hiding her from the world whilst she learned about her new home and to use astounding abilities in secrecy and safety.

The aliens were Vrangs – savage slavers who had conquered Krypton in ages past: 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 Vrang from Krypton and prompted the birth and rise of the super-scientific civilisation.

All Kryptonians developed an inbred hatred of the Vrang, and when Phantom Zone prisoners Jax-Ur, Professor Va-Kox, Faora Hu-Ul 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 ‘Escape from the Phantom Zone!’ also allowed the Kryptonian outcasts to kill the hated son of the discoverer of the eerie dimension of stultifying intangibility so much the better…

Using the psycho-active properties of Jewel Kryptonite – a post-cataclysm isotope of the very element so poisonous to Vrangs – a quartet of Zoners perpetrate a mass break-out and head to Earth for vengeance… but who is their primary target?

Not long after, Clark Kent, still blithely unaware of his peril, is investigating a new citizens’ defence group that has sprung up in Metropolis in response to a city-wide rash of petty crimes. Even as Zod, Faora, Tyb-Ol and Murkk infiltrate human society and bide their time, the Man of Steel and Lois are most concerned with how the grassroots White Wildcats can afford to police their neighbourhoods with jet-packs and martial arts skills unknown on Earth…

Uncovering militarist order-freak Zod behind the scheme, Superman is astounded when the Kryptonian criminals surrender, offering a truce until their ancient common foes are defeated.

…And that’s when the Vrang 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 weapon even Kryptonians cannot survive…

This clever, compulsive thriller of cross, double and even triple-cross is a fabulously intoxicating, tension-drenched treat from scripter Cary Bates and illustrated by Alex Saviuk & Colletta that still blends human foible with notions of honour, and shows that even the most reprehensible villains understand the value of sacrifice and the principle of something worth dying for…

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 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 DC Comics Inc. This edition © 1982 London Editions Magazines (formerly Egmont Publishing). All Rights Reserved.

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DC Superheroes Presents Superman Spectacular No. 1


By Bob Rozakis, Paul Kupperberg, Adrian Gonzales & Vince Colletta (DC/London Editions)
ISBN: 0-86173-041-0

These days, when maintaining a faux-historical cloak of rational integrity for the made-up worlds comicbooks inhabit is paramount, the saddest casualty of those periodic sweeping changes, upgrades, rationalisations and reboots is the great stories that suddenly “never happened”.

The most painful example of this – for me at least – was the wholesale loss of the entire bizarre and charm-drenched mythology that had evolved around Superman’s birthworld in the wonder years between 1948 and 1985.

Here then, in response to the new Superman film is something not every Kryptonian Kompletist may be treasuring in his vault: a canonical pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Man of Steel yarn which didn’t appear in the regular runs of Superman or Action Comics, packed with all the gloriously convoluted lore, wry wit and all-ages thrills which for decades made the Man of Tomorrow indisputably the most recognisable comics character on Earth.

This extra-sized tale was actually devised by American creators for the European market as Superman Album series #1 (cover-dated Januar 1982 und pronounzed mit ein deutsche achzent, iff you pliss), printed in what was then West Germany by Ehapa Verlag.

It subsequently appeared in the USA as an English-language edition in a large (212 x 397mm) one-off paperback album in American convenience chains like 7-11 later that year. In Britain, where London Editions then held a DC reprint license, producing a wonderfully eclectic black-&-white anthology The Superheroes Monthly (with painted covers by the likes of Alan Craddock, David Jackson, Bryan Talbot and Brian Bolland), the tale was released as a similarly sized, full-colour edition to rack beside such beloved European imports as Asterix and Tintin.

In case you’re wondering: it was printed in Germany, presumably by simply replacing the black plate of the four-colour print process with one that had the lettering in English.

The ‘Startling Saga of Superman-Red & Superman-Blue!’ was scripted by Paul Kupperberg from a Bob Rozakis plot and illustrated by Adrian Gonzales & Vince Colletta, with the legendary Julius Schwartz in editorial command as always.

The bombastic battle royale was based on a much-beloved imaginary story by Leo Dorfman, Curt Swan & George Klein from Superman #162, July 1963, adroitly co-opted into the mainstream continuity to beef up the ominous if ill-starred alliance of arch nemesis Lex Luthor with space owlhoot Terra-Man.

(This last was conceived during the period when costumed heroes were in decline during the early 1970s. The Deep Space Desperado resembled a space-age Clint Eastwood in Spaghetti Western mode. He was a Wild West bandit’s son shanghaied into space. After eventually killing his kidnapper, the young man returned to Earth only to discover a century had passed. The furious outcast of infinity had already adapted his purloined extraterrestrial technology to accommodate his childhood antecedents and decided to drive aliens such as Superman off “his” planet forever…)

This intergalactic grudge match opens as Luthor invades a Daily Planet story conference to challenge Superman to another fight. The resulting clash goes badly for the criminal genius, however, even though he has devised an entirely new form of energy weapon to destroy his alien antithesis…

Meanwhile in space, solitary star rider Terra-Man has finally found a chunk of Kryptonite. He had long heard stories that the rare radioactive remnant was fatal to Superman, and now believes the end of his vendetta against the extraterrestrial squatter on his home range is near.

He should have listened more closely to the stories, though, as the shard he holds is red, not green…

Wary of being beaten again, Terra-Man contacts Luthor and proposes a combined attack, but doesn’t trust his new partner enough to hand over the radioactive space rock…

On Earth Superman is renewing his oft-postponed romance with Lois Lane when Terra-Man attacks, and after deflecting the initial assault is lured into orbit where the menacing mineral is secreted.

From his hiding place Luthor can only watch in horror as the Red K (which produced not radiation poisoning and death but temporary mutagenic effects on Kryptonians) divided the Man of Steel into twins in primarily blue or red uniforms…

It wasn’t a complete disaster, however, as each of the pair seemed to be missing some of Superman’s vast array of powers…

Frantically regrouping, Luthor and Terra-Man deduced what had happened, and as Clark Kent endured confusion at work with a brace of himself tripping over each other, the vile villains plotted to use their conventional resources and Lex’s new discovery to destroy their foe(s).

With double the super manpower, “Red” and “Blue” begin cleaning all the trouble spots on Earth and discover a new crisis: an inter-dimensional rift threatening to consume the world. The mystery of Luthor’s new energy source is revealed – the madman has tapped magical forces from another plane of existence and weaponised it to kill his arch foe, regardless of the potential for universal cataclysm…

As Supermans Red and Blue move to quell the threat, they find one more quandary confronting them: each is only half as powerful as the whole hero. When the divided defenders split up to battle Terra-Man and Luthor, this tragic deficiency causes the Crimson Crusader’s “death” with the collateral catastrophe of Lois felled by Luthor’s lethal magic weapon…

And at that very moment the Red K effect faded and the one true Man of Tomorrow was reborn…

Once upon a time smart, affecting absorbing drama and wild-eyed adventure such as this was the bread-and-butter of comics. For decades, new exploits and dangers were created – sometime three of four times a month – with characters operating seamlessly in a shared milieu that wasn’t obsessed with incessantly mining and refining the hero’s origin or shockingly revealing lost or evil relatives like some spandex-bedecked cheap soap opera. And they frequently began and ended in one issue…

This tale is a delicious example from the dying days of that era and perfectly shows us what we’re missing today…
© 1982 DC Comics Inc. This edition © 1982 London Editions Magazines (formerly Egmont Publishing). All Rights Reserved.

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Superman


By Otto Binder, Jerry Coleman, Bill Finger, Edmond Hamilton, Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye (Four Square/New English Library)
ISBN: 1757

I’ve often bored anyone who would listen about the mini-publishing revolution during the “Camp” superhero-crazed 1960s, which first saw previously denigrated four-colour comic stories migrate from cheap, flimsy pamphlet to the stiffened covers and relative respectability of paperback bookshelves.

I can’t express the sheer nostalgic elation these mostly forgotten fancies still afford (to me at least) so, just because I want to, here’s one that probably qualifies as one of my absolute top three, just in time to cash in on the new Superman film.

Silver Age readers – we just thought of ourselves as “kids” – buying Superman, Action Comics, Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane, World’s Finest Comics and Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (not forgetting Superboy, Adventure Comics and Justice League of America) would delight every time some fascinating snippet of information leaked out. We spent our days filling in the impossible blanks about incredible alien worlds (America as much as Krypton) through the enthralling, thrilling yarns in those halcyon treasures. But somehow when the tales appeared in proper books it made the dream realms a little more substantial; and perhaps even real…

The Man of Steel has proven to be all things to all fans over his 75-year existence and, with the character currently undergoing yet another radical overhaul, these fabulous gems of charm and joy and wholesome wit are more welcome than ever: not just as a reminder of grand times past but also as an all-ages primer for wonders still to come…

At the time this British edition of the New American Library edition was published, the Action Ace was enjoying a youthful swell of revived interest. Thanks to the TV Batman-led boom in superheroes generally and a highly efficient global licensing push, Superman was starring in a new television cartoon show, enjoying a rampant merchandising wave and had even secured his own Broadway musical: all working to keep the Last Son of Krypton a vibrant icon of modern, Space-Age America.

Although we might think of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster’s iconic invention as the epitome of comicbook chic, the plain truth is that within months of his landmark 1938 launch in Action Comics #1, Superman had already grown into a multimedia star. Far more people have enjoyed the Man of Steel than have ever read his illustrated exploits and yes, that does include the globally syndicated newspaper strips which have existed since 1939.

By the time his 25th anniversary rolled around he had been a regular on radio, appeared in an eponymous novel by George Lowther and stunned audiences in a series of astounding animated cartoons.

In 1948 and 1950 he starred in a brace of live-action movie serials (Superman and Atom Man vs. Superman) before graduating to a full-length feature in 1951’s Superman and the Mole Men which led in turn to a groundbreaking and long-running television series.

He was a perennial success for toy and puzzle manufacturers and, after six seasons of The Adventures of Superman, an almost seamless succession of TV cartoons began with The New Adventures of Superman in 1966.

In his future were more TV shows (Superboy, Lois & Clark and Smallville), a franchise of stellar movies and, once they’d been invented, computer and video game incarnations. Even super-dog Krypto got in on the small-screen act…

This terrific little black and white paperback pocket book – part of National Periodical Publications’ on-going efforts to reach wider reading audiences – surfaced in 1967 during the “Camp” superhero craze, re-presenting five reformatted Superman stories culled from the archives illustrated by signature illustrator Wayne Boring and all inked by regular collaborator Stan Kaye.

At this time many American comics publishers used the “Batman Bounce” to get out of their ghetto and onto “proper” bookshelves, however understandably DC concentrated most of their efforts on comics compilations and prose novels starring the Dynamic Duo…

The wholesome intrigue and breathtaking fantasy commence here with ‘The Invulnerable Enemy’ written by Otto Binder, and originally seen in Action Comics #226 (March 1957) wherein archaeologists uncovered the statue of a giant gladiator. Further excavation revealed the colossus to be a petrified alien crashed to Earth in ages past. When the Man of Steel brought the unmoving artefact to Metropolis an incredible accident caused by Lex Luthor brought the giant back to life.

The revived relic went on a rampage of destruction with powers even Superman could not cope with until, forced to use wits instead of muscles, the harried hero solved his dilemma and returned the marooned monolith to his proper place…

During the 1950s, even as his comicbook back-story was expanded and elaborated, the Metropolis Marvel had settled into a remarkably ordered existence. Nothing could really hurt him, nothing ever changed, and sheer excitement seemed in short supply. With the TV show concentrating on action, DC’s Comics Code-hamstrung scripters increasingly concentrated on supplying wonder, intrigue, imagination, a few laughs and, whenever possible, drama and pathos…

‘Superman’s 3 Mistakes!’ (by Edmond Hamilton from Superman #105, May 1956) provided both personal revelation and tense suspense when ClarkKent received an anonymous letter which declared that the writer knew his secret. Forced to review his past for cases which might expose evidence of his alter ego, Kent carefully excised all errors but could not learn the identity of his potential blackmailer until a second post-dated letter surfaced…

Superman #127 (February 1959) saw the debut of a hugely popular returning menace in ‘Titano the Super-Ape!’ The chimpanzee had mutated into a gigantic ape with Kryptonite vision after being shot into space, and upon his return caused massive destruction with only Lois Lane able to sooth savage ravages.

Again the Man of Might had to resort to brains not brawn to solve the crisis in a true classic of the period, courtesy of Binder, Boring & Kaye’s sublime treatment which combined action and sentiment to superb effect in a memorable homage to King Kong.

‘The Menace of Cosmic Man’ was a sharp mystery with political overtones written by Bill Finger (Action Comics #258, November 1959) wherein an impoverished European dictatorship improbably announced it had its own all-powerful costumed champion; drawing Lois and Clark into a potentially deadly covert investigation, after which this riot of reformatted revels concludes with ‘The Menace of Red-Green Kryptonite!’ (Jerry Coleman, Action #275, April 1961).

Guest-starring Supergirl, this uncanny conundrum featured a bizarre battle between Superman and alien marauder Brainiac, whose latest weapon combined two isotopes of the deadly radioactive remnants of Krypton to produce a truly weird transformation and inexplicable behavioural changes in the embattled Man of Tomorrow…

Superman has proven to be all things to all fans over his decades of existence and, with the character currently undergoing another overhaul, these peerless parables of power and glory are more welcome than ever: not just as memorial to what has been but also as a benchmark for future tales to aspire to…

This book is probably impossible to find today – even though entirely worth the effort – but whatever format or collection you happen upon, such forgotten stories of the immortal Superman are part of our cultural comics heritage and should never be lost.

You owe it to yourself to know them…
© 1956, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1966 National Periodical Publications. All rights reserved.

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Superman: The Return of Superman


By Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-2-56289-149-6

Although largely out of favour these days as all the myriad decades of Superman mythology are inexorably re-assimilated into one overarching all-inclusive multi-media Film-favoured DC continuity, the stripped-down, gritty post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Man of Steel as re-imagined by John Byrne, and marvellously built upon by a succession of immensely talented comics craftsmen, resulted in some genuine comics classics.

Most significant of them was a three-pronged story-arc which saw the martyrdom, loss, replacement and inevitable resurrection of the World’s Greatest Superhero in a stellar saga which broke all records and proved that a jaded general public still cared about the venerable, veteran icon of Truth, Justice and the American Way.

The dramatic events also provided a spectacular springboard for a resurgent burst of new characters who revitalised and reinvigorated more than one ailing franchise over the next decade…

This final landmark collection features material which originally appeared in Action Comics #687-691, Superman: the Man of Steel #22-26, Superman #78-82 and Adventures of Superman #500-505, plus Green Lantern volume 3 #46, spanning cover-dates June-October 1993 and originally published as the braided mega-saga “Reign of the Supermen”.

Written by Dan Jurgens, Karl Kesel, Louise Simonson & Roger Stern with art by Jon Bogdanove, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice, Jurgens, Brett Breeding, Doug Hazlewood, Dennis Janke & Denis Rodier, it details the stunning events which led up to the resurrection and return of the one and only Man of Tomorrow – although just who that might be was the subject of much debate at the time…

After a brutal rampage across Middle America a mysterious monster dubbed Doomsday had only been stopped in the heart of Metropolis by an overwhelming and fatal effort on Superman’s part.

Dying at the scene, the fallen hero’s body was the subject of many legal battles before it was ostensibly laid to rest in a tomb in Metropolis’ Centennial Park. However as Earth adjusted to a World Without a Superman rumours began to circulate that, like Elvis, the Man of Tomorrow was not dead…

It all began with a series of teaser ‘First Sightings’ (from Adventures of Superman #500) as, across America, four very different individuals appeared, saving lives and performing good deeds as only the departed defender could.

Then events start to properly unfold in ‘Born Again’ (Action #687 by Stern, Guice & Rodier) as scientists in Antarctica experienced unnatural power manifestations whilst, deep below the polar crust in the Fortress of Solitude, a confused creature more energy than matter manifested.

The bizarre being remembered dying in battle against Doomsday and, after flicking across the world in an eye-blink to explore an empty tomb in Metropolis, it reasonably concluded he was Superman reborn through Kryptonian technology…

He was however much reduced and changed. Unable to covert solar radiation into strength, he was so painfully sensitive to light he had to wear a protective visor. This Man of Tomorrow only manipulated energy and, after returning to Metropolis to resume his “never-ending battle” against chaos and injustice, soon displayed a callous disregard for the humans he protected when he executed a rapist and crippled a car-jacker…

The “Dirty Harry with a cape” soon attracted the attention of apparently benevolent billionaire Lex Luthor II (actually the wicked original in a cloned body) and Supergirl, but received his most telling confirmation when he met Lois Lane and disclosed things only Clark Kent could know…

In Man of Steel #22, ordinary construction worker John Henry Irons – who had been saved by Superman in the past – felt compelled to carry on the hero’s mission and built a high-tech suit of armour to facilitate his crusade. ‘Steel’, by Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke, found the urban inventor cleaning up the streets of Metropolis and searching for a gang who used a deadly new form of super-gun dubbed “toastmasters” – a weapon Irons had designed in another life…

Tracking the munitions enabled him to save the life of a fortune-teller and brought him into savage conflict with White Rabbit – a new criminal major player in the city – but life only got more complicated the morning after, when Psychic Rosie went on TV claiming Steel was possessed by the unquiet soul of Superman…

Superman # 78 (by Jurgens & Breeding) offered another apparent pretender. ‘Alive’ saw a Superman grotesquely bonded with mechanical appendages raid the top-secret genetics lab Cadmus Project to take the comatose Doomsday from rogue Director Paul Westfield, before dispatching the deadly mystery monster into deep space where no Earthly agency could exploit it.

When the partially amnesiac Cyborg-Superman subsequently met Lois, her suspicions were shockingly quelled by the few facts he could recall: the name Kent, a farm in Kansas, his feelings for her…

And when she took him to see maverick inventor Emil Hamilton, the Action Ace’s personal scientific advisor pronounced the bionic additions to be Kryptonian machines whilst the fleshly parts of the modern Prometheus comprised Superman’s unique DNA…

The final contender for the S-shield cropped up in Adventures of Superman #501 as ‘…When He Was a Boy!’ by Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood revealed the secret history of a brash and cocky kid who wore an adaptation of the Man of Tomorrow’s outfit and claimed to be a clone of the deceased hero, escaped from Cadmus.

After alienating everybody at the Daily Planet the horny, inexperienced juvenile latched onto ambitious journalist – and hottie – Tana Moon and fell under the spell of corrupt media mogul Vinnie Edge. Soon the kid was fighting crime live on TV to boost ratings…

As the world reeled from news that their defender was back, the fallen champion’s intimates and enemies were forced to wonder which – if any – of the newcomers was the real deal…

After hard-line hero Guy Gardner clashed with the visored energy Superman in Action #688, the former Green Lantern determined that the Kryptonian vigilante’s brutal treatment of offenders in ‘An Eye for an Eye’ (Stern, Guice & Rodier) proved that, even if he wasn’t exactly like the old guy, he was the kind of champion criminals deserved to meet.

In Man of Steel #22 (Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke), the spiritual successor of Superman barely survived an insidious ‘Ambush!’ Even with Toastmasters, street-gang the Sharks proved no match for Steel’s armoured might, but after a contentious clash of wills with the juvenile Krypton clone, Irons met White Rabbit and discovered she was an old flame from his Army weapons building days.

Caught off-guard he almost perished until “Don’t-call-me-Super BOY” flashed in to rescue him…

Jurgens & Breeding took an experimental tack in Superman #79 as Daily Planet reporter Ronald Troupe reviewed all the facts on the quartet of newcomers in ‘Prove It.’ After the Cyborg crusader spectacularly saved President Clinton from assassination he – and the Federal Government – could reach only one conclusion…

Meanwhile in Adventures of Superman #502, ‘Boy Meets Girl’ (Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood) followed the impetuous clone as he clashed with – and perved over – Supergirl before tangling with hired gun Stinger, commissioned by Vinnie Edge to perk up the viewing figures whatever the collateral costs…

Action and mystery expanded exponentially in #689’s ‘Who is the True Hero?’ by Stern, Guice & Rodier. Metropolis reeled from the devastation caused by the clone’s clash with Stinger, with Supergirl and the horrified kid frantically saving survivors, whilst in the Antarctic Fortress a fifth Superman emerged from a Kryptonian regeneration matrix…

Although barely stronger than an ordinary human, the reborn Kal-El quickly began catching up on what had happened since his demise, courtesy of the battery of alien machines in the icy citadel…

Back in Metropolis the merciless avenging Superman cataclysmically clashed with his ethical opposite Steel with Lois and Jimmy Olsen utterly unable to calm them down.

The combat carried over into Man of Steel #23, but the furious heroes were blithely unaware that an horrific alien conqueror was approaching Earth in ‘Impact!’ by Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke. Also oblivious to the impending disaster, the forces of Luthor and White Rabbit bloodily battled for control of the city…

‘Deadly Alliance’ (Jurgens & Breeding) in Superman #80 found Earth’s authorities made too-suddenly aware of the alien intruder. They responded by sending the Caped Cyborg to intercept it.

En route the officially recognised hero joined forces with his energy-based alternate – only to kill him and allow 77,000 space mines to explosively erase Coast City and its seven million inhabitants from the face of the planet.

As the planet shuddered the invader was revealed as cosmic conqueror Mongul – but nobody on Earth knew he was simply a pawn and the devoted servant of the Cyborg…

The drama kicked into overdrive in Adventures of Superman #503, with ‘Line of Fire!’ (Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood) showing the bionic betrayer eradicating survivors before luring the clone to ground zero and disposing of him as he had the Avenger, whilst in Antarctica the merely mortal Kal-El climbed into a Kryptonian war-suit and headed for the disaster zone…

‘Lies & Revelations’ (Action #690, by Stern, Guice & Rodier) saw the visored vigilante framed for the mass destruction by Cyborg Superman and Mogul as they sought to divert the attention of the Justice League and Earth’s other heroes.

The allies-in-atrocity had a plan and a timetable. Planning to raze Metropolis too, they would construct colossal world-moving engines in the craters and turn the planet into a War-World capable of dominating the galaxy and populated by the army of extraterrestrial soldiers they had amassed…

As Kal-El approached his hometown and the site of the next horrific Engine City, in Antarctica the swiftly-fading visored vigilante learned his true origins at last and, re-energised, headed back to the remains of Coast City…

Man of Steel #24 featured ‘The Return!’ (Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke) as Super-clone broke free and attempted to warn the world, even as Steel and Supergirl intercepted the war-suited warrior and discovered that the one true Metropolis Marvel was back …

Superman #81 ‘Resurrections’ (Jurgens & Breeding) revealed the secret origin of the Cyborg and his pact with Mongul, as Kal-El, Steel, Supergirl and the Superboy rocketed to California and a desperate ‘Assault on Engine City!’ (Adventures of Superman #504 Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood)

It all culminated in a cross-continental chase and the clone kid seemingly sacrificing himself to destroy the city-smashing space-ordinance in the skies above Metropolis…

Action #691 revealed the heroes’ late-arriving and extremely angry ‘Secret Weapon’ (Stern, Guice & Rodier) just as the war in Engine City roared to a blockbusting climax, after which ‘Blast Off!’ (Man of Steel #25, Simonson, Bogdanove & Janke) saw Kal fall to the merciless fists of Mongul as John Henry used his own armoured body to wreck the heart of Engine City…

Such an epic storyline naturally had repercussions outside Superman continuity and Green Lantern #46 intersected with the ongoing epic. GL Hal Jordan was a Coast City native and his inability to save his home, family and friends shattered him. (In fact these events would lead to his becoming manic mad mass-murderer Parallax and destroying the entire Green Lantern Corps – but that’s a tale for another tome…)

Arriving in ‘Death City’ (by Gerard Jones, M.D. Bright & Romeo Tanghal) just as Mongul prepared to deliver a killing blow, the Emerald Avenger saved Kal before venting all his wrath on the genocidal monster.

This savage assault allowed the restored Caped Kryptonian to reclaim his name and save the world once again in Superman #82’s ‘Back for Good’ (Jurgens & Breeding)… but only after one of his well-meaning pretenders surrendered everything he was…

This Earth-shattering epic winds down with a brace of excepts designed to re-establish the natural order, beginning with the first two pages of ‘Reign of the Superman’ (from Adventures of Superman #505 by Kesel, Grummett & Hazlewood) as the one and only Superman at last returns to his grieving widow, before ‘Epilog: …And Who, Disguised as Clark Kent’ (from Action #692 courtesy of Stern, Guice & Rodier) clears up the last little details by “finding” the mild-mannered reporter in the subterranean basement he had been trapped in since Doomsday’s rampage through Metropolis months previously.

This powerful if ponderous epic perfectly embodies all the human drama and cosmic spectacle of the Superman mythology: evocative, tense, drenched in action and spilling over with great ideas and characters

This enthralling classic served as a valuable and necessary expansion of the legend, introducing a plethora of Supermen in a bold and long-term push to revitalise the venerable franchise, whilst the positively manic public interest beyond the world of comics took everyone by surprise and made the Man of Tomorrow as vital and vibrant a sensation as he was in the earliest days of his creation.

Best of all, it looks beautiful and reads great.

Together with the previous two volumes in this truly magnificent triptych, this saga is possibly the greatest Superman story ever told. What more do you need to know?
© 1993 DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Superman Chronicles volumes 1 and 2

New revised reviews

By Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0764-9 & 978-1-4012-1215-5

It’s incontrovertible: the American comicbook industry – if it existed at all – would have been 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.

Superman spawned an inconceivable army of imitators and variations, and within three years of his 1938 debut, the intoxicating blend of eye-popping action and social wish-fulfilment which hallmarked the early Man of Steel 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, eye-popping excess and vigorous dashing derring-do.

Now with moviegoers again anticipating a new cinematic interpretation of the ultimate immigrant tale here’s my chance to once more highlight perhaps the most authentic of the many delightful versions of his oft-reprinted early tales.

Re-presenting the epochal run of raw, unpolished but viscerally vibrant stories by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster which set the funnybook world on fire, here – in as near-as-dammit the texture, smell and colour of the original newsprint – are the crude, rough, uncontrollable wish-fulfilling, 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 captured the imagination of a generation.

The first of these oft-covered recollections of the primal Man of Steel – printed in chronological order – features the groundbreaking yarns from Action Comics #1 through #13 (June 1938 – June 1939) and his pivotal appearance from New York’s World Fair No. 1 (also June 1939) before comicbook history is made with the landmark first issue of his own solo title.

Most of the early tales were untitled, but for everyone’s convenience have been given descriptive appellations by the editors. Thus after describing the foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton and explaining his astonishing powers in nine panels, with absolutely no preamble the wonderment begins with ‘Superman: Champion of the Oppressed!’ as the costumed crusader -masquerading by day as reporter Clark Kent – began averting numerous tragedies.

As well as saving an innocent woman from the Electric Chair and roughing up a wife beater, the tireless crusader worked over racketeer Butch Matson – consequently saving feisty colleague Lois Lane from abduction and worse – and outed a lobbyist for the armaments industry who was bribing Senators on behalf of greedy munitions interests fomenting war in Europe…

The next breathtaking instalment in Action #2 (July 1938) saw the mercurial mystery-man travelling to the war-zone to spectacularly dampen down the hostilities already in progress in ‘Revolution in San Monte Pt 2’ before ‘The Blakely Mine Disaster’ found the Man of Steel responding to a coal-mine cave-in to expose corrupt corporate practises before cleaning up gamblers who ruthless fixed games and players in #4’s ‘Superman Plays Football’.

The Action Ace’s untapped physical potential was highlighted in the next issue as ‘Superman and the Dam’ pitted the human dynamo against the power of a devastating natural disaster, after which in #6 canny chiseller Nick Williams attempted to monetise the hero – without asking first. ‘Superman’s Phony Manager’ even attempted to replace the real thing with a cheap knock-off but quickly learned a very painful lesson in ethics…

Although Superman featured on the first cover the staid and cautious editors were initially dubious about the alien strongman’s popular appeal and preferred more traditional genre scenes for the following issues (all by Leo E. O’Mealia and all included here).

Superman’s (and Joe Shuster’s) second cover appeared on Action Comics #7 (December 1938) and prompted a big jump in sales as a riotous romp inside revealed why ‘Superman Joins the Circus’ as the caped crusader crushed racketeers taking over the Big Top. Fred Guardineer then produced general genre covers for #8 and 9 whilst the interiors saw ‘Superman in the Slums’ working to save young delinquents from a future life of crime and depravity and latterly featured the city cops’ disastrous decision to stop the costumed vigilante’s unsanctioned interference in ‘Wanted: Superman’.

That manhunt ended in an uncomfortable stalemate…

Action #7 had been one of the highest-selling issues ever, so #10 again sported a stunning Shuster shot whilst Siegel’s smart story of ‘Superman Goes to Prison’ struck another telling blow against institutionalised injustice with the Man of Tomorrow infiltrating and exposing the brutal horrors of the State Chain Gangs.

Action Comics #11 featured a maritime cover by Guardineer as inside heartless conmen were driving investors to penury and suicide before the caped crimebuster interceded in ‘Superman and the “Black Gold” Swindle’.

Guardineer’s cover of magician hero Zatara on Action #12 incorporated another landmark as the Man of Steel was given a cameo badge declaring he was inside each and every issue, even as inside ‘Superman Declares War on Reckless Drivers’ provided a hard-hitting tale of casual joy-riders, cost-cutting automobile manufacturers, corrupt lawmakers and dodgy car salesmen who all felt the wrath of the hero after a friend of Clark Kent was killed in a hit-&-run incident.

By now the editors had realised that the debut of Superman had propelled National Comics to the forefront of the fledgling industry, and in 1939 the company was licensed to produce a commemorative comicbook celebrating the opening of the New York World’s Fair, with the Man of Tomorrow topping the bill on the appropriately titled New York World’s Fair Comics among such early DC four-colour stars as Zatara, Butch the Pup, Gingersnap and The Sandman.

Following an inspirational cover by Sheldon Mayer, ‘Superman at the World’s Fair’, by Siegel & Shuster, described how Clark and Lois were dispatched to cover the gala event giving the mystery man an opportunity to contribute his own exhibit and bag a bunch of brutal bandits to boot…

Back in Action Comics #13 (June 1939 and another Shuster cover) the road-rage theme of the previous issue continued as ‘Superman vs. the Cab Protective League’ pitted the tireless foe of felons against a murderous gang trying to take over the city’s taxi companies. The tale also introduced – in almost invisibly low key – The Man of Steel’s first great nemesis – The Ultra-Humanite…

This initial compilation concludes with a truncated version of Superman #1. This was because the first solo-starring comicbook in history actually reprinted the earliest tales from Action, supplemented with new and recovered material – and that alone is featured here.

Behind the iconic Shuster cover the first episode was at last printed in full, describing the alien foundling’s escape from exploding Planet Krypton, his childhood with unnamed Earthling foster parents and journey to the big city. Also included in those six pages (cut from Action Comics #1 and restored for Superman #1) was the Man of Steel’s routing of a lynch mob and capture of the real killer which preceded his spectacular saving of the accused murderess that started the legend…

Rounding off the unseen treasures is the solo page ‘Scientific Explanation of Superman’s Amazing Strength!’, a 2-page prose adventure of the Caped Crime-crusher, a biographical feature on Siegel & Shuster and a glorious Shuster pin-up from Superman #1’s back cover.

 

Superman Chronicles volume Two resumes the power-packed procession featuring the high- (leaping-but-not-yet) flying hero in tales from Action Comics #14-20 (July 1939-January 1940) and issues #2-3 of his 64 page solo spectaculars; cover-dated Fall and Winter 1939 respectively.

Sporting a Guardineer Zatara cover, Action #14 saw the return of the premier money-mad scientist in ‘Superman Meets the Ultra-Humanite’ wherein the mercenary malcontent switch from incessant graft, corruption and murder to an obsessive campaign to destroy the Man of Tomorrow.

Whilst Shuster concentrated on the interior epic ‘Superman on the High Seas’ – wherein the heroic hurricane tackled sub-sea pirates and dry land gangsters – Guardineer illustrated an aquatic Superman cover for #15, as well as the Foreign Legion cover on Action #16 wherein ‘Superman and the Numbers Racket’ saw the hero save an embezzler from suicide and disrupt another wicked gambling cabal.

By #16 sales figures confirmed that whenever the big guy appeared up-front issues sold out and, inevitably, Superman assumed that pole position for decades to come from #19 onwards.

Superman’s rise was meteoric and inexorable. He was the indisputable star of Action, plus his own dedicated title; a daily newspaper strip had begun on 16th January 1939, with a separate Sunday strip following from November 5th of that year, which was garnering millions of new fans. A thrice-weekly radio serial was in the offing and would launch on February 12th 1940. With games, toys, a newspaper strip and a growing international media presence, Superman was swiftly becoming everybody’s hero…

The second issue of the Man of Tomorrow’s own title opened with ‘The Comeback of Larry Trent’ – a stirring human drama wherein the Action Ace cleared the name of the broken heavyweight boxer, coincidentally cleaning the scum out of the fight game, and followed by ‘Superman Champions Universal Peace!’ wherein the hero crushed a gang who had stolen the world’s deadliest poison gas weapon, once more going up against unscrupulous munitions manufacturers.

‘Superman and the Skyscrapers’ found Kent investigating suspicious deaths in the construction industry, leading his alter ego into confrontation with mindless thugs and their fat-cat corporate boss, after which a Superman text tale ended the issue.

Action Comics #17 featured ‘The Return of the Ultra-Humanite’ in a viciously homicidal caper involving extortion and the wanton sinking of US ships and featured a classic Shuster Super-cover as the Man of Steel was awarded all the odd-numbered issues for his attention-grabbing playground.

That didn’t last long: after Guardineer’s last adventure cover – an aerial dog fight – on #18 and which masked into ‘Superman’s Super-Campaign’ as both Kent and Superman determined to crush a merciless blackmailer, Superman just appeared on the front every month from #19, which found the city temporarily in the grip of a deadly epidemic created by the Ultra-Humanite in ‘Superman and the Purple Plague’.

Only the first and last strips from Superman #3 are in this volume, as the other two were reprints of Action #5 and 6.

‘Superman and the Runaway’ however offered a gripping, shockingly uncompromising expose of corrupt orphanages, after which Lois went out on a date with hapless Clark simply because she needed to get closer to a gang of murderous smugglers. Happily his hidden alter ego was on hand to rescue her in the bombastic gang-busting ‘Superman and the Jewel Smugglers’…

This incredible panorama of torrid tales ends with ‘Superman and the Screen Siren’ from Action #20 (January 1940) as beautiful actress Delores Winters was revealed not as another sinister super-scientific megalomaniac but the latest tragic victim and organic hideaway of the Ultra-Humanite who had perfected his greatest horror… brain transplant surgery!

Although the gaudy burlesque of monsters and super-villains still lay years ahead of our hero, these primitive captivating tales of corruption, disaster and social injustice 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 continued stories here!

As fresh and thrilling now as they ever were, these 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 created the basic iconography 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.

In a world where Angels With Dirty Faces, Bringing Up Baby and The Front Page are as familiar to our shared cultural consciousness as the latest episode of Dr Who or Downton Abbey, the dress, manner and idiom in these near-seventy-five-year-old stories can’t jar or confuse. They are simply timeless, enthralling, and great.

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.

© 1938, 1939, 1940, 2006, 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.