The following is a review I originally wrote for Amazon of a novel, "The
Black Stiletto," by Raymond Benson. It isn't exactly a Silver Age
item-- even if the time period of the novel, 1959, falls within the Silver Age--
but I thought it might be of interest to list members. (I originally
acquired the book as a free Kindle e-book. I don't think it's still
available free, but check the Amazon listing for price and availability details
if interested.)
For a few years in the mid to late 1940's, there was a sub-genre of
costumed comic book heroes which might be called the "sexy female
crimefighter". As conventional superheroes declined in popularity after
World War II, comic publishers seem to have decided that maybe those
tight-fitting costumes would attract more readers,. especially of the teenage
and adult male variety, if they were wrapped around shapely female bodies rather
than musclebound males. Early prototypes included "Miss Fury," a character
created by female cartoonist Tarpe Mills who appeared in both a newspaper comic
strip and comic books, and the Black Cat, a Harvey Comics character. Later
examples included the Phantom Lady from Fox Comics and the Blonde Phantom from
Marvel (famous as the only comic-book character to fight crime in an evening
gown and high heels). Even staid DC comics came up with the Black Canary
and her fishnet stockings. Generally, these characters did not have
super-powers like Wonder Woman or the later Supergirl, but fought crime aided
only by judo and detective skills and a gadget or two.
I don't know for sure
if Raymond Benson ever read these old comics, but my impression is that "The
Black Stiletto" novel series (of which I've so far read the first two) is an
attempt to revive and rationalize the "sexy crimefighter" genre, creating a
character who is somewhat well-rounded character-wise as well as physically, and
providing a somewhat plausible (at least for the sake of the story) explanation
of why a young woman might be driven to go out and fight criminals as a masked
vigilante.
The debut novel begins in the present as Martin, the
middle-aged son of Judy Cooper Talbot who is now an Alzheimer's patient in a
nursing home, is given a set of diaries that belonged to his mother. He is
astounded to learn from them that his mother was the Black Stiletto, a female
vigilante who was nationally famous during the late 1950's and early 1960's,
though she dropped out of sight and her true identity was never
discovered. The first diary reveals how Judy Cooper was a feisty,
athletic young girl with some unusual and unexplained abilities, including
heightened senses and a Spider-Man-like sense of danger. After an incident
of sexual abuse, she flees her rural Texas home and ends up in New York City,
taking jobs at a diner and then at a men's gym, where she persuades the owner to
teach her boxing. She also finds a Japanese martial-arts teacher, and when
she finds a romantic interest with gangland connections, he trains her in the
skill of knife fighting, including the use of the thin knife called the
stiletto. When her mob-connected lover is murdered in a Mafia quarrel,
Judy adopts the masked, black-clad guise of the Black Stiletto in order to seek
vengeance on the perpetrators.
After achieving that vengeance, Judy
continues making occasional forays against crime as the Black Stiletto, even
though she is now hunted by both the mob and the police. She is not
portrayed as a grim, hardened, vengeance-obsessed killer, but rather a somewhat
naive and idealistic girl who fights crime in this way because it gives her an
outlet for her energies and she thinks she can do some good. (Despite her
use of a deadly weapon as a symbol, she avoids killing when possible.)
The diary
chapters telling the Stiletto's story alternate with present-day chapters from
the viewpoint of son Martin, who wrestles with the discoveries he has made about
his mother-- particularly the question of whether he should cash in by taking
the truth about the Black Stiletto to the media-- and who gradually discovers
that even after all these years, one of the Stiletto's old enemies may still be
on her trail and determined to kill her.
I wouldn't exactly call the
book "realistic," but it at least provides enough plausibility to the
female-vigilante concept to ride with the story and have fun with it. I
can recommend the book to those who enjoy superhero stories told in prose rather
than comic-book form.
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Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts
Book review: "The Spectre (1990's version) Vol 1"
I was in the comics shop today and noticed that DC has just come out with a
trade paperback collection of the first 12 issues of the John Ostrander-Tom
Mandrake version of THE SPECTRE; "The Spectre Vol. 1: Crimes and
Judgments". I didn't buy it, for reasons explained below, but I
wrote a review of it for Amazon anyway. As I've done with some
other comics-related Amazon reviews, I'm also sending the review to the
list, in case it's of interest to some of you, though it's not really Silver Age
related. It starts with a potted history of the Spectre character, intended
for Amazon readers who may not be familiar with him.
The book has a $19.95 list price, or $15.47 ordered from Amazon (or $9.99
as a Kindle e-book, though I'm not sure I want to try reading a comic book on
the small screen of my standard model Kindle). And I see that Vol. 2, "The
Wrath of God", presumably including the second year of the comic-book
series. is scheduled for publication in Jan. 2015. If they get all
the way to the end of the series, maybe I'll buy the last book just
because, as mentioned in the review, I've never managed to collect the
next-to-last issue (#61) of the original series.
Amazon review begins: This is one of those reviews of mine where
technically maybe I should not be reviewing this book, since I haven't bought or
read the actual book itself. However, I've read the original comic books
reprinted in this volume, issues #1 through 12 of THE SPECTRE series published
by DC Comics from 1994 through 1998, written by John Ostrander and drawn mainly
by Tom Mandrake. Based on that, I can give this book collection a strong
recommendation.
The Spectre is a character who keeps coming back to life even
though he's been dead for over 70 years. Created in 1940 by writer Jerry
Siegel (better known as co-creator of Superman) and artist Bernard Baily, the
Spectre was a costumed superhero who got his super powers the hard way, by
dying. He was originally Jim Corrigan, a tough police detective who was murdered
by gangsters. A supernatural power (hinted, but not explicitly said in the
original comics, to be God) raised Corrigan's ghost, charged him with a mission
to avenge his own murder and then go on to eliminate all evil on Earth, and
endowed him not only with traditional ghostly abilities such as invisibility and
intangibility but with nearly limitless magical powers. In terms of sheer
power, the Spectre made Siegel's other famous creation look like a 98-pound
weakling. And the Spectre took a much harder line with crime than most
other comic book heroes. He didn't bother beating crooks up and dropping them
off with the police; he literally scared them to death or put them to death in
various gruesome magical ways.
But apparently the Spectre was a little
too creepy for comic book readers of the 1940's. After a couple of years, he was
demoted to a backup slot instead of being a lead feature, was saddled with a
funny sidekick named Percival Popp, and became about as menacing as
Casper. Then, in 1945, he was dropped. 20 years later, after DC
Comics had successfully revived several other "Golden Age" superheroes, the
Spectre too was revived. The Comics Code and DC editorial policy wouldn't
allow him to be a death-dealing avenger as of old, but he was still almost
infinitely powerful. In his second revival appearance, he defeated
"Azmodus," a villain clearly intended as a stand-in for Satan. What do you
do for an encore after you've defeated the Devil himself? Not much; the
revived Spectre didn't catch on and was again dropped. Yet another revival
in the early 1970's was said to have been inspired after editor Joe Orlando
suffered a mugging and sought vicarious vengeance. This time, in a series
written by Michael Fleisher and drawn by Jim Aparo, the Spectre was once again a
terrifying figure of vengeance, skirting the edges of the Comics Code by killing
criminals in bizarre magical ways. Reportedly that series sold well, but
it made DC management queasy, and again the Spectre was
cancelled.
After another brief and unmemorable revival in the 1980's, the Spectre returned
again in this version by Ostrander and Mandrake (so finally we get to the
comics appearing in the book I'm actually reviewing). This was, in my
opinion, by far the best of all the Spectre series (including a couple more that
have appeared since then-- you just can't keep this guy in his grave). The
1990's have sometimes been called the "Dark Age" of comics, dominated by
psychotic anti-heroes who reveled in violence for its own sake. The new Spectre
seemed outwardly to fit into that mold, but Ostrander and Mandrake had something
deeper and ultimately more satisfying in mind. They went once again with
the idea of the Spectre as a vengeful spirit who killed evildoers at will. But
they didn't just use the idea as an excuse for "violence porn". Unlike the
earlier series, they actually went into the moral issues and dilemmas that would
apply to such a being as the Spectre. In their re-imagining, the Spectre
was an ancient embodiment of the "Wrath of God," who would appear periodically
through human history, detached from the Deity's other attributes but tethered
to a single human soul whose function was to temper the Spectre's implacable
justice with a sense of humanity. In the case of Jim Corrigan, this
restraint didn't always work out so well, since Corrigan-- as his character was
developed in a series of flashbacks back to his original lifetime in the
1930's-- was himself an angry, bitter and morally flawed mortal. And yet
not beyond redemption. Over the course of the original 12 issues
reprinted in this book-- and the total series which ran 62 issues plus several
annuals and specials-- Corrigan learns and grows, suffers tragedy and learns
about hope, and develops the compassion that his ghostly alter ego lacks.
This isn't just a psychological study; it is a superhero comic book, and the
Spectre faces off with a variety of villains, monsters and menaces in his
God-given yet ultimately impossible mission to "destroy all evil". But the
most compelling conflict is that which develops between Corrigan and the Spectre
themselves.
I originally passed up this comic-book series when it first appeared in the
1990's, but then discovered how good it was and went to some trouble to collect
the whole series (I'm still missing just one issue, the next-to-last in the
series). So I don't really need this book collection myself, but I'm glad
to see at least the beginning of the series back in print for others to discover
and enjoy.
trade paperback collection of the first 12 issues of the John Ostrander-Tom
Mandrake version of THE SPECTRE; "The Spectre Vol. 1: Crimes and
Judgments". I didn't buy it, for reasons explained below, but I
wrote a review of it for Amazon anyway. As I've done with some
other comics-related Amazon reviews, I'm also sending the review to the
list, in case it's of interest to some of you, though it's not really Silver Age
related. It starts with a potted history of the Spectre character, intended
for Amazon readers who may not be familiar with him.
The book has a $19.95 list price, or $15.47 ordered from Amazon (or $9.99
as a Kindle e-book, though I'm not sure I want to try reading a comic book on
the small screen of my standard model Kindle). And I see that Vol. 2, "The
Wrath of God", presumably including the second year of the comic-book
series. is scheduled for publication in Jan. 2015. If they get all
the way to the end of the series, maybe I'll buy the last book just
because, as mentioned in the review, I've never managed to collect the
next-to-last issue (#61) of the original series.
Amazon review begins: This is one of those reviews of mine where
technically maybe I should not be reviewing this book, since I haven't bought or
read the actual book itself. However, I've read the original comic books
reprinted in this volume, issues #1 through 12 of THE SPECTRE series published
by DC Comics from 1994 through 1998, written by John Ostrander and drawn mainly
by Tom Mandrake. Based on that, I can give this book collection a strong
recommendation.
The Spectre is a character who keeps coming back to life even
though he's been dead for over 70 years. Created in 1940 by writer Jerry
Siegel (better known as co-creator of Superman) and artist Bernard Baily, the
Spectre was a costumed superhero who got his super powers the hard way, by
dying. He was originally Jim Corrigan, a tough police detective who was murdered
by gangsters. A supernatural power (hinted, but not explicitly said in the
original comics, to be God) raised Corrigan's ghost, charged him with a mission
to avenge his own murder and then go on to eliminate all evil on Earth, and
endowed him not only with traditional ghostly abilities such as invisibility and
intangibility but with nearly limitless magical powers. In terms of sheer
power, the Spectre made Siegel's other famous creation look like a 98-pound
weakling. And the Spectre took a much harder line with crime than most
other comic book heroes. He didn't bother beating crooks up and dropping them
off with the police; he literally scared them to death or put them to death in
various gruesome magical ways.
But apparently the Spectre was a little
too creepy for comic book readers of the 1940's. After a couple of years, he was
demoted to a backup slot instead of being a lead feature, was saddled with a
funny sidekick named Percival Popp, and became about as menacing as
Casper. Then, in 1945, he was dropped. 20 years later, after DC
Comics had successfully revived several other "Golden Age" superheroes, the
Spectre too was revived. The Comics Code and DC editorial policy wouldn't
allow him to be a death-dealing avenger as of old, but he was still almost
infinitely powerful. In his second revival appearance, he defeated
"Azmodus," a villain clearly intended as a stand-in for Satan. What do you
do for an encore after you've defeated the Devil himself? Not much; the
revived Spectre didn't catch on and was again dropped. Yet another revival
in the early 1970's was said to have been inspired after editor Joe Orlando
suffered a mugging and sought vicarious vengeance. This time, in a series
written by Michael Fleisher and drawn by Jim Aparo, the Spectre was once again a
terrifying figure of vengeance, skirting the edges of the Comics Code by killing
criminals in bizarre magical ways. Reportedly that series sold well, but
it made DC management queasy, and again the Spectre was
cancelled.
After another brief and unmemorable revival in the 1980's, the Spectre returned
again in this version by Ostrander and Mandrake (so finally we get to the
comics appearing in the book I'm actually reviewing). This was, in my
opinion, by far the best of all the Spectre series (including a couple more that
have appeared since then-- you just can't keep this guy in his grave). The
1990's have sometimes been called the "Dark Age" of comics, dominated by
psychotic anti-heroes who reveled in violence for its own sake. The new Spectre
seemed outwardly to fit into that mold, but Ostrander and Mandrake had something
deeper and ultimately more satisfying in mind. They went once again with
the idea of the Spectre as a vengeful spirit who killed evildoers at will. But
they didn't just use the idea as an excuse for "violence porn". Unlike the
earlier series, they actually went into the moral issues and dilemmas that would
apply to such a being as the Spectre. In their re-imagining, the Spectre
was an ancient embodiment of the "Wrath of God," who would appear periodically
through human history, detached from the Deity's other attributes but tethered
to a single human soul whose function was to temper the Spectre's implacable
justice with a sense of humanity. In the case of Jim Corrigan, this
restraint didn't always work out so well, since Corrigan-- as his character was
developed in a series of flashbacks back to his original lifetime in the
1930's-- was himself an angry, bitter and morally flawed mortal. And yet
not beyond redemption. Over the course of the original 12 issues
reprinted in this book-- and the total series which ran 62 issues plus several
annuals and specials-- Corrigan learns and grows, suffers tragedy and learns
about hope, and develops the compassion that his ghostly alter ego lacks.
This isn't just a psychological study; it is a superhero comic book, and the
Spectre faces off with a variety of villains, monsters and menaces in his
God-given yet ultimately impossible mission to "destroy all evil". But the
most compelling conflict is that which develops between Corrigan and the Spectre
themselves.
I originally passed up this comic-book series when it first appeared in the
1990's, but then discovered how good it was and went to some trouble to collect
the whole series (I'm still missing just one issue, the next-to-last in the
series). So I don't really need this book collection myself, but I'm glad
to see at least the beginning of the series back in print for others to discover
and enjoy.
Book review: SECRET HISTORY OF MARVEL COMICS
Book review:by Bill Henley: THE SECRET HISTORY OF MARVEL COMICS by Blake
Bell and Dr. Michael J. Vassallo; published Oct. 2013 by Fantagraphics Books;
list price $39.99. (Like some of my other reviews, this one is not
particularly on-topic for the Silver Age, but hopefully of interest
anyway. I will also be posting the review to Amazon when I have the
chance.)
The title of this book is somewhat misleading. It's
not really a history (secret or otherwise) of Marvel Comics, though it is of
interest to readers who are already familiar with Marvel history. You
won't learn much that's new here about the origins of charactErs like Captain
America (though he's on the cover), Spider-Man or the X-Men. What this is,
is a history of the non-comics publishing enterprises of Martin Goodman, the man
who between 1939 and 1968 owned and published the comics line that came to be
known as Marvel. Goodman got started in the publishing business in 1933
with a pulp magazine, not a comic book, and continued publishing pulps alongside
comics through the 1940's and 50's. (That first pulp was a Western, and the book
suggests Goodman had a lifelong affection for that genre. Though it's not
specifically said in the book, this might help explain why Marvel continued
publishing Western comics through the 1960's and early 70's after Westerns
mostly fell out of fashion.) And he later branched out into other
types of down-scale magazines, such as girlie photo magazines, true-confessions
mags, and many others. Some of the same people who worked on Goodman's
comics also did work for the pulps, and the fortunes of the non-comics
publications had side effects on the comics. The biggest example,
probably, was in 1957-58 when Goodman lost his distribution company and signed
with Independent News. owned by National-DC Comics, to distribute his
magazines. Though Independent agreed to distribute a shrunken line of
comic books for Goodman, they were mainly interested in making money
distributing his other publications. If Goodman had been a comics-only
publisher, DC would probably have refused to distribute a rival and the "Marvel
Age" would have been strangled in its cradle. (I've often wondered if DC
management later rued the day when they made that deal with Goodman and threw a
lifeline to their future arch-rival.)
This book does not present a
flattering picture of Martin Goodman in terms of his professional practices and
ethics or as a creative mind. Goodman's general practice with his pulps
and other magazines, as with his comics, was not to blaze new trails, but to
find out what was selling well for other publishers and to flood the market with
imitations. (Though the book suggests that Goodman's company did originate
one major magazine category-- the "men's sweat" adventure magazine.) The
authors suggest Goodman had little concern for creating a quality product, or
for treating his staffers, writers and artists fairly (though he could be
generous when an impulse took him). When Goodman's line of comics became
Marvel and revolutionized comics for the future, it was thanks to Stan Lee and
the artists, mainly Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, and in spite of Goodman rather
than because of him. And the authors suggest that when Ditko and then
Kirby quit Marvel, it was not primarily because of disputes with Stan Lee's
editorial policy, as is sometimes suggested, but because of their resentment of
Goodman's publishing policies and refusal to pay them adequately for their
wildly successful creations.
Speaking of Goodman's ethics, we sometimes
hear that the present day is a uniquely degenerate era of popular culture with
excesses of sex and violence that would never have been tolerated in an earlier
era. One sidelight covered in this book suggests it isn't necessarily
so. During the late 1930's Goodman included in his pulp line some titles
that are now referred to as the "shudder pulps". They didn't contain just
garden-variety horror stories, but "frankly sadistic" blends of sex and
violence, as with a story and illustration in which half-naked women are thrown
onto beds of spikes to bleed to death for the entertainment of a jaded
nightclub audience. I'm opposed to virtually all censorship, but if I saw
something like this in a present-day publication, it would strain my
principles. (The book SECRET IDENTITY by Craig Yoe reveals that Joe
Shuster, during his impoverished post-Superman days, was involved in doing art
for a similar series of bondage-fetish publicatios. But those seem to have
been semi-underground publicatios sold under the counter. These "shudder
pulps" seem to have been sold on the regular stands alongside other pulps, at
least until a crackdown by the New York City government.)
Over half of
this book is devoted to a gallery of pulp-magazine illustrations drawn by "the
moonlighting artists of Marvel Comics" -- most extensively Jack Kirby and Joe
Simon during the early days of their careers, but also Alex Schomburg (best
known in comics for his incredibly crowded covers, but he was also responsible
for many of those grotesque "shudder" illustrations), Bill Everett, Carl Burgos,
Joe Maneely and many others. This makes the book a unique resource for art
aficionados who can see here artwork by Kirby and the others that would
otherwise be vanished and inaccessible except for a few pulp collectors.
This, and the detailed look at an earlier era of magazine publishing, makes this
book a fascinating read even if it isn't really very much about Marvel Comics.
Bell and Dr. Michael J. Vassallo; published Oct. 2013 by Fantagraphics Books;
list price $39.99. (Like some of my other reviews, this one is not
particularly on-topic for the Silver Age, but hopefully of interest
anyway. I will also be posting the review to Amazon when I have the
chance.)
The title of this book is somewhat misleading. It's
not really a history (secret or otherwise) of Marvel Comics, though it is of
interest to readers who are already familiar with Marvel history. You
won't learn much that's new here about the origins of charactErs like Captain
America (though he's on the cover), Spider-Man or the X-Men. What this is,
is a history of the non-comics publishing enterprises of Martin Goodman, the man
who between 1939 and 1968 owned and published the comics line that came to be
known as Marvel. Goodman got started in the publishing business in 1933
with a pulp magazine, not a comic book, and continued publishing pulps alongside
comics through the 1940's and 50's. (That first pulp was a Western, and the book
suggests Goodman had a lifelong affection for that genre. Though it's not
specifically said in the book, this might help explain why Marvel continued
publishing Western comics through the 1960's and early 70's after Westerns
mostly fell out of fashion.) And he later branched out into other
types of down-scale magazines, such as girlie photo magazines, true-confessions
mags, and many others. Some of the same people who worked on Goodman's
comics also did work for the pulps, and the fortunes of the non-comics
publications had side effects on the comics. The biggest example,
probably, was in 1957-58 when Goodman lost his distribution company and signed
with Independent News. owned by National-DC Comics, to distribute his
magazines. Though Independent agreed to distribute a shrunken line of
comic books for Goodman, they were mainly interested in making money
distributing his other publications. If Goodman had been a comics-only
publisher, DC would probably have refused to distribute a rival and the "Marvel
Age" would have been strangled in its cradle. (I've often wondered if DC
management later rued the day when they made that deal with Goodman and threw a
lifeline to their future arch-rival.)
This book does not present a
flattering picture of Martin Goodman in terms of his professional practices and
ethics or as a creative mind. Goodman's general practice with his pulps
and other magazines, as with his comics, was not to blaze new trails, but to
find out what was selling well for other publishers and to flood the market with
imitations. (Though the book suggests that Goodman's company did originate
one major magazine category-- the "men's sweat" adventure magazine.) The
authors suggest Goodman had little concern for creating a quality product, or
for treating his staffers, writers and artists fairly (though he could be
generous when an impulse took him). When Goodman's line of comics became
Marvel and revolutionized comics for the future, it was thanks to Stan Lee and
the artists, mainly Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, and in spite of Goodman rather
than because of him. And the authors suggest that when Ditko and then
Kirby quit Marvel, it was not primarily because of disputes with Stan Lee's
editorial policy, as is sometimes suggested, but because of their resentment of
Goodman's publishing policies and refusal to pay them adequately for their
wildly successful creations.
Speaking of Goodman's ethics, we sometimes
hear that the present day is a uniquely degenerate era of popular culture with
excesses of sex and violence that would never have been tolerated in an earlier
era. One sidelight covered in this book suggests it isn't necessarily
so. During the late 1930's Goodman included in his pulp line some titles
that are now referred to as the "shudder pulps". They didn't contain just
garden-variety horror stories, but "frankly sadistic" blends of sex and
violence, as with a story and illustration in which half-naked women are thrown
onto beds of spikes to bleed to death for the entertainment of a jaded
nightclub audience. I'm opposed to virtually all censorship, but if I saw
something like this in a present-day publication, it would strain my
principles. (The book SECRET IDENTITY by Craig Yoe reveals that Joe
Shuster, during his impoverished post-Superman days, was involved in doing art
for a similar series of bondage-fetish publicatios. But those seem to have
been semi-underground publicatios sold under the counter. These "shudder
pulps" seem to have been sold on the regular stands alongside other pulps, at
least until a crackdown by the New York City government.)
Over half of
this book is devoted to a gallery of pulp-magazine illustrations drawn by "the
moonlighting artists of Marvel Comics" -- most extensively Jack Kirby and Joe
Simon during the early days of their careers, but also Alex Schomburg (best
known in comics for his incredibly crowded covers, but he was also responsible
for many of those grotesque "shudder" illustrations), Bill Everett, Carl Burgos,
Joe Maneely and many others. This makes the book a unique resource for art
aficionados who can see here artwork by Kirby and the others that would
otherwise be vanished and inaccessible except for a few pulp collectors.
This, and the detailed look at an earlier era of magazine publishing, makes this
book a fascinating read even if it isn't really very much about Marvel Comics.
Superman "Out of This World!" (comic strip, 1946)
Review by Bill Henley of the SUPERMAN Sunday newspaper comic strip
storyline "Out of This World!"; originally appearing in strips 326 through 338
of the strip, running from Jan. 27 through Apr. 21, 1946; review based on strips
reprinted in SUPERMAN SUNDAY PAGES 1943-1946, edited and designed by Dean
Mullaney and published 2013 by IDW Publishing/Library of American Comics, with
permission of DC Comics and the Siegel and Shuster families. (I'll
probably write a more general review of the book and post it to this list and
Amazon, later.) All these strips carry the Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
byline, but the actual art is credited to Wayne Boring (whose distinctive style
is very much in evidence, despite officially still being a Joe Shuster
"ghost"). The notes indicate Jerry Siegel is probably the actual author,
though I have a theory of someone else who might have been involved, but I'll
get into that later.
I picked out this storyline from the book to review
in detail, not only because I got more of a kick out of it than any of the other
storylines in the book, but because I think it may possibly be a landmark
in the Superman mythos; the first story in any medium in which Superman leaves
Earth to travel in space and visit another planet. I could be mistaken
about this, but I don't recall seeing or hearing of any earlier Superman story
set in space. Technically of course the story is off-topic for the Silver
Age list, but it does have more of a proto-Silver Age feel to it than most
Superman stories from this early period.
(Strip 326, 1/27/46)
Intrepid girl reporter Lois Lane is begging the editor of the Daily Planet (who
looks like Perry White but isn't identified by name here) to allow her to go
along witth Professor Vern, a famous scientist who has developed an
"atom-powered spaceship" (named the "Polaris,") capable of reaching the
planet Saturn. The editor suggests sending a male reporter would be more
appropriate, but Clark Kent begs off on the grounds that he's due for his
vacation; and when Lois snarkily suggests he's afraid to go, Clark merely
responds, "You're entitled to your opinion, Lois." "Several days later,"
Perry (?) is convinced that Prof. Vern is no crackpot and has agreed for Lois to
accompany him. (Apparently at this stage the Daily Planet has only two
reporters-- even Jimmy Olsen hasn't shown up yet.) Prof. Vern warns
Lois to strap herself down carefully as "the launching impact will be rather
heavy" as the spacecraft reaches the awesome speed of 700 miles per hour,"
enough to propel the ship "out of the Earth's orbit of gravity"! (But this
sounded like a rather inadequate speed to me, and a check of Wikipedia confirmed
that escape velocity from Earth is actually 25,000 miles per hour. As we
shall see, scientific accuracy about space travel is not one of the leading
merits of this tale.) Lois-- clad in n outfit of jacket and jodhpurs which
makes her look like she's out fox hunting, rather than in a spacesuit--
finds herself floating in the cabin air, having forgotten to don the lead boots
for the "non-gravity sphere". Meanwhile, the takeoff has been watched from
some distance away by Clark Kent, who begged off on the trip as Kent because I
may be of more help as SUPERMAN!" And indeed, as she spots a meteor swarm
outside the spaceship windows, Lois reflects, "This is one of those moments when
I wish SUPERMAN were around!"
(Strip 327, 2/3/46): Watching the
meteor swarm, Prof. Vern warns that "if any of the larger fragments hit us,
we're doomed!" All he can do is to close the shutters over the fragile
plexiglass windows of the craft, preventing him and Lois from seeing what
happens outside.. Fortunately for them, the Man of Steel, unknown to
them, is closely following the spaceship. He puts on an extra burst
of speed and knocks the meteors out of the spaceship's path-- all but one.
"OOPS-- there goes my fielding average! That LITTLE one got by me!"
The Professor is amazed at their good luck in avoiding collision with all but a
small meteor which bounces harmlessly off the outside of the ship; but Lois has
her suspicions about the source of their good luck. Meanwhile,
Superman is apparently fatigued by the effort of keeping up with the spaceship,
and he decides to "get back out of the breeze" (what breeze, in a vacuum?) and
lie back atop the ship's propulsion tubes, whose warmth will keep him cozy
despite the absolute zero temperature of space. But "Don't relax too much,
Superman! There's unusual trouble ahead!"
(Strip 328,
2/10/46): Despite the caption's warning, Superman settles down for "a
little snooze" while riding atop the spaceship's propulsion tubes.
Meanwhile, Prof. Vern is concerned that the spacecraft seems to be difting a few
degrees off course, which may prevent it from reaching Saturn-- "or back to
Earth, for that matter!" Lois takes the danger philosophically; "Well, if
a trip like this was just like catching the five-fifteen (presumably referring
to a commuter train back on Earth) there wouldn't be any excitement in
it!" But there may be too much excitement even for Lois, as the ship is
pulled toward "a huge twisted mass floating in space... the flotsam and jetsam
of the universe, a sort of Sargasso Sea of infinity!" The mass has
magnetic powers and the craft is forced to make a crash landing on the central
planetoid!
(Strip 329, 2/17/46): The sleepy Superman gets a rude
awakening as the crash landing knocks him off the outside of the spaceship where
he has been dozing. He is himself unharmed, but filled with remorse as he
realizes that his ill-timed nap may have cost the lives of his more mortal
traveling companions. Entering the spaceship, he finds Lois and Prof. Vern
strapped into their seats, seemingly uninjured and open-eyed, but unmoving with
no detectable heartbeat or pulse! "Great Scott! Then-- they must
be-- DEAD! But I can't-- I WON'T-- accept that answer!" Rummaging
among the scientific equipment the Professor brought along, Superman finds a
pair of oxygen helmets designed for use in case the spaceship cabin pressure is
lost. Hoping that the extra supply of oxygen will revive them, Superman
places a helmet first on Lois and then on Vern. "Vern, the great
scientist, is probably more important to the world than Lois-- but I'd be less
than human if I didn't look after her first..."
(Strip 330,
2/24/46) 20 minutes later, Lois still stares glassy-eyed and unmoving from
inside the oxygen helmet. But the Man of Steel still refuses to believe
she is actually dead. At last, "long minutes later," Lois awakens with a
start and asks, "Wh- what happened?" "At least she didn't say 'Where am
i?' They ALWAYS say that! But the important thing is she's
alive! And so is Prof. Vern!" When Lois asks how Superman got there,
our hero merely snaps, "Never mind that now!", too embarrassed to admit how he
was dozing atop the spaceship when it crashed. Emerging onto the planetoid
surface, the travelers find it composed of pieces of other planetary bodies and
even "rusted ruins of other spaceships, proving that we are not the first
interplanetary explorers!" But before they can observe further, Superman
spots another meteor swarm heading their way and leaps to intercept it.
When they re-enter the ship, Lois admits to feeling light-headed, and Vern
directs her to recharge her oxygen helmet from the "main reserve tank".
But then one more meteor crashes through the hull of the ship and punctures the
reserve tank! The vital oxygen is escaping! "Then-- we;re DOOMED!",
Lois cries. "Doomed INDEED!",. Superman reflects, "Unless I can do
something about it! But WHAT??? Whatever it is, it had better be
super-SOMETHING!" And the strip's ending caption promises "The
Super-Stunt of the Year!" for the next week.
(Strip 331,
3/3/46) It's quite a stunt, all right; the Man of Steel flits around the
cabin at super-speed, somehow gathering up the escaping oxygen in his bare hands
and super-compressing it to a consistency "something like snowballs!" He
returns the oxygen to the tank and repairs the tank, and now Vern and Lois have
the means to replenish their oxygen helmets. They finish their tour of the
planetoid surface and speculate on whether the derelict spaceships lying around
were "robot ships" or perhaps had "human occupants (who) have long since
mouldered to dust!" Soon the Professor is ready to continue their space
voyage, but he needs a launching platform for his ship. No problem, says
Superman; "I could build you one in a jiffy-- but why bother? I'LL be your
launching platform!" Pushing on the ship from outside, Superman enables
the craft to escape the intense magnetic attraction of the planetoid. When
Lois and Prof. Vern marvel at his feat, our hero shows that his usual brash
attitude has returned despite his brush with failure and mortality; "Easy when
you know how!" But as they resume their flight through space, the
travelers encounter other space voyagers- in "heavily armed rocket craft bearing
down on us for each side!" Superman suggests, "If they're looking for
trouble, I can oblige them!", but the Professor urges, "They seem to want us to
go along with them-- and it may prove very interesting to agree!"
(Strip
332, 2/10/46): The Man of Steel still grumbles, "I don't like being pushed
around-- even by rocket ships!", but Vern persuades him to follow along with
theother ships so that they can meet the inhabitants and achieve "the scientific
scoop of the century!" But where are they headed? An instrument
called the "sonic telephone" shows "nothing but empty space ahead", and Superman
gets the same result peering forward with his "super X-ray vision". But
Vern insists, "The hyperadar shows there is SOMETHING ahead-- evn if we CAN"T
see it! And sure enough, suddenly a planet appears to sight, now only "a
few hundred miles" away. "Obviously the planet is ringed by some sort of
gas or vacuum which is impervious to sight-- even your SUPER-sight,
Superman!" As they descend toward the planet, they sight a "great city"
and are directed toward a landing strip, As they land and emerge from the
ship (seemingly omitting such minor details as checking for a breathable
atmosphere for Vern and Lois), they are greeted by a very human-looking fellow
in an orange and white spacesuit uniform and finned helmet. "Welcome to
SUPRANIA, Miss Lane... Professor Vern... Superman!" Lois is astounded that
these people already know exactly who they are, and even Superman admits, "As
amazing as I am-- I'm amazed!" "Next week: The Secrets of
Suprania!"
(Strip 333, 3/17/46): Their greeter, who introduces
himself as Evad, explains that the Supranians have "had Earth under
radio-telescopic observation for hundres of years" and have learned English as
well as the identities and achievements of their three visitors.
(Hmmmm.... "Evad"? That's backwards for "Dave"... and the scientist in
this storyline is named Vern. There was a fellow named David Vern
who wrote pulp science fiction and comics (including Superman stories during the
1950's, according to Jerry Bails' "Who's Who in American Comics:), sometimes
under the pseudonym "David V. Reed". Was he perhaps a buddy of Jerry
Siegal, who snuck in-joke references to him into this story? Or could it
be that Vern actually ghost-wrote or assisted with this storyline?)
Superman is uncharacteristically humbled; "They call ME Superman-- but you
Supranians seem to have out-supered me!" Evad "Not at all,
Superman. We've admired you greatly!' Evad offers the Earth
travelers some much-needed Supranian hospitality, including hot baths and
food. Lois enjoys the promised bath and then is dressed by her female
Supranian attendant in a Supranian-style gown. Superman and Vern also
enjoy a separate bath, and Vern is given male Supranian garb while our hero puts
his regular costume back on. Superman comments that, "If you Supranians
know so much about Earth... you must also know the secret of my true
identity!" Evad: "That's right, Superman... but have no fear!
We will not disclose your secret to Miss Lane and Prof. Vern (the latter of whom
is standing right there and is probably pretty curious) IF!" ""That sounds
like a fairly big 'IF', Evad. What is it?" Evad evades the question,
even when Superman warns that if he doesn't like the "if", he may do something
about it, and insists on the travelers going on to meet the Queen of
Suprania. (Interesting, isn't it, how all these planets are so
tremendously advanced past Earth in technology but haven't advanced in
government past the stage of absolute monarchy?)
(Strip 334,
3/24/46): Evad, Superman and Vern are rejoined by Lois, and Superman notes
that Lois looks "particularly fetching" in her Supranian costume, which Lois
admits is comfortable, though she feels like she's "walking around in a bathing
suit" (I'm not sure why, the gown covers about as much as an Earthly evening
gown. Did Boring not draw exactly what Siegel, or whoever, had in mind for
Lois' new outfit?) Lois points out that the Man of Steel himself is still
wearing his same old costume, and he responds, "You know me, Lois-- once a
Superman, ALWAYS a Superman!" You may be speaking too soon,
Supes... The visitors are introduced to Her Majesty Queen Arda of
Suprania. Lois: "She's gorgeous! Like one of the ancient queens of
Egypt!" Superman: "Attractive, yes-- but not quite my type! She
gives me the creeps!" (Perhaps Arda's choice of pets,a pair of
Earthly-looking leopard-like cats, helps cause his unease.) Arda is more
welcoming to the travelers than they might perhaps want: "We hope you will
be happy here-- for the rest of your lives!" Yes, this is the "if" Evad
spoke of. "We know how greedy Earthlings are. We cannot risk
having any of you go back and disclose the existence of our planet!"
Supeman points out that with his super-powers, "I could carry Lois and Vern back
to Earth-- and you could do nothing to stop me!" Queen Arda: "Are you
truly so powerful? Let me see you lift yonder weight?" Lois scoffs
that Superman will lift the heavy weight like a feather, but in fact Superman is
unable to lift it off the ground! "Next week: Superless
Superman!"
(Strip 335, 3/31/46): Quickly, not-so-Superman tests his
powers of flight and X-ray vision and finds that they also are not working
normally. "A scientific phenomenon, I suppose... something in Suprania's
atmosphere..." (This was, of course, long before the idea was developed
that red sun rays on other planets could deprive Supes of his powers.) But
Her Majesty Queen Arda grandly declares, " Super-powers or not, you are the one
man in the Universe for me! You will rule Suprania besides me-- AS MY
HUSBAND!" The intended groom tries to "decline the honor," but Arda warns
that if Superman does not accompany her to the altar, both Prof. Vern and Lois
Lane will die! Vern and especially Lois urge Superman to reject that
choice; "I'd RATHER die than have you marry ANY other woman-- ESPECIALLY
her!" But Superman responds, "Thanks, Lois... Vern... but, Your Majesty,
you leave me no choice! I WILL MARRY YOU! "Next week: Supernan's
Wedding Day!"
(Strip 336, 4/ 7/46) Superman makes clear that he is
marrying Arda only under duress and not because of any attraction to her.
"But really, I'm not such a bad sort!", the Queen insists. "You'll get
used to me... you might even come to CARE for me! After all, I'm not
HOMELY, am I?" When an outraged Lois calls her "repulsive," the Queen
warns her, "Keep a civil tongue in your head or I'll have it
removed!" She directs Supeman to prepare quickly for the wedding ceremony
which will take place in just one hour! (Funny, again, how these faraway
alien planets have the same units of time as Earth.) When ordered to
change from his super-costume into some absurd=looking "wedding robes," our hero
has a small tantrum and is pleasantly surprised when he pounds his fist on a
marble pedestal and it shatters! "Then -- I haven't lost my
super-powers! I've been TRICKED!" Evad admits rather easily being a
party to the Queen's scheme, but not a willing one; "I can now tell you that I
love Arda! She's not a BAD woman, and with me to help her rule..."
Superman directs Evad to come along with him as he arranges, "a happy ending all
around," and directs Vern to take Lois back to their spaceship. Bursting
into Arda's throne room, Superman promises her "a REAL demonstration of my
super-powers!" "What do you (Gulp!) mean?"
(Strip 337,
4/14/46) Superman demonstrates how he has been tricked by Arda.
Since he thought the weight he was to lift would be an easy one, he used only a
little of his super-strength and was baffled when he could not lift it-- because
a powerful electro-magnet hidden in the floor kept him from doing so.
However, when he really tries, he can lift the weight from the floor despite the
magnet. Likewise, he can leap and fly around the room despite the magnetic
coating that was placed on his boots to make him think he could not fly.
And the walls of the throne room were (wait for it...) coated with lead to make
him think his X-ray vision was failing. Arda tries to excuse
herself; "All's fair in love, eh, Supeman?" "So they tell me! That's
why I think it wold be fair if you were to get the SPANKING you deserve!"
"You-- you wouldn't DARE!" "I'm not going to spank you-- Evad is-- he's in
love with you and he'll make a good king, but he'd better start right by showing
you who's going to be boss!" Evad is at first reluctant, but at Supes'
urging he takes Arda over his knee and delivers the called-for
chastisement. Superman: "I wouldn't miss this for the world!"
Evad: "Maybe it will cost me my head-- but I wouldn't miss it for the world
either!" (Next perhaps to the cruel racial stereotypes of Japanese and
Germans seen in some of the wartime strips, nothing in this book of strip
reprints shows the effect of changing times and mores as much as this scene and
one other earlier in the book. As the current brouhaha over football
player Ray Rice shows, a powerful male spanking or hitting a woman just isn't
socially acceptable, let alone fodder for a comic-strip laugh, any more.
Not that it should be. Here, Superman leaves the spanking to somebody
else, but in an earlier strip reprinted in this book-- the one for 10/24/1943--
Superman delivers a spanking himself to a home-front hussy guilty of scheming to
break up a soldier's romance with another girl.)
(Strip 338,
4/24/43): At first Queen Arda is outraged by the spanking and threatens to
have both Evad and Superman beheaded, but then, "And yet... you ARE strong and
masterful, Evad... and even a little bit handsome! I MAY permit you to
marry me..." Evad: "Ill think it over, Your Highness!" Arda
still wants to have Superman beheaded for putting Evad up to the spanking, but
Supes declines the honor and heads off to take Lois and Prof. Vern back to
Earth. Of course, there's always somebody who doesn't get the word, and as
the good ship "Polaris" makes its liftoff, "Arda's guardships, still under
orders not to allow the visitors to escape, cut loose with their blasting
atom-cannon!" Fortunately, the Man of Steel is able to push the ship out
into distant space fast enough to outdistance the pursuing Supranian
vessels. "We're in the clear now and we'll be back on Earth in short
order. You should have some great newspaper stories for the Daily Planet,
Lois..." Lois: "Trouble is, nobody'll BELIEVE 'em!" Prof.
Vern: "You know, I'm afraid nobody at the Scientific Society will believe
ME, either!" The strip ends with a preview of the next storyline (which
I'm not reviewing in detail), a more typical tale for the period in which
Superman takes a hand in a romantic triangle among circus perfomers Sadface the
clown, strongman Breakstone and high-wire artist
Carlotta.
storyline "Out of This World!"; originally appearing in strips 326 through 338
of the strip, running from Jan. 27 through Apr. 21, 1946; review based on strips
reprinted in SUPERMAN SUNDAY PAGES 1943-1946, edited and designed by Dean
Mullaney and published 2013 by IDW Publishing/Library of American Comics, with
permission of DC Comics and the Siegel and Shuster families. (I'll
probably write a more general review of the book and post it to this list and
Amazon, later.) All these strips carry the Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
byline, but the actual art is credited to Wayne Boring (whose distinctive style
is very much in evidence, despite officially still being a Joe Shuster
"ghost"). The notes indicate Jerry Siegel is probably the actual author,
though I have a theory of someone else who might have been involved, but I'll
get into that later.
I picked out this storyline from the book to review
in detail, not only because I got more of a kick out of it than any of the other
storylines in the book, but because I think it may possibly be a landmark
in the Superman mythos; the first story in any medium in which Superman leaves
Earth to travel in space and visit another planet. I could be mistaken
about this, but I don't recall seeing or hearing of any earlier Superman story
set in space. Technically of course the story is off-topic for the Silver
Age list, but it does have more of a proto-Silver Age feel to it than most
Superman stories from this early period.
(Strip 326, 1/27/46)
Intrepid girl reporter Lois Lane is begging the editor of the Daily Planet (who
looks like Perry White but isn't identified by name here) to allow her to go
along witth Professor Vern, a famous scientist who has developed an
"atom-powered spaceship" (named the "Polaris,") capable of reaching the
planet Saturn. The editor suggests sending a male reporter would be more
appropriate, but Clark Kent begs off on the grounds that he's due for his
vacation; and when Lois snarkily suggests he's afraid to go, Clark merely
responds, "You're entitled to your opinion, Lois." "Several days later,"
Perry (?) is convinced that Prof. Vern is no crackpot and has agreed for Lois to
accompany him. (Apparently at this stage the Daily Planet has only two
reporters-- even Jimmy Olsen hasn't shown up yet.) Prof. Vern warns
Lois to strap herself down carefully as "the launching impact will be rather
heavy" as the spacecraft reaches the awesome speed of 700 miles per hour,"
enough to propel the ship "out of the Earth's orbit of gravity"! (But this
sounded like a rather inadequate speed to me, and a check of Wikipedia confirmed
that escape velocity from Earth is actually 25,000 miles per hour. As we
shall see, scientific accuracy about space travel is not one of the leading
merits of this tale.) Lois-- clad in n outfit of jacket and jodhpurs which
makes her look like she's out fox hunting, rather than in a spacesuit--
finds herself floating in the cabin air, having forgotten to don the lead boots
for the "non-gravity sphere". Meanwhile, the takeoff has been watched from
some distance away by Clark Kent, who begged off on the trip as Kent because I
may be of more help as SUPERMAN!" And indeed, as she spots a meteor swarm
outside the spaceship windows, Lois reflects, "This is one of those moments when
I wish SUPERMAN were around!"
(Strip 327, 2/3/46): Watching the
meteor swarm, Prof. Vern warns that "if any of the larger fragments hit us,
we're doomed!" All he can do is to close the shutters over the fragile
plexiglass windows of the craft, preventing him and Lois from seeing what
happens outside.. Fortunately for them, the Man of Steel, unknown to
them, is closely following the spaceship. He puts on an extra burst
of speed and knocks the meteors out of the spaceship's path-- all but one.
"OOPS-- there goes my fielding average! That LITTLE one got by me!"
The Professor is amazed at their good luck in avoiding collision with all but a
small meteor which bounces harmlessly off the outside of the ship; but Lois has
her suspicions about the source of their good luck. Meanwhile,
Superman is apparently fatigued by the effort of keeping up with the spaceship,
and he decides to "get back out of the breeze" (what breeze, in a vacuum?) and
lie back atop the ship's propulsion tubes, whose warmth will keep him cozy
despite the absolute zero temperature of space. But "Don't relax too much,
Superman! There's unusual trouble ahead!"
(Strip 328,
2/10/46): Despite the caption's warning, Superman settles down for "a
little snooze" while riding atop the spaceship's propulsion tubes.
Meanwhile, Prof. Vern is concerned that the spacecraft seems to be difting a few
degrees off course, which may prevent it from reaching Saturn-- "or back to
Earth, for that matter!" Lois takes the danger philosophically; "Well, if
a trip like this was just like catching the five-fifteen (presumably referring
to a commuter train back on Earth) there wouldn't be any excitement in
it!" But there may be too much excitement even for Lois, as the ship is
pulled toward "a huge twisted mass floating in space... the flotsam and jetsam
of the universe, a sort of Sargasso Sea of infinity!" The mass has
magnetic powers and the craft is forced to make a crash landing on the central
planetoid!
(Strip 329, 2/17/46): The sleepy Superman gets a rude
awakening as the crash landing knocks him off the outside of the spaceship where
he has been dozing. He is himself unharmed, but filled with remorse as he
realizes that his ill-timed nap may have cost the lives of his more mortal
traveling companions. Entering the spaceship, he finds Lois and Prof. Vern
strapped into their seats, seemingly uninjured and open-eyed, but unmoving with
no detectable heartbeat or pulse! "Great Scott! Then-- they must
be-- DEAD! But I can't-- I WON'T-- accept that answer!" Rummaging
among the scientific equipment the Professor brought along, Superman finds a
pair of oxygen helmets designed for use in case the spaceship cabin pressure is
lost. Hoping that the extra supply of oxygen will revive them, Superman
places a helmet first on Lois and then on Vern. "Vern, the great
scientist, is probably more important to the world than Lois-- but I'd be less
than human if I didn't look after her first..."
(Strip 330,
2/24/46) 20 minutes later, Lois still stares glassy-eyed and unmoving from
inside the oxygen helmet. But the Man of Steel still refuses to believe
she is actually dead. At last, "long minutes later," Lois awakens with a
start and asks, "Wh- what happened?" "At least she didn't say 'Where am
i?' They ALWAYS say that! But the important thing is she's
alive! And so is Prof. Vern!" When Lois asks how Superman got there,
our hero merely snaps, "Never mind that now!", too embarrassed to admit how he
was dozing atop the spaceship when it crashed. Emerging onto the planetoid
surface, the travelers find it composed of pieces of other planetary bodies and
even "rusted ruins of other spaceships, proving that we are not the first
interplanetary explorers!" But before they can observe further, Superman
spots another meteor swarm heading their way and leaps to intercept it.
When they re-enter the ship, Lois admits to feeling light-headed, and Vern
directs her to recharge her oxygen helmet from the "main reserve tank".
But then one more meteor crashes through the hull of the ship and punctures the
reserve tank! The vital oxygen is escaping! "Then-- we;re DOOMED!",
Lois cries. "Doomed INDEED!",. Superman reflects, "Unless I can do
something about it! But WHAT??? Whatever it is, it had better be
super-SOMETHING!" And the strip's ending caption promises "The
Super-Stunt of the Year!" for the next week.
(Strip 331,
3/3/46) It's quite a stunt, all right; the Man of Steel flits around the
cabin at super-speed, somehow gathering up the escaping oxygen in his bare hands
and super-compressing it to a consistency "something like snowballs!" He
returns the oxygen to the tank and repairs the tank, and now Vern and Lois have
the means to replenish their oxygen helmets. They finish their tour of the
planetoid surface and speculate on whether the derelict spaceships lying around
were "robot ships" or perhaps had "human occupants (who) have long since
mouldered to dust!" Soon the Professor is ready to continue their space
voyage, but he needs a launching platform for his ship. No problem, says
Superman; "I could build you one in a jiffy-- but why bother? I'LL be your
launching platform!" Pushing on the ship from outside, Superman enables
the craft to escape the intense magnetic attraction of the planetoid. When
Lois and Prof. Vern marvel at his feat, our hero shows that his usual brash
attitude has returned despite his brush with failure and mortality; "Easy when
you know how!" But as they resume their flight through space, the
travelers encounter other space voyagers- in "heavily armed rocket craft bearing
down on us for each side!" Superman suggests, "If they're looking for
trouble, I can oblige them!", but the Professor urges, "They seem to want us to
go along with them-- and it may prove very interesting to agree!"
(Strip
332, 2/10/46): The Man of Steel still grumbles, "I don't like being pushed
around-- even by rocket ships!", but Vern persuades him to follow along with
theother ships so that they can meet the inhabitants and achieve "the scientific
scoop of the century!" But where are they headed? An instrument
called the "sonic telephone" shows "nothing but empty space ahead", and Superman
gets the same result peering forward with his "super X-ray vision". But
Vern insists, "The hyperadar shows there is SOMETHING ahead-- evn if we CAN"T
see it! And sure enough, suddenly a planet appears to sight, now only "a
few hundred miles" away. "Obviously the planet is ringed by some sort of
gas or vacuum which is impervious to sight-- even your SUPER-sight,
Superman!" As they descend toward the planet, they sight a "great city"
and are directed toward a landing strip, As they land and emerge from the
ship (seemingly omitting such minor details as checking for a breathable
atmosphere for Vern and Lois), they are greeted by a very human-looking fellow
in an orange and white spacesuit uniform and finned helmet. "Welcome to
SUPRANIA, Miss Lane... Professor Vern... Superman!" Lois is astounded that
these people already know exactly who they are, and even Superman admits, "As
amazing as I am-- I'm amazed!" "Next week: The Secrets of
Suprania!"
(Strip 333, 3/17/46): Their greeter, who introduces
himself as Evad, explains that the Supranians have "had Earth under
radio-telescopic observation for hundres of years" and have learned English as
well as the identities and achievements of their three visitors.
(Hmmmm.... "Evad"? That's backwards for "Dave"... and the scientist in
this storyline is named Vern. There was a fellow named David Vern
who wrote pulp science fiction and comics (including Superman stories during the
1950's, according to Jerry Bails' "Who's Who in American Comics:), sometimes
under the pseudonym "David V. Reed". Was he perhaps a buddy of Jerry
Siegal, who snuck in-joke references to him into this story? Or could it
be that Vern actually ghost-wrote or assisted with this storyline?)
Superman is uncharacteristically humbled; "They call ME Superman-- but you
Supranians seem to have out-supered me!" Evad "Not at all,
Superman. We've admired you greatly!' Evad offers the Earth
travelers some much-needed Supranian hospitality, including hot baths and
food. Lois enjoys the promised bath and then is dressed by her female
Supranian attendant in a Supranian-style gown. Superman and Vern also
enjoy a separate bath, and Vern is given male Supranian garb while our hero puts
his regular costume back on. Superman comments that, "If you Supranians
know so much about Earth... you must also know the secret of my true
identity!" Evad: "That's right, Superman... but have no fear!
We will not disclose your secret to Miss Lane and Prof. Vern (the latter of whom
is standing right there and is probably pretty curious) IF!" ""That sounds
like a fairly big 'IF', Evad. What is it?" Evad evades the question,
even when Superman warns that if he doesn't like the "if", he may do something
about it, and insists on the travelers going on to meet the Queen of
Suprania. (Interesting, isn't it, how all these planets are so
tremendously advanced past Earth in technology but haven't advanced in
government past the stage of absolute monarchy?)
(Strip 334,
3/24/46): Evad, Superman and Vern are rejoined by Lois, and Superman notes
that Lois looks "particularly fetching" in her Supranian costume, which Lois
admits is comfortable, though she feels like she's "walking around in a bathing
suit" (I'm not sure why, the gown covers about as much as an Earthly evening
gown. Did Boring not draw exactly what Siegel, or whoever, had in mind for
Lois' new outfit?) Lois points out that the Man of Steel himself is still
wearing his same old costume, and he responds, "You know me, Lois-- once a
Superman, ALWAYS a Superman!" You may be speaking too soon,
Supes... The visitors are introduced to Her Majesty Queen Arda of
Suprania. Lois: "She's gorgeous! Like one of the ancient queens of
Egypt!" Superman: "Attractive, yes-- but not quite my type! She
gives me the creeps!" (Perhaps Arda's choice of pets,a pair of
Earthly-looking leopard-like cats, helps cause his unease.) Arda is more
welcoming to the travelers than they might perhaps want: "We hope you will
be happy here-- for the rest of your lives!" Yes, this is the "if" Evad
spoke of. "We know how greedy Earthlings are. We cannot risk
having any of you go back and disclose the existence of our planet!"
Supeman points out that with his super-powers, "I could carry Lois and Vern back
to Earth-- and you could do nothing to stop me!" Queen Arda: "Are you
truly so powerful? Let me see you lift yonder weight?" Lois scoffs
that Superman will lift the heavy weight like a feather, but in fact Superman is
unable to lift it off the ground! "Next week: Superless
Superman!"
(Strip 335, 3/31/46): Quickly, not-so-Superman tests his
powers of flight and X-ray vision and finds that they also are not working
normally. "A scientific phenomenon, I suppose... something in Suprania's
atmosphere..." (This was, of course, long before the idea was developed
that red sun rays on other planets could deprive Supes of his powers.) But
Her Majesty Queen Arda grandly declares, " Super-powers or not, you are the one
man in the Universe for me! You will rule Suprania besides me-- AS MY
HUSBAND!" The intended groom tries to "decline the honor," but Arda warns
that if Superman does not accompany her to the altar, both Prof. Vern and Lois
Lane will die! Vern and especially Lois urge Superman to reject that
choice; "I'd RATHER die than have you marry ANY other woman-- ESPECIALLY
her!" But Superman responds, "Thanks, Lois... Vern... but, Your Majesty,
you leave me no choice! I WILL MARRY YOU! "Next week: Supernan's
Wedding Day!"
(Strip 336, 4/ 7/46) Superman makes clear that he is
marrying Arda only under duress and not because of any attraction to her.
"But really, I'm not such a bad sort!", the Queen insists. "You'll get
used to me... you might even come to CARE for me! After all, I'm not
HOMELY, am I?" When an outraged Lois calls her "repulsive," the Queen
warns her, "Keep a civil tongue in your head or I'll have it
removed!" She directs Supeman to prepare quickly for the wedding ceremony
which will take place in just one hour! (Funny, again, how these faraway
alien planets have the same units of time as Earth.) When ordered to
change from his super-costume into some absurd=looking "wedding robes," our hero
has a small tantrum and is pleasantly surprised when he pounds his fist on a
marble pedestal and it shatters! "Then -- I haven't lost my
super-powers! I've been TRICKED!" Evad admits rather easily being a
party to the Queen's scheme, but not a willing one; "I can now tell you that I
love Arda! She's not a BAD woman, and with me to help her rule..."
Superman directs Evad to come along with him as he arranges, "a happy ending all
around," and directs Vern to take Lois back to their spaceship. Bursting
into Arda's throne room, Superman promises her "a REAL demonstration of my
super-powers!" "What do you (Gulp!) mean?"
(Strip 337,
4/14/46) Superman demonstrates how he has been tricked by Arda.
Since he thought the weight he was to lift would be an easy one, he used only a
little of his super-strength and was baffled when he could not lift it-- because
a powerful electro-magnet hidden in the floor kept him from doing so.
However, when he really tries, he can lift the weight from the floor despite the
magnet. Likewise, he can leap and fly around the room despite the magnetic
coating that was placed on his boots to make him think he could not fly.
And the walls of the throne room were (wait for it...) coated with lead to make
him think his X-ray vision was failing. Arda tries to excuse
herself; "All's fair in love, eh, Supeman?" "So they tell me! That's
why I think it wold be fair if you were to get the SPANKING you deserve!"
"You-- you wouldn't DARE!" "I'm not going to spank you-- Evad is-- he's in
love with you and he'll make a good king, but he'd better start right by showing
you who's going to be boss!" Evad is at first reluctant, but at Supes'
urging he takes Arda over his knee and delivers the called-for
chastisement. Superman: "I wouldn't miss this for the world!"
Evad: "Maybe it will cost me my head-- but I wouldn't miss it for the world
either!" (Next perhaps to the cruel racial stereotypes of Japanese and
Germans seen in some of the wartime strips, nothing in this book of strip
reprints shows the effect of changing times and mores as much as this scene and
one other earlier in the book. As the current brouhaha over football
player Ray Rice shows, a powerful male spanking or hitting a woman just isn't
socially acceptable, let alone fodder for a comic-strip laugh, any more.
Not that it should be. Here, Superman leaves the spanking to somebody
else, but in an earlier strip reprinted in this book-- the one for 10/24/1943--
Superman delivers a spanking himself to a home-front hussy guilty of scheming to
break up a soldier's romance with another girl.)
(Strip 338,
4/24/43): At first Queen Arda is outraged by the spanking and threatens to
have both Evad and Superman beheaded, but then, "And yet... you ARE strong and
masterful, Evad... and even a little bit handsome! I MAY permit you to
marry me..." Evad: "Ill think it over, Your Highness!" Arda
still wants to have Superman beheaded for putting Evad up to the spanking, but
Supes declines the honor and heads off to take Lois and Prof. Vern back to
Earth. Of course, there's always somebody who doesn't get the word, and as
the good ship "Polaris" makes its liftoff, "Arda's guardships, still under
orders not to allow the visitors to escape, cut loose with their blasting
atom-cannon!" Fortunately, the Man of Steel is able to push the ship out
into distant space fast enough to outdistance the pursuing Supranian
vessels. "We're in the clear now and we'll be back on Earth in short
order. You should have some great newspaper stories for the Daily Planet,
Lois..." Lois: "Trouble is, nobody'll BELIEVE 'em!" Prof.
Vern: "You know, I'm afraid nobody at the Scientific Society will believe
ME, either!" The strip ends with a preview of the next storyline (which
I'm not reviewing in detail), a more typical tale for the period in which
Superman takes a hand in a romantic triangle among circus perfomers Sadface the
clown, strongman Breakstone and high-wire artist
Carlotta.
Book review: "Superman Sunday Pages 1943-46"
Book review by Bill Henley: SUPERMAN, THE GOLDEN AGE SUNDAYS, 1943 TO 1946 (official title; on the front cover, the book is identified simply as SUPERMAN SUNDAY PAGES, 1943 TO 1946); published by IDW Publishing (Library of American Comics), in collaboration with DC Comics and with permission of the Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster families; edited and designed by Dean Mullaney. I previously posted a detailed review of just one of the strip storylines appearing in this book, and promised a more general review of the entire book. Here it is. This is a handsome and well-produced volume of the color SUPERMAN Sunday newspaper comic strip pages appearing from May 9, 1943 through Aug. 4, 1946. (An editor's note explains why, though this is the first volume of this book series, it does not start by reprinting the previous Superman Sunday strips published from 1939 through May 1943. Those earlier strips appeared in a previous volume published by Kitchen Sink Publishing and DC Comics, and it was decided not to print them again at this time; if this series lasts long enough, after the run of the Superman Sunday strip is completed, they will go back to cover the earlier strips in this new series.) All of the strips in this volume carry the byline "by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster," but, according to the cover notes, some of the wartime strips were written by in-house DC Comics staffers (possibly editor Whitney Ellsworth) while Jerry Siegel was in the Army himself, and the art for the strips was done by Jack Burnley and then by Wayne Boring, Though he remained officially a Shuster "ghost" during this period, Boring became the main Superman artist after Siegel and Shuster involuntarily left the series in 1947, and this book shows the development of Boring's distinctive style which would define the look of Supeman through the 1950's and beyond. The majority of the strips reprinted here were produced during American involvement in World War II and reflect the war. The Superman comic books published during WWII (many of which are available to current readers in DC Comics' series of Archive hardcovers) sometimes depicted Superman fighting Germans and Japanese on the covers, but the comic book stories inside kept Superman on the home front fighting racketeers, pranksters and the like. The newspaper strips in this volume take a somewhat different approach to the war. Superman still doesn't lead troops into battle or try to win the war singlehandedly, as you might expect if he were a real person existing during the war. But he'll do almost anything for our men in uniform except fight the enemy alongside them, which in one strip he says would feel "presumptuous". He launches something he calls "Superman's Service for Servicemen," in which he reads servicemen's mail and then uses his super-powers to do favors for them. These range from straightening out busted romances, to making sure a lonely soldier gets plenty of mail from home, to giving some sailors a break from their normal duties by swabbing the decks of their ship at super-speed, to bringing a soldier home to be present for the birth of his child. According to the introduction by Mark Waid, this series of storlyines was inspired when a real G.I. wrote DC Comics expressing the wish that Superman was real and could fly him all the way home on his one-day leave. Though clearly well-intentioned, these storylines of Superman helping G.I.'s get repetitive after a while, and more than a bit silly to the modern reader. And as Mark Waid notes, they involve a lot of obnoxious (by modern standards) racial stereotyping of the German and especially Japanese enemy-- depicting them as evil but largely ineffectual clowns and neither as the human beings they were nor the dangerous adversaries they also were. (Superman does actually fight the Nazis and "Japs'" in some of these stories, but only in order to overcome obstacles to carrying out one of his "service for servicemen" missions.) Another element of these strips which reflected changing standards of behavior and will be jarring to modern readers-- particularly right now, with the brouhaha over abusive football player Ray Rice in the news-- is a couple of scenes of Superman either spanking a "naughty" woman or encouraging someone else to do it. (No, it's not Lois Lane in either case.) It's something of a relief when the wartime strips end and Superman can move on to other types of adventures. One of them is a well-done retelling of Superman's origin; not only the familiar story of the doom of Krypton and the infant rocketed to Earth to grow to supermanhood, but the storyline of Superman's first adventure originally appearing in ACTION COMICS #1 and 2, in which he stopped a lynching and saved an innocent man from being executed. There's also an entertaining 1946 storyline in which Superman accompanies Lois Lane and a scientist on a spaceship journey to other planets. This may be a landmark in the Superman mythos; as far as I'm aware, it was the first time in any medium that Superman did travel into space and to another planet.
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